Brian: In this episode, we visit London, we dig into other people's motorcycles, and we revisit the connection between riding, reestablishing patterns, and moto inspiration.

Robin: The past two or three episodes, they've been fun, foggy, experimental. We've taken vague topics that could go anywhere, theoretical, philosophical, intellectual, as best as we can. And with that stream of consciousness, I always get really nervous after the fact because it really is stream of consciousness. I know that I have points I want to make. I know that I have things I want to say. But when the moment comes to say them, when the opportunity presents itself, are all of my notes in order? And the answer is no. It is so easy for me to take the wrong exit ramp or forget to drop my own breadcrumbs so i can find my way out of the rabbit hole of whatever i'm saying and then have anything that's worth hearing come of it this is a difficult thing it.

Brian: Just comes out and then you have to figure out later which bits of it to stick together yeah

Robin: Absolutely it's torture for you and everybody else there are entire paragraphs of what the hell are you talking about that are getting completely removed from the entire show.

Brian: Like, I'm used to that now. But, like, if we have a guest, I'm like, just let Robin go until he's done. He'll take care of it.

Robin: I think that I would like to improve to the point where you don't have to suffer through that, nor should anybody else.

Brian: Ha ha ha ha!

Robin: But I think it's like, you put the mic in front of my face, it's like there are things I want to say, things I want to get out, ways that I would like to inspire. But if they're not anchored, then it doesn't always land. And that's a very hard thing to keep track of. If you're standing in the shower or sitting on a pot or walking around, you don't have your mic on, you can come up with these things and really feel it, especially in the morning. I know I was talking before about how one of these times we should consider sitting down at noon, coffee, see how that does.

Brian: Definitely.

Robin: How are you?

Brian: Freezing. We've got eight or nine inches of snow on the ground, and it's like five degrees here, and I really am tired of it. What's your weather like, asshole?

Robin: It's not perfect, but comparatively speaking, it is perfect. Right now, I'm looking at the TRO weather page, which is still the most visited page on the website.

Brian: Not to Earplug article? Damn.

Robin: Well, that's number two.

Brian: Okay, thank you. I'll take it.

Robin: It's on the podium. I don't remember what the entire daylight forecast was for, but the high was 55. So I could have gone riding today and didn't. I mean, no, 55 is completely rideable here. And the sun, in the UV, the difference between sun and shade, I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Brian: Is drastic.

Robin: There's a lot of contrast. Pretty dang nice. So no complaints on the weather, just announcements, corrections, news, and then the banter. One correction. Don B. says, in reference to Jordan's piece on the steam-powered roper, quote, Of course he wasn't born on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wasn't even a thing yet.

Brian: Ha ha ha. Historic fact, yes,

Robin: That I believe was inferred when Jordan said what he said about, yeah, so apparently not Thanksgiving, because he mentioned the year and the date and the time, and clearly it was not. So, thank you, Don B.

Brian: So, the guy was just born on a random Thursday in November.

Robin: Back to the banter. How are you doing?

Brian: Freezing, but making a lot of plans and making a lot of moves, getting ready for the season to come.

Robin: Yes, talk bike's done. What you got?

Brian: So all is in readiness for a trip to the Smoky Mountains. We're doing a street ride this year. We kind of alternate dirt ride and street ride, but we stay in Newport, Tennessee. It's on the north side of the park. There's like no other riders there. It's all just people with boats. And it's just fantastic riding in every direction. So about every other year we go on dual sport bikes. and this year is going to be a street ride because we need to help Tim scrub in his tires on his new Triumph.

Robin: Just the conduits to the good stuff.

Brian: Yeah, 209, I think, is one out of the Hot Springs, Warm Springs, so many springs. Yeah, there's so much good riding and it's just a blast and it's the hotel. The Best Western in Newport is cheap and good and they have breakfast. I don't know how they do it. Way too nice for us. You know, I can't make the New Mexico, the TR, the Truth or Consequences Tour this year, but... We are working on and should be able to make triple sevens happen. So if my presence, if my presence might attract someone to sevens, you know, now's your, now's, now's the, now's the time, or maybe it'll send people away. I don't know, but

Robin: I slapped an ad up on the GS resources website. I think you saw it there. It's right under the Brown County rally listings and all that stuff.

Brian: You know, those are solid people. So we should hopefully can get, fill in, fill in the blanks, get some people we know in, get some alumni in, that kind of thing.

Robin: Currently two spots left at this point in time.

Brian: 777, sign up today. Go and ride. It is fun. I would say make sure everybody spoons on some fresh tires because I'm not going to be able to parachute in with a spare two days from the end this time.

Robin: Let's imagine a version of this conversation. I'll be the customer who should put on the new tires. You be the person who's advocating it. Start. Say what you said just now.

Brian: Hey, person who's going on sevens. Did you put on new tires in your bike right before you left?

