A Few Dragon Runs

Today was for one of my favourite rides.  The Dragon.  This is Hwy US129 and runs through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and Deals Gap.

In an area where there are many twisty roads, this one is the most compact. 318 curves in 11 miles is their claim to fame.

Motorcycle riders are well catered for.

Lots of Calliandra alongside the roads

Then it is in to the corners

and more

The Dragon mascot.  The bottom part is modeled on the road

I must mention that the Yamaha handled the road very well.  It is, after all, a fairly large motorcycle and well loaded up with the two of us and all our luggage.

But it tipped in and pulled out of all those corners quite easily and a lot quicker than most of the motorcycles there today. (Of course, most of them were Harleys so that may diminish the accolades a little.)

But all in all I was quite happy with its performance.

Little Black Feejer is now an official DragonSlayer

Lonely little black Feejer amongst a lot of Harleys

Great Dragon sculpture.  Note the handlebars.

They really milk the theme.

After three runs of the road, the day was starting to get away so we headed out for Cherokee and the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
This is a road we have travelled before (as is The Dragon) and is a parkway that follows the ridgetops for 600 miles.  We probably won't do it all as we want to be up near Pittsburgh by Friday, but a run along the high southern section can be a lot of fun.
Starting at around 2000 feet at Cherokee, the road winds up and down the hills, soon reaching peaks of 5000+ then 6000+ feet in a series of ranges.

Mist over the lake

Daisy plantings in the median strip

Cherokee has several of these painted bears in the streets

It starts here

Southern section has a lot of tunnels.

The day finished near Asherville, North Carolina after a relatively short 194 miles. But they were fun miles.

One small problem with travelling on The Dragon