Another story, any comment would be appreciated
Biker ImagePeer pressure and the pervasive threat of the need to conform with the pack is part of being a UK citizen. We don't like to be a lone voice of dissent, viewed as different or to be considered an outsider. From school through to the workplace there are incentives to toe the line and penalties if you don't. There is a degree of acceptance and tolerance but diverging significantly from social norms can attract negative attention.
That's the way it seems to be here on our housing estate, we live in one of eleven dwellings loosely set out around a turning head, it is effectively a goldfish bowl. Previously, I lived in a house that faced a main road, you were vaguely aware of your immediate neighbours, cut off from those opposite by traffic, it was more anonymous. Overlooking, with windows and doors facing the side were new to us.
Some people regularly change their cars, and others keep them longer, it's the same everywhere but you get the impression of a kind of pecking order. A couple of the women gardeners shuffle away with their backs turned once my motorbike coughs into life, another frowns at me, or so it seems. I can only think that motorcyclists, and especially the ones with older bikes, are thought to be ne'er do wells. Sorry but I like old motorbikes!
Looking across at each others houses and front curtilages is rather too intimate for my taste. As time went by I began to realise that some of my fellow residents in the close didn't appear to like anything that might adversely affect status. For sure, they didn't see motorbikes as graceful pieces of machinery. Oh well, does it matter? each to their own although it rather irks me that I am regarded as a delinquent and my activities are bringing the neighborhood down .
That's the home front, OK I admit that my bikes are tatty and the exhausts aren't perhaps in top condition (although they went through their last MOT ). There was also a sense of alienation when I joined IAM (motorcycle safety organisation), there it was to do with how fast and prestigious your machine was. The IAM branch was in a wealthy part of the country, possibly one of the most well healed, in the M4 corridor and I had to travel some distance to attend.
I felt somewhat uncomfortable, like a poor relation, nevertheless I had paid and the objective was to improve my riding to an advanced level. A little bit of being ignored but some interest in such an old bike, one female remarking on the novelty of analog dials, being different from her digitised display. Another biker commented on the smoke my bike emitted when I changed down as we charged about on forced pace training trips.
There was that invisible barrier, because I wasn't prepared to buy something smarter, the awkward feeling went on although I did get the smoke issue sorted in order to avoid similar observations in the future. My dress didn't help either, mostly Aldi and eBay togs, a couple of the blokes stood out as incredibly well turned out although one had a touch of Elvis Presley about his kit and the other a gestapo officer.
Why has motorcycling got a negative perception in some quarters? Maybe due to the mods and rockers culture of the 1960's, scuffles on the seafront and scruffy teddy boys. The American Hell's Angel movement didn't help. One time, riding through a wealthy rural hamlet I was taken aback to see a mother herding her kids off the street with a look of horror on her face.
On another occasion I stopped at a delicatessen in Hungerford for a coffee, one of my mirrors was wobbly so I bought some tape to temporary hold it. I asked if I could borrow some scissors to cut the tape in the deli and the woman said 'you won't stab me will you?'. I thought she was joking but then saw that she wasn't. Afterwards I remembered that they had once had a mass killing in the High Street there.
I can't say that the attitude of the locals and the people at the training school haven't had an effect, it makes me appreciate that bikers aren't always welcome and particularly not evidently impoverished ones. Being yourself isn't always easy, adopting a low profile is probably the way to go: Best not to upset people.
