Bikers or motorcyclists?

[JDOCKERY132445]

http://cofcc.org/2011/05/myrtle-beac...ack-bike-week/

If you talked to local restaurants and businesses, you got an even worse version of this.

[EMSimon]

Not the right place here to elaborate about this, .

+1

[themayer]

http://cofcc.org/2011/05/myrtle-beac...ack-bike-week/

If you talked to local restaurants and businesses, you got an even worse version of this.

The account in this article may or may not be true, but I would give it more credence if it were not from a racist website.

[KJ6OCL]

The account in this article may or may not be true, but I would give it more credence if it were not from a racist website.

+1 When I have the time to research reported items on Conservative websites, TV "news" and radio talk shows, I normally find that the truth has been bent to the breaking point, or just plain lies.

[jeepinbanditrider]

I can say the same thing about the liberal news agencies. They are both guilty of the same stuff.

Anywho, I don't care what people want to call me personally. If they don't want my business I'll simply take it somewhere else.

[wb5plj]

The account in this article may or may not be true, but I would give it more credence if it were not from a racist website.

+1 When I have the time to research reported items on Conservative websites, TV "news" and radio talk shows, I normally find that the truth has been bent to the breaking point, or just plain lies.

I can say the same thing about the liberal news agencies. They are both guilty of the same stuff.

Anywho, I don't care what people want to call me personally. If they don't want my business I'll simply take it somewhere else.

I read only part of the article, it is so clearly slanted that I don't trust anything about it. Parts may be true I don't know, but they already lost my trust so I don't have any rational choice but to ignore the rest of it. I have no knowledge of the website but I dislike it when one concept is cloaked inside another. Where I come from Conservative is not synonymous with racist. That article strikes me as such.

Any rate on to journalism; this comes near one of my common thumping points (not to hijack the thread), journalist have turned into columnists every where you look. The difference is that journalists used to pride them selves on presenting the facts, (not truth, that requires interpretation.), other peoples opinions, all sides of the story, etc without slanting the story and never offered there opinions or conclusions. Columnists where there to give you their opinions, like Dear Abby and that type of thing. These days it is a spaghetti storm of half of the story, it is very disquieting to me.

[ka5ysy]

In any given event or group there are the 1% that cause grief to everyone. Most people think everyone on two wheels is a member of a biker gang. That is called stereotyping and is the cause of a lot of the problems in the human race as a whole.

[themayer]

I read only part of the article, it is so clearly slanted that I don't trust anything about it. Parts may be true I don't know, but they already lost my trust so I don't have any rational choice but to ignore the rest of it. I have no knowledge of the website but I dislike it when one concept is cloaked inside another. Where I come from Conservative is not synonymous with racist. That article strikes me as such.

I made my assessment of the website not just on the article, but after opening some of the links to the left of the article. The egregious misreading of history along with the assessment of who is and isn't a "real American" is unmistakable.

[BCKRider]

I prefer "motorcyclist". It generally gets a better response out of people, due to pre-conceived notions, however it really shouldn't matter.

I used to ride a 2005 Honda Shadow 750, with after-market pipes. Gave it a deep, throaty sound and it approached the decibel level of your average Harley. I was headed into work one summer morning, doing about 25mph in 4th gear trying to keep the bike as quiet as I could so as not to disturb the slumbering masses in the neighborhood, when I came upon an elderly couple walking along the sidewalk. The lady looked at me, and with a scowl put her finger up to her lips in a "shuuush" motion. She actually "shushed" me! Because I was already attempting to be as quiet as possible, loafing along at near idle, it triggered a nerve. I pulled the clutch, and with as much zeal as I could muster I revved that engine to the point where anyone within a 1/2 mile would have heard... The look on the her husband's face was priceless, he couldn't stop laughing

Should I have kept the throttle low and ignored her? Possibly. I doubt that I helped our cause by making her mad and waking up 1/2 the neighborhood. But at that moment in time I wanted to make a point.

The lack of understanding or the lack of any desire to understand where "the other guy" is coming from doesn't play well with concepts like "freedom". When you are doing everything in your power to be considerate and someone else just isn't getting it, it gets frustrating and you get to the point where you just don't care about what they think anymore. They have made up their minds and there is no way you are going to change what they think. As such, I prefer "motorcyclist", because certain people see the term as being more friendly & intelligent, and it generally makes life move along a bit more smoothly.

So do I have this straight?
1. You installed loud pipes on your Honda because sometimes (frequently?) you really do like to make a racket.
2. You did your best to tone down the noise you intentionally created but were still loud enough to annoy an elderly lady.
3. When she shushed you she infringed on your freedom, so you decided to annoy everyone in the neighborhood. OK, I'm exaggerating. According to rigorous scientific sampling of the general populace, only 98.3% of all people are offended by loud pipes - if they are already awake.
4. I believe I missed the point you were trying to make. That people should understand your desire/need to make a lot of noise? Making a lot of noise constitutes "freedom?"
5. I would think a stock muffler and moderate RPM's would constitute "doing everything in you power to be considerate."
6. I would disagree that MOST people have a single stereotype of riders. Certainly they know there are "outlaws" on loud bikes and may have trouble differentiating the genuine article from the imitators. But if you ride a quiet bike in a sensible fashion and don't dress the part of a villan, my experience is you generally get a friendly reception.
7. I don't really care if people call me a motorcyclist or a biker. I just try not to give them a reason to call me an a$$hole.

