Hey skr00z, can I have your autograph...
05-27-2008, 11:37 AM
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Hey skr00z, can I have your autograph...
preferably in Swarovski crystals!!
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/diva...che-mans-world
Just kiddin' dude. Nice to get a kudo from the boss!
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/diva...che-mans-world
Just kiddin' dude. Nice to get a kudo from the boss!
05-27-2008, 12:57 PM
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Re: Hey skr00z, can I have your autograph...
neat article:
Diva biker finds a niche in a man's world
ON A SUNLESS WINTER DAY, Tami Walker realized she had a big, blue problem on her hands.
Her U-Haul sat parked in front of a storage unit in Virginia Beach. Inside the truck were the few pieces of furniture she and her two children still owned; there was no room in the furnished winter rental at the North End of the Beach that they'd be calling home.
The petite, divorced 36-year-old had to figure out how to get her newest possession, a 500-pound blue Harley, off the truck. The only people around were her children, then ages 14 and 8, and her mother, who thought Tami's problems were more monumental than the motorcycle: Why on Earth did she feel compelled to spend a good chunk of her cash reserves on this machine? Or to move from her South Carolina home to Virginia Beach, where she knew not one soul? Where she didn't have a job?
Tami had trouble explaining all that, too. Still does five years later, sitting behind her big desk at Diva Customs in Virginia Beach.
"I believe in fate," she said, offering an explanation for a string of seemingly irrational choices.
But she did buy the bike, and now she had to get it on the ground. The grade of the U-Haul's ramp made the motorcycle bottom out. After thinking on it for a while, Tami finally forced a roll of carpet under the end of the ramp. She swung one leg over the bike and, balancing nervously on her tippy-toes, rolled it down and into the storage unit.
And now she had another problem: She had no idea how to ride.
Motorcycles were never a part of Tami's life when she was growing up the youngest of four in an athletic Navy family. In high school, her brothers played football; she was the captain of the cheerleading squad.
On the day she saved an ant from a grasshopper in her Charleston, S.C., backyard, Tami decided her destiny: to be a veterinarian. She started riding horses at 10 and got her own at 13. She spent her spare time among the chickens and cows on the farm where she boarded her horse.
After high school, Tami started community college and worked part time alongside a vet. By age 20, she had married a Navy man and continued taking classes. By 21, she had a daughter, Chelsea. Six years later, her son, Walker, was born.
Wherever they were stationed - including 18 months in Virginia Beach - Tami found work in vets' offices, but not the college classes she needed. Her interest in the field faded. With motherhood, the dream dimmed further.
When she and her husband divorced, Tami returned to South Carolina, opened a coffee shop in a tiny seaside tourist town, set up a personal training studio in her home and started building a clientele. But Sept. 11 crashed her cafe business, and her spirit.
"I was fed up. I was working seven days a week. I never saw my children."
So she sold "everything that didn't mean anything," including her business and her car, and bought three tickets to Australia, "because it's an English-speaking country" and she "never heard anyone say they didn't want to go there." For six months, Tami and her children bonded at their rented bungalow in another seaside town.
The notion of a motorcycle roared into Tami's head in Sydney. It was the expansive feeling of freedom she got when an Australian tour guide zoomed her over soaring bridges and along highways, her children and another guide behind her on a three-wheeler.
Tami imagined that if she did get a bike - and she only vaguely thought she would - it would be a blue Sportster, the baby of the Harley-Davidson family, sometimes called "Skirtsters" because so many ladies ride them.
With their visas due to expire, Tami and the children returned to her mother's house in Charleston. She decided to relocate to Virginia Beach because she thought it would be a cool place to live. One day before leaving, Tami walked into a Harley shop and took a life-changing glance to the left. She spotted it. Her bike.
Tami had sold everything they had acquired in Australia and still had some money in the bank, but $6,000 was a big hit.
A few days after rolling her new motorcycle off the U-Haul, Tami bundled up and drove to the storage shed.
She swung a leg over the bike and, without turning it on, backed it out of the unit, pushing with her tippy-toes. She gripped a handlebar with one hand and the bulky Harley-Davidson owner's manual with the other. She pondered paragraphs on the ignition system, the gauges, the clutch. She practiced shifting through the gears, her boot making a clicking sound on the shift lever. She toyed with the blinkers and the brakes and, on that very first day, got the odometer turning.
