when we do the full length, we divide the miles into thirds.....ride the first third, spend the nite....etc....take your time.....at the end, we either stay in Maggie, Cherokee or go on thru the Park to Gatlinburg......

As for reservations, depends on where you stay, but I usually make them......

 

 

The BRP is a nice ride ... Making time shouldn't be at the top of your agenda ... Some real nice scenery ... Mornings can get "fogged in" and quite often lead to damp roads ... I've seen the fog/mist/smoke so thick in the afternoon that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face ( well almost ) ... Use care on negotiating the scenic turnouts ... Many present themselves as level but can easily upset the scooter when you go to put your foot down when stopping ... I've done the BRP from top to bottom, bottom to top, middle to bottom and middle to top several times ... :Always enjoyed the ride and meeting others ... As they say " Take time to stop and smell the flowers" :>)

 

 

well we just finished the ride. My impressions..... We started in Front Royal and Skyline Drive. Stopped at a few pull offs and took pictures, but it was pretty hazy/foggy and they didn't show what we saw too well. I thought the Skyline drive was a good ride. Couple 3 hours and you're through. BRP was pretty nice.... we started at the Virginia end and rode most of the parkway. There were spots that were pretty boring and felt repititous.... we pulled off in Roanoke for fuel, got twisted and turned around and frustrated. So we cut out a portion of that ride around Roanoke. Spent night in Christianburg and got back on parkway down around there. We rode to Asheville to go to Maggie Valley and the Wheels Through Time museum. but they are closed Tuesday and Wednesday!!! So we missed that. Jumped back on the parkway down that way and road back to jump off on I40 to head to Pinehurst to see my brother. We had rode the end of the parkway couple years ago, so we skipped that part. I would guess we rode somewhere around 350-390 miles of the parkway....will try to figure that out. But I will say this.... by the end I had had my fill of uphills, downhills, curves, and idiots! We were passed on a curve by a rice burner car who almost got into a head on with oncoming traffic. Plus he passed a group of bikers in front of us the same way!
My thoughts..... very few outlets on BRP. You need a decent map to know where to pull off and get food/gas etc. It is a nice ride, but heavy with traffic. We found we would pull over at overlooks and let traffic by or wait for those in front to clear out. We rode at our own pace, so didn't want to hold up anyone. We never make reservation for hotels. We have not had an issue finding place to stay. We feel if we make reservations, we are held to a time line, and we never know what or where we'll be. We had pretty decent weather, but did get rained on a number of times. Be prepared in the mountains to ride in and out of rain, and heat/cool. There was road construction on the parkway somewhere around the 350 mile marker I think. single lane travel and they were laying tar with gravel/pea stone covering. Slow going there. In all the roads there were really great compared to Michigan. Nice to ride on!!! I would recommend all to ride at least a good portion of both Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. You may not want to ride the whole thing, but it is an experience you will miss if you don't. If we had it to do again, we would definitely do many sections again. Pretty country there!!!

 

some final tallies..... 2750 miles total. we rode 415-420 of the 469 miles of BRP and all 105 miles of the Skyline Drive. My ****-ness with fuel logging.... 58.9 gal at total cost of $198.32 and averaged 47.3 mpg, 232 miles per tank. and 100% enjoyable fun!! would I do it again?? Yes, but not in the near future.... few years maybe. I've had enough ups and downs and sharp curves!!

 

check with the national parks BRP site, just before you leave. they have up to date information regarding roadwork, and detours
https://www.nps.gov/blri/index.htm