Thoughts On The Harley Patch And Pin Culture
 

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My 2016 HOG card came in the mail today along with the 2016 HOG patch and pin. Like all previous patches and pins that I received, these will also be put away in some corner and forgotten. Maybe it’s just me, but I never quite understood the point of walking around with patches and pins stuck to my riding jacket. I mean, I’ll wear a t-shirt that has a Harley-Davidson logo or motorcycle on it. But somehow I could never bring myself to become a walking talking notice board of all my riding achievements. This patch and pin stuff is one aspect of the Harley culture that I could never really wrap my head around.

I've owned Harleys for over 20 years but can't really get my head around the whole HOG thing.

Here in India, Harley-Davidson was having a huge problem trying to get owners to renew their HOG memberships after the first free year expired. Owners paid Harley separately for the road side assistance program and renewed their subscription faithfully every year. So last year Harley decided to do the age old trick of selling a low demand product by bundling it with a high demand one. They included the roadside assistance program in the HOG program. Now everyone is renewing their HOG memberships just so that they can get roadside assistance.

That's what used to happen in the UK and was the only reason I paid HOG subs for a few years. That all changed when they transferred the insurance franchise to a company called Carole Nash, who include recovery in all their policies.

The all controlling "in the family or a bad person" mentality where a group controlled by the corporation acts to squash any independent thought along the lines of "maybe I'll try a sportsbike next time" I find mildy disturbing and Orwellian. I actually asked Triumph to stop bombarding me with RAT stuff because pretending advertising was an owners organisation seems dishonest. I guess if you like the happy clappy, isnt what I bought the best thing possible reinforcement you may think differently and some cultures will have more people who like this.

I toyed with the idea of a Harley and HOG in the UK really put me off. Everything aped the US, the exclusive language, the uniforms, rules about not riding your non-Harley bike....it was heading towards some sort of cult. If i'm going to join a cult I at least want one where you get to dance naked and take mind altering drugs, fat blokes in tassles don't cut it.

Harley make good bikes now, so I wonder why they think they need to protect sales in this way? Younger, non-Americans, the buyers they need are surely split on this and a more neutral stance would be better?

Andy

Funny, I never thought of you as a fat bloke in tassels :rofl:

The whole HOG thing, the band of faux rebel brothers image, all of that anti establishment "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do", real men ride Harley's bulls1t is what puts me off. A pity really as the few times I've ridden one they seemed ok as slow, somewhat agricultural, bikes go.

I rode a couple of the non outlaw versions (Buells, if you remember them) some years back and I really liked them . As a older model CCM owner I must have a soft spot for half developed in a shed type bikes as I could see myself buying a Buell.

As a kind of motorised horse to ride off into the sunset in a soft focus version of your life as a western desert cowboy movie they might just about work (the vision doesn't really work if you're on a screechy two stroke or a zillion rev Jap multi) but for anything else the illusion / delusion comes up short. There's an element of football supporter mindset in there somewhere where the scarves and the shirts and the communal chanting from the terraces goes some way to overlooking the problem of a team with 22 left feet.

Good marketing though. If you can convince people to tattoo your product's name on their chest you really must be world class.

Pink pussycat club Soho, second Tuesday of the month, ask the doorman for Doris :innocent:

:rofl:

Andy

A key thing to remember is that whilst the first year's HOG membership is included FOC on sale of a new bike, participation in HOG events/wearing patches or, indeed, getting the brand logo tattooed on your backside is optional.

You don't need to wear the leather waistcoat and HOG patch to own or ride a H-D. You don't need to call all your mates 'bro' nor are you forced to attend the weekly regimented chapter ride outs. But you can if you want to !

Some people buy a H-D because they want to be part of all that stuff. Others buy H-D because they love the bike. Each to their own. I'm in the latter category and should be taking delivery of my new H-D within a week or so.....

USA Culture
 

USA Culture of "bad ass or bad boy" image developed from the so called 1%s made famous by AMAs own way back when at the rally in Hollister Calif.back in the mid 40s and the movie "Wild Ones" release started the trend of "week End Warrior" types & the rest is history.

Most all of what are seen today are Doctors, Lawyers Dentist Stock Brokers & Mailmen who bought into the hype & adopted the Walter Mitty persona for weekends & annual Sturgis Rally.

How do I know this, well, I bought in the 50's & have been seduced ever since,& as a 20Year veteran on Sturgis I've been as much a part of the evaluation as anyone, I was one of those that saw the sun rise & set in HD & refused any others as "jap crap & euro junk", until the early 70s when I hooked up w/some cross country/enduro racers and ever since have be a advocate for it's not what you ride, it's that you ride, PERIOD.

Yes, I was one of those that road a "Hard tail" across 3 states only to end up pissin blood for three weeks after returning, then finding out it was simpler to trailer the bike since I had to answer to on one,for I HAD RIDDEN MINE to Sturgis. Then I found the luxury of a smooth 500 mile day on a BMW & Haven't looked back since. So now at 72 I ride what I want, & yes, I still own a Harley plus that BMW GS & look back at the development of the sport, bikes & bikers with fond memories.

The "patch and pin" culture is just identifying yourself to people with similar interests. Not really any different than a bunch of stickers from far away places on the Jesse panniers on a GS. I often wear a Horizons Unlimited T-shirt when I go somewhere where there will be a lot of riders, it has started more than a few conversations.

Harley culture has an interesting history going back to the 1920's or so in this country. But the more interesting bit ... and the bit that still influences "the look" of today's group of HD Weekend Pirates, really started in earnest after WW2 with returning Vets looking for some thrills.

