Robin: Travis is here. It's been a while. Great to see you, man.

Travis: Yeah. I, uh, you know, had a Sunday. There's a heat wave in the Midwest right now.

Robin: Highest 61 degrees here. So I reached out to Tim Clark and he was boiling. I know Brian's boiling. You're burning up and we have two days of nothing but rain and just constant cold, 61 degrees for two days.

Brian: In Utah. Idaho. Yeah. It's a, what was it? It was, it was coming down to the office. It's almost dark and it was 91 degrees. So on the, on the bike. So that is a broil. That's sad. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Big shout out to Jake and Dave and Donnie L. Those are the neighbor buddies of mine who are usually here and they were just up here for a second. And I did not come out to say hello because I have been working on my motorcycle and preparing for our move to Colorado. So big shout out to those three dudes. Sorry. I didn't join you for any whiskey this round, but let me get into detail. Hopefully this will reach them and they, they might have, have some ideas. Travis, you're here today to talk about the complications of modern motorcycles and the onslaught of things that can go wrong with them. That we have no idea how to remedy. That could strand us. Hey, guess what? It's funny. You bring that up because just happened to us. Our own Maggie Dean's Triumph Street Triple R 675 2016 model. Beautiful bike, lovely machine. She loves it. There we are in Boise, Idaho. We had just ridden 200 and some odd miles and spent the night in Boise. Got some great Indian food. Oh, Boise. Next morning, ride to breakfast. We're going to ride the beautiful route 21 back. Epic. There we are in the morning out from breakfast and go to start up and the fuel pump did not spool up. And when the fuel pump does not spool up, that means it is not going to start. It's not going into a run mode. No, this issue has bitten her in the butt once or twice.

Travis: This has happened several times and there wasn't a clear, Oh, it's because of this.

Robin: There are four sensors, Travis, and I promise I'm passing this to you. But there are four sensors. Brian was a massive help. He said, there may be a clutch sensor on that one. Yeah. Squeezing the clutch, yada, yada. Lo and behold, there it is. Expand the clip, pull that out. And in order to pop the grommet out, what you have to do is first break the mechanism because there's no rubber grommet, there's this plastic, and then you shatter it outward so that the component no longer works at all. So now, you know, here we are. And that's when I just feel the sun just, she's on the phone with Brian and I just walk away. Nice. Should've got a Harley. Two up on the Beamer for five hours. The most constant temperature that I read on the dash, which is pretty accurate. 102. It has four sensors that could be the problem. One is the side stand switch. The other is the neutral indicator, which was lighting up green. So I'm pretty sure it's not that.

Brian: Yeah, that should be good.

Robin: The clutch lever that you snatched, broke it pulling the cable out. These bikes, yeah, there's a lot of complications. However, we get back here and I have to relubricate the splines on the shaft drive of the Beamer. She comes out to the garage with me, helps me, and sits in a chair with her Haynes manual and read it front to back. Awesome to actually, she just nailed it. What do we do? What do we do about these unnecessary things? You know, even my BMW starts in neutral. Travis, what do you want to say about this?

Travis: Yeah. So yeah, I was thinking you had mentioned this and told me most of that story. Um, and I've had my bike for a while. Like part of the reason I bought the bike I did buy is, was its simplicity. It's a 2014 Honda NC 700 X. So it's fuel injected. It's got like an LCD display, you know, a black and white display. And, uh, that's about it for technology. It doesn't have ABS. It's got, doesn't have rider modes. Doesn't have a toggle switch for things. Doesn't even have cruise control. Doesn't have LED lights. Doesn't have adjustable electronic suspension. Um, and that's part of the reason I got it. Um, is it's like, oh, like I got to change the oil and check the valves and maintain the chain and the brakes and the tires. Um, and if it stops working, it's because there will be something that is visibly broken, like there will be a severed wire or a crack in something or, you know, a corroded connector. Um, and so, and two, and I'm kind of looking, I've had that bike since 2017. It's probably the longest I've ever actually had a single bike is six years. Um, it's like, well, you know, I'm kind of on the radar for a new one. Like this one I paid off two years ago.

Robin: Here it comes. I know where this is going.

Travis: So like looking, kind of looking, I'm just like, you know, nothing really, you know, sounds great. Like one, like I don't like, I want like a midsize bike again, something with a little more power than the NC. Well, that's about everything. Um, the, um, you know, I really wish, I almost thought about talking about this, about how there's a bunch of great bikes that they don't sell in the United States that they sell in the rest of the world. Like the tracer seven, the tracer 700 or something like that would be, would be good tiger, the tiger six 50 sport, whatever that is, 600 sport. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I think that is pretty technologically technologically loaded. Cause like I'm looking at, what did I look at? I looked at the, the new Vstrom 1000 or the 10 50 XT or whatever. As they had one, they had one at the dealership over here. And, um, but it's just like, man, one, it just, it feels huge. Like the front end of that thing is big. Um, you know, it's like the gas tank and faring situation just feels like there's like tons of stuff in front of me and yeah, it's like, uh, the color display and all the adjusters and the suspension and rider modes and it's like, pour a soda on it, just pour your soda on it, it'll fix everything. This is his brakes. Like, well, how am I going to fix it? I'm a, I'm going to take it to the dealer. It's going to cost, you know, that's the old joke, right? Like when you, when, um, our friend had his BMW and something went wrong and the guy was like, some people can afford to buy a BMW, but they can't afford to own a BMW. Brian, you know, this guy, but now it's, you know, now it's a, now it's a mid-level Honda or a mid-level Yamaha or, you know, Suzuki, where it's like, there's so much tech on these. And it's like, why doesn't anyone make a not 200 CC dirt bike, you know, real road bike, and then just like put that money, you know, I mean, either make it cheaper, right? Like sell like a $6,000, seven, 800 CC makes like 80 horsepower. You don't need trash control. You don't need rider modes. You don't need electronic suspension and sell it for $12,000. But like put that money into the chassis design, the engine design, make it reliable, make it durable. Or, you know, sell it for $6,000 or, you know, seven, $8,000, make it cheap. Um, you know, the SV650 kind of used to be that, and now that's going to get replaced maybe by the 800.

Brian: Yeah.

Travis: There's not a lot out there that that's that. And I was looking at the CF Moto, this like the Chinese company that just started up that like ships one to your door and yeah, and it's, I guess they want to be competitive and for what you get, it's priced nice. It's like $12,000 for their like top of the line V-Strom copy basically. V-Strom ish. Yeah. So it's like 800 parallel twin, but it's the same thing where it's it's got cruise control and traction modes and a seven inch TFT display. And I just feel like, yeah, like what happens when one of those wires gets bent or the chip gets corroded or some sensor goes wacko, you know, I'm all about, let's just, they're motorcycles. We want mechanically engineered, you know, make, make the fancy things, but like someone's got to make a bare bones bike that's good and I don't know if anyone does anymore, I have no interest in a bike that is over $9,999 anymore, that is my price limit.

