"There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it
and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity." - Roberson Davies

"You don't understand your own country. Go ahead and buy a street legal racing
Jap rice rocket that you will never be a good enough rider to
handle and kill yourself on it. You Fucking wimp."
-ironxs1@yahoo.com

THE
MILWAUKEE ORTHODOXY
________________________________

Your Guide to the canonical philosophy and belief system of one of the fastest growing, trailer park spawned white trash populated pagan religions in the world as well as a detailed look at The Church of Milwaukee and the sacred teachings of The Latter Day Hillbilly Saints

I truly never grow tired of the ebullient loyalty of the indigent sheep that revel in their store bought pseudo-patriotism while fervently swearing their misplaced, automaton-like fealty to Milwaukee’s ongoing crusade to expand rampant ignorance. These laughable genetic duds are suitable only for sport and it warms my jaded, dark soul to know that people like these individuals not only exist in the world but that they exist in large numbers (and they're breeding!). After all, if people like this didn’t exist, then the fast food restaurants and custodial services would have no social substrata from which to pick their most qualified employee candidates from, now would they?

Here then you will find the core retard logic, cliché argument points and the false set of beliefs (some of which are not even based on science as we know it) as understood and known by heart to The Faithful, The Brotherhood, The Sisterhood, and any of the other mentally stillborn who compose the rank and file of The Family. I think, starting now, that I will add numbers to my replies to the various scooterbillies, showing the reader what part of the Milwaukee Orthodoxy these mental pygmies are using.

"you are one fucking retard (32). i know lots of harley people and they are great (46). im going to be buying my 3rd harley in a couple months. buy american because people like you are hurting this country (36). go tell a vet you dont like american stuff (17). they fought hard for this country and you spit one it (27). i would like to kick your ass (30). you are the scum of the earth (47). Harley Davidson forever (45)."

Then you will know that this sentence includes verses and draws faith-based personal strength from the 17th, 27th, 30th, 32nd, 36th, 45th, 46th and 47th lines of the Milwuakee Orthodoxy. If you see a number in green in one of the emails to me, it's my notation that you should look here as well to see the fallacy of the logic behind these hill scoggins. Let's try another example for good practice and to keep our minds honed to a razor keen edge (the better to slice quickly through the sheep shit).

"well this is a very intesting site. i agree with some of what you say, with them having to high of price and being underpowered. But i would still rather ride an american bike than some jap bike, i dont like japanese anyway (38). I dont agree with you comparing sportbikes to harleys they are about as different as it gets (3). Of course rice rockets are gunna be faster, but can you ride them for more than a half hour without getting back cramps? No. (48) i am probably the youngest harley rider that you will meet, being only 15, but im also 6'1 and know that jap bikes are good for about ten minutes before you get a back ache. They are fun to ride but they are ugly and uncomfortable. Im not really that picky, if you cant afford a harley that is to bad (15) i have one just cuz my mom got another bike and i got hers(2004 sportster 1200c), guarantee that harleys hold their value a lot better than ur ricers (11). I could really care less how fast ur bike is, its usually u crotch rocket people who get into all the wrecks. (4, 42)" -chris

He's fifteen, 6'1 and spells like a 7 year old. I bet he wears overalls (only), rides barefoot, has a Kool-Aid mustache and calls his father "uncle daddy." And one more because I'm feeling generous and Jo's rather humorous email was simply too good not to include on this page.

"to the poor people people, your are all just too poor to afford a harley (14, 15). Why would you buy some garbage bike that at best is plastic, and then try to resell that bike and get any money back, oh oh , not much of an investment (11).I don't care for any of your fag bikes (21). And by the way, every one I talk to that does'nt ride a Harley always sez " As soon as I can afford it I'll get my hawg (15, 46). So all you guys and gals get better jobs, and buy a real bike (1, 15)." - jo contractor2300@yahoo.com

Also, please note that this will be a living document in that changes may and will appear sporadically and without notice. I reserve the right to update this document as I see fit. This document also exists to prove that there is a common mindset among Harley owners, they they all base their arguments out of a single core set of beliefs and as so many people believe the same thing, you can see how it can be classified as an orthodoxy. So, with that given and without further adieu, I present the foremost (and currently only) authority on …

The Harley Davidson Owner's Manual
____________________________________________________
A Living Guide to the Milwaukee Orthodoxy

Whenever some redneck uses this bit of logic in their argument, it always makes me chuckle. The “REAL bike” defense seems to be the core retort of the average non-erudite hill scoggin as well as a simple reflex action on their part because they cannot believe that any bike is better than a Harley Davidson, let alone an import bike. The beauty of this simple idea is that it seems to mix well with so many of the other bits of redneck logic that follow and it even lends itself rather aptly to be included in along with insults. For example;

“ur website really sucks, just cause u cant afford a real bike you dont have to put this trash on the internet.” - strokedshovel@hotmail.com

Now, if you want to talk about owning a REAL bike, then let’s discuss what a REAL bike is or rather what the definition of the word “REAL” is as it applies to motorcycles in general. I truly believe that it’s not the fact that Harley riders own REAL bikes, but rather we should look at what KIND of REAL bikes that they own. That, I believe, is what will make the difference. Let’s compare what constitutes a REAL bike for me and for the typical Harley owner:

	My Sport bike is…	Your Harley Davidson is ...
Size	REAL compact	REAL large
Quality	REAL high	REAL low
Weight	REAL light	REAL heavy
Technology	REAL cutting edge	REAL outdated
Noise	REAL quiet	REAL loud and annoying
Power	REAL strong	REAL weak
Performance	REAL fast	REAL slow
Price	REAL affordable	REAL expensive

So, yeah, I guess you actually do have a REAL bike but then it all depends on how you define what a REAL bike is, now doesn’t it?

I get so tired of this term being thrown around as it shows a great amount of disrespect for imports in general and Japanese imports in particular. Apparently there are "imports" (Japanese, British, Italian, German, etc.) and then there are “Rice Burners” which are a way of saying that the Japanese bikes are singled out for particular ridicule. Are Italian bikes "spaghetti burners" or "pizza burners"? Are German bikes "beer burners"? Calling all Japanese made motorcycles "rice burners" is like calling all black people "cotton pickers."

Here’s a little bit of simple, real world science for all of you hillbillies out there; no bike in the world burns rice. Instead, the Japanese sport bikes burn high octane premium gasoline, in the 90 plus octane flavor. Most are powered by compact, ultra-high compression, light weight, close tolerance, high performance, computer controlled, electronically fuel injected engines that are the most advanced engines on the planet, both technologically and engineering-wise.

Can you say that about your Harley or its engine? No, you cannot. Therefore, calling my motorcycle a “rice burner” is like me saying that your Harley runs on banjo music and drunken yodeling. When it comes to motorcycling, I’d rather ride metric than inbred, any day.

This argument is another favorite among Harley owners and it’s a quick defense that they throw up when they are cornered by logic and have no other way to go (other than to squinch their eyes down tight, put their hands over their ears and start blabbering “la-la-la! I’m not listening to you!”). Once they lose all ground against basic facts, once the true nature of their ridiculous life is laid bare before them for their review, the last resort of a Harley owner is to try to evade the argument all together by taking a wild logic swing and saying that you can’t compare the best that Milwaukee makes with the best that the world makes because they are two completely different types of product. This is basically saying that what Milwaukee makes (motorcycles) and what the world makes (motorcycles) are two completely different things (which is what I’ve been saying all along as well since I don’t consider Milwaukee to actually make motorcycles any more).

Wrong, bubba. It’s not comparing apples and oranges, it may be comparing green apples to red apples, but it’s not comparing apples to oranges. The Harley and the Ninja are both motorcycles, they are both the best that their respective companies can (or are willing to) produce and thus they are fair game for comparison and review.

When I pry the hillbillies’ eyes open with my not-so-subtle stainless steel crowbar of logic and my five pound sledge hammer of reason, when I show them that I can buy a more powerful, lighter, more reliable import bike for a quarter what they paid for their bike, that they really paid a lot of money for a name and to be just like everyone else, they rapidly fall back to the only defense that they have left; the lame old “apples and oranges” defense. It is the last ditch desperate attempt to divert the truth from reaching their narrow mind. What the “apples and oranges” defense is saying is that you cannot compare the best that Honda makes to the best that Harley makes because, somehow, Harleys are different, they are above comparison or it just isn’t fair / right to compare Harleys to something like a sport bike because the sport bike will win and besides, it’s just a stupid rice burner anyway so why even bother to compare it to something truly great and powerful like a Harley.

Why not?

I’m simply comparing the best that Milwaukee can make with the best that the world can make and in example after example, I find Milwaukee to be overweight, underpowered, outdated and overpriced. Saying that you can’t compare the best that Milwaukee makes to the best that the world makes is admitting that Milwaukee does not actually make motorcycles that are worthy of being considered in the same class as motorcycles made by the rest of the world (which again is what I’ve been saying all along).

On the other hand, if you look at it from the perspective that Harley Davidson does not actually produce a motorcycle and has not produced a motorcycle in several decades, then I believe that only then could you perceive the argument to be like comparing apples to oranges. After all, if you’re comparing a lifestyle accessory (what Harley currently produces) to an actual motorcycle (what the rest of the world produces), then you might just be correct in saying that it’s like comparing apples and oranges or rather it’s like comparing a paisley tie to a Black and Decker power drill.

My point is, when I compare a Ninja to a Harley it isn’t really just to show that the Ninja is a better motorcycle, it is also to show that the Ninja is a type of motorcycle that Harley cannot produce, as hard as they may try. When I compare a Ninja to a Harley, it is to show that while the rest of the world has moved on and refined their technology bases, Harley has chosen not to do so and thus they have also chosen to remain stagnant. Harley has not been able to refine its technology base and the rest of the world is so far ahead now, I think that that even if Harley stole some of the technology and tried to reverse engineer it that that they couldn’t ever catch up. Isaac Asimov once said that "any suitably advanced technology will appear as magic to a lesser developed people." For Harley, most of the stuff that rolls out of Japan is considered to be powerful magic.

No, we can’t so just bend over and take your medicine you ignorant, gap toothed hillbilly. You and your kind have been dishing out the hatred of imports for so long and spreading your ridiculous pseudo-religious beliefs around so thick that your skin has grown painfully thin. You’re not used to someone standing up to you let alone getting the best of you and you’re fit to be tied. The shoe is on the other foot now and you can’t stand it because that shoe and foot are kicking your ass, each and every time. For years you have thought that nobody would ever stand up to you and for years no one has, until I came along. I find it hilarious that Harley owners are the first to bad mouth anyone not riding a bike exactly like theirs but yet they are also the first to try to pretend to be moderates or compassionate when the fur starts flying. They expect you to turn the other cheek and take all that they can dish out but if you ever turn it around and start to give them some of what they’ve been giving out, you invariably encounter the “can’t we all just get along?” type whining. It the classic Orwellian "Animal Farm" philosophy of "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."

Harley riders, if you haven’t noticed already, are thin skinned pansies who like to talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. If you ever catch one in an argument and start putting the screws to them, they’ll start out arrogant and haughty, trying to make you think they are better than you are but when you start to drive your points home, using logic and reason in your argument, they start to hoot and holler, trying to scramble back up on the almighty middle of the fence to try to get some distance on you so they can try to blame the name calling on you. The point is, a Harley rider may tell you that they are on the middle of the fence, but that’s only because that’s a pretty good place to drop stones on your head from. This whole brotherhood of bikers is as passé as much as it is cliché. There are two standards in the world, one set of standards exist for those who own and ride Harleys and another exists for those who do not. They say that turn about is fair play, but not when it comes to Harley owners and riders. It is okay for them to bad mouth you and insult you and your bike, but if you give even a tiny taste of their bitter medicine back to them, suddenly you are the bad guy and the dumb ass rider who “just doesn’t get it.” You’re the mean person, the one who can’t get along with anyone else. You can’t all get along, not with ignorant hill scoggins. Trust me, I’ve tried, many times. It just doesn’t work. Even when you are nice to them, they look down on you because their lifestyle dictates it, it is a requirement for buying into the mindset. You being nice to them is their way of perceiving that you are envious of what they have. If you talk to them, it must be because you like what you see and you are drawn to their bike and their style. I think the only two reasons why anyone would ride a Harley is because they had an ego that needed to be stroked and they didn't know the first thing about motorcycles.

