June 24 - Knoxville, TN - Asheville, NC - 200 Miles

Kay left to drive back home to Vandalia, Ohio, while Deane and Norm started off on a several day leisure tour of the Smoky Mountain area.

Today's ride from Knoxville to Asheville was the ultimate in combining a scenic drive in the Smoky Mountains with a fun and challenging mountain riding experience.

For the scenic part, the mountains of the Smokies remind me of small cone-shaped mountains, with thickly forested sides.  There are several beautiful reservoirs, set in steep mountainous terrain, and they are like little diamonds in the mountains.  The day was just perfect - sunny, cool, and clear.  Usually the mountains have quite a bit of humidity in the air to reduce visibility and to give the name of "Smoky" to the mountains.  But today was exceptionally clear, as the photo shows.

For the challenging part of this ride, we rode over U.S. Highway 129 to "Deal's Gap".  This is the most famous (infamous?) road in the U.S.A. for motorcyclists.  The claim to fame of the Deals' Gap part of U.S. 129 is that there are 318 extremely challenging curves in an 11 mile stretch, leading to the "Gap" (summit or pass) in one of the mountain ranges in the Smoky Mountains.  This stretch of road is also called "The Dragon" or "The Dragon's Spine".  When you get to the top, you can buy a T-shirt printed with "I survived Deal's Gap" or "318 curves on the Dragon" or a hundred other sayings - but you cannot get this T-shirt anywhere else in the world, you have to get it at the store at the Gap, since you earned it.  

Also, at the Deal's Gap store, there are typically 10 to 100 motorcyclists parked, having just ridden the Dragon or getting ready to do so.  Here is Norm, and the crowd of riders, many of whom were like us, on their way home or on extended rides, after leaving Honda Hoot.  Deane had ridden the Deal's Gap ride four years ago, and wanted to come back, so here we are.

Here is what one article says about the ride, and which we found to be quite accurate.  "On the warm-up curves before the 318, the curves get serious - tight curves, wide turns, slow and then fast curves - and who has time to look at the speedometer, at the picturesque cliffs, or deep into the forest.  After that, as you start into the first of the 318, there is no time to pay attention to anything but your best riding technique.  You are hardly out of the left turn curve with your front wheel when you have to lean into the next right curve.  Most of the turns surprise you right at the apex with a risky depression to be handled, which requires a lot of strength.  Left and right, close to the curb of the road, the trees are waiting to greet you, and steep cliffs jut up on the one side as they drop off to the other.  In between there is a change of rhythm.  Just when you think you can't make it, you lean more and keep the throttle on - no time for changing gears - just hold your line."....... Well, you get the idea.

After that ride, we searched out a small road known to local people, no highway number, and within it's 26 mile length we would guess it had 500 curves.  It was every bit as much fun as the Deal's Gap road, but with more forgiving curves, and more distance between them.  It also was a  tremendously scenic forested route.

Well, quite a day - we can say we've been to the top of the motorcyclists list of roads.

Back to Labrador Homepage