Badass Biker

" Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Johnny: Whadda you got?"

- The Wild One

So you've got one mean setting. Police Are Useless, and usually corrupt. Half the time the place is enveloped in smoke, fog, and general unpleasantness. Violent thugs rule the streets, and you would have to be crazy to even leave your house if you had even the slightest excuse not to.

Only one type of Badass character can make it around these parts. He's got the longcoat, the shades, and the (optional) smoking addiction. But what really sells it is the Cool Bike.

Enter the Badass Biker.

Possibly popularized by the Marlon Brando movie The Wild One and the James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause, the Badass Biker is the absolute epitome of the viciously cool vagrant tough guy. Whether they are traveling through the desert, city streets, a coastal road, or up a wall, this character and bike combo exudes an aura of awesome that eclipses just about any other Badass + vehicle combination.

A pretty universal trope as media from America, Europe, and Japan all love to employ badass bikers. They're also surprisingly versatile, since Badass Bikers can be heroes or anti-heroes, or, in gangs, they can be villains or mooks.

Oh, and remember that you can't drive a bike. You can only ride one.

Might also be a Biker Babe. A Badass Biker who is a thug or gang member usually fits into All Bikers Are Hells Angels as well.

Anime & Manga
"Bakura: If these are all the villains in Yu-Gi-Oh!, then where are those stupid motorcycle freaks? You know, the ones from season four. Marik: You mean the season nobody liked? Bakura: That's the one. Marik: I didn't invite them. They're just a bunch of dorks. Bakura: For once we agree on something."
 * Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Tsuna and Yamamoto in Choice. Airbikes in the anime....
 * Mazinger Z: Kouji and Sayaka. Boss also -arguably- counts.
 * And Tetsuya and Jun from Great Mazinger.
 * And Duke and Maria from UFO Robo Grendizer.
 * Devilman: Akira Fudo in some anime episode.
 * Cutey Honey: Honey Kisaragi when she used her Hurricane Honey form.
 * Kotetsu Jeeg: Hiroshi Shiba not only is a Badass Biker with a Cool Bike but also he is an amateur racer (you can tell Go Nagai is fond of this trope).
 * Raideen: Akira Hibiki, with a Cool Bike to boot.
 * Combattler V: Hyoma Aoi was the only biker of the team.
 * Voltes V: Right like Kenichi Go in the Voltes team.
 * Norman Burg in The Big O is this and a Battle Butler. He's is very, VERY good at the wheel, and has the sheer balls to take on massive robots with his bike......especially considering it's equipped with a sidecar mounted MLRS!
 * Sniper of Yu Yu Hakusho
 * Natsuki in My-HiME.
 * And her Name's the Same Expy in Ga-Rei Zero.
 * Soutetsu in Zombie Loan.
 * Tetsuo, Kaneda and most of the other kids in Akira.
 * Tetsuo is actually kind of lacking in the "biker" part, as he spills twice in the opening sequence and can't figure out how to control Kaneda's bike in a later scene..
 * Priss Asagiri of Bubblegum Crisis.
 * Priss was a strange case; in at least one episode, we watched her steal the Badass Bike, and quite possibly continue riding it in the next episode. Each Knight Saber had a bike, a "Motorslave", which transformed into a small autonomous robot (or hulking add-on battlesuit, depending on need.) So really, all four lead characters had a Badass Bike.
 * Teana Lanster of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
 * Ginji Kawai in Magical Project S.
 * Takane from Bakuretsu Tenshi is a biker gang leader and a Badass Longseifuku. Only Jo can be more badass than that.
 * Marik in Yu-Gi-Oh!!; this is made somewhat more poignant by how it connects to his past, a motorcycle being the first thing he saw (on a television set) the first time he ever left his family's underground home.
 * Don't forget Dartz's henchmen Valon, Rafael, and Allister, who all ride on motorcycles.
 * In the future, card games will be played on motorcycles!
 * Shamelessly parodied in Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series in "Marik's Evil Council of Doom."


