A HISTORY OF MOTORCYCLES, THE ROCK AND ROLL YEARS!

By Keep Britain Biking • 16th January 2012 • 35 views

The 1950s was an important decade for motorcycling and one marked by great changes. A distinctive form of biking culture was beginning to take shape in both Britain and the United States, and in motorcycle production the dominance of the established British and American manufacturers was beginning to be threatened by Japanese companies, whose fast, stylish models began to become very popular.

Before the war motorcycles were expensive and seen as the preserve of the middle-classes, but the rise of the motorcar and the post-rationing increase in the availability of credit for the young, meant that a generation of teenagers began to discover the liberating appeal of motorcycles.

In America groups of veterans returning from the war, nostalgic for the camaraderie of military life, began to form Motorcycle Clubs. Centred in California these clubs soon became very popular, with large groups of bikers travelling up and down America’s West Coast looking for excitement. Needless to say this terrified the more conservative, straight-laced Americans and these clubs soon became demonised.

One only needs to look at films like The Wild One, featuring Marlon Brando in one of his most iconic roles, to realise the extent to which America was both terrified and exhilarated by this new movement.

In the UK rocker, or ‘cafe racer’, culture developed, based around fast bikes, transport cafes and the new roads that were spreading out across Britain. Rocker culture was mostly focused around groups of working-class young people, who saw in motorcycles a world of excitement far from the grey and often depressing environment of post-war Britain.

Next up, motorcycling begins to come of age as we roar into the swinging 60s!