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This is the tale of when my son Dominick, 14 years old, and I, Rick Pruch, went on the 10th Annual Mickelson Trail ride through the Black Hills of South Dakota last fall, September '07. This 109 mile three day ride was very scenic. We went through the heart of the Black Hills on a Rail to Trails route.
Dom and I camped out near Custer for the three days of the ride. The first night reached a low of 20o but the rest of the nights were great with lows around 50o. The first morning we put on all the cloths we could and biked to the trail head in Custer to start the first and longest day, 44.5 miles. We headed south out of Custer to Pringle and finished in Edgemont. We lost elevation for most of the ride starting about 5,500 feet and finishing just under 3,500. An easy first day except for all the clothes - I only took off my head/ear band warmer the whole day. The high was only in the mid 40's that day. When the finish was in sight we were held up for 15 - 20 minutes by a train sitting in the tracks in the road. We were just about to head back to detour a couple miles to the viaduct to go over the train when it started moving. Dom and I stopped in one of the local establishments had a little something to drink with some other riders before heading back to the camp site.
Day 2 we went from Custer
to Hills City to Rochford, 39.5 miles. This was the
hardest day for my son. It was up and down the whole day.
3 - 6 miles up then 3 - 6 mile down. A couple of
highlights
were we rode past the Crazy Horse Memorial on the way to Hill
City. And after a climb out of Hill City we went down and
through the first two tunnels on the trail. We finished at
Rochford parked our bikes in a field with 500+ other bikes,
enjoyed the little town, had a bite to eat and watched the
picture show of past rides as the organizers handed out golden
spike awards to riders and organizers who have been there for
all 10 years. We were then bused back to Custer.
Good thing since we were in the middle of nowhere and Rochford
isn't on most maps. After a quick shower we drove to Hills
City to were fellow riders Tina Anderson and her group were
staying to
watch
the Nebraska - USC football game. We lost!
The third day from
Rochford to Deadwood was short but some of the old-timers had us
a little leery as they kept telling us of the long 10 mile climb
to start the day. It wasn't all that bad as the grade
wasn't very steep. The temperature topped out at 89o
that day but with it being the shortest day's ride of the three,
only 29 mile, it was the easiest. After going through a
few more tunnels we skipped going past Lead as Dom want to take
t
he
steeper route down to Deadwood (and it was very steep in parts).
Organizers had a banquet set up in a school gymnasium and had
another picture show of our ride which you were able to buy if
you wanted to along with t-shirts, train whistles and other
trinkets to remind us of our fun ride through the Black Hills of
South Dakota.
One other note reporters from the Rapid City Journal took Dom's and mine picture and wrote us up in an article the newspaper with our picture. Pretty cool for my 14 year old! Journal Article
I would highly recommend this ride to others.