Robin: Actually, I mean, I looked at them. They got like at least 75% tread left. That's probably enough. I'll be fine.

Brian: Not good enough. False. You lose.

Robin: Absolutely false. There are people who have come to this show with dual compound tires with 85 to 90% tread, and they've ended up having to suffer the consequences of that decision, which means go get a tire. Some of them with like a little bit of angst and resistance to the fact that that is now tissue paper.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I can see the inside of that tire.

Brian: It's transparent. I can see the air. Yeah.

Robin: It is transparent.

Brian: Human beings are really bad at estimating tire life. So just spoon them on the day before or something. Anyway, this will challenge your tires. So do that. I'm looking at track days too, kind of playing in. Putnam Park is real close to me here in Indy. It's about 45 minutes away. Sport bike track time is the organization. I hear they do a good job. So working on figuring out if I win and how and all that. And damn it, I want to bring some buddies to that. So I need to figure that out.

Robin: Putting them park.

Brian: Okay. It's just west of Indy. About a mile and a half track. I think it's, yeah, it's not a very big track, but tracks are fun no matter what. And they're running several sport track days this year. But yeah, I don't really know any local, I don't know how to figure that out. And also just a small, small, tiny little rant about how damn hard it is to change the damn oil in a damn brand new damn car. Apparently, they're a bunch of geniuses down at the local Subaru dealer because they charge 140 American dollars to change oil. And I showed you a picture here. They screwed up putting the filter on. I mean, the filter, like you open the hood on a Subaru, the filter is there. Yeah. Like it sits on top of the engine. You don't even have to get your hands dirty.

Robin: So no excuse.

Brian: No excuse. Somehow they screwed this up and the filter was leaking oil at the base. Fortunately the filter sits in like a little dish on top of the engine i mean it could not be any easier wow and it was catching oil but there's still oil all over the engine i had to clean it off and it was cold and and had to go to walmart and get a new filter and it was a whole but walmart stocks oem subaru filters believe it or not so i

Robin: Still say this is money back conversation with that garage.

Brian: Yeah i'm like i could spend like the next three days walking the path of vengeance or i could just slap on a damn filter and get on with life and that's kind of what i did but yeah i need to have that conversation solid character i know i need to i need to give them hell though at

Robin: Least maybe let them maybe inform them, your take on it, how you're going about it. We could all use a little bit of that responsible behavior in our lives, I think, you know? Like I said, my words are gone. I've got none of the words.

Brian: Just ain't got time for that. What are you up to, sir?

Robin: I'm chipping away at the Suzuki Shim clearance article, the valve clearance write-up. You know, when I first started writing it, I outlined everything in blast fashion, thinking linearly, looking at my photos, thinking, well, what do I need to talk about logically in what order? And typed up a pretty good general mock-up, a shell of information, better than an outline, and then proceeded to realize, I don't remember what I'm talking about in these pictures at this point or why, and why did I take that shot? Went into my Google Docs and bing, found my notes. Because you remember I had borrowed your Lyft stand, put a computer on it, immediately was like this, that then this after that this i found those notes and boy was that a relief because now all the pictures make a lot more sense oh okay some pictures got taken out of sync with what was happening at any given time right i promised myself i would work on that today and did not get past typing the word radiator in a heading so it's been that kind of a day yeah.

Brian: Yeah that's all right

Robin: It's going along but you know my goal is to have that prepped for the next episode so we can actually give that some editorial attention yeah.

Brian: And I can't wait to can't wait to assist and fill in blanks and so forth

Robin: But making more friends here in New Mexico awesome, Big shout out to Will and Renee in TOC. Hanging out with Will the other day, he hipped us to the C90 Adventures. That's c90adventures.co.uk.

Brian: I just clicked the link. Interesting. So this has nothing to do with the Suzuki C90 Boulevard Cruiser motorcycle.

Robin: Oh, absolutely not. This has to do with the Cub.

Brian: So he's on like a little, it's like the C90 Cub, like the tiny 90cc.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Okay, got it.

Robin: He rode that thing everywhere, did it to it, right?

Brian: Malaysia to UK is his first feature film. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Robin: I need to see this. The cool thing is also he had, at one point, I don't know if he moved the engine over to a track-based vehicle or whatever, but it reminded me that in Canada, I believe, they've come out with a new stomper put into a big machine, snowcat-style rescue truck. This thing is as big as a monster truck it really does look like a stomper that got soaked in water too long and it runs on I'm going to try not to exaggerate it's somewhere between 40 and 80 horsepower okay, They're doing the high torque, low speed thing or using the momentum of the wheels itself. So we were talking about that, just the C90 thing, how he had pulled the engine and put it into something else that was significantly larger. And you can actually get away with that if you do it right.

Brian: Interesting.

