jawfish

Hogs, Fat Boys, and Softails: riders edition
john posted in rides on May 17th, 2006

Caveat: I had better admit that I come from the world of shaft-drive BMW sport-touring, and lightweight roadracing, and I just got a street-legal dirt bike.

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“My heart’s been broken so many times you’d think its was made by Harley-Davidson.”

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Harley folks:
I know you are good people. OK, fine. But you gotta admit there is something going on with the whole style thing. It’s hard for the rest of us to figure out.

  Sturgis street.

Rubbies, Outlaws, and their Web Sites

Something is going on out there in the Harley Land, and it’s not just creeping meth addiction. Somehow hard-working God-fearing middle Americans will pay good money to look like an outlaw biker, only clean. In fact, they’ll pay a big premium for the best damn motorcycle out of Milwaukee. Yet, by measurable standards the only thing a Harley does better than another bike is be a Harley. So it’s the image they are after, unless you think that a Harley is the essence of motorcycling.

The whole Chopper Thing. A bunch of ironworkers shown making kit choppers with billet gee-gaws makes for successful TV! Before we ridicule the scene, let’s admit that these TV guys do in fact make something. Most men on TV couldn’t assemble Mr. Potato Head. So when you click on the tube, you’ll see big, rude men welding and grinding ( sparks! oh wow! ) on bikes built with a straight edge and tape measure. Hey it sure beats making porch railings for a living.

The biker image comes from outlaw biker gangs, self-descibed “one-percenters” hyped as the ultimate in anti-social behavior (see the reading list for thorough histories of the phenomenon).

Outlaw biker gangs have their own web sites, Outlaws , Hells Angels , Mongols , their own magazine, OutlawBiker, and even outlaw bikers in Finland. This is one of those American things that reverberates in the unlikeliest places, like the Marlboro Man and Arnold the Terminator.

H-D makes a big pile of cash licensing and selling fringed jackets, leather saddlebags, and chrome gee-gaws. They even sponsored commemorative Easyrider dinner plates. The Harley belt-buckle business alone is likely bigger than the aftermarket racing world. This stuff mimics the style of outlaw bikers, and in a typical commodification of dissent, the outlaws eat it up. Ironically, actual outlaw bikers are likely priced out of the retail Harley market, even with the meth sales.

   

  

The retailer’s dream is to associate your brand with an active myth, and sell access to it by the truckload. H-D plus eagles is even better - you can be patriotic and an outlaw at once. It’s only a matter of time until somebody uses the flag in their logo. Mostly lifestyle companies target the youth market, but it is H-D’s genius to associate their brand with all ages.
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Then you have the custom market. Rich Urban Bikers, Celebrities and suits of all kinds are rushing to plunk down $25,000 + on one-of-a-kind choppers. It makes sense that a wealthy guy would buy the one-of-a-kind pitch, and the in-your-face style completes the bragging rights. But the bikes look unrideable.

  

They are just posers, says the sportbiker.

My buddy summarily dismissed millions of Harley enthusiasts the other day. He’s an Aerostich and Arai-wearing, 130 mph street rider and club racer. He rides ten times more miles than any H-D guy, does it on a full-out sportbike, and has never given a moment’s thought to what others think of him. He’s certainly no poser.

  Pouting and posing.

I used to agree with him, before I started writing this piece. I think American Thunder bikes are overweight tractors, the chrome look is wannabe retro, and the people, while perfectly nice, look like fake Hell’s Angels. So from a sportbiker’s view they ride a pimped-out bike that couldn’t beat a Honda Dream, and pretend they are the Big Bad Bikers.

Something else is going on, though. A big bike is an odd emblem for somebody from the couch potato set. It’s expensive, and uncomfortable, and hard to ride. Plus, riding any bike is dangerous. But, bikes surely do have a mystique. I remember how many times I have been approached in a gas station while bike-touring, by some driver who wanted to tell me he had a bike once. One dour fellow said, “I’d have me a bike now, if it weren’t for the Warden and the littlest Indian” as he gestured toward the wife and son in the family car.

Where does the style come from?

Outlaw bike gang style got its start after WWII in the hot rod community. Guys with mechanical ability and a bad attitude, but not much opportunity, came home from war and started tinkering. Some guys headed off to four wheels, drag racing, and legitimate businesses. A few ended up in gangs, some of which turned from rough clubs to actual crime. They adopted the visual style of fringed leather and shiny bits of the 40’s Harleys and particularly Indians, a style reminiscent of Mexican Banditos in a Hollywood movie.