Robin: Now is 9, 9, 9, 9, anything with that extra digit in there we're done. And I don't want anything complex or anything that involves a difficult parts stream, it's going to be simple. It's going to be brass tacks. I will take injection over anything else and maybe cruise control, but I mean, I'm looking at like the Ninja 650. I swear to God I am. And I'm thinking I could slap some really pricey luggage on that thing. Oh yeah. Give me something dumb that looks decent. And that's my take on Brian. What you haven't chimed in on this. What do you got, man?

Brian: Well, a couple of things. One thing is there's some technology that is very much welcome. The whole reason, like I'm a vintage guy sitting in my garage is a 1983 GS850G Suzuki I've had for 25 years. It's 40 years old. Um, and so I know, I know about, I know about, I know about low tech, but there's some stuff like, uh, like I finally leaped into a modern bike. Uh, I got a 2015 FJ09. Uh, it's now the Tracer, but, um, I leaped into a modern bike for mainly because I wanted ABS. Uh, I think that's pretty worthwhile and yeah, I think ABS is pretty worthwhile. And also I'll say on a bike, well, you know, that's got 115 horsepower on a bike with a good amount of power. Um, I've put the traction control to use, you know, um, it's, I think it's, I think that's useful if it's good traction control now I've experienced like crappy traction control where it just goes, and it feels like you're hitting a wall or, you know, suddenly the bike also riding on washboard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The traction control in this Yamaha is very well done. And you really like, there are times you don't even know, you'll, you'll notice the blinking light. Uh, like in Missouri, we're on a road that had on C when it was, it had been really dry and it was kind of dusty. And I was starting to notice that little yellow light was blinking, you know, on corner exits a few times. I was like, maybe, uh, you know, and it felt great, but maybe this was a little close to the edge of the street, but still, you know, I was glad it was there, you know, it's a powerful bike, it's a light bike, so there are a couple of things that are worthwhile.

Robin: You brought up a couple that I didn't remember to bring up. Like when you brought up the traction control and the ABS, you're right.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Before cruise control, I want injection. Yeah. I want ABS traction control. I'll take it.

Travis: Depends on the bike. Like, yeah, like definitely on that, that Yamaha triple, but if you're on, you know, a 600 CC 650 twin. Yeah, that's less useful. It's going to be hard. Yeah. Yeah. Unless it's like really, you know, you're on street tires in the mud or something like that.

Robin: Well, that's the thing. So Brian and I usually aren't, we're, we're, we'd like leader bikes. So usually that said, Brian, you were saying, go ahead.

Brian: Oh yeah. I, yeah, I was saying the other point and it was also that, uh, the, the displays are actually cheaper than mechanical instruments, uh, to the manufacturer. Now, if you have to buy a new one, God help you. But yeah, right. That's, that's, that's why that's actually why they're moving to those displays, uh, because they're just cheaper than the, than the mechanical instruments.

Travis: Yeah. I just, they're hard to read. I, I don't like them. Like I'd rather have, I mean, or even just like the old LCD, you know, that's fine. I, those are pretty clear. And like, honestly, I think the, the sweet spot and somehow Kawasaki did this backwards for years and years. But the sweet spot would be like digital speedometer and like an analog analog tech.

Robin: Yeah. I love, I remember you saying that before.

Travis: Yeah. For a long time, Kawasaki did it the other way. And it was like, why are you doing this? This is dumb, right?

Robin: Well, I think, so in the end, are you able to perceive the information efficiently and make use of it safely? This is, that's what it has to do. I don't care if it's a digital screen. It's not what you do. It's how you do it. So if you receive the information and are able to process it without having to stare at it, that's all good. But at the same time, this brings up the whole concept of Travis. When we were doing some wiring on the Beamer, Brian, Travis and I are in the garage and I was like, this is, this is frustrating. I mean, this connector is busted and Travis looks at it and he's like, he holds the connector up and he says like this, why, why did it have to be this connector? It's two wires. There's 40 sets of two wires all over this bike and they all have a custom independent connector that's supposed to, well it has to be that because it's plastification. It's like that, that kind of thing. They could all be swapped out for anything.

Travis: A plastic connector that's like keyed with like five clips and like a waterproof and it's like a spade connector and some shrink wrap would, would do this.

Brian: Yeah. I was going to say, when you're talking about BMW specifically and a lot of other bikes, you're talking about the CAN bus system. Yeah. And that is an example of a crappy, I get what it's for. I get, you know, you can run the whole bike on two wires. It's power, it's signal, yada, yada. In theory, it's great, but you can't sit there with a test light and a rock and fix it, you know? And so that's a great example of technology that has gone too far. CAN bus is, is, it's great for manufacturing. It keeps the bike light, blah, blah, blah. But then you've got every component is a lot more expensive because it's got a chip in it because it has to interpret the signals that are meant for it. You know, so you're basically setting up an ethernet network on your fricking bike. That's an example of bad technology. ABS is great technology.

Travis: And like, maybe it makes, it makes sense to like in a car where there's so much more components and you have, you know, you know, rear sensors and front sensors. And it's a complete ass pain in a car too. Yeah.

Robin: Cutting out that extra wiring. As the president of the Robin Dean's opinion of BMW society, here's the pro tip, here's how you get around the CAN bus. You completely ignore it. You hardwire this giant relay to the battery and then you just, you're done. And that's what I did. I run everything off the relay plus minus relay. Boom. I got a whole port set up at like all the people that get 8,000 miles out of their tires versus people that actually ride have an opinion about like, Hey, you shouldn't do that because the CAN bus at the dealership, if you do that, they won't give you the good snacks out of the fridge next to the dealership service area. Like, no, I'm not playing that game with you. I bought the bike to ride it. I'm not subscribing. Yeah. That's the end all be all. With this massive rant of an intro.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Can I get to the, uh, some updates real quick for the website? Please. These are quick. We insist. We corrected a weather page bug. Got to love it. When one of four remote weather data sources you rely on changes their system without notifying the users. In this case, TRO was asking for coordinates using a URL that had a forward slash at the end. No, they've suggested users remove that. That's right. A single unwanted character on the end of your weather page. It broke, busted everything wide open. So that's fixed. Uh, almost every episode of radio TRO is ready for advertisers. I went through every episode myself and removed spoken sponsorships between Travis, Tim and myself so that we might eventually earn beer money on this thing. I've also moved the entire catalog from poppy and over to castos. We've used their plugin for TRO dot bike for years. And I thought, wait a minute, why would I tolerate pod being when castos is already in play? And that's it for this week's updates. Travis, welcome to your first experience with stuff. Our listeners might ask, and we hope they eventually will. I changed the title of this part because, Hey, it's optimistic.

Brian: It's more optimistic.

Robin: Yeah, we got listeners. I'm looking at the records. We, you know, we're making about, uh, three to 500 downloads a week. That's not bad for a motorcycle podcast. Sweet. With that, Brian, what do you got to say about it?

