School Spirit

MARCH 2002 53www.ruhooked.com

SCHOOLSPIRITCAN THE MICROSCOPIC RANCHING TOWN OF RAPELJE, MONTANA

FIND SALVATION IN MOUNTAIN BIKING?WORDS AND PHOTOS BY AARON TEASDALE

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SCHOOL SPIRIT

www.ruhooked.com54 HOOKED ON THE OUTDOORS

A promising agricultural town in the earlypart of the 20th century, Rapelje grew from theregion’s sprawling ranches and formed a bustlingnucleus for a rush of eager homesteaders. Aschool was built, a newspaper founded and, bythe 1920s, an estimated 300 people calledRapelje home. The town itself sits square in thecenter of sparsely populated Lake Basin, a wide-open, virtually treeless grassland defined to thenorth and south by 400-foot sandstone escarp-ments. While “Lake Basin” may have once beenan accurate name now “Giant-Chalk-White-Alkali-Blotch-With-A-Puddle-In-The-MiddleBasin” would be a more appropriate one.

Rapelje would follow in the footsteps of somany rural West towns, which are dying a slowand dispiriting death, but instead, somethingremarkable is happening here: With unprece-dented entrepreneurship and invention, thepeople of Rapelje are banding together to savetheir town, and getting creative in the process.First came the now-annual Rapelje GopherDerby, or prairie-dog hunting competition, in1999. Next was the Pasture Golf Tournament,with toilet bowls as holes. Then this enterprisingand uniquely open-minded community discov-ered mountain biking, and on June 8, 2001, thiswriter found himself traveling to a nowherepocket of eastern Montana for the inaugural 24Hours of Rapelje mountain bike race to ask thequestion: Can mountain biking save a town?

Amid the derelict buildings that once com-prised downtown sits the one-story, metal-roofed Stockman Café—a volunteer-run restau-rant/senior center/community center andRapelje’s lone retail outpost. Inside, Wayne“Cork” Erfle, Mike Erfle and Chris Veit sitaround a table going over the weekend’s plans.It’s Friday, and the race starts tomorrow.

If Rapelje had a mayor, it would probably be69-year-old Cork. Born just outside of town onhis family’s farm, this lifetime Rapeljean and histireless son Mike are the leading architects of thetown’s revitalization efforts. It was Cork and

Mike who sat down one day and decided theywere going to do everything in their power tosave their hometown. It was Cork who listened toa couple at the pasture golf tournament suggestcyclists would enjoy trundling around Rapelje’svast environs. It was Cork who wasted no time invisiting The Spoke Shop in Billings to enlist sup-port. It was Cork who had Rapelje hosting itsfirst bike race a mere three weeks later.

Chris Veit is a gregarious 33-year-old bikemechanic with pierced ears and boomerangsideburns. He’s the first person Cork met at theSpoke Shop. It was a fortuitous meeting forboth men. Cork invited Chris, a sometime raceorganizer, to dinner, during which he and Mikepeppered Chris with questions: “What is amountain biker? Would they like our land?Could we host a race?” Chris, acutely aware ofBillings losing much of its best trail to sprawl,and eager for new riding vistas, convinced themto give it a shot.

It was up to the Erfles, however, to convincethe rest of Rapelje. In morning conversationsover coffee at the Stockman, Cork admits,“People kind of chuckled at first.” But Chris andhis Spoke Shop coworkers were enthusiastic.The Erfles set a date for a race, and, Corkexplains, “People said ‘Well, why don’t we give ita try? Farming sure ain’t working for a darn.’”

The first-annual Rapelje 100k, held onOctober 14 of 2000, converted local skepticswhen it attracted 40 paying riders and anothertwo-dozen spectators. Chris spent that winterexploring Cork’s land, building relationshipswith neighboring ranchers and laying out acourse for something even the most enthusiasticRapeljean couldn’t make sense of: a 24-hourrace. Meanwhile California-based bike makerSpecialized caught wind of what was happeningand came forward with a $1,000 grant. Soon,nearly every local rancher and farmer openedtheir land to cyclists.

