Passes & Canyons Blog

I was surprised on Thursday last week to read in The Denver Post that there was to be a second, competing, motorcycle expo in the Denver area in the upcoming (now past) weekend.

The first, of course, was the now 40-year-old Colorado Motorcycle Expo, formerly the Colorado Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet, held at the National Western Center. But this show had trouble two years ago when members of two clubs–the Mongols and the Iron Order–had a fight that resulted in one death. Then last year, with issues on how to proceed still unresolved, the show was canceled. It was back this year, but the two clubs involved in the fight were both banned.

The second was held at Mile High Harley-Davidson of Parker, and was sponsored by the Colorado Confederation of Clubs (COC). The COC is just what the name suggests, and they have a reputation for solidarity with their members. If the Mongols were banned then the COC would have its own expo. Surprise: the Iron Order was banned.

So how did they both go?

First off, it doesn’t seem to me that the COC did a very good job getting the word out, although I’m sure all their member organizations knew about it. I pay attention to these things and the story in the Post was the first I heard of it.

I headed to the COC event Sunday about noon and when I got there there were no more than 50 bikes in the parking lot. Plus, there wasn’t a lot to see or do. An area for vendors held about 10-12 booths and that was it. I spent about half an hour there and had seen it all. One thing I did note, that I suspect you did not see at the Expo, was a booth for a gun dealer. I could be wrong but I’m guessing those folks don’t want weapons even as for sale items, whereas the COC event definitely did.

So I headed up to the other show. Mostly I wanted to see how many people were there. And that answer was pretty obvious as soon as I came down the exit off I-70. In the front, close-in parking area reserved for bikes there was gaping open space. Usually, if you want to park in this area you better get there early.

I cruised all around the complex and out in the extended parking area, where you usually find a lot of overflow parkers, the gate attendants were sitting looking totally bored. Inside their gates there were just a handful of vehicles in an area that can accommodate probably a few thousand cars. Still, there were easily a lot more people here than at Mile High Harley.

I didn’t go in. Frankly, I didn’t want to spend the $5 to park and $15 admission. I’m sure there were many, many more vendors set up inside than at expo 2, but the place must have been like a ghost-town with so much space and so few people spread around in all those acres. I suspect a lot of people lost a lot of money on this event.

This can’t bode well for the future of these events. Maybe next year the two clubs will no longer be banned and the second event will go away. Maybe the promoters of the big show will decide they don’t want to lost any more money and the new gig will become the only one.

But maybe the public just got broken of the habit of going to these things at all, and Denver just won’t have a show anymore.

It will be interesting to see what next year brings.

Biker Quote for Today

Does he have a motorcycle? Because if you’re going to throw your life away he better have a motorcycle.

Tags: Colorado Motorcycle Expo

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2018 at 12:04 pm and is filed under motorcycle events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.