The main event was supposed to go down at midnight, but the Vikings were still smoking cigarettes and ripping on one another in anticipation as the minute hand clicked 5, 10, 15 minutes past 12.
C-Note and Fast Black stood in a dank, dark hallway, cracking jokes to kill their nerves as they awaited their “wet-down,” the icy baptism into the Vikings Motorcycle Club they had looked forward to for years.
The Vikings are one of the largest and longest-running majority-black motorcycle clubs in Alabama, founded by a handful of friends in Birmingham in 1977 and now boasting over 100 members here and scores more in a half-dozen chapters from Pensacola to Norfolk, Va.
A two-day visit by AL.com over the last weekend in January marked the first time the crew’s Birmingham chapter allowed journalists to witness a Vikings initiation ceremony, providing a rare inside look at life inside a quirky, often misunderstood subculture.
Word that the moment was finally at hand made its way deep inside the biker crew’s windowless headquarters on Birmingham’s west side just after 12:15 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 31. C-Note and Fast Black ran out into the warm night, stripped to their undershirts, knelt down on the asphalt and braced for the icy deluge.
Someone gave the signal to begin and the spotlight-flooded driveway erupted in a torrent of water, ice and fizzy Bud Light as a series of full-fledged Vikings members drenched the men in honor of their acceptance into the club.
After several minutes of this freestyle waterboarding, when the Vikings members had run out of ice and put down the hose, C-Note and Fast Black leaped to their sopping wet feet, liquid dripping down their faces and arms. They wiped the water away then proudly led a rousing rendition of the club’s motto, their first time reciting the rallying cry as full-fledged Vikings:
“Together we stand / Divided we fall / We do it together / Or not at all / We love our brothers / That I declare / I am a Viking / That I swear.”
Sunday stunting
Vikings HQ kicked back into gear late Sunday afternoon. The sun hung low and red in the sky beyond the tree line and most of the members’ hangovers had finally worn off.
The music wasn’t quite as loud, older family members and kids dropped by, some in their Sunday best, and the laid-back vibe was interrupted only by the routine drollness of an organizational meeting.
The day was more about actually riding than Saturday, when the focus was mainly on partying and the bikes sat largely untouched out front, occasionally sparking conversations about transmission troubles or a set of slick new tires.
Sunday also brought out the stunt riders.
The long stretch of skid-marked asphalt that runs from the rundown Central Gardens apartment houses past Vikings HQ and far beyond serves as a raceway and stage of sorts for the Vikings, who sped from one horizon point to the other and back dozens of times over the course of the day. Every Viking knows that span well, but the stunt riders beef up their runs with various, often death-defying, tricks.
Some stunt riders specialize in the wheelie – yanking up on the handlebars at high speed to lift the front wheel high off the road to bring the bike as close to a perpendicular angle to the ground as possible without wiping out, alternating between pumping the back brake and throttle to maintain the proper position.
The premier wheelie rider was the peerless Jeremy “Lee Boi” Lee, who spent half an hour cruising closer to “12 o’clock” – as bikers describe the perfect wheelie – than one would imagine possible.
One friend joked that he once picked up the front wheel in Birmingham “and didn’t put it down ’til he got to Tuscaloosa.” It somehow seemed almost believable as he rode by on the back wheel with both legs hanging off the same side of his bike, waving peace signs and hollering at gawking onlookers.
Another stunt rider archetype excels at an altogether different set of maneuvers.
Ray “Djay Dirty Red” Square is known as one of the best at burnouts, in which he burns through his tires while allowing the bike to stay in one place, kicking up shreds of melted rubber and sending giant plumes of white smoke billowing into the sky.
He is also a master of the donut, a popular trick in which he leans heavily on the front wheel and accelerates hard in a way that guides the bike through a series of tight concentric circles, again sending his signature smoke clouds high into the air.
‘It’s like a family’
Claude “C-Note” Hardy’s uncle is a Viking, his cousin is a Viking and so are many of his friends. On Saturday night, C-Note finally became a Viking himself, more than two decades after he first hopped on a motorcycle in elementary school. He had been around the club all his life, and the wet-down was the final trial before he received his black leather Vikings vest.
If the initiation process sounds more like a lighthearted college fraternity hazing ritual than the brazen coronation of a new gang member, that’s because the whole atmosphere of the Vikings biker club – and that of much of the Birmingham biker scene – is more Sigma Chi, than 1960s-era Hell’s Angels.
Every Sunday, the Vikings throw a party. Every last Saturday of the month, they throw a bigger party. And they go to other crews’ clubhouses for parties in between, all the while riding their choppers together as frequently as possible.
For Derek “Buck-50” Smith, a member of the Montgomery chapter of the Vikings who was in town for the festivities Saturday night, the club is more than just a social organization, something more akin to a brotherhood.
“For me it’s tradition because my dad is a Viking. It keeps us away from the outside world negativity. We come here, and it’s a problem-free environment; it’s like a family,” he said.
“People think we’re a gang riding around looking for trouble, but it’s really about love for the bikes. When you’re out on the road all your troubles go away. You can say motorcycles are our drug. When you’ve got all your brothers with you – oh man, that’s even better.”
Still the Vikings know how to get down, and get down they did Saturday night.
Members of other clubs from across the metro area – the Steel City Ryders of Ensley, Birmingham’s Midtown Iron – joined in the revelry, as did a contingent of Viking Queens, women who have been accepted as members of the club either via marriage or mutual admiration.
But on Saturday night, club loyalties and personal differences were the furthest things from anyone’s minds. R&B boomed late into the night, and the party raged on for hours as the bikers stayed up laughing, telling road stories as they celebrated the newest Vikings.
