Female Bikers Use Instagram to Connect and Inspire Each Other

Through the power of social media, more and more female motorcyclists are connecting and joining each other on rides. The Guardian reports an influx of women riders finding others of their ilk through social channels such as Instagram. These women are also starting cool motorcycle collectives throughout the country, such as the Salt Lake City-based Litas and Brooklyn’s Miss-Fires.

25-year-old Jessica Haggett, who founded the Litas, had been riding for six years and mostly solo. “I started it back in December, so recently, and it’s crazy—like, there are so many girl riders that just came out of the woodwork,” she said.

Harley-Davidson chose five women to participate in “The Highway Runaways Ride,” a recreation of a famous 9,000-mile cross-country ride done by Brooklyn mother and daughter team, Avis and Effie Hotchkiss, in 1915. The ride started in Brooklyn on July 3 and lasted four weeks, ending in San Francisco. One of the women chosen to ride was photographer and motorcyclist, Lanakila “Lana” MacNaughton.

“I think we’re seeing a kind of onset of a kind of powerful women being trendy,” MacNaughton told The Guardian. “For us it’s about, for us – being on the front of the bike rather than being on the back of the bike, and establishing ourselves as strong women instead of in the background.”