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"South Dakota Department of Transportation officials tracked more than 462,000 vehicles entering Sturgis during the rally. Though the total was a 7.5% decline from the previous year, it is still one of the largest mass gatherings since the start of the pandemic."
It's a pretty good bet many, if not most, of those vehicles were counted more than once, really, lots people stayed somewhere out of town and rode in several times during the rally. But it would be the same every year.
Went for the first time this year. 3400 miles in 10 days up from Central Texas. Went with my brother in law who went once before in 2005 I believe. I had a blast. It's all about the riding and man we did it. We took the westerly route up through New Mexico, Colorado and Breckenridge. Seemed crowded to me but being my first time I have no barometer. Went to the Full Throttle one night, Sturgis one day, and the rest of the time was riding and riding and then some more riding.
Our longest day was 741 miles. We stayed in Shade Valley east of town. If I did it again I'd stay out west near Deadwood or Lead someplace.
The Dyna ran great, I wish I could have kept going another few days. More road stories than I can even remember or accurately describe.
They don't rely solely on the vehicle counters to estimate attendance. They weigh the trash going to the dump everyday as that more closely correlates to people present. They still may be inflating numbers. Hard to tell because unless it is a ticketed event (say like the Daytona 500), you really don't know how many people are truly present.
I was surprised when they (Rapid City paper & SD) announced 462,000 so quickly. In the past 30-45 days before their guesstimate was the time frame. Maybe they have politicians counting this year. I was there this year and the traffic did seem a bit lighter; that's a good thing.
I came home and donated at the Red Cross, got the Covid-19 test. I was Negative, that's also a good thing.
We stayed in Rapid City at the beginning and at the end of our trip, it was less congested than Daytona in my opinion ( 1st time there ). Super easy to get around....
We should hope the rest of the country is that low.
oh its much higher than 70 for sure. but no worries only 180k have died right? I guess unless a family member doesn't drop dead then f@@k covid right? I wonder how many of the 180k that died were exposed from the f@@k it crowd. oh..and the hurt on our businesses in hot spots while the f@@k crowd walk by on their way to the crowded beach.... wow
if we practiced common decency toward each other and followed science and not have politicized this pandemic we would be much better off ... in terms of deaths and our economy... but you know we got the f@@k it club out there. A 100 people can cause 20k cases across the country... how many of those 20k could die? It's a shame the lack of common decency we show to each other in this country
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