I am starting to think maybe the 14th weekend to arrive. Hit the last day of Daytona and then have everyone leaving the area, maybe it will free up the place a little?
Todd
Fri & Sat the last week of Bike Week are the best days. The Daytona 200 is then and the national flat track event is also held then, which is always a good show. The pits at the flat track have most of the national campaigners there, and you can run around and see and speak to the riders and the crewmembers.
During the day you can see all the vendors at the area in-front of the racetrack, a good time to see all the major manufacturers' displays and to do testrides. You can buy everything from clothing including all-sorts of leathers, including 1 and 2 pc. suits, jackets, coats, pants, gloves, helmets, mounts for gps, phones, Hero cams (and Hero cameras!), you-name-it.
I don't spend much time on Main Street at night, because I've done it nearly two dozen times in the past, but it's a great place to people watch. Places like the Cabbage Patch, Destination Daytona (a huge H-D dealer) and I forget the name of that place in Holly Hill that has a big dev't. for the week, it's mostly H-D's but one guy who was on here was a worker there, and said, "when you get there, ask for me and I'll get you good parking and a drink!".
The Rat's Hole show has a lot of different bikes of all-sorts, and you just might find the bearded guy in the beret next to you, admiring all the bikes on display, is Willie G Davidson as I did one year, and that was after I got done talking w/Ron Finch, whom I know from MI and as a member of The Hamsters, is a recognized innovator in
bike-dom since the 1960's.
Wherever the classic bike auction is being held, it's worth-it, because there are actually some good buys to be had. Last time I attended, the prices for British vintage iron seemed to be very reasonable for restored, refurbished bikes, while the older Japanese bikes seemed to have a lot of owners who seemed to be hoping to retire after they sold their 1973 Suzuki 750 'Water Buffalo,' or a Yamaha DT-1/250, or maybe a TZ700/750 roadracer. One interesting BMW (a 'flying brick'-a K-series laydown 4), I saw was a special w/hand hammered aluminum bodywork, you're not gonna see yourself across the intersection riding that!
I used to stop-in at Boxenstopp Daytona for the other guys who also stopped there, to see what people were doing to their bikes, to drool-over the Gen II's people dumped another $10K into for carbon wheels, Brocks this & that, and etc...
Joe Raulf, the owner of Boxenstopp's Daytona Beach, has been fighting for his life after a horrible accident. Here is a quote from his web page:
Joe is in the hospital with a life threatening severe infection of his lower leg for which they had to amputate his lower leg on October 1st. It is touch and go at the present time and if he shows sign of improvement everything shoud be OK. If infection can't be brought under control they will have to amputate his
leg above the knee to save his life in the next day or so.
You can leave email and we will get the messages to him but no one will be in the shop to answer the phone and no work can be performed for an unkown period of time.
A sad state of affairs. Joe has been a big supporter of the VMax community in FL and elsewhere, and it would be good if someone who was closer could check on the most-recent developments.
The blue metalflake bike is Joe's. Joe and Andrea are good people, they always had a bar-b-q at the shop, and then had a Sat lunch ride, last year was to Deland Airport, where I got to ride w/a certain LEO from the VA area who has a 1500+ cc motor.
That's Andrea Raulf standing on the right of Nicholas Cage in pic #1, Joe's bike, and then an important place to visit when in Daytona in #3.
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