If you ride a bike, chances are you've often wondered what the world would be like if it were inhabited only by bikers. Would it be a better world? A faster world? Certainly it'd be a louder world. There will be more on that subject later, but one thing is clear: The Street Chopper staff of March '81 surely felt that it would be a more bodacious world. For you see, babes and bikes go hand in hand in any world. Seriously-there were chicks all over the place in this issue.
We must first address the surprised-looking gal on the cover, who appears simply overjoyed to be wearing an H-D leather jacket and nothing else. The "New Breed" riding leathers "were designed for and [apparently] by motorcyclists."
The STC crew made a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and despite high hopes for the meet, Mother Nature was in a fickle mood and dumped some water over Northern Utah, providing riders with shallow lakes to negotiate (one of which cut down the original 7-mile course). "Record-breaking," Frank Oddo noted, "is easier said than done." This was more than proven by the end of the week, when everyone was ready to pack it in and limp home. By Saturday, only a few crews and the officials were present, though the riders would, as always, "return year after year."
A reprint of the Milwaukee Journal article "Car vs. Cycle" detailed the ins and outs of bike/automobile accidents, and explored the causes of some of the more prominent ones. It turned into a debate on bikers versus cagers, and the public perceptions of both in the case of who is at fault in a collision. The article encouraged motorcycle safety courses and the use of helmets, and generally seemed sympathetic to the cause of those who took the two-wheeled road.
Featured bikes included Kay's Cruiser, a Milwaukee V-Twin built up by the service manager of a Kawasaki dealership because his girlfriend didn't want to ride an import. Several pages later, we met the "Cosmic Kawasaki," otherwise known as a good example of what happens when you use a Santee frame with a bunch of other add-ons, including a unicorn painted onto the stretched gas tank.
Of course, we've saved the best segment for last. In "The Day the Barbarians Won," Eric Mottner presents a fictional account of what would happen if the government "abandoned the war against the bikers" and simply moved all of them to a deserted island in the South Pacific. What followed was a tale of intrigue, barfights, and intergalactic war as the bikers realized that hyperspace was merely a better way to supercharge their engines. While some of us at STC have wondered what it would be like if all bikers formed their own nation, it's probably safe to say none of us ever thought of swapping our Harley for a star cruiser.
But that, friends, is a story for another century.