South Dakota - Open Plains, Black Hills and Motorbikes

RAGBRAI people are awesome - Mike, Jacob and Chuck kindly relayed me right across the state of Iowa and delivered me onto the perfect road to continue west in South Dakota, there aren't many roads here either, I'd be on the SD44 for the next 3 days!

Chuck kindly gave me a lift into South Dakota after RAGBRAI and even held my bike for me!

South Dakota's Open roads

Best town ever

After 10 days of company and craziness on RAGBRAI, it took a couple of days to get used to the usual solitude of riding, Ash seem to be constant company as songs go through my head that I haven't listened to in 15 years. The first half of South Dakota is as flat and open as you could imagine, wheat replaces the corn of Iowa, but for mile after mile there's nothing but fields. Carrying enough water becomes a problem, 3-4 litres is sometimes not enough, so at any gas station you'd find me downing big cups of pop, fortunately something America does very well. There was no guarantee that a town on the atlas would actually be more than a house and a couple of people, so it was critical to find out if there was anywhere to get food or water ahead, some stretches were up to 70 miles of nothing. People don't just move around RVs around here, they also transport whole houses along the road, if these hit you head on, the wind would almost knock you off the bike, but being overtaken by one sucked you into the vacuum they created and dragged you along for about half a mile. I saw my first coast-to-coasters here too, I retired american guy and a Californian called Cirrus WALKING my route in reverse, that day I covered 129 miles but felt weak compared to Cirrus, who had 50 miles to walk before he'd next be able to get fresh water, but for him this was not unusual.


Some of the towns just needed tumbleweed to add to their run down appearance, in fact at one, the lovely named Scenic, where I had hoped to get some lunch, instead I found that the whole town was up for sale! No idea why anybody would want to buy it other than to host some sort of cult though, although it did have it's own wild west kind of charm.

Finally, approaching the Badlands NP, the land started to have a bit of relief to it, I never thought I'd be wishing for hills, but the strange thing was that I had been. 

Finally some relief instead of the flat plains

Badland NP in the early morning

The lure of the Badlands national park pushed me on to a new record day in the saddle, despite the hills, as I wanted to catch it at first light. The park is absolutely stunning, and really the pictures speak for themselves - an otherworldly landscape of rock formations and open plains with Prairie Dogs, long horn sheep and deer roaming freely. The native indian history adds to the appeal, and these areras are very special to them, especially those in the reservations that surround the National Park. The reservations are themselves quite sobering, the indians are relatively poor and there is very little visible of their culture left.

Not a toy, but a friendly prairie dog

With South Dakota came the threat of rattlers - I never saw one, but almost ran over a thin black & yellow stripped one

After the Badlands it was onto the Black Hills, where South Dakota appear to carve things into big rocks in the hope of attracting tourism... and it works especially at this time of year, as I arrived just as the Sturgis Motorcycle rally began - the biggest in the world, that must pull in tens of thousands of bikers from all over the world. Despite their scary appearance - Big, lumbering, tattooed guys in leather - the bikers were more friendly than you could imagine. They obviously thought I was completely crazy, but in reality they were doing much the same as me, meeting up with some buddies to tour the country, party and see the open road. They just don't just stay around Sturgis, it would take me 2 weeks and into Montana, before I lost the ever present noise of motorbike engines overtaking me.

An old railroad trail through the black hills

The black hills were busy, but I was shown a back route to get up into them avoiding the highway, what i wasn't told was that the back roads had grades of 15%+, that was a bit of a killer in the heat of the day. The hills themselves were stunning, but the roads were crazy and the towns, although they had some wild west charm, were largely tourist traps. I did find a gorgeous trail though, up an old railroad, away from the major roads - riding up it, alongside a creek at dusk I got covered in insects that made my whole front look black, when I arrived at the bar I was aiming for after dark, they thought I was "an alien" coming up the street, but still welcomed me in and let me pitch my tent in their yard. I thought the beard might help me fit in better, but compared to the mountain beard & hairstyles on show that night, I may as well have come straight from the office, clean shaven in my suit.