I discovered the Tail of the Dragon soon after I first watched Long Way Round. I started looking for “big” rides to do and stumbled upon it. While this isn’t considered an epic voyage, it certainly made it towards the top of my bucket list.
My family are heading to the USA for a holiday in January next year and I thought that on the trip from NY to Disneyworld I might divert to Tennessee to do this. However, I quickly discovered through the ST-Owners site that there would be a good chance of riding in snow and on black ice. So, that quickly ended the idea.
While planning this holiday, my employer kindly approved my travel to their annual technical conference in early June – this year in Atlanta. Having knee-capped the January ride, it didn’t take me long to realise I had the Sunday free and that might be my only chance.
So, a few late night phone calls and it was set with a rental bike (Kawasaki 1400GTR) and a hire car to get me there.
Being the tight-arse that I am, I decided to take all of my own riding gear: helmet, jacket, boots, Kevlar pants, gloves, rain pants – the lot. This was only possible since 2 bags can be checked in on Qantas for international flights. I was a little worried about the helmet getting damaged, but since I’ll be looking for a new one soon I didn’t let it stop me. All arrived AOK though (kinda – see below).
My flights would take me from Perth at 5:45am on the Saturday, and land me in Atlanta at 6:30pm on the same day with several hours for transfers in Sydney and Dallas/Fort Worth. Looking back, I should have stretched it out a little more. Queues at immigration at each of these had me running to the flight-bridge on both – any missed flight would have likely caused me to miss the ride.
I grabbed a car hire at the airport, parked at the hotel downtown, and bright ‘n early headed north the 245km to The Hub in Robbinsville (North Carolina) to collect my rental bike. It pretty much drizzled the whole 2hrs 45min drive – but it wasn’t going to stop me from doing it.
Greg McCoy who owns/runs SportBikes4hire (and The Hub) is an ex-marine – he first rode the Dragon in the 90s and, after serving, returned to do this for a living – some people have the best job! Anyway, the 2008 Kawasaki 1400GTR was there waiting for me – $200 for the day.
Paperwork signed, plastic swiped, geared up, and I was away at about 10 am.
I’d read that most riders do it safely, but there are always some dickheads. It gets busy in the middle of the day, so the sooner I do the ride the better. However, sitting on a relatively unknown ride, I figured 10 minutes in the opposite direction would be a good idea – just to see how she handles.
The Dragon has a long history dating back to the 1700s – I won’t go into it as there’s a write-up here.
I brought my Drift HD Ghost with me to capture as much as my batteries would allow. Unfortunately, the mic cable dangling out of the bottom of my helmet suffered some damage in transit (not the camera) which resulted in static audio for a large portion of the ride, including the first run of the Dragon where most of my commentary was. I didn’t realise this until I got back to the hotel later that evening. Had I suspected there would be a problem I would have checked the video on the camera while I was still there (and made another run). Anyway, the video will be posted soon.
I made 3 runs of the Dragon. With a speed limit of 30mph it certainly isn’t dangerous – other than the other knobheads doing it at Mach-II. You’ll see on the video that I look extremely cautious. That may have been the case for the first few turns, but it didn’t take long to realise that the road was perfect, although a little damp, and that it would only be stupidity that would cause an off. Nonetheless, riding in the right-hand lane, after spending 24 hours in transit the day before, on a rental bike, … I wasn’t going to speed.
The Dragon is 11 miles long with 318 bends, ranging from curves in the road to tight hairpins, and quite a few chicanes thrown in for good measure. It also dips and rises throughout the ride – a genuine 3D riding experience. It didn’t take long to develop a grin inside the helmet from ear-to-ear.
The road is near perfect: smooth, clean, and grippy. However, I was warned to stay away from yellow lines while wet. While it drizzled the entire trip up there, it stopped immediately I jumped on the bike. So much of it was relatively dry when I rode, but care still needed to be taken.
There were several hand-painted “slo down” signs on the road just before some tight corners. I’m glad some fellow rider had this idea as it certainly helped me once or twice. The bike has 6 gears, but on the Dragon my range was from 2nd to 4th – mostly 3rd. You can fang it on some stretches but you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) be able to do it too often, given that you’re always setting up for the next turn the moment you exit one.
They say the Dragon is not a place for sight-seeing and I can’t agree more. If you’re not paying attention and watching the road in front (including looking for others straying into your lane), then you’re not likely to be riding it for long.
Sometime ago, Darryl Cannon (killboy.com) started taking photos of bikes and cars as they traversed the Dragon. He later realised he could make a quid out of it – including $6 from me:
At the southern end of the Dragon is the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort (http://www.dealsgap.com/) where you can actually stay overnight, or just grab some food, buy a t-shirt, etc.
As an indicator for who they cater for (other than in their name), you’ll see the photo below doesn’t show any car parks – just motorcycle bays – 100s of ‘em!
It was great to wander around seeing all sorts of bikes, from the pocket-rockets to the big Harley’s and Wings – but no STs – and chatting to their owners. While most are relatively local, there were many from quite a distance – it is certainly the Mecca of motorcycling in the States.
As a reminder to all who attempt the ride, there’s some recognition for a couple of “offs” along the way at the Tree of Shame:
Lunch wasn’t the most appetising… shredded pork in a bun – nothing else. However, it was enough to get me back to Atlanta.
After grabbing a bite, I headed out just for a general tour of region and looped back to The Hub.
I dropped the bike off a little earlier than I’d anticipated only since my back was playing up the flights.
Jet lag had set in – I can only say I’m very glad to have the rumble strips on the edges of the freeway for the drive back to Atlanta – I’m sure I would have ended up in a ditch otherwise. Perhaps next time, I should ride at the end of the trip, not the beginning.
I had a ball and would instantly do it again if I had the opportunity. I can whole-heartedly recommend it to all…. It is THE best stretch of road I’ve ridden in 250,000 km of riding (so far).