Brian: If you'd like us to field your questions, email podcast at TRO dot bike. If your question is selected from the large quantity we get sometimes, uh, you will get an answer. It may not be the answer or a good answer, but it will be an answer. No guarantees is what we're saying. So if you're especially lucky, there may even be discussion. And who's asking us what today, Brian? Okay. Let's see here. Oh, let's have a fight night. We've got Travis here. Let's fight in front of Travis. Let's get Travis to rumble here. So fight night, which U S state has the best roads, the worst roads, the dirtiest roads, and the cleanest roads. Uh, Robin, I know you've ridden in more states than I have and Travis. I don't know. Maybe you've done all 50 states. I don't know. But, uh, yeah. What, what's your, what, what's your answer, Robin? You go first. I vote Kentucky. Really?

Travis: For all of them, for the worst and the best and the dirtiest.

Robin: Yeah, actually maybe, maybe. Okay. For the best riding roads. Yeah. I vote. Oh, I vote West Virginia.

Travis: Yeah. You're not wrong. I'm partial to, to Wisconsin. Um, which I feel like is despite our constantly talking about it, uh, a bit of a hidden gem, like people don't think great riding roads in Wisconsin. There's tons of great riding roads in Wisconsin. Um, but yeah, the, you know, the hills of Wisconsin are not the mountains of West Virginia. Um, and I think, yeah, like West Virginia, cause like the Appalachias have, you know, that higher altitude gradiation that makes the roads twisty, but it's not so high, like the Rockies and the Cascades out West where they, there's only one road, so like there's still roads in West Virginia where it's like, yeah, there's some great roads in California and Colorado and, and, but it's like, there's usually only one.

Robin: Yeah. Cause they're cutting through granite, you know? They're like, we've got to cut diamond with diamond.

Travis: And it's like, how do we get over this 12,000 foot pass? Whereas like in Appalachia, it's like, oh, it's, you know, 1200 feet. So we can actually build roads on these mountains.

Robin: And I think Wisconsin is super personal to me. So I understand what you're saying.

Brian: Yeah. I was going to say, when you say Kentucky, I'm like, you know, you're not wrong. That's they, and the thing is about Kentucky is, and, and I, I didn't, I, I live right next door to Kentucky. I didn't understand this until we, we actually were looking for dual sport roads. We were looking for gravel. We couldn't find any in that part of the state in Eastern Kentucky. Um, just immaculate pavement, huge, beautiful stuff there. Um, and West Virginia is great too. Uh, I just got back from a dual sport trip to West Virginia too.

Robin: So if you think the paved roads are great, oh my God, you know, yeah, I mean, I bumped it over to West Virginia just because it was the only next level up where it was like a, like that state says, hold my beer to everything, you know what I mean? And Kentucky's pretty, you know, bourbon about their approach to all things. But like, I remember following Brian, he had an introductory rally where he just got his feet wet with Kentucky. And I didn't, I mean, I knew it was good. I'd ridden through there a few times and I kept thinking, we'll have to get back to this. I bet you, Brian knows it. He finally pulled something together and we were riding a Ridgeline road. And I just remember that it had been the grand finale of the day. And it was just sweeper to the right S curves, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, left, right. And eventually all of us were like, we could not take it seriously. We couldn't, we couldn't maintain a straight pace because it was just unending grippy banked perfection that we didn't, none of us had ever been on before. It made no sense for it to go on like that. You know?

Brian: Yeah. Robin was inarticulate at the end. He was giggling. He was, he was clapping like a seal. He was flapping his hands. He laid, he laid down in the grass and kicked his, I mean, yeah, it was, that was, that was a, that was a damn good ride. And it's a good, been a good ride every year.

Robin: To take that and step it up to West Virginia for me to go outside and say that West Virginia is going to rank up from there, that's hard for me to do. But having run sevens and that, that West Virginia day, that day two, like nobody's talking.

Brian: I have to say for, for dirtiest roads, I'm going to nominate my home state, Indiana. If you don't learn how to cope with gravel and dirt and cow poop and everything in the road, and if you don't learn how to cope with all that crap in the road in Indiana, you're just not going to ride very far or ride very fast. I, I don't know what it is, but like we won't in Indiana, we won't pay for anything that you don't actually put tires on. So there's no shoulder. So everything ends up in the road. There's no thought as to water flow. So when you're in the twisty roads in Indiana and Southern Indiana, I mean, they're great roads and so forth, but if you're from out of state, people are like shocked, they're horrified. They're like, Oh my God, what's a lot of gravel? I'm like, Oh yeah, that's just how it is. You just kind of try to get in the tire tracks and don't get too worried, you know? By the way, this is a theme in national park back roads.

Robin: So you've got the main national, let's go with national forest roads because national parks are not fun to ride in. National forests are a blast to ride in. So the back roads of a national, a national forest that is actually paved, that's probably a, an access road that leads to a dirt T intersection. And I'm thinking of one specifically, namely New Mexico, 5259. New Mexico 152 is epic. It is perfection. It is gorgeous. Devil's highway, Arizona, same thing. Amazing because you have a start point and a destination point, but 5259 in Arizona, if you're a paved rider on a sport bike, as I usually am, you're at a start of pavement that goes into nothing where the cow hands are confused by your very existence. I don't know if you speak the same language and then you stop at a T intersection that is nothing but dirt. And then you're doubling back. That is a dirty, dirty road. Cause the gravel preseason, when it's just hitting spring, it is all desert sand and red clay.

Brian: Yeah. That's slippery.

Robin: Yeah. That's just thematic.

Travis: And I haven't been to the Northeast that much, but yeah, Wisconsin would give Indiana a run, especially like on the back roads. Like I feel like if you're around the farms, you have the gravel. Yeah. All those right angle corners around the farm properties. There's a lot more cow poop in Wisconsin. And when you get into Amish country, there's horse poop and the walnut trees, the black walnuts in the fall. Do you guys get those? Oh yeah. Yeah. Those are, those are dangerous. Slicker and snot. And those are the, I mean, I'll take gravel over black walnut mess any day.

Robin: What's that sport called? Highlight. We have the thick, hard rubber ball. You throw it like a bullet. It's like riding over one of those covered in snot.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: I'm just going to say Wisconsin for all of these. Yeah.

Robin: That will bring us to our interview. I managed to lock down an interview with the one and only Alex Gay of RidewoodGPS.com. Alex is basically the proxy for all communication technical between the engineers at RidewoodGPS.com and prospective customers on either a individual or corporate level. He took the time to sit down with us and answer all the questions that I, Travis, and the one and only Brian Ringer managed to pile on. Let's hear what he has to say. Alex Gay. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. We've got a bunch of fun questions. We use Ride with GPS on TRO.bike, dedicated all the time. Religiously, it is Bible for map planning. It is our go-to for all things. It has led our commercial motorcycle tours. When we lead our commercial tours in various States, our flagship tour being the seven riders, seven States in seven days, I and my sweep rider always have your app loaded and running. Guiding us along the way and notifying us as we program it too. We tell it what to tell us. We have it alert us to things we know we're concerned about. We use your software strictly. It's the best we've seen. We've tried a good many different platforms. And since I think we've had this since 2017, I don't remember how old my account is, we've used it constantly from that time for all things motorcycling. So Alex Gay, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Did you ride today or yesterday? And have you written recently?

