Gophers and Cheese

I left bike night at Dulono's Pizza and headed over to The Joint / Cabooze for the very first Heavy Thursday .  Heavy Thursdays would end up replacing the Moto Mania bike night that was held at the Uptown VFW.  It would be about another year before Dulono's Pizza would move locations and the era of First Thursday bike nights in Uptown would come to an end.

First Thursday in June 2016 was the first one where Moto Mania / Heavy Thursday split off to a totally different location.  I started the evening at Dulono's Pizza in uptown before heading to Heavy Thursday.

I went to the 66th annual Gopher State Timing Association (GSTA) Rod and Custom Spectacular on Sunday, April 7th at the State Fairgrounds.  The show was both Saturday and Sunday but I took advantage of the nice weather on Saturday to work on my own projects.  With all the rain on Sunday, I certainly appreciated the show being indoors.  At least it wasn't snowing.

Moto Mania at the Uptown VFW took place at the same time as First Thursday at Dulono's Pizza but was held in the covered parking lot of the VFW just down the street.  It had a different vibe, more-focused on choppers and garage-built bikes.  For the short time they co-existed, I always checked out and enjoyed both.  Back in  May 2016, Moto Mania 2: The Big Deuce was less than 2 months away and Dan was busy promoting it.  In case you forgot, Moto Mania (the bike night) had the same name as Moto Mania (the dirt track event in Owatonna).  Dan always liked to keep things simple.  If I'm not mistaken, I believe this was the last Moto Mania (bike night) as Heavy Thursdays kicked off the following month.

Way back in May 2016, First Thursday was still going strong at Dulono's Pizza in uptown and its counterpart Moto Mania was happening just down the street at the VFW.  Let's start with outdoor photos at Dulono's.  This particular set doesn't do justice to what a massive bike night this used to be, but you can check out my other blogposts to see what I mean if you never had the opportunity to experience it in person.