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One of the car-campers at the last campsite mentioned the weather forecast was predicting rain for the next day. I hunted around for a hardware store, and bought a large plastic tarpaulin from a very helpful CRT to use as an extended tent fly. When I returned to the bike, I busted a guy eyeing it over– however he was another Postie rider!
Russ was a pilot from Victoria, and he could tell at a glance this was a Hardcore Adventure Riding Postie from the specific set of modifications I’d done to the bike– the ’stubbie holder’, the extended mirrors, the USB power converter, and several other things that I explained the whats and whys of. One of the first things Russ pointed out was a missing nut meant to hold the exhaust to the frame (noticing those was his habit as a pilot, he said) and not wanting that to break and fall off, I opened up the panniers, removed the petrol, and then got out my repair tools to look for a replacement 8mm nut…. I didn’t have one, but Russ was floored that I had all that (including a spare tire tube) with me. Kind of like “omg! You’re Adventure Riding RIGHT NOW!”. Russ said he was keen to do a long-distance ride on his postie bike up to Cobar, and after seeing my setup, he now knew how it would be possible. He thanked me enthusiastically when he had to leave.
I ducked back into the CRT to find a replacement nut for the exhaust, but everything they had was Imperial-sized. I placed a hose-clamp around the muffler and used a cable-tie to hold it in place for the meantime.
