“Then the Indians would start following the buffalo trails,” he said. That meant walking around hills, rather than cutting straight through. “When the buffalo would move from spot to spot, they’d take the easy way around,” Johnson said. “There’s not a lot of detail on this particular road.” He did manage to find out that it was originally an animal track formed by buffalo herds, just like most roads in America. “It’s amazing to me how they made it through these woods,” Johnson said. Long before motorcycles and cars, the trail that would become the Dragon was formed by animals, Native Americans and European explorers. He is currently writing a book about it and has a brief summary available on his website. Ron Johnson, who runs with his wife Nancy, has been digging into the history of Tail of the Dragon. “I remember crawling up to the road, and somebody stopped and saw me and helped me from there,” Cannon said. I may be knocked out, and nobody’s gonna find me.” His bike followed him and hit a different tree. “It knocked the breath out of me,” he said. He hit a fallen tree with his lower back, flipped over it and tumbled a couple times. “I just remember sliding backwards with my feet in front of me, and I was like ‘Oh, this is gonna be ugly,’ and I went sailing off the road, flying through the air,” Cannon said. He said he had all his gear on in that moment, including his back protector, but he was sliding back first across the road, heading straight for the trees. “I laid over to go into the turn, and I had my knee on the ground, and then the bike just started leaning over further and I was like ‘What’s going on here?’” Cannon said. Two bikers riding around a corner on the Tail of the Dragon. And then you spend time riding it, and it just becomes magic.”
“It’s a roller coaster that I can control. “It’s so immersive that that’s one of the big appeals of it,” Wylie said.
Riders do not have time to think between corners, but that’s part of the allure. Especially if you come from flatland, and it’s all coming at you so fast.” “This road, the first couple times you ride it, is all reactive,” said Brian Wylie, a carpenter and frequent rider on Tail of the Dragon. “It was a little over our heads, but we managed to stay upright and in between the ditches and not cause any problems.”Īccording to Cannon, it’s that rapid pace of cornering and constant sharp turns that makes Tail of the Dragon so unique and attractive for riders. “To have all these turns thrown at you at such a rapid pace, it was good practice for learning quickly,” he said. While he said he did not encounter any surprises, it was still an intense learning experience. The Dragon was an obvious choice for somebody who wants to experience that feeling.”Ĭannon rode the Dragon for the first time around 1998. “That rush of a sort of push into a corner, I wanted to feel that more. “I started experiencing what it was like to feel carving a corner and how it feels like you’re flying on the road on a motorcycle,” he said. With a broken frame and leaking fuel, his bike was stranded on the Dragon. But with such a purpose-built machine, it wasn’t long before Cannon started craving more.īrian Wylie, an experienced rider who frequents the Tail of Dragon, has not crashed a bike in 10 years until Sept.
“Originally, I got into sport bike riding more for the cruising around, looking cool part,” he said. After a few years of riding, I could see a big difference.” Humble beginningsĬannon rode a Kawasaki Ninja 600 sport bike back then, mostly for the image. “Back then I would put in multiple inputs during one turn on the motorcycle. “It was almost entertaining just to watch my line through the turns, back then versus now,” Cannon said. They had already ridden Blue Ridge Parkway and similar twisty mountain roads, but he said the Dragon was the highlight of their trip, despite being ill-prepared in hindsight. Ĭannon, who now runs his photography business, first rode the Dragon after hearing about it online and convincing some of his biker friends to do a road trip there. A biker riding the Tail of the Dragon around a corner with open sections and view of the Appalachian Mountains.
0 kommentar(er)
