You can be a girl, be chic AND ride a motorcycle around the world

Travel, Motorcycles + Fashion

I’m writing to you from my NYC apartment, my AC is straining and outside the world is sweltering. Apparently the JFK clock read 100 degrees for the first time in 12 years last week! This kind of heat reminds me of riding along the coast of Peru on my motorcycle at the beginning of 2020. When the weather is that hot, and you are covered in your motorcycle gear, it’s truly unbearable. The only thing that helps is moving, moving quickly, and forcing as much wind as you can into the air vents of your jacket, trousers and helmet — but it still feels like a hundred hairdryers are on you at full blast. Your gear is sticking to your legs, your feet are swelling in your boots and you wondered why you even started this journey, but the only thing you can do is keep riding, because I have a goal and it is to reach Ushuaia before the winter sets in.

I’ve always been interested the intersection of motorcycles, travel, and fashion — but I’ve often felt like I don’t quite fit in with the typical motorcycle crowd. I had a serendipitous encounter with a girl in Brooklyn last week who fixes mopeds, and works in the creative industry and it reminded me that none of that really matters. She has the same energy I remember having when I first got into bikes — palpable excitement about adventures and the freedom of two wheels. It made me realize there are people out there like me, and maybe it’s time I start writing about it, in hopes of connecting with others that are inspired to start riding, and becoming a platform for likeminded people.

So this is where I will be sharing some real experiences from my journeys around the world on my motorcycle, thoughts on motorcycle culture, practical and impractical clothing, what to pack, gear reviews, destinations, routes, etc and perhaps it will inspire you to do your own independent adventuring and go out and explore the world and connect with other people, cultures and countries.

These are some of the motivators / instigators that made me want to take my bike as far as possible, national, international, and all the in between…

I studied fashion design at London College of Fashion and had my own fashion label straight out of college. After being consistently broke as a young designer during the twenty 10s, I moved into art direction world. The studio I worked at collaborated closely with the Parisian label Chloé. It was 2016 and their Fall Collection was inspired by Anne France Dautheville – the first woman to ride around the world on a motorcycle. I’d always been intrigued by motorcycles thanks to my dad and brothers, but this was the introduction to motorcycles from a feminine perspective and it hit different.

Anne was a chic French lady riding the globe solo, how iconic! Not a man, Ted Simon was the only other person I had heard of doing this which inspired the infamous Long Way Round – BUT this was a woman, alone, getting on her motorcycle every day and riding 5 months around the globe in 1973, with no phones, no google maps, no modern technology… Incredible.

I was so impressed and my mind so expanded, I realized that this was something I would have to do myself one day. Could I? How did she do it? How much money did she need?

I had so many questions and I was in such awe of her journey and her bravery, as if something inside of me had been switched on high. I began incessantly researching, I quickly discovered Elspeth Beard the first British woman to ride around the world in 1982, who was just about to release her book of her travels: Lone Rider and coincidentally came to New York City to do a talk at the local motorcycle shop in November 2018. I went right up to her after the talk and told her I was planning on riding around the world as well. At that moment, I had an old Honda CB550 that kept breaking down on me (haha). I couldn’t ride around the world on that unless I was a mechanic…..what I needed was a reliable motorcycle, a BMW, some money and a lot of courage!

Fast forward to today – I did buy that BMW, and I have now ridden almost the entire American continent (and some of Europe), and a lot of that was solo. I’ve always wanted to write a book or memoir about my travels, so I want to start with this substack, somewhere I can share my thoughts, feelings and experiences from the past 5 years of motorcycle travel, and on a platform that is so much more personal and intentional than instagram. I will share my travels on and off the motorcycle, how to start an international motorcycle journey, how to start riding, and then what bike to buy, what to to wear, what to pack, product reviews and incredible places to travel to. (Motorcycle optional ;)

Jess x