Thalassa Van Beek
Thalassa Van Beek fell in love with motorcycling as a teenager working as a hostess and model in her native Netherlands. She was handing out brochures at a trade show when a blue Yamaha YZF-R6 caught her eye. “Right then and there,” she recounts to “Driven to Ride” host Mark Long, “I decided to get my license because I needed to ride that bike.” Van Beek earned her license at age 19, and she has been riding pretty much ever since. She bought a Honda VTR250, which was followed by a CBR600F and then her dream R6. Today, living in motorcycle-crazy Spain, she owns a handful of machines—all Yamahas. “Every time I’m on the bike, it just makes me happy and excited, like I can conquer the world.” Van Beek eventually formed her own agency, “Motorcycle Marketing.” She surrounded herself with experts specializing in copywriting, graphic design, SEO, and social media. She has one hard-and-fast rule: Everyone has to ride motorcycles. “It’s a specific language,” she says. “You can just tell when a campaign is written by someone who isn’t a biker. It shows.” Indeed, it does.