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Smaller Crowd Visits More Spread Out Bike Week
Leather-clad bikers packed their saddlebags in the parking lot at Plaza Resort & Spa on Sunday morning while inside a petite blonde, wearing a teal sweatshirt and University of Kentucky Wildcat jogging shorts, waited in a check-in line.
Florida - As Spring Break gears up and Bike Week winds down, organizers, businessmen and departing bikers seemed to agree: This year' s Bike Week was smaller, more spread out and safer.
"The obvious thing -- we have had fewer deaths than last year. While no deaths are acceptable, fewer is better," said Kevin Kilian, vice president of events at The Chamber, Daytona Beach/Halifax Area. "There was less congestion because it's so spread out."
No motorcycle fatalities were reported Sunday, letting this year's Bike Week-related death toll in Central Florida stand at seven. Five of those deaths occurred in Volusia County, and two were in Seminole County on Interstate 4 just over the Volusia line. No deaths were reported in Flagler County.
By contrast, a record 21 Bike Week-related deaths were recorded in 2006, with 16 occurring in Volusia and Flagler counties.
"There were positively fewer people," said Carl Morrow, owner of Carl's Speed Shop in Holly Hill, who also kept a presence at his old location on Beach Street. "If we had 500,000 last year, we had 300,000 this year, and if you have 40 percent less people, you have 40 percent less business."
Steve Fritze, year-round manager at The Iron Horse Saloon in Ormond Beach, thought things were off, too. "It seemed like a little less people around, but we had a good week," Fritze said.
Main Street Merchants Association president Tom Guest echoed similar sentiments. "At times attendance seemed down, but it's hard to tell being down here -- Main Street gets filled to capacity," Guest said. "It was off, I would guess 6 to 10 percent."
Some bikers plan on staying a while longer, like George Roman of Tampa, 35, who leaned against his Harley Road King out front of the Plaza.
"I got three days off, never had been to Daytona before, and so I've decided to take an extra day and enjoy it," he said.
In the Plaza's lobby, Kristan Vollman -- that blonde in the teal sweatshirt -- and Megan Kaff, both 19 and University of Kentucky students, waited for their room assignments. They had just made a 12-hour drive from school to join Campus Crusade for Christ in a ministry here -- and to spend the next six days on the beach.
"We just got done with mid-terms, so I am trying to de-stress," Vollman said, but Skaff said that might be hard to do because the bikers were "loud." Vollman, happy to learn most of the bikers were leaving, said: "We were hoping they wouldn't be here the whole week."
Not to worry, girls. Some bikers couldn't get out of town early enough -- like Maureen Mannion, 52. She walked her black lab, Stormie-Lee, and had a quick cup of java at Crazy Horse Campgrounds near the Flea Market in Sunday's early-morning fog.
Before 8 a.m. she was ready to roll her 42-foot Monaco motor home -- towing a Ford Sport Truck and two Harleys -- out of the campgrounds to Longwood, but not because she didn't have a good time.
"You know, it was so much more spread out this year. I don't think it was as crowded, and I have been coming for 10 years," Mannion said. "We went down past Merritt Island -- The Lone Cabbage Fish Camp -- and to Jacksonville, and Main Street and Destination Daytona. It's much better traffic-wise I think."
Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal
This article contributed by editor on Monday, March 12, 2007 (13:53:13)
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