Why this ride
Out of Barstow, one way: 210 km, roughly 2 h 30 in the saddle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Historic Route 66: Barstow to Los Angeles
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 210 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 30
- 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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Barstow
Barstow is a railroad town that happens to have a highway running through it, and you can feel the trains in the place: freight cars rumble past day and night, and the yards on the edge of town are among the largest in California. The settlement grew up in the 1880s as a junction on the Santa Fe line, and the Casa del Desierto, a Harvey House hotel and station built in the early twentieth century in the Spanish Mission style, still stands beside the tracks and houses a Route 66 museum. It gives a good idea of what travel in the age of steam looked like, with fine dining and uniformed waitresses for passengers changing trains in the desert.
Read the complete Barstow write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barstow is where the day begins. Next is San Bernardino.
2. San Bernardino
Hamburgers changed the world here, or at least the way Americans eat. The first McDonald's restaurant opened in San Bernardino in 1940, a drive-in run by two brothers, and the idea of fast, standardised, cheap food that began on this corner went on to spread around the globe. The original site is gone, but a small museum on Route 66 tells the story, and it is a curious pilgrimage for any rider following the old highway. The city itself is large, a place of more than two hundred thousand people stretched across a plain at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Read the complete San Bernardino write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
San Bernardino comes up about 114 km into the recorded legs. Next is Los Angeles.
3. Los Angeles
Route 66 does not end in a blaze of glory. After more than three thousand kilometres from Chicago, the old highway frays into the boulevards of Los Angeles, and its last stretch is a patchwork of Foothill Boulevard, Colorado Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard, ending officially at the pier in Santa Monica, with the Pacific beyond. The point on the map here is the old centre, where the city began in 1781 as a Spanish pueblo, and a few blocks of adobe buildings and a Mexican market street, Olvera Street, are still standing, near the grand Spanish-style Union Station, which opened in 1939.
Read the complete Los Angeles 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 210 km.
Leg by leg
Barstow to San Bernardino
Barstow → San Bernardino is 114 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
San Bernardino to Los Angeles
San Bernardino → Los Angeles is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.