After a covering a couple hundred miles of rolling prairie during the last 2 days, I arrived in Spearfish, SD. It is the first town of any size that I have visited since I spent the weekend in Sandpoint, ID at the end of June.

The thing that struck me as I approached Spearfish was not the size of the town, but rather the size of the “hills” behind the town. I must have missed a few too many days of Geography or Geology in school…First, I was unaware of and then amazed by North Cascades National Park in Washington; and now I am almost as surprised by the size of the Black Hills, never mind the spectacular scenery they contain!  I’m sure someone attempted to teach me about both of these places at some point, but as I’ve already mentioned, I tend to need to learn things the “hard way”.

In this case, as in many others, the hard way was quite possibly the best way!  As I rode in to Spearfish last night, Tony, the owner of Deadwood Cycles rode up next to me and asked where I was headed. During the last few days I’ve been traveling on a route seldom visited by cross country cyclists and I’ve grown accustomed to receiving a stunned response when I reply that I’m headed to Boston (on more than one occasion, someone has proceeded to ask me “….Massachusetts???”, apparently thinking there must be another one somewhere closer).  In Tony’s case, as a cyclist, he didn’t even blink…he said “ok, but where are you going tomorrow”.  I told him that I was headed to Keystone. His next question stumped me; “how’re you getting there?” he asked…I was slightly embarrassed to admit that I had no idea. The truth is, until the night before when Kelly told me she would meet me in Keystone, I’d never even heard of it, and I surely didn’t know how to get there. So, as has become almost routine on this trip, Tony went out of his way to help me. He spent the next 15 minutes marking up a map to show me the most scenic route to Keystone with the least traffic (he was late for his ride and his friends called to tell him to hurry, but he didn’t seem to mind, he went ahead and explained the route in detail).

During the night, I experienced a first; it hailed (marble size) on me while I was in the tent!  Although it sounded like I was in a popcorn popper, the tent held up fine and the hail cooled off the unusually hot temperature of the afternoon.

The route Tony had described had me riding up scenic Spearfish canyon and then ultimately onto the historic Mickelson Trail (which is dirt).  As a result of a late start on my part, and some early afternoon rain, I elected to skip the dirt portion of Tony’s suggestion. Although I didn’t ride his route exactly, the ride was incredible, the Black Hills are actually substantial mountains (I climbed 7000′ in 70 miles, the most climbing of any single day on the trip) and they are incredibly beautiful. Thanks to Kelly’s chosen meeting place and Tony’s suggested route, I got the privelage of riding right over the top of these amazing Black Hills. They have an evergreen-covered, rocky beauty similar to what you find in many parts of Colorado.  The roads were in great shape, the few motorists were very friendly (and due to two separate rallies, most of them were either riding BMW motorcycles or driving Corvettes), the weather was perfectly sunny, except for an afternoon shower which helped to keep it cool and the climbing and descending was fantastic!

The combination of all of those factors, and the added bonus of the unexpected size and beauty of the “hills” made this the best day of riding of the entire trip, and the best day in quite sometime before that.  I love the mountains, and although as a cyclist, I prefer to live in the  temperate  climate of the Southern California coast, a part of me always misses the mountains, and when I get to them I have the intense feeling that I’m “home”.

As I was riding along, I couldn’t stop smiling…I was thinking of how incredibly lucky I am to have the opportunity to have a great life. I’ve been fortunate to have lots of great days like today. In part, that’s what led me to make the decision to help Robert and Annie and Mikyla…

Tomorrow the forecast is calling for rain. If it rains like they’ve predicted it will be the first time on the trip. I’m looking forward to it in a sense, it will provide a nice change of pace (it has been incredibly warm for the last week and a half).  Kelly and I will spend the weekend playing tourist and by early next week I hope to have some great pictures of another beautiful area of the country.

What’s in a name…the Black Hills are actually Mountains!

Ride on!
Scott

A few days ago on my way into North Dakota, I set a new personal land speed record (at least while pulling a trailer)!  I rode 43 miles in 1:55!  Of course I had a tailwind of 30 mph, gusting up to 50 (I could go 12 mph on the flat without pedaling!).That was the good news, the bad news was that after 43 miles I needed to turn and start heading south, which was treacherous with the gusting wind… when it would gust, it would blow me 3 feet out into traffic. Getting run over by a truck wasn’t on my agenda for the day so I made it a short day and checked into the shelter of a hotel.

