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Laconia Motorcycle Week 2010 Second Report
| | | The streak of good luck is over. It ended Thursday night when a motorcyclist crossed over the centerline on Route 175 in Campton into the path of a pick-up truck. A 56-year-old Massachusetts man died from the injuries sustained in the accident, breaking the fatality-free streak Laconia Motorcycle Week was enjoying. The following day, another rider was killed when he failed to make a turn on Rollercoaster Road in Laconia. The unidentified man was on a Yamaha sport bike and must have been riding alone because nobody reported the incident until he was discovered by local residents. Police reports stated that he was not wearing a helmet, which seems to be the norm here.
One other motorcyclist had a close encounter of another kind when he struck a moose just north of Conway. Phillip Pignaturo of Holbrook, N.Y., saw the moose run out into the road and laid down his Yamaha Royal Star motorcycle but still struck the animal. Pignaturo suffered a punctured lung and other injuries while the moose was able to walk away from the accident. There are numerous signs warning of moose crossings along roadsides in the state and hundreds of collisions with the animals are reported yearly, some of them fatal.
Data taken from traffic counters show that attendance at the motorcycle rally in New Hampshire has declined in the last few years, but early projections say it’s up from last year. The Lakes Region Planning Commission places counters at 10 strategic locations around the area, including three in the Weirs, two on Weirs Blvd. and on other roads like Rollercoaster and Union Ave. The counters are up for 10 days, starting the Friday of the first weekend and ending on the Monday after Father’s Day. It will take a couple of weeks after that to process this year’s tally. It sure felt like attendance was up Friday because I spent more time doing the two-footed biker crawl than riding everywhere I went.
The City of Laconia Bike Show held its annual custom bike show in Opechee Park. The competition had 21 competitors battling it out in six different categories, including the most coveted trophy, ‘Best in Show.’ The majority of the motorcycles were custom-painted Harley-Davidsons with various states of customization, but there was one metric motorcycle, an old Honda cruiser called ‘Blue Balls,’ five super radicals, and a 1933 Indian Chout.
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