Lately I’m going through a 70’s revival of sorts. I’ve been revisiting the music, TV shows and the movies of this era. Namely, Soul/Disco music and various movies that broke with tradition. It most likely stems from my 30 year high school reunion that I attended this past June. I’m not the only one; ABC TV has a new show called Life on Mars: A cop show set in 1973 with a few twists added for good measure.

As a kid I spent my early teens riding on the back of my friends’ trail bikes, converting my Sears 3 speed into a pre-BMX bike with my own custom paint job thanks to Krylon paints. I learned how to repair bent rims and replace forks destroyed while doing Evel Knievel jumps. I dreamed of owning a muscle car when I turned 16.

By the time I turned 16 and began driving, I only had one choice and that was to drive my folks 1971 Mazda 1800 four door. After a year of driving it and wrecking it numerous times, I felt compelled to buy it from them my Junior year. (I got pretty good at doing body work!) At the same time some of my friends were buying Muscle Cars. My best friend, Bert, bought a Graber Orange 69 375HP SS Chevelle with a black vinyl top, 4 speed the works. Another friend, Mike, owned a 64 Dodge Polara with a beefed up 383 which rattled the windows of our home when he came to pick me up. Thanks to the Cherry Bombs we bolted directly to the headers he put on the engine!

Even though I dreamed of one day buying my own muscle car, by the time it came to buying a car I couldn’t afford one so I opted to buy what I could afford (my folks car). In turn I set about making it the best ride I could, beginning with the purchase and installation of a “Super Tuner” Style Cassette Deck, Amplifier and set of Jenson Tri-axials. This made for one heck of a killer sound system and made for some of the best music powered road trips one could imagine.

The choice was always between 1) do we take Steve’s car because I had the best stereo and could stretch our gas money or 2) do we take my buddies’ cars because they had the most power and looked hot? Many times it came down to how much money we had in our collective pockets and we wanted to do. Cruise or race, park or take a road trip. The money I saved in fuel costs allowed me and another friend to take a road trip from Ferndale, WA to Disneyland during Christmas Break my Senior year, this included hotel rooms and everything else two guys needed for 10 days of adventure.

As kids, nobody disrespected each other because of our choice of rides. Instead we talked endlessly of what we were going to buy to make our rides faster and or look cooler. We spent endless hours cruising and parking and pouring over Hot Rod and just enjoying the freedom of owning our very own cars.

Within this same time period I also lived in two musical worlds; one was listening to Rock Music as in Foghat’s “Slow Ride” blaring out of the speakers of my buddy’s SS as we pegged the speedometer at 120 MP on those back country roads. The other was Disco music which I enjoyed dancing to at the under age Disco in Bellingham. I even took my first girl friend out dancing on our first date to the Disco.

What’s this got to do with motorcycles? An awful lot. Instead of embracing each others’ rides, we end up many times disrespecting each others’ rides. Instead of supporting the individuality of each other, we draw lines. Instead of accepting that not all riders are financially equal with an endless supply of money to work with, we look down on those who ride “lesser” bikes. Instead of unifying over our similarities we divide over our differences.

The only times I have seen lines crossed is when it comes to raising money for a great cause or joining together on a Toy Run or a Ride for Life, then bikers of all stripes, colors and conformities join arms and ride together. In these cases the cause is bigger than the differences and there in lies the truth. When we begin to see each other as a family of motorcycle riders we will start to respect each other and support each other. The simple fact that bike owners are only 2% of the US population should make us realize we are a small family indeed and we have so much more in common than not.

There’s a great song from Sly and the Family Stone that we can apply to our lives as riders. It’s their 1971 hit “Family Affair” which goes something like this: “one son likes education and the other doesn’t, but the mother still loves them both, because they are the same blood and blood is thicker than mud, because it’s a Family affair.”

So whether you ride a cruiser an adventure or a sport bike you are all bike riders and that makes you a member of the cycling family which in turn makes us brothers and sisters of sorts. Just keep in mind what another Sly Stone song stated; “different strokes for different folks”

Oh, and for the record I did end up purchasing a Muscle car in 1989, a 1968 number matching SS 396 El Camino which currently sits in the driveway waiting for the day I can afford to restore it!

Steve Johann