TRO

Your Sport Touring Motorbike Fix
close

Close

Aug 2, 2023TranscriptCommentShare

Behold our FTC disclosure masterpiece here ...

Powdered Giblets

It's the Gold Bond episode! Music by Otis McDonald. Download our feed here.

Transcript

As legible as we are intelligible ...

Robin: How you been man? Good, good. What observations specific to sport touring or universal motorcycling as a whole have you observed this week, Brian?

Brian: I have observed, well two things. I have observed some blankety blank spilled a whole container of drywall screws on the corner not far from my house. And I just want to say, come on dude, no. Yeah, use your words. Yeah, I don't want to use like dirty words, but those are the only ones that fit. And the second thing I observed is how you don't see anybody, you don't see anybody when it looks like there might be a cloud or rain. You know, it's like you see bikes going around and so forth and then they just disappear if there's any possible threat of rain. And it's like, you know that you're not going to die.

Robin: Or at least that's not the plan, right?

Brian: That's not the plan, yeah. But yeah, it's always on the table, isn't it? But yeah, just people have this reluctance to get the, you know, spots on their chrome and so forth. And yeah, I try to ride to work every day and it's mainly just to kind of keep sharp, you know, if I'm being honest. Like it's not an exciting ride, but it's practice, you know, it's saddle time.

Robin: Yeah, that's one of my favorite things a friend of mine said, Don Barron, he's written for the site before. He said this during an older version of the MSF curriculum to a class where he said, you know, to an older gentleman who kind of ribbed himself about being an older gentleman. And he said, you should be able to do anything you want well into your years, well into your years, so long as it's something you do regularly, frequently, on the norm, right?

Brian: Right.

Robin: Makes sense.

Brian: Makes sense, yeah. All right.

Robin: Let's do the segments. I got them set up in a pretty good order now. So we start with the questions. And actually, this is something we forgot to do last time anyhow, and I should write into the outline. The topic, the name of this segment is stuff our listeners might ask if we had any listeners. If you have any questions for us, the email is podcast at tro.bike. That's podcast at tro.bike. And if you send us an email, it'll go to about 12 different people who will wonder what's going on and why it is they didn't get a chance to answer the question for you either. Brian, which one, what's the name of the person and what questions are they asking?

Brian: Okay. The name of this person, let's call him Uncle Fester.

Robin: And could you say that any creepier? Okay.

Brian: Tell me about your underwear. Do you guys powder your giblets and all that? So, Fester, let's talk about underwear. Let's talk about sport touring underwear. Robin, what do you got? What is on your butt when you're on the saddle?

Robin: Well, assuming I haven't torn through it already, there was a company for a while there, I managed to make these things last for a good minute, UniGlo. And they make a knee-length boxer brief. It dries really fast. So, I'll pack pretty much two of everything. One I wear, the other one's packed. Wherever I go, the destination, once I get a shower and all that, the dirty underwear goes into a wash bag designed for washing laundry. And then the new stuff goes on for the night and into the next day. I think it's UniGlo. And it is fast-drying material. Yes, it's sturdy. Yes, it does what it's supposed to. But after you wash it, it's not like hanging up an animal skin underwear of some fur-based variety that takes a month and a half to begin to steam away. You know what I mean? What about you, Brian? By the way, not an awkward topic at all. Thanks for this.

Brian: Hey, you know, motorcycling is one area where like men and women actually, I've noticed, will frankly discuss matters of the body. You just have to. Yeah. You know, hey, your hands look a little bigger than mine. How about, here, take these gloves. They're a little big on me, you know, stuff like that. Anyway, I'll talk about underwear. Now, what, and this is partially a mistake, but it's worked out really well. I went into, I don't know where I was. But anyway, I was looking, what I was looking for was bicycle shorts that didn't have like the bicycle diaper pad in it. You know, bicycle shorts, they have like a really thick pad because bicycles have those little horrible seats.

