STURGIS, S.D. (AP) — Thousands of bikers poured into the small South Dakota city of Sturgis on Friday as the 80th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally rumbled to life despite fears it could lead to a massive coronavirus outbreak.

The rally could become one of the largest public gatherings since the pandemic began, with organizers expecting 250,000 people from all over the country to make their way through Sturgis during the 10-day event. That would be roughly half the number of previous years, but local residents — and a few bikers — worry that the crowds could create a “super-spreader” event.

Many who rode their bikes into Sturgis on Friday expressed defiance at the rules and restrictions that have marked life in many locales during the pandemic. People rode from across the country to a state that offered a reprieve from coronavirus restrictions, as South Dakota has no special limits on indoor crowds, no mask mandates and a governor who is eager to welcome visitors and the money they bring.

“Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt being hawked. “I went to Sturgis.”

Bikers rumbled past hundreds of tents filled with motorcycle gear, T-shirts and food. Harley Davidson motorcycles were everywhere but masks were almost nowhere to be seen, with an Associated Press reporter counting fewer than 10 in a crowd of thousands over a period of several hours.

For Stephen Sample, who rode his Harley from Arizona, the event was a break from the routine of the last several months, when he's been mostly homebound or wearing a mask when he went to work as a surveyor.
“I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be cooped up all my life either,” he said.

Still, Sample, who is 66, feared what could happen if he caught COVID-19 at the rally. He said he was trying to avoid indoor bars and venues, where he felt the risk of infection was greater. But on the opening day of the rally, he said he ate breakfast at an indoor diner.

As Sample weighed the risks of navigating the crowds, the same thrill-seeking that attracted him to riding motorcycles seemed to win out.
“I think we’re all willing to take a chance,” he said.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has taken a largely hands-off approach to the pandemic, avoiding a mask mandate and preaching personal responsibility. She supported holding the Sturgis rally, pointing out that no virus outbreak was documented from the several thousand people who turned out to see President Donald Trump and fireworks at Mount Rushmore last month.

Daily virus cases have been trending upward in South Dakota, but the 7-day average is still only around 84, with fewer than two deaths per day.

The rally attracted crowds of retirees and people in age ranges considered to be at higher risk from the coronavirus. But for many who see the rally as an annual pilgrimage, the camaraderie and atmosphere couldn’t be missed.

“I fell in love with the rally. I love the sound of the bikes,” said Bill Sudkamp, who was making his 20th consecutive rally appearance.

He and his wife, who declined to give their ages but said they were at elevated risk for COVID-19, were among the handful of people seen wearing masks in downtown Sturgis, a community of about 7,000 that's roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Rapid City. They were also planning to avoid bars. Sudkamp felt it was inevitable that infections would spread in the packed bars and concert venues.

“It looked like South Dakota was plateauing mostly,” Sudkamp said. “It will be interesting to see what it looks like in two weeks.”

Marsha Schmid, who owns the Side Hack Saloon in Sturgis, was trying to keep her bar and restaurant from becoming a virus hot spot by spacing out indoor tables and offering plenty of hand sanitizer. She also scaled back the number of bands hired for the rally, hoping the crowds would stay thin but still spend the cash that keeps her business viable for the rest of the year.

She pointed out that many of her employees depend on the rally and the tips they can make.
“You’ve got people coming from all over the world,” she said. “I just hope they are being responsible and if they don’t feel good, they stay away.”

Several locals said they would be spend the rally hunkered down at home. Carol Fellner stocked up on groceries and planned to stay away from any gatherings. Her husband suffers from bouts of pneumonia and kidney problems, and COVID-19 would be a “death sentence” for him, she said.

Fellner felt that the risk of an outbreak would be felt long after the bikers leave. The city plans to mass test residents to try to detect and halt outbreaks, but the area’s largest hospital system is already burdened with the influx of tourists and bikers who inevitably need hospital care during this time.

Sample was aware his trip to the rally could end in the hospital, which seemed to weigh on him.

“This is a major experiment,” he said. “It could be a major mistake.”

Why did you post schit as fact from the AP

Hoping BLM and Antifa show up...

One of the LAST places those people want to be.

OMG, we conservatives could never be that lucky.....

Thinking out of the box.... I'd love to see a biker, replace our Queen/Governor ( the lesbian) here in Oregon....

and one for the mayor of Potlandia....

We were there last year, it’s amazing how many scooters there are.

Lol... most of those “bikers”, are make believe bikers that are senior citizens just pretending to be billy badasses.

When you headed to Sturgis to tell all them old fuggers that?

Go ahead and tell them that from handshake distance- - - - -be sure to have somebody else take video, since you won't be able to post it afterwards.

