Sturgis!

OK, so we were over a month too early for the bike rally, but we made the pilgrimage to Sturgis anyway! A few folks in our group have been to the Sturgis bike rally in the past and agreed that the riding is much better when there aren't thousands of bikers in town! Sturgis itself is a sleepy little town without much going on. Other than a few biker bars and leather shops, it was pretty much a nondescript town. Since I was the only one out of the obligatory all-black riding outfit (I'm the one in pink!), I bought a t-shirt (or two) at the Sturgis Harley Davidson shop!

Before riding up to Sturgis, we rode a really cool stretch of road called Needles Highway. If you click on the map, you'll get a larger version so you can see where we rode. Needles Hwy is just above the lightly shaded area of Custer State Park at the bottom center of the map. This map is from one of the Black Hills Harley shops and rates each ride by level of difficulty (Black Hills & Badlands maps). Needles lived up to its difficulty rating of 5 with lots of hairpin turns on roads without guardrails and one lane tunnels. It was hard to pay enough attention to the road with such beautiful scenery all around. I thought the road was named Needles because of all the pine trees. After lots of laughter at my expense, I was informed that it's name came from all the needle-looking rock formations along the route. Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself. . . !

The road through Custer State Park called the Wildlife Loop afforded us lots of opportunities to see animals in their native surroundings. This picture is of a heard of buffalo right off the side of the road. You can see some buffalo dung in the road which Kerby plowed through later down the road while he was busy checking out other wildlife! We also got up-close and personal with a rattlesnake in the road. I was thankful for the thick boots I was wearing as I passed within a foot of the reptile slithering across the road.

Much to the dismay of my friends, the temps stayed well into the 90s and low 100s most of the trip. The only reprieve from the smoldering temperature was when we hit a rain shower while riding in Spearfish Canyon. It's amazing how cold rain is out west! I tried not to gloat, but I was ecstatic over the hot temps. Finally, after being cold and shivering while riding for the majority of the year, I was comfortable on the bike. I think my friends finally understood how I felt riding in winter after riding in temps they found very uncomfortable. Even I will admit, 102 degrees on a motorcycle is hot, but I was only slightly uncomfortable while everyone else was wilting. I'm happy to report, however that we still thoroughly enjoyed riding the Black Hills even if it was a little warmer than most of the group would've preferred.

I'll do one more post tomorrow summing up the trip. Stay tuned. . .