no rules...no politics...just ridin'

The First Bikemania

Got myself and Cass organized and headed into the showgrounds to check out the first Bikemania - supposedly the best thing since sliced bread so the promoters were advertising. Now I don't want to sound too negative BUT I thought the event set up was piss poor.

First up the day was hot - when Cass and myself got there at about 9:45 (15 mins before the gates opened)it felt like it was already 30 degrees and there was already a queue about 500 mts long stretching up the street and around the corner. We had to stand waiting, sweating in the queue for about 45 minutes just to get to the entry booth. As we waited more and more people kept rolling up and the traffic just kept getting worse. When we finally got to the entry booths I was amazed to see there were only three girls sweating their little ass's off in the booths - obviously the promoters severely under estimated the number of people they were expecting.
The ghosted skull looked unreal on this fender
Anyhow we finally got in and headed into the first pavilion. The first thing that stood out was there were hardly any dealer stands - I wanted to have a look at what was on offer from the bike manufacturers but was disappointed. A few accessory stands selling stuff like clothing, glasses, intercoms, helmetcams and the like, but not as many as I was expecting. We wandered around checking out most of the stands and I ended up getting a pair of sunnies. I was hoping to find someone to do some chroming but there was no one there.

From here we headed over to the pavilion where anyone wanting to sell their bike could have displayed it for a fee - now there is either not a lot of bikes for sale in Brisbane or people just didn't bother with putting their bikes in. I reckon there was a total of about 30 bikes on display. Again, I was expecting a lot more bikes to be on display the way the promoters were building it up.
How low can you go??
After grabbing a drink and chatting to Grasshopper who was waiting outside at the gate for Eddie, we went up to the choppers. Now this pavilion was good - lots of nice bikes on display and some of the paint was awesome. There were a few 300 ass ends which just looked sweet and quite a lot of variety amongst what was on display. I still reckon that the prices are over the top but then again, if you've got the cash, why not? We also checked Eljay out doing his tricks in one of the the corners - man he can control that bike!

Some of the paint on show was awesome
After spending a fair bit of time drooling over the choppers we headed downstairs and realised that we had seen all the displays and stands except for the classic bikes. I couldn't work out where they were and they didn't interest me all that much so we decided to go. There were going to be some guys doing freestyle motocross and after we walked out the gate and back to where the bike was parked, we watched em warm up through a side gate. Pretty cool stuff and man they got some serious air.
After they finished we headed home.
Even a custom sporty and geez...it looked hot
Now for a show that had a fair bit of publicity and hype about how good it was going to be, I thought Bikemania was average. Just trying to get in was a joke with only 3 ticket booths - they need to pre-sell tickets and increase booth numbers. A lot of dealers and associated accessory and service shops did not attend. From what I heard it was very expensive to set up a stall there and it was not layed out well. The choppers are what made attending worthwhile, but even they could have been layed out better. And the admission price was a bit rich too - $18 just to get in the gate...eventually.

More pics from the day are here in the top slideshow.

Footnote:
We actually saw Grasshopper and Eddie ride in to the park just as we reached the gate to get in - we then saw Eddie in the line, still a fair way back, about an hour later as we were moving through the chopper pavilion. Don't know how long it took em to get in in the end.

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