Robin: Fascinating, right? That's me in a nutshell. That's my week. Just trying to keep motivated, keep my chin up, keep my sanity and keep my cool and notice the nice things.

Brian: You got to focus on what you can do. Yeah.

Robin: How do you feel about some interactive questionnaire type general acknowledgement of those who provide us with the question based content?

Brian: Listener questions. Is that what you mean? All right. If you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and send us a message. SB is looking for space in a secure garage in central London. Made of Vail, Paddington, Bayswater, Notting Hill, Kilburn, St. John's Wood, the Shire Hobbiton for my bike. I can't get bike insurance for street or driveway non-use parking. These are all alien words to me.

Robin: Let me help you out.

Brian: I see that Robin has come up with some advice somehow.

Robin: This originated as a comment on an article we published a while back for how to find personal workspace, a place to stash your bikes, a place to work on your bikes, basically finding a garage for rent near you, wherever you are. Well, when you look at the visitor map on the website, you can see we get some hits from Europe. And most of my articles only cover, well, oftentimes, Ohio.

Brian: What do they use

Robin: In this area? A simple Google check just said like, hey, London garage for rent. That's all I typed. And I did get some... Promising results, because in the end, it's going to be about community. They are out there. So to narrow things down a bit, the five websites I found that actually produced results that may be workable, gumtree.com, onthemarket.com, londongarages.com, nicholasvanpatrick.com. Let me double check this. What are we dealing with here? Hold on, hold on. Nicholasvanpatrick.com. Yeah, no joke.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: If you go to nicholasvanpatrick.com forward slash garages forward slash letting, this person just wrote an article on a matter and lists some garages. But no, this is an actual website dedicated to that. So that's an interesting domain.

Brian: It's a thing you can Google. Okay.

Robin: The last site that caught my eye was stashbee.com. All of these pretty much answer the combo question of, is it a garage or is it storage space? Can you turn that into something workable for your toolkit your bikes whatever you got i.

Brian: Will say in the u.s don't try working on your bike in a in a storage unit many have tried and it's it often doesn't work out sometimes it can you can store your bike there if they allow vehicles but i have a story but anyway no big deal next question yes Steve, S-T-E-V-E, oh, what does that spell? Anyway, Steve has a 1970 Honda CB350 and has decided he wants to sell it. Now, Robin's worked on this machine and it's in great shape, although the carbs could use a cleanup and the front tires got to be replaced. You know, old bike stuff. All in all, it's a good vintage UJM up for grabs. But his question was, where might he sell it?

Robin: Basically, another one of my new friends down here, he's starting to question his reaction time and he's like i don't know if i really want to have this bike anymore and may as well offload it because somebody's going to enjoy it i brought this up in convo out in the public world of peopleness and the response i got was there's a place called lane splitters that's lane splitters with a z nm.com so lane splitters nm.com as in lane splitters new mexico splitters nm.com these are cruiser folk bobber folk, chopper folk, but they have an appreciation of all things patinaed and intact, if you will. They will not kick a bike like this out. And apparently, in fact, they have other bikes of that vintage nature. So they may be the right people to go to. I don't know if they do consignment. Maybe they'll want it for their collection. You never know. If you own a 1970 Honda CB350 and are tired of playing mechanic, photographer, marketer, appraiser, Craigslist bouncer, consigning it with a place like LaneSplitters, if they do consignment, I don't know. That does look like an adult decision. Their site makes a point of advertising decades of hands-on experience with Japanese bikes, meaning your CB350 is judged, prepped, described by people who actually know what it is, rather than someone asking if it runs real good. Put the ads out there, deal with the, is this still around?

Brian: Yeah, New Mexico, location matters a lot when people are looking at bikes, and New Mexico's kind of remote. So for a lot of people, so yeah, it's a little different, but yeah, and also look for the enthusiast forums for the CB350. There may be someone we know who's willing to make a trip out of it. And I always tell people ADVRider.com has the world's biggest audience of motorcyclists and pretty much everything pops up there, even street bikes, dual sport, you know, it's not all just dual sport. So that's another big audience that, you know, someone might just decide, yeah, I'm going to drive out to California from Kansas and I'll swing through New Mexico. Crazy stuff happens and yeah, find a good home for it. I mean, it's not a kitten, but you want it to go to a good home, you know?

Robin: Very good. Very good. Two, two questions. Now it's time for our newest yet-to-be-fully-sculpted segment, 404 Clutch Not Found, featuring the brave questions of new rider, Angel Marie Kendall. Angel has willingly stepped into the spotlight so that other new riders might know they're not alone. Our plan is for her to either interview motorcycle instructors from all over, which she has now with the.

Brian: One and only

Robin: Arbonne Piper of Clutch Motorcycle Training in Loveland, Colorado, or Brian and I will get overly verbose with our own in-house philosophical blatherings. Here's how this week's convo went.

