Robin: Hi, how the hell are you, Robin? I'm all right. You know, we're two bikes down right now, but that means we have a scooter. That's what that means. We have a scooter.

Brian: Thank God you have a scooter.

Robin: You know, all God's children's got problems is what Kelly Howard would say. So Kelly, if you're out there, shout out. My thinking is that if I've had a day in the garage, as you're familiar with having a day in the garage. I had one today, yes. You know, we start these things in the evenings. And if I've had an entire day in the garage and at that with more than one machine, then it's going to be harder for me to say, okay, let's go look at Virginia and figure out how we're going to get halfway to Maggie Valley in North Carolina with any real focus. A day like this stipulates. That's why we have an outline. That's why Brian came up with an outline for us. He said, here's what you need. Here's what we're going to do. You can count on this.

Brian: And this outline is a living document. We keep adding to it all the time, taking stuff out, but poops in it, but in poops in the mark, you know, a topic for next time. I don't know why poops, but hey, they're there.

Robin: Well, I've come to the conclusion that you are incapable of selecting a responsible emoji. It's always the eggplant, eggplant sploosh. Yeah. And poop got to say, yo, thanks for the ATF front suspension tip that worked out.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: My suspension is topped up.

Brian: It was like two, it was like two tablespoons you needed or something. It was a tiny amount.

Robin: Yeah. It was next to nothing. I had filled up one side with, it says 304, 304 milliliters.

Brian: Okay. 304, not five, not three.

Robin: Get out your atomic measure.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. And the other side gets six 80, but that one, I noticed the, I was 50 milliliters off and they want it to be topped up as well. I think it's going up there. You want to see it get to the top of the tube. So I didn't know what to do. Cause I bought a bottle of whatever, 7.5 weight, by the way, BMW now recommends for all of their bikes, 11 weight fork oil reason, because it's easier for them to just ship that instead of what your bike originally called for.

Brian: So this is BMW OEM elixir of forking. Okay. Yeah. Elixirs of forking, whatever that is in German. I'm sure it's a very long word and I'm sure it's actually made in like the Philippines or something like that. Like they're acting like it's from Germany, like it's squozing from, you know, German unicorns and cows or something. Anyway. Yeah.

Robin: But the catch, the punchline is that my bike from the start and other bikes have called for 7.5 weight. And now they're saying, no, go with 11 weight. And the known reason is because that way they don't have to ship different weights. They can just ship bulk orders of 11 weight. I don't even know if it matters that much, but I did say, no, I'll go with the 7.5 weight. I called around. What can I use in place of BMW? Now you ask any BMW owner who doesn't actually ride their bike. They're going to say, oh, no, no, you can't. It has to be the BMW oil. And then the dealership has to do it. So I got some, uh, McOil 7.5 weight, and it didn't have enough in there.

Brian: You're going to get letters. People are going to go find a stamp and try to figure out where to send it.

Robin: Yeah, but I got the oil, the oil's in there. And then I was missing 50 milliliters. And Brian of course was there to save the day and say, you can use ATF. People have done that. And I got some automatic transmission fluid. And now that is filled up to the brim.

Brian: Should be okay. Probably.

Robin: And Maggie has surpassed me on her bike's diagnosis procedures. She's read the entire Hanes manual and is like pulling stuff apart, putting stuff back together, checking lines, checking connections. I started to have a little bit of a personal fit trying to get the EVAP hose back onto her bike.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: She got it on. This was the gateway. This was the groundbreaking moment. She said, here, let me try. And I was like, okay. And she got it on.

Brian: Get in there with your lady fingers and oh, okay. Yes. Tiny Asian hands. Robin, I'm, um, I don't, I don't mean to disparage you or anything, but I, I get the impression she's the brains of the outfit. It's been that way for years.

Robin: Once I met her, I just sort of surrendered it like, okay, you take over here are the reins.

Brian: Good. Yeah. I got, I get that impression now. Yeah. That's good. And yeah. And the more, you know, about your machine. Yeah. It just makes it better. And she's, she's, she's really been leaning into that and, and like, it's not just because there's a problem. It's like, oh, okay. This is good to know. This is good. Yeah. And also, yeah. Uh, if having tiny fingers, I don't remember how big her fingers are. I assume they're small fingers, but, uh, yeah, having little fingers is going to got to be better for working on motorcycles.

Robin: No joke. Yeah. The other thing in the mix here is that my bike is in pieces because I'm getting parts painted and had to do all kinds of mass maintenance. Fork oil, for example, is one of the air filter, other things doing some bed liner painting of my own, not going well, but a little wet sanding, you know, take a, take a step back and remember this just graze it and walk away and call it done.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: Yeah. So there's some like faded black parts, faded black parts on the motor cover and up towards the dash. So I was like, I'll just bed liner. So I saw Bob Theodore, our friend Bob Theodore had done that several times, pulled them apart and I sprayed them and I just got too zealous. I put them all together inside of a tire and just got about two feet above. This is the key is start spraying away and then bring the cloud in.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: But then I got so much, you know, like a drummer, I was just like, shake everything everywhere, make it all happen. And then walk away. And I came back and yeah, there's a couple of runs. That's what I'm talking about.

Brian: And this is like bed liner stuff. Okay.

Robin: It's not really, they say that, but it's more just like textured paint that goes on easy. It's just black. Okay. The other stuff's actually getting painted. So I'm waiting for that to come back. The painter's kind of on infinite loop. I call them up. So how are things going? Well, I mean, did you decide what you wanted to do yet? Like that conversation has been had four times. Yes. You have an email. The fender is going to be stock gray, carbon fiber or not. I want you to paint it. The other stuff, just clear coat. Okay. Well you let me know when you know what you want to do.

