Dot Robinson “The First Lady of Motorcycling”
Dorothy “Dot” Robinson was a pioneer in both spirit and fortitude. Dot arrived into the world in grand style. Born in Melbourne on April 22, 1912, her father, James Goulding, was a dedicated sidecar engineer and also an amateur racer. When her mother went into labour, her father took them on a Harley to and from the hospital in one of his trusty sidecars. In 1918, Dot and her family move to America, settling in Michigan with the purchase of a Harley Davidson dealership. Slight of frame, at 5 foot 2 inches and weighing in at a mighty 52 kilograms Dot was not only a rider but a racer as well. Dot tackled many endurance runs, winning her first run and receiving a perfect score in the 1930 Flint 100 mile endurance race. In 1934, she entered her first Jack Pine National Endurance Championship. By 1940, Dot won the Jack Pine Endurance Run in the sidecar class, becoming the first woman to win an AMA national competition, which she gloriously repeated in 1946. Other claims to fame (and deservedly so) were breaking the transcontinental sidecar record in 1935 (with her husband Earl at her side). And in 1940, Dot set another record, becoming the first woman to win an AMA (American Motorcycling Association) national competition. Of 52 riders registered only 7 prevailed. In 1939, she teamed up with Linda Allen Dugeau and rode around America looking for women to join their newly formed organisation, Motor Maids of America (now Motor Maids Inc.); thus forming the first documented female motorcycle club. One of the only stipulations was that the woman must own or ride her own motorcycle. Dot’s famous motto was that you could still ride a motorcycle and be a lady.
It is estimated that Dot, throughout the course of her life and to the ripe riding age of 85 logged over 1.5 million miles on 35 different motorcycles. Dot and her beloved husband Earl were inducted in to the American Motorcycle Association Hall of Fame. At the age of 85 Dot commented, “I made the fatal mistake along the way, I got old!” Dot passed away two years later.