Tami visited her bike almost every other day, not willing to leave her children for much more than an hour. She spent weeks making endless loops around the storage property, never shifting out of second gear.
Winter waned. Tami finally felt ready for her first right-hand turn onto a public street, a rite of passage for beginner bikers. The trick is to make a tight enough turn to stay in your lane. Tami maneuvered the bike to the intersection of Jack Rabbit Road and Donna Drive... and stalled. She tried again. And stalled again. And again.
Determined, she tried once more, rolling her right wrist to give the bike more gas. As she did, the machine lunged forward and she slid backward in her stock seat.
She shot across the road, jumped the curb, cleared a swath of grass and vanished into a stand of red-leafed bushes.
A few evenings later, she made five passes in her pickup until she mustered the courage to turn into The Rocks (now Boneshakers Saloon) in Virginia Beach, which seemed to her a foreboding "biker" bar.
Motorcycle riders are a brotherhood, ownership an instant bond. At the bar, she found people who understood her problem. One agreed to put her through the paces in the Kmart parking lot, and later, on her first real ride on Oceana Boulevard, she learned that one of the most dangerous mistakes a biker can make is riding under the speed limit.
But now that she had joined the brotherhood, she had a whole new problem.
In 2003, when Tami learned to ride, the number of female motorcycle owners was on a steady climb that continues. Today, about one in 10 bike owners is a woman, according to industry statistics.
Tami didn't envision herself astride her pretty blue Sportster in a 20-pound, black cow leather jacket and combat boots. Companies such as Harley-Davidson and Suzuki had sensed that about this growing demographic and responded with lines of women's clothing that broke the all-black, skull-and-crossbones barrier.
"I still couldn't find anything made for me," she said. "It all seemed like men's clothes cut down for women. I wanted something I could wear that wasn't so 'biker-ish,' something I could get off my bike and go to a nice restaurant in."
Something Gucci?
She found it on BlueFly.com, a black, curve-hugging leather jacket that had been marked down four times and was never meant for a motorcycle. For her feet, she selected a pair of mid-calf, black leather wedges. With her spiked red hair, flaming in both color and silhouette, she turned plenty of male heads, but it was the ladies who were looking the hardest.
Off road, Tami was busy at home trying to make a living firing up her blender and whirring up scented lotions and soaps. Her Internet site was gaining momentum, but her biggest market was Charleston, where her mother marketed Tami's line to salons and spas.
On poker runs and Sunday rides, she formulated an idea she thought might solve her style issues as well as boost her income: an upscale clothing boutique for female bikers.
In December 2004, with money she made selling one of her formulas to a Charleston spa, she birthed her "frustration baby," a shop called Diva Customs in the former Things Unlimited near the Oceanfront. She painted the walls a rich ruby red, installed track lighting and hung sparkling lilac and white lights over the counter.
She ordered stock that was decidedly feminine but with the edginess that has long defined the biker mystique. Faded, frayed jeans with pristine black lace and sequin insets at the calf. Sexy silk corsets from England. Butter-soft tan leather jackets with pocket chains. Supple leather vests. Denim and leather chaps. Helmets in black, pink and red.
And, of course, her lotions and soaps - now dubbed RPM (repair, protect, moisturize) - and her own line of belt buckles and T-shirts sporting her Diva Customs logo, skulls, iron crosses and pink breast-cancer ribbons, all in glittering Swarovski crystals.
Her merchandise runs from mid-range to high-end - leather jackets, for example, cost from $150 to $900. Prices for premium pieces might bring a jolt, but Tami's mantra is that on the motorcycle, Diva Customs' clothes "will do more than protect you."
She set a narrow set of shelves over in one corner, filled it with a few token Diva Customs T-shirts for the guys. The finishing touch: a sign over her office that reads, "When God closes one door, she opens another."
So now she looked good on her bike. But truth be told, she still had a serious problem.
Go to the big motorcycle manufacturers - Harley-Davidson, Suzuki, Kawasaki - and ask to see their line of women's bikes. They'll say sorry, we don't have any.
