We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!

Most people think that women just started riding motorcycles over the last few decades, when in fact, we’ve been riding them since they were invented. Why do you think the bicycle was so outrageously popular with women during those pre-motorcycle days? That’s because we could ride the hell away from all the roles we were supposed to be all day long and just enjoy our personal freedom without babies and husbands hanging off of our “you-know-whats.”

And women across the globe have those early pioneering women proclaiming their personal freedom to thank for the “vehicle” that set social and dress reform in motion: The MOTORCYCLE. Women are inherently both nesters and nomads because as matriarchs we have to be able to adapt quickly and make quick decisions, at the same time being masterful “Jills of all Trades” in our home lives and at work. We are nomads at heart because sometimes, we just want to depart from the demands of everyday life that leaves us little time to just be ourselves. Just be “Jills” of our own hills. Who the hell am I anyway? We will ask ourselves after having so many people and life demands consume our personhood. And that question is quickly answered when we vavavroom away from everyday roles and the stuff that demands attention….all the stuff that won’t ride away from us. Then we return refreshed, in command, the cobwebs blown out and ready to be in command of our household highways. And when I say household, I’m talking about everything in our lives, including careers.

According to the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) and JD Power and Associates brand new marketing studies we account for 10%. I think it’s way more than that because lots of females ride their significant other’s motorcycles that may be registered to another name, or they purchase used bikes, and lots of the marketing information is based upon new bike sales. I think it’s more like 30%. So do many other people. Go to a rally and check out how many gals are riding these days.

And let’s not forget that the female passengers are also motorcycle riders, however in a different location, though not commanding the controls. But they are in control in another way: they are in control of the household purse strings. They DRIVE the budget. So if “shepassenger” wants great new leathers and a brand new pillion pad to save her ass on those long rides, then what she says goes. Spoil her rotten with cool leathers and a comfy seat. I get mail from men secretly asking me how they can either: (1) convince their lovely ladies to allow them to purchase a motorcycle, and (2) convince their lovely ladies to partner up with them on their motorcycle journeys—to which I send them to www.bikerlady.com because it’s all there.

Finally, the motorcycle manufacturers of clothing, accessories, motorcycle parts and motorcycle builders are realizing the viability of our market share and presence and are diligently working to service the biker chick market. Bravo. Because we matter and the path that our pioneering ladies have charged, all the way back to the bucking bronco cowgirls who began the personal freedom movement on horseback, we have to thank for our glorious personal freedom.

I think if it weren’t for women bitching about the greasy conditions of the early motorcycle, the difficulties of functionality and demanding improvements, there may not have been so rapid an evolution of this machine. It’s funny to hear people come up to me and say all goofy, “You rode all this way on a Sportster?”, when I do my cross country excursions. Or, “Girl, can’t you handle a bigger bike?” To both of these things I answer:

Yes, I rode all this way on a Sportster. Did you know that in 1915 Effie and Avis Hotchkiss rode from Brooklyn to San Francisco on a Harley with nary a resource, not even roads?
Yes, I can handle a bigger bike, but I don’t have a bigger bike. This is my bike and she rocks. She is my soul. Would you like to give me a bigger bike? I won’t object to growing my little family of motorcycles.

Motorcycle riding for us truly is in our blood, ingrained in our spirits because this early two-wheeled motorized version of the bicycle we so treasure has delivered us from the hell of giant hats, long skirts, corsets and household imprisonment. We ladies are kindred spirits with the motorcycle machine more than a man will ever know, and we’ve come a long way, baby, to get the world to realize that we’re motorcycle mammas FOREVER.