Sound does have a bit to do with the affection Harley-Davidson owners have for their bikes, though the fact that a Harley doesn’t really start running until it hits 75 mph may carry a little more weight. But it’s not the V-Twin that people seek, as you guessed. Any Harley owner with any mechanical know-how will tell you there are many motorcycles on the market (yes, even imports) that are better than a Harley. What people pay money for is the ethos. It’s the piece of Americana and symbol of unfettered youth that brings in the money. It’s the Harley group rides, annual gatherings like the infamous Sturgis, and commensurate comraderie that will lead a person to spend $20,000 on a motorcycle.
And speaking of which, the age of Hell’s Angels and ne’er-do-wells on piece-meal “chopper” Harley-Davidsons has passed. Consider this: the average Harley will sell for around 15 grand. After the initial purchase, you have to accessorize, both your self and the bike (with nothing but Harley-Davidson licensed products, of course). Now when a t-shirt goes for $25 and a set of leather saddlebags costs $400, we start to see what kind of people AREN’T riding these motorcycles.
As for the sound issue, my father explained to me just this week: “People buy Harley’s because of this: you can be 90 years old and as long as you can sit on your bike, crank it up, and hear that rumble, you can remember. You’ll always be a kid.”
Another data point supporting that Harleys aren’t for poor rebels anymore: Amtrak serves the Sturgis convention with a highly-successful section with extra passenger cars and motorcycle-carrying freight cars that it adds to the Lake Shore Limited (New York-Chicago) and Empire Builder (Chicago-Seattle). Heck, Sturgis isn’t usually a stop on the Empire Builder at all! But the special section is popular because its faster getting to Sturgis than driving from the East Coast and it prevents wear-and-tear on the Harleys. Mostly the latter, meaning that these expensive machines are meant to be shown off, not used as transportation.
Not that I’m condemning people buying expensive toys with their own money. If it makes them happy, hurrah for them. And I’m certainly not going to question Amtrak getting extra business. Nevertheless, a special train – sleepers, dining car, and all – isn’t exactly “Easy Rider”!
I was actually sorta offended by Cecil’s comments. I think they were rude, and off-based.
But I guess I should go tell my parents that they are rebel ne’re-do-wells, or my grandmother’s accountant that he is some sort of criminal.
Funny, I think of my parents, their friends, and some of the nicest strangers you will ever meet.
Maybe I am just a lil too sensitive, but dammit, shouldn’t we be battling stereotypes?
Actually, it was talking about what Cecil thought was stereotypically associated with Harley Davidson, but that’s all semantics. I agree pepperlandgirl, I think of the same kinds of people. I don’t (and I know they wouldn’t) take any offense because it’s just ignorance that leads people to have these (and any other) stereotypes in their heads. Ironic, though, that that’s what these columns are supposed to have been fighting.
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Interesting story concerning these stereotypes contrasted to the “nicest strangers.”
When I was in college, some friends and I (two girls and a guy) went on a trip through the West from our home in the South. On the way back we passed through South Dakota to see the Badlands. It was right at the time of Sturgis, so Harley Davidsons were all we saw for days.
While camping in the only KOA in the Badlands, some Harley guys came up from out of the dark and asked if we wanted to play a game, which involved putting on the hands-free walkie-talkie headsets they used for the road and disappearing into the woods. Just some fun-loving guys trying to have some fun with some crazy college kids.
I jumped at it (my dad had given me a set of those for my birthday once). But my friends were completely freaked out and were begging me not to go along, and in a tone of voice that was serious but visibly not-too-serious-as-to-rouse-the-bad-guys. When we were finished and the Harley guys were all laughing and told us to have a good night, my friends were confused. My buddy almost cried, he had been so scared. They were thinking that any moment these bikers (read: company vice-president and a retired sailor from Boston) would gut us all and leave our bodies in the public campground.
I couldn’t stop laughing. But I never realized before then how widespread this stereotype stuff still is; even my closest friend had this Hollywood / lingering Altmont image.
Was this before or after the Blair Witch project? I would have been dubious myself. Incorrectly, as it turns out from your experience, but still. Getting lost in the woods as night with strangers as a game? Yikes.
Well before Blair Witch. Actually, at the time, there were but six computers with internet access at our state university library, if that offers a chronological reference. And “woods” is something of a misnomer, as there is nothing but mountains of dirt in the Badlands. There were trees in the campground, and the one bright street lamp (the only one for half a state, I think) made wild shadows on the sparse “woods,” which, by the way, occupied only about forty square yards. The object of the game was to disappear into the shadows and sneak up on someone. As long as you kept speaking (with the headset, this was directly into someone’s ear), you could walk right up to them from behind without their hearing your steps.
I guess in retrospect this would seem quite strange to others, but I would have been leery of such a proposed game if they hadn’t been bikers. Oh, well, the story still illustrates the point of the false Harley image.
Jumblemind, sounds like a fun game. I wouldn’t be leery about it because they were bikers, I would be leery about any strangers approaching me at night in a campground wanting to run around in the dark. It’s not stereotyping bikers - it’s stereotyping serial killers running around in parks.
Bikers can look scary. Seeing a big guy wearing leather, scruffy beard and tangled hair, dirt and grease, lots of tattoos. Yeah, that certainly conjures up the fears imposed by parents during childhood. On the other hand, I was just listening to a conversation today at work between two guys from the machine shop who ride motorcycles. One was discussing some incidents of being hassled by cops. This guy is utterly nice and polite in all my dealings. But I imagine if he approached me in the dark in a campground and I didn’t know him, I’d be jumpy.
