Two Wheels, 122 Horsepower and a Full Tank of Freedom
Two Wheels, 122 Horsepower and a Full Tank of Freedom Duke Pharmacy Technician Debra LeGrow leaves work behind each weekend to ride with a sisterhood that knows the thrill of the open road
Two Wheels, 122 Horsepower and a Full Tank of Freedom
Duke Pharmacy Technician Debra LeGrow leaves work behind each weekend to ride with a sisterhood that knows the thrill of the open road
On her desk at the Duke Compounding Facility, Debra LeGrow keeps a photo of herself on her shiny, pearly white Indian Challenger motorcycle. It reminds her of where she feels most like herself.
Two Wheels, 122 Horsepower and a Full Tank of Freedom
Two Wheels, 122 Horsepower and a Full Tank of Freedom Duke Pharmacy Technician Debra LeGrow leaves work behind each weekend to ride with a sisterhood that knows the thrill of the open road
No one else in the department where she works as a Pharmacy Technician can quite understand the feeling LeGrow has whenever she’s on that bike. A guy in the MRI department next door rides a Harley-Davidson, but they’ve never hit the road together.
“If you ever want to ride with the ladies if you think you can keep up with us, let me know,” LeGrow once told him. “All us old ladies are zooming down the street.”
She has not been taken up on her offer.
No matter. LeGrow already has found her people and her passion, riding motorcycles with an all-female group called Stilettos on Steel.
Each weekend, LeGrow sheds her office wear, straps on her sleek, black helmet and hits the road with the women who have become her friends because they best understand what she feels in that photograph.
“I can’t explain the feeling when you’re on there other than it’s almost a feeling of euphoria,” LeGrow said.
A new 850-pound hobby
Growing up in Toronto, LeGrow rode dirt bikes as a teenager. But she gave up the hobby when she turned 17 to pursue a career. She got married and had three kids. She’s been working at Duke since 2009, helping make medications for Duke hospitals and clinics.
After her kids were grown and her 33-year marriage ended, LeGrow began thinking about her long-ago hobby and signed up for a motorcycle safety class – just to see if she might like it.
“And I decided, ‘That’s it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to get a bike,’” she said.
That was eight years ago.
Now 66, LeGrow has grown her skillset and her garage, cycling through four different motorcycles after beginning with a small starter bike. She moved to a Yamaha 650 when she realized she was “kind of bored,” and in 2023, switched to an Indian Scout, a 555-pound, 105-horsepower cruiser that she rode out to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, an annual event that celebrates motorcycle culture and is expected to draw more than 700,000 people this year.
But after all those miles out West, LeGrow decided she needed something more suited for longer rides and landed on the Indian Challenger, which, at 842 pounds and 122 horsepower, is “about as big as I can handle,” she said.
“This bike is like riding a Cadillac,” LeGrow said.
Debra LeGrow began riding with women in Stilettos on Steel soon after she started riding motorcycles in again in 2017. She’s found both the women and the group supportive. Photos by Travis Stanley
Fellowship and freedom
Each weekend, LeGrow hits the road with members of Stilettos on Steel, the group she found through a woman who sold her one of her first bikes. She’ll cruise about 100 miles, grab a snack with others in her pack and ride back home.
There’s safety in numbers in riding with a larger group. But LeGrow also says she’s found a camaraderie she wasn’t expecting among the fellow motorcycle lovers who range in age from their 40s to 70s.
“It’s just the fellowship with each other,” LeGrow said. “We all come from different backgrounds, most of us have children or grandchildren. It’s just almost like an escape that we all get on our bikes."
Kelli Seace, a Duke School of Medicine Human Resources Specialist, met LeGrow about two years ago after she fulfilled her own lifelong dream of purchasing a motorcycle.
Seace had never been on a bike, but she joined Stilettos on Steel and admitted to LeGrow that she was scared.
"Debra was the first person to get me out on my bike," Seace said. "She showed up at my door with her motorcycle and she said, 'Let's go.'"
They rode on deserted country roads and practiced downshifting without stalling. And Seace, for the first time, understood the thrill of riding a motorcycle that she'd always imagined.
“Whatever it means to each person, it’s probably a different thing," LeGrow said. "For me, it’s just a feeling of utter freedom riding down the road.”
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