Historic Route 66: Needles to San Bernardino

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Needles is where the day begins. Next is Barstow.

2. 2. 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 comes up about 512 km into the recorded legs. Next is San Bernardino.

3. 3. 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

   The route ends here after 724 km.