Ebaide Joy Udoh has traversed 20 African countries on her 250cc motorcycle, and she’s barely been riding two years. In that time, the 33-year-old Nigerian has butted heads with Guinness World Records in her bid to achieve the woman’s title for “Longest solo motorcycle journey in Africa.” From four wheels, to three, and now two, her vocal fanbase has followed her odyssey and consistently grown. Now, with her next ride looming, the Naija girl is gunning for the title and taking the continent along for the ride.
The world of adventure riding, known as ADV among enthusiasts, is less about speed and precision and more about longtrail durability, the endurance of your machine, and where your rig can take you: road or off-road, muddy climbs, rocky terrain, through forests, jungles, or snow. When Ebaide first picked up a bike, she knew none of this. All she wanted to do was “explore the Earth, you get?”
Ebaide didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle — let alone a bicycle — when she purchased Aurora, the Power Tekken 250cc that would carry her across the continent. But it satisfied both her need for light travel and agility. What might deter most, a motorcyclist’s exposure — the lack of protection at high speeds — is exactly what draws her in. The thrill of riding, starting each day aware of the danger and being fully present in it, fuels her adrenaline. “It’s so therapeutic because I know I might not live, and that’s what makes it the most interesting,” says Ebaide.
From the road, she tells the sort of stories that invite doubt, except Ebaide has documented much of her life via a 360° camera mounted to her bike. Nearly attacked by a black mamba? There’s video evidence. Asked for grease money by countless police and at several border crossings? Plenty of footage. Crashed into the dirt? You know it.
She tackles each encounter head on. We see Ebaide get upset, argue, cry, and stand up for herself. It’s this unapologetic vulnerability, rare in this era of tightly edited, highly produced content in front-facing format, that differentiates her in the motorsports field — and as an influencer more broadly. She has the bravery to learn new skills on camera while narrating her failures along the way. And it doesn’t hurt that she is a tall, charming beauty with a bright smile and sharp wit.
When clad in motorcycle gear, with her cowrie-shell adorned dreadlocks tucked into her jacket, and helmet visor down, she’s indistinguishable from the men riding their motorcycles. That camouflage is useful for remaining unbothered on the road, and has led to a few surprising reveals — usually for gas station attendants and checkpoint officers — when the helmet comes off. No matter the reaction, Ebaide takes it all in stride, with a laugh and a bit of banter.
“Whether or not people are close-minded is none of my business,” she said on Lagos-based podcast Lahor Talk this June. “People always try to box [you] in, especially [us] African women. It doesn’t matter — if you want to do it, you can do anything.”
Like many, I was moved by the raw emotion pouring out of the woman on my screen. The video was fed to me by an algorithm that inherently thrives on controversy, and is attuned to my interests in travel, overlanding, and culture stories on the continent. There she was, seated on a motorcycle, describing her treatment at the hands of Guinness World Records. The Naija syncopation spoken through tears caught my ear immediately. Down the Ebaide Joy rabbit hole I went.
There is a heaviness to Ebaide’s story, but you would never guess it upon meeting her. She was all laughs, relishing the retelling of her road-bound mistakes. Motorcycling may be a solo pursuit, but adventure riding the way Ebaide does it seems to be all about the encounters: Being fêted by a biker club in Niger Republic, lifted off the ground in Abuja by exuberant rider Mandu, given a Beninoise history lesson and a meal by biker Yasmina, or crossing paths with biker Aisha “Iron Butt” for a mid-road dance-off. The videos offer insight into someone unafraid to lean on others, ask for help, and embody her middle name: Joy.
Her storytelling style — 360° road edits spliced with front-facing monologues, vulnerability woven with humor and healthy skepticism — is mesmerizing. That skepticism, no doubt, has been the key to her safety while traversing 20 countries. “My fear,” she says, “keeps me alive.”
The preternatural ability to adapt and figure things out along the way is Ebaide’s M.O. “All my vehicles — I bought them before I learned how to ride.” Ebaide went from driving a used Toyota Camry in Nigeria to buying a 1987 Nissan Vanette in Kenya and spending the next several months converting it to a camper. Her mechanic taught her to drive stick which, of course, she documented on her channels. It was with “Daddy,” the van she painted copper-orange, that she first gained a prominent profile among adventurers in Kenya, and then wider audiences. She is sure she was among the first African women publicly living van life on the continent.
