A & L from California on 6/16/2018 7:55:02 PM:
My wife and I made the trek from Norfolk to Valentine June 5-7, 2018. We were on mountain bikes with tubeless tires and only had one problem that was easily resolved with adding more sealant in the tire. We over estimated our ability for day 1 with our attempt to ride from Norfolk to O’Neill (@ 80 miles). Our lunch stop was Mamas’ and Nanas’ – which we would recommend. The afternoon of this day is a little bit of blur as we were focused on the next shade and/or town with a place to cool off. We thought the trail was in good condition on day 1 and we only rode on the road for @ 2 miles due to the bridge being out. For day 2, we were able to hitch a ride from Emmet to Bassett. After that, we continued our ride into Ainsworth. The Local House 20 in Ainsworth is a great place to grab a bite to eat and cool off. The trail from O’Neill to Emmet and from Bassett to Ainsworth was in good condition. Day 3 was the rest of the way to Valentine. Day 3 had the worse trail conditions of all three days, but none were enough to make us get on the road. There were sections that were more overgrown than other areas, there were areas where livestock had rutted the trail pretty good, and once we veered away from Highway 20, there was quite a bit of washboard from vehicle travel. All of these areas were not for very long. We had anticipated few stops on this day and picked up some lunch stuff at the store in Ainsworth the night before. We stopped at the post office in Wood Lake, who directed us to the park to refill our water. In Valentine, we had lunch at the Coachlight Café (try the peanut butter bacon cheeseburger), pre-dinner drinks at Bolo Brewery (good selection), and dinner at the Peppermill (highly recommend). We did ride partially through Valentine to find the Cowboy Trailhead park.
We stayed in hotels along the way, rather than camping. Due to the ability to make reservations online, we stayed at chain hotels. After driving through the area, several of the smaller, local hotels looked nice. We did take advantage of the breakfast at the hotels most mornings. Most restaurants were not open until a little later, so having a somewhat substantial breakfast helped carry us through the day.
One thing that we noticed about the trail is that many of the towns are not well marked and neither are points of interest that you might be interested in just off the trail. Luckily we had cell service and were able to find some of these along the way. Even still, we missed several.
When we were planning the trip, it was suggested that we ride from Valentine to Norfolk because of the grade but we found the grade to not be a challenge. Surprisingly, we had a tail wind or slight side wind for most of the three days.
On our drive to Valentine to drop our vehicle, we saw quite a few riders on the road and only one or two on the trail. During our ride, we only saw one other pair of cyclists, who were going the opposite direction (and they were on the road).
Almost everyone we met was very friendly. Surprisingly, some were not aware of the Cowboy Trail serving as a rail trail (for biking) and several businesses were not aware of the website that lists amenities in each town.
Overall, the 2 ½ days made up for the ½ day of misery (caused by our over-estimating our ability to deal with the heat/humidity). If we were to do it again, we’d break it into 4 days. I have seen several comments in this thread about creating a resource of “must see” areas while on the trail and that would be a great addition for riding this trail.