Bike Night turns the Old City into a Hog Pen
by Mike Gibson
It rises from somewhere deep in the earth's gizzard, an ominous subterranean Rrrrrrrrrrumble! that passes through the feet, quivers up the legs and lodges in the bowels, where it quakes and thrums, like the terrible shifting of some massive gastrointestinal fault line. Slowly, it gathers resonance, reverberates; the foreboding basso profundo of a bomber squadron just over the horizon, of Mighty Kong as he emerges from the heart of the jungle...
Then the procession begins. Amid the malignant roar of two dozen ungoverned engines, the line of onerous-black iron road horses rolls down North Central Street and bears hard right on East Jackson Avenue: an unwieldy Harley-Davidson shovelhead, all black steel and chrome, fringe and tassels and enormous leather saddlebags; a British Triumph, elegant, classic, likewise adorned in basic black; a sleek modern Yamaha, its painted maroon surfaces splashed with radiant ochre flame; more chrome and steel and gearheads and leather and silvery tailpipes that run half the length of a bike, resembling nothing so much as the quaint imaginings of some '40s pulp sci-fi writer...
For the last year-and-a-half, Thursdays in the Old City have played host to Bike Night, a quasi-official gathering of motorized two-wheel aficionados, drawn by the inexorable gravitational pull of twin epicenters—Biker Rags on North Central and the Helmet Head biker bar on East Jackson. Begun in the wake of occasional friction arising from the apparent menace of visiting bikers amid the relative serenity of Old City commerce, the weekly gathering has evolved into a seemingly successful venture for local merchants, perhaps proving that the so-called "biker crowd" doesn't really live down to its rowdy rep.
"It's a good thing, I think," says Chun-Yi Wang, manager of Patrick Sullivans on the corner of Central and Jackson. "It brings people down here who wouldn't normally come—and others who just come out to see all the bikes."
There's a sign posted inside Biker Rags, a tongue-in-cheek (one can only hope) admonition that the white-lined parking slots outside the vendor of motorcycle accoutrements are for "Harley Parking Only. All others will be crushed." And sure enough, come Thursday night after 5 p.m., some two to three dozen cycles routinely cluster along the street outside the Rags' front window, with plastic lawn chairs strategically placed on the adjacent sidewalk, an inducement to bike-watchers come to witness the siege.
Rags owner Jeff Huggins is an affable sort in his late 30s, blonde and goateed, his ruddy arms stenciled with a clutch of tribal and bike-related tattoos. He and his wife, Pam, opened the original Biker Rags location on Chapman Highway in 1994, then founded this Old City satellite station in February of '99 in response to the dearth of after-hours recreational activities for the much-maligned biking community.
"Bikers used to come down and hang out in the Old City on certain nights, and some merchants thought it was tarnishing the image," Huggins explained. "They stopped letting them park on North Central. When they chased us away, there was no place to hang out. We came in here for the sole purpose of starting Bike Night."
The Hugginses conferred with police, landlords, and bar and store owners, then commenced the Old City business and the weekly Bike Night promotion, encouraging area cyclists to trek into the center city, reclaim their North Central parking digs, and enjoy a night on the town.
"We're not big ol' hellraisers like everybody thinks we are; most of the crowd is over 40," Huggins says. He and his wife have an impressive collection of some 27 motorcycles, including seven Harleys and a host of British Triumphs. "The reality is that most of these bikes cost $15,000 to $20,000, and most of these riders are white-collar 'weekend warriors,'" he notes. "The hardcore bikers don't fit in down here."
"You come down here and act like you're hardcore, wearing all the leather and patches and gear," adds wife Pam, a petite, attractive blonde. "The next morning, you get up and go the office."
A recent Bike Night was set astir when punk priestess Patti Smith, in town for a Bijou Theatre performance, made an appearance in the midst of Thursday evening festivities. "That was the biggest thing that's happened in the Old City in a long time," Pam says. "Other than that, it's almost boring down here."
At around 7 p.m. at the Helmet Head, a little shell of a bar scooped out of an inset on the eastern end of Jackson, the bikes are still rumbling in, forcing the evening's entertainment, the local five-piece band the Boogeymen, to play ever louder in order to compete sonically with the tumult of so many multiple-horsepower engines. A Helmet Head favorite, the Boogeymen are laying down gritty roadhouse rhythms and sturdy jockey-shifter beats, singer-guitarist Labron Lazenby squeezing notey, hard-wrought solos out of his beaten Telecaster.
Helmet Head owner Connie Davenport, a former Dollywood singer, doubles as a regular performer on the Head's outdoor stage, as her all-female sister act Wild Mountain Honey is also a bike night crowd-pleaser, along with bluesy singer-songwriter Kim Baxter, throwback rockers Alladin Sane, and the Southern-fried Magpie Suite.
"They're good listeners," says Davenport, an effervescent thirty-something with spiky red hair. "They love blues, and they love Southern rock. Then you have the Outlaws (a local motorcycle club, one of only two or three that make regular bike night appearances); they love the girl groups."
A rider along with husband Mark, an anesthesiologist, since 1994, Davenport opened the Helmet Head in early '99 as an adjunct to the Biker Rags/Bike Night vortex. Though her hubby lends the occasional helping hand, Connie is the establishment's sole proprietress. "Mark is a customer; he pays for his beer, and he tips," she chuckles.
Despite keeping a six-month-only schedule (the outdoor club closes for the season on Halloween), she says the Head has largely been successful, particularly on Thursday nights, when as many as 300 cycles throng the district's perpendicular streets.
Though she admits that "sometimes, my girlfriends get intimidated" by the bar's denim-and-chains ambiance, Davenport maintains that, "These guys look tough, but they're sweet as can be. We've never had a problem."
Her customers seem to agree. "We need a night like this," says Clay Schmied, a Ruby Tuesday restaurant manager and proud owner of both a custom 'cycle and a Harley-Davidson Electraglide. He adds that the bikers are still plagued by the occasional spate of ticket writing, and grumbles that "the cops ought to leave us the hell alone."
Dressed in his customary denim-and-T-shirt outfit, capped by a matching black-and-blue do-rag, local actor and computer wonk Steve Dupree laughs deeply and pronounces Bike Night "just good, clean fun. It's an activity the city ought to get behind."
"They're not violent; they're not really bikers in my opinion. They're just people who ride bikes."
Dupree, who shepherds a black 1981 Harley-Davidson shovelhead in his spare time, points to a friend, a long and painfully lean African-American gent leaning on the bar, amply tatooed, black denim vest festooned with a stunning array of colorful biker patches and leather gew-gaws. "It's kind of like a costume party," he whispers. "There's a whole lot more show-and-tell than there are outlaws."
It's well before 11 p.m. this August Thursday when the last of some 200 or so bikes roar out of their temporary dormancy and hit the street, the tell-tale rumble an ever-receding hum. Noisier now by far is the strident street preacher posted at the Old City intersection, informing any lingering Bike Night visitors exactly where they will be spending warm nights come Judgment Day.
Over at the Helmet Head, long-locked and bespectacled bartender Joe Messer shakes his head and continues sweeping, pushing paper refuse (and just a touch of trail dust) into a mounting corner pile. He points out with more than a hint of amusement that Bike Night is somewhat misnamed, as it is rarely a truly nighttime affair.
"Everyone comes, has a good time, and clears out by 11 or so," says Messer, a hairstylist by day. "Remember, most of these people have to be at work at 8 in the morning."
September 14, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 37
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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