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  • confab
    Senior Member
    • May 2019
    • 1337

    #16
    Some very thoughtful posts. As a Harley noobie, I missed all of that shit.

    I can see it, though.. I think Farmall and DaC have it right with the combination, alternative lifestyle/Real Bikers and maintenance/support/upgrade network providing the ER fanbase in a world before social media. That certainly describes the bikers I remember as a kid very well.

    It's kinda why I asked, because it is all so different now from what I remember. But, in fairness? I wasn't that close to it. So, maybe I'm wrong?

    But the difference I see is what Farmall hit on with reliable bikes making serious wrenching obsolete. And a difference among the aficionados - Where the "Bikers" of today aren't really alternative lifestyle types, living alternative lifestyles that happen to involve motorcycles.. So much as people who want to play act a little, and simply adopt a biker chic for a few hours, or a weekend at a time, as an escape.

    Of course, they would disagree with this vehemently.. But I doubt the real bikers I remember from my youth, would.

    Frankly? They shouldn't disagree with it at all. As it isn't an insult. The new batch are phonies, but they're probably better and more successful, and happier, people overall than many of the "real" bikers from back in the day, anyway. Just to be 100% honest about it.

    In spite of this, I think the (ahem) "real biker" influence is the only thing that makes the hobby interesting now. The wannabees aren't fascinating and despite the amazing amounts of money lavished on them today, their machines are indistinguishable from one another.

    Because of that, I'll probably give ER a look.. And we do subscribe to Greasy Culture and Dice. I guess, like in the old days, a couple of biker mags are filling the niche lifestyle of custom antique bikes and choppers? Maybe it is a formula that will work all over again?

    Comment

    • DoomBuggy
      Senior Member
      • Oct 2016
      • 2436

      #17
      If I could buy a magazine and go back to the early 80s I would, but I can't so....

      I loved the Dave Mann picks and the how to articles, also the skinny on upcoming events.

      Now most all of that is on the web. I do miss some of the photography though, always top notch and they always seemed to have someone at the right place at the right time. Now every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a phone thinks they are capturing solid gold.

      When the new ER would show up it would circulate through the house till every single person had a chance to dig it.

      Comment

      • Supertouch
        Member
        • Aug 2009
        • 39

        #18
        And wonder how long till a trans get posted on a bike. I remember back in the day my mom grabbing my pops an “easy rider” and a “in the wind” now guys with face tattoos drive Prius’s with a “coexist” sticker’ can’t say I was involved in the biker scene being I was a young little shit. But from what I seen then to what it is now, for instance being out and having a guy asked me what boots I’m wearing…I was at a bike night thing and seen another club guy pressing another guy for “why are you friends with him on Instagram don’t you know he’s a such and such”….def took a hard right for the worst.

        Comment

        • dankmelater
          Member
          • Jul 2019
          • 37

          #19
          Originally posted by Supertouch
          And wonder how long till a trans get posted on a bike. I remember back in the day my mom grabbing my pops an “easy rider” and a “in the wind” now guys with face tattoos drive Prius’s with a “coexist” sticker’ can’t say I was involved in the biker scene being I was a young little shit. But from what I seen then to what it is now, for instance being out and having a guy asked me what boots I’m wearing…I was at a bike night thing and seen another club guy pressing another guy for “why are you friends with him on Instagram don’t you know he’s a such and such”….def took a hard right for the worst.
          Well you can fuck right off with that first sentence, but whatever you do you. I don't give a shit who rides or builds, we're all just here for a good time right?

          Agree with you on the rest haha. Instagram for the chopper scene is unironically the funniest and worst thing to me. Anti-influencer chopper influencers is the dumbest thing in the world to me. Like don't whine about social media when you're running around with 50k followers getting free parts from all the biggest aftermarket companies. Pinnacle of the idiocracy is the Born Free contest. It's basically just a clout-driven internet popularity contest now.

          Hard to say if ER mag will try and reflect the current day and age or re-live the past. Few other mags (mainly thinking DICE mag) have really struck a decent balance of evolving while trying to maintain that old spirit without using it as a gimmick. Just my take on it.

          Comment

          • DazedandConfused
            Member
            • Nov 2021
            • 65

            #20
            Originally posted by confab
            Some very thoughtful posts. As a Harley noobie, I missed all of that shit.

            I can see it, though.. I think Farmall and DaC have it right with the combination, alternative lifestyle/Real Bikers and maintenance/support/upgrade network providing the ER fanbase in a world before social media. That certainly describes the bikers I remember as a kid very well.

            It's kinda why I asked, because it is all so different now from what I remember. But, in fairness? I wasn't that close to it. So, maybe I'm wrong?

            But the difference I see is what Farmall hit on with reliable bikes making serious wrenching obsolete. And a difference among the aficionados - Where the "Bikers" of today aren't really alternative lifestyle types, living alternative lifestyles that happen to involve motorcycles.. So much as people who want to play act a little, and simply adopt a biker chic for a few hours, or a weekend at a time, as an escape.

            Of course, they would disagree with this vehemently.. But I doubt the real bikers I remember from my youth, would.

            Frankly? They shouldn't disagree with it at all. As it isn't an insult. The new batch are phonies, but they're probably better and more successful, and happier, people overall than many of the "real" bikers from back in the day, anyway. Just to be 100% honest about it.

            In spite of this, I think the (ahem) "real biker" influence is the only thing that makes the hobby interesting now. The wannabees aren't fascinating and despite the amazing amounts of money lavished on them today, their machines are indistinguishable from one another.

            Because of that, I'll probably give ER a look.. And we do subscribe to Greasy Culture and Dice. I guess, like in the old days, a couple of biker mags are filling the niche lifestyle of custom antique bikes and choppers? Maybe it is a formula that will work all over again?

