Daytona Bike Week - the first sign of cyclists Spring

Harley riders, motorcyclists, or any other brave independent of belonging, is the first official sign of spring.

No, not the blue-gray gnat-catcher is to fly north to summer nesting grounds of It's truce year in Mexico. It 's also the Canadian Snow Bird, the body holster sand wedge for the final time and direction of the big Buick across the bridge to Sanibel for this long trip home to Quebec.

Two wheels for snow tires, the surest sign that spring is just aroundthe corner is the view of fellow bikers flocking south. South of the flatness of the frozen Midwest Great. South gray gray cold northeast. From all directions they like magnets drawn down highways I-75 and I-95 and I-Whatever. Like bugs to a light they are for Daytona Beach Bike Week and location.

The annual pilgrimage that makes this driver dizziness cc like kids on Christmas morning all started in 1937 and still continues. In almostseventy-five break just after the Second World War.

In those early days in the '30s and '40s, was a great place to race motorcycles packed sand along the watch the Daytona 200, affectionately called the "Handlebar Derby".

With the release of "The Wild One" in 1953, was a great place to see Marlon Brando aspiring roaring up and down Main Street on a black Triumph Thunderbirds. Laying folded into a cool black leather jackets and jeans. Cigarette smokingtheir lips curled and challenge.

When the herd was thinned by the warriors of the weekend were the wannabe biker gangs of the '60s and '70s, and had then Bike Week was a great place to kick your ass.

And 'calm, without doubt, a celebration of chrome, leather and testosterone, but has slowed down a bit' from the heady days of last year. Some might say a bit 'too.

Along with baseball players with steroids and pop singers in autotune, is our present culturecreates a new kind of "Biker", which more resembles a trick or treater Gone Wild.

As men cooking in front of a fireplace, paint a subtle danger here. For many, the greatest danger they face when they return home. Trading for DSAB Chardonnay is a small cross to bear. Cancel an appointment with the hairdresser and setting the trimmer to 3 is a piece of cake. But those leading the spouses as "my old lady for a week at a high pricetags.

But for me, the saddest part, the actual migration has changed.

I travel back and forth, both I-75 and I-95 recall by Georgia and Florida for more years than I care. All year. I personally saw this annual ritual from eye level. Unfortunately, over time I have a sad regression once proud warrior of the road station of questionable mere passenger experience.

Once was when they were moved bythe mind numbing trance that is interstate travel by a low rumble coming from somewhere unknown. A sound you couldn't quite identify. And then... before you could make any sense of it, a roaring, thundering pack of chrome and rubber, straddled by wild and dangerous looking men and women would engulf your car. A vision to remember and an unexpected thrill to race the adrenalin. Sure to keep you awake and between the lines for at least another seventy five miles.

And it was worth the the years it took from your life. That sudden jolt of reality. That glorious pageant of Americana.

Sadly those sightings have all but disappeared, and non de-script trailers pulled behind expensive and unsoiled pickup trucks, travel vans and shiny motor homes have taken their place. The only clue as to their contents is the occasional Harley sticker on back of a clean and carefully sealed trailer. No flashes of chrome. No vests embroidered with club emblems. If anyone is flying their colors, it's out of sight and behind shatter proof glass. Gone is the noble roar of the big bikes. Just more vehicles joining in the flow and adding to the hypnotic hum of the highway.

There is even a bumper sticker that says

"I just got back from Trailer Week in Daytona"

So imagine my delight as I drove south along I-75 last week. I pulled off into a rest stop just north of Atlanta, and there they were. Like candy to a child. Row after row of big, beautiful, gleaming motorcycles. A crowd of unkept looking men and women milling about the parking lot and filling the lobby of the rest area completed the tableau. All clad in leather and denim. Bandanas, large leather wallets secured by long chains, oily boots with scuff marks on the toes. Everything old and used. Nothing new and shiny.

These were bikers committed to the act. Bikers who actually rode their motorcycles to Bike Week. All the way from the upper midwest. The entire route to Florida in the last week of February.

Who knows? It 'was probably a van to support stocks. I do not know. It can also be an accountant or lawyer of the group. As far as I know were all in shorts clean.

But they turned their bicycles. Not to see a trailer.

God bless them all.

I never thought that my faith is humanity and neglected by a strong group of riders must be renewed.