Only the hat failed to catch on

In rock’s nascent days, lurking not too far in the shadows behind the leather jacket, the DA, the hot rod, and the hot chick, was the motorcycle. Like the leather jacket, the cycle’s iconic power can be traced back to Marlon Brando’s role in The Wild Bunch.

Hot rods remained the vehicle of choice through the years when Chuck Berry was motovatin’, while soul and British Invasion artists of the first half of the ’60s did most of their commuting by foot and train. In the second half of the ’60s, however, thanks to Roger Corman‘s exploitation flicks and hippie-era interest in exploring the wide-open spaces of the United States, the motorcycle came to light as the vehicle of choice for rock ‘n rollers.

The opening images of one of the two most influential movies of my lifetime was accompanied by rock’s finest motorcycle song ever!

For reasons still unclear to me to this day, my parents and the parents of friends of mine from down the block took us all to see a drive-in double feature of Hell’s Angels on Wheels with Easy Rider. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. This was in the days when your could shove 8 people into a station wagon, with kids fighting for the highly valued seats that flipped up and faced looking out the back window. I still recall a bad biker dude in a WWI German helmet and a guy getting shot right between the eyes – shattering his rectangular Granny glasses – to end Hell’s Angels on Wheels. Yes! Then came Easy Rider, with choppers, kick-ass sideburns and facial hair, the leather football helmet, and “Born to Be Wild”. Yes! From that night forward I developed a crystal clear lifetime goal that, to be honest, exists in some form to this day: I wanted to be a hippie.*

*As part of this plan, I wanted to ride a chopper. Over the next couple of years I saved money to buy a mini-bike. My Mom was totally against it, but I kept saving. I was a week away from trying to get my Dad to make the case that I should be allowed to get one when a motocycle-riding neighbor from around the corner flipped his bike and died instantly. Just as fast I decided to cap my hippie accoutrements at big sideburns, a Fu Manchu, and a fringed suede jacket.
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