Route 66, Czech style: Zdeněk Jurásek on biking 4,000 km, and why the Mother Road still matters
Czech Route 66 Association president Zdeněk Jurásek first pedaled the Mother Road from Chicago to Santa Monica in 1998, covering roughly 4,000 kilometers in 30 days. Since then, he has returned dozens of times, guiding higher hundreds of travelers and earning a spot on Kingman’s Route 66 Walk of Fame. In this Czechast interview, he explains the appeal beyond nostalgia—and how to plan a smart, safe, and memorable trip.
“It started with a pocket atlas and a Rolling Stones song”
“I’m Zdeněk Jurásek… my passion is Route 66,” begins the 63-year-old president of the Czech Route 66 Association. His fascination with America goes back to childhood evenings listening to Voice of America with his father and leafing through a pocket world atlas. Route 66 itself first crossed his path in high school via Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath—and later through the Rolling Stones’ cover of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.”
The name stuck. The dream simmered. And in 1998, Jurásek finally decided to cross the United States—not the easy way, but by bicycle, and not on the most direct line, but along the old Mother Road.
Four thousand kilometres in 30 days
Zdeněk flew to Chicago, set his wheel on Adams Street, and rode all the way to the Santa Monica Pier in about 30 days—roughly 2,448 miles (around 4,000 kilometres), averaging 135 km per day. “I was afraid to get lost,” he admits. Decommissioned in 1986, Route 66 survives in fragments, alternates, and business loops, its old alignment sometimes buried beneath the modern interstate.
In the American Southwest, the only way forward is often the freeway shoulder—legal for bikes in places like Arizona and New Mexico. That brings a different problem: punctures. “The shoulder is full of broken tires with sharp wires,” he says. Flats were common; a sense of humour was essential.
From solo cyclist to group leader
After that first ride came a small Czech-language book, magazine pieces, and emails from people who wanted to try Route 66 but didn’t dare go alone. A meet-up in 2008 at an “American-style” pub in Pardubice drew 130 enthusiasts; by spring the first group hit the road. Today Jurásek typically drives a Ford Transit in front of 20–24 travelers, twice a year, covering the full Chicago–Los Angeles route or in reverse.
Counting group tours, two full bicycle crossings (1998 and 2016), and personal trips with his wife, he has traversed Route 66 about 40 times—his most recent guided run this spring was the 31st. Side projects have included themed journeys through Colorado and Utah, a Dakotas–Wyoming–Nebraska loop, and even segments and full crossings of the earlier coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway.
A colourful road and a walk of fame
Why does Route 66 cast such a spell? For Jurásek, colour and character. “On Route 66 I used maybe 13 rolls of film,” he says of that first trip. In Alaska—another epic ride he completed—he shot just two. The Mother Road’s towns, neon, diners, motels, and faces seem to demand pictures.
Kingman, Arizona, recognized that ambassadorial energy by adding Jurásek to its Route 66 Walk of Fame—an honour for those who promote the road abroad. It’s a reminder that the route now belongs to a global community as much as it does to the eight states it crosses.
Authenticity and tourist traps
Is Route 66 over-commercialised? Sometimes, says Jurásek, pointing to Seligman, Arizona, where daily tour buses disgorge crowds at the legendary barber-turned-icon Ángel Delgadillo’s shop. Oatman, the old mining town with burros, can also feel like a “tourist trap.”
And yet the road still delivers the goods—quiet main streets, mom-and-pop motels, lonely desert grades like Sitgreaves Pass, and spontaneous conversations that make a journey feel personal. “Route 66 is not a special road… it’s a special atmosphere,” he insists. Many of his travellers return again and again without really being able to explain why—only that they must.
How to plan your own Route 66 trip
If you’re tempted, come prepared. “It’s not the same as other destinations,” Jurásek cautions. A good itinerary is essential, as is a dedicated Route 66 guidebook or smartphone app. Apps are convenient—but zoomed-in screens can hide the broader context, especially when the historic alignment zigzags through city centres. Paper maps (or at least a larger-scale digital view) help you understand where you are and how the route threads neighbourhoods, boulevards, and one-way streets.
For the least stress, go with a group led by someone who knows the alternates, closures, and detours. For the independent: study first, download offline maps, and be ready for improvisation—plus the occasional flat on interstate shoulders.
Jurásek says he’s felt safe across small-town America, especially outside big-city cores. In some places he left his bike unlocked to grab lunch because, as a solo rider, “you cannot go inside with a bicycle.” The border experience remains welcoming—officers often smile at a Route 66 T-shirt—and while food costs are higher than before, that’s true across Europe as well.
As for America’s political polarisation, he shrugs: travellers come for fun and the road, not for debates. “We are in the United States for Route 66,” he says. Elections come and go; the neon keeps buzzing.
“Route 66 is an idea”
Asked to compare Route 66 with the Pacific Coast Highway, Jurásek concedes the coastal drive’s drama—Big Sur cliffs notwithstanding, landslides can force long detours. But he insists you only understand Route 66 by doing the whole thing, end to end. A western segment won’t tell you what Joliet, Pontiac, Tucumcari, Shamrock, or Seligman tell you together: that the Mother Road is less a line than a story.
Why go back forty times? “I don’t know, but I want to do it,” many of his travellers say. Jurásek agrees—and offers the simplest explanation of all: Route 66 is an idea. If it gets into your head, the map unfolds, the miles pass under your wheels, and suddenly you belong to a road that no longer officially exists—and yet is somehow more alive than ever.
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Czechast, Radio Prague International
Czechast is a regular RPI podcast about Czech and Moravian culture, history, and economy.
