A castle lady on the motorcycle

"I look like a bag of potatoes in such a suit and it is the plague of my hair"

Look, those are tough arguments that we boys wouldn't come up with. But there are women who think about it more loosely. Such as our Walloon girlfriend Dieudonnée. In her young days Dieudonnée was a 'wild maske' from an old and rich Walloon family. She was, and is, a slender appearance with an incredible bunch of hair. Only the color of that hair has since changed.

In the Wallonia of the XNUMXs she was what we would probably call a 'party girl'

She was in High Circles, drank briskly, experimented bravely with drugs, and rode a motorbike. And when things went wrong, she had the trap of her important family and relationships. That's how it went in Wallonia.

She traveled with a few friends to Morocco, a country where women were seen at the same level as small cattle in respect. Of course there were two male friends with her. But Dieudonnée also had an FN baby Browning in her motorcycle boot. That's not the .45 Magnum from Dirty Harry, but the thing came in handy a couple of times.

Rest in the tent. A kind of

Later she got to know the Ambrosuis (XT, the X stands for Xavier) Biermantel. A large, massive, fiercely bearded Fleming who, despite his Hagrid-like appearance, turned out to be a friendly person and a serious scientist. Ambrosius brought some peace to her life. But since he was also a motorcycle rider, they also kept traveling as a couple. Their chateau was a pleasant oasis of hospitality between journeys and the birth of their daughter Ghislaine did not change that much. A BMW R75 / 5 sidecar combination was purchased for the young lady in the making. A made-to-measure helmet was made. And sidecar combination? That was ridden by Dieudonnée, who also quickly appreciated that a lot of groceries would fit into such a sidecar.

Baby plus ballast

Their daughter weighed less than the groceries did. So on family trips, a bag of cement went in the tank as ballast. Because of course it had to be possible to drive firmly. And just as the Reef inhabitants did not understand that a small, slender young woman could be more dangerous than a whole herd of extremely irritated sheep or goats, Walloon motorcyclists had a hard time when she was confronted with a snot in the Ardennes by a sidecar combination with a dwarf with a fiercely fluttering ponytail from underneath the helmet. That fast drive from Dieudonnée was not an ego or girrrl powerrr thingy. She just always lived at top speed. These days a gang of diagnoses is said to be stuck on it. But in the XNUMXs she was simply seen as a mild eccentric.

A Honda CB 350 F

In the meantime, the Dieudonnée is living proof that motorcycling is less dangerous than assumed in concerned family circles and that motorcycling does not have to affect a person's femininity. In circles of old Walloon money it is not nice to ask a lady about her age. Still, Dieudonnée will be in the second half of her own 'sixties'. But she is just as slender and energetic as before. Her wild forest hair has turned gray. She still regularly enjoys a good glass of whiskey and a great joint and she bought another motorcycle at the end of last year: A perfect Honda CB 350 Four. Because all that new stuff is too heavy and too big for her.

And her daughter? Ghislaine with the baffling bottle green eyes?

It appears to be a younger clone of her mother. And in her custom-made kangaroo leather racing everywhere, no one will say that she looks like a bag of potatoes. Apparently, motorcycling is also in her genes. She drives a Bimota V Due and describes her driving style as 'castering'.

Women on motorcycles. That sometimes becomes something.