The Women's Guide to Motorcycling. Lynda Lahman
filled by these women. Harley-Davidson reports that half of all of their new-motorcycle sales are to females. Clearly, this is a trend that shows no signs of slowing.
Female riders report greater satisfaction in all areas of their lives, including greater self-confidence and increased feelings of sex appeal, than their nonriding peers, according to a 2013 study commissioned by Harley-Davidson. Almost 75 percent of the women interviewed believe that their lives have improved since they started riding. The female riders I meet support these findings: riding a motorcycle is empowering and social, and it fulfills a desire to challenge themselves. They feel competent, sexy, and engaged, and—to top it off—it’s just downright fun.
The motorcycle market has finally started to take notice of the growing female presence. It’s becoming easier to find a wider variety of bikes to fit smaller frames, protective gear designed to fit the female shape, and female-exclusive groups offering support and mentoring. When I first started riding, there were few options for gear, such as pants or jackets, tailored to the female figure, and not many motorcycles, other than cruiser styles or sport bikes, had a low enough seat to fit someone of a smaller stature. Manufacturers are reaching out to this new ridership, launching campaigns to draw women to their brand and hoping to establish lifetime loyalties.
Royal Enfield built its first bike in 1901. Pictured is a 1939 Royal Enfield Bullet 500cc.
Women and Motorcycling: A Brief History
There is no single moment when the motorcycle was invented; instead, its early evolution consists of various adaptations of bicycles and power until the engines outgrew the frames of the small bikes. In the early 1900s, manufacturers such as Royal Enfield, Norton, Indian, Triumph, and Harley-Davidson were producing motorcycles for the public. World War I brought an increase to the market because bikes enabled better communications to the front lines, replacing the more vulnerable and expensive-to-maintain horses.
While men have dominated the field for years, there was a brief time in the early days of the sport when women and men alike could be found riding—before it was no longer considered feminine to hop on a bike. In the early days, when motorcycles were little more than bicycles with motors attached, they were far more affordable for the average driver than cars and were initially purchased as inexpensive forms of transportation. Families purchased bikes with sidecars, and children sat alongside their parents as they rode around town. Hill racing and motorcycle polo became favorite activities. However, the price of automobiles dropped significantly, making cars—which were an even more convenient form of transportation in a wider variety of conditions—available to the average driver. Motorcycles were no longer considered proper or ladylike, and women were soon discouraged, and often banned, from riding.
Despite the changing perception that motorcycling was now a sport primarily for men, a small number of women continued to ride. Defying social norms and often their own families, these women were the early pioneers of motorcycling, breaking down barriers and setting records while pursuing their passion. There are undoubtedly many unsung heroes among their number, but a few stand out in the history of women and riding.
One of the first women on record, Clara Wagner, who rode a 4-horsepower (hp) motorcycle, competed in and won a 365-mile endurance race from Chicago to Indianapolis in 1910, only to be denied her trophy. The reason? She was ruled “an unofficial entrant” due to being female.
Della Crewe, navigating her Harley-Davidson with a sidecar nicknamed “The Gray Fellow” that carried her dog, Trouble, left Waco, Texas, in June of 1914 for a grand tour. Arriving in New York City in December 1914, reportedly wearing four coats, four pairs of stockings, and heavy sheepskin shoes, Crewe eventually covered more than 11,000 miles through North and South America before fading into obscurity.
The first women known publicly to cross the United States on a motorcycle were the mother–daughter duo of twenty-six-year-old Effie Hotchkiss and her fifty-six-year-old mother, Avis. Bored with her job, eager for a chance to see the country, and fascinated by two-wheeled motorized machines, Effie was often described as a tomboy and a speed demon. Avis’s motivation was somewhat different from her daughter’s: she went along more to keep Effie out of trouble than out of any desire to travel. Efforts to discourage their journey with tales of potential dangers along the way only further piqued Effie’s interest and determination. Riding a three-speed V-twin Harley-Davidson with a sidecar, which, in the words of Effie, was best suited “for myself, and the sidecar for my mother and the luggage,” the women left Brooklyn, New York, on May 2, 1915. Forty years before the interstate highway system was even signed into law, they faced “bad roads, heat, cold, rain, floods, and all such things with a shrug of their shoulders” as described in the September 1915 issue of Harley-Davidson Dealer magazine. Tracing a route that took them from upstate New York through Chicago, south to St. Louis, east through Kansas and Colorado, south again to Santa Fe, and then on to Arizona, they reached Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean in August. Returning home, they took a more northerly route, passing through San Francisco, Reno, Salt Lake City, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa before stopping in Milwaukee for a tour of the Harley-Davidson factory. They arrived safely back in Brooklyn in October of the same year. Effie’s motorcycling days soon came to an end when she married a widower she had met along her ride and relocated with her mother to pursue a different sort of adventure in rural Oregon.
A Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic with sidecar on display at an “oldtimers’ show” in Germany.
The following year, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, American sisters in their twenties who had hoped to be allowed to become military dispatch riders during World War I, set off on a cross-country trek to demonstrate their skills and determination. Riding separate Indian Power Plus motorcycles and believing, as Augusta stated, “women can if they will,” they started their ride in Sheepshead Bay, New York, on July 2, 1916. Traversing the United States, they were arrested in a small town west of Chicago—not for speeding, but for wearing men’s clothes. Arguing that their leather apparel was more appropriate for motorcycling than were dresses, they were able to convince the authorities to let them proceed.
Continuing on, they became the first women to summit Pike’s Peak in Colorado, an elevation of 14,109 feet up a narrow, dangerous dirt road. Battling fatigue, heat, poor roads, and numerous falls, they arrived in Los Angeles on September 8. To ensure that they were credited for traversing the entire country, they rode to Tijuana, Mexico, before returning home. Articles written about their adventure eloquently described their motorcycles but dismissed the sisters’ efforts as merely a vacation. Despite their accomplishment of being the first women to complete a transcontinental journey, proving that they were equal to their male counterparts, their applications to become dispatch riders were rejected. However, demonstrating their pioneering spirit in the face of obstacles, Adeline went on to earn a law degree from New York University while Augusta learned to fly, becoming a pilot in the 99s, a group for women flyers founded in 1929 by Amelia Earhart.
Crystal Palace Park in London was a well known motorcycle-racing venue in pre-World War II days.
An Irish motorcyclist, Fay Taylour, bought a helmet and took up riding so that she “could mingle with the English boys at the next Crystal Palace practice session.” The Palace was one of the first dirt-track racing facilities built in England after the sport was introduced from Australia. Nicknamed “Flying Fay,” she began competing in grass-track racing and motorcycle trials as well as the World Speedway events in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Two of Taylour’s most celebrated contemporaries were Dot Dawson and Marjorie Cottle. Cottle, one of the most well-known motorcyclists of her time, is perhaps best remembered for riding around the coast of mainland Britain in 1924 as part of an advertising stunt staged by the Raleigh company to promote the suitability of riding