Robin: Neil Sullivan, thank you. Neil is most certainly my first call for future substitutions. He really held the fort down, even laid back in that last. He was just chilling, just generally good-natured. I really appreciate it. Killer job, man. Thank you. It was a good hang.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Good hang. Good job. Nice. Also real quick, big shout out to Megan Towles over at Roadrunner Financial or dare I say Octane Lending. She's going the distance for me and correcting a title transfer mistake on the receiving end. Thanks, Illinois. Our entire interaction has been a stress dissolving day crescendo from our first communication with her repeatedly telling me, Hey, sit tight. I'm on it. Whoever her CEO is, I tell you, CEO is the exact job title that I believe should give her direct complimentary recognition before reaching out to us over here at TRO.Bike in an overwhelming and enthusiastic effort to provide us with the financial sponsorship our podcast so desperately needs.

Brian: I like how you tied it all together there. Nice. Yeah. We don't need details, do we? It's just, yeah. State of Illinois, whatever. Yeah. Titles. Blah.

Robin: Um, yeah. Nothing more fun than going to a DMV. Anywho, opening, banter, corrections, website updates. Asps. Very dangerous. You go first, Brian.

Brian: Nice. We're, we're mixing up. We're going backwards and so forth. Um, I don't know. One of the, one of the common themes is last month or so has been, uh, spending a lot of time underneath the, uh, underneath the minivan doing some, uh, fixes. You remember when we were on our road trip, when I would pull the trailer, it would go one way and then I would stop the trailer. I'm going to go there. Anyway, that's all fixes. Big amounts of suspension work. Uh, that's fun. Did valve cover gaskets. I don't know if you can see my hands, but it looks like I've been fighting with a Bobcat. So if anybody ever says, Hey, come over some afternoon and we'll do the valve cover gaskets on my a 3.5 liter Toyota engine, you tell them to go straight to hell, just pain, pain bait, like when your hand is almost, your hand is like a fraction of an inch from the thing.

Robin: You gotta, you gotta, if I just go a little bit further, I can just, let me just remove these digits. I got it.

Brian: Yeah. I was, you know, you're buying tools. Yeah. I mean, you've seen my garage. I have the tools. I had to go buy more anyway. Yeah. Uh, eTorx. I had to deal with some of those a little fast. Anyway, I'm over the hump. The biggest stuff is done. I've got one more. That's kind of intricate job dealing with the, uh, one of the doors in the back and then from there, just doing some breaks and some easy crap. So all the good stuff, been a lot of money. So one of the things, one of the other things that recently happened is I had the first part that broke and I had to fix on the Yamaha FJ-09, basically it was, uh, when I was in neutral, there was no light and it wasn't showing the big N, which is no big deal, but like you can't, you can't have the bike running when it's on the kickstand or sidestand because it doesn't know it's in neutral. Common failure on those bikes, 53,000 miles on the bike. I mean, you know, all right, fine. 70 bucks and about a 20, 30 minutes of work. It was, it was all good. And then, yeah. And then I realized about 53,000 miles. It's a, that's the first time anything at all has gone wrong. There's been a ton of maintenance has been stacks of tires, but can't be mad. Yeah. And yeah, I also got to say Yamaha, if you're looking at, at looking at buying a motorcycle, be aware that Yamaha has the best parts pricing, like if you need to buy air filters, oil filters, valve cover gas, cause even just maintenance parts, Kawasaki is horrible. Suzuki's pricing is bad. Honda, forget it. You know, everything BMW, I don't know.

Robin: Does the UGM truth come into play here?

Brian: Like do any, any of the parts that they cross compatible brand to brand or, you know, once in a while, like a Tokiko brakes are used on tons of different bikes. And so there are people who have figured out like on Suzuki's there's parts for like a caliper that are not available from Suzuki that you can get from Honda because they list them on the features. And it's the same rear caliper. Uh, probably the same one is used on this bike. They, a lot of music. So yeah, once in a while you can cross-reference there's actually even like a Harley parts, like there's a Harley that uses the same carburetor as the KLR 650 and Kawasaki has insane parts pricing. So if you need parts for your KLR carburetor, you go to a Harley shop and they're like a fifth of the price. You know, they're, they're much cheaper.

Robin: It's like what corridor did they mistakenly turn down on the pricing world that caused that to happen to their company alone?

Brian: The other thing, you know, springtime was a, just a flurry of activity, large amounts of money leaving my wallet, large amounts of fun coming back into my body. Yes.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: A little bit of a lull. And then, uh, the fall is, uh, got some big plans coming up. Track day in Missouri, Kentucky, uh, other stuff. And you know, it's, it's gonna be fun. Yeah. Trying to figure out how to do about a thousand miles before the track day and a few weeks. I'm in the same thing.

Robin: You're talking about the tires. Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. I've got tons of tread left. I mean, I, I have got a new set waiting, but at the same time, for whatever reason, I've been website centric. So I'm not like I'm dug into code so much. I was like, today was a beautiful day. But I remember as a kid, there were summer days where I was in the mood. To geek out on my computer. And so I've been geeking out on in this beautiful day. I've been in front of my computer doing fun Cody things. According to nerdville here. I know I need to grind those out. They need to be done. And so I have come up with a promise to myself that I'm going to ride on every opportune day in August, all the way up to these events, I'm going to go ride the crap out of the bike because I've been in Wisconsin all the time I've ridden enough rides. I can only count on one hand since I got here in beautiful, awesome, driveless, Wisconsin, got to change that.

Brian: I don't know about you, but here in Indiana, the heat wave finally broke. So we're looking at 79 degree high on the weekend. Let's do this. I've got stuff to do this weekend. And that means motorcycle stuff to do.

Robin: Let's start a support group of two, you know, go do the thing. Yeah, let's do this.

Brian: If you answer the phone or respond to this text, you just stop it. Get on your bike asshole.

Robin: You know, I'm going to do it for all a radio TRO. So you, me, Jordan, Joanne, we'll bring in some of the vetted guys from the past. Now, this is a good plan. What else you got?

