Joe: Hello everybody, I am Tim Clark.

Robin: No, you're not. Hello everybody, I'm Tim Clark. I'm Robin Dean. And I'm Travis Burleson. And this is the Writing Obsession Podcast.

Travis: Joining us today is guest host Joe Godin of Ranch Road Fabrication. He also operates Metal Art Mania, a new website that he and Robin are brewing up. Joe is here to offer his view on today's topics, including a bike I'm pretty geeked about, Tim's new travel tools, and Robin's sport touring cruise route. Anyhow, say hello, Joe. Hello, folks.

Robin: This episode of the Writing Obsession Podcast is sponsored by Vectolabs, makers of Vololites, the inertia-activated brake lights that signal while engine braking. To learn more about this stealthy, low-voltage safety add-on, visit vololites.com. V-O-L-O-L-I-G-H-T-S dot com. And also by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local, overstocked produce to offer a quick, tasty breakfast. Look them up online as well at uglyapplecafe.com.

Joe: You're not going to spell that one?

Robin: TheWritingObsession.com is always seeking sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focused mentions towards the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put toward bettering the program's content and recording equipment. I can edit that. Giving Tim speech lessons. Lots of consonants. And on to the personal notes. Brief personal notes. Motorcycling. Full segments. All that. Recent happenings. Feature segments. Travis, how's your month going? What year, make, model are we focused on, and all that?

Travis: Yeah, so it's been crazy. Work's been work, you know. Work, work, work, work. The winter. It's been really warm here lately in Wisconsin. I got to ride the motorcycle a couple times last couple days. It's been in the 40s. You know, nice and clear. No salt on the roads. So that's been good. Playing some music these days with some people. Getting the basement organized. Getting all our robin's crap shoved into a corner a little bit.

Robin: Thank you. Making some room for us to bring a little bit of crap over there too.

Travis: Yeah, making use to put, I got his couch set up.

Robin: Bring it on down to Travis's big ass storage and what was it called? Truck rental. Truck rental. And barbecue. And barbecue. Just bring it on down.

Travis: Big ass storage. Truck rental and barbecue. But I did get the, I got the dartboard set up today in the basement. That's pretty cool. Nice. All to regulation specs. Yep. Oh, nice. So if you're not familiar, a dartboard, the bullseye should be five foot eight inches from the ground. And for metal tip darts, the line should be seven feet, nine and one quarter inches from the face of the board. And that's where mine is.

Robin: Did you do that?

Travis: Yeah, I measured it all out.

Robin: Nice. Now I want to go there and play darts.

Travis: Yeah. That's been a couple of years I played darts and like I didn't have any form and I was just like trying to figure out how to throw a dart and I was just throwing wild pitches. And then I was like, screw it. I want to throw it like a knife. And so I grabbed it. I was grabbing the tip of it and I just flick it like a knife and I can just bam, bam, bam in a group. So that's how I'm throwing darts though. Really?

Robin: I found that a really good overhand lead helps a lot. Like really wind up for it.

Travis: Yeah. But yeah, so I just grab the tip and flick it and then it goes. It's cool.

Robin: Oh, but damn, that's interesting.

Travis: That works.

Robin: I've never been able to figure out how to do that in a consistent way.

Travis: Yeah, but then a lot of holiday parties. I think this, I had a holiday party before where I came to go to this podcast. This is my sixth one.

Robin: Wow, that's nice.

Travis: I don't know what happened this year, but just a lot of holiday cheer. So yeah, that was fun. It was all dog park people. It was the third dog park people party. So the dog park people are all alcoholics is the problem. Well, yeah. So there was, yeah, there's one at like another friend's, one at a dog park person's, like company one, another dog park person's. They're the one for Laurel's kitchen.

Joe: Hey, Laurel, tell Laurel to bundle up.

Travis: It's cold out there. It's like 43 degrees. It's balmy. Oh, yeah.

Robin: That's like windbreaker temperature.

Travis: Yeah, that's like light hat.

Joe: What's the high on Friday?

Robin: 67?

Joe: Yeah, it'll be 67 degrees here. We're freezing.

Travis: Cold, man. That's what my thermostat's set to.

Robin: Perfect.

Travis: Oh, yeah. But anyway, short riding. I guess the only other riding thing is I'm still working on rehabbing the tank on the busted ER6N. I got another coat of bondo to do to fill in some pinholes and then just sand that down and then do some priming and then maybe after the holidays spend the money on the paint because the paint, it's a two part, that stock paint color is a two part paint color. So you had to put like a silver base down and then put the blue on top of it. Oh, wow. OK. So it's like expensive.

Robin: I mean, this could be an epic article. This could be like a 3000 word. Have you been documenting everything? I got a couple of pictures. I know we'd love to have that. We would love to have that article.

Travis: I'll try to write a big one.

Robin: Candy Apple Blue, right?

Travis: Yeah, it's like a candy apple, like deep metallic blue. It's 2009 Kawasaki blue. If you look up any, the Versys have the same color, the ER6. I don't think they did the Ninja in that color. Maybe the FJR came in that color.

Joe: Yeah, everybody calls it bass boat blue because there's so much glitter in it.

Travis: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's good. That'd be fun. Anyway, there's like the real big fat metal flake, you know, bass boat style. Nice. But on the Kawasaki note, I thought for our featured bike this time, we would give a end of run salute to the venerable Kawasaki KLR.

Robin: Yeah, unbelievable. That bike, this is almost a memoriam for a bike that's been epically popular in the dual sport category. Yeah. Which we consider sort of a sport touring cousin in dirt form, I would say.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, it's like it's an adventure bike, you know, and it's 31 years. I mean, that's a long, long run. I think that's longer than the Honda Rebel, the old Honda Rebel.

Robin: Yeah, that's big. I think it only had one major overhaul in its lifespan.

Travis: Not one? Yeah, the 2008 refresh.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Joe: So when the KLR650 goes away, are they going to replace it with another dual sport bike that'll go another 30 years? Is there any talk about what the replacement for the KLR is?

Travis: There hasn't been one listed. I mean, the only other thing is they brought back, so Kawasaki had stopped production of the KLX250 in 2009, and they brought that back this year with fuel injection. So there's like a 250 adventure bike, dual sport bike from Kawasaki, but there's not a big bore, dirt-oriented, you know, something with dirt tires.

Robin: Yeah, there is the small Versys and the 300 Versys, I think is...

Travis: Yeah, the Versys X has a 19-inch front tire.

Robin: Yeah, that's obscure. There's a chance they may make a more rugged version of that, like the Suzuki does with the V-Strom. Maybe they'll do what Triumph did, and then they'll just completely ruin everybody's checkbook. Like what they do with the Street Triple. It's not the 675 anymore, it's the 765, and none of the parts are cross-compatible at all. So they're going to come out with the RKL560. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, well, yes, they did do the Versys 300, the Versys X, with the new Ninja 400 motor. That could be something. I don't know if there's any plans to do that. I mean, Wikipedia has a whole list of everything they ever did to this bike since its inception. So it came out in 1987. The 87 has a different crank shaft from the rest of the years. 88, they beefed up the engine cases. 90, they improved the counter shaft. 92, they changed the front brake master cylinder. 96, they changed the valve cover. And maybe bumped up the charging system. And then 2001, they started making them in Thailand. 2007, they got a new shift lever.

Robin: Okay. Oh, wow. I forgot that you got to go through it. It's like 31 years of minor modifications. Minor.

Travis: Yeah. 20 years in, they put a new shift lever on it. Yeah. And then 2008 was the redesign.

Robin: Yeah. One of the only big weaknesses that I remember them having was everyone talks about doing the doohickey.

Travis: Yep.

Robin: Ham chain tensioner spring issue, I believe.

Travis: Yep. I put a link in there.

Robin: Yeah. I've heard that there's a special tool that guys were using and they would pass it around or mail it to each other and there'd be like doohickey parties. People would come over to each other's houses to do this.

Joe: I want to be the guy that invented the doohickey.

Robin: Yes. Yeah.

Travis: If I remember, his name was Eagle Mike. Yeah, Eagle Mike. So yeah, it's like an adjuster thing that was up until 2007. No. Was it after the... If you have a 2008, is it the better one? Or is it like mid after the refresh? But it was like this little cam thing with a spring that kept tension on the counterbalancer chain, cam chain? And the... Yeah, it could fail and then it would drop bits into your engine case.

Robin: Well, that's always good, right? It would just digest them, right? No problem. Knock, knock. Who's there? Cylinder five.

Travis: Yeah, they came up with a replacer that's all machined out of one piece of steel and then uses a spring that won't fall. Like the way that the spring wraps around it, so even if the spring breaks, the spring kind of stays where it's supposed to be. But yeah, that's like the one thing that anyone ever did to it besides put milk crates on it. Milk crates, way to the future.

Robin: One of the five notable things was the old version, the red, after a decade out in the sun turned into this nice pastel lobster bisque color. Oh yeah.

Travis: Yeah. You get some of those very...

Robin: Very distinctive.

Travis: Those good sun-worn pink KLRs are pretty... Then they really look like a pig.

Robin: Okay, so not to interrupt, but this is all kind of weird and new to us and we do have a guest host here and I'm not going to step on it. We're going to get through the whole segment here, but you just brought up a good point that you'd like to be the guy who invented the doohickey. Why don't you take this opportunity to introduce yourself and tell everybody about Ranch Row Fabrication, which by the way has a dot-com right now. Joe Gooden runs a machine shop there. He makes that kind of stuff. If you wanted to, you could make the doohickey. Am I right?

