Riders / Chapter 02
Women, Visors Up!
The lives behind the women on two wheels.
01
Carol Karthe
Has been the only woman in nearly every riding club she joined before Litas Manila existed.
55 · Design consultant
Listen to Karthe’s Ducati at idle
There was never a single moment when Carol Karthe decided to start riding. In her family, riding was hardly a decision at all. Growing up in Bulacan, surrounded by rice fields and mango trees, she spent much of her childhood outdoors. Motorcycles were part of growing up, something her older cousins and siblings learned to ride long before they got behind the wheel of a car.
That active life followed Karthe to Manila. Before becoming a design consultant, she worked as a swimming coach and lived out of gym bags. Sport had already made movement part of her life; motorcycles simply gave it another form.
As her career changed, her bikes got bigger. First came a Vespa, whose scooter-and-scarf lifestyle she says she fully embraced. Eventually came a Ducati, a bike she describes simply as “iconic.”
But riding also showed Karthe a community she had yet to find at home. Looking abroad, she saw groups in Europe and the U.S. where women rode alongside other women rather than behind men. Years before Litas Manila took shape, those riders showed her that such a community was possible.
Riding became part of her life at home, too. Karthe shares it with her husband, who researches her next motorcycle, orders her gear, and plans their trips. “It’s not really that much different,” she said of her life on and off the bike, “because my husband is also a rider and we actually ride together.”
One trip took them along the U.S. East Coast for two weeks, from New York through Vermont and toward the Canadian border. Another, in New Zealand, ended much differently: Karthe crashed while riding through what she described as the strongest typhoon in a decade. She lost part of her calf muscle, broke her ankle and underwent facial and dental reconstruction. Her recovery took her through four hospitals. Still, the crash did not keep her off a motorcycle, and she took more safety courses and advanced riding classes.
“The chances of getting into a really serious accident … [are] so much less. You can really have fun because you know the track is made for that.”
Carol Karthe
Age has since changed how Karthe approaches risk. She now prefers dirt tracks and closed courses, away from the tricycles, dogs, and other hazards of public roads.
It is an approach Karthe developed after years of riding in groups where she was often the only woman, from the BMW Owners Society of Saferiders to her old Vespa group. She does not talk about riding as a pursuit of thrills. The crashes, safety courses, and changing bikes have instead become part of learning how to keep riding.
02
Luckie Masbad
A self-described “natural planner.”
37 · Director of business management, Bridges PR
Listen to Luckie’s Triumph Street Triple R Low 765 at idle
Luckie Masbad did not have children of her own, but she had four nieces and a nephew. To them, she wanted to be more than an aunt. She wanted to be a role model. “I need to empower them for them to grow into amazing women,” Masbad said. Her 12-year-old niece already rode with her, making that responsibility more immediate. Masbad wanted her to see not only that her aunt could ride a big motorcycle, but that she could do it safely.
Safety, after all, was what got Masbad on a motorcycle in the first place. Her partner, Mark McCully, was an avid rider who wanted her to join him, but Masbad had grown up wary of motorcycles. Then he asked what she would do if he got into an accident. “The planner in me couldn’t fathom the idea of not knowing what to do in a worst-case scenario like that,” she recalled.
Masbad enrolled in Honda Riding School, intending to learn enough to get them both to safety in an emergency. When that did not feel like enough, she took an off-road course at Mel Aquino Riding School. There, she met Gaki Azurin, one of Litas Manila’s founders, who invited her to join the group.
As riding became part of her life, so did the responsibility she felt on the road. Masbad knew her behavior could shape how others saw women riders, especially as videos of reckless motorcyclists circulated online. “I need to be patient. I can’t just go berserk on anyone on the road,” she said.
That restraint required a different side of her. At work, Masbad said she spent much of her time in her head. At home, as the youngest of five siblings, she was comfortable letting others decide. A motorcycle left little room for either.
Riding demanded her attention, from her gear and motorcycle to the traffic and weather around her. In Manila, that meant riding as though other motorists could not see her.
“You have to assume that you’re invisible.”
LuckIE Masbad
She learned the consequences firsthand during a four-day trip to Siargao. Two days in, Masbad crashed a rented motorcycle and tore her ACL. She flew home in a wheelchair, an experience she called “a brush with mortality.”
