In 1963, young motorcycle enthusiast Danny Lyon set out to “record and glorify the life of the American bikerider.” More than 60 years later, his vivid photography documenting the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club is getting a contemporary makeover for the big screen.
Now in theaters, The Bikeriders—starring Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Mike Faist—tells the story of the Chicago Vandals, a fictionalized version of the Outlaws and some of their actual members. Inspired by Lyon’s acclaimed 1968 photobook of the same name, the movie examines the Vandals and their transition from a haven for outcasted bikers to something more sinister.
Similar to their onscreen counterparts, the influence and reputation of the Outlaws have changed dramatically since their inception.
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The Outlaws originated almost 90 years ago
While The Bikeriders documents the founding and rise of the fictional Vandals starting in the 1960s, the Outlaws’ true story began three decades earlier. According to its official website, the club started as the McCook Outlaws Motorcycle Club in 1935. Riders formed the group outside of Matilda’s Bar in McCook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After years of limited inactivity during World War II, the organization held its first major rally at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1946.
According to Time, the war was a major catalyst for the rise of motorcycle culture in the United States. The resulting military surplus made bikes affordable, and returning veterans sought an adventurous escape from the boredom of civilian life. This led to the formation of other clubs, including the Hells Angels—the Outlaws’ chief rival—in Fontana, California, in 1948.
Meanwhile, the Outlaws continued attracting riders from throughout the Windy City and moved their headquarters from McCook in 1950 to become the Chicago Outlaws. Around this time, the club adopted its signature skull logo on shirts and jackets; the crossed pistons were added four years later.
By 1964, the Outlaws had incorporated chapters from Milwaukee and Louisville, Kentucky—and caught the interest of a young rider named Danny Lyon.
Lyon became an Outlaws member to create his book
Lyon was a first-year history student at the University of Chicago in 1959 when a classmate introduced him to motorcycle culture. The owner of a Triumph TR6 bike, he would soon combine this new passion with his budding journalistic skills.
But first, Lyon left Chicago in 1962 to document the Civil Rights Movement. He served as an official photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and befriended key figures like John Lewis and Julian Bond.
One year later, he embarked on his motorcycle project that would become The Bikeriders. Although Lyon said he received a very clean-cut transformation in the new film—Faist, who portrays his fictional stand-in “Danny,” doesn’t ride a motorcycle onscreen—the photographer became a full-fledged Outlaws member by 1965. A self-described “pothead” in the primarily beer-drinking club, he documented his fellow riders through photography and analog tape recordings.
Published in 1968, The Bikeriders book received acclaim and reportedly inspired the 1969 movie Easy Rider starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson. However, Lyon left the group and the biker lifestyle following its release. “I loved my work and loved what I was doing, but it was a subject to me,” Lyon told A Rabbit’s Foot, “so when I thought I had what I needed, I knew it was time to move on, and I did.”
Real recordings from Lyon are used in the movie
The Bikeriders movie draws heavily from Lyon’s source material, including using “verbatim imitations” of his audio recordings, according to Bleak Beauty. Lyon spoke with Outlaws members Cal, Zipco, and Cockroach, who all appear in the new movie. The re-creation treatment is especially true of Comer’s character, Kathy—modeled after the real-life Kathy Bauer—whose interviews form the narrative structure of the plot surrounding the fictional Vandals.
In 1966, the 25-year-old Bauer offered a glimpse into the Outlaws’ tight-knit nature by describing her first meeting with a rider named Benny (played by Butler). She explained in detail how the group, including leader Johnny Davis (Hardy), tricked Bauer into taking a ride on Benny’s motorcycle. “He takes off, he goes through the stoplights and everything so that I wouldn’t jump off,” Bauer told Lyon. “And I wouldn’t have jumped off anyway because I was scared s—less; I’d never been on a motorcycle in all my life.
“Johnny was real nice to me. He says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the president of this club, and I wouldn’t let nothing happen to you. They’re only having fun, and this one guy wanted to go out with you,’” Bauer said. The unusual courtship worked as Bauer and Benny later married. Their relationship is featured prominently in the movie.
But while this cordiality is illustrated through the Outlaws’ onscreen stand-ins, the club has been linked to much more antagonistic activity in the decades since.
The Outlaws of today are pretty different from the movie
The Outlaws have spread far beyond their Chicago hub in the decades since, with the organization now boasting chapters across at least 26 states and reaching countries like France, Ireland, Japan, and Russia. According to the Chicago Reader, the Outlaws were estimated to have more than 1,500 members by 2014.
However, the club has developed a treacherous reputation. As of November 2023, the U.S. Justice Department classifies the Outlaws as one of 300 “outlaw motorcycle gangs,” or OMGs. These are described as “highly structured criminal organizations whose members engage in criminal activities such as violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking.”
Much of this stems from the group’s ongoing feud with the Hells Angels. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported the two factions waged a violent turf war in the city during the 1990s—including a series of bombings, shootings, and stabbings—before reaching an uneasy truce. According to TwinCities.com, the Outlaws reportedly use the coded acronym ADIOS, which stands for “Angels die in Outlaw states.”
In a November 2016 interview with the Sun-Times, a former Outlaws member named Peter James said the Hells Angels’ presence in the Chicago area has grown more influential and could ignite more conflict. However, he suggested modern Outlaws have shifted away from crime and violence. “The times have changed. Somehow, there’s no testosterone out there,” James said. “It used to be the boss’ word was law. He says, ‘Ride off the cliff,’ and guys would ride off a cliff. The quality of the members has gone down.”
In any case, most riders have maintained that the club merely embraces an alternative lifestyle and isn’t an organized crime syndicate.
See The Bikeriders in Theaters Now
Director Jeff Nichols has said The Bikeriders isn’t meant to be a documentary of the Chicago Outlaws, nor to show disrespect toward the club in any way. He simply hopes to give viewers a sense of the time and societal conditions that allowed the group to thrive.
“When you’re looking at these guys, if you want to, you can simply dismiss them, but if you watch the film, you start to see how their brains work, and hopefully you start to identify with them a little bit,” he told A Rabbit’s Foot. “Not feeling like you belong, that’s something that everybody feels. It should be a unifying trait.”
The movie cruised into theaters on Friday and stars Tom Hardy as Johnny, Austin Butler as Benny, Jodie Comer as Kathy, and Mike Faist as Danny.
Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
