| Author | Message | ||
     Natron |
Some riders from Buellforums.com site scheduled a weekend ride out on the Dragon and other roads in east TN and NC. For anyone who hasn't ridden these roads, they are highly recommended, regardless of how far you have to ride to get to them. I was very intimidated by the tight curves Friday afternoon when I rode in, but by Saturday afternoon my lines had gotten better and I was a lot smoother. One of our fellow riders who is much more experienced was running the dragon in 3rd with the occasional bump to 4th on the straghts (on a firebolt), but I was much more comfortable staying in 2nd for the duration. Saturday evening, after making several dragon runs, and a sweeping run across the Cherohala Skyway, we stopped in Maryville at Smoky Mountains Harley Davidson to look around. While we were there another Uly showed up with the largest custom fairing I have ever seen mounted to the front. Turns out it was Etennuly! Kind of like meeting a badweb celebrity. We had a great weekend. Sorry for the short post, I will upload some pictures soon. | ||
| Etennuly |
Nathan, It was good meeting you and seeing some friendly Buellers from out of town. Glad you enjoyed the area we have to 'suffer' with riding in. Hope you guys got to stay at SMHD Buell for the food and party at the Shed. I would have stayed longer but my son was in from out of town and I had to get back. Buell on!!  Gotta love those Uly's!even the slower black ones | ||
| Ahowudoon |
Rode the dragon last year on my old Bandit 600, can't wait to go down again with the Uly.... | ||
| Bobr |
Just got back from a trip up to that area with my wife. I was on a new XT and Sarah rode her Ss up. It was her first long ride and we logged around 1,340 miles round trip. Sarah and her bike did great, the XT did great, and the roads were great! We stayed at TWO and had the whole upstairs to ourselves. We rode 180, the Cherohala, and the alleged Thunder Road. Seems that "Thunder Road" is a biker's name for the road. The actual name (if we were in fact on the alleged TR) is Wayah Bald Rd. The locals pronounce it "wahyer" so finding it is lots of fun. In the attempt we ended up on a loop of Old 64 which ought to be called Prehistoric 64. When we finally found the alleged TR it was a really nice stretch of road until we started encountering guys in fire suits and hardhats with little flame-thrower thingies who kept waving us to slow down. Turns out they were doing a controlled burn that day. Nothing like coming around a blind turn through a haze of smoke to find flames licking at the road shoulder and a hillside ablaze. Lol. Bob | ||
| Natron |
Funny about the controlled burn on Thunder Road. I thought that was what was going on on 129 when I rode through Friday evening. There were signs on road that said "caution smoke", and the area was thick with smoke. It turns out that it wasn't a controlled burn at all. The previous day a GSXR rider had gone down in the first major turn on the dragon (129) and his gas tank ruptured and caught fire. The blaze caught the ridge on fire and it burned most of the night before the flames encountered the fireline that the firefighters had dug. There are some impressive pictures on www.killboy.com of the blaze. Bobr, what did you think of the Cherohala on the XT? | ||
| Bobr |
Hello Natron, The Cherohala was absolutely beautiful and a relaxing ride after the likes of Wolf Pen Gap. Man, that's bad news about the gixxer. Glad the rider was OK. Sarah and I avoided the Dragon as we had heard it is now very heavily patrolled and a bad mix of people going very slowly and way too fast. ALL the roads so far are great on the XT! Cheers, Bob |
