Trail Blazers

How a new generation of women riders are rewriting rules and reshaping the motorcycle industry

- Winston Ross

Kelly Yazdi is thinking what I’m thinking. We’ve just picked up a pair of Indian motorcycles on the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu. We’re supposed to shuttle them to downtown Los Angeles for a women’s motorcycle event there. Showing up at such mixers is certainly a part of the 27-year-old’s job, which can be loosely defined as follows: model, biker chick, event planner, brand ambassador. But a quick scan of the brake lights in an unrelenting line from Pacific Palisades to the city has inspired an audible. The words “We don’t have to go to downtown L.A.” have barely left her lips before I’m nodding in agreement and we’re blasting down the 1 toward Baja.

Becoming a successful model once required Amazonian height, a waifish waist and high cheekbones, and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. No longer. Yazdi, who’s wearing what she calls her “Paul Bunyan flannel” with paint chips on it, is among a legion of pioneering women who ride motorcycles and who are rewriting the rules, opening doors with their looks but then creating lasting brands that transcend physical beauty in favor of something they actually like doing. And they might just save the motorcycle industry.

As we blast down the PCH, Yazdi goofs off, dropping a foot on the asphalt, leaning forward until she’s almost prone to punch the air ahead, tricks she picked up working as a stunt-woman in Hollywood from 2012 to 2015. Moves like this inspire scorn from the legion of grumpy old dudes who are not entirely pleased that the fairer sex is elbowing its way into their hobby; just as they “mansplain” at the gym, men like to chastise women they deem posers. Yazdi laughs it off. She grew up riding dirt bikes in the backwoods of Minnesota with her brothers, and she’s entirely comfortable fending off the haters.