Robin: Jordan, great to hear your voice, great to talk to you. Half the reason I wanted to have you on here is because I learned a lot from you before I started really getting into it, then I've always just remembered you as somebody who was both informative, bit of a historian, and just knows bikes. So I wanted to pick up on that and do something nice with it. Also your beautiful face that I can clearly distinguish right now.

Jordan: The more I drink, the better I look.

Robin: We welcome you to the conversation. Thanks for being here. We asked this question of everybody, hey Jordan, what's the temperature in Chicago? Three Fahrenheit. Three degrees. So did you ride today?

Jordan: Uh, no, but my record is negative 25. I rode during the polar vortex on a Suzuki E500, a 70. They love it cold, but I probably shouldn't have gone to work that day. Polar vortex. The car wouldn't start, but the bike liked it, so I rode.

Robin: That's one of those things where you get to work and you're still smiling because your skin has physically frozen in that position.

Jordan: You know, I was actually pretty warm. I was pretty bundled up, couldn't move very much. Prior to that, my record was, I think, 17 positive on a 67 Superhawk.

Robin: Did you have enough fuel to make it back?

Jordan: Oh yeah.

Robin: The Superhawk is notorious for having a tiny gas tank.

Jordan: Yeah, that was just a Chicago Vinmoto event that I came home from late in the woods, 20 something and dropping, and I made it home. No problem.

Brian: I think I did a minus 17 once just because, you know, I didn't have to, but it was a Kickstart Suzuki GS400. No need to crank over with the battery. Just kick it. It started and, well, all right, let's try this.

Jordan: Yeah. Probably had capacity discharge ignition made it easy to start.

Brian: Yeah. I don't remember what that had, but yeah, it was easy.

Robin: Right out the gates, it begins. Capacity discharge. All I know about the Kickstart is pump once, slow, prime it. Pump twice, slow, prime it. And one time, boom, and you're either going or you're not. That one's probably going to let you know right there, that third kick.

Jordan: Yeah. You and Robin have those 400s in common. I think Robin had a Seiko 400, maybe something before that.

Robin: I did have the Seiko 400 and it did not have a Kickstart though. I think that bike came out that year and it was all magic button, which was great. I did learn, however, in passing, you know, we go to a lot of RV parks and we run into a lot of old people and a lot of old people that have a lot of history and information, things you didn't know. Shocker. I was unaware that the GL 1000, I think either the 75 or the 76.

Jordan: I had the 76 behind me, yeah.

Robin: The 75 came with a carefully hidden Kickstart.

Jordan: I have one right behind me.

Robin: Okay. And then the 76 did not. Am I correct? No.

Jordan: The 76 or 77 both did. 78, 79 did not.

Robin: There it is. So the guy owned both and one day he needed to use the Kickstart and went looking for it and realized that they didn't include it on that year. He learned the hard way that did not come with that. Okay. So we asked the question, did you ride today? Now I'm in Texas. I did ride today. Brian says that, I'll let you read this.

Brian: I did not ride today. Indianapolis is basically the ice planet, Hoth, where we have to cut open our tauntauns to stay warm and sleep in the body. I did order motorcycle tires yesterday and they showed up today, uh, cause I'm going to change the tires on the KLR. What are they? These are the Tusk 2-track. Tusk is kind of the house brand at Rocky Mountain ATV motorcycle. So if you're into dual sport riding, you probably order from them all the time. They started like, you know, somebody in China anyway, makes their house brand of dual sport tires. So these are the two track. It's kind of a new one. Reviews are good. Looks proper knobby, but still some street-ish.

Robin: Oh yeah. Almost a 50-50, but the tread looks like it's mean, like it wants to dig in and pull you through soft debris. Oh yeah. Zero problems, zero concern.

Brian: So yeah, I'm going to put those on the KLR this weekend because I'm just that bored. Nice. It's been heavily modified. Heavily, yeah. Swiss Army knife. Some of the modifications are voluntary. Some of them were more like due to Bambi.

Jordan: Can I just get Bambi?

Robin: Well, Jordan, I'm going to take you to task here real quick. I'm interrupting because Jordan sold me and helped me start to build my very first motorcycle. I actually loved that bike. I don't think I was ready to own that specific machine. Today, different story. But Jordan helped make that happen for me. He was part of the entire start of everything you're listening to right now. I have always respected you as my friend and a vintage geek, a UJM aficionado, a generally sturdy take on all things, all bikes that are void of an ECU. The history is going to be a big topic here. Last episode, we brought up, there was Malcolm Smith.

Brian: Yeah, Malcolm Smith had recently died, yeah.

Robin: Last episode, we talked about Bud Eakins, but somebody we left out of the mix that we should have brought up is Mary McGee. So we're going to bring in Maggie Dean to talk in depth about Mary McGee. Take it away, Maggie.

