Robin: Hey everybody, I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: And I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: And this is the Riding Obsession podcast. Today we'll be talking about our big plans for 2017. Land speed riding, VoloLite's installation, and more. I'll take this opportunity to mention we're always looking for sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focus mentions toward the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment.

Travis: If you're not in need of advertising but are willing to donate regardless, it's worth noting that we're always accepting contributions via PayPal. Our beggar's email is easy enough to remember. It's donate-v1 at theridingobsession.com. That's donate-v as in Victor, the number one at theridingobsession.com. So Robin, how's your month been going?

Robin: Good question. Honestly, there's so much to tell since the last time we did this, and I can't think of a good place to start. Heck, we still have writing to do about topics from mid-season like the Ozarks in Florida, etc. My wife's 675 Street Triple. That's kind of new to us. I'm still slowly winterizing and repairing or updating our flock. The bandit needs a bit of special attention as she's just hit the 50k mark. 47,000 of those miles belong to yours truly. The Hawk GT has taken its 15th fall again.

Travis: This time it was run over by someone?

Robin: It was run over by a friend who felt awful for having done so. So I'm ordering parts and upgrading bits and features, one of which is a GPS speedometer with a built-in tachometer that I designed myself over at speedhut.com. If you go to speedhut.com, they've got a whole bunch of different gauges where you get to pick your own font and backlit setup, and whether it's light or dark dial setup and all that stuff, it's really pretty cool. So I got that on the way. I can't wait to see it. I got to figure out how I'm going to mount it. But the truth is that I love both of my go-to bikes, but there's a part of me that's at kind of a crossroads. Do I keep what I have and get the B12 to 100,000 miles just so I can say I did, or do I trade it and the GT in for something newer? I still have sort of a crush on the not-so-new Suzuki GSX-FA 1250, and then Matthew Thrun over at Woodstock Triumph and KTM here in Illinois, he totally messed with my brain showing me this uber-sexy Super Duke GT 1290. And I don't know, it's like the cross between those two bikes. I don't know what I want to do.

Travis: Yeah, I remember when the, I guess, teaser videos came out for the Duke 1290, and it was basically just 90 seconds of a guy doing burnouts in an airfield. Remember that video that came out? It was like, it was a hanger, and it was backlit, and then he just starts doing burning rubber, and then the smoke billows and billows, and then you just see this motorcycle shoot out of this cloud of tire smoke.

Robin: Yeah, it was a lot of slow-mo.

Travis: Yeah, and a lot of only being on one wheel. If there was two wheels on the ground, the back one was smoking, and if the back one wasn't smoking, then there was only one wheel on the ground.

Robin: Well, have you seen a photo of the GT?

Travis: Yeah, it's got a bigger fairing and gas tank and luggage and a windscreen.

Robin: Yeah, it's a fully adjustable windscreen where you sort of grab the top of it, and you can just pull it to the position you want it while you're riding. Built-in heated grips, everything's, you know, KTM grade.

Travis: Yeah, and how much does it cost?

Robin: It's a mere, do you want euros, pounds? It's $20,000. $20,000. So, if I go that route, I'm going to have a lot of splaining to do to anybody who's ever written for the site as to how much the site has made, but yeah. Anyhow, what about you, man? How was your month, week, month, past 10 years? How's your decade been?

Travis: Oh, it's been good. So, back in 2006, yeah, I mean, it's been good. You know, the holidays of, well, I guess New Year's is still coming, and Christmas came and went, and the in-laws came up, and then the last morning they were here after Christmas, our furnace quit on us, which is always good when you're in Wisconsin in December. Luckily, we've just been blowing the fireplace on full blast and running some fans and space heaters, and then I got a guy out to look at it, and he didn't have parts for this 20-year-old furnace, but when he came and looked at it, showed me how to get to all the parts on it, and so when he left, I went in and took my furnace apart and found a fried circuit board, and then went online and bought one and had it overnighted and put it in, and now it works fine. So, go for DIY, fix my own furnace.

Robin: What was the difference in price?

Travis: Oh, so the circuit board was $75, but it was $30 to overnight it because, you know, overnight shipping. A new furnace would have been $2,800.

Robin: $2,800?

Travis: I called another company just to see, because this guy just came out and looked at it for free, and then said he'd sell me a furnace. I called another company. They wanted $100 just to come out.

Robin: Right. What else?

Travis: Yeah, nothing much. I mean, I've kind of been neglecting the bike so far. I kind of put them up for the winner, and I do want to at some point do a valve check on the DRZ since I don't know. So, I kind of love to hate that bike. It's just such a bulletproof beater of a dirt bike. I just don't care. I rode it for like three months before I changed the oil on it, after I bought it. I didn't change the oil when I bought it. The guy said he put new oil in, and the oil looked pretty new. So, I was like, oh, well, whatever. I'll go ride all this stuff on it, and then I'll change the oil before winter.

Robin: That bike's pretty much designed to get spanked, though. Am I right?

Travis: Yeah. But I want to take it apart and check the valves on it and just kind of get into a little bit and see if there's anything too much out of place. I kind of want to see what jetting is in it, too, because it does have an aftermarket pipe and the common airbox mod. The DRZ is the 3x3 mod. You look on any forum. It's the common practice to cut a hole in the airbox to let it breathe better. So, I don't know what kind of jetting was put in the carburetor after those things were done, so I'll have to look at that. And then I kind of want to do a DIY paint job on the tank of the big one, my 94 CB1000, just because it's all hazed. Well, you've seen it's all hazed and peeled and cracked on the tank.

