Laconia Motorcycle Week
annual motorcycle rally held in New Hampshire, US
Laconia Motorcycle Week is an annual motorcycle rally held in Laconia, New Hampshire, United States. The rally originated as a motorcycle Gypsy tour in 1916 as, the New Hampshire Lakes Region became a popular riding destination for early motorcycle enthusiasts from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Montreal. The popularity of the rally led to the formation of the Loudon Classic motorcycle race in 1934 which, became one of the most prestigious races in American motorcycle racing, second only to the Daytona 200. The scheduled events included races, shows and a motorcycle hill climb competition. The rally traditionally takes place over nine days in June, always the 2nd and 3rd full weekend. The rally was the largest annual gathering of North American motorcyclists until it was overtaken by the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally during the 1970s.
History
The Laconia rally has its origins in June 1916, when a few hundred motorcyclists gathered at Weirs Beach in Laconia. Seven years later, the event was officially recognized by the Federation of American Motorcyclists (to be later called the American Motorcyclist Association) as part of the Gypsy Tour, where motorcyclists celebrated races and hill climbs for an entire weekend. The Federation of American Motorcyclists continued to sanction the event until 1960.
Motorcyclists continued to return to Laconia in stronger numbers.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6468799. Authority coordinates are 43.609, -71.461. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1934 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laconia Motorcycle Week” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.