. . . . AND SUDDENLY, THINGS STARTED TO GET RESPECTABLE . . . . IT WAS THE DAWNING OF A NEW ERA, A TIME WHEN ALL SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROSY IN THE GARDEN . . . . BUT THE SEEDS OF DISCONTENT HAD BEEN SEWN AMONG THE NEWLY PLANTED FRUIT . . . . A NEW BREED OF GRUB WAS STARTING TO EVOLVE . . . . ONE THAT IS NOW A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC . . . . WELL, A BIT.

1984, I was twenty three, playing gigs, skating, getting on it and out of it, a girlfriend, a hot car and aching for a bike I just couldn't afford . . . . a few of my 'mates' had begun to hang around with the city's original 'club', they were to be the 'new blood', the future leaders . . . . when the new fangled Evo powered Harley machinery started making its appearance at the long term Brisbane dealer, up they all went to take a gander, but a strange thing happened on the way to the fair . . . . the concensus among the old heads was that the shiny new 'blockheads' weren't cool, not to be trusted, not worth a squirt of billy goat's piss even, 'better orf gettin yerself an old shovel or a pan, even a fuckin Trumpy or a Beezer, fuck the new poofta things !!' the older blokes said, as Graeme told me back then . . . . it wasn't that long after that I'd notice a bloke on one of the new Heritage Blobtails that looked like he'd never been near a bike in his life, let alone a product of the MoCo, the perception of oil leak free, non failing, somehow 'nicer' and 'better' Hogglies was already beginning to shift the traditional owner demographic.

So here we are, damn near thirty years later and look what's gone down . . . . such a huge number of folk buying, and sometimes, even riding, the fabulous product of the Bar and Shield, so many fine folk who are in every way deserving to enjoy the experience . . . . good on em I say, seriously, they're all entitled to, but that isn't my point . . . . it's just all the shit and drivel that goes along with it . . . . or maybe it's the absence of the shit that used to go along with it . . . . breaking down, fixing it yourself, or at least attempting to, knowing the potential for drama, the possibility of being stuck somewhere without the magic Harley card to pull you out of the shit, the lack of 'merch' and guff . . . . how it used to be, before the days of 'Viva la Evolucion' . . . .