  or 16 years Daytona’s Biketoberfest has been a northern biker’s last chance to roll up some miles before tucking that Harley away for the winter. It’s also a chance to check out up-close-and-personal all of the new parts and accessories brought to the party by the many vendors on hand, maybe even picking up some fresh ideas for an off-season rebuild or a complete ground up re-do. But mostly it’s a chance to get out and ride, and as spread out as Biketoberfest, and Bike Week, too, have become over the past few years there’s no shortage of that involved getting around to see it all and do it all.One small change this year. It wasn’t lots of cool Fall-weather riding on the Biketoberfest schedule. Just the opposite. Thanks to an unseasonable weather front that pushed through Central Florida precisely coinciding with Biketoberfest temperatures climbed into the 90s all week long, with humidity to match. If you didn’t spot a calendar you’d swear it was August in Daytona. Not that anyone complained, at least not while they were on their bikes and rolling. Heat beats cold every time, and this year’s Biketoberfest temperatures came with brilliant summertime-blue skies every day–perfect shirtsleeve riding conditions. Biketoberfest, if you’ve never been, is a scaled-down Bike Week. For many that’s just fine. All the same Bike Week vendors, suppliers and attractions are here so it’s not like anything’s missing–except the crushing crowds of Daytona Beach in March. While Bike Week might draw 400,000 or more riders, Biketoberfest’s total probably isn’t half that number, although it’s pretty tough to tag an accurate head-count to either event. It’s all estimates, the best guess of promoters and city fathers. But either way and at either event, Bike Week or Biketoberfest, suffice it to say that at the must-see attractions–the old mainstays of Main Street, Beach Street, the Highway 1 Iron Horse Saloon, Boot Hill, Broken Spoke and all the rest of the pit stops, at the vendor displays inside and outside International Speedway and most recently at that ever-expanding Destination Daytona mega-complex you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in the crowd’s size one way or the other. After all, any one of those hot spots only holds so many people and once it’s full it’s full. And every spot was full. No one was lacking company anywhere. From that new and sprawling Destination Daytona–which has finally gotten its act together regarding parking and ease of use (mini-trams run non-stop shuttling everyone from the furthest corners of that sprawling site to the center of the action and back again), to Miller’s and the Last Chance down in South Daytona and at all points in between, the crowds and crews and vendors were all there and packed in thick as ever. Remember, though, it takes some serious riding to find it all. Biketoberfest and Bike Week spread out to cover two counties, Volusia and Flagler, and if you throw in a day or two riding out and away from the crowds either up or down the coast or venturing inland to some of the old-Florida towns and villages you can add two or three more counties to that list. Done right, Biketoberfest can easily take a week of riding and even then you might not see it all. As always this year’s event was a regular “Who’s Who” of the motorcycle industry. Everyone from the big-time builders showing off their latest creations to just about every vendor and supplier in the FatBook was there. Have some questions about what’s new? You could get your answers straight from the source, Avon, or Metzeler, or Memphis Shades, or Saddlemen or Vance & Hines or Baker or S&S or TP Engineering–or just pick a name out of that giant Drag Specialties catalog. Everyone was here and at Biketoberfest you’d put a face to that name. Dealers and shop owners wondering what’s hot in the market got all that info, too. Industry reps manning the booths and displays at Biketoberfest travel the country seeing and hearing it all. You couldn’t buy a market analysis any better then this, and this one is free for the asking. All this and lots more–like chopper shows, and drag racing, and road racing, and non-stop live music just about everywhere–was front and center at Biketoberfest 2007. Didn’t get down to Daytona yourself? Don’t miss it next year! Think of it as a very necessary business trip, something guaranteed to pay off back at the shop. And there’s no reason why business can’t be mixed with pleasure, right? 
  hat giant Drag Specialties Biketoberfest display didn’t just drop out of the sky to land in the J&P Cycles lot. The Drag Specialties Event Crew, coordinated by Deidre Webber, sets up and attends more than 50 events nationwide. Biketoberfest is just one of them. With two separate and fully loaded Event Trucks running the country the Drag Specialties Team can be at two places at once, displaying on both sides of the country at the same time. Gary Elliott and Neal Schmidt drive the trucks and bring the shows to town. Ross Richards shuttles between the two as part of the set-up crew helping to get things ready for the crowds. At some of the bigger events, like Daytona and Sturgis, local reps will come in to help out, too, even sticking around to staff that Drag Specialties Display during the event. The show season begins with the V-Twin Expo in February and last year ran right through November 18th.Stocked with product from a pretty broad assortment of vendors in the Drag Specialties family, the display becomes a live and in-person cross-section of the most popular and most-asked-about FatBook offerings. The job, as you’d expect, is to answer questions, explain applications and then point interested riders to their nearest Drag Specialties dealer, either at the event or back home. More often than not a rider leaves the Drag Specialties Display armed with a specific part number. The Event Crew is making things even easier, too–sales wise. Last year they launched the Open House Program with the full Drag Specialties Display coming right to a dealership and setting up there. Customers are then pointed right to the front door of that dealer. It’s been tremendously successful for everyone involved. For 2008 the whole show schedule is being revamped to reflect all this. Whenever possible the Drag Specialties Event Display will be stationed right at a local, prominent dealership, a location, obviously, in the thick of things. At Biketoberfest the Drag Specialties Display was right outside J&P Cycles inside the Destination Daytona complex. You can’t get more central than that. At Sturgis one of the trucks set up at Black Hills Harley-Davidson, another at J&P once again. At Laconia it was Mike’s Performance hosting the Display. But no matter where you find them, the Drag Specialties Event Crew is out there building business, for you and all of those vendors in the FatBook.  |
