Robin: If you want to show support for this motorcycle podcast, visit donate.tro.bike. Hello, everybody. I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: Are we starting? Yeah, I think so. We all have to say, I'm Robin Dean. I'm Travis Burleson. I'm Tim Clark. That's what it says.

Tim: Oh, okay. All right. Count it down. One, two, three.

Robin: Hello, everybody. You're listening to the Riding Obsession podcast. TRO, your sport touring motorbike fix. We are an ever-developing online venue for motorcycle enthusiasts who enjoy responsibly spirited riding along routes less traveled. I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which I'm pretty excited about. It's scheduled for March 23. It's the Truth or Consequences Tour. Join us as we carve twisties, sweepers, and switchbacks throughout the Gila National Forest area. Believe me, you don't want to miss this one. Of all the tours we've done, this one rarely does well, and it's the finest riding I've personally ever experienced. It's a sport touring getaway of epic proportions. More information is available at tro.bike. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu. I got no announcements or anything of that nature. Any of you guys got anything you want to say on announcement level?

Travis: Lunch today will be pizza with green beans and salad. There will be a student assembly on Thursday regarding fire safety. Mark Roberts, please come to the office. Your mother is here with your medicine.

Robin: Told you, Mark. All right. Updated site features and developments. All systems are running pretty smooth. We've switched out all of our member storage over to the JSON format, which is so much better. JSON is what it's called. So we have storing data in a secure fashion that's a lot easier for the service to read, and we've basically eliminated a lot of mistakes that can happen on the read-write side when you're viewing things like the members area. We'd like to come up with a third members area feature. I'm not really sure what I want to do yet, but ideas are welcome. I'm thinking my favorite maps is pretty easy, but members features like our maintenance area and the weather settings, things like that, are something I'd like to build on. So if anybody's got ideas for that stuff, feel free to contact us, tro.bike forward slash contact. And what we really need is more content. So I'm thinking about assigning things to our resident authors. I'm going to email everybody and just be like, hey, if I give you guys something monthly to write between 500 to 1,000 words on, Tim hasn't written for the site yet. He's our photographer guy and our podcast guy. So if he wanted to write, he could, but I think he purposely doesn't out of spite. I might assign everybody some stuff. Anyhow, personal notes. Travis, tell us a story.

Travis: Time for a story. It's time for a story. Trying to ride here and there. Of course, now the snow started falling last night.

Robin: That's not usually a match for you though, man. I've seen you do some pretty, tell me about that. Like how much writing have you gotten in just now that the weather's getting bad?

Travis: We had exceptionally good weather there for October. Like it was like in the seventies. So I got a little bit mostly just like, I need to go do stuff. I'm taking the bike. The new job will be downtown. So I'm going to have a commute again. So in the spring, I can motorcycle commute. So that'll be nice.

Robin: Wait a minute. Which job did you take?

Travis: The DNR.

Robin: Nice.

Travis: Congratulations, man. Yeah. That is awesome. That's my big stuff. Got to put a new tire.

Tim: Tim, did you ever get that tire changing thing? No, I didn't buy it. I ended up wrestling those tires on with the old school way with some irons.

Travis: Cause I got a new tire. I got to put my back tires shot. I got to put that on. And I think I'm due for like a major service too. I should have, I was going to change the oil, but I didn't have time. I should definitely change the oil. It's been a slow year. So I didn't put the miles on, but it's been like a year and a half since I changed the oil. So I should probably do that. And, uh, I think it's due for a valve check and she could probably use fresh fork oil though. It doesn't seem to really need it.

Robin: Those things remedy themselves.

Travis: Eventually the oil just starts to, you know, it gets thin and then it gets thick again. And then it's fine. Anyway, Tim, what have you been up to?

Tim: Well, we had our big trip to Iceland. I think since we last did our podcast here and that was epic.

Robin: Good grief. It's been a long time since this trio has gotten together.

Tim: Yeah. So this was not a motorcycle trip. This was a Sylvia and I driving around the country. We did the whole circuit, the full ring road, as well as some extras driving down into all the fjords and seeing as much as we could.

Robin: Fjord?

Tim: Fjords. Fjords. Yeah. My joke was that most of Icelandic sounds best when your face is frozen. That's when you sound most accurate.

Travis: Just don't move your lips at all.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. I did do some two wheel riding, but they were electric scooters, which are everywhere in the cities. You load up the app and you say, where's the scooter? And it'll say like, Oh, it's two blocks to your left. Okay. Walk over there. Or you can even say, I want to reserve that. Nice. Go over, scan the little QR code, say, start, and then zip across town. When you're done, you just park it somewhere out of the way, take a picture, and it sends you the charge for how much time you were on it. And you just walk away from it.

Travis: Yeah. They have those in, uh, in New York city. My, uh, my brother-in-law uses them. He's crazy. So he wrote, if you go against peak, you get bonuses. Oh, if you're going to whatever downtown at nine in the morning. But if you're going from downtown back out, they'll give you a bonus because they don't have to move the scooters and to accommodate volume demand. And so he wrote an algorithm, a website that tracks it. So he can just, he'll just, Oh, I'm going to, I'll be back in like 30 minutes and just go move a scooter to get the points and then just get free rides all year.

Robin: Dude, that is awesome. That is brilliant.

Tim: Yeah. There is surprisingly convenient. Yeah. It was, it was really fun. Sylvia was able to use them too. So that was fun. Yeah. So, um, that's been good. I've still been doing the dual sport club thing. The, uh, driftless dual sport riders. We managed to hold our second event and that was pretty well attended and went over really well.

Travis: That's unlike the old munitions property, right? That's correct.

Tim: Yeah. Went fantastic. We had a good turnout. We're capped at a hundred riders and we had, I think just over 80. That's pretty good. I think next year we may overbook 10% and see if we can actually just hit our hundred people allowed. Not notice if 101 show up. We'll see. We're not intentionally trying to break any of these rules.

Travis: Yeah. But you gotta, you gotta figure some people aren't, just aren't going to show for one reason or another.

Tim: Yeah. We always end up getting cancellations because in pre-registration we were maxed out. Cold, something else came up, getting sick. Who knows?

Travis: It's pretty flat, right? Are you guys doing anything out there, building anything to make it more interesting or challenging, doing some hero routes or something?

Tim: No, we're not allowed to do any building. We're hoping that the mountain biking community gets involved and starts trail building. We can assist and we can actually share some of the trails that we build. So we're hoping that we can coordinate when people start doing that. Once they build trails, I think we've got, we're allowed access to, I can't even remember what the number is, 50%. Maybe not that much. It'll be a tricky negotiation when it starts happening. Our piece of the property development plan is pretty small. For the Bucky, I did the photography again for that. I did do a trail work day, went out cutting bushes and putting up signs and arrows and hammering in stakes.

Travis: Did you just take the XSR for your transpo?

Tim: Not for the trail work day. Used my truck to haul around someone else's Ranger ATV kind of thing. Both of those went off really smooth. The photography went well, was pretty well received in both. I actually had Sylvia come out and join for lunch on the Bucky and then join us at dinner. We brought the iPad and loaded the photos onto the iPad and then used a projector and projected that day's photos while everyone was waiting for dinner.

Robin: Yeah. I saw some pictures of people we know. I saw Jason Harheim on a TW200, which I think that must've been a lot of fun. He actually called and said that was the most fun he's had doing anything in a long time. He was very, very happy doing that.

Tim: That is awesome. Yeah. That was kind of why I got so excited about it. I've been wrapped up in this a little over a decade now. That first time I did it, I was just like, this is amazing. I'm going to do this every year. I will never not do this. Then I broke an ankle and sold the dirt bike.

Robin: I like to tell people you ran over your foot and then became one of our podcasters.

Tim: Yeah. One of the big things is for the XSR, I needed to get the suspension sorted out because it was all sorts of vague and wallowy in corners. Never felt like I could trust it pushing it harder. I finally got the rear shock, super quick and easy install.

Travis: Shockingly easy.

Robin: Shockingly. Did you hear what Travis did? You said shock and then Travis said shockingly and it was like it. Yeah.

Tim: I was going to just go past that. That's okay.

Robin: I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss it.

