Day 1 at the 85th Sturgis Rally brings skulls, dancers and 'escapism'
STURGIS — DJ Hulio says day one of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is the most “tame.”
Like the jitters of a first date, folks attending the largest motorcycle rally in the world quietly line the bar tops taking photos as more than 100 Ultra4 rigs roar into the Buffalo Chip, some even with 3-year-olds in their laps. There are lines for the lemonade stands and ice cream shops, foot massages, mattress sales and buffalo skin rugs at the art shows.
But tame is a relative word for the 85th anniversary of the rally, where an estimated 700,000 or more are expected to descend upon the town of roughly 7,000 for the next week.
Before 8 a.m., there were also bikini washes on Lazelle Street, a man wobbling on stilts on Main Street, a chorus of revs in the pit during ZZ Top and no one even noticed the two-hour thunderstorm that drenched the campgrounds and showed up as strobe light-like lightning in the sky.
Rally-goers were just getting started.
Albert and Sylvia Diaz arrived two days ago from San Antonio, Texas, excited to see the Budweiser Clydesdales for the rally’s opening ceremony Aug. 1. They’ve lodged at Creekside Campground for nearly 25 years, the “best friends they’ve got” also there for what is their annual reunion.
Albert will saunter his way through downtown Sturgis for the next week with a skull necklace the size of his fist atop his neatly shaved big belly. His biker name is “Skull” and so appropriately he has a skull ring on every single finger, like knuckle dusters to intimidate you. But he’s jolly.
Albert is at the rally after all.
“I’m retired now, so I get to grow out my mustache and dye my beard,” he says. “I’m Hulk Hogan in New World Order while I’m here one week out of the year.”
Performers and a DJ in between concerts
“Escapism” is what Buffalo Chip performer Trish Rodgers calls it.
She moved to South Dakota two years ago and now makes more than $10,000 in a week dancing at Club Chip, a lit-up elevated bar that cranks its music in between sets on the Chip’s main amphitheater.
“We’re hype girls,” she says. “We want people to know it’s OK to dance and let loose.”
Ryan “DJ Hulio” Horan has been working the Chip for 14 years now and has been camping in the same spot there for nearly 25. He manages four dancers at the rally, each of whom needs compression socks and ice packs at the end of each night.
Rodgers had to be carried to her campground around 2 a.m. last year after fear of a hairline fracture on her swollen left leg. She danced the next night.
Horan, who’s a plumber when he’s not a DJ, takes care of them.
“This is my family,” he says.
He used to DJ at Creekside in the back of his camper, “shutting down the night” before running Club Chip all on his own. “It gets so wild, but there is zero mess here. If it wasn’t for the amazing security they have, I wouldn’t do this job. They’re fantastic.”
International Bikini Team founder Michelle Caton says she ensures the safety of her Miss Buffalo Chip contestants at the rally, too, who must stay together and not leave the grounds.
There are preliminary rounds every night, the top three of which will go onto finals Aug. 10. When they’re not competing, they bartend, wash bikes and take photos with the riders.
“The Buffalo Chip is an entire city in itself,” Caton says. “If you’ve never been to Sturgis, it’s unlike any other vacation you’ll have.”
Mayor, grand marshal welcome bikers
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Grand Marshal for the 85th anniversary was “whipper-snapper” Gloria Tramontin Struck. She turned 100 last month and can attest to the safe environment: She has eagerly returned to the rally as a “two-wheel traveler” since 1941.
“I’ve been a member of the Motor Maids since 1946 and am in the (Sturgis Motorcycle Museum) Hall of Fame,” said Struck, who was introduced Aug. 1 by Mayor Kevin Forrester during the rally’s opening ceremonies.
“Enjoy life, and don’t waste a day of it!” Struck said. “Make each day count a lot, and have a good time this week.”
The rally will continue through Aug. 10, with the Mayor’s Ride having taken place through the Black Hill on Aug. 2, performances by Gene Simmons and Saliva on Aug. 3, Military Appreciation Day on Aug. 4 and the Biker Belles Women’s Day on Aug. 5.
Wyatt's Lemonade at Sturgis rally donates more than $100k to St. Jude
PIEDMONT – Bikers come to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally to party, but they might stop for some lemonade first.
Rally regulars have likely seen the yellow billboard and big yellow flag while heading west on Interstate 90.
When the Dennis family moved into a new home in 2019 off Sturgis Road in Piedmont, South Dakota, then 7-year-old Wyatt told his parents he wanted to give away lemonade to bikers the following year.
The young entrepreneur knew a parched audience when he saw one. Within five years, Wyatt’s Lemonade has donated more than $101,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one cup of Country Time lemonade at a time.
