MEDIA AND LANGUAGE
The position of Bikers and bikes in mass-media is determined by thresholds of news or sensationalist values. Only extreme examples, whether it be accidental death or heinous crime appear; which also applies to the entertainments side of media production. They are largely aimed at non-biking audiences, who require uncomplicated stereotypes, and this leaves Bikers gagging for some reality and true representation. A prime example is televised coverage of motorcycle sport. It comes way down the list after football, cricket, golf, equestrianism and even basketball. Even scheduled highlights get scrapped if the tennis drags on. And when biking sport does appear, there too is a hierarchy, topped by Grand Prix, then World Super Bike, Moto-Cross, trials and so on. Whilst there are many Bikers in the world, their status in any given community is a minority one. That, coupled with the fact that the media are not predisposed to render a service - several sports channels vying with each other to cover the same (non-biking) events supports this - is part of the frustration heaped upon people with unusual lives.
Television often uses rebel Biker types to solve crimes - if they aren’t committing them themselves, in sanitised versions of the truth. In the past, TV documentaries followed the miss-representative news items, worsening the biking reputation. However recent productions have aimed for more accuracy. A programme about the accident and subsequent attempts at recovery of stunt rider Eddie Kid, is one of the most profound and accurate TV events. His career had taken him into the movies, doubling as James Bond and others as he performed impossible-looking bike antics.
The most realistic televisual biking is the coverage of biking events, like sports. Besides the footage (and occasionally decent sound reproduction, i.e. the sound of motorcycles, not incidental music), the interviews provide glimpses of down to earth biking, as riders praise or criticise each other. It is notable how a rider who has crashed does not put on the kind of agonised act performed by professional footballers. They usually get straight up and try to continue. The entertainment value is in the event, not in any misfortune, but this, having a minority audience, gets sidelined to minimal airtime.
Biking travelogues make occasional appearances. Around the World on Two Wheels covers Ray Sanders’ attempt to circumnavigate the globe in record time. Much of the sound quality and camera work leave something to be desired, but given the circumstances of it’s making, such a programme does well to exist at all. Especially when such adventurers are usually filming themselves. The benefit of a film crew shows in the UK series, Ridge Riders by Nick Knowles. It follows him with various biking enthusiasts, in pursuits outside of the presumed Biker taste, like archeology and history.
Filmic representations have broadly stuck to variations on a theme. In war films, despatch riders made appearances, and out-riders escorted convoys. They were mainly cannon-fodder, and died crying: ‘Arrrrgh’ as their bikes and combos leap and tumble under attack. One retro-film, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, stars Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. They tangle frequently with the Nazis in a well-paced plot, but an escape on a combo is clearly dubbed on.
Contemporary with The Wild One, was a UK 1954 release called The Black Rider. It tells of a hero and his mates who undo a foreign agent. Like Formby’s Film, it typifies a clean-living Bikerism that existed to some degree, but was unreal in its use of BBC politeness and speech. Between the original (US) release of The Wild One and Easy Rider, around seventy films were made. Most of them involved Biker gangs, nudity and profanity, with little or no plot. It was an easy selling point, and highlights the media’s lack of responsibility when money is to be made. A move away from the glut of angry Outlaw biking films of the 60s and 70s, came in the form of homo-erotics, in The Leather Boys. It very nearly captures the late café-racing era, but the gay angle detracts from the credibility. After that, Up The Junction, though not a bike movie, again got close to the era preceding the Mod invasion. Seldom are the altruistic able to get any rational point across. This is why Easy Rider was such a revelation. Whether the expected sequel will have similar qualities remains to be seen.
Australia had its bike movies like Stone, involving fantasy bike-club confrontations, which in itself, despite the genuine Hell’s Angel presence, wasn’t too remarkable. It was the ensuing Mad Max trilogy that gave a thrilling although fantasised new aspect of post nuclear-blast biking.
There is humour in the well-paced (non-biking) films by Clint Eastwood, namely: Every Which Way But Loose, and Any Which Way You Can, in the late 70s. A pugilist-cum-car mechanic called Philo Bedo is played by Clint, who, with his orang-utang companion, enjoys bust-ups with an imaginary outfit called the Black Widows. The stereotype is taken and ridiculed, capitalising on the view of heavy characters in the rebel movies. The US film, Mask is nearer to real life, and is based on the true story of a youth called Rocky Dennis. It is told over a backdrop of music from Lynyrd Skynrd, Steely Dan and the Grateful Dead. Rocky is suffering from a debilitating disease that causes some facial deformity, and gets him rejection from society. The Turks bike club accept him and try to make his life fulfilling. He has a dream to ride around Europe on a Harley that doesn’t materialise, but his other experiences with the Bikers create lighter moments. There isn’t anything in the way of outlandish riding or violence, and as there are more extras (who are genuine riders) than actors, the realism comes over.