Robin: It's a lovely haze and peel.

Travis: Oh, which is why I like it, because I don't have to care about scratches or anything. But I thought maybe if I can try my hand at doing a DIY, just kind of a good rattle can job of it, sand it down nice, prime it, paint it, sand it, clear coat it, sand it, clear coat it kind of deal.

Robin: Yeah, and misting, misting. It's all about that floaty cloud of paint.

Travis: Yeah, like light coats. I could just plaster dip it or hit it with bed liner if I feel like going that route. And if I feel, if I want to sell it, then it'll be better if it looks a little better. I did buy a lambskin, like the lambswool seat cover.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Travis: And then I took an old sleeping, camping sleeping mat I had that's the closed cell foam and cut it up into layers and kind of shaped it. And I just stuck it on top of the existing seat and then put the lambswool over top of that, which actually seems seems to good. I only rode it once before the snow came. So but we'll see. I might actually rip the vinyl off the seat and kind of glue that foam in and sculpt it out a little bit more and recover the seat. Maybe if I am feeling so, so industrious and then trying to decide whether or not I feel like you and me both like over the winter, we're like, can we we just sell everything in the spring and buy something shiny?

Robin: Yeah, that's yeah, I can totally relate to that.

Travis: Yeah, because I went to the dealer the other day, I was just looking at stuff was like, so shiny, so shiny. But my local dealer, Englehart here in Madison's got a lightly used low miles with bags, the same bags that are on Margaret's street triple the base connection. It was just a little bar that comes out. Yeah, that's a cool setup. So it comes with those and FZ1 for you know, not too much.

Robin: You know, those are expandable. They're quite expandable.

Travis: Yeah, yeah. I look at the job. And then they also have an F800ST, the the earlier generation of the BMW, the twin with the belt drive and with bags and not too much.

Robin: Do you know if that one has that bearing issue at all or anything like that?

Travis: As far as I know, there aren't any major I've heard a couple of guys had fueling issues with those. But I'd have to ride it anyway, before I bought anything that will check it. But yeah, so that's what my month just pining and waiting for the snow to melt. Actually, I've been debating taking the DRZ out this winter because the roads are pretty clear. And there's another guy, Jeff here at Madison who rides all winter and he knows a guy in Cleveland that'll do DOT knobbies with DOT studs in them. Nice. And that's what he's got for he has two BMW S650 Dakars.

Robin: So those are like street legal studs.

Travis: Where studs are street legal. Yeah, but they're like the they're not the big gnarly like ice racing off road studs that look like bolt heads. They're like the little the little DOT studs. So when you when you ride on the pavement, they sink into the rubber. And they don't like wear in. They don't wear off real fast. And then when you hit the ice, they grab so they're not you know, because basically his thing is like no one's gonna like even if you can't have studs where you live on your car, if you're on a motorcycle and it's winter, no one's gonna care.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, so that's that's been my month. You know, but we can take a look here. What are some of the updated site features and developments on the riding obsession.com you've been working on Robin?

Robin: Hey, well, my wife, Mrs. Dean, Ms. Margaret Dean, writer of the Street Triple R 675. She just posted our year end review for 2016. And despite my and many negative outcomes that we've seen in the world of celebrities this year, all in all, it was a fun year in motorcycling. Like I said, I covered 15,000 miles total this year and met a lot of new friends along the way, which is what amounted to my almost 50,000 miles on the bike. I'm in the process of building a guided motorcycle tour engine for the site whereby I and a select group of experienced motorcyclists will be able to lead prepaid vacation type motorcycle getaways. A bonus to this is I've no problem with third party contributions like non riding obsession guides posting their guided tours on the site, although it'll be for a fee because that's what we're up to do is make a little bit of bank here and there. And of course, there's the constant creation and remedy of code bugs in the site, which in the long run, it's all making it more solid and reliable. We have a new cash system. So the site's loading off faster. The weather page has been updated. You know, this is the sort of on and off downtime for the site where if you go to the site and it doesn't look right, well, we're probably working on it.

Travis: Nerd.

Robin: Yep. Yep. Code geek. Code monkey here. And from with that, I'm going to move on to a new feature. We've got a new podcast format. That's what I'm really excited about. And we're even editing it as we go through it. As you're listening. One of those things is guest interviews.

Travis: And this month's interview features Rich Scheidleck. He's a land speed record aficionado who spent countless hours building a dry lake ready Suzuki.

Robin: How's it going? I'm recording and everything. I'm recording and everything. In typical fashion. I brought you something to work on for Oh, okay. Oh, sweet.

Rich: Good to see you. How you been? I'm good. I'm good. So let's go.

Robin: You're my very first interesting person that like we changed up the whole format for the podcast. So this is this for me is like, exciting to hopefully I can make it interesting. So what are you working on? Like today?

Rich: And today, I'm trying to get some of the loose ends on this. This was going to be a mile bike. That's the mountain to have. I mean, that's the Bonneville bike. Okay.

Robin: Okay.

