Sisters Still Doing It For Themselves
The website for the Sisters' Centennial Motorcycle Ride.
With acknowledgements to Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin for the title here, I want to direct your attention to an event my friend Alisa Clickenger is organizing around something a pair of motorcycling sisters did for themselves 100 years ago.
Way back in 1916, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren set out to ride across the U.S. on motorcycles. As Alisa’s website for the event says, “In 1916 the Van Buren Sisters were the first women to cross the continental United States, each on her own motorcycle. They became the first women to reach the 14,115 foot summit of Pikes Peak each on her own motorcycle. In 2002 the Sisters were inducted into the American Motorcyclists Association Hall of Fame and in 2003 they were inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame.”
And what exactly is the event? Scheduled for July 4-24, 2016, and titled the Sisters’ Centennial Motorcycle Ride, “The ride will loosely follow the Van Buren sisters’ 1916 route, primarily following the Lincoln Highway across the United States from New York to San Francisco. Combining scenic routes and major metropolitan areas, the route will allow for great riding as well as promotion and visibility of female motorcycling role models.”
In addition to the riding, events are planned at a number of places along the way:
- Brooklyn, New York – Departure City Party
- Springfield, Massachusetts – Springfield Museums, www.springfieldmuseums.org
- Pickerington, Ohio – AMA Hall of Fame, www.motorcyclemuseum.org
- Latrobe, Pennsylvania – Lincoln Highway Experience, www.lhhc.org
- Anamosa, Iowa – National Motorcycle Museum, www.nationalmcmuseum.org
- Colorado Springs, Colorado – Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum, www.themotorcyclemuseum.com
- Pikes Peak, Colorado – Pikes Peak Highway, www.PikesPeak.US.com
- Visits to Zion National Park and Bryce National Park
- San Francisco, California – Arrival City Party
The ride is open to men as well as women with only 100 registrations open for the full-blown ride, although you can do portions of it and participate in a variety of ways. Check the website for details. Says Alisa, “We promise an epic ride and a plethora of new riding friends.”
Biker Quote for Today
If you think I’m cute now wait till you see me on my motorcycle.
