What are little boys made of? Frog and snails, and puppy dogs’ tails. That’s what little boys are made of. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice, and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of.
I grew up listening to that nursery rhyme that my mom would recite to my brothers and me at bedtime in the 1970’s. Although my mom read about “sugar and spice and everything nice,” she was also proficient on her 1972 powder blue BMW R60/5. In fact, she rode bikes before she even owned a car as her main source of transportation. While they served in the US Navy, my parents met in a motorcycle club, married and the rest is history. But it wasn’t JUST my mom. My grandmother also rode motorcycles her entire life. I remember sitting on that big tank as a five year old riding through those Indiana farming fields, smelling the sweet corn and wanting to go faster.
I was destined to ride. It’s in my DNA. Although I didn’t start riding until I was in my 30’s, I twisted the throttle 10 years ago and have never looked back. My husband and I have gone through more bikes than I can count. We currently own 12, our children ride and I have recruited many women into the hobby. What I wouldn't give to have my mom’s bike and her old helmet. The nostalgia of that runs deep.
Isn’t that how it starts? I have watched the ebb and flow of the industry and have heard countless stories of the “how” and “why” we started riding. It typically begins as a child, a father and son riding together, perhaps through a farm or trails on a dirt bike that eventually translates to the road as an adult to bigger, better adventures. We carry our traditions and desires and the moments of utopia we experience as children with our parents or favorite caretakers as adults. And if this is the truth, then it makes sense why the industry is 80% male and 20% female.
I have three sons and have been on a number of online “mom” forums. It is typical to see moms post adorable pictures of Junior on the fire truck or in dance class, but in the 11 years of my parenthood experience, I have been the only mother who have ever posted photos of my kids in their new peewee gear or on their new dirt bikes. Yet, it's common for a dad to boast loudly about his son’s new dirt bike on other social media forums and show pictures of them riding together.
I love to ride. It's a lifestyle for my family and me. We live, eat, sleep, breathe motorcycles and, over the years, I have noticed a void of female community in the culture of riding. Oftentimes, when I do get to know women in the industry, they are passengers not single participants. Because of this, in 2017 I started a group called “Women’s Off-Road Moto LLC”(WOMO). I desperately wanted to share my adventures with other women and experience that community in deep, raw female friendships within the language of motorcycles. And it exploded! I taught women how to ride on my motorcycles and, within a couple years, we now have 200 women of all different levels of experience learning to ride, finding others in the group to ride with, and speaking the same language of motorcycling.
WOMO participates in many rallies and rides, however, a very unique event that WOMO has been able to attend is an all-women's faith-based camp twice a year. We bring small, automatic dirt bikes and give women, who never dreamed of riding independently on a motorcycle, a 2 ½ minute riding experience on a small dirt track. I have watched women wait in line with their friends for over three hours in the hot sun for this opportunity. Some are shaking when they get on the bike and many jump up and down afterwards in celebration of their bravery to step into such an adventure. They are left wanting more. What are the next steps? How do I learn how to ride? Where do I buy a bike? What kind of bike should I buy? Is there community to learn with? And on and on the questions go.
Many women have not had the luxury of growing up, sitting around with other gearheads discussing carburetors and fork seals. They are starting from scratch at age 30, 40, and 50 in a culture and language they are not familiar with. And, although arguably our biggest advocates as female moto enthusiasts are men, it’s incredibly uncomfortable to be the lowest common denominator, feeling lost in conversation, falling every five minutes on the trail and slowing the group down to frustration as we learn to ride.
If the industry wants to make a cultural shift to get women into riding, they need to think like women. Women typically gravitate toward relationship, community and experience. If a new, uncomfortable adventure is combined with an emotionally “safe” environment with a woman and her three best, supportive girlfriends cheering her on, she will be more likely to take that brave step in community as opposed to doing it independently.
Asking women who would never consider getting on a motorcycle or even consider joining this male-dominated, foreign moto culture by herself is typically not going to be successful. Cultivating a safe environment with other women who all speak Venutian, where there is a women's event, to have this new, exciting, and scary adventure together, promotes a higher likelihood of success. So many women in WOMO have only been riding for about a year or two and they have already found sincere community with each other. And within this group, they have ventured out to understand and integrate themselves in the moto culture. They attend rallies regularly, are growing their fleets of bikes and gear and are teaching their daughters how to ride. 
This is how you change a culture now and generationally.
My husband and I are hopeful to start a business, alongside empowering sponsors and investors, to take this gig on the road. Our hope is to find female-dominated events that would invite this experience for women. We would show them appropriate riding gear, put them on small, manageable automatic bikes and send them on a novice trail that will leave them wanting more. Even if it only attracts 5-10% of those that go through the experience into the moto community, the domino effect is great. Women like to talk about what they like and it doesn’t take long before they are taking their friends with them on their adventures, their social media news feeds are filled with stories of their moto adventures, or they’re creating pages and blogs JUST to talk about their bikes and trail rides.
Changing an industry happens over generations. So when we read sweet nursery rhymes about the sugar and spice of womanhood, it needs to include the sweet air of riding through corn fields with our moms or the spice of getting dirty with her on a gnarly trail. I will own the BMW my mom had someday and once again ride through the corn fields in Indiana. In the end, it will only continue to fuel my desire to allow other females to experience the same. That is why we ride. That is what little girls are made of.
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