Tim: I was going to do like a little photo right up for the website, but it's so simple that it's not even worth doing hardly. You lift the back end, take the pressure off the shock, undo two bolts, pull the shock out, put the new one in, two bolts in, take the weight off, put the weight back on and torque everything down. I was going to get the forks done as well. I thought that I had a line on them, but RevZilla was wrong on their stock and I did not get one.

Travis: They were forking with you.

Tim: Yes. Whoa.

Robin: Whoa. Wow.

Tim: I figured I'd throw a note in this because this happens a lot with motorcycle parts suppliers these days and anything like clothing. This is kind of the drop ship model of selling where RevZilla will sell it. Rocky Mountain, whoever, they may or may not actually have that in their own warehouse. They may be just saying, Oh, Ohlins, tell me what you got and we'll sell it. Then when we actually make the sale, you're going to ship it directly to our customer and we'll just give you money. Maybe put it in our box.

Robin: Yeah. And there's also the idea that tell us when you're out of it. No one's like, sure. Yeah, we'll get to that. I got it all posted in my jacket pocket, the brown one, but the tween interior, I'll let you know when we're out.

Tim: I'm seeing a lot more discussion in the community about I ordered it and never showed up. You know, I ordered it. I never got a tracking number. They strung me on along for weeks before actually admitting they couldn't get it.

Travis: Part of that too is RevZilla is now JP, which used to be Motorcycle Superstore and then Cycle Gear and then also like CompMoto or something like that. They're all mergered now. Okay. What systems were these businesses using before they got bought out and how do they actually integrate and talk to each other? And it's like, Oh, well, we don't need a logistics manager for each part of it. Cause we just have the one logistics manager now.

Robin: And is race tech an option or their emulators? Any of that stuff?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. That is the next up. I just, I like to, if I'm doing the front end, I'm doing the back end in the same.

Travis: Oh, that's what she said. Thank you.

Tim: Yeah. So it's all, it's mostly just personal product, personal preference. I've never done the emulators. I've never done the Ohlins. Uh, they've got a dual cartridge kit for this so that you've got rebound in one leg compression in the other. And I was really curious in trying it. I haven't done the gold valve, so I would like to do that. Race Tech's website is pretty convoluted and I'm not super confident in what I'm getting and how I'm getting it.

Travis: So it's like very 2002. I think you can call them though. And they were actually like helpful and useful.

Robin: The trick to race tech is using their contact form. Let them know exactly what you've got and make them do the legwork for you and get back to just be like, my money's yours. If you'll get this right, here's what I'm looking for. Organized list. And if I remember what I did for my sake, I had like an $800 suspension in 1982 bike. I was like, you get back to me with what I need and link me. And they did. You want my dollars? The bid is on. It's your website versus others that can actually do it.

Tim: Yeah. So we did that and the shock is fantastic. I really haven't done anything. I just bolted it on and went. The only adjustment I've done since riding it is back off rebound damping a little bit and it's feeling really good. My preload's off a little bit, but that just takes some time to sit down and do it. So one of the things that I also did was put new tires on because I really did not like the tires that the XSR came with. Of course not. For some of the most unpredictable tires, when you hit gravel corner, which is like every other corner in Southwest Wisconsin, that's everywhere. Between those two, that bike is 90% sorted. I'm really happy with how she's behaving. I was even finding myself ripping around, chasing dirt bikes on the back roads there and found myself lifting the front end over a rise. I guess we're comfortable with this now because I did not really expect to do that. Just get that front end, feel a little loose and drifty and go, Oh, we're not on the ground. Okay. Now we're on the ground. Good. Because there's a corner right there. Yeah. Hooning around on the bike a little bit. It's a lot of fun. It kind of came up how hard it is to diagnose suspension problems and where to start. Because one of the things that I thought I was getting a lot of fork dive and I wasn't. What I was getting, I was getting the back end extending and uncompressing. Lifting up the back end, pitching my weight forward at stops.

Robin: The subframe just kind of lifts up and it's a forward over the rainbow feeling.

Travis: The spring is too soft going both ways and the rebound damping is too little.

Tim: It's an interesting one. And it's hard to decide if you're on a limited budget, where to start spending your money.

Travis: I was going to say, I think you should start with tires. That's not throwing off your butt dyno on suspension.

Tim: Yup. And I really like the tires I changed to. I'm on the Avon Trail Riders now, which is a dual sport or adventure style tire, but it is really like 90% road.

Travis: I think they're marketed as like 80-20.

Tim: Yeah. Most everybody who's dug into the adventure bike tires knows the Shinko 705s. And these are like 705s, but a little bit more road focused and actually enough silica that it's pretty good in the wet and not hard as a rock like the 705s.

Travis: 705s are slick on wet pavement.

Tim: Yeah. And so far, I'm just really digging these tires. They got a really good street profile. So I'm getting a better turn in. I'm holding a line through corners.

Robin: I'm going to have to link to all these things in the new kid area. It's all going in there.

Tim: They weren't very expensive for my bike. I ended up spending under $400 for the set, which is pretty stellar deal on street bike tires these days.

Robin: Yeah. Especially when they can do a little bit of off-road.

Tim: Yep. I've set up the XSR to be a gravel runner, and I don't really expect anything more than that from it. I will chase some trails down into the fields to take pictures of dirt bikes, but I'm not really trail riding.

Travis: When we were riding this summer, it's like the Dunlops were fine on gravel roads, unless sometimes you get down to the hollow where it gets sandy. The front really wants to wash when you're on. So I feel like those Avons are probably a little bit less sketchy in those situations. A little more edge to grab.

Tim: Yeah. So I was thinking that if you are looking to upgrade your suspension and you're not quite sure where to start, usually it's best to start on the rear. Most bikes tend to bias their weight to the back end. I've always found that to in terms of stability through corners and chop and acceleration, it seems to pay off the best.

Robin: Rear end torsion.

Travis: Yeah. When also you're carrying luggage or you're more than 150 pounds.

Tim: Yes. Which I am a little over that. One of the things that came up with the dual sport event is sharing GPS files. I went ahead and threw together a couple things real quick on RideWithGPS. And then I sent out links and there were a lot of people who were really confused as to how to navigate that and to pull off a GPS file.

Robin: There are way worse ways to navigate any service. That's like one of the more better organized.

Tim: I thought so too.

Robin: There's so many bad sources.

Tim: Yeah. And without having a website of my own where I can say, click this to download. I couldn't find any better way.

Robin: You're going to get into that area where it's like, okay, I need a public folder on Dropbox and then divide that into KML, GPX and GPS. I'm exaggerating here, but there's nothing more frustrating than deal with somebody who is like, can I get the Garmin file? Somebody who is 1997ing their bike and they're like, I need a Garmin file so that I can Garmin my Garmin on the ride, which is not a bad format, but it speaks to what they've explored in the modern. GPX is the MP3 of map files. KML is like an ornery cousin that works really well with Google Earth. And then really anything that's going to be Garmin, look, just bring that file in and learn your Garmin. Understand your Garmin because the trick is understanding how to get to it and have it show up on your map. It's a tricky mess.

Tim: So another thing going on is I'm shopping for a replacement. I've got a GT Air Gen 1 from Shoei that I really like, and I think I might go with the newest version of that.

Robin: There's another generation of it now.

Tim: Yeah. Apparently they made a little bit of changes to it. One of the changes is the dropdown sun visor is a little bit longer, so you don't have as much white space underneath, which is very welcome. They also have an option for integrated comm systems. Sina has partnered with them and makes one that drops in super smooth and doesn't have a protruding thing sticking off the side of the helmet.

Travis: And the controls on the bottom under your chin.

Tim: I can't remember what the pictures look like, but I thought they were maybe on the outside edge down low. That's not bad. Because there's a little bit of a V cut up into the profile that you'll see. Apparently that one's one of the more modern ones that supports the mesh riding stuff.

Robin: Which is pretty cool.

Tim: I'm looking at the GT Air 2.

Robin: It's a non-modular.

Travis: Okay, yeah, so the buttons are on the outside edge, but they're basically flush with the shell of the helmet.

Robin: That's pretty good.

