Day #53 (6/28/24) – Bike Across America

After breakfast, I was flossing my teeth and one of my crowns popped off of my tooth. It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I called my dentist. One advantage of being on Mountain Time, is that at 7:00 your dentist on Eastern Time is open. My dentist told me to use Fixodent to put the crown back on and to find a dentist to do a more permanent adhesion.

I wasn’t going to find a dentist in Hill City at 7:00, so I finished getting ready and left the hotel a little before 7:30. There was a grocery store close to my hotel, so I biked over there. There were no cars in the parking lot. The sign on the door said they opened at 7:30, which was in five minutes. I’m not a patient person, so I tried the doors and one of the two was open. So, I went in and grabbed a tube of Fixodent. The cashier gave me some grief about being in the store early, but I promised her that I didn’t steal anything. 😀

So, I went out to the parking lot, applied a generous amount of Fixodent to my crown, and used my bike mirror to jam the crown back into place. I kind of bit down on it to seat it the rest of the way. It seemed to work, so I hit the trail.

The weather was cool today. It was 55 degrees to start and the high was in the mid 70’s. The trail started with a seven mile uphill. The scenery was beautiful, as it was the day before.

There were lots of these purple flowers along the trail.

After the first climb, there was a seven mile descent that was steep enough to just coast down. The trail went through a couple of short tunnels during the descent.

Then it was back to climbing. This time for 18 miles, which put me up to 6,200 feet of elevation. There were a couple of small tunnels on this stretch as well, and the scenery was amazing.

After that climb, it was a 15 mile descent into Deadwood, and the end of the Mickelson Trail. I biked into Deadwood at 12:30, and found a nice sit-down restaurant for lunch. While I was there, I tried to find a dentist who would take my insurance. No luck. Since I wasn’t in any pain, I decided to try again further down the road after the weekend.

After lunch, I biked 15 miles on the roads to the town of Spearfish. I had tried to arrange a Warmshowers stay here, but the host had not returned my email. Spearfish had some very nice bike trails that went through town, and the town seemed very nice. Their hotel room selection was limited and expensive. Since it was only 2:30, I decided to keep going for another 30 miles to the town of Sundance, and booked a room there.

The roads in this area are very exposed to the wind and the wind was picking up. And it was in my face. So, that last 30 miles took me four hours. I just had to gear down and keep peddling. Here are some scenery shots from this stretch.

Also during this 30 mile stretch, I crossed over into the state of Wyoming.

It was a long and hard day of biking. I may have gotten a little carried away. 🤣. For the day, I biked 98 miles and climbed 4,800 feet. That’s the most climbing of any day on this adventure.

I’m going to tone it down tomorrow. I’m still biking, but not too many miles.