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GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL: [1969-1978]
The year 1969 marked the end of one era, which reached its peak with
Woodstock, and kicked off another, with Peter Fonda's iconic film Easy Rider. The
advertising campaign for Easy Rider proclaimed, "A man went looking for America
and couldn't find it anywhere," a sentiment that could be expanded to embrace
the entire decade.
Vietnam, the threat of martial law at home, the OPEC oil embargo, Watergate, and
the CIA's "dirty tricks" abroad and at home led to growing feelings of
insecurity and powerlessness in the face of crises on the domestic and international
fronts. Escape from life's uncomfortable realities was found in experimentation with
alternative religions and lifestyles; the search for life's meaning through transcendental
meditation, yoga, mysticism, and Eastern religion; the writings of Carlos Casteneda;
communes; and hallucinatory drugs.
Disco, immortalized in the film Saturday Night Fever (1977), was arguably the most
pervasive symbol of the era. It emerged initially as the music of a true underground
society, whose denizens danced till morning to frantic nonstop music plied by "dee-jays."
Feeding on the public's appetite for fear-induced thrills, Evel Knievel became one
of the highest-paid entertainers of his time, making motorcycle stunt-riding an industry
unto itself. Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) defined a new genre of moviemaking
as interested in release through spectacle as in story or character development.
Motorcycles have always offered riders escape through speed, but, in the 1970s, manufacturers
learned to apply the technology of the racetrack to the creation of superspeedy bikes
for the road. Honda, for example, transformed both motorcycle design and riding habits
with its CB750 Four. Harley-Davidson and Triumph made noble attempts to compete,
offering their own sporty superbikes. While Harley-Davidson's XLCR, a smaller-bodied
cafe racer, tempered classic Harley design components and took inspiration from Europe,
Britain's Triumph made a last-ditch marketing attempt by crossing the Atlantic with
styling that made direct reference to a classic "American" (i.e., Harley-Davidson)
look. Both were market failures. Although nothing could be further away from Captain
America's Easy Rider Chopper, it was the Ducati 750SS, the product of masterful Italian
design, that captured the era's zeitgeist. In the '70s, this bike was the ultimate
escapist vehicle.
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