‘So many life lessons in saving and giving’
Wyatt, now 12, just wanted a $100, 500-piece Lego set.
Mom Robin and Dad Devin told him if he worked hard at his lemonade stand that first year, they’d buy it for him.
The Legos were paid for after the first day. Then, he made $700 that week.
The family decided to save some of that money for his college fund and then donate $200 to his charity of choice, St. Jude, a nonprofit pediatric research center where families receive free treatment.
“The stand has taught so many life lessons in saving, giving and spending,” said Robin, who sits with Wyatt every day at his stand, 8 miles outside Sturgis. Otherwise, “it’s his to run.”
“He’s carried over things he has learned into school, like public speaking or problem solving,” she says. “It’s fun to watch him be his own unique person.”
By year two, after the stand gained extreme traction on social media and made national news, Wyatt finished up with $32,500 in donations.
“Our busiest day ever was in 2021,” Robin said. “We poured 80 gallons of lemonade in six hours.”
Famous visitors
In 2022, he donated $21,000. In 2023, he donated $21,568; and last year, he donated $26,000, surpassing $100,000 in overall donations to St. Jude.
This year, he’s including four new charities to also support: Mission22, combatting veteran suicide; Dogs Inc., which trains service dogs; Piedmont Fire and Ambulance; and Western Hills Human Society.
“I think it’s cool that my stand continues to grow,” said Wyatt, who still has the original Lego set today and now is hoping for a vacation to Missouri.
He wants to visit the original Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World in Springfield and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
“This wouldn’t be possible without people coming to see me,” Wyatt said. “I’m always open to talk to anybody."
In 2021, he had a chat with former Gov. Kristi Noem. This week, Gov. Larry Rhoden came to say hello.
They’ve already served over 2,000 bikers and have gone through 165 gallons of lemonade. Wyatt’s stand will continue through Aug. 8.
“Sometimes we get so busy making sure things run smoothly that we don’t reflect on what’s happening here,” Robin said. “I’m just amazed at what my son has accomplished in six years. I’m a lucky mom that I get to experience this with him.”
Meet 'Cherokee Chuck': Tattoo artist and family have been inking rally-goers for 30 years
STURGIS — When you arrive at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, whether it is your 50th trip or your first, be sure to get off Main or Lazelle streets. The stories are even better inside.
You’ll find line dancing inside the Oasis, pizza that arrives in 2 minutes at Gas Monkey Garage, a church-hall-like luncheon at Bare Knuckles, a mean game of pool at Sidehack and a live feed to an Iraqi military base at Broken Spoke so soldiers “can attend Sturgis in spirit.”
But inside Rosini Gypsy Tattooing, on the corner of Junction Avenue and Main Street, “Cherokee Chuck” Shaffer is in the front corner finishing up what is likely his, “oh, who knows, maybe half a million?” tattoo for yet another rally-goer.
The customer has been here many times before and specifically asks for Shaffer.
“I’m just trying to keep Rosini’s dream alive,” Shaffer says.
But he’s a rally legend all his own.
Just as the rally is celebrating its 85th milestone anniversary this year, Shaffer is celebrating his 30th.
The ‘old man’ who started it all
R.J. Rosini was the “tattoo shaman,” Shaffer says, the founder of what was then called R.J. Rosini and Co. Tattooing Gypsy Tour in 1983.
He was a 6-foot-3, “cantankerous” master tattoo artist who was unmistakable at motorcycle rallies and tattoo conventions worldwide. It was there he would find his next prodigy. He discovered Shaffer and his wife, “Mama Chris,” in 1993. Shaffer started working officially for Rosini in 1995.
Like an initiation, not anyone could apply for a spot at Rosini’s tattoo shop in Sturgis. You needed to “be found,” Shaffer said of Rosini cherry-picking his employees to join his tattoo community.
“We’re so proud to be part of his work,” Shaffer said. “He chose us, you know?”
Rosini died at the age of 63 in 2003, “same age as I am now,” Shaffer says. Rosini died of diabetes and fittingly at a tattoo convention in Vancouver, Washington.
“When he died, the entire tattoo community shook,” Shaffer says, while looking up at a dedication wall in the back of his tattoo shop. There, guests can see the history of the tattoo shop for themselves, decades’ worth of group photos from past tattoo artists, some of whom are still there today.
“Every year we take a photo to hang here,” Shaffer says. “So, if someone has died, they are memorialized. This is just a giant brotherhood.”
