Taming the Tail of the Dragon
Day 5: Gatlinburg – Wildwood (391 km)
What a day! We enjoyed meeting our hosts last night, a nice couple from Ukraine who spoke very little English, and after a good night’s rest we were ready to start in on our planned adventure today.
But it was 39°F this morning, and there was ice that we had to scrape off the motorcycles. Brr!
Now, Angela seems to find herself cold a lot, and so in preparation for today’s ride she wore her long underwear, insulated pants, rain overpants, merino wool shirt, fleece sweater, down jacket and rain over jacket, in addition to the armoured jacket, pants and boots. Amazingly, for the first time it seems, she was actually warm enough. She could barely move, and she looked like she weighed 300 lbs, but she was warm. Then she had to pee…
Today was a day of route riding, converting liquid dinosaurs into greenhouse gas as we attacked some of the more famous riding routes in and around the Smoky Mountains.
The Little River Gorge Road wound west from Gatlinburg along the Little River Gorge and through the Little River Village. Ah, I’m reminiscing already…
The Foothills Parkway has an interesting story. It was only last year that one could drive this 43 mile route, after the “missing link” in the middle was completed. The parkway will eventually be much longer, but not until enough money is scraped together to build it.
By now the day had warmed up, and we were able to shed most of our warmth layers in preparation for the famous Tail of the Dragon.
The Tail of the Dragon (US 129) is 318 curves in 11 miles. Tight, cambered curves, s-curves, climbing and descending without reprieve. The route is so convoluted that it was difficult to get up to 60 km/h, but even at slower speeds it was both fun and challenging.
At the end, we stopped briefly at Deal’s Gap, where the famous resort and Tree of Shame exists, thankful we did not contribute to it!
The Cherohala Skyway was our final segment of twisties, though this route’s design allowed us to take many of the long, sweeping curves a a much greater rate of speed.
To sum up the day to this point, we ran like the wind, straining the limits of machine and man.
After having thrown the bikes around for almost seven hours, we hopped on to the interstate for the last leg of today’s journey, which ended at Wildwood, GA, a place where I spent several years in my 20s. Some of the folks I knew from back then are still around, so I hope to connect with them over the next couple of days.