The next day wasn’t much less windy, but it wasn’t as gusty and it had changed direction slightly to more of a cross-tail wind rather than a pure cross wind. So, leaning into it at an angle of about 10 degrees, I could ride reasonably straight. I rode to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (which looks a lot like NW New Mexico or the Western Slope of Colorado geologically).  As I was trying to decide whether I wanted to stop and camp or continue riding south, I passed a sign for the Little Missouri National Grasslands and the northern trailhead of the Maah Daah Hey trail.  That made it an easy decision!  I was actually headed for the southern end of the Maah Daah Hey (it’s 96 miles long), so I figured I’d stop and ride some of the north end.

I set up camp in a primitive campground at the trailhead (there was only one other camper there, so I was looking forward to a quiet night under the huge, starry, prairie sky), switched to my mountain bike tires and headed out onto the trail!  The first thing that was evident was that the north end of the trail is primarily a horse trail, it was fairly rough and chopped up from horse traffic, but it was scenic with views of the Little Missouri River and riding singletrack with no one else in sight is always fun!  Unfortunately, 10 miles into the ride, the trail runs into the National Park and mountain bikes aren’t allowed. I’ve been told that I’m stubborn (I prefer to think of it as “determined”  !), so in that spirit, I did some bushwhacking on cattle trail for about a mile to try to find a route around the NP, but to no avail.

When I returned to the campground, I was surprised to see that one additional group of campers had arrived since I hit the trail; and I was shocked by the campsite they’d chosen…From approximately 40 choices (again, only 2 of which were occupied), they’d selected the site right next to me!  It took all of the self restraint I could muster not to ask them what the !&$@ they were thinking!  They turned out to be nice people and later while I was attempting to fix (read “beating it with a hatchet”) my broken trailer wheel (the after effects of the crashing incident in Glacier), they were kind enough to ask if they could help; although I noticed that they kept their distance (that may have been due to the fact that I was swinging a hatchet around and swearing, under my breath… sort of, like a sailor?).  I managed to get the trailer put back together well enough to make it to the bike shop 75 miles away in Medora the next day (it’s amazing what you can “fix” with a hammer and duct tape).

On my way out of the campground the following morning, I met an amazing lady named Val, who had been a college professor and who’d been fortunate enough to have lived what sounded like quite a life in a number of different places. I think that she and I probably share a similar philosophy about life and she had a number of questions about my trip; as I was riding off, she said she’d like to keep in touch via the Mikyla website!  I hope she does, I really have met some incredible people on my trip so far!

As I mentioned, I made it to Dakota Cyclery (where Jennifer helped me with the parts I needed to properly fix the trailer) and the southern end of the Maah Daah Hey trail in Medora. I’ve already mentioned how excited I was to get to ride this trail. It is consistently picked as one of the “epic” rides in the US. As it turned out, I enjoyed the scenery and the trail was good, but not great (in my opinion).  Even on the south end, it seems to get more horse traffic than bike traffic which makes for less than “buff” singletrack conditions. However, the trail runs back into the National Park and this time there is a “bike bypass” route called Buffalo Gap trail.  The first 6-8 miles of this trail are great (As mountain bikers, we are often accused of causing erosion, creating shortcut trails and generally damaging multi-use trails… anyone who feels that way should check out the Maah Daah Hey and Buffalo Gap trails to learn the truth… not only does Buffalo Gap have less erosion and shortcutting, but as an added benefit, our bikes never lift up their tails and drop “presents” in the middle of the trail).

After finishing my ride, I spent a couple of hours in the little town of Medora (gateway to the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP).  Medora is a great town. It has a bit of an old west feel to it and the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met (they call it the Medora spirit)!  It was hot, so I decided I’d have a blended triple latte from Hidden Valley Java. When I went in to order a second it prompted a conversation and before long, I’d told them about my trip and Mikyla (you can talk pretty fast after 6 shots of espresso!) and the girl working at the counter decided that this latte was on the house. In the event you ever doubt the generous good nature of people in this country, I’d suggest you throw on some pink spandex and head out for a cross country bike ride!  People are truly incredible!

In the next 3 days I need to cover about 280 miles to make it to Rapid City. It’s the first time on my trip that I’ve had a timeline and I am really looking forward to getting there; not only because of Mount Rushmore, Crazyhorse, Wind Cave, the Badlands and the Black Hills but also, for the first time on the trip, someone is meeting me to do some riding and sightseeing!!  Just before I started riding in June, I began dating Kelly and we’ve learned that we have quite a bit in common, so we should have a great weekend in a beautiful part of the country!  I can’t wait, it’s like I’m taking a little vacation within my vacation!