Brian: Yeah. It's all the chemicals, uh, you know, painters, painters have their own, um, ways of thinking, I think.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. This is that lull, that moment of, of calm and pause while I just get things done. Like I did have that bolt break off in the motor. It's still in there. I'm going to probably tape the part on and go to a welder, weld on a nut, have them gently work it back. If that doesn't work, then we'll do the left-handed drill and the taps and all that stuff.

Brian: And yeah, yeah. Worth a try. Yeah. You said something about a welder. I'm like, what? You, you, you suddenly like a welder appear. Oh, I forgot I had this welder.

Robin: There's a welder here, but they would want me to get it started. And they, cause they can't get it started. So I'd have to figure out, I'd have to go fix their motor so they can come and fix my motor, which actually feels kind of fair to me. I'd have to talk to the owners, but no, I'll probably take it to Joe Godin.

Brian: Yeah. And he's a, he's a hell of a metal worker. So if anybody can make that work, cause I've, I've tried, I've tried the weld a nut trick using my crappy Harbor freight welder and it didn't go anywhere, you know, and maybe it was me.

Robin: Your suggestions are the next step. And I don't think I'll be getting out of this without knowing that information in the future. I had a question for you. Yes, sir. So I'm writing this article about new learning. The title is going to be new versus new with a K. You made some really excellent suggestions as an assistant editor, just helping me get this thing to happen. Yeah. And one of the things you brought up was the discussion of those who don't have goals. I love it. I can write in that direction, but isn't just taking the class, a goal in and of itself. If you decided something you want to do.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I guess, I guess that, yeah, and then that's a whole separate discussion. That's a whole separate article. And maybe we can have that discussion here is what, you know, people, if you have, if you just walk up and, you know, and Hey, yo, what are your writing goals? And most people fire back. Oh, I want to, you know, where they want to go, you know, or I want to go do this, or I want to ride this road, or I want to go to, you know, I want to ride the dragon and, you know, or ride the world, the wooly worm or whatever the road is, or they want to go to, you know, or they want to go to Texas and, or, or whatever. Um, and. You know, I was thinking about it too, is kind of like, I can have a lot of goals for training and so forth, but there's only so much that makes it anywhere near Indiana. So I've done that, like the, like I did the, uh, so you take what you can get with.

Robin: Oh, sure.

Brian: Yeah. So like, I would love to take, you know, like the, like the Keith code glass, but going to California is not in the, not in the cards. Um, Clinton Smote has a, he's this, you know, incredible, uh, dual sport trainer has an incredible course, but it's like somewhere in the wilds of Ontario. And a couple of us have actually looked at doing this and actually looked at what the logistics are. Like, how do you get to, you know, get yourself on a motorcycle in new Ontario, and then you got to go to this remote place and then you're, you know, and everything's the money's funny. And it's like finding curly from the city slickers. Something like that. Yeah. Just, just, just turns into a whole thing and, you know, that didn't work out, but, and then if you want to go out East, you know, there's some training there. Different track. There are some good track days in the Midwest. I haven't been to, um, I did do the Lee parks training, but it was, you know, it was in Chicago and then did the second part of it. Uh, the second, whatever they call the follow-up. I don't remember. Maybe it's just part two. Did that actually did that in Indianapolis? They actually had it at one of the dealerships here. Um, and then there was a, there was a dual sport class or an adventure writing class that just popped up out of nowhere in middle of Indiana. And so I jumped on that and, you know, learned a lot.

Robin: So in your suggestions for the editing, you mentioned adjusting some things to also make mention of those without goals. Should I translate that more into people who are going to have opportunities that they need to seize on as they arrive?

Brian: Well, I was talking about like, you know, have your goals and so forth. And then when you show up at the class, just throw it out the window. Oh, nice. So it's more like, yeah, like have to have your long-term goals or like, I just want to become a better writer is, is a goal. Uh, however I can do that. You know, that, that could be a goal or someone may be like, you know, a lot of people, for example, are, uh, like they have trouble with left turns or right turns or something like that. Yeah. And so they may have specific goals. Like I want to get over that or I want to learn, I want to be better at breaking, or I want to, you know, I don't want to be afraid when I'm on a downhill and it's on a gravel and it's mud and there are bears and, you know, so, so you can have different, yeah, you can have different specific goals. And then when you show up at the class, just throw it out, shut your mind off and open yourself to the experience. That's what I was getting at. So you both have to have goals when you, and then when you get there, throw them out the window and be there for what is happening and what the instructor is doing.

Robin: Vertical thinking in the present, in the now, accepting the information and trying to implement it. I like that. We'll argue about that again more, because I'm not sure if we're talking about the same shit, but I sure, I sure as hell like what you just said about it a lot.

Brian: Yeah. Except if you're showing up at like the, uh, the, the one that was a complete waste, I showed up at the experience writer course, uh, it was NMSF and this was a long time ago. Maybe it's better now, but that was pointless. That was, that was a day of nothing.

Robin: The new arc, which is no longer new. It's not really advanced. We do hint at trailblazing. There are some amazing exercises to practice in those lots. A lot of it is about G-force and how to react on the fly in a sudden manner. We've said that a thousand times. There's a lot of stuff out there that is more deserving of the word advanced. Good way to put it. Anyhow, how are you doing? What's good. I see you got some notes there.

