Route 66

Hi Allan,

I did the Route 66 on a coach tour with Travelsphere about 4 years ago. From the riding point of view, there is not much of the original route left and you would benefit from a route guide to let you know where there are parts of it that can be ridden. It is 2500 miles long and much of the route has been replaced by interstate. There are motorcycle tours but they appear to be expensive as they normally involve a Harley of some description. The coach tour with Travelsphere takes you to most of the "must see" bits and a few more besides and when you get to the must see bits you are in a fit state to see them ie. not knackered after 10 hours in the saddle. I thought it was an excellent holiday and not one that needed a week to recover from. You could have a look at the itinerary from their brochure.

Hope this helps

Dave

Hi Allan

6 years ago and friend and myself shipped two Commandos to the USA for a 3 month and 15,000 mile trip. I would say that David Evans' assessment of Route 66 pretty much matches what I've heard and certainly the three times we encountered it it looked pretty uninspiring. I think that you would find listening to the Route 66 song is the most exciting part.

For our trip we started in Charleston, zig zagged east to west then zig zag up the west side into Canada and the best bit (in my opinion anyhow) was coming back down through: Glacier Park, Montana, Beartooth pass into Yellowstone park, the Tettons, down into Colorado and Utah before heading to L.A to crate the bikes up for the return journey. Stunning roads and scenery and even in June and July we were often above the snowline in the Rockies.

If you are contemplating a foreign adventure on two wheels then the website below is very much recommended;

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/

And if you are considering taking your Norton then I would definately advise joining the INOA (American Norton owners Club) and try to take in their national rally while you are there.

Regards

Bob

Next year the INOA Rally is in Ashland, Oregon. Just over the border from California.