Well, Sturgis 2006 is behind us! I had an awesome adventure that started with a marathon iron-butt trip into Sturgis. My partner and I spent the next 4 days living a groundhog-day existence of virtually the same thing over and over. We capped the trip off with a shot into the Midwest to visit my baby brother and to see my new nephew. Our trip home included a brush with the Amish, a roadside detainment from the authorities, a deluge in Missouri/Arkansas, and the final oven-hot ride into Texas that baked our skin off our faces. This was the best trip I’ve taken in my entire life. Let’s get after it.
Me parked after riding through Custer State park! It was beautiful!
I had planned the trip with my buddy Mike for the past two months. We have been friends for over ten years and our wives have known each other their whole lives. After the initial battles with our wives about going on the trip, our only other obstacle was getting the time off of work. We both said the same thing, “Fuck it! We’re going whether they like it or not. We can get new jobs when we come home.”
We decided to leave on Monday night at 11:30 pm. We figured to ride straight through the night so we could escape the agony of the Texas heat. We figured we would sleep in Oklahoma or Kansas for a few hours and then continue with the trip. By our calculations, we planned on being in Sturgis by dawn Wednesday, August 9th.
I left Humble, Texas at the allotted 11:30 departure time with butterflies in my stomach and dreams in my head. Here it was already 1 year since my last journey to the Badlands, and I was even more excited this year than last year. Between working, being a father and husband, and writing for Bikernet, I have had little “me-time”. I headed to our appointed rendezvous point at a Shell station in New Waverley.
At 12:30 am I pulled into the Shell to no sign of Mike. I figured he would be along shortly so I filled up and decided to down a Red Bull. He came barreling into the driveway about fifteen minutes later with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I could tell he was as anxious about this trip as I was. We started on our journey.
“Hey, you look like you have LED lights under your tank. I have never seen a pipe glow like that,” he told me with a grin.
“Great. I guess it’s running lean. Oh well, its stock, so I’ll run it till it blows up. That’s why I bought the warranty.” I was wrong. Once back home, they wouldn’t take care of it without me paying to have the EFI re-mapped. But that’s another story.
We drove through the night through Texas using I-45 to I-35 into Oklahoma. We were in Wichita, Kansas exactly 11 hours after we had taken off. We decided to stop and have breakfast before bedding down for most of the day…or so we thought. After breakfast we high-tailed it up I-35 to 135 where we headed into Salina, Kansas. Miles were coming slower now as we were traveling in the heat of the day and I was ready to pass out. We stopped at a Sonic and ate a burger. Sometimes that’s all the body needs is more junk to push itself past the exhaustion barrier we were experiencing. We decided to trudge on. Coming out of Salina, we caught 81N and headed into Nebraska. We had started to bust through our fatigue and began getting energy.
In Nebraska we headed off the main interstate by catching highway 2 and traveling Northwest. Although it doesn’t look pretty on a map, this is one hell of a road to travel on. I enjoyed flying by the mini-badlands on the right while looking over a nice ravine on the left. We changed routes again in Thedford, Nebraska and hopped onto Highway 83N. By now we could smell the beer and hear the thunder. We had little knowledge of what was on the horizon.
Once we hit Murdo, SD, we stopped for a bite to eat. It was 5 minutes to 9pm and the diner was about to close. They were kind enough to fry a couple of burgers for a few very road weary scooter tramps. After we had eaten, we decided to get back on the road. I figured we were about 4 hours from Sturgis at that point, so we might as well head in.
We learned of the terrible weather the Sturgis crowd had been fighting as we filled our tanks with gas. According to one observer, there was hail, rain, and mudslides. We were beginning to wonder if this was a bad idea. We decided to get into our rain gear. The sky looked ugly and it’s always better to put some gear on before it’s too late.
As we passed along the tarmac with visions fueling our wrists, I began to steadily doze off. I remember my shadow slapping the road in front of me due to the full moon to our backs. My shadow danced across the highway forming shapes and scenes from my past. I was scared shitless when the shadow formed into the grim reaper onto the road in front of me. I woke up when the shadow smiled as he swung the evil death scythe at my head. When I finally snapped to, I was heading straight into the high side of a curve that would have meant certain death had I not recovered. Needless to say, I stayed awake the rest of the trip.
I don’t remember the final push into Sturgis, but we were in The Dungeon at 1 am having a beer. I never tasted a colder Bud Light than that first one! When we went to leave The Dungeon, rain was pouring down on all our stuff. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t taken off our rain suits and leathers and just hung them over the bikes. Needless to say, everything was soaked.
