Robin: Idaho Route 21 isn't a big mystery, urban legend, or haunted highway, but rides as if it's all three. We learned about it during a blanket search for nearby and hopefully worthwhile sport-touring rides. It's the only paved road connecting Idaho City to anything. The deserted, hermetic environment surrounding its rugged and smooth duality is brought to you by an always dramatic Boise National Forest. To get there, we start with Route 93 due north. As sport-touring motorcycle enthusiasts, we don't often find ourselves having a discussion about that beautiful straight line ride that goes on for 50 miles. We're rabid, curve-carving addicts who unleash the vengeance of our dual-compound tires onto the paved enemy. It's purely for the safety of this gray nation, whichever nation we happen to be riding in at any given time. But this really is, by my own standards, some of the most beautiful backcountry pseudo-slab I've ever easy-ridered. Maybe it's because this is my first ride of multi-day length for some time. Maybe it's the oxygen and altitude. No matter. I'm at peace. The bike is purring, and I know for a fact that I'll be doing battle with countless amazing goat roads in a few hours. Next, it's on to the sweepers of Idaho 75. Best guess, this road developed out of either a railway or a covered wagon route. I mention it because the Salmon River is our winding companion for the next 55 miles. Our pavement mimics its every move for the path of least resistance, one of the benefits we as sport tourers tend to capitalize on. The smoothly banked, low-traffic, open-view corners are perfect for an average pace of, well, at least the speed limit. Nine you're fine, ten you're mine, they say, and I envision that applies to my average GPS-detected speed over the course of some 240 miles. Readying for Route 21, I'm in chin-over-wrist heaven and the cagers know it. Maintain respect, two-second following distance, dotted passing only, polite disposition, and they'll probably wave us around with a smile. Otherwise, play sweep and enjoy watching the logging trucks out-drive us. In Stanley, 75 connects with the incredible Idaho 21. Eyeing the map, there's no fooling, things are gonna tighten up. An awe-inspiring lull through the divided landscape acts as a ruse. Mountains, and prairies, and pleasant, and mountains, and prairies, and pleasant, and mountains, and br—wait. That's a bucket carousel. A wide left-hander, just before Cape Horn Mountain, stares back at me in a way that's, as my friend Neil might say, glorious. Here's where the turns compress more and more in stages. Five miles per stage, three stages total, and we're chasing goats with that figuratively signature red mist viewport, all the way to Boise. Now, I'll summarize the logical destination that are Boise's eastern outskirts in three topics. First, filling stations for both ride and rider are plenty. Motels are numerous up the way, some with a quarter-operated cathode-ray television that's rewired to simultaneously vibrate the bed, and others where the concierge blows gold flake in your face before handing you a glass of champagne and an edible chocolate room key. For the famished rider, a smorgasbord of eateries pepper the roadside, eager to fulfill our calorie-counting nightmare. Next day, after a lengthy, thrilling return through everything you've already heard about Idaho 21 in reverse, three humbling views decorate my next 30 minutes. Off in the distance, a mountain range stands guard, looking back at me with unspeakable resilience. Pine trees are hiding their numbers among the damned, victims of fire's wrath, waiting in the still air for answers. Sharing my vantage point, a sea of wildflowers are cared for by two juvenile saplings, forced to look across the void into this tragedy. It's both captivating and cataclysmic. But hey, you know what Route 21 really needs at this point? A tourist trap, said no one ever, except in this case. The tourism mountain town of Stanley acts as a supply hub for all things Salmon River. Lucky for us, they don't price gouge beyond minor convenience fees. I'm able to gas up here with a side of lunch for maybe 20 bucks. The 6,000-foot elevation makes for tolerable direct sun once the jacket's off. It's not often we find ourselves thinking, you know, I might just head back here to do some rafting or whatever. But wrapping things up, combining US 93, Idaho 75, and wow, Idaho 21, blends serene cruising, exhilarating sweepers, and rabid hairpin twisties. It's everything we ask for as sport touring riders, each segment offering a distinct charm in challenge. Then there's the return trip, all of it served up again in reverse, none of which is for the newly anointed or faint-hearted motorcyclist. What makes it something to see goes beyond asphalt appeal. If you're resolute enough to avoid being drawn into the almost poetic conversations of hypnotically polite residents, you'll find yourself immersed in all that transcends the typical motorcycle tour. I'll boldly suggest that goes for any other local activities as well. There were times I felt more traveler than tourist, helping roadside riders, taking time to soak up landscapes, even the secluded rest stop along 21. These unexpected detours ping highlight over hindrance. They add a depth and color we can't replicate anywhere else. Some roads are more than. They invite character, camaraderie, and tenacity. They bring us face-to-face with the beauty of our natural world as well as the pros and cons of human interaction. They remind us how sometimes the best encounters are unplanned and unexpected, all of which stays with you long after the ride is over. If you're looking for more than just another adrenaline-fueled romp through twisty mountain passes, although there's plenty of that here too, consider giving the combination of US-93, Idaho-75, and Route 21 a shot. The raw beauty of Boise National Forest, coupled with friendly folks ready to share stories at every turn, is how unforgettable memories on two wheels become so. And with that, hello everyone. I'm Robin Dean.

Maggie: I'm Maggie Dean. And I'm Armony Piper. You're listening to Radio TRO. We're here to talk about motorcycles.

Armene: Yes, so as you know, I got rid of the Aprilia RSV4, which I had to break the news to one of my very good friends, Cinnamon, who works with the Motorcycle Industry Council. Do you know Cinnamon? She's, uh, if I were ever to have a girl crush, she's it. Yeah, she's it. Between her and Andrea Yu. So anyways, Cinnamon has an Aprilia, and we have had these grand dreams of like me flying out to California and us riding our Aprilias and having like an Aprilia girl gang. So I crushed both of our dreams last week when I told her that it was, that it was gone. It was a done deal. But I might be acquiring a Harley. Which one? I don't know. I think, wait, hold on. I think she's a soft tail deluxe.

Maggie: Looks like a bobber. Just a, you know, I think that's pretty low key.

Armene: When I was younger, my grandmother always used to say, never say never. And she said she learned that hard, hard lesson when she was younger. She said she would never live in Iowa and she would never be married to a military person. And she was living in Iowa when she was married to my grandfather who was in the military.

Maggie: So I've always said that I, I, those are two very specific things that she ended up calling out.

Armene: I know. I know. And I've always said that I'd never go to Sturgis. And I would never own a Harley. And I might be going to Sturgis on a Harley this year. But the truth is, I, my goal is to just hold on to this Harley for a friend, who's like going through a tough time right now. And I don't want her to give up her. It's like her baby. She loves this thing.

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: And so I'm kind of like, well, what if I just, you know, buy it from you until you can buy it back from me? So I doubt that I'll be doing much riding. But and that's definitely not my, definitely not my dream bike. But yeah, now that I've sold my house, I am in the market for something new. Did I tell you that I went and test rode the BMW something fast and supercharged? No. Yeah, I didn't like it. It was like their, it was sort of their sport bike thing. It wasn't the M something model. It was some are something I don't see. What did you not like about it? Why didn't it float your boat? I just didn't like it. If I were to say it sound, it felt cheap. Would that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It felt like I was, yeah, it just didn't suit me. I don't know. I'm not sure. I have so many wants and desires when it comes to a motorcycle. I guess like I have to figure out what that is. And I think my dreams for a sugar daddy that provides me with every bike that I want. That's dwindling since my husband said no. I know he's not. What kind of bike do you have?

