Breaking the Limit: One Woman's Motorcycle Journey Through North America

by Karen Larsen

Description

Breaking the Limit is one woman's account of riding her motorcycle from New Jersey to Alaska and back. Realizing that years of work and travel in other people's countries made her a stranger in her own, and with an invitation to meet her biological father for the first time, Karen Larsen set out on a fifteen-thousand-mile trip with nothing but her motorcycle and the barest of essentials. Larsen's journey tests the limits of her own endurance, challenges her long-held beliefs and values, and show more asks what it means to belong to a family. Through the the fields of Iowa and the deserts of the Southwest, over the Rockies and across Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, Larsen confronts questions of femininity, family, independence, and personal identity. Her journey speaks to the immense space and over-whelming beauty of North America, as well as to the diversity and vitality of the people she meets along the way. Breaking the Limit invites you to join her as she braces against the wind, trades security for freedom, sacrifices stability for motion, and opens herself up to the vast canopy of a continent. show less

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kristinmm 38 reviews

Since I'm also a female Sportster rider from NJ who wants to ride to Alaska, this is one of my favorite books. Larsen provides enough detail of her bike, her journey, and the local people she comes across to satisfy both the readers more interested in the motorcycle and the readers more interested in the travel. The family part of the story was interesting but not really what I was there for. I did enjoy the little "exhibits" she included throughout. Would love to see more from this author but I can't find any information on her since she wrote this memoir.

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RayCatzSaveTheFuture 17 reviews

Nov 11, 2025