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"car-free adventure"
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BIKE CLUB NEWS LETTER
The RAAOSTNPOD (Ride Across
I had been through
I skied in January, February and March, it rained for three weeks in February and March, and I caught a bug in March. My wife, a college professor, became deeply engrossed in teaching young people to think. She joined the skiing and was prevented from training by the interruption in global warming as well. Neither of us had ridden over 25 miles since coming home from our
Poor training habits are not allowed to interrupt our schedule. We create a ride calendar for the coming year. We select the location and the start dates for the rides. When the ride date approaches, we pack and prepare to hit the road. Simply put, our philosophy is that if we have not trained adequately to ride across
We bought Adventure Cycling’s Lewis and Clark trail map as a guide and bicycled along the Missouri River from the
The wind was with us most of the trip and became very strong in the afternoons. The direction of the wind was advertised as north to south but it felt as though it blew east to west one day then west to east the next.
We selected June for the ride. Our Adventure Cycling map indicated June to be the wettest month of the year. Rain threatened most of the time we were on the road and we got wet and cold on occasion. The temperature was in the 60's for most of the trip. One journal on the web indicated that insects were a problem but we encountered few insects. The 60 degree temperature and the moisture may have been a deterrent for the insects.
As part of our trip planning we make sure to take time to stop and smell the roses on our bike adventures. We visited the
Our “training” trip was great! The rollers in east prepared me for the 8 plus in the west. I am less concerned about riding in the rain and more aware of how to prepare for rain. The people make these trips and we met a lot of interesting people along the route. I engaged in a couple of sprints with farmers on their tractors. It reinforces our belief that when the calendar says its time to ride its time to get on my bike.
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South Dakota car free adventure___________________________________________________________________________ |
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| the ride: the planning |
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SOUTH DAKOTA - Tying Iowa to Colorado |
The RAAOSTNPOD (Ride Across America One State at a Time in No Particular Order or Direction) continues. We had ridden from the Pcific coast to the western border of Kansas and from Lake Michigan to the eastern Kansas border. It was time to conect Iowa and Colorado together. We decided we would ride across the state of South Dakota. I have never been in South Dakota and I had been through Kansas and Oklahoma as a member of my son's RAAM crew. We rode "loop rides" in Texas before the RAAOSTNPOD was conceived. South Dakota made sense.
We added a visit to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and a visit to Yellowstone National Park as a post ride adventure.
I skied in January, February and March, it rained for three weeks in February and March, and I caught a bug in March. My wife, a college professor, became deeply engrossed in teaching young people to think. She joined the skiing and was prevented from training by the interruption in global warming as well. Neighter of us had ridden over 25 miles since coming home from our Vietnam adventure in November of 2008. We were in bad shape.
We create a ride calendar for the coming year, select the location for the ride and the start dates for the ride. We have also adopted the philosophy that when the ride date approaches, pack nd prepare to hit the road. Simply put, our philosophy is that if we have not trained adaquately to ride across South Dakota then South Dakota will be used to get in shape to ride the remainder of the years schedule. We simply move our training rides from LA to a different part of the world. We attempt to make our new training surroundings as close to home as possile. We eat out each day, watch TV at night, take in a movie when possible, visit the sites along the route and in the destination towns. We have found it works. No excuses, South Dakota became a training site.
We used the Adventure Cycling map of the Lewis and Clark trail to guide us and bicycled along the river from the Iowa border to Pierre South Dakota. We servived the rain and wind. We drove through the Bad Lands and rode through the Black Hills on the way to the Wyoming. We visited the Corn Palace in MItchel, South Dakota. We visited the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse mountain sculptures and the Jewel Cave in western South Dakota. We visited Custer National Park and Yellowstone National Park in Montana. We ate well and kept up with our TV shows while at our new home.
South Dakota is a rolling terrian which I would classify as realitively flat. We encounterd some rollers which tipped up to 5% for a half mile or so in some places but they were rare. The wind was with us most of the trip and became very strong in the afternoons. The direction of the wind was advertised as north to south but it could come from any direction. Rain threatened most of the time we were on the road and we got wet and cold on occassion. The temperature was in the 60's for most of the trip. After we reached the Black hills the climbs became more of a challenge. we encountered some climbs of up to 8% that lasted long enough to make it interesting.