The whole motorcycle conflict started long ago when some ignorant Harley rider, buying into the redneck fantasy that Milwaukee shovels out by the ton, bad mouthed some import rider and the conflict escalated. After all, there is a term for imports; “rice burner.” I doubt that import owners came up with that term to describe their bikes since it is derogatory in nature and somewhat racist. Up until my site came along, I knew of no one actively standing up to these leather clad ass clowns and giving them back some of the bitter medicine that they have been dishing out for decades now. The fact is, this war got started a long time ago and the opening shot was fired by the hillbillies, not the import riders. It’s not my fault that they brought muskets to the fight and I brought smart bombs.

For years this hatred has been heaped out high and deep on the import owners, it became part of the Harley lifestyle, to feel superior to everything else when in fact you were riding one of the biggest jokes ever haphazardly slapped together. So much of the anti-import anger comes from the fact that Harley owners, deep down, truly understand that they are living a lie and that their bikes are mechanical jokes. They understand the façade that they are living and the cost that they have paid to be a member of the flock. They say that the best defense is a good offense and for Harley owners, that is the primary play. Go on the attack, stomp the import riders down, don’t give them time to think about their bikes and how they are superior to anything Milwaukee makes because if you let the import riders up for air, if you let up your attitude, they’ll get smart real quick and roll all over you.

Just like I have done.

I don’t know where this silly bit of hillbilly lore came from but you would not believe the amount of times that some redneck has told me that the reason why they don’t ride sport bikes is that they don’t want to have to do triple digits everywhere they go.

Let me put it this way, I guess if its really necessary to run at 160 mph then rice is definately the way to go, but ill make sure i give a horn toot when i rumble by and theyre pulling your teeth out of a tree that you wrapped your pretty little face aroung at 160 miles per hour. -Pete

Huh?

Since when did a sport bike become powered by a solid fuel rocket that once you lit it you couldn’t shut it off until it ran out of fuel? I didn’t know that a sport bike only had one speed; wide open. I guess my sport bike is different from other sport bikes because I can ride at the legal posted speed limits all day long with no trouble and no effort. I don't have to ride fast to avoid overheating, I don't have some magical, mystery "race gears" on my bike that don't let me run the engine below eighty-kazillion RPM. I can run my bike at 70mph all day long on the highway. Sure, I’ve got plenty of throttle left, I just don’t use it except on the rare occasion and that’s when I have to in order to avoid an accident or save my life from the actions of idiots in traffic around me.

Here’s some contemporary technology news for you hillbillies, the throttle works both ways. Just because your bike is lucky (mechanically speaking) to hit the ton (100mph) let alone to survive the trip there and back without any parts making high speed impromptu windows in the crank case doesn’t mean that my bike has to live there all the time. Sport bikes can run triple digits on the top end (my ’04 CBR600RR will do around 165mph on the high end and that coming from a motor that is about fifty-two cubic inches smaller in displacement than your belt driven, two cylinder irrigation pump) and some bone stock factory models (which cost about ten grand less than a V-Rod) can run close to 200 mph on the top end, but we (sport bike riders) don’t do triple digits everywhere we go.

We don’t have to. We can, but we don’t, which is what separates us from Harley owners (who can’t and wouldn’t have the skills and experience needed to even if they could).

Sport bikes are motorcycles which means that they have a suspension, two wheels, a transmission, a gas tank, an engine and basic controls to operate and steer it. One of those controls is called a “throttle” and it regulates how much gas and air get to the engine thereby determining how fast and how quick we go. You may not be familiar with the technology behind this “throttle” device as the same device on a Harley is more akin to a volume control knob than to actually producing power or speed. Harley engines are tuned for sound, they don’t have throttles; they have volume control knobs. On a sport bike, the throttle controls the speed of the bike, on a Harley, the rubber grip that you roll back determines for how many city blocks around you that the windows rattle and the easily impressed sheep look up and gawk at you as you roar by at slow speeds.

Riding a sport bike is not like riding the bull at Gilley’s, you don’t crank the old CBR up and then try to hang on for eight seconds until you either get to where you are going or you get thrown off by the forces of physics. Riding a sport bike is kind of like riding a Harley, only it handles better, lighter, more powerful and takes a lot more skill and intelligence to operate. What surprises most people is that I ride my sport bike like it was a cruiser, nice and slow, with plenty of power, braking and handling in reserve to keep me alive on the street.

This is perhaps one of the saddest statements that any male of the human species could ever make because what you are admitting here is that the only reason why members of the opposite sex are attracted to you is that you possess a material good which attracts their attention and subsequently (you fervently hope) their desire and sexual favors. Take away the material good in question and women are suddenly not attracted to you any more, it’s like a light switch, on and off. As you might have just come to the realization of, this is not an enviable situation to be in for sure.

What you are freely admitting here is that women are not attracted to your personality, to your charisma, to your intelligence, to your character, or to your physical looks. You are admitting that, as a human being, you are pretty much a complete zero and only the addition of a loud, flashy piece of pop culture can cure your negative worth to society. Women are, instead, superficially attracted to your motorcycle, much like insects are to the particular color that a bug zapper produces in baiting them. This means that the next poser who comes along with a bike that is shinier, nicer, more expensive, or louder than yours is going to snatch your woman up like a Shell No-Pest Fly Strip™ and leave you empty handed once again.

I cannot imagine a relationship built solely on the ownership of a physical good, so shallow and without meaning that it might be. My own wife and I have enjoyed over a decade of companionship and for several of those years, I didn’t even own a motorcycle (I did to begin with, then I didn’t, now I do again). She has been with me through thick and thin, sickness and in health, through accidents, sports cars, motorcycles, the birth of our first born child and everything else that life could possibly throw at us. We are strong because of what we share as two people, not because of what we own. My wife was attracted to me, not to what I rode (’93 Honda VFR750F) or what I drove (’88 Chevy Z51 Corvette) at the time that we met. That is why both the motorcycle and the car I had when I first met her are now long gone many years now and why she is still around, and why our love stronger than ever. Our relationship is based upon two people, not a person and a piece of hardware.

I simply cannot imagine the personal hell a human being would live in where they were so devoid of basic physical looks, charisma, wit, intelligence and personality that a woman would be attracted to their bike instead of to them. If the sole foundation of your current relationship is that your woman likes you for your bike then you’re thundering down a long, lonely road with a lot of heartache disguised as serious potholes along the way, brother.

"You have a Ninja huh? I've turned down more pussy on my Harley than you will ever get on your Ninja. Thats what it’s all about anyway. Work out a little, and get some chrome you dumbass." -Blake

If you are implying that you are getting screwed a lot more now because you own a Harley then I think that is a dealer / customer service relation problem and it isn’t an uncommon problem from what I’ve been told. However, if, on the other hand, you are saying that you participate in more sexual activity (and we’ll assume you mean members of the opposite sex) now that you have your Harley, the sad truth of the matter is that if you need a $24,000, eight hundred pound piece of vibrating equipment in order to get laid, you’re not a biker, you’re Christopher Reeve (RIP).

My thought on this bit of hillbilly pseudo-logic is to ask you how your sex life was before you ever owned your Harley? Is your Harley some kind of magic phallic talisman that bestows upon you the sexual powers of Adonis? Do you really need a Harley Davidson in order to have sex and if so, can we then assume that you were not getting all of this mind shattering sex before you owned your Harley?

Probably so. Like the argument above, if you were to take away your Harley, you would cease to be sexually attractive to members of the opposite (or even the same!) sex thus as a human being you are yet another sexual failure in need of an expensive, shiny mechanical crutch in order to be able to procreate. That’s pretty fucking sad.

And what would happen if you lost or sold your Harley? Would all this sex dry up and go away? According to your logic, it would and that might not be a bad thing since the kind of person who buys a Harley is generally the product of inbreeding. Harley owners who use this line of logic strike me as sexual cripples, people who are so inept at having or enticing sex from members of their race that they need a physical crutch, in this form a Harley Davidson motorcycle, to help them hobble along the lonely winding path of fulfilling their sexual frustration.

Of course, the one thing that is probably more dangerous than riding a Harley is having sex with someone attracted to you for your Harley. If you’ve ever seen some of the three tooth leather queens that ride on the back of Harleys, you’d be wondering if that really was fringe and tassel or if they were just riding without any underwear. Remember: if your bitch spreads her legs and you suddenly think you’re front row at a Willie Nelson concert then you might just have a real problem on your hands.

Ah! So much of the Harley mindset revolves around the male penis, which, given the large number of women who own Harleys, makes for some interesting double wide logic. Most Harley owners will try to use the penis argument at one point or another in their debate because it is such a core staple of their limited mentality. The penis argument takes on many forms;

“My penis is bigger than yours because I ride a Harley.”

“You don’t like Harleys because you have a small penis.”

“Your penis isn’t big enough to handle a bike as powerful as a Harley.”

“You ride imports because you have a tiny rice dick.”

And so on…. The variations are numerous but the core argument always centers around actually having a penis and what size that penis is as well as a link to having said penis of said size and owning a Harley. Of course, if having a big penis actually is a prerequisite for owning a Harley, then that says volumes for the number of women who actually own and ride Harleys and it could go far in explaining their inclination to do so. I always thought it was the vibration that attracted them to their machines because God knows that if you had to look at the gene pool that inhabits the likes of Sturgis, you’d be lucky to find any good breeding material of either sex. I mean, we're talking about people who's happiest day of their life was when they discovered that they could use Right Guard under their left arms.

As for owning a Harley and therefore having a large penis, I was unaware that Harley Davidson produced a penis pump or penis enlarger. I understood that they produced the world’s loudest and most expensive chrome plated vibrator but a penis pump as well? That’s certainly news to me. I think you are mistaking the function of your engine. It is an irrigation pump, not a penis pump. One fact that I would like to bring out is this: how would having a big penis be an advantage to owning a motorcycle? Do you need an extra appendage with the dexterity and tenacious grip of an octopus tentacle to help you ride? The way some insecure Harley owners brag of their new found endowment is hilarious. If these people were truly as big as they think they are, they would have a balance problem when attempting to do anything other than stand still in one place with both arms held out at their sides for stability.

The whole point of the counter-argument is that owning a Harley Davidson is about one of the most sure fire ways to tell if someone actually has a small penis. People who are confident of their nature and their sexuality don’t ride Harleys, they don’t need to, because their confidence is strong enough to stand on its own (no pun intended) without the aid of an expensive glitter-trash crutch. People on big loud Harleys with lots of chrome and accessories are simply trying to compensate for a physical shortcoming. Nothing says I have a tiny penis like open pipes in heavy traffic.

Throughout the ages, time and time again it has been proven that penis size has nothing to do with the ability to think, to ride, or to procreate. While I was born rather gifted for a white boy and a member of the fairer race (honest), I am constantly amazed at the amount of people out there who put so much relevance on penis size and somehow try to link it as a requirement to ride a motorcycle (of any type). Penis size has never been a leading indicator of intelligence and Nature proves this time and time again. After all, look at elephants. Elephants have really big dicks but you don’t see them designing computers or building space stations, now do you?

Remember: a Harley is just God’s little way of saying that He’s sorry He didn’t give you a penis when you were born. That or driving around in a Hummer H2.

No. Really DUMB men ride Harleys, the rest of us ride bikes that actually have some guts to them and technology to back up their designs. What constitutes a real man? Someone with the sexual stamina of a Brahma bull, the drinking capacity of a whale and the brawling capacity of a professional boxer? If so, why would someone like that want to ride something as ridiculously overweight, flashy and slow as a Harley? Think of Superman riding a pink moped and you start to get the picture.

