Robin: In this episode, we're building endurance and stamina before the real riding begins. Joanne dons better sense of bass layers. We need to work in Ace of Bass somehow. Yeah, I'll just go buy the rights to all their recordings. And Jordan Lehman greenlights yet another start of George Wyman's 1905 coast-to-coast journey. Real quick, a corrected Kelly's Kawasaki in Mesa, Arizona shout-out. So grateful to them for this amazing machine that I've been putting around on. I want to say thank you to the owners, Jeff and Sandy Chapman, and their beautiful dog, Holly. Gotta say hi to Holly. Caitlin, who went out of her way to help Maggie with her initial SV hunt. Remember, we were going to get an SV650, and she insisted that it was my turn to get a different bike. So I went and got myself a jigsaw. Greg, who organized my entire GSX-8R purchase. Kirsten, who put together all of my financing. And the amazing Kyler, who's the guy who showed me that with a little ingenuity, two cinch straps are enough for bike transport. Kyler has since left Kelly's to join our armed forces. Excellent. They sound like great people. They're all right. Speaking of the jigsaw, the bike is so sick. I'm having such a good time on that machine. The Suzuki GSX-8R is a great mid-range, sport-touring, conversion-friendly machine. It's not a sport-touring machine by default, but my goodness, is it just waiting to be modular built into a seriously angular pavement attack weapon. Wonderful, wonderful thing. But my luggage situation is a joke. I'm really messing this one up.

Brian: You're like tying on bread bags and tinny litter containers and bungee cords.

Robin: I'm just not picking a lane. I originally started out with going to Tour and Ride. Goodness, they're nice. You were totally right when you recommended them in general. They're just kind people.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I looked at their catalog and I bought the GV saddlebag supports, because I was going to go with soft luggage. I still am going with soft luggage. I bought the kit, installed it, was very excited about it, was testing my setup with their GV EasyBag system, which I got at a very affordable price elsewhere. Then I decided I really like the way the SW-Motec AluRack looks in terms of a top case mount. It lends itself really well to a variety of different options. Maybe you want a rack. Maybe you want GV luggage. Maybe you want shad luggage. It's all very adaptable. And when it's by itself on the bike, it looks better than all of the other top case mounting hardware that's out there. It just looks better. Now, we'll talk about looks in a moment here, because we got an interesting response to our last episode. Yeah. Strangely enough for this bike, after I put on the tail tidy, the bike looked like a muscle bike. It looked really stubby, like Popeye. The AluRack completes the profile of the machine. Like it actually grace notes the tail section and gives it the geometry that says, oh yeah, that looks right. So I'm pretty excited about it. Bad news, it does not play nice with GV's hardware. I can have one or the other. The GV hardware will not fit on unless I were to mod it in some way with some like eyelets or something. I could totally do that, but then it's a little risky unless I get the perfect hardened steel to fab out of. Okay. So I could go with the GV stuff or I can go with the AluRack. I can't do both, which means, well, great. So I sent an email off to Tour and Ride like, hey, no is a perfectly acceptable answer. You say no to me all day. I did this to myself. I do not have any need to return this to you unless you want to allow that to happen. And I imagine they're going to be totally cool about telling me no in a very peaceful way, and that's fine. It'll be for sale on eBay. Go to ebay.tro.bike and you'll find that that is not a link. So that's how things are going with the transformation. Is it Jixator or Gixator? Jixator. Jixator. Okay. If you're on a track day and somebody has a Suzuki GSX-R, you're going to hear conversations everywhere. Is that the Jixator 6 or the Jixator 12? Is that the Jixator 11?

Brian: Is that the Jixator 1? J, Jix. It's like you're saying the letter G. That important crap out of the way. How long has the bike been in existence? It's a 2025 model, correct?

Robin: It's a 25 model. They've been around since 23... Did it come out in 23? I don't think so. Hold on. When did the... And I'm sure AI never lies.

Brian: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It won't make anything up. Oh, in 1792, it landed on these shores.

Robin: It was unveiled in November of 23 for release in 24. Mine is a 25. Brand new.

Brian: Totally better than the 24s. 24s are scrubs. Those guys got nothing. Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that the aftermarket needs to catch the hell up and it's still... The aftermarket's still working on it. Yeah. The new V-Strom using that same parallel twin engine is still... They're still catching up with that. You know, it takes a little time for these things to happen and hopefully they'll get their poop in a group. It's a great engine. You got to be on the boil all the time with it. Well, that's the fun. You got to just hate grip it.

Robin: 6 to 8,500 RPM. I start to worry around 8,500 because I've got 1,000 RPMs left at that point. But anywhere between 6 and 8,500, it's just like you see this dial that's way high in the revs and you're just doing it. I mean, 270-degree crank, it invites it. It welcomes it.

Brian: Very different than the BMW as far as the way the torque curve works and everything. Yeah, extremely different. And that's part of the fun too, I think, sometimes, just having a contrast.

Robin: I agree. I was riding around one of our favorite roads down here in New Mexico. You know it. In third gear most of the time, just all in the hot zone, unleashing vengeance upon the tarmac. Brian, how are you doing? What you got in here?

Brian: Completed a god-awful project on my van. So if anybody wants you to do a water pump on their Sienna minivan, you tell them to go straight to hell because it sucks.

Robin: It sucks just like last... You said this on last week's episode about the...

Brian: Yeah, it was about a Hyundai, about working on a Hyundai. And it wasn't even my car. This was my car. I needed a water pump. It was awful. But the deed is done. Nothing's leaking. I'm very happy about all that. And I've got like one more big pain in the ass job to do. But it's not that bad. It's a little more straightforward. The changing the spark plugs on those involves taking a bunch of crap off the top of the engine to get to the spark plugs that are in the back of the engine because it's a V6 that's tilted. It's a long story.

Robin: Engineering around accessibility.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Well, it's better if these things are inaccessible because then they're protected, but you'll never be able to change them without a doctorate.

Brian: Just trade it before you hit $100,000. This relates to motorcycling only in that the van is what I use to tow a trailer with a motorcycle on it sometimes, like headed to a track day or something like that. What's this got about bike noise? Yeah, Cycle Gear here in Indianapolis had their first bike night of the year on Tuesday. Nice. Beautiful, warm day. We just happens to be a really warm week. So there are like a couple of hundred people acting like absolute crazed loons. Yeah, everybody there. I think there's maybe one other guy with gray in his beard there. You know, I felt really old. They're all younger people. A lot of enthusiasm. About 645, it started to get a little more stupid than I like. You know, people were doing wheelies and they were doing like burnouts and like they were going in between the buildings and, you know, you know, just a, yeah, rev limiting. I'm out of here. I took my old bike, the GS850 Suzuki. No one cared. No one looked. Nothing. Out of a couple hundred people, there was one other person with a vintage bike. A really nice little cafe build of a CB750 Honda. Looked at that a little bit, but yeah, you show up in a little, nobody cares. It's all sport bikes, younger guys, a lot of young women, a lot of women writing a lot more women writing and I've, I've, I see more and more or every, everything I go to.

