What's your local "Tail of the Dragon"?

The Tail of the Dragon (on the schedule for Dillard next June) is over three hundred turns in 11 miles of good road surface with no or very limited access from side roads or even driveways. Finding ideal public roads to give you and your LBC a bit of regular high speed exercise in relative safety is becoming increasingly difficult. Once terrific roads have been homogenized by DOT into gentle turns still marked 40 mph which can comfortably be taken by any car or truck, or school bus at 60+.

I honestly have not found one yet in northwest Missouri or northeastern Kansas (just across the river).
So any assistance by the Kansas City region MGE members on their discoveries would be greatly appreciated.

I do have one for Southern California, L.A. Basin MGErs. Turnbull Canyon Road in Whittier, California.
To get there take the 605 to the Whittier Blvd exit. Go east on Whittier to Painter and turn left. Go to Beverly Boulevard (you may also exit the 605 at Beverly and go East) and turn right. This is the west entrance to Turnbull Canyon Road. For the next five miles there is exactly one road intersecting the Canyon road. It is at the summit 2 1/2 miles in and is highly visible as you approach it and has plenty of asphalt run-off room. (This is an ideal location to stage a hillclimb!) After the summit the road drops down for another two and a half miles to the Hacienda Heights Fire Station before coming to another intersecting road.

The road is an absolute blast going either direction. One caution, it is used by bicyclists, motorcylists, and tuner car drivers, all going about as fast as they can (on decents the bicylists may pull away from you). Since it is short (5 miles) your first run through should be taken with some caution. The California Highway Patrol occassionally sets up to ticket folks going over the center stripe to hit the apex of the turns.

What's it like to drive at full tilt? The terrain and road make you feel like you're driving in the Targa Florio.

The road that I live on (County Road 2275) is about a mile long. It has four turns in one mile!

<grin>

All of our roads are on grids.

Road trips are required to find any real fun roads.

<sigh>

You gotta drive 100 miles north of here to Martin County to find anything remotely resembling a fun road waaaah! :( :( It's made me wonder why I bought another sports car to condemn it to living in Miami.

But I do <B my GT :)

PS - Thinking about dragon's tails and Dillard reminds me of the awesome drive we took in 1991 thru N. Georgia and western NC in my '73 Alfa Montreal - that 90 degree, 4-cam, mechanically injected, 12 qt dry sump, 8000 RPM, 2.6L V8 just screamed thru the mountains :)

Closest here is Lime Creek Road off of Volente Beach Road. Don't know the length of it offhand, but it's a good bit of Hill Country twisties.

There are others with lots of turns, but nothing that really gives one a chance to move the shift lever. Once in top gear you stay there. Lime Creek gets the hands and feet busy.

BobbyG

Too many to mention over here.

This is one fairly local to me. Called the Helmsley TT by the bikers.

A great bit of road with not only some great curves, but surface and camber changes. The added excitement of junctions, farm tractors and mud on the road make it a challenging drive if you are pressing on.

Not my video, just one I found on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huLm7xyugZU

I have not driven it but I have heard the Diamondback loop (NC 226A) near Little Switzerland, NC is interesting.

Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway in western Virginia. :-) Not much in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. :-(

Dave

Lets see

Angeles crest highway 66 miles of pure twisties.

Glendora Mountain road Short but very very fun but can nuke your brakes if you chose to go downhill.

Glendora Ridge Road If it was one way it would be one of the very best roads in the country

Little Tajunga Road short but it can kick your butt running at speed.

And that's just the close stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJT_MoEj68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VleEzRwxxBI&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SfyjfFSNBk

There are many such roads nearby to Pumpkintown.
My all time favorite is Devil's Fork.
I have some videos of a few of these gems on my Youtube channel: oldschoolcruiser
http://www.youtube.com/user/oldschoolcruiser?feature=mhee

Devil's Fork is a video of a friend's Caterham on the road.
The "276" videos and the "178" ones are about 10 minutes from my house.
The MGB videos are from Paris Mountain which is about 20 minutes from my place.
There is River Road, #130, River Falls Road...almost too many to name.
I feel VERY lucky.

