HOG HEAVEN! Live Updates From Sturgis 2015
Hog Heaven! The Ride Home
There comes a time when all good things must come to an end. Even though the party will continue until Sunday, some folks have had their fill and are Sturgis-ed out or as I like to say “Rally, rally tired.” You know when you start to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it’s time to call it quits.
But instead of dreading the long ride back, it’s time to chart a new course for the roads less traveled while you eventually make your way back home. I mean what’s a couple of extra hundred miles or so, right?
You know when you start to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it’s time to call it quits.
I met a couple of riders from Virgina today and they rolled into Sturgis last Sunday morning and spent a total of three hours there before cutting out. “We got our T-shirts and had enough,” they told me. They felt the same about the scene in Deadwood and that’s perfectly understandable. Sturgis is an overload for the senses and definitely not for everyone.
The gang from Virginia did enjoy visiting Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devil’s Tower and Yellowstone before heading back home and that’s great. I had a blast and you can spend a day or week there and still not see all that the crazy, little town of Sturgis has to offer.
That said, I was seriously tempted to ride up to Montana, the only state I haven’t visited yet in the Continental U.S., with my new pals from Texas but they left a day too soon. So I broke camp, said my goodbyes and headed west on Interstate 90 towards Big Horn.
The winds in Wyoming can be really strong at times and I thought I popped a wheelie at one point on my trusty Road Glide. I was cruising along doing about 80 mph, struggling to keep my bike on the pavement when a shirtless and helmet-free guy on a Softail sails by me doing at least 95 mph without a care in the world.
Anyway, I happily got off of 90 and took 16 west through Big Horn which is a beautiful ride if you are heading to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I hung a left south at Highway 789 towards Thermopolis, Wyoming home of the World’s largest Hot Springs which produces 127 degree mineral water and is also an amazing run along the Wind River Canyon and River.
I spent the night down the river in the town of Riverton, but in retrospect Thermopolis would be the best place to spend the night. There are a number of hotels and plenty of camping spots there too.
The next day I continued south on Highway 789 past the town of Lander and then switched to Highway 28, a lonely road that cuts past the old mining towns of Atlantic City and South Pass City. At the town Farson, I took 191 south and stayed on that road all the way into Utah. It started raining in Eden, Wyoming and continued for the next couple of hours until I made it well past Dutch John, Utah.
I made a wrong turn in Duchesne and ended up taking 40 West to Herber City and then 189 south to Provo. It’s a beautiful ride but added plenty of extra miles to my trip. I wanted to continue riding home on secondary roads but jumped back on Interstate 15 to make up for my lost time.
I ended up spending the night in Fillmore, Utah after a nasty storm around sunset practically blew my Road Glide sideways toward the Best Western. It had a pool and a hot tub, so I was very happy camper for the night.
Got up early the next day and rode like the wind to get home before nightfall. It was pretty uneventful from there except for a few retired gents I met back in Beaver, Utah while gassing up the Hog. They left Sturgis on Wednesday and were taking their time back to San Diego on their Road Kings.
They didn’t hit any rain at all and we traded stories about One-Eyed Jacks and other points of interest. A woman that worked at the gas station noticed my Wyoming magnet on my tank and gave me a free “I Heart Beaver” one to add to the collection. It made my day and I flew through the rest of the state, through Arizona, Nevada and the heat of the Mojave desert until I finally made it back into California at last.
Naturally, there was a ton of traffic and I ended splitting lanes to get home by sunset – but I made it. The Harley-Davidson Road Glide made it a real breeze and I highly recommend it for cross-country rides and adventures. Thank you Amber, thank you friends and thank you Harley-Davidson!
Got interesting tales, photos or advice about Sturgis? Let us know in the forums.
Check of the latest photo gallery from the road and more photo galleries from Sturgis below.
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Hog Heaven! Weekend Update
Are you ready for the weekend? As we enter the home stretch of the 75th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it seems here that just as many bikers that leave for home, the more bikers roll into town to take their place.
An estimated 400,000 people attended the Sturgis 50th Rally and over 600,000 made it to the 60th year event. It certainly looks like this year’s rally will easily beat those numbers, maybe even combined.