Robin: Not a bad thing. I have a stipulation about cafe racers. I feel like I'm probably looking at a really solid job. If they've kept the fenders, they don't have to be the entire length of the fender. But if there are, if there's any sign of a fender on a cafe racer, I feel like they've spent the time to be like, no, no, no, no. This is a real bike. You know? Yeah.

Brian: There is kind of like, you get people who will buy a motorcycle, an old bike, they'll buy it cheap and they'll immediately start with starting with a hacksaw before they even know what they have. I was going to do that when I was younger.

Robin: I wanted a cafe racer. You get lucky if you surround yourself with the right people, they convince you not to be that guy. That was a stroke of luck with Chive and Motive. They were like, don't ruin something that's historic and important. You know? You can feel the season rolling up when, okay, the bike nights are beginning.

Brian: This is not bad. And right behind it, that red blob in the background is a brand new Panigale.

Robin: Yes, which they've made some changes to. There have been some adjustments to the new Panigale platform. That's a brand new Panigale?

Brian: I couldn't swear to that in a court of law, no.

Robin: I need to look up those specs. We'll put that in the notes for next time. I'll try to bring them up if we can.

Brian: Speaking of Panigales, we might as well give a little shout out to Twisted Road. There are a couple of Panigales we've found. Absolute mad crazy people are renting out Panigales on Twisted Road. If you go to twisted.tro.bike, see if there's a Panigale near you, you can just take for a rip. Rent it for a day, pretend you're Valentino Rossi or whatever your fantasy is.

Robin: It's a round towner. No, really. Yeah, no, it's a commuter. I don't know if I should suggest you help me with this next episode when it's your turn to run the show, but the next thing for me to buy, I returned some stuff and have a credit on an account online and it's time for me to make a purchase. I told you I'm modular building this bike. I bought it at a great price and I'm building it into a sport tourer based on the components I deem necessary for what I do. That brings me to my next buy. I started looking at external TPMS and my search for that brought up an array of multi-tool kind of things that combine TPMS into the mix. I'm looking at third-party Android interfaces, the kind that incorporate all-in-one GPS, TPMS, and dual, if not triple dashcams. These are all things I know I could put to use for either material or just safety in general for our YouTube channel, all that kind of stuff. The problem is RideWood GPS, which I stand by steadfast, I am all about RideWood GPS, their app isn't yet Android auto friendly. So I reached out to our friend Alex Gay over at RideWood GPS. His response is as follows. By the way, if you haven't heard it, check out the Alex Gay interview. Fantastic stuff.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Alex says the RideWood GPS app is not Android auto or CarPlay compatible yet. There's been growing interest in offering this, at least from me and a colleague. We have quite a few car clubs using us to share routes, and of course they are interested in our app being available on their dashboards. I'm happy to share your suggestion with our product team for consideration. We are compatible with a few of the Garmin Varia radars. Garmin Varia? Varia, Varia. Do your best. No pressure. Veronica! He also mentions the RTC715, which is another Garmin unit. That's their model that has a camera slash radar combo. It's not motorcycle specific or for front racing camera, but may be interesting to consider. That's the current status. Anyhow, my question for you, Brian, is I've got four particular units I'm going to be writing an article about. I could use some help deciding which one to make the purchase on. Interesting. That's our intro. Now we can begin the episode. We have listener questions for sure, and some commentary. Did you create a reaction? Probably. Regarding my comments about Harley Davidson's naked Pan Am. That was a rant. BH wrote through our contact page, which by the way, you're always welcome to comment on the dedicated episode pages for our podcast episodes. BH says, hey, I'd love to chat with Robin about the HD Pan Am ST. I've owned the VFR 800 and a 1200GS and an S1000XR. I would argue that the S1000XR is a sport touring bike. I would agree with him. It's basically the RS on stilts.

Brian: No argument there.

Robin: I would also argue if you put a 17-inch front on the GS, it is also a sport touring bike. I think that's what the RS did. It just wasn't really dirt or gravel friendly in any case. My RS would not do well in any environment of that nature, unless you forcibly had to prove a point. Anyhow, they say, I think it's what the rider does with the bike, almost 100%. And this is where we'll have some trigger action, but that's all right. I like your podcast, but sport touring is not the way the bike looks. It's how you ride it. This person has taken my personal 50% rule and made it their 100% law. I get the feeling this guy can ride. Like they're the type of person I'd be willing to ride with. To enter with this argument, and I've heard it often, it doesn't put me on guard so much as it makes me think we should go carve some curves, have lunch, head back and laugh off our still-standing disagreements. Can any bike be converted to the sport touring format? I mean, maybe. That's what I'm doing with my GSX-8R, which is by default a sport bike, a modern standard posture sport bike, which I'm adding luggage to, but by default, no luggage and stylistically, yeah, little to no sport. ADV riders have a tendency to argue heavily for the mindset factor, rarely looking at previous bikes that were built under the whisper of sport touring. Examples being, if we go way back in the day, the CBX. Yeah, we have a whole article right up on the history of sport touring. And then the person who wrote that article, Joe Conrarty, also takes this person's stance and wrote a lengthy article on ADV being the new ST. So I went on my rant on my own terms for my own personal benefit, and there are people that come out of the woodwork who are going to say like, no, no, no, any bike can be ST. And I think there's a lot of leeway to argue their point. Do I want to talk to this person about the bike? No, because the bike is in no way interesting to me. I have zero interest in the Pan Am. I'm not drawn to it.

Brian: You're talking about the Pan Am ST, whatever they called it.

Robin: Yeah, I'm talking about the Pan Am period. It's a really cool adventure bike. I don't know if this person heard it in the previous episode, but I totally agreed with you that it's got some really cool features. It is a cool machine. I got no beef with its existence. A lot of good ideas in that one. The naked bike as a naked bike with no luggage. It's not the GSX-8 RST. There's no luggage. I'm building it into my thing, but their logic stands. This is a person I would go riding with, and I bet you we'd have a damn fine time. That's my response.

