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Ride or die: What women bikers need to know before setting off on a journey
Before you grab your helmet and ride into the sunset on your bike, here’s what you need to know – from one woman rider to another
What do trolls know? All they see on their screens is a girl on a shiny motorcycle, helmet gleaming, leather jacket catching the light, mountains or highways in the distance. Every shot screams cool. Every Reel makes chasing the sunset look easy. No one really knows how much harder it is for women to be on the road, especially when they travel solo.
Because long rides test patience, endurance and discipline. A day can begin at 4.30 am – before the sun is up. Who knows what’s hiding in the shadows between the hotel and the parking lot? Gear (jacket, gloves, pants, padding, shoes, helmet) can add some five kilos of body weight – making it harder for lighter bodies to distribute weight as they tackle hairpin bends on two wheels. It’s dusty, it’s hot. Vehicles break down, plans unravel, no place is truly safe from harassment. Here’s what some women have learnt along the way.
Cracked rear view
“No rides after 6 or 7 in the evening,” says Cherry Bhidola (@Rider.Girl.Cherry), 24, who has been riding since June 2021. From her base in Dehradun, she’s steered her Suzuki V-Storm 250 through Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Sikkim, and Uttar Pradesh. Unknown shortcuts? Skip. Isolated stops? Avoid. Small talk with a stranger? Limited. Familiar dhabas and petrol-pump loos are safer than random pit stops. And all halts and detours are mapped out and double-checked before she starts out. Bhidola’s lesson is simple: Planning is survival. “A ride isn’t just about where you want to go, it’s about how safely you get there,” she says.
Mumbai rider Vishakha Fulsunge (@RiderGirlVishakha) has spent 15 years doing road trips on her KTM Duke 390, Himalayan 411, and RE Guerilla 450. She jokes that she “eats kilometres and not food”. But she’s picked up some lessons the hard way. In the beginning she rode on instinct, following moods instead of maps. It helped her discover ancient temples and mustard fields stretching to the horizon.
Then, in March 2020, the Narmada Parikrama tested her instincts. Her bike had taken a brutal hit on a dark, potholed highway, the front wheel bent and the handlebar twisted. No electricity. No mobile network. She was about 80 kilometres to the next village. Some men, in a candlelit garage, pointed left towards a “better road” and she took it. But ten minutes in, the path dissolved into a field. Three men stepped into the weak beam of her headlight, bidis glowing in the dark. Panic surged, but she knew enough to trust her gut. Wasting no time, she spun her bike around and got the hell out of there. “The look in their eyes is something I’ll never forget.”
She now plans for contingencies, shares her location, carries tools, chooses women-friendly stays. And over the years, she’s realised just how much the road rewards judgment, intuition, and self-reliance.
Measure of a man
Size matters on a bike. In June 2025, Bhidola slammed into a glass storefront in Spiti. Her camping gear, extra bags, and sheer weight had tipped her off balance. Water crossings are just as brutal. So, she’s learnt that packing haphazardly, without accounting for how the weight is distributed across two wheels, is a dangerous. Now, she compartmentalises her belongings for easy retrieval too – medicines and first-aid within reach, a scarf for dust and sun, lip balm and sunscreen, a head torch and whistle, a compact toolkit, water, sanitary pads, and a puncture kit. And water-resistant bags for them all.
For Aswathi Unnikrishnan (@MalluRiderGirlOfficial), 28, from Kannur, Kerala, the challenge isn’t weight; it’s height. At five feet tall, she’s dwarfed by most standard-sized motorcycles. She began riding in September 2023, taking her husband Varun’s Himalayan 411 across India while he played passenger princess. Long legs are a privilege most men take for granted, she says. “Ladakh and Zanskar have slush, loose sands, and gravel. It’s hard for a small person to navigate a heavy motorcycle.” She now rides the RE Guerilla 450. “Choose a bike that’s right for you, and practise. That’s the secret.”
The other secret: Developing a thicker skin, because the rider community is hard on women. Aswathi was en route from Kanyakumari to Kashmir when she realised that the stretch between Karad – Oni – Goa had no petrol stations, hotels, toilets, or rest stops. She posted a Reel about looking for a toilet. “I received backlash and was shamed by men.” They claimed the road wasn’t for women, and she should go back home. The only lesson to learn: Ride on and ignore the haters.
Take a brake
In September 2024, Pooja (@Rider.Noni), 28, from Kashipur, Uttarakhand, ran into trouble in a remote village in Ajmer. She was on her all-India ride on her Yamaha MT15 with Hukum, her cat. Around 10pm, Hukum grew restless, so Pooja stopped in a corner, assuming he needed food or a loo break. A local stormed out, ready for a fight. Pooja tried to calm him down and even offered to clean up, but the argument only got worse. The man shoved her, the scene escalated, and soon a crowd had gathered. It ended with Pooja filing a police complaint.
The good news: Women riders are learning quickly from each other’s experiences. And they’re not slowing down. “Every skill I learn gives me confidence,” says Riddhi Thakkar (@GearGlimpse54), 23. Last year, she was in Mumbai, returning home from Bandra Reclamation on her Hunter 350 Royal Enfield, when she noticed a slight wobble in her back tyre. She didn’t think much of it, but as she descended a slope, the tyre veered left and right, making the bike unstable. She managed to ride carefully to Santa Cruz, where she discovered that the back tyre bearing had broken. “Thankfully, I was in Mumbai. That incident made me think about self-sufficiency,” she says. She won’t take wobbles lightly again.
From HT Brunch, November 15, 2025
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