Throughout 2023, Ebaide began vehicle swapping as if she was testing the comfort of various chairs. Daddy was too big for her traveling needs, so she acquired a keke — the common term for a tuk-tuk in Nigeria — which she learned to drive via YouTube. After living out of the three-wheeler for several months, using a tarpaulin to cover her electronics in the back, she decided it wasn’t the right fit for her travels either.
So, Ebaide decided to further condense — two wheels and even less baggage. She considered a Kibo, a brand of motorcycles assembled in Kenya, but a friend who had helped with her van customization recommended the Power Tekken 250cc as a better fit for her height. She bought the bike brand new, and the following month attempted her first ride at Tiwi Beach. With no prior experience, the ride ended disastrously, “in the water and in the bush,” says Ebaide deadpan, pausing, and then laughing at herself.
She realized this was not a skill she could teach herself. She enrolled in a week-long motorcycle course with an instructor in Nairobi. Despite her instructor’s protests, she decided that her fledgling skills were no impediment to planning a multi-destination international journey. “He’s like, ‘Are you crazy? Nobody travels when they don’t even know how to ride!’” But after a second week of training in Mombasa, and an additional twelve hours off-roading the notorious Shimba Hills route in south Kenya without a single fall, the instructor deemed Ebaide ready.
So, in March 2024, with less than 1,200 miles on her new bike’s odometer, Ebaide set off on her first pan-African journey through Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, and a return to her native Nigeria. Of course, simply listing countries doesn’t do justice to her travails. But with the hundreds of videos shot en route, she brought followers along in her virtual sidecar. Several hours from the finish line in Lagos, Ebaide arrived in Ibadan, the city that raised her. She was welcomed with a homecoming party of fellow bikers and icons of Nigerian culture.
By October of the same year, she began the second leg of her journey where the first had left off, in Nigeria, and continued west through Niger Republic, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia, and back into Senegal. Though Ebaide procured the visa for her final destination, Morocco, she was prevented from reaching it via the penultimate country, Mauritania. To this day, she says the embassy never responded to her visa request. Ebaide returned to Nigeria with Mauritania and Morocco untraversed.
This is the point at which I’ve met her, between legs two and three of her long-distance endeavor, in the limbo of logistics, press, and the unease that comes with being a traveler between travels. Some people are meant for a life on the road; for them, the in-between time breeds restless energy. Toward the end of our week together, spent between Lagos and Ibadan, and with a particularly exhausting day under our belts, we sit in a small, darkened restaurant bathed in a neon blue glow, finding relief in our drinks. Ebaide has just finished detailing her dizzying feats when she leans in to recount the episode with Guinness. “Okay,” she says. “Now this is the real story.”
Ebaide first applied for a title with Guinness World Records (GWR) during the second leg of her travels, submitting the route she intended to complete. GWR denied her application. After an exchange of messages, Ebaide was told to reapply under their commercial service, rather than the standard route, for a fee of £10,000. When she protested, Ebaide claims her application was deleted. She publicly contested the decision, and sparked an outcry. The process left her feeling “dismissed and cheated. And I don’t like being cheated.” The story went viral, and her video garnered over 5.7 million views, 751k likes, and 23k comments on TikTok alone.
GWR was forced to respond. They refunded her original Priority Application service fee and accepted her application under the title “Longest journey by motorcycle in Africa (female),” the status of which is now “pending evidence.”
The current record stands at 30,000 km across 27 countries — “held by a non-African,” Ebaide is quick to point out. She says she has already completed around 24,000 kms across 20 countries and hopes to complete the necessary mileage and country count on the upcoming leg of her journey, beginning this September. The planned route will take her from South Africa to Kenya, through Namibia, Botswana, back into South Africa to the enclaves of Lesotho and Eswatini, then onto Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Burundi, looping back into Tanzania, and finishing in Kenya. She expects the journey to take approximately three months. Returning to the starting point of her overall journey is a requirement of GWR, as is using the same motorcycle throughout. Ebaide has already visited three of the countries included in this next trip; so her total country count when completed will be 29, two more than the current record. Leg 3 will add approximately 11,000 kms to her tally, bringing the total distance to approximately 34,000 kms on her grand tour of Africa.
