From buttered trout fillets to a trout race, all things trout will be celebrated during the 21st annual Great Smoky Mountain Trout Festival from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 1, at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

The festival grounds will be filled with vendors selling arts, crafts and other wares, as well as festival food booths. Performing on stage will be the Hominy Valley Boys and the Caribbean Cowboys band.

Other happenings at the festival include:

• An environmental education tent featuring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Haywood Waterways Association, N.C. Wildlife Commission and numerous other environmental agencies and nonprofits.

• Talks by Rob Gudger, a biologist who raises wolves, and by Jim Casada, an expert fly-fisherman and renowned outdoor writer.

• Casting demonstrations and fly-tying demonstrations by the Waynesville Fly Shop.

• Casting contest for ages 16 and up.

• Project Healing Waters, dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled servicemen and veterans through fly-fishing, will have a booth.

• Kids activities and games, like making your own kite.

• Bean bag toss contest for teams of two at 10 a.m.

www.gsmtroutfestival.org or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Free fishing clinics for kids

Two free youth fishing clinics will be held in conjunction with at the Great Smoky Mountain Trout Festival in Maggie Valley May 1.

The CATCH clinics Ñ Caring For Aquatics Through Conservation Habits Ñ are designed to teach young people how, when, and where to fish as well as aquatic ecology, water safety, fishing ethics and respect for the outdoors. Kids will wade in the stream to collect and identify aquatic bugs and test water quality, plus try their hand at fishing..

Program is for ages 6 to 15. Equipment is provided. Kids who have never fished or explored a stream are particularly encouraged to participate. The clinics are sponsored by the HCC Natural Resources Department, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, Haywood Waterways Association and the town of Maggie.

The morning clinic will be from 9 a.m. until noon and requires registration. An afternoon clinic will be from 1 to 4 p.m. and will be first-come first-served.

To register, call 828.926.0866, ext. 117.

Mountain music, dancing and tradition will be on display on the shores of beautiful Lake Junaluska as the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, now in its 40th year, celebrates the culture and heritage of Western North Carolina.

As in years past, spectators will be treated to performances by more than 200 mountain dancers and musicians at the 2,000-seat historic Stuart Auditorium on the grounds of Lake Junaluska. Each night will feature open tent shows on the lawn beginning at 5 p.m. with main stage performances at 6:30 p.m. The entertainment will continue well into the night with the last performances ending some time after 11 p.m.

The festival is one of the longest running and most authentic folk festivals in the South, and offers spectators the chance to experience a wide variety of the region’s best traditional performers. Scores of the region’s finest fiddlers, banjo players, string bands, ballad singers, buck dancers and square dancers will be in attendance. Visitors will also be treated to the unique regional sounds of the dulcimer, harmonica, Native American flute, bagpipes and spoons, even a bowed carpenter’s saw.

While the festival is sure to entertain the thousands of people who attend, it also serves as a venue to preserve the mountains’ legacy of traditional music and inspire a new generation of artists as they swap tunes and licks, song and stories, under the open tents on the lakeshore.

“Our Appalachian identity with its music, stories, song and dance is something we can be proud of and must share with others to keep it alive. It is an identity that enriches all who experience it,” said festival director Joe Sam Queen.

The Smoky Mountain Folk Festival had its beginnings as a collaboration between Queen and a master fiddler named Earnest Hodges. Queen’s grandfather had passed away shortly before and Queen and his family sought to celebrate the music and dancing his grandfather had loved so much.

“My grandfather Sam Queen made mountain music and dancing such a big part of this community’s life, we wanted to carry on this family tradition and share it with the community just as he had done,” said Queen.

Queen and Hodges put together those early festivals in the high school gymnasium of what is now Waynesville Middle School. They worked together to contact and lineup an extensive collection of mountain artists to perform. The festival was a success for the community, attracting hundreds of visitors and locals each night.

Now a tradition with decades of history, the festival has established itself as a family and community gathering with many performers returning each year to see old friends and make new ones. Families return each year with new generations to enjoy what is one of the richest cultural events of the year.

Main show tickets are $12 at the door, $10 in advance, with children under 12 admitted free. Advance tickets can be purchased at the Haywood County Arts Council at 86 North Main Street in Waynesville or at the Administration Building at Lake Junaluska.

And of course, in keeping with tradition, there is always a complimentary slice of cool watermelon available to all who attend.

