If you are interested in touring southeast Queensland and northern NSW, the guide book Throw Your Leg Over also comes with GPX files for your motorbike’s satnav.
Throw Your Leg Over is written by frequent riders of the region, Bridget Hallam and Alan Cox.
“We also provide our customers GPX files for all of the rides free,” Alan says.
Buyers can elect to receive the files when ordering the $29.95 book online or by emailing them from the blue card inserted in the book, if buying from one of their 16 stockists.
“We also give them scan codes already done in a pdf for a simple app called BikeGPX, which they can simply scan from the app (available for both iPhone and Android), as well as updated QR scan codes from the book.”
Throw Your Leg Over guide notes
The photos in Throw Your Leg Over are inspiring, but don’t expect inspiring poetry and long travelogue tales.
It’s not written like a travelogue, but is broken down into note form that guides you along the route in stages with points of interest.
Throw Your Leg Over is broken into sections for “quick blats”, day rides, weekends away and 80-odd pages of places to stay.
Bridget and Alan released the book in September 2017 and have since sold almost 1000 with about 63% of customers being male.
“All the rides are our rides, having done them all many times,” Alan says.
“We still think motorcyclists are the invisible tourists, with very little support coming through our government tourism organisations.
“The Australian Financial Review in 2016 valued motorcycle tourism in Australia at $350m, not including the cost of bikes, apparel and fuel. We think it’s going to continue to grow.”
The couple are working on their next book with 16 rides around Tasmania. They hope to launch it in August.
About the authors
Alan rides and Bridget pillions, snaps the photos and designs the book.
“I grew up with bikes on sheep stations in South Australia and still have my very first bike, a Bombardier Bantam,” says Alan.
He owned a mix of dirt and AG bikes until he joined the Navy, followed by the usual hiatus with marriage kids etc.
Alan returned to road bikes in 2009 and moved to Queensland in 2012 after a divorce.
“I met Bridget six months later and we pretty much rode and explored every second weekend or so,” he says.
“The book was born from a weekend away with a friend in July 2016, who made a casual suggestion that we should write one.
“The rides are a collection of our favourite ones. We encourage supporting local communities, which is why we start and finish the rides from towns.”