Joe: Sure, yeah. We do all matters of welding and fabrication work. CNC plasma table. We've got a vertical mill and a 20-inch by 8-foot lathe and all the fun toys and just over here trying to have a good time.

Travis: Yeah. So if anyone wants a titanium doohickey...

Robin: This guy can weld up one. He can weld titanium, yes. That's awesome. Anyhow, back to you. Back to you, Travis.

Travis: Yeah, no, but that's just like this, you know, there's been talk too that the age of the big bore single dual sport is coming to an end. I think Honda's still making the XR650. That's just stupid.

Joe: Go on, please.

Robin: Go on.

Joe: No, I mean, so you mentioned that the 250 is out there and fuel injected, and I think it's funny because the XT250 you can get, and that's a fuel injected bike, but the bigger singles are going away. I wonder if it's cafe. I wonder if it's emissions related or why are they dropping the big singles?

Travis: Yeah, and I think some of it is emissions because Euro 5 is on the horizon, so they wouldn't be able to sell them in Europe. Europe's going to have stricter emissions than the States once Euro 5 hits. Yeah, because like...

Robin: Would need to like throw a catalytic in there or something. Well, I mean, there's already a catalytic system in a lot of those bikes, and what we do first, we pull them off. That's the first thing I did to the bandit was... Yeah, those little thumpers didn't have them. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those big thumpers didn't have those to start. It's like that, the DR650, they were... Tim, Travis, can you explain what is Euro 5?

Joe: Euro 5. Euro 5? Euro 5 is the latest emissions laws for Europe.

Travis: Okay. Yeah, let's see when they kick in here. So they're running their engines a lot leaner. Yeah, so Euro 5, I'm trying to see if I can actually find a... Yeah, Euro 5 is 2009 for passenger vehicles. I have to look up for motorcycles on a different thing, but motorcycles will have to catch up, and there's certain...

Robin: If the tech allows it, then to run leaner like that, then fuck, do it.

Joe: Well, the issue... So the KLR is not such a big deal because it's liquid-cooled, and you can control emissions a lot better on a liquid-cooled engine. But the XT650 went away because it was air-cooled only, and you just can't... With air-cooling, you can't maintain the engine temperature well enough to manage the emission.

Travis: Yep, yeah, you can't run tight enough tolerances on all your valves and your cylinders and stuff. You're going to burn some oil along the way, and Euro 5 for two-wheel starts in 2020.

Robin: Still a fair ways away.

Joe: But that makes me feel pretty good. Maybe these guys are going to tighten up and start coming out with some big-cylinder dual sports that are finally injected. I mean, the KLR's had a carburetor on it since 1987. Motorin, da-da-da-da-da-da. Is that a Night Ranger?

Travis: That's a Night Ranger. If the Japanese can do it and make it affordable. You can go buy a KTM for $10,000, $11,000, $12,000.

Robin: There's the new Honda 450 dual sport, and that's in the same territory, $10,000, $11,000.

Travis: Yeah, $10,000, that's crazy. And it's more of a straight-up dirt bike than the KLR, which was comfortable. Reasonably comfortable.

Robin: Yeah, and it was cheap. That was the other thing. That and the DR650, you could get them brand new for $6,000.

Joe: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I had a 1991 XT600, and that thing was everything you could ask for from a dual sport and more. I never had a problem with comfort on that bike. It had tons of torque. It rode great.

Robin: Did it have a tractor seat, a cast iron tractor seat?

Joe: No, it did not. That bike did not have a cast iron tractor seat.

Robin: Did you ever have a bike with a cast iron tractor seat?

Joe: I had a 1983 Goldwing that I stripped down into a bagger and lowered about four inches and then mounted a cast iron tractor seat to it.

Robin: And how did you feel about that cast iron tractor seat?

Joe: That was the most comfortable motorcycle I ever rode.

Robin: Hell yeah. Oh my gosh, that's awesome.

Joe: Yeah. The Goldwing, the Goldwing magic. Supportive. That's right. Well, the funny thing is that I cut the Goldwing shocks apart and cut like three turns off of the springs, so the bike was lowered three and a half inches, and the thing still rode like a dream boat. Oh wow, that's cool.

Travis: So Tim, what have you been up to? Any new kits to talk about?

Robin: Travis, what made you say that? What was that? I highlighted it like, let's transition to the next segment. And Travis was like, oh my, hey Tim, what have you been up to? Yeah, I'm about lost here. I've got too many tabs open. Oh no, you're fine. All righty. All right, so what I've been digging around for, this came up on some of the forums and some of the news sites a while ago. This guy, the, I don't know how to say this, is RRR Tools, Moto Wrench Tool Set. Rrrr is the pronunciation, I believe.

Travis: Triple R.

Robin: He's been on Kickstarter. He's fully funded. He's going ahead. I've been looking at his news updates. And he had, last I saw, he had all the parts machined, all the bags set aside, like these bins full of all these parts. And he was just looking to get them, their final electroplating on them. Okay. And he should be ready to start shipping them out. And they're a little pricey right now because they're in their initial stage. Yeah. But, oh man, this thing is tiny. You know, and it does have almost everything that I think that I would need on a travel kit, you know, for the, this is the, you break down on the road and if you can reasonably fix it on the road, you could do it probably with this kit. Yeah. Help me out here. You said it's going to be electric jacketed. You talking about like the zinc thing or how does this work? He's not doing a zinc plating. I think he's doing a silver nitrate electroplate on these. So it's a little bit harder, a little longer lasting finish. Well, we got them. Well, we got them here for this one episode. Let's, let's lead over to this guy again and say like, Hey, how do you feel about that?

Joe: Yeah. I mean, you're, you're not going to find a better plating for a tool other than nickel or chrome, you know?

Robin: So it's, it's RRR, Tim? Yeah. I got to look at this real quick. I'd like to give him a mention just so that we could actually maybe reach out. I'll reach out to him and see if he'll send you the tools for testing. If you'd like. Oh, I'd love it. I would love it. I'd do my maintenance with those. You'll have to send them back. That's what I usually do is, you know, I do my maintenance with my travel kit. Yeah. It's RRR Tool Solutions is the name of the company here. Triple. Do they have a website? Right now I've got a link to the Kickstarter. I believe that he might have a website on his own. I couldn't find it. Well, RRR Tool Solutions, RRR Tool Solutions. They're on Kickstarter, which is good to see any motorcycle product being on Kickstarter. That's not going to like hookers and blow. What was that helmet? Hookers and blow? There was some helmet. This, it had like a heads up display. And oh yeah, yeah.

Travis: They like blew all the money on, on garbage and then never delivered any of the product.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Oh, and then they went bankrupt and they came back and did the same thing again. Twice fold. Yeah. Kickstarter is good to motorcyclists, but this toolkit actually looks like smoking. Yeah. And if you look on his history, like his news updates, he's the real deal. He's got, he is going to send these out and people are going to have these in their hands. So I think I, I've seen so many like modular tool kits that like are just useless in the, in the field. You know, when you got this adaptable wrench that you can't actually get on a fastener or things like that. So, and I, and if you don't want to, you know, spend a lot of time putting together some custom thing. I did, you know, I've got this, this ridiculous tool roll. I even found like stubby, uh, sockets, you know, and it's all quarter inch drive. But you spent hobby time on that, man. I mean, in some of the footage. Yeah. I was actually just going through our podcast stuff or, I mean, our, uh, our Instagram stuff. And I came across a couple of the videos you had posted where it was just like, you're riding in the middle of nothing for a thousand miles. That's the guy. And, and all of a sudden you just take a, you go to some quicksand, bike falls on its side, and then you just see you walking in front of the bike, taking a breather. Like, Oh, well, here's where I am now. I mean, you'd want that many tools for that kind of a situation, but then this guy, I guess he's just, he's late to your event. But, uh, but you know, and if this is the, what it is, I mean, that's probably half the size of my tool roll.

Travis: Yeah. Like those like expandable, like the, the three handle units all click onto each other and you can have a big ass wrench for something. And then you put the, you put the, the crow's foot on that you need.

Robin: Yeah. But the, the truth is like on most motorcycles, the only thing that takes any significant torque is your rear axle. So 200 bucks. Well, anything that you'd be working with on the side of the road. Yeah. 200 bucks is like the minimum buy-in. If I remember on the Kickstarter, I mean, it's a good price and they're, they're tested up to 150 foot pounds. And by tested, they don't mean like we went until they broke, they were just tested 150 foot pounds and they still held up. Yeah. That's pretty wicked. Yeah. And like I said, like I haven't seen an, a rear axle above 75 foot pounds on any of the bikes that I've owned.

Travis: Oh yeah. You never, you, you never owned a, a BMW F650CS that used the giant 46 millimeter nut to hold the rear wheel on.

Robin: Yes.

Travis: No. That was like a hundred and, 118, I think. Still within spec, but then also the, uh, the tool for it is not here. So.

Robin: Hey, how's the bearing doing on that bike, man? I don't know. I don't have it anymore. Man, that's a lot of force. Tim, what, what rave are you going to, uh, tomorrow night in this disco vest? Do you like that? I, I like, I, these are so funny. So. Got glow sticks on that thing? This is specially for your safety dorks here. This is the held LED system. It looks like an add-on and it looks like this is right now an add-on for the, their airbag vest. Oh, really? So this is the one that actually, it's, it's the one that if you disconnect a cable, it inflates. Yep. Nice.

