Last Chance Biketoberfest Observations:
Biker Wrapup: Winners, Losers.
Spotnick's Cabbage Patch. Crowd almost as big as spring bike week. ABM arrived to overflow parking. Their neighbors grab a nice biker bonus when the Patch lot fills up. One of the worst aspects of bike weeks is having to pay to park a motorcycle. Look around. Spend money when you'll have something to show for it. Hard times brought in some decent looking ladies who normally wouldn't wrestle in oily coleslaw for the $500 first place prize, but in the end, a meatball always wins. For reasonable beer prices, the Patch gets a perfect report card. $3 cans, or a sixteen ounce bud draft for $2. This place is giving the others a run for their money, because they seem to understand what we want. Each time we rode by Destination (HD), there seemed to be more cars exiting the grounds than bikes, what's up with that? Florida's oldest biker bar, the White Eagle, just north of DD on US1 had a big crowd on Saturday night, good band rockin' to Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" when we left to head north for a fish sandwich.
When you blow bikers off, it's hard to get 'em back. Beach Street, across the bridge from Main Street, Daytona, never quite lived up to it's past of drawing crowds the size of Main. A few years ago, they decided to throw bikers under the bus and turn this riverfront area into a huge condominium project, then the bottom fell out of the real estate market, and the city is left holding the bag. They rented out the spots, in came the vendors, but crowd-wise, it never really got off the ground. Quite a few bikers over at the speedway, test rides on 'zukis, hondas, etc, and an 18-wheeler from the "new" Indian motorcycle co was there.
No "Colors" May Mean No Business:
Many bars post a sign prohibiting MC club members from wearing their patches inside a bar, even inside an open air stockade type bar, so club members go where they're welcome, places like the White Eagle, Cabbage Patch, and others.
The Envelope, Please...
Best Shirt/Hat Prices: Cabbage Patch, hands down. Example: Hoodies, $9.99
Lowest Brew Prices: Cabbage Patch, hands down. Example: $2 for a sixteen ounce bud
Best House Band: White Eagle
Largest Crowd: Cabbage Patch. The place was packed at high noon.
Worst Cops: None, really. They were few in numbers on Main, and most blue
lite specials were working on cages, not bikes. Are they finally
"getting" that we bring money for schools, infrastructure?
Crowd Favorite: David Allen Coe. Gettin' yer Redneck on.
We didn't get over to the Ironhorse or Broken Spoke this time around. Last spring, Florida State Police threw up a biker only roadblock between the bars and Destination Daytona. Who needs that hassle? You'd think our $200,000,000 would be enough to satiate big brother's appetite for cash. That ain't chump change, especially when times are tough.
Having camped and tented this rally, through a shower, a downpour, an electrical outage, and plunging temps from the nineties to the fifties (you could see your breath yesterday morning), ABM thinks that if for some unforeseen reason, all of us suddenly were forced to live in a tent, a quite a few of us wouldn't survive. That's what being a biker is all about... Survival.
Spotnick's Cabbage Patch. Crowd almost as big as spring bike week. ABM arrived to overflow parking. Their neighbors grab a nice biker bonus when the Patch lot fills up. One of the worst aspects of bike weeks is having to pay to park a motorcycle. Look around. Spend money when you'll have something to show for it. Hard times brought in some decent looking ladies who normally wouldn't wrestle in oily coleslaw for the $500 first place prize, but in the end, a meatball always wins. For reasonable beer prices, the Patch gets a perfect report card. $3 cans, or a sixteen ounce bud draft for $2. This place is giving the others a run for their money, because they seem to understand what we want. Each time we rode by Destination (HD), there seemed to be more cars exiting the grounds than bikes, what's up with that? Florida's oldest biker bar, the White Eagle, just north of DD on US1 had a big crowd on Saturday night, good band rockin' to Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" when we left to head north for a fish sandwich.
When you blow bikers off, it's hard to get 'em back. Beach Street, across the bridge from Main Street, Daytona, never quite lived up to it's past of drawing crowds the size of Main. A few years ago, they decided to throw bikers under the bus and turn this riverfront area into a huge condominium project, then the bottom fell out of the real estate market, and the city is left holding the bag. They rented out the spots, in came the vendors, but crowd-wise, it never really got off the ground. Quite a few bikers over at the speedway, test rides on 'zukis, hondas, etc, and an 18-wheeler from the "new" Indian motorcycle co was there.
No "Colors" May Mean No Business:
Many bars post a sign prohibiting MC club members from wearing their patches inside a bar, even inside an open air stockade type bar, so club members go where they're welcome, places like the White Eagle, Cabbage Patch, and others.
The Envelope, Please...
Best Shirt/Hat Prices: Cabbage Patch, hands down. Example: Hoodies, $9.99
Lowest Brew Prices: Cabbage Patch, hands down. Example: $2 for a sixteen ounce bud
Best House Band: White Eagle
Largest Crowd: Cabbage Patch. The place was packed at high noon.
Worst Cops: None, really. They were few in numbers on Main, and most blue
lite specials were working on cages, not bikes. Are they finally
"getting" that we bring money for schools, infrastructure?
Crowd Favorite: David Allen Coe. Gettin' yer Redneck on.
We didn't get over to the Ironhorse or Broken Spoke this time around. Last spring, Florida State Police threw up a biker only roadblock between the bars and Destination Daytona. Who needs that hassle? You'd think our $200,000,000 would be enough to satiate big brother's appetite for cash. That ain't chump change, especially when times are tough.
Having camped and tented this rally, through a shower, a downpour, an electrical outage, and plunging temps from the nineties to the fifties (you could see your breath yesterday morning), ABM thinks that if for some unforeseen reason, all of us suddenly were forced to live in a tent, a quite a few of us wouldn't survive. That's what being a biker is all about... Survival.
posted by americanbikerminute at 1:11 AM
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