Remembering the Hoka Hey Challenge
In the beginning, you would run into someone at a gas station or rest stop, checkpoint or wherever and they would be very stoic and tight-lipped but, as the days went by, everyone seemed to loosen up and it went from being a competition to becoming a long ride with a bunch of friends that you didn’t know.
In 2010, Mark Hopkins of Bella Vista was living in Prescott, Ariz., but he spent most of his time on the road with the country band, Rascal Flatts. He drove a truck from concert to concert. When he was home, he spent a lot of time riding his Harley.
When he had downtime on the road, he would often go back to his truck and get online. That was what he was doing when he stumbled on an event that was going to change his life. In a motorcycle forum, he saw an unusual subject line, “Hoka Hey… A good day to die.” He was intrigued.
The website explained that the Hoka Hey was an endurance race for Harley riders. Hopkins has stumbled on the first of what became an every other year tradition.
Hoka Hey, he explained, is a Sioux phrase that means, “It’s a good day to die.” But the family of the Hoka Hey founder, Jim Red Cloud, convinced him to use a slightly different translation, “It’s a good day to ride.” The first Hoka Hey ride was a fundraiser for the Pine Ridge Reservation and the chief’s home became a checkpoint for that first ride.
The first ride also had a prize of $500,000 for the first-place finisher. There was no second place prize because “a warrior society has no prize for second place.” After the first two races, the money prize was dropped, now it’s just a challenge.
Over the years, Hopkins has written and rewritten an essay about his experience. He describes some of the preparations. First, he bought a good bedroll and a one-man tent, rain gear, several pairs of gloves, a helmet and a hydration jacket. Then he started preparing his bike.
“At the time, my ride was a 2005 Harley-Davidson Springer Softail Classic,” he wrote, “It comes from the factory pretty much bare bone with no storage space of any kind.” He added saddlebags, a sissy bar bag and a tank bag. He found Plexiglas rock guards for the headlights. He traded in his spoked wheels for a set of alloy wheels, along with a tire plug repair kit that came with a small air compressor.
He collected some spare parts, “mostly things that rarely, if ever, fail but if they do will shut you down,” as well as the tools needed to install them. He found a sheepskin seat cover. He converted his belt drive into a chain drive because he knew it would be easier to repair a chain drive.
He didn’t realize how much stuff he had accumulated until he tried to pack it onto the bike. It took days of packing, putting stuff aside and repacking to prepare for the ride.
On June 8, 2010, Hopkins loaded up his bike and headed for the starting point, Key West, Fla. When he arrived, all he knew was that the race would be about 7,500 miles ending in Alaska. They had 14 days to complete the route.
When 500 riders lined up at the starting point, they were given directions to their first checkpoint.
“The route directions were similar to a MapQuest page,” he wrote, “with the exception that they did not list any distances between turns. The directions might say “turn right onto West Davidson Highway, and the next line may say turn right on Lawson Drive — not a big deal except that Lawson Drive might be 50 feet after you make the turn onto West Davidson Highway or it might be 150 miles. This led to a lot of backtracking for most of us.”
Early in his adventure, Hopkins noticed that some road signs were missing.
“The word began to spread through the field that someone in the front of the pack was taking down road signs. At first, I thought it was B.S. but, as more and more roads started to not have signs, I became a believer. This actually became a source of laughter for me. I would be going down what I thought was the right road only to see a group of 3 or 4 bikes coming towards me.”
He compensated for the lack of road signs by stopping often to ask directions from local residents.
The route took rural roads and passed through some residential areas. They also visited several Indian reservations.
“In the beginning, you would run into someone at a gas station or rest stop, checkpoint or wherever and they would be very stoic and tightlipped but, as the days went by, everyone seemed to loosen up and it went from being a competition to becoming a long ride with a bunch of friends that you didn’t know.”
In order to complete that many miles in 14 days, the riders slept next to their bike, usually for short periods of time. By the time he reached Montana, Hopkins heard from other riders about competitors just falling over. He saw it happen several times.
“They were getting so tired that they could not hold their bikes up and, when they stopped, all it took was a little too much lean one way or the other and over they would go,” he said.
On the upper peninsula of Michigan, he was awakened by a nurse taking his vital signs. She thought
It was a life-changing experience,
he was dead. Another time, he pulled off onto the shoulder, set his bike on the stand laid down on the ground next to it. When he woke up he realized he was sleeping just inches from the white line that marked the edge of the road.
As he rode through the western states, he started to notice some strange feelings. It was like he felt old pain and suffering — an overpowering sadness. He hadn’t paid much attention at the starting gate when presenters at a pre-ride meeting spoke about “Native American spiritual issues.” When he realized that his feelings of pain corresponded with locations like Wounded Knee and Little Big Horn, he began to understand what he was feeling.
In later years when Hoka Hey became a fundraiser, Hopkins was happy to donate his funds to the Pine Ridge Reservation.
He was pulled over once in Montana. He had limited his stops because of the mosquitoes that always gathered when he pulled over. Somewhere along Highway 200 he was startled by a siren and realized he couldn’t remember the previous 30 miles. Six different people had called him in as a possible drunk driver because he was crossing the centerline. The deputy who stopped him knew about the Hoka
Hey and determined that there was no alcohol involved. Hopkins received a warning for failure to maintain lane control and he got back on his bike.
There were a few animal encounters along the way. In Alaska, he woke up to find a large moose running past.
Later, he found himself surrounded by a herd of bison. He also saw black and brown bears. Luckily he didn’t see a bear when he took a power nap in a campground gazebo. He slept a few hours before he saw the sign warning that there had been several bear sightings in that very gazebo.
On July 2, 2010, at 10 a.m., Hopkins crossed the finish line in Homer, Alaska. He almost missed it. Several other challengers rode through the finish line without noticing it.
When he stopped, his wife, Jacque who had seen him off in Key West was waiting in Homer.
“She was sobbing like a little girl that just found out her puppy had died. This is when it hit me how hard this whole thing had been on her.”
In 2010, 500 riders had started the Hoka Hey, but only 210 finished. Two riders were killed along the route. Others were hospitalized.
Why did he do it? Just to prove that he could. Participating in the challenge meant that his accomplishment was documented.
“It was a life-changing experience,” he said.
This summer, there’s another Hoka Hey Challenge and Pig Trail Harley Davidson in Rogers is one of the checkpoints. After a serious wreck two years ago in Bella Vista, Hopkins isn’t planning on entering the challenge again, but he’ll be at the checkpoint volunteering. Right now, the event is planned to begin on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020, at Panama City Beach, Fla.