Whoever says a straight line is the best way to get from point A to point B shouldn’t ride a motorbike. Do any of us use the highway instead of the back road as the main source of entertainment for motorcyclists? Not much, I dare guess.
When President Eisenhower made the point that the United States needed the Interstate Highway System, did anyone on his staff insist that a few bends in the road might be a good idea? If that conversation ever took place, can it be suspected that the person was on a motorbike? The unnamed guy who liked the line from Point A to Point B seemed to have understood the last word.
Check out some Rider‘s favorite trip
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Back in the days of motorcycles and cars, the earth set the agenda for the places where roads were built. Choose any of the older highways, and there’s every chance it goes around a hill or parallels a river. Over time, with more powerful explosives and larger and better ground-moving equipment, the scales were shifted, and making the good earth bend to the wishes of every highway engineer. becomes easier.
Over the millennia, glaciers and the upheaval of the earth have created glorious hills and majestic mountains that we all enjoy. In a few decades, the great Ukes (that’s what we called the Euclidean globe ship when I was a kid) dredged tons of hillsides to fill in the deep valleys, creating what everyone else knew we needed – a faster way to get from here to there. Okay, I admit, some of that worked.
As you descend a flight of stairs or two from the freeway and turn onto more basic highways, you’ll quickly find where they’ve been reworked for an easier ride to get us to grandma’s house. or the church in the next city. Filter even deeper to where the real old highways are, to where there is a more raw feel, to the nature of the time when the old roads were made, many of which have ups and downs and flow where What’s around the next turn remains a mystery to be enjoyed. That’s where I aim my motorcycle, the still unknown, where the bends of the highway invite me back again and again.
Certainly, there are exceptions. U.S. Route 2, straight as an arrow through the northern United States, is such a special ride that I’ve seen it on a Top 10 Highway list. Even so, it was better than 40 years ago when it had only two lanes. There are sections of I-70 in Colorado and Utah where it’s a great ride, a rarity considering the traditional view of interstate highways.
Given the choice, we all know where our motorcycle targets are – somewhere in the spirit that William Least Heat-Moon wrote about Green highway and Jack Kerouac in his epics On the roadwhere the roadway has a soul, a life, a purpose that is more than a simple means of getting somewhere far away.
The original National Road, America’s 40th Street, known as America’s Main Road, is still romantic to it, at least to me. That highway is actually Main Street in my hometown of Zanesville, Ohio, home of the famous (at least for those of us who know well) the Y-Bridge, part of the mystique of that highway.
Ohio’s Nickel Triple Riding: State Route 555
But that title – Main Street of America – is also claimed by US Route 66, the almost mythical road known by other famous names, such as Will Rogers Highway and Mother Road. For those of the generation long ago, Route 66 represents a road that leaves behind pain and despair, the road itself a lifeline to a place where life will have a purpose. When it came into existence in 26, it was known as the Great Diagonal Way, but that same year the United States instituted a numbering system for interstate highways that is still in use today.
From that initial digital base came other symbols for our well-known and lesser-known highways. U.S. Route 6, which stretches from Massachusetts to California, is known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway; a part of US 20 across Nebraska known as the Bridge to the Buttes Scenic Byway; US 12 across Montana is the Lewis and Clark Highway. Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway in Wyoming, Schoodic National Scenic Byway as part of US 1 in Maine, and Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway in New York State.
US Route 23 in Kentucky is known as the Country Music Highway, claiming to be home to many country music icons, including Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dwight Yoakam, and Tom T. Hall. A six-mile stretch of US 129 near Robbinsville, North Carolina, is known for its favorite road – the Ronnie Milsap Freeway.
The list goes on and on and on. At the time of this writing, there are 184 nationally recognized scenic routes. If you travel almost anywhere, you will find our nation’s history in the names assigned to our highways.
Then there are other highways that offer a different experience: the motorway itself. When the letters PCH appear, is there any doubt as to what they refer to? For us motorcyclists, we are attracted to magnets with black heads. We were drawn to special places by what the sidewalks represented. The Dragon tail and the Cherohala Skyway, both of which wind through the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. The Million Dollar Highway in the Colorado Rockies. The Great River Road along the Mississippi River. Old Lincoln Highway, where some sections can still be found. And for many people, Traces of Natchez and Blue Ridge Parkway. Or maybe not. Sorry, pretty or not, the 45 mph speed limit isn’t for me.
Other state highways take on a more specific meaning. 20 memorials marking the 54-mile journey Selma to Montgomery March Byway, the route was made by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists, documenting their march and its results. For those who follow the history of another era, 180 miles The journey through the ground is sanctified, which spans across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, is said to have more historic sites than any other site in America. Then there are John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway, which connects the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. It is named for the late conservationist and philanthropist, who was so concerned about the state of the highway he paid to bring it back into the standards of the day.
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According to the US Department of Transportation, for those who need to know or who are curious, as of 2019, there were 4.2 million miles of road in the US. There are approximately 48,482 miles of interstate highways; Although such highways account for only 1.2% of road miles, they account for almost a quarter of vehicle traffic. Of the 4.2 million miles of roads in this country, 2.9 million are rural and 1.2 million are unpaved. No matter what numbers you handle, there are many avenues to explore.
Every state goes to great lengths to help, defining beautiful routes with official signs and designations, with every road map marking them in a special way to make them easy to spot. They are usually where I aim my motorcycle. Let me trust the state to point me to a highway it considers special, the smaller the more famous the better.
The photos on these pages represent some of the special places I’ve found. They are part of my personal history of almost six decades of riding, documenting the changes in my life, both in terms of the motorcycles I have ridden and how I perceive great places in my life. throughout his many miles.
Most appeared out of nowhere, a beautiful place before my eyes, something that I needed to document for myself, and now share with you. In all but a few places, they surprise, go around a bend in the highway or over a hilltop and there’s a special stretch of road I’ve never seen before. Sometimes, in that moment, it’s just me; Other times do not know the people on their motorcycle happened. I hope some of the people in this gallery, if they see these images, find themselves transported back to a time when our paths were crossed.
Some are from so long ago, I just have a general idea of where they were found. But, come to think of it, their location isn’t that important. That’s what that stretch of highway represented to me at the time and where it still lingers in my mind. What I do know, then as I am now, is that there is another great memory, another beautiful stretch to be enjoyed soon. Now go out and find it.
