Covington Bike Fest

About this event

Covington's town square is normally full of parked cars. For Bike Fest they are all moved off by ten in the morning and the square is handed over to motorcycles for the rest of the day. The event did not start here — it ran in Memphis for some years first, and Randy Carden, a member of the Southern Cruisers Riding Club, brought it down to Georgia and now runs it twice a year, in spring and again in autumn. Everything it takes goes to St Jude Children's Research Hospital; asked why, Carden has said only that they do it for the children. Four separate bike shows run across the day, each with a trophy, alongside motorcycle games, vendors, live music and food, from ten until six. A pitch costs fifty dollars on the gate. Spring editions have pulled in something like three and a half thousand people, which is a considerable crowd for a square that size, and the setting is the appeal: a historic courthouse square ringed by machines instead of traffic.