"A Godsend! Riders spend
hours searching the internet for opinions and secret roads that can all be found
at their fingertips in mere seconds here." –Neal
"I'd
ridden through most of BC for over twenty years and thought that I had
seen pretty much all of it, that is until I picked up a copy of DHBC. I
didn't have a clue about how many fantastic roads I was missing until
using your book. Great job!" –Dave
T
"I'm a 66 year old native from the Seattle area and as such, thought
I knew all the roads Washington has to offer. Hah! Yesterday I went about
25 minutes from from my home and enjoyed roads I'd never been on
before!" –Bill
"I've been riding for 45 years in NorCal, and Washington and BC for
27 years. Thanks for these great books that help me to 'ride like a
local!' " –Jim C
"Thought I'd let you know I'm in love with DHWA! I live just north of Seattle, and me and my BMW love the TEs you've found for me in my own Snohomish County
backyard!" –Doug V
"I've set up numerous event
rides over the years, but always did it the by the paper map/seat of the
pants way. I have a new appreciation for the work put into DHBC - it is
outstanding!" --Kathryn S
"DH NorCal and its Companion Map gave my son and I the best trip ever last summer, and we thought we already knew the roads in Northern California! This year we're going to Utah and Arizona, and without DH books or any knowledge of
these two states, its proven to be quite an exercise. It makes me appreciate your efforts all the more."
–Barry W
"We had a couple of local Californians
follow us and ask how we knew about these roads. They'd lived there for
years and had never found them!" –Taxguy
"Wow! I lived in the Bay Area and should have had DH NorCal or DH
BAY AREA....many times! You know your stuff!!" –Chuck F
"I just
retired and moved to Eureka, NorCal. I have found roads in the area using
your book that even the locals don't know about!" –Jerry
C
"The parts that cover the area
in NorCal that I know read
like a local wrote them." –Jeff D
"We even had a couple of local guys outside Sacramento ask us
where a particular road came from/went to!" –Chris P
"Don’t ride like a tourist, ride
like a local"?
Just the usual corporate bumpf, right??
Actually it's much more than that. As the above quotes confirm, it really
does describe our entire philosophy and explains why we came up with the Destination
Highways concept.
Does
the following sound like your last bike trip?
You’ve put aside the time. Logged
countless hours on the web, searching for info on good motorcycle roads.
Sketched out a route based on "advice" from the sport
geezers forum (yeah, fluffyrider, sure the main highway down
Whidbey Island's a motorcycle road.
Last time I listen to you.....)
Your bike is
prepped and ready for action. Now, armed with an all-purpose map or atlas, you’re off for
a little bikeotherapy.
Of
course, you wonder about some of those out-of-the-way roads that look like
they might be good. The same
way you wonder about all those tempting side roads you just LOOK at as you
go by that don’t even show on your all- purpose.
You know, the ones shooting off those major highways that you
always seem to spend so much time riding because you don’t know where
the good nearby roads are.
You don’t ride any of these mystery roads of course. Because when you have in the past, you ended up wasting
precious time and gas on dead-enders, boring nothings, navigational
nightmares or pieces of crap rather than finding the great roads you were
looking for.
Then you return home. Sure,
it was a great trip – they always are.
But the memories are tarnished when you tell some buddy where you
were riding and he points out that instead of riding that major highway
with all the rest of the traffic, you could have been on a sweet, curvy,
scenic, traffic-free alternative. Or
worse, he told you about it before you left, but you never found it.
In fact, now that you think about it, only half of your trip was
great when you stumbled on good roads, and half was just okay
(other than being on your bike of course) because you spent far too much
time on so-so roads or major highways and interstates since you had no
idea where the good roads nearby, if there were any, might be.
Why do you have that less-than-peak experience? Well, due to the fact that in areas you're not familiar with,
you tend to "ride like a tourist".
That’s because the maps you use are designed to get you from one
major city to another as fast as possible in a car, rather than showing
you good motorcycle roads (which they often don’t even show at all). Even if you have GPS or spend a fortune on local maps, or buy
every atlas you can, you still won't know which roads are the ones to take
and which aren’t. We've all
been there, right?
And because you don’t know where the good local roads are and “ride
like a tourist”, you generally log many more as-the-crow-flies major
highway miles that end up with you three states over after only three days, wondering how you got so far so fast on so many
uninteresting roads. You can
struggle against this as much as you like but the maps you use tend to do
that to you because that’s what they are designed to do.
