Joining a Motorcycle Club

Being a Biker was meant to be, it was in my blood and I knew my father and grandfather had bikes in the past but nothing from when I was born, I guess I was just a natural born biker and joining a motorcycle club was the right path for me.

Joining a Motorcycle Club

If you're thinking of joining a motorcycle club & wearing or as we bikers say, 'flying' a patch you usually expect to become brothers eventually by showing trust & loyalty to the club and members but that's not always foreseen.

I've been in and around several motorcycle clubs gaining plenty of experience from front & full back patch clubs, MCC to 1%ers and despite the bickering and ups & downs I've seen or experienced, I've never had a real problem and can honestly say its been the best times of my life.

Brothers

I've since moved on from one bad experience in quite a large international club that I had put everything into but found the right path by putting that time behind me.

I helped form another club, became president of a chapter and spent a few years riding & knowing that the guys by my side always had my back. 100% dedication and loyalty to each other, something I'd never really known of before when joining a motorcycle club.

This was the life for me but unfortunately poor health forced me to retire from club a few years later, but I was still me and my brothers are always there for me, despite having to part with my bike, I am a biker always & forever!

Being a Biker

I love the clubs scene, I class myself as being a biker as many people that ride will do on custom builds, chops & Harleys. However there are many others that don't and generally ride sports bikes (Plastic Crap) or scooters & mopeds etc.

Bikers are generally known as having long hair, long beards, wear leather jackets & filthy jeans and cause mayhem in every town or village we rode to! Well that was the case 40 years ago when I started life as a biker officially early in the early 70's but things change.

I used to wear the 'originals' the unwashed Levi jeans thick in crap and ripped so always had to wear a half decent pair of jeans underneath, even then the dirty oil use to get through to my skin.

Steel capped wellies or jackboots with fisherman's socks, cuts usually in denim as it was cheap and far easier to cover in studs, chains and badges. I also used to have a postman's (I think it was but it could have been anything as long as it looked right) hat with the sides pinned down to look Nazi style and of course covered in studs and chains for under the chin. A lot of the gear we used to nick from pet shops or army surplus stores, once a Saturday as my old man would find and burn my cut-off most weeks.

A biker nowadays is more likely to have a skin head, be clean shaven or sport a small goatee, smell of aftershave, wear shiny leather trousers and behave, depending on how many beers or JD's have been sunk! Fortunately there's still plenty of old school boys alive & riding, they have my utmost respect.

Other motorcyclists like to be known as just that or as a rider but a biker to me is part of belonging to a very large group of like minded people. Most are very friendly and will do anything to help each other. I have met hundreds of bikers in my years and many I would class as good friends or even now as brothers including 1%ers.

Self Employed

I was in manufacturing for most of my working life, sheet metal as an employee and after several years in 1992, I decided to try out a few ideas. I borrowed a small fly press from the company I was working for, made a small press tool and started knocking out a clip I'd invented for farm crates. Next thing I was renting floor space in a unit with a couple of machines I'd made out of bits and pieces. 

So, I set up my own small company and went self employed. Six years later I had put my former boss out of business & his competition. However due to a bike accident and several years of working like a dog in a back breaking job, my back eventually said that's enough.

So, I retired to the office and spent some of my time working on our website, then I built a website for Bull Trikes up in Scotland who was building me a trike in return. However the idiot hit the vodka hard, started to lose business and like several others, got no trike. I felt sorry for those who had laid out so much money even though I'd spent hours working on the fcukin Bull Trikes website.

Couple of my brothers paid him a visit, but he was in such a state, his wife explained how bad things were, that there was nothing left, so they left.

I built another website for the club I was in at the time, I think it was one of the free ones like GeoCities. I felt rewarded for my work but got fcuk all thanks from the others.

I built another 1 or 2 sites for others until I decided on building one for myself. I couldn't register Arnie (Thanks to that Arnold from the US of A) so settled for arn1e.

This site was booming for a few years but I lost interest, health had worsened, let things slide and concentrated more on a business site which I've been working so hard on, long hours that there's been little time in my life to do anything else.

However, I needed a break and as the club scene is of great interest to me, this website was the ideal solution and so I'm still tidying things up and doing most of the things you're supposed to do. You will notice a gradual change heading towards a bright new look, it's a forever ongoing process.

Health & Retirement

I had a Sportster custom 1430 chop, but the pain in my back had gotten too bad to go any further than a mile up the road to the service station. Very sad to see her go and just knew that I would probably never ride again and 8 years after selling on I sill haven't but even without the back issues I have evolved other health shit to deal with.

I've got an implanted loop recorder in my chest and the doc monitoring it says my heart rate drops to 40 and peaks around 240 bpm, its under control now but I still have the device in my chest which must be over 4 years now since early 2018. I've had a stroke which wasn't so bad as I never knew until they scanned my brain, the speech part showed some damage I remember a doc saying and this was only brought to light as I had a mini stroke (TIA) while sitting in local doctors surgery and then another not so long after.

Also in the last 14 years I've told I have bronchiectasis, TMJ/D, cervical & spine spondylosis, degenerative discs, crumbling vertebrae, (Six lower lumber fractures from a bike RTA I think when I was about 30 odd, never healed and look bigger than ever on the x-ray screen) ME-CFS, AFIB, fibromyalgia, corneal dystrophy, chronic anxiety & tinnitus, depression & insomnia (surprise), overloaded CNS, damaged vagus nerve from an oesophagus wrap (Nissen fundoplication) operation, dysautonomia, peripheral neuropathy, osteoarthritis, arthritis and the latest is gut related but as of 25th Nov 2023 I'm still waiting 15 months later to see a gastrologist.

FTW, life's a bitch and then you die.

Anyway I hope you like the website, I built it though it has been a learning curb this WordPress platform maybe much easier to use but, it's also very easy to bugger up as I've found on several occasion, 20 years ago I could have built this blindfolded but I suffer with brain fog so everything I do now is a struggle and a doubt that I'll ever be able to ride again or even be in position of joining another motorcycle club.

I think I'm getting the hang of this WordPress now though and have applied several improvements over the last few weeks and will continue to do so.

With Respect, Ride Safe, Stay Safe, Be Healthy & Enjoy Life. LL&R

Drop me a line in the comments and say Hi.

Arnie