Sep 17 & 18, 2006

Paulie and I rode down to Ocean City, MD for the DelMarVa bike week. We met up in New Castle Saturday morning at around 7am for breakfast, then got under way. We rode Del Rt. 9 down to Rt. 1 and followed that in to town. From there, we took Rt. 50 out to the Ocean Downs horse track where the rallye was being hosted.

We walked around for a while - in the rain, of course, and got sweaty, muddy and looked at many, many, many Harleys and Harley clones.

Just so you know, if it's true that Loud Pipes Save Lives (giggle), then everyone in Ocean City this past weekend is surely going ot live to the ripe old age of 3258 1/2 years old. OH MY GOD! Every Harley either had straight pipes or some loud aftermarket system. I honest can't remember hearing more than 1/2 a dozen stock, mellow-sounding Harleys. The custom choppers, of course, were worse.

Saturday evening we met up with my friend Keith for dinner at Fager's Island - expensive but pretty good food - then I attempted to head to bed for some much-needed rest. The Loud Pipe Brigade had other ideas. I think I got about 2 hours worth of sleep starting at about 4am. 6:30 or so, the whole mess started all over again.

We chose to forego the Rallye festivities on Sunday, and instead rode up to Lewes, Delaware and took the ferry over to Cape May, NJ for lunch, then rode home up through South-Western New Jersey.

This was my first big bike rallye, and I'm fairly certain it will be my last. I went there in the hopes of shopping the vendors and checking out some stuff. The vendor pickings basically sucked - unless you wanted Harley-branded EVERYTHING, or you wanted a $12,000 rolling chassis, or a $50k+ "custom" (read as: just like every other "custom" chopper) that may or may no be street-legal in your state.

I also saw more bad riding and cliche' examples of the "fair weather riders" club than I ever thought could exist without a hole being punched in reality or something. Oh, my, goodness. Most of the "riders" I saw would do well with some basic training, starting with "Hey, Dumbass! Do NOT drag your feet for half a block at a time!". And the trailers and pickup trucks. Out of the thousands upon thousands of bikes, I think 3 or 4 were ridden in to town. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting a motorcycle trailer or pickup truck with ramps in the back. And watching some of those knuckleheads attempt to load them up was just plain old amusing.

Sunday morning I went for a solo-ride around town to fuel up my FJR and just have a look around. The riding I saw by most of the people riding around was an interesting blend of embarrassing, depressing and amusing. I think I was becoming clinically depressed watching some of these so-called riders trying to manhandle their Harleys into submission. The poor clowns just had no idea how to ride. And several of them blipped their throttle or otherwise tried to get my attention to try to race me at the redlights. I just smiled knowingly to myself in my helmet - oh yeah - helmets... skid lids and brain buckets rule the day!!

"Riders" I use the term loosely.

Oh, and the Harley (insert model here) has officially replaced the Gixxer 600 as the biggest "me too" bike of all time. I now officially will never buy a Harley - no matter how much I like 'em.

Pictures:

ocbikeweek2006-0001.jpg - Paulie and I meet up in Old Towne New Castle, Delaware for breakfast and from there we paused in town to get our game plan together, look at some history and tell ourselves this was a good idea. The bikes, looking out over the Delaware River.

ocbikeweek2006-0002.jpg - Just one of the many old buildings in New Castle. This one sits at the end of the main street thru' town, just a few dozen yards from the water. It's a beautiful little town.

ocbikeweek2006-0003.jpg - Riding down Rt. 9, you ride right by the Dover Air Force Base, and this hulk of a plane - I think it's a C-5 body - is sitting off to the left with many of its old parts.

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ocbikeweek2006-0005.jpg - A nice example of a Victory that I liked.

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ocbikeweek2006-0007.jpg - Saw a few Ridley motorcycles as well.

