Journal of Sociology

http://jos.sagepub.com/

Motorcycles, body and risk: The motorcyclists' social career

Gabriel Jderu
Journal of Sociology published online 22 January 2013
DOI: 10.1177/1440783312474081
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://jos.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/22/1440783312474081

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

The Australian Sociological Association

Additional services and information for Journal of Sociology can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://jos.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://jos.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> OnlineFirst Version of Record - Jan 22, 2013

What is This?

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

474081
2013

JOS0010.1177/1440783312474081Journal of SociologyJderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

Article

Motorcycles, body and risk:

The motorcyclists
social career

Journal of Sociology
0(0) 114
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1440783312474081
jos.sagepub.com

Gabriel Jderu

University of Bucharest

Abstract
In this article, I approach motorcycling as a learning process. The main concept used is that
of the social career, as advanced by Erving Goffman and David Matza. I highlight the specific
bodily practices and risks that occur in the successive stages of a motorcyclists social career.
Throughout their career as motorcyclists, riders learn how to manage successive risks. The riding
body may be approached as a case of voluntary risk-taking, a structural factor identified in many
contemporary societies. Motorcycling is thus similar to hang gliding, skydiving, scuba diving or
rock climbing. The study is based on data gathered from the main online motorcycling forum in
Romania, participant observation carried out among motorcyclists in Romania in 2008 and 2009,
and conversations and interviews with motorcyclists. I suggest that the risk implied by using
motorcycles depends on the stage that a person is at in his or her social career.

Keywords
body, mobility, motorcycling, risk, social career

Sociological research on motorcycling

The practice of motorcycling has received some attention in the sociological literature
(McDonald-Walker, 2000; Wolf, 2000). Although rich, this literature has generally
ignored the role played by the body in motorcycling. I will argue below that becoming a
motorcyclist implies an embodied automotive career. I also argue that, through the
embodied nature of motorcycling, the perception of risk has a central position in the
social career of a motorcyclist. The argumentation is based on Erving Goffmans theory
(1961) of the social career and David Matzas insight (1969) that ones career passes

Corresponding author:
Gabriel Jderu, Department of Sociology, University of Bucharest, Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta 412,
Bucharest, Romania.
Email: gabriel.jderu@sas.unibuc.ro

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

through several stages. I also use Merleau-Pontys (1962) phenomenology of the body
approach, as well as sociological analyses of risk, especially those applied to motorcycling (Bellaby and Lawrenson, 2001; Haigh and Crowther, 2005; Natalier, 2001).
As Alford and Ferriss (2006) have noted, motorcycles have a strong presence in
public culture. Works on motorcycling fall into several categories: memoirs, sociological studies, travel books, books on famous motorcycle brands, technical books presenting information about the mechanics of particular classic models, works illustrating
motorcycle driving techniques, motorcycle stories and movies, and albums presenting
the motorcycle as an aesthetic object. Despite its public presence, this topic has not
generated much social science work, with some notable exceptions (see Bourne, 2007;
McDonald-Walker, 2000; Veno, 2007; Wolf, 2000). Some of the latter has focused on
the study of motorcycle club members, who, however, represent only a small proportion
of motorcycle users. Others focus on motorcycle riding as a philosophical and metaphysical experience.
There are also some sociological studies of motorcycling (Bellaby and Lawrenson,
2001; Carroll, 2008; Halnon and Cohen, 2006; Librett, 2008; Mellstrom, 2002, 2004;
Natalier, 2001; Nyanzi et al., 2009; Truitt, 2008). Among these works, there are few that
explicitly focus on risk (Bellaby and Lawrenson, 2001; Haigh and Crowther, 2005;
Natalier, 2001). Natalier (2001), for instance, argues that motorcyclists overestimate the
idea of control, underestimate the risks involved in the activity of riding motorcycles
and search for ways to neutralize the risk implied by the activity. In another study, Haigh
and Crowther (2005) argue that motorcycling implies a continuous process of reflexivity and negotiation regarding risk. In that process, prior riding experiences and interpersonal influences are important. Likewise, Bellaby and Lawrenson (2001) point to the
discrepancy between official statistics for traffic accidents and the opinion of traffic
experts, on one hand, and motorcyclists subjective view of the risk of riding, on the
other. The objective risk shown by statistics is high, while motorcyclists subjective
perception of risk is low. Although valuable, these analyses of risk based on a statistical
perspective do not enable us to understand the heterogeneous nature of the motorcycling
world. Moreover, this analysis in a way flattens the biographical dimension, by ignoring
the phases of the social career experienced by people entering the motorcycle world, a
shortcoming that I will address.
Another gap this article addresses relates to the fact that the motorcycle represents
a type of mobile technology. Studies of motorcycling as a mobile technology are lacking. For instance, in 2004, the journal Theory, Culture & Society dedicated an entire
issue to auto-mobility, but most articles dealt with cars (Beckmann, 2004; Dant, 2004;
Sheller, 2004; Thrift, 2004; Urry, 2004). Studies of motorcycling as a mobile technology are lacking. Except for Truitts (2008), all the studies on the sociology of mobility
are focused on research into car-generated sociability. A notable exception, coming
from a mobility studies, is Pinch and Reimer (2012), who argue that contemporary
moto-mobility is produced by the tensions generated by cars hegemony in the automobility system. Even if automobiles confer freedom and flexibility, both temporally
and spatially, they clog urban traffic. While moto-mobility is a way to regain freedom
of movement, it is also grounded in emotions and bodily practices different from those
of the car. Even though useful, this study ignores the reasons why people engage in

