In answer to your questions:
Yes.
Yes.
Could be.
No.
No.
No.
Maybe.
Definitely NO.
and F&^%$ NO.
No.

All the above is of course only my opinion.

"So, is it just the look that defines "biker"? The people you associate with? Is it the miles? The suffering you undertake to do what you love? (an artist suffering for his art)"

All the above.

"Or is it just that you're a biker & everyone else is a damn poser?"

YES.

 

it's a Hibbystyle

 

Well, at least someone revived a 6 month old thread rather than than start a whole new one on this crap.

 

For years wondered about what it meant to be a biker.Then one day it hit me I am one.Don't have to adorn a patch or a vest,or live in a commune.It's all about what you feel inside and how you live your life, Period! Other peoples opinions are interesting but that's all they are.Opinions!

 

I will refer back to my favorite quote. " I would have to give a **** about someone's opinion in order for it to bother me" Just ride your bike and who cares what anyone else thinks.

 

Well said I will add. I have ridden for a couple of decades and back in early/mid 80s if you rode a Harley no one ever asked if you were a biker. If you had a Harley you were a biker. Pretty simple and of course owning a Harley back then also had a stigma attached to it. We were all dirtbags to the civilians. Everyone considered you a scumbag and I doubt any of us gave a ****. And frankly I kinda liked it. It helped keep some people away from me when I was younger and more anti social. Not the charming, sweet pea that I am now.

Flash forward to Jesse James show and American choppers and now everyone is in on the game. It has good parts to it and bad parts to it. You go to an open event now and there are a lot of amateurs there drinking and ****ing up. Sort of like new Yrs Eve people are drinking when they haven't touched it all year and now they are hammered running their mouths and riding their bikes in to the side of a cage or God forbid in to someone on their bike.

But there are also now eleventy billion places to buy parts and accessories, tons of great ideas to adapt for your own bike and the used bike market right now is really solid. I was looking on Craig's list and now there are so many Harleys on there they have had to drop prices.

To me being a biker means that given the choice between a car and a bike you'll ride the bike. Because when you get on that bike and travel down the road **** everything else. The world is much better on the back of a bike. You love your bike, you take care of it, you do the maintenance and you are bummed when it isn't working right and nothing else gets done until you fix it. Your bike is what lets you fly down the coastal road or down some twisty mountain road smelling the outdoors and you see things so much better.

Sometimes I think that without a bike, due to the stress of my job, I'd probably be in prison for using someone's neck like a stress ball and choking them out just to make me feel a bit better. So at the end of the day my bike is a public safety issue. My bike keeps those around me safe and sound. Just life coffee and booze.

Now that I think about it people should pay me to have a bike.

 

I agree 100% with the above.

Self-Proclaimed "Biker" = Poser and/or RUB 99% of the time.

Me? I'm just another dude with a Harley.

 

I think sir, you have hit it on the head.

 

WHo the heck knows anymore? With so many riders from all walks of life, the "true 1%ers" are probably down to around 0.0001%. I want to know why there is not a government study on this issue, Several million dollars are spent every year trying to figure out why the dinosaurs and several other species have become extinct. here we have the opportunity to preserve a few old bikers before they are gone forever, and who knows, with genome technology we may even be able to clone a few for the future before it is too late.



Me, I'm just a socially dysfunctional and opinionated old a-hole who rides when I can and works when I have to.

 

And that, Sir, is the spirit. Ride on.