In 1947, Americans opened their Life magazines to find a chilling article about a Californian town terrorized by gangs of motorcycle thugs. Accompanied by a lurid full-page photo of a heavyset man on a bike surrounded by empty beer bottles, the message was clear: motorcycles were a menace to society. In reality, the motorcycle anarchy was nothing more than a few drunken revelers at a Fourth of July bike convention - a small fraction of those four thousand or so riders who actually attended. But the damage was done: from that point on, motorcycles would forever be associated with danger, rebellion, and violence. And as the loudest and heaviest bikes on the market, Harley Davidsons were considered the baddest of them all.
