I know lots of folks have been down to Deals Gap before, but like all good long rides - here's a ride report.
Last time I had a chance to go down to Deals Gap was in 2015. That was a fun trip with a couple folks off this forum, but it rained almost every single day for that trip and I also had a clutch failure on that long weekend, which ended up costing me an extra $2k to get my bike home by Uhaul. I haven't had a chance to be able to ride those same routes again, so this was it. 9 days in total - 3 days down, 3 days there, 3 days back. Stayed in motels or cabins instead of camping, which was nice to not have to lug my extra gear. My bike is a 2011 V-Strom 650 with just over 150,000km on it.
Day 1: Mississauga to Fairmont WV - 8hrs/700km: Mississauga to Fairmont
Normally I ride long days, so this trip had much shorter routes each day. This was the only day of almost all highway, because I wanted to get to West Virginia and start the nice twisty stuff the next morning. I checked the forecast and in West Virginia it was calling for very heavy thunderstorms starting around 3pm. I left home around 6am and figured this would give me an extra hour to play with for the border crossing and breaks.
As luck would have it, I arrived at the border and after studying my options, I carefully picked the fastest moving border crossing lane, except that it was the slowest moving lane. I was stopped for about 15 minutes while I watched cars pull up in all the lanes beside me and vanish into the US while someone in front of me had to bend over. This happened over and over to cars in front of me and when it was my turn, I could see why. The dude was as crusty as they come, but I had all my stuff in order and I was on my way in a minute or two.
I struggle with the long days on the highway. After the first 4 hours, I was taking a break every 45 minutes or so, to keep from falling asleep. Scenic backroads, I can ride all day without breaks, but highway is not for me.
Once I got off the highway and got onto WV250 headed into Fairmont it became clear that my riding skills sucked. I was amazed at how bad everything about my skills were. Timing was off, entry speeds were off, braking was either too hard or too light, body positioning was poor and so on. Commuting every day on the 401 takes it's own kind of skill to stay safe, but it's very different from curvy, scenic roads.
I managed to pull into the Super 8 motel as dark clouds were quickly approaching. I checked in and as soon as I dropped my gear, I looked outside at my bike and it was a torrential downpour that lasted for over an hour. It was pretty intense and super glad I was not riding in it:
Day 2: Fairmont WV to Boone NC - 11hrs/750km: 2206 Pleasant Valley Rd to Boone
This was the start of the really good riding areas. All backroads from here on out with some nice technical stuff. It was supposed to be the only longer day of the trip so I started out at 6am, expecting to ride until at least 6pm, maybe longer. I also resolved to work on my crappy riding skills one skill at a time until I fixed it to the way it should be.
The US219 for about the 40km leading into Marlinton WV is absolutely awesome. The pavement quality is really nice and the road has a nice rhythm to it. On this road I started to work on my entry speeds, starting out a little slower than normal and focusing on smooth braking and downshifting for corner entry. I started to realize that riding on Sunday mornings in the US is a great thing to do, because everyone is at church so the roads are almost totally empty.
From here I moved my way over to the VA311 south of White Sulphur Springs, which is basically a mountain pass with flawless pavement, very little traffic and is much better to experience than judge it based on how it looks on a map. This is another gem and since it's starting to get a bit tighter and more technical, I started working on my body position for this whole road. I was thinking that all great roads have a name like The Tail of the Dragon or the Snake etc... As I was riding I kept seeing these big birds flying above me, and then I realized they were vultures waiting for me to make a mistake so they could feast on me. So now I call this road The Vulture!
The elevations are starting to increase the further south I go:
After this I decided to try out a different road called Wolf Creek Hwy (VA61) to get me over to VA16. Wolf Creek Hwy changes names in to Clear Fork Road, but is still VA61. The Wolf Creek Hwy was a really nice twisty road that followed a big creek with the typical flawless pavement and amazing scenery of the Virginia's. There was zero traffic, so I could open it up pretty good. It had tighter sweepers with not too much elevation gain, so it was a great road to practice my turn-in spots and holding my lines smoothly. Highly recommended! Later on my trip home, some folks from Virginia I met up with also told me the road just south of it - the VA614, is very nice to ride.
I hit up the Back of The Dragon which is a road I have done many times before, but seldom on dry pavement or during the day. Love it and could do this one over and over. As I passed Hungry Mother State Park, the beach was packed - seemed like a thousand people there. There is also a store at the northern end of the VA16, in a small town called Thompson Valley - get your stickers and t-shirts here.
