All the usual motorcycle gangs have chapters here. The Outlaws, Hells Angels, The Pistons, etc. are well represented. Don't just take my word on it, take a look at what the Wisconsin Department of Justice says about the presence of motorcycle gangs in just one small part of the state in this report. Pretty scary.
My green, leafy suburban neighborhood alone has several motorcycle gangs. They are highly visible every weekend during warm weather. The members dress in sleeveless shirts, leather vests or jackets, chaps, do-rags and sun glasses. We call one gang in our neighborhood "Hell's Accountants", and the other gang the "Legion of Managers." They're pretty mellow, compared with some of the more hard-core gangs.
I encountered some really bad-ass bikers this summer. I hadn't planned on it, of course, but it happened. I'd been riding for a few hours and needed a break so I wheeled to the curb in front of a coffee shop. When I came back out after filling my coffee tank, there they were, parked at the curb, waiting for me. Shit. Trouble. Out numbered.
I'd never heard of this club before. Maybe that is because they are so secret that they don't even have a name. Smart, very smart. If your club doesn't have a name......how can it be included in a Wisconsin Department of Justice report about motorcycle clubs?
I looked all innocent as I carefully took four candid photos.
Cheese on a cracker - vintage Puch (say: Pook) mopeds and scooters. Bad, totally bad. Look at the size of that gang - all those hot bikes. This is a bad situation.
I moved in a bit closer.
The gang members were riding mostly early to mid 1960's Puchs, with a few Sears Allstate and JC Penny mopeds thrown in for good measure. No Cushmans, though. Cushmans are for the bourgeoisie.
These bikes, my friends were not mere trailer queens, perfectly restored and ridden only a few miles on warm, dry days. They were original, unrestored, and ratty. The riders were doing all sorts of hellish antics, including riding up and down the street, exhaust baffles removed, some going as fast as 25, even thirty miles per hour!
I wanted to meet the leader of the gang. I looked around and thought I found him. We started talking, you know, sort of casually so I wouldn't raise suspicions. He opened up after a while and told me - gasp! - that being an undergrad totally sucked, and if it wasn't for his wheels and cheap Pabst beer and Ska bands he'd have punched out and entered the straight world months ago.
He saw my camera and lost his friendliness.
He turned back around and said "Okay, like I'm not the leader, I'm a co-leader because it's sorta a co-op thing, I think. The other co-leader is over there" pointing to a young woman in shorts, a top, boots and a skin-full of tattoos.
I slunk (damn, I like that word - slunk) over to where she was standing and took a photo of her bike. Awesome and strangely terrifying at the same time.
I've been thinking about my encounter with this gang for a few weeks now. I think I want to join, even if I'm a bit out of their base demographic. What the heck I do like Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and it did fuel my undergraduate years, so maybe I'd fit right in.
And I found this on eBay. Oh boy!
I think you should join that chapter. You guys could ride to Madison on weekends and terrorize the motorcycle h8ers.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog, Michael.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college, a ska band from Wisconsin used to come down here for a couple of months at a time, from Mardi Gras to Jazz Fest, basically. I was skeptical of these white Vikings playing reggae, but they were great. I guess there was more to the WI ska culture than I had understood.
Your tale made me think of a friend we lost to the storm - he's alive, but his house was a few lots down from one of the levee breaks, and he and his girlfriend broke up under the recovery stress, and life goes on, so you get the picture. We miss him.
Brad rode from Denver to Natchitoches, LA, in one trip. He got a witness when he departed, collected gas receipts from the starting point and along the way, and another witness to certify when he ended up in Natchitoches. The next day he rode to the Harley shop near his home town of Eunice (Cajun HD) and submitted all this to the proprietors, for recognition of what's called an Iron Butt Ride - 1000 miles in 24 hours. They'd certify it all, and HD would later send him a certificate, a pin and a license plate frame.
Brad is a short guy, a sharp, cocky little banty rooster, a physicist and computer engineer - just a filled with confidence. I love him.
The Harley bunch needed his license number and the specs on his bike for the paperwork, and so they all went outside to get that, which is what Brad had been waiting for - to see their faces when they got a look at his Vespa.
That is a great story, Beth, thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteMy son did his Iron Butt ride at the end of August and is awaiting his license plate bracket and membership bling. I am going to do it this coming Spring, as early in the year as work schedules and weather allows.
The Iron Butt Association is an interesting bunch. The minimum standard for admission is riding 1,000 miles in under 24 hours. They hold a rally every other year that requires contestants to ride about 1,000 miles every day, for 11 days.
I'm not that energetic. Maybe.
And to think I used to sneer at anything under 250cc as beneath contempt.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if I'd qualify for the Iron Butt Association, but I did 2 long-distance rides in my misspent youth: The first was on a 1951 Harley full-dress FLH in original condition (rocker clutch, hand shift, roll bars, rhinestone-and-fringe trimmed white leather bags, etc.) from San Bernardino to Redding, CA in one go. A serious trip down a retro time hole, even in 1968. Possibly the last moment for it.
The other was a few years later in the mid-70's: From Santa Barbara, CA to Santa Fe, NM on a 1956 T110 Triumph, again, all in one go. That one involved an all-night ride across a couple of big, empty deserts. Not to be forgotten. But on a 20-year-old British bike with 100,000+ miles on the odometer, no battery, and nothing but a magneto ignition? Took a side road up a hill at 2:00 AM and stopped and killed the engine to stand astride my bike, breathe in the cool desert air and look at the black mountains on the horizon blotting one arm of the Milky Way against a black sky strewn with stars. Coyotes barked far away, and subtle things moved in the dim, gray scrub brush 20 yards away. My motorcycle started on the second kick. I rode away and arrived in Santa Fe in time for breakfast.
These days I wouldn't call that Iron Butt, just Rocks in Head.
But then again, my present milquetoast circumstances are part of the price, I suppose, of having become civilized, as I am, in Massachusetts.
Michael, I hope you blog your IB ride. And enjoy the hell out of it.
ReplyDeleteI was scared for you, Michael. You don't wanna mess with this kinda crowd. Like something out of Mad Max.
ReplyDelete