Maggie: Drinks gas, spits nails. That's the inscription in Motorcycle Mary's Hall of Fame ring. She was inducted in 2023. Mary McGee, otherwise known as Motorcycle Mary, died last month at the age of 87. This woman, this person of many firsts in motorsports, left big, wide tracks for us to follow. She broke barriers and set records, all while wearing her signature pink polka dot helmet. Who was Mary McGee? Mary started racing after her brother, Don, asked her if she wanted to drive. This was after one of his many car races she used to watch. She was scared, but she said yes. And then it was on. She started to race cars and win. After that, her motto was to always say yes if someone asks you to go somewhere or do something. She eventually made her way into motorcycle racing. She hit roadblocks there, of course. Again, this was in the 60s. Officials made her qualify. And when she did, on her 125cc motorcycle, they didn't believe her bike could do that. And they didn't believe her bike hadn't been augmented. That was just one of the many challenges she faced when racing in MotoGP. And then one day, her friend Steve McQueen, yes, the actor Steve McQueen, teased her about getting off the street and trying something real, like riding in the desert. You know, it's always about your friend group. So she started to do that, and it was the hardest thing she'd ever done. She'd never got tired when she was racing or riding in the street. So dirt in the desert, she admits, wore her out. And then another friend, Wolf Tiblin, told her she was going to enter the Baja 500. First she said, no, I can't do that. And then he told her, yes, you can. And you will. And because of her motto, she did. She entered the race and became the first, not just female, but the first person to finish the Baja 500 race solo. No one at the time thought that was possible. After the race, the Ironman trophy was supposed to go to the first solo finisher. It went to a man who finished first in the race solo, but in a car and after Mary. The judges wouldn't consider Mary for the trophy because, well, because. But despite that, she was proud of that race of all her accomplishments. It was hard and she finished it and she did pretty well. Although that didn't matter to her as much as finishing what she started, no matter who was recognized for the trophy. And it wasn't a smooth race, by the way. Check out her documentary for more details on that. She had many firsts, like being the first woman to race motorcycles in the U.S. and the first in motocross and the first to enter a race in the desert. But what I think is worth admiring is her attitude in life. Like saying yes to things that challenged her. Her brother taught her how to take in a breath and say, it's going to be okay. Stay calm. Twist the throttle. But she wasn't doing these things to get attention and recognition. She did them for herself, not for other people. Why? I mean, she loved it. It was fun. And she was doing these things in the fifties and sixties that women weren't doing. And while her brother and her family and friends cheered her on, she was mostly navigating the racing world alone. Many of her fellow racers and riders, they didn't know what to make of her or how to be around her. So she had to fight for every opportunity she got. She showed people that anything was possible if you're willing to work hard and believe in yourself. Put another way, you gotta want it. She continued to compete in women's over 60 and over 70s races. Yes, you heard that right. Races for women over 60 and over 70. I'll be happy if I'm just able to still be riding two wheels in my sixties and seventies. Her life was full of challenges and adventure and accomplishments, and later on, mentoring and obviously, inspiration. I hadn't heard of her before today. I watched her documentary Motorcycle Mary, and I encourage you to check it out. It's short, 20 minutes. Yes, her achievements were awesome, but it's her spirit and her life attitude I think that's the takeaway. If someone asks you to do something or go somewhere, say yes. This is about challenging yourself, getting out of your comfort zone. Breathe, stay calm, twist the throttle, participate in life. Check out her documentary on YouTube, Motorcycle Mary 30 for 30, and raise a wrench in honor of this amazing person. Thanks for listening. This is Maggie Dean for Radio Tiago.

Robin: BMW is entering MotoGP and Suzuki is returning. Has BMW never done MotoGP?

Brian: I couldn't tell you, but it, so this is the first time they've ever done MotoGP like ever? I don't know.

Robin: It just seems like the M1000RR lends itself well to the profile. It's something that I would have expected they had been doing for years. GTS. This is AI. I can't trust this answer.

Brian: Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I don't even.

Robin: Google's first response is just like, here is some shit that is imaginated.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Okay, so according to motorsportmagazine.com, BMW has never tried to win the MotoGP World Championship. The German manufacturer had a vague attempt in the 1950s with a 500cc Boxer Twin 4-stroke, which took second place in the 1956 championship behind MV Agusta's John Surtees, but that was it.

Brian: I thought like back in the olden days, it might've tried something, but.

Jordan: Yeah, BMW was a racing company up until probably the onset of the Japanese. The Germans were very competitive. MZ was a big competitive company, 40s and 50s into the 60s. After that, BMW seemed to be promoting themselves as a touring bike.

Robin: Oh.

Jordan: Because they had the Boxer engine. They didn't have a four-cylinder, and so all the 80s, you could see BMW trying to squeeze as much as they possibly could out of the Boxer engine.

Robin: Still trying.

Jordan: And then they had the brick.

Robin: The flying brick.

Jordan: Flat four. And there were some people that raced them, I believe endurance racers, raced the flat twin. And you could probably find articles in Rider Magazine going back to like 82, 83. And then the K bike came out with the K1.

Robin: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Jordan: And it was sportier, but not a racing bike.

Robin: Well, you're talking parallel four, right?

Jordan: Inline four.

Robin: It's, yeah, inline, inline four, but then, so the flat four, it's an inline four on its side. Yeah.

Jordan: They're great engines. They're great engines. They just, they're not doing it for racing, really. They had a few bikes that were fast, but not Japanese fast, not Ducati fast.

Robin: Yeah. That hasn't changed either. I mean, so I take the Beamer to road America now and again. And I mean, once I reach 135 miles an hour on the main straight, it feels like it's going to explode. It sounds like hell. It feels like hell. It doesn't like it. And I've still got like 2000 RPMs to work with that I'm just like, yeah.

Jordan: Dude, you have a boxer or you have a flat four or?

Robin: Boxer. Okay. Liquid cooled boxer. What model? That's the R1200RS. It's the GS1200 engine in a sport touring profile. I love it, man. I still do. It's got 115,000 miles on it in five years.

Jordan: I briefly had a R1100RT, I believe it was.

Robin: Oh yeah.

Jordan: It was a fun bike. I rung its neck. It didn't complain about anything.

Robin: No, it's fairly indestructible.

Jordan: Almost indestructible. You got to try pretty hard.

Robin: You might like this then. The newest thing they're doing with the R motor is they've managed to get the cylinders in line with each other. So they're no longer one in front of the other.