If you are planning to stick around Friday, here are a few of HDForums Best of Sturgis music events to check out:
Hank Williams Jr. will be performing at the Easy Riders Saloon on Friday at 7 pm. Def Leppard will be rocking at Buffalo Chip at 10:30 pm and The Cold Hard Cash Show performs again at 11 pm at Easy Riders.
Have fun, be safe and ride like the wind!
Hog Heaven! Boot and Rally
It rained again on Wednesday with a major thunder and lightning storm, which did not stop the bikers from enjoying another good time at the 75th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Everyone at the bar traded stories between beers, cocktails or even Jell-O shots.
I met bikers as far away as Australia who rode down from Alberta, Canada to a German living in Charlotte, South Carolina and a couple of good old boys from Tyler and Amarillo, Texas.
Bob from San Diego, California only got as far as Barstow, California when his Harley died because he ran it without oil. He called his buddy John, who has a pickup and talked him into hauling it to Sturgis. And they did.
Sturgis isn’t just a destination; it’s really a gateway to some of the most beautiful highways and monuments in America. There’s Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota or you can visit the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. It’s really a must see and I saw hundreds of bikes yesterday on the road making their way through the Black Hills to see it.
I’ve already visited Rushmore, so I decided to check out the nearby Crazy Horse Memorial, which was packed with hundreds of motorcyclists too. It’s adjacent to Custer State Park which is an awesome ride that loops around and will take up and around to the biker friendly Hill City.
The best roads to see these sights are 14A south to Deadwood and follow 385 South all the way down until you see Crazy Horse. It’s an incredible ride through the hills and you might want to stop and take a dip in the Pactola and Sheridan Lakes.
The road is extremely curvy in spots, so take your time and watch out for other riders. Check back for more photos and updates and our Best of Sturgis roundup.
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Hog Heaven! Rain, Ride, Repeat
The 75th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally survived the rain storm and the bikers lived another day to party and raise some more hell. The rain cleaned most of the grime off of my Road Glide so I made a quick ride to Deadwood 10 miles away for breakfast.
The twisty ride through Boulder Canyon and the Black Hills is spectacular. Deadwood is a more polished version of Sturgis and feels like the set of a movie. There are casinos, bars and the old library there is a great spot for used books, air-conditioning and Internet.
By the afternoon the sky was starting to match the Black Hills, so I high tailed it out of town and back to Sturgis. Hundreds of bikes just keep on rolling down Main Street. If you are trying to get anywhere in a hurry it is best to use the side streets where you will see even more parked bikes and tent cities.
Later in the day, I checked out the Black Hills Half-Mile Flat Track Racing at the fairgrounds and spotted a couple of awesome vintage racers. Dirt track racing is dusty, loud as hell and awesome. The riders are insane too. Bring goggles and earplugs if you are so inclined.
Back on the strip the motorcycles continued to roll by as bikers wandered in and out of the town’s bars and restaurants. New Year’s in Times Square, Mardi Grais in New Orleans, Carnival in Barbados will not prepare you for Sturgis. It’s a wild party on two wheels.
A Dominos recently opened on Main St. selling $3.50 slices and beers, so you know it won’t be long before other chains move into town. Granted if you come any other time of year things are usually pretty quiet.
Tonight One-Eyed-Jack’s is still the most popular bar and best place to be, but just past Main and First Streets across the street from the police station a group of musicians called Music for the Soul built a stage on someone’s lawn flanked by two big oak trees and sang the blues for the crowd as the bikes rumbled by.
If you are looking for something completely different, check out the Dungeon Bar, the craziest bar in town. The beers are $5 bucks, the walls are covered with graffiti, it is dark, strange and very twisted.
A real punk rock vibe permeates the scene. There’s a beer garden out back and once you are good and drunk, there’s a room to get your body painted or your latest tattoo. Good times.
Check out our latest gallery from Sturgis below.
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Hog Heaven! Day Three: Sturgis!
I woke up to sounds of a half dozen Harley firing up at once and Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” on a radio. Over a hundred motorcycles were parked in the Motel 6 lot in Casper, Wyoming and the roar of their engines continued for the next hour or so.