Rally brings in numbers that could reflect a years’ worth of work
Rosini Gypsy Tattooing is open year-round, but for the rally, the staff triples. Shaffer says no one gets a day off, and collectively, they knock out more than 100 tattoos a day.
The average age of the customer is about 18 or 20 years old, Shaffer says. In South Dakota, you can get your first one as early as 14, with a parent present.
“It’s unreal how many times I’ve put the name of my hometown on someone’s body,” Shaffer says.
Other popular tattoos to “commemorate their trip” include Harley-Davidson logos and quotes or prayers on a shoulder or leg.
Shaffer has “Gypsy tour forever” taking up his entire back (done by has late brother, Mikey), and “Gypsy 2 R” lettered on each knuckle. Inked backward on his belly is the copy of a handwritten “coffee pot love note” from his wife: “Have a great night, love you.”
“Now, I see it in the mirror when I get out of the shower,” he says.
They’re just family
His 34-year-old daughter, Skye McRae, does most of Shaffer’s tattoos. She’s been tattooing since she was 13 years old and is known today for her airbrushing and aurora borealis-like tattoos.
“I had no formal training,” says Shaffer, who did McRae’s first tattoo: a skull and bones with a pink bow atop the skull. “But now I can train her.”
McRae’s booth is the one in the far back, splashed in magenta pink to match her hair. There’s a photo of her as a toddler on the wall and a pink couch where she sits with rally-goer Sherri Williams to dream up Williams’ next tattoo.
It’ll be of a dogwood flower and a cardinal bird.
“When a cardinal is near, an angel appears,” said Williams of North Carolina.
She and her husband visit the rally every milestone anniversary. He was getting a chain around his arm at the same time up front.
“Never break the chain,” Williams said of their seven-year marriage.
What tattoo would you get?
Tattoos can serve as souvenirs from a memory, intimate for the one who wears it and hard to shake.
When you’re sitting there getting one done, you’re already thinking about your next one, says customer DeShawn Lawrence.
She was getting a flamingo on her ankle in honor of her 6-year-old son and “444” near her thumb in honor of her husband.
“For better, for worse, forever,” she said.
He was getting his next.
For Shaffer, his memories come from the work he’s done. He’s tattooed Gregg Allman, of the Allman Brothers; “Superman” Dean Cain; Vanilla Ice; and Johnathon Davis, from Korn. He met celebrity tattooer Lyle Tuttle in 1997 and was mentored by founder of the National Tattoo Club of the World, Edward “Philadelphia Eddie” Funk, who did Rosini’s first tattoo in the early ’60s.
“It’s such an adventure working with Chuck,” says Izzy LaPlante, a California-based veteran artist at Rosini Gypsy. Rosini discovered LaPlante the same year he found Shaffer.
“You just never know what’s going to happen here,” LaPlante says
Sturgis locals hide inside century-old Moonshine Gulch saloon
ROCHFORD – Todd and Debbie Proctor don’t even own a motorcycle.
They live along Mystic Road, about 35 miles south of Sturgis, South Dakota.
It’d be a pretty drive, up Rochford Road and north on S.D. Highway 385.
But no way, Todd says. He and Debbie have lived in Mystic since 2021.
“We know better,” he says, speaking for the fellow locals of the Black Hills. “You can’t even drive through Sturgis. We stay right here.”
He holds a beer and hangs out with his buddies at the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, a century-old bar in the unincorporated ghost town of Rochford, South Dakota, south of Sturgis. It’s the only working establishment alongside a convenience store “mall” across the street and Happy Dog Café, owned by Debbie.
Tourists have surely driven through the historic mining town, and Sturgis Motorcycle Rally bikers have been stopping by during their rides through the Hills.
“We just happened upon this,” said Wisconsin rider Robert Nieves.
He’s in town for the 85th annual rally with a few other guys and got stuck in a gnarly hail storm the night before. Driving back from the Boar’s Nest south of Lead, they ran onto the patio of the Moonshine as a refuge from the ride.
“This reminds me of home and has been our favorite place on the whole trip,” Nieves said.
The history of Rochford, South Dakota
Rochford established itself as an official mining district in the late 1870s. It quickly turned a profit from what was then called the Montezuma Gold Mine and a stand-by 60-stamp sawmill producing nearly one million feet of lumber.
But the nostalgia came and went. At its peak, Rochford had a population of 500 with a church and butcher shop, a few saloons and a pool parlor, two hotels, a theater and a drugstore. They even had a couple newspapers and a railroad that ran through it.
After their first resident died in 1904, the town dwindled to less than 50 residents. A century later, about 20 residents held on.
Yet the dim lights of the Moonshine Gulch Saloon still flicker, and the front door still squeaks with every swing.
