Is Daytona Bike week over? ep.005🔥 Ride or Rot podcast⚡️

Is Daytona Bike Week still what it used to be… or are we watching it change right in front of us?

In this episode of the Ride or Rot Podcast, we break down our full experience at Daytona Bike Week — from the crowds and events to the overall shift in energy that a lot of riders are starting to notice.

We get into:
 • The difference in vibe compared to past years
 • The heavy presence throughout the event
 • Whether the city is pushing things in a different direction
 • The moments that still remind us why Bike Week matters

This one’s honest, unfiltered, and based on what we actually experienced being there.

👇 Let us know what you think:
 Is Bike Week dying… or just evolving?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today on Ride or Ride we talk about Daytona Bike Week. Is it here or is it out? You sound like that one guy. Welcome to Rider Rot, the podcast where we talk about bikes, the culture, and everything in between. My name's Dougie Fresh, and to my left is My name's Nick. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

That's what you sound like. Like it, dude. You sound like a client salesman. Hi, welcome to Rider Rot.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

That's the best intro we've ever done. It is. Well, this is a special one today, guys, because we have no guests. Nope. Nobody loves us. Just us. But what we're gonna talk about is bike week. Daytona Beach bike week just ended, and boy was that a doozy.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

It was a a doozy, I must say. First year living down here as a uh fellow Floridian in Daytona Beach.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

It was your first year. It was my first year. So he popped his uh thingy. What was your thoughts on bike week? Well, let's get into it. So, the first weekend of bike week was rather dull? A little dull on the edges. I'd say so. Yeah, it seems like a lot of people went to DeLand this year for some reason. From what I heard, a lot of people were out there, and the and the people that live there said that they couldn't even go anywhere because there were so many bikes. So I didn't go out to DeLand. I knew they were having a bike week, but next year I'm definitely gonna hit it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, check it out. We went for Burning the Bike, or Burning Bike, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, at Pelusha County Fairgrounds there was Burning Bike, where they have like a hundred and fifty-foot tall skeleton on a chopper made out of wood, and you can sign it and then they burn it. I signed it and now it's gone. Sign it again next year. But there was about 2.3 million people at that event, remember?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Literally. You'll see it. We might pop it up on the screen for you if you're watching.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

And if you're not watching, go to YouTube. Uh they're on YouTube. Burning bike. Uh if you've been on Main Street, Main Street was a little different than it was in the past few years. It was a little dull.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Gotta hold my lip. It was dull this year.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah. A little bit dull. A lot of people say it's because of the cops. Do you think it's because of the cops?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Honestly, I do not think it was because of the cops. I think it's because the city of Daytona Beach just really isn't doing much to support Bike Week as far as hosting events, making it, um, inviting for riders to come and visit. I really think they just want to kind of see that disperse from the area. Because most of the events were happening in Deland, Port Orange, Ormond Beach, Flagler, um, even across the state all the way into Tampa. It's crazy. Uh I know that Daytona Beach has been the home of Bike Week forever. For 85 years. Uh, just this year it was just different because everybody was just like, you know what? I'm gonna go to Ormond Beach or I'm gonna go out to the land and we're gonna have a good time because there isn't gonna be 10,000 cops, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Pulling over because your visor tent on your helmet's the wrong color.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

