Having such great time with our last trip we decided we couldn't wait an entire year to get back to the Dragon; so in January we started making plans to do a spring trip in addition to our usual trip in the fall. Trying to guess when the weather would be good enough to make the trip enjoyable, we all settled on the last week of April. As soon as we had a date, we began seeking individuals who wanted to go with us. Just like every other time we've been, initially we had a pretty good response. 10-15 people claimed that they wanted to go. However, just like every other time we've been, as the departure date got closer, more and more people dropped out. To be fair, some people had legitimate excuses, but when your planning trips like this, it does get frustrating.
Anyway, we ended up with five willing riders: Brian (Aprilla Mille R) and Mike (Yamaha R6) both returned with me (Ducati 999R and MV Agusta F4-1000) (Yes I took two bikes again). Joining us for the first time to the Dragon was Jake (Suzuki Hyabusa) and track boy himself Enrico (Suzuki SV-650). With this final line up we all met up at my house early Saturday morning to head to our place in the mountains, the Treetops, owned by Ron and Nancy Johnson, operators of TailoftheDragon.com.

The Trip:

This year the trip up was pretty much uneventful for a change. Does not make for exciting reading but there was not much to write about. I guess we have done this trip enough now that we pretty much have at least the drive up and back figured out.

The Arrival:

We arrived Saturday night to the cold and rain, which turned to snow around midnight. Joy! Because the weather was so crappy, we developed a plan was to unload the bikes at the Ridge (the other rental house) because it has a large garage that is on flat level ground. However, when we arrived, the people staying at the Ridge decided to be ASSHOLES and were not going to let us unload there. (So much for biker brotherly love.) I guess these cruiser types saw the sportbikes and were afraid we might be lunatics or something. Normally, I'm friendly with anyone on two wheels but these guys really pissed me off. They where from Alabama and told us that they had been on rode for 24 hours to get there. Well, we are from Florida and it only took us nine hours. (I can't stand people who lie to me.) We ended up just going down the hill to the Treetops and unloading in the wet.

The Stay:

As much as I Love this trip, unfortunately, this one was not as great as trips in the past. To start, Kevin (RC-51) from previous trips could not make it this year. Being one of my two best friends, (the other being Brian) it was kind of like losing one of the three musketeers. While it was good having Brian to ride with, we both agreed, the trip was not the same without Kevin. Besides that Kevin finally became a Ducati owner when he bought a 999 back in December. While we did get to ride the Dragon in February when we made an unscheduled stop when Brian bought his Mille R, we only spent one day there and we were still getting familiar with our new bikes. It would have been nice to have him with us, all of us on Italian machines. Oh well, enough of the sentimental stuff.
The other draw back to this trip was the weather. I guess we got spoiled last year when we had great weather all week long. Whoever decided to go in April is a retard. (As you can probably guess, it was my idea to go in April.) To be fair to myself, if we would have left a week earlier or a week later the weather would have been fine, just happened the week I choose was cold and rainy most of the week. It is hard to plan for the weather four months out.

The Riding:

Woke up Sunday to the cold but it was clear. We headed up to the Dragon. First run was slow to check the road and get used to actually leaning the bikes (don't get to do that in Florida much). Mike had put on new tires changing from Dunlop 208 GPs to Michilen Pilots. He never had a chance to get the tires balanced before we left. To make a long story short he ended up going down in one of the Horns. It was a simple lowslide and he didn't do too much damage to his bike. (bent is left bar, left rearset and cracked up his tail section a little) Still being able to ride his bike, we decided he didn't have to buy dinner for everyone because nobody else's day was ruined. (i.e. nobody had to go back and get a trailer.) We all made a few passes just taking it slow, learning what little bit of the road we could as we are not locals and don't know this road like the back of our hands.
Monday could have been great but we decided to ride the Loop. (The Loop takes us up the Cherehala Skyway and brings us up the backside of the Dragon, at least the direction we went) However, due to the elevation there was still snow and freezing temps on almost half the road. Once frozen, it takes a while for us Florida boys to warm up. In hindsight, if we had gone to the Dragon to begin with the day would have been great. But as it turned out we spent a lot of time trying to warm up. We did make three passes on the dragon, again kind of slow figuring each day we would get a little faster as we learned the road more and more. Brian had a good scare as we first came in to the Dragon; somewhere between Tabcat Bridge and the Overlook he hit some oil at full lean and nearly highsided. Don't know how he saved it but it slowed him down quite a bit.
Tuesday it rained all day so we went to Wheeler's to buy parts for Mike's bike. Ended up driving to Marysville, TN via a trip across the Dragon in the Hummer. (Brian timed me from the Crossroads to the Overlook, took just over 18 minutes, not to bad in an 8,000 lbs. tank on wet roads.)
Wednesday brought the best weather of the week and we spent the better part of the day on the Dragon. Made a couple of decent passes and stopped at the Crossroads. While there we met Mike and Dave. The two guys that made the "Bit by the Dragon'" flick. Really cool guys. Hung out with them the rest of the day and took a couple pictures of their antics. These guys made the trip for me. They also unknowingly convinced me that I NEED a motard. I sure hope Aprilla brings theirs to the States. Got back to the Treetops just in time for the rain to start.
Tuesday was forecasted to be nice until the late evening. Jake decided there might be more to see here that just the Dragon so he headed out early to check out some other roads. He took the route that I wanted to take last year but I gave up on it due to traffic. A couple hours after he left the rest of us got suited up to go and found ourselves in a light rain shower. We hoped that the weather would get better and headed to the Gap, but the weather only got worse. We spent a few hours at the Crossroads and I rode the Dragon in the rain but finally gave up on the weather and headed back to the Treetops in the pouring down rain. The rain did stop that evening so I took a short ride down the Cherehala.
The weather for Friday was predicted to be the same as Thursday so we decided that if we woke to dark skies and wet roads we would head home. We woke to find dark skies so loaded up the bikes and trucks. While heading into town to gas up however we found that the roads where dry. Undecided what to do, we made the decision to drive up to the Crossroads to check it out. We got there to find the roads still a little damp but drying so everybody but Brian unloaded our bikes and headed up the Dragon for our last day of riding. We then found that the last half was dry so we pretty much just rode sections from the Picnic Table to Parson's curve. Which happens to be my favorite section anyway. I had a really good time. We spent about 3-4 hours just riding the Dragon in sections like this. Darryl (Killboy) was up there and I didn't want to keep going by him (I didn't want to be a camera hog) but damn I was having fun. Brian eventually got tried of waiting on us so he ended up getting his Mille R off the trailer and riding up there. Made the day that much better. I'm so glad that we decided to go ride rather than to go home, as it became the best riding day of the week, for me anyway. As a member of our group that couldn't make it this year say's "I was git'in it!"
As we already called home and said we were on our way, we begrudgingly reloaded the bikes and made our way home. It was a long drive especially after riding. But with Brian's help to keep me awake, we made it back. Now that I'm back home I'm trying to figure out how I can retire early and move the Robbinsville. As I don't imagine early retirement is going to happen real soon for me, I guess I will have to settle for planning the next trip to the Dragon. See you next year.