March 8 through 17 is Bike Week at Daytona Beach, Florida. Even if you don’t plan to be there, you can participate in the grand drawing for a 2018 Harley-Davidson FXLR motorcycle. You can enter in person, by mail, or online. Entering is free, but the sponsors do request a donation of fifty dollars for one entry or a hundred dollars for three. The drawing is a fundraiser for Daytona Beach Community Foundation, which works with local businesses and organizations to make Bike Week a success. You can enter until March 16.
If you go, a stop at the Official Bike Week Welcome Center will get you off to a good start. They’re in a new spot: ONE DAYTONA, across from the Daytona International Speedway at One Daytona Boulevard. There Daytona Regional Chamber Ambassadors will advise you about where to go, what to try, and where to find any help you might need. Pick up the Official Pocket Guide to Bike Week and get a collectible Official Bike Week Poster created by Matthew Hintz.
In earlier years, we’ve written about music at Bike Week, about the various rides in which you can participate, and about sights to see in the Daytona Beach area. Every venue at Daytona Beach strives to provide a full schedule of events. We urge you to visit the official Bike Week website (https://www.officialbikeweek.com/) to see what’s happening and mark your calendar so you don’t miss something you really want to do or see or hear.
For example, let’s look at the Volusia County Fairground. You can camp there, either in a tent or an RV. They have food and beer on hand, live music daily, performances by The Fearless Flores Globe of Death (seen on America’s Got Talent), and bikini-clad bike washers. And every day there’s a motorcycle swap meet—billed as the biggest in the Daytona area.
Every day at the Fairground there’s a bike show. On Saturday the 9th, there’s a shovelhead show, followed by a rat bike show on Sunday, a sidecar trike show on Wednesday, an old-school chopper show on Thursday, British bikes on Friday, and an antique bike show on Saturday. You can stroll around and gawk at the bikes and, if you have a bike to enter, you can do that between noon and two-thirty on the appropriate day—no fee. The judging is at three p.m. and cash and trophies are awarded for each show. On Friday is the Night of the Burning Bike at Fastlane Campground nearby, when a giant wooden sculpture of a motorcycle is lit on fire. The party goes on all night.
There’s so much going on during Bike Week that you have to be choosy about your to-do list. And remember to leave some time to just enjoy the sun, sand, and sea.
Please post your event reviews on the Eagle Leather Facebook page. We’d love to hear about your adventures at Daytona Bike Week—in the past or this year.
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