Email Article

Printable Page

The Real Black Bikers: High-Octane, Urban Style

By Corey Cunningham
Black College Wire

DreamWorks, LLC. Bikers showed their stuff at the premiere of this year's "Biker Boyz" movie, which helped bring the world of the urban motorist to the mainstream.

The Jaguars, the Black Falcons, the Pythons, the Transit Wheelers, the Imperials, the Harlem Riders, the United Roadrunners, the Uptown Riders. Names of fantasy football leagues, right?

Wrong!

These are high-octane social clubs whose members are black and ride flashy Ninja sport bikes in cities like New York and Washington.

Prepare to enter the world of black bikers.

This world is a strong mixture of the customs and trappings of traditional biker culture. It borrows the white biker style -- the heavily embroidered leather jackets, the thick male camaraderie and the bike as manifestation of the ego -- but these bikers also bring in their own "urban biker" rituals.

These events, including springtime bike blessings, trophy parties and clubhouse socials, set black bikers apart.

"When most people think of biker clubs or gangs, they tend to think of organizations like Hell's Angels," Rodney Sanders, a black Washington, D.C., biker said. "They think of the Harley- Davidson, but that's just not the style of a black biker. We prefer a different breed of bike."

That breed is the famous Ninja.

Unlike the bulky metallic hogs by Harley-Davidson, the Ninjas are sleek sport-like machines that can easily zoom down crowded urban streets.

"You gotta love the sleekness of the Ninjas," said Sanders, 33. "They've got curves, colors and they can really cut through traffic."

Sanders is a member of a Washington, D.C., biker club. He and other members can be seen and heard racing into the McDonald's parking lot on Georgia Avenue near Howard University.

Sanders describes his crew as people with very different lives, but one favorite pastime.

"Some of us are family men like myself; I have two kids and a wife. Some are single and some are in between." Sanders said, "You also got men who come from white-collar corporate jobs as well as garbage men, teachers, and store owners. Once we are on our bikes, it's like we are all from one mold of people."

Echoing Sanders, Jeremy Phillips, also a biker, said, "We all got two things in common, we like bikes and girls."

The urban biker chick is usually thought of as some girl scantly clad in short-shorts and a sports bra riding on the back of a cycle. Some are like those in the videos.

„Girls love the bikes. I get like 30 requests a night from girls who want to ride on the back," Phillips said, "I don't know what it is, but no matter where we ride, there is always a girl who is dressed like she is in a Jay-Z video wanting to jump on."

Even in the 70s movies, biker chicks were featured as the racy sidekicks. Their job was to look pretty, start the races, and ride on behind their man.

But then came the 90s, and women began to break free from their place on the biker totem pole. Now, many ride just as hard as their male counterparts.

"I love my bike because it gives me a sense of power." Aja Brown, a 25-year -old real estate agent, says. "I roll just as hard as the fellows, and sometimes harder."

Donning leather motorcycle jackets, heavy helmets and gloves, many women bikers have either joined clubs or started their own.

"I am in a small women's club," Brown said. "We ride with another male club, but we also do our own thing. We go to bike shows and rallies."

Black biker rallies began as a spinoff of black festivals such as Black Greekfest and Black College Weekend. During these rallies, bikers show off their skills and their bikes.

"It's kind of like spring break mixed with bikes," Sanders said, "Girls are lined up on the streets, bikes scream down the street, and music is blasting."

One of these rallies is the Atlantic Beach Bikefest on the Grand Strand in Myrtle Beach, S.C., formerly known as "Black Bikers Weekend."

"Black Biker[s] Weekend started as just biker weekend. Both blacks and whites used to come down to show off their bikes," said Jackie McGill, a Myrtle Beach resident. "But over time, blacks started to come down a week later than the whites, until it became two weekends."

During the weekend, the strip known as Ocean Drive serves as a Mecca for black bikers.

"We have people from all parts of the world come here during this weekend," said Jon Richardson, assistant director of tourism for Myrtle Beach. "They all come rolling in on late Thursday or early Friday looking for the party."

The "party" is usually on the streets and the beach. Bikers literally block off streets to hold races and rallies. They also hold contests such as strip teases, a wet T-shirt contest, and "drink till you drop."

"It's kind of like being in Cancun during spring break, or Daytona during Black College Week," said Bernard Bell, a senior at the University of the District of Columbia. "I have been taking my bike down with my dad for as long as I can remember."

The movies "The Fast and the Furious" (2001) and this year's "Biker Boyz," released this summer on DVD and video, brought the world of the urban motorist to the mainstream.

"We've been on the down low for too long. It's about time that people got a look into our world," says Sanders.

Corey Cunningham is a student at Howard University who writes for The Hilltop.

Posted July 7, 2003