couldn’t get rid of it.
“I’ve put about 50,000 kilometres on it and I’d like to
add more … who knows, it might have to take me on the
next adventure.”
“The slug is pretty much as it came from the factory,”
Leigh explains.
“The previous owner put feet-forward highway type
pegs on it. I don’t mind the original footboards, but the
pegs add just a little more … except for when you ride
long distances … my god do your hips start aching.”
Long distances? Aching hips? Seems a little incredu-
lous when Leigh explains that one of his next adventures
on the bike could be an Iron-Butt ride.
“Yup,” he nods.
“Seem crazy, I know, but for some reason I’ve always
wanted to do an Iron-Butt. They’re not usually my type
of thing but I want to do one, could be a great fun short
adventure.”
We laugh at numerous stories about the ‘slug’, anec-
dotes swarm around like flies in the Australian outback,
one stands out, it’s been touched on numerous times,
perhaps there’s significance. I probe further, is this the
most memorable moment for the ‘slug’. Leigh grins
sheepishly and the answer was worth exploring.
“My partner, a friend and I were doing a long-distance
ride to Cairns a few years ago,” in fact Leigh’s partner,
Megan, and friend Lyn, were both learner riders and em-
barking on a 10,000-kilometre round trip ride over three
weeks.
“It was early morning; I was anxious and wanted to get
going. The two learners were mucking around … they
were delaying me.
“Reidy (Lyn) had packed her bike all wrong, so I told
her so,” is Leigh a mansplainer I wonder.
“Megan got off her bike to help and the bike fell over
… she’d forgotten to put the stand down.”
Leigh explains that a button was pushed he let fly with
all sorts of comments to the effect that learners shouldn’t
be doing a ride like this, and what came next set the tone
for the entire ride.
“I got off my bike to help … as I stepped away it fell
over … I’d forgotten to put the stand down,” he’s almost
whispering, I can see a hint of red rising in his cheeks.
“The girls looked at me, I could hear them sniggering
and before a word had even formed in my mouth, they
both said, ‘Do not say a word!’. That was that, it set the
tone for the whole trip … we had a great time.”
A great time? It seems that every tale about the ‘slug’
is of misadventure and so could this be the ‘perfect’ ad-
venture bike?
“Probably not,” Leigh sighs.
“But it’s one of my 'adventure' bikes and that’s the way
I like it.” RA
TRAVERSE 47