You appear sub human, what are you pretending to be?

Got two buddy’s who have been there several times, been bikers all their lives, one is a former chapter president for a 1% club. Be amusing to watch some idiot tell them they were make believe or pretending.

I know for a fact one of them would probably just smack the idiot unconscious with his helmet. Saw him do it to a guy just because the guy had smacked a local girl during an argument. They were passing each other on a set of stairs, and the he-man woman hater took a helmet to the side of the head and proceeded to tumble down the steps, out cold. Never saw it coming. Sturgis has a lot of pretenders, sure, but you better be real careful assuming that about anyone you see there.

We have a booth every year at Black Hills Harley and it's been record setting sales on guns and suppressors so far.

I gone about every year except 2 since 06....There is certainly a diverse group that attends and with that maybe some "Want to be's"....But I'm with Hotrod Lincoln on this one, it would NOT end well for "Some" if they were stupid enough to show up !!

The vote by the governing council was very close as to have it or not this year. Iirc, it was like 1 vote to proceed and have it.

It is quite an ordeal to see.

This is good news.

I’ve been several times and it’s always fun.
Unless it’s raining and cold,
Then it’s just kinda fun.
Ronnie

One very impressive good looking lady...
FOX: South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem praised the people of her state for working with her administration to both keep the coronavirus largely at bay, while preserving the state's economy and employment levels.
Noem told "The Ingraham Angle" that a dangerous way to potentially "lose the country" is for other state executives to "overstep" boundaries and restrict universal American freedoms in the name of virus mitigation.
"What works is washing your hands and making good decisions," she said, dismissing claims from Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chairman Neel Kashkari that another month's worth of lockdowns is best to mitigate the virus.
"I think what we are seeing there is encouraging leaders to make decisions where they will overstep their authorities and a time of crisis, and that's how we lose this country," she said.
Noem said South Dakota will be proud to host the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally -- which normally draws thousands to the state.

Washing your hands and face a couple times a day can do a lot of good for any cold season.
Of course if you are the sort to get a painted up you are going to resist washing your face.
As someone else said a hand washing not-see would do more good that the dirty diapers many are wearing around...

The 1%er wears a helmet?

Crickets..............

That's exactly what I thought.

From what I've heard about it, there's guaranteed to be a few super-spreaders in attendance...

Not really, it would be rewarding at the time, but the Marxists are dying (pardon the pun) to get themselves another Kent State moment on video.

www?

my hero

What no pictures.

Well 1%ers get tickets like the rest of us,

Hahahahahaha you have no life clearly, expecting an immediate response on a forum. Hey old timer, forums are different than “chat rooms”..

Im not afraid to speak my mind to anyone, like I said.... the vast majority of those “bikers” are pretending.

Why are 1%ers "real bikers" and the other 99% are not?

it,s wonderful out here. will be in town by 9 am. But all around so far, everything is so close to normal. Weather is excellent. Only had small hail once , no damage. I have the camera and hope to get a few good pix . (Tablet typing sux).. lol

I'd bet good money that there'll be at least one young (ish) woman wearing masks as a bikini top. Temporarily.

Have a good time Redneck!

Here’s a newsflash:

Sturgis is not taking place as an act of defiance. It’s taking place because it’s allowed.

If this is news then Sycamore is a man.

You could be wrong, I don't think Ejp1234 is going to go.

Both will be in very short supply in Sturgis for the next week.
This is my 29th year working the rally. If I could leave for 10 days every year during the rally, I would be gone.

Have had to deal with every type of "biker" that shows up from the 1% to the yuppies multimillionaires and everyone in between. Throw in all of the out of state vendors, think carnie people and you get a pretty good idea.

It is an incredible event, but I am over it.

I chose to live in a sparsely populated area for a reason, 10 days of the year we are not sparsely populated.

If you trailer your bike you might not be a 1%er.

There are two annual events that many/most locals dread: Sturgis and Mardi Gras. For the same reason.

Go sit back down on your boyfriend's lap. Men talking here.

You fugking moron.

^^^^^^

I like that, LOL

I'd add Burning Man to that list. It's not happening this year thank God.

Co worker headed there last weekend.

He may be required to quarantine for 2 weeks before he's allowed to return to work. I'm guessing unpaid or he's gonna burn a bunch of sick time.
Gonna get interest interesting if so.

Add the Calgary Stampede. We headed south to Idaho every year.

