Robin: There, we're recording. Is it going to pick us up okay? Well, yeah, I'll make something happen. Here's my first thing I want to talk about. It's your premise. We're on our road, the our road, like that was built for us. We own this road. We're on our way to track day of Black Hawk Farms. And so my first thing to talk about what, you know, the topics that are worth discussing as motorcyclists on a road trip to a track day. The first one I think of is, okay, if you had theme music, what song would it be? You walk into the Perfect Hero situation in your favorite coffee shop and the music starts. What song is it? It's for you and you alone. What is it? I don't know what to say. So I will say a piece of music that I should not listen to while I'm riding a motorcycle. And I found this out the hard way. Is anything by Rammstein, maybe like Du hast. Oh, oh, like, is this like death metal? Yeah. So this is like that kind of thing. Yeah. It's all in German. But yeah, it's too, it's too intense. You'll be riding a million miles an hour and like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And you just, yeah. Okay. So as a bass player who happens to ride a motorcycle, music has an immediately like a tap and an influence on your whole psyche and decision-making process. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I, I've learned that I really just cannot put music into my head while I'm riding because I'm going to be, I'm going to be listening to the voices in my ear and my head. Well, the same could be said for mellow ambient music. I've got a couple of what you might call ambient songs on my main playlist, two or three. They're just that mellow. I don't actually slow down anymore. It doesn't affect my pace. It actually just affects my sense of ebb and flow. Or you can put like Mel Torme in there like Neil does. Yeah. Little Sinatra, Chairman of the Board. You know, we have a friend that went on our last seven store and you know, we were doing a hit the whole time. He happened to have this on his playlist, but Baker Street. And then it got stuck in everybody's head. And that's, that's a bad song. It's a good sax solo, as sax solos go. That's not a sax solo. It's like a drum solo though. Nobody asked. Yeah.

Brian: Nobody's ever asked.

Robin: And it wasn't a solo. It was a, it was a theme that, yeah, it's a riff. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, there's a sax player right out front on the stage like doing the hips. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the only thing he appears for. Yeah. Are you ready for our big hit? Here it is. The spotlight on him. Yeah. All right. We're on track day. So yeah, what we were talking about earlier, like I signed it, you know, this is my second track day ever. I was very fearful the first time I have to admit it. Really? Yeah. Let's dwell on that for a second. Let's talk about your, I was a little bitch for no, were you phobic? No. Did you think you had to, you had to get there and prove something? No, it was more like, okay. It was more like, I just didn't know what to expect. And also a large part of it is I had to have a lot more trust in the people around me that I, you know, I'm used to a zero trust model of Yeah. And we've got Jason here. I'm a writing solutions running the show. That's going to be something you can lean on pretty hard. So again, talking to him, um, you're talking to you and other people like Motovid and Jason here, you know, they run a tight, tight ship. Yeah. That was a, cause I like, there's a local track day that's a lot closer to me and they run track days, but it's a very chaotic situation. Well, there's an interesting dynamic with the people that you're talking about that you just, because they seem to, you can actually draw their misbehavior out of them. If you catch them at the right moment, like saying, uh, how much trouble could I really get into making use these techniques on public roads. And I had once said this to Jason back in the day, and he was like, I said, you can't get into that much trouble. He said, Oh yes, you can. And so those things where the reason they are the most responsible people that we know, the reason we lead on them with this kind of trust is because they know themselves well enough that they, they have contained it to this environment and they've managed to make it safer through that. Yeah. Yeah. There's a testament to character. Yeah. And the reason I I'm back in the yellow group and, and I remember last time I was leaving, it's