“Girls Angels? What do you do then?” asks a fella in leather, whose girlfriend is eyeing a leaflet in the background.
“Teach people to ride motorbikes” one of us replies, “and wear a lot of pink... adds Alison, our Boss.

The GA stall at Ladies Day was a landmark in our short history. In March this year no one had seen a pink hi-vis bib yet. By July we are collectively known as the Pink Ladies (to our faces at least) and the ‘highly responsive’ trademark fluorescent stuff has been spotted from Donnington to Brighton and in a number of newspapers.

There’s more to Girls Angels than pink though. Our colour isn’t a gimmick; it’s a state of mind. Alison Grade learnt to ride a bike the usual way. With a bunch of blokes. Just like all of us women who learnt to ride before Girls Angels was born. However, Alison felt there might be a better way to bring people to biking, and Girls Angels is it. We specialise in training women. But we’ll teach anyone to ride a bike, ride it well and ride with a smile. CBT classes are kept single-sex – let’s face it, if you’ve never ridden a bike before, then CBT is the toughest day you’ll have for a long time. The last thing you really want to deal with, if you’re a terrified grown-up woman who’s having a bit of trouble with the whole balance issue, is staying out of the way of the smug guy who’s already up to changing gear. The single-sex classes work well, students have a great time and everyone is able to learn at their own pace.

Girls Angels isn’t about feminism, political correctness or positive discrimination. It’s about bringing a different outlook to a very traditional industry. Any experienced biker will tell you that you can’t ride really well unless you are enjoying yourself. At Girls Angels having fun is part of the equation, right from the start.

Our instructors, male and female alike are picked for their enthusiasm and people skills as much as their competence on a big bike. Heidi Bailey, Chief Instructor and Justin Wingard, Senior instructor, come from a despatching background and bring masses of relevant experience and humour to their job of teaching people to ride around this town.

Steve Graham has swapped the parade ground for a playground but not one of his students would ever have guessed their patient and funny instructor used to be a Sergeant Major in the RAF. Emma, the newest instructor on the team, already sings like an angel and has done so in most of the great oratories round the world in her previous incarnation as professional soprano. That’s lateral thinking - from tuning forks to forking U-turns. Something all our instructors have in common is their un-common approach to teaching and life alike.

Meanwhile, back at the office, you’ll talk to Alison, who has a VTR Firestorm as befitting her position as head of the company but never gets to ride it because she’s head of the company. If Alison manages to escape from the office, it’s because our Angel Kate is at the helm of the Pink ship. Kate was one of our early students who ‘got involved’ and will never be allowed to get uninvolved because she’s so damn good at what she does.

As our first season winds down, we have taught a lot of people to ride motorbikes this summer, and half of them were women. That feels about right. There are roughly equal portions of both in this world – it would be silly to ignore half of them wouldn’t it? Men and women are different, people are different, and so are The Girls Angels.

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