“The rally really helps us make it through the year,” says owner Amanda Olson.
She and her husband, Jim, keep the story alive, with their three kids even helping out in the back.
During rally week, Rochford picks up. The community hall next door opens for a home-cooked breakfast, and folks stop into Debbie’s coffee shop to pick up saloon souvenirs.
Olson’s 9-year-old daughter runs a lemonade stand for passersby, and there’s live music outside the front porch daily.
But no wonder the traffic keeps coming. Just this past spring, the state finished up a 10-mile reconstruction project paving the road between Rochford and Deerfield, toward Hill City.
The road passes Deerfield Lake, and Todd says it will soon be “the new scenic loop.”
Remembering long-time owner Betsy
For nearly 50 years, the late Betsy Harn was the one to uphold the saloon’s notoriety.
Beginning in 1977, she hand-pattied each burger and cut every potato, “never spent a dollar on advertising,” and even brought in fawns during the cold winters.
Todd says when he came in from deer hunting, “even if the lights were off,” she’d be in there and welcome you for a drink.
For a while, she didn’t have beer on tap and so would stock coolers on the porch. She didn’t buy liquor but let the locals bring their own and sneak it into the back. Harn died in 2023.
“I don’t remember it ever being closed,” said Ron Conrad.
He’s from Rapid City and has been coming to Rochford “since I was a kid.” He was having a drink at the bar with his son.
“Their chicken wings are great,” he said.
The rally has changed a lot, Conrad said. “It used to be just a Sturgis thing,” but now many small towns in the Black Hills have their own “mini rallies.”
Go to Hill City, he said, or make your way to Hulett, Wyoming, where the town of 300 people brings in 25,000 “old-time” bikers for its annual Ham-N-Jam, a Main Street barbecue during the Wednesday of the rally every year that used to be called “No Panties Wednesday.”
You’ll still find police officers with handlebar mustaches on horseback and free pork sandwiches and beans at the Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar.
“I mean, go visit Sturgis,” Conrad said, “but then get out of there.”
In 2005, country stars Big and Rich made their way to Rochford to shoot their “Big Time” music video at Moonshine.
There’s photos of Big Kenny and John Rich arm and arm with owner Betsy on the wall today.
“I sing my songs in the sunshine,” the lyrics go. “Captain and cokes and bar room jokes keep me feeling fine.”
It’s a fitting song for the comforting saloon on Rochford Road. There’s a fireplace in the back, claw-foot couches by the window and rocking chairs on the porch to enjoy the “peace and quiet in the wilderness,” said traveling biker Jeremy Garbisch.
Visitors can try to nab the $385 pot for Shake-A-Day or come for the homemade pulled pork sandwiches.
It’s all part of the “Moonshine magic,” owner Olson said.
Gene Simmons brings subdued rally revelry to the Buffalo Chip
STURGIS — It’s hard to accept that “The Demon” in KISS is not immortal.
The towering, vampire-like performer prowled the stage for nearly a half-century, managing to beguile crowds with his 7-inch tongue, his raspy scream and blood boiling out of his mouth as if he was dying right in front of fans.
He looked like a nightmare and performed like a dream, but “open your eyes, baby,” Gene Simmons says, having shaken off a decades-long hangover and a kink in his neck from the 30-pound dragon armor he donned.
While the monster sleeps, Simmons arises nice and easy now. He’s witty, affectionate with a side of raunch, thoughtful and funny and looked like he just wanted to hang out when he performed the night of Aug. 3 for thousands of bikers at the 85th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
“This is much easier now,” he says of his one-man show as The Gene Simmons band. “It makes me feel good.”
Simmons ‘introduced me to music’
Touring as part of the American rock band KISS, Simmons says “it was a traveling city,” with private jets, three double-decker buses, 20 45-foot tractor trailers, 5 miles of cable and more than 60 people to help set the stage for one show.
“When I was a kid, there was always that mote,” he said earlier in the week while hanging out with his five dogs in one of his houses on the West Coast.
His favorite metal bands Sly and the Family Stone and Loving Spoonful were untouchable, “where the enemy is coming right up to the castle but he can’t get in because it’s surrounded by alligator-filled waters."
“With my solo band, the draw bridge is down and anybody can come into the castle with me and have lots of fun," he said.
On Aug. 3 at The Buffalo Chip, he welcomed all 10 contestants from a bikini contest earlier that night — still in swimwear and that’s all — to sing along with him. There were no pyrotechnics to turn anyone who came on stage “into shish-kabobs,” and Simmons’ two guitarists Brent Wood and Jason Walker joined the girls on the same mic, like it was karaoke night in a small-town bar.
