Cleanup Begins as Bikes, Blues & BBQ Comes to an End

After days of busy streets, the Bikes, Blues & BBQ Motorcycle Rally came to an end just after midnight Saturday.

Crews were out all day Sunday packing up equipment, tearing down tents, and picking up trash.

“It feels great for all of the hard work to come to fruition,” said event Director Joe Giles. “I love to walk down the street and see all of the bikes and all of the people, all of the interesting characters and everybody having a good time. We all absolutely love that.”

The rumble of thousands of motorcycles was replaced by the steady hum of cars, Sunday.

But crews were faced with the aftermath of one of the largest rallies in the nation. 

“Cleanup began probably about 7 this [Sunday] morning,” Giles said. “I got here at 7:15 and they were already at it.”

Danny Spears and 25 other Sequoia Kiwanis volunteers are in charge of picking up the trash left behind. 

“We start on Tuesday night, and we pick up all of the trash for the whole week,” said Spears. “It’s a lot of trash. Last year we used 32,000 trash bags to clean up the whole mess.”

This year, Spears expects the number of trash bags needed to get the job done will well exceed last year’s.

But despite all the hard work that goes into keeping the streets clean, Spears said he and his crew love every minute of it.

“Being down here and having fun and enjoying the whole experience is worth it,” said Spears.

Event organizers plan year round for Bikes, Blues & BBQ, and the 2013 rally won’t be any different. 

“We realistically won’t start that until about Wednesday of next week,” Giles said.

Giles said crews are ahead of schedule and he expects the cleanup to be completely done by Sunday evening.