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

motorcycle riding, given that society perceives the practice as highly risky. The sociability conferred by motorcycles as a means of locomotion has been ignored. This
omission has important implications, as motorcycling involves another type of mobility, different from that of the car, having its own logic that deserves to be studied separately. Although there are studies that indirectly analyse the relationship between
motorcycle and body (Halnon and Cohen, 2006; Mellstrom, 2002, 2004), I will demonstrate below that motorcycling culture relies more than car culture on bodily practices and different forms of risk.
The data used for this article come from 28 semi-structured, in-depth interviews
with bikers and ex-bikers, aged from 24 to 84 and belonging to different social classes.
Additional data were collected through informal conversations with, and participant
observation of, bikers in Bucharest. These meetings were held weekly, from March to
October (spring and summer in Romania every year). I also attended six additional
national meetings in 2008 and 2009. Another data source was provided by active bikers discussions on the largest Romanian motorcyclists forum.1 For the purposes of
this article, I selected mainly information on bodily risks. The site of this research is
Bucharest, Romania, where motorcycling has grown at a phenomenal rate in the last
two decades, acquiring features described by Halnon and Cohen (2006) and McDonaldWalker (2000). More and more high-income people are buying motorcycles. The
Romanian Association of Motorcyclists is more and more publicly represented, especially through its social campaigns on the subject of traffic education and the risks of
riding. The article is organized as follows. In the next section I review the concept of
the social career, pointing to the ways in which it can be used for this study of mobility.
Then, I analyse for each career stage the bodily practices and risks assumed by bikers.
I conclude by pointing out the usefulness of the concept of the social career for analysis
of risk.

Motorcycling as social career

How does one become a biker? To answer this question, I use the sociological concept
of the social career and focus on the classical studies by Erving Goffman (1961) and
David Matza (1969). Goffman (1961: 127) has defined the career as any social strand
of any persons course through life. Although Matza developed a social career theory
applicable to the analysis of deviant behaviour and Goffman one for institutionalized
patients, this theory may also be used for analyses of non-deviant behaviour Vail (1999).
According to Matzas theory, there are three stages of the social career: affinity, affiliation and signification.
As Goffman would put it, the motorcyclists career can no more be a success than a
failure (1961: 127). He also refers to changes over time [that] are basic and common to
the members of social category, although occurring independently to each of them
(1961: 127). In brief, Goffmans career concept is useful for this research in two ways:
(1) it implies that individuals under the influence of a social world undergo common
fundamental changes, regardless of their social diversity and the social contexts in which
they act; and (2) it allows an analysis of the social self as a sum of phased changes, each
stage having its own specificity.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

These theories allow us to analyse how an individual can enter the motorcyclists
social world. Thus, as is the case for deviant behaviours, motorcycle usage implies a
social learning process, during which individuals acquire the conventions of that world.
To a certain extent, the stages described by David Matza (1969) overlap with Goffmans
career phases (1961), that is, the pre-patient phase, the in-patient phase and the ex-patient
phase. Matzas metaphors fit motorcycling better because they are not based on the
assumption that entering a certain institution is based on constraint, as is the case for
psychiatric patients. Becoming a biker is a matter of free will. Therefore, examining the
motorcyclists social career involves an analysis of the social process of voluntary change
of social identity, that is, the transformations that an individual undergoes in contact with
the symbolic universe of the motorcyclists world. The individual has, all in all, control
over affiliation, membership and abandonment of this world. I thus kept Goffmans idea
(1961) that a career refers to changes of the self, common to members of a social group,
regardless of the differences that may appear according to other criteria or the social
contexts in which they developed. I also find Matzas idea (1969) useful: that a career
implies a phased social learning process and free will governing the choice of the relevant social strand. I will thus analyse how motorcycle affinity is formed, how individuals social identity is modified as a result of affiliation to the bikers social category and
how individuals personal history is re-signified in accordance with this new identity.

