Sturgis this year was a blur of neon, activities, and traffic. According to the experts, numbers were significantly down from last year as expected, but it was still a flurry of activities, events, entertainment, new model launches, girls, bands, you name it. Sturgis became the biker’s Disneyland–the showcase of the V-Twin industry and the focal point for some of the best riding in the world.
I’ve been involved in the Black Hills Rally since about 1979 when I sent Michael Lichter to cover it for Easyriders. According to some, 12,000 partied around the area and in City Park and lit the Porto-Potties on fire in the middle of the night. Imagine the smell. The next year they closed the park, but 24,000 hauled ass to South Dakota to check the action.
A couple of years ago, I discovered my private Nirvana for the Sturgis event, Deadwood. A brother moved into the mining town 20 years ago to build a lodge for the notorious Hamsters in Spearfish and never left. This year, we rolled to Deadwood, set up camp, and made a quick list of activities we could hit in a couple of days, then cut a dusty trail for the coast.
We clamored through one party Saturday night. The next morning, we jammed to the Chip for Marilyn’s Industry breakfast, and then FXR Show, expanded to accept Dynas. We rolled downtown to 2Wheelers, and I found a patch sewing machine, where I had my 5-Ball racing patch sewn on my 5-Ball Pit Crew Vest. The plans called for making the Michael Lichter exhibit party in the early evening. We had to wait six hours in the blazing sun. We gave in and rolled back to Deadwood, drank whiskey and then the hail came, and Roland rode off the stage. We called it a night.
The next day was all Hamsters, with mandatory meetings, drinks and the silent auction, which raised $285,000 for the Rapid City Children’s Hospital. It’s too bad a chunk can’t go to the motorcycle industry, a Hamster retirement fund, or whiskey. I’m kidding; some definitely goes to whiskey.
The next morning, we cut a dusty trail. This chapter will contain a couple of sidebars, one from our Deadwood host, one the most talented individuals I’ve ever met. When it comes to buildings, Adrian, who was once a male model in Europe can do and created anything. Don’t ask me. He’s just another grubby biker now meandering from one building project to another with an ever-present beer in one hand and a cigar in the other.
The Outlaw Adrian sidebar:
So, two dudes walk into a bar, actually they rolled up to my house on Lincoln Street in Deadwood, which leads directly to Wild Bill’s graveyard, boot hill at the top of the slanted cobblestone lane.
It’s rally 2016. One was on a ’14 Indian looking like a hot rat/rod a painter was given to ply his craft on. Flat silver rubbed down to the primer at normal wear and tear spots on the sheet metal and tank, orange 5-Ball racing logos against flat black fishtail capped pipes, no fairing but a black Bandit’s Bedroll strapped over the nacelle to take its place and keep the bugs, wind and rain pushing over Bandit.
The other dude on a blacked-out street glide, Mike my bro since ’71. Back then we were into Brit bikes, Vincents, Manx, BSA, Triumph, and Nortons. You know, Isle of Mann stuff of Legends. Around ’87, Mike got ahold of a Softail and I picked up an ’87 Road King cop bike and there went my Brit shit and Norton Commando with the Dunstall kit and racing gears.
“Mike, how was the ride?” I asked.
“Great! We tore up the tarmac but for all the roadwork stretches where it turned to oil and gravel. Not sure if the front and bottom of my ride is black anymore.”
I’m thinking Bandit’s bike could only get more patina from that shit.
Before the big dude got off his Indian, I squeezed my thumb and fingers around his neck and collarbone. “You’re in my digs, behave yourself.” I had to do that. He’s about 6’6” and good 5 inches taller than me. I met him at one of the early Love Rides from Glendale, California to the Easyriders Ranch. He did the same to me back in ’89. “Behave yourself, Adrian,” he said.
At the time I rode a 100-point ’59 Panhead with red primer showing through the original tank paint at all the normal wear and tear places. It was the real deal. We’ve been bros ever since.
