I never said that 'biker' is the exclusive rite of the MC culture. What I have said repeatedly is that what we espouse as a 'biker' is as much a matter of history and an era as is any other phenomenon.

Let me draw you an analogy. Google 'Zoot Suiter.' You will find that it is not only an item of clothing, but it has Hispanic roots, the regional ties to Los Angeles, and it defined by a murder and subsequent riots of 1942. In other words, "it more than a flashy coat." It even had its own distinct slang and impact on music.

You might own the suit. You might be Hispanic. You might even know some slang. But unless you walked the streets of LA in 1942, you're not a Zoot Suiter.

Many my age feel the same about 1960s bikers. Even comic strip characters depicted as 'bikers' are grimy, have long hair and beards, choppers with long front ends, and even peace symbol necklaces. We're not talking about my grandchildren, we're talking about my peers.

What really toasts my marshmellows is guys who are so desperate for street creds that they insist that hacking the sleeves off a perfectly good jean jacket, buying any Harley and calling everyone 'bro' makes them a legitimate biker. Yikes. I took a real-deal dump on a toilet this morning. That doesn't make me a journeyman plumber.

I go riding with the same group a friends, our sons will ride with us occasionally one day one the kids said that we should name our self. I said how about the mild hogs.LOL then I said to him "we'll call you spaz as your outlaw name"

SG...its all good. We here are simple exchanging opinions and perceptions. And your opinion is just as important as anyone elses. I don't mean to sound like my opinion is the definitive word because its not. I am individually as a person frustrated by the purge of self serving and shallow individuals who dominate a way of life I have grown up with. Both my mother and father rode and were in a riding MC. My father and adopted father both use to race in the gypsy tour circuit and with there friends in the late 50's thru the 60's and as a child I went with. I started riding at 13 on my mothers 1967 moto morini. As a child and for many years I use to run around the camping area (which use to be on the side of the road) during Laconia Bike week.

It doesn't make me an expert but I have seen the life style the way it use to be(everyone watching out for each other,families,race teams whatever), how it could be and compared to how it is now...well nothing is more consistent then change and how one adapts is the challenge. Unfortunately I am adaptive challenged, I don't mix well with most people as is evident by my constant bannings thru out the WWW.

I have seen the self destructive and self serving evolution of this life style brought on by the RUBS as the MOCO put the price of their bikes out of the reach of the regular blue collar guy. My solution...I no longer attend Daytona,Myrtle Beach, Harley Rendezvous,Keene swap meet, or any of the many large and small cash grab RUB fest rallies that exist. I live 45 minutes from Laconia so I pop in for the day..early and before the yuppy RUB ahole weekend warrior drunks wake up. I'm gone by 1-2pm.

You sir are coming back into it at a time where what is popular appears to be dominated by the new RUB crowd. That leaves cranky old timers like myself and like the riders before me a little perplexed and wondering where do we fit in. Believe me I have tried unsuccessfully for the last past 3 years years. I look for brotherhood, I consistently find self serving and superficial for profit agenda's. Power trips. Lots of lying and deception. All the while people throwing the word brotherhood around like a priest passing out palms on Palm Sunday.

Party on dude and don't sweat cranky posters like me. What will be will be. I doubt will ever cross paths but if we ever did you show me respect you will get respect right back. I am neither a 1% or an LEO. I have been a participant all my life.

Except for my sometimes foul mood, I actually live out my current life in just that way. The ideals of 'being yourself' and respecting credentials seems to be a lost art. I just talk about it here because I assume that our membership is mostly bikers.

For example, while we all know about padding your resume' when seeking employment, we now have prison insiders researching the tattoos of the fish who enter a prison. Yikes, Aryans vetting Artyans. It appears that our problems with RUBs is not a singular example.

At this rate, lint trap technicians will be sandpapering their thumbs into callouses so they can falsely brag they play HALO for twelve hours per day. Or they will wear ear-buds with the cord stuffed into their pockets, but connected to nothing, so other losers will think they can afford iPods.

I feel this way because motorcycling is important to me. But someday, sooner than later, a modern icon will be caught lip-syncing (ala Milli Vanilli) or new evidence will leak that a champion skate-boarder photo-shops his instructural tapes, and it will be the kids themselves who scream 'fraud.' And they will post threads here barking, "But, Tourist, this is serious!"

Depends on whose ox is being gored.

I remember that it wasn't so long ago (30+ years that went by quick) where I would be in the company of said established riders. I would find a shadow and lay low observing everything like a hawk. A little tip here a little tip there. Eventually I would be invited to whatever suare du jour was being planned. Eventually thru keeping my mouth shut and not being a nuisance I learned thru observation and participation, about stuff.

