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: 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.
Out of Albuquerque, one way: 122 km, roughly 2 h 04 in the saddle. The stops in between: Madrid New Mexico and Cerrillos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 74 km this is Jemez Mountain Trail, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Albuquerque is where the day begins. Next is Madrid New Mexico.
Madrid, pronounced the American way with the stress on the first syllable, is one of the more unlikely success stories in New Mexico. It began as a coal-mining town, with company housing strung along a narrow canyon in the Ortiz Mountains, and for a while it was known for its extravagant Christmas lights, which the coal company strung up each year and which could be seen from miles away. When the mines closed, the town was nearly abandoned. Artists began moving in during the 1970s, buying cheap cottages and turning the old storefronts into galleries and workshops, and the place found a second life.
Read the complete Madrid New Mexico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Madrid New Mexico comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cerrillos.
Cerrillos is the sleepy older sibling of Madrid, a dusty, unhurried little place a short ride away that feels like a film set because it has been used as one. Its wide main street of adobe and wooden storefronts, its church, and its dry hills all suggest the nineteenth-century frontier, and the village makes little effort to dress it up. Chickens, dogs, and cats are more in evidence than crowds, and that is part of the pleasure.
Read the complete Cerrillos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Cerrillos. 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 closes the day.
Albuquerque → Madrid New Mexico is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Madrid New Mexico → Cerrillos is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cerrillos → Santa Fe is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.