Bikies threaten
Ulysses visitors
Thursday, 10 March 2005
Thousands of members of the Ulysses Club
visiting Canberra for an annual motorcycle rally have been instructed by the
club to remove items of badging from their jackets after threats of violence
from the Rebels Motorcycle Club.
About 5000 members of the Ulysses Club for veteran motorcyclists - members
range in age from 40 to 92 years - are in the national capital for the
club's national annual general meeting.
The Rebels delivered the threats of violence at a meeting with the Ulysses
Organising Committee yesterday afternoon after a number of intimidating
confrontations.
In one incident, a 65-year-old Ulysses member riding to Canberra from
Melbourne was pulled over by Rebels and told to remove the items of badging
or face a bashing and have his bike destroyed. He complied.
In another incident, a 60-year-old female member who was stopped in Canberra
also agreed to remove strips from her jacket after being similarly
threatened.
The items which the Ulysses members were instructed to remove are known in
motorcycle parlance as "rockers" - curved badging on the back of their
jackets giving their name and where they are from.
Other Ulysses members were reluctant to talk last night, claiming that to do
so might put more members under threat.
"We are trying to cool the situation and if we were to publicise anything it
would only inflame the situation more and we would end up with somebody
killed or badly hurt in hospital," he said.
The annual Ulysses gathering is expected to generate up to $12million for
the local economy.
But one Ulysses member told The Canberra Times last night, "This has
destroyed our holiday - Canberra now sucks for me. The police apparently are
unable to do anything to protect us."
ACT police are investigating an incident reported on Tuesday morning. "If it
is true, we would be quite disappointed because it reflects badly on the
majority of Canberrans who welcome tourists to this town," a police
spokesman said.
The Rebels have members in Canberra and Queanbeyan who have been working to
dispel what they say has been a history of being seen as an "outlaw biker
club". The club recently raised $6500 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of
the ACT.
The Ulysses Club is a social club for people over the age of 40 years who
enjoy riding motorcycles.
In motorcycle gang culture, intrusion into a rival gang's territory wearing
"colours" or "rockers" similar to those of the local club's is considered an
insult.
"Some of our members have taken it upon themselves to include rockers with
the logo that we use and wear on our back sometimes," a Ulysses Club member
explained.
"That is what the Rebels find offensive because they have got to do some
terrible things and earn their colours and their rockers.
"We are just a social club and we just pay some membership, buy a logo and
sew it on our back - and that's what the Rebels find offensive. We have
already had incidents where people have been threatened with violence,
scared, confronted.
"We had a meeting with them to try and placate the situation and we [agreed]
that we would stop our individual members from wearing rockers to save their
lives or to save them from being hurt.
"We don't see the point in inflaming things even more over a bit of fabric
with some words written on it that he wears around on his back.
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