ELSPETH BEARD was bitten by the biker bug when she was 16, after a friend taught her to ride on Salisbury Plain.
When she finished her training to become an architect, Elspeth wanted a taste of adventure before settling down, and decided to ride round the world. She shipped the BMW to New York where she picked it up and rode to Canada, then to Los Angeles, before putting the bike on a ship for Sydney.
Once reunited with her BMW, she rode across Australia to Perth, where the bike was placed on a boat again, this time to Singapore. From there she rode north through Malaysia and Thailand. "Burma was closed to me," she says, "so I rode back to Penang and put the bike on a ship to Madras."
The next stop was Calcutta and her route continued to Katmandu, Nepal and thence to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece and back home through mainland Europe. The trip, covering 48,000 miles, lasted nearly three years - and wasn't without incident.
"I somersaulted the bike in Australia," she says, "and spent two weeks in hospital. Later it caught fire. The wiring loom had burned out but I had the most amazing luck. Only a few hundred yards away was the first building I had seen all day and there was this sign saying 'electrician'. I was saved."
Elspeth has taken her 10-year-old son, Tom, on short trips to Europe. "Long journeys are out until he is older," she says. "Then we aim to go to Alaska, down the west coast of America, into Mexico, on to South America and Chile and through Argentina, Patagonia and, finally, to Tierra del Fuego."
Elspeth has taken her 10-year-old son, Tom, on short trips to Europe. "Long journeys are out until he is older," she says. "Then we aim to go to Alaska, down the west coast of America, into Mexico, on to South America and Chile and through Argentina, Patagonia and, finally, to Tierra del Fuego."
