Promoting a positive image to the public of women on motorcycles, uniting women motorcyclists with friends of common interests, providing training and tips on safe motorcycle riding and basic motorcycle maintenance.
All women motorcycle riders. If you would like to find a Women in the Wind chapter near you, please go to the National WITW website at: http://www.womeninthewind.org/Membership/index.html
Groovy Rally Tunes
Easy Rider, Ghost Rider, Wild Hogs, Kamikaze Grils, Girl on a Motorcycle, Laura Croft Tomb Raider, Biker Boyz, Matrix Reloaded, UltraViolet, Torque, Ultraviolet, Kill Bill Vol. I, Tomorrow Never Dies, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Grind House: Planet Terror
O.C.C., Biker Build Off, LA Ink, Full Throttle
PlanetBiker, Shootin' the Breeze
Women and the Motorcycle Hall of Fame – A Selection www.motorcyclemuseum.org/index.asp
Adeline and Augusta VanBuren – Inducted 2002 – These “society girls†sisters rode coast to coast on Indian Power Plus motorcycles From July 4 to September 8, 1916, while becoming the first women to ride motorized vehicles to the summit of Pikes Peak along the way. They were arrested several times along the way for wearing men’s clothes (leathers). There is little evidence they continued riding although Augusta eventually became a pilot and flew with the 99s, a women’s flying group founded by Amelia Earhart.
Dot Robinson – Inducted 1998 – Dot Robinson was the first woman to win in an AMA national competition in 1940. At Laconia national in 1940, Robinson was approached by Linda Dugeau about starting a women’s riding organization and within a year the Motor Maids was established. Robinson began wearing her famous pink riding outfits in the 1950s. Robinson figured that she had totaled a million and a half miles in her years of riding.
Linda Dugeau – Inducted 2004 – Dugeau founded the Motor Maids, the oldest motorcycling organization for women in North America. In the 1930s, Dugeau began corresponding with female riders she read about in magazines, began writing dealerships, AMA clubs and fellow writers to see if there was interest in forming a women’s motorcycling organization. It took 3 years to locate 50 female riders, the Motor Maids were founded with 51 members in 1940 and were chartered by the AMA the following year. The Motor Maids began participating in AMA events and were known for their distinctive riding uniforms that always featured white gloves. Dugeau once covered 3500 miles in two weeks.
Bessie Stringfield – Inducted 2002 – Stringfield said, “When I was in high school I wanted a motorcycle and even though good girls didn’t ride motorcycles, I got one.†It was an Indian Scout and she was 16. Over the years, Stringfield owned 27 Harleys and said, “To me, a Harley is the only motorcycle ever made.†At 19, Stringfield began tossing a penny over a map and riding to wherever it landed. She married and divorced six times and her third husband asked her to keep his name because she’d made it famous. Stringfield once disguised herself as a man and won a flat track race but was denied the money when she took off her helmet. Stringfield founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club near Miami. Despite an enlarged heart (three times its normal size) and her doctor’s orders, she never stopped riding.
Theresa Wallach – Inducted 2003 – In 1935, Wallach and her friend, Florence Blenkiron, set off in a 600cc Panther with sidecar and trailer and rode from London to Cape Town, South Africa – with no roads, no back up and no compass. At one point the ladies had to push their rig 25 miles when the engine failed. Wallach wrote about the journey in the book “The Rugged Road.†After WWII, Wallach fulfilled a lifelong dream by touring the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for two-and-a-half years and covered 32,000 miles. She financed the trip working odd jobs along the way. In 1970, Wallach’s book, “Easy Motorcycle Riding†was published and became a top seller. In 1973, she sold her shop and moved to Phoenix to start the Easy Riding Academy. Wallach never owned a car and rode until vision problems forced her to give up her license at the age of 88.
Hazel Kolb (like “cobâ€) – Inducted 1998 – After her 2nd husband’s death in 1975, Kolb got the idea of doing a perimeter ride of the U.S. as a way to give back to motorcycling and honor his memory. In April of 1979, Kolb, at age 53, left Missouri for Maine alone on her Harley. Harley stepped up and helped Kolb with her ride and set up news interviews along the way, including appearances on “The Tonight Show†and “Good Morning Americaâ€. She rolled into California, fulfilling her childhood promise to her brother to ride a motorcycle to California. She wrote a book about her ride called “On the Perimeter†which was published in 1983.
Becky Brown – Inducted 2002 – Becky had been a motorcycle passenger but was curious about riding her own so in the mid-70s she asked a co-worker to teach her to ride. She borrowed the bikes of friends and then bought her own Honda. She eventually fell in love with Harleys and bought a 1973 XLCH 1000cc kick-start Sportster, which she eventually modified to a chopper. In the mid-1970s, Becky didn’t know of other women riders in her area but envied the brotherhood she saw in the male-dominated motorcycle clubs. She decided to place an ad in her local Toledo newspaper in the spring of 1979 and received 10 responses. The name Women in the Wind came about after a reported asked “What do I call you girls?†Though she is WITW’s founder, she has never served as its president because she did not want others to view the organization as something she started for her own vanity. WITW has given Becky the chance to travel abroad and she has visited WITW members in England and has also toured Greece on two wheels.