Robin: In this episode, Mission Rights, Chest Protection, and the Blackbird.

Brian: Opening announcements, news, corrections, banter. Robin, what you got? We got some news here. Let's talk news.

Robin: Off the cuff here, all of these come from MotorcycleNews.com. So big shout out to them and thanks. The UK government has published the latest transport strategy. The MCN's piece says the new UK transport strategy focuses on road reliability and pothole repair, with implications for everyday and long-distance road riders rather than off-road or ADV use. For sport touring riders, the main takeaway is simple. Smoother roads and more predictable travel conditions matter more than flashy policy language, especially for riders covering serious mileage on fast A roads and motorways. So shout out to the UK. Good on you. This next one's also for the UK. Brian, you got anything you want to add to that?

Brian: They need to come over here and inject a little good sense into the US. But I'm sitting here in Pothole City, let me tell you.

Robin: MCN also says, UK fuel prices. This is a rider impact story.

Brian: That's everywhere.

Robin: Everybody's got fuel prices. It's directly relevant to sport touring because fuel cost changes hit long-distance road riders first. MCN rounds up reader reactions to higher UK pump prices and frames the issue in practical terms. route planning, trip frequencies, and the day-to-day cost of staying on the road are all getting more attention.

Brian: One thing I'll add to that is that fuel prices go up, but a lot of bikes, including mine, and I think including your Suzuki, take premium. When the prices on premium go up even faster than normal gas, and it's really freaking annoying.

Robin: Yeah, although yesterday I put some recreational fuel into my bike in, you know the place, Winston, New Mexico. Old school pump with the rotating dial.

Brian: Yeah, you want gas, punk? This is gas. Take it or leave it. Oh, and leave it's 50 miles away. Yeah.

Robin: Carto unveils Beyond GT and GTS smart helmets. This is the closest current week tech item I could justify for sport touring riders, though it was updated on April 20th of 2026 and originally published earlier. But check that out. So Carto's unveiling the Beyond GTS and GTS smart helmets.

Brian: Yeah, and there's some really interesting ideas in these helmets. I mean, there's nothing about how they fit or what quality they are and things like that. But yeah, noise canceling, crash detection, brake light built into the helmet. So there's a lot of really interesting ideas in these. And I'm sure they're incompatible with anything that Senna makes.

Robin: Including some of their own earlier models.

Brian: Yeah. Oh, everybody buy a brand new helmet so we can ride together.

Robin: I'm still firmly into the modular build of anything of this nature. Buy the small component that works with the other small component. And build out what you need.

Brian: Yeah, Radio Shack, walkie-talkies, deconstruct, you know. What's been going on, Robin? You been riding much?

Robin: I rode yesterday to the end of 59, which was, an outstanding day. During this ride, a friend brought out his Hypermotard Ducati.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: Had mentioned to me before that his tires need to be replaced. I was like, oh yeah, what'd you get some flat spots? He's like, no, they're only worn on the right side and the left side. I was like, what are you, what are you doing? I finally take the time to take a look at these things. I said out loud, I was like, is the center compound that divided and pronounced from the softer compound, the response, that is a single compound tire. This doesn't make any sense to me.

Brian: Welcome to New Mexico. Okay.

Robin: Because the gas tank on that bike is so small, he puts it into the back of a van, rides it to the beginning of the road that shall not be named, only rides it on that road, brings it back, rides it back up into the back of the van and takes it home. As a result, there's not enough straight road for it to like grind down the center tread, which I thought was hilarious. I've never seen that before. I thought it was worth mentioning.

Brian: I like the cut of a jib here. I like that.

Robin: Not to be dark. I am celebrating my brother's birthday today, which is going to lead to, Brian came up with an excellent discussion topic for this round. And the timing is kind of crazy to me. So honoring my brother, William Monroe Dean, who passed just shy of a decade ago. There's been much talk of riding an Iron Butt rally lately among friends, something I've attempted twice unsuccessfully. And who cares? What matters is the attempt. Bill, my older brother, was the first go of it, and Sergeant Jeffrey David Pate, my youngest brother, who's actually still nine years older than me, was my second go of it. If you'd like to read more on such matters, hit tiara.bike, search for Iron Butt, or visit tr.bike forward slash question mark P equals 21297. Random songs of the minute. And if you go to radio.tro.bike in your web browser, you'll see all of our random songs in a minute, including Brian's or Brian singular.

Brian: I need to come up with some, huh? Okay.

Robin: You're a musician by my trade. So before the ride, and I know this is a throwback, I tried to keep things hip and trendy and up to date, but I got to go backwards on this one. Before the ride, Super Unknown by Soundgarden. I realize that's a throwback, but I love that tune and it's a great riding song. Go look up the lyrics. After the ride, there's a song called Road Bone by Willie Porter. I think I said yesterday that it sounded to me like a combination of folk and flamenco.

Brian: And a dash of polka along with some heavy metal.

Robin: Well, if you watch this guy's finger picking, it just screams flamenco style guitar playing. Yet it's bluegrass driven. It's a beautiful song. Check it out.

Brian: I'll contribute one since we're doing a throwback. It's a Tiny Desk concert. but look up the one from Cranberries. It's just a really beautiful moment with Dolores Rorden or something like that and there's so many of those in the Tiny Desk concerts. I'll get some more in here.

