Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
- ISBN13: 9780760332108
- Condition: New
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There are millions of new motorcyclists hitting the blacktop every year. But being part of the American motorcycle culture takes more than just wanting to be cool. It takes a passion for the open road, freedom, and a lifestyle that even the best financing cant buy. This book, by someone who knows motorcycles as few do, provides a road map to biker culture for anyone new to the experience. Jay Barbieri explains everything a new rider needs to know to become a real biker. He begins with a brief h
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(out of 36 reviews)
List Price: $ 19.95
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Review by Mongo for Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
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This book is 90% waste of time, 10% reasonalbly sound advice and 100% exploitive of a yuppie upsurge in motorcycle (MC) interest. It would take a small book to address all the garbage in this lame attempt to supposedly instruct and equip a new MC rider to the “Culture” of the MC riding world. A few of the low points include the authors status as a self proclaimed “Biker” yet he dovotes a great deal of time explaining his personal preference to ship his bike to rallys so he can have more fun partying. Hey RUB,(yes you author) ever here that life is about the “journey”. Of course not. He goes on to espouse that you should buy “American Made” equipment yet in the first chapter he makes excuses for buying small Japanese motorcycles to get started on. His stories of the road were boring and centered mostly around getting drunk and loaded and being stupid. Gee, I need to pay money for this? I can see it first hand at every bar I walk into. In short, if you are a Motorcycle Rider and if you have been doing so for ANY length of time, SAVE YOUR MONEY! If you are a first time Rider and you really want to know whats up and become truly involved in riding Motorcycles find a Mentor to ride with. A real live flesh and blood person in your own area. The REAL MC world/culture is about freedom. Freedom to be who you are. You dont’ need a “how to” book to assimilate yourself into a culture that does not care one bit where you buy your chaps. What it does care about is that you RIDE. Ride whenever and where ever you go. Trailers are for hauling broken motorcycles. Flying to Sturgis and Daytona is for rich yuppies who wanna be motorcycle riders.
Review by J. Wilkins for Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
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If that were the title of this book and I had bought it for that title I would have given it 5 stars. Unfortunately however, this book holds itself out to be some sort of handbook on how to fit into the biker culture. At this task it is a miserable failure as described below.
The author claims to be an expert in biking culture, but his endless (and quite frankly boring) stories of drunken escapades with all sorts of superfluous “information” frequently punctuated by profanities proves that he is only interested in a very narrow slice of the biking culture – partying and showmanship.
His advice on how to “customize” a bike falls on deaf ears when you look at what he did to his bike – if there were a “Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Motorcycles” I would report him for what he did to that poor Heritage Softail (several photos scattered about in the book).
Finally, his lists of “Dos and Don’ts” in terms of what to wear and etiquette, etc. are a complete farce. They range from the ridiculously obvious (e.g. don’t approach a 1% trying to be his “bud”) to the completely absurd where (in the context of SAFETY advice) it’s a personal choice to not wear a helmet (which may save your life), but one should NEVER, EVER wear a leather vest at risk of being looked down on or thought of as a RUB and, cardinal of all rules – Thou Shalt Not Sew a Large Logo on Thine Leather Garment Lest Ye be Ridiculed by Other “Real” Bikers). OK, I could make a lot of clever comments here, but suffice it to say that if you look at that photo of him on the back cover of the book you will need no further explanation as to why this guy shouldn’t be handing out fashion advice.
What makes up a “real” biker? Someone with a love for motorcycles, who loves the open road. Someone who RIDES to rallies (vs. towing and shipping bikes) to look at other bikes, and compete in or watch the competitions, etc. Someone who stops and helps another brother (or sister) in need on the side of the road. It’s that simple. All the rest is opinion and personal preference which is where the individuality and freedom of being a biker comes in. Yes, I ride a Harley, but what you ride and what you wear does not make you a biker.
True enough, there are a few good tips in the book, but the good information in this book could be condensed to a bulletized list that would do well to fill ½ a page. I guess I could find some cool stuff if I went dumpster diving often enough too, but I don’t recommend it.
One positive comment though – the shot of Michele in the forward and on the back cover is refreshingly revealing (grin). Oh, and the cartoons were OK too. You could read those and pretty much get a feel for the entire content of the book without suffering through the author’s silly details. Sadly, I actually had to read the whole thing from cover to cover so that I could give this review with a clear conscience.
Review by Tyson L. Rice for Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
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This book has everything you need to know to be a poser.
The first and most aggravating issue is the way the author
authoratively states that anyone who is not riding a Harley is not a real biker.
Let me tell you who a biker is, someone who knows the joy of the open road and the pain of road rash.
I can get both of those feelings on any bike.
Harley’s rock, but they ain’t the only good bike.
Another issue is the way that he continually spouts obscenities to seem more ‘hardcore.’
What a poser.
The last issue I will state about this book for now is that it’s a book… about how to be a “biker.” Oh, wait, no it isn’t. It ain’t about how to ride, how to choose the proper bike for you, or anything about how to actually be a biker, no. Instead it’s about how to fake your way into fitting an image.
