I had an interesting experience on that stretch of road a
few years ago. I had driven my TR6 from South Carolina to
Cade's Cove in the Smokies to meet some Tennessee friends
for a couple of nights of camping and a climb up Gregory
Bald to see the flame azealeas. Because the traffic had
been bad going into the park from the east, I decided to
leave Cade's Cove by a small road I found on a map that
went west and met up with The Tail of the Dragon. Well,
that small road was about 15 miles of loose gravel that
kept me to less than 25 mph all of the way and far less
than that where I had to ford streams (about 15 times)!
What a mistake. When I finally got to the paved Tail I
was ready to move, and I really lit into it, all downhill.
What a blast. At the bottom I pulled into a gas station
for a soda and parked in the middle of about 50 bikers who
were giving me some funny looks. One guy with a radio
came up and wanted to know where the hell I had come from.
"Down the Tail," I said, not really knowing what they
were after. "Yeah, but no one at the top saw you," was
his reply. And just about that time a guy on a Kawasaki
came tearing down the road and pulled in. It seems they
were running "time trials" down the Tail and keeping tabs
on other motorists to leave plenty of room. The guys at
the bottom were looking for the guy on the cycle when I
appeared. He surely would have caught me if I hadn't been
moving pretty fast myself. Good thing!
Tim
Clinton, SC
1980 Spitfire
1974 TR6
On Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:09:12 -0500
"Ann and Tim Buja" <thebujas@comcast.net> wrote:
> I've just uploaded a 9:56 video of John Macartney
>following Ashford Little
> on the "Tail of the Dragon" to YouTube and linked it
>from the TTA website.
>
> My favorite part is when Ashford and John get stuck
>behind a motorcycle that
> can't maintain the speed being set by Ashford and you
>can hear John say at
> 6:10
> "Bloody motorcycles - more trouble than farm tractors!"
>
> Once the motorcycle pulls over at 7:50, their pace picks
>up considerably.
> John shot almost 20 minutes of this drive but YouTube
>has a 10 minute time
> limit and Flickr has a 90 second video time limit.
>
> Links and embedded video of this drive along with four
>Brits of the Hudson
> caravan videos are available at the Triumph TransAmerica
>website at:
> http://www.triumphtransamerica.org.uk
>
> Tim Buja - Rockford, IL
> _______________________________________________
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