Tag: BikeAcrossUSA

I used the RAGBRAI bike ride route for today, it’s available on the internet at (dead link). The hard part was finding my way out of Sioux City. I followed a city street which I thought would become a paved county road. It instead turned into gravel, and I had to get down to US…

At 6 AM I was already packed and ready to leave the motel at first light. Apparently someone else had the same idea – I waited for them to leave before doing so myself. I found the Super 8 motel further outside of town – they had a room already available at 7 AM, so…

The first half of today’s ride was rolling hills and cornfields. The first cafe was 40 miles down the road in Newcastle, which made a good lunch stop. After that the terrain flattened out, and after Ponca – ten miles down the road – the highway widened out and traffic increased for the approach to…

I got my package at the post office shortly after it opened at 7 AM. It had arrived in the post office on Monday. The postmaster didn’t bother asking for ID since this was the only package that had been sent via general delivery in a long time. The time spent getting the package, mailing…

Since I had planned on getting an early start today, Barb (the hotel owner) had left some cereal out for breakfast, since they didn’t officially open until 7:30. I got up at 6, ate, and then looked outside to see lightning in the direction I had planned to go. So I went back to bed.…

Got a late start out of Valentine, as I needed to borrow the pump from the bike shop, which didn’t open until 9:00. It was actually a really well stocked bike and kayak shop – they had Gary Fisher mountain bikes and even a Santana Sovereign tandem. Coming out of town on Highway 12, there…

Leaving Gordon I found out why it was 30 miles to the next town and almost another 30 to the next one after that – I was now in the sand hills of Nebraska. Yes, they are hills made of sand, with green grass growing on them – probably not very good to farm on,…

(Yesterday’s report was incorrectly labeled as Day 32 instead of Day 33, please forgive the error.) [I’ve fixed it now….] Last night the wind blew really hard, shaking up the tent, and the lightning flashed in the distance, but there was almost no rain. I didn’t sleep very well, because I had opted not to…

Last night’s van tour of Mount Rushmore went well. It was a scenic drive up to a lodge nearby, where we had dinner. Then we went over to the mountain, where we got to see the sculpture in daylight, then went to the amphitheater area at dusk to hear a short talk and see a…

After about 10 miles I had crossed into South Dakota. Wyoming had it all – great scenery, lousy scenery – but now that I’ve crossed into another state I feel like I’m making progress again. It started getting hillier again – well it’s called the Black Hills, so no surprise there. But the grades were…