The Wharf Rat Rally is wrapped up for another year and organizers are already planning for the 15th annual rally in 2019.
The five day event in Digby finished on Sunday Sept. 2 and most of the bikers rolled out of town that evening or on Monday Sept. 3.
Water Street was flooded with bikes throughout the weekend but now the street is back to normal with traffic running smoothly.
Digby RCMP didn’t respond to any collision calls throughout the event, most of their arrests were relating to public intoxication.
“With the weather as gorgeous as it was, we were busy on Saturday especially, but we felt there was a higher turnout that day than in previous years,” said Digby RCMP’s Cst. Colin Helm.
There was an accident in Clementsport on Sept.2 where a car hit a motorcycle head on, which resulted in the motorcycle driver being airlifted to the hospital with serious injuries.
RCMP have not yet confirmed if this driver was participating in the rally or not.
Laura Simmons, executive director of the Wharf Rat Rally was impressed with the increase in participation in the show and shine event and the rat bike show.
“Everything went well for us and the weather was perfect,” she said.
The rally had over 5000 2018 Wharf Rat Rally pins for bikers who registered, and they ran out throughout the weekend.
“We’ve never not had any pins left over,” she says.
When bikers register at the rally it gives them access to bring their bikes downtown and park throughout Water Street all weekend.
Organizers are busy counting ballots from those who registered, tracking where visitors came from to visit the rally.
Numbers are still being calculated but so far, they’ve accounted for visitors from all over Canada including British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. As well as Japan, South Korea, Germany, Portugal, England and Amsterdam just to name a few.
“And we’re not even half way through the ballots yet,” adds Simmons.
Nadine Lauren is the office manager for Wharf Rat Rally and she would like to thank all the volunteers who helped make the rally possible. She noticed a number of new volunteers this year.
“Everyone seemed to be having a great time. Volunteering for us isn’t hard work, if you like to talk to people and help them out, then you’ll enjoy it.”
There was fewer vendors at the rally this year, but organizers made sure there was more room in the walk way between vendors and gave each booth more space.
“The feedback we’ve had so far is amazing. From what we’ve heard the vendors had good turnouts.”
Check out more Wharf Rat Rally stories:
Rally visitors come from near and far