Brian: Is that going to do the hula?

Robin: No, they did something with a knuckle at the center that causes everything to work the way people might expect, or maybe they turned everything so it's at an angle, but whatever they did, now it's like, oh, now it's even quote unquote.

Jordan: And so what?

Robin: Right.

Jordan: That makes it better for you at idle so you don't wobble at idle?

Brian: No idea. It makes sense only in German.

Robin: More engineering.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: On the flip side of that, Suzuki is returning to MotoGP. Why do I get the feeling that they were just like, it's too easy. Okay. We're bored again. We'll come back and do this. You know? Yeah. I hope they do amazing things. I'm anxious to see how that goes. Listener questions and comments. This really kill had Jordans here for this. This ought to be fun. The first one I'll point out is that I really, oh, I love this so much. So nobody is immune to having a face value judgment or preconceived notions about anything. And we have this article that I published way back and we're sort of cycling our content back onto social media because some of it remains semi evergreen. And one of the things that was an article was external tire pressure monitors that actually go on to your tire valve and the yes, they do depress the valve stem. They have a plastic locking nut on the interior that helps them seize into position on there. And then it can Bluetooth to whatever system you use to let you know what your tire pressure is and also possibly alert you if there is a tire failure. Personally, I have no beef with this. I'm happy that these things exist. I promote them for my own personal use because whatever bike I get, I'd rather have simple solutions than proprietary shit. The ones I have for the current Beamer, I have to, I have to unmount the tire to get to the TPMS in order to replace it.

Brian: And they're like, what? 400, 500, $800. There's some ridiculous number of dollars from BMW, right?

Robin: But you can get, they're made by Schrader and you can get the same crap Schrader unmarked. Same exact thing for 25 bucks on eBay. So that's what I do. I've got another set waiting for me. The ones by FOBO are the ones I was promoting in this article. And we got a response about this rant is totally troll grade, but this looks like a really bad idea. Just get a stick pressure gauge. They're cheap and check your tires before you go. And that's not really the point. The point is to be alerted if there's a situation, which this person is referring to T-clocks, checking your bike before you ride. Of course we promote that you do that. Well, it may be a nice toy, but adding weight to the wheel after it's been balanced and not rebalancing the wheel is a bad idea. Our retort. I don't remember mentioning that in the article. I think you could probably put these on before you balance the wheel. Also adding stuff that can fly off is a bad idea. This person says. My response is that, well, you know, people sometimes fly off bikes. I imagine they'll fly off the bike before this thing would. I usually love all your stuff, but not this time. Not for me. Our response. Good for you. Don't do that. Carry on. Thank you. And big shout out. Thank you for that enlightening interaction. It was truly our honor.

Brian: It seemed tense. Yeah.

Robin: A little bit. But the real trick to that is they're legit. They are a racing parts manufacturer. I can't discredit what they have to say on the matter. I just don't agree. Now here's where I'll start to hand you the reins. It's time for some real questions. Eric asks, anyone else made the transition from cars to bikes on the track? For my first one, I kind of wanted to do a track. I know. So I'm not learning the layout on top of all the bike things, but that means waiting a couple more months. So maybe I should just do Jennings. Anyone have Jennings and a game sim so I could learn it virtually? Has anybody transitioned to bikes from cars in this room is the question. And has anybody just used video games to learn racetracks, which I just realized that's what they're asking about. And I think that's actually kind of brilliant. You want to learn the track. I don't think video games are the worst thing to learn the map to some extent, so long as you're not invested in what you've learned from it too much.

Brian: I've heard of that, where you can actually get some idea of the track layout and what's around it from a good sim game. He's done track days on cars and he hasn't done one on a bike yet. Jennings is a motorcycle only track in Northern Florida. Oh, so that's why he's like, oh, okay, I'm not, you know, you're not going to have a chance to go there on a bike personally. I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, the experience in a car and on a motorcycle on the track are completely different doing some stuff in the game to, you know, to know what's left, right, whatever. But do the track walk from the little, you know, from the dude who's been, you know, he's done 10,000 laps there. And even from the one time I did that, there's so much stuff that cars do that you have to ignore. Yeah. And, uh, every, all the points are different. Everything's different. So I don't know if being there in a car really has a lot of bearing on being there on a bike other than just knowing the general layout.

Robin: Just knowing the map is one thing we can shrink this down to cars can out corner us, period. Cars have all of that rubber touching the pavement and shy of making you blackout. If you're willing to hold onto the wheel while you're making the turn, the car will beat us through the curve. They have that on us. It's going to be a different experience altogether. And don't worry, you don't need to prepare yourself for it. Just go to the track and any reputable track day company. We personally prefer motovid.com. They will walk you through every bit of the motions on that and make sure you have a great time all while being watched with Hawkeyes to make sure you're not a problem. Don't worry about it. Just get there. And if you want to learn the tracks on video games, though, I wholeheartedly support that. I think that's a pretty cool concept. I'll have to make a thing of that.

Brian: Yeah. No clue whether that particular track is on any, who knows? Usually it's just the major ones that have like MotoGP and F1 and stuff like that. But who knows? Maybe someone did it.

Robin: Grant Turismo for PlayStation tends to have all the good stuff. Amos asks, what is the best phone mount that won't damage your phone? Yes, I know how to Google. I just like opinions.

Jordan: Well, I'll tell you what I don't do. I don't do RAM mount anymore.

Robin: Why not?

Jordan: Well, number A was I didn't use a rubber band that holds it in place. The rubber band that grabbed the corners.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. That's horrible.