like, I don't think I got everything out of this. I didn't, I don't think I caught everything there was to all that was being offered. Yeah. And so I wanted to go through yellow group again, start from zero, listen, you know, hear the, get, get the little lectures in between and, you know, get, okay, now you can pass here. You can pay, you know, get it, get the step up and all that. Yeah. And there were, there were things I missed things. I screwed up someone. It's the way I look at it. It's like any, any sport it's, it's form. It's not get your form, do things right. Learn what that feels like, do everything right. And everything else will come along later. Yeah. I don't know or care what my lap time was. Right. And that's why it was a better than some, it was worse than other than any others. Yeah. And I really don't give a crap, you know, and I got some good feedback from control riders. That's what I was going to say. That's a lot of fun. If you get the right control rider who really knows, they're not new. And really the only, the only like little chat I had, I only got one chat from a control rider and I thought, well, obviously he wants to tell me how awesome I am. And obviously he said, it was like something, dude, you know, you need to suck in your toes. You know, they're hanging out there. Yeah. I was like, ah, get on the balls of your feet. You're right. You're right. You're right. But it's on your core. Remember you need to be able to type an email at a bar stool. So do not lean on your wrists and stay fluid, stay relaxed. Naughty. And then, yeah. And then there was, there was another time, Jason, actually, Jason himself is control riding in Herrheim. And I, uh, I didn't understand the last lap thing. Like, do I, if I should just go around the whole lap with my arm out going slow. And so I stuck my arm out, went slow and he like, no, no, keep going. You know, you can get, you can do the rest of the lap and then unload. And I think he wanted you with him. He knows your voice. He knows you're on the show. He's aware of who is there, which is cool. Yeah. He was, yeah. He was just like tap, tap, follow me. And we went, you know, had a nice, had a nice lap. And then, uh, then came in. It's very cool. Oh, that's really the, the ability to be smooth, consistent, predictable and coachable. And don't touch other motorcycles with your motorcycle. Oh, that is the, it's not a race day. Nothing about this is racing. Yeah. And that's what got green group into trouble last year was, and people were like, let's not pay attention to the classroom time and let's take this. We spent our money. Therefore we now own the entire truck. Let's create an opportunity or disaster. Don't do that. Yeah. And you, you could definitely see the difference. And, and, uh, if you're watching the other groups circling, you could see green group. There's a lot of, there's a lot of chaos. Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I didn't see any like, you know, hairballs, but you could see, there was a lot more moving around and things. People were like, whoops. And collecting, you know, yeah. Took back, blew that corner, blew the next corner after it. Oh, all the trainers. Oh, I'm on the wrong track. Oh, I'm on a public road. That's a banner for a barbecue joint. And that's around my bike now. Like, yeah, that's a, that's a fence. Yeah. The blue group, the blue groups, like the, the actual racers practicing blue group. Yeah. And blue group, it was like militants. Perfection. Yeah. Bill. Yeah. You know, they were like blue angel, bring out what everybody's in the same, everybody's doing what they're supposed to do. They're very professional. Well, I'm going to run me some orange. That just basically means that I want to go be, but you're awesome. Fast dude. I'm going to go be respectful. I'm going to go quick. I'm going to take a soft first lap every time that I'm going to hot bit. I'm going to reenter and I'm going to get left alone and just practice cornering at a quicker pace without any overblown bike to bike testosterone exchange. It's going to be good. I'm detecting a pattern with some of the track days where my left-hand turns over like we're coming from a rally, right? Yeah. Almost every right turn I took was with a hundred percent confidence and the technique and almost every left turn I took, which is something I used to be better at, was completely in confident for fear of blind lefts and the oncoming. And what uncle foot is doing in LA.

Brian: Yeah, that's true.

