Brian: Got myself a gin and tonic. I'm ready.

Robin: I've got a nice glass of the finest wine that can be put into a cardboard box.

Brian: All right. In this episode, we navigate caveman style like your grandpa used to. Then we're going to walk on down to Electric Avenue and ponder the existential question, what is a motorcycle anyway? And... We think about what are the gateway drugs to motorized two-wheeled bliss.

Robin: Opening announcements, news, corrections, and banter. First off, random song of the minute. This round, it's The Lizard Dome by Dang. I love this tune. It's like lo-fi hip-hop, borderline trip-hop. If you want to hear the song, visit radio.tro.bike in your web browser, and that will take you to our playlist. But check it out. Great groove. Also, the Cyborg Says portion of our motorcycle weather forecast is now free to all visitors. What? Originally, I had it set up to where members would have to insert their own API key to whatever AI model I wanted them to have access to. And then I decided, no, let's not do that. We're using openrider.com forward slash free, which is anything that happens to be of interest to foreign nations about how we prompt AI. But yeah, it's basically a free option, and it delivers information about your location in a dialogue that is reminiscent of your locals. Some of my favorite features, actually, because it talks to me. Wherever I'm at, if I'm in Texas, you get Yeehaw. And if I'm in Ohio, you get, well, Yeehaw. I'm in Indiana now, so I get something completely different. I get, actually, it's Yeehaw. Anyhow.

Brian: I think I'm in Smith County, United States. I don't even know where that is.

Robin: Just type in Indianapolis. Also, corrections. Having just finished reading The Burrito, named for my neighbor's father's motorcycle, I had the start and end points wrong. He rode from central Mexico to Washington State for his daughter's wedding. I'm working on getting an interview with the man, so stay tuned for that. Trust me, that's, I just finished, it's a special journal. It's quite something. It really spoke to me.

Brian: Very cool. All right, in the news. dee dee dee

Robin: Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.

Brian: Dee dee okay the trail tech voyager pro 4 tracks the whole group without cell service

Robin: Huh.

Brian: So for $800, Voyager Pro 4 combines offline mapping, vehicle data, and ride logging in an IP67, that's water-resistant, waterproof.

Robin: And dust.

Brian: With a 4.3-inch, 1,000-nit screen. That's so many nits.

Robin: All of the nits.

Brian: The headline here is that the Buddy Tracking Network does some radio sort of magic, shows up to 20 riders without any need for cell service, keeps REDCOM trails, and it can navigate directly to a separated rider. Wow. Basically, everybody puts these things on their bikes and then everybody in the group knows where everybody else is. This is some like ninja video game infiltration stuff, isn't it?

Robin: Yeah. I guess it's got to be some kind of a cross network thing.

Brian: So it says typical range is listed at half to 1.5 miles, depending on terrain, line of sight, et cetera. Pretty neat. I mean, $800 is not pocket change, but, you know, it could help reduce those, oh, hey, where did Fred go? You know, he missed a turn, figuring out where he went. And, yeah, that's the part that's interesting, that little private network you have as you go and the ability to get to that person.

Robin: Basically a mesh network. It's like all-wheel drive in a car. You give the most power to the wheel that has the most traction. So whoever has the best network bridge to the person they're trying to find, everybody else is using that it'll probably shift and shimmy around so it's an amoeba of data that can help, figure out who's where for what reason. Opposite that, there's a nine kilo camp bed that argues sleep is safety gear. This comes from mcnews.au. The Kalkine Premium Biker Swag rolls to about 60 by 30 centimeters with light bedding inside, weighs roughly nine kilograms loaded, and opens into a 215 by 95 centimeter shelter with a hybrid air and foam mattress. It's quick to build and genuinely roomy, but puts all that weight into one large package. The reviewed price is Australian $459.

Brian: The dollary dues, as they say.

Robin: Ultralight camping gets all the glory until a bad night's sleep turns the next day's ride into a concentration test. This thing is not small or light, but it makes a fair argument that comfort, fast setup, and arriving rested can matter more than winning the luggage scale Olympics. I love the fact that they put this on the back of an adventure bike, and it's the only thing that could fit on the back seat of the adventure bike. Okay, that's my house. It's everything.

Brian: That's some Bugs Bunny stuff right there, yeah. And just in case anybody's in the U.S. here, I don't know. That's about $320 in American dollars. It is about 20 pounds in freedom pounds, in case anybody wondered. So yeah, it's still a pretty big sandwich to carry around, but the idea, yeah, you could just throw it out there and pull the ripcord or whatever. I don't know how it works.

Robin: It looks like an old-school 80s sleeping bag for a kid's summer camp. That thing is massive. Speaking of 200,000 miles on one bike and one seat cushion.

Brian: So long-distance rider Patrick Cornell put more than 200,000 miles on a 2025. That's a 2025 Indian pursuit in one year with minimal issues.

Robin: Look at this guy.

Brian: What's he doing? He doesn't sleep. He doesn't eat. He doesn't work. He rides. So 200,000 miles on a 2025 Indian pursuit in one year with minimal issues. Four Guinness records are still awaiting certification, including most miles ridden on a motorcycle in one year and most consecutive 1,000-mile days. The bike carried navigation, auxiliary fuel, communications, lighting, and dun-dun-dun, a wild-ass Smart Classic cushion. The wild-ass seat cushion is the star of this show here, apparently. Obviously, 200,000 miles on anything, let alone a seat cushion, is an amazing durability. You know i don't know the condition of this guy's ass or anything but that was that's an amazing thing and it's an amazing piece of equipment apparently so there's a line here that i love forget the trophy for a minute and ask what really kept bike and rider functioning seat pressure management well of course i always think about my seat pressure fuel strategy lighting maintenance rhythm weather discipline and the ability to climb back on tomorrow i mean i got to hand it to this Patrick Cornell guy and the, apparently the seat cushion that made it all possible. Everybody should run out and we're not even sponsored, but everybody should go buy a wild ass seat cushion.

