Cycle Canada
Review

sport-touring.net
Review

soundrider.com Review

Vancouver Sun Review

North Shore News Review

Right off the bat, this is an impressive book. At 700 grams and 536 pages, it’s the Ulysses of road guides, a pound and a half of maps, stories, arcane and sometimes humorous facts, indexes and qualitative ratings for “the best 346 roads in Washington State.” 

As in DHBC (which lists 185 roads), the authors used a comprehensive set of evaluations to produce each road’s final rating. The system, called tires, assigns values for six criteria: Twistiness, Pavement, Engineering, Remoteness, Scenery and Character. The final score determines each road’s DH rating. Using 55 points as a cut-off, they list 74 “Destination Highways.” The best? Hwy 20 from Rockport to Winthrop scores 92.3 points and a perfect 30 for Twistiness. (Twistiness gets more possible points than any other category.) But the book lists 346 roads, not 74. The rest are “Twisted Edges,” roads that don’t quite cut it as Destination Highways but are still good. Washington State, it appears, is filled with them.  

Some DHBC readers have suggested they got the rankings wrong in a few places, but the authors say it’s not the absolute ratings that count; it’s how you use the numbers. “Our system is designed so that after you’ve done a few roads and looked at the individual tires numbers, you can quickly figure out what you need in a road to suit your riding preferences,” says Bosworth. “Then you go for the DH’s with those kinds of numbers.” If you like scenery, for instance, an index on page 516 lists the roads in the order they scored under that quality. DH2, the road to Mt. St. Helens, wins that particular race, with 13.9 out of 15 points.  

Other readers have accused Bosworth and Sanders of inappropriate subjectivity. “DH1 is your favourite road, not mine.” But the tires system, the authors say, rings up its points with some measure of independence, or at least a fairly objective take on things. “The DH numbers only surfaced on our computer screens months after riding the roads, and we had lots of surprises,” says Bosworth. Neither of them, for example, calls DH1 in B.C. his personal favourite.  

How did they compile the ratings? With motorcycles (Bosworth: Triumph Trophy 900; Sanders, ZX-10 and -11) a helmet-cam and notebooks. They rode thousands of kilometres, video-taped them all and then compared notes. Along the way they collected enough information to choke a librarian. Where are the motels? Gas stations? Pubs? When did the Pig War start? Indeed, there’s too much for some readers. Rides are described intimately, as if they had stopped after each curve, dug out notebooks and held detailed conversations. “Would you call that pavement grey, or chartreuse?”  

Information overload or not, DH Washington is fun to read. “Without doubt,” exclaimed one reader about the B.C. book, “the finest literary work in the last century!” Even the glossary of terms is amusing: if you’ve never heard of “twistosterone,” you need to get yourself some. Playful descriptions enliven the text: “Aye, lassie. Washougal ta Stevenson. There’s a DH for ye.” (DH33). “Whit ye waitin’ far, onyway? Away wi’ ye!” 

The authors (Bosworth is “Chief Motorcycling Officer,” Sanders is "Director of Protocol,” and together they’re Twisted Edge Publishing, Inc.) preserved the style of the B.C. book, but made some functional improvements: it’s a little easier to navigate and a little easier to read. The layout makes it easy to get what you need in a hurry: each DH gets a tires chart, a general description (At a Glance), access information from several directions, and a longer, more detailed On The Road passage. You can read the bare facts, or the whole story. As in the B.C. book, maps are printed for easy use in low light. There are a lot of maps, by the way, and they are very good maps.  

So, from two guys who have ridden virtually every paved mile in Washington and kilometre in B.C., which is better? “They’re totally different,” says Bosworth. “I don’t really prefer one over the other.”  

Sanders: “I would say that what I came to really appreciate doing Washington was B.C.’s remoteness.... However, the pavement in Washington seems far better, and they resurface the roads far more regularly and they’re far more vigilant about it.”  

If you get what you pay for, you deserve a lot from DH Washington, because it’s expensive: U.S. $45 in the States, Cdn $60 up here, a comparative bargain. (DHBC is Cdn $45.) You can see where the money went, though: spiral bound, full-colour, printed like an art book, and exhaustive detail.  