Waynesville’s town board is drawing the line at 14 Main Street closings annually.

As a result, the town has rejected a request to shut down part of Main Street to traffic for a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony.

The group organizing the memorial was hoping to close the area in front of the Haywood County Courthouse for three hours so that an American flag could be raised between two parked fire trucks during the ceremony. The group putting on the ceremony is the 9-12 Project, a political group that shares many of the philsophies and goals of the Tea Party.

Representing the 9-12 Project, Jan Sterret said she wanted to interrupt traffic as little as possible.

“I think the greatest thing is the visual of the two fire trucks with the huge flag hanging down,” said Sterret. “It would be very meaningful for a lot of people.”

But Mayor Gavin Brown, Town Manager Lee Galloway and town aldermen expressed concerns about irking the N.C. Department of Transportation with yet another closing. Main Street doubles as U.S. 276, a state maintained highway, and is not technically under the town’s jurisdiction.

Whether it’s for a street dance, International Festival Day or a block party, closing Main Street requires permission from DOT 60 days in advance.

So far, the DOT hasn’t objected to the large number of street closings in Waynesville.

“Although they don’t particularly care for it, they’ve allowed it,” said Alderman LeRoy Roberson.

But town officials fear the DOT might begin clamping down if the town adds any more closings to the list.

“Sooner or later, DOT’s going to start knocking on the door,” said Brown.

Jonathan Woodard, a DOT district engineer over Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties, said he would normally expect one or two street closings a year.

“I wouldn’t expect it to be an every weekend or once-a-month type situation,” said Woodard.

Though 14 street closings a year certainly doesn’t meet that threshold, Woodard said it really depends on which street is being closed.

Making the call

Festivals and events that have historically been part of Waynesville’s repertoire will likely continue to be approved for street closings.

“The newer ones have a tougher time, there’s no question,” said Brown.

Even the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce’s request to shut down Main Street for the inaugural Fire & Ice festival last winter was denied. The detour would take drivers down the much steeper Depot Street.

“If it was snowy or icy, that could be a hazard that we were directing people into,” said Galloway.

Waynesville’s tight budget continues to remain a concern. During each street closing, town employees must set up and remove barricades and clean up streets during the aftermath. A few extra police officers are often called in to work the events.

“We have to try to control those costs to some degree,” said Galloway.

Brown’s other reservation was that the 9-12 Project is not a legal entity that could held responsible if something went awry during the Sept. 11 memorial.

“You would rather have a group of individuals who collectively take responsibility,” said Brown. “And the 9-12 group is not organized like that.”

In contrast, the Downtown Waynesville Association — which coordinates most of the events on Main Street — is an established organization that carries a large insurance policy for its festivals.

Brown said the 9-12 Project didn’t notify the town until Aug. 17 of its request for a street closing, while the Downtown Waynesville Association applies annually for street closings every February.

“It shows me a lack of coordination,” said Brown.

With about 100 people showing up at the Sept. 11 memorial last year, town officials say the Haywood County courthouse lawn will easily accommodate the entire ceremony again. Fire Chief Joey Webb is working with the group to possibly close down Depot Street to allow a flag to be draped across two fire trucks.

Buffy Messer, director of the DWA, points out that unlike other towns, side streets can’t always accommodate events. The Apple Festival once took place on Church Street, but its slope made setting up booths challenging.

“Main Street is just on this little ridge,” said Messer. “All the side streets are sloped. Our topography is just a little different than any other town.”

Ghost Town in the Sky is staring down the barrel of foreclosure.

BB&T has filed for foreclosure against the amusement park, which owes BB&T $9.5 million dating back to 2007. Of that amount, $6.5 million was to purchase of the 288-acre mountaintop property in Maggie Valley and the rest was for improvements.

A foreclosure hearing is scheduled for Sept. 20, which will set the wheels in motion for Ghost Town to be auctioned off to the highest bidder on the courthouse steps. If Ghost Town is unable to stall it, and if BB&T really goes through with it, Ghost Town could be auctioned off before the end of October. Once the ball is rolling, however, BB&T can set a later date or delay it at will.

Ghost Town has been running from BB&T for almost two years. It filed for bankruptcy in early 2009 primarily to shelter itself from BB&T’s demands to pay up. Bankruptcy was the only way to keep BB&T at bay, according to court testimony early in the bankruptcy process.