Brian: Doing good, doing good. I, um, I, I did something today I never do. And, and I know we, I said that last time when I bought a new jacket, but, uh, I also, I, I, uh, changed the tires on my bike, which I do a lot. Um, I do a lot of tire changing, but, uh, that's nothing new. Uh, and actually just for the record does about 6,200 miles on those, uh, Dunlop, uh, road smart threes. I mean, that's not bad. That's not bad for, yeah. And, and normal people will probably get a lot more, uh, out of those. I tend to get pretty crappy. Yeah. And they were, they were Roach. I showed you the picture last week and, and, uh, yeah, that, that there, that is the cover image for that episode.

Robin: Yeah. Fried tires, extra crispy anyway.

Brian: Yeah. So I, I thought it was 8,000, but it's 6,200 pretty, you know, I'm happy with that. And, uh, just, just got those on today. And then, uh, like, man, my hands are all dirty. So I did something I never do. And I washed the bike. No. Yeah. All that, all that protective dirt is, is, is off there. A lot of it's off there. I left, I left a lot of the dirt, like it down in the nooks and crannies. I didn't get in there with a brush and pipe cleaners and tools or anything. I just, I just sort of slopped some crap on there and wiped, you know, it looks better.

Robin: Your beloved GS. Do you never just be like, this is a history relic of motorcycling that now, and then in the winter, you just immortalized shower and love and maintenance or.

Brian: Oh, it gets, it gets love and maintenance. It doesn't get like what you'd call a lot of soap or anything like that. Like the, you didn't paint the engine or repaint the frame. No, no, no, no. Yeah. No, I did. Like when I built the engine is in there now I painted it and, and, you know, it looks whatever, but, uh, the, uh, yeah, it looks like what it looks like. Yeah. Usually I will, I'll get ready to go to like the first rally in June for the vintage rally. And I go, yeah, this looks kind of crappy and I'll, you know, I'll do, I'll do some basic, like I'm really bad at it and I'll do some basic cleaning and whatever, and wipe some stuff off and, and, and go and call it a day. Uh, I did find out I need new brake pads.

Robin: So on the, on the, on the Yamaha C that is the best part of a detailing a bike is when you're detailing a bike. You'll be like, Oh, I can see there's some grit in there. And you get in there with the wire brush or whatever, a pick, and you just give all that grit. That is a piece of my piston rain. I better do something that you can discover problems if you're detailing. Cause your eyes are scrutinizing. I guess.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and like when you change your own tires that, you know, I basically during, during the tire change, I was like, Oh, these are getting thin. And I was thinking back to when I was buying brake pads. I'm like, yeah, that was a while ago. That was somewhere around 18,000 miles, which is not bad. Uh, they're, they're, you know, they're aftermarket EBC. They're not the stock Yamaha ones last for fricking ever, but they're also feel like wood. So anyway, got to order up a set of those and, uh, other than that went fine. And I'm, I'm still working on the GS. I need to, I need to order some, uh, some, uh, studs. Like I, I got the, the helical oil done on the one that was stripped out, but I need, and I bought some studs to put them in there. And they're just a little too short. Like why I could make it work. If I were, you know, if I had to ride this bike tomorrow, but what's this for the head? Yeah. The exhaust mounting studs for the cylinder.

Robin: Okay. Yeah.

Brian: Like it, like it did use bolts, but they, you know, 40 years of off and on for various reasons, uh, they get kind of nasty. And so a lot of people just convert to studs and use studs and nuts. And, uh, that way you're not wearing out the cylinder head.

Robin: It makes sense. I think my BMR has that in place. My depending on the temperature, I'm starting to hear a certain wispiness to the actual exhaust. I'm hearing instead of a growl, the letter F is somewhere in there instead of just the letter P and G and R, you know, it's a little bit more, uh, well, that that's probably not at the, if it's a leak at the cylinder head, it'll sound like a tapping or ticking. Oh, okay.

Brian: It's percussive. Yeah. And if it's further back in the exhaust, which I also, it's a whole nother saga on the GS because they're these expense, they actually can't get them anymore. There's somebody in Norway making them. It's ridiculous. But anyway, there's these little gaskets that go, uh, kind of under the engine to tie together the back and the front of the exhaust. Anyway, uh, those were bad and yeah, you could, so those are making little farting noises under there.

Robin: That's the sound. That's the sound I'm hearing is like, it's in every pulse of the cylinder. Yeah. I can see the, I've been in the garage on your face. There are times when we are ramped and we're going for it and we're having our conversation. There are times when you're just like, uh, you ask, this is a good question. What have you learned about motorcycling this week? We got to try that. What have you learned about motorcycling this week?

Brian: I put the question down, but I don't have an answer in mind.

Robin: I learned that you can be in the best location for riding possible and still need downtime to do some very real maintenance on your bike. It's got to be winter somewhere, right? Yeah. So that is allowed. I've got all this beautiful riding around me and it's driving me crazy that we don't have a bike on at the ready. But fact is, is that we're trying and we're out there together, hanging out, working on bikes. It's, it's a bit of a pleasure. Not everybody likes to wrench. That's all right. No biggie. Whatever.

Brian: Yeah, that's true.

