Starting weekend after this is bike week in Myrtle Beach. This will be the third main Harley rally since we've lived here. There are actually three per year, the main Harley Rally followed by the Black Bike Week the week after, and then another smaller rally in the fall. For all the spring ones, though, previously I have always worked in my house and never needed to drive down Highway 501 regularly during them.

This time around, I have to commute as well as work in the vicinity of some of the biker hot spots. I'm not sure how it will go, but I predict a lot of roaring and chrome in my immediate future. The Harley people have never bothered me before, partly because they skew older. It takes a lot of purchasing power and/or credit to buy those expensive rigs, so kids tend not to have them. The black bike week is more stressful driving, partly because they are so much younger on average and more willing to drive crazily. My personal experience is that I have seen much more shenanigans from the 20 year olds on their Japanese bikes, riding between the lanes and crap like that. The middle aged gray beards on the Harleys don't pop a lot of wheelies. I think their Harley's are mostly too heavy for that.

Across both bike weeks, I'll do what I can to look alive and keep my eyes open. I rode a motorcycle as my only vehicle in college, so I have a lot of sympathy for our two wheeled bretheren. The last thing in the world I want is to be involved in some kind of accident with one of them.