Robin: Nice. We ready guys? Ready to go. All right, gentlemen, crack them, get your beers going. It's time for the Chris Mahonza Kwanzaa.

Travis: Chris Mahonza Kwanzaa cup?

Robin: Yeah, Chris Mahonza Kwanzaa Riding Obsession Escapade. We all got our beverages.

Travis: Beverages, check. I got Christmas beer. Hello everybody, I'm Robin Dean. I'm Travis Burleson. And I'm Tim Clark. And this is the Chris Mahonza Kwanzaa Riding Obsession Extravaganza. Howdy-ho. Today we will, we will, I promise you, be talking about how not to remove the exhaust cam from a Honda Hawk GT. Point-a-list custom helmet painting by artist and MSF instructor Sarah Altieri.

Robin: Primer, the art of color matching. And a top secret new bird in Tim Clark's arsenal, the flock. TheRidingObsession.com is seeking sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focus mentions toward the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment. I'm going to take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is scheduled for spring of next year. Dubbed the Trip Sevens Tour, seven riders will cover seven states in seven days starting in late April of 2018. It's a twisty sport touring getaway of epic proportions. We hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via theRidingObsession.com. Visit group tours under events in our navigation menu. Before we even get started though, I'm not even sure what to say about this because I'm not as well read on the matter as I probably should be. But I will say that when I personally met my first quote unquote crew of riders that I enjoyed traveling great distances at high speed with, Twisty Roads, Northern Wisconsin, the first thing we watched as a group, as like a motorcycle family, was On Any Sunday. And we recently lost one Mr. Bruce Brown, which is, it's a big hit to the entire motorcycle community. That movie is, it's definitely a winter favorite. It definitely takes you back. Travis, you were going to say something?

Travis: I'll say it's one of those classic, like, oh, you ride motorcycles? Have you seen this? Kind of books. It's like everyone always asks you if you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which isn't even really about motorcycling. Not even, yeah. And they ask if you've seen that movie. Right. Which is, I mean- Which is actually about motorcycling. That actually is. And has Steve McQueen in it, so like who cares? It's got Steve McQueen.

Robin: Right, yeah. So I want to, I personally just wanted to say, I've seen the movie several times, and I never really read up on Bruce Brown, but now I'm going to. Maybe there's, I wonder if there's any literature out there about the guy. Either way, Bruce Brown, rest in peace, and thank you for what has been a greatly influential piece of video for all of us. But now into happier things. It is Christmas coming up. This is the Christmas episode. Travis, I assume that you did not open your gift.

Travis: No.

Robin: Good man. Good man. And Tim, I did not get you a gift. However, Tim, I am getting you a gift. I'm getting everybody from, yeah, from the original tour, the experiment tour, the, what do you call it, like the prototype. I think we're going to do some t-shirts. So I think I'm going to give everybody like a nice something something.

Tim: Oh, nice.

Robin: Yeah, it was Maggie Mayhem's idea. But in the meantime, Travis, what's up? Show's yours.

Travis: Oh, more mopeding. As far as actual motorcycle stuff, most of my day-to-day was consumed with putting in a new garbage disposal. I was swapping the trash out in the kitchen and I reached under the sink to grab a new trash bag. And I was like, oh, this is, this is all wet. And so got in there and poked around under the sink with a flashlight. It's like, oh, it's leaking from the bottom of the garbage disposal unit, you know, where the electrical motor is. Fantastic. So I dropped it out. And then I actually disassembled the unit. And I was like, okay, I saw where the failure was. There's like with the, you know, the seal where like the actual drain and grindy part, you know, is sealed off from the motor part had worn out. And I was like, I can spend like two hours cleaning this goo out of here and then putting new goo in and putting it back together and then waiting a day for it to cure and then put it all back together. Or I can go to Home Depot, buy a new one for a hundred bucks. I just went to Home Depot, buy a new one for a hundred bucks and put it in. So, and it's way less rusty than the one that's probably been under my sink for a decade. Did it have that 70s appeal? No, they look exactly the same. And Sinkorator, I think has been making the same product since 1950. And Sinkorator? Yeah, that's the name of the company. And Sinkorator. And Sinkorator. Which actually fun, fun fact, if you buy any garbage disposal, even if it says it's made by like Kenmore or anyone else, it's made by Sinkorator and it's just rebranded. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Laurel talked to the guy at some food waste conference. Yeah. Food waste recovery conference. And they had the main guy there from Sinkorator. And he's like, yeah, pretty much if you buy anything on the market, unless it's like some weird Chinese thing, it's we make it and someone just puts their brand on it and licenses it from us. Right.

Robin: So they're the ultimate outlet for rebranding.

Travis: Yeah. And it's funny because, yeah, it's like the Badgers, the household unit style. They've pretty much, they've changed very slightly over the decades, but they're basically the same. So, which is cool. It's the second one I've taken apart in my life. So they're very simple. Don't be afraid if you got to do that. If you can change the oil on your motorcycle, you can uninstall and reinstall a garbage disposal.

Robin: Same goes for a sump pump. I've done that, well, twice now.

Travis: As far as wheeled things, mopeds still trying to get paint. It's hard to do because it's so cold. It's been so cold.

Robin: Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We don't got to talk about motorcycles. I was really getting pretty amped up about that whole garbage disposal thing. We can probably go on with that.

Travis: Well, if you want, I have a disassembled half horsepower AC electric motor we can put into something.

Robin: We should just put a rototiller engine. It's like something with like 3.5 horsepower, like an old go-kart engine. Like this thing doesn't just mince. Anyhow, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Travis: It'll be like the V8 blender from Top Gear. Yes. They made the man smoothie with cinder blocks and rummy. I'm trying to paint the tires out of the moped, or the wheels, I guess. I was putting white primer on it. Then I'm going to do high-vis. I got some high-vis green Rust-Oleum. I got my shocks in. All my parts came in. Not all my parts, but the parts I ordered came in from Treatland.tv. Yes.

Robin: If you can get the .tv domain, don't.

Travis: Treatland.tv, it's the most radical moped parts site in the world. It's radical, dude. Tubular. Tasty talking treats. Totally tubular. Anyway, the shocks I got are black with high-vis green, yellow springs on them. The paint I found, I don't think it's going to be quite the same color. I think Rust-Oleum does make another paint. It's called Apple Citrus or some stupid thing like that. It seems like it's pretty close to the color on those shocks. Judging by the cans, I might pick that up and see if it works. Just putting primer on over the factory powder coat. It's all chipped up anyway, so whatever. I'm keeping a little patina on this bike, which is just my excuse to not do a good job painting it. I'll have black bed liner frame, high-vis shock springs, much like a Kawasaki Ninja 650.

Robin: Same. Pretty much exactly the same. They're identical.

Travis: Yeah, it's pretty much exactly the same. It's a 50cc, but it's a two-stroke, so it's basically a 650cc twin. Then I'm going to do high-vis wheels for that radical 80s flair. Then I got a bunch of parts in the mail, too, that I ordered. New tires and tubes and shocks, steering stem bearings, one chain tension adjuster because they only had one left in stock. The automatic one? No, it's for the rear wheel. I might be able to reuse one of them, but one of them was mangled.

Robin: You told us about this last time. It's the pedal side.

Travis: Yeah, that's basically a one-speed derailleur thing. If you take a mountain bike and get rid of your cartridge set and make it a one-speed, you can get a thing that's like a derailleur, but only has one cog on it. It doesn't move. It just keeps tension on the chain. That's basically what that is for the pedal side. I did get that, also.

