*~:~* Trip Report #2 *~:~*

** 2nd Annual Dragon Trip Report - Oct. 2-9, 2004 **

I just got back from our trip to Deals Gap and decided to write my trip report as I did for last year. This years story starts about 2 months prior to the trip when Kevin and I decided it was time to start planning what has now become our annual pilgrimage to the road known as the Dragon. (An 11 mile stretch of road on US 129 on the North Carolina/Tennessee border packed with 318 turns.)

When it was decided that we were for sure going, I called Ron (the owner/operator of the Tail of the Dragon website) to book our living arrangements. He and his wife also have two rental houses called the Treetops and the Ridge. Great places to stay if you have a group of bikers. With both places reserved, Kevin and I started soliciting fellow riders if they wanted to go. Initially we had quite a few riders that show interest, but as time went on a few dropped out. Citing things like pesky hurricane Ivan or some other sorry excuse. Oh well, we still ended up with seven riders that made the trip, three more than last year. The seven riders are: Kevin on a Honda RC-51, Brian on a Ducati 900 SuperLight, Mike on a Yamaha R6, Dan on a Suzuki GSX-R 750, Chuck on a Honda CBR 954 RR, Jake on a Suzuki GSX-R 600, and me, O’D, on my Ducati 996. (I only brought the Duc this year as I’m selling the MV to purchase a newer model).

Brian, he went with us last year but initially was not going to go this year. His excuse was a broken cylinder head bolt on his 93 Ducati 900 SuperLight. Only a hundred dollar fix, but by his thinking, “If I have to tear the motor apart, I might as well put in high compression pistons too!” Turning a hundred dollar fix into almost a thousand dollar upgrade. Kevin and I kept nagging him about going with us and with just one week remaining to departure, Brian ordered his parts. Excited about having him along, I helped him tear into the SuperLight to hopefully have it put back together in time. We had his bike broken down into a ka-billion pieces in my garage. (Yes, that is my official number) (Take a look at the pics) Trying to keep spirits high I kept telling him we could do it, but it was looking pretty grim and we started treating the situation like Monster Garage, complete with a countdown. However the night prior to leaving we pulled an all nighter and finally got the SuperLight all back together and running at about 3 am. They only issue was we were meeting at my house to leave at 5 am and neither of us got any sleep and we still had to pack. ::Superlight Pics here::

Hoping to get a little shut eye, I showered and packed as quickly as I could. But just as I was getting into bed, (at 3:45 am) I noticed head lights in the neighborhood and it looked like they where backing up to the trailer with all the bikes on it. Thinking that someone was trying to steal it, I threw on some cloths and ran out to check what was going on. Turns out that Kevin had to work late that night and rather than going to bed, he was planning on sleeping in his truck so he would not over sleep. Now that is dedication. Only problem now was we where both to excited about the trip to get any sleep, so we stayed up until the rest of the crew showed up.

5 am and the rest of the crew starts pulling up. All except Brian of course, who had gone home to pack. At about 6 am Brian pulls up, but he forgot the keys to the trailer and had to go back and get them. 6:45 am and we are on the road, all of us dead tired. Turns out the rest of the crew had similar sleeping issues too!

This years route to Robbinsville (the nearest town to Deals Gap and where we were staying) took us up though Atlanta, Georgia. Brain still needed some exhaust gaskets and I wanted to lust over my next motorcycle purchase (A MV Agusta F4 1000) so we stopped by the Atlanta Trimuph, Ducati, MV Agusta dealer. Satisfied that I will be owning a F4 1000 in the very near future we headed out for our final destination.

Somewhere north of Atlanta, near a Marathon gas station that we passed about five time, we finally found a short cut that was on the map I downloaded from the internet. It took us to a gravel road that none of us was too happy about and it proved to be a royal pain. First we had to do about five U-turns to find it and when we did, we discovered that a bridge was out, forcing us to do another U-turn on a narrow gravel road. Fortunately we got turned around and made the rest of the trip uneventful, even if we all were nearing stupid tired.

Finally we get to the Treetops and the Ridge. Unload the bikes and the trucks and got some sleep.

The next morning we all woke early, excited about riding the Dragon. We all ride into town to get breakfast only to find our favorite place is closed. Bummer. We end up just getting gas and putting air in our tires and eating junk food from the gas station. With our tanks full, tires full, and our bellies full, we head off to the most amazing road man has ever paved.

Our first run up to the Overlook was uneventful. Taken pretty slow do to wet conditions caused by fog. On the way back to the Crossroads, Kevin, Mike, Brain and I picked up the pace just a touch. This put Jake at the front of a slower pack of riders, (slower because they were keeping an eye on Jake as he was a new rider with only a couple months of experience.) Jake rounded the left hand curve just before the Hump and got his first look at the section of road known as Gravity Cavity (First look coming at it from this direction anyway). He got a little confused and locked up his rear wheel on the short straight causing him to go down. Our first victim.

