The Black Hills

A word problem: if Dotty departs Denver for Durango (337 miles away) at the same time as her main man Mitch starts motoring to Moab (354 miles away), who gets to the trails first? Don’t break out the calculators -- they each get to their destination a little bit quicker than Suzette, who slips out at the same time and speeds to Silver City, South Dakota (401 miles away).

When they get there, Mitch and Dotty have to contend with brutal summertime heat and the standard bike-Mecca crowds, while Suzette shares hundreds of miles of lush, forested trail in the Black Hills National Forest with nobody but a few mountain goats.

Silver City is not Moab or Durango. There aren’t any trail maps or interactive signage. There aren’t any bike shops. There isn’t even a coffee shop or a gas station. According to Tally Chapman, who owns the Happy Trails Cabins with his wife Rita, about the only thing going for Silver City is “a lot of nice trails.”

On one recent trip, Chapman led a group of three cyclists on a 17-mile loop. The ride started with an ascent up old mining roads, which were smooth and graveled, shaded by birch trees and pines, deserted and seemingly endless. The roads curved around the hills gently, always ascending, until Chapman diverged onto the slightest nothing of a trail through a meadow. As the group followed Chapman up the faint path, the walls of a valley rose on either side. The ornery grumbling of loose cattle echoed through the birch woods. Thunder boomed off of the hills and a warm rain spattered down.

Riding in the Black Hills is an exploratory adventure. Though a detailed map of the area shows dozens of backcountry roads, it only hints at the expanse of trailage. Years of mining, logging, ranching and off-road recreation have laced the forest with both official and unofficial routes. Chapman estimates that the Hills have at least 500 miles of official dirt roads; that doesn't even begin to count the web of cow paths linking them together.

Most bikers on the Front Range seem to think that six hours, give or take, is about as far as they want to drive for a short weekend trip. Which is why they go to Durango and Crested Butte, to Fruita and Moab – all world-class destinations, for sure.

But have you ever wondered what those places looked like before they became bike Meccas? Have you ever wished you could be there back when only a few hardcore locals rode, and they had to order bike tubes and grease from someplace in Minnesota because there were no shops in town? Have you ever longed to find a place where the singletrack is still narrow and the coffee is still drip? Well, for a limited time only, you can have all that and more in the Black Hills of South Dakota.