Robin: Last time I talked about some new updated rebuilds of animated GIF images that show things like two-stroke combustion and four-stroke combustion and I found another one that just popped up in my feed that shows the difference between under square versus over square and how that relates to torque, efficiency, and speed.

Brian: Okay. This is what people are talking about when they talk about undersquare, square, over square engines. So, yeah.

Robin: Undersquare is the taller stroke?

Brian: The diameter is less than the stroke.

Robin: Okay. So the stroke is longer than the width of the cylinder. It's taller than it is wide. The distance that the piston can move is taller than the width of the cylinder. That is undersquare.

Brian: It tends to give you more torque and less RPM, less speed.

Robin: So I've been saying that backwards for years.

Brian: Oh, okay.

Robin: Humility is a bitch.

Brian: Yeah, and then over square, the piston is wider than, and they show an exaggerated example of each, but the piston is wider than the travel. So it can move very fast. So you can get high RPM and get a lot of power that way, but it can be very peaky. And you can also have issues with getting the cylinder evacuated so you can have emissions issues you know it's like anything else in engineering there's a lot of trade-offs and a lot of them are not real intuitive but yeah most engines now tend to cluster somewhere close to square where the stroke is pretty close to the diameter of the piston very.

Robin: Nice hey how are you brian

Brian: I'm good yeah just got back from uh ohio you know i was an exhibitor at a trade show So I'm not a natural extrovert. I'm not a natural salesperson. And I would like to spend a few days in a quiet, dark room with a book and not talk to anybody. Yeah.

Robin: It says the podcast co-host.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. This is recharging. The podcast is reinvigorating. So that's good. I'm glad we're here. You talk to people, get in front of people and you never know what's going to happen. You just got to, being there and being in front of people. I have a conference coming up in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm going to bring my wife, Marge, with me this time, and definitely getting in touch with the one and the only Travatron, Travis, and get some advice from him. The one nice thing about these conferences, they do have, they had some really good bourbon.

Robin: Brian Ringer will be in Madison, Wisconsin in May, and being the extrovert that he is, all of you should insist on hanging out with

Brian: Him my.

Robin: Work here is done post

Brian: Being a subaru not a not you know i gotta carry all my exhibit crap and another piece of news there's a bridgestone rebate through may 31st 2026 there's usually a spring and a fall rebate on bridgestone and there's usually a spring rebate on michelin it varies a lot it covers a lot of tires for our interests like the bridgestone s23 and the t32 touring tire. You can get a $60 rebate on those. So if you're thinking about tires, it's about time for new shoes. Check it out. We keep the road rubber watch updated on TRO.bike. Click DigiTools and look for the rubber watch. Current pricing for a lot of different sport touring rubber in specific sizes. There's also like a little, there's something, there's some kind of Michelin rebate happening right now. The interesting thing about that is the road six is not on the rebate list i guess they're selling well and people just pay what it takes for those whatever but a lot of people prefer the road four or the road five and those are getting a repeat pilot road too you're gonna you're gonna go all the way back i want the 2001 pilot road two people do there are people like that yeah bang.

Robin: For the buck style the two best tires i've ever used by michelin were the pilot road two which lasted the longest and handled fantastic then they dropped the p and And then I had the Rode 5, which, while pricier, I found to be worth it. Yeah, I loved the Rode 5. Then the R6 came out, and...

Brian: You're not a fan, huh? I don't know.

Robin: There's no reason for them to be that pricey. They are not worth the money.

Brian: They're on par with like Dunlop pricing now. You know, I mean, Dunlop and Metzler have stepped up and over.

Robin: There must be something happening internally.

Brian: 500 bucks. My God.

Robin: Like there's, it's gotta be internal.

Brian: Maybe I should do a deep dive research, but yeah, there's only a couple of motorcycle tire companies. Metzler and Pirelli and several others are the same company. And Bridgestone, all the Japanese tire companies. There's been a lot of consolidation. So I think a lot of those have, I think Michelin's still on its own, but a lot of these brands are basically under one umbrella now. You know, it makes some weird stuff happen. Tire's expensive, rawr. But we're going to wear them out anyway, damn it. Next up, questions from the wild. First off, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and place electronical messages into our brains. So these are questions from the wild, and we're going to do something a little different. We're going to do a lightning round here. We've got five or six of them lined up here.

Robin: That'll put us on segment one perfectly. I love this. Okay. Yeah.

Brian: And so we've got 30 second limit. So you got up to 30 seconds, shut the hell up. And then the other guy, and then the other respondent.

Robin: We get the timer going. Go on.

Brian: All right. The first question, TW asks, I just bought my first dual sport bike. Am I rolling around looking like a dork wearing my street helmet?

Robin: All right, you ready to go?

Brian: Yeah, I'm ready to go. My answer is no. Run what you brung. Wear your street helmet proudly. No one gives a crap.

Robin: My answer is be safe. Enjoy your bike. You'll figure out other things as the time goes on. What's next?

Brian: That was very lightning. All right.

Robin: You and I have 30 seconds combined.

Brian: Fine. Be that way.

Robin: HM asks, I haven't ridden a bicycle since I was five. Will I get kicked out of the MSF class? That really depends. Can you ride a bike? Go get on a bike, ride it, see how you feel on it. If you can ride a bicycle, then you will probably not get kicked out of the MSF class. Brian?

Brian: What Robin said because he's actually an instructor. I don't know.

Robin: What's the next one? Your turn.