Cork’s goal is simple: Save the Rockets. Thetown’s K-12 Rapelje School, home of

THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT RAPELJE, MONTANA, population

61, is that it’s a prairie dog’s whisker away from becoming a

ghost town. Drought records set in the Dust Bowl era of

the1930s are being shattered. Ranchers are selling off the herds of

cattle they—and the prairie—can’t afford to feed. The soil has

yielded meager crops the last three years. In this world of wheat

farms and livestock ranches, honest handshakes and dusty boots,

livelihoods are drying up—literally.

THE PEOPLE OF RAPELJE

ARE BANDING TOGETHER TO

SAVE THEIR TOWN, AND

GETTING CREATIVE IN THE

PROCESS. FIRST CAME THE

NOW-ANNUAL RAPELJE

GOPHER DERBY, OR

PRAIRIE-DOG HUNTING

COMPETITION, IN 1999.

NEXT WAS THE PASTURE

GOLF TOURNAMENT.

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THE FIRST-ANNUAL RAPELJE 100K, HELD ON OCTOBER 14 OF2000, CONVERTED LOCAL SKEPTICS WHEN IT ATTRACTED 40

PAYING RIDERS AND ANOTHER TWO-DOZEN SPECTATORS.



“THE ROADS ARE LIKE WIDE TRAILSREALLY. YOU CAN GO TWO HOURSAND ONLY SEE ONE PICKUP.”



the Rapelje Rockets, is slowly shrinking, andresidents fear the state may order it closed.Cork hopes that if enough people see thearea and the community’s character, somemight stay. If the Stockman is this town’sheart, then the school is its soul. In the wordsof Mike Erfle, “You lose the school, you losethe town.”

Outside the Stockman, a couple fromBillings—the nearest city at an hour’s drivesoutheast—pull up to pre-ride the course.“We want to support what’s happening outhere,” they say. “This is the kind of placecyclists like.” A land where the men wearnothing but Wranglers is about to be overrunby Lycra, Oakleys and men with shaved legs.

It’s a delicious collision of New and OldWest—and it might just keep this town alive.

RAPELJE IS DOMINATED BY FOUR

monolithic grain elevators that tower likewatchful giants on the town’s eastern fringe.It is in the grassy field at their base that thetents start sprouting Saturday morning. Vanafter car after camper rolls in, most withbikes on roof. Soon, a bustling mountain-bike encampment is established. Across thestreet, cyclists filter into the Stockman andsign in at a registration table. The contrast ofcultures is nowhere more apparent than inwardrobes. Odds are good on any other dayyou couldn’t pay a cyclist to saunter into aplace named the Stockman Cafe in Montanain his Lycra, but here, women and men arecasually strolling around with their packageson proud display.

A dozen or so townsfolk—curious house-wives, ranchers and a gaggle of children—gather for the race’s start. A local man wheelsout what he claims is the second-largest of hishomemade canons. Bright jersey-clad ridersline up in the street outside the Stockman fora LeMans-style start. All eyes focus on theracers as they lean forward. For a secondeveryone is still—a brief moment of silencewhere plans will finally come to fruition.

The cannon boom deafens anyone stand-ing within 15 feet, a black lab jumps out ofhis skin and the racers burst forward into,well, a trot. Twenty-four-hour races, by theirnature, sap the urgency from a LeMans start.A quarter of a mile away, where the roadturns to dirt, the racers mount their steeds,put foot to pedal and are off. The inaugural24 Hours of Rapelje is underway.

Out on the range, racers soon discoverthat the basin, which looks flat from town,harbors rocky folds and ravines. Smoothdoubletrack veers suddenly into rocky, dry

streambed crossings before undulating alongthe creases and swells. Off-camber single-track unfurls along pine-studded ridgesbefore pitching steeply down twisting, rockydescents and winding through a landscape ofsagebrush, animal bones and stretches ofslickrock-like limestone. The stark landscapereveals its past in the form of lonely wind-mills and century-old wagon paths. If theylook closely, racers see the land that lookslifeless is alive with butterflies, bitterrootflowers, wheatgrass and fescue. Coyotes,mule deer and pronghorn antelope watchfrom the distance. The climbs are short butpunishing. The views always vast. Wind isheard before it’s felt, huge and distant cloudsdrift overhead, and a bleached blue skyextends forever.

The nearest town, Columbus, is 30 milessouth. In other directions, you can go muchfurther before reaching a formal settlement.The snowy peaks of the Beartooth and Crazymountains hover on the southern and west-ern horizons, but Rapelje is a land beyondthe mountains: a squat, uneven landscapewhere the wind blows hard and winters ragewith apocalyptic fury.

