FREE WHEELING // Medora is prime mountain-bike terrain

Originally published 05/02/04
They've called it the mini-Moab, but if you judge Medora by the >more than 130 miles of Badlands singletrack surrounding it, there's

nothing miniature about it.

Medora, on the far western edge of North Dakota, is a Midwest

mountain biking magnet that draws riders in the same way the

slickrock trails outside Moab, Utah, have called bikers to the

Southwest for years. Not quite the mountains, not quite the desert,

but somewhere in between, Medora is a gold mine of sweet,

prairie dogs and a dusty, rugged landscape.

Given North Dakota's tumbleweed reputation, I know it's hard to

believe.

But look west of North Dakota's center and capital, Bismarck, and

the topography boasts breathtaking change. Flat prairies graduate

you hit the border with Montana, it's like a chunk of the wild west.

This is no secret to my Midwest mountain biking friends. It's why

I keep coming back.

"It's great riding," trail guide Simon Stewart said to me last

summer as we plunged into a series of picturesque canyon

guiding tours here with the Dakota Cyclery of Bismarck.

"It's untapped," he said, in his light Irish brogue. "People just

don't believe you until they see it for themselves. This is the

place to be in the summer when Colorado and Utah get too hot."

.

Long known as "rough rider country," Medora has been a source of

this kind of adventure for more than a century. The region, which

includes the Little Missouri National Grasslands, holds a beauty

unique to the Midwest.

That's what first brought Teddy Roosevelt to Medora back in 1883.

smattering of French settlers including an aristocrat named the

Marquis de Mores, the future U.S. president had decided to take up

a career in ranching among the Badlands canyons.

Roosevelt spent the next years of his life traveling back and

forth from the East Coast to the Badlands - hunting bison, raising

"I never would have been president if it had not been for my

experiences in North Dakota," he later said.

That's probably the biggest reason the Theodore Roosevelt

National Park just outside Medora was named in the president's

honor. It's also among the least-visited national parks, with only

The state hopes to increase that traffic. For years the town of

Medora, population 100, has held "The Medora Musical," a summerlong

stage production that features a singing version of Roosevelt, and

it has been home to a variety of equestrian rides in and near the

park.

"When you spend a day in Medora it's amazing how many bikes you

see," said Rachel Retterath of the North Dakota Tourism Division.

"We want it to grow. We definitely expect it to grow. People are

coming to North Dakota for outdoor adventure."

.

For more than a decade now, Loren Morlock, owner of Dakota

Cyclery in Bismarck, has been mapping North Dakota trails and has

essentially defined the state's mountain-bike culture.

Though off-road riding is prohibited within the national park,

the nonprofit Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation teamed with

through the Little Missouri Grasslands bordering the park.

"It's endless - absolutely endless," he told me, not long after

he began leading the rides. "It's one of the coolest places I've

ever ridden."

I've known Loren more than half my life. When I was growing up in

silver Centurion roadie, on which I commuted to school. Ten years

later, after I returned to Bismarck to write for my hometown paper,

he sold me my first real mountain bike, a Specialized Stumpjumper M2.

Throughout the mid-'90s, I rode with Loren, his wife, Jennifer,

and the growing community of Bismarck mountain bikers as they

coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service, started mapping some of

the nearly 1 million acres of grasslands to connect the north and

south units of the national park, about 70 miles apart.

In 1999 the Forest Service christened the Maah Daah Hey Trail, a

120-mile hiking, biking and equestrian trail that runs inside,

language, meaning "an area that has been or will be around for a

long time."

Walsh hasn't tracked numbers but says the trail's popularity is

evident.

"Just over the last five years, the whole length of the trail has

said, all the Forest Service did was stake and mow the trail; now

it's 12-inch-wide singletrack.

"We thought it'd be a million years before the amount of use

would actually create the trail, but it happened. We didn't ever

think it would become as popular and as used as much as it is now."

In March, after more than 20 years of running their Bismarck bike

shop, Loren and Jennifer sold their Main Street store with plans to

move their business to Medora full-time.

They're also teaming with a national adventure outfitter company,

Escape Adventures of Las Vegas, to offer guided tours along the

accommodations. A second outfitter, Western Spirit Cycling

Adventures of Moab, Utah, is also offering tours.

"I call those the `catered' tours, and they're really a

first-class experience," Jennifer said.

For Walsh, it's all better than he could have imagined when he

"People going out to Montana stop in Medora for a few days, or

even make it a destination now," Walsh said. "It's actually

becoming a destination - which is what we're here for."

This, of course, isn't news to me. It's just one more reason to

visit home.