August 20, 2024
We left the hotel and stopped at JP Cycles to check out if they had gloves. After leaving the last gas stop yesterday, Eddie misplaced his gloves and they must have fallen off the bike after getting on the road. He must have put them on the side pannier and took off before realizing. So, we went to JP Cycles and we both bought new pairs of gloves. The pair I had been using were Milwaukee work gloves from Home Depot and they’re thick. After checking out we headed towards Tail of the Dragon. Eddie has the upgraded version of “Rever” which is an app geared towards motorcyclists and he was able to find twisty roads, using their built-in feature. So, we followed the GPS and went through Great Smoky Mountain National Park on route 441.
There were spectacular views! It was also very different from where we came from and it was nice to see so many trees. I was taken back by some of the mountains, because I expected “hills” in comparison to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. We continued meandering through the park ,crossed into North Carolina, and stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, which is southeast of Gatlinburg, TN. We stopped in to check to see what stickers they had since we like to add them to the bikes.
From there, we headed down to route 74 to route 28, passed Fontana Dam, to route 129. Route 129 is where the infamous Tail of the Dragon is. It was an incredibly twisty road! Like I’ve mentioned, it has 318 curves in 11 miles. It is quite intense. Fortunately, when we went through, there weren’t many other vehicles on the road which made it much better. There are tons of videos and pictures online that show people crossing over the yellow line whih made it a little sketchy. The last thing we wanted was for someone to cut over and take us out. Luckily, we made it through without any issues or close calls. There are also a handful of photographers set up in the pull-offs. They take several pictures of every vehicle as they pass by. They then post the photos on their websites to sell, so I am thinking of getting one or two photos.
Once we got to the end of the fun stuff, we turned onto Foothills Parkway. This was a really nice ride. We didn’t know of any of the roads in the area except the Tail of the Dragon. Foothills Parkway had really nice long sweeping turns and exceeded our expectations. By the time we got near the end, Eddie needed gas. When we got to the end of the parkway, there was a gas station and we filled up and decided what to do for the night. We ended up going back into Pigeon Forge to get some food at JT Hannah’s Kitchen because it had a lot of good reviews. From there, we decided to go back to the same hotel so we could do laundry.
We only did about 165 miles worth of riding, but it took us about 6 hours. It was a long day, but definitely beautiful. I will definitely be going back to the area to spend more time in the Great Smoky Mountains!
Google photo album: Day 12
Adventures of Matty Q 