I continued down the VA16 all the way to Volney, VA which is the where the best portion of the US58 (Jeb Stuart Highway) is. This road doesn't have too much in the way of major elevation changes, but it has some very fast tight sweepers and remarkable pavement. I found it very nice for practicing my vision and looking deep into the corners, something I was not doing as well as I have in the past. The section of this road between Volney and Damascus is another bit I could ride over and over.
From here I made my way over to US421 The Snake. There is a nice souvenir shop located in the middle of it, in a small town called Shady Valley. Stop in there to get some gas, maybe a bite to eat and grab a t-shirt or sticker. They also sell fuel with no ethanol added which therefore makes it snake venom:
If you should go inside this store, they have a really good map inside a glass case at the counter. It has tons of roads and spots marked out and I asked for a copy but they were out. She was hoping to have more soon. Ask for one if you are there, because this would make a for a great resource to explore a ton of amazing roads throughout Tennessee and more. The Snake is located in the very top right of this picture:
I arrived in Boone NC around 5pm, which made no sense to me, because I should have taken much longer to get there. But I had downloaded a bunch of ninja movies onto my iPad, so I was all good. It was a very intense day of riding with so many twisties packed in one day. My riding had improved by leaps and bounds so I felt much better about what was still to come.
Day 3: Boone NC to Robbinsville NC - 11hrs/700km: Boone to Robbinsville
I ended up doing more than the route above, because some stuff looked interesting and worth trying out.
Left the motel around 6:30am and off I go for an even more technical day on the bike. I like the motels that serve the breakfast in the morning, even though it's usually not very good.
First order of business is to hit up the US221 - The Linville Falls Hwy. It gets up there in elevation and parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway for a good stretch. What makes it so nice is the many waterfalls along this particular stretch. The turns are very tight, the mountain scenery is very lush and there are some great rock formations exposed along this route:
From here I made my up to the top of Roan Mountain to ride the TN143 which turns into the NC265. I had been on this road once before in 2014, but in a torrential downpour and always wanted to go back and check it out on a dry day. It did not disappoint.
From here whipped down the NC226 to the NC226A (aka The Diamondback) and rode it a few times since it's a short loop, but well worth doing more than once. By the time you are in this area, the views start to get pretty breathtaking. On my first trip down here I had to stop at what felt like every single lookout and take a picture, which caused me to end up riding pretty late into the night far too often. Now I take this picture just for you:
I sped over to the southern portion of the NC80 which is known as The Devils Whip. I've always wanted to ride the section north of the Blue Ridge as well, so I rode the whole stretch of the NC80 from the top down. That section has a lot of homes along the roadside, so it's not as fast the southern section, but it's still a ton of fun and very tight and twisty.
I made my way over to the NC197, because in addition to it being a tight twisty mountain road, it has a section of 4 hairpin turns all back to back. The only caveat to this is that there is about 8km of twisty gravel on this road, north of Barnardsville. Still worth it, so I do it anyways.
I headed on over to good old Hot Springs and rode the NC209 (aka The Rattler). This one never disappoints! Always a good amount of bikes on this road too, but it's easy to pass them when they are slow.
One of my favourite tandems of roads in this whole area is the NC215 and NC281. I was planning on riding them a few more times during the week, but thought it best to check them out now since I was in the neighbourhood. The NC215 has simply amazing pavement with beautiful rhythmic corners. An absolute must ride if you are down there. The NC281 has a stretch that for me is one of my all time fav's. It has a left turn followed by a right turn at pretty much the same lean angle and speed and back to a left turn, then right, over and over again for what feels like miles of smiles.
Last of all I took Tilley Creek Road, which turns into Elijay Road. These start out in the east as a hilly road with houses and driveways all over it, but then changes over into a really narrow, twisty forest road moving west. It doesn't have too much for elevation changes, but there is plenty on this road to keep you occupied. Nice pavement and beautiful scenery with very little traffic.
