Mary McGee is a pioneer in American motorcycle racing, thanks to her untamable determination and a spirit as warm as her smile. Her excitement for motorcycling, especially racing, is contagious even in her eighties. She was the first woman to receive an FIM racing license in the United States, first woman to complete the Baja 1000, and the first woman to race the Baja 500 solo. These aren’t her only firsts, either. She was also the first woman in motocross and road racing in the States. McGee was rightly inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 2018.
The Triumph Named Tesla & the Maryland Meetup
It’s every journalist’s (or wannabe journalist, if you rather) dream to get to travel and photograph their favorite things… in this case, the lovely Sasha of CafeRacerXXX sent me on a mission to photograph “Tesla”, a Triumph build by my friend Jeff Yarrington of Saint Motor Company in Maryland. With a little help of Kevin Dunworth of Loaded Gun Customs, Sasha organized a great event.
CafeRacerXXX organized a MotoLady meetup, a video was planned, and days were set aside for a photoshoot of the bike.
Definitely go take a look at the Pipeburn article / feature on the bike itself here. Below you can find my Tesla detail video, and a couple nice shots of Tesla as photographed by yours truly.
Now really, go check out the Pipeburn article.
Sasha of CafeRacerXXX basically put the entire event together, all I really had to do was show up. Big thanks to both her and Dan (owner of men’s vintage shop Sixteen Tons) for the space and accommodations.
I also managed to bring some t-shirts and bandanas bandanas, and thanks to Jeff from Saint Motor Company I had stickers too.
Quite a few people showed up, despite it being cold out. Though we did dodge the rain that day. I’d say twelve to fifteen bikes rode in, some from as far as two hours away.
DC Triumph (read their nice write up here), Speed Cycles, The Renegades, The Mufflers, and many more shops and clubs/groups showed up to see Tesla and show their support.
Checking out the bike outside…
Sasha gets Jeff to help place the GoPro.
Bikes outside.
Awesome GIVE ME SPEED artwork provided by Kyle Yarrington.
Sasha and Jeff sporting MotoLady Gas Mask Bandanas.
Also in the secret basement area I discovered my cards look rad under blacklight. BONUS.
Cold day kickstartin’ fun.
Again the biggest thanks to Sasha Valentine of Cafe RacerXXX for the event and being generally awesome and supporting the motorcycle industry the right way… Jeff Yarrington for the awesome tours and good times, Kevin Dunworth of Loaded Gun Customs for the major laughs, and everyone for coming to the event.
Did you want to see some photos from the rest of my adventure? You did? I figured so…
My getup and carry on action.
Plane. Obligatory.
Immediate coffee and food stop once landed.
Wokeup to a new cuddle buddy, Bo.
Checked out a random shop and the coolest thing they had was an old scoot.
Went antiquing for a bit.
Walked around in this funny / furry hat for a while.
Bethany, Jeff, Sasha, Kyle, and Kevin threw me a birthday party. 🙂 We had 10% beers and got pretty sassy.
Bethany made me an amazing birthday cake.
Jeff and Kyle had a rather backwoods way of getting the motorcycle into the truck. And yes, they had ramp.
We went to Elicott City and I did my photography.
I also got some bonfire and hot tub time at Sasha’s place which has many moto knickknacks.
☣
Posted on April 2, 2013 in Blog, Motorcycles by Alicia Mariah Elfving