Travis: I think it's, I think it's inertially activated, but.

Robin: Inertia. Oh, is that one? Nice.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: I thought it was like. Some of them, some of them are tether. I don't know if that one is inertia or not. Is it waterproof? Cause Joe here, he loves his, his preference is to ride in the rain. Yeah. If it's, if it's held, it'll be waterproof there. They're serious. That's serious race gear for a lot of their stuff.

Joe: Nobody rides in the rain. That's stupid.

Robin: We're like, wait a minute. It stops raining sometimes. I've heard. I don't know about this. It can't rain all the time. Yeah, it can. It depends on where you're at. Yep. So that's, that's really the things that I've got as far as the new kit. Yeah. Wearable LED tubes for integration with motor gear. Tubes. It's a series of tubes. Tubing. Series of tubes. Have you ever gone tubing down a river? That's good stuff. That is good. San Marcos. You know, you can give your cooler its own tube and drink the whole time.

Joe: That's right. That's the whole point of the whole fucking thing.

Travis: It's kind of like ice fishing where you, if you're not, if you're sober, you're not doing it. Yeah, right, right.

Robin: Yeah. So, I mean, like, as far as personally, me and motorcycles, I pushed her around the garage a couple of times. Sadly, I've been busy, busy moving my girlfriend into the house. Big mistake. Oh, she's. I still be on. Probably. Well, probably, probably, yeah. But yeah. Riding a bunch of bikes around. So, but, you know, I've been working on my inside shop, my, my garage shop. Yeah. So the ceiling is up. I've got to redo some of the electrical stuff. Right now, it's got just a quick disconnect and a 15 amp circuit going out there. So I'm going to upgrade the service going out to the garage and put in its own distribution box.

Joe: How many amps? 220, 221, whatever it takes.

Travis: Eleventy billion.

Joe: Eleventy billion.

Travis: Well, I mean, you can do a 30 amp dedicated on 120 if you wanted, but probably just a 20 amp.

Robin: Every time the camera switches to Travis again, he's become less and less visible. He's making a cocktail. Leave him alone. Well, last episode, he went to the bathroom and left the recorder on. I had to edit the whole hose out. Like it just kept going and going. Tim's talking because we can't hear it. I get the recording over the internet. All of a sudden, all I just hear is a freaking fire hose and a freaking flush.

Travis: I muted the group chat and that was on my single track. You can just mute that track. It's fine.

Robin: You need to edit stuff like that out yourself before I have to deal with it, because one of these times I'm going to let it go.

Travis: You specifically told me to never pre-edit it. Don't do anything to the audio before I go. I can imagine you saying that.

Robin: Thanks. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Joe Goden, everybody. So yeah, I've been preparing the Moto workshop, getting things organized. But yeah, I'm probably going to do just a 30 amp out. Just break it into two or three different circuits. Because really the goal is so that if I trip the breaker, the lights don't turn off. Okay. That's my goal with the whole thing. Yep. So that and then I'm still working on some planning for the Ozark strip that Sylvia and I are going to do. When is that? That's early spring, end of May, I think is what we're planning to do. Is it going to be ADV stuff, a lot of dirt and such? Um, kind of 50-50. I figure that like one day Sylvia will ride with me and we'll stick on the roads. And then the next day she'll take a break and rest and I will go and do stupid stuff. I wonder if two of your compatriots from one well-renowned motorcycle-based podcast might want to just make sure you're okay. Make sure you're riding correctly, keeping you safe. That would, you know, you got to keep me in line. That'd be all right. It might be worth, we'll get into that in a bit. I have to bring that topic up. Remind me to bring that up when I talk about the Trip 7s thing. Yeah, but once I get the dates nailed down, I'll let you know what's happening there. Okay. Yeah, there's that and part of that is because the plan was to rent a teardrop camper and do base camp loops, do some day trips out from the central camp. I am upgrading my tow vehicle and motorcycle hauling vehicle. Yeah, what did you get? A Toyota Tacoma V6 four-wheel drive. It's the SR5 model. Okay, not the TRD. No, not the TRD. I can't afford that stuff.

Joe: Nobody likes a turd.

Robin: I choose not to afford that stuff. This is the way I'm going to put it. Yeah, so yeah, I'm pretty excited.

Travis: Did you trade in the fleet truck for it?

Robin: Yep, yep. My little stripped down old taco. Yeah, I actually don't have it yet. I just did the paperwork today.

Joe: So the salesman is out enjoying hookers and blow?

Robin: Yeah. It's a kickstarter. I totally derailed on that. That's all right, that's all right. Congratulations on the new truck, man. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. I don't believe I've ever bought a new vehicle before.

Joe: Hang on, this thing's brand new? It's a 2019.

Robin: Whoa, what about the twin? What was the Africa twin? Was that a used bike? Yeah. Okay, all right. Yeah, I bought it from a guy who takes care of it so it looked like it was new. Did you buy the, was the CB500 new? Yeah, well, it's just like a car I've never bought new.

Travis: Yeah, well, the CB500 was also like six grand.

Robin: Right, yeah. Oh, I don't even, I don't even pay that. I imagine the truck was 40? Damn near, a little bit less than that. Like after like all the taxes, fees and add-ons and stuff, yeah.

Travis: Delivery set up. Oh my God. Well, all of our vehicles come with a custom paint protection and pin striping that's included.

Robin: The paint's Bluetooth. The paint is Bluetooth. So that's, that comes standard Bluetooth paint and also.

Travis: That was when we bought our Kia, all of their vehicles get pin striped and you have to pay for it. Oh, Jesus. No, you don't have to. That's our dealer signature is that they all have a pin stripe.

Joe: Yeah, you don't have to. I've walked away from deals like that.

Travis: Yep.

Robin: Yeah.

Joe: And they're not, they're not so happy after you've been at the dealership for four hours.

Robin: Spend time, talk them up, you know, take a day out, make it a vacation just to make them suffer. Yeah, yep. But yeah, so it'd be fun. I actually have a vehicle that like could actually do a little bit of dirt road and.

Joe: Hell, my 81 Ford does all kinds of dirt road stuff.

Robin: It's running again too. You seriously, like you get up Northern Wisconsin and Northern UP, there's just so much territory to cover. It's all just rough roads.

Travis: Yeah, that's the thing. It's like two wheel drive is fine as long as it's dry. You go anywhere two wheel drive, it's dry. When it starts getting wet. It doesn't rain a lot in Texas.

Robin: Well, if it's raining, you're usually riding though, right? He likes to ride in the rain.

Joe: Oh yeah. If it's raining, I'm geared up. Do you have a rock on?

Robin: Oh man, you get yourself one of those Rocans, you can be out there in four feet of snow.

Travis: You just drive it up a cliff face and it goes up.

Robin: You will go very, very slow, but it'll go anywhere.

Travis: Kind of like Tim.

Joe: Reduction, wave of the future. I like to go fast and shift a lot.

Robin: Oh no, no, no, no.

Travis: This 50cc bike's got 340 pound feet of torque at half a mile an hour. That's right.

Robin: Yeah. Oh man. About this time last year, went to a new year's party that instead of the dropping of the ball, it was the dropping of the Rocan on the table lift. It was draped with Christmas lights. It was pretty damn silly. You guys sing kumbaya first? Oh yeah. All right. That's all I got. How about you, Robin? How are you doing? What's going on? I'm good. As a rigid, boring guy would normally say, I've got my whole list in front of me to pretend like I'm shooting from the hip, which I'm not. But you wanted to say something about scooters.

Joe: No, no, go ahead.

Robin: You know, we got a seriously badass chopper. I'll get a photo of it out here. Joe Gooden's chopper. What is it? Is that like a third one? It's not mine. That's not yours? No. So you're just protecting whoever's in prison? Because that's clearly the bike of a real...

Joe: A two-percenter. Yeah, that's a two-percenter bike.

Robin: Is that a quarter horsepower? It looks like it might be like a...

Joe: That is a 49cc.

Robin: 49cc is a pure whoop-ass. Anyhow.

Joe: It's a pocket bike that's been chopped out.

Robin: And it is literally in Joe's pocket right now. Oh, that is awesome. I've been good. A lot has happened, but I just kind of did this ad lib trying to get everything together for what we needed for the outline here. In the last episode, did I mention our friend Greg White visiting? No, I don't think you did. Okay, that tells me right where I am, though.

Travis: If not, you can edit it out. Have you not finished editing that podcast yet, Rob? It's already published. Okay.

Robin: Have you listened to it? Yeah, it's the one that has Travis taking a five-minute piss that he didn't edit out himself.

Travis: All right. You're the one who wanted these Bluetooth headphones.

Robin: Yeah. All right, so I'm in Austin, Texas. We're here to the end of January. Our gracious host here, Joe, good guy, has been taking good care of us, exploring some really nice roads, west of Austin, mostly. Quite a bit of distance there. I think I did already blather on about the Twisted Sisters in the last episode. It's a beautiful road. It's known for being one of the most beautiful roads It's got a name. There's a bar. There's a guy with a camera sitting in each curve, taking photos that you can order. It's known. But I've seen some stuff recently that is not known or is not properly appreciated. I sat down with Joe here. We came up with a little route for me to enjoy on a day off that goes from Dripping Springs, Texas to Fredericksburgville town. They like being called Fredericksburg, so I made sure to make a mistake with that when I first got there. And then our friend Greg White came to visit. Travis knows him. Tim, you met him too. I did meet him, yeah. Rode with him for a day. Rode with him for a day. Great guy. And he flew in to visit. Joe is a mutual friend of Greg and I's. Is that how that works?

