CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Clayton it runs 99 km to Cleveland; allow about 1 h 39 of riding. The stops in between: Dillard and Hiawassee. The climb of the day is Unicoi Gap. It tops out at 900 m. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For about 11 km this is Chattahoochee Gaps Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
This part of the ride is 20 km of Chattahoochee Gaps Road.
This part of the ride is 13 km of Richard Russell Scenic Highway.
Clayton is where the day begins. Next is Dillard.
Dillard lies in the Little Tennessee valley in Rabun County, the north-eastern corner of Georgia, a place of high green meadows and farms hemmed in by forested ridges. It feels like a bowl of land set between mountains: cattle graze the lower slopes, orchards climb the hillsides, and the road along the valley floor runs between rail-fenced pastures. Its mild summers have drawn visitors from the Georgia lowlands for well over a century, and the old inns and guest houses of the district still do a steady trade in country cooking and mountain air.
Read the complete Dillard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dillard comes up about 11 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hiawassee.
Hiawassee is a lakeside town, and the lake is the thing. Lake Chatuge, a long, winding reservoir built by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the early 1940s, fills the valley, stretching across the state line into North Carolina, and its shoreline is a tangle of coves, wooded points and small marinas. The town of Hiawassee, with about nine hundred inhabitants, sits at the western end of it, a handful of streets of shops, cafes and motels along the main road, and the water is only a few minutes away.
Read the complete Hiawassee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Hiawassee. Next is Unicoi Gap.
A gap is a low point on a ridge, and Unicoi Gap is one of the notable ones on the Georgia Blue Ridge. It carries State Route 75 over the crest between Helen and Hiawassee, and it is also where the Appalachian Trail crosses the road, so a pull-off and a trailhead sit at the top, and during the hiking season you will see boots, backpacks and sunburnt faces. The name is thought to come from a Cherokee word for white, or perhaps for fog, and the fog is certainly present on many mornings, rolling up out of the valleys and pooling at the gap.
Read the complete Unicoi Gap write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The high point of this section, 900 m up. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Helen, mostly downhill.
Helen is a Bavarian village in the Georgia mountains, an improbable idea that somehow works. Founded as a lumber town in the early twentieth century, it fell on hard times after the timber ran out, and in the late 1960s local businessmen, looking for a way to attract tourists, hired an artist to redesign the town in the style of an Alpine village. Today, half-timbered buildings with painted facades, flower boxes, cobbled alleys and signs in German script line the streets, and the Oktoberfest, held from mid-September through October, is among the longest in the country.
Read the complete Helen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Helen. That is the ride.
Clayton → Dillard, 11 km. Part of Chattahoochee Gaps Road.
Dillard → Hiawassee, 54 km. Part of Chattahoochee Gaps Road.
Hiawassee → Unicoi Gap, 20 km. Part of Chattahoochee Gaps Road.
Unicoi Gap → Helen, 13 km. Part of Chattahoochee Gaps Road.