Rumblin' good time
3,000-plus motorcycles expected to participate
By Sarah Mauet
smauet@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.03.2007
It's unmistakable. That Harley rumble. That ground-shaking, ear-splitting, snarling, snorting, growl.
Now imagine the reverberation of thousands of those curvy chrome and shiny lacquered hogs and you'll get a sense of the immensity of this weekend's Arizona State H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) Rally in Downtown Tucson.
More than 3,000 motorcyclists are expected to participate, according to John Kohnke, the rally's site coordinator.
But Tucson Thunder organizers hope the coordinating entertainment draws many more enthusiasts and gawkers β anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000, according to Donovan Durband, executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance and Tucson Thunder committee chairman. While a few rally events are open only to registered participants and their guests, most of the weekend's activities are wide open, including a motorcycle parade, a vendor village, museum exhibits, films, theatrical productions and live music on five stages.
The Downtown community jumped on board with Tucson Thunder after the rally's committee decided to move the annual motorcycle event to Tucson from Williams, in Northern Arizona, where it's been held for the past few years. Organizers hope the rally and Tucson Thunder participants will bring in as much as $1 million, Durband said.
City Manager Mike Hein, a Harley owner, called the rally a fine addition to Downtown.
"It's a great opportunity to bring people from all over the state to Tucson and to fill hotels and restaurants and to provide entertainment," said Hein, who is also a H.O.G. member and registered rally participant. "I encourage people to come down and enjoy the festivities and see some nice bikes."
Mayor Bob Walkup, who owns two Honda motorcycles and rides one about once a month, called Tucson "a perfect place to have a Harley rally."
The mayor was planning to lead Saturday's motorcycle parade and a Sunday "Mayor's Ride" ride to Tubac on a Harley Softail borrowed from Pima Association of Governments Executive Director Gary Hayes.
"I'm very excited to be doing it. I have all my gear ready and I'm just waiting for the parade to begin," Walkup told the Star Friday.
However, on Tuesday he was hospitalized so physicians could insert three stents to relieve a partial blockage in his right coronary artery. His office announced that afternoon that he would follow his doctor's advice and not ride in this weekend's events.
While organizers expect Tucson Thunder will attract all types of motorcycle enthusiasts, the rally is all about the Harley, which cornered nearly a quarter of the new motorcycle market in 2005.
Harleys just have an allure, said Kohnke, a riding instructor who is also the director of Tucson H.O.G. and the service manager at Harley-Davidson β Buell of Tucson.
"Everyone who rides those (other) bikes turns and looks and thinks, 'I want to be one of those guys.' It's part of the mystique," he said, adding that there are only two types of people β "There are Harley owners and there are future Harley owners."
These aren't biker gangs
There's no reason to run and hide when the bikers roll into Downtown.
These are not the misunderstood miscreants so shockingly chronicled by Hunter S. Thompson in "Hell's Angels." H.O.G., after all, is a corporate/ dealer-sponsored motorcycle riding organization.
"This isn't a biker gang," Durband said of the H.O.G. members. "These are average older middle-class citizens who just like to ride. Their mission is to ride and have fun. It's heavily middle-aged professionals. They are your neighbors and your co-workers."
Harley riders come from all walks of life but share a passion for their motorcycles. While some H.O.G. members are just as tattooed, leather-clad and rebel-spirited as their outlaw brethren, many look just as comfortable in a suit and tie.
"The old stereotype of a biker was someone you didn't want next door. Now it's doctors, lawyers and college students. It's more socially acceptable to ride a motorcycle now," Kohnke said.
Robert Knight, 53, is the executive director of the Tucson Museum of Art. People are sometimes stunned to hear that he's a motorcycle enthusiast, he said, but he thinks it's consistent with his outdoors-loving personality.
"I think people still have stereotypes and sometimes they're surprised at who is involved, but it extends across many strata of society," he said. "There are people from all walks of life who enjoy riding."
They are a reflection of how motorcycles have become more mainstream over time. And the rally welcomes everyone on two wheels, Kohnke said.
"Everybody kind of embraces everyone else," he said. "It doesn't matter what you do during the week, when you're on the bike you're a biker."
Arizona bikers everywhere
More and more people nationwide are taking up motorcycling, but the numbers in Arizona are staggering.
More than a quarter million Arizonans have a motorcycle license or motorcycle endorsement on their driver's licenses. As of last month, 133,579 motorcycles were registered in the state, with 18,412 in Pima County β an increase of more than 60 percent for both in just five years.
Sure, Arizona has great riding weather and incredible roads that slice through beautiful desert and mountain passes, but there's more at work in the sharp upswing of riders.
For part of the answer look to Clementine Kohnke, who spent years riding on the back of her husband's Harley before deciding to take the reins of her own iron horse. She bought her 2005 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic two years ago for her 40th birthday.
"It was my midlife crisis," she laughed, but the owner of Tucson Trophy loves it. She's now the Tucson Ladies of Harley director and encourages other women to ride.
Though women make up only 10 percent of riders, their numbers are growing. Nationally, 635,000 women owned motorcycles in 2003, which was a 36 percent increase in five years.
"There's nothing hotter than a lady on a Harley," she insisted. "We get looks from men at stoplights and women yell, 'You go, girl.' It's great."
