I don't have an expensive bike that is cleaned daily, don't even know what soap & water are for, and if I cleaned it, someone would steal it!!! No serious, I ride a minimum of 30,000 miles a year, used to ride in Chicago all year long. ABATE members used to hide my bike when I rode in a blizzard to ABATE meetings, from Sauk Village.
John Bole started the Iron Butt run, we used to ride together many years ago.
No, an expensive bike, and hardly any miles doesn't make you a biker. Nor does owning one, period, make you one. There's a difference between being a biker, and being a motorcycle enthusiast.
It's a lifestyle, it's pleasure, it's transportation. It's not a weekend toy to play with to go t2t riding. Your lifestyle is your bike, and the people who not only have the same interest but are more than blood to you. Blood doesn't make you family either. But there is a brother/sisterhood of people who live their lives around their motorcycle. You break down, they are there for you. Family gets sick, they are helping bring together funds to keep you out of debt. They are there for both emotional as well as financial support. A REAL biker will stop at the side of the road to help anyone with a motorcycle broken down at side of road, and not think twice about where the bike was manufactured. They will offer you a place to stay if you are stranded out of town, and don't even know you.
I sat once on the Dan Ryan expressway (CHICAGOLAND), in the summertime, and did a survey of how many people stopped to help me had I broken down. Patch-holders stopped more than anyone else did, as did others who rode older bikes like myself. Newbies, and motorcycle enthusiasts, waved as they passed by. Not one slowed down even to ask if I needed help.
So if you think you are a biker just because you own a motorcycle, look in the mirror, and rediscover yourself. And next time when you see that bike at side of road, maybe he/she might just need a little help.
