Covid on Two Wheels

This is the 80th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally. Each year up to 500,000 bikers show up for the 10-day event in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Like a desert flower blooming after a rainstorm, Sturgis goes from a small backwater to a full-blown party machine over those 10 days.  Town authorities struggle to find room to park ever more bikes, mainly Harleys. Bikers pack local bars, cheek on jowl. It's a Biker Bacchanal.

Generally speaking the bikers are hardcore Trump supporters and they don't want to hear any crap about masks or social distancing either. The very nature of the festivities makes that all but impossible.

This year it was thought the pandemic would pare down the numbers of visitors by half but even that would be a horde for tiny Sturgis. The locals, 60 per cent of them, wanted this year's rally canceled but what do they matter?

You may have read that Native Americans are getting hammered by Covid-19, a result in part attributable to the reservation system, a lack of testing, a lack of healthcare resources.  It's not surprising that the Sioux tribes of South Dakota want no part of the bikers riding through their reserves. They've set up roadblocks along highways crossing their reservations.

The decision to prevent access across tribal lands to the annual rally, which could attract as many as 250,000 bikers amid fears it could lead to a massive, regional coronavirus outbreak, comes as part of larger Covid-19 prevention policy. The policy has pitted seven tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation against federal and state authorities, which both claim the checkpoints are illegal.

A duty officer for the Cheyenne River Sioux told the Guardian on Saturday that only commercial and emergency vehicles will be let through the checkpoints onto reservation land. 

A number of bikers had tried to enter but had been turned back, they said. Other reservations in the region, including the Oglala Sioux, were also turning away bikers that had attempted routes to Sturgis that pass through sovereign land.

The clampdown comes as fears mount that mask-free bikers visiting Sturgis for the largest gathering of people since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic could spread the virus to tribal groups that are already experiencing a rise in cases.

The governor has said the state will sue the Sioux. What she won't do is the sue the rally organizers for the logical and foreseeable consequences of bringing hundreds of thousands of bikers into one tiny hole in the wall to party and drink and mingle for the 10 day inebriathon.

During the rally, people are expected to cram bars and pack concerts with at least 34 acts playing. “Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt on sale. “I went to Sturgis.”

On Friday, a worker at the event told the Guardian crowds seemed larger than in previous years and warned that Sturgis attendees were paying little heed to medical advice. 

“I’ve not seen one single person wearing a mask,” said bartender Jessica Christian, 29. “It’s just pretty much the mentality that, ‘If I get it, I get it.’” 

“In downtown Sturgis it’s just madness,” Christian added. “People not socially distancing, everybody touching each other. It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out.”

When the party ends next weekend the bikers will hop back on their machines and happily shed coronavirus as they wend their way home to just about every corner of the continental US.