Rich: Basically, there's Suzuki GS chassis. This one has been braced. I made a new steering neck. It's got a lot more rake in it than a stock bike. Yeah. Okay. And I braced it here. And this is just a dummy motor in it for right now. It's got a Hayabusa swing arm. These are rare sets for, you know, kind of laying stretched out. Yeah, riding the bike in there. This will basically run either a 1327 or I got a 1640 kit. 1640 should easily give me 225 to 250 horse, you know, so that's what I want to put in here because it's... Is that the gear ratio? No, it's 1640.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: Displacement CCs.

Robin: Oh, okay.

Rich: Okay. It's like working in one pistons. Yeah, just a pure explosion machine.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: Pour gas on an open fire and watch it go. I went with Hayabusa front forks. Okay. They're inverted. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. And I've got the blue front fender there. See that first blue part? Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That's like a streamlined fender. There are certain rules. You can't cover the complete... That's the blue I want to go with. It's like sky blue. Yeah. It fits in here. That is gorgeous. And then with the fairing in there because of the class I want to run in all that, you know.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: And this is really only have about an inch, inch and a quarter of suspension travel and it'll be low, you know. Yeah. So you're not really, you're not going off-road. Yeah. The fuel tank, I mean, it's not going to be like typically a drag bike. You have the fuel back on up here and that, but I'll just have a smaller tank in the back here. I don't even want like a gallon.

Robin: Yeah. I was going to say how much gas do you carry?

Rich: Just enough.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: I would never make two passes at, you know, that's 12 miles. I should be able to get six miles. I mean, you know, that kind of 12 miles per gallon though. Yeah. That's cool.

Robin: I was going to say just enough to coast across the line.

Rich: Yeah.

Robin: Barely make the finish, but at speed. Yeah. Well, let me bust out my magic questions and then, I mean, that's. Yeah, let's go over here. Well, first question. When did you first become interested in motorcycling, just generally interested in motorcycling?

Rich: Probably when I was, I'll go call it two wheel, two wheeling. Okay. And I was eight years old in Chicago. My buddy and I, we lived on the northwest side and the two of us, we bought a mini bike. Don't ask me how we got the money, but it was only like $20, you know, so. How many CC?

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: It was a age 51. So I think it was less than 100 CC. I want to say it's either a 51 or 75 CC. It was like three and a half horsepower, you know?

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: And that's what we used to go up and down the alleys with. I mean, it was a bitch to get it running. I mean, it was a two stroke motor, you know, but once it got running though, it ran good.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: It was cooked up. But we'd take turns and we'd go, you know, each guy got like 15 minutes. And basically we stayed in the alleys in Chicago. So you had a block long and then you had to watch the side streets and shoot across, you know? And so that was my first two wheel endeavor, so to speak.

Robin: Sounds like that would be an introduction to your first sense of linear riding.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, that first winter day we had the bike, I took the motor apart and I read somewhere, I think it was in Hot Rod or one of the, maybe it was a bike magazine, porting the exhaust ports to change the timing on a two stroke. So I took the cylinder off and I'm filing the, it was like a round port. You make it like a house shaped port, you know? And that makes it give it a little more horsepower, so to speak. I don't know. Me, eight years old, nine years old, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I'm in there filing these three ports through it in this Power Products motor.

Robin: See, that's a heck of an early start.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: Well, you know. So then based on that, that's a long while back. How did you transition into land speed riding?

Rich: There was a pretty gap in between there, but I was always interested in, well, put it this way. There was some kind of bike gang, Harley Davidsons, you know, all the bikers are like a block or two over. And I would go down, ride my bike or walk over to the alley and I would just watch them in the garage. You know, they would be working on the bikes and stuff like that. And they were, you know, they were probably house henchmen or something. I don't know. But they didn't bother me. They were cool with me looking in there. And I just got really interested in the bike part of it and that. But the land speed part of it came when I got older and I was getting these Hotline magazines and stuff, you know? Rather than sport magazines, I was getting Hotline magazines or my buddy's older brother had them and I would go to them. And typically like the September or the October issue would have the results from Bonneville from August. You know, so I'd really like the fall issues better, you know, because the cars were more bizarre looking in there. And you didn't see a lot of bike stuff, but there was some, you know, there was some older guys that were running the bikes, you know, Vesco's and stuff like that, you know? So I think that was my initial, you know, and I like drag racing, but I couldn't go to drag races other than my buddy and his dad helped set up a Pioniac Road Super Stock Racing. And so they dragged me and my buddy Roger, we were seventh graders, to the drag strip Union Grove, you know? And I thought that was pretty cool, but it's too short. It's only a quarter mile. But just the whole, you know, when you're little, the excitement of being in that environment was kind of cool, you know?

Robin: Power, a lot of noise.

Rich: Yeah, the noise and everybody's coming over by your car or, you know. So I think I always had the motor bug, so to speak, you know? And it just so happened that the minibike happened to be the first thing because it was convenient.

