2009 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Well, we've both managed to survive the 2009 Sturgis Rally, but it will probably take a few more days for our hearing to completely return to normal.  We haven't heard any published attendance figures yet, but the thumbnail estimates are in the area of 400 to 500,000 bikers in the Sturgis area, with somewhere in the area of 50 to 60,000 of them coming south 50 miles to visit us at Custer State Park. 
Or you can figure it from this perspective:  Mandy and I, from 7/30 to 8/9, sold (and attached) just short of 4400 bike bands to motorcycles coming into the park.  There are about 25 entrance gate attendants -- so if each of them averaged the same sales as us, the attendance would be about 55,000 -- that's a bunch of bikes.
We got to work 12 days with only one day off, and most of those days were 9 hour shifts, so we'll have a bit of overtime pay coming our way -- but overall it really wasn't worth it.  Yes, the rally is an experience not to be missed, but Harley after Harley after Harley, all with loud and louder exhaust pipes, gets pretty old after a couple of days.  Fortunately, the bikers were, for the most part, more fun and polite than a lot of our customers, but the workload and noise from working the entrance gates for that length of time was just overload -- at least that's our take on the event from our corner of the world.
As you might imagine, there were a number of pretty nasty wrecks on the twisty roads in the park, but no fatalities.  In fact, we've heard that over the whole Black Hills area there was only one motorcycle fatality during the rally -- which is pretty amazing, given that probably 90 percent of the riders that we saw were not wearing helmets. 
We were also surprised to see so many wearing virtually no protective clothing -- basically screaming along the highway in doo-rags, t-shirts, tank tops, and flip-flops (and leather vests).  I guess we've got a lot to learn about the Harley "live to ride" mystique, but we're pretty certain that its not what we're after.
The rally was a very positive event for us in one big respect --  during our one day off during the rally we did get a chance to have a great visit with Greg's cousins Mark and Rick, along with Mark's wife Brenda and Rick's companion Ann.  They were all down for the rally from Bozeman, and were having a great time.  We'd not seen them for at least 3 years, so it was good to catch up with them and get re-acquainted.
 
 
Overall, we really didn't have a lot of time to take pictures -- and the ones that we did manage to get really do not relay the feel of the crush of noise and people that we experienced -- but, for what its worth, here is our 09 Rally collection:


                                                                                                                                                                                                                 (We actually took this one when we went to Sturgis in June -- things were pretty quiet then . . . . . . )









this was the scene at Sylvan Gate on one of our busy days









the crowd at Sylvan Lake for the Buffalo Burger cook-out













Scenes from the Park's West Entrance Gate on a normal rally day




Doing the accounting of the bike bands and the money with our revenue supervisor, Lou









And, finally, our favorite -- this guy has been bringing his mother-in-law to the Sturgis Rally for years, and he wanted to introduce her to us.