Every month I post links to the most recent research into motorcycle culture, subcultures, clothing and identity, along with the biggest events in the motorcycling calendar. Here’s what caught my eye this month.
Daytona Bike Week 2026
Ten days, 6-15 March, an estimated 520,000 attendees — the highest since the pre-pandemic era. The Daytona 200 ran on 7 March; Burning Bike returned, with the 75-foot wooden bike covered in messages dedicated to lost riders. Less curated than Bike Shed or Born Free, more sprawling, but it’s the cultural anchor of the US East Coast riding year.
https://www.bikenrider.com/feature/daytona-bike-week-2026-highlights-headliners-and-everything-that-went-down
The Vintagent on Wendy Pojmann’s Connected by the Street
Paul d’Orleans on Pojmann’s new cultural history of motorcycling in the US and Italy (Parigi Press). The piece is a useful Vintagent-style read of Pojmann’s argument that motorcycle myths of danger and freedom have been shaped — and reshaped — differently on either side of the Atlantic. Pojmann is a historian at Siena University whose previous work was on Italian espresso culture.
https://thevintagent.com/2026/03/28/an-american-in-rome-harley-davidson-in-italy/
IJMS Call for Papers, 13th Annual Conference
Posted 1 March. The 13th IJMS conference will be held in Shelton, Washington, in July 2026, at The Ridge Motorsports Park — a shift to a US Pacific Northwest venue after Akureyri last year. Topics range across the usual IJMS map: intersectional identity, clothing and textiles, design history, gender, sustainability. Submission deadline is 30 April.
https://motorcyclestudies.org/volume-22-2026/call-for-papers-presentations-projects-motorcycle-studies-2026/
See also Pojmann’s earlier IJMS article in Q4 2024 and Daytona Bike Week 2024 in Q1 2024.
That’s it for this month. If you’ve come across research I’ve missed, feel free to email me.