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PLANNING & PROBLEM SOLVING |
The South Dakota trip was planned the year before for late May early June execution We came back from the Vietnam ride in November 2008 and basically stayed off the bike until January placing the blame on Christmas. It began to rain in
I planned the ride without the details. We would fly into
As my wife’s teaching obligation ebbed she became interested and she discovered the Lewis and Clark trail along the
Since we were out of shape we decided to make the
The cost of renting the car was a bit over budget and we found we could reduce the cost by using
The date was approaching when we had to commit. We have adopted the philosophy that when the “Ride Calendar” indicates it is time to go we go. This is an attempt to prevent the “should I stay, or should I go” procrastination that always occurs when “any” trip is about to happen. The self doubt always creeps in and then you hear the stories about I wish I had traveled more from folks who gave into the insecurity.
We bought the airfare. The trip was on. We decided a week before we left to buy the “Adventure Cycling” map for the Lewis and
Last Minute Preparations
Frontier airlines offered the best airfare that we could find to get to
We called the shuttle service the day before we left to get a car to the airport. We had taken our bike boxes on the shuttle before but when we mentioned the boxes the response was that it would cost $50 a piece to take the bike boxes. With the $92 shuttle fair that would be about $200? We said no. They were sorry but indicated they would have to send a special van to pick us up and thus the cost.
We called for parking at the airport and the cost ranged from $159 to $200. We called the Flyaway bus service to LAX and the cost for the bike boxes was free! Their only caveat was that the boxes must weigh no more than 50 pounds! Our quick assessment using the bathroom scale was 59 pounds for my bike and 69 for my wife’s bike box. We were perplexed about what to do so we opted for the Fly Away bus. We decided that if we had a problem we would work it out on the spot and we still had the $159 airport parking option.
All of this happened about 4 o’clock on a Sunday before we were to leave for
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FLIGHT TO SOUTH DAKOTA |
The bike box experiment - The next morning we were a half hour late leaving the house for the Fly Away bus terminal. I had a difficult time not thinking about having to buy my way to the airport. It was a done deal and I practice letting it go but the trip had been re-planned three times to remove excessive costs and I was a bit stressed not checking on this earlier. We were also told by the Marriott that could not store our bike boxes inside the hotel during our bike trip. This has never happened before in the
We arrived at the Fly Away bus station and stopped at the curb. I unloaded the bike boxes and luggage as my wife queried the attendant in the front about bike boxes. After unloading the car I drove to the parking lot which was our plan to just push forward and see if they would forgive 19 pounds. When I returned from parking the car my wife said that the limit was 70 pounds. God is a cyclist!
Everyone was very nice at the Fly Away which I hope would be an attempt to get as much business as possible during the economic turmoil the country was in. The bus trip was with traffic but we arrived at LAX with an hour to spare. The Frontier check-in process was smooth. My second worry had been that the bike boxes would be required to be 50 pounds to fly for $50 and we would be required to shell out more money. No, $50 were charged for the bikes and they weighed 59 and 69 pounds respectively as they stood on the scale. The woman did put a heavy tag on the 69 pound bike box.
We are on the plane to
We had a layover in
After we get off of our small plane in
We took off in our “prop” driven plane from
We landed in
We took our luggage to the room, made the place livable, relaxed a bit and went back down to the desk to enquire about a place to eat dinner. We went to the old section of town Spearfish and ate dinner at the Chop House. It was good and not a chain which is our goal on our trips.
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ACCLIMATION DAY |
June 2 – Acclimation Day in Spearfish
We learned from our previous adventures that it was a good idea to plan a day to kick back after arriving in country before starting a ride. We added a day initially to compensate for British Airways failure to deliver our bicycles with us on our trips to Europe. But we found that it was a good idea even if all went well so we plan an aclimation day before and after an adventure.
