Route 66 Self Guided Motorcycle Tour - Chicago to Albuquerque

Route 66 in full takes a fortnight. This is the first half of it, Chicago to Albuquerque, in eight days. Seven nights, around 1,365 miles, and the stretch of the Mother Road that runs from the Illinois prairie out across the Great Plains.

The character of the ride is in the small towns rather than the scenery. Springfield comes first, then the route crosses the Mississippi at St Louis and climbs into the Missouri Ozarks towards Rolla. Joplin and Tulsa follow, then Oklahoma City and Clinton, and the long flat run into Amarillo, which is the day the plains really open up. Distances are substantial, between 180 and 290 miles, so the days have a proper rhythm to them.

Texas provides the oddest stop. Cadillac Ranch sits in a field outside Amarillo, ten Cadillacs buried nose-down in the dirt and repainted by visitors more or less continuously since 1974. From there the road crosses into New Mexico through Tucumcari, a town that still trades on its neon, before finishing in Albuquerque.

EAGLERIDER provides the bike and books each night’s accommodation, with Harley-Davidson touring models and Triumph and BMW sport machines in the fleet. Fuel, meals and insurance are separate. Because it is self-guided there is no group to wait for, which matters on a road where half the interest is in pulling over at a diner or a dead motel sign. For riders who want the Mother Road but only have a week to give it, this is the half with the old America still in it, and Albuquerque is an easy place to fly home from.