July 2007
Book Review
Biker: Truth and Myth--How the Original Cowboy of the Road Became the Easy Rider of the Silver Screen
By Bill Osgerby
The Lyons Press, 2005
ISBN-10 1592288413
ISBN-13 978-1592288410
Randy D. McBee
Bill Osgerby’s Biker: Truth and Myth--How the Original Cowboy of the Road Became the Easy Rider of the Silver Screen is both a history of motorcycling in the twentieth century and a history of how Hollywood’s attempts to capitalize on the “thrilling exploits of motorcycle mavericks” have shaped motorcycling and the development of a biker mystique.
The book begins with motorcycling’s origins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Osgerby looks at the pioneers such as Gottlieb Daimler and the rise of Harley-Davidson and Indian in the United States as well as the motorcycle’s larger development in Europe and in Asia. Indeed, throughout the book he maintains a focus on motorcycling’s impact across the world. The chapter titled “‘Outlaw Worldwide’: A Global Brotherhood,” for example, looks at café racers in England, the “Beachside Battles” between the Mods and the Rockers, the “bikee” down under in Australia, “Kamikaze” bikers in Japan and the birth of the bosozoku, as well as the proliferation of U.S. clubs overseas.
Most of the book, however, focuses on the post-World War II years. Topics include the myth and reality of Hollister and the creation of the biker mystique; the influx of Japanese cycles and Harley-Davidson’s rebirth in the 1980s; and the dramatic growth of motorcycling in the 1960s and 1970s, including everything from motorcycling’s link to the counterculture, women bikers, and even a brief glance at the phenomenon of the motorcycle daredevil.
Osgerby is at his best and most insightful when he looks at motorcycling’s connection to popular culture. He explores how film, pulp fiction, and music have shaped our memory of motorcycling and the outlaw image. This section of the book explores the films we’re all accustomed to, including The Wild One, Easy Rider, and The Wild Angels. But Osgerby provides a much more comprehensive look at popular culture than similar studies, considering a range of texts from “motorcycle pop” to men’s adventure magazines and what he refers to as “paperback bikers.” Osgerby provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the films, books, and music that proliferated in the post-war period, and the men and women responsible for them.
The impressive collection of photos Osgerby has gathered together is another highlight. The book is literally covered in photographs from books and album covers, stills from films, and movie posters. The photos alone set the book apart from books of similar interest and contribute significantly to Osgerby’s overall presentation of the history of motorcycling and how that history has changed throughout the decades. Admittedly, the balance between photos and texts leans heavily in favor of the photos, and at times the basic text doesn’t provide much more than summaries of brief moments in the past. This imbalance limits his analysis to brief observations about these changes, and readers will undoubtedly find themselves asking for more. Nonetheless, the combination of photos and Osgerby’s broad look across time and cultures makes for an interesting read and sheds light on material that is routinely left out of histories of motorcycling.
The other obvious weakness is Osgerby’s struggle to make sense of the line dividing truth from myth (as the book’s subtitle alludes to). Osgerby overemphasizes those sensational moments in the history of motorcycling as the standard around which popular culture developed. In other words, the mainstream or typical rider receives scant attention and is hard to find. Popular culture has also focused overwhelmingly on those same moments and the images of motorcycling that have come out of film, books, etc. have profoundly shaped our debate about its history. But Osgerby’s version of motorcycling does more to blend these two histories together than distinguish them or offer a critical examination of them. As such, the larger historical context in which the biker takes shape is largely missing, and the reader is left wondering about the difference between myth and truth. Nonetheless, what Osgerby sets out to do, he does well, and readers from all walks of life will find the book a useful guide through motorcycling’s post-war years.
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