Bike Week 2008

Daytona Beach, Bike Week 2008, reeks of testosterone. The colour black is de rigueur as are leather, t-shirts, chaps, and vests. Main Street reeks of sex. It's a circus of young, old and inbetween, everyone there to see or be seen. Firm young things turn heads and flash cheeks barely adorned in white lace thongs and fishnet stockings in the parenthesis of open-bottomed chaps. Old guys in braids and pony-tails parade their peroxided old gals, long tresses streaming behind them. Young studs cruise by on crotch-rockets, their chicks barely seated, bottoms and backs curved unnaturally up, their bare legs scissored like frog's, supported with platform heels or wrapped around the driver's waist. Few drivers wear helmets; freedom and fag rags reign. Grammas and inflatable "dolls" ride by in sidecars. Dogs sport doggles.

The airbrushed art, inset lights, variety, and colour of the bikes and trikes is staggering as is the sheer volume of machinery. Main Street is a lined north and south with parked bikes, space is at a premium. Our bodies and eardrums vibrate to the trademark Harley rumble that echoes night and day off the man-made canyons of resort walls as the bikers trawl the North Atlantic strip to Main Street where it's happening.

In shop windows, the messages on t-shirts and skimpy panties don't border on pornographic; they are. If you want to sport an f-ing message, this is the place for you. The mannequins out-do Dolly Parton; people pose for risqué photos beside them. Blasts of music compete with the bikes' staccato; beads are exchanged for bared breasts. It's a Sodom and Gomorrah-kind of world and the local soul-savers know it. They stand bravely amongst the throbbing throng forcing Jesus flyers into any open palm. A red-neck trucker, outdone by the biker invasion, yells peevishly at us "Where y'all from, aye?" with heavy sarcastic emphasis on the "aye". Clad in golf attire, we must look like Martians, Canadian martians, that is.

It's an exciting, Disneyesque world for the different, revelry for the rebellious, and a time-warped place for those who wish they could turn back the clock. See it at least once in your life.