Late July of 2013
The Great Plains offer a wide open world of flat land paved with grass, farmland and very few trees to obstruct the view. Out here the sky is the dominant force, for it stretches from one endless horizon to the other leaving those on the ground to feel almost as though they’ve become engulfed in its humbling expanse. Billowy clouds often lumber lazily across this, for them, natural domain. At times a person can watch from beneath a clear sky as one, and sometimes more, small self contained storms move slowly in the distance while raining heavily upon the green grasslands below. Many are the times I’ve stopped to let one of these cross the road ahead before resuming the ride once the storm’s passed. But today there was no such weather and not much traffic either. Neither was the air hot nor cold as the old Electra Glide made its faithful way along the mostly arrow straight roads.
I’d just crossed the eastern border of South Dakota. At the other end of this state the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally would begin soon. For many years I’d worked sporadically for the vendors that permeate these huge motorcycle rallies and in just over a week’s time I was scheduled to eight days of hard labor at a large tire-changing operation located in downtown Sturgis. Just now however, the afternoon was pushing toward evening so I decided to stop for the night.
Some years ago I’d been hanging around the Sioux Falls H-D dealership when a man befriended me. Bob lived on a large vegetable and dairy farm nearby and had offered use of his property to make camp if I wanted. To pass on this uncommon adventure would have been sacrilege so I’d accepted his offer. Bob stated that his place was always open to any rider who needed a free camp while passing through. He even kept tents permanently erected for visitors. The place also offered a shower and beat up washing machine. I intended to crash his party again.
As the old Electra Glide traversed Bob’s long driveway I was reminded of the time it had been necessary to open an electric fence by hand then navigate the big motorcycle through a herd of cows placed there to act as organic lawn mowers for the grass that lined either roadside. Today there were no cows and ahead the tattered old place sat just as I remembered it. But it was not Bob who met me in the yard. When I asked the new man what had happened to my friend, he said that Bob no longer lived here. So I told him of other stays in this place. The man smiled, stuck out his hand, and said, “I’m Leo, and you’re welcome to make camp here again if you like. My oldest boy sometimes stays out there with his girlfriend and I’m pretty sure the tent’s still up. Use it if you want. You hungry? We’re having pheasant.” I followed him inside.
Leo introduced his other son, who was a bit autistic and obviously difficult at times. I sat at the kitchen table while my host set out plates. His boy ate at the TV in the other room. Over dinner Leo and I talked and I learned that Bob had left town. I asked about the pheasant and learned that this guy is a fanatic pheasant hunter.
When the hour had grown late I decided to walk into the nearby woods and check my usual campground. Leo’d assured me it was still there. So it was…with one little difference. I don’t know what his kid had been smoking out there, or what he’d done with the seeds, but the tent now sat in a little grove of…well…weeds. I had to laugh, obviously Leo didn’t know. If he had would he have sent me out here? Pretty comical really. So I backed Betsy into the little grove then threw my bed inside the kid’s ready-made tent. It appeared he hadn’t been there for a while.
The morning air was clean and crisp as I unzipped the door to gaze upon the thick trees that surrounded me on all sides and above. It seemed a perfect day. Little did I suspect…
With the motorcycle repacked, I visited the house to find Leo and his boy already gone. Again the long driveway offered no cows and at its end I swung the old Harley back onto the highway. A visit to the nearby H-D dealership for free coffee seemed a good idea. The parking lot already bustled with a small crowd as I set the kickstand and ambled inside. Drinking coffee and talking shit can take time but eventually I came back outside only to be confronted with a flat rear tire.
As I stood to contemplate this dilemma, a man stepped from his 1987 Evo Softail and approached. Obviously an old school rider, he offered to scoot over to the truck stop and grab me a can of fix-a-flat. I held out a ten and thanked him, he refused the money. Once he’d gone I visited the mechanic’s bay where a young guy offered to bring a canister of compressed air to my bike. When the thing was aired up I heard hissing and quickly located a small puncture that sat beside a large bubble. Tread was separating from the carcass. The tire was coming apart.
