Riding the dragon
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bennettoid
- Legendary 300
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ZooTech
- Legendary 3000
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- Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:23 am
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- Years Riding: 18
- My Motorcycle: Nomad / Ninja 500 / VLX Bobber / C3 / VS
- Location: Ohio
If all goes as planned (weather, babysitter) I'll be riding it this Saturday. I took Friday off and will head down after dropping the kids off with their weekday sitter. It's only six hours to Knoxville if I ride the interstate, but I have a back-road route planned that'll make it more interesting. I'll spend all of Saturday riding the dragon and the surrounding countryside. I'm pretty excited since I've never been to Tennessee before.bennettoid wrote:Unbeleivable!
I want to ride there.
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Aggroton
- Legendary 750
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ZooTech wrote:If all goes as planned (weather, babysitter) I'll be riding it this Saturday. I took Friday off and will head down after dropping the kids off with their weekday sitter. It's only six hours to Knoxville if I ride the interstate, but I have a back-road route planned that'll make it more interesting. I'll spend all of Saturday riding the dragon and the surrounding countryside. I'm pretty excited since I've never been to Tennessee before.bennettoid wrote:Unbeleivable!
I want to ride there.
tennessee, tennessee, aint no place id rather be...
thats a sweet bike.
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ZooTech
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Well, my Dad and I are back from riding "The Dragon" in Tennessee/North Carolina. Let me just say, that's the most fun a person can have on two wheels (and a couple of foot pegs 
)!
We left Marysville, Ohio at 8:00am on Friday. We hit rain in Springfield, Ohio which continued to drench us clear through to Lexington, Kentucky. Because of the rain, we stayed on the interstate until we reached Richmond, Kentucky and were finally able to slow down a bit and take the back roads. We ended up riding 421-South through the "hollers" of Kentucky until we came to Route 11 and then Routh 25E. We took Route 25E through the Cumberland Gap tunnel (very cool in and of itself) and finally ended day one in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Saturday morning we rode to Maryville and caught the north end of Route 129 (the Dragon). It's not very curvy at all until you get past the dam and begin ascending into the mountains. Once you're there, though, you know it!. Not only is the road curvy...but the curves themselves are some of tightest (if not the tightest) I have ever seen. Most of them were in the neighborhood of 180-degree turns, some even exceeded that, and almost all of them required peg-scrapage to maneuver my bike through them. I rode halfway up in 3rd gear and when it really got tight I finished the second half leaving it in 2nd. The "straightaways" were only long enough to hit redline in 2nd before the next curve was beckoning me to slow down. Around the tightest curves there were cars parked along the roadway with www.killboy.com plastered on the side and photographers would snap pictures of the underside of your bike as you barreled through the turns. I have yet to pop over to their website but I'm hoping the pics they take are available for sale.
Anyway, we ended up in North Carolina at a small diner and fuel stop where we got a bite to eat and a souvenir t-shirt. We then rode the Dragon the opposite way (back down) and then continued on to Pigeon Forge. We ended Saturday in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky around 10:00pm and then made it back to Ohio around 2:30pm on Sunday. All told we traveled 1019 miles in three days and had the time of our lives! I recommend the Dragon to anyone who has the means to do it!
Rainsoaked at a rest stop in Lexington
Pic from the hotel
Tennessee/North Carolina border (near the tail of the dragon)
Pics at the diner
Tree of Shame (pay close attention, Scan! )
Scenery
Mid-point
Dam
)!We left Marysville, Ohio at 8:00am on Friday. We hit rain in Springfield, Ohio which continued to drench us clear through to Lexington, Kentucky. Because of the rain, we stayed on the interstate until we reached Richmond, Kentucky and were finally able to slow down a bit and take the back roads. We ended up riding 421-South through the "hollers" of Kentucky until we came to Route 11 and then Routh 25E. We took Route 25E through the Cumberland Gap tunnel (very cool in and of itself) and finally ended day one in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Saturday morning we rode to Maryville and caught the north end of Route 129 (the Dragon). It's not very curvy at all until you get past the dam and begin ascending into the mountains. Once you're there, though, you know it!. Not only is the road curvy...but the curves themselves are some of tightest (if not the tightest) I have ever seen. Most of them were in the neighborhood of 180-degree turns, some even exceeded that, and almost all of them required peg-scrapage to maneuver my bike through them. I rode halfway up in 3rd gear and when it really got tight I finished the second half leaving it in 2nd. The "straightaways" were only long enough to hit redline in 2nd before the next curve was beckoning me to slow down. Around the tightest curves there were cars parked along the roadway with www.killboy.com plastered on the side and photographers would snap pictures of the underside of your bike as you barreled through the turns. I have yet to pop over to their website but I'm hoping the pics they take are available for sale.
Anyway, we ended up in North Carolina at a small diner and fuel stop where we got a bite to eat and a souvenir t-shirt. We then rode the Dragon the opposite way (back down) and then continued on to Pigeon Forge. We ended Saturday in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky around 10:00pm and then made it back to Ohio around 2:30pm on Sunday. All told we traveled 1019 miles in three days and had the time of our lives! I recommend the Dragon to anyone who has the means to do it!
Rainsoaked at a rest stop in Lexington
Pic from the hotel
Tennessee/North Carolina border (near the tail of the dragon)
Pics at the diner
Tree of Shame (pay close attention, Scan!
) Scenery
Mid-point
Dam
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NorthernPete
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ZooTech
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I just got back from www.killboy.com. Looks as though my assumptions were correct, and my pics will be available shortly.
Just an FYI, that video of the yellow GoldWing the spawned this thread was rather impressive, but only after going there in person will you truly know just how impressive. I don't believe the video shows the tightest turns, and while the speed actually looks quite tame in the video, you'd be surprised just how fast 30mph feels on some parts of the road!
Just an FYI, that video of the yellow GoldWing the spawned this thread was rather impressive, but only after going there in person will you truly know just how impressive. I don't believe the video shows the tightest turns, and while the speed actually looks quite tame in the video, you'd be surprised just how fast 30mph feels on some parts of the road!
