MDBiker... Please explain!

[ScoobyDoo]

So what is it?

I have always had a keen fascination with biker dudes. They are so genuinely tough on the exterior (tattoos - gangs - bikes) and some of the ones I have come across are quite obviusly highly intellectual - and yet on the inside, they are as sweet as pie. You guys are a paradox!

So I just read your revised avitar... and I'm just not satisfied. I need an explanation!

xx

[Cinders]

MDBiker... Please explain!

I can't read it!!

MDBiker,

My only problem is I can't see what it says in the middle, even with my reading glasses on.

Age related thing.

However, I wasn't going to say anything because it says I wouldn't understand anyway.

:H

BTW, I live on the Trail of Tears, will I be waving at you in September?

Cindi

[MDBiker]

MDBiker... Please explain!

The little quote says ?If I have to explain, you wouldn?t understand?. That isn?t exactly my thoughts on the subject, but it's a little more RUB (Rich Urban Biker) than anything else. Motorcycle people are of basically 4 different backgrounds.

There is the general populace who ride and are called citizens. These people are just general public and generally unaware of the Motorcycle sub-culture. They have a bike and spend a few days a month out enjoying riding it.

Then we have the RUB?s who spend huge amounts of money on bikes and clothes so they can pretend to be bikers. They are not respected (or even tolerated in many situations) where bikers gather. Which brings up the saying ?$50,000 and a Harley does not make you a biker? You will see these guys out cruising in their new leathers when it is 105 degrees outside just to look ?cool?. Most are professional people (doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, business owners, etc. They are generally scared of and apt to get hurt if they socialize with the Outlaw Bikers (see below).

Then we have riding clubs, and ?family? clubs, and Independents who do not necessarily follow biker protocol but do understand the underlying rules for interfacing with the outlaw population. A lot of the outlaw bikers are recruited from these people and they generally have a close relationship with the outlaws.

The outlaw bikers are the people most everyone associates with ?real? bikers. These guys go back to the days of the 1947 Holister California razing portrayed in the movie ?The Wild Ones?. The Holister experience is what marked the beginning of the era of the Hell?s Angels, and outlaw motorcyclist as we know them today. Ironically the club which assailed Holister is still around and now called the ?Booze Fighters? but they are not an outlaw club. Outlaw clubs are called 1%ers because back in the late 60?s and early 70?s Honda while trying to promote the idea that ?you meet the nicest people on a Honda? posted a study which said only one percent of the people on motorcycles were outside the general populace i.e. outlaws. This is the reason we see some motorcycle groups wearing a diamond patch with ?1%er? inside the diamond. They take pride in being outside the 99%. The outlaw bikers are basically the control group for all motorcycle club activity, and must approve the establishment of new clubs or new chapters of existing clubs; when one is started up.

You will find a really good explanation of Bikers and Clubs at
Motorcycle Club & Riding Club Education

In my case, I just love riding, I have been riding almost all my life, and I want to do it with like minded people whenever possible. As a group we are perceived as less than people in general society, but in reality, we are general society. Motorcyclist have a penchant for freedom. I love being able to share that whenever possible. It is true that ?It isn?t the destination that is important, it is the journey?.

bear

[Guest]

MDBiker... Please explain!

I have a real life story to add here that always brings tears tears to my eyes....my dad is a preacher, my step mom a RN, her family is all college educated. As a matter of a fact, most have upper graduate degrees, everyone on that side attends church weekly and professes to "LIVE RIGHT, NOT JUDGE, "...you know, etc...one day my great aunt and her son, when he was small were coming home from the store and a very poorly dressed man was in their path, smelled bad, the whole ten yards. The man spoke them, simply said "hello"...my aunt was very rude...did not speak. When normally she is friendly..my cousin at the time was like 9. He asked why she did that, she said because he was a streetperson, he asked her in a honest child voice , "Well, Mom...because he is different than us, does that mean God doesn't love him?" My aunt felt like a real heal.