Ask when they plan to debut a line of women's bikes. They'll say, we have no plans to do that.
With the uptick in female riders, manufacturers have designed new models or modified existing lines, such as the Sportster, making them lower to the ground, narrowing the seats and softening the ride. But the companies maintain that the modifications accommodate smaller people, not just women.
Women "don't necessarily want a woman's motorcycle, they want a motorcycle," said Glenn Hansen, communications manager for American Suzuki Motor Corp.'s motorcycle and ATV division.
Tami would wager that female riders want a motorcycle that fits them as well as their favorite pair of shoes, makes them move with confidence and makes them feel sexy.
That's not how she felt on her bike. One year after she started to ride, she had clocked just 400 miles.
"I felt like I was sitting on this big piece of machinery holding on for dear life." And on longer rides, she had to shift her body from side to side to get comfortable on the too-wide seat.
A friend suggested she order a custom seat, not for function, but as an aesthetic upgrade.
"Everybody who gets a bike wants to make it theirs," Tami said.
Her new seat was leaner than the stock one, with a slope in the rear to keep her from sliding back (like that time she vanished into the bushes). It also put her two inches closer to the ground. No more tottering on tippy-toes at stoplights.
She couldn't believe how much more confident and safe she felt.
Next, she switched out the Sportster's gas tank, dubbed a "peanut" because of its tall shape. The flatter tank lowered the center of gravity. Now her bike felt more stable, like it was gliding. She could lean into turns. A new set of handlebars allowed her to sit more naturally.
"Instead of me trying to fit on this bike. I realized that I could make the bike fit me."
She wondered: Why isn't anyone out there telling women about this?
Kawasaki spokesman Sean Alexander, 39, believes women will make up 40 percent of motorcycle owners in his lifetime. "Companies that respond," he said, "will be the leaders."
Tami responded in September 2006, when she opened her service department, which specializes in maintenance and cosmetic and performance improvements. It features five lifts and a pricey DynoJet Dynamometer 200i, with a DynoJet Realtime air/fuel ratio module, a sort of high-tech treadmill for diagnosing performance problems and designing upgrades. She also snagged well-known local mechanic Steven Kent to staff the shop, which caters to both male and female bikers.
Customers enter Diva Customs' cosmo blue service department after stepping across a giraffe print rug and through a set of French doors with ruby silk brocade swags.
A consultation room is filled with catalogs of all things motorcycle. For women wanting a custom fit, Tami's specialty, she advocates attention to "the big four": the seat, handlebars, gas tank and shocks. She knows what's out there and what fits women.
Since style never rides shotgun in Tami's life, she designed a line of Swarovski-studded point covers and derby covers (round metal plates on the outside of the engine). They range from $200 to $360 and come packaged in a velvet pouch. Her latest coup: She scored nearly a full page for her jeweled plate covers on Page 661 of "J&P Cycles," one of the largest mail-order catalogs in the motorcycle parts industry.
Diva's does custom work on about 100 bikes a year, and more than a dozen of the major custom jobs - which run several thousand dollars - have been on women's bikes. That number has increased each year. The work is performed and supervised by Jason Mook, Diva Customs' service manager and Tami's new husband.
Wendy Belisle, a 5-foot-2, 45-year-old bike owner from Virginia Beach, has been riding for a decade. She took her Sportster to Diva Customs for a complete makeover, including the big four and a new, more powerful engine. On the cosmetic side, she had the bike painted a glossy black, with a cluster of fat purple grapes on the gas tank, barely visible skulls lurking in the center of each one. The stock tail lights have been replaced with new ones shaped like cat eyes.
But the swelling sisterhood of bikers posed yet another problem for Tami.
She has three Harleys now. There's the sparkling, candy apple red Road King, her "Bag Lady," a bike with custom everything, including handlebars that can be adjusted for touring or city riding.
"It's like a favorite pair of loafers," she said. "I could tour all day on her."
Then there's her pearlescent Dyna Wide Glide. "My favorite. I love the way I sit on her."
Then there's the old Sportster. It's painted a shimmering red with flames, has a tan ostrich seat, and it's jacked up higher in the front to make it look fast. Rojo is parked right in the boutique. This is her show bike. "Like a sexy pair of stilettos," she said. "Good to look at, but you're not going to ride her all day long."
