After two weeks of blistering cold, ice, snow and gray skies, what do you do for fun? You take a remedy for that cabin fever, that’s what. You get on a Martz bus with 109 other people and go to New York City. For motorcycle enthusiasts, that doesn’t mean a trip to Broadway or the Met, it means the Jacob Javits Civic Center and the 28th International Motorcycle Show.
So on a dull Sunday morning at 8 after a few Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee and of course one last trip to the bathroom, everyone boarded two busses bound for New York. After two hours of driving on snow-covered highways, we arrived at the front door of the Javits Center.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but this is one premier convention venue. Walking into the actual floor of the Bike Show, we were met by the Progressive Girls, one of many insurance companies vying for your business. The first exhibition that met your eyes was the Victory bike, with several current 2009 models and one custom Victory on display. It was a great bike, but the wooden seat didn’t look too comfortable for a long ride.
From there, a vast sea of vendors met the eye and invited you further onto the floor. Many of the best known companies were there: Harley Davidson, Suzuki, BMW, Ducati, Honda and others. Some of the new companies were there as well Kymco, Sym, CFMoto and others.
Without doing an exact and scientific measurement of the floor space, I would wager a guess that the scooter vendors took up a good area of the floor rivaling the show space of the big bikes. Vespa had a grand display towards the front of the show and had some smaller area towards the back for attendees to see the original scooter. The most interesting and green scooter was the Vectrix electric scooter. You can read more of the spec details at www.vectrix.com. It boasted “100 percent electric, zero emissions.” So for the hardcore greenie, this would be an excellent get-around-town green machine. It went 35-55 miles on one charge. That would be good enough to get to work and back.
The show was jammed with people from everywhere. I met Lois Reyes from Emmaus, Pa., and her friend Earl Pugh from Allentown, and they too came with a group of friends on a bus. Lois has been riding for three years as a returning player; she rode before then took some time off. She now rides with Earl. She says they came “to do some winter shopping.”
Speaking of shopping, you could find almost anything bike-related there. From decals to helmets and all kinds of apparel, they had it all there. It seemed however, at least on our bus, that the big selling item was the ShamWow. I’m expecting all bikes to be very shiny this summer.
I think every helmet vender known to man was at this show — Icon, HJC, Shoei and a new one that really caught my eye was the Nexx helmets. You can view more about these styles at www.nexx-usa.com.
In addition to the tons of leather, patches, decals and ShamWows, there were several of the upcoming meets for the riding season. Laconia, N.H. Roar in the Valley in Johnstown, Pa., one of my old hometowns. The West Virginia Rally, Mountainfest, that runs from July 23-26.
If you didn’t make this year’s trip, I’d strongly recommend you contact J at Two Jacks to get a seat on next year’s trip. Not only did Two Jacks sponsor the trip, but they made sure that you had hot coffee and doughnuts while waiting for the bus and a generous lunch on the way. This was a good time for all ages from children who got to ride the new Striders and learn to drop their bikes to the grandpas like Gary Cutter who fell in love with a new M109.
See you next year, and you can give my love to Broadway, but I’ll see you at the bike show.
w
