It is a powerful work of art, a coveted, elusive object, copied a thousand times all over the globe, but it cannot be truly captured, as it exists only in the realm of dreams. They wanted to own that bike and ride it and eat it and absorb everything the bike stood for into their very beings, to become the gods that bike promised we could become. Those admiring the Easy Rider choppers didn’t want to be Peter Fonda, they wanted to be Captain America.
#Easy rider magazine february 2012 skin
Its lines and proportions are perfect, as is the American flag paint job, which slip under one’s skin and electrify subconscious associations: the cowboy, the outlaw, America, freedom, power, speed, sex, drugs and rock music. If anyone thought to ask ‘who built that?’ (and few did), they might have assumed Peter Fonda built it, but most admirers of Captain America were simply glad it existed, as if it had been delivered from the gods. The Easy Rider choppers: ‘Billy’ and ‘Captain America’, ridden by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda Far more people idolized that motorcycle than ever saw the film all they needed was a photograph of Dennis Hopper (on the ‘Billy’ bike) and Peter Fonda, riding through the anonymous landscape of the American West, modern day cowboys roaming the land free, just free. Such is the power of the machine’s image, and its place in the cultural history of motorcycling around the world. The Captain America chopper transcends its own story nobody needs to have seen the film, nor recognize Peter Fonda, to understand they’re looking at an icon, a magical talisman of Freedom. Show them TE Lawrence on his Brough Superior, and they’ll recognize neither the quizzical WW1 hero, nor his Brough Superior.
#Easy rider magazine february 2012 free
Show them Rollie Free stretched out in a bathing suit over his Vincent at Bonneville in 1948, and they’ll laugh, but won’t know a thing about the bike or the man.
Show someone a photograph of the ‘Captain America’ bike from ‘Easy Rider’, and everyone knows what they’re looking at. It’s the most famous motorcycle in the world, period.
Adapted from Paul d’Orléans’ book ‘The Chopper: the Real Story’
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