Brian: TT asks, I keep seeing Honda Rebels pop up for sale on the face balls. Should I buy one? If a Honda Rebel is that which you desire, then buy it and ride it proudly. If you're just buying it because that's what you took the MSF course on and you feel safe on that, eh, but they're good bikes. They're fine. You can always sell it later on.

Robin: And also, if you already ride in or a tinkerer, why not get one and see what you can do with it just because it's there on the cheap. Go for it.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: That was down to the wire on that one. We made it, though. Okay, next one. RR asks, I'm returning to riding and protective gear seems pretty amazing now. Does all that stuff actually work? Does it make you more reckless? That is a good Joanne question, too, as Brian has made note of. Here we go, and I'm off. Boom. Whether or not it makes you more reckless is up to you. Don't be more reckless. Do feel safer and do feel more protected. Yes, that gear works. Or mostly works? Read the reviews. Find out what works better. Find out what works best. Buy that stuff. Brian?

Brian: Yeah, as a crash survivor, yes, that stuff works like you wouldn't believe. I have astonished EMTs and orthopedic surgeons more than I'd like to.

Robin: Good answer. Good answer. You're up. LK.

Brian: This is a weird one. LK asks, dude, should I get a Suzuki Hayabusa or a Triumph Rocket 3?

Robin: And go.

Brian: That's a loaded question. If you ask me, I would get the Suzuki Hayabusa if you want warp speed, but the Hayabusa can actually go places and go around corners. The Triumph Rocket 3, I've ridden one. It is a ridiculous bike. All you get is the warp speed. You don't get the cornering.

Robin: Having ridden a Hayabusa and not having ridden a Triumph Rocket 3, I'll agree with Brian on the Hayabusa because you can actually tour that bike. You can kit it out. It's fairly comfortable. The pegs are a little bit high, but otherwise you're good. End it. Like, this is fun. All right. Last one. Are we ready?

Brian: I'm ready.

Robin: CZ asks, I'm about 290 pounds and 6 feet tall. Hold on. 290 pounds and 6 feet tall. Should I get a Honda Grom? And yes you absolutely should especially if you're a carny but even if you're not a carny the answer is yes i insist it might confuse people are you riding or taking a shit but either way you should get one brian i

Brian: Think you should not get a honda grom you should get a honda monkey.

Robin: I don't even know if you've met tim have you met tim i

Brian: Only know is tim had or has a honda monkey, And this guy should totally get one of those. Not the Grom, get the monkey.

Robin: Again, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and send us a message.

Brian: And let us know if you'd like a speed round answer or an actual thoughtful answer.

Robin: The show is yours, Brian.

Brian: What are we talking about today? Now, I've got a lot of titles here, so we'll just talk about this. So the segment today, the topic today, is motorcycling on a mission. Now, some of my alternate titles were riding for a reason. That sounded a little whatever. More than a feeling. I kind of like that, especially if you're riding around Boston. Mission motorcycling, vibe riding, although that may be misunderstood. But the point is, most of the time when you go out for a ride, it's just because, damn it, I want to go for a ride. And that's good enough. That's enough reason right there. We don't need to justify this to anybody. But a lot of times, I think having some reason, some other reason or some structure can be a lot of fun. It can make a ride really meaningful. You can do a favor for someone or it can be a way to just like, I'm really bored and I don't know what to do, how to structure it. So it's going to be a way to think about what's your mission for your, for that day on the motorcycle. There's a lot of ways to spend this.

Robin: And I was just mentioning before, I'm celebrating my brother's birthday. I'm not doing a memoriam. I'm celebrating his life as it were. And when I found out that he was no longer among the living, I decided to get on my, at that point, brand new BMW R 1200 RS. I make my first ever attempted iron, but had no idea what I was in store for. Didn't make it, but gave me a dual sense of purpose. I was rising to my own self-imposed challenges to go do what needed to be done and maybe have a little bit of a side adventure along the way while thinking about the reason I'm doing it, thinking about the person I'm doing this in memory of. It all kind of gels well when you do something like that, I've found. We all suffer loss. Do with that whatever you can that is positive for you so that the memory stands strong. Okay, that's just one very segmented compartmentalization of what can be made of this. But even then, like I'm looking for a place to stay, possibly either Louisville or in Indiana or in Farmington, Missouri. I may need Brian to go accidentally take the longest way there as a favor to me. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'm going to need you to maybe take a day.

Brian: Sounds horrible. Ow, ow, ow, ow.

Robin: I get by with a little help from my friends.

Brian: Yeah, we all do. Yeah, we'll need to have a great conversation about, okay, how sketchy do you want? Because you want a certain degree of sketchiness, right? No. You don't want like a Bible camp, but you don't want everybody running around with their dog on a string behind an ATV and drinking Budweiser.

Robin: No. Yeah, no Michelob Ultra.

Brian: You want some peace and quiet. You know, that kind of thing. And you want some people that are going to be happy to see you, facilities and so forth. So yeah, we're going to have to have a fun conversation about what are you looking for? Because I don't know anything about this other than, yeah, you look around, does this look like a dump or is it? So let's have the conversation and pick out some spots and pick out some interesting ways to get there. And it'll be kind of fun.

Robin: What is realistic versus what's not and build a plan and have some fun on the bike. It's really about the ride and an excuse to, is this place maintained? Cool. I was here for five seconds. I'm out. Poof.

Brian: Yeah, it's about excuses sometimes.

