Sturgis 2021 Recap

My final installment of this six-part series, Sturgis through the decades, brings us to the recent rally that so many of us just experienced—the 81st. The energy and excitement came on earlier and more vigorous than had ever been seen. Vendors were reporting great sales a whole week before the rally even began. As bikes rolled into town, the word on the street was that this year looked like it could break all records—including the swollen anniversary years. As to how it shook out, it depends on who you talk to. It continued on the initial trajectory for some, but many noticed by Tuesday, they were getting through town faster than you would expect. And with each subsequent day the numbers seemed to diminish quickly.

But really, do the numbers matter? For me, and I’d say for most of us, not at all. We’re all easily impressed when we hear “More than a half-million people poured into the Hills…”, but our experience of the rally is much more personal than that. It is what each of us sees and feels, and it is the people we encounter, the friendships we make, and the experiences we share. And so, the 2021 rally had everything we’d seen in past years, and then some.

As I see it, the Sturgis rally has always had the makings of a perfect rally baked into it. It is timed toward the end of summer when people want to use up what holidays they still have coming to them before the weather turns. It is in the middle of our country, making it a veritable crossroads for people on their way anywhere. Located on the edge of the Black Hills that are considered so sacred by the Lakota Sioux and other native Americans, it is spectacularly situated with access to some of the best riding anywhere in the world. (I’ll put Vanocker and Spearfish Canyons up against the best roads anywhere!) And that’s before we start adding into the mix the events, concerts, racing, bike shows, and all the other attractions that keep getting better year after year.

I believe Sturgis is known more for these generalities than the specifics. Its reputation has gone around the globe. But this year, with COVID still rearing its nasty head, there were just six overseas pins on the Main Street Visitor Center’s world map where there would typically be hundreds! This was easily made up by plenty of first-timers from our shores—people of all ages. Including the younger demographic that event promoters have been challenged to attract for years. They have started to discover (on their own) what the rally and the Black Hills have to offer.

I don’t know anyone who would disagree that this was an exceptional rally, but there are many perspectives. To help see the bigger picture, I called on some friends to hear their impressions. How similar, or different, would they be?

One of my first calls was to Jeff Holt, the man behind V-Twin Visionary, who noticed a shift in the style of bikes this year. He was personally responsible for producing three bike shows in four days, and of course, with Jeff behind them, you can bet they were performance-oriented. As Jeff explained, “More people are building and customizing Milwaukee-Eight bikes rather than Evos or earlier platforms. And they are more focused on lightening the bikes and making them work better. Performance baggers are huge. It is most of what’s going on right now.” Jeff’s been a driving force behind this segment, and he put his money where his mouth is when he bought a brand-new Harley-Davidson Pan-American to ride from California to Sturgis. This new adventure-style bike fits perfectly on the performance roster.

Danger Dan, who at 36 is well known for his weekly Talk Shop podcast and “MC-T’s” company, moved in the custom-performance direction as well. Even though people see Dan clearly as a “chopper dude” from his escapades around the USA and Mexico, he recently went out and bought his first new bike—a Pan American as well. (No worries, he’ll never give up his chopper!) Dan said, “Going to Sturgis is like a rite of passage or pilgrimage that can’t be missed. Whether I just drop in or stay the whole week.” This year, he did say, “My ride to Sturgis and my ride back were the highlights. I took the Back Country Discovery Route through Colorado, which left me only two days in Sturgis”, but it was still enough time for him to catch up with a bunch of friends and feel like he made it. He also commented how he seems to see fewer custom bikes, but maybe that’s because Dan’s looking through those new performance specs he’s been wearing.

It was interesting to catch up with my old boss, Bikernet.com publisher Keith Ball. He was an editor at Easyriders when I started in 1979. His attraction to the Black Hills was so strong that after being born and raised in California and spending decades working in the motorcycle industry there, he made a move recently settling in Deadwood. Keith mentioned a comment on Bikernet where someone said, “I’ve been coming to the rally for 25-years, and every year, the rally is always different, and that’s why I come back.” This resounded with Keith because, as far as he can tell, the style of bikes is constantly changing, the industry is changing, and really everything changes. “These days, bikes blink at you if a tire is low or to say there’s a bike shop up ahead. As your favorite music blasts in surround sound, it tells you directions, the weather, road conditions, and a whole lot more. Everything is at your fingertips, BUT, you can still shut it all off, quiet everything down and get out there by yourself, to get back to the way it used to be.”

