A Study in Contrasts
Day 37 Bismarck to Beaver Creek Rec Area. 61 miles of rolling hills in thunderstorms.
Day 38 Beaver Creek to Mobridge, SD. 77 miles of fantastic scenery into a new state on a beautiful summer day.
Day 39 Mobridge to West Whitlock Bay. 71 miles directly into the winds of Satan’s maw. The worst cycling day that most of us can remember.
Day 40 Whitlock to Pierre. 70 miles of flat land with little wind and a temperature of 96 degrees.
Day 41. A day of blogging in Pierre. No miles and we may not even leave the hotel.
We left Bismarck well rested after a day off the bikes. We’re running out of miles to Iowa faster than we’re running out of days before the beginning of RAGBRAI, so we’re squeezing in more rest days and shorter ride days to avoid showing up in Glenwood too early. Seems that our good fortunes have kept us from having to use the contingency days that we built into our plan, even with all the flooding and our concerns about getting around Minot. Knock on wood.
But the four riding days between Bismarck and Pierre have to be somewhat longer rides, simply because there are very, very few towns or camping areas between the two. Sleeping between towns on the side of the road next to a barbed wire fence sounds a little too much like “King of the Road” so we’ve opted for the longer rides.
Our first day out of Bismarck was all about water. Continued signs of flooding and anticipation of flooding as we passed neighborhoods with extensive sandbagging systems in place. Rich got some pictures while I went on ahead to check out the condition of our intended route. You can check them out at Rich’s blog site. I found one of our intended roads to be closed with signs threatening jail time for trespassing so we consulted our maps and worked out an alternate route. We were later able to see from a distance that some of the closed area was under water. We were too far away for a picture, but it appeared that some houses in the area were partially under water as well.
We also had our first day of cycling in the rain since we crossed the Rockies, as we were chased around by thunderstorms. The lightning itself always seemed to be a mile or so off to our right or behind us, so it was not a real threat to our safety and it did little to dampen our spirits. Except for the fact that Rich’s helmet cover always seems to be much better at playing hide-and-seek than he is. As he usually does when his helmet cover is winning, Rich just declared that he didn’t really need the blasted thing anyway. The rain didn’t last long, and while there were a few big hills to climb, we certainly enjoyed our ride through this beautiful area. Climbing hills in scenic terrain beats trudging along on the flats any day. Even in the rain.
We’ve also been enjoying the fauna, both wildlife and domesticated, along our route. On this day I saw two four-point bucks just off the road, I startled a few ring-neck pheasants, and I saw two prairie chickens cross the road just in front of me. I didn’t stop to ask them why they did it. Horses and cattle will always watch us studiously as we pass by, and sometimes we have a little fun with the cattle. Rich has this theory that since we move at approximately the same rate as dogs, that the cattle might actually think we are dogs. I thought this was ridiculous until Rich barked at a small herd and caused them to start running. I tried a counter-proof move by meowing like a cat as I went by another small herd, but they just looked at me, probably wondering how a dog on a bicycle could sound so much like a cat… We’ve also discovered that yelling “hyaw” will either cause a standing herd to run, a running herd to stop, or it will do nothing.
At our camping site at Beaver Creek, we saw a large flock of vultures hovering nearby. We teased Roger that maybe this signaled that his time was up and that he and his tent would be swallowed up overnight by the rising lake waters. But come morning, we were all still alive and well and the vultures were gone.
Rolling hills along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Also a nice bike path for a few miles
Thunderstorms are on the way
Climbing in the rain
Camping on Lake Oahe at Beaver Creek
Vultures at our campsite. Is one of us doomed?
The scenery in the southern part of North Dakota is absolutely gorgeous, with rolling hills, winding roads, and beautiful scenes of buttes (or are they mesas?) in the distance. The ride was beautiful. Time after time I would crest a hill, see the beautiful scenery ahead of me, and proclaim my favorite catch-phrase, “It just doesn’t get any better than this!” At one of these times, I started coasting down the next hill, arms extended at my sides, imitating Leonardo DiCaprio’s I’m-King-Of-The-World pose, he at the bow of the Titanic, I at the bow of my trusty bicycle. Since his character was named Jack, I felt entitled to do this. Reminded that his Titanic later struck a glacier and sank, I reluctantly returned my hands to the handlebars and began scanning the road ahead for large objects.
