I am standing in front of John King's tidy brick rancher in Parkville, Md., when he rolls up on his 2000 Harley-Davidson twin-cam Classic, and the sight just about takes my breath away.
It is a muggy, late-summer evening and the last golden rays of the sun dance off the flawless black paint job and light up the polished chrome as King revs the engine lightly, then lets it idle with that distinctive, throbbing blob-blob-blob sound.
I have never been on a hog in my life, but at this moment, I want one. Bad.
I want an endless stretch of open road and blue skies. I want to roll into a dusty prairie town and have the rubes on the sidewalk gawk with envy, and then I want to roar off at dawn with the mayor's curvy young wife behind me, her arms around my waist, squealing with delight as we race toward the sun-streaked horizon.
By all accounts, I am not alone in my lust for these machines. This is a Golden Age for Harley-Davidson, the legendary giant of U.S. motorcycle manufacturing. After lean years in the '70s and early '80s, the Milwaukee-based company is one of the financial success stories of the last decade.
Harley now owns 51% of the U.S. motorcycle market. Total sales this year are expected to be well over $1 billion. Harley dealerships are thriving.
But there is another statistic associated with these legendary bikes that is startling, all the more so if you don't ride: The average age of a Harley owner these days is 44. In fact, more than eight out of 10 Harley owners are over 35; almost one in five is 55 or older.
Maybe you still have this image of Harley riders: rebels on raked-out choppers of the type Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper rode in "Easy Rider," or brawling Hells Angels, or moody iconoclasts who take to the open road to get away from dead-end jobs and loveless marriages.
But now your average Harley rider is the guy who leaps off his hog and opens a laptop to check on his 401(k), or the woman who picks up her cell phone to find out how the kids are doing at college, or the senior who quietly slips an AARP card out of his wallet when checking into a motel, hoping for the discount.
Take John King, a man who could be Exhibit A for the aging of the Harley ridership. King, 60, has tattoos and long, thinning hair and a bushy beard that looks like shredded burlap. He is, in every sense of the word, a real biker. The word is, too, that he's a former Hells Angel, which he denies, although with something less than ringing conviction.