Affinity and risk

Affinity formation is the first stage of the bikers social career. For Matza (1969: 901),
persons, either individually or in aggregates, develop predispositions to certain
phenomena as a result of their circumstances. Thus, affinity may be regarded as a
natural biographical tendency borne of personal and social circumstance that suggests
but hardly compels a direction of movement (Matza, 1969: 93). Vail (1999) sees affinity
as the birth of desire. In the case of the motorcycle, it is a question of the transformation
of a possibility into desire. Very often, in the discussions that I had with bikers, they
highlighted that they were born to be motorcyclists or attracted by motorcycles from
birth. The development of an affinity for motorcycles implies a self-objectivation process, a biographical illusion, through which individuals become conscious of the social
category they are going to be part of. Affinity, in this context, turns latent dispositions
into manifest behaviours.
How does the desire to become a biker emerge? The emergence lies at the intersection
of broad socio-historical forces with a narrower interactional context. Despite the common-sense perception that motorcycling is an activity that implies exclusively individual
choices, one may identify structural factors that make individuals use the motorcycle.
McDonald-Walker (2000), for instance, mentions the US post-Second World War climate
in which motorcycling became a possibility. In Romania, motorcycling became an option
due to the relatively large number of motorcycles left over after the Second World War,
and, later on, due to imports from socialist countries. In addition, during that period,
motorcycling became an automotive option because, unlike today, car ownership was
extremely rare. At about the same period, in the early 1960s, Romania also began to
produce Carpai and Mobra motorcycles, which became instant successes.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

That success is explained to a large extent by the specifics of the Romanian automobility system. The communist state invested steadily in heavy industries and generally
under-invested in road infrastructure. Prior to and during the communist period, railways
dominated the mobility system. Even if, in the late 1960s, Romania began to massproduce cars, the level of car ownership remained low (Murgescu, 2010). Despite its
extremely high desirability (Gtejel, 2011), it was hardly accessible. In that context, the
motorcycle was perceived, as in other countries, as the poor peoples car. And, with the
shortage economy of that period, motorcycle (and other commodity) ownership was
based on intense sociality and dense networks of support, the recycling (Chelcea, 2002)
and circulation of spare parts, and knowledge of repair and maintenance.
One may thus argue that motorcycling had a key role in the democratization of mobility at the time, especially for working-class people. The testimony of two old bikers is
quite relevant in this respect:
My first bike well, my first bike was a one-piston BMW 350 that I bought from a guy that
sold World War II German parts and motorcycles. It was a light motorcycle, very reliable, that
helped me a lot with my fieldwork as a geologist. The guy that I bought it from lived in the
same street as me and had a lot of scrap iron in his yard, as well as wheels, motors,
motorcycles. I cant remember any more when exactly; they gave us some Russian Boxers
[Russian make of motorcycle] from work. Mine wasnt really perfect when I received it, but I
fixed it myself with the help of a relative of mine who gave me some parts. All eyes turned to
look at us when we passed by, because there werent so many cars and motorbikes as
nowadays. (N, male, 84 years old)

While the above quote summarizes well the situation during the 1950s and early
1960s and the role of epochal, macro, historical changes, increasingly, during the 1960
s and 1970s, other mezzo- and micro-level factors came into play. During that period,
the motorcycle represented a pre-marital mobility option for many people in Romania.
One informant told me that he had bought his first motorbike in 1979, despite an adverse
reaction from family members who perceived motorcycling as something dangerous.2
He sold it five years later because he began to attend a police cadet school and because
he got married. A family needs a car, he told me and, besides, his wife considered
motorcycling too risky. In that social context, motorcycling was part of pre-marital
masculinity.
The auto-mobility climate during the post-war period and family influences were
important factors in motorcycle affinity development in bikers of the 1970s and 1980s.
For many, affinity for motorcycles developed inside the family, as illustrated by one
interviewee who said that he first rode his grandfathers bike, a Russian-made IJ. He
said that he used to ride it when he was a little boy. Although he was not allowed to play
with it for safety reasons, he used to spend long periods of time repairing it with his
grandfather (D, 42 years old, engineer).
The 1990s and the 2000s brought in yet other factors. Analysing motorcycling in the
US, Halnon and Cohen (2006) speak of the process of gentrification in the new frontier
By that they mean the tendency of people from the upper social classes to appropriate
practices previously associated with the lower social classes. While motorcycling used to
be mainly a working-class practice (like tattooing and bodybuilding), it penetrated the