I think that my driveway would qualify, but if you want to get snotty about it I can show you ten others within a two mile radius should you have the guts to ride with me.:I3:

Jack

PS, That's me in the red shirt.:(

Well one of mine is Paris Mountian's Altamount Rd., it in my back yard, literally 2 miles from the house, 105 turns in a little over 5 miles, then there is Hwy 276 to Brevard, NC, IMHO it's way better than the Dragon, then there is Hwy 178 to Rosman, NC and that's just 3 of literally hundreds of killer mountain roads around here. Also very noteworthy is 221 where Jack Austin lives, that road is probably more curvy than the Dragon as well, and quite the piece of asphalt. Thats what I normally tell folks from not around here, when they ask me if I go the Dragon much, I always tell them I got to drive past 100 roads as good, or better than the Dragon to get to the Dragon.

We're going to be doing driving tours to Dragon at MG2012, I'll be leading one of the groups.

The Dragon is by far the best known curvy road in this neck of the woods, but the last one you want to go and try rip across, because it's swarming with cops, the motorcylcist have went there in droves for years, and crashed their brains out, and now the cops are all over it.

Tail of the Dragon - 317 Turns in 11 Miles

Illinois - 11 Turns in 317 Miles.

Just sayin'.

:devil:

There are some great roads in the UK.but most of them are policed by Gatso speed cameras or hidden mobile safety camera vans.

NC Highway 66, 89, and 8 are right much fun on a Sunday.
http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?1,706877,706930#msg-706930

Living in Chattanooga we have multiple fun roads in the surrounding mountains plus we can venture on up into the Smokies to the Dragon or just go over the Foothills Parkway just below Townsend. Then there is Hwy 64 from thru the Cherrokee national forest. I cant name them all.

Highway 89 north from Congress, AZ, about 20 miles northwest of Wickenburg, through Yarnell then down through Peeples valley, then up again over the White Spar mountains and ending on Whiskey Row in Prescott, AZ. The section from Congress to Yarnell inclines about 3,000 feet up the side of the Weaver mountain in 10 miles. What a blast.

Took a group down one of mine last fall at the Foliage Cruise. It is in the tiny one-cop town of Pelham, MA.

29 turns in 1.5 miles. followed by a secondary route with 39 turns in 2.5 miles.

We stopped at the end of the second section for a bathroom break.

This one..Macquarie Pass claims a few bikes each year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zNP1JUp5Lc&feature=related

Gil, I drove 64 in the Cherokee National Forest on a moonlit night! All I kept say was "I've gotta drive this in the daytime." What a snake!

Pooch2- Now that's what I'm talking about. You even did it on the wrong side of the road!

Stewart, Gendora Crestline and Glendora Mountain Road looked like great cruising! Do give Turnbull a try and see what you think. The terrain is very similar being not that many miles away but a few more curving "straights" going into 2nd gear 180 hairpins and the incline (or decline depending on direction)is greater.

Owen- It's surprising how similar the terrain and the roadway in your video is to that of my own Buchanan County in Missouri. Again, its a great high speed cruising road without the need to change gears or even tap the brakes. I love the passing arrows!

There are just so many near Los Angeles. Little Tujunga, 20 miles on Mulholland Highway west of Las Virgenes down to PCH.

Ten miles up Latigo Canyon from PCH, though it has become a little over populated.

One of my favorites, 25 miles starting on Yerba Buena Rd, Little Sycamore Canyon, Encinal, Decker and Mulholland to Las Virgenes. I actually made my self car sick driving up Yerba Buena the first time. Didn't throw up, but sure felt like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6srPAyrXk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZNwjfCBYI

There are just so many. 33 from Ojai, one of the 50 best roads in the United States. Cerro Noroeste Rd coming out of Pine Mountain Club, CA, Lake Hughes Rd near Santa Clarita, CA. There are just too many.

