Motorcycle Bike Week in Daytona Florida

Steel Thunder

by Lincoln Price

Publication Date: March 1998

Every year in the first two weeks of March a hot, bellowing thunder shakes the ground of Daytona Beach, Florida. If you're caught off guard and find yourself in the middle of it, you might have a problem adjusting to the sound. It's a solid, vibrating beat that shakes your chest and head as if you were caught inside the engine of a Boeing 747. It's not an earthquake or a tidal wave...it's the sound of Daytona's Bike Week. Once you hear it for the first time, you will never again forget the sound of steel thunder.

Bike Week is a virtual paradise for every motorcycle enthusiast. More leather hangs from the sidewalk than the entire steer population of Texas alone. There are black leather jackets, leather pants, leather wallets, leather bras, leather underwear, and even leather wears for children. A Harley-Davidson logo can be seen hanging from every inch of the beach, marking its territory for the land of the two-wheeled vehicle. The American flag is another popular item as well, streaming from the corners of shops and bikes...it's tattooed across the biceps of every other man that rides the streets. Nearly every possible thing you could ever desire in the motorcycle world is found at Bike Week. Then there are even the bikes themselves.

Looking across the horizon, you can take your pick. Harleys, Choppers, Rice Burners, BMW's...whatever you want, they are there gleaming in the setting sun and holding an art all to their own. Over the generations, that is exactly what the bikes have become - a work of art all praised in the eye of the beholder. If your taste is the bright red flames streaking across the tank, you can find it. If you prefer the more conservative pinstriped style, it's there as well. For the hard-core, practical biker, it's the simple black tone scratched almost to its metallic base covered in duck tape and cheap stickers. Each bike is a work of art with a personality of its own...for it is a reflection of the rider's themselves.

Bike Week has become a melting pot for bikers all across the globe. Naturally you have your jet black hair, thick shaggy beard, and an attitude that let's you know not to come to close. However, there's also the business man in the suit, riding his shiny red bike through the streets revealing that he too has strength between the legs. No matter what the look, the fact has become the celebration - it's Bike Week, and it's time to get along and party.

So the steel thunder rings throughout the night. The smell of stale pizza and fresh beer are always there no matter what the hour. When one bike disappears back into the steady path of the interstate, it is replenished by another four or five turning onto the Daytona exits. Bike Week lives in a world of it's own, surviving an old but not forgotten national pastime. Above it all hangs the sound of pride, joy and perseverance. The men, women and even children have come to celebrate the black and orange beauty of it all.