Robin: Hello everybody, this is Robin Dean at The Writing Obsession. I'm here with Travis Burleson. Hello. Today's theme is about the winter blues. That's Wes John Chihos you're listening to there. He's a local favorite in the Chicago music scene. He'll be performing at Martyrs on March 10th starting at 10 o'clock. And he's also in one of the opening bands that will kick off at 8 p.m. You can also check him out online at wesjohn.net. That's W-E-S-J-O-H-N dot net. Winter blues. Basically trying to get through the winter doldrums as a motorcyclist living in the Midwest where when the roads are bad, there probably isn't much reason to ride.

Travis: Or live. We're going to be talking about things to do for the winter, before the winter, after the winter, during the winter, to sort of keep yourself sane when you can't ride your bike.

Robin: The winter makes me crazy, man. You know, it's about this time, maybe three-fourths of the way in, where I begin to lose my mind from all of the cabin fever and the lack of social interaction because nobody really wants to go out and do anything. It's more like they tell themselves they have to get out and do something.

Travis: Yeah, there's a lot of going to the pub and drinking beer here in Wisconsin. That's winter. It's medically suggested. Yeah, the Wisconsin Bureau of Beer Brewers recommends that you drink at least five beers a day during the winter.

Robin: I see here on the outline that you talk about winter prep for a motorcycle, and I can already tell you right now, I can see how my, you know, we have a page set up on the site. If you go to theridingobsession.com and place your mouse over maintenance and scroll down to winterization, another pop-up appears for de-winterization. But we have a full-length process list of everything you want to do if you're an absolute neurotic such as myself. So be sure and check that out.

Travis: I mean, you can always customize and pare down and adjust, you know, for your bike and your facilities. But, I mean, I just put the basics up here, you know, wash. You want to make sure you wash your bike before you put it away for the season. You don't want to, especially if you're riding it late into the season, there might be some road salt on there if there was a little bit of ice or snow before you put it away. And, you know, just get the grime and the dirt and the junk off of it. And again, some people just take it to the paint and spray and blast it down. And, you know, you might be the kind of person who gets in there with a toothbrush and scrubs every little last bit of it.

Robin: You know, I've done that before, and I've seen some of my favorite, you know, wiser riders who've taught me a lot. I've seen them do it, and they do it very carefully. I've had that go south on me before. When we got back from the Portland trip, I went to a paint and spray, hosed the bike down, brought it back to my garage, and heard a strange buzzing sound, you know, sort of a gzzt, gzzt, gzzt, gzzt, gzzt, gzzt. And I looked, and the main from the battery had a short in it that had managed to weld itself to the frame. And so the hot was completely combined into the frame, taped into place, and yeah. So if you're going to use the paint and spray, be careful.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, don't, like, point it at your spark plugs and put it on full blast. You know, just use it to get the gist of it off, especially if you're...

Robin: Remove the spark plugs, then put the sprayer into the spark plug slot.

Travis: Yeah, don't fill your cylinders with water.

Robin: When you see water coming out of the exhaust pipe, the bike is clean. So wait, Travis, you don't have to drain your float bowls?

Travis: Well, if you have carburetors, yeah, which is on there. I mean, so, you know, you want to wash your bike and get it clean, do an oil change. You always want to store it with fresh oil because, you know, moisture and other things build up in your oil as you ride. And, you know, that stuff sits. If it's going to sit for four or five months, you know, it can gunk up your engine or even start eating away at some of the internals.

Robin: It basically becomes a shellac. And there are two particular fuel stabilizers that we like to use to protect your bike against that. And, you know, my own personal favorites are Seafoam and Stable Blue. I actually go so far as to combine a little bit of both of them, one after the other. I'll pour Seafoam into a bare tank, fill that up with gas, and then put a dollop of Stable Blue on top of that. And that's what I do to let it sit for the winter.

Travis: Yeah, so, yeah, it's important to stabilize. I, too, what I did this year because there's some of the gas stations here in Wisconsin, they sell no-ethanol premium. So I made sure to fill up the bikes with no-ethanol, which, you know, even if you don't need the premium octane rating for your bike, it's a good idea to do that if it's no-ethanol because the ethanol speeds the oxidation and lacquering of the gasoline. So if you put in no-ethanol gas and a stabilizer, you can be sure that it's going to be stable and not going to gunk up your system, and it's going to start come springtime.

Robin: Yeah, with my own bike this year, I did not do that. So I had a question for you about which chains do you know of that provide the non-ethanol premium?

Travis: Here, Citco does, and Quick Trip does around me, but you'd have to check. There's a website, I think it's like realgas.org or something, that provides all user input, so it's not guaranteed.

Robin: Well, I mean, so it's crowdsourced?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Crowdsourced, I mean, depending on the number of users, that's usually a really good thing. I just wrote an article about GasBuddy, which is posted on the site right now. GasBuddy is an app for your mobile device that when you open it up, it asks you, do you want to find gas near you? And it searches in your basic location, provided that you choose your preferred octane or distance or pricing scheme.

Travis: Yeah, so this is the site I use. It's peer-gas.org. And actually, it looks like someone made an Android app for them. Fantastic. I haven't tested the app, but I definitely use the website. And there's a map, and you can add stations or comment. If you go somewhere and they don't carry it anymore, you can let them know.

Robin: That's just more writing material for me, so I'm definitely going to check that out and try to put it to use this season. I was going to ask you about oil in particular. There is some debate I've heard bounce this idea off of a few people, the synthetic versus dinosaur conundrum where if you've had a bike that's been running on dinosaur oil for the better part of its gasket's current life, that switching to synthetic oil actually proves to be a negative in that on a very micro level, the dinosaur oil has, in terms of puzzle pieces and scale, the molecules are shaped differently when they're combined with one another. So the oil falls together in a way that works with the older gaskets that has already been using dinosaur oil, whereas synthetic oil, it's like a bucket of marbles. Everything's exactly the same size, so they don't necessarily compact well against each other in old gaskets. I don't believe that.