Maggie: I have a, I have a street triple R from 2016. So it's the six, seven, five, and now they make a seven, six, five. They upgraded that like, I think the following year after I bought it.

Armene: Is it the one that looks like it's got bug eyes?

Maggie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Armene: Oh, that was the only thing I didn't love about it when I tried it on for size a few years ago. It doesn't bother you, huh?

Maggie: No, I kind of find that they're unique when you see those headlights, you know, it's a street triple that in the sound. I love the sound of the triple and it's the only bike I've had. Well, that's not true. That's a lie, but I've already had it for seven years. Wow. Yeah. I'm not like everyone else. I was shopping for the next bike. I'm pretty happy with it. But we've been on a journey, so that's why.

Armene: Yeah. Yeah.

Maggie: There's a lot of things that I've told her like, okay, I'll keep you. We'll be together.

Armene: Oh, she has, she holds all the, she holds the secrets.

Maggie: Well, she holds all my shame. I guess you could put it that way. Some of the journeys included some of that. No, she's just really, she's been really forgiving as I learned, got on her and probably, I know I was, I used to ride the clutch a little too much and then it was this thing and that thing. So yeah, it's, I've just gotten to know it. And whenever Robin gets on it and he treats it like he would treat his bike, you know, of course he goes into a wheelie and she, and he always says that she's saying to him, you're not mom. You're not mom. You're not mom. I don't have that problem. There's enough power for me, but not too much. And you know, I can take her on a long distance trip. She's fun. Yeah. I'm restrained enough on her that I don't run into too much trouble that often. Wait, I want to go back to Sturgis. How are you going? How did that come up?

Armene: Well, so Cinnamon, the one I was telling you about earlier, she has started this ride with us. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's essentially a first ride experience. It is so cool. It is a first ride experience. It's free. So she takes it to places like the Overland Expo and just different, just different events. And the idea is, is they provide everything that you need to have your first ride. So helmet, you know, a Jersey, pants that fit over whatever you're wearing, boots that are your size, gloves that fit you well, and a helmet. And their slogan sort of is like, we can get you riding in 30 minutes or less. And they do. And so it's been a couple of years that she's had that program going and they're taking it to Sturgis. And I'm one of the coaches that she trusts with this, which is amazing. I feel honored, but that's actually what I was doing out here in Oregon is that I went to the Overland Expo in Bend and it was just, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it's so cool because essentially you take, you almost have to take the coach out of the coach because you're not inundating these new people with like, and then the rear brake and this and the clutch. And you literally just show them there are three primary controls. This is your clutch. This is what it does. This is your brake. This is what it does. This is your throttle. This roll on, roll off. And I think like my average at one point was get it from getting their butts on the seat to getting their feet up and onto the pegs was three and a half minutes. Wow. And it's cool. It's so cool. So they're taking it to Sturgis this year and they asked if I would go. I don't like to tell her no. Cause I just, it's like one of the coolest, it's one of the coolest experiences I've had as a coach. It makes it like, you know, it helps kind of fuel that passion for me of coaching. It's really nice when you see like, yeah, it's like, you see like 200 people in three days, um, put their, you know, get on a motorcycle for the first time. It's so cool. So it's like every coaches dream of that first exercise when you're calling everybody, you know, across the range and they pick their feet up, put them on the pegs. Um, but it's just amplified cause it's just, you know, every 20 minutes we have a new student essentially. It's cool.

Maggie: That is so cool. What is it called? Ride, ride with, ride with us, ride with us. Okay.

Armene: And it's a nonprofit. Yeah. I'm not to plug it, but it's, but if you go to ride with us.org, um, the cool thing is, is that, um, it's because it's a nonprofit, um, you know, it's the idea is, is to really create more motorcyclists. We want to get more people riding. And so it's completely free. You can go to that website and, um, the students can put in their zip code and it'll populate, um, all the schools offering endorsement classes as close to them as you know, wherever it is. So it's pretty cool.

Maggie: Wow. That's great. So I'm curious, people come out that haven't written before and you all get them writing much faster than we do in class. And why is that? How does that happen? Or do you see sort of the same things that you see in class or some people get it? Some people don't.

Armene: Oh, I'm sorry. It's ridewithus.com. Let's see. I don't even know my own, you know about me. I don't, I don't know website names, but, um, so essentially it's just the bare bones. We're literally just teaching them, you know, a little bit of what the friction zone means, right. Releasing that clutch until you feel the rear wheel kind of move you forward. And then this is, you know, throttle is towards you, roll it off to, to slow it down or stop the bike. And then your front brakes. I mean, it's just so, I think part of the hardest part when you're teaching someone like in a class is that we're giving them so much information, right? This is this, and this is where your choke is. And this is, and by the time they get to actually picking their feet up and writing, their brains are already kind of oozing out of the sides of their heads. This is so stripped down that, um, it really just, it just makes it easy for whatever reason. It's just a little bit easier. So that's cool.

Maggie: That's interesting. There's a lot of information that they go through just to even get to the range, right? They go through the e-course. Then we walk them through all the safety stuff. And I would imagine that there are some people who overthink things. And so the longer you delay getting them on the bike, the more time they're living in their heads. And they're just afraid of whatever things that they're already afraid of. I even think about it myself. The last thing I was in that was scary. All I could think about is I didn't want to fall in front of these people on my bike. That is one advantage I have though, that I'm always not that far away from the students. Cause I, I'm always like, ah, I always put myself in their shoes when I'm coaching. So I feel like I'm not that far away. No, that's really cool. That's really awesome.

Armene: Well, and I think too, there's, uh, there's such limited pressure where, I mean, I'm, we're always sort of like, Hey, if, if all you do is just sit on the bike and that's your first time you've ever sat on a bike, um, there's no pressure. You haven't invested money in a class. You haven't, you know, done the e-course and stressed out. And I mean, and honestly, I, sometimes I think that just the time leading up to the class is enough to create some anxiety for people that by the time they get to their two day class, there's, there's a lot there like emotionally working through and mentally working through there. These people with the ride with us thing, like you're just at some cool Overland Expo. You're walking around. You see these people with a sign that says we can teach you how to ride in 30 minutes. You know, you don't have time to like get in your own head. I think, um, motorcycling is 75% a mind game, 25% skill.

Maggie: Oh, I think it's more, more mind game than skill could be. Yeah. You can totally weigh yourself out and you can have the skill, but do a lot of people end up taking the classes, get licensed? Do they have that data?