Robin: So that sounds like it's more of a guide, something that suspends the chain type thing, is what you're saying?

Travis: Yeah, just a spring-loaded thing with a gear on it that puts tension on the chain.

Robin: But there is a gear. Yeah, that just runs on. You said cog. Sorry, I'm going to have to edit this part.

Travis: Yeah, it's like a toothed idler. Technically, it's a sprocket. Cogs link with other cogs. Sprockets link with chains. But anyway...

Robin: That's how I'm going to open this podcast. I'm going to open with you saying that.

Travis: Sure. But the other part I can only get one of is a dropout tensioner. The thing that's on the back of your motorcycle to pull the axle back and tighten the chain. It's one of those, but it just kind of slides over the axle. It's very much like a bicycle part because 70s moped. And we're going to talk about modern mopeds a little later on because I have some stuff to add in about that. But that's been my motorcycle. I almost got the motorcycle out today. It was like warm. It was like 50 degrees. I was outside without a jacket. Yeah. But I had to install a garbage disposal.

Robin: And your bike, I mean, you could pretty much, quote, winterize it anytime. You could just ride it.

Travis: It is, air quote, winterized, which means I have stable gas in it and fresh oil.

Robin: So yeah, right away, just ride.

Travis: Yeah. That's about it. What about you, Tim? What have you been up to since the last...

Robin: This deserves a fanfare. Tim gets the whole... New bike!

Tim: Hell yeah! I got my bike delivered this afternoon.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Yes. My 2016 Africa Twin from Honda with the DCT transmission and some custom metal bits from my friend David, who works... His company is the Envision Metalworks. I put the link there on our outline here. And he's the guy who's done these fancy custom metal boxes that sit on the inside of the rack in kind of that wasted space between the tire and the luggage racks on the back of the bike.

Robin: Are they equal sized on both sides?

Tim: No, they're kind of oddball shapes, especially the one over the exhaust is kind of a hard-to-use space.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: So now I can keep a couple tools on it, maybe a tube that's going to be on the bike all the time no matter what. You know, if I take the luggage boxes on or off, there's going to be something on it with me.

Robin: Yeah, that's cool. So he's the guy that actually made use of that. He shaped it. He made it... These look like they could be a stock product.

Tim: Yeah, yeah, they are pretty impressive.

Travis: So yeah, we should mention that the website is cjdesignsllc.com. Did not opt for the .TV website extension, so they're missing out on that. But cjdesignsllc.com.

Tim: Yeah, CJ is Craig out of McWanago, I believe. He's a nice guy. He's participated a little bit in the off-road, off-highway motorcycle bills, kind of a legal activism in Wisconsin, trying to get more access to off-road trails.

Robin: That's a beautiful cause in general.

Tim: He started out as a CNC machinist, and in his spare time, after hours at work, he would make parts for his race bikes. And he just started getting to the point where he was selling enough to open his own company.

Robin: Congratulations, man. That's a big step forward for anything that's doing any kind of machining.

Tim: Yep. I don't know for sure if he's full-time doing this now, but... Well, let's ask ourselves this.

Robin: Are any of us full-time with this website or podcast?

Tim: No. No, no. Pretty much no. I dream.

Robin: I was telling Ms. Dean the other day, I dream of a day where I can tell you guys that you have been fired because of something I said to your bosses in your name because I came into an incredible sum of money and intended to completely employ all of us for the rest of our existence in the world of motorcycling strictly. So if you get all out there listening to this, please, for frick's sake, look at me. I'm a good Christian. I didn't say it. Donate. Give us your money. Make us rich. Make it happen. Back to you, Tim.

Tim: Well, that's pretty much the big deal. I'm still on crutches. I'm still not allowed to walk on my ankle with the plates and screws, so I hobbled over that bike while I was sitting on the center stand.

Robin: Right there. It's just like, I probably shouldn't be doing this. I'm definitely going to do this.

Tim: I threw the leg over the bike, and I started it up and revved the engine a little bit, and I sent that audio to you guys.

Robin: Sounds monstrous.

Tim: And of course, the crutches fell while I was on the bike, and so I had to figure out how to get off the bike and scramble down and pick those crutches up again, but it made me really happy.

Robin: Congratulations, friend.

Tim: Yep. And I've also got one thing that is very important, the Honda service manual. I've got the big Bible of how to make this thing work and stay working.

Robin: Can I throw a plug into this? Yeah. You know what you can do with that giant Bible of a maintenance manual? You can go to TheRidingObsession.com, sign up for a membership, and use our maintenance logs feature to keep track of your oil changes and everything else, except for the fact that right now, that's not working because for some reason it broke. I'm doing my best. I'm working on it.

Tim: All right. Yep. I'm a big fan of getting service manuals of any bike you get. You can always beg for people to give you that information on the forums online, but you never know for sure how accurate it is.

Robin: Oh, they always make stuff up, too. Like, oh, you don't really need to do that.

Tim: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you want to put, you know, 30 foot pounds on that oil drain plug. Yeah.

Robin: You really got to torque it on there. It's, you know, make sure that you go at the plastics with a torch. That's what really brings it all together.

Tim: Yeah. Just for anyone that's listening and has never done it, 30 foot pounds is a completely inappropriate level of torque for your drain plug. Don't fuck that up. You will have a bad, bad day.

Travis: Sounds like this happened to someone, Tim.

Tim: Oh, I've seen them. I've seen them stuck on some bikes. You can actually bust off the, kind of, the boss that that drain plug screws into. I've seen that actually fracture the case. Especially the DRZ is well known for that. It's got a crush washer that if you don't put a fresh crush washer on every time, you run the risk of splitting that boss in half. That crush washer becomes a wedge. The drain plugs are very much the follow the rule of snug it down and give it, like, a quarter turn.

Robin: Don't pull much on it. That's smart for, like, you're a pretty tough cat. You've got some muscles going on. My secret is that I will start at the end of a ratchet and then, you know, the little guy, we have to do everything with raw hatred. I'll start at the low end of the ratchet and then when it's time to really feel the snugness, really choke up on it with my fingers around the actual socket and then go to mechanically snug there with angst.

Tim: Yeah, I've kind of get to the, get it down snug and is this a, do I push on the wrench with one finger, two fingers, three fingers, or am I grabbing that fucker and cranking on it? Total figure rubber mallet. That, that's like usually your rear axle is grab it and yank on it, like nearly pick up the bike with it. Most of those end up around 70, 75 foot pounds. So there's my exciting motorcycle news for the day. I actually have a motorcycle. To be doing things with.

Robin: So happy about that.

Tim: So expect me to start kidding it out with some various bits over the next couple months over the winter. So Robin, how about you? What's going on with you in motorcycling?

