By Kiara Craig, October 7, 2025
Rochelle Casement was on her fifth day of traveling on a solo motorcycle trip to Alaska, making her way up a mountain to view a glacier. The way up was rough as potholes lined the path. Among the cracks and crevices, something managed to pop her tire, going unnoticed until she was back on the highway.
“I had noticed some weird vibrations,” Casement said. “I leaned my bike a little bit going about 65 mph because there was a turn, and then my front tire de-beaded, so no steering. It whipped me around so bad, there wasn’t even a question of if I could save this. I had fully accepted I’m crashing right here; it’s just a matter of how bad it would be.”
Despite the thrashing of the bike, she was able to steady herself and pull over onto the side of the highway. Although it was an alarming setback, Casement thought she knew how to take care of her bike. After hours of trying, however, she could not fix the flat tire herself, despite the tools strewn around her. Left to rely on strangers, the first passerby she spoke to could not help her out but said he would radio nearby areas to see if they could pick her up. More cars came and went, and as the sun started to hit the horizon, the biting cold Alaskan air whipped around her tearful face.
Casement knew her northbound journey would be filled with unforgettable sights, but the unpredictable moments were what made the journey for her and the hundreds of people watching the story unfold online.
Casement graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2022 with an aerospace engineering degree. Harboring a love for motorcycles from a young age, an argument with her mother was the push she needed in her final year at CPP to buy everything and take up the hobby.
She kept up the hobby for the past three years and initially gained experience commuting to school and trying different types of bikes. Following graduation, she fell into a rhythm she couldn’t quite sit in and decided it was time to seek adventure.
“People always talk about things they want to do, but I find that, even for myself, it’s really rare that people sit down and make things happen,” Casement said. “You always hear older people saying, ‘I wish I did this,’ or ‘I wish I did that.’ But I want to have some good stories to tell.”
Scraping together all of her collected paid time off in combination with the extra day off from Labor Day, she set a countdown for two months to get ready for a solo trip northward. She set three goals for herself: to reach Canada as an easy goal, to reach Alaska as the main goal and to reach the arctic ocean as a stretch goal.
Over the course of those two months, she researched the areas she wanted to see and purchased bike modifications to be a better fit for a long trip. She did two test trips, one with a new friend and another with a friend from CPP. She bought a new bike specifically for the trip.
Hesitant, but knowing she’d done what she could, she set off on August 15. To save money, she camped on the way to her destination. But because she set up camp reservations in a few places, being timely was imperative.
Without much time to dedicate to each spot, Casement rode between 400 and 800 miles each day. She rode most of the day and settled down at night to rest. Then she got up and kept going the next day until her tire went flat after driving on rough terrain.
She remained on the side of the highway until a large truck with a trailer attached to it pulled over. The woman driving it told her she heard the call for help over the radio.
Uncertain of who this woman was but left with few other choices because of the limited signal in the area, she loaded her bike into the woman’s truck. They drove to a ranch about 45 minutes from her crash site, where Casement spent five days helping with chores, getting to know the woman and planning her next steps.
Casement realized the area where her bike broke down officially brought her into Alaska. She had completed her main goal but to stop so briefly was not enough for her.
She repaired her bike at a repair shop near the ranch, but issues with her bike caused her planned stays in areas with a reservation to fall through. Despite the change of plans, she continued looking for places to stay for the night in each new destination.
From the looming wall of ice that is the Matanuska Glacier across the Glenn Highway, to Alaska’s most bustling city Anchorage, Casement was able to take in what Alaska had to offer. Though getting from place to place with 60 mph winds in rainy weather caused some discomfort for her, she was able to find some respite against the cold in some destinations like the Chena hot springs.
Across her journey, Casement met several different characters, like the ranch owner who picked her up and a father-daughter duo in one of the camps where she stayed.
Although Casement’s time at CPP garnered a small sense of community among motorcycle riders, the connected community of motorcyclists expanded in the few years since her graduation. The CPP Motorcycle Club is an engineering club that formed in early 2024 that allows engineers to get hands-on experience building and repairing motorcycles.
Club president Jack Silva recounted multiple moments during rainy weather where members crashed, and someone else jumped to help them out only a few minutes later.
“We have a lot of people who aren’t engineering majors, including our vice president Jake,” Silva said. “He’s a business major, and he is right at home with us. It’s a great community, and it’s very positive and everyone is very happy to help each other.”
Motorcycling is a male-dominated hobby, which can make it difficult for women interested in motorcycles, according to Tracy Hu, a member of the CPP Motorcycle Club.
“I have a Ninja sport bike, and someone approached me at the gas station and asked me if this was my boyfriend’s bike,” Hu said. “Why can’t I have the cool bike? Why do I have to have someone? Bikes don’t have gender.”
Despite that interaction, Hu said she has found community within the Motorcycle Club, supporting other women with their shared interest. Casement has similar experiences detailing a feeling of immediate desire to help other women in the scene, explaining that their presence is bigger than ever now and will only continue to grow.
On September 6, Casement returned to her California home completing what she sought out to do. She did not make it all the way to the Arctic Ocean, barred by inclement weather that caused flooding on the Dalton Highway. But she found stories to tell, belonging to her and the stories of all the people she met along the way. Though these 23 days have scratched an itch caused by the rhythm of day-to-day life, Casement plans to create more stories in the future.