Category: Stories

Sharing the Lane: What Two Cyclists Learned Earning Their Motorcycle Endorsement

Nicole riding on the range during the MSF Basic RiderCourse.

We spent a weekend in a parking lot doing slow circles, and it might be the best thing we’ve done for our riding all year.

Nicole and I earned our motorcycle endorsements through the MSF Basic RiderCourse, taught here in our area by Mike Weston and Gina Suelflow with the South Dakota Safety Council. Two cyclists, side by side on the range, learning a different machine — and recognizing a lot of what we already believe about being safe on the road.

Why we took it

We didn’t take the course because we had to. We took it because we’d rather build a skill than assume we have it.

That’s the same instinct that started the Coalition. You don’t learn to ride safely by reading about it or by getting lucky for a few years — you learn it on purpose, with someone who knows more than you watching and correcting. Getting trained before you trust yourself in traffic is just doing it the right way.

What the course actually teaches

The Basic RiderCourse is part classroom, part range. You spend a few hours on the why — how crashes actually happen, where riders get into trouble, how to make good decisions before you’re forced to. Then you get on a bike and drill the things that save your life: emergency braking, swerving around a hazard, slow-speed control, and scanning the road far enough ahead that you’re never surprised.

Mike and Gina were the kind of instructors who don’t just run you through the cones — they explain what each drill is really for. By the end of the weekend, the habits start to feel automatic. That’s the whole point.

Same lane, same rules of respect

Here’s what kept hitting us all weekend: a motorcycle and a bicycle are not that different out there.

Both are small. Both are exposed. Both are easy for a distracted driver to miss. And both depend on the same handful of habits to stay safe — be visible, ride predictably, hold your position in the lane, and never assume the car can see you.

The road is shared. That’s not a slogan, it’s a fact about how traffic works. Drivers, look twice before you turn or change lanes — the thing you didn’t see is usually a two-wheeler. Riders, make yourself easy to see and easy to predict. Everybody gets home that way.

Safety is a mindset, not a checklist

The thing we walked away with isn’t a list of rules. It’s a posture.

The same care that keeps you upright on a motorcycle keeps you safe on a bicycle — and honestly, it carries into every “ride” of life. Pay attention. Build the skill before you need it. Respect the people sharing your space. Leave yourself an out.

We came for the endorsement. We left with a reminder of why we do any of this.

So: watch for two-wheelers out there — we’re all sharing the same lanes. And if you ride, get trained. The South Dakota Safety Council runs courses all season, and a weekend in a parking lot is a cheap price for a habit that keeps you alive.

— Rory & Nicole, Stone Bicycle Coalition

June 25, 2026
Jokes & Spokes:Comedian Touring South Dakota by Bike

We end up at a lot of comedy shows around here — it’s a scene we love and keep a foot in. Most nights the tour vehicle parked out front is a van. The other night it was a bicycle.

Skyler Bolks is a Sioux Falls comedian, and at six-foot-seven he’s a big presence on a genuinely big bike. He’s a seven-time “Sioux Falls Funniest Comic” who’s worked his way through 36 states, and his humor is Midwest to the bone — the kind that’s sharpest when he’s messing with the crowd. He had the room.

But the part that stuck with us isn’t the act. It’s how he’s getting from town to town.

A thousand miles, stage to stage

Skyler is in the middle of a tour he calls Jokes & Spokes — roughly a thousand miles, pedaling from one town’s stage to the next, all building toward RAGBRAI in July. The bike isn’t a gimmick bolted onto the comedy. It is the tour. Eastern South Dakota at first, and now the wheels have rolled all the way into the Black Hills.

We talked to him after the show, slipped him a Stone Bicycle Coalition sticker, and told him to holler if he needed anything on the Hills end of the trip. What came back wasn’t road-grind complaints. He’s enjoying it — the plains, the small towns, the people and cultures strung between the stages.

That right there is the whole pitch we keep making. A bike turns the in-between miles — the part most people sleep through on the interstate — into the best part of the trip.

Our kind of journey

This is exactly the sort of trip we want more folks dreaming up: pick a direction, load the bike, go find out what’s out there. Skyler just added a microphone. And if a guy can make an honest living riding South Dakota and making people laugh, even better — we’ll be first in line to watch.

So — thanks for the show, Skyler, and good legs the rest of the way to RAGBRAI. What a journey you’re on. Anybody out there cooking up their own version (comedy optional): you know where to find us.

— Stone Bicycle Coalition

June 20, 2026
Three Saturdays on the Grass: The Grasslands Triple Crown
The Black Hills get all the postcards. Ride an hour east and the land opens into something quieter — the National Grassland, where the gravel runs straight at the horizon and you can go a long while without meeting a car. Three prairie towns put on a gravel event out there every summer, and together they make the Grasslands Triple Crown.

[Photo: Wide prairie gravel road running to the horizon, single rider]

These belong to the Oahe Wheelmen and the crews in Lemmon and Wall, backed by the Northern Great Plains Joint Venture and the South Dakota Grasslands Initiative. We’re Rapid City riders, and we’re pointing you east: these are worth the drive.

The hook

Ride all three this summer and a Lemmon artist named Ethan Thom hands you back a metal sculpture — not a medal, not a shirt, a sculpture. That’s the Crown. If you like a little competition, each long route carries three Strava segments that score toward the series; upload your ride after you finish and you’re in it.

[Photo: Last year’s finishers or the Ethan Thom sculpture]

The three
- Grassland Gravel — Fort Pierre — Saturday, July 18. 31, 53, or 71 miles. (register)
- Thunderhawk Wide Open — Lemmon — Saturday, August 15. 25, 50, or 115 miles of remote Old West country up near the North Dakota line. (register)
- Wheelin’ to Wall — Wall — Saturday, September 26. Its 10th year — gravel and pavement, 31 to 64 miles, mass start right in town. (register)
The local read

From the Hills: Wall is the close one — about an hour out I-90, an easy day trip. If you only do one, do that. Fort Pierre is two and a half, three hours east — worth a Friday night over by the river. Lemmon is the haul, three and a half hours north.

