ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina was the most visited park of 2020.

The parkway saw a record number of visitors — more than 14 million — according to the National Park Service.

A group of people who really noticed the increase of traffic on the parkway were cyclists.

Barbara Green is an outdoor enthusiast.

"I trail run, I road bike and I swim and I mountain bike and gravel bike and I hike," Green says. "I just love to move.”

She wasn’t at all surprised to hear the parkway was the most popular park last year.

"I mean, I love seeing more people out here just because I know what an incredible treasure it is to Asheville," Green says.

But it had its negatives.

"As a cyclist it got a little sketchy," says Green, talking about biking on the parkway.

She's been biking the parkway for over a decade. It's one of her favorite routes.

"The parkway is one of the best places around to ride as far as views," Green says.

What's most important to her is just being outside.

"A lot of my life has been in outdoor recreation," Green says. "I studied that for a while, and I worked for some different outdoor programs.”

Now, she's a private investigator. She's also a mom. Free time for her is pretty limited.

"Biking was kind of like a quick way to get outside and to get kind of that endorphin rush of being in the outdoors without having to go on a long backpacking trip," Green says.

The heavy traffic on the parkway makes biking tricky — and scary. You have to be smart and come prepared with all the proper safety gear.

"People honking at you, yelling at you, making sure they speed around you as fast as they could and you can feel their frustration," Green says.

She says she knows what it's like being someone who drives the parkway too. But she also understands the importance of sharing the road.

Sometimes Green just avoids it all together.

"It's really driven me to get on my gravel bike a lot more," Green says. Her friends are also purchasing more gravel bikes and hitting the trails.

She says drivers seldom want to share the road.

"I understand what it is like to be backed up 12 cars deep because one cyclist is there," Green says. "But I feel like we're really lacking a mutual respect of why cyclists have the right to be here as much as motorists.”

Green wishes Asheville in general was a little more bike-friendly.

Sam White says the increase in visitors has been great for business. He manages Liberty Bicycles, a bike shop in Asheville near the parkway.

"Our January, February, March numbers, we're up really summer numbers," White says. "Which is really doubling what you do in those months that you would normally do in a given year.”

White says he feels fortunate his industry has been booming, since that hasn't been the case for others. He considers himself lucky.

"Our goal is to get more people out there on bikes, and if that means giving people, you know, something to do that kind of takes their mind off what's going on within the world today, hey, that's great," White says. "That's what we're here for.”

As the temperature heats up, White and Green both say they’re bracing for even more visitors taking advantage of this scenic region.

Green is already thinking of alternative routes to bike.

"There's always a place you can go where it's not going to be crowded, you just have to be willing to find it," Green says.

The Blue Ridge Parkway runs from Virginia to Cherokee, North Carolina. It's the country's longest linear park.