Route 66
 

Anyone interested to do a route 66 trip Chicago to Santa Monica in Summer 2012?

First of all, :welcome: to the HUBB.

Yes, route 66 is on my todo list, but have been thinking of combining it with turning left at Santa Monica and heading South. I have a number of maps and books about the trip, but I am still uncertain about buying/shipping a bike, when you have enough posts to PM, get in touch, where are you and what 'plan' (time frame)do you have apart from next summer?

I did route 66 about 7 years back, or at least about 75% of what purports to be it, as in reality only a few very very short stretches of the single lane road still exist as a back road between farms a couple of farms. Aside from some unbelivablely tatty tourist tat you have to put up with 2.5km, sorry, USA, 1.5ml long freight trains rumbling past your tent/motel door all night long tooting their health and safety offence volume horns/whistles at every unmanned X-ing, of which there are a lot and if you try to move away from that source of noise you get high speed mega trucks on the interstate keeping you awake. A far better and more historic route is the Lincoln Highway (Rt30?) which was the first trans-continent road in N.America, it also runs from Chicago (ish) to Sacramento. Apart from being a lot quieter it passes through a lot nicer scenery and you really do get a look at small town America where more importantly, the beer and accommodation is generally cheaper. Whichever way you go, the USA is a good place to visit and their National Parks are a must see. Ride safe

I have to agree about Route 66; I grew up within a mile of it, but at this point it is almost all gone. You can check out a few remaining stretches here and there, but to plan a trip around it doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm not familiar with Route 30, but it sounds similar to Route 50, which runs from Ocean City, Maryland to Sacramento, California. I rode it all the way from Ocean City to Dodge City, Kansas before having to divert south from Colorado to avoid a snowstorm (in March). I really enjoyed the road, through lots of small towns, not much traffic on most of the stretches.

Old Route 66
 

The Interstate Highways have replaced the majority of Old Route 66, but some cities and towns still honor Old Route 66 and some of the way stations are still in operation. Check out various country music venues in Flagstaff, Arizona, for example... I own a ranch on Old Route 66 about 5 miles from Winona, Arizona.

I am currently living in Spain (my woman is Spanish) or I would offer a good meal and a good nights rest for anyone riding through Flagstaff. My ranch has it all, guest cabins , private dance floor, bar etc. (country living) It is now rented.

I will be happy to help plan the southwestern section of Old Route 66 for anyone who contacts me.

I agree that visiting National Parks and Monuments, even if you alter the original Route 66, makes the ride much more interesting.

You guys and gals just need to meet a Cowgirl or Cowboy somewhere en route to show you around. After many years of traveling the world , I decided to buy my ranch in the mountains of Northern Arizona, a great place to live.

Check with local chambers of commerce for Route 66 events and historic sites.

"Cowboy up" xfiltrate

There's a good site here on Route 66 info
The Mother Road: Historic Route 66
and a forum here
Historic Route 66 Forum • Index page
There does seem to have been a revival over the last few years and a determination to make it a tourist attraction with much of the old road being documented.
There was a recent series on UK TV with Billy Connolly riding it on a trike. There was an earlier series with Henry Stone available on DVD.
Some friends of mine have just done the trip. Their blog is here
2ride66
We are planning to include at least some of it in our trip in 2013.
I'm concious of avoiding the Great Plains in mid summer and not leaving it too late in the year to cross the Rockies.

I might!
 

I rode from Flagstaff into CA on it this year via Seligman, etc. Which made me want to ride the whole thing. I know it's very piece meal and likely slower going but a friend from Canada and I were talking about riding it next year. Keep me posted and have fun with it!

Short YouTube on "Arizona" leg of Route 66
 

This is a follow up to my last post on this thread. I really want

to do Route 66 justice, I do have a ranch right on Route 66 in

Flagstaff. Fantastic place to live!

I found this video worth watching "if n you plan on ridin" through

Arizona, like I said try to meet a few Cowboys and Cowgirls, You bet!

