‘Dammit, Snake, It Must Be the RUBs’

Blue haze rises over town.

Day and night, Main Street trembles with a deep and lumpy rumble.

Motorcycles by the tens of thousands choke every thoroughfare, alley and footpath. They snort, spit and snarl.

They park at angles from the curb. Men and women dismount. They wear denim, leather, chains and tattoos. Some are pierced. They have diamond studs in their ears.

They parade. They admire each other’s machines: a blinding assembly of beasts, mostly Harley-Davidsons, shaved, injected, chopped, raked, flaked, airbrushed, molded, chromed, powdered, baked, detailed and polished, each to a personal taste.

They prance. They admire each other’s women: a remarkable collection of braided, ringed, laced and body-webbed beauties in halters and hot pants and boots. They admire each other’s men: a knife-packing throng of bare-chested, bandannaed, gloved and hobnailed road warriors in vests and jackets and chaps.

They party. They eat venison, buffalo, mutton, beef, turkey and chicken, smothered with onions, sizzling on open grills. They drink Budweiser, Miller, Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam, straight or cooling on ice. They smoke Marlboros, Camels and sometimes a little mind-blowing Devil weed. They groove to Steppenwolf. They strip. They dance. They fight.

Each summer, during the first full week of August, they ride, more than 200,000 strong, into this Black Hills community of 6,000, where the usual high excitement is a threshing bee. For seven days, the town hosts a motorcycle run called the Black Hills Motor Classic/Sturgis Rally and Races. Everything else stops while Sturgis, S.D., a village of ranchers and farmers and gold miners, turns into Harley heaven.

And Harley hell. Every year, a fair number of the townspeople simply leave. They do not return until the week is over. The spectacle and the disruption are more than they can stand. So is the debauchery. There is usually not much danger, but sometimes things grow a little tense. The jail fills. At times it overflows, into the lockup at Rapid City, S.D., 27 miles away. Now and then people get hurt, even killed.

Mostly, however, this is nothing more than a blowout, one of America’s biggest: a good thing for this immense crowd of bikers, who save all year to come; and for South Dakota, which ranks it as the state’s biggest tourist event, without exception; and even for Sturgis, where all these bikers spend millions of dollars in only seven days year after year.

Each year, though, there comes another uptick in a subtle change. The Black Hills Classic is no longer an all-out rampage--”Genghis Khan on an iron horse. . . ,” as Hunter S. Thompson put it in “Hells Angels,” his book about some of the toughest of the bikers, “flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter’s leg.”

This orgy is being hijacked. The culprits are not even the town police, or the county sheriff’s office, or the state Highway Patrol, or the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, all of which do, indeed, send in their agents by the score, and always on the sly.

The hijackers are RUBs--rich urban bikers--with their Honda Aspencades, who are coming to Sturgis in ever-growing numbers, trying to flee their safe but far less interesting lives, which, of course, is impossible.

So they bring their lives with them. Dammit, Snake! Could it possibly be? Is this run getting respectable?

*

It is not just any blue haze; it smells of exhaust fumes and leather and sweat and burning rubber and hot oil and cold beer and barbecue. The rumble is not just any rumble; it is the deep, apocalyptic growl of Harley twin-Vs, Milwaukee iron playing a base line against which all manner of drag pipes deliver their grace notes.

The bikes roll up and down Main Street, the entire length of four full blocks through the heart of Sturgis, where during this week cars--cages--are banned. Peg to peg, the bikes are parked at 45 degrees along both curbs and in two long columns in the middle of the boulevard, on both sides of the yellow line, leaving passage for an unending procession, up the street one way, around a tight turn, back down the other way, around another tight turn, and then back up again, until a new bike cranks up and joins the parade and opens up a parking place.

Bikers, tourists and narcs line up four deep along both sidewalks, watching the procession and eyeing each other. Among the few establishments still open for business are three saloons and the World Famous Road Kill Cafe, where no one asks to see the wine list. Most other businesses have put their inventories in storage and are leasing their shops to vendors, who pay thousands of dollars for choice spots. Main Street Hair Styling has become Blue Job, selling a cleanser to remove rust and bluing from chrome exhausts. T&M; Photographic Studios is now Sheep Skins, which offers seat covers. Security Land and Abstract Co. is Naked Leather. H.O. Anderson & Son Hardware and Furniture is Idea Jewelry. The Jacobson Insurance Agency has a sign reassuring clients that it is in fact open “and can be reached through the back alley.”

