R5K star starts 80,000-mile trip
24-year-old Roxy sets off on global tour on her 1999 FireBlade
At just 24, an intrepid female FireBlade traveller and #ride5000miles member has just set off on her latest adventure – around-the-world! Roksana Kielkowska, who’s Polish but based in Glasgow, is expecting to cover up to 80,000 miles in 10-months on her 1999 Honda CBR900RR. But as a veteran of numerous solo long distance trips the software development worker is no stranger to big miles.
From Scotland she plans to ride across Europe and Asia, then head towards Australia and New Zealand before shipping the bike to South America and heading north. “I’ve done quite a few trips around Europe over the past three years and I have visited most European countries already,” Roxy told MCN. “But it has always been for either a
week or two at a time, as I had to take time off work.
This time, though, thanks to understanding employers, she secured 10 months unpaid leave. “This time I will go for it and ride around the world.” “I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head and thought I might as well just do it, it’s now or never! It was around October last year when I started thinking about it seriously.” Being used to long journeys, she expects things to go wrong both for her and the bike, but that hasn’t put her off from tackling the trek solo.
“The bike will break down, that’s for sure. I’m not too worried about it, I’ll just wait until it happens. I’ll camp as much as possible to keep the costs down, but I think the mental challenge will be the biggest factor of all.
“I might be lucky and everything might go well and the bike might not break down, but it probably will. That’s when you have to be mentally strong. I will probably meet people along the way, which is normally what happens.”
You can follow Roxy’s updates about her journey on MCN’s R5K Facebook group page.
‘I might as well just do it, it’s now or never!’ R5K MEMBER ROKSANA KIELKOWSKA