Longdistancestyle Make Your Passion Your Paycheck By Deb Gasque #182082
GRINNING A GIANT GRIN, I THREW my leg over the seat of my sweet, pearly white two-wheeled steed and set the GPS for the mountains of North Carolina, destination Little Switzerland. That May weekend, women from all over the country were gathering near the Blue Ridge Park- way to check out the first annual “Mountain Moxie” women’s motorcy- cling conference. My excitement that morning came on several levels. First, I was traveling on a motorcycle, and second, I was traveling solo. But I believe my biggest joy came from the anxious anticipation of attending this gathering of women motorcyclists for an entire weekend and celebrating our passion for two-wheeled adventures together. As I made my way to the Blue Ridge
Mountains that morning, choosing the quaint, sleepy backroads as my
route, I passed a billboard advertisement that highlighted the phrase “Make Your Passion Your Paycheck.” That set off a cou- ple of hours of deep thoughts. But, little did I know how much that statement was going to ring true over the weekend. In fact, it was a bombshell that totally rocked my world. Mountain Moxie was a longtime dream
of Robin Dail, the woman who developed Moto Girl Cafe (a site dedicated to women who love motorcycles), and she did an all- around amazing job on every aspect of the conference. Robin is nothing short of a superhero; she is an associate professor at Duke University in the School of Nursing, teaching in the graduate programs and doing research around the thermal stability of premature infants to decrease their mor- bidity and mortality. As I said, a super- hero…AND she’s a motorcyclist. Boom! Robin put her dream into motion, a dream of creating a gathering of women who ride so they could learn about new products and better safety techniques, hear inspirational stories about women leaders in the motorcy- cling world, and just simply hang together, ride together and share their passion together. Ah, there it was…my first example of that profound statement from the bill- board taking place before my very eyes. During that weekend in the
mountains I heard from many woman leaders: our very own BMW MOA member, Laura Smith of Worse for Wear, who was one of the three major con- ference sponsors and has just launched her fabulous “Cross- town Jeans” (see my review in
Laura Smith of Worse for Wear, one of the three major conference sponsors.
this issue); extreme long-distance BMW rider, Gwen Phillips, who is truly iconic in the travels she has logged and the Mac- Gyver-type doodads she has invented to make her travels more smooth; Sofi Tsin- gos, a brilliant, young custom motorcycle builder; Gail Biddulph, the first woman to have circumnavigated the coast of Great Britain, who through her life experiences, empowers other people to live to their full potential; Joi “SJ” Harris from the Moto- GirlGT Team, the first African-American woman to road race in the United States,; Breeann Poland, a woman who has been involved with motorcycling most of her life and is now the Social Media and Digital Marketing Manager of Royal Enfield North America; Liz Sorrell, a Motorcycle Law Group attorney (and another major spon- sor of the event), who passed along her vast knowledge of laws affecting motorcyclists; and several others that inspired us over the weekend. As I listened to each of these women tell their stories and explain how their passion for motorcycling has shaped their lives, I again heard the whisper from that billboard…“Make Your Passion Your Paycheck.” Reflecting on what I took from Mountain
Moxie and the theme from that billboard, I thought about the distinct pleasure I’ve had over this past year watching the progress of the aforementioned Laura Smith and her women’s riding apparel company, Worse for Wear. When I first interviewed Laura and her husband Scott back in 2015, they were hard at work putting those passionate wheels into motion, making Laura’s dream of providing women with safe, durable and stylish riding gear that fits come true. It’s been quite an inspiration to watch this chrysalis first-hand. Considering recently published statistics
which report that 25 percent of people who throw their legs over a motorcycle are female (including pilots and pillions), it’s no secret that we ladies are hard-core on the
70 BMW OWNERS NEWS August 2016
discovery
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