From here I made it over to my destination in Robbinsville NC for the next 4 nights. A place called Simple Life Mountain Retreat. It was a pretty chill place that had about 4 tent spots and about 10 cabins of varying sizes. The cabins were pretty rustic, which is perfect for someone like me who only needs wifi, a clean shower and decent bed, since I'm there to ride, not hang out in my cabin. Another amazing day on the bike of relentless twisties with a perfect spot for me to end it off:
Last time I had a chance to go down to Deals Gap was in 2015. That was a fun trip with a couple folks off this forum, but it rained almost every single day for that trip and I also had a clutch failure on that long weekend, which ended up costing me an extra $2k to get my bike home by Uhaul. I haven't had a chance to be able to ride those same routes again, so this was it. 9 days in total - 3 days down, 3 days there, 3 days back. Stayed in motels or cabins instead of camping, which was nice to not have to lug my extra gear. My bike is a 2011 V-Strom 650 with just over 150,000km on it.
Day 1: Mississauga to Fairmont WV - 8hrs/700km: Mississauga to Fairmont
Normally I ride long days, so this trip had much shorter routes each day. This was the only day of almost all highway, because I wanted to get to West Virginia and start the nice twisty stuff the next morning. I checked the forecast and in West Virginia it was calling for very heavy thunderstorms starting around 3pm. I left home around 6am and figured this would give me an extra hour to play with for the border crossing and breaks.
As luck would have it, I arrived at the border and after studying my options, I carefully picked the fastest moving border crossing lane, except that it was the slowest moving lane. I was stopped for about 15 minutes while I watched cars pull up in all the lanes beside me and vanish into the US while someone in front of me had to bend over. This happened over and over to cars in front of me and when it was my turn, I could see why. The dude was as crusty as they come, but I had all my stuff in order and I was on my way in a minute or two.
I struggle with the long days on the highway. After the first 4 hours, I was taking a break every 45 minutes or so, to keep from falling asleep. Scenic backroads, I can ride all day without breaks, but highway is not for me.
Once I got off the highway and got onto WV250 headed into Fairmont it became clear that my riding skills sucked. I was amazed at how bad everything about my skills were. Timing was off, entry speeds were off, braking was either too hard or too light, body positioning was poor and so on. Commuting every day on the 401 takes it's own kind of skill to stay safe, but it's very different from curvy, scenic roads.
I managed to pull into the Super 8 motel as dark clouds were quickly approaching. I checked in and as soon as I dropped my gear, I looked outside at my bike and it was a torrential downpour that lasted for over an hour. It was pretty intense and super glad I was not riding in it:
Day 2: Fairmont WV to Boone NC - 11hrs/750km: 2206 Pleasant Valley Rd to Boone
This was the start of the really good riding areas. All backroads from here on out with some nice technical stuff. It was supposed to be the only longer day of the trip so I started out at 6am, expecting to ride until at least 6pm, maybe longer. I also resolved to work on my crappy riding skills one skill at a time until I fixed it to the way it should be.
The US219 for about the 40km leading into Marlinton WV is absolutely awesome. The pavement quality is really nice and the road has a nice rhythm to it. On this road I started to work on my entry speeds, starting out a little slower than normal and focusing on smooth braking and downshifting for corner entry. I started to realize that riding on Sunday mornings in the US is a great thing to do, because everyone is at church so the roads are almost totally empty.
From here I moved my way over to the VA311 south of White Sulphur Springs, which is basically a mountain pass with flawless pavement, very little traffic and is much better to experience than judge it based on how it looks on a map. This is another gem and since it's starting to get a bit tighter and more technical, I started working on my body position for this whole road. I was thinking that all great roads have a name like The Tail of the Dragon or the Snake etc... As I was riding I kept seeing these big birds flying above me, and then I realized they were vultures waiting for me to make a mistake so they could feast on me. So now I call this road The Vulture!
The elevations are starting to increase the further south I go:
After this I decided to try out a different road called Wolf Creek Hwy (VA61) to get me over to VA16. Wolf Creek Hwy changes names in to Clear Fork Road, but is still VA61. The Wolf Creek Hwy was a really nice twisty road that followed a big creek with the typical flawless pavement and amazing scenery of the Virginia's. There was zero traffic, so I could open it up pretty good. It had tighter sweepers with not too much elevation gain, so it was a great road to practice my turn-in spots and holding my lines smoothly. Highly recommended! Later on my trip home, some folks from Virginia I met up with also told me the road just south of it - the VA614, is very nice to ride.
I hit up the Back of The Dragon which is a road I have done many times before, but seldom on dry pavement or during the day. Love it and could do this one over and over. As I passed Hungry Mother State Park, the beach was packed - seemed like a thousand people there. There is also a store at the northern end of the VA16, in a small town called Thompson Valley - get your stickers and t-shirts here.
