Black Hills Harley Davidson...

We have a local dealer here in Florida, Bruce Rossmeyer's Harley Davidson, which is pretty much "ground zero" for either Bike Week in March or Biketoberfest in October. At some point during those events, you have to get to Rossmeyer's.

Well, the Black Hills Rally has a similar dealer, only it's like Rossmeyer's on steroids: Black Hills Harley Davidson.

 

 

Black Hills Harley is right off of I-90 in Rapid City, and it would be a monumental understatement to say that it's "absolutely huge". Dealers from all over the country ship bikes to Black Hills Harley for their "used bike" sale during the rally. They set up an enormous tent, and they have literally thousand of motorcycles on hand. By the end of the rally, though, the tent is pretty much empty:

Black Hills Harley has a wide array of vendors and, really, I don't care what you're looking for, if it's motorcycle related it'll be here. Hell, even if it's not motorcycle related it might be here. But the main attraction, of course, are the motorcycles. With so many of them on hand, it's hard to whittle it down to a few representative photos, but I'll try:

 

So, yeah, sensory overload. Between the clamor of the motorcycles coming and going, the performance vendors installing and testing new engine builds and stereo vendors cranking tunes after an install, it can get pretty loud, to say the least. But it's a great vibe, and one you won't really find in any other environment.

Also, they had a wide array of vendors selling sunglasses, jewelry, knives, silencers (yes, silencers!) and even guns:

 

 

Okay, so the guns were special editions with a rather clear political message but, hey, when in Rome, right? They weren't cheap, either, all being into the four figures. And, if you found yourself getting hungry, you know you're always going to find good eatin' at a motorcycle rally:

 

All in all, Black Hills Harley was quite the experience. The only aspect they lacked in was live music, which we tend to have no shortage of in Daytona. Even still, though, the sheer number of motorcycles would make up for it for any motorcycle fan, with acres and acres of them to drool over...

Sturgis Black Hills Motorcycle Rally - The Arrival

I feel somewhat remiss. After all, it's been almost a month since I returned from Sturgis, and this is the first I'm getting around to posting about it. That's okay, though. That means I've been busy and, as I like to say, "Busy pays the bills".

Add to that the fact that I had another trip to Colorado planned for the latter half of August, and I simply decided to wait for the dust to settle before sitting down at the computer.

As a reminder, this is what we were driving. It's a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter with which we were dragging an 18' trailer with a motorcycle in it:

 

Now, our drive to Sturgis was a bit of a chore. We had constant issues with the bike mount in the trailer, and those issues would turn 15 minute gas and bathroom breaks into hour long trailer repair breaks. The time in between, though, was rather restful!

 

When we did get to have just a gas and bathroom break, we got to see some pretty cool rigs on their way to Sturgis. This red and gray trailer was being pulled by a matching red and gray motor home of equal length:

 

 

If I were to guesstimate, I'd say that easily half the people we encountered on the road and in gas stations and rest areas were on their way to the rally. They were everywhere:

 

 

So, suffice it to say we eventually got to Sturgis (well, Rapid City, to be exact) on Thursday, August 4 in the afternoon and started to set up our site:

 

 

By the time we'd gotten all set up and had something to eat, we decided it was really too late to go try to do anything, so we opted to have a few cocktails at the campsite and get started with our week in the morning...

The Drive (Sturgis or Bust!)

So, it's crunch time.

We've started looking at routes, and have decided to take the most direct route there is. We could've taken I-10 out to Dallas and then made a right, but we've opted to head north on I-75 off I-10. We'll take that through Atlanta and Chattanooga and up into Nashville.

From Nashville we'll hop onto I-57 and stay on that until St. Louis. There we'll hop onto I-70 into Kansas City, which is where we'll pick up I-29. We'll follow that through Sioux City, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska. When we hit Sioux Falls, South Dakota we'll head west on I-90 and follow that until we hit Rapid City, South Dakota.