Travis: Yeah, I wouldn't describe it that. I think if you want to switch to synthetic, that's fine. I run a semi-synth just because it's less expensive than the full synthetic. What's a semi-synth? It's exactly what it is. It's like half synthetic, half synthetic oil, half dino oil.

Robin: What's an example brand?

Travis: Repsoil. The Repsoil T4. I think Castrol has one, too. They have a full synth and a semi-synth. I've been using the Repsoil T4, which is semi-synthetic and no issues.

Robin: You'll have a lot of problems tearing me away from Rotella T6, the blue bottle. That's my preferred purely synthetic. It's got a lot of additives in it that complement the metals and take care of things a little bit better. Plus, it lasts a long time. I've never really subscribed to the theory that changing a bike over from dino oil to synthetic oil has a harmful effect in any way. Nor have I ever seen one leak as a result. My first bike never had a problem with that and none of any of my other ones since then.

Travis: Yeah, no issues. Anyone who reports that had an old bike and changed the oil and didn't put a good new seal washer on the drain plug and now it's leaking oil. They're like, well, because I put synthetic in it. So what about battery preparation? What do you do there? Disconnect it, clean the terminals, put terminal grease on it, and put it back together. Terminal grease, are you talking about dielectric grease? Yeah, dielectric grease. Usually, if you go to the auto parts store, they have the little tiny Mylar packs right by the check out there. I just grab that. You can get a whole tube of it. I don't know how you'd ever go through a whole tube of it. So they just have the little tiny tear-open packs there. And those last me a couple of years because you use so little of it, unless you have a fleet of bikes.

Robin: Yeah, that's how Brian Ringer, who is a really great rider and friend from some of the rallies I've been fortunate enough to frequent. He actually saved, well, I don't know, saved, yeah, he definitely remedied a situation on my Suzuki Bandit where we knew that there was a short somewhere. And the instant I said, well, I guess we could look at it, he had already pulled off the entire half end of it and dug out all the wiring, found the connection that he was concerned about, smothered it in dielectric grease, put it all back together, and the bike's running great. That stuff's pretty amazing.

Travis: Yeah, and it's good for like light bulbs and connectors and stuff too just to stop them from corroding and getting stuck. But definitely just a good idea doing your battery. If you're going to be storing it somewhere super cold, especially if you have like an old serviceable battery, you know, the one where you can actually top it up with water if you need to, I would just pull it completely and store it inside. And then definitely either way, whether you're keeping it on the bike or you're pulling the battery and storing it inside, get it on a maintainer, get it on a trickle charger.

Robin: Yeah, well, you know, storage is, like I said, I get pretty elaborate with that. You know, I wash, degrease, detail, clean the chain. I add stable, add seafoam, do a complete oil change, drain the float bowls. I wipe off the front forks and coat them in a little bit of standard household oil, if not motor oil, you know. I remove the plugs, I clean the plugs, sand them off, make sure there's no carcinogens still on there. Pull the battery, clean the connections. I actually leave the battery in mine because I've got a garage, and it doesn't even matter that the garage is cold. It's that it's sheltered.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, that's part of the thing, too, is if you live, you know, in a city and you, you know, it's always best, obviously, to have it indoors. You know, I remember when I was in Chicago and I didn't have a garage, I just rented a storage unit in the suburbs, you know, for whatever 30, but actually a friend of mine stored his bike in there, too. We got, like, a small storage unit, you know, one of the ones that just has, like, a regular door on it, not even, like, the rolling garage door, and we could squeeze two bikes in there, so we split the cost of storing the two bikes in there, and it was definitely worth it.

Robin: You can yin-yang those, too. If you put one bag in forwards and the other one backwards in the handlebar space, you can compress it down a little bit more, too.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, however you got it. I mean, it was, you know, maybe five foot by seven foot or something like that, but wide enough to fit two bikes in.

Robin: And just to get through this so that we can help people get through the suffering that is the northern winter as a motorcyclist, you know, the other things I would do is I do like to lubricate the cables, apply a fabric treatment to the seat. You know, Armor All is good for anything synthetic. I'll inflate the – over-inflate your tires or the maximum pressure. I'm sorry. Don't over-inflate them. Maximum pressure. Put some plywood underneath the rubber because the cold pavement can have an effect on that and harden certain sections versus others.

Travis: Yeah, definitely, too. If you have like a center stand or can get it off the ground, that's always good.

Robin: Yeah, and wipe everything down. You know, I go pretty far and take the Turtle Wax Chrome Polish, put that on the metal to coat it. Tony at Analog Motorcycles made fun of me for that a little bit, you know. Oh, and then I plug the – I put a plug into the exhaust pipe just to keep any rodents from setting up shop there. And that's the full winterization. Like I said, we have a page on that at the site, ridinghomesession.com. Under maintenance, scroll down to winterization. You can see the entire process. Although I do – I need to update the de-winterization. So then there's still – in the winter, there's still things we can do to keep ourselves occupied. It doesn't necessarily keep us entertained. The psychosis of waiting for the spring season, it's a very slow-going, residual sort of motorcyclist's water torture.

Travis: Yeah, well, there's stuff. I mean, you know, we're talking about, you know, prepping stuff. I mean, you can – you know, you want to prep your gear and all that sort of stuff, too, for the winter. So, you know, wipe your helmet down, pull your liners, clean out your liners, clean your jacket, clean your riding pants. You know, maybe clean your boots. Anything that's going to be, like, smelly and sweaty from the season, you know, you want that to sit in the closet getting all stank all winter long. So make sure you clean it out, inspect everything. You know, check your boots and your helmet for scratches and tears. You know, and store it somewhere, you know, dry and safe so it doesn't get – you know, don't leave your – don't leave your helmet in a dank garage for it to get all musty and wet and dry and cracked and get critters in there. So, you know, make sure you put it somewhere safe that it's going to last.

