Elspeth Beard

Elspeth Beard is an architect and motorcyclist, who is noted for being the first English woman to ride a motorcycle around the world.

Beard learned to ride a motorcycle on Salisbury Plain at the age of 16. She began her round the world journey in 1982, after the third year of her architect training course, using a BMW R60/6 motorcycle. Beard added soft panniers, a tank bag and an extra bag lashed to the pillion seat before she embarked on the trip. She began her journey in New York City, having shipped the bike from the United Kingdom. From there, she motorcycled to Canada, Mexico and Los Angeles before shipping her bike to Sydney.

In Sydney, she spent eleven months working as an architect, before motorcycling across Australia. In Townsville, Queensland, she had an accident which left her hospitalised for two weeks. After Australia, she traveled to Singapore, where she spent 6 weeks replacing important documents and gear after they were all stolen, and then she travelled into Asia. In Thailand, she collided with a dog, and recuperated staying with a local family; the family fed her the remains of the dog that she had crashed into. Beard forged the necessary permit to get out of the Punjab region, and traveled into Pakistan, before riding back into Europe via Turkey; She arrived back in the United Kingdom in 1984, having traveled 35,000 miles (56,000 km) in doing so, she became the first Englishwoman to motorcycle around the world. When Beard returned from the trip there was a lack of interest for what she had accomplished, as she stated in an interview; "After I got back and nobody was interested in what I'd done I just shoved everything into the back of the garage. I just kind of moved on with my life.".

Her 2017 autobiography Lone Rider chronicles the circumnavigation.