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Head out on the highway looking for adventure. Or at least that's the way the song goes. But is the highway the best place to find adventure?
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert.
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Steppenwolf's Iconic song Born to Be Wild is an almost cliché invocation of the American ideal of a motorcycle ride. While the highway, or more specifically, the interstate, has been a key part of the Western expansion of the United States in the modern era. You could be missing out on some hidden gems you'd find on backroads. And in this episode we'll discuss some of the different type of roads you might take your motorcycle on.
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Why many motorcycle riders choose to ride only on highways and what you might be missing from sticking to that interstate.
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So back roads, city streets, stroads, highways. What do all these different terms mean when it comes to the roads that you might decide to ride your your bike on? Well, let's start off with highway, and I'm going to give you my definition that I'm trying to describe this up, because highway can kind of have some variations as people think of them. So when I'm describing a highway, I mean, a controlled access highway. Now, this might be called a motorway, an autobahn, an auto Strada auto route, whatever. And generally these will have higher speed limits or no limits, as some parts of the autobahn in Germany have. Exits and entry ramps are limited with merge and exit lanes to try to smooth out the flow, and they'll often bypass a built up area or town. But also some of the natural attractions like mountains, lakes and more.
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Now, if we think of a street, well, street tends to be a public thoroughfare in a built up environment, and it's usually adjoining buildings in an urban environment where people might, you know, assemble and come together, etc.. And if we can consider that these will have frequent intersections, you know, whether it's another road that's intersecting in another street, There's many driveways, pedestrians, there's a lot of conflicts that are going to be on a typical street. And in the United States in particular, we also have our own unique contribution. And this is where we have something that are lovingly referred to as stroads.
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And this is a bit of a mixture of streets and roads brought together and these hybrids are really their wide arterial roads, and they're often used for things like strip malls, drive thrus or other automobile oriented businesses. And they have been criticized in a lot of ways because they'll typically be three or four lanes per side of traffic flow. But it's not a controlled access road. So it's the width of a typical highway, but not really having some of the safety and or at least isolation that you'll get with a typical highway. But I really want to focus on a backroad now.
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Backroad is a secondary type of road usually found in rural areas. The key point is that these don't have lots of strip malls that can create road conflicts like a stroad. and they may be a very simple two lane road, one in each direction or one lane in each direction within infrequent intersections.
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And in this way, they avoid the potential for conflicts like one would find on streets or stroads.
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And they act a little bit more similar to a highway. But they actually move through the terrain and have a different experience than you would have on a highway.
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So why do riders choose to ride on highways? Well, it's usually going to be broken into a few different categories. So I'm going to start with the first one, which is really the impression of safety. The idea is these don't have intersections. Traffic is moving all in the same direction and there's a wide right of way allowing us to see wildlife easier. So some riders will feel that they are safer because they have a lot of that restriction.
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You're not going to have a left turning vehicle if you're in the United States or Right turning if you're in the U.K., block us or cause a collision so they can feel that they are a little bit more safe in this regard. The second thing is that they will often be faster. The speed limits will be higher because there's no lights or intersection that can reduce traffic speeds. You're going to be able to progress along the travel of that particular route in a faster way than you would on other types of roads. And the last one really comes down to bike capability, especially in North America. Cruisers are very popular as a style of motorcycle.
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And while these can be wonderful bikes for that open road of highways, a lot of this has to do with the design of the bike.
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They're meant to be very stable in a straight line. They have a very long outstretched fork.
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They have lots of wind protection. They oftentimes have cruise control and they have some limited lean angles. So they're really more comfortable to ride on a relatively straight piece of road. And this is why you tend to have, at least in the United States, certainly a lot of riders will more often choose to ride on highways because of that safety, the perceived speed as well as the bike capabilities of their bike, or maybe the inabilities that prevent them from riding on some of the other types of roads.
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So what are you missing?
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Well, I want to start with a couple of the issues that we raised of why you may choose to ride on a highway.
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And the first one is that safety may be an illusion.
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Drivers on highways are often lulled into complacency, and as a result, they don't really pay as much attention. And so the odds of them not seeing a bike running into it actually is much higher because they're not having that reinforcement of there are dangers, I need to have an awareness because they just get going along. They've got the cruise control set.
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Maybe they even have some of the modern cars with like a lane assist and they're not really paying much attention. The other way is that sometimes riders who are on the highway or drivers, rather, are in such a hurry. And that's why they wanted to be on a highway. They're driving far more aggressively and as a consequence, an empty back road might actually end up being a safer place than a highway.
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The second thing I want to highlight is highways aren't always faster. if you use any routing app, let's say like Google Maps, compare the avoid highways with the faster East route. And what you'll find typically is that the distance is often longer when you're picking a highway route. And if the choice is between, let's say a highway with a 55 mile an hour speed limit or a back road with a 45 mile an hour speed limit, but the highways 20% longer is it really faster? So that's one of the things that I would say is don't get lost into the impression of safer or faster when it comes to highways.
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A lot of people will be on the highway and I don't mean it in terms of just motorcyclists, but I mean car drivers, trucks, everything is going to be on the highway and sometimes the back roads are going to be less frequently traveled. I love the Robert Frost poem where he said two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by.
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And that has made all the difference. And I think it really does make a difference when it comes to your motorcycle experience. So backroads will really make a difference.