Robin: Another one is validation of a route. If you arrive in a place that you decided to be at because you knew that you saw roads that might be worth riding, you arrive. You have a plan. I go to this road. I want to experience it. I want to take in the scenery. I want to enjoy it. I planned. I showed up. I threw a leg over. I scouted and I came back with a list of gotta do this again-isms. That is in and of itself a rewarding mission accomplished situation. You got all of it. You're providing for the writing community, be them friends or online, or you just want to write about it. And you've gotten a good writing. You probably had a good meal. You probably had some nice lodging. You figured it out. Guess what now you know and now you can come back when nobody's there and just own it yeah

Brian: And you can make whatever tweaks or like I'll give an example. I was doing some scouting in Kentucky, and I had planned out some really, really nice-looking roads. At least they look good on a map. What I failed to realize at the time was they go really close to a lake. Lakes are full of people in trucks towing boats around really, really slow. And, you know, I was like, that was dumb. I knew better than that.

Robin: Chucking beer cans, yeah.

Brian: Yeah, yeah. So you got to watch things like that. And then a lot of times, I kind of do this. there's some guys i ride with a lot a couple times a month probably and even though i have stomped southern indiana flat i still wander and take random turns and try and and they're just happy to be there you know they're just really chill i have no idea where they are they get lost instantly and they're just happy to i'm like oh that was new this year yeah well we were there and five years ago but just sat wandering around with a purpose i know they're having a great time and I'm having a good time. I'm learning, you know, learning some new stuff like, oh, well, this turns to gravel. I guess we'll come back on the KLRs, that kind of thing. So that kind of mission is always fun.

Robin: If we time this right, we will discuss some of the places I was looking at and see if that feeds into any of this as well.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: You know, Brian wrote a fantastic article on this. It's in the Brian Ringer article section of TRO.bike, Finding Fun Roads in the Flatlands. TRO.bike forward slash motorcycle touring forward slash find twisty roads. This one contains a lot of tips and ideas for locating the good stuff, even in a curved desert, and can be a great way to build a day or a week or ride around a central mission. Now, I initially asked him this because I needed to get through Indiana without going insane. And he's like, you know, basically put on your Mayberry cap and start fiddling about finding the interesting neon signs. And now and then there'll be a curve or two that pops up. I know that we got crafty in northern Illinois when we were in Libertyville. And there's a route up there that was like called Roll Your Own Twisties. And basically it's an excellent route, but it's probably the only route that won't have high traffic on it.

Brian: Something I would like to do someday, and I don't know if I'll ever have the time, but is take about a week in Missouri or Wisconsin and see just how rude and nasty I can, how many bad words I can string together out of the letter roads. You know, because like there's, you know, F intersect with U and then is U intersect with C. And then, you know, and then if there's Y and I know there's O and then, and then I think there's a W. you, you know, dumb crap like that would be a lot of fun. Just I would love to do that sometime. And one thing we did, like on the way to Missouri, I think this was last year or the year before, we kind of went through an area of Southern Indiana where I've got a lot of history, where a lot of my family is from. Like we passed by where my mom was buried. So we stopped and, you know, we had a little visit, had a little conversation. I think connecting with your personal stuff, yeah, that kind of thing matters. What I think is really interesting is I've been in that area since I was a little, you know, since I was a baby off and on. I've never lived there. A few years ago, I was in the area, and it actually took me a while to find where my grandma used to live because I had like a five-year-old's memory of the roads and how we got there. So that kind of thing can be, I don't know, it can be interesting. It can be a way to connect, that kind of thing. Different people could put together other ways, you know, visit where your ancestors landed in the U.S. Visit, like in North Carolina, Tennessee, there's a lot of history, Trail of Tears, a lot of Civil War history. Be some pretty interesting stuff.

Robin: I also saw your notes in here that point to bourbon in Kentucky, which I've been waiting to get to.

Brian: Here's the dealio.

Robin: Half of my family is from Kentucky. My grandparents' side, all Kentucky, all Louisville. I remember the roads, the hills, same memory, five years old, Christmas time, that kind of thing. Huge house with a huge family full of Christmas. Having revisited, understanding just how hilly it really is. Southwest of Louisville is currently our bar for where we want to set up now. That is where we're thinking. We may have found a park. We'll talk about that in a second here for a little bit before Joanne joins. Kentucky's looking real good to us right now. I just had a conversation with a friend. It was like, oh, yeah, I was just in this town, and I saw this one road next to another town, and it was a great road. And I immediately thought of Pete Holmes, the comedian, when he says, you think you're in America right now? Zoom out. Because where he was is just one block south of the entire entangled spiderweb of the moonshine roads, the entire forest.

Brian: You cannot go wrong.

Robin: North to south of the Kentucky border. Just nothing but that consistently throughout. You make a lift turn on accident, don't worry about it. You're going to have a good time.

Brian: I had a conversation last weekend with a man who'd be able to help us out in that regard. Oh, you did? You went? Yes.

Robin: You yourself went to the Sherwood Inn and Cafe and hung out with Dean Johnson, didn't you? How did that go?

