Overall Route Rating
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4.86 out of 5 Rider Rating 4.86
36 Reviews

"The Snake" - Hwy 421 & 34

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By MCR Contributor (1039 McR Points) on May 15, 2011

Rider Reviews

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GJRonK
2629 McR Points
August 12, 2012
--This was fun from end to end. Aptly named as…
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Guest
October 18, 2013
Our group met up at 8am at the Cracker Barrel in…
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Written Directions

From Mountain City, TN, take Hwy 421 North through the Cherokee Nat'l Forest, Shady Valley, TN, and on to Holston Valley, TN. As a short side trip, take TN 133 North 10 miles to see Backbone Rock.

Scenery

This route takes you from Mountain City, TN to Holston Valley riding through the Cherokee Nat'l Forest. Riding through mountains and valleys with great vistas and ending with a view of South Holston Lake.

Drive Enjoyment

The Snake is said to have "489 curves, 3 mountains, 1 valley packed into 33 miles!" As you leave Mountain City, riding through the Cherokee Nat'l Forest, there are some great views as you ascend over the first mountain ridge on some of the best twisties in the area. The climb over the second ridge is as good as the first with more twisting/turning roads that will leave you exhilarated. The ride ends up in Holston Valley after crossing Holston Lake. We hold our Annual Rune Rally in nearby Erwin, Tn and this ribbon of asphalt one of our favorites.

Tourism Opportunities

Mountain City and Holston Valley have everything you want and need for a great get away, and in the middle of this ride is the Shady Valley Country Store. They have great burgers/sandwiches, snacks and souvenirs too.
 

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ThomSS
October 29, 2019
3743 McR Points
Motorcycle Type : Other
Rode The Snake for the first time in July and then had the pleasure of riding it again in mid September. What a great ride! We liked it better than Deals Gap. On one of our rides we came out of Mountain City, TN... rode up 421 to Shady Valley,... took TN-133 North to Damascus, VA... US-58 east over to VA-91 South... back down to US-421 (Mountain City) Be sure to stop at Shady Valley Country Store. US-421 North from Shady Valley to Bristol is a nice ride too.
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Akumu
November 23, 2019
3916 McR Points
Motorcycle Type : Sport - Touring
My #1 road in The Smokys. It should be #1 on this site, but I'm glad it's not. If it was it would suffer from it's success like The Tail of the Dragon does, and be practically unrideable thanks to people putting around it at 25mph. No, people don't seem to particularly like the idea of coming 'all the way' up to Mountain City/Shady Valley to ride this. Good. Keeps it safer, makes it easier for clean runs of this utter ribbon of perfection that I strongly recommend doing down and back, the whole way. It has it all with tight twisties, off camber twisties, hairpins, loose sweepers, flowing sweepers, tighter sweepers and even the occasional straight and passing lane and lots of pull offs for the slower traffic to move over. (Though, sometimes they don't.) I only get to the area once a year, but on the ride down to Asheville we run this route both ways, and 4 days later on the way home we do it again. It's the only road on the 50+ we do, that we do twice. It's that good, to me. Just talking about it makes me miss it. :(
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rtcoker
January 26, 2020
197 McR Points
Motorcycle Type : Sport - Touring
Could be a five instead of a four. Reason is it's an awesome road and great ride. A four because of side driveways and side roads. And heavy on LEO's during the riding season, even on non-weekend days. This is really two segments added together. Holston to Shady Valley has great ride along the lake and then some good challenging twisties. Then from Shady Valley to Mountain City, another group of good twisties. Used to be a great little burger place on the corner in Shady Valley but it changed hands and was actually close (for good?) the last time I was by there. Too bad, always crowded with bikes on weekends and awesome burgers. Anyway, other than the Dragon this is some of the best riding in Tennessee.
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