GibTown BikeFest 2022: Tampa Bay, Florida

I’ve made a goal of attending all of the motorcycle shows in Florida. And to that end, some motorcycle enthusiast friends and I have been to the Daytona (twice), Arcadia and St. Pete motorcycle shows.  

The two shows that I’ve really been wanting to see are Leesburg and GibTown.  So today a bunch of us rode up to Gibsonton —between Gibsonton and Riverview, just south of Tampa, Florida— and took a look at what they had.   

The event is hosted by the International Independent Showmen's Association, known to most as the "Gibtown Showmen's Club.” They’re  one of the largest organizations in the carnival industry and opened this facility in 1966. 

This was a 3-day event opening on Friday. We had intended on going Sunday but the weather folks are saying we’re supposed to get some hurricane-style weather tomorrow so everybody rearranged their schedules and decided to go today. 

The place was packed with bikes of every make, model and style and, of course, lots of fellow motorbike fans. I think last year they had 9,000 people a day in attendance and I’m guessing there were probably 10 to 12k people there today.  

There were two stages with bands playing southern rock and some of the Carnies were putting on freak shows …they had snakes and all sorts of stuff like that.  There was a hypnotist there, too.  

But one of the biggest parts of the show—and something I really wanted to see, and unfortunately I missed it this year— was the CAGE OF DEATH!  Oh, how I wanted to see that.  They had a stunt spectacular that didn’t start until later and unfortunately I had something planned for later in the afternoon so I left a little early.  

But anyway, we had a great time; we ate some fair-food, bought a bunch of knickknacks, leather goods, patches, pins, shirts and stickers and everybody left happy. 

Now, on to Leesburg!

That’s a lotta “IF’s” (Ushuaia again)

Ushuaia.  I’ve missed riding to the tip of South America twice now; maybe thrice. Various issues have hampered my attempts: A broken leg, a job, that pesky Chinese virus.  

But I still yearn to travel through Latin America by motorcycle.  And I ain’t getting any younger.  So what’s a guy in his mid-50’s to do? Well….

IF I have no employment responsibilities on July 1st, 2022 and IF my wife is OK with my extended absence and IF the borders in Central and South America are open and IF Covid isn’t expected to severely keep travelers from moving freely between countries and IF I can find a feasible way to traverse the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia and IF I have a riding partner who can travel with me for 4-6 months….well, I may attempt to head south for a few months and be in Ushuaia by New Years Eve.  

I told you there are a lot of IF’s…but nothing’s impossible, nothing that can’t be overcome.  

Roughly 10k miles through some extremely fascinating scenery.  Now, the planning…

St. Pete (Florida) Bikefest: November 2021

 Rode over to St. Petersburg with some friends yesterday.  Not a lot of people, not too many vendors.  I’d say there were more law enforcement officers there than there were vendors.  

This was the first year of having this event at Bert’s Barracuda HD and not at the beach resort   

Looked inside OC Choppers but it was really more of a restaurant than a OCC museum. We all had burgers.

The weather was nice though it threatened to sprinkle.  The band (Phoenix) rocked.  Only 4 event t shirts for sale…only 4 total.  One rack.  None in XL.  Just weird.  

Walked across the street to Quaker Steak and Lube.  Also a good live band.  About the same number of vendors.  

I guess the best news is that there was no $10 charge to enter because that would’ve sucked.

Since there’s not a lot happening this time of year, we’re riding to all of the bike shows, big or small.  And as my buddy Joe reminded me, it’s about riding with your friends, not so much the show itself.  

Arcadia BikeFest November 2021

If you’re in Florida, you know we have year round riding.  And this is the time of the year when the bike fests are happening: Daytona, Arcadia, Leesburg, St. Pete, etc.

So when one of the regulars in our group mentioned Arcadia—a 70-mile ride through some pretty East Tampa backcountry—we all saddled up.  

I met Patrick in Wimauma where a bunch of motorcycle enthusiasts were gathering. After sharing possible routes to Arcadia, Patrick and I rode down the 301 to Bradenton and met the rest of our group—Paul, Ralph and Joe.  

We discussed the half dozen or so route options before agreeing to just play it by ear and skip any traffic.  Done.

We rode east on the 64 to the Ona cutoff, passing by Herb’s Limestone Club, a classic motorcycle hangout.  It looked a bit empty as most of us were heading to Arcadia.  

We passed quite a few bikes, either solo or in groups, on the way.  The weather was brisk when we started (low 60’s) and finally warmed up to 70. The sun was shining and it was a great ride.  

Arriving to Arcadia, we paid $5 to park right off Main Street even through parking was free almost everywhere.  We wanted the convenience of being close by and safety of having someone watch our bikes.  