Robin: Absolutely.

Brian: I like how we have a formal category for banter. Robin, what you been up to?

Robin: We've got a lot to talk about, so I'll slam through this as quick as I can. Maggie's SV650 is squared away. My bike as well with some plans for continued hang time in the ringer garage. Thank you for the moto help. I know I've got my fork seals on my way to your place, as well as a cap for the radiator on the SV, because I don't know what happened there. But the thing is, having gotten the above done, plus having bought those Tecton torque wrenches you recommended, I found enough momentum to start tuning the rig, meaning our full-time RV home. So the suspension U-bolts needed to be 100 foot pounds. Basically, I torqued those. I torqued all the wet bolts. I torqued all the lug nuts on the cross-member stabilizers that basically stopped the frame from flexing so dang much. And in all of this, I realized one thing when I was about to do the actual U-bolts. Let's say you have a torque spec. Could be anything. Mine isn't an example. You have two torque wrenches. One goes up to that spec, the max setting on that wrench. The other, larger, carries that same spec towards the lower middle range. Which one do you use? Why? Moreover, when is it worth not busting out the X-Acto crank? I wanted you to answer this solo.

Brian: We could go on and on and on some more, but I won't. Generally, you want to try to use torque wrenches more toward the middle of their torque range. So if you need 100 foot-pounds and the top of the torque range for your 3-8 drive wrench is 100 foot-pounds, then I would hop over to the half-inch drive torque wrench where 100 foot-pounds is somewhere in the lower third of its range. They can get a little less accurate at one end or another. It's not a lot.

Robin: I would argue that they're probably more accurate on their top end than they are on the bottom. Like the lower the number, the less accurate they become because they're just sort of flabberty flanging. They're getting it right, but it's still kind of like, you know.

Brian: It's still pretty close on a good quality wrench. But yeah, if you have the option, why not? The other thing is just it's 100 foot pounds takes a pretty good yank. So you might as well use the one that's a little longer and make that a little easier on yourself.

Robin: Oh, yeah. My shoulders are pissed. I was doing this on my back underneath the rig. Good grief. Bang my head three or four times. I also bang my head three or four times. Luckily, I'm not repeating myself because I didn't bang my head three or four times. It's just three or four times.

Brian: Your head looks intact from here.

Robin: It's the blood. What's good in Brian land?

Brian: Well, like you said, you were in the garage in the palatial confines of the laboratory. With maggie's bike and i i just found it really fun to have just a chill day of doing some really straightforward work just hanging out learning a little bit about this really cool bike like i've worked on a ton of vstroms but for some reason i haven't really worked on an sv650 before interesting to me to see what is different and what has changed and so forth so we worked on bikes enough next time we're gonna ride all right

Robin: I guess if you're twisting my arm about it, I'll see you.

Brian: Ow, ow. You're only living in the middle of, you know, road paradise. There's some goat paths down there. Now, Robin's the guy who recommends all the cool music because he's a cool music dude. You know, you just look at this guy and you're like, that's a cool music dude. If you need to calm the hell down and the world is getting to you and you just want to hear a calm, friendly voice and decompress, I will recommend the ClickSpring YouTube channel. ClickSpring. It's a part that's in a clock this guy makes like he makes clocks from scratch he makes all these intricate mechanisms and master machinists Guy from australia nice friendly voice hearing so anyway his latest video is talks about guillochay and it's a machine that makes these intricate patterns on metal while he's doing this video he's talking you know he's talking about building making doing bringing light into the world and making the world a better place and that's you know, that's kind of like you keep accusing me of being generous with my time in the garage and stuff like that. And it's really, you know, it's really about making the world a better place. It's really about let's take chaos and make order out of it. Let's bring light into the world. Let's make something better. Let's use our hands. Let's learn something. And I can really get into that kind of thing. So anyway, look up ClickSpring on YouTube. Just really interesting stuff, even if you don't really care about clocks or whatever. Next up, it's time for question of the week or questions of the week, depending on what we feel like doing. If you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser to send us a message. I really, there's no attribution. I've seen this question a million times in a million different ways, and we both have. And it's kind of one that riders new and old come up with so let's talk about it then the question is when should i take my bike to a dealer or shop and when should i do it myself To get the obvious thing out of the way if your bike is new and has a warranty then for most things you probably should there's probably you're probably required to take it back to the dealer or you're heavily encouraged to for certain things now i've never bought a new bike i've seen people buy new bikes i believe you have bought a new bike in the past. Bought a new car. But yeah, at least like the first oil check and just when they go around and check everything on the bike, do a kind of a deep inspection. That's a good idea to do it to dealer if there's one around. But, you know, other than that, I don't know what you're required to do. You know, if you can do all the oil changes and so forth, I don't think there's anything preventing you from doing that on a new vehicle. And of course, obviously, if the bike has a problem that should be solved under warranty, then that's where you need to go. What's your take on it.

Robin: The warranty is just the tip of the iceberg, but the fact remains that what pushes me away from ever taking my bike to a dealership is that, A, I like to do my own work, and B. I can only picture the lowest common denominator of a mechanic working on the bike. Imagine when you meet great mechanics, and this has happened to me, where I've gotten to know them, I realize that they are professionals who work at a dealership, they are trained, they are certified, and they know what they're doing. It's a personal quip with me that it has to happen that way, else I'm not taking it there. The place I bought my bike, I would never take it back there. For example, when you went to get the fork oil for my bike and they questioned why I was doing it to a 25, and it's because it's got 20,000 miles on it because I'm riding my ass off, It wasn't a question that they should have asked. And that tells me that there's already going to be some friction in the communication. I guess the truth is, is that if you simply don't wrench, then it's time to take your bike to a dealership whenever it's time for any form of service. But you should know, understand, and be able to decrypt the priorities of the mechanic who is in that service department who will be working on your bike. Don't just blindly say, well, it said Suzuki on it. So I figure they must know because there are stories that we don't have time for about how bad that could go.