He asked the crowd what they wanted to hear, sang covers from Motörhead and often hung his sunglasses on his black T-shirt collar so he could wipe his sweaty jowls.
Then he quieted down the crowd to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne, only for them to rev their engines in respect.
“KISS introduced me to music,” said Blake Griffin, who with his fiancée, Hannah Hotchkiss, stood in the best seat in the house that night, hanging over the Wolfman Jack Stage at the Chip and bouncing in place like he was about to enter a boxing ring, his adrenaline unhinged.
He was wearing a cut-off KISS T-shirt he bought in 2008 when he last saw them perform and had a tattoo of The Demon on his lower left shin. This was his first time seeing Simmons onstage alone.
“He loves Gene Simmons more than anything,” Hotchkiss says of Griffin. “I’m so happy he gets to experience this.”
A redefining of rock shows
Simmons turned KISS into an omnipresent brand. Even if you had never listened to “Rock and Roll All Night,” “Beth” or “Shout it Out Loud,” you knew their makeup and most definitely saw someone dressed like them for Halloween.
“All that legacy stuff is self-aggrandizing,” said Simmons, 75, cooly forgetting that he was unapologetically, arrogantly indulgent his entire rocker life. “The only thing I ever hoped for, and that the band ever hoped for, was to raise the level of quality in a concert experience.
“With the advent of better technology, we decided to put all the money we made back into the show, and, yeah, that included flying off the stage and some pyrotechnics.”
Their daredevil approach redefined rock shows, “broke the barrier for what a band is supposed to be,” he said, and built a legacy for Simmons whether he wanted it or not.
Gloria and Graham Thompson traveled 1,500 miles from the Florida panhandle to weave through Needles Highway during the day and hit every show at the rally at night. They didn’t even mind that it was Simmons without The Demon persona.
They came for the nostalgia.
“We’re just old people enjoying our old age,” Graham said.
They parked their hog right in the front row for Simmons and had not moved since 6 that night. (Simmons came on around 10:30 p.m.)
“And we love it,” he said.
The KISS brand lives on
Last year, music investment firm Pophouse Entertainment purchased the KISS brand, including its entire music catalogue and trademarks. Simmons said he’s excited for the $300 million acquisition because now there will be Broadway shows, documentaries, comic books and “a chance to spread my wings and do whatever I want for s*** and giggles.”
Simmons also runs a chain of Rock & Brews restaurants and casinos, of which he started with KISS bandmates, and co-founded his own film production company in 2023 with producer Gary Hamilton. Simmons/Hamilton Productions has already finished their first horror film, “Deep Waters,” slated for a release later this year about an airplane that crashes into shark-infested waters.
The thriller persona will never completely die.
Today, Simmons’ face is on wines and vodkas, Harley-Davidsons and motor bikes, condoms and Tumblers, lunch boxes and even your own casket, if you wish.
But he’s no demon. He’s just the perverted grandfather who can still rock out in the garage with you. He’ll purse his lips, thrust his hips, grab his crotch, tap his metal boots that curl, then give you an endearing wink like he was in on the prank all along.
“We’re all here just to have a good time,” he said. “And this tongue can still whip up a good g--d--- froth if you want it to.”
Let’s go, girls: Biker Belles celebrate Women’s Day in Sturgis
STURGIS – In the 1998 Walt Disney film “Mulan,” the main character Fa disguises herself as a male so her chances are better to fight in the fictional Imperial Army and to prevent ruthless bad guy Shan Yu from invading China.
Alas, it was the reveal of her true female self that helped Mulan save her country. Lesson learned.
But the Biker Belles would never waste their time hiding at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally like that.
Their braids hang long behind their helmets, their pink bikes sparkle and they themselves roar in unison.
“Sturgis is such a misogynistic place,” says 26-year-old Hannah Stout-Ortega, who just received her motorcycle license. “And this is our response to that. There is so much more to women than being objects to look at.”
The Biker Belles is an informal group of women who connect every year at the rally like a family would for Thanksgiving. And the 85th anniversary of the rally marks their 17th year taking up space on SD Highway 14A.
Fellow bikers might have gotten a whiff of their perfume as they zoomed by, but that’s the point of a strong women’s ridership, says Biker Belles founder Toni Woodruff.
“We wanted a place where women could feel safe and connected,” she says. Woodruff is the daughter of Buffalo Chip owner Rod Woodruff. She uses her family space as a “home” for women.
Women’s Day at the Rally was Aug. 5 at the Chip.
“This is not just about riding,” Toni says. “A motorcycle is often a vehicle of change in women’s lives and its own little magic.”
