Daytona Or Sturgis? What A Dilemma.

Two of the biggest biker rallies in the world occur in the country that shares borders with both Canada and Mexico. Daytona in Florida has bike week in late February, early March, whilst South Dakota’s Sturgis bike week is in early August each year.

Both are equally famous as far as rallies are concerned with both wanting bragging rights as to which is the biggest and best.

I’ve been fortunate enough to ride to Sturgis four times now so Daytona was a must to see how it compared with the Black Hills rally. My business takes me many places and as often as I can, I try to co-ordinate international trips with whatever rally is in the vicinity. Luckily, this year I had to transit through Miami in late February and this just happened to coincide with Daytona Bike week.

Perhaps it was unfortunate that I’d just left a hot and sticky Queensland summer to arrive in the coldest March temperatures on record in Florida, but it was damn cold and damn wet in that southern US state. Rental bikes were hard to get and crazily expensive so I just rented a cage and drove from Miami to Daytona Beach where the rally is situated.

The first significant difference between Sturgis and Daytona is that whereas most of the activity in Sturgis is quite central to the town and the few blocks around Main Street, activity in Daytona is quite spread out over a range of sites, none of which is remotely close.

Main Street itself is near the beach, but the hard-core pubs and party places are quite some distance away on Route 1 making drinking and riding a real issue.

Daytona International Speedway also hosts events and accordingly creates another whole set of vendors and tents to visit. All in all, there are events, vendors and activity areas in over 5 main sites and a raft of minor sites.

That means you need to have a few days there in order to visit each site and do it all justice. Compared to Sturgis it seemed a bit disjointed and spread out, but after a while that seemed be an attraction as long as you were prepared to hunker down in one site for the day and not get too much into the local brews.

One of the huge pleasures of Sturgis is the riding that can be found in the area. There are some simply awesome rides to Mt Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument, down through the Custer National Park and to fabulous nearly towns such as Deadwood, Spearfish and Hulett. The topography of Florida, au contraire, does it no favours at all as a riding destination. There are only a few corners in the whole state and the inclines vary between flat and dead flat. It’s simply not biker’s paradise and even though the organisers have a few rides mapped out, it’s kinda difficult to make awesome riding out of plain ordinary roads and countryside.

Bikers go to rallies to party and party hard - oh and to buy a few souvenirs and bits and pieces for the bike. Daytona has its fair share of party places, mostly out of the downtown vicinity and off the main roads. I guess this is out of sight for the local kids too. Institutions such as the Broken Spoke Saloon and the Boothill Saloon boast a heap of good music and good times. I found the Iron Horse Saloon pretty much to my liking and enjoyed a great day there listening to some good bands and ogling at some great bikes. The local constabulary seem to have cleaned things up a heap in Florida because the amount of exposed flesh even at these party places is mighty limited. Sturgis is renowned for its bars, bikes and babes. The latter was quite conspicuously missing in Florida, as covering up seemed the order of the day.

The biking scene has changed in the US. These rallies used to be the almost exclusive domain of Harley Davidson and choppers. Nowadays road bike fans and Japanese bike riders would feel far more at home than a few years ago. Dealers at the various sites represented all brands of Japanese bikes and although the roar of the big HD V-twin was by far and away the most predominant sound on the roads, a significant number of street bikes were dispersed amongst the choppers and Harleys.  Victory and Indian are making strong inroads to the cruiser market and the ever- reliable Honda Gold Wing seemed to be very common indeed. As a non-street bike rider, I couldn’t say which brands were there, as they all look alike to me. But there were lots and lots of them.

I guess last, but not least, was the impression that Daytona is “nice”. Its all proper if you know what I mean. Sure, its a good time and lots of fun, of that there is no doubt. But I kinda got the feeling that it is a tame version of Sturgis. It is very clean fun. Its very merchandise driven, its very straight. Whilst there is nothing wrong with that at all, if you are ever going to attend only one motorcycle rally in the US in your life, I’d suggest you “head for them thar hills”, the Black Hills in South Dakota. That’s where bikers really do belong.