Hundreds of days has gone past since we last made an original article about something. Since we have been busy with our back end operation just to keep ourselves alive and running, we’ve kind of neglected some of our written contents and our film contents due to workforce constraint (hehe). So now we’re kinda back with the energy and focus to push back ourselves into the spotlight (if there was every any). Okay then, this article will be discussing on the aspect of attitude of our riders or bikers here in Malaysia. Wait a minute? Is there any different between a rider and a biker? Well to our definition (note that this is a personal reflection, it doesn’t mean we’re correct).
This writing came inspired from our reading on Mr. Lutfi Lokman’s imagination on his recent experience overlooking and overhearing a group of bikers revving their bikes at the RnR area somewhere in Malaysia. Now this brings us to the point, the difference between a rider and a biker. For us, have a simple focus in their life with a motorcycle, which is only to ride at a certain extreme. Whereas a biker, they live their life to the fullest in enjoying the experience of owning and riding a motorcycle as well as the other lifestyle activities and association that came with it.
There are only two points that we wanted to share in this writing, because if we are to share everything about our angle on this matter; we might as well write a book for it. The first will be about attitude and there can be plenty to be agreed and disagreed with our point here so if you have anything to say (especially those negative one, please keep it to yourself.. hehe). Riders ; from our perspective have a very straightforward attitude, they act only in between the needs of their activity which is riding. Apart from that, they are just heading their daily life working, studying and what not; or in other words they are not that interesting to know.
Bikers on the other hand have a pretty colourful attitude and by that, some can be interesting to look at and the other half of it may come as a little bit of a nuisance to some. Now why did we say such thing, this all because of what’s happening around us through out our journey in the world of motorcycling here in Malaysia. Bikers hold a strong belief on their casual attitude which is mostly similar to any kind of groups that shares a same passion, and this results in the lack of attention towards the actual riding but more on the social stuff. Nothing wrong about that, it just may not be appealing to everyone.
Since it is our nature as a human to feel belonged and fit into a group, we tend to overlook the existence of others around us. From our study of some human behaviour stuff (by that we actually just read a few books regarding human behaviour) it is true that we can create a sense of comfort when we falls under a certain group that shares the same passion or interest. Hence, bikers sometimes get carried away with their attitude compared to riders due to the fact that more people shares the same value in being biker rather than a rider.
Not everything about riders attitude is positive, this group of people on the other hand tend to express themselves as being someone better in terms of riding knowledge and that may come as intimidating to common people or in some cases; may look a bit arrogant in their own space. But that’s the thing, they only behave such way within their area of activity. Now bikers, they bring almost everything about them into their daily life, sometimes it can be overwhelming to see them reacting or acting in such way on what basically just a normal situation. For example, revving their bike for no apparent reason while standing still at a traffic light or even around the parking space of some “Mamak Stall” or something.
This kind of attitude creates different reaction from non-motor heads out there. That is why, we have the term “Mat Rempit” in the first place; because when people starts to hate something they tend to label them into something despicable. From here, we can see that bikers somehow managed to create a slightly more vocal opinion from the public perspectives compared to riders due to their visibility and loudness on the road that we all are sharing. How this actually pans out to us in the motoring industry? We kinda like the togetherness and brotherhood that a group of bikers can bring to the table, but we also think that more and more of them somehow managed to mislead the public’s perspective about themselves.
Attitude is a huge topic to be discussed in one go, so let our first point be a simple initiation towards a better understanding on how we can differentiate between a biker and a rider. On to the second and final point of what we would like to share here. It’s about “culture” and it’s relation towards the development of a certain platform or industry. We start with bikers, without doubt; they’ve contributed a lot in terms of the nation’s growth in motorcycling culture and this actually drives the sales of motorcycle and related accessories here in Malaysia. This brings positivity for our country’s economy, but somehow it stops there. Most bikers nowadays simply went on to enjoy their life with their bikes within their own biking group and pretty much just repeat the same process every weekend.
The right culture is needed here in Malaysia and that can come in the shape of Motorsports and Engineering. Now these two, doesn’t come easily from common people, it take a special group of individuals to have enough understanding and passion towards the technicality of their machine to give birth to a proper Motorsports and Engineering (Motoring) culture. Part of the component that can be used to enhance these two cultures comes from a group of riders that has the knowledge and discipline to execute such delicate task.
One would assume that we’re boasting on how riders are much better than bikers; for us, it’s not really the matter of putting it that way because the nature of both side comes in a similar shape which is their love towards motorcycle. But then again, it’s not really the definition of word that really matter; it’s the people in it that actually defines how well each group can be. As far as our hope can be, we would want both bikers and riders to be equally well mannered and positively useful for the development of Malaysia’s motorcycle scene.
Talking about culture, it is clear to us that as of now; bikers is a phenomenon amongs Malaysian right now and riders on the other hand remains in small clusters and sometimes can be hard to penetrate. So what’s the use of our writings here? It depends on how one would like to transcribe it into their understanding, it can be provocative or it can also be discussed to further study on how these two groups can benefit the growth of our nation as well as humanity.
At the end of it, motorcycling is an activity that is high risk in nature. Therefore, we would like to urge everyone that’s involved in this activity to take extra precaution and care for safety in riding. No matter where you are, be it on track or even on the open road; safety comes first. You’ll never know when “shit” can happen to yourself. Finally, we would like to hear and communicate more with you people out there so that we can somehow contribute to the development of the industry here in Malaysia. Please do stay tune with us on our FACEBOOK PAGE and check out our YOUTUBE CHANNEL for more of our contents.
Malaysian Riders 