GWR doesn’t have the same recollection of events. A Guinness World Records spokesperson refuted the claim that Ebaide’s application was deleted, and added that the refund was granted on account of GWR being “unable to meet the response timeframe outlined in that [Priority] service’s terms.” From their perspective, it was suggested that she go the commercial route, citing that “Ebaide’s journey is a significant undertaking, with multiple countries and long-term logistics involved,” and suggesting, not requiring, the consideration of the “additional support, such as access to a dedicated account manager, guidance around the complexities of record verification for extended or mobile attempts, and potential licensing opportunities to help promote the journey.”
Though the outlines of the interaction align, the tenor differs greatly. On Ebaide’s end, and by extension, among her fanbase, emotions ran high. She credits her supporters for GWR’s reversal, admitting that her individual efforts proved powerless. “I don’t think it’s because of people. I know it’s because of people.” Below the Instagram video first explaining Ebaide’s upset with GWR, one commenter — himself a Nigerian creator with over 400k followers — wrote, “You don’t need your colonizers to validate your achievements.” Fans revolted in the comments section, their ire directed at the British institution (with Irish roots) that they felt would not legitimize her journey across her own continent. The racist overtones were unavoidable.
Woven into her travel content are Ebaide’s Pan-Africanist beliefs in the value of a unified continent. “It’s absurd that we need multiple visas to travel within Africa, yet one visa grants us access to [all of] Europe!” She also addresses the political, social, and financial incentives of a unified space, and the message has clearly resonated. Scroll through the comments of any one of her posts or videos, and her impact is palpable. Both her journeys and her vision inspire not just fellow Nigerians, but others across the continent, and throughout the diaspora. After her experience with GWR, Ebaide was motivated to create the African People’s Records, an entity for archiving the records of other Africans, celebrating and encouraging African achievement instead of waiting on Western recognition. “Records are not necessarily for validation as people think they are,” she says. “Records are to keep your name in history, for representation.”
Ebaide's own history is a painful one. Though she’d emphasized the Guinness episode as the moment that brought a new virality to her online presence, she was already social-media famous on the continent. And the more time I spend with her, the less central the recent intercontinental fame is to her “real story.”
Born in Edo State, where she lived for three years before moving to Ibadan, she became what she calls “half orphan” at five, following her father’s passing, and “full orphan” at 13. Though never officially diagnosed, Ebaide believes her mother struggled with severe mental health issues, which exposed both her and her brother to abuse and neglect at a young age. Reflecting on the traumatic, formative period, she says, “long before I lost both parents, I didn’t have both parents.” An all-girls secondary school provided the structure and inspiration she needed to survive.
Ebaide focused on the conventional path, pursuing higher education and work in radio and television. When that didn’t feel like the right fit, she even tried driving for ride-hailing apps. “I bashed the hell out of that car,” laughs Ebaide. “[It] saw way better days before it met me.” But once she realized she wanted something more, she made a vow to herself to seek adventure on the road. From that point, everything became about how. She began saving money to travel. “Right then I started planning my escape,” says Ebaide.
Ebaide’s travels started “small,” she says, with backpacking trips across West Africa — Nigeria to Liberia — sometimes with friends and other groups of adventuring women, and other times solo. But now, with the success of her platform, Ebaide has been able to focus full-time on ADV life and the various related projects by hiring a support team. Manager Kayode “Promo Masta” Adepoju has been by Ebaide’s side for three years, and helps with
her Afrobeats career — Ebaide also sings, has accompanying music videos, and has been featured on the radio. When her profile surged with the Guinness affair, Ebaide took on Ifeoluwa “Ife” Ayo Vaughan and Tinuola Akinsete to help balance her calendar and social media presence.
Now, three years since her first Instagram post, Ebaide has made a life of adventure into a public career. Unfortunately, though predictably, she faces misogyny online and in her day-to-day. In interviews, she’s often asked, “Are you married?” The answer is sometimes met with sucked teeth or followed by “Why not?” But much more commonly Ebaide finds rousing support, even stopped on the street by fans. In the two instances this writer witnessed, both fans were men — one looked to be in his mid-twenties, the other in his late fifties — beaming with excitement and pride to meet the African adventurer whose exploits they’d been following on their screens.
