Sturgis Turns 69

Road trip with a little bit of work mixed in" was the first thought that ran through my head as I heard the words "ride from Kentucky to Sturgis" from Rick Ball, owner of RC Components, over the phone. In the never-ending cycle of weekly/monthly deadlines as a magazine editor, it's hard to find time to cut away from the office for extended periods of time. But then again how many other careers can you jump on a bike for two weeks, ride across beautiful two-lane highways through hundreds of miles of rolling farmland to the 69th running of the mother of all motorcycle rallies, only to continue to ride on even more awe inspiring backroads through some of the most historical parts of our country's early history, and call it work? So yes, life is good.

Touching down in Nashville, Tennessee, more than a week ahead of the start of the Sturgis Rally, my blood began to pulse with excitement as I was anxious to hit the road with Rick and some of his employees, Bob Cashwell (Drag Specialties rep), and Doug Westbrook of Doug's Custom Cycles. The plan was to head out early the following morning and meet up at the RC production facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for a quick tour then hit the road (Rick was kind enough to loan me one of his display bikes, an '08 Road King, obviously with a set of his billet wheels) for a four day ride to Sturgis with overnight stops in Springfield, Illinois, Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Oacoma, South Dakota.

Green, on green on green.

The RC tour was pretty impressive-everything from R&D, cutting wheel blanks, polishing, and assembling hubs and wheels is done in one building-RC even has in-house chroming, which allows it to keep strict watch over the process/quality enabling the company to offer a seven-year warranty on its chrome wheels. As soon as we finished the tour we took the obligatory group photo (every trip has one) and hit the road.

Having ridden to Sturgis my fare share of times from SoCal, this was to be my first ride chasing the sun so to speak, riding from the east to the west (ok so actually it was a mix between north and west but you get the point). Within the first 70 miles we were heading into our first looming storm. We pulled off, geared up for the wet stuff, and got back on the road. The sinuous gray clouds overhead turned out to be all bark and no bite-I think I could count on my two hands the number of raindrops that actually hit me, so I spent the next 50 miles or so sweating it out like Matthew Modine in Vision Quest and creating my own weather pattern inside my non-breathable rain gear.

Somewhere early on in the trip (I think it was heading into Illinois) I became cognizant of all the greenery we were flanked by. Thankfully, Rick and his crew had selected an amazing route that kept us off major interstates and bombing through nothing but acre after acre of lush fields and a collection of small towns that literally make up middle America. One thought continuously ran through my head "Damn that's a lot of green and corn!"

Our tour through the Midwest, was impeccable, not a flat tire, electrical issue, breakdown/failure, accident, fight, or even harsh weather to report about (other than that first ounce of rain, we only saw a total of maybe five minutes of rain the entire nearly 1,500-mile ride). Well, there was one close call on a lonely stretch of South Dakota country road where our pack of ten or so bikes could have easily turned into one heap of mangled steel and rubber. We were all perked up from a quick visit and lunch with the Klock Werks shop and Brian Klock. The sun was dipping behind a western skyline of ominous storm clouds as we made our way into Oacoma, South Dakota. The orange, yellow, purple and blue rays dancing through the clouds and across the endless countryside lulled us into a hypnotic state like the Sirens of Sirenum scopuli. Out of nowhere, a required left hand turn popped up which caused bikes to scatter in a crude arrowhead formation trying to avoid one another-the result, an excellent photo-op at an adult farmland oasis.

Sugar Bear aboard one of his legendary Springers

Reaching Sturgis nearly several days before the official start of the rally provides quite a different perspective-basically there are a lot less ants on the farm. After a serene 4x4 tour of the remote backwoods and mountains above the city of Lead on a couple of Rick's quads, I handed the RC RK keys back to Rick and picked up my new ride for the week, a Victory Vision Tour.

Beauty and the Beast?

The Mothership as I called it, turned out to be the perfect ride for hitting all the hot spots in and around Sturgis proper, packing in all my photo gear, collecting souvenirs, and transferring my clothes from one flop spot to another. Throughout my time on the Victory, I was stopped several times by other "Vision-aries" who wanted to talk shop and discuss all the intricacies of the clan of the "V." I think I was offered an honorary spot in the VOG, but my Tour and I couldn't be assimilated. We were like a lone wolf left to carve Spearfish canyon the way it's meant to be ridden-in solitude. And it was dipping and diving in and out of the canyon's sweeping turns that the Tour took on a life of its own and kicked into autopilot as it continually increased its speed and took less and less effort from me to get around the next corner. It quickly became evident that this bike lives in the turns. Without a hiccup, wobble, or skip; no matter what the radius or speed of the turn it was headed into the Tour didn't whine or shudder, it just wanted more.

The Tour at rest in Spearfish Canyon.

Even with the extra days in town, I still didn't accomplish everything I wanted to and missed out on quite a bit. I didn't catch any of the old school flat track races at the County Line, I didn't make it out to Needles Highway, I didn't get a look at Michael Lichter's photo-stravaganza or see Steven Tyler's stage dive at the Chip, and apparently I dodged outta town before the hailstorm of the century decided to play the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida drum solo on a bunch of bikes, trailers and people's heads. Between tech shoots, bike shoots, trips to the Badlands and Devil's Tower, press events like the Legends Charity ride, watching Dave Cook of Cooks Customs take the title of the first American builder to capture the AMD World Championships crown, and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to transcribe all my experiences via words and photos into a mere seven pages, my working road trip was pretty damn good.