Brian: Yeah, we had dinner. Had a very nice dinner. Dean was, you know, it was Friday night. He was busy running back and forth, but he was very gracious and talked with us for quite a while. He just exudes charm. Really, I think this should be something that someone around here should put together. Where you stay in one place, you do a cloverleaf route, and then you take one or two days of that, depending on how long you have, and hire somebody with a minivan or truck or something. Put you in the back of a pickup. I don't know. But haul everybody around. Go see all the distilleries because it's really just fascinating. You know, they have the distillery tours and then they give you samples. Well, if you're on a motorcycle, that's kind of a bad idea. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah. But do a cloverleaf route and you really cannot go wrong. You hit all the wigglies, you know.

Robin: I'm looking for an entry point here on this because we did just cancel sevens. That's how this year went.

Brian: It's like when you're going to go for a ride, the risk factors pile up too far. It was kind of like that. There's too many factors were just piled up.

Robin: There's too much opportunity for headache.

Brian: Yeah, I know you could have made it happen. You could have forced it to happen, but that's not how it should happen.

Robin: Sevens is a no-go for this year. It's only happened once or twice before since we launched it in 2017, and that's okay. Given the conditions of the economy, that's just one variety of reason why things don't always go the way you want, and that's all right. However, this gives us an incredible opportunity to create the fallback emergency show up and run what you brung version of Sevens that I had imagined. This could be amazing, and we are going to centralize it in the middle of Sevens and run it as the Trip 7 Super Clover. Now, Super Clover, it's where you ride out and spend the night in a hotel and then ride back to your centralized location. You're in one centralized location every other night for the duration. However, I think I'm going to start developing it directly with two people specifically, Brian Ringer and Travis Burleson. The three of us are going to build this, in some manner of speaking, through debate and through contesting opportunity for more twisties or stopping points. We're going to see who provides the best options in any given direction. I'm pretty sure Brian's will go off a cliff somewhere at some point for no fucking reason.

Brian: I'm good at that, yeah.

Robin: For the three of us to independently and communally come up with this plan will be a damn good time. And we'll come up with the emergency, I don't have seven days available, fallback version of the Trip 7 Super Clover emergency distress system of good time, happy, fun motorcycle rides. Those roads have to be scouted.

Brian: And we were down there in a Subaru, but it was still just so much fun. Yeah, I think something like that. And having that mission would be, well, I've got some planning ideas, you know, maybe a three, five, seven day option.

Robin: That's the idea. You set it up so it doesn't, the days don't matter. So we pick one centralized location. It goes for a week.

Brian: Yeah. You come in, you drop your crap and you don't have to pick it up again.

Robin: One location. And if it becomes more complicated, well, fine. But I think I'd rather just make this one into something that's just not complicated at all, but it still touches every state border. So you still hit seven states.

Brian: So this comes back to there's a bit of a mission here, too. Each of the rides has a destination.

Robin: Seven riders or whatever. Seven states, definitely. Seven days. Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Indiana. They all have to be hit somewhere along the way. Whether you make it for the whole thing doesn't matter, but the tour will do that. I like this plan. And with that, it's time for the Armory. Brought to you by GearChick.com.

Brian: A friend of mine bought a Force Field. It's kind of a chest. It's kind of a combined chest and rib protector thing. I bought it years ago, years ago. He feels much safer with this thing on. It's completely worn out. And we're having trouble finding anything that isn't just like, you know, it looks like it's going to enhance your pecs or like chest protectors don't really cover the ribs or the abdomen. I don't know if there's anything modern or anything new out there that works. We do a lot of dual sport riding on KLRs, we also do a lot of street riding he'll spend up if it helps him feel safer and more comfortable on the bike yeah.

Joanne: If we're talking really dual sport so, you know, like true 50-50 a lot of street action then, honestly the best thing he could do to one, have a more comfortable experience, but two have even better coverage is an airbag best, and there's more options now than there were five, even three years ago, because Alpine Stars has made way more options. They only came out with two versions when they first launched. Now they have like a bunch. So I pulled up a couple that I think would be the best. I'm going to give you links to a couple of them. But with Alpine Stars, He could do, I'm going to just share, I'll share the base one, just not to scare him. Actually, they've changed their models so much. I'm just going to share this, the fancy one, just to get an idea, give an idea of what he should do. Their latest and greatest is the TechAir 5 Plasma System. And it's a shirt. It's like a shirt over there. So the airbag is sewn into the shirt, you could say, as a way to describe it. So you wear the shirt on your body like a T-shirt, and then your jacket goes over. That's what this is designed to do. And they have different riding modes. They have an off-road mode, street mode, and a race mode because the algorithms change depending on how fast you're riding, what kind you're riding. The computer is really smart, but you want it to make sure that it reacts to the way you're riding, like the right kind of riding because the risks are different. They work different. They just operate differently. So the Plasma is the TechAir 5 vest. And the cool thing about TechAir is it does cover your ribs, not your stuff, but the rib cage. That's the best way to get the coverage. Otherwise, he's going to have to do, like, off-road armor, you know, like, another off-road piece, which... Doable, but they really don't have the right, I don't think they have the best coverage for what he is wanting. Like, for example, there's not really the armor he wants in the places that he's looking for it. Because you said he wanted ribcage coverage.

Brian: Yeah, that was part of what we're not really finding in a lot of the newer stuff.

