Respectable bikers

You hear it before you see it. A deep rumble with an intermittent POP! POP! POP! throbbing above the din, like an assault rifle set on semi-auto.

The sound rattles the windows of your environmentally friendly Prius hybrid. When it pulls up beside you at a red light, you have to shout into your cell phone just to be heard. What is that thing?

It’s a Harley-Davidson.

You look over to glare at the rider, dressed in black leather, wearing heavy boots, a black helmet, and sunglasses so dark you can’t see a thing behind them. Apprehension oozes through you, and you decide not to say anything, just crank your stereo up a notch and have a sip of your chocolate mocha latte. It’ll be over when the light turns green. As you wait, listening to the growling from the next lane, you steal a quick glance at the machine beside you, and suddenly you’re aware of another feeling trickling through your body, a splash of … envy.

When the light changes, you ease on the gas to creep away from the intersection, leaving behind the smallest possible carbon footprint. Meanwhile, the rumbling beast beside you roars to life as it grabs the pavement and rockets down the road. You realize you’re just driving. He’s riding.

As you watch rider and machine shrink into the distance, you wonder what it would be like to trade in your Birkenstocks for boots and go for a ride.

Finally, you admit it, if only to yourself. Yeah, you could be driving a Toyota Prius, but you’d rather be riding a Harley.

Odds are that leather-clad biker beside you in traffic wasn’t some tattoo-covered outlaw. More likely he or she was a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, maybe even a police chief.

If you don’t own a Harley, you can rent one. Greg Robichaux runs the rental program at Harley-Davidson of Baton Rouge.

For $75 a day, you can have your choice of a Heritage Softail, a Road King, an Electra Glide or a Street Glide. All you need is a motorcycle license, a car or motorcycle insurance policy and a credit card for the $200 security deposit. Robichaux says his customers rent for a variety of reasons. “[We have] people who are interested in purchasing a new bike and want to do a ‘long’ test ride,” he says. “We have people who prefer to rent and not own. And travelers.”

For more information on Harley rentals, visit harleybatonrouge.com.

“I ride a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy,” says Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff. When the chief needs a break from the job, he takes his hog for a late-night ride down the interstate. “For a couple of hours you just think about what you see, feel and smell. Motorcycling for me is the great escape.”

In Baton Rouge, there are 1,500 Harley-Davidsons registered with the Office of Motor Vehicles. Almost 200 Baton Rouge-area Harley riders are members of the Harley Owners’ Group. When asked who’s riding Harley-Davidsons, Baton Rouge HOG chapter Director Rose Cherry says, “A better question is, who’s not riding a Harley-Davidson today?”

Cherry started riding on the back, behind her husband, but that only lasted for a few months. “I’m a tomboy,” she says. “I like guy toys.”

She bought a Dyna Low Rider and then got a Big Dog K-9 chopper. “My husband bought it for me for Mother’s Day,” Cherry says.

The Baton Rouge HOG chapter schedules three rides a month for members and invited guests.

Dewayne Meek, service manager for Harley-Davidson of Baton Rouge, says, “The new outlaw might be blue- collar, white-collar, your doctor, your lawyer, your neighbor, your grandfather—or your grandmother.”

In addition to the rides, HOG raises a lot of money for charities. The Baton Rouge chapter supports the Muscular Dystrophy Association, sponsors an annual breast cancer walk, a heart walk, and a St. Jude Children’s Hospital toy run, and sends supplies to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what brings the group together is the love of riding. “We eat, live, and breathe black and orange,” Meek says as he yanks up his sleeve and flashes his Harley-Davidson tattoo.

Baton Rouge has so many motorcycle enthusiasts they spawned their own TV show. LA Rider is a weekly program dedicated to motorcycling that’s seen in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette and soon in Shreveport and Lake Charles.

Bob Courtney, who spent 20 years at WBRZ Channel 2, and for five years served as assistant secretary of state, started producing LA Rider in 2005. The show features technical help, bike reviews and, most importantly, information on destinations. “We try to provide new and interesting places to go,” says Courtney, who has been riding all his life.

LA Rider reporter T.W. Robinson isn’t your “typical” Harley rider. A statuesque blonde, T.W. doesn’t look like she can hold up a 600 c.c. Honda, yet she rides a Harley Heritage Softail Classic.

“You know how men are stereotyped when they ride motorcycles?” Robinson says. “It’s even more so for women. Everybody’s looking for my tattoos.” (For the record, Robinson says she doesn’t have any.)

After more than 200 shows, Robinson is well known to Louisiana bikers. On a recent trip she and her crew rolled past an old-school, hardcore biker riding a worn-out, beat-up Harley. “It looked like it was held together with wire,” she says.

After Robinson and company blew past the old biker, he gunned his engine to catch up. Robinson tensed, thinking a little outlaw biker road rage was coming her way. Instead, the old biker flashed a nearly toothless grin and waved. He recognized her from TV. “When you ride a motorcycle,” she says, “it brings you together.”