Image: Elspeth Beard
Image: Elspeth Beard
What would it be like if you couldn't just turn on your computer and ask google all the questions you want to help plan your trip? Everything from planning and packing, to routing and picking your destinations. All the answers at your fingertips. And what if in the 1980's it was so against the norm for someone to set out on a long distance motorcycle trip, let alone a woman? Would you still have the nerve to ride around the world?
Image: Elspeth Beard
Elspeth Beard has just published a book this summer, the one that we talked about in an interview with her last year. We'll remind you that it's the story of a 23 year old woman who in 1982 set off on a solo motorcycle trip around the world. Something relatively unheard of in those days, for both women and men. In fact, on her trip she only met two other motorcycle adventurers in the 2 1/2 years she was on the road.
Broken-hearted, she wasn't doing well in school and decided to embark on this trip to prove herself. Ridiculed by the editor and his "chauvinist colleagues" at a popular motorcycle magazine in London, she was only all that more determined to achieve her goal.
After years away, she returned home, wiser and with the knowledge that she could do anything she set out to do. But, publishing a book at the time seemed like a dead end road, as no one was interested in her story. And after storing away all her notes, audio files and memories for almost 35 years, she finally wrote the book that she wanted to all those years ago. And here we have it, Lone Rider - The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World.
Elspeth Beard has shared some of her audio files with Adventure Rider Radio, the sound of her younger voice all those years ago that she recorded to share with her parents. And, we also talk to someone who was in a position to either empower or disempower her while she was on this trip, something Elspeth wasn't aware of at the time that we created this episode for you, our listener.
The author of Lone Rider, Elspeth Beard, is an avid motorcyclist and award-winning architect living in a converted water tower in southeast England. To this day, she still rides her trusty BMW R 60/6.
Elspeth's book is available on Amazon.
Hear more about Elspeth at http://www.adventureriderradio.com/adventure-rider-radio-episodes/2016/9/1/elspeth-beard-first-british-woman-to-motorcycle-around-the-world?rq=elspeth%20beard
Image: Elspeth Beard
Vintage audio bits from Elspeth Beard round the world motorcycle trip. Courtesy of Eslpeth Beard
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Music by Jason Shaw at www.audionautix.com