Women building a motorcycle shaped to fit

Mon Apr 11, 9:40 AM ET

By M. Daniel Gibbard Tribune staff reporter

Christine Vaughn hits the starter on the low-slung chopper she designed
and built, and as the pipes spit unmuffled thunder from a big chrome
engine, she changes.

The self-described "good girl" and mother disappears, shoved aside by
the outlaw biker chick from Alaska who created Wicked Women Choppers,
the company she bills as the first run by women to design and produce
bikes for other women.

Hear her roar? No, hear her rumble.

"We want it to be just as mean, just as bad as a guy's bike. We want to
make it look like we're going to get off and take the boots to you,"
said Vaughn, 35, who has long blond hair, a husky smoker's laugh and a
quick sense of humor thoroughly devoid of political correctness.

Her company's slogan--and philosophy of life--is borrowed from a
Harvard professor: "Well-behaved women seldom make history."

The difference in the bikes, barely noticeable, is size. Vaughn, who is
5 foot 6, designs her motorcycles with narrower handlebars and a lower
frame and seat that create a lower center of gravity and an easier
reach.

"A wrong-size bike is not only uncomfortable, it's unsafe," she said.

Vaughn's vision has struck a chord with riders. She and her year-old
company have been profiled in newspapers and magazines. A PBS station
is recording the process as she and her team create a bike from the
frame up, and an independent production company plans a reality show
pilot.

Suppliers quickly jumped on board: Tool companies sent new gear to use
in her shop, and dozens of dealers have asked about selling her lines,
she said. She has received inquiries from prospective buyers in Japan
and India.

This despite that she just got her first firm order last month and is
gearing up for production.

The attention has been a little overwhelming, she acknowledged.

"I knew what the niche was," she said, but "I just had never
anticipated the reaction. I wanted to just build a couple of bikes a
year."

Instead, she said, she will probably end up producing about 50 annually
once production is up to full speed, perhaps by late summer. To make
many more than that would mean moving from her new 1,300-square-foot
shop in this small town in southern Illinois near Carbondale.

"My only battle is to stay small," said Vaughn, who also customizes
motorcycles for clients. "We've had people who wanted to come in as a
partnership, but we want to keep it manageable."

One reason for all the attention is the rapid growth in women owning
and riding motorcycles.

From 1998 to 2003, the estimated number of female owners jumped 36
percent, from 467,000 to 635,000, according to a survey by the
Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade group based in Irvine, Calif.
Ridership increased similarly, and there are now more than 4 million
women operators, the group says.

"We got tired of looking at the back of someone's helmet," said Lois
Wyatt, a trustee with Women on Wheels, a riders club with more than 100
chapters, including half a dozen in Illinois.

Wicked Women's first model is the Shady Lady.

The prototype sports a 96 cubic inch--1,600 cubic centimeters--S&S
motor, pipes that Vaughn designed and enough chrome to cause blindness.


On the other hand, its heart-shaped flames are painted
fingernail-polish pink.

"It's a bike every man would be proud to ride--except for the pink,"
said Vaughn, adding that she chose the color to show up in photographs.


"Women want to be macho," she said. "We want the loud pipes, the
power--all the stuff that makes you feel you know what testosterone is
all about."

With all the trimmings, the bike lists for $34,500, which she says is
competitive with a similar Harley. She also plans a downscale version,
the Vixen, and a hardtail (no rear suspension) model called the Black
Mariah.

A seventh-generation Alaskan from the rough and ready island town of
Ketchikan, Vaughn credits frontier roots for her independence.

Wicked Women Choppers' name comes from the Old West, Vaughn said, and
refers to any woman who defied the conventions of the day. The company
motto is a quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich that Vaughn came across in
a magazine about quilting, of all things.

"It's about women who are independent and live their own lives despite
what society says," Vaughn said.

She got her first motorcycle when she was 10, a dirt bike from her
father. When she began doing stunts on it, he decided she should
channel her efforts into something slightly safer, like racing.

Sometimes she competed against girls; other times she would enter boys'
races as "Chris." When she finished in the top three, she would take
off her helmet during the trophy ceremony and shake out her long blond
hair.

That, she said, did not always go over well in conservative Alaska,
though her father used to sit back and smile at the reactions.

Her brother, Dan Diamond, also raced, and she would watch as he
tinkered with the machinery.

"It looked important, so I tried to do the same thing," she said.
Unfortunately, "I usually ended up with a lot of parts left over."

Her dad and brother just laughed, so she taught herself how to fix her
own bike.

In her teens, she would "borrow" her brother's street bike--usually
dumping it, which is when she realized that the taller, top-heavy
cycles were not made for someone her size.

She began to customize Harley-Davidsons to fit, but she couldn't keep
them long before someone offered her too much money to refuse. Clearly,
there was a market.

But Wicked Women Choppers is not really about commerce, she said. One
of Vaughn's main goals is to blast open a traditionally male bastion.

"It's important not only to break open the industry, but also to show
[other women] they can do this," she said. "There are a lot of very
talented women out there."

Vaughn has two machinist/metal fabricators on board already, Shara
Peyton, 28, and Rhonda Heifner, 24.

"This is a man's job, and we're doing it," said Heifner, whose dark
hair is partly dyed pinkish-purple. "There ain't a lot about me that's
feminine."

Vaughn also hopes to start an internship program with local schools,
offering girls in shop classes the chance at hands-on experience in a
comfortable environment.

Amid this swirl of femaledom is Vaughn's husband, a biker who said he's
happy to ride in the figurative sidecar.

A Vietnam War veteran, Dan Vaughn worked in the telecommunications
industry in the Caribbean, Hungary and Siberia before retiring to
southern Illinois a few years ago. The Vaughns have a teenage son.

"It's been fairly easy for a husband," Dan Vaughn said. "She followed
me all over the world and has always been there to support me. To take
a back seat to someone so talented is not a problem for me at all."

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
Women building a motorcycle shaped to fit

With gas prices on the rise she might have more work than she
anticipated. It be a great company to own some stock in.

Bernd

http://www.wickedwomenchoppers.com

A great looking bike!