Joe: Normally, I would say Greg and mine or Robin and mine.

Robin: I'm paying Joe Gooden to be here for grammar. That's just so we get that clear.

Travis: He has a degree in English literature.

Robin: Grammarization. So Joe, I led those guys along my route to one point and then had Joe take over and he kind of took us over Park Road 4, which leads up to an observatory and a beautiful view of what is that town?

Joe: It's a lake. Lake LBJ.

Robin: Lake LBJ. Oh, Lake Lindenby-Johnson. Yeah. Yeah, all right. So Lake Lindenby-Johnson. And the most important part was pie at Blue Bonnet Cafe. Pie!

Joe: Does in Marble Falls.

Robin: Which may, more importantly, if you go to Blue Bonnet Cafe, ask them how are they preparing their tacos that day? They appreciate the eloquence and they want to let you know because tacos are kind of a priority ingredient in their menu.

Joe: They're not at all. They sell one plate of tacos a month.

Robin: So big surprise was what can legitimately be described as a sport touring cruise. I can't believe this happened. This is excellent. So even if that's even a thing, I had been telling Joe that I wanted... This guy bought a hotel in Sanderson. Sanderson, Texas. It's a motel. Motel. Thank you. M-H- Holiday Inn. Oh! So I finally was like, he was like, hey man, let's do a single day trip to Sanderson. And from Dripping Springs, that's five and a half hours. So I'm like, well, what time you want to leave? He's like...

Joe: Four and a half. But I mean, who's splitting hairs?

Robin: This guy's a Marine. This guy's a Marine. He's like, I just figure we'll get in the car at like 4 a.m. and we'll drive to Sanderson. You know, just go on down and I'll drive there and you can help me drive back and it'll be a day trip and just meet me in the car at 4 a.m. Not 4 a.m. 4 a.m. Casual. 4 a.m. I'm like, all right. So I do it. And it's just pitch black. But man, when you're heading southwest like that, right?

Joe: It's west. I-10 on west, west on I-10.

Robin: As sun starts coming up and I start looking around and yes, it's isolated. But the views, this is the kind of writing that if I were going to go on a straight line for a day, this is the road I want to be on and this is the environment I want to see. It's some of the most dumbfoundingly stunning views I've ever seen on a road trip. Just in a beeline straight. With a couple of moments where all of a sudden, what's going on here? And you're on a cliffside and there's like S-curve, S-curve, S-curve, S-curve, S-curve and straight. And then it's like out of nowhere. You remember the grain silos in Nebraska, Travis? Yeah. Like that.

Travis: It makes you think more of western Washington state there on Highway 12.

Robin: Yes.

Travis: You're up on the high plains and it's just wheat fields and you just see flat horizon and then every now and again, you drop 120 feet into a valley and then you come back up onto the plains. Yeah. You're like what?

Robin: Out of nothing, right? It caught me off guard but I will say that for the first time ever, there is a road that I would get on not so that I could destroy apexes but so that I could just enjoy the beauty of the world around me on a straight line and square off my tires with a smile on my face. The thing is, in Sanderson, initially when I was still just... Joe was just sort of an acquaintance. He pointed out he was going to buy this motel with a name that we should look into maybe having some kind of a motorcycle event type thing going on. I looked at the map. I was like, there's nothing there. And then he showed me the area and I got to say that if you're going to be in West Texas, Sanderson is a good option. It's a beautiful option. So that was amazing. Um, since then, I got a couple of buddies here in town. One of them is a couple shout outs. One is to Matt Reynolds, sax player buddy from college. And definitely to Chris Brown, guitarist, a buddy I went to school with. He's now working the music business here in Austin. If you get a chance to hear Chris Brown with a K, that's Chris with a K, Brown, play guitar here in Austin, do it. You will not be disappointed. He's a solid musician and a good friend from my past. Uh, let's see, the list goes on. I got, I finally got my organizational efforts wrapped around my Beamer's auxiliary power system. Um, took a bit, but it's good. I've got an auxiliary power relay that's switched at the handlebars. Got a GoPro mount on the front, up front like the Bandit used to. So we'll get some more route videos on there, on the site and do some more map documentation and have some good fun with that. And, uh, while Greg White was here to visit Joe Godin and myself, it was Joe Godin's birthday. Now, when I first got here, making small talk, not knowing that Joe could be such an asshole, I tried to tell him, he asked me, you know, what's, you know, what's the most awkward musician in the lineup? And I explained to him, it's, it's not the bass player. It's not the drummer. It's the trombone player. The trombone player is typically socially awkward. Not all of them. I know a lot of trombone players that are on the level cool as hell, but the ones who ain't, they really ain't. And so Joe started rolling with this for about a week and a half, two weeks. Just what's your problem with bone plate? Why do you have so much hate in your heart, Robin? Why do you hate? Why are you so evil? What's your problem? Joe, why don't you tell him this? Why don't you tell these guys the story of your birthday?

Joe: Well, so the, the deal is that, that Robin has a couple of things in his existence that just bother the shit out of him for no reason. For no good reason at all. And trombone players happen to be one of those things. And so being the jerk that I am, I pick up on those things and I like to bring them up on a regular basis. So for a couple of weeks on a regular basis, I asked Robin about trombones and trombone players and why he hates them so much.

Robin: Now, Laurel is a trombone player, right Travis? Yeah. But she's not awkward and she's cool and she's lovely. Maybe it's a male thing.

Joe: Well, that's funny that you mentioned that now that he's on Skype with you, but that's not what you said like a couple of weeks ago. So, so it's my birthday. It's a Wednesday and, and Greg White happens to be in town.

Robin: He's a guest author for the site. You look him up, look up Greg White. He wrote about some good routes.

Joe: And, and so we decided to go out and, and have a good time. Robin and his wife, Margaret and my girl Kalia and Greg White. We all drive into Austin to go see a couple of shows and have dinner and, and hang out, drink whiskey. So we ended up at the, we ended up at the barbecue joint, the Switch in Belterra.

Robin: Where you almost gave somebody a heart attack by going, whoa.

Joe: That stuff happens all the time. That's not noteworthy. So we eat some dinner, head into town. We end up at the Continental Club and see Whit playing guitar, a little Western swing and hanging out. We go upstairs to the, the Continental Club gallery and we hang out with Rosie Flores. Lovely. And she's a, she's a jazz standard musician. Does all the good old stuff and has a, has a great band behind her. And then we leave there and I said, Robin, you're a jazz musician, classically trained percussion. And I said, let's, let's go hit the jazz club. So we drive, Kalia drives a couple of blocks north on Congress and we go to the Elephant Room. The Elephant Room is a long standing jazz club in Austin, Texas. Has a huge history and it's in the basement on Congress. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a great spot. I've been going there since I moved to Austin 15 years ago. I love the place. I haven't been there in several years. I walk in behind Greg White, Kalia, Margaret and Robin. I'm the last one in the room.

Robin: Now remember, what did I do? I turned around.

Joe: Robin turns around. I hit the bottom of the stairs. I see Robin's face contorted. I look at the stage and there are five trombones. There are five trombones playing over a standup bass and a drum kit and a keyboard. And there are five more trombone players in the hallway waiting to go on stage after those guys are done.

Robin: I've never heard of such a thing.

Joe: Yeah, me neither. It was awesome.

Travis: The Austin Jazz Trombone Ensemble. I say, were there 106 coronets close at hand?

Robin: Man, I, Joe's face when I turned around, he was wide-eyed. He was open mouth.

Joe: That was the most happy I've ever been in 42 years. To walk into a bar with Robin who hates the trombone and everything that it represents. To see 10 trombone players just waiting, it was amazing.

Robin: Yeah, and the thing is, they sounded beautiful, man. They sounded freaking phenomenal. I mean, there was like 10 trombone players. There are going to be some shitty soloists in there. There was definitely the kids that got up there and went. And there's a guy next to him that's going. Yeah, man. Yeah.

Joe: Yeah, that guy was Robin right next to him.

