I read something a couple weeks ago about the Argus Leader Tour de Kota. It mentioned a two-day cycling event in Sioux Falls, but didn't say anything about a route for a week-long tour. I didn't think a lot about it until I read this on the Biking Bis blog. After 8 years the TdK is no more. Having made the drive up I-29 three times to ride the TdK, and having been my very first week-long, supported bike tour, I feel kind of sad.
I met some neat folks, and experienced the hospitality and pride of a bunch of small towns in South Dakota. Standing in one of those towns on the first day of my first tour, drinking a Gatorade and eating a sweet roll, I watched my brother-in-law walk up to a guy wearing a Ride The Rockies jersey and ask him what that was like. The next August I found myself driving with him to Gunnison, CO to ride the Colorado Rocky Mountain Bike Tour.
Over the years I've ridden across Kansas with BAK, ridden a BTC, one of the "big" Colorado tours, and returned to the CRMBT four more times, with another scheduled for 2013. And twice more I rode the Tour de Kota around the eastern half of South Dakota. Colorado is my absolute favorite place to ride, but I have a real affection for the rolling hills of South Dakota.
I don't know if I would have ever gone back to do another TdK. I can't pull myself away from the CRMBT, and I would like to do tours in other states; RAGBRAI, BRAN, OK Freewheel, and another BAK someday. But there's a melancholy in knowing that, for the foreseeable future, the Tour de Kota is a thing of the past.
Well that is a bummer. I was hoping to do that right some year. My dad's family is from east central So Dak, and I wanted to explore it again after not having been there for many years.
ReplyDeleteI think anytime we as cyclist lose events, whether we ride that event or not, we all lose.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting,
RL