Kris “TigerLady” Slawinski’s first love was horses. But when she was 12 a family friend gave her a ride on his motorcycle, and horses took a backseat.
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“It’s the most freedom you can have,” says Slawinski’s business partner, Gina Woods. For the past two years the pair has produced and hosted Open Road Radio, a two-hour motorcycle talk show that airs Thursday nights at 8 on Elgin’s WJKL (94.3 FM). Woods also got interested in motorcycles at an early age. “My uncle would come by the house and pick my mother up and take her away on his hog. When I was eight he started to take me around the block with him.”
Slawinski bought her first bike, a Honda 750 K2, over 20 years ago. “My neighbor, who had a Kawasaki, came over and said, ‘Let’s ride.’ I said I didn’t know how. He brought me into the alley and showed me the clutch, the brake, and the shifter pedal. I rode it up and down the alley for two weeks.”
–Cara Jepsen
