History Was Made Today

And I am so honored and grateful to have been a part of it.  I’ve spent the last three days at GYGO2026 (a gathering of women motorcyclists named Get Your Groove On).  This was an amazing event put on by the Midwest Women Riders NFP.  The culmination of the event was an attempt to break the world record for the most women riders on the road together previously held by Australia.  The women showed up.  We broke the record and it was verified by Atlas.  We had 1433 women riding their own bikes. We also broke the record previously held by the UK for number of women motorcyclists gathered together in one place.

I was a bit nervous about riding in a large group.  Most of my group riding was 8 bikes or less.  When I was younger, I did attend some large rides…one in particular that I just remembered was back in 2000 when the International AA Conference was held in Minneapolis.  I participated in a ride of sober bikers from 2218 Alamo in South Minneapolis out to Hazelden.  That was pretty cool, too.  Over the years I have been pretty particular about who I will ride with.  The one thing I absolutely fear is riding in a group with anyone who is just riding along like they’re the only bike on the road, paying absolutely no attention to their position in the pack.  They slow down, they meander out of their lane, they speed up…I don’t like riding this position, I’ll just go find another position to ride.  That puts me in a position of having to watch them closely to make sure they don’t block me unexpectedly.  That distracts my attention from the overall ride and everything else going on around us.  That fucks with my safety.  So, I tend to shy away from riding with larger groups with people I don’t know.

So, Alice told me about this event and said we have to go.  It would be so cool to be a part of it.  But she couldn’t.  She had already scheduled this weekend for working on another organic farm in Minnesota which is critical to building the backbone of the future of Clearview Works.  So off I go.

But, I gotta tell you.  This ride was so well organized and executed and just filled my heart with love and appreciation for the women bikers that showed up today.  They had us staged for easy and organized exit from the parking lot led by police, stoppage of traffic for our exit and then…OMG!!!  We are on the freeway ramp and the freeway traffic had been stopped so we could ride.  It was an amazing sight to see the hundreds of women motorcyclists in front of me.  The other side of the freeway was eventually closed and we started seeing women coming back down the freeway miles before we even got to the turnaround.  As we headed back there were still more coming.  After we passed the end of the oncoming line of bikes, eventually we saw other traffic coming down the freeway, but their progress was limited by the big yellow trucks driving together in a line keeping the traffic back until the last bike exited.  It was an amazing execution of what I’m sure was a logistical nightmare.  Oh yeah, there were people on the overpasses cheering us on.  And, the coolest thing I thought, were the cars and trucks coming through after sitting for well over an hour, were honking their horns, waving and shouting encouragement to us (at least, that’s what I think they were saying).

The other thing that was truly great about this is that every single woman rode in respect of what we were accomplishing.  There just wasn’t a bunch of bullshit going on during the ride.

I have a whole lot more to tell you about my experiences this weekend.  But that will take me a couple more hours.  It’s 10:30 at night and I’m heading back home tomorrow.  370 miles or so to get home.  It’s been so fun, but I am a bit worn and need to rest up so I can make it home safely. I’ll just save the telling of the rest of this adventure for next time.

Love and Peace,

Chick