Single Brand riders...

SINGLE brand .. you know.. .if you don't ride MY brand, your bike sucks?  

Came across this on my FB Newsfeed this morning .... "Any Harley riders in xxx xxxxx ?
I want to find people to ride with....."  I almost immediately replied with ...   ' I've got an Indian .. sorry ' in humor, but thought better of it.  Instead as always, my brain took off on an array of thoughts... and ..here I am once again .... blogging.

What is it about single brand Owners?   I guess it's common among many of us to gravitate towards the brand we ride, but ....   I have always found it weird.   I've been riding almost 40 years now .. and have owned multiple brands .. still, own multiple brands.  I'm a die hard fan of the Indian Motorcycle Brand, but I've got a beautiful ten year old HD that will smoke mot Indians AND HDs on the road.  Point being, it'll shut a few up that think their bike is the best thing out there since ... well.. you get the point.  But.. back to the subject...   Is this guy an HD freak and nothing else matters or was that is generic way of asking about all big bikes? What would his response be if I chimed in then showed up on an Indian?   What if I pulled up on my Triumph?   Now.. the funny part is ... after checking his profile page, he is currently on a Trike.  Maybe, I don't want to ride with trikes, only 2 wheelers?   

Now .. here's the real gist of this post.  I've thought about this subject a LOT over the last several years....     what is it about events that are focused on a SINGLE brand of motorcycle?  I'm personally guilty of it myself in the early days.   When I got my first Indian back in '09 from Wichita KS, Indian's were sort of rare.  So when I had the opportunity to go to a few events here and there specific to the brand, I jumped at it.  IRIP comes to mind since it's been continuously going for almost 20 years.  Sort of had a cool factor early on for me, but to be honest .... those days are gone.   I still belong to an organization that is predominately Indian Riders (IIRA) but....  some folks roll up on other brands, and I don't have a problem with that. Never had.   Hell, I always thought it took some balls ... character ... to roll up into a mix of Indians on a single HD.  Heck, I've been doing that myself the last twelve years ... on my Indian in a sea of HDs. But .. those days are in the past.   Indian is a major player and taking market share from HD.  Everywhere I go, you see a mix of bikes it seems.   Usually about 80% HDs and the rest are Indians and maybe a jap bike here and there.
I've blogged about this before, but I'm pretty much done with specific events focused on a single brand. Back in '16 I felt this way but still attended one but I didn't see the value in it.  To me it was about friends and family around me .. not the event.   Fast forward to '18 I did an HD event that had over 2000 bikes that almost broke a world record. Only reason I attended was it was literally 60 miles from my house and our CVMA was the beneficiary of it, receiving more than 30k in proceeds.  Swore I'd NEVER do another one of these events simply because of the stress they can put on the bike's motor ....    then, I caught wind that Gregory Polaris was going to KRUSH the previous record for Indian Motorcycles.  They were literally laughing at the low number of bikes that were in the previous record and knew they could double it with minimal effort.  Well . .... multiple things immediately went through my mind...   Gregory Polaris/ Indian Motorcycle of Little Rock is one of the .. if not THE .. top dealers in the country ... and they would put out an epic event.  Secondly, Rob Gregory is a close friend of mine and his character is above reproach ... and I wanted to support him.  Third, I've got multiple friends in Hot Springs AR and ride that area often.  My mind immediately wrapped around the idea of an Epic long weekend, leveraging the event they were proposing.  Lastly .. and I've said this often.. I've always felt the previous two records were a joke and looked forward to kicking them to the curb, which we did. We KRUSHED it.  Most of the weekend I rode with my buddies, which all were on the same brand but that didn't matter to me. We could have all been on various jap bike brands and had the same great time riding up Hwy 7 enjoying a brotherhood bond we have based on motorcycles.  Point being ....   it doesn't matter what brand one rides.... just that ... we enjoy our own bike, whatever brand that may be.  If someone needs to slam another brand to give themselves a warm fuzzy .. they've got deeper issues.

Currently, spend most of my time riding with fellow Combat Veterans ..... most of those guys are on HDs... just a matter of statistics. Few jap bikes are out there, mainly Hondas. Few Spyders, giving a trike experience. And a few Indians. What matters is that we're all on motorcycles  .. period.  

Now....   should I respond to the dude looking for an HD riding buddy ?  Nah ..never been that guy that needs to find someone to ride with....   Now.. I may look up the local CVMA chapter here... my Brothers and Sisters