Brian: Okay. The categorization thing is one of those things that motorcyclists take too far. I don't give a crap. Show up, bring your stuff. Let's go ride. Let's go someplace. Let's travel. Let's ride fast. What do you do when it's wintertime or you're stuck at work? It's one of the ways we think about and enjoy motorcycling when we can't ride. I think a lot of this navel gazing is compartmentalization. Yeah, it comes from just wanting to do something motorcycly, even when you can't be on the bike 24-7 like you want to be. Whatever. It's important when you hear a rant, don't take it that seriously.

Robin: The next question comes from JB. Once you run a motocover wise, it's still cold and I have to start keeping my bike outside. Which cover might be my best option? Personally, I'm always in weather that is pretty good to motorcycles. Even when we don't have a place to stash our bikes. We have been fortunate enough to stay in places where I've been gifted storage space and workspace to wrench around and tool around with my bikes. For anybody listening, we're full-time RVers, my wife and I. When we find a place that's like, hey, we have space, I'll offer money to rent it out, set up my tools, be able to goof with that. There have been regular times when we've set up without that. And my solution has just been a basic crap-tastic cycle gear, Walmart blue cover. If the winds pick up and it feels loose towards the rear tire, my solution is to take a bungee cord, wrap it around the neck of the top case one time and fasten hook it to itself. And that has an immediate effect on keeping everything a lot tighter and less whip action banging up against your paint.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: But I've seen some really nice ones and I do plan on upgrading in the future. Brian, what do you got to say about all this?

Brian: There's two things I can say is my bike's going to garage, the car's sitting in the driveway. Them's the rules around here. There is one thing that intrigues me and it's these sort of, there's sort of a half cover that kind of stretchy and then goes like across the top of the bike and covers the seat and everything. So like the bike sticking out the bottom, but it's sort of stretches over the rest of the bike. And that concept intrigues me. You know, I haven't like bothered to go out and buy one, but I think that kind of seems interesting for longer rides, especially, I think it's more for commuting. Like if I'm going to the office and the bike's sitting out in the sun all day, every day, it's not good for a lot of reasons. So I think it'd be, I don't know. Sometimes they call it a bikini cover, you know, different clever names like that. That's kind of interesting to me. It's the tin roof concept. Yeah. What I have learned the hard way is you do not want a big garbage bags type cover, like a piece of waterproof plastic, because it holds the moisture in. And I learned that, I learned that the hard way a long time ago. Like it was open at the bottom, but uncover the bike after the snow retreated. It's bad news. Lawn art. Yeah, it's, it's some, it looked pretty bad in there. So yeah, breathability, that kind of thing is, I think is pretty important. Don't, don't try to seal it up or it's going to be, you're going to have a bad time. I've also seen bubbles, like you can buy this big bubble and then you, sometimes some of them, you have like a fan or it keeps it inflated. So like your bike's in a bubble. I don't, that may be a little much. We need a link for that. I got to see this. Yeah. Like if I'm on a trip or something, no, I'm not dedicating the space for this thing, but you know, we're, we're selling our office building. But anyway, if we do, if we end up keeping the office much longer, like I would probably buy like a half cover to, to keep the sun off the bike while I'm parked in the lot and keep it at the office that, you know, I could see doing that or keep something at home. Other than that, there's really not much to distinguish them. You want one that fits well, you don't want it to flap around in the wind. You don't want the wind to catch it and push it over, which in New Mexico, you get some wind out there.

Robin: Well, the one time I saw something similar to that, what you're mentioning happened was in a hard rain that came out of nowhere in Illinois. If the cover is not correctly secured, it flew off an FJR and was hanging from its throttle grip, which became a parachute just high in the air and then proceeded to pull the bike onto its side. That was the only conditions under which I thought that could happen. I don't know that it would happen. Otherwise, it was pretty crazy to witness. There are tons of options out there. Just make sure the breathable heavy is not necessarily better, but honestly, just think through, where's this? If you see anything, whip it around, secure it. And the bikini ones are hilarious to me because they're just like, you know, tin roof rusted. It's almost like the hammock campers version of a motorcycle cover. Yeah, it's just a sunshade really. But they'll do. Next question. This one comes from PR who asks, how did you deal with the dealers when looking for your bike or Maggie's? I'll answer this one fast. Carefully with a paranoid radar. First, I set the bar on what I needed my OTD to be. No more. Then I pitted a number of steelerships against one another by calling around, explaining the OTD. Any dealership that said, well, you're not going to find that, was promptly mocked by me, disregarded and abandoned with a quick, right. So I got to go. Again, from yours truly. Those dealerships who acknowledged my pricing needs were kept on my cool list, regardless of where I bought. Whoever set the lowest bar and made the least stink about it, got my money. OTD is important. If you know your cap, don't let anybody push you a sent over. Walk away. You've said it. Tell them it's a yay or nay situation. This is my out the door price. If they can't meet your out the door price, walk on. You know what you can handle and you know what you can't. That's okay.

Brian: I've never in my life bought a new bike. So I have nothing to contribute here. Sometime before I leave this weird world, maybe I need to buy a new bike and be the first one to fart on it. You know, that'll be the, or maybe just, you know, scoop up a used one's cheap. That's kind of been my MO so far.

Robin: This is my second dealership experience of my own third. If you count Maggie's, it takes great sense of self to get through it without going insane. Honestly.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Anyhow, if you'd like us to field your questions, email podcast at TRO dot bike, or you can visit email dot TRO dot bike in your browser, which will take you to our contact page segment one to your health, the workout plan. And I love trying to tie this to our sponsor. I don't know how I'm going to do it. Exploring the many options of motorcycles you could and should rent by way of twisted dot TRO dot bike. It takes stamina. It takes endurance to sit at a computer to figure out where am I flying to, to go riding next.

Brian: It takes a lot of stamina to do all that walking in airports. How's that? Yes. To haul your helmet and your luggage. And, you know, you've got to be able to lift heavy weights and get all that crap off the plane and onto the bike.

Robin: Or when the walkathon machine walker thing breaks and you have to use your actual normal walking pace. Goodness gracious. I finally started getting some exercise post winter. It's been feeling great. It's a good thing to do. A lot of people out there are still just like, oh, waking up from the bitter cold and looking out the window and thinking, oh man, I forgot. Life is good. It's getting better again. The season approaches. So let's just talk about a health plan. Get yourself ready. Because motorcycling is a physical activity. You might not be pedaling, but you are in high alert mode all the time. And there are certain postures that enable better cornering. Certain braking that requires your core catch your weight into the inside of your thighs on the tank. There's all kinds of things where you're working muscles, whether you know it or not, smiling or not. Oh, isn't the motor great? Yeah. But it's also fighting you. I'll tell you what I did so far. Tell me if you agree with this, because I think you're ahead of me. You're actually at the gym, correct?