Robin: Last year was so active and such an eventful year. I had so much fun and even went through some scary moments as per usual. I don't remember if I cleaned my camping gear. I may have just rolled all of that into a ball and stuffed it. It may be sitting there with the same residue. Fortunately, you know, synthetic materials, once I get the first snowless day, once there's no snow on the ground, I'll probably pull all that out, lay it out on the ground, let it air out, and then, you know, you can use vinegar. You can use Windex, stuff that will kill off any bacteria that's sitting there. It's advisable to clean it before you pack it away. But this is just for those like me who may have just been in a hurry to climb into a hole and wait out the cold season. If you did, then, well, there you go. Pull it out, lay it out, spray it down, disinfect, let it air, and you're ready to roll.

Travis: Yeah, well, too, and any sort of leather stuff, you know, whether you're a leather jacket, leather pants, or just boots and gloves, make sure that you're, you know, use like a mink oil or, you know, leather treatment, waterproof, or, you know, get them clean, get the dirt and mud and grime off them and then put a treatment on them. That'll make your boots last a lot longer, too, because they're just going to sit there for four months and dry out. You know, they'll crack and wear a lot faster than if you actually put a little treatment on the leather and keep it pliable.

Robin: I see something here about testing. I see the word test next to it. What do you have to say about any of that? You're talking about just getting ready for the next season and having everything sort of checked out.

Travis: Yeah, so, I mean, you know, if you pulled your battery or, you know, it's been sitting on the bike all winter, you can get out a multimeter and make sure that it's pulling, you know, pushing out, you know, 12 plus volts like it's supposed to. If you have any, if you're going to do some motorcycle camping, you know, like a camp stove, hook it up, fire it up, make sure that it's working right, that it's not clogged. You know, any road tools or stuff that you bring with you, you know, ratchets and screwdrivers, flashlights, anything emergency equipment you keep with you when you're riding, make sure that you're, you know, you test all that before you head out, you know, for that first trip of the season.

Robin: Now, I think that actually covers everything that you need to do to get ready for winter now that we're in March.

Travis: Yeah, and it just snowed again. It just snowed again. And the high has been like five.

Robin: Yeah. Well, we're kicking out, we're getting it back now because today we had rain and sleet, which turned the road into, for me personally, a lot of fun because I'm comfortable with my emergency brake, which is always a good time when you take the corner at that perfect angle and there's nobody around.

Travis: Well, women love it. The handbrake action drives them crazy.

Robin: You'd be surprised, okay. My wife always lets out a little bit of a giggle when I'm dropping her off at the train for downtown. You know, I'd take a corner and all of a sudden bring the back end around. There's always just a little bit of a laugh. So I guess the very first and most obvious thing you can do if you're trying to give yourself something to do for the winter as a motorcyclist, besides having other hobbies, we're all human. We don't just go stand in a corner after the season's over. I'm not literally folded into a corner and waiting every time the podcast ends for the season to re-begin and then I just fall asleep for weeks on end before I get to talk to all of you again. The very first thing that any of us are going to do is come up with a winter project, and that is the golden rule of keeping your hands, keeping your head in tune with what you're up to, motorcycling in general, being prepared to learn new things, remembering the concept of the engine, especially for someone such as myself who I didn't get into this. I'm 40 years old now. I didn't get into this until I was 35. I grew up around engines. I never knew which questions to ask. I didn't know the terminology. So five years ago, I wanted to learn everything I could, and it's been an amazing life-changing process where you get to try something new that you've always wanted. Here we are. So with that, I mean, it becomes literally, as the site would suggest, it becomes an obsession. You're going to want to do things that you're not going to be able to do just because the weather doesn't permit, hence a winter project. Now, one of the first things we got before I even got my first motorcycle, I had bought two vehicles at the same time. One of them was a 1967 Honda C100, which is, if you watch Top Gear, and any—well, I think it wasn't Top Gear. It was a different show.

Travis: No, there was—well, there was the Top Gear—if you watch the Vietnam special, that was the one James May had. It's the most—it's the Honda Cobb or Super Cobb everywhere else in the world.

Robin: Super Cobb.

Travis: Yeah, in the United States because there was already something else called the Cobb. There was a licensing thing, so they called it just the C100.

Robin: Yeah, the C100, and they're still making it today.

Travis: The Passport, the Honda Passport.

Robin: The Passport is the modern DC version. So they used to be a 6-volt system. Now they're a 12-volt DC system.

Travis: Yeah, which they still don't sell here because of emissions being an old one, but they still make them. You can get a brand-new one in Southeast Asia.

Robin: And in Mexico.

Travis: Yeah, so you can—maybe you can do like the old Volkswagen Beetle Mexico trick where you get a VIN number off an old one and get a new one from overseas.

Robin: Well, I did—I had one. I did have one, and I loved it. I loved that thing. It was my wife's. I bought it for her so that she could—I didn't expect that she was going to become an actual motorcyclist, not for any reason other than the fact that she never expressed interest in it. And here she is now riding a Honda CB250, and we have the Hawk GT NT650, which is a rare bird and quite the sexy machine. Anyhow, so the C100, I bought it along with a 1976 Honda CB500T from an amazing mechanic, Jordan Liebman. And, you know, the CB500T wasn't ready yet. I had the C100. It was cold still. I wanted to work on something. And this is really the kind of project that's really great for a beginner because it's so small. I mean you could hold the engine in your hand like a puppy and work on it no problem.

Travis: Even still, I had— Even if you don't have, you know, a heated garage or, you know, somewhere you could have it in a basement or a spare room. You know, it's so small. It's— Yeah, we had that thing.