One elderly lady is among 128 residents on a list offering private housing. She is staying with her daughter in Sioux Falls. Meanwhile, she is leasing her home for $2,500 to a RUB, who is subleasing parts of it to other bikers, including plots on the lawn where the thriftiest can pitch their tents, so long as they move them every day to prevent dead spots and strike them every other day so the RUB can water the grass and mow.

The vendors number 770 in all. To bikers named Snake, Iceman, Sam I Am, Squirrel, Swamp, Bandit, Mule, Nasty and Muffin, they offer T-shirts that say: “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space,” and “Where the hell was I last night?” and “I’ve spent 90% of my life chasing fast bikes, hot women and good parties. The other 10% has been wasted.”

They also offer stickers: “Ride naked,” and “Loud and proud,” and “Places to go, people to annoy,” and “If at first you don’t succeed, buy her another beer.”

*

Roger Blankenship’s ignition fails. Then he has a flat. Then it is his ignition again. Finally it is the countershaft pulley on his transmission. Later than he wanted to, he leaves Mira Loma, Calif., for Sturgis, with Roni, his lady, riding sissy, which means behind him. Men do not ride sissy; somebody might tell the driver that his ol’ lady needs a shave.

Blankenship, 41, owns a tattoo and body-piercing parlor. He is entrusting it to capable hands. He missed Sturgis last year, and he refuses to do that twice in a row. The first time he took Roni was in 1991. “I took her to make damn sure she wouldn’t ask me to go again, because I figured the ride would be too rough for her. I was rolling about 600 miles a day, and I said, ‘You start whimpering and [you’re] on a bus.’ But hell, the harder it got, the more she liked it!” And Roni has been his lady ever since.

His arms, legs, back and chest are a gallery of faces and skulls and crossbones and rebel flags and Harley motors, including one known as the “generator shovel,” because its electrical system is powered by a generator, and because each of its two cylinder heads is square, like a coal shovel. He has deep brown eyes, a diamond stud in his left ear, a dark mustache and small goatee. He smiles easily. When he laughs, he sounds like Don Johnson.

He is riding an ’87 Harley-Davidson FLH TC, called a “dresser,” because it is a touring bike and has saddlebags. Five times he has taken it to Sturgis, and never before has it given him trouble. But now it is becoming a true Hog, coughing and popping, and if there is any kind of an incline, it slows to less than 60 mph. He pulls over to adjust the fuel, then does it again--wishing each time that he had not swapped out his old carburetor for a fancy new one. Near Beaver, Utah, the bike has another flat. He and Roni stand at the side of the road for two hours, watching cars pass by. Finally some bikers stop, then go for help.

Near Newcastle, Wyo., not far from the South Dakota line, he and Roni pull into their favorite place: an inn called the Flying V. It is an elegant, rustic place, built like a castle. Its walls are sandstone blocks, carved decades ago from the nearby hills. Each year the Flying V welcomes bikers with a hog roast, pun intended, and lots of cold beer. Some bikers rent rooms or pitch tents. Then from the Flying V, they commute to Sturgis, only 70 miles away.

Russ Allen, 48, another biker from Mira Loma, is already at the Flying V. He is brown and leathery from the sun and the wind. Like Blankenship, he has a dark mustache, but Allen’s beard is full, and he has light blue eyes. He has been making the run to Sturgis since 1988. Russ Allen owns a Harley too. It is an ’87 Heritage softtail, which means that he rides on two shock absorbers in back. Unlike Blankenship, he has had no trouble on the road, and he is fast asleep in a tent behind the Flying V when Blankenship runs into still more difficulty--but this time it is not because of his bike.

It is because of a citizen. To bikers, there are two kinds of people, bikers and citizens--and bikers have precious little use for citizens who cause them trouble. Some, though, are foolish enough to try. So it is that while Russ Allen sleeps, a citizen begins to harass somebody’s lady. Roger Blankenship notices. He is not a very big man, but he is strong, and this he will not abide.

He steps in.

*

The citizen grabs a fork from a dining room table and tries to stab him.

“So me and him,” Blankenship recounts, “we got into it a little bit, and he ended up getting cut a little bit.”

No biker lets his brother carry such a burden alone, so the fight grows. It boils out through a back door of the Flying V and into the starlit night.

