Deal's Gap, Tennessee

Hello,

Deal's Gap?? What's that??
..

Deal's Gap is a notch in the mountains between Marysville, TN and Robbinsville, NC. From the north side of the gap flows the Little Tennessee River. From the south side flows the Cheoah River. The Little Tennessee has been dammed up to make lakes. Why anyone would build a road up those steep gullies heading to the top is beyond me, but if you look askance at the map, you can see the profile of a dragons back, with the head up north, near where US 129 meets US 411 and the tail which goes through Deal's Gap to the North Carolina border. This section of US 129, called The Dragon, is about 25 miles long. The famous part is the Dragon's Tail, the last 11 miles before the NC line.

Some riders, including us, ride a loop about 120 miles long, heading south on route 129, the Dragon, making a right turn onto NC 143, which is the Cherohala Skyway, a curvy and beautiful road in its own right, and then back north again on TN route 360, another curvy road, back to the start.

We were told that there are a couple of places you have to visit as part of the Tail of the Dragon experience. One is the Deal's Gap Resort at the south end of the Dragon's Tail, with its "tree of shame" of broken motorcycle parts. . Another is Wheeler's Cycle Shop, a little further south on 129.

On Sunday we showed up at the Princess Motel on route 411, the motel closest to the north end of The Dragon, US route 129. There were quite a few bikers already there, and most of them were "multiple repeat offenders" on the Dragon. We might stay at this hotel again for the ambiance, but frankly it is on our "do not recommend" list.
Chatting with the "experts" they advised:
Don't ride the Dragon on the weekend if you can avoid it.
Ride it in the morning, not the afternoon.

On Monday morning we were off. It was a beautiful, glorious day, and a beautiful, glorious road...

As we rode down the head and back of the Dragon the turns just weaved, and the vistas were fantastic. Then we were in the woods, with beautiful shade and about 5 degrees cooler. Then suddenly the road started to climb. There were countless switchbacks so tight you thought you could reach out and touch your own tailight. Some switchback corners were so sharp and steep I was in first gear. Now I could understand how riders could miss a shift and just fall off!! Keep the speed up.. This is the Tail of the Dragon.

The experts were right. Get into a rhythm where you are tipping or swinging the bike, not "turning" it. I found that by not accelerating on the short straights between the turns I was just about set up for the next turn. The Tail of the Dragon is about smoothness and turning, not about twisting the accelerator and grabbing the brake.


One thing for sure: there is no room for error. There is no shoulder to this road. Sometimes there are tree trunks right next to you. Sometimes there are tops of trees. Don't look down. Some of the turns are scary tough, and they are never ending... Then you are at the top of the gap, and you get to go down the other side with the same scary turns but this time downhill. Yipes! Then the Deal's Gap Resort is on the left. There are no more turns and everyone has their blinker on and turning into the parking lot. So do we. We buy our little Dragon Decals for our helmets, and we buy our T-shirts.

What a ride. WOW!! Let's do it again!!!

It turns out (pun intended) that the turns in the Dragon's Tail aren't never ending. There are exactly 318 turns in 11 miles. Some of the more famous curves have names: The Whip, Pearly Gates, Guard Rail Cliff, Hog Pen Bend, Triple Apex, Leo's Lair, Brake or Bust Bend, Busa Bash Bend, Carosel Corner, The Gravity Cavity, Grace's Esses, Parson's Curve, Crud's Corner, Beginner's End ... etc...

There are a few guys who ride the Tail to work every day!!..

Most guys turn around and ride the Dragon's Tail back to wherever they started. We set off to do the 120 mile loop. We stopped for lunch. The ride on the Skyway is just awesome, with one-tenth the riders... We made it back to our motel in time for supper....

How fast did we go?? We averaged about 30+mph for the whole loop, almost five hours riding time, almost 8 hours including stops.!! The odometer was 130 miles round trip from the motel. I guess we averaged about 17mph on the Dragon's Tail itself.. Quite a change from some of the high speed riding we were doing in Texas!!.

On Tuesday morning we packed up to ride to Cherokee, NC: the Cherokee Indian Reservation and the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Harris and Jeannine