Bikers pour into South Dakota for rally expected to draw 250,000, stoking virus fears

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Health officials are still warning against even small gatherings, and states with relatively low spread of the coronavirus are ordering visitors from hot spots to self-quarantine.

That did not stop hordes of bikers from arriving Friday at one of the world’s biggest annual motorcycle rallies — the first of 250,000 of people from across the country expected to descend on South Dakota’s rural Black Hills. They rumbled through the streets and crowded the sidewalks, often without masks, for the start of a 10-day extravaganza so deeply rooted that Sturgis calls itself the City of Riders.
 

But the spectacle, centered in Sturgis and fanning out in surrounding towns, is hugely important to the local economy, bringing in $1.3 million in city and state tax revenue last year, according to the Argus Leader.