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

middle classes. A good illustration is the birth of manufacturer-led identities, such as the
birth of RUBs (Rich Urban Bikers), that is, well-off individuals riding Harley-Davidson
motorcycles.
In Romania, the gentrification of motorcycling was accompanied by an ascending
trend in individuals orientation towards spare-time activities involving risk-taking (Ivan
and Frunzaru, 2010; Lyng, 1990), such as hang gliding, skydiving, scuba diving and rock
climbing.3 This created a tension between a public agenda focused on risk reduction and
the popularity of the practice. Along with an openness to risk-taking, the post-1990
gentrification of motorcycling also allowed the self-expression of individuals and the
emergence of bodily projects (Shilling, 2005). In the context of a growing trend of
reflexive embodiment in Romania, that is, the tendency to perceive, emote about, reflect
and act upon ones body; to practices of body modifications and maintenance; and
body image (Crossley, 2006a: 1), many people see motorcycling as an appropriate
framework for outlining a body project. The body riding a motorcycle became, an iconic
body (Varga, 2010). In other words, the technology people use to move conveys information about them, becoming a form of self-expression. Contact with the symbolic
world created by motorcycle companies and marketing campaigns participates in the
formation of affinity for this type of body technology. Design and creative industries,
understood as a technology of power, generate new subjectivities and new mental spaces
(Milestone, 2007). The diversification of motorcycles design offers abundant opportunities for motorcycling-related bodily projects (speed, custom, touring cruiser, naked, offroad, etc.), creating diverse moto-mobilities identities (Alford and Ferriss, 2007).
Among the people whom I studied, this process was mediated, in a surprising way,
by the internet. The main motorcycling website from Romania nicely illustrates this, as
it provides easy access to the nexus between the body and the motorcycle. To give just
one example, in the discussions that I had with bikers there was the recurrent idea that,
before they decided to buy a motorbike, they first searched for motorcycle illustrations
on the internet. That ensures an anticipatory socialization with regard to motorcycle
usage for individuals attracted by motorcycles. Therefore, affinity for motorcycles is no
longer entirely dependent, as during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and early 1990s, on spatial,
temporal, historical or family circumstances; rather, it is IT&C-mediated (Pirani and
Varga, 2010: xiii). Thus, for the new bikers, the internet has become a significant agent
facilitating individuals entry into the motorcyclists world. Gazing at motorcycles on
the internet seems to be, in Urrys conceptualization (2002 [1990]), a daytime dreaming
activity. As many novices told me, gazing at motorcycles on the street or on the internet
remains a permanent activity long after they acquire a motorcycle of their own. Many
subjects declared that they are continuously tempted to verify anticipatively what kind
of motorcycle suits them.
Anticipative socialization through internet consumption thus represents ground zero
of a bikers career, a sort of pre-usage, fantasmatic phase. Affiliation is mediated by
dreaming, calculations, plans, sharing of stories and consumption of images. One interviewee told me that, initially, he talked often about motorcycles with a friend who, at the
time, attended motorcycling instruction lessons together with her boyfriend. That was
how he got the idea that he could buy a motorcycle for himself, although his parents

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

opposed it. The day his friend obtained her licence, he began quite feverishly searching
for pictures, making calculations, posting messages, asking questions and answering different posts on the internet. He said that it took a long time before he actually purchased
a motorcycle, but during that period he felt as if he was already a motorcyclist.
Direct, interactional elements and body experiences on bikes driven by others
seem to be extremely important for the transformation of the motorcycle from possibility to desire. Ones first experience as a rider, either as a passenger or as a driver,
seems to play the role of a founding act. For new bikers, it functions as a revelation,
mainly due to the combination of novel bodily experiences and high emotional loads.
It is an experience that most interviewees can hardly describe verbally, because it is
mainly physical. For one interviewee, discovery of motorcycling unfolded as strongly
positive body experiences. Previously he had often seen motorcycles passing by in the
street, but he had no feeling for them at all until he actually rode one together with
somebody else:
When I first mounted a motorcycle, it was quite unreal. A cousin of mine gave me a ride. The
feeling was extraordinary, it was summer and hot and I felt the wind caressing my face. And
that sense of motion you have when you take a curve, its hard to describe. I held him tight at
first, I felt embarrassed, but fear made me hang on to him tighter. (C, male, 26 years old)

Another subjects experience was similar. He first got on a motorcycle when he started
to attend a motorcycling school together with a friend. His depiction of his first ride
centres on bodily experiences and sensations, rather than cognitive categories:
I could not imagine it was so cool, if you know what I mean, I could hardly believe that I could
ride without falling. I had that special sensation, when you touch a motorbike, of something
heavy how can I put it how could I ride without falling, how to coordinate my hands on the
controls? And the instructor stayed off and shouted at me: squeeze the bike with your legs!
And the helmet, the gloves put me under high pressure, do you know the feeling when you
go underwater and try to hear something? (E, male, 24 years old)

Such descriptions of first-time experiences on a motorcycle highlight the idea that

mounting a motorcycle is the phenomenological equivalent of a break in the natural
course of daily body experience. This out-of-the-ordinary sensation produces feelings of
a lived body, which then become a form of being in the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). In
such situations, if individuals lack the necessary body techniques (Mauss, 1979), the
body itself becomes a subject. As a subject, the body mediates the relationship of individuals with the world more than in other situations, a fact that renders motorcycling
primarily an embodied experience.
The heightened role of the body at this stage, as well as the lack of mastery in how to
use their bodies (Mauss, 1979: 97), creates some risks.4 As mentioned earlier, many
interviewees said that their decision to become a motorcyclist was not welcomed by
parents, close relatives, friends, girlfriends, acquaintances and other non-bikers. This
reluctance was generated by the risks involved, and the underlying idea that riding a
motorcycle implies high risks of bodily injury.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

