Theoretically, my son and I will be picking up his new to him car only a few hours from the Tail of the Dragon. We should be able to get there at 5pm.

The only things we have to do is pick up the minivan from the airport in St. Pete and I have to be back home 90 miles south of the airport Saturday night. Oh, and I have to teach him to drive stick, but my understanding is the car will do 70 in second gear so he probably won't have to shift much on the Dragon.

What do you guys think?

Question:
Tail of the Dragon this Friday afternoon?

Choices:
Yea!
Nay!
Other road
Saturday morning would be better
Why bother

 

If in the area, why not.

He doesn’t know how to drive stick, and you want him to learn on that road?

quote:

Oh, and I have to teach him to drive stick,

I vote double no because of this.

You don’t mention his age or car but easy to get distracted or overdrive that road. It’s the first place I fully understood brake fade….

Just learning to drive a stick? Then take it easy on the car and drive the road relatively slowly, because a badly executed downshift can burn up the clutch and possibly grenade the engine. And I'd try to get there a little earlier than 5 pm - you still need to get back. Don't go on a weekend or there will be hundreds of screaming crotch rockets and lumbering cruisers and tourers, mixed in with cars, all with different levels of experience.

Driving the tail sucks, but if you do, Friday is better than Saturday.

What is fun on 2 wheels, becomes a lot of work on 4 wheels. But there are some awesome roads to drive around that area. The few times I rode the tail, I enjoyed the ride there and back much better then actual tail.

I can just about guarantee that the crotch rocket riders will tailgate and otherwise harass you as well as trying to pass on one of the road's hundreds of curves, most of which are blind.

Motorcycle yes, car nope.

Please, no.

OP, it's a really bad idea.

Peruse this thread which is about people on the dragon who should not be there doing things they regret. It's a tough road. Impossible for someone learning to drive a stick. It's nearly 5,000 pages of inexperienced drivers/riders on the dragon, many of whom crashed, etc.

https://advrider.com/f/threads...-dragon-fest.454662/

The Skyway is better but neither are roads I would take a person on that was learning to drive a stick. There is no way I would go there on a weekend, the morons are everywhere!

I did it June 2020 in my 2013 Subaru WRX Hatchback. It was a Thursday, I picked that day because it historically is a low traffic day.


My then pup road shotgun, she loved a little " Spirited Driving ", I think she had more fun then I did.

I don't know about learning to drive a manual transmission on that road, but if he's got it down OK, why not. There is plenty of " regular traffic " through there. It's should be pretty scenic through there this time of the year.


ARman

The answer is always Yes. I would prefer you run it in daylight if you're going to push.

He’s 18. I was half joking about him driving it in second gear. My understanding is the speed limit is 30mph, hence my comment about just keeping it in second gear since the car will do 70 in second. But, I’ll be the one driving it. The roads getting there look interesting as well and I’m open to suggestions for alternate roads.

He picks things up fairly quick. I taught him to ride a bike in 30 minutes. He’s driven with me back and forth to Michigan several times. I started him off with the easy parts, then some of the higher traffic parts, and now he’s driven through Atlanta twice. He drives home every weekend on I-75 from Tampa. There’ll be plenty of opportunity on the way home for him to learn.

It’ll be different than the cars I learned on though. With those cars you had to shift and use each gear to get them going. My 1986 CRX DX had all of 76 horsepower and I used every single one of them. It’ll be like the difference between my first motorcycle, a 1982 KZ550, and my second motorcycle, a 1986 FJ1200. I had to switch gears all the time with the KZ. Top gear roll on with the FJ was impressive. Keeping it above 8,000rpm and shifting was even more so. On a downhill on ramp, it would hit 140 by the merge point. I could be behind someone doing 55mph, exit the freeway, come to a complete stop at the end off the off ramp, cross the road to the on ramp, and merge ahead of the guy I was behind in the first place.

Learn stick on a different road, and in the daytime.

Also, the road is closed on the North Carolina side until Oct 31 due to Hurricane Helene. Travel in Western NC is at best "difficult".

My understanding is that it’s closed to trucks over 30’ until 10/31/2024.

Besides all the anticipated MC traffic, not knowing how to drive a stick, that's pretty late in the evening to be driving a challenging road...sundown there tomorrow night is at 1849 hrs.

If it's open (damn hurricane) do the moonshiner28 instead.
It runs from Deals Gap all the way down to Walhalla SC.

I did both the tail and the moonshiner in 1 day a few weeks back.
The 28 was much better IMO

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Motorcycle yes, car nope.

This is exactly my thoughts. If a person is experienced in either a car or motorcycle, then yes. If someone is new to driving either, then this is not the time for that type of road.

We have a fantastic curvy road where I live and have ridden it for 35 years and know like the back of my hand. I took a new motorcycle rider friend down the road and told him how much he had to be careful, but yet on the very first curve he crashed off the road. Now, I would NEVER take a new rider/driver down that road ever again no matter what.

New Car + Learning to drive stick. Nope. Too much to contend with considering the curves and other vehicles on that road.