Robin: If I wanted to be a piece of sporting equipment, I'd be a woman's bicycle seat.

Brian: Yeah. Anyway, so what I found in somewhere, I don't know where, so I have like four pairs and they're basically like these lycra or spandex bicycle shorts, except they don't have the pad in them. So they're just like tight shorts and, you know, it's a glorious sight. And into these shorts, along with myself, I put a generous helping of what I call giblet powder. Like monkey butt? Yeah. Monkey butt's a good one, but I think the best one is gold bond. Now you can get the gold bond gold, which is great and does a great job, or you can get the gold bond that's got menthol in it. It's like in a green container. And the term I've heard for that is 1,000 elves. And the reason for that is that when you put that stuff on your giblets, it feels like 1,000 tiny elves are giving you a nice little massage. It's very cool and very much a tactile experience. Yeah, man. No comment. No comment. No comment. So anyway, so yeah, I basically, yeah, normally I don't, you know, I'm only can get away from work for three or four days so that those four pairs cover that. Four pairs. And they work really well. Yeah. So I got four pairs of these shorts. Now what I did, the mistake part came in because I was checking the receipt later on, you know, balancing the old checking account. And what I realized, these are actually women's shorts. I have still not found any such thing and anything, any similar thing made for actual men. So I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, they work really well and they've been really durable. They're kind of thick and have pretty much staved off the monkey butt for many thousands of miles.

Robin: Yeah. You're not the first person I've heard mentioned that those products are out there and I'm becoming more and more, well, old. So I think I'm coming of age with the need for that kind of thing, especially when you hit peak summer riding. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. Keeps the keeps the swamp at bay. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Robin: You heard it here first, folks.

Brian: You heard it here first, Tierra the bike, giblet powder, two words, giblet powder.

Robin: Now we're on the map. Tastic mayhem. I'm loading up right with GPS dot com. Logging in using my Gmail account, clicking on route planner up top in the main navigation. You're chomping at the bit to see this amazing vision.

Brian: I am chomping. OK, where are we starting today, Uncle Robin?

Robin: Today, Warm Springs, which in the last episode you asked where the cold springs, guess what? We might be staying at Cold Springs, Texas.

Brian: That's right. Hot, cold, warm.

Robin: So we want to look at terrain and then I'm going to zoom in.

Brian: I'm getting vertigo.

Robin: Don't worry, we got this. We're going to start the route. That is pretty gnarly, right?

Brian: Yes. Yeah. Pretty, pretty gnarly little area of the country here. We arrive via 39, which would make sense given you were in Parkersburg. You were coming in from the northwest and you were on 39.

Robin: Yes. Anything directly east or directly west I think is fair game. I wouldn't mind getting a little bit of a peek at it to make sure I know what we've already done that day. So I'm going to go to ridewithgps.com and I'm going to click on the routes. I'll load up the beast as they've heard it from one episode so far. The full perfected.

Brian: And then when you leave Warm Springs, which way are you going?

Robin: That's a perfectly fine question.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Here is Warm Springs. OK, so you're going to go out. Got it. Definitely off of 39 coming into town from the northwest, and we don't do anything to the east. You talk about this. It looks like there's some good stuff in that area, but I don't know how far out I'm zoomed.

Brian: Yeah. Brian, show me your ways. Now, one thing that's cool about this area is you can see if you're looking at on the topographic view, you know, off to the west, you've got the kind of the little lumpy, beachy stuff.

Robin: Yeah. By topographic, it's the terrain map inside of RideWith GPS.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So you select terrain and this is really like you can see what kind of experience you're going to have. You can get a real sense of like, oh, OK, we're getting into some more dramatic terrain right here. And so you can see that there's, you know, it was just sort of like lumpy, lumpy, lumpy, lumpy. And then now you're getting into some higher ridges, you know, like most of the Appalachians, the ridges run like north, northeast to southwest. So they're kind of on this diagonal. And so the roads are going to be the most dramatic or the ones that are crossing all those ridges. You know, the ridge like ruffles, you know, you're riding on a giant potato chips. And so the most, the best roads are going to or a lot of the best roads are going to be the ones that are trying to get across those somehow, you know, because otherwise you get funneled into that diagonal down in the valleys and also in some of the ridgetops.

