As a motorcyclist and a researcher looking at the significance of motorcycle clubs in influencing motorcycle behaviour, the film The Bikeriders would seem to tick all my boxes. It’s inspired by Danny Lyons’ 1968 book of the same name, which followed the lives of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club through posed and non-posed photographs.
The movie opens with a violent confrontation in a bar in Chicago when a man refuses to take off a jacket studded with badges from his motorcycle club. This is Benny, one of the film’s main characters.
Benny would rather get into a fight than take off his jacket because of his feelings for and loyalty to his biker club, the Vandals Motorcycle Club. I have encountered such club loyalty and allegiance in my work and the film takes us on a journey of understanding of those sorts of feelings through the eyes of Kathy, Benny’s wife.
