Main Street

MAIN STREET

If you walk along the main street on an August afternoon," wrote Carson Smith McCullers in Ballad of the Sad Cafe, "there is nothing whatsoever to do."

Mr. McCullers never visited Daytona Beach’s Main Street on a March evening.

Hundreds of motorcycles parked rear tire to curb line the street while thousands of people mingle by, stopping every now and then to examine a particularly interesting specimen. Music from the open doors of several bars mixes with the horns and exhausts of passing cars and

bikes, adding to the carnival-like atmosphere.

For a bike to stand out in the midst of all this, it has to be something extraordinary. Merely chroming the valve covers and laying on a dapper paint job doesn’t mean a thing on Main Street. The real attention grabbers are the cobby Vespas with turbocharged Honda 750 motors and flamed front fenders. Or the doubleengined Harley-Davidsons. Or the BMW sidecar rig with a Volkswagen engine shoehorned into the frame. How about the guy who mated a touring Harley with a shaft-drive Yamaha 1100 and called it a Yamahog?

Main Street. Not exactly mainstream, but a whole bunch of fun.