Robin: Yeah, it looks like it might be high traffic, but I'm looking at this just north of Warm Springs, Virginia, this U.S. 250, which has some snarly snaggle tooth in there. Now that is a U.S. route, which means, heck, it might even be truck friendly. I don't know. It may be high traffic, but it is staring us in the face as poorly managed hairline right there. Just nothing but curves.

Brian: Yeah, nothing but curves. And it climbs over and over and over, you know, over and up and down, you know, a pretty good size ridge system. You know, like normally you cross a ridge and you're done for a while. This just keeps going. So that could be a good goal. But how far away? The other thing is a scale. Like, how far away is that?

Robin: That's a good question. When I expand the elevation chart, I believe that's what will show me the size of a... No, it won't. Okay. I don't know what is a mile just yet. But the one thing we can do, what are your thoughts given the situation on me taking this, I don't know, about 220, more like this 92 over here through Dunmore and then up to Hawthorne, all of this is due north, to get to the top of this 250. If I do that...

Brian: I'm loving it.

Robin: ...that alone, well, it didn't want to do what I just wanted to do, but already, let's see where we're at here. That's 50 miles. That right there alone is 50 miles.

Brian: Yeah. Basically, you would end up with a route that's around 100 miles to get you back to...

Robin: There we go. That's 50 miles right there.

Brian: So you were talking about going up to... Yeah. Is there something better?

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Well, and the other thing is to go back out 39, even though you're... And then go up 92.

Robin: Oh, I see you.

Brian: All the way to the head of... All the way to Thornwood.

Robin: So... This thing's jumping with the zoom right now, so I'll just use the click box. Sorry about the vertigo, as you called it. We're talking about something like that, Slady Fork, and then take 60... Do you want to take 219 up top or 66 over?

Brian: You could. Yeah, you could take 219 up top and then take 250 to Hightown and then 64 back.

Robin: Hightown. Where do we see that? What if I did this 66 route? Because that looks filthy.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Let's see if it's actually paved. I'm vaguely trusting that the little guy here says it's paved. Let's find out. Loaded. And yeah, that's paved.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Thorny Flat Road, which is 66 through Greenbank, which is 92 over to 250. And I bet you if I just click right here, look at that. All right. That's already... That's some miles right there. But you get to ride this 250 all the way to Monterey, and I get the feeling that's not... That's nothing to be angry about. And then you can just take 220 all the way back in as a cool down and call it good.

Brian: I think so. What do you got there?

Robin: 130 extra miles back to Dodge, which I think is... That's acceptable. If it's a short day or people just have... If people are just those types of riders that just eat miles for breakfast, then I got no beef with this. I'll tell you what looks even better is that 678 there by Williamsville. If we just do this, that looks even better.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: It's going to be similar mileage. And yeah, it still leaves enough distance to...

Brian: Yeah. And it's not a U.S. route, and it's a numbered state route, so it'll be paved.

Robin: Oh, yeah. So if we go back to Warm Springs here, I'll make the adjustments for the actual lodging. Let me make sure that this is... Oh, what's this? Probably not paved. My trick with pavement is to grab the street view icon.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: And if the road lights up, it's probably paved. But then you really got to zoom in because I'll tell you what, man, here in Idaho, they're not messing around. When they say U.S. highway or U.S. interstate, blah, blah, blah, they might very well be talking about a freshly dug ditch.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Full-size semi-trucks driving down that thing.

Brian: I think that... What do you got? 149 miles?

Robin: Now... It's 150 miles.