TheLesbianCowboy.wmv - YouTube

xfiltrate

HI, thanks for the post - I am currently gathering info and looking at starting around may - another poster talked about the Lincoln highway route which I am going to check into - will keep you posted

Lincoln Highway is worth considering
 

I hadn't heard of the Lincoln Highway until I caught the tail end of a PBS program on it last week WQED Multimedia: TV :: Sebak ::: Lincoln Highway . The website has some good information and lots of short videos on different sections. Lincoln Highway: Maps and Information by State has a series of small, downloadable maps from the 'teens and early twenties that one can use to plot the existing bits on current maps. It's on my short list next time I need to get across the continent. Much more historic in that it predates 66 by several decades.

I have to say this is the one road I have always wanted to travel. Why ? Not sure maybe it's the romance and I am in the midst of a mid life crisis ! I understand there are better roads in the US but I am well up for this one

I'll warn everyone one more time--there is very little left to Route 66, I really wouldn't plan a trip around it, you will probably be disappointed.

I had not heard of the Lincoln Highway before, but looked at the wiki page...sounds interesting, but it sounds like it is a bunch of differerent highways at this point, so would be a pain to follow.

If you really want to follow one road across the US, look at Route 50, which remains Route 50 all the way from Maryland to Sacramento (used to go to San Francisco until it got repaved/renamed). Here is a link: U.S. Route 50 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But IMHO really the best way to travel around the US is just to weave around on different roads, depending on where you want to go. The US has a lot of beautiful/interesting places, and a lot of beautiful roads, so I'm not sure if you should get fixated on one.

I don't think so, I have travelled small sections in AZ and California and loved it, plenty to see, granted there are many fine roads in the US but 'everyone' knows of 66.

The point is that those "small sections" that you rode are almost all that is left that is (slightly) interesting. I grew up about a mile from Route 66 in St Louis, and when I was a kid there were still some "Route 66" type motels and other attractions along the road (drive-ins, ice-cream stands, etc.). Over the years almost all of that stuff was torn down are replaced by strip malls, etc. While I'm sure you might find a couple of (not very interesting) buildings or maybe even a small stretch of remaining road scattered here and there, to drive across the country on that road just to say you "rode Route 66" doesn't sound very appealling to me. If you want to ride Route 66, go to those small sections in Arizona and get it over with.

But I give up, if people want to ride a road because "everyone knows it" rather than because it is interesting, by all means proceed...

We rode sections of Route 66 in Arizona last year on our way up to New York. Each to their own and all that, but it was pretty boring after a while. We got a few kicks (wahey!) riding alongside mile long trains, seeing a few signs, the odd curiosities and the odd nostalgic gas station. But much of it is boring, repetive and feels insiincere.

I suggest that anyone that goes to the effot and expense of arranging a trip out to America just to ride that road should have a back up plan or two just in case.

The trans american trail seems like a much more interesting ride.

Déjà vu - we had the same sorta mixed experience .. :confused1:

From my journal [early April 2008]:

" .. We nevertheless look for the first opportunity to jump back onto 66, which happens 22 miles later, at Ash Fork & Seligman. So we’re once again travelling along a section of Historic Route 66, which I can tell you, right here and now ..

http://keithooper.smugmug.com/Travel...09_nnqGs-M.jpg

.. is probably the straightest, most boring and featureless tar-snaked road I have ever had the misfortune of riding upon. This is not to say that the whole of US-66 is the same .. of course it’s not; indeed, I'm sure that my brief encounter with the 'Main Street of America' is far from the overall reality.

http://keithooper.smugmug.com/Travel...37_DpJQ7-M.jpg

Having said that, how could you not like, and indeed embrace, any highway that runs through a town named 'Peach Springs' - and with a roadside restaurant called 'Roadkill' .. wherein the menu lists food items such as:

- 'Cheeseburger with Cheese' and
- 'Dead Chicken'

I guess, you just gotta love it all for these reasons alone! .."

.

More on Route 66
 

Keith1954 and others it is good to hear your opinions of Route 66.

I know Peach Springs as the place where after 2 weeks floating down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, white water rafters take out after being put in at Lee's Ferry.

Country livin, photo (looking west) is my ranch house just off Route 66 note the northern Arizona San Francisco Peaks in the background . The Old Route 66 is a thousand feet north of my ranch house.

