Hi Stenton and welcome.

That's one of the most interesting stories I've read here and I've been musing on it for the last day or so. There's lots of points that are worthy of comment but I'll zero in on just one for the time being. I've been riding bikes since I was 16 and as I'm now staring 64 in the face that's quite a few years. But I'm not a biker. I'm just an average guy who enjoys being out on the road, riding around on some kind of 2 wheeled contraption that interests me and using it to go places that I'm also interested in.

I know a few (not that many) people who have similar mindsets and occasionally we'll team up and plan some sort of trip - like this year. Anything to do with "biker culture" I have no interest in - really, zero. Neither do I have anything in common with anyone who does - not that I've found so far anyway. So all this stuff about macho male biker posturing and irrelevant females is marginal in my two wheel world. I don't know anyone who would be patronisingly dismissive of a female on a motorcycle. It's not what you are but what you do that matters. Dig around in here and you'll find very little distinction between male and female bike travellers.

If you enjoy riding a bike, if it gives you pleasure and you make that choice out of something that comes from your soul then that's the core of it, not whether you're male or female. If it's just some sort of lifestyle fashion prop, here today and gone tomorrow, well, good luck to you but I doubt we'll have a meeting of minds. I accept that because of your history you've a unique insight but really, people are people and biking isn't that unusual an activity to mark you out.

Having said that there are some odd people out there - I had my ear bent this morning for walking on the wrong side of a footpath. That's not a tarmac footpath in a town but a grass one across a field. Guess whether my footpath vigilante was male or female?