Tim: They went with a ratchet closure instead of the double D ring, which I've had on a couple helmets and they're not really any more or less difficult.

Travis: I use the aftermarket part, but it turns your double D ring into a quick clip.

Tim: Oh, nice.

Travis: It's now rated super cheap. I want to look them back up real quick.

Tim: The GT Air is not going to hit the ECE crash rating because of the internal dropdown visor, but it's a showy. It's a pretty solid helmet. I'm not terribly concerned about it. Yeah. One of the things they changed along with the comm integration is that they've got their channels in the EPS foam to specifically fit that communication system. So you don't have any internal pressure points.

Robin: Oh, comfort all day.

Tim: Yeah. Yep. And they kind of thickened the back of the neck roll. The battery is integrated instead of the old SMH stick on the back of the helmet. It's a really slick system. It's tough to swallow that price tag all at once.

Robin: What are we talking about here? What are we looking at?

Tim: What's the price? Oh, yeah. I think we're talking $650 for the helmet and another $200 for the comm. Good grief. Yeah.

Robin: It's getting there. I mean, still, you're getting what you pay for, but you got to get there to pay for it.

Travis: When I was in New York this August, I stopped by the RevZilla store that's there in Brooklyn.

Robin: Oh, actual logo.

Travis: They have like a retail store. Then it's one of their flagship stores. So it's all the premium stuff.

Robin: So it wasn't RevGear CycleZilla.

Travis: Yeah, it wasn't. We have SIDIQI and Built Brand Half Helmets. So I was checking out some of the Arais and I was like, oh, the Arai Defiant or the XD, I think, might be my next one if I can show for it.

Tim: I like the Arais. I think the Shoei fits me just a little bit better. It's really good around the crown of my head, but the cheek pads are usually a little too thick and I've got to swap them out for the next size up for the thinner cheek pads. Or I won't actually even be able to close my mouth without biting my cheeks.

Travis: Kind of honest or they fit good, but guys go back and buy that middle range HJC because that's what I've always had and I know they fit good.

Tim: One of the things that's driving this decision is that the crappy little micro USB connector is dying on my Sena comm so it will not be moving to a new helmet because it's not charging anymore. It will charge if you hold it while it's charging and that is never going to happen.

Robin: I had the SMH-10 and it got to the point where when I was turning it down the volume would go up. I had to hit it and bang on it and it would just keep getting louder until finally it would drop to nothing and I thought to myself that's not even safe.

Travis: Even this thing that vibrates and sits in the sun and in the rain and the wind all the time, this piece of electronic equipment doesn't work forever.

Tim: Yeah, they got a lifespan for sure and they've been good. I've had that unit for six, seven years.

Travis: Oh, that's great. Yeah, I've had mine for a pretty long time.

Tim: I really wouldn't expect any more than that from it. Yeah, I think what else do I have on my notes? The 2023 Honda Monkey images have been released and are on the website now.

Robin: You got a finish man.

Tim: I do have money down for next year's Honda Monkey.

Travis: Oh, nice. How much did they change? Is it just bold new paint job colors?

Tim: There's not really much in the way of tweaking between last year and this year. Last year was the main upgrade that they did.

Robin: Do they at least still have the candy apple gold? It's way better than the bullet hole grom. Yeah.

Tim: Five-speed gearbox now and an actual cartridge oil filter.

Robin: What was the original Monkey? It was like a three-speed, right?

Travis: Oh, the original? Four? No, the original.

Robin: Oh, yeah, like the old, old one? Yeah.

Travis: Those might have just been one speed with a centrifugal clutch.

Robin: My neighbor had one. I think it was at least two or three.

Travis: Yeah, it might have been three.

Robin: Yeah. At any rate, you're going to get one.

Tim: I'm going to get one. That's going to be my commuter. I think that'll be a lot of fun. Nice. Yeah, so that's after much, much talking. That's what's happening with me. Robin, it's your turn. What have you been up to?

Robin: Here's what's going on. There's been a lot of travel. We were in North Carolina for the duration of summer, which was great. Really, really rainy. Bumped that over to Tennessee for Pikeville. Again, excellent riding. Very near somebody who's going to be on this episode here pretty soon. That was great. And then now we're on to Texas. On top of that, we were in Wisconsin, or I was for a short minute. Missouri and Arkansas rallies all season. There's been a lot of travel just to get set up. I'm definitely ready to write more. I need more content for the site. I need to have time to write it, and I need to get my mojo back with writing. So I'm going to work on that. I'm also going to be coaching here the MSF course for Total Rider, as I have in the past here in Texas. A lot of things on the RV, like me, are aging, aching, and breaking, as well as on a motorcycle. So I got to learn to paint and repair plastics. It's going to be a new hobby on the docket for when I get to New Mexico two months from now. So I'm going to clear coat the fenders. Carbon fiber, I got to learn to cover that back up. While we were in transit here to Texas, the shackle that attaches our suspension to the frame of the RV sheared off. So we were rolling pitched like the yaw in an airplane. I was dragging the trailer diagonally, and I was like, why is it? Is it windy out? Pulled over to the side in the dark, looked up underneath, and saw that, yeah, one had come disconnected from the frame. We were warned that that could happen with these brands, and the guy that warned us about it, I watched it. Every day I looked at this thing. All right, we're going to travel another two hours. Check it. And there was no cracking, no damage yet. And instead of it obtaining small amounts of damage over the course, it all just came off at once.

Travis: Yeah, yeah, mental fatigue. Yeah, that's, it's not gonna, yeah, it's gonna hold till it doesn't.

Robin: And then it was just gone. So I called him. I was like, hey, he was like, I'll be there. He's making the plan to come out. He's going to bolster all of them, fortify all of them, reinforce all of them. That is awesome. Yeah, their strength will be way better.

Tim: So this is the same guy that came out and helped you on the road last time?

Travis: Yeah, when the wheel came off.

Robin: Yeah, I swear. Oh my gosh. Maybe I should go to church. I don't know. I mean, there may be real profits in this world. So this is the same guy. His name, by the way, is Skid with a D. Thank you, Skid. This guy's awesome. We were in middle of nowhere, Texas. Old Western shootouts. I just made it from the bank robbery, middle of nowhere on a Sunday during church hours. This guy got a third party phone call from another person. They said, we're going to call around. And they all called around. This guy was like, I'll be there. He shows up, replaces our entire wheel hub on us. Yeah, so we can keep going down the road. I was like, that's the guy. And then he undercharged us. We had to call back and be like, hey, man, you undercharged us. The math is right here. So he's a good person. It's really good to know there are people like that out there. Whether they share your worldview or not, it was a good thing. Then amongst all this stuff, I finally got some time to do some more maintenance. Travis, you were talking about the oil stuff. Go to change the air, not change the air filter, to oil the K&N air filter on the Beamer. And while I was putting it back together in the dark, the screws didn't go in. There's the filter. There's a shoe that holds the filter in place. And then there's the cover plastics. Yeah, well, the shoe has four screw outlets that the top plastic goes over and fits it in and holds it in place. And I managed to get those outside of it while they were fastening in and then could not fix the situation, pulling it back apart. The screws lodged into the plastic at the edge. So they weren't going into anything. They were just hanging on the plastic. So I had to tug, tug, tug. And then finally it all came out. I was like, yeah, no. And I found that the crack straight through the shoe and it still doesn't matter. This gets better. So the actual shoe thing that goes over it, it broke in half. Fine, that's no big deal. Everything else is completely intact. No damage. I'm thinking through the geometry of this. OK, all this does, it fits into a ridge over top of the filter. The screws go in.

Travis: Just like holds it in place.

Robin: Yeah, that's all it does. So even the vacuum force of the motor is just adding more. There are four screws. There's a sheet of plastic. There's a vacuum. And it's all held in place by three big pieces of plastic. I'm not super worried about it. But but being OCD, I'm like, all right, well, let's just, you know, next time I'll pull it back apart and I'll JB weld it. Let's go see if that part's out there. And if it's cheap, it's BMW. It's not going to be never going to be cheap with that. So I go and I look it up on the fish. This is the only part on the entire air intake that has no line pointing to it and no part number.

Travis: You have to buy the whole air box.

