Passes & Canyons Blog

I’m in Sturgis for the rally but it’s not like when the OFMC did the rally in 2006. This time I’m alone, and I’m here to work. And I want to make money, not spend it, so no $500 per night hotel rooms in Rapid City this time. Sure, we split that four ways, but that’s still $125 per person per night. Ouch!

This time I’m camping. That’s my tent and my Kawi in the picture above. I’m actually right in Sturgis and it’s amazingly inexpensive at the Vanocker Campground where I’m dug in. The cost is just $15 a night and they have showers and a little cafe for breakfast. On top of that, coffee is free at the cafe and food is good as well as affordable. The one guy running the operation cooks up your order on a small stove while you sit at the table outside and chat with fellow campers. My large breakfast taco was only $3.

As always, there are pluses and minuses. There isn’t much shade, so when I arrived yesterday at about 3 p.m. I was lucky to find one of the only two somewhat shaded spots left. And if it rains hard, as is predicted for later today and tonight, camping could be fun, not to mention riding my road bike across this field.

And then, of course, there are the neighbors. I’ve always heard that it’s the campgrounds where the fun is at Sturgis, but that may be referring to places like the Buffalo Chip, where they have concerts. At places like Vanocker it’s more a matter of meeting and getting acquainted with the folks next to you. Except that guy.

There’s always a “that guy,” isn’t there? In this case, that guy is some jerk who drove his semi-sized rig and large trailer in and set himself up this morning at about 5:30 a.m. Far be it from him to just stop along the road somewhere and get a couple hours sleep, before arriving after everyone was up. No, he came right in while it was still dark and made damn sure everyone was aware he had done so. There’s something about a semi maneuvering back and forth about 20 feet from your tent that makes it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. Not to mention his Doberman, who got out and started barking. Thanks, asshole!

So anyway, I’m looking for the real Sturgis experience this year. Maury LaRue, the mayor of Sturgis, tells me they estimate rally-goers spend an obligatory 2 hours and 37 minutes in Sturgis, and the rest of the time out cruising or hanging out at their motels/campgrounds elsewhere. I’m figuring on more like 70 hours, myself. And if, unlike yesterday, I don’t have to spend it all working I may even have some fun. Wish me luck.

Biker Quote for Today

All who wander are not lost. Be a traveler, not a tourist.

The word from Will Barclay, the putative winner of the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge, is that he has already had his $500,000 prize wired to his bank account, so it would appear that some folks’ expectation that no payout would ever be made was unfounded. Still, as one comment on Examiner in regard to this said, “This completely exonerates the organizers of all improprieties associated with the race. NOT!”

Hoka Hey riders before the race (Photo: David Stephens)

Nobody has done a better job than Cyril Huze of stating the questions that Big Jim Durham/Redcloud ought to answer. I doubt we’ll ever see answers to those questions, however. But here’s the latest.

Quick Throttle ran an interview with Barclay and it’s an interesting read. The story was picked up by U.S. Rider News and in a comment on that story, Frank Kelly, or at least someone who claimed to be Kelly, disputed the “photo finish” decision that ruled him out of the money. Kelly and Barclay had been in a heat for the finish and agreed to cross the finish line together and split the prize. Durham announced, however, that there could only be one winner, and that winner was Barclay because Kelly had been disqualified.

Now, I say, “at least someone who claimed to be Kelly” because there’s no way be sure here whether someone else simply posted this comment and claimed to be Kelly. With that understanding, here’s “Kelly’s” comment:

I have a bit of heartburn with alot of people saying I was disqualified or that I disqualified myself, no such thing happened. My name is on offical checkpoint sheet. The reason I was told by Jim “Red Cloud” Durham that Will was the winner and we couldn’t split the pot is that the Hoka Hey Organizers said that there could only be one winner and in their “photo finish” Will’s tire was a couple of inches ahead of mine. I haven’t seen the picture yet. I was told from Jim “Red Cloud” Durham that if Will didn’t pass his polygraph then I was next in line to have to take it. I am not sure where this info is coming from but someone is getting lied too.

So in keeping with the tone set by Cyril Huze in his questions, I think it’s also fair to insist that Durham release the photo, as well as the particulars of how this image was captured. Are we talking about serious photo-finish equipment such as they use at racetracks? Or is the photo simply one shot by someone sort of close to the finish line, sort of almost perfectly in line with the finish line?

Maybe they did have that sort of precision equipment in place and in operation. But it is exactly these sorts of unknowns that will continue to cast a shadow over the Hoka Hey until solid answers are provided. And double-checked. Because if one thing is certain it is that Jim Durham is, at best, careless with his words. He accused me and other reporters of error when we reported that he claimed the FBI would administer polygraph tests to potential winners. “That’s another thing they screwed up,” he said. Well, I know I was quoting his words exactly when I wrote that he said that, because I heard him on the radio interview he did with KBBI radio in Homer, AK. And there are other, similar instances.

So, congratulations to Will Barclay, and kudos to all competitors who finished. But is everything about the Hoka Hey settled now? NOT!

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
BMW test rides: R1200RT and F800GS

Biker Quote for Today

Biker: A drunk liar in dirty clothes who plays with a large vibrator in public.

I rode up to Loveland the other day with my friend Randy and his neighbor, Donny, to Northern Colorado Euro Motorcycles, where BMW had come in with a truckload of bikes to offer demo rides. I’ve never had much opportunity to ride any BMW bikes, other than a K1300GT I test rode last fall in Keystone, so I was pleased at this opportunity.

The four bikes I rode were very different and my thoughts on them are comparably different. The one I really loved was the R1200RT, a touring bike that was just about as sweet as you could ask for. In fact, it was such a nice bike it’s hard to think of anything to say about it other than it was just a great bike. I will mention, though, that it was just a little odd, at least in my experience, because the mirrors were below the handlebar, so you look down to see them and in the top of the mirror you see your hands. Very odd, but I’m sure you’d get used to it.

I also rode the dual sport F800GS. I haven’t done much dual sport riding and this was by far the tallest bike I’ve ever gotten on. There was no way I could push up off the sidestand other than to throw my weight that direction and count on catching myself on the other side before going over. At stops I either slid off on one side or barely touched ground on both sides on my tiptoes. But that’s nothing uncommon for a bike that needs deep suspension.

The thing about this test ride, however, was that it was on the pavement. If a dual sport bike is in the middle between street and dirt, this one is biased toward the dirt, and we didn’t get to go there with them. As it was, I felt very much that that was where it belonged, and that I didn’t much care for riding it on the pavement.

The next bike was also a half-and-half bike, the F800ST, with the ST referring to sport touring. (That’s me on the F800ST in the picture, which Randy shot.) This bike puts the “sport” into “sport touring.” As nearly perfect as it might have been for me and my preferred style of riding, the pegs were so high that there was no way I could ride this thing all day without my knees being in agony. It has great power and is fun to ride and if you’re less than 5’6″ it could be your dream bike. If you’re taller, however, forget it.

My final ride of the day was the all-out sport bike, the S1000RR. A bit of a disclaimer here: I’ve never ridden a sport bike before, and now I know why. With the high pegs and the low grips, I was perfectly set up to play leap-frog, and there’s no way I am going to ride in that position for long. For those who like those kinds of bikes, I suspect you would love this one. I know I didn’t ride it anywhere close to its capabilities. I just wanted to see what it was like to ride a sport bike, plus I wanted to compare it to the F800ST, which itself seems so biased to the sport side of its own equation.

So that’s just a quick run-through. I’ll go into more detail sometime soon on Examiner.

Biker Quote for Today

Just because I am a BMW apologist, doesn’t mean I have to be snarky.