Motorcycle camping

How do you overnight when touring by motorcycle?

Traditional motorcycle camping is an honored and cherished tradition, at least for bikers who entered the two-wheeled world a couple decades ago. Today, if you are up for it, motorcycle camping connects us with the men and women who traveled the U.S. on two wheels many decades ago heading to this vacation spot, or that rally. If you’re up for it. It can be fairly primitive. It doesn’t seem as though motorcycle camping is what it once was. There are too many motorhomes pulling motorcycle trailers, or a few motorcycles pulling little campers. To me, motorcycle camping is at most a tent and a few supplies bungieed on to the back of my bike.

I have found that backpacking equipment makes good motorcycle camping equipment. It’s lightweight, compact and durable. So I can pack enough for a week’s stay on my bike, including even a camp stool, cooler, sleeping bag pad, sleeping bag, tent, camp lights, even a one-burner stove.
I recognize that not everyone likes to camp, but it’s probably the most economical way to experience a rally. It allows you to immerse yourself in to the event. Two good examples of motorcycle camping are the Freedom Rally in Iowa and the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota.
The Freedom Rally in Algona, Iowa is my favorite rally. It’s as traditional and focused as any rally you can find. The entire area is owned by ABATE of Iowa. It’s fenced off so that you can access the campground only by motorcycle. Motorhomes and travel trailers are parked down the road at another site. The campground is clean and cool. Big cottonwoods give plenty of shade if you choose that relatively secluded area. Or if you like, you can set up in a sort of “tent city” where the partying never stops. That's the way it is at the Bottom's Up Rally in Marmath, ND.
Similarly there are “motorcycle only” camp sites at the Sturgis Rally. For example, Glencoe has an area where only motorcycles can squeeze through the narrow openings. Pick a spot, park your bike and call it “home” for as long as you wish during the rally.
The benefits of camping like that are obvious: you avoid the astronomical high prices of motels during the rally. One motel in Sturgis where I stay before Memorial Day or after Labor Day prices its rooms between $50 and $80. But during the rally, they are $250 or more. Camping during the rally is as low as $12, but generally in that $30 to $40 range.
Other benefits include the camaraderie of fellow campers, and the immersion in to the motorcycle lifestyle.
The disadvantage is of course you are exposed to the weather as it is – hot, cold or rainy. I’ve climbed in to my tent after a wet day of riding, and there’s no warming up by the furnace or fireplace.
It’s also a bit more work to camp. It’s up to you to pack and unpack as you move. No ready-made beds are available. Showering is a challenge, but usually most campgrounds have a community shower that is just fine with me.
Motorcycle camping is part of the motorcycle experience. If you wanted to travel in luxury, you could have traded in your bike for a pull behind trailer and you drive the country in your car. Or you can just motel hop your way across the country, leaving the confines of your cage for the continued confines of a motel room.
Me? I like the exposure and freedom of motorcycling – and that includes motorcycle camping.

Sturgis -- a generational tradition

I was first introduced to the Sturgis rally back in 1967. Though my dad was not a motorcycle rider he had friends who were. He introduced me to a Jack Pine Gypsy, one of the founders of the Black Hills Motorcycle Classic. I met George, a pipefitter and hill climber on a family vacation in the Black Hills. George had stories of motorcycles, hill climbs and rallies.

I made a couple attempts to get to Sturgis in the 70’s but was not successful. That's probably a good thing because I don't think my Suzuki would have been very well accepted. Then in the 80's I tried again on my Triumph, but didn't make it. Finally in the mid 90’s I made it as a regular event first on my Superglide shovelhead and then my Road King twin cam– it just took 30 years.Now, my son has carried on the tradition. I’m proud of him. To get to the Sturgis rally this year, he rode all day through rain and cold while his traveling companions trailered their bikes. Kelsey proved that he is not a merely a motorcycle owner, the possessor of garage candy. He’s a rider, a biker.

