Author: Paul Rito (Page 4 of 23)

30.2 miles cycling, 2425′ of climbing (2018.9 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Everyone in Belle Fourche and Spearfish who heard our plans to go to Deadwood said, “It’s all uphill!” It was, but at the end of the climb was a great descent into the Deadwood Gulch. The streets were clogged with auto-show goers and cars and trucks of every age and description. The bikes let us get past the jams and we made our way to the visitor center. First order of business was getting a campsite somewhere close to town.

29.3 miles cycling, 1343′ of climbing (1988.7 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Today’s ride was a mercifully short one given the last three days. We lumbered into Spearfish and stopped at Rushmore Bikes to see if they and mountain biking or touring shoes in my size. My old Tomasso’s had over 9000 miles on them and even Shoe Goo couldn’t rescue them anymore. There weren’t any my size, but they recommended Two Wheeler Dealer in town as another place to check.

72.3 miles cycling, 2062′ of climbing (1959.4 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Another long day out of Buffalo to cover the vast spaces of SD with absolutely nothing except cattle ranches and farms. We did have a wonderful tailwind from the NNE and we sailed through to our first stop at Crow Buttes Mercantile in Redig – the recommendation from Dave the motorbiker we met at the Buffalo City Bar yesterday.

50 miles cycling, 1551′ of climbing (1837.2 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Today was a shorter repeat of yesterday without the nasty lady. We got up and went to the Frontier Travel Center for coffee and some more breakfast, topped our bottles with ice water, and headed out into the already hot morning.

82 miles cycling, 2773′ of climbing (1837.2 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

We left Medora after a good breakfast feeling refreshed and ready for the day. This was the first time we camped in the same place for 2 days and it was nice to not have to go through the teardown/setup yesterday. Winds were light and from the East, so a bit of a headwind added to the 9 miles of climbing up out of TRNP.

6 miles cycling, 12 miles hiking (1755.1 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Monday morning we rode to the Maah Daay Hey trail, stashed the bikes in a grove of trees and headed into the heat of the Badlands. One of the things we did take away from the musical last night was a quote from an army general in Roosevelt’s time: “The Badlands are like Hell with the fire put out.”

40.3 miles, 1579′ of climbing, (1749.1 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Today we reached out Western and Northern-most points in Medora and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park South Unit. On the way in we stopped at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center where Bonnie from Bellefonte saw my Penns Valley Pedals & Pints jersey and introduced herself. We got a good first look at the Badlands and headed on to Medora.

We set up camp in the Red Trail Campground, showered, and got ready to attend the Medora Musical — something everyone we met said was a must see.

51.3 miles, 1508′ of climbing, (1708.8 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

As mentioned in the previous post, Glen Ullin wasn’t a peaceful night. We got up, made coffee on a pile of concrete railroad ties (no picnic tables by the tent sites), had a spot of java and wandered over to where our electronics were charging and Paul and Sam were having breakfast. They were looking at headwinds all day which meant we were going to have tailwinds again. Yeah!

? miles, ? of climbing, (over 1700 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

Medora, ND just a quick update on our tour. We haven’t had a chance to catch up on the blog as we’ve been having too much fun! After Glen Ullin, we stayed in Dickinson and then rode to Medora & Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

58.4 miles, 2382′ of climbing, (1657.4 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

We took it slow this morning for three reasons: a relatively easy ride to Glen Ullin, there’s not a lot to do or see in GU, and it started thunderstorming. We were packed up before that and saw what was coming on the radar and headed to the visitor’s center. We watched a movie about the Mandan Indians and Lewis & Clark and Custer and toured the museum in the center.