No, they were pulling people over that were sitting on their bikes on Main Street with their visors up with no sunglasses on. Yeah. It's like, okay, I get it, dude, if you're out on the you know highway and you're riding your visors up and you don't have anything on, yeah, something hits you in the eye and you could crash and hurt somebody. But when you're sitting on Main Street, it it's just a reason to pull somebody over and check their registration, their insurance. Yeah. And I didn't pay attention to this, but I I was looking to see if there was any bike cops without sunglasses on. Citizens arrest. Yeah, if there's if you're a bike cop and you're riding around on a on a bike without sunglasses on, you better be uh practicing what you preach.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, yeah. Um we have that video of that one dude getting pulled over. We do, dude. He's doing a roller.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Let's see what this is all about. Boing, boing, boing. He's not hurting anybody, dude. Ah, it's a side road. Literally going one mile per hour.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Hold on. Cherries and berries. That dude thought he thought he was gonna pulled over. Fuck. He's like, I'm gonna turn around and get out of there quickly. It's the crazy part is those there was that dude booing him.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Cops suck, or you guys suck.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Let him have fun. But East Coast was there, concrete, cowboys, all of them were there, so it was a cool turnout. Sloppy was he there? I think he showed up later. I know Brian was there, and Lance. I don't know, Lance wasn't there. And I guess this dude's from out of town. I wonder if he ended up getting arrested.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I didn't see him get put in cuff cuffs or anything. But like ten cops showed up just for this little thing. This is why Warman Beach and Deland and all those other places are gonna be making all the money.

unknown 5:29

Where are you from?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Bike week and bike Toberfest and all that stuff is just gonna move to the outskirts. It's more fun out there, anyways, dude.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

This sucks for small business owners here. Like you know they make a lot of money there in this week.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Teddy Morse's Harley Davidson, that's where all the big vendors are anyway.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yep. Yep. A lot of the metric stuff goes to the speedway, it seems.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, like Kawasaki and Honda and stuff. Polaris.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I stuck that one in.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

You did. Nice job.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

While this was going on, though, that one dude was going down the other side road doing a wheelie, and they're like, No, put it down! I didn't see that. Yeah. That's where you were, huh? Yeah, I was on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

So at this part, they were telling the dudes down there that they had to move their bikes off the sidewalk. And the one there's a couple of guys like, how come you can park on the sidewalk on Main Street? And then the cops were like, Oh, it's permitted motorcycle parking. Huh? I don't get it. I think they just make some of the shit up.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

That cop did have a pretty nice mustache.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

That's like you said.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

He goes, like, okay. That's a dick move. They're just saying something.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

If you guys didn't know us by the accent, those in the Connecticut boys.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Where are you guys from?

unknown 7:07

Here.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Sweet.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

From your mama's house. Right around the corner. Don't you worry about where I'm from. I'm the one asking the questions here. Hey, you gotta be playing along nicely. Nah, he was cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yeah. I just don't understand how the city can come in. It wasn't even a noise time, like it was like seven o'clock. You'll see here in a bit. They ended up coming out shutting down.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Well, you can't see it in here, but there are apartments behind the building. So I'm pretty sure somebody was like, oh, it's too loud.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I can't handle the sound of the motorcycle living off the rev limiter.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Even though I know that this is home of NASCAR and bike week, I'm gonna move here anyways, right next to where it all goes down. I swear the crybabies are taking over.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

The world is soft.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Make punkin people again great.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Ashton Kusher, we're calling you out.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

We need punk back. Nah, we need to like seriously though bully. Should.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Bully and beat up people.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, like you're dumb. Shoulder check. Elbow to the nose. There's nothing wrong with calling people dorks. Oh. Ball sack bill.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Is that what's on the thing? Say ball sack bill.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Is that a ball sack or ballistic? I don't see anything wrong with what's going on here. It's not noisy. No. Everybody is being very well behaved. They are. Why would anybody want to shut this down? This is the tacos in burnout session that happens during Daytona bike week. Presented by Tuesday or Toche or Toche? Tochi. Brian told us what it was. I just wanna have to chat if you can see it.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Can you believe how much fog came through?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

How do you pronounce this dude? The fog came in heavy.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

I know, it was cold. And for anyone wondering, if you don't have Tochi.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

It's Tochi? T-O-H. Like that's how it sounds like T-O-H-C-H-E-E. Tochi Performance. So Tochi Performance.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

We need to read out to them. Go see them.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah. That's uh who sponsored Brian636. He's got a Tochi Performance exhaust on his Pan America. And that thing rips, dude. It's so loud.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah. I didn't know he had one of their pipes.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, we're gonna hear it right now.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

That sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Getting ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

That that hear that? Rep max does sound good.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

With that pipe on there, it does sound really good. It's pretty cool that he came all the way down here from Chicago. For being such a small parking lot, dude, they were able to rip it up pretty good. Look how big the turnout is. It's like little things like this are what people are going to. They're tired of the same old, same old cruising down Main Street and hanging out and drinking. Like we want to see more of this stuff happening around the area during bike week.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

And all the boomers are really upset that this is what motorcycling's gone to, but this isn't just what it's gone to, but this is a way of a little different.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

It's art, dude. Yeah. Form of expression.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

People think that you can get out there and do that, and that's easy. It's not easy.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Did you even get a taco?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

No. I didn't get no food.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

I saw the line, dude. It was long as shit. Well, I didn't get any. It pulled somebody else over, and the kid's putting eye drops in his eyes while they're talking to him. Hang on a second. Before you check my eyes for drugs, I didn't smoke. Okay, so the police had just shut down the rip sesh, and then this this boy rolls in and just starts ripping it again. Is that Joey Bananas? Literally. Everyone's like, what the hell is he doing? Like, stop, stop, dude. Somebody comes out, like, hey man.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Let him go. Can't have any fun anymore. That was Joey.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

It was Joey Bananas. Go ahead and explain it, Nick. Let's tell the people what we encountered.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah, so this was one of those situations where it's like, huh? Kind of left baffled, if that makes sense. We went, we took a little break from Stunt Wars, went over to go fill our stomachs with nourishment, and with money in hand to buy cheeseburgers. We walk up to the cheeseburger babes. It's uh cheeseburger baby. Baby. Yeah, and then this happened. I don't know how we should take it.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

You just came here and found yourself putting money in my box, right? Um, I'm taking uh a 20 apiece. 20? That rodent. I know what a rodent is. I work in television.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah. You look like you're working on your cheeseburgers.

unknown 12:14

What? Oh.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Go back to when she cut me off. Sorry. My bad, I was talking. It's okay. She cut me off while I was trying to order food from her.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Nope!

unknown 12:35

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

You're at a a motorcycle rally, working a rally, and there's cameras around. They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Like what? Yeah. So we ended up leaving, but she was being dead serious and she didn't even care that we left. Nope. No. I mean, whatever, but you can't treat people like that's crazy. I mean, what do you guys think? Do you think she was just joking around or not? Because we were gonna tip anyways, but who just drops a 20 before you even order? A piece. She's on TV though, so maybe she's what'd she think this was? Like filming a new episode of Miami Vice or something? Hey, dude, you never know. New episode of Family Feud? A new episode of um Jerry Springer? Yeah. A new episode of uh Judge Judy.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I love Judge Judy.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

What did you think we were doing, dude?

SPEAKER_02 13:34

I don't know. Can't make everybody happy. I was just confused. And then this shit, I literally got hypnotized.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

We've gotta tell the people about this guy.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

What was his name again?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

He was the the world's only biker hypnotist comedian. I think this is Gary Michaels. Gary Michaels. This guy, I'm not kidding, guys. He uh he ended up putting his finger to my forehead after saying some things, and I like fell asleep. And then I woke up. I'm not the person who can sit here and say, I I believe in hypnotists, but the motherfucker hypnotize me.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, he says he's the world's only biker comedy hypnotist. His name is Gary Michaels on Instagram. Let's see here. He says he travels the world and does shows and his most recent post is the 2026 Little Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, Mississippi. August 20th to the 23rd. Did you know that there was a Little Sturgis motorcycle rally? There's a Sturgis, Michigan. In Mississippi?