Country music’s “Fan Fair” in Nashville


Best place to go when that happens is Oklahoma....because they’re all here

Flee....stay off the roads, forget about going to Golden Corral

Last time I was there I watched a large flatbed trailer pull up and unload 8 or 10 bikes. In the meantime bad boys and girls filed out of motor homes and put on their bad ass gear complete with doo-rags and sunglasses to start posing for pictures. I started going in the 70's. Never with a trailer, but tent camping in that mess is getting harder at my age. There's still a lot of fun to be had if you take a notion to go, but it is certainly a cluster fk.

Why would he have to do that?

First went to Sturgis in the mid 1950s.The Old Man had a Knuckle Head with a sidecar WWII vintage.He rode with a group called the Jackpine Savages.All WWII Vets.Was pretty wild back then and no pretenders.That bike vibrated so much it took us three days to get there.I rode my first bike there with him when I was 15.A Triumph T110 hard tail.Lucky the Old Man had plenty tools in his side car.That was a vibrating SOB and every time we stopped for gas had to tighten half the nuts and bolts .We slept in sleeping bags wherever,no tents ,wherever we could.You had to have had those old bikes to appreciate what they make now.

Been watching the bikers and campers trailering bikes all week drive by on the interstate. Can't wait until they're gone, signals the end of tourist season here.

If it's "tourist season" is there a bag limit?

You poor pilgrims have no IDEA what a publicly attended clusterfluck is until you have dealt with the 'burning man' participants. A gathering to glorify the drug culture by entitled wealthy offspring of a totally worthless generation, all under the guise of "art'' and a "celebration of the free human spirit". I don't know about "free", last estimate they grossed 46 million.

The boss is a ninny. Scared he's gonna spread the 'Rona.

Still you are proving to be sub human. I suppose riding from Texas to party with friends doesn't make you a biker? What is your childish hormonal affliction with the term 1%er? Just because the vast majority of us are not part of a large MC doesn't make us less than them. Pretending in what way?

Suppose you have more than one bike? Beautiful place to ride, I have a long distance Harley and a deep corner Harley and both have their place in SD. Didn't get to go this year but went last and had a blast.

When I left Rapid City at the end of the month, the fat girls were already starting to get their Tinder accounts up and running

Oh, I see you're from Commiefornia....never mind.

In the 70's, the majority of the "new" bikes were Shovels, but we rode with a lot of Pans and a few Knuckles. None of the above was reliable enough not to need a good tool bag and some mechanical knowledge. Of course we rebuilt those bikes enough in the off season that it was no big deal to do a lot of it on the road also. New guys have it pretty good, but it's still perfectly normal for most of them to do a trailer trip. We were in hog heaven just to come and go with minimum problems. Lucky to even find a phone when you were in the middle of nowhere.

Youre right, that makes sense.

Post a pic of your motorcycle, I’m always interested in admiring the many different models and custom upgrades.

I think he means pretending to be an "outlaw biker". To me there is a difference between being a "biker" and someone who owns and likes to ride motorcycles.

Damn! Not a single pic.

Took a 300 mile round trip drive through Wyoming today, just got back. Roads packed with bikes headed up there .

What's wrong with trailering a bike? I've taken several West-wide junkets with my bike tied down in the back with the guns and skis. Nothing nicer than droning down the freeway with a nice coffee and sandwich, then pulling over and riding some snaky mess for a couple of hours, then load back up and drone on to the next good stretch. Oh, did I mention how nice it is to have tools and spare parts?
In fact, one time in Marin, my van saved me from a huge ticket. I entered a long curvy section just as a CHP was exiting, I was parked at the far end discreetly off the road just a little bit. RRRRRR screech, key, door, ramp, shove, shove, jump SLAM woop woop woop woop...... Phew, that was close. He came by again a few minutes later, but by then, I'd changed my clothes and had my second helmet out, and my story straight about what a great ride I'd just had.
And it WAS a great ride.

How many people show up?

I know right

No one has a smart phone?

Or a motorcycle...

I read today that in 2015 the attendance was 739,000. That's insane.

And it lasts 10 days. Ho in the world do they handle all the portable outhouses!! What a miserable job!

It is good to see all these bikers heading to Sturgis. I live right off of I-90 and the groups of bikes have been non stop. Not a biker myself, but am glad to see so many out doing what they love, when so many wish to keep us from just that. Orange man bad, you know!

And where do they dump all that schit?

The rumble of bikes on Rt 16 south of Rapid is as loud as in heavily attended previous Rallys.

https://youtu.be/d66NPsy_MPg

Lots of these seen too:

Sturgis City Council really doesn't have that much to say. The bikers were already coming regardless of their decision. The Harley Dealership, Rally at exit 55, already were at 90% confirmation on vendor space by the time the Sturgis lords made their decision.

I live in the Black Hills about 25 minutes from Sturgis. It's a fun event and people watching is a hoot. But will say, where else can you go where there's 350,000 visitor and extremely little crime.

