To some, a grungy, long-haired, mutton-chopped guy brooding behind aviator shades as he cruises on a chopper with nothing ahead but the open road means pure freedom. To those safely esconced in Buicks, a rearview mirror full of loud bikes and liquored-up riders usually means it's time to lock the doors and stare straight ahead.
No matter your point of view, it's clear that little could be more distinctly American than the combination of chrome, leather, boots, tattoos, noise and speed. And the real danger of motorcycles makes that combo more than a symbolic act of rebellion.
Photographer Danny Lyon was a member of the Chicago Outlaws in the mid '60s, an era when “biker” meant a rider from California, and the proper term elsewhere was “bikerider.” The term “outlaw” was literal — the American Motorcycle Association, since 1924, has attempted to foster a cleaned-up image of motorcycling. In 1961, the “Put Your Best Wheel Forward” campaign went so far as to encourage riders to present a good public appearance. Those who rejected the AMA's niceties and courteous riding rules were outlaws, and their rough-edged presence at races wasn't always welcome. The AMA said 99 percent of those at races were God-fearing family types; the outlaws quickly began wearing AOA (American Outlaws Association) patches with a raised middle finger and called themselves “1%ers.” The Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club began in 1935 as the McCook Outlaws, and has since grown to include international chapters on several continents.
The outlaws seem to simultaneously reject and relish the lawlessness for which they gained a reputation. Their websites (yes, even the Hells Angels and Outlaws have websites these days, complete with copyrighted logos) decry their mislabelling and sing the praises of brotherhood and the joys of riding. On the other hand, links to 1%ers in prison are easy to find; perhaps the result of persecution, perhaps actual bad behavior.
In 1968, Lyon, after repeated rejections from publishers, finally managed to get his photography book The “Bikeriders” into print. The book brought the outlaw subculture to a broad audience for the first time. After finally reaching cult status and fetching enormous sums on Ebay, the book was reissued. Now a second reissue has come to print with a new introduction and the addition of black and white as well as color photos that Lyon long thought were lost. It is a startling, beautifully shot document of the outlaw world in the days before rivalries turned to open hostility. And, as the 1%ers themselves put it, before law enforcement and media redefined them as the violent one percent of motorcyclists who flout all laws.
Lyon took to the streets on a Triumph motorcycle armed with both a camera and a tape recorder and documented the images and the stories of the Chicago Outlaws. The resulting work was seminal stuff; some claim that The Bikeriders inspired the look of Easy Rider , and his immersion and participation in the way of life of his subjects was part of a new style of journalism. He took equally revealing photos as a participant in the civil rights movement.
Lyon's website, www.bleakbeauty.com, does a great deal more than offer examples of his photography. The pages are filled with well-wrought statements revealing his passion for the freedom of spirit America has long stood for, and his frustration with the erosion of freedoms and the warmongering he sees in our current political climate. His view is clearly a well-considered and heartfelt plea from the fringe that has always been quintessentially American, the one percent that most of us think we inhabit, that some, like the bikeriders, truly embrace.
The photos in The Bikeriders are often remarkable. The first section of the book focuses on the other 99 percent, the motorcycle racers who weren't outlaws. In one, a blissful racer is rendered almost clownish; his face and his bike are thoroughly splattered with mud, but he sports a weary smile. The rider, his arms outstretched in an accidentally dancer-like pose, fills the foreground while another rider in the distance stirs up his own cloud of mud.
In low-light photos, Lyon makes exquisite use of a narrow range of focus. In a bar scene, outlaws sprawl on and around a pool table, beers in hand, while in the slightly blurred background a conservatively dressed group of women look on. On the facing page, the back of a rider on his bike is in soft focus while the cars and signs around him are blurred, nearly abstracted.
Surprises abound. A pair of leather-booted outlaws, dishevelled and boyish, stand in a field of flowers that recedes into fog. Another pair of male bikeriders, in a tangle of tattooed arms, kiss dramatically for the camera. The grease-blackened fingernails, crushed beer cans and abundant bikerider symbols (equal parts pirate and World War II German trophies) provide startling fodder for Lyon's lens. The loud, oily, bloody and beer-fueled make a hell of a coffee table book.
The bikeriders may look like pilgrims, seekers of dream and freedom. But these are not road poets, riding into a glorious America. The inclusion of the stories of bikeriders Lyon taped while taking his photos offers a rawer glimpse into the world he made a bit more respectable by the romance of the camera lens. The bikeriders have little use for convention, and they are primarily unwashed devotees of engines and noise. The romance isn't entirely absent, but it's only discernible beneath a thick layer of grease. Their stories are full of cursing, bad English and '60s slang, and most, far from poetry, recount exploits and bragging too outrageous to be entirely false. The rift between the fringe and the mainstream is quickly apparent.
Zipco, then a 23-year-old member of the Milwaukee Outlaws, says of his brother, “Air Force mechanic. They took him in 'cause he was a clean-cut, all-American boy. Short pants, tennis shoes. I like my brother, but the only thing I didn't like about him, he's a pinko. He fights good and everything, you know. But he hangs around with these goddamn pinkos all the time. Short pants and college fuckers all the time. And they drive you out of your mind.”
Funny Sonny an ex-Hells Angel and member of the Chicago Outlaws, recounts a tale of a hill-climbing contest he won when the other guy, derisively noted as a Honda rider with a helmet, accidentally gunned it right over a cliff. That exploit is followed by Sonny's swallowing of a live caterpillar, who then crawls back up into his mouth, inspiring several witnesses to lose their lunches. Sonny then happily chews the poor creature into oblivion. “So I had a lot of food to eat that day. Because everybody got up and quit eatin' their food. Oh, Christ. That was good. That's when I really met the Outlaws, really met 'em good.”
When The Bikeriders was published, the violent aspect of outlaw life was less pronounced. Lyon notes that things got rougher later. The president of the Chicago Outlaws in the '60s was Johnny Davis. Lyon recounts that when a new generation challenged Davis for the leadership of the club in the '70s, Davis showed up for a fight to settle the score and was unceremoniously and unchivalrously shot down. Lyon's pictures come from a different era. He says in the 2003 introduction that this is readily apparent in the shot of Funny Sonny, wearing Hells Angels colors, riding with Zipco, who sports Milwaukee Outlaws colors. Not many years later, Lyon says, the Outlaws and Angels attacked each other on sight.
Lyon, in the 1968 introduction, admits that he was afraid that turning his friends into art might well endanger this subculture. But, as he rightly noted, “This attention doesn't have the strength of the reality of the people it aspires to know, and … as long as Harley-Davidsons are manufactured other bikeriders will appear, riding unknown and beautiful through Chicago, into the streets of Cicero.”
