Wheel of Fortune
Extra axle saves her motorcycle hobby and more
By James Raia
July 2026
About 50 years ago, Tracy Broshar defied her mother and bought a motorcycle. The riding hobby eventually became a family affair. It also saved Broshar’s life.
Much has happened since the East Sacramento woman, at age 18, purchased a Honda XL75, a small bike built for trail riding.
Since then, Broshar, 67, has bought several motorcycles. She also overcame physical limitations prompted by a motorcycle crash and persevered through the loss of a long-time partner and personal despair.
Through it all, her passion for riding remains powerful. It’s just different now.
The home business-based personal trainer rides three-wheelers, sometimes called trikes.
“My older brother had a bike when he came back from Vietnam, and then I bought my XL75 and 400 (also a Honda),” Broshar says. “My mom wound up on the back of mine. We would take off on weekends and ride all around Sacramento.”
Mom and Dad eventually purchased their own motorcycles.
“My dad said, ‘If my two girls have a bike, I’m going to have one,’” Broshar says. “That’s how I kick-started my parents into it. I had no idea. I look back on it, it’s the greatest thing my stubbornness could have done.”
Family strife turned into family motorcycle vacations to Clear Lake. Broshar’s parents rode round trip to Canada on a Honda Gold Wing.
About six years ago, Broshar’s two-wheeled adventures added a third wheel, a transition brought about by necessity.
With surprising encouragement from her partner, then in early stages of Alzheimer’s, Broshar bought a new conventional motorcycle and soon upgraded to another two-wheeler. She crashed on the second bike, breaking an arm and a leg.
“That’s when I decided, I’m a caretaker. I can’t ride anymore,” Broshar says.
When her partner died in 2020, Broshar considered suicide. “I realized the only one who is going to save me is me,” she says. “No one is going to come. That’s when I started thinking, what can I do?”
She needed knee surgery, which meant balancing a two-wheel motorcycle at stop lights was out of the question. She says, “I thought, what can help me? I had to get out into the public. What can I do? It was a three-wheel motorcycle. It saved my life.”
Broshar’s third and current three-wheeler (two front wheels, one rear) is a 2023 Can-Am Spyder RT. Three-wheelers offer greater stability, comfort and are less physically demanding than two wheels.
“I have more people wanting to stop and talk about it, especially in other states and older people who thought they might not ride a motorcycle again,” she says.
Broshar enjoys day trips on Highways 49 and 99. Longer journeys take her as far as Illinois. She rides with three-wheeler groups but prefers solo treks.
This summer she heads for South Dakota to visit Rosebud Indian Reservation, where her grandmother was born.
“That one choice I made, my mother was very mad,” she says, recalling her teenage rebellion. “That’s why I enjoy getting older and looking back. The choice I made to disobey my mother? What fun it gave us. It was a smart disobey.”
James Raia can be reached at james@jamesraia.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
