SPORT BIKE RIDERS vs. CRUISER RIDERS: THE COMING WAR

The more things change the more things stay the same. Unfortunately that's very much the case with the current state of the union when it comes to today's MC community regarding many things but specifically between the culture clash between the cruiser and sport bike crowd. In the 60's across the Atlantic in London there waged a war that went on for years between the Mod's and the Bikers. The Mod's were the scooter cats and the Bikers were the cafe racers (American translation: bikers who seriously modified their stock bikes so they were the English version of the US Chopper Bad Boys). I know what you're thinking: only pussies rock scooters but the brawls between the two groups were vicious and quite bloody. It was like West Side Story meets Glee but with chains and knives. While the body count was low, the haunts frequented by both sides saw a lot of blood, broken teeth and bruised ego's destroyed and laid to waste.

Like any war whether between countries or between biker groups, it all started somewhere and the root cause of it all is misunderstanding and a failure to communicate. If cruisers and sport bike riders don't learn from the mistakes of the past, we are doomed to repeat them. (repeat that please, and yes, pun intended)

Whenever something racial happens in this country news outlets do their special segments on racism and where it comes from and ultimately it always starts in the home. With bikers, I believe biker racism starts within the club or your associations. I was introduced into this life by outlaws who of course swore by Harley Davidson. I heard day after day after day how any other motorcycles weren't motorcycles and people, especially people who rode those rice burners, were not only un-American, but they weren't considered bikers. As a child listening to this it made an impact on me but as an adult I took the time to examine the origins of that racism and this is what I discovered.

Biker racism is deeply aligned with the battle lines between the Allies and the Axis in WWII. Russians, Americans and the Brits were the "good guys" as the Allies and of course the Italians, the Japanese and Germans formed the Axis. When GI's came back home bike clubs and the 1% attitude that continues to this day took root. It makes perfect sense that the GI's who came home harbored deep seeded resentment towards all things Japanese, Italian and German because they had just spent years being killed by them, killing them and watching their friends killed by these people. That hatred became culturally ingrained within the MC's that were formed as most of those MC's had military men within their ranks. Harley's, Indians and Triumphs were the only bikes allowed in most these clubs. Keep in mind as well that sport bikes had not yet been created so there was no opportunity for them to be included in the advent of MC culture.

When the Japanese started mass producing bikes in the 60's and revolutionized the biker world with the introduction of the CB, battle lines were drawn. While the Japanese bikes were superior the patriots of the MC community remained true to Harley (Indian had died out by that time) and the animus towards all things Japanese became pure hatred and racism. In fact in the 80's President Ronald Regan passed a tariff on Japanese imports that specifically slowed down the invasion of Japanese bikes and allowed Harley time to regroup (after the AMF debacle) and come back strong and better than ever. I theorize that the hatred has waned towards Italians and Germans because of two things: the Italians and Germans never had a Pearl Harbor moment against this country and secondly, the Japanese were especially uncivil towards prisoners of war during WWII. It's not easy to let go of those things. I do know Jewish riders who will never purchase a German motorcycle and culturally speaking, I understand that. So Italian and German motorcycles aren't as viled ( though not acceptable in OMC's for jewelry consideration) as anything Japanese and they remain politely outcasted from outlaw and traditional MC consideration.

Amazingly enough people who haven't even fought in Vietnam are carrying the resentment of GI's from WWII simply as a result of it being passed down from generation to generation. This generation has their Pearl Harbor with 9/11 yet the current biker culture fosters the rightfully deserved shock, hurt and anger from an event at least three generations removed for reasons that don't include patriotism. The resentment has diseased the biker community to the point where its permeated the cruiser mindset causing an unjustified animus towards bikers riding Japanese bikes. The final result is racism and as we all know, racism whether by race, culture, religion, sex or bike brand, is stupid. The cruiser segment has a deeper division that fortunately is not shared in the sport bike community. Harley owners have earned their reputation as nasty elitists by refusing to do the biker wave to any non-Harley riding biker and putting down other bikers simply because of the brand of bike they ride. I remember getting into a very intelligent debate with a skin head explaining to him the difference between a racist group and a race group.

"A race group is proud of their race without finding the need to put down other races. A racist group makes putting other races down their priority above celebrating their own racial pride." Harley riders are generally thought of as biker racists who put down other bikers and the animosity from other bikers towards Harley owners is not only justified in some cases, but well deserved. 

