What Happens at Bike Week Stays at Bike Week-- Until Now!

The scene was mid-May of this year in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  The event was my wife’s cousin’s wedding.  We hopped a flight aboard a prestigious airline called Spirit Air and we set out to enjoy the wedding, followed by five days of family vacation at the beach.  

Unbeknownst to us, a tradition unlike any other was taking place in Myrtle Beach at that same time. (You have to say, “A tradition unlike any other,” like Jim Nantz does when he’s talking about the Masters.) 

This particular week was Bike Week.  And by “bike,” I mean Harley Davidson.

What can I say about Bike Week?  Above all, it was loud.  One Harley is loud.  Fifty Harleys traveling in a pack are very loud.  If I had to estimate, I’d say that at Bike Week, there were roughly fifty packs of fifty bikes out on the town at any given time.  2,500 bikes, then?  That still seems a bit low.  

Let me put it this way. When I returned home from Bike Week, I couldn’t believe how quiet everything seemed.  In Myrtle Beach, I got used to hearing the constant roar of a bike.  I stopped noticing it at all.  Back home, I realized, wow!  It’s quiet. This is strange.  No bike noise!  

At Bike Week, you’re lying in bed at 4:00 am and you’re hearing bikes rev their engines.  It could be coming from anywhere.  Out in the parking lot of your condo building. A mile down the road at the nearest bar. Out near the airport.  Who knows where the bikes are?  All you know is they’re really having fun revving those engines at 4:00 am!  

Every day by 9:00 am, the pancake houses were crammed with bikes out front.  By noon, every bar and grill in town was crammed with bikes out front. The parking lot of the miniature golf course we went to—okay, it wasn’t crammed with bikes, but there were a half dozen bikes out front at 6:00 pm on a Wednesday.  You know it’s Bike Week when even the mini golf course has a bunch of bikes out front.

The Harley Davidson dealership was swarming with bikes and bikers at all times.  The bikers had to check out the brand new hogs that they could be riding to next year’s Bike Week, right?

Bike Week!  

Here are my Bike Week highlights:

·     One night, we were eating at a hamburger joint on the beachfront avenue.  (You will now have “Ice, Ice, Baby” stuck in your head for the next 48 hours.  Sorry about that.)

It was near a busy intersection.  Our sons wanted to sit at a table on the outdoor patio.  Throughout the meal, a steady stream of bike traffic was crawling past us. 

This was when we learned about the kinds of music that bikers prefer.  They prefer country.  Also rap.  And also cheesy 80’s music (like Bob Seger’s “Shakedown”).  I had no problem with any of it.  

One song seemed too corny, too obvious, and too cliché, though.  A guy was blasting AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”  I think it’s a cool song, sure.  But you’re on a beefed-up Harley, you’re wearing all black, you have tattoos up and down both arms, rugged facial hair, a bandana, and a rad pony tail—are you really going to top it all off by blasting “Highway to Hell?” 

It seems like way too much of a cliché.  “Highway”—get it?  He’s on a road, which is similar to a highway.  “To Hell”—get it? He looks like he could be a Hell’s Angel.  Perfect song? 

No.  It’s too much.  It’s corny.  

I thought bikers liked to defy expectations, be original and unpredictable, and give the middle finger to the man.  That guy playing “Highway to Hell” met my expectations.  He was unoriginal and very predictable.  Plus, this isn’t the 80’s.  No one’s scandalized by that song anymore, so you’re not really giving anyone the middle finger by playing it.

This guy clearly did not know what he was doing.  Lo and behold, he was riding all by himself, which was a rarity at Bike Week.  I think the other bikers knew a poser when they saw one.  

Come to think of it, I may have seen that guy on a Cialis commercial once!  I knew he looked familiar!

·     The condo we rented for the week overlooked a little inlet.  When we first arrived, the building looked nice enough.  What gave us pause, though, was that hardly any other cars were in the parking lot.  Several dumpsters were taking up parking spaces.  Lots of construction equipment was sitting around, as well.  

Nevertheless, we found a place to park, unloaded our stuff, and hauled it up to the condo unit.  Inside, it was just like the pictures we’d seen online, so we were happy.  We unpacked and made some sandwiches to enjoy for lunch out on the balcony overlooking the water.  

Out there, a lot of hammering and banging was going on.  A work crew was setting up scaffolding.  Pretty soon, they were just a few feet away from our balcony.  We ate and watched them work.  They were all harnessed in safely because it was a big drop to the ground below.  We were on the third floor.  

As they got closer and closer to our balcony, we finished up the food and went back inside.  The moment we closed the sliding glass door, a couple of guys leaped over our balcony railing and started hammering a scaffolding beam into place.  They had apparently been waiting for us to clear out.  We did not go back out there.  

Soon, we closed all the blinds because the guys were repeatedly walking back and forth in front of the windows as they worked.  No more nice view of the water. 

Not only did we arrive just in time for Bike Week, we also arrived just in time for our condo building to get a full roof replacement, and it was going to take all week.  

The kicker was that the building’s swimming pool was located directly below the scaffolding, so if we dared to go in the pool (which we never did), we were going to be in danger of roofing nails and equipment falling on our heads.  

We called and complained to the woman who rented the place to us.  She apologized and offered to let us move to a condo in a different building up the road.  This unit was a bit smaller and a bit less updated, but we eagerly took it.  

The new place was a big improvement.  The balcony overlooked the ocean, we were within twenty steps of the beach, and we didn’t have roofers peeking in our windows at all.  Not even one!

·     The award for best Bike Week t-shirt goes to a lady we saw at the pancake house one morning. Her shirt said, “If I straddle it, it’s mine.”  Classy!

·     Finally, we visited a former rice plantation that has a zoo, trolley rides, a boat tour, and lots of educational exhibits for children.  I plan on writing more about that experience in a future blog post. 

For now, what I’ll say about the rice plantation is that they did not welcome bikers.  Most businesses in town openly courted the biker crowd with signs saying, “Welcome, bikers.”  At the rice plantation, though, our tour guide came out and said she hoped none of us in the group were there for Bike Week.  She said those bikes are way too noisy for her liking and they ruin the quiet ambience of the plantation.  

So, on our last day at Bike Week, we found the one place in town that didn’t welcome bikers. Who knew?

The bikers are going to have to get together next year and overrun the place. I can picture the tour guide now. First, she’ll hear the rumble. Then, she’ll feel the ground shake. Finally, she’ll see the gigantic pack of bikers coming her way.

“There goes the ambience!” she’ll exclaim.

I’m glad to say I’ve experienced a Bike Week.  If you’ve ever been curious about what happens at Bike Week, now you know.  

Thanks for reading!