            Farmall is 100% correct that the reliability of the bikes went a long way to the shifting tide. And to dive into that, the sudden and unexpected surge of demand created a consumer market that drove the production and availability of parts. I also have long thought that a lot of the stigma surrounding the reliability of the older bikes was the fact that there was such a lack of parts and qualified mechanics. Jammer and Drag Specialties were about the only real game going for aftermarket parts, and a huge amount of customization had to be home fabricated. Likewise, if you were looking for performance upgrades, S&S was about it. And the HD dealers could be a real PITA about working on bikes that had been chopped or modified. There were no H-D Stage 1-4 kits and a plethora of performance upgrades available from the MoCo to be installed by the factory certified tech at the stealership. The guys doing all of this were either doing it themselves, or relying on their most-likely-not factory trained indy mechanic, with a limited availability of parts that left them having to figure this all out for themselves. Results would be anywhere from awesome to pathetic, depending on the parts used and skills of the individual.

            Yes, it's different, but I think that's because the crowd got so much larger, and the world got so much smaller at the same time. Harley sales numbers really tell the story. I was a kid riding on the back of Dad's bike in the "good ole days" and we could ride all day and never see another Harley, and a lot of days never even see another motorcycle. In those days, the rule was that if someone was on the side of the road, you stopped and offered to help them out. Today, the person on the side of the road has a device in their pocket that will serve any need they could have.

            I used to worry about who was pretending and who was "the real deal", and as I've gotten older and my life has taken a lot of complicated twists and turns, I've stopped trying to designate myself as the gatekeeper and arbiter of who is and isn't "genuine". I still stop for the increasingly rare bike that is on the shoulder of the road or in the abandoned parking lot, and the few times I've done so in somewhat recent memory, I've definitely gotten puzzled confused looks, and once a downright cynically annoyed reaction, because judging a book by its cover those guys had to think I would be about as fucking useless as a screen door on a submarine and might as well have been staring at the human brain as helping diagnose an issue on their scoot. I put myself through college and earned a degree in my 30's, and I have basically become everything I hated and used to bitch about when I was in my early 20's. I'm middle aged, professional, with a stable decent upper-middle class income. I wear khakis and a button down collared shirt to the office every day. Yet, inside of about 60 seconds I was able to help the grizzled old fucker with the broken down shovelhead find that his bike died because the wire going to his ignition coil separated from the ring connector, I was able to advise and show the young kid with his old Sportster that was pouring gas out of the bowl of his Bendix carburetor that the bowl separated by simply pulling the main jet and that the damn needle valve had vibrated itself into a position where it was wedged open, and I know that if you happen to break the tab on the contacts of a set of ignition points you can go to the nearest auto parts store and ask for a GM 6 cylinder points and condenser set (tell them it's for a Chevy Vega btw, assuming that they would even carry them anymore, because the Vega was only in production for a limited number of years and would help the parts guy narrow down exactly what you needed) and that if you can use the top of an aluminum can to set the gap on them close enough to get you home. Am I a phony? (rhetorical question...I've struggled with this a lot internally...serious cognitive dissonance going on). Or, am I actually pretending Monday through Friday when I put on my button down oxford shirt and dress shoes and come in to the office and have to pretend to give a flying fuck about diversity and equity and someone else's preferred pronouns?

            All I know is that I love bikes, especially Harleys, and especially custom builds, and I worked my ass off to put myself in a position in life where I can fund this lifelong obsession I've had without having to struggle or sacrifice too much financially. And I came to terms with this by ultimately realizing that there are two types of "bikers" - the ones who buy and ride their bikes for others, and the ones who buy and ride their bikes for themselves. I didn't ride the old AMF bikes for anyone else when that was all I could afford, I didn't build my evo for everyone else when I was still young and broke AF and couldn't really afford to build it, and I didn't buy my tc Road King for them either. So, with that I stopped giving a rat's ass where exactly I or anyone else falls on the real-to-fake spectrum.

            I go back to my statement that the Easyriders that everyone remembers from the good old days was a product of its time, and that time has passed. It's been replaced by ChopCult and Jockey Journal, and everything that Farmall said and that I touched on above. And I'm okay with all of that, as well as with the possibility that a relaunched CheesyRider will be an accurate reflection of the state of things today, because that's really all it was back then.

            Comment

            • confab
              Senior Member
              • May 2019
              • 1337

              #21
              So, with that I stopped giving a rat's ass where exactly I or anyone else falls on the real-to-fake spectrum.
              I don't care for my own sake, either.. It changes nothing for me. But I cannot help drawing a distinction between what appears to be the vast majority of bikers today, and the ones I remember growing up.

              They literally don't know an ironhead sportster from a knucklehead, and they don't care to know.

              And that's fine. It's cool. They're paying their way and they get to do it however they want. No argument.

              But they aren't "bikers" like the ones I knew. There's a serious generation gap at work here. I can't help but notice it?

              Comment

              • bmjwright
                Member
                • Mar 2010
                • 55

                #22
                Can't be worse than most recent version "Easyriders"

                A classic version may be good, but I'm skeptical.

                Comment

                • Supertouch
                  Member
                  • Aug 2009
                  • 39

                  #23
                  Well there yah go, and I’m going to with dankmelater rides a sportster for $500. We’ll never have old easy’s back people are offended and need safe spaces. Sure half the guys riding would piss there pants being around some of the old timers or having there camera broken for taken pictures of club guys. Seen it at the old race track on Harley day the only club on long Island back then seen someone taken a picture and took there camera emptied the film and destroyed it. People got soft, dudes wanna be chicks nowadays it’s a totally different world unfortunately ⚡️⚡️

                  Comment

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