“I feel like I’m more of myself than ever before,” explained Claudia Cuellar of the feeling she gets from riding a motorcycle.
And this is from a woman who swore she would never be a passenger on a bike, let alone ride one by herself.
Cuellar, a 35-year-old fitness trainer and massage therapist from Chicago, is something of a novelty riding the city on her 1450-cc Harley-Davidson Fatboy, because it still seems rare to see women going solo on motorcycles.
But Cuellar suggested that if you haven’t seen any female bikers, “you’re not looking. . . . There’s been an explosion of women buying bikes.” Cuellar has been biking for 2 1/2 years, after reluctantly taking a ride with a friend while visiting Los Angeles. She initially told him, “`I respect my life, I don’t ride motorcycles.'” Her opinion changed after winding through a valley in L.A.
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“I could start feeling the pull of the bike and the gear shifting, and the wind, and just the power of the bike,” Cuellar said. “I immediately fell in love.” Cuellar soon enrolled in motorcycle classes here.
Not only does the bike allow Cuellar a high level of self-expression, but she also receives a lot of acceptance. “Out on the road, people love it,” she said. “I get a lot of thumbs up from women, guys think it’s great, kids look up to me, especially little girls.”
She said that though it seems more women are riding bikes, there aren’t nearly as many as there could be. Why?
“Women tend to intellectualize the bike, and men feel the bike,” Cuellar explained. “You’ve got to really feel it.”