One of my favorite weeks of the year as a journalist in the Black Hills is going to be slightly less fun this year.

For most people, that would be the week of the Sturgis rally. There's boundless stories, photos and videos to record for posterity. There's also an additional near half million folks to buy newspapers and another chunk of the population logging on from home to catch the news and watch from afar via Webcams.

My favorite time, however, is the weeks leading up to the rally and the week after the rally. That's the time when non-official officials such as myself will offer up completely unscientific but not necessarily estimations on what kind of rally it was this year.

Will traffic be up or down? Was traffic up or down? How about crime? Are riders getting older? Is that even possible?

This is how I spend my pre-rally and post-rally days, awash in conjecture, analysis and reflection.

So why is this week going to be slightly less fun? Basically, it would defy logic that this year's rally would exist somewhere outside the time space continuum, allowing it to avoid the impact of a significant recession and the fact that few people make a point to visit he 69th annual Sturgis bike rally.

But that doesn't mean there isn't room for conjecture and speculation, and like most folks who have withstood more than a quarter century of these events, I'm more than willing to offer my best.

Sturgis attendance

As aforementioned, attendance at this year's event is almost certainly going to be down. How much is an entirely different question.

Estimates shortly after last year's event indicated that traffic had fallen by as much as 18 percent in Sturgis. Here at the Journal, we realized it right away.

We had spent all week prepping our young interns on the huge crowds they would face on Sturgis Main, have to make special plans to get from one end of town to the other and to simply prepare to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that pack downtown.

Instead, they were simply whelmed.

There were plenty of folks on the street, but they could move easily back and forth, having no problem getting around - save for the night of all the big concerts and John McCain's campaign visit.

And while attendance has grown more difficult to predict as an aging biker population has begun to extend the time frame in which they visit Sturgis from early the week prior to the rally to the end of the week following it, it was clear that it was down.

Was it down 18 percent? Very well could be. Another key indicator in attendance, Mount Rushmore, showed similar dips in traffic compared to 2007.

So will we see this year's attendance fall below the 400,000 mark (the DOT traffic estimate from last year)?

Probably, but not by much. There is some room for tempered optimism here.

Last year, officials said that high fuel costs and an uncertain economy cut heavily into rally attendance.

This year, fuel prices are considerably lower. And though some argue gas prices don't have as much impact on motorcycle riders, it does if they are hauling said bikes hundreds and even thousands of miles in huge trailers.

Meanwhile, the economy is no longer uncertain. It's solidly in the tank. However, there's a slight bit more optimism than last year, at least among a group of people who are either approaching retirement in the next decade or who have recently retired. With the stock market actually in positive territory for the year and other sectors of the economy stabilizing a bit, many believe that although it isn't improving greatly, we at least might have already seen the worst.

Rally crime

Last year seemed unremarkable in many respects when it came to crime. Generally, fewer people means fewer arrests and fewer visits to the local jail.

It was partly true for last year, in which trips to the jail fell slightly but arrests for nontraffic and traffic violations rose slightly from the previous year and drug arrests were up considerably compared to 2007.

That being said, when it comes to crime, 2008 will be remembered for primarily one incident - the shooting of a Hells Angels biker at the Loud American Roadhouse on the penultimate day of the rally.

Now, the shooting of a member of the biker community's most notorious "clubs" will almost certainly mean a highly visible and alert law enforcement presence at the following year's rally. And that, in turn, should mean less violence and more arrests of lesser crimes.

Of course, the fact that it was an off-duty law enforcement officer - a member of the police and firemen's motorcycle "club," the Iron Pigs - certainly adds a bit of unpredictability into the general crime outlook.

But once again, as noted earlier: Fewer people should mean less crime.

Rally entertainment

The Sturgis rally entertainment schedule can be compared to Top 40 radio, albeit Top 40 radio from 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years ago.

There is always a very vocal group on the reader blogs that persistently decry the age and value of many of the big name concerts that come to the rally each year.