If REAL men actually DO ride Harleys, then we seriously need to re-evaluate what constitutes a “REAL” man because apparently, somewhere down the line, the values of what was required to be considered a “REAL” man were apparently severely diluted. This was probably done through some type of marketing campaign geared solely towards the lowest common denominator in society or to put it more succinctly, it was geared towards the kind of people who think that line dancing is a form of foreplay.

No. No. No. Owning a Harley is not a sign of financial success, quite the opposite in fact. Owning a Harley is a sign of personal and financial failure on many, many levels the chief of which is your ability to understand the basic value of money followed closely by your lack of ability to tell fact from fiction. Part of being successful financially is learning how not to throw hard earned money away on cheap junk. Nothing says I have more money than I have common sense like owning a Harley.

The explanation for this bit of retarded hillbilly logic and the next bit of orthodoxy has been addressed several times already elsewhere on my site [link]. To put it simply, I could take twenty thousand dollars and put it in a shoe box under my bed for five years or I could go out and buy a twenty thousand dollar Harley Davidson motorcycle. At the end of five years, even if I sold my Harley for the same price that I paid for it, the money in the shoe box would still be a better investment. Doubt me? Pay attention and learn how money works.

Let's pretend (ghastly and repugnant as the concept may seem to me) that you and I are related by a rich uncle who dies and leaves us each a small gift of $20,000. I put $20,000 into an old shoe box under my bed. You take your estate gift and buy what you've always wanted; a $20,000 Harley Davidson. We have both "invested" $20,000 each, let's see who was smarter with their money.

To start out with, when you buy your Harley, you have to pay tax, title, setup and some other charges on it. Let's just assume that you are paying cash for this and not financing it (which is a world of hell in and of itself). Let's keep things straight and neat and say that TTL, tag, setup and other miscellaneous fondling and shipping charges all come out to $2000 even. So, now you have $22,000 in a $20,000 bike. I have $20,000 under my bed gathering dust. If you were to sell your bike right now for what you paid for it ($20,000), without having ridden it one single mile, you would have lost $2000 on your investment already and your "investment" would only be worth $18,000 net.

First year, you are on the road and you ride the hell out of your Harley. You go from Sturgis to Daytona and all along this great country's highways and byways. Let's say that you roll up five thousand actual miles (not trailered miles which don't count). We'll be generous and say that your gas mileage is 40mpg, that's 200 gallons of gas at $2.00 a gallon (fuzzy math) for $400. We'll say that your bike needs $100.00 per year of routine maintenance (filters, chemicals, etc.). Let's also say you go through an oil change each year and a set of tires ($400) every two years, just to keep things simple. We aren't going to figure in any additional items like Screaming Eagle parts or Genuine accessories (saddle bags, etc.) but we will assume, for the sake of simplicity, that you keep your Harley bone stock. Here is what your "investment" is worth at the end of five years, assuming that each year is the same and given the above criteria.

Actions taken	Harley as an "investment"	The "shoebox under the bed" investment method
Initial "investment"	$20,000.00	$20,000.00
TTL and other fees	$2,000.00	$0.00
First year- Gas, oil and upkeep	$500.00	$0.00
Second year- Gas, oil and upkeep plus tires	$900.00	$0.00
Third year- Gas, oil and upkeep	$500.00	$0.00
Fourth year- Gas, oil and upkeep plus tires	$900.00	$0.00
Fifth year- Gas, oil and upkeep	$500.00	$0.00
Total cost of "investment"	- $5, 300.00	$0.00
Subtract cost from original "investment"	+ $20,000.00	$20,000.00
Net gain or loss at the end of 5 years	- $5,300.00	-$0.00
Final "investment" worth at end of 5 years	$14,700.00	$20,000.00

Of course, this does not take into account the actual cost of selling your Harley. You see, a stack of bills under my bed, gathering dust for half a decade is still a better "investment" than putting your money into a Harley Davidson. Now, if I had truly "invested" my money into something like the stock market or a mutual fund for five years, my return would have been very great indeed, even at 5% interest per year, I would have $25525.63, fuzzy math (or more than you took a washing on).

You see, an "investment" is something that you don't have to put money into for it to work. An investment grows larger over time, it does not require constant maintenance or money being put into it in order to maintain it. That is the difference between a Harley and a real investment. I mean, come on! When I can make more money after five years by simply putting twenty large in an old shoe box under my bed and walking away from it than you can by buying a Harley, carefully maintaining it and taking care of it, who's the smarter investor? Oh, sure, I can't ride the shoe box but at the end of five years, I would have nearly enough money to buy a brand new Japanese sport bike or cruiser and still not touch my principle amount! That's the main difference here, properly invested, in five years my money could earn enough interest to buy me a motorcycle but you lost enough money to buy a "rice burner" on your "investment."

Trust me, anyone who tells me that a HD is a good investment won't be getting any of my money to play with in the money market, that's for damn sure! Never trust an investor who rides a Harley, it's like trusting a lawyer with bad teeth.

No, monkey nuts, it does not mean that you rode your bike for FREE. See the above answer. I swear, if you upstart hillbillies get any more financially stupid we’ll be able to start handing out play money to you on payday and you won't even know the difference.

In order to be a bad ass biker, one must first assume that you are riding a bad ass bike or that you are a bad ass person. Bad ass bikers do not ride wimp ass bikes therefore riding a Harley automatically disqualifies you from being a bad ass biker. A Harley is not a bad ass bike, therefore riding a Harley automatically disqualifies you from being a bad ass biker. Bad ass bikers used to ride Harleys a long time ago, because a long time ago Harleys actually were bad ass bikes (because they were pretty much the only bikes). That is, before the Japanese and British invasion of the American shores (which not only sent Harley Davidson running with their tail tucked between their legs, but also relegated them to performance mediocrity in very short order).

Harleys are not bad ass bikes therefore someone who rides a Harley cannot be considered to be a bad ass biker. Someone who rides a 375 pound, 180 horsepower motorcycle capable of rocketing through the quarter mile in nine and a half seconds stock is a bad ass biker. Someone who rides a 55 horsepower, 500 pound motorcycle capable of doing a high thirteen second quarter mile with all of the grace of a pregnant yak is not a bad ass biker. You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? Not on a Harley you can’t and that’s the point.

Harley Davidson: think of it as the world’s best selling motorized wheelchair for hippies, yuppies and wannabes.

Sigh. In order to be jealous of something, then you must first desire something that you do not already have. Generally, to desire something that you do not have, what you desire must be better in some way or the other than what you currently have. A person with a pound of gold is never going to be jealous of a person with a pound of dog shit, unless of course some incredible market spin is underway. A Harley owner telling me that I’m jealous of their bike is like a person with terminal cancer telling me that I’m jealous of their medical condition.

Oh, and exactly what raw power are you referring to?

You have an 88 cubic inch, air cooled V-twin engine making fifty-something horsepower at the crank (not at the rear wheel) while I have a 36 cubic inch, double overhead cam, 16 valve, liquid cooled, inline four making 115 horsepower at the crank (or more than double what you make at the rear wheel). Your rev limit is about the same as a small block Chevy, maybe even less. My rev limit is fifteen grand or about three quarters of what your bike cost brand new. If you think I’m jealous of your engine size, I have less than half the cubes of your engine yet I make over twice the power that you do and I can spank your hillbilly ass from stop light to stop light and from curve to curve. Surely you can’t be serious in thinking that I’m jealous of what you have?

Power?

Yes, if you owned a riding lawnmower, I would definitely be jealous of your power. Fifty-seven horsepower on a riding lawnmower would allow me to not only cut the lawn in record time, but also to do some wheelies and power slides (you know, to get at those hard to reach angles like the flower beds). But since you own a motorcycle in the 21st century, the power that your engine is generating is underwhelming to say the least. For me to be jealous of your lifestyle or to be jealous of your bike would require that you have something better or faster or more powerful than I do and you simply do not have that.

Oh, you may and probably do have a motorcycle that is far more expensive than mine. However, cost has never been a determining factor in quality. Just because your motorcycle costs four times what mine did is not a very good indicator that your motorcycle is four times better than my motorcycle.

I’ll wager that it would take several thousand dollars above and beyond the already ridiculous price of your Harley to get it to produce any where near the power that my engine produces in showroom stock configuration. Also, please realize that even though you might one day be able to slap enough parts on your motor to produce 115 horsepower, your performance will still not match mine as there is a very big difference in how a 800 pound motorcycle with 115 horsepower performs and how a 400 pound motorcycle with 115 horsepower performs.

The fact that there isn’t a Harley made, not even the lightest Harleys with the biggest engines the Motor Company can sledge hammer into them, that can keep up with the smallest motored sport bikes is only salt rubbed in your wounded ego. Harleys produce noise, they do not produce power. Noise is not power, noise is a byproduct of power.

There is a big difference between being fast and powerful or just loud and annoying.

Wrong. I could easily afford two Harleys and possibly even three if I gave up such daily niceties as eating well and maintaining good personal hygiene on a regular basis. The reason that I don’t own a Harley is not because I am poor and cannot afford one, rather it is because I am smart, I understand the value of a hard earned dollar and I have a college education which not only makes me immune to the tired old marketing strategies of Milwaukee but also to the ignorant Harley mindset. I also understand how motorcycles evolved and how they are built. Harley has been stagnant, mechanically and technologically, for decades now. If I want to buy out of date technology, I shouldn’t have to pay cutting edge price for it. Harley Davidson: yesterday's technology at tomorrow's prices.

Remember: a fool and his money are soon parted. This one statement above all others, I believe, should be the corporate motto / core mission statement of The Motor Company, if it isn’t already.

No, you am not (said very tongue in cheek)! Judging by the large amount of poorly written, spelling error laden email that I receive from ignorant barefoot, overalls wearing, straw hat sporting, hayseed chewing, donkey fuckers riding the world’s most expensive self propelled irrigation pump, I have to agree with this statement. Hell, a vast majority of Harley owners can’t even spell correctly the name of the motorcycle that they worship.

There are even humorous tales of HD tattoos where the name of the Motor Company is spelled wrong. Punctuation, grammar and spelling are three things most Harley owners are completely unfamiliar with, followed next by good grooming, personal hygiene habits, a full set of teeth and an imagination.

I swear, if I had wanted to make a lifelong career out of working with the mentally retarded, I would have either gone into Special Ed or opened up a Harley Davidson dealership.

This bit of retarded hillbilly logic always gets me. Why someone who would willingly serve their country and be ready to give their life for freedom would chain their selves to such a ridiculous piece of obvious overrated, overweight, underpowered crap as a Harley Davidson is beyond me. If I ever served in the military (I’m currently a police officer and SWAT team member), served for my country, fought a war, and lived to come home again, the last damn thing in the world I would ever waste any of my life or my back pay on would be a Harley Davidson and I would be stomping mad if the hayseeds out in Milwaukee tried to put an American flag on the vibrating turds that they roll out of that ramshackle Milwaukee assembly plant. I see this retarded faux / pseudo patriotism run strong among veterans, but the main core aspect seems to be “I fought the chinks in Vietnam and I ain’t gonna ride me no chink bike at home.”

Excuse me.

Vietnam does not produce motorcycles, or if they do, there is not a huge US market for them and your chance of seeing one is about the same as your chance of having Charlie hop out of your tomato garden to settle some unfinished business you left behind in Da Nang. Comparing the Vietnamese to the Japanese is just another aspect of the brainwashed flock behavior but it goes far in showing that the average Harley owner is not only dumb, but also ignorant.

