But this week they’ve given up scrubs and office cubicles for the evergreen-dotted roads of the Black Hills, the rumble of a 2014 Harley-Davidson and the traffic nightmares that are inevitable with the nation’s largest motorcycle rally.
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Tim Swezy, who was polishing his Yamaha Warrior on Main Street in Sturgis, said the anniversary is part of the reason he decided to attend this year – that, and it’s been “on the bucket list”.
Officials expect more than 1 million people at this year’s rally, more than double the estimated attendance last year of 442,000.
Bikers from all over the world travel to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally every year – whether it be their first experience – or a tradition. She said the story of motorcycling is frequently told from a male perspective.
“I think that we have this idea that a big motorcycle is a scary thing for a woman”.
This is even a bigger week than normal in Sturgis, where the annual motorcycle rally is underway.
“He always looked forward to going up to Sturgis”, he said, adding that this was his son’s third visit to the motorcycle rally.
Sandal said trip counts have been rising steadily since July 24, when the traffic counters were first installed.
The rally continues through Sunday.
Sandal said she couldn’t translate the vehicle numbers, which are 37 percent higher than the same time frame in 2014, into numbers of visitors. There were also 10 deaths during the 60th rally in 2000.
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Two motorcyclists died due to rally-related crashes on Monday, and another died Tuesday afternoon, bringing the death toll at the 2015 rally to 12 – nine of which happened on the roads and three others apparently from illness, officials said.