Brian: I've done two track days with Motovid and, um, I think Peter Egan said something about, you know, riding on a track makes a heroin addiction feel like you just like some potato chips. I mean, he's, you know, it's anyway about to do the third and about to step up to a road America in Wisconsin, big track, big, big speed, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Fun. I'm sure it'll be terrifying. All that stuff. I'm getting the, the idea that I am spoiled by Motovid because I could not imagine a better run track day out there. They're pretty amazing. But my local track, the one closest to me that has track days is Putnam park, 1.8 miles, nice, friendly, compact track, uh, and the track days are run by sport bike track time. Yes. Uh, I think in the, in recent history, they moved to a format. That's very similar. They have groups of beginner, intermediate, et cetera. Yeah. So yeah, I, at some point I may end up going and trying that. Are they running dual intermediate now? I don't know that they are. I think that, I think it's three groups last time I checked, but I could be wrong.

Robin: That's what I remember. Yeah. Go on.

Brian: Well, at some point I'd like to get over there and just try out a beginner group. You know, like I'm, you know, I don't know nothing about nothing. Let's see what this tracks like, see what you guys are like, the atmosphere. It makes a, it makes a big difference. There are track days I know of and have talked to people where it turns into like a macho testosterone fest. And you know, people go flying and it's no good. I don't want that.

Robin: Yeah. I remember sport bike track time. I never had any problem with their operation in my experience. It was a good time riding Gingerman and Autobahn. And I think those are the only two I ever did with them. The difference being they were only run three groups. So you have one intermediate group and it floods out quick. You'll be very happy and novice. Trust me. You'd be fantastic there. And there are some different ways that they operate. It's a little bit more loose. I think, I'm not sure what they're doing on the instruction level. I hear that they've taken a few cues from different operations. It's kind of nice to see that people who are providing the same service are starting to bond and say, okay, what worked for you and protected people from this prospective incident and some of the operations are following suit, which is kind of cool. I think it'll be great. You also, a track is just a track. Just because a provider offers a track day at that track doesn't necessarily mean that other providers don't. They also might not have the range or interest in that distance of a track day operation. So I think you're going to have a great time. You're going to have to tell me how it goes. I want to know. You'll bring that back.

Brian: I'm not sure if there's time to make it happen this year. But yeah, at some point I'll jump in and sign up. It's about 40 minutes away. You know, Road America is about five hours. It's going to suck.

Robin: You're going to love that day though.

Brian: Yes. It'll be a wonderful day. And then I'll be like, oh God, now what? And getting up there on a Sunday is not going to be, that'll be fine. Camping or whatever will be fine. But yeah, getting out of there and I'm thinking, okay, let's see. I could get to a hotel or I could just use toothpicks and keep my eyes open and get through Chicago. I'll figure that out. How about you, sir? Where have you been? What's happening?

Robin: I have over the past, what has it been? Two years developing a motorcycle training website that has no allegiance to any one branding of curriculum, giving people a safe thrill. Whatever that is. I don't want to say everything from this to that, just everything. Motorcycle training.us, which does not exist yet, is on the way. I have spent the entirety of this past month building the form. When I say the form, I mean, there's going to be a contact form. There's going to be some other stuff, but there's one master form that providers, people who give training to the world of us riders, wherever we happen to be in the skill ranking system, it's the motorcycle training culture that I am most nervous about making sure I sculpt this in a way where their information is receivable, but it will be structured and ends up on the website uniformly and proactively so that people can find training that they want as close to them as possible, if not by reputation elsewhere. So this entire month I've been building that form. How do I take the data? How do I store the data? How do I use the data? And it's been a hell of an exercise. It's been work, but it's on the way. And I had already created the actual interface, which now I don't, you know, I really do as a code mind have only limited space available to me for how much information I can store. I've forgotten what I did. I have that code sitting somewhere and I know that they do not have any kind of conjoining elements that will bridge them, but they're gonna. So that'll be the next step. Excellent. Let's talk about some smaller stuff. I updated the weather page to make use of the maximum values for ride quality, which means nothing to anybody but me. Our own Tom Burns has written for the, he's been an author for the site for several years now. He contested this because he's got a couple of friends. We all have some friends that ride at night. You know, they will be out there on the bike with their lights on in the night, but TRO, our goal is to carve curves during daylight hours. So the weather forecast that should be broadcast on the website, any averages for a given day's temperature or humidity or any of this should be based only on daylight hours.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: And I kind of took the easy way out with chance of precipitation average. Yesterday, chance of precipitation average was 25%. So when you subtract that from a hundred, you've got a 75% quality riding day. Brian, it rained all day yesterday. Not a little bit.

Brian: You ended up on the short end. Okay. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. So I'm like, this needs to be repaired. So I went in there and I, I have a function I had already built into that averages the daylight hours. It only takes the daylight hours, takes all the percentage chance of rain, things like that, calculates, uh, what, you know, is the highest or the lowest, it can average it together, but it uses the pulp of our riding hours. So I kind of fixed that. So if the lowest chance of rain is zero and the highest chance of rain is 40%, that 40% marks, the overall ride quality subtracting from 100% makes it a 60% ride quality day based on your own preferences. So get in there, log in, change your preferences. This was using averages, which lowered the negative impact and today's weather here and yesterday's weather here in Lone Rock, Wisconsin would have punished anyone for that. I don't need those phone calls.

Brian: That's a lot of math for, uh, well, not a lot of math, but yeah, you know, you were talking about track days.

Robin: I am going to attend. I can't wait. This is gonna be so fun. I've been to a lot of track days, but the MSF offers a course called the circuit rider course. And it's a rare thing to see it. I received an email. Wonderful, beautiful Wisconsin has put together a professional development workshop in a manner of speaking. I mean, I can claim it as such. It doesn't matter. I know I'm gonna, I'm going to go ride their circuit right. Of course, I'm a little giggly about it. Cause I know it's going to be on those terms. If I expect it to be a track day, it's going to be a dud, but in terms of an experience and an opportunity to see the providing happen, that's going to be fantastic. I'm excited about this. Does this, does this happen on a track or at a parking lot or The usual norm is it requires two full sized ranges.

Brian: Okay. That's more of a parking lot.

Robin: Yeah. It's like two ranges side by side. I don't know if they're stacked wide or stacked long. The graphic I saw was that they were stacked long and they create a long straightaway in two spots with many, many curves of all kinds. Okay, great. But the facility we happen to be doing this at, I think they're able to do it with flexible structure. We're doing at a police training range. Okay. We get the whole honking lot. And from what I understand, we're going to use it. Or so I'm told I'm not trusting the information. I'm just looking forward to finding out. And really, if I had to go there and just sit and watch, I'd be doing it with a big dumb ass smile on my face. And it's going to be, that sounds fun.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: And you'll learn a lot. I can tell. Maybe I can get a cert at some point if they keep the correct. Nice. You ready for some listener questions? Yeah.

Brian: Let's go for it. First off, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tiro.bike in your web browser machine and send us a message, or you can email podcast at tiro.bike, I believe. LJ, is that like cool LLJ? No. Am I dating myself? Okay. LJ asks if transverse means the crankshaft runs across the frame. Yes, it does. Is there a word for the way the cylinders cross the frame? I don't understand the question, but I think he means, yes, that word is transverse.

Robin: I think this person has heard episodes where I've mentioned, for example, the Hawk GT, let's call it a 35 degree V twin engine, but the cylinder heads were in line with the rider.

Brian: Right. So they're longitudinal. Yeah.

Robin: This is one term, whereas the Goozys, I used to call it transverse.

Brian: Right.

Robin: Which I believe doesn't work based on what I may be learning here. So let's see if I stand corrected with some information. Tell me what you know.

Brian: That's pretty correct. Moto Goozy is a good example of the cylinders sit across the frame, you know, one point's left, one point's right. And the crankshaft actually is longitudinal. So it runs forward, backward. And you'll see that longitudinal crankshafts, they're not common, except on shaft drive bikes, like Moto Goozys, BMWs, the K bikes, any of the BMW shafties, the BMW boxer twin. The cylinders can be in line with that. BMW K bike has a four cylinder or three cylinder engine. It's laid down on its side, but the cylinders pointing to the left for some damn reason. The crankshaft is longitudinal and the cylinders are in a longitudinal line as well.

Robin: Do we just need to cite the object before the cylinders are transverse?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: The crankshaft is longitudinal.

Brian: Yeah, pretty much. And then there are some bikes like a Hawk GT. It's a V twin and the cylinders are longitudinal. They're not in line. And the crankshaft is transverse. So the crankshaft is left and right, spins, clutch, blah, turns the sprocket and off you go. For example, my old Suzuki GS 850, it's an inline four. So the cylinders are all in a line. They sit across the frame. They're transverse. The crankshaft is also transverse. It is shaft drive. So it actually has an extra 90 degree bevel gear at the output to drive the drive shaft. The chain drive version of that same engine on the GS 750 does not need that. And so it just has an output shaft and runs, you know, like the most bikes you would see. Nice. Yeah. I don't get too hung up on terminology, but yeah, there's a lot of different ways to, to build a bike and build an engine.

Robin: It's not our job to judge others who do and have questions for our expertise.

Brian: Brian. Yeah. When you're casually throwing terms around or whatever, just make sure you, you can picture. All right. DM asks, are dirt dual sport and ADV motorcycles interchangeable for any all unpaved terrain? I have thoughts. These terms are not actually equivalent. Dirt bike, dual sport, ADV. They're not equivalent at all. They are, they're a continuum. A dirt bike is a dedicated dirt bike. A dirt bike with lights, you know, is, is street legal, sort of. A dual sport is a little more street oriented. Like a KLR 650 is often considered a dual sport. Like you can actually get on a highway. You can go 80 miles an hour. You know, you're not going to be that happy, but you can do it. And then you can achieve locomotion on unpaved surfaces, but you're not going to, you're not going to be as fast or as happy as you would be on a dirt bike, that kind of thing. And then usually the adventure bike is the much larger bike. It's a, it's for traveling, unpaved, paved, whatever. Carrying a bunch of crap. Usually luggage I think is usually the, when you see a lot of luggage, you're looking at an adventure bike, I think. It's fuzzy.

Robin: There's a gradient crossfade between each genre, if it is that.

Brian: Yeah. And you can turn a KLR more into a dirt bike and make it more of a dual sport. Or you can strap on a bunch of luggage and choose streetier tires and turn it into more of a traveling long distance adventure, but you know, whatever you want to call it, man. Yeah. One thing you do just really have to pay a lot of attention to is the size and weight of the machine. They're going to have very, very, very different capabilities off pavement. Gravel roads. Sure. You're fine on whatever you're riding, but there's things dirt bikes can do that you cannot do on a KLR. Unless you're really lucky and people can do some really wild things on a BMW GS, but there are also limits. It's also very, very heavy. You just have to be aware of that. The limitations mean a lot more off road. So you have to be real careful about that.

Robin: Nice. I have a dream of getting a dual sport bike and then bulking it up a bit and then calling it done. My ADV bike, I want it to be significantly more nimble than normal ADV bikes, but still have the iron clad storage to the extent that it can handle it built in or added on after the fact, or even fabricated, to be honest with you.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: That's what I want is a dual sport bike that has been bulked up a bit.

Brian: You should totally do that. Yeah. That's, that's so much fun.

Robin: When life allows, it shall. Segment one, this is improvised, but are you ready?

Brian: Yeah, sort of, kinda. Yeah. Why not?

Robin: This is going to be vague. I'm going to invite audience interaction on this. Meaning if you're out there listening, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser, that's a domain URL, and use our contact form to reach out to us about these matters. This segment one is called Automatic Route Suggestorators, and we're going to have some fun with this. Basically, if you're in a quick rush to kind of come up with something and then re-sculpt it to your liking, there's some apps out there that can help you do this before you fine tune things. I don't typically do this. Usually I'll go to ridewithgps.com because I love that platform. And I will say, I'm starting here and I'm going to end here. And then I will carve and warp and shape the crap out of the main line using the old detective yarn, as it were, with waypoints, but there are apps out there that it's fascinating to watch them fail, is my mindset. It's a good time to watch them do a reasonable job, except for when it's absolute crap. And these are some of those apps. One that does not have any problems, that is a community of sorts, has nothing to do with automatic route generation, but making finding routes easier, and that's bestbikingroads.com, which I remember a long time ago, sitting down with this guy on a video chat, trying to talk about how he can make the website better. The navigation's a little bit funky and it's really getting kind of long in the tooth, but I think people still contribute and there's a lot of good roads on there. You just go there, find the GPX file, you know, download it, no big deal. That's not a bad platform at all. It's just fun. So we're not looking for perfection. We're just looking at what sort of works and gives you the opportunity to perfect your effort.

Brian: This is route sharing, basically.

Robin: It is. That one's just route sharing. So it's a community oriented, rando, somebody who's all about function over form website. May as well be GeoCities, but it works. They have them sort of leveled, but that's neither here nor there. People put a level on a route. They're like, oh, that one had a turn in it. I don't know about them turns. Yeah, that's a red route. No, you're, you know, whatever. Another one, this one kind of gave me a giggle, is Kalimodo. Now, when we used to lead the Can-Am Demo Rides, the most excellent and friendly conspirator who brought us together to do such a thing, he liked the idea of us all using Kalimodo. And I, you know, at what point do you stand up and say, hi there, I know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about to somebody you just met who is paying you to do a job you don't. So I checked it out and it wasn't quite what I wanted it to be. And you know, it was one of those apps that says that dirt driveway up over that hill is really curvy and you should totally ride your Hayabusa on it. It can get a little hairy. It'll take you down park paths. It'll take you down sidewalks into drainage tunnels.

Brian: Yeah, I know what you're talking about. And, and yeah, like anyway, the next one does that too. Yes. Go on.

Robin: Curviger. No, I think Curviger is quite interesting. I like that one. Curviger spelled K-U-R-V-I-G-E-R. I think you and I've actually talked about these before, all of them. So I just sort of slapped this up to give it as a brief reminder. Curviger.com. I've always loved that one. Just experimenting with it. It's also only good for pre-mod. You should probably use it to generate a GPX file, then import that GPX file into whatever platform allows you to make use of the Google Maps road profiles so you can actually put them on roads wherever they aren't. But still, I've actually really enjoyed that one. Like give me all the twists as you can between here and Louisville, Kentucky. And it just goes haywire and shows you that, oh, so many ways to get arrested for riding through a mini mall.

Brian: Yeah. Well, and that's one thing like with, with this one and with some others, it'll go, ooh, curvy roads and it's, uh, you know, it's a, it's a subdivision or an industrial park, a human still has to look at this and go, no, we need to go around this. You know, the trucks trying to get to the warehouse are not going to appreciate this.

Robin: So, yeah. Now then there's, uh, Ferkit, which I really don't know. Ferkit, F-U-R-K-O-T.com. Maybe we'll make a, why don't we test the waters on that one in an episode? I'm not sure. Do I have to register? Yeah. Plan a trip, sign up. There's going to be pricing involved at some point. We may have to try the old free account, but this is like adventure software. And I don't mean on a motorcycle. I mean like hiking, driving, grand touring, all of the stuff.

Brian: So yeah. Things to do campgrounds. Yeah.

Robin: We really might want to take a peek at that one just to mess with it and give us something to talk about. Nice. Of course. I know there are a lot of people out there. There's a ton of listeners who are going to be like Revverman.

Brian: R-E-V-E-R.co. It's the app that's kind of really been pushed or it's partnership. Somehow it's tangled up with RevZilla, CycleGear. It didn't start out that way. Somehow they're in cahoots on this. So it does have a lot of support.

Robin: There's no bad blood there. It does have a lot of support, but when they first came out, they actually reached out to us and said, Hey, you want to test this out? And I was like, eh, you know, I kind of, I logged in and to share a map was proprietary, to download the file was a preparatory format. It wasn't convertible. They wanted to make sure that you stayed contained inside of their environment. And I personally found that unattractive and I told them that, and they said, well, did you even try the app and all this data? This was way before I think they got better funding by RevZilla. They were like, they were kind of got absorbed by RevZilla and they developed it further. And now it is file type friendly, meaning you can import different file types, export to different file types. It's become a lot more loose, which I think is better. And I don't know, I should give it another chance. I just, I'm stuck on Rival GPS with a big old dumb smile on my face.

Brian: Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and admit right here. We took a dual sport trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota, week-long trip. I haven't taken a week off work in 20 years, but anyway, we did it. So I signed up for whatever the club is at RevZilla. I forget what that is. Anyway, one of the benefits you get is access to Revver. And so I did that and I signed up and I paid some money in order to get access to the routes because they have the dual sport rally in that area. So I wanted those routes. They do let you export a GPX and all that stuff, but I loaded up the app and we set out and six gigabytes of data later, I decided about three hours later, like, I don't know what I had wrong, but the app was chewing giant holes in my data plan. Wow. For what reason? I know not. I mean, I thought I had the offline. So anyway, I didn't have a good experience and like you, we should probably go back and look at it again. Yeah, it is. It does what it does and the way it wants to do it. And you better like it.

Robin: What these apps are trying to do. You got to forgive them for if it doesn't go right the first 15 times, even just keep forgiving them, keep testing the waters, talk to them, you know, maybe we'll get them on here too. It'd be good to talk to each one of these individual companies one at a time. Hey, listeners, what do you use that we haven't mentioned? Don't come at us with what we just talked about. If you have some platforms, some ideas, I've seen some Facebook ads go by about, Hey bro, where are we going to ride? I don't know, but this AI app, just AI'd our motorcycle. Let's AI, AI. I don't know what it was called. I don't remember, but okay. How is it?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Reach out email.trio.bike. Send us a question through the forum or send us your message to the forum and we'll talk about it. If however you do and use any of these platforms, I'm going to download it. Use that GPX file. You can go with Osmond, which is free. You can go with Scenic for Apple or iPhone. I'm not sure if that costs or not. And ride with GPS, which is free to use, though their voice nav is subscription based, that's what you got.

Brian: There's some features that are paywalled. Yeah. I know Scenic is popular. It's iOS only as far as I can tell. I don't think it's Android. Yeah. And you and I have had some vigorous debates about ride with GPS, the other apps, Osmond, you want a map, you want yourself, you want some tracks. It's good for that. And Locust Pro is the one I use. Osmond is probably easier to use and they do about the same thing. And both of those have a free version. And then they have a paid version that gives you some better features and you don't have to look at ads and stuff. Yeah. It's still one of those. There's no clear winner and you have to go out and just, just try a bunch of stuff, see what you like. Yeah. There's a great article Robin wrote on this and guess where it is. It's on TRO.bike. Forward slash question mark P equals 3198.

Robin: Or if you just Google custom motorcycle route, voice guidance, TRO is in the top two spots.

Brian: Not hard to find. It'll pop right up. And it's a great discussion of features, what to look for. It's been updated and answers a lot of those questions. How do I do this? How do I do this? Very step-by-step. Great article.

Robin: At any rate, that brings us to The Armory brought to you by gearchick.com. How riders can stay comfortable at high temps.

Joanne: One of the first things I always tell people, and like I told you was in when it's 90 degrees outside Fahrenheit, right? And there's 90% humidity, for example, it's hot. There's nothing you could do about that because you're not in your car with air conditioning anymore. So the minute you step on your motorcycle, there has to be an immediate acceptance of that. It's not about temperature. discomfort. Like it's going to be hot. It's just like making the decision to ride a motorcycle. This is a risk. You could die. That's something you say yes to when you buy one. Period. There's nothing around that. And it's the same thing with heat. There's no such thing as I can stay cooler on my motorcycle. You're not because you've decided to expose yourself outside of the cabin of your insulated vehicle. I mean, if you have a really nice car, that's the first thing. So the second objective is comfort. That's why I choose the word comfort, not cooling, because there's no such. I mean, you can't stay cool when you're riding at 90. It's just you're not. And I'm sorry, I'm going to argue about this vehemently. So if someone wants to come at me, please do. But you cannot stay cool when it's 90 degrees outside.

Robin: Would you like somebody to argue with you? We could try.

Joanne: You could try. Good luck.

Brian: We all agree. Yeah, suck it up. Buttercup is where we are. So, okay, got it.

Joanne: Right. You just suck it up. But here's what you can do is you can minimize the chance of heat stroke. That's what you're trying to do is trying to minimize the right. The two risks are minimize the chance of heat stroke because heat stroke is equal to drinking and driving. That's impairment, right? As soon as you get heat, you start to suffer from the consequences of heat stroke. Your judgment's impaired. Your reaction time is slower. Your reflexes are slower. You're not going to be functioning as well as you would just again, as if you're driving sober, right? With gear, all you can do is minimize the chance of heat stroke by keeping you comfortable. So you'll be hot, but you're not going to overheat because the overheating part is what sucks. And the discomfort is what sucks.

Brian: Yeah.

Joanne: So there's a level of discomfort you have to be comfortable with. Now, after that, what you're trying to do is just maintain a sense of sanity where, okay, I'm hot, but I'm not dying and I'm not stroking out. I'm not hallucinating. I'm, you know, I'm not having all these symptoms because I'm maintaining that my internal body temperature isn't climbing. So when you don't wear gear, your body absorbs the heat. The same as if you walk into a rotisserie oven and turn it on to 400, there's really no difference, right? Like you're exposing yourself to UVA, UVB heat. So your body is absorbing all the heat, just like you're baking yourself. So why would you do that? You have to cover up. Problem is people cover up with the wrong things. They cover up with non-breathable fabrics, space blankets, right? They cover up with heavy, heavy leather, you know, non-performance based leather. Cause there is a difference between gearing up in performance based leather versus just your old ass leather from 50 years ago. So there's a difference, but choosing the right materials and colors, that's how you stay manageable. So you sweat cause you have to sweat. Our bodies are supposed to sweat. That's how we stay cool, but you don't want to sweat so much that you stop sweating. That's heat stroke. If you've ever stopped sweating cause it's so hot, it's cause you're going into heat stroke, right? You have to wear products that are ventilated heavily and we call that mesh fabrics. But the good news is it's the year 2025. You're not stuck with the average mesh products from 1995 where they weren't abrasion resistant as much for the highway. They were heavy. There really wasn't the comfort. And now you have a plethora of options to choose from at affordable prices, you know, a couple hundred dollars for quality products where it's ventilating like crazy, but the materials are breathable. And remember, breathability is the same as your hand in a Ziploc bag. That's breathability. Ventilation is cutting holes in the Ziploc bag. When you cut holes in the Ziploc, air comes in and air moves out. Breathability is the ability for moisture to leave the breathability so that you can wear the material and not be completely overheating because you know the feeling when your hand's in a plastic bag, there is no breathability. Shopping bags, they don't breathe. They're meant to carry things. That's why you spend more money to buy materials and jackets and gear from these big brand name companies who actually know what they're doing. Ventilation in the right places. Example. What kind of bike do you ride, Brian?

Brian: Yamaha FJ09.

Joanne: Do you have a big windscreen on your FJ09?

Brian: I took a windscreen off. I don't like windscreens. So yeah.