Charity ride preserves history of female riders
Leave it to women to disturb a stereotype and use their empowerment for good.
Toni hosts an annual women’s charity ride at the rally, supporting the “the preservation of this history and to raise awareness of the women’s role in motorcycling.”
Their ride supports three South Dakota-based charities: The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum, Helping with Horsepower and the internationally known Jessi Combs Foundation.
They have thus far raised a quarter million dollars to give more than 50 scholarships for female college students and young riders.
With Biker Belles, the Sturgis Museum continues to expand female exhibits. Helping with Horsepower was founded by modern-day adventurer Laura Klock and assists female veterans through equine therapy, and the Jessi Combs Foundation honors the late professional female rider.
In 2019, Combs died at age 39 while attempting to set the record as the fastest woman on earth, reaching 522 mph riding her 56-foot-long jet-powered North American Eagle at the Alvord Desert in Oregon.
“She was my best friend,” says foundation executive director Dana Wilke. “Jessi was the sweetest bad*** who was always smiling and always positive.”
In 2017, Combs became the first female Grand Marshal at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and in 2015 co-founded the Real Deal Revolution, a nonprofit that “furthers women’s roles in skilled trades” like welding, leather stamping and pinstriping.
“We’re revealing to this world what we’re capable of,” says foundation ambassador Stout-Ortega. “We’re showing off confidence and abilities that we already possess.”
‘L8RBOIZ’: These professional riders smack stereotype in the face
Nearly 200 women showed up for the morning charity ride Aug. 5, including this year’s 100-year-old Grand Marshal Gloria Struck, female business owner of TEAM DIVA Amy Skaling and Accident Scene Management founder Vicki “Spitfire” Sanfelipo.
She’s best known in the female biking world for her advocacy in reducing injuries and fatalities to motorcyclists.
But there were newcomers, too, like stunt rider and YouTube bike show creator Cody Renee Cameron, who displayed her leopard print 2006 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 at the Chip and has more than half a million followers on social media.
A few months ago, Cameron was the only woman to complete seven days of off-roading with 25 other guys during the annual Scram Africa ride in Morocco.
She rode 1,500 miles to the rally with seven other women.
“These women can freaking ride,” Cameron said. “They moved through the canyons like they were one giant serpent!”
The bike display Cameron was part of was founded by 34-year-old Becky “Axel” Goebel, the first woman to be invited into the Born Free Motorcycle Show in 2022. She built a 1948 Panhead Chopper with a 1947 Harley-Davidson transmission and a 1954 frame, all on her own.
Her license plate says “L8RBOIZ.”
“Sturgis is a weird place when you’re a girl,” says Goebel, who also owns 12 motorcycles and the clothing brand Axel and Co.
“It feels like you went back in time here with a lot of men,” she says. “It’s not that fun, but that’s why it’s important to have women here to say, ‘We are here, and we need to be respected.’ ”
Welcome to the Buffalo Chip: Rally ‘headquarters’ host rockers, campers
STURGIS – Think of one of those harmless, Friday night keg parties in high school.
The ones in the cornfield with only the headlights of your car diffusing the night sky. Maybe a few more trucks show up with friends hanging off the tailgate, tires spinning in the mud. Someone’s playing the guitar.
But the next time, they come by the hundreds. Word gets out that it’s a pretty good time. Then, the next time, they come by the thousands and suddenly Ozzy Osbourne is on stage and says, “How did I not know about this friggin’ place?”
And this is how the legend of The Buffalo Chip goes.
“It’s just a special place for an awful lot of people,” says founder and CEO Rod “Woody” Woodruff.
He opened the campground in 1981 as a place for Sturgis Motorcycle Rally-goers to retreat to after the city wanted all the bikers to howl in the night someplace else.
Turns out downtown Main Street was the promenade while the Chip was the party.
They welcome bikers from around the world once more for the 85th anniversary of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota through Aug. 10.
Who’s bringing the guitar tonight?
From Jerry Lee Lewis to Marilyn Manson
The Sturgis Buffalo Chip is unofficially known as the rally headquarters every August. There you’ll find tents pitched and RVs rolling in for nightly concerts, more than a dozen motorcycle shows, beach parties and beauty contests, and a stunning display of 800 American flags to honor the nation’s veterans and active-duty military members.
It’s more than 600 acres of “motorcycles, music, freedom and friends,” Woodruff says, and it’s “simply the best party anywhere for the nicest people on the planet.”
Michelle Caton, founder of the International Bikini Team, hosts nightly contests on the Main Stage and says the atmosphere at the Chip is unlike anything else she’s experienced at any other rally worldwide.
