I just got back from the 86th Annual Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, and returned to YouTubers and other influencers complaining about price gouging. I stayed six nights. The total cost of my trip was less than $500 (excluding gasoline). Gas was the only thing I didn’t pay cash for because I didn’t want to waste time going into the gas stations when I didn’t need to. I didn’t even get off my bike for the first three gas stops. Tap the card. Pump the gas. Go.
Sturgis is 1,225 miles from my house. I headed west at 5:00 a.m. EDT on Friday, August 7 and rolled into my campground at 5:00 a.m. MDT on Saturday, August 8 (26 hours later). You know the weather was perfect when other campers asked me if I washed my bike before I got to the campground (I didn’t). I was not so fortunate on the ride home. The rain started in Mitchell SD and continued sporadically for the entire trip.
I have no windshield, fairing, or tour pack on my Harley Davidson Softail Deuce. Everything I needed was either inside my Big Bertha leather saddlebags, or strapped to the sissy bar on the back seat. I brought a clean pair of socks and underwear, and a clean T-shirt for every day of the trip. I had three clean pairs of jeans, plus the pair I wore on the ride. I had at least one hot shower a day.
I rode 3,000 miles last week. I look forward to this annual trip all year. I cannot fathom putting my motorcycle on a trailer and pulling it off when I reach my destination. I don’t care if anyone else does that. I just don’t understand it. At all.
The reason I own a motorcycle is because I love riding motorcycles.
I also like sleeping in a tent on hot summer nights. The ground is always dry and hard in Sturgis. But this year it was extra hard. The water level in the creek that runs through the campground looked like it was down about six feet due to the drought. I was told the fish were dying. Before the rally they had a couple of weeks of 100-degree temperatures. A grass fire during the rally burned 450 acres up to the road to the Full Throttle Saloon.
I found a big rock to pound my tent pegs in. Three went in and three bent in half. Three out of six is the minimum I would tolerate. I’ve seen unpegged dome tents go airborne when that Sturgis wind blows through.
You might think riding long distances and sleeping in tents is a young man’s game. I get that. But without giving away my exact age, my first Sturgis Rally was the 50th anniversary in 1990. I rode the same distance on my 1989 Softail Custom, with my new wife sitting behind me. We slept in a tent. My bike packing skills have been refined several times over the years and I now have it down to a science.
“If you can’t fit it, you don’t need it”
was always the motto. That’s one reason I don’t use an air mattress. I sleep on my side, and I always seem to pick a spot where a tree root grinds into my hip bone. That’s the only discomfort until I maneuver around it. This year my good friend, who rides 800 miles south, tossed me an inflated air mattress and said, “Happy Birthday - you’re too old to sleep on the ground” (It wasn’t my birthday). I didn’t have the tree root problem this year and I got some rain water in my tent for the first time. The air mattress mitigated the damage. It’s light weight, so I was able to roll it up in my tent when I packed for home. I’ll probably start using it.
“Price Gouging”
I didn’t experience it. Yes, if you want to get a motel room or an Airbnb near a town whose population balloons from 7,000 to between 1/2 and 3/4 of a million people for a special event, you’re going to pay through the nose. It’s the simple law of supply and demand. Ditto, if you drag a 40-foot motorhome into a campground and start hooking up water and electricity. I saw one video in which the creator was complaining about $8 beers and outrageous food prices on Main Street. Have you been to a concert or sporting event lately? When you’re part of a captive audience they always take advantage for food and drinks. No surprise there.
I wouldn’t call Sturgis a captive audience. There’s no fence around the city and they don’t charge admission. You have choices. Instead of buying food from one of the vendors set up for the rally, we had a meal at a local restaurant on Main Street. It didn’t cost any more than similar restaurants in other cities. Another day we ate at the Mt. Rushmore Brewing Company’s Pounding Fathers Restaurant in Custer. The price was the same as you would pay at similar restaurants everywhere.
Another day we had a meal in historic Deadwood. Same story.
Camping cost me $30 per night, breakfast included. Last year it was $27.50 and it also included dinner. The small price increase and the removal of the second meal was not a surprise. They told us last year the change was coming. Before we found this gem, we would go to Sturgis Brown High School for breakfast and load up on the all-you-can-eat, reasonably-priced breakfast. Or hit the Blessed Emmanuel Lutheran Church for a made-to-order breakfast, with no set price. They only accepted donations. We always made sure the cost of a price gouger’s breakfast went into the donation jar.