Robin: And looking around, there had to have been some kind of a transition into machining.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, probably. I mean, my grandfather, he wasn't in any kind of machining, but my uncle, after my grandparents had passed away, we moved out to the suburbs, Franklin Park. And my Uncle Wally, he was a bonfire machinist, you know what I mean? He was the top machinist that the company worked for in Chicago, you know? And he had a lathe in his garage and a drill press and stuff. And so basically what he showed me and then what I practiced, played on my own, that's where I got my initial interest in drilling holes and, you know, turning metal, so to speak, you know? I'm by far not a machinist, don't get me wrong. I'm more of a hobbyist machinist. I can maybe do some stuff better and other stuff. You know, I mean, like anything else, you got to know what your limits are and what you're capable of.

Robin: You can't discount how many times you've helped me out.

Rich: Yeah.

Robin: How many times you've fixed my mistakes.

Rich: Yeah, but that's, maybe that's, you know, as you get older, it's just experiences help you then. And you think, well, why? Why do I have to do this? Why am I taking a big survey? It's only going to take another day, you know?

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: Yeah, I'm good with that, you know? So I think that's where I got my initial bug was just tearing my bike apart every winter, painting it, working with the mini bike. We were always trying to build a go-kart and using the bed frames, we cut the rail, you know, they had like angle iron on the back spring and they weren't enclosed, so we'd cut the angle iron, but the hardest part, and Brittany, we were active, but the hardest part was the steering, you know?

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: Yeah, and so we'd get like strollers, you know, like the little baby strollers and try to adapt it, but we could never get it right, you know? You got to remember, we were eight, nine years old, ten years old, and we didn't have a lot to work with.

Robin: Yeah, that's pretty ingenuitive for such a young age. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's just naturally ingenuitive and...

Rich: Yeah, and just trying to make some work because it would be cool.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: But I didn't get my first go-kart until I was 40 years old when I started racing go-karts. My buddy's son got involved with sprint karts, it's like a sit-up kart, you know, which you're familiar with. He was using a Yamaha KT100, you know, but there was like a 70-mile-an-hour go-kart, but there's a sprint kart, but they had more acceleration. Okay. But they didn't have the top end, but the races were over like in a minute and a half, you know, and it's like, well, this is, you know, I want to go longer, you know? So, and I think we went to a go-kart show and I saw an enduro kart, which is like a lay-down kart, and I started investigating that a little bit, and it turned out I found a chassis for sale, and I went to Black Hawk Farms, and that's where I found an ad for the chassis in the men's bathroom, you know?

Robin: Oh, nice.

Rich: And the guy, his name was Joe Britton, who we were good friends, and I've been friends for like 20-plus years now, you know? He had a chassis for sale, so I bought that, and he said, well, I'll show you the ropes, you know, you got to come down to Putnam Park, down in Indy, down in Indianapolis, you know? And so that was the first race, you know, and basically I was kind of sitting on top of the kart because he was about a seven inches smaller than me, and so I'm looking back at some of the old pictures, I felt like I was just laying on top of four wheels, you know? That's what I felt like, but I didn't look. But I finished my first race, but the races were 45 minutes, and so you're out there for a full 45 minutes, you know?

Robin: That'll give you a chance to actually kind of get it out.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, you know, you stretch your legs, and you know, but just learning to drive it was a whole different, especially on your back, you know? It was a whole different experience, you know? And I was hooked, and I did that for six, seven years, you know? Every year, okay, okay, I'm going to do this and this this winter, just like when I was a little kid. Made changes, and then come spring, you know, we go out there, and then tweak, adjust. Yeah, yeah, and it was fun. I got my nephew involved with it, enduro racing. It's not enduro like off-road, it's on, we were using Road America, Groton, Gingerman, Putnam Park. I've been to VIR in Virginia.

Robin: These are complicated tracks.

Rich: Oh yeah, but they're automobile tracks, you know?

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: And the nice thing about it, they're wide enough for, we don't slow down for the turns. I mean, the turns, you lose a couple miles per hour, so that's why, consequently, the carts were quicker than probably 90% of the cars.

Robin: Yeah, the runoff is still on the track.

Rich: Yeah, because you're, yeah, you know, you're drifting, you're not, you're not letting off the, you're not touching the brake, you know? So you might not have, you might have 100 mile top speed, but you're going to turn at 70 where he's got to slow down to 30.

Robin: Yeah, no brakes.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, even in the case with motorcycles, they slow down pretty much for the turns, you know?

Robin: Yeah, well, I know Gingerman, that was my first track day, and that's, that track is not messing around, you know? It's got a lot of hidden, hidden gem tricks to you.

Rich: Oh yeah, well, you know, the first year that track opened, there was no grass holding the sand and dust, so the track was constantly covered with a fine layer of dust, specifically when the wind was coming off the lake, you know? And talk about a hairy tractor drive the first year or two until the grass filled in and held the top soil and sand down, you know? So Gingerman was interesting, though.

Robin: Well, okay, somewhere in between there, a lot must have happened, and then, and then things straightened out, so to speak, where you're going, and we'll get to that question in a moment, but, you know, considering your machining capabilities, here you are on a motorcycle going who knows how fast, all these things you have to machine, maintain, wrench on, how long do the motors, the plugs, all the parts, how long do they tend to last in land speed racing?

