Biker's Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture [Paperback]

Jay Barbieri (Author), Michele Smith (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2007

There are millions of new motorcyclists hitting the blacktop every year. But being part of the American motorcycle culture takes more than just wanting to be cool. It takes a passion for the open road, freedom, and a lifestyle that even the best financing cant buy. This book, by someone who knows motorcycles as few do, provides a road map to biker culture for anyone new to the experience. Jay Barbieri explains everything a new rider needs to know to become a real biker. He begins with a brief history of motorcycles, and draws on his twenty-five years of riding experience for examples of what works and doesn't in this heady world. Most of all, he aims to spare new bikers the bad decisions neophytes typically make. With hundreds of motorcycle trips under his belt, there is not a mistake Barbieri hasn't made or a situation he hasn't encountered. By sharing the sometimes comical outcomes, he gives the new biker a head start to become more comfortable, credible, and knowledgeable about joining a community that is as much a part of American culture as baseball, hotdogs and apple pie.

Editorial Reviews

Review

New York Daily News, Dec. 23. 2007

Nydailynews.com, Dec. 22, 2007

“For anyone who wants to take to the open road, these tips should save you some of the pain of learning from your mistakes.”

   
Petersen.org, October 2007

“With sometimes comical anecdotes from his 25 years of riding experience, Biker’s Handbook is full of useful tips on how to be part of the fun in the American motorcycle culture.”

                                                                                                                                           
Motorcycle-USA.com

“Readers are provided a sound foundation of dos and don’ts between vignettes of moto history … What helps bring Barbieri’s work to life are the abundant black and white photos. It was a smart move to give the reader a visual foundation of the friends and faces and places that have helped shape his past. They add validity to his stories. Toss in tons of cartoons and caricatures of him and his buddies in different predicaments and you’ve got a book that is visually entertaining and fun to read.”

“Having worked and partied with Jay for the last few years, I can attest to the fact that he’s a crazy bastard. As for his book, I heartily recommend it. It’s a great read, being both informative and entertaining. In his own free-wheeling way, Jay tells you what you need to know about bike events and the motorcycle subculture to fit right in and enjoy the ride. Definitely read it with a cold one at hand, in a place where you can laugh as loud as you want.”
Chris Maida, editor of American Iron Magazine

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 18, 2007

JSOnline.com (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Nov. 19, 2007

“Even excluding the cheesecake picture of Michele Smith … bike enthusiasts will enjoy paging through the handbook.”

Book Description

This book, by someone who knows motorcycles as few do, provides a road map to biker culture for anyone new to the experience. Jay Barbieri begins with a brief history of motorcycles, and draws on his twenty-five years of riding experience for examples of what works and doesn’t in this heady world. With hundreds of motorcycle trips under his belt, there is not a mistake Barbieri hasn’t made or a situation he hasn't encountered. By sharing the sometimes comical outcomes, he gives the new biker a nearly risk-free way to become more comfortable, credible, and knowledgeable about joining a truly American community.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks; 1st edition (November 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076033210X
• ISBN-13: 978-0760332108
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #600,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to be a Rub, January 27, 2008

By 

Mongo (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Biker's Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture (Paperback)

This book is 90% waste of time, 10% reasonalbly sound advice and 100% exploitive of a yuppie upsurge in motorcycle (MC) interest. It would take a small book to address all the garbage in this lame attempt to supposedly instruct and equip a new MC rider to the "Culture" of the MC riding world. A few of the low points include the authors status as a self proclaimed "Biker" yet he dovotes a great deal of time explaining his personal preference to ship his bike to rallys so he can have more fun partying. Hey RUB,(yes you author) ever here that life is about the "journey". Of course not. He goes on to espouse that you should buy "American Made" equipment yet in the first chapter he makes excuses for buying small Japanese motorcycles to get started on. His stories of the road were boring and centered mostly around getting drunk and loaded and being stupid. Gee, I need to pay money for this? I can see it first hand at every bar I walk into. In short, if you are a Motorcycle Rider and if you have been doing so for ANY length of time, SAVE YOUR MONEY! If you are a first time Rider and you really want to know whats up and become truly involved in riding Motorcycles find a Mentor to ride with. A real live flesh and blood person in your own area. The REAL MC world/culture is about freedom. Freedom to be who you are. You dont' need a "how to" book to assimilate yourself into a culture that does not care one bit where you buy your chaps. What it does care about is that you RIDE. Ride whenever and where ever you go. Trailers are for hauling broken motorcycles. Flying to Sturgis and Daytona is for rich yuppies who wanna be motorcycle riders.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poser's Handbook, October 1, 2008

By 

Tyson L. Rice - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Biker's Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture (Paperback)

This book has everything you need to know to be a poser.
The first and most aggravating issue is the way the author
authoratively states that anyone who is not riding a Harley is not a real biker.
Let me tell you who a biker is, someone who knows the joy of the open road and the pain of road rash.
I can get both of those feelings on any bike.
Harley's rock, but they ain't the only good bike.
Another issue is the way that he continually spouts obscenities to seem more 'hardcore.'
What a poser.
The last issue I will state about this book for now is that it's a book... about how to be a "biker." Oh, wait, no it isn't. It ain't about how to ride, how to choose the proper bike for you, or anything about how to actually be a biker, no. Instead it's about how to fake your way into fitting an image.
An image that began with the film "The Wild One" where, by the way, Brando rode a British Triumph, not a Harley.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointment, December 2, 2008

By 

F. Weeden - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Biker's Handbook: Becoming Part of the Motorcycle Culture (Paperback)

Picked this up at a local bookstore because it looked entertaining. The author spends the first chapter trashing Japanese bikes and saying that Harley is the end-all/be-all, and that anyone who rides a Japanese bike is a "wannabe." The book is loaded with F-bombs and anecdotes that center around being a drunken idiot on two wheels. Further, when people have posted poor reviews, the author has commented back like a screaming little girl, with atrocious spelling and grammar, to boot. I really pity his editor and proofreader... Color me unimpressed.

There was very little "handbook" about this book, and Mr. Barbieri is the kind of goofball that I do my best to avoid. I've ridden a number of different Harleys and they are fine bikes, but the metric cruisers (Yamaha Road Star, Suzuki Boulevard, Kawasaki Vulcan, etc.) compare very favorably and in many ways, surpass Harley, and for about half the price.

I ride a Yamaha Road Star 1600. The only "wannabe" I wanna' be, is on my bike, out on the road. (And if some Harley rider, or ANY rider, was pulled over and having trouble with his bike, I would pull over and give him a hand.)

To real bikers who are steeped in the "culture," it's not WHAT you ride. It's the fact that you ride. Period. A bunch of us get together and trash-talk each other's bikes because some of us ride metric and others ride American. What we are passionate about and what's really important, is riding and the brotherhood of the road and the wind.

If some ignoramus feels the need to look down their nose at another biker for the machine that they ride, perhaps that says more about that person, rather than the rider.

As for the rest of the anecdotes, they were entertaining, I guess. I can hear stories like that from just about any of my buddies, and I can tell a few, myself.

In short, I don't feel that this book was anything even close to what its title suggests. Pretty disappointed with it, all the way around.