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Shenandoah/Blue Ridge

Training Tour length: 2 days
Begins: Warrenton, VA (jct. US 17, 211 & 29; 45 minutes from DC)
Ends: Afton, VA
Where we stay: www.naturalbridgeva.com
Price: $975 including 1 night (usually single occ.), dinner, breakfast.
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Find out what others had to say about this training tour.

The Shenandoah/Blue Ridge route offers great scenery from the valleys to the top of the Blue Ridge and the most variety in road type: from winding country lanes with very little traffic, to navigating wide, busy suburban boulevards and interstate, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the fun technical roads that criss-cross it.

In the afternoon, we generally ride about forty-five miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway where we enjoy great views and non-stop curves. Because it's been so heavily engineered, the Parkway's sweeping turns provide an excellent opportunity to observe and to practice smooth lines; braking is almost completely unnecessary. Then we head off the ridge, down one of our favorite twisty roads toward Natural Bridge; the day's mileage, after drills, is about 200.

Before dinner at our hotel, training tour members nearly always take a short walk to the 215 ft. high Natural Bridge--once owned by Thomas Jefferson, and now a National Historic Landmark. You can sip a beer at the creekside cafe or continue hiking to the Lace Waterfalls. Then sit down for great food and plenty of it!

Although this training tour lacks the nearly endless twisties of the other two, its logical route progression nearly always results in noticeable skill improvement ...especially in the area of braking, as there are some great mountain descents. Our 4:00 PM termination point, Rockfish Gap (where the Blue Ridge Parkway meets Skyline Drive at Afton Mountain), is a 2 1/2 hour ride from Washington, DC.