Brian: Yeah. And the thing is, you could go up 92 here on this side and shave off some. Probably smart. Yeah.

Robin: You ever get to that point where you're just like, but I don't want to. Look at that. But I don't want to. I don't want to. This is an awful feeling, but we're going to do it. I don't want to be prudent. Let's see what... Oh, well, 92 looked better actually in that one little section. If we do that, we've knocked it down to 120 miles extra that you can just chomp on. And I like it. Should I save this one up?

Brian: I think so.

Robin: All right. You know what I'm going to do once these things get published?

Brian: What are you going to do, Robin?

Robin: We're going to make these available on the podcast episode pages for people to download if they want to.

Brian: I think so. Yeah.

Robin: This will be good. We'll make them freebies. Maybe. Maybe.

Brian: Yeah. All right. So the listeners, the teeming crowds of listeners are going to want to see what in the hell we're talking about. Or follow along at home on Google Maps or on Bridewood GPS.

Robin: BridewoodGPS.com. I'll probably edit some of that out at some point. Let's see here. So what am I looking for? Oh, the names. Okay. 777-... There we go.

Brian: Do you want to put together a second one that is not as long, but a nice scenic route? Because if you go south of Warm Springs, it looks pretty cool. And I think you could get back and... You mean Hot Springs? Yeah. Yeah. If you go through, go south of Warm Springs into Hot Springs, and then you get into Boiling Springs. There's actually Healing Springs down there.

Robin: Perfect. Oh, I don't know. We can. I just don't really care about those people enough, I think.

Brian: Yeah. What I was talking about is you could go down 220 and hang a ride on 687 and come back.

Robin: You're making me do it. So let me clear the map. We're doing it. So start in Hot Springs. And you want me to go where?

Brian: Down to Warm Springs.

Robin: Go Warm Springs.

Brian: Warm Springs. Go down 220. Yep. And then you can... See, there's some tasty bits there. So keep going on 220 till you see Clearwater Park and hang a ride on 687.

Robin: Oh, look at what it did. Look at what it did. It wanted to avoid all things good about this moment in motorcycling. Yeah. I mean, that's a U.S. route. That's going to be paved. I don't even need to look. I know it's paved.

Brian: Yeah. And then you're back up. And you're going through this really cool valley. And there's... Yeah.

Robin: Just head on back from there through 687.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And what do we got? We got what? 50, 60? We got about 60 miles, I bet.

Robin: Yeah. 40.

Brian: Not even that. 50, maybe. Yeah. 50 miles. Yeah.

Robin: I like it. So I should save this one as the bonus scenic, shouldn't I? Already right out the gates.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that idea, you know, where you've got a couple of like, okay, here's a couple of little bonus routes. You know, one of them is for you, you know, you slobbering maniacs. And then here's, you know, like, you know, our people. And then here's one. Here's one if you're, you know, you know, like if your shrimp at lunch is not sitting well with you or your roller dog wants out or something like that.

Robin: Perfect. We have two now. Let me make sure I've got both of these stored. That marks this episode of Maptastic Mayhem, which, Brian, did anything inspire you about that particular ride?

Brian: That's a broad question. Yeah. What you need to do when you're riding in West Virginia is not, not think of that John Denver song. We're not going to sing it. You don't want to be thinking, you know, West Virginia mountain mama, you know, blah, blah, blah. No. So just, just try to do that while you're in the mountains of West Virginia. It's impossible. Can't do it.

Robin: Well, that's, but we're not in the mountains of West Virginia. We're in the mountains of Virginia. Oh, are we still in Virginia? Okay. I believe so. I do know socially it is touch and go about that topic. If you talk to somebody from Virginia and you think on the in line with Virginia, West Virginia, whatever the Virginian, they have a certain Southern sophistication that will eloquently destroy your commentary about anything involving them having anything to do with West Virginia whatsoever. So I stay away from that one.

