Amarillo is the city where the Texas Panhandle shows its hand: a flat, windy plain stretching to every horizon, with a skyline of grain elevators, water towers and big sky. At around 1,100 metres above sea level it is higher than you think, and the wind is a constant companion, often strong enough to lean a bike over on the long straights. For anyone riding Route 66, it is the natural place to start or end a day, with everything a traveller needs and a handful of landmarks that have become part of the road's folklore.
The old Route 66 runs through town on Sixth Avenue, now a strip of vintage shops, cafes and antique stores that has been revived over the past decades, with a few neon signs left from the old days. Just west of the city, on the edge of a wheat field, stand ten Cadillacs buried nose-down in the dirt, a public art installation from the 1970s called Cadillac Ranch, created by an art collective and a local millionaire. Visitors are encouraged to spray-paint the cars, so the layers of colour change by the week. It is silly, free and oddly moving, and you should bring your own can.
Amarillo is also a cattle town, and the Big Texan Steak Ranch, on the old road, is famous for offering a seventy-two-ounce steak free to anyone who can eat it within an hour, along with the trimmings. You are not required to try. The city sits on top of some of the world's largest helium reserves, a fact that surprises people, and the surrounding plains have been ranches, farms and oil country for well over a century. Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the country, lies about forty kilometres south, and it makes a good detour if you want to see red rock instead of wheat.
Fuel, food and beds are everywhere, and this is the place to fill up before the long open stretches west toward New Mexico. The best time to ride is spring or autumn, when temperatures are mild, as summer afternoons can be fiercely hot and storms can build quickly, sometimes with hail. Watch the wind on exposed roads and bridges. In the evening the western sky turns orange and the heat drops, and sitting outside with a cold drink while the sun goes down over the plain is one of the best parts of the day.