Soon after opening the shop, Tami entered her Sportster in a bike show at Boneshakers. She lost to a guy whose gas cap cover was shaped like a breast.
At the time, she joked with the winner, saying, "You only won because the judges were copping a feel of your gas cap cover."
But later, "It made me realize that pink flames won't stand up to skulls and daggers."
The solution?
"Divas Only," an annual bike show with the motto "Girls against the girls," is now the largest woman-only bike show in the nation.
The first, in 2006 at the Chesapeake Conference Center, drew 56 entries - some divas drove in from out of state - and a crowd of 1,000, far more than she expected.
Tami made it a girly affair, held in the ballroom with a fashion show and a band. She brought in big-name judges including two-time Discovery Channel "Biker Build-Off" champion Matt Hotch.
Women competed in 10 categories, including Sportster, trike, chopper, V-Rod and Harley-Davidson stock. Winners were awarded cash prizes, trophies of frosted glass in the flowing shape of a woman and bouquets of roses. Kind of like a beauty pageant.
Tami enjoys bike shows that the local bars host most every weekend, but hers had to be different. "I didn't want it in a bar parking lot where people drink beer all day. I wanted real food on real plates, not Styrofoam. I wanted to be entertained."
And no boys' bikes allowed, although both years men have tried to sneak their motorcycles into the show.
"I find that kind of amusing," Tami said, standing behind the counter in her shop just a few weeks before this year's show, scheduled for next weekend. "How do you brag about that?"
So five years after she stood on her tippy-toes and rolled her Sportster into the storage unit, Tami Walker knows how to ride. She's got her biker boutique. She's got her service shop. And she's got the biggest biker chick show in the country. Her kids think she's cool.
Her latest problem?
No time to ride.
Diva biker finds a niche in a man's world
ON A SUNLESS WINTER DAY, Tami Walker realized she had a big, blue problem on her hands.
Her U-Haul sat parked in front of a storage unit in Virginia Beach. Inside the truck were the few pieces of furniture she and her two children still owned; there was no room in the furnished winter rental at the North End of the Beach that they'd be calling home.
The petite, divorced 36-year-old had to figure out how to get her newest possession, a 500-pound blue Harley, off the truck. The only people around were her children, then ages 14 and 8, and her mother, who thought Tami's problems were more monumental than the motorcycle: Why on Earth did she feel compelled to spend a good chunk of her cash reserves on this machine? Or to move from her South Carolina home to Virginia Beach, where she knew not one soul? Where she didn't have a job?
Tami had trouble explaining all that, too. Still does five years later, sitting behind her big desk at Diva Customs in Virginia Beach.
"I believe in fate," she said, offering an explanation for a string of seemingly irrational choices.
But she did buy the bike, and now she had to get it on the ground. The grade of the U-Haul's ramp made the motorcycle bottom out. After thinking on it for a while, Tami finally forced a roll of carpet under the end of the ramp. She swung one leg over the bike and, balancing nervously on her tippy-toes, rolled it down and into the storage unit.
And now she had another problem: She had no idea how to ride.
Motorcycles were never a part of Tami's life when she was growing up the youngest of four in an athletic Navy family. In high school, her brothers played football; she was the captain of the cheerleading squad.
On the day she saved an ant from a grasshopper in her Charleston, S.C., backyard, Tami decided her destiny: to be a veterinarian. She started riding horses at 10 and got her own at 13. She spent her spare time among the chickens and cows on the farm where she boarded her horse.
After high school, Tami started community college and worked part time alongside a vet. By age 20, she had married a Navy man and continued taking classes. By 21, she had a daughter, Chelsea. Six years later, her son, Walker, was born.
Wherever they were stationed - including 18 months in Virginia Beach - Tami found work in vets' offices, but not the college classes she needed. Her interest in the field faded. With motherhood, the dream dimmed further.
When she and her husband divorced, Tami returned to South Carolina, opened a coffee shop in a tiny seaside tourist town, set up a personal training studio in her home and started building a clientele. But Sept. 11 crashed her cafe business, and her spirit.
