Moto mode
The café racer was born in London at Ace Café with one simple but fantastic idea: drop a coin into the slot of the jukebox then race on a classic ‘out and back’ route to a defined point before the record finished. Such illegal and rebellious behavior got bikers a bad name in the area. Fear and loathing of two wheeled joyriders caught on quite quickly amongst other road users in the capital city.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the legend goes that the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club (as club names go, maybe one of the less subtle options) started the 1947 Hollister riots that inspired story of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club headed by Brando in The Wild One.
The origins of the iconic jacket from those café racing and booze fighting days bore its staple features – black leather, diagonal zip and collar. Schott NYC was and still is founded on the design that found its way on to the shoulders of Mr Brando. The mould was set for a lot of followers.
But despite Brando’s huge influence on popular perception of the mode moto, other fabrics were adapted by competition riders. The most challenging of competitions, the International Six Days Trial, required a flexible, durable jacket to cope with Europe’s ultimate test of motorcycling. The wax jacket was adopted for its ability to deal with the water and mud of the six day epic. And, as happens with fashion icons, like the polo shirt and the chino the name of Mr Steve McQueen enters the frame to propel it onto the world stage.
A genuinely great and fanatical rider as witnessed in Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday, McQueen rode the Six Days for his country only to be taken out by a spectator. His jacket undoubtedly saved some injuries – something a real biker takes for granted, but the details in a jacket are also what appeal to those looking for an edgier style.
And that edge was adopted during the punk era and a certain Sid Vicious. Films, legends and also real-world riders had ensured that such jackets were as tough in construction as they were by reputation, with the added benefit of being a unique style to counter the mainstream outer layers. Vicious reportedly requested that he be buried in his.
Today the café racer scene has infiltrated the mainstream with many of the big manufacturers including BMW, Ducaiti and more recently Yamaha all releasing ‘factory’ custom machines to follow the trail blazed by custom specialists such as Roland Sands and Deus Ex Machina. And with every clip-on handlebarr-ed machine comes the styled jacket.
Bicycles may never carry the edge of the café racers or the Hells Angels but the counterculture ethos in what still remains a minority sport is prevalent in the attitudes and stylistic tastes of many cyclists, as exemplified by a certain Mr Wiggins. And city riding can express that style in a way that lycra or merino cannot.
Our Geraldine jacket for cycling the city is a nod to the style adapted by the café racers, by Brando, by Sid Vicious. And as Esquire said, 'As cool as Steve McQueen? If he rode a pushbike, this is what he’d wear'.
