Sturgis, Buffalo Chip; Anything goes

The city was founded in 1938 where it hosted yearly bike races and stunt shows but in 1981 the mayor of Sturgis, attempting to rid the city of biker 'Riff-Raff' kicked riders out of city park.
This pushed the party out of town into several different festival grounds and created what we know today as Full Throttle Saloon, Broken Spoke & Buffalo Chip. The week long festival will see Sturgis swell from 6.6k people to over a million, an unbelievable change. Buildings normally empty are suddenly merchandise shops, hardware stores move out and become bike show rooms. It is the biggest motorbike festival in the world and this year is the 75th anniversary.

We've just finished our 3 nights camping at Buffalo Chip and what an experience! It's a celebration of motorbikes and music, mixed in with a fair dose of public nudity and beer all built for bikers not bikies. People have travelled from all round and most have brought an RV towing a trailer with bikes & buggies for festival transport. They are impressive and like everything else in America, huge. The atmosphere is fantastic.

I'm not sure where the nudity thing comes from but the main offenders are all middle aged women being encouraged by their husbands (who are often punching well above their weight). In the town, where nudity is prohibited, a lot of the ladies get around the rules by using body paint. Sometimes you can walk by a group and not even notice they aren't dressed as the paint work takes the form of normal clothes. Certainly something you don't see everyday!

One thing that surprised me is the attitude of the crowds, there is no pushing and shoving or anger. Everyone is pretty relaxed and friendly. I even overheard one guy say that he liked the people at Sturgis more than his church. Makes me a little sad as it's pretty obvious a festival like this could never work in Australia. Concerns about public liability and recklessness would sink the idea before it sailed. Bikini beach has a giant rope swing and no lifeguards, the main arena has a zipline running across it and motorbikes are allowed right up to the front stage where riders rev the shit out of them between songs amongst all the spectators. There's also midget bowling, roller derby and plenty of sideshows. No fences or barriers, no police, wild.

Heaps of pics below.
Bill.