Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
For 25 years, amid complications from rising oil prices and numerous automotive recalls, Doug Slaughter, of Greentown, remained pleasantly unaffected.
On Friday, Slaughter accomplished his quarter-century goal of biking 25,000 non-road miles while at Jellystone Campgrounds, Pierceton.
"He always told me he wanted to bike the distance of the world and today he did it," Doug's father, Art Slaughter, said as his son finished up the last mile of his goal. "Now he tells me he wants to go for 50,000, and I'm sure he can do that, too."
After his parents bought him a 1977 Roadmaster bicycle roughly 25 years ago, Doug, 41, born with a mild mental handicap, set a goal to record 25,000 miles. Due to his disability, the miles he recorded were never on a road or highway system. Instead, Doug biked driveways, parking lots and forest trails in order to achieve the objective. He also used a stationary bike to record some of the distance.
During his biking, Doug used odometers to track his progress, and accomplished his 25,000th mile on his fourth odometer, after breaking many of the others due to overuse.
The odometer, hooked onto his bike under the handlebars, is accompanied by a taped-on radio, a headlight and turn-signals.
"He's put so much on that bike that he likes to call it his car," Art said. "But I don't know if a car could last that long."
The bike held up over the years, and Doug said it rides just as well as when he first received the gift.
"I just love riding my bike and having fun with it," Doug said. "I'm going to try and hit 50 (thousand) now. I know I can get it."
Doug uses his goal as an exercise routine, and said he loves adding up the number of miles as he bikes.
"It's given him a goal he can enjoy," Mary Jane Slaughter, Doug's mother, said. "It gives him a purpose."
"For me, this is a world record," Art said. "I don't even know if Lance Armstrong has accomplished what Doug has."
Art plans to submit Doug's feat to the Guinness Book of World Records to see if the mileage can be recognized.
Whether the book will award him with a record or not, Doug will continue to ride his bike, working towards the new 50,000 mile goal he set for himself.
