Start the week topic

[guest7]

I was passing a building society today and they were playing an advert in their window. It showed shots of various people and the things they had bought. One shot had the words "my weakness" with a woman sat in a shoeshop (or suchlike) another showed a bloke stood next to a sportsbike with the words "My mid-life crisis".

Hmmmm...

We have kicked around the issue of motorcycling's identity before, but what about the self-identity that biking gives us?

My biking cues were things like the Fonz's Triumph, black leather jackets and the whole rocker image. This is still my idea of who I am, a rebel. Sat here in my Edwardian semi, with two toddlers snoozing in a nearby room, I suspect that this is a little awry. However, biking is a fundamental part of who and what I think I am.

Is this good?
GC

[squirrelciv]

Firstly we have got to get you away from radio 4 !

Don't aspire to any image personally, but motorcycling (thumpers in particular) fits my life because of it's simplicity. Infact the motorcyclist 'image' pisses me off and I quite dislike being labelled by my appearance, something I suffer from as a result of going bald and riding a bike. Gear I wear is there for practical reasons only, not because I identify with any particular genre, and the same goes for my bike. It's fits it's role perfectly, it can comute as well as tour and it's simple (air/oil cooled single cylinder, chain drive etc etc) So I suppose bikes are a part of what I am allbeit a simplist, someone who wants the least amount of complication and hassle in his life.
As Mrs onepot put it (I believe) Thumpers, simple like their riders.

[themoudie]

You been drinkin'?

I own motorcycles, ride, tinker, talk, read, about them and enjoy being around others who do similar!

What is it with this in depth***************analysis?

That's what I've never understood, thought about or gone 'there' over.

I am what I am, do what I do, enjoy motorcycles and lots of other things. BUT, analyse it?

Too much philosophy and wondering if the camera in the Sahara took an image of your good or bad side, does your head in. CHILL!!!!!!!!!!

It's all in Para Handy's puffer's name. ;-)

Cheers, Bill

[Richard Marshall]

So Graham,

Whats this about you having mid life crisis and strange thread convergence with POTD ?

[guest18]

It's all in Para Handy's puffer's name. ;-)

The Vital Spark? Och if Dougal was here he wad tell ye....

Image? Well I wear a black Arai so I must be a child of the nineties lol but then I'm also wearing a jacket designed in the thirties and riding a German bike whose technology is... well.... not that technical! So stuff the analysis, that's for a balmy summers day when you're reclining in the sun drinking a cold lager and attempting to read "Zen and the art.."

It's winter and riding at all means we must me mad, so we might as well get on with it and enjoy it (where we can)

In a rare snappy reply, when one of my subordinates saw my bike for the first time, he laughed and said "mid life crisis Smudge?" to which I promptly replied, "never died mate, never died"

Biking makes you feel alive, image is for selling debt. Here endeth the lesson
(Gospel according to Smudge 11:23:11)

[Andy M]

The image thing. This is why we are now offered 1200cc off road bikes that come with semi-slick tyres, 200 mph bikes that nobody with any other life can afford to insure, cruisers with a tank range of 13 miles and tourers you need a crane to pick up if you drop them. It really does my head in to be honest, but I guess it's just that the marketing people who use this stuff have given up on me. There isn't much fun for the advertising department in a bloke who'd rather buy last year (or decades) basic bike compared to the "image" guy who'll spend £10K to get a new shaped air scoop.

Smudge got it right. On a similar subject my bank rang to ask why i'd closed my account. I informed them that I wouldn't pay their £10 a month charge. They said that as I had a loan I wouldn't need to pay. I asked what about when the loan was paid off. The answer was that they thought i'd be getting another, they simply couldn't get their heads round the idea that I might want to keep the stuff I've got and be out of debt for a month or three. The brochure with the picture of the bike on it will be in the post as we speak!

If I have a self image (not sure I do), I hope it's sort of Motorcycle Explorer man. It's probably more Motorcylist from Millets but who cares!