Alex: I haven't written today. I think I'm going to ride in my basement later where it's 10 degrees cooler compared to my office here. I ride around the city a lot. And so I'll run some errands later after work Sunday at the last sort of proper ride I did was the bridge pedal, which is an annual event here in Portland where they close down streets and particularly all these bridges that are most of the time only open to cars and motorcycles. And so a few different freeway bridges that you can ride across a couple of thousand people do it and pretty cool to get some good skyline views and sunrise view of Mount hood at 6am on a Sunday morning without any cars around. It's pretty cool. What is your working job title over at Ride with GPS? So I'm our relationship manager. So that means I work with our clubs and events, tour operators, tourism bureaus, bike shops, websites, other businesses that use our software to communicate routes and events to their audiences, whether that's their club members or tour guests, participants, customers. I've been here for almost six years. Where I started out on our support team, working with individual users, making sure that they know how to use a route planner, get routes from our side of things to their device, all sorts of stuff like that.

Robin: It sounds to me like you're the proxy charisma representative who can bridge information in a way that is receivable by your demographic. Does that sound right? Oh, you could say that.

Alex: I'm here on the podcast today. So I've been on a number of other podcasts. I host our infrequent YouTube live presentations. When we want to demonstrate some new features, you'll see me on live YouTube videos, presented at a conference or two and representing the company in real life.

Robin: Our newest cohost and longtime friend of mine, Brian Ringer, he asks some of the most interesting questions. In his words, it looks like RideWood GPS is based on bicycle riding. You've also added riding a motorcycle to the route slash ride planning activity menu. We've found it incredibly useful for motorcycling. Was this expected or surprising?

Alex: No, it's not. The company was co-founded by our still current co-owners, Zach Hamm and Colin King. Zach was going to the University of Oregon, Colin was at Oregon State, and they were both computer science majors. And they were also childhood friends growing up outside of Portland in Oregon. And they rode motorcycles.

Robin: No, motorcycles are dangerous.

Alex: Before they rode bicycles, they rode motorcycles and they created what is now RideWood GPS to plot motorcycle routes. And then get them onto an external device, because at that time it was just a website and no mobile app. And so they eventually got bicycles and saw that, oh, there's a lot of crossover. You know, what a motorcyclist would want in terms of route planning and navigation is what a cyclist would want. And initial uptake of the platform was more on the cycling side. But our first logo was a bicycle helmet, as well as a motorcycle helmet. So it's not surprising. But years since then, this was established as a business for coming up on 16 years. Marketing side of things is more cycling focused, but the product side of things, you can apply it to many different things, whether you're riding a bike, motorcycling, or some other activity that requires navigation.

Robin: Yeah. I think the current logo even represents both biking and motorcycle or just navigation in general. I like to see the logo as a bicyclist or a sport biker, somebody who's on a sport bike kind of cruising forward. You know, that's pretty cool like that. His next question, are there features or settings that you're working on that us motorized folks, as he calls it, have been asking for recently?

Alex: You know, a few years ago we released heat maps. Oh yeah. Heat maps show where our users are riding and then recording rides and saving it to their account. And it was requested for a long, long time. We released it a couple of years ago. And then a little while later, we released personal heat maps. To show not where other people are riding, but where you've ridden your library of rides that you've recorded with a lot of motorcycle riders who use our software, we've found that a lot of them also ride a bicycle. And with a new hire that we have and some opportunity for us that I think we'll eventually get to and it's been requested is how do I segment out my bicycle rides and my motorcycle trips separately and visualize them different. So whether that's in my personal heat map or in the global heat map, you know, I only want to see where other motorcyclists are riding. I want to see where other road cyclists or gravel bikers or dual sport riders are riding. So I think there will be ongoing work in figuring out how we can do that and how to display it and how to segment out your activities that are recorded and saved to display that visually. And then when you're planning a new route or trying to find a route that's already been planned, you can overlay all that information to see, yeah, I've ridden on this road, but oh, I see that there, this route cuts off this way. And I haven't been down that road and I want to go discover it now. I want to go see what's at the end of it.

Robin: Okay. This brings two things to mind then. One is I don't think I've used that at all. And it sounds like one of the coolest features I could request. How does your user base break down? Or do you know bicyclists, motorcyclists, and the motorcycle subdivisions, cruisers, twisty roads, tourers, dual sport, ATVs, jeepers, sports cars, backpackers, hitchhikers, anything? Do you have it broken down really finite or ornately?

Alex: We don't really track that type of user breakdown. When you're saving a route, you can say what it's for. But I don't think we've done a lot of work tracking like this is good for this type of cycling, you know, road gravel cycling or mountain bike or touring dual sport. But I do know that a lot of different people are using us beyond just bicyclists and motorcyclists work with a good number of people putting on dual sport tours, putting on car tours. There's a lot of Porsche Club of America chapters that have a club account with us. The BMW Motorcycle Owner Association has an account with us.

Robin: Yeah, those guys are elitist.

Alex: And then tour operators that offer hiking tours or walking tours. If you have a very specific navigation need, we can probably fit. Oh, another one that always stands out to me is endurance horseback riding. Got a number of people putting on events for horseback riding races. That's always an interesting thing to see.

Robin: I never even thought of that. You know, as soon as can be air traffic control and everything. The experiences service is really interesting. And that's another one that having used your system for so long, I haven't heard of that either.

Alex: Yeah. So experiences is a feature on our mobile app where typically a tour operator would be able to provide a group of routes and guidebook pages all on our mobile app. The tour operator would have some routes planned. Either it's a daily itinerary, a packing list, who's going on the tour. Really anything that you would maybe print out ahead of time in your packet to hand out to tour guests, you can just have that as a digital thing that is all available on our mobile app. And then when the tour guest accesses it, it's downloaded offline. So you don't need cell service to access the routes and the turn-by-turn voice navigation for the routes, as well as the guidebook pages. So a lot of tour operators providing that to their guests, whereas a few years ago, they were using another feature in the tour operator account called events, where events would just provide the routes and offline maps and navigation. So experiences adds the guidebook option and makes it a little easier to access all of that package on the mobile app. So you don't need an account. You just access the experience using a shortcut that you type in or scanning a QR code. So it's a little different than how you might be sharing routes now, if you're sharing routes with your tour guests now. But it makes it really easy, especially for self-guided tours, group tours. It sounds like you have a lead and a trail bike. A lot of the tour operators offering this now, you can send guests out to ride on their own and not have to stick with the group, not have to follow someone. They add all this nice information to the guide, give them enough of a leash to maybe see what's off the route, if there's something nice to see off the route or where to stop for lunch along the way, nice things like that.