“The only thing we have here is space,”allows one resident. Add to that lots of little-used ranch tracks; ranch tracks that weaveacross ledgy rangeland, through sandstonecanyons, down hidden ravines and along thedusty byways of a forgotten landscape.According to one cyclist, “The roads are likewide trails really. You can go two hours andonly see one pickup.”

Or, on this weekend, one of 58 mountainbikers with number plates on their handle-bars. Most race entrants are on four- or five-person teams, with one rider from each teamon the course at a time. The team with themost laps at the end of the race wins. As isstandard at 24-hour races, however, the focushere seems less on competition than on hav-ing a good time, and a festival atmospherepervades the camp area. Most people seem tobe lifestyle-riders—goateed bike-shop work-ers, dedicated recreational riders in baggyshorts—rather than diehard racers. By con-trast, the lean and muscled members of theYellowstone Valley Cycling Club’s (YVCC) twoteams huddle in yellow jerseys talking strategyunder the check-in tent as they await their“tag.” Some sport two-way, headset radios.

Then, of course, there’s the solo class,comprised of those diehard, masochistic,endurance maniacs who insist on riding thewhole 24 hours all by their bad selves. In thisrace there are three soloists. One such

LOOKING FOR COW PIES?

For more information on Rapelje orthe 24 Hours of Rapelje, call theRapelje Community DevelopmentOrganization: 406-663-2116. Forinformation on biking in the area,call the Spoke Shop in Billings at:406-656-8342.

SCHOOL SPIRIT

■ Top: Cannon Man and Mike ErfleBottom: Once the center of commerce, the town’ssilos stand empty

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soul is Ed Newhall, a 40-ish auto mechanic,father of four and the only local in the race.True to his Rapelje roots, Ed races in jeans.

Back at the Stockman and several hoursinto the afternoon, four tan-faced localswith big belt buckles gather at the tailgateof a dusty pickup to watch the proceed-ings. One of them turns to the others as apair of riders blurs by and says, “We’vemore than doubled the size of this town ina weekend.”

A 60-something man sporting a browncowboy hat, a toothpick between weath-ered lips and a tin of Copenhagen in hisshirt pocket says, “I think they’re crazy, totell you the truth.” Mike Erfle, eager tosmooth over the blunt talk of his neighbor,jumps in, “But if they’re gonna be crazy, wewant ’em to do it here.”

Cork chimes in with a sideways grin,“We’re crazy too; we’re farmers.” Everyonechuckles, except the toothpicked rancherwho, still incredulous, shakes his head andsays, “And they pay to ride out on thisrough sonofabitch.”

Can this become a model for ruralcommunity development across the West?Will other communities follow Rapelje’sexample? Only time will tell, but one thingis certain, the people here, by opening theirprivate land to mountain bikers, areunique in America. In a country wheremost people do everything they can tokeep people off their private property,they’re turning convention on its head.

The question remains: Will it work? CanRapelje save the Rockets? The reality is,despite Chris’ assertion that, “Places likeMoab and Durango have nothing overRapelje,” the riding isn’t great enough todraw large numbers of people from beyondthe region—at least not yet. This weekend’srace attracts riders from across the state andnorthern Wyoming. Chris and the Erfle’slong-term vision is to bolster their services(guiding, lodging, more singletrack) andestablish Rapelje as a legitimate mountain-bike destination. At the very least, the townand events are unique enough to draw peo-ple solely for the experience.

As afternoon gives way to evening, largethreatening clouds amass on the horizon.The locals have been eyeing them all after-noon, assuring with an offhanded pes-simism born of disappointment that theywill amount to nothing. Meanwhile, imme-diately in front of the tent, a seven-year-oldgirl on a pink bike with a basket on the barsstarts ripping huge, high-speed gravel skids.

The light fades from the sky and a long,dark-bottomed cloud looms to the west.Lightning flashes from its belly. A sign is

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SCHOOL SPIRIT (continued from pg 57)



taped to the Stockman’s front door, “ChurchService 10 a.m. (Spandex Welcome!). Comeas you are! God doesn’t care and neither dowe.” Inside the café, when asked if he stillthinks it won’t rain, Mike replies that he’snot sure anymore, “I can smell it in the airnow.” The racers on the course are unfazed,their headlights carving tunnels of lightthrough the night’s blackness.