Robin: It was—we had it hanging from a tree in front of our condo unit, you know. It just—those things are so durable. They are the perfect learning instrument. And I made my mistakes with it as is to be expected. I took it to a professional because I didn't know better yet. And he took it apart not thinking about the fact that he didn't have any gaskets for it and then asked me what he wanted me to do with an attached bill that would up the ante mid-process. So instead, he put it back together with the old torn gaskets. And, of course, that meant it leaked a little bit of oil. So I thought that maybe I just needed to be tightened down. And I ended up rounding out the cylinder head bolt. You know, and the thing is no harm, no foul really because you can get the parts for these things anywhere. And they're cross-compatible. You're still dedicating yourself to a piece of history. It wasn't something I was going to paint or alter or change. I left the patina on it. I left it as was. It was a great, great winter project to take some fun with. But in the end, the truth of the matter is if you own multiple bikes from the beginning, that C100 Super Cub, all I used it for was to ride back and forth to my garage. And eventually, it began to go downhill, and I had other bikes that were a priority, and I had already learned a little bit of this and that, and I needed to maintain them. And so projects came to me. As a result, I ended up selling that to a really good friend who is now fully restoring it, you know, to its full glory without really taking away from its used patina.

Travis: If you're looking for a winter project to do to kind of keep you in the bike world, I mean, find a beater. Find a piece of junk called Honda or something weird just to wrench on. Even if you don't get it working and you sell it again in the spring, it's something to keep you busy if that's your thing.

Robin: Now that I've got a couple of years on my belt, that's why I bought it for a really great price. We were lucky enough to catch a 1988 Honda Hawk GT NT650, which is a bike that when you look at it, I'm going to say that I see 1998, 1999. It's at least 10 years ahead of its time visually. And, you know, surprisingly not a successful bike in the United States. It was very, very different, very, very elegant-looking machine. I'm not sure that people's eyes were ready for it. What with that cross-frame structure. What do you call that, the diagonal frame, the square bar?

Travis: Oh, I don't know, like an aluminum spur frame. It's kind of like the Suzuki SV650 was, you know, 10 years later.

Robin: Except this bike came out in 1988. And I was referred to this bike by one of the guys that likes to write for the site, Joe Nardi. He heard me out. I told him what I was looking for. I was looking for a bike that had enough muscle and enough sort of sexy form to be my sport bike and at the same time was small enough that maybe with a seat transfer, my wife could ride as her big bike. So for me, it's the little one. For her, it's the big one. And he said, well, you know, it sounds to me like, and he knew that I liked older bikes every now and then. Otherwise, I have no reason to even relate to Jiven Moto. And this bike, while not technically vintage, was the perfect selection. So he referred me to it. I checked it out. I was like, they call it the poor man's Ducati, fitting. And I got one at a really great price. And now I'm just about to start taking care of it. It's got some broken plastics I'm going to replace. And I have no intention of freaking it out or glazing it with a custom paint job or tricking out the exhaust. I plan on bringing this thing back as close to its original form as possible and then just riding the daylights out of it and keeping it nice and clean. That's my plan.

Travis: Yeah, so that's always a good project, too. I mean, with the end of the season, you know, come November, October, if you live in a temperate climate like we do in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Yeah, none of this applies to any of you in L.A. People start getting, you know, what am I going to do with this bike? I bought this bike, and I rode it twice, and I never got a bigger bike, and I'm not riding this one. People start trying to get rid of that stuff at the end of the season. So if you're looking for a project, I mean, it's really the time to do it because, like, I don't have room in my garage, and the winter's coming, or I don't want to get a storage unit, and you can get that project.

Robin: Yeah, I think right now these are the final days of bikes on a budget. If you want to get a project bike, anywhere from, I'd say, January to the beginning of March is when they're going to be priced the absolute lowest because they're not being ridden, and people are skeptical as to whether or not they're going to want to ride that bike come season start. They might want something different.

Travis: Yeah, or even at a dealership, you know, they're getting the 2015s in. They want to make room. They're going to start clearing out any, if you're looking for a new bike, you know, they're going to want to get rid of those 2014 models. You can wheel and deal the salesman down, or if they have a 2013 or used inventory on hand still. You know, it's still too early for the big spring sales. Most people, as soon as it gets warm and the snow's gone, people want to buy bikes, so the market's back, but now if you go, you can wheel and deal them down a little bit more because no one else is buying anything.

Robin: Yeah, all I want to do right now is ride bikes, and here we are still. We're still sort of making our way to what I think everybody needs to know about, and that's how to cope with all of it. I think we've started in pretty well with just find yourself a project that takes some time, a little bit of focus, a little bit of a zen meditative state in the garage, you know, your own personal space in the quiet or in the extremely loud, in my case, where I've got a full stereo system blasting at me while I do my thing.

Travis: Yeah, well, I mean, it's a good time, too. I mean, you can get a project bike, you know, or a beater to work on, or, you know, you can take what you got, and if you have any, it's a good time to do those things to your bike that you've been meaning to that you haven't, you know, didn't get around to either, or, you know, too busy riding or didn't have the money or you're waiting for someone to get you something for Christmas, and now's the time to go mount up that new luggage or put on that new exhaust.

Robin: Do you have any kind of a project bike that you've been considering digging around for, something either vintage or new, something you'd like to build into something else or any of that?

Travis: Oh, yeah, there's, I mean, a bunch, but it's money, you know.

Robin: Yeah, it's not a cheap habit.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, I just bought a house, so it's a little different, but, yeah, I'd love to get an old vintage bike, like, you know, a CB500 or...

Robin: I'll sell you this, I got a Hawk GT, I'll sell it to you for $7,500. No. That doesn't include the frame.

Travis: Or like an old SR500, the singles, Yamaha singles, those would be pretty awesome.

