Cujo meets Abe

I went to The Black Hills this weekend to teach a class. Rapid City, SD to be exact. I am a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) which means that I teach people how to not get hit by cars while riding their bikes. So I led the core group of the newly minted South Dakota Bicycle Coalition through LAB's Traffic Skills 101. A couple of them have planned to become LCIs themselves. It was a good group of people with lots of stories. I often learn a lot from the collective experience of my students. But, according to the evaluations, every one of these guys/gal learned a lot. That is great news.
Anyway, Kaitlyn (my domestic partner/apple of my eye) went with me to take in the scenery. And boy did we ever. The person who organized the class, Jim Books, owns a bike touring company called Dakota Bike Tours (a pretty cool concept). He was gracious enough to loan Kaitlyn a bike for us to tool around on. I decided to put it to even better use. We drove out to Keystone SD to ride a route that I had haphazardly planned using google maps. We would follow a gravel road for some time. Then we would take the Iron Mountain Road up a small climb and down through a series of tunnels and loop-de-loops.
Here is the photo journal of what ensued:
Well the gravel road was 99% mud and 100% impossible to follow.
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We took many wrong turns (notice Kaitlyn flipping me off... just jesting of course). This particular wrong turn was up a 15% grade of mud. Once we got to the top we realized we had gone the wrong way.
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I guess my hand-drawn map wasn't sufficient for way finding.
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After continuing down a steep grade of snow-melt/ice we encountered this vicious dog.
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When we finally made it to the next paved road we had a 500 vertical feet to climb. Kaitlyn, on her borrowed bike, had a bit of trouble with the ill-fitting frame, lack of low gear and platform pedals. So the climb wasn't great. But she powered through.
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Our next downhill section was nice...
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aside from Kaitlyn's flat tire.
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Six miles into the ride, we had finally arrived at the Iron Mountain Road. Just before this stop I saw a sign that read, Mt. Rushmore--13 miles. I didn't tell Kaitlyn. That rock in the background is Mt. Rushmore. It looks really far away. It was.
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We still had to climb this mountain (Kaitlyn is coughing... still sick from mild bronchitis):
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So we climbed more and more. I loved it... but I didn't realize it would be over 1000 vertical feet. And neither had Kaitlyn.
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The descent was awesome.
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This is one of the loop-de-loops. I have never seen a road cross over itself before.
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We finally made it to Mt. Rushmore.
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The End:
From Black Hills

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