Tail of the Dragon / Moto vlog

Good morning. We are rolling through East Tennessee headed towards the North Carolina border. We're going to the tail of the drag runway. We just came across this beautiful lake back here. About to head into the mountains here. Look at the sign I just saw. Motorcycle. High crash area next 11 miles. And it may be a Monday but the bikes are just coming. Coming. Coming. So we are on top of, I don't know, what road is this that we're on? This is the dragon? You're on the dragon. I came in the back side of it. Yeah when you saw those signs that said curvy roads the next 11 miles. Yeah. You're officially on the dragon. Oh hell we're on the dragon. You're looking at Montana Lake. Montana Lake. Check this out. It's absolutely gorgeous. So the bikes are coming in from all over the place. Right now we've got just a bunch of people on a Monday afternoon collecting on top of this. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set up my mic, get my helmet on and we're about one mile in. I'm gonna run you guys the entire thing through on my helmet cam from one mile in the back side of the dragon. So I'm gonna get my helmet set up and we'll roll. Alright y'all we are here at Deals Gap. We're about one mile in the back side. Scooter and I are getting ready to ride. We're just kind of hanging out here talking to some people. We're going to take you on the entire ride of the tail of the dragon. Here we go. Alright y'all here we go. Tail of the dragon. Our elevation is pretty high. I can really feel the temperatures up up here from where I was. Nice curves. Let's see what we get. Deals Gap and really what is the entrance. I kind of came in from the back side. Got one mile in. I said wait a minute. Talked to some guys and they said yeah this is the dragon. So I'm just gonna take it easy because I want you all to see the ride. I don't want to just hammer through it as fast as I can. So I did the pig trail recently and I just did a lot of shots of like you know the day up to the pig trail. You know more of just like a daily vlog is what people have been asking for. But a recent guy said hey man we really want to see more of the ride. So this is for you my friend. You said you wanted to see more of the ride. I'm going to give you the entire. Minus the last one mile. Tail of the dragon. This is the this is the best part of it anyhow. In total it's 11 miles. The pig trail I just did was 23 miles. So kind of give you a comparison there. There are some tight turns here. This is not a road for the amateurs. Although Scooter. Scooter loves these twisties man. I don't know if you can see him in the mirror there. See if I get you in the mirror. But he loves these twisties. So funny because he just leans into them. Now for the beginners. The key to setting up a good turn. Start on the outside, cut to the inside, end on the outside. Then you'd have to sway it up here to do the same thing back for that switchback. Then you end up on the outside come back to the inside. Always downshift before the turn. No brakes in the turn when they throttle. All right. Try to stay steady and smooth on those turns. For those of you that don't know. I'm sure most of you watching do. But I'm always into helping people that have never ridden before. Right. We could do it again in a really fast paced session. But realistically I think it's better to see it like this. I'll tell you one thing. In rides like this. This is where I really like the torque of this Milwaukee. If you get down in these corners like this. And if you just want to throttle on them. You can really get going. Of course that's not what we're looking for here. Whoa man. Freaking kids. Risking people's lives man. That's what they make tracks for buddy. And this is why I really don't like the Dragon. The last time I was up here. And I shouldn't say I don't like it. But this is what I don't like about the Dragon. Last time I was up here. Same thing man. Just people acting fools. Riding completely unsafe. Way over their skill levels. And yeah. It's just dangerous. It's almost not even worth it to be honest. It is a nice run. Although I will tell you. I don't think it's the nicest run I've ridden. I wouldn't even put it in the top three. Matter of fact there's more roads around the Smoky Mountain area that are better than this ride. Oh right. It's just this ride has gotten famous. It's really well publicized. I like a little bit more sweepy curves and all this myself. This hairpin stuff is fun. It's a good you know a good test of your skill level like this. But realistically I like more sweeping turns. They got all these guys set up on these corners taking pictures of you. We'll give him a nice traffic out here. But on the weekends. On the weekends it gets even worse. I will say though even coming up here man. I saw some beautiful roads coming up here. And I just I almost forgot how beautiful the Smoky Mountains are to ride. This is definitely one of my favorite riding areas. Maybe not just this road. There's not very many views as you can see. Just a lot of trees. Runs along this cliff over here. But it is nice and sweepy and the road is well maintained. I'll give them that you know for the most part. It's just I like the bigger stuff. I like the big corners and the big views and elevations myself. Mile marker three. I don't know what that means. But I wonder if I wonder if it starts on one. I guess what I was trying to say. These kids. There's just nothing fun about that. Yeah I guess maybe maybe it does start a mile marker one. We'll find out. It's hard to believe that's only been one mile. And getting these twisties we're doing you know 35 40 miles an hour. Yeah we could do a little faster if we wanted to. But no point in it really. Could not ask for better weather though. I'm not sure what the temperature is. But it is comfortable. Nice and cool. Warms up a little bit when you hit the sun like this. Keeping it a little tight. Oh man stay on your side of the road dude. So that's how stuff happens right there. Makes my heart drop. If you don't know I got hit. All right welcome to North Carolina. If you don't know I got hit by a lady who came across the other line like that. Hit me head on. Scooter was fine. I got life lighted out. Still only have 70 percent of my leg to this day. So when I see stuff like that cars coming across that line. Man it it absolutely makes my heart drop to this day. You can find videos back on my YouTube of where I where I got hit. All right looks like we made it. And that my friends is it. That is the entire tail of the dragon. Oh you talking to him buddy? Scooter's talking to the dogs. What's up? Was that a good ride? Was that a good ride buddy? Huh? Was that a good ride? Okay come on up. All right we have made it at tail of the dragon kill boy. This is actually one of the photographers that's up there. And then over there is deals gap which is like the famous campground out here. So Scooter and I are just gonna walk around. Check this out. I wanted to take you guys and show you. It's kind of sad but important reminder I think. I call it the tree of shame. This tree is all parts of bikes that have wrecked on the tail of the dragon. And they strap them all to this tree here. And you can see there's a lot of wrecks happening in a lot of parts. I don't know. I don't know who wrecked the big wheel. I know I wrecked a few of those back in the day. But yeah it is the tree of shame. One list. One trophy. One award. One place to recognize motorcycles that I hope I never make. All right y'all that is it for today's vlog. Riding the tail of the dragon. I do always say the tail of dragon has one thing that no other road that I've ever ridden has. And that is a really good publicist. It's a lot of tight corners. There's a lot of cars. Showing out all across it. Really one of the more dangerous rides I think. Not just because the corners. Just because the way people like to ride on it. It's something that you got to do. It's a bucket list thing. But in my opinion in the northeast Tennessee North Carolina area. There's a lot better roads to ride. Although I did get my tail the dragon sticker added to my bike. And I also added the moonshiner 28. That my friends in my very humble opinion is probably one of the best roads in the Smokies. So if you're out there give that one a shot. Maybe I'll ride it all the way up and film it for you on my way back north towards New York. Because we are giving away three more brand new Harley Davidsons. That's right. So all you got to do is just go on adamstandofallrides.com nominate a veteran. It's a 50 word or less essay. And who knows maybe we'll be surprising them next. Our very last bike giveaway will be in New York right around Veterans Day. So we're really excited for that. Because we're going to ride with the Wounded Warrior Project in the world's largest Veterans Day parade. Until our next vlog thank you all for joining us. Thank you for coming along. I hope you enjoyed the tale of the dragon. If you've got any other roads you think I should ride tell me right down there in the comments. If you have not yet please consider giving us a subscribe. It helps us continue to travel and bring you more great roads and awesome people. So until the next vlog, Adam and Scooter telling you all to dream until your dreams come true.