Robin: Well, then there's also the bikes that aren't projects, and we talk about luggage a lot because of the sport touring thing. I just ordered an entire set of luggage and their mounting hardware that allows the bike to be either without the hardware or with. So if I want my bike to be a track bike, the panniers come right off. I got it through Twisted Throttle, and they have a system for many, many bikes where the panniers and luggage rack are quickly removed through the twist of a bolt, not a full turn, just a half-quarter turn, and the entire thing detaches, bringing your bike back to sport mode. And that also allows you to buy what are their adapter plates that can fit just about any luggage that they list. I managed just to get myself, let's see, the Shad SH43s and their SH45 top case for my second-generation Bandit 1200. And that's something I've wanted to do for years. And every now and then, gentlemen, you probably know this, but when the wife gives you the green light, you got to run as fast as you can. And now I will have 43-liter side cases and a 45-liter top case before she and I embark on a long trip down through North Carolina, from Chicago to North Carolina to Nashville, Tennessee, to meet Total Control instructor Greg White, a friend of ours, and then head back up. What do you have in mind for your bikes, Travis?

Travis: Nothing too big right now. They're both hanging in there. We'll see. We're kind of maybe looking for the next bike. I'm pretty happy with where my ride is right now as far as luggage and accessories. And we did the big trip last summer, and I'm really kind of wanting for nothing on it. Part of me kind of wants to put hard bags on the Beamer, but there's only like one, I think, yeah, Twisted Throttle was the only place that imported them for that bike. And last time I looked, they only had one left, or they were out of stock on it. The F650CS is just a weird, rare bike that they didn't sell a lot of in the United States, so there's not a whole lot of luggage options for it. So I'll just stick with my big, soft Nelson Rigs for now, and no issues with that.

Robin: Those are impressive bags. I mean, without a passenger, you've got enough space. You toted that entire tent.

Travis: Oh, yeah, those bags are huge. They're ridiculously huge. I mean, they do cover up the passenger pegs, but, yeah, it's so much storage. And with the top case and everything, I think the bike's pretty good. And I just put a new bearing on it in the cush drive for the pulley, though I think I'm probably, I mean, it's 30,000-plus miles on that bike now. Wow. So I think it's just about time for a new clutch. The clutch is feeling a little… Slippy? Yeah, a little soft. Like the bite point for the clutch is pretty far out on the lever, so might be putting a new clutch on it here pretty soon, but wait for it to warm up just a little bit before I dive into that and take it apart. Yeah, so, too, at this time of year, you know, January, you go to a dealer and a lot of, or even online, you know, the online retailers start clearing out their old stock, their new old stock. So if you're looking for a new helmet or a new gear, especially if you're a weird size, like if you're an extra small or an extra, extra large.

Robin: Or a GoPro.

Travis: Yeah, they start clearing that stuff out. Yeah, or, you know, you want a GoPro, what are they on, the 4 now? So if you can find a GoPro 3, they're getting rid of it. The 4 is out, you know, they're getting, the 2015 gear is coming, and the 2015 helmets and jackets. So you can go out to your local bike shop or online and, you know, find the 2014 stuff that they still have in stock, and they want to get rid of it, you know.

Robin: I actually intend on writing an article about mounting positions for the GoPro because I just got a Hero 4. So hopefully we'll get that article posted here eventually this, towards the end of this cold season. And if you buy the camera or anything through the site, you're helping us help the site to help you. Now let's just talk about the stuff when we really just, we have no more energy left to work on something personal to us in the garage. We have no projects to deal with, or we just don't have the focus to go into it. What about the daydreaming that happens as a result of that? When you just fall into your couch, you've got nothing left to offer, and you know there's something on your mind, and it's just not going to go away.

Travis: You pull up your tablet, and you browse to the manufacturer websites or the RyanObsession.com, and you start looking at what's out there, you know, that new 2015 model that's coming out that you just want.

Robin: Oh, the bike's for sale. The bike's for sale all the way. I look at that home page on my own just to see what's going on there, and I saw an Aprilia Futura, and I never even knew that bike existed. It was a used bike from 2003, and it was another bike that looked 10 years ahead of its time, and I just ogled it, and ogled it, and ogled it. Not yet. It's not time. I thought, I mean, you said you were going to buy that one, right?

Travis: Yeah, I mean, there's so much out there. Our sweet, lovely wives are dealing with us saying, what about this one? What about this one? And then, too, we went to the IMS show, which we did a read about. There's a lot of coverage online, too, shows like the EICMA show in Europe, the E-I-C-M-A, which I forget what it stands for. I know it's Italian. So, I mean, especially the EICMA show, which I think is in December, is, you know, it's really great because that's when the manufacturers show all their, all the new stuff coming out. And you can see all the great things that are in Europe that they're now bringing to the United States, like the Hondas bringing the Africa Twin back, and some of the naked bikes that Yamaha's making, the ones that look like UJMs but are more modern. Now, are these the bikes, can we get these bikes? If you can find someone in Europe to sell one to you and ship it over here, yeah, but no, otherwise. I mean, some of the bikes, yeah, some of the bikes are, you know, the bikes that they do a global release on.

Robin: So let's see here, it says here you're talking about the Esposizione Internazionale Ciclo-Motociclo, oh shoot, so wait, Motociclo Accessory.

Travis: Yeah, the Milan Motorcycle Show, yeah.

Robin: It reminds me of the family guy when he says, I speak Italian and then just upsets the daylights out of some, you know, random local...

Travis: Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

Robin: It's terrible. Yeah, that's the best I got for you though, folks.

Travis: But hey, you know what?

Robin: Hey, I'm resourceful. I did it.

Travis: But yeah, I mean, so like looking at that and seeing the coverage and seeing what's coming out there can just, you know, be fuel on the fire and give you those things to kind of drool over. What I thought was funny, and I know you have your Google search up here, is if you search, if you just type in ICMA and do an image search, it's only the girls. It's only like the show girls.

Robin: ICMIA?

Travis: E-C-M-I.

Robin: Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Travis: E-I-C-M-A. Yeah. But if you do a Google image search, it only shows like the showcase girls.

Robin: That's just the finest Google search I've ever seen in my life.

Travis: Yeah, it's not even like the bikes.

Robin: It's enormously educational and introspective.

Travis: Well, you know the Italians.

Robin: There are some bikes in the way and, you know, 40-plus bald men. But effectively, wow, you are spot on.