The citizen runs to Russ Allen’s tent, then to the tent of one of Allen’s buddies. The citizen cuts several holes in it. “Now 10 to 15 guys were trying to grab him,” Allen says. “But the guy was looking for more trouble. There was a bike near my tent too. He got to it and kicked it. It had just been painted red, a real nice deep, glowing red.

“They hit him in the head with an ax handle. That knocked him out, but only for a minute. So they used a 3-foot crowbar on him. It didn’t faze him. So they went and got a 5-gallon jerrycan of gas, and they hit him with that.”

How civilized has Sturgis become? Take note, Snake! This is the only time that Roger Blankenship or Russ Allen has ever seen grief with a citizen.

*

On Main Street, the show never stops. A Triumph rolls past. Then a Moto Guzzi. Occasionally a Honda, or a Yamaha, or a Kawasaki. A sign warns: “Harley Parking Only. Violators Will Be Castrated.” On a bike is a counter-warning: “Is There Life After Death? F--- With This Bike and Find Out.”

Now comes a Boss Hoss, powered by a small-block Chevy 350 V8. Then a star trike, outfitted as the Starship Enterprise. A Ford trike, bright red, called “Wild Cherry.” A panhead Harley with Elvis painted on its gas tank. Another Harley, this one with an eagle. Still others with tigers, flags, broken hearts, wings, skulls and bolts of lightning.

Then a Harley covered with a buffalo hide. Still another Harley, blasting a horn from a diesel locomotive. A biker is dressed as Santa Claus. In back is Mrs. Claus, ringing a bell. Then another biker, this one wearing a pig’s head and smoking a cigar. Still another, with both of his nipples and his navel pierced, and gold rings in all three. Then a Labrador retriever riding sissy, wearing goggles and a leather helmet. Then a biker leading his ol’ lady on a leash. Another biker, with his ol’ lady behind him, naked but for a tiny leather halter and a G-string. And another ol’ lady, this one wearing chaps over nothing.

Along both sidewalks and lining the side streets are 150 vendors who sell motorcycle parts, accessories and service; 91 who offer body piercing and tattoos; 118 who sell leather wear; 150 who offer T-shirts; nine who sell knives, brass knuckles and chains; one who offers guns; four who provide legal advice; three who stuff dead animals; two who read palms; two who sell magnets, said to ease pain; and one who offers chain-saw sculpture.

Showers are available at the Community Center and at the Shower House, a converted car wash. People line up 20 deep at Porta Pottis. In 1982, several were set on fire. One was dynamited.

*

It is not that John Diehl hates RUBs or their flashy, top-dollar motorcycles. Even when they ride Japanese bikes, it makes no difference to him. “Ride what the hell you want,” he says, but ride: What he cannot stand are RUBs who load their motorcycles onto trailers and haul them to Sturgis. Every year there seem to be more of them. “Why have a bike,” he mutters, “if you don’t ride [it]?”

Diehl lives to ride. He began when he was 14, on an ancient Harley. He gunned it across 7 acres that his family had near Sacramento, throwing a column of dust high into the air. Whenever his father was not around, he took it out on the road. At 15, he switched to an Indian, made by a company that eventually moved to Britain and quit building motorcycles. When he was 17, he joined the Navy. He bought a ’73 Harley Sportster. He chopped it, which means he extended its fork 9 inches. He raked it, which means he cut and tilted its neck to lower the frame.

After 27 years in the Navy and much less time working at a Ford plant, John Diehl, 52, now lives in Oxnard, Calif., and carries the mail--not because it excites him or will make him rich, but because it gives him time and enough money to ride. There is nobody to tell him that he cannot do it. His two daughters are grown, and he is happily married. “My ol’ lady left 10 years ago, and I’ve been happy ever since. I stay married just so I can’t get stupid again.”

Midweek before Sturgis, he lashes a bedroll and a tent to the Sportster. He kicks the starter. It breaks. When a Harley leaks oil, it is just marking its turf, but when it breaks a starter arm, that is serious. He tries to fix it. Finally he switches bikes, to a Harley FLHS softtail that he bought in 1992. Like Russ Allen’s, it has shock absorbers, and like Roger Blankenship’s, it is a dresser.

Alone--the way he would rather travel--Diehl starts his run to Sturgis two days late. Outside Oxnard, he leaves the worst traffic behind. He heads for Victorville, Calif., then across Nevada. He reaches Salt Lake City a little after midnight. He does not stop, except for food and gasoline.