Armene: I think what has spurred from ride with us is this thing called ride today when it was originally beta tested clutch, um, was one of first schools that they tested this at. It was really neat. Um, so it was essentially the same thing, except we would take our range and we would kind of cut it in half and one half of it would be the thing we called, um, the first ride experience and the other half of the, the range would be called the skills check. And so we would sort of set up essentially on the, on the, um, new riders, it would be a really tiny exercise three. Um, and it wasn't starting and stopping. It was just sort of like, here are the cones, follow the cones. When you feel comfortable to pick your feet up, pick them up. And then the skills check was like a U-turn box, some pause and goes a turn from a stop. It just so that people could, you know, bring their own bikes and see if maybe they knew as much as they thought they did. I would say the, um, the learn to ride or the, you know, um, the first ride experience that lent itself to quite a few signups. I even saw it, you know, uh, just from being like, Oh wait, I saw you a couple of weeks ago at that event. Um, the skills check didn't do much when it, when it came to getting people to come back for an advanced class. Cause I'm sure, you know, it's almost impossible once people get their endorsements, it's hard to convince them to take more training. But, uh, we actually didn't because we were one of the first classes or, um, schools, we, we didn't have the fortitude. We didn't even think about how to track it. It wasn't until after that we were like, Oh my God, we could have tracked this a different way versus just like waiver forms or something. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So, but I think after our school did it, they started this better way of tracking. So it's cool. Actually. Colorado has been doing a lot of these across the state and, um, our, our program is actually helping to pay for it. Awesome. They do advertising and they, oh yeah, it's really, really, really cool. It's awesome.

Maggie: Huh. So is that mostly on the West coast or is it nationwide?

Armene: I don't know. I don't know if, I mean, I think it's, it was piloted sort of at a bunch of different schools now, whether or not they took off with that or not. I'm not totally sure, but yeah. Ride today. Originally it was called ride Tuesday and everybody was up in arms because what if they don't want to do it on Tuesday? It was kind of funny, but ride with us.

Maggie: Okay. I'm asking you all these questions.

Armene: Like I could, I could just ride with us is different than ride today. Ride today is through MSF, right? Yeah. Right. Ride with us is through the MIC and ride today is through MSF.

Maggie: Which one's the one that cinnamon runs ride with us.com ride with us. Yeah. Okay. I see all the Overland expos. Yeah. It's so cool. That is really awesome. Isn't it awesome. The motorcycle industry councils is this mostly geared to females or is this anybody, anybody, and it's just with the sole purpose of getting more people into the sport of writing.

Armene: It's it's really cool.

Maggie: That's really awesome. It's yeah. It's a nice site too. Nice and simple. Yeah. So you may be heading to Sturgis on a Harley.

Armene: Yeah. I think I'm going to take the Harley.

Maggie: That would probably be the right bike to, I mean, I think it doesn't matter, but I do know that many Harleys will be there. So why not? Oh, Hey, life is for living. Why not? Why not? I mean, for your friend.

Armene: That's right.

Maggie: Have the experience.

Armene: Right. That's right. That's right. I don't know. Maybe I'll like, maybe I'll rent like a little cute Chihuahua puppy thing or something that can sit on my tank. I don't know. I'm and maybe I'll get some like outrageous clothing where there's lots of tassel-y things. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe I should just really do it. Maybe I should glue a cowboy hat to my helmet or okay. I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to offend a whole group of people. I need to be quiet.

Maggie: You could get a sticker that said, I used to ride an Aprilia on it.

Armene: My other bike. My other bike is.

Maggie: And let's take a break for a little bit. We'll head over to Travis Bronson, who is trying to transfer over a scooter title from Michigan to Wisconsin. Take it away, Travis.

Travis: I'm here for a short segment to talk about titling a used motorcycle specifically across state lines. The story I'm about to tell you is about a moped, but I think there's a lot to learn here. Whether it's a vintage bike that hasn't been titled in decades or to whomever it was titled as deceased, or you're just trying to buy something across state lines, things can get sticky. For this particular story, we're going to talk about a moped. Now this was bought decades ago for my mom by my dad. Now I'm a Wisconsin resident, as you may know, but I grew up in Michigan and my parents still lived there. So this moped was registered in my dad's name, even though it was for my mom in Michigan. When my dad passed away last year and my mom was getting a little too old to ride the moped. Now when I say moped, it's like a 50cc scooter. So she wanted to know if I would take it and I said, sure, mopeds make fun little runabouts for the grocery store or whatever you need. The complication comes in, Wisconsin requires that your moped be titled and plated. Whereas in Michigan, all you need to do is air quotes register it and they give you a sticker every couple of years. Kind of like you would for an off-road vehicle. The other sticky part of that is that it was registered in my father's name, who is no longer with us. So in an effort to get ahead of it all, I contacted the Department of Transportation for Wisconsin and the Secretary of State's Office for Michigan. Now you might say, hey, aren't those two different things? Don't you mean the DMV? And yes, I basically mean the DMV, but that's the departments that run the DMVs respectively in those two states. So you can already see how this gets complicated very quickly. First thing I did was send an email via the form online to the Wisconsin DMV, Department of Transportation, and ask them what I would need to do. Here's the situation. There's this moped in Michigan my mother wants to give me. It's registered in my deceased father's name. It does not have a title because Michigan does not issue titles and I need a title in Wisconsin. I will read the first paragraph of their response verbatim so you can enjoy the typos too. Thanks for using the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's website. You should contact Michigan to see what they would need for documentation for the deceased party and have them supply you with documentation that they do not title mopeds. So let me just read that again. You should contact Michigan to see what they would need to for documentation for the deceased party and have them supply you with documentation that they do not title mopeds. I don't know what that means. You would need to mail in the application. I don't know what application, but if a bond is not needed, we will request additional documentation. If you anticipate the bond being needed, you could send in the bonded title application photos of the vehicle from all four sides and the VIN tag and an explanation of how you ended up with the vehicle. If we do not need the bond, we will process the title application. If we do need it, we will send you a request for a surety bond at that time. So I know Wisconsin has a process where if you have a lost title vehicle, you can get what's called a bonded title, where you effectively take a bond on the vehicle in case there's any dispute over the ownership of the vehicle, which I've done for some vintage mopeds before, but I wanted to avoid in this case. It's also not really what I asked about, and also this is not very clear. So you can anticipate getting poorly worded, misunderstood emails from the respective DMVs of the states involved. I also sent an email to the Michigan DMV, the Secretary of State's office, via their online form process and never heard back after a week or two. So eventually I called them and after much back and forth and them looking at forms and putting me on hold, they told me that if I submit a Michigan form that is a transference to air form that effectively transfers the vehicle to my mom as the executor of my father's estate and then transfers it to me as a third party, which are all slots available on the form, I can then register it in Michigan, even though I'm a Wisconsin resident, and then I will have a valid Michigan registration to take to the Wisconsin DMV. So I called the Wisconsin DMV, Department of Transportation, and talked to a very nice lady. And after being put on hold several times and going back and forth, she let me know that all I needed was a certificate of death that showed that my mother was the surviving heir. I needed the Michigan registration sheet of paper, which does have a form on the back like a title to transfer ownership, though I did not know that until I went home to get the moped and actually saw the piece of paper, because you cannot find a copy of it online, and then just the regular title form. And then I can supply that and then they will issue me a title on a plate. So I go home and I bring all of the forms that I have found. I have my mom sign all of them. I load up the scooter in my minivan and drive back in a 16-hour round-trip rally run. I did spend the night. So eight hours there, eight hours back. And it was a good thing I did fill out some of the Michigan forms as well, because the guy at the DMV wanted to see that transference-to-heir Michigan form for some reason. And the certificate of death didn't really matter because it's a Wisconsin-issued certificate of death because my father died in Wisconsin, not in Michigan, which adds another layer of complexity to this. Now imagine that you were trying to buy a motorcycle across state lines that didn't have a title or involve the deceased and they weren't your parents. So the moral of this story is always double, triple, quadruple check with the various Departments of Transportation, Departments of Motor Vehicles on any interstate transaction. You want to send them emails. You want to send follow-up emails. You want to call and talk to a human. And if that human doesn't seem very helpful, you want to call back on a different day and get a different human who might be more helpful. Because the government rules and regulations are murky and complicated even to those people whose job it is to try and understand them. So you need to get someone who's maybe done this before. And I know people talk about Vermont, but that's actually getting a lot harder to do, to title a vehicle in Vermont and then transfer it into your own name in your own state. They are cracking down on that. So that is my tale of woe regarding an interstate deceased party vehicle titling application.

