There is scant chance of anyone confusing the motorcycle rally taking place this week in Sturgis, South Dakota, with the Mensa annual gathering that was scheduled for Kansas City in July. And not just because Mensa, a society for people with IQs over 132, opted to cancel its annual meeting of great minds because of the coronavirus.
The estimated quarter million visitors at the Sturgis event this year have seemed oblivious to the risk for contracting COVID-19. Face masks are reportedly non-existent, and social distancing is a vague rumor, as thousands cluster together for concerts, races, rides, ceremonies, bar-hopping, swimsuit pageants, 24/7 partying, and wild motorcycle stunts like crashing through a wall built with cases of beer.
Among the hottest selling items at this year’s rally is a T-shirt that reads: “Screw COVID; I went to Sturgis.”
Participants cannot be excused as “wayward youth” jeopardizing the lives of themselves and others. The average age of attendees last year who crammed into the sleepy town of 7,000, about a 30-minute ride north of Rapid City, was 57. Although the average weight is unknown, news video and photographs from this past week would indicate obesity and aging are amply represented among other underlying (medical) conditions of attendees.
Even prior to the pandemic, in all the years since the first rally in 1938, Sturgis pilgrims have become famous for laughing at danger. Heck, they ride motorcycles, don’t they? It is no secret that if you own a Harley Davidson, Honda, Yamaha, Indian, Ducati, Kawasaki, Suzuki, BMW, or any other brand cycle, you increase your odds of premature death. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration indicates that each time you mount a "chopper," you are 37 times more likely to die in a crash than someone in a passenger car and nine times more likely to be injured. Motorcycles are harder to see by other drivers. And when there is an accident, there is nothing but thin air between a biker’s tender flesh and hot asphalt or rigid steel.
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All of which raises the question: Why would anyone attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, knowing they will be exposing themselves to a 1 in 770 chance of dying on a “hog” — on top of a 1 in 2,321 chance of dying from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?
The traditional explanation is that bikers are iconoclasts who take pride in free thinking and not going with the flow. They defy rules and conventions of safety in favor of liberty and impulsivity.
Not everyone believes the theory, including humor columnist Dave Barry, who once famously asked: If bikers are such nonconformists, why do they travel in large packs all wearing the same pants, jackets, boots, bandannas, and insignias?
Perhaps a more telling lens through which to view the Sturgis phenomenon is the documented story of the free spirit from Orange, Texas, poised to dive into the water off a dock at a local marina in 2015. When a marina employee warned him that an extraordinarily large alligator had been frequenting the boat basin, the free spirit smiled, leaped into the air, cursed the alligator — and was then promptly torn asunder and eaten by an 11-footer, according to the Houston Chronicle.
This entire matter would be humorous if it weren’t so morbid. A man on my softball team was busted up along with his bike on a road trip to a motorcycle safety convention, which would have been ironic if it weren’t so sadly unsurprising. Another friend’s brother, still in his teens, died when the driver of a car didn’t see his motorcycle. Likely everyone reading this knows someone who was killed or seriously injured in a similar way. (Biker injuries are rarely unserious).
Of course, it must be said in favor of the Sturgis rallygoers that the original purpose of the event was to raise money for local charities. Last year, $628,116 in donations was collected during Sturgis’ 10-day event.
Certainly, that makes it seem a noble cause involving a substantial amount of money. But that good bit of news is severely tempered, if not rendered totally irrelevant, in consideration of estimates ranging from $16 billion to $77 billion per year in comprehensive costs to taxpayers as a result of motorcycle crashes, injuries, and fatalities.
Meanwhile, you can still order a “Screw COVID; I Went to Sturgis” T-shirt on Amazon for $17.99.
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David McGrath is a former Hayward resident, an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage in Illinois, the author of "South Siders," and a frequent contributor to the News Tribune Opinion page. He can be reached at profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com.