Brian: Yeah, ask around.

Robin: Read the reviews is one thing. Ask fellow riders who know their noise is another. And if you ask fellow riders who know other riders and know other riders, and some of them happen to be mechanics, and they know their stuff, well, where do they work? Go find that out, and then you got something better going for you.

Brian: And I will say that I think motorcycle or power sports in general, motorcycle dealers are a little different than, like, you know, your Chevy dealer or your Ford dealer.

Robin: A lot more kind of sorta in there.

Brian: I mean, yes, I've gotten bad work at a car brand dealer before. Morons couldn't even do an oil change. Motorcycle dealerships in a lot of the U.S. It tends to be very seasonal work. So a lot of times you don't get the best and the brightest. And the best and the brightest are oftentimes over at the heavy equipment dealer where they can make the most money. You know, if it's about money and a career and feeding your children, that's just kind of an unfortunate reality. I mean, a lot of these shops are doing a lot to retain people with year-round work, with snowmobiles, ATVs, UTVs, things like that. The reality is you're not going to get people have a lot of, unless they have a lot of passion. And sometimes that doesn't always intersect with the talent that is needed.

Robin: Not everybody cares.

Brian: Yeah, I think you have to pay more attention to it with motorcycle dealers and shops than you would with, you know, like there's a, there's a car shop down the street and I'm sure they could handle an oil change on my Toyota for my bikes. I don't trust anybody, frankly, but there's a few that I'd go to if I had to. But that's just me. Obviously, there's a whole category. Like if you just don't have the equipment, you don't have the space, you're going to get fined by your apartment complex. If you change oil in the sidewalk, you know, there's a lot of this stuff that you just it's just not practical. And so you have to go somewhere else. One of the related things that we've heard, like, for example, we were talking to Jasmine. She lives in New York City and they've got great shops. She takes the bike to the shop because, A, they don't have the space to do it themselves. And B, it's a big city. It's dense. If you're not really good, you don't survive there. And so she's got shops that she can trust there. That's another thing. In a big city, a lot of times you can find, you have more options and, you know, the ones that aren't able to do a good job get run out of town pretty quick.

Robin: You ain't got no business if the customers ain't returning. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. I'll say, like, community is really important. I've taught a lot of people how to do a lot of things on their motorcycles. Sometimes what they learn is, like with tire changes, I've taught a lot of people how to change tires. And what most people learn is that they don't want to do that, but they at least know what's involved. They can handle something in an emergency. They would know how to talk. They would know something about it. They've gained from the experience. And so I think learning hands-on, in-person with someone there that kind of does know what they're doing is pretty important. You can get a lot from YouTube, but it's really difficult to get everything right. And plus, the guy on YouTube may be a complete moron. Like, if he's wearing sunglasses the whole time, and he's got a screwdriver and a claw hammer,

Robin: Pickup truck, sunglasses, he's going to tell you the truth about COVID.

Brian: The angry goatee guy with sunglasses on in the garage. Maybe not. And this is a true story. Maybe don't let the guy named Shaky try to rebuild your carburetors in a dirt floor carport. Just saying. Good shop is not going to be cheap and they're going to be busy. So it's going to take a while. You know, once you find a good shop, you have to keep going back, be a repeat customer. You get extra care. You can get in there, but you just have to understand there's a lot of riders out there who found that good shop and they're going to keep them real busy.

Robin: See you right for the next one.

Brian: Let's hit it.

Robin: Are rear-opening occipital helmets safer engineering or just a complicated gimmick? A rider found helmets that opened from the rear and saw conflicting claims. Moving parts might create new failure points, but easier post-crash removal might reduce neck movement. Without trusting TikTok engineering, what evidence, certifications, and design details would you need before choosing one over a conventional full-face helmet? Here are the details I require. I require that it meet my needs based on the current helmet standard in terms of weight, protection, general usefulness. You know, like I've got a comm attached to my head, you know, on my helmet on the left-hand side. Is that going to get in the way of it being opened? Is it going to be weird? Things like that. But honestly, it comes down to the label. Does it pass the Snell rating test? And certainly it has to have a DOT sticker. So all of the most standardized things and then some then there's a matter of price just because you have a new feature that simplifies things does not mean oh now we can up the price and, treat inflation with the respect it deserves no it's like it has to be a helmet that all of a sudden is just better and aligns with the accessible pricing that most of us need that's my take brian what do you got.

Brian: We'll have to see what happens with the safety certifications and also whether any tracks anywhere will let them on the track. The one I'm looking at, the Roof Jägger, Jägger, Jägger? Anyway, the one I'm looking at doesn't have a chin strap.

Robin: And for this, the Jagermeister, and the cheaper version is the Malort.

Brian: So you open the hatch on the back of the helmet, you stick your head in, and then you slam it shut around your head. So the chin strap missing is, I think that's kind of a problem. People very, very, very, very commonly tend to buy a helmet that's too large because it's more comfortable when you're walking around in the store. Everybody does that their first several helmets. They're way too big. And so if this thing doesn't clamp on your head correctly or if it's a little bit off then you're going to have a problem because there's no chin strap i really don't i don't like that feature at all they do sidestep one of the things that you see on modular helmets which is there's a giant hinge mechanism at the side of your skull like underneath the shell looks the same but there's no eps right at your temples which is the thinnest part of your skull and that's something a lot of people don't really consider when they look at a modular helmet. They're like, oh, it's a full face that flips open. Well, it's not. It's a beanie and it's got a giant plastic mechanism inside the shell to make it rotate. And that transmits force directly if you land on the side of your head, which is not uncommon. This one here, all the mechanism is kind of down more in the collar region. It does tend to have more track and mechanism. So it'd be really interesting to see how the construction works and whether that does create a similar danger. And also, I think I think this is definitely going to be heavier. And so whether you want more weight on your head, twisting it off, I don't know. You know, for us, the big thing is if it's not allowed on the track, then I ain't buying it. And that's going to be a long time, I think.

