Why this ride
964 km from Amarillo to Santa Fe, about 13 h 14 of riding. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Historic Route 66: Amarillo to Santa Fe
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 964 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 13 h 14
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Amarillo
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.
Read the complete Amarillo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Amarillo is where the day begins. Next is Tucumcari.
2. Tucumcari
Tucumcari is a town of about five thousand people on the high plains of eastern New Mexico, and it is one of the best-preserved fragments of Route 66 in the Southwest. At roughly 1,250 metres, with the flat-topped Tucumcari Mountain standing over the town, it was a natural stopping place for travellers heading west, and in the heyday of the road it had thousands of motel rooms. A string of billboards, stretching for hundreds of miles in both directions, used to advertise it with a simple slogan about stopping for the night, and the motto stuck.
Read the complete Tucumcari write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tucumcari comes up about 436 km into the recorded legs. Next is Santa Fe.
3. Santa Fe
Route 66 used to go to Santa Fe, and then in 1937 it did not. The original alignment of the Mother Road ran over Glorieta Pass into the old Spanish capital of New Mexico, before dropping south to Albuquerque, and then engineers cut a straight line across the desert from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque, shaving about a hundred miles off the journey and leaving Santa Fe on a bypassed loop. The ride from Amarillo to Santa Fe follows that early route, and this is the end of it, in a city at about seven thousand feet in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Read the complete Santa Fe write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 964 km.
Leg by leg
Amarillo to Tucumcari
Amarillo → Tucumcari is 436 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tucumcari to Santa Fe
Tucumcari → Santa Fe is 528 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.