SPEAKER_02 14:37

No. I thought you were gonna say Sturgis, Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

There's a Sturgis, Michigan? Yeah. Interesting. Anyways, Nick sucked three d after he got hypnotized.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

That's just not right, man. I didn't know I was hypnotized.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Phenomenal Celsius and Red Bull. We're taking them out. It's pretty good. Take a look, right? And in the same day that I ran. So I ran, right? The 7-Eleven people, right? 7-Eleven people. What a racist. Who's this guy? How do you feel about this strike? There's no party like it. The strikes we had to do. Oh, the strikes I was crazy. It was phenomenal. Charlotte. I lit that bitch up, alright? Amanda was giving me job at the same time. It was great. It was on the same show. She was. It was pretty shit. In the Oval Office or in the uh the uh Tesla on the sponsor. It's pretty good. I recommend it.

unknown 15:36

I recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

We have to make head great again, alright? Not to go to, alright? Not to go to, right? Not to go too. How are we doing, everybody? How are we doing, everybody? The party was a little quiet. Yeah, no, we're glad you're here. What are we shotgunning? We have to shotgun. Let's shotgun a monster beat. Where's Shopski at? What the fuck is happening? How are we doing?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Well, even Trump came out to hang out with us. He did. Trump was there. It was a good time. I couldn't see the band, so I decided that I needed to be on his shoulders. There we go. There it is. Then I get yelled at by the barbander.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Baby fucker, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

I am I'm not light. I'm surprised he did that.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Oh, killing all the time.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

The guy in the green shirt. Oh my god. Look at the step meeting. Step me down on top of the fuckers. I have nowhere else to go. So I'll stop down. The guy's like dude, bag. This girl, dude.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah, she's wild. You guys are gonna have to go to YouTube to watch the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

There's uh there's some interesting parts. This guy, I thought he was gonna eat shit. The meth was messing up, I tell you that much.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Alright, see how that one ended on YouTube?

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Yeah. It there like I said, there's some sensor part, there's some there's some shit on there. Go check it out. There we go. She's burning. You can feel the heat off that fucker.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

I think that's where everybody was, was there. There there was a there was a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Ton of people there, dude.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

I had a bikini contest. I got third.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah. Check it out. We got ride a rot shirts, we got sick bagger, bro. Hella Diner Bro.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And on the the bagger one, it says performance plus cup holders. Pretty funny. And we got shop banners. Shop banners. Let's see what else. What does this one say? It's the Hella Dynabro. Dynabro Club. And these shirts are the six and a half ounce. They're heavy. They're not like a cheap shirt. That's our homeboy Maurice. Yep, that's Maurice. Dynabro Club.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Maurice hates it when we talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

I didn't want to bring it up, but there's another uh one of our banners. That's the three by five, I believe. That one's cool. Yeah. American flag in the background. And then we got coffee mugs. Yep. On the left is one of the performance tees. So if you're a fisherman, or it's a U it's an FPF 50, so if you're riding your bike, you don't want to get burnt. It's a what 50? A UPF or FPF? It keeps you from getting burnt. I don't know the terminology for that.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

So yeah, guys. If you like our podcast, or if you don't, and you just want a cool shirt or a cup. Or a banner.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

There's gonna be a lot more coming. We got koozies coming, we got hats that we're starting to plan that we're gonna get together. I'm a hat guy. I got way too many of them, but we're gonna have way more hats. We're gonna have there's three styles coming out in hats, too, so.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Turtlenecks? Do we have turtlenecks coming?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Soon, because when you gotta hide the throat tattoo, you gotta have the turtleneck.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Alright, guys, this has been another episode of Ride or Rot. If you enjoyed what you saw, go ahead and like, subscribe, and follow us on all the socials. Nicholas, what do you have to say for the friends that are watching at home?

SPEAKER_02 20:18

No. Thanks for listening, guys. Uh make sure you guys aren't subscribed to Daytona Speed. Those are our fun channels. Go check them out.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

This podcast will be aired whenever we feel like editing it and putting it on the internet. You heard the man. But we do have other podcasts that show up on Thursdays at 7 with guests. And those are when we're um trying to be professional.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah. We're very professional in the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

We are. We take this seriously, guys.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Thanks for listening. Later, guys.