Enduro racer, rally driver and for climbing Everest on a motorcycle
Annie Seel (born 5 September 1968) is a Swedish-born motorcyclist who set a world altitude record for climbing to Mount Everest base camp on a motorcycle in 2003. Seel climbed to 5,305 m (17,405 ft), breaking the existing unofficial record by more than 50 m (160 ft),[1][2]
using a 20-year-old Honda XL250 fitted with ice tires. This limitation was due to the Nepalese government's ban on the importation of new motorcycles to Nepal.[3]
This record has now been broken by another female rider, Tamsin Jones, who with her partner, Craig Bounds, climbed to 5359m in 2011.
Previously known as an enduro racer and a leading female competitor in the Paris-Dakar Rally,[4] Seel was awarded the Swedish "Adventurer of The Year" award in 2005 for being the first woman to compete in the 500-mile (800 km) TSCO Vegas to Reno desert motorcycle race,[5] where she finished as the fifth highest amateur and was FIM first "Ride Green" woman eco-enduro champion in a race for electric motorcycles supporting environmentally responsible motorsports racing.[6][7]
During the 2010 Dakar Rally, Seel crashed into a 16 ft (4.9 m) deep tomb but continued to complete the race.[8] She also competed in the world's first electric grand prix "TTXGP 2010" at Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit in the UK, riding the Morris Motorcycles Racing team's Mavizen TTX02 machine.[9][10]
References
^Woman sets Everest bike record, Motorcycle News, 26 August 2003