I’m actually a bit surprised that Kelsey is the first of my children to carry on the motorcycle tradition. I can’t take credit for any influence there, though I’m sure there must be some. He fell in to a group of blue-collar, fun loving friends who ride; guys he grew up with. His girlfriend, Allison also has motorcycle riders in her family; I’m not prepared to say they are bikers, but they are certainly motorcycle owners. (That’s her on the back of his Fat Boy riding in to Sturgis after we made a run to Deadwood and back.)Kelsey is an adventurous soul, a kind-hearted, hard-working, risk-taking, hockey playing biker. Tall and lanky, 6'4" as you can see how he towers over my 5'11". He is a smart, sensitive and sensible macho gentle man. Even if he were not my son, I’d be proud to have him riding next to me.

In addition, he rides one heckuva cool bike – one that I just had to practice my camera and photoshop techniques as the picture up top of this blog shows.

His entrance in to the biker lifestyle is another link in the bonding between father and son – a link that sadly was weakened for many years. I feel blessed to have the children I have and the bonds we share, each different, but in this case, it is the bond of a lifestyle.

What is a pigtail bridge – and why do Sturgis rally goers ride them?

No, they are not some contraption that connects one hawg to another. But hawg riders have used them for about as long as there has been a Sturgis Motorcycle rally. They are wooden bridges that wind under or over themselves to give traffic a gentle slope on the steep inclines of the Black Hills. You’ll find several on highway 16a directly south of Mount Rushmore and the town of Keystone.

Pigtail bridges are one of the attractions on Iron Mountain Road, a favorite ride of bikers. Its twists, turns, tunnels and pigtail bridges are unequaled anywhere in the U.S. A few years ago, I rode the Black Hills with a group of bikers I met on a large bridge project in North Dakota. We rode down to the Hills, and to Iron Mountain Road. They had to stop to inspect these engineering wonders.

The rustic log work is impressive. When riders take a moment to pull over and read nearby signs, they will learn the logs were cut from stands nearby, shaped, treated and put in place about 80 years ago. The piling, the piers, the pier caps, the deck supports and the deck railing are all treated wood cut from just a few yards away.

They were designed and engineered in 1932 by Cecil Clyde Gideon who was the superintendent of Custer State Park. (That’s the park at the south end of Iron Mountain road where bison and other wildlife thrive. You’ll see photos here of Custer and the bison in my blog archive and on mykuhlsphotography.com.)

Gideon called the bridges “spiral-jump offs”. His goal in designing the bridges was to preserve the natural beauty while building a scenic highway on Iron Mountain. The corkscrew design is eye-catching, and every rider ought to stop at least once to check them out. I mean, after all, they have to slow down anyway to traverse the tight turns. I recommend checking out this impressive design that blends engineering into modern traffic – a kind of early contest sensitive design.

If you get the chance to ride Iron Mountain Road and experience the corkscrew twist of a pigtail bridge – stop! Get off the road a bit, get off your bike, and look at how they are put together. And if you’re really brave and physically fit, take a climb up the nearby rocks to see how the road and bridge wraps around – a simple fix to a complex problem.

How to shoot motorcycles with all that blinding chrome?

It’s all about light – that’s not too heavy, is it?  I don’t mean the weight of the motorcycle, but the light reflecting off the machine.  In a staged studio set-up large amounts of very soft light is positioned above the motorcycle such as in the custom motorcycle shoot at the Sturgis Motorcycle rally. 

However, out in the field, you won’t have that much control, unless you choose the setting and the time of day.  Some of your best images of shiny motorcycles will NOT be on those bright and glorious days when owners like to show off their scoots.  Instead, an overcast “verge-of-rain” days are best for capturing the bright colors and reflective surfaces.   It’s about as close as you can get to a staged studio set up.   It was what I was blessed with when I shot vintage motorcycles in South Dakota a couple years ago. (Tip: a good software program such as one of the Photoshop or Corel programs can enhance dull colors if it’s too overcast of a day.)

 

You can also use a neutral density filter, but my choice is a circular polarizing filter. However, if your light is soft enough, as mentioned above, you can probably save yourself a few bucks and shoot without.  If you already have one, though, use it!

Watch out for shadows on the motorcycle you are shooting. These can come from trees, people or the bike parked next to it.  They can be hard to minimize or eliminate – except by asking the biker to move his machine to a better location.  Of course, that’s not always possible if you’re shooting that one bike on main street parked next to a few thousand others.  It is possible to carefully use a speed light, but then you run the risk of getting those nasty overblown reflections.  (Again, a good program such as Adobe an merge those two shots, or parts of them in to one evenly lit subject.)

