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FEMALE BIKERS:

"Ladies First" by Harriet Ridley

Taken from 2006 Superbike Buyers' Guide

Not so long ago a girl on a motorcycle was a rare sight, but not anymore. It’s official. Motorcycling is no longer the domain of the double-hard, testosterone-filled, muscle-bound macho man. Girls are no longer content with sitting pretty on the back of our boyfriend’s motorcycle. We too like to leave the rush hour traffic for dead on our daily commute or tour the continent and beyond from the rider’s seat. Us girls like to ride our motorcycles.

There are plenty of industry figures to back this up (15% of all riders are female* and the numbers keep growing). But you’ve only got to look around to see that women all over the country are burning their grab rails and jumping into the rider’s seat. Leather-clad women in their droves are prowling traditional motorcycling haunts on powerful machines – whether it’s at Box Hill-type hangouts, British Superbike race meets, club races, track days or in the busy morning filtering lanes.

The Bikes

Motorcycles are becoming smaller, lighter and more manageable every year. Surely girls provide a better fit?

Motorcycles used to be bulky, ill-handling and heavy. Then came 1992’s Honda Fireblade, and things changed overnight. Manufacturers saw the benefits of a decent power-to-weight ratio and began building smaller, lighter, slimmer machines with good frames that handled. Today, modern sports bikes are incredibly light and powerful and steer with a mere glance in the right direction. They’re often so tiny that the average-sized male dwarfs them, spoiling the sleek lines and aerodynamics.

Modern motorcycles – especially the sporty models – are often more suited to girls. On average, girls are lighter than boys so the bike will accelerate harder with her on board. There’s generally less of her too so the riding position is less cramped. This also means she can crouch down below the screen with no lanky limbs acting like sails on a boat. Meanwhile, controls are getting lighter and lever spans shorter and adjustable, making things easier on smaller hands.

Nowadays the trend has moved towards making that mountain of power more usable and easy to manage, with more advanced fuel injection systems and clever throttle valve controls.

There are no specific ‘bikes for girls’, if a man can ride it, so can we. But please see below for those bikes that the Superbike Buyers Guide recommends for women.

• Aprilia RS125
• Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
• Honda RVF NC35
• Honda VFR400 NC30
• Suzuki GSR600
• Suzuki GSX-R750 K6
• Triumph 675
• Yamaha YZF-R6

Read more about Devitt's special insurance rates for female riders.

* Source: MCIA

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