What will the Grand Strand May motorcycle rallies look like in 2009 and beyond, now that Myrtle Beach leaders have ended them inside the city limits? That picture is slowly coming clear. It will please neither local folks who despise the Harley-Davidson and Memorial Day Bikefest rallies and want them gone nor those who love the rallies and don't want them to change.

What's shaping up is a reconfiguration of the 2009 rallies — and maybe those in future years — that spreads them out among our communities. The duration of the overlapping Harley-Davidson rallies also could diminish, perhaps by half. ...

When the Myrtle Beach City Council initiated its effort to stamp out the rallies last June, many local folks, us included, supported the effort. But the onset of the recession had a clarifying effect on some minds — including ours.

The goal of making May less stressful for local folks, while giving other forms of May tourism a chance to take hold, remains a good one. But as motorcycle enthusiasts remind us — sometimes none too graciously — bikers inject revenue into the local economy that it otherwise might not get.

Perhaps it's possible to accommodate bikers across our communities during May for fewer days total — while also reducing the negative effects they exert when they are here. The combined actions of local public officials seem inexorably to be driving our communities toward a middle ground on this issue. That could turn out to be a good thing — or at least a less painful thing than the rallies as we have known them.

The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News