Despite it being somewhat late in the game as far as planning goes, we were able to get a campsite, with full RV hook-ups, at the Lake Park Campground in Rapid City. Our other option was a primitive site at the Buffalo Chip and, to be honest, there's going to be a lot going on there. But "a lot going on" also equates to "a lot" of noise at all hours.

Lake Park is roughly 30 miles from downtown Sturgis, but they offer wi-wfi, a shower house and a laundry. There are shuttles which run from all of the area campgrounds into Sturgis and, while they don't originate rides in Sturgis, I can take an Uber from Rapid City into Sturgis. I also have the option of toolin' around in the camper, because it's not so big that it can't be used for day trips.

Ah, yes, the camper. 

 It's a Mercedes-Benz "Sprinter" type camper, although I'm not certain of the exact model. Seeing as it's Greg's, he'll get the king size bed in the back. I'll figure something out, as the captain's chairs behind the driver's seat and the passenger seat don't fold out into a bed. They do, however, swivel, so I'm sure I'll be able to make due.

And, if worse comes to worse, we'll be packing a huge tent that I can always crash in, as well. The reality of it all is that I've fallen asleep in my desk chair so often that I'm not really concerned with where I end up sleeping on this trip.

Greg and I plan on leaving around 1:00pm on Tuesday. That way, hopefully, we'll avoid the rush hour nightmare that is weekday Atlanta traffic. We'll take turns driving; probably five hours at a shot, so that we can drive straight through.

Our total drive time, assuming we make gas and sanity stops along the way, should take us right around 32 hours. That'll put us rolling into Rapid City Wednesday evening. Otherwise, we'll stop along the way to decompress and and roll into town during the day on Thursday.

Either way it's gonna' be a fun trip!

Just A Week Out...

So, for Sturgis, I want to make sure I'm ready for whatever shooting scenario I find myself in.

The primary rig I'll be using for photographing around downtown Sturgis and the madness there will be the Canon 5D MKIV and the Tamron 24-70mm f/28 VC. I bought the Tamron lens after my Canon version died. I was looking at a repair bill of around a grand for the Canon, and it just didn't make sense to me to send it in.

I recently shot the Mecum Summer Special with this lens, and I'm impressed. The vibration control is, according to Tamron, good for five stops. I thought that was a bit enthusiastic of a claim but, man, I gotta' tell you, I was shooting at 1/30 of a second and getting razor sharp images. So, yeah, call me a convert.

So, I'll have that wonderful "downtown rig", but I don't plan on staying in downtown Sturgis for the entire 12 days. There's a lot to see and do. Badlands National Park is just over an hour away. Devil's Tower, in Wyoming, is 90 minutes away. I've been to both of those already, but I wouldn't mind going back So, for that reason, I'm packing up the ol' Pelican case (which has been empty for far too long):

 

The gear...

 

In addition to the aforementioned rig, I'll also have my Canon 6D, my 100-400mm, the 70-200mm f/2.8 and the 17-40mm. I'm hoping to be able to convince some people to let me shoot their portrait. For this, I'll be bringing the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART lens. I was on the fence but, since space isn't an issue, I figured I'd bring it along.It can be a tricky lens to use, but the results are stellar. This is a photograph I took of my friend with the Sigma lens:

 

The image quality produced by this lens is... it's just different. It's not necessarily "better", per se, but there's something about it which makes me want to use this lens more. I'm just hoping I can get some willing participants!

And, as if all of that wasn't enough, I'm also bringing my Fuji X100F. It'll be great for shooting in the camper and during those pit stops we'll make along the way:

 

So, now that the gear is all inventoried and packed, it's time to start in on the more mundane things; laundry, packing, yadayadada. The reality is that the next week is going to fly by and I don't want to get caught short.

I likely won't make another entry until, the earliest, a day or two before we depart. Thankfully the camper has wi-fi, so I'll be able to do updates from the road here on the blog, Instagram, Facebook, etc. during the trip, and I'll definitely be checking in from Sturgis after we arrive...