The heartbeat of Sturgis centers on a thriving strip known as Lazelle and Main Streets. Main Street centers more on unadulterated entertainment, lined with tattoo parlors, bars and restaurants like the popular One-Eyed Jacks and The Dungeon. Lazelle is an epicenter for all things motorcycle, from small players hustling to drum up business to industry giants like Harley-Davidson and Custom Chrome. It’s also the location of the big white tent where the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building was held.

The AMD World Championship is truly an international affair. A network of 15 custom building competitions held around the globe lead up to the crowning of the one World Champion at Sturgis. Builders spend thousands of man-hours grinding, polishing, engraving and painting just for this one show. Winning can help transform a small garage builder to a reputable name in the industry. And having the title of AMD World Champion on your resume doesn’t hurt sales either.

The AMD competition is broken down into four categories. It starts with a Metric Class for motorcycles built sourcing a metric engine and continues with the Production Manufacturer Class. Though rules stipulate that it is a production motorcycle, entries can be a prototype, a customized version or a standard production bike. The Modified Harley-Davidson Class requires the motorcycle’s to have a stock frame and an engine with at least stock cases. But the granddaddy of them all is the all-encompassing Freestyle Class and it is from this category that the AMD World Champion is named.

This year’s winner has been a bridesmaid on several occasions, winning third place in 2004, 2005 and 2009. But Freddie 'Krugger' Bertrand is a bridesmaid no more after winning the title of 2010 AMD World Champion for his avante-garde custom motorcycle that converts from a power cruiser to sport bike by the push of a button. The frame adjusts electronically, tilting the saddle up to a more sport-oriented riding position. It also alters the rake and wheelbase of the V-Rod-powered motorcycle and comes with two sets of foot controls to accommodate the shift in ergonomics. Best part is, this is a motorcycle that begs to be ridden. Krugger said he intends to take it out on the track when he returns to Belgium to demonstrate that this is much more than just a show bike. He will record the sessions on video and will post them up in the future for all to see. Showing people that his motorcycles are built to be ridden fast and hard is important to Krugger and I can’t wait to see his latest creation in action.

One of the highlights of the show for us was watching Mark Daley of Thunder Struck Custom Bikes take the stage for the second place trophy. Daley was the highest-placing American competitor for his ground-skirting custom Sniper featuring tons of ingenious engineering, like a rear wheel with a 10-inch disc mounted in the center of it and an Indian Powerplus engine with the intake manifold where the pipes should be and the valves in the head flipped around. Daley was ecstatic about his placing and we were proud in the fact that Daley hails from Motorcycle USA’s hometown of Medford, Oregon. Way to represent, Mark.

After the show, we made the stroll down Lazelle to the Broken Spoke Saloon’s downtown location. We went there hoping to talk to our friend Athena “Chickie” Ransom who was in the process of building a one-off custom in one day with the help of three high school girls who won the opportunity to come to Sturgis and work alongside Athena through an essay contest. Instead we walked into Roadside Marty doing a burnout on his show-winning bike. Kevin “Teach” Bass would follow him to show the crowd what a Knucklehead burnout looks like. The best part followed when 84-year-old Motor Maiden Gloria Struck, the lady who won our hearts in Daytona when we learned she shoveled a path down her block so that she could ride to Bike Week, climbed on a big bagger with a burly biker for her first burnout-ever. She elicited big laughs from the crowd when climbing on the motorcycle she said “I’ve never ridden on back,” and I believe her. Struck rides everywhere and always has, even when it was social taboo for women to ride motorcycles. As the biker dropped the clutch and the bagger began bucking around, a smiling Struck soon disappeared in a big grey cloud of spent rubber.

Athena and the girls were busy putting together the drivetrain when we stopped by. She was working with the added impediment of a bad dog bite and 50 stitches received a few days before. Nonetheless, the determined builder and her crew worked diligently to accomplish the task. While watching the girls work, we noticed a man wearing a Bike Klub t-shirt. It was none other than Marc Mazzerole, instructor at Canada’sBernice MacNaughton High School. Mazz runs an after-school custom bike building class. One of his students, Chelsea Jonah, was a winner of the essay contest and was busy helping Athena on-stage to get the bike together. We’ve talked to Mazz on the phone but this is the first time we got the chance to meet him in person. He’s an unselfish guy whose primary concern is the welfare of his students so it was a privilege to get to share a conversation with him in person. The other two girls were from the Mitchell Tech Institute out of Mitchell, South Dakota and Eden High School Chopper Class out of Eden, New York.

