Travis: Hello everybody, I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: And I'm Tim Clark. And I'm Robin Dean. And this is the Riding Obsession podcast. Here we go.

Travis: Today we'll be talking about the 2018 International Motorcycle Show in Chicago.

Tim: This episode of Riding Obsession podcast is sponsored by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstocked produce to offer a quick, tasty breakfast.

Robin: I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is scheduled for spring of this 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, and we hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via the ridingobsession.com. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu.

Travis: Yeah, so we're just going to start off with some sort of general show things. I don't know who wants to go first. I can go. The first thing I noticed is the check-in, the press check-in. I mean, I guess bless that little lady's heart, but we were in line and then they were like, oh, you need to go to the press check-in, which is just the person next to the person we sit in line with. And then we have our phones out and we have our confirmation with the barcode and everything, and they have no idea what to do. It's like asking us name and then flipping through a box of envelopes.

Tim: Yeah, nowhere at any time is she reaching for a QR scanner or anything like that. None of it. Like she had no idea that existed.

Travis: Yeah, like how, and this is how it's supposed, and then luckily some other guy came up and like scanned all of our stuff and printed our ID badges. By the time they got to Tim, they actually, he just was like, here's my stuff. And it took us like 10 minutes. It was annoying. Otherwise they had, I thought it was, they had like a live garage night going on on a stage where they were like wrenching, I think just on Harleys. I didn't see, maybe over the weekend they did some imports, but I don't know. But I thought that was cool. I didn't really watch it.

Robin: They announced what they were doing at one point. What did he say? They were doing something with like the hydraulic lifters or whatever.

Travis: Yeah, they were doing valves on overhead valve engine Harley, say push rods and lifters and stuff like that. And then of course, because it's the progressive international motorcycle show, they always have a barber on hand. You can get a free haircut or like beard trim, which I thought about for a minute. And they're like airbrush tattoos. What was also interesting, I thought is that they had like a little power wheels arena for the kids. Like if you had little kids, they could ride little power wheel and they had like replica like BMWs and Kawasaki's and stuff there. They even had a Polaris slingshot power wheels. Yeah.

Tim: I noticed they had one of the Ducati Multistrada with hard bags for the kids to ride on.

Robin: In power wheels format?

Travis: Yes, they did. That's adorable. I've seen the BMW GS's before, but yeah, not the Ducati. Robin, what was your take on the general overlay of the show and getting there?

Robin: After I knew, you know, we've done this for what, three, four years now. And I knew what we were getting into after walking, you know, just walking from the car, walking that quarter mile, quarter door. Once we got our press passes right on entry, I felt the size of the room and the annual Disney-ness, dizziness, like kicked right into gear.

Travis: Disney-ness is pretty close.

Robin: Is close. Yeah. I mean, it's similar.

Travis: Little of that.

Robin: Yeah. I was feeling a hundred percent Mickey mouse right on entry. So I just figured, all right, how do I usually do this? It's split down the middle. And I figured I'll walk the long wall and snake my way back from the end. So I took a right and entered in. And the first person I saw was Scott Machinsky, who, you know, it's the MSF booth. I actually saw a big ad for advanced writer course, free advanced writer course and free MSF course. I was like, oh, that's the MSF booth. I see Scott Machinsky who runs the, it's the state funded operation out of Harper college. It's fun working for that guy. I am an MSF writer and coach. Sidebar, anyone who's thinking about learning to ride, you might, you heard me right. It's a free program, state funded.

Travis: Yeah. In Illinois.

Robin: In Illinois.

Travis: Do you happen to be an Illinois resident? I believe so.

Robin: That's pretty much part of the case. Yes. So you're, you're, you're getting a waiver for an Illinois driver's license M class if you pass the course. So yeah, but you know, it's a free program. And assuming you pass, you get a test waiver to take to the DMV after a week or so. And then after that, I bounced off the edge of two of Japan's big four, but didn't want to delve into that just yet. I just wasn't ready to deal with real, honest to God, big companies just yet. So the long wall was full of some good stuff. Others were just repeat marketing efforts from 2017. And that was me just making my way down anything I could latch hold, you know, this is where Tim, what did you see where you had just walked in and we all, we all just went in completely separate directions. So Tim, what was the first thing that you did?

Tim: Well, you know, I am in there. My main goal was to be a photo documentation. Oh, you know, I'm actually just bought a wide camera lens right before the show. So I could get a little bit better photos in the tight confines that we were going to be in. So I'm really just kind of no big surprise when we walk in the room, kind of get used to that zoo and I'm fiddling with the settings and got my head in my own little world. So I, I pretty much followed you where I took a right and went down the line of shops, you know, I'm kind of taking a look at like, oh yeah, I need to go back and look at this and this and this. So it's like, like the venture heated gear saw right away. And we had, we had talked about that the night before. So I really wanted to talk to that guy. And I'd been considering picking up one of the new headsets. So Sina and Cardo both had booths right next to each other.

Robin: They've got a good collection going. Some of their new models are getting better and better. I haven't really kept up since the twenties.

Tim: Yeah. I'm pretty excited. Like I'd like to try writing in a group that's got like the active mesh settings and really see how that behaves. Yep. So, you know, I've got a lot of photos of people being really bored because we were, you know, on this snowy morning, everybody was showing up late crowds were pretty thin at that point. So yeah, that photo I've got of the Sina and Cardo guys, they're just like totally oblivious to everything around them.

Robin: That's the best way. That's the best way to go to that show though. Because if nobody's pushy at the time and there's no presentations going on, you just walk into the show and you go through it twice. You go through the first time. You're just like, I like that. Grab info. I like that. Grab info. I like that. The guy's like, so can I tell you about, no, grab info, keep walking and just get through the whole thing. And then after that, now that you've got everything you're going to want to learn about, even after you leave, oh, excuse me. Even after you leave the show, now you can kind of peruse and hear the story until you just can't take it anymore. You're like, I'm out.

Tim: Yep. Yeah. So a couple of minutes, uh, toy in with the settings. I think I got my camera set up. So after that, it was just scroll down the line and take pictures of what caught my attention.

Travis: And this is surprisingly dim. Like it seems like a big bright fluorescent light room, but when you're taking pictures, it's surprisingly dim.

Tim: Yeah. It really plays havoc with cameras. Yeah.

Travis: Um, yeah. And then like, I think the other part of the, uh, the sort of overall show is they have the custom bikes strewn about the show. And then there's a whole vintage bike section. Um, I know there's a couple things there that caught my eye. One was, there was a, uh, like a derelict style triumph with the sidecar and the spare tire was like covered with a Blanton's whiskey, a barrel cap. Oh, the triumph. That was nice.

Robin: Yeah. That was pretty, that was pretty cool.

Travis: Yeah. It's just kind of like a bootlegger sidecar thing. Maybe think of a Bob is a, he's a Blanton's fan.

Robin: Um, he's a, he's a quality fan. If it's, if it's good, he probably has it.

Travis: The, uh, there was also, I'm not, it was funny how many like slammed baggers there are with like 176 inch front wheels and about a half inch of a half inch of lean angle.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: One, two, they have like the pneumatic shock. So they like sit on the ground and they just park them and they just slam them on the ground and they don't have a kickstand. Yeah. Um, which I thought like, is it 2006? Like, why are these still being made? I don't, I don't know. But there was, there was one that was cool. Uh, that I linked there with a, some, I mean, I don't know if it's something you could actually ride or it's more of like an art piece, but the giant 24 inch front wheel or whatever it was, um, 26 inch front wheel was didn't have spokes. It was like acrylic or Lexan between the hub and the rim and it was like floating with like the clear wheel with a gigantic Buell style outer diameter brake rotor. Um, so I thought that was kind of neat. Um, speaking of Buell, there was a cool Buell blast custom right by the front that I thought was neat. Cause it's cause I have a Buell blast.