"I was fed up. I was working seven days a week. I never saw my children."
So she sold "everything that didn't mean anything," including her business and her car, and bought three tickets to Australia, "because it's an English-speaking country" and she "never heard anyone say they didn't want to go there." For six months, Tami and her children bonded at their rented bungalow in another seaside town.
The notion of a motorcycle roared into Tami's head in Sydney. It was the expansive feeling of freedom she got when an Australian tour guide zoomed her over soaring bridges and along highways, her children and another guide behind her on a three-wheeler.
Tami imagined that if she did get a bike - and she only vaguely thought she would - it would be a blue Sportster, the baby of the Harley-Davidson family, sometimes called "Skirtsters" because so many ladies ride them.
With their visas due to expire, Tami and the children returned to her mother's house in Charleston. She decided to relocate to Virginia Beach because she thought it would be a cool place to live. One day before leaving, Tami walked into a Harley shop and took a life-changing glance to the left. She spotted it. Her bike.
Tami had sold everything they had acquired in Australia and still had some money in the bank, but $6,000 was a big hit.
A few days after rolling her new motorcycle off the U-Haul, Tami bundled up and drove to the storage shed.
She swung a leg over the bike and, without turning it on, backed it out of the unit, pushing with her tippy-toes. She gripped a handlebar with one hand and the bulky Harley-Davidson owner's manual with the other. She pondered paragraphs on the ignition system, the gauges, the clutch. She practiced shifting through the gears, her boot making a clicking sound on the shift lever. She toyed with the blinkers and the brakes and, on that very first day, got the odometer turning.
Tami visited her bike almost every other day, not willing to leave her children for much more than an hour. She spent weeks making endless loops around the storage property, never shifting out of second gear.
Winter waned. Tami finally felt ready for her first right-hand turn onto a public street, a rite of passage for beginner bikers. The trick is to make a tight enough turn to stay in your lane. Tami maneuvered the bike to the intersection of Jack Rabbit Road and Donna Drive... and stalled. She tried again. And stalled again. And again.
Determined, she tried once more, rolling her right wrist to give the bike more gas. As she did, the machine lunged forward and she slid backward in her stock seat.
She shot across the road, jumped the curb, cleared a swath of grass and vanished into a stand of red-leafed bushes.
A few evenings later, she made five passes in her pickup until she mustered the courage to turn into The Rocks (now Boneshakers Saloon) in Virginia Beach, which seemed to her a foreboding "biker" bar.
Motorcycle riders are a brotherhood, ownership an instant bond. At the bar, she found people who understood her problem. One agreed to put her through the paces in the Kmart parking lot, and later, on her first real ride on Oceana Boulevard, she learned that one of the most dangerous mistakes a biker can make is riding under the speed limit.
But now that she had joined the brotherhood, she had a whole new problem.
In 2003, when Tami learned to ride, the number of female motorcycle owners was on a steady climb that continues. Today, about one in 10 bike owners is a woman, according to industry statistics.
Tami didn't envision herself astride her pretty blue Sportster in a 20-pound, black cow leather jacket and combat boots. Companies such as Harley-Davidson and Suzuki had sensed that about this growing demographic and responded with lines of women's clothing that broke the all-black, skull-and-crossbones barrier.
"I still couldn't find anything made for me," she said. "It all seemed like men's clothes cut down for women. I wanted something I could wear that wasn't so 'biker-ish,' something I could get off my bike and go to a nice restaurant in."
Something Gucci?
She found it on BlueFly.com, a black, curve-hugging leather jacket that had been marked down four times and was never meant for a motorcycle. For her feet, she selected a pair of mid-calf, black leather wedges. With her spiked red hair, flaming in both color and silhouette, she turned plenty of male heads, but it was the ladies who were looking the hardest.
Off road, Tami was busy at home trying to make a living firing up her blender and whirring up scented lotions and soaps. Her Internet site was gaining momentum, but her biggest market was Charleston, where her mother marketed Tami's line to salons and spas.
On poker runs and Sunday rides, she formulated an idea she thought might solve her style issues as well as boost her income: an upscale clothing boutique for female bikers.