“This is an entire city in itself,” she says. “You could stay here during the entire rally and have the time of your life.”
Woodruff says he has room for “one million more RVs” and speaks as if he doesn’t even mind more than half a million people will be coming to belly up at his bar and on the picnic tables and definitely dance on top of them.
But they’re all his “lifelong friends,” and you’ll make plenty, too, he says. “It’s like a reunion every year.”
Music at the Buffalo Chip started humbly four decades ago, with concerts “for a few hundred people” by Jerry Lee Lewis and Susie Nelson (“Yep, that’s Willie’s daughter,” the inaugural poster read in 1982). But it’s grown a bit since that “keg party in the pasture,” bringing to the stage Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe, Tim McGraw and ZZ Top, Poison and Billy Idol and the self-proclaimed “Buffalo Chip house band” Lynyrd Skynyrd multiple times over.
This year, newcomers Marilyn Manson and Gene Simmons will perform.
“We like to surprise people,” says Daymon Woodruff, Woody’s son and current president of the Chip.
He grew up backstage, “born during a ZZ Top concert,” he scoffs. Daymon experienced true mentorship working alongside his father from childhood, learning an appreciation of “all types of” music and people.
“We consider ourselves happiness counselors,” Daymon says. “We just want people to feel free to express themselves and get away from all the doldrums in the rest of their life.”
Daredevils and bikes on fire
The performers are equally unhinged. For the rally’s 70th anniversary, PeeWee Herman zip-lined onto the stage during the 2010 Miss Buffalo Chip contest. And in 1992, amateur stuntman Robert Foley lit one of the Chip’s old outhouses ablaze so he could ride his bike through it.
On Daredevil Wednesdays, stuntmen will light themselves on fire and strap themselves to a limousine “like a hood ornament” to jump the Rusty Nail Bridge – and make it. They have 22 firewalls, highwire walks over the crowd, and a wall made of Monster Energy drinks for minibikes to barrel through.
In 2011, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fell off the stage and broke his shoulder. In 2005, Toby Keith played in the rain. Woody says as soon as a single rain drop hit Keith’s “brand new hat,” it just hit hard, with 50mph winds and 4 inches of mud.
“But everyone’s attitudes were so positive,” Woody says. “They spent three hours sliding down the hill in a mudslide. Such good moods out here.”
Keith went on to return to the Chip five times.
Like the senior guests who honk their horns after every song during a municipal band concert, Woody says the crowd will rev their engines when they like what the artist is doing on stage.
“It’s the power of applause in itself, only magnified,” Woody says, as if it wasn’t rowdy enough.
Looking out for their Black Hills community
But the Chip is a sanctuary. The Woodruff family hosts a Freedom Celebration on the Thursday of every rally, a tribute to military veterans and active-duty members.
It began after army lieutenants showed up in 2005 to tell a couple that their son had just died in combat. Fellow active-duty members camping at the Chip put on their uniforms right there to have a missing man ceremony with the parents.
Another veteran who had been coming to the rally since the 1960s told his wife he wanted to be buried at the Chip when he died. Last year, he came for the last time, unwell and in a stretcher from his home in Fort Meade, to visit his friends at the Chip. He passed away shortly thereafter, and folks will have a memorial service for him this year, Woody says.
Woody and his family also low-key have raised more than half a million dollars for Black Hills charities like the South Dakota Special Olympics and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.
He’s given nearly $20,000 in scholarships for students at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota, and also founded with his daughter, Toni, the Biker Belles, an annual rally fundraiser that celebrates female motorcyclists with mentorship, networking and a morning ride around the Hills.
But Woody and Daymon are just bikers like the rest. Woody has “a whole garage full of ’em,” and Daymon switches out between his 110-dirt bike and Ducati Scrambler. They live at the campground during the rally and always have the beer on ice ready for first-timers and the ones who will always return.
“We’ve got folks who tell us they stay in five-star hotels and can’t wait to get home,” Woody says. “Here, they stay in a tent in the middle of nowhere and never want to leave.”
The legend of the Chip will get you like that.
The oldest-living South Dakotan was at the first rally over 80 years ago
As published in the USA Today on Aug. 1, 2025.
STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA – At the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it’s not all bikinis and debauchery.
Some just come to feel the omnipresent rumble, to wave to the bikers and to take in the smell of fried food and fuel.
And they come back for it year after year (after year).
This year's 85th annual rally is expected to bring in a record number of guests, surpassing 700,000 bikers who will crowd Main Street in Sturgis, South Dakota Aug. 1-10, filling the campgrounds, mingling at the Buffalo Chip, looping through the Black Hills and screaming along with ZZ Top, Gene Simmons, Nickelback, Jason Aldean and Marilyn Manson.
