"Bad-Ass, Epic, Fun, and Swoopy" -- Bike South Dakota!

The Kona COG, a blog on bike-maker Kona's website, gives the Black Hills of South Dakota some love this week. Bike blogger Cory Blackwood (anyone see the strange cosmic convergence here with Corey Vilhauer's Black Marks on Wood Pulp?) refers to Rapid City as an "oasis" of good mountain biking.

The Black Hills Mountain Bike Association... has... built mountain bike trails with the help of IMBA. Not just any mountain bike trails, either, but really bad-ass, epic, fun and swoopy mountain bike trails. These trails have vert, up and down, and exposed granite everywhere, so if you fall, you bleed. And there aren’t just a few trails here and there. There’s about 250 miles of singletrack in the area, and the BHMBA is directly responsible for over 75 miles of it, and they patrol and help maintain most of the 250 miles. All of this and that’s not even mentioning the awesome city dirt jump park that was built with a little help from the Kona/IMBA freeride grant [Cory Blackwood, a.k.a. The Geek, "Mountain Biking Mecca in South Dakota??? - Part 1," Kona COG, 2009.06.11].

Someone call South Dakota Tourism—I think we've got a jingle to replace "Great Faces, Great Places." Sing it with me: "Bad-ass epic, fun and swoopy, South Dakota!"

Or, as Queen says, "Get on your bikes and ride!"

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Update 2009.06.13 08:02 CDT: Tony below notes that Blackwood posts Part II on his Black Hills adventure. Even a rainy second day doesn't stop Kona COG from giving the Black Hills a big biking thumbs up. Blackwood urges readers/riders to hit next year's Black Hills Fat Tire Festival. He also makes an anti-development nod, saying Rapid City is like bike meccas Fruita and Moab 20 years ago.