Robin: This may have had some EMT input or hospital input about problems they've seen, with certain incidents. If this alleviates that by saying, hey, we're the ones who requested this structure, that's a plus. It could go in any direction, but you got to be able to hold still long enough to see where it wants to meander. Maybe it's for the better. Maybe it's going to be not adaptable because it's going to be, now we can charge $1,500. But Brian's already nailed all the points that I couldn't even look up.

Brian: And speaking of helmet removal, helmets in an emergency, you know, a current helmet, they cut the strap, they take it off. This helmet here, you've got a complicated mechanism that might be all smashed up. How's it going to come off if if you know if this thing's clamped on your head and and you're in the ditch and and they get you there and they need to take it off of you in order to do brain surgery that's going to get real complicated i guess they'll have to cut it off or something like that i'm not i'm not sure how much of a factor that is yeah

Robin: Maybe there's a nylon tug or something of that nature that's supposed to release everything.

Brian: Yeah somehow let's have the release for the padding and then the thing just really comes off easy which is a nice feature so yeah First time I crashed, I took my helmet off for that reason because I didn't want to wear it for the next two hours. Second time, I had to wear it for two hours because they got to me too quick.

Robin: Next one we got, what replaces a high-mileage K1200S when you still want super bikes shove and four-hour comfort? Basically, a six-foot rider's high-mileage BMW K1200S is becoming expensive to keep alive. I can relate to this. The R1200RS for me was... I loved it so much, but I could feel like, yeah, you know, 117,000 is big numbers. It's time, you know? Sometimes it's just time, you know? He wants a bike up to 10 years old that can handle several four-hour trips each year without giving up the K-bike's power. Is the right answer a true sport tourer or an upright hyperbike tall rounder, like the S1000XR or a sport bike modified around his body? Now, we kind of talked about this last episode where you could go in either direction. If you want the details on that, the basic arrival points we landed on, either go up in height with lower pegs for more ergonomic comfort, or you can adapt your sport bike to just suit the fact that you really want to keep the sport bike profile. Option A, option B, either way, be happy. But if I was going to condense this to a single linear method, I'm going to say, go sit on a lot of bikes and determine your own ergos, figure out what's going to feel exactly right for you. And if it's superficial beyond that, where you're like, yeah, that's cool and stuff, but I really want to find something that's more sleek. Well, then you might have to adapt. And as Joanne would say, if she were here, which she will be soon, she'd say you're going to have to compromise. Finding your way to the bike you really want is a combination of knowing exactly what's comfortable for you and what you're willing to compromise or modify to suit. I will say, if you get into something like the Super Duke GT. I mean, I've never seen a taller bike go so far out of its way to look that good and be that sleek. It is a tall machine that somehow looks like it's lower. Such a beautiful bike. We have a good friend who is basically built like a piece of rope hanging from a seven-foot pole. And... Fits him perfectly what's your take.

Brian: Yeah look at the tall rounders and so forth or just get the latest bmw you can use the r motor or go to the boxer if you want the four cylinder the k and whatever i will say there's a website called cycle ergo.com you can put in your inseam and height and it'll give you all the angles and then you can poke around its database is not at all complete but it will help you look for some things that are similar like for example the 1250 the boxer it gives you a different kind of shove i don't think it has quite the power of the k-bike but yeah there are any number of there are any number of monster tall rounders you know ducati bmw and so forth that may be an excellent choice for a tall person a lot of tall people in germany in Austria, cycle-ergo.com. It looks primitive. Just roll with it, figure it out. And you can kind of get an idea of how that bike fits, what your angles are, and what you need to look for. And it can lead you to some surprising places.

Robin: And to answer your next question, yes, you can put an 8'13 rider onto a Honda Monkey. Again, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and send us a message. We would love to hear from you. Brian, what are we digging into? What's the meat of the matter?

Brian: We've had some interesting conversations and the idea originated with Robin. Maybe he got it from somewhere. I don't know. The idea was, you know, we're all, we use apps quite a bit. I have an app on my, on my handlebars every time I ride, but. I'm also old enough to remember navigating using paper maps. So this segment, we're calling it navigating the ride from apps to maps with a two just to make it hip. Yeah, as you pointed out, it's like, yeah, physical maps, using a physical map is kind of becoming a lost art form. I don't know when I started using a GPS on the bike. It's relatively recently in my riding life. And so I think, yeah, there's probably a whole generation of riders out there who really don't know how to deal with a paper map. And also there's any of us, you know, our electronics can fail. You know, what do you do? You know, how do you remember? How do you go back to using a paper map and getting where you're going?

Robin: You just sit there and you starve.

Brian: And that's it. Yeah, pretty much. That's the end. Stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Hey, can you get me to Robbinsville via the twistiest route possible? Step one is to have some sort of map with you. Most states, when you go into the state on the interstate highway, there's a rest area, a welcome center, and they usually have state maps, may or may not. It's actually, I found it surprisingly hard to get a paper map these days. Gas stations usually don't have them anymore. Or, like if you're at a truck stop, you can get the map for the next state, but the map for the state you're in, they don't have because, well, everybody knows where they are. It's really weird. So at least have a state map with you everywhere you go. And I generally do have a state map in my trunk somewhere, just in case I need to figure out how to get somewhere, that kind of thing. You might lose your carefully planned, twisty, wiggly deluxe route that you had on your GPS where you just follow the pink line. But you would at least have some idea where you are and how to get to your hotel or wherever you're going next. There are also several companies that sell physical maps online. Butler Maps has really good maps that point out the twistiest roads and so forth. Mad Maps is a company that does pretty much the same thing.

Robin: I've never heard of them, and I was glad you, like, I'd never seen that before. That's pretty cool.

