Many Happy Returns
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
HARLEYS COME HOME TO ROOST-ABOUT 60,000 OF THEM
PETER EGAN
EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HARLEY'S 90TH anniversary but lived in rural Wisconsin as we do, you would have known Something Big was happening, much the way French peasants along the Marne knew World War I was coming by the distant rumble of artillery.
I was out in the driveway, cleaning up my own bike, and a mile away on the state and county roads I could hear the air-compressor shuffle and bellow of 80-inch Twins and the snottier, canvas-ripping sound of Sportsters doing their Doppler number down the highway. On a nice day, you always hear a few Harleys out there somewhere, but never this many. The rumble was continuous, wavelike and overlapping; big groups, pairs and loners headed east.
The big iron magnet (or aluminum magnet for us Evolution owners) was in Milwaukee, of course, where Harley had arranged a birthday a birthday party that included a celebration at Milwaukee’s downtown Maier Festival Park, music by ZZ Top and Marshall Tucker, comedy by Jay Leno, mass rides from the County Fairgrounds and from Kenosha Airport, about 30 miles to the south, and another parade ride on Sunday from Milwaukee to the AMA Superbike National at Elkhart Lake’s Road America circuit, 60 miles north in the beautiful Kettle Moraine Hills.
The lure of the racetrack overwhelmed the lure of the happening, so Barb and I rode our very clean black ElectraGlide Sport to Siebken’s Resort at Elkhart Lake, where the Slimey Cruds Motorcycle Gang’s Wisconsin and Michigan chapters were massing for the usual experiments in better living through motorcycles. At the track on Sunday, the Harley parade showed up just before the 883 TwinSports race and the huge throng took a few laps of the track before settling down for an afternoon of spectating. The 883 race was won by Milwaukeean Scott Zampach; a nice touch. What can you say about a city that makes its own motorcycles, beer and roadracing champions? Only positive, really flattering stuff, that’s what.
Nevertheless, a group of us formed up and rode into Milwaukee on Saturday for a look around. While there were billions of Harleys everywhere, most of them were parked at any given moment, so the log jam was less trouble than expected. We parked downtown and walked around for hours, looking at bikes and taking it all in. A relaxed atmosphere prevailed, people waving and cheering for bikes of unique character.
Our friends Jeff and Will actually had two of the preregistration tickets sold for the Main Event and said there were still hordes of bikes leaving State Fair Park when the head of the parade arrived at Maier Festival Park on Lake Michigan, 6 or 7 miles away.
I couldn’t help thinking how enlivening this event was for the sport. Between traditional Harley touring/cruising folk and roadracers there were a lot of twains that never before had met. The Harley ride at least doubled attendance at the track, and a new crowd was exposed to roadracing; more significantly, Harley roadracing. All of which can only lead to better Harleys-as Kevin Cameron pointed out in a recent column-and bigger crowds. Good all around.
Monday-morning quarterbacking in the local papers was all positive. The city took in an estimated, oh, $800 zillion dollars; the hotels, bars and restaurants were full; only two arrests were made all weekend (unheard of, even on a Brewers game weekend); there was only one motorcycle fatality in the whole state; and the waiters, bartenders and
hotel owners had nothing but glowing reports on the good conduct (what!) of bikers.
Also, a Ducati won the Superbike race, which made me and a bunch of the Ducati-owning Cruds happy.
Think what an interesting weekend it might have been if Harley had a Superbike to challenge the Italians and Japanese, both on the track and on the twisting roads of the Kettle Moraine....
Maybe for the 95th. □