Robin: I've got all this. I've got a lot of information in front of me to get through. And then once I do, I'm actually going to start working on my bike for the first time. I'm mobile in my garage with mobile headphones, mobile mic. Here's the deal. So it started with the Unipods on the carburetors with a breather filter for the Hawk GT. The Hawk GT, everybody listening is my winter ride. It's the bike that I can only care so much about because it's got so many things going on with it that can be a little bit of a nuisance, a little bit of trouble, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd like it to run a little bit better since it is my go-to slush puppy for lack of a better term. And so I installed Unipods on there and discovered that in both of the carburetor diaphragms, there was a tear in the rubber. You could see my thumb through it. So I guess we know where the backfire was coming from. It's had a backfire. Since I bought it, it's had a backfire. So I'm pretty sure that every time I tried to figure out what was going on, that was probably the culprit. And we took it apart like four or five times, never noticed, oh, there was light coming through there that you can actually see in the diaphragm. So everybody started getting all like, Ooh, you're never going to find the part. Ooh, you're never going to find the part. Cause it's kind of a, kind of a tough bike to find parts for. But, uh, I found the part. Well, I found the part on eBay for a reasonable $60. That's reasonable as Joe Conrarty, one of our regular riders, uh, writers, uh, would say. I agree. It was a good price. So fine, whatever. I spent the money and it came from Russia, I think. I'm not sure. But, uh, then, uh, you guys watched as I was at Travis's place for some social time with y'all. Um, got to pack the exhaust proudly. Got, uh, fiberglass all over my nice fleece shirt. Still has fiberglass all over it. It's still in a plastic Ziploc bag downstairs. Um, thanks for the assist though, guys. Either way, I really appreciate it. I learned a lot doing that. Thanks to just the basic, this is all you have to do. That's all I did. I can't wait to hear it.

Travis: You also got fiberglass all over my garage in the process.

Robin: I mean, I'm not going to charge you. Um, Travis stopped by here for a day or two here at our house here in Libertyville. So we pulled the exhaust to swap it out for a Y-pipe and a Muzi can. So the, the Hawk GT by default has a sort of pseudo catalytic. It's basically an extension of the muffler.

Travis: Yeah. It's like a collector box under the bike.

Robin: Maybe it's to shorten the pipe, whatever it is. It is intended to act like a radiator pipe and just pass everything through it before it gets to the actual exhaust can. So I have a Y-pipe that completely eliminates that and loses it roughly 20, 25 pounds, would you say? And in the process of removing that entire system, we managed to, well, we were shaking it, we're twisting it, we're shaking it, we're twisting it. And then I was like, let me go at it. Let me go at it, man. Watch this. I'm just tearing into it, jiggling and pulling, jiggling and pulling. Like, yeah, dude, it's moving. I can see it. I'm looking. And then we see this massive dog tail. Like the, the tail is wagging the dog up front by the header. The pipe, the pipe had broken off of the head of the engine. I'm lucky it didn't break the engine with all that leverage. Aluminum engine, but yeah, steel rusted out pipe just cracked off at the head without damaging anything vital. So, you know, I was sort of, I was bummed, but I was like, all these different, I was worried that Travis was going to think that I was bummed at him for something I did. And so I'm like, I better not be too sad. So we just drank a lot and then kicked over the engine without the head on there or without the header pipes.

Tim: I saw that video.

Robin: Beautiful, just beautiful. So next morning, Suda, a little bit hungover, hanging out, looking at, you know, surfing the web, sitting in the living room, Travis, hey man, check your email. So I do. And he found the part and right up there in Northern Wisconsin, there's, there is the, the header pipe waiting for me. So I bought the daylights out of that quick, fast, and it just arrived. So the new header pipe is here. Yay. Now I just need a way to mount everything securely. That's the end truth is I got to figure out whether we can get everything to, to mount up and suspend. Yeah.

Travis: Cause missing the, um, the way the Y pipe and the muzzy can sit, you can't connect it to the, um, exhaust hanger the same way you need to get a little extension or break something up.

Robin: I'm thinking an L brace. If I can get enough L brace, hot, sexy L brace action going on down there, then I can use the same mounting points to structurally reinforce that the Y pipe locations. Then it's just a matter of suspending the can. Um, from what I thought I was going to use was the, uh, the right passenger peg, but I'm feeling now that it's like the right passenger peg connects at two locations that are just flat metric threaded points underneath the cowling. So I figure, why don't I just ditch that and get some ACE hardware noise and have something that's a little bit more point to point, simple, basic, no frills connection for the rear can. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. On to beer number two, which, uh, that brings me to my next, uh, little featurette deal here. Get you guys through this real quick. Updated site features and developments for the riding obsession.com. Um, gone are the days of, uh, you mean your blog? Cause we're a legit website. Now the blog roll is still there, but it's kind of hidden in the backdrop. Uh, we've been working on some big, big, big navigational changes to make the user experience more fluid and logical. The homepage now lists all main category topics with their respective descriptions. Uh, category pages do the same, but on the category pages, if it's only articles, do you just see the articles author date description? If it's only categories, you just see the topic of description. But if you get both, they're divided into two groups on that page, labeled accordingly with subcategories listed additionally towards the top for easy access. Bottom of each category page allows visitors to write an article. By the way, submit your content. We changed a few things with AdSense. The content, if, if the content on the article is less than 750 words, then you only see two ads, one of the top one at the bottom and the mobile ads are now significantly smaller. So they don't get in the way when reading or scrolling. I was seeing these bizarre figures where people were visiting the site and then all of a sudden they disappear and there'd be this massive jump in my AdSense profits. So that's been dealt with. TheRidingObsession.com has been asked to sign up for the motorcycle podcasters dot, oh, sorry, the motorcycle podcasters challenge from, would you guess, www.motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com.

Travis: Dot TV.

Robin: Motorcycle podcast. Oh, hold on. Damn, that's a domain, man. Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. If you want the details, forward slash MPC dash 2017 dash rules. It's really catchy. They have a song about it. It's a good, good song.

Travis: Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. He's got to do that like weird, like annoying jingle where it's like, just call 877-632-4475 extension 630. How could you forget that? How could you possibly forget that?

Robin: Seriously catchy as heck, man. Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. What if you did like dark and really dreary? Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. Motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com. Death metal the hell out of it. So, motorcyclepodcasterschallenge.com has contacted us through our site and I get the feeling, I don't know, maybe they were trying to market, maybe not, but either way, they're fans of the show. They're fans of the podcast and they want us to join them in the Motorcycle Podcasters Challenge, which essentially involves, it's sort of like the letter game or the letter game with destinations. You know, you ride to a town that starts with the letter Q, you get a specific number of points because towns with the letter Q are a little bit harder to come by, right?

Travis: Luckily, we live in Wisconsin, where there's all sorts of weird stuff.

Robin: Yeah. Prairie Duchenne, you've got some... McWanamacock and... I guess, did you guys both read through the rules on this thing at all? I like that Tim read through them to the point where he was willing to say verbally like, wow, those are some freaking crazy details, but okay.

Tim: Yeah, it was a complicated, complicated setup for how to get points and the whole timing of everything is a little confusing. Is it like a day-by-day challenge is what it sounded like?

Robin: I'm going to be honest with you, Tim. I don't even know what the prizes are. I don't know what the prizes are. I don't know what the rules are. I just know that letters equal certain points and that makes a little bit of sense for the garden variety. It's unlikely you're going to find whatever, but it sounds like a lot of fun. I think we're going to use it as an excuse to document roads. We're not going to win this unless we all do the big tour together and spread off and do 1,700 miles of finding different town names for the sake of, but with this big riding tour coming up in April, who knows what we'll see. Maybe we'll just have to make sure we take some photos. Mileage breaks the tie, which I think is cool. It's not about the distance. It's about the effort and maybe the route a little bit. I think it's going to be fun. The Domain is crazy, but I listened to a little bit of their podcast. They're a little bit more carefree about their production effort, a little bit more give me another beer about the production effort. I really like that. I like that a lot. We have music from a San Francisco DJ. We have all kinds of production level processing. Travis and I are musicians with diplomas that say, we're going to go in and chop silence. Theirs just sounds like they just hit record and then forgot to turn it off. At any rate, now onto our guest interview. It's time for our guest interview with Field Correspondent, Margaret Dean, a.k.a. Max Da, my wife, Ms. Dean. Our latest interview features Sarah Altieri. Sarah is a painter and graphic designer who recently relocated to Arizona. She began painting motorcycle helmets when a friend asked her to custom paint his back in 2013. She agreed before testing some methods, applications, and paints, eventually moving in the direction of pointillism. She does an amazing job.

