Day 5 - Ashville, NC to Robinsonville, NC (Tail of the Dragon)

Day 5 - Ashville, NC to Robinsonville, NC (Tail of the Dragon)

Tuesday, August 16

Today we rode the famous Tail of the Dragon, all 318 curves in 11 miles.  One word - unbelievable.

OK, that was to days major high, but lets go back to the start of the day, we got away from Ashville right at 9am, and were on I-40 for only about 15miles, and then we were off on some nice local roads like US19 and US441.  US19 goes through Maggie Valley, a motorcycle destination in its self, with a number of club meets held in town.

We also were on the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 15 miles, as well.  The views from the pull offs were fantastic, there was a lot of valley fog this morning as the temperature at 6am was only 15c, and yes the mountains are "blue", it is like a blue haze, not pollution just a blue mist.

The Blue Ridge Parkway ends at the entrance to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is one of the largest parks in the lower 48 states, it straddles the states of Tennessee and North Carolina, and at the highest point on the highway (US441) reaches almost 5,000ft.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

There were a number of fast moving streams which were worth the stop for a few pictures, one can see that this crystal clear water would make some fine "moonshine".  Also of interest there are not a lot of tourists about, no traffic on the Blue Ridge and the park had light traffic too.

Lunch stop was in Gatlinburg, TN, at a biker bar called the pub and grub, OK place, with a woman on a cell phone for 25 minutes wondering through the place.

After our lunch stop we are off on the Foothills Parkway, this road has NO traffic at all, we saw about 15 motorcycles and two cars.  The Foothills is a real joy to run, long straight sections and medium curves, there were some awesome vista points as well.  The Foothills Pky, ends at the start of the Tail of the Dragon (US129) at Calderwood.

We started our run on the Dragon at 4:15, and made it to Deals Gap (TN-NC Border) at 4:40.  At Deals Gap is the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort, not maybe your 5 start resort, but it has a bike wash, a pin stripping booth, a restaurant and a well stocked souvenir shop (what more would you ask for in a resort).  After spending 25minutes at the place, and allowing the bikes to cool down and cool the brakes, we are off, half way through the Dragon.

Cuthbert at Deal's Gap Tail of the Dragon

We stopped at Cheoah Dam (also called the Fugitive Dam from the movie the Fugitive), this dam is high!!, this is the end of the Tail of the Dragon section of US129
.

Fugitive Dam

Well that ends another day on the road, more days and miles to come.