I first saw them on Instagram. Roxi: pink hair, pink motorcycle, a smile that’s part smirk. Raven: kind eyes underneath his helmet, a denim vest worn tight over a blue leather jacket. Their patch: East Bay Coyotes.
“These kids are fucking cool,” I thought (and not just because we like the same canid).
The bike group, which is just eight months old, describes itself as a “leftist political riding club and organization for the marginalized and community-driven” — a far cry from the stereotypical, hypermasculine images conjured by the words “motorcycle club.” The Coyotes have volunteered with West Oakland Punks With Lunch, attended a blood drive, supported anti-ICE events with PSL Bay Area, and provided security for Trans March and the Rainbow Community Center in Concord.
I had to know more, so last week we met up at Happy Donuts in Berkeley, where they shared their tale — coyote to coyote.
It all started casually, as a social club. Raven, Roxi, and a few other buds who went to middle school together in Contra Costa County met up to talk about biker culture (such as the Warriors, a First Nations Native American club) and TV shows (“Riverdale,” “Sons Of Anarchy”). At the time, none of them owned bikes. The club fizzled when the pandemic hit in 2020, but Roxi and Raven kept talking bikes — and in the following years, slowly learned how to ride.
Raven got a bike first, a Harley-Davidson 1200C Sportster. “It was way too big for me,” he says. “A lot of experienced bikers will be like, ‘That's actually pretty small.’ … but that's still a decently sized bike, especially if you're just learning.”
Roxi had a bumpy start as well. “There was a brief moment where I tried to learn to ride a motorcycle in 2015 or 2016, and something in the motor blew up between my legs as I was trying to learn how to ride. I had to — as the brothers say — lay it down,” she says. “I didn't touch a bike again until last year, when I sat on my friend Jenna's bike.”
“Immediately the bug bit me again,” she says. “I was just like, ‘This feels good.’”
Then a friend with a Honda VTX 1800 said she’d teach Roxi how to ride it. For the first few days, Roxi got comfortable with the mechanics and just rode around the block. The following week she and her friends rode around San Francisco and down to the Pacifica Taco Bell.
The pair of them were hooked. Raven got a Honda Navi and a Kawasaki Z400. Roxi’s still on the Honda she learned on.
“It wasn't until we started seeing each other on social media riding bikes that we kind of just gave this look to each other, and we're like, let’s bring this back,” Raven says. In November of last year, East Bay Coyotes hit the streets.
Officially, as of this writing, the club has just two members and two prospects (probationary potential members, volunteering to earn their “full patch”). Figuring out how to get a club up and running was, the friends say, its own learning curve — especially since they were trying to do something a little different.
Left: Roxi riding. Right: Raven geared up for a ride. (Courtesy East Bay Coyotes)
“We weren't interested in a lot of the traditional rank and hierarchy of traditional motorcycle clubs,” Raven says. Instead, folks who want to become a member of East Bay Coyotes must agree to go to at least two political events a month with them, “just to gauge the vibe for both parties, to see if we're gonna mesh well, if we're politically aligned, that sort of thing. And if it feels like it's a good fit, I'll invite them to prospect.”
The founders also wanted to be respectful of existing bike clubs in the Bay. “I didn't want to step on any toes,” he explains. “Some bigger clubs have issues with you claiming territory if you don't go through them first, and there's etiquette to how you design your patch.”
In the months since they’ve launched, East Bay Coyotes have found their place in the club ecosystem, and other groups are bringing them into events. But it took a minute: At first, there were a lot of shitty hate comments online about the new queer-friendly, far-left club. Motorcycle groups all the way in England piled onto them in the comments (clearly not knowing Roxi is English).
Some folks were welcoming, though. “I want to give a shoutout to Khoa at GhostPack Legends Riding Club,” Raven says, describing how Khoa brought them into the fold at their first biker event.
Before they left, Raven recalls Khoa telling them, “Hey, remember all those hate comments you got online? Just remember it's just online. Those people are not here at these events.”
While Raven jokes that the cis biker crews come to him to learn more about East Bay Coyotes, Roxi’s been finding community with other trans riders.
“Last year when I was being taught how to ride, my group of friends threw me in this Signal group chat for doing motorcycle security at Trans March,” Roxi says. She was nervous, but the group was welcoming and the event went well.
The vibes were so good, in fact, that folks from the chat started meeting up in person outside of security events. “It's transformed to this community of like 100 trans and queer people that meet up for dinners on Sundays, and a main portion of them are the bikers from Trans March,” Roxi says. Many of the clubs have great names — like Sadistic Moto Sluts.
This year, Roxi rode security at Trans March again, and Raven and East Bay Coyotes prospect Johnny joined the crew. She noted that the number of riders at the event had exploded. “I was like, there's so many of us, I'm having to watch my mirrors that I'm not in someone’s path.”
With her iconic (currently) pink hair and bike, Roxi is very memorable. “People have started being like, ‘Oh yeah, that's Roxi, she's in the East Bay Coyotes,’” she says. “I'm just sitting around getting recognized. It’s kind of cool feeling like that.”
As their popularity grows, these coyotes have doubled down on their commitment to building a space anyone can join — no bike required.
“If you don't have a bike yet, and you want to meet up and hang out with us, feel free to meet us at the meetup point or the destination. Stop on through, come check the vibes,” says Roxi. “If you want to patch in, we'll talk about getting you prospecting. We will figure it out with you.”
Raven echoes that sentiment: “If you want to feel like you've got community, someone safe that you can bike with, someone you can hit up for advice or help, we're here.
“We know the idea of wanting to join a club is intimidating, but if you feel like an outcast — which coyotes always have been — or you’re LGBTQ, or a person of color, and you don't feel like you fit in with all the other clubs, it really doesn’t matter as long as you’re willing to do work with us and not be a dick.”
To find out more about East Bay Coyotes and get deets on future rides, check them out on Instagram.