Angelmarie: I set up some cones and the weaving I'm having a hard time with.

Robin: The hardest cone that the MSF put on paper is the basic rider course two, which is for people who've been riding a long time. They just want to take a one day class to prove it. So the very first exercise we do is designed to weed them out. And we say like, good luck. You got to go take a basic rider course. It's an offset weave where the cones get further away from over the course. And the very last one is difficult if you've never done it before. I'm supposed to be able to coach this course. So five years ago, I had to practice on a giant 1200 and I was like, okay, mansplain, I'll show you later on. I was always getting to the cone and losing my noise, being a jackass. And I was like, what am I getting wrong here? Rita is amazing. I trust her. She said, stop looking at the cone, look forward, and begin turning before the cone. This is a common problem with many riders, and I want to really get this out there. Do not arrive at the problem and then deal with the problem. Eliminate the existence of any problem by knowing how you're going to address the non-problem just as i'm arriving at the cone begin to turn start turning and so that way you're organically getting around it you've got these cones remember the peripheral vision thing it's not cone okay cone oh no cone you're looking beyond the last cone okay look at the horizon you can see those cones, and you're like, I'm turning in early, I'm turning in early, it'll get better. And uh-oh, I hit one. Who cares? Good practice.

Angelmarie: Okay. It sounds like it's just more target fixation. Just look ahead. Turn your head where you want to go. Lean where you want to go.

Brian: Again, that is the thing that even very highly experienced, very highly trained riders have a lot of trouble with. It's something we fight every day our whole lives. Okay. Feel bad about it. Just like, okay, this is a thing. I'm a human being and we didn't evolve for this. And so you have to overcome this. It's something we all have to deal with is target fixation. When we took that course, I did it too, even though I know better. At the end of the day, I had made a lot of improvement in that factor and other factors as well. It's constant learning. That's a lot of the fun of this endeavor.

Robin: What do you two think of this analogy? I want to know. that the entire canvas is the target.

Angelmarie: I like that.

Robin: Does that work? Regularly, I'll come around a corner and there's a car. If I don't pick a new viewport, that's not fun. The whole canvas and the peripheral thing.

Angelmarie: Makes sense.

Brian: What I found really fascinating about this is you're discovering the things that we rediscover every day, that we fight with and deal with and improve on every day. And you're at the beginning of that and you're just accurately, oh yeah, this thing, this thing, this thing. Yeah, me too. It's really fun to talk about.

Angelmarie: I went on a ride downtown today, almost got hit by a car. There was a truck in the intersection. He had a stop sign. I did not. I kept going. This guy drives and stops probably a foot away from me. But that class, it helped me. I did my little swerve maneuver. Can you remind me the difference again of those classes?

Brian: Nerd talk incoming.

Robin: The MSF is helping you become more self-aware and channel answers from your very own questions, which any content in those questions that can't be answered can be afterwards. Like then you get your direct answer that you're always looking for. You know, how much of any question you have can you answer on your own? It's a lot more about sense of self. Total control is a lot more direct. You're eating a perfectly cooked steak with a scalpel. It is fine-tuned. this is the sharpest way to do the anyone thing one is exacting and the other one is a little bit more about your character

Angelmarie: Okay another fun thing two weeks ago i learned clutchless shifting oh my gosh i feel like moto gp doing that so.

Robin: You're bump shifting

Angelmarie: Is that what it's called your.

Brian: Rev matching excellent

Angelmarie: Oh the rev matching scares me the up i can do it's the down doing all three together.

Robin: Okay. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop doing that for a while.

Angelmarie: It sounds so cool, though. Okay, all right, all right. Deal, deal.

Robin: Bump shifting is badass. We do it all the time. Okay. But it's a post-first gear thing. It's also a performance thing. I take issue with what you currently know about your clutch at the moment doing that because you can actually break your shift pin, and that's an expensive fix. Let's get your clutch going really good. And at some point you'll learn, yeah, it's a complex description, but you got these gears and when they're spinning at the same rate, they can shift into each other nicely. And that's why it works. The RPMs here versus the RPMs here, they line up and they just kind of click here, eliminating spark. But I want you to not do it for now.

Angelmarie: Deal. The YouTube guy didn't tell me that part.

Brian: Yeah.

Angelmarie: But I wouldn't have been doing that. YouTube guy, Florida man, last posted in 2018, hasn't been heard from since. Great advice. Yeah.

Robin: So just hold in the clutch shift. Yeah, just get to know your bike. Be a beginner.

Angelmarie: Deal.

Brian: Nail your clutch skills first. One monkey wrench I will throw into this is some bikes have a quick shifter. Like Robin's bike has a quick shifter. And the quick shifter cuts out the ignition. The gears are like pushing on each other most of the time. and the quick shifter disables the ignition so the engine stops pulling for just a tiny fraction and then they can mesh smoothly. Your bike does not have a quick shifter. Nail this skill. Get it to the point where you're wondering why you named your channel 404 clutch not found.

