In a previous post I wrote about all the bike week stuff you can get here at thecheapplace.com. I covered Sturgis, Laconia, and Daytona in that post, but none of them in great detail. So, beginning with this post and continuing with the next two, I want to write about all three of these motorcycle rallies individually. Let's start with Sturgis, SD.
Sturgis is a small city of just over 6,000 residents located in the southwest portion of the state of South Dakota. During the Cold War, the Ellsworth Air Force base north of the city was home to 50 Minuteman missile silos. But with the end of the Cold War and a downsized military, Sturgis has returned to the sleepy environment it was known for before the military buildup.
That sleepy atmosphere is disturbed every summer during the first week of August, when Sturgis hosts one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the whole country. Sturgis organizers would argue that their rally is the best of them all, but they would probably get a good argument from the organizers of Daytona Bike Week. Regardless, the Sturgis rally has seen more than 500,000 visitors annually since 2000. Surprisingly, the rally is being attended by more and more families in addition to the typical motorcycle clubs and loan wolves.
Typical Sturgis patches are either shields with the year of the rally and embroidered on them, or decorative patches like thecheapplace.com's Sturgis 2010 patch bearing the American flag and a bald eagle. However, a new trend is emerging in Sturgis patches, pins, and t-shirts.
Prompted by a wave of family bikers who travel primarily with an RV and then simply ride their motorcycles in to the event, new patches are cropping up with phrases like "I rode mind to Sturgis". These patches differentiate those who rode their bikes the entire distance from those who did not.
Regardless of which group you fall into, if you attended Sturgis 2010 thecheapplace.com has a good selection of patches and pins to help you proudly commemorate the event. The previously mentioned shield patches measure 2x2, have yellow, red, orange, gray, or white lettering, and have an iron-on backing. Thecheapplace.com carries Sturgis patches from the 1980s all the way up through 2010. Their selection is comprehensive enough to provide a good variety of patches for your vest and jacket.
If you're one of those bikers who has attended Sturgis for 20 years or more, you may not have enough room on your vest to display all your Sturgis patches. That's okay; replacing the old patch with a new one every year provides plenty of patches to mount on a background and display in a case. In fact, a case filled with 20-30 years worth of patches would be the envy of many a young biker who looks up to you. If you're one of these older bikers and your collection of Sturgis patches is incomplete, take a look around thecheapplace.com and fill in the empty spaces.
