I awoke a little dry in the back of the mouth which is usually a clear sign I had been snoring. God help anyone within a hundred yards of our tents - they'll get no sleep for the next few days. I pulled back the tent flap and peered out into the early morning light. It was going to be a clear, and probably, hot day. The camp was still quiet and like all camping grounds the trick is to get to the showers as early as possible to beat the rush. I did. The facilities here at Lamphere Ranch are excellent. The shower block was real handy just behind our tent site. It had about 15 shower cubicles and about 10 toilets and looked less than a year old. They were clean and well set up.
Lamphere is right beside the more famous grounds such as Buffalo Chip and Glencoe and is a family owned farm that has branched out into the campground business for the Sturgis Rally. The pace here is a little more relaxed judging by the absence of the endless engine revving going on at the campgrounds next door. Lamphere don't host live music but you are right in the middle of the campgrounds that do. That means you don't have to go far to enjoy the bands but can still get away from the alcohol fuelled mayhem when you want to. At the end of the camp road is the Full Throttle Saloon, right next door is Glenco and over the highway is Buffalo Chip. Free buses operate between Lamphere and Sturgis township so getting around is not a problem if you want to have a few beers and kick back. Needless to say we did - but first things first - breakfast down at the General Store.
The General Store is the hub of the campground. Cold beer, hot food, cold beer, real coffee - yes real bloody coffee made by a barista (that's a person who knows how to make real bloody coffee - including lattes and cappuccinos for those of you who don't drink real bloody coffee) - it also sells groceries and did I mention the cold beer!
It was about 8.30am and we sat down to a cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash brown potatoes that cost $5 each. All washed down with more of that real coffee I mentioned before. Around us were about a 100 bikers seated in an outdoor dining area that comfortably accommodated all of us. We had already decided that today was going to be "bike free" and that we would head straight into Sturgis and find out if it really was worth travelling 25000 miles to see. We made for the free bus pick up area and immediately hooked up with some great guys we had met back in Cody two days earlier. Already chugging on a six pack each they were there to party. Pretty quickly the bus arrived and we off into town. This bus is put on by the local town council and it came complete with a big ice bin full of beer which you could buy for $4 a can. Now this is 9.30 in the morning and I gotta say the big guy and I had put a few down the night before - but what the hell - we ain't gonna be doing this again anytime soon - give us six pack darlin!
The bus ride in took us out on to the highway and we made pretty good time into Sturgis even though there were bikes for miles front and back of us. A cool idea was supplying us with marker pens so we could all sign our names on the bus roof and walls. The LOSTBOYS MTC was quickly scribed and from what I could see there was no one who even came remotely close to travelling the distance we had to be there. It was hot, the beer was cold, the company great and we were at STURGIS.
As we approached Sturgis township the first thing you notice is the number of little old houses rented out to bikers for the week. Harleys covering every inch of lawn, deck chairs out with coolers full of beer nearby - people just kicking back and watching the circus ride by. You then start noticing the bars - there balconies already full of more people watching the circus ride by. The traffic was now down to a crawl but that gave us a chance to start to get our bearings and take in where the action was. The bus dropped us off on the other side of town just at the bottom of Main Street. The first person to greet us was Gretchen - I think this is going to be a great day - for the boys at least.
Bikes, bikes and more bikes. Right now this is the centre of the Harley universe and we were right in it. We started on a slow walk down Main Street. It was packed and this was only the first official day of the rally. As we walked it was shop and stall one after the other selling great merchandise. I think we made it about 20 yards before we were buying Sturgis gear. As we headed further down the street you began to get the rhythm of the place. First the soundtrack. A constant cadence of big V Twins providing the background sound punctuated by the full throttle of a Harley doing a burnout in a nearby street. Bikes tightly parked on the angle both sides of the street and down the middle as far as you could see. Around them walked and milled thousands of bikers and the odd local - everyone taking in the bikes and each other. In a great big oval formed by the parked bikes you had the wannabees, the posers and the show offs riding the length of the street on highly polished show bikes and novelty bikes - and man there were some amazing machines.
This is right at the bottom of Main Street. The real action is further up. None the less there was plenty going on even this far down - I'll let the photos do some of the talking as we moved up the street.
While the girls sorted out some more leather gear the big guy and I thought we might as well get to know some of the locals. Unfortunately most of them seemed to have very little on so children close your eyes
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In case you didn't notice those blue pants are only painted on god dammit!
These breasts are also painted on - apparently by some lucky barstard with a flair for the abstract style. No Claude Monet but some nice touches none the less.
One of the big events at Sturgis this year was the long awaited release of the new Indians. The Indian brand has been resurrected by Polaris (who also make Victory) and going by what we saw in Sturgis these bikes are serious competition for our beloved Harley Davidson Motorcycle Company. They had completely taken over the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and the new Indian Chief looked pretty spectacular. Still - no matter how good they look right now they ain't been doing it continuously for 110 years. Go the Motor Company!
I guess it would be easy to come to Sturgis and not really get out of the bars and the rock venues but to do nothing but that is to deny yourself a unique opportunity to see a side of life that may look different to the outside world but is inherently at the soul of why we ride - those fantastic bikes and the statements they make.
As the time rolled slowly by and the late afternoon settled on Main Street we decided it was time for some food. Like everything else here big is big and that went for the turkey drumsticks we spied and decided we must have. One each was glorious - two was madness.
We picked up some pretty special gear today. Apart from some great T shirts, bandana's and leather gear the big guy bought a set of TAB pipes for his Road King. Now these are something else and very hard to get back home. The cool thing was we got to meet the guys who actually make them and talk about their products. I had tried to import a set of these for my V Rod Muscle (when I had it) but it was just too hard so I knew how good they were. The Road King will sound fantastic.
As for me I picked up some fantastic chrome extensions (like the ones above) for the hard panniers on my Classic Ultra and a state of the art Primo Extreme HD sports camera.
We spent the whole day walking these streets mixing it with the people, man and machine. Biker girls, biker guys, outlaws, 1% ers, lawyers, Doctors, hookers, car salesman, policemen and us. No one gives a damn about what you do. Many want to know where you come from, as if to work out whether you are a rider or a poser and in that regard we had a good story to tell. As sunset began to fall we caught another bus back to the camp and with no real time to reflect on the day that was - it was off to the Full Throttle Saloon. I will tell that story next. Bring it on.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT - The Full Throttle Saloon - more sights from the rally - riding the Badlands - Mount Rushmore - the Crazy Horse Monument and more.
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