Book review: “Riding America’s Backroads”

Here’s an idea that I can get behind: a motorcycle travel magazine compiling articles on 20 of its top U.S. tours, including Route 66, into one well-illustrated book. Motorcycle tourism has steadily grown as baby boomers approach retirement, so the market for such a book is there.

RoadRunner Motorcycle Touring & Travel magazine, on its 10th anniversary, has done this with “Riding America’s Backroads” (softcover, Fox Chapel, 192 pages, $27.95). In addition to the Mother Road, the book includes tours into central and northern New Mexico, the Mendocino Coast of California, Grand Canyon Country of northern Arizona, and Big Bend National Park in Texas — all with beautiful full-color photographs and illustrations. Sprinkled throughout are one-page stories and sidebars about trip planning, group rides, repair tools and other information.

However, I found enough flaws with “Riding America’s Backroads” that I would use it with caution — especially with Route 66.

In the book’s opening chapter of Route 66, the uncredited writers  mention they inadvertently skipped Tulsa and Oklahoma City, which signals they drove on Oklahoma Highway 66, aka the interstate, through those cities instead of taking the classic alignments. Oops.

And Kansas — and its 13 miles of Route 66 — isn’t mentioned at all.

The book’s serious shortcomings pop up when the authors mention eating breakfast at Norma’s Diamond Cafe in Sapulpa, Okla., and stopping to see the Big 8 Motel (famous for a scene in the movie “Rain Man”) in El Reno, Okla. Both places have been gone for at least five years.

Obviously, the article was written a long time ago. But, like the error-riddled “Road Trip USA Route 66,” the publishers needed to employ a fact-checker to ensure the book is up-to-date. At the least, editor’s notes in the story should have informed readers that those landmarks are defunct so that future travelers aren’t disappointed.

The end of the chapter includes a one-page Facts and Information, including the best times to travel, typical road conditions, books and map resources, key Web sites, and a short listing of attractions.

However, the Route 66 map places several towns in inaccurate spots, including Stroud, Okla., away from Route 66 entirely; Clinton, Okla., being very close to the Texas border; Santa Rosa, N.M., in the Tucumcari area; Oatman, Ariz., being east of Sitgreaves Pass instead of west, and Barstow, Calif., being about 100 miles too far to the east.

With these oversights and mistakes in the opening chapter, it doesn’t give one much confidence about the rest of “Riding America’s Backroads.”

Another gripe: The book does not contain an index or listing of chapters by page number. This makes trying to look up the sections a big hassle.

The book provides a website in which you can download global-positioning system files and tankbag maps for your trips. I had a devil of a time finding the address for the downloads; it wasn’t featured on RoadRunner’s main site. The only place it’s listed is on the inside flap of book cover. Anyway, the download site is here.

The downloadable maps are the same as the ones in the book. So the downloadable Route 66 map has the same problems with the strangely positioned towns as the book version, and is only marginally useful.

I don’t have a GPS unit, but plugged in RoadRunner’s downloadable coordinates into Google Earth. Admittedly, this isn’t ideal for testing. But I determined that RoadRunner’s coordinates did include older Route 66 alignments such as the Santa Fe routing, part of the Admiral Place in Tulsa, the Sidewalk Highway near Afton and Miami, Okla.; the old Geary, Okla., alignment, and the old Springfield-to-Carlinville routing in Illinois.

However, the GPS coordinates did not go into Arizona’s scenic Black Mountains and the quaint mining town of Oatman. I’m not sure whether RoadRunner thought Oatman Road is too challenging, or an oversight.

So, if you’re a Garmin junkie, it may be to your advantage to supplement the device with other Route 66 coordinates, such as these.

“Riding America’s Backroads” might provide a motorcycle enthusiast a few good ideas for his or her next road trip. But I would think twice about using it as a primary resource.