Rich: Well, I mean, let's start with the bike, the build-up of the bike, you know, that's, you know, typically each organization, there's like three or four different organizations, the rules are kind of similar, you know, they all, and the classes are very similar, there might be minor differences, you know, but basically they all try to, so you can go, I can go out to the East Coast and run as well as out to El Mirage if I want, and then there's a class for me to run, okay? So typically with any race field, whether it's a bike or a go-kart or a motorcycle or a car, there's the safety thing, you gotta take care of the safety wiring, okay? Mainly they want you to be able to come back and race again next time and that, you know, so that's what, that's probably a lot of the build-up, it's just making the frames stiff and stuff like that, you know, I'm running a modified partially streamlined, so that's why I can cover the front tire with this fender.

Robin: No, that's key right there, modified partially streamlined.

Rich: Yeah, it's, it can be, it has to be a stock frame, but it can be beeped up, but it's got to be a Suzuki motor, okay, because I'm running a Suzuki frame, and I can't, and I can't cover anything past the rear axle, I can't have a, I can't have like a big tail on the back, because they got a streamlined class, then that's basically your, the total front wheels and, and the bike are in like a, looks like a teardrop, you know?

Robin: Yeah, so they don't want you to sculpt wind that's behind you.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want, you want to, in streamlining, you want to keep the, the wind attached to your surface, and then you want to bring it back together, you don't want it to tumble and, because that, that turbulence will slow you down and all that.

Robin: So they sort of limit that a little bit.

Rich: Yeah, and that's fine, you can run a streamlined class, and, and, but like example in a car, if you run a Lakester, and you put two, you cover the rear, and that's all four wheels open, you cover the rear two tires, you're a streamliner, and, and you're going to get killed, because you're not, I'm not literally, because you're going to be running against full-blown high-tech streamliners, you know, so why would you go in the streamline class, you know, just because you got two little fairings on top of your rear tires, but that's what happened, and the bike, it's a little different, you know, it's, it's more so for, in a bike, it makes a fair amount of difference, having some fairings on it, and it helps if you're a little smaller guy too,

Robin: which I'm not, that's, that also, I mean, so that answers, you know, what kind of bike you register, and what, what speeds are you typically reaching?

Rich: Typically when you start out with it, you gotta, you gotta do licensing runs, you know, you gotta run 125, the guy at the starting line signs you ticket, you gotta run 150, then you gotta run, if you, depending on where you're going, 175, okay, this isn't, for example, a mile, I'm not talking boundary yet, okay, well, but it's the same, it's the same steps though, okay, yeah, and so even, even though I might qualify in Ohio, and I go to boundary, I gotta do the whole thing again, so you're basically, you're, you're ranking up by, uh, top end speed, yeah, yeah, you need, you need acceleration, you know, and, and you only got, uh, 50 to 180 feet to get there, okay, okay, that's when they start clocking you, no, that's when they, yeah, when you, when you hit the, you hit the, the mile, it's like 132 feet, that, that's where they get your speed from, so you actually have a little more time after the, the mile to go, okay, but, so you gotta get up there quick, you just can't, you know, nail it, you know, halfway down, because you, you don't have enough, because, because gearing's involved with it and all that, and, uh, my, my goal is, is to go, is to go 200 on the bike, uh, on an air-cooled Suzuki bike, yeah, you know, it's, it's a little harder with the air-cooled motors, because, uh, thermodynamically, you're limited in how much power will last that long, you know, because the heat build-up is, you know, but there's bikes, uh, I mean, the, the, the Pro Sock drag bikes and Suzuki's, they're still based on the, the early 80s Suzuki bikes, and that's a GS motor, right, yeah, so, I mean, that's a linear torque curve, uh, well, ideally, it'd be linear, yeah, I mean, you, you want to, you want to, and that's the key, you wouldn't think that torque is a big deal, but it is, particularly if you're going longer, like at Bonneville, if you're going three, four, five miles, you need torque to keep you, uh, going, where, horsepower's nice to have, but that's, torque is really, uh, what it's all about, and the linear, nice linear torque curve is important, and, and, and the torque is all about the right camshafts, uh, the right gearing, um, you know,

Robin: carburation tuning, and, okay, so, what, what brought you to Suzuki, what made you choose this bike? How did you end up a Suzuki guy?

Rich: Well, I was originally Kawasaki, I mean, my first bike, uh, 1970, my first real motorcycle was 1975, I was 25 years old, whatever, um, I bought a champion cycle in, in Hoffman Estates from Tiny, it was a real gem, you know, but, but anyway, it was, it was 1976, but it was a 75 miles, the last year they made a Z1, and so, I bought that bike, and that's the only bike I wanted to have, you know, so, I picked it up in my van, I brought it living on a farm in Schaumburg, I taught myself to ride it on the farm, we had, like, uh, gravel driveways and all that, and then, a week later, I put it in the back of the van, I took it down to, uh, to, uh, Lombard, Lombard, to get my license on it, and the first thing, uh, the, the testing guy said, why'd you get it here? Listen, back in my van, he says, the back of your van? I said, yeah, and then he looked at the van, I had the ramp still out, you know, I wheeled it out, and back then, you just had a, a parking lot behind the building that we had to do, he wanted to see how you could handle it slow, you know, you turn box, yeah, yeah, stuff like that, you know, and so, uh, passed the test, pushed it back in the van, and, uh, started riding, you know, so, yeah, uh, so, that was, uh, you know, that's how I got into my first bike, so to speak, you know, but the, but I, but I got into Suzuki's, uh, only because I, I, I had a Harley for about three months, and it was a kickstart only, it was an AMF, actually, you know, it was, uh, 73 or 74, and I about broke my ankle twice on it, I mean, I had a knot on the side of my ankle that was the size of a tennis ball, you know, and my buddy Mel, uh, he had a, a Suzuki GS, and he's laughing at me, because he could get it started, but I couldn't get it started, so, uh, he says, hey, Rich, you wanna, you wanna trade bikes? I said, what do you mean? He says, well, I got this GS, I'll trade it for your, your Harley, you know, I said, well, no, there's gotta be some money involved, and he says, well, a buck, okay, okay, a buck, I'll trade you for a buck, you know, yeah, I had enough with the Harleys, I don't know, and I never really was a Harley guy, you know, so, that was, that's how I started out, it was a, it was an, uh, 82 GS, uh, E, you know, and, so, I had that, 1100 E, or 750 E, 1100 E, yeah, yeah, that was 1100, yeah, I'd like to have a Ducati, or one of those, you know, or the BMWs, yeah, that's like, but I'm not gonna spend 25

