The Women Riders’ World Relay: Lead Up [Delayed Post]

It finally happened. I’d been looking forward to this event for over a year. And now it's taken me almost two years to finish writing this post about it. 

The Women Rider's World Relay (WRWR) is a global relay of women riders passing a physical baton each day. It was started by Hayley Bell in the UK via this facebook group, which now has 19,200 members. 

But, I didn't find this myself. In May 2018, I made a lady rider friend, Amy, at the Int'l Women Riders' Day event at Bob's BMW. (Shout out to Bob who holds an event every ear for Int'l Women Riders' Day, stocks many sizes of good quality women's gear, and has hosted events featuring several other notable women riders, and served as a refreshment stop for the Ripple Relay.) She had blue hair and we got to talking about riding. Later, she told me about the Women Riders' World Relay when the idea exploded on the internet the following fall, and we decided to do it together.

I wrote about the Maryland Ripple Relay in July 2019, a support relay of the global event. The Ripple Relays arose from the fact that the global relay could not go thru the entire country and it would have taken several days for women from Florida to join it, for example. The pace of the Ripple Relay was much more reasonable. 

The WRWR was scheduled to pass thru the US for 3 weeks beginning in late Sept 2019. In our case, the nearest starting point for the global WRWR was Fishkill, NY which was only a day away from the DC area. So we planned to travel to the starting point on a Wednesday, ride the relay on Thursday (Day 212), attend the AIM Expo in Columbus, OH on Friday (Day 213), then return home over the weekend via West Virginia, visiting my dad on Saturday. My friend was up for the challenge of the gravel road to Wild Berry Hollow Farm, her first gravel road. 

The route for Day 212 was originally about 400 miles, which is no joke on a motorcycle. Even in good weather and wearing full gear, you are exposed to the sun and wind, and controlling a motorcycle is a physical task. I use roughly a 1.5x multiplier for time estimates of a car vs a motorcycle to account for breaks. I generally like to take a break about every 90 min, to stretch out my back, regain circulation in my legs, top-off, and bottom-off. [emoji] So, 4-6 hours in the saddle is a pretty solid riding day, and on scenic roads that's 200-300 miles. I no longer remember what the original route was, but at highway speeds, 400 miles is between 6 & 7 hours. So -- long, but reasonable.

As the relay got more worldwide exposure, the organizers needed to modify the route to attend events we were invited to and to stops that offered to host us. So in the interim, the route for Day 212 changed from 400 miles to 593, the longest day for the WRWR in the US. 😱 I was concerned about that -- that’s a long-ass day. I started viewing every long riding day as training for the WRWR. And so, when on Jaron & my trip to Canada in August 2019, I didn't resent a couple of > 500 mile days because they served as physical and mental preparation for the global relay.

So, other preparations...I'd already gotten hard luggage for my BMW R1200R for our anniversary trip, and I got inner bags for them for this trip to make it easier to un/pack. I asked my friend if she was interested in an intercom so that we could talk on that long-ass day, and she had been looking at them. So one afternoon we took care of that for her. Best. Decision. Ever. ~10 hours in the saddle? Definitely going to need some company.

The beemer was my chosen steed for this trip because she had cruise control and luggage space, and is honestly WAY more comfortable than the purple girl. (As it turns out, I really didn't get to use the cruise control.) The Tigress is pretty comfortable with that offroad suspension and better long-term seating position, but she and I were not on good terms if you'll recall -- she was in the shop anyhow. Gotta have a backup bike!

I'd packed up the weekend before in preparation to leave on Wednesday. Amy & I picked a time and spot to meet at for brunch and then took the scenic route part of the way to Fishkill. We knew it made the day before a long day even longer, but I thought that the next day on the interstate we would appreciate the alternate scenery, and we did. We lucked out with good weather that day, too.

The relay organizers had specified hotels for each night. Amy & I started off by showing up at the wrong Extended Stay in the same town. We rode up and didn't see any motorcycles, and then realized that we were booked at a different Extended Stay hotel 1 mi away. So we went there and also didn't see any motorcycles. After 300 miles and 7 hours in the saddle, we were pretty beat. We got in about 7:00 planning to meet up with the other ladies. After verifying the location against the hotel list, we went in and in the event room right off of the reception area were about 20 women. Everyone jumped up to greet us and it was a pretty awesome moment. Outside of the women's rally a few months before, I'd never seen so many lady riders before. (They were all parked on the other side of the hotel and that's why we didn't see any bikes.)

It turns out they thought we were the Day 211 relay arriving. Day 211, the first day the relay was in the US, was running a little late. After some chit chat and snacking on food generously provided by a local Harley dealership, the Day 211 crew arrived and we went outside to wave them in. That was pretty awesome also, there were 20-30 women in that group who had ridden from Calais, ME to Fishkill, NY -- over 500 miles. After they all got parked and started shaking their stiff legs out, I immediately recognized Collete, who committed to riding the entire relay and has been posting quite a bit and she's quite a riot. We also got to meet Hayley Bell, the one who started this whole kerfuffle.

Back inside, we heard some stories from the road and had our Day 212 riders' meeting. Liza, the US Ambassador, started off by telling us that we needed a volunteer to lead us because she & Hayley would not be riding with us. There was obvious confusion and disappointment on everyone's face, so Liza explained that we could ride with them at 3am if we liked -- because Hayley had to be in Columbus for a press event. Well, alright then. 

Except for some pairs of us who were doing the relay together, nobody knew each other and there was a long and awkward wait with some additional prompting until someone volunteered to lead us. She was from Texas and was very clear with everyone that she didn't know the area and would just be following her GPS. We agreed on a departure time and the organizers handed her the contact info and waivers. I remember something about ensuring that people had at least 100 miles of range, and some of our ladies' bikes did not have the combination of gas mileage and tank capacity for that so they eventually had to break off and arrive a little later. 

I’m no expert on group riding, but generally the goal is to stay together, not leave anyone behind, stop and help each other, etc. So it was a bit of a surprise to hear that everyone find a buddy, because if you had a problem, your buddy would fall out with you -- because the baton had to make it to its destination. The guardians...not so much!

Everyone was exhausted and went to bed at a reasonable hour. I had a really hard time falling asleep, I was so excited about the event and nervous about the long day. I mean, the baton was on its 212th day. That's insane.

I couldn't fall asleep, I was so excited.