CycleChat Investigates - Mods v Rockers

[Drago]

Can't make any comments on this subject as I wasn't living in the UK in the 60's and don't think we had this trend over the channel.

Au contrare. The french had their own bike gang problem.

Bank holiday fights between Les Velosolex Difficile Hommes and Les Mixte Cavalieres du Satan would have been legendary if striking air traffic controllers hadn't prevented the rival gangs from actually meeting up.

 

[Rusty Nails]

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Yay......my 1964 bike was a Franny Barnett 197cc......weighed a ton and did 65 mph with smoke pouring out of the exhaust.

Mine was an early 50s Merlin, 120cc. Never got it running properly so gave it back to my uncle and went off motor bikes altogether. I understand they're worth a couple of thousand now .

 

[kingrollo]

Don't have a scoot - but was a mod in 1979 for a couple of years.
Got back into it in my 50s - regularly go the Northern soul and mod r n b nights. And the big mod Weekender in Brighton.

It actually dates back to the late 50s - modern jazz. Mods were generally posh kids and really fashion concuios - I think that's were the general dislike of mods come from.

In the mid 60s it went mainstream - and places like Brighton and Margate there were suddenly more mods than rockers hence the big kick off.

The other reasoning (less convincing imo) was that after teddy boys the split was rockers/rockabilly and the mods who went for everything Italian.

Quadrophenia (1979) was a brief snapshot of mod culture at the time - but very different from late 50s mods.

There is a school of thought that by 1964 mod was all over and anyone in Brighton was just on the bandwagon.

It's a 60 year old sub culture now - so within that 60 years there are flavours of mod. ...all valid imo.