From a ‘Sturgin’: What I learned (and saw) at my first bike rally

If you bring ear plugs to the Sturgis Bike Rally, you’re missing the point.

For the 85th anniversary, I was the “Sturgin” in the crowd – a first-time rally-goer. And it was obvious.

I didn’t wear fishnet tights like other women did. I took selfies with motorcycles, got caught staring at all the tattoos I didn’t have and winced whenever I’d come out from a shop on Main, like stepping into Narnia.

The ground shook underneath a days-long parade of hogs, and the choppy idling at the stop signs gave me goosebumps.

But the racket turned into a comfort. I tossed my lame ear plugs into the overflowing garbage cans, and, alas, it’s a little too quiet now that I’m home and safe from the lane-splitting bikers giving me anxiety up and down Highway 14A for a week straight.

The first day, I was proud to report how nicely everyone was riding. The second day, and from then on, I was appalled by the arrogance on the road.

(There were also more amateur, stiff-seated bikers than pros. The old guys are “aging out,” I hear, and don’t want to put up with novices. It’s a different rally than it used to be, I heard even more.)

I prepared for the trip the way a parent prepares for Disney World. As a journalist, sure, you can just show up and start listening (everyone loves to talk about the weather and where they’re from, if you can hear ’em above the roar), but it wasn’t enough to wander and people-watch.

I started calling businesses and vendor owners, tattoo artists and police officers, first-timers and old-timers, group rides and swimsuit contests and Deb Holland, from the City of Sturgis.

City Hall on the corner of Main Street and Junction Avenue became my refuge, and she became my rally godmother.

This is how I felt in control of the chaos.

From dawn till it was time to party and over again

I’d write every morning and grab coffee from the darling staff at the Sturgis Coffee Co., each of whom dressed in a rally theme each day: Lace, glitter, camo or leather fringe. It was content gold to watch bikers with their chaps and bandanas having coffee and muffins with a bikini car wash across the street.

Afternoons were a street fair of demos at the Harley-Davidson tent, bikers doing belly shots at the Jack Daniels tent and wet T-shirt contests at Sidehack, always a long line at Dixxon Flannel Co., lemonade stands and carnival corn dogs on Lazelle Street and deafening trick rides at Full Throttle.

It was either “3 rally shirts for $30,” “4 rally shirts for $40” or 50% off leather whips.

Many used elaborate body paint for their shirt and that’s all (I had to once look twice to see whether it was a real leather vest or … nope).

There were tattoos being drawn up in window fronts (my favorite was a guy getting eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids) and massage chairs next door.

Many rode from dawn until it was time to party, the riders in the back holding up their 360 cameras through Needles Highway, the Wildlife Loop and the Badlands.

It’s a ride even more than a rally. You don’t like the noise in town? Make some on the open road.

Nights were when I wish I’d kept the earplugs, a ringing in my head the new lullaby after slasher concerts and heavy metal at The Buffalo Chip.

Bikers don’t clap, they rev their engines when they like the song.

The Chip was the frat party that everyone wanted to get to: bike stunts, campground kumbayas, “beach” parties, and an incredible night club that didn’t match the crowd at the Iron Horse downtown.

In Sturgis, no one is left out.

I'm just happy to be here

The rally is over-stimulating, a sensory hangover I will be nursing for days. It looked like happy-as-hell 60-year-olds on an overdue spring break, smelled like fried onion rings and stale beer, sounded like Ozzy Osbourne tributes in one ear and AC/DC in the other, tasted like motor oil and cigarette smoke and felt like a sunburn on my shoulders and a jackhammer on my chest.

But the gaiety was most palpable. Everyone – even the street vendors, the traffic controllers and Moody County Sheriff Pat West himself – was so happy to be there. It’s the way all of us feel on vacation but more unbridled than that. Inhibitions gone and invasiveness simply not a thing, there was pride among the bikers for the secret society they all were clearly in.

Sewing machines on the sidewalks were humming all week for new patches on leather: a badge of honor, a medal from a rally well done. The most I counted on one jacket was 44, from a man who said, “I didn’t even miss the Covid year.”

Most didn’t. Attendance numbers have hovered around half a million for at least the past five years. Traffic count for this year was at 537,458 (one more if you count me.)

Now I get to be the one who raises her eyebrows when someone tells me they’re a Sturgin. I got a lot of, “Oh, boy!” and, “You’re going to see a lot!”

I did. You will. Only in Sturgis is there bleachers in front yards so neighbors can watch the motorcycles growl by, paperwork that says I won't expose a nipple, a woman using hand sanitizer after her meal but sitting at the sticky bar with no pants on and profanity a love language like the teenager who just figured out he could start using the F-word.

Speak freely, ride freely and feel free in Sturgis.

Then deal with the earache later.