102 | Spirit

F1_fox_ek.indd 102 10/6/10 5:00:16 PM

 As dreamers go,
no one peddles his
fantasies of
stardom quite
as passionately
as Biker Fox.

BY JESSE HICKS
PHOTOS BY VAN DIT THAVONG

Spirit | 103

F2_fox_ek.indd 103 10/12/10 11:26:35 AM

 BIKER FOX
ENTERS TO THE
THUNDER
OF APPLAUSE, a grinning, bespectacled 51-year-old in red
spandex shorts, gliding into the downtown
AMC theater on a matching red Cannondale
bike. Four hundred Tulsans cheer as he
pedals to the front of the auditorium and
dismounts with a flourish, a sheath of brown
curls waving beneath his high, bald crown.
The crowd of quasi-hipster 20-somethings
is packed in for the premiere of Biker Fox, a
low-budget documentary stitched together
by a local filmmaker from hours of raw
footage of the hometown hero. When the
applause dies down, Biker Fox does a loose-
limbed shuffle behind the Cannondale and
takes questions: Have you ever considered
a reality TV show? Where did you get your
name? How many miles do you ride per week?
104 | Spirit
F1_fox_ek.indd 104
It seems strange, all of this attention for a
guy who, when you get down to it, bikes a
lot. Many of the premiere’s attendees have
waited nearly two hours to meet him. Chil-
dren thrust their tickets forward, requesting
autographs. A minivan cruises past the the-
ater lobby and two young voices shriek, “We
love you, Biker Fox!” A man in a wheelchair
thanks him, tells him to never give up, to
keep living his dream.
Biker Fox wants you to remember him.
He’s outlandish and attention-seeking, shak-
ing his rear end in traffic and recruiting fans
on MySpace and Facebook. He’s a proud
weirdo in a place that doesn’t take kindly to
rainbow-clad oddballs. “Spandex don’t go
over very well in Oklahoma,” he says.
10/6/10 5:00:58 PM
 PHOTOGRAPHY BY TK

Pale Rider Biker

Fox, né Frank
DeLarzelere, basks
in the sun of
his backyard patio.

Spirit | 105

F1_fox_ek.indd 105 10/6/10 5:01:11 PM

 A lot of things Biker Fox does don’t go
over well in Oklahoma—and wouldn’t in
plenty of other places, either. He rides on
four-lane highways and growls at passing
drivers. He does flips over his handlebars, a
middle-aged man hanging impossibly in the
air before landing on his feet—at least some
of the time. Every night, he feeds dog food to
the pesky raccoons that congregate around
his one-story, red-brick house. (That’s how
he learned to growl.) Biker Fox raises blue-
birds. Biker Fox howls at the moon.
In another time, he’d have been called a
“local character.” But this is the age of Jersey
Shore and YouTube, of celebrity based not
on accomplishment but on—let’s call it
Kardashian will. To draw our attention, people
no longer have to do, they just have to be.
And more than anything, Biker Fox wants
to be. He’s a no-compromise dreamer whose
kookiness inspires Tulsa’s kids to be icono-
clasts and challenges adults to find their
Tour de Frank In
his green-screened
spare room, Biker
Fox roams the globe.
106 | Spirit
F1_fox_ek.indd 106
individuality. Stardom, Biker Fox hopes, is
the epilogue to this ongoing process of cast-
ing aside his inhibitions and discovering his
true self. So what if that means, on a daily
basis, squeezing into a garish wardrobe of
compression shorts, gelling his hair into a
plasticine curtain, stirring the ire of local
law enforcement, and risking the ridicule of
those who see a train wreck where others
