Day 16: Finding our level in the Badlands

After the Black Hills, the next most remarkable feature of South Dakota is the Badlands. Like the Black Hills, this is sacred ground to the indigenous people. But in this case the National Park Service has ceded some control and splits the entrance fees with the Oglala Sioux nation. 

The theme of levels revealed itself in many aspects of the day, from the eroded plain at the base of the yet to be eroded heights of the Badlands with its horizontal sedimentary geology, to the ponds dotting the landscape, to the abandoned railroad bed visible next to much of our final 40 miles through undulating hills.

But the level of most personal interest is whether I am ready to step it up for a new kind of riding. Now that we have left the western heights the climbing load is reduced but not the hours of exertion. At 146 miles, today's is the longest ride of the tour. But is only the start of a new phase of central and eastern stages with almost every day exceeding 125 miles.

One surprising thing I noticed today is that I no longer find the prospect of a long stretch of road in front of me as far as the eye can see to be daunting.  I guess once you've ridden a dozen of those you realize the eye can't really see that far - 5 miles being about the limit outside of Nevada - and 5 miles is no big deal.

Nevertheless it was with some trepidation that we rose before sunrise to get out on the road an hour earlier than our accustomed time, both to have more time to do more miles, and because our departure was Mountain Time and destination Central Time (2 time zones down, 2 to go!)

We were pleasantly surprised by the ease and beauty of the 50 mile run from Rapid City to the start of the Badlands thanks to a tailwind.

The wildlife inside the park is cool to say the least. Photo credit to Paul:

We reached the lunch stop after mile 70 with an average pace of over 19 MPH.

Levels on levels

After traversing north on the main drag of Badlands National Park, we struck I-90 which had an excellent frontage road for the entire remainder of the ride into the hamlet of Murdo, South Dakota. Here Paul and Rachel start one of those long stretches on the frontage road next to I-90:

As with riding on the interstate highway, I had some doubts about the quality of the ride on a frontage road instead of a back road. But hey! it made for very good riding because (1) it was far enough away from the interstate so we didn't have the noise I thought we would, and (2) it was completely devoid of traffic. Coming into Murdo Paul quipped "the change in the timezone to an hour later had just the effect I was worried about: being stuck in Murdo rush hour traffic" - this after being passed by a second vehicle within 5 minutes.

Water likes to find its level.

The abandoned railroad grade down the hill on right likes the level too. I'd be interested in finding out more about the history of this line.