Robin: grand for a bike, yeah, I'm not going to the College of NASA to work, yeah, yeah, you know,

Rich: and it's like, I mean, those bikes, you can know the ZX-14 from Kawasaki, I mean, or the H2 that they got now, you can go 200 right out of the showroom, you know, what's the challenge to that, right?

Robin: Yeah, no, build it, and build it, and take pride in what you did.

Rich: I think, I mean, I like the fabrication part of it, I like being more intimate with the bike, I know, uh, what I have there, and, and it's a challenge, I guess, to do it, you know, it's just, uh, this, here's a

Robin: complicated question, I'm not even really sure how to ask this, but I hope that I can make sense of what I mean by it, and that's, are the multiple riding locations honored collectively in one, like, global scoring system?

Rich: No, not really, yeah.

Robin: Is it track by track?

Rich: Uh, it's more by organization by organization.

Robin: Oh, okay.

Rich: Okay, one organization might have several different locations they run at, like Southern California Timing Association, they run out of El Mirage, okay, and they run out of Bonneville, okay, ECTA, East Coast Timing Association.

Robin: But that's only two, that's only two tracks for one organization.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, but they, but they'll have multiple meets, uh, at El Mirage, up in the Dry Lakes, they'll have three or four meets in the summer, and then Bonneville, they'll have, um, they have two or three, and then Utah Association, which has the same rules and the same stuff, and they're part of SCTA, they have a race later in the fall, you know, uh, then there's an organization out east that, but they're up in Maine, they're at the far northern tip of the country, you know, and it's like 1,200 miles from here.

Robin: It's also gonna be climactically, or climate-wise, like climate-wise, it's gonna be different.

Rich: So, uh, yeah, yeah, the courses and the time of the year you run and stuff like that, but, but basically it's the same, you know, they got partially streamlined, they got fully streamlined in there, but, but typically on the mile courses, you'll see more guys show up, more guys show up with their bike, and it's all been prepped to run on a track to run a mile, you know, because it's a little easier on a, on a motorcycle to, uh, uh, to prep it for a mile, as opposed to, you know, I mean, just going to Bonneville, we're running a lake out there, just to go to Bonneville, run the car for three days, make maybe two, three passes, and then bring it back, that's seven grand, you know, for a car, okay.

Robin: And a lot of travel, too.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, 1,300, 1,400 miles from Chicago, you know, and, and they're, you know, we're pulling a 32-foot trailer, you know, and the hostels, they normally get 60 and 75 bucks per, they're charging you 250 for them. Just because it's, yeah, because you're a racer, and you're not in the gambling hall pulling that arm, you know, so.

Robin: You say weed, you basically team up with some of your friends, and you all go, or?

Rich: Yeah, we're, we're, I'm part of a crew for a AA Gas Lakester, and, uh, we had a record back in 09 for about a day. Uh, we went 276, we upped the record from 260-something to 276.

Robin: 24 miles shy of 300 miles an hour.

Rich: Yeah, but, but to go 300 miles an hour, it's, uh, because with the equipment we have, it's a little dated and all that. Yeah. And now the record was brought up that same week to 299, okay? Now it's 314, and he knows to go, even to go 300, that's what he would. On this class? No, on a Lakester now, I'm talking a car.

Robin: Okay, yeah, okay.

Rich: It's, it's just cubic dollars, and it would be the same thing with the bikes, you know. If I want to go, I don't know that I can go, uh, 215, 225 on an air-cooled motor. I would be really surprised, you know.

Robin: But that's kind of the scale, that's the goal, that's, that's.

Rich: The goal is to go, me, the goal is to go 200.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: Uh, the record at, for Ohio, I think it's about 208, 209, which is doable.

Robin: If anybody who knows their stuff hears that, they're going to raise their eyebrows and say, you did that. And they're going to, that's kind of the, that's the credit. That's, that's the legitimacy.

Rich: Yeah, I mean, you don't, you don't get none for it. If you do get the record, all you get is your name and a little book, and you know, you get a time slip. That's about it, you know. There's no, there's no prizes.

Robin: In the end, it's because you like to do it.