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And one of the reasons why this is so critical is that I think for a lot of motorcyclists, we aren't trying to get from point A to point B, maybe if you're commuting, that is the intention. But for a lot of it, it's really the journey is the goal. And highways tend to emphasize getting from point A to point B, and therefore the destination is the goal. But on a bike, it's really more the journey that is our motivation.
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And the destination is almost secondary.
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So I also want to talk about the joy of curves. Now, bikes are really designed to lean into curves. And in fact, the experience is probably the closest that you can get to flying. If you've ever flown, even in a commercial airliner, you know that for a plane to turn, it's going to bank into the corner. And this is the same way in which a motorcycle navigates around a turn. That's where the fun comes in. Just experiencing it. The thrill of being able to navigate it correctly, being able to go and have that enjoyment. That's part of the joy of being on a motorcycle as compared to, let's say, a car. I want to pull in a quote that was from the movie Cars, and this was from the character Sally, and she was talking about Route 66. And when it was bypassed in some ways with the interstate and she was describing the road of Route 66, and she said, well, the road didn't cut through the land like that. Interstate. It moved with the land, It rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make a great time. They drove on it to have a great time. And I think this is a really key aspect. It's the fun of the road that you'll find on a back road that a highway just doesn't have the highways just straight. It's boring. It's just getting you from point A to point B, but it doesn't have that flow that you can get on a wonderful backroad.
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And if you want to hit some of those great backroads, there's a couple of apps that can help you with this. So if you think of really twisty roads routing, that's the best way to do this.
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And there's a couple of different apps that will do this.
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So if you're in Europe, I think CaliMoto is probably one of the best tools out there. It's a routing engine as well as an app that can allow you to set up your route and find that curvy road. If you're using a Garmin Zumo many of those have this adventurous routing which will oftentimes kind of be that twisty fun road? Lots of elevation changes and it can be a really good option. In the United States, I'd say. Rever's probably the one that I would pick more often. They have built into it. If you have one of the pro subscriptions, the twisty roads routing, you can also use some of the Butler maps. I actually have a whole write up on Rever on the website, so I'll actually add a link to that in the show notes. And then the last one, and this is one of my personal favorites is the Beeline Moto. Beeline Moto, of course, has these fun routes and in many ways this is crowd sourced. So if someone's riding along and they think that this is a great road, they'll thumb up it. And if they think it's a lousy road, they'll thumb it down. And as they look at who's actually or a segment of the roads that are getting that more often, they'll more recommend or not recommend those particular segments for your route. So it's a great way to be able to find those amazing, fun, twisty roads.
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The other thing I think is important when you're thinking of these backroads as compared to the highway is all the things that you miss along the way when you're on that highway and you might see some things that you'll only find on the back roads or in some of these more unique places. So for example, that some of the random attractions that you might find in a website like Atlas Obscura.
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I actually went to one of these when I went down to the the BMW MOA rally a couple of years ago and I went to in North Carolina, there was an old Shell gas station that was actually in the shape of a shell, and they've maintained this for four decades.
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It's no longer a functioning gas station, but it still has that appearance. It's just kind of a fun attraction that you could do and see. But you're not going to do that if you're staying on the highway all of the time. And kind of fitting into that theme of Route 66 that we talked about.
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Think of some of the roadside stops that are really these kitschy moments from the westward expansion. These could be things like the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. It could be the Wigwam Hotel in Holbrook, Arizona, which in many people believe it was the inspiration for the Cozy Cone Motel in the in the Pixar film Cars. And like Route 66, you miss seeing all of the small towns that blink by on a highway.
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And in Europe, most any small village can hide history that may be worth exploring. And these could be villages that have castles in them, farming villages and many more, where as you get off of that main highway, that auto route, you're going to be able to see some of these amazing views and experiences.
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And when you're in these backroads, I would also say pavement isn't the only options because sometimes the most fun roads aren't even paved. And ADV bikes have been becoming more and more popular. And sometimes the slowest path is also the most rewarding. Now, in the United States, we have a great organization that puts together routes that are all over the country to let you find these off the beaten trail. And it's called backcountry discovery routes. And they have several routes across the United States.
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They're typically 700 to about 1400 miles each. And they're intended to be completed in about 5 to 8 days. So if you want to go for an extended long trip, you can follow along these paths. They also have some loop routes called BDR-X. And these allow you to hit a few segments in a narrower geographic area.
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So this could be great if you've only got maybe a long weekend.
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You can go hit one or two of the segments in a weekend. It's a great way to be able to explore it. And if you're in Europe, one of the things that I think is a must explore is the trans euro trail or the TET. And this is a hundred thousand kilometers of trails covering as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as the edge of Africa. And with so many routes available throughout all of mainland Europe and the United Kingdom in general, you're going to find something that will fit.
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So let's wrap up. We've covered the different types of roads that you can ride on and why some riders might often choose highways as their default road option. We also covered what you might be missing by sticking to highways and how the back roads could provide some great experiences. So my question for you is what do you think about highway versus backroads? Are there other reasons that you might prefer one over the other that we didn't cover in this episode?
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Share your thoughts by clicking.
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Text the show in the show notes or leave us a voicemail at throttle and roast dot com slash voicemail. We'll talk to you next week.