A brother mentioned the code at a sunbaked party,“I can’t stand Sturgis, but the ride out is everything.” The ride, yes the ride. As we pulled out onto the turn of the century street leading to downtown Deadwood I had 1430 miles on my trip gauge.
I scrambled through various conversations with guys I only see a couple of times a year in Sturgis or at the V-Twin Expo in Cincinnati in February, my two mandatory runs. At one time I hit events almost every other weekend.
Bob McKay said in the saloon, “You’ll never hit a deer twice.” I thought about that statement all the way home. Fortunately, I made it. It must be true. We jumped on the 90 and rolled east toward Wyoming and Buffalo, where we would dive off the interstate and start our trek to Worland on the old Ten Sheep Highway.
These are some of the best roads winding along creeks and through green valleys, except just outside of Ten Sheep I jammed to pass a slow moving RV. As I rounded the curve at 90 mph I came face to face with the law. He was coming the other direction and immediately lit up his shit. I didn’t blink but pulled over as soon as I could. Mike kept riding for a half mile, and then he ducked under a tree with his street glide and watched the action.
I thought I had a broken line clearance during my high-speed maneuver on the Indian. “You can’t pass on a bridge,” the short fireplug cop said briskly.
“I thought I had a broken line,” I mutter, but his demeanor immediately changed. He didn’t want to debate the issue, or I was going to feel his jurisdictional pain with a citation.
“Mums the word,” I thought.
“I just wanted to warn you,” the cop said and took my documents, which I didn’t have much. I bought the bike in South Carolina, but had no SC registration or papers. I held a wadded, funky trip pass for California, which I tried to explain to the officer. He looked at me as if I was nuts, or California was nuts. He had it right on both accounts. He ran my papers through a multitude of terrorist watch data banks and cut me loose.
We rolled into a narrow canyon with curvy roads and slow switchbacks. At one almost 220 degree hairpin curve, a deer ran in front of Mike. His ABS system took him from 35 mph to zip in no time without loss of control. The doe escaped, while Mike’s heart attempted to depart his chest and the Street Glide’s loosey-goosey rear steer caused his eyes to blow up like a man with his finger in a 220-volt socket. We actually took the road where I hit a deer in 2011 on a Buell and ended up in the hospital for four days. I tried to angle on the spot where it happened.
Blistering hot in Woreland in the Big Horn Basin, a farming town where my Wyoming girl runs a hair salon. I strolled into her tidy salon and demanded service while eyeing the massage table. I could have disrobed and crawled on that puppy for a week.
The smiling staff recommended a yellow building diner for a healthy lunch, Goodies. We drove up and down Highway 433 junction several times before spotting the pastel yellow and sheik gray building with the name embossed in concrete. It was impossible to read in the noonday sun, but we found it.
A stark little joint with a lack of country-style furnishings, someone was trying to be hip and minimalist, but the menu was amazing and I had a wild salad, but only ate half of it. It’s all about portions.
Worland is a hub for business in the Big Horn Basin. Agriculture and oil/ gas drilling supplement the economy of Worland. Sugar beets are the top agricultural product of the area. Top employers in Worland include Admiral Beverage, Wyoming Sugar Company, Crown Cork & Seal, and Miller Coors.
We packed up and cut a dusty trail out of town alongside the winding Big Horn River toward Thermopolis. This route was very similar to last years home trek, except I took a detour to Sun Valley, Idaho to reach the Hamster clan heading into the Badlands. I love the winding road along the Big Horn to the Boysen Reservoir.
Boysen Reservoir is a reservoir formed by Boysen Dam, an earth-fill dam on the Wind River in the central part of Wyoming. It is near the town of Shoshoni in Fremont County. The dam was constructed between 1947 and 1952 at the mouth of Wind River Canyon, just upstream from a previous dam that had been built by Asmus Boysen in 1908 on land he had leased from the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes. The dam and much of the reservoir are physically located on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
As a result of construction of the dam, a major railroad track that connected Billings, Montana with Casper, Wyoming would be flooded. A new track would be laid. This new track starts near the new dam where an 11/3-mile tunnel carries the tracks under the dam, under parts of the lake and around the edges of the reservoir.