Robin: That's actually something that we're looking to do anyhow with our storefront on TRO is to start providing these things. So I'm going to have to look really carefully at your setup so that maybe we'll bridge them directly from Redwood GPS over to our storefront for self-guided motorcycle tours. It's pretty cool. And it also brings up the fact that, yeah, we see so many comments about, well, a phone versus a GPS unit. If you don't have internet access, you're going to eat up your bandwidth or something like that. Honestly, with the offline system, the only thing you're using is your GPS triangulation, and that does not use bandwidth. It doesn't involve bandwidth. It only involves triangulation. So it's really energy efficient to do that, even with your phone. What are some of the most requested features that, look, it's already in there? A lot of stuff.

Alex: Having been around doing this for over 15 years, there's a lot of features. And we're always figuring out how do we better display this tool that someone that doesn't know about. And I think our support team always asks good questions. How do I do this thing? And they would ask, well, what's your goal? And we might not have that exact thing, but there's usually a way to achieve it. And so one of those that stands out to me is being able to plan multiple routes at the same time in the route planner.

Robin: Oh, absolutely.

Alex: If you're planning a tour, you can have day one and day two or day three, as many routes as you want, all side-by-side planning simultaneously. Or you can have the short, the medium, and the long version all side-by-side. So having that makes it really easy to just visualize them all at the same time, see how where you're going to deviate from one to the next or how they connect back in to finish out the route at the end of the day.

Robin: So you must know that our customer support is going to pick right up after this with just hammering you with questions on how to do all these things with my already existing motorcycle tours. How about this one? What's a feature that people want that just doesn't exist with our own laws of physics?

Alex: I don't think we're bound by the laws of physics. With our software, at least.

Robin: I like that.

Alex: In real life, I'm standing on the ground, not floating away. But if you can think of a feature, it is probably possible. It's just a matter of, do we know how to do it? Do we have the resources to make it possible? How much time is it going to take us? What's the end benefit to us? Will it be liked? Will it be good? Will it get us new users? Will it get us new subscribers? What I think is very frequently requested that doesn't exist within our laws of physics, something that we could do that we don't have that people are requesting all the time. At least in navigation.

Robin: Ah, yeah. That requires less power from the battery to flash white light out of the screen.

Alex: Yeah, definitely. So less battery consumption. Easier on the eyes if you're riding at night or if you just like the dark theme look.

Brian: Yeah.

Alex: A lot of reasons why. Ask our mobile developers why we don't have it. And it does really sound like a lot more work than you would think it is. But with some other developments here more recently, I think we're getting a little closer to it, namely with how we render maps on the screen. Yeah. So recently we have a new map style that's a different version of an old map style. If you look at the website now, it's called RWGPS cycle. And that's a vector map. Sure. Rather than raster maps, which is like the old style of the RWGPS map. Yeah. Raster indicating it's just a big plot of images all stitched together. Yeah. Which makes for a lot longer load time because these are individual images. It limits resolution. It limits the granularity like in between zoom levels. Whereas vector is basically just like layers and layers of pieces of data that is overall much smaller file size.

Robin: It's beautiful in that you can have four pixels that are checkerboard next to each other. And if you expand that out to 500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall, you'll get four perfect squares next to each other. It just expands on the visual that's available to it. Am I right?

Alex: Yeah. And so how it helps on the website is that you can... Maps should be loading faster because it's smaller data. You've got basically an infinite amount of zoom levels. Whereas before, you might be at some zoom level and then the next step is either too much or too little zoom. That is going to be so smooth. Yeah. But what really makes it exciting and interesting to me is we'll have a lot more ability to take other data that we don't have now. So if we wanted to add private property boundaries, that could be added as a vector layer. If we wanted to add cell coverage, that could be added as a vector layer. Snow level. That's one that's really interesting to me with living here where that really dictates the seasonality of different routes with snow on the ground.

Robin: Yeah. Which passes are open.

Alex: Yeah. That will open up a lot of opportunity for us to be able to give you the ability to toggle those on and off when you're planning a route or navigating a route on the mobile app and just having more data, more tools to give you more confidence of where you're going to be riding. That along with we have this map now. It's called RWGPS cycle. And the intention is to have other maps that are RWGPS mountain bike or RWGPS moto. All these different map styles that are tuned to a certain audience. So if I was going to become a moto ride, I'd want to know like, oh yeah, these are the best roads for a good motorcycle ride instead of where it's the best for a road bike ride or a gravel bike ride. So we'll be able to give you more options to show that visually.

Robin: It sounds to me like you guys take your feature requests extremely seriously. And you've already been continuously developing for the better outward in terms of performance, accessibility features, things that even vetted users such as myself didn't know were there just because we've been so busy enjoying what's already known. Who are some of your buddies in that? What are some good companion maps, apps, websites for RWGPS? Have you guys partnered with anybody specific? Butler, Twisty Road Finder, Curvature. I like Best Biking Roads is pretty good. What do you got?

Alex: What I use the most, and I think what a lot of co-workers use and we work with them closely is called Epic Ride Weather, where you're able to select a route that you've planned or pinned on RWGPS and open it in the Epic Ride Weather app. And then you plug in, I'm going to start on August 17th at 8 a.m. My average speed will be x. And it will give you a weather forecast, not just when you start at the starting point, but at the very far end of your route, you'll have a weather forecast when it predicts you will get there. Because weather, especially if you're climbing elevation, that weather can change at the top.

Robin: It'll shift at every waypoint. Yeah. We've spent years perfecting our, is today a good day to ride weather for wherever your locality is. And I've thought about, we'd like to expand that to point to point, but why reinvent the wheel if there's something as good as Epic Ride Weather? I'm going to have to point some people to that.

Alex: Give me a good idea of, do I need to bring an extra layer? Do I need to bring a second pair of gloves when the first pair inevitably just is soaked through? Every time. It just gives you the confidence of what the ride will be like at 2 p.m. when I'm a few thousand feet higher than I was at the start of my ride.

Robin: Brian wants to know what's coming next for RWGPS. What are you excited about that's coming next that you haven't already mentioned? One of them is weather-related.

Alex: Our newest IRD is working on how we can display wind data in the route planner, baked into RWGPS, not having to leave to use a different app. That's going to be good. And he'll be the person working on these other map layers that I mentioned, but wind being one of the first projects he's working on. Another thing coming up that is almost done and should be out pretty soon is a new page on our website to discover routes. It'll be called Explore. And it's something that we have on the mobile app now, but now we've kind of translated into a website view. For a long time, we've had the Find page on our website where you can plug in starting point or route name, how long you want to ride, elevation gain, and we give you a list of routes. And so this will be similar, but it'll all be visual. There'll be a full-screen map that you can see routes, where they start and where they go, how they might overlap one another, being able to plug in where you start, maybe a description, elevation, distance. But then you can also overlay the global heat map, your personal heat map, and see what you could be riding. So that's coming up. Another thing that has been happening and ongoing is soliciting feedback on routes. So for a long time, we've had many, many, many routes and haven't always been able to show what's good. What's the best route? Why should I ride this one over this one? That's a slippery slope.

Robin: There's a lot of character involved, right?

