Tim: TheRidingObsession.com is welcoming sponsors for this podcast. For a small fee, sponsors get a focused mention at the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment. Reach out via email if interested. That address is podcast at tro.bike. Hello everybody.

Robin: My name is Robin Dean. I'm Travis Burleson. And I'm Tim Clark. You're listening to The Riding Obsession Podcast. We're back, baby. Fact. We are back. The Riding Obsession, where your sport touring motorbike fix, an ever-developing online venue for motorcycle enthusiasts who enjoy responsibly spirited riding along routes less traveled.

Travis: This episode of The Riding Obsession Podcast is brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstocked produce to offer delicious fruit leather jams and catering options. Visit their website at uglyapplecafe.com. Also by A Million Dreams Childhood Education. They're working to open an affordable day center that's available 24-7, 365, for Sheboygan and surrounding areas. Check them out at amilliondreamswithaz.org. That's amilliondreamswithaz.org. And lastly, by Riding Solutions. Helping people become motorcyclists and motorcyclists ride better. Visit them online at ridingsolutions.com.

Robin: I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour. It's the Texas Hill Country Tour. Seven riders will rock three twisty routes over three days beginning March 2nd of 2022. It's a sport touring getaway of epic proportions. More information is available via theridingobsession.com. Visit the group tours link which is anchored under events in our navigation menu. Announcements, corrections, etc. I just want to say it's so good to be back. We all love recording these and are working hard to make time for it. I honestly blame our success for the lack of availability. I'm not kidding. The biggest challenges have been all things awesome like industry work and family and events and just a lot to tackle. So thank you for your patience, everybody. We're ready to get this train rolling again. Also, congratulations to Chris Hopper. 100,000 miles in 100 days. 1,000 miles a day. Long distance ride. He finished yesterday in Texas, smashing the previous record which was 55,000 miles in 55 days. Interesting numerics there. Travis, Tim, any announcements, anything interesting you want to blather out there real quick?

Travis: Oh, nothing spectacular that we aren't going to cover later as far as motorcycling is concerned. It is my boy's second birthday. My twin boy's second birthday today. So they got some trucks and buses for presents and some books. They were really nice. We had a little get-together. Very nice. They're getting so big. It's crazy. They can count to 10. They're two. They can count to 10. They don't really know what that means. They can't 100% count 10 things, but they can count to 10 if you ask them to.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: And they're willing.

Robin: That's cool. Well, I know that good things are happening for Tim.

Tim: Did we already announce that? Don't believe that we did on the podcast. I'm getting married in less than a month. Congratulations, Tim Clark. Thank you very much. Things are getting a little hectic, but it's good.

Robin: All right. So let's dial in. So much to cover. Personal notes, what are some highlights in your world, Travis, motorcycling-wise? What's going down?

Travis: The NC is doing good. Had to get a new tank bag. Unsponsored, I guess, shout out to MotorcycleGear.com. So I was kind of shopping around. Didn't want to spend a whole bunch of money on anything. Settled on something from MotorcycleGear.com, which is kind of a closeout site. Due to an inventory error, they didn't have the model I ordered. So they contacted me and said, hey, sorry, we don't actually have that one in stock. I bought this other one that's slightly more expensive for the same price. And I was like, sure. And then they shipped it out the next day and it got here plenty quick.

Robin: That's a score.

Travis: Yeah. So I got a new tank bag on the NC700, which I just, it's, you know, strap mount because plastic, because frunk. But it had the neoprene pad configuration, which I never liked. It never works right. And it was like too, somehow it was too big to fit right on the NC, even though it's got like a pretty big tank area because the frunk. But what it did have is it had like Velcro on the bottom to attach the neoprene pad thing. So I just put Velcro on the frunk. Get stick on like 3M Velcro. It's still strapped because sometimes I put heavy stuff in there, but it's like Velcro to the frunk lid now.

Robin: So if you ever take a hard turn, do you ever hear like.

Travis: No, I haven't had any issues, but it's still strapped on. It's like if I put like a bottle of water in there, that's going to like have weight. It's not going to like fly off, but it's like I can pop the straps and open the frunk, but then the bag still stays attached to the frunk lid. So it doesn't like, I don't have to like undo the thing and pull the bag off and then open the frunk. It's all the frunk and the lid or the bag and the frunk lid are all one unit now, which I think is pretty handy. Yeah. So that's on there now. And it's a little smaller than my other one, which is great. And it was like going through your wife's purse. There's this shit in there that's like, why? I don't need like here is like a tiny travel stick of sunscreen that I've been toting around for three years for some reason. And I've like used like twice because I was like, oh, sunscreen. I'll put sunscreen on the bike and then I'll have sunscreen. I need sunscreen. And it's like, but when I'm on the bike, I'm wearing like a helmet and a jacket and gloves. Like, what do I need sunscreen for? And so there's stuff like that where they're just like, oh, here's some like crap I thought would be handy that I never used that doesn't need to be in here. That was good. It's a smaller tank bag. I forget. It's a Cortec. I think it's a 10 liter and it's expandable. So it's, it's like, it's pretty low, low profile, which is nice because the old tank bag, the way it was mounted, if I did, I went full lock to the left, the horn would honk. It was actually like a thing. I was like helping Laura with something at the, at the food cart at this summer. And other people were like outside by the kitchen where she works. And I was on the, I drove the bike there to like fix something real quick. And then I got up and I had to do a U-turn in the parking lot as I do the U-turn and it's and then everyone looks at me. I'm like, it just happens sometimes. So no, that doesn't happen. So it's good. Yeah. What about you guys?

Tim: What have you been up to, Sam? Oh, it's been a long time since we talked about these things. One of the big things that happened is I've been spending more time in the dual sport world. Still don't have a dual sport bike of my own. Wait, you have a new title with that, don't you? Yeah. So I am the treasurer of a new club that was formed to support off-road riding in the former Badger ammunition or army ammunition plant.

Robin: Dude, you got, you got attention for that really quick. Once you started telling like everybody's like poof. Hey, Tim.

Travis: I need a guy to get up there and putts around before winter.

Tim: It's a gorgeous property. It is so nice. At this point, it's not technical at all. So we were really aiming at people to be very casual or for people who are very new to riding off pavement.

Travis: Air quotes adventure bikes.

Tim: Exactly. Yeah. There wasn't anything on that day that I wouldn't be able to do. An experienced rider would be fine on a street bike, on street tires. It's just gravel. There was some, some slight washout, some grass, not too big a deal. But yeah, getting involved in getting that club set up was a new experience for me. And setting up a IRS tax filing status and opening up a bank account for this club.

Robin: Red tape. Yay. Yeah.

Tim: Realizing that I am financially responsible for this now. And oh boy, now I've got liability in case I get accused of misusing state grant funds. Oh boy. Yeah. I got some advice that was you can prepare the check, but have another person sign it. Always have two people's eyes on the money. So that's been an interesting thing. So we had our first event. We had, we were limited to a hundred bikes. And unfortunately there was a major event happening. It was the same day as the Slimy Crud Run.

Travis: Still never done the Slimy Crud Run.

Tim: You know, it's, if you're going with friends, ride with friends, kind of fun. You know, if you've never done an event where you get to go and see a thousand Harleys, then I guess that's cool.

Travis: I did the Toys for Tots in Chicago once. That was fun. Once.

Tim: Johnny Dangerously style. If you're really a big fan of going from this parking lot to that parking lot, it's a really entertaining ride between those two parking lots.

Robin: So it's not entertaining is what you're saying.

Travis: If I get the time or money to get myself like a fun, interesting vintage bike or like a cruisery thing, then maybe I'll do it then.

Robin: Then you got the Bucky here too. What's that all about? I mean, I know what that's all about, but I want to hear you say it.

Tim: So this is my third time doing photography for this event. And I had a good time and I actually think I've got my photography stuff figured out a little bit better and I'm getting a lot better hit rate and much better pictures. I'm on my bike. I'm just going property to property, trying to stay ahead of some of these guys and hiking up into the trails so I can get a photo of them actually negotiating some real obstacles instead of just out on the street.

Robin: Man, you got some good ones. I saw a couple where the guy's bike is clearly in the air. It's not coming down right. What is that called? Where you see the picture of things that are broken, but they're not broken yet and there's nothing you can do about it. I forget who that artist is or what the philosophy is. Those were beautiful.