Rich: Yeah, because you like to do it, yeah. You like, you know, you're, you're the guy's record who, who's holding it. If he thought you needed help or a part for your bike, most cases, the guys will give you the parts you need, you know. I mean, they're willing to help you, push you off the line if you need to, uh, as opposed to, you know, like, uh, NASCAR and, and some of the other racing venues. You can't even get close to the bikes, you know, we're here. I mean, uh, even at Bonneville, if I get the crew pass, I'm, I'm in, uh, you know, even if we're not running a car, I'm in the second, I'm behind the second car taking off, you know. I'm 25 feet away from the car, you know, so where else can you do that?

Robin: Competitive camaraderie.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, and there's got, there's guys that, that's, even though they don't race, they've been coming back year after year after year just for the, you know, camaraderie.

Robin: Not to get into the Burt Monroe.

Rich: Oh yeah, the fastest Indian, yeah.

Robin: Yeah, yeah, and it's like, you know, everybody, anybody who's going to hear Lane Speed Motorcycle, they're going to go to that movie, but have you run into any personal, personal people you've always wanted to meet? Do you bump into them, or has it ever happened in the past?

Rich: Yeah, a couple of the guys that, like Besko, I met when he was still alive, Don Besko, he was a big guy into bikes and that, and he transitioned over to cars, and I think he's going like 450. I mean, he really knew his stuff, you know, and, and to be able to do it, plus take the risk, you know, that, I mean, there's, you know, there's, there's guys that have accidents and don't make it back home, uh, out there because they're going dangerously fast, you know, so.

Robin: 300, 400 miles an hour.

Rich: That was the problem this last summer, uh, the course, even though we finally had salt this, this last summer, two years before we didn't, we couldn't race, this year the course was there, but, but it broke up so fast, the three mile to five mile was like driving through three or four inches of snow. The, the salt was, and plus, uh, it was right above the mud, there's mud below the salt, and so, and you can hear the guys that had traction control in the high speed car, you can hear the motors cutting in and out, in and out, just trying to going straight, you know, so. Yeah, just to balance it out. So the bikes weren't even running on the high speed course, you know, because that's, that's, I mean, that's why we pulled off. We were in line, it was about five, six cars in front, Ted pulled out, I don't blame him, you know, because he didn't feel safe, you know.

Robin: But on that note, 2016, it's been kind of a, it's been a crap year for a lot of things. It's been, it's actually been good for some things.

Rich: Yeah, good for, yeah.

Robin: Crap, crap year in a lot of different ways that, that we don't need to go into too deeply.

Rich: No, no.

Robin: Fame, fame finding its end and, uh, track not being what it needs to be for our own land speed, Rich. And how do I pronounce your name, Rich Scheidlich?

Rich: I don't care how you say it, as long as you're smiling when you say it.

Robin: Yeah.

Rich: You know, that's what I used to tell them.

Robin: That's my friend, Rich Scheidlich, and, uh, I wish you an excellent, beautiful 2017 of perfect racing.

Rich: I can use it.

Robin: And thank you for doing my first interview. All right, cool. All right. And that was the interview with Rich Scheidlich. He, uh, he keeps under the radar pretty well, but if you'd like to find out more about Rich and his activities, just Google land speed, Rich. One word, that's land speed, R-I-C-H. You'll see his presence here and there on the web.

Travis: Yeah. He's also one of those guys that just shows up and fixes stuff.

Robin: Oh yeah. But he does it right.

Travis: Yeah. Did you get your, um, your helicoiled, uh, cam carrier?

Robin: The next day. He's like, just give me that. I'll take it to the machine shop. He goes, you know, it disappears next morning. He's like, how are you doing, buddy? Here you go, kiddo. Like, Oh, I'm a 42 year old man. That's all right, little guy. Here you go. And it's just the nicest man in the world. Um, and yeah, now let's, let's move on to listener questions. This ought to be good.

Travis: Yeah. Listener James Clark writes in after installing Volo lights, calibrating and programming them for touring sensitivity. Everything works as I like, but after turning the motorcycle off and then restarting, I have to reprogram the Volo lights for touring sensitivity. Have you found that Volo lights always start in default sensitivity? No. Yeah. I mean, I have to say, um, I mean, we both liked the Volo light product and think it's a great product, but I had some trouble with mine, um, where they just kind of stopped working. Um, so I, I just ripped them apart and use the housing to put in, um, a static set of LEDs. Uh, one's linked up to the brake light and the other is just static with the tail light.

Robin: And you give it a blinker, right?

Travis: Yeah. And then I put a, uh, I put a relay in it. So the brake light flashes just, you know, like a, like a turn signal relay.

Robin: Yeah. I just, that's pretty cool. And like, like he's saying, it's a great product. It's, I can't not promote that kind of safety because the, the concept is completely sound. And quite frankly, I don't know that anybody, maybe somebody thought of this concept before, but I can't say that anybody put it to practice before this guy did. And the, the unfortunate truth is that as great as Volo lights are, they do have some downsides. You know, my, my license plate is on my fender. That's a shaky area. So I have to put it on the, the most insensitive, the least sensitive setting. And even still every now and then the person who's right behind me will pull up next to me and like, uh, so how, where did you get those strobe lights that are on all the time? Like they're not supposed to do that. They're just on all the time, the whole time.

