Calling All Women Riders! (And travel update…)

Don’t panic; there are going to be pretty pictures and whatnot, but I want to get the critical stuff out of the way before y’all wander off. For over a year now I have been working together with an amazing group of ladies at the Women’s Coalition of Motorcyclists to craft a series of surveys. Our goal is an ambitious one: To be the first independent entity to gather large-scale, in-depth data on the experiences of women in the powersports world. The number of females riders has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade, but even beyond our direct involvement as riders, women have a tremendous amount of control over the motorcycle purchases made by other members of their households. WE HAVE THE POWER! What we don’t have is cohesive representation within the powersports industry as a whole.

This is where you come in. We need to know what you think! It doesn’t matter if you ride, rode, or aspire to ride. Whether you’re happiest behind the bars or behind someone else. Young or old, newbie or pioneer. Two wheels or three, off-road or street, tiny scooter or huge cruiser. All of your experiences matter! And while social media has been instrumental in the impressive response to our first survey (Motorcycle Training), the critical part here is to get all of our surveys into the hands of ladies beyond the reach of social media. We’re focusing on experiences in the United States on this round of surveys, but may expand our scope in future endeavors. So here’s how you can help: if you are a woman and/or know any women who are moto-inclined, please click on the link to take the survey. Share it far and wide. Take the link to your riding clubs, pin it up on the bulletin board at your favorite shops, share it on your social media and with your favorite online groups. We don’t just need our friends to respond, we need riders of every stripe to respond! Thank you for your help – together we will magnify our voices and make our experiences count!

Survey One: Motorcycle Training

Survey Two: Motorcycle Design

Survey Three: Motorcycle Gear and Apparel (coming soon!)

Survey Four: Motorcycle Dealership Operations (coming soon!)

What else have we been doing, aside from aspiring to change the face of the powersports industry? Montessa and I are still happily hanging out in Mexico. If you make a habit of reading French sidecar magazines, you may have recognized December’s cover as a photo I took last year in Real de Catorce. Six years old and Monty is already an international cover girl! And let me tell you, she is QUITE pleased about that! They also did a great multi-page article on some of her sidecar adventures, so check it out if you get the opportunity.

Beyond that, we’re pretty much doing what the whole world is doing: Juggling distance learning classes, getting in some little excursions when and where it’s safe to do so, and biding our time until things reach some semblance of normalcy. Speaking of distance learning classes, I’m going to keep this one short and sweet so I can hop on Zoom for another 30 minutes of assuring kindergarteners that we’ve all seen their dog/cat/sister/stuffed anchovy/loose tooth and begging for maybe just four or five minutes of focus so we can learn something. It’s gonna be great. And with that lazy outro, I’ll leave you with those pretty pictures I promised, so long and you SPREAD THE WORD about our survey project! Muchas gracias!

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