Biker: Truth and Myth: How the Original Cowboy of the Road Became the Easy Rider of the Silver Screen by Bill Osgerby

The Lyons Press 2005  176 pp.

Copyright © Steven E. Alford

 

Visually arresting books about motorcycles usually end up on the coffee table, to be gawked at by visitors, but otherwise functioning as handsome paperweights.  Not so with Bill OsgerbyÕs book, Biker, which combines eye-popping visuals with a broad look at world motorcycling.

Osgerby, a cultural historian and long-time biker, traces the mechanical development of the motorcycle and the image of the biker in the movies, in print, and in music.  He then surveys the changing views of women in the motorcycle community, both as supposed ornaments and as motorcyclists themselves.  While rooted solidly in American and British biker culture the book looks at the global brotherhood of bikers and the history of biker conflict, both between law enforcement and motorcyclists and among bikers themselves.

OsgerbyÕs book supplies seldom cited historical information, such as the French Connection: around 1894 Òa pair of French pioneers, Comte Albert de Dion and his partner Georges Bouton, developed an engine that made the mass production of motorcycles truly possible.  Mounted on a tricycle, the FrenchmanÕs single-cylinder, four-stroke engine had a capacity of around 125 cc.  Dion and Bouton successfully licensed production of their engine in England, Germany, Belgium, and the United States.Ó  Also noted are two exiles in France, Russians Michel and Eugene Werner, whose 1901 Ònew WernerÓ frame greatly improved stability.

Osgerby notes that Òby the 1920s Japan was a rapidly developing industrial power, but its output of motorcycles was virtually nonexistent.  É Facing a slump in US sales, Harley shifted its attention eastward, setting up an import operation in Japan that by the mid-1920s was selling more than 2,000 machines a year.Ó

In examining movie bikers, the usual suspects (The Wild One, Easy Rider) are trotted out, but Osgerby provides novel and fun information about bikers in print and music.  From 1955 to 1966 a number of songs featured bikers and their tortured girlfriends, among them The CrystalsÕ ÒHeÕs a Rebel,Ó the RisersÕ ÒSheÕs a Bad Motorcycle,Ó and, lest we forget, The Shangra-LasÕ ÒThe Leader of the Pack.Ó

The immortal contributions to Fifties literature are also noted, among them The Pack, featuring The Psychos, who Òrode their midnight gleaming bikes and loved women hard and fast, and with unquenchable lust.Ó 

Other than Kamikaze Biker, Japanese motorcycle culture is often ignored in English language books, but this one examines the bosozoku, or Speed Tribes of Japan.  His account of Mitsuo YanagimachiÕs 1976 documentary God Speed You, Black Emperor had me searching the Net (unsuccessfully) for a copy.

As an inquiry into the Òbiker mystique,Ó the book inevitably focuses on Harley-Davidson.  However, what makes this book an outstanding value is its artful appearance combined with a comprehensive, investigative look at the image of the biker in popular culture.  Read it, leave it out on your table for guests, but dip into it from time to time for a renewed sense of our place in global biker culture.  Biker is available through amazon.com for a discounted 19.77.