It falls to 40 degrees in Wyoming, and he pulls over in the early morning darkness to put on his chaps. He keeps rolling, and he finally reaches Cheyenne. But still he does not stop.

He turns north and east and heads into South Dakota. John Diehl does not stop until he rolls into town.

On Main Street, he flashes a grin that shows a gold tooth through his ZZ Top beard. Here no one is a stranger. His shirt proclaims: “Old bikes and good whiskey--both get better with age.”

Then he sees a RUB in a motor home hauling four Harleys on a trailer. It reminds him of a pickup truck that passed him on the road and then pulled over to unload two bikes so RUBs could ride them the last 100 miles. “They can say they rode into Sturgis,” he grumbles, “but the fact is they got on those bikes in Wyoming.”

At the west end of Main Street, he notices a knife vendor who is selling perfume. Diehl frowns. “Golden Bouquet,” he says, reading the labels. “Fire. Shangri-La.” He looks up. “Must go with RUB coffee.” He nods toward a nearby van, where another vendor is selling cappuccino. A biker walks up. His jacket shows that he is a probationer in the Hells Angels. The biker asks for a cup.

Slowly, John Diehl shakes his head. He knows that things are changing, and he knows just as well that there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. Out here in this loud and jarring crowd are bikers who were surveyed by the Rapid City Journal along 100 miles of nearby interstate: 204 of them were riding; 206 were hauling. Indeed, the true balance was probably worse: 38 more had their trailers covered. If only half of those were hauling one bike apiece, then it would increase the piggyback total to 225.

*

Hiding in the crowd, Diehl knows, are doctors, lawyers and board chairmen who have grown their hair and bought Harleys and chaps and boots and jackets and bandannas and knives and chains and temporary tattoos that they can wipe off with baby oil after they haul their bikes back home. He knows that they have brought wives who rejoiced at the excuse to visit Frederick’s of Hollywood before they came and are spending $1,000 for a pair of elk chaps and plenty more for Harley-Davidson ties and Christmas ornaments and teddy bears and rompers, even baby blankets.

Still, John Diehl is tolerant. So are Russ Allen and Roger Blankenship. “If they’re going to take a car, hell, they might as well mail themselves,” Blankenship says, “but if they’re riding and enjoying it, then that’s good.” RUBs, he says, have made bikers a much nicer crowd. Allen remembers riding into towns and being run out, only because he was a biker. RUBs, he says, have made this a lot less likely. “Now I don’t hardly ever get hassled.”

Moreover, Blankenship, Allen and Diehl have things in common with RUBs. They all have children. They have good jobs. As a mailman, Diehl works for the government. Allen runs vehicle maintenance for the city of Corona. Blankenship’s tattoo shop is a small business. Each feels a kinship to every executive vice president who hangs his Harley key on a BMW key ring.

Nonetheless, it grates on John Diehl to walk into an exhibit and see Harley accessories that cost nearly twice what he pays at his local bike shop. “Some people say cocaine is God’s way of telling you that you are making too much money,” he mutters. “Well, that’s what this is too.”

Because of RUBs, he says, Harley-Davidsons sell for much more than they should. Waiting lists run six months to a year. Allen says that some bikers make money by getting on the lists and then selling their slots.

“It’s not about riding motorcycles,” one T-shirt says. “It’s a f------ fashion show.”

Another says: “Bikers for a poodle-free Sturgis.”

Hey, Snake! Look at this one:

“Die yuppie scum.”

*

Half a dozen Hells Angels gather at the east end of Main Street, outside a bar called Gunner’s. They stand silently among motorcycles parked on the yellow line. Tension grows. Bikes roll past. The procession does not stop.

The biggest looks 7 feet tall. He has a stone face. His shirt is red and white. His vest is black. On the back is his emblem: a cracked skull with wings. It says: CALIFORNIA. He carries a ball-peen hammer. It is in his back pocket. Its handle sticks straight up. At the end, he has applied some friction tape: a nonslip grip.

One of his brothers has three knives. They are on his belt. His colors show: AUSTRALIA. Another’s colors show: CHICAGO. He crosses the parade to the sidewalk. He steps over to a vendor and picks up a knife. It is as wide as a bowie knife and as long as a bayonet. It costs $15. He fits the handle comfortably into his hand. Then he eyes it carefully. He frowns and puts it down. On its shank, the knife says: Made in Pakistan.

