Pop culture really latched onto motorcycles starting in the eighties, it fucking exploded. Yes there were hundreds of thousands of Jap bikes pumped out in the sixties and seventies, the Japs made motorcycles into mass-produced appliances.
This bred a new rider, one who did not have to have a lot of mechanical know-how to ride a bike, the Jap bikes, especially the Hondas, ran forever and needed very little work and money to keep them going. Riders no longer had to have any intimate knowledge of their bike to use it daily, and that meant they did not have the same connection to their bike or motorcycling as the owner of an old Brit, Euro or American bike who was constantly fiddling with the ignition, electrics, carbs and valves, filters and fastners just so it would be half-way reliable.
Pop culture used the shit out of motorcycles long before the Evolution Harley big twins and sportsters came out in the mid-eighties, but once Harleys were turned into appliances with the full support of the new Corporate Motor Company, then every douchebag that ever saw Easyriders and had a credit card equipped himself with a Sporty or Lowrider and a compliment of Harley Corporate clothing.
Most I know who got into vintage, american or Brit/Euro bikes after the early eighties are in it for no good reason, they have no contemporary connection with the machinery and are not riding for the reasons most were in the fifties, sixties and seventies.
I don't go to bike shows, bike meets, bike nights or bike anything unless I need something to help me puke out a bad meal, and that would be the throngs and masses of idiot hipster/young cunts posing on two wheels and a motor.
My biking friends and family that are around fifty and up I can stand to hang out with. One good friend of mine has a Harley he bought new in 67' and he still rides it. He won't go within a mile of any bike night or neo-Harley gathering. He agrees that today's motorcycle scene is 99.99% about ego and is sickened by it.
Yea, there were assholes on two wheels thirty to sixty years ago too, and if they are still on two wheels after all these years then they are the only old timers you will see hanging out with hipsters.
Someone asks me "Hey did you see the new Norton, or the new Indian or the new whattsit?" No fucking way, it is all a shit scene and I have not bought a contemporary bike mag for fifteen years.
I am sure there are a few good young people out there into biking for a real reason, but I am not looking for them, it is like finding four-leaf clover, it has to happen by chance because you will never find it if you are looking.
