Why Halloween ghouls ride motorcycles

Motorcycle riding ghouls come out for Halloween.

 What do motorcycles have to do with creepy monsters, ghostly ghouls, flaming skeletons, and living death? Quite a lot, actually, on Halloween. 

It used to be "Halloween Night," but the celebration of doom is now so popular in the United States that October is becoming Halloween Month. 

And motorcycles are part of the fun. 

The best explanation I've read of this phenomenon is a 2016 piece by J. Joshua Placa on Motorcycle.com 

"Most motorcyclists I know have a special fondness for Halloween and all its imagery," he wrote. 

"Maybe it’s a macabre coping mechanism that helps us deal with the grim side of the road. There is just something about death that bikers like to defy. Perhaps it’s just part of our rebel spirit. We’re going to ride until we die, and maybe a couple of days after."

Dressing in studded leather adorned with skulls and cross bones, and incorporating the Grim Reaper into custom motorcycle paint jobs, certainly has meaning, Placa noted.

Intended to be menacing, the everyday "biker" leather and patches get-up is scary enough to wear by itself on any Halloween. So, Placa confides, he just goes as himself.

Asked where in Heaven's name he got his costume, he claims he replied "Heaven's got nothing to do with it."

There have been plenty of horror movies featuring evil motorcycle riders. I can't stand to watch them, but Bryan Wood listed 10 creepy ones for RideApart in 2016. Most you won't ever have heard of ("Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town").

Of the better-known "Ghost Rider" movies he writes:

"These movies don't have a lot of horror in them, but they are just like Halloween candy in that they are easy to consume, and you may regret it later."

Where did all this start? I found a suitably horrifying 1930s photo of a skull and motorcycle on the Motorcycle Timeline blog. The Northampton Pirates Motorcycle Club had it as a centerpiece on the table at its annual dinner way back then.

It stands to reason that vintage motorcycles would be better at being haunted than new motorcycles. I wrote how my retro 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet is, yes, haunted. The proof is a gearbox oil filler bolt that could not be loosened, even with brute force, that subsequently unscrewed all by itself.

I'll tell that story around the campfire sometime. Nothing like a Phantom Fastener to throw a chill up your spine.

It also seems to me that visiting ghost towns or abandoned highways would be a fine activity on a motorcycle.

Halloween is a deal at Rickety Crickett Brewing, just off historic Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona. The Halloween Costume Party is at 11 p.m. tonight, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024 at the restaurant and craft brewery at 532 Beale St.

Just look for the sign of the crazed mechanical man riding his motorcycle.

If you missed it there's no need to wait until next Halloween. He's there every day of the year.

Doomed to ride, apparently, in the wrong direction.