A Bike Week, Main Street fixture for more than 40 years, John's Rock 'N Ride rolls on

DAYTONA BEACH — Every year at Bike Week, they arrive at John’s Rock ‘N Ride, adorned in collectible, custom-made T-shirts, eager to tell the stories attached to them.

Owner Johnny Sanchez, a lifelong proponent of the hippie lifestyle, has been designing and selling his tie-dyed Bike Week collectibles on Main Street for more than 40 years, the last 30 in the undeniably groovy, tightly packed shop open daily year-round in the 800 block of Main Street.

During Bike Week, the annual 10-day motorcycle rally that returns for its 82nd year March 3-12, the pilgrimage of fans into John’s Rock ‘N Ride offers testimony to the emotional connection to the shop and the event, Sanchez said.

“Every day during Bike Week, there’s a different story,” he said. “People come in with a different shirt of mine, tell me how much they take care of it, how much their friends want it. I communicate with a lot of people, a lot of races, a lot of classes. They come from all over the world to see and collect.”

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John's Rock 'N Ride built on 'Grateful' philosophy

For Sanchez, 76, the DNA of John’s Rock ‘N Ride is rooted in a philosophy he calls the “Grateful Davidson lifestyle.” It melds two of his lifelong passions, a love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and worship of the music and pop-culture scene of the Grateful Dead.

It’s an outlook emblazoned on the Bike Week T-shirts that he first designed and sold in 1980, as well as a tattoo inked along his right forearm bearing the slogan, “At least I’m enjoying the ride.”

When Sanchez arrived at his first Bike Week in 1980, there was no inkling that he would be staying in Daytona Beach for the rest of his life. He and his older brother, Manny, were working as vendors on the carnival circuit along the East Coast from Maryland to Florida.

“We called ourselves Manny & John’s Rock Shop Caravan,” he said. “We did the Plant City Strawberry Festival and we thought we’d come here to investigate what this Bike Week thing was all about. We were basically selling rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts, Grateful Dead stuff.”

The brothers set up shop with two other vendors in a rented storefront across the street from where John’s Rock ‘N Ride is now at 817 Main Street. Other vendors told them that they were wasting their time without biker-related items, but when the brothers hustled the Grateful Davidson T-shirts into production, the Bike Week crowd responded.

“That shirt snowballed," Sanchez said. "We couldn’t make them fast enough.”

The brothers would stay on the carnival circuit for another 12 years, returning annually to Bike Week, until Sanchez decided he was tired of the road. He parted ways with his brother and opened John’s Rock ‘N Ride in its current location near the east end of Main Street in 1993.

“He’s one of a kind,” said Mark Washam, owner of Wild-N-Crazy Airbrush, another locally owned shop on nearby Atlantic Avenue. “Johnny represents the whole Main Street identity.”

At Rock 'N Ride, Bike Week meets tie-dyed mindset

Inside the shop, the décor and merchandise fuse black-leather motorcycle style and psychedelic 1960s hippie mindset through an array of trinkets that range from helmets and patches to dream-catchers and enormous ornate Grateful Dead tapestries.

The old-school vibe is reflected in the fact that the store has no phone, no website to promote its business. It opens by 11 a.m. daily, with a closing time that varies, Sanchez said.

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To borrow from a Dead song, it has been a long, strange trip for Sanchez to the World’s Most Famous Beach from his childhood in the Bronx, New York. After quitting high school at age 17, he enlisted in the Navy in 1965, serving four years in the boiler room of a destroyer during the Vietnam War.

When he returned, he did stints as a lifeguard, as a clerk in his father’s candy store and as an employee at a Wall Street financial firm before hitting the carnival circuit with his brother. As one might suspect after visiting his shop, his life was changed after attending his first Grateful Dead concert at Gaelic Park in the Bronx in August 1971.

“My brain blew up, and I saw what was going on,” said Sanchez, who quit his Wall Street job after the show. “I had a vision. I saw the beauty of the Dead thing. I saw the beauty of the hippies, the selling of wares. I decided that Wall Street was evil and I couldn’t be a part of it.”

Sanchez hopeful for Main Street's evolution

Over roughly four decades, he has seen plenty of changes on Main Street, including the recent news of the sale of more than 30 beachside properties owned by Theresa Doan to CTO Realty Growth LLC. It’s a list that includes Main Street businesses Dirty Harry's Pub & Package and Full Moon Saloon as well as The Bank live music club and the building that houses the Biker's Den apparel store.

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The properties don’t include John’s Rock ‘N Ride, where Sanchez is hopeful that the news will somehow lead to more year-round businesses on Main Street.

“The empty stores have got to be open,” he said. “That would be a plus. It doesn’t have to be biker stuff. It could be an ice cream shop, a pizza place; as long as it’s open people will come to Main Street. People hear about Main Street all over the world, but they won’t go down an empty desolate street.”

For Sanchez, there’s no place he’d rather be.

“I can walk to the beach in two minutes,” he said. “All the beautiful girls have to walk by my store to get to the beach. It’s just a nice quiet town, so I decided to make it my home.”

If you go

WHAT: John's Rock 'N Ride

WHERE: 817 Main Street, Daytona Beach

HOURS: Open 11 a.m. daily year-round, closing time varies

Timeline: 1980

When Johnny Sanchez first arrived on Main Street in 1980, here’s a snapshot of what else was happening in the world:

◾ Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18 in Washington, creating avalanches, explosions, large ash clouds, mudslides and massive damage that killed 57 people.

◾ The Rubik’s Cube puzzle debuted in London, generating a worldwide craze.

◾ CNN began broadcasting from its headquarters in Atlanta, the first 24-hour news network available to cable subscribers in the United States and Canada.

◾ The United States Olympic ice hockey team made history by defeating the heavily favored Soviet Union at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics in a game that became known as the “Miracle on Ice.”

◾ Former Beatles member John Lennon was shot and killed by obsessed fan Mark David Chapman outside his New York City apartment on Dec. 8, 1980. He was 40.

◾ Serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. was sentenced to death for the murder of 33 boys and young men.

◾ Republican Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.

◾ Millions watched the prime-time drama “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R. Ewing.

Made Just Right: About this series

The Daytona Beach News-Journal is spotlighting area businesses that have been around long enough to be an important part of our collective history. If you are the owner of a business that has been in operation for at least 25 years, or if you want to nominate a business for recognition, please contact reporter Jim Abbott at jim.abbott@news-jrnl.com Be sure to include your name, phone number and a little bit about the history of the business.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: John's Rock 'N Ride: A look at Daytona Bike Week fixture for decades