Ghost Town also owes $2.5 million to more than 200 small businesses left hanging after providing services or products to Ghost Town, from local electricians and plumbing supply stores to advertising firms and souvenir vendors. These are last in line, however, and it is unlikely the property would bring in enough for them to see any of the money they are owed.

Companies cannot hide from their debts in bankruptcy court forever and must eventually emerge from bankruptcy with a plan to pay off what they owe or face liquidation. After 18 months in bankruptcy, Ghost Town has not produced a viable reorganization plan, according to the bankruptcy administrator.

BB&T got permission from the bankruptcy judge in May to begin foreclosure proceedings. But BB&T was dissuaded from pulling the trigger by the promise of a payoff by one of the park’s primary owners, Al Harper, who also owns the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.

Harper staved off the foreclosure for four months with an offer to buy the park out of bankruptcy for $7 million. It was less than what BB&T was owed, but the bank was willing to take it.

Harper said upfront the deal was contingent on financing, and so far that hasn’t come through. The looming foreclosure now brings additional pressure to bear on Harper to produce the money to consummate the deal or lose the amusement park.

BB&T has other outlets to recoup the full cost of what it loaned Ghost Town. Several early investors put up personal guarantees to back the BB&T loan. The loan was also partially backed by a federal rural development loan, placing taxpayers on the hook for a potion of it. BB&T could go after either if a sale of the amusement park on the courthouse steps or to Harper directly failed to bring in the full amount it’s owed.

Gary Mann was working as a mortgage banker in Philadelphia when he read Cold Mountain during a trip to the beach. The book, written by his second cousin Charles Frazier, made his heart ache for Haywood County.

“About the second day after reading it, I told my girlfriend I was moving back,” said Mann.

Mann, who grew up moving every three years because of his father’s work, attended Tuscola High School, and his mother’s family has lived in Ratcliffe Cove for a couple centuries.

Having decided to leave the mortgage industry and move back to his mountain home, Mann was in the market for a new line of work. Eager to get in some fishing while he figured it out, he pulled up the Waynesville Fly Shop’s website looking for flow schedules on local rivers controlled by dams. That’s when he noticed the business was for sale.

“It was basically a done deal when I saw that,” Mann said.

And that’s how Gary Mann, a local boy who had wandered in search of his fortune, came home to buy up a fly.

If you walk into the Waynesville Fly Shop, you’ll notice a long plastic folding table with a fly tying vice on it and three or four men sitting around talking. At any given time, you could be in the presence of more than 200 combined years of fly fishing experience. The table is the heart of the Waynesville Fly Shop, and in many ways it’s the heart of Haywood County’s fly-fishing scene.

Rex Wilson, 70, a regular at the shop, has been using dry flies to fish for trout since 1962, the year his father-in-law Gary Smith took him on a trip to the Davidson River. Back then you could fish Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and after checking in and paying a buck, you were entitled to 10 fish.

Wilson and shop manager Doug Mitchell grew up fishing Haywood County in that era, when the mills were everyone’s line of work and fishing knowledge was kept close to the vest.

The two men now carry on the fly tying traditions of Frank Coffee and Benny Jo Craig, two men who standardized the region’s most distinctive fly-tying patterns.

“Way back it was kind of a secret how to tie flies,” Wilson said. “People wouldn’t just tell you.”

Wilson earned his stripes filling orders for Coffee, who sold to distributors in East Tennessee and Asheville. He remembers tying his first dozen and looking on nervously as Coffee went over each fly with his magnifying glass.

“I reckon I could use these,” Coffee had said.

Since then, Wilson has tied thousands of dozens of flies and is still the primary local source for the Coffee Stone Nymph — or sometimes referred locally as the “Dayco Nymph” in reference to the rubber factory in Waynesville where the materials for the fly originated.

“Rex won’t tell you this, but he is a master fly tier,” said Mann.

Mitchell, now 56, grew up in Hazelwood. He first went fly fishing on the West Fork of the Pigeon River as a 7-year-old with his uncle and has been fishing for everything from large and smallmouth bass to wild trout since then.

Mitchell ran guided trips for the shop’s previous owner, Matt Rosenthal, and was a regular at Roger Lowe’s fly shop in Waynesville before that. Lowe raised the bar for the fly fishing industry in Western North Carolina and served as an important generational link in the chain of mountain fly tying traditions.

Mitchell got hooked on tying flies at Tuscola High School, where his biology teacher Pat Powell initiated him to the mysteries of the art.

