Left n back Again - A Continental Road Trip - Best Roads - September 2004

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The Best Roads

A list of what I consider to be some of the "best" roads of the trip. They are ranked and ordered from highest (best overall score) to lowest. For a guide to rankings and criteria, please click here. Click on any of the routes to warp to a page describing that route. To use an interactive clickable map of these same best roads, click here.

	California Route 36	A lightly-traveled super-twisty. One the best twisty roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving on. Overall Score: 9 Fun-to-drive: 9.6

	Loop Drive Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South)	Beautiful badlands along a very twisty, well-paved scenic loop road. Overall Score: 8.8 Fun-to-drive: 8.3

	Utah 9 & Zion National Park	Otherwordly and spectacular color-canyon-country scenery and a dash of good twisties to boot. Overall Score: 8.3 Fun-to-drive: 7.1

	Utah 12 Utah 24 Panguitch to Hanksville, UT Bryce Canyon NP Grand Staircase-Escalante NM Capitol Reef NP	A scenic drive across a remote and beautiful swath of Colorado Plateau scenery in southern Utah. Overall Score: 8.25 Fun-to-drive: 7.3

	Forest Roads 25&99 Gifford-Pinchot NF / Mount Saint Helens NVM, Washington	Lengthy, extremely high quality tight* twisties along with interesting views of volcanic devastation.* Overall Score: 8 Fun-to-drive: 7.8

	US 89 Choteau to St. Mary, MT Going-to-the-Sun highway Glacier National Park, MT	An open prairie drive with twisties, and an awesome mountain drive with some more twisties! Overall Score: 7.5 Fun-to-drive: 6.3

	California Route 120 & Yosemite National Park	A "mainstream" super-twisty. Lots of traffic, lots of diverse scenery, and lots of twisties. Overall Score: 7.5 Fun-to-drive: 6.7

	Rim Drive Crater Lake NP	A fantastic high-altitude scenic drive around vast, blue Crater Lake. Overall Score: 7.3 Fun-to-drive: 5.9

	Forest Road 92 Kootenai NF, Montana	A tricky-to-follow, very twisty remote backway just miles from the Canadian border in northern Montana. Overall Score: 7 Fun-to-drive: 8.5

	Forest Roads 23&33 Siskiyou NF, Oregon	A quiet and unused backway between busy Interstate 5 and the beautiful Oregon Coast. Extremely twisty, but not for the claustrophobic! Overall Score: 6.8 Fun-to-drive: 8.6

	BC 3 Osoyoos to Hope, British Columbia	Twisties, Canadian-style, through a remote and scenic corner of southwestern BC. Overall Score: 6.5 Fun-to-drive: 6.3

	Michigan 28 Munising to Marquette	Excellent views from a stretch of road that runs right along the shore of the largest lake in the world. Overall Score: 6 Fun-to-drive: 5

	Minnesota 108 west of Dent, MN	A pleasant back-way that winds through hummocky glacial terrain dotted with lakes. Overall Score: 5.8 Fun-to-drive: 5.5

Guide to Road Rankings and Criteria

I've ranked roads based on four criteria that I have defined. They are:

Twistiness: The amount and "tightness" of the curves on the road. a "1" is completely straight; a "10" is an abundance of super-tight 15 mph essess, hairpins, switchbacks, etc. A "6" is what most normal people would consider a curvy road.

Road Quality: The condition of the road surface. A "10" is a nice, wide, completely smooth road surface, with perfect signage and paint. A "1" is barely above gravel, full of potholes and patches, etc. A "5" is reasonably acceptable pavement.

Traffic: A busy road usually means no fun on the twisties. The more [slow] traffic there is on a road, the worse the score. A "1" means endless hordes of slow moving cars, SUVs, and motorhomes. A "10" means you might be lucky to see four cars in an hour.

Scenic Impact: Although not really a factor for twisty road driving, this is still an attribute of a road's niceness. Completely jaw-dropping scenery gets you a "10" on this scale.

I generate two score values from the above criteria:

Fun-to-drive is a measure of how enjoyable a road is to drive from a purely motorsports perspective. This measure ignores scenery and places a heavier weight on twistiness and traffic. (The specific formula I use is: (twistiness * 1.7 + surface quality * 0.5 + traffic * 0.8) / 3)

Overall Score is a measure of the road taking into account scenery, and more heavily weighting the smoothness of the road. (The specific formula I use is: (twistiness * 0.95 + surface quality * 1.15 + traffic * 0.95 + scenic * 0.95) / 4)

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