Looks like the chip on somebody's shoulder about a road that's mostly used as an interstate by-pass is long-established.
But let me offer some alternatives.
(1) If the complaint is about Cummings Highway from Lookout Valley/Wauhatchie over the ridge and down towards Nickajack, it's pretty simple to take Wauhatchie Pike and U.S. 11 south towards Birmingham to Wildwood, GA, turn right and take Clouse Hwy down to the river. Zig and zag to the "new blue bridge" (it's mostly concrete now) and take 41 to Jasper, Kimball, etc.
(2) If the problem is going around Lookout Mountain on 41, go south on St. Elmo Ave. through Flintstone, then take GA 136 over the mountain. Backtrack to Wildwood or cross Sand Mtn.
Note: if there's a major backup on I-24, go be a tourist in Chattanooga that day. Try again tomorrow. The people who drive that stretch of interstate regularly know all the back roads. Or else try option...
(3) Go across the Tennessee R. to north Chattanooga. Work your way up to Red Bank and U.S. 127 northbound (Pineville Rd., for example), and take Suck Creek Rd. over Suck Creek Mountain. Scenic and generally low traffic -- better than 41 in that respect. That route will take you to TN 28 just outside Whitwell, and you've got huge shoulders south to where it runs into U.S. 64/41.
Fun fact: Where Suck Creek runs into the Tennessee River, there used to be an enormous whirlpool ("suck") that would appear at certain river and creek flows. That suck would swallow steamboats whole, drowning the passengers and crew, splintering the boats, and some of the cargo would reappear downstream. Hales Bar Dam was the first dam across the Tennessee, and by flooding that stretch of the river, it made navigation much safer by stopping the whirlpool. It also generated electricity... Hales Bar started showing signs of leaking through the porous limestone foundation, and was replaced and flooded by Nickajack Dam in the 1970s.