Angelmarie: And then you got me there, Brian.

Brian: It'll come naturally. Let's put it that way.

Angelmarie: All right.

Brian: But don't push it.

Robin: You got your hands on the shelf above and that's cool because it's right there. But let's we'll move that out of the way for a second.

Brian: It can cause some other damage and

Robin: If you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and send us a message. Or as Brian would say, send us our brain signals to put into our electrical cavities.

Brian: Something like that, yeah.

Robin: What do you want to talk about today for the big show?

Brian: The really big shoe. Okay, let's talk about OPM. What I'm talking about is other people's motorcycles, other people's money. And this is a broad topic of anecdotal chit-chat and worthless whatever,

Robin: But... I'm not reading all this.

Brian: Don't read any of it you know aside from spending your own money on stuff there's really is nothing more fun than helping other people spend money on motorcycles it's like one of the great social happenings you know between riders and you know we support each other we advise each other and and sometimes it's just plain old enabling each other you know you just made me think

Robin: Of golf announcers when everybody you know he's uh he's about to reach into the wallet it appears that he's pulling out a down payment of some kind and there's cash involved.

Brian: He's also

Robin: Got his credit card out. Oh, he's signing paper. This is going good. This is going to be a good play for him, I think.

Brian: Oh my God. Here comes the checkup. The checkbook is out. The checkbook is out. We actually did that. And I consider it a privilege. I recently helped. I don't know if it'd be helped, but I enabled or whatever you call it. Yeah. A good friend of mine has been really sniffing around the idea of buying a new bike for a while. And it's been probably a year or so. We've been emailing back and forth and looking at spec sheets and going to dealers and looking, and I was like a proud uncle here, I think, of a brand new Triumph Tiger Sport 800 with all the goodies. You know, I played a role, and me and several other people, we played a role in helping them, you know, you need this luggage, you know, oh, go ahead and get the color panels. You want to look good. You know, heated grips, you know, He's got this all decked out and everything. And, you know, he ended up buying from the dealer that's local to me in downtown Indy. Shout out to Indianapolis, Triumph Indianapolis. The whole thing was just a lot of fun. We went down to the dealer and yeah, he was talking to the guy and we're watching and he pulled out his check and we're over there celebrating like it's a touchdown. He's out there riding. He's writing a check for the deposit, you know, and ordered the bike. The bike is in. So we went back down there. the bike was in and it had an issue that they needed to fix that had something happened with one of the accessories when they installed it no big deal but anyway so it's been like three or four weeks and the bike is still down there but it's got to warm up at some point And so you can get the damn thing home because you don't you know it's eight inches of snow in the ground we're not gonna put it on a trailer and drag it out of there i mean that was a lot of fun and and i remember helping you and i don't know if it's helping but i remember being there while you were figuring out the Gixader. The Gixader.

Robin: Yeah, that was a hell of a process. But I also did the rudest thing a customer can do, and I just created a violent mosh pit of dealerships weighing their prices against one another and made them fight for my attention.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: There's always this trickle at the end of people that are contacting you that you've already told no to, you know? Like, they keep on calling. What about now? It's like, I already bought the bike. Who is the right source? Which features do I really want? Even if the person is just a concrete wall to bounce a tennis ball of ideas off of, that's not bad either because I knew I wanted a base model. I will feature the crap out of this machine. I appreciate that. That was a good time.

Brian: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Well, I remember like you had settled on that bike that you're going to get a Gixader at least a year before you actually.

Robin: Tim Clark and Travis Burleson during an episode said, hey, check this out. And I saw the front side of that bike in a lean angle in a corner. They were still just demoing it. And I said, I'm going to own it. Here we are.

Brian: You and I spent happy minutes and hours figuring out the luggage, you know, figuring out what's available, what might fit. Oh, that looks like crap. This looks like it might work. You ended up with your own mix of accessories. That process, and I've been through that, not just with new bikes, but with old bikes, with a lot of people. It's a lot of fun. And I've dragged people along when I buy a bike. I've never bought a new bike. I may do that one day just to see what it's like.

Robin: You've come close with this one. It is a modern machine that you own. You know what I mean?

Brian: Yeah, I finally did upgrade to a modern machine, but it's still, you know, it's a 2015, so it's 11 years old now.

Robin: But there's two most fun moments when you do what you're talking about here and helping people make the purchase. I don't know if I've ever done this, but I've been a part of it in some way. One, it doesn't matter what bike the person said. You should totally buy that bike.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

Robin: It could be a huge mistake, but you don't even hear the year make model go by. Yeah you definitely really go go you should totally do that like that's what is it what is this it's like a row con and you're like yeah you should that's track day that thing yeah.

