Are you a REAL biker?

How do you know if you are a REAL biker?

I cringed as I typed that. Seriously, I can’t stand it when we label people. Labels are for underwear and beer bottles, not for people. We all do it; we label everyone. This person is my “best friend and ” that person is my “socafriend” (you’re welcome for that one, by the way); George is a “freak”; Candice is a “slut”; Fred is a “loser”; Tom is a “biker.” We just can’t help ourselves. 

So, how do know if you’re a REAL biker? Well, let’s take a look and see if we can figure out what a real biker actually is. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a biker as, “a person who rides a bicycle or motorcycle” while the Urban Dictionary defines a biker as “someone who not only owns a motorbike but rides it for pleasure as well as mere transport. They tend to be a friendly bunch but any who crosses them will be ‘persuaded’ not to do so again!” Ooohh… UD's definition seems pretty ominous, right? Of course, the Urban Dictionary is implying that a “biker” is someone that may, or may not, be associated with a certain group, or groups, of motorcycle enthusiasts that don’t necessarily consider themselves to be a part of the “99%” of law abiding motorcyclists out there. While not every entry into the Urban Dictionary may be on par with our trusty Merriam-Webster's, the UD certainly is reflective of our societal trends and common colloquialisms. Take the word “ratchet” for example, UD says that “ratchet” is “a ghetto-dialect mispronunciation of the English term "wretched." Meanwhile, we all know that a ratchet is a tool that we use when we are wrenching on our bikes. As it were, it seems that the only thing that these two, certainly reliable sources of literary information, have in common is that for there to be a biker, there must be a bike. 

If we can all agree that a biker has to have a motorcycle, we can move on to dissecting the “REAL” part of the term. We don’t need a dictionary to tell us what real is, we all know what’s real and what isn’t, so what makes a biker real or not? Is it his clothes- does he have to wear a leather vest with patches to be real? If so, what about all those motorcycle clubs that wear denim? Would you be so bold as to walk up to a group of them and inform them that their Levi Strauss denim vests do not meet the proper “leather vest” requirements, therefore they may not refer to themselves or their counterparts as “real bikers”? Perhaps the measure is their particular state of employment? Does a person have to be employed in some kind of labor trade to be a “real” biker, or can they be a doctor, an engineer or maybe even a cop? For that matter, can a woman be a real biker? What about a homosexual? 

Maybe we are just overthinking this whole damn thing… maybe it is as simple as their motorcycle? Perhaps, as the common perception goes, the only real bikers are Harley-Davidson owners. Unless, that is the particular biker in question does not have a Harley, but rather, he has a 1945 Indian… then maybe he can be a real biker. But, wait... what about the guy that rides the vintage Triumph chopper? You know, the guy that hand built his own hardtail frame then rebuilt a Triumph pre-unit that he found in a junkyard, bolted it in, then rode the ole beast across the country? Can he be a real biker, even though he’s kicking around on an old British powered machine? What about the guy in Japan that cut, chopped and built a badass custom bike out of a 1986 Honda Goldwing? And since we are talking about Goldwings, what about the Goldwing riders that have over 300,000 miles on their bikes and have ridden their machines in all four seasons in every state (and abroad) wearing their hi-viz jackets and mustard yellow safety helmets? Are they real bikers? What about Ted Simon, you know the guy that wrote the book, Jupiter's Travels (which, if you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend that you do)? Ted Simon wrote that book after he spent four years riding his 500cc 1973 Triumph T100 around the world through 45 countries. Is Ted Simon a real biker? You're damned right he is.

You see, I've known a lot of people that have Harley-Davidson motorcycles who say that people who ride bikes like Suzuki GSXRs, Kawasaki Ninjas, Yamaha Stratoliners or Honda Shadows can’t be real bikers, no matter how dedicated to riding they are, simply because they don't ride American bikes. These are the same guys, by the way, that have their $25,000 Harley-Davidsons parked in the garage 10 months out of the year. You know them, they are the guys that brag about all the rallies they go to, yet their bikes see more miles riding on the back of a trailer than they do rolling on their own rubber; they're the same guys that only ride to the local bike nights whenever the weather is "Goldilocks perfect." I’ve also heard that only men can be real bikers, but I've seen some ladies rippin' the curves in the mountains and they sure as hell looked like real bikers to me. I've known a few folks that live, as the polite folks would say- an alternative lifestyle, that ride motorcycles (some of whom ride Harley-Davidsons). I know cops that are in motorcycle clubs and I've seen more than a few nurses, doctors and several engineers that ride. 

Growing up as a ginger kid, I was given plenty of labels. It certainly didn't help that I wore those auburn locks in a fantastically awful, late '80's powered mullet and wore ripped up, stone-washed jeans. In my youth, I had a few second-hand dirt bikes and I took an old Suzuki GN400X that came to our house in boxes, fumbled my way through putting it back together not knowing what the hell I was doing, and got it running. I rode that thing until my folks got rid of it one day while I was at school. All their best efforts to protect their baby boy from the dangers of two wheels was all for naught, though. I started back on a Kawasaki EX500, then I moved on to cruisers. I've had a couple of Hondas, a Yamaha and... well... a few different Harley-Davidsons. It's bizarre to see it typed out, but I've ridden over 100,000 miles of paved roads on two wheels and countless miles of dirt trails. Does that make me a real biker? Honestly, I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. Neither should you. If you want to call yourself a biker, or even the highly coveted real biker, then go for it. It's just a silly label anyway.