Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Biker gangs / "patch clubs"

From LRB:

Forms of Delirium
Peter Pomerantsev circles the Kremlin

In the Moscow compound of the Night Wolves, the Russian equivalent of the Hells Angels, ships’ conrods have been refashioned as crosses ten feet high. Broken plane parts have been bolted to truck engines to make a giant stage; crushed Harley-Davidsons have been beaten into a bar; boats’ hulls have been moulded into chairs; and train parts into Valhalla-sized tables. The crosses are everywhere, wrenched together out of old bike parts and truck shafts and engines. The Night Wolves, or Nochnye Volki, are bikers who have found a Russian God. In an act of patriotism they have changed all the words on their leathers from Latin lettering to a gothic Cyrillic. One of the Hells Angels symbols, a ‘1 per cent’ inside a diamond, is still etched on a great stone at the entrance to their kingdom. In Hells Angels lore it stands for the 1 per cent who are outlaws. But the Night Wolves have engraved a new text around the diamond, transforming its meaning: ‘In heaven there is more joy at the 1 per cent of sinners who confess than the 99 per cent who have no need of salvation.’

‘We only have a few years to rescue the soul of holy Russia,’ Alexei Weitz said. ‘Just a few years.’ Weitz is a leading member of the Night Wolves. There are five thousand of them in Russia, five thousand Beowulf-like bearded men in leathers riding Harleys. It’s Weitz who has done most to turn them from outlaws into religious patriots. For the past few years, Vladimir Putin has posed for photo-ops with them, dressed in leathers and riding a tri-bike (he can’t quite handle a two-wheeler). They defended the ‘honour of the church’ after the Pussy Riot affair, roaring in a cavalcade through Moscow bearing golden icons of Mary the Mother of Christ on the front of their Harleys. The Kremlin gives them several hundred million rubles a year and they work to inspire loyalty across the country with concerts and bike shows that fuse flying Yamahas, Cirque du Soleil-style trapeze acts, Spielberg-scale battle re-enactments, religious icons, holy ecstasies, speeches from Stalin and dancing girls (there are booths for go-go girls next to the great crosses). At the last concert in Volgograd, 250,000 locals turned up, a world record for a ‘bike show’. Evander Holyfield was meant to come, to introduce a boxing match that went with the patriotic fireworks, but he had to pull out at the last minute – there was a problem with his visa. Everyone sang the anti-communist perestroika anthem ‘We Want Changes’.

‘Why Stalin?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t he murder hundreds of thousands of priests?’

‘We don’t know why he was sent by God. Maybe he had to slaughter them so the faith could be tested. We don’t know. It’s not for us to judge. When you cut out a disease you have to cut out healthy flesh too.’

[continues]
Click to expand...

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/peter-pomerantsev/forms-of-delirium
 
Anybody ever heard of a team called "Spirit" or "Spirit Riders"? May have caught MCC on the patch but I was not best placed to see clearly.

Scottish I presume because the background to their patch is a Saltire. Mainly modern bikes with a lot of mods/custom paint but a few rather better than average chopped Harleys in the front and rear.

Anyway, 40 or 50 of them just came through town, en-masse, with considerable attitude. Somebody new on the scene maybe?
 
Nope - Aberdeen.

Shortly after I saw another patch I didn't recognise - Only a few of them and split-up in traffic. A black/orange/red stripe with writing I was too far to read. British bikes and one fearsomely loud Harley Lowrider.

Maybe a rally somewhere?
 
Last edited:
I got to know a Hells Angel very well indeed. I worked with him for a long time. He introduced me to the music of Al Green:cool:. His crew were something to do with a terrible attack on someone in xxxxxxxx I think it was. No fear whatsoever.
 
Must have been a rally/run - A lot of particularly loud/throbbing bikes headed past the end of the road earlier this morning, taking the main road south. :)
 
Last edited:
14393257695_8eb6229520_o_d.jpg
 
Hey guys. Are there any decent MC patch clubs that accept women? I don't mean anything pink, frilly or full of sissys though.
 
I dont really think you go looking for an MC, I think you get invited.... its a very very very male dominated thing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Car sharing car clubs
Replies
6
Views
492
teuchter
teuchter
Stanley Edwards
Motorcycle clubs.
2
Replies
59
Views
4K
Pickman's model
Pickman's model
P
Gearing centric enthusiast clubs
Replies
29
Views
906
Dogsauce
Dogsauce
Spymaster
Bikers - "Your Biggest Fuck-Up"
2 3 4 5
Replies
125
Views
13K
19sixtysix
19sixtysix
weltweit
Biker caught at 156mph gets 18month ban & fine
2 3
Replies
74
Views
2K
mauvais
mauvais
Back
Top Bottom