Biking is for women, mum says

Brisbane mother of three Margaret Rapley has just completed four years alone with her little 250cc Suzuki Intruder motorcycle and says women need not be afraid of chasing the gypsy life of freedom on the open road.

"I want to inspire women that they can do anything,'' she says. Rapley hit the road on her $4900 bike in 2008 when her youngest child went to live with her father for the last two years of school. After 66,000km circumnavigating the continent she is back home again; but not for long. 

"I want to teach English in Vietnam and I'll be taking my bike as I want to travel around,'' she says. "I also want to go to Tuscany with my bike.''

Rapley worked her way around the country town by town, job by job. "I worked as a carer, tour guide in Tasmania and Uluru, I did retail, picked fruit, worked in supermarkets, seeding, slashing, house mother you name it,'' she says. "I now have a nine-page resume. I'll never be unemployed.''

Rapley says life on the open road with all your worldly possessions strapped to a bike has been "liberating''. "When I decided stop in a town and get a job I'd go to a second-hand shop and buy some clothes and when I decided to move on I'd give them back,'' she says. "Everything I own is second hand except my riding equipment.'' 

Rapley's odyssey has included riding in 47 degree heat in the Northern Territory, black ice at -3 degrees in Tasmania, strong sidewinds on the Nullarbor that lifted her bike off the road and dodging camels, horses, sheep, goats, emus and wedgetail eagles.

Yet she's only had one crash. "A backpacker in a ute turned in front of me and I had to lay the bike down,'' she said. "The panniers saved the bike and me from major damage.''

Rapley says a female biker arriving in an outback town on her own generates a lot of interest. "People would always come up and talk to me, although I had to be careful not to tell too many people that I was travelling alone,'' she says.

But she also loves the solitude of being able to "scream and sing'' in her helmet. "It's helped me cope with menopause being on the bike,'' she says. "Most women I tell about the trip say, 'my god did you do it by yourself?' and 'weren't you scared and worried you wouldn't get work'.

"When I started I had to stop 10 minutes up the road with self doubt and worry. I couldn't believe I was free of everything. "But now my bike's my most faithful companion and I just want to tell women that they can do anything.''