Va-Va-Va-Vroooom No Longer Just Along For The Ride, More And More Women Are Buying Motorcycles

They’re women in love.

They speak of the first time with fondness - giddy with speed, smiling with assurance, blushing at the thought of falling.

The feelings come from riding a motorcycle, they say, from being in the driver’s seat of a bike.

“There’s this sense of freedom and power,” says Janet Wunder, the owner of a brand new Harley-Davidson. “It’s like flying. It’s going to take the rest of my life to get this smile off my face.”

For these women, there’s no going back to “riding bitch,” biker vernacular for sitting in the back of a motorcycle.

Now, they’re buying their own.

They speak of independence, accomplishment, pride. Nothing beats the brush of wind on skin, they say, the surging adrenaline rush, the confidence that comes from being in control.

The sensations must be contagious.

One out of every 12 motorcycle owners in the United States is female, according to Discover Today’s Motorcycling, a California-based motorcycle organization. In 1960, women made up only 1 percent of that population.

“It’s much more socially acceptable,” says George Latus, owner of Latus Motors in Spokane. “Women are looking at things that were once considered non-traditional hobbies or pursuits.”

The Harley-Davidson Company, one of the world’s most popular motorcycle manufacturers, also saw an increase in female consumers. In 1985, only 2 percent of Harley owners were female, according to company statistics. Last year, that number rose to 9 percent.

“I couldn’t stand it,” says Traci Shauvin, recalling the days she used to ride in the back. “You have limited vision and no control. … It was nice to take on responsibility and not be dependent on someone else.”

The chic haircut, the cool clothes, the carefree attitude - they all come with the territory, many women say.

Shauvin’s a petite blonde with a pixie cut, carefully plucked brows and melon-colored fingernails that almost match her lipstick.

She’s a 37-year-old accountant who wears gold jewelry and two-piece suits to the office. On her days off, she drives a bright red Harley-Davidson with the eye-catching, flame-like “Inferno” design.

In her leather chaps and jacket accentuated by silver-studded black gloves and a red bandana, Shauvin drives for thousands of miles, cruising for hours on Washington, Idaho and Montana highways.

And everyone stares. From old grandmas in boatlike Cadillacs to toddlers in car seats, few can resist ogling the woman on the firey red bike. She gets waves, wolf whistles, and thumbs-up signs everywhere she goes.

But Shauvin doesn’t just ride. Part of the fun of being a Harley owner includes fixing her bike and picking accessories.

She bought it used for $7,000. (Most bikes, depending on the make and model, can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $20,000.)

From a distance, Shauvin’s 400-pound motorcycle looks hefty and overwhelming. But once she’s on it, the bike actually looks petite, its body lowered several inches to allow the 5-foot-2-inch Traci to reach the ground.

Together with her husband, Jerry, Shauvin spends at least an hour on weekends polishing and fixing her motorcycle with the shiny, gold skulls and long, leather tassles.

They spend evenings poring over catalogs and motorcycle magazines looking for accessories such as mudflaps and chrome fixtures.

“I taught her how to ride it,” says Jerry Shauvin, a 45-year-old truck driver who has ridden motorcycles since he was 9. “Now I’m going to see that she knows how to work on it, too.”

The two have been married for 18 years and it’s been a “party,” says Jerry Shauvin. “She’s my best friend.”

Their love for motorcycles shows that.

Jerry was bothered at first when Traci got her own motorcycle. He wasn’t used to riding with her at his side, and he worried for her safety.

But she kept up with him, Traci says. And he liked to see her happy.

“It’s fun for me to watch her ride,” Jerry says. “You can see the thrill on her face.”

In fact, it was a motorcycle that brought the two together.

“The only reason I talked to him was because he came up on a motorcycle,” says Traci, recalling the day she met Jerry in front of a Spokane grocery store. “I wouldn’t have noticed him on a pickup.”

Wunder, who also met her husband on a motorcycle, says riding her own bike brings them closer because they share the same experience. Whenever the two go on rides, they use radio communicators in their helmets to talk to one another.

“We wanted to share the feelings, not as driver and passenger,” says Wunder, 45. “It’s a partnership on two different bikes.”

Motorcycles are dangerous, people told them. You’re a woman. You’re putting yourself at risk.

Eventually, women stopped listening.

Women have won national motorcycle competitions as early as 1907, according to the American Motorcyclist Association. In fact, the Motor Maids, inc., the first all-female motorcycle club, was founded nearly 60 years ago. But for one reason or another, it’s only been in recent years that women have considered buying their own motorcycles.

“No, you may not have a motorcycle,” Joanne Nielson used to tell her five kids. “Don’t even think about riding one.”

Her children are grown now. Nielson is a 60-year-old grandmother.

But to the surprise of many, she’s the one riding.

In her spacious Hayden Lake home hangs a recent photograph of Nielson, right next to the one from 1955 when she was crowned Lilac Queen. In the new photo, she stands between two burly men with tattoos and leather. A trim figure with short, silvery blond hair, Nielson smiles for the camera at her first HOG rally in Redding, Calif.

“It is red, it is beautiful, it is mine,” she wrote after buying her motorcycle last year, “and - best of all - it’s a Harley.”

A similar breathtaking awe is shared by other motorcycle owners whether they drive Hondas, Yamahas or BMWs. Wunder, who lives in Spokane, boasts about her Harley Davidson the way a mother would gush over her first-born.

“It was so pretty and so powerful and mine,” she says, recalling the day she got her bike. “I felt independent. I could ride it by myself. I didn’t have to have someone else take me for a ride.”

She never thought she’d buy her own, she says. It was normal for her husband to own one, but she always envisioned herself in the back.

It was only last year that she even thought of sitting in the driver’s seat.

While shopping for a motorcycle one day for her husband, David, he suddenly turned to her and said, “You can handle that bike.”

When she sat on it, she agreed: “I could, couldn’t I? I could ride one by myself.”

She was the terror of the Rosauer’s parking lot for several weeks when she started taking lessons, she says. During her first solo ride in March, David Wunder was “a basket case.”

“He was like a mom sending off his first child to school,” she says.

But the feelings of doubt and fear disappear once you get used to your motorcycle, women say.

Riding by yourself has its benefits, says longtime biker Kathi Thayer, 49. If you’re in the back, all you can do is trust that the person in front is a good driver, she says.

“You don’t have to think back there,” Shauvin jokes. “All you have to worry about is what your hair will look like when you take your helmet off.”

The passenger also never sees the road ahead, recalls Wunder. The experience is limited, she says. That’s why she’ll never ride in the back again.

“Once you taste that freedom, it’s difficult to go back,” Wunder says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Color Photos