In History

  Were you at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally twenty years ago? Do you recall some of the great events of that year, or do you even have any memories of that year? One thing is for sure, about 100,000 people attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that year, and the Rapid City Journal worked hard to […]

The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame is pleased to be the new home for an all wooden motorcycle built by wood artist Mike Sohn of Hannibal, Missouri. The bike, which is modeled after a 1909 Harley-Davidson Twin took a year and a half to complete. The artist estimates there are at least nine

Back in 1952, Pappy Hoel still owned an Indian Motorcycle dealership inSturgis, SD. If you don’t know Pappy’s story, he’s the dealer whobrought together a group of riders forming the original Jackpine GypsiesMotorcycle Club. It’s the same group responsible for that very firstweekend of racing back in 1938. It started what became the biggestmotorcycle event

Bob George crossed our path at a time in the 1980s and ‘90s, when we were setting Bonneville and El Mirage 200 mph records with Suzukis, BMWs, and Harleys. “Bob George” wasn’t exactly a household name and we were unaware of his accomplishments. We ended up getting involved with seriously deranged character, who had a

About 30 years ago, Neil Hultman pulled a 1930 Indian out ofa junk pile in a hay field in South Dakota.  At the time, he wasn’t sure what would become of this bike,but he knew someday it would be a project worth doing.  Neil is a long-time Jackpine Gypsy –having joined the club in 1947. Throughout

Have you ever wondered about what’s changed and what’s stayed the same at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally over the years? While finding a truly comprehensive history of the rally is difficult at best, there has been a more reliable record of events. One consistent from 1987 through 2008 was the Sturgis Rally News. This publication

The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame boasts a collection of nearly 100 motorcycles dating back to 1909. Some of the collection is extremely rare. Other bikes are really quite common. The vast majority of the bikes on display here fall somewhere in the middle. This little Triumph Tina is one of those. While

How many of you beer drinking, bar fighting, stripper chasing, Harley ridin’, grimy saddle tramps, from the late ’60s and early ’70s remember the old 12-spoke magnesium wheels we ran on bikes out of the south bay area? Who remembers who was the first person to convert that classic mag to a motorcycle? Does anybody

The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame has lots of great motorcycles and memorabilia on exhibit, but we’ve also got some great stuff tucked away in our archives. This month, we thought we’d share a little piece of what’s currently NOT on display in the museum. A couple of years ago, we were loaned

If you’re wandering through the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame, you’ll come face-to-face with historic memorabilia. You’ll see pins and patches from distant rallies. There are old racing programs with famous notes written in the margins. You’ll find riding gear, toys, and tons of other great motorcycle related history pieces. But when you

While he might be best known for his co-starring role in a 40 year-old movie, Malcolm Smith has an amazing history of racing and riding.   One of the world’s premier off-road motorcycle racers, Malcolm has participated in races all over the world – mostly off-road and endurance races. He won eight gold medals between

  The 1948 Indian Chief in the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum is now 63 years old and doesn’t look a day over, well, absolutely brand new. The ’48s life started as a bike ridden for a very long time. As the story goes, down from owner to owner, this bike is a three-owner bike. The first

It’s not the best looking bike in the Sturgis Museum, and it’s certainly far from the oldest, but it does have a wonderful story to tell. It’s the “Million Mile Motorcycle” – a 1991 FXRT Harley-Davidson, and it was ridden 1 million miles by former Wisconsin State Senator Dave Zien. This particular motorcycle has seen

You might think that the relationship between one motorcycle museum and another could be more competitive than cooperative, but that’s really not the case. A great example of the cooperative efforts of two motorcycle museums is the recent “trade” that’s been made between the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame and the National Motorcycle

The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame is very excited to be celebrating its 10th Anniversary on June 1, 2011. In its relatively short history, the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum has grown to be a world-class museum with a collection of nearly 100 motorcycles and an impressive array of memorabilia associated with motorcycling and with

Kenny Price, founder of Samson Motorcycle Products Inc, located in Brea, California, is the inventor and leading innovator of numerous patented and high-performance exhaust systems for Harley-Davidson and Metric Cruiser motorcycles. From his humble beginnings as a teenager in the early ’60s, Kenny’s aspiration was to tweak more power out of his ’56 Vespa. He

Bikernet is sponsoring the Sturgis Museum this year and we offered to feature one of their display bikes each month on Bikernet. We are promoting the Sturgis Museum for several reasons. Our boss is in the Hall of Fame. We don’t know why, but what the hell, he’s old.The Museum represents a great deal for

  Editor’s Note: We’ve made several bike builders rich and famous,because they were featured in magazines and on television, but here’s anarticle about a true motorcycle hero. Sputnik, a man who devoted his life tomotorcycle freedom.     Memorial services for Bill “Sputnik” Strain were held July 10,2010 on the steps of the Texas State

Kingman, AZ – In order to make an extended stop inKingman, AZ you don’t have to attend, as I did a couple of months ago, theLaughlin River Run on the Nevada side of the Colorado river. But it helps.Firstly, one is normally traveling through Kingman and not to Kingman. Beyond “King” – a town thatloudly

Internet auctions offer everything from Janet Jackson’s silhouette on a slice of Gouda cheese to a Russian MiG-17. But there’s nothing like a living, breathing in-your-face auction, the real thing, up close and personal… machines you can touch and real people fighting for ownership of the items bid upon, in this case precious metal, more

The Author, Scott Holton, working on the J&P liner.Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to bring you another story of Salt Flats Speed Trials glory. This will be a three part series from J&P Cycles and follow their streamliner through two years of racing. Hang On!–Wrench I have been fortunate to be selected as part of the

Lee meeting his lifelong partner for the first time.What goes into 35 years of being in the motorcycle “business”? It’s more than just hard work, a job, burning the midnight oil and trying to make your customers happy. It is a life that defines you and who you are that can’t really be put into

This is a shot of the very first Sturgis Rally Race.June, 12 2007:Racing at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, as one might suspect, has featured a lot of history over the last 6 1/2 decades.Neil Hultman joined the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club in 1947. He has held almost every office. He moved from Holabird, to Sturgis

Author's Note: This past week (mid June, 2007) has been one of meeting a lot of deadlines; one of which was to supply text and photos for the Hall of Fame Museum in Sturgis where the Boozefighters will be one of four clubs to be honored with a special display…the display will be up for