Laconia Bike Week 2008

Laconia Bike Week
Originally uploaded by sabre442

So I'm going to touch on a subject that I honestly don't know much about so saying that I'll probably not do it justice however lets give it a go. The one thing I know is that every summer growing up while mowing the lawn I would be interrupted by huge, loud roaring motors passing by on my road headed up north to Laconia for New Hampshire's Bike Week. Which is the longest running Bike Week in the country having started in 1916. This year marks officially the 85th Anniversary (seven years there wasn't a rally). The reason I'm going to talk about Bike Week though is because it really is the largest event that goes on in NH annually and it definitely deserves mention. As many as 420,000 bikers from all over the place decent on Laconia, NH (in 2000 the national census said it had 16,000+ residents). So really this city thrives on an event like this.

This years event got started off on a very sad note, earlier this week, on the first day of the celebration there was a deadly accident involving a biker headed north for Laconia. A full report on the story can be found here. This is in lieu of the festival expecting a much smaller crowd than normal due to rising gas prices and the slowing economy. NH's Union Leader has a full story on that here.

These negatives however should not deter interested people from attending the events b/c despite the current trend this is a spectacle worth witnessing whether you're into those size crowds or have a new bike to show off or just passing through. There isn't much else that I can say toward this so I'll just let the experts tell you what you may need to know...

http://www.laconiamcweek.com/

http://www.laconiabikeweek.net/

http://www.ride2rally.com/

Bike Week runs June 14-22. Here's a video of last years highlights.