Brian: That's true. Good idea. And, and just to be fair, warm springs and hot springs are kind of just inside the border of Virginia. So for much of, for much of the first route, you're going to be in West Virginia and crossing into Virginia. So anyway.

Robin: That makes sense. Hey, that brings us to Brian's tiny, tasty tool tips.

Brian: Gather around kids. Let's pick a random tiny, tasty tool tip here. I'm going to, I'm going to combine two today. One of them is now everybody should have a human toolkit with them. You need to have a first aid kit or somebody does, you know, for all the little stuff.

Robin: We were talking about comparison. Those, I forgot to bring mine in. I don't, I'll, I'll chime in a little bit here, but I forgot mine.

Brian: No problem. Anyway, in my kit, I carry something I have not seen other people carry. And I think it's very important. And what you want are, are, you know, several of those little disposable artificial tears, droppers. So you get, you can get these little eyedroppers and they're little tiny plastic eyedroppers. They got just a little bit of the artificial tears, eyedrops and carry like 10 of them because when you're out riding, you're outside, you're in the air, there's things in the air, there's bugs, rocks, aliens, you know, all kinds of stuff. And even, you know, even with helmets, you know, things happen and get in people's eyes. So if you have, you can take like four or five of those little droppers and, and flush that stuff out of someone's eye. And it also helps soothe their eye. And, you know, this, this can literally be a lifesaver for someone. I mean, if you can't see, you can't ride and that's, that's horrifying.

Robin: That's pretty brilliant. I like that.

Brian: So I don't see a lot of people having those. And so, you know, go get some artificial tears, you know, it doesn't matter what brand or whatever. Chuck, chuck some of them in your first aid kit. They're tiny, they're light, they don't take up any room and you will find ways to use them. Someone will get a bug in the eye. And tiny tool tip number two, very tiny, carry some Imodium. Need I say more?

Robin: Imodium AD, I forget what Imodium does.

Brian: It regulates the human excretory system.

Robin: So.

Brian: Anti-shit yourself. Pretty much. Yeah. So if, if things are flowing too hard back there, Imodium helps slow the tide and it works fast.

Robin: Smart. No, that's still funny, but that's smart. That makes sense. Yeah.

Brian: So yeah, nothing's more miserable than, you know, having, you know, having some issue with a, with a bad roller dog you got back in West Virginia and it wants out, you know, anyway.

Robin: You really bring the charm to the Wednesday night episode.

Brian: Do I need to literally draw a picture? No. If anything starts to go awry, just take one and take another one. If it continues to end, you know, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll help the problem quite a bit. And we will say no more.

Robin: Nice. Very good. Now, not everybody remembers these timely tips. They're all important, but every now and then you're going to find yourself on planet that guy. We've all been that guy. We've all ridden with that guy. Let's talk about that guy.

Brian: Oh, there's so many of that guys to pick from. I'm going to talk about that guy. This is a dual sport ride in the wilds of Tennessee, like very remote. And some of it was actually some single track and, you know, just very remote and so forth. Anyway, that guy got a flat on his KLR and that happens, that doesn't make you that guy really. And so, you know, we improvise, we get rocks together, we pile up sticks. We, you know, we, we, we build a primitive lathe, you know, we, anyway, we get the wheel off, we get the tire off. And it's actually a pretty nice time because we're in the woods where it's in the shade. We've got a little bit of a breeze. There's no dead animals around. So it's actually, you know, it's not bad as far as, you know, dealing with a tube tire goes, you know, and we had spare tubes and all that stuff anyway. So we get the tire off and we found the, the object that punctured his tube was actually a broken off key, like, like a key from someone's house. What it was doing out there, I have no idea.

Robin: So that's a whole topic right there. The things that can puncture a tire. I remember our own Travis Burleson, he drove, he rode his bike over a socket extension and not even a small one, like a, I think it was a quarter inch and it became completely embedded, like straight. It was probably, it was about three inches long, but I think it was a quarter inch drive. And the whole thing was flush with the socket connection. And I was like, well, what's on your tire, man? He's like, what? He rolls up, begins to tug on it. And then that's, there goes our day.

