the first formal appearance of the dykes on bikes was in 1976 at san francisco's pride parade where the riders were placed first as motorcycles don't always run reliably at the walking pace of the rest of the parade and as first contingent they can move faster. although the original group self-identified as "dykes on bikes" and they were known as such, over the years they used "the women’s motorcycle contingent/ dykes on bikes" to encompass those who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or any of the newer gender-bending terms like femme, androgyne, genderqueer, non-binary, gender-fluid and boi.