This pretty much ended the first day of riding. While we were waiting at the Crossroads for the slower pack, Chuck made it down to tell us the news. Mike and I headed back to the house to get a truck to haul Jake’s broken bike home. Jake turned out to be okay, bruised ankle and ego but otherwise okay. His bike was banged up a bit and needed a new right clip-on and foot peg before it would be able to be ridden again. Luckily on the way home, a motorcycle repair shop named Wheeler’s was open, on a Sunday at that, Cool!

While at Wheeler’s Jake bought the parts needed to make his bike operable again and Brian and Kevin bought two pocket bikes. Before heading home for the night we all ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and Jake paid the bill for being the spoiler of the day. We all headed back to the Ridge to repair Jake’s bike. While there, Brian and Kevin assembled and rode their new toys. A couple of the neighbor ladies got upset with the noise of the pocket bikes and decided they were going to put an end to it. While Brain and Dan took off on them they tried to decapitate them with a stick held across the road. This started a war of words and Kevin and Brain decided to take new their toys into town to ride around a parking lot. While there both ended up crashing them in separate incidents. Kevin made out okay, but Brian twisted his knee badly. Victims two and three.

Waking up Monday morning we found perfect weather conditions and all of us but Brian set out again to ride the Dragon. Brain was feeling bad with an oncoming cold and could barley move his knee so he stayed home. We all made a few trips through the Gap with Jake going at a noticeable slower speed since his spill, but he made it, much to our relief. Mike brought along his helmet camera gear and got great video of Kevin and me running the Dragon. Got home that night and talked to Ron (the owner) and cooked steaks and potatoes on the grill.

Tuesday brought on more great riding weather so Kevin, Mike and I rode to the Dragon early again, while Jake, Dan and Chuck rode “The Loop”. The loop is a 115 mile route that includes the Cherohala Skyway and US 129. A great ride. We all met up at the Overlook and got some still pics. Then did a final run for the day. Got home, stopped by the Roost (Ron and Nancy’s place) to settle up our bill and buy t-shirts and stuff. We talked about the local roads and how great it must be to live in the area. Got back to the Treetops and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. Ahh, the life!

Woke Wednesday to find only more great weather, how lucky can we be? Chuck, Dan and Jake decided that they had enough though and loaded up and left for South Carolina. I still don’t know what possessed them to leave. Guess they just are not as hard core about motorcycling as I am. My plan for today was to ride a couple of other roads in the area that I have wanted to ride for a long time. Namely, US 441 south of Gatlinburgh to Cherokee and the Blue Ridge Parkway. So I planned a route to do just this, however just before getting to US 441 I got fed up with the tourist traffic and turned around. Kevin, Mike and I made our way back to the Gap, but by now with most of the day gone we only got a couple of runs in. Got back to the Treetops to find that Brian was feeling better so we drove into town and ate Pizza.

Thursday came and finally Brian was up to riding. The weather again was picture perfect. Spent all day at the Dragon slowly trying to tame it. Not getting to ride with Brian a whole lot on this trip I asked Mike if he would stay behind and get video of Brain running the Dragon. Mike agreed and I slowed my pace just a touch to keep right in front of them, (not that Brain is a slower rider, I just had a lot more practice during the course of the week and was getting to learn the road a little better.) Kevin on the other hand went off setting a blistering pace that I would probably not have been able to keep up with anyway. About half way down we saw Kevin standing by the side of the road holding his helmet. We all thought ‘Oh Shit” he crashed. Soon after pulling over we realized it was not him but another guy on an RC-51 that had gone down. Kevin just pulled over to give assistance. That afternoon Kevin headed back to the Treetops and picked up the pocket bikes in his truck. He stopped by Ron’s house and told him that they where going to run the Dragon on them. Ron, in turn called Darryl the owner/operator of Killboy.com. We unloaded the pocket bikes at the state line. Mike jumped in the back of the truck to video them while I drove the truck. Kevin and Brian rode the little things all the way to the picnic table about seven miles into the Dragon where we met up with Darryl. With his own video gear, Darryl followed them back to the Crossroads. With an average speed of 25 mph and a top speed of 30 mph we can’t say that any Dragon speed records were broken on the pocket bikes but, damn it sure was funny seeing those little things screaming down the twisties. Darryl told us they might use some of the footage in the next Tail of the Dragon video, which we all thought would be cool. By the time we left the crossroads it was dark and I had my dark visor on my helmet. Talk about a scary ride home.

