A Road Just Callin'

Every June, for the past 16 years, leading off the Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade, a wedge of women motorcyclists rumbles down tony Fifth Avenue. For once without the compulsory feature-blurring helmet, each rides her shiny behemoth to the applause and at times catcalls of the crowd.

Once again this year, members of the elite Sirens Women's Motorcycle Club of New York are invited to open the parade. Behind the Sirens' black banner with its winged emblem, president Zenobia Conkerite will lead the 28 club members and about 100 women and men from the entire biking community, some of whom choose to ride topless.

"Riding in the five Pride parades throughout the New York area and in New Jersey is one of the fun perks of belonging to the Sirens," says Cheryl Stewart, 39, one of its founding members. Commonly called 'dykes on bikes,' their status on the margin of mainstream society does not faze Stewart, a sculptor, and scenic artist who builds sets for theater, movies and TV productions.

Stewart rides a 145-horsepower Yamaha FZ1 to work and "to relax" in just about any kind of weather. Before she bought the house in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn where she is currently building her studio, Stewart's priority was entrance to a shelter for her two bikes and those of her partner, Sharon Bien.

Pausing among the jumble of construction material in the small backyard of her Brooklyn home, Stewart, at 5 feet 5 inches and 117 lbs, appears no match for her Chagall-blue 400 pound plus machine. However, riding on the back seat for less than five minutes, this reporter experienced rider and bike as a single symbiotic body.

Original Sirens M/C emblem, designed by Lori Taube

"When I started riding 20 years ago, to pass another woman on a motorcycle was such a rare sight, it made us pull over and celebrate," says Stewart. While female bikers are still few and far between on New York, their numbers are growing exponentially, especially in those areas of the country where the weather stays mild all year around.

While no statistics exist matching sexual orientation and high-risk sports, "quite a number of women who engage in sports seriously in the past were lesbians, even if they didn't come out," says Stewart.

While most of the Sirens belong to the lesbian community, Stewart insists that "any woman interested in biking is welcomed to join, we don't discriminate."

However, she concedes that "as a straight woman, you have to be pretty cool and secure in your feminine identity" to take the flak that might come from relatives, a husband or male partner. Stewart says that the motorcycle is an obvious sexual icon and that image suits "who I am."

Stewart, who shares her life, home and love of motorcycles with Bien, gently mocks male bragging rights. "Whenever you talk to men who ride, they're always the best in the world, have you noticed? But it's dangerous because too much self-confidence can kill. My advice is don't learn from a friend, like I did on a fellow's bike in a San Francisco parking lot. To get started right, it's best to take classes from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation."

Stewart eventually did but for a start, she was a lone rider, logging several thousand miles zigzagging across the U.S. and Canada. "That was the best thing I did in all my life," she says.

Not unlike professional racers, accomplished amateurs like Stewart seize every opportunity to enhance their skills. Recently, she's been been training at a track school in the Poconos, where she's clocked upward of 90 miles an hour on curves. "Speed gives me such an adrenalin rush," says Stewart, "I don't need to drink coffee, I'm on a natural high."

She's also emerged relatively unscathed from some spectacular accidents. "The key is to stay relaxed. That's how I managed to walk away while my bike was totaled," Stewart recalls. That same evening, her wounded wrist bandaged, Stewart mounted a borrowed bike. "I had to get to work," she explains matter-of-factly.

When Stewart gets pulled over by a highway state trooper, she enjoys the look of surprise when she removes her helmet and her shoulder-length cork-colored hair tumble out. "He'll size up my bike expecting some punk kid, then looks at the age on my license and exclaims 'YOU drive THAT!' Whether it's envy or wonder, I don't know," says Stewart with a chuckle, "but on a number of occasions it's worked in my favor and I'm fine with that." Recently, however, she was slapped with three violations by a single officer, fought him in court and won.

Painful tendonitis in her wrists and elbows, from "riding thousand-mile days back- to-back", has plagued Stewart for a number of years. "On a bike, hands work all the time, the left presses the clutch, the right controls the throttle and main brake," she explains. And after a long pause, battling the idea: "I'm just never giving up the bike, period," she says simply.

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PHOTO: Claudia CarlinS

Stewart and Yamaha FZ1: Never one without the other

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