Maggie: So with that, this is Margaret Dean for The Writing Obsession with Sarah Altieri. Good morning. Good morning. So let's get right into it. Can you talk a little bit about your background?

Sara: Yeah, absolutely. Art has been that one very consistent thing in my life. I've always been interested in drawing and painting. I really started getting active with painting in high school and then I went on to get a bachelor's degree in studio art where I focused mostly on painting and printmaking. And then after that, I tried to remain as active as I could in the art world by participating in art fairs, different cafe art shows, things like that.

Maggie: Okay. And you are also a writer and writer coach?

Sara: I am. Yes. I started writing, gosh, not all that long ago. And then shortly after I started writing, I became a writer coach, which was just a really awesome experience because what I was then able to do is really surround myself with other people who also love to ride. And it definitely boosted my confidence because I started practicing a lot more as opposed to just getting out there and writing. So yeah, that was a great experience to do that.

Maggie: Are you still doing it? Are you doing it out in Arizona?

Sara: I am. The transition has been a little bit slow because of life in general. And when you make a transition and move across the country and sort of move your life into a different place, sometimes the things that we love take the back burner. But that is something that I'm working on here. So by the start of next year, we'll be able to be active as a writer coach once again.

Maggie: Awesome. And you were Robin's boss, sort of, I guess, right? Yes. Yeah. So how was that managing him as one of many writer coaches? Did he give you a lot of problems? Was he a troublemaker? He's terrible. I know he's terrible.

Sara: Well, first of all, I really never liked the word boss. So I refuse to call myself the boss of any of the great writer coaches that I worked with. But what I enjoyed about Robin was his very sort of calm demeanor, which isn't always something that's easily found among writer coaches. He seemed to be one of the coaches who was very accommodating to students and really was very respectful of every student that he worked with, which was great. So I'm going to say he was pretty awesome.

Maggie: Okay. He will listen to this. But I get it. I understand if he was challenging to work with. No, you know what's funny is he's the one that picks the weekends or the time slots that he wants to coach. But every time he knows it's coming up, he gets a little bit tense or stressed out about it. And he'll start to bitch about it. And then, boom, it starts. And he just loves it. Yes. I know that he's good at it because he's just good in general with taking people through instruction. He likes that. And he's very good with students. But yeah, he'll just he'll bitch about it until he actually has to start. And then he loves it. He enjoys it a lot.

Sara: But here's the thing. The coaches who have to worry least about their performance or their teaching abilities tend to be the ones who are the most effective because they're very aware and very, I guess you would say, self-assessing quite a bit. And he was definitely one of those coaches.

Maggie: Yeah.

Sara: Yeah.

Maggie: It also matters to him how his time is spent. So it mattered to him. He wanted to have a successful class. He wanted everyone to get through it. He wasn't just checking a box and he didn't really. It's not like he didn't. He cared about how many people would get through the class and actually pass and become good writers because otherwise he views it as a waste of time.

Sara: Right. Yeah. That's just it. There were several coaches and are several coaches who definitely don't look at this as just a part-time job, but really put everything they have into it and are very considerate of how they are as coaches.

Maggie: Yeah. So we'll see. We'll see how next season goes. I've gotten some suggestions, strong suggestions that I should do it. And it might be fun to do it with him.

Sara: I don't know. See, I wonder who suggested that to you. We need more women in the motorcycle training industry. That's for sure.

Maggie: Yes. We'll see. We'll see. I think you're right. I do see the female ridership is increasing and getting healthier. But yeah, I don't know that I see that as much as reflected in coaching.

Sara: Women tend to make excellent coaches because there's a little bit more of a nurturing side, which is always helpful to a student who has never ridden before, gets on a motorcycle for the first time and is scared out of their minds. And women, I don't like to make a generalization or a stereotype, but women tend to be a little bit more nurturing and not always, but sometimes a little more patient as well.

Maggie: That makes sense to me as a woman. Okay. So let's get back to, let's get back to the helmets. How did you get started doing helmets?

Sara: Yeah. So, you know, we've been talking about rider coaches and when I became a rider coach, which was, oh gosh, it was, I believe back in 2013, I also was trained with someone who ultimately became a really good friend of mine. So we just really clicked during our rider coach prep and became really good riding buddies. And one day he hands over a helmet and he says, hey Sarah, you know, I really like this Celtic dragon design. We painted on my helmet. And I said, oh yeah, sure. You know, like I know what I'm getting myself into. And so I agreed to it and I was all enthusiastic about it. And then I got it home and I'm sitting at my dining room table thinking, well, how the heck am I supposed to paint on this helmet? I'm not an airbrush artist. I'm not a pinstriper. And those two mediums are typically used on, you know, helmets and gas tanks and cars and things like that. But, you know, I didn't want to try a new medium just like that on this helmet because it takes a lot of practice. So I ended up using, gosh, I think it was like a model paint and a paintbrush. It did not work out at all. So I started getting a little bit concerned about, okay, how am I really going to do this? So I believe I tried like three different types of paint, several different types of brushes, and I was able to remove it. So I just tried it on a small section of the helmet. And then I found these really cool paint pens and I thought, oh, okay, I'll try that. And it just worked. So I think for a lot of artists, it's trial and error. We learn from our mistakes. And so the paint pens worked out really well. And that's actually been a really good thing for me because I haven't really seen anyone else use the same type of technique that I use.

Maggie: I agree. I was going to bring that up. If someone goes to Google custom helmet painting, what I've seen is just airbrush. Your technique is so different. And I didn't know what your technique was before I asked you to do my helmet, but I just, I love it. I think it's definitely, you're right. It's definitely a differentiator.

Sara: Yeah. And I'm glad, of course, I'm glad you love it. And that's been one of the comments that's been pretty consistent with people who've seen them is they say, wow, yeah, that's really different. It's something that's sort of unique to a helmet. You're absolutely right. If you search different helmet designs, custom painted helmets, you're going to find a lot of airbrushing, which is beautiful. And, you know, I love that, but that's not my medium. That's not the type of artist I am. I can appreciate it for what it is, but I think I'm going to stick with my method for a while.

Maggie: Can you talk about the process? Because I think, I know you mentioned that you looked into or researched how safe the paint was for the helmet and why you don't do any sort of. A clear coat? Yes, a clear coat.

Sara: So after, gosh, my third or fourth helmet, I thought, oh, maybe I should call a few motorcycle helmet manufacturers and find out what they think about this technique. And of course they were extremely reluctant to verify that it was a safe method. However, I had the opportunity to meet someone from the Snell Foundation who, after describing my method to her, she said, yeah, that, that, I don't see that as being a problem at all because the paint is not affecting the surface in any way, nor is it going anywhere near the inside of the helmet. So she sort of gave me the thumbs up and the verbal, Snell, okay, this is, this is fine. You know, this is a perfectly safe method again, because I'm not removing any of the surface or altering the original surface in any way.

Maggie: Okay, that's great. And I don't know that someone that's gonna make the investment to get their helmet painted, I don't know that that's going to be a primary concern, but I think it's an extra good to know.

