Grand Strand leaders and some residents are concerned about how things will go when the Harley motorcycle rally overlaps with Atlantic Beach Bike Fest in late May, but many of the sport-bikers planning to come to the area say there’s no reason to worry.
Monday night, 565 sport-bikers from all over the country took part in a weekly conference call called Block Talk, based in Baltimore. While it’s usually a forum for sport-bikers and their clubs to network and talk about bike club issues, for the past two weeks, Myrtle Beach, Atlantic Beach, Horry County and the May rallies have been the focus.
The sport-bikers allowed The Sun News to participate in their conference call this week to get a better idea of their concerns about Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson’s efforts to hold the Cruisin’ the Coast rally so that it overlaps with Bike Fest.
One common sentiment expressed was a key similarity between the two groups: The sport-bikers ride, the Harley riders ride, and it doesn’t matter whose event it is, it’s a bike rally.
The bikers, who preferred not to use their “government names,” nevertheless cued up on the conference call to offer their opinions and ask questions. They are calling the changes coming this year “The 2012 Myrtle Beach Shakeup,” though many of them did not seem shaken up at all.
The Sun News has a policy of not using direct quotes from people who cannot be identified by their “government names,” so we will paraphrase the topics discussed in the call by participants with such biking names as Mr. Executive, Real Deal, Heelz, Messenger, Black Sheep, Foxy, Striker Big Boy, Cupcake and DeLa Soul.
Answering questions
The dates the dealership has announced are May 18-28, which carries the Spring Cruisin’ the Coast rally right into Memorial Day weekend, which has, for more than 30 years, been the weekend of Atlantic Beach Bike Fest. That weekend is also now shared with the culmination of the city of Myrtle Beach’s Military Appreciation Days, which draws military members and their families from several states.
From some residents’ and officials’ perspectives, that makes three whole weeks of rallies, because organizers of other non-sport-bike related rallies have plans for May 10-20.
But Shawna “Moca Latte” Prior, who runs Block Talk each week, said callers have been concerned with practical matters, like whether there will be enough hotel rooms or longer waits for restaurant seating, and some philosophical matters, like whether the predominantly white Harley riders were trying to push them, the predominantly black sport-bikers, out of the Grand Strand.
Denise Medlin, marketing manager for Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson, the dealership just south of Myrtle Beach city limits, wanted to set the record straight:
“We are not trying to run over anyone’s event,” she said. “We are trying to give tourists more options. It just happens that another event is going on, but the more the merrier.”
The whole issue has become confused, she said, because people are thinking of this as an “extension” of “the rally.”
As far as MBHD is concerned, the Cruisin’ the Coast rally is “the rally,” and all the other events that are organized by other merchants earlier in May do not have Harley-Davidson’s sponsorship. But Cruisin’ the Coast began in the mid-1990s, long after what was known simply as the Spring Bike Rally began 71 years ago.
Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson dealership owner Phil Schoonover branded the event Cruisin’ the Coast in the early 2000s, but the event overlapped with the spring rally. The first third of May included all the Harley-related “bike week” events that had blended into one large, if not centrally organized, rally that always ended the week before Bike Fest began.
Many people say that when the dealership got involved is when the rally began to grow to the huge proportions that eventually riled residents and community leaders enough to spark new rules in 2008 and a ban on May vendors in Myrtle Beach proper.
This year, Medlin said, Schoonover decided to change the dates for Cruisin’ the Coast, in part to “conserve resources for the county,” a goal she said county leaders had discussed with Schoonover for years, saying it would be less demanding on the county if Cruisin’ the Coast and Atlantic Beach Bike Fest were closer together. County spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier said she could not recall any such public conversation, and if such a conversation had been held privately, she would not have been privy to that.
Schoonover is in Las Vegas this week for a large Harley show, and could not be reached for direct comment.
He chose the dates of May 18-28, Medlin said, but other venues where rally events are held, such as SBB, had already begun making plans for earlier in the month.
There have already been discussions on social media outlets over which is the “real” rally.
“We hadn’t even announced the dates yet,” Medlin said. “Some people just jumped the gun.”
Some businesses, like SBB, say they are not involved with the dealership, that the rally is independent of the dealership’s plans, and that it doesn’t matter what the dealership plans to do, they are still going to hold their events when they want.
All this has raised questions of vendor permits, which the county limits to no longer than seven days, and says must be affiliated with an event.
The county considers the rally, no matter what it is called, to be the one that takes place between May 14 and 20, and it will issue vendor permits for that week starting in April, Bourcier said.
Harley-Davidson can apply for its vendor permits in conjunction with Bike Fest later in the month, she said.
Why all the fuss?
Medlin said she doesn’t understand the controversy.
“This will help everyone,” she said. “I promote the whole area, work with lots of other businesses and nonprofits, and everyone benefits.”
Some on the conference call expressed concerns about availability of lodging or long waits for attractions, activities and restaurants. They also questioned whether local governments are equipped to deal with so many people descending on the Grand Strand all at once. At their peaks, Cruisin’ the Coast was estimated at 300,000 people, and Bike Fest was estimated at 200,000, but those numbers have declined in recent years.
Atlantic Beach, which sponsors Bike Fest, has a meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday to begin talking about the rally. Myrtle Beach, which, despite efforts to push the rallies outside its borders always draws a crowd, will likely also soon begin discussing logistics.
Many of the sport-bikers, some of whom said they’d already made their reservations, agree there shouldn’t be problems as long as people plan ahead and take time to learn the rules before they arrive.
Violet “Heelz” Lucas, president of Precious Metals, said people should stop focusing on the negative and make the rallies enjoyable for everyone.
“We need to work together. We all came together when everything hit the fan,” she said, referring to the enactment of rules in Myrtle Beach, “and the Harley riders stood with us then and fought for our rights, too. Let’s find some unity and make this work.”
Working together
The two rallies can coexist peacefully, some on the conference call said.
Messenger doesn’t see much of an overlap between the two events, anyway, because Harley riders mostly spend time on the south end, around Murrells Inlet, and at Barefoot Landing, while the sport-bikers are in Myrtle Beach, Atlantic Beach and North Myrtle Beach.
But the Harley dealership is playing to both crowds, Medlin said, because many of the sport-bikers are interested in Harleys, and the company has a line of sport bikes.
The dealership will offer test drives and other activities to draw all bikers in, not just those who already ride Harleys, she said. Plus, the dealership is planning many charitable events to raise money for area nonprofits, which everyone can be involved in.
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