10.16.2026

Brave. Bold. Fearless. Badass.

Resilient. Strong. Unstoppable. A force to be reckoned with.

Push your limits. Get uncomfortable. Do hard things.

Spend enough time around women's adventure motorcycling and you'll encounter some version of those words. And I understand why.

For generations, women have had to fight for space in places where our strength, skill, courage, and capability were questioned. Seeing women tackle difficult terrain, travel independently, develop extraordinary riding skills, and discover what they're capable of is worth celebrating. I celebrate it, too.

I've pointed a 500-pound adventure motorcycle toward terrain I had absolutely no business feeling confident about. I've dropped bikes, picked them up, crossed rivers, climbed rocky trails, gotten scared, frustrated, exhausted, and occasionally cried inside my helmet.

I've also kept going.

I like doing hard things. I deliberately seek opportunities to become a better rider. But lately I've been wondering:

Does every expression of women's adventure have to revolve around proving how tough we are?

When Empowerment Becomes Another Expectation

There's something extraordinary about the growth of women's adventure motorcycling.

Women who were once told they were too delicate, too emotional, too physically incapable, or simply unwelcome are now tackling some of the most challenging terrain imaginable. We've pushed back against those assumptions, and rightly so.

But sometimes I wonder whether, in our enthusiasm to celebrate women's strength, we've begun creating another expectation about what an adventurous woman is supposed to look like.

Tough. Fearless. Always pushing. Always ready for the next challenge. The irony is that a community built around expanding women's possibilities could unintentionally begin narrowing them again.

Different messenger. Same question:

Are you tough enough to belong here?

I don't believe anyone is deliberately trying to create that expectation. Much of this language comes from genuine encouragement, and I've benefited from it myself.

But when our most celebrated stories revolve around the hardest climbs, the deepest mud, the biggest obstacles, and the most dramatic demonstrations of resilience, we may begin communicating something we never intended: That these are the experiences that count. That discomfort is what makes an adventure meaningful. That the farther we push, the more legitimate we become.

And I don't think that's the whole story.

Maybe Adventure Isn't Always About More

What if adventure isn't always about pushing farther?

What if sometimes it's about noticing more?

The forest you rode through. The waterfall you stopped to explore. The little mountain town you hadn't planned to visit. The lake where everyone turned off their engines and nobody felt particularly compelled to start them again. The conversations around a campfire after the motorcycles have gone quiet. Those moments aren't distractions from the adventure. They're often the reason I wanted to go in the first place. Because adventure isn't only stimulation.

Sometimes adventure is restoration.

Sometimes I want a difficult trail that challenges everything I've been practicing. Other times I want to follow a winding road into a beautiful little town, find an independent bookstore, order a cup of tea, and have absolutely nowhere I need to be for the next two hours.

Sometimes I want to sleep in a tent. Sometimes I want crisp sheets and a claw-foot bathtub. Sometimes I want to discover what I'm capable of. Sometimes I want the noise in my head to get quiet.

And I'm learning that slowing down isn't always about doing less. Sometimes it's about asking less of the experiences we're already having. I don't need every meaningful moment to become an accomplishment, a lesson, or even a story worth telling afterward. Sometimes I want to go somewhere beautiful, meet someone interesting, learn something new, or simply enjoy being there.

Not every experience needs to prove something. Some are worth having simply because we were there to experience them.

What Else Belongs in Adventure?

Rest. Beauty. Creativity. Introspection. Connection. Curiosity. Comfort.

These aren't uniquely feminine needs. Men need them, too. They're human needs. So why don't we celebrate them as enthusiastically as we celebrate the hard things?

I sometimes wonder whether we're so eager to distance women's adventure from anything perceived as soft that we overlook the value of those experiences entirely. But maybe softness was never the problem. Maybe the problem was being told softness was ALL we were capable of.

There's a difference. I don't need to reject beauty to prove I'm strong.

(Yes, I still touch up my lipstick using my Doubletake Mirrors.)

I don't need to reject comfort to prove I'm adventurous.

(I love my Tiger's heated seat and grips—and will happily ride and hike miles for a hot spring.)

And I don't need to become fearless to prove I belong on a motorcycle.

(After all, one of BDR's guiding principles is KNOW YOUR LIMITS—and I've turned around on an Expert section.)

I can appreciate a beautiful hotel and still love camping.

I can enjoy a challenging trail and still choose an easy one.

I can be proud of something difficult without needing to transform every uncomfortable experience into a lesson about resilience.

Sometimes something was simply beautiful. Sometimes it was exhausting. Sometimes accomplishing it was enough. And perhaps these quieter experiences don't always have to happen within an adventure.

Sometimes the things that replenish me have absolutely nothing to do with motorcycles: Reading. Writing. A Peloton workout. A creative project. An evening when I'm not editing motorcycle footage, planning the next route, organizing an event, or thinking about motorcycles at all.

