To me, it is basically what bdgr is saying. I’m a rider of a few years, not a biker, and a trend I’ve noticed is that bikers are the original anarchists, before punk rock became trendy. Anything that shocks, is up for grabs. Do a search on ebay. I’m looking for a third brake light for my bike and there are more than a few maltese cross tail lights on the market. I lived in CA many years before moving to the midwest a couple years ago, and in CA I didn’t see too much of it, but here, the basic basic rider is what they used to be… a shock jock. The image of “I’m a bad ass biker”. They have the fringed leather jackets, the nazi helmets, the maltese cross mirrors and taillights, a mullet, etc. Not so much anti-citizen but anti-establishment, which like most punk rockers, means that they are trying to say that they are expressing their individuality by wearing the same basic clothing and riding the same basic bike as everyone else in their class in order to show that that they don’t belong to a certain group. I know a “biker” at work who rides to work in Harley leather, nazi bucket, and jackboots, and changes into slacks and shoes in the bathroom in the morning. In his own words, just so he looks the part on the freeway. They are trying to express the part of the “biker” of a couple decades ago.
When is the last time you saw a guy on a chopper wearing a Members Only jacket?
Heh, I know a few “Bikers” like that. Me, I ride to work in jeans, a leather jacket, and Aussie Blundstone boots, the same as I wear inside work, church, my moms house, or anywhere else. I used to ride a chopper, had the cut off denim jacket with all the patches, engineer boots and the obligitory primary chain belt. I wasnt trying to be an individual(your right though, bikers and punks are not as far off as they want to think they are…I hung out with both), I was trying to identify with a particular subculture that I was a part of…still am, to a degree.
I still ride a harley, though its not a chopper(there is another thread about that), I still go to swap meets,although the people I recognize are being replaced with tshirt and leather dealers…And weekend warrior yuppie types. I still can walk into several of the local bike shops, without a dime in my pocket, and walk out with whatever parts I need on my reputation alone. Thats the kind of thing that attracted me to the whole biker thing to begin with, that sense of honor and brotherhood that doesnt exist in many places…At the pate swap meet one year, I was talking to an old man about a BSA hardtail frame I wanted. I didnt have a dollar to my name, this guy had never seen me before, but he gave me his address and told me to come by and pay him for it when I got the dough, and handed me the frame. Said he had never been ripped off by a biker.(I paid him back of course)
And I wouldnt be caught dead in a fringed leather jacket or a nazi bucket…then or now.
I think both the iron cross and the spiked metal helmet were:
A. created
and
B. popularized in military regalia
long before the nazis.
Friday night I watched four 40ish men wearing iron cross chest medallions along with christmas-coordinated turtleneck sweaters playing surf guitar rock 'n roll music. They also wear Mexican wrestling masks and speak only spanish throughout the set.
They are Los Straightjackets.
Yes, surf guitar is like Pulp Fiction, baby. Don’t you lissen to a word I said?
Yes, the Iron Cross was part of the German insignia from WWI or earlier. Furthermore, here’s a picture of the famous Blue Max medal, which was awarded during that war and earlier, and is the shape of a true Maltese Cross.
The spiked helmet – the pikelhaube – was worn in several European armies up until the end of WWI, but not by the Nazis. Ironically, a spiked helmet can be seen here decorating the gravestone of a Jewish German soldier who died in 1915.