I first had the honor of meeting Vicki Gray, founder of both Motoress and International Female Ride Day on a press trip approximately a bazillion years ago. Spending a day on bikes with like-minded people is usually a good time, but as a woman who rides, it was especially cool to meet someone who'd already spent years working to encourage and empower more women in motorsports (and particularly on motorcycles).
Finding fellow women who ride is, thankfully, not as rare an occurrence as it once was. We're everywhere, and you'll even spot us in the wild from time to time if you're paying attention. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't still a thrill every single time.
Bikes are fun, and women like fun, right? So some of us are bound to like bikes. It's just going to happen.
For 2024, Can-Am invited me to participate in its annual International Female Ride Day event, along with a handful of other ladies from across the powersports industry. For those unfamiliar, Can-Am is one segment of Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), which is a multi-faceted powersports vehicle manufacturer.
Among its most well-known products are snowmobiles, personal watercraft, ATVs, three-wheelers, and the upcoming and hotly anticipated electric motorcycles it plans to unveil in the not-too-distant future.
Although I've been riding plenty of things with two wheels for nearly two decades, the only thing with three wheels that I'd ridden prior to this invitation was a Ural. While that's very much its own kind of coolness, a boxer-powered sidecar motorbike and a Can-Am three-cylinder-powered three-wheeler aren't really the same thing.
That didn't really matter, though. Our group was small, and comprised of women with a bunch of different backgrounds. Some of them hadn't ridden any kind of motorbike or trike before.
But then again, that's kind of the entire point of Can-Am's three-wheeler lineup.
It's meant to be approachable, and to encourage folks who may never have seen themselves throwing a leg over a bike to maybe reconsider that position. Would an extra wheel and completely different riding dynamics help? Maybe.
The Chillest Vibes
The thing about people with shared interests is, we're generally pretty excitable. That can be both good and bad.
On the good side, we tend to stockpile endless pieces of information about our special interests, and keep the really choice tidbits ready to retrieve from those little pockets in our brains where they live at a moment's notice.
On the bad side, that also means we can sometimes get carried away and infodump all over some poor individual who's trying to be nice, but who could, in reality, not care less.
Depending on our comparative abilities to read the room, that infodumping behavior can also sometimes scare off newbies, who may or may not want to get in as deep as the total maniac they've accidentally activated just by asking a simple question.
Now, I've described the more stressful end of the spectrum here, but that's not what we had with our group.
Instead, you had a super chill group of people. Some of us had met before, and some even knew each other pretty well. And some of us hadn't, but even that didn't really matter.
Everyone was there to learn, excited to try something new, and generally stoked to find out more about who they were and what they enjoyed in a roadgoing experience. There were no bad questions, and no sense of one-upmanship just for the sake of showing off.
We rode out in a group of 2024 Can-Am Spyders and Rykers, and many of us switched vehicles at lunch so we could try something different. The controls and characters of the two Can-Am three-wheeler lines are quite different, but I'll get into that in the reviews that are coming soon to RideApart.
Our group was bookended by two Can-Am ambassadors, who are both awesome women riders themselves: Sophie Morgan and Kristina Allison. Both were happy to help whenever anyone had questions or needed help. From the different startup procedures for each trike to any quirks or concerns that popped up along the way, they made sure we got where we were going and had fun doing it.
Above all, IFRD is about women getting out, riding, and having fun. From beginners to experienced riders, it's a day for all of us, at all points in our lives. Whether you ride on two wheels, three wheels, or more wheels, the most important thing is that you know you can do it, and you're having a good time.
Ride safe, and make friends if you're feeling it. Or just wave or nod if you're not. It's all good! Just ride.