An image that began with the film “The Wild One” where, by the way, Brando rode a British Triumph, not a Harley.
Review by F. H. Weeden for Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
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Picked this up at a local bookstore because it looked entertaining. The author spends the first chapter trashing Japanese bikes and saying that Harley is the end-all/be-all, and that anyone who rides a Japanese bike is a “wannabe.” The book is loaded with F-bombs and anecdotes that center around being a drunken idiot on two wheels. Further, when people have posted poor reviews, the author has commented back like a screaming little girl, with atrocious spelling and grammar, to boot. I really pity his editor and proofreader… Color me unimpressed.
There was very little “handbook” about this book, and Mr. Barbieri is the kind of goofball that I do my best to avoid. I’ve ridden a number of different Harleys and they are fine bikes, but the metric cruisers (Yamaha Road Star, Suzuki Boulevard, Kawasaki Vulcan, etc.) compare very favorably and in many ways, surpass Harley, and for about half the price.
I ride a Yamaha Road Star 1600. The only “wannabe” I wanna’ be, is on my bike, out on the road. (And if some Harley rider, or ANY rider, was pulled over and having trouble with his bike, I would pull over and give him a hand.)
To real bikers who are steeped in the “culture,” it’s not WHAT you ride. It’s the fact that you ride. Period. A bunch of us get together and trash-talk each other’s bikes because some of us ride metric and others ride American. What we are passionate about and what’s really important, is riding and the brotherhood of the road and the wind.
If some ignoramus feels the need to look down their nose at another biker for the machine that they ride, perhaps that says more about that person, rather than the rider.
As for the rest of the anecdotes, they were entertaining, I guess. I can hear stories like that from just about any of my buddies, and I can tell a few, myself.
In short, I don’t feel that this book was anything even close to what its title suggests. Pretty disappointed with it, all the way around.
Review by “Denny” for Biker’s Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture
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This book makes the claim to be a beginner’s guide to the “Biker Culture”. Jay Barbieri suggests this book will help the reader to fit into the culture avoiding common newbie fo-paws. Being a 31 year veteran biker myself passionate to riding, I looked forward to receiving my copy of the “Biker’s Handbook” in the mail. After reading Barbieri’s’ s reflections and insight, I hoped to pass it on to a couple of friends just joining the riding populace for some entertaining pearls of wisdom; especially on biker “etiquette”, symbolism, history, etc,
Barbieri’s book falls quite short of hitting the mark. His recounting of motorcycling history is often flawed (even details of the origin of the “1%er”) and generally discounts the role of any other brand of motorcycle other than HD. While historical perspective may not be a big deal in many other `recreational’ (as referred nowadays) pastimes – and some errors may seem “minor” – that history is deeply interwoven into at least what the “Harley-type” subculture of motorcycling is. This books’ advice may seem `real’ to casual riders in the Weekend Biker world, but is not insightful into the culture of riders who actually do “Live to Ride”. Sadly, it fails to give much insight into the passion if not the soul of riding many new riders are often drawn to. (For example, Barbieri advises shipping the reader’s bike to a rally or renting a bike there, apparently not understanding that the Ride is almost (if not more) important than being there.)
Not all of Barbieri’s points are off target. Some of his tid-bits and advice merely reflect his independent and personal style which is central to the culture. However in other areas … if some of the advice he gives is taken, a rider may find him/herself taking unnecessary or even dangerous risks. From the accurate-but-obvious (Outlaw Club members are not your buddies: treat them with caution and respect), to the misinformed (…don’t wear fingerless gloves or vests), to absolute B.S. (…wear GLASS eye protection … and his instructions on braking), a significant amount of the advice this `handbook’ gives should be considered with caution at best. And what Barbieri omits is often just as important – like the many midlife newcomers that buy a Harley and immediately hit Sturgis (or other large Runs) without having the basic necessary skills to ride in the packs that they will inevitably find themselves swept up in.
Take a motorcycling course, learn braking (etc.) there, and give yourself a year before a large Meet. Please.
Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, beyond the first few chapters on getting started Barbieri’s book devolves into a disjointed collection of anecdotes recalling his fond memories of him and friends partying and riding drunk and/ or stoned. Peppered throughout those tales he cautions in effect. `Don’t do what I do (did)’ – but damn this was fun.
Suds and smoke has been and is definitely part of the subculture. However there is no place for it on 2 wheels. And there is so much more going on at Sturgis (et. al.) than just the drunken anecdotes he presents.
Thankfully this book is a short-read. “Important” one-liners from the text are frequently pulled out and retyped in large print …full-page drawings often illustrate again the text the reader has just read … and several chapters have a `review” in the margins or at the end … again restating what the reader just read.
On balance, there isn’t much there.
I can’t recommend this book or even pass my copy on to others. Here’s (sincerely) hoping for a second and more accurate edition – the time is ripe for a book like this. This may be a good book on becoming an uninformed RUB -Rich Urban Biker (he even gets that wrong – using the term “Rubes” throughout the book) that enjoys playing with expensive toys. But if one wants a mini course on what the “Biker Culture” is all about, sadly this isn’t it.