Send Lawyers, CEOs and Accountants

No matter how hard I try, those words just won’t match up with the late Warren Zevon’s song Lawyers Guns and Money. But in the post-modern era of motorcycling, lawyers, CEOs and accountants – along with some of the other yuppie professionals – are out hitting the road and living the “freedom” lifestyle more than ever before.

These guys all seem to fall into the same demographic: they have reached their mid-fifties, are balding, have a spreading midsection, and now feel the need to relive their fading childhood, and possibly try to impress college-aged woman with their road warrior prowess.

Now don’t take this wrong, there are plenty of real road warriors out there, along with seasoned riders, who came up through the ranks of the first ride on a mini-bike or a dirt bike, then graduated to something a little bigger before finally achieving the goal of owning a road hog. These are the guys, and I put myself in that class, who earned their wings by learning to control the little bikes before hurling themselves down the road in a 1,000 pound mechanical hunk of metal, motor and muscle. We mastered the machines before setting ourselves lose on the general population.

Enter the lawyers, CEOs and accountants. These guys purchase a motorcycle as a fashion statement.

Okay, I admit some of them actually have worked their ways up through the cc’s, but most of the “neavou riders” I’ve encountered simply woke up one morning and decided, “I need a motorcycle to make me look good – and the bigger the better.”

Yep you guessed it, these are the guys who drive fancy expensive cars and take up two parking spaces so nobody comes close to their baby. They figure they can handle the big bike because it isn’t any different than handling the SUV. You know the type; they’re wearing dress chinos, expensive Italian shoes, a French blue shirt, and the tie is flapping over their shoulder as they fly down the road at an excessive rate of speed. And of course they don’t wear a helmet because, well, helmet laws suck, dammit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, lots of riders don’t wear helmets. Many of them are seasoned and experienced and, quite frankly, know how to handle the machine and what to expect from themselves and other drivers. But if there’s one thing I firmly believe in, it’s a good brain cage. I strongly urge every rider to wear a helmet.

And don’t get me started on the guys who scream down the road with the helmet strapped to the seat – hey bonehead, it doesn’t do you any good hanging on the sissy bar.

But the lawyers, CEOs and accountants are the only class of little boys with little wieners wanting something big and powerful between their legs; enter the young stud who has to own an overpowered crotch-rocket because it makes him look hot to the ladies. These are the guys you see (now I must qualify, not all of them fit this category, but most do) who ride wearing flimsy sports shoes, shorts, a t-shirt, if any shirt at all. The girlfriends on the back are usually dressed the same except they do wear a shirt and open-toed sandals instead of sneakers.

And, of course, neither is wearing a helmet. We usually call these riders “organ donors” – but that’s a discussion for another day.

There was a time when cycling got a bad name from the gangs, now it’s the yuppies and teen studs who are over-compensating for their shortcomings.