Daytona Bike Week  

Daytona 2009

By Julian V Taylor

This year was the first year that I was actually able to make it to Daytona Bike week, and what a surprise was in store.

I have to say, I have never seen such a fantastic array of machines in one single place in my life. .. Everything from Choppers to trikes, Sportsbikes to Harleys, Café Racer machines and home build frames, tanks, forks, tail units, etc you name it, we saw it at Daytona Bike Week.

Also in abundance were very interesting people to go along with these machines. I did have to draw the line when I saw a 70+ year young lady with only dollar bills covering her anatomy while riding pillion, very interesting people watching that evening while standing on the side of the road with a cold beer.

The atmosphere both in Daytona itself and at the Speedway is of people just out to have a good time and enjoy their bikes. You have one group heavily involved in the custom making and the other group very much there for the racing which includes Supercross and Roadracing.

I was a little disappointed with the size of the crowd actually at the Friday sessions and the AMA Supersport and Superbike races, normally those meetings are held over a weekend and people don’t have to take a day out of their leave from work, so they are much busier, it did get busy on Friday evening for the Daytona 2000. Saturday was extremely busy for the Supercross too.

The other great thing about Daytona Bike Week is wherever you go around the region there are parties going on with hundreds of people gathering around cool looking machines. We stayed in St Augustine Beach and the ride home every evening was a site to be proud of, files of machines riding up the coast road line after line and the weather was so good everyone had a smile on their face. Now that is what motorcycles are meant for, fun camaraderie and the open road and that includes the stories in the local watering holes after your ride is done.

If you have not ventured or been to a bike rally I highly recommend you do. Obviously Bike Week in Daytona is a good start to the season for us Northerners in the cold, and it’s great to get our machines out of the garages and back on the road. But anyone that is lucky enough to ride all year round in the warmer states can still appreciate the atmosphere.

I already have my hotel booked for next year so see you in 2010, if you have anything to mention about your experience at Bike Week, please drop me a line, Julian@allaboutbikes.com.

I would also like to thank Steve Jett for allowing me to take the shots of his beautiful Honda Shadow Custom, he did the work himself on that beautiful machine, great work Steve.

Kind regards.
Julian V Taylor
Editor-in-Chief