Ellen Pfeiffer Award recipient in 2006
Juliette Steiner was a pioneer of motorcycle life in Switzerland. It sounds like a fairy-tale, but it is real life!
Born in 1917, Juliette Steiner passed her motorcycle driving licence test in 1949 and started to travel. At the same time, she entered the first grass track races in competition with other motorcycle pilots. Between 1955 and 1960 she took part in several rallies and long-distance competitions all over Europe. One of many was the long-distance race Cannes-Genève-Cannes, which means 2,600 km crossing snow-covered mountains and very often on roads that were not prepared for cars or motorcycles. Another race she did several times, was the 500 km around Genève. In 1957 she was among the only 20 that finished and won a sensational fifth place.
In 1960 the dainty woman made her dream come true. Together with her husband Nesto, she travelled to Munich to order her BMW. In the time when BMWs had to be black, she ordered a white one.
In 1958 Juliette Steiner was a founder member of the European section of WIMA, together with eight women from The Netherlands, GB and Germany. They first met in The Netherlands and had a competition week for women only in Scheveningen.
Unfortunately, in 1962 she had a serious accident without any fault of her own. After one year in hospital, she left the clinic in a wheelchair. Handicapped for the rest of her life, she kept contact with the motorcycle women and in 1976 she organised the International WIMA Rally in Yverdon.
It is a special luck and honour for the Swiss WIMA that we could celebrate her 85th birthday in November 2002. She was living independently and alone in her beautiful house above Yverdon with a view over the Neuenburger lake and the Jura mountains until she died in 2006.
(Written by Margrit Podesser, WIMA Switzerland, 2020)
