Organizers of Ignacio Bike Week, from left, Ashleigh Tarkington, Anne Mooney and Emily Meisner pose with a bike at Moon’s Custom Cycles, in Grandview, earlier this week. The reins of the annual Labor Day Weekend motorcycle gathering in Ignacio will be taken over by the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce this year, of which Meisner is the president./Photo by Jared Boyd

by Missy Votel

The rumbling of Harley-Davidson tailpipes may be the last thing on people’s minds this time of year, but plans for a 2007 bike rally in Ignacio are already well under way.

Buoyed by the success of last-year’s eleventh-hour effort to pull together biker events in Ignacio, organizers of the 2006 Ignacio Bike Week say they’ll be back in 2007 and bigger and better.

“Right now, we’re just trying to get the message out that this is going to happen,” said Ashleigh Tarkington, member of the Ignacio Bike Week Board of Directors and owner of the Billy Goat Saloon. The first course of action, she said, will be entering an Ignacio Bike Week float in the upcoming Snowdown parade. “We’re planning a ‘Bikers of the Caribbean’ float.”

As in rallies of years past, Tarkington said this year’s event will feature poker runs, live music, vendors, a beer tent, tattoo contests, organized rides and a swap meet. The Sky Ute Casino also will be planning its own entertainment line-up to coincide with Bike Week. Locations for the various events are still being ironed out, but Tarkington said offers from Ignacio-area residents to host events have been numerous. “The Ignacio community has been so supportive in stepping up to the plate,” she said.

The lead-up to Labor Day Weekend in 2006 was plagued with ups and downs. Having relocated from Ignacio to Mancos, the Rally in the Rockies, which started in 2003, was slapped with a last-minute injunction and forced to cancel events planned for Echo Basin Ranch. Following the weekend, Rally in the Rockies owner Dan Bradshaw announced the event would not return in 2007, ending a run that began when Ben Nighthorse Campbell created the Iron Horse Motorcycle Rally in 1993. However, with just six weeks’ notice, volunteers, civic leaders and members of the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce managed to pull together Ignacio Bike Week, which attracted nearly 10,000 bikers and more than 40 vendors.

“Our concern with the Chamber was4 that people were going to show up anyway, regardless of whether there was a rally or not, like they did in 2002,” said Emily Meisner, president of the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce and owner of Ignacio’s Patio restaurant. “We said, ‘Here we are again.’ Our choice was to be a good host or get a black eye.”

Organizers chose the latter, and the event turned a profit with proceeds going to Ignacio “Space Camp” students.

“How it all came together is a stinking miracle,” said Meisner, who lost 10 pounds, countless hours of sleep and her diamond wedding ring while preparing for last year’s event. Nevertheless, she and other organizers are dedicated to keeping the event in Ignacio, which has hosted some incarnation of the event for the last 13 years.

“This would be the 14th annual motorcycle event,” she said. “Our intention is to lead the pack, not follow it. If you just go forward and do what you know, and do it ethically and do the best you can, you’ll be successful.”

Meisner and other organizers say the focus of Ignacio Bike Week is to get back to the grassroots intent of the original Iron Horse Motorcycle Rally, which stressed economic development and community involvement. Proceeds from the event will go to area nonprofits and all funds raised and spending will go through the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce, a 501(c)6 nonprofit organization. Furthermore, the event will be run strictly by volunteers, as it was in 2006. “Our stance is, if you want to come in and host an event, then contact us,” said Meisner. “It’s a good-for-all-situation instead of a good-for-one.”

But more than providing a once-a-year shot in the arm to the local economy, organizers say bike week is about showing bikers what the area has to offer in hopes of cultivating return visitors. “You can’t ask for any more beautiful of a spot for riding a motorcycle,” said Bike Week sponsor and organizer Anne Mooney, of Moon’s Custom Cycles. “At heart, bikers are tourists. They’re a good group of people interested in having a good vacation and maybe coming back to ski, fly fish, open a business … who knows?”

In addition to the scenery, organizers also want to use Bike Week as a way to recognize the diversity and cultural amenities of the area. “There’s a ton of history here that people enjoy, and Ignacio is part of that, and that’s one thing we’ll celebrate,” said Mooney.

Tarkington, whose saloon is a popular stop-off for motorcyclists, said she can attest to the economic benefit bikers bring to the area. In addition to receiving an $800 tip from a group of bikers that visited during a past rally, she said she sees many familiar faces return year after year. “I started bartending at the Billy Goat eight years ago, and I see the same people come back every year,” she said.

But perhaps most importantly, Bike Week organizers are interested in simply having fun.

“The key concept is to come and enjoy the area. Just because one person’s leaving town doesn’t mean the rest of us are going to stop having a good time,” said Mooney, who with her husband, Steve, is relocating the business from Grandview to Ignacio in coming months. “This is a town that cares about itself and wants people to be here. It’s true ‘bon ami’ – wide open arms.” •