Bad Ideas Gone Good (AKA Terrible Ideas That “Worked Out”)

Everyone has a story about a “good idea” that didn’t turn out so “good.”

One that, against your will, stole back the word from any future story you’ll tell and replaced it with “The Worst” idea ever. You know the ones…

A lower back tatt of Nancy Reagan that looks more like Mick Jagger.

A one-buck fixer-upper you picked up and never fixed up.

Your third marriage. (Why stop there?)

Unfortunately, bad ideas are the stories we hear and tell most often. 

For one, they’re easy to remember. 

And they’re easy to tell because… who doesn’t love a long hug from a friend while you cry on their shoulder, a “You poor thing” whispered in your ear, or a giggle about how big they made Nancy’s mouth.

It’s how we bond. 

In adult language, we call these bad ideas “learning lessons.” 

If you get to poking around and asking questions about learning lessons at the Sturgis Rally, Carol Woodruff of the Legendary Buffalo Chip will put it to you bluntly, “We’ve had a lot of them.”

But what about the decisions we think will be bad that surprisingly turn out to be good?

Those are talked about less often. But you know what? They make fun stories, too. 

So, I did a little asking. What I found worth revealing is…

5 Bad Ideas Someone at the Buffalo Chip Did Anyway.

Bad Idea #5 – Pee-wee Herman Leading the Legends Ride® and Ziplining onto the Main Stage to do the Tequila Dance with a Couple Dozen Bikini Models.

There was no question about it: Pee-wee Herman doing Sturgis was an unpopular idea. 

“Weird” is more like it, thought Carol Woodruff, wife to the man, Rod Woodruff, who thought otherwise. “Pee Wee didn’t seem like the kind of person the biker crowd would appreciate.”

Everyone had an opinion. The populist opinion was…Rod Woodruff had cotton between his ears.

But what came of it? A magical experience you can watch by Googling Funny or Die Pee-Wee Goes to Sturgis. In that video, Pee-wee leads (and gets passed by) a pack of motorcycles on his classic pedal bike, screams “Ouch” as he gets loving bear hugs from bikers, tells a war story about a paper cut with lemon juice in it, ziplines onto the main stage to Tequila Dance with a couple dozen Bikini Models before ZZ Top, and rides two up on the back of actor Lorenzo Lamas’ motorcycle. 

The experience also appeared on every major national news network, many magazines, and even entertainment TV, including The Tonight Show.

“It worked out,” concludes Carol.

Bad Idea #4 – Robbie Knievel’s Jump Through the Main Stage

This conversation starts with, “There wasn’t enough room to land.” 

According to Toni Woodruff, “That seemed like a really bad idea.” Especially as she was asked to help stack hay bales at the end of his run to help stop him from running into the Front of House building.

What made it worse was that there couldn’t be a landing ramp, and the stage lighting for Styx had already been hung. This meant he would have to clear the stage, not clip his head on the lighting trusses, and land to FLAT GROUND.

Rod said it “would work out”. Robbie said, “I’ve landed in difficult situations before.” But that was before his logistics team had gotten there and said, “This won’t work.” 

Robbie did it anyway. He cleared the stage, hit the ground, didn’t have enough room to stop, crashed into the hay bales, and broke three of his ribs. 

The Travel Channel was there to capture it for an episode about the Chip that became the most-watched documentary in the Travel Channel’s history.

This lousy idea also “worked out.”

Bad Idea #3 – Crashing Head-On into a Wall of Beer Cans at 33 MPH on a Motorcycle

This pain was self-inflicted. 

When I first thought about smashing head-on through a Beer Wall at Camp Zero, I knew it had the propensity to turn out bad. (Don’t tell my mom.) 

For one, it had never been done, which meant there were several unknowns: Can we stack 1,200 cans? How much will it hurt? Should I build a ramming plate? 

I soon discovered my answers.

Answer #1. If people helped hold up the wall until just before impact and we taped the six-packs together, we could stack roughly 200 six-packs of beer together. 

Answer #2. The impact force was enough to bend the frame and shove the front wheel back into the fork. That is enough force to break your head and neck if you’re not properly tucked. So, it hurts a little.

Answer #3. Only a Class A Dummy would forgo a ramming plate.

With the help of threaded pipe, hose clamps, plywood, and a few dozen screws to puncture the cans as I screamed through, “Unsung Zero” was born. 

The wall smash became popular enough that ESPN 8 – The Ocho asked us to do it again for an article about weird sports. Later, Monster Energy sponsored the wall.

It worked out.

Bad Idea #2 – The Air Sex World Championships and Mankini Contests

“Some people thought the Air Sex Championships was a dumb idea,” Showcase Stage Director Mary Panerio answered without pause. Following up with the reminder that I had “hated the idea of the Mankini Contest so much that we didn’t even put it on the schedule the first year.”

“That first year, we held Air Sex at the free public access area called the Crossroads and couldn’t get anyone to participate.” 

The comedians who hosted the event begged people every day and then just ended up doing their own Air Sex performance instead, humping the air like it was with their invisible partner.

“It was mildly uncomfortable.”

Especially during the charity ride receptions. ☺

Down at the Bikini Beach Stage, it finally became a hit.

“That and the Mankini Contests are now our most popular events down there,” Mary continues. 

The lesson here is the right environment is everything. If at first you don’t succeed, go where people have had more to drink.

Bad Idea #1 – The Buffalo Chip

It’s true. 

“A lot of people thought the Sturgis Buffalo Chip was a bad idea to start with,” reminisces its founder and CEO, Rod Woodruff. “The local businesses, general public, and ministry associations thought it was the devil incarnate.” 

Supporting something nobody in the local community wanted generally indicates a terrible idea. 

Someone else may have quit after the first-time local politicians denied him his beer or liquor license.

But not Rod. 

When the City of Sturgis kicked bikers out of City Park, he saw an opportunity to gather outside of town and listen to some music.

“It wasn’t some great vision,” Rod says, only “sheer stubbornness.”

“It was a struggle. And it wasn’t that it turned out good right away either,” he laughs. “It took approximately 35 years. We spent the first few years ‘surviving’ all the criticism. I couldn’t argue it was a good idea because nobody was going to listen to that.”

Thanks to that stubbornness, 44 years later, the Buffalo Chip has become The Largest Music Festival in Motorcycling® so that we all can reap the benefits of seeing bands like Jelly Roll, Kid Rock, Bob Dylan, Snoop Dogg, blink-182, and Aerosmith at one of the most unique music venues in the world. 

It may be easier to remember the bad ideas that turned out to be bad, but sometimes, the bad ideas lead us to the best stories and outcomes. 

Bad ideas can be worth trying.