I have traversed the section of US 129 known as The Tail of the Dragon (more commonly referred to as The Dragon) five times now, 3 times headed south, twice north. The last time was a couple months ago on the way to northern Georgia, to ride the better roads of the region.
We rode down through it on a Thursday, and the crowds were thinner than on weekends, when hordes of everything from minibikes to half-ton baggers populate the road. Police, as well as the now-innumerable hero cameras park at every turn. Riding back up that way on Saturday to have lunch at the Resort at Deal's Gap, we decided it was way too crowded and took other routes.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; The Tail of the Dragon is a novelty. 318 turns in 11 miles means it's tight, slow and technical, and the larger and heavier your machine is, the more of a wrestling match it is to exceed the 30 mph speed limit. I've never ridden the Norton there, but it would be a damn sight easier than the two nearly-600 lb. whales I have. It's a bucket list item everyone should do once, but having done it, the only reason to do it again is simply as a route to get somewhere else. It is to be avoided otherwise, especially on weekends and especially on heavy cruisers like the ones in the story. I've seen video of two nearly identically-dressed Harley riders on a pair of nearly identical Harleys colliding head-on on the double yellow of one of the turns. Why anyone would want to take one of those barges down US 129 is beyond me.
It's sad that those two guys had to lay down that cliff for 27 hours before being found. It's amazing, considering the crowds, and how much slower they had to be going than a typical sportbike, that no one witnessed the crash. But the crash itself is no surprise. One or two die there every year. At least the semi-truck drivers that used to jackknife in the tighter turns have learned to avoid it.
