Is motorcycle rally losing its thunder?

Mark Richardson

WHEELS EDITOR

STURGIS, S.D.–The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally bills itself as the biggest bike rally in the world, but is it slowly dying?

It's been held here every first full week of August since 1938, when the Jackpine Gypsies bike club ran some flat-track races and bikers rode in to watch. Over the years, it grew and grew and grew some more, reaching its zenith probably in the early '90s when an estimated 500,000 people would gather in this small town of 6,500.

But since then, attendance has been slowly slipping away. There's no accurate way to guess at the numbers, but the decreased attendance has been the talk of the town. The thunder of the V-twins doesn't rumble as loudly as before so late into the night, and patient riders can still find a place to park right on Main St.

This is the first year in a long time that vendor space – in less travelled areas – has still been available during the week, and motel rooms can still be had, though for at least $300 a night.

"A low year, we might get 200,000 people," says the town's mayor, Maury La Rue. Last week was a low year, but that's still a massive rally.

RIDING DOWN Main St.'s wide boulevard, closed to cars during rally week and with bikes parked against each curb and in two neat lines down the middle, it's clear that the motorcycles are predominantly Harley-Davidsons.

Every bike is different. Every bike is well-cared for and loved by somebody. Most every bike is loud, with non-stock pipes. And every bike has a rider and maybe a passenger walking down the sidewalk, browsing in the non-stop stalls for T-shirts and gear and every kind of stuff you can think of for motorcycles, drinking in the saloons to loud, live music.

The noise is constant as bikes fire up or just cruise by at walking pace, every rider trying to look preoccupied or nonchalant. Hardly anyone wears a crash helmet. Every other motorcycle seems to be a radical chop: low slung with rear 300-series tires, wider than those on most cars; V8 engines straight out of a Chevy; apehanger bars way higher than the shoulder height the law allows.

Plenty of the bikes are gorgeous works of metal art that are barely rideable, trailered here from around the country. One of the most popular jacket patches available is the one that reads: "I rode mine here – Sturgis 2007."

Police in grey "Sturgis Police" T-shirts stand in pairs at the end of every block, but they're watching for disturbances in the crowd or stop-sign infractions more than loud pipes and illegal mods. There's plenty for everyone to watch, too, though the throngs of people are well-behaved.

Scantily clad is good, with biker babes everywhere wearing cheeky cut-offs and chaps, and grizzled goatee guys showing off torsos slathered with tattoos. Nudity is a misdemeanour and will cost an immediate $110. A few women walk around with no tops but large stars covering their nipples – they're the brave ones who love the attention of the gawking guys.

The noise of music and motors is all-enveloping, and this is just in Sturgis. The town is on the north edge of the scenic Black Hills with its hundreds of kilometres of smooth, twisting roads leading past the presidents' heads carved out of Mount Rushmore, herds of wild buffalo and the casinos of Deadwood.

Bikes are everywhere in the Black Hills during rally week; some riders never even come in to Sturgis. Motorcycle manufacturers set up their own exhibitions in neighbouring towns like Spearfish where space is more affordable. Harley-Davidson takes over the Convention Center in Rapid City, 45 km east on the interstate.

"While we've noticed that biker attendance is down during the rally in Sturgis, we've seen that it's up by maybe 30 per cent in the rest of the Black Hills during the non-rally weeks," says La Rue, the mayor.

In other words, motorcycle riders who don't care for the congestion and high prices of the rally itself are beginning to shun the event and come to the area at their own convenience.

ORGANIZERS BLAME high gas prices for much of the drop in attendance – those trailered bikes come behind trucks and RVs that drink fuel at alarming rates, and Sturgis, being in Middle America, is a long way from the bike capitals of New York and California.

High prices for space and accommodation don't help, either. Town merchants rent their space for the week to the vendors for whatever they can get, which is normally $5,000 to $10,000 (U.S.) for a basic lot area. Clothes stores become tattoo parlours and accountants' offices become accessory dealers.

The vendors need a place to sleep, too, and residents who don't care to stick around during the noise and congestion rent out their homes for the week. It's the law of supply and demand for the underground economy: $4,000 for a nice five-bedroom house; $1,300 for a one-bedroom dump.

But there's no doubt that the main reason is the aging demographic of "bikers" who just aren't being replaced by the next generation. Their children don't want to ride the same bikes as their parents – they want efficient and fast Japanese machines, not V-twin muscle bikes that fall back on a century of heritage.

And they don't want to become leather mamas like the bronzed, tattooed women here. The vast majority of rally participants are at least 40 years old, making the most of the free time they've finally achieved and the $30,000 motorcycle they can finally afford.

"There's no doubt the rally will be very different 20 years from now," says rally director Pepper Massey.

Sturgis is trying to move with the trend by broadening the appeal beyond Harley-Davidson cruisers to sportbikes and everything in between, but there are few sportbikes to be seen here.

The Black Hills offer some of the best riding roads in the country, with far-away vistas and switchbacks everywhere; pigtail bridges lead the road in complete loops down the side of steep hills. But it's no fun to ride a quick bike during rally week.

Long trains of doddering cruisers fill the road for too great a distance to pass, their doddery riders inexperienced on such challenging highways and keeping well beneath the speed limit, almost crawling around the curves.

The highway patrol knows this, too, and enforces low speed limits to ensure safety for everyone. This is no pleasure for the serious riders who may be the next generation for Sturgis.

But ultimately, this being America, the future of the rally is out of the hands of the mayor or the director. It will be determined by private enterprise, which stands to make millions of dollars from the unreported economy of the event.

"The rally will change as private enterprise decides to make change," says La Rue. "We're at the whim of the business people, who will see what's needed and fill any gaps. Riders will always come to Sturgis – there will always be a rally here."

Harley-Davidson provided Wheels editor Mark Richardson with a motorcycle and equipment. mrichardson@thestar.ca

More videos from Wheels.ca and our partners