Critical, motorized

Riding my bike to yoga this morning, I unintentionally timed my trip perfectly to coincide with the Pride parade, which routes a few blocks past where I live. I tried to navigate around it when, suddenly, I found myself in sea of motorcyclists.

And these weren't just any motorcyclists: they were Dykes on Bikes.

And there were many hundreds of them!

It turned out they were turning right in front of me, trapping me in the elbow of the turn. All I could do for over 10 minutes was stand there and watch, and cheer, and be delighted and just a little scandalized at what I saw, which ran the gammet from women in full leather to women in nothing but leather thongs* and boots, and covered a lot of ground in between: leather corsets and garter stockings, topless women in tutus and bright pink fishnets, and even a couple of women dressed as bumble bees.

It, also, was quite wonderful. And just as unexpected. The mood was spectacular and it was hard not to feel, well, proud.


*I said "thong."