Robin: But then there was always one guy that got up there and just freaking nailed it. They sounded really good, especially as an ensemble. An ensemble. They sounded great as an ensemble. But that's Joe Godin's birthday story. And let's let that bring us to this month's article, which this round is a Northeast Kentucky motorcycle ride written by Brian Ringer. Got to say thanks to Brian for this elegant piece of work. Let's get right to it. A Northeast Kentucky motorcycle ride by Brian Ringer, November 11th of 2018. Before we dive into the sensory flooding that any Kentucky motorcycle tour might offer, consider that somewhere around Louisville, there are a couple hundred people who still see Jennifer Lawrence as that goofy blonde horse chick they knew back in high school. There might also be a few who remember Hunter S. Thompson as that really weird kid over on Ransall Avenue. I wonder if that idiot ever ended up in prison. What I'm getting at here is that the girl next door effect is real. It's easy to overlook the movie star or genius in your backyard, which is why I only figured out this year that I live about two hours away from some of the finest pavement on the planet. Kentucky motorcycle roads. Pull up Cincinnati, Ohio on Google Maps. Now scroll a bit south into the bulge of Kentucky just across the Ohio River. Scroll a bit further beyond the suburban sprawl. Turn on the terrain layer and marvel at the deliciously wrinkled landscape. Zoom in a little and look around. Your mind will begin to race at all the twisty little lines wiggling throughout the hills. Like so many great things, this Kentucky motorcycle ride began as something else entirely. Earlier in the summer, my KLR650 buddies Tim and Waz and I decided to take a Friday off, work, and go to a couple of days of dual sport riding nearby. We grabbed a cheap motel room just south of Cincy and I mapped out a GPX track on the tiniest, wiggliest white lines I could find. I figured there had to be some interesting dirt roads in them thar hills. Interesting? Oh my goodness gracious, yes. Dirt? Not so much. Our knobbies remained entirely unsoiled, yet somehow we spent each day giddy as schoolgirls. Ain't even mad. There's some hardcore dual sport further south in Kentucky's coal country, but it turns out, in this part of the state, further north, pretty much every last road that isn't a dead end has been lovingly coated with racetrack-quality pavement. Our knobbies were fried, but our eyes were opened. We vowed to return. And soon. Which led us to the approaching close of Midwest riding season and a realization that we had better get on the stick or get frozen out until spring. A weekend at a base camp location in Florence, Kentucky, were chosen through a flurry of emails sent out in early October to a list I like to call Riders of the Apocalypse. Using what little I had learned from the Kentucky motorcycle trip, plus a large amount of pure guesswork, I stitched together a few 215-230 mile GPX tracks ripe with interesting wiggly bits. Eight riders managed to escape dreary duty for this mostly unplanned, totally unorganized, grabastically shambolic gathering. I call it the late-season, late-notice Kentucky crawl. Our chosen base camp was the Baymont Inn in Florence, Kentucky, purely because Google showed the lowest price in the southern suburbs of Cincy. Why, yes, we are cheap and not exactly picky. The fact that this Baymont turned out to be freshly remodeled and actually pretty damn nice was a surprise bonus. I'll just go ahead and admit it here. Most of us trailered in. My Vstrom DL1000 took its first ride on a trailer, in fact, with nightfall about 7pm, temps in the 40s, and a full day of work to do before departure Thursday evening. Dodging sleepy idiots while freezing my ass off for 100 miles of interstate in the dark had less than zero appeal. Waz arrived from northern Indiana with his KLR650 until around midnight sometime before dark. Neil from Chicago unloaded his Gladius, and Dave from Minnesota rolled a nasty little Triumph 765 Street Triple R off his trailer. Robin cruised over on his BMW R1200RS Starship something or another from his family's current encampment just across the river in Indiana. Mark, holy crap, it's a real live Hunt Africa Twin Adventure Sports! And Greg, Triumph Tiger, were the truly hardcore riders tallying 300 plus miles from Peoria, Illinois and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A motley selection of riders and hardware, we all share a connection through vintage Suzuki's, a tale for another time. Suffice to say, we've all done a lot of rapid riding together. We pondered that night's frosty forecast and decided to donald over a nice breakfast at the Waffle House the next morning, letting things warm up a bit before blast off. Day one. After a few games of seven-man frogger getting to and from the breakfast across a busy highway, we suited, saddled, gassed, forgot stuff, and generally faffed around as per usual procedure before we started rolling at the crack of 10-15 or so and spent 10 minutes idling at the stoplight that would not freaking turn green. It never did either. We eventually dealt with the obstacle in an undisclosed manner and headed west and south. The general idea here was to head southwest to get out of the suburban sprawl, then turn southeast again after passing Big Bone Lick, hurr hurr hurr, state park where traffic would lessen and the twisties would start to get higher. This part of the day was pleasant, moderately twisty and scenic, but honestly, until we crossed under I-75 again, it was, well, meh. Next time, I'll probably skip it. We're all red-eyed, nail-biting, slobbering curve addicts here, and the faster we get our fix, the better. The fix kicked in just south of Walton, where we started getting samples of strange northeast Kentucky specialty. It's the four-digit, one-lane railroad with racetrack caliber pavement. Oh yeah. Watch for those dually pickups coming the other way though, and have a little respect for yards and yapper dogs. It's all worth enjoying as part of Kentucky Motorcycling Challenge. There was a method to the madness. Our goal as we wriggled south was the centerpiece of northeast Kentucky, the reason we ride fast motorcycles, one of our most holy high temples of twistage, Kentucky 22. If you've got that deep down inner ear itch that only lean angle can scratch, this is one of those rare Kentucky motorcycle roads that's nearly perfect. And it goes on, and on, and on, and on. Then it goes on some more. It's very lightly traveled, and the few friendly locals we encountered promptly waved us around. Welcome, travelers from afar. Sample our delights. We took a short break in Falmouth to gas up, mindlessly seal clap out of sheer joy, fist bump each other and grin and jabber incoherently. Yeah, it's that good. And there was even more to come. Once you get out of Falmouth headed east, 22 follows a river for a little bit, then veers left, climbs out of the valley, and skips back forth along the ridgetops headed southeast. The sheer sudden perfect insanity of it is delightful. Nah, the river's too easy. Let's drape this road over the teeth of the hills. We could have enjoyed a whole day railing back and forth along 22, but you can't just eat cake all day every day. We zigzagged south on a selection of three and four-digit roads that kept us from missing 22 too much. In Kentucky, the number of digits in the road number are inversely related to the width. Four-digit roads are often barely one lane wide. Three-digit roads usually have two marked lanes, but still have quite a few limited sight lines and some very tight curves and right angle corners. Two-digit roads are a bit wider and always have two lanes. After casting a practiced eye over my gaggle of riders with glazed eyes and dopey grins, I felt they looked hungry. Off in the distance, there was one large water tower, and soon we were rewarded with the expected county courthouse in Cynthiana complete with an excellent restaurant called Bianchi's. B-I-A-N-K-E-S One of the core maxims of rapid rail riding is lawyers gotta eat. It's paid off for me many times. Then there's Kentucky 10. It was a late-ish lunch and clouds were starting to roll in when we left. More fantastic three and four-digit Kentucky motorcycle roads ensued as we worked our way east and then north to the centerpiece of our ride back to the barn, Kentucky 10 from Germantown to Mount Auburn. I'll just admit it. If Kentucky 22 is a better-than-perfect 11, Kentucky 10 is a solid 8 or 9. It gets the same general description, a superb road, but it's not quite as stimulating. There are a few more towns and thus a little more traffic, so perhaps it's just missing the sheer nutty relentlessness of 22. I'll also remark that something happened this afternoon I've never had happen before. We ended up behind a school bus that was dropping off kids. We were keeping a respectful distance, but the school bus driver actually pulled off at a wide spot and waved us around with a friendly smile. All the kids were waving and generally going bonkers looking at the bikes. Seriously, how moto-friendly is a place where the school bus drivers wave you around in the twisties while a busload of kids cheers you on like a moto GP rider? Somewhere around Mount Auburn, Greg and Dave peeled off for a quicker, less twisty return. Greg's Tiger was leaking a small but worrisome amount of oil onto the back tire. When Kentucky 10 turned north to the river, we picked our way back west on a selection of tasty triple-digit roads as clouds gathered and darkened. We felt random drops of rain here and there, but only encountered a light mist the last 5 or 10 minutes as we were slogging through the suburbs. For late October, I'll count that as a weather win. Hey, it didn't snow. What's more? Dale arrived from Ohio on his vintage Suzuki GS1000G just as we neared the motel, almost as if we'd planned it. Later on, we found that Greg's leak was just a defective K&N oil filter. Turns out it's a common mistake for leaks to develop at the spot while it's holding that fake 17mm nut in place. Just a crappy design. After a furious bout of interwebnets research, we discovered that there was a compatible Walmart SuperTech filter that would work perfectly. The nearest Wally World had exactly one in stock, so we took a quick trip for a quart of oil, a foil turkey pan, some kitty litter, and a $2.89 oil filter. El Tigre's incontinence problem was resolved with minimal effect on the hotel parking lot. I know reading about food is always boring, but we were a little surprised to discover an excellent Thai place called Mai Thai nearby. M-A-I-T-H-A-I. Day 2. Rain came down in buckets after dark, but the forecast was tolerable to promising. Fortunately, the cloud cover kept things relatively warm overnight. The rain ended about 8am, and we set off around 9 on wet roads. No rain, but still cloudy, so the roads weren't really drying. In some ways, I hate riding in the wet, but I also sort of enjoy its zen. There's an interesting challenge to staying upright in an alternate universe of different traction rules and responses. We worked our way east and south of the burbs and onto roads that slowly got more and more interesting. The wind was picking up and the skies were clearing, so by the time we crossed the Licking River, hurr hurr hurr, most of the pavement was dry. Our selected mix of 3 and 4-digit Kentucky Motorcycle roads was gaining intricacy. During a pit stop in Augusta, we decided against a ferry ride in Ohio. Winds were really picking up, and the ferry might not be running. Plus, we wanted to get back to the barn a little earlier before damaging winds could kick in and while we had daylight for loading the trailers. The day's treats began in earnest shortly after Augusta with a quick jaunt on Kentucky 10. Then, a lovely 3-digit connector took us back to our old pal Kentucky 22, except this time we were going in the other direction. That's kind of the cool thing about great roads. Go the other way and it's a totally different road. The wind was starting to tune up with gusts of 30 to 50 miles per hour. On the downside, you had to be both aware and prepared for wind to shove you around in unpredictable ways. On the plus side, it finally dried the pavement and made things interesting. Hey, that winds are just one of the many reasons we need high horsepower motorcycles. Highway 22 was again epic, amazing, incredible, and every other adjective. It was another stop in foul mouth to giggle, flap our arms in excitement, grin, and mutter dazedly and generally recover mentally before tucking into another steaming slab of 22. After pondering the sky a bit, I passed the word to snack up. We could save an hour or two by skipping the usual sit-down lunch. A horrifying raid on the station's supply of Bosco sticks ensued. After that, we rode 22 west some more and it was... really neat. Seriously, 22 squeezed all the word juice out of my description gland. Give me a minute. 0 and 10 marked our turn north and back to the motel, most of which was zigzagging vaguely north on gorgeous little three and four number roads. I'm still fascinated by the strange northeast Kentucky combination of tiny 1.25 lane roads with flawless immaculate pavement. The downside is the inevitable pucker moments when dually diesel pickups towing huge trailers appear unexpectedly. We finished out the day with a cool-down lap out of big bone lick her her her again and back to Florence. I'll probably skip this on future routes. Trailers were loaded while it was still light and we hit a nearby burger and brew joint called Flip Daddy's for an excellent dinner. We all agreed that this unorganized grabastic late-season Kentucky motorcycle mess turned into a couple of the finest days of riding we've experienced. We all ended up exhausted and satiated with tires frazzled to the edge and our lean angle itches thoroughly scratched. The weather cooperated just enough to keep things interesting. There were no unpleasant incidents. The locals were friendly and of course there are amazing roads in every direction. We only experienced a small sample of the roads in that area. We'll be back. Just don't let the word get out about 22, okay? I'd hate for some dipstick to give it a stupid name and start setting up bars and photo booths before filling it up with cops and flatlanders on flatulent chrome barges. Again, that article is titled A Northeast Kentucky Motorcycle Ride. It was written by Brian Ringer, November 11th of 2018. What's your favorite Kentucky motorcycle route? There are a lot of great riding roads in the Bluegrass State. Which ones have you experienced? What do you like about each and why? Your input is invited. Post an article. Visit theridingobsession.com forward slash contribute today. Sam, that brings us to our guest interview. You want to lead the lead the way here? Now on to our guest interview with field correspondent Margaret Dean, a.k.a. Maxta. Our latest interview features Amber Moll. She's a Wisconsin native who's been known to not only travel to states in sport touring fashion, but tear up the track regularly as well. Her involvement with such outlets as Motovid has been ongoing for a number of years.

