International Female Ride Day picks up speed this weekend in KC

The future is female? For the motorcycle industry, it would certainly appear that way. Twenty years ago, women accounted for 8 percent of bike sales. Today, that number is up around 14 percent — and growing. Last year, about 60 local lady riders met up at Blip Roasters in the West Bottoms for Kansas City’s first official citywide International Female Ride Day. Two days before this year’s event, 180 women have already registered to ride.

Among those who will cruise the two-lane back roads on Saturday, May 5, is Pam Smith, who took up the hobby two years ago and is now one of the Litas of Kansas City, a female motorcycle group with nearly 400 members.

“I took a basic [motorcycle] riding course in 2016, and I got bit hard,” Smith, an organizer of this year’s IFRD, says. “I’m on my third bike now. It’s 2018 Harley Road Glide Special. But for the ride, it’ll be all kinds of bikes. Trikes, sports bikes, Can-Am Spyders. It’s for everybody.”

Everybody’s who’s a woman, that is. The 100-mile ride starts at Freedom Cycle in Grandview, wends west into Kansas through Hillsdale State Park, then loops back to Gail’s Harley Davidson in Grandview for an afterparty. (Men are welcome to attend the festivities at Gail’s.)

“I think one of the main goals this year is just to keep making it more and more inclusive,” Smith says. “It’s women from 18 all the way up to 70. Some are empty nesters and it’s finally ‘me time’ for them. Others have been riding most of their lives. Some live in the city, some live in rural areas. We want ‘em all.”

International Female Ride Day. Saturday, May 5, starting at 8:30 a.m. at Freedom Cycles (12501 S US Highway 71, in Grandview).