We had a problem that had to be solved. We needed a place to leave our bike boxes while we rode. We typically call the hotel where we are staying and they say sure. We have done this all over the world. We have never hear the words " we cannot store your bike boxes." We were told by the Marriott is Spearfish "we cannot store your bike boxes." We decided that we would ask again after we arrived. If that failed we would ask the to call the Marriott in Rapid City and if that failed we would try the car reatal agency. If all of those options failed then we would try a bike shop.
When we got up on the planned acclimation day we went down to breakfast followed by a talk with the manager of the hotel about storong the bike boxes. She told us that the hotel was being remodeled and every spare corner was stacked with materials to support the redo. As we were being told that there was no room in the inn the lady who took care of the breakfast area spoke up and said she had room in a shead at her place. We accepted. Problem solved. She said we could take the boxes to her place later but I told her we still had to build the bikes and it might be a better idea to take the bikes by the following day. We all agreed and the bike box storage was settled.
The plan for the acclimation day is to sleep in, relax and get body and mind ready to ride. We, however, decided to use the acclimation day in South Dakota to build our bikes followed by a test of our work riding around the parking lot. We picked up supplies and food that were needed for the trip but could not be carried ealily on the plane. By 2 in the afternoon we were ready to ride but we started our ride 350 miles away on the opposite side of the state. We had planned an extra day in Spearfish to build the bikes. We decided to use that day on Sioux Falls. We decided to call the lady who told us that morning she would store our bike boxes and ask if we could bring the boxes over to her place in the afternoon.
We asked at the hotel desk and they called the lady for us. The lady was not at home but we left our cell phone number. She called a shot time later and told us she had just sat down to eat and would call us as soon as she finished. She called about 30 minutes later and said meet her out front and she would lead us back to her place. We waited and she soon arrived and we followed her back to her home which was about two miles from the hotel. We pulled our bike boxes to the shed, took a picture with her, talked a bit and were off back to the hotel. At the hotel we made a hotel reservation in Sioux Falls and then went down to the lobby to cancel our reservation for the next day. We packed and were ready to go.
We got up to rain in Spearfish.
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DRIVE TO SOUIX FALLS |
June 3 – Drive to Souix Falls - The weather forecast for South Dakota was rain followed by more rain. Adventure Cycling had called it right. It was raining cats and dogs when we got up. I was freaked. I am not in shape and now we it looked like we would have to ride in the rain everyday to make it across the state.
The forecast was for the rain to continue for at least a week. It was not raining in the eastern part of the state but the rain was moving that way. We might have a couple of dry riding days in the east. We modified our plan and canceled our extra day in Spearfish. We would drive to
The route from
We ate breakfast and loaded our stuff into the car and headed east. We drove in heavy rain to Rapid City which is 40 miles east of Spearfish. (In passing "Spearfish" is for real. The local and the indians before them spear fish in the river. Not sure why the area is good for this but hince the name.)
Back to rain. To make myself feel better I came up with the theory that the rain would halt on the east side of Rapid City. The rain did reduce somewhat after Rapid City and I thought I had been saved. But no, its kicked back in to a heavy down pour. The heavy rain lasted until we reached Vermillian which is more than half way across the state. The folks in Vermillian were hoping for rain becuase they told us it had been a dry year. Dry year! My luck was not holding.
Stopped in Mitchel. It was on the I90. The town was famous for the Corn Palace. My wife the entertainment director on the team said we should stop and see it. I was in my pre-ride trama but I have matured sufficiently to know that I am in my "pre-ride" trama and that if I miss the sites along the way I will be sorry. I have learned to relax and enjoy the view. Takes training but it is worth it. If we stop at a gift shop I find something that I want to buy and look for it. If I have no options I look through the store until I find something of interest. I do this anytime I start getting that feeling that I anxious feeling that want to hurry to do somthing because I know from experience that passing someting by to spend two extra hours in the hotel is not the way to experience a bicycle ride. Take every opportunity to discover.
We missed the turnoff to the hotel. What is new. We have learned to call and they gave us directions. We had passed the exit. The ditrections I had gotten off the web were a bit misleading. Or rather, I rad more into them than was there. We arrived watched TV and hung out. Got fast food.
"car free adventure"