Maggie: Amber Moll, so excited. You are still my hero. The fact that you're a control rider for track is awesome. Tell the listeners how you got started riding, how long you've been riding. What was the story?

Amber: Well, I'd kind of like to start with a story about how I met your husband. OK, yeah. You've heard this story before, right? Yeah. If not, this is just going to be really awkward. But the time that we hooked up, it sounds interesting, right?

Robin: Yeah.

Amber: So what was happening is I was riding to the Mississippi River, riding along. I noticed this other motorcycle kept, they were riding along too, and they kept making the same turns that I was. So we pulled into the gas station. Hey, where are you riding? You know, just small talk. And then realized we were both riding to like the same location. We still had over two hours to go, just back roads off to the Mississippi River. So how we hooked up is we paired our headsets together. So that was our hookup, pairing our headsets. You know, when he was riding along and he told his wife, you know, you, hey, I hooked up with this girl, Amber. It probably, you know, probably sounds kind of weird. But in the motorcycle world, I think it makes sense. You know, you hook up, you're seeing us.

Maggie: Yeah. It is a funny story to share because even in the motorcycling world, I've seen some raised eyebrows of like, what? So.

Amber: Yeah. Well, I was what, 18, 19. And my boyfriend at the time had a motorcycle and I thought it was pretty cool. And I rode on the back, but his head was always in the way. So I realized I should just learn to ride myself. I didn't tell anybody. I went and I took the class and learned to ride. Come this April, it'll actually be 10 years. Wow. Yeah. And then a year and a half later, I got my first motorcycle. It's funny, I was kind of really shy and didn't leave town a lot or travel or do much. And then motorcycles happened and everything changed.

Maggie: And everything changed.

Amber: Everything changed. Now I won't stop talking and then I'll go up to strangers and...

Maggie: Funny how that happens. Funny how the one thing kind of opens up the world.

Amber: Absolutely.

Maggie: Sometimes I'll have challenges that are more on a mental level that I can't get past. So if I can prove to myself that I can do something physically that's actually maybe even a little more dangerous, that's what pushes me through that barrier, that mental barrier.

Amber: If someone or myself thinks, Oh man, I can't do that. That's going to be tough. I always try to conquer the hardest thing first. Like screw that. I'm going to do it. Do whatever you can to know I will make this happen and I'm going to do it.

Maggie: Yeah, I like that. There's a badass profile pic of you on track. It's a badass pic. You're totally knee down, way leaned over. How'd you get started in track?

Amber: I had some friends that went to the track and I used to go and watch them. Just watch them race. And it was kind of cool. I just showed interest in it and decided, Hey, I want to try this out. Do you think you can help me out? A buddy got me to the track. He helped me prep my bike, helped me trailer there before I even had any of that stuff. And my first track day was August 2014. Took to it really well. Kind of a funny, kind of a, I don't know, weird story. But my first track day, you're there, you're excited, you're nervous. I've been riding for a few years now. And I get the concept of what I need to do, but I've never been able to test it on the street. Now I have the track. It's a safe environment. You watch people and pick up things from each person on what you want to take from them. So my first track day, there's the girls and I'm so excited to meet other girls at the track. And I go up to them and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so great. It's my first track day. I just got my knee down. I can't believe it. I didn't even think that I could do that. And they all just looked at me. One of them's like, I've been coming here for three years and I'm yet to get my knee down. But of course your first track day, you think it's the coolest thing ever. That's the purpose. You got to get your knee down, which there's more to it. But yeah. And from there, I did another track day and then just continued to keep going. Then I ended up getting my trailer, getting my track bike and Motovid welcomed me into instruct with them as well to be a control rider and then also to be one of their coaches as well. So it's just kind of taken off and it's something that just comes a little more natural. What's the bike that you're on in the pic? That is my 2008 Suzuki GSXR 600.

Maggie: And is that your dedicated track bike?

Amber: Yes. Track legal only. It's not for the street. So I got it from, it's actually an old AMA motorcycle. Oh, wow. Cool.

Maggie: Okay. So how long have you been control riding for Motovid and coaching?

Amber: This is my, last year was my first full year of coaching and then control riding my second or third year. So this will be my fourth year with Motovid.

Maggie: Yay. Yeah. The one track day I did with Motovid, I saw you and one other female control rider. So I was happy to see that. I hadn't seen any. I know they're out there, but I hadn't seen any at the track days I've been to. So that was pretty cool.

Amber: And seeing you there, it was so great. I didn't get a chance to hang out with you some more and I would have loved that. Next time we have to sit next to each other.

Maggie: Yeah. That was, man, road America. That was, it was a fun track, but it was intimidating too. So.

Amber: Intimidating is a good word. Overwhelming. Absolutely.

Maggie: Yeah. Yeah. That was a good size crowd there that day. And even though I was in the novice group, like most of that group was riding pretty fast. And I know a lot of them thought they should have been an intermediate. So there was that. There was a small percentage of female riders. So, I mean, it's good to see some there. I didn't really get to talk to any of them, but still, I was glad to see some. Yeah. What are some of the tracks that you've, that you coach, that you've coached on?

Amber: With Motovid, we have Black Hawk Farms and Road America. So those are the ones that we coached on. I went down to Barber to ride there, not coach there. Motovid sticks with, you know, the Midwest tracks. Unfortunately, they get hurricanes and such down there. So we actually had to leave.

Robin: Oh!

Amber: I trailered the bike all the way there. And it was right after Arma Races where they just cancelled Arma Races and the track day. And they wanted everyone to leave just so they didn't have debris everywhere.

Maggie: Yeah. Ah, that's a bummer.

Amber: Yeah. And then the other track that I've ridden is Groton.

Maggie: Oh, that looks like a fun track.

Amber: Very interesting. I went there by myself. That was very intimidating. Just show up by myself. It's dark. I know nobody. It's a new organization. I've only ridden with the organization I know, Motovid. And just such a different experience. It was great. But by the end of the day, it's worth it. You know, the hard part of everything is jumping in. So once you jump in, then it's fun. But until you, you know, until you get to the track and you get on the track, then realize, oh, okay, I can do this. Then it gets fun.

Maggie: What are some of the common mistakes you see that people make a track or things that need, you know, the most commonly need to be corrected for?

