Men Ride BMWs Whilst Ladies Ride Harlies

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Right, somebody has to say it, and frankly I'm amazed it hasn't been officially recognised by the government yet. There is a very obvious distinction in the motorcycle world, and you don't need to be a professor of anything to spot it. Spend a Sunday morning at Box Hill, wander into any decent biker café, or stand outside a greasy spoon on the A1 and watch the bikes arrive. The evidence is everywhere. Proper men ride BMWs, while ladies ride Harleys.

I appreciate that some people will immediately start complaining about stereotypes, personal choice and all that modern nonsense. That's perfectly understandable, but it doesn't alter what is plainly happening in front of us. You can write as many angry comments on Facebook as you like, but eventually you still have to explain why the BMW bloke has crossed three counties before breakfast while the Harley bloke is sitting outside the pub admiring his own reflection in the chrome.

The BMW GS: The Full English Breakfast of Motorcycles

The BMW GS is not merely a motorcycle. It is the mechanical equivalent of a proper British breakfast. Everything about it suggests substance. Two sausages, thick-cut bacon, fried eggs, black pudding, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns and enough toast to block the arteries of a small village. That is the general philosophy of the GS. If something can be made bigger, stronger, heavier or more complicated, BMW will quite happily do it.

This is exactly what a proper bloke wants. The GS looks as though it could leave England on Monday morning, cross Europe before teatime and continue through the Alps without even noticing that it has left the M25. You can load it with panniers, camping equipment, waterproofs, electronic gadgets and enough spare clothing to survive a minor expedition, and it will simply get on with the job.

There is also the passenger situation, which is something nobody seems particularly keen to discuss. Yet somehow, wherever you see a BMW GS, there always appears to be a glamorous woman sitting comfortably on the back, wearing expensive riding gear and looking as though she's on her way to a rather nice hotel in Austria. The rider, meanwhile, looks as though he has just completed a successful expedition to the North Pole, even if he's actually been to a garden centre in Hertfordshire.

Then We Come to Harley-Davidson

Now, Harley-Davidson is obviously a very different proposition. There is no point pretending otherwise. A Harley has its own particular way of doing things, which seems to involve enormous quantities of chrome, leather, tassels and machinery weighing roughly the same as a small council flat.

The Harley rider approaches the motorcycle rather differently too. While the BMW man is worrying about tyre pressures, suspension settings and whether his panniers are properly secured, the Harley gentleman is usually engaged in the much more delicate business of polishing something that was already perfectly shiny twenty minutes ago.

Then there is the riding position. A BMW rider looks as though he could disappear into the Pyrenees at short notice. The Harley rider looks considerably more settled, almost as though he has been asked to sit comfortably while someone fetches the tea and biscuits. Feet forward, arms stretched out and back leaning comfortably backwards, he appears to be enjoying the sort of leisurely Sunday afternoon one might normally associate with a conservatory.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. A man is perfectly entitled to spend his afternoon sitting outside a pub surrounded by chrome while his motorcycle makes enough noise to frighten the pigeons off the roof. That is his business. I merely question whether it should be described as adventure.

The Matter of the Passenger

This is where the difference becomes particularly interesting. The BMW GS seems designed for taking somebody somewhere. It has a proper pillion, luggage, comfort and enough equipment to suggest that the journey might actually continue beyond the next village.

The Harley, on the other hand, often appears to have been purchased primarily for the benefit of the person standing next to it saying, "Very nice, mate." You will see a Harley parked outside a pub with one bloke beside it, another bloke beside him, and a third bloke explaining the exhaust system. Nobody appears to have actually travelled anywhere.

The BMW rider has been to France.

The Harley rider has been to the café.

The BMW has accumulated 40,000 miles.

The Harley has accumulated 40,000 photographs.

That, to my mind, is the distinction.

The Great British Motorcycle Divide

Of course, Harley riders will insist that their motorcycles are all about freedom, individuality and the open road. Fair enough. I'm sure it is very liberating to spend three hours polishing a chrome exhaust before riding seventeen miles to a pub.

The BMW crowd, meanwhile, tend to have a slightly different understanding of freedom. Their idea of a good weekend is leaving Britain entirely. France on Friday, Belgium on Saturday, Germany on Sunday and back through the Channel Tunnel on Monday morning, preferably before work. The GS is built for that sort of behaviour. It looks happiest when covered in road dirt somewhere several hundred miles from home.

There is also something reassuringly British about the BMW approach. You can leave home in glorious sunshine, encounter rain in Bedfordshire, hail in Northamptonshire, a biblical storm in Lincolnshire and freezing temperatures somewhere near the Yorkshire border, and the GS rider simply pulls over, adjusts something on the handlebars and carries on. He has packed for every possible weather condition because he has absolutely no intention of allowing reality to interfere with his plans.

The Harley rider, meanwhile, has probably brought a polishing cloth.

The Final Verdict

So perhaps we should stop pretending that every motorcycle represents exactly the same sort of person. Obviously, people can ride whatever they like, and I'm sure there are perfectly respectable Harley riders who have travelled thousands of miles across Europe. There are probably even BMW riders who have never taken their GS further than Tesco.

But that rather spoils the theory, and I'm not prepared to let facts get in the way of a perfectly good argument.

The BMW GS remains, in my completely impartial and scientifically verified opinion, the motorcycle equivalent of a full English breakfast. It is substantial, unnecessarily complicated, capable of going almost anywhere and best enjoyed with a large mug of tea somewhere that serves fried food.

The Harley is something else entirely. It is chrome, leather, noise and tradition, generally accompanied by a man who has spent considerably more time discussing his motorcycle than riding it.

So the next time you're standing outside a biker café watching the machines arrive, have a look at what happens. The BMW bloke will probably be checking his route to the Alps, while the Harley bloke will be checking his reflection in the tank.

And if there happens to be a glamorous lady sitting on the back of the BMW, don't say I didn't warn you.

The evidence is simply overwhelming.

Well, overwhelming if you ignore anything that contradicts it.