Sara: Well, and it's a really good question because after I moved here to Arizona, I started trying to find Facebook pages that I could advertise my helmets on here in Arizona. And that was among the first few questions that I got from people who, wow, yes, absolutely. Yes. Great. And yeah, yeah, I look at it as a good thing. And I think it's a, it's an excellent question, because we certainly don't want to alter the, the quality or reduce the quality of the helmet, especially for a design, which, which is something that that's, that's not really necessary. It's just sort of a fun extra, you know, addition to the helmet. So, you know, that was one thing I definitely questioned myself, in particular, as a rider coach, I couldn't rightfully paint a helmet when the rider handbook says don't paint your helmet. So I had to, I really had to look into it. And yeah, it's a perfectly safe method.

Maggie: I'm thinking it can't be any, I mean, people will put decals and stickers on their helmet. I mean, does that automatically void some warranty?

Sara: I don't believe so. But the technique that I use on the helmets, you could very much look at it as about the same in terms of, of how it affects the helmet, it can actually be removed. The helmet can't or the paint can be removed if you use a paint thinner, obviously, but therein lies the issue when when you add chemicals such as that, that can start to break down the surface of the helmet. So I definitely would not recommend using paint thinner on a Okay, good to know.

Maggie: Although I would never think to remove my art for my helmet. Okay, so you've been painting helmets then basically since 2013. Can you discuss sort of your influences and the type of art you're drawn to and what informs you in general?

Sara: Oh, gosh, you know, that's a really difficult question. Because the type of art that I am influenced by and very interested in, does not at all translate when I'm creating helmets. For example, I am very attracted to Mexican folk art. And that is not at all anything that influences my helmet. So when I think about this question, I think primarily about tattoo art. That's the way I really look at the helmet designs. For example, if you were to get a tattoo, what would that design be? So I generally ask people what's significant to you and sort of approach it almost as though it's a tattoo. Because the designs end up being very similar to a tattoo design.

Maggie: That makes sense. What are some of the different themes you've done?

Sara: You know, they have been sort of all over the place. I've done an X-Men themed helmet, which was pretty unusual for me because I haven't even seen the movie. I knew very little about X-Men. So that one was a little bit a little bit out there for me. But I've done primarily designs that have significant meaning for people. For example, one of my favorites was a helmet that I did for a retired firefighter. And that was another one where I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, how do I create this in a way that's going to translate well with what what he wants? And so it was really challenging. But in the end, it worked out beautifully. And it had his dates of service and had the logo on it and had his nickname on it. And that one was, I think, really significant. I did another one for someone who has an autistic son. That one was really quite significant as well. So I think the ones that I really like to do are those that have a special meaning to people. In particular, they know that this isn't anything that they can buy. No one is going to have the same design. But I also do really fun designs. And I do have to tell you that the Sugar Skull that I did for you was definitely my favorite. And I have two more helmets coming up. And then after that, I have another Sugar Skull helmet that I'll be doing. So I'm really excited about that one. But yeah, I would say that there has been no two designs that are at all similar. They've been sort of all over the place, which is fun. I always tell people I can do anything. And I can. And I just figure it out.

Maggie: Okay. So someone decides, okay, I want to go forward. I want to have my helmet custom painted by you. Talk about how it works. What's the process of working with you?

Sara: So it's, in my opinion, I don't know. I think it's actually fairly simple. We generally start a conversation. And I usually ask the person, what are you looking for? What is important to you? I also find out, of course, what is the color of the helmet? Is it three quarters? Is it a full face helmet? To try to get an idea of what the canvas is actually going to be. And then really, it's a fairly simple process after that. After I get the idea, I really try to convey to the person that I'm working with that, hey, don't worry about the design. I'll take care of it. And I love it when someone is able to put their trust in me and know that whatever design I come up with will be well suited to the shape of the helmet and things like that. So I think the majority of the people I've worked with have been pretty hands off. Here's the theme. You go for it. And I love that because I think that's what you're paying an artist for, is for their ideas. There have been a few where the person has wanted some very specific placement of different design elements. And those are a little more challenging because sometimes what they want just doesn't fit with the space. So those are the challenging ones.

Maggie: I guess I don't know what that's like because I was one of the ones that let you do your thing. I could sort of see maybe wanting some specifics, but if you're going to an artist, I would think you've done some sort of research. You've looked at their work, what they're capable of. So you would want them to add that extra thing that they can't do, besides literally getting it onto the helmet.

Sara: Yes. And let's face it, it's a little bit of an unusual canvas, and some things are going to work beautifully and some things just are not going to work.

Maggie: So you've recently relocated from Illinois to Arizona. How's the writing there?

Sara: Oh my gosh, the writing is awesome. Wow. Actually, it's so different from Illinois because it's very mountainous and very curvy. And unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of the opportunity to get out there and ride. In fact, it's the end of November. So the riding season here is really just beginning. So I'm really looking forward to just getting out there. My first couple of weeks here, I did have an opportunity to get out and ride around Sedona and the Cottonwood area, which was just, I had to pull over at one point and just pinch myself and realize, oh my gosh, I'm riding through the red rocks here. This is really awesome. So I'm really looking forward to a lot of exploration here.

Maggie: That sounds great. We'll have to revisit after you've had a writing season there. Yes, absolutely. What's next for you?

Sara: Oh, wow. So I'm not really sure because I'm not much of a planner. I never really know what to expect next. In terms of helmet painting, I do actually have three helmet projects that are lined up. So I'll be certainly keeping busy with that and just really trying to establish myself here in Arizona as a helmet painter. It's really a long process. People don't know you. They don't really know your work. So there's been a lot of effort to try to get my work out there. It's slowly but surely happening here in Arizona. What was nice about being a rider coach back in Illinois was there was that big network of people who I was able to work with, and they all had helmets. So that was a really good network that I had there. So I'm working on establishing that network here as well.

Maggie: In a couple of seasons after you've had a chance to get yourself established as a rider coach there and people start to get to know your work, I'm seeing in your future maybe a helmet painting riding tour. I love it. I love it. Bring your work to the people around the state or something. I don't know.

Sara: I love it. Yes, yes. I'm up for that. Absolutely.

Maggie: Okay, final question. What is your riding obsession?

Sara: Oh my gosh, my riding obsession.

Maggie: It could be a place or a trip or a bike or a hero, a riding hero. Just what's your riding obsession?

Sara: Okay, so coffee is my obsession. So if the ride involves a really excellent cup of coffee with excellent company at some point during the destination, that is my riding obsession.

Maggie: I like it. Kind of reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. So we'd have to, let's see, how could we change that to you? That would be Artisan Bikes Getting Coffee. There's something better.

Sara: That sounds fine to me. I think that's good.

Maggie: Is there anything else you wanted to throw out there?

Sara: You know what? I'm just sitting here looking at my next project thinking, oh, where do I begin? The starting is always the hardest part. So as soon as we're done, I'm going to dig into my next project.

Maggie: Yay! That sounds exciting. Okay, well, enjoy your day. Good luck on your helmets. Thank you so much. And until the next time.

Robin: That was our interview with Sarah Altieri. You can find out more about Sarah and her artistic projects, helmet or otherwise, at greenheartgallery.com. We're glad she spoke with us and wish her the best. Which brings up an important point. We'd love to hear your motorcycle story. If you'd like to be featured on this podcast, record your thoughts to an app like Auphonic for Android and iPhone. That's spelled A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C. Then upload the resulting file to SoundCloud and email us the link. We'll pause things up before featuring your tale in your voice and your words. And now, Tim Clark is going to introduce us to some new kit. Take it away, Tim.