I also hear the tired old cry of “I remember Pearl Harbor and how the Japanese attacked us so I ain’t gonna buy me no Jap bike.” What I find funny is that I hear this argument coming from 20 somethings, not always baby boomers. Of course, this is also usually coming from someone who either drives a Lexus or a Toyota Forerunner. I recently saw a pickup truck at a stop light, it had two stickers in the back window. The first sticker said “Imports suck!” The second sticker, was, of course, the big HD logo. What kind of truck was it? A Toyota Tundra, full size. The Harley mindset is nothing if it isn’t comically retarded.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we spank Japan’s ass there at the end of World War II far more than they ever dreamed was possible? Sure, they sunk a few old battleships and killed a few hundred Americans in a surprise attack over six decades ago but we turned around and vaporized two of their cities (and all the people living in those cities at the time). I’m going to be a little crass here when I say this but I think we gave Japan a lot more back than we ever got from them, damage-wise and I, as an American, consider the matter closed, marking the account “paid in full, with interest.”

How many Harley riders add iron crosses to their bikes or ride around in German war helmets? How many custom chopper companies use the iron cross as their logo? Care to guess how many good Americans the Germans killed without remorse on D-day? I can assure you that it is far more lives lost than the Japanese ever took at Pearl Harbor. The whole “Japanese-Pearl Harbor” excuse for riding a Harley or not buying a Japanese bike really is so old and tired that it’s become quite cliché, especially from people who ride Harleys and own import cars or trucks.

I guess that since Harley has teamed up with the Germans to build the V-Rod, and since the Japanese were German allies in World War 2, that Harley riders now have to accept Japanese bike riders as allies as well. That is, if you subscribe to this whole stupid faux / pseudo patriotism line of thinking. When I see some veteran riding a Harley, I have about as much respect for them and their choice as they would someone who bought a bunch of medals out of a military catalog then went around bragging about how they won a Purple Heart at Khe Sanh, etc. The fact that someone who fights for our country and our way of life would throw their weight and support behind something that goes so far to not represent what it means to be an American is not only saddening, it's sickening.

Yes, a lot of World War II veterans did buy Harleys after the war, but they also bought Triumphs and Nortons and other models as well. These were veterans of the greatest war known to history and they had lived to tell the tale. They came back to normal life and wanted something ... fast. Something exciting. Riding a motorcycle was inherently dangerous, especially back then, and it was a thrill. These veterans also took old cars and dropped bigger motors in them. The whole hot rod craze was born after World War II. Saying that veterans bought Harleys back then, exclusively, is also wrong. It took Harley Davidson over a decade after the end of World War II to introduce the idea of a big motor in a small frame, i.e. the "Sportster." Once again, HD was behind the times and having to play catch up with the rest of the world.

All veterans do not ride Harley Davidson motorcycles nor do they all drive American made cars. Case in point: Recently, the UAW told a bunch of Marines that they couldn’t park their cars in a particular parking lot. The reason why? Some of the Marines had import cars and others had a Bush sticker in the window. When public sentiment rapidly built against the UAW, the union quickly retracted its retarded outlook and told the Marines (who were fighting and dying for the very rights of the UAW members) that they could use the parking lot. Too late, the USMC said. Thanks but no thanks. I wonder what would have happened if the Marines had ridden up on Japanese sport bikes? That might have been interesting. In a UAW vs. USMC smack down, my money is going on the Marines, hands down. I have ridden with many veterans who owned sport bikes or import bikes and they couldn’t be happier. Just because you ride a Suzuki or a Honda doesn’t mean that you can’t wear an American flag on your jacket or vest. What you ride does not determine if you are an American or not nor does it determine to what degree of an American you are. Remember: freedom isn't free and you can't buy it straight off of a dealer showroom.

Harley Davidson plays heavy on the heart strings of veterans and other proud bearers of the American flag and I find that to be one of the most sad and disreputable aspects of their out of control marketing campaign. After all, a Harley is about the least American thing you could ever choose to ride as it in no way represents any of the great things about being an American. Instead, Harley represents everything that is wrong with America today. I’d be embarrassed to ever put an American flag on a Harley as I think that would inherently violate several truth in advertising laws in and of itself.

No, nut monkey, you didn't. This bit of pseudo-logic also makes me laugh. There seems to be a general consensus among the members of Willie G.’s faithful little deep pocketed, if overly dimwitted, flock that freedom is something that you can actually purchase. There seems to be a large segment of the HD population that believes that freedom is a tangible asset, like a box of Cheerios or a Kellogs Pop-Tart, that you can actually hold in your hands and own. These ignorant hayseeds also believe that they can somehow either buy freedom out of a catalog or purchase freedom over the counter at their local HD dealership. Harley would like you to think (and subsequently believe wholeheartedly) that when you bought one of their ridiculous products that you somehow also bought a heaping portion of freedom as well (or as they like to sell it, Freedom™ with a capital F and a little trademark symbol behind it). Hell, if they could, Harley would trademark the American flag and sue anyone else who tried to use it. It really wouldn’t surprise me if they hadn’t thought about this as well or actually tried to do it. I guess then that they would try to copyright the sound of the flag flapping in the wind, just so no one else would be able to make a similar flag and go for that patriotic flag whipping sound.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but America is the land of the free meaning that there are no slaves in our great country, there are no indentured servants and that we enjoy the largest amount of civil liberties known in the entire world. The ability to hop on your hawg and roar down the highway isn’t a right or freedom inherent only to Harley Davidson motorcycles nor will you find the name of Harley Davidson mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The truth is, when you purchased your Harley Davidson motorcycle, it didn’t come with any more freedom than you had before you bought it and you certainly don’t have any more freedom than I do owning my import motorcycle. You can hop on a Honda Shadow or a Yamaha YZF-R1, roar down the highway and enjoy the exact same amount of freedom that you do on your Harley Davidson. The difference, of course, is with the Honda and the Yamaha, you didn’t get charged for something that can’t be bought and you didn’t get fooled into thinking you bought something you already had from birth.

Freedom isn’t free, that is true, but you can’t buy it out of a vending machine. Freedom is bought and paid for with blood, sweat, and tears, not a Gold Master Card or a PhD behind your name. Espousing the idea that you somehow bought freedom, or that you purchased some extra freedom that other U. S. citizens do not enjoy, simply because you walked into a dealership and forked over some cash for a particular brand of motorcycle is a heinous insult to all of those great Americans who have given their lives to allow you to enjoy the freedom you now have.

This has to be one of the oldest clichés in the Harley rider’s mindset and it is as outdated as it is laughable. The modern Harley rider may chant this mantra from time to time, but it has long ago been replaced with the new Harley rider’s mantra, namely that of “Live to own. Own to live.” or my personal take on the whole "Harley Experience"; "Pretend to ride! Ride to pretend!" Harley isn’t about riding anymore as much as it is about owning and when it comes to owning, the more HD embellished tacky crap you have, the higher you rank among the flock. If you own a Harley, you’re a Harley owner, it doesn’t matter if your bike sees two thousand miles on the road in a month, a year or a decade, you are a Real American Biker simply by the fact that you OWN a Harley. You don’t even have to ride your Harley to be a bad ass biker anymore, just own it and put it in the garage and tell everyone that you have a Harley.

The starched shirts and bland ties who graze around the water cooler discussing the NFL and NASCAR will ooh and ahh over your rowdy, daring personality. Yes, the days of actually having to ride your bike in order to be considered a biker are long over, they have been replaced by air conditioned, climate controlled trailers housing your twenty thousand dollar Harley with ten thousand dollars of aftermarket accessories, towed behind your GMC Yukon Denali. After all, if you actually were to ride your Harley all five hundred miles to Sturgis, that would really decrease the resale value of your investment.

Besides, we all understand how unsightly rock chips can be on a $4000 custom paint job. Really, we do and we honestly feel for your pain.

I have lost track of the number of malcontent upstart gibbons who email me and use some ridiculous marketing catch phrase to justify their recent Harley conversion or their entire existence. These people are nothing more than hand puppets for the Motor Company. I see this commercially programmed behavior a lot in new converts to the flock, poor deluded souls who buy into the whole rent to own fantasy for all it is worth. This symptom is especially prevalent in converts, namely those who go from riding imports to owning a Harley (i.e. those who finally saved up enough money to buy into the collective redneck wet dream). I once had a discussion with a young man who, at the tender age of 21 years of age, had sold his import motorcycle and bought a Harley Sportster. He gushed the usual nonsense about how people on Harleys were so nice to him, how he now had a lot of friends and people who cared about him. He further proclaimed that he was a Harley convert for life and followed his claim to existence up with a slogan that I felt had to be an advertising pitch from the Motor Company. The catch line was “The road begins here. It never ends.”

Curious to see if I was right or not, I went to the HD website and there, on the front page, were those exact words and a picture of a long straight road (because Harleys don’t take too well to curved roads). I laughed and called him on the error of his ways, much to his chagrin. At the time of this writing, I’m 35 years old and I still haven’t converted to anything for life. At 21 years old I didn’t know half of what I know today, let alone be informed enough to choose a particular brand for life. How anyone at the tender age of 21 could swear allegiance to something for the rest of their life is beyond me. Other than my wife and my daughter, I’ve never found anything that I want to be chained to or associated with for the rest of my life. Hell, at 21 you’re still learning that it’s the bigger head that needs to do all of the really important thinking in life and in this case, I don’t think this guy had learned that lesson either.

This is a sub-branch of the “real man” argument in saying that if you don’t own / ride / like Harley then you are different from the rest of the people and that is not only a very bad thing, but that it is unnatural as well. Homophobia is rampant among Harley owners mainly because the basic premise of owing a Harley is to project an image to the world that you are not sexually dysfunctional, that you are a raging natural force of libido. Indicators of this type of attack include the key words “faggot,” “fag,” “homo,” “homosexual,” “gay,” and “queer.”

“Why dont u get a REAL bike ou comie fagot! Why dont u go live in russha and all of other comie fags u gook comie!” - 1BADHDUDE@usa.net

And

"You homosexuals are really bitchy about Harleys. Do you have a site to whine about American made cars? How about one called, "I hate America"? - Bill

Given the situation of subscribing to an image rather than creating one of your very own, it is only natural that Harley owners might feel threatened by anything that exposed their inherent inadequacies and thus would lash back with claims that anyone not like them must therefore be a homosexual. Homosexuality, by its nature, is the anti-thesis of normal sexuality. Harley owners pride themselves in getting laid a lot, that their bikes give them the sexual powers of chiseled Greek deities so therefore, if you do not ride a Harley, you must not like women and subsequently you are gay. The logic chains of these double-wide Luddite philosophers is as humorous as it is interesting. You could even go as far as to think of a Harley as a big strap on penis with a kickstand.

Wrong. This argument is another favorite of mine and I call the lemmings on it every time this bit of illogic pops up. If Harley truly represents what it means to be an American, then let’s take a look at the prerequisites for being an American, as defined by Harley Davidson for over three decades now.

According to Harley Davidson, and following their example, in order to be a American, you must be loud, weak, slow, fat, dumb, outdated, and overpriced. You must stand for image over action, form over function, and style over substance. You don’t look forward or plan ahead. It’s not what you do, it’s how you sound. You claim to be an individual yet dress exactly like everyone else. You must see failure as success. You must reinvent your morals and what defines you. When competition appears, you do not stand up and face it, you run away and sulk. When you’re down and out, you don’t pick yourself up by your own efforts, you beg for a handout. When you are given a helping hand, you do nothing with it other than what it takes to barely get by. You sell out, becoming the exact thing which you once stood against and you are more successful at selling out than you are at being an outlaw. You expect a reward for failure and you bank your entire future on a fat but short lived generation of people. You turn failure into a lifestyle, excuses into a way of doing business and you market your product to the lowest common denominator in society.

This is not what it means to be an American.

Far from it, in fact, Harley Davidson is the reverse image of what it means to be an American because Harley stands for everything that is not American. My America is strong and proud. My America does not run from fights. My America is lean, smart, fast, and ready to hold its own against anyone that offers a challenge. We went to the Moon in 1969 but today the best motorcycle that American can build is Harley Davidson? Hell, the Republic of Chad could build a better motorcycle than Milwaukee does.

Sorry, you simply cannot convince me that Harley Davidson represents anything good about being American. You can wrap a turd in an American flag all day long but at the end of the day, it’s still just a turd and a rather expensive one at that.

