2005

August 2, 2005, 10am

Weird, living in the east, and arriving at Sturgis from the west, but we’ve already been on the road for over two weeks. The weather is good, but it’s about to change…for the worse. Cold rain, wind, and 50-something degrees. Hunker down, get through the next 48 hours, and hit the road when it clears.

August 4:
Custer, the Needles, Deadwood, Spearfish and Wyoming. We’re here a week early this year, and it’s amazing how many people have arrived early for Sturgis. You can see why…the traffic is lighter, campgrounds aren’t too crowded, there’s plenty of room on the trips to see the sights, and the vendors are mostly set up for biz.

Celine Dion time:

While cruising around near Custer, an upscale woman from California steps out of a really huge private coach (read: “bus” to us)…and quizzed me as to “Why there are so many motorcycles around here…”

Patiently explaining that since ’38, Sturgis has welcomed bikers from around the world for seven days every August to a little town of under 7 thousand people, that’s within easy riding distance, the Badlands (110), Mount Rushmore (62), Custer State Park (75), Spearfish Canyon (19), and little old Deadwood (12), make this a great place to ride. Being kind of out of the way centrally located in more or less mid-USA makes it relatively close to everyone (except us poor slobs from the sunshine state). How many of you flocked to this two-wheel mecca??  I quoted the 600,000 attendance in 2000, and about 500,000 each year since. Not just because I’m a nice guy, but the faint scent of her $300. perfume deserved just one more answer to this annoying question...

Why… why do you all come here at the same time?

Easy question, as I cranked the 111, & yelled over my shoulder… “Because we aggravate the tourists!”

Look in any travel guide, and it will warn that visiting during the first part of August is ill-advised, so maybe that’s why we come to Sturgis, we know we’re all coming, so what the hell, we may as well go, and if it aggravates tourists, that’s all the better.

Speaking of aggravation, a lot of couples come to Sturgis to be married too. This year, 109 couples bought marriage licenses, down from 133 last year, according to Meade county officials. From personal experience, I am guessing the average Sturgian groom is already well-lit before he relinquishes his right to the single life, gritting those teeth with all his manly might, trying to concentrate on his fond memories of the titty bar his bro’s dragged him out of last night, thereby making the matrimonial process all the less painful, can I get a big amen??


Speaking of pain, if you’re feeling relatively none, two wheels is not a viable alternative. You haven’t seen your lady since this morning, and she’s holding the money, so you decide to hop on “Da Bus”, headed downtown, but Woah!  You thought “Da Bus” was a “public service” for those who have been imbibing, provided by the wise city fathers to cut down on accidents, right?? Wrong! “Da Bus” will cost you ten bucks every time you get on. That’s $20 bucks for a round trip of what, 1,2, miles? Better keep an extra 20 in your boot, ‘case you gotta find mamma. Hell, for $5, I’ll ride ya bitch down there myself. Give me another 5, and I’ll do curbside pick up service too!

Will the real chopper star please stand up?
At Thunder Road, a huge tented area set up at the Glencoe corner, boasted a bike show, Uncle Rusty’s tattoo contest, plus meet ‘n’ greets with Arlen Ness, and Orange County Choppers. The ride-in show had some excellent mostly hand-crafted rides, any of which I’d be proud to call my own, and the ink being displayed on stage was quality all the way. Know what bothers me? Size of the line waiting in the 100 degree sun to get an autograph from the OCC guy, “Vince”, (who helps put Paul Junior’s bikes together just before Dad yells at him for being late for work), blew my mind. Probably in excess of 200 people, sweating, and burning in a real slow line, estimated wait time in the hours. Inside the huge cooled tent, about 15 people waited to see Arlen Ness, the King of Choppers. What made it even worse was a hushed secretive whisper going through the outside crowd, that there was a chance that OCC’s “Mikey” would make a surprise visit. Gawd, isn’t that the kid who gets the mail, and takes out the trash?? I like Orange County Choppers. I love Texas Hardtails. Watch American Thunder each week. They’ve made ordinary people with piles of bills, instant millionaires. So I have an idea, Mr. Ness. Certainly not for the love of filthy lucre, but Arlen, you have presence. You have money. You have looks. Bro, you should give serious consideration to producing your own TV show, & get the dammed respect you deserve. Next year, I want to see 200 people in your line.

Fear & Loathing:

This year, the Highway Patrol responded to 70 injury accidents, including 6 fatalities, and considering attendance was around one half million, you’d be hard pressed not to wonder why this count wasn’t higher. Cops were everywhere, coming in from surrounding states to earn some spending money. 260 drunken driving arrests, plus 247 drug arrests, and once again, roaming “gangs” of cops on main street. A tv interviewer said they were displaying a “show of force” to keep revelers in line, but six at a time? Most were good-hearted about it, but at least a third of the cops, many from outside the area, looked us over like we were terrorists.  No one wants to spoil the party, but I’m looking at a hundred thousand patriotic Americans here, not some bunch of foreigners bent on a plan to riot and take over Sturgis. Ain’t a lot to take over to begin with, so lighten up guys, and try to be more careful with the lifers you pick up to stare us down. What kind of crap is that?

