Appalachians · Tail of the Dragon and Cherohala
A 202 km loop from Deals Gap
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Why this ride
Corners, discipline and zero interest in showing off. Out of Robbinsville and back again: 202 km, roughly 3 h 53 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cherohala Skyway and Tellico Plains. Tail of the Dragon is the high point. The passes are the reason to go.
Roadbook
- Deals Gap
food
Deals Gap is a place where a road made a reputation. US 129, which crosses the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee here, packs three hundred and eighteen curves into eleven miles, and riders from across the world come to try them. The road is known as the Tail of the Dragon, and the nickname comes from the way it twists along the mountainside, with no junctions and hardly a straight section.
The riding is as demanding as the stories suggest. Corners come one after another, with tight hairpins, quick esses and blind crests, and the surface can be patchy, with gravel, tar snakes and, after rain, slippery leaves. Speed limits are low and strongly enforced, and there are police patrols, so the sensible approach is to ride within your abilities, stay in your lane and not overtake in corners. Crashes are frequent, and a collection of broken motorcycle parts nailed to a tree at the gap, known as the Tree of Shame, is a reminder. Early weekday mornings are the best time, as weekends fill with riders and cars. Photographers often set up along the road to take pictures of passing bikes.
The surroundings are beautiful. The Smokies, among the oldest mountains on Earth, are covered in deciduous forest, famous for its colour in October, and the valleys are cut by clear rivers. Nearby Cheoah Dam appeared in the film The Fugitive, in the scene where Harrison Ford leaps from the spillway. The Cherohala Skyway, forty-three miles of well-engineered road across high ridges between Robbinsville and Tellico Plains in Tennessee, makes an excellent alternative with sweeping views and fewer cars.
Food and fuel need some thought. The motorcycle resort at the gap has a shop and a restaurant, and has been the traditional meeting point, but it is wise to arrive with a full tank. Robbinsville, about nineteen kilometres away, is the nearest town with a proper supermarket and several stations. Mountain weather changes quickly, with cold mornings and sudden showers even in summer, so carry waterproofs.
- Tail of the Dragon
pass
The Tail of the Dragon is eleven miles of US 129 between Deals Gap in North Carolina and Tabcat Creek in Tennessee, with 318 curves, and every motorcyclist in the southeastern United States has heard of it. The road crosses the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee and Nantahala National Forests, and it twists and doubles back on itself in a way that seems almost deliberate. The curves are tight, the camber is off in places, and there are no junctions, driveways or houses to break the sequence. It is not a road for speed, but for rhythm and concentration, and riders speak of it with respect.
Deals Gap, at the North Carolina end, is the centre of the scene. A little resort sits by the road, with a shop, a restaurant, and a famous collection of broken motorcycle parts known as the Tree of Shame, hung up by riders who have come to grief on the road. The resort has been a gathering point for decades, and the walls are covered with stickers and photographs. Photographers set up along the road and sell pictures of passing riders, which is part of the culture. The beautiful lake nearby is Calderwood, and the Cheoah Dam, a short distance away, featured in a famous film chase in the 1990s.
Be sensible. Crashes happen here every year, and the road is patrolled by police, with strict speed enforcement. Ride within your limits, keep to your side of the line, and never cross the centre. Gravel, wet leaves and oil spills collect in the corners, and cyclists and cars sometimes travel the road. Weekends, particularly in summer and autumn, can be crowded, so aim for a weekday, early in the morning, when the road is clear and the mist lies in the hollows. In winter, ice can close the road for a time.
The surrounding country is dense forest of oak, hickory and rhododendron, with creeks and waterfalls, and black bears roam the hills. Fall colour is excellent, and the spring wildflowers are lovely.
Services are limited. There is a store and restaurant at Deals Gap, but check for fuel before you arrive, and do not count on it. Robbinsville, twenty-one kilometres away, and Maryville, thirty, are the safe places to fill up. Carry water, and tell someone your plans, as cell signal is poor in the hills.
- Cherohala Skyway
scenic
Thirty years of argument went into building this road, and you can feel the patience in it. The Cherohala Skyway climbs through the Cherokee and Nantahala National Forests between Tellico Plains in Tennessee and Robbinsville in North Carolina, forty-odd miles of smooth, wide, well-cambered tarmac that opened in 1996. The name stitches together Cherokee and Nantahala, and the road earns both halves: it crosses real wilderness, with ridgelines rolling away in every direction and no billboard, hamlet or traffic light for as far as the eye can see.
This is the calm cousin of the nearby Tail of the Dragon, and plenty of riders prefer it. The bends are long, the sightlines are generous, and the surface is the kind that makes you want to lean into it. Gradients are steady rather than savage, with the road topping out well above five thousand feet, high enough that the air is cool in July and that frost can come early and late. Fog sits in the hollows on cold mornings, and in winter ice can close parts of the road, so check before you go in the colder months. Police patrol it regularly, and the limit is worth respecting. Traffic is light, apart from the October weekends when the whole range turns red and gold and every car in Tennessee seems to be pulling into the overlooks.
What strikes you is how big and empty it is. Under the road lie some of the oldest mountains on earth, worn down over hundreds of millions of years into long, rounded ridges. The forests hold oak, hickory, tulip poplar and hemlock in the lower stretches and spruce-fir and grassy balds higher up, and black bears are common. Not far away stands Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, one of the few places in the East where huge old trees were never cut, and its trunks are worth a short detour on foot.
The Cherokee were here long before any highway, and the names on the map, Tellico, Santeetlah, Nantahala, are theirs. The lake you glimpse from the western side, Santeetlah, was made by a power dam in the 1920s.
Please do not rely on finding fuel on the mountain, because there is none for the full length of the climb. Robbinsville is the nearest town on this side and Andes and Murphy lie further south, so fill the tank before you commit, and carry water and a rain layer. The weather at the top is its own business.
- Tellico Plains fuel
fuel
Tellico Plains sits where the Tellico River comes out of the Unaka Mountains into the broad valley of eastern Tennessee, at about two hundred and seventy metres, and it is the gateway to the Cherohala Skyway. The town is small, with a main street, a few cafes and a general air of being at the end of the road, which in a sense it is. Behind it the mountains of the Cherokee National Forest rise in wave after wave, and in front the valley opens toward Madisonville and the Tennessee River.
The Skyway is the reason riders come. Its name combines Cherokee and Nantahala, the two national forests it links, and it climbs from this valley across the Unicoi range and down into North Carolina, about forty-five miles of road with long sweeping climbs, grand views and, at its highest, a little over five thousand feet. It was built over some thirty years and opened in 1996, and it was designed with gentle gradients and wide curves, so it is smooth and easy, a more relaxed counterpart to the famous tight twisting of the Tail of the Dragon, which lies farther south.
Before heading up, fill the tank. Tellico Plains has a few stations on the main road, and it is wise to use one even if the gauge looks fine. Food is easy in town, with diners serving breakfast, burgers and barbecue, and a coffee and a biscuit make a good start. In peak season, weekends bring many bikes, so earlier is better.
The area has history older than any road. The Cherokee had a string of towns along the Little Tennessee River nearby, including Tanasi, which gave Tennessee its name, and much of that land lies under the water of Tellico Lake. The Trail of Tears, the forced removal of the Cherokee in 1838, started from this region, and the land holds a heavy memory.
Weather in the mountains changes quickly. The valley can be warm while the ridge is cold and wet, so pack layers and a rain jacket. Fall colour, in October, is the best show of the year.
- Back to Deals Gap
finish
Back at Deals Gap. That is the ride.