“Rebels and rebellion are one of the saving graces of America”
– Danny Lyon, riding with The Outlaws
The Outlaws Crossing the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, 1966
When photographer Danny Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaws bikers, his subsequent book The Bikeriders captured a rebellious subculture.
The journey began one afternoon in 1965, when asked the mechanic working on his 440lb British-made Triumph, “Do you know any gangs I can photograph?” Later that week, Lyon was at a diner in Chicago photographing the Outlaws when he was invited to join the club as a permanent member.
The Outlaws had no little change since its formation in the early 1950s, with Johnny Davis, a transit truck driver, retaining the club colours after a leadership conflict.
Route 12, Wisconsin, 1963
“In early 1963, we went to a motorcycle race in Wisconsin. Skip drove his Volkswagen Bug and I sat in the front seat with my Nikon F nestled in my lap. When a small group of riders passed our car I told Skip to keep up with them. Looking through my 105mm lens, it wasn’t that hard to position the five bikes speeding away, and push the shutter button, which went off like a small guillotine, a thsssippp sound you could hear across a room”
– Danny Lyon
Lyon rode in the footsteps of the writer Hunter S. Thompson, the journalist who rode with the Hells Angels around the same time. Lyon sent a letter to Thompson. Instead of advice to go for it, Thompson advised Lyon to “get the hell out of that club… I’ve seen the Angels work, and they scare the hell out of me.”
As Lyon put it: “[Thompson] advised me not to join the Outlaws and to wear a helmet. I joined the club and seldom wore a helmet.”
Lyon documented the Outlaws from 1963-67, and became a full member of the club in 1965. His work was an “attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider. It is a personal record, dealing mostly with bikeriders whom I know and care for.”
Funny Sonny packing with Zipco, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1965
“Zipco, the amazing and often drunk Milwaukee Outlaw who was born in Latvia, with Funny Sonny riding behind him wearing his Hells Angels colours. Zipco was run over and killed walking across the street one afternoon in Florida”
– Danny Lyon
Danny’s Triumph, Broken Gearbox Spring, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1965
Danny Lyon, 1967
“I spent my senior year riding around on my Triumph. My riding buddy was Skip Richheimer, who usually wore a worn brown leather jacket with metal-rimmed glasses tinted a faint green. Once he was sitting behind me on my Triumph at night as we approached some flashing police lights at a roadblock on the Midway. I stopped for the cops at the roadblock, nothing happened, and as we passed Skip leaned forward and reached into my jacket pocket. I turned my head to ask what was up. Just prior to the roadblock he had put all the pot he was carrying into my pocket”
– Danny Lyon
Cal with Little Barbara
“Cal, born in Canada as Arthur Dion, was a former Hells Angel from San Bernadino. He was my best friend in the Outlaws. In my Hyde Park apartment, he narrated many of the stories that became the text of the book. A housepainter, Cal fell off a ladder and died in the 1980s”
– Danny Lyon
Outside the Clubhouse of the Chicago Outlaws
“Brucie Walver and I during the Outlaw run to Springfield. I am resting the Nikon F on Brucie’s shoulder to keep it steady. Brucie was Johnny’s right-hand man. Most of the bikeriders I knew are dead. Now and then I hear from their children, often asking about parents that I knew, and they didn’t.”
– Danny Lyon
Memorial Day Run, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1965
Via The Bikeriders via Magnum Photos. This Is My Life I’m Talking About is published by Damiani. All photographs Danny Lyon
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