MCN

Valentino Rossi: on life, racing, teams, and what comes next

Adventurer and author who became the first person to ride on all seven continents

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‘Antarctica was a challenge, I was out of my comfort zone’

‘We had to lash the bike to the deck of the boat’

Getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to the limit is something most of us do all too rarely, yet for Steph Jeavons it’s pretty much a way of life - whether she’s testing herself or putting others through the experience. In 2018 adventurer, author, and motorcycle overlander Steph became the first Brit to ride on all seven continents during a circumnavi­gation of the globe, an incredible feat that saw her cover over 74,000 miles in four years on her CRF250L, dubbed Rhonda the Honda. She’s organised offroad training and extreme tours alongside globe-busting legend Nick Sanders and Dakar daredevil Mick Extance, and led the first allfemale motorcycle tour to Everest base camp. MCN caught up with Steph to find out where her appetite for adventure came from and get the inside view of the challenges she has overcome.

“I was strictly a road rider until 2008 when my sister and I signed up to do Enduro Africa, an off-road rally in aid of Riders for Health,” says Steph. “We didn’t know how to ride on dirt so we got some training and that was it really. It was a nightmare of a journey - for most of the way we were hanging on for dear life thinking we were gonna die, but when we got to the end it was like ‘Wow, that was really cool, can we do it again?’ That got me into not just the intense off-road biking stuff, but that experience of pushing yourself way beyond your limits so that at the end you’re going ‘I did it. I can do it. I am strong enough!’

“I spent the following six years running Honda’s official off-road school, but when that came to an end it was kind of a now-or-never moment for me. I’d been planning to see the world for a long time, so it was either rebuild the business and start again or cut my losses and go for it… so I went for it. “Getting to Antarctica was the biggest challenge, because I was out of my comfort zone so much. I don’t like being on a boat and I don’t like the sea, so to hit the Drake

Passage (a perilous stretch of water off Cape Horn that joins the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans) on a small sailing yacht was nerve-wracking. I was also part of the crew and that meant learning all the mechanics of running a boat, something I had to get to grips with very quickly. Rhonda was lashed to the deck, so I also had to figure out how to protect her against one of the roughest seas in the world, as well as getting her off the boat, into a dinghy and onto dry land without any of us falling into deathly, ice-cold water. “I didn’t believe I could do it until I actually got there. I had to

take some time out to reflect and at that point, in the now, I felt that I could achieve anything. I loved the world because it was so beautiful, I loved myself because I’d achieved something amazing and I loved everybody in the world because they’d all made so much effort to help me. It was just a pure, perfect moment.

“When I got back I wanted to do a big challenge with other people, so in 2019 I teamed up with Alex Pirie of Nomadic Knights to lead a group of 23 women on motorcycle­s to Everest base camp. Only half the group made it in the end as it was much tougher than any of us had expected - we had record breaking rain, landslides and conditions which were far worse than Alex had ever seen them before, but it was an amazing feeling to have completed it and I made a lot of good friends. “My last trip before Covid hit was to act as a guide for an 81-year-old gentleman as he chased his dream of taking a Unimog truck across Africa. We spent 10 weeks travelling 10,000 miles through 10 countries from Namibia to Kenya, with me sleeping on the roof in a pop-up tent. With foreign travel currently off the table I’m now focusing on my company Moto Junkies. We’ve got a fleet of bikes and a new base on the border of Wales, ready and waiting for restrictio­ns to lift so people can come and explore the roads and trails with us.”

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Trout Lake at Kaslo in Canada
The precarious approach to Antarctica
Steph’s Honda makes some bigger friends Trout Lake at Kaslo in Canada The precarious approach to Antarctica

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