Bikeweek is huge compared to Biketoberfest. They're almost two seperate animals and the winter event is approx 2X the October one. In addition to the price gouging, the Speedweek through Spring Break time frame is a black-out period for HHonors rewards and employee bookings. Fortunately, living in Orlando it makes it a nice and easy day trip. I must admit though, the thing never changes from year-to-year with the same old vendors, bars, and people there. I might even skip it this year and go riding to the West. The locals are actually getting tired of the bikers and spring breakers. They are complaining more and more about the traffic, the injuries and fatalities, and the noise. The citizens of Daytona Beach have actually been trying to get the size of the crowd down around the Main Street area and have been fairly successful at it with Rossmeyer building his complex to the North in Ormond Beach, and more and more activities taking place on Beach Street, and down South around New Smyrna Beach. The latest gag the town "fathers" and "mothers" have come up with the last few years is noise regulation. As long as you roll off the throttle and don't make overt noise, especially straight pipe riders, they'll pretty much leave you alone. Rip down A-1-A with the pipes roaring or keep blasting the throttle as you "cruise" down Main Street they will pull you and ticket you. I'm sure if you live up North it's a great diversion in order to get out of the cold and ride in some nice weather. If you live here it's really just kind of another ho-hum thing.