Robin: We, uh, but we were on a lot of back roads and even the highways in Indiana are, you know, Indiana roads are, uh, even the twisty roads are in often in terrible shape. Uh, they're very badly designed and there's crap all over the road and unpredictable places. There was an off camber left turn. It was a downward left turn. Well, hear me out though. This one was particular. It was a hard hook, right? Downhill left-hand turn bill. The woods don't run off guard rail off camber, not in our favor. So it was not banked in our favor. And they filled in the off camber section with loose chip seal. Yeah. That is a typical that that's the level of awareness you have to have in Indiana while you've been on the twisty roads. Wisco too was, yeah, Wisco's kind of, how about that kid we met at the gas station? I couldn't Robin, you got, you got aggressive right off the bat. Yeah. You know, kids think, you know, I want to learn enough. I want to ride a motorcycle. I don't want to learn to ride a motorcycle. I want to ride a motorcycle and I want to buy the best motorcycle because then if I buy the best motorcycle and I stand next to the best motorcycle that I ride, I will be the person with the best motorcycle. He's well, he said, well, you see, you mentioned a, I was on an H2. He wanted to get a 600 CC H2 or first off that doesn't exist. Oh, okay. I heard H2 and I'm like, Whoa, H2 was supercharged 200. And how many is it? 175 horsepower? All the horsepower. Yeah. It's got multiple horsepowers that are powering horses. And he wanted to buy that because he didn't know what he was talking about. My response was aggressively. Go take class. Go learn how motorcycles are. Don't date one. You have full grandpa on this dude. Yeah. Listen here, Sonny, you're going to take the class. Well, it also helps to be like, hi there. I'm going to a race track to ride. Man may have been, there may have been a bit of flex. Yes. Like you understand that I'm going to do the thing that you might envision you'd like to be able to do. The trick to that is to know what you're doing. Yeah. What I really liked is, I don't know if that was his mom or his sister or his girl. No, she, she was lovely. And she was like, I like what you have to say. It was like, that's like, all right. Yeah. And I think you mentioned like the, the motorcycle training is, it's free in Illinois. Yeah. Yeah. You pay 20 bucks that you're allowed to get back if you want, but you're also allowed to donate it to the program. Nice. Yeah. That's, that's the way it should be something that's yeah. Some states subsidize it more or less than others and some don't, but yeah, it's saves a lot of lives. I think I'm going to look at being in Indiana for some of September. And in that time, I'd like to see if I can organize an advanced rider course at Duke, which I will not be coaching. I will be attending as a practitioner, a student. I shall be there as well. I think this would be a blast. And I know Neil wants to do it. I think Dale's in and our good friend Robbie. So let's see if I can, you need at least six. You better remember right. What is your, you kind of mentioned, you know, your goal for the track day is to smoothness and force smoother, smoother. He should. Yes. My goal is smoothness of form. All right. I want to walk away better. Yeah. That's that. Yeah. The same here. I just want any more better for a motorcycler. That's all on a good or eight on motorcyclage. I remember a shout out to three letter John. He was talking about the different things people will do on iron butt rides. Uh, somebody brought up how they'll, they'll make it like a scavenger, huh? I think I've seen all the, like we have a friend who's made a point to go to every Buckingston. Now we personally, um, I'm speaking for Brian because I already know we, if we never, ever see another Bucky's that that might be a little too soon, but you know, Bucky's is not a happy place that you asked me. I don't know. It's like jerky. It's an eccentric jerky store brisket. You know, you want to dive into the chaos and get all the and little beaver icons and cohort. It gave me an idea that gave me an idea about racetracks and track days, you know, collect them all like Pokemon.