Robin: You're right. Oh, no. I mean, you can't find it anyplace. There's no like, oh, yeah, it's the thing. It's it's number 17. And you go down as part number factory part number. It's just not there. So I was like, yep, that's JB Weld City for me. That's that's my update in a nutshell. Let's get into this month's featured segments. Travis, what year, make and model are we focused on today?

Travis: We're going to look at the new all new this last year. So the twenty twenty two Suzuki GSX S 1000 GT plus.

Robin: Oh, plus. What's the plus?

Travis: It comes with bags and stuff. OK, if you get the non plus, it doesn't have the bags. The plus has the bags.

Robin: OK, so what do you know of the bike?

Travis: It's Suzuki Gixxus. It's been out for a while. It's using the K motor architecture from 20 years ago because it's Suzuki and Suzuki is really good at building one really amazing motor that's super well engineered and then just using it for 20 years.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: So they did with the SV Vstrom motors. Those came out with ninety eight, ninety nine and the DR650, which came out in the 80s and they're still making it. Yes. So this is the Gixxus K 1000, nine hundred ninety nine CC, 150 horsepower, but in a dad jeans sport touring configuration. So they put LED lights on it, TFT dash and windscreen and optional tall windscreen and some fairings and tall handlebars. You can get luggage and go for touring for about 14 grand.

Robin: You say that all, but every time you sit on a bike like this, you're like too aggressive.

Travis: Yes. I mean, so that's me, though. I mean, I also have like six inch handlebar risers on my adventure bike because but I also have the tall seat and that makes a difference. I'm more of an adventure bike, you know, position guy or adventure sport. But I know some people like Mr. Robin Dean are a lot more of a sportier, aggressive seating position. And this does it without giving you a sport bike tuck. It's a sport tour. It's a classic sport tour.

Robin: Bandit aficionados will approve, which brings up some interesting points because I learned something about the third generation bandit that I did not know, which I'll let Greg field when he's in here. Yeah, I did not know this about that bike, you know, but the same motor that you're looking at here, they went back to it is how this works. It gets pretty crazy.

Travis: What do you mean they went back? So the old bandit, the air-cooled bandit, again, because Suzuki was the Gixxer motor from the 80s and they just they just like bored it out. Yeah. But yeah, was the bandit 1250 was like a bespoke motor, right? That wasn't from another platform, the liquid-cooled bandit.

Robin: That's what I was going to say is that apparently that engine was dedicated to that bandit.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: And no one liked it. People liked it, but it was only there for what a year or two. I don't remember. That's that's not my territory. I didn't have one. I had the screw adjust valve previous Gixxer motor from the 80s.

Travis: Yeah, you had a 2002 from 1985.

Robin: Yes, that's yes, with four carburetors and all that. Should we bring Greg in?

Travis: Yeah, Greg's there.

Robin: Yeah, Greg White's there. Greg actually bought this bike. Greg White writes for the website now and again. Here he is.

Greg: Afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon.

Robin: How are you doing? Good. I'm doing real well. Good to see you guys. I was telling Tim that we blasted to two rallies this year across several states just cooking the daylights out of it. I had a lot of fun doing that.

Greg: This is a good the fall especially was jam-packed with hilarious rides.

Travis: So ridiculous. Hilarious is a good good word choice.

Greg: Yeah. And now, Tim, you were talking about colored gear so you can be spotted on the side of the road. We have a good friend named Ian who who was riding in southern Indiana and went off the road trying to drag his knee on his SV1000 or something like that. And because of the way the road was built up, he went off the road and then there was like an eight foot ditch. So he's laying in the bottom of this eight foot ditch. You can't see him from the road. And so our friends that were riding with him, they noticed he wasn't there anymore. He was sweet. So they turned around. They kept going back and forth up and down this road looking for him. And they never could find him. He's laying at the bottom of this thing with broken legs, screaming every because he could hear him coming from a mile away. So he's screaming. So now I have several friends that wear whistles on their jackets like those loud emergency whistles just because of that. He wore his voice out screaming. By the time they found him, he couldn't even talk. So colored gear for sure. Do that. Maybe emergency whistle.

Tim: You know, I do actually have one of those. I kept it on my key chain for the longest time because, yeah, it's like you can whistle all you can as long as you have breath. Right. But yeah, there's only so much yelling you can do and it does not carry.

Greg: No, it doesn't. And you couldn't hear it over those other bikes, but maybe the whistle. Who knows? But that's the first thing I thought of when you're talking about laying on the side of the road, looking like a bag of garbage.

Robin: Yeah. Another of our writers went through the same thing. He broke both arms on the side of the road. Heard everybody riding back and forth waiting to pick him up.

Tim: I've got a good friend who had that happen to as well. He ended up probably 30 feet down an embankment.

Greg: All right. I'm logging on to right now in order in my whistle. I have, you know, I always kind of brushed it off as like a one off like I would never happen to anybody else. But you do.

Robin: Yeah, it does have an air horn. Yeah. Air horn on a retractor. OK, so here we are. Greg, what can you tell us about that? You actually own this bike now. Travis has done a little bit of deep dive and a little bit of the specs on it. He knows the basic history of it. But you are the one that pulled the trigger. You seem to be loving it. Tell us, how does it feel so far? And what have you learned anything weird about it where it's like, oh, it's got this feature that no other bike. What's up with it?

Greg: I do love it. It is wonderful. As a matter of fact, you know, it's 38 degrees out today. And if I weren't doing this, I'd be riding it right now. It's wonderful. And it's interesting. You were talking about the bandit a few minutes ago because I did have the third gen bandit with the 1250 inline four motor. And I loved that motor. It was amazing. And then they changed the name. They got rid of the bandit name and they did like a GSF 1250SA. Basically, it was just the next version. And it had that 1250. And I don't think they're still making that anymore, though.

Travis: No, I don't think they do.

Greg: Somebody asked me right after I bought this. They were like, how would you compare that to the bandit? Wow, that's tough. They're sort of similar bikes. The Gixxus 1000 handles a lot better than that third gen bandit, which was sort of its downfall. I think the first and second gen bandits handled way better than the third gen. Something about the geometry or something. I don't know.

Travis: Yeah. Or maybe they tried to cut too much weight out and the chassis got soft.

Greg: Yeah. I don't know. I just I never loved the way it handled. And I sold that and bought the Tiger 1050, which handles way better. But it's tall. You'd love it, Travis. It's very, yeah, dual sporty, except I've ridden yours.

Travis: That's right. Yeah, it's just like all the other adventure sports bikes, like the versus or whatever else. It's a sport bike on stilts.

Greg: Yeah, people love the Brits call them tall rounders.

Tim: No.

Greg: Like the versus and the tracer and the XR and all those things. Right. Just yeah. I'm trying to think if there's something like interesting or different, Robin, you asked me to begin with that I can think of about.

Robin: We got into a little bit of discussion. There are a lot of obvious points about it, but it is all LED, which is a nice modern tech. So the battery demand is going to be easier. But I found myself fascinated with the fact that, OK, so if the third generation bandit was the first one to get a dedicated engine, which you did ride the living daylights out of, I could barely keep up with that guy. The GSFA, by the way, the GSX-FA, beautiful machine. It looks kind of like a Gixxer, but it had the GV luggage rebadged on the back that I always wanted. And it just wasn't my time to buy a bike yet. This comes along and they bounced backwards on the engine. Now it is EFI, right?

Greg: Yes. Yeah. Cruise control and all that stuff. Right. Quick shifter, all that. And I never thought that I would care anything about having a quick shifter. But now, you know what? I love a quick shifter. It is freaking awesome. Is yours rough? Mine is rough. No, mine's not. It's like butter.

Travis: They put a quick shifter on a tractor engine for the 1250R. It's like this is race bred motor in the Gixxers.