Brian: Track day that yeah you should totally commute on the interstate on that yeah

Robin: The flip side of that that when you get the right numbers involved for what is actually the right purchase and that is up to the individual with the right number of people the golden rule of there are no problems only solutions really shines like somebody's got an answer that will resolve all matters and give you new information about how to approach things in the future for example when you and i figured out the luggage thing i'm gonna need a top case we're gonna have to switch that out what are we gonna buy here how am i gonna line this i'm gonna wire that the horn is wimpy let's go bigger you know and no problems only solutions, Without making it into a Frankenbike.

Brian: That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's a lot of fun. For example, when you're looking at and buying, you know, like Maggie's bike.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Brian: The whole process of the SV650. Ooh. It was a group project. It's always a group project.

Robin: She owes that purchase to her decision to pull the trigger based on her resourcing of opinion and information through every friend she had.

Brian: Yeah. Like, I think it's a lot of fun, you know, overall. There's a lot at stake. It's real money, but it's also just a hell of a lot of fun. And, you know, to get all your friends and everybody's like, yeah, you know, like you, they congratulate you like you finished a marathon or did something. It's like the end of a wedding, everybody's clapping. Yeah, yeah. Almost at the same time, another situation came up where there's a friend of mine who, he's always haunting Facebook marketplace and he's into vintage bikes. And so every time he texts me a bike, I'm like, dude, you should totally buy that bike. That's exactly what I text him every time. This time he's like, he sent me a Suzuki GS850G. And he's like, you have one of these. Do you know anything about this? And I'm like, I know that bike. I know, you know, and the owner was a very, is a very close friend of mine. I said, dude, you should totally buy that bike. But I mean it this time. It was one of those like 95% project bikes, like where it just needs a few things. And he's just kind of over it and just wants it out of his garage for a good price. And so, yeah, put these two guys together. I was like, look, you know, you're a dude with opposable thumbs who's a great guy. You're another dude with a, you know, put them together. They made a deal. And I got to be there when he dropped it off. And he's looking at, you know, and then so we've been texting back and forth. And he lives pretty close to here. So he's going to come down. And at some point, we're going to rummage through my stash of GS850 parts. And yeah, it's going to be a whole thing.

Robin: I promise you've got an entire disassembled GS850 in that garage. And then some, I am sure.

Brian: I have two spare engines. I don't know if that means I have a problem. Working on other people's motorcycles is a lot of fun too. You get to spend their money. Yeah. So here are the tires you need. You need to go get these parts. You need to go get this oil, blah, blah, blah. You know, helping people diagnose. And for example, you were doing something with the luggage on your bike. We were just gathered around out there. You know, it's just, it's just a, it's a, it's a focal point.

Robin: My bike has LED signals and I put on a tail tidy just because the protrusion that was coming out of the ass end of that thing was zip codes away.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: So swatched everything out, got the wiring situated, then realized that the luggage is sort of leaning on it. I like to take as good care of my bike as I can and still make it mine with cut wires, customizations, all that. No problem. I wanted to ditch the stock signals and put on those LED system strips or whatever. And it was just good hang time, even if you're just observing. I think that you tend to have a lot more confidence in the crown of information, the blueprint of procedure when doing anything involving risk and somebody else's bike. You definitely have more going on than I do. This is neither good nor bad. I do feel like if I go to Brian's house and I say, I want to do this. Here's my logic and reason. Here's how I think we should go about it. Can you help me correct the way, find the right path? Can we do this together? I could use a hand. Brian's probably going to be all up for it. Whereas if you bring your bike to me, because I don't have that history behind me to completely confidently do it, I do know what I can and can't do. That is really important self-awareness to know. Yeah.

Brian: Know your limits.

Robin: Yeah. That's CB350. I looked at that and thought, I mean, that drum break. I made the joke not as well last time. I knew I could get that wheel off. That's no big deal. No motorcycle from that era is designed to be that difficult to work with. Well, nay, I say, but the point is this bike is so known and so easy to work with that it should be easy, except this is somebody else's bike and you approach a bolt. And my joke was that it had every type of driver connection in one spot, only it lacked any section of that driver connection that would turn the bolt.

Brian: Ha ha ha.

Robin: Had the flat, the Phillips, the Allen, the Torx, all right there. And none of them were going to turn that bolt off. And that's when I hand the bike back to the person and say, I'm not going to be available to take blame for the fact that this thing is already buggered up.

Brian: It's not going to happen. I'm not going to get to drill out. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, no, I'm not that guy. Brian wrote an excellent article about this on the website. If you go to TRO.bike and search for other people's motor cycles, you're going to get some pretty cool results. Or if you just like a borrowed bike, Brian wrote a lengthy exploration on what makes this kind of thing so fun and also in some cases, perhaps risky, a really good read there. So highly recommended that you check that out.

