Anne-France Dautheville - Motorcycle Muse

In the 1990s I drove motorcyles across Bali, Java, Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.

Once I straddleed a 250 ATX Honda above Chiang Mai. A dirt road led west into the maze of dragon-backed ridges. Somewhere to the west lay Tibet. There was gas in the tank, however entering the Golden Triangle was dangerous for anyone not attached to the druglords. I turned around disappointed I had failed to accept the challenge.

I remain haunted by that vista.

Dmitri Turin of the East Sixth Street Bikers and I drank beer in New York, fantasiziing a circumnavigation of the globe on Triumph dirt bikes.

It never got further than talk.

At 70 I'm going nowhere, until I recover from my transplant surgery.

Back in 1972 I was an economic student at Boston College. I had seen EASY RIDER. I had only ridden a Vespa. Once. I hitchhiked from coast-to-coast. I stayed with bikers in Pomona, Ca. They lent me a Harley Tricycle. They took it back after three days with the leader saying, "You scare me."

The road belonged to them and a French adventuresse, Anne-France Dautheville.

In 1972 the journalist quit her copyrighting job in Paris and set off to Afghanistan on a Kawasaki 125cc. The following year Mlle. Dautheville soloed around the world.

Three continents; Europe, Asia, America.

Articles and novels about her epic journeys created her myth status as a style icon. From a 2016 article from NY Times writer Alexander Fury.

“Even on a trip for 12,000 miles, I am a Parisienne.” Her staples on the open road included leather trousers or dungarees paired with a printed scoop-neck t-shirts, and she always wore a scarf and biker boots unless she was out to dinner. "My life started at 27. It was as if the thousands of kilometres around the world were concentrated in a few perfect seconds." My idée… was to see the world. It was to see when it is different, and fascinating. “From now on, life would be mine, my way. I would feel the wind on my skin, the world as my home.”

Most recently, she was the inspiration behind fashion brand's Chloe's Autumn-winter 2016 collection.

And still gives inspiration to a generation trapped by cellphones and ear.

"Be brave and do the impossible. No one from France really went to that part of the world then; they might go as far as Turkey or Morocco, but not Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran.” In many of the countries she traveled, “They didn’t see too many girls alone on a motorcycle. I was colour TV for them.” Her parents were mortified by her trip – she could have been a copywriter and had a nice life but she chose to go on an adventure.

Being an artist is about sharing. The story of my life is sharing. When I write, I give the best and the deepest of me to people I wouldn’t have dinner with. This is the artistic dimension. When I traveled, it was, ‘What can we share?’ Maybe it’s a bit utopic. I don’t care. It’s what I felt, and what I did.”

Fame is overrated. She never chased fame and still doesn’t. “I’m not fascinated by myself,” she says. “By my life, maybe, but not by me. My bellybutton is not the center of my world.”

"Tailor your career to your life, not the other way around. A freelance journalist, Dautheville both documented and paid for her travels by writing articles, which were subsequently spun into books. Many revolved around the novelty of her gender, such as “Girl on a Motorcycle” (1973) and “And I Followed the Wind” (1975).

She was “deadly broke” and would house-sit for friends in return for a place to stay.

Anne-France Dautheville is 28 in 1972, astride a Moto Guzzi 750 motorcycle on the way to Tehran, traveling alone cross-continent. She’s flagged down by a car, and three children get out to ask Dautheville about herself, her life and her eye makeup. (“I always made up my eyes,” she recalls.) “Then they start driving faster than me. Ten kilometers later, they stop on the side of the road, and they stop me again. I ask, ‘Is there something you forgot?’ And they say, ‘Well, we were wondering, are you a girl or are you a boy?’ ” Dautheville throws back her head and roars with laughter.

That is the beauty of the road.