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 — most of it from the opening run of Volume 22 of the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, which started populating in mid-January.
Film review: The Taming of the Biker, Ad Nauseam
Sarah Hoiland’s review of Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders (2024), the dramatisation of Danny Lyon’s 1968 photo book about the Outlaws MC. Hoiland reads the fictional Vandals MC through the figure of Kathy and questions how convincingly the film handles one-percenter culture and the women adjacent to it. Worth reading if you’re thinking about how MC subculture gets translated for a popular audience.
https://motorcyclestudies.org/volume-22-2026/film-review-the-taming-of-the-biker-ad-nauseam-sarah-hoiland/
Book review: The Ambiguities of European Comic Book Bikers
Jason Wragg (University of Lancashire) reviews David Walton’s study of European biker comics — Ogri, Joe Bar Team, MOTOmania, Les Fondus de Moto, Steve McTwin and others — as cultural texts that both reflect and shape motorcycling identities across Europe. A useful pointer to a category of source material that motorcycle studies has mostly walked past.
https://motorcyclestudies.org/volume-22-2026/book-review-jason-wragg-ambiguities-of-european-comic-book-bikers-by-david-walton/
Blind Spot on the Road to Sustainability: Motorcycles in UK Transport Planning
Robert Stanley and Gemma Bridge in IJMS Vol 22. UK transport policy has prioritised cars, active travel and public transport, while leaving motorcycles outside the conversation. Stanley and Bridge make the case for including them, weighed against legitimate concerns on safety and emissions. Policy-leaning rather than subcultural, but the politics of who is and isn’t visible in a transport plan is itself a cultural question.
https://motorcyclestudies.org/volume-22-2026/blind-spot-on-the-road-to-sustainability-motorcycles-in-uk-transport-planning-robert-stanley-and-gemma-bridge/
See also Wragg’s earlier IJMS Authenticity Roundtable essay in Q1 2024 and The Bikeriders film in Q2 2024.
That’s it for this month. If you’ve come across research I’ve missed, feel free to email me.