Portsmouth graduate and YouTuber reveals book about her incredible career and life-changing accident is in the works

With nearly 14 million views on her YouTube channel, ‘The Girl On A Bike’, Vanessa Ruck has made quite a name for herself in the motorcycle community while travelling the world with some pretty impressive bikes. 

She’s an admitted daredevil but, after becoming a mother to her daughter, she’s taking on a new challenge; one that won’t require risking her safety but still feels daunting for the social star. Publishing her story. 

While chatting to the hosts of the Full Chat Podcast, David Prutton and Iwan Thomas, Ruck reflected on her love of biking. 

“Most people think I’ve been riding all my life or I’ve had bikes as a kid or family, dad or something, but I had a curveball in life in 2014 which was just a punch in the face really,” she began.

“Through my recovery from that, I discovered motorbikes.”

“I think the mental health side of it was probably the biggest factor as to why the motorbikes started and then just went full life addiction, and the only way to describe the rest of everything I’ve done is ‘it escalated’.”

While commuting on her bicycle, Vanessa would be hit by a car that had missed a red light. After being discharged that night with minor bruising, doctors would later realise how much damage the impact had truly done. 

“If we fast forward seven years, which was the bulk of my recovery. I’ve since had seven surgeries, including reconstructive right shoulder and right hip,” she said.

Ruck still suffers from chronic pain and has spent years tackling the anxiety that came from the accident. This is why many of her family were shocked when she decided to get a motorbike.

She would admit that, “It was definitely progressive; it wasn’t like when I decided to get a motorbike, I was then thinking ‘In 2024, I’m going to do the original Dakar, one of the toughest races in the world.‘ It’s definitely been stepping stones.”

“It was really hard to get on a motorbike. It took a lot of strength and a lot of tears.”

“I was an adrenaline junkie before my accident, and I lived for extreme sports; I was really fit and active,” she continued. 

“The lady that hit me had completely changed the world as I knew it.”

“The lady had taken so much from me already; I could not let her take more.”

Taking her tragedy and turning it into a career, Vanessa now makes online content weekly and has ridden in several rallies and physically demanding events. She made history when she became the first British female to finish the intense Africa Eco Race.

Wanting to stick around for her daughter, Skyla, she’s now a little more cautious, but that hasn’t stopped her in her tracks, and she’s still got a thirst for adventure.

“I woke up a few weeks ago and was like ‘I fancy jumping out of an aeroplane today’ - three hours later, I got onto an aeroplane - it was my sixth jump and I just did it cause I could,” she laughed.

“I’ve got even more drive to get up and say yes every day because she’s (Skyla) watching me.”

While discussing one of the many incredible trips abroad she’d been on in her lifetime, she left the hosts almost speechless. 

“You need to write a book,” Thomas insisted. 

“The book is coming!” she replied.

“I have been writing it for about four years, and it is painful to write. Especially some of the emotional stuff.”

“But I have set my goal, and I am going to get it ready to print, either self-published or ready to print, and hopefully a publisher will pick it up off me by the end of this year.”

“That’s my goal; it’s happening.”

“So hopefully, it will be a book next year - no, it will be, it will be. I’m doing it. The book is coming.”