George S. Mickelson.......

7:23 am - Thursday - July 2nd - Keystone, SD - 64° F, 81% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the south by southwest......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 84° F.  The view this morning.......↴

The forecast high for Wednesday was 80° F with clear skies.....perfect riding weather.  Rich and Marnie had suggested a few days ago that we ride part of the 110 mile Rails to Trails George S. Mickelson Trail (named in honor of George S. Mickelson who was the 28th Governor of South Dakota) on Wednesday.  We left around 9:30 am to drive the 10 miles northwest to Hill City where there is trailhead access to the trail.  Unlike many Rails to Trails bike paths we have ridden over the years this one is a toll bike path.....cost per person, per day to ride the path is $4, or you can buy an annual pass for $15/person....we paid the $4......

....as proof you have paid you must carry on your person the receipt.  We began our ride a little after 10 am.  The direction we rode (northwest) had us climbing a gradual grade (2-4%) for around 8 miles, but with the eBikes we were all riding it was easy peasy......

.....in less than an hour we crossed numerous trestles, and rode through one tunnel when we came to the longest of all the trestles at the 8.6 mile mark.......

 

Our second 'foot usie'

.....Rich and Marnie both have full suspension Haibikes, just as I do.....it was their purchase of their Haibikes early in the summer of 2019 while we were sojourning at RORVR* that inspired me to buy mine.  We decided to ride on another 1.4 miles to hit the 10 mile mark before turning around to ride back to Hill City.....

Just before the turn around at the 10 mile mark.....elevation 5,509'

.....we began our ride at an elevation of 5,159' in Hill City, and reached the highest point at 5,509' when we hit 10 miles.  The return ride was mostly downhill, and we had hoped it would be with the wind at our backs since we had been riding into the wind for the first 10 miles, but was not to be....we had mostly a headwind all the way back to Hill City....how is that possible?  At any rate, as we pulled into the trailhead parking lot our odometers hit 20 miles.....in all we rode for 1 hour and 44 minutes to cover the 20 miles, and it was about 12:15 pm, so just over 2 hours of total elapsed time......

20 miles exactly, and 1,147 caloric units consumed

......after reinstalling our bikes on our KÜAT bike rack we headed for home arriving at the Newell just before 1 pm....we were expecting company around 2 pm, so we quickly took showers, and had barely sat down to relax for a few minutes when Joe and Jody arrived about 30 minutes early.....good thing we did not dilly dally around too long when we got home.....lol.  It all worked out well....we sat in the Newell talking for about an hour before driving down to Cruizer's Pizza for a late lunch.  We both got so engrossed in our discussion that we both forgot to memorialize our time with them in the form of an 'usie'.  We know Joe and Jody from our college days, and have seen them at several college reunions over the years.  They are in the midst of a 3 week trip in their 5th wheel, and are staying up in Rapid City at the local KOA while they visit Mt. Rushmore.  As is always the case we talked nonstop from the time they arrived just after 1:30 pm until we bid our adieus around 4 pm.....their next stop is Glacier National Park where they will spend a week before returning to their home in Missouri....until next time safe travels Joe and Jody!

Thanks for stopping by!

*RORVR = Ramona Oaks RV Resort

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