6 Point - Sturgis Rally Check List.

[Ted Hoppe]

Do you know?

- the top events in each of the Sturgis Rally Zones for the 2012 - the most popular bars in Sturgis for meeting friends, partying, girls and fried food.
- the safest way to travel between the Sturgis Rally Zones when you have been drinking
* little known alternate routes to avoid the bottle neck of traffic between Sturgis, BuffaloChip, and Glencoe Campground
* the most dangerous curve in the Black Hills for bikers (It's just outside of Sturgis)
* little known shortcuts in and around Sturgis to avoid being detained...
the top three ways to protect your bike from being stolen plus personal safety tips for surviving a drunken brawl
Police presence during the Rally.
the handlebar, helmet and drinking laws...plus the laws on drugs, noise and exposure
which offenses require a court appearance

[Ted Hoppe]

Sometimes it is about the ride. Sometimes it is about the pancakes.



Sometimes

[George Jung]

I've never been to a Sturgis rally - but had my fill of it, just being along the interstate route every year. So.... you going, Ted?

[Concordia...41]

Bucket list item.

[Ted Hoppe]

I was going as of this morning, I had the route done up and cleaned up the bike camping equipment. But...Wife informed me that she needs help with a Las Vegas trade show which falls later on the same week. so three days in a Bellagio penthouse and long days hauling boxes around.

I am going to put it on my vision board and do a ride out aboard my old BMW bike. It would be an interesting event to attend. I might stick out - have most of my teeth, no tattoos and light drinker. people watching should be spectaular. Would anyone else here be interested next year?

[purri]

From someone who was there last year I'm told the riders and pillions are individually heavier than the full dress "bikes".

[George Jung]

I am going to put it on my vision board and do a ride out aboard my old BMW bike. It would be an interesting event to attend. I might stick out - have most of my teeth, no tattoos and light drinker. people watching should be spectaular. Would anyone else here be interested next year?

You won't necessarily stand out - lots of 'biker wannabes' at this thing. Companies rent out Harleys for first-timers, haul them out by semi-, pick 'em up when you're done. Personally, I wouldn't ride to the event - we lose a lot of folks every year, doing just that. Trailer it, ride local. And be careful - lots of folks tearing around, with little knowledge of bikes or the area, and little experience. If you want the 'full experience', camp at one of the outlaw campgrounds! Be aware - finding lodging is challenging. If going next year, look into it early.

[DanSkorupka]

I stay away from large motorcycle rallies not because I'm not a biker, but because the noise from some of those damn things. Everyone is deaf.

Drop one of these and the people at Sturgis would either think it was just a backfire or make stupid jokes about giant mushrooms.
Considering the waistlines of many "hells actuaries" the 1,000,000 cubic feet of dirt displaced by a surface burst would be written off as the side effects of some bad McDonalds.

Trivia: the bomb above is a VB-13. Contrary to what your history teacher may have told you these have been used in anger, namely to breech a north korean hydroelectric dam in 51.

[purri]

^ Reminds me of Barnes Wallis' designs.

[DanSkorupka]

^ Reminds me of Barnes Wallis' designs.

Good eye, it is a close derivative of the tallboy.
Basically a tallboy penetrator nose with a Razon guidance system and a ring wing in order to give it something resembling a glide ratio.
dropped from a higher altitude by an up engined B 29 it struck at over 2000 mph as opposed to the tallboy's 750 mph.

there were a number of versions, some regarding what was inside the business end. The most common version was filled with what is reported to be either 5200 lb or 7000 lb of Torpex, an exceedingly potent conventional explosive. The bomb shape was investigated for use carrying a variety of nuclear warheads. Produced versions had either a clean fusion bomb that (as far as I can figure) comprised a terawatt pulse generator used to overvolt what was essentially a glorified neutron tube, and had boron around it to keep the neutrons down. The warhead for this version took up less than a third of the available room of the bomb. With a yield of less than one kiloton, no fallout like a fission bomb, and no neutron flash like a low yield neutron bomb there was some joking as to whether it counted as a "real" nuke.
The nastiest version by far contained a big dirty 100 kt "conventional" fission bomb.

29 of the conventional bombs were used against bunkers and railroad viaducts, one of the tiny "clean bomb" versions was used against a large soviet built hydroelectric dam.
We can all be very grateful that the biggest one was never used in combat.

It can be seen in this interesting little propaganda flick:

[The Bigfella]

Sheesh, I'm in the jungle... hours travel from the nearest town, reading a thread about farting Harley riders.... and I find out that the US dropped a third nuke in anger (and one or two accidentally, but they didn't go off).

[DanSkorupka]

"and one or two accidentally, but they didn't go off"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lear_accidents America isn't just abnormally aggressive with it's nuclear arsenal, it is also very clumsy with them.
A bunch of these were fatal, and many were severe enough to be classed as a "pinnacle-broken arrow" level incidents.
The worst I can think of was a fissile fizzle (when the fission primary (itself a small nuclear bomb) detonates but fails to spark the fusion secondary) that killed a few dozen head of cattle and gave some farmers cancer.

[George Jung]

Back on topic:

Argus 911: Two motorcyclists die in accidents at Sturgis rally


Let the good times roll....

[jsjpd1]

There seem to always be a few fatalities. Interestingly, when we were there in 2010 they had the nightly accident count on the nightly news and there had been more accidents due to the rider having medical difficulties (heart attacks or whatever) than intoxication. The comment from the news person was that that was the first time. That was on Friday of rally week IIRC.