Brian: I've had the chance to sample a lot of bikes I would never own in a million years just because someone brought them to me like, hey, we need to fix this or I need help with this. And we took care of it and I took it for a spin and, you know, it's a great thing about riding in tours and stuff like that. You get to see, you get to see a lot of other bikes and see what's going on. It's just fun. And one of the things I'll say also is I really, I do kind of enjoy teaching, like I enjoy working on bikes with people and showing them how things work and all that stuff. I've taught a lot of people how to change tires and so far, all but like two or three have decided what they learned is they don't want to change tires. They hate it. You know, I've taught people to change tires. I've taught people to do a lot of different stuff. And that's kind of fun too. Like I've experimented with taking on work for pay for on motorcycles, but it's just not as much fun. If I'm really bored in a winter, I might do it. Yeah.

Robin: I did that for the first time on a rewire gig. I was like, yeah, I'll do this, but it's going to be a pain in the ass. I was like, yeah, you're going to give me some money for this. I'm going to buy something for this, whether it's gloves or whatever. You know, when working on any bike, especially if you're remote or have limited resources to turn a wrench, you know, if there's a lot of threat involved with the option of mistakes, then it's really good to know people such as yourself who have a very fluid stream of if this, then that, where they observe the problem. And they, you can see the gears turning, but they don't have to turn so hard. You don't see a wince. You don't see, they don't start to stroke out trying to come up with the solution somehow by applying blood pressure to their cranium. It's a matter of seeing somebody who knows how to say if this, then that, here is the problem. And then however long you have to stay in that aquarium of trouble until you say, then that. If you can do that calmly, oh, good on you. You got all the points. and.

Brian: The short way to put that is

Robin: Good to have friends good.

Brian: To have friends it's good to work on bikes with friends it's good to ride it's good to talk about motorcycles with friends it's good to ride motorcycles with friends it's good to work on motorcycles with friends

Robin: But not to mention the closer the friends the more indifferent they are to your success they don't give a shit they hope you fail so god that gives them a unique perspective on oh well here's the solution you know they have the actual solution because they don't care if they see it they're like oh Oh, keep it simple, stupid, means they really do think you might be stupid. God. Oh, wait, you guys don't have friends like that? Oh, is that just my entire existence? Is my friends think of me in this way? Okay, I get it. I understand now.

Brian: Are there any therapists out there that would like to sponsor TRO?

Robin: Which makes for the perfect segue, because...

Brian: Time for segment two, the Armory.

Joanne: Today, I was like, you know, I really need to get back out on my vehicle, but the weather here is insane. And like, you can't go into the mountains right now. The highs here downtown are 50 and that's great, but it's still 30 degrees up there. Like in the 30s, right? It's still 15 degrees colder and then wind chill. It is too cold. It was zero degrees last week. Has to be 70s up here-ish, maybe 60s for it to be 60s. to be reasonable up there. So I'm just trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I think, I just feel like, okay, as soon as the weather hits 50 something, I need to just even go around town. There's a really cool, oh, the wildlife, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. There's buffalo out there. It's just this big flat open space, like it's a park and you can drive through. You can just drive through and take a little car tour. We've done it. I've done it in the summer in the Jeep. You can just drive around and you get to see all the buffalo. But there's stuff like that. And I think I just need to get out and just even since I can't really go up in the mountains, it's fine. I don't have to be up in the mountains. I just need to get out, I think, and find just even some local places to go to. Yes, stoplights are not fun. Suburbia is not fun. I get that. The riding I used to do, that is not it. But I think that because I haven't been riding very much, my motivation for it is kind of stagnated. And I've had this before after accidents, like when I broke my arm, of course, I had to take a break. It's not like I could skip. I'm not Mark Marquez. I'm not going to get back out in a week after a major surgery. I've taken breaks before. I broke a finger, whatever. But I had to take a break. And I'm used to that. This is so different though, because I just haven't been riding regularly in such a long time, in such a while, more than a few years. So I think I need to like start over. So my plan is take my own advice that I give to newer folks, go out and ride, but it doesn't have to be this, you know, amazing two-hour experience. I just need to like zip around and get comfy again. You know, just to get comfy with the riding part. It doesn't have to be super technical, crazy riding. I need to get comfortable with just the riding part again and being comfortable doing that all the time. Because the last time I went riding in the summer, I went out like a couple hours. I went out toward the mountains. And I turned around because, I know this sounds ridiculous. I felt super anxious riding out that far by myself because it'd been so long. So it was kind of a different kind of anxiety. Not like, I don't know what I'm doing, but more like, God, I haven't done this in a while. I just feel like I shouldn't be going out here right now. I really need to go. I just need to go home. Like I went out, I've been out for a couple hours. I haven't been in the zone in a while. And so I just felt out of the zone and that made me uncomfortable just because my skill set is so rusty. Like, yeah, my skills are higher than sure a new person. That's not what I mean. But for my comfort level and what I'm used to having, my personal expectations and my experience, I mean, I'm used to running by myself for 2000 miles and going anywhere on any terrain, anytime. That familiarity and comfort. I don't have that right now because I haven't been out riding. So I think that's going to be my plan is just try to get back into some kind of routine.

