This season’s last Bike Night in Cape Coral wrapped up Saturday night with some of the highest attendance records ever.
Each year from October to April the city hosts four Bike Nights on Southeast 47 Terrace, where the street is sealed off and hundreds of bikers and residents check out each other’s motorcycles, listen to live music, eat and participate in games at the Harley Game Stadium.
Todd King, special events coordinator for the Cape Coral Parks and Recreation Department, said an average of 10,000 people show up, but on Saturday, the last night of the season, attendance was estimated at 15,000.
“They keep coming and coming to Cape Coral to enjoy this wonderful festival,” he said.
Officers from the Cape Coral Police Department patrolled the crowd and ensured that the record attendance numbers didn’t cause any issues.
“We rarely have any trouble but these guys take care of it quickly,” he said.
The Mixx, a Fort Myers-based rock band, performed on and off Saturday night on a stage set up by the parks and recreation department. Food vendors sold sandwiches, pizza and funnel cakes, while other tents were set up to sell T-shirts and other clothing for bikers.
King said the Harley Game Stadium hosted a number of games for bikers.
One was the Slow Bike Race, where two bikers competed to see who could be the slowest and finish last without having to take their feet off the pegs, another where the passenger held a cup of water over the driver’s head to test their smooth driving skills and one where the passenger used a fish net to pick up items or “road kill” on the ground while driving.
A number of booths were set up to raise money for important causes. Lisa Cohen and her sister Gina were collecting donations to repair the Iwo Jima Memorial statue at the foot of the Midpoint Bridge. It was one of a handful of statues handmade by artist Felix De Weldon.
“The people who have donated have donated a lot,” said Gina Cohen.
According to Lisa Cohen, a minimum of $85,000 needs to be raised to make repairs on the statue, but even that is an outdated estimate.
“We don’t have a recent estimate, the last one is from two years ago,” she said.
Theywill hold “For the Love of Our Soldiers” on May 22 at Jaycee Park and before that two other events to raise money for the project – a Poker Run hosted by Invest in America’s Veterans Foundation on April 17 and a scavenger hunt on May 2.
“We need as much as we can get,” she said.