Keith’s grandson, 28-year old artist and tattooist Frank Ball, felt he did get back to the way it was when he rode back to California by himself after the rally. Rather than riding his less than reliable chopper, Franky was on a brand new Road Glide. Talking with Frank was refreshing as this was only his second rally, but he still observed some changes. He believes the rally will “keep getting bigger and bigger, especially with the performance segment, and that more younger people on newer bikes will be capable of making the ride to Sturgis, which will bring in a younger demographic. Then with social media, more young people are getting exposed to Sturgis and want to be there. I saw it for myself bumping into more people my age. And now, I just got home, and I’m already excited for next year. I know what I missed, so I’ve got the route I want to take next year all dialed in, as well as the places I want to ride to when I’m there and the things I want to see.”

One builder that I believe has stayed relevant with all age groups is Led Sled‘s, Pat Patterson. Part of this has been staying immersed in the custom Sportster world, but most can be attributed to how Pat says, “My play etiquette never made it out of my 20’s!” When Pat started his “Sportster Showdown” show a few years, he wondered if they could get enough great Sportsters to show up—but sure enough, there were plenty. And the show has grown to become immensely popular. It moved to the Buffalo Chip’s Camp Zero a few years ago and has since taken on new energy that’s even more fun than before. Pat said, as he expected, this year’s rally was “busy, full of energy, had lots going on, and there were new bike shows popping up everywhere.”

Pat himself was part of the new shows popping up, as he created an invited builder “Sportster Showcase” show for Harley-Davidson in their new “Outlaw Square” in Deadwood, replete with its big stage, portable fun pools, and its great location right on Main Street—across from the historic Franklin Hotel. Pat also said that along with his regular Sturgis group, “we had six-people that had never been to Sturgis that came with us. These are people that work at GM or the Electric Company, and they chose Sturgis to spend their week off. So you can bet I wanted them to have the best vacation they could.”

With regard to bike shows, I remember when the Rat’s Hole Show first came to Sturgis. It was the first big show in town, and it seemed to me a bit out of place in South Dakota. Hit the fast-forward, and there are several bike shows to pick from every day at a variety of venues that go beyond Sturgis’ city limits. (Rapid City and Deadwood in particular.) You also get to pick your favorite flavor; is it a chopper show or an FXR show that tickles your fancy, a bagger show or Sportster show, a performance show or antique show, or perhaps you just want to focus on details, like at the Perewitz Paint Show, or the passion builds in Dennis Kirk’s very own Garage Build show.

Speaking of the Garage Build show, Chris Callen of Cycle Source was much more focused on change. He mentioned several things pointed out above, but focused attention on the new generation that you see in Camp Zero and the Performance Bike guys with FXRs and Dynas. But then Chris said, “The rally is always going to evolve, but hard-working men and women need a break from their regular lives. They want to go somewhere and party their brains out, see things they’ve never seen before, hear music that they may only get a chance to hear at an event like Sturgis, and be around other like-minded motorcycle people. And that part of it is never going to change.”

And then there’s “Woody”. There aren’t many people known by just their nickname, but so it is with Rod Woodruff, the owner of the Sturgis Buffalo Chip. Woody sees the long game because that’s how he has been in it. As the owner of the Sturgis Buffalo Chip since its beginnings, he has kept the business running close to his chest. And so, while street estimates of the crowd at Kid Rock exceeded 100,000, Woody simply says, “It was a very good crowd.” 

Woody did notice a certain change this year that stood out. For three decades, his reservation numbers always reflected a ratio that focused on retaining existing customers, which translated to 2/3 returning campers to 1/3 first-time campers. And then the numbers flipped a few months before the rally so that there were 2/3 first-time campers to 1/3 returning. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they have never been to Sturgis, but certainly, there are many first-timers in there. Woody felt, “It was a new crowd that had never been there before.”