Years ago, when Harley was the only American motorcycle left, this argument carried minimal weight (emphasis on minimal). Now that there are other motorcycles being made in America (Polaris, Victory, Honda) then it isn’t such a hot point of argument as Harley Davidson no longer has a monopoly on this sulk card. As I have mentioned above, Harley Davidson in no way, shape, or form represents what it is like to truly be an American. They represent what it is like to be a victim, and to have the victim mindset.

Poor Harley Davidson, the mean old imports came over here and almost drove them out of business. Why, if it weren’t for the help of the US government and restrictive tariffs on imports for several years (where the US government actually punished its citizens for making a more informed, better choice with their hard earned money), Harley might have gone completely out of business. In hindsight, that would have been a real shame because then we all wouldn’t get to enjoy stuff like Harley gas tank shaped TV remotes, Harley Davidson sound effect beer mugs, Harley Davidson Barbie dolls, HD edition F150 pickup trucks and Harley Davidson logo endorsed CB radios. Daytona Bike Week would have been a lot quieter and there would have been no Sturgis! Boo hoo! You can see the tremendous tragedy that was narrowly averted, can’t you?

A Harley is made in America Ah, grasshopper! Many import manufacturers also have built factories over here to produce their products state-side. This practice cuts down on international shipping and other legal fees of having to bring supplies and products from, say, Japan across the sea to America. The Honda Accord and the Honda Shadow are made right here in America, at Japanese factories run and employed by American workers. The Honda Accord and the Honda Shadow are as “made in America” as any Harley can claim to be.

Wrong. Harley Davidson is a corporation. Their bottom line counts for more than their patriotism, contrary to what their marketing department would have you believe. For decades, Harleys have used foreign parts in their motorcycles, they just don’t advertise this as it tends to dispel the fantasy that they have worked so hard to create and maintain.

The truth is that a large portion of your beloved 100% American made motorcycle is composed of parts made in other countries. Yes, it is assembled here in America but many of the parts are produced abroad by foreigners. The forks are Showa, a company owned by Honda. The electronics in your bike are more than likely Japanese (charging system). The carburetors and the electronics for the fuel injection are most definitely Japanese (Mikuni, Khein). I’d be surprised if your Harley didn’t come with Denso spark plugs. If you really want a big dose of the old wakeup call, prescription strength, then you need to just start taking parts of your Harley off at random and looking at where they were made. If your Officially Licensed and Endorsed lifestyle accessories are made in China, then I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high that a good portion of your bike wasn’t made in a far away land where they don’t speak English as the primary language.

Welcome to the 21st century, chimp. Faux national patriotism is dead. It’s a world market now and companies are going to go where they can make the most profit. If you doubt me, then this picture should dispel any myth that a Harley is made from 100% American made parts.

Note- PLEASE stop sending me this pic. I have it. I get it. I’ve had it for years now. It’s not new. Please stop. Please. Pretty please. I'm begging you on bent knee and clasped hands. Thank you.

So is the Honda Accord and the Honda Shadow. Both of those Hondas are made by hard working Americans who are skilled and trained to a level and degree that Milwaukee could only dream about. A famous science fiction author once said that any suitably advanced technology would seem like magic to a lesser developed people. I’d say that if you compared the factories that turn out the Shadow and the Accord to the rusty old foundry in Milwaukee, the scoggins would think they had stepped into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I’d say the same for the Nissan plant that opened up near Jackson, MS as well as the other import manufacturing plants around the United States.

Please don’t openly display your ignorance by thinking that these companies have built these plants on our soil then filled them with transplanted workers from Japan who are somehow taking away good paying jobs from decent Americans. The truth is, for every import manufacturer that opens a plant here, there are hundreds of good paying jobs for decent, hard working Americans to hold. I’d be interested to see how many people Harley employs at their manufacturing facility versus how many people Honda employs, and what the benefits are for each employee. My guess is you’re better off working for Honda than Harley except that I’m sure that since most of the people who design Harleys only have five teeth to their name, The Motor Company can offer very affordable dental insurance to its employees.

Every now and then I receive what I can only describe as “some unexplainable or random / strange chink / slant eyed / gook / racial logic angle” in an argument. In a nutshell, this line of argument encompasses all of the statements like “why don’t you choke on your fish-head soup you slant eyed bastard” or “you gook whore loving faggot” (itself a laughable and direct sexual contradiction) as well as all of the other derogatory racial comments. You would be amazed at the amount of email I get from ignorant retards who believe that I am either of Negroid / African descent (the “black” in Black Echo must really be throwing them) or of Asian descent (because I don’t like Harley Davidsons and I do like Japanese import bikes). These types of emails are generally received from people who think Hee-Haw and NASCAR are the pinnacle of cultural entertainment and who honestly believe that Dale Earnhardt was the Second Coming of Christ. Here are two such examples:

“Here’s a joke for you! Do you know why they make rice rockets? To keep niggers off of Harleys. Nuff said.” –Wayne Schurr wschurr@nebnet.net

“fucking nigger. i got news for you pal. i think it is funny how you, so seemingly eloquently try to degrade the idea and the mindset of harley davidson motorcycles. - "Midnight Rider"

"do you even know who your daddy is? With all your hate toward what appears to be white folk, and your name black echo, I must assume you are a black person.
There is a deep rooted reason for your angst, one of which must be your disdain for caucasians. And I do own an HD, and have owned Japanese bikes and would rather sit back and cruise than lean forward like I am trying to push out a turd after dining on an abundance of cheese or fried chicken." -Steve Cook

The amount of ethnic and racial slurs that I receive, directed at the assumption that I am black or oriental only lends credence to my beliefs that when I am dealing with Harley owners, I am not dealing with elements that are very high on the evolutionary ladder let alone the food chain. My favorite insults are those that somehow merge the assumption of my race and color and come out as something along the awkward yet humorous lines of:

“Why dont you get you’re gook hore loving slant eyed nigger ass back too Africa are Japan are Iraq are were ever it is you come from because we dont not want your kind over here too begin with.” -94Fatboy@aol.com

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, some hillbilly football coach in a ramshackle double wide in Arkansas will manage to figure out AOL just long enough to lower the bar for everyone else. I guess that is the real reason why I stay with this year after year. I’m just curious as to how low these odiferous troglodytes can sink, intellectually speaking and they never cease to deliver or amuse. I think I really should start to shout "Mark Twain!" before I open any of my emails from now on...

I’m sorry but I was unaware that owning a Harley was a prerequisite for citizenship in this great country. Truth be known, I’ve been an American since the day I was born. I was born to a mother and father who were American citizens, and who in turn came from parents who were American citizens. My family has been in America since before the Civil War and I had kinfolk who fought and died for the Confederacy (just because my kin were on the losing side doesn’t necessarily mean that they were on the wrong side). Here’s some shocking truth for all of you misguided Harley owners out there; I’m an American regardless of what kind of bike I ride or own and I’m an American whether I ride at all or not. I’m an American if I drive a Honda Accord or if I drive a Chevy half ton pickup truck. If becoming an American only required you to buy and own a Harley Davidson motorcycle, then you would see a virtual flood of new Harley owners from around the world sweeping across our northern and southern borders, as well as arriving by ship and plane, with their precious HD motorcycles arriving either with them or shortly thereafter by freight.

A Harley isn’t a passport, it isn’t a birth right and it isn’t a prerequisite for citizenship in this great nation. What you own, material good wise, does not dictate if you are an American or not. I own a Japanese Samurai sword, a real one of World War 2 vintage, an officer’s model not the ones you find for sale in a catalog. It's really beautiful, hand made and razor sharp. Owning this sword does not make me a full fledged Samurai warrior any more than owning a Harley Davidson makes you an American, or, as we have previously discussed in the freedom angle above, owning a Harley does not make you any more of an American than I am. Period.

Harley owners believe in their faux patriotism to the point that they believe that they are the only real, true Americans in America when perhaps they are the greatest group of un-Americans to ever exist. Therefore, if you are not with them, you must be against them and traditionally, it has been the communists who stood against America (remember that little Cold War thing a few decades ago?). Only a communist wouldn’t like Harley Davidson! Why, not liking Harley Davidson is un-American! Therefore, using the simpleton approach of most Harley arguments, if you don’t ride a Harley, you must therefore not be an American which makes you a communist by default. If you do not like Harley Davidson, which is an American bike and which we all know inherently represents America in all of its glory, then you must actively be working for the downfall of America, mom, apple pie and baseball. If you don’t like Harley Davidson, you’re the kind of person who would rape grandmaw on the front church pew during Sunday service and probably piss on Dale Earnhardt’s grave.

"Hey fuck head .... what new. Plotting any new bombing of federal buildings ??? That is what you do ...right ???" -Jim

This is an addendum to the above argument and it came into vogue shortly after September 11, 2001 when Al Qaeda attacked America on our fair shores. The short sighted mental nature of the typical Harley owner easily makes the transition from communist to Islamic terrorist since they must put a face on what they do not understand, to what makes them angry. I have been accused of being a terrorist, of being a follower of Islam and of dancing a jig when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, I assure you. I am a police officer. I was a police officer when the towers fell, I still am a police officer today. A lot of my brothers in blue (and consequently my half-brothers in the EMT and fire and rescue services) perished that day doing their best to do their jobs. No finer example of any of those services can exist than that day in September but how quickly people forget...

I do so enjoy how the racial slurs have started to change from traditional black slurs now to such colorful euphemisms as “camel fucker” and “sand nigger.”

Issac Asimov once said that “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” and Harley owners go out of their way to prove Mr. Asimov correct, time and time again.

"I encourage you not to respond to this because I truly have no patience for people like you and I really can take you apart and I will leave you apart." -Texas Harley 2000

This part of the hillbilly logic encompasses all sorts of physical violence directed at me and my family, simply because I have a difference of opinion. Harley owners, for the most part, are unable to carry on a logical debate mainly because God never deigned to give them much in the way of mental weapons and also because so much of their lives are locked up and hopelessly invested full time in a make-believe world where logic simply does not apply. The most common derivatives of this argument are along the lines of:

“You don’t (own / ride / like) a Harley Davidson therefore you should (have your head examined / ass kicked / be killed / have your family killed).”

“I hope you wreck your rice burning piece of shit (in one way or another) and I hope you die (and subsequently go to hell)!” type logic as witnessed in the following perfect example:

“i hope you wrap that piece of shit ride around a tree but even that is too good for you…” - midnightrider_79_02

The main difference between a Harley rider and myself is that you won’t find me making death threats to them or their families in any of my emails or replies. Violence involving mindlessly lashing out at that which frustrates or angers them seems to be a strong core staple of their laughable, diminutive mindset and it goes far in proving that when it comes to a battle of wits, God ill prepared them for combat.

I’ve seen all the derivatives of using violence to settle this argument and it really has no basis in logic. Anyway you look at this, Harley owners are simply saying that my opinion isn’t like theirs therefore it is their deepest, most heartfelt wish that something really, really bad should happen to me and they hope it happens to me very soon and that I die in a lot of pain. Think of it as the “Hulk not like! Hulk smash!” school of Neanderthal thought. If you aren’t a part of the flock, if you don’t agree with the flock or dress and act just like the flock, then you are obviously crazy, you need to be hurt real bad and some even believe that you should be killed for not believing the same thing that they do.

So, I ask you now … who sounds more like a terrorist? Me or them?

This is another interesting aspect of the faux patriotism that is so prevalent in the Harley mindset. If you are a brainwashed member of the flock, then you obviously believe that owning a Harley is an important part of actually being an American citizen. It isn’t a great leap of thought to further believe that anyone who doesn’t like Harley Davidson can’t be a real American and should therefore move to some other country where there are no Harley Davidsons. I’ve been told more times than I can count that I should take my terrorist loving, Harley hating ass and go back to Iraq where I can live with other people who are just like me. I assume that this invitation to leave America means that there are a lot of well educated, intelligent, well spoken, well written, white collar, hard working, pro-life, protestant, Christian, heterosexual, Americans who dislike Harley Davidson at this location that I’m supposed to report to and join? Funny, the news hasn’t shown anyone like that in Baghdad or any of the cities of the Middle East.