Joanne: So you get direct air to you because you don't have a windscreen. Awesome. And on the FJ, you're mostly sitting upright, maybe not cruising, but you're pretty neutral, right? So your shoulders are up straight and you're basically at a 90 degree angle, right? When you sit down. That means for you, because you're on an FJ and you're not on an R1 or something, that means your mesh panels need to be up on the chest and hopefully on your sleeves too. Not the outsides where you slide, but on the inside of your arms and like up the, your bicep. And then up on the front of your chest and the back of your chest, you want ventilation points there, right? That's the kind of product you're looking for. But the point is, is that gear insulates you from the heat. It is no different than walking out to the Mojave desert. And there's a reason why people who live in desert environments, they don't run around and take tops and shorts. They are fully cloaked and covered from head to toe because you cannot survive, right? You have to cover your body. And it's the same concept, but people have misconceptions about that because they're wearing the wrong materials. They're wearing jeans and they're expecting a jean to be comfortable at 90. No, that's not going to work.

Robin: Just to keep things temporarily lighthearted, what would you wear if you were riding a Scott sociable? A Scott sociable. We'll get to that in a moment when Jordan Lehman comes on. Anyhow, back to you, Mike.

Joanne: What is this? I'll send you a link to this article. It's a really good infographic. It's for reverse osmosis, reverse windchill. OK. And you've probably seen this article. It's called Motorcycle Riding in Hot Weather. And they basically explain what reverse windchill is because everyone knows what windchill is, right? Right.

Brian: Yeah.

Joanne: So windchill, when it's, you know, 40 degrees out, it feels like 30 degrees out. Well, this is the opposite when it's hot. And it explains what is happening when you are cooking your body, when you're basically boiling your body from the inside because of the heat, but also how you need to block it. There needs to be something. Right. But the important part is that the materials are, again, breathable to allow you to sweat. The other thing, of course, is water. You have to drink. You have to hydrate. And if you're if you're riding in these temperatures, also, if heat is not your happy place and you're miserable when it's hot or you're hot when it's 50 degrees outside, well, then you better drink twice as much water and you better ride half as much in the heat because you will probably overheat faster than, say, me. Like, I'm happy riding in 90 degrees. It takes me like I'm thrilled to sweat. I don't want to be down in the 40s and 50s. It takes me a while. So I'll be I'll be good. Right.

Robin: One of the phrases I've heard is like, you know, if you don't feel like in about an hour you're going to need to pee, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. You know, if it's all getting reabsorbed or just expelling and sweat, you're going to have a problem.

Joanne: When you stop sweating, that's when you need to go to the hospital.

Brian: Big signal.

Joanne: Right. So wear hydration backpack. There's plenty of them out there. Or there's also tank bags where you can put a hydration bladder in the tank bag and then run the line up to your helmet if you don't want to wear one. So you can do that, too. You know, if you're on a cruiser or you're on something different, you could do that. But you have to drink and you can't expect to ride the same in 90 degrees the way you ride when it's, say, 60. You may not ride as far. You may not ride as long in the day. You're going to stop twice as much. So these are things that you have to do because gear is not going to do it for you. But wearing nothing isn't going to do it for you either. There's that instant gratification when you wear no gear for like five, 10 minutes. But at the end of the day, I guarantee that you're more tired. All your senses are completely effed up. You're probably getting skin cancer because you're not covering. Right. I mean, you're you're getting skin cancer. That's the other thing. Right.

Brian: So the old guy on the Gold Wing in a Speedo is probably doing it wrong. Anyway, yeah, he's probably doing it wrong.

Joanne: Yeah, he's going to he's going to get skin cancer in places he didn't think he could get skin cancer.

Brian: There are a lot of those every summer.

Joanne: It's hard because you do get instant gratification of, oh, yeah, the wind. But when it's 90 out, that wind is an oven. So what's the benefit if you're wearing nothing and you're killing your senses, you're ruining your hearing? So many things. Right. But just all of that sun is not good for you. The hydration part is important because you have to drink. But really, like my main recommendation with gear is ventilated, breathable products. If you ask your salesperson, hey, how breathable is this material? And they can't tell you the difference between the breathability and the ventilation or they don't know or the product doesn't have any. Then, you know, you're shopping in the wrong place.

Robin: Nice. Yeah.

Joanne: We throw out our name brands, our rabbits, our Alpine stars, our Dianese, our climb, all these brands that are making motorcycles specific products and using materials so that when we're out at 90, we get the ventilation. It is hard, though, if you don't sweat. I've met like a few people in my lifetime that actually don't sweat. It's a condition, I guess. If you don't sweat, then you have to wear a cool vest. Right. You do need to wear something physically cold on you.

Robin: I just want to point out real quick that the article you sent us, the name throws me off. I think it's fantastic. The author, it was written by Domingo Chang. And I don't know which way to turn down that intersection. You know what I mean? That's cool.

Joanne: That's because we come from everywhere. That's where, oh, it's 100 degrees out. Well, we don't wear anything because you're overheating and your skin is turning brown because it's so red. You're getting sunburned.

Robin: What about not them, but them talking at us? Ain't you hot in all that gear?

Joanne: Way less hot than you.

Robin: Yeah.

Joanne: The other thing is, you know, they're certainly accessories like cool vest. Of course, they help you feel good and comfortable. But you do have to worry about too much moisture wicking. There is kind of this balance. You don't want to wear like a wet T-shirt the whole time. But if you're riding in extreme heat, like you're running cross country and you're stuck in the 90s. Yeah, a cool vest will help keep you comfortable. Of course it will. But those aren't dripping wet. Those absorb water and they stay cold. So they're not actually wet like a cloth would be. Cool vests specifically for motorcycling, they absorb the water and then the material is cold, but it's not the water isn't dripping. It's like a shanty.

Robin: Nice.

