Every month I post links to the most recent research into motorcycle culture, subcultures, clothing and identity, along with the biggest events in the motorcycling calendar. Here’s what caught my eye this month.
Wheels and Waves 2026
The 15th edition of Wheels and Waves ran across five days in Biarritz in mid-June — motorcycle, surf, skate, BMX, art, and music colliding at the edge of the Atlantic. Coverage includes the Punk’s Peak sprint race up Mount Jaizkibel on the Spanish Basque coast and the El Rollo flat track event, both of which drew serious competition from custom builders. If you want to understand what draws people to alternative motorcycle culture — and why Biarritz keeps working as the setting for it — the LiveWire editorial recap captures the atmosphere well.
https://www.livewire.com/de-ch/the-pulse/latest-news/recap-wheels-waves-2026-0
Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride 2026
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride reached its 15th year on May 17, with more than 120,000 riders turning out across 1,070 cities in 109 countries — the highest number of participating rides in the event’s history. The fundraising total exceeded $7.23 million for Movember’s prostate cancer and men’s mental health programmes, bringing the cumulative DGR total since 2012 to more than $60 million. This write-up on Motorcycles.News covers the numbers alongside the human side: participants like Alex Knight, who described the ride as directly beneficial to his own mental health experience.
https://www.motorcycles.news/en/distinguished-gentlemans-ride-2026-fundraising/
Collecting motorcycles in the shadow of the Acropolis
Michael McCabe — cultural anthropologist and author of New York City Horsepower — visited Takis Mariolopoulos in Athens, who has fitted out every floor of his five-storey apartment building with more than a hundred historic motorcycles. The piece covers not only the expected marques (Brough Superiors, Velocettes, Nortons, Ducatis) but also MEBEA and Leftas — Greek manufacturers now largely forgotten, whose history illustrates the broader collapse of domestic motorcycle industries in the second half of the twentieth century. Mariolopoulos draws a line between Athenian democratic ideals and the motorcycle as a democratising object; it’s the kind of angle that makes a collection piece worth reading.
https://thevintagent.com/2026/06/26/in-the-shadow-of-the-acropolis/
That’s it for this month. If you’ve come across research I’ve missed, feel free to email me.