An equine encounter
Motorcycles weren’t the only form of transportation some Vikings hopped on the afternoon of Sunday, Jan. 31. Willie Wright, a friend of the club in understated ranch hand garb, came by after the meeting in a pickup truck hauling a small horse trailer.
The members standing outside Vikings HQ slowly made their way over to a grassy area next to the parking lot, where they were greeted by the odd sight of two stark-white horses and a Shetland pony, all ready to stretch their legs after being cooped up clown car-style in the trailer, much to the bikers’ amusement.
Only a couple of the bravest among the bunch took turns climbing a small step stool and mounting one of the two towering horses, slowly guiding him across the ground.
When a Viking with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth yelled “whoa, hoss” in an attempt to get his maned companion to ease down from a slow trot to a lumbering walk, he elicited belly laughs and shouted jokes from his brothers – “he wants to know when it’s his turn to ride you!” – most of whom didn’t dare take his spot on the saddle.
These men’s men, many of whom have no qualms about breaking 80, 90, even 100 miles per hour on the highway, or coming within inches of disaster in high-speed wheelies, were humbled by the gentle steeds.
The whole affair reached its climax in a surreal scene straight out of an absurdist film when Wright rode off on one of the horses, while a friend rode the other. Ten-year-old Cornelius Amison, who arrived at Vikings headquarters with Wright, tagged along on the thick-maned Shetland.
The odd riding party made it less than 50 yards before the ornery pony bucked the boy off its back and made a run for freedom, galloping off toward Central Gardens, clumsily juking out Wright and quickly disappearing from sight.
Shocked drivers were already snapping cellphone photos of the frightened beast from inside their cars when Wright caught up with it at the gas station on the corner. Disaster had been averted, and the animals were loaded back into the trailer.
“Now that’s something new,” one Viking remarked as he headed back to the clubhouse, shaking his head.
‘Since 1977’
A member of the Vikings since 1981, Roger “Mr. D” Davis of Birmingham is the national president of the club. He has dedicated much of his life to the organization, and says that tradition and camaraderie have defined the experience of Vikinghood since the club’s founding 39 years ago.
“We’re family-oriented. We got a lot of togetherness. We enjoy hanging together, riding together, being together. We come together and if someone’s got a problem we come together to help them out,” he said Saturday just before midnight. “We still say our same motto that we’ve said since 1977. It’s the same motto.”
Vikings’ day jobs range from municipal worker to advertising rep to motorcycle salesman, but all club members have nicknames, usually bestowed on them long before they earn their leather vests.
Gravy is a restaurant chef. When he was a little kid, Chase famously liked to run away from his mother as soon as she took off his diaper. Shorty is vertically challenged.
The nicknames are a big part of the tradition in which the Vikings organization is steeped, but Vikings business manager Charlie “6 Pack” Allen has a few words of wisdom for new members who don’t want to end up with a moniker like Big Baby for life.
“I tell them to come up with a nickname yourself, because you don’t want no one else nicknaming you,” 6 Pack said.
Even the headquarters building is deeply important to the members. Though it’s not the original home of the Vikings, it is a massive, impressive space.
The front door is emblazoned with the yellow-and-black Vikings logo and motorcycle trophies are displayed in the only window, which has been blocked from the inside to keep light from entering the warehouse.
The whole property is surrounded by barbed-wire fencing and signs warn that it is a “Private Club” for “The Vikings Club Members Only,” though the site is intimidating enough to the uninitiated that these protective features are likely unneeded.
The interior walls are slathered with black paint and decorated with plaques bearing members’ names, and the space features an assemblage of booths, tables, TVs, projection screens and pool tables, all of which get heavy play during the Vikings’ frequent parties.
The memorabilia, traditions and rituals are an essential part of the Vikings experience, but at the end of the day, Chase says the club is about family, fun and riding motorcycles.
“It’s like a tribe,” he said. “You can’t choose your real family, but this is your family you can choose, so you can’t go wrong.”
‘Just ride’
Motorcycle clubs have gotten a bad rap for the better part of a century, and in previous generations, they often deserved it. Certain “outlaw” motorcycle gangs have long engaged in organized crime and violence, and the image of the teeth-gnashing, knife-wielding, bearded biker looking to break the jaw of anyone who looks at him wrong is deeply rooted in the American psyche.
There is still some mystique and inevitable danger associated with motorcycle clubs, and the leather, beards and loud hogs do little to suggest otherwise. But in fact many motorcycle clubs in 2016 are – perhaps unexpectedly – dedicated to charity work and the Vikings are no exception.
Not to be mistaken for Canada’s Vikings biker crew, an unaffiliated group with a history of violence, the Southeast U.S. Vikings regularly lead clothing and canned goods drives, send toys to children’s hospitals and raise money for community members who have fallen on hard times.
“We’re not an outlaw club. They got a different kind of atmosphere, a different kind of rules and regulations,” 6 Pack said Saturday night, though he added that the Vikings always get along with any outlaw clubs they run into. “A lot of these guys here are trying to find something to do to stay out of trouble.”
The vast majority of the Birmingham chapter’s members are black, but there are a couple of white Vikings, and as members are quick to point out, they don’t discriminate against anyone.
“If you got a bike and you got a club color, you don’t have a skin color. Your color is what’s on your back,” Vikings member Daniel “Big Baby” Morgan of Birmingham said inside the club’s headquarters as a blown-up photograph of the late Vikings founder, “G.I.” Joe Jordan, looked on.
“We only got one rule: Just ride.”
Birmingham"s underground biker scene: A night with the Vikings Motorcycle Club
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