Travis: That's all this is. Well, yeah, that's where, you know, Kawasaki announced like the HP4. Oh, not the HP4. That's the BMW. Are you talking about the Kawasaki H2? H2, that's it, yeah. The Kawasaki H2, you know, was announced there. All the new bikes, the new 1290 Super Duke and the 1290 Adventure from KTM and everything that's new and big comes out at the ICMA show for the year or so.

Robin: I see here that they show the Benelli, the 750 six-cylinder. And I remember intimately watching Jay Leno's garage talk about the CBX six-cylinder from, you know, the late 70s, early 80s. And, you know, he mentions that, you know, this bike tried to do the same thing before. But in the truth, they just sort of slapped an extra couple of cylinders onto the side, outside of the frame, whereas the CBX was a little bit more up-to-date and extremely complicated. But still, not a bad-looking bike with the six-to-six exhaust.

Travis: Yeah, they, you know, they have, you know, everything there. In the United States, too, they have, you know, we have the IMS, the International Motorcycle Show in North America, which travels around. In Chicago, it's in February, and we went to that. And that's just, you know, a few on the fire, too. You actually get to see the bikes, you know, from the manufacturers. It's not as extensive as the ICMA show, but it's really good. And I think that gives you a chance to go into the show. It gives you a chance to actually sit on some of these things and see them in person and touch them and ask the people working the booth some questions. Usually, I know more about the bikes than they do.

Robin: And something that I may very well cut and splice to the very beginning of all this, if nothing else, if you are feeling in the dark with the winter, you're looking at the roads every day, wondering when all that slush is going to disappear, that salt and pepper, nasty salt combined snow, telling yourself that, wow, it's going to be another long one. One great thing to do is read, and not just the magazines, not just the fact books. Pick some really well-written, informative books with character and storylines and novel caliber reading material that will inspire you and keep you tuned in to the mentality and lifestyle that goes with being a motorcyclist. It doesn't even have to be your genre. I love my sport bikes, my sport touring bikes specifically. But you mentioned a book like Jupiter's Travels where a man not that long ago got on an old Triumph and rode around the planet. We all know about Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman riding the long way around, which is a great video series, well worth watching, extremely enlightening as far as culture and the different countries and their most rural environments just because the path makes the most sense. But sitting down with a good book before bed, it's really a good way to do it. Jupiter's Travels, a man, a Triumph, going around the planet well before that even happened. I read a book before that which is really, really mindful of the female mentality in riding. It's a book called The Perfect Vehicle, What It Is About Motorcycles. The writer Melissa Holbrook Pearson is one of us and she knows how to wait for the season. She mentions it in the book. She talks about a lot of other great books and really just gives you a lot of insights as to what it is to be a female motorcyclist in the world today. It's not necessarily surprising but at the same time surprising. Not a lot has changed. I have a good many female riding friends who I refer to as fellow riders, period. That's all there is to it. But they do find themselves pigeonholed by specific genres of motorcyclists, stereotypes, behaving like stereotypes. It's kind of rough to watch but the book doesn't just complain about that. The book is insightful and informative and tells you about wrenching and tells you about routes and states worth seeing and the friends you meet along the way. She then mentioned Jupiter's Travels which until then I had not even heard of the book. I'm sure that all my friends who are better read than I, they know this book quite well. Those are two amazing books. I still have yet, Travis, I haven't found a version of Lawrence of Arabia that seems to be the legit original version. We're having trouble with that. There must be 15 versions of that book and only one of them says the authorized biography. None of the rest of them seem to say anything except for Lawrence of Arabia, colon, this feature ets, this version of the story, this, that, and that. I'm looking for, I want the written material, not the movie. I will watch the movie because that's an amazing flick. I want the book that is the story of T.C. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, the original copy. That's not the easiest thing to find.

Travis: As far as reading too, there's these travel stories, true travel stories, sort of nonfiction travel. Then there's books you can get to make yourself better. Think of David L. Huff's books, Proficient Motorcycling, more Proficient Motorcycling. Even if you've read them before or if you've been writing for 20 years, it's always good to read those books and reread them and get that information. I find them very fascinating. I like reading nonfiction. I like reading technical literature, so reading how to make your writing better. Or Total Control, you can get the book for the class, and the Lee Parks book, Total Control, and learn more about how to ride your motorcycle. That can be very occupying and satisfying and really gets you geared up for the season and learning how to be safe and be in control and get the most out of your motorcycle.

Robin: I've got a friend who actually teaches that class. He taught me most of the skills that go into it, yet I've never read that book. You're going to have to loan that to me, or you know what, I think I'll just buy it. In fact, I might even do a write-up about it. Again, if you buy it through the site, you're helping us.

Travis: It's definitely good, and I'll probably reread that as we go. I remember for Christmas a couple of years ago, I got a history of BMW motorcycles. That's great to read. It's called Invasion of the Tiddlers, so it's kind of a history on the small displacement Japanese bikes from the 50s and 60s. Books like that can just be a great way to sort of be an outlet for your writing, like reading about these books or reading about the bikes that you like.

Robin: Even in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, which is not fiction. That's a true story. I think he rides across the states on a Honda Dream, a 350, with his kid on back and all the luggage. There's a photo in there. That's a little bit harder to read, though. Just so everybody knows, it's not about motorcycle maintenance.

Travis: Yeah, Zen and the Art is a book on philosophy, and it's just a guy philosophizing while he's riding a motorcycle. He happens to be riding a motorcycle in the book, but it's really about philosophy.

Robin: It's also about recovering from breakdown. He's not really philosophizing during the ride. He's explaining the effort he made to philosophize, which caused a bit of a breakdown, and then how he recovered from it. His recovery is the whole story. I'm not filling anybody in or breaking any boundaries by telling anybody that. Read the book. It's an excellent read.

Travis: They go through a lot of the same cities we did on our trip, going the other way, but Miles City and Bozeman and Lemon, South Dakota. They did Yellowstone in the book.

