Just Another Road? (Tail Of The Dragon)

"Roof Cam" image from the Tail of the Dragon Store.  I like to think of the Dragon as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But maybe that's just a trick of the lens in my mind's eye.

Had an email from my cousin: "I drive on curvy stuff all week.  So making a big thing of the Dragon [doesn't impress me].  It's just another road."  He points out that it is often crowded.  I concede the latter,  which is why I try to go on weekdays in March and October.  (March is better; you don't get "leafers.")  But I can't quite concede the former.

If you want to run hard, the Dragon's lack of entering side roads is a big plus.  And most of those 318 turns are tight.  So if you make a small mistake, you aren't compounding it with big inertia values.   You can feel like you're going fast on the Dragon when, in m.p.h., you're not.  (It is a cliche that novices--and I are one--tend to overdrive tight corners and underdrive fast ones.) 

And 318 turns is a lot, and 11 miles is long.  I haven't found anything to compare with the Dragon in the river valleys I've explored in the Upper Midwest.  You can find stretches 2 to 5 miles long, but they aren't as twisty as the Dragon--and they're rare.  More often than not, you get blocked on them too.

Crowds are a double-edged sword (Dragon metaphor!).  I guess I'm willing to put up with being blocked sometimes to enjoy the gearhead ambience at each end of the Dragon.  The people-watching is as good as any mall or rock concert I've been to.  The conversations are mellow and sometimes interesting.  And, as my cousin points out, there are plenty of other fine roads nearby.  When I visit the area with my gearhead buddy from Chicagoland, we schedule two days.  We spend a half-day or a day on the Dragon, and explore another road and throw in some tourism on the second day.