Amber: That one's almost case by case. As far as the common ones, it's kind of a tough one. You don't want to overwhelm someone. And it's almost like a compliment sandwich. You want to make sure you tell someone what they're doing good. That's why with coaching, you know, just because someone rides good doesn't mean they can coach good because they're going to say, okay, you know, you have duck feet where your feet are hanging off the pegs, your line's not good. And then you're breaking, you know, too much or so. It's kind of overwhelming to go over all those problems. So it's different per person for say. And then another one too is a lot of people get in their own brain and they are too nervous or they're thinking about things too much. That seems like that's more of a woman thing. But the problem with the men in their brain is generally they call it testosterone poisoning. Really? And that's where, of course, they think they're Superman. And that's when the issues and stuff come out. But, you know, along with other people, if they're not confident, then it hinders them. Sometimes you just got to loosen up. It's as simple as that. Have fun.

Maggie: I definitely do that. I know that I was pretty timid at Road America. So I rode. I didn't go balls out. Good, good. I mean, it was fun. I definitely want to do it again when we're back in the Midwest.

Amber: Good. And I actually keep my little journal. So every time I'm at the track or I have notes on my bike, I write it down. So I know every track day that I have, it's written in here. How many miles I put on each bike every year. Maintenance and everything too. And then different gear and stuff. But it's just kind of cool to see what track days, who I met or what I needed to work on. Because then I can go back and reflect and be like, okay, last time I was at Road America, I noticed this or I need to work on this turn and then this is what I did good. And it's just kind of cool to look back. And when you do look back, you think, wow, I was afraid of this or I was not good in that turn. You look back and you're like, oh, I mastered that now. And now I need to work on this instead. So it's all that perspective.

Maggie: That is awesome. That's very organized that you do that. I journal, but it's not as specific around motorcycling. And that would probably be helpful.

Amber: Yeah, I don't have a life journal, just a motorcycle journal. That's typical, right? All girls do that.

Maggie: Yeah.

Amber: Do you coach anywhere else besides motivate? I coach for MSF, which is the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, for someone that wants to learn to ride motorcycles. So if they've never been on a motorcycle before, they can come to either Gateway Technical College or House of Harley. And they supply the bikes and then come and sit in the classroom. And we teach them mentally how to prepare yourself for riding. And then on the range, they learn to actually physically ride.

Maggie: That's cool. That's cool. Is it a good idea even for people who've been riding for years to take a refresher? Are there other levels besides beginning?

Amber: I think it's a good aspect. Any point of riding, no matter how experienced you are to take a course or a different type of riding, always a refresher. Because you don't want to become complacent in something that's so fun. But at the same time, it could be pretty dangerous. And technology changes and laws change and things change where there's better techniques out there. What drew you to coaching? A friend that I met at the track said I would be good at it. And when I was a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher. But then once I grew up, I figured, yeah, I'm really bad with communication. Well, of course, if there's something I'm bad at, I want to work on and I want to master it. And so after my friend told me I'd be good at it, I'm like, you know what, I suppose I'll give it a try. And I didn't realize how much it took. But holy smokes, it's so rewarding and it's tiring. But it is worth it. It's nice to know that you're helping people. Some of those times to get someone out on the track or to ride a motorcycle, that's a bucket list thing. That's something that they've dreamed of doing their whole life. The hardest part is jumping in. They did it. They're there, whether it be at the track or riding for the first time. And it's so great to be part of that first experience.

Maggie: That's nice. I haven't heard that before. But that's got to be true, that it's a bucket list item for some people. That's pretty cool. And you're a part of that. Outside of track, what else two-wheeled do you get into? Any street riding, touring?

Amber: Yeah, I love the touring. It's on my Honda F4i, anywhere across the country or in the state. And then I've got the track bike. But then also come winter without the bikes, you know, you get a little stir crazy. So to keep my sanity, I have a Honda CRF150 for ice biking.

Maggie: Ooh, talk about that.

Amber: Well, it gets really cold in Wisconsin. So once the lakes freeze over real nice, you take a dirt bike and put studs in the tires and get your dirt bike winter gear on all padded up and head towards the ice. And it's almost like dirt track to try to lose traction of that rear tire. It's a blast. You'd think it would be cold, but you're working hard. So it's not cold at all.

Maggie: Do people run trails or tracks on the ice? Are there races? How does that work?

Amber: There's definitely a bunch of different races. They've got some in Milwaukee, some up north. I haven't partaken in any races. I just go for fun with friends. But there's always different lakes that have different groups of friends and different sized bikes to ride. What they do is if the lake has ice on it, but then it snowed on top, that snow is actually what makes it slippery. So they take a plow and plow a track to move the snow out of the way. So we have that ice. So our tires can grab onto that. And so we just go out there and ride for fun. And if you don't fall down, that means you're not pushing yourself hard enough. But when you fall down on the ice, you know, you're so padded. You've got a good helmet on. You're nice and warm and in a bunch of layers. So all you do is just get back up and get right on the bike.

Maggie: Is there specialized gear for it or you just layer up? Or is it like your dirt gear that you sort of bundle up extra?

Amber: What I do is ride in my three seasons gear, my adventure riding gear. It's already padded. It's also Kevlar. So just in case those, you know, I get hit by an ice tire or something. I've got that Kevlar to kind of catch some of that. So my leg doesn't look like hamburger.

Maggie: That sounds like fun. So you've got that in the winter. What is a memorable trip or your favorite trip that you've taken so far long distance?

Amber: When I went to New Mexico for training to become a Harley coach, had some friends out there that I met just because they had cool bikes. You go up to them, you talk to them. So we grew this friendship. They have their riding group. So they said, next time you're around, we'll lend you a bike so you can ride with us. Well, I already had my gear. I did my training for Harley. So I was set to ride. We rode around New Mexico for a while. And then I'm about to come home before Thanksgiving, and they convinced me to stay another weekend. Well, we've got one more trip coming up. So here's another bike. You can use this guy's Yamaha Tenere. And we're going to take one more little road trip. So we rode to Pink's for a hot dog from New Mexico. Do you know where Pink's is?

Maggie: No.

Amber: It's in Hollywood, California. Wow. So we rode over 1,000 miles for a hot dog. It was supposed to be 1,000 miles back. But when I returned the bike after, oh, just a couple of days, the guy goes, how is there like 3,000 miles on this thing? It was only 2,000 away. So that one was definitely interesting where I was in Wisconsin. I planned a trip to New Mexico. And then one night, I'm at the top of a hill looking at the Hollywood sign. Like, what the heck? How did I get here? What is going on? That is fantastic. Meeting good friends. And it's the motorcycle. It is a family. I mean, anyone welcomes them.

Maggie: Yeah, you are definitely right there. I agree. Do you have anything planned for 2019? Or what's planned for 2019?

Amber: Well, my street bike has been out for a little bit. So I just got it fixed. I actually rode it home last night. It's December in Wisconsin. But it was above freezing. It was 40 degrees. So I took the long way home and got a nice little 60-mile ride in. So I didn't have my bike much last year. It is an old one. So it's older. It needed a lot of work done to it. But for next year, I'm ready to ride. So as far as just hop on the bike and go anywhere.

Maggie: You know, Robin's reading Melissa Holbrook Pearson's book, The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing. It's all about long distance. Where he is at in the book, she's talking about an event, a rally. It's at Iron Butt. So you know, Iron Butt is 1,000 miles in 24 hours. And the Iron Butt rally is 11,000 miles in 11 days. Yeah, sounds pretty interesting. Because obviously, that's a pretty big thing. And the things that people do to their bikes, the mods they make, to be comfortable and to not have to stop, it sounds interesting. Anyway, one more question. And that is, what is your riding obsession?

Amber: Chloe. Chloe is my first motorcycle. And I've had her through everything. I got her. Boyfriends have come and gone. But I've always had Chloe.

Maggie: Chloe! You still have her?

Amber: Absolutely. She's my FRI that just got fixed up and is ready to go for next year. Oh, OK. This whole time, she's, yes. My inanimate object has more of emotional connection than I have with any other person.

Maggie: Well, she's brought you. Sounds like a lot of experience that can't be given by anything else. Sometimes by people, even. So that's great. Well, Amber, we'll wrap it up. I know it's late on a Friday and you've been working all day. Thank you.

Amber: I mean, we could talk about motorcycles for at least another 12 more hours. Probably. Probably.

Robin: That was our guest interview with Amber Moll. Sign up for your opportunity to ride and learn with Amber at Motovid.com. We'd love to hear your motorcycle story. If you'd like to be featured on this podcast, record your thoughts to an app like Auphonic for Android or iPhone. That's Auphonic spelled A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C. Forgot to tell you about that. Sorry, Joe. And upload your resulting file to SoundCloud.com and email us the link. We'll polish things up before featuring your tale in your voice and your words. Now on to updated site features and developments. Um, not a lot going on. I've been busy, uh, you know, basically making rent. Yeah, helping this guy build websites. Um, we're debating if we're going to run the Trip7 store this year as M&I, Margaret Dean, author for the site. We're traveling the states in our fifth wheel. If you're interested in us doing so, please speak up. Send us an email. Go to tro.email in your web browser. tro.email. Hit us up on Facebook. Send us an email directly. Whatever you want to do. But if you want us to run the Trip7 store, either in spring or fall, we're going to need some real support this round. It's, it's already just become established enough that I know there are people out there that, that have heard about it. And, uh, it's seven writers, seven states, seven days. It's actually, uh, Tim went on that, you know, it was pretty good time. It was a lot of fun. Tim made it good to just having Tim on. Tim is helpful. Let's just say that. So my man knows his way around the GPS.

Travis: Yeah. One, if you can do the advanced, uh, the advanced routes along the way, which Robin and I did last year.

