What was this English, pedal biking, car driving, Jewish boy doing on his way to a Swedish Christian Bikers’ club in Söderköping?

 

It had all begun at a game of innebandy.

“So what do Christian bikers do?” I had asked innocently.

“We compare bikes, worship, then practise our wheelies….”

    

 

I admit, I had a few prejudices to get over. Firstly, my experience of Evangelist Christians has always been of the American Happy Clappy variety, where every line of conversation, intonation and utterance leads to an explicit or implied attempt to save you from the burning depths of Hell. Fredrik and Harriet were just very nice, well adjusted people with no greater hidden agenda other than to humour my enquiring mind. And this was the general rule of thumb; all the bikers I met would politely and earnestly answer my questions about both bikes and their faith, but at no point were the tables turned and was I put on the spot. If anything they preferred petrol to proselytising.

 

They do, however, wear leather and Fredrik has tattoos (Harriet may have had one too, but in the circumstances, it was inappropriate to ask). As we chatted, I realised that coming from urban Britain my image of bikers was also a bit off. Bikers really are the bad boys in much of Scandinavia, controlling the supply and distribution of drugs with strict initiation rites to join the gangs. In London, being a leather-clad rocker makes you little more than a 70’s throwback; in Sweden there are tightly knit groups of bikers who are actually quite scary. A Christian biker sees his mission as to go out and persuade them that the straight and narrow can still mean burning rubber on chicanes and highways. I am told that there is a respect between bikers and that as Christian bikers they are accepted when out on mission work. It’s amazing how far a leather jerkin will get you.

 

The church building, a pine wooden structure, emanated warmth and was unlike the cold stone austerity of British churches or the sterile conference centre feel of the converted bingo hall that characterises the intensity of American influenced evangelists. We were served gröt and smörgåstorta – I don’t know about the existence of God, but if ever proof were needed that the Devil walks among us, then the mayonnaise/egg/mayonnaise/bread/mayonnaise combination of smörgåstorta is it. I settled for the gröt washed down with julmust. There was no alcohol at the party, which is one of the rules of the club; there is a long association with the Pentecostal Church and the Temperance movement in Sweden – They’re the killjoys who founded Systembolaget.

 

 

Disappointingly, there was only one truly hairy biker as most members of Freedom MC ride ‘Plastic Rockets’, Japanese bikes built for speed and ridden in the foetal position. I introduced myself to Dinge who looked like a Nordic Lemmy. He seemed out of place sitting at a church Christmas party eating from a Father Christmas plate, but he probably looked out of place anywhere but astride his Harley. Dinge and his wife Cina were members of an affiliate group called CrossRoads, a Harley club. He wiped smörgåstorta from his moustache and explained that there were only 9 members of his club, so they were welcomed in by the Freedom MC – At first I thought that being a member of a Christian Harley Club would be a lonely affair, but it seems that any self respecting biker club seeks exclusivity and you have to earn your membership. It’s a bit easier to join Freedom – you just have to have a bike and be a Christian – I was told that they would take me even if I turned up on a Vespa. They obviously hadn’t seen Quadrophenia or it could just be that as Christians they are a forgiving bunch. Joining non-Christian gangs means getting tattoos or into a fight… or being force fed smörgåstorta.

 

The party was well organised: Each table was a team denoted by makes of bike. I was a Suzuki, and through the evening there were a series of games that we had to play. There was no turning the other cheek as we battled it out over who could knock down plastic cups with a  rubber band, put on a fancy dress costume, ski round an assault course on mini plastic skis (set up down the church aisle). The final event, and I’m glad that nobody had been drinking, was a form of one-on-one Ice Hockey with broomsticks and a chiffon scarf. Fredrik took on a teenage boy and I’ve never seen such competitiveness. Fredrik didn’t compromise his greater age, height, strength, build and skill to humiliate the boy by sending him crashing to the floor in a heap. Miraculously, he remained conscious and stood up, albeit in great pain. He clutched his knee and limped off, his face screwed up in a grimace that was somewhere between a smile and agony.

 

The saddest thing is, that in years to come, when this boy is a man, and he is trying to impress girls with his permanent limp, he’ll start off well by telling them that he was injured at a motorbike club. His story will fall apart when he has to tell them the circumstances and how it involved chiffon scarves and a man named Fred.

 

They say that Christianity came to Sweden late and left early. The first Christian king was in the 12th Century and since the Reformation, the Church has been active in secular issues such as politics, alcohol consumption and social equality. Pagan traditions are more explicit than in other countries: The Church has adopted both The Midsommar fertility dances and Lucia with little to disguise their non-Christian origins. Indeed, Swedes don’t even refer to Christmas, but to Jul (Yule), the winter solstice, which falls several days before Christmas. It was appropriate that the biker Christmas party ended with a parody of the Lucia parade performed in the church. There was something Rabelaisian in a profane version of a sacred ceremony with Pre-Christian roots.

 

I had come to the party expecting to be on the defensive all evening, fending off offers of redemption by people blinded by an ecstatic faith, but the only time I felt uncomfortable or out of place was when I couldn’t name more than one British motorbike.  My preconceptions were shattered as I met a group of genuinely nice people who only talked about being Christians when prompted but were clearly passionate without being zealots.

 

 

Ben Kersley

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