Like in Daytona, there were sporadic outbreaks of from-the-waist-up nudity, and the occasional at-the-light burnout, but nothing wild.  Even on a couple of nights, Main street seemed low-key. As I looked over the people, dragging shopping bags stuffed with tee shirts and assorted impulse items, it was reminiscent of Speed weeks at Daytona.  Not the Daytona races of the 80’s, when the grandstand was packed with mechanics, driving down for the race, and straight home to places like North Carolina and Michigan, their fingernails still holding grease from Friday’s last wrench job, rather, the NASCAR of the new millennium.  Where I don’t know half the names anymore, and one sounds like a waffle-maker. NASCAR moms and dads. Not every person, not every couple, but overall, it had the flavor. Six dollar lemonades. Eight dollar hamburgers frying on the bottom, the tops roasting in the heat of a 105 degree sunlit Sturgis afternoon, replete with flies in the relish jar, and people standing in line for it. In-town vendor space has become as sought-after as Arizona real estate. Again and again, I’ve been told that downtown space is either unavailable, or so expensive, prices have to be jacked up to cover cost, ergo, the eight dollar hamburger. If you don’t give a damm how much, then pay up and munch. If you do, just go to McDonald’s, and buy a better burger for two bucks, and get a $6 beer with the saved money. As with all of life’s financial situations, it’s not how much you spend, it’s how much you save. I wish someone would pass that info on to the government.



It Feels Like the First Time:

There are a lot of new riders, many of them on their new (and first) motorcycle. Brushing my teeth in the campground, I watched as a young lady dumped her sporty in the pebbles on a hillside. Stuck in gear, the rear wheel was rolling as she tried to pick up the bike before I could get to her, and of course it did a 3-60 around, and totally freaked her out. This, plus seeing a brother lying in the road just past Custer, some advice for…

Newcomers:

(1)  Practice riding your new bike at home before you come to Sturgis.
(2)  It doesn’t make any difference how good a rider you are if you’re dui.
(3)  If you’re a new rider to the Black Hills, don’t go too fast in the curves.
(4)  Stay well off the dividing line, head-on’s wander into your lane all the time.

“Flatlanders”, as they call people from places like Kansas and Florida, need to be careful of the deadly mix of a “road cocktail disaster”… speed, winding roads, oncoming trucks, cars, rv’s and motorcycles, laced with the occasional deer or falling rocks in the right of way. If you’re one of these riders, or it’s your first Sturgis, consider arriving the week before the rally begins. There’s a lot less traffic. Should you tire of the crowds from Spearfish to and through the Badlands, take my chillin’ loop along the western edge of the Cheyenne Indian reservation; It’s all straight-ahead quality road, with a few hills and valleys. Rt #34 out past  Glencoe out about 55 miles, then 73 north for 40 miles. At this point, you can turn left on #212 to head back toward Newell and on to Sturgis, or turn right and get right into the heart of the reservation. No mountains, and no cops. You’ll have plenty of time to ponder life’s greater meaning. Golden fields with giant rolls of baled straw, replete with grazing antelope. No traffic, no hassles, and no gas stations. Top off each time you get a chance, and avoid using gas with ethanol, even if if means dropping down to 85 octane. Ethanol, even at 89 octane, burns hotter than regular unleaded, and can raise hell with an air-cooled v-twin engine. Be sure to bring a bottle of octane booster to clear out any low octane knocks you get from having to use the regular unleaded. At the Cheyenne reservation, locals came over in droves to check out my chopper. I found the Cheyenne to be the friendliest, most down-to-earth people of any reservation I’ve ever ridden in, a far cry from the downright hostility & wrong directions given us by the Blackfeet in Montana.


Word to the wild man from Low Country Customs, and his ’04 Texas Chopper, complete with a supercharger a-n-d this nitrous container, dammed near the size of a gallon of milk, all bolted on to a 124 inch S&S. Open this sucker up at 4am on a deserted stretch of innerstate and see God. This bike’s so wild on the blower, the thought of even using the funny gas bottle scares the shit outta him. Makes my stock 111 cubic inch mill sound like a Toyota. I’ve burned 7 rear tires in 18,000 miles. He must own a rubber factory.

In ’04, we hardly ventured away from the Buffalo Chip, mainly because there was so much dust and dirt, you needed a bath each time you hopped on the putt, and the showers were anything but a day at the beach.  Last year, amid tens of thousands of of hell-bent all-night partiers, we hardly slept. This year, we picked a serene campground where peace and quiet is the norm, and people bitch if they can’t get a good night’s sleep. Much as I am about rock ‘n’ roll, we didn’t see a single band this year. Missed Buddy Miles, and $30 for Rod Zombie? ‘05’s “entertainment” at the Chip wasn’t much better… In radio, I used to work w/Tim McGraw’s mom, “Betty”, at a large southern radio station I was running, and she constantly begged me to come see “Timmy’s little Sunday garage band.” Never did, the rest is history. Dammed if I’m gonna cough up $40 for something I coulda seen for free in ’87. That having been said, I screwed up by not going to see Steve Miller. He did some songs from the “Sailor” album. Required listening for those of you who think “The Joker” is Miller at his best. Reading the reviews, I got the feeling that Steve’s getting toward the end of the rock ‘n’ roll road. And, any band is somebody’s favorite, so I won’t even go into the night Journey played. If Florida Harley Dealers can sponsor name bands, like Grand Funk, Kansas, Rare Earth, Steppenwolf, etc, and provide free admission, what’s up with Sturgis?

If you’re getting six bucks for a beer, I drink five; how about a ticket to see AC/DC?  Let’s see some FREE ROCK ‘n’ ROLL in ’06. WTF? Ya scared we might have a good time…?   HELL YEAH.

August 10, 2005, 7am:

The worst part of any roadtrip… packing crap and heading home. It’s downright depressing, plus, there’s a nasty cold front coming in, and temps the next few days will be in the 50’s/60’s with cold rain, a lot different than the 95-105 temps we’ve had since last week. Even if I didn’t have to work the weekend, I’d probably be gone anyway, but next year, I won’t miss Wednesday in Wyoming. The road bro’s had one hell of a good time out there the day I left for home.

South Dakota’s department of transportation’s traffic count showed a 4 % decline under last year’s attendance, I would have said 10%, but having arrived and left early, (something I don’t plan on doing in ’06), can’t say for sure. Next Year, it’s will be all about the big party.

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