DAYTONA BEACH BIKE WEEK
If you are new to the planet Earth or have been living under a rock most of your adult life, Daytona Beach Bike Week is an annual 10-day motorcycle event that takes place in Daytona Beach Florida and has since January 24, 1937. Daytona Beach Bike Week began with the first Daytona 200 motorcycle race on a 3.2-mile beach and road course. From 1942 to 1947, the official race was put on hold due to World War II. However, bikers continued to gather unofficially, keeping the tradition alive. The event then grew into a 10-day festival, initially focusing on racing, but by the post-World War II years, it developed a rowdier, more informal party atmosphere that eventually expanded to include hundreds of events beyond racing. At this time the event quickly gained a reputation for boisterous behavior, leading to its nickname, the "Handlebar Derby.” The race moved to the Daytona International Speedway in 1961, and the event has since grown into a major annual motorcycle rally that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide. Events include motorcycle racing, concerts, parties, and street festivals. The celebration is held throughout the Daytona Beach area and Volusia County.
We have been coming to this event for over twenty five years and have seen it grow from a chrome and chaps drunken “biker” party to something much more diverse and family friendly. And in the last five or so years with the advent of Bagger racing, a focus on performance built bikes has been at the forefront of the event. And this is where we come in. V-Twin Visionary has been partnered with Harley-Davidson and Moto America for the last six years at the Daytona Speedway putting on a myriad of bike shows and events surrounding American V-Twin racing and performance/custom bike shows.
We love Daytona and it’s sadly not for the riding. There are no mountains, canyons, or hardly any twists and turns. But that is not really why folks go to the rally. Its really all about the dates of the event being in the late Winter/early Spring months. Most folks shuck their cabin fever and trip down out of the Northeast’s deep freeze with their winter-long bike builds to warm up from the cold on a sunny Florida beach and show the fruits of their two wheeled labor.