see a stud. It’s all part of his plan. “To be a
celebrity,” Biker Fox is fond of saying, “you
have to be abnormal.”
B
I K E R F OX E AT S O N LY one meal
per day, usually around 9 p.m.
The rest of the time, he’ll scarf
light snacks or drink water, which,
he says, tricks the body into think-
ing it has been fed. Eating, Biker Fox insists,
is psychological; mind over body. Distilled to
its essence, his philosophy is that everything
is psychological. “You are what you think
you are,” he says, tucking into the seafood
special at Bonefish Grill, a chain restaurant
in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. “Think
you are that splendid person others long to
see when you come into the room and you’ll
be that person.”
It’s the night before the hometown pre-
miere of Biker Fox and a storm has just
rumbled through, the kind of biblical torrent
unique to the Southwest. At Bonefish, Biker
Fox sits in a back corner, far away from the
polo-shirt crowd that lines the bar. He uses
the waiter’s first name when ordering a root
beer. “Sure thing, Biker,” the waiter replies.
“I’ve eaten here over a hundred times,” Bik-
er Fox says in a voice flecked with a South-
western drawl. He looks spry for a man his
age, eyes sharp behind glasses, and hands
darting over his food as he speaks. “I’m 51,
but I say 52 because I’m going to have a birth-
day this year. And I’m just glad—excited—to
be 52 or 62 or 72, because of the way I feel. I
just feel like a kid and feel so good about life.
A lot of people don’t.”
He credits much of that transformation
to the invention of his alter ego. Before
Biker Fox, his friends and family knew him
only as Frank—specifically, Frank Palmer
DeLarzelere III. Born in Monroe, Louisiana,
but up-and-moved to Oklahoma at age 4,
the boyhood Frank had a lot of energy, and
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 quickly earned a reputation as a class
clown. But in more disciplined school
settings, his hubris gave way to shakes
and stutters. He couldn’t focus or fol-
low through on his thoughts.
Frank’s mother and father—a
school bus driver and photo copier
salesman, respectively—put their
son on medication: Ritalin or maybe
Librium, Biker’s not sure. It backfired.
“For a few months I sleepwalked,”
he remembers, “fell out of my bed,
knocked the lamp over. So they quit
that.” He says he still has Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And
it’s evident in his conversation, which Muscle Memory
flits sparrow-like from topic to topic, Biker’s car parts
are well organized.
his sentences launching in one direc-
tion and arriving somewhere com-
pletely different, or not arriving at all. has a salesman’s gregariousness, and then hustled used cars. He’d often
His wires become especially crossed it came in handy after he graduated— work a job for six or seven months
when talking about his past, the time barely—from high school. Following and quit. A friend dubbed him “The
before Biker Fox. in his father’s footsteps, he spent his Shortcut King,” for his itch to skirt
“I have no memory, except when it 20s peddling things: jet skis, motor- work and look for the easy out.
comes to muscle-car parts. How’s that cycles, classified ads, mortgages. He His eureka moment came at age 28,
possible?” he says, laughing. Biker Fox tried a brief stint in telemarketing, and while shilling on the used-car lot. In