Affiliation and risk

Once the desire to ride has been awakened, the would-be biker passes through another
range of transformations. The affiliation stage consists of social learning from existing
bikers, and acquiring membership in their world. As Matza (1969: 101) says, affiliation
refers to adoption or receiving of a son into a family. Similarly, in the process of being
converted, the newcomer begins to do something new for him/herself, but already
familiar to the others. In motorcycling, that is the process during which individuals
learn to behave as motorcyclists from other bikers.
At this stage, issues of performativity are crucial. This is a problematical stage from
the performance point of view of the newcomer to the motor world. Upon joining existing bikers groups, the newcomers have not mastered the vocabulary and the bodily
and meta-linguistic repertoire of the old-timers. Additional challenges arise out of the
highly heterogeneous nature of the motorcyclists world in Romania. As in motorcycling cultures elsewhere, different types and styles of motorcycling exist in Romania.
Speed, touring, chopper/custom, off-road, communist and super-motorcycles are to be
found there. This variety, together with precarious socialization in that culture, exacerbates the problem of performativity and self-presentation (Goffman, 1959).
For many bikers, affiliation begins with registration for a motorcycling driving
licence course. During the schooling period, newcomers perform (out of a combination
of pressure and personal will) their affiliation to and membership of the motorcycling
world. Buying a biker outfit becomes a means of affiliation. Many motor school students and beginners wear expensive biker clothes, helmets, jackets, boots, protective
trousers and sunglasses. Some have bought the clothing long before getting a riding
licence and even before registering for riding courses. Some even join motorcycling
meetings outside Bucharest, wearing appropriate outfits, but travelling by train. For
those who actually begin motor school, the performativity of affiliation and the acquisition of symbols may be as important as the risk education delivered by instructors.
For some beginners, wearing the protective equipment is more a sign of performative
affiliation than an expression and outcome of systematic analysis of the safety rules. At
that point, it is more urgent for them to resemble motorcyclists than to avoid the risk of
injuries.
In addition to heightened performativity, during the affiliation process individuals
learn the behavioural and bodily conventions useful for managing to ride outside the
premises of the motor school. These conventions play a significant role. Individuals
learn to relate to the motorcycle as an object, a long process that eventually leads to
seeing it as an extension of ones body. This is a complicated process, because there is
a gap between the heightened desire to ride the motorcycle on normal roads and the lack
of the necessary body techniques and the self-confidence needed in order to drive
safely. Such bodily techniques include body postures for taking curves, ways to keep a
still motorcycle steady, techniques to slow down using both wheels, or strategies for
using mirrors when riding.
Fresh bikers need to learn social conventions, in addition to performative and bodily
conventions. One such convention is the obligation to greet other bikers met in traffic.
Greetings are usually made with the left hand or, if traffic conditions do not allow one to

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

take ones hand off the clutch, a movement of the left leg sidewise. One can also greet by
using an updown movement of the head or using the headlight. The conversations I had
with beginners revealed that the greeting convention is not easy to observe if individuals
have not mastered motorcycle riding techniques very well. There is a special topic on the
motor forum where bikers report how they greet each other in traffic. One internet forum
post says the following on the topic of greeting, a vivid testimony to the social conventions pressuring newcomers who desire to affiliate:
I tell you, it is really uncool when you are a beginner and somebody greets you and you are
just too afraid to take your hand off the handle bars. Eventually, I asked my passenger to
salute in my place. During the 350 km I rode yesterday, I was greeted in three different ways:
a guy even took both his hands off to say hi (Oh my God!), most of them raising one hand
over the handle bars and there was a guy on a superb chopper who saluted me bringing his
hand under the handle bars. PS: for whoever passed by on a blue Suzuki Bandit 1200
yesterday and did not get a return greeting from me, Im saluting them now. (20 Aug. 2007,
09:15 AM)

Fear of heavy urban traffic is an emotion that one has to manage at this stage. It is
generated by the subjective evaluation of injury risks. The most common solution to this
problem is to ride at night, when there is less traffic. Newcomers just ride behind some
more experienced bikers, or they ask their friends to drive a car in front of them. Another
common protection strategy is to modify the exhaust system so that the motor makes
extra noise. That way, they get extra attention from people inside cars.5 Fears are also
fuelled by the unfortunate events, experienced by almost all bikers: minor accidents,
falls, and hearing stories about other bikers accidents. In this case, bodily experiences
are re-signified as primary fears through interpersonal communication and mass media
stories (Chelcea, 2009).
Along with fear, another risk-related emotion that develops during the affiliation
stage is hostility to car drivers. As Musselwhite et al. (2011: 4) point out, road users
perceive the road as a competitive rather than a shared space and motorbike riding
[is] considered one of the least safe forms of road use. Generally, road users tend to see
the road as a space for cars. This view is shared, but also resisted, by the bikers whom
I studied. As a minority, they develop an aversion to car drivers. At the beginning of a
motorcyclists career this sentiment is learnt, rather than derived from direct experience. Bikers develop strong negative stereotypes of car drivers. One can get a sense of
this dynamic by the nicknames bikers use. On the internet forum and in daily usage,
bikers use the word can to describe a car. They call car drivers canned stuff, while
car drivers call them organ donors. These metaphors allude to the ever-present physical risks: cans protect bodies, while motorbikes expose the body.
The heightened perception of risk and the precarious status of a riding body convey to
new converts the self-image of a hero. I noticed that many of the discussions that take
place at their main meeting place in Bucharest are about accidents or near-accidents in
which they were involved. The online forum mentioned above includes many discussions of that kind. Bikers participate in the community through these stories in which car
drivers are the villains.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

10

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

According to Mimi Sheller (2004), car users have a feeling of being in the car,
which is related to safety. Being in the car is augmented by a wide range of safetyrelated emotions (e.g. driving happiness), some of them caused by proprioceptivity
(smells, air touching ones body, curve swinging, etc.). While the car creates the feeling
of being inside, the motorcycle creates the feeling of being outside, exposed. Inside the
car, ones body is protected. During the journey the car is a kind a house sheltering the
body and ones vision is limited to the view offered by the windows of that house. On
the motorcycle, ones body is exposed, but the sight horizon is much wider. Contact with
the environment is direct. When riding a bike, the self colonizes the body, which
becomes a subject of its own. Inside the car, the individuals condition is that of spectator-body. On the motorbike, the individuals condition is that of actor-body. The first
admires reality, while the second actively participates in it. In the car, the body is inherent; on the motorcycle, the body is problematic. The feeling generated by actor-body
status seems to be an important element in motorcycle culture. This feeling was also
identified in scholarly (McDonald-Walker, 2000) and popular culture works alike. The
Complete Idiots Guide to Motorcycling (Holmstrom, 2002: xix), for instance, notes that
I never feel more alive than when riding a motorcycle. For me, traveling in a car is like watching
television: I feel as if Im viewing my surroundings through a glass tube. When Im on a bike,
I feel as though I am actually there, experiencing the world. Not only do I see my surroundings,
but I feel them, smell them, taste them. I feel a part of something larger, something complete,
instead of feeling like an uninterested voyeur.

Sometimes, when riding, the speed, combined with the exposed condition of the body,
generates an ecstatic feeling that modifies the perception of time and space and can,
paradoxically, allow the annihilation of the sense of risk that is the foundation of this
two-wheeled type of auto-mobility. This paradox has been nicely depicted by the novelist Milan Kundera (1997: 1-2) in a short passage in his novel Slowness:
... the man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he
is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from
the continuity of time in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy; in that state he is unaware
of his age, his wife, his children, his worries, and so he has no fear, because the source of fear
is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear.

Signification and risk

In the signification stage individuals come to internalize their new situation and get to resignify their entire identity. If, in the affinity stage, individuals experience the awakening
of the desire to become a biker, and, in the affinity stage, they start attributing to themselves signs of their affiliation to the bikers world, the last stage is focused on profound
transformations of the self. Once one has reached this stage, the motorcycle becomes a
kind of axis mundi, the central point of bikers mental geographies and biographies.6
The prototypical biker of this stage is the veteran, that is, an individual who has been
active for several years. The forum that I analysed contains a topic (opened in 2009) on
the theme of veterans meetings. Discussions under this topic underline the fact that

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

11

experienced bikers tend to create certain forms of association in order to distinguish

themselves from other motorcyclists. The participants in that topic also debate the
definition of the experienced motorcyclist. Thus, one of the most heated debates under
this topic relates to the number of years of experience appropriate to a veteran. Some
argue that one needs ten years, while others say that a smaller number is enough. It was
proposed that experience should be evaluated and acknowledged by means of yellow
laces that bikers visibly display on their jackets (one lace for every ten years), although
not all participants in the discussion agreed with this solution. Accumulating laces or
other visible marks of experience, is, in Bourdieus sense (1984), a materialization of
distinction. Veterans see themselves as the aristocracy of the motorcycling community.
Here is one appeal to organize separate meetings devoted to experienced bikers:
It would be a good thing if everyone came with a little box full of old photos and left it on view,
so that the young ones could see what and where we rode. They should listen to our stories, our
adventures and especially our advice. I wish many Mobra riders on this forum, and not only
them, enjoy riding like that for about 20 years, as we did! Many of us will meet again at the
beautiful campsite in Cluj, Eldorado. I propose that the organizers introduce this moment into
their program. Gather in a small group, have a beer together and tell stories. Why shouldnt we
even have a parade of our own?

