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 Tucumcari it runs 1216 km to Gallup; allow about 16 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tucumcari is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Santa Fe comes up about 509 km into the recorded legs. Next is Albuquerque.
Albuquerque lies in the Rio Grande valley at about 1,500 metres, with the long wall of the Sandia Mountains standing to the east, and it is the biggest city in New Mexico. On Route 66 it holds a special place, because in 1937 the highway was straightened here, abandoning a long loop through Santa Fe and sending the road directly across the city along Central Avenue. The change shortened the journey by about a hundred miles and made Albuquerque a boomtown for motels, diners and neon, and a good deal of that survives.
Read the complete Albuquerque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 736 km into the recorded legs you reach Albuquerque. Next is Gallup.
Gallup is a long, thin town squeezed between red sandstone cliffs and the railroad tracks, on the old line of Route 66 in northwestern New Mexico. It sits at about 2,000 metres, with a dry, high-desert climate and a landscape of mesas and pale grassland, and it is known as the Indian Capital of the World, since it serves as a trading centre for the Navajo, Zuni and Hopi nations. Galleries and trading posts in town sell turquoise jewellery, woven rugs and pottery, and the quality of the work is high, though prices reflect that.
Read the complete Gallup write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gallup closes the day.
Tucumcari → Santa Fe is 509 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Santa Fe → Albuquerque is 227 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Albuquerque → Gallup is 479 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.