Jacob Friend
Sometimes we go to sleep knowing there is going to be an especially big challenge waiting for us the next day. Although we knew it was going to be our shortest day so far in terms of distance (45 miles), we knew it wouldn’t be easy as we were expecting to face our strongest headwind to date. I find mornings before a big challenge to be a little silly, it feels like we’re preparing for war even though we’re just a bunch of guys biking. Regardless, we played pretend and made sure to speed-run our morning routine to get a head start on the day’s 40+ mph wind gusts.
But first we had to appreciate the perfect sunrise we were spoiled with. Yesterday we jumped ahead an hour when we entered Central Time, thus the sun rises an hour later too, so our typical 6am wake up times just got a whole lot prettier.
Sunrise in Presho, SD
Our added motivation to leave camp early gave us the boost we needed, and we started pedaling at 7:15am. This get-up-early-and-beat-the-wind-trick worked well a few days ago in the Badlands, but the wind decided to wake up earlier today. That’s alright, we knew our wind dodging luck would run out at some point. We had tricks in our back pocket just for this moment. We tried all of them—diagonal draft line, drop bars for more aerodynamics, Liquid IV packets, screaming, yelling, begging—nothing could help us exceed 8 mph. After enough struggling we just had to accept the slower pace and grind it out. Eventually, over 3 grueling hours later, we had biked 23 miles to our first gas station stop. I never thought I would be so beat up after 23 relatively flat miles. My knees were aching, my arms were sore, and I wasn’t even excited that it was before noon and there were only 20ish miles left in the day.
Michael and Friend battle a headwind
I think all of us were dreading our return to the battlefield, but after enough procrastination, we bit the bullet and saddled up. Our destination of Fort Thompson was northeast of our gas station stop in Kennebec, so we had to get on HW 273 to begin making northbound progress. Instead of getting a brutal headwind going dead east, we thought this highway might give us a refreshing crosswind instead. We were so incredibly wrong.
Two minutes after our departure from our beloved gas station, the smooth roads we took for granted turned into “grooved pavement”. No worries, just a little section of road work, right? WRONG. 20 miles of tooth-rattling bumpy road for the rest of the day. YIPPEE! We had biked ourselves to the middle of what felt like South Dakota’s biggest DOT project of the century. On the bright side the horrible road quality took our minds off the wind for a little bit. As I was comprehending our miserable biking conditions I couldn’t help but start laughing. What am I doing in the middle of nowhere South Dakota biking in gale force gusts on the world’s bumpiest road? To be honest I don’t really know, but I do know that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This is the type 2 fun I signed up for when choosing to go on this trip. It may be really uncomfortable and not fun at times, but it’s really awesome to look back and laugh at doing stupid things like this.
Grooved pavement on the way to the Missouri River and Fort Thompson, SD
Once we made it to Fort Thompson, laughing at ourselves is exactly what we did. We put our bodies through bike war, but we made it out alive. We spent the rest of the day recovering with some beauty rest and lots of food. It looks like we’ve got another headwind in store for us tomorrow, but as long as the road is actually paved, I think we’ll be okay.
Friend recovers in the shade in Fort Thompson, SD