Two-wheeled Tales: Taking on the Tail of the Dragon with Chris Facko
Tell Us About Your First Bike
What Was Your Best Road Trip?
I made a trip out to Raleigh to see my mom recently. I rode out to the western side of North Carolina, into the Smoky Mountains area of Kentucky and North Carolina. And there’s a whole bunch of good riding roads out there. I specifically wanted to go on these roads because they are the best riding roads in the world. I hit this one road. It’s highway 129 In Tennessee, it has I think 315 curves in 10 miles of riding. It’s called “The Tail of the Dragon.” Wow. It’s amazing. If you look online, there’s a ton of social media posts and stories about this place. At the end of the day, that was the best ride I’ve ever done. And I rode a lot of places, like in Italy, Germany and rode all over the country back and forth. But 129 was the best road I’ve ever rode on in my life.
Any Bad Experiences?
One of my nastiest experiences was when I crashed my Yamaha RX6 in about 2010 on the freeway in Phoenix, Arizona doing about 75, 80 miles an hour. I survived that by the grace of God. I had to slam on the brakes really hard and I high-sided the bike and I smashed the bike into the ground really hard. The bike flipped over three other cars that had stopped, but it didn’t hit any of the vehicles somehow. I slid underneath the vehicle, got up, and walked away with a broken hand. Somehow, I didn’t hit anything, and survived.
What’s Next for You?
I think next on my bucket list is I want to try to do a trip from Alaska all the way through South America. Just ride from Alaska all the way down the west coast, all the way down South America, and all the way down to Argentina. I think that would be like an ideal major epic trip to do something like that.
Interview by Gregory Andrus
Portraits of the Jersey Shore