I've started wondering whether a rich life within ADV might actually require a rich life outside of it. Not because those other parts of my life compete with riding. Maybe they replenish the woman who gets back on the motorcycle.

I Already Do Hard Things

Here's something I've been thinking about more and more:

I already ask my body and brain to do hard things—on and off the motorcycle. I don't necessarily need every experience surrounding the motorcycle to ask the same thing of me.

After six hours navigating unfamiliar terrain, managing a heavy motorcycle, making decisions, overcoming obstacles, and occasionally confronting fear, I don't necessarily want my evening to become another opportunity to get outside my comfort zone.

I might want to stretch. Eat a good meal. Sit beside a fire and talk about something that has nothing to do with motorcycles. Write in my journal. Or enjoy a little silence. That isn't disengagement from adventure. That's recovery from it. And recovery is part of what allows me to return to difficult things because I want to—not because I feel obligated to demonstrate toughness every time I put on my riding gear.

I'm beginning to think the same may be true of passion itself.

There have been moments when so much of my motorcycle life became connected to planning, organizing, volunteering, filming, editing, and creating something for someone else that I quietly wondered whether I was losing some of my love for it.

Then opportunities came along where I could simply show up again: Be the rider. Be the participant. Experience the story instead of always being responsible for producing it.

And there it was. The excitement hadn't disappeared. Maybe motorcycles were never the problem.

Maybe I just needed to become more selective about which parts of motorcycle life get access to my energy.

Maybe sustainable passion includes knowing when to leave the room. Not forever. Not dramatically. And not because we've stopped loving what's inside it. Sometimes we leave long enough to read something, make something, move our bodies, spend time with people we love, become interested in something completely unrelated—and eventually find ourselves wanting to walk back in.

Stepping away doesn't have to mean loving riding any less. Sometimes it may be part of how we keep loving it for a very long time.

Confidence Doesn't Always Look Loud

We have some wonderfully photogenic ways of celebrating confidence in adventure riding: A rider standing on the pegs through difficult terrain. A successful rocky climb. A muddy motorcycle. A triumphant fist in the air after conquering something intimidating.

Those moments deserve celebration.

But confidence has quieter expressions, too. Deciding the conditions aren't right for you. Admitting you're tired. Asking for help. Riding slowly because that's the pace that allows you to learn. Choosing an easier route today because you want to be excited about riding again tomorrow.

Saying: This particular version of adventure isn't what I need today.

Not ever. Today.

That distinction matters.

Knowing yourself isn't the opposite of pushing yourself. Sometimes it's what makes pushing yourself meaningful.

Widen the Tent

I don't want us to stop celebrating badass women.

PLEASE DON'T.

I know them. I admire them. Sometimes I even feel like one. I just want to make the definition of an adventurous woman BIGGER.

I want room around the campfire for the woman chasing podiums and the woman chasing waterfalls. The woman who loves technical single-track and the woman who prefers winding gravel roads. The woman who wants to sleep under the stars and the woman who loves a beautiful old hotel. The woman who signs up for an advanced skills clinic and the woman who wants to spend the afternoon doing yoga beside a lake.

The woman who wants to discover what she's capable of. And the woman who already spends so much of her life being capable that she needs somewhere she doesn't have to prove it.

Most importantly, I want us to remember that one woman can be all of those people at different times.

That's the adventure community I want. Not softer. Not tougher.

WIDER.

A community where strength has more than one expression. Where adventure can challenge us and restore us. Where we can develop technical skills while remaining interested in beauty, creativity, books, nature, friendship, food, solitude, and whatever else makes the miles worth traveling. And where the things we love outside motorcycling aren't treated as distractions from our identities as adventure riders.

I'm beginning to think the opposite may be true.

Reading. Writing. Movement. Creativity. Relationships. Quiet. Curiosity about things that have absolutely nothing to do with motorcycles.

Those things don't take me away from the person who rides.

They replenish her.

The fullest version of my life may also be what sustains the fullest version of my adventure.

And suddenly, WIDER isn't only about what we make room for in women's ADV culture. It's about what we give ourselves permission to make room for in our own lives. Where a woman doesn't have to become a particular kind of adventure rider to earn her place among adventure riders. Because maybe the goal was never to prove that women are tough enough for adventure.

Maybe the goal is finally having enough freedom to decide for ourselves what adventure means.

And tonight?

For this adventure rider, it means a hot shower, a Peloton stretching class, a cup of tea, and absolutely no further demonstrations of resilience.

I've done enough for one day.

From the Saddle — North Fork Moto

Motorcycles. Backroads. Books. And the stories we collect along the way.

Dear Women’s Adventure Community: We Don’t All Want The Same Thing