by Kathleen Pulek

The roar, rumble and burble of classic, custom and vintage motorcycles filled the air as the ninth annual Motorcycle Mania electrified Middletowns downtown area Wednesday, Aug. 20. More than 5,000 bikes lined Main Street from Washington Street to the packed South Green, the municipal parking garage rooftop and the north end of Main Street for the gather-ing heralded as the largest one-day summer bike event in New England.

The weather makes or breaks our attendance, said Cathy Duncan, event coordinator for the Middle-sex Chamber of Commerce. With excellent weather, we have record numbers of bikes and people, and all proceeds will again support local youth programs in the city.

The bikes and the teem-ing crowd arrived early and stayed late.

We had the main gate [on the south end of Main Street] open until 5:45 or 6 p.m. The second gate on lower Court Street was opened at 5:45 p.m. and

when all parking was fin-ished at 7:30 p.m, people were finding spaces by themselves, said Duncan.

We had about 80 vol-unteers, including 10 or so from Liberty Bank and about 20 of the Haymond [Law] Girls. Rich Greco is the event chairman and Kent Levack is the coor-dinator of volunteers. Ev-eryone worked very hard at this event, including the whole staff at the Middlesex Chamber.

Hunter Limousines, Hunters Ambulance and the Hunter Family once again presented the event, held in memory of founding spon-sor Dan Hunter. Event spon-sors included The City of Middletown, Liberty Bank, Eli Cannons Tap Room, Charles Computer Services, Middletown Downtown Business District, Bank of America, Haymond Law Office, Gengras Motor-cycles, Middlesex Music Academy, Home Team Sup-

ply, Lyman Orchards Golf Club, Avon Products Mid-dletown, Fabian Associates A Connecticut Casualty Co., Mezzo Grille, Middle-town Area Transit, Minute-man Press, and Untouchable Towing.

Musical stylings throughout the evening in-cluded Brandeds high-en-ergy country, while Storm Roller filled the air with rock and roll. WMRD/

Middletowns C ommunity Newspaper Volume 13, Number 9September 2014

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Chronicled Chronicled

Cars & CatsThe first ever Fast and the Furriest Car Show benefits the Cat Tales rescue group.Page 14

A New WaterviewThe Middletown Riverfront Redevelopment Commission has published its final report.Page 9

Page 26

Continued on page 15

Motorcycle Mania Revs Up Middletown

A wave of bikers arrive at the ninth annual Motorcycle Mania. Photo: Dave Burnham.

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WLIS radio broadcast live from in front of the Chamber office and DJ Les Benfield was located in the South Green Gazebo.

The tempting fare of the many down-town restaurants mingled with the offerings from a variety of vendors to tantalize the more than 12,000 people jammed into the downtown area on a picture-perfect summer evening.

George Ryan was among Motorcycle Manias 51 vendors.

This is a great event and the weather is just perfect, Ryan enthused. The bike community is a very charitable group, so were here to promote our Sept. 21 Motor-cycle Ride and Zombie Biker Chili Cookoff to benefit the George N. Ryan Memorial Scholarship Fund, established in memory of my son who passed away in 2012 at age 19. In the 14 months weve been in existence, weve given away over $41,000 to help area high school students attend college.

We start Sept. 21 with a short ride at 10:30 a.m. and then its back to the Middle-town Elks Club on Maynard Road around noon, when the general public will start com-ing in. Weve got championship chili cooks coming from all over New England for the International Chili Society-sanctioned chili cookoff, as well as Caribbean-style chef Je-sus Ramos handling the pig roast.

Weve got Jeff Pitchell and Texas Flood for music. Johnnie Moore from Fat City Customs is helping organize the event and will also have a couple of bikes on dis-play. Weve got a bus filled with zombies, ghouls and goblins coming to scare every-body from the Trail of Terror in Walling-

ford. World-renowned custom bike builder Eddie Trotta is coming up from Florida to MC the show and will have some of his bikes on dis-play, continued Ryan.

Weve got layer upon layer of good stuff. Well have all kinds of entertainment so this will be a day filled with all kinds of family fun activities.

Milfords David Lamoureaux fielded a lot of questions about his radical, one-of-a-kind 2005 Honda VTX 1300R. It took me five years and two months, on and off, to build the bike. When you put that into a 40-hour work week, its re-ally taken just over three months, and thats not bad for a build of this size.

I had to do everything myself because Honda doesnt make parts to customize this bike. Ive got an air bag under the seat to lift the whole bike up four inches off of the ground so I can drive it away. I had the transmission widened out

to accept the 300mm tire on the back be-cause the biggest you can put on a Honda is a 240mm. The eight-gallon gas tank and all of the sheet metal are my own. I finally decided to customize my own bike and Mo-

torcycle Mania is a great place to show the kind of work I can do, said Lamoureux.

A beaming Larry McHugh of the Mid-dlesex Chamber of Commerce said, Weve got a fantastic turnout. We were hearing on social media that we could see 5,000 bikes tonight. Last year there were over 4,000. Theyre really coming in now at 5:50 p.m.

Motorcycle Mania and our other downtown events throughout the year are an opportunity for the City of Middletown to showcase its many fine restaurants and retail shops in the beautiful downtown district.

This is a party. Middletown is rocking. Look at the amount of people downtown. Our restaurants are slow in the summer so events like this bring in a lot of people. The restaurants are doing really well. Its a tre-mendous night for us. Well also see a lot of these bikers come back during the fall season. Theyll go out on a ride and then come back to try the different restaurants, and thats what we want, added McHugh.

Planning for the 2015 Motorcycle Mania started five minutes after the event ended, Duncan added with a smile. Well be having a wrap-up meeting soon and at the same time, well start planning for next year.

The Chronicle - September 2014 15

ChronicledMain Street Hosts Annual Motorcycle Mania (Cont.)

From left, Johnnie Moore, Mariah Moore, George Ryan and Michael Freedman promote the upcoming Zombie Biker Chili Cookoff benefit on Sept. 21. Photo: Dave Burnham.

Matthew Shamas of Southington arrived in style on his beautiful flame-covered chopper. Photo: Dave Burnham.

Carlos and Onnica Ortiz represented New Britains Hard Hittn Riderz. Photo: Dave Burnham.

More than 5,000 motorcycles packed downtown Aug. 20. Photo: Dave Burnham.

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