the cleaner, the builder and the rider
23 May '20 Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde | News

the cleaner, the builder and the rider

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My grandma used to have this neighbour who rode a Mercedes… well, rode… he cleaned it. It was his pride and joy and only on special occasions he would take it for a spin. Yet, every Saturday he would take the car out of the garage to clean, wax, caress it and more for approximately 4 hours. One could stress that dusting it off with a cloth would suffice, but there you go. After that ritual the car would be rolled back into the garage until the next Saturday.

The story above applies to a car, but this type of person also exists when it comes to motorcycles. In this blog we talk about 3 types of motorcyclists. Probably most of us are a bit of everything, with the emphasis on one. Let's talk about the cleaner, the builder and the rider.

The cleaner

Someone who loves his bike and wants her to shine. Especially bikes with many chrome parts deserve a lot of love and should be able to show one's smile in the reflection. The cleaner can be spotted spending the vast majority of a Saturday on polishing his bike and usually has more different cleaning bottles at his disposal than his wife has tubes and crèmes in the bathroom. Interestingly enough the cleaner is usually of male origin and ironically hates to do cleaning chores around the house.

 

The builder

Motorcycles are more than a form of transportation. Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul – is an expression that you often hear among bikers. Unsurprisingly most bikers are not very fond of stock bikes and want something of their own. For those of us who are not good with their hands; we bring the bike to the shop, tell what we want and come back to pick it up when it's done. For others, it's the biggest joy of motorcycles: working on them, building them and sometimes creating pure works of art. Whether it's finding that rare special paint Shovelhead tank somewhere online or welding your own frame: these guys and girls create unique masterpieces and in some cases find more joy in building than in riding. Often when a bike is finished it gets sold quickly, just to start on a new project.

 

The rider

It's all about miles; the rider uses every opportunity he finds to get one his bike to put some miles on it. It doesn't matter if he is going to work or taking that holiday trip across the United States or to the south of Spain. As long as he is riding, this breed of motorcyclist is the happiest person on earth. His bike is more often dirty than clean and when he goes to his garage to finally take of all the dust, mud and more… he probably decides that his time is too precious to clean the bike and takes it for a spin. Riding fast through the rain also cleans it a bit, right?

These are of course exaggerated examples and most of us are probably a bit of all, but we would be interested what applies to you the most. Or perhaps we forgot a category. Tell us at update@jekillandhyde.com. Oh, and my grandma's neighbour? I have no idea where the good man is, but if you are reading this on a Saturday, chances are he is deep cleaning a Mercedes.

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