The clouds completely cover the stars,and racers, spouses and friends mill aboutthe tent. Suddenly, at around 11 p.m., afurious pummeling of hail roars downfrom above. It’s the first precipitation inmonths and it comes with all the grace of athousand enraged cherubs firing automaticweapons from the heavens. The thunder-ous drumming of hail on vinyl drowns outall attempts at conversation. People yell tothose beside them. It continues for 15minutes so fiercely that everyone is almostafraid of the violence the skies haveunleashed—undeniably afraid for theriders still out on the course.

As soon as the barrage eases, Chris callsthe race off until everyone can be account-ed for. Mike motors off in his pickup toroundup the casualties. Chris fires up afour-wheeler to do the same. A few peoplemention the dreaded “H” word—hypothermia—and all attention turns tothe riders out on the range.

Minutes later a biker comes flying in atmach speed and everyone under the tentcheers. “Wow, that’s some storm riding,”he says with wide eyes and starts frantical-ly rubbing his legs, “Man, that burned.”Mike returns with several riders in hispickup and women come out of the cafébearing towels and offering sleeping bagsand blankets and hot drinks inside. Edpulls up with a skid, wearing only jeansand a long sleeve T-shirt, and says calmly,“Now that’s biking.”

While the rain and hail have stopped,everyone’s shaken and the water hasturned the brown loamy soil into unride-able gumbo. There will be no racing untilmorning. Around 1 a.m. the last of thelocals filter out of the Stockman, callingout to each other as they leave, “OK, span-dex for church tomorrow. Everyone’s gottawear spandex.”

CORK IS ALREADY SWEEPING THE

pavement in front of the café when theriders gather under the tent at sunrise.Chris gives a quick pep talk and announcesthe race will still end at noon and that nolaps from the previous night count unlessriders came in under their own power. Thesolo rider battling it out with Ed for first

SCHOOL SPIRIT (continued)



place goes straight to the lap-count sheets.“Did that guy come in under his ownpower last night?” he asks, seeminglyannoyed (or is it disbelieving?) that he’sonly one lap ahead of a guy in jeans andtennis shoes. In the meantime, Ed, wearinga flannel shirt and wool gloves, is pedalingout with the morning’s first riders.

By 11:28, under a hot sun, riders fromteams nowhere near contention are stillcharging eagerly out on the 13-mile coursefor one more go around. There’s no bettersign of a successful 24-hour race than rid-ers chomping at the bit to do laps in theclosing minutes.

To no one’s surprise, a hard-chargingteam from the Yellowstone Valley CyclingClub takes first place with 19 laps. Ed isedged out for the solo title, 11 laps to 10.But at race’s end, his victorious competi-tion is slumped in a chair looking dazedand unresponsive while Ed moves benchesand helps clean up the site as if it were anormal morning. On the street, kids pumptheir little knees around the block for the24 Minutes of Rapelje youth race.

By 2 p.m., the mountain-bike encamp-ment is empty. Volunteers sweep andmop inside the Stockman. Mike, Corkand Ed have finished taking down thetent. Other than the orange “Start” and“Finish” lines spray-painted on the streetand a cracked reflector left from thepost-race bike toss competition, there’snothing to indicate the area was just over-run with a swarm of rubber and Lycra.Tomorrow at the Stockman, ranchers willsip early-morning coffee, while othersexcitedly count the weekend’s profit, andlife in Rapelje will return to its wide-open, ambling normalcy.

Except things are different here now.Cars adorned with bikes roll in at random.Topo maps of local rides are given away atthe Stockman. The 24 Hours of Rapelje,possibly the most unlikely race in all ofmountain biking, is on its way to becom-ing a permanent fixture in the hearts andcalendars of riders across the region. Theranches may be dying and the land may bedrying up, but people are finally comingback to Rapelje—and they’re bringingtheir mountain bikes. HOOKED

WHILE THE RAIN AND HAIL HAVESTOPPED, EVERYONE’S SHAKENAND THE WATER HAS TURNED THEBROWN LOAMY SOIL INTOUNRIDEABLE GUMBO.


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