Our destination for the night was planned to be in Dubois, since last year, I stopped at the Roomers Motel in Riverton. I wish I had kept rolling to Dubois, sort of a small mountain town leading into the Rocky Mountains and Jackson Hole.
It worked out perfectly. The weather couldn’t have been better and we wove through the hillsides into Dubois. Mike complained that the Street Glide seat was too low, the floorboards were too high, but the bars were just right, the controls were perfect, and the cruise control worked like a champ.
We almost peeled through the log cabin era town and then quickly pulled onto a gravel road leading to a dozen log cabins facing a grassy park and the main drag. The sun set as we entered the log cabin office and looked at all the touristy shit on the walls. The woman behind the counter talked her husband out of his coal mine job for the crisp air of Dubois. “I wanted us to buy a B&B,” she said grinning from ear to ear. Maybe it was the wine. “But we didn’t have the down payment, so we got this job.” Her husband, a tall drink of water, also held a tall drink of something and grinned.
I looked through a cabin window behind the log counter and saw the small dilapidated manager’s residence surrounded by a junkyard of washers and dryers. Something seemed odd, but we paid for a cabin and asked for dinner recommendations.
Dinner was terrific. The waitress wasn’t bad and on the way back we roamed through a couple of galleries, including Gary J. Keimig’s western art, and I found a old western painting of a cowpoke who was the spitting image of Micah McCloskey, a member of the Uglies MC and a bike builder, Bonneville racer and a member of the Easyriders Streamliner team when we held the motorcycle record at 321 mph for 16 years. After the run home, I ordered the painting and had it shipped to Micah’s home.
By the time we reached our cabin two guests were passed out on the wooden bench in front of their cabin, and the management was long gone. We were beginning to run through long stretches of gravel roads, which Mike wasn’t enjoying. Handling issues were enhanced on oiled roads sporting coats of gravel, the poor man’s road repair. It’s a wonder the EPA hadn’t force them to use anything but a petroleum product.
My shifter began to stick with in the constant dust, and I heard a chirping sound from somewhere, but I kept rolling. Our plan the next morning called for waiting out the morning chill then cutting a really dusty trail toward Jackson Hole for breakfast. Mike, fed up with handling issues wanted to find Jackson Hole Harley-Davidson for service help.
Roaming through the green hillsides, we spotted two dead dear and numerous deer warning signs. Four-legged treachery afoot, we blasted into Jackson Hole and found the dealership sans a service department. Covered in dust, the girl at the counter asked me if I needed anything. “Not a thing,” I said, “an Indian is chasing me across the country. Where’s a good breakfast joint?”
She smiled, not understanding what I said about the Indian, and pointed us in the direction of an excellent, massive, breakfast joint in a hotel complex on highway leading us out of town. Next stop Idaho.
Mike discussed the next dealership. The handling issues intensified and the gravel on the roads increased. We followed a magnificent meandering broad curved road along the Snake River past the Palisades Reservoir into Swan Valley and toward another Harley dealer in Idaho Falls, where we would snatch the dreaded 15 Interstate toward Twin Falls. As we rolled onto the 15, Mike indicated to keep going SW on the interstate toward Twin Falls and highway 93 into Nevada.
What is it about interstates? Suddenly you’re flying along at 80 plus mph. My beanie helmet rattled, and I wished I had donned earplugs. The Indian didn’t bat an eye. If I put my gloved hand on the tank, I felt no vibration, but I was faced with passing one truck after another. I have another bullshit road code. The fast lane is for passing, so I pass a truck and pull over for the speeding bastards. But then another truck shows up.
