My dad just wanted me to race, and that’s where he put me.”Įven now, after having become the first woman to qualify for the men’s AMA Arenacross circuit and joining Metal Mulisha as their first woman rider, Golden’s careful to put the emphasis on quantifiable differences between male and female motocross riders-like the fact that her 250 cc bike is smaller and less powerful than the 450 cc bikes men ride. “My first race was with boys, and I was with my friends,” she remembers. She eventually entered the competitive circuit at age 7 and had to compete against boys since there weren’t enough girls her age to warrant a separate race class. “I looked up to anything my brother did and wanted to ride just like him,” she says of being encouraged to pick up the sport by her brother and father. Photo by Garth Milan/ESPN Imagesįor Golden, the gender gap wasn’t relevant in the beginning. The podium was decided by popular vote, via Twitter. Vicki Golden on her way to a bronze medal in Moto X Best Whip at X Games Los Angeles 2013. And perhaps most interesting is the fact that the medalists were determined by a real-time popular vote on Twitter, bringing to light a question that deserves answering: Are motocross fans hungry to see more women in the game? There were audible grumbles from the motocross community, some angered that two-time Best Whip winner Todd Potter was excluded from the six-person event. She was up against some of the most formidable male riders in the sport. She was on a smaller, less powerful bike than the men.

Golden was the first woman to earn an invitation to the freestyle motocross event at the X Games. But when Vicki Golden, 21, nabbed a bronze metal on the dirt-caked podium of the Staples Center for Best Whip at X Games Los Angeles 2013, it was very much a big deal.

In an age when gender equality is at the forefront of debate in action sports, talking about a woman competing in a male-dominated discipline feels a bit like throwing a twig on a forest fire. Motocross rider Vicki Golden competing in the Women’s Moto X Racing final during X Games Los Angeles 2013 photo by Rich Arden/ESPN Images

Girl freestyle dirt bike riders