Robin: But we also lost our sanity, I think. You mentioned YouTube here. That's always a good one. You built that entire list. You put together—I really owe you a beer for this one. You put the entire list of Leno's Garage Only Motorcycles Together on your YouTube page. I think I'll probably put that on the Riding Obsession account, too, so that everybody can see it, but it'll be in your name, or I'll just link them to you.

Travis: Yeah, I filtered out all the motorcycle-related Jay Leno's Garages and put them in a playlist. Those are great because there's a lot of historic and interesting bikes on there. Or there's all the various other motorcycling magazines have all their reviews, and they're all in Sullivan, California. So all the new bikes that come out, you can watch the reviews online. And then there's some really great moto vlogs out there, guys. There's a couple guys out there who test ride used bikes and videotape it, and that's something we want to start and get going to on the site as soon as the weather gets nice. We have already spoken to some of the dealers here in Madison and a couple around Chicago, where we can take some of the new and used bikes out and get some reviews on them, which I always think the polished reviews that you get from some of the online moto magazines are great, but I feel like they're too polished, and sometimes you don't get— you don't feel like you're getting a real honest feel for the bike and a real honest review of the bike.

Robin: Yeah, they sell the bike. They sell the bike in the review. They go through the process of describing it without any complaints and then informing you of why you're about to buy it.

Travis: Yeah, well, sometimes they complain, but I feel like, too, when you're that professional, that super professional moto journalist, and you have that really high production quality, it just feels disingenuous, and I feel like you lose every bike that's not an $11.99 Panigale, like, oh, isn't as good as the best bike you can buy. I feel like some of the other less polished moto vlogs give you more insight into the bikes, and they tend into riding, too. Some of them are just guys, like Jake the Garden Snake, who gets pulled over by the police a lot on his supermoto, and that's just fun to ride. It's just fun to watch. It's just fun to watch this guy be a hooligan and get in trouble, and you can sort of live vicariously through him.

Robin: Who's the guy that you referred us to? I forgot his name.

Travis: Baron Von Grumble.

Robin: Baron Von Grumble. That guy's fantastic, too.

Travis: Yeah, and he's out of the U.K., too, so he's kind of – he got to go to Spain and test ride Jack Miller's Moto 3 250.

Robin: The guy's also humble, which is nice. He's sort of a fumbler, but he gets the information out really well. Now, there's also video games. Now, I've got to get into this, because 40 years old or not, I'm part of the generation that invented video games. Well, not even that. The generation before me came up with freaking Pong, and video games are part of my upbringing. They're not something that you eventually graduate from. Every now and then, you got to go back and put a quarter in a Galaga machine or a token or whatever you find, and honestly, with the home systems now, I've never not had one. One thing I've found has always brought a bit of an adrenaline rush back is if I'm sitting on my couch taking one – just one hour once a week, two hours total in an entire week to sit down behind what was Project Gotham Racing, man, I miss that game, and then another fours of games and stuff like that. Sit in the four-wheel environment and just try to navigate and try to hone your skills and make mind of where your line is and just let yourself get excited about something just because, hey, you know what? You're not going to get to do it out on the streets in your area unless, again, you're in California. But I know that even though we didn't do it this year, next year for sure. There's always next year. I definitely am going to come up by you, Travis, and rent a couple of snowmobiles and just go tear up the ice for a little while, you know?

Travis: Yeah, well, it kind of depends, too. I mean, here in Madison, too, this year we didn't – I think the snowmobile trails are open for like a month around here because we didn't get a whole lot of snow. I mean, up north, I lived up in the UP up in Marquette for about eight years. I know there's a bar out there between Marquette and Gwin at the crossroads. In the winter, you never see a truck. You never see a car in the parking lot. It's just sleds. Everyone just rides – that's how people get around. That's how a lot of people get around, especially if you live out in the sticks. Those roads don't get clear very often, so they just ride their sleds all winter long.

Robin: I seem to remember that Wisconsin is set up so that in a lot of parts of Wisconsin, there are areas where there's snowmobile trails that go from town to town to town that are not street. They're not street conjoined. They're not really near the roads. They go through the woods, and they continue on. It's kind of a tourist attraction. You can just go rent a snowmobile and go cabin to cabin to cabin to cabin and call that your winter getaway. See, even up here in the north with the snow, you can enjoy it if you decide to. You have to make that decision.

Travis: Yeah, too. Some of your moto gear might transfer over, but then you've got to get the snowmobile helmets. With the mask and the breather? Yeah, they have the breather and the double pane and stuff so they don't fog up on you. The snowmobile jackets and stuff are obviously much warmer than most motorcycle gear is, so that's something to consider too.

Robin: All the stormtroopers had different helmets. You know this, depending on what they were driving.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: That ain't no biker helmet. You've got to wear the tie fighter helmet.

Travis: Yeah, so that's something to consider too. But a lot of times if you make the trip and you do a rental, they'll rent you a snowsuit or something too. Or if you ski, that's probably fine. Just got to get the helmet and the gloves.

Robin: I can already hear my friend John Soporta's voice echoing throughout my house, adamantly mentioning ice riding. Ice riding, you've got to get an ice bike. I don't really want to. I'll do a snowmobile, but ice riding does. I know that's got to be a good time. It looks like a lot of fun.

Travis: Yeah, well there's a big contingency down there in Chicago that comes up just over the border into Wisconsin every Sunday, and they plow out a track on a little inland lake and get studded up tires on their dirt bikes and ride around. And it's everything. Everyone from a brand new DRZ400 to an old TRKZ200 from the 70s. The guys are riding out there. You take a bike that you don't mind taking on the ice, dirt bike probably. Get some knobby tires and drill some studs into them and take it out if you want.

Robin: You literally say drill some studs into them. They're flush with the rubber, right? They never penetrate?

Travis: Yeah, you don't want to go through into the tube. You get the appropriate stud for your tire. And they do make tires specifically for ice if you want to make that investment where the inside of the tire is almost like a plastic liner inside the tire to minimize the chance of a puncture.