Robin: Real quick on the website, updates, revisits, announcements, corrections, here's all we got. Uh, our eBay motorcycle ads that are at the bottom, right? Towards the comments. They don't really do shit. So I'm going to replace that with a right for TRO link. We used to have a right for TRO link. It was a giant picture of a laptop in the middle of the road and the laptop looked like it was running windows ME or maybe XP. It's time to update that. So I'm going to try to find a nice high res image of a laptop on the road kind of thing and just say, Hey, right for TRO dot bike. We would welcome that. We're always looking for new content to sell things through. So if you want, you can visit TRO dot bike forward slash contribute or go to TRO dot bike and mouse over about and support TRO and scroll down the bottom. Now we've been preloaded with these questions long enough and it's time for us to address them.

Brian: Dun, dun, dun.

Robin: The first one I can handle. Okay. So stuff our listeners have asked or might ask if you'd like us to field your questions in the future, you can email us at podcast at TRO dot bike. That's podcast at TRO dot bike. Send us your questions. We'll do our best to field them. You will get an answer of some kind. Whether or not it's worth hearing is for you to determine, but Neil Sullivan asks, are there any easier methods to generate curves on the fly? And, you know, we'd list out a couple here. We talk about Garmin. So I've got the Garmin Navi six. I think I don't even know the Navi five, the Navi four, the Navi six. I feel like there's a Roman numeral in there, the subtract or addition. I don't remember. But the point is that I've got this Garmin that will find twisty roads for you. False.

Brian: It will take you to the interstate again. Is that one of those?

Robin: It will take you to really big sweepers on painted line roads. It will not take you into what we would as sport tours truly dub the good stuff. It won't do it. It will only take you on a commute that is curvier, which I guess that's not so bad. But in the end, Garmin is not they're not doing it. Now, I remember when we were doing the Can-Am gig, the marketing team that hired us to do that, they were big into Calimoto. I think that it was accessible. I think it's one that they could exemplify to the other people who are going to be signing up to do this. I was not going to use it at all. I knew it right out the gates. I already got what I like. I use ride with GPS. Now that doesn't find curvy roads, but you and I do. Right. So I knew what I wanted to do. But Calimoto is not terrible. It does have some bugs. So Calimoto, I think it's available on iPhone and Android. Calimoto does all right. It's popular, but it does have some fierce algo issues in that it doesn't really know how to translate what is a road or a bike path or a roundabout or the middle of a curvy mall hallway. Yeah. If it sees geometry on a map image, it may predict that that's a good way to go and send you into an overzoomed bowl of spaghetti at local Italian restaurant.

Brian: Okay. Yeah. Use with caution. I'm looking at Calimoto. It does look like it has a really interesting sharing feature.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: And so I pointed it at the area I know best, Indiana, Kentucky, and there's kind of some... Yeah, it's a little lame. Yeah, there's some of these routes. People don't seem to quite understand the assignment, but that's people. But yeah. But anyway, and that's any... I remember getting really upset once when somebody was like, one of the best roads in Indiana is State Road 12. And State Road 12 basically follows the shore of Lake Michigan, except you can't see the lake. So you're on this nearly perfectly straight road going from South Bend to Gary or something. I'm like, this is not... Anyway. Yeah. But that's not the app's problem.

Robin: The rider might not have been on what they thought they were on or some crap like that.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Well, okay. So moving right along, another option, Curviger. I find Curviger to be pretty dang entertaining. It's pretty fun to goof with. So it's got all of the same glitchy behavior that Kalimodo might have, but it is a little bit more innocent in that clearly if their website hasn't changed since the last time I looked at it, and I'm not looking at it. Brian's looking at it right now. But that website hasn't been updated since it was taken off of the GeoCity servers. It's the same starting Java kind of vibe. Curviger, if you pick two points, it will give you a fairly complicated map full of information. And a lot of it will be correct. Some of it will be uselessly dangerous. Don't use that. But it does its best in a slightly better way by my judgment than Kalimodo. Curviger is a little bit more erector set to Kalimodo's Legos. It's a dated reference, but the point is if you know an erector set versus space Legos or any of that, then you'll get what I'm talking about here. But it's pretty good if you want to create a GPX file and then export it. I don't think it's really using road names, but if you import it into something that can click to roads after the fact, you may have just found yourself a winner. Kalimodo, C-A-L-I-M-O-T-O, Curviger, K-U-R-V-I-G-E-R. You got anything you want to add to that?

Brian: Yeah, I was playing around with Curviger and interesting. Yeah, and it kind of, it went right past some really good stuff and stayed on the straight line. Anyway, but yeah, these are all worth a try. And there was another one I just stuck in there called roadcurvature.com. And it is, I think the thing with all of these is they're sources of information and it basically gives you a heat map of where all the twists are, all the wiggly bits are. And so it gives you some, and all these like give you information, but you still have to put it together into something that makes sense and it's legal and it's not going to send you through the middle of a reservoir or something. So that's kind of, you know, that's kind of the interesting, all these are just good sources, but you still have to put it together somehow. So you have to get on a ride with GPS or whatever.

Robin: Well, I'm checking it out right now and they've got Kentucky East State Highway 22 right there. That's pretty neat.

Brian: Yeah. Like somebody who, yeah. Like somebody who'd never been there, saw notice 22 and 10 and like, oh, okay. Which, and that's correct. I mean, they're ridiculously wonderful.

Robin: So yeah, they've got Idaho here too. And they're showing some stuff that's parallel to 95. This is a road I'm going to have to ride. Looks like I've got plans for 26. I'm going to Idaho again. My goodness. Excellent. Which by the way, I've still got some Idaho in my sandals. That grass, it's straight out of Aeon Flux. The opening to Aeon Flux, if you know the history of this animation, is that even the grass is a weapon. It's like this crazy poison. So next question, are you ready for this one?