Veterans tendency to distinguish themselves from the others is also reflected in the
linguistic categories that they use. I found out that, in many cases, in their daily conversations veterans call both non- and non-experienced bikers civilians, developing a sense
of pride when comparing themselves to them.
Risk and risk management take different forms in this stage. Safety is the keyword.
Old bikers live with the spectre of the defeated body (Le Breton, 2009), of the body that
no longer obeys either the soul or the mind. At one of the communist (Soviet motorbike) meetings, I heard a discussion among individuals who tried to find solutions for the
moment when, due to old age, they would not be able to ride a motorcycle any longer.
The sidecar was considered a viable solution. Incompatibility with an aged body is felt
more intensely in the case of the motorcycle than in that of the car.

Conclusions
In this article, I have analysed the way bikers pass through different career stages.
Using the concept of the social career, I have argued that its meaning must be enlarged,
by taking into account the bodily practices that define ones career. In the case that I
studied, motorcycling, bodily practices and risk are closely related, but their relationship unfolds differently at different career stages. Motorcycling, like other activities
based on voluntary risk, has to be analysed in its social context and in close relation to
its embodied nature.
A thorough analysis of the risk generated by motorcycling has to take into account the
stages of ones career. The risk implied by the affiliation stage is different from the risk
of the signification stage. If one analyses motorcycling risk based on statistics only, thus
flattening out the biographical perspective, one fails to take into account the evolving
nature of a motorcycling career.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

12

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

Analysed through the lens of reflexive embodiment theories (Crossley, 2006a; 2006b),
a motorcyclists social career overlaps with a reflexive process of insertion of the motorcycle into ones bodily practices. As I have shown above, during the affinity stage, a body
project emerges (Shilling, 2005), but it is confined only to the daydreaming and contemplative dimension. The motorcyclists body project involves the development of an entire
symbolic space of images and memories, which frames their body-related imagination.
The bodily project becomes sharper during the affiliation stage, when reflexivity remains
high, but it becomes highly performative. Reflexivity is focused on the tension between
actual behaviour and the imagined bodily project. During the signification stage, the body
project becomes routine, evolving into a personal identity anchor.
Summing up, this article points to the embodied nature of social practices that involve
voluntary risk-taking. This analysis also extends our understanding of risk, by emphasizing that motorcycling culture is very heterogeneous. Therefore, risk analysis has to consider this variability. It is very likely that the objective and subjective risks of injury vary
not only depending on ones career stage, but also on the category of motorcyclist that
one belongs to. In this article I have analysed those events, self-transformations and the
acquisition of social practices that are shared by a large number of members of the
motorcycling community. As I have shown above, the perception of risk has a central
position in a motorcyclists developing social career and it is re-signified depending on
the particular stage a biker has reached. The basis of risk perception is the precarious
status of a body exposed to the world on a powerful machine.
Funding and acknowledgements
This work was supported by CNCSIS-UEFISCU / PN II RU 68/2010, Modernity and Mobility
in Romania. Earlier versions were presented at Annual Research Day, CeMoRe, University of
Lancaster, 2011 and Sociology of Risk Conference, University of Copenhagen, 2011. Many
thanks to Charles Musselwhite, Bianca Maria Pirani, Colin Pooley, John Urry, Lazr Vlsceanu.

Notes
1
2
3

4
5
6

See: www.motociclism.ro
Resistance from family members when somebody decides to start riding motorcycles seems
to be a common feature for all subjects of my research.
Ivan and Frunzarus (2010) explanation for this trend is that individuals voluntarily get
involved in activities of high potential physical risk because this allows them to regain the
feeling of control in a society where they almost have no sense of control.
In general, affinity process analyses ignore the embodied nature of the decision to choose a
certain social practice. Sociological studies on bikers also lack embodiment analyses.
This practice may be also linked to the aforementioned issues of over-performance of membership of the bikers world.
See, as an illustration, Barnsley (2009: 108).

References
Alford, S. and S. Ferriss (2006) Classifying Motorcycle Writing, International Journal of
Motorcycle Studies July. URL (consulted December 2012): http://ijms.nova.edu/July2006/
IJMS_Resources.AlfordFerriss.html
Alford, S. and S. Ferriss (2007) Motorcycle. London: Reaktion.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

