Effie N. Hotchkiss and mother Avis, first women to ride cross-country on a motorcycle from NY to San Francisco. Photo from the September 1915 issue of The Harley-Davidson Dealer.

In the 19th Century, America was a vast country. There were still sections of the nation regarded as frontier, and traversing large sections of land, much less the entire continent, on your own was a bold and dangerous endeavor. At the turn of the 20th Century, the gasoline engine revolutionized travel. America started seeming smaller with each passing year.

Numerous efforts to cover ground quickly on Harley-Davidson® motorcycles were to be made in the coming years. On May 2, 1915, the mother-daughter team of Avis and Effie Hotchkiss left Brooklyn, New York on a three-speed V-Twin with a sidecar, with the intention of reaching the West Coast and returning.

The team had no intention of gaining medals, money, or fame by taking the trip. In the words of daughter, Effie, "We merely wanted to see America and considered that the Three-Speed Harley-Davidson for myself and sidecar for mother and the luggage best suited for the job."

In September of 1915, The Harley-Davidson Dealer magazine reported that the team faced "bad roads, heat, cold, rain, floods, and all such things with a shrug of their shoulders." They had crossed the San Marcos pass in California, enduring temperatures in excess of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The Hotchkisses claimed in The Harley-Davidson Dealer that, while in New Mexico, they had run out of spare inner tubes. Having thought ahead for this predicament, the women cut a blanket down to inner tube length, rolled and shaped it into a doughnut, and stuffed it into the tire. This got the bike through to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they were able to re-supply inner tubes.

In August, the team dipped their wheels in the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco. By just making the trip one way, Avis and Effie Hotchkiss became the first women to cross the United States on a motorcycle. They immediately began the return leg, which included crossing the deserts of Nevada and Utah, and the cities of Reno, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Davenport, Chicago, and Milwaukee.

Avis and Effie Hotchkiss finally returned to their home in Brooklyn in October of 1915. Although they were looking forward to their next trips, they had already ridden their way into the record books and earned themselves a place in motorcycling history.

Ask any motorcycle history buff to name some of the most enthusiastic and active women in motorcycling in the last century and chances are, the first person they will name will be Dorothy "Dot" Robinson.

Dot was born Dorothy Goulding, the daughter of sidecar manufacturer and Saginaw, MI Harley-Davidson dealer Jim Goulding, on April 22, 1912. Working in the dealership at age 16, she met her future husband (and future Harley-Davidson dealer) Earl Robinson. They married in 1931, bought the franchise from her father, and moved it to Detroit. The five feet two inches tall Dot spent many weekends through the 1930's competing in endurance runs in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Her first victory was in a 100-mile endurance run, in which she earned a perfect score. Even more impressive was her second place finish in the brutal two-day "Jack Pine" enduro in 1937. Less than half the entrants even finished the contest that year. In 1940, Robinson returned to win the contest.

In addition to competing, Dot Robinson acted as co-owner of the Detroit dealership, managing its financial books. To add to those responsibilities, she worked as a motorcycle courier for a private defense contractor during World War II. In tandem with Motor Maids founder Linda Allen Dugeau, Robinson spearheaded the expansion of the membership growth of the club, and was elected its first president, a position she held for over 25 years.

Bessie Stringfield, who started riding when she was 16, was the first African-American woman to travel cross-country solo.

In the 1920s, it was a rare sight to see a woman riding a motorcycle down the road. It was even rarer to see an African-American woman in the saddle. But Bessie Stringfield never let that stop her.

Known as the Motorcycle Queen of Miami, Bessie Stringfield started riding when she was 16. She was the first African-American woman to travel cross-country solo, and she did it at age 19. Bessie traveled through all of the lower 48 states during the '30s and '40s, then later rode in Europe, Brazil, and Haiti.

Throughout her expeditions, Bessie encountered racism, bigotry and sexism. "If you had black skin, you couldn't get a place to stay," Bessie once told a reporter. "I knew the Lord would take care of me and he did. If I found black folks, I'd stay with them. If not I'd sleep at filling stations on my motorcycle."

The outbreak of World War II provoked thousands of women to volunteer for their country. Bessie again showed her individualism by joining a motorcycle dispatch unit of the army. For four years, Bessie made runs across America as an enthusiastic courier, her saddlebags stuffed with classified documents.

In 1990, Bessie Stringfield was honored in the American Motorcyclist Association's (AMA) inaugural exhibit, "Heroes of Harley-Davidson." Ten years later, the AMA instituted an award bearing her name, which honors women for their contributions to, involvement with, and accomplishments in the sport of motorcycling. In 2002, Bessie was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

Bessie, who lived a full life during which she owned 27 different Harley-Davidson® motorcycles, died in 1993 at age 82. Although Bessie was instructed by her doctor to stop riding because of heart complications, she once told a reporter, "If I don't ride, I won't live long. And so I never quit."