Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Rides, Rallies, & Events black hills ride

I went on what may have been the worse ride of my life and one of the best all in one trip.

My wife and I and a couple of friends left last thursday from WI to go out to Whitewood, SD. It was sunny and 80 when we started out but turned to rain about 150 miles out. Changed into rain gear (which of course caused the rain to stop 20 miles later) Now up on the plains in Minnesota we are getting some pretty strong headwinds. We tough it out and make it to Sioux Falls, SD for the night.

I should mention that I am on my T-bird which currently has no fairing, since I had ordered a new fairing from Corbin back in february thinking that I would have it in plenty of time for the riding season, I had sold my previous fairly to someone else who just happened to be in this riding group. I began cursing corbin.

The next morning looks pretty good, seems like we should be missing most of the weather problems as we ride west. Didn't work out that way. We made 70 miles, then it all went bad. 40 plus miles per head winds and then it began to rain, a lot. I had good rain gear but not good enough for over 300 miles of crap weather. Still cursing corbin. The farther west we went the colder it got as well. In Kadoka, SD we found a laundrymat and dried our stuff and waited out a passing T storm. This was a
temporary reprieve as 30 miles later we were back in the wind and rain. The cursing of corbin now continuous.

Stopped at a honda shop in rapid city and bought some waterproof snowmobile gloves (those are great)
We slogged on to Whitewood to a friends house that was our destination. I have made that same trip in half the time before (in good wetaher). We abuseed the dryer pretty havily upon our arival!

Next day was sunny and nice. part of the group split off and continued their trip to the west coast (they had good weather all the way out there) the rest remained in the Black Hills for the weekend. Saturday and Sundays rides were among the best I have ever had, awesome roads and no traffic. I rode Vonocker canyon, and Emmo canyon and teh only other vehicle I saw was the occasional R3 in my mirror stuggling to keep up! Some cars for the first few miles of Spearfish canyon and then nothing for the rest of the ride.

I have riden the black hills before, but only during rally week. It is a way different place with out 500,000 other bikes on the same roads. We rode to Mt Rusmore, crazy horse and Custer and thru the badlands on Sunday and then headed east to Mtchell, SD. Mostly good weather the rest of the trip. Made it home monday afternoon. 1865 miles.

The wife shot some great videos of the ride thru Custer state park and thru the badlands, I will try to get those linked up.

corbin fairing still not there!

Bummer about the weather but in the end all seemed like it was worth it. I damn thee Corbin!
Always wanted to ride the Black Hills, one day.

I too am hoping to make it out to the black hills one of these days. Hopefully you'll have better luck with the weather on the way to Westby!

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to the pictures and video.
I've only been driving in those areas, and hope to do it on a bike someday.

video of the road between Mt rushmore and crazy horse. this was done with an iphone. and (unfortunately) we ran up on a slow moving car. but it shows a fairly good sampling of the black hills landscape.

here is a section of the ride thru the badlands. there is about 35 miles of this same road and wild scenery.

One day, I will make a trip out there. Spectacular scenery, and from the looks of things, a really nice road to ride on. I'm guessing during rally week that road is littered with thousands of bikes.

More like 500,000 bikes. And far too many are not experienced riders. Rented bikes, borrowed bikes and occasional riders, most of them 2 up as well, detract from the awesomeness of the area.

I would strongly recommend going any other time than during the sturgis rally. If you want to really ride that is. If you want to go to the rally then go to have fun.