2007 Working Man's Special
Ultimate HDF Member
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 9,193
Likes: 494
From: Richmond, VA
I don't know. Something just seems wrong about making new bikes look beat up. I get Old School looks, but trying to emulate grime, rust and fading...not so much. Theres a million old beater Shovels that pull it off a bit better.
Outstanding HDF Member
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,808
Likes: 3
Something just seems wrong about making new bikes look beat up. I get Old School looks, but trying to emulate grime, rust and fading...not so much.
Like taking sandpaper or acetone to your new leather jacket to make it look old and well worn. It's something about our modern american culture being a throw-away, replaceable, disposable consumer economy where people buy a cheap piece of junk leather jacket made by foreign workers and throw it away or into a closet in a year, never to be worn again when they buy ANOTHER disposable, foreign made jacket.
Nobody values things anymore and keeps them, wears them, uses them well and long with the respect that fine craftsmanship deserves.
deep down, we know we have feminized ourselves, spoiled ourselves, consumed ourselves into weakness, and to cover that up we FAKE it and make this year's jacket look like it was worn by a real, authentic, hard living/riding man.
Same with blue jeans. We know we'll be too soft and fat to wear a pair of jeans from dark blue to faded and roughed naturally. We don't own and care for 3 or 4 pairs of tough, well made, working jeans... instead, like aristocratic women, we have a whole closet made cheaply for us by poor children in a far away place. We know this is dishonest, wrong. So we fake it and make it look like our jeans are work jeans, like we wear them honestly and authentically.
Then again, it's just a paint job and I'm probably off the deep end with this ridiculous rant.
But that's what I think of when I see anything that is "distressed." Or called "working man's" when it cost well more than what the working man can afford... but then made to look like a working man's bike.
My apologies to the bike's owner, I am glad you like it, everyone should own a bike that makes them feel good and I don't mean to insult your ride. Please take this with a grain of salt.
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Ultimate HDF Member
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 7,079
Likes: 21
From: Queens, NY
i like the exhaust and the way they mounted that 09 rear fender.
other than that, i have to agree with the other guy who said their stuff is stock w/bolt-ons.
i can pick a handful of bikes off of this forum that blow their work away.
other than that, i have to agree with the other guy who said their stuff is stock w/bolt-ons.
i can pick a handful of bikes off of this forum that blow their work away.
Club Member
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 14,564
Likes: 9,225
From: the 50s & the 60s
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From reading all of that posting, I am sure you have feminized yourself.
I do believe that very few of the HDForum Brothers are following your lead.
speak for yourownself................
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