July 2, 2019
Day Twenty-three: Spearfish, South Dakota to Edgemont, South Dakota
This long, long day felt like three different days: An awesome 28-mile, cool morning climb up Spearfish Canyon, a long, hot and sunny middle section on a busy rail trail, and then 45 fast miles by myself, trying to beat the rain and the sundown.
I was out early today. It was cool and cloudless. The completely empty streets of Spearfish were quite a contrast to yesterday's bustle. I rode through a nice, neat park and campground. No one there was stirring yet.
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In a couple of miles I started the climb up Spearfish Canyon. I'd been told this was extremely scenic, and one of the reasons I'd gotten such an early start was that I wanted to avoid tourist traffic in what I suspected was a popular destination.
It was, in fact, a nice ride, although also a long, steady climb. Part of the way up I stopped at a fancy resort restaurant and had breakfast. The waitress was a personable young woman who asked about my trip, and told me about her own backpacking / hitchhiking trip in the United Kingdom.
About an hour later I arrived at Cheyenne Crossing, where there was a store/cafe that was a little TOO fancy - expensive gourmet popcorn and $4 cookies. Meh.
I turned left at Cheyenne Crossing and the road got MUCH steeper. I was now out of the canyon. I slowly pedaled up at 3.5 mph before I turned right after four miles.
I was looking for a way to get onto the Mickelson Trail, which Joy and I rode from south to north as part of a tour in 2013. It's a 100+ mile rail trail through the Black Hills with a surface that is mostly crushed limestone and gravel. It took a few miles for me to find a way to get from the road to the trail, and then I had to remember how open the first of the occasional gates that line the trail.
I didn't see anyone for the first few miles until a lady and two horses approached. I pulled over and stopped, and she thanked me. I don't want to spook a horse, something that happened when I was riding on a country road in Ohio several years ago.
Workers were laying down hot asphalt on the road next to the trail, and it was much more pleasant away from all that.
I stopped at the tiny community of Rochford, just off the trail. There's a little store there, "The Rochford Mall", where three years ago Joy and I spent an enjoyable 45 minutes eating a pizza and then napping - actually, I did the napping then, while Joy woke me and prodded me to get back on the bike. This time I wasn't hungry enough for a pizza, and didn't have time to nap, so after eating ice cream and talking to some motorcyclists, I moved down the trail.
I was climbing now. It'd been three years, and I'd forgotten the long downhill we'd had three years ago riding the other direction.
Around then I pulled up alongside a 50-something couple on unloaded, light mountain bikes. The woman was a loquacious, super-fit marathoner, while her panting husband was most definitely NOT fit. "He doesn't like to talk on the climbs!" The husband grunted when I said hello. "That's all you'll get out of him!"
The woman and I pulled away from her husband. I heard him mumble "I've got to take a break", but the woman seemed unfazed, and continued spinning up the hill without him. I decided to try to keep up with her.
We had a mostly one-side conversation. If I said too much, I started to get winded, anyway. The woman, who appeared to have an incredibly low body fat percentage, said many things, the following of which are a sample:
"My husband is SO out of shape!"
"I've done five Bostons! [marathons, presumably]"
"I'm in the construction business in Philadelphia, and I have to call in and check up on everything during this vacation!"
"I'm a vegetarian except when my friends have steak!"
"I HATE eating empty calories!"
At this point I was starting to wonder if *I'd* have to stop and take a break, like her husband, but luckily she remembered that she'd left him behind miles ago, and pulled over to wait for him.
I finished the climb by myself and descended to Custer, population 1,987.
As I rode through Custer I saw several teenagers walking their bikes, which puzzled me, since it was pretty flat now. I was perhaps a bit of a jerk as I asked one 14-year-old "Why aren't you riding?" He gave me a baleful look and said "I'M TIRED!"
A mile later I came up behind a couple of boys who I observed weaving all over the trail, then jumping off and pushing their bikes. "Why aren't you guys riding?" "OhWe'reSoTiredNow", one of them said in a breathless rush.
Custer seemed kinda touristy. Not my scene. I'd done about 80 miles by now, but I really wanted to get to the end of the trail in Edgemont, which was about 45 miles away.
After a day of cloudless sky, it was looking dark now. I wasted valuable time checking the weather report on my phone (storms were predicted in Edgemont), and repeatedly calling the Cowboy Motel in Edgemont and getting the answering machine.
A woman on a fully-loaded bike approached. I flagged her down to ask if she'd been in Edgemont, and if so, what was the weather like. Clearly I'd annoyed her, and she was curt at first, but then softened a little. It sounded like she'd had a bad day; her riding partner had suffered an asthma attack earlier, and had to drop out of the ride.
I decided to go for it. It was supposed to be mostly slightly downhill the next forty miles, and the wind did not seem to be working against me.
The only little village between Custer and Edgemont was cluttered Pringle, where I stopped and pumped water for my bottles. Pringle was as depressing as I remembered from three years ago, so I only spent approximately 45 seconds there, working the pump.
It was raining in the distance. There was some lightning.
As sometimes happens when I push myself like this, I'd found my second (or third, or fourth) wind, and I flew to the outskirts of the small town of Edgemont...
...Where I had to wait for ten minutes at a railroad crossing, impatiently tapping my foot as the rain spattered and the wind blew dust from the dirt streets.
I rode through the swirling dust to the Cowboy Motel a quarter of a mile away.
Three years before, at the end of an unbelievably hot day, Joy and I had stayed at this modest motel, and I fondly remembered how the lady running the place had immediately handed each of us an ice-cold bottle of water as we walked into the motel office. It's the little kindnesses like that one that stick with me after these tours are over.
So I was shocked when the same lady came into the office to greet me, again with a cold bottle of water. Clearly she was now very, very unwell, suffering from some sort of major illness.
A little sobered, I checked into my room, did the usual mundane end-of-day-touring chores, then walked to the nearby convenience store to find that once again I'd arrived after they'd stopped making pizza, so I just bought chocolate milk, Diet Pepsi, and a large bag of Doritos and went back to my small, dimly lit room.
Today's ride: 125 miles (201 km)
Total: 1,867 miles (3,005 km)
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