Joanne: It's honestly not one of the areas that are as high risk, lungs, back, your chest, but not necessarily your rib cage. I would say his best vet is an airbag because it goes a little lower and the coverage drops a little lower, but also because it's an airbag, when it deploys, it likely minimizes the risk of injury to that area. His worry, I think on the risk factor scale, it's lower than spine injury, head injury, really why you don't see it he has to reckon that of what he's comfortable with but an airbag would totally elevate his game really level it up to another level of protection above and beyond what he had i know what he's wearing i used to sell them um and it's a great kit but it's not that was really a track kit to wear under your track suit and this is also a lighter way to do it depending on his body type Just put in the Revit version because they partnered with Alpine Stars and they made their own shirt. So the outer fabric and the fit is different. And then the back protection is C-soft instead of the Alpine Stars by Nucleon. But it's the same idea because it's the same technology. It's Tech Air bag. So the fit's just different. So if he's taller, the waist is longer on the Avertum. And if he's leaner, the fit is slimmer. The Plasma is their answer to the Avertum because I think honestly, when they saw it, they were very impressed because all the other Alpine stars here, I'll link you another system. This is the 7X system. Their previous airbags were more boxy and better for an athletic fit. Bigger chest, looser sleeves. The Avertum by Revit is a more fitted, slim fit shirt. But Alpine's come out with like this Tech Air 7. It's a more fitted shirt because it's really a race and sport um focused one so that's why i recommended the plasma because it's it's really more for street folks and dueling adventuring you know not racing not the track

Brian: Yeah and i like the idea of a of a off-road mode or dirt mode because i mean falling off the bike occasionally is fairly normal and most of the time it's you know unless you really screw up and yard sale it, I mean, most of the time you need to just fall off, okay, and get back on it. You need to make sure it doesn't deploy if it's a low speed biff to heel the hill climb. It's just, it'd be annoying.

Joanne: Also linked to the vest version of Revit Severna. So if he doesn't want a full jacket, he could do a vest. So different well it's street it's street specific it might let you upload different algorithms into it i haven't looked at that in great detail but i just i forgot to put that in there uh let me see it's race and street so that's just street race so if he really wants off-road capability he wants that plasma the electronic these are electronic because there's no tether they have computers like there's a crazy computer and a gps thing in the back little tiny in the back and it is following your every move. It's figuring out how fast you're going. And we're talking in like a millisecond. Like you can't even blink fast enough to how quickly they react.

Robin: Some of them sample up to 30,000 times per second.

Joanne: Right. And sometimes they won't deploy if they don't need to. Like it can tell the difference between, oh, I tip my bike over, depending on the mode, right? They're smart. Old schooled Airbags that are tethered only specifically rely on you pulling on the cord because you're separate, right? So it's a smarter vest. It's, I think, much more useful because if he does the plasma, he'll get all the modes. He can change it.

Robin: Nice.

Joanne: Right? You can get it serviced with, of course, there is, you know, there's a little maintenance. Like if it deploys, you want to get it inspected and make sure it gets packed back up correctly. You know you you don't want to throw your airbag vest back together after a crash and not know if it's in there right so they do have a set up for that they've actually the industry like dynase alpine stars they really kind of pioneered the electronic airbag vest they've been testing these for like 20 years but only at moto gp level the consumer ones came out like five years ago it's not because they just started. They've been studying these things and working on it for a couple of decades.

Robin: I have a question. And I'm playing contrarian and devil's advocate and playing the argumentative side of this. Let's talk about it from the non-airbag perspective. What would you go with in that direction? You know, rhetorical reason for my question is if you are rolling hard, if you're digging in hard and you're falling a lot, No, I'm talking about in the dirt. Will those be able to keep up with the fact that, you know what, I'm going for it here. I'm hitting the ground often. I don't want to have to reset the canister or send it away to get reset. I need something that's not that.

Joanne: I would say probably an off-road kit, chest and back protector, or something like this, which is a full-sleeve, quote, jacket. I don't think it's meant to be worn. They call it jacket, but I believe this one is really meant to wear under your jersey.

Brian: You'd at least put a jersey over it, yeah. But yes.

Joanne: Chest and back protectors, those are pretty common. But he'd want to find an off-road focus. So an armored vest is probably just a replacement. Because you can do a nucleot like this here. This is $250. But it is not going to cover your ribcage. because that's not the focus and where, you know, the majority of injuries happen. It's chest and back off-road with a vest. So he's going to have to compromise.

Brian: The nucleon and the bionic do have more, these do seem to have more chest protection at least.

Joanne: Jacket does, right? His shoulder, elbow, you can put in a larger chest protector. And so the jacket would be the better option, but the fitment is tough. If he doesn't fit Alpine Stars, then we have to find a different shirt. So my recommendation is always going to be based on what your body type is. Because I'm never going to recommend something for you that doesn't fit your body type. So I need to know that. I need to know if he's an athletic fit. Is he really slim fit? Is he hard to fit? That's going to narrow his options significantly. Because there are certain sizes where you can't get an airbag depending on how he wants to do it. If money's no option it's kind of a personal thing because the challenge though with airbag vest is there's over and under so then you have to go okay well i like my you know rabbit poseidon i wear this jacket well then you have to find something to fit that outfit too so his decision may vary depending on what he's planning to wear with it similar

Robin: Banter at higher revs can be found via the Gear Chick website or by emailing Joanne directly. That email address is help at gearchick.com. It's time for segment three.

Brian: Moments in Motorcycle History with Jordan Liebman.

Robin: William Dunlop.

