ORMOND BEACH — Packs of people look down from the wooden walkway about 15 feet in the air — drinks in hand — to monitor the chrome and leather action of motorcycles rolling toward the Iron Horse Memorial Bridge they’re standing on.
The ponytailed guy on a gray trike leads the line under the bridge for a moment as bikers pass a free beer coozie table next to a tent with Christian books. They all head toward any space big enough in the sand pit of motorcycles that’s as much a center of attention as it is a parking lot.
Sunday, day three of Bike Week, which runs through March 13, was in full gear at the Iron Horse Saloon, a prime and rougher hangout for thousands of bikers on the U.S. 1 tour of outdoor hot spots. Thousands more hit Bruce Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona, just a few miles north of the saloon for a more commercialized theme of motorcycle products and services, and live music and Budweiser Clydesdales.
The smell of exhaust from idling bikes fills the lungs on the way in, while plumes from a barbecue smoker smother crowds on the other side of the Iron Horse. This is where the roots of Bike Week are for Kathi and Keith Keeton, newlyweds from Orlando who are flipping through tattoo artist portfolios at Willie’s Tropical Tattoo booth.
No one’s in the hot seat yet, though there’s a big window into the tiny studio just large enough for an artist and client to sit for a few hours of ink action.
Kathi, known as “Kitty Kat,” stands at the counter consulting on her second tattoo. She’s thinking about a cat skull for her right arm that will line up just right to meet her husband’s bulldog tattoo on his left arm.
“I want to match him,” she said, pushing her arm up against his, which is nearly twice as big and tan.
Friends “Lizard” and “Ghost” gave her the thumbs up, she said, though the pigtailed blonde with the tight black cat shirt will ride her Harley back on Thursday to seal the deal.
Keith, or “Big Dawg,” a burly 6-foot kind of a man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, said Iron Horse is the “old school” side of Bike Week, where you won’t see newbies.
“It gives you the true biker feeling,” he said as a woman with deep red hair walked past, her head rocking out to the music on her way toward the Wall of Death stunt show.
Leather vests and men’s facial hair rule here. Women with skull jewelry, corsets, midriff shirts, tight and bedazzled tops also are on hand.
On Sunday afternoon, there was even a tiny infant swaddled in the arms of a grandmother as she made her way past the tattoo shop. The young mother pushed the stroller just behind.
The Keetons still go to places like Destination Daytona every Bike Week, though they said “it’s not a priority.”
“Destination Daytona is awesome but it’s very sterile. Daytona Disney is what we call it,” Keith said. “You drink here, people watch and you always run across friends.”
The usual fair food of sausage and cheese fries flows from carnival-style food booths at both places.
Destination is more of a shopping excursion on fields of pavement, where kids hold their parents hands and middle-aged folks stroll in khaki shorts. Bikers wearing black leather vests lap up vanilla soft serve yogurt, too.
Aside from food, folks buy motorcycles, wax, get their eyeglasses cleaned, choose custom stereos or new rivets or extra reinforcement for their saddlebags.
The giant pit stop of customization also includes tattoos, of course.
At the Asylum Tattoo Studios, Dave Bennett from Fort McMurray, Canada, braced himself for the buzzing needle drilling the image of a skull into the tender and pale inside of his left arm. He often winced, but managed to mouth the words to Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” blaring from the computer speakers while deathly eyes began to stare from his skin.
Talking helps. too, said Bennett, who is briefly entertained when his friend, “Spud,” walked in wearing a stubby leather top hat. Spud, who got his own skull tattoo on Saturday, showed off his latest purchase: the head of an alligator that he got for about $20.
After the more than two-hour ordeal, Bennett said he would probably be on the lookout for souvenirs for a friend who didn’t make it.
“It’s more commercialized over here, a more calmer crowd,” he said, compared to what he expects at the Iron Horse Saloon.
But he’ll “have to do both sides,” Bennett said, to get the full Bike Week experience.
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