Robin: You linked to that right here, right?

Travis: Yeah. It was the, the Franken blast is what it was called. And I'm looking at it. The only thing that was blast on it, I think was the engine, which is like that single cylinder sports engine. Cause it was definitely had the rear swing arm off one of the big Buells. And then the rest of the frame was custom. The front end was like some weird Springer front end. It looked like a tractor. It was, it was crazy. Um, and then, uh, yeah, progressive was giving away a, a custom R 1980, R 100 scrambler that someone had built. Um, and you could sign up if you gave them your, uh, your email, whatever you could win it. Um, there was, let's see who built it. There's a list. Oh, I disowned, uh, custom motorcycles.

Robin: It was disowned customs. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah. I made this kind of cool, uh, R 100 scrambler. So it's the old air head. Um, it was like everything removed and knobby tires on it. I thought it looked really, really clean and really well done. The bare metal tank that was just clear coated.

Robin: I do wish it had a fender. I kind of wished I like fenders.

Travis: Yeah. But again, throw a dirt bike fender and the headlights are kind of the two little EDI headlights.

Robin: Yeah. By the way, none of your links are opening up for me, by the way.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: I click on the link and then it takes me to, uh, uh, not found.

Travis: Yeah. I'm getting 404s also.

Robin: Thanks a lot, man. Way to go.

Travis: I see how it is. There are links to my Facebook photos. So I don't know if you need to be logged into Facebook.

Tim: Oh, these ones are coming up as, uh, Google.com photos.

Travis: Why did you do that? Why do you hate us, Travis? Oh, maybe I need to like make them shareable or something. I don't know. It's a private album. Okay. Um, anyway, uh, there was also in the vintage area, there was a 1975 Moto Guzzi 850T. That was really cool. Like the aluminum tank and aluminum fenders are steep. Maybe they're steel, but it's like bare metal. The red frame. The opposed, opposed V? Yeah. The transverse V.

Robin: Yeah. Oh, is it the C opposed or transverse? Let's talk.

Travis: Opposed. Well, you're thinking about an opposed twin where they're opposite each other.

Robin: It's a, it's gonna be like the R BMW R.

Travis: Yeah, but it's not.

Robin: Okay.

Travis: It's not opposed. It's just a V twin that's transverse as opposed to longitudinal.

Robin: In line, you mean?

Travis: Longitudinal. And then there was, uh, an R 75 slash 5, uh, in the vintage area. That was kind of a resto mod that looked really, really clean. It was like black with, uh, I think it was just gray paint. Let me double check here. But black.

Robin: It's really hard to make one of those bikes look bad. They're just such a great.

Travis: Yeah. So kind of like a little flat cafe seat and blacked out exhaust and black and a nice gray paint scheme with the, um, the pin striping on it. And, uh, it's got the plunger suspension, but they put piggyback shocks on it and painted the brake drums up nice and really super clean. Nice. What did you guys see in the, uh, display, the bike displays that you thought was neat?

Robin: Yeah. The bike displays, huh? Well, that's a good topic. Um, I, we haven't gotten to it yet, but it was like, I think before it's, it's down here in the notes somewhere before I was going to not to be the pessimist here, but I saw a Suzuki GS that looked like a half blend of mod and a normal Suzuki GS where, you know, where they take the exhaust and they point the angle of the exhaust almost square up the passenger's butt. You know what I mean? Like they took one line that kind of got a little bit sexy a couple of years back. And then they exaggerated to the point where the exhaust may as well be painted. It may as well be pointed forward. So it's just completely bent out. But that, you know, that was one of the first thing I saw that I kind of laughed about. Other than that, I saw a lot of the same, what you were talking about. I loved the, it was almost like the bourbon barrel triumph. I just thought it was well done. It was, of course it was, uh, professionally aged by the paint, the paint and all that. But it was just, I really took note of that one. I thought it was a, a nice job on the bobber side, even though it was, it was a show bike, you know? Um, I didn't see anything that caught me off guard the way analog motorcycles Indian did. You know, I didn't see anything where I just thought, wow, I want, I want to ride that. I want to be on that bike riding it. And that's Tony from analog. He, he sets the bar so freaking high. I don't know if he had an entry this year.

Travis: Um, I don't think I saw one, but I wasn't looking super close.

Robin: Yeah, no, I think there was a point where I think I kind of bypassed the red carpet, Tim. I don't know about you.

Tim: Oh yeah. The red carpet, I didn't pay much attention to.

Robin: Yeah. I didn't get to the BMW booth.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah.

Travis: Well, I would say like, I think Tim, you, you had a friend with, uh, or the guy you bought your bike from his company had a KTM.

Tim: It was actually, uh, it was one of the business partners of the guy that I bought my bike from. Yeah.

Travis: Was that on the floor? Yeah, that was, it was on like the custom bike build.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. Down the, down the row of exhibitors. There's the, uh, just all the bikes behind their own rope. So yeah, he's got this monster that he's built up. It's a KTM 950 adventure and it's modified with the Cristini front wheel drive system.

Robin: He wins.

Tim: So it's a two wheel drive beast. And it's got this, it has this amazing like hand built aluminum tank. It's just super tanker. I didn't even know how many gallons that thing is. It's like 15 gallons. It's so crazy.

Robin: There are going to be some listeners out there that are trying to learn how that works. Can, do you have a handle on what he did? Is it like a ball? Is it a ball based shaft?

Tim: Oh, it, it's a complicated mess actually. It's, it's, there's a lot of moving pieces. So it is, it is driven off the counter shaft. You've got a chain going up to the headset. And then from there you've got, um, let's see if I can even come up with the right words for this, but the lower triple has got worm gears going to splined shafts in the running along next to the suspension.

Robin: So that part I could picture where it was like, like an elbow or like a shoulder joint where it's just a big spline, but it's got multiple grooves on a round edge.

Travis: Yup. Yeah. So there's the four compressors just slides up and down the spline shaft, the power takeoff.

Tim: Yeah. And it is a actually a, it's a freewheeling hub up there too. So you can, let me think. So if the back is providing power, it's all going to the back. Oh, okay. But when the back slips, the front grabs, you've got to be kidding me, man.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you go to, uh, christini.com forward slash A W D hyphen technology, there's a nice little infographic there.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: That breaks down.

Tim: And it was great.

Robin: That thing is amazing.

Tim: Yeah. So I took a ton of pictures of it. I didn't even show them all to you yet, but, uh, I did see him the next day when I went back with my brother and, uh, had a chat with him, talked with him for a little while, you know, and I, I still need to send him the photos that I took. And, uh, you know, he was, we were chatting about how David sold me the Africa twin before he had really gotten everything out of it that he wanted to him. Like I said, yeah, just anytime you want, I will, I will come over. I will come to you. He's over in McWanago, Wisconsin. You can guinea pig. A lot of the KTM guys will know CJ designs and I heard a couple of people saying, Oh yeah, I've sent that guy a lot of money. He just does beautiful, beautiful work.

Robin: Let's, uh, I'm going to, can we jump over to BMW?