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Biking’s own print media usually regards its audiences in a more down-to earth way, despite media conventions. The first publications were inspired by a shared love of biking. Through word of mouth, chance meeting and other media, the riders had recognised a communications niche within their own community. The thirst for mechanical knowledge was a valuable enough literary component, and the competition notices and results expanded the volumes. The various clubs had news and held events. This, the grist of the editorial mill, was pushed through on the finance that the motorcycle, spares and accessory manufacturers and vendors brought through advertising. Biking publications gave them a captive audience, where the publicity net could tighten and reap steady rewards. Classified advertising - the private sales offered by members, was usually free, but occasional charges have been levied. Beginning as a single voice, the bike media followed its adherents into niches within biking, and the broader spectrum of Bikerdom dictated styles and views.
This consolidated biking in its own right. Previously, publications on relevant topics like engineering or motor cars had side-lined and even misaligned biking. Having its own media drew strands of positive thought together, which, along with the bike’s rising popularity, allowed motorcycling to spill back into other publications in a better light. From around the 1920’s onwards, various annuals became available, aimed at young boys and girls (seldom both in the same volume). Influenced by positive biking aspects, the boy’s annuals often had sections on motors, describing the wonders of motorcycling, and even had adventure stories based on biking.
As there seemed no need to identify a biking culture as such in the early days, besides alluding to a fraternity, no mention of culture is made until the mid-20th century. There was however, much coincidental and organised confluence, driven by like-mindedness, which in the early years was striving to overcome the multi-pronged attacks from dissenters. By the 1920’s, the West had plenty to read, which was only lessened by the intervention of the two world wars. Other contentions in the US virtually obliterated the biking voices, replacing them with a one-make single ideology (e.g. the Harley-run AMA publication, The Motorcyclist). This served not to unify American biking as its authors intended, but to cause a fragmentation and darkness that left many riders to fend for themselves; both ideologically and realistically. After W.W.II and the austerity that immediately followed, media growth followed the pattern of increasing consumer power as economies recovered.
Fiction made its way into some magazines, with upstanding stories about faithful wives wondering where their man is, when he doesn’t get home on time. He’d be out helping someone who’d broken down in the pouring rain. A little staid today, but with an altruistic message. The mainstay themes of sport, clubs and maintenance (with advertising) swelled the 1940’s and 50’s publications. Alongside the excitement of TT and other events, there was still a utilitarian presence, in the form of thrift articles and ex-military items for sale. It was however in the letters pages where the contentions within Bikerdom were voicing themselves. Editorial followed through with its own commentary, about issues such as the Outlaw riders in the US, and café racing in the UK; both (allegedly) conspiring to bring biking into disrepute.
This self-righteousness was met by indignance and righteousness from those who were being slighted for non-criminal activities, and in the 1960’s, they in turn had felt the need to galvanise themselves through their own publications. It was in magazines like the US Cycle and Biker that choppers and the like could be discussed with impunity. An essence of Biker; those people imbued with a love of bikes as pure as their predecessors, was making its presence felt as an affirmation of, rather than a shift in biking ideologies. It simply had a more 20th, rather than 19th century flavour. Popular as they may become, subscription to bike mags is rare. Most buy randomly if at all, because they can seldom find what they want in consecutive issues of one publication. The consumer creates a patch-work of reading and other media that speaks of them personally.
Media conventions, ranging from the fact that without advertising, the publication can’t afford to exist (therefore the editorial must be seen to praise them), to the sex sells idiom, despoiled many attempts at literary freedom in the 1960’s. Whilst altruists might have clamoured for something a little more highbrow, conventional editorial draped women over bikes in illustrations and allowed words like beaver (describing a woman’s genitalia) and the use of swearing to saturate texts. Further arousing the main thrust, and doing nothing for the stereotype image, this attracted a lot of people whom even the Outlaw riders would have preferred not to see on bikes. By the 1970’s, some bike magazines were often placed on the top shelves by UK retailers, which were reserved for pornography (allegedly, minors couldn’t reach up there). The use of motor vehicles by (usually male) persons to acquire sexual favours had become a subliminal objective. The fact that motor vehicles are by-and-large used as transport or leisure in their own right was often ignored.
