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Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way.”
— Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”
If you’re the kind of easy rider who thinks a smooth-riding hatchback is your ticket to a fun weekend of shopping, then you probably haven’t marked your calendar for the 50th anniversary celebration of S&S Cycle.
But even if you’ve never straddled a Harley, S&S Cycle President Brett Smith said there’s something for you to celebrate when all those motorcycles come rolling into town in June.
How many?
Smith and S&S Media Supervisor Howard Kelly won’t say. And Jim Brown, director of group sales for the La Crosse Convention and Visitors Bureau, is guessing when he says between 3,000 and 5,000. “I know there’s a lot of talk about it in the industry.”
Really, there’s no good way to guess, Smith said, because an event like this has never been held in La Crosse — or anywhere else for that matter.
“It could be big,” Smith said. “We just wanted to celebrate our 50th and do something neat. I’m excited about this.”
S&S Cycle is a builder of performance parts for American V-Twins. And they are celebrating what they do by having 50 builders participate in a build-off using S&S parts. Those builders will all be coming to La Crosse on June 26-29 to show off what they’ve built and to find out the overall winner. And because those builders will be here, Smith said, other riders are sure to follow.
For fans of motorcycles, it doesn’t get much better, Kelly said. “Harley, for their 100th, didn’t have this many builders,” Smith said. “And having it here in La Crosse is special.”
It’s special for Smith because he’s eager to show off his facility on the Causeway, which also features an emissions certification laboratory — one of only four in the country.
“In the last few years we have become very environmentally conscious and started making engines and components that are EPA compliant,” Kelly said.
But it will also be special for visitors, Smith said, because this is a great area for riding motorcycles. There is beautiful scenery in every direction, easy access because
of I-90 and wonderful rolling hills that riders will enjoy.
“The industry is going to come here in force,” Smith said, and the hotels featured on their Web site already are sold out.
“What we’re doing here is the V-Twin motorcycle equivalent of the Sundance Film Festival,” he said, and the people coming here “are the movie stars of the motorcycle world.”
As the guy in charge, Smith admits this is just a lot of fun. Plus, because they’re allowing The Boys and Girls Club, Riverfront and the La Crosse Children’s Museum to sell S&S merchandise, those groups can make some money off the celebration.
Smith and Kelly say lots of folks don’t understand what they do at S&S. If you’re not into motorcycles, then maybe you’ve never noticed the buildings just off Copeland Avenue that house S&S.
The nondescript buildings house a fast-growing company that builds performance parts for American motorcycles. They don’t build Harleys here, Kelly said.
“We build stuff to make your Harley faster,” he said.
And so 50 builders will take those parts that make Harleys faster and they will build custom motorcycles.
It’s enough to make a chopper enthusiast drool. It’s also enough to get them to come from as far away as The Netherlands, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Belgium, and points in between. And one of them will win $50,000 in product credit when their motorcycle wins the competition.
“We could have held our anniversary party at Sturgis or Daytona because the whole motorcycle industry is already there,” Kelly said. “But we wanted to do something for this community specifically.”
Geri Parlin can be reached at gparlin@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8225.
fourboards wrote on Mar 19, 2008 12:31 PM: