Original Wild Ones

Get an inside look at the real beginning of outlaw biker culture with this “raucous and heartfelt recounting of the early days of biker clubs” (Roadbike).  The story starts one weekend in 1947, at a motorcycle race in Hollister, California.  A few members of one club, the no-holds-barred “Boozefighters,” got a little juiced up and took their racing to the street.  Word of the fracas spread, and soon enough Life magazine was on hand to tell the world, with sensational (albeit posed) pictures of the outlaws. And then the “Hollister riot” made its way into the movies, immortalized in Marlon Brando’s “The Wild One.”

What was the reality behind the myth?  Through interviews with the surviving members of the Boozefighters, current member Bill Hayes and club historian Jim “JQ” Quattlebaum take readers right into the fray for a firsthand account of what happened in Hollister, and the formation of  the Boozefighters, where the outlaw biker culture truly began.  The book, “with its great stories and entertaining real-life characters” (MotorcycleUSA.com), is “mandatory reading for anyone interested in American motorcycling history “(Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly). 

Bill Hayes is one of those rare authors who abides by the age-old writing advice: "Write what you know." And for him, it works. His love for motorcycles--specifically the always-compelling biker culture--launched his writing success. His bestselling book, The Original Wild Ones: Tales of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, followed by American Biker (www.americanbikerthebook.com) and The One-Percenter Encyclopedia have all become classics within the genre. Hayes has served as the National Press and Publicity Officer for the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club (BFMC), continually striving to get the media to trade in their sensationalism for the truth.