What is it like at the Sturgis Rally? Part 3

One thing you need to understand about Sturgis, SD, is that it's a little like Brigadoon, the mythical Scottish town that appears for only one day every 100 years. The analogy is not exact but essentially, Sturgis is a tiny town on the prairie for 51 weeks out of the year and then suddenly, for one week, it becomes the biggest city in South Dakota.

On our second full day in the area it was time for the OFMC to visit the epicenter: Sturgis here we come.

Understand that we've been to Sturgis before, just never during Bike Week. What we had seen was a downtown full of empty shops with just a few year-round merchants selling mostly left-over rally merchandise from previous years. One large biker bar, the Knuckle Saloon & Grill, is open year-round but it seems much too large for the business it does.

Then Bike Week hits and you wonder where it all came from. This town must have half a dozen huge bars, capable of handling 600-800 patrons apiece and they're all packed. You don't even know these places exist the rest of the year, as if they were those pop-up greeting cards that go from flat to three-dimensional in an instant.

All the shops are open, selling every kind of motorcycle-related merchandise imaginable. Thousands of bikes line every street, including two rows of bike parking in the middle of the main street. Traffic, even on the side streets, moves at a crawl because there is just so much of it. Homeowners rent out their lawns for visiting bikers to pitch their tents. Food and beverage booths are everywhere and they're all doing land-office business.

Most of the bikes are Harleys, but there is a significant minority of all other makes. The roar of bikes never stops. You look around and remark again and again that "Oh my god, I've never seen so many motorcycles ever in my life!"

So we pulled in off the interstate from Rapid City, in a long line of bikes exiting, and crept into the center of town. No way were we going to find enough space park all eight bikes together so we split up and then regrouped afoot. Soon, however, everyone was interested in going separate ways so we agreed to regroup in a couple hours at one spot.

Spending money is the chief activity in Sturgis, along with looking at bikes. T-shirts are for sale everywhere and everyone buys several. Tatto artists are busy plying their trade and suppliers of leather and chrome are doing all they can to increase the already high quantities of both in the crowd.

And then there's the bars. Staffed primarily by young -- and sometimes not so young -- women, leather chaps, super-short shorts, and leather bras are standard attire. And many of the bartenders double as performers, making sure their patrons are entertained and hang around.

We ate, drank, bought stuff, regrouped, split up again and did more of the same, and regrouped again and decided it was time to leave. Not to head back to Rapid, mind you, but to hit the next hot spot we had learned about: the Full Throttle.

Billing itself as "the world's largest biker bar," the Full Throttle is a small town unto itself. Sitting outside of Sturgis a few miles, the bar offers everything from bands, food, cabins, stores, and more, including burn-out pits. Especially burn-out pits.

What the heck is a burn-out pit? Look at the photo above. You roll your bike into a screened area with the front wheel hard up against the barrier. Then you release the clutch, crank up the throttle, and spin that back tire faster and faster until black smoke comes belching out and ultimately a huge bang announces that the tire has blown out. Then you pay the Full Throttle folks to install a new tire and you ride off.

Now, I have to believe that most guys who do this know their rear tires are shot anyway, and they need to replace it before heading home from the rally, so this is just a cool way go about doing that. You have to see it to believe it.

One tip about the Full Throttle: Their prices are through the roof. Be prepared to pay $15 for a sandwich that would be overpriced at $5. But you don't go to Sturgis to save money.

Next: Campgrounds and thoughts afterward. 

Topics: motorcycle rides and rallies