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: All right. I'll lead this one off. So cause I have very little to say about this other than, you know, I walked into the BMW area. I gave the chin nod to find young gentlemen over at cycle works in Barrington who sold me my new R1200 RS. Uh, they were representing. Well, I'm still outlining a writeup about how awkward that buying experience was, but that's not on anyone's shoulders, but my own note to dealerships. If someone keeps trying to negotiate the price, make sure they know it's a consignment sale, reached out to one of the two, namely Luke and connected the dots with an Alaskan ADV representative. He'd be shaking hands with the following week. Cause there's some guy over near the bazaar who is, he was giving a talk, uh, Tuesday, I believe that happened over at a cycle works in Barrington about a tour. He runs between Alaska and California. And I know Luke wants to go to Alaska on an ADV by pretty bad. I hope he gets to, and that would be pretty cool about who's next. We got our little notes scattered here. Thanks to Travis way to go, man.

Travis: Well, I gave opportunity to go through and clean them up, but no one decided to do that.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. I did this funny thing called work today and didn't get to it. Um, I'll go next. I, I, I went over to the BMW booth and the first thing I see is my friend, Jen, who's back behind the, you know, talking to customers, walking them through some of the features of the bikes. She was hanging around more of the GS's and the, oh goodness, the F800, whatever.

Robin: F800 GT or the F800 GS.

Travis: There wasn't, there wasn't a GT there. I was a little disappointed. Yeah. Really? Yeah. By the way, I'm fixing these links as I'm going through it. So they should work. Oh, okay.

Tim: Yep. Uh, you know, she was busy, so I didn't chat with her too long. Although I did get a good photo of her making faces at me. She seems cute. Oh, she was awesome. She's super fun. I met her years ago at an adventure rider get together way up North in Wisconsin. And, uh, she's a professional photographer and she has been working with BMW for a couple of years now, if I remember correctly. She's working the shows and kind of treating it as penance for those times that she gets to tour and do the demo fleet stuff where she, um, leads group rides things like that. Um, so the whole display fleet that is on the floor for the shows becomes the demo fleet that they're riding in the summer.

Robin: Oh, wow. Okay. So those bikes get to market for the company. Then they get to ride those bikes with prospective customers. And then eventually any of those bikes that don't sell are probably sold at a discounted rate. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a really good way to do it, man. See, that's, you think that those BMW people might be on to something.

Tim: Yeah. She, she encouraged me to sign up for the giveaway for their, uh, the G310 that they had up on the, on the pedestal. Um, yeah. And I, one other thing that I was surprised by was seeing the little, uh, electric assist pedal bikes that BMW and also, uh, Piaggio had one, you know, but sadly the Yamaha one was not in evidence. I really wanted to see if they've got that, this free ride mountain bike, electrical cyst monster that I'm just dying to see. But how about you, Travis?

Travis: Um, yeah, same thing. I thought, well, it was funny because they had that giveaway for the G310R, um, which is a bike I was actually interested in taking a closer look at, but since it was like a giveaway or something, I don't know, it was on like a pedestal and in its own, like it was, you know, roped off, like you couldn't sit on it or check it out at all. They did have a, the G310GS, but they didn't have the, um, the R out, which, um, kind of bummed me because that was a cool bike. I really like it because it's the, um, the, the cylinder is canted backwards and the exhaust comes out of the back. That's a single cylinder, but like, you know, usually like a cylinder is either completely vertical or canted forward. On this, it's canted backward. And then the exhaust comes out of the back of the cylinder and goes right out the back of the bike.

Robin: Nice. So it's a raised exhaust, but it actually has, it's like the logical.

Travis: Yeah. Instead of, instead of coming out of the front of the bike and wrapping around, it just goes straight out of the back. Yeah. The intakes on the front in this. So, um, you know, with water cooling, uh, yeah, there weren't, uh, they did have the new F850GS there, which, um, it's kind of neat. I know they, you know, they moved the gas tank to a regular gas tank position now for 2018. It's no longer under the seat like it's been for years. Um, and they also, they didn't have any of the, the F800GTs there, which I guess nothing has changed on that bike. Um, but it's also like not getting the 850 update, like the 850GS has a bigger motor and some other stuff. And aside from the frame and everything and literally everything being changed on it and the gas tank being in a different place.

Robin: Maybe there's a surplus of production. Maybe they still have some leftovers that they're just going to rebadge.

Travis: Yeah. Or they just aren't tooling that yet or something. Who knows?

Robin: It's an amazing bike. I would love to have that bike. It's just that I, I guess I have to suffer with this R1200RS.

Travis: Oh no.

Robin: Difficult life.

Travis: Place to power and doodads. Um, I did see some essentials for you though. There was a BMW branded, uh, mouse and flash drive and mug set that you're, uh, you're legally required to have now that you own a BMW.

Robin: They probably won't let me like hang out at the rallies, the BMW rallies if I don't have at least one of these items.

Travis: They'll be like, did you bring your mouse? And you'd be like, uh, no, you have to leave. You have to have your BMW brand mouse.

Tim: We're like, oh, you need to send your TED up over by the bathrooms.

Robin: Yeah. We, we reserved you a spot. It's over there behind that dumpster over there by that garbage dump.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: I'm trying to figure out, I need to get the product that actually, uh, delivers power from the auxiliary power outlet on the side of the bike.

Travis: Oh yeah. The power.

Robin: If it is parallel, you did check that, didn't you?

Travis: Yeah. It looked like, I mean, I had a power on my BMWs and that's what it looked like. I think I have a power lit plug somewhere if you want it. Um, and then they did have some R19, R9T customs on the floor there that were pretty neat looking. Oh yeah. I like those a lot.

Robin: I love that bike.

Travis: Yeah. I mean the racer is just looks cool. I don't know if I, I wouldn't want to own the racer, but it looks cool. The race is the only one I would want. I love, that's the one I'm thinking of. No, I'd, I'd probably just get the standard, like the upspec one or the downspec one, the standard one. Um, uh, the scramblers kind of, man, and the, the racer looks cool, but I'd, I'd be terribly uncomfortable on it. Let's be honest.

Robin: If you could only afford one of them, you'd probably get something else. But if you could afford all of them, you would have all of them.

Travis: Yes.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Pretty much. Um, yeah, I think I got it for BMW. Nothing too, too spectacular. They, they did, I did see that they, I don't know if they're with the new gold wing coming out. If a BMW is going after the gold wing market, but they had an R 1200 RT, uh, outfitted with like a deep metal flake, shiny paint job. And then like the gray or the Brown suede seats made it look kind of gold winging for a BMW. But I think maybe they're because the new gold wing is kind of squarely aimed at BMW, but they had that over at the Honda booth. I don't know if you guys took a look.

Robin: Uh, we're about to talk on it, but when you talk R 1200 RT, the thing about that bike that I noticed is that it is the perfect example of a bike that is it performs and it is extremely comfortable and greatly elegant. Um, maybe it looks a little weird. Whenever I look at it from the side, it looks like it has elephant Titus of the skull. Like it's just got this big old front end for that wheelbase. You know, it's got a really kind of a short wheelbase for that scale of bike. But like I said, it's a perfect example of, uh, form over function that kind of tries to have aesthetics as well. It's an amazing machine. Um, I'm not in the Honda notes, so I want to introduce it. Are you guys ready for that? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So by default, this website is a sport touring website, the writing obsession.com. We are a sport touring driven website. And so of course I'm going to, since I run the show on that, I'm looking for that first. So they have something new to write about walking around and I'm not seeing anything that really has a luggage kit, nothing. And I also didn't see a VFR on the floor anywhere.

Travis: Not one. No, they, well, the, the, the sport VFR 1200. Sure. It doesn't exist anymore. I mean, it's not, it's not, it's not in current. They did have the, they did have the 1200 X.

Robin: Yes, they had the 1200 X. Uh, and so I asked them about the, the luggage system for the VFR and they said, it's an option now.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: So I asked how much is that option? 1500 bucks.