Brian: Freeman Maps, and then you can, you know, obviously on Amazon, or you may even have to, like, you can find maps in bookstores, but they may have to order them for you. It's really, like, paper maps are nearly gone. It's crazy. But you can still get a lot of stuff. DeLorme is a brand. They sell area maps or regional maps. They'll have topo maps, things like that. Another good source is you can, and this varies all over the place, but a lot of states and a lot of counties have websites. You can download maps of the roads and so forth. So like I could download a map of counties in Wisconsin, for example. Wisconsin counties have on their website, they'll actually have a map you can download. You could print that, you could look at it on your phone or device or whatever, and you can plan things out. They generally don't, you know, unless you have a larger map, it just ends at the borders of the county. So you have to kind of stick it together. So if you got road C and it goes off this way, then you have to find the county next to it and so forth. It's cumbersome, but it can be done. And if you have access to a large format printer, you can make some nice maps to have with you. It's, like I said, you really want to plan ahead. amazon whatever just getting your mitts on a physical map is really tough to do when you're at the side of the road at a gas station and they often don't have anything

Robin: So the point is like be prepared like really have one if you need to order it now have something, i'm applying all this logic like i don't actually carry a physical map on my bike when i'm riding, unless i'm on a tour in which case the best part of this you're gonna love this, i then hand it to the sweep rider here hold this but the point is like you know with moving a rig and living as full-time rv travelers, We do have a dedicated truck map, and it's a massive U.S. booklet for the entire country. I don't want to tuna can my rig into a low-hanging bridge that is, you know, 13.4 when our rig runs about 13.6. These things help.

Brian: Well, like you mentioned, like truck stops will have, they'll have paper maps for trucks to help you, and they're very detailed to help you figure out where the bridges are. So, yeah, you want to have maps. Like, if you're in a state you don't know, like, I don't need to carry a map in Indiana. I know how to get back home. I can figure it out. But there's a couple of things that really seem to trip up people who are getting used to apps over maps. Orientation. When you hold the map up in front of you, it's probably not pointing north. It's simple. It's stupid, but people do it. They're facing south. They whip out the map, and it's like, oh, it's over here on the right. No, it's not. Yeah, you have to take a little extra time and think about it and make sure you're pointed north. And there's all that Boy Scout or Girl Scout stuff about how to find north and know where you are in Mother Nature. Where is the sun? You know, if it's afternoon.

Robin: Let's do that now.

Brian: How do you find north?

Robin: Step one, what time is it? It's going to get harder to do between the hours of noon and maybe 1.30, 2 o'clock. And all you need to know is that the sun always sets directly west. So picture a compass in your head. North is up, south is down, east is right, west is left. So if you know where the sun is and you can see the direction of the shadow, it's either on its way from the east or to the west. You've now figured out due north. That's just simple logic that, hell, I've never even had any use for until I was in my late 20s, early 30s. Just remembering the information, the sun always sets to the left. And what time is it? You're golden. You can find your way. Many have done it with significantly lesser tech. Go see the Odyssey. You'll understand.

Brian: Yeah, figure it out. And of course, in the morning, you know, in the morning, the sun rises in the east, sun sets in the west. Like if you're not real sure it can, especially in areas with all the good roads, they're all twisty. They go every direction. Even if you're in Atlanta, there's, you know, a road that'll be like, you know, 28 north and it is going south you can't go by the name of the road or anything like that

Robin: But you can bust out the map look at the road and judge despite all of its squiggly ramen noodle beautifulness that comes with sport touring determine does it generally go north, where is the sun where am i turn the map so that it suits what you're asking of it then determine does this road end up in, town of awesome sauce, the road does end there you know you're going to see a township sign that points out that you have arrived it doesn't matter which way the sun is coming at you from curve by curve that's going to change you will be going technically in the direction that you intend.

Brian: Yeah and stuff like you know learning to look for those clues like for example when you read a topographic map you know you can figure out ridges and mountains and so forth a little practice on a normal flat map or a street map you have to look for towns and things like that you know look for simple things like water towers in the distance oh that's the water tower for such and so you basically have to make sure you're aligned and you're mentally aligned with the map and there's there's crap like there's boy scout stuff like you know moss on the north side of the trees it's not very reliable it has more to do with you know especially if you're in a valley that doesn't mean anything the other thing big thing that really trips people up is scaling You're used to a map that automatically scales in and out, depending on how fast you're going. So you can see what's going on. A map obviously stays the same all the time. So you have to develop a sense, okay, I went from Podunk to Boogerville, and that took half an hour, and it covered 22 miles. And then you look at what a tiny distance that is on the map, then you can develop that sense of scale and make sure you keep that in mind when you're thinking about time and distance. That can get really disorienting for people who are used to scaling. So you have to pay some attention to that, get used to it, Stop more often and look at your map if you need to. You also actually have to look at and notice and remember road signs. This is something that is missing in a lot of people that are used to follow a GPS.

Robin: What road was that?

Brian: I don't know. What hollow? Yeah. Something hollow.

Robin: The lost highway.

Brian: You have to pay a lot more attention to that sort of thing. So you have some idea of what it is on a map. And also what the sign says often has nothing to do with what's on the map. It'll be like booger hollow road and then on the on the map it'll say us 12 or something you know it's what's going on here but you do have to pay attention to that kind of thing like oh yeah and then i'm passing this road i'm passing this road you're not just following the pink line anymore once you have your map and you can read it you know how do you develop a route how do you remember route how do you make sure you can follow the route one of the things i do i always have with me a it's called a grease pencil or sometimes it's called a china marker like you can mark on ceramics with it.

Robin: You can write in the rain.

