These are the new James Deans. The new Marlon Brandos … Deal with it.
MotorcycleDaily.com – Motorcycle News, Editorials, Product Reviews and Bike Reviews
Motorcycle News, Editorials, Product Reviews and Bike Reviews
Motorcycle News, Editorials, Product Reviews and Bike Reviews
©1999-2024 Enhance Partners, LLC
Motorcycle Daily Privacy Policy
Ok mopeds suck, but like bad pizza and a fat chick , when drunk at 3am who would say no. I just want to know how they loft the front end like that. Some of the wheelies were damn impressive.
If I commented on this article that implies I read it, which I did not, so I won’t.
just so were clear THIS is what the “scooterazzi” are up to. 2 years ago, South London this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfY3Zc2O7kM
wasn’t there a rockers vs the mods scene 50 years ago?
So much for showing the positive side of motorcycling. What’s next, an article showing the Hell’s Angels doing wheelies to celebrate the anniversary of the release of “The Wild One”?
Snoozeville for me just watching this stuff.
I owned a brand-new 2003 Yamaha Zuma 50 (when they were still 2-strokes) for about 20 miles before I got bored with it and sold it.
To me, this is more socializing than riding, kinda’ like the younger guys who went/go all batty for the 50cc/110cc “pit bikes”.
If you “got bored with it”, it was probably because you failed to wheelie down the freeway while fleeing from cops. Which, while perhaps not advisable, is certainly not boring, regardless of your steed’s displacement.
Having grown up in England and spending my teenage years riding around London on a moped, I can relate to these kids with one huge exception. Why do they feel the need as all other kids do these days to be discovered? The internet and the media has created a strange society of self promotion that leaves so many people in our society empty when they don’t get famous for a minute.
I grew up in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, and spent most of my childhood digging up 2nd World War ammo in the woods where we played from dawn till dusk. My moped turned into CZ, Norton, Triumph, Cossack, BSA and a new Yamaha RD250 in 1976. Since then and 37 motorcycles later I enjoy riding on a daily basis, but not once have I ever felt the need to be discovered or be famous for anything. At 56, I see kids today searching for fame and spending alot of time promoting themselves. They are missing the purity of enjoying the moment and need to spare themselves from the harsh reality that they are regular people.
It’s progressive education. You’re supposed to listen to “experts” and “celebrities”, on TV and now the Internet. The only way to “be someone”, is to be vindicated as an “expert” or “celebrity” in some media.
You see very little of this kind of attitude amongst those home schooled and kept away from TV and other institutions created to glorify and entrench the establishment. While conversely, you see even more of it in Europe, where societies have fallen even further into the sinkhole of progressivism than most locales over here.
Kids and motorbikes – just doin what they’ve always done – havin fun and takin risks.
Most times whatever gets broke grows back ok…… pain is most instructive
So this is what chavs have evolved to?
Thanks for reposting this, Dirck. It was cool to see a take on motorcycling from the next generation in one of the biggest cities in the world. The bikes and the backgrounds of these guys might be different, but I see my younger self in them: Hanging out and having fun, building up your bike just the way you like it on the cheap (when it seems to take forever to save up for stuff). Pulling off stunts, brushing off the scrapes, rebuilding, making a name for yourself with the guys. The more things change…
I think that we need to try to understand what is happening with younger, less affluent riders. Our parents had similar problems understanding us.
Hmmmmm…Well now. It is true that for quite some time now the older generation thinks that the music and attitudes of the younger is without merit.
Perhaps for the first time it truly is. What I would term the “Thugradation” of first America and apparently now England shows this supposition to be true. As previously stated by myself, their factions will take the fun out of not only their riding but by association, their camaraderie.
They will become their own worst enemy and unless unchecked, societies as well. Don’t think so? People kill one another over tennis shoes. Someone in this video cut a name/website from a t-shirt because he didn’t “like” that it was similar to something he was doing or some such nonsense.
Its not that we fail to “understand” them but instead that we refuse to teach them manners. That is the zeitgeist of the sixties come back to haunt us. A bike or a scooter does not make the man. The choices we make every day in how we live and treat one another do.
Some here might say these are just “first world problems”. I say that if you think that it won’t be long before you’re living in a third world environment.
“The choices we make every day in how we live and treat one another do.”
I like the way you think, one need look no further than a certain St. Louis suburb and recent events to see that fire and rock-throwing trumps the rule of law and civil discourse for many today. In the movie “Hud”, Granddad says something like, “Little by little, the face of the country changes based on the men we choose to admire”. In “No Country for Old Men”, the sheriff says “I think it starts to fall apart when you stop hearing “Sir and Ma’am”. I know it’s just Hollywood talking, but there’s a lot of wisdom out there if you listen for it. Your comment falls into the “Some truths are self-evident” column. Given the right guidance and some luck, perhaps some of the young men in the vid will come to realize that themselves one day. Until then, at least they’re out in the fresh air…..
re: “Vice Reports”
Crocket or Tubbs…?
