The Dragon

Knoxville lies 600 miles south of Grand Rapids, and little of interest fills the span. The flat-lands of Ohio give way to the rolling hills of Kentucky, but after twelve hours of four-lane, only the pool at the Holiday Inn sparkles with jewelry that beckons with its dancing; little else recommends the intersection of I-75 and I-40.

Except for U.S. 129, the mythic ribbon that snakes southwest out of the city, skirting the highest mountains in Tennessee as it heads towards North Carolina. And so, at dawn on a cooler Sunday morning, as the mist of an early fog cloaks the landscape with a shroud of mystery, few have yet greeted the new day; two early risers on motorcycles, however, slip easily out of the Waffle House and into the rural canvas of foothills and farms that form the shoulders of the Great Smokies. Up ahead on route 129 lies the legend of "The Dragon." Three hundred eighteen curves spread over eleven miles thread the forest between Fontana Dam and Deals Gap, but at this hour, only the sky and the forest greet these two. Very soon gentler, laconic curves give way to left and right sweepers that challenge each rider to enter his own rhythmic core, the whirring rumble of fine-tuned engines broken only by an occasional scraped foot-peg and the regular shifting of gears up and down the transmission keyboard. The snake of the broken yellow line becomes shorter as the curves become tighter and tighter. The push-pull of handle bar and alternative rhythm of body lean becomes more intense as the pavement ahead twists and coils, never visible for more than a few yards before it bends either to the right or to the left. The line between center and gravel is a narrow one, but when choosing it carefully and skillfully becomes reality, "The Dragon" has swallowed these two riders and destination gives way to journey.

Such is the odd karma, the mysticism of riding the gyroscope of two-wheeled ecstasy; the constantly changing angle of gravity divides the tension between euphoria and disaster and the small patch of contact between rubber and road wanders between the two shoulders of the tire. When finally the top of "The Gap" is reached and the beast catapults the riders into North Carolina, the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway lies ahead. Grandfather’s Mountain and the shoulders of Pisgah await, but the predominate memory will be the encounter with "The Dragon." This satisfaction is the reward, and thus the journey continues.

G. Fondse