Motorcycle Rallies and Events: The Annual Calendar and How Clubs Use It

Rallies are where clubs meet other clubs. They are also where many riders first talk to a club they later join. The national calendar has a rhythm that repeats every year, and most regional and club events are scheduled around it. Dates shift by a few days each year, so confirm with the organizer before you book.

March: Daytona Bike Week, Florida

Daytona Beach has hosted Bike Week since the 1930s, and it opens the national season. Ten days of Main Street, beach riding, vendor villages, and racing at the speedway. Clubs from the Southeast and the Midwest ride down, and many northern clubs use it as their first long run of the year. Lodging books months ahead.

May: Myrtle Beach and Memorial Day rides

Myrtle Beach Bike Week in South Carolina fills the Grand Strand in mid-May, and Atlantic Beach Bikefest follows over Memorial Day weekend. The same weekend, veteran clubs converge on Washington for the memorial demonstration ride, and the Red River rally brings clubs to the New Mexico mountains. Memorial Day is the busiest weekend of the year for veteran clubs, with escorts, flag lines, and ceremonies in nearly every state.

June: Laconia, Americade, and the Republic of Texas

Laconia Motorcycle Week in New Hampshire is the oldest rally in the country, built around Weirs Beach and the roads of the White Mountains. Americade at Lake George, New York, is a touring rally with organized rides, seminars, and a calmer atmosphere than the big street parties. The Republic of Texas Rally in Austin anchors the southern calendar with a downtown parade that draws tens of thousands of bikes.

August: Sturgis

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota is the largest in the world, and the first full week of August is when a large share of the clubs in this directory are somewhere between home and the Black Hills. The roads, Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road, Spearfish Canyon, and the Badlands, are the reason to go. The town is the reason people stay. Camping and lodging sell out a year out, and the surrounding towns absorb the overflow.

September and October: the fall rallies

Fall brings Ocean City Bikefest in Maryland, Street Vibrations in Reno, the Lake of the Ozarks Bikefest in Missouri, and Bikes, Blues and BBQ in Arkansas. Biketoberfest returns to Daytona in October, and Las Vegas BikeFest closes the western season. Fall rallies are cooler, less crowded, and often the best choice for a first trip.

November: Lone Star Rally

The Lone Star Rally in Galveston, Texas, is the last large rally of the year and draws clubs from across the Gulf Coast while the rest of the country has parked for winter.

How clubs participate

Clubs ride to rallies as a pack, camp or rent houses together, run a booth or a hospitality tent, host a party, or support a charity event inside the larger rally. For a prospect, a rally run is often the longest test of the prospecting period. For a visitor, a rally is the easiest place to see dozens of clubs in one weekend and to notice which ones you would want to ride with.

Planning a first rally

• Book lodging or camping the day registration opens, and expect to pay rally rates.
• Service the bike before you leave. Rally-week shops are overwhelmed.
• Ride the famous roads early in the morning, before the traffic and the heat.
• Carry rain gear even in the desert. August storms in the Black Hills are routine.
• Keep the etiquette rules in mind around clubs. Rallies are where most patch mistakes happen.