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 his free time, Frank loved to tinker
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term for GTO (collectors call them
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niche market of muscle-car restor-
ers and enthusiasts who’d eagerly
pay top dollar for rare parts.
For the next decade he worked
12-hour days, buying and selling,
boxing and shipping struts, traction
bars, and the like. He developed a
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The deaths brought his own
mortality into focus. “You pray and
you talk to God and you ask him for
guidance,” he says. “One Sunday, I
got down on my hands and knees,
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F1_fox_ek.indd 109 10/1/10 5:02:41 PM

 Biker Fox has told this story dozens,
maybe hundreds of times, yet he
still recites it with the earnestness of
the newly converted. Worn smooth
by the re-telling, it has acquired the
concision of a foundational myth, the
Death of Frank Palmer DeLarzelere
III and the Birth of Biker Fox. It isn’t
meant to inspire listeners so much as
reveal the turning point that ushered
in his radical new persona.
“And from that day on I stopped
eating fried foods and at buffets,” he
concludes. “I stopped eating all the
food I could gorge.” He started biking,
the one exercise that let him feel free
of his weight, pushing himself and
his body, riding for hours through the
demoralizing Tulsa heat. And then
through the punishing winters, when
temperatures dropped to 18 degrees.
He began to recognize himself in
the mirror again. He shed 60 pounds
in the first 10 weeks of pedaling Tul-
sa’s streets. After a year, he’d lost 80.
He shaved the beard he’d been hid-
FOR MANY, THE PURSUIT OF CELEBRITY IS ABOUT
THE PROMISE OF REINVENTION, THE CERTAINTY
THAT A NOBODY CAN BECOME A SOMEBODY, THE
CONVICTION THAT FAME WILL COMPLETE US.
ing behind and grew out his hair. He
rediscovered his curls, the “lockses,”
he calls them. “I’d lost all that weight
and I felt so cute,” he says without
a clue as to how silly that sounds.
Eager to show off his radically new
42-year-old body, he went to a nearby
Glamour Shots and had photographs
taken. He posed in a tuxedo, holding
a bouquet of roses, then in a pair of
form-fitting jeans, looking coyly over
his shoulder at the camera. And, of
course, he snapped a couple of
portraits with his blue-and-yellow
Cannondale mountain bike.
Now he needed a name to com-
plete the about-face. In high school,
he remembered, some of the girls
used to call him a fox. Combining that
with his newfound love of exercise,
%80%2)%.#%
4(%*/9
he had his answer. In August 2001,
www.bikerfox.com debuted with the
declaration “Frank Paul is BikerFox.”
He put his Glamour Shots photographs
online and hoped they’d work their
magic. Biker Fox, the site announced,
“is a heterosexual male, and is look-
ing to meet a nice girl for a fulfilling
relationship.” He listed his height and
weight, hobbies (biking, swimming,
nature, radio-controlled airplanes,
and ping-pong), heart rate, and blood
pressure. He posted his phone num-
ber, calling it his “singles dating line.”
He also began uploading pho-
tographs of his various bike tricks,
including the “Fox Flip,” a headfirst
maneuver over the handlebars. He
supplemented that with a collection
of philosophical musings. “That’s the
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 meaning of life, my friends,” he’d
write, “just to be young and to be
enthusiastic about whatever oppor-
tunity arises.” Or, “The secret to
happiness is telling yourself you are
happy, even when you are not.”
Exercise transformed him; the
Internet gave him an audience. But
not everyone wanted to tune in. The
local police, for one, were far from
welcoming to Oklahoma’s most
ostentatious two-wheeler. “The cops
were hammerin’ on my ass for 8 or
9 years,” Biker Fox says. So far, his
cycling-related infractions—imped-
ing traffic, failing to signal, failing
to have a bike light (in the middle
of the afternoon)—have cost him
$3,000, and that doesn’t factor in
legal fees. In December 2008, after
being charged with resisting arrest,
he was mandated to attend anger
management classes. Lurking be-
neath the inspirational showman was,
sometimes, just a combustible crank.
His father didn’t live to see Frank
the III become Biker Fox. But his
mother, before her death a few years
ago, watched as her son traded his
suits for hoop earrings and neon-
loud biker threads. “She didn’t like
the earrings and the spandex and
everything,” he says. “But I created
this person as someone who would
have a strong opinion.”
For the most part, those elements
of the past, the life of Frank DeLar-
zelere, have faded into a gauzy dis-
tance. Biker Fox wants to talk about
the future, the realm of infinite pos-
sibility. In 2005, he legally ditched
his surname, telling the court, “The
petitioner is an entertainer and his
current name would not be suitable
or easily recognizable to further and
promote his career as an entertain-
er.” (His driver’s license now reads
“Biker Fox.”) He’s still waiting to see
what happens with that documen-
tary, which is generating some buzz
on the festival circuit. He’d like to
be on Saturday Night Live, or maybe
on a sitcom like Everybody Loves