Brian: Yeah, you can write in the rain on any shiny surface, and it'll wipe off later. It's a wax, and it'll stay there in the rain or whatever. That's how I used to do it all the time. I would plan out a route on a paper map, and then I made up a code that made sense to me, you know, write on 42, you know, that kind of thing, right there on my tank. And that way I wouldn't have to stop and pull out a map or look at directions in a tank bag. For a long time, I had like a tank bag with a clear top and I just had stuff written in there. So if you have a tank bag with a clear top, that's a great way to do it. Just scribble it down and that way you can kind of keep moving. But yeah, in general, you're just going to have to take a little more time when you're working with old school stuff and you can get a grease pencil or at any hardware store anything like that and i always have one in my equipment that way i can fall back if i need to one of the things i'll point out and robin has found this out too is that a lot of towns have a name on a map and a lot of those don't have a gas station or any electricity or anything at all going on

Robin: There's worse too They'll have a knick-knack shop, and it has old-timey gas pumps out front. And isn't that great? Because you're pretty well fucked, and it's time to fill up, and you pull in, and every one of the meters on the gas pumps reads, Welcome! Have a snickerdoodle. You're not getting fuel there. But don't worry. You can imagine getting fuel there.

Brian: Yeah. Oh, that's where that used to be. Yep, yep, yep. I'd say this one's like, if you're in the mountains, which is where a lot of the good roads are, or even if you're in a really hilly area, there's only so many ways to get from here to there. You really have to expand your scope and think about, okay, how am I going to get around or over or through? I want to go from here to here, and there's a river in the middle, or there's a large ridge, and for some, you know, all the roads stop and so forth. I don't know, you kind of have to get to know how road networks work and be able to plan around things like that. Like, okay, this is the only road that goes over this ridge, so I guess that's what we're going to do, whether we liked it or not. And the same thing, you know, when you're planning a route online or using an app or whatever, it's the same thing. In some places, there's just one way in, one way out, or you have to turn around or something like that. And just understanding how those work.

Robin: The opposite is also true. You're reminding me of a road that goes directly north through Idaho that is unexpectedly pleasant. And it's a two-lane highway. It's just one lane going north and the other lane going south. There's nothing much around it, and it's completely a truck route. Not a lot of people use it. It's Highway 93, which passes all the way through Mackie. It just keeps going and going all the way up to Canada. Who knows? My point is that you may have a worst case scenario escape route that wants to take you by way of slab or it's this town to that town to this town to that town, not knowing whether or not this one road is, of quality worth writing. I'm going to open myself up a little bit here and say that is the first time I've ever been on a road that was so boringly straight. Yeah. It's undeniably worth riding for hours and hours and hours. It is the most beautiful straight line road that I've ever been on. And I would actually love to ride that anytime. It's just that overwhelming.

Brian: Yeah. And you can see, if you look at it on a topo, it basically follows a valley through some just really intense mountains. It's beautiful.

Robin: Luckily for us, it does actually join up in a T-intersection with that which reaches Idaho 21, just north of Mackie. So it goes from being this long, beautiful cruise to some light sweepers, nothing too spectacular, to good stuff. At the same time, if you keep going due north of that, and how are we figuring out north? Well, first, we put the damn map down. We look on what road are we on? Look where the sun is. What time is it? Figure it out. are we going to be okay yeah take 93 all the way up to 12 you know what it got us there a map nice.

Brian: Paper maps, you will take more time to navigate, especially if it's a fallback. Following the pink line is really fast. So just make sure you allow for that, allow for more time.

Robin: So let's talk about techniques. I do not have digital access. I have no cell reception or I don't want cell reception. And I want to make sure that I can be a survivalist on a motorcycle with pavement. I know what my route is. It's complicated. It goes from this to that, to that, to this, and it's going to be fantastic. but I do not want to use my phone and I do not know the area. I have a map. It says I'm going to go from this road to that road, to this road, to that road. The distance from this road to that road is approximately this round that down about five miles and then say, at that five mile point written with your grease pencil into your paperwork or whatever lead sheet you've got, you have that, which says, Hey, start looking for yada yada hollow road, and you arrive and you take a right and then in four miles you got to constantly be resetting your trip meter, which is not a bad thing that is the other part of this technique that is greatly effective if you have many many roads, that can join to formulate your loop and you've never been on it you've got no digital just the map yeah you're going to constantly be like okay reset i'm looking for four miles down okay this time 15 miles of this but you double check. Did I go 16, 17? Oh, crap. I got to double back. It is an art form.

Brian: It's one worth learning.

Robin: If you're a young, new sport touring writer, if there is such a thing, challenge yourself in an environment that you are not uncomfortable in, where you know how to meander and return. Lock yourself into the technique involved to know where you're at, know what the paper said, follow the lead sheet that you've written in your own handwriting using your trip meter to remind you, oh, I need to watch out for that road name at this particular time.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: It's time to completely change subjects because the one and only Joanne Don is here of GearChick.com. G-E-A-R-C-H-I-C.com. We're going to talk about the state of the motorcycle industry and the e-bike influence, as well as armor electrified. Because that ain't no bike.