Tim: Yeah. So I'm really happy with that. It was fun. And it's something I do for free. I make sure everybody's got, I'm handing out business cards. I've got flyers that I made. This is where to go to get your photo. And they get full res photos. If they want to, they can print from my website, but almost no one ever does. So, you know, I think I made five bucks. Burned through a tank of gas on the Yamaha about 150 miles of riding that day. Hiked about somewhere around eight miles in rough terrain and kind of tweaked my knees. And then spend a full day the next day, about 14 hours of editing and getting those photos uploaded.

Robin: You know what you didn't do? What? You didn't run over your foot.

Tim: I didn't. Nope. No, no breaking myself on this day.

Robin: Yeah. Positive outcome.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: And then what do you got here about the PD phone mount?

Tim: Opportunity that popped up. It's a company called Peak Design, which is well known in the photography world. They do a lot of really nice, a lot of nice products, nice bags, nice little organizational things. They recently came out with a really nice tripod that's built for travel, compresses really small. But they are launching a new mobile phone mount ecosystem. These are super low profile, easy to use.

Robin: It's a square, sort of like a, it's almost oval square.

Tim: Yeah, this is the universal adapter. It's just a set of magnets and a little ceramic metal ring. So that is what's on the phone. They're selling cases that actually have this mount built into it. So it doesn't have any extra bulk. But because I've got an old phone, they sent me the universal adapter. And I got to beta test their motorcycle mount for the phone. And it is now officially released to the public, even though, you know, they're still negotiating the fantastic COVID supply disruptions that I've not received my official order yet. But I've put a couple thousand miles on having my phone in the mount. And it's super simple. It's so slick.

Travis: You just throw it on the thing and it clicks in?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, it's super simple. Really easy to like, you don't have to even think about it to align it. It's like the magnets pull it into place. It locks in. It has got an actual tooth that engages that ring and holds it in place.

Travis: Oh, nice. Is there like a release button then you have to do to get it out?

Tim: Yeah. And it's easy enough that you can like one hand release it, spin it from portrait to landscape mode, click it back in while you're sitting at the stoplight. Oh, nice.

Travis: That's brilliant.

Tim: It's vibration damped so you don't have to worry about the fancy new camera autofocus and sensor shifting systems.

Travis: When I did 777s this spring, the stabilizer motor in my phone started getting wonky.

Tim: Yeah. Something about the motorcycle vibration will kill those little delicate things in the phones. Had to provide feedback on it like every other week or something like that. I can't remember. It was pretty frequent. What's the company? PD? Peak Design.

Robin: Okay. Peak Design. Nice. I'll have to check it out. I'll put it in the actual podcast page for this episode. Let me read this domain so people hear it. It's like peakdesign.com forward slash products forward slash motorcycle bar mount with hyphens. That's easy.

Tim: And they have a whole ecosystem of mounts compatible with this. Oh, nice. They've got a little rapid deploy miniature tripod that clicks onto the back of the phone. Food processor? No. No, I don't think that's on here.

Travis: That'll be next year. They'll bring it. It slices and dices at Julianne's Fries.

Tim: Mr. Popale. Define like a charging car mount, a wireless charging stand. Yeah. And Apple, while they were developing this, announced that they were doing their MagSafe system. So it's another magnetic mount kind of thing, but it's not quite as strong as these guys. And having the option for a mechanical interface as well, really kind of...

Travis: Well, especially on any sort of action sport application that you want.

Robin: Hey, at the very least, at least Apple didn't come out with a USB-C port for their phone.

Tim: Right.

Travis: Apple doesn't do physical connections anymore. They've covered this.

Robin: They'll send the electricity through your email. Sorry.

Travis: If you want to do an iPhone for action sports, you need to get the Apple brand black hole mount that just institutes a localized gravitational pull. No light can escape. Yeah.

Tim: That's kind of the big things for me that have been going on. Robin, how about you?

Robin: Okay, good. It's time to hear... I can't wait to hear the sound of my own voice. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Let's talk some more about me. I'll keep this super fast. So let me see. I'm going to type this out. Let me read it as it stands. It's been a long year, so there's too much to tell in one sitting. I got stolen away by a company that shall remain nameless to lead demo rides for their product line. That was a fun six-month contract. Shout out to Sean McClellan for bringing me in on that. Thank you very much. Then last time we recorded, I had released an alpha version of TRO's new website. I'm probably 75% done with the beta, which feels like 90% because I'm just... I'm spent building this thing. So I often forget what's left to be done. So patience is key. Thank you, everyone. That's about it. There's lots to tell, and maybe we'll have a long sit-down about some of the sub-stories or bring in some people for interviews. That's long story short, yeah. There was so much.

Travis: Now, on to our guest interview. Our latest interview features Sam Cooke, a road racer from Madison, Wisconsin, who competes primarily in the Midwest. He's won national and regional races on super bikes, clocking speeds up to 180 miles an hour. This interview is a two-parter. To start, Sam discusses the heavy technical science behind both low- and high-speed performance with field correspondent Margaret Dean, a.k.a. MagStuff.

Maggie: So, Sam Cooke, for our listeners who may not know you, I think a lot of people will, but for the people who don't know you, can you tell us what do you do? How did you come to motorcycling? A little history?

Sam: Absolutely. I'm from a small farming community called Randolph. I moved to Madison in my early 20s. My day job is logistics, so planes, trains, automobiles. But on the weekends, I like to have a little bit of fun and ride two wheels with friends and family. And that might include being on the racetrack or taking my son to the farm and riding around or coaching with MSF or Motovid. So, that's what I do right now. Some of the things that I would say kind of drew me to motorcycling, not sure if it was just one single moment or instance, but I was naturally drawn to motorcycles and aircraft and pretty much anything with a motor as a kid. Growing up on a farm with lots of space, I had a pretty wild imagination. As soon as I was riding a bicycle, I was twisting the grip and making engine sounds, I think.

Maggie: Did you start with coaching and you evolved into faster things or did you start with the racing? How did each evolve into each other?

Sam: Being interested in motorcycles, I bought my first one when I was 19. Had a job and I'm like, man, I'm finally going to go buy a motorcycle. I did it and I rode for a couple of years with my temps just being the typical squid, maybe. Just doing the silly stuff. I didn't ever ride in sandals and I always wore a helmet, but I can't always say that I wore the best protective gear and stuff. And then a few years later, I eventually got my license and started riding on the street with a couple of friends. Once I got into Madison, I started working for this place and a couple of co-workers and I went to AMA pro races. I saw it at the first time at Road America. Kind of at that moment, I'm like, this is something I want to try someday. I didn't know how long it would take or what my path was going to be to ever do it. And I had no idea if it was realistic or not. But still riding on the street after that experience, I kind of started using some of the back streets as my personal race tracks and maybe not doing the smartest stuff. And lucky for me, I had some really good influences that said, hey, Sam, there's a time and a place for this kind of stuff. And I got pulled into a track day. It kind of blew my mind. It was a lot of fun. I realized that that kind of stuff wasn't supposed to be on the street. My focus shifted to more track. Doing that for maybe three, four years or so. And just before I got married, my then-fiancee, because I had mentioned maybe trying to do some racing and stuff like that, she's like, do it, because you never know. In a couple of years, we might have kids or mortgage, whatever it may be. If you're going to do it, do it now. I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, because it's just like further down the spiral. I got my race license, tried a race weekend, and I think only did two races. And I was probably dead last each one. But it was so much fun. Such a different environment, different group of people. And then eventually, I kind of begged one of these cool teams if I could join them. And they're like, you know, sure, come on, we'll help you out. I learned a lot, got a lot of direction. And then I started control riding for a track day organization, MotoVid. That was maybe 10 years ago or so. Eventually, it kind of evolved into some coaching there with their classes. And then eventually, a good friend of mine, Jason, kind of tugged on my shirt and said, hey, Sam, do you want to try to get your MSF coaching license? And we went through the whole rider coach prep and everything. And I've been doing that now for about five years or so. But then as all of that stuff was happening, I started to get more and more involved into racing. There is a window. You've got to have so many points, so many race weekends and things like that to even apply for a MotoAmerica license. I had a window of opportunity where I'm like, I've got to do it now, or this may not happen. So we did it. In 2017, we started the ball rolling on getting the license and everything. And I tried out my first race for MotoAmerica at Road America, so the very same place that almost 20 years before I had said, this is where I want to do it. This is what I want to try to do. And then 15, 20 years later, actually trying to qualify for it and making it is such a neat experience. From there, it's history. Every year we've been reapplying, trying to keep qualifying for at least the must-do round is Road America and see what else I can do in the year.