 * Shows up in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX as well, with Saiou, proving he could still be Badass without a Super-Powered Evil Side.
 * Parodied in an episode of Lucky Star, in which Yūko Gotō appears as a badass, hypermasculine Yakuza biker chick. Essentially a sendup of the funny fact that contrary to her many moe-character roles, Ms. Gotou is actually a motorcycle enthusiast in real life.
 * Half the characters of Genesis Climber Mospeda.
 * Hidaka Ken in Weiss Kreuz; his teammates, meanwhile, drive various flavors of cool and not-so-cool vehicles. Izumi Sena in Weiss Kreuz: Gluhen also rides a motorcycle, but it doesn't make him any more badass.
 * Seki-sensei, Doremi and Co's homeroom teacher in Ojamajo Doremi.
 * Hibari Ginza from Speed Grapher.
 * Reki from Haibane Renmei.
 * from Mori no Ando.
 * The male protagonist from School Rumble Harima Kenji and one of his rivals, Harry Mackenzie (...their names are supposed to sound similar).
 * Cromartie High School has Kamiyama riding a badass bike that is actually robot buddy Mechazawa turned into a motorcycle, with rocket thrusters, wings, and missiles. Cue epic guitar montage.
 * Rideback features nearly the entire cast on the titular Ridebacks, basically a cross between a modern bike and a segway, with a bit of Humongous Mecha thrown in for good measure.
 * In the anime version of Sengoku Basara, Date Masamune's horse sports exhaust pipes which makes it look like a horse version of Harley Davidson bike.
 * Blassreiter has this trope distilled and crystallized. It starts at the motorcycle racing track, and quickly cranks this up—not merely Up to Eleven, but Over Nine Thousand, introducing Made of Iron Shapeshifting fencing cyborg saint riding Shapeshifting jet bike controlled by sentient AI with talkative Fairy Sexy projection. And then he got a company. And then both guy and bike are upgraded...
 * Duke Iker and his girlfriend Renda de Baroma from Victory Gundam.
 * Beelzebumon on his big, black cycle named Behemoth, in Digimon Tamers.
 * Mello of Death Note has a rather large black bike. Shame it gets
 * The Zokugaku Chameleons of Eyeshield 21, the football team of the local ghetto high school. Every member, even the team manager, has their own motorcycle.
 * Kenji in Darker than Black tried to be one, after his aniki—who definitely was, before becoming a smug minor Yakuza boss (though still Badass, of course).
 * Akira Hojo from Sanctuary in his high school days had a motorcycle. He rode off on it as he dropped out of high school to join the yakuza.
 * Celty Sturluson from Durarara!!. A modernized Dullahan from Ireland riding around Ikebukuro on her horse familiar-turned-motorcycle, working as a "transporter" to earn money while she searches for her lost head. Also a Badass Adorable: her helmet has kitty ears!
 * There's also Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, who isn't too notable other than the fact that he's just a Meddlesome Patrolman, but he's the one that gave Celty her fear of cops.
 * The Light Novels later introduce Vorona and Chikage.
 * Haruhara Haruko from FLCL. She alone inspired many people to get a Vespa, learn to play guitars and live a life of endless badassery.
 * Jiggy Pepper in Tegami Bachi.
 * Takeru Takemoto uses his family's motorbike to run his errands. Which he later on has enough Yen to pay for his own bike in This Ugly Yet Beautiful World.
 * Riki's backstory in Ai no Kusabi reveals he was once this as the leader of a biker gang that earned himself the title "Riki The Dark".
 * Venus Wars is chock full of badass bikers since it's about battle bike riders and motorbike military units with Hiro (Ken) Seno, Miranda and Major Kurtz topping the list.
 * Kawasaki Raimu from Bakuon!! (AKA "Stig-sempai"), a faceless, voiceless figure who just gets more Shrouded in Myth every time someone who knows her appears on screen.

