SUMMER 2018

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THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK
Jim Ruetz
Jim Ruetz is the Chief Executive Officer of AIS-All Integrated Solutions. He lives in Oak Creek,
Wisconsin with his wife of 30 years. Jim was born with a cleft palate and understood firsthand
the challenges of growing up with a disability. When he heard about CURE DUCHENNE,
he decided to take care of two dreams…riding his motorcycle across the world and helping
kids - which has always been important to him. “I encourage you to join me in my journey
by helping to raise awareness and funds for CURE DUCHENNE,” said Ruetz.
For more information or to contribute see www.CureDuchenne.org.
AMERICAN FASTENER RIDER TOURS AUSTRALIA
FOR DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY
The Anatomy Of Planning A Motorcycle
Trip to Oz!
Constructing a plan to bike around Oz (Australia)
is unquestionably the most difficult motorcycle trip I’ve
planned to date. For starters,
for every other trip I’ve planned
in the past, I was familiar with
the continent that I would
be riding in- not so with Oz.
Australia has long been on my
bucket list but to date hadn’t
worked its way to the top of the
list.
So how do you plan a trip
in another hemisphere? The
answers are: Research – Luck - and more Research!! A
fair amount of late night internet work has been spent
figuring out the best time of year to go. Taking snow and
rain fall into consideration in the south and managing heat
in the North and Outback is advisable. You must think in
reverse of North America, where snow is a concern in the
North and heat in the South.
I also had to figure out if I would rent a bike or ship
mine. Fortunately for me, some of my research turned in
to luck. The predominate bike rental company in Australia
is a firm called Bike Round Oz, www.bikeroundoz.com. I
was fortunate to get connected with one of their rental
experts named Mark. After talking things over with Mark
about which bikes are commonly available, I decided that
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE
I would ship my bike instead of renting. In spite of not
getting a rental sale, Mark became an invaluable resource
and advisor to help me plan my trip. As with nearly every
trip I’ve planned, the tendency is to be over ambitious
with the initial route, Oz was
no different. I had originally
planned to do the entire
continent in roughly 30 days.
Mark’s comments were “You
can do it – but WHY would you
want to?” Mark explained that
people have taken 6 months to
motorcycle through Oz and still
missed a lot of terrific rides.
Every trip I’ve planned required
a balancing act between time available, distance to be
covered, & sites to be visited. As it is, there are points
that I’ll be covering in two days, that ride magazines,
recommend a week to thoroughly enjoy the vista’s.
Some of the advice Mark gave me you just don’t find in
research or the books. When he reviewed my route in the
outback- Mark’s advice was that on certain stretches of
road “Don’t start riding until an hour after the sunrise &
stop riding an hour before sunset”. I took special note
of his comment, when he mentioned it for the third time
putting a little more emphasis on the statement each time
he mentioned it. Mark went on to explain that the outback
critters have a tendency to gather on the warm pavement
during the cooler night air!
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