Maggie: I think that the guys should have had a moment of silence for you when you told them that you sold it. They should have had a moment of silence for you.

Armene: Should we do it right now?

Maggie: Yeah, let's have a moment.

Armene: How many moments? Should we time it? Just do it. Blink twice when you're done with the silence.

Maggie: It's such a beautiful bike. I can appreciate that would be hard. We passed several. And it was a limited edition.

Armene: It was? Yeah, it was like one out of a hundred. It almost makes me sick to think about it, but it's okay. It's funny because I've been riding my Triumph Street Twin, and that bike has been so good to me. I love the way the Triumph sounds. Just like yours, it's been very forgiving. I've done a lot of stupid things on it. Not so much in the way of like illegal things, but you know, I go do trainings on it and I smoke the clutch and I just beat her to hell and she keeps, you know, she takes the lick and it keeps on ticking. But I was riding the other day and I'm just getting like hit with the wind and right because there's no screen and I like she's going so slow and she was really struggling. I wasn't very nice to her that day. I'm like, you suck. You're nothing like the Aprilia. I know she deserves better, but there we are. So I wonder if our bikes are ever like, I need a new need a new owner.

Maggie: For sure. I feel like mine definitely has been like, I'm not talking to you right now. Stop talking to me right now. Okay, so you have a Harley. What else have you test ridden or sat on?

Armene: Okay, so I went and test rode the Indian Chieftain. Isn't that their biggest one?

Maggie: That sounds like a big bike. I don't know if it's their biggest one, but it sounds like it would be Chieftain. I think it's the I think it's the biggest one. Yeah.

Armene: What was that like? Because there's this speaking of girl crushes. I'm gonna give everybody the wrong idea. But anyways, I have this girl crush. Her name is Kelly Yazdy. Have you heard of her? You should look her up. She's Persian, but she looks like Native American. She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in my life. Kelly, she rides Yazdy. Is she coming up? Yeah.

Maggie: Stunt woman. Yeah. And she's stunt woman and professional model. Yeah, sure. And she sure is.

Armene: Yeah.

Maggie: What is she sitting on?

Armene: Suzuki. She sits on everything because she's a model for every brand. But she's also a model for Indian. And she is always on that Chieftain in all of her little commercially things. And I'm like, I, you know what, if I could sit on this bike, and I can look like Kelly Yazdy. Yeah, you know, I mean, that I'm gonna do it. And I went and sat on that Chieftain and I am here to say, I looked absolutely nothing like Kelly.

Maggie: Well, but did you were you dressed the same way? And were you sitting on it the same way she does?

Armene: Probably not. And unfortunately, I didn't realize that day that I was going to test ride. So I only had tennis shoes in my car. And I mean, I had my helmet, but I didn't I didn't have boots. And I burnt my leg on something. Oh, when I was riding out. But that I was like, I Yeah. And I was like, Well, I don't like you either. So that that was my test ride of the Chieftain. I went and test rode the new the new street. Yeah. Oh, I wanted to say Street Fighter, but it's not your bike newer. Street Triple, but the new one. This Okay, so the 765? Yeah. And I liked that a lot. That was a lot of fun. And I have had no issues with with triumph. Like I have not had a single issue. I just take it in. They do maintenance on it. And then it's good to go forever. So that's a possibility. I don't know. It's really hard to leave like the sexiness of a Ducati and an Aprilia for a triumph. I'm talking about that is sort of like dating an Italian model, and then dating a British dude.

Maggie: I know what you mean. There are some sexy British dudes, I guess you could say name one. Oh, come on.

Armene: We'll wait. We'll wait for it.

Maggie: Now no one's coming to mind. Okay, you put me on the spot like I I can't think of anyone but because there are none. It's definitely a different look. It's not the same at all. It's very different.

Armene: Unless you're listening and you're in and you're British and you're good looking, then that doesn't apply to you. We're sorry that we said that. I don't see that's the problem, though, is that my wants and desires are all over the place. Like I really like the Africa twin, but I know myself. You know what I mean? I'm the kind of person that will buy camping gear and never go camping. No. And like I get all the best camping gear. So I would get a dual sport and never do the dual in the sport.

Maggie: So I don't know. What was happening with the Aprilia? Were you not writing it enough? Was that part of it? Is that why you felt like maybe it was time to had to get rid of it? Was that was that part of the reason? Like you had gotten the sexiest bike, but you weren't writing it enough?

Armene: Robin and I had this conversation because when we had our original conversation, he did not like what I had to say about the reason I got rid of the Aprilia. But I wasn't like emotionally prepared to talk about why I got rid of the Aprilia. But now I can. OK, I so my husband and I bought a house in like the town we have always dreamed of living in. But the only way to get into that town is either to be a millionaire or to buy a piece of crap. OK, so we bought a piece of crap. OK, so we had to fix up the piece of crap and we had to then maintain two mortgages at the same time. And then the interest rates went from the three point whatever that they were to eight point nine percent. And not only that, but you had to buy your interest rate, which I've never heard of. We can bitch about that together later. But so then I had to I had to maintain two mortgages for nine months. That's a long time. And remodel a new an old house and make the previous house that we were trying to move out of ready to sell. And with five kids, two businesses, four dogs, some other things, stress, life. We just like we were just drowning. So I felt wildly selfish in keeping this thing when I just had like 20K sitting in my garage that I knew I could sell. And like we'd have it right there. You know what I mean?

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: So it was like me trying to be selfless. But I think part of being selfless is that not endlessly complaining about it. And that's all I've done since I got. So that is that is the true reason I got rid of the Aprilia. Um, because I just needed to help float my family for longer than I was planning. We thought we were going to sell that house in three months. So six additional months with two mortgages just like was hell.

Maggie: Yeah, no, that's Robin. I've been through that. We had a condo in the city in Chicago. We'd moved out of it. We were renting it. And so we're renting a house out in the suburbs. And there were some months that between renters, you know, we were paying the rent and a mortgage. Same thing, same deal, you know, two of something, a lot of money somewhere for a place we weren't living in. It's not fun. I think we I think we only had to do it for maybe five months.

Armene: You know, when it kind of rains, it pours, I think. And I feel like most people probably feel that way. But like everything hit all at the same. You know what I mean? I broke my hand, which means I couldn't work as much, which means I had to pay more employees. Right. My daughter needed oral surgery. I'm like, like the things just kept they kept coming. And so, yeah, that's how it went. But anyways, upwards and onwards.

Maggie: Yeah, sounds like you got a good price for it. And were you writing it much or just now and then?