American flags are everywhere: on shirts, on pants, on bikes, on storefronts. One biker carries a flag and a sign: “Burn This, A------.” Behind him is a biker with a T-shirt that says: “Genuine White Boy.” Near the middle of the parade, in front of the First Western Bank, a Christian biker shouts repentance. He holds a Bible. A brother holds a wooden cross. Another holds a sign that says: “Jesus Saves.” At the curb is a bike with a rack. In the rack are pamphlets. A sign says: “Take One.” On a side street, between two trees, hangs a banner. On it is written: John 8:36 and Revelations 12:11. Next to the banner is a tent. Inside are Christian bikers. For anyone who stops in, they will sharpen a knife. Free.

The Serenity Building offers an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every four hours. Ed says 13,000 to 20,000 recovering drunks come to Sturgis each year. Outside are bikers wearing colors that say: Assn. of Recovering Motorcyclists (ARM). They have no-beer and no-drug emblems on their jackets. One has a sign: “No heroin. No crank. No booze. No speed. No chains. Clean 20 years. Ask me how.”

Bikers compete in a pro-am race, a hill climb and a slow race, with a trophy for the rider who takes longest to finish without touching his boots to the ground. They toss water balloons over a goal post and attempt to catch them on the other side. Their ol’ ladies ride sissy past a weenie dangling from a string and try to take a bite.

A tall lady in shorts and leather pasties kisses a cop. Hulk Hogan wrestles. Bubba Blackwell, a daredevil from Bon Secour, Ala., clears two 38-foot trucks on a Harley. John Kay and Steppenwolf play “Born to Be Wild.”

*

On their way to Sturgis, the Hells Angels took over the Iron Horse Inn, a hotel at Steamboat Springs, Colo., and posted armed guards outside.

Inside, two of the Angels were shot, police say, apparently for violating gang rules. One was treated at a Steamboat Springs hospital for a wounded hand. The other was airlifted to Denver with wounds in his chest, an arm and a leg. Both lived.

The police, reinforced by 140 lawmen from out of town, negotiated with the Angels’ leadership for more than an hour before they were allowed to enter the hotel. By then, all evidence, including bedding and drywall with bullet holes, had been removed.

When the Angels got to Spearfish, S.D., about 20 miles west of Sturgis, they ran stoplights and took over the All Star Traveler’s Inn. Again, they posted guards. A state trooper tried to issue a traffic ticket. There was a confrontation. Spearfish has 14 police officers. In minutes, 50 lawmen surfaced, including a full complement of state and federal agents.

Police Chief Paul Hansen and Lawrence County Sheriff Rick Mowell talked to the Angel leadership. “We told them we wanted them to act like law-abiding citizens,” Hansen says, “and if we had a traffic stop to make, we were going to make it.

“They said that they did not have any problem with us doing traffic stops, and that they were just having fun.

“We had very little problems after that.”

Now there are even fewer problems in Sturgis. Besides the Angels, the Bandidos are here, and so are the Sons of Silence.

But this town is sacred, and there is a truce. The police, along with extra officers hired each year from out of state, arrest a few gang members for drug and gun violations. But for assault, they arrest more married couples.

*

Six years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the Black Hills Motor Classic, members of a gang called the Outlaws wounded two of the Sons of Silence with their knives in front of Gunner’s lounge, and the Sons of Silence wounded an Outlaw with a gun.

That same year a 200-pound biker from Australia, delirious with drugs, knocked down a resident’s door and held a 2-foot knife under his nose. Then the biker ran through the streets, smashing cars and motorcycles, until the police finally cornered him. He charged them with the knife, and they killed him.

Nine people died that year in auto and bike accidents. One was killed by carbon-monoxide poisoning in a tent. There were 113 traffic accidents, which injured 78 people. Officers issued 1,060 traffic tickets and 2,143 warnings. They arrested 202 people for drunk driving and 73 others for using or possessing illegal drugs.

This year, no gang members are stabbed. No one is shot. The police do not kill anybody. Only one person dies in traffic. Overall, violations are down.

Part of the reason might be crowd size. Back in 1990, at least 275,000 bikers came to Sturgis. Some people claimed there were as many as 400,000.

This year, Police Chief Jim Bush estimates 250,000.

That is still enough to cause plenty of trouble. Bush attributes part of his good fortune to planning.

And the rest?

Dammit, Snake, it must be the RUBs.

Times researchers Janet Lundblad and Paul Singleton contributed to this story.