I think that process is lacking. I think whats happening is guys in their 40's and 50's and who always wanted a Harley have bought one and feel they are to old to learn nothing new or are above the starting at the bottom. Or they buy used bikes with big miles and tell everyone they put on the miliage.

So rather than interact on the ground level they watch to many hollywood movies and internet crap, don the biker holloween costume,wicked shortcuts and viola! A huge cluster fck of aholes converge on the scene in their newly purchased low miliaged or used high miliage from somebody else and with huge big know it all mouths. These aholes also permiate the owner/admins of forums because if you can't live it at least you can redirect.

The day there is a true membership owned/operated,not for profit harley davidson forum is the day you will see a powerfull and extrememly profitable forum, second to none.

badinfluence63,

I absolutely did not take any offense at what you posted. I think I can be a bit opinionated myself and over the years learned that for me it is sometimes better to just keep quiet rather than insult someone else. I think I understand your point about how this thing has changed to where it is now for you and I don't disagree. Clothes and a bike don't give you the mindset and values that you have lived by.

I have a close friend who rode back in the 70/80's and was someone I would think of as a biker. For him, it was more than just riding. He is the most honest, right to the point, no b.s. guy I know. Whenever we have the kids out on the four-wheelers, I try to get him to buy another bike and ride with me but he just laughs and tells me it's different now. I know he likes to ride because he'll spend hours riding that four-wheeler.

"You sir are coming back into it at a time where what is popular appears to be dominated by the new RUB crowd. That leaves cranky old timers like myself and like the riders before me a little perplexed and wondering where do we fit in. Believe me I have tried unsuccessfully for the last past 3 years years. I look for brotherhood, I consistently find self serving and superficial for profit agenda's. Power trips. Lots of lying and deception. All the while people throwing the word brotherhood around like a priest passing out palms on Palm Sunday."

I don't mean to be presumptuous trying to tell you where you fit in but I think that you and others like you have taught a lot of new riders several important values. I hear them repeated all the time. Showing respect to each other, an often quoted comment among riders, is a direct result in my opinion, of these new guys observing how you folks treated each other. I realize that not everyone out there now looks at it that way but there will always be jerks in anything.

AS for being LEO, I can say that does influence some of my perceptions but my contact with 1% MC was limited. When I did run into them, I never had any type of problem. A president of a local club once made the comment in a newspaper article that the only two groups of men left in the world were the bikers and the cops. Most of us thought that was kind of cool. I think if we ever met we could probably connect on some level, Hey, we know both like bikes to start with.

And cops and LEO's are on oposite sides of the same law,lol.

I was very happy to read the last two posts. While we might disagree as to where the line is, we all seem to be defining the kind of guys with whom we want to associate. While some poser might have all the right clothes and a brand spanking new Blackline, no one wants to spend the day with him.

I like cops, myself, as weird as that might sound. My club rode with the The Blue Knights. Back in the day it was my club that rescued our Dane County Sheriff from a beating, not 911.

The Blue Knights actually rode their bikes, our sheriff is a former motor officer. I figure 'birds of a feather.' And I'd rather spend time with those guys than some poser. In fact, I do spend more time with them.

Now, does that mean I've softened? Of course not. I still have several ways to get into and out of my little burg using routes where a Crown Victoria doesn't fit. My first thoughts when seeing red lights behind me is still the same as when I was 16 years old. Except now the conversation goes like, "Oh, Chico, it's you. You passed that Kenworth at +85 MPH, you'd better slow it down..."

BTW, that conversation really happened last year. I might have lost my street creds, but being known as a suburbanite does have some perks.

I play the Army vet senior citizen card often..sure beats getting pulled over because you have long hair, a cut and riding a chopper. My MO these days for cross country is a pair of tour master riding pants and tour master riding jacket. I have more than a few photos of cops pulling in to see up close and up-on seeing the old person touring MO they vacate the premises. You see my exciting life also caused premature gray hair.

I learned early on that a guy in a business suit was usually more of a pain than any guy with a beard and a cut was.

When my ex became a saleswoman I told her to never judge someone by the way they looked when they walked in. I went to talk to a salesman about a new Corvette once and walked into the dealership. I asked the salesman if they were willing to deal on a corvette they had in the showroom. He told me to come back when I was serious. Now I looked young and was a bit rough around the edges but that got me angry. Bright and early the next day, I drove my corvette into the dealer and asked to talk to a salesman about theirs. The guy from the night before came over and I told him to get lost. Within an hour, I had made a deal on the new one and was gone.