Friday brought us another great day of riding weather. Kevin, Mike and I woke, suited up and once again made our way to the Dragon. Brian stayed up late the night before and told us he would meet up with us later. Stopping off in town to get gas Mike left a pocket open and lost his ATM card somewhere between town and the Crossroads. He went to see if he could find it while Kevin and I made our first trip to the Overlook for the day. The first run was really great, one of my best, but by the time we made our way back to the Crossroads traffic had picked up and it almost became unbearable. Kevin and I decided to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant at the Crossroads while we continued to wait for Mike to return. While waiting inside we watched an 18 wheeler go by and thought “Shit” no point in riding the Dragon for at least half an hour. With a big truck on the road the Dragon is very unsafe as the trucks use both lanes and more to negotiate the tight twisting road. Five minutes later Mike drove into the parking lot, didn’t see our bikes and thought we might be at the Overlook, so he took off before we could stop him. Kevin and I waited till we thought the road would be clear and headed up to the Overlook and hopefully catch up with Mike. We made the run and caught a glimpse of Mike headed the other way. We also noticed a lot of people standing by the road in several spots. Each time we slowed gave the thumbs up and received one in return so we did not think much of it. We both thought there were a lot of people taking pictures today. Once at the Overlook though we learned that the big rig had indeed ran a biker off the road along with his passenger. Mike, having his helmet camera just missed the accident but chased down the trucker to get his info. He did manage to get some good video of the trucker using the entire road to get through the route, even pulling into the oncoming lane before right hand blind turns. It’s amazing more people where not hurt. This section of road needs to off limits to big trucks! Period!

With the drama over the three of us returned to the Crossroads and waited for traffic to die down a little. I started bitch’in about Brian not showing up and getting impatient about the heavy traffic. Finally I decided to do another run. Kevin, Mike and I in that order. As soon as we crossed the state line we got held up by a car. Kevin made quick work of it and got around easily. Mike got held up a little and myself even more. By the time I got around the other two were gone so I slowed my pace a bit. Soon another rider caught me and I waved him by. The very next curve I noticed a cloud of dust in the air. My first thought was that the two speed demons both overcooked the corner and went over. But then I thought, No, they are both very good riders and that could not have happened. Torn by what I should do my pace slowed dramatically until I came up on Kevin doing a U-turn. Then I knew Mike had crashed. I was afraid to go back because I just knew he would have been hurt pretty bad. But I followed Kevin. It soon became clear to me that Kevin didn’t know where it had happened at so I passed him and we made our way to the scene. As soon as we showed up Mike came scurrying up the cliff (victim number four) and Brian showed up as if on cue. Amazingly, Mike did not get hurt at all and his bike despite the 20 foot plus drop suffered only a broken windscreen and some scuffed paint. (In my usual manner I broke the crash scene down into this: Mike was trying to catch back up to Kevin, but Kevin had been getting faster and faster with each passing so it was a little more difficult then earlier in the week. Upon reaching the short straight prior to the right hand corner Mike got on the gas hard and basiclly overcooked the corner. In an effort to save the situation he tried squaring off the corner by sliding his rear but the rear never came around and instead he ran off.) Not being able to get the bike back up to the road we decided we needed a wrecker. Kevin went to call for one. He returned a couple minutes latter to report that a wrecker was on its way to the first crash. The wrecker stopped and we asked for help. The guy told us he had to go to the other scene first but would return when he finished there. About an hour and a half latter the wrecker did indeed return and only charged us $40 to get the bike back to the road, what a bargain. Unfortunately the bike was upside down all that time and the oil had run into the top of the motor. While it would start, it would not run under a load so we had to truck the bike back. Kevin volunteered to go get the truck and Brian and I made one final run to the Overlook and back. As it was nearing dark again I was dreading another ride home wearing my dark visor, but my buddy Kevin was cool enough to pick up my clear one when he brought back the truck. I have great friends!

With Mike’s bike in the back of the truck, we stopped into town to eat at a place called Sweetwater Barbeque for our final meal. Mike paid the bill, officially starting a new tradition. You crash on the Dragon, you pick up the dinner bill. Hopefully I don’t get anymore free meals with next year’s trip.

The trip home was uneventful except that being fully loaded for the trip up left us no room for the pocket bikes on the way back. Solution: strap them down to the top of the truck. You can imagine looks we got from other motorists traveling down the highways. It amazed me that every time we stopped for gas, all the questions that we were asked about the little things. We had two Duc’s on the trailer but all anybody wanted to talk about was the toys on top of the truck?!

Now we are all back in Florida with its 11 curves in 318 miles and can’t wait till next year to go try and tame the Dragon again.