When we last left our hero, he was exploring the Badlands and headed for the hills. Unfortunately this is the place where the journey had to end.
I arrived in Rapid City by 3:00 PM. Drop off time for the rental was 4:00, so I took my time packing up and assembling the bike. I hung around the airport about an hour to wait out the sun and rode downtown to find a place to stay. I found sleep quickly, which was was good.
The next morning marked the start of my march into the Black Hills. My goal of Hill City was only 30 or so miles from Rapid, leading me to believe I would have an easy day. It was definitely easy, but only physically.
Now I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier (and I don't feel like combing through to check), but I had been having trouble with a few of my middle gears. The trouble being the series of gears would slip due to what was described to me as the "finnicky" nature of 10-speed bikes. It was nothing more than a nuisance throughout the prairie and worsened only slightly into the start of the hills. As the hills grew larger I began to experience more issues, such as the chain popping off when downshifting between certain gears and an increased range of consistently slipping gears. This was bad news - two bike guys at different shops in different cities had explained to me that there was no easy way to fix this issue.
The Black Hills are a different kind of hills than what I had experienced thus far. Elevation ranges from about 3000ft in Rapid City to the 7242ft Mt. Harney, the highest point in South Dakota. The trail behind me hung out in the 1000-2000ft range.
On the outskirts of Rapid City the ride felt odd. There was more resistance than usual. I couldn't pinpoint the issue so I decided it was my legs being weaklings. A short while later the chain slipped. Shift. Slipped again. More slipping. Shift. Pop. Chain's off. Fix, pedal, pop. Fix. Adjust, Shift, shift, pedal. We good? Pop. No.
That was that. My theory is the weight was simply too much for the bike at those grades. The bike is designed for racing. People who race bikes weigh like 160lbs. This thing was not designed to have 230-250lbs sitting on the rear axle. Too much tension on the shifting mechanisms. Keep in mind I have no idea what I'm talking about. It didn't even have mounts for the rack, but it was what I had to work with, and did a damn fine job while it lasted. The nice thing is it works well without all the weight.
By the time I gave in to the inevitable it was too late to get a car. I spent the night in another faceless motel, rode the bike down to the airport, and got a car. And yes, I had to walk the bike up the hill the airport sat on. Only about a 1/2mi though. By noon I was headed out on my now road trip to Colorado.
More later. I'm tired.
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