Robin: Yeah, man, we, we kicked the crap out of that. Burleson and I frigging went through every single advanced version of the route. Um, which I think Joe Gooden would only do if it were raining. So anyhow, let us know. We'd love to have you on the tour. It's a great time. Seven days, seven writers, seven states. Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky. Uh, am I missing something? Is that the right count? Whatever the point is beautiful, right? Uh, okay. So next on we're debating if we're going to run trip sevens as to cover, uh, stumble upon is no more. So for our people that like to do social sharing of our website links, stumble upon is now gone. They're in transition over to mix, but that's not available yet. So keep an eye out, uh, try to make a account on mix or whatever it's called. And we'll get to that eventually. Um, and more boring news for the site. We're hoping to default our affiliate, our affiliate links to outlets like RevZilla and CycleGear instead of Amazon, only for the sake of it being less corporate greed, more mon pa. This is easier said than done since there's no easy way to check of a product we're suggesting is available from each as a preferred supplier. Uh, we're working on that. So we're, we don't mind selling through Amazon, but we'd really rather go through someone's going to benefit locals a little bit more. Um, no listener questions this round. So please, we would love to field your questions. Uh, especially, well, just email your questions and concerns via our contact form, which is located TRO dot email or by calling 224-358-3010 and leaving us a message. Tim, by the way, I told you you have more responsibilities. You're up for editing this week. It's on to this month's, this episode's mess a la moto. Onto this week's mess a la moto brought to you by the super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power. The super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power. It's super slick, ultra badass. And as a side note, it, it, it's also, it's incredibly powerful. All right. I'm gonna do a screen share on this. You guys ready for this?

Travis: Yeah, this is the guy with the big ass quarter pipe launch on a dirt bike.

Robin: Well, that's what we're going to start with. I'll do the share. I'm doing a screen share. It's supposed to happen.

Travis: Yeah, that's, I got your screen. You got my screen? Yep. I see my own ugly face. So I'm assuming that it's.

Robin: All right. I'm going to the site. I'm going to the super slick ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power. I'm scrolling down to the frigging half pipe first. If I can find it, if I can find it.

Travis: That's a quarter pipe. Oh, it's kind of a launcher pipe hybrid.

Robin: There it is.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Anybody got anything to say about this? Who's the rider? It's a axle, axle Hodges. I thought it was Alex. Axle Hodges.

Travis: Axle Hodges. Yeah, no, I mean, it's like, he's got, so it's like this big, what's that? Gotta be a 30 foot, 30 foot vertical kicker mounted to a quarter pipe. It looks like it's all grip tape. And it's all, yeah, like grip tape or like roofing asphalt or something, something to spray on, but he's getting 40 feet. Yes. So he's launching, he's coming up this like 30 foot kicker and then going another 30 feet in the air and then coming down on the pipe. It's a, uh, it's a pretty, pretty sick.

Robin: Are we going to watch it? No, not because people can't look, just look up, look up axle Hodges half pipe. All right. Sport riding 101 through 301, uh, for motovid.com, yada, yada.

Travis: Yeah. They got their, Motovid's got their 2019, uh, schedule up. If, uh, you're in the Midwest and want to do some track days, do some skill stuff. Check out motovid.com. Not an official sponsor, but, uh, friends of ours.

Robin: Yeah. Friends of ours. You know, track days are good. Got to ride road America with those guys. It's a good time. It's Jason Yaron. We did an interview with him. Uh, 10 sport touring motorcycles for dynamic, long distance riding. I'll look it up on YouTube. Not a bad video, but not necessarily great either.

Joe: What, what else do you need to know other than buy an FJR?

Robin: Or, or a R 1200 RS.

Travis: Yeah. Absolutely. Or an NC 700 X. Or really what I really want, which is a tracer 900 GT. If you got 12 grand laying around. Nice. If you don't have enough money for the beamer, get the Yamaha.

Robin: Hey, yeah, yeah. There you go. Uh, John Rademacher, who, uh, is the, is he the president of the antique motorcycle foundation? He posts this new thing. It's introducing iron man's bike helmet. So thomasnet.com is a site and you look up their new heads up display motorcycle helmet. The only thing is, uh, there's some debate as to whether it's worth it or not.

Travis: Yeah. Those HUDs, those HUD display things. It's always like, well, how good is this going to be?

Robin: Mm hmm. Do you want to watch movies while you're riding?

Travis: You guys don't?

Robin: Uh, not usually. I know that Joe likes books on tape.

Joe: Nothing wrong with listening to books on tape while you're riding.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Well, when you're, when you're cast iron seat, Goldwing has got a cassette deck in it.

Robin: That's right. Does it have the, does it have two cassettes?

Travis: There's a Jensen.

Robin: Travis, did you, uh, you posted the Kramer GP2 prototype?

Travis: The Kramer.

Robin: That thing sounds so good.

Travis: Yeah. So Kramer is this German company that makes these sort of one-off. They use KTM motors and put them in racing bike frames. So if you want like a dedicated track day bike, you can buy one from Kramer. And it's basically like being in a Jeep. Like, well, this one with the 790 KTM twin in it. Otherwise it's the 690, um, single in their other one. But the new, the new one just came out or is in almost out. It's going to come out, I think in the spring. If they're doing prototypes, they should do it. Dedicated, basically have a motor GP bike. You can buy one for, uh, not too much, like under 20 grand. If you want a super dedicated race bike.

Robin: Nice. That's pretty cool. Don Beering, congratulations on your torque wrench.

Travis: Now you should celebrate.

Robin: Before you say that your clutch is slipping, make sure you check that your sprockets still have teeth. Love that. Scrolling up. What do we got here? Yeah. Oh, machine gun and dragon fire. Yeah, machine gun and dragon fire. This, uh, some guy installed a dragon over his head that shoots fire. And he's got two, uh, semi-automatic. Well, he has them set up like machine guns.

Travis: It looks like an older Harley. Like, is that a, um, an iron head or a shovel head? It's a little, it's not great resolution. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Hard to tell.

Travis: He's got pipes that come up over his head with flames on them. And then the dragon fiberglass sculpture from the tail of the bike that wraps over the front of the bike. And then he's got two machine guns mounted, like literal machine guns.

Joe: Those are, those are automatic AR-15s.

Robin: You know, take it from a Marine. This guy's got AR-15s on his fucking motorcycle. And they, they are alive, dude. They're not little replicas. Those are the real deal.

Travis: But they gotta be shooting blanks. Is he, uh, I'm not, there's a big, there's a big mound of dirt behind him there. So maybe not.

Robin: Yeah, he may be shooting live rounds. Uh, the 162, this one's new for today. The 162 horsepower dirt bike. They put a Gixxer 1000 motor into it. What, how did they?

Travis: I want to go to there. They took a Gixxer 1000 and put a dirt bike front end on it. Okay. Yeah. Fork swap. And probably a swing arm swap. It looks like.

Robin: We can, we can do that if we wanted to. We got a, we got a, we got a dirt bike front end here. Suzuki dirt bike front end.

Travis: No, it's a Honda.

Joe: It's a CR, CR 250.

Robin: Okay.

Travis: No, that's not as exciting as a, as a Gixxer, Gixxer 1000.

Joe: That's a Gixxer 1000 with a swing arm and a front end.

Robin: And a right side chain too, from what I can see. Like it's got a right side chain. They did something.

Travis: Or they just swapped it for the, for the, for the screenshot.

Joe: Or yeah, that, yeah, the photos turned around. That's all. Stickers are all back. The hentai wrap.

Travis: Is that what? The, um, I don't know if you guys watch, uh, Yami Noob at all. The YouTube guy, Yami Noob. No. Um, so he's doing a budget bike build. Series where, uh, if you subscribe, um, or if you donate, like as a Patreon, you get more entries and then he's all, he will raffle off or drawing giveaway the bike. So he, he got a Honda 919 Hornet.

Robin: Oh, nice. That's a beautiful bike.

Travis: And, but the thing is, so if you, if you become a patron and like give him money on like the subscription service, um, you, you get like input on what he does with it. It's like, everyone's like hentai wrap, hentai wrap. So he's got to do it because everyone voted for it. Oh yeah. All right. That's like a thing. That's like a, that's like a sport bike thing.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: The anime girls on the, on your wrap.

Robin: Oh man. Yeah. Leave it up to the internet, man. They'll always give you something silly like that. You guys, anything you guys got anything else you want to add? No. All right. I'm going to wrap it up. You guys good? Yeah. All right. All right. Uh, this episode of the Riding Obsession podcast is sponsored by Vectolabs, makers of Vololites. Vololites are inertia activated brake lights that signal when brakes are breaking. To learn more about, son of a, more about this stealthy low voltage safety add-on, visit vololites.com. And by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstock produce to offer a quick tasty breakfast. Look them up online as well at uglyapplecafe.com. The Riding Obsession is always seeking sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focus mentions toward the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment. I'll take this opportunity to thank Mr. Joe Godin of Ranch Road Fabrication. That's ranchroadfab.com. ranchroadfab.com. Also check out the new site he and I are cooking up at metalartmania.com where you can order custom cutouts hot off the plasma cutter. That's our episode for this round. Tune in next time for more discussion on all things specific to sport touring or universal to motorcycling as a whole. For TheRidingObsession.com, I'm Tim Clark. I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: I'm Travis Burleson. And I'm Joe Godin.

Robin: Safe travels, everyone.