Joe,
Thanks for this post. The Dragon and all the roads that lead to it, is some of the best riding I’ve ever done.
Dan;
I agree with all your statements except for “tractor trailers have no busisness on the dragon”.
Tractor-trailers pay taxes just like everyone else and if your moving a load from Knoxville, TN to Robbinsville, NC; it’s the most direct route.
It IS business.
I’ve ridden the Dragon 4 times, hope to do it a hundred times more. Every time I’ve been there, except the last (cold weekday) Sporties would ride up on and pass me or I’d pull over and let them pass. Sometimes a group would sit on the side of the road and wait for no traffic, so they could bomb through.
I suspect they send one forward and call back with the “all clear, no trucks”, I would.
I’m no angel and we all have different levels of “guts”. I’ve caused other cruisers to pull over and let me pass because they felt they were holding me up. But I believe, maybe erroneously, I could stop at any time if something was blocking my lane. The speed limits posted, if obeyed, should give any vehicle time to stop.
It’s all up to personal responsibility. Everyone is responsible for the operation of their own vehicle and truckers, for the most part, are the most responsible group out there.
With all due respect to Peter Meyer, I disagree with just about everything he stated.
No, wait, I agree with this.
"It's pretty unforgiving territory," said motorcyclist Peter Meyer.
Yes it is, so everyone should use caution, especially motorcyclist.
These statements I don’t agree with.
"They effectively take over both lanes, and there is no way to see the corner like that," Meyer said.
If your going the at or under the speed limit there is.
Meyer says he doesn't buy those reasons. He believes many truck drivers are choosing The Dragon for the scenic route.
I can’t see truck drivers going on ANY road for the scenery.
NCDOT says the change is directly linked to Woodard's death. "We saw a tractor-trailer go by at 40 miles an hour," said cyclist D.J. Hamback.
How fast are the motorcyclists going? I know I was over the limit and was still passed by many.
reasons given for not banning long hauls were that it would "severely impact commerce" and there's "no reasonable alternative route for commercial traffic."
IMHO, the TDOT has it right.
NCDOT says the change is directly linked to Woodard's death
I believe NC was wrong to change the use of any road due to one singular incident, and maybe they didn’t, but to restrict use of one group of commercial users so that another group of recreational users can break the law, shows it’s okay to ignore speed limits. It also shows that the traffic engineers that set those limits were wrong, which I suspect they weren’t.
On my last trip to the area, 2 weeks ago, I had the pleasure of riding rte 60 from Suches, GA to Blue Ridge, GA. Beautiful day, road, views. I gassed up in Suches and got behind a food service truck that impeded my ride and view. I followed for awhile, hoping the driver would pull over and let me pass, but he wasn’t thinking the same.
I took a side driveway that had a sign for one of the many places of worship that seem to be everywhere and discovered an old cemetery. I stopped and spent an hour reading gravestones and smoking a cigar. I had the privilege to read a few Civil War Vets (Grey, obviously) markers that, without that truck, I would never had seen.
Maybe trucks do make it difficult to enjoy the ride as much as we could, but they have the right to the road as much as we do.
And I was glad for that food service truck.