Travis: That's about, yeah. I mean, honestly, for a factory luggage option, that's about right across the board. It is.

Robin: I will still say that that's expensive, but it didn't surprise me. 1500 bucks for luggage is a lot of money. You can probably do something aftermarket through twisted throttle. That is 1500 bucks.

Travis: No, no, for less. Like a full JV, like PLX kit. You're going to pay like, you're going to pay like 1200 bucks. Yeah.

Robin: If you go, yeah. If you go JV, but okay. So, well you could go Shad.

Tim: Yeah. You could go Shad. Shad's good product.

Travis: It's going to be about the same. You're going to pay, you're going to pay like, you're going to pay three to five, depending on the bike, you're going to pay three to $500 for the rack set. And then you're going to pay two or $300 each for a bag.

Robin: The bandit rack. Oh, but that's the bandit. No, it's metal. It's metal. And they sold it for the bandit rack, which they don't make anymore. I paid, I think 150 to 200 bucks.

Travis: Yeah. But were they clearancing it out on an old model?

Robin: I don't think they were. I don't think they were. Not at the time. They still had some left. And then I got the adapters for the Shad stuff and the bags. I think I paid, I think all total paid like 800 bucks.

Travis: Oh, so you got the, you got like the SW Motec rack and then with the adapter plate, and then you got the Shad bag.

Robin: Right. Well, you know, I, either way you and I are trying to, you're trying to steer an argument. I'm trying to dodge one. I'm trying to say that there are, there are affordable solutions on the market that can take the place of a $1,500 series of molded plastics, you know? And so they are getting their mint. I'm not sure. I highly doubt it costs them 1,500 bucks to make that gear.

Travis: So, you know, they're taking it off the top too. Cause most of those bags are made by GV or Shad or someone anyway.

Robin: Not with the VFR, never with the VFR. They've never been rebadged.

Travis: Is Honda actually producing those?

Robin: For the VFR, it was Honda produced luggage. For the, like the Suzuki GSX-FA, that was rebadged GV. I believe that was a case for something Kawasaki. I can't remember what, or maybe it was Yam. But no, Honda never outsourced their luggage. They always built it in-house.

Travis: The, there was something else on that. Oh, you were talking about the 800 Interceptor is what you're looking for. Yep. Yeah. Which is funny cause yeah, they have, they don't make the 1200 Sport Tour anymore, which is kind of terrible. I mean, I think it probably had that Honda thing where it wasn't, it looked bad on paper, but it's probably good when you rode it. It just, this, it was kind of heavy and had aggressive riding position for something so heavy. The 1200X I think looks cool. And that's really that adventure sport sort of category. It's not really an off-road bike.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah. But the, the bike I do wish Honda sold in the United States that they sell in Europe and have been is the VFR800X. Did you link that in here? Let me see this. I'll just look it up. Yeah.

Robin: VFR800X.

Travis: Yeah. The cross runner. It's a beak bike. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an, it's an adventure sport bike. It's got 17 inch wheels, but it's got VFR engine in it. So it's basically like my NC700X, but with, you know, twice the power.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: And right out the gates here is the first picture has a luggage. But yeah, otherwise, yeah, they had the, speaking of adventure sports, I know where this is going. The adventure sports version of the Africa Twin that says adventure sports on it. I don't know what adventure sports are, but that's the bike for them, apparently.

Robin: Well, even KTM did the same thing they did last year with sports tour.

Travis: Yes. What else? Well, the new, so they had, I thought it was interesting when you walked in, they had like the whole line of CBRs. So they had like the 300 and they had like a whole line of CBRs lined up, like the race, the race bikes, the sport bikes. And then they had the new CB650F, which we've talked about on the podcast before. Well, the new, the United States, it's been in Europe for a couple of years, which I just think is a pretty bike. And I think it's a cool mid-size naked bike. Surprisingly though, it's pricier than its competitors, which I'm not sure if it performs better than them. So, and then the, they did have the new CB1000 that I was looking for. I was looking forward to that, but it was also on a pedestal with, with a wire around it. So you couldn't actually get very close to it, which is a little, little upsetting, but.

Robin: Please be careful. You might actually want to buy this.

Travis: Yeah, it looked really good. The dash looked cool, the exhaust, everything with that sort of neo-retro. I think they do, they have done a better job with that sort of neo-retro than Yamaha does with the XSRs. Like the SSRs just look kind of piecemeal-y and this looks like it has like a design language and it's a thorough concept. So I was very excited about that.

Robin: Sort of a modern industrial retro to it, you know?

Travis: Yeah, exactly.

Robin: All modern tech and they don't hide it. It's not like they're trying to present it as something that it's not. They just kind of, they just kind of let it be an honest bike, but it naturally has sort of a, huh, I remember when flare to it.

Travis: Yeah, it's like, it looks modern, but it's got retro styling cues to it. What did you, what did you see over at Honda, Tim?

Tim: Yeah, speak up, man. Oh, goodness. Well, you know, one thing that I noticed is that like they take up prime real estate when you come up there. Both, as well as the BMW, Honda is that right up front, main area of the floor and everything is spread out. You can get around everything, see everything you want to see. And, you know, I like seeing a lot of the, you know, a lot of the CB line, the 500s, it's kind of fun to see them repackage every engine in there in as many ways as they can figure out how to do it. I did cruise through and took a look at the Africa Twin because still obsessed with my own bike. And yeah, you know, it's, from what I remember, it's, it's got a big, long range gas tank. So you've got a better, better distance between fuel ups because I guess somewhere, if you're dreaming of riding to Alaska, you actually need the long range where most places in the U.S. you don't need to go 150 miles or more between gas stops. Yeah, so there's this big, big gas tank. Some of the plastics around, kind of the trim around the gas tanks has been revised. I guess they've got longer, longer, better suspension than the previous years.

Robin: More travel.

Tim: More travel and a bigger, beefier skid plate stock. But yeah, it's not, for the most part, it's like, I love my Hondas, but they're not always the most exciting to look at.

Robin: Selective, selective Hondas. They're very vanilla if you pick the wrong one.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: I'm looking at how much we have to talk about. We got to, we got to kick some freaking ass here. Yep. Okay. So Energica, Energica gave me a bit of a chubby. It's actually Energica. That's how you pronounce it. Tim, who was, he was not sure what was going on with that name, but it's Energica. So I was enamored immediately in love with Energica. I've got a kind of a thing for the future with electric bikes. I want to see them succeed. I want to see them develop. I know we're way behind on where the technology will need to be for them to be really a marketable thing. But I think they'll do it eventually. This company, among others, will succeed. But the thing is, it has all I've wanted in electric motorcycles, visually, you know, the aesthetics. It looks like a motorcycle. It feels like a motorcycle. One even has that lovely naked, it's kind of like an SV650. It looks like a naked SV650, not the S. And then the other has a double R race replica sort of sexiness to it, you know, full MotoGP style. And it seems they have five models total with the various, albeit minor differences. They had a thing that would show that off. Travis, you were going to talk about the Moto E.

Travis: Yeah. So actually the one that they had on the floor there, if you click on just Energica, it should show you all their model list there. But the thing is like their cheapest bike, I think, is the EVA, which is the EVA 2017, which is like the naked road bike. And that starts at $17,500. Okay. The EVA SCSC9 or whatever it's called, I don't know, something in Italian. The one that they had on the floor there is $23,400.

Robin: Is that their highest side?

Travis: What's their highest side? That's not. Otherwise it's like the sportier race replica bikes, but like the $25,000.

Robin: So $17,000 to $23,000.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: All right. You could probably write it off though as an e-bike if it's an electric machine.