As the 1970’s turned into the 80’s, some publications were turning away from media convention. Feminism raised its own issues and the editorial staff began to realise that biking sold bikes. However, the media of the late 20th - early 21st century can still send real-life people into paroxysms of despair. One reason is that readers often find themselves reading virtually the same articles over and over. Naturally, with the roll-over of generations, some important basics need to be covered for the benefit of new-comers. Issues from technology to culture are discussed, and there are opportunities for learning about idiotic legislative plans, interesting events and new developments in most publications. But there is an irritation concerning for example, bike tests, which review the same model repeatedly, but in a slightly different light. Just how many publications are needed to do this is reflected in the number that come and go without success.
One curiosity in some publications is the letters from people who would seemingly live in isolation. They are in fact often inner-city enquirers who ask novice-like questions. Nothing wrong with that, but the local dealer or another Biker should be able to answer them, and some purport that they are invented by editorial staff (who ignore the mail sacks full of genuine biking material). It is irksome to the seasoned reader, but the nature of such enquiries shows that there is a need to give basic guidelines for safety’s sake. The quest among some though, was to break away, even from this convention. A specialised piece of media should at least be able to take some things as read - and not have to package them in glitz.
Different riding styles have pushed the technological development of the motorcycle ever forwards, which in turn draws more out of the rider. Research costs money, and this determination is reflected in the ratio of advertising to other material in many bike media forms. Of these, many represent the great variety of Biker types. They are however, more often dominated by the latest trend(s). From the ‘80’s through to the 21st century, this created a plethora of plastic/carbon fibre projectile-featuring look-alikes. Anyone who prefers a naked bike was virtually condemned to minority, retro status. In the mainstream genre, Motor Cycle News claims the lion’s share of UK readership, but its popularity is often accredited to its publication notices of forthcoming events. The editorial sometimes has a more tabloid flavour, but it at least contains useful motorcycle news. It’s readership spans the biking spectrum, which is reflected both in the letters and some editorial. It is up to the reader to discern what they want to discern, which means some tolerance if not remoteness must be endured - not everything everyone writes, even in specialist publications pleases everybody.
Alternative biking magazines have come and gone. Their sustainability is compromised by their moral standpoints. Early Back Street Heroes (BSH) was seen as a breakaway, with regular articles like Much’s Rant, that covered the often contentious issues relevant to the biking life. It also had fiction that wandered from mystic gnome-like characters who performed magical repairs, to more dungeons and dragons stuff. It had an American flavour, but a British bent. Despite its alternative claim, BSH is often only bought for its inclusion of rally dates. It does have some fresh editorial, but its penchant for Harley-Davidsons dominates, alienating a broader alternative readership. Some staff felt the need for more, so they quit to found the AWoL (Alternative Way of Life) magazine.
Eventually, in 1998, the three founding principles of honesty, integrity and commitment that had launched AWoL meant that they had to abandon publication. They were in financial trouble, and had an offer to buy them out. But there were too many compromises, and eventually, it was BSH that stepped in. Not to sustain AWoL as a separate organ, but to subsume it into the body of their publication. It has been well absorbed - there is hardly a trace of what was once deemed anarchic editorial. The variety of bikes featured in AWoL is occasionally reflected in BSH, but the feeling among AWoL readers is that a space has been left unfilled. This was brought further into contention as BSH decided to re-issue the AWoL magazine. As this book goes to print, the outcome of that gesture will be undergoing judgment.
In the last ever issue of AWoL, many people expressed their regret at its ending. Their remarks centred around the essence of Biker. One in particular represents that link between Bikerdom and something greater. John Attwood, a Biker with historical interests, was instrumental in acquiring the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, UK, when they came up for sale. He and others didn’t want them to be turned into some Disney resort. In AWoL, he said: “The stones are safe from breadheads and greedheads. I was out there today doing ‘guard duty’ and spent a very pleasant half-hour talking about bikes, dowsing, earth energies, magic and megaliths to a couple who were doing a two-wheeled tour of ancient sites. This is what it’s all about - the vibrations will live on.”
In both AWoL and BSH, there have been sporadic discussions in letters concerning Biker identity. It has been predominantly the premise of the alternative to thrash out just who a Biker is. This demonstrates where the strongest passions about Bikerdom seem to exist, as the more motorcycle-orientated publications have leant towards critical comments aimed at misfits, rather than any furtherance of an altruistic biking fraternity.
Some have responded to the alternative gap by attempting new publications on a small scale. The earnestness of wannabe altruist editorials can manifest in either obscurity or naiveté. The first issue of one new for 1999 bike mag featured mostly weddings and trikes. Alright in themselves, but unless it’s intended for triking couples, it was a little off the mark.