There are two positive aspects to my maneuvers. One, it prevents boredom. I’m constantly changing lanes. Two, it keeps me from holding up traffic or speeding close to a ticket by increasing my speed to stay way out from of the speeders in the fast lane. There was a time when no one passed me. I was brutal.
I like to drop into the number two lane, set the cruise control or throttle for just slightly over the speed limit and putt, but that’s not the case anymore, there’s always another truck. This is why I like small highways. I like to enjoy the scenery and not be constantly focused on the next truck and my buffeting helmet.
We sliced through 161 miles of interstate to reach 93 south, basically to the dreaded Wells, Nevada another town crumbling to dust. I remember rolling into a Wells truck stop last year on fumes. I was seriously low on fuel and didn’t know how large the Indian reserve was. I’ve had petcock bikes with a reserve capable of less than 10 miles. Had me sitting tightly on the edge of my seat.
The frugal Mike immediately pointed out the Number 6 motel for $54.00. “We’ve got to do better,” I said and we crossed the tracks and road construction, meandering through another town on the brink of extinction. Most businesses were closed and the faded dilapidated buildings turned to the color of cigarette ash. We found one open motel, but it smelled of crack addicts and addicted whores.
I like prostitution and support it, but the connection to drugs is all wrong, hurtful, lacks progress, and is dangerous on several levels. We ended up at the dive Number 6 with a handful of other riders, including one trike rider. The room held two Queen beds, but no other space. Hell, I couldn’t get out of my bed without stepping on his. We ate dinner at the metallic truck stop, which wasn’t bad at all. Just 381 miles ahead to peel through to reach Vegas and our brother, Joe Zanelli at Rocky’s Restaurant on Maryland Blvd.
The next morning, we rolled due south on 93 into Nevada toward Ely for Breakfast and gas. There was a cool Mexican joint in the center of town we frequented on our way to Wendover and Bonneville. They were closed, so we grabbed fast-food egg breakfast and peeled toward the Great Basin.
We were rolling along enjoying the Ruby Mountains west of us, when a rider blew by us on a BMW as if we were parked. His bike was so smooth and quiet, it startled us. But we caught up with him at the next stopped construction zone. He was in trouble. He had slipped to the front of the line to check the status and they didn’t like that. Hell, I use to do it all the time and no one bothered.
He came back and started to tell us the story. He flipped up his full-face darkened faceplate and started to talk to Mike. Suddenly the gray-bearded biker in a full black rain suit looked familiar.
“Bill Reed,” I said.
“Keith Ball,” Bill said.
Bill was a Satan Slave in the ‘60s until they became Hells Angels in the mid ‘70s. He’ll never admit it, but he should be an icon. Finally, road construction let us through, but unlike all the crews before them, these over-weight broads holding stop signs sneered at us as we passed. Cops were lined up at the other end and pulled us over. They were after Bill.
Another 20 miles closer to Ely and he peeled past us and waved. But we kept running into Bill in Ely, then in the Great Basin along the White River, past the Schell Creek Range, the rolling Egan Range, the Delamar Mountains into Alamo at a gas stop. It was hotter than a firecracker when we saw “Wild Bill from over the hill, never worked and never will,” for the last time. The greenery slipped behind us as we rolled into the Sheep Range and met with the Interstate freeway 15 once more and dropped into Vegas. At over 110 degrees, we pulled into the South Point casino hotel parking lot and grabbed a room, the coldest beer in the house and a magnificent dinner with Joe.
The next day was like so many runs before, over one long desert pass after another leading into Los Angeles. We stopped in Victorville for gas and the first pancake breakfast I attempted during the run at Richie’s. It wasn’t bad, but they weren’t terrific either. At least when the plate arrived they were hot. Mike grabbed Highway 14 toward the San Fernando Valley, while I stayed on the 15 to the 210 into LA.