Travis: Yeah. Depending on what your state has, you might get some sort of tax break on it a little bit. But yeah. So actually the bike that they had there, the race bike, was a race bike.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: It had slicks on it. Yeah. They have the contract for a new FIM race series Moto E. And so it's going to go with Moto GP. So like on a Moto GP weekend, you have like Moto 2 runs or Moto 3 runs, Moto 2 runs, and Moto GP runs. And it's all the same weekend. It's all on the same track. They're going to be part of that. So there's going to be a Moto E race in there probably in the mornings before the other bikes run, just like the rest of the Moto GP classes. And there's going to be E series. That's going to be in 2019. And at least for the first season, all the bikes are going to be Energica. I think there's going to be 18 bikes. And I think it's all Moto 2 teams that are buying into that.

Robin: Fantastic.

Travis: Nice. Yeah. Which should be pretty cool. Yeah. I was talking to Stefano, who was the rep that was there. Nice guy. Yeah. He kind of explained it all to me. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. They're going to run an electric bike series, which I think will be exciting. And that's one of the things he was talking about. It's like their bikes, they have an oil-cooled engine design, motor design, that lets you run 100% for an extended amount of time to run a race.

Robin: Wow. Without just frying the batteries out.

Travis: Without frying it out. Yeah.

Robin: Beautiful.

Travis: Whereas like a lot of the other current production electric motorcycles, if you run them 100% through an entire battery cycle, you're going to break something. Also, I thought, so he said, if you don't, obviously racing, you don't really get that range, but like regular sporty riding motorcycle usage, he said you get 150, 200 mile range out of their bike.

Robin: Not bad.

Travis: And they all have a standard SAE standard quick charge port. You can go to any electric charging station.

Robin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Travis: It's not a Tesla's charging station because Tesla has a proprietary port. And the bike will charge in about 20 minutes.

Robin: And the bike comes with an adapter that goes from that to a standard wall outlet, though that takes all night.

Travis: Yeah. On a standard 120 AC, it takes, yeah, six or seven hours. But on a DC quick charge port, it takes 20 minutes.

Robin: Just knowing that this has started to happen is what makes me so happy.

Travis: Yeah, like my grocery store has got that at their quick charge ports.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Nice.

Tim: I just, I love that they just, they look fantastic.

Robin: It's a great bike. Don't lie though, Tim. Don't lie. You hate the name.

Tim: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't like the name. I find it really awkward. Energica? But you like the bikes. Yeah.

Robin: Really, they need to put an accent mark on there.

Tim: Yeah. Nerge is really what I wanted to say.

Robin: Which does bring up the fact that this summer, we should all like make a point, let's get the MotoGP schedule in the calendar and we'll make a point to be able to view it. If you guys get me that information, I will do everything I can to make that happen because I've never followed an entire season. I would love to be able to say I've done that.

Travis: You know what I mean? The, yeah, we can try and figure it out. Of course, MotoE is next year. It's 2019. Okay, nice. But just MotoGP.

Tim: I'm looking at these pictures and the one thing that surprises me is that it doesn't have the monoshock on the rear. It's actually got a direct, yeah, it's got direct to the swing arm. Two shocks on it.

Robin: No, it has one shock on it. If I'm thinking of what you're seeing, there's one shock, but it's in a very weird location.

Tim: Is that what's going on? Is that on the right-hand side?

Robin: Yeah, it's a single, it's a monoshock that is just contoured to deal directly with the swing arm at a very weird angle.

Travis: Okay. Yeah, it's a single-sided shock. So it's kind of like the Kawasaki Ninja 650 had that for a while.

Tim: Oh yeah, they had that lay down style.

Travis: On one side, but it was direct swing arm to frame. It wasn't using a pro-link type linkage suspension, which is just a different way to do it. There are pros and cons to a linkage versus a direct suspension. So it really depends on how the shock is built and what the geometry is. Okay.

Robin: Okay, so we got to move on to Harley and Indian now because I'm trying to protect Travis from an episode two of One Topic.

Travis: Yeah, I'm the only one, I guess, with notes on this, so I'll go.

Robin: Yeah, make it happen.

Tim: You do the talking, I'll have another beer. I've got a comment on it, but that's okay.

Travis: Let's go. Yeah, yeah, jump in. So jump in here. So they had the, you know, Harley, if you're not familiar, if you listen to this podcast, you're probably not familiar. So they scrapped like their whole line. They rebuilt it using an all new chassis, except for the Street 500, Street 750. That line is their own thing still. But they just went with one soft tail frame. So they took some 1980s Yamaha technology and they applied it. So there's a monoshock built into the backbone of the frame. So it's a monoshock, and it's like a lighter, more rigid frame than they'd previously used. But now all of their bikes that aren't like the Street 750, Street 500, they all use Milwaukee engines, either 107 cubic inches or I think 111 or 114. And then they all use the exact same chassis. Harley-Davidson sells one bike with like different things bolted onto it. And that's it. Like the rake changes between some of the models. But they only sell, they only have one basic frame now for all of their main bikes. A lot of the magazines have been talking about the Fat Bob as their like sporty bike, which has this like cool LED front headlight. So I was like, I'll check it out. It's on the magazine. But it's like, well, if this seat was like eight inches higher and the foot pegs were two feet further back, this would be pretty cool. Ah, that's harsh. But just like...

Robin: So much truth. But it's...

Travis: So much truth, man. Yeah, it's like you're gonna lean your... It's got sporty kind of dragster bars on it. So your hands are all the way forward over your...

Robin: You don't know what you're talking about, man.

Travis: And it's just like...

Robin: I ride three times a year. You don't know what you're talking about. Let me tell you something.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: It's not a race. It's on the next bar. Sorry.

Travis: I get a chance to sit on the street rod, which was... You can click on the link there and you can see it. The... It was... They were so close on making a standard bike. So close on making a standard bike. But if you guys click on that link there with the image, right? Like it looks cool. Like that bike looks good, right? It looks pretty good. Right? It's like the foot pegs are like in a reasonable sort of position almost.

Robin: Semi-standard. Yeah, a little bit forward.

Travis: But if you scroll down to there, right? Where it says on this article that reason it says like the looks, you can see the right side of the bike. Like, so you're looking at... You're looking at a profile from the right. Notice that there is a rubber pad on the exhaust where your heel goes. And that's higher than the foot peg.

Robin: So you're always in...

Travis: Yeah, like you can't actually put your foot on the foot peg because it's always sitting on the exhaust. It's the dumbest thing. I've... Like, how did they not fix that? How did they not come up with a way to fix that?

Robin: Charlie Davidson is taking a nice swing at cracking the urban market...

Travis: Sorry.

Robin: ...with a brand new model.

Tim: You linked me to a website that had sound.

Travis: It's like an autoplay thing, yeah. Yeah. But it's the same thing where it's like...

Robin: What they've done is they've said like, oh, you're supposed to ride on the balls of your feet. Let's make that action more comfortable by letting you do it lazily.

Travis: No, it's terrible.

Robin: It doesn't work. It's a bad idea.

Travis: Because the seat's too low and too close to the pegs. And you're like... It's like you're squatting to take a shit in the woods. It's the worst. And every article I've read about the bike said it looks cool. Like, it rides nice. Actually handles well. But the ergonomics are awful.

Tim: And it's like, I don't know...

Travis: How did they mess that up? Like, did no one ride that bike before they sold it? I don't know. But it was so close. Like, I want Harley to make a bike I like. And they were so close with that.