It's the locals that make this part of Route 66 interesting. Just make it a point to see the Grand Canyon and meet some local folks. The country and western Bar called the Museum Club, where,long ago, the greats of country music performed is a good place to visit while in Flagstaff. The Museum Club known as the "Zoo Club" by locals is a good place to meet the locals, try a little 2-step dancing and a local beer.

Mary's cafe is a great place for breakfast and has a "cowboy" bar attached.

Also: Wupatki National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

Coconino National Forest - Oak Creek Canyon

and especially Walnut Canyon

Walnut Canyon National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

Have fun, I'm holed up in Spain for a while longer.

xfiltrate

Road trip usa
 

I came across this book,and website, a while back,it has some great info on 66,and indeed several alternative long distance usa routes.Recommended.:mchappy:
ROAD TRIP USA

Just for info to non UK HUBBers: A TV series on British channel ITV by Scottish comedian Billy Connolly finished recently. He rode a trike along most of Rt 66 east-west:

Welcome to the official Billy Connolly Website!

Billy Connolly's Route 66 Competition - ITV Entertainment

Billy Connolly's Route 66, ITV1, review - Telegraph

Possibly this TV series led to the OP's question?

I really enjoyed the show. Looking at the pictures above of the long straight roads, I think I might go looking for more curvy lines on a USA map and seek out less tourist trash.


The comment about the Trans Am trail leading you past more "real/historical America" is definitely true. I rode the western half in 2010: http://www.thebrightstuff.com/USA201...ery/index.html

cheers
Chris

[QUOTE=maja;355614]Try www.motorcycleroads.us It gives a really good breakdown of all types of roads in the USA. Ride safe.

I have taken US-36 three times across the US and I prefer it over US-50.
Route 66 is too chopped up.
This is route 36 going West to East last June.

Dans graduation trip - Motorcycling trip - Spot | SpotAdventures

Route 66
 

I've looked into this route also and believe the only section which is fun, and might depict the original "route 66" aura is about 130 miles of highway located around Kingman Az. The ride to the east of Kingman is probably like it really was, a remote desolate 2 lane highway. The ride from Kingman west through Oatman is really memorable as the highway goes through a mountain range as the original 2 lane, twisty, narrow highway it originally was.( Appears to have had sections built by the CCC's in the 30's) The scenery here is quite spectacular, goes by the now abandoned Goldroad Gold Mine. The route 66 theme is really prevalent and tastefully done in Kingman with a really neat Route 66 museum which is full of neat stuff and memorabilia of the era. The town of Oatman is a real tourist gathering place; their one claim to fame being the wild burros which roam the streets and even enter some of the stores. (I guess that implies that they are not wild, but they have no owners and have developed no manners or training and are free to come and go as they please ???)
Have fun.
Lance

Thanks bier saw the program with billy doing the rt 66 and was a bit disapointed like your rt 30 have any others as i want to ride across usa from new york cheers bier

Some images of this stretch Lanceld's talking about: it was July 2007 and I had been touring the West astride a Harley rented straight from Italy at Eaglerider in Scottsdale, AZ.

http://i43.tinypic.com/b9fyqh.jpg


http://i43.tinypic.com/swz136.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/1230c4l.jpg

http://i43.tinypic.com/2pyvkv7.jpg



This is a typical tourist trap, but how can you miss this veeeery old gas station now turned into a souvenir shop?? :D

http://i42.tinypic.com/15f3xua.jpg


All of this is true, the Mother Road stretches throughout an area called "The Black Country" which was really outstanding to be ridden.

If someone loves the open and desolate road, cannot miss the stretch of Route 66 in the Mohave desert, which looks like this (pics were taken some dozens of miles east of the famous Roy's Cafe in the ghost town of Amboy, California)




http://i44.tinypic.com/dg2as8.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/se8384.jpg

http://i40.tinypic.com/351ixzn.jpg

I really enjoyed this part of the trip, maybe because I love the deserts and the open road that goes thru them: you should think that last summer I was really haaaappy while riding the even more desolated road in the desert of western Kazakhstan! :scooter:

Greetings, and have fun on Route 66 (or at least of what remains of it, as many others said before, there's only small stretches that can be ridden...)