Pics from The Dragon's Tail
or.....
How We spent our Monday
It was a dark and stormy
night...........(wait a minute, wrong story)
O.K., It was a beautiiiiiiful
sunny Monday morning, so arboC, Matt and dave58 decided to celebrate with
a trip to Awful Wafull. Not just any Awful Wafull......oh no way,
not us.......we went to the one in Jasper !!!!!.
Here, arboC reviews covert map with "secret route" to North Carolina
The fried filet of racoon
had some kinda effect on arboC, and over breakfast, he drifted off into
a trance-like state....In almost indecipherable muttering he told us a
tale of a mysterious road he had once encountered in Tennessee (or was
it North Carolina, or was it in his dreams?) On it, you could see smashed
guard rails from those foolish enough to attempt driving it in mere "mortal"
cars. Stories of renegade semi-trucks that had illegally attempted to sneak
thru, only to disappear off the sides down into the firey pits of Hell,
never seen nor heard from again. Normally used only by biker-types
for its' adrenaline-rush producing twists and turns, arboC suggested that
it would be one helluva good way to kill an otherwise useless day. He suggested
that we go exploring in search of the mysterious road, just because we're
that kinda guys.........
Matt's Contour
SVT.......posin' for the camera
(tail of
arboC mobile lurks in backround)
So, since he already had
us in Jasper, Matt and I decided WTF, it would maybe be worth the trip.
Partially to see if arboC could actually find his way, and partially to
see if this road was all arboC was building it up to be........lmao
arboC consoles
Matt........ after Matt suffers another dizzy spell from "Cobra envy"
So, we proceeded up thru
the foothills of the Smokies ( actually, the Nantahala National Forest)
in what was a pretty cool ride in and of itself. No crashes, no tickets
and a brief tour of Greater metro Murphy, NC.
Then we headed up into
the real hills............................Before we realized it, we had
arrived.
Mouth of
the Dragon...................note to squeamish.......be afraid- be VERY
afraid !!!
(note the
phone booth for one final call to your next-of-kin)
There's a shop at the base
of the Tail that caters to the "putt-putt zoom-zoom" types, but they allowed
us in and welcomed us all the same. Pretty cool little store, with all
sorts of "Tail of the Dragon" T-shirts, videos from bike-mounted cameras,
etc. We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes and watched a couple of
bikes ride "wheelies" up the first hundred yards or so of the Tail. arboC
went over and spoke with a few of them, asking advice on things like the
Park Ranger we watched cruise up into the Tail........"Don't worry about
'em, they just keep going "
Apparently, cars are somewhat
of a novelty on this stretch of road, and several of the bikes waited around
in anticipation of our departure.......
we prepare to head out................
After watching a Suzuki 1100 GSX-R take off up the hill, we waited around a few minutes, and decided to go ahead and "take the plunge" ourselves.......... you gotta time departures if you plan on driving a little close to the limit, and although he was taking it pretty easy when he left, we figured he'd stay well ahead of us anyway.......
Photo taken
immediately after our trip northbound on the Tail..........
(wouldn't
recommend touching those rotors just yet)
With arboC as the designated
"Leader of the Pack", we took off up the hill known as "Wheelie Hell" in
the same order as the pic above. First few turns at the top would begin
to give us some idea of just what would we would face ahead.......
Left, right, left, right,
up hill, down hill.................best thing I can compare it to is a
20 minute roller-coaster ride.....where YOU control the speed- and IF you
stay on the track !! Gravity Cavity (aka 'The Hump") @ mile marker 8.4................................Waaaaaaaaaaaaay
Cooooooool.
Second gear got a helluva
workout (several 5K stretches), with an occasional blip to third (usually
just to set up for the next second gear upshift in the turn ahead)..........Lemme
tell 'ya it's almost like deja vu, or Groundhog Day - each series of turns
looks just like the last few- all sharp switchbacks with the occasional
grade transition thru the turn. Talk about your gut-rush. We eventually
CAUGHT the 1100 GSX-R, who thankfully for us, pulled over and let us BLOW
BY at the Carousel Corner !!!! Very Cool Guy, Indeed
The road was in EXCELLENT
condition, nice and dry, so we were able to turn the freakin' Trac-Lok's
OFF on the Cobras and jump on it coming out of several of the twisties........Guys,
it don't get much better than this and stay legal !! You could cheat the
lines with confidence on a lot of the turns, because you can see for two
or three turns ahead. Good thing too, because we DID encounter two or three
"putt-putt zoom-zooms" coming southbound, and trust me, they were not
putt-puttin'
lol .We eventually ended up at Tabcat Bridge, where we stopped a sec to
take the pics you see above and below.
Special note:
To those of you who might
think an SVT Contour should maybe have stayed to the rear, lemme assure
you- NOT the case...... I was behind Matt on the first run (northbound),
and I can tell you first-hand.......thru the turns, Matt keeps up
just fine =-)