Joanne: Yeah, I don't even a reader is looking for or slash track ready gloves with a gauntlet, not necessarily waterproof, but good protection for the street. And then something that's track worthy. Well, I'm assuming this is a male writer because I'd have different recommendations for female writers. I'm going to give you four, uh, different brands, kind of your top choices in the track gloves space and street, you know, gloves that kind of ride the line. Think of like a, like a dual sport bike that really ride the line 50 50 between street and track. Not great for all street, not great for all track, but perfect for a little bit of both. But because you want, uh, you know, something to sport tour in, then I'm going to give you ones that I think will be just a little bit more comfortable, maybe 60% oriented towards street. So let's start with a Alpine stars with a stars. I recommend the GP plus R GP space plus space are the V two or the V three. Now the V threes are newer. They're pretty similar. Um, the differences I did notice is besides the look, um, the knuckle design is updated. So I'm going to guess that the knuckle comfort is a little bit better on the V, uh, threes, but also on the V threes, there's a new touch screen. Um, they're adding touch screen on that pair because generally track gloves don't have touch screen capabilities because they're meant for the street, right? But I think a lot of the new bikes have touch screens now. So brands are incorporating them and Alpine stars is doing it for this glove. So the GP plus R V two or V three, because you get a hard palm sliders. So if you're saying you're going to use it, use any of these for the track, I'm specifically picking ones that have a single or dual palm slider, but a hard slider, because you need that on the track. That's something that you've just got to have. You can't be wearing your entry-level street gloves on the track. Right now, the V twos are on sale across your, all your favorite e-comm retailers, you know, your motorcycle gear.com your RevZilla for like $189. So that's a good way to get a good deal. Or if you splurge on the V threes, they're around two 20. I don't think you can go wrong with either version. You'll just, you know, maybe budget-wise and you're trying to save a little money. My theory is of course, that the V threes would be more comfortable. If you're in Alpine stars hand, then you can just order your Alpine star size. But of course also keep in mind that all these styles are more Euro fit, you know, then your American brands like a Tourmaster or Cortec or, you know, an Icon like street glove. So if you have really wide hands and you have, you might need to size up. I just don't know. It depends what glove you're coming, what brands you're coming from that you're used to. Also good to know is if you're not used to wearing gauntlet gloves, remember that these are not as comfortable as like a short mesh, mesh street glove. So if this is your first time going to a gauntlet, you should really try these on at home. Don't ride in them immediately. Just put them on. Don't go in the shower, any of that stuff. Just put it on your hand and just sit in your living room with them on just to see if the comfort changes after 10 minutes. Because if you've never worn a gauntlet, they're all going to feel wrong. You just need a few minutes to kind of get through that initial comfort. Or if you haven't broken in new gloves in years and it's been a minute, then breaking in the process again can feel like starting over. So that's just something I wanted to throw out there from a comfort and fit perspective. And if you're really not sure, just message me on any of my social feeds and I'm happy to help you. So from Alpine Stars, my rec is the GD Plus R, V2 or V3. The V2s are discontinued. So you're going to find the depleted colors and sizes in those and you're going to find discounts. Okay, moving on to D for Dianese, I'm going to recommend either the Carbon 4s at around $219 or the Druid. Now the Carbon 4 would be closer to a street comfort glove. So meaning not as aggressive. The fit isn't as aggressive. The fit isn't as tight as a Druid. The Druid is going to be more aggressive. And when you look at the knuckle design, you're going to notice that the knuckle armor on the Druid, there's a little bit more coverage there, which is shaped different. It's also a different knuckle, yeah, different knuckle style. It's going to fit more aggressive a little bit. So if you tried a large, say in a Carbon 4, and then you try a large in a Druid, you're going to find the Druid just feels a little more aggressive. And it theoretically should push your fingers harder into that pre-curve position because gloves like the Carbon 4 that are really meant to wear a little more on the street, they're usually a little bit more comfortable. Like just the hand, the pre-curve in the hand isn't as strong, right? Because the more aggressive the glove, the stronger the pre-curve because on the track, you need that hard pre-curve for grip, right, and control. But on the street, it lets up a little bit. So I think the Carbon is because you get really good protection, but you get such a comfortable glove for the street. So I'm kind of rooting for the Carbon there for you. And you save a little money, you know, a little closer to $200, which is really nice. And you, of course, you get the sliders and you get all the protections, but