Jordan: Went to a bike night up north with a buddy of mine from Lombard, and his bike broke down. He had a 250 Yamaha Enduro, and I was on my other previous Goldwing. Something happened to his valves. So I had to have him ride the back of the bike. And on the way back from this bike night, we were on 355 South by Schaumburg over there. All of a sudden, the phone wasn't there.

Robin: Oh.

Jordan: When you're doing 70 miles per hour, two up at night on a busy road, you don't pull over and try to find your phone. You hit the phone, it's gone.

Robin: Yeah.

Jordan: I got home, and I realized that we have this app called Life 360 that helps us know where the family numbers are. I grabbed my house phone, which is, you know, a cell phone, and I said, oh, it's over there by the mall. I went back, and I found my phone, and it was smashed to pieces. But the GPS part still worked. And the police officer blocked traffic and helped me find my phone, and I picked it up and brought it in and had to explain to the company that fixes cell phones that it's broken and it's still under warranty. And they gave me a free phone. But yeah, no, I don't, unless I use a rubber band, I won't use Ram mounts anymore.

Brian: Understood.

Jordan: Expensive mistake.

Brian: Yeah. Well, let me tell you where you went wrong. No.

Jordan: No. I've been looking at that click lock type that they have.

Brian: Quad lock?

Jordan: Is that what it's called?

Brian: One thing I can say is Ram mount makes mounts that do work, but the one they sell the most of by far is the one you had, which is the X-Grip, and it's terrible. You know, that's what happened to you, and it's happened to a lot of people.

Robin: I'm over here like, I use one.

Brian: If you want to get a new phone and get one of those, it'll eject it, and you'll be fine. But Ram makes a mount that actually works. It's just a little ugly, and they don't sell as many, but it's called the Quick Grip. I have three of them for all my bikes because I just didn't feel like moving it back and forth. But yeah, the Ram Quick Grip XL. Yeah, those are pissed. Those are super pissed. It's spring loaded, and the phone is either in or it's out. Yeah. And you can put it in there in like a tenth of a second. The phone is in there and it's locked. I've been through some god-awful crashes on my KLR with a phone in a Quick Grip. Doesn't go anywhere. That's a good test.

Robin: The geometry says the phone cannot escape it.

Brian: Yeah. According to it not breaking. Absolutely. Caged. 100% secure. The X-Grip is just a slippery phone ejecting POS.

Robin: It's number one in Robinville.

Jordan: In their defense, I will say that I had that same mount on my previous 76 Coldwind, which is a standard, you know, back, complete stock, just the wind jammer off and the vetter stuff and made it completely stock, except for a very small windscreen, which I had on there. Which when the phone fell off, I had taken that off, I believe because I wanted to ride around locally without a windscreen. But I think that windscreen was protecting it from wind buffeting previously. And I've taken it to Iowa and Neal Gap and whatever, and nothing ever happened. And then 30 miles from home, it falls off. So I think that was probably the problem.

Robin: Well, the real punishment is that they gave you the replacement phone. Whenever I get a replacement phone, it's always like, okay, you had something good. Here is the absolute next level up from worst. Here's your next from worst phone. Enjoy the suck life that is the remainder of you being one of our customers.

Brian: So let's set the scene. It's 20 degrees. It's snowing here in Indianapolis. Looks like a snow planet outside. So I looked at what's the warmest place I can get to with a direct flight from Indianapolis. What I found was Key West, Florida. Oh, nice. But the problem is there's only, if you look on Twisted Road, twisted.tro to bike, absolutely. You can see what's for rent in any given locations. Key West, there's only a couple of bikes there. So I look a little bit further north and Miami, Fort Lauderdale area. There's a ton of bikes. It's a big city and there's a lot of rich pickings there. The problem is Florida's flat. There's no curves anywhere. They've got alligators, straight lines.

Robin: I'm going to look up track days in Florida while you're talking about this. Let's see if I can find track days in Florida to go rent somebody's bike on twisted.tro and rent a bike and go to a track day, which I don't think I can even leave in the episode. Keep going.

Brian: I don't think that's going to be real acceptable. Let's not. Nevermind. So anyway, I thought, well, you know, what's the worst? This is way outside of my wheelhouse. Let's way outside of our wheelhouse, but let's see what this cruiser life thing is all about. Let's get in the sunshine, put on some sunscreen. How bad could it be? I mean, it's, you know, it's the most popular form of motorcycling. Says cruiser riders. Brother. Anyway. So yeah, let's, let's see what it's like. Let's, let's see if we can fit in with all these crowds of rugged individualists on cruisers. So I looked through twisted road, twisted.tro on a bike. One of the most interesting ones was a 1971 Harley Davidson Sportster hardtail. Jordan, thoughts?

Jordan: Um, they're cool.

Brian: Is that AMF?

Jordan: That might be at the edge of the AMF there. Yeah.

Brian: Okay. It's an engine from a later model Evo. I don't know what year those, I don't know. I don't know anything about Harleys.

Jordan: Evolution started, I think around 80 with the aluminum engine. I'm not positive because I'm not really a Harley guy, but I remember the magazine articles.

Robin: Is that the one with the rear wheel that's offset from the front? I have no idea, Robin. I don't know.

Jordan: I just remember evolution with an aluminum engine.

Brian: Got it. It's got a later engine. It's a hardtail chopper with a Springer front end. There's a picture here of a lady drinking a beer, sitting on it. Stay classy, Cleveland. It's Plum Crazy Purple. It's got, you know, aggressive stick. I mean, we're out here sailing around in mountains and turfs and twisties. If we want to do something that's totally opposite, let's just see what it's like. This would be a good place to start. 160 bucks a day, which is kind of a lot. I don't know if you'd want to do the three and a half hours down to Key West on this thing. Maybe go visit a few bars.