If it’s one bike parked uniformly in a row with others, look for patterns that might enhance the image you’re shooting.  Is there a kind of infinity mirror pattern?  Is the bike next to it is the same color, or a different color?

Get down

Of course that bike caught your eye when you were standing, but can other angles give you a better shot?  Crouch down, sit down, or even lay down to get that scooter from a different angle, one that can highlight its unique features.  Decide this: What is the key element you want to shoot? Is it the paint job? The chrome? The entire vintage machine?  Get in on that part of the machine.  Is it a 1957 Indian, then shoot the identifying features? Is it a 1964 panhead Harley-Davidson?  Shoot the pan, the rocker covers, shoot the wheels, shoot the paint, shoot the leather – but focus on that element that sets this machine apart from others.

Avoid the stadium shot.  You don’t need to shoot the whole football stadium just to show off one player.  The machine you’re shooting should fill the frame – or some would say, fill three-quarters of the frame.

I can see for miles and miles and ….

What is that in that chrome? Is that you standing there, all distorted in the curvature of the chrome?  Sometimes reflections are desirable, such as the bike next to it, but are you sure you want that beer sign reflecting in the air cleaner cover?  Are you in the reflection?  Notice that guy crouching down in the air intake elbow in the top photo of the red custom bike?  Or how about his guy in the headlight bucket?  Oops!

While we’re on the subject of unwanted images – check the background before you click the shutter.  Are you sure you want that fat lady in the fluorescent green pant suit standing behind that motorcycle?  (Yeah, what’s she doing at a motorcycle rally anyway with that green polyester 70’s left over fashion?)

One more time

Like always, especially in photography, just get out there and do it. Practice, refine, and practice some more. You may not get it right the first time, but that’s okay because it’s not your last time.

Getting to the Sturgis rally

Getting to the Sturgis Rally

Like I wrote earlier, it takes a certain kind of spirit to handle an event such as the world’s greatest motorcycle rally, the Black Hills Motorcycle Classic, otherwise known as the Sturgis Rally. Flexible. Above all ya gotta be flexible.

Just to get to the rally, you have to have a spirit of adventure, self-reliance, flexibility, and a fair amount of stamina. I guess that’s why so many people trailer their bikes to the rally. They don’t have what it takes to cover the highways on two wheels.

For most of us, though, the rally is a destination, a reason and a chance to ride through uncluttered territory such as southern North Dakota and north central South Dakota.

Uncluttered. I’ve ridden through a lot of desolate regions of the U.S, such as Wyoming, Nevada and Utah. The twin-state region of the Dakotas isn’t desolate, it is uncluttered. Few farms, few towns and nearly zero traffic. Yeah, you encounter a few traffic challenges. This year, on the way down, we had to slow down once for traffic -- a herd of horses crossing the road. On the way back had to slow down once for traffic -- a cow crossing the highway. (I tried using my pocket camera to get a shot to show you, but dang it, no such luck.)

Generally, I like to ride from Mandan south on Highway 6 down to either McIntosh, SD or McLaughlin, SD. Like most years, keeping an eye on the sky will prompt a decision which way go to. It was raining in McIntosh, so we headed down to McLaughlin.

(Of course it wasn’t nearly as bad as last year when we hit THIS!! Winds blew me from my lane across the center lane, over to the shoulder of the oncoming lane. The only traffic out there was us two bikers. Cage drivers had the sense to stay out of the storm.)

That was last year. Now back to this year’s ride. The terrain is pretty rugged and bare. Only a few spots will you find trees like this. Mostly it’s wide open. It’s an tempting to speed, but why speed? We like to just cruise a moderate speed to enjoy the openness.

There are no convenience stores, bathrooms, eateries for miles and miles. So, stops are as you need them, along the highway, even outside of Timberlake, SD. (I’ve always wanted to stop there and call someone so when they ask where I am, I can say, “I’m just in Timberlake.”) So, gasoline is an issue. You get gas every chance you can because you don't know when you'll get the chance again. Sure there may be a town up the road 50 miles, but does it have a gas station? If you're a stickler for high-octane fuel -- good luck. You better carry a good supply of octane enhancers.

