The Blue Ridge Parkway, cherished by contemplative drivers and slow-moving leaf-peepers, also could appeal to those who love rough-and-tumble adventure if it had mountain-bike trails, according to National Park Service officials contemplating such a plan.

The parkway in the Roanoke region is specifically being looked at for bike trails, said Gary Johnson, the park service official in charge of establishing a new management plan for the parkway.

"When we asked for public comment [in 2008], the biking community all along the parkway really came out," Johnson said. "We know that bike trails -- that's one of our more pressing recreational needs."

The parkway, which turns 75 this year and runs from Waynesboro to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, features more than 100 trails just off the scenic road. Although almost all the trails are designated for hikers, a few accommodate horseback riders.

The Roanoke area's Kyle Inman, a mountain biker for more than two decades, said he enthusiastically supports any proposal to add bike trails to the parkway. Inman said he was among the many bikers who lobbied for the trails when the park service asked for comments on the management plan.

"We rallied everybody, and I know there was a ton of input given," Inman said. "Trails are cheap, and if you've got land, it doesn't usually conflict with the beauty of the land."

The park service is considering adding bike trails to the 469-mile-long, mountaintop park as part of a larger effort to upgrade the parkway experience for today's generation. Designed more than seven decades ago, the parkway is in some ways showing its age.

For instance, tent pads at campgrounds were built for traditional A-frame tents and are too small to accommodate modern versions, Johnson said. Parking lots built for the small campers of yesteryear are often too narrow for the giant recreational vehicles that parkway visitors drive today.

And crews that decades ago built trails for hikers and horseback riders never envisioned that people would want to ride bikes on them.

Parkway officials think it may be time to give bikers their own trails, Johnson said. "Equestrian folks do not want to share trails with bikers, and mountain bikers aren't enthusiastic about sharing trails with horses."

The parkway management plan will likely not come up for public review until next year, Johnson said. But a draft of a separate document dealing specifically with the parkway in the Roanoke region, including potential trail sites, could be finished this summer.

Roanoke's mountain bikers, who currently flock to Carvins Cove to do their trail riding, would embrace the new trails, Inman said. "Mountain biking's all about new adventure. Variety is key."