Inside the ‘Babes Cave’: Leather, leopard print and NZ’s all-female biker group

“Welcome to my Babes Cave.”
That’s Alley Miller’s nickname for the garage storing her pride and joy – a black Moto Guzzi cafe racer, complete with the personalised plate “P1NUP”.
“It’s bassy and it purrs and she’s Italian … isn’t it beautiful?” Alley beams.
She revs her other bike – a rumbling Harley-Davidson.
“This one sounds agricultural,” she tells the Herald from her West Auckland home.
Miller is a co-founder of the Auckland chapter of The Litas, an all-female motorcycle collective with 33,000 members around the world.
Since its local launch in 2015, close to 300 women – aged between 16 and 65 – have joined this all-girl collective in Tamaki Makaurau.
Once a month, on a Thursday night, they come together, with a row of motorbikes parked on the front lawn of Mt Eden bar Ralph’s.
“There are so many subcultural genres of female riders,” Miller says.
“The Litas are just a little bit more hell-raising – go against the grain, customise your bike, wear the sparkly helmet, put the bright red lipstick on it and just go out there and be unapologetically yourself.”
With “Kindness is so gangster” embroidered on her jacket, fellow Lita Alex Marinakis says she often surprises people when she rocks up on her bike.
“People expect a dude to be under that helmet and then I whip out the red hair,” she says.
“I’m all about going against the societal norms and just living how I want to live and if I want to ride bikes, I’ll ride bikes.”
Marinakis had never ridden a bike before moving from the United Kingdom to New Zealand and taking a basic handling course.
But when she sat on a “little 150cc Suzuki”, it felt like “home”.
“Something just clicked in me and I was like ‘I should have always been doing this’.”
Nina Looker says few people mistake her for a bloke when she’s blasting down the highway.
“I don’t think many guys would have leopard print going down the middle of their helmets,” says Looker, who started riding about 18 months ago.
“I just decided at 46 years old that I wanted to expand things and try something different. I just went on a new journey. I gave up alcohol for a year and I really thought about what I want in life and what I want to achieve and this was one of them,” she told the Herald.
“I knew I was going to join The Litas straight away – and I haven’t looked back.”
Her pooch, Miss Pixie, often comes along for the ride, safe in a custom box on the back of her Royal Enfield.
“I noticed that Pixie was coming up to my bike every time I hopped on it … the first time I took her on it, she just went with it. She loves it.”
Looker has formed what she hopes will be lifelong friendships in the group, all centred around their passion for riding.
“Women are riding motorcycles now because they can and they want to.”
For Marinakis, riding is the ultimate form of freedom.
“When you get on a motorcycle, you kind of think to yourself, ‘How is this even legal?’
“It’s the one thing we get to do that’s completely free, completely crazy. It feels like it shouldn’t be allowed, but it is.”
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