Elspeth Beard - Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World

Some names of certain individuals in this book have been changed to protect their privacy.

First published in Great Britain in 2017

by Michael OMara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

Copyright Elspeth Beard 2017

The right of Elspeth Beard to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78243-804-5 in hardback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-807-6 in trade paperback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-805-2 in ebook format

www.mombooks.com

In memory of

Wijnand Joris Robert Albregts

19552009

CONTENTS

Southern Thailand, 10 April 1984

F or five long, hot, tiring days Id ridden towards the equator, skimming the Burmese border on the skinny section of the Thai peninsula, somewhere between the lazy beaches of the south and bustling Bangkok and the plains to the north. I had to be in Penang in three days to catch a cargo ship across the Bay of Bengal to Madras.

I had ridden up to the ThaiBurma border in search of a route through to India and onto Nepal. Until now, Id travelled rich in time, but poor in money. Now, for the first time, I had a deadline and a direct overland route that promised considerable savings of both when they were running out fast. Largely ignorant of what might lie ahead, Id arrived at the border having heard conflicting reports about a possible route through Burma, as Myanmar was then known. But as I stood gazing at Burma, hazy in the distance on that sweaty, overcast afternoon, I didnt need my makeshift map to tell me that the roadblock in front of me marked more than the end of this particular road. Id run out of road and options. With nowhere else to go I began the long journey to Penang in Malaysia, more than 1,200 sticky miles ahead.

It was for times like this that I loved riding my bike. Those moments when all thoughts of the past and future slipped away and I existed entirely in the present, the miles rolling past beneath the wheels of my big BMW, the morning light clear and golden, throwing shadow bands across the road as I carved my way around the world.

As I rode and the days and miles ticked past, I spoke to my bike, cajoling her with promises of an oil change and a clean air filter if she got me to Penang in time. It was the kind of bargain Id struck many times since leaving London nearly eighteen months earlier. With a couple of bags over my shoulder, the takings of a summers pub work in my pocket and yearnings for my ex-boyfriend in my heart, Id departed carrying a widely ridiculed dream of riding a motorcycle right around the globe, something which, to my knowledge, no woman and few men had ever done.

I treated my nine-year-old BMW R60/6 well, cared for my darling as I would any old lady with too many miles on the clock. More than 18,000 miles together; another 15,000 to go, just me and my girl. Five nights earlier Id been in Chiang Rai, as far north as most travellers ventured in Southeast Asia in 1983. There, in the Golden Triangle of Laos, Burma and northern Thailand, the mountain pastures were dominated by opium poppy growing and heroin production, scaring off most outsiders.

But not me.

On that golden southern Thai morning, I was riding on a small dusty country road between fields a few miles from the main highway that carried all the traffic up the peninsula from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to Bangkok. My speed was creeping towards 60 mph; too fast and I knew it. But, as on every previous day, Id convinced myself that I was safe so safe Id capitulated to the heat by removing my gloves. We got away with it yesterday, I said to my girl, even though wed shared dozens of near misses already.

Thats when I hit the dog.

A flash of brown and white fur. Two black eyes filled with terror. A thud. I didnt even brake. It appeared from nowhere and disappeared immediately. All I saw was a blurred collision of metal and hair.

A dark green truck, stacked high with baled goods, had been approaching on the opposite carriageway, blocking my view of the far side of the road. As it passed, the dog shot out from behind it into my path. It never stood a chance, but it was big enough a standard-issue Thai mongrel the size of a German Shepherd to knock me clean off my bike.

I smacked onto the tarmac. My breath catapulted out of me and everything slipped into slow motion as I slid on my back across the road, watching my bike trundle, upright and riderless, ahead of me into a ditch, out of sight.

Dazed and breathless, I pushed myself up and stumbled to my feet, my ears ringing as I looked around for some remains of the dog.

Nothing.

My bike, however, was wedged against a tree in the ditch. My chances of reaching that boat in time no longer looked so good. I rushed over to my BMW, wanting to pull her free. I grabbed her front wheel, which was jammed against the tree, clasping the trunk between her front tyre and her exhaust outlets. I tugged as hard as I could. Thats when the adrenaline wore off and I suddenly felt the pain.

My hands, red raw, the skin scraped off both palms, were bleeding and screamed sore. I tried to ignore it, tried to tug again at the front wheel, but the pain was too much. I stopped and looked at myself properly for the first time. My trousers were badly torn, my thighs grazed, my right foot smashed up, but my leather jacket had saved my arms and shoulders. Thank god Id been wearing my helmet. I was cut and bruised and smashed about, with a bike I feared was wrecked, at a time long before the advent of mobile phones, internet and email.

I was twenty-four years old, a young architecture graduate with little experience of the world and hardly any money in my pocket. I was alone, a thousand miles from anyone I knew, in a country whose language I didnt speak and couldnt read, on a road I didnt know.

WIMPOLE STREET:
EARLY ADVENTURES

London, 3 October 1982

T he beginning of my great adventure and I was sitting on a bench in a corner of Heathrow airport, face in hands, crying my eyes out. Three hours of tear tracks streaked across my face. After years of dreaming, months of preparation, weeks of longing to be gone, suddenly I knew what it really meant to feel totally alone.

Turn back, I told myself. Its not too late.

Go home, a persistent voice in my head insisted, back to the family and friends who never wanted you to leave.

I was tempted. So tempted I was giving serious consideration to reversing the events of a day for which Id spent so long preparing.