An outlaw motorcycle club (sometimes known as a motorcycle gang or biker gang) is a motorcycle subculture which has its roots in the immediately post-World War II era of American society. It is generally centered around the use of cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals which celebrate freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture and loyalty to the biker group.
In the United States, such motorcycle clubs are considered "outlaw" as they are not sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) and do not adhere to the AMA's rules. Instead the clubs have their own set of bylaws from which the values of the outlaw biker culture arise.
Read more about Outlaw Motorcycle Club: Organization and Leadership, Membership, Biker Culture, Identification, Gender and Race, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Crime, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Relationships Between Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, Cultural Influence
Famous quotes containing the words outlaw, motorcycle and/or club:
“It is better to have the power of self-protection than to depend on any man, whether he be the Governor in his chair of State, or the hunted outlaw wandering through the night, hungry and cold and with murder in his heart.”
—Lillie Devereux Blake (1835–1913)
“Actually being married seemed so crowded with unspoken rules and odd secrets and unfathomable responsibilities that it had no more occurred to her to imagine being married herself than it had to imagine driving a motorcycle or having a job. She had, however, thought about being a bride, which had more to do with being the center of attention and looking inexplicably, temporarily beautiful than it did with sharing a double bed with someone with hairy legs and a drawer full of boxer shorts.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The adjustment of qualities is so perfect between men and women, and each is so necessary to the other, that the idea of inferiority is absurd.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 204 (August 1866)