Destination South Daytona

Guess what? I found some bikers! And we actually saw some bikes as cool as -- even cooler -- than our own.

We haven't been to Destination Daytona yet -- it's on our list this week -- but we did hang out close to home, at Stone Edge Skate Park in South Daytona. The bikes we saw here were night and day from the ones on Beach Street and Main Street -- many of them were rusty, all of them were choppers, and absolutely all of them were cool.

It was a much different vibe here. At first, a skate park seemed an unlikely spot for a chopper show, but the new pro skaters are all into bike culture, and all the builders are punk rockers. The older generation -- and they are here, covered from head to toe in tattoos -- don't always understand these kids, but they do understand the "screw you" aspect of punk rock, which is what got all these guys into the chopper lifestyle in the first place.

(Photo above taken by William, because he's much faster on the draw than I am. The skater is from the Led Sled crew, and the rider is Tattoo Duke Miller, a photographer for Cycle Source magazine.)

Oh yeah, and my husband picked out his birthday present. He really REALLY wants this for his bike. I dunno, I'm still thinking about it:

Some of the bike builders here are Sucker Punch Sallys, Nash Motorcycle Co., the local awesome painters French Kiss Kustoms from Deltona, Led Sled, Street Smarts and Bling. Cycle Source magazine was there, and Cochise was hanging out with them, and we spent a lot of time over there, and plan to for most of the week -- it seems to be where all the cool kids are!

(I'm a day behind in updating these, I'm sorry, I'll try to do better later today!)