I continued down the VA16 all the way to Volney, VA which is the where the best portion of the US58 (Jeb Stuart Highway) is. This road doesn't have too much in the way of major elevation changes, but it has some very fast tight sweepers and remarkable pavement. I found it very nice for practicing my vision and looking deep into the corners, something I was not doing as well as I have in the past. The section of this road between Volney and Damascus is another bit I could ride over and over.
From here I made my way over to US421 The Snake. There is a nice souvenir shop located in the middle of it, in a small town called Shady Valley. Stop in there to get some gas, maybe a bite to eat and grab a t-shirt or sticker. They also sell fuel with no ethanol added which therefore makes it snake venom:
If you should go inside this store, they have a really good map inside a glass case at the counter. It has tons of roads and spots marked out and I asked for a copy but they were out. She was hoping to have more soon. Ask for one if you are there, because this would make a for a great resource to explore a ton of amazing roads throughout Tennessee and more. The Snake is located in the very top right of this picture:
I arrived in Boone NC around 5pm, which made no sense to me, because I should have taken much longer to get there. But I had downloaded a bunch of ninja movies onto my iPad, so I was all good. It was a very intense day of riding with so many twisties packed in one day. My riding had improved by leaps and bounds so I felt much better about what was still to come.
Day 3: Boone NC to Robbinsville NC - 11hrs/700km: Boone to Robbinsville
I ended up doing more than the route above, because some stuff looked interesting and worth trying out.
Left the motel around 6:30am and off I go for an even more technical day on the bike. I like the motels that serve the breakfast in the morning, even though it's usually not very good.
First order of business is to hit up the US221 - The Linville Falls Hwy. It gets up there in elevation and parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway for a good stretch. What makes it so nice is the many waterfalls along this particular stretch. The turns are very tight, the mountain scenery is very lush and there are some great rock formations exposed along this route:
From here I made my up to the top of Roan Mountain to ride the TN143 which turns into the NC265. I had been on this road once before in 2014, but in a torrential downpour and always wanted to go back and check it out on a dry day. It did not disappoint.
From here whipped down the NC226 to the NC226A (aka The Diamondback) and rode it a few times since it's a short loop, but well worth doing more than once. By the time you are in this area, the views start to get pretty breathtaking. On my first trip down here I had to stop at what felt like every single lookout and take a picture, which caused me to end up riding pretty late into the night far too often. Now I take this picture just for you:
I sped over to the southern portion of the NC80 which is known as The Devils Whip. I've always wanted to ride the section north of the Blue Ridge as well, so I rode the whole stretch of the NC80 from the top down. That section has a lot of homes along the roadside, so it's not as fast the southern section, but it's still a ton of fun and very tight and twisty.
I made my way over to the NC197, because in addition to it being a tight twisty mountain road, it has a section of 4 hairpin turns all back to back. The only caveat to this is that there is about 8km of twisty gravel on this road, north of Barnardsville. Still worth it, so I do it anyways.
I headed on over to good old Hot Springs and rode the NC209 (aka The Rattler). This one never disappoints! Always a good amount of bikes on this road too, but it's easy to pass them when they are slow.
One of my favourite tandems of roads in this whole area is the NC215 and NC281. I was planning on riding them a few more times during the week, but thought it best to check them out now since I was in the neighbourhood. The NC215 has simply amazing pavement with beautiful rhythmic corners. An absolute must ride if you are down there. The NC281 has a stretch that for me is one of my all time fav's. It has a left turn followed by a right turn at pretty much the same lean angle and speed and back to a left turn, then right, over and over again for what feels like miles of smiles.
Last of all I took Tilley Creek Road, which turns into Elijay Road. These start out in the east as a hilly road with houses and driveways all over it, but then changes over into a really narrow, twisty forest road moving west. It doesn't have too much for elevation changes, but there is plenty on this road to keep you occupied. Nice pavement and beautiful scenery with very little traffic.
From here I made it over to my destination in Robbinsville NC for the next 4 nights. A place called Simple Life Mountain Retreat. It was a pretty chill place that had about 4 tent spots and about 10 cabins of varying sizes. The cabins were pretty rustic, which is perfect for someone like me who only needs wifi, a clean shower and decent bed, since I'm there to ride, not hang out in my cabin. Another amazing day on the bike of relentless twisties with a perfect spot for me to end it off:
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