Forced off bikes for a year, Laura jumped back in with a huge ride to Nordkapp and back on a Suzuki DR-Z4S
When Laura, aka MotoWaifu, had her beloved Yamaha MT-07 stolen she was heartbroken. She’d owned the motorcycle for seven years, they’d covered nearly 100,000 miles (160,000km) together, through 28 countries – always travelling solo, including a huge trip to Istanbul and back. And then, one morning as she was prepared to commute to work, it was gone and never coming back.
‘I was ready to go straight out and buy another bike until I checked the insurance quotes. My premium had gone from £120 a year to £2700. I just couldn't afford it.’
Laura didn’t have a car, or even a car driving licence, and because of the Yamaha’s high mileage the payout for the bike wasn’t much either. ‘For an entire year, I relied on public transport and begged friends for lifts to work. I hated every minute of it, but I didn't have much of a choice. I genuinely thought my life on two wheels was over. I even took a driving lesson.’
If that wasn’t bad enough, Laura was made redundant from her dream job. Then, in February of this year, things changed when a friend invited her on a road trip around Scotland, including the loan of a Honda CRF300. She was hooked again. ‘I almost said no. I'm so glad I didn't.’
A month after that, Laura set off alone from her home near London to Nordkapp, Norway. And she chose to do it on a Suzuki DR-Z4.
‘I’ve been making motorcycle content for ten years and I’ve built up good relationships within the trade over that time, so, when I emailed Suzuki asking, “Can I borrow one of your new DR-Z4S and ride it 10,000km to the northernmost point of Europe for a YouTube Series?” They said yes. After having my own bike stolen and thinking my travelling days were over, it felt like someone had handed me a second chance.’
The Suzuki wasn’t the obvious choice for such a long trip, but Laura has no complaints. ‘The DR-Z4 made the journey feel like an adventure. It took me places I probably wouldn't have explored on a bigger, heavier bike, and it reminded me that you don't need the biggest or most expensive machine to have incredible experiences.’
She does admit riding back from Norway to the ABR Festival in England, in 48 hours, mainly on motorways was, ‘Hell’, but the rest of the journey wasn’t.
‘The route I created was designed around the countries I hadn't ridden through before. Instead of taking the obvious route north through Germany and Denmark to Norway, I wanted something that felt more challenging, so, I headed east first, towards Poland, before making my way north through Finland. The journey started with shorter riding days, allowing me time to settle into the bike, the route, and the adventure ahead and as the trip progressed, the distances gradually increased. In total, the route was just over 10,000km (6200 miles), and I spent 31 days on the road with four rest days - roughly equating to one day off each week.’
The target was Nordkapp, a destination for many long-distance riders. After surviving insect bites that made her forehead swell so much it made her helmet uncomfortably tight, and losing her phone (then finding it at the side of the road in rural Czechia), and her Garmin breaking, then her phone dying in a Swedish rainstorm, she made it.
‘Standing at Nordkapp after riding over 5000km to reach the northernmost point of Europe was obviously a huge high point, but some of my favourite moments weren't necessarily the big milestones. They were the small, unexpected ones: learning how to sword fight in a Viking village; sharing stories in a hostel room with a 72-year-old who had flown his bike over from Quebec, and those random moments where you stop the bike, take a moment to look around, and realise how lucky you are to be there.
‘The biggest high point though, was proving to myself that I could do it. After losing my bike, job and shortly after - my house. My identity didn’t just disappear, my entire life was reset, and I’m so lucky to have such great friends who were willing to help me out during this time. This trip showed me that adventures don't end, they just sometimes take a different route and sometimes that route is harder, but if you keep going, it eventually leads you to where you're meant to be.’
See this trip and others on the MotoWaifu YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/motowaifu
MOTOWAIFU & PIKACHU
‘I was 23 when I created my YouTube account,’ Laura, now 33, explains, ‘and I was completely obsessed with anime [Japanese animation]. I still am. I wanted a name that combined my two biggest passions, motorcycles and anime. A ‘waifu’ is a fictional female character from anime, manga or video games that a fan considers their ultimate character, so Moto and Waifu became Motowaifu’
And the Pokémon character clinging to the mirror stalk? ‘I wanted to put something into my videos that represented who I am, but I also realised not everyone knows what One Piece, Black Clover or JJK is. Everyone knows Pikachu though, right? The Pikachu plush [toy] found a permanent home on the bike. It represents my love of Japanese culture, anime, and gaming, but it also gave the bike an identity that everyone instantly recognised. Before long people were approaching me in different countries shouting “Pikachu!” at me from across the street.’
MOTOWAIFU LUGGAGE
Laura fitted the Suzuki DR-Z4S with a Kriega OS-Base Adventure and two OS-18 Adventure Packs, with additional US-30, US-20 and US-10. She carried a Trail9 backpack fitted with Trail Pockets. See the full load above. If that sounds a lot, it was…
’I posted most of my luggage back when I got to Lithuania. When I initially pack for my trip, I lay everything out and then I take half of everything away. A lot of what you think you need, you’ll actually never touch - particularly things like excess clothes. I began my trip with four T-Shirts, two vest tops, two pairs of leggings and two pairs of shoes. I halved that again in Lithuania and decided to just wash them more frequently in hotel room sinks as I already had been.
‘The first piece of motorcycle luggage I bought was a US-10 for my 2018 solo camping trip to Wales on my Honda Grom, the day I passed my bike test. Since then, I’ve never used another luggage brand. I don’t want to, but I also don’t need to, Kriega is universal to every bike.
Kriega had a HUGE job to do, I’m not talking about carrying all my possessions, of course it did that, but even more importantly, I had to trust Kriega with my laptop, £1000s worth of camera equipment and 8TB of footage I’d filmed on the trip for my YouTube channel. Through the storms, the dirt roads and even dropping my bike, the luggage performed.’
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