„Come as a guest, leave as a friend“ There's something to this slogan!
These were the Hamburg Harley Days 2018, the new date for 2019 is already there, but what do we take with us from the cosmopolitan city of Hamburg? Some of us a little less, as they had to watch their bikes being taken away in a disgraceful wagon because they had some kind of defect on their bike that needed to be clarified.
But let's start from the beginning, 2018 was by far the worst weather in years, the rain prevented many visitors from attending the event in Hamburg. Many hotels are already booked for next year immediately after the event, but this year looks different. It wasn't just the bad weather that came up, the city of Hamburg is sending out more and more signals that they don't actually want the event.
No parade along the Reeperbahn!
It all started with the route of the parade, which was no longer to run along the Reeperbahn for environmental and noise protection reasons, but mainly through the harbor area. Despite intensive efforts by the organizers, the authorities' decision could not be shaken; after all, the spectacular Köhlbrand Bridge was still on the route. When we think back over the years to how many people were waiting expectantly on the streets on the way to the Reeperbahn for the top of the Harley Parade, you quickly get tingles and goose bumps. This was topped when we arrived at the Reeperbahn, the US reality TV star Paul Teutul Sr. still raves about the moment when he was on the Road King over the Reeperbahn, that is now a thing of the past.
And as if all this wasn't sad enough, the police have increased their personnel especially for the event in order to provide special motorcycle inspections to be carried out. It started on Friday evening, they took the bikers out at checkpoints until midnight to check them, last year someone was also charged where it was just unclear whether everything was correct or not. In this case, documents are submitted later, or an expert clarifies the situation; in any case, the weekend is over for this visitor, something like this already happened last year.
The proportionality is often not there, most Harley riders won't put up with it either, but the aim of the action is to scare the bikers away and to be uncomfortable, who wants to be annoyed like that after the event. At some point the time will come and visitor numbers will fall and an event like the one in Hamburg doesn't really deserve that, but where the red-green government is in power you can't expect much.
Anyone who really violates the rules on a massive scale perhaps doesn't deserve it any other way, the organizer has been promoting consideration for years, especially in the side streets, but at the moment you can't get rid of the feeling that the rule of law only takes action where there is money to be made. In addition, the EU has imposed punitive tariffs on Harleys, even if they are not yet being passed through, politics is exerting more and more influence on our leisure time and obviously thinks it has to regulate everything for us. Live and let live should rather be the motto, others events in Hamburg are not denounced in this way and when the big ships blow their exhaust fumes into the air in the port of Hamburg, it is obviously not of particular interest, double standards are applied here!
Sad for Hamburg!
The slogan „Come as a guest, leave as a friend“ can unfortunately be taken literally by some bikers.
If you would still like to travel to Hamburg in 2019, you can now here his hotel book cheaply.
External link: Movie on Bild.de
