Lake George's Americade is evolving. But the bikes still take over the village
The roar of thousands of motorcycles is back in the village of Lake George, with Americade returning in full force this week for the first time...
Jun 07, 2022 — The roar of thousands of motorcycles is back in the village of Lake George, with Americade returning in full force this week for the first time since before the pandemic.
Americade was founded almost four decades ago. At its peak, it brought 60,000 bikers to Lake George. It was billed as “the world’s largest motorcycle rally.” And it was crucial to the early summer season in the tourist village.
"We call the motorcyclists 'mild ones, not the wild ones'," says Tony Hall, co-owner and editor of the Lake George Mirror, "because there are middle aged people driving in Honda Goldwings, and as the years progressed, they got older, and the machines became more like RVs than the bikes you would see in Easy Rider."
Hall told David Sommerstein Americade isn’t as dominant a force in Lake George as it used to be and is trying to evolve for a new generation. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
TONY HALL: A lot of those people who rode motorcycles to Lake George 20 years ago no longer ride motorcycles. And the sponsors who once relied upon events like Americade to get their brands out now use social media.
Online shopping has had a huge impact on Americade because the vendors and the expo were probably its largest source of revenue. And because of online shopping, you can buy all of these things online rather than have to travel to Americade to buy them. So all of that has affected the size of Americade.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN: Could you just describe like what it looks like and feels like Americade weekend in Lake George? What's happening?
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HALL: What's happening is amazing. In the past, there was just a loud roar all week. It was great for the restaurants and the hotels that depended upon Americade for this burst of early revenue.
But for everyone else, it could be a challenge. There was just nothing but motorcycles from Lake George village to Hague. It was such a dominating event that even the mayor of Lake George village would leave because it was essentially a different community. It was a motorcycle community, run by the organizers of Americade.
SOMMERSTEIN: Has there been tension over it, dividing residents? Or do people just say, 'hey, you know, this is big for our economy, this is an important thing'?
HALL: That's exactly right. Again, for those of us who weren't directly involved in Americade, there were some negative consequences, such as the fact that when we would put out a newspaper that week, unless we had motorcycles on the cover, we wouldn't sell any copies on the newsstands. Because the folks who came from Americade were not really interested in local news, or the kind of publication we put out. So we had to adapt.
And there was some tension because there were issues. For instance, how much money would Americade have to pay the DEC to use its facilities? There were some complaints that Americade relied too heavily on volunteers. So there have always been some issues and some tension.
But on the whole, you're absolutely right. The community at large saw this as a positive, having a truly positive impact on the economy, and one that really sustained it, got the summer off to a good start. It really was the single busiest week on Lake George for years.
I don't think that's true anymore. We no longer rely upon one event, or one busy week, to become economically viable. And so, Americade will continue on and continue to evolve in the context of the larger Lake George summer season.
Christian Dutcher, the current president of the organization, told me that he really wants to see the event evolve into an entertainment venue and less of a motorcycle rally. It will essentially become a motorcycling-themed entertainment week.
He's much more interested in creating a kind of niche event that actually appeals to a younger crowd of people who are interested in different types of music, and interested in different types of motorcycles. They're more interested in vintage bikes and in the history of motorcycling than they are in these bikes that are in many cases now trikes and that, as I say, resemble recreational vehicles more than they do bikes for the open road.
