August 18, 2021
Tale of Two Trails
What a difference a day makes. Today's ride began just north of Custer, heading to the northern terminus in Deadwood. The plan was to leverage my support and segment the remaining miles into three sections...ride north for 25 miles, shuttle further north and ride south 18 miles, shuttling north again and riding 16 miles further north to Deadwood.
The devil is in the details. The shuttle points were far more remote than anticipated and literally took 3+ hours, not to mention the endless miles of very, very dusty gravel roads.
The day took longer than we anticipated but ended successfully in completing the trail. I had initially planned for three days but rain forecasted for both Thursday and Friday called for a change.
The trail from Custer to Deadwood was totally unlike the southern half. The shade that was missing yesterday was a welcome blessing today -couple that with sunny temps in the low 80's...wonderful! Arriving in Deadwood the temp was 72!
Thursday will focus on chores...laundry, then a trip to a carwash. When we opened the back of the truck in Deadwood we could not believe the dust that coated EVERYTHING. I guess I expected the truck cap to work better than it did. We may feel a bit foolish visiting a carwash in the rain but there will be very little competition and we can take as long as we need which I'm sure will be longer than we want. Only wish we had taken a picture.
Saturday we will be leaving the Black Hills and heading east with a short stop and ride before leaving South Dakota.
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3 years ago
Today's ride: 62 miles (100 km)
Total: 1,068 miles (1,719 km)
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