Passes & Canyons Blog

Just a quick note here to let you know that Butler Motorcycle Maps has just added Southern California to the list of motorcycle-touring maps it offers. Already available are Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. They will also soon have a Rocky Mountain states map combining all five of those mountain states in one map. These things are sizable already so I’m wondering if that one is going to be huge.

I’ve written previously about these maps so I’ll just recap here. In addition to being tough and waterproof, these maps have all the best motorcycle roads in each state highlighted and detailed. I know they’ve done a good job of this because I have ridden extensively in the Rocky Mountain states and there isn’t a road I would add that they don’t already have. And they have a few I’m not familiar with. I’d say that’s a pretty strong recommendation.

As for this new one, Southern California, this is where it really gets interesting for me. I don’t know California very well, and I especially don’t know SoCal. I look at this map and I think, “Oh man. Look at that. And that. And that. I want to go there.” But you know, without something like this map, if I did go there I wouldn’t have any idea where to go. Clearly the main strength in these maps is cluing in people who are unfamiliar with an area as to what the area offers.

For instance, I was riding in SoCal just a couple weeks ago, and while I was on a tour where I couldn’t just split off and go somewhere else, I see from this map that we were very close to some really nice roads. Not that the roads we were on weren’t nice, mind you. We did, after all, ride Big Sur, and go to Yosemite, and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. But I had no notion that there were some other very good motorcycle roads that we just went right past. Next time I have a chance to get out that way I’m definitely taking this map.

I will make note here, for purposes of full disclosure, that I have an ongoing relationship with the folks at Butler. They have paid for one small ad on 1 page on my 100+ page website, and they do give me these maps for free, with the hope that I’ll write about them. Rest assured, though, that if I thought these things were crap I’d say so. But you won’t hear that from me because it’s not true.

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Biker Quote for Today

Don’t die wondering, die wandering.