The Harley Rally is in full swing on the Grand Strand, though you'd hardly know it. Attendance is way off from years past and there are doubts that the rally's glory days will ever return.
MYRTLE BEACH -- The rally is nothing like it had been before the city of Myrtle Beach passed laws to discourage bike rallies.
RB Ashley has been coming to the Harley Rally for 50 years. "When the tide would go out, they'd have drag races down on the beach," said Ashley. He remembers well the years when Harleys ruled the streets. "They rode around in a car with a speaker on it, telling the cars, 'This is Harley Week, cars shouldn't be here!'"
It sure isn't that way anymore.
Ashley says he and his dog, named Harley, of course, both miss the way things used to be. He says it's like going to a football game where the stands are packed, versus one with just a few fans there. "That's the difference. The adrenaline, you know, the excitement."
It's much the same for Charlene Powell and her husband, who have been coming to the rally for nearly 15 years. Charlene says this year is just sad. "I think eventually, people's going to get aggravated and not come back."
The Powells' favorite rally activity had been cruising the streets, seeing thousands of other bikers. Now, that's changed. "You see more cars than you do bikers and that's a shame," Charlene said.
This will be the last Harley Rally for Richard Starnino, who's been coming here for ten years. "It's just not, it doesn't excite me anymore."
Starnino says even if Myrtle Beach's helmet law is overturned, he doubts the rally will ever be the same again. "They'd have to really promote it to come back."
Will the rally ever return to the days of 300,000 bikers, long lines of vendors and parking lots full of Harleys? RB Ashley thinks about it a long time and sighs. "I hope it does. I don't know, to be honest with you."
According to Bikersmag.com, the first Harley Rally in Myrtle Beach was back in 1940. At the time, the city's population was fewer than 2,000 people.
This year's rally marks the second spring rally since Myrtle Beach passed its anti-rally laws in 2008.
(Courtesy WACH Fox's sister station WPDE and CarolinaLive.com)
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