Jderu: Motorcycles, body and risk

13

Barnsley, M. (2009) Born to be Wild?, pp. 1058 in G. Letherby and G. Reynolds (eds) Gendered
Journeys, Mobile Emotions. Farnham: Ashgate.
Beckmann, J. (2004) Mobility and Safety, Theory, Culture & Society 21(4/5): 81100.
Bellaby, P. and D. Lawrenson (2001) Approaches to the Risks of Riding Motorcycles,
Sociological Review 49(3): 36888.
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Bourne, C. (2007) Philosophical Ridings. Oxford: Oneworld.
Carroll, H. (2008) Mens Soap: Automotive Television Programming and Contemporary
Working-class Masculinities, Television New Media 9(4): 26383.
Chelcea, L. (2002) The Culture of Shortage during State-socialism, Cultural Studies 16(1): 16
43.
Chelcea, S. (2009) Piramida fricilor sociale [The Pyramid of Social Fears]. Sociologie
Romneasc 7(4): 318.
Crossley, N. (2006a) Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
Crossley, N. (2006b) The Networked Body and the Question of Reflexivity, pp. 2134 in D.
Warkul and P. Vannini (eds) Body/Embodiment. Farnham: Ashgate.
Dant, T. (2004) The Driver-car, Theory, Culture & Society 21(4/5): 6179.
Gtejel, L. (2011) The Common Heritage of the Socialist Car Culture, pp. 14356 in L.H.
Siegelbaum (ed.) The Socialist Car. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Goffman, E. (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates.
New York: Anchor Books.
Haigh, J. and G. Crowther (2005) Interpreting Motorcycling through its Embodiment in Life
Story Narratives, Journal of Marketing Management 21(56): 55572.
Halnon, K.B. and S. Cohen (2006) Muscles, Motorcycles and Tattoos: Gentrification in a New
Frontier, Journal of Consumer Culture 6(1): 3356.
Holmstrom, D. (2002) Introduction, pp. xixxxi in D. Holmstrom (ed.) The Complete Idiots
Guide to Motorcycling. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books.
Ivan, L. and V. Frunzaru (2010) Being in Control by Taking Voluntary Risk in Contemporary
Society, Sociologie romneasc 8(1): 806.
Kundera, M. (1997) Slowness. New York: HarperCollins.
Le Breton, D. (1990) Anthropologie du corps et modernit (Anthropology of the Body and
Modernity). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Librett, M. (2008) Wild Pigs and Outlaws, Crime, Media, Culture 4(2): 25769.
Lyng, S. (1990) Edgework: A Social Psychological Analysis of Voluntary Risk Taking, American
Journal of Sociology 95(4): 85186.
Matza, D. (1969) Becoming Deviant. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Mauss, M. (1979) The Notion of Body Techniques, pp. 95123 in M. Mauss (ed.) Sociology and
Psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
McDonald-Walker, S. (2000) Bikers Culture, Politics and Power. New York: Berg.
Mellstrom, U. (2002) Patriarchal Machines and Masculine Embodiment, Science Technology
Human Values 27(4): 46078.
Mellstrom, U. (2004) Machines and Masculine Subjectivity: Technology as an Integral Part of
Mens Life Experiences, Men and Masculinities 6(4): 36882.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) The Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Milestone, J. (2007) Design as Power, Culture, Theory and Critique 48(2): 17598.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013

14

Journal of Sociology 0(0)

Murgescu, B. (2010) Romania i Europa [Romania in Europe]. Iai: Polirom.

Musselwhite, C.B.A., E. Avineri and Y. Susilo (2011) Public Attitudes towards Motorcyclists
Safety: A Qualitative Study from the United Kingdom, Accident Analysis and Prevention 49:
10513.
Natalier, K. (2001) Motorcyclists Interpretations of Risk and Hazard, Journal of Sociology
37(1): 6580.
Nyanzi, S. et al. (2009) Male Promiscuity: The Negotiation of Masculinity by Motorbike Taxiriders in Masaka, Uganda, Men and Masculinities 12(1): 117.
Pinch, P. and S. Reimer (2012) Moto-mobilities: Geographies of the Motorcycle and
Motorcyclists, Mobilities 7(3): 43957.
Pirani, B.M. and I. Varga (2010) Introduction, pp. xiiixxxix in M. Pirani and I. Varga (eds)
Acting Bodies and Social Networks. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Sheller, M. (2004) Automotive Emotions: Feeling the Car, Theory, Culture & Society 21(4/5):
22142.
Shilling, C. (2005) The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. London: Sage.
Thrift, N. (2004) Driving in the City, Theory, Culture & Society 21(4/5): 4159.
Truitt, A. (2008) On the Back of a Motorbike, American Ethnologist 35(1): 319.
Urry, J. (2002 [1990]) The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage Publications.
Urry, J. (2004) The System of Automobility, Theory, Culture & Society 21(4/5): 2539.
Vail, A. (1999) The Outside of a Thing Is Half a Back, Journal of Art Management, Law and
Society 28(4): 26177.
Varga, I. (2010) Icons, Symbols, Cultures, pp. 5360 in M. Pirani and I. Varga (eds) Acting
Bodies and Social Networks. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Veno, A. (ed.) (2007) The Mammoth Book of Bikers. London: Constable and Robinson.
Wolf, D.R. (2000) The Rebels: A Brotherhood of Outlaw Bikers. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.

Biographical note
Gabriel Jderu is associate professor at Department of Sociology, University of Bucharest, where he
teaches Research Methods and Sociology of the Body. He is currently researching social practices
related to motorcycling, as well as the maintenance and repair of automotive equipment.

Downloaded from jos.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on February 5, 2013