Are ZZ Top, Poison, John Fogerty, Aerosmith, KISS and 80 percent of the bands that come to Buffalo Chip and surrounding venues past their commercial primes? Oh, yeah.

But they also generally fit two key elements. First, and most importantly, they speak to the demographic of the rally, which generally consists of folks who could (and probably have) applied for AARP membership but would never admit it.

And secondly, veteran bands generally put on solid shows. No Axl Rose refusing to take the stage because he's being drown out by the roar of Harleys or slick, stylized lip synching to the masses.

Besides, there's generally a few more modern bands and performers wedged into the schedule between classic rock kings and heavy metal survivors. And this year, even if you can't line those up, the addition of Chuck Berry at the Chip should be enough to cast off your distaste for oldsters. The true father of rock 'n' roll is akin to a national treasure, and although advanced in years, his appearance is one of the performance coups of recent rallies.

Rally wrecks

The rally wreck count is always a tricky number.

Last year, there were slightly more hospital emergency room visits than the previous year, but that doesn't mean from an accident.

And while the number of fatal accidents reported in the Journal was law, that generally only covers an area extending west to the Wyoming border and east to the Wall and Kadoka areas. What about folks traveling across Montana, or north from Denver through Wyoming, or through Minneapolis.

These are all questions that we ask ourselves each year as we try to prepare a snapshot of how dangerous the roads have been at the rally.

My prediction for this year is that traffic shouldn't be too dangerous. Yes, the age and relative inexperience of bikers attending the rally continue to be a growing influence on the number of people killed or seriously injured at the rally each year.

However, there are even more factors pointing toward fewer accidents. First is the fact that there should be less traffic (see the first item in this list). As we've seen after the gas price explosion last year and the ensuing drop off in traffic, fewer vehicles means fewer accidents.

Also, the rally has become much less dense in the past six to seven years, and I'm not talking about the collective intellect of those attending. Whereas the exits leading into Sturgis were once prime instigators of some really bad traffic conditions, improvements by the DOT and a lesser crunch by fewer people wishing to spend all their time in Sturgis during the rally has eased traffic concerns there.

And, if the weather continues as it has been, it should help keep accident numbers low. On years where it has rained persistently or been cooler, there have been fewer accidents.

My friend and former reporter Scott Randolph used to be able to predict a bad rally accident day by how close the temperature got to 100 degrees. And sure enough, as the temperatures rose and riders were more likely to knock back a few cold ones and be distracted by the draining heat, the calls would come in over the scanner.

Of course, this could all go out the window in a single day or by means of better reporting of accidents, but I'm leaning toward a better year for accidents than the past couple.

Angry rally Rapid Repliers

Readers really like to vent on the rally, and it isn't likely to change this year.

In fact, I predict that even though traffic congestion, noise and general mayhem will all be down at this year's rally, the number of angry Rapid Repliers taking their stand - albeit, anonymously - on the reader blogs will grow.

And I have a theory on why this is. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that most people who live in the Hills have somewhat middle of the road opinions when it comes to the rally. They understand that bikers bring big dollars to our tourism dependent economy, and so they like that. They don't like having to try to travel much during the rally because of the crazy traffic, but for the most part, they develop strategies around the worst parts and they get on with their lives.

Until one day, it happens. A biker cuts them off in traffic or a group of bikers barricades an intersection as they run a few red lights. Or maybe its the fact that the Hills becomes a metropolitan area five times its current size during the rally, and many Hills residents will tell you if they wanted to live in the big city, they would already live in Denver. Or Minneapolis. Or some place else. But they don't, and what right do those motorcyclists have taking it away from me?

Of course, it's all temporal, but it is the emotional responses - not the well thought out, moderate views - that hold precedent on Rapid Reply. It's the perfect place to vent without having to go to jail or get punched out by a 6-foot-3-inch, leather clad, shaved head biker dude with the word "Vengeance" tattooed across his chest.

And for that, I'm glad we offer the service. As for those who think it reflects poorly on the community, take heart that there are far more folks in the Hills that support or aren't much concerned with it than there are who ardently oppose it.