A healthy dose of leather and tattoos, a crowd of smiling faces and an expansive sea of chrome began to fill the La Plata County Fairgrounds on Thursday as the the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally kicked off its weekend of events.
“So far, things are going great,” said Rally and Program Director Jimmy Heritage – also the proud owner of a 2013 Harley Super Glide – as attendees began filling the fairgrounds.
“It’s a soft opening – People are still coming into town – but the biggest thing was just having the party ready for everybody to come in, and greeting all the riders that are traveling from all over the country,” he said.
This year, the rally is touting events like the Four Corners Chopper Show, the V-Twin Visionary Bike Show, the Ives Brothers Wall of Death and Ball of Steel performance, the Four Corners Rodeo, the Iron Goddess Motorcycle Show, and the Flat Track and Sons of Speed races.
Corey Shipman, longtime Harley rider, came from Houston with his family to attend the rally for the first time. Shipman’s wife, Joy, and kids Cheyenne, 17, Johnny, 1, and Dane, 2, watched the first Ives Brothers Wall of Death performance of the rally on Thursday afternoon.
The attraction involves trained motorcyclists circling the vertical walls of a small, cylindrical, wood-paneled structure as viewers look on from a platform above.
The Ives Brothers, Kyle and Cody, have been doing death-defying stunts – like the Wall of Death and the Ball of Steel, also being featured at the rally this year – since they were as young as 8 years old.
“I love Colorado. I love the people here. The whole team that puts this Four Corners Rally on is really amazing,” Kyle Ives said between shows Thursday. “It’s one of our favorite events of the year, because we travel as a family, we’re known as a family, and this is such a family friendly environment, and we’re just super stoked on that.”
Attendees Destiny and Dakota Seymour rode in from Wyoming together for the rally on a Harley-Davidson Road Glide.
“She’s the passenger princess,” Dakota said of Destiny, who rides behind Dakota when they travel. “She gets to enjoy the view, and I get to pay attention to everything else.”
Destiny entered the rally’s bike raffle, where a brand new 2025 Harley-Davidson Low Rider S is on the line, and is crossing her fingers for a lucky drawing.
“I would probably faint,” she said about the possibility of winning the raffle. “I think I’d cry.”
The event, for the first time presented by Harley-Davidson, will continue through Sunday. In addition to the event’s attractions, more than 70 vendors, a tattoo contest and live music will be featured.
“It’s really been amazing to watch the attendance and the awareness of the event grow, and with a lot of confidence, we can say that the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally is now considered one of the major motorcycle events in the United States,” said Trevor Bird, owner of Durango Harley-Davidson and co-owner of the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally.
Marketing Manager Megan Margeson said the event’s attendance numbers have been steadily rising in recent years, with sales for this year reportedly far surpassing numbers from last year’s rally.
An especially exciting piece of this year’s event, Bird said, is the presence of local vendors filling the exhibit hall.
“This year, we have nine local artisans from Durango that received scholarships that covered their vendor spaces, so they can set up and display their crafts at our event at no charge,” he said. “We really, really want to be supporting our local businesses, our local artists.”
He said about 30% of the rally’s entertainment budget also went to local musicians and bands this year.
The Four Corners Motorcycle Rally, originally called the Iron Horse Motorcycle Rally, is said to be the longest-running motorcycle rally in Colorado.
It was originally founded more than 20 years ago by former U.S. Sen. and passionate motorcyclist Ben Nighthorse Campbell, with help from Mike Lovato, the head of a local motorcycle rights group at the time.
Campbell said the growth of the rally has been exponential. The inaugural rally brought in around 1,400 people, he said, and numbers have grown to as many as 20,000 in more recent years.
The inspiration behind the rally, Campbell said, came from a desire from the Front Range motorcycle community to have a reason to gather over Labor Day Weekend.
“I was still in the senate in those days, and I used to come through Denver almost every week, and if I had any free time, if there was some kind of a motorcycle event going on, I’d attend to it, just to see what was what,” he said. “And people kept saying to me, ‘why don’t you help get a rally started for the Four Corners, because a lot of the Denver bikers, they don’t have anything to do on Labor Day?’”
Durango Police Department Chief Brice Current said all existing noise ordinances in the area will remain strongly enforced during the rally.
“We’re going to be enforcing all applicable municipal noise ordinances, and we do every year,” Current said. “We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to reckless driving, burnout, noise ... things of that nature.”
A Colorado Department of Transportation spokesperson said road projects occurring around Labor Day Weekend that may impact incoming and outgoing rally traffic include one-lane alternating traffic at two work sites – near the summit of Coal Bank Pass and at Deer Creek – as well as a paving project between Ignacio and the Chimney Rock National Monument that may cause bumpy roads, and reconstruction occurring throughout downtown Pagosa Springs that will require slower speeds and limited, one-lane traffic in both directions.
”Things are good – we’ve got smiles on,” Heritage said of opening day. “No one’s coming here to create any harm or havoc. Everyone’s just coming here to have a good time.”
Ticket and event information
For more information about ticket prices, visit: www.tixr.com/groups/fcmr/events/four-corners-motorcycle-rally-2025-134844.
The rally’s full event schedule can be found at: www.fourcornersmotorcyclerally.com/pages/event-schedule.
epond@durangoherald.com