The crash made her more deliberate, but it did not take away what drew her back to the road. Masbad remembered one sunset ride along the North Loop. As the landscape passed, she found herself repeating the same words through her communications device: “Ang ganda ng Pilipinas.”
03
Erika Fernandez
She has big dogs.
40 · VP of operations, Eramen Minerals · Founder
Listen to Erika’s Husqvarna Svartpilen 401 cc
By her own account, Erika Fernandez was not built for discomfort. Heat, pollution, and dust bothered her enough that she kept an air purifier in her office and chose houseplants with her breathing in mind. Rain and rough conditions were no different. “I’m a little bit of a princess,” Fernandez admitted. It made motorcycles an unlikely place to find her.
Yet motorcycles found Fernandez almost by accident. In college, a neighbor with two dirt bikes invited her to ride in the desert. Fernandez had never ridden a motorcycle, but she knew how to drive a manual car and ride a bicycle. Her neighbor figured that was enough to start. “There was nothing in the desert, so it made it really easy,” she recalled. “After that, I was like, maybe I can do this.”
Years passed before she rode again. Back in Manila, the thought returned: “Maybe I’ll buy a motorcycle.” Soon after, she met Gaki Azurin, who invited her to ride. Through Azurin, she met Carol Karthe, and the small circle eventually began building what would become Litas Manila.
Within a year, Fernandez had gone from a new rider to one of the chapter’s three founders. She called herself “the baby” of the group, following the more experienced riders as they figured out what their new community could become.
That sense of community extended beyond Litas Manila. One afternoon on the North Luzon Expressway, Fernandez saw a rider pushing a broken-down motorcycle along the shoulder and stopped to help. Only then did she realize she had ridden with him earlier that day. “That kind of camaraderie, when you see another rider in need—you [will] help [them],” she said.
“I ride for the girls.”
Erika Fernandez
For a self-described “princess” who disliked heat, dust, and rough weather, Fernandez kept choosing a hobby that offered plenty of all three. But riding had given her something that made the discomfort worth it: people who showed up for one another. And she kept showing up for them.
04
Karen Kennedy
Loves riding in the rain.
43 · Brand ambassador, BMW Motorrad Philippines
Listen to karen’s BMW R 1300 GS
Karen Kennedy knew motorcycles had her attention long before she knew how to ride one. “I’ve always kind of been interested in motorcycles,” she said. “I’ve never really looked at a car and thought, ‘Oh, that’s exciting.’ It was always like two wheels that would get my interest.”
Kennedy bought her first motorcycle, a Kawasaki W800, before she knew how to ride it. She enrolled in a beginner course to learn and, while shopping for gear, met Gaki Azurin, who invited her to join Litas Manila. “I was like, ‘Yeah,’” Kennedy recalled. “And here we are.”
The W800 was only the beginning. A Triumph, an Aprilia and a Ducati followed before Kennedy found the brand that stuck. “I sort of just fell in love with it,” she said of BMW, “until I ended up working with them.”
Kennedy eventually owned three BMWs: an S1000R, an R1200GS and an R1300GS, along with a smaller cruiser for riding around town. She reached for the R1300GS most, taking it on long rides, occasional track days and trips off-road.
For all the motorcycles she owned, Kennedy described the pleasure of riding more simply. She compared it to a dog sticking its head out of a car window. That feeling was enough to get her out of bed before dawn. For rides that started as early as 4 a.m., Kennedy walked her dog, checked her tire pressure and battery, and made sure her communications device was ready.
“It’s one of the few things I’ll wake up early for, is hopping on a bike.”
Karen Kennedy
Those early rides also taught her to prepare for what her body needed. On the way home from Pampanga, dehydration nearly brought her down just meters from her driveway. After that, hydration salts became part of her pre-ride routine. She packed them the night before, with extra sachets for anyone who might need one.
Still, the early mornings puzzled some of her coworkers. Kennedy could wake at 4 a.m. for a charity ride, then arrive half-asleep for a 10 a.m. meeting. Her answer was simple: “So what?”
By then, motorcycles had become more than something Kennedy made time for outside work. As a brand ambassador for BMW Motorrad Philippines, riding had become part of her career, too. The woman who bought a motorcycle before she knew how to ride one had found a way to build her life around two wheels.
The magazine
Bisikleta is a magzine about Filipino motorcycle riders. It was made to break the stereotypes that follow motorcyclists in the Philippines starting with the women who ride.
The team
Gwen Cabinbin
Justine Petilla
Jyor So