Maybe they’re just hiding under all of those bulky clothes.

Another “you’re not exactly like us therefore you suck” form of the argument. If you go against conventional thought, if you don’t believe the same things that the flock does, then you can’t be smart. After all, thousands of people can’t be wrong, can they? Thousands of people on Harleys can’t all be stupid, can they?

Yes.

There is strength in numbers, and that includes the strength of stupidity. Beware the power of stupid people in large numbers for you get stuff like Sturgis and NASCAR.

I’m still trying to figure out this angle of logic but apparently some of the sheep understand that HD builds police motorcycles therefore all police officers should automatically like HD because of this.

Wrong.

A HD police bike is the biggest rolling, white painted turd you will ever throw your legs over. HD has multiple lawsuits right now from police officers and police departments for accidents involving their bikes, bikes that were not intended for the duty which they are called upon to deliver but because HD practically gives the police the bikes for free, what money stretched department is going to turn them down? It really comes down to what’s more important, the safety and lives of your officers, or some cheap bikes to populate your motor pool with? Most departments make the wrong decision here and they base it on the bottom line, not the man behind the badge.

BMW also makes excellent police bikes (the fact is, a lot of the local PDs in Mississippi are switching from the older Harleys to the new BMWs for performance and safety reasons), so I guess if I were to somehow say that I didn’t like BMW (which I very much do like BMW), that I would therefore also not be qualified to be a police officer.

The logic of this argument baffles me, but I guess it is like saying that even though I can build 600 horsepower supercharged, fuel injected engines but because I don’t like NASCAR I am therefore unfit to be a mechanic.

This is always a good one and I laugh when somebody erroneously thinks that they are going to catch a 600cc sport bike while riding a 900 pound full dresser Harley with windscreen, saddlebags, and highway bars. The only way that a Harley rider could catch me on the road would be to wait in ambush and even then I’d be smart enough to just ride past the big cardboard box held up by a stick with a string attached to the stick leading back into the bushes.

Even if a Harley owner did catch me, I’m not sure what they would be able to teach me a lesson on… How about a lesson on how to be stupid with my money? What about a lesson on how to be a brain washed, trend humping fashion lemming? What about a lesson on how to pretend to be an individual while dressing just like everyone else? It certainly won’t be a lesson on how to write an email or about proper spelling and grammar. No. Sorry. I’m afraid that you have nothing you can teach me as I completed the fifth grade many decades ago and have since moved on with my education.

I love this particular cliché because it says so little by saying so much. What this means is that Harley owners don’t actually know why they are Harley owners, other than that is what other people do and all of those other people can’t be wrong, can they? It’s a common reflex defense that basically says “I’m a Harley owner but don’t ask me to explain it to you because you just wouldn’t understand mainly because I don’t understand it either.” It’s lemming behavior at its finest.

There are two replies to this line of argument. The first is to reply by stating that you do not believe that Harley represents the best buy for your money. America is a nation of voters, we vote every single time we buy an item or a product, we are voting for that company to continue making that product. When we buy a competitor’s product, we are not only casting a vote for the competitor, but we are also casting a vote against the maker of the product that we used to buy. I have given my money to the import manufacturers because they build a better product for a lower price than Harley Davidson does. I am casting my vote against Harley Davidson and their products because I do not have confidence in Harley Davidson and I do not like anything that they produce. I firmly believe that Harley Davidson produces the junk that they currently produce because they have learned that Americans will settle for this junk. Why should they build a better motorcycle when they don’t have to? Why should they compete with modern technology or get involved in competition when we, as a nation, are rewarding their bad behavior.

The second answer is that yes, Honda makes a profit from selling their products on our shores. However, when the Honda plant was produced, it was built on land that was purchased from Americans (at one point or another), Americans built the plant, the plant uses utilities supplied by Americans as well as a lot of materials supplied by Americans. The plant pays American taxes and it pays its American workers who go out and spend their hard earned money in their community where they live. Sure, the Honda plant makes a profit for its parent company, but it also gives out a whole lot more to the community in which it exists. There are several Honda plants in America, there is just one Harley plant. Who do you think does more for America. Here’s a hint, it’s not the H-word that you think.

I love this quote for the simple ignorance and the brilliant truth that it simultaneously represents. Let’s look at this logically. This classic cliché is saying that if the motorcycle is not a Harley, then it is not shit. By definition, this means that if it is a Harley then it is shit and any motorcycle that is not a Harley is therefore not shit. I find great truth in this saying and I smile when any Harley rider uses this bit of hillbilly logic in an argument. My reply usually is “Well, at least we agree on one thing.” And at which point they have to think for a few minutes on what that means.

This is actually a great attitude to have if you are a Harley owner because the chance of you pushing your Harley is far greater than you probably believe. There are many stories of Harley riders who have had to push their Harleys when they broke but very few about import owners getting stranded. I’d also wager that there are far more Harleys riding around the country on trailers at any given moment than there are import bikes on trailers. I laughed when someone sent me a copy of an actual night answering machine message at a Harley Davidson dealership. After giving the hours of business, the phone message asked if the caller needed their motorcycle towed and if so, it gave a number to a towing company. Pushing a Harley should qualify as an occupational hazard with Harley owners because it’s not so much IF it is going to happen as much as it is WHEN it is going to happen. So, if you would rather push a Harley than ride an import, the good news is that there is a very good chance that you will get your fondest wish, and probably sooner than you think.

What is really adding insult to injury is when an import owner has to stop and help you with your hawg. Take for example this humorous tale…

Maybe in The Wonderful World of Make-Believe™ but not in the real world. 88 cubic inches of outdated junk making 57 horsepower is not greater than 36 cubic inches of cutting edge technology making over twice the horsepower. The only thing “powerful” about Harley is the ignorance of the owners and the loudness of their exhausts. You have to question this logic when you hear people brag about the “Harley sound” as being “potato-potato.” I guess that’s okay if you like that kind of wimpy sound for your bike, but you could take a crowbar and wrench the muffler off of a Yugo and pretty much get the beloved “Harley sound.” I prefer my bikes to have a low, quiet idle but when you jack back the throttle, it sounds like an industrial circular saw ripping through a sheet of steel. I don’t know what Harley uses as a dipstick to measure performance with, but anyone who says that a bike capable of doing the quarter mile in thirteen seconds is more powerful than a bike capable of doing ten second quarter miles is stupid, on drugs, or has had their brain shaken up too much by riding around on an outdated piece of vibrating junk. Oh, you can claim that Harley Davidson is the most powerful bike in the world, but in the real world, the numbers don’t lie.

Really? Then where exactly did the Japanese get the idea for sport bikes from? Milwaukee? Oh, that’s right! Sport bikes were born out of something that Milwaukee has yet to figure out; competition. It’s a damn sure bet that Japan’s racing teams aren’t copying Harley because the import manufacturers have a long tradition of winning (as opposed to Harley’s long tradition of losing). The VR1000, the core basis for the new V-Rod, was a bike whose track record was built on a decade of consistently losing.

I’m pretty sure that Japan wouldn’t want to copy Harley because if they did, they’d have to hire two lawyers for every engineer that they fired, they would have to start hiring employees who were high school drop outs, disband all of their race teams, put all of the R&D budget into marketing, chop off half of their engines’ cylinders, take a spark plug out of one of the remaining two cylinders, lop off the muffler, tear off the radiator, rip off the fuel injection and drop a carburetor (made right around the corner to boot) on top. Even if Japan did all of that, it is my humble opinion that they would still be a decade ahead of Milwaukee in terms of quality and technology.

Right… back to The Wonderful World of Make-Believe™ again. Harleys are not fast motorcycles. In order to be fast, you need power. Power is best used when it has the least weight to pull around. Harleys do not produce power. Their engines are tuned specifically to produce a sound that is reminiscent of a flatulent cow caught in its death throes. If you tune for sound, you are not tuning for performance. Sound is a byproduct of performance but performance is not a byproduct of sound. For a Harley to go fast, it must either make more power than it does, lose weight, or (preferably) do both.

Let’s take a refresher course in physics, shall we?

A motorcycle that weighs 800 pounds, produces 55 horsepower, and has the aerodynamic profile of a dog’s ass with a hemorrhoid is not going to out perform a bike that makes three times that power, has superior aerodynamics and weighs half as much. The fantasy world of Harley Davidson ownership has physics which are vastly different than the real world where everyone else lives and rides. I would blame it on simple ignorance but then constantly having your brain vibrated inside your skull can’t be helpful for long term mental health either. Just ask Muhammad Ali.

Perhaps the reason you notice is that there are far more import bikes produced than Harleys. Think about it. You have Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, Triumph, Ducati, BMW, and others all producing bikes around the world. And then you have this little factory in Milwaukee where some odious dwarves are dancing around a kiln and fire-lit forge uttering drunken oaths and beating out iron into the crude shape of a motorcycle frame. What do you think the production of imports to domestic is? Five to one? Ten to one? Twenty to one?

Also, given the artificially inflated price of Harleys, it wouldn’t matter if some hill scoggin twisted it into a pretzel around a pine tree. If it comes into a junkyard, some other wannabe scoggin is going to see it and believe for sure that he can “beat it back into shape.” I’m sure that if you tie the Harley to an oak tree and put a chain around it and the bumper of your four wheel drive, you can straighten that frame and have you a bad ass American bike again in no time flat.

I have also seen several all-Harley graveyards advertised in the back of motorcycle magazines, so the myth that there are no Harley graveyards out there is just that, a myth.

Your logic is also flawed. Import bikes don’t really wear out so much as they have a short technological life span. Five years down the road, chances are that the 2009 CBR600RR will be able to hand my 2004 CBR600RR it’s ass. Not so when you compare the 2004 Sportster with the 2009 Sportster. The 2009 Sportster, I dare say with a high degree of confidence, will be exactly the same as the 1999 Sportster just as it was the same as the 1989 Sportster. Harley owners erroneously believe that because an import bike is in the junkyard that must mean that it wore out. Not necessarily so. We live in the Information Age, we live in an age where nearly everything is disposable. It is far cheaper to go buy a new VCR than it is to repair the one you have. That’s the beauty and the curse of our current society, disposable goods. Sure, some of the bikes may be wrecked or blown up, but a lot of them were simply discarded. You can do that with inexpensive bikes but the artificially inflated price of Harleys means that you can’t enjoy the freedom of throwing away your Harley and getting a new one, and truth be known, why would you. Like I’ve said, there’s a world of difference between a 1994 Honda CBR600F series and a 2004 Honda CBR600RR, there’s almost no difference between a 1994 Harley Sportster and a 2004 Harley Sportster, so why would you “trade up” and what would you be trading up to. Harley cranks out copy after copy, year after year, of the same tired old designs. There’s no reason to get rid of your old Harley because the brand new Harley is just a carbon copy of the one in your garage. That’s why you don’t see a lot of turn over with Harleys like you do with sport bikes. There’s no incentive, there’s nothing to be gained by trading up or out every few years. In a world of disposable technology, Harley escapes that fate by being wonderfully absent of technology.

Not to be crass here, well, okay, yeah, let’s be crass… I’ll bet that there are more imports on the road, and more imports ridden per day than there are Harleys. I would also bet that if you were take an average number of miles ridden between the Harleys in the junkyard and the imports in the junkyard, the number would be far higher for the imports. More time on the road equals more wear and tear, also more chance to be involved in an accident.

It’s really quite simple, if you think about it, but then Harley owners aren’t known for their thinking.

Congratulations. You just joined the rest of the sheep grazing contentedly in the pasture of mediocrity. For whatever reason, you have now chosen to leave staunch individualism and fully embrace conformity. You have chosen to abandon creating your own personal lifestyle and instead chosen to let someone else dress you. I can only wish you the best of luck.

