This article was originally published in The Examiner on Oct. 13, 2016.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
Over a thousand bikers attended the Lace, Grace and Gears rally on Crockett Street the first weekend in October. The rally started on Friday, Sept. 30, and opened at 8 a.m.
Their goal was to beat the world record for most women riders on motorcycles at one time, currently held by an Australian group of 1,002 riders.
Lace, Grace and Gears posted on its Facebook page Oct. 3 that the final count of 806 women and 62 bikes “was an amazing feat” and “watch out 2017!”
The event planners anticipated “almost 5,000 women bikers,” according to an earlier press statement, but only 1,050 total bikers had checked in by midday on Friday, and “some of those numbers [were] men,” said Rhonda Brewer-Lee, who is on the Steel Heels WMC planning committee. Her road name is the Black Pearl.
Lisa “EverReady” Richards and Trina “Energizer” Brooks were also part of the registration and planning committee.
Other events scheduled were Ladies in Grace, Men in Black and a scavenger hunt.
Kim “MCited” Snow said she has been riding for the last three years with the Oklahoma Lady Riders (OLR). Snow recently moved to Fort Worth and is joining the Wind Sisters group, but she rode to Beaumont with the OLR.
Snow was excited to meet other women riders, saying, “A lot of people have met on Facebook, [but now we’re] putting a face to a name.”
“There’s something about the women riders; it doesn’t matter what you need,” Snow said, describing a group fundraiser to lodge women who could not otherwise afford the event.
Kathy “Princess Shop-a-Lot” McCall has been riding with her husband for 10 years. McCall rode in from Tornado Alley in Oklahoma, and has been part of the OLR for nine years.
“How many opportunities do you get to be the first?” McCall said, referring to the parade of women riders scheduled for Saturday morning. “That in and of itself is what is so exciting.”
“The biker rallies are always a good turnout,” said Johnae Rice, bartender and promoter for Beaumont Punk Rock Life and More. “It’s gonna get crazy.”
The Chrome Angels, an all-women riding club, offered raffle tickets at their booth. Fifty percent of the proceeds from the raffle went to 22Kill, a Dallas-based nonprofit that helps veterans find jobs and promotes research for traumatic brain injuries and therapy for PTSD.
Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day, Sonja “SJ” Albaugh explained to attendees while giving out free silicone 22Kill rings.
The Chrome Angels is a larger biker group with chapters overseas, according to
Albaugh. Their motto is “no drama.”
“Women here in America, we should beat this record easily. I mean, there are so many women that ride motorcycles,” Albaugh said. “Women in Texas alone, just in Texas alone.”
“They’ve been doing it in England and Australia, but I don’t think that anyone has really tried to do it here in the United States,” Albaugh said. “So it’s really good that Laney got this together and said, ‘Let’s try to do this officially.’”
“Women need to get out and ride,” said Chrome Angel Paula Alexander. “Biking is still considered a more male-dominated sport.”
Alexander said she has been riding in Kansas since the early ’90s. Since Kansas is a helmet state, she said people were often shocked when she removed her helmet at rest stops and they realized she was a woman biker.
“People tell me, ‘So your old man let you ride his bike?’” Alexander said. “I said, ‘No, he rides my bike.’” Alexander’s roadname is “Keeper.”
“Just because you ride a bike or wear leather doesn’t mean you’re the bad guys,” she said.
Eleanor Skelton 