Greg: Yeah. So this is my first K5. I've never ridden a GSX-R of any variety before. Ridden a few Ninjas, but never a Gixxer. So this is the first experience with a K5 motor, which I find the motor to be very entertaining. I bought it on a Wednesday and then I left on Thursday to go to Kentucky to meet people up there to go riding around. And I was going to do the break in by the book, right? For the first 600 miles, you don't go over 5,000 RPM. And then until you're at 1,000 miles, you don't go over 8,000 RPM or something like that. So the whole way I'm riding up there, I'm never going over 5,000 RPM, which is fine because in sixth gear at 5,000 RPM, you're going 70 miles an hour, right? The trick is you just never at a constant velocity. I'm always accelerating or decelerating, trying to break the engine in, right? But we get up into Kentucky and we're just zooming around all these super fast turns. I'm following Ringer and Dale and all those guys. So they're hauling the mail. And in order to keep up, I'm in a really high gear because we're going 70 or 80 miles an hour through these super fast turns and stuff. And I was just like, man, I don't know if I like this bike, but I'm trying to keep the RPMs under 5,000. So we get to Friday night, I've done 600 miles. We do the oil, first oil change in the parking lot at the motel in Kentucky, which was a whole nother thing. Oh, that was great.

Travis: Did you get one of like the forest chuds walking out? Hey, what are y'all doing out here?

Greg: I wasn't the only guy. Y'all got my cutting saw. There was a guy with a Harley also in the parking lot. And he had a giant pool of oil under his bike when he was down there. So while we're changing the oil, he's doing something too. He's got the headlamp on and his tools out trying to fix them. It was a motorcycle maintenance night.

Travis: Harley changes its own oil.

Greg: Check the oil and change the gear.

Robin: You had the break-in period. You've been having a good time with the bike, but you've been limited to the break-in and high gearing. Now you've got your oil change done with the whole like, how do these plastics work event, right? Here you are now, back together. It's time to ride the bike.

Greg: And so we rode a bunch of the same kind of roads and actually some of the same exact roads, but now I could go up to like 8,000 RPM. So I could go into some of these turns at third instead of fifth, rolling on the throttle out of the turn. And the bike just sang. I mean, that motor is alive and it wants to go. So I had much more fun that day. And then Sunday on the way home, I stopped for gas and I looked down and I had crossed a thousand miles. And that's when the maximum RPM is redline. That's what the manual says. Maximum RPM, redline.

Robin: We did something with Maggie's bike where it was recommended by the person who sold it to us, a trusted friend. He said, now, once you do really finish the break-in period, take it right up to redline and then do like a dyno roll-off. Roll off and you just let it grind down. And then that actually has some benefit for the piston rings.

Travis: Like back pressure to help seat the piston.

Greg: So I didn't know you were supposed to do that, but I did that about a hundred times on the way home. That bike does 97 miles an hour at redline in first gear.

Travis: Redline's like almost 12,000, right?

Greg: Yeah. It's like 1150, something in there. 1175 is almost 12.

Tim: Yeah.

Greg: So I'd wait until I had a long stretch of open road where I could see everything and I would slow down to like 20 miles an hour, drop it into first gear, and then just crank the throttle wide open. And it was all I could do to hold on. And it doesn't run up to redline and I'm looking down, it's going 97 miles an hour. I can't even shift a second. I'll be going 130 in a second.

Robin: Wow. How would you describe the power band?

Greg: Pretty linear until you get right up to the top. When you get up close to 11 or 12, and it depends because it's all EFI, right? So when you get up into the higher gears, the power band drops off a lot toward the upper end of the range. When you're in the lower gears, it's still pretty linear. It drops off. You could send it in for, I'm on all the forums and the whatevers, and people are sending them in to get them tuned and get the ECUs flashed and all that stuff. But I'm just like, Why? 97 miles an hour in first gear.

Travis: Like what else do I- 150 horsepower wasn't enough?

Greg: No, we could get four more horsepower out of it. If we put a full exhaust and a tune and I don't need the 150 horsepower it's got.

Tim: Yeah. That's pretty baller.

Greg: Yeah. It was a lot of fun doing that. I mean, it handles well. The luggage is nice. Cruise control is pretty awesome. I didn't know I'd care much about cruise control, but I do like it.

Travis: Oh yeah. I want my next bike to have cruise control.

Greg: It's not a necessity, but it's a nice thing to have.

Travis: When you're going somewhere and you're going to be on the bike all day. Not when you're there and having fun on the twisty roads, but when you're just, All right, I got to get across Indiana. It'd be nice. Yeah.

Greg: Which is kind of what we were doing. Go on. You know, I was going out to meet Robin the other day when he was still camped out here in Pikeville. And it's kind of a dull ride until you get on the other side of McMinnville from here. And then there's just this kind of uphill sweeping turns. Two lane road is the first sort of interesting thing you get to. And so as I'm rolling through these turns, I'm not doing anything crazy, but I'm having fun with the turns and the bike and enjoying the power as a Tennessee state trooper passes me the other way. I remember I just pulled right over. Oh, no. He turned around and came up and he didn't end up giving me a ticket.

Travis: Probably because you stopped before he had to light you up.

Greg: Probably because I stopped. He was a motorcyclist, too. We chatted about bikes and all that. So I've been using cruise control to keep me out of trouble because my right wrist all by itself wants the bike to just and the bike wants to go.

Travis: Yeah. And when you're in those sweepers. Oh, yeah, you can go pushing triple digits through these sweepers to make them fun. And state trooper comes the other way.

Tim: Yeah. And I'm sure it's a bike that tracks smooth as glass at that speed. You don't even know how fast you're going until you look down.

Greg: Exactly right. Yeah. And the quick shifter. I mean, you just grab a handful of throttle, kick it through the gears. Then you're going fast enough to lose your license.

Robin: Well, it says you with me. I'm on the throttle. And then I lift up on the gear and have to boom like a cannon blast. Like, did I just do damage? I might have just done damage.

Travis: That's what you get for having a for having a big twin, you know?

Robin: Yeah. Well, 180 degree opposed. Don't do that to it. Yeah, that's how that is.

Travis: So do you ever use the ride modes and the five level traction control?

Greg: When I got the bike, it was in traction control for and I was just playing with the switch gear. But the guys at the shop were so ready for me to leave. It was after six o'clock. I got it into the fifth level, I guess, the highest level of traction control. And I've never taken it off of that. It has been in ride mode B for the throttle response since the minute I had it. I never have even changed it to play with it because quite frankly, I can't imagine how much more throttle response I could possibly need. I probably should have put it in the lowest, like maybe I don't know. I guess it's a mode. A mode is the most aggressive. I guess it's A, B and C. I don't even know.

Travis: Active, basic and comfort, I think is the...

Greg: Okay. I could have put it in comfort.

Robin: I would predict that it doesn't just affect the ride by wire. People would say that, but I will say that on my bike, maybe it's different with yours, that if you change the ride mode, it does affect something at the EFI level slightly.

Greg: Yeah.

Travis: It's not just throttle response. It's like changing other things with the map. Yeah.

Greg: When I picked the bike up and I rode it home, and what I wasn't aware of, even though it was a beautiful day when I left the dealer at six o'clock in Chattanooga, so I had about two and a half hour ride home on the back roads. What I realized is that there's the world's worst thunderstorm between Chattanooga and Murfreesboro. I rode right into 100 mile an hour sideways winds. It almost blew me off the road. Literally, it blew me over to the shoulder and I put the kickstand down and got off of the bike and I was holding the handlebars and leaning into the wind to keep it from blowing both of us into the ditch. I was like, I'm going to have this bike for three hours and then call my insurance company because it's a total loss. I didn't have any brains at that point. I was just terrified because I didn't know this bike at all. I'd had it for two hours. I'd ridden it 50 miles, but that would have been a good idea to have put it in like C mode for that.

Robin: Toe mode. Toe mode. Right. Walk mode.

Travis: I feel like too, with a lot of these bikes, it's like, it's not a track bike. Do I need six modes and five levels of traction control?

Greg: I don't think I do. I have seen the traction control light come on a couple of times, especially if I'm really leaned over in a turn and I give it a big handful of gas, the traction control light will blink like crazy. I'm like, well, maybe I could drop it down from the total highest nanny mode level. Maybe I could drop it down to four or three.

Travis: But do you notice it? You see the light blink, but you don't feel it.

