Dragon Closed

[hardwareman]

Rock slide on 129 ha closed both north and south lanes qa the Dragon.Slide is pretty close to the foothills intersection for thos familiar with the area.Please check before coming as the time frame is speculative at this time.

[koolaid_kid]

Update

Just checked at Tail of the Dragon website.
Those who make such decisions have moved the proposed finish date from Sept. to July 31st.
Work still hasn't started from what I could tell.

[IanC]

Sadly yes, there's a big local deal about it because getting reps from both states together to get everything straight is like pulling teeth. If people want to know what's going on I'll try to keep all up to date. Don't let the closing deter you from visiting though. As I've said before there is no shortage of awesome riding roads around here.

Edit: Hardwareman, just realized you were from Knoxvegas. We'll have to get up sometime for a drink. I'd say ride but as my frame is sitting bare in my garage right now...

[toejams1]

Hmmmm,
A friend, my brother, and I were considering go to the Dragon in April. May have to research these other roads in the area everyone talks about. Suggestions?

[twr1776]

There really is no lack of great roads in that area. 28, Cherohala Skyway, Foothills Parkway, 129 North from Robbinsville to the Dragon, and lots of others. We went through Eastern Kentucky on the way there last year and there were also a lot of good roads.

http://www.tailofthedragon.com/maps_loop.html

[SqDancerLynn1]

I understand their are lots of other nice roads in the area. Did you see the video of the idiot who drove his car up on the rocks ?

[koolaid_kid]

Loads of roads. Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway, some back roads we took down to Georgia and back, just tons of awesome roads. The Dragon is only an 11 mile stretch of road. It just happens to have 319 curves along that 11 mile stretch.

[TheCafeKid]

Or you could hit up west virgina, as they probably only have 11 miles of straight roads in the whole damn state

[willie]

I live less than 100 miles from the Dragon, with equally impressive roads within a 1/2 hr of me. However, in spite of having all these awesome roads in my backyard, I see myself heading back to WV to ride. I thought the roads we enjoyed at the Rally were THAT good. Yeah, when it comes to nice roads, TN doesn't have all that much over WV. Just my opinion but wanting to make a point to anyone close enough to check out WV, its that good.
Willie

[marvinsc]

I live less than 100 miles from the Dragon, with equally impressive roads within a 1/2 hr of me. However, in spite of having all these awesome roads in my backyard, I see myself heading back to WV to ride. I thought the roads we enjoyed at the Rally were THAT good. Yeah, when it comes to nice roads, TN doesn't have all that much over WV. Just my opinion but wanting to make a point to anyone close enough to check out WV, its that good.
Willie

Agreed, the Dinosour of the Senate, Robert Byrd has done the roads in WV well in the last 50 years!

[AOD]

DealsGap.com has good updates, along with Killboy and TOTD.com. The Tennessee DOT just signed a contractor last week to coordinate the clean up, so an official target date for re-opening will be determined.

Couple things to note; they cannot blast rock at the site due to the proximity of 3 dams in the area. Also, folks on the NC side (where the businesses are) are petitioning TN to open the road at the state line and allow traffic one-way.

~Adam

[AOD]

Dragon is open again from the NC side ONLY. 8am-8pm daily. Speed laws enforced strictly.