again, just like a little more comfort for street riding. Not a huge amount of venting. I didn't check the ventilation on the GP Plus, the new ones, but the GP Plus R didn't have like high ventilation. It was like your average level of ventilation. And I want to say the Carbons are going to have average ventilation, same with the Druid. So if you're living somewhere where it's 90 degrees, 90% humidity, it's going to be rough. Of course, with all these gloves, it's going to be rough if you're living in riding in 90 degree temperatures all the time. You know, for a track day, you just kind of suffer and you have big fans. Okay. H is for held. Now held is awesome. The fit is different from the Italians. There's more width in the palm. So if you need a wider palm and your hands are just generally bigger where the palm is, like they're wider and thicker. Held is great. They're a little, the room also in the fingers, there's a little more room around the fingers. So if you have just thicker fingers, held is great. And you can get short finger sizes. The Evil Thrux is one of my favorites, less than $200. It does have a good gauntlet, but it's not as long as its big brother, the Chikara, which is also discontinued. The Chikara was like the true track glove with a bigger gauntlet and more reinforced protection for all track, 100%, you know, 90% track and 10% riding. But the Thrux is closer to the 60, 40, like street comfort, has super fabric sliders. If you don't know super fabric, it's found on all kinds of things, but it's a synthetic, it's a ceramic, and it's supposed to be more abrasion resistant than even animal hide, which I actually do believe that because, you know, synthetics these days and, you know, science is amazing. And the materialization on super fabric is insane. It's really nice. So good coverage. Again, kangaroo pongs. I don't know if the GP Plus is the new ones have them or not, but every held glove, pretty much all their higher end street tier gloves, kangaroo leather. And if you've never ridden in kangaroo leather, holy crap, once you do, it's almost impossible to go back to cow or goat. There's just something about kangaroo hide. The breathability is amazing. The comfort is outstanding. You do have to take care of it and wash them a little more often than your goat or cow, but they are absolutely fantastic. A chikara is the older brother of an Evothrux. They're on closeout. Now those have a bigger gauntlet and they have a Kevlar top hand. So again, beefy, more track, a less street, whereas Evothrux is a more street and a little bit less track, but I mean, totally ready to protect you. The cool thing about held is even though they don't have, quote unquote, touchscreen tips, the kangaroo is conductive, which is amazing. So every kangaroo glove I've had, they are nationally conductive and I've never had to worry about whether or not it's, quote unquote, touchscreen compatibility. That's a good segue to R Racer. They're the Austrian company and I have the women's version of the High Racer. These are the best track gloves for women, if you're a female rider listening, but for men too, the High Racer is awesome. It's an incredible street glove, really great protection. It's perforated on the top hand. The kangaroo palm, it's got a double palm slider, which I appreciate. It's like a nice bonus to have that. They're around $250, but oh my God, they're worth every penny. The kangaroo, it's just, again, comfort. I've had High Racer gloves for 15 years. The first time they came out with these gloves was like 2009 or 10 and for women and back then that was huge because I couldn't find any track worthy gloves for women and this is it and I've stuck to them and I wear them on the street. I've worn them on the track. They're just a phenomenal glove. The High Racer and you're going to have to go to racerglovesusa.com. I want to say they also sell through sport bike track gear. You might have to Google some of their dealers or they might have it on their website, but racerglovesusa.com. They're fantastic and I highly recommend the High Racer. Just amazing. Again, just like these other recommendations, they sit really well in the street comfort with track capability and track protection. Just really good 50-50 options. The last brand I'm going to recommend is Revit, of course. Revit has really come a long way in redeveloping and redesigning their gloves. Five years ago, the track cuts, in my opinion, they just weren't as comfortable. I mean, they were definitely track worthy, but the comfort didn't do as well as its competitors, Dainese and Held and Alpine Stars because they've been working on their track gloves a little bit longer and they've, I think, just refined the fit. But this time, this season, Revit has come out with a new line of track gloves in the last two seasons that are just so much more comfortable, way more competitive in terms of the fit. They're still going to, of course, have a little European fit. And I'd say of all the brands, Revit, I think, has a good neutrality to it. The style I want to recommend, there's two. One is the League, and the League is around 180. And there's a new version of the glove. I want to say it's at League 2. These have a double gauntlet. Pure track gloves will have a double gauntlet where you can really adjust the fit around the wrist. And then it has big knuckle protectors from the full race glove. Those are the Jerez's. So really, again, really