Maggie: That's pretty interesting. So you're not somebody who's been racing since you were three.

Sam: No, I haven't been. I may have been on two wheels since I was maybe five, but not on a motorized motorcycle.

Maggie: I think that's encouraging. And maybe it's because what we see is curated, so you just see people at the very top in the big races and you find out their stories, and they've been racing since a very young age and they've been doing it all their life, and you see the natural progression. I like that you're someone who fell into it not immediately. I'm not saying late in life, but not right away.

Sam: Yeah, I'm not a spring chicken anymore.

Maggie: I just mean you weren't doing it at 15, 20, but you still identified something that appealed to you. You tried for it and you're doing it. As an adult, already out in the world working and married with a family, I think that's pretty awesome. That's something that you can accomplish in your spare time.

Sam: Right, right. It's a fun hobby.

Maggie: Yeah, I think that's pretty awesome. We'll get into some track questions. Some of these came from different people that listen to the podcast. We thought these were pretty interesting questions. You mentioned that you started and you qualified on Road America. What other tracks have you ridden?

Sam: I have to admit, I'm pretty limited on what I've ridden for tracks. I've been to Road America and Black Hawk, Autobahn North and South, and Barber in Birmingham, Alabama. That's it. This year I'm going to try out for Brainerd, Minnesota. Going to give it a shot. I like working under pressure a little bit. We'll see how Brainerd goes. Every year I try to expand a little bit and try something else out. This year it will be Brainerd. Next year, I don't know. I feel kind of bad because I missed out on an opportunity with Indy last year. Couldn't make it work. That would have been a cool experience. I'm kind of limited on where I've been, but I'm trying to branch out year by year.

Maggie: With the tracks that you have been on, if you could build your ideal track, what ingredients from the tracks you've been on do you like and have challenged you in a good way? How would you put together your ideal track?

Sam: I really enjoy blind turns. I'm not sure why. But blind turns and elevation changes. Some of my favorite spots are turn 12 through 14 at Road America. It's a right-hander and then a left-hander and then another right-hander, but there's some elevation change in there. 13 is blind. What I like about it is when you get it right, you get it right, and it feels amazing. There's a lot of consequence for not getting it right, but I really like working towards getting that right. Same with turn 6 at Road America, which is a blind left-hand turn underneath a bridge. You've got to have certain markers that you're looking for before you maybe tip it into a turn. Also, Barbara was a pretty amazing experience. Turn 2 through 5 is pretty wild. 2 is a horseshoe, and then you're shooting straight up a hill, and you're aiming for a scoreboard, but there's a dogleg on that hill, and you've got to be wide open over it. You don't know what's on the other side, but you've got to attack it. It's pretty wild. Again, you knew when you didn't get it right because you were on the wrong part of the track on the other side of that hill, but eventually you learn it. You figure out where you've got to be. You watch other faster people do it. Then you start to figure it out and put the puzzle pieces together, and eventually things start to click. It just feels right because you end up on the right part of the track on the other side, and it sets you up well for the next turn. It's cool. I would say blind turns and elevation changes really make things interesting.

Maggie: This next question, how long into riding did you discover feel and feedback, and how did that allow you to make improvements from there?

Sam: That's a really good question. Maybe subconsciously when I was really young riding bicycle on dirt and gravel, you've really got to be aware of the grip levels that are underneath you and what that felt like. Maybe as I got older, I kind of lost that awareness, but as I got faster and faster on the track, I kind of rediscovered that feel and feedback. You're kind of pushing those grip levels on track day tires. I kept having pucker moments when the bike would get kind of loose. Quite a few years back, I went on a few dirt bike weekend trips with a couple of friends, and that really helped with the feel of a loose bike underneath me. A week after some of those dirt weekends, I would drop a couple seconds on my lap times just because I was able to push the bike harder and be okay with that movement.

Maggie: Great piece of advice in general, even outside of a track environment, just being a little looser when you're riding street and obviously if you're in dirt. What are the methods and effects of counter-steering in a race environment?

Sam: Yeah, another good question. To be honest, it's really no different than we're on the street. You're pushing the lever counter to the direction that you want to go to initiate lean. However at higher speeds, it might take a little more muscle to do it. The wheel is typically spinning faster on a track, and it's a little more to push to counter-steer. But there are some other factors that will help you to turn. When you're approaching a turn, you roll off the brake, downshift, and continue to trail brake into the turn. That's shifting the weight forward on the motorcycle, compressing suspension, changing the trail and rake, and then it just makes it easier to turn. We're doing the same things at higher speeds. It just might take a little bit more muscle to do it.

Maggie: Interesting to know. What's your relationship with your sponsors? Do they have expectations? How much effort is involved in managing that relationship?

Sam: This is one of the lessons I learned joining that team. I had some really great mentors. One of the things I was taught was just how important those relationships are, and building them, just trying to secure them. It's a little bit like being a salesman. You're making tons and tons of cold calls just hoping you get one. I'll admit sometimes it gets to be a little exhausting, but when you make those relationships, it's definitely worth it. Some sponsors I would have to say are friends that are in the industry. One example might be John at Southeast Sales. That's a guy and a place that I go to when I want to buy my bike. Others are a little less personal. You might go to a website and fill out an application. They might give you some stuff to either give away or decent discounts on product. What they would like in return, they want you to promote their brands and products. It's not just putting stickers on your bike, which makes it look cool and make you go faster. It's most notably on social media and going to places, being there, showing your face, and just being an ambassador for them as well as the sport. The in-person stuff has been pretty difficult this last year, but I think it's going to be getting better. We used to do stuff like bike nights and other events. If they're supporting you to go race, you better go race and be out there on the track as well.

Maggie: That doesn't sound too bad then as an expectation. Go do the thing that you like to do. Absolutely. With COVID pausing so much, did that impact the season at all last year?

Sam: I would say it changed things, but it wasn't a massive impact on getting outside, going to the tracks. I had a number of races last year, which we were still able to go to the track, but they took precautions. If you're around people, you're wearing masks, social distancing, all of that good stuff. It was kind of cool. I was able to take part in one of the first races in the world at Road America for that Moto America weekend. I think the world was kind of watching how that was going to go and how it was conducted to make that a model of how other race events around the world were going to go. I think everybody was just trying to figure things out at the moment. We had one event there with Moto America that had no fans. It was just riders and crew and staff. Then a month later, they had a round two, which I wasn't able to attend, but they did have fans and protocols of social distancing, which is pretty easy to do on almost 1,000 acres of land. It seemed to have gone pretty well, and the rest of the world was kind of watching. That was pretty neat. Then there were some other club events as well where they limited additional people and things like that, but we were still able to get some racing in last year.

Maggie: That's good. What would you say drives you to ride today?

Sam: There's a few things that drive me to ride today. I'm still having lots of fun. As soon as it's not fun, it's time to get out because it's a lot of money and time and resources. I really like the focus the sport requires. I don't know of any other time in my life where I'm so focused. My survival literally depends on it. The stakes are pretty high. If I could conjure that much focus in other places in my life, man, I would probably be an astronaut or something else. I really, really enjoy the focus. And lastly, my family and my kids are interested in it. In the not-too-distant future, I can see taking some family trips, riding trails, and having fun on motorbikes. There's a handful of things that still drive me to ride today.

Maggie: Those all sound like good things. You mentioned a few people who've been good mentors. Were these people that led to your path and your current success?

Sam: Oh, man. I mean, this definitely is not something that one person can do alone. Foremost, Mary and my family, my wife, really encourage me, and they're pretty patient and understanding. I'm not sure if any of us really imagined what it was going to turn into, but it's pretty good that they have my back. Early on, Todd and Gary and Mike from Madison Sportbikes taught me a lot. It wasn't just about riding a bike. It was also looking and being professional, securing support, and sticking to a budget. I think the budget thing was really, really important. It's really easy to kind of go head first into this whole sport, and it's not cheap. A lot of folks are in and out within a couple of years just because of the cost. I've learned to really keep a budget, and that's really helped. You know, other folks, Mike and Kathleen from Motovid and Jason at Riding Solutions and MATC for allowing me to share my passion for two wheels with newbies all the way up to advanced riders. One of my buddies, too, I can't forget about my cornering strategist or crew chief, Mark Heine, and all the other friends and people that have come out to crew for me on some weekends. They spent their own time and some of their own money to help me get to where I needed to go, and it really means a lot.

