After working hard Mondays through Fridays, more business people are taking to the open road on two wheels and becoming weekend motorcyclists
By Vickie L. McIntyre
Weekend warriors. Chrome jockeys. Fender Fluff. Call them what you will, they are as diverse as the bikes they ride. Many have nicknames like “Spanky,” “Psycho,” or “Slider,” while others are simply “Bob” or “Jane.” All crave the wind-in-your-face exhilaration of the two-wheel rush. They are motorcycle enthusiasts, and they are not the lawless renegades of the past.
Brett Hosterman, sales consultant for #1 Cycle Center in Centre Hall, says, “Harley riders used to be at the bottom of the food chain. Now they’re doctors, lawyers, professors — everybody from college students to your mother.”
His co-worker, Brian “Big Dog” Kerstetter, agrees, adding, “The biggest change is that women are now on the front of the bike and not just riding on the back.”
Although PennDOT puts the ratio in favor of men (7,864 male to 1,465 female licensed Centre County riders), Robin Mothersbaugh, who works at Kissell Motorsports in State College, agrees that the trend is changing. “It’s very reassuring to see more and more ladies coming in on their own, not prompted by husbands or boyfriends, to purchase bikes, and they are often pleasantly surprised to find a woman salesperson to help them,” she says.
But the thrill of riding is not gender specific. And every rider has a story to tell.
Larry Richards, senior director of product management for ARRIS, has been a rider since his teens, a time when the bad-boy image was beginning to change. In the late ’60s, while working for a Sears store in Ottawa, Canada, that sold Yamahas, he taught a mandatory riding class for anyone who bought a bike.
“This was the beginning of the evolution of motorcycles,” he says. “The bikes were smaller, not the loud, boisterous bikes. You’d actually trust the boy next door to take your daughter out on a Honda or Yamaha. And Sears had the right attitude about safety.”
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