8/13/2011 Sturgis/Chrome City-One and the Same

On our way at noon, we made the 40 minute drive to Sturgis to experience BIKE WEEK!

Now before I really get into this let me remind you about the motorcycle ride I took a few years ago when we were in Arizona for the winter….click >>>> Snookie's Motorcycle Ride from HELL!

This was something we put on our To Do List back in May when we arrived here in South Dakota. Being here and not going to Sturgis during this week would be like being in Orlando for the first time and not going to Disney World. DeWayne had changed his mind back and forth this past week about whether he wanted to go and fight the crowd but he’s glad now that he went!

Makeshift “stores” were everywhere.

Large tents lined the streets selling T-shirts, leather clothing, parts, insurance, and food, lots and lots of food.

I wanted to see the thousands and thousands of bikes, the people, and we saw MORE of some people than we should have(!), I wanted to hear the loud pipes of the bikes but let me tell ya, that got old real fast. I wanted to see the sun glinting off the shiny chrome, thank heavens for my dark sunglasses!

So we arrived in town and found parking in a church parking lot to the tune of $8.00. Not bad, I expected it to be a lot more. We were two blocks from main drag so we were all quite happy with that.

The first bike we saw up close and personal was one with a sidecar. The fellow manning the booth to collect parking fees told us he bought it off EBAY as is and he didn’t have to do a thing to it.

We walked the two blocks and when we got to the main drag this was our first glimpse of Bike Week.

See the tall structure on the left hand side of the picture above? I had heard that would be here and Joy and I knew we just had to get up there to take pictures. Admission to the platform was $5.00 and the proceeds went to the Sturgis schools for equipment, books and supplies. Certainly a worthy fundraiser. So DeWayne paid our way to the platform and we snapped away! Thanks DeWayne!

Of course we both took our first picture of our guys down on the ground!

And then we turned our attention to the sea of bikes before us.

I would venture to say that 99% of these bikes are Harley Davidson’s.

Did you know that Sturgis Bike Week has been going on since 1938? Its taken place every year except one during World War II when gas rationing was in effect.

The original intent of the motorcycle rally was for racing and stunts. In 1961, the rally was expanded to include the Hillclimb and Motocross races. This could include half-mile track racing (the first year in Sturgis, there were 19 participants), intentional board wall crashes, ramp jumps and head-on collisions with cars. WHO DOES THIS????

As you can imagine we saw some pretty fancy bikes.

Today, the rally is huge! Big name entertainment is the norm now, T-shirt sellers take up every other tent site on Main Street, beer distributors make a fortune and the entire town of Sturgis and the surrounding area are caught up in Bike Week. And rightly so, this rally provides a big chunk of money to a lot of local businesses. The local homeowners don’t do too bad either. We saw a lot of homes with signs on their lawns advertising tent space for $20.00 a night and tents were set up tent peg to tent peg.

Last year, the 70th Sturgis rally, attendance was estimated to be just under 760,000. That’s A LOT of bikes and bikers! This year, eh, not so many. The economy has been blamed, fuel prices have been blamed, loss of jobs has been blamed, whatever the reason, its estimated that there is a 20% drop in attendance. Its also reported that is normal for attendance to be down the year before and the year after an “anniversary” year and last year was such a rally. There were so many bikes and people you couldn’t prove any of this by us.

We thought the first order of business should be lunch so we took off in search of food. While there were plenty of food vendors in tents we opted for a sit down restaurant. One Eyed Jack’s fit the bill nicely.

Bob ordered a pulled pork sandwich that was so heavy with pork he couldn’t even pick it up. The rest of us ordered Angus burgers and we all agreed they were quite tasty….and filling.

There was a constant stream of traffic up and down the street as we walked and took in all the sights. As I said earlier, “Oh the sights we saw!”

First the bikes themselves.

Take note of the seat on this one. There’s no padding! OH. MY. BUTT.

This next one is a solar powered bike. Take note of the bicycle handlebars and the streamers from the handles.

Now take notice of the license plate. A combination of Schwinn and GoldWING = SCHWING.

One bike that brought lots of attention was this homemade one. Take note of the beer keg for a gas tank.

Its got a six cylinder engine!

It certainly garnered a lot of attention but I would still have to wonder how road worthy it is.

While the bikes were plentiful……

We saw the sights as far as people were concerned too! I walked into this one tent/store and traversed through rack after rack of T-shirts and got quite a surprise when I turned one corner.

At first glance,,,,this looked REAL!

We saw all kinds of things “not normal” as we walked down the main drag.

Bikers in what I would call a Viking helmet.

A woman who must not want her lips to get sunburned.

No words here…

Does she have any idea what this is going to look like in 30 – 40 years? She was no spring chicken to begin with, she was already in her 40’s or else she has led a very, very hard life.

I’m wondering what he does for a living!

Some women just didn’t wear much clothing.

If I wore these, I’d be worried about a some really strange tan lines.

I talked with his fella for a few minutes while waiting for the guys to catch up with us. I asked him what he did in real life and he told me he was a caregiver for mentally challenged adults. I believed him, Bob didn’t. Bob says he was just playing with me. I didn’t think so.

For some reason this guy thought spurs were necessary on his boots. You could hear him a block away.

Having walked down one side of the main drag and back up the other we were all parched and ready for some adult beverages. Well, I had my Pepsi, the others had adult beverages. So we ended up back in One Eye Jacks and I snapped this picture of our barmaid. I wonder if they dress from home or they drive to work in their lingerie?

We did have a chance to talk with her during a lull and learned that she is from England, usually lives in Colorado, and was very, very disappointed in the money she made in tips this week. She told us that she makes more in one night back in Colorado than she’s made all week here. She said that One Eyed Jack’s started out with 150 in wait staff and barmaids at the beginning of the rally and were now down to about 30 because they weren’t making any money and the ones hired on for the rally found that would rather just stay and party rather than work for peanuts. So the question is….were the tent vendors too much competition for the traditional restaurants/bars - or - are bikers typically lousy tippers? Needless to say, she was looking forward to getting back to Colorado.

At one point I looked up and across the bar to the other end of the room and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I jumped up, camera in hand because a whole lot of posing was goin’ on. I nudged Joy on my way past her and said, “Grab your camera, follow me.”

My first thought was, “No way, they aren’t real.” I mean, who would DO THIS???? The lady in question assured all of us standing there staring, gawking, looking that indeed it was the real deal and then proceeded to prove it! Oh. Em. Gee!

Some random shots from our day.

We came, we saw, we experienced…….

…..what an experience it was!