Maggie: You've talked about sharing. You've been able to share your passion. How else do you hope to wield that success?

Sam: Butts in seats, just trying to get people excited about motorcycling in general, trying to get people licensed and experience different things on two wheels, get them to the track or out on to a race weekend or on the trails in the woods. There's so much world to see out there. It's pretty easy to see on two wheels. I hope I can show people a normal guy like me, Sam from a little farming community, can do some cool things, and if I can do it, I think a lot of people can do it. Don't say, oh, I can't do it. It might cost too much or this or that. Set your mind to it and try. You might fail or you might not, but I think it's worth a try, and yeah.

Maggie: You mentioned a track that you want to try to get to this year. Are there any other upcoming motorcycle travel plans?

Sam: Besides Brainerd, we do plan on going back to Road America and Blackhawk Farms and Autobahn this year, so there will be a number of opportunities to ride on the track, not just racing, also track days. With Motovid.com, we've got, I think, four events this year at Road America and then probably five or six events or more at Blackhawk Farms, so there's going to be a lot of seat time this year and also just traveling around with our dirt bikes and finding some places to explore with the family and kids and stuff like that, so nothing in particular there, not any specific places. But we'll get out and have some fun this year.

Maggie: You coach for MSF, and these are generally beginners getting licensed, and then you also control ride the advanced group for Motovid. Those are two very different experiences. What do you get from coaching beginners, and does that help you when you're back on track?

Sam: Oh, absolutely. The stuff that's in the basic rider course, very similar principles. It's the same stuff that we're doing, let's say, at a track, but it might just be at a more advanced level on a racetrack and at higher speeds, but it's a lot of the same concepts. I really enjoy the coaching aspect with beginner riders. I really enjoy watching that light bulb go off, seeing these newer riders just get it. Not everybody gets it. Motorcycling isn't for everybody, and that's okay, but I would say it's really rewarding when a lot of the students really get it. You start to see smiles, and they're having a lot of fun. The conversations, I've spent quite a few years on the street as well, so passing on some of that knowledge and asking all the right questions during some of that class time is really fun as well, and hearing the students' stories and experiences. Maybe at an advanced level, it's pretty similar. I don't proclaim to be the fastest guy out there, and I know I never will be, but that's okay too. There's a lot of folks, even at an advanced level, that we can help out. There again, when that light bulb goes off, showing somebody a different line or maybe trying to break down some of the processes of going into a turn. These are some of the things that I never had explained to me. I figured a lot of stuff out, but I never knew really how to verbalize it. Coaching and going through a lot of courses myself, it was just one of those things where having somebody explain it to me, that light bulb went off. Now it's a really awesome feeling being able to give that back, to pass on that knowledge and see those light bulbs go off and watch people go around a track safer and faster. If it's beginner riders learning how to use that motorcycle in a way that could save their lives, it's really rewarding.

Maggie: Is there a question that nobody's asked you or something that you've always wanted to talk about? Is there something that you want to share or even a story?

Sam: Sure. Some questions that I don't get asked, but secretly I think my wife Mary gets asked a lot is, I can't believe you let him do this and isn't that dangerous and all of that. You really try to offset some of these risks by wearing really good gear and by taking advice and taking classes, higher education, trying to do better at what I'm doing on the track. I'm not saying that there's no risk, and I understand that there's risk on the racetrack, as well as just riding a motorcycle in general. You don't have that cage around you, but trying to really mitigate that risk by educating yourself, practicing and practicing and practicing. I like to tell people that I don't have this false sense of safety on the racetrack, but I feel as safe on the racetrack as I do on the street. I'm not fighting cars. Everybody's going in the same direction. You're out there, maybe sometimes good or bad, with people of your same skill set. I feel a little bit more at home on a closed course, on a track. My guard is a lot higher when I'm on the street. Maybe that doesn't answer the question. I don't get asked that a whole lot, but my bubble, the people that are around me often get asked some of those questions. In all the years that I've done some of this stuff, my triumphant story, I don't know what to call it, but it would have been my first MotoAmerica race at Road America. Just a few weeks prior, I had broken a hand and a couple of fingers, and I had thought that my chance of trying to qualify for that weekend was over. All this preparation, trying to make it happen. I do something silly and I get hurt, but a whole lot of friends helped me put the bike back together. I got to know my doctor really well because I had a concussion and things like that. I had to get his blessing before I could ride a motorcycle again. Within a few weeks, I had ridden and I qualified. It was the very first time that the Stock 1000 class was introduced, so it was neat to be a part of that. I ended up finishing 11th, which was pretty cool. After that race, I felt like I had achieved maybe what I was looking for quite a few years earlier. That thing that I always wanted to do, that was, I would say, really emotional. I felt like I just won the biggest race in the world. Even though I finished towards the back, that was okay. It was just checking off that list, that bucket list thing, with a broken hand and fingers, trying to work around that, trying to ride a bike at a pretty high level all banged up. It was wild, but it was a very great feeling. I would say that would have been the pinnacle, one of the coolest things ever.

Maggie: Yeah, I'd agree with you. Was it your left or your right hand?

Sam: It was my left. It was my clutch hand. Luckily, using your legs a lot to really pinch that tank and not to put a whole lot of weight and force into your hands, doing some basic but different things to work around some of those injuries. I had never ridden hurt before, so that was a very new experience. It just made everything so much cooler at the end to say, hey, I did it. I did it with a broken hand. Who knows what maybe I can do healthier. But yeah, that was pretty cool.

Maggie: Wow. That's a good story, Sam. I love the first point that you made. That probably is a fairly common question just with people that ride in general. If both spouses aren't riding, you see sometimes some conflict or some tension there. So I think that is a fairly common concern for partners. I love that you addressed that and that she's supportive is great. And that the whole family is interested is even better.

Sam: Absolutely. I think the next thing is I'm so excited for my son and my daughter to start learning. Even my wife, last year I'm teaching her as well how to ride a motorcycle. She was riding a motorcycle and my son was riding a motorcycle. It was so cool. It was a lot of fun. I'm really excited for this next chapter. What's next? We'll see.

Maggie: We are at the final question. What's your riding obsession?

Sam: I would just say I try to be a positive force for the sport on and off the track. I hope to promote motorcycling through sport and education and lifelong enjoyment. That's just what I'm always thinking about when I'm either not at work or spending time with the family. It's how can I do these things better? How can I get more people involved and excited about it as well?

Maggie: I love that answer. Well, thank you, Sam Cooke. Just for the people who might be curious, what is your ride?

Sam: I have a 2019 Kawasaki ZX-10R. That is my track bike. Then I've got the grocery getter. I've got a Suzuki DR200. It's a fantastic little bike. It's like an enduro. It's great for riding around on the farm and in the dirt with the family. Then my kid's got a Honda 50 that he's learning to ride on. That's our stable right now. I hope to add more. We'll see.

Tim: And that was our guest interview. You can find out more about Sam by way of his team's Facebook page. Just visit facebook.com forward slash Sam Cooke number 28. That's Sam Cooke spelled K-O-K.

Robin: Also, we'd love to hear your motorcycle story. If you'd like to be featured on this podcast, record your thoughts to an app like Auphonic for Android or iPhone, spelled A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C. Upload the resulting file to SoundCloud or email us the link. We'll follow things up before featuring your tale in your voice and words. Again, the email is podcast at T-R-O dot bike.

Travis: That brings us to updated site features and developments. Once more, we'll bring that over to our web dev master guru, monkey code dude, Robin Dean. Did I mention that I've been working on a website? Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, you did. Oh, well, break in the bank for your readership and listening pleasure. Seriously, though, the beta release has so many improvements, both visually and performance wise. Still the same site. You'll know it. You'll feel it. I've basically just built a shell around some lorem ipsum text, namely a template, which is a thing. Just Google that shit. After the shell is complete or the template, so to speak, the content functions will be addressed. That's actually the extra 15% that's left to do.

Travis: OK, so that brings us to this month in motorcycle history. November 10th, 1973. Motorcycle racing legend Smokin' Joe Petrale dies from a heart attack in Casa Grande, Arizona. From the mid 1920s to mid 30s, he'd be hard pressed to beat Joe Petrale, whether competing in board track racing, dirt track, speed records, endurance races or hill climbs. Smokin' Joe began the hill climb portion of his career in 1929 when he won both the 45 inch and 61 inch national AMA national championships aboard an Excelsior in Muskegon, Michigan. See, that's the sort of stuff I wish would still be around. What's that? Oh, like this board trap national championship in Muskegon, Michigan? Oh, sure. No, I got you. Yeah.