Jordan: I'll be in Florida next month. My sister's getting married for the second time.

Robin: Congratulations, either way.

Jordan: Yeah.

Robin: So, we're going to send Jordan down to Florida to ride $160 a day Harley. I say we send Jordan to the racetrack on that thing. Let's go.

Brian: Absolutely. There's probably some fine print in a contract somewhere on Twisted Road. I don't know. The other one that really caught my eye was a Triumph Rocket 3, a 2022 Triumph Rocket 3. 2,500 cc, inline three, absolutely ridiculous amount of torque. The locomotive. I think it'd be just hilarious fun, even if there aren't any curves around. You know, if you wanted to go down to Key West and kind of see what the wet tip of America is like, you can see what's happening there. 120 bucks a day on Twisted Road is a base cost. It seems cheap. That thing is huge and expensive.

Jordan: You'll pay almost that much for gas.

Brian: Yeah.

Jordan: For two and a half liters, you're going to get about 13 miles per gallon, maybe.

Robin: My goodness. That's worse than my truck.

Jordan: I bet the Rocket 3 can probably tow more than your truck.

Robin: Probably. Probably, yeah. I'm joking.

Brian: I did look it up and there are gas stations on the way to Key West. If you're really caught short and you just want to get a bargain, I don't know, there's a Skrillian Harleys Sportster 1,200 for 52 bucks a day. Throw on a backpack, get some sunscreen on and just see what that, maybe buy a leather costume and really play it up, you know. Cosplay for dads.

Jordan: I'd take the Sportster as basic as possible.

Robin: I gain experience from watching other people fail using advice I gave them.

Jordan: So is there a German word for that? There's got to be a word for that.

Brian: Twisted.tro.bike, put in the location you're thinking of and see what's out there.

Robin: Segment one, velocity philosophy. This entire segment started with an article that Brian wrote about a mannerly guide to rabid riding and is it okay to have a good time at rapid speed on public roads? Our answer is yes, but you have to know more about it to do so.

Brian: In past episodes, we've kind of touched on a lot of the topics in here. We've talked about having respect for the locals. Think about the noise you're making and the impression you're making when you see a lot of mailboxes and chihuahuas and so forth. And we talked about the whole philosophy of passing and being passed. Being considerate. Yeah, being considerate. If you're going to pass, then pass, you know, don't hang around. And we talked about what to do when you run across a big farting herd of cruisers cruising along and being slow and all that stuff. I think it's time to talk about the asshats. How to deal with asshats and how not to be an asshat. How not to get any asshat on you because stupid splashes. You just don't want to be around the asshats. The first thing to do is what is an asshat? I mean, we all know what an asshat is when we see one. Oh, I know this one. I know this one. Tell us what an asshat is.

Robin: They drive a Fox body Mustang. They are slow in the corners and fast in the straights and ain't nobody going to pass them real good.

Brian: The way I put it was they do all sorts of aggressive, unsafe, stupid and impolite things. It's kind of the best definition. Contestants. Yeah. It's not really about speed or velocity. It's about being stupid. They ride real close. They pass close. They'll put like two or three bikes in one lane. Those really stretch the wires and, you know, wick it up over a hundred on any of the straights. Noise is a given. Passing on the right. Zero cornering skill. Yeah. And then parking it in the corners.

Jordan: Okay. So we're talking about people in boxes, about people in cars.

Brian: No, we're talking about other motorcyclists, actually.

Robin: I was saying Fox buddies, but he's talking writers, I think. So there you go.

Jordan: I commuted to college for a while in an 86 Mustang.

Robin: Sorry.

Jordan: I think that's a Fox body, isn't it?

Robin: That's a Fox body. Yes.

Jordan: I'll caveat that by saying I wasn't the driver and I was in the carpool.

Robin: Also I think you could get away with it in Chicago. Chicago's just got a vibe about it. That's, you know, Chicago, Detroit, Boston. You could probably do a Fox.

Jordan: But in Chicago, the crazy drivers are driving challenges and charges. They love to hear their exhaust open up and they do it in packed traffic where they just shouldn't be doing it. You could be up in the rear view mirror. All of a sudden they're beside you or in front of you or somewhere else and changing lanes like there were no lines.

Brian: Yeah. They're in the crowd.

Jordan: Like it's another country.

Robin: But if you pick up a Fox body Mustang, even in the eighties and drop that into the center of Kentucky, it becomes a completely different ball of wax.

Brian: It's a yard ornament. You know, you take the wheels off of it on blocks. Big difference. You're one of us. Yeah. When you get to the good stuff, the, the, the cars aren't much of an obstacle unless, you know, they can be if they want to. But the article we talk about the best defense is just not to be there when stupid stuff is happening. Don't be there. Stop and let them go on ahead. You know, going around them, take a different route is my common thing. Stuff like that. Change your plans. And we also kind of talk about if you try to pass, you know, if there's a gaggle of ass hats up ahead, try to pass them. They're going to get all competitive and not, not on my watch, you know, you're not there for competition. No one's there for competition on the street. So you know, do something else. I've been by this side of the road, dragging an ass hat out of the ditch because he wrote a check. He couldn't cash. Try to do what you can and they can't. Yeah. Just harsh as the mellow, you know, just ass hats will like, they'll, they'll go to like a famous road and then they'll just go back and forth all day until they're tired about 11am and walk around the parking lot and talk about it. Stay away from that kind of stuff. It's just not be there. And then we've got a little bit in here about make sure you're not mistaken for an ass hat. And that kind of goes into having good manners. If you're anywhere, people can see you. Previous episode, there's mailboxes, dogs, kids, Buick's keep it on the DL a little bit.

