Internet bikers

The Shitheap - sold for 75 grand .

Internet Bikers

In today’s information super highway age of society I think its super easy to become a Hardcore Biker. When I was growing up it took an act of god for me to gain the knowledge that I desired about motorcycles. Things I wanted to know and do had to be “Earned”. When I was 16 years old my second bike was a 1976 FLH that had the complete top off and I had no idea how to put it back together. I took it to a shop called “The Chopper Place” to see if they could help me get it back together. Now these were “outlaws” that had zero time for some punk kid that didn’t have any money. After about 15 minutes of mean looks and condescending gestures. I loaded my bike up and took it down the street to and old school HD mechanic named Norm Keepers. Now Norm wasn’t exactly a friendly type of dude, but I think he sensed my enthusiasm about getting my bike running. He told me that as long as I was willing to listen and work hard? He would help me get it going. That I did! I worked with him every day after school till it was done. The bike ran like a top and I think I gained Norm’s respect. I also gained knowledge of how to R&R a top end of a Harley. I will never forget jumping on that fucker for a blast down the freeway. I looked at the ground racing beneath me and felt like I was doing a million miles per hour. I had that bike for 10 years.
The point of this story is that times have changed. People no longer have to earn the rights to be a “Biker” or a “Wrench”. You can simply login into any number of chopper type of websites and learn the entire lingo to sound like you know what you are doing without actually doing it. The only sweat and hard work is time in front of a computer screen.
All of these websites have at least 2 or 3 “Experts” that are the foremost authorities of everything “Biker”. They have spent thousands of hours flexing their vast digital knowledge at “Newbie’s” that login on to the sites that they patrol. Do these badass’s actually ride? Do they work on bikes? I wouldn’t know, but they sure sound like they do. They have become “Bikers” in this new digital era. They earned it on a keyboard with post counts in the tens of thousands, and not with the twist of a wrench. This all leads me to think someday we will all not ride at all. We will probably not even have bikes. This whole scene will become a gigantic game of Dungeons and Dragons with choppers. Everyone will craft the motorcycle of there dreams digitally and the knowledge to go with it. We will all ride to Sturgis from every corner of the globe on our Pentium Processors. We will send each other a round of digital beers and the Online Broken Spoke Saloon. Nobody will ever trailer their bikes again!
I really hope this Internet shit never gets that out of hand. Next time you’re at a shop or the dealer, and you see a guy that works there with grease on his hands? Go up to him and ask him what he’s working on, or what kind of exhaust he recommends for your bike? Just strike up a real face-to-face conversation. You might just learn something, and you might just earn the respect of somebody that didn’t get his talent off the Internet.

Jesse James - CEO West Coast Choppers / A.S.S. - Austin Speed Shop .