Tim: The 61 cubic inch, 1000cc Excelsior that Petrale had custom built was affectionately dubbed Big Bertha. Yeah! Riding Big Bertha, he would win the first six races he entered on the 1930 hill climbing circuit. Sadly, like so many other businesses, the Great Depression took its toll on Excelsior and the company ceased production early in 1931. Petrale found himself without a ride, but word was out and before long he received a phone call from Milwaukee and was signed by Harley Davidson who were well aware of his hill climbing exploits.

Robin: The 1931 season proved Petrale and Harley Davidson were a hard to beat team as Joe would win eight of the 16 dirt track and hill climb AMA nationals that year. The following season, Petrale earned the distinction of being the only rider in the AMA history to win both the dirt track and hill climb national championship in the same year. He repeated that feat three more times in 1933, 35, and 36. Smokin' Joe Petrale was at the peak of his form in the early 30s.

Travis: He won with such regularity that the races were said to be somewhat boring with the outcome rarely being in question. In one particularly impressive stretch from May to August of 1935, Petrale won every Class A national race, ten in a row.

Robin: Ten in a row!

Travis: Sounds like Formula One.

Tim: Yeah, I can imagine showing up and you're like, I'm going to do the thing, I'm going to do... Oh shit, Joe's here. I'm going home.

Travis: Well, maybe I'll get Silver.

Robin: Our History of It is brought to you by todayinmotorcyclehistory.blogspot.com Feel free to check that out.

Travis: On to our segments. This episode's model focus is brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe in Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstocked produce to make tasty, delicious food. Find their catering menu and events listing by visiting uglyapplecafe.com Travis, and I already know the answer to this, but what year make model are we focused on today? Of course, we're talking to my potential midlife crisis mobile. Honda has announced officially the NT1100. We can go back a little bit further in motorcycle history and less far in our personal histories. The NT650, Robin had one. Does Joe Godin still have it?

Robin: No, but I know who does, or maybe I do, but that was the Hawk GT.

Travis: The Hawk GT, yeah. Yeah, the NT650 Hawk GT. That was the NT, that was like the birth of the NT platform. Honda's 45 degree, liquid-cooled, V-twin motor, naked 4-pipe. And then it grew into the NT700 Deauville in Europe, right? They call it the Veradero for the couple of years they sold to the United States. It was the mini ST1300, right? So it was comfy ergos, big fairing, big windshield, integrated luggage, saddlebags were non-removable, but they were built into the hardware with a pass-through, so you could put a tent or a long item that went through across the bike. Did they do that again this round? No, it doesn't seem like it. And the old NT was a V-twin with a shaft drive, which is weird, though, because it wasn't like the CX or Moto Guzzi where it was the transverse V-twin, which makes sense for a shaft drive because the crank is spinning the same way. It was a normally oriented longitudinal V-twin with a shaft drive, so you had to have bevel gears in two right angles to make it work. That got discontinued a couple of years ago. That was almost my first, air quotes, big bike. So when I started riding, whatever, 11, 12 years ago, I started on a Rebel 250, bought a brand new Rebel 250 because I didn't want to worry about buying a used bike in Chicago from Des Plaines Honda, which is now in Barrington, and I rode the crap out of it, rode it for two years, and then I went to go trade it in, and they had a demo NC700, so effectively a new NT700V Beradero on the lot. It was a factory demo bike, so it only had like 700 miles on it, but it was marked down, like way marked down, like deep discount cut, and I rode it, really liked it, especially coming from the 250, it just had lots of power, liked the big windshield, luggage, riding position, everything, and I was like, well, it's a big, you know, what they want it for, $7,000, $8,000, so it was like a big chunk of change, even with my trade in, and I was like, well, I'll sleep on it, and then I called them the next afternoon, and somebody had come in that morning and walked out with it. That was almost my bike. I ended up getting the BMW, the belt drive, F650CS, which also had a sort of frunk compartment, so they only sold it in the States for like two years, and it's like this staple of boring Honda European, like every courier, commuter, cameraman in Europe rides an NT700, because it's got the built-in luggage and the shaft drive and like plenty of power. It's just like this workhouse of a bike that's been burned into my mind over the years, and every time I see one come up, I'm like, oh, do I want it? It's like, well, it doesn't really make any more power or have anything like my current bike doesn't have, but now this, they've come back with the NT name. It's got the Africa Twin motor in it. It's an NT1100.

Robin: I'm looking at the specs on this thing, and I'm like hugely impressed. This thing's light.

Travis: So it's their midsize sport tourer. The VFR is dead. They never sold the VFR800X here. The 1200X they've sold for like two years, and they don't have the ST1300 anymore.

Robin: I feel like when you say it's a midsize sport tourer, I always see that now as figurative. Once you have 1,000cc, it's like, eh, you're big now.

Travis: I mean, it gets bigger, but it's not a Goldwing, right? Yeah. It's not a Concorde.

Tim: It's not an FJR. Or the BMW six-cylinder monster. Yeah.

Travis: K16.

Robin: Nobody needs that.

Travis: It's not that level. It's in the middle. So, you know, the middle level is like around 1,000 now. I think. About 100 horsepower. You can get the DCT if you want, which actually with like Tim's recollection of the Africa Twin he had with the DCT, maybe, like...

Tim: I would have no problem at all riding this one in a DCT. It was really the only times that I overrode. I would almost always be in the sport mode on the DCT, the Africa Twin, but the only time that I actually really needed to put it in manual consistently was riding off-road when it would want to shift earlier than I would want to. If I was in something sandy, I would like to keep the RPMs up higher.

Travis: Yeah, where you really want to be spinning because like you're not actually going as fast as the tire is spinning. When, you know, you're going to really hit the twisties, just put it in manual mode and bang through the gears.

Tim: And even in sport mode, it behaved really well in twisties. Maybe DCT, maybe not.

Travis: I don't know. Factory luggage is standard. The center stand is standard. How anyone makes a street bike with like vague touring preferences that doesn't just come with the center stand, if it's chain drive, I do not understand. If you have a bike with a chain that's supposed to be a commuter or a tourer, it needs a center stand. So you can just, got the big screen like the Africa Twin does with Apple CarPlay and Android, which is like honestly I could live without. Whatever, it's there. Usually I use Osmond for navigation because I want to follow GPX. I don't think you can do that with Android Auto with like Google Maps. I think it only does Google Maps. That's kind of a bummer. It's a little bit too much for what I really need. The only thing I really want that my bike doesn't have is like ABS and cruise control. But you know, this has other things and that's fine. And then the only other other thing that was a little disappointed by was the motorcycle magazine artist concepts about what it might be were based on like, what is it, like the NV4 concept that they had. There's like a lot more aggressive and the other renditions of what the NT might be when they started buying for patents and name rights and stuff. It kind of looked more like a big CB500X or NC700X. Oh yeah. It had a little bit more of a pared down aesthetic to it. Whereas like the, what came out was a lot more NT, like it looks a lot more like the old NT700 where it's like, it's a much more like sort of comfortable fairing solution, which really, you know, if I'm going to buy it for my 40th birthday in a couple of years as my midlife crisis mobile, maybe it should be more comfortable looking. And if they do any fun colors, the launch colors are like black, white and silver. And it's like, you got to do Honda red.

Robin: That would look pretty good. Yeah. Well, very cool. I still say that given where life is pointing you, this is not a bad investment. This would be a good one.

Travis: I think that'd suit me for a good long while. The NC came in when I needed it and I needed like a low weight, low center of gravity bike and now I need something that's maybe got a little more power. Cause like when I do get to go for a ride, it's like, I'm doing triple sevens. I'm doing Ozarks. I'm going for a week and I'm putting on big miles. The 700 just isn't really cutting it on power for those big trips. Awesome. That's what I'm interested in. Maybe DCT, maybe not. I don't know. I'm still on the fence about that. The other thing about the DCT is like better for two uprighting, no turtle kisses. Put it in regular drive and get the smooth shifts.

Tim: I think that they revised the shifting quite a bit. I had the 2016 model of the Africa Twin, which was their first year. From what I understand, they revised the shifting program on the later years since then. Mine short shifted just ridiculously. It would be in sixth gear going 40 miles an hour, accelerating around town to taking it easy pace. Why?

