Mary Siever stands next to her BSA Bantam. The little two-stroke took her around the world through the 1960s and 1970s.

Courtesy: Adventure Rider

Mary Sievier, one of the first women known to do a complete round-the-world motorcycle trip, has died. She was 82 years old.

Sievier (her married name was Smith) wasn’t a particularly well-known name in the annals of adventure motorcycling, at least not until fairly recently. She accomplished her round-the-world trip  over the years of 1967 through 1976. That’s a long time, but if you were trying to cover tens of thousands of miles on a BSA Bantam two-stroke 175, you’d probably take your time as well.

For a while, Sievier was once thought by many to be the first female motorcyclists to ride around the world by herself, but that is not the case. That honor probably goes to Joy McKean of New Zealand, who did it in the 1950s. McKean also rode a BSA Bantam. However, Sievier’s accomplishment still puts her among the very earliest of female riders to circle the globe alone.

After her trip, Sievier’s accomplishments were forgotten by many, but in more recent years the adventure biking and overland community discovered her tale. She was an honored guest at The Overland Event in Oxford, England in 2022, where she even threw her leg over her BSA Bantam once again. It had been apart in boxes for years, but finally had been restored to working order.

Along with recognition by attendees at The Overland Event (her talk in 2022 was reckoned to be one of the best held there), Sievier was also the subject of a documentary (embedded below). That doc was also turned into a podcast (find it here).