SWAP MEET!!!!

Swap Meet! With today’s internet and Facebook selling sites, swap meets are becoming less and less. When I started out in the bike shop business some 20 years ago, that’s all we had. I can remember setting up in Detroit at the State Fair Grounds. Three buildings full of parts and apparel. It was a place where you could piece together a whole bike in one day. Over the last few years swap meets seem to be coming few and far between. There isn’t many left here in Michigan, I seem to be driving out the state to get to the good ones. But there is still one or two meets here. I set up at a few swaps now a day’s. My buddy, Bubba of Bubba’s Tri City Cycles took over one of the swap meets near us. Bubba has been in business longer than me, and he has been doing the swap meet scene for a even longer time. One thing that has happened was that vendors started bring brand new clothes and parts to meets. This is not a swap meet in my eyes, it’s a fee market. Swap meets are old parts. When I heard Bubba had took over a meet, my hopes were high that he would stop vendors like that from coming to his show. I couldn’t have been more right, when I called about getting space the first thing out of his mouth was “what are you bring?” I replied “old Parts”. To which he said “good cuz I already got a t-shirt guy we don’t need any more apparel, parts only!!” The day of the meet Shovelhead Joe, My buddy Mike Chapman, Josh and I set out early. It was still dark on the roads; the trip was about an hour from my shop at a Convention center in Birch Run Michigan. We were one of the first venders to arrive. Bubba’s wife was just setting up to let venders in. As we checked in I could see in the back a bunch of guys already set up from the night before. I was feeling pretty good that this was going to be a good meet. Buddy led us around to the back of the building so we could drive our truck and trailer right in side. It didn’t take us long to unload, with three guys it makes it nice and easy. I of course over seen all the guys working, making sure everything was in just the right spot, and taking with other venders. As the time grew closer to open time, most all the vender space were full. The gates let open and the people poured inside to see the show. I almost didn’t have time to take any pictures, we were busy taking with customers, passing out business cards and just generally having a good time. What a better way to spend a Sunday but with friends, beer and old motorcycles. Speaking of old motorcycles I did find a cool 95 Softail nostalgia, just a beautiful bike. Only one problem I had to take this old Yamaha XS1100 along with it. The Yamaha was painted up nice and had a few cool parts on it, so what the hell I took it. On the way home Josh asked “uncle Boomer what are we going to do with this old Metric?” I thought for a moment and replied “young grass hopper we are going to the Smoke out this year, its one hell of a party. Everyone that goes there does something big, why don’t we give it away like at Bike Night?? Well to say the least Josh was on Board. So that’s right we are giving a FREE bike away at the Smoke Out this year. All you have to do is stop by our booth and on the last day we will pull a name for the winner! I will also be looking for bikes to buy so if you got an old bike lying around stop by, your old scoot might be the next bike in Turn and Burn!!