Brian: Right this second. No, but it was yesterday. My rule is I have to do something physically. I have to sweat some every day in some way. Last Thursday, it was, you know, wrestling in a water pump. But yeah, something every day at the gym two or three times a week. Do some lifting on the machines. Do some cardio. You know, I'm not like Charles Atlas over here or anything. That's the thing. People get stuck on specifics. Just do something is the most important thing and make a habit of it. I can't sleep unless I go do something. I had to go for a really fast walk before we recorded today. So I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Robin: Even as a seasonal idol, you're doing better than me right there. I'm just now really kind of getting started with it. I will say I look back at probably three to five days a week, something was done that involved exertion. My key is, though, I'm starting slow this year. I want to start to get back into where I used to be four or five years ago. So I'm starting slow. Walking is good. Lots of walking is better. And that's where I'm at right now. I'm walking two times a day, a mile and a half each time, maybe two miles back and forth. After that, my next step is going to be yoga. I'm going to be doing some yoga with mags. Next up from there is a body weight, a fantastic and stealthy way to get actual weightlifting exercise as a start. The whole time, you'll feel your cardio and your stamina doubling up on the effort you put into this type of exercise. Now, where I used to be and where I want to get again is the toward and away. Generalized weightlifting. You have a Monday set, a Tuesday set, Wednesday off, Thursday set, Friday set. Weekend off. These sets are manageable. They don't have to be five hours of listening to people scream at the gym for five times your scale. It's just yeah, it's just it's an act of doing. Not impossible. My exercise previously. Share your screen. Let me let me see what you got here. I have a longtime Google sheet that used to be my regular workout regimen. No longer is because I just haven't had access and things have just been too hectic in the world of living. I have an A group and I have a B group and the A group is all things away from me and the B group is all things towards me. It's fairly balanced. So I don't know if these records stand for where I actually was. I may have been disregarding them and I may have been ahead of it. All right. So you start with your chest. You got a bench press. I'm 160 now, so I'd like to be able to bench my weight, but I don't want to stress doing that because you can actually damage your body doing so. You want to arrive at that with regular access to doing so.

Brian: Yeah. And like you turned 50 last year, so you got to take that into account.

Robin: I do. But I've seen some dudes that are 50 years old who I'm just like, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You freaking. Yeah. The A group. Standard bench press, incline press, decline press, fly machine. That's the seal clap. So it's basically if you stand still and keep your arms out like Jesus Christ pose and then bring your hands together, there's your fly machine.

Brian: Oh, okay.

Robin: Just for the sake of your core back extensions, which are like sit ups, but you sit forward and you let yourself hang down and then you straighten up. So it's reverse sit ups.

Brian: Got it. How many reps or sets or whatever, or whatever they call it?

Robin: I don't remember. I just remember finding the number where I was feeling dizzy and then divide that by two thirds and just like stop, take a break, drink some water for my legs, squats. However many I could go for the hamstring machine. And then calf raises, basically 80 pounds of weight on a machine that's fixed. So you don't hurt yourself and you just practice standing on your toes over and over and over and over again. Yeah. Triceps pulled downward, use rope overhead and then tied singles one arm at a time. Shoulders do a military press bushwhackers, which are really good holding weights in your arms and pointing it laterally forward directly into the horizon and repeat that a few times. And then the shoulder machine, which is the wing flap where you're doing the same thing as a bushwhacker, but outward. B-group reverses all this stuff. All right. So I can kind of bang this out quick, doing a B-group of lifting your lateral pull downs, the fly machine, which is the reverse seal, butterfly pulls, the Hulk Hogan belt to chin stuff. For the back, the seated rows, you're getting into a row machine, curling with your legs, then super sevens, which are freaking awesome. I can't remember if the bushwhackers versus the super sevens. You know what? We're going to need to bring Joe Wilson in here right now. Let's bring in the person who helped me construct this entire regiment. His name is Joe Wilson. I've known this guy for a long time. Let's make sure we say hello, Joe Wilson. There's a Joe. Joe Wilson is the guy who I was like, man, I really want to get in better shape. I was thinking I was like, maybe late 30s, about to hit 40. I want to get in better shape. And Joe is, I mean, you swam in high school, you swam in college, was swimming part of your scholarship? I know you were competitive, right?

Joe: Yeah, I went to Chicago on a full ride, swimming scholarship to a division one NCAA.

Robin: That tells me you might be somebody, despite the intense aerobic workout that you and I had drinking beers and gin and whiskey, that you'd also be somebody I might want to talk to about getting in shape at the local gym. And he did better than that, man. He provided me with a list of things that I was doing on the regular. I started to detect a pattern in what you were teaching me. What I was getting from it was that you have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off, Thursday, Friday, but the division, the AB groups were all about what was either toward you for a day or what was away from you for a day. It inspired this entire thing that you built for me involving benching, back extension, squats, working with rope, military press for the A group and the B group, laterals and back and legs, biceps, shoulders, all these things. It's all right there. The first question I want to ask you is, I don't remember which one is the Bushwhacker and which one is the Super 7?

Brian: That's a great question. Right off the bat. Bushwhacker, the pee picker, the butt wiper, the thing flinger, the weasel spinner.

Joe: What is it? The Bushwhackers are the ones from the old WWE Bushwhackers. They used to walk out, swing their arms up and down. That's the Bushwhackers and it's working on your shoulders. The other one, Super 7 is curls. It's bicep curl, but you're doing halfway curl up seven times, half curl down seven times and then seven complete curls. So it's a super set where you max it out, your reps.

Robin: You might have something much more informed to say than what I was saying. And, you know, I miss those days. Those were very healthy days with plenty of things accessible locally. And now that I'm traveling the way I do, it's a little bit harder and I want to start getting in shape again. We all know that motorcycles everywhere are just waking from hibernation and getting ready to be on a machine where they think there's no work involved because it has a motor, which is absolute bullshit. If you've been to a track day even once, you know that's an absolute bullshit statement. So my notes here say literally start slow. Walking is good. Lots of walking is better. And that's kind of where I'm at right now is three big one to two mile walks a day, you know, taking the dog out and really meaning it, not standing around talking. Yoga is portable and so is body weight. Yes. And then if you make it past that, then what is toward versus what is away without over exerting yourself? I'm 50 now, so it's like I don't really want to strain any joints or tear any cartilage, but I do want to feel that I've put in an effort. I feel like these are three levels. People who want to just get their paces going. If you're going through just walking, doing yoga or body weight, or if you're doing weight lifting, what are some pre-packaged, pre-titled exercise regiments that you might want people to know about?

