Whitewater Center - food, beer, 50 miles of trails. Other stuff to do as well. Pretty easy to navigate. I can give ya a idea on a loop I’d do to do what I prefer and think is the fun stuff.
Lake Norman State Park - 30-35 miles, very flowy, more on the way home than Charlotte proper.
@jShort rode them with me but it was a long time ago and I’m sure he forgot.
Uwharrie - if all others are rained out, this always drains well, has some of the more rocky stuff in the area, pretty remote.
@xc62701 raced those trails last year or two years ago?
Rocky River Trail - the closest to me and my favorite. Hand cut trails on private property. Some fun technical bits.
Everything else is not really a destination type park, and if you had one day, those would be on my list!
From Charlotte, no matter where in NJ I was going (except maybe south south jersey) id take 77/81/78 every time. It’s almost always 9 hours of driving for me, while if I left in the middle of the night and tried to take the 30-40 minute shorter drive using 95, I’d hit traffic. Charleston is obviously completely different to travel from, but if you want to burn a day and travel west 3 hours and ride some cool stuff, it may be less stressful/more fun overall lol