Brian: Sure. The Brown Streak.

Robin: Yeah. Dale Dunn, the Brown Streak wants us to discuss how to crash parentheses before, during, and after the dismount as in crash control. So God, it's a loaded.

Brian: That can mean a lot of things.

Robin: Well, okay. So let's talk about these three versions before, during, and after. Okay. So during and after, I'm prepared to entertain, but the before part is the biggest middle finger to a question I can possibly give. A little backstory, and this story is extremely embellished. I'm going to tell this story in a way that's fun to listen to instead of the way it actually happened. But I was at a track day with friends and I had just gotten done with a session and I hopped off the bike and I sat down. I didn't have the shakes, but I definitely had a moment on the track. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. I don't remember which turn it was, but I went for it in a particular lap and I almost lost control of the bike and that wasn't good and it bothered me. And everybody in the rest of our crew was kind of discussing their moments too, and we were sitting back. But when I told my bit about that turn, there's a guy that would be at these track days with us. He's an older gentleman and he's usually hanging out with us, but he's usually about 10 feet or 20 feet away from us, asleep in a chair. So when his session comes on, he just gets up, he's on the bike, he rides, he comes back, he sits down, he falls back to sleep. Okay.

Brian: He's got a gift, apparently.

Robin: He's Grandpa Simpson-ing the whole thing, but he's got a shotgun of a motorcycle ready to go. He hears these tails go around and then he hears mine. His head is leaning back, he is snoring, and he just wakes up out of nowhere. He leans forward, he says, Robin, when you get to the turn, turn! And then he puts his head back down and he goes right back to sleep. My response to this comment that's trying to be a question is before the crash, the steps you can take are one, don't crash. Yeah. Brian has said in previous episodes, keep flying the plane. I love that comment, but we can expand on this in a way that really hones in on the listener and says, look, no matter what the status of your introduction to a crash is, continue riding the bike and insist on maneuvering the machine. Don't maneuver your way to the lightest landing or the lightest crash. Maneuver yourself to where the crash isn't, because crashing is sort of like fighting. Fighting hurts.

Brian: Don't do it.

Robin: How to before crash is to stop crashing. As you are beginning to crash, cease to do so, and then get back to the riding version of it, and then maybe take a break and rethink your decision-making process.

Brian: I'll give an example of a way that people crash and then should not crash. And I know this is difficult to say, just don't do that, but target fixation is a really good example of something that happens to people, causes all kinds of crashes and all kinds of trouble. And it's one of those where you have to keep flying the plane, look where you want to go. So yeah, target fixation is a good example of a thing that happens and it can make you crash, but it does not need to. So, you know, if there's a rock in the road, a lot of riders are just going to hit the damn thing and they're going to crash. Now, I've said a couple of times, I've survived some serious street crashes. I hit one deer, hit a car of some sort. Now, what I was going to talk about is that second one where I hit a car. I'm really proud of the fact that I had no idea what kind of car it was I hit, because I wasn't looking at the car. Yeah. The car really wanted my attention, don't get me wrong. But I was looking where I wanted to go and I kept flying that goddamn plane as long as I could. Didn't work out. Apparently the hang time was spectacular. But anyway, according to witnesses, the hang time was just phenomenal. But I'm really proud of the fact that I had no idea what car it was I hit. I actually didn't even know what part of the car hit me. You know, all I knew was I was trying to get around the car as hard as I could, looking where I wanted to go. I was doing, you know, so I was doing all the not crashing I could. It didn't work out that time.

Robin: But yeah, this isn't to say we're not guilty. When I hit my second deer, my exact words going through my head were, well, this is going to be expensive. I've said this on the podcast before. I came around the corner. I saw the yearling out of my left corner of my eye and I said, well, let's see what we're going to do here. And I went wide. I judged that I had no cars ahead of me. I could make sense of the road. It was a straight, so I was doing my best. I was breaking. I was breaking. I was slowing. I was slowing. And those two coordinates down to an inch were going to meet no matter what. It's just how it went. So I tried not to hit it. But right beforehand, I thought, well, I got to call the insurance company. I just chopped the throttle, just chopped it because it was going to hit. I was like, so I opened up my suspension into like a shark mouth, got the front end off of the front wheel. Boom, just ate it. That was within a foot that I knew that it's happening. Damn it. I did everything I could. Yeah. I wanted to not have that happen.

Brian: Yeah. Target fixation is one thing that happens. And emergency braking, people screwing up emergency braking is another thing that can happen. Or like when you go down to the dragon, stupid name for road, whatever. One of the features you'll see is a straight black line on the pavement pointing at disturbed vegetation or like a fresh spot in the rocks. And that's because it's so common for people to get scared in a corner. And really there's no obstacle. They just got scared, nail the rear brake, and then just stay on it and not use the front brake. So that's an error that happens.

Robin: And a high side was born.

Brian: Yeah. And a high side was born. And that's an example of, oh, I'm scared. I'm going to stop flying the plane. I'm just going to clamp down and I'm becoming a passenger of physics. We're just going to see what the universe brings me. The point is you're giving up control way too early a lot of times.

