tuesday two wheeled (not too late) bit

the other day i was rolling up to austin and thought i saw some ROT folk…

…then I realized it was already the weekend AFTER my b-day; and ROT is the weekend BEFORE my b-day. for all my readers not from the area, or not biker inclined, ROT = the republic of texas bike rally. during this time you see tons of motorcycles on the road, riding up to austin. and a lot of them have flags, predominantly patriotic in nature. the american flag. the marine corps flag. the POW/MIA flag. this group all had “HONOR GUARD RIDERS” on their windshield, and between the group of six bikes had numerous of the aforementioned flags, along with various patriotic stickers – “SEMPER FI!”, “These Colors Don’t Run!”, “911- NEVER FORGET!”, and the like. VERY fucking pro-american…

…all on kawasaki bikes. well, four kawasakis and two yamahas.

now, i know honda has bike factories in the USA. JAB’s honda is american made, which he knows ’cause the VIN starts with a “1”. meanwhile, my chevy camaro starts with a “2” as the GM plant that churned out the camaros from ’98-02 was in the great white north (i.e. canada).

i’m torn on this…

…so, my car was built in canada, so the factory workers that made a living MAKING my car were up there. the labor money went to canada – but ultimately i supported america by purchasing an american car, right? i guess i kinda supported both the US and canada – but they gave us crown royal, so i guess that’s fair.

and by the same token, JAB buying a honda was ultimately sending money to japan, but supporting american factories. so good for him as well.

but putting all that patriotic shit on japanese built bikes just seems off to me. you only have to go back to my grandparent’s (or parent’s, to a degree) generation and they were the enemy. they’re the one that dragged us into world war ii (the big one). now we buy THEIR products, and put all these stickers of american patriotism on them (never mind the fact that most of the stickers and flags were made in china and shit)

i dunno – just seems WAY off to me…