Category: Volume 14 | 2018

Hollister: a symbolically loaded three-syllable noun. For today’s youth, Hollister is a clothing company best known for its surfer-inspired apparel. For residents of Hollister, California, and the surrounding areas, a palpable sense of place characterized by breathtaking bucolic fields nestled in the foothills and hometown pride among the generations of farmers and ranchers … Continue reading

In 2017, as first and second quarter reports came in, it became apparent that the American motorcycle industry – manufacturers and dealers – was heading toward a second straight year of declining sales and depressed profits. Even before the year ended, industry insiders and market analysts were acknowledging that motorcycling in America faced a clouded, if not altogether dark, future … Continue reading

At 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona there was a gunfight involving the Clantons, the Earps, and Doc Holliday. The fight – which took place in under 30 seconds according to contemporary reports – has been used to tell a variety of stories: the coming of law to the West, the imposition of bourgeois or “East Coast” values on the frontier … Continue reading

“I don’t wanna pickle. I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.” If you ask me to name a song that features motorcycles, this is the one that pops into my mind right away: Arlo Guthrie’s “The Motorcycle Song.” The lyrics may be nonsense, but they stick in your head, and the song has had enduring popularity; a radio hit in the late sixties … Continue reading

Mr. O’Connor’s examination of a subculture of American motorcycling is particularly timely in the aftermath of the August demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia and the more general controversy over monuments to the Confederacy. The book consists primarily of transcripts of interviews with members of the motorcycle club called the Mechanized Cavalry … Continue reading

Motorcycle driving is usually understood in terms of practicality, specific abilities/skills, and symbolism – associated with individualism, challenge and risk. This paper aims to explore this topic under the scope of emotions and feelings invested in the ownership of the motorcycle and in the driving experience in the context of the “real world” … Continue reading

Steven Alford and Suzanne Ferriss have been highly instrumental in promoting and establishing what is now looking like a consolidated academic area in the shape of motorcycle studies, and their previous book, Motorcycle (2007), set the bar very high indeed in terms of a wide-ranging study that shows how the motorcycle is permeated with cultural significance … Continue reading