Armene: Oh, no, I wrote it every every single day. And I love that thing so much. And my my new neighbors and my new neighborhood complained quite regularly about because it was so loud and so beefy. And they would complain about me starting it so early in the morning because I leave for work at, you know, 515 in the morning. And so I would push it, I would coast it down the hill and basically get it out of the neighborhood and then start it. Yeah, I love that bike a lot.

Maggie: Did you ever record the sound?

Armene: No, but I probably should have. Yeah.

Maggie: I'm sure somebody's got one on one of those ride shares where you can rent somebody's bike. Twisted Road. And that would be sacrilegious. Ridershare. Who could put their Aprilia RSV? I've seen all kinds of bikes on those sites. People's bikes are sitting in the garages. They're not they're not using them. So they're like, oh, I'll see if anyone because it's whoever runs it. It's their insurance that has to pick up if something bad were to happen. And, you know, I believe the sites check your driver's license. Yeah. Like if you were someone that had a bunch of violations or you didn't have a, you know, if you didn't have a valid driver, like you couldn't, you can't rent it. But yeah, I've seen all kinds of bikes on there.

Armene: Maybe I'll find one and then I'll just say that it got stolen. But now that I've said that out loud and the internet knows, maybe. Yeah. I know I was going to put my bike up on one of my other bikes up on Twisted Road, but then I heard some noise about them maybe not still being a company. Uh oh. I know. So I don't know if that was just that was just but it'd be a big bummer because I love that. I love going places and just running a bike.

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: So awesome.

Maggie: I rented my bike out once. I've done it once so far. Okay. It wasn't that bad. I mean, granted, I've had my bike already for some time and it's, you know, it's not a $20,000 bike now, but yeah, it was fun. He, it was a guy that comes to North Carolina area to ride. Same group comes to the same area to ride and something was up with his bike. So he rented my bike for the week and you know, you, you see them, you made them. Their driver's license has already been checked. You both do sort of a pre-ride check of everything. If you're smart, you'll take pictures. Then he, he goes, he's already prepaid. He has to pay up front. Then they hold it until he brings it back. And then when the person brings it back, then we had to do a post-ride check all around. And then we got the money. I was like, Oh, that was kind of cool. Yeah.

Armene: I'm like a snob. I don't know stories. I don't want to, I don't want someone else touching my bike. I don't, there's something wrong with me, but yeah, this bike that I was thinking about putting up is actually my husband's. So I wouldn't feel so bad. Yeah. You can't touch my bike, but you can touch my husband's bike. That's fine. What about electric?

Maggie: Those things are fast and they're quiet.

Armene: An electric bike.

Maggie: You don't get the sound, but they're fast and they're quiet. Well, they can be fast. I should say. I'm afraid to get kicked off the podcast.

Armene: Why are you about to say something? I'm a bit of a purist. Oh yeah. I'm not, listen, I'm not, I, I love a clutch. I do. There's something about it. I, I, I'm not a big, I don't know. It's kind of like when I was a teenager and I, you know, learned how to drive a car with a stick shift and then all the stick shift cars went away. And these stupid automatics came and took over. And to be honest, if we brought automatic cars back, it would take care of the texting and talking on the phone issue. You can simply not do it when you, right? You can't. So I don't know. I think it's going to be even more like, I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah.

Maggie: Especially with the self.

Armene: Would you get an electric bike?

Maggie: Yeah. I'm not that much of a purist. I've sat on, it was a zero. Somebody in a class had one. This was a few years ago. This was when I was, this was when I was going through my rider coach prep. Cool. And it was 2019. In my class, there was somebody who already had a bike. She had a zero and all of us were curious. So we all sat on it and I rode around the range on it. It was cool. One interesting thing I learned about at least the zero or her model was. You don't have nearly as much maintenance, right? Because you don't have all the grease and the parts and stuff like that. But where they get her is on tires, which I thought was insane. That bike can only use the zero brand tires and she would go through tires really fast. I was like, that's wow. Would've never thought of that, but. The secret sauce. Yeah, if you're not, yeah. I gotta make money some way. And you probably know Robin's in love with electric, but it's a far, far, far off day before they're able to make a long distance bike that's electric.

Armene: It's just. I think my husband would probably like an electric bike. That seems like his, like his style. He likes electric cars. He likes electric bikes. I think I could see him getting into it. I'm not, I'm like, I, I have learned. I'm never going to say never because I know what that means for me, but I don't know. I, I love, I love the traditional, I mean, but I'm sure that people said the same thing about the kicks, like when the kickstart thing went away, you know, now you just push a button. Yeah. So I don't know. I'm open to it, but yeah, I don't know. I'm, I don't know what I'm leaning towards. I really don't because like my, um, my triumph is, is wildly uncomfortable on long rides. Like I can get about 200 miles before my back and my butt just are like screaming at me. Um, but I also can't imagine taking the Aprilia across country. Like, it feels like that would be a hard body position to hold for, you know, thousands of miles. Um, I really wanted to love the Indian. I did. Maybe I just got like one, it was just gigantic and maybe it was just, if maybe it just wasn't the size that I, I don't know. There's gotta be like a middle between the chieftain and the scout because the scout felt too miniature and the chieftain felt too gargantuany. Um, but at least the showroom that I went to, they didn't have any, anything in between. Um, I don't know. I guess I gotta figure out what I want. The Aprilia. Yeah. It looks like it ranges. Yeah.

Maggie: But you're now down to one house, right? So.

Armene: Yeah. Oh yeah. And I'm, and I'll, I mean, it's not as much of an issue anymore, but that's what I'm saying. Like, I'd kind of like to get a bike that I can keep for a long time. I'm not, I don't love this bike shopping thing, you know, and I'm an impulsive buyer. I see a bike. I love it. I buy it and then I test ride it. There was a, uh.

Maggie: Wait, the test ride should happen before.

Armene: Yeah, I finally figured that out. It was so funny. I was working, I was working at, um, the school one day and, you know, we're right next door to Tri-City Cycle, which is primarily a Yamaha dealership, but they take in trades all the time. And, um, there was this bike that came in that looked exactly like the bike in my logo. So it's funny because it looks like I modeled the logo after this bike, but it was the, you know, it was the chicken and the egg thing. And so one of the sales guys came over when I was on a break and he was like, Piper, you'll never guess. But there's this bike that looks exactly like your bike or like your logo. You got to come check it out. So I went around the thing. I saw it. I put my helmet on. I put my gloves on. I rode it around the range and put it in my Connex. I locked it up for the night so they couldn't sell it. Um, and I bought it the next day. It was really cool. Uh, but yeah, I have a bike problem. So I don't know. Maybe you should just come out. We'll just test ride like every bike we possibly can.

Maggie: That would be fun. Especially now that I've learned to one foot it because I'm short and I had this thing about like, I can't touch, I can't touch, I can't touch. And so my bike was lowered and I rode it that way for the first five years. And then we finally decided this bike should be at stock. Let's put it back to stock. There are lots of short gals like me that learned to ride. And if you ride dirt, even the ADV bikes are tall. Like they're taller bikes. Yeah. Travis was saying to me, he's like, yeah, dirt bikes are really tall. That's why you wear different boots. And you haven't met Travis in person. He's tall. So I think he was trying to convince me that even he can't like put both feet down, touch both feet. I was like, yeah, sure. That's what tall people say. Yeah. Now that I've finally gotten more comfortable doing that now, I'm like, yeah, I can test ride. I can test ride other bikes. It's not an issue. How tall are you? 5'2". But do you have long legs? I think I'm average. I don't have the long body, short legs syndrome, but I don't have especially long legs. I think I'm right there. Yeah. Proportional.

