CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
From Flagstaff it runs 709 km to Needles; allow about 9 h 45 of riding. The stops in between: Seligman, Kingman and Oatman. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 72 km this is Historic Route 66, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Flagstaff stands at about 2,100 metres, higher than most Alpine villages, and it feels it. The air is thin and dry, the sky is a deep blue, and the town is wrapped in the largest ponderosa pine forest in North America, with the San Francisco Peaks rising to the north. The tallest of them, Humphreys Peak, is 3,851 metres, the highest point in Arizona, and it holds snow into early summer. The peaks are volcanic, the remains of a huge cone that blew out long ago, and they are sacred to many Native nations, including the Hopi and Navajo.
Read the complete Flagstaff write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Flagstaff is where the day begins. Next is Seligman.
Seligman is the town that saved Route 66. When the interstate bypassed it in 1978, the traffic that had kept the town alive simply disappeared, and the businesses along the main street faced ruin. A local barber, Angel Delgadillo, and his brother Juan began a campaign to preserve the old road, and in 1987 the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona was founded here, launching a revival that spread along the whole route. The town is now full of neon, vintage cars and roadside kitsch, and the Delgadillo family's barbershop and the Snow Cap Drive-In, famous for its jokes and fake mustard bottles, are still going.
Read the complete Seligman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seligman comes up about 279 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kingman.
Kingman is where Route 66 gets down to business in the Arizona desert. The town sits at about a thousand metres between the Hualapai and Cerbat mountains, with creosote flats stretching in all directions, and it has been a railway stop, a mining supply town and a highway halt in turn. Today it is a tidy, sun-bleached place of nearly thirty thousand people, with a long main street, Andy Devine Avenue, named after the gravelly-voiced Hollywood actor who grew up here. A small museum devoted to Route 66 occupies an old powerhouse, and a neon-lit downtown has diners, motels and murals that keep the mid-century atmosphere alive.
Read the complete Kingman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 549 km into the recorded legs you reach Kingman. Next is Oatman.
A donkey will probably block your way into Oatman, and you should let it. The wild burros that wander the main street are descendants of animals left behind by prospectors, and they are tame enough to take carrots from tourists and stubborn enough to hold up traffic. The town itself is a little gold-rush survivor of about a hundred people, with wooden boardwalks, saloons and gift shops, and staged gunfights in the street for the benefit of visitors. It is kitsch, certainly, but there is something genuine in the dust and the mountains behind it.
Read the complete Oatman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oatman, late in the day. Next is Needles.
Needles takes its name from the jagged pinnacles that rise above the Colorado River on the Arizona side, and it is one of the hottest places in the United States, where summer temperatures regularly climb above forty-five degrees. Behind the town, the Needles peaks stand in a jagged row, and to the east the river curves in blue loops through the brown desert.
Read the complete Needles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Needles. That is the ride.
Flagstaff → Seligman is 279 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Seligman → Kingman is 270 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kingman → Oatman is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oatman → Needles is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.