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The personal columns in alternative bike mags create a peculiar window on the biking world. It is a pouring out, where obituaries proclaim deep emotions, and love is announced as publicly and loudly as possible. Anonymous helpers are thanked for roadside and other assistance, and people hang out messages in the hope of contacting others. Within this is the search for friendship and romance - a reaching out beyond people’s immediate lives into a world unseen. Sadly, that world contains insensitive perverts, who’ve caused the use of PO boxes for women’s ads.
The personals also contain material that the writers must surely regret ever sending in, like the bloke appealing for a female who must be a certain height and build, long, dark hair, and the fantasy kicks in with an insistence on stockings and suspenders - strictly no tights. If you can’t accept people for what they are, you’ll not only never find perfection, you’ll never be satisfied with yourself either. A lot of mixed up people seem to think that Bikerdom is a salve for their tattered lives. Others will help, but what sad people are seeing is something so self-confident and self-fulfilling that it appears capable of doing for them that which they can only do for themselves.
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If it were possible to publish and meet costs without recourse to advertising, perhaps a true representation of audience needs and tastes could emerge. Unadulterated specimens might be speakeasy, like a conversation in the pub or a letter from a friend. One or two periodicals, like the (UK) Used Bike Guide, which allows readers to write the articles, do provide an unbiased forum. Beyond them, new technology seems to have opened such a door for the few who can afford it or are interested.
Using the internet for biking information has all the benefits of other websites; spares, bikes for sale, biking holidays, events, media, sport and other home pages. When Ducati put a model up for sale available only on the internet, it was sold out in a few hours. Fears that the net would replace dealerships have calmed, because bikes have to be physically distributed - and repaired. And fears that the net would oust the printed word have evaporated in a mist of irresponsible waffle. Furthermore, virtual publications are too ethereal to be viewed as possessions: even though paper publication is always superseded by more paper publication.
There are virtual magazines that anyone can contribute to, and other personalised exchanges. They exist in minorities on the net, whereas they might not survive hard copy reproduction. The internet covers a huge cross-section of bike society, from The Bastard Brothers home page about beer, bikes and babes to Howlin’ Wolf Mcc - who are not only MAG and BMF affiliated, but have adopted a wolf named Ayla.
Requirements for prospective club members are often published on home pages, ranging from a sense of humour is essential to must hold a full bike licence. Quick Quacks caters for doctors, dentists and all medics (including medical students) who are into bikes. New clubs, who might use other media in the search for rallies for them to visit, also advertise and scan the net to that end. There is also a healthy representation of existing hard-copy periodicals, like Bike, Ride, and Classic Bike magazine’s home pages. These, along with Which Bike?, formulate a middle ground where biking sensibilities dominate - but not in any tame or muted form. Famous sport heroes also have sites, often interactive, for their fans to visit. If nothing else, the net provides a rapid response mechanism.
Being somewhat less regulated by censorship, the internet gives genuine users freedom of expression, while a few nutters anonymously exploit a chance to originate global graffiti. The globality of the net creates a more notable sense of world community than the availability of publications in several countries. There is a consensus and awareness of whom an individual is addressing, and of shared beliefs; even though the relationship may not go further than an electronic reading.
It could be argued that the sense of Planet Bike engendered on the net is only virtual. It is beyond that interactive communal buzz that strangers and friends alike can drink in at actual biking encounters. Yet because the net presents an interposed electronic medium, is the message any less vital? That virtual freedom from restraint and responsibility can make freer tongues than alcohol or even truth drugs. It is a short-circuit to deeper thoughts, more frank opinions, and a forum of debate, which, even though individuals might feel no responsibility, is responsible for a greater interaction and recognition between camps at any position in the spectrum of biking. At the most basic, the virtual is a recreation of the actual; there’s no smoke without fire.
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Factory-backed recordings of Ducatis and the Sound Series albums covering the Isle of Man TT races are just a couple of examples of motorcycle sound recordings (on CD and vinyl respectively). For biking anoraks mostly, this aspect of sound-only experience has evolved into video technology. Some magazines not only feature adverts for videos from racing bests to crash-thrills; they also produce their own. These latter are intersected with advertising, which seems to be at saturation point, virtually excluding time for what the bike fan wants. The best videos, containing what they say they do, are around riding technique, practical bike building and competition footage.
Biking books begin with the manuals, then go through a gamut of sports and sport personalities, motorcycle history, travel and adventure. Largely factual and/or reference, they include detailed descriptions about technique, the minutiae of manufacturing processes and amazing conquest. There are borderline peripherals like Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries and Biker Billie Cooks with Fire, but they all add to the gamut of bike media that reflects the diversity of the rest of the world. Bike fiction includes the cartoon illustrated tales of Ogri, an archetype 60’s British Biker. Ogri, his girlfriend Mitzi and his dog Kickstart have become immortal Tee-shirt figures. Among other titles, writer Steve Wilson’s Dealer’s Wheels captures the essence of the bikes and rides that appear in his action-adventure stories. They are a relief from the factual, yet real enough to suspend belief.