Brian: Nice. Yeah. And, and yeah, those, those can be, well, here's, here's the thing. We found the key in the tire. Yeah. And we could, uh, there was one time that we, we pulled a rock out of, it was just a rock, just a rock, a rock, a little stone. And so we see this little thing peeking up and I start pulling on it and it comes out and it's just a little rock. And I'm like, how the hell did this get in? You know, anyway. Okay. So go back to the original, that guy. So we find the key. Uh, we, we get, we have a new tube, so that's good. That makes life a lot easier than trying to patch it. And we start putting things back together and something, I don't want to claim any kind of divine intervention here, but something tells me, or at least it should be part of your habit when you're wrestling a tube tire. But I took a rag, you know, I have my little, you know, your, you know, clean up your hands rag. And I basically swiped it around the inside of the tire and I found a screw. So basically this guy had two flats at once or that guy, I mean, he had two flats at once from a key and from a screw. And if you stop, so basically just you, because you find a problem, make sure you've found all the problems is the lesson from that guy.

Robin: So he's, he's like a two wheeled Morocco.

Brian: Yeah. I don't know how I do to this day. We don't know how it did that, but yeah, you always, so basically you always run, if you're dealing with a tube tire, you always run a rag around the inside and see if you can, you know, make sure there's nothing that's going to puncture your tube. And I guess that's why you do that. Cause sometimes there is something else or, you know, totally unrelated, you know, so like someone was like, they were going to home Depot and they were taking the long way home and their keys fell out and, you know, and then they lost the box. I don't know what happened. I don't know why that stuff was out there.

Robin: I'm trying to think of the one that here is a, that guy, the ride, your own ride logic, the ride, your own ride logic. I hope that I haven't already told this one, but I will say that if I have, it's still worth hearing again from a, a mental safety perspective. Sometimes you just run into somebody that you didn't know. And then you do. And you're like, Oh, that didn't seem pretty cool. Maybe we'll go for a ride at some point. And then you invite them and they seem to think that there's some expectation of them to ride in a specific way, or there's some specific expectation of how the amoeba that are multiple writers is going to go. The number of us gather on the day specified. And I say, yeah, we're going to ride up this way. And you know, it's, this was a Chicago route. So it was specific to the Chicago land area North of, you know, when you get out into the burbs, if you stay by the lake, you might find some opportunities to have a little bit of fun, but nothing rural by any means. Right. I've managed to devise this little route because when we were there, I needed something that I could enjoy on the regular. If I had an hour and a half and I wanted to go exhaust myself on the bike, I would just be like, I'm going to go do the regular route. And that's actually on the website. I think I said it's written as roll your own twisties, finding a remote route with low enough traffic that you can at least enjoy being on the bike without any heavy duty downtown gold goes noise going on here. We are at the start of this thing. We get on the bikes, we take off. And very early into the ride, we float around a corner. It's a blind corner. It's a residential blind corner. And I always run a delayed Apex. So I float wide. I look into the curve and I dip the bike in and I begin to accelerate carefully because like I said, this is residential territory. There are kids playing in the yards. I don't want to mess with that. All right. And I look in my right mirror and I see this blip not turn going full force. It took me a while to register to this day. I don't understand why you would make that decision in a blank curve. But what I did see in my subconscious took note of was somebody's been watching too many Instagram videos, blasts through this corner, right into somebody's yard, downs the bike, it end over ends. They were all right, but they're sitting there with this broken machine thinking, well, I don't understand what happened. Isn't that what we're doing? If anybody told you that's what we were doing, don't ride with those people. We're going to go until someone crashes. You're right. And if somebody didn't tell you that, don't pretend like Instagram is a resource to understand what's about to happen there. Interesting. That's been weighing on me for quite some time. Feels really good to have gotten that out.

