Get ready, ’cause here they come

LOVELAND – He: 48 years old, real estate investment manager, $110,000 a year. Rides a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy.

She: 46, part-time software sales rep, $78,000. Rides a Sportster Custom.

Meet the Southerns, Rick and Cara, of Corte Madera, Calif., near San Francisco, and hear about their vacation plans for Labor Day weekend. They’re coming to Loveland. And Fort Collins. And Greeley. Estes Park. Boulder. Black Hawk.

“We love Colorado,´ said Cara Southern who, like her husband, is a member of the Marin County chapter of the Harley Owners Group, a million-member organization of “hog” enthusiasts. “The kids are older, in their late teens, so we have a little freedom. We’re taking advantage of these chances. We can’t think of a better way or a better place to close out the summer.”

Multiply the couple by 50,000.

Realistically, that’s how many people – many of them astride Harley-Davidson motorcycles – will make the pilgrimage to Thunder in the Rockies, the four-day rally that Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson Inc. in Loveland is hosting.

While organizers led by Thunder Mountain owner Todd Erdmann for months have floated an attendance figure of 50,000 for public consumption, truth is the crowd will probably be double that.

Mixed blessings

What it means for businesses in Northern Colorado is a mixed bag, depending on the business. Hotels, restaurants and retailers will rejoice. Others, for example those that depend on the region’s road system to work, will curse.

A highway interchange at Crossroads Boulevard and Interstate 25 that is taxed nearly to the limit just to handle a Colorado Eagles hockey game will see 15 times the pressure Sept. 2-5. Thousands of mostly affluent HOG members will overflow from Loveland, looking for a nice dinner out in Fort Collins and Boulder. Greeley, designated “campground central” for the event, will be choked, too. And wherever the HOG group goes, we’ll hear about it at decibel levels that would give the Kennedy Space Center a run for it.

For more than two years, well before Thunder Mountain even opened its 60,000-square-foot stone-and-timber headquarters on the northwest corner of Crossroads and I-25, Erdmann has been meeting regularly with local law enforcement agencies, city and town officials, business groups and anyone else who might be affected by what began as a quiet plan for a motorcycle gathering.

Since then, things have changed. Here’s how:

• Erdmann’s close relationship with Harley-Davidson executives has swayed the company to endorse the rally with its highest distinction – making it one of 10 nationwide “pin stops” for Harley enthusiasts. A Thunder pin, a commemorative “I-was-there” souvenir, is enough incentive in parts of the Harley world for a transcontinental journey.
• The Harley-Davidson demo team, the group that takes the Harley-Davidson Motor Co. inventory on a road show, will be in Loveland, providing enough bait to draw Harley Owners Group members and wannabes alike to Erdmann’s dealership for chances to take the latest and flashiest machines on road trips.

New reality

Those two ingredients are the most important in a recipe that is giving planners for the event more to think about than they possibly could have imagined two years ago.

Everyone in the inner circle is becoming more clear-eyed about the reality.

Jay Hardy, the general manager of the Larimer County Fairgrounds where most of the Thunder in the Rockies events will take place, said contingency plans have been ratcheted upward.

“Sure, I’m a little apprehensive,” he said. “I’m not a smoke-and-mirrors guy. My dad always said, ‘If you’re not nervous, you’re not ready.'”

But the 100,000 attendance figure, which most in the planning group now regard as a given, should not leave us quaking in fear, Hardy said.

“Surely all our contingency plans are based on if that happens, and that is a huge number,” he said. “But New West Fest (in Fort Collins) claimed 100,000 in three days. The (Greeley Independence) Stampede is half a million over 10 days. It’s not like we’ve not seen this before.”

Here’s a difference: Many of those attending Thunder will arrive from afar, expecting to find hotel rooms and other amenities that other big Harley venues – Daytona, Fla., and Scottsdale, Ariz., for example – easily offer.

But with just 2,300 hotel rooms available in Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley and Windsor, the “no vacancy” signs will present a few problems.

“What people don’t understand is that some of these people will go anywhere for a pin,´ said Alex Cooke, owner of Best Western motels in Fort Collins and Loveland and himself a Harley rider. “Everybody’s going to be booked. Not just here, but everywhere from Denver to Cheyenne.”

The “pin” crowd makes other stops around the nation, most notably Sturgis, S.D., where attendance has topped 600,000 for a weeklong August Harley festival that’s been running for five decades. Thunder Mountain owner Erdmann, who along with his wife, Shelley, has traveled to the best-known Harley Mecca almost a dozen times, said the Thunder Mountain venue offers some distinct differences. .

“From here, it’s a six- or seven-hour ride to Sturgis,” he said. “You don’t go there unless you plan to stay for the duration. This is different. We’re going to have people come up from Denver for a day, then leave.”

Hello, Greeley

Greeley has a major role to play in the planning for the Labor Day event. Camping will be available at Island Grove Regional Park, a place that can accommodate 5,000 tent campers, 200 RVs with hookups, and “an untold number of dry camping spots in our parking lots,´ said Island Grove general manager Ron Williams.

“We’re used to big groups,” he said. “We like ’em. Stampede is going to drop about 400,000 on us here in the next 10 days, so we’re used to it.”

And Greeley’s business community could not be happier.

“We’re very anxious and excited to have them here,´ said Katie Hollingsworth, visitors’ services director for the Greeley Convention and Visitors Bureau. “I think all the communities – Fort Collins, Loveland, Windsor – feel the same way.”

What chamber of commerce wouldn’t want to have this demographic group roll into town? HOG members average $70,000 in annual income; average age, 45. And boy, do they spend.

“These are people who dress up in leather a few weeks a year,” Erdmann said. “They spend a lot of money when they travel. They’re not what comes to mind when people think of the ‘biker’ set.”

That doesn’t mean that more nefarious hangers-on don’t flock to major Harley rallies. They do. Aside from the traffic nightmare that Loveland Police Chief Luke Hecker knows he and his troops will face, that’s another worry.

“It’s going to create big challenges for us,´ said Hecker, who has told his employees they’ll work 12-hour shifts and has cancelled vacation requests for the weekend. “We have to be prepared for that. We have to be ready in the event some elements of the motorcycle world would be disruptive to the peace.”

‘We don’t know’

To get a grip on the potential that mayhem might be another ingredient in the Thunder in the Rockies weekend, delegates from police agencies, city governments and business groups have fanned out during the past few months for first-hand looks at what other communities have experienced.

Their consensus is that, on balance, HOG rallies benefit the communities where they take place, as long as locals prepare.

Fort Collins is bracing for the overflow, with downtown businesses looking forward to a crush of customers and police warily digging in.

“It’s not like we’re at ground zero,´ said Lt. John Pino, an event planner with the Fort Collins Police patrol division. “We’ll be taking overflow. We’ll be busy in Old Town. What we anticipate for our community is a large crowd at Old Town events, a lot of people in the hotels and at restaurants. But the truth is we don’t know for certain how many people we will be dealing with.”

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