Armene: I'm about the same. And I think the last time I checked, I'm like five, five, four and three quarters. Those three quarters count. Listen here. They seriously, nobody cares. Nobody in this family cares to hear this anymore because they're sick of hearing it. But I used to be five, eight. What? And then how does that happen? Having children. Wow. They compress your like spinal cord and stuff. And so every kid that I had, I lost a half of an inch. And I think also I'm just like, I'm destined to be like a little short Armenian person. My dad got short all of a sudden and he didn't used to be. So now I'm like, okay, so it's that I had kids and I just have a shrinking gene. So very soon I think you and I will be the same height.

Maggie: I think old people just shrink though. I mean, my parents were already little and they're even smaller now. They're even shorter.

Armene: Yeah. I know. I do feel too young to be shrinking.

Maggie: That doesn't sound like the goal that you think when you're, you know, I hope I shrink back down to how tall I was when I was in grade school. You just learned to ride without that. It's almost a crutch. I've learned now for me personally, it became a crutch that it was a fault security that, oh, now I can touch both feet down flat footed. And I'm probably better off, but I guess I experienced it both ways. Like I lowered the bike and you could always tell if like you weren't a nice long sweeper, she'd be twitchy. Like when we lowered it, we made sure to try to keep the same geometry. And so we didn't do it. We actually had the dealership do it. The mechanics knew what they were doing, but it's still not the way the bike was designed. But I learned to just ride it that way. I was like, oh, that's fine. Then long story short, it's back to stock. And I'm like, okay, I'm used to it. My motorcycle boots have inserts inside. You don't see that I'm actually lifted a little bit. So that helps. You're cheating. Yeah, a little bit.

Armene: Whatever gets the job done, right?

Maggie: Yep. Let's take another break. Robin witnessed an event. So Tim Clark is going to take us through packing procedures.