great protection for the track if you want to, but then really great comfort for the street. Also, they are touch friendly. The only thing with a double gauntlet is when you're doing street riding, it could be a little fussy. So if that's something you think, you know what, that's going to drive me crazy. I don't mind spending more. Then I'm going to recommend the Quantum 3. The Quantum 3's just came out this year. They have a double strap. Again, the comfort is really, really good compared to the old ones. If you ever tried old Quantums, they're nothing like that. They really, the product developers really worked on them. They're $250 and they do have a double strap, but they have a completely redesigned knuckle. And the knuckle comfort on this is probably 10 times better than the League. So what you're going to get for that money is more comfort across the top knuckle. There's different stretch points on this glove that make it really, really comfortable. And they're using their own armor for reinforcement and for the TPU components. So it doesn't have kangaroo. I mean, if it had kangaroo, I think it'd be amazing. But if you like the idea of kangaroo and you really want like super comfort and you can spend $315, then I'm actually going to recommend the Control Glove. These gloves are so comfortable. Everybody who ever tried on the samples, when I would share them, they would just go crazy. They just couldn't believe how comfortable they were. There's just something about the design, the knuckle design. These are kangaroo and cowhide, and these have a little more protection, but just that comfort. They just feel great. Similar to the Held and Racer choices, that comfort is outstanding and touch friendly, reinforced. Again, all the protection you want. Again, they're just a step above the League in terms of comfort, and they would get you close. It would be more 60-40 track comfort, but again, totally streetable. I do recommend trying those if you don't mind spending a little more money. But the Control is a track-centered glove. Totally could do both. Those are my recommendations. They're all fantastic, and it's really about your hand shape. I'm going to say this. If you have a longer hand, like you have longer fingers and a longer palm, I really recommend Held or Revit. They tend to have more room, but also with Held, you can order the long fingers if you really need to, but with Revit, they've always been really good with finger lengths. There's a lot of stretch points there, and remember, keep in mind that if you have longer fingers and you struggle with finding gloves that are long enough, you're probably buying gloves that aren't articulated for sport and don't have all the stretch points. Because if you look at, say, the Control gloves or any of these gloves, what you're going to see is these wonderful stretch points everywhere. So give those a whirl. My last tip I'm supposed to give and share is about cleaning track gear. What do you do if your track gear or your leathers stink and you haven't been taking care of them? Hopefully, if you've bought a one-piece suit in the last, oh, five to ten years, it probably has a removable liner. Now, those are only going to be really applicable usually to $1,000 suits and up, where you can take the liner out and actually wash it. If you can't, then you really have no choice but to spot clean it. You can't wash your leathers. You can't put them in a washing machine if the inside is stank. All you can really do is probably Febreze the bejesus out of it. Hang some dryer sheets in there if there's any moisture that you want to maybe suck out of it. There's really not a lot you can do except spraying it with like an odor management spray like Ozium. That's a good one that neutralizes odors or Febreze. But there's really not a lot you can do. Remember, generally, when you are out riding in your leathers and you're sweaty, you need to hang them up in a cool, dry place to air out. You don't just want to leave them in a pile. You don't just want to shove them in the closet. Hang them up somewhere airy and dry so they can air out. With gloves, like all the gloves that I recommended, but also generally, you can hand wash your gloves. You can soak them. If you buy anything with kangaroo leather palms, you need to wash those because kangaroo is super supple and dexterous. But the downside is it's very thin. If you sweat a lot into kangaroo and you never wash them, you can literally wear a hole through the material because all the salt and oil from your hands eats away at kangaroo. It's not as tough, but it's so comfortable. You just have to hand wash them. And you can do that too with your other gloves, your leather gloves. You can soak them in the sink with just a little drop of some conditioner. And you can just soak them and hand wash them just to get a lot of the grease and salt out of there and just towel dry. And then if you want to use leather conditioner, you can. Make sure you don't run any alcohol-based chemicals in there. Generally, take care of your gear. Have a place to hang it. Have a place for it to air out when it's sweaty. Don't just leave your sweaty gloves in your helmet. Take those out. Hang those up to air out. I hope this helps. Please, anytime, you can message me on Instagram or you can send me an email help at gearchick.com. And I'm happy to help you out if you need some personal sizing or personal fit recommendations.