The closer you get to the rally, the busier the roads get, mostly motorcycles. We went down the first weekend of the rally, so there wasn’t much traffic headed away. It pretty much means the highway is ours.

On the way home mid-week, there’s considerably more traffic. Still, you get the chance to ride back roads and stop at places you might otherwise miss if you were following the main thoroughfares. That means from roadside stops like this one that asks you not to leave carcasses laying around.

But there are also those ma-and-pa stops I wrote about, such as this steakhouse in Bowman, Hawk's Landing. It's one reason I believe the back roads are the best roads. A great steak in a white tablecloth supper club in an uncluttered community - a perfect way to end a ride. I guess that’s why I write these installments – the freedom to ride the back roads. No hassles, no confinement, no pressures, just the open road. It's a photographer's dream, and a biker's fantasy.






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Sturgis entertains as expected (a photo blog)

Sturgis Entertains


The Sturgis Motorcycle rally is all you expect, and more. Originally titled the Black Hills Motorcycle Classic by the Jackpine Gypsies (more about that later), it has become an enterainment extravaganza made possible by people -- people just like you and just like me.

In order to enjoy the world's greatest motorcycle rally, you have to have a spirit of adventure, self-reliance, flexibility, a healthy dose of willingness to chill and let the world be your entertainment. You have to be willing to get dirty, to get sweaty, to get wet, to get wind blown, to get sunburn.

Sturgis. It's an event that is unequaled any where in the world. No where. No other place matches what the Sturgis Rally offers. No other rally is what Sturgis is. Only one rally (Laconia) is older. None are larger. Though centered in the little town of Sturgis, the rally spread out over an area 50 miles by 100 miles. It's like one of the wonders of the world. But instead of architecture, or nature, it's about people.

Sturgis, for me, is about people who share a common interest. I learn a lot from them. Well, not all of them. Some I just learn a lot about how unusual people can be. Take the burn out crowd.They're not necessarily people who are burned out, I don’t think, but it’s what they do to their back tire. Never could quite understand that. Standing still, racing up through the gears, burning your back tire...smoke billowing until in some cases, the tire explodes!

It's about people watching -- seeing how vast a variety there is in people who like to ride. That's a trip all on its own.

Then of course, there is the entertainment that comes with a hedonistic opportunity to let it all hang out. Booze, bikes and babes – oh yeah, can’t have Sturgis without the babes.

It's about motorcycles -- seeing a half-million motorcycles, nearly all of which are customized for the owner in some way -- performance, style, comfort. It's a good place to get ideas. Or just see how creative people can be. I mean really, a custom John Deere motorcycle, or a replica of a children's trike?

The musical entertainment is top of the line. Some years are better than others-- 38 Special, Marshall Tucker, Aerosmith. Personal favorites like the Fabulous Thunderbirds show up at the rally.

Then there are the professional competitions such
as the drag races, the flat track races and the hill climb. These are the things that started the annual rally, thanks to the Jackpine Gypsies. I always pay tribute to the founders of the rally, the Gypsies. I love 'em!

Of course not all the motorcycling is professional competition. Some is professional danger -- the stunt shows put on by very adept riders. They're always young. I wonder if there's a reason for that -- like a short life span? I mean jumping your bike from the top of one trailer to the next has to claim its share of years from a person's life.

Booze? Did I already mention booze? Yeah, I did. It makes the rally even more entertaining. For example, the entertainment there at the Full Throttle is endless. The Full Throttle Saloon is the world's largest biker bar. You can actually park IN the bar. The bar itself is about a full city block. However, with the outlying area of vendors, amphitheater and parking, it's bigger than some farms. It's acres and acres big! acres.

There, you will see motorcycles zooming around in a cage. You will hear a personable, funny and mouthy dj on the sound system. You can watch a beer belly contest, a pork-and-bean wrestling match for women, or a series of MWF wrestling matches (Micro Wrestling Federation). Two guys, each about 3-feet tall acting like Hulk Hogan.

It can all be pretty outlandish...but, wait. Let me think about that. Naw, it's not all that weird and outlandish. Some of it is pretty fascinating without being like some circus sideshow. That's the gist of my next blog from Sturgis. Stay tuned.







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