At the border of South Dakota, we did the usual photo. And another state bites the dust.
Winding roads amid beautiful scenery in southern ND
What a wonderful place to ride on a perfect day
Not every picture comes out the way you want when you try to be a bicyclist and a photographer at the exact same time
Could be a poster for North Dakota
The fearless duo make yet another state
The third of our four days to Pierre was not as nice. IT WAS MISERABLE. We left our campsite at Indian Creek near Mobridge in a stiff wind from the southeast. Not realizing what was in store for us, Rich joked that at least the parts of our upcoming ride that were not to the south were to the east. As we later found out, those were sustained winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts ranging between 30 and 40 mph. We should have stayed right where we were in Indian Creek and waited them out for a day. But we’re lunatics. Every inch of our first 55 miles was a battle into the teeth, the jaws, the gullet of that wind. Every time the wind gusted and I practically stood on the cranks just to gain another revolution of the pedals, I’d wonder how we could possibly make 70 miles like this. I found it difficult to sustain 7 mph on the flats and we had to pedal downhill. At one point, viewing the big hill ahead of us, Rich said, “What we could use now is a big hill to climb.” I secretly wished that Rich would stop wishing for things. It took us a long time to get up that hill. Rich later suggested that the only element missing from our day was a gravel road. We both knew that there was a 9.5 mile section of gravel road ahead. I could see that my previous wish was not granted.
So we slogged our way through wind and hills and gravel, with the occasional car throwing dust and sand into our faces.
Eventually the gravel was behind us and we arrived at the tiny town of Akaska where we had lunch and refilled our water bottles. Spirits lifted, we laughed off the objections of the local folks who declared that we were crazy to be out in this wind and rode out to prove them right. After a bit of further fun with a small herd of cattle, we rejoined Highway 83, a main thoroughfare with moderate truck traffic but a reasonably good shoulder.
And the wind just seemed to intensify. And we slogged and slogged some more.
Eventually I found that if I used a higher gear, I could just muscle my way through the wind and get to about 9 or 10 mph on the flats. Strenuous, but progress. Rich tried using the opposite strategy of lowering his gears and “surrendering” to the wind. His progress was much slower, and he had to stop every half mile for rest. I waited for a while for Rich to catch up, then suggested that we do some drafting for each other. Drafting can also be a lot of work, but it helped us pick up the pace a little bit. By now we were only about 12 miles from where we expected to turn west and get some help from the wind, so we “bucked up” and pushed our way through.
What a joy it was when we turned west at the 55 mile mark! Still, we had 15 miles to go with a number of very steep hills to overcome as we approached the campgrounds at West Whitlock, we were dog-tired, and we had used the last of our water. The long battle with the drying wind had helped us drain our supply much faster than we had expected. And there are no houses along the road where you could knock on the door and ask for water in these parts. So those last 15 miles slowly turned from joy to something less attractive. You could not have found a happier, or thirstier, person when we finally hit the campgrounds. The first words out of my mouth to the attendant at the park booth were, “Water, tell me where there’s water.”
Into the wind and up the hill. This one took us a LONG time
Uphill and into the wind on loose gravel. It actually could get better than this.
Rich conducts the Akaska Bullharmonic Orchestra. Where is the horn section?
Taking cloud pictures while waiting for Rich to catch up.
When we set up camp in West Whitlock, we decided that if the winds didn’t let up in the morning, that we should stay an extra day. But when we woke up, we found that the winds had completely disappeared. We also have found that because of all the cycling we’re doing day in and day out, our muscles tend to recover very quickly. We know that once we get up and down those same steep hills we encountered on our way into the campgrounds last night, the land will flatten out considerably. So we go for it.
Yes, those hills are still steep, but hills don’t really bother us any more, at least when there aren’t a lot of them. So we get past the hills, the terrain flattens out just as we expected and, even though the temperature climbs into the 90’s, we can mostly describe today’s ride as flat and boring. A very welcome change from yesterday’s ride, indeed.
Welcome to Pierre.
Back to flat land. Just copy and paste to see any part of the rest of the day
Lake Oahe as we approach the dam at Pierre
I can't stop taking pictures of the clouds. Is there a support group for this sort of behavior?
jacksbiketrip 