Blue Ridge Pkwy

Anyone have any advice for first time ride on Blue Ridge Pkwy and Tail of the Dragon. I'm going there in June.

blu ridg

do it,,,pops

Careful at the tail... There is a web site for it, just google it. Best time to go is during the week... weekends are too f...ing crowded. Best of luck dude...

I did the Blue Ridge Parkway two summers ago and Tail of the Dragon last year. I have about a thousand incredible pictures from that trip. Make sure you take a good camera and give yourself time to stop and admire the views.

It'll probably be damp/wet at times, hence the "Smoky", so take rain gear that's easy on and off and in a place that's easy to get to. You don't dry out quickly like you would in Texas or out west. It's a very humid environment. It's also very hot in the middle of summer. I went at the end of May, beginning of June and it was comfortable for riding and camping. If you're coming from the northeast, the H-D factory in York might be on your way. Worth the stop.

I left the Tail of the Dragon thinking that I wouldn't go out of my way to ride it again. I'm glad I rode it so I could say I did, but the experience was not spectacular. I was there on a Thursday morning. There weren't a lot of people riding. I came up from the North Carolina end. The first mile or so was fun, but then I got stuck behind a couple of dressers going REALLY slow. That probably wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, because then a cop got on my tail. Apparently they'll write you up for crossing the yellow line and speeding in a heartbeat, and they are all over the place. My recommendation is go because you'll be there anyway, but don't get too excited about what an awesome ride it's going to be.

There's a guy with a small shop at the North Carolina end of the road. He's very friendly and sells t-shirts and other Tail of the Dragon crap. If you're going to buy that stuff, go to his place. I had to replace a headlamp and he sold it to me at a great price and had no problem with me doing the work myself in his yard. And he let me use his bathroom!

Have fun. It'll be a great ride.

OK - I see you're from Texas. Definitely invest in rain gear, even if it's cheap stuff just for this ride. If you can take the extra day to ride up to York, do it. I think it's one of the better plants to visit. They assemble Softails and the touring bikes there.

you think it was bad when you were here in may, state of tennessee allotted 60,000.00 starting aug. 07 of last year to put even more cops patroling the tn side of the dragon, and have heard they have more for this season. but they had to do something alot of people getting hurt and several killed every year. check this ride out, hwy 421 from bristol, tn to boone, nc, its called the tennessee snake i think its a better ride than the dragon, then when u get into boone there are all kinds of good roads to ride.

dkin21