Rapid City Harley-Davidson Dealership Hosts Mini-rally

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — Terry Rymer makes no pretense about his newly expanded Black Hills Harley-Davidson dealership becoming its own mecca of motorcycling — not quite challenging Sturgis for the title, but certainly giving it a go.

“It’s its own destination, its own ‘Rally at Exit 55’,” Rymer said.

That ‘Rally at Exit 55’ slogan is proclaimed in big, bold letters on the front of the gleaming showroom overlooking Interstate 90 in northwest Rapid City. It greets hundreds of thousands of bikers who will rumble into the Black Hills for what could be a record-setting 75th Sturgis motorcycle rally.

Many of the visitors will indeed make a stop at Black Hills Harley-Davidson, which has become one of the fabled motorcycle maker’s most successful dealerships since moving to its current location in 2002 and completing a major expansion and renovation earlier this year. The site is north and just east of I-90 at Exit 55, or the junction with Deadwood Avenue.

“Everybody knows where the Harley shop is. Even if people don’t ride a Harley, they come to the Harley shop,” said vendor John Jones, of Lincoln, Illinois.

Jones is one of scores of vendors and dealers who eschew the crowded streets of downtown Sturgis and set up instead in the more isolated, yet still quite busy marketplace that pops up all around the Harley dealership. Big white tents, giant trailers and trucks, and a winding test track add to the Harley-Davidson showroom to make the site one of the hot new stops in the overall rally experience.

“They want to buy the T-shirt. They want to see the vendors. We do rallies all over and I’ll say this is the best Harley shop, period,” Jones told the Rapid City Journal ( ).

Outside, more than 120 vendors filling 40 acres of asphalt offer anything from orthotic pads for riding boots to jewelry to just about anything imaginable to maintain and customize a rally scooter.

Jones has sold a line of metal cleaning and polishing products at the rally for 14 years, first from a location in Sturgis before moving to Exit 55 three years ago.

“It’s been a very good move for our business,” Jones said.

“Making the move up here from Sturgis, you get a lot more traffic, where it’s easier access for people to go in and get out, whereas in Sturgis, everyone will go to Sturgis, it does get congested. It’s easy-in and easy-out access and they provide the customer with anything and everything they’re looking for,” he said.

Black Hills Harley added 28,000 square feet to more than double the amount of showroom space on two levels and also tripled the space for the service department.

Never mind that the 75th Sturgis motorcycle rally loomed. Rymer, the general manager, said the dealership just needed more room to operate on a daily basis.

“The 75th is coming and this is going to be great, but we need this every day,” said Rymer. “We needed this expansion for the business we were doing every day.”

Expansion of the service department may have been the main priority, but worries over the potential for more than 1 million visitors to the milestone 75th rally also drove the project.

“The 75th rally was kind a trigger maybe, but our Achilles’ heel was our service department, which was entirely too small for the amount of business we were doing, the number of bikes we were selling and the service we had to do,” Rymer said.

Rymer some of his vendors have been coming for more than 20 years.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to get the premium vendors in the industry. Customers can come in here and see the newest, latest and greatest. They don’t get to see that everywhere in one shopping area,” he said.

Black Hills Harley-Davidson moved from its original location at 516 Fourth St., across from the Motor Service Co. building, to a larger showroom and dealership on East Omaha Street in 1986.

Rymer said that location was overwhelmed by traffic from the 50th Sturgis Rally in 1990. They moved to Exit 55 in 2002 and the business has grown by leaps and bounds every year since, he said.

In addition to the main showroom, Black Hills Harley-Davidson operates four other satellite locations in Sturgis, Deadwood, Hill City and Wall.

“Our traffic has been up every year. Our biggest move was just probably getting this location,” Rymer said.

Black Hills Harley-Davidson’s success is also testament to the fact that the rally has grown far beyond Sturgis.

“We invest a lot, Buffalo Chip, Sturgis, Deadwood, Hill City, everybody’s raising the bar, and it’s making the rally a better destination for a lot of people,” Rymer said. “And when they leave here and go back home, they tell their friends, ‘You gotta go, man.'”

___

Information from: Rapid City Journal,