video clip of the Dragon
 

Oh boy, watch this truck fly down the NC, dragon curvy road. with pulling a long trailer, I would have expected him to slow down a little bit, but in this he seems to be flying. maybe I am just dreaming a little bit though lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6haNzNzWG-0

slow down and keep safe =)

That looked like a Police escort, and an emergency load
of Donuts inbound for this place.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...turalorder.jpg

Noticed the turns were tight and small. My question is ... did he HAVE to take the road like that or is there actually room for him to stay in his lane?

If he HAD to drive like that, aren't trucks restricted from that road?

Tractor trailers DO NOT BELONG on US129 also know as "The Dragon", "Tail of the Dragon" and "Deals Gap". It's kinda know as a motorcycle road (lots of SQUIDS and RUBS) for it's 318 curves in 11 miles. Some are 180 degree turns with steep drop offs on the down hill side.

http://people.consolidated.net/timt/.../DealsGap1.jpg

Check out these sites, they are motorcycle related but may give you a better idea why big trucks DO NOT BELONG on the The Dragon. IMHO

http://www.tailofthedragon.com/
********>>>> http://www.tailofthedragon.com/dragon_trucks.html
********>>>> http://www.landlinemag.com/Archives/...the_dragon.htm
http://www.killboy.com/

Thanks....

Miss riding my bike, tho I'm at the point I can start riding again ( weather permitting ) going to miss it again when I start trucking.

If you were looking at the trailer tandems when he made the last turn, his pass. side tandems were all the way to the right, so I believe he had to use both lanes.

I used to live roughly ten miles from the Dragon. IT IS NOT TRUCK SAFE!

That video is actually really deceiving since it's showing the truck moving at a good speed before the road really starts to get rough. You have to take both lanes, and at times, even that's really not enough. You've got rocky overhangs (you are after all on the side of a mountain), and a drop a good ways down directly on your other side. There are humps in the middle of the road where landing gear is notorious for getting hung up.

The links buddhatim posted are good reading, since trailofthedragon.com has got an entire section dedicated to trucks.

Swift used to route their drivers through there, now a lot of it is restricted to trucks.

I have yet to be in the mess. But what is a good alternate route?

I don't live near there.... I'm in Tx, but I've been thru there several times on my M/C not in a big truck.

I'm too lazy with my mapping program to really drill down into the smaller roads that may be less twisty, I suspect some of them may be almost as bad. But sticking to big roads, US441 to TN68 to TN165/NC143 (it's twisty, scenic and touristy) to Robbinsville puts you back on US129. Or maybe US321 to US 441 and then US19/74 to get back to US129.

Since tndieselgrl is from near there and may be a little more familiar, tndieselgrl can give us more specific safer routes for the area.