Robin: I have one solution that I need to mention that kind of trumps both of those. Since snowmobiles, we don't own one, and there's no reason for me to own one immediately in my current location. I would rather just rent one in Wisconsin. And ice biking doesn't really appeal to me as much. I'll leave that for the other guys who want to bring the back end around a little bit more than I do during the winter season, that is, in favor of waiting for when the pavement is simply dry. I don't care. This is a great explanation here. Imagine dry pavement, plenty of nasty-looking snow on the side of the road, definitely cold outside but above freezing. Me personally, 40 degrees is my threshold, and then you just own a beater. You have to have one bike, one bike that it operates and it doesn't leak, but you don't necessarily care about it. You will keep it from leaking, but you're not going to sand down the rust until the rust is a threat. This bike can also be your winter street bike. With that bike, if you decide on a warm enough day that you're going to go out and let it suffer through the puddles and the mud and the oxidation, then it's always good to find yourself a $500 to maybe $1,000 bike that you're not going to care about. You look forward to shaker canning it. That's the one that you want to ride during the winter.

Travis: Yeah. Well, too, I keep my bike ready, and I take it out when it's nice, just my regular bike, just because my threshold's a lot lower than yours. I remember in Chicago, I went down to a meet, a Shriven Moto Hangout at Moto Works, down at Southwestern. It's 19 degrees, and then I sat outside for two hours and wouldn't start. How'd you get home? Well, luckily, the meet was at Moto Works, which is the dealership, so I just pulled into their shop and we jumped in.

Robin: Nice. That works. I was thinking that the threshold changes. My threshold the first year that I rode, I had a 1982 Yamaha Seica XS400RJ, and it was a great bike. I totally tricked that bike out to the absolute maximum that I could before I sold it. My first year of riding, while I was in the process of just growing that bike into all that it could possibly be, I rode it no matter how cold it was. When it was 15 degrees, 25 degrees, not a big deal so long as I had the chance to ride. Even if it was for a short moment, I put the largest set of hot grips, a great heated grip, though not necessarily the best hand grip in general. I put on the full-sized gold-wing hot grips, which just blazed up to where the bars would glow, and I had everything set up for any kind of riding I wanted. I even cleaned it and washed it and polished it in the downstairs of our outdoor section at our condo in the middle of no kind of temperatures. But that changed with, I don't know, I think I did that for two years, and then I decided, you know what, this year I'm just going to winterize. I'll come up with something else to do, and here I am wishing, wishing that, well, you know, fortunately, Ryan Chappelle, a friend of mine, a friend of ours, has left his 1976 CB554 in my garage, complete with shaker can paint, LED lights, and just a puddle of oil leaking all over the place when it sits still. And I think I'm probably going to have to ask him for another permission, opportunity to take that thing out and grind in, just demolish it. I asked him when it was raining, sleet, snow, and nastiness and salt, just salt everywhere. In Chicago we use what's called the Enola Gay approach. We just bomb salt on everything, and it just sticks there until the end of the season. And I asked him in the middle of all that, do you mind if I take it out for a spin? And his text back immediately stated, go, do it, make it happen, get on it. So that's my intent.

Travis: Well, you've got to put some studs on it to take it out on the ice. Yeah, I'm going to off-road it, put some knobbies on there, studs, ride it on the pavement and on the ice. In the 70s there wasn't much difference between, you know, a CB550 and a CL550. Other than knobby tires and a high exhaust. It's like, oh, now it's a dirt bike. I love the 70s. Is that year on any given Sunday tuned?

Robin: And then Billy found a rut. And then all of a sudden the bike, you know, you can see where they cut the film and the kid just disappears into the sand. Like, oh, that wasn't edited. That wasn't a stage situation. Steve McQueen takes the shortcut around the puddle. What would you say about getting away on a nice sunny day, though? I mean, how often does that happen this year?

Travis: A couple of times, or definitely a couple of days, too, because, you know, we only have the one car, too. So if I really need to, as long as the roads are clear, I'll take the bike out. You know, the roads are clear and the sun's shining just because that makes – the sun's shining and there's not going to be ice on the road. You know, it's not going to be any black ice. So even if it seems clear and it's cloudy out, I'm a little hesitant if it's below freezing. But otherwise, if the sun's out, the roads are going to be clear anywhere where there's maybe a little water on the roads. It's going to be – you know, it's going to be just wet from the sun. So – but it's happening, yeah, not as much into this year. I mean, with – personally, you know, I haven't had as much time just because of moving and buying a house and all that sort of stuff. But I remember in Chicago, it happened fairly often. And, too, the roads tend to be clearer there.

Robin: As soon as we start hitting a steady 40-degree temperature, I'll probably make a few trips up to the Madison area on – not my bikes, but, you know, like I said, Ryan, if you're out there and you're listening to this, it's too late, man. It's too late.

Travis: You already said it was okay.

Robin: I'm taking – yeah, you already said it was all right. I'm taking that bike out. It's going to happen. I'm going to put skis on the front of it. I'm going to put a float on the back, a couple of paddles. I'm going to ride it through the lakes, all kinds of stuff. And I think that pretty much does it for the winter doldrums, the winter blues, everybody. We know that you want to be riding. We're right there with you. And if we could, we'd make it all stop earlier than expected, but that cursed groundhog just isn't agreeable. And on that note, I will say thank you for listening to the RidingObsession.com podcast. Please visit our site and make use of the links. Buy things through us. It helps us help the site to help you. And we continue to provide you with all the content we can. Special thanks to Wes John for providing music for this episode. If you'd like to provide music yourself, please feel free to contact us through the site. If you want to check Wes out online, it's wesjohn.net. That's W-E-S-J-O-H-N.net. With that said, this is Robin Dean at the Riding Obsession saying goodbye along with Travis Burleson. Goodbye. Have a great week, everybody. Have a great week, everybody.

Travis: And still you'll never know. You can steal all the gum from the dime store.