Sturgis the Great Leveller

And we're back..

After an entertaining but exhausting 2 weeks, putting some 2,600 miles on a new Mercedes, we're back. The weather in all of Europe was incredibly hot, averaging 36 to 38 degrees Celsius (98 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit).

Much as I love Europe, and travel there often, there are things about Europe that amaze and confound me everytime I am there. They are:

1. Why is air-conditioning so rare, even in new buildings? In hotels and airports where air-conditioning is available, why do they keep things so warm? I am convinced that Europeans do not understand that air-conditioning means not having to perspire freely, even while relaxing in an armchair.

2. Why is smoking so common even amongst educated people? Has the news of the dangers of smoking not reached Europe? Or is it considered cool and ensouciant to kill yourself, all the while reeking of burning leaves?

3. Why can you not get ice in your drinks unless you beg, plead and beseech your waiter, who regards you with the withering pity reserved for imbeciles and Americans?

Anyway, be that as it may. Europe was everything it always is. Gracious, breathtakingly beautiful, and seductive in its wise and wonderful ways.

No sooner than we returned from the Old World, was I sucked head-long into the phenomenon that typifies Americana at its brashest, loudest and most narcissistic - the Annual Bike Week in Sturgis.

Now, for those unfamiliar with Sturgis, it is a small South Dakota town with a population of about 6,000 which swells to about a hundred times that during the annual week long festival celebrating motorcycling in general and Harley-Davidsons in particular. A friend and I had decided to ride to Sturgis to participate in the festivities and the fact that the weekend occurred just after we returned from Europe did not deter me one bit.

So with the trusty RoadKing loaded with a tour-pack and two saddle-bags, we set off on Saturday at dawn. The 'King rumbled through the nearly 400 miles from Boulder to Sturgis at a pretty good pace, and we arrived in time for lunch on Main Street in Sturgis.

As I wandered up Main St., I was struck by the sheer diversity of the people and machines gathered at this annual pilgrimage - a sort of Haj for the motorcycling faithful. The bars were packed with investment bankers who had trailered their extravagantly customised Ultra Classic Electra Glides from the East Coast along with their trophy wives, rubbing shoulders with truck drivers from the South who were spending their annual vacations riding up to the holiest of holy shrines to motorcycling. Roadside stalls which previously might have exclusively sold T-shirts, jackets, chaps and other motorcycling wear now were joined by tonier boutique stalls selling expensive lingerie and jewelry - a nod to the increasing presence of women in motorcycling, as passengers and as riders in their own right.

At the Full Throttle saloon, that evening I met Fred and Francine - he's a coal truck driver from Kentucky and she's a nurse practioner, who had spent the previous 2 days riding all the way to Sturgis and were getting ready enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Bike Week. Gentle and friendly folk, they were not in the least abashed by their thick Southern accent as they plied everyone in their vicinity with friendly banter. Dean a real-estate developer from Chicago, his arm weighed down by the solid gold Rolex he sported, bought a round of drinks for everyone around him as his friends Chuck and Bill, a banker and a lawyer, also from the Chicago area passed around cigars. A cosier picture of bonhomie could not be found.

These people who populated this corner of the earth on this weekend could not have been more different than one another, and in any other situation might never have been in same place at the same time, let alone speak to one another. But here, in Sturgis, brought together by their shared love of motorcycling, they were not banker, lawyer, developer and truck driver, but just fellow acolytes at the temple.

I think there's a lesson in there for the troubled world we live in. I can't think of what it might be. I am heady from imbibing exhaust fumes and rubber smoke from the burnouts on Main St.

Sturgis
Harley-Davidson
Motorcycles