F1_fox_ek.indd 111 10/1/10 5:03:01 PM

 Raymond. What would he do? He
doesn’t know, maybe play a Stuart
Smalley-like self-help guru. Some-
thing comedic.
“I’m kind of a, I don’t know, not
Mr. Rogers, but who’s a children’s
entertainer who’s older?” he asks,
before concluding there isn’t one.
It’s a role he could fill. A Biker
Fox action figure is possible, too.
“There’s just so much to do,” he says.
F1_fox_ek.indd 112
He takes inspiration from Jack
LaLanne, the godfather of fitness. As
for his own career stretching, he’s
undone by his diverse ambitions. He
should get to work on that reality-
show idea, he says, but he’s spent
too much time lately promoting
his movie. He talks about an avant-
garde talk show, something local,
where he’d interview celebrities
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audience: that pack of raccoons
who romp in his yard. He’d model
himself on Jay Leno, whom he
watches religiously. He’s still look-
ing for that shortcut, a way through
that ever-thinner scrim separating
him from the celebrity he craves.
“I’ve always been good at thinking
smarter, differently,” he says. “I want
so badly to be this funny, happy-go-
lucky, single guy. I think we all do.”
After dinner he pulls a blank,
oversized check from his pocket. He
scans the bill and signs his name to
the check: a looping, nearly illegible
“Biker Fox.” An autograph. He walks
through the parking lot to his ride,
a F-150 pickup with “BIKERFX” van-
ity plates. Just above the bumper, a
sticker says it again: Biker Fox.
T
H E C A N N O N DA L E bike
rolls to a stop at the end
of a long suburban street
lined with brick homes
and well-kept lawns.
Biker Fox’s house is the last one on
the right. The attached garage holds
bumpers, fenders, packing peanuts,
and carefully labeled Rubbermaid
bins filled with muscle-car taillights,
grouped by year. In the backyard
stands a homebuilt shed with a
workshop where he and his assis-
tants do car restorations. At night
the woods behind the shop alight
with dozens of glowing eyes as his
raccoons come for their food.
Inside, his home is an austere
bachelor pad. After suffering a sinus
infection, Biker Fox became con-
vinced his carpets were to blame.
He replaced them all with tile. Then
he decided to tile the walls, too. The
flat-screen TV in his living room
is tuned constantly to CNN. With
nothing to dampen the sound, the
anchors’ voices echo like bathroom
conversation. A shelf of alphabet-
ized CDs shares one wall with a vari-
ety of Biker Fox paraphernalia. One
room down the hall has a corner
painted Mountain Dew green. There
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 he films himself trying on various ventures out through his backyard free. But with a partner and a sym-
costumes and personae. He can and along sidewalks that border a pathetic ear, the ride becomes a
digitally replace the green screen development and lead into dense discourse on the freedom of biking,
with lush color images, transporting woods. There, he stops to check on the importance of hydration, and
Biker Fox anywhere in the world. Or, a few bluebird houses mounted on a the problems of modern life (not
at least he can make it look that way. chain-link fence, noting where nests enough exercise).
Biker Fox doesn’t travel paved remain and other birds have flown. Along the way he garners honks
roads anymore, doesn’t challenge He doesn’t normally have a riding and shouts of encouragement.
motorists or provoke the Tulsa PD. buddy, he says. The schedule he When he summits a tall hill and
The anger management classes keeps is too late for some friends; starts down the other side, he
have mellowed him. Instead, he others are too married to shake coasts, arms spread, legs stilled,
his face raised to the sky as his hair
THE CENTER FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE streams in the wind. Here, he says,
A NON-SURGICAL TECHNIQUE TO FIGHT AGAINST he feels like a kid again. He passes
ARTHRITIS AND SPORTS INJURIES a group of serious bikers, taking a
water break in their uniform shirts
and shorts. They cheer as he goes
by. “Yeah! Biker Fox!” Asked how he
feels about the nod, he replies, “I’m
nobody. I’m trying to be somebody.”
To be a celebrity, you have to be
abnormal. For many, the pursuit is
about the promise of reinvention,
the certainty that a nobody can
become a somebody, the conviction
that fame will complete us.
Biker Fox is trying to be some-
body. So every night he rides. He
stretches out his arms like two great
The Knee Diaries: SJ is a 60-year-old male with the chief complaint of knee pain who visited wings and is released from what-
The Center for Regenerative Medicine over a year ago. He was diagnosed with bone-on-bone ever troubles him, whatever fears
osteoarthritis of the left knee, causing much pain and discomfort; at that point he was told and hopes he cannot articulate. He
only a total knee replacement could help him. He is otherwise healthy. On exam he had comes home to an empty house,
point tenderness to the medial side of the left knee (medical lingo: inner side). An X-ray usually with the TV on, and when
showed severe arthritis of the knee (X-ray on the left). Patient started receiving treatments at
darkness falls he calls to his rac-
The Center for Regenerative Medicine. Today he is feeling better (X-ray on the right).
coons. On his patio, he arrays buck-
This is how it works: The physician introduces Cell Therapy into damaged, arthritic cells by ets of water to slake their thirst, and
means of a precise injection. This process is followed by infrared laser as well as several other scatters their food; sometimes he
modalities, including Collateral Artery Flow Exercises (C.A.F.E.), in order to accelerate the feeds them by hand. Then he retires
process. Depending on tissue damage, severity of the condition and the size of the joint that to his brown recliner and watches
needs to be injected, people usually need a series of 1 to 6 treatments to improve. There is Jay Leno toss jokes to the audience,
usually no downtime, and people can go back to their usual activities or work immediately.
their laughter echoing off the tiled
The treatments can help most musculoskeletal problems such as low back pain, neck pain,
knee pain, shoulder pain, whiplash, sciatica, tendinitis, sprain, strains, torn ligaments and walls of his home. Directly outside,
cartilage damage. his would-be audience scratches
and growls. Still farther away, as
Located in Miami Beach, Florida, The Center for Regenerative Medicine includes a team a neighborhood kid is being laid
of professionals that are dedicated to improve your quality of life, paving the way to down to sleep, he might be saying,
enhance the science of non-surgical orthopedic medicine. World champions, sports “Hey, I saw Biker Fox today!”
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And inside, the credits roll on
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Using the facility to improve their condition, thousands of successful cases have been another Biker Fox day.
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Jesse Hicks is a freelance writer based in
For more information and to read more on “The Knee Diaries”, please visit State College, Pennsylvania.
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F1_fox_ek.indd 114 10/1/10 5:03:18 PM