In December 2004, with money she made selling one of her formulas to a Charleston spa, she birthed her "frustration baby," a shop called Diva Customs in the former Things Unlimited near the Oceanfront. She painted the walls a rich ruby red, installed track lighting and hung sparkling lilac and white lights over the counter.
She ordered stock that was decidedly feminine but with the edginess that has long defined the biker mystique. Faded, frayed jeans with pristine black lace and sequin insets at the calf. Sexy silk corsets from England. Butter-soft tan leather jackets with pocket chains. Supple leather vests. Denim and leather chaps. Helmets in black, pink and red.
And, of course, her lotions and soaps - now dubbed RPM (repair, protect, moisturize) - and her own line of belt buckles and T-shirts sporting her Diva Customs logo, skulls, iron crosses and pink breast-cancer ribbons, all in glittering Swarovski crystals.
Her merchandise runs from mid-range to high-end - leather jackets, for example, cost from $150 to $900. Prices for premium pieces might bring a jolt, but Tami's mantra is that on the motorcycle, Diva Customs' clothes "will do more than protect you."
She set a narrow set of shelves over in one corner, filled it with a few token Diva Customs T-shirts for the guys. The finishing touch: a sign over her office that reads, "When God closes one door, she opens another."
So now she looked good on her bike. But truth be told, she still had a serious problem.
Go to the big motorcycle manufacturers - Harley-Davidson, Suzuki, Kawasaki - and ask to see their line of women's bikes. They'll say sorry, we don't have any.
Ask when they plan to debut a line of women's bikes. They'll say, we have no plans to do that.
With the uptick in female riders, manufacturers have designed new models or modified existing lines, such as the Sportster, making them lower to the ground, narrowing the seats and softening the ride. But the companies maintain that the modifications accommodate smaller people, not just women.
Women "don't necessarily want a woman's motorcycle, they want a motorcycle," said Glenn Hansen, communications manager for American Suzuki Motor Corp.'s motorcycle and ATV division.
Tami would wager that female riders want a motorcycle that fits them as well as their favorite pair of shoes, makes them move with confidence and makes them feel sexy.
That's not how she felt on her bike. One year after she started to ride, she had clocked just 400 miles.
"I felt like I was sitting on this big piece of machinery holding on for dear life." And on longer rides, she had to shift her body from side to side to get comfortable on the too-wide seat.
A friend suggested she order a custom seat, not for function, but as an aesthetic upgrade.
"Everybody who gets a bike wants to make it theirs," Tami said.
Her new seat was leaner than the stock one, with a slope in the rear to keep her from sliding back (like that time she vanished into the bushes). It also put her two inches closer to the ground. No more tottering on tippy-toes at stoplights.
She couldn't believe how much more confident and safe she felt.
Next, she switched out the Sportster's gas tank, dubbed a "peanut" because of its tall shape. The flatter tank lowered the center of gravity. Now her bike felt more stable, like it was gliding. She could lean into turns. A new set of handlebars allowed her to sit more naturally.
"Instead of me trying to fit on this bike. I realized that I could make the bike fit me."
She wondered: Why isn't anyone out there telling women about this?
Kawasaki spokesman Sean Alexander, 39, believes women will make up 40 percent of motorcycle owners in his lifetime. "Companies that respond," he said, "will be the leaders."
Tami responded in September 2006, when she opened her service department, which specializes in maintenance and cosmetic and performance improvements. It features five lifts and a pricey DynoJet Dynamometer 200i, with a DynoJet Realtime air/fuel ratio module, a sort of high-tech treadmill for diagnosing performance problems and designing upgrades. She also snagged well-known local mechanic Steven Kent to staff the shop, which caters to both male and female bikers.
Customers enter Diva Customs' cosmo blue service department after stepping across a giraffe print rug and through a set of French doors with ruby silk brocade swags.
A consultation room is filled with catalogs of all things motorcycle. For women wanting a custom fit, Tami's specialty, she advocates attention to "the big four": the seat, handlebars, gas tank and shocks. She knows what's out there and what fits women.
Since style never rides shotgun in Tami's life, she designed a line of Swarovski-studded point covers and derby covers (round metal plates on the outside of the engine). They range from $200 to $360 and come packaged in a velvet pouch. Her latest coup: She scored nearly a full page for her jeweled plate covers on Page 661 of "J&P Cycles," one of the largest mail-order catalogs in the motorcycle parts industry.