My brother was right. The ride is everything. The cool sea air felt damn good as I escaped freeways to come to rest in the Port of Los Angeles.
Mike’s Story:
Sometimes the singular road trip escape focus is what we need desperately. Riding a motorcycle takes major focus just to survive. Having a destination with or without friends maybe less important than the ride itself.
A 20-year-old idiot pulled out in front of me 1.5 years ago. I slammed into him at 45 mph, and I’m still recovering. I needed to take back what was mine from my early years… My freedom to ride my motorcycle and feel the joy of that singular focus.
This year seemed to be a good time to take a road trip to see an old friend from my youth. An old friend who not only shares a passion for old bikes but also is a master craftsman whose main focus is restoring houses. Living in Deadwood, South Dakota, he has two turn-of-the-century homes, one finished, his main home and the other a mansion project. It may never end.
The latter being a tri-level Victorian on a hillside overlooking the town of Deadwood. So off to Sturgis for some R and R from L.A. escape family problems and the general lack of humanity we live with here.
My new ride, after the Dimwit totaled my rather clean Road King, was a 2015 Street Glide. Seemed like a good idea at the time. This really beautiful bike turned out to be un-ride-able for any distance. I heard a very apropos statement: Harley’s marketing is far greater than their product. It applies perfectly here.
The suspension was so bad that anything more than 100 miles was way too much. I took the bike back to a few dealers to sort out the harsh ride and was always given the same response, “Ain’t it great! People love these things.” The factory Kool-Aid at work, I presume.
In a desperate attempt to fix it, I installed some 412 Progressive Shocks on the rear I had from another bike. Big help but really exposed the front end. We live in an era of the best suspension technology ever with adjustability for compression dampening, rebound and expanded ride height. My Buell Ulysses came to mind. Harley should have paid some attention to that bike before dumping the brand.
So, for 3,100 miles I put up with the worst handling most beautiful bike I’ve ever had. Singular focus…. Get there!
I’m a cynic… it’s an acquired thing. I’m always waiting for something to go wrong, be wrong or forced to fix something that goes wrong. I really need to focus on things going right.
So the nice thing about a road trip is, as you deal with this singular focus, you drift off in a multi-focused world of self-therapeutic awareness. You try to work out stuff, and as the miles go by, the harmful layers of life start to fall away.
Like a movie you can create this image of how it should be. And if you have the benefit of music on your bike, you have your own movie soundtrack! Modern day Easy Rider.
I really wanted to re-trace the Easy Rider route for this ride down Route 66, but time constraints and the desire to see Monument Valley changed all that. I’ll save it for the next ride to New Orleans.
I hate the heat in the desert, when trying to get out of L.A. It’s always 300 miles to get to where the trip starts. The angst just to start can be overwhelming but once on the road it drifts away. Through the heat and dread of slicing through Barstow to Needles, and then finally arriving in Flagstaff altered my attitude. The adventure kicked off.
Watching the dark ominous clouds up ahead I said, “Bring it on!” Then I realized I forgot a rain suit.
I had a really patient riding partner, a Zen master in the making. The opposite of my cynical, L.A. urban war zone chronic PTSD self. As the monsoon started, we slipped off the fwy to find safe-haven at a service station to take refuge from the rain. An hour of waiting and two cups of coffee later we set off when there was a break in the downpour.
Some 20 miles ahead was a Harley dealer with rain suits…. On sale. Things were working out. I started to think about Monument Valley ahead and began to settle in and enjoy the trip.
I thought about riding through Monument Valley on a bike many times. It just seemed like the only way to see it for the first time. Really, an awesome part of the country, like looking at the pyramids in Egypt. Even similar names like Valley of fire, Valley of the Gods and Valley of John Wayne.
This is Navaho Country and beef stew with Navaho bread are the staples of dining, while traveling through these parts. A stop in Cameron was the first with this cuisine but not the last.
