Gay on motorcycle
The Satyrs Motorcycle Club is the oldest gay continuous motorcycle club in the United States. Established in 1954 in Los Angeles and still going strong, they have become one of the foremost known gay MCs in the country.
When we look at such an MC, we are looking at more than just the history of the second and the club. We are also looking at such themes and issues as camp, bricolage, and identity politics on the one hand, and questions of sexual orientation, real or imagined, overt or covert, latent or apparent, on the other. We are looking at how the nexus of two identities – lgbtq+ and motorcyclist – self-imposed as successfully as imposed by society at big, plays out in public and private.
While there have been gay and queer woman motorcyclists almost as long as there have been motorcycles, things don’t acquire interesting until Earth War Two ends. Perhaps too engaging. The first images in popular customs of the male lover motorcyclist seem to be intertwined with postwar and Cool War politics, often reflecting and coopting the images of mainstream motorcyclists in the process.
The tale of motorcycling once the war ended is known adequately enough. Between the manufacturers and military
Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (gbmcc)
Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club "gbmcc" began in 1977 as a club for gay men and women bikers in the UK. With a current membership approaching 500, we are the largest gay biking club in Europe. Our members come from all over the UK and there are an increasing number from Europe and Overseas.
Our members are of all ages and backgrounds. We naturally have varied biking interests, but we are primarily a road-riding club. Riding experience ranges from novice through to advanced riders and club racers. It is our interest in motorcycles and motorcycling, which brings us together.
The club offers its members a lively programme of events as well as endorse and friendship. Membership of gbmcc is open to all, provided that you own and commute a motorcycle and are comfortable in the company of other LGBT+ members
A crew of burly, bearded men wearing black leather pants, hats, vests, and jackets appeared in the doorway of Rockbar, a dive at the very edge of the West Village in Manhattan. They looked around, confused, at the the sight of long-haired guys in broken glasses wearing comic-book T-shirts. I realized this bar must normally be the group’s haunt of choice and the nerdy comedy show I was there to see was perhaps not first on their list of amusements. They turned and walked out, not before I saw the back of one leather vest—a yellow circle enclosed by a blue and red male symbol and the words Empire Municipality MC.
A few months later, I’m waiting in a coffee shop for “Evil” Ed Caraballo and Chaz Antonelli, the current president and secretary, respectively, of what I have learned is the Empire City Motorcycle Club, or ECMC. The club is one of the oldest all-riding, all-gay, all-male motorcycle organizations in the world. Founded in 1964 by a group of 12 bikers from the New York metropolitan area, the club famous its 50th anniversary in October 2014. While other motorcycle clubs have perhaps been active for longer periods of time (at least one group disputes t
Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club & WIMA
It's a straightforward partnership. Like Morecambe and Wise or Ant and Dec, motorcycles go hand in hand with men. Proper men, who prefer going to the pub and enjoy the organization of women. When you see a big bike roar past, it's more than likely that the leathered up rider will be a man. It's a male pursuit after all. Just flick through this magazine and tally the number of scantily clad girls within these very pages. They're for us to ogle over, once we've finished drooling over the gleaming machinery.
But tucked away behind the raucous saloon that most bikers inhabit there exists a smaller, quieter, cosy bar, where other less likely two-wheeled hobbyists dwell away from the wheelying, chest-beating mainstream motorcycling fraternity. And it is to these dark and dusty corners that we must venture, in order to understand what drives and motivates those who go bikes while sticking to their own decidedly unlike agenda.
And on a rainy Friday night deep in the heart of London's East End, this is as different as it's going to get. For I am in a gay pub. Pictures of moustachioed leatherboys adorn the gaudily decorated walls. A small stage deco