A long time after its official demise in 1985, Route 66 stays in fragments, with the remaining both paved over and renamed or reclaimed by nature. Practically 100 years after its official opening in 1926, my buddy Scott and I heeded Yogi’s proclamation that it ain’t over and took a Route 66 bike journey on what was left of America’s Major Avenue from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California.
Interstate journey has its limits. Restricted entry. Restricted visible selection. Restricted signage. Restricted alternatives for impromptu exploration. Interstates exist to provide motorists the quickest path between endpoints. Whereas that was additionally Route 66’s authentic function, these days the Mom Highway favors journey over vacation spot. Like clicking by way of TV channels, this highway affords visible selection with each eye blink. With well-known roadside sights and surroundings that varies from metropolis streets to open desert to mountain twisties, the Mom Highway gives plentiful moto-nourishment. Regardless of its official nonexistence and many years of neglect, this nationwide organism hangs on, morphing and reinventing and refusing to succumb with all its coronary heart. I like that.
Every part of this Route 66 bike journey has a definite persona. Via its japanese states, it’s what you in all probability anticipate Route 66 to be: glorious signage, world-famous landmarks, kitschy sights. Nice stuff. Farther west, roadside sights grew to become fewer, perhaps a restored gasoline station right here and there and some Burma-Shave indicators. What we regularly encountered was some not too long ago opened enterprise staking an as-yet unearned declare to membership on this freeway’s fraternity. Maybe they’re not as real as, say, Wigwam Village Motel #6 in Holbrook, Arizona, however these newcomers to the Route 66 mystique assist hold this nationwide artery pulsing.
Driving Route 66 was each poignant and somber. Poignant was driving that little stretch of bricked highway in Auburn, Illinois, and strolling onto the Brush Creek Marsh Rainbow Arch Bridge between Riverton and Baxter Springs, Kansas, in addition to myriad different makes an attempt to protect final century’s then-super freeway’s persona. Somber was seeing complete predominant streets boarded up or rusted car hulks strewn round deserted gasoline stations or actually reaching one of many many ends of the unique highway. Pausing to think about every of those deteriorating locations as little oases that catered to weary vacationers of their heyday felt like paying final respects to the demise of a dream.
There are nonetheless loads of stop-worthy locations alongside the highway’s practically 2,500 miles. Like Bone Daddy’s in Seligman, Arizona. Resembling a Thirties bordello, it was fronted by odd shows, outdated automobiles, and a person taking part in guitar and singing on the entrance stoop (at 9:30 on a Monday morning, thoughts you). Between songs, he manned a brush.
Some roads have been enjoyable, some boring, some badly in want of re-paving, some simply plain crumbling into nonexistence. After which there was the Sitgreaves Go portion of Route 66 over the Black Mountains in Arizona, described by DangerousRoads.org as “constructed like a bobsled run, with loopy switchbacks and steep drop-offs plunging 1000’s of ft down.” It was each enjoyable and terrifying in a method no curler coaster may ever match.
The actual deal with alongside the complete journey was the locals. Each one of many individuals we met was nice, pleasant, and more than pleased to reply what have been absolutely the identical questions they’re requested by vacationers day by day. The county employee who stopped his mower and supplied to take our image. The bartender who finger-drew an imaginary map on the bar prime for us. The waitress on the Windy Cow Cafe in Texas proper out of Central Casting. The appreciative mother and father snapping a photograph of their beaming little boy atop Scott’s bike. Maybe friendliest of all have been the burros wandering the principle drag of Oatman, Arizona.
This Route 66 bike journey was a smorgasbord of surroundings, driving challenges, culinary adventures, and fantastic conversations with genuinely good individuals, the sort you simply don’t encounter when bombing down the interstate to the following stopover. Certain, each type of journey has a vacation spot, however we journey for the journey. On Route 66, it’s a journey again to the times of yore.
Learn Extra about Route 66:
America’s Mom Highway: Chicago to L.A. on Route 66
Get Your Kickstarts on Route 66
Flagstaff to Barstow on Historic Route 66
Route 66 Bike Journey in Oklahoma
See all of Rider’s touring tales right here.
Ed Kolano has been driving bikes since his early teenagers when he kludged a lawnmower engine to a bicycle body utilizing U-bolts and wooden. As of late he enjoys long-distance driving adventures, difficult roads, and impromptu conversations, managing to search out the humor in all of it. A former Marine and semi-retired check pilot, he lives within the Pacific Northwest.
