The majority of the Mickelson Trail is packed gravel, and while we were riding mountain bikes, the trail is packed enough that there were plenty of people riding road bikes with no problems. The trail can be ridden in either direction but we decided to ride the trail from North to South, beginning at MM 109 in Deadwood and working our way towards MM 0 in Edgemont.

By riding in this direction, the trail begins at an elevation of 4538 ft and ends at 3400 ft., so a better portion of the ride is downhill. While riding in this direction, the majority of the riders we saw were going in the the opposite direction. We began the ride on May 31st, so it was still spring. The hills had seen quite a bit of rain recently and all the creeks were flowing fast, several of them near flood stage. Our first day would begin in Deadwood on a beautiful morning at 8am and end 11 hours later in Hill City 50 miles away. While leaving Deadwood, there are sections of the trail that you can still see the original train track.

 We made a quick stop  at the Kirk trail head (MM 105.3) drank some fluids and enjoyed an energy bar. From Kirk to the Sugarloaf trail head (MM 103.3) you get views of the valley below Lead. Once you hit Sugarloaf there is a fairly short but steep climb ahead but from the heights you get nice views of the Old Homestake gold mine.

The first 15 miles involve a long 1600 ft climb, it's not extremely steep, but it is long enough that it can wear you down, so we were making plenty of stops along the way.

There are benches and rest areas along the trail and during the summer months, most of the trail heads have water. We stopped at the Englewood Trail Head (MM 98.5) and filled up on water. We were 10 miles into the ride but still had 5 more miles to climb. Four hours into the ride and we finally finished the climb. At 6180 ft., we had reached the highest elevation on the trail. This is followed by a nice 18 mile decent down to 4757 ft. 

By now the day had turned hot, in the mid 80s, and this section of the trail is pretty much wide open with few trees, so even though the majority of the riding was downhill, we still stopped occasionally to enjoy views, rest and drink some water. We decided not to stop at the Dumont Trail Head (MM 92.6) and continued on towards Rochford. Several miles before we reached Rochford we rode through the first of 4 tunnels on the trail. This tunnel is actually called Tunnel #4 since they are numbered starting from the opposite direction.

5 1/2 hours into the ride we reached the Rochford Trail Head (MM 82.6), we enjoyed some food and refilled our water bottles. The climb and the heat had taken a lot out of us but we were now heading into what I consider the most enjoyable section of the trail. From Rochford to Mystic is 8 miles, mostly downhill. We followed Rapid Creek, rode through Tunnel #3, saw a small waterfall and some great views.

As we pulled into the Mystic Trail head (MM 74.7) we had our first bit of bad luck. The bolt holding Bonnie's seat to the seat post, broke. As we sat at the shelter trying to see if we could fix it, we met a group of elderly farmers and they were nice enough to help us out. One guy eventually gave us an old ratchet tie down that he had and said we could keep it. He also said that he would be back in a couple of hours and could give us a ride into Hill City if we needed it. We still had 16 miles to go to get to Hill City which included a stiff 8 mile climb followed by an 8 mile descent. We knew if we could just get up those first 8 miles we would be OK, so I took the tie down and secured the seat the best I could. Depending on you're point of view, it didn't work too badly (I think Bonnie may disagree).

On the climb up we passed through Tunnels #2 and #1. It took us 2 hours and a lot of walking our bikes but we made it to the top of the climb, now we just had to ride the descent into Hill City. The descent was fairly uneventful thankfully, although we did have to stop quite a bit because Bonnie's bike seat was still giving her problems. but we made it to Hill City (MM 60.1).

The whole day took us 11 hours. We rode 50 miles and although Hill City is only 400 feet higher in elevation than Deadwood, we had climbed a total of 5335 ft., almost a mile, so we were pretty beat. While we were walking up the the hill out of Mystic, we had plenty of time to try and decide what we could do to fix Bonnie's seat so we could continue in the morning. Hill City isn't very big and we weren't sure if there were any bike shops that would be accessible early the next morning.

As we arrived in Hill City, we still didn't have a solid solution to our problem and then lo and behold, not more than 1 block from our hotel was a Hardware Hank, surely they would have the bolt we needed, we just needed to wait til the morning to find out. We got a pizza and some beer from a nearby grocery store and retired early, excited yet apprehensive for the next day.