The number of attendees is a guess. Sturgis uses the weight of the trash along with other metric to estimate the "official number". But more and more people are spending less time in Sturgis and more in the surrounding towns. For example, venders consistently say they do better business at Black Hills Harley, Rally at Exit 55, than they do in Sturgis. Towns like Hill City and Custer have jumped on the bandwagon. And the town of Buffalo Chip, yep that's a venue large enough to declare themselves their own town, have visitors that stay there instead of venturing into town.

I saw something on Yahoo about native areas trying to restrict bike travel around Sturgis- - - - -have they started playing bikers and Indians yet?

For every young person, there will be a 100 old ones from what I saw last year.

I'd be in favor of obliging them...

Live feed from the Hotel Sturgis

See flintlocke's post on page 3 or so.

Although the local businesses are surely hurting this year. Booze sales at the big grocery are easily going to be WAY down year over year.

Fuel and bottled water too.

The Burners bring a big wad of cash to our little county every year.

What some don't realize, more than a few of the club members switched to full face helmets instead of brain buckets after a few years of the regs requiring a helmet.

Much easier to go incognito. 99.9% of the time they're not flying colors, so it's harder for the Po-po to know who's on the bike. But it was still kinda strange to see a dude on a "chopper" wearing a full face helmet.

Not to mention many of them club members now enjoy the comfort of a tricked out bagger. The really cool bikes are saved for funeral rides.

Night Ranger

Woooo yeahhhh, bang yer head ...sister christian ...total mayhem

Theyre so excited they can’t decide if Monday is on the 9th or 10th

Night Ranger, lol. Get wasted



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Bone Thugs and Harmony on the 11th.



Wonder if anyone’s told them yet (BT&H)

Seen at Sturgis

I live about 1/2 mile off the I -90 can't hear 1 cycle right now at 7 am. Been up on the roof and outside for the last 2 weeks the numbers are down no matter what the MSM asshats say. Only been here for 36 years last 20 working for the DOT and 20 years at the present locate. Our Governor took the right approach on the Covid but it is rising to to peak projections as I type were seeing increased positive tests every day, plateau my ass. My younger brother comes out every year and rides all week, he also thinks the numbers are way short. Over the last 10-15 years a lot of the Sturgis goers show up 1 -2 weeks early to ride the area and enjoy the Black Hills. The surrounding area without the party crowd or all the rally crap these are the folks that benefit the local economy not the ones who come during the rally to buy trinkets, t shirts,over priced food and lodg
ing. The real truth is the business heavies decided that the rally must go on for the money they don't care about the covid risk or what risk it makes health wise to the people who live here. The vast majority of residents in this area who make no money from the rally don't give a f*ck if there is never another one. You know I wouldn't bs you guys. MB. 7:28am still damn few on I90

Large crowds have never appealed to me. Even when many of those in the crowd and I have something in common, that doesn't mean I want to live with them. We thought about attending Sturgis in 2015 but, after a couple of scouting trips, I decided I didn't want to be there along with 3/4 million others. I have attended a couple music festivals and have come to realize I would just as soon sit in my chair and listen to a CD. Nowadays, the only gatherings I am likely to attend are rifle matches of various sorts.
I like the Sturgis area but I don't think I would want to visit during bike week. GD

Exactly what I told my buddy about riding out in that area. We went a few times, but it was getting crazier every year. Mount Rushmore, the caves, Needles and Spearfish Canyon, Devils Tower, Deadwood, the Custer battlefield... are all out there year round. I like nice bikes as well as anyone but once you’ve seen 10,000, seeing 100,000 isn’t ten times better.

You’d have to define “biker”, but if you mean 1%er, some say they don’t mind a large number of riders as it provides camouflage.


I’m obviously not a 1%er, but I believe its relatively common knowledge that 1% stood for the percentage of bikers that were outlaws. The first thing that comes to mind is a lot of places aren’t allowing 1-piece cuts of any kind in their bars/restaurants, so colors may have become a hassle to wear. The second thing is allegedly, a number of trailers and vans enter the area empty and leave full. People write that 1%ers sling meth and pimp hookers (don’t know, myself), but the old timers freely admit it was about living free, partying and building scoots, which meant getting parts...which meant liberating bikes from rightful owner. I wouldn’t entirely dismiss 1%ers driving trailers to Sturgis.


That’s what my dad said. Then he gave me the evo-powered 58 FL (in 2002) and I found out for myself. My girlfriend (now wife) and I lost a number of nuts, bolts and attachments. The engine always ran, but we were stranded several times. All character building, but I eventually got a Fatboy...and then moved on to the Road Glide.