  A ‘48 Chief.

They developed an oddball Lord of the Flies culture built on violent individualism, rigid adherence to outlaw style, and intense clubbiness.

    Some actual bad boys.

Somehow, after the AMF debacle at H-D, the revived company owners were able to combine the retro hot-rod appeal they still had with the Bad Boy Outlaw image, all wrapped up in a sanitized package. Once they got a toe-hold, they improved the bikes quite a lot. It was a triumph in marketing. The Biker Myth entered the Buffalo Bill Cody stage, where babies and dogs get their very own Harley gear.

 

So what?

Well I am trying to figure out why all these nice middle class folks would buy their $20,000 rebellion machine, get the full dress leather outfits, the mini-brain-buckets, and go out for docile rides two-by-two in lines longer than a LA traffic jam. Then, 10,000 of them show up at Sturgis every year to look at each other, and at a couple hundred actual Outlaws.

     Stroller with thong.

Some aren’t really riders.

If you ride on the street, you have ridden up behind these parades of Hogs. They are darn hard to pass, even though you are throttled down to an idle to stay even with them. They don’t much care for you zooming through, after all, they are the Road Kings and Queens.

 

Alright, many of these heavy-metal riders are newbies, and they need to ride within their limits. That’s fine, welcome to them.

  New, but determined.

There are some fine riders and collectors with Milwaukee Iron. But how come the performance so beloved by sport riders, isn’t acknowledged by the majority of these folks? They simply don’t know they are slow, can’t handle or stop. Your whacked-out adventure rider with GPS and aluminum hard cases understands why the Aspencade set has its la-z-boy seats and stereos, but is amazed by these Harley folks who must be freezing, wet, and stiff all the time. Not to mention the vibration, and the crude design. Ape-hangers? Floorboards? 10 pound chrome footpegs?

 

 

So if they aren’t interested in or even aware of the technical pleasures of riding well, and it’s safe to assume they don’t really want to be thought an Outlaw, what are they doing waking me with their straight pipes?

 

I think they have joined a club, and we sportbikers are judging them by the wrong standard. Our club is about sleekness, sophistication, skill, speed. And often, it’s about not being a member of a club. There’s plenty of squids, stunters, and and amped-up hooligans in the fast bike club too. For outright silliness, it’s hard to top the stick-on carbon fiber Ducati set.

Their club is about having a Mardi Gras.

 

I have been looking at pictures from Sturgis, and one thing has really struck me. These people are having a lot of fun. The guys are strutting around, making noise, leering at the girls, and generally raising some hell, in a harmless way.

 

The girls are wearing slutty clothes, showing off their tattoos and everything else, and generally enjoying the attention. The town is packed full of booze, bikes and tramps, and everybody in South Dakota is selling drinks and T shirts.

  

These middle-agers are acting just like college students at Spring Break. It’s a tatty, absolutely non-PC scene, where a big front is a good thing on a guy and on a girl. Nobody is required to be hip, or look svelte, or have good table manners.

  

It’s a scene utterly without irony or class distinction. Neither college degrees, nor fat wallets are particularly respected. Elvis on velvet is just as good as Picasso if you think so. Yes the FU attitude with Nazi and Confederate stuff is a downer. I guess it’s just a kind of thoughtless middle finger to the world.

 

The patriotism is sentimental and straightforward.

I am pretty sure the Harley folks don’t give a damn about any of this analysis. It looks to me like you can join a big friendly club, show off in front of your wimpy neighbors, and let your hair down, all for the cost of one shiny bike.

So what if they don’t care about my kind of riding. If they want to let off some steam from this uptight modern experiment we all live in, then I say, “I’ll drink to that!”

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Sources and Further Reading:
Bike Lust: Harleys, Women and American Society a review.

The Rebels: a Brotherhood of Outlaw Bikers a book.

In The Scene a H-D rider blog.

Weekend Warriors a fine article on Harley riders and Outlaw bikers.

Motorcycle Culture excellent list of books.

Ross Fugslang’s dissertation academic, but cogent. It focusses on the creation and modulation of the “Biker Myth” in American folklore. It is quite good on the origins of the biker image and the ways media have used it to frighten or entertain.