About Us
About Us
Looking for oodles of inspiration? My name’s Loretta Henderson. I’m a solo female adventure
cycle tourist, speaker, writer, ultra runner, yurt builder, community organizer and creator of The Big WOW Book. I’ve been told I’m also a goof ball, nice person, funny as hell, bad-ass, the OG of adventure travel and have a heart of gold. I’ve always been that way. But in my mid-30s, my mom and grand-ma passed away and then I miscarried twins. Grief hit me hard, I left Alaska in the middle of winter and without any prior bike touring experience, decided to ride my bike around the world. 5 years, 5 continents and 53 countries later, I reached the South Pacific and completed my circumnavigation, having sailed on water and cycled on land.
Then I got hit by a bus in Patagonia, ended up in the hospital and decided it might be time to get off the bike for a while, regroup and write a book about solo female cyclists and our adventures. So I did ,The Big WOW (Women On Wheels) Book. We are inspirational community of solo women who travel by bike. The WOW Wall had literally busted her britches with a growing community of 400+ pioneering women. 103 of us appear in the first edition and an additional 33 appear in the second edition.
Having already met the Dalai Llama and never having felt like Lady Lance Armstrong and always looking for new adventures. I started building carts that I could pull and run with so I could venture onto even rougher terrain and have enough water. Fastpacking and getting stuck out on a glacier all night without gear in the Indian Hymylyas camp first and 8 marathons in 8 days around the Annapurrna circuit of Nepal came next. A top 3 finish in the jungle ultra 100 in Thailand was melt melting endeavor. Having already run 1000 miles on foot across the Batang Valley of the Pamir Mountains may off busted the hell out of my DIY cart but dodging the sounds of approaching lions crossing Africa for the second time on foot wasn’t going to stop my run trekking. Having now run ultras across deserts, jungles and mountains my first love beckons and bikepacking on dirt from Alaska to Patagonia awaits.
My story has appeared in the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Calgary Herald, CBS News archives library (Travel Tips), the Orlando Sentinel (articles written by Myscha Theriault), and Pedal Magazine. I have been featured on CJSR radio broadcasts, I-tunes and Touring Talk and on South African Broadcast Company and Geo News of Pakistan TV broadcasts. I was also the subject of a documentary about Tourism in Kashmir produced by India National Television. My online articles/advice has been picked up by over 100 bicycle touring blogs in 14 countries and 5 languages. I’ve been told that my presentations are educational, inspiring, rewarding and fascinating. They exhibit excellent photography and are also tremendously empowering.