Robin: Yeah. A split second of lack of control and I've had a moment. That's it. It's not about hoping and skidding through 30 yards of, let's see what happens. When you actually are doing your best, a millisecond of, I don't know, is enough that you and I are like, oh boy. Yeah. I've been riding with Brian for a long time now and it's taken years to catch up to that mindset and nothing's changed for them. They've been consistent. The experience has grown, but I've only in the past five years, I think, arrived at trying to keep that calm centered perspective while in the ride. But that brings us to the second part during the crash.

Brian: Yeah. Sometimes you have room. Sometimes you don't. Now, one, I'll bring up something here. If you're doing a dual sport riding, if you're doing off-road riding, then speeds are usually much lower, usually. There is an art to the dismount. There is a legitimate art that one can figure out for the dismount because there is a time to hang on and there's a time to try to keep your thing upright and there's a time to just let it go and get out of the way. Obviously, that takes a lot of judgment and there's always risk, no matter what. But I've fallen down off-road a lot and I don't really count that as a crash. It's just part of one of the things that happens. And you can hurt yourself a lot worse if you just won't give up when it's time to give up. It's time to turn, turn. But when it's time to let go and let the bike down and so forth. And again, you don't have time for that at most street speeds. You get about 30, 40 miles an hour. The human body does not have that capacity.

Robin: Yeah. That's my response would be the ball up thing because I'm thinking pavement and curves. But what you're talking about, I'm learning something here. This is great. Keep going.

Brian: Yeah. If it's a low speed and so forth, for example, you can really hurt your groin. You can spread yourself out way too hard if you're trying to keep one leg down and keep a bike upright off-road. Just let it go. There's that caveat. I feel like on the street, given my experience, there's very, very little time to do anything with yourself coherent. If you can try to keep your hand, try not to catch yourself with your hands. That's the hard.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: If you can ball up, like you said, bring your hands. That's really incredibly difficult. There's no, you know, in my experience, there's no time. I believe me. I remember every damn microsecond of it all, but it's just, bam. If you're at any kind of speed, you're whatever.

Robin: It's one of the weird things about a conversation like this is that discussing this, I can either go one of two ways on my next ride. Either I'm going to drop my guard because of this conversation feeling like, well, I've answered that question. I'll be fine. I'm the source. Now, I'm just another guy on two wheels. The other version is now I'm going to be super paranoid for a little bit and then get back to, you know, like that's not the worst thing, I guess.

Brian: Yeah. You got to, yeah. It's finding that balance, but the, yeah. So there is a legitimate, like, okay, I'm going to fall off. I need to, I need to make this hurt less. And it's lower speeds. You can do that. If you're, you know, like a, like if you're on a, if you're off road and you're trying to climb up a hill, you're literally at zero miles per hour when, when you just, when, when the cause is lost and you need to get, you need to bail. No problem. Just step away. Hopefully the bike doesn't go tumbling down, you know, but on the road, yeah. Down the road, there's less of a, yeah. There's a much less or usually no opportunity to do that kind of thing. So that there's a difference there.

Robin: Agreed. He also brings up after the dismount, which I'll attribute to being done with it, but you're stopped. The bike has crashed. You're on the side of the road someplace and you're coming too. So let's talk about being alone on a ride like that. I'm surrounded by beautiful roads. They're all rural. Some of them have guardrails. Some of them don't. So let's say that I'm on the side of the road and I've just crashed. You should know first aid for motorcycling anyhow, but to be able to self-assess, how do you judge? Am I concussed? Is my heart rate steady? Are any limbs broken? Am I in shock? Do I have what I need to maneuver my body back to anything that is civilization? At the very least, have a whistle that's loud enough that all you have to do is take a deep breath and exhale into that whistle and call out to the general, well, whatever wildlife might eat you. That'll help too, right? But the point is...

Brian: Yeah, get it over with.

Robin: Yeah, put me out. But the point is that you have to bring a big, loud whistle that can call a different continent if they had to so that if you're not sure, you at least have that going for you. Yeah. I think I talked about this last time that during a ride in Red River Gorge, I had what was almost a double low side. And it was all because we were on a park road that was slick as snot in the rain, like fresh seal coat. Yeah, super slick seal coat. The bike went down to the left and the crash bars were a millimeter off the ground and it came back up and I gained control. But at the next curve, it kind of did the same thing to the right. I was just like, fine, my goodness. This really shook me up. So one thing I kept hearing about is accident scene management. This is a class you can take. Highly recommended. If you come up on some people that are in the middle of a blind curve and they're like, yeah, we'll stay here. Well, the longer they stay there, you need to have somebody go to where that blind curve begins and flag people down to be like, hey, you're going to encounter some noise up ahead. Be prepared. And there needs to be two people doing that. Oncoming traffic and same direction traffic causes a bigger hazard. So what would you add to the after the crash mentality?

Brian: Yeah. And again, two doofuses on a podcast aren't going to tell you how to self-assess how hurt you are.

Robin: Yeah, I haven't said this in a long time, but fuck you very much, Dale, for that question.

Brian: Yeah, really. And by the way, this is a digression. Dale called me out because I dubbed him the brown streak because his bike is and actually his bike is partially brown. It's actually technically mostly black. I think he changed a tank, although it's it's still brown with a lot of rust. And then the trunk is brown and the seat is. So anyway, I dubbed him the brown streak, even though it's sort of the black and brown streak is his bike.

Robin: So basically he he ate from both bowls of bean dip before he rode that machine is what's going on.

Brian: Yeah, it's a bowl of bean dip and the chips, let me tell you. Anyway, but yeah, yeah, Dale, you're awesome. You do things that nobody should ever do on on a old shafty.

