Tail of the Dragon | Page 7 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Tail of the Dragon

....It's just like the dragon, but 3 times longer with 1/8'th the amount of traffic. Best 45 minutes of my entire riding season...

Math doesn't make sense, unless you are one of the fastest cruiser riders on the continent.
Hustling the dragon takes my friends and I about 12 minutes (overlook to Killboy's -- our usual pace is about 14ish minutes). 3 times longer would take us 46 minutes if we could maintain the pace for that long (unlikely, for all of us except 1 who's seriously fit).

My favourite road down there is the Cherohala Skyway, hands down. One road I refuse to miss when I'm down there.
 
Whoops, I meant 45KM, not minutes.

And doing the conversion, it's actually 51KM.

Wrong on both counts.

Just back from a cruise - brain is still only firing on 1 cylinder. ;)
 
My favourite road down there is the Cherohala Skyway, hands down. One road I refuse to miss when I'm down there.


Cherohala is probably the best road for a ride .Usually very little traffic .
 
We, a group of 15 riders from GTA, went for a 6 day trip to Tail of the Dragon. 2 days going; 2 days there; 2 days back. All made back safely. If I could, I would go back right now. If I can be of any help to anyone who is planning to go there, please feel free to ask.


a few of us done a trip through the tail of he Dragon about 6 years ago. best experience ever, I certainly honed my alertness, and mental physical capabilities on the bike. was worth the the experience.
 
I went down in 2015 (profile pic offered as proof). Had a much better time riding the back roads of WV and Penn. than I did on the TOTD. Too many people going waaaay to fast on sportbikes or waaaay to slow on cruisers to be much fun. And that was just after lunch on a Thursday in early September. It's not a racetrack after all, despite what some of the earlier commenters may think.

IMO, if you iron-butt down there just to ride the named roads (TailOTD, BackOTD, Cherahola, etc.), you are missing a tonne of great riding. Get off the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Interstate and explore the amazing roads of rural Penn and WV. Just be ready to start riding away quickly if you hear banjos or pigs squealing...
 
IMO, if you iron-butt down there just to ride the named roads (TailOTD, BackOTD, Cherahola, etc.), you are missing a tonne of great riding

Depends. I love Iron-Butt type riding, so doing it is part of the allure of a big ride like that. I rode from home to the Cherohala (well, Tellico Plains TN, to be exact) in a day and loved every minute of it.

Secondly, for some who have only a certain amount of time to dedicate to these sorts of things, unfortunately there's not always time to poke around on the backroads and such to and from distant places like this. If I was retired I'd spend months just poking around the roads down there with nothing more than my luggage and my tent, but alas...reality is different.
 

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