Sturgis Rally Gets Check Mark On Bucket List

(Editor’s note: Earlier this month, Ed Henderson of Waterbury, CT and Bobby Gregorio of Naugatuck, CT rode to South Dakota (and back) to attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Henderson has provided RIDE-CT.com with some pics and commentary about their trip.)

By Ed Henderson for RIDE-CT.com

This journey to the 73rd annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally took Bobby G. and I on a round trip of 3,600 miles there and  back (both trailering and riding) and 850 miles of “side trips” in and around the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. We left Friday, Aug. 2nd and returned Tuesday Aug. 13, 2013, having spent the majority of our time riding to the most amazing places.

Among them were Deadwood and Spearfish, SD; The Crazy House Memorial (amazing things going on here!!); Mt. Rushmore; the Needles Highway, a marvelous ride through beautiful mountains with incredible switchbacks where you honed your skills on proper gearing and cutting the apex of crazy curves; Custer National Park; a 252-mile round trip to Devils Tower in Wyoming (Stunning!! And we walked the 1.9 miles around the Tower!); and a 275-mile round trip through the Badlands National Park, an amazing place of unreal geological formations.

We rode into three storms during the week. These things usually form late afternoon and are quite beautiful as they form far off in the flat-lands or as you see them in the mountains.  You pull off to a hole-in-the-wall gas station, top off the gas, put on the rain gear, take a pee, and head out to meet the thing. The rain is often so violent it’s like rocks hitting you. (Lord, the idiots we saw without helmets; don’t get it.)

We got further “training” in survival of just about everything on this trip. We didn’t spend a lot of time in Sturgis, but we did hang there enough (during three visits) to soak in some partying and absorb the uh, “flavor” of the life-form: Representatives sent by other Planets.

 Bobby Gregorio and the Badlands

Estimates stated 500,000 motorcycles were in and around Sturgis during the week. Very believable. Amazing visuals were, and let’s cut to the chase here, the women – as riders and those choosing to go topless. A Sturgis law on the books says women can go topless during Bike Week , as long as they wear “pasties” or have have their chests “painted.”.These “pictures,” if you will, were colorful landscapes, faces, a bit of everything, with their Breasts becoming an intriguing part of the portrait painted.  There were booths off on side streets where women could slip in to with an “artist”, who would accomplish the “painting.” Cost? Damn, I never asked.

Ed Henderson Admires a Budweiser Clydesdale

By the way, the topless ladies would gladly pose with a simple request. However, you became aware that most had what I call a “handler” with them, a guy who just walked with them. Bodyguard? This lead me to wonder if the city pays to have these “models,” if you will, just walk the streets.  The ladies you didn’t approach for a picture were those who were “holding hands” with their male escort. These were obviously with a “significant other” of some kind, who would often tell a photographer to butt off. Hmm, so why have your honey walk around like this? Cameras will be raised!

Interesting game constantly going on, especially with the obvious news photographers and film crews.   The Travel Channel and God knows who else were prevalent, and, yes, there were some women who should NOT have been walking around topless. ‘Nuff said.

Bobby Gregorio and Ed Henderson

The streets of Sturgis, side streets and especially the prime real estate of Main Street were packed with vendors and there was every piece of memorabilia and motorcycle equipment imaginable. Walking these streets for miles were the most amazing assortment of people (women, with and without tops) – dress, hair, tattoos, smiles, laughter, old and young (even older than ME!!), and all having one helluva good time, especially with amazing open air festive saloons all over the place. Hey! we’re in the West, cowboy. No “bars” here.

Along with all the pedestrian  traffic, at the same time, there was a packed line of the most amazing Motorcycles slowly going up and down Main Street. The colors and graphic paint jobs on a lot of these bikes were stunning and beautiful. However, what got boring to me were the amazing amount of black and chrome Harleys. Jeez, get some creativity folks.

Ed Henderson at the Full Throttle Saloon

A word about the Full Throttle Saloon. Amazing place. All you see on TV is true. I’ve never seen so much going on in one place at the same time – events, parties, music, $10 beers, laughter, Jesse James under a tent sighing pieces of his Clothing Line for anyone who bought something, women wrestling without a lot of clothes on. (I couldn’t watch. Had to turn away. I know you believe me.) All the bartenders were female and not wearing much. Very distracting to someone as conservative as I. It was a constant pulsating atmosphere of a massive party.

But you had to be careful here. Bobby and I were staying 40 beautiful-ride miles away, as were thousands of others. You just couldn’t stay there and “party” into the evening when you might be riding a motorcycle home a long distance, and maybe at night through the mountains. In the evening, your “potential” enemies were nasty rain storms, deer AND in this country: antelope and bighorn sheep!

This was the main reason we never got to the “Buffalo Chip,” a massive “camping” area outside of Sturgis. The Chip costs $72 a day to get into if you’re not staying there. Saloons are everywhere and there are concerts every night through the week:  Doobie Brothers, Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Toby Keith and more. The headliners didn’t go on till 10 p.m. every night. Sorry, I must enjoy some libation at such concerts, but I’m not riding my motorcycle AFTER such a concert and heading out at night through the mountains to get home.

Bobby Gregorio at Mount Rushmore

So, a trip back to Sturgis might have as an objective to STAY at the “Chips”and enjoy the concerts after the day-trips you might go on.

A final note in this “brief” synopses of our trip. A lot of money is brought into this community by the “Sturgis Experience”but as an old-time and his wife said to me, “It just ain’t the same as when it all started. It used to be a big party out at the Chips. Now they got them ATM’s out there. It’s all about the money and it’s all about the women and tits now. Just ain’t the same.”

And so it goes… And so it goes.