“My biology teacher was a fly fisherman and a fly tier, and I asked him to show me,” Mitchell said. “I might have flunked biology, but I passed fly tying.”

For Mitchell, being a mountain fisherman is about upholding a code and refining a skill that takes a lifetime to perfect.

“True mountain fisherman are so good with a dry fly, they can catch anything, but these are humble people,” Mitchell said. “They don’t go around telling people everything they know.”

Another regular at the Waynesville Fly Shop, Rodger McIntyre, was born and raised near Pine Bluff, Ark., and started work at the Canton Paper Mill in 1966. He floats Lake Junaluska with Mitchell regularly, and after 50 years, still marvels at the thrill of watching his quarry rise.

“It’s just seeing that little fish come up and take a dry fly. You see that once, and you’re hooked,” McIntyre said.

For McIntyre, the fly shop is a place you can act like a fisherman.

“You see what’s going on and you get new ideas,” McIntyre said.

Jason Van Dyke, 36, started fly fishing when he was 14 and runs guide trips for Waynesville Fly Shop. You can hear the reverence in Van Dyke’s voice when he talks about the other guys in the store.

“A lot of shops aren’t like this anymore. They don’t have a hometown feel. It’s a rare thing these days,” said Van Dyk, who likes to sit at the table and mine for knowledge about tying patterns, local hot spots and hatch schedules.

While the Waynesville Fly Shop may be the last best repository of local fishing knowledge, it’s also a community exchange for a host of fishermen who have come to the area later in life.

CFOT stands for Codgers Fishing on Tuesday, a group of men who frequent the shop and fish together every week. The group’s name is self-explanatory and owes its origin to the fact that member Dick Morgan has Tuesday off work.

William “Billy” Lamar III, 71, originally from the South Carolina low country, has been fishing “since Moby Dick was a minnow,” having gotten his first bamboo rod at the age of 6. Lamar is CFOT’s historian.

“We fish a little, but we kibitz a lot,” Lamar said.

Tom Hopkins, 69, another CFOT mainstay, started fly fishing for bluegills at 10 years old on Lake Schaeffer in northern Indiana. He met Lamar at the Waynesville Sub Shop and asked him about a fly-fishing pin in his hat. Lamar invited him fishing.

“I knew him for about 90 seconds, and he invited me into his world of fishing,” Hopkins said. “I’ve never had the nice, close relationships I’ve had since I moved here. I guess it’s a Southern thing, and I do appreciate that.”

Barney Neal, who recently moved up from Tampa Bay, Fla., full time, is the newest addition to the Tuesday fishing gang. Neal spent 35 years as a golf professional and picked up fly fishing last year after taking a few out of town guests on one of the shop’s guided tours of the Cherokee trophy waters. Now he fishes every week in good company.

“All of my fishing companions have at least 50 years of experience. How could I go wrong?” Neal said.

Lamar recently returned from a fly-fishing trip in Yellowstone National Park during which he fished the Lamar River, named for his ancestor Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a former U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The experience, while thrilling, didn’t hold a candle to his experiences in the wilds of Western North Carolina.

“I prefer living where I live and fishing where I fish,” Lamar said.

The reason, according to Lamar, is the community at the Waynesville Fly Shop.

“You know what this table really is?” Mitchell said. “It’s fishing out of water. More fish have been caught at this table than any stream in the mountains.”

“And the fish are getting bigger every day,” Lamar said.

The Waynesville Fly Shop offers guided tours on rivers throughout the region, fly tying materials, and all the goodies and gear that come with the sport of fly fishing. But it also offers knowledge and community to those with the patience to appreciate it.

“I think it’s one of the few industries left where you need people to tell you what’s going on,” Mann said. “Otherwise people would just go to the big box stores. The reason we’re competitive is because of the knowledge.”

For Mann, the effort of keeping a tradition alive is especially rewarding because he dropped everything for a chance to come home to his family tree.

“Having a deep-rooted history here just makes it mean much more to me personally,” Mann said. “It’s important for me to carry on the tradition of the fly patterns of the Smoky Mountains.”

www.waynsevilleflyshop.com

The Haywood County Meals on Wheels is hosting a Tennis Tournament at 9 a.m., Aug. 5 to 7 at the Waynesville Recreation Center Tennis Courts on West Marshall Street. Cost is $20 per person and $40 for Doubles. Categories include Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles and Mixed Doubles and 50 Plus Singles and Doubles and Mixed Doubles. Registration required. 828.356.2442.

