Bike About 2025 – South Dakota
January 15, 2026 § Leave a comment
Changing the format of these posts for the time being. Up until this post I had been re-imagining the trip from memory and maybe isolating details from my daily posts each day of the trip, however as I head into this section of the trip, I was fairly detailed in my daily posts, and my memories seem a little challenged. Some of that could be the day-to-day riding was generally uneventful. Big skies, open range, large irrigated farms, lonely roads and hay harvesting leave little in the way of day to day excitement. So I lean on my daily posts for anything that may have happened on those days that have since found deep slumber in the recesses of my brain. One tidbit that struck me often in my early days was the amount of tire debris along the road from retreads. This pose will detail some of those thoughts.
July 12, Day 26 – A hard day indeed. When I decided to stay in Spearfish, I had done so mainly because my friend Larry had posed it as a possible place where I could get set up with some in/out laws that he has, but that didn’t work out. However looking at the town, it seemed like if I took the 20 from the rest of the previous day and added it to today I could still reach Rapid City. Oh what a choice that was.
I took in the breakfast at the BW, and hit the road by 645. Downtown was super quiet however once I got on route, I ran smack into the back of a 5K that was getting ready to start. I was about to move through when the gun went off and the crowd started moving anyway, so I rode along until they spread out enough for me to advance my way into the lower grades of Spearfish Canyon. It didn’t take long before I and the race parted ways and I was on 14A Southbound with a good shoulder, and riding between canyons walls. I passed a 12 marker with a cone, and then an 11 marker with a cone a mile later. “Hmmmm. Seems there is another race going on”. Around a couple more corners I came to an aid station for the Spearfish Canyon Half Marathon in which the riders started from way up the canyon and race down it. “Okay” I thought. I will see the whole race then as I ascend. I think I saw the first 2 lead runners somewhere around mile 7 (their 7 not mine), and then a 1/4 mile further the first chase group where one of the runners asked urgently “Are there any port-o-johns?!?!” I gave him the half good truth that yes there were some ahead, but at least a couple of miles still. I hope he made it. I know from my racing days, that whether or not I voided myself at home, by the time I got to the race and was within 15 minutes of my start time, I was racing for the same resource.
Bike About 2025 – Wyoming
December 14, 2025 § Leave a comment
July 5th Day 19 – I transition from the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) to Peaks Parks and Prairies (PPP) heading out of West Yellowstone. This begins the next phase of my summer bike about where my goal now is to get to the town of Orange City in Iowa for the start of the 52nd edition of the Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). I have the entire state of Wyoming to cross as well as most of South Dakota, one of the few states left on my list to visit, and now I am going to do South Dakota some real justice and spend quite a few days riding across it. For now I am still in Montana, having left Denise and Rebecca on the 3rd, they should be finishing up today by riding into Jackson Wyoming while I will set out East bound.
« Read the rest of this entry »Bike About 2025 – GDMBR Week 2
December 12, 2025 § Leave a comment
In my last post I only covered 6 days, so the title is a little misleading, however I will try to be a little more terse and cram in the rest of my time traveling with the lovely ladies Denise and Rebecca who invited me to join them on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route/Ride (GDMBR). I ended the last post where section 1 of the route ended in Helena, and this post will cover section 2 from Helena Montana, to Jackson Wyoming however, I will be departing this route before then and diverting to West Yellowstone where my next phase in this adventure will begin. For now though, it’s the Rocky Mountains of Montana, and miles to go before we rest.
« Read the rest of this entry »Bike About 2025 – GDMBR Week 1
December 7, 2025 § 1 Comment
We are now in phase 2 of my great bike about in the summer of 2025. My last post dealt with my time on my own before riding with Denise and Rebecca (Full disclosure I will refer to them as both “The Ladies” and “The Girls” through my writing. I hope no one is offended by using each reference interchangably). Now we are all together and setting off, a day later than first planned, for a two week adventure south on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), covering the rest of Section 1, and all of Section 2. We were delayed a day in starting because the girls got in so late Friday night, it was early Saturday morning and a late winter storm hit the area bringing cold rain in the valley and almost 8 inches of snow in the passes.
June 22, Day 6 – We agreed to meet in the morning at 9am at Lulah’s Cafe in downtown Whitefish where we would load up on a big breakfast before departing for Swan Lake, 65 miles into our route. Lulahs was pretty busy that Sunday morning, and it became apparent early on that we should have agreed to meet at 8 instead. By the time we were seated and ordered, it was almost 45 minutes before we were seated. Partially I can accept some fault here because I was there early and I could have gone down and put our name in the queue for a table, but I wasn’t sure what had been done already, and I just awaited their arrival. With our bikes locked up we descended the stairs and 90 minutes later, after a very nice breakfast meal we unlocked the bikes and began the first mile of many. The storm that had blanketed the area for the last 36 hours was still in the area though we were now on the trailing edge of it. There were pockets of moisture, enough to warrant putting on rain jackets, and since I was the only one with rain pants, I opted in for those as well. You know the drill. When you prepare, it doesn’t rain, and when you say “It’s not going to rain” it rains.
« Read the rest of this entry »Bike About 2025 – Glacier National Park
November 30, 2025 § 1 Comment
Back in May I posted that I had a bike packing adventure that I was prepping for in June. Later in May I trialed my equipment in a 500 mile loop leaving from my home in Ocean, NJ and riding a somewhat loop clockwise through Pennsylvania, New York and then a ferry ride back to New Jersey. By the time I started this trip my basic plan was as follows:
- Start with Glacier National Park
- Ride two weeks on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride (GDMBR) with Denise and Rebecca
- Ride to Orange City Iowa for Ragbrai LII
- Ride Ragbrai LII to the Eastern border of Iowa
- Ride Home to New Jersey
At this point in the trip, I was definitely planning to ride all the way home, though I wasn’t entirely confident that I would make it, not was I set on a route from the Ragbrai end in Guttenberg where there wasn’t a Mississippi crossing. I felt that to better my chances of completing this feat I should break the adventure up into some logical phases where I think I would call the GDMBR Phase 1. Why not call Glacier Phase 1? I feel like the phases should be devoted to getting home again, and my time in Glacier did nothing to advance my progress home. It was merely a destination bucket list item, where I could hone my condition a wee bit more before the ladies arrived.
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Big Bird's Adventures 