Our trip to the 4th Annual Delmarva Bike Week, held from September 9-12, started out like so many of our other show trips recently - with a hotel problem.

Since we live so close to Ocean City, we go there several times a year, and have never made a hotel reservation. This trip was no different - except for the fact that there were no hotels to be found. With an estimated attendance of 80,000 - 100,000 bikers, all of the hotels, motels, condos, time shares, and sleeping space under the boardwalk had been booked weeks and weeks in advance.

Thankfully, after two and a half hours of riding around, we found a room that had been checked out of early. If the person that checked out is reading this article - THANK YOU!

There are two main places that all the stuff goes down at - the first is the Convention Center in Ocean City, where OCC, DC Cruisers, the three local Harley Dealers, and a ton of other vendors hang out. The second location is Ocean Downs Racetrack, out on Route 50, where acres and acres of grass was parked full of shining, smoking pipes competing for distinction among the crowd. Because of the whole hotel ordeal, we never made it to the convention center. (If you would like to submit a complaint regarding this lack of coverage, click here to e-mail Pudge.)

Ocean Downs had a great lineup of big name builders, dealers and vendors - MF Motorsports, Yamaha, Diamond MotorSports, Liberty Motorcycles, American Ironhorse, Victory, Red Line Oil, Zipper’s Performance Products, and Indian Larry’s Legacy booth.

In addition, there was live music and the Globe of Death, a thrill show stunt team performing high jumps, wheelies, and feats within the steel sphere on their bikes.

Saturday night at Seacrets was biker night sponsored by DC Cruisers. We go to Seacrets every time we’re in Ocean City, and this was a totally different atmosphere than ever before. Seacrets is usually a college-age club, with a house reggae DJ, and a different live band every night. The latter still took place, but the crowd was definitely not the norm. Seeing lots and lots of leather-clad bikers walking through the tropical themed sand based club, holding their renowned frozen drinks was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

We had a great time, and have already booked our reservations for this year’s event. You can be a part of the fun September 15-18, 2005 or check out www.delmarvabikeweek.com for more info - they have a count down calendar on the homepage, so you can check at any time how many days you have to go to next year.

P.S. If you are a biker in our area, make sure that you participate in our Poker Run in August to try to win a free two-night stay at the host hotel for Delmarva Bike Week this year!