Route 66 begins 04-11-2026

Historically, Route 66 began in Chicago, Illinois and ended in Santa Monica, California. For our ride, we are beginning in Santa Monica and will finish in Chicago. For this ride, I am once again joined by an old friend. Ron Schleif and I rode the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico in 2021. His wife, Carol is giving us some support by helping us through the first 4 days of the ride. Today we launched from “The End Of The Road” and started our journey to the beginning.

We thought we might be riding in a drizzle, but instead it was a beautiful sunny day with a light breeze by the ocean. As soon as we rode off the pier onto the street, our GPS was a little confused and we spent a few minutes getting our bearings. Soon we were off along streets that mostly had bike lanes. A few miles down the road, we encountered others that were somewhat challenged to navigate the streets.

There were various markers, famous places, and the oddities of a bygone era. I loved the metal giant outside a block of auto glass shops. I want to see how many I can capture on camera.

One of many metal giants we will see on the trip

I spent 2 summers working at the Jet Propulsion Lab and lived near the Cal Tech campus during that time. My only transportation was the LA bus system and my Raleigh ten speed. Every day I rode 45 minutes uphill past the Rose Bowl to JPL and 25 minutes on the return! Leonard, Sheldon, Raj and Howard had not yet arrived to campus. It brought back memories as we stopped for lunch and made our way east through Pasadena. And yes, the mental juke box was playing Jan and Dean’s “Little Old Lady from Pasadena”

We did not make good time going through all the towns surrounding LA. We had to be careful of the traffic, were slowed by city busses and many stop lights. But we still got to see many indicators that wee were on the “Mother Road”.

It wouldn’t be an adventure if things went according to plan. Just after taking a short break in a park at mid afternoon, Ron was lucky enough to get the first flat of the trip. Of course it was on the rear tire which is harder to change.

I had problems of my own. I had charged all my electronics before leaving Washington. They had sat unused, but probably lost some of their charge over the last 2 days. My GPS had already indicated a low battery issue and my phone was already down to 25%. I turned off Bluetooth and went into airplane mode after caching a map of the area. About 7 miles from Ron’s flat, we got on a paved bike path that we rode for 12 miles. After a few miles on the path, my GPS gave up and went dark. After I was able to charge it, it gave me credit for 60 of the almost 80 miles we rode today.

The original plan was to stay at a hotel in Fontana. With Carol along to help us and carry our panniers for the day, we stayed farther down the road in Rialto. We were tired and ready to get cleaned up. I had to wait a little longer as my room had not been cleaned. It was another 30 minutes before I could get into another room to shower, change clothes, get everything charging and head for dinner. We ate at a great burger joint. Chris’s Burgers was throwback to an earlier time during the heyday of Route 66. I enjoyed my light meal of double burger, salad and pineapple shake.