The motorcycle industry is seeing a big increase in re-entry riders β or "rezoomers," as Mike Mount, spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council, called them. They are people who may have ridden when they were younger because it was fun and economical, but took years off to focus on career and family.
"They're coming back to it later when they have more time and money," Mount said.
City Manager Hein is an example of that growing demographic of bikers.
"I grew up in Milwaukee very near to where they were built," he said of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. "I grew up in a Harley community and I always wanted to own one."
He took time off from riding to raise a family, but he has finally bought his first Harley β a 2006 35th Anniversary Super Glide. He typically commutes to work on his red, white and blue hog once a week, and he rides every weekend that he's in town.
"It's the sensation of liberty for me," he said of why he loves riding. "It's the only time phones aren't ringing and people can't reach me."
As the number of motorcycle riders has increased over the past few years, so has the average age of those bikers.
"Many of the younger Harley enthusiasts have become older Harley enthusiasts," Hein pointed out.
In 1985 the median age of motorcyclists in America was 27 β by 2003 it had jumped to 41.
"It's a natural result of the baby boomers moving through time," said Charles Falco, the University of Arizona's Chair of Condensed Matter Physics and a professor of optical sciences as well as an enthusiastic scholar of motorcycles. "These are the baby boomers coming back to motorcycles."
Retired aerospace engineer Terry Perry, said his Harley is a modern incarnation of the hot rod cars he drove and drooled over in the '60s and '70s.
"Now our bikes are our escape routes," the 58-year-old said. "We all hop up our bikes β it brings out the little kids in us."
It's all about customizing
Harley-Davidson rolled out its first model in 1903, and the American company still maintains a classic look to all its models, which range from about $10,000 to $36,000. And most owners spend even more to spiff up their bikes.
"Customization is extremely important when you buy a motorcycle," Kohnke said. "It's an investment in chrome. Everyone puts their identity into their bike. The sky is the limit. You can go from mild to extremely wild. People make their bikes fit how they think they should be.
"The worst thing is to park your bike at an event next to the same exact bike β it's like little old ladies at a gala wearing the same dress," he added, laughing.
Most Harleys on the road have been customized in some fashion, from the amount of chrome to the paint scheme to the noise of the pipes. Most people put at least an additional $2,000 into their bikes, but with custom paint and engine modification, enthusiasts can get done and have a $60,000 bike on their hands, Kohnke said. Though not quite that extreme, Perry's 2005 Screamin' Eagle Road King was $18,000 when he bought it, but it's now worth $27,000 thanks to all the customization.
"You can dump a lot of money into these bikes," he said, "and the clothes and trailers β it never ends. The nice part is that they are easy to ride and you get great gas mileage."
As gas prices continue to rise, Falco, who co-curated the hugely popular 1998 Guggenheim exhibit "The Art and Science of the Motorcycle," thinks the number of people on motorcycles will rise as well. The two-wheeled machines require less natural resources to run, less material to make and take up less space than automobiles, pointed out the scientist, who owns 17 motorcycles (though no Harleys).
"As energy gets more precious, motorcycles are going to become a real transportation mode of the future," he said.
The sound of safety
One of the first things many riders do to customize their Harley is add louder pipes to get the classic Harley growl.
"People like the rumble," Kohnke said. "It's the Harley trademark. No other bike sounds like a Harley."
But it's also a safety issue. Many riders have patches on their jackets saying "Loud pipes save lives."
"A lot of riders think that if you can hear them coming it's a little safer," he added. "For some people, the louder the better."
Still, riding a motorcycle involves constant near misses in traffic, and even minor accidents can be dangerous or even deadly. In Arizona, 119 people were killed in motorcycle crashes in 2004.
Only minors are required by Arizona law to wear helmets. On a recent Tucson H.O.G. ride, no one except those under age 18 wore "skid lids."
"I don't wear one unless I'm teaching," Kohnke said. "I believe I'm a little more aware of what's going on when I'm not wearing one."
Eli Caniglia, 40, wasn't wearing one either, despite the fact that the Rural/Metro paramedic's 2005 Heritage Classic Firefighter Edition was in the shop after he took a spill on it earlier that week. But the emergency worker plans to get right back on his bike, which is his primary form of transportation, as soon as it's repaired. It's just part of being a biker, he said.
"Accidents are an everyday thing if you ride a motorcycle," Kohnke said. "You're either someone who has had an accident or you're someone who is going to have one."
There are ways to reduce the risk of an accident β especially single-vehicle crashes, which account for 45 percent of motorcycle fatalities. A variety of rider safety classes are available around Tucson for both novices and advanced riders. There is a five-day new rider course at the Harley dealership every other week and the 12 slots often fill quickly.
New H.O.G. members are also given a lesson in safe riding techniques before they head out with the group for the first time.
"We have an impeccable safety record," Kohnke said. "We've had very few accidents on H.O.G. rides. We are very safety oriented."
Still, with more and more vehicles on the roads, motorcycle crash-related fatalities have been increasing since 1997. But statistics can't outweigh the freedom you get from riding a motorcycle, Kohnke said.
"If it's in your blood," he said, "an accident is not going to get it out."
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