Pedal On and On...: Day 25 - Half Way Home!!

Pierre, SD to Chamberlain, SD

Distance: 84 miles

Time: 8 hrs

Elevation Gain:

I forgot to mention that yesterday we crossed the Missouri River and the central time zone.

Today we meet another milestone for this tour; we have crossed the half waypoint in both miles and in days. It’s hard to believe that we have been ridding for 25 days and have cycled 1,936 miles. The temperature was in the high 60’s at the start and the mid 90’s by early afternoon. The temperature is expected to go even higher over the next few days and may get into triple digits. We road through early morning fog that help keep things cool, but that soon burned off leaving us with partly cloudy skies and raising temperatures. The wind was blowing at 15 to 20 mph and it was mostly a headwind. We stated our day by ridding along the Missouri River. The water level of the river is at an all time high and has flooded thousands of acres of land you can see trees that use to be dry land almost completely submerged. The landscape alternated between rolling hills to flat land and back to rolling hill. We had three big climbs today, and after yesterday’s slugfest and with today’s headwinds, there were hard to climb, I had one speed – slow, but climbed all three. After about 25 miles and the first climb we left the Missouri River and rode through flat ranch land that had more high power towers and lines that I have ever seen in one location. At about mile 80, the route brought us back to the Missouri River and into the town of Chamberlain, our destination for the night.

Tomorrow we have an early start to try to beat the heat. We ride 72 miles to Mitchell, SD.

Link to My GPS Route