“There’s nothing,” says Sanders, “that even remotely approaches this, in our view, anywhere in the world. So the idea was, let’s do something that’s state of the art, polished, but also is something special. And I personally enjoy very much the fact that the book is so polished in a market where there’s nothing else like this.”  

--Steve Thornton Cycle Canada January 2003

www.sport-touring.net Review

Quiz time.  What's the favorite pastime for those riders who have to endure the winter stuck staring at their bike in the garage?  No, not watching re-runs of MotoGP races on the VCR!  Scouring maps, looking for those choice roads you've missed, or looking for new places to explore.  That's what we all do when we're stuck at home wishing we were riding!  Well have I got the book for you!

--Neal Ulen sport-touring.net  January 2003

soundrider.com Review A Comprehensive Guide to Roads in Washington State I headed to Canada earlier this summer for the Sportbike West event held in Kelowna. Winding my way along numerous backroads from the US Border I finally reached the Eight Mile Ranch where the weekend long event was being held on a late Friday afternoon. One of the first people I met was Brian Bosworth. A few years back, Bosworth and his writing/riding partner, Michael Sanders, put together a comprehensive guide to motorcycling in British Columbia, Destination Highways BC. The book includes hundreds of routes rated on things such as Twistiness, Pavement, Engineering, Remoteness, Scenery and Character. It also included information on food stops, dealer locations and camping and lodging locations. Basically what the pair did was to put motorcycling in British Columbia under a microscope and get it to all fit in a tank bag. It worked. Canada is a great place to ride a motorcycle, but the population density is far lower than the US. The decision was made to go into the US and use the same formula to map out motorcycling here. Destination Highways Washington does just that in a way no one else has ever done. DHWA offers up 346 riding suggestions. As you glance the book, there’s no doubt you will already be familiar with many of the rides. But the fun is finding the one’s you have never done. One example of this for me is the Hoh-Clearwater route (DH43). In 2002 I rode the Olympic Peninsula three times. I’d seen the turnoffs for these small roads, but never ventured onto them for fear they might dead end. The route does not, instead it takes you away from the more heavily traveled 101 as you make your way between Queets and Forks. Guess where I’m riding next time I venture out west? Right. The routes are rated , DH1 (Rockport to Winthrop via Hwy2) being the supposed best and DH74 (Stevenson to Lyle on Hwy14) supposedly being the least exciting. In all actuality the ratings hardly matter because it’s subjective based on the type of bike you ride. Since I personally ride small bikes, under 600cc’s, I tend to find both DH1 and DH72 equally great rides. The other 272 suggested routes in the book are called "Twisted Edge" rides. They tend to fork off of a main DH route and are either alternatives to the regular route, or good little out and back side trips as you leisurely make your way on your ride. The book is appropriately dedicated to Sam Hill. Hill was a road engineer who built the first paved road in the state of Washington – The Maryhill Loops road. Today, what’s left of the road is a slim 3 mile stretch that features 25 hair pin curves. It was repaved by the WSDOT in 97 by regrinding the original asphalt and is closed to everyday motor vehicle traffic. Thanks to a tip from Bosworth, Sound RIDER! has contacted the Maryhill Museum and arranged to have the road open during the 2003 Sportbike Northwest event which will be held at Skagit Fairgrounds in September 2003. There are a number of extensive appendices in the book which will provide hours of bedtime reading amusement as you plan out your own routes using the book. Campgrounds, dealer listings and the breakdown of ratings per route are all here. One appendix which may prove useless in the future is the publishing of the ferry schedules. Ever since I-776 we’ve watched the ferry schedules change almost as often as the tide, so be sure to get the latest ferry times online before your next sailing. Bosworth and Sanders have done a great job of profiling many of Washington State’s best roads, but if you’ve spent a lot of time out riding you’ll notice a number of routes they missed or skipped. Camano Island, Lake Sammamish, Vashon and the stunning stretch of 101 along Wilapa Bay between highway 4 and Raymond are strangely absent from the book.  No doubt you’ll find of few of your own favorites missing which means you’ll just have to share these secrets with your riding friends someday on your own. (NOTE: The roads mentioned either simply didn't score enough points to become DHs or were discarded as potential TEs due to traffic or other reasons.) It should also be noted that all routes are on paved roads, which is good if you want to keep your street machine nice and clean, but leaves dual sporters like myself at a loss for some off-road pleasures. DHWA comes with a seemingly hefty price tag of $44.95 U.S. That’s $15 over the $29.95 that it’s British Columbia sibling runs, but as Bosworth, who is Canadian puts it, "we had to use American dollars to do the research." In the end the $44.95 is a bargain price when you consider the wealth of information that’s in the book. --Tom Mehren soundrider.com Fall 2002

