STURGIS:

Day 1-3

The first three days of Sturgis were a blur of non-stop beer, roaring chrome and film. Two producers working on "1%er" and my writing partner, director Ian Truitner, had come up to get B-roll footage and discuss story changes. They were all virgins to Sturgis, so the party essentially was without recognizable break. They filmed day and night. We interviewed everyone who could or would talk to us, getting great shots of custom bikes, bikers, club members and all the things they do that people in the civilian world simply would not understand.

Somewhere during the madness, the Great Northern Steamer split a gas tank. I took it off and Bandit directed me to a local welder in Spearfish.

"Yeah, I kin fix her," he said.

"I didn't drain it because I didn't have any place to put the fuel. Thought you might," I added. I had a cold beer and was disgusted with the setback.

"Nope, don't need to. I'll just weld her as she is," the crusty old welder said. He fired up his machine and dropped his welding hood.

"RUN!" I hollered as the lunatic touched the rod to the grounded tank, which was half full of gas.

We sprinted out of the building, beer flying, expecting the resulting explosion to kill us all.

Half an hour later, we crept back into the old shack.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Back here," the old welder called.

The tank was there, welded and ready to go.

"She's all done, sonny. That'll be $40."

How the hell had that guy welded a half-full tank of gas without blowing his head off will no doubt be one of the greater mysteries of my lifetime. But he'd done it.

On the third day, the producers and my writing partner had to head back to Denver in the rental car to catch their flight to L.A. The trunk of the car reeked of gasoline because the petcock had been bumped and had leaked about a half a gallon into the carpet when we hauled it back from the welder's place.

Later that night, I got the call. The airline had decided the camera bag, which had been in the trunk for eight hours and smelled heavily of gasoline, was a bomb. They had thusly blown it to smithereens in a bomb basket for everyone's protection, destroying the film, camera and all our footage.

That night, as I ate dinner and listened to Hamsters discuss upcoming custom projects, I saw a young lass, maybe 20, maybe not, waiting on tables. She was a cute gal, innocent enough and she clearly wanted a motorcycle ride. I was officially done working, the fucking fools at United Airlines having successfully fried our B-roll footage.

That night I took Jennifer on a slow putt through the local roads around Spearfish. She was doused in innocence, fearful and repeatedly made me promise that I would return her to her family and friends and not spirit her away to some heinous sex slave camp where she would be defrocked and morally and physically vandalized for all eternity. Even her mother got in on the act, insisting on a curt interview to determine "my intentions" with the wee lass.

My intentions? Well, my fair mother, my intentions, hmmm, that's a very good question indeed. Should I mention the incident in New Orleans with the five mulatto voodoo queens from the French Quarter? Would it be prudent to discuss anything, anything at all, that ever occurred at my place in Fort Defiance? Were the nude women lolling about at my palace in Miami a topic that needed to be discussed? Did young Jennifer know the first thing about Chinese basket sex? And what of this odd custom of wearing a bra? Was that localized? Need I mention my personal stance against such things?

No. Best to keep things like that quiet. Savor the suspense.

"What do you intend to do?" the she-mother asked. "With my daughter? What do you intend to do?"

"I intend to teach her the rare and gymnastic ways of the Kama Sutra," I said, rolling the cigar between my fingers. No, best to say nothing. Let the mysterious stranger vibe carry the day.

Apparently I passed muster and mom let me take her virgin on a short afternoon ride, which involved a harmless fountain drink at a local bar and a lot of scenic back roads in 105-degree heat. I acted as the perfect gentleman, representing Bikernet in its finest light. Besides, I had my doubts as to whether the goodly Jennifer had accomplished as many birthdays as she claimed to have. The last thing I needed was the entire state of South Dakota law enforcement hunting down a "juvenile predator". No siree, this was to be a perfectly legal ride, a favor, a gift of charity.

I returned Jennifer to her mother no worse for wear and entirely unpenetrated and roared off into the horizon.

What to tell about Sturgis? Sturgis is Sturgis, and this year was the greatest ever, with attendance estimates hitting the 600,000 mark. The entire region was jammed with American iron and American free men. It was what it is and if someone has not been, they will not glean from mere words the celebration. If they were there, then no need to explain.

By day five I was ready to get the hell out of Sturgis and all that it stood for. I had chrome sickness. Just the sight of other people's motorcycles made me want to shoot someone and if I had to creep the 15 miles between Spearfish and Sturgis in the stop-and-go motorcycle traffic (the state was so clever they decided the Sturgis rally would be the prefect time to work on one side of the interstate, reducing it to a divided two-lane snarl) I'd commit suicide.

Bandit and Mad Myron had flown out already. Their bikes were on trucks headed home. I was halfway done. Somehow staying with the troopers hadn't turned out as badly as I feared. A sort of odd myopic failure on their part had prevented them from noticing that right in their own parking lot, two of the most high-profile criminals in the entire motorcycle industry were running phony plates on unregistered bikes. Bandit, who'd let the old 1%er get the best of him, had even gone a step further and raised the challenge by sticking a "Bikernet.com" sticker on his plate holder. At least I'd gone to the effort to phony up a crooked tag. Bandit, he virtually pleaded for an arrest. But the bust never came and we left as easily as we'd come.