Quote:
Originally Posted by SUKXOST
I HEARD that the Tail of the Dragon trip is overrated.
"The road is not blocked off, so you have to deal with normal traffic and the nature of the road(double yellow and gazillion curves) it's hard to get a spirited drive for any distance at all".
Confirm or deny
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It depends on what you are looking to get out of the drive.
If you are looking for a wild set of twisties that you can ignore speed limit and run it as if it was a closed raceway, than you will be disappointed. (Please note, I DO enjoy spirited driving, and was able to get enjoyment out of this drive)
This is public road and speed limits are set appropriate to it (though, like most places, speed limits are lower than what our cars can handle). Yeah, you gotta deal with the other folks on the road, including the small groups that run no more than the speed limit (and sometimes below - *cringe*). Due to the twisty nature of the road, there are virtually no passing zones and the road is single lane in each direction for most of the way.
The best way to cope with that and to be able to get enjoyment out of the push and pulls going into and out of turns is to just back off a bit to let the slower traffic stretch out some distance and then catch back up with more "spirited" driving. You can also stop at some of the lookouts and wait for a large enough gap in traffic to be able to have some fun with the road (just please be careful!). Unless you hit a weekend that has a lot of car/bike club events planned, there is normally enough gaps in the traffic to allow for quite a bit of fun.
The road is patrolled, and they try to crack down on "excessive" speeds and recklessness, but on the day of last year's Muscle Car Ministries Fall Cruise, I didn't see a single police car.
The drive itself is a beautiful one and a great one to cruise, especially when the colors are changing and in spring as the trees are starting to bloom and leaf out.
I think the drive itself is worth it, you can push the pace in places or make the gaps to do it, but need to be aware that others are on the road (quite a few accidents occur there as motorcycles or cars going to fast cut a turn into oncoming traffic, or miss a turn completely).