Route 66 Pasadena Motorcycle Mural

For years, I traveled full time in a RV spending countless hours traveling Route 66. During the Greetings Tour mural project, my wife and I crisscrossed America from Chicago to Santa Monica, often steering off the interstates just to stay on the Mother Road. Eventually, fate landed us in Pasadena — a city quietly nestled along that same historic highway — where we decided to settle down and start our family.

When I learned that Route 66 will celebrate its Centennial in 2026, I knew I had to give something back to the road that gave me so much inspiration. Pasadena is rich with history, architecture, science, and culture — yet Route 66 often gets overshadowed. I wanted to do my part to change that.

I came across the Saving Places Route 66 Legacy Business Grant by the National Register of Historic Places and immediately began reaching out to businesses along Colorado Blvd — Pasadena’s stretch of Route 66. I helped several apply, and a few months later, Villain Custom Cycles was awarded the grant. The grantor wanted to highlight motorcycle culture which was an often overlooked part of Route 66 history. The business owner Jose Morales was totally on board with the concept, so we worked together on some visual ideas.

Last year, I began attending local Route 66 and Colorado Blvd planning meetings. Sitting next to representatives from major institutions and city reps, I felt like nobody. But, I tried my best to contribute as much as I could with little resources available. I just stuck to doing what I did best, which was painting murals!

Mural Design

Jose and I landed on an Art Deco–inspired design, pulling from vintage motorcycle posters. The main feature was a motorcycle rider that was inspired by his original shop logo. We wanted to include an iconic landmark of Pasadena which was the Colorado Street Bridge - Pasadena’s original Route 66 gateway. Instead of another cliche image of the bridge (which I have painted many times before), I chose to spotlight its stunning Beaux-Arts lamp posts, which thousands of travelers would have passed beneath.

Other mural elements included:

  • The Santa Fe Railroad, whose path shaped much of the original highway

  • A 1966 Shelby Cobra — a nod to Pasadena’s automotive heritage and Jose’s own car

  • All vehicles (plus a flock of iconic Pasadena green parrots) facing West, symbolizing the classic Route 66 journey toward new opportunity — and my own move here after years on the road

To help orient viewers, I added a compass rose and marked the exact mural location. One of my favorite parts of the design is the map of the various historical Route 66 alignments through Pasadena. Most people don’t realize that the road shifted over time — and that navigating the “real” Route 66 often requires tossing aside GPS and breaking out an old-school map. That’s how we used to travel it. One of our most common questions was “Are we on it?”

Visually, the most unique feature is the spray-painted stipple shading, a nod to classic Art Deco printing techniques. Huge thanks to my buddy Swank One for engineering a custom garden-sprayer-style cap to nail the effect — it was messy, stressful, and required a lot of masking, but the texture was worth it.

Big thanks to Impact for providing some volunteers to helping prep the wall and to everyone who supported the vision. Villain Custom Cycles now stands as Pasadena’s newest Route 66 landmark and photo-op stop, right on Colorado Blvd.

I’ve been hand-painting small Route 66 badges along the boulevard to build more awareness as we approach the Route 66 Centennial and Colorado Blvd’s 150th anniversary in 2026.

This mural is just the beginning. Pasadena has Route 66 roots — and it’s time we wear them proudly.

You can check out other Route 66 murals that I’ve done from Chicago to Santa Monica over the years. Past Route 66 Murals by Victor Ving

If you have any Route 66 related mural project ideas, you can reach out to me on my contact page!