Jordan: He thought that Iowa was going to be the beginning of good roads and it was not. It's a punishment that he had to cross through Iowa and it was all mud and ruts and it was it was terrible. But now he's in Illinois and he immediately says the roads were better. So he's in Fulton, Illinois. He says, the better quality of the whole country in Illinois's farms thriving are superior to anything he'd seen since leaving Sacramento. He chose the road on the north side of the Rock River and remained on that side until he crossed the river at Dixon, Illinois. This is all close by to Chicago. You could all be in these towns within a couple hours where he was instructed to take the old Chicago Stage Road, which I believe follows 30. But on that road, he had the worst trouble riding southeast of towards Earlville, Illinois and northeast to Aurora, Illinois, where Wayne's World was from. The road was so poor that his crankshaft broke. This all stems from a botched repair by the blacksmith who tried to center his crankshaft by jamming pieces of brass around it, like packing material to keep it centered. He has to go to Chicago now. And I think he chose this route instead because he would have known that if he'd gone to Springfield instead, he would have been on the national road and it would have been a good road all the way to New York. Basically, he's got to pedal now. He's got to pedal from Aurora, Illinois, all the way into Chicago. His coaster break was fixed in Cedar Rapids, but he's pedaling 10 miles, nightfall comes, and he's got to go through Aurora. And he finds a store at a crossroads. They allowed him to sleep inside. He's not even getting to a hotel. This is probably near Aurora or Montgomery or in that area over there. In Aurora, he says, on fine stone roads, he pedaled into Chicago, Illinois. The last 25 miles, totally physically and mentally weary because of the crankshaft. He's sitting on a curb and he sat to meditate. And a local rider stops to offer some assistance. Once he's in Chicago, he goes to find a new motor crank, but there wasn't one. Apparently, these parts aren't all interchangeable, it's not standardized. So he telegraphs to San Francisco for them to send one. The motor crank was the last thing he ever expected to break, but it did, proving that you can't tell what will happen on a cross-country journey of this sort. He had to lay up in Chicago for a while. It turns out he was there from five to seven days, a long, impatient wait while he's in Chicago, but at least he's in a big city. And he goes to find lodgings. He finds a nice-looking boarding house and chose it in preference to a hotel. He says, but the bugs were terrible in the house, as big as canary birds. So this is 1903 Chicago, and they got bugs as big as canaries. And he left that boarding house the same night. He walks the streets for three hours, thoroughly disgusted with Chicago, Illinois, from that time on. Now, the places that he talks about in Chicago aren't the downtown that you and I know. Most of what was going on in Chicago was on the south side of Chicago, Hyde Park area and east of there. So most likely, he was on the south side of Chicago at this point. He finally got to a hotel where everything was all right, but he hated that he had to stay in Chicago, Illinois for five days waiting for the crankshaft. Here he goes again. It rained nearly every day and soot from coal smoke was everywhere. So this is the south side, not far from the meatpacking plants and all the industry and industrial revolution. Pullman was a big railroad car manufacturer. I work in that area all the time now. This is the area we're talking about, homes that were built for people that worked at the factory and would go home to these homes the same night and live nearby, row houses and whatnot. So Chicago is not selling itself. He says people ran about like there was a fire. So this is a totally different pace of life also. Men and women were drunk in the streets. Okay, well, that's kind of like Chicago today. And you're getting this impression that he's a little bit of a Puritan. He never saw so much drunkenness in his life and he abhorred the place. Finally, getting his crank on June 23rd and took all of June 24th to fit it and get the engine back together again and left the same evening. Couldn't get out of there fast enough on June 24th. On the evening of June 24th at 530 p.m., he left Chicago disgusted, thinking that he would make New York in a week or so. Here he states that the bike is 90 pounds. So it's a bit of a weight, but he may be exaggerating and expresses how he is impressed with what it had put up with thus far, despite the repairs it had needed. I'm going to