Some of them may pass by the home of a local woman who won't make it this year, but has been a part of Sturgis lore since the beginning.
'Fascinated' by motorcycles since 1938
At 109 years old, Hazel (Bush) Baumberger is the oldest living South Dakotan and a longtime admirer of the rally. She was there for the first one in 1938, when she and her husband, Art, heard about dirt track races in the Black Hills and choked on dust for a few days.
Local Indian Motorcycle dealer Clarence “Pappy” Hoel founded the rally with nine stuntmen bikers in 1938. Before that, Sturgis hosted horse races in the 1870s. Hoel continued to evolve what began as the Black Hills Motor Classic, from racing and stunts to live music, bike shows and rides through the Black Hills.
According to the City of Sturgis, demographics for the rally today hover around 62% male riders and 37% female, around ages 45 to 65. The city sees up to 20 times more traffic, especially during the second and third day of the rally, and top visitors come from New York, Texas, California, Wyoming and Colorado.
Baumberger, though, doesn’t own a motorcycle. She doesn’t wear leather. And, no, she never made it to one of the infamous rock concerts at The Buffalo Chip outside of town.
What to know about the rally: Bikers head west for Sturgis' milestone anniversary
But you would’ve seen her on Lazelle Street, and she’d always don a rally T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson pin on her lapel.
“Motorcycles fascinated her,” said Sandra Griese, Baumberger’s 79-year-old niece who still spends time her with “Annie” every week.
“I don’t even know why, but she loves the chrome, and she loves the noise," Griese said.
And the rally came to love her.
Hells Angels and temporary tattoos
Baumberger was recently named the South Dakota Centenarian of the Year, a title she bestowed last year as well.
She’s the longest-serving member of the South Dakota Health Care Association’s Century Club, and she’s still a chatty and chipper resident at Peaceful Pines Senior Living in Fort Pierre, South Dakota.
“She manages to amaze us every day here,” said Jalen Bame, executive director of Peaceful Pines. Baumberger has been living there since it opened last year.
But she has so many stories to tell, how could she idle?
Her last visit to the rally was in 2015, when she rode in on the back of her great nephew’s Harley-Davidson at 99 years old.
“It was the most wonderful day I ever had,” Griese recalled Baumberger saying then.
But, oh, the other wonderful days she had. Her nephew Jim Bush lives in Sturgis and served as the city’s police chief from 1990-2016, a safe guide for Baumberger through the chaos.
On one of her annual trips to the rally, Bush told her the Hells Angels motorcycle club was riding through town, and she insisted on having a look.
He drove her and her sister, Rose – a longtime travel companion – downtown and told them to stay on the sidewalk.
“But ... they wanted as close to those motorcycles as they could get,” Griese said.
Her great niece, Michelle Kohn, said Baumberger was once asked if she would’ve gone on a ride with one of them had they offered.
“Hell, yeah!” Baumberger said.
“She’s fearless,” said Kohn, who plans to attend the rally this year with her Honda Rebel.
Her nephew, the former police chief, often threw her in the back of his police cruiser to parade her through town. She’d roll down her window and wave at all the passersby.
“You know,” she told Bush, “I bet everyone thinks we’re drunk and going to jail.”
And she loved the attention nonetheless.
Baumberger was likely the most innocent darling of the rally. She never really drank beer, never camped, maybe gambled in a bit a bit just to pull down the lever and hear the jingle of the machines, and only managed a fake tattoo on her arm.
“But she did try to convince her friends at coffee that she and Rose got a real one,” Griese said. “They had a bang out of that.”
Someone get her some leather
Baumberger was a farm girl, first in rural Onida, South Dakota, and then helping her husband on his farm with cattle and labor. She still owns their farmland today.
She never had any children but her 14 nieces and nephews would take turns driving her to the rally after she couldn’t drive herself anymore.
She never remarried after Art died, but she led an annual Bush family reunion for nearly 90 years.
Griese said she was “very flashy,” dressed well and always pressed her jeans “with the crease down the middle.”
But she never donned a Harley-Davidson leather jacket (although the company did send her some swag once, many stickers of which adorn her walker at Peaceful Pines).
Last year, her family organized a “Rally for Hazel,” inviting bikers to stop by Peaceful Pines so she could see the motorcycles and maybe share stories. There was cake, lemonade and poker chips.
There are no plans for another drive-by for Baumberger this year, but perhaps the centenarian will listen for the growl of a hog still, her lullaby as she rides toward yet another decade.