One thing great about Woody’s attention to detail and numbers is how he interprets the rally reports. He told me the overall numbers were 2/3 of what they were in 2015 for the huge 75th Anniversary, and compared to 2020s highly unusual rally that was so impacted by COVID, this year was up by 13%. What I like here is Woody never quoted actual numbers, he just compared relative size, which is how I also view things. I’ve never gotten particularly excited about the numbers one way or another as I’ve always questioned their veracity.

I’ve actually spoken with the rally department and the South Dakota DOT to better understand how rally numbers are figured. What the DOT reports is simply the results from traffic counters that record the number of axles (vehicle/motorcycle = 2) at nine locations entering Sturgis. Supposedly, experts then figure how many people each pair of axles represents along with other data (trash generated, beer purchased…) and apply some sort of an algorithm to come up with the number of visitors. But typically, they are very close to the traffic counters. This being said, I know I go over those counters on average twice a day as I go into town, and then off for ride to the hills, just like many other riders. And I do this all 10-days the traffic counters are used. I am therefore reported as having “entered Sturgis” 20-times during the course of the rally. So now when I hear a news outlet say, “The attendance at the rally was more than 600,000 people”, I take it with a grain of salt and pitch it over my shoulder. (Wow – that felt good to get off my chest.)

On a personal note, I blew the front head gasket on my beloved on the first day of the rally. Yes – I’m referring to my 1995 Harley-Davidson Road King work truck that I’ve been throwing all my photo gear in all these years. Sean’s been urging me to update for several years now, and this finally did me in. (I was almost tearful as Trent loaded my bike up to take it to its new home.) Mark Buche of BMW was awesome in immediately offering and getting me a brand new R-1800 with bags to carry my gear to get through the rally, and I loved it. It is a beast, but when you’re rolling, this thing had everything I could have asked for to take me through the uphill twisties of Vanocker, through Boulder Canyon, and racing down the highways. Thanks so much Mark and BMW for your help!

I also have to mention my annual exhibition at the Sturgis Buffalo Chip, although I’ll save most of the details for a full post I’ll do on the show in the coming weeks. This was the second half of a two-part exhibition focused on what it takes to survive in a business built around your passion. I titled this portion “More Mettle, Motorcycles and Art that Never Quits” and included 28-builders that had each been in the business for at least 20-years and had built at least 20-bikes. Some like Mondo, Dave Perewitz, Donnie Smith, and Arlin Fatland have been in business close to (or more in some cases) 50-years. Cory Ness has that if you count the years, he worked with Arlen as a kid, and then there was someone as young as Matt Olsen who works side by side with his Dad (and both had beautiful Knucklehead Bobbers side by side in the exhibition), but also made the 20-year cutoff.

I included my photography this year as I do once every five years. It fit the theme as I also consider myself a “survivor” as my work has focused on custom bikes and motorcycle culture since the 1970s. More than 100 large framed prints with images from limited edition print series adorned the walls, which you can imagine was quite the undertaking, but again, I’ll come back to this in a future post.

It’s funny how I hear people say how they’ve been to Sturgis a couple of times and “seen it all”. I for one have not seen it all. I go up year after year because it is always new. I discover new roads, the roads change, or I’ll just see the same old road in a new light—both figuratively and literally! Instead of getting bored, I just look harder, or push further, and always try to learn something new every day. (If we’re not learning, then why bother, right?) This is what keeps me engaged in my work, passionate for what I do and for life, and always wanting to go further.

So, you can count on seeing me in Sturgis next year. Who knows, maybe the city will name me an honorary citizen for the more than a year of my life that I’ve spent in there, or perhaps they’ll put me on the chamber of commerce for have promoted it for four decades! Of course, they don’t need to do anything, because Sturgis is like a home away from home, and no bribery is needed to get me to come back. In many ways, being there and riding the hills is like eating comfort food—it just feels good.

I thought I would end this series with some predictions on the 2020s, but I’m no clairvoyant, and won’t be so presumptuous to say I know what is coming. The one thing we can all agree the future holds is “change”, and perhaps, while this is more of a belief based on a 41-year track record, that the rally will get better and better every year. You can ask me what it was like back when, but you won’t get me to say it was better. It was just different. But if you ask me what it is like now, I will simply say “better”. So on this note, will I see you in the Hills next year?