Robin: It's a constant circular reference to the concept that... What do you want us to do? Like, research and stuff? Okay, fine. I'll research and stuff. And the instant they see something that they don't agree with... Okay, fine. I'll freaking do that badly. And then this won't sell. And then we'll be in trouble. And it's like, you're hurting yourself.

Travis: Yeah, I just don't know where they're getting it. Speaking of which, so they had the flat track racers there. So both Indian and Harley had their flat track race bikes.

Robin: Yeah, those were hype.

Travis: And those are just like, put a left foot peg and some lights on that thing and sell it to me. It doesn't have to have the carbon fiber and the fancy suspension and all that stuff. But those are cool, torquey 750 motors with knobby tires. Look at all the money Ducati is making with the Scrambler. They have them. They just need to make them and sell them. And it's...

Robin: That's just a show bike. It's just for show.

Travis: They're real race bikes. They're making these things to race. And too, they have the street chassis. Harley Davidson has the street chassis. That's what the street rod is. And the street 700, the street 500. The street rod was close. Just make it more like the flat track racer and it'll be perfect. I don't know. And that Indian motor is great. The same thing happened with Indian.

Robin: When I first rolled into Indian, I saw they had a bike on a pedestal on a show stage that was inviting me to buy it. I was like, that's pretty cool. And there was none of whatever it was anywhere else. So I went to the rep. I said, hey, look. So is that something I can buy? He's like, yeah, that's just a showpiece. I was like, huh. It's funny because that's the one that I would buy. And I just walked away. I mean, I said that out loud to his face. I was like, that's the bike that I would buy. I have to go now. I'm going to go look at other bikes that I might buy.

Travis: Was it the race bike? The one, if you click on the link that it says...

Robin: It was the Scrambler.

Travis: Yep, it's that one. The Indian HD Racer? Yep, yeah. Yeah.

Robin: I was like, that is some sexiness.

Travis: That's their race bike.

Robin: That's beautiful.

Travis: We can't see it in this picture, but if you look at the left, there's no foot peg on the left side.

Tim: Oh, really?

Travis: And it's all one piece carbon fiber. You actually can buy that bike. You can buy a... Well, that might be a showpiece. It looks like it might have a headlight on it. I can't tell.

Robin: All right, well, I'm holding my breath here because I do not want to torture you.

Travis: I'm about to go into Yamaha if we don't hold... But what I'm saying, you can buy the Indian race bike. You can buy a race-ready bike from Indian Motorcycles. $50,000.

Robin: Well, that's just super.

Travis: It's made out of carbon fiber.

Robin: Okay.

Travis: Yeah, there is a lot of carbon on that.

Robin: SV650. It's like six grand. Yeah, right. Let's do that.

Travis: Right. But we can go on there to Yamaha too because...

Robin: Yeah, but with this, you get Ameri... No, no, go away.

Travis: You're greedy. I have to go now.

Robin: I'm going to go buy this something in between. I'm going to buy something that's not Suzuki and definitely not that either. Have a nice day. And I kind of was... I wasn't nice about it either. I was just like, man, give me what I'm looking for here. All right, Yamaha. Are you good? Yeah. So via the far wall, I peeked into a couple of decent toy haulers. There was one guy, one person there, who was smart enough to bring toy haulers to this event because people are going to want to travel. You know, we're going to be looking to do that for pretty heavily here pretty soon.

Tim: Oh, yeah.

Robin: You know, I checked out the toy haulers before getting my feet wet with Yamaha. First, I noticed the FJR 1300 in the distance. Now, this was my dream bike for a hot minute. Many, many moons ago. It's precisely what it's always been. But for the first time in a long time, I don't know the last time I saw anything different about it. Something was actually... Something was changed. First off, the paint job was a deep, deep cobalt blue with a matte gloss finish, meaning it was definitely a flatter color than usual, but was somehow still reflective. It was a... You know what, Travis? Screw your freaking spelling. Your freaking spell check on my notes.

Travis: Matt did not paint the bike.

Robin: It was a matte gloss with me. You know, it was definitely flat, but it had that soft glow like it was collecting light.

Travis: It was a really awesome paint job, yeah. Just beautiful.

Robin: The only other difference I noticed is that they've changed the headlights up somehow. I mean, it's newer tech. Maybe they're doing LEDs. Maybe the reflectors are different or something like that, but I'm assuming they went with some sort of LED standard combination or of some sort. I don't know. The screws and the fasteners were also kind of pretty. They had like a more of a... The fasteners for all the plastics, they stood out. They were bedazzled.

Travis: They were pretty cool. It was nice. Yeah, they did. So now it does have a full LED. So I looked up the specs on it. It's got a full LED lighting system with active lean angle sensing illumination.

Robin: Okay, so the lights might turn. The lights probably actually angle outward as you make a turn.

Tim: I would love to try that.

Travis: Yeah, if you look at the front fairing, like underneath where the fork comes up under the fairing, there's a set of lights there, and those turn on as you lean to light the road into the corner.

Robin: Tim, I'd recommend it, but it will break your knees. It will crash your knees. Wheel bikes are ergonomically painful for a tall guy.

Travis: Oh, goodness. Yeah, it's got electronic suspension now. It's got cruise control, throttle by wire, and a six-speed transmission.

Tim: Now, I've absolutely loved the modern Yamahas that I've ridden. All of them have been just fantastic. My friend's FZ09, I got to ride last year, which is just a brilliant bike for the price.

Robin: I just realized that I don't know how many speeds I have on my BMW.

Tim: It's, yours is a six-speed, if I remember correctly.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Thank you, Tim. And I think it was just last year that FJR went to six-speed from five-speed.

Travis: Yeah, and they did this update with all the electronics and LEDs and stuff, yeah.

Tim: Yep, and- That's a change, man.

Robin: That's a big deal.

Tim: Yep, and they did have a big Super Tenere up on the floor with the electronic suspension adjustments, and oh, and that is, it's like the Cadillac. It's so plush. When you ride that thing, even on rough roads, it just behaves so damn well. And still has got those, it's got the more adventure classic type wheel set, the, what's it, 17-19?

Robin: Rather than- The standard, the earliest standard?

Tim: Yep, yep, that's the adventure bike standard. My Africa Twin's got the dirt bike standard, which is the 18 rear and the 21 front.

Robin: Okay, that's a big old rear tire, man. Dang, I didn't know that.

Travis: That's more, yeah, the more dirt bike-y, which like the adventure or the hard versions of some, like the BMW GS Adventures get that, and I think the Triumph Tiger XC gets that, and some of the other harder versions of the other adventure bikes. The T7 that they'll never release here from Yamaha, well, we'll have that.

Tim: And Yamaha had the new Tracer badged bikes out, and the MT-09, so they're getting away from the, they're changing, making the naming more consistent with all the European naming for the bikes.

Robin: Travis has notes here, ESA, luggage, quick shift, LED, cruise control?

Travis: Yeah, so the MT-09 Tracer, which is the FJ, was the FJ-09, they now have a Tracer GT, which comes with ESA, quick shifter, LED lighting, cruise control, luggage.

Robin: Oh, Tim took some great photos of this.

Travis: So it's like, that's a, that's like a, you can get the GT package, and it comes like loaded and ready to rock with everything.

Robin: This is the bike that, on the ADV side, like, I don't dislike ADV, they just aren't my bag.

Travis: Yeah, this isn't really an ADV bike, I mean, it's a sport bike, it just kind of has, like an ADV, The high suspension, that's it. An ADV seating position, that's it. It's adventure sport. Yeah, like, it's a sport touring bike that doesn't put you in a sport bike riding position.

Robin: Yeah, I actually do, I do like the adventure sport turn.

