Jump into a time-machine tunnel back to 1968 or ’69. You and a friend are counter-culture buckaroos and fairly flush, having just moved a lot of cocaine, and so you hop on your hogs and leave Los Angeles for a long, un-hurried trip to New Orleans. You’re not middle-class vacationers but cool-cat road warriors, so you’ve both packed a sleeping bag. But what else?

If I was Peter Fonda‘s Wyatt I would bring (a) a two-man pup tent for when it rains, (b) an olive drab Army-Navy rain poncho, (c) the usual toiletries, (d) extra clean socks, underwear and T-shirts, (e) an extra pair of leather pants and a couple of clean shirts, (f) a nice little pillow, and (g) maybe a book or two (Herman Hesse‘s “Siddhartha”, Jack Kerouac‘s “Dharma Bums”, John Lennon‘s “In His Own Write”). Not a ton of gear but enough to fill a couple of pillow cases.

The rolled-up sleeping bag, tent and poncho could theoretically be tied to that vertical backrest on Wyatt’s American flag Harley. But where to stash the other stuff? Obviously you’d need a pair of fringe leather saddlebags, hanging off either side of the rear section. But of course, Wyatt has none. Look at the footage — sleeping bags aside, neither Wyatt nor Dennis Hopper‘s Billy (a scruffy, submental, cowboy-hat-wearing oaf) are packing a damn thing. Just the clothes they’re wearing.

And what kind of odorous bullshit is that? Unless they find a motel room that rents to hippies, within two or three days they’re going to stink to high heaven. Which wouldn’t go down too well with the New Mexico hippie chicks (Luana Anders, Sabrina Scharf) they pair up with. Not to mention the prosties (Karen Black, Toni Basil) they meet in that New Orleans cat house.

So why no saddlebags? Not realistic. Not even counter-culture bravehearts like to wear stinky, skidmark underwear or socks crawling with bacteria.

Half the appeal of Easy Rider is the title, which Terry Southern came up with. If Fonda and Hopper had stuck with The Loners, it wouldn’t have had that schwing.

Easy Rider still works pretty well, but without the great music tracks (“The Weight,” “If Six Was Nine”, “The Pusher”, “Born to be Wild”) it would have felt like a lot less. And Hopper’s performance, while certainly colorful, is hugely annoying. Billy is such a primitive, under-educated low-life.

The film was shot between early to mid ’68. Four-year-old Bridget Fonda (born on 1.27.64) can be glimpsed during the New Mexico commune segment.