Gap Ride Report Just In / Heads Up!

[Hogtied]

Friends, Howdy.. I live in the Sandhills, so I don't get to your meetings or events, but I do keep an eye on your forum threads. Someday I'll get up that way.

I have a FOAF (friend of a friend) who rides a sport bike and who lives to ride Deals Gap. He's a very experienced and mature rider, but he does like to go fast (who doesnt'). He just returned from a weekend trip to Robbinsville. I thought y'all might find his ride report interesting, since y'all are headed that way in a couple months. I hope that the high concentration of LEOs will die down as the end of the m/c riding season approaches. Here's his email, copied & pasted word for word:
_________________________________

I just returned from a two day stay in Robbinsville. Had decided to blow off work to do a few days of riding. Drove down godawful early Friday morning with both the KS and R1 and lofty plans of riding the dragon for about 1/2 the stay and the Cherohala Skyway for the other half.. Things didn't go as expected.

Ordinarily, on Fridays this time of year there are about 200 bikes at the Crossroads of Time by 11am.. about 3/4 of them sportbikes... When I arrived Friday around 11:30 I was one of 4 sportbikes there...All the rest were cruisers. Very odd as it was perfect weather... no chance of rain. One pass on the Dragon explained the ghost town... I passed NINE marked and un-marked police on the one pass out and each had a bike pulled over being ticketed. I got to the overlook and asked the few there what was going on and they said the Tennessee law enforcement had gotten a multi-thousand dollar grant from the governor to pay for as much overtime necessary to stop the madness which is the Tail of the Dragon. One local said it had been this way for the last 3 weeks with no end in sight.... Geezz.. Time to call it a day.

On the way back I rode my R1 like I was tiptoeing through a minefield ...as slow as I'm possibly capable of and still got stopped and ticketed. . About 1/2 way through the 11 miles I hear a siren behind me and see the blue lights so I pull over. I had been doing only 35mph. I take my helmet off and walk back to his car and say... "I know you aren't stopping me for speeding.. I was going only 35mph.!" He informed me that I was speeding..(apparently the speed limit is 30.. DOH!) and on top of that.. he said I passed a lessor bike over a double yellow somewhere in the last 6 miles, which I honestly didn't remember but I pass everyone so I really don't pay attention to such details....plus.. he said he couldn't read my plate which is a registration violation. The young state trooper grabs my license, registration, and an insurance card and heads back to his car. I thought he might nail me for not having insurance but apparently he didn't make the call to the insurance company (it was my BMW carrier card). He comes over to me.. looks me up and down... it's hot, humid, and I'm wearing full leathers He says.. "You look like you've been riding longer than I've been an officer so I'm gonna let you off on the speeding AND crossing the double yellow. He wrote a ticket only for the plate issue. All in all... could have been worse...

I spoke to a few fellow riders when I got back to the Crossroads of Time and in Robbinsville. Most had gotten tickets within the last few hours or days and swore they wouldn't be back. One local had a semi-plausible theory and explained it thusly... It all started about a month ago when there was a multi-page article in Motorcyclist showing Killboy's (the local Dragon photographer) best crash photos. Apparently this really pissed off both the Tennessee law enforcement people AND the gov of Tennessee. It made them (they think) look incompetent. Rather than stand idly by... (according to the guy I spoke with).. they decided enough is enough and not only were they going to shut the sportbike crowd down but they were gonna try to put Killboy out of business. Why Killboy? They seem to think it's his pics that are attracting the crazies to the area. So far, Killboy (Darryl Cannon) hasn't "technically" broken any laws, but he's been skirting a fine line. There is a Tn law on the books about operating a roadside biz, but Killboy doesn't actually exchange any monies from where he and his staff are taking pictures so they are, for now, beyond the reach of the law. I was told the gov is trying to close a loophole and/or change the Tn statutes in order to put him out of business AND... is working on some sort of legislation that would turn Hwy 129 (the Dragon) into a state park.. If this happens.. the Tail of the Dragon as we know it will cease to exist.... THAT is their goal.

I spoke to Darryl Cannon, the Killboy himself tonight and he blows off this theory. He says he had heard the crackdown was coming 6 months ago and believes is not related to the Motorcyclist article. Another contributing factor he says is that there were 3 deaths within 24 hours recently. No fatalities for 11 months prior. 1 guy on a sportbike and a couple on a trike were killed in separate accidents. More details can be found on the Killboy website at www.tailofthedragon.com

IMHO....One important factor that drives all of this is envy. Millions of dollars are being spent annually by motorcyclists visiting the area but virtually 100% of it is going to NC..Tennessee isn't seeing a thin dime except for the tickets being written. Why? Because 99.9% of the Dragon is in Tennessee, but it ends in NC where all the lodging, food, gas, shops, etc, etc..are located. Tennessee on the other hand is spending millions of dollars for officers to patrol the 11 mile stretch of twisty road, (2) 24-hour a day on-call helicopters for life-flighting downed riders out, and all they are getting in return is roadside carnage, full emergency rooms, and relentless complaints from non-motorcyclists. No wonder they are pissed. It's like they are paying for the perpetual party but aren't being invited. Where will all this animosity end?? I have no idea. I am hoping this onslaught of policing will die down after a few weeks... but I fear the worst. I've been saying for years that it's simply too good to be true... Lets just hope things subside before our annual Deals Gap Rally next month.