Robin: Brilliant writer. If you get to hang out with Dale Dunn, the answer is yes, just do it.

Brian: Anyway, back to our topic, the biggest thing I would say is, OK, let's say you landed and I've never had a concussion from a motorcycle crash or whatever. So anyway, let's say you're landed and so forth. Don't jump up. Take a minute. Take a minute. Systems check, you know, reboot whatever your terminology makes sense in your brain. Because and this is a common, like, if you do any corner work at a racetrack or things like that, it's really common for people to just they're they're upset, they're angry, they're mad, they're they're embarrassed, they're whatever. And they'll jump right up and hurt themselves even worse. So if you're whether you're by yourself or whatever, just stay there just a minute. Make sure you have all your fingers and toes and limbs.

Robin: But if I can conclude this, the point is, don't crash. Yeah. Crashing isn't a technique. It's not a decision. It only happens outside of our controlled efforts to avoid doing so. Never focus on the how do I go about this crash and instead make a concerted effort to either not or at least uncrash, even when you think there's no other option. Agreed?

Brian: Yeah, I agree. Keep flying the plane. And, you know, and again, off roads about the only place you can really plan a dismount. Otherwise, you're just kind of.

Robin: I did like that. That was a lot of information that you didn't know any of that stuff.

Brian: Yeah. And one of the things we could talk about later is things like having a spot, you know, one of those satellite communicator, like where you hit the panic button and they send out the National Guard or whatever it is they do. I think that's a different discussion because I don't know much about them.

Robin: Let's skip Maptastic Mayhem for next episode. Always next episode. And we know what we're trying to do. We're trying to get from Warm Springs, Virginia to maybe Mayberry, North Carolina is a Mayberry. It's like right on the border of North Carolina somewhere. We're trying to get from there to there in a way that doesn't involve anything that is isn't the scenery nice and more about aren't those roads great? That's the goal. You know this. Yeah. So we'll look at Maptastic Mayhem when I haven't been in my garage working on two bikes at the same time all freaking day. All right. Which brings us to Brian's Tiny Tasty Tool Tips.

Brian: You're going to do the jingle. One or two per episode. Excellent. Thanks, Robin. However long ago it was, I completely lost track of episode numbers, but we were talking with Tim and he mentioned something and I went, hmm, that sounds like a good idea. He said, carry a small headlamp in your toolkit because when you're working on your bike and you need to look into dark crevices or it's nighttime, just by the very nature, you're going to need both hands. Seems simple. I just had a couple of flashlights and he said that. I was like, oh. So anyway, I ended up searching the Brazilian River for, I wanted a headlamp that was small, that was rechargeable and also that took USB-C because that's what my phone has and that's and those are the cables I always have on the bike and even better if it can fast charge so it can get back to full brightness right away. The one I found is called Smiling Shark. I don't know why. I don't know, you know, whatever. And I'm sure more and more will come out. The point is USB-C recharging stays on my phone so I can charge it on the bike if I need to. It's always there and it's a tiny little booger and I don't know why they all have a flashing mode. I mean, who the hell needs that? So that was my, like, I took a tiny tasty tool tip from Tim. Tim's Brian's tiny tasty tool tips. One or two or three per episode. Yeah, and maybe we need to debate this, but I think we need to start, like, I'm almost, like we talked about tools that you bring with you that you bring on the road or whatever and it's starting to get a little, like, your bag could start getting a little heavy if you know what I mean. It does, yeah. So yeah, we could start talking about stuff that you need at home or in your home shop. So because those are tiny tasty tool tips too, except maybe they're bigger.

Robin: I like this.

Brian: Bigger, beefier tool tips. I'm going to start with, like, the biggest, beefiest tool I have, which is a table, which is my motorcycle lift. It's an air-powered motorcycle lift and mine actually, this is, it's kind of one of the most amazing things anyone's ever done for me, but basically a bunch of my friends that I ride with got together and also colluded with my wife and bought me a table lift, like a, like a good one that's, like, got an air cylinder that's powered by air and everything like that. That is awesome. They just, yeah, they just showed up one day in December and say, hey, like, hey, what are you guys doing here? Oh, well, here you go. And so we set up the table because all of them were frequent visitors to my shop and so forth. And so, yeah, it was really awesome and really thankful. And yeah, they all get free parts and service as long as I live. Anyway, it was really cool. It was very cool. But I tell you what, that having a lift, you know, having it, it's, you know, the table lift, it's got the clamp for the wheel and blah, blah, blah.

Robin: And clearly and concisely, what lift is it? Who makes it? What model?

Brian: That is a very good question. Hang on a second. So the one I have, let me make sure it's the right, like I know where it came from and I'm making sure I'm in the right. Yes. Okay. So basically the one I have came from, there's a company in Franklin, Indiana called Power Systems, complete DWI Power Systems, something like that. Anyway, it's in Franklin, Indiana, just south of Indianapolis. And that's where it came from. And it's called the TCML Motorcycle Lift. TCML Motorcycle Lift. Nice. TCML. Yeah. That's the one we have. And it's the one I have. And in this case, basically they just took a pickup down there and, you know, loaded it and brought it to me so I didn't have to do any shipping. I know a lot of people got a lot of good work done with the Harbor Freight Lift. They sell one that's, I forget how much it is, but it's a little more basic and it has like a hand, it has like a foot pump. So you just basically stomp this, you stomp this lever over and over and then you can order that from Harbor Freight. But yeah, the point is, if you're over like 30 years old, you really, and you ride motorcycles, you really need one of these because groveling around on the ground, you just, you know, oh, it sucks. We got to talk. Yeah.

