Our trip to the Smoky Mountains was great! Used Maggie Valley as a home base for the entire week and did a ride every day we were there. Even though there were forecasts for rain everyday (30 to 60 percent chance), we managed to do some nice rides and miss most of the rain.

Zoood, his lady, and a friend of his rode with us on two of the days and we had a blast! Really nice people! It was cool riding with someone from the forum and getting to meet them. We had a great time! Pictures to come latter.

Now here are some recommendations for those of you yet to go. Maggie Valley is a great place to stay with plenty of motels and restaurants. Waynesville is just a few miles away with more restaurants. It is located well so you can go in several directions for various trips.

Really enjoyed the segment of the BRP that is between Cherokee and route 276 (east of 276 is so so). Nice twisty road and great views. Ride through the park on 441 was great too.

Of course we did the Dragon and the north end of the Hellbender (route 28). I thought parts of the Hellbender was just as challenging as the Dragon.

Route 276 between Waynesville and Brevard was great. This is part of the Devil's Triangle which also included route 215 which we did also.

The next day we did Thunder Road (Wayah Road). We continued down route 64 through Franklin to Highlands and went back to Maggie Valley by way of route 107 from Cashiers. There are 4 waterfalls that are along 64 before you get to Highlands. Very nice ride!

Not recommended - Our ride along Foothills Parkway was kind of so so. After doing the above rides, it wasn't much to talk about. The ride to Chimney Rock was the same. Not too much to talk about.

Unfortunately, 6 days there wasn't enough time to do it all. Next time we will try to hit the roads we missed and revisit some of the above.

 

Hey Ozone glad you had a safe trip. Me and the wife had a great ride also in the Smokey's.
276 to 64 was a great ride with great views. The dragon was ok rode it after riding BRP and 276 loop and didn't think the Dragon was much different than all the other roads. Planning to go back next June.

 

06strglide, how long were you there? Did you get many rides in?

 

Got in sunday afternoon and started back home thursday. Rode just over 2000 miles for the week

 

We did almost that many too. Only regret is that we didn't get to do all the roads that we wanted to. Need to go back!

 

Would you recommend any places to stay in or around that area?

 

Depends on how much you are willing to pay.

This place looked nice but they are on the high end.
http://www.smokyfallslodge.com/

Here's another nice place on the higher end.
http://www.jonathancreekinn.com/

Nice but cheaper is Abbey Inn located up the hill from Maggie Valley.
http://www.abbeyinn.com/

We had two couples and stayed for a week, so we found that renting a two bedroom cabin was the best deal.

 

Here are some pics of our trip. We have over 500 pictures so I'll just show a few.

Here's the crew! I'm in the orange hat. Zoood is in the white shirt on the left.






Morning view from our deck.



Our cabin.

















Zoood and his lady Kattie on Fried Thighs trike.




Didn't leave any parts here.



And here is the elk I was looking for all week long. Finally saw one on the last ride of the last day there.

 

Hey Ozone, New here and saw your thread....Sounds like a great time, we go to Gatlinburg alot and it's always been a dream of mine to take a bike to the Smokies. Well in just 4 months I've gone from getting my license and buying an 05 Suzuki Boulevard C50 to today I brought home a 2003 anniversary Road King (Pearl White). Hopefully getting down there in October......(Dream coming true...!!!!
Evansville area/ H-D owner.

 

Slammer66, were in Indiana are you from?