Heat (Phoenix), extreme wind (Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming), rain (South Dakota), cooler temperatures than Phoenix everywhere, and a great time overall.

If you're from Phoenix, and have been to the Hideaway in Cave Creek, multiply by a factor of 1000 and you have Sturgis. Bikes, people watching, vendors, drinking, cigars, the opportunity to buy t-shirts and a lot of traffic.

The rides around the area are off the charts with beauty and lots of fun roads. It was fun being with so many motorcyclists touring the roads, stopping for a beer and making some noise with the pipes while listening to everyone else's bikes.

We saw folks on old time harleys with camping gear, folks with trailers of various sizes, one guy even had his wife on the back of the bike and a side car of sorts with a fella in a wheel chair (father or father-in-law), men on their bikes, women on their bikes, couples - like my wife and myself, singles and large groups......everyone having a great time.

This forum has been a great place to read about others experiences, bike mods for comfort, performance, and reliability as well as traveling tips, etc.

We did 3247.3 miles in 11 days. We'll do it again!

 

So was there a lot of rain around Sturgis and what part of the ralley did you go , first middle or end of it?

 

It rained at least once every day, Tuesday/Wednesday was the worst. It followed me home we had almost 5" of rain here yesterday.

 

We were there Sunday afternoon through Thursday morning. We had dry weather on Monday, did Mt Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road, the needles and that area.
Tuesday, it sprinkled around Sturgis, and then that afternoon we got caught in a pretty good rain while riding through Sturgis on the main drag. Wednesday, we did Spearfish canynon. It began sprinkling at the falls, and we rode in a pretty good rain all the way to Deadwood, where the rain stopped just before we arrived in town.

The rain was scattered everywhere the whole week, but never rained over the whole area at any one time. We had rain suits, so we didn't get too wet - it was all a good time.