All the little crap the other web sites don't tell you about visiting Deals Gap!

Tips and suggestions before you hit the mountains.

There are tons of resources on the web about Deals Gap. But I never found a real How To about what, where or when. I spent a couple of days there and as such don’t claim to be an expert tour guide but that does qualify me to give insight into what to expect when planning your first visit.

The Dragon’s has become a rite of passage over the years especially since YouTube has made it a household name. One thing for sure is it has become legendary in the motorcycle world and riders travel from all over the world to earn the bragging rights of having ridden it.

The Dragon is a windy road following an old Indian Trail snaking through the mountains from times of old. It has 318 turns in 11 miles and no room for passing… legally.

The quirky local towns, traditions and laws make it essential to plan ahead to make the most of your visit. This place is out in the middle of nowheresville and any need for the trapping of civilization we take for granted like a store, food or beer will involve an afternoon of travel.

The hub at the top of the Dragon is a small gold mine named Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. It’s seasonal and utilitarian in nature. They do have Gas pumps out front and hamburgers and the like from their grill with a few draft beers on tap. The hours are short and even on a busy weekend this place is a ghost town and locked up by 7PM.

The resort has a camping area and a small strip of unique motel rooms at a reasonable price. A reservation would be a smart idea before riding up there. There are a few places down the backside of the mountain in Robbinsville NC. Their prices are all on their website at http://www.dealsgap.com .

If you arrive after 7 PM like we did they leave the keys in the room and a hard to see note taped to the inside of their dark tinted plate glass store door telling you your room number. They will settle up with you in the morning.

They have a large amazingly well stocked souvenir store. You will be overwhelmed at the T-shirt selections and it may be a good idea to look at them on the web site before hand to avoid the Deer in Headlights look while standing in everyone’s way. The store has bike accessories and assorted goodies all at an unexpectedly reasonable price. You should try and hit the store early before the crowd rolls in and beat the long lines that wrap around the inside of the store when busy.

The pricing has recently changed and is all on their website but the basic rooms are the same. They have the standard rooms and the Apartment rooms. For the money the best value is the apt rooms even if you are just their as a couple.

The apt rooms are basically two standard rooms with a connecting doorway giving you a bedroom and a living room area. The bathroom of the second room is converted into a tiny kitchen that comes in handy when all civilization has locked up and gone home before dark.

Don’t let the name Resort fool you into thinking you’re taking your girl to a fancy place in the mountains for a weekend of luxury. This is a MAN’S resort. Bare bones and to the point, I’m not saying it’s a dive by no means. Everything is top quality and clean.

What I’m saying is the owners have a target cliental of men on mancations. A standard hotel room sucks for that purpose. My buddies and I travel a lot and having to sit on beds together to watch TV or worse flip coins over who shares a bed suck. Normal rooms are couple oriented and not comfortable for 6 guys to sit around and drink beers in.

The rooms at the Gap are designed with just such people in mind. The walls are all cement block freshly painted bright white. This makes the walls between rooms solid and quite. And any men like stunts don’t leave holes in the drywall.

The beds are twin sized bunk beds built of large metal tubing. Good and solid which is required if you think a drunk mid 50s beer bellied old fart is going to make it up and down the small ladder in front of his friends without making too much of an ass out of himself. As a couple you will have to sleep I Love Lucy style in seperate beds

The living room of the big rooms has a full size refrigerator and a couple of futons that seat plenty of saddle sore partiers and double as beds. The TV has a good selection of cable channels and the air conditioner is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever used a better air unit. It’s quite and powerful complete with a fancy man friendly LCD screened remote control!

The kitchen has all the basic stuff you need to cook and eat. In fact our room had a big ass heavy fry pan in it that I fell in love with and drove my girl nuts raving about every time I cooked.

If you want any alcoholic beverages beware of the hit and miss of the dry counties. We had to drive 45 minutes past Robbinsville for beer so plan ahead. We were told later that there is beer available about a half an hour down US-28 though. It is a bit of a ride down to Robbinsville but they do have a great little grocery store and plenty of restaurants etc.

As far as the Dragon itself it is a twisty bunch of two lane road. Along the way you will pass guys on the shoulder with bid fancy cameras clicking away at all the traffic. These are the photo venders that will have your pics online for sale a few days later for all to see so suck in your gut and pull in your tongue as you pass. The pic sites are accessible from the resort’s website and they have ads all over while you are there.

Don’t be fooled by the race track atmosphere of the place, the cops are out there and if you are fucking up they will have a talk with you about it. People dump their bikes there regularly and people do die. The big thing to watch are idiots crossing the center line coming at you from around the corners.

The roads of the area are all twisty and you don’t have to fight the crowd to go scrape a foot peg or two. The Cherohala Skyway rocks running alongside a river on parts and passing a nearby waterfall. There are several great rides in the area and info on them area readily available.

Go to the resort’s site for all the big info. I just wished there was a place to tell me the tricks before I got there so I decided to write one. It would have saved me some run time knowing the lay of the land before rolling into the dead zone that is Deals Gap after 7PM.