STURGIS, S.D. (KELO) — In two days, over half a million bikes will take to the Black Hills for the 85th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
The first wave of riders has already hit the streets in Sturgis, and city officials are finalizing things along the way.
“For the past month or so I’ve been doing a task list that lists everything that needs to be done daily before the rally starts. But the problem with that is people have been adding things to that task list within this last week,” Director of Communications & Outreach Deb Holland said.
Those in the city are stepping up to make sure everything moves forward smoothly after the rally coordinator position was removed earlier this year.
For Public Works, the rally just adds to their list.
“We’re still out mowing our parks and taking care of our sports facilities. We’ll still collect all of our residential garbage five days a week, our commercial garbage. So everything that we do with the rally is in addition to our normal operations and we continue to do those,” Public Works Director Rich Bush said.
Getting the main street ready is the largest final task.
“At this moment we are solidifying a plan where we have some of our sponsors park their vehicles down the middle of main street so that once the Clydesdales are in place and ready to come down main street, we just pull those trucks out,” Holland said.
The final steps for the Public Works team begins after midnight Thursday and finishes before riders show up the next morning.
“So that’s our big push, is to make sure we get everything done between midnight and 8:00 a.m. So in an eight-hour shift we’re transforming the town and the traffic routes and patterns into something different,” Bush said.
An average of 450 thousand riders go to Sturgis each year, but with the anniversary this year more are expected.
