So this last year a good friend of mine got himself a newer cruiser and had been wanting to take some longer trips on it. Considering that we just live on the other side of the state and have both never been, we decided to head out to Sturgis for the rally. I have another friend who recently built a house in town and had an open bedroom which made the decision a whole lot easier.
Now I’m not a crowd person at all and the idea of a bunch of rowdy bikers all gathered in the same place doesn’t really appeal to me, but I’ve always been curios to check it out, if anything to just say that I’ve done it, and with a kiddo on the way I figured this would be the year to do it, so we went. I had a lot more fun than I ever thought I would. The crowds really weren’t that terrible, and downtown Sturgis itself was pretty tame, we didn’t make it out to the Buffalo Chip, but I’ve heard it can get a little crazy out there. As for the riding itself, it was incredible, the roads were clean and pretty smooth and the weather held out all weekend, with only a small amount of scattered rain one morning. Of course we ran into quite a bit of slow traffic, but overall the pace was pretty decent, and we even managed to find a few roads with no one ahead of us where we could put on some speed. Day one we put on a little over 200 miles in the Hills, and day two was a bit over 100 because we made more stops at all of the little roadside stands and gatherings.
I’ve had the Warrior for a little over a year now and the more I ride it the more I love it. For a big bike it handles the curves very well and was super fun to toss around. Riding the mountain of torque out of a curve was intoxicating. We never really hit a pace where we were working the brakes hard, but they were more than capable. On the interstate it ate up the miles, 100 miles at a time (small tank). A better seat would have been nice, along with a few more foot position options, but overall the bike was amazing. Total trip ended up being just over 1100 miles.
Anyway, short story long it was a great trip and I had a lot more fun than I expected. Here’s a bunch of potato pics, enjoy.
This bike was by far the most impressive of the rally, the rally was a sea of you’re typical SOA Dynas/Softtails, and big wheel big bag Street Glides and Road Glides, but then there was this. Built around a punched out Twin Cam it was running two superchargers from a Mercedes model that escapes me, one on each side, each with their own dual Weber carb. The builder said it made somewhere around 200 wheel HP, which for a Harley motor is a lot. The paint and body work on this was immaculate, and the guy was even letting people sit on it. Absolutely stunning build.
There were a lot of other really cool bikes out, Africa Twins, FZR’s, a Pacific Coast, a Helix, a bunch of KLR’s and a lot of other random interesting bikes that I didn’t get pictures of, but the real heros of the weekend were a couple riding a pair of hopped up Piaggios up in the curves and the big burly bearded man on a hot pink Vino.