Travis: Yeah. There's definitely some limitations to it. And yeah, and I feel like, um, at least, you know, in my experience, there's some durability questions. Um, and I don't know if it was water or vibration. Uh, but yeah, mine just stopped working. I could not get them to work. So I, I, like I said, I gutted them and just put static LEDs in their regular, regular LEDs without the, the velocity circuitry. Um, so it might be something, uh, James, if you, um, I don't know if you are under how long you've had them. If you want to reach out to the manufacturer and say, Hey, these are doing this and see if they'll replace it under warranty, um, or give you a possible solution or replacement part.

Robin: It's also possible that he's got it wired in, in some way. That's a little bit wonky. Um, I don't know. And that's not a personal slant. It's mostly just me saying that if you did connect it directly to the battery or anything like that, you know, there's your problem. So I would recheck where it's wired in, uh, it should be wired into something that is key activated. And other than that, yeah, go ahead and reach out to the manufacturer Fazal Ali, I believe is his name. And he's, he's good people. You know, this was his idea. Good guy. Well done. And I'll say, if you have any questions, we love that. Email your questions and concerns to podcast at thewritingobsession.com or you can call us at 773-614-6422. That's 773-614-6422. Podcast at thewritingobsession.com. Now onto this week's new moto mess brought to you, brought to you by the super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power. The super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power. It's super slick, ultra badass, and it's incredibly powerful, but that's just sort of a side note. All right. So here's what we got for this, this month. The Invento, coolest link. You posted that the Invento is, is a kit that where you can, you, you talk about it.

Travis: Yeah, it's basically, um, it's, uh, these aluminum truss rods and some wheels and some gears and some belts and some, uh, some pulleys. And it's sort of a, uh, an erector set. It's the erectors that you always wanted. And that's, uh, it's, you know, for your kids and for you to work with together.

Robin: It's like the freaking erect erectors say you could drive away.

Travis: Yeah. So it actually makes kid size. You can make a kid sized bicycle or a kid sized scooter or a kid side sort of pushcart, um, or a kid sized wagon that they can actually ride. And then you can take it apart and turn it into something that's slightly different. So you can make a kick bicycle, or you can make a standup scooter, or you can make a wagon out of the, out of the kit and they all bolt together and they all come apart. So it's, um, like a large scale erector Lego type thing that you can actually ride.

Robin: Yeah. That thing is neat. So, all right. Onto Rotella T6, uh, Rotella T6, fully synthetic motor oil updated their bottle. They just have a sport bottle. It's a faster bottle.

Travis: Yeah. It's a 100% more blue in every bottle.

Robin: I know that, uh, our good friend, Ryan Chappelle, Plasti-dipped some of his plastic parts and I've got some cracks in the cowling on my bandit. All right. The cowling has a couple of marks. Okay. Yes. I plan, I could, I could epoxy them, right. I could use some JB weld, but in the end, couldn't I Plasti-dip that stuff.

Travis: And it would be like, I don't know if it'd be, I mean, Plasti-dipped.

Robin: I don't mean for strength. I just mean to be like just a jacket.

Travis: You just want to fill, but you want to fill in the, the, as I mean, is it cracked or is it like gouged?

Robin: It's cracked. I mean, it's a, it's like a hairline crack. Maybe it's just on the exterior. I can't see it on the interior. We looked up.

Travis: Then it might, uh, the Plasti-dip might cover it up. And if it's like, there's like something deep, like you'd need like filler or some sort of binding agent on it. Um, but, or what you could do, which I did on the cowling on my DRZ, which was split, which was like this weird flexy dirt bike plastic that like you can't glue with anything. Um, as I just, I, uh, put, uh, JB weld plastic fix putty, um, and just made a gob, you know, like a glue, uh, chewing gum gob of the, the, the plastic fix putty and stuck it on the backside of it. So like on the interior. Yeah. And then it holds the two, the crack pieces together.

Robin: So that's perfect. That, that speaks more to my liking. This is the kind of thing where it's like, maybe I'll take the bike to a hundred thousand.

Travis: Yeah. And then, uh, and then, and then you could Plasti-dip over top of it or whatever.

Robin: Right. Right. Make it look beautiful.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Last on the list, Matt Damon, Liam Nielsen, Isle of Man movie. I hope this is not a rumor. I hope this is the real thing. Cause that's a good, that's a good duo. And if any movie about motorcycling needs to be made, this could be a lot of fun.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, Isle of Man it's, you know what, what's, uh, what's his face. Opie Taylor there made the, um, the one about Formula One racing.

Robin: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yep. Rush. Great movie. I've seen it.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Senna's more of a, of a documenter. Rush is a, you know, a theatrical. Yeah. Ron, Ron Howard. There we go. I can remember everything around Howard. All I can remember is Opie Taylor. Cause you know, but yeah, the, you know, I say that rush is about the hunt, the hunt, louder rivalry.

Robin: Well, with that, I'm going to say it's time to say goodbye. Um, again, we're always looking for sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focus mentions, sort of the start, the middle and the end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put toward bettering the program's content and recording equipment.

Travis: And that's our episode for this month. Uh, tune in next time for more sport touring and general motorcycle discussion.

Robin: For TheRidingObsession.com, I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: And I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: Safe travels, everyone.