Robin: Here's where Brian's information, it should be well-received, but it is also lacking a very key ingredient and that it's coming from Brian. Whereas there are people out there not naming names, me, it took me years to do this. How do you register when you are observing and or surrounded by ass hats? When do you start going at the switchboard to say to yourself, do not engage, dial it down and get out of the way and go understand that you are a complete person with a solid set of skills that are developing to become that much more complete. When you're triggered by stupid, you got to be able to register that, Oh, somebody just hit the circuit board and is creating a short circuit. I need to dial it down. That's a process in and of itself. Kind of think on that, I think is my advice. Brian's got the ingredients, but the ingredients aren't always the recipe. Do what you will with that.

Brian: We're talking about recognizing, identifying the ass hat in the wild.

Robin: Yes. And to bring Jordan in this, which has nothing to do with ass hats, the kind of fun you can have independent of the ass hats is I remember I was hoping that the bike would be done, the CB500T.

Jordan: Yes, sir.

Robin: And I was like, is it going to have power? Is it going to, what's it going to be like? I'm new, brand new rider. Yeah. He's like, well, and he just, from the back of the room, he runs over the bike, starts it, body surfs onto both seats, Superman style, floors it down his road where there's nobody at. Oh yeah. No danger. No, no. It's just sails down the road, doubles back, flies back to me, hands me in the keys. He's like, Robin's going to be a great bike.

Jordan: It's like, yes. That's a fun bike. I've had lots of double overhead cam Hondas.

Robin: I love that bike.

Jordan: I think I still have about two or three of those, but yeah, I mean, I think the Achilles heels for you on that bike was the fact that it has a marginal charging system and you hook it up for the Toys for Tots ride and the battery died on you, I think.

Robin: Oh yeah, it started buckling.

Jordan: Starting to stop and basically at idle and the battery just won't keep the spark. They were always just marginal.

Robin: Jordan got me through that parade, by the way, over the phone. Do this, do that, check this. Okay. And then it was running. Okay. I gotta go. And then hang up on him, ride some more, call him back about it.

Brian: The bike I've had forever and will have forever is an 83 Suzuki GS 850. Suzuki GSs are known for stator, the old stator roasting and the regulators and the stator died at like 92,000 miles, the original stator. So it lasted quite a while. Not bad. Well, I'd had a Honda regulator on it for quite a while, which tends to treat that a little bit better. What it's wearing now is a stator from a, like a 2011 GS 500.

Jordan: Probably the same thing.

Brian: They're the same stator. Suzuki never changes anything. So I've got a very late model stator and then I used a, it's a series regulator rectifier. It's a Shinden Gen 775, something like that. It basically puts a lot less heat into the stator when it's regulating and holds voltage. That's kind of the trick is when you're upgrading older bikes with this kind of system or even newer ones that have a permanent magnet stator. So now it's like dead reliable and has been for quite a while, took a while to get there.

Robin: That really brings it back and really lays it down for that's how you avoid being an ass hat and being around ass hats. Thanks Brian. Tied it all together.

Brian: No, no. We got distracted.

Robin: We did. I did that. That was me. I did that.

Brian: Yeah. Good luck editing all that mess.

Robin: I'm not going to touch it. I'm gonna leave it all in there. It sounds like that that's a way to do a lot of mental humaintenance, which is crazy because that's our next segment, segment two, humaintenance.

Jordan: All right. Word of the day.

Brian: Robin, you had something in here about body weight exercise. Tell us how you stay so jacked.

Robin: I'm not, I am not staying jacked right now. Maggie will attest to the fact that I am sitting in front of a computer and I eat pie. That's what I do. And like, I'm, it's like everything above the navel looks fairly skinny. This is taken from Travitron. I'm in excellent shape. Pear is a shape and I'm in perfect shape.

Brian: Round is a shape. Yeah.

Robin: No, I'm looking at JN1. I think everybody does. There was all kinds of things I promised myself I'd do in the downtime that I had right now working on a motorcycle training.us, a website. I'm going to be building soon, but sweet. I haven't even started it. It's just been on my mind. In my defense, I am walking a lot. It's a good thing for an old guy like us. It's a lot better than nothing. But the truth is that if I really going to lock into a schedule, it would be Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, Mondays, I would be doing things that involve pushing things away from me and Tuesdays, pulling things towards me. Take a break on Wednesday, Thursday, push away, and Friday, pull towards. That's how you divide up the muscle actions to make sure that you're not destroying the muscular cells. There was a time when I enjoyed going to the gym and doing all this pretty dedicated. I felt pretty healthy. Not so much anymore. I got to get back into it. So I'm just starting with walking. Yeah. And body weight, you could still do the same thing. There's no gym-based weightlifting exercise that you can't manipulate your own body weight to try and reproduce, to mimic.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: So that's something I intend to do is just start with body weight.

Brian: Yeah. And you look at some of the most fit people in the world, which are probably like people in the martial arts.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Brian: Nothing but body weight. Yoga. You know, sometimes it's another body. And again, you know, I'm in shape. Walrus is a shape. My house doesn't roll around. So it's both walking and like I go to Planet Fitness, it's cheap. They've got all the machines and stuff. I don't care if I have my own locker. Ten bucks a month. Who cares? You know, everybody's like, oh, it's not a real gym. Who cares? They've got all the stuff there. It's clean-ish.

Robin: Then it is a gym.

Brian: And it's close by. The surge after New Year's is very real. So you try to figure out, you know, weird times to go because like if you go at six or seven o'clock on a Tuesday, on January 3rd.

Robin: You need a betting strategy for that. You need a betting pool on how many people are going to start. Who's going to disappear first and stop coming?

