A variety of motorcycles are set to be on display during the Bell City Bike Night’s show and shine event at the Brant Artillery Gunner’s Club on Wednesday, August 28, 2024.
Doug Newton, organizer for the Bell City Bike Night, said that riders will be competing for first place trophies in three different categories.
“We want to invite as many bikes as we can, of all different styles and of whatever effort that somebody has put into their bike,” he said. “We’ll have three different first place trophies; one for best cruiser, another for best metric bike, and the last one is for best sport bike. Entrance is also really cheap, it’s only $5.00, and that’s really just to help us cover the cost of the trophies.”
Newton noted that Kevin Davis, Mayor for the City of Brantford, is set to attend the show as an honorary guest judge for the competition.
While the show and shine is the evening’s main focus, guests can also expect the Hot Diggity Dog food truck, an ice cream truck, music supplied by Newton’s online radio station, RiderRadioRocks.com, and of course, other bikers.
“For every bike night, I put out an open invitation for all clubs to come out, set up a booth and share information about their rides and their charities because most clubs will have something like that going on,” said Newton. “It’s two birds with one stone, right? We get to have more people and bikes come out because now there’s all sorts of clubs coming in and in turn, that gives them and their charity more exposure.”
The Bell City Bike Night was first started last May by the 999th Legion of Child Rights – Bell City chapter, of which Newton was the commander for, however the club dissolved at the end of the 2023 season and is no longer involved.
Despite the fate of the Bell City Bike Night being up in the air, it was Nicole Powell, Special Events Coordinator for the Brant Artillery Gunner’s Club, who reached out to Newton in hopes of continuing the event for 2024.
“Nicole contacted me and she said, ‘Doug, we did some really good things here this year, would you mind running the event next year?’ and so that’s how I got involved for this year,” he said. “It’s all worked out great so far because the very first bike night of the 2024 season, we had 96 motorcycles out the gate.”
Newton said that while he’s been hosting the 2024 monthly events through his radio station, next year, he’s planning on organizing it through his new club, Road Rebels Riding Club.
“We have about 18 members so far, some are brand new to riding and some have been doing it for decades so it’s quite the spectrum. It’s great because everybody is riding together three times or so a week and they’re learning new things about their bikes and the mechanics of it,” he said. “As I mentioned earlier, most clubs have a charity or an annual ride that they support, and so for us, all we do is support those other clubs and their cause by getting the word out there through bike nights and riding in their events. That’s what we do and we literally ride at least three times a week together as a club.”
Overall, Newton said the Bell City Bike Night is all about building community.
“The whole purpose of the event was to get bikes to come out and grow the community,” he said. “So that’s what we’re doing, we’re fostering a good motorcycle community and that’s our focus.”
Though the Bell City Bike Night events are typically held every third Wednesday of the month from May to September (and October, providing the weather), Newton said the show and shine was originally scheduled for August 21, but that they had to push it back to the August 28 due to the Gunner’s club currently undergoing construction.
The Bell City Bike Night will run from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., judging for the show shine will start around 7:30 p.m.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
