Buffalo Rising Online

Aug 20th 2008, 3:29pm By buffalorising

Strap on your helmet and fire up your hog. This weekend is Buffalo Niagara Thunder, an all weekend event from August 22-24 that benefits Mercy Flight. The organizers jam-packed each day with a lot of fun and exciting stuff for motorcycle enthusiasts, so if you can make it down for a single day or every day, be sure to get there early and beat the lines to get in.

Friday’s events are “Rock at the River” themed and start at 4 PM and run till 11 PM at the 301 Ohio Street location, right on the Buffalo River. There will be plenty of vendors each day to match the events, and Friday kicks off with a press conference and a ribbon cutting at 4 PM. At 6 PM there will be a Pillow War and much later on, an exciting event will be the Best Tail Contest for the women at 9:15 PM. After the Best Tail Contest, the band Graffitti will perform at 9:30 PM. Friday has two other bands performing that day as well as a lot of other excitement, so try and make it out to the opening night, but if you can’t, try Saturday on for size.

Saturday is the “Country at the River” day and features the bands Born to Boogie, Underground Stampede, and BareBack Jack. There will be a burn out contest as well as a Best Butt contest for men at 9 PM before BareBack Jack takes the stage. Some of the attractions you’ll be able to see from the vendors come from Cycle Solutions Dyno Tuner, Cycle Pilot LLC, which features a wheelie test bike, All Out War Cycles, which has thousands of bike parts, and Lil’ Inkster, a mobile t-shirt company. There will also be a lot of celebrity guests like the Buffalo Gladiators, The Penthouse Girls, The Olsen Ring Girls, the Twisted Tea Girls, and the Red Bull Girls. Saturday runs from 11 AM until 11 PM, and be sure to not drink too much, because Sunday earlier in the morning.

Sunday is for sure the day to not skip out on since it includes the Mercy Flight/Ed Penkalski Bike Run. Registration begins right at 10 AM. At noon there will be a custom bike show, at 1 PM a tattoo contest, and at 3 PM, the Wet & Wild Show. The Wet & Wild Show is a kind of wet t-shirt contest, the winner of which gets $500 cash and prizes. At 4 PM, the winners of the bike show will be announced to wrap up the festivities at Buffalo Niagara Thunder.

If you’d like more information about this event, including a full schedule, directions, or ticket information, visit their website.