I try to think how utterly boring the world would be if we were all the same!!!!

[Niblet]

MDBiker... Please explain!

We are all a mixed bag of tricks and that's just great... Thanks for making us all aware of all the different sorts of bikers Bear... Me, I ride the pedal type with 3 whole gears WOOOHOOO!!! ~Niblet~ P.S. I used to waitress for years and the most polite people in the whole world were groups of folks on bikes from all walks of life... Some people would likely feel intimidated by these folks, but I made them feel right at home at the restaurant knowing they were tired of being on the road. They are truely more human than most people I know today !

[sujul]

MDBiker... Please explain!

The other side....

Thanks, Biker, for a wonderful intro to biker culture--who knew?!!

Now, in the interests of "fair and balanced," I wonder if I might present another point of view...

A certain negative attitude towards bikers is not always about bikers as outlaws or whatever...it's about the friggin' noise! We spend the weekends in Vermont at our cabin, escaping the city for a brief few hours in an idyllic valley in the Green Mountains. Unfortunately, our summer weekends are often ruined by the hordes of bikers--appararently "enjoying the journey" (?)--who scream past our cabin with horrendous after-market pipes and blaring radios....whole afternoons of having to shout to be heard as dozens of bikers scream past us....often in groups of 5, 10, 20 or more....the resentment and the anger of me and my neighbors has nothing whatsover to do with any negative feelings about bikers themselves and everything to do with the fact that bikers make it difficult for us non-bikers to enjoy the same wide-open and beautiful spaces they do.

I understand the amazing feeling of being on a bike, sailing along and taking in the scenery...I've been there. And I also know how it feels to be gardening and listening to the birds one minute and the next being unable to think, birds flying away in terror, the cats running for cover as a group of bikers comes tearing by without a thought of the quiet beauty they have ripped apart....

And then there are the 'good guys,' those who glide by on with purring motors, no radios and clearly enjoying their ride and allowing us to enjoy ours.....you're one of those, right? Biker??

Here on this site we are definitely on a shared journey--and aint it grand! So I hope you don't mind that I also shared this other view from the side of the road.....

[Determinatrix]

MDBiker... Please explain!

Sujul,

Motorcycling is a dangerous sport, mostly because those driving 'regular' vehicles just don't see them. The loud engine and the revving help a lot with being heard.

Same idea with the group scenario. Drivers are less likely to 'not see' a group making a lot of noise.

And then, of course, the sound of a beautiful engine and the comraderie don't hurt!

Dx

[sujul]

MDBiker... Please explain!

Thanks, Determinatrix--I got all that! And I appreciate those factors, I really do!

I guess it's the difficulty of resolving two conflicting rights--the rights of bikers to enjoy their ride and the rights of others of us to enjoy our homes...I am totally serious when I say that there can be dozens of bikers going by our property all day in the summer....it is literally impossible to carry on a conversation for long...much less actually enjoy "nature." I'm sorry if I sound like some sort of wus for not appreciating the joys of biking...I just wish those joys didn't have to take away my own peaceful enjoyment of my garden...last Saturday, in a two-hour period no less than 53 bikes went by! Do you see what I mean...?

Not to mention the farmers whose livestock is frightened by the noise--at times it is so loud that it startles the sheep, the cows scatter and even the horses rear up...I am talking about a serious problem here.

All's I'm sayin' here is that I just wish we could come up with a solution that would allow all of us to enjoy southern Vermont equally.

[MDBiker]

MDBiker... Please explain!