Today, the "battle lines" are as rigid as Wolvernine's adamantium bones and the animosity between cruises and sporties has grown. However it's important to note the responsibility for that growing animus should be mutually shared by the sporties and cruises as both sets have done very little to cultivate an atmosphere of mutual respect for each other.

Speaking in generalities, sport bike riders are younger and with age or the lack thereof, an undisciplined nature that is reflective in how sporties ride their bikes and conduct themselves as MC's. It is very rare to see sport bike MC's ride their bikes in tight formation and maintain that formation given the opportunity to "blast off" on clear highways. There's nothing wrong with opening the throttle from time to time but when sport bike clubs make it a habit of endangering their own lives and the members of their clubs on public streets, the ones they endanger also become the cagers who already have a very low to little tolerance for all things motorcycle. Once the cagers begin getting annoyed the police are mobilized and when the police who can't or won't distinguish between sporties and cruises get involved, they pull everyone over. Where as many sporties will happily get involved in a chase from police, cruises more then likely will not and what happens the cruiser rider is left to deal with the aftermath of annoyed cops while the sporties who caused the issue in the first place are long gone. Not only is this a common issue that cruiser riders bring up, but it's one that seems to be growing worse every year.

A cruiser rider from NY shared the following: 

"I was at an event this year and, yeah I'm riding dirty. I ain't go no papers or nothin' but I'm out with my bros and everything's all good until some young fuck on a sport bike starts poppin' wheelies in the street up and down, up and down. Eventually the cops came and me and my bros had to scramble. That kid fucked up the day for all of us 'cause we got weapons and shit and we can't be interacting wit' no cops. If we had seen that kid later not only would we have fucked him up but we would've fucked up his bike too."

There are places sometimes sanctioned for this type of riding but when you do it on the public streets it brings the ire of civilians and that in turns brings everything down on the entire event. It's wrong, it's selfish and it's a continual problem that highlights the selfish, juvenile and undisciplined nature of sport bike riders.

On the other hand, according to highway statistics motorcycle accidents have gone up the last few years for a number of reasons including the influx of new inexperienced riders, old riders too old to be riding and too many drunk riders. Those same statistics highlight that many of the drunk riders are cruises. The traditional image of the biker is a leather clad demon on a Harley drinking and partying hard. It's ridiculous however the image doesn't include that same leather clad demon on a Harley drunk inside a jail cell after being pulled over for erratic riding. Cops may be alerted to the community by the reckless antics of sporties with their speeds and stunts on public streets but they're equally drawn to the community by the irresponsible personal vices of cruises and their need to live up to an image.

A sportie from WA shared the following:

"You got these accountants and dentists watching Sons of Anarchy and they come out here on the weekends looking like bikers and because of the gun laws in some of these states, they rockin' a burner trying to be a tough guy. They get into a fight at a bar and like a true pussy, are too scared to pull their tool but they call the cops 'cause they got beat up. Cruiser posers are more dangerous to the MC community than we are. We ain't doin' nothin' but riding our bikes at least. They're out here barely riding their bikes and then doing dumb shit when they get off 'em as if the bike gives 'em the right to be tough. Fuck you." 

When asked what responsibility sporties have in the bubbling feud the rider said the following:


"Old heads are trying to force tradition and protocol down our throats but the thing is this, speed bikes weren't around when these rules were being made so why should we be forced to follow them? If sport bike clubs were around I'm sure things would be different so we're establishing our own type of tradition and the old heads just need to move over. All old heads get replaced by new thinking in a new generation. It's happening now and they don't like it. Move the fuck over. Period." 

While controversial and chest beating, the comments do suggest a very interesting sociological dichotomy. Motorcycling which already is a sub-culture within a culture has become so large that the sub-culture is creating its own sub-cultures within itself. What's even more interesting those sub-cultures don't have figureheads to guide them per say but rather are being led by the types of vehicles the people within those sub-cultures ride. I can't think of any other example where peoples behaviors and train of thought are governed not by a charismatic leader but rather an allegiance to a mechanical apparatus.

Which of course now begs the question, what are the two cultures being created?

