Finding the best motorcycle roads

Modern GPS and software tools like Google Maps have made the old skill of map and compass a rare commodity in today’s age. While they are wonderful tools for getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible, many motorcyclists find the journey as much, if not more important, than the destination.  If you are getting bored riding the same roads repeatedly or being stuck on the highway, this article is for you. Are you hoping to find a way to pick the best motorcycle roads that will be ideal for your next motorcycle ride? We’ll cover tips and techniques that work for us.

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Planning Ahead

You can lead a ride with your buddies to one of your favorite restaurants or have an upcoming overnight trip. Planning your ride up front might be a good choice if you like to know exactly where you are going and need to share the route with others.  Planning trips is a perfect thing to do in the off-season.

There are two major approaches here: using paper maps or electronic maps. Paper maps are a good option for the big picture. If you are making a multi-day trip, they can help you think about where you may want your stopover points, both for sights to see and where to stay. But I like electronic maps when it comes down to the specific route and time estimates.

Some riders use Google Maps, which certainly works for the fastest route, but it won’t necessarily be the most fun or scenic. While you can drag and drop your route to force it onto some roads, there isn’t an easy option to export it to work on the GPSs installed on bikes, so you have to use your phone. See our article on using a smartphone on your bike for some essential tips.

I’m a big fan of Rever for planning routes.  From the beginning, it was designed to help motorcyclists with route planning.  If you have a Pro subscription, you also get “twisty routing,” which can generate a fun route between any points automatically.  Butler Maps is also integrated to see and snap your route onto those incredible roads.  You can also export GPX files to use on your GPS.  See our full review of Rever.  Using a tool like Rever can be very helpful here.  The twisty roads option will seek out roads with many curves and try to stitch them together toward your destination.  This is often a great starting point.  The satellite view can also allow you to see rivers. The roads alongside these rivers frequently have great curves and lovely scenery, so dragging your route onto those roads is a great choice.  Switching to the topographic view can also let you see hills. Roads that follow these natural contours into the mountains can also be fun.  Finally, using some Incredible Roads can show some curated roads others have rated well.

No matter which map you use to plan, we have tips to help you find the most scenic and fun roads.

Water features

Most maps indicate water as blue, so look for rivers, streams, and lakes. Some roads run alongside their edges, and these make great scenic roads. They usually have fun turns as they follow the path of the water they run along.

Parks

Most maps indicate parks with a green color.  Roads inside the parks often have beautiful scenery and tend to follow the area’s natural topography, so they have plenty of turns to keep you happy.

Hills/mountains

Not all maps will indicate elevation changes.  This is where a topographic or terrain layer can be a huge help.  Turning this on will show shading around elevation changes so you can “see” the hills on the map.  You’ll often see how the roads bend around these hills.  Look for valleys between the mountains, and roads will usually be between them.  The closer together the hills are, the more of a “hollow” the road has to follow and the more windy the road will be.

Big cities

Many maps show cities in grey or light beige. These areas have high population densities, so they can be good places to look for food or lodging with many options. But the roads in them tend to be flatter and straighter than those in the “country,” plus there is a lot more traffic to contend with, so I try to avoid them unless my destination is nearby.

Once you are away from city areas, some road signs indicate how much traffic you can expect on them.  Generally, major roads have more traffic, including large trucks you’ll find on them.  While major roads can be fast, they are often dull, so I stick to the secondary routes until I’m ready to grab a meal or hit lodging.

Numbered roads

Interstates will be the largest highways, usually indicated with a blue shield with a red crown and a one to three-digit number.  There is a method to the madness of the numbers, though.  Odd numbers run north-south, while even numbers run east-west.  Interstate 95 runs north/south along the coast in the northeast where I’m based.  Interstate 84 runs east/west.  Most primary interstates have one or two-digit numbers.  Shorter routes that might be spurs or loops typically have three digits.

In most cases, the last two digits of these spur roads reference the primary interstate they connect with.  So, Interstate 684 connects to Interstate 84 and 287.  Interstate 287 connects Interstate 95 and 87.  If you need a quick way to your destination, knowing these simple numbering conventions can help you.

US Highways

These follow a naming convention similar to Interstates with odd numbers for north/south and even for east/west.  While sometimes called Federal highways, they are built and maintained by state or local governments.  These are the major roads that predated Interstates, so they often will have a lot of traffic and are usually near Interstates or have been replaced by Interstates in some sections. These are frequently marked on maps with a shield-like icon like Interstates but in white.  Like Interstates, I avoid these as they can be a lot of traffic and are straighter than other options.

State & county highways

The distinction here is more administrative regarding which government entity maintains the road.  Most maps will display these as rounded rectangles in white. These are the roads that are good overall options for motorcycles.  While not as straight as US Highways, they won’t be as twisty as river roads.  They often travel through less populated areas with a lot of scenery, and their gentle bends won’t be too hard, even for cruisers.

Sketching out the route

I generally have a route for longer trips broken into routes for each day rather than one massive route for the entire trip. Most GPS have a limit on the number of waypoints, so breaking it up by the day is the best balance of route overhead vs granularity of waypoints.  Sometimes, a day ride may be a ride to a place and then return.  In this case, I split these into outbound and return routes.  If you return to the same point, some GPS may skip the middle points, so breaking it up can avoid these issues.