Greg: Actually, a couple of times I have been leaned over in a turn and given it some gas and felt something kind of funny and thought, what was that? And I suspect it was the traction control being super aggressive and super nanny cutting the timing or whatever it does. If I go ride after we're done with this, I mean, it's cold, it's less than 40 degrees out. I probably won't change a thing on it today.

Travis: Cold tires and cold, cold road.

Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But next time it warms up good, I'll play with the traction control a little bit. Like I said, I might play with the throttle thingy controls, but I don't know why I would. I mean, it is awesome.

Travis: Just like this. The Suzuki easy start low RPM assist. Do you notice that at all, where it gives it a little gas as you let the clutch out?

Greg: I did notice it. First off, the on button, you don't have to hold it down until the bike starts. You just touch the button, any momentary closure of the button contacts and the bike starts.

Travis: Yeah, nice. That's like the easy start. Yeah.

Greg: Yeah. And then I did notice before I even read anything about it, that I would let the clutch out and the engine RPMs would creep up a little bit. And if you're really easy on the clutch, you could actually start the bike that way. And then I read about it. I was like, oh, easy start. I won't even have to use the throttle. So then I pull up to a stoplight and you just dump the clutch and the bike dies. So it's not, you know, idiot proof, you know.

Travis: Not launch control.

Greg: Yeah, it's not launch control.

Tim: Okay.

Greg: So since then, I mean, you could sort of notice that if you're at a stoplight and you just ease the clutch out, it'll raise the RPM up a little bit, but it's not, doesn't bother me. It's not in the way or anything, but I don't think it's super helpful for me either.

Travis: And then did you get the plus or did you get the regular one?

Greg: No, I got the plus because I wanted the bags. Yeah.

Travis: And it's got the active suspension, right, too, or semi-active, like you can adjust the suspension.

Robin: It's adjustable, but it's ESA sort of.

Greg: It's not automatic. No, it's all manual adjusting.

Travis: How are the bags?

Greg: So the bags are nice. What do I have to compare them to? I had Gibby V35s on my Bandit, which, you know, are like the Tardis. They're bigger inside than they are outside. The Triumph Tiger that I have, the 2009 Tiger 1050, as bags that are the opposite of the Tardis, they look huge and then inside they're tiny. And not only that, they have the extra advantage of being extremely heavy and they wiggle around on the bike. So they don't hold a lot, but they look nice on the bike. I would say that the bags on the GSX 1000 GT Plus, which is a ridiculous, they should give that bike a name. Bandit, Tiger, V-Strom.

Robin: Ford F350, King Ranch, Lariat, Super Duty 6.7. Which Harley do you have?

Greg: I have the FTL ZX1297, whatever. So I'd say they're in between those. The bags hold more. You could put a full face helmet in one, although I've found that if you have a comm system on your helmet, you can't. It was designed specifically to hold, you could clearly tell, this must hold a helmet. It holds a helmet and nothing else. So that's nice. But because of the interesting shape, I could take the laptop I'm talking to on right now, which is a ThinkPad, and I can put it in my little tiny laptop sleeve. I could put it in the bags for my Tiger. I could just put it right up against my luggage, close the lid. It's fine. On this, the ThinkPad is just slightly too big. And square. You gotta find, yeah. It's just like not exactly.

Robin: You gotta push it in really hard. Just bend it a little bit.

Greg: Right. Give it a good elbow, get it in there. I have carried it on the bike, but it's not as confidence inspiring.

Travis: They have that slash. They're not square. They're like a rhombus or something.

Greg: That's right. And they look pretty cool on the bike. They are big, so you can put a lot of stuff in them. But.

Travis: As long as it's not square.

Greg: As long as it's not this exact square shape right here.

Tim: Was there anything else you were considering?

Greg: Yeah.

Tim: What was kind of on the, what was the comparison?

Greg: So for years and years over the course of like the last three bikes I've been saying, you know, I don't need a leader bike. I don't need over 100 horsepower. This is ridiculous. You're never using all the power. And I really decided to buy a Versys 650. And I talked to a million people. I've ridden a few. I was like, that's fine. It's got plenty of power. It's got a big tank. It's got nice bags. You can make it as comfortable as you want. It would be perfect for everything I do. And I was really dialed in on that. But I really also like the Tracer. And because my Triumph triple, I love that triple. That motor is amazing. And I've ridden Yamaha's triple in the MT-09. And I love that triple too. Same feel? The Triumph motor and the Yamaha motor have different characters. The Yamaha motor is a riot. I mean, it just wants to hoist the wheel off the ground no matter what. The Triumph motor is a little more civilized.

Travis: More like revs and builds power than just like, dah!

Greg: Yeah, right. They call it a cross, you know, Yamaha calls everything a cross plank, cross plane something, right? But the firing order is different on Yamaha's and it's a riot. But I kept looking for Tracers. And the one that had all the features that I want, they changed the dash. I don't see the dash on a newer Tracer, but it's split up into two pieces.

Travis: Yeah. The square LCD dash?

Greg: Yeah, it's got two square LCD dashes in front of you with this weird protrusion in the middle. It looks like Groucho Marx's glasses and nose. And I just can't get past it. I've even said on the forum, I would go buy one of these today. I have a bunch of friends that have them, have the older versions with the more normal looking gauges.

Travis: The FJ9 or whatever.

Greg: Yeah, exactly. And actually my local multi-line dealer has one sitting over there. And I go sit on it and I look at the clocks. I just can't, I can't do that. I can't look at this while I'm riding. It just, it bothers me so much. So the Tracer was on my list, but it would have had to been at least 2019 or newer. And I just couldn't find one. Basically any versus since 2015 was the new body style. And in the 2018 model, I think they put the gear indicator in the dash, which I thought would have been a nice feature. And so I was really on the hunt and I just, there's a bunch of them for sale, but there was none right around me. And I was like, eh, I'm not in a big hurry. I'll wait. I see some down in Atlanta and some over in Ohio or whatever. I've got two perfectly good bikes out in the garage right now. Sure. The Tiger's got 60,000 miles on it, but it's still running strong. And if I have any trouble with that, I got a DR350. I can ride it anywhere I want to. That'll be fine.

Travis: You can replace the clutch in the parking lot and the UP.

Greg: Exactly. That's exactly right. So that was my thing is I pretty well settled on a versus 650. Then I had taken my son down to Chattanooga during his fall break and we were doing what's the cave, Ruby Falls and all the touristy Chattanooga stuff. And so he's sitting in the hotel room playing video games. And I was just searching around looking at motorcycles on my computer. And something I looked at said that a dealership that was six miles away from me in Chattanooga had one of these. And I was like, well, I want to go look at it. Actually, my multi-line dealer, when I checked their website before I left, they said they had one. And I really wanted to sit on it because I was sure like Travis, it's going to be like the band that it's going to make my knees tired. It's going to be too forward leaned over. I'm not going to like this. I need to go sit on one. So I know I don't like it. So I could quit thinking about it. So I went to my multi-line dealer here in Murfreesboro and I was like, Hey, I heard you have this GSX 1000. They're like, we just sold it. We think we're going to get another one. We don't know when. All right, fine. Good. Now I don't have to think about it, but I was in Chattanooga and there was one. And I was like, Hey, I told my son, I'm going to disappear for about an hour. I'm going to go just look at a motorcycle. You could come with me if you want. And he's like, nah, go ahead. So I went over to this dealer and sure enough, you know, I walked right in. It's right there in front, beautiful blue with the bags. That's the only color they come in, right?

Robin: They come in the blue. That's it.

Greg: No, they come in black as well. Right. Which is fine. The black one's nice, but the blue one, it's a good looking blue.

Travis: Yeah. But if you crash on the side of the road, no one's going to see you.

Greg: Right. It's like Tupperware. Yeah. So I walked in the dealer, which is like, ah, sat on it. And I was like, wow, this is really nice. I talked to the guy a little bit. There was no dealer markup, which I thought in this day and age was pretty good.

Travis: They just wanted a sticker for it.

Greg: Yeah. And he wasn't trying to shove any financing down my throat or anything like that. I kind of want it. And they're sort of hard to find. People are really.

Travis: I mean, any new bike these days is hard to find.

Robin: Yeah. Momentary situation for sure.

