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Ratchet
Member since Aug 19, 2016
Recent Comments
Re: “Uneasy Riders”
"these are not the leathered, ball-peen-hammer-wielding bikers of decades past.... What makes it special is that it's raw," Coles says, "and that it's kind of spitting in the face of people that play too safe."
It's a free Country and it's great that people can do what they want. But before you get too congratulatory about reinventing the wheel, here are a a couple of points. Utah has a motorcycle culture that has been alive and well for over 50 years.
I was told by one of these individuals that they are real bikers (to the dismissal of others) and he touted the fact that he had 100,000 "lifetime miles" between his 6 bikes. I know guys in Motorcycle Clubs who get more than that in 2 years. They can sit around the fire and quote Hunter S. Thompson recalling his days hanging out with a Motorcycle Club, but they hypocritically deny those same kinds of Club members entry into their motorcycle "art shows". It's true that Motorcycle Clubs may not be fashionable, and don't travel with their own professional photographers, but believe it or not there is a motorcycle sub-culture in Salt Lake City that doesn't need to be shown "how it's done".
The irony of the opening quote of this post is that while they denigrate traditional motorcycle culture, they seem to capitalize on all the wrong stereotypical things associated with it, i.e., rolling into a small town, getting drunk, blowing things up, and making themselves a pain in the ass to the locals in order to experience a well orchestrated and highly quaffed display for their photo-ops. No real mention of Brotherhood / Sisterhood, or supporting a cause. Just selfies and hedonism. While they claim to live on the edge and "don't like to play it safe" they pose and posture, they don't want to rub elbows with people who created the culture they try to emulate, without "going there". It's great if you don't want to wear a cut, but you aren't Steve McQueen either.
It's pretty obvious that these folks are tied into SLUG Magazine and City Weekly, because I have seen way to much of these people in the pages of those rags in the last 2 years. Perhaps those publications might want to look on the other side of the fence, past the Euro-trash $$ biker jackets, and the sun setting behind their flowing locks, distressed denim, and that oh-so-perfect quaffed beard and bubble helmet, and see what the established SLC motorcycle culture is about.
This outfit was successful in what they really wanted to do. Self-promotion, Self-importance, entitlement, and their faces on the cover of City Weekly. This isn't some rebirth of Motorcycle Culture or Freedom, this is "Me" generation looking for their 15 minutes of fame. This is the same crowd that is about to bring us an "inclusive" motorcycle show, while in the same sentence discriminating against anyone wearing a patch on their back.