Outlaw Country

Grown men in leather, dirty beards and fingerless gloves riding Harleys aren't always as grizzly or as grimy as they appear.

Some could be criminal lawyers, anesthesiologists or marketing gurus in boots flaunting vicarious thrills on drop-dead expensive bikes, with their trophy blondes and Bloomfield Hills houses in the rearview.

But this writer grew up around true-grit bikers, guys who wore rockers and rolled patches; guys who belonged to 1-percenter motorcycle clubs. Guys with "M/C" patches on their backs so you knew exactly who you were dealing with. These guys weren't the casual cruisers, they are, often, truck-stop bruisers.

American Motorcycle Clubs go back to the Depression era, but it was the 1947 Hollister, Calif., clash between the Boozefighters ("a drinking club with a motorcycle problem") and the local fuzz that changed American culture. The event was somewhat immortalized, inspiring Marlon Brando's 1953 film The Wild One — and anything after that involved two wheels and a cigarette. After the Boozefighters fracas, the American Motorcycle Association released a statement claiming that 99 percent of motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens, and 1 percent are outlaws. Hence the "1 percenter" tag embraced by hardcore motorcycle clubs the country over.

In the summer of 1935, a bunch of motorcyclists gathered at Matilda's Bar on old Route 66 in McCook, just outside Chicago. The men entered as unaffiliated roughnecks and left a unified gang, christening themselves the Outlaws.

In 1963, the Outlaws were the first official 1-percenter club east of the Mississippi. Expansion followed in '65, and the club established charters in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cincinnati and elsewhere. By the '70s, the Outlaws were national. Today, they roll throughout Canada and across Europe, from Italy to Serbia, with a strong presence in
Germany. Some claim they're the largest motorcycle club in the world, now that they've rooted in Japan and Australia.

Jim Miteff was a husband, father, biker, businessman and photographer from Detroit. He could build a bike from the floor up before he joined the Outlaws as a founding member of the Detroit charter in 1965. And while some in the gang tucked knives and guns into their belts and boots, Miteff rode armed with wrenches and cameras, even on stormy rides to Milwaukee. The local Outlaws dubbed him "Flash." (That's him with the camera on the preceding page.)

In those days, when the various Midwestern charters were meeting regularly under the direction of the mother chapter in Chicago, the group was without a Detroit clubhouse, so the Miteff's home in Dearborn Heights became a crash pad for Flash's extended family. He documented it all too, beautifully, from the house party comings and goings to the long highway rides, bar nights and courthouse mornings.

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