Comics

 * Wolverine from X-Men is the most famous comic-book example.
 * Cyclops is also something of a petrolhead. In the movies, after his original bike burned with his campervan, Wolverine stole one from Cyclops.
 * Gambit
 * Ghost Rider, of course. Even in his civilian identity, he's a stunt rider.
 * In some incarnations, Blade's was equipped to scale walls.
 * Deadpool has... a scooter.
 * Lobo, the baddest bastard bastich of them all.
 * The independent comic Badger portrayed Santa Claus as this.
 * Judge Dredd is most often seen on his standard-issue Lawmaster.
 * The title character of the British Ogri comic series.
 * Sometimes, Nightwing from Batman would cruise the streets on one of these. Jason Todd, The Red Hood would also count as he rides a Harley. Of course, he is the Red Hood, er, "Red Helmet". Finally, you have Huntress and Catwoman, both of whom frequently use them.
 * Ben Reilly, Spider-Man's clone, while he was Walking the Earth and dealing with his angst.
 * Captain America (comics) most often travels on a bike. He has one in the movie as well.
 * Black Canary frequently travels on a bike.
 * The comic version of G.I.Joe made Zartan into this, with his own gang, the Dreadnocks.

Films -- Animation

 * Cloud, in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Includes swords.
 * And Sephiroth's Remnants.
 * Akira - many of the main characters are part of a biker gang

Films -- Live Action

 * Marlon Brando in The Wild One.
 * James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
 * James Dean did own a couple of Triumph motorcycles. In fact, a photo exists of him seated on one while talking to Jim Backus on the set of Rebel Without a Cause... but Jim Stark, Dean's character, was not a biker in the film.
 * Captain America and Billy from Easy Rider. "Born to be Wild" was practically written for the film!
 * Easy Rider is also something of a subversion. While the main characters don't have a problem breaking the law (they survive by running illegal drugs), they're mild-mannered hippies who generally try to avoid serious trouble.
 * In The Great Escape, the scene where Hiltz is trying to cross the border on the motorcycle (a TT Special 650 Triumph to be precise) was not only not in the book, but entirely superfluous. Why did they do it? Because it's cool.
 * The main character of the I Robot movie.
 * In Raising Arizona, "The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse", Leonard Smalls. His friends call him Lenny, but he ain't got no friends.
 * Aw, stop. You're gonna make me bust out cryin'!
 * T-800 and T-1000 in the first two Terminator films respectively, as well as John Connor from Terminator 2 & Terminator 3.
 * They were clearly going for this with Mutt Williams in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Mutt's look is a deliberate homage to Marlon Brando in The Wild One), but unfortunately, he's being played by Shia LeBeouf.
 * Trinity from The Matrix Reloaded.
 * Doesn't really get more badass than Batman on his freakish bike (detached from the Batmobile, no less!) in The Dark Knight, which gets its own Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * The Batcycle goes back to at least the Adam West Batman.
 * Spawn rides a bike in his movie, even though he really doesn't need to.
 * So does Ghost Rider, but that sort of comes with the territory.
 * Arcee from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is actually three badass bikes, connected by a group mind.
 * Aped in The Monster Squad with Rudy, a tough middle-schooler who wears a leather jacket, smokes, drinks, defends the downtrodden, and likes to pose on his bicycle.
 * Nam's Angels; a gang of bikers is recruited by the US military to undertake a rescue operation of a CIA agent imprisoned by the Viet Cong with motorcycles armed with machine guns mounted on the front.
 * Big Bad Raven and the Bombers in Streets of Fire.
 * Parodied in Yes-Man when Carl gets on a Ducati that is too powerful for him to handle.
 * Even though they use regular bikes instead of motorcycles, one could make the argument that the Mystery Team is badass.
 * Nightrider's gang in Mad Max.
 * Much like his comic counterpart, Captain America gets a chance to kick ass with his motorcycle in his movie. The bike even has added weaponry for additional ass kicking.
 * Torque is all about this trope, for the good guys as well as the bad guys.
 * Parodied by Eric Von Zipper in the '60s Beach Party movies.

