I want to thank all the Spyderlovers who came to this Fall Thunder Beach. It was great seeing you all here and I wish I could have met and talked to each of you. Hopefully next year it will be bigger with more SpyderLovers.
I did see my friends Gene and his wife Rhonda and Gene thanked me for the cooler weather, which I had nothing to do with. I also wish I could have joined you on the ryde to Destin but my, friend Bill (Fang) had a problem with his left hand grip and we got that re-glued for him. I did get to take a ryde to Club LaVela with Gene and Rhonda, even though they were ahead of me and I was stuck in cage traffic. Sure I could have caught up to them and the law would have caught up to me.
There was a write up of this fall rally in the News Herald and I will copy and paste it here. There was one fatality and some minor accidents but overall a good rally that the promoter says will get bigger each fall.
Organizer: Thunder Beach weekend draws 55,000
One killed in Sunday morning motorcycle wreck
October 02, 2011 07:14:43 PM
S. BRADY CALHOUN / News Herald Writer
PANAMA CITY BEACH — As the thunder rumbled off into the distance Sunday, organizers and local law enforcement assessed Thunder Beach weekend.
Rich Law, the general manager of twice annual motorcycle rally, said Thunder Beach drew a bigger crowd than it did last autumn and promised the fall event would grow to unprecedented levels if he was allowed to move to Columbus Day weekend.
“I would love to get that Columbus Day weekend. We’ve been kicked to the curb a few times,” Law said of the situation.
Local officials are trying to brand Columbus Day as a “family weekend” and are scheduling events accordingly. However, 55,000 riders showed up this weekend and the event would be even larger on the right set of days, Law said.
“We know that this rally will get stronger and stronger and stronger,” he added.
There was one motorcycle fatality Sunday morning, officials said.
There were a few other minor wrecks this weekend, according to Chief Robert Harding. He added that the Thunder Beach crowd is, on average, middle aged. Dealing with them is a lot different than dealing with Spring Break.
“They’re pretty well behaved,” Harding said. “They kind of police themselves and look after each other.”
He added that police issued one noise violation over the weekend to a local hotel.
Law said he and his team work to promote riding safety and ask the bikers to stay clear of residential neighborhoods in order to keep the noise down.
“We have a great community that welcomes and embraces Thunder Beach,” Law added.
I welcome the noise and sleep better and now that its quiet, I find it harder to sleep and am up at all hours of the night or rather morning.
Thank you all again for making this Thunder Beach one of the best. In the past couple of years I have only seen one other Spyder here and now I know who it is from a post, I saw a few days ago.
Ryde safe and I hope to see you all next year and HALBIKERDOC, Thank you for putting this altogether.
Brian (PCBeachBum)