Robin: They were going for seamless instead of utilitarian. And fuel economy.

Tim: On my own bike, I would barely be thinking about shifting into third. It's in sixth gear. What are you doing? One of those things would have been wonderful if it had remembered what mode you were previously in when you started the bike up. I would have just left it in sport mode all the time. I'm like, start up in that mode, please. Don't make me hit buttons every time I turn the bike on.

Travis: Yeah, I think that's like across the board with a lot of manufacturers that have like selectable modes, even just like for engine mapping, where it's like if you're in B or in sport mode or whatever, it's like it should just stay there. Or like you had ABS disabled on your adventure bike. This should stick with it. You know, it's like the clock stays the same. You got a battery in there. It should work.

Tim: At least with the Africa Twin, it was a very quick disable the rear ABS and put it in gravel mode. It was quick, but you still had to push the buttons. I've seen ones where you like hold the button for three seconds.

Travis: Or you have to like go into the menu and scroll through and find the thing. Yeah. And it's like overly. Well, that was one of the things I saw on paper. We'll see what happens when the in-person life reviews with the NT, they skipped a lot of the like, you don't need lean sensitive ABS on a street bike most of the time. Which I think we'll talk about later in the podcast. We're going to talk about that actually. And stuff like that. Like it doesn't have like a six-way IMU, five rider mode. It's super based. Like they put the money into things that sport touring riders use. The big display screen with navigation and media connectivity. The luggage coming with it. The center stand coming with it. That's the stuff people actually want. And it's like unless you're on the ragged edge every time you go and ride the canyons. That's not what this bike is for. And that's not what I think most people do. So that's good. Anyway, so let's hand it over to Tim for this month's new kit.

Tim: All right. We already talked about the Peak Designs phone stuff. So I'm not going to go into that anymore. I'm going to talk about the Knight Design lowered foot pegs. Which I put on my Yamaha. So I've got the Yamaha XSR700. They are machined out out of a single block billet aluminum. Really good. Useful. One inch designed. One piece. One inch drop. Pretty simple for what that is. Of course I run into the usual problems of oh guess what? That center stand I put on at the same time. Yeah, that means that I can't put the brake lever all the way down now. Because I had to lower the brake lever to be in the right position for my foot in the new foot peg position.

Robin: Do you have a solve for that?

Tim: Yeah I did. I ended up grinding the brake lever to get clearance so that I had full travel.

Travis: Just like notched it a bit?

Tim: Yeah. Like I notched it on the top and on the bottom so that it would kind of have full travel up to the foot peg and then down the spring hanger for the center stand. So yeah. The nice thing is that the brake lever design on the XSR700 is actually an inch and a quarter wide at that point. So there's tons of metal. I didn't feel anything bad about grinding away a quarter inch of metal off of this lever. And then of course I forgot to adjust the brake sensor so I spent a day running around with my brake light on.

Travis: Yay! I am stopping! All the time! Watch out! I just pulled up their stuff and it looks really good. That's like one of the things they always put these like rubber foot pegs on bikes. Every time I try to ride aggressively it feels squishy and it feels disconnected. I put like cheapo I don't even remember what the brand was they were actually for like the KLR but they fit on my NC700 if you ground half of the thing off.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: And they were like 25 bucks on Amazon or something like that. Just metal, bear claw, cage, foot pegs. It feels so much better than the rubber squishies. Yeah.

Robin: Right. But then my Beamer had marshmallow black squishy on there which the concept is that rubber touching rubber that's going to be stickier. But this was so mush that eventually they tore and then I saw what it was going to take me to replace them. You couldn't just buy the rubber padding so Travis actually gave me the foot pegs from his NC700 and they bolted right up. Yeah. And now it feels the way my bike should feel so it's like it's all relative to the posture I think because these look beautiful though.

Travis: And when I was riding my ER6N with the rubber you know the rubber factory it's like every time I went to go weight an inside foot peg to shift my weight on my feet to go through a corner it's like I just feel this squish and I never felt connected to the bike using machined aluminum foot pegs is just unless it's a super vibey bike I don't understand why you need rubber.

Tim: Yes.

Travis: Why you need a big rubber thing because even looking through I pulled up the NC on this Knight Design LLC and they do do like a rubber tread version that's like swappable treads on one of the designs and it's like the rubber looks like it's like a hard rubber like it'll give you grip but it won't be squishy. Yeah. It looks really really nice.

Robin: Tim so bottom line 150 bucks worth it not worth it.

Tim: Worth it. Totally worth it. Yeah.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: Yeah I got the quad tracks tread version and they will load up with mud a little bit. When you're off roading your XSR 700 Tim Clark yeah but yeah if you're not me you're probably fine. The Tim Clark. I did ask them if they thought that the super or the what is it the Tenere 700 which is essentially the same bike if the footpegs for that would work and they they're like I don't know. Yeah but it's a small operation. This is just a couple guys doing this.

Travis: Oh yeah parts numbers are similar.

Tim: I did look and they the XSR has got actually a rubber mounted plate that the footpegs mount to. They went full squish on this so it's like a rubber mounted plate with rubber footpegs on it.

Robin: So to eliminate vibration. That's the other reason sometimes they do soft rubber is if they can't deal with the vibration to the foot.

Tim: I don't see any adverse vibration from this bike at all but I not from a twin.

Robin: You know a twin feels great no matter what right.

Tim: Yeah you know I think we've talked about this like I've never owned anything with more than two cylinders.

Robin: Yeah you get four cylinders you start to get what I call the glow. That's where when everything becomes you start to feel this tone that's being blasted into some of your appendages. I could see where in the feet that could be a thing but not a twin.

Travis: When you're not revving it out to 13,000 RPM either.

Tim: Well cool. Support a small business that makes something nice.

Travis: Yeah that stuff looks really good.

Tim: We'll link to him. I'll get it set up.

Robin: Robin you're up.

Travis: What you got?

Robin: My improvised text here says I got nothing. Lots of field questions listeners have asked at random points in time over the past year. The one thing I'll say this is if I were going to do an article read right now which is where my segment comes in is do an article read I would say go to our website and in the search menu type in winterize. One word. Because some of you up north may not be riding this season. Maybe you are. If you are, kudos. We've all done that several times. But if you're not I think that our comprehensive look at how to winterize your bike does a fine job. We've spent years fine tuning that article down to the fogging oil or not or lack thereof. We'll move on to listener questions because we've got some freaking doozies here and I want to make sure I'm not editing for the next four weeks.

Travis: Travis you want to give the first one a go? Sure. So Kevin Butler asks should I ignore cornering ABS technology in my next motorcycle purchase?

Robin: Now stop there. That is going to be the question. Go ahead and read all of it but that is the question.

Travis: That's the question, yeah. Elaborating on that. So should I ignore cornering ABS technology in my next motorcycle purchase? It seems most bikes after 2010 have ABS which is great but with most specs or features being almost equal, displacement electronic features, horsepower, et cetera, do I the very risk adverse 1998 Honda Nighthawk owner need cornering ABS on a bike? Considering the differences between 1000LT, cycle traders like around 2008 used markets like under $11,000 plus $900 for the hard bags. 2019 so a newer model is about $15,000 and that's the only example you can find but cornering ABS comes in with a $3,000 price tag increase. Will I actually use it? I've never been on the racetrack, rarely riding in the rain, et cetera. Maybe I'm just talking to myself about the latest and greatest. You don't need it.

Robin: No, you don't. Need is the key term. So here's what I'll say is that if I'm cornering really hard and it starts to get loosey-goosey up front, my ABS and my traction control do activate and that is more than I actually want. I mean it works. Do I need it? No. Do I ride pretty hard? I think so.

Travis: But the point is that the bandit never had it and he would ride the bandit through some gravel, through some slip, through some pucker moments and come out the other side.

Robin: Training is key and Kevin is a well-trained rider. He's an instructor and this is not a requirement for any of us really. But is it cool? I mean if you've got the money to spend, I don't care. You know what I mean?

Travis: Well, and so here's what I'd say, sort of elaborating on what I touched on earlier. On a Versys 1000, the big boy dad jeans motorcycle, right? No. You're not. You're not. The Versys 1000 is just a Ninja 1000 for tall people, right? Like for people who don't, who have like more than like a 30 inch inseam. Otherwise just get a Ninja because they're cheaper but the knee bend on a Ninja is something to be contented with if you're over 28 and over 5'10". So the Versys 1000, you're on that bike to tour and ride spiritedly, air quotes fast and like have fun and lean it over and push it through some corners. But you're not carving the canyons, brother, in a mighty attack. I'm going to attack every corner with the red mist descending. Exploding out of the curves. Yeah. Yeah. You're not track day on the street with it. We're like cornering ABS is really for like when you're trail braking deep and hard.