Brian: And then, you know, February, March, it goes back to normal. It's doing it. And it has an effect. Like, I don't like exercising. I don't think anybody does. But the healthier you are, the better you can concentrate, the better you can ride. So that's kind of a motivation there. Like, I don't care if I get a heart attack. I just want to ride fast, you know?

Robin: Now while you're saying this, I hear Jordan kicking ass in his garage. So I imagine that this is almost his workout. Are you working on a motor right now?

Jordan: Did I miss something?

Robin: No.

Jordan: I guess so. You know, I dropped a parts bike. I have a 70 Yamaha AT1 that I dropped.

Robin: Oh.

Jordan: No big deal. It's a part. It's a parts bike.

Robin: Oh, OK.

Jordan: I'm not worried about it. That's the one that gets the 69 parts.

Robin: So that brings up an interesting question. What are you working on right now? Because this is your exercise.

Jordan: Yeah. So I have the 76 Goldwing here that the car was rebuilt and they're ready to go on.

Robin: Technically a GL1000?

Jordan: It is a GL1000. Yep. And that's going to be a flipper. I have a 75 on the back burner that'll be the keeper.

Brian: Nice.

Jordan: And then I also have a 69 Yamaha AT1 dirt bike here.

Brian: Those are rare.

Jordan: It's incredibly rare. I had no idea. I picked it up for a buck a CC down in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin about eight years ago. My buddy told me he was going to Barber this past season for the Vintage Days in Alabama. I'm like, OK, I'll come with. So I exhumed this 69 AT1 from the back of one of my storage sheds and it had been sitting there for about eight years. I figured, well, how bad could it be? That one cylinder? Easy peasy. It wasn't. It's basically a boat anchor. Everything was rusted solid. Then it became a project. I got it running. I just didn't really ride it. That was another comedy of errors. The whole trip was a comedy of errors. But anyway, yeah, I got it for about a buck a CC with a title in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin about eight years ago, which is, you know, cheap.

Robin: Yeah.

Jordan: So I started digging into it and I look at YouTube and there's that guy in New England, Kaplan Cycles or somewhere.

Robin: OK.

Jordan: And then he has the 69 AT1 and he's going gaga over it. It's for sale for like $6,100, which is a bargain because NADA value was $8,000 or something like that. I mean, you guys are freaking kidding me. I had no idea. So now it's a project. I'll get it back to original condition and flip it.

Robin: That's Kaplan Cycles with a K-K-A-P-L-A-N Cycles, Kaplan Cycles on YouTube. So that's pretty cool.

Jordan: He wrote a 69 AT1 that was basically mothballed, perfect condition. They're a little peashooter bikes, but the DT1 is the one that's really valuable. The 68 AT1. That's considered to be the first production dirt bike, like ever, because before that everybody took a street bike and modified the suspension and put back plates on it and scrambled it. Yeah. The DT1 was considered to be the first production dirt bike. So anyway, whatever. But that's what I got right now. There's a whole bunch behind that. I used to tell people that I have a bike for every week of the year, if you think about the math there. There's a lot of vintage stuff that I want to get to, but there's only so much time and I'm always working.

Robin: I went to Google to type in how many weeks in a year, and the first thing I typed was how many bikes in a year?

Brian: Yep. Google knows. It knows somehow.

Jordan: Through your drink, the plan you get.

Brian: What's the newest you'd consider vintage? Do you get into the eighties at all or four cycle stuff?

Jordan: The end of the air-cooled super bike era was vintage, the very end. So you're looking at 83, possibly as late as 85 for what I consider vintage. So like last year I sold a 84 GPZ 900R, which is a bike from Top Gun, right? The first year Ninja or second year Ninja or whatever.

Robin: Yeah.

Jordan: That's vintage.

Robin: Okay. Yeah.

Jordan: That's vintage. Even though it's liquid cool. But the thing is, it was an historically important motor. It was the first liquid cooled inline four. It was the prototype for all most future work. Before that they were all air-cooled.

Brian: Yeah. And then what was the Honda? Was it the VFR?

Jordan: Well, that came a little bit later. They had the interceptors, the V30, V45, the V65 interceptors. Back then they were experimenting a lot. A lot of different geometries they tried for engine, you know.

Brian: The 16 inch front wheel. Anyway. Yeah.

Jordan: That made it very slicky. Right? They did a lot of those.

Brian: You just can't get tires anymore. Yeah. Or you can, but- Probably not. It's hard.

Robin: Even the Seica, the parallel twin, it had dual 18 inch wheels. It was a 400 with 18 inch rims.

Jordan: There were cool wheels on that bike too.

Robin: Well, I mean, sort of a little bit of a Nazi thing going on with those freaking mags though. That always bummed me out.

Jordan: They really squinted it up pretty hard. You might come up with that. Yeah. They beat those ugly squashed squid Barrago wheels they had back then.

Robin: Oh, yeah. Or like the previous generation of Seica.

Jordan: Ugliest ever. Yeah. Previous generation Seica was like shafty, ugly.

Robin: I did everything I could with it until I realized it's just not what I, it's, you learn. That was one of the things about the Honda that I remember was that I wasn't ready to understand half of the stuff. One of the two best memories, and now I actually have the person here to support my statement. When I showed up at Jordan's house to wrench on a bike for the first time, for the first half an hour, they used an unnecessary amount of socket extensions.

Jordan: That was you?

Robin: Yes. To undo screws and bolts when they, you know, they would take- Oh my God. They were like three feet away. And I was like, why?

Jordan: It was a practical joke.

Robin: Yeah. I was like, why are you doing that?