Alex: Yeah. And so what we have been doing in our continued focus is after you navigate a route that you interacted with in some way on our website or app, we'll ask you, how was it? Did you like it? Did you not like it? What kind of rider is it good for? Do you want to leave a comment? And so, especially in the case of a route that you yourself didn't create, that information would be given to the person who did plan it. And if you had constructive feedback, they would see it. You would say, oh, this bridge is gone and I had to detour. Or I really love that you add points of interest so I could know where there was water or there was food along the way. Those reviews, those recommendations help others see it too. Because if you gave a review and then I was looking at that route, I could see that you wrote it on this date. Okay, so there's no snow up on the pass. I can ride it. Or you had other feedback that is valuable to me. And so I think it's helping other riders go on better rides and have confidence that this will be a good route to follow. Because without information like that, how do we display that this is a high-quality route? And if real-life people are using it, then that, I think, is a good indicator that it's a good route to use instead of just hoping, oh, yeah, this sounds good. Let's try it. And then maybe it ends up that route for you.

Robin: Group think aside, community understanding and knowledge is key to, it's going to be part of safe travel. Yeah. In the Route Planner, do the different layers have a different effect on which API is being called and how it gets from one waypoint to the next? Yes. Yes, it does.

Alex: We offer two different routing APIs. One comes from Google Maps, and the other comes from OpenStreetMaps via a service called GraphHopper, which one that we call is dictated by which map style you're using. And so Google Maps would be when you use the Google Map layer, Google Satellite, Terrain, and Hybrid when you're using any other map style. RWGPS Cycle, OSM, OSM Cycle, OSM Outdoor, ESRI Topo, USGS options, those are all calling GraphHopper for OpenStreetMap routing. And so you have two windows side by side, and you start at X on Y. You might get a different result between those two options, whether you have the Google Map style open and then a non-Google Map, you might get two different results. So keep that in mind when you're planning. But then within that, on the right side of the Route Planner, there's routing options. So walking, cycling, and driving, and each of those will have their own routing profile tied to its respective API, whichever map style that you're on. So walking will prefer where someone walking might want to be routed on. And I find myself sometimes using walking to create routes for a bicycle. Walking will put you on quiet streets, probably where there's sidewalks, other pedestrian sort of infrastructure, but then it can also go opposite down one-way streets. Whereas the cycling option is going to prefer bicycle infrastructure, quieter streets, and driving will prefer faster roads. It's probably not going to put you on the quiet bicycle street or neighborhood streets and follow where you would be driving or motorcycling, especially. But sometimes to get the route exactly how you want it, you might need to choose between certain styles. Or depending on maybe what kind of motorcycle ride you're going on, you might need to choose between different styles. And I find on the type of bike riding that I do, maybe you need to quickly use a walking path to get you from one point to the next. Or more frequently, what OpenStreetMaps has tagged isn't accurate in real life. So this happens, and I understand that all of this data is hard to manage, but sometimes there's things labeled as walking only that I know in fact are rideable on my bicycle.

Robin: Oh, it's always changing. That's city data and accessibility.

Alex: Yeah. So I only use that when I know it's true. But sometimes it works best when you're toggling between those routing options or sometimes between map styles. And you can be halfway through a route that you've planned using Google Maps and then switch over to the RWGPS cycle style, and it won't impact what you've already planned. The roads that you already planned won't change, but only what you create going forward will be using that OpenStreetMap API or Graph Operator API.

Robin: I want to soften the blow of what might sound like snarky laughter for me. RWGPS has provided a platform that decorates your screen with all of these edits and options that you're in charge of by way of APIs, meaning off-server data sources, that they know how to tap into and access. However, RWGPS isn't responsible for the behavior of that particular off-server data point. And in the case of Google Maps, it may do things like... Brian noticed it's telling me I can't go over a bridge that I know for a fact is there, but it is telling me I should take the bridge that doesn't exist. I said, hey, switch it to a different source, and immediately it corrected everything for him. So that tells you this is not a data source. It's a data populator that is sourcing data. It kind of brings in my next comment, which is I've struggled with reverse route. Once or twice, you know? So usually I'm like, oh, it's Google. They can't be wrong. I always Google the Google with the Googles. So if I reverse route, it should be perfect. Oh, look at that. And then I would notice when I zoom in that it's taken what was and turned it into, we're going to try to put you in the oncoming traffic lane. Because it's not RWGPS that's causing this. Am I wrong there?

Alex: I hope you weren't put into oncoming traffic.

Robin: It drew the map backwards and wanted me to be an oncoming, and so I was bicycling up the sidewalk. But I was in driving mode and I blame Google. I don't blame you. I blame Google. I know what's going on there.

Alex: We do have a little power over the graph hopper call with OSM data. We do have our own recipe for that. We are able to leverage, of course, all of the cycling metadata that OpenStreetMaps has. But we also leverage our own data of popularity where we know people are riding. So that's kind of tied into global heat map where we know that people ride on this road, even though it might not have the dedicated cycling tag in OpenStreetMaps, but we know that it is popular because our users are recording rides and sending them to their accounts. And that helps us understand that information better. So reverse route, why it would put you in oncoming traffic, it usually is good about if your original route is on a one-way street. It should take you not along that. It would take an alternative road. I can't really say why it would put you in the oncoming traffic.

Robin: It's just a point in any conversation with any other person in the world where we always say, well, there's always room for improvement and it will improve. You know, just it develops as time goes on. I've trusted you guys for so long. It's been my favorite. I'm actually considering new features for our own GPS map sales over a TRO, which will have turn-by-turn direction. And I want them to have printable turn-by-turn directions. And you guys have an API. Is there a way to provide map images and turn-by-turn directions using your API and saving it to a cached source and making it printable for a different site's viewers?

Alex: We offer our own printed turn-by-turn directions. Now you can download a PDF or a Word doc with cues. You can also access that same information on a route-by-route basis through our API. I know another, a couple other bicycle clubs, their cue sheets formatted very specifically. And so they have an API that calls for a specific route after plugging in its ID number. And then we feed them that information. Images, I don't know about that. But if you want an API, we could certainly get you set up with one. It wouldn't contain any sort of route planner. If you had data that belonged to rides, routes, or users, you could call on that.

Robin: I remember at printing the cue sheets, I always have the option to have the map on the sheet as well. It's a beautifully displayed map. I also love the fact that I can enter my own announcements as waypoints. I can have it say specific words of my own choosing before a known hazard. For example, there's one corner in our biggest tour where as you approach it, I am told in my own typed out text, Robin, slow the heck down and stop at that weird looking yellow barn on the right side. Because the next turn is a very strange turn and I want to keep everybody safe. That is brilliant. Do you have any plans to expand on that type of functionality in any way?

Alex: What did you have in mind? What's missing?

Robin: I could ask for the option to have the icons that I've placed on the map play a minor chime when they appear on screen. That's an opportune food stop. But it's, you know what, it's too early. That kind of thing.

Alex: Yeah, I think that's been on our minds and often sometimes a point of friction with users is I added these points of interest, but why wasn't I alerted when I was navigating?