Robin: There's a fetish site for that.

Travis: You're on it and you're holding that front brake all the way over into like knee down territory before you start switching to power, maximizing that trail braking to get the apex. That's what lean intensive ABS is for, right?

Tim: Or you came in way too hot and you're just trying to bleed speed because you were chasing Robin on an Africa Twin.

Travis: There's the fuck up factor too, I mean, right? So there's part of that, but it's like really I feel like on the street, normal ABS is going to catch you out on that.

Robin: The fuck up factor. So I guess the real question is, Kevin, do you plan on fucking up? Because if so, well, maybe pull the trigger on that. But otherwise, Kevin's good, man.

Travis: Yeah, he said risk averse and it's like, like I said, unless you're like trail braking deep into a corner on the street.

Tim: I think what you're looking at with these is it's kind of an evolution of both the traction control systems and standard ABS. So it's, it's a refinement. It's not a revolution. So if you've got a bike that's just got standard ABS, you know, modern ABS is really good for going to do the same thing.

Travis: If a deer jumps out, it'll deal with sing. If you have to do a panic stop, you won't tuck the front tire. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. If you are getting into the adventure segment, there's a whole lot more subtleties involved with how ABS behaves on loose surfaces.

Robin: Problematically.

Tim: Yeah. It has been known as the anti-braking system on those because it, it says you're slipping. No, you're not slipping. No, we're not using the brakes. We're taking the brake pressure off and you just, you've got nothing.

Travis: It's like, yes, I'm in mud. I know I'm slipping. I need the brakes.

Tim: Yeah. It's the, it's the, oh my gosh, the brakes are not working. So I'm slamming it down to second gear, even though I'm doing 50 modern ADV bikes.

Robin: You appear to be about to ride in dirt. Are you sure you want to do that? Yeah, I do.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Well, you need to go through the menus first and then make sure you select the correct mode.

Tim: The funny thing is it was on my CB500X was the closest I got myself into trouble on the ABS.

Travis: Air quotes adventure bike because you had, you even had the, you had the generation that was still on 17s.

Robin: You put PR4s on that thing. Yeah. You rocked it.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Tim Clark is an ADV rider on any bike. It doesn't matter. Unicycle. Yeah. All right. Are you guys ready for the next question?

Tim: Sure.

Robin: We are. Yes. Our friend Mel Bolt, he asks, I can't find a compelling argument for a motorcycle lift table versus a big blue jack that goes to the same height. Table is twice as much and not as all portable. I did find a handy lift that's about $350 cheaper without the vice. I have a Condor stand that will work with it though to get an oil pan under the Harley or Triumph. He has a Triumph rocket three. It has to be up in the air a couple inches at least. That puts me back on the ground with my craftsman jack for basic maintenance or spending another $200 for a jack that works on the table. Any input? Now, the thing about this is that I did field this over the phone a couple of times. We were kind of back and forth, a little bit of banter. I told him that he needs to get a slimline oil pan, like the one that's like an inch off the ground but it's wider.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. They make the lower clearance oil pans.

Robin: That is part of the solve in my opinion. But I love those tables, man. They look cool. You talk.

Tim: The biggest thing you're worrying about is weight capacity and stability. With those things. So a lot of the lift tables have got higher weight capacities. I don't, haven't had one myself so I don't know how well they are with stability but they seem to be pretty solid.

Robin: I can tell you that I've bumped into a stand with a bike on it and you better stand there and wait for everything to come back into balance because it's a terrifying experience.

Tim: Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking. Especially with the bigger bikes like he's got. That might be a little spooky. You know, there are some really low tech ways around this. I do some woodworking so I would seriously build my own set of ramps. Bring a ramp to get up to a level. Run it so the tire can continue on this level four or six inches up and then take the center section out so you can work underneath it.

Robin: You're listening to a man who winched, he created a ramp winch system to get his bike into the back of a truck diagonally. A perfect mounting structure before he drove to someplace to ride it.

Tim: That drew so much attention because I brought that up to the Badger ammunition plant. Talked my way through that setup. But yeah, so I'm thinking you can do this cheap, minimal tools. You could do this and use your standard oil pan but...

Travis: You could do it for $300 worth of lumber. Well, if you're going to say that, now we're in new territory because his question asked one or the other. How soon do you want it? Do you want to wait two years for lumber prices to go down? And then...

Robin: Well, if it's going to be like that, we should probably link to some products he might... We'll send it to him directly how he could do a build.

Tim: Yeah. I'm a drafter. I can... Throw together something we can throw on the website and just give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Robin: In the time we've talked about, he's already ordered like the lift.

Travis: So here's... I mean, here's the other thing though. It's like... So Mel's got... He says he has a Harley and he's got a Rocket.

Robin: Yeah, he's got the Harley and a Rocket 3. I still think he should go with the table. Tim thinks he should go with the table or a build.

Travis: Here's my thing on the table. And I'm not middle aged yet. So I have a couple more years before I buy my NT1100.

Tim: Mm-hmm.

Travis: The tables are especially nice if you're working on stuff a lot.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: If you're a shop and you're, you know, you're going to work on five bikes that day and you don't want to crawl around on the ground for eight hours a day, five days a week, then you want a lift, right? Or if you've got like a project bike or an older bike where it's like... I'm going to put it on the lift. It's going to be up there for like three weeks. Yeah. By the time I get all the stuff done. Yeah. But if you're just doing oil changes, I feel like a standard lift table is not going to make it easier, right? Because it's effectively still on the ground. Just the ground is higher now.

Robin: Yes. It will raise the bike up about three or four feet easy.

Tim: We're talking clearance from where you'd put the oil pan. You still have that same low...

Travis: Maybe some of them have a dropout in the middle or something like that. I haven't really seen that, at least not on the Harbor Freight ones, they don't have that. I've seen the ones where there's a dropout on the back to get a rear tire out from under a fender. Nice. I mean, these are heavy bikes, but pitball... I mean, I guess the pitball stuff is a couple hundred bucks too, but get a pitball where you can just under the rear swing arm and lift it up and it's stable.

Robin: He doesn't want to be that low.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, if your concern is crawling around on the ground... It is. Get a table. Get the Harbor Freight one, and the thing with the Harbor Freight ones is the bottle jacks fail, but then you can just replace a bottle jack in there and it's still cheaper than buying a top-end table. I mean, if you got the money, then just go spend the money. Buy nice or buy twice, right? Yeah. Yeah. As you're twice cut once, buy nice or buy twice. I'm poor, so I try to find cheap stuff that I can sort of make work.

Robin: Yeah. TRO is welcoming sponsors for this podcast.

Travis: If your concern is crawling around on the ground to do your basic maintenance, then get a table. It will just make your life easier. It'll be better. If it, will this make my oil changes easier because I'm having clearances with the ground? Well, no, because you're just making the ground higher.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: But as long as it has a good wheel chock in it and you strap it down decent so it's not tipping and wobbling, it can be in a chair and it can be desk height and that will just make your maintenance that much easier. If that's your main concern, then buy a table. Because, yeah, the cruiser jack things with the two beams, they're sketchy.

Tim: Mm-hmm.

Travis: They're sketchy. Yeah.

Tim: That's what I've been using for mine a lot. And yeah, I actually built a wooden platform to put on top of that to get under there. But if you've got a bike with low ground clearance, you won't even get the jack under it.

Travis: There's a lot of that too where it's like, remember helping Jeff this summer robbing?

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Travis: And then it's like, oh, it's hung up on a thing and I grabbed the thing and then the whole thing came crashing down and took a chunk out of my knee.

Robin: Rarely, very rarely do I find myself being the person that has the answer to the problem. And that was one of those days where I looked down and said, Travis, no, don't. Travis, no. He's like, ow! Took a square hit to the knee or something. Ouch. And then we had to do it. Yeah, the untangling a dirt bike from a Harley left. Why he put it on that, we don't know. But it was an awesome event. And then he still blamed us for stealing his 10 millimeter sockets. Which we, which he then found. Anyhow, so that, everybody concluded on that one.

