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Stereotypes left in their dust

Women motorcycle riders aren't letting men hog the driving time anymore. And the industry recognizes the shift from biker babes to bike buyers.

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published November 7, 2004

	[Times photo: Willie Allen Jr.]
	Michele Harrington, 53, sits on her 1996 Springer Soft tail Harley Davidson. It's her fourth bike in four years and she likes the freedom while riding her Harley.

Tom Deegan, a Harley-Davidson salesman with a grip like a longshoreman and a build like a bulldog, tries to be diplomatic when he describes the women once associated with motorcycles.

"They were kind of ruffians," says Deegan, who has been selling bikes for nearly 15 years, most recently with Fletcher's Harley-Davidson Sales in Clearwater. "You're seeing lots more professional women now."

Move over, Hell's Angels. A growing number of career women with discretionary income and no use for stereotypes are buying motorcycles and hitting the road.

Nationwide, women accounted for nearly 10 percent of all motorcycle owners in 2003, up from 8.2 percent five years earlier, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.

While scooters are the most popular category, with nearly 25 percent owned by women, heavy-weight bikes like Harleys also are attracting more female riders. Last year the Milwaukee motorcycle builder said it sold 23,000 bikes - or about 10 percent of its inventory - to women, up from 600 bikes, or an estimated 2 percent of the total, in 1985.

The latest generation of motorcycle fanatics are quick to point out how they differ from the caricature of a biker babe.

"I've got no tattoos, no piercings and I'm not a party girl," said Sandy Reed, 40, a veteran flight attendant for US Airways who rides a gleaming black, anniversary edition Harley Softail Deuce. "And I'm not very comfortable with groups that ride from bar to bar. My interest is purely the feeling of freedom."

Her Harley also has helped create some lasting memories for Reed, who lives in St. Pete Beach. Like riding the Kangamangus Highway in New Hampshire with her older brother. Or drawing stares as she rolled down Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

"Everybody wants to check out the girl on the bike," she said.

Michele Harrington, an interior designer in St. Petersburg, gets the same kind of attention when she pulls up on her Harley Springer Softail with its custom blue paint job and specialty flame rims.

"It's kind of bad," said Harrington, 53. "I've always been the sweet girl and mom, so the bike really lets me let my hair down and have a lot of fun."

Jamie Rosenkrans, owner of Jim's Harley-Davidson in St. Petersburg, said she has watched the wave of women Harley buyers building in recent years.

"A lot of women have ridden on the back of motorcycles and they've gotten tired of it, because you can't see anything or do anything back there," Rosenkrans said. "Plus, we women have broken the glass ceiling a tad and we're able to afford these things."

Prices for Harleys range from about $9,500 for Sportsters to $20,000 and up for more powerful Softails and V-Rods. And that's just the start: extra chrome, accessories and apparel can put thousands of extra dollars on the tab.

Rosenkrans, who has been running the dealership since her husband's death in 1988, said she lobbied Harley for years to respond to the needs of women riders. She finally is seeing some results.

Harley's bikes are getting easier to handle, she said, with a new low-seat Sportster introduced this year. Nearly half the students in Harley's rider education classes nationwide are women; to make the course even more appealing, Rosenkrans is trying to hire a female instructor.

Rosenkrans' dealership has added two women staffers to sell bikes and has upgraded and expanded the store's line of women's apparel. And after pushing Harley to broaden its marketing to women, she was thrilled with a recent advertorial by the company in Vanity Fair.

Rosenkrans also chuckled at a recent Harley ad that shows a guy trying to impress a woman by pretending a slick V-Rod model is his, only to have a beautiful woman climb aboard the bike and take off.

"I just love it," she said.

Like Rosenkrans, a former schoolteacher who has been riding Harleys since 1979, there have always been bold women who flouted convention. Harley's Web site features a section on women and motorcycling, including information on a mother-daughter team who crossed the country - twice - on a Harley with a sidecar in 1915. And the oldest women's riding club, the Motor Maids, was founded in the 1930s by a Wellesley College grad. But these pioneers were pretty lonely.

Rosenkrans said she used to be able to count fellow female riders on one hand. Now she knows women doctors, lawyers and judges who have become converts.

Among local riders are Aj Jemison, general manager of Tampa's International Plaza, who bought a spanking new Honda 750 in April, named it "Suga Baby" and drove it to Kansas City in August.

"I've put over 8,000 miles on it," said Jemison, the 47-year-old mother of two grown children. "I'm doing what I want to do. It is my time."

Patty Stahlgren, who has worked in the mortgage business in St. Petersburg, drives a two-tone green Harley Dyna Glide.

"It took me six months on the back of my husband's bike before I wanted my own," said Stahlgren, 44. "It's so free-spirited, and it's a good stress release."

Harrington, the interior designer, is on her fourth bike in five years. She said she took up riding in part to tackle her fears. Now that she has ridden up mountains and through hailstorms at night, Harrington has learned there's little she can't handle.

Except perhaps maternal disapproval. Harrington, who has three grown kids, said she has avoided telling her mother that she has her own motorcycle.

"I don't want to give her anything else to worry about," Harrington said. "And I don't want to listen to her."

Kris Hundley can be reached at 727 892-2996 or hundley@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 6, 2004, 23:26:23]