Doing the dragon

NCBusa2001

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Hey yall. I'm planning on driving to deals gap tomorrow 9/13-9/15. It's about a five hour drive from here but I hope it will be worth the trip. I'm taking the misses with me, as she would remove parts of my anatomy if I went without her. Anyway she is light and compact so I hope it won't hamper me too much in the twisties. Plus it is peak leaf season so there will probably be slow traffic anyways.
However, I'm not going to be able to take any camping gear, which leaves me with staying indoors somewhere (read sucks). I've looked at the "tailofthedragon.com" site which is very helpful, but I want to hear where everyone here stayed.
Any general area tips, precautions, hazzards, or any other reccomendations would be very helpful. I'm going to take a bunch of pictures so I'll post the best ones when I get back. Again thanks, Chris
 
See if a couple of the guys from Eat TN. Answer you. I think the best places to stay if you can finad a room is right near the smokey natl park. Near or in Pigeon Forge.
 
Thanks ninja for replying, I hope others do (hint hint).
The local hotels in Robbinsville look pretty shoddy, except for the Tapco inn which is on the pricey side. An ideal hotel would have staff that didn't mind me sleeping WITH the busa in my room. I'm sure most hotel rooms have had worse things on the carpet than my tires (mental note, need to bring lots of lysol).
Another post today speaks of a gentleman who just crashed on the dragon, is this an ominous sign, I hope not. Chris
 
I stayed in Pigeon forge which I think is about an hour from Deals gap. Great little city with a lot of places to visit. Gaitlinburg might be another shot, big tourist town there. It's about 20 mins from pigeon forge.
 
Depends, are you going for riding or riding/nighttime entertainment?  If the entertainment, then definitely Pigeon Forge.  If for riding only, try Townsend.  You will have to go through Townsend anyway to get to the gap, and it can take as long as an hour to get from Pigeon Forge to Townsend because of traffic.  And I mean anytime of day, not just normal rush hour.  Townsend has at least 10 hotels, I think the Best Western there is the nicest one and probably the most expensive.  However, there are many of them cheaper if you just need a place to stay.  Also, seems like there was one nice hotel in Robbinsville, not a luxury hotel, but a nice one.  I may be wrong but I think it was a Holiday Inn express.  Could have been a comfort inn.  Check the web site, www.tailofthedragon.com for details on other lodging.  

Unless you are bringing your family, Pigeon Forge traffic is not worth dealing with.  It's as bad or worse than Atlanta and that's saying something!
 
Busaben & BigE, Thanks for the tip. This is going to be a short trip and and wasting valuable time in traffic would seriously peave me. So I'll leave bird-town to the tourists and focus on the twisties and the great outdoors. I'm kind of an agoraphobic anyways so my wife and I will just have to focus on "the simple pleasures of life".

Are there any other roads in the area that you consider a "must ride"? I'm sure just about every road there will be fun to carve up but are there any that really stand out (i.e. breathtaking views, good chill spots, etc).

Thanks for the comments, I'm trying to fit in as much riding as possible in such a short time. I am also attempting to make it as interesting, organized and fun as possible for my wife. This will be our first trip to the area and, if I want to come back, I have to make it appealing to her.

Thanks, Chris
 
Avoid the smokey MTNs, way too much tourist traffic.  Cherohola skyway is great road.  Deals gap for the tight technical stuff and cherohola skyway for the long sweepers.  Just about every road out there has great scenary and a whole bunch of curving roads.  I dont know if Fooks hill parkway is open yet but thats another road to hit.
 
I haven't stayed there yet but the Microtel Inn in Robbinsville is not a bad looking place. Some friends stayed there last year and seemed to like it.
 
If you haven't left yet consider staying in:
1) Anderson at the anderson inn.
2) Murphy -Best Western or Comfort Inn
3) Nantahala Inn or anywhere in the Nantahala Gorge-plus you can do some rafting
4) Cherokee-Several places plus there's Harrah's Casino on the Indian Reservation

Any of these places will put you within 45 minutes of the Dragon's Tail And the ride to it from any of these spots is gonna be a fun ride.......
 
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