Sturgis - great sights, sounds and other sensory delights

Ó David Vance - 2001

  1. Open primaries.
  2. Slow-idling shovelheads.
  3. Any knucklehead - or a real Indian.
  4. Cleavage and cute butts.
  5. A really old guy riding any really old motorcycle.
  6. Great rat bikes - shovelheads or older, not Evos.
  7. Christian bikers and their free ice water.
  8. The Sturgis post office - rally cancellations and an open booth on Sunday.
  9. Mr. Al and his vendor buildings on Main Street.
  10. Bulwinkle and his aftermarket parts tent - on Junction, just south of Main (absent in ’01).
  11. Noon photos by Keffler’s, the photo shop just south of Bulwinkle (gone in ’01).
  12. Gunner’s and The Pyramid - biker beers at their best.
  13. The tenacious sign-carrying elderly lady who hawks breakfast at the Senior Center.
  14. Body webs.
  15. Anyone kick-starting any bike.
  16. People who respect your bike’s space when they park on Main street.
  17. The persistent, ever-present Turbulator guy in the alcove on Main - selling those gizmos alleged to turbulate  your intake air.
  18. Ready-made breakfasts at Lynn’s, the grocery store on Lazelle.
  19. The various old scooters at the Broken Spoke Saloon, including the XLCR (cafe racer) Sportster with its stock Siamese exhaust.
  20. Friendly foreigners, especially Japanese and Germans.
  21. Police officers wearing Sturgis Police golf shirts over bulging, sweaty bulletproof vests.
  22. The aroma (and great food) rising off A&A Grill’s sidewalk griddle at Third and Main (northwest corner).
  23. Free shell peanuts and graphics on the wall at Big Bad Bertha’s Biker Bar.
  24. Any air-conditioned motel room in Spearfish.
  25. Main street at 7 a.m.
  26. The Rapid City Journal’s fair-to-middling rally coverage.
  27. Roma’s, the Italian restaurant in Spearfish (701 5th Avenue) and Chef Leigh Rawlings.
  28. Weekend piano player Max Meyer, age 11, at Roma’s.
  29. Bike riding dogs.
  30. Draft beer, upholstered bar stools and peace and quiet at the Veteran’s Club on Main Street.
  31. Bourget tubular swing-arms.

Sturgis - things you get tired of hearing and seeing

Ó David Vance - 2001

  1. If I had to explain  T-shirts.
  2. Trikes.
  3. Disposable cameras.
  4. People who take pictures of trikes with disposable cameras.
  5. Blaring Main Street stereos on dressers.
  6. People wearing current-year T-shirts (hey dude, we know you’re here!).
  7. Hamsters and their cute yellow T-shirts.
  8. Bodacious-looking exhaust systems that sound wimpy.
  9. Three-dollar beer.
  10. Atrocious Midwestern grammar: "How long since you seen one of them?"
  11. Bolt-on chrome fanatics who regard their bikes as customized.
  12. Bolt-on chrome fanatics who enter their scoots in bike shows.
  13. T-shirts with the F word.
  14. Portly couples riding Gold Wings wearing white, mall-walking shoes.
  15. Mesh ball caps, under which is clearly a bald-headed dude.
  16. Crotch rockets on Main Street.
  17. Enormous - really huge - chin-rest tank bags on BMWs.
  18. Guys wearing cheap, cardboard-looking leather.
  19. Vendors selling cheap, cardboard-looking leather
  20. Live to Ride; Ride to Live  gold and chrome doodads on Harleys.
  21. Civilians on Harley police bikes.
  22. Japanese big twins that try to ape the Harley look.
  23. Japanese big twins that try to ape the Harley sound.
  24. Gutted stock Harley mufflers.
  25. Flame paint jobs.
  26. Gold Wing riders who can’t ride Main Street without dragging their feet.
  27. Those squatting vendors who offer to waterproof your boots.
  28. Signs about gratuities: Tipping is not a city in China.
  29. The annoying PA system and guy hawking food at Gold Pan Pizza on Main Street.
  30. The couple on the Japanese bike wearing Santa outfits (absent in ’01).
  31. The prima donna poses of guys on Bourget bikes.
  32. First timers.
  33. Guys who prove it  with pins and patches.
  34. Hulett on Wednesday.
  35. Eighteen riders going through a Main street stop sign on the first guy’s stop.
  36. Hyper-charger air cleaners with the forward-facing butterflies.
  37. Black Hills gold.
  38. Older Japanese cameras with the Passed  sticker still on the camera and on the lens.
  39. T-shirts and other stuff referring to Sturgis as Bike Week. Daytona is Bike Week; Sturgis is a Rally, or until 2001, Rally and Races.
  40. Extender chains that enable a vest to fit an expanded gut.

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