Joanne: I don't think the specifications really matter. What matters is if you're going 40 miles an hour or 30 miles an hour, speed is speed. So it doesn't matter if you're on a motorcycle or a scooter, your bones break just as hard. Your flesh is going to slide and abrade and, you know, road rash is road rash no matter how fast. People look at the equipment and they don't really look at the reality. Go, oh, it's just a scooter. Oh, it's just a bicycle. but mileage is mileage. It's more about the fact that you're playing in traffic. There's a difference between people who you're out in the mountains. That's a whole different thing. You also see people who actually, they're bicycling. Their bikes are electric, but they're in the bicycle lane. You're only going like 10 miles an hour. That's different. I'm talking about people who are riding in traffic. So no matter what you ride, when you make the decision, I'm going to ride between cars, with cars, That's the important part. No matter what you ride, it could be a 50cc scooter. It could be a three-wheeler. The bottom line is you've lost your car and you've lost your airbags and you can't surround yourself in a roll cage. So when you are usually on a city vehicle, so if you have your fancy KLR, you have your fancy GS6-8, whatever, to ride around in the mountains, well, let's say you also have a small bike around town, whether it's a 100cc scooter or a 200cc dual sport or a electric bicycle that goes 50 or One wheels, those go 50. I saw a guy on the freeway on a one wheel, and he's going 50 on the highway, and there's a guy here in Denver, and he wears two-piece dynasty leathers. I wish he would upgrade his shoes, because he's still wearing, like, Nikes, and he's not wearing real footwear. Maybe he's building up his wardrobe. He's on a one wheel and that goes 50. That's insane. But it's great that this guy takes it seriously and he wears a HEV helmet. He wears full leathers because he knows 60 is 60. Friends, numbers are numbers. They don't change. 30 miles an hour is 30 miles an hour, no matter what you're riding on, period. You know, the speed is the speed. You can road rash. You can get a concussion. You can be injured. So I know it's hard, though, to make the decision to wear something that doesn't really go along with what you're riding. I get that because we're humans. Some of us are vain, more vain than others. And I always told my customers, be vain. That's OK, you know. Don't apologize for it and don't feel bad about it. Own whatever it is you want to own. Just know what you're getting into. That's what matters, right? But if you do want to, if you're on something small, especially like city-minded, what I would recommend is looking into really lightweight city motorcycle wear. So like a Monrofzilla and for less than $200, there's these very inexpensive riding hoodies and they have low abrasion. You know, maybe you have a 10-minute commute to work across town and you're not on the highway. You're just going through, like you're going down Venice Avenue in San Francisco or major streets in your city and that's it. And so that's the kind of abrasion. There's also really inexpensive riding shirts. These items all have armor built in that are really low profile. So I just went to RevZilla and I went to armored hoodies under jackets and vest. The trick is to sort from low to high, unless you have a lot of money and you're a big spender. But if you sort the price from low to high, then you're actually going to see the shirts and the hoodies first, because jackets are typically up at the $200 price point. And so you'll see all these wonderful, really cool, casual styled where you don't even know, you have no idea that they're armored. Like a flannel shirt. There's a ton of options for button up shirts that aren't jackets. Hoodies that just look like hoodies. Now, right now it's 90 degrees and I get it. If it's 90, then you may not want to ride when it's 90. Like, I don't ride in this weather because it's not fun. It's not my preference. It's just not comfortable. My range for riding is like 50s to 80s. Like, that's my sweet spot. That's where I like to ride. But that's where I would recommend you look so that you get city fashion, city look, and you get that moderate protection level, that minimum, I would say. And you can go to work or school or wherever you want to go on your stand-up scooter. The point is, because it's the year 2026, not 1996, the choices are vast. Back then, though, early 2000s even, you didn't have a choice to get a really cool, stylish hoodie that looks like streetwear. Revit hoodie, Cortec riding shirt, a red flannel, like very casual style. Those are all choices we never had back then because it was absurd at the time to think that you could wear a hoodie that would protect you because it didn't exist. So the idea of it was laughable and people would look at you like you're crazy. And I want to say a few European brands or like Australian, like they had slowly dabbled in some of the casual, like that's when jeans started to hit the market and everybody was like, I'm not wearing a riding jean. There's no way. But who would want to back then? There were no armor pockets. There was only Aramid or Kevlar Lightning. There was nothing for your impact. They were heavy. They were hot. They were just not comfortable. And why would you? Now you have choices. You have no excuse, especially if you're letting children, if you're letting minors go ride on a equivalent of a 200cc electric motorcycle and you're not making them wear a helmet. What really angers me about minors riding is not that they're riding. That's a great thing, right? I mean, that's how Nicky Hayden became a champion. That's how Colin Edwards became a champion. It's not that they're riding. The point is, for me, that makes me angry is when they knowingly make terrible choices for their children to ride on a motorcycle. You know very well when you're an adult, a helmet is better than not. Then we go, whatever we want to do. Great. We get to do what we want. But when you get your minor child on the back of your bike and you're making a choice for them that is knowingly putting their life in jeopardy, that's when I get cranky and that's when I will say something. To me, that's just not okay. I had a customer come in one time on his cruiser with his teenage daughter and she's wearing a half helmet and he's wearing a half helmet. And I'm like, you're not going to at least make your daughter wear a full face helmet, you can wear half, but really, she doesn't know any better. Like, you can't expect as a Expect your minor child to know better. I think as an adult, you have the right to do that. But when your minor child is 12, 10, 13, they are children. They don't know. And they can't be expected to know better. And I'm not a parent, but I know damn well that minor children don't know everything they need to know, especially about riding safely. And it's insane, right? So you need to encourage your children to wear something. If it's an electric bicycle, electric scooter, electric motorcycle, no matter how small, if they're riding in traffic, and by the way, if they're telling you they're not, they're lying, they need to wear a helmet. If they're riding in traffic, they need at least a full face helmet, like a dirt bike helmet would be good, even a light motorcycle helmet. They are dangerous, just as dangerous. Ask your local emergency room how many children they've seen come in because they're not wearing anything. That's not good. Bicycle speeds, we're talking zero to 15, that's bicycle safety gear, bicycle helmets, bicycle gloves. And outside the bicycle lane over that 20, 30, 40, now you're in motorcycle products. I remember riding a lime scooter, the stand-up scooter, you can rent it, and ride around by the half hour. I would ride it from here to the Ravzilla store, which is a mile. And I'm riding in the bicycle lane, but not every street has a bicycle lane. So I'm riding in traffic, terrified. I don't have a helmet on. I don't have any control. I don't have any safety gear, but I'm moving at speeds that I would normally feel comfortable geared up. And so after that couple of times, I decided, well, I got to do a helmet. My official recommendation is bicycle lane is bicycle gear. Traffic lanes would be motorcycle gear. However, I do know that people on bicycles ride in traffic. If you're on a vehicle where you're predominantly riding in traffic at traffic speed, of course you want to share the road, but the bicycle people are pedaling at five miles an hour. They're not pedaling at 40. They're just sharing the lane. My message is to the people in traffic riding at the speed of traffic. You're going 30, just like the cars around you. That's where you should really be considering real protective product. And if you're not comfortable doing head to toe, do a helmet. Do some gloves, maybe start there. At least a helmet at the bare minimum. So at least your head will be working even though the rest of your body might not.

