Motorcycle Moments On A Car Trip
Monday, September 14th, 2015
The Full Throttle before the fire.
Judy and I just got back from an eight-day trip up to North Dakota, to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and while we were in the car, there were some moments when motorcycles were very much in focus.
The really big one was the day we passed through Sturgis. We didn’t have any other reason to go to Sturgis, it was just on our route as we came from the Badlands. To reach SD 79 to go north we drove out past the Full Throttle. Stunner!!! The entire place was black, charred ash, with some smoke still rising. Uniformed fire investigators were poking around in the ruins. There was absolutely nothing left.
Apparently the fire took just the night before. We were without cellphone coverage and without internet nearly all of this trip. We had no inkling this had happened. We just stumbled upon it. Oh my goodness!
OK, there was nothing else dramatic like that on this trip so the rest is a total change of pace.
So we got to THRO (the National Park Service abbreviation for THeodore ROosevelt National Park) and oh man is this a good park for motorcyclists. And yes, we saw a bunch of them there. The park is in two units, a north unit and a south unit, about 50 miles apart.
The south unit has a loop road about 36 miles long that winds up and down through the North Dakota Badlands where Teddy Roosevelt went to get over his grief at losing his wife and his mother in one day. Unlike the South Dakota Badlands, which are stark and barren with sharp peaks, the North Dakota Badlands are older, more worn down, and have a much shaggier look to them due to the vegetation they have, which those to south lack. So the color of the hills mixes with the color of the vegetation to present a totally different sort of beauty.
The loop road has numerous overlooks and also winds down and through the hills. There are lots of places you want to stop and take a better look. Do.
The north unit has just one road, for a 17-mile out, 17-mile back ride. It also has viewpoints but these are of a much broader perspective, with the horizon more than 100 miles away. This is the kind of stuff motorcyclists love. You just can’t appreciate it nearly as much when you’re in a car.
Back south, to the Black Hills, to Devils Tower (DETO) and Mount Rushmore (MORU) it was not a surprise to see so very many bikes on the roads. It’s nothing like at the rally but apparently a lot of bikers have discovered what we discovered about five years ago, which is that the Black Hills is a much nicer place to ride in September than during the rally. It’s quiet. It’s uncrowded. Prices are a fraction of what they are during the rally.
Plus, there were a lot fewer tourists than when the kids are out of school so at times there may have been as many bikes on the road as cars. Now, during the rally there are 100 or more bikes for every car but where else can you go on a normal day and see as many bikes as cars? And the weather is so much more pleasant.
So, we weren’t riding on this trip but you better believe I was thinking about it. Looking at these big RVs with car towed behind thinking how much nicer it would be to have a bike on behind. And how much better than that it would be to be on the bike, not towing it. This time it was my turn to be envious.
Biker Quote for Today
Race the rain, ride the wind, chase the sunset . . . only a biker understands.