Tim: All right, today's exciting new product is the Moto Skivvies high-tech underpants.

Travis: High-tech underpants.

Tim: Underpants! Yeah, so these are some guys that went from, you know, a lot of us have taken old, like, bicycle shorts and worn them to try and make, try to make your seat bearable. So, but the problem is they are built for bicycle seats and the pressure points are different than your bike. So what they did is they went to one of these companies in Italy that makes the fancy chamois kind of compression lycra shorts and they redesigned the chamois that goes in them to actually cover the pressure points that motorcyclists have.

Robin: So the high side of the thigh, low side of the buttock.

Tim: Yep, so, and there are three models that they started out with, specifically one for the sport bike where you're leaning more forward, the adventure bike where you're kind of in a more neutral, but you end up having a lot of pressure, usually like on the inside of the thighs, and then if they've got a cruiser model for when you're sitting right on your sit bones and that's where your main pressure points are. They're, they've really expanded their line since I first was aware of them. They've, they've got adventure compression tights. They've got compression socks. They're more of the complicated than regular compression socks. They've got some graduated compression model. So like the further up the calf you go, the less compression there is. And you know, if you're going to be on the bike sitting still for a long period of time, us old people, we don't get this good blood flow return.

Robin: What? Is this the ways of the country kitchen buffet?

Tim: It's all about just keeping you more comfortable and more focused on what you're doing.

Travis: Yeah, skivvies. Yeah, you don't want no bunching and pinching and sweating and stinking.

Tim: Yep, and they're, they're expensive when you first look at them. It's first, I mean your first impression on them, you see.

Robin: What's the asking price on this?

Tim: They're going for 65 right now.

Robin: Okay, 65 is not too crazy. I was expecting the, the crazy Ferrari price of like 125 to 150 bucks.

Tim: Yep, and I did buy a couple pairs because I was planning for the out of country tour. You sure it wasn't the oxy? No, I actually made that expensive purchase before. Nice, smart man.

Robin: I like it. No, that makes sense. They look like a good product.

Tim: Oh yeah, and I did get a couple full days in riding in them and they made a difference. And unlike bicycle shorts that tend to have a lot of compression all the way around, they don't hug the front quite as aggressively.

Robin: That's important, man.

Tim: Give your bits a little more room to breathe.

Robin: Yeah, I've got two pairs of underwear that we were, we were approached to test. One was made in the States, one was made in freaking China. And I'll tell you what, the Chinese underwear was more comfortable. It was more basic. It was, they were both quick dry. The Tommy Johns is the one that they're so elastic that it's sort of the opposite of compression. They're allowing you to pretty much stretch the underwear into any direction you want to move everything out of the way as you see fit to. But as a result, eventually it's just, it's just a headache of, it hurts.

Tim: Oh yeah, yeah.

Robin: You have to do repeat adjustments.

Tim: Yeah. But yeah, the Motoskivis, they're one that I, I threw my own money at. I bought two pairs and I would go back and buy more.

Robin: You hear that Motoskivis? You get free, you get a free press here, man. Motoskivis. I'm not convinced. I think they need to send me a pair. They should probably send us many, many, many pairs.

Tim: We need some evaluation samples.

Travis: I think a medium would probably be like a 32, 34 inch waist. That's probably.

Robin: All right. So onto the next topic. You're trying to fit your ego in there.

Travis: Model focus. Yeah. So Laurel's employee, Matt, who's a friend and an employee, works for food carts in the area and stuff. We were at the holiday party for a kitchen space and I brought up to me that he has a Vino 50 that isn't running. And I was like, I'll take it apart for you. I, I might even put it back together because he took it to the local scooter shop and they wanted like two grand to fix whatever's wrong with it. Which is like all, all labor costs, right?

Tim: Yeah. You buy a new one for that.

Travis: Yeah, exactly. So he's like, whatever. I was like, well, I'll work on it. You just have to help me and bring me a beer and it's fine. And buy the parts, any parts I need. So, but he's doesn't know anything about mechanical stuff. So he was, wasn't super clear on what was wrong with it. And I was like, well, can't be that hard. It's like a little 50 CC scooter. And he seemed, he said, granted, this was also at the holiday party. So I wasn't, you know, fully clear. Oh, this was that party? The owner thought the little dogs had it.

Robin: Oh my goodness. Okay.

Travis: That's funny. But yeah, he's like, they said something about coolant or something. I was like, there's no way there's coolant in a little scooter. No. Turns out. So I, I, I get home and I start Googling and researching the bike. So the Yamaha Vino used an air cooled two stroke motor from 2000. I got it here somewhere from 1999. Nope. From 2002 to 2005, it used a air quotes peppy two stroke motor. But then in 2006, they switched over to a four stroke because of emission regulations.

Robin: All of that unbridled power.

Travis: And it is a four valve single overhead cam, liquid cooled four stroke motor. Wow. Which, yeah, I was like, what? That's crazy. Let me, but it turns out the Honda Metropolitan, the other like Honda's little 50 CC um, has been, yeah, is a liquid cooled single overhead cam four valve four stroke. And that's since 2002.

Robin: Dang dude. So they're really, they're trying to go at it with the little guy.

Travis: Yeah. So these little, yeah, these little tiny scooters, these little 50 CC scooters are fairly complicated. And I think it's a similar motor that they were using in the Honda Ruckus as well. But I was just really surprised that these little 50 CC scooter mopeds or whatever you want to call them. Um, yeah, they're liquid cool four valve overhead cam, um, very modern little motorcycle engines, which kind of seems, but I guess too, if you, if you kind of want to make as much power as you can in that, in that displacement, in that vein, I mean, well, they're also, they take so much punishment and have it not be a two stroke, right? Right. Like if you did an air, like an air cooled overhead valve four stroke motor, and it's 50 CCs, it's going to make zero power, but you crank up the compression, crank up the tolerances, do a four valve liquid, cool it. You can, you can make a reasonable amount of power, a horsepower and a half.

Tim: Yeah. What do they end up in terms of power? Are they like 12 horse?

Travis: I doubt it's actually not. I didn't even look that up. Let me find that real quick.

Tim: Um, and I think that'd even be a high estimate.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Let's see if it's 50, a little 50 feces.

Tim: Did I mention that the scotch glass is empty? Make it happen, man. The, uh, I did in terms of the, uh, motorcycle podcast challenge, I have located a Zwingle, Iowa. We got a Z south of Dubuque.

Travis: That's a, that's a bit of a hollow. We can make it happen.

Tim: Heck yeah. It's a, it's two and a half hours out, two and a half back at most.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: As far as I'm concerned, it's already happening now.

Travis: Let's do this.

Robin: We're in this tomorrow.

Travis: Let me see. 49 CCs, 38 by 43 and a half born stroke. Oh, so, so it's a, it's under square. It's got a long stroke. So you can rev it high, which makes sense. Yeah. Um, yeah. MSRP $1,900. So, um, it's gonna cost two grand to fix this.

Robin: Sorry.

Tim: That's the usual, uh, uh, what was it? You don't want to work on this.

Travis: You should probably look at what's in our showroom. Yeah. Well talking to him too, it was kind of, it seemed like, um, it's probably a head gasket. Oh sure. Yeah. It'd be fun. Um, which, um, yeah, it was like, yeah, that's going to take like 10 hours of labor, 15 hours of labor and $30 in parts, you know?

Tim: Sure. Right.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: Because you've got to basically pull the swing arm to get the motor out because it's probably a swing arm mounted engine.

