My inspiration to ride a Harley started with a house full of hippie chopper riders a few blocks from me growing up. Loved the hair, 60s clothes, music, everything. The whole Easy Rider style. JMHO but I have no use for the outlaw biker lifestyle. I was a month or so from being a patched member of a well known club that provides an important public service but the more I got involved the more I realized how much the COC controls everything and who pretty much controls the COC. Didn't even want to be that close to the outlaw biker lifestyle.

 

My grandmother used to think the local HA were the funniest thing in the world so I was never able to take outlaw bikers too seriously from a very young age but as I say, nearly every male in the family had a bike as well as a couple of the women so it was inevitable. These days I know a few MC members and in general they are regular guys with a couple of exceptions, that life suits some but not others and certainly not me, it has the essence of macabre pantomime in my opinion.

 

No one in my family ever rode a bike, that I know of.

When I was just a young kid, I would see a group of guys in their leathers and patches riding and thought it was soooo cool....and the bad boy image appealed to the little pre-teen rebel in me, so yeah...the "outlaw biker image" might be what initially drew me in, but I put away those ideas a long time ago and now I just love to ride.

 

As A kid on family vacation in Monument Valley we saw a line of literally hundreds of Bikers roaring through the valley. We were parked on a spur off the main highway so we had a birds eye view of the valley below. There was a gas station along side the highway and a few of the riders pulled in to the pumps but were encouraged to keep moving by the Sheriffs in the parking lot. there were Sheriffs cruisers following the last of the line as they threaded their way out of sight. I would have to say that was the day I began lusting for a motorcycle.

 

Why, thank ya, Sir.

 

My father, Satan's seed, was the baddest Dude I knew on a bike growing up.

 

Same here! Too funny, we had a club house between my house and and Jr. High and High School and I loved listening to the bikes and how each had it's own sound and there were several brands of bikes, from Europe, Japan and American in various stages of chop. I wanted a bike to chop from the 10th grade on and by 18 I had a Honda Vert. Twin 450 street bike that had been crashed and I bought 6" over tubes bent the neck up by cutting the bottom loose and rebuilding the down tubes to a single tube from just under the front of the motormounts to the neck and gusseted at both ends. It was trial and error on the layout. It shook it's head like crazy above 80 mph or so and I think the front was lower the first try. Longer tubes made by a machinest out of some heavy steel alloy tubes that were 12" over and longer springs via the stock ones and added short softer ones to make up the difference. It looked better, the front was way taller then before, we did compress the springs as much as possible and that maded a difference too. Good fun!! It was amazing that I lived through some of the stuff we did. Next came a 3 cylinder 2 stroke, it crashed.... But yes the 1%ers did influence me into motorcycles. My pocket book got me into Harleys tho...

 

My dad had a sportster when I was young

My uncle raced pro comp drag bikes (kawasaki). I used to go with him to the races and hang out in the pits during races. He always ragged on harleys and the people who rode them.

One summer he got beat out of the semifinals by a harley, he wouldn't let me tell my dad

 

yes......

 

Never even considered "outlaw bikers".... Had dirt bikes as a kid, a best friend who rebuilt a Sportster in 1988, then a need for speed fed by a Yammy FZ1 because I coudn't afford a Harley. Once I could afford a Harley I got one. Later, I purchased the pilot for SoA and it was silly though I have subsequentrly read several books about motorcycles and their cultures..... Under and Alone, No Angel, The Fat Mexican, Hell's Angel, BoozeFighters, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.....