did a 200 mile loop today; started out too late to get to the dragon, but did get all of the skyway. did not see any leo until deep into NC. light traffic, mostly sportbike and supermotard - with an occassional cage and dual sport. kinda cold up top, coulda used another layer or warmer gloves at least. gotta find a better way to get there - slabbing sucks. kinda think this side of the river is easier to get to and pretty good in it's own way (TN Hwy 30 / Booger Hill). Dayton TN start point. think i've come up with a good loop: cherohala (165) to the dragon (129) to 72 to 411 to 360. Gonna try a new route from Dayton too: instead of 68 out of Spring City 30 to 39 all the way. Anybody up for a Sunday thrash?

 

I'm with you on avoiding the slabs... I'm always trying to find backroads to my destinations. Funny how you can go someplace for years, then out-of-the-blue find a cool, new backroad to kill the boredom of running the straight stuff.

 

yeah, i ran 411 all the way down to 39 from 68 coming back and it sucked worse: construction zone the whole way! going from 2 lane to 4 lane. so anything to stay away from that as much as possible. am shooting for tellico plains at around 2 pm at the last gas station on the right before entering the skyway. only have one other rider so far, buddy on a BMW K1200RS; for a big boat, it hustles! and he's got pilot power 2ct's - i'm still trying to wear out the dunflop d204 front oem =>

 

the loop was good , as was 39. the shawk liked the skyway a buttlode better than the dragon. i used to live in knoxville back in the early 90's and ran the zx-7 almost every weekend to deal's, but with the traffic and leo, it just ain't the same. didn't see a fuzz 'til a few miles downhill from CROT, then there were quite a few donut eaters. i ate up 248 miles and chewed up many mills off the rear conti road attack. it was rather good to have the sargent seat today. also, at the far eastern end of the skyway is the tourist crap and road resurfacing - take the NC-1134/Santeetlah Rd. through the Joyce Kilmer Forest to remove that bit of gravel cage misery. keep an eye on the RLOD, not much in the way of petrol around there.