Joanne: Certainly those help. Stop and you have your neck tube. And I always wear a neck tube when it's 100 degrees, because otherwise, again, you're going to be burning your neck and your skin. So I cover my skin. That's how I look. You know, maintain a level of youth, right? But but I also don't want that heat. I don't want a giant sunburn on my neck. So I also wear a Coolmax neck tube like Buff. You guys heard of Buff neck tube? I live it. If you shop in Buff, you know, they make all different kinds. They make summer ones that are super thin and they have Coolmax in them. And they're meant to block the UVA, UVB. I remember when I did the BDR ride a few years back, I was wearing my dirt helmet because we were doing 80% dirt riding and the weather was gorgeous. So I didn't really think about it. I got such bad windburn. I woke up in the middle of the night and my lips were so dry and my skin, because one, my Shoei ventilates like a turbine. By the way, if you want a really crazy vented dirt helmet, Shoei. It's insane. Like it has a huge vent in the front. It breathes and vents really well. And I got such bad windburn after that second day. I was wearing a Buff every day. I had to because my skin, you know, so if you take your helmet off at the end of the day and you're feeling your skin is dry and cracked, it's also wind. And again, that's why you want gear, too. Yeah. One thing that I do hear a lot are from people who run hot. It's really hard for you to want to put on something. And I get that. That's why you have to be a little bit more particular about the gear you're going to wear. Nice. And of course, like colors, of course, like colors.

Robin: Yeah, because I was showing you, I was doing it. I've got the Revit jacket, but you already knew that. You called me out on it one episode. This I've transferred over to this now that we're in post 85 degree weather. It's all about this. And surprisingly, it's so dank up here right now. Like, really, there's a lot of humidity. So I am actually feeling pretty cool in motion. Good.

Joanne: Of course.

Robin: Yeah, the standstill's been rough.

Joanne: Are you hydrating? Like, do you have a hydration backpack?

Robin: Do you have water? Don't you worry about me. We got it good.

Joanne: I'll admit, though, that man, humidity, it's the worst.

Robin: It's rough. Yeah, if you can cut the air with a knife.

Joanne: Right. Combating humidity with gear is really hard. Really difficult to wear gear. More difficult than it is to wear it in dry heat. It's so easy to wear it in dry heat, but it is really hard. So the other thing I want to throw out to there, too, are high moisture wicking base layers like Nike dry fit shirts, golfing shirts, because they're so light and they're meant for sweat. That also will help keep you comfortable instead of wearing cottons.

Robin: I got go bags that are ready to ride. Like, if I'm going to take a trip, the bags are ready to go. And every shirt's moisture wicking. The socks are all Smartwool. The same with the underwear.

Joanne: Totally. Like all your under layers, like moisture wicking. Again, performance. Fishing or hiking or camping in the heat, running in the heat. You're going to want to wear similar materials. And everybody makes something. You know, if you're a hunter, there's probably materials like Duluth makes for everybody makes them purpose built clothing. Yeah, absolutely. And the base layers make such huge difference. But it is challenging. My husband is a good example. I mean, we're total opposites and more than skin color and height. But he gets hot so easy. And he's always hot. I mean, he's hot, but he's always like on fire.

Brian: Right.

Joanne: He's a walking volcano. So it is really hard for him to stay comfortable. He has to wear a T-shirt. I wear long sleeves. So when it's 90 degrees, I do a long sleeve base. I cannot do a T-shirt because the linings in your motorcycle jackets, they're not moisture wicking fancy fabric. It's just nylon. Right. Yeah. So it sticks to you. So in the jacket that drives me crazy. I need a long sleeve. Otherwise that drives me mad. But he can't do that. So he'll just do T-shirt and he's fine. There is that. Certainly you have to think about your level of comfort and what you'll put up with, but you still need some kind of layering. Think about these things and try them and see what works for you.

Robin: Nice, Joanne. Thank you, Joanne. Similar banter at higher revs can be found via the Gear Chick website. You got to visit GearChick.com, dig in and reach out to her. Help at GearChick.com. Reach out.

Brian: Sigma 3, moments in motorcycle history with Jordan Liebman. We've got a concise history of the Scott Motorcycle Company.

Robin: I tell you, kicking back with Jordan is a great way to end the day. And this tale, no different. When four stroke motors were gaining popularity, it was Scott that brought two stroke engineering to the Isle of Man and won twice back to back.

