The Women's Guide to Motorcycling. Lynda Lahman
7-hp Raleigh with a sidecar, took off in one direction while Cottle, on a 2¾-hp Raleigh Solo, took off at the same time in the opposite direction. The company took bets as to where they’d meet, and between 60,000 and 70,000 people participated, each one hoping to win a motorcycle for guessing the correct location. Cottle was quoted as saying, “Completed 3,404 miles around the coast of Great Britain … and have shown that what man has done woman can do … I hope that I have proven, that with a Raleigh, touring a motor-cycle [sic] is a woman’s pastime, and I hope the women of Britain will follow my example,” in the Western Daily Press on June 12, 1924.
Women were banned from road racing in Britain in 1925, but that didn’t stop them from competing in races. Along with Louise Maclean and Edyth Foley, Cottle went on to compete in the International Six Days Trials, an off-road endurance event started in Britain in 1913; she finished in the Silver Vase category in 1926 and bested all others, including the men’s teams, to win the top honors in 1927.
Other than Raleigh in England, Harley-Davidson in the United States was one of the few manufacturers to encourage women to ride. Always on the lookout for new sales opportunities, dealers were reminded to look at their wives and daughters as potential customers. Vivian Bales, riding from Georgia to Milwaukee and back in 1929, a distance of 5,000 miles, began billing herself, to the delight of the company, as “The Enthusiast Girl” after photos of her appeared in the Harley-Davidson Enthusiast magazine.
A vintage Triumph Coventry motorcycle.
Theresa Wallach, born and raised near the English factories of Norton, BSA, and Triumph motorcycles, learned to ride from her many friends who worked at the plants. Refused membership in a local riding club due to her sex, she proved her racing skills by competing in, and winning, numerous events. She and another accomplished woman motorcyclist, Florence Blenkiron, set off in 1935 to ride from London to Cape Town, South Africa, on a 650cc Panther, complete with a sidecar and towing a utility trailer. No one, male or female, had attempted such a journey. Taking turns driving, often pushing or dragging the bike along on foot when it became stuck, they traveled across the Sahara Desert, following rock outcroppings and guideposts set up for caravans because building roads was impossible in the drifting sands. Fighting heat, torrential rains, mechanical breakdowns, dealings with the French Foreign Legion, and wild animals, they miraculously arrived safely after seven months of travel. Wallach chronicled their journey in the book The Rugged Road, which is still available today. While Blenkiron disappeared into oblivion following her return to England, Wallach continued to make history, becoming the first woman to win the Brooklands Gold Star in 1939 for setting a world record by topping 100 miles per hour on a borrowed single-cylinder Norton 350cc.
A vintage British Army motorcycle made by Royal Enfield.
It wasn’t until World War II that women were allowed to join the ranks of dispatch riders, and Wallach signed up, working with the British Army as both a motorcycle mechanic and dispatch rider. Always dreaming of a trip to America, following the war, she spent two and a half years traversing the country, camping and working odd jobs to fund her travels. She fell in love with the United States and emigrated, settling first in Chicago, where she opened a dealership called Imported Motorcycles, Inc., which specialized in selling and servicing British motorcycles. She noticed the inexperience of many new riders, so she began teaching them basic riding techniques. Realizing the need for better instruction, she sold her dealership and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where she launched the Easy Riding Academy. In 1970, her book, Easy Motorcycle Riding, was published.
Born to a motorcycling family in Australia in 1912, Dot Robinson’s first ride was in a sidecar, when her father drove her mother to the hospital for her delivery. Her exposure to bikes continued when the family moved to the United States when she was still a child. Growing up in her father’s motorcycle dealership, she learned to ride at a young age and was competing in endurance races during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s despite pressure from others to stop. She won her first trophy in 1930 in the Flint 100, and she went on to enter the Jack Pine Enduro in 1934, continuing to enter this competition in subsequent years. An off-road competition, the Jack Pine sent riders through every type of terrain imaginable while requiring them to meet certain time limitations at checkpoints. It was originally a three-day 800 miler but was reduced to two days and 500 miles. In its early years, the Jack Pine Enduro was as popular as the prestigious Daytona 200 and Laconia motorcycle races. Robinson was the first woman to win this prestigious race, doing so in 1940 in the sidecar division, and she repeated her accomplishment in 1946. Often called the “First Lady of Motorcycling,” Robinson’s dedication to endurance riding opened the doors for many of the women who followed.
Following in the footsteps of female pioneers, women riders continue to do remarkable things.
Robinson, along with her friend Linda Dugeau, a touring motorcyclist who often appeared in the pages of Motorcyclist magazine, wanted to create a network of riders by forming an organization devoted exclusively to women. The two began a letter-writing campaign in 1938, reaching out to dealerships, American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) members, and fellow riders, hoping to find like-minded enthusiasts. It took three years to round up enough interest to start, and Motor Maids was chartered through the AMA in 1941. It was the first motorcycling organization for women in the United States.
Louise Scherbyn spent her early years riding both as pillion, or passenger, and in a sidecar until 1932, when her husband encouraged her to teach herself to ride. Initially concerned with her reputation, especially the impact on her job at Kodak, she soon shed her reluctance and began traveling extensively throughout the United States and Canada. Scherbyn went on to become a full-time writer and assistant editor for Motorcycle magazine, where she used her talent to continue breaking stereotypes, promoting and encouraging the acceptance of women riders in a field dominated by men.
Becoming active in motorcycling clubs, Scherbyn corresponded with women across the globe. It was through these connections that she formed the idea of creating the Women’s International Motorcycle Association (WIMA), which was born in the early 1950s, with Theresa Wallach as its first vice president. Enlisting the support of other notable women riders, including Anke-Eve Goldman and Ellen Pfeiffer in Germany, Agnes Acker in France, Juliette Steiner in Switzerland, Lydia Abrahamova in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), and Hazel Mayes in Australia, WIMA expanded beyond the United States to Europe and then throughout the world.
Adding to the challenge of gender barriers, Bessie Stringfield faced racial barriers as well when she began riding at the age of sixteen. A petite African American woman, she pursued her passion for motorcycling; at age nineteen, she started tossing pennies on a map to determine where to head on her next trip. Encountering the rampant racism of her time, she was once run off the road by a white man in a pick-up truck but refused to be discouraged, relying on her strong faith as her companion. Working as a dispatch rider during World War II, the only woman in her unit, she carried documents between bases throughout the United States. She completed eight solo cross-country trips before settling down in Miami, Florida, in the 1950s. She became a licensed practical nurse and continued riding—competing in hill climbs, performing motorcycle stunts in carnival shows, and founding the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club. Known as the “Motorcycle Queen of Miami,” Stringfield was honored with the American Motorcycle Association’s creation of the Bessie Stringfield Award in 2000, recognizing “women who have been instrumental in showing women they can be active participants in the world of motorcycling.”
The popularity of motorcycling among women began to increase following World War II, coinciding with their changing roles at home and in the workforce. Margaret Wilson was one of the role models for these new times. She and her husband, Mike, were