The Biker Brotherhood: Paying It Forward

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

You start to learn about the brotherhood of motorcyclists right away, as soon as you start riding. You’re out on the road on your new bike and some guy you don’t even know waves at you. Then another, and then another. Welcome to the club.

What you don’t see quite as quickly – if you’re lucky – is the rider-helping-rider mentality that started long ago and lives on today.

Author John Newkirk tells the story in his The Old Man and the Harley of how his father, Jack Newkirk, rode a beat-up old Harley across the continent to two world expositions in 1939. Along the way he had ample opportunity to learn about motorcycle repair and he also learned about the creed. A rider would stop to help him as he stood broken down beside the road and afterward would tell him to make his paybacks by helping the next person he encountered needing help.

If Jack Newkirk’s ongoing tale of mechanical woes is at all indicative of what most riders were experiencing in those days, then the commitment of one biker to helping another is very easy to understand. And happily, although motorcycles are far more dependable these days, this is one practice that has not changed.

I broke down twice in one day just a couple weeks ago, and within minutes both times another rider stopped to offer assistance. The first one gave me a ride back to my house for gas and helped me get the bike started when even adding gas didn’t do the trick. The second one couldn’t help me with the bike but he did loan me his cell phone so I could call a tow truck.

This wasn’t the first time this has happened to me, either. Once, my bike just died along the highway. I wasn’t riding a Harley but very quickly a Harley rider pulled over to offer assistance. After he left another Harley rider stopped. I finally figured out that I had just hit the kill switch when I was releasing my throttle lock. So ultimately I didn’t need help from anyone, but several guys on other makes of bikes had passed me by before the first Harley guy stopped. I had to wonder if it was actually just the Harley guys who believed in stopping to help other riders. On another occasion I was just stopped to shoot a picture but a guy on a Harley went by, turned around, and came back to see if I was OK. Really nice guy.

Then my old Honda died one time a couple years ago and it was a Honda rider who stopped to assist. And, this recent two times, the first fellow who stopped was on a Honda and the second one was riding a Kawasaki. So I’m happy to report it’s not just something the Harley guys do.

As for paying it forward, we were in the Black Hills recently in the car and passed a rider stopped by the road. I turned around and went back but he said he had it all under control. Good to hear, but I’m glad I checked. The truth is that I’ve been on the receiving end more than the giving end and I guess I’m just going to have to go a bit more out of my way to balance that a little more.