Unless you have visited Oklahoma or you live there, you probably wouldn’t think of Oklahoma as a motorcycling paradise. But trust me, it is. And finding the best rides in Oklahoma is easy, thanks to Oklahoma’s Tourism and Recreation Department. Sue and I are always looking for interesting travel destinations, and as a guy who writes travel pieces for Motorcycle Classics magazine, my antenna goes up when I hear about great roads and great destinations. Several years ago when I was working for CSC Motorcycles, we attended the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show. In the vendor display area, Sue found a booth manned by the Oklahoma tourism folks.
One thing led to another, we received a package of travel information that would choke a brontosaurus, and shortly after that we were in Oklahoma. I have a friend who retired in Tulsa, we visited a bit, and we hit a bunch of great destinations in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and the surrounding areas. I wrote several blogs about our visit, and several Motorcycle Classics Destinations articles. These are the blogs:
But even with the above, we barely scratched the surface of what Oklahoma offers. The materials the good folks in Oklahoma mailed to us included the Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide. It suggests several rides, complete with maps and two or three pages on each ride. The Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide is impressive.
A few suggested Oklahoma rides. Click on this image a couple times to enlarge it.
Imagine that: One of our states issuing a motorcycle travel guide! More good news? It’s free, the latest version includes even more rides than does the version I received several years ago, and you can download it immediately at this link: Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide Free Download
Trust me on this: If you’ve been looking for your good next place to ride, Oklahoma needs to be on your list.
You may recall that about a year and a half ago I did a blog on our visit to Oklahoma and the great riding in the eastern half of the state around the Tulsa area. I wrote a piece about that for Motorcycle Classics magazine and you can get to most of it online here. You can pick up a copy of the latest issue at your local newstand. Better yet, subscribe to Motorcycle Classics.
Your two blogmeisters (yours truly and Joe Gresh) have been published in several motorcycle magazines and other publications both in print and in the digital world. You can get to a partial compendium of our articles by clicking here for me and here for Gresh (or by clicking on either of the above photos).
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During a recent Oklahoma visit, one of our stops was at Tulsa’s Thomas Gilcrease Museum. Gilcrease (that’s him in the photo above) was an Oklahoma Native American who discovered oil on his property (Come and listen to my story about a man named Gil, sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song). Mr. Gilcrease collected artifacts of the Americas, western art, and more (cue in the Indiana Jones music), and he built the museum bearing his name. The Gilcrease Museum is an impressive place, and the collection of Native American masks is particularly impressive. Here are just a few, all shot at ISO 3200 on my Nikon. Enjoy, my friends.
The best barbeque in the world. Trust me on this. It’s in Spavinaw, Oklahoma.
There’s barbeque, there’s good barbeque, there’s Oklahoma barbeque, and then there’s barbequed brisket from the Bradford’s Barbeque in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. Simply put, it’s the best barbequed beef I’ve ever had, and I’ve been all over. Like that Johnny Cash song goes, I’ve been everywhere, man. You might want to argue the point about the best BBQ, but I’m not your guy. You won’t change my mind. I know. It’s Bradford’s.
So, to back up a bit, Sue and I spent a glorious week in Oklahoma, and part of the mission was to find exciting new places to visit and roads to ride. And boy oh boy, did we ever! On the advice of a good friend, we headed east out of Tulsa on Highway 412 and intentionally got lost in eastern Oklahoma’s lake country. It was north on the 82, and we let the meandering begin.
Tulsa is about 50 miles to the left on this map. The fun starts as soon as you turn north off Highway 412.
As we rode north along the eastern shore of Lake Hudson (formed by a dam on the Neosho River), we saw little towns with names like Locust Grove, Pump Back, and Hoot Owl (hey, I can’t make this up). The road was grand and the scenery and greenery were even better. It was a Friday, and there were literally hundreds of motorcycles on the road. I told Sue there had to be a motorcycle event somewhere to draw out crowds like this, but nope, it was the riding that draws the crowds. It’s like this all the time out there.
Then we hit a stretch of roller-coaster twisties in the hills, and a great road got even better. Think Glendora Ridge Road with extreme vertical undulations, except much greener and much more exciting. Take a peek at a satellite photo:
Yep, it was grand. The twisties and curves look gradual. They weren’t. It was fun.A glorious day on Oklahoma Highway 82.
The road was impressive, and it’s one I’ll visit again. We were enjoying it immensely when suddenly we found ourselves at a huge dam backed up by an even bigger lake. “Dayum!” I thought. We had to stop for a few photos.
Susie at the Spavinaw Dam. I know: I married way above my station in life.
We took a few photos, we walked around a bit, and then we were back on the road for the few hundred yards it took to get to Spavinaw. Spavinaw is a small town, and as we entered it we saw that sign at the top of this blog for Bradford’s Barbeque. It was noon, and I suddenly realized I was hungry. I looked at Sue and she nodded. Bradford’s Barbeque it was, and it was fantastic.
Actually, it’s pronounced “Jeet jet?” The answer when I shot this photo was no, but we would soon change that.Buck Bradford, Proprietor and BBQ chef extraordinaire, and Amber, a lovely young lady who is also a photographer. I asked Amber if there was a motorcycle event nearby because of all the bikes we saw. “No, it’s always like this around here,” she said. I can see why.Bradford’s beef brisket. Buck smokes the meet himself, and it was fantastic. That’s mustard cole slaw (delicious) and the best baked beans I ever had. It was a wonderful lunch, the stuff of legend.
I could have spent the entire day chatting with Buck and Amber, and it was like we had known them for years. Oklahoma is like that. It’s a fun place to visit, but as much as we were enjoying the conversation, it was time to get back on the road again. Amber suggested we stop at the Disney Dam, so that’s what we did.
A stitched-together, 180-degree view of the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees, upstream of the Disney Dam.The road across the top of the Disney Dam.An abandoned motel in Langley, just south of the Disney Dam. There are lots of photo ops in Oklahoma.
We continued east on Highway 28 in Disney. Well, generally east…actually we continued east, north, south, east again…you get the idea. Eastern Oklahoma’s twisties were magnificent. Then it was Highway 20, then 59, and then we were back on the 412, and it was twisties and scenery the entire way. It was a perfect day with perfect weather, and it was a perfect road for a motorcycle ride. We were in a rental car. But there’s always tomorrow. And tomorrow for me means a return to Tulsa, on a motorcycle, to experience this part of the world the way it was meant to be experienced.
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Want to read about some of our other exciting motorcycle destinations? Check this out!
