24. Daytona Beach: Bike Week
Before I start on Bike Week, let me diverge momentarily. You may notice a couple of changes in these chapters. Firstly, Homestead (my free website service) has changed something so I can now make my pages as long as I like -- there doesn't seem to be any limit. This means that each chapter will be on a fewer pages, without so many "Next Page" buttons as you've seen before. I'll probably limit myself to about 5 photographs per page, but other than that a chapter should pretty much be on one or two pages. Secondly, I've tried putting pictures on pages separate from the text chapter and I've tried interspersing the pictures. I've gone back and read the pages several times (lol .. I really enjoy re-reading them, even if nobody else ever sees them) and like the interspersed much better, so that's how they'll be from now on.
Bike Week in Daytona this year was March 3-12. Those in-the-know tell me the best time to go is the final weekend, since that's when the place really gets crowded. hoho -- I went Sunday, March 4th, and found beach-front traffic barely moving, no place to park, and couldn't hardly make my way through the Main Street crowd on foot. Had a great time, saw some really neat bikes, had a couple of beers with "the gang", but wouldn't want to be there when it's more crowded. That was plenty crowded for me.
I've been to Daytona many times, but as I drove in it occurred to me that I've never been on the Speedway tour. So I drove on over and took the tour. Turns out they were having time trials or initial runs or whatever for the motorcycle races coming up the following week, so I actually got to see some vehicles zooming around the track -- both the 2.5-mile oval and the infield track. Below, I've included a snap of the tour center entrance and then the tram that takes you on the $6 tour.
The tour takes you all around the infield, with alot of narration about history, what goes on where, etc. To the right, I've included a shot of three bikes going through turn two. We were told that the incline on these turns is four stories high! Sure doesn't look that steep. I imagine that's quite a thrill the first time through that turn -- either on a bike or in a car. It was really intriguing to watch these bikers passing one another while nearly horizontal on these curves -- wow!
From there, I went on down to the beach. Incidentally, they've closed off parts of the beach that we previously could drive on, but still have a goodly part open -- with a $4 charge to get onto it. Below, a simple shot looking up the beach, then a shot of some of the wild rides on the boardwalk. That one in the middle just appears to throw you randomly up, down, and sideways like a ball on a rubber band ... yuk.
So, you say, where's Bike Week? lol ... continue
Here's the bikes! These first two are just some shots looking down Main Street, where they limit traffic to bikes only. There are bikes parked side by side down both sides of the street and both sidewalks full of people looking at the bikes, watching those going by, and visiting the Main Street bars and shops.
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And a few more below. Notice the people moving s-l-o-w-l-y down the sidewalks -- want it more crowded than this? .. Not me.
This is a little town South of Daytona -- bikes spilled out into towns all down the coast. Highway A1A was being advertised as a really neat road to cruise down and many of the bikers were taking advantage of it. As with this town (whose name I've forgotten), many places blocked off lanes for cycle-only and had "Welcome Bikers" signs all over the place.
More bikes, more people. Not sure, but I think that yellow tent (below right) is Frogger's -- one of the more famous "Watering Holes". The beer joints had fences around them and bouncers at the gate to make sure you didn't carry your beer out into the street. The whole event was really well controlled and organized as far as I could see.
