Gloria Struck – An Inspiration
Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys®: How do you get to the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum’s Hall of Fame? If you’re Gloria Struck, you ride 600 miles a day from New Jersey to North Dakota, and then show up at the ceremony where they induct you. That honor is even more impressive when you realize that Gloria was 86 last August, when her lifetime of cycle riding was acknowledged with the tribute.
Gloria was born into a family that owned a cycle shop in New Jersey. She’s owned 14 cycles over the past 65 years. Not only has she carried on the family tradition personally, logging more than half a million miles across the 48 contiguous U.S. and across eight countries in Europe, she also has a son and daughter who ride. She laughs that when her daughter was little, she thought everybody’s mother had a Harley. Gloria makes the trip to Daytona every year, proud that she doesn’t trailer her bike cross-country — she rides it.
Gloria has led and inspired other female riders for decades: she joined the Motor Maids right after World War Two ended, and is one of the group’s longest active members. Since she was 16, she’s owned 16 bikes – including her first, an Indian Army bike, and 11 Harleys. Cycles haven’t only been her passion, they’ve been her way of life – she even met her husband Len through motorcycling. After he got out of the military, he used to come by her family’s motorcycle shop. She sold him her 1941 Bonneville Scout for $500, and real romance soon followed the romance of riding.
Gloria has as much respect and affection for the riders as she does for the machines. She says fellow riders never gave her any trouble for being a female, though she has been called bad names by men who were not riders. She states riders always respected her because she did a lot of traveling on her own. And because she blazed so many trails for females – and there are so many female riders these days – she gets a lot of respect from younger riders, too.
How long can she keep it up? Gloria claims she’ll ride until the day when she can’t ride a solo bike anymore. She maintains her plan is to stay a solo rider, always, and go as long as she can. Here’s wishing her 86 years more.
Gloria Struck, always a favorite inspiration, attended the Sturgis Buffalo Chip’s first charitable women’s ride in 2009 with her friend Cris Sommer Simmons who was promoting her book, “The American Motorcycle Girls: A Photographic History of Early Women Motorcyclists.” Last year, 2011 Gloria was inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame. Following the induction breakfast, she joined fellow riders and friends, Laura Klock and Meg McDonough and other women riders for the Sturgis Buffalo Chip Biker Belles celebration and ride through the beautiful canyons of the Black Hills to the Buffalo Chip. The Biker Belles ride celebrates women in motorcycling while raising funds for Helping with Horsepower, which serves young girls and women who are at risk or victims of abuse, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame for enhancing exhibits on women in motorcycling.
Join Gloria and other great women legends in the motorcycle industry this year for the Sturgis Buffalo Chip ‘Biker Belles Ride’ on Wed Aug 8th 2012.
Motorcycle Lawyer Russ Brown is proud to be a sponsor of this great event. The entire legal team of Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys® is looking forward to celebrating women in motorcycling at the 2012 Sturgis Buffalo Chip Concert Series in August.
Get out and ride!!!
See you in Sturgis!