As you lay out your route, most mapping software will give a live estimate of the distance and duration.  This can be helpful with selecting any midpoints you’d want to have for breaks, meals & gas stops.  While the less traveled roads tend to be better for motorcycles regarding the scenery and turns, fewer services are available, so you might consider a diversion to a US highway to grab fuel, a rest stop, or a meal.  I’ve typically found a good rule of thumb: taking a break every 2 hours or 100 miles, whichever comes first.  This keeps you fresh and works for almost all motorcycle’s fuel range.  It doesn’t have to be a long stop; sometimes, just pulling over to grab a picture of the scenery and pulling a water bottle out of your tank bag for a quick drink is enough.

While you ride

Planning can give you many great options for your ride, but what if you’re meandering around on your own? Can you find some great roads just by looking ahead?

Using a GPS

GPS Round Trip

Sometimes, you ride without a route or even a destination.  If you are using a GPS, several offer round-trip features in which you can specify the duration or distance and will find some fun roads along the way.  We reviewed the Garmin Zumo XT, which has this round-trip capability.  The Beeline Moto we use for our coffee rides can also generate round-trip routes with our reviewed Beeline Plus subscription.

Beeline Compass Mode

One of my favorite features of the Beeline Moto is compass mode.  See our article on discovering new roads with Beeline.   It’s how all our coffee rides are run.  We point to our destination in the app, and the Moto displays a simple arrow with the distance remaining.  This is as the crow flies, rather than over a specific route.  You need to find the roads that roughly align with the compass heading.  I’ve seen many great roads often skipped by GPS routing with this approach and some sights.  If you have limited time, don’t worry. You can always change to a directed route if pressed for time.  I use a rule of thumb to estimate how long a ride would be:

Compass miles X 1.6 = estimated ridden miles

Estimated ridden miles X 1.6 = estimated ride duration in minutes

If my compass distance is 100 miles, I expect to ride ~160 miles. My travel time should be about 256 minutes or 4.25 hours.  I’ve found this to be pretty accurate over several hundred compass rides & it includes time for me to stop along the way for some pictures or a drink of water.  I’ve paired this with looking out for the names of roads to see ones that might be interesting.  Below are some tips on what to look for.

Picking your route as you ride

Sometimes, you have to leave what you know to find what you need.

Tawni O'Dell

One great tip for this is, if you have a map-based GPS like the Garmin Zumo, to look at the names of the upcoming roads that branch off your current road. If you don’t have this, keep an eye out for the signs showing the names of the roads. Below are some typical road name endings that often become great motorcycle roads.

Hills

• *Mountain Road*

• *Hill Road*

• *Ridge*

So, look for roads like Joe’s Hill Road, Walnut Ridge Road, or Cross Mountain Road, and you may be rewarded with some elevation changes, switchbacks, and possibly some great views of the surrounding environment.

Valleys

• *Hollow*

• *Valley*

• *Snake*

Grassy Hollow Road, Hidden Valley Road, and Snake Hill Road are great examples you may want to turn onto. Valley roads often follow the land closely, and you find meandering roads that give you plenty of smiles per mile from all the curves.

Water

• *Lake*

• *Shore*

• *River*

• *Creek*

• *Run*

• *Kill”

Mahopac Lake Road, East Shore Road, River Road, Barney Creek Road, Sulphur Run Road & Poesten Kill Road will provide roads with lots of curves and a great view of the water.  Many will have pull-offs where you can grab a great picture or take in the view.

Avoidances

On the other hand, some roads might also be avoided. These often end up being dead ends or residential areas.

• *Court*

• *Street*

• *Terrace*

• *Alley*

• *Lane*

So, skipping the roads named Summer Court, Willbrook Terrace, and Donegal Alley is usually a good idea. Lane is more of a grey area. Sometimes, Lover’s Lane or Farm Lane is a great road to try, but others end in a residential area quickly, so it might be worth trying them anyway.

Unfortunately, not all areas follow the names that indicate whether a road is a through street, so you may find some named Albany Road that are dead ends and some named Buxton Lane that are lovely country roads. So, look for a Dead End or No Outlet sign, as that is one to skip.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Finally, what does the direction look like?  Does it appear to climb a hill? Maybe it’s worth trying out.  Are there secondary signs like a boat launch ahead that could suggest heading toward a lake?  If you are on your cruiser or sport bike, maybe you skip the ones that say “Pavement Ends,” while if you are on an adventure bike, you eagerly pick those.

Maybe you come up on a road you’ve been on before & enjoyed, so why not retake it? It is even better if it is in the opposite direction you usually go.  Roads can feel very different in each direction.

While all the tips here can help you find the better roads and skip the bad ones, don’t be afraid to explore. You may find some great roads that go counter to the names. I like to record every ride with Rever, so I always have a record of where I rode and can add them to my list of ones to favor or avoid.

But sometimes, some of the fun of exploring is discovering a dead end. Some roads terminate at a beautiful scenery view, so the diversion could have been worth it even if you need to backtrack.

Ensuring you have a great ride with some fun roads is achievable on your motorcycle.  Whether you plan or wing it as you ride, fun roads await.  You can even look for interesting sights to visit to make it more interesting.  I’ve found Atlas Obscura a fun resource for some of the more hidden-away and obscure historical artifacts, though some are still active and open.