Tim: So today I am here to talk about packing and how I pack my bike for a minimalist one night out and back. What I'm going to do is have a group of bikers riding in Colorado. We're going to have a base camp in Gunnison. We are going to ride cloverleaf routes away from Gunnison. We'll ride all day. Mountains, canyons, the fun stuff. We're going to stop, get some dinner, swing by a convenience store and pick up beers. If people want beers, top up the water bottles, grab a snack, grab a can of coffee for the next morning, and then head up into the mountains and try to find dispersed camping sites. Dispersed camping site, basically anything that is not an official campground. So this is about getting up and away. And at the same time, keeping the bike packed as minimally as possible so that you get as much performance as you can out of the bike. Because we all want to go and have fun and nobody wants a big, heavy, wallowing bike when they're trying to have fun. As I've talked about on the podcast before, I'm a big fan of the Moskow Moto Rackless luggage. It's sold for adventure bikes, but it doesn't mean you've got to ride an adventure bike. Here I've got it strapped on my Yamaha XSR 700. And I will be sending photos along with this so that you can look at it on the website. The best thing about the Moskow Moto Rackless setup is, one, minimal things that you need to bolt onto the bike. And the other, it's a relatively quick strap-on. Take the straps off and you can go from touring machine to casual fun machine very quickly. The best thing about these is that they are designed to get all your gear as close to the center of your bike as possible. It minimizes how disruptive it is to the handling of the bike. When I'm talking about minimal, I want you to get up there with your tent, have a comfortable place to sleep, casual clothes to lounge around and talk before you go to bed. But notably, we're not bringing anything to cook with. We're not bringing much in the way of food. It's a granola bar. It's a can of Starbucks. Just enough to get you through the night and then get you up and get moving and get to breakfast, where you can sit down and have a proper meal like a civilized human being, although a slightly smelly one because we're not showering when we're up there. I am going to start with tools because tools are heavy and they want to be as low and as close to the bike's center of gravity as possible. Hopefully, we're all maintaining the bikes well and we need very little in the way of what we're bringing with us. Generally speaking, a quick flat kit would be good. If you've got tubeless tires, a quick bit of sticky string and the tools to put those in there and a little bicycle air pump or something very minimal if you can get away with it. I use the Toppeak, T-O-P-E-A-K, and it's the Minimorph. It's pretty much the smallest air pump you can have with you, operated by hand, and it'll take a long time, but I have inflated a motorcycle tire with it. One of the things you're going to want is if you're out and about and need service while you're touring, you want to be able to at least get your wheels off of the bike. If you have an unusual sized axle nut on front or back, you're going to want to have one of those sockets. For me, the front axle is a 19 millimeter socket. The back is a 27 millimeter socket. I don't know how frequently I'm going to find those in the middle of the U.S., small town. Metric's not the big thing for most of those shops, so if you find yourself using Ted's Garage or what have you, you're going to be able to get your wheels off and do something with them. I bring in the sockets. I bring a little breaker bar, not a ratchet for those because they're higher torque. Ratchets are less reliable long term when you're using higher torque. This thing I can put on, I can kick it to loosen it, and I can get the wheel off. Or I can loosen the wheel and adjust the chain, which is also something that I like to have the tools to do. I'd like to bring a little can of spray for lubing up the chain. Usually just snag some paper towels, give the chain a quick wipe down and a spray. We're not looking at doing full maintenance. We're just keeping it tidy on the road, keeping an eye on it for problems. My bike has a center stand, makes it easier to clean the chain and adjust the chain, but it's not as necessary. It just makes things a little easier. So I have the wrenches for my chain adjusters, kind of gone a little over the top. I've got these little, they're double-sided open box wrenches where each side has a different size on it. So I've got just a little bit more flexibility there. I have a small quarter-inch ratchet, and I have some miniature sockets that I've just put on a little skewer. I found them at O'Reilly's. They are the smallest possible quarter-inch drive stubby sockets that I've ever seen, and they are fantastic. They're good and compact. You get a Fix-It Stix kit, which is just a little modular bit driver. Basically, two little pieces you stick together, and it's a T-handled wrench. I've got a standard set of Torx, a standard set of hex, some Japanese JIS standard Phillips in three sizes, and a couple flatheads for bits. And I've got a Leatherman multi-tool, a mechanical pencil, just because it's good to be able to write things down. I've got a little six-inch ruler that I can use to actually look at my chain tension and see if I'm within spec. And it all rolls up in a fairly tidy tool roll, and I stick that in the pocket on the underside of the Reckless, and that gets it pretty low and pretty close to the bike. It sits just above the axle of the wheel. All right, the left-hand bag. I have my air pad, my air pillow. I have a little air pump because I don't like to huff and puff to inflate my mattress. I have my NEMO Puffin Blanket. Instead of doing a sleeping bag, I've kind of found that I like doing that. I like having the blanket rather than the sleeping bag. In case it gets cold, I have the Thermolite Reactor Extreme. It's a sleeping bag liner that just adds a little bit of warmth from sea to summit. It's kind of nice. It packs small. It's real easy to throw in the bag. It's either that, or I will pack a little foil emergency blanket in case it gets really cold. And then I've got a little pack of toiletries in the left bag here. And toiletries are basically super simple. Usually some toilet paper or a little thing of body wipes. I found this giant body wipe. 2.6 feet by 1.6 feet turns it into a little shower experience if you're feeling really grubby. A little travel deodorant, travel toothpaste, travel toothbrush, tiny thing of Tums, a little bit of Sea to Summit Wilderness Wash for soap, some eye drops, and some ibuprofen because ibuprofen, sometimes I'm living off that. And the tiny little travel thing of Tums because of the ibuprofen or anything else because I don't always eat well when I'm on the road. And I'm an old man and I get heartburn. So that's that. All right, we are moving on to the right hand bag now. That was all left hand bag. Right hand bag, kind of at the bottom I put my clothing. Right hand bag doesn't tend to have as much heavy stuff. It's really just tend to put the heavier stuff on the left hand side opposite of my muffler. Just one day change of clothes. The basics, pair of socks, underwear, casual shorts or pants that I get the lightweight stuff that packs down nice, spare t-shirt, a knit hat because I'm bald and my head gets cold really easy. And then I've got some long underwear thermals. Again, if it gets cold, that helps. I like to be able to be very modular with it so I can adjust depending on how cold it is. With what I've got, I'm usually good to about 40 degrees before I start getting cold. I'm sure I'd be able to survive down past freezing, but surviving is not having fun. Next, I have another blanket. This is just a thin nylon one that's got a little bit of padding in it. It's the Army Surplus Poncho Liner, nicknamed called the Woobie Blanket. I had one of these when I was young that my dad took home from the army and absolutely loved it. Managed to find one as an adult and it, again, packs down pretty tight. I put it in a compression bag so it sits in there really well. Usually going bottom to top when I'm talking about what I'm putting in the bags. So it's the clothing, it's the blanket, and then I put my one-man tent. I've got the REI Passage 1. I've had that thing for eight or nine years and it is excellent. It's very good, easy to set up. I can put that thing up in the dark and be ready to sleep in less than five minutes. Pull the poles out separate so I can compress the bag down tight in the side bag. And I also will have my flask with some whiskey in it because it packs much better than beer. My plan is that the flask will get filled at base camp so that I've got it for the night. Generally speaking, a full flask is more than I need for a night, so that's good. And I don't keep it in my tank bag because you don't want it accessible in a temptation. This is for after you're done riding. Then I've got some casual shoes or flip-flops that I kind of stuff in wherever I can fit them. When I'm using the flip-flops, they can go on the outside of the bags, inside the bags if I'm doing my casual shoes. Okay, that is both bags. The tent poles, I've got a separate bag that they can go in and slide in underneath the right-hand bag holster. So everything ends up being really nice and tight close to the bike. Snug down all the straps, all good. For my tank bag, for the quick access stuff, I usually have pretty minimal things so I'm flexible when I get there. I keep a couple extra straps for strapping things down. I have my battery power bank for charging phones. I have a headlamp and I have a little mini lantern that I can hang in the tent. A lot of times I've arrived in the dark and had to set up in the dark and it's just a little easier with a headlamp and you're not trying to hold a flashlight in your teeth. I usually have a kickstand pad if I'm parking in gravel because I do not have an oversized foot on my kickstand. And I'll have my map. I usually have my phone mounted on the bars. I have a wire pass-through for going from the charger in the tank bag and I can connect it to the phone on the bars. So that's taken care of. That's it. There's not a whole lot that I bring with me when I am planning on a quick overnight. I know everybody's going to be a little bit different in what they want to take with them. How extensive, how comfortable you need to be when you're in camp. I try to keep the emphasis on keeping the bike as rideable as possible. You want to make sure that your bags are fitting tight against the bike. They're not going to be anywhere near your chain or anything rotating. Before you get moving you want to always start the day with a double check your straps. Make sure all the straps are secured, tightened. All your loose ends have got somewhere to go so they're not just hanging loose. I generally don't like bungee straps. I prefer nylon webbing straps whenever I can. I like to always have excess capacity for my bags so that if I pick something up on the way I can deal with it. Another thing to consider is, since I know I'm not the only person to bring gadgets along with me on camping trips, if you can find a switched power output from your alternator and wire into that, there are 12 volt to 5 volt USB converters that you can find. So if you can find the switched one so you don't ever risk running the battery down because you forgot to unplug something. So it's only on when the key is on. What I like to do is run the inverter off the switch while I'm riding and that is charging the battery pack. And when I get to camp that's when I can take the battery pack, I can top up the charge on my phone, I can charge my headset because I do ride with the communicator. Although I don't generally talk to anybody with it. Most of the time I'm just listening to tunes. If you've got room I like to take two so I can always have the option to charge them both or charge one and use one to charge my phone as I'm going. Because using the maps sucks down juice pretty fast on your phone. You don't want to get to where you're running out of juice and getting lost because of that. It doesn't take too long to get things put together. Once you kind of get used to how things are put together, there are some things you can do as a trick. One of the things is if you can find a tent that can be set up where you put down the footprint, you put the poles on the footprint and then you put your rainfly over the both of them, you can actually get to where you are setting up in the rain and you can set up your rainfly and then set your tent up within the rainfly and then you can keep your tent relatively dry. When you pack up in the morning you do the reverse of it. You pack everything up, you take down the rainfly last and then you can pack the rainfly, tuck it somewhere external rather than in the bags so you're not getting everything else wet with the wet tent. And then when you stop for breakfast, stop for lunch, you can tie it to the bike, drape it out, drape it over the bike and then you can hopefully by lunchtime put away your rainfly dry. Or if it's going to be just raining on you day after day after day, your sleeping bag, your tent is relatively dry and you can stay warm at night. That was one thing I enjoyed learning when I was out touring the Pacific Northwest and it was raining on me all the time. I managed to figure that out and it was pretty comfortable the whole time. Keep your sport in your turn, keep your bike packed tidy, keep everything close, always watch the straps, you don't want anything falling loose and getting caught. If you can, make sure your bike's luggage is no wider than your handlebars. That is going to keep you from getting into trouble where you hit your luggage on things that you thought you were clear of. And it's usually going to be just saving you from a bit of embarrassment when you ran into a pole at the gas station or something like that. But it can also save you if you're getting really close to something. Yeah, I remember there was a video going around the internet of a man riding his motorcycle along some marina. He's, for some reason, riding along the very edge. And as he's riding along the edge of the seawall above the marina, he catches one of his luggage bags on a bollard and it turns the bike, of course, right off of this wall that is some 12 feet above the marina. And he ends up jumping off of the bike and into a boat. What I remember, he got broken up pretty bad. Watch out for your luggage. If you happen to ride trails, that becomes very important too. Not only because you can get things hung up on it, sticks and branches punch through your dry bags. I've had this happen a couple times. I really like the Moskomoto stuff for that because they do have on all the leading edges some very strong, I believe it's a Hypalon material that will protect them from those. Just really nice to not find a hole in the bag with your sleeping bag. So now I'm going to repack this and be done for the night. Get some dinner.

Armene: You should come out. We should do some writing because I think that's like it is that I just need to go test ride a bunch of bikes. Yeah. And I love riding by myself. I do. It's like I love riding solo, but I don't like test riding solo. I don't know. I need somebody to ride behind me and say like, you look dumb on this bike.

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: Or like this bike looks like, you know, it fits you very well. I don't know. I need it's, you know, it's like going into a dressing room and having nobody to stand outside of the dressing room to tell you that you look like a box. In that dress.

