Your Bike Sucks! (Or, How NOT To Enjoy Motorcycling)

Recently, we received a letter from a reader telling us that he would not be renewing his subscription. We get a lot of letters from readers, but this one rattled something loose deep within the construct of my motorcycling brain.

His basic thesis was this: Everyone else's bike sucks. This fella's particular brand of two-wheeled whiskey is metric cruisers, and apart from that he's not interested. He says he "cares nothing" for dual-sports or Harleys and that he "can't stand crotch rockets." Furthermore, he states that he and his metric brethren are, "sick of taking s—t from the Harley crowd because we prefer to ride something that is going to bring us back home at the end of the ride."

Let me back up for a minute.

One thing I will not do is tell someone how to enjoy motorcycling. If someone is having fun on motorcycles, then I’m happy. But this kind of closed-mindedness bugs me. You can ride a motorcycle and enjoy it, and you can even shake your head and chuckle at all of the strange things people do on two wheels. What I do not have tolerance for are people who dislike the variety of motorcycling.

Our two-wheeled fraternity has power in the allure of individuality, but it gets its true strength from the diversity of numbers. Each facet of the activity is made more interesting, and stronger, by the others. What this reader doesn’t appreciate is that his metric cruiser is interesting only because of what the rest of motorcycling has to offer.

If people hadn't tried to do everything and go everywhere on two wheels, we wouldn't have suspension with a foot of travel, or 999cc engines with 175 hp, or Can-Am reverse trikes. And if we didn't have motocross bikes, or sportbikes, or trikes, then this guy's metric cruiser would just be a motorcycle like everyone else's. It would be an appliance—a washing machine or a generator that nobody would care about until it broke. And that would be boring.

In short, keep your $10, angry reader. I’m sad you’re not interested in our magazine, mostly because I think it shows a fundamental lack of curiosity in the pastime you obviously enjoy. (Incidentally, stop projecting the negative energy you feel from Harley guys. Chances are they don’t care what kind of bike you ride, and if they do, screw ’em.)

Fortunately, I have faith that motorcycling inherently attracts inquisitive, intelligent people, and hopefully there’s a young enthusiast picking up a magazine or going to a website right now. With any luck they want to learn about the world of two wheels and will never develop this type of useless prejudice. Cruiser, dual-sport, streetfighter, sportbike, sidecar, trike—no matter, they just want to ride and have fun.