More than Just Sugar and Spice
By: Jeanette Tran Seeing as to how this is my first contribution to SMR, I thought it would be fitting to give a short introduction for myself and point out a few obvious things. Yes, I am a girl. And yes, I ride motorcycles. After riding for a few years now, it still never ceases to amaze me the responses that I get when people see me with my motorcycle. Just the other day I was walking up to my bike in the parking lot, and a guy walks up to me and asks me, "You're a girl right?!" "Yes." "And you ride that?!" I gave him a polite smile and respond yes, while asking myself, 'Did he seriously just ask me that question?' Just so you guys know, it is already pretty weird for a girl to be approached in the middle of a parking lot while she is walking alone, and even more weird when you try to question her gender. What made the whole situation even more entertaining was when I found out that he rides a motorcycle too. A response like that I can understand if it was from a complete stranger, but come on now guys, if you are part of the motorcycling community please give a little bit more respect to the female riders and do not act so surprised when you see us. It is true that female riders are few and far between in this male dominate sport, but that does not mean we are on the brink of extinction. In fact, we are the exact opposite. The number of female riders is growing in numbers every year. When I started riding, I noticed maybe a jacket or helmet here and there geared towards the female rider, which of course was always in shades of pink or baby blue... Not so long ago, most of the jackets for women seemed to be geared towards a pillion rider rather than the actual rider herself because the jackets never seemed to provide adequate armor for an everyday rider to use. Jackets were so hard to come by then, so can you imagine how impossible it was in order for a girl to get herself a decent leather suit? A 1-piece leather race suit for the ladies did not even exist (unless they were custom made) until about 2 years ago when Spidi released their Lizard Pro suit. Today, I can walk into any motorcycle retail store and have the luxury of picking amongst a variety of different suit brands. Not to mention, these are all well-known brands such as Spidi, Alpinestars, Hein Gericke, and Teknic to name the few. The suits also come in a variety of colors now, and not just your typical pink and baby blue. Of course, it is still difficult to actually find a store that has any of these suits in stock to try on, but hey, Rome was not built in 1 day right? All in all, I guess it is good to know that females are starting to make an image for themselves throughout the motorcycling community and are no longer just sexy hot models that stand next to the bikes, but are actually the ones who ride the bikes as well. So whether male or female, we all start riding for different reasons, but we all pretty much continue riding for the same reason. Pure enjoyment! Am I right? So let us just put all of this 'Oh my gosh it's a girl riding a motorcycle' aside and let's just go ride! Published: Dec 23, 2008 Leave Comments |
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