Robin: Banner at higher revs can be found via the gear chick website or by emailing joanne directly that email address by the way is.

Joanne: Help at gear chick.com

Robin: Let's just talk about this very organic liquefied dial of what is defined as what now that there's all just a matter of how much voltage how much battery power and a single moving part whether it's one wheel, or in my case definitely a segue way only for style points.

Brian: One thing i liked what joanne said was there's like i was wondering where the dividing line is and joanne defined it very well if you're in traffic i would say you're on a motorcycle if you're mixing it up in traffic you're with the cars if you're in that bicycle lane if you're under you know even if there is no bicycle lane if you're doing bicycle things and you're a bicycle, even if you're augmented with electricity. I like the way Joanne defined that. If you're in traffic, you're mixing up with cars, you're a motorcycle. My gateway drug for motorcycles was bicycles, specifically mountain biking. I had thousands and thousands of very hardcore off-road mountain biking that happened. And then my band got successful enough that I bought a motorcycle and then it was all over. Seriously, that's about how it went. Like, oh, I've got money. I can buy a cheap motorcycle. I've got just enough. And the way I looked at it was anything, any gateway drug, anything that gets people on two wheels, anything that gets people having fun on two wheels, I'm all for it. And whether it's a bicycle and they stay with the machines with pedals and so forth, or, you know, they step up, they use an electric motorcycle to get to work and they need to buy the gear or the hoodie or whatever. You know like she answered the big question where's the dividing line i think that's a great way to put it you're in traffic you're on a motorcycle you got to act like it and you got to have some training parents send your kids out on these damn things unless you know you know what they're doing you see that all the time though kids on pretty powerful electric bicycles doing really dumb stuff they're not toys they're not bicycles anymore when they're in the middle of traffic crossing an interstate that 12 year old was trying to act like a motorcycle had no idea what he was doing and he was running a green running the red light

Robin: Right away share the road right away.

Brian: What i'm really looking forward to is, like, I don't think there's anything sacred about internal combustion. I like it. It really sounds cool. But I really look forward to the day when you can do a 250-mile ride on an electric motorcycle. That would be cool.

Robin: It would be great. I hope it happens. At the same time, lithium is land rape. It is an incredibly rough thing to mine. Yeah. And while the utopia that we all hope for, solar balance of charging batteries and lithium, lithium is devastating to the landscape. If you have a beautiful view of a mountain and there's lithium in it, that whole thing is fracked, flat gone. Just so they can say, look, now we're anything that is more progressive on the, resources front than the current state of America, who's like, you know, let's get back into coal. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: It's a complicated thing to get the storage.

Brian: You know, there's a whole conversation that we're not going to have about existing as humans is going to cause damage.

Robin: Right.

Brian: Of some sort somewhere.

Robin: George Carlin, Earth is going to be fine. We're fucked.

Brian: Yeah. I'd love for another chemistry to pan out and to, you know, something that's less harmful and so forth. But getting back to our little corner of what we care about, are electric motorcycles fun? Hell yeah. You've actually ridden one. I have not.

Joanne: I had one for a year on Borrow back when I used to work at the dealership. I worked at probably a dealership that also took on Brammo Electrics at the time. It was when Xero first started and Brammo's no longer or they got bought out and then basically eliminated. But they had at the time a $15,000 naked electric with like a hundred mile range. It didn't have a letter designation. It had an actual name, and I did not borrow that one. I'd written that one before, but I was able to borrow their smaller city

Robin: The M-Pulse R.

Joanne: The M-Pulse is the big one. And I borrowed the small one, which was the equivalent of like a 200cc supermoto. Like, or it's just a skinny, tall, really tall, really skinny, but super light. I got a 10-mile range out of it. If I was paying attention to the speed limit on flats, it was called like the Electro. It had some cute little name, but I had it for a year and it was awesome. So much fun. And in San Francisco, it was the perfect two-wheel vehicle. I could lane split so easy, but I would use the entire battery on a one-way because I had hills. I had to go through Twin Peaks, which was up elevation, because I could get like 45 on the downhill. It was great. I had it for a year, and I opted not to buy it. Looking back, I'm kind of glad I didn't because the range was really small. But I did have it for a year. It was great. It's really fun. And it's its own kind of fun, like a scooter. A scooter is fun in its own way. But when you start comparing them, like, oh, it's not as fun as a motorcycle. No, it's different. And it's its own fun, just like spiders, just like Can-Ams. They're their own fun. They're just different. They're not motorcycles. So have fun, you know. But the electrics to me was just like that. You just felt like you were on a really heavy bicycle.

Robin: What are some things we want to talk about next time? I've already put my notes in here. I know what I want to talk about if you guys are open to it.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

Robin: We've discussed the benefits of physical maps and we've gone through the motions to make sure we have them on hand. Now it's okay to explore digital routing solutions, new and old. I've already got an exacting list and reasoning to back up my choices, but for fun, I'll spend the next week investigating the virtual rookie newcomers and entering the app arena for motorcycle navigation.

Brian: Yeah, and we covered this sort of thing in the past, but things have changed. Things are changing. And there's some new stuff that's really interesting.

Robin: Some old stuff has gotten just that much better too. They're just like, oh, oh no, we got ideas, you know? Pretty cool. That's what I'm into for next week. You guys down?

Brian: I'm up, I'm down.

Joanne: I'm always down.

Brian: What do kids say? I'm sideways, yeah. What do you kids say now?

Joanne: I don't know who you're calling kids.

Robin: Is that what's hot on the streets?

Joanne: I think you're stuck in the wrong decade. Yes.

Brian: I'm sideways.

Robin: You guys ready to get out of here?

Brian: Let's go.