Travis: Uh, yeah, it's all one unit. It just drops out of the frame.

Tim: Okay.

Travis: Like the, yeah, like the whole drive train and the motor and the rear wheel are all one unit in the swing arm because it's got a CVT type, uh, V, V driven belt mechanisms in it. I guess you make all of them do. So like, yeah, it goes to, it goes to peak torque and then the, the, the, uh, the, the V pulleys squeeze the belts and increase the ratio, the drive ratio to get more speed. Um, let me, I'm trying to see if I can find horsepower anywhere rated. It's not, it's not explicitly stated by anyone, obviously. Um, we're looking at about a dyno. Yeah. So Honda Ruckus is going to be a similar set of engine configuration.

Robin: They're saying there's about three, three, one horsepower.

Travis: Yeah. But they're little. So, and they only back, they max out at like 25, 30 miles an hour or so. And they're elegant and they're loving and and they have a vintage plastic look to them. Vintage. At least if you buy, at least if you buy a Vespa there, I think they're made out of metal. If you get the Vespa Vespa, they're probably made out of plastic now.

Tim: Some of them are all still, uh, the main body is pressed monocoque, um, you know, they're, uh, secondary panels are plastic. Uh, the, basically the, the frame is the, the panels. Okay. It doesn't have a separate tube frame.

Travis: Yeah. So it's not like a tube frame with like the footwell and the windscreen, like, like part on it. It's all one, just piece of stamp metal. So yeah, monocoque, look it up. Robin, you should know what monocoque is.

Robin: Well, I should know, but the point is that while if I'm not the perfect example of people who are listening to this, having an opportunity to learn exactly that, which I don't know all the better. Let me ask the stupid question, Travis. All right.

Tim: So if you are going to Google this, that is spelled M O N O C O C Q U E, something like that.

Travis: It's French.

Robin: Don't even get me started.

Travis: M O N O C O Q U E with a chassis integral with the body. Yeah. It's the definition. So it's like, it doesn't have a frame with a body on it. It's as the frame and the body are one, are one piece. Yes. Just like that $50,000 two stroke race replica you shared on the, uh, on the site the other day.

Robin: Oh yeah. Is it time for that? Are we going in that direction? Is that what's next?

Travis: We can. I don't know. Is that in the mess on the motor?

Robin: It is. It is. And so that that's going to bring us to this week's mess a la motto brought to you by the super slick, ultra badass motorcycle, mega posse of incredible power, power, power, power, power, power, power, power, power, the super slick, ultra badass motorcycle, mega posse of incredible power is super slick, ultra badass. And as a side note, it's also incredibly powerful. Let me open it up now. I have to get on the Facebook.

Travis: Sure. Well, we, we, we skipped over the listener question, but we can come back to that.

Robin: We'll come back to the list of graduates. Yes. Super slick, ultra badass motorcycle power, um, power, power, power. First off, if you're on a bicycle and you're shooting Roman candles and bottle rockets at the scooter ahead of you, please try not to down them. That's a little bit heavy handed.

Travis: Although I don't know that looked a little stage. I don't know why the scooter people like were hanging around. Like I see like awkwardly fumbled a bottle rocket into the tube and like couldn't get the light of the light beacon is shaking the bike around and they dumped the, they dumped the scooter.

Robin: Really? Just accelerate. Get out of there. Sorry. Leave them alone. They don't even matter. Okay. Electric motorcycle cafe razor. Oh, I'm sorry. As the headline says, um, the electric motorcycle from Denzel electric motorcycle cafe race. When is this race? When it will be happening? Either way, a friend of mine posted it. I say it does well, the top speed, we calculated 62 miles per hour.

Travis: Yes.

Robin: Yeah. But it does radical BMX skid outs. It's got a built in leather hemorrhoid dispenser and an integrated birth control vape pen storage.

Travis: Yeah, it literally does. It's got this little plastic pocket that's just big enough for a vape pen. We assume and a giant foot brake lever thing hanging off the bottom of it for some reason.

Robin: Yeah. Now if you have to pick your leg up off of the peg to use the brake, how much breaking do you really think? I'm talking about some serious BMX skid outs. Radical dude. Totally tubular. Bodacious. All right. So what's much better than that is the, I believe it's $50,000, 50, $50,000, the 250 CC two-stroke street bike.

Travis: Vins Motors Desinquanta.

Robin: Desinquanta.

Travis: I don't know. Desinquanta. 250 in Italian.

Robin: It's so great, man. I even love the hunchback shoulders. It's like a little Frankenstein of angry.

Travis: This has a carbon fiber monocoque. All right, jeez. Looking at that front fork, it looks like it has a double A-arm front fork on it, huh?

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Robin: It does look like that.

Travis: It doesn't have fork, unless it's like an aerodynamic thing and there's fork tubes inside it.

Robin: So you're talking about the suspension is in the neck?

Travis: Yeah. Yeah, like the new Goldwing or BMW's K-bikes since 1994 or whatever.

Robin: Wow, man. I just noticed that. But it's funny to think about how they actually implemented it since the hunchback covers the entire area where that suspension would be employed.

Travis: Yeah, well, yeah, it's all up in the fairing there.

Robin: Sure.

Travis: But yeah, it's like it's a carbon fiber monocoque, so the gas tank in the fairing.

Tim: That weight, 209 pounds.

Travis: Dude. And it's like 70 horsepower.

Tim: Oh my God. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah. So it's 209 pounds with 70 horsepower.

Robin: That is ridiculous. Angry. Just an angry, angry bike.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: That'd be fun.

Travis: And probably like a nosebleed power band where you like pop a wheelie halfway through second gear. Yep. I always love too how these two-stroke race bikes because they have those big expansion chambers and these tiny little mufflers on them with the little tiny outlets. Like some of the old three-cylinder two-stroke race bikes where you have those like you have three tiny little mufflers with like little half-inch openings in them. These giant expansion pipes. They look ridiculous.

Tim: All right. So yeah, it does have the double A arm front suspension.

Travis: Oh, did you find it somewhere else? Or did you look on the VIN's website?

Tim: No, it's actually on that link, the Cycle News. It's just kind of buried in the detail in there. It says front suspension uses a parallelogram layout.

Travis: Ah, yeah.

Tim: That's what they're talking about.

Travis: Parallelogram. Yep.

Robin: Brief intermission, gentlemen. Hold on one second here. Is that straight pipe? Nope. Is there a header on it? Yep. There's a muffler on it too. And it sounds, it's going to be pissed. It's going to be pissed. This bike is going to be in a very bad mood in the best way. I mean, I'm excited. I'm excited.

Travis: Back to you. Ooh, carbon monocoque. I'm looking at the website.

Robin: I do got to figure out how I'm going to brace this, brace the pipes. I mean, I could just mount the exhaust can, but then there's a lot of leverage going against the head with the pipes. Oh, yeah.

Travis: But it's also a lot lighter without that collector can in there.

Robin: But the collector can was the bracing point. It was mounted, fixed, bolted underneath.

Travis: I was going to say, the collector can was holding its own weight and now it's gone.

Robin: Right. So I got to deal with that.

Travis: I got to deal with that. But you don't have the weight there anymore.

Robin: Doesn't mean that I can just let the, I think, okay. So what you're saying is there's a gray area. If I find a halfway point where I at least brace it decently without any real, I don't have to go overboard with like bolting it.

Travis: Yeah, too. I think, I mean, honestly, I think you're fine with like the head mounting points and then just suspending the can. I think that'll hold the weight just fine.