Tim: Yeah, it is a very comfortable for a big guy. That is a tall bike.

Robin: Yep, yeah, yeah.

Tim: So yeah, if you're six foot tall, that's kind of what you'd rather be on, rather than some of their more compact ones.

Robin: Plus, well, I think, Tim, I'm sending the wrong message here. What I was trying to say was that I, this bike is the one that I, it's the closest to the line where I always admire them. They're not something I'm going to buy. Number one, I'm not a tall guy. But at the same time, I don't do that. That's not the kind of bike I am drawn to. But I see them, I'm like, man, that just, that looks good. That's just a good looking bike.

Travis: I'd say like the only other real bike in this sort of range is the BMW S1000X.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Travis: It's like a sport bike underneath with like adventure bike cladding on it. On stilts. Yeah, maybe the Versys. Yamaha also had the XSR7, the new XSR7. And then they had a custom build. You can't see my air quotes, custom build, scrambler version of it that was pretty cool looking. But they just put like knobby tires on it and painted it black. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, yeah. There's a little bit of a disconnect between the industry and what people are after. And yeah, it's a good looking bike.

Travis: Yeah. And there's definitely like the like, hey, some like hipster kids took this old junker and like put knobby tires on it and like ride it off road. Let's, let's, let's build that and try and sell it to them for $10,000. And it's like, well, no, they did that. They did that because it cost them two grand and they don't care. And it was fun.

Robin: We've been down this road. That's, that's last episode. That's last episode anger between all three of us. We know the score.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Listen to the last episode dealers, dealerships or manufacturers.

Travis: Speaking of scramblers, Suzuki did have a, uh, S V six 50 scrambler slash tracker concept. And half the bike was, was painted like blue and white, like a sort of, uh, Nouveau scrambler. And the other half was in a retro yellow race paint screen, uh, paint scheme, like a flat tracker.

Robin: And you could left to right.

Travis: Yeah. If one side of the bike was one way, the other side was the other way.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: The same bike. And you could, uh, there was a little iPad there. You can vote on which one you like the best. So.

Robin: Oh my God. That's deep. So now that's creative.

Travis: Yeah. I thought that was cool.

Robin: Yeah. For Suzuki, I eventually left the Yamaha official area at the red carpet where I saw like a half beautiful and half mangled GS with the exhaust going up the passenger's butt. Stop. Just stop. There's a line in designing a custom bike on your own, in your garage. Just see it. Yeah.

Travis: That would be the line. That bike was really good. And then for some reason, the exhaust came to nine degrees. So the muffler went straight up in the air and it made no sense.

Robin: Yeah. So like the line of the exhaust should go with the base of the cowling. The line of the exhaust should go with the base of the cowling. Say it with me. But crossing paths with an actual dealership. This was just knowing I was getting closer to the bad news from a Suzuki rep. Travis kind of intervened and saved me from myself on this one. Last year, they were billing their now defunct fourth generation Bandit as their sports seat or, you know, I was like, what sports tourer? I was like, OK, it had no luggage. The exhaust was bigger than any I'd ever seen. And they're fighting the demand. They're not really paying mind to what people are asking for. So this year, the only bike they're offering with factory bags is the 2018 V-Strom with its new round lamp design. It's a pretty good looking adventure sports bike.

Travis: Well, you can get the Ninja 1000. No, that's Kawasaki, what am I thinking? Yes, Suzuki. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Robin: The rep tried to lead me away from the area while I asked him legit questions, suggesting, you know, we have a luggage equipped GSX somewhere, but I can't remember if it's an FA. I'm like, the FA is no longer. It died a generation ago. That's your guys' fault. You should have kept that bike around for a much longer. The GSX-FA was so beautiful. Yes. I think they're in trouble and avoiding innovation. Not that they've ever not been in some trouble, but I got to say that SV650, it just looks slick as all get out. I got to say, if I could have every bike in the world, I'd definitely have one of those.

Travis: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, there's a good colorway this year where it's a dark red frame with everything else is black on it with a trellis frame. It looks really good. And I was talking to the guy, too, and I guess that when they redid the SV650, it's completely retooled. Everything's different on it.

Robin: So this is, what, a third gen or a fourth gen?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: We have a new generation of SV650 with the trellis. Was the last one trellis?

Travis: Yeah, like last year, whenever it came out. The Gladius had that trellis frame.

Robin: Unfortunate name.

Travis: Yeah, which I thought looked good. Outside the muffler on those, I thought they looked good, especially there was a white and blue one with a blue frame. I thought that looked really good. Yeah, that was all right. Oh, yeah. So I was talking to him about the Gixxer 1000, their new Gixxer 1000R. Yeah.

Tim: Oh, yeah.

Travis: So it's got a variable valve timing on it, and that was a big deal. And I was talking to the guy, and he's like, yeah, we've actually had this in our marine engines for seven or eight years. So Suzuki just took that variable valve timing technology that was already patented from their marine engines and put it in their motorcycle. Which I thought was, I don't know why it took them so long, but I thought that was neat. And it was also, the other thing was what we were talking about, because they had the Gixxer 1000 engine there with the cutaways, you know, where you can see all the bits inside and do the variable valve timing, how it's all put together. And he's like, oh, yeah, and it has a cartridge or a cassette transmission. So you can just take the side cover off in the clutch and then pull the entire transmission out of the side of the bike. You don't have to like drop the engine and split the case. I was like, oh, is that for like racing? So you can like change ratios for a track and stuff. He's like, honestly, it's just to cut down costs in case there's a recall.

Robin: Oh, my God. What? It's modular. It's modular. It's a modular, fixable bike. That is, finally, you know, you remember, we've had arguments, not arguments, we've argued to cyberspace the fact that the assembly line bike is torture for the would-be garage mechanic. Yeah. Well, this, on the other hand, just says like, okay, well, it's like a reward. It's like a reward for all that suffering that some of us have faced trying to get to the valves and the spark plugs on a 2016 Triumph Street Triple R.

Travis: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. So that was super cool. I mean, besides the fact that you probably can't work on the variable valve timing yourself.

Robin: Yeah. Well, no, I got this right, right? So that creates a more linear torque curve. It gives a little bit more balance.

Travis: Yeah. So it advances the cam timing on the intake valve as the revs go up. But then it also, like, one of the problems with that bike and the reviews I've seen so far is that it kind of signs off on the top end to meet Euro 5. There's a secondary butterfly in the exhaust that closes when you get really high in the revs and it kills your power, but it cuts the noise. So you meet Euro 5 emissions. So you have to put a new exhaust on it and flash the emu if you really want to get all the power you can out of it. But then we're talking a super bike at full chat, which is like, most people don't need that. Like, if you need that, you have the capacity to bring it to that level, to fix that, to remove that Euro 5 complacency stuff that sort of neuters it. Just let it go. It's not something you need for the street. But the TU250, the retro 250 single, got some rocking 80s decals.

Robin: I love it. I love it so much. The sunburst yellow and orange.

Tim: Yeah, and you could see, I love that bike. I took some real glamour photos of it.

Robin: Now, our own Margaret Dean, my wife, Margaret Dean, who's written for the site and been on the podcast a couple of times, this was the first bike she ever sat on before deciding to learn to ride a motorcycle. I have a photo of her. The original, it's sort of like a gunmetal bronze. Oh, yeah.

Tim: I like that.

Robin: It looks good, you know, but this really, it's the exact same bike. There's nothing different about it except for that paint job. And it just makes me want to like throw some club mitts and rear sets on it and be like, that's it.

Tim: Yeah, it looks funner. This is like timeless motorcycle design right here.