Robin: It's a minor thing, but it's a thing.

Alex: It's a thing that we hear about frequently. We've been thinking about it here too is if you add a point of interest within a certain distance of the route line, why don't we give you a little hint and say, hey, do you want to add this to the cue sheet too? Instead of just, you know, letting you add it and move on. Because how you have to do it now is I add my point of interest, my food stop, but then in the cue sheet, I need to add a custom cue saying food stop on the right or water source on the right, something like that.

Robin: It should definitely be a setting though. Or maybe I want to hear on one day and maybe not the other. Yeah. Is anybody considering the idea of you making dedicated tangible equipment, machines similar to the idea of a GPS unit that's rugged, that's ready for two wheeled handlebars, doesn't have the same problematic and dated tech pitfalls that known platforms do?

Alex: No.

Robin: Hardware sounds.

Alex: A lot of insurance. Hardware sounds very, very, very, very difficult. And I commend anyone. I commend Garmin and Wahoo and all the other device makers for doing it because it allows us to send routes to them. And we can focus on our software and just route planning and navigation.

Robin: But you keep it as so polite and professional. I respect that.

Alex: Our mobile app is great for navigating and you probably have a smartphone and you can get our app on it and navigate routes on that. And I do that myself. You know, I navigate routes using my phone. I have a quad lock that fastens to my handlebars. I know people who don't want to put their expensive phone on their handlebars, but they have a dedicated phone for navigating where...

Robin: You just read my mind.

Alex: It doesn't have a data plan. It only connects to Wi-Fi. So you can still download routes offline. I've seen Zach, one of our co-owners, I don't recall the maker model of this phone, but it looks like a brick and it has incredible battery life. It looks like you could throw it off a three-story building and...

Robin: The tough book of smartphones.

Alex: Yeah. It's just like a pretty affordable Android phone that our mobile app works on great. You can navigate it. It's got loads of battery and you don't have to necessarily have a data plan. And so a phone like that, you could probably find for a few hundred dollars compared to, you know, a new iPhone or Samsung or Pixel pushing $1,000. And same goes with your Zumo or other Moto focused standalone device. So our app, I think works great for that. It's got navigation, it's got color, zoom in and out real easy with your fingers.

Robin: Yeah. It's like all you need is a Wi-Fi connection.

Alex: Yeah. So if you're at home ahead of time and you make sure everything's offline, then it works great. Or if you're in a pinch, you can maybe make a hotspot with your primary phone and get your routes updated through a hotspot.

Robin: Very good. It's like if you're cheap like me, go down into your basement or find that old bin box of electronics, bust out that old Pixel 1 or whatever you have that you just thought you'd never have to use for, realize you're not using it anyhow, reset it, convert it into a GPS only thing that's not connected to any service plan. And you've got yourself a GPS unit that makes use of the Ride With GPS app as a default. And when you get home and you can either leave it out in the bike in the rain and it'll fry and you can throw in the garbage after or take it to an electronics store. Let's be green about it. Take it to the electronics store and recycle it. That's what it's waiting for you for. You've had it forever. You're not using it. That's all you need. Where, Alex, are you planning on riding next?

Alex: We're planning to go to a national forest about 90 minutes from Portland called the Gifford Pinchot. It kind of straddles Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge where there's a pretty spectacular gravel riding this particular route. It's on Ride With GPS. You can look it up. It's called Fire and Ice. Gets the name after the volcanic area, but then also there's an ice cave along the route. So this is like year-round ice. There's a ladder you can scurry down and cool off a little bit, especially on a hot August day. So planning to get out there.

Robin: Maggie D is going to love that. I just want to thank you so much because Alex is standing in a 400-degree kiln of an office right now politely fielding all these questions so that you, the listener, can pick what I consider to be the finest in data-built route planning and custom voice guidance. As a result of this interview, I get to explore features I didn't know were there. And so I can't thank you enough. Alex Gay for RideWithGPS.com. Visit their services. Sign up for it. Alex, thank you so much for being here.

Alex: You're welcome, Robin. Glad to be on.

Robin: Again, that was Alex Gay with RideWithGPS. You can check out RideWithGPS.com, R-W-G-P-S.com if you like. Alex actually reached out to me via email and followed up with a question that he had to think about for a second that Brian asked because Brian asks all the coolest questions, the stumble questions, right? He said, hi, Robin. Thanks again for having me on the podcast. Actually, Alex, the pleasure was all ours. I wanted to follow up on the question, what are some of the things people have done with RideWithGPS that have surprised you, namely me, namely him? Alex was surprised by people using the route planner to create very intricate routes for things like snow plows, garbage trucks, ice cream trucks, or an interesting company that contracts drivers to follow routes and grade road surfaces for repair, despite being unfamiliar with the route or area, being able to navigate on our app and get directions. Great app. We've used it for years. Thanks, Alex. I think it's time for Brian's Tiny Tasty Tool Tips. These are Brian's Tiny Tasty Tool Tips.

Brian: They're tiny, they're tasty. I'll pick this one out because this one actually came up. You alluded to this earlier, but basically, don't be afraid to use phone a friend if you're facing some weird issue on the road. You know, call someone who might have a clue or even if they don't have a clue. Maybe they're sitting somewhere with air conditioning. Maybe they've got access to Google. You know, maybe just hearing a friendly voice will help you calm down and work the problem.

Robin: Calm down. Yeah. Work the problem. Work the problem. Relax.

Brian: Yeah. What's that? Oh, the Martian. Yeah. Just work on the problem, be an engineer and so forth. So that's less of a tool tip and more of a like problem solving tip. Phone a friend. And, you know, and that's what I answered the phone and it was Maggie. And I was like, oh, well, this is a surprise. Hi. And I did my best. You know, I don't know if I got anywhere. It was a chaotic situation. There was talking. You did everything right.

Robin: You did all the things that needed to be done. You did it exactly correctly. Right. You were helpful. Yes.

Brian: Good. I hope so. Even though you didn't get the bike started, that would have been nice. But anyway, I've yeah, I've done that for people and it's really been helpful. And yeah, there was a good friend of mine. He's no longer with us, but I would he's an engineer and I would call him to work through a problem. He was really good at those thought experiments and really good at working through that stuff. Okay. Here's what I'm getting in this carburetor, blah, blah, blah. And we would work through it logically. And we could usually come up with something from there. What about you, Travis? What's your, what's your trap? What's your, what's your tiny tasty tool tip of the day?

Robin: Hold on. I'm going to pull, I'm going to pull this one on, on Travis first too, because Travis can do that. He's actually pretty good at it as well. I think Travis is a lot more annoyed if you are resorting to asking him for help because you can hear it in the delivery. So if he's talking you through the logic of anything having to do with the bike, you hear, okay, well, because the science says that this, because in order for that to happen, this has to be that. And the voltage needs to be this. Because otherwise the amperage and output isn't going to sync up with what that needs to be. So thanks for letting me figure that out. I just lost that much more time to my brain cells, you know, it depends how the problem is presented.