Brian: I'm glad I'm glad I could help extract this from you. Yeah. Yeah. The yeah, the that guy who does something stupid and you know, and everybody's on a different or he's on a totally different page, totally different plane of reality. Yeah. Been there, done that.

Robin: I'm adding to this, the outline fast without purpose, blind curve crashing. And then I'll strike through that one that way. Hopefully I don't bring that one up again because it shouldn't have to plague me everywhere we go. Text strike through style, 1993. Very good.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and we could talk separately about, well, and there's really not much to say, but the, that guy who uses the whole road, like not just the right side, but the whole road is his playground no matter where you're going. And it's just, you know, it's a, it's a terrible thing to see. It is. And I don't want to get into a rant. So there, you know, it's like that you, you are not on the same page. You're, you're going to be that guy. And I'm going to go ride somewhere else.

Robin: Well, what do you want to do from here? Do you want to do another map, Tastic mayhem at a different location? Or I think an excerpt or an article. I like that. That's actually not a bad idea.

Brian: Like I could talk about the rules of passing from the sport touring article.

Robin: I'll hang out for that. And then the other thing is, you know, we've got room to keep on coming up with more segments. I'm just going to start at the top.

Brian: Okay. This week on Brian's Bloviating, we're going to start with a commandment one from my list of 10 commandments for the sport touring ride leader. And the first commandment is thou shalt stay the hell away from one another. This is the number one inviolable commandment. Space is life. When you're moving, give each other at least a school bus of space. Don't, don't worry about the two second rule or whatever, you know, think about it like a school bus. Everybody knows what a school bus looks like, right?

Robin: Oh, now we're going to debate because right there, it's like two seconds. The school bus gets bigger, the faster you're going.

Brian: True. Yeah. And we're talking a long school bus that your, that your sister rode, not the short one you guys rode anyway. So leave space around you so you can maneuver and do what you need to. So you can ride like that. So only share lanes at stoplights. So like when you're stoplights, yeah, bunch up so you can get through the green, you know, when it turns, uh, each rider needs enough room to maneuver instantly as needed in any direction without wasting any attention on other riders. You know, you, an alligator jumps out at you, you got to react right then without having to think about the guy next to you.

Robin: Ask us how we know.

Brian: Yeah. I, I'd swear I once saw a Python, but it was a stick anyway. Um, and so if you want to be close and you want to hold hands, you know, go ride a roller coaster or something. But if you want to ride motorcycles, get the hell away from each other, give each other lots of space. And one important factor in this is you really need to keep the number of riders in your group to a minimum. Uh, three to maybe five or six riders is ideal. Um, and it's still, you know, you really have to pay attention when you get into five or six riders. If you get more than that, things can get really pretty cumbersome and you run a lot of risk of like running into each other and damaging each other. Um, and kind of the big, the classic example is I do a lot of U-turns. Um, you know, that's what happens, whatever deal with it. And if, if you need to U-turn and you have like eight or 10 riders, it becomes, it becomes like a circus and, and people fall over, people go out, you know, there's always one. There's always, there's always, there's always one has trouble. You know, people are looking in every direction. They're trying not to get hit by trucks and so forth. So that is commandment one, stay the hell away from each other. Don't hold hands. The next week we'll do number two.

Robin: Yeah. Now this is actually brilliant. So are you open to argument? Absolutely open to argument. I am completely all about the minimum of two seconds more if necessary. Right. A school bus. Yeah, I get it. But if we're really hauling the mail, the school bus won't do.

Brian: That's true.

Robin: It should take you at least two seconds to reach the object, the rider ahead of you just passed minimum. And that's if your attention is on high alert, like you've just done the double shot coffee thing or whatever. And otherwise it's like three seconds, eight, bad, five seconds, whatever. But the whole idea is that whatever you're counting as it goes by, you reach that telephone pole. You should be able to one, 1000, two, 1000, me. You know what I mean?

