Daytona Bike Week '04

The first two pics were also taken at the Softail. The next series of night shots were taken at the Iron Horse Saloon in the woods of Ormond Beach, North of Daytona. This place was another epic-scale people-magnet that just can't be adequately depicted with pictures. Tons of harleys with a much darker, slightly meaner vibe than what you would find down on main street during the day. This place was huge and was full of moderately drunk bikers. It almost felt like a powder keg waiting to go off, but was safely stored in a static-free closet. There was a huge wooden balcony shaped much like a horseshoe that circled above, and bikers were free to drive their bikes through the main grounds and amongst the people. The guys from OCC were supposedly here during the day, but people grumbled about the fact that they were charging money for autographs.

The last series of pics were taken at Daytona Speedway on Friday. We tried to get there early enough to score demo rides on some hot bikes, but all that was available by 8:30 AM was "high-powered scooters". Bastards. We got up early for nothing. The jackass from aprilia bragged that he had outrun all but one of the harleys he had drag raced on the street the night before. The sport bikes were in full effect at the vendor tents - the new Yami R1, the Kawi ZX10 were amazingly light and should give the almost-dated Gixxer 1k a run for it's money on the street. The bike that won my heart was the amazingly-solid-red special edition 'busa. Shazam!!!