[Lafourche1]

Folks, I wanted to post this piece on the Tail of the Dragon. I had a nice exchange with this gentleman on another board. There is great information peppered throughout the post.

Please Read and Enjoy:

As a longtime Dragon vet with hundreds of runs under my belt, I can attest to the joy of driving the roads in & around the area. (I also help to plan & run the MINIs on the Dragon event every May- biggest grassroots MINI event in the country.) I also almost prefer the Hellbender/Moonshiner 28, simply because it is a higher speed road. The Dragon itself is more challenging, to be sure. But the Cherohala is a great, more relaxing run to make, too. If you want to make the Cherohala challenging, you kind of have to go WAY over posted limits, and it just seems like begging for trouble. Love the elevation changes & scenery from that road, so driving it at a spirited but reasonable pace is rewarding enough.

As for the traffic, yes- there are plenty of Harleys cruising the road quite often. And many of them do not play nice & move over for faster traffic.

LEO's are also an issue. Not so much on the NC side, since they only have about a mile of official "Dragon," but the Blount County TN and TN State Troopers love to patrol their side. For this reason, follow this simple rule: Start from the NC Side at the Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort. Drive carefully on the way out to Tabcat Bridge. If you didn't see any LEO's on your way over, there can't be any on your way back- because TN LEO's cannot enter through NC, and there is no other way to get from there to the State line. How you choose to behave on your way back is up to you. Just don't drive like a tard or harass anyone who isn't going as fast as you would like.

Regarding traffic in general, I'd recommend looking at the calendar of events on the Tail of the Dragon web site. There, you will see most of the organized club appearances in the area. And I will tell you now, MINIs on the Dragon usually attracts over a thousand people in 600-800 cars, so just don't even try to go during that time. I just wish the calendar there would give you an idea of the size of each group, so you could get a feel for how crowded things might be.

Don't let the traffic scare you away. Go mid-week, drive early in the morning (allowing for morning dew to burn off, etc, watch for leaves & gravel, yadda yadda). Or spend a whole weekend & try it at all times of the day. If you take the time to enjoy the other roads in the area, go see the many waterfalls (Including Bridal Veil Falls, where you can drive BEHIND the waterfall & snap a photo), etc., etc., you will not be wasting your time.

Oh, final FYI- both NC and TN have banned tractor trailers from the Dragon. This was a HUGE problem until about a year ago. But not so much these days. If you've seen Killboy's site, you may know how nearly impossible it is for a semi to navigate that road.