As I wrote in my coverage of Sturgis this year, you wouldn’t believe that we were in a recession. Well ditto for Biketoberfest. Attendance estimates put this year’s Biketoberfest right in line with previous years. Many of the vendors stated that although attendance was great, pocketbooks and wallets opened up a little less frequently than normal. That should not be a surprise to anyone.

The hotels and motels in the area were not filled as you would see during the spring rally, but they were doing a good business. Lucky for me that this was the case as I went down to Daytona without any reservations but had plenty of rooms to choose from. I will say that the beachfront hotels were pretty much booked and I could only get one night on the ocean and had to move to another hotel for the other nights. That sucked!

Walking down Main Street it was nuts-t-butts on both sides of the street and the bars were packed from Thursday on with entertainment of all manner constantly carrying on. Bands were playing everywhere along with wet T-shirt contests, dancin’ girls, and a constant flow of bikes parading up and down Main St. Can I get a hell yeah?

I saw some pretty incredible bikes at this year’s rally ranging from radical customs, bobbers, baggers, Old School garage builds, to a bunch of trikes. I could stand in one spot all day, at any venue, and be in my glory just watching the bikes go by. Of course if I did that my feet would hurt and I would miss the wet T-shirt contests. Hey, ya gotta have your priorities straight.

As a matter of fact, the first thing I did even before getting a place to stay was stop at Willie’s Topical Tattoo to check out the bikes and the goings on. This show/party was very well attended and I got to meet up with a slew of people that are a major part of the motorcycle scene. A builder that I meet up with a lot said, “At least we know where all the felons are right now.” LOL. I don’t know about felons, but this is where the hardcore bikers can get together and enjoy what is more of a party than a bike show. I hope Willie changes his mind about not putting on the show again as I would hate to see this popular event go by the wayside.

The other show that I covered was the Rat’s Hole Bike show. This show, although low in content, was high in quality. This year the Rat’s Hole Custom Bike show has moved back to the Daytona Lagoon Water Park from Destination Daytona. What a great background for a bike show. There were 22 classes this year ranging from radicals to rat bikes with plenty of space to view the bikes without them running into each other. Another beautiful day in Florida, can it get any better than this?

Actually, it could get a lot better if there were more bikes entered. I was a little disappointed in the small number of bikes on display but overjoyed with the quality of the custom creations that did enter the show. I don’t understand why builders, both professional and amateur, do not take more advantage of the opportunity to show off their builds. I also have one other bitch and that was with the placement of the bikes. With plenty of sunshine to show off the bikes, many were located in the shade and since I always try to provide our readers with the best photos possible, this made it a bit hard to properly show off these incredible machines. I know ― bitch, bitch, bitch. Hey, I’m just sayin’.

One of the things that I have noticed this year is that except for the AMD World Championship in Sturgis, there has been a noticeable lack of builds by the big-name builders at the rest of the shows. I don’t know the reason for this, but it is a shame that most of our favorite artists who are still creating magnificent machines are no-shows.

On the other hand, many of the bikes that I have seen that impressed me the most are being built by relatively unknown young builders, many who build their bikes in their garage using friends and local artisans to help out in creating their dreams. Hopefully this trend will continue.  Fresh blood, new ideas ―that’s the future. I will always look forward to the “WOW” factor next year at all the events that I cover and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.      

That’s where I ended my weekend and headed back up the coast. I had a great time and all I can say is, “We’re baaaack!” From what I can see of the major rallies this year, Bikermania is back and I expect next year will be bigger and better than this year. So get your motor running, head out on the highway, and don’t miss the best times you will have all year.