Vancouver Sun Review

Best Motorcycle Roads in Washington State

 "Donut Hole: (n) that part of a Krispy Kreme with no pastry or that part of central Washington with no curves."  That's from the "twisted terms" glossary at the front of the Brian Bosworth's and Michael Sanders' latest foray into moto-publishing: the highly entertaining, gorgeously produced, 542-page bikers' guide to Washington state -- the first in what it is hoped will be a long line of sequels to their wildly popular Destination Highways B.C., published against all odds in 2000.

Against all odds because these books are more a labour of love than a sensible foray into publishing: overpriced by guidebook standards, entailing an insane amount of death-defying research, targeting a small niche within a niche -- bikers who read. And yet they nailed it first time out, and promise to do so once again with this fully mapped and rated guide to the most scenic twists and turns in Washington state.

Having sampled a few of their 346 best rides stateside, I can attest to the accuracy and usefulness of Bosworth and Sanders' rating system. Their top-rated road -- 153 km from Rockport to the faux-cowboy town of Winthrop on the North Cascades Highway -- was one of my peak experiences last summer. Just like the authors say, "tight, intense coils round the brilliant green-blue gems of Gorge, Diablo and Ross lakes before essing up into the mountains of the high, vast Pasayten wilderness.  Huge, fast sweepers scale stunning alpine environs then rappel rapidly down the east side of the Cascades."

Beyond the road poetry there's hard science: using their own "TIRES" method (Total Integrated Road Evaluation System), the authors rate each route on the basis of twistiness, pavement and engineering, remoteness, scenery and character.  By their definition, these are not merely roads worth travelling to.  As the title suggests, these are the destinations.  The attractions along the way -- accommodations, watering holes and extra-challenging side trips are included in maps and notes -- are the icing on the donut.

--Paula Brook  Vancouver Sun December 20 2002
 
North Shore News Review

The cooler temperatures of fall, accompanied by the regular appearance of frost on the roads, signals an end to the riding season for the majority of motorcyclists.  With the looming wet winter ahead and the motorcycle magazines rehashing last years events or describing next years models, there seems little for the riding enthusiast to do to get through this gloomy period. 

Just in time, comes the latest guidebook from Twisted Edge Publishing.  Following on the success of their previous book, Destination Highways British Columbia, they have released the just completed, Destination Highways Washington. 

Following the same format, authors Bosworth and Sanders, have traveled up and down the roads of Washington state, logging over 23,000 km in the process.  From all of this travel comes their assessment of where you want to go around the state. 

For the uninitiated, their approach is to rate every road with the same criteria, evaluating it for Twistiness, Pavement, Engineering, Remoteness, Scenery, and Character.  From these scores the roads are then ranked, with the top 74 receiving full Destination Highway status and another 272 garnering a Twisted Edges notation. 

Thanks to all of their work you can go to any area of the state and ride with the knowledge of a local, for the authors have pried the secret locations free and are sharing their discoveries with you. 

For anyone who has missed out on what Washington has to offer, this book will guide to you to the best roads to ride within this beautiful state.  From the number one road, highway 20 between Rockport and Winthrop in the Cascades Mountains, to number seventy-four, highway 14 from Stevenson to Lyle alongside the Columbia river, there is an incredible amount of information offered.  Beyond the riding details, there are tips on locations for food, fuel and lodgings. 

The descriptions provided are written to the target audience's sensibilities.  In other words, these guys know who is reading this stuff and there is no PC filler here, they write to the dedicated rider and do it so well you could imagine you are talking to a fellow rider at a gas station sharing tips on where to go. 

I have used the previous book to plan out some great rides in B.C. and know these guys know what they are talking about.  This latest book is going to help many housebound riders get through the winter as they plan trips for the next riding season.