Maggie: Yeah. What about this trip to Sturgis? Will there be some different bikes that you can sort of? I can't imagine that it'll be anything besides Harley's. Well, what about the bikes that are provided to the people that are riding?

Armene: Are they all the same? That's what I'm saying. Oh, I bet they're all Harley's. Oh, I don't know. I don't know anything. I've never been to Sturgis. I've never looked at pictures of Sturgis. Because I've always had like these different visions of what Sturgis is. Yeah. And part of me doesn't want to know. Because if it's seriously just like a music festival in like Wisconsin, you know what I mean? That's like hot and dry and there's bugs and you're getting sunburned and people are trying to sell you stuff. And there's like a lot of people smoking cigarettes and like talking smack. Then I would rather just keep the Sturgis dream. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: Yeah.

Maggie: Yeah. So I don't know. I think I have an image of what it's like maybe from snippets of pictures that you see. I was going to suggest that when you're there, just be you. And I'm going to assume that people are friendly. And maybe if you see a bike that you're curious about, you just smile and sort of, hey, can I sit on your bike? I think a lot of people at those things kind of open up a little bit more. You know, bikers just talking to other riders and might not be able to go for a ride on one. But like even just to sit on another bike would be kind of nice.

Armene: Yeah. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. I don't know. I just have to like mind my mouth. Because I think sometimes I think I'm saying something that would come off as funny. And I think it's wildly offensive. So I don't know. I have a pretty dry sense of humor. I don't think everybody gets it all the time. And because I have all these visions of Sturgis and like people walking around with like, I don't know, like cut off short sleeve shirts, you know what I'm talking about? I don't know. I could just imagine like getting myself into a situation where like someone is pulling my hair and there's a catfight. And I don't even like I'm in the middle of it. And I don't even know how I got there.

Maggie: Oh, that's funny. I prefer to have this vision in my head of it that it's actually more like Mardi Gras. Yeah. I don't know.

Armene: I think like, I think like Burning Man and Mardi Gras had a baby. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like no one's wearing a shirt. And there's like lots of cool stuff to look at.

Maggie: Yeah.

Armene: I don't know.

Maggie: But how did they get their motorcycle there without wearing a shirt? Oh, they parked it, then they took off the shirts. Okay, got it.

Armene: No, I don't think so. Who knows? I think they probably just rode topless. Maybe we should start a poll of like, if you've been to Sturges, did you ride in topless? Maybe not. Oh, man. Maybe we'll both get kicked off this podcast. I feel really good about how far we've gotten my journey to finding a new motorcycle.

Maggie: We've solved nothing at all.

Armene: I feel really confident in the choices that we've made together.

Maggie: Me too.

Armene: And I'm just going to forge ahead with the purchase of a new bike. And I have no idea what that bike is going to be.

Maggie: And have you considered just getting another Aprilia now that you're down to one house?

Armene: Yeah, I had. But the one that I want is like, it's like a Tesla, it cost-wise. So when I ran this past him, he looked at me like I was out of my marbles, which I might be. So I don't know. I've got to work that angle a little bit. I might just need another Aprilia. Wouldn't that be funny if this whole... Look it, you did it. Maybe I just need another Aprilia. I know, but it doesn't solve my long distance issue. Well, I guess the Harley does as long as it doesn't break down and leak oil everywhere.

Maggie: Yeah. People turn all kinds of bikes into long distance, but it depends on the riding posture that you can stand for that many hours. We have a friend who, he likes riding full tuck long distance. Like it's more comfortable for him. And the rest of us are like, wow. But yeah, he prefers it. I'll say that I've taken my bike on sevens. I was the sweep for the first two or three. And yeah, by the end of the day, I was like, I'm ready to be off. I know that there's all kinds of seat cushions and things you can get. I haven't bothered to try any of them. And my seat's shaved down as well, you know, to try to get that extra inch down. So that's something to consider.

Armene: Maybe it's just time to look at a new Aprilia. Plus there's like, they have this black one. It's so sexy. I don't know. I'll have to do some. I'll have to do some test riding of some things.

Maggie: I think we're also going to do some test riding this weekend. What are you going to test ride? In the town nearby, there's a Honda dealership. They always have dirt bikes and they have a Grom and a Monkey sitting out there a lot. We were going to the gas station that's right next to it. So I went and sat on them. I was like, I was fine on the Grom, fine on the Monkey, of course. And then I sat on, it was a 150 and it was a CRF, I think. I was like, this isn't bad. I could see this super light and that suspension's bouncy. So I was like, you know, I wasn't touching, but it didn't feel uncomfortable. You know, it's because it's also a narrow bike. I was like, this is kind of fun. I could see this. The Grom? No, the dirt bike.

Armene: So is that what you're going to go test ride? We're going to try to test ride all of them. The nastiest endo I've ever seen in class was on a Grom. Ugh. Uh-huh, did like a stoppie and face planted and then the bike landed on top of them. And when I was there, all these other rider coaches were like, yeah, I've seen this with, I mean, this is kind of, I don't know if it's just like, I think you would be fine.

Maggie: How fast were they going that they managed to do a stoppie that seriously?

Armene: 15 miles per hour. Really? And yes, because, because I think it was kind of a heavier set person and a taller set person. And I think once his upper body leaned forward past the handlebars, it was a point of no return. That's unfortunate. It was, it was pretty ugly. Actually, it was actually just like a couple of weeks ago. I know he was fine. He jumped up and said, did that look cool?

Maggie: What a sports.

Armene: But just be careful. I don't know. I've, I just, I don't know. See, I'm, I'm always pooping on the parties. I, I hope you have a lot of fun. The monkeys are way fun. They're, they're so fun. My daughter had a monkey for a while. That was a lot of, that's a fun little bike.

Maggie: Yeah. Tim Clark has one. Yeah. The scooter that we have that we bring around with us along with our bikes is my first two wheels. Like I started on the scooter and it's been kind of convenient. Like I'll take his grocery store. I'll go to the gas station on it. You know, I take it to the laundry room with our laundry because it actually has a lot of storage, but it's a pain in the ass to pack. And so he's, he, I think he just doesn't want to say he's embarrassed to have it. Oh, as he should be, as he should be. I'm just kidding. So, uh, he wants to get it. He wants to trade in something else for it. I'm like, okay, fine. Um, and we're in like, I don't know if it's self-proclaimed or a true Mackie says it's the ATV capital of the world. I hope there's nobody from Mackie listening to this, uh, that I question it, but yes, there are signs all over that it's the ATV capital of the world. So it's all dirt here. Four wheelers besides dirt bikes. That's it. That's all there is out here.

Armene: That's awesome.

Maggie: There's a lot of amazing trails that, uh, we're both like, oh, that would be so fun. If only we had, you know, whatever.

Armene: Yeah. That'd be awesome. That's what those are so good for. They're such fun. Yeah. All right. Well, I feel like we have solved bike problem. We've solved your bike problem. I need one of everything, but first I need an Aprilia. Yes. I will agree to the first part. If any of our listeners have a really rad Aprilia, they want to sell me. Just go to TRO dot some other stuff, apostrophe with some other things.com.

Maggie: What's our email address? For radio TRO. I'm Maggie Dean. And I'm Armanee Piper. Safe travels, everyone.

Robin: So we are going to ride Cloverloof.