Sam Husted and Sam Rollins have spent five years working together at the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Rally, where they are known simply as "The Sams."
They come from Wyoming for 14 days and work the entire 10 days.
The night YUNGBLUD played the Buffalo Chip, the line in front of them seemed like it would never end.
Drinks flew across the bar as quickly as Husted and Rollins could make them, and after a few days they were out of body glitter.
Beneath the Engine Bar, bikers gathered under an enormous canopy while motorcycles rumbled in and out, making it difficult to hear.
For the Sams, all that noise meant business.
On a good night, Husted said, the goal was to walk away with $1,500 or more.
"It's exhausting, but so much fun," Husted said.
They bought a camper, friends came along and the two-week money-making marathon doubled as a strange sort of working vacation.
For the Sams, that's part of what makes the arrangement work. They can make in a night what might otherwise take days or weeks, then step outside into one of the biggest parties in the world.
"It's a good time. It goes by quickly," Rollins said. "And then you have a lot of money to show for it."
Motorcycles line the streets of Sturgis, where bars, vendors and businesses gear up to cash in on the hundreds of thousands of bikers who descend on the small South Dakota town each August. (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily) 
Motorcycles line the streets of Sturgis, where bars, vendors and businesses gear up to cash in on the hundreds of thousands of bikers who descend on the small South Dakota town each August. (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily) 
Motorcycles line the streets of Sturgis, where bars, vendors and businesses gear up to cash in on the hundreds of thousands of bikers who descend on the small South Dakota town each August. (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily)
Money Grows Everywhere
For most of the year, Sturgis is impossibly wholesome. Charming, even.
The little South Dakota town is tucked against the Black Hills, where old houses sit behind tidy yards and white picket fences, hollyhocks grow along the sidewalks and church steeples poke above old trees.
In the dead of winter, it's a quiet place.
Then August comes.
Trucks and trailers begin appearing in driveways. Hand-painted parking signs sprout in front yards. Tents and temporary bars go up. Main Street disappears beneath motorcycles parked wheel to wheel, and the low rumble of engines becomes the background noise of daily life.
While the bikers come to play, an army goes to work.
For 10 days, bartenders like Husted and Rollins sling drinks until their arms ache. Hotel owners turn rooms as fast as people can leave them. Shuttle drivers prowl the darkness looking for fares.
August in Sturgis is harvest season.
And there is money growing everywhere.
Make Hay
Sheraz Shah couldn't have picked a wilder week to become an innkeeper.
On Aug. 3, with the rally already in full swing, he officially took over the Sturgis Lodge and Suites.
Almost immediately, he discovered he had a problem.
The motel appeared to be booked, but many of the reservations left behind by the previous management weren't valid, Shah said. Some lacked working phone numbers or credit cards, leaving rooms that had effectively been held for months without paying customers attached to them.
With one of the most lucrative weeks of the year already bearing down on him, Shah began canceling questionable reservations, dropping prices and trying to fill rooms.
The reservation mess left the new owner in an unusual position during a week when rooms around Sturgis can be hard to come by: He suddenly had vacancies to fill.
So he got to work.
Shah was putting in days that started around 5 or 6 in the morning and stretched as late as 1 a.m., answering phones, fixing keys, checking in guests and trying to survive.
"God is helping me different ways," he said.
One thing Shah wasn't having trouble with was the bikers.
Movies tend to portray them as gangsters and troublemakers, he said, but the people actually sleeping in his rooms had been "very nice, very polite, very beautiful people."
He said he hadn't had a bad interaction with a single guest.
For Shah, the madness is welcome because the economics of running a hotel in the Black Hills are brutally seasonal.
Winter is "almost dead."
"We completely rely on summertime business to survive."
Despite the scramble behind the scenes, the rooms are clean, the pool is inviting and hot breakfast in the mornings comes with good, strong coffee.
In Sturgis, you make hay while the Harleys roar.
Motorcycles and slingshots of every shape, size and color pack the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily) 
Motorcycles and slingshots of every shape, size and color pack the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily) 
Motorcycles and slingshots of every shape, size and color pack the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (Kolby Fedore, Cowboy State Daily)
Follow The Bikes
Nearby, another little economy unfolds.
Women in bikinis polish motorcycles for tips while their customers lounge beneath the shade, watching chrome become even shinier.
Some of the women say they spend much of the summer following the motorcycle circuit from rally to rally.
Sturgis is only one stop.
There is Daytona. Laconia. Four Corners. The Ozarks.
Where the motorcycles go, the workers follow.
There is an entire wandering economy chasing the bikes: bartenders, vendors, gate workers, security crews and more.
Sturgis is its Super Bowl.
Viking Shuttle
Sometime around midnight, Baron von Strauss is doing some of his best business.
Strauss is the owner and a driver of Viking Shuttle and describes himself as the son of a Norwegian soybean farmer from North Dakota.
He has lived in South Dakota for about 10 years, drawn by the beauty, the freedom and family scattered throughout the Dakotas.
About four years ago, his best friend, a former mayor of Sturgis, needed help driving dignitaries around during the rally. Strauss agreed and began handing his phone number out to passengers.
They gave the number to other people, who gave it to more people.
"My phone started ringing," Strauss said, "and it never stopped."
Today, he calls the business "a cash cow all year long."
During the rally, however, the real money starts moving after dark.
Strauss stays busy during the day, but his most lucrative hours run from about 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., when concerts let out, bars are roaring and thousands of people who have spent the night drinking and partying suddenly need someone else to get them where they're going.
He sees Sturgis changing, too. The old bikers are aging out, he said, while younger generations are beginning to take their place. He believes the rally could grow substantially in the coming years, and he points to his own business as evidence: Every year he drives the rally, Viking Shuttle grows.
More bikers mean more fares.
And more money.
The Hangover
Eventually, the rally leaves.
The concerts stop, bartenders pack up and the women polishing motorcycles move on. Temporary campgrounds empty, vendors disappear and the procession of motorcycles begins to thin until the constant roar that has hung over Sturgis for weeks fades away.
The Sams head home to Wyoming. Sheraz Shah is left with a motel to carry through the slow season.
Strauss gets his town back.
For a couple of weeks afterward, he said, Sturgis itself seems to be recovering.
"We're a little hungover," he said.
By mid-September, the town settles back into its other personality. Locals reclaim Main Street and life contracts to its ordinary small-town dimensions — school, church, coffee, book clubs, and football games.
The hills grow quiet enough for hiking and snowshoeing, while some of the enormous bars and storefronts built to accommodate hordes of visitors simply shutter until summertime.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