Jordan: I remember though. That was at Jimmy's house. Yes. We were talking about it beforehand. He's like, let's just use the biggest possible tools for everything we do on this thing and see if he notices.

Robin: And it took me like an hour and I was starting to realize, why are you using that?

Jordan: The long screwdrivers.

Robin: Jordan's like, it took you long enough. The other one was that, pretty sure it was like 2011 and I really didn't think I was ever going to have a handle on anything, combustion or motor. And one of the questions I asked Jordan was, who came up with all this? And his immediate response was, nobody did Robin. Many people did over many, many years. The wisest response to any question anybody's given me since. Brilliant moment in sports where like, oh yeah, I don't have to know it all. I get to assimilate information one moment at a time and it changed my whole world. Thanks.

Jordan: One of my mottos is, I may be right, I may be wrong. I may be completely full of shit, but I will speak my mind.

Robin: Well, it handed me a huge ham sandwich understanding. It was helpful.

Jordan: Oh, I remember when you first started looking into sports touring.

Robin: Yes.

Jordan: And you asked me, what is a sports tourer? It really isn't anything. It's what you do with a bike with that, that full back of it. It really wasn't something that somebody designed as a category. It's something that consumers ran with.

Robin: That tends to be a handshake between the buyer and the provider. You know, if we start giving it a name, they start producing something. There was a point in time with the vetters where BMW got sick of them making like people buying vetters and slapping them on their bikes. So they were like, here, screw you. Here's our fairing. Here's a fully fared bike. Here's the R100RS. Honda did that too. It's going to start getting defined. Then it starts to get proprietary, which I'm, I'm kind of against proprietary tech these days right now. I want a simple bike that I can make my own. It's been irking me to no end as of late.

Jordan: Brian, were you, were you referring to the, uh, the original Goldwing did have a factory fairing before vetter came out?

Brian: Oh, was that first? Oh, okay.

Jordan: They sold a few, about a hundred of them, I think in the UK, the mold burned or something happened. Wow. They had a fire or something and the mold burned or whatever and the vetter ran with it.

Brian: I knew they were primarily sold naked and then you did what you wanted with them. And then they, uh, did not know there were a few with the Honda fairings on them and the idea is not new. I mean, it goes all, you know, the, the Vincent Black Prince, is that what it was?

Jordan: The Black Prince was a fully fared bike.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. The idea has been around, but, uh, big hideous windshields and, and the vetter luggage.

Jordan: There are a few that tried that. The aerial leader, I think it was, was the British 252 stroke. That was all damped metal. And as far as a coffee table book, motorcycle picture goes, they're beautiful, but the people that owned them have all kinds of issues with them.

Robin: Eye roll. Eye roll. Oh gosh.

Brian: That one. I was at like a vintage, you know, I rode my Suzuki over to a vintage motorcycle gathering in Ohio. So you're standing around as you do just doing nothing. And, uh, I heard this really super complicated sound coming along and that's all I could say. It was just complicated. And then a guy on an, uh, on an aerial square four pulls up and I was like, wow, I've never heard one of these running before.

Jordan: Yeah.

Brian: You just look at them and this guy was riding around on it. It was really wild, wild sound.

Jordan: I always wanted one of those, the Mark four 1000 CC square fours. And I remember, uh, going to Davenport to the, uh, Keith Blackhawk swap meet there. And they had a show indoor, you know, they had their racing outside and the swap meet outside and the show inside and they had a square four. And I said to the guy, I said, I always wanted a square four. And he was British. And he looked at me and he said, why, what's wrong with you?

Brian: It's weird. I like it. The barber museum. I've, I've never been.

Jordan: And I really, I just came back from there. The museum is incredible. His intention is eventually to own one of everything that have them restored. Um, I saw some, some glaring emissions and in their, uh, in their collection, but there are some really incredible things there that the one of a kind, it's just, it could never really end when they keep adding buildings and features and having things look, put them in their original scenery, whatever. It's very cool. We've got to be thousands of bikes there. It's crazy. And you can see the racetrack museum. So you could actually look at bikes and look out the window and watch people racing vintage bikes while you're looking at restored vintage bikes.

Brian: Thousands of bikes. Like they have to rotate what's on display. They have stuff that, you know, only goes out once a year. I've never been there, but that's a pilgrimage I would like to make at some point.

Jordan: What I was surprised was I, uh, left Chicago, took 294 to 94 to 80, 94 to 65 South. And then I realized about 15 hours later, I never got off 65.

Brian: It is one road all the way to Birmingham.

Jordan: You literally don't get off 65 unless you need gas until you get to their front door, which is as boring as it could possibly be, but that's the way it turned out.

Brian: Yeah. There's nothing fun in between here and there. It's just 65 and Cracker Barrel. That's about the highlight.

Robin: Let's just see if I can get all of my extended family to do Christmas next to Barber next year. Everybody just meet me in Barber. Why there? Oh, no reason. No particular reason. Just, you know, kind of.

Jordan: Have some nice hotels. The weather's good.

Robin: Yeah. Where are you going today, Robin? I don't know. Same place over and over and over again. I'll be right back. Gonna go slobber on bikes. Yeah. You and I as a crew need to get a group together and go do that. Let's make it happen. Well, before I wrap this up, I want to thank you again for being here because quite frankly, it's been on my to-do list for some time. Somebody who immediately made themselves available to provide me with information, most of it right and willing to help me work through flubs of my own making and better understand what the future was going to hold for me in motorcycling. Your knowledge has always been a major contributing factor to the same person I am today. So, Jordan Lehman, thank you so much for being here.

Brian: Yeah. It's been great. Thank you.

Robin: Thank you, gentlemen.