Brian: Baby steps.

Joanne: Yeah, just to get comfortable again and I don't have anywhere that I need to go every day. So that doesn't force me. I need to take myself, go out, kind of tool around, even if it isn't most amazing rides. I need to reevaluate that and figure out how I'm going to get myself back into the zone.

Robin: Get the smallest of patterns started?

Joanne: Yeah, start smaller. And that way, hopefully by spring or going into summer, I'll be going out to do longer rides and more technical and more fun rides because the roads here are insane.

Robin: Well, you made me think about the pattern of activities, like whatever gets your attention, whatever gets you revved, amped, focused, honed in on something, even if it's like painting die-cast models for Dungeons and Dragons, you know what I mean? Little things, whatever it is that gets you focused on that particular subject, I think that's always going to be good for the senses. Is you made me think of something about heavy winter when travel is in some cases inhibited. I don't know why I haven't done this, but I really should sit down and list everything by distance that represents an activity that can force you to maintain contact with society. Like, I know that just that way is. Taco bar where they do karaoke on a specific night. If I can't make it into town, which is barely 10 miles, then I can go there and at least be like, walk in the door, turn around, walk back out, think that music was awful, get in my truck and come back home, but know that I did it.

Joanne: You know, when we lived in Philly, like moving there, that was really difficult because all of a sudden the riding changed. I was desperate to find places to ride that would be reasonable. I knew I couldn't find the same thing. So it really just changed my riding from, oh, riding every day and going to work or whatever. It just changed to less times going out, but further distances. So it really turned me into a long distance person, which I'd never been really. I'd done distance, but living there forced me to change the way I rode. So I would go out for a week or go out for four to five days.

Robin: Oh, cool.

Brian: Just to really get away from the city. Yeah.

Joanne: Right. It would be, well, I'm going to have to do a longer trip. This is going to have to be a whole weekend, right? It can't be a day anymore because I can't do 200 miles of the best roads in the world, five miles from my house anymore. So now I have to do four or five days because it's going to take me two to a hundred, three miles to get out to the good stuff. So then I started to do more trips, weekend trips, two days, five days, one week. And I did all the most long distance riding I'd ever done because living there forced me to. So now being back here, it's like it's weird because there are incredible roads that are 25 minutes away, but they're only accessible half the year. It's a whole thing. So anyways.

Robin: You're already starting to like think through a plan.

Brian: Mm-hmm.

Joanne: Yeah, even just thinking about it is a whole thing. All those out there with ADHD understand. And what really worries me the most is that I'm losing my love of riding. Am I losing it or is it just that, well, I haven't been doing it. And like as soon as I get on it, will I probably love it again? Most likely.

Brian: It's also one of those things where you can also kind of get up your own ass a little too much and put too much importance on it. Just go ride. See what you think.

Joanne: Very true.

Robin: Or don't. Angel asked a rock star question. She did an interview with Armand A. Piper, Clutch Motorcycle Training there in Loveland, where she was like, so Robin, do I have to be obsessed? I kind of grinned. I was like, did Brian make her ask that question?

Brian: I did not.

Robin: The answer is no.

Joanne: Absolutely not.

Robin: It's not all or nothing. I am a motorcyclist, else I must sell my bikes. It's like, no, let the bikes sit there.

Joanne: In motorcycling, when people are like, How many miles have you done? It's none of your business.

Robin: We raise all kinds of hell on people that say they get, I get 8,000 miles out of my tires. And we do say, well, you're not riding. I will say that.

Brian: When you're in that mood, yeah.

Joanne: Context is everything, but it needs to be to each their own. It shouldn't be all or nothing. And you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. If you want to make it all, you can. If you don't want to, you can. Do whatever you want. It's yours. your money, your bike, your life.

Robin: Similar banter at HireRevs can be found via the Gear Chick website or by emailing Joanne directly. That email is help at GearChick.com. That's time for the after words. Time for it is to find our way out of this fiasco.

Brian: What are we thinking about for the next time around?

Robin: Suzuki's valve clearance editorial deep dive with a side order of factorial cross-referencing.

Brian: Digging deep into mechanical bits and pieces, into the bare metal, into the oily heart of the matter. I like it. Been a while. Can't wait to talk about it again.

Robin: It also is, it's going to force my hand and make sure that I actually finish this right up and get the instructions done. All eyes will be dotted and ready for next week, and I beg of ye to make sure that everything is in the proper working order. The big one for me is the constant forgetting of which way to measure the shims based on the overhead cam, all that noise. We've got to get that on paper, so we'll make that work.