The first inpatient hospice west of Asheville had its groundbreaking in Clyde last week — complete with Jimmy Jack the mule and its own theme song.

The hospital is targeting September 2011 as the opening date for the Homestead hospice, to be located on the campus of Haywood Regional Medical Center. The new facility will house six beds for hospice patients, offering families with a dying loved one a choice in between hospitalization and in-home care.

Anyone who’s seen a loved one face a terminal illness can appreciate the hospice that’s to come, said N.C. Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, who was at the ceremony.

“I can’t think of anything more stressful,” Haire said.

The second phase of the project will be the end-of-life outreach center, which will offer:

• private rooms for counseling services and bereavement therapy.

• a reference library for resources related to terminal diseases and end-of-life issues.

• a community education center with multimedia capacity.

A courtyard will connect the two buildings. Memorial gardens will serve as a site for butterfly and dove releases.

The Homestead is expected to create 15 new permanent jobs, with an annual payroll of more than $500,000, along with dozens of short-term construction jobs.

An inpatient hospice center is also in the planning stages in Franklin. But as of now, families seeking that kind of setting must go to Asheville.

Mike Poore, CEO of MedWest — Haywood Regional Medical Center’s parent company — emphasized the significance of building a hospice like this closer to home.

“Having family close around is very important for patients,” said Poore. “We think this is really a sort of a new era for Haywood County.”

Poore added that the hospice is a testament to MedWest’s philosophy of keeping care in the community.

With more family members living far away from each other, Haire said hospice workers could also provide caring support to those who live far from their family.

“This is another way,” said Haire. “A lot of retired people don’t have support of families that live close.”

The $1 million difference

After several years of planning and fundraising, Haywood Regional Medical Center has raised $2.66 million of the $4.9 million needed for the Homestead hospice.

The effort got a major bump with a recent $1 million donation left in the will of Bernice “Bee” Medford, a long-time Haywood County benefactor who split her time between Maggie Valley and Sarasota, Fla.

“She loved this community,” said Bill Medford, her stepson. “She gave more to Haywood County than anybody in Florida.”

Medford said Bee would’ve been pleased to see her donation invested in the hospice.

Poore called Bee Medford a great friend to the hospital. “Her generosity will touch people’s lives well beyond her time,” said Poore.

Other contributions toward the hospice include $150,000 from The Duke Endowment and a $132,000 grant from the N.C. Rural Center.

State legislators Joe Sam Queen, Ray Rapp and Haire, who helped secure the grant money, all attended the groundbreaking on Friday.

“North Carolina is very proud of this project and what this community is doing,” said Queen.

The fundraising effort is still underway, and HRMC is still actively seeking grants and donations to finish the outreach center.

Call 828.452.8471 for more info.

Haywood Habitat for Humanity is holding an open enrollment through July for perspective new-home partner families. Applicants must be residents of Haywood County and have lived in North Carolina for the past year, have an annual household income of $18,700 to $28,600 and a credit history free of liens and judgments. Applicants must currently reside in unsafe or overcrowded housing and be willing to commit 400 hours of labor and time into building their home or the home of another partner family.

828.452.7960. www.haywoodhabitat.org.

The Haywood County Historical and Genealogical Society will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 27 at the Shook House in Clyde. Following the business meeting, Ted Carr and Evelyn Coltman will present a program entitled, “The Best of the Cold Mountain Heritage Tour.”  The tour, which was the sixth and final one of its kind, was held in June.

The presentation will include video clips from “The Best of Bethel” and parts of a DVD entitled, “Walking in the Footsteps of Those Who Came Before Us.”  The video describes the Heritage Tour, and the DVD features interviews of local people such as Ted Darrell Inman discussing Inman’s Chapel, Tanna Timbes talking about Francis Mill, and Doris Cathey who discusses her home, all of which have been on the tour.

828.627.9828.

The latest long-distance race to join the local cycling scene is the Blue Ridge Breakaway on Aug. 21, the first of its kind to be held in Haywood County. Organizers hope to attract top caliber riders from across the South to enjoy the topography of the highest county this side of Colorado.

“The cycling community in Western North Carolina is huge. It’s a hobby, a sport, and a lifestyle here in the mountains, and we wanted to bring the cycling community together to lead us through it,” said Katy McLean, of the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber Director CeCe Hipps hatched the plot for a ride that would showcase the county’s terrain, but she relied on the cycling community to pull the event together.

