For Love of Roads. (On Touring).

Publication: Rider

Publication Date: 01-JAN-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Ehlert Publishing Group

Roads are good, be they big roads or little roads, paved or dirt. I like 10-lane interstates slicing through huge megalopolises; cut-bank logging roads in national forests; twisty little two-laners climbing through the mountains; arrow-straight asphalt across the great plains; gravelly byways slithering over hill and into dale; long U.S.-marked highways running from city to city, state to state, coast to coast; short country roads used only by the occasional pickup-driving rancher or farmer.

I'm a road rider; I need roads to ride.

All in all, our 50 states are traversed by the better part of 4 million miles of road. A lot of us take these roads for granted, not thinking much about why they were built in the first place, or who maintains them now. Unless, of course, we get stuck in some construction zone on U.S. 50 in August, at which point we rail (unfairly) against the orange-vested workers for having inconvenienced us.

Personally, I feel that the authorities responsible for maintaining our roads do a damned good...

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