6/29/19
Last night was brutal. With temperatures near 90 degrees at 10:30pm, Steve and I resorted to packing away the rain fly portion of our tents to try and take advantage of any cooling the slight breeze might provide. Neither of us had ever slept in a tent without the fly cover before and only one other time were we in a situation with such oppressive heat. I also ended up packing my sleeping bag and just opted for sweating on my coolmax liner instead. By morning, the temperature had dropped to about 74, which was also the dew point, so everything we had out was wet.
We got up as the sun came up, made coffee and worked on packing in all of our wet gear. We were on the road by 7:30 so we could have a few hours of riding before the heat kicked in again. We set off today on the interstate towards the Black Hills and with the wind at our back, the first part of the ride was uneventful. But the temperature kept climbing as we got closer to the badlands, topping out at 94 degrees and then the wind shifted to the northwest, a crosswind that we would battle for the remainder of the ride. Thankfully, as we got closer to the Black Hills, the temperature would drop ultimately to the high 70's - welcome relief.
We chose to take the interstate today to get to our destination early enough to meet up with college friend and fellow rider, Calvin. We rolled into Sturgis around 11:30 and enjoyed lunch with Calvin and then a nice ride up Spearfish Canyon to our campsite. It was great to once again connect with Calvin, last time was on our trip to Colorado in 2015. It was also nice to have enough time (and good weather) to get all of our gear dried out again and also to do a bit of maintenance on the bikes. The ride through the storms in Iowa, a muddy couple campgrounds and some dirt road excursions left a pretty thick layer of dirt and bugs.
Tomorrow is our longest day - 400+ miles to Winifred Montana. Looks like we will have good weather for the ride!
Last night was brutal. With temperatures near 90 degrees at 10:30pm, Steve and I resorted to packing away the rain fly portion of our tents to try and take advantage of any cooling the slight breeze might provide. Neither of us had ever slept in a tent without the fly cover before and only one other time were we in a situation with such oppressive heat. I also ended up packing my sleeping bag and just opted for sweating on my coolmax liner instead. By morning, the temperature had dropped to about 74, which was also the dew point, so everything we had out was wet.
We got up as the sun came up, made coffee and worked on packing in all of our wet gear. We were on the road by 7:30 so we could have a few hours of riding before the heat kicked in again. We set off today on the interstate towards the Black Hills and with the wind at our back, the first part of the ride was uneventful. But the temperature kept climbing as we got closer to the badlands, topping out at 94 degrees and then the wind shifted to the northwest, a crosswind that we would battle for the remainder of the ride. Thankfully, as we got closer to the Black Hills, the temperature would drop ultimately to the high 70's - welcome relief.
We chose to take the interstate today to get to our destination early enough to meet up with college friend and fellow rider, Calvin. We rolled into Sturgis around 11:30 and enjoyed lunch with Calvin and then a nice ride up Spearfish Canyon to our campsite. It was great to once again connect with Calvin, last time was on our trip to Colorado in 2015. It was also nice to have enough time (and good weather) to get all of our gear dried out again and also to do a bit of maintenance on the bikes. The ride through the storms in Iowa, a muddy couple campgrounds and some dirt road excursions left a pretty thick layer of dirt and bugs.
Tomorrow is our longest day - 400+ miles to Winifred Montana. Looks like we will have good weather for the ride!
A quick stop on the edge of the Badlands
Sturgis, for our meetup with Calvin
Spearfish City Campground - very nice!
Got bugs?
Steve's window malfunction on his rain fly. Nothing some Gorilla Tape can't fix...
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