If you’re having trouble deciding where to go on your next big road trip, Dale Coyner presents a few options in his newest book, Motorcycle Journeys Through North America.
There are a lot of miles between St. Anthony, Newfoundland, and Fairbanks, Alaska—especially if one detours to ride through New Orleans, the Texas Hill Country and along the Pacific Coast. This book differs from the others in the popular Motorcycle Journeys series in that it lacks a certain intimacy that the regional ones—including Coyner’s Motorcycle Journeys Through The Appalachians—tend to offer. Instead it presents the “big picture” favored by long-distance touring riders.
Some of the 17 tours in this book are structured as loops. The Great Lakes Loop, Appalachian Adventures, American South and Lone Star Loop are presented in this manner. Atlantic Canada, The Nor’easter, Crossing the Heartland and Coastal Cruise are long, straight tours. However, it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out how to link them together to provide months of sublime motorcycle traveling. The chapter on the Canadian Rockies has 3,000 miles of road and the following one, North to Alaska, is another 3,100 miles so unless you have unlimited time and money, there are years of highway riding mapped in this edition.
These 400 pages are lavishly illustrated with approximately 500 maps and photos that make you want to pack your machine and get on the highway tomorrow morning. There are photos of twisty roads running along the very edges of canyons, lakes and oceans. Others show fantastic scenic vistas, bucolic pastoral landscapes, majestic forests and notable sights to see along the way. Some highways I’ve never heard of; others are familiar ribbons of asphalt. Riders from one coast to the other will respond in the same way after perusing these pages and the allure of distant horizons and roads not yet ridden will awaken their wanderlust.
Consider this to be an index to the other North American titles in the series. Once you’ve decided where to travel, these Whitehorse Press titles can provide more regional background, stops and roads. It’s actually quite an accomplishment that Coyner has managed to cover an entire continent in one volume.
Written by Dale Coyner
Whitehorse Press, 400 pages
www.whitehorsegear.com