We hung at the dungeon for a few minutes and headed out to our campsite located off Junction. We were staying in the yard of a couple who rented tent spaces for $15 a night. They have toilet and shower facilities available, so it was a bargain for us. I never even put up my tent. I just rolled out the bedroll and crawled into my sleeping bag. 25 ½ hours after walking out of my front door, I was lying down in my bag and going to sleep. I remember thinking the ground had felt softer than my bed when I laid my head down and tried to erase the memory of the past 1400 miles.
We woke the next morning and rode the VFW hall for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. For $7, it’s really a good deal. We decided to ride out to Needles highway and see the sights. Man, what a road! We rode 180 miles and headed back into Sturgis ready to let our hair down. Unlike last year, the attendance was very manageable this year. Traffic throughout all the attractions flowed freely with zero bottleneck situations. We were able to travel easily wherever we went.
We had taken lots of pictures of the ride and I was very pleased with the quality of the shots we were able to capture. Unfortunately, later I became drunk and erased every picture I had taken thus far into the trip. The reality of all this sucks, but it is not the worst part of the camera situation. It would seem I have a serious problem erasing the pictures every night before I went to bed in an elaborate plan to hide evidence of nightly adventures from my records. You see, if there are no pictures, there is no proof.
We ate our lunch at a small diner located off Needles highway somewhere and learned of a rumor about Hell’s Angels and Outlaws. I am not sure how much of it was true, so I won’t divulge what I heard, but it was all anyone seemed to talk about the rest of our stops during the week. The last night of the rally, Main Street was flooded with U.S. Marshals, Police, and even the National Guard. Nothing happened, but it all made for good conversation due to frightened anticipation.
That night we would attend The Knuckle Saloon. If you have never attended the Knuckle, this is the place to go. From 5-9 pm, they have amateur fighting. Anyone can sign up for a fight as long as they have an opponent within your weight class (usually 5-10 lbs.)
My buddy Mike signed up to fight as he had talked of it all year long. He assumed because of my Army boxing past, I would also sign up. He was wrong.
Mike getting ready for his big MMA debut. It was great!
Last year they used 16 oz. gloves and headgear. The guys would keep the gloves on until they started to grapple, and then the gloves came off. This also negated hitting to the face. I am not a big wrestler, so I didn’t see this as much of an opportunity for victory on my part. Mike said he didn’t care, he just wanted to hit someone. I wished him good luck as we watched the start of the fights. Well, this year they changed the format. Now there was no headgear, and they are using the little sparring gloves that are so popular on the UFC. The fighting seemed very brutal as these guys and girls usually just waded into each other hell bent on destruction. It was easily the most intense adrenaline producing “amateur” fighting I had ever seen. Then it was Mike’s turn.
He did ok, and I think he landed the harder shots. The truth is, he just wasn’t experienced enough to fight with these boys. I believe there are a group of local boys who just wait all year and train to kick the shit out of us dumb ass bikers who think we are bad. Well, this guy was definitely one of the local boys. Right after taking Mike’s best right hand, he promptly choked him out. Hey Mike, better you than me buddy. We so thoroughly enjoyed the fights, we attended every night for the rest of the week. I even saw Michael Lichter there taking shots one night. This was definitely the happening place for us every night from 5-9 pm.
That first night we went to The Broken Spoke around 10 pm. It was pretty wild as Jay Allen taught the audience the rights we have as bikers and how the police have no legal right to search our property without our permission. He seemed to make a lot of sense that night, but I don’t remember much after that as I was getting hammered on Bull Blasters with Bud Light chasers. Russell Mitchell, of Exile Cycles, and Roland Sands, of Performance Machine and RSD, were there serving drinks.They were very approachable and seemed to revel in the attention. Good for you guys, you deserve it.
We left there and went to the Full Throttle. I saw Angieland firsthand and hung at the burnout pit for most of the night. It was funny watching a couple of drunks actually throw down over an argument because one guy burned out longer than the other. It was great! They beat the tar out of each other. Meanwhile, my buddy Mike and his wife had a horrific argument due to Mike’s dumb ass calling his wife while there was an orgasm contest on the stage. She assumed we were at a strip club or massage parlor. Truth be known, you don’t need any of that when you are at Sturgis. If you are searching for female attention, it is everywhere you look.
Then again, maybe it was just my dashing good looks and charming personality, but I’m not banking on that. I don’t remember much more of that night other than a “muscley” Russian girl named Mysha. She had the hammer and sickle tattooed inside of her lip and had some of the strangest stories I had ever heard.
The next day we woke up and once again did the same thing. Fought our hangover to force ourselves to shower and shave. We would then go to the VFW for breakfast and recharge our batteries before Mike would once again have to “see a man about a horse”. We decided to walk around Main Street and see the sights. One of the best times we had was just sitting on the corner and watching the world go by. It was cool to see celebrities and regular people mixed together just riding our bikes.