Joe: I mean, a lot of stuff at home is just a lot of body weight work. Especially if you're not in shape or haven't done these stretches or exercises a long time, you really want light to no weight and build just using your own body weight. A lot of planks, that would be great for the core. Holding a pushup, even if you can't do a pushup, trying to have the idea of a tree. You want to make sure to get that tree solid, the body, and then as you tighten it up and get stronger at the body, the branches will get even stronger too. So that's the theory about kind of core strengthening, building up a tree, making sure that the core gets strong so that way the branches can be strong too along with it. Body weight with squats, maybe even some easy lunges. Kind of get the body to wake up and using those muscles again with a little bit of strain.

Robin: See, those are the exact analogies that I'm really happy to hear. It's just a picture of what the goal is, how to keep yourself not only exercising, but calm while you're doing it, believe it or not. Actually calm. Like, yes, you're working, but you're not hurting yourself. If you had to choose like intro to yoga or intro to body weight exercise, are there any regiments that people can seek out or hunt down that have a name that people can...

Brian: Just go to YouTube and click the first link and yeah, belly fat yoga.

Joe: A lot of it's just called low impact. Just look up low impact or no jumping. That's the biggest thing, especially for these. Biggest thing I've learned now being at 47 is working actually on your stretching and hip mobility because I just recently just strained my IT band playing basketball and it goes all the way down the side of your thigh. And I had this bruise from my hip almost down to my knee, even though the pain was right on the pelvic bone, like where I felt it. But that band runs all the way down and the bruise followed it. So that's something that I need to work on. It's just stretching and getting that thing ready for any kind of activity.

Robin: Gonna take a lot of gin and tonic. It did, or bourbon.

Brian: A lot of good medicine needed there. Yeah, anesthetics. One thing I'm dealing with, you know, like I, when I go to the gym and so forth, I have a lot of damage in my left shoulder from a motorcycle related stuff, a lot of damage in my skeleton and my broke my left femur three times. So what's a good strategy for approaching dealing with an injury other than just don't hurt yourself? What are some strategies for dealing with that? How do you, how do you know, okay, I need to go see a professional and get some real exercises and work on this.

Joe: It starts with when you're doing some moderate stretching, if you can get through it relatively pain-free, but if it becomes like two or it's a sharp, intense pain or inflammation, like immediately heat comes from that area and swelling, you know, that's something that I've had two shoulder surgeries, one on each. I've had my labrums repaired and it's just like doing wall walks with the hand all the way to the top. Just trying to get range of motion again and just working on stretching of that area and just make sure to take it slow. Don't push it too far to where it's just only tight and not really uncomfortable, just slightly and just trying to get that range of motion back. That's the biggest thing is flexibility. Once you get your flexibility back, then you can kind of work on your strength. Yeah.

Brian: It's kind of getting, you know, like if this shoulder, I'll get on the pull-down machine just because that stretch feels good, very little weight, but doing stuff like that I found can help it. You know, at some point I probably do need to seek a professional advice on that, but I'm like, man, but yeah, the point you made about sharp pain, like there's good hurt and there's bad hurt. No pain, no gain pain, and that's fine. And then there's like, oh, you need to stop pain.

Robin: I'm on a different plane here where I don't always have access to the kind of stuff that I had access to in Chicago. On any day where I tell myself I'm feeling good, I would like to go do whatever the equivalent of an incline press is with no weights to work with. What's my solution? I don't have that vocabulary. Your inspired responses, that's really good, but it's like the terminology, if I want to be able to do a specific exercise, work out a certain area, of course, no, I'm not going to be able to bench press my own weight unless I'm holding my own weight on my hands alone. Where do I look? How do I develop the vocabulary to know what it is I need and how to go about exercising that part of my physique?

Joe: If you're talking about limited equipment, if you want an incline bench with no weights, you could take and do an elevated pushup, put your feet up on a bench or a bed or a chair and do pushups in that position with your feet elevated at a higher position. That'll put you at an incline press.

Robin: Okay, but then the decline becomes really too easy. If I'm already on a chair on the front side, I'm lifting myself up all of like, oh, yeah, I can do this a thousand times. I must be stacked. I have an idea. I want to know how you feel about this. If I were to share my Google Sheet exercise with you, the whole thing that you developed for me when I was still in Chicago, would you be able to go through each one of those exercises and find an equipment-free equivalent that anybody can do? I think so. I think I might have an opportunity for you in this, especially with my current market stake. So if you were to go through them in itemized fashion, I will create a booklet or article that people can see credited to you, and they'll have access to that entire thing. No kit necessary. Unless they need to go to the hardware store, buy some rope and some whatever, we can probably build something nice out of that.

Joe: Yeah. Hell, you can even use like a Gatlin jug with water, like just Gatlin jugs. Five gals.

Robin: There you go. Joe, I really appreciate it. I want to thank you for being here. You answered a lot of our questions, and I think we have some ideas for what we could do, and we're going to bring you into the mix on that. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for having me on. It's time for segment two, The Armory, brought to you by gearchick.com. Hi, Joanne. Hi, Joanne.

Joanne: Hey.

Robin: How are you doing?

Joanne: I'm good. No exciting difference from me last week versus this week.

Brian: Well, maybe your hair is a quarter inch longer. I don't know.

Joanne: Probably.

Brian: I was noticing it in your texts.