Literature

 * Snow Crash has Raven, whose title of "baddest motherfucker in the world" is cemented by his motorcycle—specifically, the nuclear weapon in its sidecar that's set to go off in the event of his death.
 * The four horsemen of Good Omens. In particular, War's appearance, that of a very good-looking woman on a motorbike, makes people want to race against her.
 * Death from Discworld got himself a bike in Soul Music (a "triumph", built by the Librarian) because the only thing cooler than Death the Destroyer of Worlds is Death on a bike made of bones, shiny bits and light. It should also be noted, while we're on the subject on unbearable coolness, that he needed the bike so that he could quickly save the day by shredding out some hot licks on the guitar. He also has a rose in his teeth at the start of the ride and, knowing that you need to get the outfit right, informs the Dean that "".
 * Subverted in The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second part of The Millennium Trilogy. Alexander Zalachenko sends two thuggish bikers to kill his daughter Lisbeth Salander. The macho bikers try to be badass, they try very hard to be badass: she beats and electrocutes them, then cuts up their jackets and steals their Harley Davidsons.
 * Of course, Lisbeth has a motorcycle herself...
 * The Star Wars Expanded Universe features "swoopers" -- people who ride swoops. Swoops are civilian models of the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi, and in the EU, Everyone from Luke Skywalker to Han Solo wannabes like Dash Rendar finds them useful.
 * Hell Tanner, a convicted killer and the last living Hell's Angel, the hero of Roger Zelazny's 1967 dystopia / hellride novel Damnation Alley is a Badass Biker of the first degree. The only reason he undertakes to run the titular route is that the Governor has promised him a full pardon if he tried.
 * Sirius Black, from Harry Potter, although ridden by Hagrid in the bike's first appearance.
 * Loki/Gragg from Daemon.
 * In the 1632 Series, there's "Buster" Beasley. Tough, flamboyant, not too careful about staying within the law, but a reliable father. After his, his name became a slang word in much of Europe: a "buster" is a stalwart fellow who will NOT back down when confronting evil.

Live Action TV

 * Reno Raines of Renegade.
 * Eli "Weevil" Navarro of Veronica Mars
 * There's a reason they're called Kamen Riders.
 * Continuing the Terminator examples above, Cameron gets to cruise around on a motorcycle, complete with sunglasses. (Except in her case, the giant motorcycle cop glasses she wears look a little silly on Summer Glau).
 * Spike picked up a motorcycle from a Badass Biker Demon at the beginning of Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and kept it until the end of the series (though he seldom used it, it was certainly badass).
 * Numerous characters on Sons of Anarchy. Of course, it's woven into the premise.
 * Fonzie from Happy Days started out as a family-friendly version; as his role was increased, his badassitude was decreased morphed from traditional "tough guy" to near-super-powered nice guy.
 * Richard Hammond on Top Gear obviously thought he was one of these when he got to ride a Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle. Subverted all the way, as he had to scramble to get into his leathers, couldn't get the thing started without help, and spent the entire ride encountering engine trouble and rain.
 * The Stig's "Communist cousin" in a deleted scene from the Series 12 Vietnam special.
 * Kryten from Red Dwarf briefly becomes this at the end of his Season 2 debut. There is even a version of the page quote involving him and Rimmer.