You may be the baddest sheep in the pasture now but remember, you are still just another member of the flock.

No, that’s called “building a house of straw.” Harley has built a financial empire, yes, but they haven’t built it by selling motorcycles. They have built their wealth and fame by selling a lifestyle of which the motorcycles are only one part of the lifestyle. Harley does not sell motorcycles, please do not fool yourself. Harley sells a lifestyle, the company even admits this. The “motorcycles” that the Motor Company sells are nothing more than fashion accessories, props designed to make you look like something you are not.

Let me put it another way for you to understand. Harley Davidson almost went out of business once before, thanks in part to the import invasion and a host of bad management decisions at the very top of the company. Harley Davidson received a helping hand from the US government in the form of restrictive tariffs placed on import motorcycles (thus the US government was, in effect, helping HD by punishing its citizens for wanting to buy a better, cheaper product). What did HD do with this second chance? They didn't gear up to make contemporary technology compatible with the imports (thus they still refused to do battle with the imports). Instead, they merely continued to make bikes like they always had, but they added the lifestyle to the whole concept. A lot of this is where the "buy American because if you don't you're hurting your own country" BS came from. After that, Harley Davidson began selling copies of old technology based motorcycles for a premium, along with a lot of market spin based around a patriotic guilt trip. Then came the tacky crap, the stuff you would most likely see decorating a double wide than a Hollywood star's mansion.

Harley was given a second chance on life and today it is evident that they have again squandered what they were given (why else are they number two in their own country!?). Have you ever wondered why the import companies don’t sell crap like Honda phones, Suzuki toilet seats, Kawasaki dart boards, Yamaha pool tables, and Ducati cigarettes? It’s because they don’t have to. The import companies build and sell motorcycles, you have to provide your own lifestyle. Harley builds and sells a pre-packaged lifestyle and the "motorcycles" that they build are just props that go along with it. Harley is for people who can’t figure out how to get a life, but there’s a steep price to pay. You can be cool and tough looking, if you have the cash, but then again, so can everyone else who pays. The Harley lifestyle may set you apart from those who don't live it, but when you stand next to someone else who has bought into the Harley lifestyle, you're really hard to tell apart.

That’s the difference between what Harley creates and sells and what the import makers create and sell. One is make believe, one is real. Which one you choose ultimately determines how strong you are as a person as well as what kind of person you are. I don't mind capitalism at all, it's just that I detest the fact that Harley has gotten rich off of selling their products and their logo to what appears to be an endless supply of stupid people who know nothing about motorcycles at all yet seem to think that they are bikers just because they have dollars.

I pledge allegiance to the mental retardation of Milwaukee, one company, decades behind all the others, with store bought liberty and make believe identity for all who can afford it. Yee-haw. This is another of the battle cries of the indigent rednecks who worship and swear fealty to Milwaukee's biggest supplier of power accessories for the redneck lifestyle. I honestly can't see ever buying a Harley, let alone buying a Harley time after time again. You would think that the average person would learn from their mistakes. I would give you one Harley to your mistake, but to go out and buy Harley after Harley isn't being a smart consumer, it's a clear indication of a deep running vein of masochism. I don't think I swear allegiance to anything (other than myself) and if I am currently riding a Honda and something happens to it, I'm just as likely to go out and buy a Kawasaki or a Yamaha or a Suzuki as I am another Honda. I do not pledge my loyalty to any one company nor do I base my existence on a certain brand of bikes, let alone do it over and over again, forever.

This simply is a catch-all to the group / herd logic that you see so much of in Harley owners. Harley owners are lonely, shallow people with a very real need to belong to something greater than they are, to belong to something they could never hope to generate on their own, if left to their pathetic social skills and abilities. They are not individuals, if they were, they could ride alone but all they ever brag about is how big a herd or flock they belong to.

Its a totally different feeling on a harley a feeling of freedom knowing that the road begins here and doesnt end. A feeling that you have so many friends in the world. -Pete

Haven't you ever had a passion for something, besides bashing HD, that was so strong that you could not explain it? Ride one just once and maybe you would or it might not be for you. Please do not categorize me because of what I like. Millions of people can't be that wrong, can they? -Tina

"When I bought my Harley, I joined a big group of friends and I have lots of friends to ride with now."

The logic even turns a curve by claiming that everyone else that a Harley owner meets actually wants to be just like them, as seen in this example:

"And by the way, every one I talk to that does'nt ride a Harley always sez " As soon as I can afford it I'll get my hawg." -Jo (like wanting to be ignorant was something someone would actually aspire to...).

Actually, the retort to this line of logic is as old as it is solid, "birds of a feather flock together." What this means is that while everyone that "Jo" meets may truly want a Harley, that's because "Jo" isn't meeting anyone other than people just as retarded as s/he is. It's amazing that a lifestyle that is touted as being made up of rugged individuals tends to gather together in large groups for support (i.e. not the behavior of stalwart individuals at all...). This is just more of Willie G's faithful little congregation pulling their logo slathered wagon trains in a circle in time of need, falling back on the "Hey, he can't be right about us, can he? I mean, he's just one little person and we're a bunch of people, why, he doesn't even dress like us or ride a Harley!"

This bit of knee-jerk retort encompasses a whole range of insults and put downs that are inherent to the defense of the hillbilly belief system. Common variants of this retort manifest their appearance as:

If you don't (own / ride / like / support) Harley Davidson, then you are therefore (scum / mean / evil / etc.).

It shows a great amount of disbelief on the part of the rednecks that anyone could go against what they consider to be so natural in essence. It's when you start banging the gong on the envelope of the soap bubble thin fantasy that they have surrounded their lives in that you start to get the spiteful feed back. It's like trying to pull an ostrich's head out of the sand and having it curse you every inch of the way.

I get so tired of all of the incessant whining that comes from Harley owners in regard to all of the other makes and models and categories of bikes and how riding them is somehow more uncomfortable than riding a Harley. I have grown quite weary of the "I can't ride a sport bike because my back will start hurting me in ten minutes" or "when you get through riding your stupid little rice burner at the end of the day, we'll see who has the most aches and pains, buddy!"

Wait a minute! I thought you Harley owning boys and girls were real men and women, tough and thick skinned, seasoned old bikers with iron butts and not only adapted to adversity but also welcoming it with open arms and bragging about it. Well, when the very same person who is complaining about riding an import bike is riding suspended from ape hangers and highway pegs, making them spread eagled like they were a 13 year old girl going to the OB-GYN for her first checkup, you have to ask what is the more comfortable riding position?

I daily commute on my sport bike. Currently that sport bike is a 2004 Honda CBR600RR which has a seat that can, at best, be described as a sheet of plywood with some thin cover material stretched over it yet I ride my sport bike over 70 miles a day, for hours on end to and from work, on the interstate, on the highway and in heavy stop and go urban traffic. Funny, after ten minutes, I'm just starting to get into the ride. I've never had a back ache from riding a sport bike and I'm thirty six years old now as of this writing. I have come to the conclusion, based on many years of experience, that sport bike riders are (by their very nature) Stoics while Harley riders, for all their self claimed toughness, are nothing but a bunch of cry-baby, soft bottomed Epicureans.

Ah, name dropping at its finest. Could anything be more lemming than to base your decisions on what someone else does? Many times, Harley owners will try to use some personality / celebrity / or local persona as proof that (smart / rich / famous ) people choose Harleys and therefore I am wrong. Usually this takes the form of extraneous data included for no apparent reason, such as:

"My friend (a very successful trial lawyer in the Pittsburgh metro area) and I went riding the other day on our Harleys for hours ..." -Mangnaro95

Nothing could be more lemming than to justify your actions or your life based on the actions of another person.

“The important thing was to ride, and his girlfriend (a professor at Duke University) invited me for a day ride." - "Al Bundy" (aka Terry Walton)

I really could not care less what some one some where else rides because it affects my life in zero manner locally. As an individual, and a strong willed one at that, doing what other people do seems ... alien ... to me. In other words, don't expect to find me "keeping up with the Jones" not when I can leave them in the dust all by myself. The core of this type of argument goes back to childhood... remember when you wanted something that your friends had and you begged your parents. It went something like this, didn't it?

Mom: "Well! If Jerry and Greg were to jump off a cliff and break both of their legs, would you want to go do that too?"

Given the lemming-like mentality of most Harley riders, the answer to that childhood scenario above would have been a resolute "yes" especially if it meant acceptance among their group and peers. In reality, at least in my life, what some celebrity in Hollywood rides, what some politician rides, what some college professor, lawyer or doctor rides affects me not at all nor does it influence my decision on what to ride and what to buy. Just because someone else does it, regardless or not if that person is famous, doesn't mean that its the best idea for me or the best idea at all. Professors, actors, musicians, politicians and celebrities in general have a proven track record of making some really bone-headed decisions in their life. I've gotten where I am in life by learning from the mistakes of other people and not, in turn, making those same mistakes myself. If you need the support of other people in order to make decisions in your own, personal life, then you are a sad, pathetic human being who is not only unable to stand on their own two feet but is also incapable of making a decision on their own. Take for example, this line...

“The important thing was to ride, and his girlfriend (a professor at Duke University) invited me for a day ride." - "Al Bundy" (aka Terry Walton)

Here, let's remove the extraneous information and see if the sentence above still stands on its own.

“The important thing was to ride and his girlfriend invited me for a day ride." - "Al Bundy" (aka Terry Walton)

Yep. Works just fine. Sounds a bit risqué and a little on the adult side but it works. Keep the name dropping out of your arguments or I'll call you on it with a quickness. If you base what you own and what you wear or what you look like on how someone else lives their life, you are a lemming and a rather dim witted one at that.

Oh, please. The Hell’s Angels are about as scary as The Teletubbies. They are a group whose time has long since come and gone. Sonny Barger, one of the original founders of the Hell’s Angels, even admitted that if the group were to be somehow born today, or if they were to just come into existence now, that they wouldn’t be riding Harleys, they’d all be on import sport bikes. This just goes to prove my opinion that you can’t ride a Harley and be ever expect anyone to consider you as a bad ass person. Bad ass people don’t ride ridiculous, underpowered, overweight motorcycles. I mean, come on, how serious do you think people would take police officers if they had to ride around on pink bicycles with training wheels, flowered woven baskets up front and one of those little ‘ring-ting’ bells on the handlebars? Drug dealers would laugh at them from street corners. Would anyone obey them if they asked you to pull over?

Probably not.

The same is true with the Hell’s Angels. If the Hell’s Angels ever did decide to track me down, I’d hear them coming two states away and even though a thousand of them left Los Angeles and California bound for Mississippi, they’d probably be lucky if six made it here and four of those would be riding in the back of farmer’s pickups with their bikes tied down and leaking oil. Hell’s Angels on Harleys don’t scare me. Hell’s Angels on GSX-R1000s and Hayabusas would pretty much put the fear of God in me. Not that it is going to happen because the Hell’s Angels, like every other Harley wannabe, has a reputation and an image to keep up, even when it’s detrimental to their nature.

Heck, if the Hell’s Angels did show up here, we’d just have a large party and have a lot of fun. I’d be their manager and we could have a big southern style barbeque where all of the doctors, lawyers and other biker wannabes could pay $100 a plate to sit and eat with some real bad ass biker dudes and then they could pay extra to have their picture taken with the Hell’s Angel of their choice. Of course, I think I’d take 15% off the top as my commission and give the rest to the Hell’s Angels to do with as they please.

Overall, I welcome the Hell’s Angels to ride down here. I see it as a win-win scenario for both of us and as an opportunity for a huge financial windfall for each of us. Now, really, if Milwaukee is taking money from idiots left and right, why can’t the Hell’s Angels and I do it too?