Dollar General on Lazelle Street provided cheap snacks to throw in our saddlebags. And $2 water and pop was purchased from an entrepreneur who set up shop on his nearby front lawn. If you go to Sturgis to ride your motorcycle like I do, you’re always outside the city blasting around the Black Hills looking for another adventure. Stop at a Subway for lunch and you won’t pay any more than any other Subway. But if you take a shuttle bus to Main Street every day because you go to Sturgis to get drunk, be prepared to open your wallet wide.
One year we thought it was a great idea that they offered a free shuttle service from the campgrounds northeast of town, to Main Street, in order to reduce drunk driving. We decided to take advantage of a free ride into town. To our surprise it wasn’t free. It was $35 for a 10-minute ride. We walked back to the bikes and rode into town as usual.
Concerts and Entertainment
Our favorite trick in years past was to look up the concert schedule for the Full Throttle Saloon (FTS) and decide which bands we wanted to see. We would go there in the afternoon for a beverage or two, and get our hand stamped on the way out. The stamp ensured we didn’t pay when we re-entered for the nighttime concert. Even though this was a legitimate hack, we almost felt guilty about it. They put a stop to this loophole last year by fencing off the main concert stage area from the rest of the bar. I don’t blame them at all and I’m surprised it took them so long.
We still didn’t pay though. We could see the stage, hear the music, and watch the band up close on the big screen above the stage - kind of like when you pay for mediocre seats at a concert venue. We did that for Sammy Hagar and Friends this year. I’m not a big fan of the Van Hagar stuff but I love solo Sammy and Montrose. They played Bad Motor Scooter, which is among my top five riding songs. (I’m going to post a top ten list here soon, so send me a message with some of your favorites, if you’re so inclined.)
This year was the first year we missed Jackyl since they started playing every rally at the FTS. The weatherman was calling for rain. He was right. We didn’t feel like getting wet the night before we’d be packing up the bikes to head home.
If you’re getting the impression that I’m a cheapskate that will never pay for a concert, that’s not true. I’ve paid to see the Buffalo Chip house band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, a couple of times, and Kid Rock at The Chip a couple more. My first trip to Sturgis I watched the Allman Brothers and George Thorogood at the Rapid City Civic Center. The surrounding parking lot was 100% motorcycles. It was a sight to see.
The Iron Horse Saloon in downtown Sturgis always has free concerts during the rally. I saw one of my favorite bands, Clutch, in 2023 and 2025.
People
Meeting new people from all over and swapping stories is part of the fun — like the two guys I met in the rest stop 150 miles east of Rapid City at 12:30 a.m. One was from Cincinnati and the other from Arkansas. Both had left the previous morning like I did and travelled roughly the same distance. I was starting to think I was the only one who rode like that until I met these two. We were all so close to completing the trip in one shot but we had to get off the dark interstate and rest for safety. I had a solid three hour nap on a concrete picnic table, with my rainsuit bag as a pillow. Cincinnati guy slept on a blanket on the blacktop next to his bike.
I have never seen a motorcycle kickstand fail but you would think if you were going to sleep next to your bike, you would sleep on the side opposite the kickstand, just in case. Not Cincinnati.
Arkansas slept on his bike, on the passenger seat with his back against the back rest, and his legs stretched out and crossed over the bottom of his handlebars. When I woke up he was gone. Cincinnati was still curled up in his blanket next to his bike.
We met a young lady at the gas station next to the Thunderdome who rode her Harley Davidson all the way from Toronto, Ontario — her first trip to Sturgis. She rode by herself because everybody backed out with excuses, but she was determined. Been there and done that so many times that no one’s invited any more. Her spirit reminded me of Marla Garber, also from the Toronto area, whom I met several times before her passing.
Looking Forward
Another year, another awesome Sturgis Rally experience come and gone, as I start looking forward to next year’s rally. Like any major event, you can get price gouged if you don’t know what you’re doing. My advice is to talk to as many people as possible - all the time. Most people are friendly and more than willing to share their experiences and knowledge. I think most of the people doing the complaining are the ones who turned the biggest motorcycle rally in the world into an RV convention with motorcycles as decorations.