The stereotypical image of a cruiser rider being a person who is older with the presumption of maturity and the dexterity to ride long miles at a pedestrian pace is the Bizzaro reflection of a sport bike rider who is younger, a speedster and more of a short distance rider with very little interest or ability to ride considerable distances (whether that's due to the bike or their proclivity to stay local and impress locally with their daredevil speeds and antics) Both generalizations have negative connotations but some definite truths. The generalizations also have positives in that highway police tend to pull over cruises less because more often then not their paperwork and bikes are legal while sporties adopt the ill advised aura of youthful invincibility in not just how they ride, but what they do in terms of skirting the law and not understand the impact if and when they become entangled in it.

There is a rapidly growing culture of African Americans and Hispanics moving over to cruisers specifically Harley Davidson and the mega popular Suzui-M series. Unlike Caucasians, the average age of the minority biker on an H-D or cruiser is actually younger so cruiser manufacturers have been building cruisers that are capable of never before seen performance in the category and sleeker looking machines. The results have been favorable but whether or not this causes the diverging cultures to come back together is something that has yet to be determined.

In terms of clubs I know traditional clubs and OMC's who while shaking hands with their sport bike support clubs, would never ever consider those members for inclusion into the "big" club based on not only the bikes these guys ride but how they ride and how the club conducts itself.  If the big club has accepted the fact that their support club allows females to wear rags that are identical to the men (and that's a big IF) the sporties still have to demonstrate the discipline within their own ranks to be considered for membership into the big club and that's a very unlikely scenario for a few reasons that have been shared with me.

"There's honor in this shit. It's not about panty chasin', trophy parties and all this club circuit bullshit. It's a certain pride in being who you are and being wit' the team you wit'. And then you layer it with decades of history and tradition you realize just how special this shit is. Problem is, these young cats don't know shit 'bout that and they ain't trying to learn it. If they knew about the cats who lived and died for this shit, the cats out here bangin' hard still they'd look in the mirror and see how stupid they look. If you don't know where you came from you sure as fuck don't know where you at and there ain't no tellin' where you gonna be. And that's whats fucked up wit' them dudes. They dumb as shit and they happy being dumb as shit."

Sport bike riders for the most part do not know MC history and rarely follow traditional MC protocol which means they're already starting off wrong. Because their members are so young including their leadership, the knowledge that the old heads have is either seen as being, "old head shit" or not applicable to today's circuit. That attitude fosters a lack of respect in the dominant club and relegates the sport bike clubs to being a Mickey Mouse Club; a club for children. That furthers the divide between the two. In the same breath, many cruises presume that many sporties know nothing about history, nor care to know when actually many sporties do know their history and despite having a sport bike, conduct themselves with the honor and prestige that goes with being a biker.

"You are not a biker unless you have a Harley. Period. No exceptions"
That clearly is wrong and just absolutely nuts. What cruisers and especially Harley riders have forgotten is that two wheels means they are in the community. Their actions and how they ride and conduct themselves should determine whether or not you will ever call them brother.
 

"Cruisers are for old people who can't cut it on a sport bike."
Again, a quote that I hear all too often. Cruisers are not built to do what sport bikes can do and in turn, the full capacity of what a sport bike can do is not built for civilian streets. It should be on a track. Cruisers like sport bikes if ridden correctly coupled with maturity and experience can do things that can impress. Stupid comments like this are not impressive and reflect an immature and juvenile mindset. 

"Unpatriotic." 
I know GI's who ride Japanese motorcycles. I'll be damned to tell a man or woman who has killed for this country that he or she is unpatriotic because they ride a non-American motorcycle. In fact, I dare you to try it.

In 1861 this country experienced a civil war and to date it is the bloodiest affair to have ever marred this country's very young existence. When principles clash and passion and fervor become blunt instruments of hatred, blood will be shed. The biker culture is clashing and history says the divide will eventually become intense enough that blood will be shed again.

That is unnecessary and what I am proposing is a maverick idea of preemptive peace. I'm not suggesting formal conferences like PRO conventions or anything of the sort and I'm not even advocating more Facebook forums or blogs. What I am suggesting are mixed bike rides and events where the different cultures can come together and interact. Riding is fundamental and while many so-called bikers today are challenged to actually ride their bikes (coupled with many sport bike riders physically unable to do long distances because of their bikes riding position) compromises can be made that ensure the two sides ride together and enjoy that camaraderie that only riding can bring. Like anything I think we'd find that the obsessive love we have for our bikes can lead to mutual understanding and tolerance of each other and perhaps something even greater.

Thanks for reading.

Preach

" All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers."-Francois Fenelon