Brian: You're right.

Robin: That grows with speed. And if there's anything we won't ever admit to, it's that we're all about speed. Well, to figuratively, to some extent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's right.

Brian: That's. Yeah, that's a great way to that's a great way to think about it. Yeah. And like like the school bus works at quasi legal speeds. And, you know, but, you know, there are times you need more. And yeah. And you also those times when you need to count those two seconds and it's like, you know, a really long bus or it's an airplane. Those are also the times you have to really it's better to you need all your attention and it's better. You know, the further away that guy is, the better.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: You know, the less your you don't want that red mist to come down and start competing. You don't want to think, oh, I can I can do that too. You know, you don't want to base anything you're doing off the guy in front of you. So the more the speeds come up, the more seconds, you know, the two seconds is like the absolute dirt minimum. You know, more than that is even better.

Robin: The red mist is delicious. So long as you're by yourself, so long as there's enough space. Just enjoy. Enjoy all of it. Very cool. Let's go and wrap this thing up.

The Gist

Who knew a conversation about sport touring motorcycle travel could offer such an eclectic range of topics? Everything from shiny chrome to the tactile pleasures derived from a liberal application of 1000 tiny elves on your giblets. Nope, we're not some obscure Icelandic choir group. It's just poor Brian's metaphor for personal care products. Sit tight (or pretty) folks. You're in for quite the wild ride with Uncle Fester, err ... Brian.

Things heat up as geography takes center stage. Virginia? Love it. Topographic views? Gimme more! We zoom over mountains and ridges faster than you can say "vertigo-inducing motorcycle rides" (remember to pack your tiny elf-infused saddle oil). As Robin chimes in about east and west being fair game, we're left wondering whether they've forgotten there is indeed a north and south.

Deep dive into this motorcycling extravaganza en route to serious discussions around human toolkits, safety measures (Instagram isn't ideal for learning advanced biking tips), group dynamics during rides, rules of passing, and intriguing accounts featuring "that guy". Apparently, everyone has ridden with him and he often strangely finds keys and/or rocks in tires. Surely, these survival skills were passed down by ancient moto-warriors. Get ready to nod along through one road-traffic-anarchy of an episode.

Kit We're "Blatantly Pushing You To Buy"

Gold Bond Medicated Original Strength Body Powder, 10 oz., Talc-Free, Anti-Itch, Absorbs & Cools

Gold Bond Medicated Original Strength Body Powder, 10 oz., Talc-Free, Anti-Itch, Absorbs & Cools

Includes one (1) 10 oz. bottle of Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder Original Strength. This Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder is made with a unique triple action formula that cools, absorbs moisture and relieves itch. This body powder temporarily relieves pain and itching associated with minor cuts and More ...

Uniqlo AIRism Boxer Briefs (Large, Navy)

Uniqlo AIRism Boxer Briefs (Large, Navy)

Lighter and more quick-drying than ever, with 20% greater breath-ability, so you wont even feel them. More ...

Mini First Aid Kit, 100 Pieces Water-Resistant Hard Shell Small Case - Perfect for Travel, Outdoor, Home, Office, Camping, Hiking, Car (Black)

Mini First Aid Kit, 100 Pieces Water-Resistant Hard Shell Small Case - Perfect for Travel, Outdoor, Home, Office, Camping, Hiking, Car (Black)

FULLY PACKED Everything you need is in a small kit! Fully packed with 100 pieces useful and valuable hospital grade medical supplies, all kind of bandages, iodine pads, burn gel, PVC gloves, gauze pads, etc. CERTIFICATED All our products are with international certifications to ensure compliance More ...

Did We Miss Sump'm?

Sixty percent of the time, we're right every time. What would you add to the conversation and why? Your input is invited. Leave a comment and/or write an article!

Share Link ...

Click Me!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Thoughts gone wild? Write an article!