Commerce revs up for Bike Week at Multi-Lakes

Metro Detroit’s largest motorcycle festival will be coming to the Multi-Lakes Conservation Association in Commerce Township this weekend, starting Thursday, July 28 and running through Sunday, July 31.

Bike Week will include a custom bike show, freestyle motocross, demonstration rides, burnout pits, Miss Detroit Bike Week Babe, a ZZ Top look-alike and tattoo contests, cage fights, a bikini bike wash, Red Stag Boothill Saloon, a bike blessing, church services, as well as a variety of vendors selling wares of the biker lifestyle.

Continuous live music will also be a part of the festivities. The legendary Detroit band The Rockets will be a part of the line up, as will tribute artists for Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, AC/DC, Bad Company, and the Allman Brothers, in addition to many local bands throughout Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30.

On Sunday, 99.5 WYCD will host Country Day with live music by David Shelby, Alan Turner, Redhill, and Derringer, among others.

A Red Stag Kid Rock guitar giveaway will also take place.

Tickets are $10 a day or $15 for the entire weekend from July 29 through Sunday, July 31.

Also as part of Detroit Bike Week will be the American Veterans Traveling Tribute, which features a mobile replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and other patriotic attractions honoring the nation’s veterans.

The traveling wall is 80 percent the size of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. The mission of the project is “to travel the nation to honor, respect, and remember men and women who served, and to pay specific tribute to those who gave all in that service.”

Other exhibits and memorials will also be a part of the tribute and will span the area of two football fields. The Cost of Freedom Memorial is a series of standing exhibits created in gold dog tags to record the names of those who gave their lives for our freedom in conflicts since Vietnam, including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. A lighted Twin Towers exhibit, World War II and Korean War pictorial displays, and tributes to police officers and firefighters will also be there.

The exhibit, which has never been seen before in Michigan and is traveling all the way from Texas for its five-day stay, is open to the public and will feature numerous ceremonies. The visit will start with a welcoming ceremony as the Wall is escorted by motorcycle from the Compuware Sports Arena in Novi to the Multi-Lakes Conservation Association this afternoon, Wednesday, July 27.

Multi-Lakes is located at 3860 Newton Road in Commerce.

For more information, visit detroitbikeweek.com or avtt.org.