Jordan: We're going to talk about Scott because we have crawled out of the primordial ooze and we are clamoring for the shore, growing wings and legs and feathers and beaks and claws and all kinds of weird shit's happening. And we're just trying to figure out where this motorcycle thing is going. So for us, it's a great way to end the day. Scott's his last name. And the motto of the brand is like the wind. The silent Scott. Gentleman named Alfred Angus Scott was born in Kilkirk, Caldy, Scotland in 1874. He was educated in engineering in Melrose, Scotland. Very mechanical and technical. And he patented an early version of caliper brakes in 1897. We didn't have caliper brakes at this point. We had coaster brakes. So he may or may not have been the inventor or one of the inventors of caliper brakes. So we know what those are, they squeeze the rim, right? OK. In 1901, he would have been 25 years old or so. He and his brothers built a single cylinder two stroke engine, two stroke engine, OK, for boats and adapted it to a bicycle in 1901. In 1904, he designed a vertical twin two stroke engine. Everybody's doing four stroke. This guy went two stroke. Everybody's going right. He went right and think left. In 1906, he designed the single cylinder two and a half horsepower Scout engine. They say that they may have bought it and copied it. He has 60 British patents to his name. Six zero. So this guy was prolific, but probably on the eccentric side a little bit. 1906, he has this two stroke engine and it is a water cool two stroke vertical twin or some people would say a sloper. And it isn't like anything else out there. Everybody's trying to build single cylinder four stroke. He thought too much wasted on a four stroke. Too much of the cycle is wasted. And he had a 4000 dollar investment with his brothers and opened the Scott Motorcycle Company in 1908. This guy, when you say think out of the box, you're like, what box? His motorcycle that he designed in 1908 with his water cooled two stroke engine was unconventionals. They had a three hundred and thirty three and a 450 cc engine. There are conflicting claims about that. 70 millimeters wide, 64 millimeters stroke. Undersquare. His later engines were all over square. This first one was undersquare. He put the engine in front of the headstock. Think about that for a second. There's a few bikes that did that. I think the Nera car. Was that one of them? The engine in the front wheel. There's a lot of weird things that were happening early on. He on this 1908 had the very first rudimentary on damped but telescopic front forks. They had springs inside of tubes, not damped, but they were there. So damped means that there is oil inside. Doesn't have to be oil, but what we're accustomed to is oil. And it is forced through a valve system that restricts a certain amount of flow and motion. You don't just rely on the spring action. It slows it down. I say that doesn't have to be oil because girder forks didn't use oil. They used usually some sort of wear part, leather or some other material that was sandwiched and restricted movement in one direction or the other. But in this case, it is one of the very first, if not the first telescopic front forks. I will use the caveat that they were supported by a girder system. But inside that girder system was tube and spring. Like you and I are accustomed today. That's one of his firsts. The water cooled system was a thermosiphon system designed originally just for the cylinder heads, but later the barrels were water cooled as well. Thermosiphon is not using a pump, but just using the convection of the heat. So it's forced to circulate. And one of the earliest bikes with full chain drive by 1909. Remember our problems with George Wyman with all those belts breaking? They slip off the wheel band. This guy's using chains five and six years later. And there are still plenty of bikes running belts. His first motorcycle was a step through a design not unlike you would have had with a scooter. You're sitting on the tank. Oh, some modern motorcycles put the tank under the seat. I could think of one like the Honda Goldwing. But he did this in 1908 and the step through design lowers the center of gravity quite a bit. Other than that, it is definitely antique looking. And it remained that way for the duration of its production. They're very narrow and not wide like some of these transverse things. His earliest design had a three port crank case. We're talking about additional ports for the fuel charge going into the crank case on a two stroke. Yamaha added a third port, I think, in the late 60s. So this is very advanced. He used deflector pistons, which is a wedge shape cast into the top of the piston, which forces the fuel charge in a particular direction. A lot of companies were still using atmospheric valves like we had on George Wyman's bike. So this guy's two stroke design in and of itself does away with floating valves and whatnot when you have engines that don't rev high. This is built into the piston and sleeve design. The frame was in a triangulated step through frame like a scooter or girls bike today, or if you are a fan of the 80s innovators like Dan Gurney, he built a bike called the Gurney Gator. You can look that one up. That's very interesting. We'll talk about him someday. Like I said, it's water cooled. He had a primitive automatic lubrication pump for the engine, which is fantastic because people are still using oil cans to drip oil onto the valve actuation mechanisms from the outside because they say there's just as much going on on the outside of the engines of some of these four strokes as there is on the inside. All right. He had removable panels on his engine so you can access the crankshaft from the outside. You don't have to split the case to get to the crank, crank bearings, connecting rod. There's a port on the side you could remove to get at it, which is amazing. He had the first foot gear change instead of a hand lever. This is a lot. This guy, this is how you get 60 patents in the UK and the engine use rotary valves, which is what the Japanese were using until we went to read valves. And before that, they didn't even have them. So this is very advanced. It basically increases the pressure, the charge going to the crankcase and basically times the charge for better combustion. The rear suspension on these bikes was rigid, but the seat was sprung, as were many. And this is the first bike in the world with a kickstarter. First bike in the world with a kickstarter. I mean, kickstarters are kind of antiques nowadays, but they're probably still out there on dirt bikes. But for the most part, they've been around for 100 years instead of having to pedal it up to speed and then engaging the rear wheel to drive the engine. He had a ratcheting kickstarter instead. The engines were all aluminum alloy, and he competed early on against all brands, British and American, including Indian and Harley Davidson. Yes, he was a bit of a savant and a bit of an eccentric competed in races against Harley Davidson and Indian and all the British brands. And there were 100 of them at the time. And in 1909, he had the first two stroke to ever enter the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races. Guys got a lot of firsts. The rider was name was Eddie Meyers. He didn't finish. There were actually two strokes that were entered. The other brand, I believe, was Premier, and they failed to start. The Scott started but did not finish. But you can't take away the fact that they were the first to run in the Isle of Man TT. He hires a draftsman, a young man named Harry Shackleton, who ended up being key in a lot of his future designs. Move on to 1910. We're still competing in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races. And the 1910 Scott had the fastest lap at 51 miles per hour of the Isle of Man race course, which is amazing, you know, for the time. They're starting to make a name for themselves. But people still think two strokes are noisy, dirty pollutants that don't belong on a road, let alone on a motorcycle. But this guy's saying, no, this is how we're going to do it. By 1912, on the senior TT Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races, they won the Isle of Man. The rider was Frank Appleby. And then they had a repeat in 1913 with Tim Wood, who won the Isle of Man. So once you win the Isle of Man twice back to back, you have a lap record and then you have a year off. And now we're at 1913. Now he's making sales.

Robin: Fold day crescendo. Brian, you're going to be steering the ship next time. What are some things you want to talk about?

Brian: Let's talk about MRO, Maintenance Repair Operations. And we'll get back to a little bit of the roots. When I came on board, we did the Tiny Tasty Tool Tips. We even had a jingle. One or two per episode. Well, I do absolutely every frickin thing myself. And so does Robin. I do everything yourself as well. We spill oil. Oil has to go everywhere. That's what happens. Oil has to leave the bike and hit the garage anytime he shows up.

Robin: The day before a major commercial prepaid event involving customers that are wondering where I am.

Brian: One of these days we'll break that streak. But anyway, yeah, talk a little bit about maintenance repair. You know, what's your maintenance philosophy? How do you what do you stay prepared for? Robin's got about $3,000 worth of Milwaukee packouts. I've got a bunch of crap from Harbor Freight. How do we do it? How do we make it happen? How do we make sure we can actually go ride? So let's talk about that next time. Very good. Is everybody ready to get out of here? Yes. Let's get out of here.