Thunder Roads Magazine of Oklahoma/Arkansas October 2017_web | Page 16

FEATURES
TWO WHEELS, SEVEN STATES
AND HUNDREDS OF SMILES
I’ve been fortunate enough
to have ridden in many areas
containing a lot of popular
highways, roads and terrain. It’s
difficult to determine how an area
becomes popular or arrives on
someone’s bucket list, but I do
know that many of these places
are filled with gorgeous views,
curvy roads, sweeping biways
and yummy greasy spoons!
One such area is the Smoky
Mountains and The Dragon. The
Dragon is an 11 mile stretch of
16
Thunder Roads Magazine of OK/AR
BY “T” COLLIER
road between Tennessee and
North Carolina which contains
318 curves. That’s an average
of 29 turns per mile! I’d heard
of this stretch of road for many
years wondering just how difficult
it would be to ride. When my
riding friends asked me to visit
the beautiful Smoky Mountains
with them, I could hardly wait to
add this famous stretch of road
to my ride diary.
We left Oklahoma on a
Friday evening and took an easy
backroads ride, arriving in Pigeon
Forge, TN on Sunday. We had
time to spare before checking
in our condo so we were quick
to Mellow Mushroom restaurant
that dealt up some yummy
original pizza recipes that went
down quickly after our long ride.
While we didn’t have a
specific agenda of where we
were riding each day, we made
the best of our time by resting
a bit the first day. We located a
lovely little café which became