5 Women Bikers Breaking Stereotypes One Ride At A Time

Biking is often labelled as a men’s sport; women are simply expected to take the backseat. But when a woman takes things into her own hands and takes to the road, heads turn – sometimes in surprise, sometimes in awe, and sometimes with negative comments. According to some, gearless scooters are made for women and many still think that women shouldn’t drive anything on the road.

At home or outside, some men’s favourite jokes are about how bad women drivers are. Often when a woman drives, the most common comment made by people, especially men, is “please move aside otherwise they will bump into us, it's a woman driving.”

In the past few months, men and women riders have come together to train women to ride bikes in cities like Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai for free. The Nomad Bikers Club is Chennai’s first biking club to provide free bike training for women every weekend in the city. The bullet manufacturer, Royal Enfield, has taken an initiative to train women bikers in Mumbai and set up a basic two-day training program on weekends. Another group named Women Wonderful has organised bullet bike-riding classes for women in Pune city for free.

Here we celebrate five women who broke free from the backseat and took the gear into their own hands.

Dr. Neharika Yadav

Gurgaon-based Neharika Yadav is a dental surgeon by profession and superbike racer, as per her Instagram bio. She rides a Ducati and is the only woman to race with the fastest men in the grid in the 1000cc category at the JK Tyre Superbike Championships every year. In one of her Instagram posts she wrote, “Just a girl with dreams, on a journey to inspire many others so they can dare to dream like her!”

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Piya Bahadur

Author of the book Road To Mekong, Piya Bahadur, penned down her experience and inspiration for going on an all-women road trip to six countries (17,000 kms) in 56 days. Based in Hyderabad, Bahadur and the other three women, who went on the trip, began as local bike riders in and around the city. They had reached Ha Long Bay in Vietnam through countries like Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. “The day you stop making excuses for not wanting to go the distance is the most important day of your life,” wrote Bahadur.

Rani Wilfred

A resident of Pune, Rani Wilfred, is smashing gender stereotypes by not only being a biking pro but also by giving bike riding lessons to women in her city for free. “Women are often mocked for their driving and riding skills and are told that riding a bike is way beyond their calibre. Those who manage to convince themselves, don’t have anyone who would teach them without ridiculing them. Well, I want to be there for all those women and tell them that they can. You have no idea how it does wonders to one's self-esteem,” she said to WhatsHot Pune.

Priyanka Kochhar

With over a million followers on Instagram and over three hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube, Priyanka Kochhar, aka the @bikewithgirl, is one of the most influential women riders in India. The model-turned-biker has won several MotoGP races globally and is touted as India’s first female motorcycle blogger.

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Alisha Abdullah

Daughter of seven-time national bike racing champion, RA Abdullah, 33-year-old Alisha Abdullah is the first female national racing champion of India. She now owns a team, trains them, and rides with them regularly.

Like every other sphere of life, women are breaking gender norms by riding bikes and owning the roads. From making road trips to Ladakh and the Himalayas to racing on their Royal Enfields and Harley Davidsons – these women are shattering stereotypes left, right, and centre. And we applaud their spirit.