Since the Independence Day holiday, we’ve received a number of donations and although I’m riding through a sparsely populated part of the country, it feels like we are beginning to make bigger strides in terms of the ultimate goal of raising money to fund research to cure Rett. So, I’ll look forward to sending stories and pictures of South Dakota and to keeping you posted on the progress we are making for Mikyla!

Tumbling along with the tumbleweeds!
Scott

114, 105, 122, 105… No, these are not the first four numbers in some strange centurion bingo game; they are the daily mileages I’ve covered during the days since my last update!

Montana is a very big state, and even with some pretty long days of riding, I won’t ride out of the state for another 40 miles or so (early this afternoon).  With all of the beauty of the parts of the country I’ve already ridden through on this trip, I knew that I’d become a little jaded in terms of the scenery I was accustomed to seeing. Combined with the fact that even local Montanans would point out how “flat” and “boring” the north central and north eastern parts of their state were when I told them where I was headed; I didn’t have incredibly high expectations for this portion of the ride.

However, as I’ve ridden during the last few days, I’ve learned several things:  First, this part of the country is not exactly flat!  Although there are some flat stretches, it mostly consists of gently rolling grassy hills. Next, it’s true that the wind frequently blows from the west here, so you have a prevailing tailwind as you cross the state to the east, but due to the rolling hills and the fact that Hwy 2 (the “Hi-line”) is not quite as straight as it looks on the map you still have to pedal as you ride west across the state (as I’m writing this the wind is blowing so hard that it feels as though the tent is going to take off…so if it is still blowing like this when it stops raining and I start riding later this morning, I may not have to pedal too much today!).  Additionally, I discovered that Cut Bank is proud to be the “coldest place in the “US”… it was 95 degrees as I rode through, so I felt like that title could be a bit of a misnomer!  Finally, and most fortunately, I’ve learned that rolling, wheat covered hills along river valleys (first the Milk and now the Missouri) are scenic in their own right.

So, I’ve enjoyed my ride across Montana. I’ve probably seen more prairie dogs than people (literally 1000’s… they stand on the white line of the highway and watch you approach, scampering back into the grass at the last possible moment); but the people I have met have been just as friendly (maybe a little less talkative) as the people across the rest of my trip.

Part of the enjoyment of this portion for me has been that I’ve been roughly retracing the route of Lewis and Clark and so I’ve spent some time imagining what it must’ve been like for them as they made their way west exploring for President Jefferson (if you are even a little interested in that part of out history, there is a great book you should consider reading called Undaunted Courage by Steven Ambrose… Lewis and Clark were truly courageous and resourceful, and riding through this part of the country puts that in an entirely new context for me).

Now for the riding… It’s been a relatively uneventful few days, I did meet a meal that I couldn’t finish (it was breakfast cooked from scratch at Applewood where I camped on my first night out of Glacier).  When I commented to the lady that I was amazed that I couldn’t finish it, that in fact I’d developed the habit of eating 2 breakfasts, she said it was a meal made for the Blackfeet… she went on to say “they’re big people… 6′2″ and 200 pounds” apparently she could see the confusion on my face as I sat there 6′4″ and 190 lbs (ok, after riding 2500 miles pulling a trailer, I’ve dropped a few weight classes, but I’m still a big guy), so she smiled and added “… and those are the junior high girls!!!”.

As I mentioned earlier, its been hot the last few days and on the day I rode 122 miles, that took a toll on me and I bonked about 15 miles from the next town (Glasgow).  I knew according to my warranty (I reread it just before I left on this trip) that I came equipped with “limp-in mode” (kinda like a Cadillac with On Star) that’s good for up to 20 miles… so the way I see it, it’s too bad there wasn’t a town 6 miles beyond Glasgow… if there was I could’ve tested the validity of the warranty!

Lastly, in the little town of Chester, I learned that the “concrete block shaped indentions” along the side of the road that I so fondly described in one of my previous updates are actually called “rumble strips”.  While I spent the final 10 miles of my trip that day riding on the “rumble strip” (there was absolutely no shoulder and a fair amount of traffic), I thought of several more colorful names for them…. I’m thinking of sending some of the better ones to the Montana DOT!

If everything goes well today, I should finish my ride in the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and then have a short following day to the South Unit and the beginning of the Maah Daah Hey trail where I plan to do a day or two of mountain biking!  I’m really looking forward to it… all of the mileage during the last few days has made me need a serious singletrack fix!

Stay off the rumble strip!

Scott