Riding The Dragon and The Cherohala

Since I worked so hard last week on the deck I decided that I would take this afternoon, Sunday, April 27th, as playtime.  Which in my language was take Sweet Thang out for a run.  Got back to the house at Noon from church (trying to be a good boy), made a sandwich, fed the dog, and pushed Sweet Thang out of the garage at 12:40.  Rode 2 miles and topped off the gas tank.  While eating my lunch I mapped out my route on my GPS and after the gas up I hit the road.  First destination was to ride The Dragon over to Deal's Gap, NC.

Now the weather said no rain.  Sun was out, puffy clouds in the sky, but no rain.  Ran down to Maryville, TN, a sleepy college town and the front door to the back door of the Smokies.  Traffic is okay since it's Sunday afternoon and so pretty everyone wants to take a ride somewhere.  After a few miles I made the left turn onto the famous U.S. 129, the highway to The Dragon.




The Dragon is a stretch of
U.S. 129 that has 318 curves in 11 miles.  It crosses the mountain from TN to NC with the most curves on the TN side.

Parked at Deal's Gap, NC.








This ride is not for the faint of heart.  It is not to be taken lightly.  The curves go down hill and up hill with the turns so tight on some of them that you scrape your foot pegs.  Knowing when to gear down and throttle up is extremely important.  It's not like riding from New Orleans to Baton Rouge or to Lafayette.
This road claims from one to five lives annually not to mention the numerous wrecks that occur.  It is a two lane highway, no shoulders and long drop offs with traffic going in both directions to include sport cars, motorcycles, dune buggies, and now there's a group of Mustang and Corvette drivers running this stretch.  There's also some green and white county sheriff along with some black and tan TN State Troopers (even some of both on motorcycles).  They just love to give you those little slips of paper.  But none for me, I toe the line there.

After a cool refreshing bottle of ice tea I mounted Sweet Thang for the ride towards Robbinsville, NC to catch the highway over to the Cherohala Skyway.  Still some curves but mostly sweepers, long curves where you can just throttle down and lean into them, nothing like The Dragon.  This route would take me back across the mountains into TN and eventually back to the house.

 The sites along both The Dragon and the Cherohala are very pretty.  On the way to The Dragon you ride alongside a river and then pass a hydro-electric dam.  You do the same on the Skyway for part of the way.

The mountains are just to beautiful for words.  Spring and sufficient amounts of rain and sun have everything turning various shades of green not to mention the white Dogwoods still blooming in some areas.  I just can't get enough of those mountains.  They change appearances with the time of the day and the amount of sunlight.  Some days they are really clear like right after a front moves through and on other days they are very misty.

 To the left is one of the
dams seen from the
Cherohala.   To the right is the lake backed up by the dam.  Water at this time of year should be about 45 degrees.  It never gets warm.

Did I mention that it wasn't suppose to rain?  Well, as I headed back to the house the clouds became a solid dark sky and yep, about 35 miles before I got back it rained.  I missed most of it but did get wet from knees down and finger tips to elbow.  Mostly from road spray but ran through a small shower.  No place to get out of the rain to put my rainsuit on so since it was way above freezing, just go with it.

This is the route I did on today's ride.  I covered way more than 318 curves, rode across the mountains twice and did a total of 180 miles.  I stopped in Tellico Plains to gas up.  For miles another rider followed me.  As I was gassing up he came up and thanked me for letting him follow me.  This was the second time he had ridden across the Cherohala and was using my brake lights as a guide to his braking needs.  We chatted for a few minutes and I asked him where he lived.  He now resides in Chattanooga.  I asked him what he did for a living and he said he worked for a company that cleaned and re-coated baking tins for large bakeries.  I told him that there was a company about two blocks from where I worked in Gretna that did that.  He said that the company Ecco belonged to his father and they had lived in Marrero.  How small the world is sometimes.

Enjoy your time for the clock is ticking.