Not Your Average Calendar Girl

Documenting America's female mechanics
from BMW Owners News Magazine, October 2007

by Sarah Lyon

cover photo from September:
"Self-Portrait: Searching for Silver Lake in California"

Female Mechanics Article appears in the October issue

Written from the Maverick Motel in Raton, New Mexico on August 13, 2007

As I write this, I'm on my third cross country motorcycle trip, this time on a 1977 BMW R100S, working on a project documenting real women mechanics in their environments for a 12 month wall calendar. The project intends to give positive representation to women who work in non-traditional labor fields, and includes bios of how each woman got into the field of mechanics. You can order the 2008 calendar through my website, www.sarahlyon.com/calendar

I bought my first bike when I was 19, a 1978 Honda CB400A, along with the maintenance manual and a wrench to teach myself how to change the oil. I think I rode it home to my apartment in Oxford, Ohio, with the choke on the entire time. My friend Chad taught me how to ride on the country roads in Ohio as a student getting my BFA at Miami University. I have always enjoyed building and fixing things, playing with Legos, and basically figuring out how to be independent and self-sufficient. When I moved to Cincinnati, I avoided telling my parents about the bike until my mom found evidence in my apartment -- a windshield in tucked away in a corner. I was so proud to show it to her in the garage, but she winced. There wasn't much she could do about my growing obsession at that point.

While teaching myself with great enthusiasm to do all sorts of maintenance to the bike that probably didn't need to be done in the first place, I broke a bolt off in the head. After trying unsuccessfully to remove it with a drill and an easy-out, which only scattered metal shavings everywhere, I duck taped the valve cover on and rode to the nearest motorcycle shop to ask for help. This happened to be an old school chopper shop with a gravel front yard that faced railroad tracks. At Cinn City Choppers, Chris showed me how to simply back the bolt out with a little chisel. I ended up getting a part time job there detailing choppers to try and learn more about bikes. I bought a couple more Japanese motorcycles at Mid-Ohio Vintage days that also needed work.

In the meantime I was working with artists in Cincinnati who taught me other interesting skills like welding, cabinetmaking, home renovation, and trim carpentry. Celene and Jerry were the first people who gave me a chance to learn about tools, and the time I spent with them was invaluable. A highly skilled welder, Celene was also the first woman I had ever seen use a table saw. For some reason this left quite an impression on me.

Upon moving back to my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, when I was 22, I got a job with a fine cabinetmaker. I was the first woman ever hired at that shop, and the youngest employee there. I remember watching Jerry Springer every day during lunch with the guys in the break room, and staring at an old Makita tool-girl calendar.

Unhappy working full-time at that job, I took a photography class at the University of Louisville motivate me to start making art again. There I learned about The Kentucky Foundation for Women, a grant giving organization geared toward benefitting Kentucky women and creating social change. From the day I bought my first bike I knew that I wanted to ride across the country, so I tailored a grant proposal about traveling and documenting friends who I had lived with in Ohio to see where they had gone in their lives. KFW gave me a small grant of support and I saved up money while working as a Vespa Scooter mechanic at BMW Motorcycles of Louisville. I sold the little Honda, bought a 1978 Yamaha XS750 Special, pawned as many belongings as I could, moved out of my apartment, and set out first for Chicago. The farthest I had ever ridden from Louisville was Bloomington, Indiana.

8,900 miles and 80 days later, I produced an art exhibit in Louisville featuring photographs, wall murals of the maps from the trip, and the bike itself. You can see photographs from this journey with narrative descriptions on my website, www.sarahlyon.com/journey

During that trip I had to work on the Yamaha a lot due to some carburetor issues. Luckily I had all of the tools that I needed with me, and I visited many motorcycle shops seeking help and advice and to buy spark plugs. I never met any women working in shops from Louisville to California. I knew that they had to be out there. Combined with my experiences at bike shops and the wood shop, and all of the slightly degrading pin-up calendars I had seen, I decided that a great way to find other women who were interested in working on machines and to show other people that they do exist would be to create a calendar of real women mechanics working with their own tools in their own shops. Also, creating the project was another way for me to justify riding my motorcycle across the country again! To me it made sense to ride the old bike to meet with mechanics as a way to relate because I do the work on it myself.

I wrote another grant proposal to KFW and they gave me their support again, along with press to get the word out that I was searching for female mechanics. Word of mouth and the internet helped me find more than enough mechanics for a 14-month calendar. Last summer I set out on the Yamaha and rode 6000 miles photographing motorcycle, automobile, diesel, and jet airplane mechanics. The experience meeting and spending time with women who shared similar interests and the initiative to do what they love despite societal pressures was incredible to say the least. I designed, printed, and distributed the 2007 Female Mechanics Calendar on my own, and it was very well received in the US, Canada, and Europe.

In January of this year I had another solo art exhibit in Louisville featuring photographs from the journey of finding female mechanics, my tool box, and the Yamaha. I let the bike sit for a few months in the parking lot of the gallery after the show, and when I finally decided it was time to revive the bike, the carburetors flooded and soaked the air filter with fuel. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, but while I was trying to coax the stubborn motor into starting, it backfired and caught the air box on fire. According to my mechanic friends, this happens to everyone who works on stuff at least once, but I am still a bit embarrassed to tell the story! It was a very exciting moment, removing the fuel tank and the flaming air filter that I had to stomp out on the concrete... Finally I hooked up a hose and doused the flames, but not after the air box, wiring harness, and battery were destroyed.

Slightly discouraged by this event, I was not looking forward to resurrecting the bike. My friend and BMW motorcycle guru Guenther Wuest in Fredericksburg, Indiana, told me he knew of the perfect bike for my upcoming journey to create another female mechanics calendar -- a 1977 R100S that he had maintained and rebuilt the transmission for. When I went to see the bike its owner informed me that he hadn't started in over a year. I had brought an extra battery along with me, which we installed, and the bike started right up! I took this as a good sign and picked it up in my truck the next week.

After a major tune-up I learned the details of the R100S. So far this summer I've ridden about 8000 miles from Louisville to California, visiting mechanics from the 2007 calendar and meeting with new ones for the 2008 calendar. On a particularly rambling camping adventure through Nevada, Oregon, and California with Jennifer Bromme (Miss July 2007), we explored over 20 miles of rocky dirt road searching for hot springs in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada and in Surprise Valley, California. You can read more about that trip in Jennifer's blog under "Jennifer's Travels": http://jenwerkstatt.blogspot.com/

Upon my arrival in San Francisco I immediately replaced the front and rear suspension which was totally shot due to overload and inappropriate dirt riding! I used my BMW Owners Anon book when my rotor went out in Salt Lake City, where I met Jerry who happened to have three or four rotors lying around along with a wonderful collection of vintage Beemers. I've hung out with Kim (Miss October 2007) at the warehouse where she is working on a jet-powered land speed record car, worked for cash at Jennifer's and Franzi's (Miss January 2007) bike shops, and helped Celeste (Miss December 2007) replace the roof on her house in Reno. A car mechanic who owns her own shop, Celeste is also a BMW rider who has taught me a lot about camping.

Ultimately the Female Mechanics Calendar developed directly from my love of riding motorcycles. I feel lucky at age 28 to have created amazing opportunities for traveling, reconnecting with friends, meeting inspiring people, and sharing that inspiration. I've found that acquiring my new/old BMW R100S was one of the best choices I could have made for long distance riding. You can see more images, order a Female Mechanics Calendar, and read more about my journeys of finding female mechanics on the web at www.sarahlyon.com