There are two guys I work with that fit this perfect example and they are the biggest dweebs at the office. But they ride their Harley to work on Fridays (even if it is freakin raining outside lol). They ride their bikes all they way to Sturgis, how uncomfortable can that be! These same guys are maxed out at their potential already and are not the sharpest tool in the shed by any means. They also don't wear the pants at home (one guy gets $50 a week from his wife to spend LOL).
I know a few people who are bikers but not the type that would go to Sturgis. These people like riding because they like the feeling of riding in the open and don't really care about being seen or heard. Again there is nothing wrong with getting together with a bunch of like minded people and doing cosplay that said even ICP cancelled the Gathering of Juggalos.
Well I have an uncle that is a Hell's Angel biker and has been since he was 15-16 years old. My grandpa died when my uncle was like 10 years old and he had to fend for himself, he was always very tall (now 6'10") so he was treated as an adult very young and was a hanger on and biker in quick order. My uncle was always extremely good to me. Some of my earliest memories were him coming to see me and he was gentle to me. He taught me how to break into coke machines with a soft metal pipe and a hammer and he also taught me some martial arts and how to deal with bullies. Ultimately my mom blew up at my dad because she found a heroin needle in the sofa after he came to visit.... he become a pretty big heroin and angel dust dealer in the 1980's but never went to prison because of his status in the gang, other people took the fall. Last I saw him, he was about 55 and still was very good to me. He sort of fit the profile. He had a neck tattoo and he had a girlfriend that was maybe 20 and extremely attractive, a Native girl from Oklahoma. He was gruff and crude and was a Republican and told me to stay away from the black and Mexicans because the police goes hard at them. I have heard other relatives say that he is a sociopath and just is nice to me because he has a soft spot for me. My own dad told me that my uncle had threatened to have someone kill him about 10 years ago. I haven't had any contact since then and my understanding is that he may have had a falling out with the Angels after 40 years. My understanding has always been that Hell's Angels were rare in Texas.... but my uncle was certainly active in Texas (and California) The guys that would be with my uncle (always had other Angels with him) were good to me, but they were clearly anti social and took any slight as an invitation to fight. On the other side of the family, my aunt had a neighbor that was in a biker gang (Bandido I think). His name was Wayne and he always rubbed me the wrong way. He screamed when he talked, he had a group of pit bulls that snarled. He played loud music (because he was deaf). He was gone for long periods of time and always had some young girlfriend that kissed his ass. He would have parties and they would be loud and screaming, but always invited my aunt and uncle over. The police came over a few times asking if she knew where he was. Eventially he went to jail for a long time and the home was lived in by his girlfriend (it was paid off) for like a decade. So in short......... yes, the bikers I have known did fit the stereotype. They were nice in some ways but were also racist, sexist sociopaths that preyed on society.
Yeah but REAL bikers are far more interesting....... a group of anti-social men, often with PTSD just roaming the streets and not abiding by any social rules other than those they establish and making their way by theft and stealing drugs and human trafficking.
I do not know the percentage is. I can tell you that the Hell's Angels have mandatory attendance for some members and they usually attract 500-100 members (so about 40% of total members). The Bandidos also usually have hundreds there...... the Warlocks, Outlaws and Pistons are required to appear.... some of the gangs actually own land and property out there too for their members. So there are thousands of biker gang members present, and there usually are a lot of hanger on's as well. The even attracts hundreds of thousands of people.... so my guess is maybe 10% are actual current biker gang members....... a lot of people associated with biker gangs or ex-members...... but well over half of the people are not associated with a biker gang. I have been around a lot of criminals based on my background growing up and then my earlier career...... and I have to say, from a physical appearance and presence standpoint, 1%ers take up the room. They may only be 5-10 people in a bar or even on the street but they really stand out and you feel like there are more of them. I have never had an issue with them personally...... but from a professional perspective, they are incredibly destructive and deal in extortion, drugs, murder and sex trafficking. In some parts of the country they are closely aligned with groups like the Aryan brother hood, the Mexican mafia and the black motorcycle gangs in the Midwest are connected to street gangs,
a bit jargony but lots of info: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920514524605 excerpt: Spectatorship at the SMR increased from 60,000 attendees in 1985 to 633,000 attendees in 2000, an annualized rate of growth of 65 percent (see Table 1). After 1985, the expansion of spectatorship incorporated market segments of high-dollar spectators that were culturally distant from the low-dollar outlaw biker diegesis of the SMR. These new spectators were disproportionately ‘off brand’ middle-class professionals, women, younger riders, families, and minorities. Such demographically diverse rally-goers were unified by their high disposable incomes, their desire to see the Sturgis diegesis and their willingness to spend thousands of dollars purchasing factory-chopped bikes and outlaw costuming essential to the Sturgis scene. To make these highly profitable rally-goers comfortable, SMR organizers and City officials began regulating those activities most directly congruent with the outlaw biker diegesis. Unpaid rough camping by ‘hippie freeloaders’ in city parks was officially suppressed in 1984, and public drinking and overt public nudity became heavily regulated during the ensuing decade. As a form of progressive decontextualization, these new regulations increased spectatorship and profit flows by cleaning up the ‘outlaw’ content of the Sturgis diegesis to make it more palatable to middle and upper middle-class spectators.
Thanks for the info. This isn't something I've followed but I had heard that Sturgis was far less outlaw and more just about the scene.
The majority of people at Sturgis are not club members....... but they are there, there are thousands of them..... but the actual number of people attending are in the high hundreds of thousands. There are maybe 20,000 active club members in the USA total....... and maybe 1/3 at most of those go to Sturgis.......... so you will see club members there, but they are maybe 5% (a guess) and then another 5% that are hanger ons........ I can tell you that the government has stings out targeted at club members since the 1990's so many do criminal business elsewhere.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...oronavirus-cases-state-away-nebraska-n1237484 Sturgis motorcycle rally tied to new coronavirus cases a state away in Nebraska The annual 10-day rally, which took place in South Dakota, began August 7 and attracted more than 460,000 vehicles.
