BRITISH BIKER SUB-CULTURE

PART ONE

– PART ONE OF OUR LOOK AT HOW WE GOT HERE

I’VE BEEN RIDING MOTORCYCLES FOR ABOUT 45 YEARS AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS, AND I’VE OWNED CLOSE TO 30 BIKES. SOME OF THEM WERE GREAT, AND SOME WEREN’T, AND IN THAT TIME I’VE HAD THE PLEASURE OF MEETING HUNDREDS OF LIKE-MINDED ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL THINGS MOTORISED ON TWO WHEELS.

What I’ve noticed is that, even when some of these fantastic people become too old or infirm to ride, they don’t stop seeing themselves as bikers - they keep going to events, and being with others who are, just like them, bikers at heart.

What does this mean? Surely when you’re unable to continue your hobby you go on to other things? In this case though, it seems that there’s more to it. Is there a difference between someone who just rides motorcycles and a true biker?

There’ve been hundreds of books written about bikes, and many on some of the more well-known bike clubs, but other than some excellent books written about the Rocker era of the 1950s/60 there’s been little written about the history of the riders, and what’s made them the bikers we know of today. Why do we have the term ‘biker’? Where did it come from? Why do bikers ride different types of bikes, and wear styles of clothing? Is there a common identity of what could be termed a biker culture?

19th century sociologist Emile Durkheim termed the phrase ‘social facts are things’, and by this he meant that, although we think of ourselves as individuals, with our own thoughts and ideas, in fact we’re influenced by external matters which affect our behaviour and values.

When more than a few individuals’re affected in this way, and share the same beliefs and values, then it’s a culture.

What is culture? It’s defined in sociological terms as the beliefs, values, and expected norms of behaviour of a group of individuals. Therefore a culture could be an entire country and, equally, it could be a group within another culture – a sub-culture. The values of a sub-culture as bikers, if indeed we are a culture, are therefore not as individuals as some’d like because they themselves are constructs of what’s around them… or that, at least, is the theory.

It could be argued that motorcycling, or biking, has its own set of rules and behaviours, which makes it a sub-culture. Some’d put it perhaps squarely in the hobby category, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘an activity you do for pleasure when you are not working’. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide on the answer… if there is indeed an answer. What’s important is the need to explore the history of biking over the last fifty years to see how it’s changed, and been affected by possible external influences which, in turn, have affected the behaviour and values of bikers .

‘Beliefs, values, and expected norms of behaviour’ let’s start with the first. Many motorcyclists in the UK’d say they believe they have a right to ride their bikes wherever they like, and enjoy them whenever. Others may say simply they have the right to have a cheap transport to commute to work each day. Neither is right or wrong – it’s simply their belief in terms of riding a motorcycle.

Values are more difficult to define. Perhaps some may say they value the freedom that riding a bike gives, or the comradeship they have with others who are likeminded in regards to motorcycles. This is particularly relevant perhaps in motorcycle clubs. Some may argue that they’re ‘just motorcycles’ and, other than the financial value, there’s no other value or meaning that can be attributed to them.

Norm, or normal behaviour, is far more complex and, as I’m not sure any of it falls into what could be termed the normal, it could be the first breath of independence of sixteen-year-olds in the 1970s, screaming around housing estates on 50cc Japanese mopeds such as the famous Yamaha FS1E or the rally-going culture of the seasoned rider meeting others in fields across Britain for a weekend of beer, music, and good company. Behaviour could also be associated with the reported extreme behaviour of a particular type of motorcycle club and its members which, often as not, is hearsay or secondhand news and may not represent true facts.

If we look at the history of motorcycling in the USA, for example, it’s followed a very different path to that of the UK, and although it’s clear that it’s influenced motorcycling in Britain, it cannot lay claim to being its only influence. For example, the on/off love affair Britain’s had with Harley-Davidson gives a good example - now the fashion accessory of every TV celebrity and footballer, there was a time in the late

’60s and ’70s when they lay unloved, gathering dust, in motorcycle showrooms while the then discerning buyer chose British or Japanese. There were many influences at work which’ve sculptured the British biker to the man or woman they are today.

To explore the relationship motorcycling’s had with the media, and how this’s shaped the image of motorcycling in Britain, is vital. For example, looking at Hollywood’s influences, and our own home-grown media-created dramas, such as the Mod and Rockers, it could be argued that the media’ve had a long love/hate relationship with motorcycle riders and, in particular, motorcycle clubs (and by that I mean outlaw motorcycle clubs). This, it could be said, has led to the often negative image that non-motorcycling folk have of the biker. What may, or may not, be the image of what a biker is in their mind may be different for many people. For example, for many it’ll be the bearded, weatherworn older guy aboard his Harley, or it may be a young executive in brightly-coloured one-piece leathers riding a 200mph sports bike. Whatever the rider, the history, to some extent, is the same, as are the influences.

On the surface the 1950s café racer from the Rocker era’s worlds apart from an R1 Yamaha or a Suzuki Hayabusa of today but, back then, the BSA Gold Star or the Triumph T120 was the R1 or ’Busa of the day, and the rider of that time was searching for the same thrills, so they could be seen as one and the same.

It could be reasoned that there was little in the way of biker culture before 1950. There’s evidence of small motorcycle clubs dotted about the UK prior to the war era of the 1940s, yes, but no evidence of a sub-culture as such. Motorcycles then were the provision of the middle classes and delivery men. The 1950s, though, were the perfect storm period (there’ll be many perfect storms in the development of motorcycling) for biking culture as there was an emerging new group in society – the teenager. Never before had the Western world seen this. Now, instead of going straight from school into the factories, getting married at eighteen, and starting to have children, this new group decided they wanted some fun first.

And, also for the first time, they had their own music, their own fashions, their own identity, and also something revolutionary

- ‘hire purchase’, the ability to have now and pay each week. Bearing in mind the average UK salary for men at the time was

£100 per month, and often a lot less, buying a secondhand British bike of at least 500cc, around £79-£100, would’ve been out of the range of most young people of the time.

With hire purchase though, a teenager could walk into a showroom and, with as little as a £1 or £2 deposit, buy a motorcycle (as long as he had an adult to sign as guarantor if he couldn’t pay). This was at odds with the previous generation’s values of ‘live within your means’, and the ‘saving for a rainy day’ mentality. This was more ‘get it today and pay for the risk’. Their fathers risked their lives in the Second World War, and their offspring reaped the benefits.

It needs to be remembered that this was just a few years after the War where young men, taken from the safety of home, were thrown into a way of life they couldn’t previously’ve dreamt of, given guns, and told to kill. Their reliance on their comrades around them formed tight bonds, and for many returning to Britain and their previous lives’d be too much to ask. They continued to look for the adrenaline-fuelled fixes they’d become

· accustomed cctrStl to, and motorcycles provided just that. For all its suffering, the War provided a template for another way of life – one where there was camaraderie and brotherhood. Indeed, if we look at the effect of popular cinema at the time, the 1953 film ‘The Wild One’, starring Marlon Brando, was showing in British cinemas, and this supposedly depicted a real-life incident in America of a motorcycle club called the

Black Rebels terrorising a small town. This was a powerful image and, only eight years after the War’d finished, it created an alternative identity. Brando played the leader of a motorcycle club who