Tim: Everybody good? One quick add. Whatever you get, make sure it's got a good mechanical lockout and you're not depending on the jack to support the weight.

Travis: Oh, yeah.

Robin: Good call. Ticker legs. Ticker legs.

Tim: Yes, yes.

Travis: You want metal on metal. You want to be able to like let the jack go and have the metal catch?

Tim: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tim, you got it. Email your questions and concerns via our contact form, which is located at tro.email. Or by calling 224-358-3010.

Robin: 224-358-3010.

Travis: Three. Which brings us... What? That was an IT crowd reference, but whatever.

Robin: Oh. That brings us to this week's mess on the moto brought to you by...

Travis: The super slick, ultra badass motorcycle Megapods, you have incredible power.

Robin: Each one of us picked something, right? Did each one of us pick something? Sort of? Kind of?

Tim: No, I was flipping through it. I haven't gotten there yet.

Robin: Well, then you're last any... Oh, yeah. Let's... We'll go ahead. Yeah. Pick anything random. I just... Okay, so all the things that happened in the past year... Not year. Sort of year since our last episode. Everything that got posted that was electric driven, I was just all about the electric. So, they're making like electric... I saw this a while back, but they're making electric snow bikes with a track drive. And there's like the WMC250EV, which is a new British electric race bike prototype. Look that up. WMC250EV. There's a company called Verge that's making a hubless naked bike, although I don't know if any of these ever go into production.

Travis: The hubless design is just... It's a bad idea. It looks like a Tron bike. It's like it's not engineeringly sound, but they look cool.

Robin: It doesn't come with the girl and the latex pants. It would be nice if they stopped doing that. Still, it is electric, so that's kind of cool. And I still just wish Vectrex had happened. Yeah. So their prototype race bike had happened. That was so... I just wanted it from the start. And you know it was running on, like, non-rechargeable energizers. You had, like, 30 miles of riding time and 40 miles an hour. But I still just thought it looked so cool.

Travis: Looked good. Not to be confused with the 1980s Vectrex home arcade system, which I had as a kid. What do you got, Trav? So there's a couple things. Not actually motorcycle-related. Tangentially, I've switched over. Most of my Facebook now is being a member of shitposting groups. Facebook's way more fun when it's, like, honest bullshit instead of just dishonest bullshit. When it's like we're all here to post fake crap and make fun of each other instead of, like, we're here to, like, pretend any of this is real. So big shout-out to Sean Wege. Oh, Sean Wege, yeah.

Robin: Who is the king of shitposting.

Travis: Well, there we go. So I joined this group called Fail of the Dragon, which is, like, shitposting, tail of the dragon stuff. And someone, like, flipped their Ferrari convertible. Like, flipped it. Like, on tail of the dragon, which is, like, mostly flat. Like, I guess there's, like, some, you know, the road is mostly flat. Like, some of the cliffs that it's cut out of aren't. And some jackass on their Ferrari must have caught the, caught the ditch just right and, like, flipped his convertible Ferrari. And there's all this footage of people, like, rolling by and taking photos. And it's, like, what sort of jackass do you have to be to do that? That takes champion, trophy-grade effort. Yeah. So there was that. And then the Chris Hopper thing, I just wanted to bring that back up because it's, like, a thousand miles a day.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: So that's, like, you took four months to just ride your motorcycle all day every day.

Robin: It must have taken, like, between two and six asterectomies to get through that shit.

Travis: Yeah. Well, I think he was on, like, whatever, a road glide or electric glide or something. He was on, like, a cruise, like a comfy cruiser, it looked like. Yeah. Comfortable ride. Going to straight lines. So, like, yeah, you know, got your tunes, got your whatever. And I'm sure he had an interesting route. And if the weather played nice, then, you know. But, damn, man, that's a special kind of commitment.

Tim: Oh, yeah.

Travis: I mean, he's got to make, he either has, like, no money and nowhere to go or he's got a lot of money because, like, to take, like, three and a half months and just go, like, ride your motorcycle, that's got to be awesome times.

Tim: I'm curious as to what his route was. Where he went with all that miles because to hit a thousand miles in a day, you've got to be hustling.

Robin: Well, you've got to be, like, what, he was, like, in Texas. No, he was in Nebraska the whole time going back and forth between two gas stations and then eventually he had to go visit family in Texas and that was the whole thing.

Tim: I'm sure he's one of these iron butt guys and he's got, like, the five-gallon bucket behind him full of gas so he doesn't have to stop all the time.

Travis: If you're just interstating and you're going 80 miles an hour, right?

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Versus, like, if you're, like, if you're doing, like, back roads and scenic stuff but it's, like, if you can just, like, link, like, you can stop, you can make these, you know, 15, 20 minute stops a couple times a day.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: You know, ten, five times a day, whatever, however far you can get and make it work. Yeah, but it's, like, if you just went back and forth because, like, you almost have to, right? Just, like, go back and forth across Nebraska for a hundred days.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. That's, like, I've done highway days that were, like, 600 some miles and that's a long damn day.

Robin: Man, no joke. No freaking joke.

Travis: But, yeah, because, like, he had to have been, like, yeah, in, like, Nebraska or Texas or something and just going back and forth because, like, once you hit the Rockies, once you hit the Ozarks, like, you just...

Robin: It starts getting twisty. You start slowing down your speeds.

Travis: It becomes a lot harder, yeah, to get those miles done.

Robin: You gotta do work at that point. You're doing work then.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. So, but, I mean, hey, man, that was, like, well, it's like the other guy on the Super Cycle, he posted the new Cannonball Run record he did on FJR. Yeah.

Robin: We don't talk about that.

Travis: In the dark, just doing a buck fifty across Nebraska, like, he just had to be just hauling.

Tim: Oh, yeah.

Travis: Yeah. He must have gotten tagged by twenty cops. And they all just kind of looked at him and went, hmm, nah, nah. Yeah, well, if I gotta go scrape him off the pavement in ten minutes, then I'll go do that, but I ain't going after him.

Robin: There are states where they will continue to chase you no matter what. Yeah.

Tim: Adventure Hayabusa that this guy has put together is a nice...

Robin: That's the one.

Tim: I didn't get a chance to read too much about what this guy is doing, but it is an interesting buildup.

Travis: Yes, he's got, like, all the luggage and he's two up.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. But Hayabusa's a comfortable bike. I mean, I think he modded the bars, but it's, by default, it's comfortable.

Travis: Well, according to Yami Noob, it's the best beginner bike.

Tim: He's dark-sided this for some of this, it looks like. You know, he's running a car tire on the back, at least in one of these videos, but he's got his big aluminum square can luggage boxes, a couple dry bags on the back, a couple Rotopax gas cans hanging off the tail.

Robin: He totally Swiss Army-knifed it.

Tim: He did.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: He's got frame sliders on, so he's totally fine. The nice thing is he's kind of done this sand, almost military-style paint job to it, which is really good-looking, with the stencil letters that says Suzuki on it The matte tan with the black stencil lettering.

Travis: Yeah. Pretty wicked.

Robin: Ah, well, everybody feel good?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: You guys ready to wrap it up? Yeah, man. Throw down the sponsorship message.

Tim: This episode of the Riding Obsession podcast is brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstock produce to offer delicious fruit leather, jams, and catering options. Their website is uglyapplecafe.com Also, by A Million Dreams Childhood Education who are working to open an affordable day center that's available 24-7, 365 days for Sheboygan and surrounding areas. Check them out at amilliondreams with a Z at the end dot org. Shout out to Matt Berry. What's up, Matt? And lastly, by Riding Solutions, helping people become motorcyclists and motorcyclists ride better visit them online at RidingSolutions.com.

Robin: I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour. It's the Texas Hill Country Tour. Seven riders will rock three twisty routes over three days beginning March 2nd of 2022. It's a sport tour getaway of epic proportions. More information is available via TheRidingObsession.com. Visit the group tours link which is anchored under events in our navigation menu.

Travis: On a possibly out this outside note reach out to Yami Noob and see if he wants to like send someone along bike free.

Robin: I think we might run these next prototype tours at cost just to get them out there and see how they go.

Travis: Yeah he's in the area like he's out of Austin.

Robin: Cool link me or I'll hook it up.

Travis: That's our episode for this round. Tune in next time for more discussion of all things specific to sport touring or universal motorcycling as a whole. For TheRidingObsession.com, I'm Travis Berleson.

Tim: I'm Tim Clark. And I'm Robin Deane. Safe travels everyone. So So