Motorcycle mamas

It happens, they agreed, when a woman reaches a certain age.  When the children are grown, when the weddings and tuitions are paid for, when family pressures ease, you can hit the road and savor the freedom - on your own.

Motorcycles. We're talking motorcycles here.

"It's a gift you give yourself when you get a bit more mature," said Deborah Kay, 54, of Florence, grandmother of four and rider of a 2001 Harley-Davidson Sportster. "You exist during the week and you live on the weekends when you ride."

The sky was blue, the air was clear and the road beckoned as a group of over-40 Shoals women took time out of pre-ride coffee and conversation to talk about their passion for two wheels - and why it's never too late to get started.

"When your children are older and on their own, that's the time," said Paul Ann Murphy, 52, of Killen and rider of a Harley-Davidson FXDP police bike. "My grandkids love it. They all want to ride."

For Pam Doyle, 50, of Muscle Shoals, a five-year veteran of solo riding and owner of a Harley-Davidson Softtail Custom, it's about freedom.

"When you get on that bike, all your troubles are minimal. Everything's in perspective," she said. "You see God's country - the trees and the flowers. You appreciate the beauty around you."

Kay, Cooper, Doyle and other female Shoals riders are part of the growing nationwide trend of women who own and ride their own motorcycles.

While couples riding two-up - the man driving and the woman riding on the back of the motorcycle - are common, women riding on their own are less so. But their numbers are growing steadily.

More than eight percent of motorcycle owners are female, said the Motorcycle Industry Council in a 1998 survey - the most recent available.

When it comes to riding (the MIC counts owners and riders separately), 3.2 million riders are women and 15.8 million are men.

"In general, women's interest and participation in motorcycle riding has been increasing," said Mike Mount of Discover Today's Motorcycling, the media

relations program of the MIC, in Irvine, Calif.

Nationwide, women are organizing all-female riding clubs and rallies. They're attending women's-only classes on riding, safety and mechanics.

They're not content anymore to ride on the back. They want their own bikes.

"Control. It's all about control," said 47-year-old Sha Cooper of Sheffield, laughing. "Every man should, at least once, ride on the back behind a woman. You sit back there and you don't see anything but the back of the helmet, and they tell you not to move and there's nothing to hold on to. Then, they'd see how it feels."

Like most female riders, Cooper, who owns a Harley-Davidson 95th Anniversary Sportster and Fatboy, started on her husband's motorcycle, sitting behind him.

"I thought that's where I wanted to be," she said. "I rode there for a long time, then I decided it would be nice to have my own bike. I bought it sight unseen."

Kay rode with her boyfriend for three years before getting her own bike 13 months ago.

"I was happy to ride on back at first, then you just get to that point where you want to ride yourself," she said.

Murphy rode on the back of her husband's motorcycle for seven years before, a few months ago, deciding she wanted her own.

"I like just being able to go," she said, "just to pick up and go. I like feeling the wind. You know, you can feel a lot more on motorcycles."

Cooper and Kay are adamant about riding on their own and would never go back to . well, the back.

Other female riders want options. Tammy McGuire, 43, of Tuscumbia,, who rides a 2001 Sportster Hugger, rode on the back of her husband's bike for two years before getting her own this past June.

"I miss riding with my husband," she said. "I miss the closeness and I like taking naps on the back. I like riding with him for a change, especially when I'm tired. Being on the back doesn't bother me, but I like having my own, too, so I can ride when I want to, since I can't reach the footpegs on his bike. I'm happy either way."

Doyle and her husband rode for years together until he bought a custom-built motorcycle and didn't want a passenger seat on it.

"He said, 'OK, it's time for you to learn.' He rode behind me and we went out on the Natchez Trace and he showed me what to do," Doyle said. "He's always been supportive."

Camaraderie and fellowship are other reasons the women say they enjoy motorcycle riding.

"What do my nonriding friends think about me riding? I don't know. We all ride. I don't have any nonriding friends!" Murphy said.

Kay said, "It's a biker thing."

"We understand each other," she said. "You walk into a place and see other riders and know you share similar interests."

McGuire agreed.

"You see nonriders and you can't communicate with them as well," she said.

Recognizing that there's safety in numbers, they seldom ride alone. Kay rides her motorcycle to work in Decatur every day - she keeps a change of clothes in her locker -- but that's her only solo outing.

"When you have other people in the group, somebody knows a different route and different people take the lead and it's more fun when you take a break and have people to talk to," she added.

As female riders, though, they have plenty of folks talking to them.

"You meet all sorts of people. Motorcycles give people opportunity to start conversations," said Murphy. "If you're wearing a Harley shirt, people will come up to you in restaurants or department stores and start talking."

They all had stories of other women, young and old, sharing their own dreams of riding.

"You'll have a carload of little old women give us the thumbs-up, and then you'll see a family with the parents telling their kids, 'Don't look, don't look,' " Cooper joked.

One thing, though, they almost all admitted: They didn't tell their mothers - at first.

"She would freak out," said McGuire, slightly shamefaced. "She'd be calling me every five minutes. They don't want us to grow up."

Somebody else told her mother, instead. Kay's mother found out when some pictures of Kay on her motorcycle got mixed in with some family photos.

And although Cooper put two motorcycles on her wedding cake, her mother didn't get the connection. Cooper was careful to keep up the deception. At a recent family party, however, she thought her mother would be distracted enough not to notice that Cooper had ridden her motorcycle. She was wrong.

"My mother saw me in the parking lot and asked how long I'd been riding," Cooper said. "I said, 'Uh, three years.'"

Other family members - mainly the women riders' husbands and boyfriends - couldn't be prouder.

"I have great respect for them because it takes a lot to ride those bikes," said Paul Cooper, Sha's husband. "At first, I thought, 'This ain't gonna work.' I tried riding the two bikes at once and dropped mine, so I told her, 'You're on your own now.' Since then, she's done great."

Although they say they do it subconsciously, with their fingernail polish, perfect makeup and helmet-proof-hair, they're smashing the old stereotypes of motorcycle riders.

"Greasy, tough and scary? That's the old days," said Murphy. "We're women. We wore makeup before we rode motorcycles. We don't want to look like men. We were women first."

Mae Foster, 60, co-owner of Foster Harley-Davidson Sales in Tuscumbia with her husband, Harold, is another early solo female rider in the Shoals.

"I've been riding since I was 16," she said. "I met my future husband and he said that I needed to learn how to ride, so I did."

She hasn't stopped, despite some raised eyebrows.

"When I started riding, there was only one other woman around here who rode - the late Pat Jackson," Foster said. "People thought that if you rode, you were trash, although of course you're not. It just made me want to ride that much more."

Women riding are accepted now because those stereotypes aren't held as strongly, she added.

"It was a man's thing at first, but now women want to do their own thing. It's all about control," she said.

Both of her daughters ride, as do most of the female employees at the business.

While Foster was a leader in women riding solo, she's also content on the back of a bike, behind her husband. As long as she's on a motorcycle, she's happy.

"When I ride on the back, it's something I like to do. If I'm riding behind, I can see everything and I'm not cooped up," she said. "Riding is like nothing you've ever done."

Cathy Wood Myers can be reached at 740-5733 or cathy.-myers@timesdaily.com.