Nothing screams "Internet VIRGIN" quite like using CAPS LOCK to type out your entire message. CAPS LOCK is the Internet equivalent of shouting or throwing a tantrum and its mostly seen as poor posturing. No one takes anyone who types in ALL CAPS very seriously. TYPING IN ALL CAPS PROVES THAT YOU DON'T KNOW INTERNET SOCIAL PROTOCOL AND THAT YOUR EMAIL HYMEN HAS YET TO BE BROKEN. I swear. Idiots who type in ALL CAPS should be jerked right out of their chairs from in front of their computers, dragged outside into their front yard and then energetically beaten to death with a dog slobber covered chew toy that squeaks.

The reason why American Online is so popular is because it is so easy to use (and they have a marketing department that puts trial CDs in everything from cereal boxes to packs of tampons). AOL is so easy to use because it's been dumbed down to the lowest level possible then give a good twist further to break the mold and lower the standard even further. Albert Einstein once said that "everything should be made as simple as possible and not one step simpler." AOL ignores that bit of logic and breaks new frontiers in actively pooling together the largest ensemble of educational dropouts, social rejects and the mentally retarded that the world has ever known outside of Sturgis. AOL does everything for you, no thinking required at all. No skills, no knowledge, you just pay AOL and bam!, you're on the Internet. AOL is geared towards the lowest common denominator in society, it's basically an ISP with an overdone GUI interface that's NASCAR fan friendly. AOL gives you email with a voice telling you "You've got mail". AOL gives you a homepage you can fag up more than an 8th grade girls school locker. AOL is for simpletons, its a graphic intensive gateway to the Internet but AOL is not the Internet (a common misconception among AOL users). AOL makes it easy to be stupid because it starts out with low standards and falls fast and far from there. Once you are on AOL, you are surrounded by the kind of people who would never be on the Internet if someone didn't find a way to take them by the hand and show them step by step how to get there (and that was a very bad thing to do). As AOL is so popular among the dullards that populate our great society, it is no wonder that a vast number of Harley advocates also wind up on AOL (and a vast majority of which can't even spell the word "Harley" correctly on their home pages).

Simple minds, simple pleasures. AOL has always been pretty much a running joke among Internet savvy veterans but with the constant drive to get as many people online with the least amount of weeding out of retards, AOL always was and still is a veritable recipe for disaster. It's a melting pot where the LCDs in society can simmer and stew with complete comfort. After a few years, if you were on AOL, then the rest of the Internet just couldn't take you very seriously. Let's put it another way, think of AOL as the Fisher Price of GUIs and as such, many of the idiots I deal with on this site proudly bear email addresses with the "@AOL.COM" suffix attached to them. The kind of people who ride Harleys are the kind of people who need training wheels on the Internet.

It never ceases to amaze me of the depths that the Harley mindset will go to protect itself from the simple truth. What is also amazing is just how many Harley advocates are defined, literally defined, by what they own and not who they are. It becomes very important to let the world know that you own a Harley and that this is not only somehow a great achievement in life but that it somehow sets you apart from the rest of the human race while making you better in some way or the other. Denial is an ugly thing, it really is. Too bad it isn't terminal or the gene pool might be a lot clearer and safer to swim in.

Case in point, I get email all the time from people who own Harleys and who also have lots of money (or so they claim). The delusion that one circumstance must go with the other circumstance, or that one is a result of the other, is simply laughable. These nut monkeys don't realize that the bike they cherish owns them, not the other way around. Their Harleys define them, who they are, what they are, right down to their chosen identity in their emails. They have to broadcast to the world that they are Harley owners and when they list their accomplishments in life, owning a Harley invariably falls somewhere within the range that is cited. These emails often go into great detail about what the person has and how much better they are than I am because of what they own and their perception of their place within the cosmic scheme of things (often skewed and blown way out of proportion, to be sure).

This all goes back to my firm belief that if you own a Harley, you are inherently an incomplete person and only the addition of a big, flashy, loud and attention getting material good is going to make you more complete or a whole (at least according to you) person. The difference between most Harley riders and myself is that if I were to lose my bike today, I would be the same person tomorrow that I am today. And the day after. And the day after. A lot of Harley riders cannot say the same because if they lost their Harley, they would lose their identity. They would lose who they were, what they were and the only thing that truly defines their character and person.

I find it sad that their ownership of their bikes permeates their life to its lowest levels, even to their choice of email addresses which they choose to use in order to communicate with the rest of us. Even then, they are broadcasting and reminding us of what defines them and what rules their world. Their choice of motorcycle defines them, for better or worse, mainly because they were never able to define their own selves in the first place. Harley owners truly are the flotsam and jetsam of the human race and like flotsam and jetsam in the real world, they often wash up in large bundles.

"By the way I earned over $600K last year, I own three businesses, my home , a Harley, have a beautiful wife and daughter, drive American made automobiles, my wife is a nurse for the VA Hospital, my daughter makes straight A's and I am one of those Veterans who went to war." - Texas Harley 2000

Perhaps, if Texas Harley 2000 had been a little smarter, he might not own a Harley. He also would probably be smart enough to make $600k a year with just one business instead of having to manage three at a time.

The gist of this line of logic is just more ape-like chest beating as the Harley advocate tries to prove his self worth and at the same time justify their purchase of a Harley like it was an achievement, a social phase of evolution and one that they and they alone were rightfully entitled to. You would think that Harley was the ride of kings the way that these people carry on! I get so tired of the I'm rich and I have this and that and a Harley and some of this and a lot of that and I drive a something or other and my beautiful wife has a matching something or other and blah blah blah. You can tell these kind of people pretty easily because they let what they own determine who they are, not just on the Internet (notice how their email signature describes them) but also in real life. Often, the sad fact is that these people are nothing without their Harleys and the way that they go about trying to justify their purchase of such a laughable piece of junk really is quite sad.

It's not a motorcycle, folks, try as hard as you may to tell us otherwise. A Harley is nothing more than an overpriced, overweight, underpowered, no-handling, poorly engineered fashion accessory.

Trust me, folks. Money has never been a clear and present indicator of intelligence. After all, any moron can win the lottery but that doesn't automatically make them NASA grade employment material. Likewise, any moron can buy a Harley, all it takes is money. No brains. Just money. And the inability to tell historical fact from marketing fiction.

"He's just some poor bastard who probably got beat up alot when he was younger so now, he can run off at the mouth hiding behind a computer keyboard. If that website makes him feel like he's amounting to something in life, so be it. He certainly wouldn't say any of those things to any Harley Owner that I know in person, so far as I'm concerned, he rates right up there with Osama Bin Laden .... a GUTLESS COWARD, running and hiding and speaking from some "cave" somewhere with his computer." -jcalaz2003

Wrong, Sparky. I don't hide behind my computer. My name and address have been posted on my website for years, along with my telephone number. You could have gotten all of these things from Google but I made it simple for you because when it comes to Harley owners, I have nothing to fear. I mean, come on, being afraid of Harley owners is like being afraid of the kids that ride the short yellow bus only Harley riders are more stinky and have less teeth.

Christopher T. Shields
1117 National Guard Road
Columbia, MS 39429

601.736.8401 phone

I laugh when some ignorant Harley owner emails me some poorly written and poorly spelled death threat with my real world address on it and it goes along the lines of "I found out where you live, motherfucker! You better take your website down or you'll be sorry. I got your address!" to which point I explain that a lot of people have my address and phone number, it's not too hard to get. Both are listed in just about any directory you look up on the Internet. In the 21st century and in the realm of the Internet, it's almost impossible to hide so why waste the energy, effort or time. Also, remember this. If you can find my address, I can find yours just as easily. I had a woman call me one time and say that she spent two hours looking up my address on the Internet because she was computer illiterate. I'm sure she meant to say that she was computer literate and that two hours effort was supposed to impress me. The fact is that this woman pretty much pissed my wife off with her incessant calling and whining so my wife sat down at the computer and within 5 minutes my wife not only had this woman's home address, but her home phone number, her place of employment, her work number, and maps to both her house and her place of employment. The fact that she kept calling me from her place of employment was interesting and I told her if she continued, I'd just ask her boss if he minded paying for all the long distance calls she was making. I then read to her from the printout my wife gave me not only her home address and phone number, but her work number also. She stopped calling after that. I guess she realized that she wasn't quite the shark in the fishbowl that she believed herself to be.

You can't hide (which I guess is why so many Harley owners use disposable email accounts). Besides, the phone calls and threats I get on my answering machine are priceless and only go to reinforce the beliefs that I personally hold as well as share with you here on this website. Nothing is funnier (or uglier) than someone else trying to defend their pathetic way of life by using someone else's logic instead of their own. Posting my address is just one more point in my favor when I tell you that I'm not afraid of you. Never have been, never will be.

This one bit of silliness has been around forever yet so few people question the validity of this ridiculous statement. We all know the poor quality control that Harley had suffered from before the AMF years so why would anyone think that 9 out of 10 Harleys ever made are still in operation? Does that mean that ninety percent of all Harley Davidsons built in 1903 are still on the road today? No. There is no manufacturer in the world who can honestly (or factually) claim (let alone prove) that 9 out of 10 of every vehicle that they ever built is still on the road and in operation today. Maybe nine out of ten Harley Davidsons made in the last six months are still on the road today ... that would be a more faithful statement.

Think about it, folks. Logic and common sense would easily show that this statement is not only ludicrous but patently retarded. Are 9 out of 10 Fords ever made still on the road today? Are 9 out of 10 Chevrolets ever made still on the road today? If not, then why would you think that 9 out of 10 Harley Davidsons ever made are still on the road today? If anyone ever says this bit of utter and complete nonsense to you, call them on the spot, embarrass them in public in front of their friends and coworkers and demand concrete proof of their statement. When they can't prove it to you, laugh in their face and tell them that they are a media driven idiot.

What the poor sods probably meant to say was that "9 out of 10 Harleys made last year are still on the road today." The ratio goes down dramatically the further back in years that you go.

THE REVOLVING BARNEY FIFE REFERENCE- I had to put this here, separate, as I'm not sure it really fits in with the rest but since it seems to come up quite often and is a recurring theme among Harley owners, I had to put it somewhere. Basically, I get called "Barney Fife" or "Barney" a lot by Harley owners. For those of you unfamiliar with "Barney Fife" he was the bumbling law man / deputy of Mayberry, played by veteran actor and comedy man Don Knotts. Barney Fife was Andy Griffith's deputy and carried his weapon unloaded because as soon as he loaded his revolver and stuck it back in his holster, it always went off accidentally. After that, Andy Griffith started making Barney carry only one bullet and he had to carry it in his pocket. The Andy Griffith Show was a great family classic, full of good, clean fun and it still is a classic today though I admit to not really being able to sit through more than about five minutes of it at a time and that pretty damn infrequently. To me, it's just dated. The images, the humor, much like Harley Davidson, are all dated so it's no real surprise that, seeing as I am a volunteer police officer in the city where I live, that Harley owners would try to use the only police officer they are familiar with as a type of insult.

It doesn't work and it is hilarious when it is tried and trust me, it is tried quite often. You see, The Andy Griffith Show was brand new back about the same time that Harley had their last original / good idea and that was during the 1950's. Calling me "Barney Fife" or "Barney" insults me about the same as a soldier serving in Iraq would be insulted if some peace activist referred to him as "Beetle Bailey." It really is funny to see the Harley inspired limited intellect at work, especially when the very same idea or thought is repeated by so many people so many times.

Now, since we are on the subject of physical appearances, let's compare some images, shall we?


"Barney Fife" - played by veteran actor Don Knotts on the "The Andy Griffith Show" sitcom	Christopher T. Shields your host, "Black Echo"	Hasbro's Action Team "G. I. Joe" toy figure, circa 1970s

No, I don't think I look at all like "Barney Fife" (my nose is bigger and my head is fatter and rounder) as much as I look like the old, twelve inch tall, Hasbro "G. I. Joe" figure from the early 1970's (a treasured childhood toy to be sure and oh so much cooler than Mattel's wimpy Big Jim), right down to the big old blue eyes. Who would have known that I would one day look like my favorite childhood toy!? The only thing missing is the scar on the right cheek (and I'm working on that).