What caused it to really take off after World War 2?
Veterans looking for action to fill the void.
>>18131731Veterans seeking Brotherhood and to piss off normies
>>18131731Motorcycle clubs predate World War 2 and were heavily inspired by Bicycle clubs since early motorcycles were pretty much just motorized bicycles for rich people, and aristocrats often formed clubs around their hobbies. Bicycle clubs likewise were a pretty big deal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the early 20th century, when motorcycling was mostly still a hobbyist thing, there was an arms race to build faster and faster motorcycles to set speed recordsI think the reason motorcycle clubs exploded after the second world war might have to do with superbike-class motorcycles becoming cheap enough for the average person to afford, and Harleys and Royal-Enfield's basically offering these types of hobbyist, 100 mph, twin engine beasts to the masses for the first time
>>18131750Yeah I remember in some biker doc them mentioning how 'cheap' motorcycles had become during and after the war.
As mentioned by other anons, cheaper bikes and restless veterans, but once biker movies like The Wild One came out, it just fed into the self image of badass bikers and accelerated the trend. It seems to be a meta thing with macho American subcultures—cowboys tried to be like the cowboys in ballads and dime novels, gangsters acting like movie gangsters, etc.
>>18131770Apparently real mafia guys liked Godfather and the Sopranos.
>>18131772And some of the small parts in those were played by small time mobsters or at least guys who grew up around mob guys. They would hire real bikers as extras for all those low budget biker films with mixed results. Some outlaw bikers hated Easy Rider as it was a lot of hippie trippy stuff with a downer ending rather than the formulaic gang brawls and two guys fighting over a chick.
>>18131786>Easy RiderYeah.But that bike..Also remember when Peter Fonda said Trump's wife should be forced to watch as Barron was thrown into a cage with pedos.
Yeah cheaper bikes + more purchasing power + highways + restless veterans. >>18131770Yeah. I've known some bikers in Texas (Cossacks and Bandidos) and I'd ask questions like "what does it FEEL like to ride with a bunch of guys on the highway like that." It feels really good. It makes them feel strong and powerful. There's a kind of tribal, pseudo-military character with roles and responsibilities. You have to stay focused and pay attention to what you're doing when you're on the road with 30 guys on motorcycles doing some kind of mission, any little fuck-up can cause a disaster. They're also gangsters but they try to avoid messing with normies. They have a kind of honor culture appealing to Mexican and Scots-Irish lumpenproletarian riff raff. Nice guys usually. I worked with one older guy who liked Hells Angels on Wheels:https://youtu.be/mciTSBS_uVE
>>18131799>Call me Snaaaake
>>18131799Yeah I've heard riding in those big packs like they do can be real dangerous so, thrill seeking I suppose.
>>18131807It is. I used to share a garage with some bartender chicks (neighbors) who were friends with some Bandido guys (or guys in their local supporters club but it's all Bandidos to me), and would hang out with these guys who'd come over to work on their bikes, and this probate showed up all busted up and bandaged because he wiped out on a ride and took several bikers down with him. He wanted to go to the local biker hangout / club to make good with the other bikers, and this guy I knew was like "do NOT do that because they're gonna fuck you up / kill you" and how he was going to work with him to get back in with these guys. He was on thin ice apparently.Real ugly motherfucker from Paris, Texas. He had spent time in prison and his mother had done time in federal prison for drug trafficking
>>18131731Vets seeking out commraderie for many.
>>18131819Remember that Bandidos/Cossack shoot out down there a decade or so back? Police instigated that.
>>18131742this
>>18131731Would recommend picrel if you haven't already read it. Gives insight into their outlook, motivations, and philosophy beyond the surface level of "cheap bikes".
>>18131742Why didn't they just become mercenaries?
>>18131799When it comes to organized crime, not fucking with civilians without cause beyond extortion is just general practice, from what I have read. >>18132652It's much harder than you think it was. Plus you have to know people for that. You didn't just wake up one day and decide to become a mercenary. PMCs only got really big after the Cold War, iirc.
>>18132652Because maybe they didn't want to come back to war but wanted to have a similar experience with camaraderie and excitement and a bike gang gave them that.
>>18132670They also want to be in normies' good side because it provides some degree of cover. Like if you're neighbors with some of these guys, they can be open to grilling with you and hanging out, because they want to be your "friend" and blend in, and make sure you're cool in case they invite THEIR friends over.>>18131846Oh yeah. I actually drove past the scene that night because I was traveling between Austin and Dallas and it was hard to miss because it was right off the highway. I never brought it up with any bikers I met later on. I didn't ask those kinds of nosy questions, but I did get the impression that there are sporadic, periodic, low-level shootings between these gangs. It's one of their guys getting run off the highway in an assassination in the middle of nowhere.I actually have a Cossacks supporters shirt some of those guys gave me. It's about two sizes too big.
>>18132789That event is also what caused the Cossacks to split into two separate clubs. Ugly Man Cossacks and just, well. Cossacks.Watched a video of some podcaster who covered biker stuff and I remember him being pissed over it because some of the bodies had been shot with rifles.
>>18132647Its probably a good book but Hunter likes to lie too so be careful if ya read it.
