Avis and Effie Hotchkiss, mother and daughter from

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, were pioneering

motorcyclist Motorcycling is the act of riding a motorcycle. For some people, motorcycling may be the only affordable form of individual motorized transportation, and small-engine displacement, displacement motorcycles are the most common motor vehicle in ...

s who completed a round trip ride from New York to San Francisco and back on a

Harley-Davidson Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...

motorcycle-

sidecar A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, making the whole a three-wheeled vehicle. A motorcycle with a sidecar is sometimes called a ''combination'', an ''outfit'', a ''rig'' or a ''hack''. ...

combination in 1915. Effie Hotchkiss learned to ride a motorcycle at age 16, after instruction from her brother, and her first motorcycle was a Marsh & Metz. In 1915 she acquired a new Harley-Davidson Model 11-F with a sidecar, the first H-D to feature a 3-speed gearbox. She had an ambition to become the first woman to cross the United States on a motorcycle, and decided to visit the

Panama Pacific International Exposition Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cost ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. On May 2, 1915, she set out with her mother Avis in the sidecar, who noted, "I do not fear breakdowns for Effie, being a most careful driver, is a good mechanic and does here own repairing with her own tools." The pair took two months to reach San Francisco, and were photographed pouring out a jar of Atlantic sea water they had carried from New York, into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

at Ocean Beach. The success of their journey made Effie and Avis Hotchkiss the first transcontinental female motorcyclists.Harley-Davidson museum

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* * * * * * Long-distance motorcycle riders Women motorcyclists People from Brooklyn {{motorcycle-stub

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