Ride a Harley? Then you need to get along to the Harley Davidson Riders Club Northern Ireland International Rally this weekend at Dromore Rugby Club. A good time is guarenteed! Contact details for the club can be found in our UK Bike Clubs section for further details.
It’s Daytona time again for our biker friends in the USA. Bike Week 2010 marks the 69th prestigious year for this annual motorcycle festival, known far and wide as the ‘Worlds Largest Motorcycle Event’ for its estimated 500,000 visitors who attend each year. I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I feel here in Ireland we’re missing out.
A huge event could be a tourism boost for the Emerald Isle and go a long way to showcasing motorcycling in a good light, which would be helpful in stopping anti-bike bias from government. Biking is still seen as a niche ‘hobby’ and a dangerous one at that. Calls to banish bikes to the sports track, if we’re lucky, have been muttered around the halls of Strasbourg for some time now. Biking is a legitimate form of transport, and for those who label it a hobby, I’ll agree it does have a sporting, classic heritage, and custom element, but so do cars, so why the difference?
The public still see us as trouble makers it would seem, and I’ve heard some people class us in the same grouping as ASBO badged hoodies! A huge public event to show people the truth, fun, and camaraderie, behind biking would help us create and maintain a useful public profile, a very effective weapon in lobbying efforts to keep small-minded politicians at bay.
I’m still considering an ‘Ireland Bike Week’ and will be looking for your thoughts and opinions over the next few months. RTWW is putting together a Facebook page to better communicate ideas such as this and it’ll be launching shortly. So start thinking of ideas for Ireland’s Bike Week, the benefits as outlined are important but other considerations can be demonstrated with some images from Daytona;
For the Guys….
For the ladies… (Sorry this is the most strikingly handsome biker I could find, no beer gut, neat facial hair, etc)
Port Dover, Ontario, on
Friday the 13th faced a terrifiying influx of bikers of all types for a regular bike meet as reported by Canadian Motorcycle Guide.
About 15,000 motorcycle riders swarmed into town on Friday in apparently unusually warm weather for mid-November and doesn't it look great! The next Friday the 13th is in August next year were it's reported x10 more bikers are due!
The U.S. and Canda have regular huge bike events and you'll even find some decent ones in England as well, and I think Northern Ireland is missing out. Yes bikers here gather for the big sporting events like the North West 200 but apart from some small events there's not much here that could be described as a big bash.
The question is why? Is it something you would attend? Let us know and Ride The Wild Wind will start working in creating our own N.I. Bike Event for 2010.
MOTO GP News WSB News BSB News Write To Ride News
Ride The Wild Wind 