{"id":4602,"date":"2019-05-29T06:08:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T13:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2019-05-29T06:08:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T13:08:29","slug":"motoracism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/05\/29\/motoracism\/","title":{"rendered":"Motoracism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Hugo, Joe, Tony and Zuo near Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My good buddy Joe Gresh is an astute observer of the human condition and he writes about it well. \u00a0 This is a piece he did after the 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, when we rode 250cc Chinese motorcycles from LA to Sturgis to Portland and back to LA.\u00a0 We had about a dozen riders and not a single motorcycle breakdown.\u00a0 The bikes’ stellar performance notwithstanding, we sure caught flak on the Internet about riding Chinese bikes (and it was only on the Internet; no one we met in person had anything but compliments for us and the bikes).\u00a0 Joe wrote a column titled “Motoracism” in the now-defunct Motorcyclist<\/em> magazine about that trip (along with an outstanding story about the ride).\u00a0 Joe’s adept at stirring the pot by telling the truth, and the keyboard commandos\u00a0 crawled out in droves from under their bridges when “Motoracism” was published.\u00a0 Here’s the original article.\u00a0 Take a look…<\/p>\n

\n

Motoracism and Brand-Bashing in the Moto World<\/strong>
\nAre you offended by a Chinese-built bike?<\/em>
\nJoe Gresh January 11, 2016<\/p>\n

Look out! An army of strange bikes aimed at our heartland! Or is it just a line of motorcycles like any other, except this time they\u2019re made in China?<\/p>\n

We all suffer from racism\u2019s influence. It\u2019s an off-key loop playing from an early age, a low frequency rumble of dislike for the \u201cother.\u201d It\u2019s ancient and tribal, a rotted pet forever scratching at the door because we keep tossing it scraps of our fear. Racism gives the weak succor and the strong an excuse for bad behavior. We work hard to become less racist, but exclusion is a powerful medicine.<\/p>\n

Especially when it comes to motorcycles. Brand bashing is ancient, part of what motorcyclists do. It\u2019s our way of hazing new riders and pointing out the absurdity of our own transportation choice. Unlike more virulent forms of racism, motoracism doesn\u2019t prevent us from enjoying each other\u2019s company or even becoming friends.<\/p>\n

In web life, we are much less tolerant. Whenever I test a bike for Motorcyclist<\/em> I spend time lurking on motorcycle forums. This is partly to gather owner-generated data, stuff I may miss in the short time I have with a testbike. Mostly I do it because it\u2019s a way to rack up thousands of surrogate road test miles without having to actually ride the bike. Think of yourselves as unpaid interns slogging through the hard work of living with your motorcycle choice while I skim the cream of your observations into my Batdorf & Bronson coffee.<\/p>\n

Every motorcycle brand has fans and detractors, and I enjoy the smack talk among riders. Check out the rekindled Indian\/Harley-Davidson rivalry: They picked up right where they left off in 1953. Then there\u2019s this Chinese-built Zongshen (CSC) RX3 I recently rode. Man, what a reaction that one got. Along with generally favorable opinions from Zong owners I saw lots of irrational anger over this motorcycle.<\/p>\n

All because it was built in China.<\/p>\n

To give the motoracists their due, until Zongshen came along Chinese-built bikes were pretty much crap. (I read that on the Internet.) Except for the Chinese-built bikes rebadged for the major manufacturers. I guess if you don\u2019t know that your engine and suspension were built in China it won\u2019t hurt you.<\/p>\n

Mirroring traditional racism, the more successful the Chinese become at building motorcycles the more motoracists feel aggrieved. The modest goodness of the Zongshen has caused motoracists to redirect their ire at US\/China trade relations, our looming military conflict in the South China Sea, and working conditions on the Chinese mainland.<\/p>\n

Like Japanese motorcycles in the 1960s, buying a Chinese motorcycle today reflects poorly on your patriotism. You\u2019ll be accused of condoning child slavery or helping to sling shovelfuls of kittens into the furnaces of sinister ChiCom factories. Participate in a Zongshen forum discussion long enough and someone inevitably asks why you hate America. I\u2019ve had Facebook friends tell me I shouldn\u2019t post information about the Zongshen\u2014that I must be on their payroll. I\u2019m just testing a bike, man. This reaction doesn\u2019t happen with any other brand and they all pay me the same amount: zilch.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re angry about working conditions in a Chinese motorcycle factory, but not about similar conditions in a USA-based Amazon fulfillment warehouse (selling mostly Chinese products) you might be a motoracist. If you type moral outrage on your Chinese-built computer complaining about China\u2019s poor quality control while sitting in your Chinese-built chair and answering your Chinese-built cell phone you might be a motoracist. If you\u2019re outraged that the Zongshen 250 can\u2019t match the performance of a motorcycle five times its displacement and five times its cost you might be a motoracist. I want you to take a thoughtful moment and ask yourself if your motoracism isn\u2019t just plain old racism hiding behind mechanical toys. If it is, stop doing it, and let\u2019s get back to bashing other motorcycles for the right reasons: the goofy jerks who ride them.<\/p>\n

\n

Good stuff, and great writing. \u00a0 If you’d like to read Joe’s piece about the ride, just click here<\/a>.\u00a0 And if you’d like to know more about the RX3 motorcycles we rode on our ride through the American West, just click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My good buddy Joe Gresh is an astute observer of the human condition and he writes about it well. \u00a0 This is a piece he did after the 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, when we rode 250cc Chinese motorcycles from LA to Sturgis to Portland and back to LA.\u00a0 We had about a dozen riders … Continue reading “Motoracism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[654,235,72,66,89,203,369],"tags":[78,717],"class_list":["post-4602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-motorcycle-books","category-amazon","category-china","category-joe-gresh","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","category-national-park","category-zongshen","tag-csc-motorcycles","tag-motoracism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4605,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions\/4605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}