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.
313 km from Kingman to Barstow, about 4 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Oatman and Needles. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 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.
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.
Kingman is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Needles. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barstow closes the day.
Kingman → Oatman is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oatman → Needles is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Needles → Barstow is 242 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.