Sturgis - Downtown

Downtown Sturgis

No trip to Sturgis for the rally would be complete without a trip downtown.  I will admit the actually rally and downtown Sturgis were not high on my list of things I wanted to do.  I knew we had to do it of course, but I was most interested in the riding and the sights to see around the area.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had wandering the streets and taking in the sights and sounds.

One tip if you are ever visiting Sturgis for the rally.  Unless you like sitting in wheel to wheel traffic constantly shutting off your engine due to the overheating of it and you I would strongly recommend you go early. It seems the biker crowd for the most part is a late rising crowd.  I won’t speculate on the reasons here, but just know that the earlier you go, the easier it will be to park and walk.

We got to town at 8:00 and parked across form the Harley Davidson dealer in a nice lot only charging us $5 to park there.  There weren’t so many folks there yet, but there were still enough to know that soon, the place was going to be packed.  

Highlights of the day?  Well only a few of them can be posted in picture form here.  Some of what you have read or saw on TV was true, but for the most part everyone was  “normal”.  There was the occasional person who should have added a few more layers or at least less transparent ones.  And a few that looked like they took a couple weeks to ride in and would have done good to ride through a rain shower at some point.  But really it was as close to family friendly as a biker rally could be.

A friend of Rich's

We did see our first Hell’s Angels in person.  Something that everyone has heard about but I had never actually seen.  I have to tell you they were a little intimidating to me, but not so much to Rich.  He decided to see if he could get a picture with one.  He was nicely told him “No”, but at least he left the conversation in one piece.  I mean he had one of his new Sturgis shirts on and it would have been a shame to ruin it the first time he wore it.  

We saw a biker man and woman come in on bicycles.  We saw a lab that had a kennel mounted to a Gold Wing so he could travel with his master from Colorado.  We saw a couple riding a trike that had to be 80+.  We saw a lady at the S&S booth wearing nothing up top except 2 S&S stickers.  And more...  For another time.  It was the best people watching you could do.

We wandered all the booths and vendors, bought some shirts and had the very best corndog we have ever had in our life.  Honestly.  And I have had a lot of corndogs.  

A friend of Chris'

It was worth the visit.  Once for the trip.  We ended up staying for nearly 6 hours!  When we left it was almost impossible to walk down the street without bumping someone.  It was tough to talk due to the roar of the bikes.  It was, in a word, Sturgis.