Someone mentioned the Hollister, California event (inspiration for Brando's
The Wild One.) In typical Hollywood style, the event was overblown in the film but still fun to watch even today. Brando's "Johnny" is emblematic of the One Percenter, his character was copied buy dozens of tacky biker movies throughout the 1960's.

But there were real riding groups (Gangs?) and they were there well before the films. Where do you think Hollywood got the idea? From real biker gangs.

I grew up in L.A. and saw my fair share of REAL Hell's Angels, Statin Slaves and Mongols. Up close and personal. This was in early 60's but the gangs were around before that. But by the 60's they got really strong and organized ... all the while HD was paying attention, but the company was on the rocks, barely surviving at that point. Remember, the Hard Core bikers were the ONLY ones to stand by HD when it was near total failure, then during the dark AMF buy out ... everyone else, old and young wrote HD off. The old folks switched to Honda Gold Wings, young riders went dirt riding or sport riding ... and NO ONE but BIKERS bought HD.

Question for HD was ... do we disown these hoodlums? Or embrace them? HD embraced them ... but at a safe distance and it came later, in the 1980's.

What I find interesting is how Harley-Davidson walked the thin, sharp edge, using the "Bad Ass Biker" image to sell thousands of bikes and hundreds of millions of dollars in riding gear, yet carefully dodged direct connection with actual Biker Gangs. Public relations genius, IMO.

By the 80's the community began to shift in a major way. Old guys were dying off, Baby Boomers were coming in. After the Evo motor came along in 1985, things really changed. Harley's got reliable and the Lawyers, Dentists and Real Estate developers began their Mid-Life Crisis rides. This still goes on today.

This group of RUBS (Rich Urban Bikers) grew the brand to huge proportions and made riding a Harley an acceptable activity. (It's OK dear, they just look like Pirates, they're not real! ... :rofl:)

One of the more interesting manifestations is how HD culture has expressed itself in countries outside the USA. Like serious bad ass bike gangs in Norway and Sweden ... WTF!!! :rofl:

Our riding group used to travel to Death Valley twice a year. Did this for 15 years. Nearly every time we go we run into Foreign Riders on (mostly) rented Harley's. Most organized tours.

I've met BIG French and German groups, 20 to 25 riders in each group. They have a ball, all dressed in the nicest HD leather outfits you could imagine ... and ALL ready to party! The Typical Euro tour would be: Fly into Vegas, ride out to Grand Canyon then Death Valley and back to Las Vegas to fly home. Usually 3 to 4 day tour.

Some hard core guys ship their own Harleys over. BIG MONEY. We have even seen a group of Japanese on rented Harley's. (about 8 riders). Also have run into groups from: Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden. Simply amazing. The HD brand does, indeed, have very long legs!

These guys did nothing but buy things. Most organized tours had chase vans (towing spare bike or two) so they could load up on trinkets, just load then into to the 15 passenger vans.

The HD Gang connection is also interesting to me. Books have been written about this ... and some of the HD branding really originates from the gangs. HD try to disavow and distance ... but secretly sit back and chuckle .... and rake in the cash. They've exploited the bad boy image to the max.

But why stick so exclusively with it when for every member of the Sons of Accountancy (Woking and Redbridge Chapter) another rider laughs at the costume and buys a Honda?

The marketing genius seems to have departed?

Andy

I was reading about Harley's "Project Rushmore" recently. Harley for the first time, put their Ultra Limited into a wind tunnel. One of the design goals they were looking to achieve was a phenomenon they called "beard lift". That tickled me. :rofl:

When we were working out the logistics of our USA trip - roughly this time last year - and mentioned to friends that we were doing a bike trip across the states every single one of them would come back with "You're going on a Harley, right"?

Well, no, we used a Honda and a Triumph but the expectation that US road trip = Harley seems to be almost universal. Certainly the vast majority of bikes we saw on the trip were Harleys, outnumbering everything else put together by about 10:1. In the warmer states it was an unusual sight to see anyone not dressed as a "pirate" lookalike riding one. We'd talk to riders at fuel stops and they were mostly either American RUBS away for the weekend or (during the week) tourists "doing" Route 66 or some other pre arranged agenda on rented bikes.

In the past the Japanese manufacturers used to bring out a "wild" version of a new bike that would gain some kind of notoriety and then successively soften it each year but the bike would still sell on first year reputation. Harley seem to have done that with their "software"; the original bike of choice for the real 1%-ers is now some kind of reflected glory lifestyle statement for many others. In many cases it's not so much a means of transport as home decor on the interstate. You are how your ride looks / sounds.

As long as the myth of the man with no name, the loner against the system, riding the endless desert roads into the sunset, an individual in a corporate, regulated world, exists Harley will do well out of it. That's what they're selling, and even if there's a half a million identikit "individuals" turning up at Sturgis each August that conflict isn't something the first bottle of Jack Daniels can't fix.

Over here though - oh dear. When I see someone with two brand new custom painted Harleys in a converted "outhouse" and living in a house with a leaky roof - as I did recently - I wonder if Harley have oversold it. If you really can fool some of the people all of the time their future is assured.

That's the problem with a bad ass biker lifestyle - all those burgers play hell with your cholesterol. :rofl:

Very true. I buy fridge magnets of places I travel and ride to. That's my thing. My fridge at home is filled with these magnets. Someone visiting my home may find that weird, just like how I find it weird to paste a bunch of strikers all around your motorcycle. I guess that's because I spend hours (literally) shining the chrome of my Harley and Enfield. And plastic of my Tiger and Duke.

I say to each his own. Whatever floats your boat. :-)