Music

 * The protagonist of the classic Richard Thompson song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a Badass Biker robber with a heart of gold.
 * Rob Halford, lead singer of pioneering heavy metal band Judas Priest, is known for riding onstage on a large Harley Davidson motorcycle, usually performing a song or two whilst seated on the bike before getting off of it.
 * Taiji Sawada, ex-X, ex-Loudness, ex-Cloud Nine, now The Killing Red Addiction. Full fucking stop. Insanely talented slap bassist, and unless his injuries earlier this year finally stopped him, Badass Biker since the 1980s, also prefers a Harley-Davidson but can settle for a Honda occasionally... http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1011/526527214_21b03351b8.jpg?v=0
 * Commander of The Protomen dresses like this.
 * Jimmy, The Leader of The Pack from the song of the same name by The Shangri-Las.
 * What about the Cycle Sluts from Hell? And their hit single "Badass Mama"?
 * Koshi Inaba from B'z. Exclusively ride Harley-Davidson.

Pro Wrestling

 * When The Undertaker switched gimmicks for the first time in the WWE, he traded in his trademark Badass Longcoat for a Badass Bike to become the "American Badass".
 * Chuck Palumbo tried this as well, with less success.
 * Before him, there was the Disciples of the Apocalypse (D.O.A.).
 * Biker gimmicks were common in the territorial days. The Road Warriors and Magnum TA are couple of the more famous examples.
 * Real Life example: Jesse "The Body" Ventura rode with the San Diego chapter of the Mongols before entering the pro wrestling business.
 * Ironically, his tag team partner in the East-West Connection, Adrian Adonis, was the one who actually used a biker persona as part of his gimmick.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40,000: How much more badass do you get than screaming green maniacs on ramshackle scrap-metal motorbikes laden with giant machine guns? Oh yeah, that would be the Super Soldiers on giant armoured bikes the size of cars. Or the evil Super Soldiers on hell motorbikes covered in blades and skulls... or maybe the space-elf knights on flying bikes with laser lances... or the evil space elves that can fly their bladed flying death bikes with enough skill to cut specific arteries.
 * The Orks have legendary bikerboy Wazdakka Gutsmek, who never, ever gets off his bike except to tinker with it, and never sleeps thanks to a special brew the Mad Doks make for him. His goal is to create a network of warp gates and such so that he and his army can ride from one end of the galaxy to another. He has a chainsaw hand and equipped his bike with cannons that can stop a tank in its tracks. He once killed a Warlord Titan by driving off a cliff, punching through its void shields, crash-landing in the thing's head, and slaughtering the crew. While on fire.
 * Doomrider. A demon price/chaos lord from older editions has become a meme with 40k fans. Now mind you cocaine is bad, but when you are the demon god-thing of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll's favored demon prince biker of badassitude, cocaine is the weakest drug in your veins.
 * This is the White Scars Space Marines' entire schtick. They're pretty much Mongols on armoured bikes with machine guns.
 * About the only people without badass bikes are the Tau (who go with battlesuits for their badassery), the Tyranids (who are a Horde of Alien Locusts), and the Imperial Guard (who actually get badass riders...seriously, they have a horse-mounted cavalry unit).
 * Cadian Rough Riders ride choppers. Yes, 40k has a unit of badass normals, riding big bikes around in combat and charging people on them so they can stab them with explosive tipped lances.
 * Vampire: The Requiem gives us the Bruja bloodline, which is what happens when a Carthian Gangrel decides the leader of a biker gang would make a good instrument for the revolution. What happens is said Carthian ends up getting diablerized by his childe, who then goes on to Embrace his gang and raise hell all over the Southwest.
 * Dokurorider from the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game is a 6-Star Ritual Monster/Zombie with 1900/1850 who rides a giant motorcycle with jaws over the front wheel. He's not especially strong, but damn he looks cool. Click here for the Wiki article.

