According to the AMA's survey, the Beartooth Highway is the #1 best motorcycle road in the country (ref http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/...ing_roads.aspx). So a few days ago, on my way out to the coast, of course I made some time to see what this road was like.
I came up through Cody up 296 (this is the lower leg in the first map) - I wasn't planning on doing this part, but I had a little extra time so I thought what the heck, so I took 296 and 212 up to Red Lodge. It was in the afternoon, and the weather didn't cooperate even a little - it was raining, and even small hail at one point. That, combined with creeping traffic up at the summit, just made it a long day.
But the next day, the weather was cool (50's) but clear. I left from Red Lodge and went to Cooke City (and beyond) - and OMG, I do love this road. It's twisty up to its 10,900 foot summit...but the cool thing, and the thing that's different from the usual mountain passes, is once you're up at the top, it just cruises around for a while. It's not an up and down thing - it's an up, cruise around, and then down.
Combine that with the fact that the speed limit over most of it is 70 (this is on the Montana side), and it's something. In Colorado, this would probably have a 45-ish speed limit, but Montana apparently likes to let you make your own decisions about speed. It was something, cruising around on a road over 10,000 feet, with no traffic, at 70+ mph, and knowing I wasn't even speeding.
I didn't see a lot of sportbikes up there - actually, my Multistrada was the closest thing to a sportbike I saw on the whole road.
Anyway, if you get up that way, definitely recommended! I'm not sure I'd call it the #1 road in the country, but it was definitely fun and worth the ride.
Here's a map:
And a zoomed out version to give you a better idea where this is: