Your fav trails in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming?

[Merle Nelson]

Ahh, thanks for that last picture. That's the ticket.

I have had plywood slide way out with funny castors that were little more than ball bearings in a tin cage. (Not a lot of hieght.) Some caster like that and channel stock to allow slide out but prevent tip down. That would do it.

 

[Sierratim]

Spent the day finding and riding the Mickelson Trail out of Deadwood, SD. Normally the 109 mile trail is ridden from the south and ends in Deadwood. We decided to do the opposite and paid for it with about 15 miles of uphill riding and then turned around for mostly downhill ride back. Beautiful trail with fine gravel and some of the two rails showing through now and then. We‘re beat and grateful for our Allant+7. total reliability/performance and truck storage system works but at the end of a long ride, it’s tough to lift the bikes up into the bed.View attachment 100113

My wife and I are considering riding the 'Mick' next season, but not out and back in one day. You're the man (and woman)!

 

[EMGX]

Spent the day finding and riding the Mickelson Trail out of Deadwood, SD. Normally the 109 mile trail is ridden from the south and ends in Deadwood. We decided to do the opposite and paid for it with about 15 miles of uphill riding and then turned around for mostly downhill ride back. Beautiful trail with fine gravel and some of the two rails showing through now and then. We‘re beat and grateful for our Allant+7. total reliability/performance and truck storage system works but at the end of a long ride, it’s tough to lift the bikes up into the bed.View attachment 100113

Your posts are a great addition to the ebike touring section. Reading about the Mickelson trail makes me want to do it - now. I see that today starts a 3 day group ride event on the Mickelson trail.

 

[Dallant]

My wife and I are considering riding the 'Mick' next season, but not out and back in one day. You're the man (and woman)!

Whoa…didn’t mean to say we did the whole trail! We didn’t! We did the Deadwood to Mystic (and a bit further) section and it was a very, very long uphill! That said, the return was a great ride back with a lot of coasting or very easy peddling. We now know why most folks ride the trail from south to north! We also did two other sections over three days.
We did three smaller sections total just to get a flavor of the trail and had a blast for the most part. The Mick was very well maintained for most of what we rode and we were struck with the beauty of the landscape over and over even in our just under 50 mile ride total of its 109 mile length.
We really were flying by the seat of our pants throughout this whole trip. We made almost no arrangements even a week before going on the whole trip out west. It’s was a great trip with ultimate flexibility and we met a lot of great people throughout. We really do plan on doing the whole Mick when we can make the proper arrangements and get proper housing to focus on the trail. Maybe next year!

 

[Dallant]

And just in case you might be wondering what wasn’t great about the Mick…but, fortunately, just now and then!

 

[Dallant]

Your posts are a great addition to the ebike touring section. Reading about the Mickelson trail makes me want to do it - now. I see that today starts a 3 day group ride event on the Mickelson trail.

Yeah, actually yesterday (our last day) we met up with a whole bunch of folks along the trail riding the Mickelson Trek event! We went north (vast majority of them were riding south) from the White Elephant Trailhead into Custer, SD and back. About a 20 mile ride. Kinda cold and windy but great otherwise!

 

[Sierratim]

Whoa…didn’t mean to say we did the whole trail! We didn’t! We did the Deadwood to Mystic (and a bit further) section and it was a very, very long uphill! That said, the return was a great ride back with a lot of coasting or very easy peddling. We now know why most folks ride the trail from south to north! We also did two other sections over three days.
We did three smaller sections total just to get a flavor of the trail and had a blast for the most part. The Mick was very well maintained for most of what we rode and we were struck with the beauty of the landscape over and over even in our just under 50 mile ride total of its 109 mile length.
We really were flying by the seat of our pants throughout this whole trip. We made almost no arrangements even a week before going on the whole trip out west. It’s was a great trip with ultimate flexibility and we met a lot of great people throughout. We really do plan on doing the whole Mick when we can make the proper arrangements and get proper housing to focus on the trail. Maybe next year!View attachment 100338

Thanks for clarifying, I was starting to doubt my stamina...

 

[TrailSeeker]

And just in case you might be wondering what wasn’t great about the Mick…but, fortunately, just now and then!View attachment 100349

At first I thought those were just patches of mud lol

 

[Dallant]

At first I thought those were just patches of mud lol

Yeah, no. It’s yet another GREAT reason to have a good set of FENDERS!
Ya don’t want to get that kind of s*it-faced!

 

[Dallant]

Hey, for you EMTB (or just MTB) folks, I wanted to pass on a quick note about Big Sky ski/bike resort outside of Bozeman, MT. The day that we visited the resort it was very busy with a 25K run competition and a ton of mountain bikers. The resort has an incredible lift that will take up to six bikes and riders at a time up the hill. They also have a very well equipped rental area that includes EMTB & MTB bikes. It’s a beautiful area and we saw a ton of riders coming down the trails so it’s definitely worth looking into. We did not ride anywhere near there because my wifey doesn’t do mountain biking and I am a novice.

 

[Art Deco]

Hey, for you EMTB (or just MTB) folks, I wanted to pass on a quick note about Big Sky ski/bike resort outside of Bozeman, MT. The day that we visited the resort it was very busy with a 25K run competition and a ton of mountain bikers. The resort has an incredible lift that will take up to six bikes and riders at a time up the hill. They also have a very well equipped rental area that includes EMTB & MTB bikes. It’s a beautiful area and we saw a ton of riders coming down the trails so it’s definitely worth looking into. We did not ride anywhere near there because my wifey doesn’t do mountain biking and I am a novice.View attachment 100876View attachment 100877View attachment 100878View attachment 100875

Doesn't look like a novice level trail from that photo... beautiful but real skills needed.

 

[Dallant]

Doesn't look like a novice level trail from that photo... beautiful but real skills needed.

I didn’t have my Rail 5 and wouldn’t have done it even if I did! I’m sure there are some novice trails in that general area but we didn’t look.

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

My gosh, what beautiful scenery and pictures, Dallant. Breathtaking.

 

[Dallant]

To further expand on some of the other trails out west we explored, I submit the Missouri Headwaters State Park just outside 3 Forks, MT., where three rivers join to form the headwaters of the great Missouri River.
The trail is part of the Great Rail Trail system and has a variety of surfaces it connects to. Just watch out for the small, but very long spikes of the local cacti!
3 Forks has a great eatery called the Iron Horse Cafe & Pie Shop which indeed has awesome pie! We were told if we wanted the best ribs in Montana we needed to go about 9 miles to the VERY small town of Willow Creek to the Willow Creek Cafe and Saloon. Sadly, they were closed but we enjoyed seeing the local art gallery, Aunt Dofe‘s Hall of Recent Memory!