The Rise of Women's Motorcycle Riding Groups

As I approached my two-year anniversary of learning how to ride I began thinking of all of the amazing adventures I’ve been fortunate enough to go on. I’m a bit of a lone wolf—always have been. I love to go explore on my own: 2,800 miles to Yellowstone and back, 3,200 miles around Canada, and numerous day trips around the magnificent Pacific Northwest that allowed me to rack up nearly 15,000 miles over those 24 months.

I met motorcyclists who have become some of my closest friends. It may have been circumstantial, but I had not met any women riders yet. When I was on my trip to Canada, I was messaging with Alicia Elfving (a.k.a. Moto Lady) about how I didn't have any women friends who rode. She introduced me to a few women in Washington, and we took a trip to Vancouver to attend the Women's Motorcycle Exhibit by the talented Lanakila MacNaughton. On the way home the topic of the lack of women's-moto community in Seattle came back up. There was about an hour's worth of rushed, excited chatter about changing that situation and how we could do it. Together, four of us founded Seattle's Rainier Ravens, a collective of women who embrace the motorcycling culture in the PNW. Our goal is to make connections, build community, ride, wrench, and participate in moto events.

I admit that I was a little nervous about how it would be connecting with a bunch of women in my beloved space of motorcycling. Years of observing catty behavior left me slightly hesitant, but the formation of the Rainier Ravens has completely obliterated my hesitations to share my passion with other women. In fact, I can say I’ve never spent more time around women who are so uplifting and supportive of one another. The ladies have helped one another buy new bikes, troubleshoot broken bikes, learn new riding skills (hello, glorious dirt biking!), and support dropped bikes and get offs. One of my best friends, who I met through the Ravens, was hit by an uninsured motorist in Portland. Her full-face helmet undoubtedly saved her life, and we raised $24,000 to help her with medical bills and to support her while she recovered. I was beyond moved by the level of community I saw throughout that experience—and not just here but across the country!

The number of women's motorcycle riding groups is growing, and social media is helping connect us all. Attending events such as See See Motorcycles' The One Show in Portland, we met women from The Headlights (Eugene, Oregon), East Side Moto Babes (Los Angeles), and the Scarlet Headers (Denver). I made new friends I couldn't be happier to have. I've been able to meet up with Leticia Cline (of The Iron Lilies, Orlando, Florida) in Austin for MotoGP in April. One of the women from Belles on Bikes (Fullerton, California) was visiting Seattle, and we met up with her at our main stomping ground, The Fuse Box. We hosted a ladies-only summer campout in Port Townsend, Washington, where I got to experience sweeping a group of 50 women on motorcycles—an experience that gave me goose bumps and brought tears to my eyes.

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Unifying a badass group of diverse lady riders in the woods is the ultimate testament to the community being built here, and it was an incredible experience, to say the least! There is a constant level of excitement within and between the women riding groups, not competition or drama, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have friends like this in my life. Creating a group made it possible for me. Joining one can do the same for you.