In fact, I wasn’t even sure why I was doing this trip, other than as a distraction from the heartbreak of being dumped by Alex, the guy I thought was going to be the love of my life. That, and a yearning for some adventure and unpredictability in my life after three years spent in stuffy classrooms studying for an architecture degree, had brought me to this place.

Beard, E. (2018) Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World. Michael O’Mara Books Ltd.

So the thought of me, a seventeen-year-old girl who’d ventured only as far as the south coast, now riding around the world on her own? Ridiculous. I wondered if it was the fact that I was female. My friends weren’t chauvinists, but 1970s biker culture was quite primitive.

Beard, E. (2018) Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World. Michael O’Mara Books Ltd.