- Publisher: August
- Year: 2026
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 286pp
- Illustrated: Yes
- Dimensions: 196x128mm
- Condition: New
- Weight: 0.2kg
- ISBN: 9781835982747
- Product code: 547169
Free Ride
Heartbreak, Courage, and the 20,000-Mile Motorcycle Journey that Changed My Life
Noraly Schoenmaker New Paperback Illustrated
Postscript summary
Newly single, Dutch geologist Noraly Schoenmaker left her job and travelled to India, where she fell in love with motorcycling. Her memoir follows her solo journey through Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, then from Oman and Central Asia to cross Europe, recording mechanical setbacks, remote landscapes and encounters that helped restore her sense of purpose.
Product information
Full publisher description
The Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller
By the YouTube sensation with more than three million followers, the inspiring account of a woman in her thirties who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride and along the way found a new sense of purpose.
Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirty-something geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. Suddenly without a place to stay, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India in search of a new beginning. Her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads.
She first rode toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Turkmenistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory; broke down on impossibly steep mountains; and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world - the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, as well as her own inner strength.
In spirit of The Motorcycle Diaries and Wild, this is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in.
'In no-frills, from-the-heart prose, Schoenmaker crafts exhilarating evocations of rarely visited landscapes...' BBC
'An inspiring and often-thrilling ode to healing on one's own terms.' Publishers Weekly
'Required reading' New York Post
By the YouTube sensation with more than three million followers, the inspiring account of a woman in her thirties who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride and along the way found a new sense of purpose.
Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirty-something geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. Suddenly without a place to stay, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India in search of a new beginning. Her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads.
She first rode toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Turkmenistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory; broke down on impossibly steep mountains; and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world - the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, as well as her own inner strength.
In spirit of The Motorcycle Diaries and Wild, this is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in.
'In no-frills, from-the-heart prose, Schoenmaker crafts exhilarating evocations of rarely visited landscapes...' BBC
'An inspiring and often-thrilling ode to healing on one's own terms.' Publishers Weekly
'Required reading' New York Post
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Newly single, Dutch geologist Noraly Schoenmaker left her job and travelled to India, where she fell in love with motorcycling. Her memoir follows her solo journey through Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, then from Oman and Central Asia to cross Europe, recording mechanical setbacks, remote landscapes and encounters that helped restore her sense of purpose.
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bic_code:BGA, BM, WGCK, WTH, WTL
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Noraly Schoenmaker
General
196x128mm
August
Yes
Paperback
View All
Motorcycles
