While studying at the University of Chicago, Danny Lyon found a mentor in Hugh Edwards, then curator of prints and drawings at The Art Institute of Chicago. This growing friendship gave Lyon the courage to show Edwards some of his earliest photographs taken of motorcyclists he had met through ‘scrambles’, a popular dirt track race. Seeing the work for the first time, Edwards noted that this experience was ‘…the most stimulating event for many days…’ and immediately saw potential in Lyon.

The bikers Lyon met at the ‘scrambles’ became not only his subject matter, but also a group of close friends. This bond continued to grow, resulting in Lyon joining a motorcycle crew called Outlaws. To Lyon, these motorcyclists were the closest thing left to the cowboys of the wild west. By 1966, Lyon hosted his first exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago and included a number of photographs from his Bikerider series.