Robin: If I could find one that is conducive to my lifestyle, that could be really, really cool. Let me see. Let me just make sure I, conducive to my lifestyle, meaning.

Brian: Yeah. Yes. You used it correctly. No. Yeah. So the one at Harbor Freight's like 550 bucks and you have to do something a little different with the wheel clamp because that sucks. But yeah, that works perfectly well. A lot of people have gotten a lot of good work done, but it's, and it's a hydraulic where you just pump it with your hand, with your foot. I mean, but yeah, getting it up in the air, you can really do a lot, much better work. You can concentrate easier. You can, you can set the level where you need it to be absolutely revolutionary, expensive, but extremely worth it. If you're, if you're doing, if you're, if you're, if you're into this motorcycling thing, like we kind of are. Yeah. Yeah. The one at Harbor Freight's like $550.

Robin: So I mean, I'm tempted. I might have to like modify it. I don't ever know if I'm going to definitely be on paved surfaces or dirt surfaces. So I need to figure out a way to make the lift work to my advantage. You know what I mean?

Brian: Yeah. And there, yeah. And there are different ways you can use to elevate a bike. You know, the lift is pretty damn heavy. So, and so, yeah, you're, you know, you've, you've got a heck of a, so maybe not, maybe, maybe a different creative solution.

Robin: A hoist might be better. You know, the pond, the pond would be good for you.

Brian: Two ladders and two ladders and a piece of rope, you know, something like that. I don't know. What are we doing next? Uncle Robin?

Robin: There are things I want to do, but we're getting low on time. So I just want to kind of keep on blasting through and say, next time we'll do that. I do know what I want to talk about for the next reheated rehash. You were thinking, well, is it boring? Do we really want to do this anymore? Where do you get off bringing your article into this one time for like six episodes? And then it's my turn finally. And you're like, well, maybe we just get rid of that segment. How rude, Brian Ringer. How very rude. We will begin a new reheated rehash and it will be based on the topic of sport touring motorcycles defined.

Brian: You're trying to start a fight, aren't you?

Robin: Yes. And I'll tell you, we're not going to do it this round because this conversation, the term sport touring has been made. It's been discussed. There are bikes that have the letters ST on them and they are sport bikes that just happen to have luggage on them. They are sport bikes with luggage. And that is the generic definition of what is a sport touring bike. Yet it never fails to arrive in an episode of the podcast where somebody says, well, I mean, what is sport touring really? It's a sport bike with luggage. Okay. So, and I can get loud about it, but in the end it does raise a very real question and it has to do with riding style mentality. Joe Conradi wrote a great article about is ADV the new ST and it's an excellent read. I don't agree with it because I prefer sportier bikes, but to bring the mindset and the character and the way you ride into the mix definitely quickly immediately divides that opinion by 50%. You have to bring in what does a person consider to be sporty? Because it could be hyper motard for all I know. And how are they riding it? How are they going about riding? So I want us to look deep into the topic of what is sport touring really and beat the living hell out of it. It's my turn and I'm going to take my freaking baton with me.

Brian: We will, we will, we will dig in. We will dig into this. We'll dig into it hard.

Robin: You need to put all of the poops next to that and map testing mayhem. Our next episode is going to be all that. I do think that it'd be kind of fun. Just one that guy that I'm going to choose because I saw it and it was cracking me up and that would be that guy with the peanut gas tank and the teacup bladder. I'm going to hold the reins for this one and pass it off to you here. This one goes out to the beloved Tom Burns who is one of my favorite people. I think you've met Tom. You've met Tom. You have. Have I? Okay. He came to Brown County, I believe. And I think he was with me for a Missouri rally as well. Tom Burns has a Honda Superhawk. That tank is marginally a gallon and a half. I don't know. Maybe it's two gallons. I don't know. Maybe it's two and a half gallons, but whatever it is, he's not going to make the 100 mile jaunt to the next gas stop. It'll make maybe 90 miles. And we were riding together, Maggie, myself, and Tom Burns. Big shout out to the awesome Tom Burns. And we approached an intersection and he was like, oh man, we need to stop for gas. I was like, I got you, man. It was a 90 mile thing, right? The gas station's right that we could see it. He's tilted on a hill and the gas goes to the back of the tank and the bike dies. So I have to take a water bottle and ride to the gas station, fill up the gas, bring it back to him, pour it in the tank so we can get him to the gas station. Tom Burns, I hereby declare that on that day, at that time, on that bike, you were that guy.

Brian: That was a Superhawk. Yeah. Yeah. Those got epically bad mileage too. Like they're in the, in the thirties. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, no.

Brian: Maybe, maybe in the thirties. Yeah. They were for some reason. Yeah. And, and I've had a couple of that guys. I'm not going to name them because maybe I've been that guy, but like to, uh, and especially when you're, you know, as you're getting older and the people you ride with get older. Yeah. We've talked about this before. Stop, stop after the first 30 minutes because everybody's going to have to, you know, coffee needs to be cast overboard. Uh, and you know, it's just going to happen. But yeah, I've, I've, yeah, I've had to stops and, and, and like we're in a, we're in a small town and there's a tree and there's some bushes over there and Oh, well there's, there's so-and-so I guess. All right.

Robin: I guess he's not going to wait until the next, uh, who's the punk in the Simpsons. Bye. Brian, you want to take us out? I certainly will.