Winding roads are hard to come by in SE Michigan, but here is a stretch of farm roads that are somewhat fun although the turns are a bit far between:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx6xot-6eBk

There is also a nice winding road following the Huron River that's several miles long but the speed limit is 35 mph and it's usually overrun with cyclers and joggers.

They are all over here in Colorado, just pick a mountain pass. Squaw Pass is one of my favorite as is Independence Pass. Lookout Mountain right outside of Golden is a blast when there are no bicycles on it.
And remember, for population control we do not have guard rails (:P)

That's one of the nice thing about where I live in WV. Almost any road I drive is is twisty, turny, up, and down. It's fun if you don't get stuck behind a flatlander.

Closest that comes to mind would be 259 from Blairsville to Ligonier. Went on a HOG run (that's Harleys in case you don't know) and the old folks were scared to death. I was having a good time.;)

Used to do the Fall show in Staunton for a while. One year I got the bright idea to take 250 from I79 across WV into VA. My wife at the time got motion sickness. We kept smelling brakes burning and sure enough, after a while we came upon a semi stuck in the woods. Rode some sections of it on the bike and OK for a while but eventually I want to get where I'm going!! Truck driver I knew said you could read the trailer plates from the cab going around the switchbacks.

I like Rt 8 from Floyd Va down to Winston Salem NC. We usually take Hwy 52 up through Cana VA and make a big loop. 52 is fun but only if you are going northbound because it has two lanes going up the mountain and you can actually pass people. Hwy 74 going out of Asheville toward Bat Cave, lots of steering wheel work on that one too....

The "Oh My God Road" in Colorado is a gravel, county, back road used between Idaho Springs and Central City. Fast driving not recomended. Just take in the awsome view on a sunny day and the do a little gambling in Central City. As Robert mentioned above there are too many to name. I like a lot of the canyon roads. One of my favorite drives is Coal Creek canyon through Wondervu to Nederland and down Boulder canyon to Boulder.

Bikers have a tool for this: MotorcycleRoads.US. Click through your state and down into your local area. Find a ride you want to try and download it to your GPS.

My favourite around here is 143 in the Kutztown area.

Most of Oregon, most of Eastern Oregon. Check out the biker routes and recommendations for this area. We host quite a few annual rides thru this part of Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington, and spilling on over into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Hwy 14 in No. Wyoming is worth the trip.

Here in New England we have plenty of twisty roads close by, but they're slowly being attacked by "suburban sprawl". Still, I can think of a handful in our town alone, with even more handfuls in our neighboring towns (Jedster1, JDevol, and Hickster know of which I speak). Join us on any of our coffee runs, or our big group ride planned for May, 5, 2012!

Some other southeastern MA favorites that come to mind are:

Route 105, Lakeville - Rochester
Charlotte Furnace Rd/Wareham St, Wareham - Carver
Myles Standish State Forest roads, Carver - Plymouth
Long Pond Rd, Plymouth
Bournedale Rd, Bourne
(I could go on, and on. . . )

Cheers,

Rick

If I had to pick the most curvy road I have ever driven on, it would have to be the road from Greymouth to Picton in New Zealand.

It was like a witches hat slalom course for about 30 miles.

In NH i like the Kancamagus highway/Rt 302 run. Might not be as curvy as the Dragon but still enough curves to make the trip fun with plenty of mountains.

Disclaimer: Even though I might rip up the mountains in my own car, I don't recommend this, or even endorse it, in fact I think it is unresponsible on my part. When I or others lead groups thru the Dragon at 2012 that it is a responsiblity not be taken lightly, we will abide by all laws and speed limits. Our job at MG 2012 is to make sure you have good time, we don't want anyone getting hurt or bending thier cars.

OK Hap! You're forgiven! I was never worried, just havin' fun with ya!