While the ride will feature a 32-mile stretch on the Blue Ridge Parkway and a breathtaking descent from Soco Gap into Maggie Valley, perhaps its greatest feature is its accessibility for riders of all skill levels with 25-, 40-, 60-, and 100-mile options.

“One of the things that’s unique about this ride is there are four different routes, and it really has something different for every type of rider,” said Ken Howle, chair of the organizing committee.

Larry East, an avid cyclist and a regular in weekly group rides around Waynesville every Wednesday, took on the challenge of designing the course. It runs through wide mountain valleys, up narrow coves, and along the Blue Ridge Parkway, where it reaches its highest elevation at 6,100 feet.

It was East’s job to make sure the rides were safe, full of right-hand turns, and scenic.  East tipped the 40-mile loop as the prettiest ride.

The century loop features an astonishing 8,000 vertical feet of climbing over 105.72 miles that traces a ring around the county and finishes with the drop into Maggie Valley from Soco Gap.

“Make sure your brakes are working,” East said.

Howle has high hopes for the ride’s future, which he believes will solidify the county’s place as a cycling destination among the already burgeoning WNC scene.

“Our long-term vision is to grow it into a destination ride that will attract between 600 and 1,000 riders,” Howle said. “It’s a great time of year for folks from the low country to come riding in the mountains.”

This year, organizers expect between 200 and 400 cyclists. The event has permission from the National Park Service for up to 500 cyclists on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The riders already registered for the event come from as far away as Michigan and Ohio, but many are from Atlanta, Spartanburg, and Charleston. Howle thinks destination cycling is becoming an important part of the tourist economy in the mountains.

“We’re going to be bringing a kind of tourist that Haywood County doesn’t normally attract,” Howle said. “And I think it will establish this area as a destination not just for paddling and rafting but for cycling.”

MedWest hospital system has underwritten the event, which has also had major support from bike outfitters like Liberty Bicycles in Asheville and the Nantahala Outdoor Center bike shop in the Gorge.

Kent Cranford, owner of Motion Makers in Sylva and Asheville, is excited about a new ride, especially since Jackson County’s Tour de Tuck won’t run this year.

“It is always good exposure for the region's great riding when a good cycling event traverses some of our landscape,” Cranford said. “The Breakaway has been very organized from the beginning, and I'm sure that they are going to pull off a great event, especially with so many options to ride. Obviously, the long options that get on the Blue Ride Parkway are going to be the most breathtaking.”

For Howle, the strong local support in the event’s first year has been a vote of confidence.

“The thing that’s really surprised me is the overwhelming support we’ve had from the community and the sponsors,” Howle said. “It just proves that people see this as the type of event we should be doing in Haywood County.”

Meanwhile, the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce has accomplished the task of opening up new terrain in destination marketing while taking care of its hometown community.

“We just have such a great cycling community and there are so many riders around that we needed an event like this in Haywood County,” McLean said.

For more info, visit www.blueridgebreakaway.com.

Weekly road bike rides

• Waynesville: Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Meet at Rolls Rite Bicycles on the Old Asheville Highway. Beginnger to intermediate rides led by Bicycle Haywood advocacy group. 8- to 12-mile rides. 828.276.6080 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

• Bryson City: Wednesday around 6 p.m. Depart from the East Swain Elementary school in Whittier on U.S.19 of exit 69 from U.S. 23-74. All levels. 800.232.7238, ext. 158.

• Bryson City/Sylva: Women’s ride on Mondays at 5:45 p.m. Departing from Whittier Post Office. Three groups do 8-mile, 13-mile and 17-mile rides. No one will be dropped. spinderellas.ning.com.

• Bryson City: Sunday at 4:30 p.m. Meet at Bryson City Bicycles on Everett Street for casual, moderate ride. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.488.1988. “Bike and Brew” ride ends with a local microbrew at Nanthala Brewing Company.

• Sylva: Tuesday at 6 p.m. Depart from Motion Makers bike shop for a tough 25-mile ride up to the Balsam Post office via back roads and back into Sylva. 828.586.6925.

• Franklin: Sunday at 1 p.m. departing from the Franklin Health & Fitness Center on Main Street in Franklin. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.369.5608 and ask for Tom.

• Franklin: Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. departing from Smoky Mountain Bicycles at 179 Highlands Road. Geared for all levels. 828.369.2881.