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ocbikeweek2006-0009.jpg - Now this bike was definitely interesting. A little more minimalist than I like, but the guy(s) who put it together had some interesting ideas. The cables and brake hoses all run inside the handlebars for that clean, uncluttered look. The gauges were all incorporated into one fairly small electronic moddule on the bars.

ocbikeweek2006-0010.jpg - The rear drive sproket also acts as the disc brake rotor. I had never seen such a design before and was very intrigued.

ocbikeweek2006-0011.jpg - Carbon fibre rims with fixed-rotor dual disc brakes.

ocbikeweek2006-0012.jpg - I love this kind of flamed paint job.

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ocbikeweek2006-0014.jpg - I didn't even notice the wolf painted into it at first.

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ocbikeweek2006-0016.jpg - Wish, hope and pray, and think good thoughts, and maybe pigs can, in fact, fly (or ride!).

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ocbikeweek2006-0019.jpg - Another nice looking bike with the style of flames I like so much.

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ocbikeweek2006-0021.jpg - I told John I'd take some pictures of hot chicks. This was one of very, very few opportunites while walking around the Rallye on Saturday in the rain.

ocbikeweek2006-0022.jpg - And of course, I had to get pictures of some of the more interesting helmet stickers.

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ocbikeweek2006-0025.jpg - I love the subtle graphics in this paint job. The red-on-red was very, very easy to overlook.

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ocbikeweek2006-0027.jpg - The Valkyrie was in good showing this weekend. This is one of about a dozen or more Valks that I saw this weekend. It really is a pretty fantastic machine.

ocbikeweek2006-0028.jpg - Chrome nazi helmet on a sport bike. Uhm... yeah. Whatever.

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ocbikeweek2006-0030.jpg - The kid doing the cage-riding is pretty fanstastic. Young, too. Like maybe 15.

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ocbikeweek2006-0033.jpg - More hot chicks. You're welcome, John. Again, slim pickins.

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ocbikeweek2006-0035.jpg - So. Many. Harleys. Better than 95% of the attendees were on Harleys.

No, really.

ocbikeweek2006-0036.jpg - Turns out the guy in this picture carrying the red jacket was one of the guys Paulie and I were looking for at the mythical Honda tent (we never found it, and never found the guys from HondaShadow.Net).

ocbikeweek2006-0037.jpg - This is one seriously interesting custom/rat bike. It's a 1952(?) Pan Head engine and frame, with a 1964(?) Shovel Head top end on the engine. The bike is a hodge-podge of parts - bike and non-bike - all blended together. For instance, the air cleaner is from a lawn mower. The single mirror is from a 1952 Chevy pickup truck. The pipes are one-offs. The Seat... this is cool... he took the seat pans and added 4 layers of carpet padding, then bought an old, used, suede womens' jacket at the thrift shop and used it to cover the seat. Now THAT is cool!!

ocbikeweek2006-0038.jpg - The speedometer is from a bicycle shop.

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ocbikeweek2006-0040.jpg - The passenger-peg bracket is some sort of braket from a Mack truck.

ocbikeweek2006-0041.jpg - More of those so-so-so-many Harleys (with the occasional other-bike thrown in there)

ocbikeweek2006-0042.jpg - Paulie enjoying the bikes - and a cigar!

ocbikeweek2006-0043.jpg - This woman was having a ball slushing her pink Fat Boy thru' the mud. She was giggling like a mad woman the whole time her bike was slippin' and slidin' to the exit.

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ocbikeweek2006-0045.jpg - While trying to exit, my bike got stuck in a wet, muddy rut in the lane, and when I goosed the throttle a little I throw wads of mud at Paulie. I felt pretty bad, but he just laughed.

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ocbikeweek2006-0048.jpg - Paulie and I decided to head up to Lewes and take the Lewes-Cape May ferry to Cape May and come home thru' New Jersey.

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ocbikeweek2006-0064.jpg - An interesting and obviously well-loved example of a Valk-trike.

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tracksSep17.jpg - This is the map of the route we took. I left West Grove and went down 41 and 141 into New Castle to meet up with Paulie. Then we took Rt. 9 and Rt. 1 down in to Ocean City. Coming home, we took the ferry to Cape May and took 47 and 49 up to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and back to Paulie's house in North Wilmington.

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