Joanne: I believe you asked me to chat about base layers, which actually is timely because I was digging through all my base layers today, getting my drawers ready and such. I have several different types of base layers that I use, and it completely depends on my mood, the temperature. But the thing that's tricky about base layers is everyone has a different definition of what that is, and the exception to wearing base layers are people who don't sweat. That's apparently a biological condition some people have where they don't sweat. So base layers for those folks don't work as well, and they need direct cooling, like a cooling vest, maybe like a wet towel. Like they need more, but that's a very rare... I think it's a pretty uncommon occurrence. And the majority of us, we do sweat, but also there's different layer types and weights. So if you're someone like, you know, Brian, I'm going to guess you run very warm. And so the, you know, riding in say 50s or 40s with windchill, you may not need the heaviest base layer, like the thickest smart wool or... Right. But you need something moderate. So you might actually get away with a summer weight base layer because you just need a little bit. So you always, and this goes for gear, you always want to factor in your personal level of temperature sensitivity. So the colder you run, the heavier base layer, the hotter you run, the lighter the base layer. And if you run really hot, you might go t-shirt base layer instead of full sleeve. Like me, I have to go full sleeve, you know, with high performance base layers, long sleeve layers are great, but it's all about the material. So you generally are trying to seek out synthetics because synthetics now breathe far better than cotton does. Cotton doesn't do anything to wick the moisture away. And there are some articles you read about, well, it can wick too much. And yeah, that could definitely happen. But there's so many choices in base layers that you should be able to find something that's not going to do that to you. As long as you take into consideration, hey, I'm Brian and I'm run really warm. So I'm going to go look at a lightweight, you know, under armor base layer, excuse me, that's not super heavy. And the more synthetic it is, the other bonus is smell. So when it's cotton, you're going to stank when you take your jacket off and then sit down next to your buddy at lunch or your girlfriend, you know, and that's not nice. You're already hot and uncomfortable when it's hot weather. So synthetics are better, but the exception to that are natural wools. So wools are just nature's amazing layering. But the caveat is it can be itchy. Some people don't like it and that's reasonable. So if you're you don't like that, then skip smart wools. Even the nicest ones are still a teeny bit itchy. So if you're really sensitive to it, you skip the smart wool and the wool mixes. But there's so many. And if you hike and you camp and you ski or you fish, you probably have stuff you wear when you do those things, wear the same things when you go ride your motorcycle in the winter.

Brian: That's kind of one thing. There are motorcycle specific base layers, as in there's motorcycle specific everything, but I don't know how necessary it is, really. Or are they? Maybe there's something we don't know.

Robin: When you see the stuff on the box, things like this, that feature trademark circle are, you know, all these things proprietary in some weird way. It's like, what are we really looking for?

Joanne: Well, proprietary materials are name brands, right? Lycra. That's a name brand. You're not going to find a $20 base layer with Lycra in it. It's going to be 80, maybe 100, because Lycra is this incredibly light, stretchy and breathable fabric, and it's really comfortable. So it's going to be better than anything you find at Walmart.

Robin: It's grown on the moon.

Joanne: Yeah. Back to the question of motorcycle specific is some companies are better than others. But really, when I'm thinking about high performance base layers in the motorcycle world, I'm really thinking of sport.

Brian: Yeah.

Joanne: Sport compression fit layers, Dainese, Revit, Alpine Stars. There's a really cool company. They do custom base layers. Also, they're really nice. Oh, the name is escaping my head. A lot of people who do track days and write on the track and write sport, they use their layers because you can customize it and put your own logos and graphics all over it. So they're over $100. Nice. That is like a weird, like a Lycra-y nylon kind of fabric. So it's more like an Under Armour. It doesn't feel like fabric. It feels like silk.

Robin: Do you happen to know off the top of your head, what is the secret behind? I've never heard of Lycra. So do you have any backdrop on what makes Lycra, Lycra?

Joanne: You probably have products that have Lycra in them. If you golf and you have a really cool polo, like a Nike polo shirt, you know, and it's really light and it breathes really well and you can sweat and stretchy, it's probably Lycra. But Lycra is usually something found in active fabrics, running, working out, yoga, those kinds of active fabrics where the material needs to move with you and be stretchy and really light and comfortable. The stretch is really like the marker of a Lycra product and it is trademarked. It's a proprietary fabric and it's really hard to find in motorcycle things, especially base layers, because let's be honest, a lot of people, they're not going to throw out a hundred dollars for a fancy motorcycle base layer unless they don't have anything like it already. But, you know, I find people who ride, they usually are active in other ways and do other things.

Robin: Does this jacket have Retzin breath freshener?

Brian: Yeah.

Joanne: I think you're dating yourself here, my friend.

Brian: That was kind of a question I had too, and we may be getting off the topic. You can buy like a base layer to put on underneath your one piece leathers when you're at the track.

Joanne: Yes.

Brian: I just use the base layers I had.

Joanne: Yeah.

Brian: You don't want to just jump in those naked or anything, but onesies you can put on, little tight pajamas.

Joanne: The Racetrack is a very specific application, right? And having, if you wear a onesie, it's really comfortable. I have one from Moto D racing and it feels like lycra. It's super light, stretchy. It's like second skin. It zips in and out. It's like wearing pajamas. So comfortable.

Brian: Yeah.

Joanne: But it is one piece. So it depends. If you do a lot of track days and you have a one piece, you probably want to do that. But it's really a preference, a one or a two. You're accomplishing the same things. They are completely seamless though. They're more form fitted, like the one piece onesies. But really any two piece layers do. It's a preference. Some people love a one, but really in the street touring adventuring world, you're going to wear twos. One pieces are really limited to the track. I just pasted in the custom company I was referencing. I believe it's women owned. It's called V&M Sport. And I can't remember where she's based. I want to say West Coast, but she's really popular. She uses lycra in her fabric. So she utilizes that, which makes sense. You want your base layer to have some stretch. You don't want to be limited. You don't want to wear something that's tight that you can't move your elbows and move your arms in. So your base layer should be light enough and comfortable enough for you to do all your arm movements, whether you're on adventure bike or whatever. Also, the thing with base layering is it's your first defense against heat and cold. Let's say it's like 80, 90 degrees right in New Mexico and you're out riding. That base layering is a barrier also because your lining of your motorcycle jacket does nothing for you. When you start sweating, it'll just sit there and sit on top of you without wicking the moisture away. And you can't get your hand. You want to put your arms out of your jacket, right? So the lining of your jacket is going to smell. So again, stank. And if you're partnered or you want to be partnered, we don't want to smell that. And you can't wash your leather jacket because it's stank. So your base layer is also great for you to sweat in and just feel more comfortable. This is also key for leather. This is less important for your basic mesh jacket. Look, your mesh already has wind blowing through it. Great. You already have plenty of wind. Base layer not as vital. But if you're breaking in new leather or you're wearing leathers, and I'm talking about performance leathers, not a 50-year-old leather jacket that your dad gave you back in the 60s. So we're talking about performance leathers that are light and they don't weigh a ton because they're for activity, right? So like a Dainese leather or Revit sport leather or even their cruiser's casual styles. But the base layer will be a light barrier between you and your lining. So you can move around. So as you're moving around, you don't feel like your jacket is constricting you. It sounds counterintuitive, but it really does come down to the type of layer you wear. A t-shirt doesn't give you that comfort. Your favorite cotton t-shirt doesn't help you feel that way. But your favorite Under Armour t-shirt that you might wear when you work out, that will actually help you feel more comfortable.

Robin: I'm thinking bathrobe.

Joanne: No, that's not it.

