Yes, its amazing how much money you can make in the Good Ol U.S. of A. when you know what real American riders want. Thats why more than half of all bike sold in the Land of the Free are are cruisers. Its what makes us
different, individual, manly and womanly.
But the cognisenti know that its more than just the bikes. Its an entire lifestyle, right down to the black leather vests and fingerless gloves. Leather fringe, engineer boots and a complete lack of effective cranial protection complete the ensemble. Call it a brotherhood, if you will. We, the cruisers, the true rugged individualists, the true Americans, stand tall among cyclists, resisting the urge for performance, protection, even common courtesy that suborn the minority of the biker body politic. Wed rather don a full baklava with Santa hat and beard for the Toys for Tots, but never shall So distinctive are our chosen vehicle and accoutrement we fairly shout our individualistic status to all in eye- and ear-shot. Even the reek of our unwashed locks binds us together as fellow lone wolves, so add nose-shot to the list.
Yet dare not appellate us conformista, a sobriquet redolent of decadent Euroculture, replete with Bauhaus, socialism, existentialism and other unnatural political and design philosophies, for too often these ideas result in machines pandering to a faux-sophisticated desire for function, comfort and style. Nor shall we be pilloried as commonkaze, recalling a Zen-like insistence on oneness with the cycle, oneness with the track, ride right past the service bay and dontcha look back. Rather, our handle reflects the American experience, at once as comforting as butterfat and as sweeping as the great malls Paramus Park, Woodfield, The Block in Orange, and of course, the Mall of America. Yes, we are none other than the cookiecutteurs. American as wretched excess, familiar as chocolate chips.
The cookiecutteur apprehends that true value in a two-wheeled machine is rooted in precisely the same substrate as that of a solid national currency precious metal. Yet the cookiecutteur goes a step beyond the mercantilist. Rather than settle for a mere paper representation of bullion in a vault, the cookiecutteur hews a machine out of as much of the ferrous stuff as an oversized rear and a bicycle front can support, slathering the entire creation in the one metal outshining gold, silver and even platinum chromium, sweet chromium, the opiate of the gods.
Yes, the powerful sun glinting off a half-million pounds of chrome spread lavishly over as many cookiecutteur machines is enough to drive every lesser cyclist off the High Plains and Black Hills come the second week of August. No mere automobile dare tread these happy hunting grounds of old, choosing instead I-94. After Crazy Horse well see Willie G. carved on a mountainside, a giant wide glide rising from the valley below, as if it spontaneously emerged from the soil of this great country
Should the blinding flash of chrome prove insufficient warning to lesser vehicles to make way, the cookiecutteur announces his presence with the full-throated fanfare of straight pipes. Such music to the cookiecutteur ear sends even wild beasts scurrying to their boroughs, leaving the open road to those most deserving American souls the cookiecutteurs, butts down, feet splayed forward, arms high above shoulders, inhaling the open road, alone save a multitude of brothers, soaking up the sunburn, the windburn, the Taco Bell trots, the road rash, the brain damage, and, yes the sore butt that is the badge of honor worn by those who dare to recline as they ride.
The cookiecutteur. If I have to explain it youll never understand.
And thats why they call me
.
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The Way High Man
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