One of the cool places to see was the Hard Bikes area on Lazelle and 7th. Craig did a spectacular job watching the girls and fending off the guys. We only stayed for a minute because I didn’t want to seem like a hanger on. My introduction always sounded so made up, like a pervert just trying to get close.
“Hi, I’m Johnny. I do some of the writing for Bikernet.”
I was always greeted with the same, “yeah, right” look. We decided to head over to The Thunder Road area and check out the Lichter show and Livia, the lovely seductress we attached to Sam Dixon.
On the way I ran into Jeff from Sucker Punch Sally’s. I marveled at his bikes and tried to get as many mental pictures as I could for my brother’s bike. The build will be getting started soon, we are still collecting parts. He made sure to tell me to have Bandit install the neck plate on his Bonneville racer. He was entering his bike into a show there at Sturgis, so he was busy.
I also talked with Redhill Motorcycle Werx’s co-owner Mercedes Ross. We talked of a future feature on Bikernet, so stay tuned. They have one of their bikes, Bitchcraft, featured in the Girls of Bikernet section.
Once we entered the Thunder Road arena, we were welcomed with more sights than the brain could endure. The place was saturated with show bikes, art, beer, and lots of girls. I immediately searched out the Bikernet booth to find Sam Dixon and Livia fending off a long line of people wanting to take pictures of Livia and to find out more about Bikernet. Sam said they were doing well and by the looks of the numbers, he was right.
I only hung out with them for a short time as I was too busy marveling at the art show and bike display by Michael Lichter. He had some incredible bikes in his “School’s Out” show. I especially liked the bobber Billy Lane had built for Lichter.
We then were gathered around the center stage for the lingerie show with the three Penthouse models. Each had posed for Biker Magazine with one of the three show bikes that were competing for the Thunder Road/ Biker/ Penthouse trophy. Let’s just say the show was incredible. The girls were gorgeous and very, very friendly.
Steve Broyles and son Steve II won the show with their mean little bobber. If you want to check out what these guys are doing, check out www.stevensonscycle.com. They are building some very clean, hardcore bikes that will run with the big dogs.
I ran into Rogue at the show and finally introduced myself. I once again used my “writing for Bikernet” line. It doesn’t work as well as one might expect. Oh well, I will continue to wander through the mirrored life of obscurity. I wish Bandit would have been there. At least that way people would have believed me when I said who I was with. Otherwise I just felt like a moron.
We left the show and headed over to the Knuckle once again. At this point, our lives continued to proceed in a Groundhog Day existence. We would go to the Knuckle and watch the fights while slamming beer after beer. Then we would head to One Eyed jacks and continue slamming beer and Bull Blasters. The night would usually end with a chubby bastard yelling at us to leave because the bar was closing. I don’t know why, but he always included a, “Yeah, you too, smiley!” while pushing me out the door.
We would then spend the next 20-30 minutes trying to mask the fact we were as drunk as we were while trying to start our bikes. Did you know a 2005 Springer may look like a 1948 Panhead, but it doesn’t have a kickstart. I searched for ten minutes trying to find the kick lever.We would then gingerly try to make it back to camp without: 1) wrecking, or 2) getting arrested. I am glad to say we were successful on both counts.
Every morning thereafter we would wake up feeling the same way, like shit, swearing we would drink only water for the entire day and agreeing not to going out at night. Every night we were at the bar toasting all our brethren and the hotties causing us to wake up every morning the same as the day before. It was great!
The scenery at Sturgis is second to none and there were many natural marvels at the distant horizon. From Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore, to Devils Tower, and The Crazy Horse monument, we took it all in. I swear to God this was the best trip I have ever taken in my life. All we did was ride, eat, drink, sleep, shower, and start over again. If this is what heaven is like, take me tomorrow, because I would never get tired of this life. Unfortunately, every good thing must come to an end, and Sturgis 2006 was no different. Before I knew it, Sunday morning was there and we were leaving camp to head east to see my little brother, Richie in Minnesota. 10:30 that night we were in Cologne Minnesota shooting the shit with my brother.
9:30 Monday morning we were off for Houston, Texas. 33 hours later I pulled into the driveway. 8 days, 3810 miles, and more stories than I can remember. Sturgis 2006 was a blast. While I did hit some inclement weather on the way home, it still didn’t take away from the time we had. I will remember this trip always, and I just hope next year is as good. Take care everyone, and ride hard. We only live once, so enjoy life while we can.
Enjoy the rest of the pics which are attached. They were my leftovers after this piece. Enjoy and hopefully you have a little taste of what I experienced this year at the rally.
