A Meditative Motorcycle Trip Through the Winding Canyons of the Badlands

The gale hits me like a giant invisible hand, slapping my motorcycle sideways as I ride at 65 miles an hour. Buffalo Gap National Grassland is wide open in every direction, no trees, no buildings, nothing to blunt the gusts, and my bike zigzags, rocketing my stomach into my esophagus.

So much of motorcycling is trial by fire. Practice all the parking lot U-turns you want, the real learning happens in the saddle. With only a few months' riding experience under my belt, I've chosen one of America's most storied routes for my first big motorcycle trip.

From the layer-cake buttes of Badlands National Park to the winding canyons of the Black Hills, this part of South Dakota is legendary. (There's a reason Sturgis, the world's largest motorcycle rally, will mark its 86th year here this August.) Staring ahead, though, I wonder if I've overestimated myself.

Eventually the land tightens, and the tan spires of the Badlands rise from the earth like so many praying hands. I'm dwarfed by ancient serrated rock formations. Tom Cochrane's “Life Is a Highway” comes on, of course it does, and I burst out laughing. This is why we ride.

The author and her fellow biker Rachel Lepley round a corner in the Badlands.

I came to South Dakota chasing a familiar American trope: the lone wolf disappearing into the horizon, chrome glinting in the sun. Motorcycling has long been shorthand for reinvention, the idea that, if you just keep riding, you can outrun whatever holds you back. In a country built on perpetual grind (westward expansion, the machismo of the highway), the motorcycle distills that promise to its essence. Just you, a machine, and whatever lies ahead.

In the United States most people ride for pleasure. I've rented scooters abroad for two decades, but riding a motorcycle is different, faster, harder, more absorbing.

To do it safely requires total presence . You see the road, the sky, some hothead tailing you in the mirror. You smell manure baking in the sun. You hear the roar of every passing semi and the hammering of your own heart. When you hit a pothole, your bones rattle like coins in a coffee tin. It's adrenaline, yes, but also a needed focus, the only thing that can quiet my over-revving brain.

In pop culture, motorcycling is often sold as a solitary pursuit. But on this trip what surprised me most was how quickly it built connection , not just with the landscape but with other people. The women I ride with prove that. Serena Rebechini, the Minnesota-based coach who first taught me to ride, insisted that I read my motorcycle manual, to understand how bikes work and reject the stereotype of the ditzy woman rider. Andria Yu, a former journalist and tai chi world champion, approaches riding as a discipline: embodied and precise. She's generous with her knowledge and quick to shut down “Hey little lady” mansplainers. Rachel Lepley, a Brit who lives in Montana, once motorcycled solo across India for six weeks. She is the opposite of feigned helplessness.

Over four days and 421 miles, Lepley, Yu, and I travel light, backpacks strapped to our Royal Enfields and Triumph, and take the long way 'round whenever we can.

We ramble from Rapid City to Deadwood through big hills and blind turns, a ballet of downshifting on steep ascents and resisting the urge to gawk at the cinematic scenery lest we go flying into a ravine. We brake for bighorn sheep and small-town homecoming parades with Jesus floats and football players flinging candy from the beds of pickup trucks. Over elk burgers in bars decorated with longhorns and license plates, we swap stories of toxic parents, failed marriages, hatfishing (guys who look hot 'til their helmet comes off), and those outlaw groups like the Hell's Angels and Mongols, whose violence has cast a shadow over the 99 percent of riders who want nothing to do with them.

On the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, we coast at 35 miles per hour, taking in naked rock faces and Bob Ross pines before arriving at Shortgrass Resort in Spearfish. The boutique retreat, founded by motorcyclists Jared “Cappie” Capp and former NASA scientist Rachel MK Headley, offers a farm-to-table restaurant and eight luxurious suites overlooking 52 acres of prairie on the Redwater River. It's proof that motorcycle culture, often caricatured as grimy or lawless, contains multitudes.

The next day we make the requisite stop at Mount Rushmore, four granite presidents staring into perpetuity, equal parts engineering marvel and highly contested heritage site, before tackling the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Navigating its hairpin turns with few guardrails, I fix my gaze on the centerline and will myself not to overcorrect.

Later we pause to admire a herd of bison, freshly corralled after the annual Buffalo Roundup, and I make the mistake of approaching their pen with my helmet still on. When one “fluffy cow” charges the fence, I peel out faster than Evel Knievel clearing the Snake River Canyon.

Not every close call involves death-defying drop-offs and enraged bison. In Spearfish, Yu hesitates over a set of cow grates and dumps her bike at low velocity. We rush to her side. Bent frame, bruised ego, but no broken bones. If that's the worst that happens, we're lucky.

By the time we collapse into bed at the historic Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City, 12 hours later, my haunches ache and my throttle hand is locked in a Lego-man grip. Physically, I feel like Wile E. Coyote after a steamroller incident. But mentally? I'm on top of the world.

Riding feels like flying. The kind where your body becomes the vessel itself. The engine rumbles between your legs, the road streams beneath you, the curves beckon you onward. Walking into a diner with a helmet tucked under your arm, you feel the heads turning and relish the double takes when they realize you're a woman. Gearing up is like stepping into a suit of armor. Not invincible, but undeniably capable.

Maybe that's why, in a moment when the country feels eggshell brittle, riding has become such an essential outlet for me, a way to turn my rage into forward motion. When so much feels beyond my control, this is something I can steady with my own two hands.

On our final night we stop at Wall Drug, the 95-year-old roadside institution known for its free ice water and towering jackalope, before checking in to Badlands Frontier Cabins , right as the sun melts into the prairie. We toast the trip over sirloin and huckleberry bourbon smashes at Salty Steer. I'm keeping pace at 72 miles per hour (the top speed on my 350-cc bike), riding on gravel without hesitation, and moving with the confidence of someone who finally hit her stride.

I came to South Dakota chasing a legend. I leave understanding why this legend persists. The open road isn't just about escape but how to lean with the wind.