We've lost confidence in the City Commission to look out for citizens like us. Lane and his wife, Geneva, talk about Daytona Beach as a changed town, too. They talk about how they can't imagine why anyone would make the choice they did 15 years ago to come here to retire, about how their friends from Kentucky don't visit anymore, about how the city's reputation gets rougher every year. This weekend, it's easy to see why some residents view their hometown as an alien, unwelcoming land. Girls clad in fur bikinis, metal bustiers and flashing red lights clipped to their backsides stroll Main Street.
Strangers exhort passing women to lift their shirts and eager hands try to help.
A man rides by on a bike christened Harleywood, the seat, the handlebars, even the gas tank covered completely in carved wood. A guy passes out on the seat of his bike, his head wedged against a lamp pole. Groups of leather-bound men and women jaywalk across Atlantic, laughing drunkenly at the cars and bikes whizzing by. Food sellers advertise giant biker sausages and steaks, hot, hot, hot. During Bike Week, headlines tell stories of pedestrians and police hit by bikers, bikers hit by a van, and in a weird twist to a weird event, a parachutist landing on a beer waitress at the annual coleslaw wrestling contest.