Today marks the end of Mazatlan Bike Week 2008. It's the last festival in a closely packed season. We were just recovering from Carnival when Semana Santa started, which blended directly into Bike Week. It has been a veritable cornucopia of eye candy with all the custom bikes.

The throaty grumble of well-tuned motorcycle engines hasn't stopped for days. The most scenic drive in all of Mazatlan goes right past our house, so all the two-wheeled sightseers have made the trek up and around our hill. Now, I love the sound of a really growly motorcycle, but the dogs have a far different opinion. Perhaps they thought it was packs of larger dogs coming. Whatever was going through their heads, they spent most of the last week barking and growling. Poor things are completely sacked out today in the peaceful silence.

This has been a very unusual and eclectic group of bikers. Of course, there has been a healthy sprinkling of the traditional bikers, but the group has ranged from 10 years old to 92, men and women, toughs, professionals, and retirees. I almost blew Fresca out my nose when I saw grandma and grandpa come down the road on a powder blue chopper, grandma primly sitting on the back, clutching her over-sized white handbag to her chest.

My biggest surprise this week happened when we were walking past the Monument to Pedro Infante. Pedro Infante was a movie and music star way back when, and is often referred to as the Mexican Frank Sinatra. He is a local hero, having been born here. The statue features Infante riding a motorcycle and is a congregation point for bike week. As we were walking past, the assembled group was blaring – I am not making this up – "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.

Of course we had to walk down to see the parade. Boy was that fun. There were all kinds of two, three, and four wheeled vehicles in the procession. There were novelty bikes shaped like airplanes and dolphins and sharks. There were plenty of custom bikes. But there were even some dirt bikes and a few of the local delivery scooters. There were sons and fathers on matching custom choppers. There were entire families, baby included. And the lonely guy riding his bicycle was greeted by an overwhelming cheer of approval by the crowd.

It was also the fastest parade I have ever seen. I guess it's a lot harder to go 4 miles an hour on a motorcycle that it is in a car. Everyone cruised by at about 20 miles per hour, which seems fast when they come by 8 inches from your toes. The speed, the noise, and the exhaust from the richly running motors created a disorienting effect, so in some ways it was kind of good that it went fairly quickly. My friend Nancy has a short video [6] up at her blog that will give you an idea of what is was like. I also have pictures of the parade [7] up in the photo gallery [8].