Thank you, Dirk, for sharing this and defending the spirit of passion!
Thanks for your perspective.
All you geezers who choose to judge these kids harshly, shame on you! They are young kids, doing what young kids do. Didn’t you do stupid crap as a kid? I surely did… So what they are doing dangerous things? They are most likely going to hurt themselves, not anyone else. Angst is part of the experience for passionate young people. Passion is what makes life worth living!
For the record, I am a geezer myself. But not a boring one like some of you hall monitors.
Yea just kids having fun..nothing can go wrong there
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GZjRwjJeG1w
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6RgYG7IZyMg
Just thinking too, today it seems so regular to see rider’s antics on social media. It’s not enough to do what they’re doing, good or bad, but so much gets recorded. I suppose if we had small video recorders we would have recorded ourselves too.
did anyone watch more than 2 minutes of that?
I did, but I was checkin’ out the bird, the rest is old hat innit…?
It’s not about Mods vs Rockers anymore. It’s about having fun.
I just wish they interviewed somebody that speaks English. I couldn’t understand a word.
People can say what they want about these guys, but this is the kind of stuff that manufactures a future generation of motorcycle enthusiasts. They will grow up just like we did and whine about all these thuggish kids blasting around on their electric bikes.
You may be right but doing this stuff on the street just seems seems wrong, here or there.
It is wrong. I don’t disagree. But I think most people that gravitate towards two wheels have a little bit of rebel in them, particularly in their youth. I get it. My friends and I didn’t endanger anyone but ourselves for the most part, but then we had the luxury of a lot of open space and very lonely roads.
re: “doing this stuff on the street just seems wrong”
no worries, whether THAT side the pond or THIS side the pond…? a constable will be along shortly to answer questions and clear up ANY confusion.
Worcester is a small blue collar city in the middle of Massachusetts. The scene with the young straight edge kids is old mopeds. The older and faster the better. You see a pack of them blasting around in the summer. Converse, skinny jeans, flannel shirts and 3/4 open face helmets seems to be the attire.
Some of the most fun I ever had, was on a Puch MoPed while stationed in Germany (1971). Three of us bought them, just to get to the little town a couple of miles away. We went to a small shopping mall on Sunday’s to “race” them around the parking islands. It was actually a blast and I learned some things about lean angles and traction limits. Because they had no real power, we also learned about managing speed, braking and picking lines. Wheelies? Not so much.
I get what the attraction is for those guys.
Imitation of life.
What started out years ago as the Ton-Up Boys is reborn yet again. What goes around comes around and like a dog returns to its own vomit, so too will chaos make its comeback to ruin what started out as a bunch of kids finding themselves through riding. They will become their own worst enemy.
Factions will get in the way of fun. Like any adult here worth that “title”, the film made me both smile and shake my head. Thanks Dirck.
re: “What started out years ago as the Ton-Up Boys is reborn”.
reborn…? when did it go away…?
I’d rather see clueless youth ripping around on scooters than participating in some clueless protest, looting and burning.
glad then can do that with a scooter , still #$)(* clueless because of not wearing full gear. hell I ride scooters 300 days out of the years but not without gear due to other clueless people you have to share the road with
Takes me back
(yawn) Rebels Without A Clue… we’ve scene this movie.
.. hence the James Dean reference.
or should I say Midwestern LEO’s have seen this movie…?
Dafuq?!! LoL
Did James Dean or Marlon Brando even know how to make a wheelie? Doug Domokos is who you might want to compare them to.
No, and Peter Fonda couldn’t wheelie either, but all three looked pretty cool in leather jackets, and that’s what counts. 😉
James Dean could Wheelie
see here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXyVp7iw10Q
50cc scooters and man bags…the new James Dean’s and Marlon Brando’s ….bwahaahaa right!
Perfect reply to this nonsense.
The very first thing that came to mind is that I’m all for exporting to the rest of the world, but not this!
I guess we got our hooligan out in the dirt when we were young.
Shame on you for promoting this nonsense!
yea, uh. bloody ooligan’s!
put that light out!!!!
At least they’re out in the fresh air, and don’t have their noses buried in their smart phones. I’ve got to giggle at the guys wearing helmets, t-shirts, shorts, and gym shoes, while doing 80° wheelies. That way, when they crash, they won’t be dead, they’ll just WISH they were.
My guess is this is all about affordability: 75 mpg, low cost of admission, low insurance rates – things you need when your middle-class factory job has been moved from Newcastle to Shanghai. If these guys could swing Speed Triples, my guess is they’d be on Speed Triples. But hey, give them props for keeping the passion alive, good for them – my guess is they laugh more every night than I do.
You figured it out. If all you can afford is a used Chinese 50cc scooter, that’s what you buy if you want to have fun on a bike…. and, no I don’t promote the nonsense committed by Dean or Brando or these guys. Is it that much different from riding through (trespassing through) a neighbors farm or pasture as a kid 35 years ago? Did you ever do that?
Everyone cries about the lack of young riders while forgetting what they did when they were young.