With our books
on the other hand, when you
“ride like a local” you'll still get those 300 mi (480
km) in a day that you wanted but instead of being that distance away from
where you started, you might only be 100 mi (160 km) from your starting
point. We’ve even ended up
back at the same spot.
Of
course, some riders think they “know all the roads”.
Problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know.
In reality, you’re familiar with a few good routes and have told
yourself that’s all there is. And
the farther away from home you are, the more you don’t know.
You hesitate to explore alternatives because you don’t know if
they’re 24 carat or fool’s gold.
GPS isn’t the answer. It’s
great at telling you where you are but not so good at telling you where
you should be. Nor is the hit-and-miss “I just like to get lost”
approach. Problem with that
is you miss way more than you hit and continue to stay "lost".
We
think life's too short and they're too many good roads you shouldn't miss
to spend the limited riding time (and $$$) you have riding ones
that are not so good. That’s
why we came up with the Destination Highways™ concept, to give
you something no other book, map, website, forum or GPS unit can give you:
comprehensive knowledge of where all the best roads are (and
exactly what they’re like) already wrapped up for you in one roadworthy
ready-to-go package.
We
ride the good and the not so good, so you get to ride just the good.
All clearly identified as well as rated and/or described in a way
that lets you know whether it's going to be your kind of ride.
It's not about what we like in a road, we just give you the tools
to find what you like, which varies according to what and how you ride.
And may even vary from day to day for you.
Everyone
from Ferrari drivers to Harley riders uses our books
because they're designed to let enthusiasts "ride like a
local" in the areas covered, even if they've NEVER ridden there
before. 34,000 miles (54,000 kms) of research riding for Northern
California, 28,000 miles (46,000 kms) for Washington and 25,000 miles
(40,000 kms) for British Columbia guarantee it.
But
“riding like a local” goes beyond just knowing where to ride.
It also means knowing where to stop.
You and your baby need fuel and maintenance.
Where’s the nearest gas when you’re hitting reserve?
Turn to the Destination
Highways™ Local Maps. Where’s
the nearest bike shop to arrange for that back tire you’re going to need
in two days —or that just went
flat. Check out the Regional Maps or Bike Shop listings at the back
of the book.
And
what about you? Maybe you’re cruising along at lunchtime, wondering if
there’s a nice pub on the water nearby.
Or perhaps it’s just getting late on a beautiful afternoon,
you’re having a great day and want to keep going for a couple more
hours. But you’ve just hit
a town and the “where am I going to eat/sleep” thoughts start to nag.
You don’t want to be riding tired and hungry four hours from now,
so you stop earlier than you'd like. Or get into an
argument about whether or not to stop.
Unlike
GPS, our detailed maps let you visually confirm at a glance not only what
services are nearby but what’s down the road.
Call ahead to confirm if you need to, jump back on your bike worry
free, and log that extra saddle time on more motorcycle roads.
Maximize your time on good roads that you'll like, and minimize the
hassle of finding the things you need when you need 'em.
And what’s all this "local"
knowledge worth to you? How
about less than the cost of a motel ($100), an installed rear tire
($229.00), a few tanks of gas ($66.00) or a dinner without paper napkins
for two ($89.00).
Make sense? That's why "Don't ride like a tourist, ride like a
local!" is more than our slogan. It's what our books do for new
and experienced enthusiasts alike and why they love them (see Testimonials).
And why many of them say, "Destination Highways books?
Priceless."
"Our plan was to ride via the west side of the Cascades, trying to pick a route that wouldn’t take us over roads already ridden but more importantly, keep us off
busy highways. I spread the DHWA Companion Map out, and VOILA, there were all
kinds of red DHs and orange TEs between Sedro Wooley and Enumclaw, behind Seattle and well away from the interstate. So I plotted a route on our GPS using the map and book as a guide. It was WONDERFUL – we had a great ride, saw lots of new country (and for my husband who has ridden over 40 years in all 48 continental states and probably close to 1M kms – that was a first!) and managed to totally avoid the big city. We
used both the book and map several more times on the trip to find and ride even more great roads. We rode DH2, 3 and most of 4 on
two consecutive days – how much better can it get? Thank you again for your wonderful books and maps. We have them all, use them often and recommend them to everyone we
meet!" –Judy W
(Like these riders from Kamloops BC, you too can "ride
like a local" in WA, BC or NorCal, no matter where you're from)
Want to buy
DHBC DHWA DHNorCal and/or their Companion Maps?
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