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Language, and the way we use it, are important factors in our relationships with others; and therefore critical within media. We may consciously use certain terms or words to impress, or to signify our beliefs. What you say should be more important than how you say it, but there are times when how you say what you’re saying is more meaningful.
As a means of expressing a thought or a concept in just one word, swearing can be highly effective. If swear words begin to appear together and punctuate every sentence in reading or other media, their credibility can rapidly descend to a meaningless state. There are some bike mags that use cussing to excess in the editorial, whose letters pages are simply obscene. Anyone that does use abrasive language may wonder what the fuss is about, as they can understand perfectly what’s being said. But others make a correlation between effing and being inarticulate. Racial and other intolerances are also noted to keep vulgar company. It is more tolerable for the general public to speak this way, but when professional journalists resort to swearing, their knowledge and expertise become questionable or righteous - depending on your perception and their expression.
Jargonese is acceptable to some degree in specialised media. Even so, it is often accompanied with explanations. There is however, a tendency for some bike media to speak with localised accentuation. Americanised or other slang goes beyond the colloquial, and can be impenetrable. It might suit its target audiences, but such obscurity narrows the outsider view. Coupled with expletive use, it can be either difficult or impossible to understand, which leads to denigration. Fashionable terminology seems to dictate the use of such language, and will be deemed hip by its producers and audiences. But its limited value is demonstrated when it is later dropped - if only to pick up some other quirk of expression.
This need to quantify ourselves in certain company with particular behaviour or speech is tied to the perceived attitudes of those we’re communicating with - and sometimes more importantly, with eaves-droppers. It becomes the expected norm, for certain traits to be recognisable with subcultures. The alternative and slightly left of centre branches of motorcycle publication have broken the mold since the 1970s. The influences of thinking Bikers have charged the atmosphere despite the apathetic legions. Bikers are recognising intelligent ways to intercede for themselves against incongruous legislation. Their sense of cultural collective has matured beyond the angst of gang mentality, retrieving the dignity of their predecessors. This has happened, partly because the attitudes of the public grew from purely anti-bike legislation to anti-Biker consciousness.
Our thoughts are evidenced in our behaviour and attitudes towards others. They can be transferred into various media, that can work how we expect it too, provided we talk straight. This is the greatest dilemma of the media, because those who have something to say are seldom those who work within it. The understanding of Bikers through their media will find the lowest common denominators and make its judgments from there. Yet the broad topical spectrum of bike media as a whole rubbishes such a contention. It shows how varied and vast the Biker nation is. The contents of bike media are something to aspire to or admire, to assimilate or emulate. They can guide us through our own attempts at exploration, sport or travel. They can illustrate the techniques of bike customising and riding. It all adds to a richer indoor life. But settling down to a good view, listen, surf or read will never match the feeling of striding over your own iron horse and riding in the legends that are your own life.
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The actual language of Bikers is primarily their own national tongue and local dialect. As with aspects of other cultures, there has been an assumption through practicality and preference. Hip words like trick have come to be used to describe excellent components and bikes. Older words like yay, which is accompanied by a gesticulation to explain size - It’s about yay big have been dredged up. It has been traditional among Bikers to measure time in moons. Not that you’d be expected to use a lunar calendar. Moons simply replace months and years as a colloquial time concept. To nerf is to remove another competitor accidentally or incompetently - he was nerfed off. Humpty, a made-up Yorkshire expression, means unwieldy, heavy or cumbersome.
Also among the biking vocabulary are several words meaning: ‘invigorating ride’. Thrash, burn, blast, thraip (or thrape, it’s not in the dictionary), waz, strafe, hustle - they arise partly out of ingenious new ways to describe something, and partly out of local expressions. There are smatterings of words and expressions that come and go, as Biker-talk follows patterns based on contemporary and past conditions. The nicknames carry on, like Gixer for the GSXR range of Suzukis, and scoot is still used by Americans to mean a bike. There are so many local foibles that it’s impossible to record them all here. A whole onomatopoeic vocabulary has risen from engine noises: “Rooga, rumpo, rumba, vroom, gachuff, potato-potato, wing-wing, rim-bim-bim, clonk” and “Paff” among many. Bike speak can be best picked up in its own context and usage, where the unusual expressions are easily hoiked out: (hoik - colloquial: to extricate, or lift).