I’d seen this before, it wouldn’t last another 50 miles, the tire was done. So here I was with a bum tire 350 miles from a place I was going to mount MOTORCYCLE TIRES, I’d get one for free there. Betsy was stuck in the parking lot of a dealership and God only knows what the dealership would charge for a tire. I’d never bought one from them before and wasn’t about to start now.
Options, options, what to do? Sixteen inch front tires are a dime a dozen. You can’t give them away. In the 19 years I’d owned this motorcycle I’d not paid for a single front tire. Rears however, are another story. I walked to the dealership’s take-off tire pile and quickly located three good fronts. Grabbing the best, almost new tire, I returned to the bike and tied it atop the luggage rack knowing a dealership wouldn’t mount used rubber. I grabbed the cell phone and called a local independent shop, after explaining my situation, the man said to bring it over. About this time the Evo rider returned with not one, but two cans of fix-a-flat. After inflating the tire I thanked him profusely, mounted quickly, and left the lot. Barely Legal Bikes was not far.
It took an in-depth explanation of the situation to convince Clay (owner of this establishment) that a front tire would be okay on the back. After all, this wasn’t standard procedure, but he ultimately gave the go ahead. After explaining I’d pull the wheel in his front yard, Clay insisted I do this work on his spare lift. I did.
Once the wheel was removed Clay stuck it on the machine and then asked if I wanted it mounted backwards because rear tread patterns are almost always opposite the front. I’d been thinking the same thing. Once mounted, Clay also asked if I’d like it balanced, to which I replied, “Hell no. It won’t be there that long”. Besides, after working in motorcycle tires for so long, I knew balancing was overrated anyway. Eventually the job was finished and Clay asked for $20.
It would have been a near impossible time without the help of these men. In this way we have always kept each other rolling, and I’ve done the same for many others. Being a biker is far more than just buying a motorcycle, it requires a kind of compassion that most just seem born with. A willingness to give, interest in adventure, the ability to throw caution to the wind, and of course a true love of motorcycles. These are some of the seemingly natural attributes that attracted me to these riders as a boy and it’s good to know they still exist. I handed Clay the money.
Morning had faded to afternoon and 350 miles still stood between this place and my destination. Ahead the plains opened up again as Sioux Falls fell quickly from the mirrors. It was near dark when a wall-cloud appeared at my right. I’d seen them before, for it’s across the Great Plains that the most powerful storms in the country often travel. I had seen nothing like them anywhere else. Wall-clouds are most often raging storms that cross the plains like a dark wall covering the whole of one horizon to the other. They are generally, as was this one, filled with almost continual internal bursts of lightning which makes them appear as though a fantastic battle is taking place within their guts. Although this storm offered only sheet lightning, I’ve seen them with bolts falling from their height to bounce repeatedly off the ground ahead as the road I’m traveling disappears directly into the immense expanse of their vast darkness. The plains offer little cover from such things and many is the time I’ve taken refuge in a vacant barn or its equivalent in effort to avoid the wrath of such wind beaten violence. At times it can be a freaky experience.
But this cloud loomed to the north as I traveled alongside it on westbound Interstate 90 and I hoped that the prehistoric monster would hold a steady eastbound pace and simply pass me by. But as the old Electra Glide continued to pound its faithful rhythm against the pavement, I noted that the unholy specter to my right was growing. It was coming my way! Fortunately however, when an hour of 75 mph travel had fallen behind, I passed the storm’s end only to watch its intense fireworks display from the safety of my rearview mirrors.
The following day a friend in central Kansas, some five hundred miles south, talked of how that same storm had later moved into his area. He spoke of its violence and the way everyone had been driven into the nearest building when it hit, then were confined there until the storm passed. For a while nothing human had moved. When beheld by the mortal eye, the unyielding and unstoppable power of Mother Nature can sometimes be a humbling and fantastically fascinating thing.
But this time it had been avoided and by morning I awoke to a sunny day in my usual camp just outside the town of Sturgis South Dakota.
Barely Legal Bikes: Phone number: 605-366-2448
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