Day thirty four, Bryson City NC to Blue Ridge GA, three epic rides in one day.

I’ll be surprised if we get another day on this trip that has such epic motorcycle riding as today, we did three, let’s say four epic rides today over a total of 445 Kms. this part of the country, the Great Smoky Mountains region is made for motorcycling and the locals know it.

Yesterday we were supposed to ride to Newfound gap at the summit of the Smoky Mountain National Park when we got to Cherokee but the road entrance was closed with road works so we carried on to Bryson City. Not wanting to miss out on a good ride, we decided to head up there this morning. Lucky we left early, as we got to see some Elk before they disappeared into the bush for the day, had a great ride up the 441 to Newfound Gap with hardly any traffic on our side of the road. Big crowd at the Newfound gap lookout. First couple of pics on the blog today are scenic shots from the summit, low cloud hanging there and in one of the pics you can see below in the bush, the road coming up the mountain. This was a great ride and well worth it just to eyeball the elk. We also saw a bear on the side of the road on the way down but not quick enough to get a snap. A great ride up the mountain from Cherokee, it would be even awesome if we went right down the other side to Gatlinburg, Tennessee but no, we had to get back to Bryson city for the rest of the days riding.

We cruised back to Bryson City for a coffee then headed south. The first epic was the Moonshiner 28 but just from the 74 through to Deals Gap. This is an awesome ride in itself and much longer than the dragon. Follows a lake for much of the ride, Very scenic and very twistie

We arrived at Deals Gap, being a Sunday the locals said it was real quiet compared to the day before, Saturday. We had lunch here and then headed through the Tail of the Dragon, one of the Top Ten rides in the USA. This ride is not too technical if you come from NZ, but is a heap of fun, 318 curves in 11 miles. The Tennessee State line is shortly after Deals Gap so most of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway is in Tennessee.

Consensus, everyone enjoyed it 100 percent and could easily have turned around and ridden the dragon again. we followed the 129 through to Tallassee, took the 72 across to Vonore, the 360 down to Tallico plains and came back to Robbinsville on the Cherohala Skyway. This is also in the Top Ten motorcycle rides in the USA, the Cherohala consists of excellent wide sweepers and is called the mile high ride as the tops get to 5400’ asl. It was 29 degrees at Tallico plains, 18.5 degrees on the tops and by the time we got down to Robbinsville for coffee it was back to 26 degrees. As we were pulling into Robbinsville, it started raining, but after a 40 min coffee stop the rain had pretty much diisappeared for our last 100 Kms down to our hotel for the night at Blue Ridge, Georgia. A three state ride today.

There were plenty of pics taken today but I have added a couple aerial shots downloaded from the net of the Dragon and also of the Cherohala Skyway, to give a better idea of how great these rides are.

Long story short, the Dragon has a lot of hype, but it truly is a lot of fun. The only danger involved is the dick heads in their sport cars racing each other in the other direction, meaning one of them losing it on a corner could be the end of a biker riding in the other direction. I would suggest the Dragon is best avoided on a Saturday, peak work day for the rescue crew we were talking to at lunch at Deals Gap.

Today will be hard to beat, in term of day long riding enjoyment, every keen biker in the US of A needs to ride this part of the country at least once before they get too old to ride any more.!!!! Any tourist riding anywhere near Tennessee, North or South Carolina, needs to make tracks to Deals Gap and have a bit of fun on the Dragon. Enjoy, but be careful and watchful of the idiots riding in the other direction. A beautiful part of the world.