Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington

The Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington (POB) was a motorcycle club that, in 1947, along with the Boozefighters and the Market Street Commandos, participated in the highly-publicized Hollister incident (later immortalized on film as The Wild One).

After the Hollister incident, a prominent Pissed Off Bastard named Otto Friedli (28 Jun 1931 - 17 Mar 2008) split with the club and formed his own group on March 17, 1948 in Fontana, just west of San Bernardino. He called it the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. In 1954 Otto's new club merged with the Market Street Commandos to become the Hells Angels San Francisco Chapter.

Official History

The POB were the original outlaw motorcycle and car club. A few miles south of San Bernardino, California, in the small town of Bloomington in 1945, a particular group of veterans and POBOB founder Otto Friedli who was too young to have served in the war, found civilian life to be too slow and set out to get more thrills by riding motorcycles and hot rod cars. Then on July 4, 1947, in Hollister, California where the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) sanctioned the Gypsy Tour Run, the Boozefighters, POBOBs (Pissed Off Bastards Of Bloomington) and the Market Street Commandos took over the town for nearly three days. The POBOB's played an integral role in the Hollister incident, on which the movie "The Wild One" was based, starring Marlon Brando.

Two months later, the same clubs went to Riverside, California for the Labor Day weekend, another AMA sanctioned event. The same thing happened again as it did in Hollister. Over four thousand people, bikers and citizens, took over the town's main street. A Riverside sheriff, Carl Rayburn, blamed a bunch of punk kids for disrupting his town, saying "They're rebels, they're outlaws." So from an angry lawman's mouth, the Outlaw Motorcyclists were born.

Then six months later Otto Friedli and some disgruntled POBOBs formed the first Hells Angels charter on March 17, 1948, in San Bernardino, California, also known as "Berdoo." That same year, the AMA made a statement that ninety-nine percent of the motorcyclists are good people enjoying a clean sport and it's the one percent that are anti-social barbarians. The term "One Percenters" is born.

Three years later the P.O.B.O.B.'s came back as a motorcycle club (minus the car club), in the city of Fontana known as Felony Flats. The club still exists today with a group of members known as the Pissed Off Bastards of Berdoo, throughout Southern California and Northern Nevada.

External links

• Pissed Off Bastards of Berdoo, Southern California – Official website