More Women Riding Motorcycles Than Every Before

• click to rate

  Posted by BikerNews January 12, 2013 - Filed in Personal Journal - 2,220 views
  

  More women of every age and from every walk of life are beginning to ride motorcycles than ever before.  Some, like a groning number of all riders are doing it for an economical and environmentally friendly means of transportation, but most, like their male counterparts are doing it for recreation and the pure enjoyment of riding a motorcycle. According to the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIT), women have doubled their presence among Generation X motorcyclists (riders born in the early 1960s thru the early 1980s) to 15 percent since 1998.
  
  For as long as there have been motorcycles women have been riding just not as conspicuously and not in the same numbers as their male counter parts. Even though the majority of motorcycle owners today are still men, things are changing and changing quickly. Women now own over 12% of all motorcycles in the country, up from 9.6% in 2003. Going back even further, women motorcycle ownership was 8.2% in 1998 and 6.4% in 1990. Although it is hard to know the exact numebers of women riders, based on information of licensed and insured riders, women now make up close to 23% of the entire population of motorcyclists - which was estimated at 30 million riders nationwide - up from just 18% percent in 2003.
  
  So now we know more women are riding, just what type of two-wheeled machine are they riding? According to an MIC survey 69% of women riders prefer “on-highway” motorcycles while 19% percent prefer scooters. Of the remaining group, 11% ride “off-highway” bikes and only 1% enjoy dual-purpose/on-off road bikes.