Bill Yeah, I know, but I also know this is not a responsiblity to be taken lightly. We want these folks to have a good time, and showcase our part of the country, so I'll do my best to make you all proud. Now in the case of the autocross, I got somehting real nasty up my sleeves, the folks attending ought to love it :D

[/quote] This is one reason I often thought maybe a good, next road LBC for me would be something like a Morris Minor or Magnette, something big and cumbersone enough for me to not want to go fast in it on the moutain roads, you know slow down for change, and look at the birds, and flowers ;)
[/quote]

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!...I can see the Magnette now. One of your 1800 engines and Headley's B suspension underneath with 205s on VTO Classic 8's carving up all comers foreign and domestic on your favorite local roads.

Here in Sandy Eggo County, we tend to like to drive up one side of Palomar Mountain then down the other to Mesa Grande Road and from there out to Anza Borrego Desert. Never counted the turns, but it's a sweet ride with changes in altitude, temperature and scenery.

In Texas everyone, particularly bikers, raves about the Three Sisters, 335, 336 and 337.

Here's a brief writeup about them.

So far I've only driven 337 from Medina to Leakey and it's really great, particularly the stretch between Vanderpool and Leakey. Texas 16 through the hill country is really great, especially from Medina to Kerrville.

Here in Kerrville there are a bunch of nice twisty local roads to zip around on if you have an hour or so to kill. Just watch out for those deer!

Jim

Someday...I'll do the Blue Ridge parkway and the Tail of the Dragon.
In the meantime, there are dozens of roads near our place in the country. This is one route near us that is a blast to drive and I guarantee that you can go faster than on 'The Tail of the Dragon' :-)

The first bit from Clayton to Tatlock is tighter and fun, the second section to Calabogie can be faster. :-)

http://maps.google.ca/maps?saddr=Clayton,+ON&daddr=Calabogie,+ON&hl=en&ll=45.225095,-76.523895&spn=0.362715,0.627594&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=42.745445,80.332031&geocode=FY-RsQIde1pz-ykNzD081j3STDFVFnLVoxFHVg%3BFV82swId8lNt-ykvgFkAy9LTTDG60N2WxaZShw&oq=calabo&mra=ls&t=m&z=11

Michigan 119 running from Mackinaw City to Harbor Srpings along the northwest coast of the lower peninsula. It's extreemly narrow, winding and no shoulder at all. Road then trees. Ocassionally thought you get to take a peak through the trees out to Lake Michigan and realize that you are driving on a bluff.

Try Scotland for B territory. No Motorways (Freeways ? ) north of Perth and over 200 miles of roads to go to the top of the country. I particularly like the road from Stirling in Central Scotland to Oban on the West coast - about 80 miles of twisting country road. Fabulous even sticking to the 60 mph limit ( or there abouts )

I'll try it out - it's a half hour away assuming no slowdowns on the freeway.

Greg,

Which "It" ae you referring to? If I were in So Cal, I'd try them all. That might be a nice compare and contrast!

Hwy 80 out of Marion, NC. Little known road that goes up into the mountians. It is a blast to drive, not as long as the Tail of the Dragon, but fun to drive.

We have a house at the top of hwy 80 that runs fron Marion NC up to the Blue Ridge Pkw. There are 10 miles of great twisties,switchbacks and elevations changes. It has very little traffic and I think it is part of the Diamond back route which would also run Hwy 221? back down the mountain. I am getting quicker getting up 80! If you are going to be heading up 80 let me know and I will run it with you if I am in the area. Bob

I have driven US 129 AKA the Dragon and Cherohala Skyway...both are great fun along with the road over from US 129 to the Fontana Dam. The road from I-81 west through Hungry Mother State Park down near Abingdon, Virginia is fun.

Having just driven most of it, I recommend highway 1 in California. The northern section from Legget down the coast is fantastic.

Highway 1! That's a real slap on the forehead! It's wonderful for various reasons along its entire length. North of San Francisco it really is a great sports car drive. But the scenery is so spectacular one hesitates to 'just drive it.' Ya gotta slow down and even stop to admire the sights.

San Juan Skyway in SW Colo. Cortez to Telluride to Placerville to Ridgeway to Ouray to Silverton to Durango and back to Cortez. Make a day of it.:)-D