>>18132652>Why didn't they just become mercenaries?In Germany, England, and France many did in fact join the FFL or became mercenaries. In the U.S and Japan thoughever unique factors resulted in this not happening as much.
>>18132652A lot of them were anti government or at least held some disillusionment with the establishment.
>>18132843What were the unique factors for japan?
>>18132819Yeah the cops dropped some of the bikers with rifles from across the parking lot. I don't know many of the details though about whether it was a setup or not. There's also video of bikers drawing pistols and shooting them at other bikers so idkLater on, I saw this bill for a Cossack MC party that went viral because it said there would be midget strippers. It was like in Rome, Texas, or something. And people were like "only in Texas..." I later saw the guys I knew, and they had gone to the party. I was like hey soooo I saw the ad for the party, did you go? But... midget strippers, really? They burst out laughing and said, eh, they weren't that attractive.
>>18132875>What were the unique factors for japanThe biggest was cultural; unlike Germany where tons of former Wehrmacht and SS joined either the Bundeswehr or FFL and then became mercs afterwards due to the shifting priorities of the Cold War, in Japan among that generation and the Boomers after there was a collective sense of being completely done with war and conflict itself given their nation had been thoroughly dishonored and humiliated. Some more adventurous holdouts became reframed their pan-Asian, anti-Western ideology into anti-colonial movements and fought in Indochina and Indonesia against the French and Dutch, but they were a microscopic exception to the overall trend. Because of this (as well as the fact that unlike Germany Japan was not partitioned nor remilitarized), there was a much greater drive towards reconstruction and getting back to normal than there was in Germany, and everyone sort of just agreed all at once to move on from the war. However, much like in the U.S, some veterans had issues with transitioning smoothly, so as a result they formed biker gangs around the same time they emerged in the U.S given motorcycles were cheap and much like the U.S Japan culturally has a strong tinkerer spirit.
>>18132883Heh, midget strippers.
>>18132875Japan also has a wild biker scene, or at least did.
>>18132943>didThey did from the 50s up until the mid-90s when the Bosozoku were cracked down hard as a crucial part of the defanging of the Yakuza. Since then it's all been larpers and ahandful of oldfags as they're universally seen as a historical thing and not a current one (Japan having less young people with less leisure time on their hands has a lot to do with it too).
I swear the whole biker thing started as a post-WW2 gay club. I am not even trying to shitpost. I am certain I read once that the "biker culture" we know was an evolution of gay leatherfags
>>18131731Most bikers are gay
>>18133589Which came first? I know there were gay bikers and dykes on bikes by the 60s but were they around in the immediate post WWII era? Marlon Brando in The Wild One became a leather daddy icon with his look, and there’s plenty of homoerotic subtext between him and Lee Marvin’s character, but to normie eyes it’s just macho dudes fighting over chicks. How gay or homophobic were OG bikers? The Hell’s Angels were ok with Allen Ginsberg and he references anal sex with bikers in “Howl” but maybe that’s just his fantasy.
because they are kind of fun and they were heavily advertised by the people selling them>>18132943>>18132947yakuza drift races in 90s japan went wild, but unfortunately chemicals in the water supply effeminized them and they lost interesthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K14f1V18IQ
>>18133589>the whole biker thing started as a post-WW2 gay clubThat's 100% revisionism by fags lol
>>18131770>cowboys tried to be like the cowboys in ballads and dime novelsI remember some account of an Old West gunslinger finding a "100% accurate" dime novel about himself and becoming depressed because he didn't do even half the shit in it .
>>18134233That happened to Kit Carson. He was part of a posse tracking down Indians who had abducted a girl and in an abandoned camp he found a “TRVE ADVENTURES OF KIT CARSON!” dime novel.
>>18131799honor culture lol
>>18131731Barbarossa wouldn't have been the same without motorcycles. They are absolutely kino.
What’s the /his/ of bikers in the UK, western and Eastern Europe? All I know is that song “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” and that they used to run the drug trade in Amsterdam.
>>18132883I dated a midget stripper named panda for a week. She was insane but the sex was good.
>>18133589faggot tainting anything that revolves around men having brotherhood like usual
>>18131731Economically: disposable income increase, bikes got cheaperCulturally: youth rebel culture, TV and films spread the lifestyle quickly to the masses
>>18135001The first MC in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels_Motorcycle_ClubOther early notorious MCs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_Rats_Motorcycle_Clubhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satans_Slaves_Motorcycle_ClubThe most notorious biker in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_BoxtelThe most notorious biker war in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Biker_WarA BBC documentary about the Hell Angels chapter in England during the 70s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4-CcD97Un8
>>18131731>What caused biker culture take off in the era where for the first time motorbikes were available at a price that a working class person could afford?Think hard anon. I believe in you
>>18138461>Nordic Biker WarI always thought a movie or miniseries about the Rocker War and the rise of American gangs in Scandinavia as they battled the local gang (Bullshit) over what remained of a hippie commune in the 1980s would make for a fantastic movie.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Motorcycle_Club#Copenhagen_Biker_War
>>18133589Hunter Thompson said something about how Hell's Angels members would kiss each other in public to "shock the squares"
>>18138461Thanks anon! More cool /his/ rabbit holes to explore! Just the phrase “Nordic Biker War” brings visions of Vikings on Harleys.