Brian: Fuzzy slippers with a shift patch on them. Yeah.

Joanne: No. But also, I wear my base layers no matter what. Spring, summer, fall, winter, it doesn't matter. In the summer, I have hot weather ones that are lighter. And then when it's cold, I have heavier warm ones. And as a very small person who's always cold, you need winter base layers to be your first defense against cold. So if you're very petite or you just run cold, you need all you can get so that you're not wearing 10 layers. The better your base layer, the warmer you will be. Especially if your gear doesn't fit you properly, and your gear is loose because now cold air is getting in in the winter. Your base layer is more fitted to your body. You want to seek out a heavy wool mix or a fleece shirt. What is my heavy? My heavy is icebreaker wools.

Robin: If I may, this is one of those things where one of the biggest visitation pages on TRO.bike is our weather page. It gets huge visitation because I went to great lengths to get the math right. But one thing that we don't do on that page is predict what your heavy versus what your light is. I love the way you're putting it. Sense of self. You have to know thyself. What is your threshold? Yes. Taking record of what you prefer to have on at a given temperature, a given breeze level. Actually, if anybody wants to know, our weather page lets you keep record of that. So depending on the predicted temps, the predicted wind chill, it will let you know, based on your own preference, what it is you might want to wear at any given 10 degree difference kind of thing.

Brian: Mm-hmm.

Robin: I love that you brought that up specifically because people don't think about wind chill. They don't think about pace. They just think, well, I don't know. It's warm out.

Joanne: Exactly. And the other thing I just put another link for you guys is an article about reverse wind chill.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Joanne: Right. You guys know about that?

Robin: Yeah.

Joanne: In the summer, you can literally bake yourself to death and get heatstroke. So if you're one of those folks who decide wearing nothing is more comfortable, you're just baking. You're basically walking into an oven and you're being baked alive because there's no barrier above your skin to absorb all that UVA, UVB heat. You are going to stroke out. And that's why you stroke out. Right. And no amount of hydration can help you, but a light, light, light base layer is also another barrier underneath your mesh jacket to help with that as well.

Robin: This looks like a really good article. So based on what Joanne's talking about, she links to fix.com forward slash blog forward slash and this is hyphenated motorcycle riding in hot weather. Check that article out. It looks really good.

Joanne: You just Google it. And I'll send you guys some links to some motorcycle specific base layers. You know, layering for motorcycling is a lot like layering for skiing or hiking. You need base, middle and outer. And the biggest mistake people make is they keep layering and layering and layering or they don't wear anything at all. So it's an all or nothing for motorcycle people. And what they need to think about is layering smart. Your heavy, thick cotton hoodie doesn't do anything for you. It does almost nothing. What is better for you is a fitted mid layer that has better materials for warmth, like Thermalite, Thinsulate, my favorite Primaloft Gold.

Robin: Just the name is cool. Before we close this out, I'll bring in that if you go to TRO.bike and you look up Go Athletic Apparel, we do have an article from way back in the day. It's data material, but they do still make it. You can check that out. I like what you're talking about. And we'll remember the name and also the reverse of what you're talking about. We also have an article about the strange truth that you could also get hypothermia in warm weather riding if you get too soaked, you know, and continue in that windchill. Less likely to happen, but can happen. So be sure to check that out. With that, similar banter at higher revs can be heard via the Gear Chick podcast. Yeah, I know. I know you'll get to it. Visit gearchick.com and dig in. Now that's on to segment three, moments in motorcycle history with Jordan Lieben. Now, last time Jordan itemized the kit on George Wyman's motorcycle, a machine made of vague notions, subsequent dangers, and whatever tricked out noise 1905 could offer, all before being pointed directly at New York City by way of San Fran. At this point, I think we're about to head north and actually get rolling. Assuming there's momentum to be had. Roads or no roads. Let's ride.