Before I end this rant... Has anyone ever wondered why, when the 5 or 6 NC side motels are consistently booked with motorcyclists... and most of the restaurants are packed on weekends .. and the local stores are selling Dragon tees as fast as they can print them why not one entrepreneur on the Tennessee side of the Dragon has thought about building a motel to cash in on the "commodity" which is the Tail of the Dragon? or Opened a Dragon-based store like the Crossroads of Time? I would assume that if Tennessee was getting their fair share of the money pie they'd be less likely to scare off the cash cows... I could be wrong. Opinions?

I'd appreciate any updated reports from anyone who visits the area after this post. I won't waste my time going back until the situation changes..

Jerry ("Danger" is my middle name)
"I speed, therefore I am."

[littlehandegan]

Ugh that really ticks me off

[littlehandegan]

Theres a link to an email adress to complain to and i think it would be a great ideo for everyone to do so....http://www.tailofthedragon.com/dragon_SHUTDOWN.html


Send them an email and let em know how yo feel!

[Hogtied]

Whoa!.. I just went to ToTD's home page!.. thee lads are P.O.'d!

[SB]

My brother just returned yesterday from an event at the Dragon. He said his group was sitting at tabcat bridge and was just about to head out when a patrol car passed. They figured they would jump behind him a little ways back to have some fun but instead had to wait for a convoy of patrol cars to pass before they had the chance to pull out.

He said they kept it reasonable up there but at one point while going the speed limit and not a tire sound to be heard on a curve. An officer waves his finger at them as to say he is watching them.

Why are they doing this? It's anyones guess. But I think a lot has to do with what was mentioned above. Tennessee puts in all the work yet North Carolina gets all the money. It really isn't fair to Tennessee so I'm sure they feel justified getting a little money in return from the visitors. I'm curious about one thing. I wonder if any semi trucks received tickets for crossing the line? It seems bikers are the ones targeted.

[rockridge]

I just watched a video on the www.tailofthedragon.com site, and could not [FONT=&quot]believe [/FONT] the number of troopers on the road. Looks like a [FONT=&quot]revenue [/FONT]party.

[Mini S Pilot]

Figures! This is just my luck.

I've never been to The Tail of the Dragon and we're considering it for the Nov 2-4 gathering of Mini Cooper owners.

So I'll be leaving the $3500 ticketing state of Virginia to enjoy the 'lets see how many tickets we can shove down drivers of The Dragon's throat' in TN. This just SUCKS!

I didn't plan on driving my car reckless what so ever, but with a cop around every corner itching:impatient to give a ticket you know he'll find you doing something wrong that you didn't even consider. Let's not even get into the dishonest cops that get off on this stuff. Sorry about that comment to any honest police officers that might be on this sight. We just have many family members and friends in the force and hear more than our share of crap that some cops (dirty) do that ruin the lives of honest folks.

Maybe we could all drive around that weekend the way we all should and see how boring we can make it for the law man at every corner. We should flood The Dragon with Minis that are all driving very very safely. I'm up for it. Heck, that's what I'd planned on anyway being that I'm new to the Mini and will be the Dragon as well. I just wanted a nice weekend with some other Mini people.

[BlimeyCabrio]

Still a long time until November. Plenty of time for things to change there. But, even if they don't, there are tons of great roads up there on the NC side of the border.

If "Tennessee's Finest" are still out in excessive force, we already plan to do a 30mph tour of the Dragon just to show them how "orderly" we can be. And I pity the sucka who pulls me over on the Dragon for a non-infraction. I'll unleash Gloria Allred on their courts...

[BLUCOOPR]

MUTTLY, this has ben long coming. Not only the deaths but the way the sportbikes, cross the double yellow line and speed. Everyone else can pretty much go as fast as they want, why! The sport bikers, just don't seem to get it. It is a public US hiway. I married a gal from Topton NC and I drove the Dragon in a 73 GOAT with 400CUI and 4 in the floor, long before the bikers showed up. Also I am retired trucker and used it as short cut from K-town to Atlanta, of course back then with 38 & 40 foot trailers. The bottom line is the sport bikes, or crotch rockets are the MAIN reason for the crackdown and their actions hurt everyone. US 129 is not a RACETRACK or PROVING GROUND for bikers. If your the old blue hair cruising looking at the beauty and some ass comes flying around you across the yellow line, well do you get it now. Its not money, or who has the hotels or restrauants, its who has the common sense and lets face it most sport bikers are already braindead. Ps. I have rode bikes for years too, so I know.

[BlimeyCabrio]

Whatever the reason... there was virtually NO enforcement presence there this past weekend. And there was an incident between a Miata and a Goldwing - and the Miata was the centerline crosser in this case, at least that was a consistent element of the two different stories I heard.