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Tuesday, April 28, 2020

How Long ??????

OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
The riding season is here for most of the country and it isn’t uncommon for local policemen to stop riders for the sole purpose of telling them to go home. This riding season may or may not put a smile on your face.
But whether the bike basically stays in the garage or not, even if worst comes to worst, there will be a riding season next year or the year after that. It might look like Mad Max. Outlaws may invade small towns and some guy in a hockey mask at the head of the pack may demand through a bullhorn, “Give us your toilet paper and we will go away. We only want toilet paper. Not your women. Resistance is futile.” No matter what, there will still be bikes and bike riders.

Yay

“The Biker Lifestyle,” on the other hand, might be on a ventilator already. Everybody is going broke. Millions don’t know how they will keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. For the last 35 years or so, the “lifestyle” has been about selling people symbols they don’t really need. The “lifestyle” has always been about prosperous men saying “Yeah, I’m a badass outlaw. Got a tattoo and shit. Respect my bitch Poppy. These are my sons Fielding and Merritt. Don’t look them in the eyes. I raised them to be badasses, too. Fielding! Fetch me my genuine Harley-Davidson work gloves!”
The Harley-Davidson Motor Company found the limits of biker affinity marketing the hard way starting in about 2008 People do not actually need a $35,000, teal, custom motorcycle with a 131 cubic inch engine – cool as it might be to park one of those things outside a bar. I can’t say how it would run.
Integral to the biker lifestyle has been the big bike fest which culminates every year in the greater Rapid City, Belle Fourche, Sundance, Buffalo Gap metropolitan area. That rally is called the Black Hills Rally and it is a wonderful place to buy five tee shirts on sale, a collapsible baton or a carton of Camels. You can also buy a pair of $800 boots, photograph a woman wearing blue paint instead of a bra and meet a real policeman.

Show Goes On

It might be time to consider what the summer may bring.
The Lauhhlin River Run, which attracts up to 70,000 riders, had been scheduled to unfold in all its majesty from April 23 to April 25. With a month to go, on March 25 the promotor announced, “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the 2020 Laughlin River Run has been canceled. Please check back for 2021 Laughlin River Run dates & information”
Two days later the “Progressive Laconia Motorcycle Week” released an announcement that explained: “The Board of Directors of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association held a teleconference meeting on March 26th and determined a decision would be made no later than April 30th on whether or not the Rally would be postponed from June 13th-21st, 2020 to August 22nd – 30th, 2020. At this time, they are optimistic the rally will still be held in June.
“This could be a huge boost for morale of not just motorcycle enthusiasts but everyone in the region,” says Charlie St. Clair, Executive Director for the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association. “This event brings millions of dollars to the state and is critically important to NH businesses and our tourism economy. Not only that, we have all been cooped up inside for well over a month – What better way to tell the world we’re returning to normal when we hear the familiar June roar of motorcycles returning to Weirs Beach?”
.The Republic of Texas Rally which had been scheduled for March in Austin, has now been scheduled to compete with Laconia from June 11 to June 14.
The Hollister Independence Motorcycle Rally, which commemorates the Holister Biker Riot which inspired the motion picture The Wild One which inspired the smash television hit Sons of Anarchy which inspired the smash television reality series The Devils Ride which has provided the basis for most biker expert witness testimony for the last decade is still on. The Hollister Chamber of Commerce sincerely believes that the Covid-19 plague will be but an unpleasant memory by July 3 and that everybody will be able and inclined to spend like drunken sailors until July 5.
Surely, our many state, local and national leaders will have resolved this plague by August 7, 121 days from now, when an estimated 400,000 motorcycle enthusiasts in the greater Sturgis area can finally finish with social distancing.
Maybe everybody can gather at the Buffalo Chip to burn big, wooden replicas of the novel CoronaVirus.