Jordan: Native Americans were bending branches on trees and they knew which one to look for. If you make the wrong turn, you think you're on something. I mean, what was a path back then? There was something in the way and you moved it. And it is six inches across and hopefully it hasn't been grown over. So the road, we're going to call it a road loosely, followed railway. And at the same time, the railway followed the road. There was an existing route. We're not even going to call it a path. It was a route. You needed to get from here to here. And whether they were Native American villages or whatever, they had the carpet in the back at sellers or whatever that you would come across. They had friendlies and unfriendlies. They had tribes that were nice and tribes that were not so nice. This is still 1903. Totally different world, right? And it was, you could take A, B, C or D route to get from here to here. And maybe it's because the rivers swell up or the snow is melted or something else happened. You could choose these routes. And it was not set in stone, so to speak. It was absolutely random what you might do. You had to stop and ask, if you find somebody, ask them, what should I do? He's following the railroad. He makes the American River Bridge and he rides through Sacramento to Rockland, Auburn and makes it to Colfax, California, 82 miles. Day four, he leaves Colfax. And on day four, his engine overheats at a place called Emigrant's Gap. He can see the snow. So he gets off and he pushes the bike. He does that till the engine cools off. And he says the snow is 10 to 20 feet deep, which is completely impassable. But along the tracks and beside the mountain, the railroad has built something called snowsheds. These are basically lean-tos because mountains have avalanches and they can take all kinds of shit out. He's already at an impasse and he takes his bike through the snowshed, which is against the mountain. And he pushes it for 1,700 feet along the side of this mountain, which is two city blocks to get around the other side, under what he says, 15 feet of snow. He passes Colfax, Emigrant's Gap and stops at Summit. Now Summit comes by two names. He calls it Summit. Later on, I think Summit becomes Evanston or Armstrong Summit. It is a name of a town still in California, maximum for the day, 54 miles. Day five, Wednesday, May 20th, 1903. Summit, California to Reno, Nevada. So he's going to make it to Reno in five days, 45 days ahead of him. He gets a mile and a half from Summit. Oil can fell off someplace. And he's got to backtrack a mile and find it sticking out of the snow. Luckily, he's the only guy around. If this happened on 355 and Schaumburg and it fell off your bike there, it would be crushed by a semi or flotsam and jetsam and debris on the side of the road. But he's the only guy around. But he's got to backtrack. This is the kind of shit that happens constantly with this guy. Then it comes to the 1700 foot tunnel, which is like 250 blocks long. I looked it up. It's completed in 1903 and it gives him access to the Donner Pass, which if you know your history, the Donner party was a group of travelers that ended up having to eat each other because they got stranded in the snow. Part of our history. The Donner Pass is notorious for being impassable. Why do they call it a pass if it's impassable? They call it a Donner Impass, whatever. But he gets through this tunnel and ends up in the Donner Lake area. And after the Donner Lake, it's clear for 10 miles to Truckee, California. And he gets actually good advice from the locals. And they tell him to go a different route, 21 miles in two hours. So now he's making 10 and a half miles per hour, which is really good time. And he gets back to the road, to the tracks because of the bad roads. Now he's crossed this part of the Rockies and he goes to the diatribe about Sagebrush, Reno, part of Nevada, right? It's the only plant around everywhere. Is that tumbleweed? What is that? And he learns to hate it. And it's everywhere. And I think he's actually riding through it. It's not riding a path that is in the middle of it and it's on the left and the right. He's riding through this shit. He kind of hates it. He does say it's got a scent. He makes it to Bovo, Verde. And then finally, Verde is the first town in Nevada. And he takes it to Reno. And that's 40 miles from Verde. And that's 56 miles for the day. And he says, most big cities had fairly decent streets, Reno included, but there was no standardization. They had sometimes wooden boardwalks, macadam, brick, stone, cobblestone, or even concrete, and sometimes asphalt or a mix of asphalt and gravel. But the roads didn't extend beyond the cities hardly at all. So now he's in Reno. He's not a gambler. He's not a smoker. He's not a drinker. He's not a horny dude. It's not that interesting to him, but it's still a nice place to stay. It gets a place in a nice hotel. He's not paying for it himself. Gets a good meal because this guy's starving because he's an athlete. This guy probably burned 6,000 calories in a day. And he gets rested up. Townsie pass through Summit, Donner, Lake Donner, Truckee, Bovo, Verde, and Reno. Day six, Thursday, November 21st, 1903. Gets a big breakfast, but doesn't leave immediately, but instead overhauls the bike. Day six, and he's overhauling the bike. I mean, you gotta eat. You have to laugh. Otherwise, you cry. The guy is representing CMC, the California Motor Company. Dude has a few parts, but not a lot of parts. And they're not always the right parts. So overhaul, okay. Mazel tov, you go on. Doesn't leave until after dinner. And now he uses the word dinner constantly for lunch. Dinner is supper. Okay, so he has dinner at 2.15 p.m. And he lost about eight hours of ride time because he was overhauling the bike. 18 miles of good roads outside of Reno. 18 miles of good roads. So this is good. 18 miles of good roads. The guy is wide open. 25 miles per hour. Who knows? Maybe better. Good weather, and it has to rain. And the ground softens, and it's sand. He makes it to Wadsworth. He makes camp, which I think means he is going to sleep outside. This is the time he's not at a hotel. 36 miles for the day. Not great. There's something going on there. Day seven, Friday, May 22nd, 1903. Wadsworth, Nevada. The Humboldt, Nevada. It is Wadsworth at 7 a.m., about to hit the Great Desert. Clint Eastwood called it the High Plains. Apparently, there's a 40-mile desert from Reno to wherever the hell he's going. The sky is leaden. And he regrets not being able to follow the Truckee River the next 40 miles. And he follows the old Overland Trail, a wagon trail, which is what the railroad followed when it was planned, where prospectors and the people going west had these giant wagons that went from the east to the west. And so he's following this trail, but he's going the opposite direction, right? This is the established path. Why reinvent the wheel? This is the way things go. You found the path, and somebody did it better. It sucks to leave. This is Honda's motto. They don't know it yet, but it's their motto.

Robin: Thank you, Jordan. We're off to a start. There's a journey being had. Thank you very much. All right. Time to talk about next week. Joanne, Brian's going to steer the ship next week, but you are in charge. What are we doing next week? What are Brian and I instructed by you? You've taken on all of our challenges willingly and happily. What would you like us to talk about next week? Too much power. So much power.

Joanne: It is a lot of power. It's a lot of responsibility. You know, maybe what we could talk about is if you're new to sport touring, you want to attempt to take your first trip, no matter how far or how short. I'm not talking like a one-week trip or anything, but maybe your first overnight. Maybe some tips and recommendations for that paved for sport touring, touring riding.

Robin: Oh, that is awesome.

Joanne: Yeah. Actually, I'd love to share some of the things that I did and some things that I learned, especially about my gear. Because you learn a lot about your gear when you're out riding. And when you go from being like a two-hour ride person to an eight-hour ride person, you have a completely different appreciation or sadness about the gear you have or the gear you don't have because you're not prepared for more than a couple hour ride. So I think that would be cool.

Brian: I like that a lot because I had nothing. But yeah, I can already think of a lot of things talking about. You mentioned the transition from going from a two or three-hour rider to all day and then the next day, that's a big leap. And there's some things you have to know. I like it.

Joanne: It has been six months. My last long ride was, oh God, was that even the year before? This is embarrassing. My last long street ride was with my husband. Yes, it was two Augusts ago. So it was August 2023. And we rode across Colorado to the west side, down to the south and back. So that was a good 1500 miles. Before that, three, four years.

Robin: You know what that means, Brian? We have to nail this so good that she's inspired to do some big riding this year.

Joanne: I know. And it all... No, I do. I really do because I miss it so much. I used to take trips all the time and I do miss it. And it unfortunately all hinges on me finding employment. And so depending on that, I will then plan for sure. Then I will make some plans. But I can't make plans until that happens. So, but it's on my radar once I nail that, figure my life out.

Robin: Plenty to talk about. This will be really fun. I like this a lot.

Joanne: Oh, portable coffee and espresso. I've got that.

Robin: No, I've already got that covered.

Joanne: Want to bet?

Robin: Oh, I'll race. Okay. It's on.

Joanne: We'll swap tips.

Robin: Yes.

Joanne: See what you come up with.

Robin: The three of us must all bring the better portable motorcycle-friendly coffee preparation system.

Joanne: Got it.

Robin: Don't tell anybody anything else. Bring something fresh and new and whatever you want to talk about to the table.

Brian: Yeah, you're not going to like my answer, but we'll get there. The richness of brim.

Robin: There's no wrong answers here. Decaffeinated instant.

Joanne: It's whatever makes you happy.

Robin: There's a correct answer and there's a Brian answer.

Joanne: We're not all coffee snobs. Are you a coffee snob, Robin?

Robin: Not really.

Joanne: Oh, so you won't like my answer either. We're coffee snobs, so.

Robin: I do know that people who want dark roast coffee thinking it's going to wake them up are not people I want to discuss coffee with.

Joanne: Yeah, no, that's not the secret. No, we'll have some discussions. Light roast. No. Oh, God. We're going to have some serious discussions.

Robin: I love light roast.

Joanne: Nope.