“I’ve never been on a religious pilgrimage before, but going to Sturgis on a Harley sure feels like one.”
I took Interstate 5 north and rode the now bug covered Road Glide through the winding Bozeman Trail west through the great grasslands until I got lost. I found the Yellow and Gold Trail, Highway 50 north, and eventually ended up in Gillette, Wyoming next to Interstate 90.
I had hoped to take the back roads into Sturgis but at least now I could get there faster. Red asphalt covers patches of 90 and I full throttled it across the rest of the state, but do check out Devil’s Tower if you have the time.
I ditched my lid at the South Dakota border and joined the procession of motorcycles riding east. There were hundreds of them and the numbers steadily increased the closer I got to Sturgis until eventually the bikes easily outnumbers the cagers.
I’ve never been on a religious pilgrimage before, but going to Sturgis on a Harley sure feels like one. I happily joined the devoted brother and sisterhood into town.
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is quite intimidating at first sight, but the best way to see it is by joining the parade of motorcycles into town. It crawls down Lazelle Street from the Interstate to about Junction Avenue. There are crowds of people, some half-naked, selling t-shirts, motorcycle gear, beer, food and everything else you can imagine. “Cars Suck” stickers? You got it.
While the majority of bikes are Harley-Davidsons, there are a few brave Indians, Hondas, Triumphs and Kawasakis sprinkled into the mix. I asked a Goldwing rider from Canada if anyone hassled him because of his ride and he said no, he had been coming for the past four years without a problem.
Amber, my borrowed Hog, may not have a reverse gear like the Honda’s but I would never trade her in for a camper with two wheels. Motorcycles of every size, shape and color can be seen on the main drag; black is the most popular followed by blue, orange, silver, red and what the hell is that?
I managed to find a last minute camping spot two blocks from all of the action on a jam packed front lawn. Joe the owner tells me he hasn’t seen this many motorcycles in town in the last 30 years. While Harleys are plentiful in Sturgis, Internet access is virtually non-existent. So I parked my bike and do what the locals do and checked out the bar scene.
One-Eyed Jack’s Saloon is one of the best and has the friendliest and sexiest bartenders in town. The bar cover band was rockin’ too. The Knuckle Saloon is carnivorous and a good spot to watch the traffic roll by. I had a cheeseburger and a Fat Tire at the Easy Rider Saloon where Quiet Riot had just performed. My brunette bartender was wearing a tight silver tube top and a pair of jean chaps with black undies that read “F**k it like you stole it.”
It was the best seat in the house and not a bad place to be. Well, until it started to hail ping-pongs and downpour like hell outside.
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Hog Heaven! Day Two: The Race Against the Sun
I left the warm, happy comforts of Beaver shortly after sunrise. Despite the freshly baked cookies and good recommendations from the owner, the promised free Wi-fi was non-existent at my motel. So I set off for my nearest Starbucks, which ended up being in the town of Spanish Corner, about 150 miles away.
“Don’t look at the guard rail unless you want to go there. Look away from it and keep your eyes focused on where you want to go instead,” says Bobby the biker.
I was tempted to take Highway 6 east through the mountains to mix things up, but stuck with Interstate 15 and hung a right onto Interstate 80 east outside of Salt Lake City to make up some time. I could feel the cool, breezes from the Wasatch Mountains on my face and the heat from the Road Glide’s engine and pipes felt good.
The road is curvy and steep here and the scenery is pretty spectacular. It’s not as scenic as taking Interstate 70 east to Denver through the Rockies, but I wanted to mix things up on this trip. There was a major wreck that shut down Route 80 and backed up traffic for nearly five miles around noon. I tried splitting lanes for a while but between the midday sun pounding on my head, balancing an 849 pound bike and my clutch hand cramping up, I decided to follow a gang of bikers riding on the shoulder.
Sadly the accident involved two motorcyclists and I can only hope that they survived the crash. Later in the day I met Bobby and Mary from Sacramento, California at a rest stop and they were kind enough to share their cold water with me. They had passed the accident as well and saw the mangled bikes on a flat bed tow truck too. “Don’t look at the guard rail unless you want to go there. Look away from it and keep your eyes focused on where you want to go instead,” Bobby recommended.
