The Bikeriders - Hardcover

The inspiration behind the film starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and Mike Faist, The Bikeriders is a landmark portrait of outlaw motorcycle culture.

First published in 1968 and returned to print after more than a decade, The Bikeriders offers an intimate look at the lives, stories, and personalities of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Presented in a journal-style format, the book features Danny Lyon’s original black-and-white photographs alongside transcribed interviews created between 1963 and 1967, during the period when Lyon was a member of the Outlaws.

Raw, personal, and uncompromising, Lyon’s work captures people living on the edges of mainstream society with both grit and humanity. Rather than relying on myth or commercialized ideas of Americana, the book presents a more direct and complex view of biker life.

In the spirit of 1960s New Journalism associated with figures like Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Lyon’s photography reflects deep immersion in his subject. His images and interviews helped shape the lasting cultural image of the outlaw biker.

The Bikeriders remains a defining work of 1960s counterculture and an essential influence on the biker imagery later seen in Easy Rider, films, photography books, and American motorcycle mythology.