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Motorcycles have long been associated both with America’s harder edge and with liberty itself. It is no accident that, in The Great Escape, Steve McQueen rides away from tyranny and toward freedom on the back of a Triumph two-wheeler, but one also gets the impression that if Satan were to use earthly forms of transport to deliver his seductions, he, too, would be carried along the highways and byways on the back of a chopper. . . . . Bikers thus inspire mixed reactions in the public’s imagination, and it is maybe inevitable that even those who feel positive toward them tend also to perceive their culture as being emblematic of an unfortunate American tendency to metamorphose liberty into license and make fiends of the free.
. . . . truth does not always reign in the court of public opinion, and the bad-boy image has stuck, tarnishing all with the transgressions of a few. This stubborn perception does a disservice to what is actually a remarkably conservative and deeply patriotic group.
They’re religious, too. Daytona Beach is filled with churches, and on weekends during the rally the churches are filled with bikers. Here too — giant signs make it abundantly clear — they are “welcome.” . . . . Despite their menacing appearances, bikers are a surprisingly pious bunch, and Christian clubs proliferate among them. . . . . In Daytona Beach, they have come to the right place — there are 246 churches in a city of only 60,000 people, and while the festival is on, attendance rises dramatically.
Not all the bikers at the rally carry slogans on their clothes and motorcycles, but those who do promote overwhelmingly conservative sentiments. Many fly American flags and exhibit slogans about freedom and the open road. . . . . There are bumper stickers that simply read “God and Country,” or “It’s Time for Another Tea Party,” or “Helmet Laws Suck: Let Those Who Ride, Decide.” About the only arguably liberal cause I see endorsed in my three days among them is the legalization of marijuana, which National Review has also long supported.
. . . . — bikers tend to take positions rather than endorse candidates and, more than anything, seem fed up with the little things: with mandatory-helmet laws, interference with gun rights, and incessant nannying about food and drink and light bulbs. They are weary of being lectured about the environment and burdened with endless mandates and taxes. One festival-goer describes the current climate as being like “having your mother constantly calling you to check whether you’ve eaten your f***ing vegetables.”
. . . . . They mistrust rules and reject the supposedly superior wisdom of others. Ruggedly individual, they are the new cowboys — the tattooed pastors of America’s iron horses in an era in which trains have lost their romance and cars all look the same, and theirs is a simple refrain: Leave Me Alone.
. . . . . Personal transport has always been a redoubt of freedom — for good and for ill — but biking is particularly so. Although theirs is an inherently solo enterprise, bikers look out for one another; but they do not need to be instructed to do so, and some I speak to wonder out loud “what the hell is wrong with people” who need to be commanded to help
That is probably true, but the sentiment is disingenuous: There demonstrably is such a thing as an average biker. The gathering overwhelmingly consists of white, middle-aged men . . . . — who enjoy both sufficient income and sufficient free time to sustain an expensive and time-consuming hobby. The few under-forties who attend Bike Week appear on the non-American bikes — “Jap bikes,” they are called by the Harley-Davidson crowd — and largely keep themselves to themselves. (They better resemble the cast of Jersey Shore than the Hells Angels and stick out like sore thumbs in the sea of leather and tattoos.) . . . .
The ranks are disproportionately filled with professionals, ex-military types, and retirees. The average age of a Harley owner is 47, and his median household income is $83,000 — well above the national median. Moreover, the income and age brackets are both rising: A recent study commissioned by Harley-Davidson showed that in 1987 half of all Harley riders were under age 35 and that their average household income was $38,000. If the trend continues, by 2035 the average biker will be receiving Social Security checks. In fact, many attendees already do. I meet a group of retirees from Wisconsin — all Vietnam vets — who have ridden down to Florida together. They plan to attend the entire festival. All in all, their time commitment is the best part of a month.
By and large, bikers such as the Wisconsin nine are more likely to take part in groups such as the Patriot Guard Riders, which was formed in 2005 in response to the execrable Westboro Baptist Church’s picketing of the funerals of fallen soldiers. The Patriot Guard comprises various existing clubs, including military groups such as the In Country Vets Motorcycle Club, the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, the American Legion Riders, and Rolling Thunder, in addition to a 20,000-strong law-enforcement group called the Blue Knights, and the stalwart Christian Motorcycle Association. Its stated mission is to “show . . . sincere respect for our fallen heroes, their families, and their communities” and to “shield the mourning family and their friends from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors,” and the group’s members, its website notes, have “one thing in common besides motorcycles,” that being “an unwavering respect for those who risk their very lives for America’s freedom and security.”
Indeed, if there is one unifying sentiment among the people I have come across, it is love of country. It is profoundly important to most that Harley-Davidson is an American brand, and rare to see a biker without at least one American flag on his clothes or his bikes — often on both. They constitute a legion of volunteers on wheels, representing — in sundry ways, and in the pursuit of various good ends — the “vast number of voluntary associations” of which Tocqueville spoke so warmly. They make their cases in rough language, and they go about their business ostentatiously; but their unifying cause is freedom and their sworn allegiance is to America — and, with this in mind, we might well agree with the ubiquitous signs around Daytona Beach: Bikers Welcome Here