interject here because I really think this entire trip he's been sugarcoating and waxing poetic about this motorcycle because the whole purpose is for them to be able to sell more of these motorcycles. I think he holds back and he kind of got blinders on for what he says about this thing. He says more about the conditions of the roads and the things that he's encountered along this trip, but barely has bad things to say about this motorcycle. But it's broken numerous times. And this time most recently was major. It was a trip-ending part that broke, but he's got to make it. He's got to make this trip because it's like, we didn't make it to the moon or something, or we didn't fly airplanes at Kitty Hawk or something. You have to get this trip done. They're brand new things. They have only been around for a couple of years and nothing's ever been driven this far across an entire country. Let's just leave that there. Now, remember, this is a promotional endeavor. So he may be doing damage control here and rode to Kensington, which appears to be a Chicago neighborhood. And I looked it up. Kensington is Southeast side, somewhere between the Field Museum and the South Loop. But it's not an actual town. There's a Kensington Park there, Kensington Gardens, but there isn't a specific neighborhood that I could find called Kensington. But that's what he called it back in 1903. Appears to be a Chicago neighborhood and not a town proper, as there are a Kensington Park and Kensington Place along the lake, south of the city. Back in 1903, this would have been a nice area, but today is less so. Probably not far from Hyde Park and the museum campus, or somewhat further south. It appears to be by 115th and Cottage Grove, which is a wonderful place to go during daylight in a locked car. But besides the point, he's probably just north of Pullman, which was a railroad magnet, and it would have been a nice area. He states that Kensington is 23 miles south of Chicago, but it's really only 14 miles on Google Maps, depending if you're wandering around the streets or not. Straight south from the 290 and the lakefront. At Kensington, he buys gas from a man who cheats him. A man cheats him on gas and sold him something that was effectively not gasoline and calls it a mix of gasoline and linseed oil, which I believe is what they use for tanning leather. He didn't fight the guy, but went on until he could get good gas elsewhere. So not only is everybody in Chicago smelly, smoky, and drunk, but they also cheat you, and they have giant bugs. Swindlers. The bad gasoline situation slowed him, and he didn't get out of Kensington until 6.45 a.m. the next day, riding 20 miles along the lake on railroad tracks, leaving the railroad tracks at Porter, Indiana. Now he's in Indiana. Doesn't take long to get to Indiana from the south side, wrapping around the bottom south to east part of Lake Michigan, where he got a good rock bed, which probably means it was macadam pavement. So he's riding on good roads now in Indiana, stating, when this country is eventually built up with good roads, it will be truly great and wonderful. He reaches La Porte, Indiana, which is pretty well into Indiana there, by noon, and had lunch there, having made 55 miles. Okay, now we're getting into this area here where I recently traveled, and I've been traveling there for more than 40 years and never knew about this George Wyman guy. He goes to Ligonier, Indiana. Nobody in Ligonier, Indiana had ever seen a motorcycle before, and everybody gawked. He claims he did 130 miles the day before, but by my calculations are 127, so probably he had different roads 122 years ago. Now Ligonier is the home, I believe, of Janus. Janus Motorcycles has a plaque in their window, which I took a picture of the plaque with my face next to it. Actually, I think their plaque is on the wall that says, Waypoint, George Wyman, 1903. So now we're in the area. Ligonier follows the railroad tracks between Route 30 and Route 6. So he's heading east. I went there over Memorial Weekend and took a picture of it. Sure enough, there's a picture in the window. And Robin, you better post these pictures, at least with the episode, so people can see the places that he's been. He leaves Ligonier at 8 o'clock in the morning on June 25th on a sand road to a town called Wawaka, Indiana, which I couldn't find. I think they got a very small population there. Found a stone road. These are roads that are literally right next to the railroad tracks. And he finds a stone road and had good riding to Kendallville, Indiana. I've been going there twice a year, approximately the last 40 years for a fantastic bluegrass music festival that they have there at 4-H Grounds.