Travis: It's a bit like Wesley in Princess Bride, where he's like, well, they need to storm the castle. And it's like, what are our assets? His strength, my steel, your brains. That's it. Maybe, maybe we had months. If we even had like a cloak. Well, how about this cloak? Why didn't you list that among our assets? That's how I feel. A lot of times it's like, wait, I feel like there's a piece of information missing here. I feel like I don't have enough to go. Tiny tool tip, crescent wrenches are underrated. Buy a good crescent wrench with a little screw, you know, the any size wrench. And, you know, people, people like to think that they just round nuts off. But if you get a good one, I bought that when the Sears closed in our town, I went and got like the top of the line. I mean, I wouldn't have ever paid like 60 bucks for whatever they wanted, but I would pay like 30. And that's what I paid for it. And it's like, it's really nice. Like that everything's super flat and machined very cleanly. And it like grips nuts really tight. The loop on the end of a crescent wrench is really good to get extra leverage on like a hex key or something else that's small. Like you, you know, you put a hex key in and make sure it's like tight or you're going to strip it. But it's like if you need a little more on a hex key and you just have the little the little thing or you need to use like the skinny side of a hex key for some reason, you put the loop of a crescent wrench around it and now you got a big lever and you can you can torque it and you can use it as a hammer. I mean, anything's a hammer if you believe in yourself.

Robin: But if you use it wrong enough, I remember Travis having a cold steel aluminum pipe or something like that that would just create leverage. He would keep that on on a trip. Or was that me? I don't know. It was a whoever.

Travis: Yeah. I do have like, I think it's a piece of an old trampoline. Yeah. And it's like, it's like a four foot curved pipe. And like, sometimes you just throw that on the end of your breaker bar. No, it's like that's what happens before you break the break the torches out.

Brian: I like I carry a six inch adjustable wrench. And yeah, Sears Craftsman is no longer what it was. But a really good quality one is sold. It's under the channel lock name. And it's actually made by Auriga in Spain. And they're really good. Like I have a six inch one. It's kind of a wide mouth one. And you can you can put it on an axle and you can stomp it and and spin the axle nut off. I mean, it's really super strong. But yeah, so I do carry one.

Robin: Do you want to get into reheated rehash and do the third commandment? Sure. Why not?

Travis: Is that you shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain? Is that the third commandment?

Brian: You know, I wish I had lined these up with the actual commandments. Reheated rehash. Tasty leftovers served hot and crusty. In this segment, we'll read an excerpt from one of Brian or Robin's past TRO blog articles on sport touring motorcycles and discuss. Does it hold up? Do Brian and Robin disagree? And Travis, what would they say differently? What would they add?

Robin: Now, this one we've been returning to often. This is the Ten Commandments for the ST Ride Leader. We're on the third commandment. The number of hand signals shall be only three. And three shall be the number of hand signals. The less to remember, the better. The following three signals are all a ride leader needs while you're moving. And all are pretty obvious, so there's not much to remember. If you need to communicate something more elaborate, pull over and use your mouth words and ear holes. We're doing a U-turn. This is one finger in the air, twirled in a circle, yippee-ki-yay radio style. Yep, I screwed up and made a wrong turn. So spread out, stay sharp, and try not to run into each other. This one is necessary, and I've always needed it a lot because usually I realize I made a wrong turn pretty quickly, so everyone's still a little bunched up. U-turns are a somewhat surprising move. This is the one essential signal everybody needs to know. The other two would be, yo, we're going that way. Hand signals are not normally needed for turns. That's why we have, you know, turn signals. But once in a while it's not obvious, or you're coming up on a hidden turn, or you're at a five-way intersection in something, so you have to resort to pointing, that kind of thing. The next one, pass me, you magnificent beast. This is a wave around with a left hand. Add creative flourishes of encouragement as you deem necessary. One other signal is needed on some vintage roads and dual sport rides, where the bikes might not have kickstand cutouts, as we call in the MSF, sidestands, Brian. We don't kick anything. You left your sidestand down, dipstick is three quick horn beeps. This quickly turns into a formless group beep bang, but usually is fairly effective. All right, so I agree, except for the vehemently disagree with the word kickstand. That's just, that's mean.

Brian: So we don't, that's an MSF thing. It's a sidestand.

Robin: Yeah, it's a cutoff switch. It's not a kill switch.

Travis: If you are on a flying brick, it's a smoky start stand.

Brian: Yeah. Now, this is shocking to people who like, like if you're going on a ride with a couple of certain brands of people and riding motorcycles, they're actually going to have a chart that's got about 20 hand signals on it. And you have to memorize the whole thing. And, you know, you have to know, you have to have a pretty good vocabulary in ASL.

Travis: I see those memes every spring. They start coming around on the Facebook of like, know the hand signals.

Robin: Yeah, it's actually on the article. And if you want to know the article identification number is 23030. So if you go to TRO.Bike forward slash question mark P equals 23030. That's TRO.Bike forward slash question mark P equals 23030. You can read our 10 commandments for the ST Ride Leader as written by the one and only Brian Ringer. I'm working on a system to make it easier to read the identification number and just they don't have to, the question mark, blah, blah, blah. They don't have to do that, but haven't gotten there yet. So deal with it, folks. Yeah. But we have the hand signal chart on there. I personally feel it's the best one because of its commentary about the Shrek movies.

Brian: Yeah, and like these are the ones I found. That's all you need while you're moving. Otherwise, just pull over and talk about it. And the pass me signal is relates to number two, where thou shalt pass and be passed.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: So it's a little bit of a callback.

Robin: Yes.

Brian: You basically, you want people to stretch out over time and you want them to get further apart. You want them to get safer. And so sometimes people need to be encouraged. Hey, if you're haunting my mirrors, come on around, go put on a show. Show me what you're made of. You're magnificent. Go for it. That's how it's done. So we want people to encourage each other, you know, pass, you know, come on around, you know, that kind of thing. And in the kickstand thing, yeah, like the, I'm sorry, the sidestand thing. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. You're welcome, Robin. You're very welcome. Like on dual sport bikes, these damn things always fail. So you just, you take them out or you bypass them. And on vintage bikes, you know, more than once somebody's gone down because on the vintage bike, it turns on a light on the dash, but it doesn't cut the bike off. So we developed that on the vintage Suzuki world, you know, basically it just turns in a beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And everybody looks at their sidestand.

Travis: Yeah.

Brian: They figure it out.

Travis: Yeah. I think the, in that vein, the turn signal, the like do the blinky hand. Yeah, that can help. Yeah. I mean, it's not like a safety issue, but you don't want to be the asshole driving around with your turn signal on the whole time.

Robin: And event, what is it? An eventual left.

Travis: Eventually you're going to turn that way, I suppose. But the, I do that all the time on my moped because it doesn't have the like center click. You just have to like slide it to the left and then slide it to the center and then slide it to the right and then slide it to the center. So I leave my blinker on all the time on accident, even though I can see them because it's a moped. Yeah.