Brian: With Joey's childhood, family chaos, and early obsession with engines out of the way, we can finally get to the part where all that raw material starts doing something dangerous and interesting. In rural Northern Ireland, motorcycles are everywhere. Roads are getting better and giving young men speed, machinery, and a fresh layer of asphalt. It was never going to end in quiet, calm behavior. That was the world Joey stepped into, and it suited him a little too well.

Jordan: Starting here with my sole correction from the previous recording, which is that County Down is in Northern Ireland, not Southern Ireland like I had stated. And I will excuse myself by saying that I get confused between County Down and County Cork, which is in Southern Ireland, because for years I've been going to the Milwaukee Irish Fest in Milwaukee, which is the biggest Irish Celtic festival in the world, from what I understand, since 88, except for COVID, right? So I've been going for a while, third weekend in August. And we were down there with some neighbors and we were trying to do the family name origin thing where they tell you what county you'd be from if he had such a name. And I told them my name was Jordan. Apparently that Jordan could be an Irish last name. And they told me I was from Cork and down is what do you call it it doesn't make sense because it's at the top right it should be at the bottom because it's called down but you know they get other words for everything up there so that's my excuse and i apologize county down is in northern ireland so the dramar destroyers who are the competing motorcycle race team against the armory armada are also from northern ireland so it's kind of like they were like neighboring town gang right so this is the local situation there. Well, that was the correction. The recap is this. Leading up to 1975, Joey did get some podium finishes. Very only occasionally did he get a first place, and effectively, all of it was in Northern Ireland. You should also remember that Joey's approach to racing and his riding style was very much financial, because he couldn't afford to crash a bike or trash an engine, right? This was all out of pocket, and if he won a race, it was almost nothing. He's just a kid. He's only been racing for a couple of years, really. So backtracking to 1972, technically his third year of racing, yet really only a second, because 1970 he took off because he crashed a car and couldn't financially afford to race. He only had a few placings and podiums. But in 72, two things happened. He got together with his first sponsor, Danny McCook. And he also married his wife, Linda Patterson, newlyweds might have been a distraction. Now, for the most part, back then in Northern Ireland, aside from certain displacement limitations, it was pretty much, as they say here, run what you brung. So you'd see anything from like modern race-kitted bikes, modern being modern to 1972 through 75, race-kitted bikes, to bikes that were pretty much stock off the showroom floor to basically what we would call a cafe bike, hopped up vintage junk, all at the same time at these races. And at the time, Joey was really kind of the middle group. Basically, showroom floor bikes that he worked on, but as far as tuning in race kit parts, that was pretty much non-existent. He was just making them run as well as they could. And he did it all himself. So Danny McCook, being his sponsor, he got Joey his first decent race bike to ride. And he got it from this guy, Hugh O'Kane, and he got him an ex-Bob McIntyre, who's also a very famous racer, AJS, which is a brand, 7R, single cylinder, four stroke, right? It was a race bike, but it was yesterday's race bike. And coming off of Joey's Triumph T20 Tiger Cub, which was a 200cc bike, four-stroke, and his Suzuki Invader 200cc, two-stroke, the AJS 7R was very fast in comparison. So he gets him this ex-Bob McIntyre AJS 7R, which is on loan from this guy, Hugh O'Kane, who acquired the bike and agreed to loan Joey to try the bike out on local roads. So up to that point, Joey had really never ridden a fast race bike. And even though he was thrilled by the AJS-7R's speed in comparison to his Suzuki 200 Invader, and he was appreciative that Huo Cain let Joey campaign his somewhat historically important AJS-7R in a few races, and despite wringing its neck and grinding out a few placings and a couple podiums, they, being Joey and his sponsor and this guy, Hugo Cain, Realized that Joey would be much more competitive if he had better equipment. The AJS 7R was just no match for the competition's Japanese two-strokes. And together, they made the decision that it was going to be retired, along with the Triumph Tiger Cup 200. And Danny McCook picked up this 350cc Air Maki four-stroke single to complement his Suzuki 200 Invader. So that's 72. 1973 was a little bit more successful with the 200cc Suzuki and a 350cc Air Mach-E with slightly more funds to tune the Suzuki, but still, more and more riders were showing up with faster, out-of-the-box Yamahas. Joey called his drive, personal drive, an ability to compete against lesser riders on much better bikes in road races, his grind. Like capital letters, italics, and quotation marks, his grind. That's the grind. It's what he did to beat people on much better machinery. And I know you've been to track days where there's some guy out there on a 400cc single that looks like it's painted with interior latex or whatever and he's trashing everybody in the corners and winning against your 1,000cc German or Japanese bike. That's kind of Joey's situation there. He learned on these back country roads in Ireland and he's bringing all that experience to the track with basically outdated equipment and still managing to podium in place. My comparison is this. This is my first analogy for you. This is my analog. You know those Bruce Lee movies where... He's out there and he's surrounded by tent guys and they have knives and swords and guns and he just takes them out one by one, you know, screaming all the way. That's basically Joey. He's got outdated equipment and the competition's got knives and guns and he just takes them out anyways. And so initially it was that he couldn't afford to crash and trash a bike, right? So he had to get really good at finding a line and knowing what gear to be in and what to look out for. And also how to handle different road conditions, wet or dry, you know, because this part of Ireland, like we said, it was wet a third of the year. If you woke up every week knowing that Monday through Wednesday was going to be monsoon season, just