If you ride your bike thru Sturgis S.D. today (3/27/15) it would take about 5 minutes to cross town. If you make this same trip during rally week, it could take as long as an hour. Yep, traffic is that heavy during the rally. The reason for this is because several major campgrounds are east of town and all traffic going any direction except north, must travel thru town.


This year (2015) Sturgis will host the 75th rally and attendance is expected to exceed one million visitors! The population in Sturgis today is somewhere around six thousand. This small city does very well to handle the crowd each year but numbers don't lie and traffic is nothing short of a nightmare during the rally.


The Sturgis community took a vote this month to decide on a tax revenue to widen and pave a gravel road project named Fort Meade Way. This road is currently known as 131st street on maps. It would have ran from hiway 34 at the northwest corner of the Buffalo Chip property south to exit 37 on I90. Fort Meade Way would have basically solved traffic jams in town once people learned about the new road. Fort Meade Way would have been located in an absolutely perfect place to handle the rush.


The vote failed and this road will not be built for the 75th rally, unfortunately.


Fort Meade Way would have allowed all campers in Broken Spoke, Buffalo Chip, Glencoe, Full Throttle Saloon and a handful of smaller campgrounds an easy route that would save countless hours stuck in city traffic. The best argument in favor of this road was better access to the Fort Meade S.D. VA hospital and of course, handling rally traffic.


When I saw the vote had failed I was a little pissed to say it nicely. But after I thought a little more it became clearer as to why the local people did not want the new road.


You see, almost all of the revenue gained at the rally really does not stay in Sturgis and the locals don't make the kind of money off us as you would think they do. All major campgrounds are owned by out of state companies who take the money and run after the rally ends. Vendors are the same, mostly owned by visiting companies that pack up and leave as soon as the rally does. The only real benefiting people would be local hot dog and snow cone vendors who actually live in South Dakota. Yes, some local home owners rent out their house during the rally and flat leave on vacation just to avoid the crowd and make a couple bucks (free paid vacation.


When you think about it, why would the local people take on a 7 million dollar project just to save us time for two weeks a year? The state has deemed this road unnecessary as a state hiway so it would be the burden of the county for construction and maintenance after.


Yep, Fort Meade Way would be very nice to have, but it cost a lot of money and no one wants to pay.


If you are planning to attend the 75th this year, I suggest you get one of those grip strengthen spring things and start working your left hand. You're gonna need it when you cross town on your bike this year.

 

If you don't mind riding on hard compact gravel there are other roads to ride to avoid the traffic of downtown Sturgis heading to the campgrounds. Your bike will get dirty/dusty riding on these gravel roads and I don't recommend riding on them if it's raining or the roads are wet. You'll see some beautiful county that other people are missing. I'm referring to the various roads that lead to Alkali Road that runs into 34.

Read Avoiding Sturgis
http://www.buffalochip.com/NEWS-INFO/Maps

 

Hey, hey, hey. Now you are just talking crazy insanity stuff.
Getting bikes dirty and dusty after all these "bikers" have trailered them across the nation to get there?
Next time, stop and think before spouting off such gibberish ...