GIRLS, MONSOON & MOTORCYCLES: CRISSCROSSING NORTHEAST INDIA AND BANGLADESH

Riding the monsoon in the wettest state of India, Meghalaya, as part of (WRWR) Women Riders World Relay

- TRUI HANOULLE

WHAT keeps a motorcyclist going? Who knows… We read their stories and hear about them going off on long road trips. Some in a group, some solo. Some looking for an escape, some looking for a challenge. But one thing that we can be sure of is that they always tend to make a statement. Sometimes it is how motorcycles keep us sane and sometimes it is much more. This story is the latter. The story of Trui Hanoulle… and the story of WIMA (Women International Motorcycle Association)… a story of Women Riders World Relay. And so, here it goes.

INTRODUCTION An alarm clock goes off, I roll over, it’s too early. But all of a sudden I’m wide awake. Loud rustling on the roof. Rain, and not even a bit! Pouring, gushing, flooding rain. This is Meghalaya, the wettest state of India, for 70% covered in a hilly, dense, subtropical forest. I open the door and stare at a wall of grey and gloomy. In a pitiful state, our three Enfields stand leaking in deep puddles.

Yet what I didn’t know then, is that we would get much, much wetter a week later, deep in the interior of Bangladesh.

WRITING HERSTORY

But what the hell are we doing here? Why riding in the worst of seasons for this region, in full monsoon?

On February 27th 2019, a lone rider fights her way through hail and snow to the very North of Scotland. On her back, she carries a case containing a wooden stick, the relay ‘baton’, of what is to become one of the most powerful symbols the motorcycle world has seen in the last decades. Meet Hayley Bell, a 28-year-old, stubborn Britt on a mission, writing history. Or better: herstory.