West Of The Ridge

Adventure Rider Magazine’s ad manager gets a taste of the glamorous, creative side of the magazine game.

- Mitch Newell

Simon Leplaw, Ducati Australia’s marketing manager, invited the editor on a two-day ride but he had prior commitments. Hearing of the clash in timetables I hinted a certain staff member – me – was available and a more-than-willing replacement.

All agreed this was great idea.

I was in.

Italian stallion

The plan was a pre-run for an upcoming Ducati adventure ride, and I picked up a Multistrada 1200 Enduro Pro the day before.

It wasn’t the first time I’d ridden this particular bike, but it’s still the only 1200 I’ve managed to throw the leg over. I’d always thought my first ride on a 1200 would have been a German, Austrian or Japanese brand. As it turned out I was absolutely stoked my first big-bike experience was an Italian one. Fantastico!

Off the cuff

I didn’t have a GPS on the Multistrada and needed to make my way across Sydney to the starting point. So, with no GPS and heavy rain that would potentially drown my iPhone, even finding the rendezvous shaped up as a little adventure in itself. I glanced down at my Scott Dualraid jacket and noticed the clear-plastic pocket on the sleeve used for rally/enduro time cards. I decided to write directions on a piece of paper, insert it into the compartment and simply follow the instructions.

Brilliant, eh?

But the clear pocket turned out to be not entirely waterproof. My notes quickly began to disintegrate, and the only thing I could think to do was to take a pic of the quickly dissolving text. My visor had fogged up pretty badly anyway, so reading anything was a challenge. Seeing there were only about 10 turns left I decided to memorise the directions in a sort of old-school nursery-rhyme manner: “Right into blah blah; left into blah; left into blah blah; right into blah…”

The next thing I knew I’d arrived.