The Biker Code: Wisdom for the Ride

As subcultures go, perhaps none is as consistently fascinating and misunderstood as the biker movement. Alternately feared and lionized by the mainstream, this insular, fiercely defiant community of hardcore hog-worshippers is notoriously difficult to infiltrate. But from on high, here comes THE BIKER CODE, a survey of the motorcycle milieu that brings unprecendented intimacy, impressive acumen, and an unabashed affection to the whole chrome-ridden scene. With fifty artful duotones, THE BIKER CODE captures the easy riders, free spirits, and born to ride denizens of Planet Harley. Introducing readers to men and women from across the United States who proudly live and die by their valiant hogs, photographer Stuart Mills and associate Geoffrey Moss find poetry in the details: the insouciance of stickers on a helmet (places to go, people to piss off'); the intricate patterns etched into an improbably tattooed back; the sun glinting off a cat's eye head lamp. Punctuating the photographs are original drawings depicting biker-specific road signs as well as nuggets of folk wisdom passed along the highways by those who live by the scriptures of biker gospel.…