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There are three main international "outlaw" clubs: Hells Angels, the Outlaws and the Bandidos. There are many other lesser-known clubs, from the Bandits, Mongols and Satan's Slaves to the Outcasts and the Pagans, but the two main rivals are Hells Angels and the Outlaws.

The Outlaws were founded in McCook on Route 66 in Illinois in 1935, and have been expanding ever since. Their website promises "Coming soon to a city near you" and announced recent new chapters in Russia, Japan and the Philippines. A squadron of daredevil fighter pilots in the first world war is credited with coining the name of the Hells Angels but the first club of that name was formed in 1948 by a breakaway group of the Pissed Off Bastards in Berdoo, San Bernadino, California. The main clubs have chapters – which have to be officially recognised as affiliated – in the UK. Hells Angels opened their first chapter in London in 1969 while the Outlaws' first British chapters – 14 of them in England and Wales – were affiliated in 2000.

There are four stages of bikerdom: the supporter, the "hangaround," the probationer/prospect/probate and the "fully patched" member who requires a 100% vote of the chapter. Clubs have a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and sergeant-at-arms who is responsible for discipline and weapons. Some of the posts are jointly held as chapters can by small: the entire south Warwickshire chapter was alleged to have been involved in the death of Tobin. The police believe that some clubs may require a would-be member to commit an act of violence so as to exclude any would-be undercover officer who would not be authorised by his police force to break the law.

Tobin's death was an isolated event but there have been precedents. 

In 2001, a Hells Angel was shot in the leg with a shotgun on the M40 but survived. No one was arrested and neither club cooperated with the police investigation. In 2006, there was a murder of an Outlaw in Germany. There was a clash between the two clubs in Germany in March this year.

Hells Angels have been on the other end of a bikers' feud. In January 1998, about 30 of them armed with an axe, knives, metal bars and baseball bats gathered outside the Rockers Reunion in Battersea, south London. By the end of the evening, two members of the rival Outcasts, Malcolm 'the Terminator' St Clair and Keith 'Flipper' Armstrong, were dead. Witnesses said the killings were carried out in silence and appeared "ritualistic". 

Only one man, Ron "Gut" Wait, was convicted for the attack. He was jailed for 15 years for conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm and died in jail of a heart attack in 2001.