black bike week fri 010583Black Bike Week - Myrtle Beach, SC - 2018 - Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford

Standing on a corner of N. Ocean Blvd. in Myrtle Beach on Friday afternoon of Black Bike Week I wondered where all the motorcycles were. Car after car, after car, crept by like molasses through the miles of the barricaded beach road, part of the city mandated 23 mile long nighttime traffic loop. I thought of it as the "Loop of Death."

“This is ass,” a local told me later in the night, referring to the NAACP challenged traffic patterns and it’s effects on the crowds and atmosphere. He got stuck in the loop for hours last year on his way home from work. And that the cars in front of us have another three hours before they get out.

Breaking my train of thought, wondering where all the bikes were, another car drives by, this one with tags from Tennessee. “Hey! you wanna free piece of chocolate?” a young woman shouts at me from the driver’s seat, gesturing to a friend next to her, “She’s double stuffed!” Eventually she flashes me.

black bike week fri 010629Black Bike Week - Myrtle Beach, SC - 2018 - Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford

Despite the brief moment of excitement, to address my upcoming assignments I abandoned Myrtle Beach on Saturday and Sunday for Atlantic Beach, about 15 miles north, where everyone went to escape barricades and traffic loops, and where the event first began in 1980. You can see photos from Sunday here: Motorcycle Enthusiasts Attend Black Bike Week In Myrtle Beach. My assignment for The Sun (UK), shot on Saturday, the most lively night was published here: Black Bike Week sees thousands gather to party at annual motorcycle rally in South Carolina

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