Fifty years of Sparky and CowBoy

Charles Ritter and Irvin P Dunsdon aka Sparky and CowBoy 1965

I was eight when I first saw this picture and it had been around for a while by then.

Shot by Danny Lyons in 1965 while gathering materials for the project that would become Bikeriders, the picture shows Charles Ritter and Irvin P Dunsdon of the Rogues motorcycle club of Gary, Indiana.

'CowBoy', by the way, is how Irvin writes it and he should know.

The pic came to me as a seemingly random inclusion in a book detailing the '…rich kaleidoscope that is photography' or some such bollocks. It reached down from an upper book shelf in the hallway at home and I reached it down hoping for a bit of naked tit (I was an inquisitive eight-year-old and photography manuals were a great way to satisfy curiosity). Instead I found Sparky and CowBoy and I knew then as I know now that I had embarked on a lifelong love affair with things motorcycle.

Assuming that Sparky is on our left and CowBoy is on his left, this antediluvian duo – by ’65 even Americans were taking to grease-free, combed forward hair styles a la Beatles – spoke to an only child as only a symbiotic pairing can and what they said was: pomp your hair rockabilly style, join a patch gang, ride a cycle ('sickle'), find a brother.

Slightly comic now but beautiful, anarchic, leathered mayhem then, with their Maltese crosses, upside down badges and bits of chain diligently attached to cut-off jerkins over Perfecto leathers. Think: Sparky had to sit down with a needle and thread and make a conscious decision to sew that chain to his cut-off thereby confirming his devil-take-the-hindmost macho: "How cool will I be with this?"). Or maybe his ol' lady did it for him. Or maybe CowBoy.

But… no cheap-swipe swastikas. Groovy.

It would be another two years before I actually got to ride a bike and that was pillion on a banana yellow Puch VZ50 which belonged to a friend's older brother. My father couldn't understand why I wanted to cut the sleeves off my blue corduroy jerkin (the nearest thing to a Levi denim that could be found) but then, his inability to comprehend was the point.

A further six years passed before I had a machine of my own. Until then, I had to scratch the itch with my now sleeveless blue corduroy complete with bits of chain astride a Raleigh Chopper.

Looking back, I looked a douche. Like Sparky and CowBoy in truth. Studied, mannered and calculated does not equate to cool. But whatever. That photograph still has the power to ignite restlessness.

Where are you now Sparky and CowBoy?

NB You can find out, and read the backstory of Charles and Irvin here