And no, you don’t have to race. Every event has a short route; ride the 31 at Fort Pierre at whatever pace gets you to the post-ride meal grinning. The long routes and the segments are there if you want them. Same thing we say about 8 Over 7: pick one, ride it, see how it feels.

A few of us are headed out. Want company for the drive to Fort Pierre or Lemmon — or just want to know what tires to run on grassland gravel? Come find us; we’ll carpool where it makes sense.

Register for all three on BikeReg (links above). Sign up early: prices climb as the dates near, and Fort Pierre stops guaranteeing shirts after July 1.

Three Saturdays, one big stretch of grass. Go find out what’s past the postcard.

— Stone Bicycle Coalition
June 19, 2026
A Bike for CD — One More Out the Door
Today a refurbed white KHS hybrid rolled out of The Quarry and into the hands of a rider we’ll call CD.

Why this one mattered

CD has been on our waitlist since April. His existing bike needs repairs he can’t afford — and where he lives in Rapid City, a broken bike isn’t a hobby problem. It’s a commute problem. It’s getting to work. It’s getting groceries. It’s the difference between independence and being stuck.

That’s the gap the Stone Bicycle Coalition exists to close.

The bike

A refurbed KHS flat-bar hybrid — aluminum frame, 700c wheels, mechanical rim brakes. White and clean. A no-frills, ride-ready workhorse, inspected and tuned by our volunteer crew at The Quarry.

[Photo: SBC-002 — the white KHS side profile, before handoff]

It’s exactly the kind of bike the wait list keeps asking for: simple, lightweight, low-maintenance, the kind you can park outside the job site and trust to be there at the end of the shift.

The gift

We didn’t charge a thing.

Bike out the door. Lock included so it stays his. No invoice, no sponsorship ask, no fine print. That’s the whole point.

How to keep this happening

Every bike we hand out is bankrolled by someone — a donated bike, a sponsored refurb, a check written to the Coalition. Three ways you can put the next one on the road:
- Donate a bike or parts. Old bike in the garage? Box of cassettes you’ll never use? Drop it at The Quarry. We refurb it; somebody rides it.
- Sponsor the next rider. $150 covers the parts, tubes, brake pads, and shop time to send another bike out the door the way CD’s went today.
- Chip in any amount. Locks, helmets, lights, tubes — the small stuff adds up. Every dollar stays in Rapid City.
Reach us at info@stonebicyclecoalition.com or stonebicyclecoalition.com. We’ll get you connected.

One bike out the door today. More to come.

— Stone Bicycle Coalition
May 26, 2026

8 Over 7 — One Rider’s Journey

I rolled out of Cheyenne Crossing on May 15 with a loaded bike, a Garmin inReach pinging home, and a route Jason had redrawn — denser, higher, more honest. Three days later I came off Terry Peak with everything I rode in on, seven summits in my legs, and a lot of new respect for He Sapa.

“It’s becoming a classic annual Black Hills dirt tour to iconic peaks and high points. It’s special to me because of the routes and places it takes you. The time invested in perfecting the route. Also the camaraderie of taking on the challenges with like minded riders.”

— Perry Jewett, founder of 8 Over 7

Day	Distance	Climbing	Moving	Max Speed	Start Temp
Day 1 — Spearfish → Hill City	80.11 mi	7,431 ft	9:01:19	38.3 mph	75 °F
Day 2 — High rim → Custer	60.28 mi	5,371 ft	6:21:34	34.9 mph	64 °F
Day 3 — Spine → Terry Peak	33.04 mi	2,448 ft	3:35:52	29.8 mph	43 °F
Total	173.4 mi	15,250 ft	18:58	—	—

~11,300 calories. 8,276 kJ of work. About 19 hours of pedaling spread across three days. Honest climbing came in at 15,250 ft — roughly 2,000 more than the “around 13,000” we’d been quoting. Jason’s denser line was, as advertised, more honest about elevation.

The crew

Perry J., Zach, Garick, Joel, Bryce, Jason, Leif H., Phil J., Logan, Jake R., Chris G., Aaron D., Pat A., Ryan H., Rory S., Jeff B.

Sixteen riders. One route. The camaraderie Perry talks about above is not abstract — it’s what gets you over the next climb when the legs say no.

The ride

Day 1 dropped south through Rochford and Mystic to Sylvan — smooth gravel until it isn’t. Day 2 was the high rim: Bear, Grand View, Odakota, Green, hours above 7,000 feet where the horizon turns from spruce-dark to plains-tan. Day 3 ran the spine north past Crows Nest and Crooks Tower to finish at Terry Peak. Honest, not euphoric — the kind of finish where you know exactly which parts you’d come back for.

Top efforts

Day 1 PR — Lachstring to Cheyenne Crossing — 28:43 (5.14 mi, 10.7 mph, 183 W avg)
Day 2 climb — Reno Gulch — 1:13:53 (6.51 mi @ 3.5%, VAM 299)
Day 3 closer — Terry Peak Summit Rd. — 38:38 (3.14 mi @ 4.8%, VAM 379)

The full per-day breakdown — every effort, every climb, the Garmin and Strava traces — lives at 8over7.com.

Per-day activity data:

Why this matters to the Coalition

Stone Bicycle Coalition exists to make this kind of riding — or any kind of riding — accessible to anyone in Rapid City who wants it. The 8 Over 7 is one end of that spectrum; a kid picking out their first earn-a-bike at the Quarry is the other. Both ride the same roads home.