Daytona Bike Week has passed but we all have motorcycle memories

Daytona Bike Week goes for ten days each March. It’s an extravaganza for motorcycle buffs from all over North America and even all over the world. It’s a loud week, Harleys in full roar beginning in late morning t about noon and lasting well past midnight. 

You get the full treatment along Main Street in Daytona and out by the speedway where the races, concerts, and big-time vendors are. Chris and I ended up surrounded by bikers on Thursday when we went to lunch after a medical appointment and wandered by a famous tattoo business on U.S. 1 that hosts beer and autograph sessions with Playboy models, strippers, and assorted women in skimpy outfits despite the un-Florida chill. If you go further north on U.S. 1, you pass biker bars aplenty.

For us Ormond-by-the-Sea dwellers, we hear bikes all day and night. We’re located between Hwy. A1A which promoters now call the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway and John Anderson Drive which locals call the street where the rich people live. The bikers ride A1A along the coast to Ormond, Flagler, and St. Augustine. They can find nice beaches if they want to dismount but more likely will end up at one of the many saloons and tourist attractions that line the way. Bikers also use that route to go to the Highbridge Exit which will take them to the Tomoka Loop, a favorite winding tree-lined route. John Anderson also takes you to Tomoka along a winding tree-lined route by riverside houses you can't afford.

BTW, you do have to have some cash and credit worthiness to buy a new motorcycle. They start at about $25,000 and goes up to $40,000. You also need a good pickup and a trailer to haul the bikes that once zoomed freely on I-95 in the 1970s and now old bones and joints need a little assistance to get to the hoopla. There’s still lodging and food and such to buy. And don’t forget your two- or three- wheeled vehicle's maintenance costs. 

Guys like my old Wyoming neighbor worked on his own Harley. He had the technical skill, tools. and big garage to do the work. One night he blasted down the street before he rolled to his driveway. Then came a knock on our door. My neighbor needed my help. I walked with him to behold the downed bike. He seemed embarrassed that his Harley was this helpless thing lying powerless on his driveway. Drunk and high, he needed my aging muscles to get the machine upright. I helped of course, the neighborly thing to do.

I have plenty of friends with motorcycles and many that used to have motorcycles. When attending Daytona Beach Community College in 1973, I shared a house in Holly Hill with a roommate who fled the north country to Florida. He helped me rebuild the engine in my 1950 Ford truck. He was a biker without a motorcycle which he had to leave behind for a reason he wouldn't talk about. He did talk motorcycle. He dressed biker too. Probably dreamed it. He moved to Orlando and the last I heard, he was riding again. 

My brother Dan rode a Harley until leukemia took him away. An air traffic controller, he ran an Internet biker-oriented side business, Daytona Gear. He loved his motorcycle. When he and our friend Blake trailered their bikes to Sturgis, Dan invited me up to ride bitch on his bike and I did. Our daughter Annie has a treasured Biketoberfest photo with her and her Uncle Dan on his Harley. She even bought me a Biketoberfest T-shirt which I wore proudly around Wyoming and I often was asked how I liked Biketoberfest and said, “Just fine, I liked it just fine.” I had Sturgis T-shirts too.

In the 1960s and '70s, I rode dirt bikes through the Florida woods and on the beaches. They belonged to friends, little Hondas and Yamahas and Husqvarnas. I covered motocross races as a correspondent for the Denver Post. A girlfriend once dumped me for her old boyfriend, a motocross racer. I responded by mailing her a verse about love and longing that I pulled from Kahlil Gibran. Didn’t make me feel any better but I hoped she read it and thought about me for a little while.

I guess we’re all motorcycle people in America. Daytona has a special claim on big motorcycles so I guess I can claim a little slice of that. Still, I like the quiet.