Diva's does custom work on about 100 bikes a year, and more than a dozen of the major custom jobs - which run several thousand dollars - have been on women's bikes. That number has increased each year. The work is performed and supervised by Jason Mook, Diva Customs' service manager and Tami's new husband.
Wendy Belisle, a 5-foot-2, 45-year-old bike owner from Virginia Beach, has been riding for a decade. She took her Sportster to Diva Customs for a complete makeover, including the big four and a new, more powerful engine. On the cosmetic side, she had the bike painted a glossy black, with a cluster of fat purple grapes on the gas tank, barely visible skulls lurking in the center of each one. The stock tail lights have been replaced with new ones shaped like cat eyes.
But the swelling sisterhood of bikers posed yet another problem for Tami.
She has three Harleys now. There's the sparkling, candy apple red Road King, her "Bag Lady," a bike with custom everything, including handlebars that can be adjusted for touring or city riding.
"It's like a favorite pair of loafers," she said. "I could tour all day on her."
Then there's her pearlescent Dyna Wide Glide. "My favorite. I love the way I sit on her."
Then there's the old Sportster. It's painted a shimmering red with flames, has a tan ostrich seat, and it's jacked up higher in the front to make it look fast. Rojo is parked right in the boutique. This is her show bike. "Like a sexy pair of stilettos," she said. "Good to look at, but you're not going to ride her all day long."
Soon after opening the shop, Tami entered her Sportster in a bike show at Boneshakers. She lost to a guy whose gas cap cover was shaped like a breast.
At the time, she joked with the winner, saying, "You only won because the judges were copping a feel of your gas cap cover."
But later, "It made me realize that pink flames won't stand up to skulls and daggers."
The solution?
"Divas Only," an annual bike show with the motto "Girls against the girls," is now the largest woman-only bike show in the nation.
The first, in 2006 at the Chesapeake Conference Center, drew 56 entries - some divas drove in from out of state - and a crowd of 1,000, far more than she expected.
Tami made it a girly affair, held in the ballroom with a fashion show and a band. She brought in big-name judges including two-time Discovery Channel "Biker Build-Off" champion Matt Hotch.
Women competed in 10 categories, including Sportster, trike, chopper, V-Rod and Harley-Davidson stock. Winners were awarded cash prizes, trophies of frosted glass in the flowing shape of a woman and bouquets of roses. Kind of like a beauty pageant.
Tami enjoys bike shows that the local bars host most every weekend, but hers had to be different. "I didn't want it in a bar parking lot where people drink beer all day. I wanted real food on real plates, not Styrofoam. I wanted to be entertained."
And no boys' bikes allowed, although both years men have tried to sneak their motorcycles into the show.
"I find that kind of amusing," Tami said, standing behind the counter in her shop just a few weeks before this year's show, scheduled for next weekend. "How do you brag about that?"
So five years after she stood on her tippy-toes and rolled her Sportster into the storage unit, Tami Walker knows how to ride. She's got her biker boutique. She's got her service shop. And she's got the biggest biker chick show in the country. Her kids think she's cool.
Her latest problem?
No time to ride.
Last edited by Real Random; 05-27-2008 at 01:21 PM.
05-27-2008, 06:27 PM
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Re: Hey skr00z, can I have your autograph...
thanks for posting that , i still haven't actually seen the article. looks like it was pretty well written, even though they spelled my name wrong, lol.
on a related note, Tami's bagger that me and her husband built should be on the cover of "HOT BIKE BAGGER" magazine towards the end of the year. they did the photo shoot of the bike while we were in Myrtle beach. The shop's been getting a shit-ton of publicity lately, and i've been busy as hell!
and Dan... no autographs
on a related note, Tami's bagger that me and her husband built should be on the cover of "HOT BIKE BAGGER" magazine towards the end of the year. they did the photo shoot of the bike while we were in Myrtle beach. The shop's been getting a shit-ton of publicity lately, and i've been busy as hell!
and Dan... no autographs
05-28-2008, 07:20 AM
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