Sturgis to Medora: Add the Badlands to Your Rally Ride
The 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally runs 7–16 August 2026, and something like half a million riders will be in the Black Hills for it. Most of them will turn around and go home the way they came.
Point the bike north instead. The highway out of the Hills is US 85 — signed the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway — and it runs 224 miles to Medora, through Belle Fourche and the wide open country of the Little Missouri National Grassland, the largest national grassland in the United States. At the end of it is the badlands that turned a grieving twenty-four-year-old New Yorker into the conservation president, and the Library that tells you how.
It is about four hours of riding. Give it two days, or three if you want the North Unit as well.
Day one: north on the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway
Ride out of Sturgis to Belle Fourche, where a granite compass rose on Fifth Avenue marks the geographic center of the nation — the monument sits about twenty miles from the true survey point, which fell on private land. From there US 85 straightens out and the Black Hills fall away behind you.
The last hour is the good part. The highway threads the Little Missouri National Grassland, better than a million acres of buttes and broken prairie, and drops you into Medora.
Watch your fuel. It is 116 miles from Belle Fourche to Bowman with very little in between, and another 58 miles on to Belfield through Amidon — population twenty-four. Fill up before you leave Belle Fourche and again at Bowman.
If you have the daylight, Devils Tower is about 52 miles west of Belle Fourche on WY 24. Roosevelt proclaimed it the first national monument in the country in September 1906. It is an out-and-back from here, not a loop.
About 4 hours riding · 224 miles on US 85
Day two: the Library, the loop and the Musical
Start at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, on the bluff above town looking straight out at the country it is about. Roosevelt came here in September 1883, lost his wife and his mother on the same day the following February, and came back to the badlands to work cattle. He said later he would never have been president without North Dakota.
Then ride the South Unit scenic drive in Theodore Roosevelt National Park — 36 miles of two-lane through the badlands, with bison on the road often enough that you should expect it rather than hope for it. Sections of this road have been closed by slumping in recent years and repair work has been underway, so check current road conditions with the park before you set out.
Painted Canyon Overlook is seven miles east of Medora on I 94 and worth the stop even if you have already ridden the loop.
In the evening, the Medora Musical runs Tuesday through Sunday at 7.30pm at the Burning Hills Amphitheatre, through 13 September.
A full day · about 60 miles, most of it inside the park
Day three: the North Unit, the one people skip
The North Unit is 68 miles up US 85 from Medora, and it is the part of the park that riders talk about afterwards. The scenic drive runs 14 miles one way along the floor of the Little Missouri before climbing to River Bend Overlook and out along the rim to Oxbow. It is almost entirely paved, and it is far emptier than the South Unit.
Ride it as an out-and-back from Medora, or make it the first leg of a longer way home — US 85 keeps going north from there.
About 5 hours round trip from Medora · 136 miles on US 85 plus a 28-mile out-and-back scenic drive
Before you ride
Fuel. The gaps between towns on US 85 are long and the towns are small. Belle Fourche and Bowman are the reliable stops. Do not plan on finding fuel between them.
Helmets. Neither North Dakota nor South Dakota requires a helmet for adult riders. North Dakota requires them for riders under eighteen and for anyone on a learner's permit; South Dakota requires them under eighteen.
Beds. August is the tightest and most expensive month in Medora, and rally week makes it tighter. Book well ahead. Dickinson, 35 miles east on I 94, is the practical overflow if Medora is full.
Library hours are seasonal — see Hours before you plan your day. The last timed entry is 90 minutes before closing.