Greg: Right. So actually I called Joe Nardi to get him to help talk me out of it because I kind of wanted to buy it and he didn't answer the phone. So I called Curtis and Curtis answered and I said, Curtis, I need help. Dude, what's wrong? What can I do? I met this dealership in Chattanooga and I'm looking at this GSX 1000 GT and I really need your help talking me out of buying this thing. Dude, how cool would it be if you bought that motorcycle?

Tim: You called the wrong guy.

Greg: He even told me you're talking to a guy who has bought a motorcycle every month for the last six months. So I basically put a deposit on it right there. And I was a little concerned about, you know, like my knees getting tired because it does have less leg room than my tiger. And it is slightly forward leaning more than my tiger, but not much. And I thought, well, you know what? I'm just going to try it. Right. I bought it. I rode it 1500 miles up to Kentucky and back. If my knees can't tolerate this, then I'm sure I could sell it for what I got in it or nearly what I got in it because they're so hard to find, especially with the bags on them. People are buying them and waiting six months for the bags.

Robin: Oh, wow.

Greg: Yeah. Just because of supply chain.

Robin: Yeah. Sign of the times for the moment. We'll get back, but it's going to take a while, but we'll get back.

Greg: Yeah, that's right. So I just took a chance and I just love it. My knees never get tired of sitting on it, whereas on the bandit, they would. My knees would really be barking after a long ride on the bandit.

Robin: Yeah, I remember that.

Greg: I think the only things I would change. So there's a lot of wind blast from the windshield. So laminar lip, maybe. Yeah, I don't really find it bad. I'm going to wait and see what I think. Put a better fearing on there. Smack a brown one. A better on it. Yeah. With the stereo.

Travis: Suzuki does do an option C and an option windscreen, I think factory. And then I'm sure you can get some aftermarket windscreen. There's always cranking out or whoever seats for sport bikes are hard to come by, though. I feel like we sergeant maybe or I've had sergeant.

Greg: I've actually had a sergeant on my bandit. And while it was slightly better than stock, I didn't love it. Corbin Corbin does make a saddle for this bike now, but it's six hundred and fifty dollars.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. They're pricey.

Greg: Go to a person. That's kind of what I'm thinking.

Robin: Get somebody who's crotchety and angry like the seat guy, John Ravilla. He's crotchety and he'll get it right for you. And he's a good guy ish.

Greg: One of those semi famous motorcycle seat guys down here in Manchester, Tennessee, or quite frankly, I feel like I could take it to just about any upholstery shop and just ask them, like, do you do motorcycle seats?

Travis: Can you add an inch of high density foam to this?

Greg: That's got to be way cheaper. So I might try that. I get a syringe, put some great stuff in there. That's right. A little something with the windshield and a little something with the seat. I don't know what else I would do to it. It does not need a new exhaust system like people are doing to them. Yeah, I'll ride it hard throughout next season and then I'll decide if I need to do anything suspension wise.

Travis: I mean, you got, you know, Tim and I on our factory conventional damper rod forks and non adjustable shocks. Of course, he's got the old ones on the back now.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: And it's like, what? This fully adjustable race inspired suspension. You need to change it on your $13,000 touring bike. Okay.

Greg: Right. Right.

Tim: Probably not an issue.

Greg: Probably not. Right. My Tiger's got 60,000 miles on it and it's got the original suspension and sure. I've dialed the preload in on the back a little bit because it's a little pogoey after 60,000 miles and no service on the shock that it's probably toast. It's a bad spring, you know?

Robin: Yeah.

Greg: So you can feel that when you got it healed over and especially if the road's a little rough, you can, but I'm used to it.

Tim: Relax and just let it happen. You know how it's going to dance. You're just dancing with it.

Greg: That's right. And I've changed the fork oil plenty of times in the front just to keep the front service, but you can't service the rear. And so I keep thinking about, well, maybe I'll do something about that rear and buy a something, but it just hasn't bothered me enough to really want to get up off the money to do anything.

Robin: Time will tell. And you've got a bike with a power plant that goes back many, many years. So really anything that you could deal with in the plastics, even you can deal with on your own, independently of the manufacturer if you have to, because that engine is out there everywhere.

Travis: Yeah. It's not going anywhere.

Greg: Yeah. I could do anything. But is everybody ready for me to move on to the next segment yet? Well, the only thing I might think of though is turbo. Come on. Hang on. I never thought about that. Hang on. Let me look.

Robin: You're not googling that. You are not googling the turbo for that bike.

Tim: No, no.

Robin: Supercharged is the way you've got to go.

Tim: You're right.

Robin: That's right. H2 that noise. All right. You guys ready to move on to history? You guys going to hang out with me for some motorcycle history now? All right.

Tim: Sure.

Robin: This week in motor, this month in motorcycle history. I'm scrambling to find this so I'd have something to read. It's relatively short and it'll get you guys to your lunch dinner, I do believe, but the son of a blacksmith, the dream maker. So Shiro Honda is born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan. Help me out here. Shizuoka.

Greg: No, you're doing a great job, Robin. I'm doing fantastic.

Travis: Yeah, I don't have the link. I don't know.

Robin: I think that's how it's... I think that's exactly how it's pronounced. Multiple O's somewhere in there. It would be a great mistake to consider Soichiro Honda just a motorcycle or car manufacturer. Honda considered himself an engine manufacturer, whether it be motorcycles, cars, trucks, lawnmowers, or generators. The son of a blacksmith and a jack of all trades, he spent the early part of his life immersing himself in all things mechanical, often hoping things would break down so he could take them apart and improve upon them, a trait that would follow him throughout his career. At age 16, Honda left school and moved to Tokyo, where he developed his lifelong passion for mechanical engineering. In 1922, he began working as an apprentice auto mechanic for Arturo Shokai. S-H-O-K-A-I. I don't want to mangle these so bad, but his success at Arturo Shokai afforded him the opportunity to open a branch of the company in Hamamatsu. Soon, he would patent a new procedure for casting metal wheel spokes. In 1934, he rented a factory, hired 50 workers, and began manufacturing his own die-cast piston rings using the knowledge he had amassed casting spokes. His early efforts were dismissal failures in quote, six men who built the modern auto industry, unquote. Richard Johnson writes, he finally took his problem to a professor at Hamamatsu Technical School, who quickly alerted Honda to the problem. A necessary ingredient, silicone, was missing from the metal's composition. At age 29, Honda enrolled in the mechanical engineering department at Hamamatsu Technical School, but in typical Honda style, once he got what he needed, he left school refusing to take the final exam and was never awarded a degree. Why is it that people that do something like that are always the most successful?

Travis: Oh yeah, no.

Robin: After the war, Honda sold the company to Toyota and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute in October of 1946. Then in 1948, he started producing a complete motorized bicycle, the Type A, which was powered by the first mass-produced engine designed by Honda. The Type D, and we're getting to something here, the Type D in 1949 was a true motorcycle, you may know this one from a book, with its two stroke, 98cc, three horsepower motor cradled nicely in a pressed steel frame that became the very first model in the legendary Dream series. The Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan lists both the Type A and the Type D models as two of their 240 landmarks of Japanese automotive technology. Now, the person who runs today in MotorcycleHistory.blogspot.com, where we get all this stuff from, he mentions that his friend Glenn Mercer has a red 1967 Dream that he rides only twice a year, June 1st and on August 29th. Why only those days? Because he's a freak. That's all right, I don't know the guy, but it sounds like they speak our language. That's pretty good, and you know, that's straight out of...

Travis: Zen and the Automotorcycle Maintenance.

Robin: Great book.

Travis: Zen and the Mental Breakdown in the Woods.

Robin: Yep. If you'd like to send us your questions for the next episode, please visit email.tro.bike or tro.bike forward slash contact, or you can email the three of us at podcast at tro.bike, whatever method you want. Just send us your questions and we'll message.

Travis: And then we can speculate wildly on whatever issue you have.

Robin: At random.

Greg: I can't believe that you don't have every week somebody going, what kind of oil they should use, or is there nitrogen in my tires? I really want nitrogen in my tires.

Travis: Yeah, well, I know the cheap pack, it's not 100%, but what you do is you just, you put air in your tires and it's like 95% nitrogen.