Would you care to reconsider your position? Possibly you already have since you are posting on a BMW forum.

[pjjj3386]

I pulled the clutch, and with as much zeal as I could muster I revved that engine to the point where anyone within a 1/2 mile would have heard... The look on the her husband's face was priceless, he couldn't stop laughing

This was so wrong. Luv it!

[Cyclepilot]

So do I have this straight?
1. You installed loud pipes on your Honda because sometimes (frequently?) you really do like to make a racket.
2. You did your best to tone down the noise you intentionally created but were still loud enough to annoy an elderly lady.
3. When she shushed you she infringed on your freedom, so you decided to annoy everyone in the neighborhood. OK, I'm exaggerating. According to rigorous scientific sampling of the general populace, only 98.3% of all people are offended by loud pipes - if they are already awake.
4. I believe I missed the point you were trying to make. That people should understand your desire/need to make a lot of noise? Making a lot of noise constitutes "freedom?"
5. I would think a stock muffler and moderate RPM's would constitute "doing everything in you power to be considerate."
6. I would disagree that MOST people have a single stereotype of riders. Certainly they know there are "outlaws" on loud bikes and may have trouble differentiating the genuine article from the imitators. But if you ride a quiet bike in a sensible fashion and don't dress the part of a villan, my experience is you generally get a friendly reception.
7. I don't really care if people call me a motorcyclist or a biker. I just try not to give them a reason to call me an a$$hole.

Would you care to reconsider your position? Possibly you already have since you are posting on a BMW forum.

Wow...

1. When did I say that I was the one that installed the pipes? Please don't assume things and then make accusations like this, especially regarding things that in the end are not relevant to the point of the post. In my defense, however, I bought the bike used, from a dealer, with the pipes on it. I did not have the extra $ to replace them with stock, so I did what I could to keep what I had as quiet as I could. It was my first motorcycle, and after riding it for a while I concluded it wasn't really the best choice for me.
2. Yes, she was annoyed. I get annoyed with people when I don't fully understand their position. It's human nature, and it is something we all need to keep working on.
3. She shushed me, yes. It was a rude way of asking me to be more quiet than I was, without understanding the full situation. No, I did not decide to make a lot of noise to intentionally wake up the entire neighborhood, frankly I did it to irritate one person. Haven't you ever done something that you later regretted? Can you actually admit to making mistakes and being human?
4. Freedom is having ability to make the choice, not making a lot of noise. But neither of these is the point I was making.
5. I was at as low of rpm as I could manage without killing the engine. As for the muffler, see item 1.
6. I disagree, in that "most" people, at least in the areas that I have lived in my entire life, do have a stereotype. I did notice a change in people's attitudes (at least those that are not part of the motorcycle community) when I went from the cruiser to the touring bike. When I got on/off the cruiser in a parking lot, I generally got more sneers & irritated looks from people. On the BMW, I get more smiles. When walking through a store in my riding gear, all the reactions were generally the same, because they didn't see what style of bike I had. I have full riding gear, including a full-face black & silver-striped HJC helmet. I suppose if you consider fully-suited in Tourmaster textile, gloves, boots & helmet the villain, then yes, I dress the part.
7. I prefer not to be known as the @$$ either, which is made especially difficult when people pick apart things I say, in an effort to make me look bad, when the entire context of the message should be taken into account. My first bike was a cruiser, now I ride a BMW. I have grown and matured in my ride over the last few years (not to say cruisers are bad, just that I prefer the less obtrusive sport-tourer). My point was that in my experience I have found that "biker" tends to be associated with rude, crude, dirty, obnoxious cruiser operators, while the term "motorcyclist" is more likely associated with the rider that you portray yourself to be, the one that rides responsibly, quietly, and generally makes an attempt to not be a nuisance. I also mentioned that I think the terms shouldn't carry a different connotation, my experience (not yours) simply dictates otherwise.

Please don't paint me out to be the bad guy here. I am offering up my experiences in an attempt to help other people understand my answer to the question posed by the OP. I am attempting to write intelligently, with my thoughts collected and reasoned. If you want to continue playing the part of the troll, I would guess that the moderators would prefer a new thread (or no thread at all) specifically for digging down into someone's history, instead of discussing "biker" & "motorcyclist".

May you always have the sun at your back, curves ahead, and a full tank of gas.

[Rpbump]

Biker / Motorcylist ?? Who cares I just like to RIDE.

RIDE SAFE

[markaz]

...
7. I don't really care if people call me a motorcyclist or a biker. I just try not to give them a reason to call me an a$$hole.

Well said!