Laconia Bike Week @ 96 (or 100?)

[NotSoLilCrippseys]

Bike Week at Laconia in New Hampster is well under way.

My son and I rode the Blue Phoenix ('83 GL1100) and Ginger ('79 GL1000) out to Weir's Beach on Sunday to check it out. It's about 80 miles from us, and the New England back roads are great fun to ride.

It's not Sturgis, for sure. But then New Hampshire isn't the Black Hills. Bike density was huge, with the expected vast overrepresentation of Harleys.

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We saw a few F6Bs, maybe a dozen GL1500s, as well as a Valk or three. There were Wings with sidecars and with trailers. At one point, while we were dining on burgers and fries, we saw a GL1200 roll through. For Hondas, we also saw a couple CBRs, a mid-80s Nighthawk, and what I think was a first generation Interceptor. I did not see other naked Wings, which is not that surprising. It's likely there were some there.

I really thought we'd see more in terms of customs and truly vintage bikes. There were some amazing choppers and a few truly old bikes (Triumphs, Nortons). Truth be told, though, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of black H-Ds with batwing fairings. It seemed cookie cutter. The Sportsters stood out mainly because they lacked all that visual weight.

We rode out to the rally because it was a gorgeous Sunday and there was a major motorcycle gathering close enough for a day trip through early summer scenic Maine and New Hampshire.

The closer we got to Laconia, the higher the bike/car ratio. You could feel it flipping from 1/20 to something like 20+/1. And then we took the right (motorcycles only!) to the main strip and found ourselves completely in the thick of it. My son scoped out the perfect parking spot amid the sea of Harleys. And then our naked Wings broke up the H-D monotony on Lakeside Avenue - just a smidge. We couldn't have chosen a better place to park if we had been the first people to the rally. Perfect! And we had no map and no clue where we'd eventually locate parking.

Apparently, loud pipes do save lives. It was loud - really loud. And I didn't see anyone die. Correlation? Causation? Spurious association?

After burgers and fries, some live music, a pit stop, and a walk around the area to check out the bikes, we headed out by taking the long way up and around the lake, through back roads we'd never ridden before, and home to our own little neck of the New England woods. All in all, a nice father-son day.

[Fred Camper]

Nice update. Sounds like fun.

[gltriker]

A Perfect Day Out With Son!