I rode Harleys when I was younger, but drifted from riding in the seventies, partly due to family priorities and partly due to Harley AMF issues.  But I got back on board a few years later.   In 2003  I had felt bored with my career in high-tech and after a run in with my new boss decided to try something different.  Some thirty years prior I had started out as a radio disc jockey, moving from small town to small town trying to build a resume.  But after two years of small town radio, I took a job a friend offered that would allow me to come home.  This new job lead to a few others and next thing I knew I was in the booming high tech industry.  I was at the bottom rung of course, but high-tech none the less.  I gave up on finding another broadcasting job and my dream of being the next Johnny Carson (he had started out in radio also) took a back seat.  I bet Jay Leno was relieved.
   I enjoyed being back in the Bay Area and having my mother to baby-sit for free helped out a bit too.  Honestly, I believed I wasn’t a talented enough disc jockey at that point in my career for the San Francisco radio market and in fact, a few of that market’s radio stations seemed to agree.
   I truly loved being on the air for those couple of years, but I knew I had to stabilize somewhere.  Radio didn’t seem very secure, at least not for me then.  Besides, my son was school age so I chose the easiness and security of staying home.  But I never totally gave up on the dream.
   Fast forward thirty years (thirty years of wondering what might have been) there I was, unhappy at work, sons finishing up in college, over fifty and feeling like a kid again.  I was talking to an old friend one night and the idea came up of combining my two loves, broadcasting and motorcycling and starting a whole new career.  I enjoyed reading magazines like Thunder Press that talked about big bike events and V-twin activities.  I figured riders would like to hear about bike events interspersed with great riding music.
   I had to talk a couple of Northern California radio stations into the concept, and did…well, actually, it wasn’t my talking as much as my dollars that brought them around. I paid them for the hour a week I needed and then went knocking on Harley Davidson dealer doors trying to sell 30-second commercials in that hour program.  “Windvest” the little windshield maker and two Harley dealers took a chance on my new concept and bought some advertising and the Biker Bob radio show was born.  After I was on the air I heard of a few other similar programs, but none mixed music and events and interviews and a number of silly jokes the way we did.  I thought we would be a big hit, going national in no time, and I was right, in no time did we go national…(yep, I used that kind of silly joke)
   For three years we broadcast biker information, including interviews with both celebrity and regular Biker types.  We heard from HOG chapters to three-patch club members, charity fund raisers to custom bike builders.  Our radio show came in two forms, the Northern California version which was an hour long and the Los Angeles version which ran for 29 minutes.  The two programs, broadcast on 4 radio stations, were quite different but the interviews and the jokes played on both, successfully I hoped.  I had a fun time but put a lot of miles on my scooter, riding between San Jose and L.A. almost every week.  Happily, I did get to interview a lot of celebrities. 
   I spoke with Evel Knievel, Willie G. Davidson, Larry Hagman, William Shatner and a host of other TV types.  Among the Biker celebrities there were custom motorcycle builders like Matt Hotch, Scott Long, Arlen Ness and others.  But the best people to talk to were the real rider types.  I spoke with a hundred or so true Bikers that were much more fun than any kind of celebrity.
   The “Forgotten Few” were ex-badasses that found God but hadn’t forgotten, or forsaken their previous lives.  They were still on the edge, but this time with a message that was real and needed and came from the heart.  Billy Akers of BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) talked to me and my audience about the need to give kids a support group that would not back down, would not be afraid of bullies and abusers.  These guys were real folk, maybe ragged on the edges, but doing good stuff.
   And then there were those zany Bikers that were just fun.  The most crazy (and I mean that in a good way) was a guy named Richard Quigley.  “Quig” was a rebel with a cause.  He decided, after a life time of battling the establishment over other issues of freedom, that the California helmet laws were just stupid.  He tried to work with the organized anti-helmet law groups like ABATE but found them more political and less effectual than he had patience for.  So Qwig and a couple friends decided to take the battle on themselves.  He first argued that cops had no right telling him how to dress.  But they responded with “the law is the law”.  He then argued that a helmet violation was the same as any equipment violation and should be a “fix-it” ticket matter.  One where you fix the problem, in this case put on a helmet, and get an officer to sign off the ticket.  Again, the law argued otherwise, even with the impounding of his motorcycle.
   Qwiq took each ticket to court, and he had a bunch.  He told me in 2004 he had over 26, but had beaten, or at least put-off 19 of them.  He argued that the law does not state we must wear D.O.T. certified helmets because there truly was no such thing.  The government doesn’t certify helmets, if for no other reason than liability.  The D.O.T. just published a manufacturer’s standard and the manufacturer of the helmet had to comply and put a DOT sticker on the helmet signifying it met that standard.  Qwig claimed the law only requires riders to have a DOT sticker, or as he wore it, a patch on a baseball cap.  The judge in that argument pretty much agreed.  It was the maker’s job to certify not the D.O.T’s. or Qwig’s.
   Next, Qwig argued that the law was unenforceable as written.  The only way to prove a helmet meets the standard is to crash it, destroying the helmet basically.  He also claimed without a destructive test the arresting officer had no way of certifying, or challenging the claimed certification of a helmet without destroying it.
   All of this makes Qwig sound very intelligent, and he was.  But it doesn’t explain his zaniness.  Think about this, he wore a ball cap with a DOT patch on it and then successfully defended it in court.  His hair was long and his beard reminiscent of ZZ Top.  He had no parts on his Harley that had the Harley name or logo on them because he said he would not advertise for Harley Davidson for free.  He rocked the Santa Cruz community and practically ran off the Sheriff.  Qwig was an oddity among oddities there.  But most of all, Qwig was a Biker.  He was the real deal and everyone who ever rides or even thinks about riding owes him a great debt.  While others, though well-intended rallied and ate and partied, spending a ton of donated bucks and failed at taking on the system, Qwig kicked its ass pretty much single handedly.
   I talked with a lot of other interesting Bikers and I’ll write about others later on this site, but for now just let me end with this thought.  Bikers are the most down to earth, real SOBs you’ll meet on this journey we call life and I’m happy to have met so many of them.  It’s a brotherhood, a huge group of very different types but a group that is more colorful than a rainbow and more truthful than many established entities including government, church and parents.  Thank God for the Biker.