Good advice, I agreed. I snapped some photos of their beautiful black Harleys, a 2010 and 2015 Ultra Classic, and got back on the road. I felt rejuvenated, despite my throttle blisters and continued on my ride east. There was a lot of construction on 80, so it was slow going across most of Wyoming.
A young buck made a successful dash across the Interstate as the sun was starting to sink and the 18-wheeler in front of me suddenly lock up his brakes. The ABS brakes on my Road Glide performed extremely well and there is surprisingly a lot of stopping power in the rear as well as the front brakes. The deer blend in extremely well with the prairie grass here, so that made for a tense ride for the next couple of hundred of miles.
I crossed the Continental Divide three times, twice on 80 and again on 287 north of Rawlins. It was great to finally be off of the Interstate and on a true, blacktop two-laner with no billboards or advertising of any kind. Just nature and plenty of big sky. I finally felt relaxed and now I had to just get to Casper before nightfall.
It was mostly deserted except for locals and a few bikers in the know. I passed Devil’s Gate on the Sweetwater River and stopped to snap a few photos of the setting sun. I hate riding at night so rode as fast as I could to beat the last light of the day.
A large, coiled snake slithered across the dark Highway 220 just south of Casper and I barley missed running it over. I was glad to be wearing my thick, motorcycle boots and decided camping was not an option for me tonight. I continued riding for another hour or so in the dark to get to town. The high beams on the Harley-Davidson Road Glide made it a lot easier to see and be seen.
The sun may have beat me today, but tomorrow I will be in Sturgis.
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Hog Heaven! Day One: Escape from L.A.
Packing for a road trip can be a bitch, but thank God for baggers. My 2015 Harley-Davidson Road Glide tester comes with deep, hard saddlebags that can even hold a three pound, two-person tent. I ditched my sleeping and tank bags to keep things light for the 1300-mile trip to Sturgis, South Dakota from Los Angeles, California.
Naturally I waited until the very last minute to pack and ended up trying to carry stuff I don’t really need. In addition to a tent, the Harley’s bags can easily hold an extra pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts and plenty of other gear. They also lock and are waterproof, which came in handy later in the day outside of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Overheard at the Renegade Lounge in Beaver, Utah: “Is the popcorn fresh?” Bartender: “I popped it yesterday.”
I took Interstate 5 north from East L.A. up to the curvy, 110 to Pasadena and then the 210 to the 15. It was cloudy but the sun was shinning by the time I passed Mt. Baldy and made the climb to Summit on the 15, where the Joshua Trees wave like stick figures on the side of the road. The decent into the Mojave desert was scorching hot by late morning. Note to self: If you are not wearing gloves – use suntan lotion!
I saw a lot of bikers on the road as well as a number of Ford F-150s pulling trailers with lots of bikes on them. Just as I crossed the state line into Nevada, I saw a huge bolt of lightning, the temperature dropped and the sky opened up with rain. Fortunately I brought rain gear and was able to continue through Las Vegas relatively dry and cranked some tunes on the Road Glide’s booming stereo system to stay alert. The GPS, Bluetooth, and phone charger are also pretty handy.
The rain ended after an hour and I sailed through Arizona without any other issues. The bike has a sweet spot in fifth gear around 3200 rpms and the engine sounds incredible. The crosswinds in southern Utah suck but the motorcycle performs like a champ when you give it enough throttle and lean into it. Sadly, the speed limit was recently lowered to 80 mph from 85.
My plan is to head north through Utah and hang a right at Salt Lake City and head for Sturgis on Interstate 80 but I only made it as far as Beaver, Utah which ain’t a bad place to be on a Saturday night. Who doesn’t love Beaver, right? The birth home of Butch Cassidy is still standing there too.
After seeing the sights, I stayed at the recently remodel Motel DeLano & RV Trailer Park, had a tasty Country Fried thing at Arshel’s Cafe and a nightcap at the colorful Renegade Lounge. The blonde bartender was recovering from the previous night’s biker invasion. “Got anything to eat?” asked a biker at the bar. “Popcorn.” she said. “Is it fresh?” he asked. “I popped it yesterday.”