Robin: But that's it. It's just asking so much of the motor though. You just want me to suspend the can. Yeah. I'll tell you what I'll do. This is what I'm talking about a gray area. I will suspend the can and then with it suspended and not riding it, I will get some kind of a bracket that will just, you know, reinforce the center a little bit. Sure.

Tim: Or just like put a little bit of, you know, bend a little strip of metal into a bracket and throw a pipe clamp around it kind of thing. Just hold it in one place somewhere in there.

Travis: Or just ride it till you break another header pipe and buy a new header pipe.

Robin: That's not what will happen. You know that's not what will happen, Travis. You know what's going to happen. Tim can speak up for me around this one. I guarantee it that I'm going to end up breaking the head. I'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why am I not going?

Tim: You're going to strip those studs out.

Robin: I'm telling you, man. I was actually just railing on them, just getting this thing put into place, which I think it is. I don't, I mean, do I really need to use any, I don't need to use any threadlocker.

Tim: No, it'll just burn. No. In fact, you might want anti-seize on them. They're not exposed to the elements.

Robin: Why would I do that? It's never going to break again.

Travis: Yeah, it won't. It doesn't, it gets, those get too hot. You can't, there's nothing you can do. It'll just burn anything you put on it.

Robin: They're going to get The point is if I torque it down to mechanically heavy duty, I mean, I'm not going to even torque them. I'm just going to go to like mechanically snug is all I need for the exhaust gaskets. Yeah. By the way, to those of you listening, this is our, this marks our first episode where we actually get to be in the garage working on the bikes while we podcast. How cool is that?

Travis: Well, Robert is in the garage working on his bike while we podcast. I'm in my living room and stuff.

Tim: No, I'm on the easy chair in the living room.

Travis: Yep. Oh, so we do have a listener question.

Robin: Yes, we do. Rich S. of Bosco Bell, Wisconsin. He would like to know, is it safe to leave the battery in your motorcycle over the winter while the bike is winterized so long as it's being tendered? And we actually look at these questions well in advance before the podcast. Travis and I got to talking to him and yeah, I mean, it seems like the consensus is, oh yeah, sure. No problem. But I thought about something. I thought about where did this listener question come from? And I guarantee you that this listener question came from my winterization process and my winterization article, it goes overboard and covers every single detail that you might want to consider. So it's like the every bike winterization. So all bikes, all steps in one, right? Sure. So like you end up using turtle wax to jacket the paint and the chrome and things like that to protect it. A lot of this comes from the fact that I used to live inner city. I used to live in Rogers park and I used to see motorcycles that were left on the street for the duration of winter under a cover. And at the end of that winter, they would still or not, or not, or not. Yeah. By the end of winter, they would start up. So I predict that this question comes semi humorously from that page thinking, well, why would anybody do that? And the consensus initially was, yeah, it's fine.

Travis: You can totally do that unless, unless, unless you're leaving your motorcycle outside and then you should probably bring it, but to like batteries, like they want to be cool and dry. Sure. So, so if you have a garage or something where it's like, it's going to be colder than in your house, that's better for it. Um, if it's on a tender, as long as it's a modern tender, that kind of cycles on and off and doesn't just keep pumping one amp into it all the time. Yeah. So any reasonable modern battery tender that's, that's designed for that, we'll, we'll keep that battery lasting longer because you want, you want that voltage change in the battery to help keep it. That actually makes it last longer.

Robin: Who makes a product like that?

Travis: Travertine, the Deltran battery charger or battery tender, which like usually you don't usually even see the Deltran logo on it, but like if you go to any shop and you see something that says battery tender and the green logo, they're a good one though. I actually like the kind of off brand AutoZone ones. Those do the same thing and they're pretty fine though. They're a little bulkier than the Deltrans.

Robin: Um, Tim was laughing at this one last time cause there is, there are people, there's a Mexican company that will take the Deltran stickers, remove the Deltran emblem and then put it back onto a battery tender minus. It's like rebranded using the Deltran stickers without the Deltran logo so that people buy them, but they are a little bit more brittle. Um, they don't last as long. Anyhow.

Tim: Yeah. You know, I must, um, um, on this question, I'm also thinking that it does matter a little bit what temperature he's storing this bike in. Um, if you are in an attached garage and it's staying 40 degrees and up all winter, yeah, no problem. No worries at all. If you're, you've got a detached uninsulated garage, you know, it's out of the elements, but it might be dropping, you know, five degrees out there in the middle of, you know, the frigid Bosco bell winter, you know, and it will shorten the life of that battery, even on the tender to go extreme colds.

Robin: I couldn't give you any sort of quantity of, you know, but initially I was asking about like the whole concept of it being a water filled battery instead of a sealed battery, but it seems like maybe that's not even an issue to be too concerned about either.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, if it's a liquid filled battery as long, so there's, I mean, there's just a general concern with the ventilated liquid filled batteries, um, which I know like BMW was, I think maybe even still using some of their bikes.

Robin: So like a distilled water battery.

Travis: Um, that the vent on it is, is properly routed. So it's not venting the gas to a part of your bike cause that will, uh, promote corrosion. Sure. So if your, your battery has a vent to make sure that the vent tube is connected and it's venting down out of, out of range of the bike. And then also, you know, make sure that the bike is in a place where it can breathe and you're not trapping any sort of gases or anything as well that you wouldn't want to provide it stored inside. If you're storing your bike outside under a cover, pull the battery, bring it in, put it on tender. Uh, the other thing to consider is, uh, you know, lithium battery. If you have a lithium iron battery, um, or lithium polymer battery, uh, most of those like a Shirai or some of the other brands, uh, have specialty tenders for them that you want to use, uh, for storage that, um, that, that cycle the cells in a very specific way that helps promote the longevity of the battery versus a standard battery tender, which will work, uh, but it's designed for a lead acid battery and, and will not, um, promote the life of the, your expensive lithium battery as well. Uh, but that is in the documentation that comes with those batteries. So read your owner's manual.

Robin: There's no better time than now for you to maybe, maybe Travis should write an article about such a thing just so that I can, so that I can sell battery tenders.

Travis: And the difference between like lithium polymer and lithium iron and what are called cranking amps and how do they work?

Robin: Yes. Sought after information, I would imagine.

Travis: So to answer the question, yes, it's safe to leave it unless it's outside or you have something weird. But I feel like if you have a high end battery, you're probably doing whatever something else anyway.

Robin: So, and on that riveting, riveting, exciting note, this episode of the writing obsession podcast is sponsored. Oh, you know what? Before I even go there, once again, I just want to say rest in peace, Bruce Brown on any Sunday. If you haven't seen the movie, it's your loss, but luckily that movie is available. If you're a new writer, you should check it out. And if you're not a new writer, we should all be checking it out just for the sake of I'm going to go watch it here pretty soon. That's our episode for this round. Thewritingobsession.com is seeking sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focused mentions during the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment. I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group writing tour, which is scheduled for spring of next year, 2018. Dubbed the Trip Sevens Tour, seven writers will cover seven States in seven days, starting in late April of again, 2018. It's a twisty sport touring getaway of epic proportions. We hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via thewritingobsession.com. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under the events navigation menu icon. That's our episode for this round. Tune in next time for more discussion on all things specific to sport touring or universal to motorcycling as a whole. For thewritingobsession.com, I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: And I'm Tim Clark. Safe travels, everyone, and happy Christmas. Happy holidays. And from my standpoint, Merry Christmas.