STURGESS August 2000

The 2000 Road king Dukey had just bought was about as handsome as the 1995 Heritage he had in 95Click!!!Man is God good or what? Neddy calls and asks Dukey if he wants to take a ride to Sturgis South Dakota with a few friends of his. The Duke had put many sporadic miles on my bikes before but never to the tune of 4200 miles. We left Redondo Bch at Midnight. Duke only knew one of the 7 guys we rode with so he was pretty low key (AT FIRST). We slammed across the desert and within a few hours we were in Vegas then up the hill into Utah. From there it was pretty much all back roads. We finally camped at 7PM the following night after a 19 hour ride. Dukey had the comfort of a new fuel injected bike but some of these guys were on Harley’s made of whatever they had in their garage. One guy had a 1963 pan chopper and another guy named Willard had a beard that trailed his bike by 30 feet. (A slight exaggeration but that stanker was long!!) Click! As we set up camp and our bodies were ready to drop, some guy came in and set up his own personal horse shoe pit. They tried to be friendly but he didn’t like the looks of our little gang and he was more into the “I am a great athlete attitude”. They threw back a few and were kicking back when Dukey decided to approach the confident cocky player. The Duke had thrown a few shoes in his day. Dukey’s Dad was one of the better players in Mass. He used to have Dukey lay in front of the pit as he threw ringers over him into the pits they had in their yard. He also used to have Dukey put his foot on top of the steak as he threw. The Duke wasn’t that good but having been blessed with exceptional hand eye coordination it was game on. He came out of the gate a little slow but adapted and ended up burying the poor guy in his own home made delusional horse shoe trip. The rest of the boys were cheering and next thing you know Dukey began to let loose and take charge. The next morning as they packed up and got on their bikes, Duke started the show. MOUNT UP!! Pretending he was there new leader, they all laughingly became sort of subservient and let him take the lead. It was game on again! They zinged and zagged through Utah and Colorado where they stopped and re-did Ned’s brakes with a spoon or something that was found in the woods. These guys were Ricky Wrench heads for sure. The Duke felt way more confident riding with them. Eventually they made their way into South Dakota and camped in some guy’s back yard a couple exits from the mass Chaos. Cilck! The bands, parties, bars, rodeos and assorted activities were over the top. They even had topless woman bronco riding. Crazy stuff. The town had over 600 thousand bikes. The only time you could really ride without having to put your feet down was before 10AM or after 8PM. It was bike insanity. Click. They spent one crazy night watching Marshall Tucker and God knows who else before crawling in their tents, beat up from a hard day’s work, around 3 AM. Ned and Dukey decided after a couple days it was just too much madness, so they headed northeast into Wyoming and then Oregon. They stopped at Richard Drefuss’s favorite place Devils Postpile, from the movie Close Encounters and yes they got close to it, and almost ran out of gas. Making their way across nowhere they saw a storm brewing. They were heading dead on into it and it did not look very nice. They raced along trying to get to the next town which was a good poke but things got very dark and ugly. Click They put their gear on and the road slanted left and they thought they were going to get out of it but then they headed straight into it again. When it was upon them and they had no cover, all of a sudden there was like this tunnel with the sun on the other side. They blasted right through it barely getting wet. Click. When they finally reached the town they pulled in and Dukey went in the store and a woman asked him if he had just come from the east. He replied, “yes” and she asked if he saw the blown over trucks. He said no. Somehow by the grace of God they slipped right through but others were not so lucky. They got a motel and a couple huge steaks and kicked back. At least Dukey did. Neddy was not married and he met a little French and was gone for the night. The next morning Ned showed up and we packed the bikes and were off. At some point they were in Jackson Hole which to Dukey those Tetons are as beautiful as any mountain range he’d ever seen. Down the back side following the Snake River and then into Idaho was the best part of the trip according to Dukey. From there they scrambled egg, and zinged into Oregon and made their way down to Crater Lake Click and on to California at Lake Shasta. Buzzed through Lassen National forest over to 395 and took it south through Tahoe. They climbed back over the Sierras on rt 4 and headed for home. 4200 miles of beautiful Madness.