So, we made our way up through Moab to Cisco and onto Rifle, North up to Craig where we spent the night. That night, we bumped into the crew from the Indian Sponsored Wounded Warrior ride and were invited to breakfast at the VFW hall in the morning, maybe my favorite part of our ride.
As we met and talked to the veterans, who made up this ride, the great spirit and adaptability struck me. I have disabilities, which cause me constant issues, but I felt inspired by this bunch and an instant kinship I won’t forget.
The boring, flat plane, windy, uneventful ride through Wyoming to Deadwood on this route is always a pain in the ass, so I’ll save you the details except we almost hit two more deer coming into lead SD. You know the Forest Gump Deer that goes, “Oh here comes a motorcycle, I think I’ll just jump in front of it.”
So three days in town and we were ready to move on. I have the typical traveler’s mindset, can’t wait to get there, can’t wait to leave and this always holds true with Sturgis.
Once back out on the road that singular purpose and focus to home kicks in and I’m happy again. I will say that I prefer to ramble a bit more while on a motorcycle, but when you have time constraints and are covering 400 to 500 miles a day, the focus is… get there.
The trip home was completely a different ride covering territory north of our route through Wyoming. We followed the Bighorn River from Buffalo down to Thermopolis, then picked up the Wind River and wandered into Dubois for dinner and sleep. I really enjoyed this part of the country and found myself finally starting to relax into the ride, but I still could not relax on this bike, though.
The problem included my concerns about the bike’s ride, might be something is wrong with the front end. My riding buddy and I had been sort of comparing our rides throughout the trip. He rode an Indian Chief and me on my new ‘15 Street Glide. We noticed the difference in ride thru so many varied road surfaces. He was always happy. Me not so much.
Like I said earlier, I changed out the rear shocks, which helped my back, but the front seemed to be getting worse. It was.
We decided to make a stop in Jackson Hole at the Harley dealer to have it checked out; only it turned out to be a non-service dealer. Really!
So much for the notion of Harley support while on the road. The only dealer close was in Idaho Falls, so we rode HWY 22 over the Teton pass down into Idaho Falls to find the dealer. We never found it and by now I figured, screw it.
I must say that Jackson Hole and the country around it is some of the most beautiful I’ve traveled. If I could get past the cold winters, I would really consider living there. Well, that and lots of money.
So by now I’m thinking let’s just focus on getting home and the game plan is to cut across Idaho to Twin Falls, head south on 93 thru Nevada to Vegas.
I had some apprehension with this route because I have never traveled in this part the country, but I have to say I really enjoyed the solitude of this straight as an arrow road for another 400 miles. From solitude to terror is how I’d say descending onto the 15 into Vegas was. The posted speed limit was a mere suggestion for the speeding congestion heading into Hell. At 112 degrees and the building traffic demanded more focus. Keep focused; it’s just a little farther.
My riding bud made a reservation at South Point 5 miles outside of town and it was all I had left in me to arrive safely and park the bike. Anyway, once in the room, I had a shower and met with my buddy’s friend to have dinner and prepare for the assault on Los Angeles in the morning.
You all know what leaving Las Vegas is like, earlier the better.
Finally, home, a day of rest and off to the dealer to sort out what’s up with this bike. On my way there, the front pushrod tube O-ring, which had started to leak then stopped out on the trip, let go and spewed oil all over the side of the bike. Lucky it held till then, I guess.
Front axle nut loose, front wheel bearing going south, steering head bearings out of adjustment and pushrod tube O-ring all fixed under warranty. I started this trip with 3,500 miles on it and traveled 3,170 so this work was done at around 6,700 miles. I need some Harley Kool-Aid please.
Back in Los Angeles, the same old shit was building and I started to feel another road trip brewing. But this time, I’m feeling another bike maybe in store and it might have 111 inches…… Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Sources:
American Biker
My Indian Dealer in Charleston, SC
The Old Guy Shirt Connection
Aeromach
Online
5-Ball Leathers