Sujul, to begin with, you must have a beautiful place for so many people to be coming by to enjoy it. And you are not offending me in any manner; I hope I don?t offend you either. I also have several pieces of property I enjoy. I bought a little 15 acre place out in the country about 20 years ago that to me was the most wonderful place in the world. I was out there several times before I purchased it, and it was an answer to one of my dreams - the peaceful beauty of a mini farm. We moved in and in short order I had planted 10 acres of millet and had 5 horses on 4 acres of beautiful pasture. From the kitchen window I was looking at a ?post card?. Then about a month later the air force training base 8 miles north of me started doing flight training. Seems my little paradise (unknown until now) was directly below the course turn and altitude acceleration point. We had jets doing flight training day and night for about 3 months. The only thing missing was them breaking the sound barrier (and they would have done that if it wasn?t against the law). If you think 20 motorcycles are loud, you should have hundreds of jets flying training patterns over you unceasingly. I wasn?t too happy about the noise, but I did have to respect their right to be flying over my ?Paradise?. It just happened my land was a ?beautiful? place to fly jets as well as grow hay and livestock. With time I grew to accept the noise. Sometimes during the two month lull (silence) of in class instruction, I even found myself wondering what was wrong; only to realize it was the lack of noise. I do understand your frustration, but perhaps the bikers are not happy with the urbanization of their countryside either. It may be that they are as aggravated with you as you are with them. Sure some of the bikes are quieter than others, but some people build underground houses with concealed entrances which don?t spoil the beauty of the countryside. Neither is more correct than the other.

I do have a very loud motorcycle. I pride myself as being able to set off all the car vibration alarms in the parking garages before I exit. . . he he To me the sound of a motorcycle is as beautiful as your garden is to you. Whatever I am doing when I hear a motorcycle passing, I look to see what is passing. I can usually tell the model of motorcycle by just looking at it. Depending on how it is loaded, I can many times determine (imagine) the destination and it makes me happy.

I wish you the best and hope I didn?t offend anyone.
God Bless
Bear

[sujul]

MDBiker... Please explain!

No offense at all, Bear...thank you for your thoughtful response....

You're right of course, it IS beautiful and I know that bikers come there for the same reason we do...I appreciate that..and everybody's right to be there, yadda, yadda...I just wish that our rights didn't sometimes conflict with each other...sigh....noise pollution can be as problematic as any other kind....sadly, this also negatively affects our 4-legged neighbors; horses, cows, sheep, llamas, alpacas...who are apparently becoming stressed out as the route becomes more and more popular....

I think, the REAL problem is the SHEER NUMBER of bikes...not any one noisy bike in particular or even any noisy group in particular...but like anything else too many is too many! As I said, there were something like 53 in two hours last Saturday--that would be dozens and dozens over the span of a day! Ya gotta admit that's a lot of bikes!

Oh, just to clarify--this area is TOTALLY RURAL--no urbanization happening here! Our little one-room cabin, hidden behind the trees, has been there for years--the whole stretch in either direction looks much as it did in the middle of the last century....

Okay....enuf said, I'm done.

[ScoobyDoo]

MDBiker... Please explain!

Oh Bear, you explained it to me better than I could have imagined!

Su, I can understand your frustration with noise, but on a seperate issue, the anaolgies that Bear has made here are so poetically written, and so true. It's all about perspective. I personally love the deep hum of motorbikes roaring past.

One of my friends is a professional type and has just bought a brand spanking new red, white & blue with chrome Harley... he's a weekend warrior and loves humming slowly around. It really is a gorgeous looking bike and I really *get* what he gets out of it. I ride mountain bikes and I probably get a similar rush from mountain biking.

Before I had kids I rode a Honda Nifty 50 motor scooter :H I was a model (pre kids) and I used to turn up to castings around Sydney with my helmet tucked under my arm. That was a great way to get around! My sister bought a matching identical one also in red and we used to take day trips through more rural type areas. My Nifty 50 did Max speeds of 80kmph... downhill and didn't quite have the same hum as your alarm rendering mate. Come to think of it, my current stead doesn't have any hum at all. :H

Thanks for a great read Bear. Your little piece of paradise sounds divine too. You're a gentleman as I'd expected!

Scoobs