North Georgia Tour – Day #4

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My route from Helen, Georgia to Deal’s Gap, North Carolina

On Sunday, April 22nd, the weather had improved and was sunny, cool and dry. I decided to make day ride to Deal’s Gap on US-129 at the start of the notorious Tail of the Dragon with 318 curves in just 11 miles. The adjacent map shows my route for the day, heading north on the left segment and south on the right segment. (Click on map to enlarge.)

I departed the Riverbend Motel around 10:30 AM and reached Deal’s Gap around 3:45 PM. The route had been provided the previous year by a member of the MSTA. It includes several challenging and fun segments of road through the mountainous terrain.

Since it was rather late in the afternoon by the time I reached Deal’s Gap at the start of Tail of the Dragon, and the weather had also become cloudy and quite cool, I decided not to ride that section of the highway that afternoon, instead saving it for another occasion with better weather conditions.

After getting a bowl of chili at the Deal’s Gap restaurant, I started back to Helen about 4:20 PM and arrived there at 6:40 PM. The return leg of the day’s ride was not as challenging as the outbound leg, but still quite interesting.

During this day’s ride, I took numerous photos with my new Canon SX230HS camera. Here are several of them.

 

Please continue reading Day #5 on this page.