The following is a text version of an article printed in BIKE magazine, April 2001 (used by permission).

"where the buffalo roam" by Ron Ige, BIKE magazine April 2001, Vol.8, No3.

north dakota doesn't have bill murray or a bison on every block, but it does have the maah daah hey trail

It's 4 am and I'm driving to the airport. Like most trips involving mountain bikes, this journey starts well before dawn - a time when saner humans are asleep. Fortunately, sleep deprivation lets me avoid Southern California's notorious freeway traffic. On a wide-open highway I can think about the trip ahead, instead of worrying about a mental meltdown in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I'm groggy, but I have a goal: Catch a flight to Bismarck, North Dakota.

Most mountain bikers seldom, if ever, salivate over the thought of going to North Dakota, or more specifically, Medora, North Dakota. When a two-wheel, off-road Mecca is the topic of conversation, we usually toss about other locales - not Medora. Not North Dakota. So I don't quite know what to expect when I get there. But don't they call this part of the country the Great Plains?

Rumor has it that there's a little-known gem of a trail that runs near Medora. A trail few of us who live on either water-laced edge of the Continent, or who live in the jagged, rocky heights of the West, know about. They call it the Maah Daah Hey Trail. Friends who've traversed its 120 miles of rolling singletrack tell me they have no regrets. Actually, it's just over 90 miles of mountain biking since some sections snake through part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park where bicycles are prohibited.
A few airports, airplanes, and several time zones and I'm in Bismarck, the state's capital. After tucking myself into a shuttle for the two-hour drive to Medora, I get my first glimpse at the spectacular expanse of the Great Plains. The endless grass-covered prairie, painted canyons and rugged buttes is stunning. The sky is clear and blue. I've never seen such sky. Ever y time I crest a hill I half expect to see the tops of skyscrapers jutting out of Southern California's concrete jungle. I begin to feel just how awesome North Dakota's landscape truly is.

History also litters these North Dakota plains - settlers crossing the great wide-open; fierce Native Americans finally beaten in battle and forced off their land; hordes of hunters slaughtering buffalo for sport, bringing the beast to the brink of extinction; and an American president, Theodore Roosevelt, who fell in love with it and as a result, founded the U.S. Forest Service [and the National Parks system]. Today, a national park honors his name in North Dakota's Badlands, not far from Medora [actually the Park has two units, a north and south. The South Unit physically borders Medora and is accessed right from town].

Before throwing a leg over my bike, I can see what Roosevelt saw and why it's called the Badlands. It's rugged country where canyons and plains, hammered by wind and water, took 30 million years to form. Fossils and petrified wood sprinkle the landscape. Some of the most extreme weather in the nation has been recorded here. In the winter, temperatures can plummet past 40 below and in summer triple-digit heat, soaring past 110 degrees, wilts the landscape. Finally, North Dakota's Badlands sit smack dab in the geographic center of the North American continent [to be precise, the exact center of the Continent is located just outside of Rugby, North Dakota, approximately 195 miles northeast of Medora].

As I start pedaling the Maah Daah Hey Trail, it hits home. There are no long, sustained climbs in front of me, and the expansive landscape seemingly miles and miles without a break, coupled with a continuous bombardment of short climbs, wear on me. Yet the price I pay is worth the reward. The Maah Daah Hey's payoff is singletrack - fast singletrack with twists and turns that flow with a graceful up-and-down tempo.
Singletrack that's here because a group from the state of North Dakota, the U.S. Forest Service and cycling advocates like the folks at Bismarck's Dakota Cyclery worked their asses off building and promoting the Maah Daah Hey. We have them to thank for it.

North Dakota's Badlands may lack the trappings we've come to expect at better-known mountain bike towns, but the Badlands can hold its own. There's the riding, of course, but there's also the historical sites to see and the landscapes that I can never forget. Singletrack brought me to the Badlands, but with an open mind and the right attitude, I got to see a part of America most people choose to ignore. That's their mistake.