South Dakota - Day 1
Today, and for the next 4 days, I will be doing gravel rides in the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota with Trek Travel. Our group met this morning in Rapid City, then drove a bit under an hour to get to Spearfish located on Route 90 not far from the Wyoming border. After getting everyone’s bikes set up, an information session, and some lunch, we headed off for a 28 mile warm up ride.
The first couple of miles were on a bike path, followed by a bit on paved roads, before we shifted to gravel roads for most of the rest of the ride. Here is an example of the roads we were riding on. From my perspective, the roads were in very good shape. Riding in New Hampshire and Vermont on gravel roads, I have frequently encountered washboarding. This is when ripples form in road like an old washboard, and they can be unpleasant to ride over. On this ride I did not encounter any of them and virtually no potholes.
The scenery was wonderful as one would expect. Most of the landscape we rode through was grassland. Some parts were flat and some had smaller or larger rolling hills.
There were times when the landscape reminded me a bit of parts of Vermont. I have often vacationed along Lake Champlain north of Burlington, and some of the farmland there looks similar to this.
One nice feature of these roads is that there is essentially no traffic. Also, if a car is coming, one can hear it a long way away. A slight disadvantage is that when it passes, it can kick up dust that one then has to bike through.
In addition to birds, I saw my first wildlife - a deer in the tall grass. I’ll be curious what else I see here. I suspect I will see bison at some point and perhaps elk.
Today the weather was fabulous for riding. I would guess the temperature was right around 70. As the day went along, more clouds moved in, but we never got any rain.
Tomorrow, we will bike to Deadwood. We will begin by biking up Spearfish Canyon, then retracing our route for a while down the canyon before splitting off for Deadwood. Last year, everyone on the cross country trip said that Spearfish Canyon was really beautiful, so I am looking forward to tomorrow. Overall, the ride is about 51 miles. Gravel riding is slower and takes more energy than road riding, so I am anticipating that it may feel similar to a 70 mile road ride.