We left the Spoke for a stroll over to Indian Motorcycles to talk to our friend Marc Pomerantz and see the manufacturer’s 2011 Chief Blackhawk and Chief Blackhawk Dark. Indian’s newest motorcycle is a departure from the norm, blending traditional styling cues with a more sporting look. It starts with a small front fairing with headdress-styling. The Blackhawk also has a rear seat cowl with rider support that quickly detaches. It has small hard saddlebags that match the rounded lines formed by the fairing and seat cowl. The seat has been lowered by 0.5-inch and has a new art deco three-tone paint style. The motorcycle also showcased a Millenium peg and grip set and chrome caliper covers. The model we checked out also had a few Indian accessories like billet wheels and a Garmin GPS that fits snugly under the fairing. The Chief Blackhawk Dark has all of the above (minus the accessories we mentioned) in a striking blacked-out treatment, including the fins on the engine and a black exhaust. Pomerantz also shared with us the news that in late fall, Indian will have its first performance upgrade kits available. The Stage I kit will feature a different exhaust, an upgraded air box and will be recalibrated. Stage II will have a bigger air cleaner, exhaust, clutch spring and will also have different calibration. Indian also had a concept motorcycle on hand with a sprung solo seat and were asking for feedback from riders about the design. Is a new Scout in the works? Time will tell.

While we were there, we walked up the stairs to a viewing platform above the Indian Motorcycles rig to talk to Sara Baumann from the Iron Horse Hotel. The hotel was under construction when we last visited Milwaukee, but it’s open for business now and offers classy accommodations that caters to bikers. It offers covered motorcycle parking, they provide rags to wipe your bike down and have an on-site bike wash. Their rooms are tiled and have big custom hooks for heavy leathers and boot benches. From images I’ve seen, it looks like a happening place to stay and on my next trip to Milwaukee I hope I get a chance to check it out.

The next day we headed to the Harley-Davidson Ride In Bike Show. Harley has moved into the heart of the action with its new location on Lazelle. The move seems to be paying dividends because the tent was bustling with activity. Friends waged a friendly battle on the XR1200 Racing Experience. It’s a race down a makeshift drag strip as two Harley XR1200s are hooked up to a dyno which allows riders to climb onboard and run through the gears as fast as they can when the lights on the Christmas tree drop. It even gives quarter-mile times to establish bragging rights. Another display allowed people who had never ridden a motorcycle before to climb on to another dyno-straddled bike and shift through the gears to provide them with the riding experience. The demonstration on how-to pick up a bike was also a popular draw.

We then ventured into the same tent where the AMD contest was held the day before to check out the custom Harleys. The Ride In Bike Show had 65 entries in 14 classes. First place received $200, a trophy and studio shots of their bike taken by a professional photographer. Second place was awarded $25 and a trophy.

There was also what’s called the Willie G. Award up for grabs. The winner of it received $500 and will have their name engraved on a magnificent trophy. Only H.O.G. members were eligible to win and it is what Harley calls a pure-driven award, chosen by a panel of five H.O.G. members. There are only three chances to get you name on the award – win the Ride In show at Daytona, Sturgis, or the yearly show at the Harley-Davidson Museum. The award then goes to the Museum for everybody to see.

Paul Binford of Binford Customs out of Manteca, California, cleaned house by winning four awards on the day with a couple of bikes in the show. He also will have his name etched on the Willie G. Award.

“It’s crazy,” Binford said. Shortly after during a photo op with Harley’s Willie G. and Bill Davidson, he also joked, “I want to kiss these guys. That doesn’t make me queer, does it?”

We also got a moment to talk to Harley’s Bill Davidson who said that they are thrilled with the change of venue and that it is working out well for them. They are getting a lot of great feedback from the public. They’re also really excited to see that the AMD World Championship winning motorcycle sources a V-Rod engine. So happy, in fact, they awarded Fred Krugger with a new Harley-Davidson 120 cubic-inch race spec engine for his efforts.

While our last few days have been filled with bike shows, our nights have been filled by music. First we caught Stone Temple Pilots and Wolfmother at the Rock N’ Rev Festival at the Monkey Rock. Last night it was back to our favorite stomping grounds, the Buffalo Chip, to watch the madman himself, Ozzy Osbourne. Granted, Ozzy isn’t the Oz of old, but he still knows how to rock the house. The more the crowd screamed and the more bikers revved their engines, the more empowered Ozzy seemed to get. Sturgis is turning into quite the concert event. My neck’s still sore from banging my head.