By Lisa Malachowsky #87815 In 1916, our country was a very different
place than it is today. We did not openly embrace the idea of women taking off on motorcycles and having the adventures we think of as available and fun to do in 2016. Women didn’t have the right to vote. It was even illegal for women to wear pants! But that didn’t stop the Van Buren sisters from things their way. Adeline and Augusta Van Buren were
committed to the military “Preparedness Movement.” They wanted women to help the U.S. with the war effort, and they wanted women to have the right to vote. In that era, participation in the military was tied to who deserved the privilege to vote in the U.S. In order to prove that “woman can if she will,” a phrase first coined by Augusta Van Buren, they set off on two motorcycles to ride across the U.S. and prove to everyone that women could be motorcycle couriers just like men. Their goal was to prove one aspect of women’s equality and free up men to serve on the front line in World War I.
Setting off from Long Island, New York,
on two Indian motorcycles, they traversed the country without any support team. They loosely followed the Lincoln Highway in the eastern U.S. and did whatever it took to ride westward. They would ride in the dirt and muck where there was no pave- ment, while also dealing with all kinds of summer weather. They performed any fixes to their own bikes whenever something broke. Gas stations and motorcycle dealers just did not exist where the sisters went. After crossing the Mississippi River, their route took them through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. Ending their ride in Southern California after visiting San Francisco, they accom- plished what they set out to do. The com- plete story of their ride was documented in the book Grace and Grit by Bill Murphy. This past summer, during most of the
month of July, Alisa Clickenger (a.k.a. MotoAdventureGal) took a group of amaz- ing women coast to coast celebrating how far we’ve come while honoring female
veterans and those historic female motor- cyclists, the Van Burens. As a member of the ride’s support staff, I had the amazing opportunity to ride a brand new 2016 R 1200 RT provided by our title sponsor, BMW Motorrad, which generously lent their support to our event. We were pro- vided with seven brand new motorcycles for staff to use and an extra F 700 GS to use for demo rides. BMW also provided us with two fully equipped X5s for support vehicles and a 7 Series sedan for our photographer, Christina Shook, to use as a shooting plat- form and mobile office. There were many other sponsors who helped to make this riding event outstanding, but BMW went above and beyond; it was unprecedented. I would like to acknowledge this contribu- tion with sincere gratitude and am very proud of BMW’s support of women in our sport. Alisa viewed this ride as a way to give
back to the growing community of women riders while honoring our past. She made this cross country ride into a virtual party on many sets of two wheels. At each loca- tion, we had either a historically significant
(Left) Alisa Clickenger leading a group of riders across the Golden Gate Bridge. (Above) Outside the AMA museum. Photos by Christina Shook. December 2016 BMW OWNERS NEWS
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