Sturgis Bike Week

Rolling into Sturgis South Dakota - normally an extremely small town in the middle of nowhere would not be a big deal almost any other time of year (except of course Mount Rushmore, and some of the great roads here), but this was no ordinary time of year. It was the first week of August and it was time for Sturgis Bike Week. A big deal is not enough to say about what kind of experience we were about to have this week.

It turned out that there was a motorcycle museum that we could stop by on our way into town, so we decided to check it out. Perusing through the vintage motorcycles in the museum was way cool. There was even one there that was carved from Glass. Of course, it didn't actually crank and run, but it sure looked cool. We got to meet the guy that carved it there, too!

We left the museum and headed toward our next destination. The famous Sturgis downtown strip. This is what you may have seen somewhere before with the huge banner hanging above the street that says - 'Welcome Bikers'. The entire downtown main street area is roped off from all except the two (and three) wheel kind. There is no way you could get a four wheeled vehicle in there even if you tried.

We rode into the crown of the downtown main street section - obviously going very slowly. Instead of looking for a parking spot on the main drag, we opted to ride around the next block to a less crowded are to park our motorcycles.

We walked into the main drag area to check out all of the motorcycles. Of course we wanted to check out the other people too!! People from every part of the country were there. Some had ridden in and others had trailered their rides, but somehow, they all got here.

I went up the little ladder / platform in the middle of the street to take a couple pictures of all of the action. The only bummer was that they charged five dollars just to walk to the top of the ladder, stand on the platform and take pictures. I didn't really care, though. That was not much considering all of the riding and time we had spent getting this far.



Our time in Sturgis - continued.

Sturgis Bike Week

We woke the next morning. It was surreal to realize that we were actually in Sturgis South Dakota, and were going to get the chance to be a part of one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the entire United States - Sturgis Bike Week.

We had rested pretty well, even though one of use didn't get very much sleep. We went over toward the stage area to the restrooms and took care of our showers and such. Luckily, the lines were not very long and we were able to get done fairly quickly. We grabbed some breakfast at the pavilion - the Eggs were great!

With our bellies full once again, we gathered our materials so we had a general idea of some of the things we wanted to see today. One of the things we know we needed to do was wash the motorcycles. After miles and miles of riding, they were pretty filthy. As we left the campground headed toward town, we learned of a church that was doing free bike washes. What a sight for sore eyes!

The CMA (Christian Motorcycle Association) was doing free bike washes at one of the churches as we approached Sturgis. This was also a great opportunity to get our Bikes Blessed. I had actually planned to do that before leaving Denver on the start of our journey, but had not found an opportunity - until now.

We stopped and grabbed a cup of coffee while we were waiting in line for the bike wash. After the blessing of the bikes, we rolled up to the folks that were doing the washing. They did an excellent job!

With clean bikes, we were now ready to move on to our next part of our Sturgis Bike Week adventure.

The Motorcycle Museum in Sturgis - Next time

Sturgis Bike Week

Evening began to settle in on our first night at Sturgis Bike week. We had filled our tummies and had relaxed a bit. Our campsite was set up and we had met a few of our neighbors. We had reviewed some of the material we had picked up about the rally, and had picked out a few things that we knew for sure that we wanted to while we were at Sturgis Bike Week.

The folks we had met earlier told us that there was a band playing that night, so we got a couple of things from the campsite and started walking up toward the stage. I carried my little folding chair just in case there was limited seating. We arrived at the stage, and there were a few other people hanging out there, but the crowd wasn't huge yet.

After a couple of drinks and some good conversation, it was time for the band to hit the stage. They were actually pretty good. They played mostly rock, and did some cover stuff from artists like Pat Benatar and such. I actually liked the songs that they performed of their own. Those were really good! It didn't hurt any that the lead singer was a really nice looking woman either!.

They had a few CDs for sale on a table over to the side, so my brother-in-law decided to get one of them. We hung out, had a few drinks and watched the band play for at least two hours. At this point, I was starting to get pretty tired, but my riding partner wanted to stay and hang out with the band some more.

We parted ways, me heading back to the campsite, and him, hanging out with the band. I really don't know what time he finally made it back because I was sound asleep.

First day in Sturgis - Next time

Sturgis Bike Week

Our campsite was pretty big and fairly flat. There was plenty of shade to be had as well. We opted not to stay at one of the larger, better known campgrounds that many have heard about when going to Sturgis Bike Week. The one we reserved was much quieter than the bigger ones, but still had opportunities to cut loose a little and have a good time.

We had found a good place for our tents. We were way back on the right hand side of the campsite, under some trees for the welcome shade. Our campsite backed up to a fence where we had a friendly neighboring horse that would come to visit us from time to time. We had settled in and were getting pretty hungry, so we decided to go up toward the stage are and see kind of food we would find there.

The walk to the stage and pavilion was not too far, and we didn't really mind too much. It was good to be off of our motorcycles for awhile and a short walk was good to get the blood moving again in our backsides.

We arrived at the pavilion and sure enough, there was a small kitchen serving food. It wasn't really that expensive either, and we were ready for real meal after miles and miles of road food. We grabbed a little something and sat down at the picnic table just out in front of the Kitchen area.

Some of the folks there were talking about the band that was going to perform tonight. We talked to several people. These folks were from all over the country and all kinds of backgrounds. Some rode their motorcycle to Sturgis Bike Week, while others towed them. We found out what time the band was going to play, and decided to come back later for a little fun. We finished our chow, and strolled off back to the campsite to look at some of the material we had found about the Rally events at Sturgis Bike Week to get a better fell of the things we might want to do tomorrow.

The first night in Sturgis - next time

Sturgis Bike Week

We left Devils Tower headed toward Sturgis, once again, or our trusty steeds. We had thought that would only take a couple of hours to get into Sturgis, but we didn't count on all of the increased traffic. It was almost time for Sturgis Bike Week, and motorcycles had been filing into the area for about two weeks now.

So as we found our way to the Interstate headed in the general direction of the Campground that I had reserved, we had to contiually slow down. We didn't mind much, though because just seeing all of those motorcycles in one place was really something to see.

We finally made it into town and turned off on the 'main drag' to get to the campsite that I thought I had reserved. This was where the traffic really came to a standstill. We were pretty tired, and it was really hot. We were only able to move a few inches at a time and then stop for a few minutes. When it's hot like it was, that can be really painful. The heat rising from the crankcase of a Harley tends to roll directly up to your left leg and your thigh gets baked. I got to the point that I was balancing the bike on my right foot only when stopped so I could raise my left onto the highway pegs to help my leg cool a little bit.

We finally made it out of the really heavy traffic of Sturgis Bike Week, and the road started to open up a little bit. We rolled up to what I thought was the campsite I had reserved, parked the motorcycles, and wandered up to the little check in station. After a brief conversation, I figured out that we were in the wrong campground! Needless to say, my brother in law was not very happy.

I got directions to the campsite that I had actually reserved and found that we were going to have to back through all of that motorcycle traffic again.

We did finally make it to our campsite, checked in and found our way to our campsite. After unloading and setting up our tents, it was still not too late, so it was time for a little R&R.

Our first night at Sturgis Bike Week - next