Hollister
– The bikers are back.
Hollister – The bikers are back.
If anyone had any doubts about the annual motorcycle rally returning to Hollister, they were quelled Friday, as downtown streets filled with vendors, visitors and motorcycles – lots of motorcycles.
“This is mythic,” said Laurence Leguillard, who traveled with her husband Georges Vie from France to attend the Hollister rally.
Leguillard and Vie, who both ride Harley-Davidsons, have been to motorcycle rallies in Sturgis and Daytona, but this is their first visit to Hollister.
“This is like Daytona years ago,” Leguillard said. “Daytona is for the tourists now.”
The rally began in 1997 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hollister’s 1947 motorcycle invasion. Citing escalating public safety costs, the City Council canceled the rally in 2006, but thousands of bikers staged an unofficial invasion.
The council approved the 2007 rally, but only after rally organizer Seth Doulton of Horse Power Promotions paid Hollister $362,000 to cover the event’s public safety costs.
Doulton created a new rally layout, moving the vendors onto San Benito Street and the motorcycles onto the side streets. The layout gives the vendors the prime real estate and makes the event easier for law enforcement, he said.
Friday’s visitors seemed divided on the new setup. Salinas resident Larry Tilton, a 35-year motorcycle rider, said he’s been to every Hollister rally since 1997 and he misses the sight of bikes riding down San Benito Street.
“They just seem to want to stop the ride,” Tilton said.
But first-time rally visitor Bill Sollimas of Thousand Oaks said he doesn’t mind the new setup.
“The old layout did not pay the bills,” he said. “I parked my bike this morning and I haven’t worried about it since.”
Bikers aren’t the only ones celebrating the rally’s return. When the rally was canceled and the previous organizing committee went bankrupt in 2006, many vendors lost their deposits, including Larry Housley of Fontana. Housley’s store, Custom Bones, sells T-shirts, crystal skulls and other souvenirs, and he’s looking forward to good business on Saturday and Sunday.
“We lost a lot of money last year,” he said.
This is Housley’s fourth Hollister rally, and he said Friday seemed busier than the usual opening day.
Doulton said Housley isn’t the only one with that impression.
“Everybody feels there are more people than on a normal Friday,” Doulton said.
Attendance estimates were not available before press time.
Local architect David Huboi, who was volunteering to park motorcycles to raise money for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, said this rally has a much more positive atmosphere.
“Things seemed much more tense in 2005,” he said. “Now everyone has more elbow room.”
Leguillard and Vie, the bikers from France, don’t plan to leave until Sunday, but they already have plenty of souvenirs – T-shirts, gloves, patches and an eagle mask to wear while riding in cold weather. They were both enthusiastic about the rally, but Leguillard said Hollister won’t supplant Sturgis in her affections.
“That rally is a real rally,” she said.