Tim: That's for the peasants. If you really want it, xenon. Right, right.

Greg: Hydrogen. If you really want something, do hydrogen.

Travis: Marqueezy magnesium wheels. No, you just put hydrogen in your tires and perfect. It's like you got a MotoGP bike. That's right.

Robin: Now that brings us on to this month's mess a la Moto. Yeah. Yeah. Say it.

Travis: The super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power.

Robin: The super slick, ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power is super slick, ultra badass in the sidebar. It's also incredibly powerful. Somebody scroll and start talking. We start on March 2nd. You got to make it all the way down to March 2nd.

Travis: I'm not, I'm not scrolling that far.

Robin: No. Just scroll something and freaking prize a right the mega wheel of that thing and then pick a spot, any spot.

Tim: All right. I got the October 10. We've got the HRC spec Honda Grom racer. With the lovely underbelly fairing and team livery.

Travis: Now my favorite is because they do like, you know, in the rest of the world, people use motorcycles all the time as their regular transport. And so they sell those like, you know, one 25s and stuff. Yeah. And like the reps all Honda livery, like you see them all over in like India and stuff by one 25 CC, uh, race replica bike. No, I want to talk about, cause that's actually just where I stopped. Is that Ravaconda tire changer. And if anyone out there is listening and you got one, let us know if it, you know, looks like it does in the commercial.

Robin: I contacted him and said, Hey, we're willing to test that thing and do a write up in a video about it. Just send three, one to me, one to Tim, one to Travis.

Travis: Just send, just send us like $3,000 for the product and we'll give you some exposure.

Greg: It does look like a pretty cool contraption, you know, Tim called it out too.

Robin: We were talking about the stiffer sidewall tires. Like somebody had posted how you're using a marshmallow to display it. And Tim was Tim said, Hey, no, you got to check this out.

Travis: He showed a much more, he's putting a TKC 70 ons and that's, you know, well, I remember, uh, what was that one?

Tim: I tracked down Robin. It was a road fives or something. There was yeah.

Robin: It was like a trail rider, a trail rider, I think.

Tim: Okay.

Travis: Yeah. Now that's what Tim just put on the video that was on the super slick. There it is. The TKC seventies.

Tim: We have seen them put on some stiff touring bike. I have seen videos of them putting on touring tires, like A-spec tires. Yeah. So it looks like they're totally competent and company kind of got its start from remember with a quick tire changer for motocross, putting tires with mooses in them. Then you basically run flat stuff that are tricky to, to manage without ripping up or they were advertising like a three minute tire change or something like that.

Travis: Cause you can't keep the bead in the center channel with the moose in there.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, they're all their other products are very dirt bike oriented racing level. I mean, they got a real pedigree. They're not some fly by night, some tech startup.

Tim: It's not the newest Kickstarter program.

Robin: This is a scramble here. If I jump back far enough, I see how the North Hamptonshire police department are using those three wheel Nikons or the Rikons, whatever they're called.

Travis: Oh yeah. Then the Nike and the Yamaha.

Robin: Yeah. Somebody said those things need to be killed with fire.

Travis: They're ugly as sin, right? There's no debating that. But I heard they're actually like when you ride it, like you just forget, like you can't, you can't see the wheel because of like the way the, the tank and the fairing is. And that is just, it's like you're riding a bike that has like unlimited front end grip.

Greg: I would love to ride one. I'd love to see what it feels like. In fact, there's a guy over by deals gap that has a couple and you can rent them and go ride the tail of the dragon on them. You'll occasionally see pictures from kill boy.

Tim: Yeah.

Greg: You'll often see those Nikons on the dragon because somebody is renting them. People have written them or like it's very confidence inspiring. Feels great. I don't want to own one. I don't want to change three tires every time I need tires. I don't want to maintain four forks instead of two, you know, all that stuff.

Robin: Yeah, that makes sense. That's five, four. Well, I don't, yeah, whatever. I hear you.

Travis: And it's like a weird 16 inch, the 16 or 15 inch front wheel. So it's like you're real limited on your tires.

Greg: Oh, it's not the same as the tracer. I thought it would be all the same as the tracer.

Travis: Nope. Yeah. The, the two front wheels are smaller because there's two of them.

Robin: Speaking of small wheels. So this next one then is for Tim. Tim's a scooter guy. I, we have a scooter. Okay. So the, uh, the, the crazy race with, I think this is in Japan. I can't tell, but they're on actual electric stand scooters, the standing scooters, and they were racing on a go-kart track.

Travis: Oh yeah. They're like, they are like the, the bird scooters.

Robin: Absolutely. Any, any thoughts on any bets on, uh, will that take off? Do you think that's going to go big, Tim?

Tim: You're no, uh, but yeah, I could see that being a fun thing to do. Yeah. Cause I know a lot of those guys that they really like tinkering and modding them. And even to the point where I've seen guys like soldering up their own circuit boards and hacking into this controller.

Robin: Have you done that with your bike?

Tim: Me? No.

Greg: You don't even need to do that. I mean, every time we walk out of a bar in Atlanta, we're having those standup scooter races. Everybody just runs one and we have a MotoGP style race to the next bar. It's awesome.

Travis: Yes. You don't need the leathers in the helmet. You just need the app on your phone in a city that's got those rental scooters.

Robin: That's right. I do still think this, uh, this, this gold wing, this GL 1000, the custom gold, uh, GL 1000 racer is absolutely beautiful. Travis, you mentioned maybe gold rims.

Travis: I think it looks like gold and black, but yeah, it's like if it had gold rims, it would really just finish it.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah.

Travis: I love a good naked GL 1000.

Robin: Doesn't everybody? How about the push bike drag race?

Travis: Huh? What?

Robin: The guys that blew both gears taking off.

Travis: Oh yeah. So it's like an NHRA motorcycle drag race. And the two, the two racers like blew their motors and they pushed their motorcycles down the drag strip.

Tim: Walk the distance. You got one guy that's going and then it looked like the other guy was going to just sit there until he realized the other guy was pushing.

Travis: Yeah. Like, yeah. That one guy got, got away from the light. One guy got away from the light, but then his bike died. The other guy like didn't even get away, but he started running. And then the guy who, you know, got, you know, 20 yards down the track before his bike died, realized it and started running too.

Robin: Somebody's got to win. Nobody's leaving until somebody crosses that finish line.

Travis: Yeah. It's all you gotta do is cross it.

Robin: You want to cover a Moto Guzzi like that, that V 100 looks pretty sexy.

Travis: We should talk about the new V 100. Yeah. Yeah. We should do that as a model focus too with the, um, the kind of unnecessary active arrow. What's that? So it's got active arrow. Like when you get going over, like depending on the variety mode, when you get like 45 and like little winglets pop out.

Robin: Okay. Sure.

Travis: But they're, but they're, they're not like for like racing traction. It's for, it's for like sport touring. So it's like they pop out to like keep you. It's like, if you put it in rain mode, they pop out at every speed and they stay out to like keep you drier and warmer.

Robin: Nice.

Travis: Okay. You know, it's active arrow for rider wind protection. And it, uh, a couple of reviews I saw that they're like, I can kind of maybe tell. So maybe, maybe it's a gimmick, but it looks cool.

Robin: To match that MV Agusta is bringing out the 921S, which is a, it's like a fully modern visual throwback that looks really good as well. Got to say, all right, I'm scrolling. Oh, I made it to the top. I made it to the top. So there we go. So wrapping things up, I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is scheduled for March of 23. It's the Truth or Consequences Tour. Join us as we carve the twisty sweepers and switchbacks of Gila National Forest, a sport touring getaway of epic proportions. More information is available at TRO.bike. Just visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu. And I also want to take a moment, Greg White, thank you for being here. A real pleasure to have you on the show. Been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Travis: Travis, it's yours. That's our episode for this round. Tune in next time for more discussion on all things specific to sport touring or universal motorcycling as a whole. For TheRidingHouseSession.com, I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: I'm Tim Clark. And I'm Robin Dean. Safe travels, everyone. We'll all say at the same time.

Travis: Sure. Safe travels, everyone. I'm Tim Clark.

Robin: This is going to sound good.