Video Games
"Louis: Come on now, let's get you up on your feet. Francis: Uuughh... heh... good thing I'm indestructible."
 * Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. The Anarchs, but nobody is as badass as Smiling Jack.
 * Full Throttle (the game, not the movie) is all about Badass Bikers and is generally the all-round reference for details of this trope.
 * Brutal Legend, by the same designer, has two teams of Badass Bikers; the Thunderhogs, boom-trikes for your bassist medics, and the Fire Barons, choppers which ignite high-proof booze in their wake to Kill It with Fire. It Makes Sense in Context, I promise!
 * Jack Cayman from MadWorld, complete with road rage level.
 * Ryu Hazuki in Shenmue. Although he doesn't actually own a bike, he fills the trope when he either borrows one from a neighbor or—more fittingly—kicks the ass of a thug and takes his.
 * Both Dante and Lady ride bikes in Devil May Cry. The former is a Badass Longcoat and the latter is a Badass Normal.
 * This is the only reason Shadow the Hedgehog got a bike in his solo game, even though he logically shouldn't need one since he has Super Speed... meaning he's faster on foot.
 * Not strictly true. The level most known for the bikes is full of a number of small floor-hugging enemies who move erratically, and driving a vehicle over them is the most effective way to avoid being damaged by them if you're new to the game, with the motorcycle being the most efficient vehicle. Still, they probably designed the level to create situations where players would feel like they had to evoke this trope.
 * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City introduced motorcycles to the setting. With superior speed, ability to maneuver through heavy traffic, fit down tight alleyways or through gaps in roadblocks, and pop a wheelie while doing so... though hitting something means flying out straight into the tarmac.
 * All the subsequent GTA games have had the bikes, but Johnny Klebitz and The Lost from Grand Theft Auto IV are definitely the definitive men to ride them. In the first DLC episode, Johnny is the protagonist, and the gang serves as support and backup.
 * Funny, this troper remembers there being motorcycles in the original Grand Theft Auto.
 * Midnight Club also features motorcycles in their games, working much like the example above; quick and compact, but one collision sends you flying. The third game, DUB Edition, has choppers along with sport bikes.
 * There are quite a few tough "Biker" and "Roughneck" trainers in some of the main series Pokémon games.
 * Wes from Pokémon Colosseum could count as well.
 * Matsu, of Live a Live fame.
 * Johnny from Chrono Trigger; even better, because he's a badass that turns into a bike.
 * Nitro Man from Mega Man 10 also falls into the Motocycle Transformer category.
 * Ride Boarski of Mega Man X 7 as well, if we're going by that logic.
 * Zero, Axl and the Memetic Badass "Green Biker Dude" get a ton of mileage out of the Ride Chasers, physically similar to bikes.
 * Jack Turner from Art of Fighting.
 * Mario Kart Wii added bikes to the series. Of course, in this case the badassness depends on the rider: ones like Baby Peach or Baby Daisy can't really pull it off, but Bowser or even Dry Bowser? Heck yeah!
 * Left 4 Dead has Francis, a heavy-set, 6'3 biker who seems to be the only survivor that actively enjoys larger fights in the game. One soundbite of his, that plays on killing a large horde without taking any damage, "I hope you're all having as much fun as I am!" says it all.
 * Another example, when being hauled to his feet by another survivor;


 * Definitely a parody: Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes rides a huge motorcycle that looks like a X-Wing.
 * Hugh from Pop'n Music.
 * Jak from Jak and Daxter regularly uses antigrav bikes. Not particularly badass in the original game (in which he was your standard-issue Farm Boy), but in Jak II Renegade...well...a Phlebotinum Rebel riding a gun-fitted antigrav motorbike stolen from a totalitarian police force is pretty badass.
 * Tekken: Paul Phoenix. Bikes around a lot, and self-proclaimed "toughest guy in the universe". Though judging by his record of fighting (beaten several Mishimas in canon!), he's... really Badass.
 * James Bond qualifies for this in Everything or Nothing, whenever he rides the Q-Bike. Especially so in the nailbiter that is the Pontchartrain Bridge chase level, where he's trying to catch up with Jaws
 * Snow, from Final Fantasy XIII. His motorcycle is made from two hot chicks, who..er...link together. Oh, and they're also gods.
 * StarCraft: Jim Raynor, who already has one or two entries in Badass, rides a souped-up Vulture hoverbike as his primary vehicle.
 * Chuck Greene of Dead Rising 2 is a motocross champ and zombie-killing extraordinaire who turns his skills fixing up his bike into the ability to MacGyver-up Crazy Awesome weaponry.
 * Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne introduces us to Hell Biker, who besides being an undead Badass Biker, is also one of the Fiends, the Incarnations of Death.
 * In the Command & Conquer series, Brotherhood bikers rides Recon bikes equipped with twin rockets launchers.

