That Time of Year

We’re coming up on Rally Week again. For those of you that don’t know Rally Week is the Sturgis South Dakota Harley Division Motorcycle Rally, aka pain in the butt week. Every August the folks in Sturgis sponsor one of the largest and oldest excuses for old fat men to ride around in black leather under a hot August sun.

“Res what do you care what they do in SD”? Generally I don’t much care but Wyoming is the route that 80% of the rally goers from the western states drive through to get to Sturgis. So we get a ton of pre and post rally Harley traffic.

This year the folks in Cody Wyoming totally lost their collective minds and decided to have the Hells Angles invade their town for a pre-Sturgis kick off. This blessed the rest of the state with an influx of drug running, murderous, psychopaths, but then again Cody has a lot of Californians, they may have felt more comfortable among their own kind.

A real “Hog” costs more cash than any normal person should spend on a toy of that quality. There are three kinds of Harley owners/rally goers:

1. Rich guys (doctors, lawyers, Jay Leno) that are looking for some thing, anything that will let them look/feel/fool others into thinking that they are real men.
2. Middle class guys that are neglecting more important things to wear black leather and get stinky in the sun.
3. Criminal underclass that see rally week as an excuse to meet up and swap drugs.

Things they have in common:

1. Inability to drive a motorcycle safely or in accordance with traffic laws.
2. Aversion to bathing or personal hygiene.
3. Fat girlfriends

I asked “why do so many skinny guys with Harleys have a fat chick on the back of the bike”? I was told, “Somebody might have to kick start that sucker”.

How they get to Sturgis:

Rich guys either: a) trailer the bikes behind the motor home, creating another road hazard since they shouldn’t be allowed to drive those either, or b) have a flunky trailer the bike to Rapid City, where they fly to and then make the grueling 45 minute trip to Sturgis.

Middle class guys: a) trailer the bike behind the pick up, b) its rumored that some of them have tried to ride to the rally, c) the trailer/ride method, this is where the strong road warrior stops the truck before he gets to town, takes the bike off and drives it into the gas station to talk with all the other rally goers, the wife then drives the truck to the next rest area beyond the town and waits for him there.

This is incredibly funny to watch, especially when you’re driving on the interstate and see 8 or 10 trucks with trailers unloading at the same spot and then see the same trucks waiting at the next rest area on the other side of town. I’ve always wanted to ask one of the women if they help their man fake orgasms too.

Hells Angles types: They ride it all the way, two reasons a) the contents of the saddle bags are illegal, b) after serving 7 to 10 in the pen, ridding a Harley all day don’t seem so bad.