imagine that out of your week. That's the conditions. So after they realized that the AJS seminar wasn't going to cut it and he had the Air Mach-E 350, we added to this a Yamaha TD3 with the Sealy frame. Because Joey insisted on getting the Sealy frame for handling, and they went ahead and paid for it. So up to that point, it's not to say that other riders weren't good, But many of them had a mechanical advantage over Joey until Joey got his TD3. And after 75, that began to change. So that's where we left off before. As we said, he did all of his own work on his bikes, and he did so pretty much always the night before the race. And he became known on the racetracks as this is his first nickname the girk the black girk g-i-r-k which is a slang word that described his ultra casual dress code covered head to toe in oil and grime and not giving a shit about it i mean it was really all about getting the job done getting it done right and having everything ready for the race really he didn't like dressing up at all he hated having to wear a suit or a tie, pretty much saving that for weddings and funerals. And I'm kind of the same way. So that was his first nickname, the Girk at the racetrack. And And I told you at 72, he married Linda Patterson. And in 75, he had his first kid. This is the rabbit hole I went down. I'm not going to get into the real history of all the kids. But on the topic of Joey Dunlap, you have to know that there is a dynasty and there is a curse. Okay. Joey raced. His brother Robert became super famous great racer and died. As we know, Joey's dead. Younger brother Jim was part of the Armory Armada from, I think, 76 through 81. He stopped racing, which is probably what's going to save him from the curse. Robert's kids, William and Michael Dunlop, also raced. William died in 2018 racing. But we have to mention that they had kids. I mean, these people have actual lives outside of the racetrack, but not by much. The internet does not provide a lot of information about joey's kids and i think they kind of want to keep it secret because they don't want the they don't want the international spotlight on them locally they're just active people so this first kid was julia or julia louise in 1975 donna was born in 77 to 78 and for the record she owns a coffee shop gary was born in 82 or 83 i I think he was born in 82 because there's a picture of him as a baby wearing a t-shirt with the number 82 on it. And he just started racing in 2025. He was 43 when he started racing. So that's the dynasty. His next son, Richard or Ricky, was born I think around 1995. So this is five years before Joey passes away. and his thing is Joey purchased a pub that I believe is now called Joey's but before it was the rail pub or something like that. They run this pub and Ricky's really into playing darts so that's kind of like a Local club thing they do and the youngest I believe is Joanne and she might have been born around 1997 or 1998 so this is, I just want to mention that he has these kids and we're going to get back to them later on. Now Around 1975, now we're recapping a little bit more here. This guy, David Wallace from Dunloy, which is in Northern Ireland, is a winning film director. He got two BAFTA awards, which I guess is some documentary award they give to filmmakers. And he decides he wants to make a movie and picks the Armory Armada as his topic, right? So he gets his bigger project and he turns his focus to the Armory Armada of Joey Dunlop, Merv Robinson, and Frank Kennedy. And as a side note, Frank Kennedy, a good racer, and he was part of the Armoy Armada, but he was 6'3 and 170 pounds, where these guys are, you know, they're jockeys. Joey was like 5'7 maybe, and that might be an exaggeration. And Merv Robinson might have been 5'8. You know, he could have been his brother. So Frank didn't really fit in with the group, and he barely fit onto these bikes. I mean, think of your tallest friend getting into like a Mitsubishi Eclipse or something. Just look up the movie by Duke Video called The Road Racers. You might not find the full documentary, but you'll find parts of it. David Wallace starts making this documentary movie, and... He turns to the Armour Armada of Joey Dunlop, Merv Robinson, and Frank Kennedy. And it includes, I believe, a little bit of Joey's youngest brother, Jim, who was part of the Armour Armada at that time. But Jim didn't keep racing. Now, Joey probably wouldn't have agreed to participating in the film if it wasn't for Merv and Frank, because Joey was a good friend and a teammate, and he generally wanted to help people. And it became a cult classic among road race fans. The film spans the gap between the grassroots effort of the racing scene in Northern Ireland and the upswelling of support from the dealerships and factories. The movie starts out on the Irish country roads and Joey ripping up a twisty piece of asphalt on his somewhat cobbled together 350 Yamaha with the Sealy frame. And just opposed against his race bike tearing up this road here is a farmer trying to herd his sheep across the road. That's the scene that tells you this is where these guys are coming from. They're not coming from pedigree, prima donna, race teams that only work on tracks and have the best equipment handed to them. These are guys that do it all themselves.

Robin: Which brings us to the afterwards and the wind down. And I know for a fact that next week is going to be very lonely here at Radio TRO. Because, Brian, you're not going to be around, right?

Brian: I'm going to be in Tennessee. I'm going to be out riding in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Robin: Well, you know, you could just duct tape the mic to your helmet and just... Ow! Airbag deployed. Damn it. I knew it was going to deploy.

Brian: Damn it. It's all Robin's fault. It distracted me. I'm actually going to be riding motorcycles instead of talking about it. So yeah, and it's, I don't know how good our Wi-Fi at the hotel is. Like, anyway, well, we're not even going to try. We're just going to have a good time and relax.

Robin: I believe Travis Burleson may be arriving next week to join me for an episode, which will be a great throwback. Who knows how that'll go. We'll see if he's still available or not. If I could have all these people on at once, that would be, I'd just walk away. Be like, it's your show now. Goodbye, I'm out of here.

Brian: So you got all kinds of ideas. It's going to be a grab bag. Who knows what's going to happen?

Robin: All right, then, Rockstar, you ready to get out of here?

Brian: Let's get out of here.