Heading up the beach

You could do a lot worse than the beach.

And that's where plenty of Bike Week riders went, heading north from Daytona Beach for an easy, scenic ride up the sunny Florida coast to tiny Flagler Beach. With the ocean on the right and low palmetto bushes on the left as you cruise north on A1A, it's hard to believe that such a wild, undeveloped streach of coastline could be mere minutes away from the bustle of the biggest week in motorcycling.

And yet there it is.

"This up here is really amazing,'' says Cindy Wilson, a pilot from New York who came down for her first bike week and was enjoying a break at a pullout just south of Flagler. "I've been to Daytona, but never to Bike Week. It's an awesome experience to see every kind of motorcycle there is all over the place.''

For Bike Week veteran Myrrh Davis, who was riding with Wilson, Bike Week is as good as ever.

"I've probably been coming here 10 years,'' she says. "But it's cool this year to be showing someone else what it's like. Just turning someone on to something as cool as Bike Week is fun.''

For the pair, along with thousands of other motorcyclists who are packing into Daytona Beach, that fun is just beginning.