A
Kiwi’s hilarious trip around Aussie on the seat of his pants
"Twisting
Throttle Australia"
MIKE
HYDE
Breaking
News:
Global
publishing industry rocked by down-under motorcycling book rising to No.2
on the best-seller
list in New Zealand. Small country in South Pacific comes to a
standstill as news reaches world leaders. Harry Potter sales plummet!
Prime
Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, reacts with joy as news of Twisting
Throttle making No. 2 assures her government of another elected term as
her small agriculturally-based nation is escalated onto the world literary
stage.
Other
world leaders join New Zealand in celebrating the Twisting Throttle No.
2 success story.
When
we asked members of the public to comment on how they felt now that
Twisting Throttle is No. 2 this shopper remarked "No. 2? What a
thriller. Now beat it"
View
the Twisting Throttle promotional video clip 6 mins
Click
on the biker. This is a 64Mb file; you will probably need broadband. It
may take a while to finish buffering.
Click
here
to listen to Twisting Throttle's first radio interview in New Zealand with
Radio NZ National & enjoy
this no-cost lesson in how to gabble 10 sentences to answer a question
when 2 would have done.
Interview
time: 24 mins.
These
guys are Rob, Phil & Tim from Ride
Rage Radio 2RRR 88.5FM in Sydney, a radio show dedicated to
motorcycling and motorcyclists. Click here
to listen to the interview with Twisting Throttle, bearing mind they're
Aussies & I'm a Kiwi. We got on pretty well really!
Interview
time: 25 mins
Plains
FM is a local station in Christchurch. Click here
to listen to Twisting Throttle on Mornings with Nic Pegg.
Interview
time: 22 mins
Twisting
Throttle Australia
is the laugh-out-loud, first-hand account of an ordinary Kiwi guy who made
the odd decision to ride a motorcycle some 17,000 km around the outside of
Australia with not much money, an iPod loaded with 492 songs he came to
detest, and high cholesterol.
Suffering
somewhat of a mid-life crisis, Christchurch-based Mike Hyde wanted to
achieve something epic before he turned 50. Being a motorbike rider
from way back, it seemed to follow that such an adventure would include a
motorbike, and being of limited means meant that this journey would need
to take place reasonably close to home. So
Australia
it was.
Mike’s
second big decision, after he’d
At
the end of each day he tapped out a log of what had happened and who
he’d met. Twisting
Throttle Australia is a collection of those logs. It was
not all plain sailing. Mike became obsessed with road kill, the protocols
of waving to oncoming vehicles, overtaking road trains and his callous
attitude to discarding parts of his bike on the way. There were the
highs –from being able to sleep in his boots and not have to change his
underwear, to finding a road house in
Northern Territory
which sold egg-and-lettuce sandwiches. Then there were the lows –
from leaving behind a close friend in Kakadu, to losing his bike on the
ferry to
Tasmania
and failing to talk his way out of speeding tickets. His diet was dreadful
and his decision-making, such as choosing to photograph a bush fire a
little too closely, was questionable.
It
took five weeks and Mike rode 17,350 kilometres before he found himself
crossing the
Sydney
Harbour
Bridge
and about to start a second lap.
In
Twisting
Throttle Australia you might not learn much about Australia, its history, attractions or geography. It’s the story of a
journey and what happened. Mike was at times, hot, cold, bored,
excited, tired, fresh, happy, miserable, lucky and unfortunate. But
he made it around, not without incident, and he tells a great yarn,
including the one about a friendship he struck with a fly called Colin who
rode in his helmet for 95 kilometres. This is a story of solitude in
a very, very big place.
At
the risk of using another cliché Mike Hyde might just be New Zealand’s answer to Bill Bryson, but on a bike.
Twisting
Throttle
