Times They Are A Changin'

Times They Are A Changin'

By Kemp O'Connell in 1988

Founder of Harley Rendezvous Classic

Saw a T-Shirt the other day, it said, "Remember when Motorcycles were Dangerous, and Sex was Safe. That got me to thinking, how much things have really changed.

If you have not been into this life style for the last 15 to 20 years, and want to get a feel for what I am talking about, just check the 20 year issue of EasyRiders magazine. Scanning those pages brought back those long ago forgotten times and how it used to be.

The motorcycle industry, itself, has changed alot in the last 15 years. When I started riding back in the sixties, the wrong kind of crowd rode Harley Davidsons. The feeling was that the good people rode something else. I remember a PR campaign for Honda then "You meet the nicest people on a Honda".

Then the kind of T-Shirt you might see on our kind, was a shirt that said "I'm the one your mother warned you about". I think we all know what kind of bike this guy was riding. The average Harley rider wore his hair long, had at least 8" over on the front end of his bike, which of course, was custom painted and chromed with a good looking fox on the back. He wore a leather jacket that was old and well used, along with sometimes greasy jeans, depending on how the scoot was running.

The crowd then had heart, it was brotherhood. In those days the only kind of people that rode Harleys were the ones that had alot of money and rode dressers and us the bikers that didn't have alot of money but made up for it in mechanical ability and stick to it. Let's face it, it was almost a full time job to keep those choppers running.

If you were young and riding a Harley you most likely built that bike yourself. You hung out with your own kind, others that built their own bikes.

It was not uncommon to be told that the motel or campground was full or "Didn't Allow Motorcyclists". Hell we all knew we fucked up now and then but we always made good on damage or paid for the repairs. Which didn't happen too often. When we did find some place that accepted us we always made sure we would be welcomed back.

You swapped and traded bike parts, good times and the brotherhood of Harley Davidson, because then it was an exclusive club, that wasn't easy to join. You had to build a bike to be part of it. There was also a feeling of us against them, the citizens, that fostered this brotherhood of Harley Davidson.

Getting back to EasyRiders, in those days the bikes that were featured were built by regular readers who were proud to have their bike in EasyRiders. There were very few bikes built by what I call the Professional builders. The bikes were all very rideable and most of the time being ridden right into the studio to shoot.

The thing is today you don't find this anymore. Don't think I am pointing the finger at EasyRiders cause I am not. They have moved with the times. How many people do you know that are building bikes today!

Very few Harley riders build their own bikes anymore. One of the reasons is that the factory puts out some damn nice customs. If you can make the payments, you got your face in the wind.

The other is that the crowd has gotten older and become part of the establishment, and would rather make payments and get their bike serviced than build and service their own home built bike. The third reason is that it is damn expensive to build a bike, or even redo one.

Everything seems to run in cycles. Twenty one years ago the thing that got alot of us into Harley's was the movie Easy Rider. That movie presented a lifestyle and glamorized Harley Davidson to a whole generation that went in search of America, freedom and an escape from a horrible war.

In the eighties with the rise of my generation, the money and status was what it was all about. The yuppies went in search of freedom and discovered status symbols, one of which is called Harley Davidson. This has brought in something that is called a Yuppy Biker or in L.A. they call them R.U.B.'s or Rich Urban Bikers.

The big question is, does this mean that the right people are now riding Harley Davidsons? Will an economic down turn make people view Yuppies of the 80's with as much scorn in the 90's as they viewed bikers in the sixties and seventies?

I guess this means the mystique of Harley Davidson is now becoming socially acceptable and mainstreet America. We are not viewed anymore as the wild longhaired motorcycle anarchists we were 20 years ago. This has its good and bad points.

The bad points are, when was the last time you heard anybody refer to their partners as brothers. In the nineties this seems to have gone out of style with the me generation of the eighties. When was the last time you heard of any of your "brothers" building a bike or redoing their bike. Seems bike builders are as rare as unauthorized chopper shops have become.

Those that have been around for the last twenty years will remember that spring was always the time for coming out parties for the winter projects. These parties were where the brothers gather to toss down a beer with the other bro's and check out the sleds that "everybody" spent the winter building.

This was the primary reason for the founding of the Harley Rendezvous. As the bro's got older we noticed it got harder to get the crew together. The Harley Rendezvous was founded to get everybody together for at least one great run per season. Brotherhood, and common interests, and Harley Davidson are what Harley Rendezvous is all about. Not quick bucks, easy marks, or potential profits.

Along the way, the straight world has discovered what bikers are really all about. The straight business world now realizes that bikers are a good commercial market, they are now targeting bikers for business. This has brought blessings and blight.

The main blessing is options. By becoming part of the establishment, now we are acccepted, there's alot of places to go and things to do. There are also lots more people doing them. The downside is that you probably won't know alot of the crowd or consider many of them bros.

When you read EasyRiders you will not find most of the bikes were built by professional bike builders. The good point is that you get to see many new and very creative ideas by the best builder designers ever. The downside is that if you are a bike builder even with a healthy wallet, chances are that you will have a hard time getting your bike in EasyRiders.

The new Evo's run better and need less maintenance. They are the best bikes that Harley Davidson has ever built. The down side is they are the most expensive ever. It's great that Harley Davidson has acccepted the chopper or custom bike as a reality, and that the factory now builds them.

But has the day of the factory custom help end the day of the homebuilder? With the passing of the homebuilder, alot of what made an independent self-sufficient biker what he was, has also passed. That's probably why you don't hear too much talk about brotherhood anymore.

As Dylan sand, "The Times they are a Changin". Time marches forward for sure, maybe a sign of aging is when you start to think things used to be better way back when. Let's face it the life style has become commercialized, it's become a commondity, to be bought and sold to those with the price of a new H.D.

I think I am starting to understand how the old mountainmen felt as they saw civilization march west in the last century. It was nice to have some more people to talk to. With more people the spirit that made the lifestyle lived for and treasured began and finally passed away. They were forced to conform to the wishes of the majority. To a group of colorful individuals that lived for freedom it wasn't, and in most cases, even possible.

So the next time you see an individual that still believes in the old ways, you know the guy that still builds his own ride, and still talks of brotherhood, take a moment and spend more time with him. Don't hold it against him if he doesn't seem to want to get with what's happening, and likes riding his shovel, pan, knuckle or flathead. He's part of a vanishing breed that still believes in individuality and brotherhood and was probably at Woodstock. He still remembers what it used to be about.

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