The ride from Prescott through the San Francisco Peaks and back is an all day ride with rest stops to eat and re-fuel.  The total miles on this ride is about 275 miles with about 115 miles of interstate riding on I-40.

We start out from Prescott taking highway 89 north to Ash Fork through Chino Valley and Paulden.  It’s about 37 miles to Ash Fork where we connect with I-40 and head east to Williams, Arizona another 31 miles.  This is our first rest stop.  Take the first exit for Williams and enjoy a ride through this old Route 66 town.  Main street of Williams is the old mother road, Route 66, a great place to grab a bite to eat or a cold drink before heading on.

Once we are back on our iron we head east on Main St. out of Williams.  Main street turns into highway 64 as it crosses I-40 just a couple miles out of town.  Hwy 64 is the access highway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Here we continue on I-40 east another 50 miles to Flagstaff, Arizona.

We actually don’t take I-40 all the way into Flagstaff, rather we get off the interstate before Flagstaff at exit 191, the historic route 66 and ride straight a few miles to the end at Milton Road.  Make a left onto Milton Rd, which is the business access road from I-40 to Old Town Flagstaff.  About a mile down the road you will come to North Humphreys St. near the Amtrak station.  You are now in old town Flagstaff.

North Humphrey St. is Highway 180 so make a left here.  Highway 180 is the highway that will take us through the San Francisco Peaks.   The Arizona Ski Bowl cut off is about seven miles out of Flagstaff on 180 and once you turn off the highway it is another 7 miles on a nicely paved and windy road.  The last half mile is gravel.  If you plan to turn off 180 to visit the Ski Bowl make some adjustments to your itinerary with regard to time as we still have quite a bit of riding to do!

Highway 180 is a great road to ride as you can see it in the banner photo at the top of this page.  The photo was provided byTom Schweitz of schweitz.com.  Highway 180 is about 50 miles long and dead ends into Highway 64, in Valle, Arizona.  Highway 64, as we said earlier goes from Williams, Arizona to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Here we can rest up and re-fuel for the ride back to Prescott.

Turning south on 64 gets us back to Williams after 30 miles.   This is a very busy two lane road with lots of tourist traffic, so be careful.  Our last rest stop is  back in Williams and then west on I-40 to our turn-off in Ash Fork to head south on Highway 89 to Prescott.

This is a great ride with lots of opportunities for some great photos along the way.  If you take this ride in the summer make sure you have your rain gear packed, especially during monsoon season!  Ride Safe!