May 13th, 2023 – Keystone, South Dakota to Keystone, South Dakota: ~150 miles
Did you miss Day 1? We get settled in and the bikes get delivered.
Though the bikes were very much not dry when we woke up the next morning, the rain had backed off for a bit. The priority today was for us to get familiar with the bikes and scout some roads/trails that we would be filming this week. Due to the heavy rains over the last couple of days, there were some questions about the condition of some of the trails. Actually, there was just one question – how muddy would it be out there? Only one way to find out.
Our group for this ride consisted of two Motorcycle.com staffers and two guest testers. In the center is fellow guest tester John Nave (District 37 and LA-Barstow-Vegas legend), and he’s flanked by Ryan Adams (Managing Editor) on the left and Evans Brasfield (Editor-in-Chief) on the right. Barely visible in the distance was another group of four – the faces of Mt. Rushmore.
We made it a point to switch out bikes every couple of hours or so – whoever was riding the Tuareg had to take the lead as that bike had the GPS with our preset routes on it. I love seeing wildlife while riding, so even though I was in the lead at one point on a well-groomed dirt road, I pulled over to check this guy out. Thankfully, my colleagues were understanding and didn’t mind the brief stop for me to snag a photo.
This photo shows the kind of road we were on in the morning. Ryan and I had jumped out a head a little bit, so I pulled over to get a photo of Evans coming through on the DesertX – with a bison over in the corner.
Seeing as I had pulled over already, the group used this as another chance to switch bikes. I went from the Aprilia to the BMW R1250GS – it was the biggest bike of the group, but it had decent knobbies on it. I was already familiar with the GS as I have thousands of miles of experience with it on-road and off-road, but my initial impressions were that the Tuareg and the DesertX had captured my heart. The GS makes sense in different circumstances but when you don’t have to carry much and you just want to have fun, I prefer something smaller. I hadn’t had the chance to do any dirt with the Ducati just yet but I loved the way it delivered power.
Sensing a theme here? This time it’s Ryan on the Tuareg being flanked by a couple of what Vy likes to call “bison buddies.” You have to pay attention, though – our guide would later tell us that Custer State Park and Wind Cave average 7 “motorcycle to buffalo interactions” a year.
As we didn’t have the photo/video crew with us yet, any images from today were just on our cell phones. At one point in the morning, I had timidly done a water crossing on the Aprilia.
This time on the BMW, I went a bit faster.
We were all having a grand old time exploring dirt roads that our guide had set out for us – the only real problem we were encountering was the large puddles/water crossings as they were so muddy that traction was poor and there was no visibility to see what the surface was like. I was having good success on the GS thanks to its excellent balance and the aggressive tires, but about 10 crossings in (this time in a 30 foot long puddle), I made a mistake.
I had been following Ryan (who’s a much better off-road rider than I am) and he went through the water with a line that got him a little sideways. I slowed down to re-evaluate my line, and I screwed up by backing off/being a wuss. I didn’t have much momentum going in and halfway through I lost the rear. Ryan had stopped and was watching me when this happened – it was a slow fall on the right side, and my pants/boots got soaked. Such is life. Ryan also had to suffer as he compromised the water integrity of his boots by coming into the puddle to help me lift the bike, and I owed him a beer for that. The only obvious damage was that the hand guard came loose and the throttle was sticking a little bit.
The KTM 390 had gone down a couple of times as well (it was equipped with the least-aggressive tires and it’s incredibly difficult to stand up on it due to the location and angle of the bars) and the plastic handguard on the right side had cracked, but that was rectified with some tape.
We continued on and the BMW was running fine so I didn’t think much of my tipover – though I was definitely approaching other puddles with an abundance of caution. At the next break point, someone noticed a few skeletons that I found fascinating.
There was also a skull nearby but weirdly, the horns had been cut off.
After completing our scouting run, we headed back to the hotel to dry off and freshen up for dinner. But first, we stopped by the local gas station to refill the tank and make sure we were ready to go first thing the next morning. I considered grabbing a box of “Buffalo Poop Mints” as a gag gift, but decided to pass on that.
Those of you that have followed my travel reports in the past know that I always try to bring back a back of local chips for Vy. I wasn’t really sure what the options would be out in South Dakota, but my goal is always to get something spicy for her so I took a gamble on some Old Dutch spicy cheddar/sour cream chips.
All of us hopped in a car and went over to Hill City to meet our guide for dinner at a restaurant called the Alpine Inn. This piqued my interest as I had spoken with a husband/wife duo on the plane over to South Dakota a couple of days ago and they had recommended the Alpine Inn as well – the husband said it was amazing steak for the best price in the country. It’s a German restaurant with one of the smallest menus I’ve ever seen. The dinner menu is two items long: Kaes Spaetzle Primavera (German dumplings) or what everyone orders, a Bacon Wrapped Filet Mignon. You can get a 6oz filet with a baked potato, Texas toast, and a wedge salad for $15.95 – add two bucks if you want it to be a 9oz steak. Crazy!
I also ended up trying a Ayinger Celebrator, which was a fantastic beer. Writing up this ride report reminds me that I have to track this down again…
Time to meet our guide, Bill Hearne. Bill is second from the left, and he’s heavily involved with the off-road community in South Dakota. He’s also important to people across the country – he’s one of the reasons why people in other states can get South Dakota plates on their dirt bikes or other machines that normally wouldn’t be considered street legal. The title on Bill’s business card is SAICON: Special Advisor In Charge Of Nothing, and I think that tells you a bit about his sense of humor and how easy it is to get along with him. He puts on an event called the Dakota 600, a week long off-road fund-raising trail ride. He also helps with the Dakota Adventure Loop (DakAL), a 900 mile adventure loop through western South Dakota that doesn’t backtrack on itself once and eventually just takes you back where you started. Motorcycle.com had hired him to provide us with routes and knowledge to make the story as good as possible in terms of riding good roads and finding good places to shoot photo/video. We’ll talk more about Bill throughout the rest of this trip, but the short version is that I’m a big fan and I’d absolutely use his resources to go back and explore the area again.
Seeing “Nintendos” on the sign made me feel like I was back in the 90s.
To ride in the Black Hills National Forest, you have to get an annual permit at certain shops. We snagged a few, they were $25 a pop.
At the store, Ryan and I grabbed a six-pack of a local brew to fuel us through a “study session” we were about to have. I suggested we go with an oatmeal stout called Buffalo Snot…and I didn’t end up liking it. Oops.
We all went back to the hotel, took over the dining room, and then Bill filled us in on the plan for the next couple of days while giving us a little history lesson in the process. The trails in the Black Hills wouldn’t open for two days, so tomorrow’s focus was getting photos/videos on pavement.
Tomorrow, we film!
On to Day 3!