There were quite a few people up and down the street but not a lot of vendors.  We grabbed beers and walked along admiring the many cool bikes.  Talking with fellow motorcycle enthusiasts is one of my favorite things at these bike fests, and that’s what I did.  

Since Arcadia is known as an antique town, we poked our heads into a few shops, too.

When we reached one end of the street, we popped into the old saloon for more beers.  It was crowded and crazy—music blaring and people laughing.  What a great time.  

We headed down the other side of the street admiring the bikes and chatting with the other riders. A couple of us picked up the obligatory bike show t-shirt but that’s really all we bought   

By the time we’d seen it all, we agreed on a Mexican place for lunch so we hopped on our bikes and headed to Blue Tequila about a mile away.  

Full of good chow, we took a different way back, heading west, then north on Verna-Bethany Road.   Patrick and I cut off on the 675/Rutland Road to Parrish and the 301 as the others took the 64 back home.

Maybe 150 miles round trip.  A fine time was had by everyone.  

Daytona Beach BikeToberFest: Oct 14-16, 2021

Four friends and I just rode from Tampa to the Daytona BikeToberFest.  We left on a Thursday, spent the whole day on Friday doing on at Daytona HD, Main Street and the Speedway and then we rode back through Leesburg on Saturday.  It was an absolute great time and I wanted to mention a couple things I saw and did while I was there.  

This was the first time any of us had been to BikeToberFest, though we’d all been to Bike Week in the Spring, so that was our baseline for judging this event.  

We took the 75 north to Ocala, then 40 east and the 111 north to the hotel in Flagler Beach…and that turned out to be a really good route; no traffic (but a lot of bikes) and and plenty of beautiful scenery.  

We stayed on the Palm Coast just about 20 miles north of Daytona and that turned out to be just perfect.  The place was full of other motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the US, so that was cool.   

On Friday morning we left early and went down to Harley Davidson of Daytona (Bruce Rossmeyer's HD) right off the 95 and they were gearing up for a big crowd.  They had a couple stages, beer stands and all sorts of vendors. We stayed about an hour and a half then we took Highway 1 over to Daytona and parked by the Boot Hill Saloon.  The CMA guys managed that particular parking lot right off of Main Street. Only $5 and that included a blessing of our bikes!  

We probably spent 4 hours there walking up and down Main Street and going down to the pier.  We got beers at different places like Boot Hill, Froggy’s, Joe’s on the pier and a “couple other places.”  We ate lunch at the Cruisin’ Café and there was no real wait.  It was pretty good food, decent prices, OK beer selection but they didn’t have anything on draft—it was all in bottles or cans.  I think everybody bought shirts and stickers and things like that. 

We then rode over to the Speedway where there were a whole bunch of other vendors set up.  On the way there we passed the Indian dealer who was doing demo rides. When we got to the Speedway, BMW was set up and they were doing demo rides on about six or eight of their different bikes.   There weren’t a lot of people there but it was still a lot of fun. 

After about an hour we left, taking the 95 straight back up to Flagler Beach. 

We’d heard about the Ormond Scenic Loop and we wanted to try that on Saturday morning. Yes, there was some information on it but not a lot of specific information. Some sites said it was a single loop, others said it was a double loop.  I ended up just taking what I thought was the best route: Leaving the Flagler Beach area and riding south down the Dixie Highway; that’s the tree covered route that everyone talks about and it’s pretty cool.  Four deer crossed right ahead of us at the beginning of the ride.  We rode that all the way to the bridge on Granada.  We took a left and went over to the coast and took the A1A straight up to the 100, which is Flagler Beach again.  Then, instead of riding south through the state park (Tomoka?) we were looking for (I missed it), we took the John Anderson Highway south instead… and that was pretty nice with very few stop signs.  Once we reached Granada again (CR40), we went over the bridge and headed westbound toward home.  I highly recommend the Ormond Scenic Loop, and specifically the way we did it (South on the Dixie Highway, North on the A1A).  

When we got to Highway 19 we went South and made our way over to Leesburg for lunch. Some of the guys had been to the bike rally at Leesburg before and it’s pretty much a ghost town when no bikes are there. After chow, we took backroads —basically riding down to CR 39 through Plant city— on our way back.  Again, light traffic and very nice country roads. A great way to end this ride. 

The one thing I didn’t get to do was to ride on the beach.  It’s $3 for 15+ miles of hard-packed beach sand and I would’ve like to try that.  Also, we saw no Harleys or fake boobs.  None at all. 🤣

Would I do BikeToberFest again? Probably not.  It’s a nice area to ride to and around but unless you want crowds and the same old vendors, it isn’t too exciting.  However, interacting with other bikers and riding some nice beach and backroad areas is well worth a visit.