Andy

[Steve Lake]

I'm with Bill, I'm into all sorts of things 'Thumping' being one, great bikes, great owners, lots of fun
Don't need to think about it any further than that
One thing I will say....I've considered myself a 'Biker' (whatever it means) since I was old enough to travel in my Dads sidecar (about 4 I think)

pip pip

[guest24]

I have always been an exponent of 'function over form'. Hence my garish leathers as they fit, my dirty waterproofs as they still work, etc. I need to get to work so I ride no matter what the weather. I have a shagged SRX so am still using the wifes CBR as its a bike.

What am I saying? I dont like to be pigeon holed. I'm not a pocket rocket Sunday rider though I have had several; I seem to have a predilection to Thumpers. Why? Just 'cos!

Image - none. Rebel without a clue - probably!

[beeman]

Thinking about life, bikes, the world, way way to deep for me.
 
I am who I am. I ride 'cause I do. I live because I don't like the alternative and if SWMBO found me thinking I'd be in trouble!!!!!

NUFF said

beeman

[guest27]

Umm where does this leave me.

Mad about bikes but have not ridden one regulaly for years - mix of needing to transport dog, ME/CFS and money being spent on other more pressing things (female), but still consider myseelf part of the brotherhood/sisterhood.  Not really too bothered about what the bike is or what the rider looks like (mind a tall blonde with tight leathers and a sexy smile on a Ducati sounds good to me).  Get a little hacked off with people who ride as if they are immortal - but there again I guess I did once.  Mind it also gets me when you are in a car / bus etc and someone comments on the mad riding of someone who is being perfectly reasonable but making progress.  Did wonder if the AIM were real riders once - but I think that was more to do with the bunch who were 'instructing' me.  When Pete the Policeman came along on his 200 Bendy things looked up, and it turned out you could be a member of the AIM without riding a BMW or having a surgically implanted broom handle.

Nice bunch of lads apart from that....

Oh and girls on scooters in skirts and court shoes - dont mind a flash of leg it is just the thought of what happens when they slide up the road - apart from deciding bike are all dangerous - rather than 15 denier stockings not being the best leg defence....

R

[Martin Churchill]

I'm not sure about my "biking self image", but my biking hero has always been Ogri - and I'm glad to say I now have a Mitzi lookalike as well!

Admittedly, my riding ability is more like that of Malcolm, but maybe I'll do better when (if?) I eventually become a grown up biker.....

Mind you, I recently met a bloke who's just opened a bike repair shop in the Midlands:  during conversation I realised that I've had a bike licence for a few years longer than he's been born!

[Steffan]

When you ride the sort of iron I ride you cannot afford to dwell on the whys and wherefores. Nevertheless I would have to say that my bikes represent a small act of defiance, a f*ck off to those who want to have us buying something new every year and Skorpion aside they are cheap to keep. With the MZs the appeal is in part a certain ostalgia, and the Enfield tickles me because it is a bike still built successfully by India (former colony) where England (former superpower) has failed. It is both amusing and irritating to observe the inherent racism that it invokes. I consider myself a biker because it is a handy shorthand but also because I don't see why it should be hijacked by a bunch of pseudo Hells Angels lookalikes. Finally and principally I just love the sensation of riding and the pleasure of fettling motorcycles.


S

[squirrelciv]

Finally and principally I just love the sensation of riding and the pleasure of fettling motorcycles.

S

Spot on matey :-)

[guest7]

People are getting quite serious about this. I only meant to highlight the fact that we all of us have some sort of self image stuff going on with our biking. Who amongst us is going to deny that they carry themselves differently when they wear a leather jacket as opposed to a suit?

I'm interested to hear what you feel even if it's just the case that being on a bike is where you feel most comfortable and/or happy.

I feel lucky to be a biker (using the word in its loosest sense) and every time I ride I feel at home.
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[Colin433]

Leave worrying about image and self-image to the f*#kwit company mondeo drivers panicing that Ponsonby in accounts has the gslfrx ghia with the extra cup holders. Ride a thumper because there is a direct link from the throttle to your endorphins. Keep it on the road as long as possible just to stick one in the eye of all the marketing gurus trying to make us all chop bikes in every 18 months to get the all new all singing and dancin super turbo nutter latest model. I wear bike clothing that has been accumulated on an "as required" basis not as a fashion statement. If they say anything about me it's probably "he's colour blind but he has an eye for a bargain". If you are happy doing what you do then keep doing it.