Of course there are several other people in the building who ride motorcycles, including a couple of upper level managers who often wear business suits.
“Bikers” are NOT “nice, misunderstood people”. Oh maybe they are not the gang scum that they used to be, but still most of them go out and spend extra money to make their motorcycle extra (and illegally) loud. On purpose. For no other reason that to “piss off the pedestrians”. We live Downtown and are subjected to this assault all night long.
Hmmm…stereotyping as nice = just as bad as stereotyping as mean? Good point. The world it is full of many colors. As for the strangers in the park, guess I am either too trusting or too intuitive. Maybe too stupid? But then why label? All of the above.
Nonsense. Myself, and everyone else I know make our bikes loud to keep from getting run over. I have no desire to piss off anyone. And, it takes more money when building a bike to make it quiet, you don’t “spend extra money” to make it loud. My bike has always been loud. From the day I built it. I could have put a muffler on it, but I need to stay alive to support my family. Some bikers are nice misunderstood people, some are total jerks(some are even gang scum, as you put it), just like every other subculture
[Just randomly browsing through “comments on Cecil’s columns” threads when I stumbled upon something I happen to have pretty strong opinions of. Honest.]
You’re saying that making motorcycles unspeakably noisy is a safety issue? Because around here sometimes I hear a rider making several passes by my house, and the noise is absolutely one of the most irritating sounds I’ve ever heard (and believe me, it’s a long list). I was baffled as to why mufflers were never required equipment.
How much does it help, anyway? There isn’t enough traffic in the 'burbs to justify waking up the neighbors, in the city it usually gets mixed in with all the other noise, and most freeways have good visibility anyway.
well, it really serves two purposes. It lets car drivers know you are there. Yes, there is good visibility, but motorcycles are considerably smaller and car drivers often don’t notice motorcycles unitl its two late(hence the bumber stickers that say start seeing motorcycles) Many times I have been riding and had a driver start making a lane change right into the lane I’m in, or start to pull out of a parking lot directly in front of me(I have an aquantance that was killed that way, and another who is disabled, ), even though they are looking right at you. Usually, If I pull in the clutch and rev the motor, they notice right off, and pull back in thier lane, or stop pulling out in etc. The horns on bikes aren’t loud enough, and even with an air horn, you can’t honk at ever single person pulling out of a parking lot. When I used to ride a BMW, with stock exhaust, I had close calls all the time with people who didn’t know I was there. THat doesn’t happen nearly as much on a bike with open pipes.
The other thing does is give you a kind of sonar. as people pull up behind or to the sides of you, you can hear a change in the sound of the exhaust, and you know someone is getting two close.
And mufflers are required equipment, but most cops I have run into understand that saftey aspect, and won’t cite you for it unless you are being a jerk.
As a driver and non-biker, I will attest to the lowered visibility of bikes, even on flat open highways. You know that nice little blind spot? It’s much more effective against motorcycles. Whereas you can generally adjust side mirrors to accommodate cars and cover the hole, motorcycles can sneak into the remaining gaps.
That said, I have also seen instances where motorcycle riders try to rush up and around cars, pulling into the places where the car was trying to go. I had it happen to me - I saw the guy behind me, began to change lanes, and found myself about to flatten him as he came around me. On a city street, not highway. So it goes both ways.
But yeah, many motorcyclists are safer than that, and still have visibility problems.
Oh yeah, and what seems like impenetrable noise to a person sitting in a house along the street can be virtually unhearable in a car with road noise and a radio on to a level high enough to enjoy over the road noise. I see it with sirens frequently, why not with motorcycles?
I am sorry, but the BS about it being a safety issue, is- well, BS. "Riceburners’ are no-where near as loud as harleys, especially those harleys modified for double or triple the noise, and they appear to have a better safety record, at least as far as car-bike accidents go, or if not higher, then no sig diff. Care to show some stats/cites that show that Harleys are involved in less car-bike accidents than other bikes? And a freind of mine did modify his harley to be louder-spent some hundreds of bucks- and got several tickets for it too. You can tell those which have been so modified, it’s more of a BRRRAAAP than a “potatoe” noise.
If they wanted to be safe, they would have a “beep” noise, like trucks backing up. Harleys are not about “safe”, they are the ones that fight against helmet Laws the most.
It’s a shame that a “dual mode muffler” is not easier to design for Harleys, such that they can use the loud, pass-through pipes on the open road, and a quieter, muffled path when coming home at night in their neighborhood. But I know this would add some weight and size onto the already large bikes, and probably wouldn’t be that reliable.
I wonder if anyone has done experiements with electronic cancellation (probably not powerful enough) or with varying-length resonance pipes (once again, weight, complexity, and cost for minimal benefit, I imagine).
Jap bikes are quite, and they get run over movre. The vast majority of bike accidents are japanese sport bikes, not harleys(Don’t have any statitisics handy, but neither do you). Nobody whould hear a beep noise on the highway, thats just silly. Yes, we fight against helmet laws, but because they are not safe. They restrict your field of vision, hearing, and are more likley to cause severe neck injuries in accidents, than they are to protect your head. Many states experiance an increase in motorcycle fatalities when the helmet law is inacted. I used to wear a helmet, when I looked into the facts about it, I stopped. Before you start insulting a whole class of people, you really ought to look at both sides. Saying things like thats all bs, Bikers are not nice people, they do it just to annoy pedestrians, is just plain bigotry. Your putting down people you don’t know, out of your ignorance. I can’t speak for your friend, or the people in your local, but the people I ride with Loud pipes are no helmets are strictly a safety thing.