Webcomics

 * Subversion: an early sequence starting here in Wapsi Square has Monica (looking like a Goth because she's got motor oil around her eyes) looking for a phone in what turns out to be a biker bar after her car breaks down. The bikers all seem pretty badass, but . Monica gets to ride shotgun on a Harley anyway, so she's not complaining.
 * Subverted with Hades from Zeus and Sons who, despite his biker garb, badass motorcycle and dominion over the dead, is seen crying about his inability to find a girlfriend and lovingly petting his three-headed puppy.

Western Animation

 * When vehicular travel was necessary, the Teen Titans would ride in Cyborg's Cool Car... except for Robin, who would ride his own Badass Bike.
 * In keeping with his status as Robin's Shadow Archetype, Red X has one too. (Johnny Rancid would like to think of himself as this, but even control over reality using Larry's powers didn't make him badass.)
 * Biker Mice From Mars is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * Some Transformers, such as Thrust from Beast Machines, Sideways from Transformers Armada and Prowl from Transformers Animated, take this even further... they're Badass Bikes. Oil Slick has yet to appear, but he looks the part and will likely fit the role to a T.
 * He finally appeared. And for those who don't know, he transforms into what is essentially a heavily modded Dodge Tomahawk, the most badass mode of transportation ever conceived. Modded meaning he has a GOAT SKULL on his handlebars and spikes everywhere. Metal incarnate. He was so awesome that while he was originally intended to be toy-only, the creators thought he was so awesome that they put him in both the show and the tie-in comic.
 * Oh, and did we mention badass bikes Prowl and Oil Slick are also ninjas. Sideways just has to get along with being
 * Tfwiki has it that he actually is a ninja as well, though more recently he's a spaceship or a car instead of a bike.
 * On Metalocalypse, Nathan Explosion often drives a bike with four sidecars, which he calls the Murdercycle.
 * Ulrich Stern of Code Lyoko has a monowheeled, flying "Overbike" in the virtual world. Note that he's also a speedster, but the bike makes him even faster.
 * Vigilante from Justice League Unlimited.
 * Sonia the Hedgehog from Sonic Underground in a few episodes.
 * G.I. Joe: Renegades shows Zartan's origin as this.

Real Life

 * Real Life bikers can get a bad rep, especially in areas where gangs are well-known, but there are a lot of stories of how they are actually quite nice, though they often use the image to protect their own.
 * A good example are the guys of Rescue Ink, who work to help rescue abused animals while making sure that the abusers get what's coming to them. See this article for an absolutely adorable picture of them helping out puppies.
 * There are also the Patriot Guard Riders, veteran bikers who attend funerals of U.S. Army soldiers and shield the family from the evil cultists protesters of the Westboro Baptist Church.
 * Adelasian locals (Adelaide, South Australia) will know all about the Santa Bikers run. Every year all the bikies in the city buy presents for disadvantaged kids and drive down the main roads on their bikes (most decked in santa gear because that's part of the fun) to deliver them. I'm told other countries have similar runs.
 * A couple of particularly dumb robbers in Australia made an unfortunate choice of place to knock over since the club had about 50 "Blackie" bikers meeting inside, who proceeded to Zerg Rush the robbers to the point that one jumped out the window to get away. Both robbers were caught nearby.
 * Touring bikers are often an aversion. Neil Peart and Ewan McGregor are good examples of this.