Every quarter 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 quarter — a strong one for cultural writing on motorcycling, with the Danny Lyon archive coming back into wide view via the Jeff Nichols film and Lyon’s own memoir, and Dazed running its first substantial piece on Brazilian grau.
Vivre Vite: Lou Reed, Tadao Baba, and Death
Suzanne Ferriss in IJMS Vol 20, May 2024. Ferriss reads Brigitte Giraud’s Prix Goncourt-winning memoir Vivre Vite — about the 1999 motorcycle death of Giraud’s husband — through Lou Reed and Honda engineer Tadao Baba. A piece about how riders write about death, structurally and stylistically.
https://motorcyclestudies.org/volume-20-2024/vivre-vite-lou-reed-tadao-baba-and-death-suzanne-ferriss/
The rise of the grauzeiro: on the road with Brazil’s extreme stunt riders
Felipe Maia in Dazed’s Summer 2024 issue, published online 18 June. Long-form on São Paulo’s grau scene — wheelies through favela streets, baile funk soundtracks, the influence of Black working-class kids on Brazilian motorcycle subculture, and the gradual emergence of women like Bruna Nunes in a male-dominated world. Closes a long gap in mainstream English-language coverage of one of the most distinctive contemporary motorcycle subcultures.
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/62886/1/grauzeiro-brazil-extreme-stunt-bike-riders-summer-2024-issue
Danny Lyon, This Is My Life I’m Talking About
Damiani Books, 2024. Lyon’s picaresque memoir, surveying six decades of work. He was inside the Chicago Outlaws MC from 1963 to 1967, and the resulting book The Bikeriders (1968) is the foundational document of US outlaw MC photography. The memoir adds personal context to the photographs that defined the genre.
https://www.damianibooks.com/
The Bikeriders (film), dir. Jeff Nichols
Released US 21 June 2024, after a 2023 festival run. Adapts Lyon’s photo-book and oral history for the screen, with Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. Hoiland’s IJMS review (covered here in January 2026) is the most useful subcultural read of the film. Worth noting in the same quarter as the Lyon memoir, since the film prompted the wider re-engagement with Lyon’s archive.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7349470/
Bike Shed Moto Show 2024
Tobacco Dock, 24-26 May. 13th edition, 16,000 attendees, around 270 curated custom builds. Co-owner Anthony “Dutch” van Someren confirmed plans for a third Bike Shed location and US ambitions — the year the Bike Shed brand started consolidating its position as the central UK custom-culture gathering.
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2024/may/bike-shed-london-moto-show/
See also Bike Shed Moto Show 2025 in May 2025 and Hoiland’s IJMS review of The Bikeriders in January 2026.
That’s it for this quarter. If you’ve come across research I’ve missed, feel free to email me.