Back Street Heroes (est. 1983) is a monthly UK custom bike magazine that helped to popularize a "new breed" of custom motorcycle, distinct from previous choppers because they combined rat bike-influenced utilitarian and minimalist design with greater use of high tech gadgetry, but catering to an upscale buyer in the Robb Report demographic.[3]
Back Street Heroes "celebrates the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, black leather, long hair and open exhausts aspect of motorcycling,"[4] targeting, like its US counterpart Easyriders, the "hardcore" niche.[5] It is one of a handful of biker magazines that included fiction until 2016.[6] The magazine tied together geographically isolated enthusiasts of biker culture by keeping them up to date on custom bike mechanical techniques and styles, and motorcycle rallies, as well related culture, such as biker music and their music.[7] All this earned the magazine credibility with the mainstream press on the subject of outlaw motorcycle clubs.[8][9]
The magazine was launched in 1983 by former SuperBike contributor Steven Myatt, a journalist and custom bike builder. Early contributor and staff members included Maz Harris, Jim Fogg, Alison Leight, Mike Holland, Rob Baker, Ian Mutch, Stuart Garland, Rich King, Odgie and Clink.
Ian 'Maz' Harris, PhD, founder of the Bulldog Bash rally and spokesman for the Hells Angels, was a regular contributor.[10][11] Another Hells Angel, Brian 'Moke' Thompson, was also featured in the magazine.[12]L. J. K. Setright contributed technical articles, and Paul Sample's Ogri cartoon moved to Back Street Heroes in 2009 for a short while (ceased in 2012), after 35 years at Bike.[13]
Notes
↑ "About us", Back Street Heroes, 2015, retrieved 23 February 2015
↑ Kukuruzovic, Simon (16 June 2000), "Bikers pay last respects to Maz. More Than 2,000 Join Cortege For Hell's Angels Hero Who Gained Warwick University Doctorate", Coventry Evening Telegraph, Coventry, United Kingdom, p.3
The Outlaws Motorcycle Club, incorporated as the American Outlaws Association or its acronym, A.O.A., is an outlaw motorcycle club that was formed in McCook, Illinois in 1935. It is one of the largest Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs in the world and a long time rival of the Hells Angels.
Rat bikes are motorcycles that have fallen apart over time and have been kept on the road and maintained for little or no cost by employing kludge fixes and improvised repairs, with little or no consideration given to appearance. Rat-Look bikes are motorcycles that have been deliberately styled to look like ratbikes. Survival bikes may look similar but are different in purpose from rat bikes; they are modified for stylistic reasons to represent a post apocalyptic vehicle.
David Mann was a California graphic artist whose paintings celebrated biker culture, and choppers. Called "the biker world's artist-in-residence," his images are ubiquitous in biker clubhouses and garages, on motorcycle gas tanks, tattoos, and on T-shirts and other memorabilia associated with biker culture. Choppers have been built based on the bikes first imagined in a David Mann painting.
An outlaw motorcycle club is a motorcycle subculture. It is generally centered on the use of cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals that purport to celebrate freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the biker group.
Arlen Darryl Ness was an American motorcycle designer and entrepreneur best known for his custom motorcycles. Ness received acclaim for his designs, most of which are noted for their unique body style and paintwork.
The outlaw biker film is a film genre that portrays its characters as motorcycle riding rebels. The characters are usually members of an outlaw motorcycle club.
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide one-percenter motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation. Common nicknames for the club are the "H.A.", "Red & White", "HAMC", and "81". With a membership of between 3,000 and 3,600 and 467 chapters located in 59 countries, the HAMC is the largest motorcycle club in the world.
The Breed Motorcycle Club was a one-percenter motorcycle club that was formed in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the United States in 1965. The club disbanded in 2006 after numerous prominent members were indicted on racketeering and drug trafficking charges.
Yves Trudeau, also known as "Apache" and "The Mad Bumper", was a Canadian outlaw biker, gangster and hitman. A former member of the Hells Angels North chapter in Laval, Quebec, Trudeau was the club's leading assassin and a major participant in multiple biker conflicts throughout Canadian history, including the Popeyes–Devils Disciples War, the Satan's Choice–Popeyes War and the First Biker War. Frustrated by cocaine addiction and his suspicion that his fellow gang members wanted him dead, he became a government informant. In exchange, he received a lenient sentence – life in prison but eligible for parole after seven years – for the killing of 43 people from September 1973 to July 1985.
Paul Sample is a British cartoonist and illustrator best known for his cartoon strip Ogri, and for the covers of paperbacks by Tom Sharpe and Flann O’Brien, posters for BBC Radio Two and advertisements for the Post Office, Ford, Dunlop, and British Airways. His fans include actor and biker Ewan McGregor.
The Rebels Motorcycle Club was an outlaw motorcycle club based in Western Canada that was founded in Red Deer, Alberta in 1968.
The Kings Crew Motorcycle Club was an outlaw motorcycle club based in Western Canada and was founded in Calgary, Alberta in 1977. Where it would become one of the provinces most dominant clubs, participating in the Alberta Biker Conflict, until eventually joining the Hell's Angels in the late 1990s.
The Satan's Choice–Popeyes War was the first major outlaw motorcycle club conflict in Canada's history, involving the country's two largest Motorcycle Clubs; the Satan's Choice from Ontario, and the Popeyes from Quebec. The conflict lasted from 1974 until 1976 and saw the two motorcycle clubs battle for dominance in the country. The conflict misleadingly known in Canada as the "First Biker War" would begin a year later in 1977.
From 1977 to 1984, the Hells Angels and the Outlaws Motorcycle Club fought what came to be known in Canada as the First Biker War. The Angels emerged victorious. As the Outlaws retreated into their Ontario stronghold, the Angels began consolidating their activities and expanding, moving into port cities Halifax, Nova Scotia and Vancouver, British Columbia. The misleadingly named conflict is known in Canada as the "First Biker War", but the first large conflict between bikers in Canada, was the Satan's Choice-Popeyes War which occurred from 1974 to 1976.
The Ontario Biker War in Canada saw the Hells Angels engage their long-term rivals the Outlaws Motorcycle Club for control of the province of Ontario. The war occurred between 1999 and 2002 and is also known as the London Biker conflict as a large majority of the events occurred there. The Quebec Biker War, the largest motorcycle conflict in history was occurring during the same period in the province of Quebec.
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