That effect she evokes has made her a marketable figure as well. Hero MotoCorp, a hugely popular Indian manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, recently offered Ebaide some free gear and a bike. On the Tuesday I’m in town, she rides their Hunter model, a light 100cc, from Lagos Island to Ibadan, where the company has set up a banner at St. Anne’s Girls School, her former secondary school, which traces its history back to 1869.
At the outdoor assembly organized in her honor, she stands before around 75 students who are still outfitted in the lavender and houndstooth uniform and green beret Ebaide once wore. Now sporting her new motorcycle jacket, Ebaide calls to them, “This is the school that created me.” There is a slight tremble in her voice, quickly steadied; her usual audience is digital and on a few hours delay. “I was like you at one time,” she tells them, “and whatever today is, it doesn’t define your life. What you do with your life eventually is what defines it.” She leads them in a spirited call and response, “Up school!” “Up St. Anne’s!”
Ebaide is deeply candid with the girls. She speaks openly about her orphanhood, and acknowledges the challenges they may be facing, whether some girls may have walked long distances to reach school or others may have arrived on empty stomachs. When one student asks how Ebaide managed to keep going without giving up, she responds, “I still struggle.” Ebaide briefly pauses as she begins to tear up. “But, I know my life has a huge meaning. I know I am making huge impact with my life. So nothing else matters.”
.jpeg)
Ebaide speaks to the students at St. Anne’s Girls School, the secondary school Ebaide attended as a child that ”created me!”
It is just past sunset and we have settled into a small upstairs restaurant in the Ojaja Mall, midway between Lagos Lagoon and the Gulf of Guinea. We’re about an hour into decompressing from our day, and share my plate of suya because Ebaide’s chicken and chips has yet to arrive. “I’ll pack it,” she says. Over the past week we’ve spent together, she’s mentioned that she doesn’t eat out much anymore; she thrives in solitude. While Ebaide enjoys sharing her life with the world, she prefers — maybe needs — the buffer that a screen affords.
And that system works for her. The adventure rider, who uses an iteration of “Go Ebaide” on all platforms, has amassed legions of followers: nearly 300k on TikTok, nearly 290k on Instagram, 62k on Facebook, and 41k on YouTube.
There is something in Ebaide’s journey and the way that she portrays it that sparks this Pan-African pride, inviting others to partake and engage with her journey. On a TikTok video from April of this year, the first handful of comments come from Senegal, The Gambia, Canada, Burkina Faso, the U.S., South Africa, and an unspecified Congo. They take the form of cheers, wishes for Ebaide’s safety, and requests for visits to respective countries: “When are you coming to Gambia?”; “You are really making moves and great strives [sic]”; “Good job [thumbs up emoji] God shall continue to grant you[r] journey mercies.” While there is the usual smattering of detractors, for the overwhelming majority, it seems that her victory is theirs to share. So when she felt cheated, and shared that sentiment online, it’s no surprise that her community did too. Perhaps the only surprise was the depth and reach of their response.
Currently, in the caption of her most popular post, Ebaide writes: "When I ride, I carry Africa on my back, but I know you carry me on yours."
Now, we get ready to leave. But before we do, I ask her something I’ve been wondering from the start. If the Guinness situation is settled, and she finishes the trip and claims the record for herself, what comes next? What’s the next grand achievement? Ebaide is not someone who can sit still.
Now, we get ready to leave. But before we do, I ask her something I’ve been wondering from the start. If the Guinness situation is settled, and she finishes the trip and claims the record for herself, what comes next? What’s the next grand achievement?
Ebaide is not someone who can sit still.
The normally rapid-fire Ebaide eases to a stop. When considering the future she draws a clear distinction between what she can see and what the universe has in store for her. “Projecting what I’ll be is like telling the universe to limit my greatness,” she says, grinning.
So, no, she won’t venture a guess as to what comes next. How could she considering all she has achieved in such a short span?
“I do not want to know,” she says, “because it’s beyond my imagination. It’s unbelievable.”
.jpeg)