Robin: Yeah, I can hear all kinds of PBS theme music going. Every time I look at it, I'm just like, I can hear the PBS, this has been brought to you by the number four.

Tim: It really does almost look like something you could see like in the mid 70s. Yeah. You know, it's got that feel, but it's relatively modern. I'm pretty sure this is fuel injected. I can't tell from the picture. Yeah, it is. Don't remember. Yeah, the 250 is fuel injected.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: The only oddball thing is that goofy brake lever that swoops down under the exhaust.

Travis: Oh, yeah, it's got a drum rear brake, I think. Doesn't it? Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, we use these as learner bikes for the MSF. I remember when I was getting my MSF instructor certification that I stoppied one of these bikes. It was not my best moment. Oh, exciting.

Travis: Moving right along. Yeah, so they have the Van Van 200, which is like the little, it's basically like the Yamaha TW 200, but it's more, it's got like a lollipop turn signals. It's a little more retro styled. But what I always thought was funny, I was talking to the guy about this, is that this little, cheap, traily, shit kicker bike is fuel injected, but the DRZ and the DR650 are not still. And the guys seem to think that they won't ever be. But I'm not sure. He was, I was talking to someone different, so he might not have been an actual Suzuki rep. He might have just been a dealer guy. That's just sad, because I think everyone who's ever had a DR or DRZ is like, why can we get these fuel injected? So when I crash it, I don't have to like, sit there and run the starter for five minutes because it's flooded. The, they have the new, yeah, the new Stroms with the stack, the new V Stroms with the stacked headlights and the beak on them. But I just like how they all say sports adventure tourer on them now. They don't have a beaker.

Robin: Dude, that's like an SEO trick. That's some search engine optimization stuff for that. The real world, you know, sports adventure tourer. It's adventure sports.

Travis: The, and then they had the Strom 250, which just, which says sports. I think that also says sports adventure tourer on it, but it looks like total garbage. They just look, it looked like cheap. I mean, it's basically based off the old TW 250 kind of sport bike thing that they had. And that looks like garbage. And this looks like garbage. Just like the quality look, just looking at it, the quality looked real low on it, but everything else looks good. These Stroms look good otherwise, but I'd avoid, I'd avoid that 250. I think you're going to get a 250 bike, get, get a Kawasaki, get a Honda.

Tim: Yeah. The, uh, was it the, the versus, uh, versus 300 X? 300 X. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah. I think that's a really good one in that category. Yeah. Yeah. Or if you got the money, the Beamer, but yeah. Yeah. But, um, yeah, the Kawasaki was.

Robin: That brings us to Kawa and it's like arriving at the Kawasaki area. I was really just, let's, you know, I'm all about the sport bikes. I was pleasantly rewarded with, uh, views of that tidy little Ninja 400. I thought that was, I thought that was great, man. It's, uh, they've upped the ante a little bit, but the bike looks as slick as any Ninja before it ever did. Only it's got a little bit more bump. It was rump and it's in, I think it's injected now, right? That's an injected bike.

Travis: Yeah. They just, they, they just up the displacement on it. Um, and it actually, it makes like, I saw, I just saw a dyno run from one of the other publications and it, uh, makes significantly more power than the 300 did.

Robin: Yeah. I mean, it's the, it's the Ninja riding. It's the Ninja rider's Ninja. It's what it needs to be at this point in time. You know, I will say that there's a little bit too much Ninja on everything. So our good, uh, one of the guest writers who's about to become a regular writer for the site, Tom Burns, um, he has the ZX 1000 and honestly, I would like Kawasaki to just lose the Ninja moniker. What does the guy from regular car reviews say? It's just on there to move units.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: That's gotta go. It's not really, it's not really a Ninja. It's a, it's a sport touring bike and they need to just build it as such and move on. It's the ZX 1000.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Stop putting Ninja all over everything.

Travis: Yeah. Um, the, uh, oh yeah. Then they have the Z then the Z 900, which is, I like the Z 900 and then the big deal was the Z 900 RS.

Robin: Oh, I loved that. That thing was great.

Travis: Oh, the RS.

Robin: Let me see the Z 900. That throwback was the best throwback in the entire show.

Tim: Oh yeah.

Robin: It's all modern tech and they managed to capture the physical vibe of the era. That's so great. It looks the part of the bike they're trying to re-represent, but it's got all the modern tech. So this is adjacent the CB 1000. The CB 1000 does it naturally through its modern existence. This one has its modern existence, but wants to remind you of what it remembers being prior to it. And it just looks great.

Travis: Yeah. They nailed that, like the tank shape and like the root beer and orange color. It looks like the old Z1. It just does. And then the one, I think we had, they had one here at the show. This is that picture where they kind of modified it with, uh, and they put like carbon look garbage on it, which doesn't need to be on it, but they put the lollipop, uh, the lollipop turn signals on it and have it next to an old Z1 because the stock Z, the Z 900 RS does not have lollipop signals. It's got modern turn signals on it. But, um, yeah, it's nice. Yeah. And that's an aftermarket seat too, but, uh, an add on seat, maybe a factory option seat, but it's, uh, in this picture. But, uh, yeah, this, I mean, it looks like I sat on one. It felt good. Um, I don't know. I think I might still, well, the other thing too, is that the RS gets like stuff over the regular Z. It gets like a traction control and some other options that the Z doesn't have, which I think is kind of weird, but it also commands a premium over that. So it costs more.

Robin: Nice. What's the starting price on this? Do you know?

Travis: Um, I can look real quick. It's, uh, MSRP depending on the color is 11 to 11, 2. Yeah. So 10, 9, 9, 9 or 11, 1, 9, 9, depending on your color. I think that the root beer, the color everyone wants, which is the root beer and orange is going to be, it's going to be more expensive. Um, there was a couple before, before we skipped, there was a couple other probably things. Um, the Z 650 looks great. It's still around a couple of different colors. I thought last year's white with the green trellis frame was better. They have a matte green this year that that's really good looking. Um, the KLX comes back, which is good for dual small dual sport bikes. Cause we lost the WR two 50 and it's got fuel injection, the upside down forks, small two 50 dual sport bike. It seems like it's got better, uh, suspension and stuff than the CRF, um, and fuel injection now instead of the carburetor, which is good. Um, and they had a real jet ski there and Cowie, like the standup, the standup jet ski where it's like, yeah, classic, which I don't, I thought those were like illegal, like three wheelers. Maybe not. Maybe we're just there to catch my eye. I don't know, but they had a classic jet ski there. I thought it was cool. Or like a modern, a new one looked like it was new and it was a standup jet ski with no neon aqua blue pin striping with a little bit of like a hot pink. No, it was just green.

Robin: Okay. Kawasaki.

Travis: It's Kawasaki green and white and black.

Robin: All right. Are you done?

Travis: Are you done with Kawasaki? Now we can talk about Aprilia. Aprilia, Tuono.

Robin: Ah, Tuono. I just, I realized how badly I want to go riding and it's cold and I'm getting antsy. But that Tuono, the standard Aprilia is just so bad.

Travis: Yeah, well, it's, it's a super bike, naked bike. Like it's, it's an RSV4 with handlebars instead of clip-ons. Yeah.

Robin: It's just, it looks comfortable and, and rocking.

Travis: Give me. Yeah. And they have the new, uh, Shiver and Dorsoduro 900s. So they bumped up the displacement on that 90 degree V twin, um, which, uh, you rode a Shiver 750, right? Then, uh.

Robin: No, I never borrowed that. I never, I never asked for it.

Travis: Oh, Joe had one.

Robin: Yeah. One of our regular riders, uh, one of our regular riders, uh, riders, sorry, uh, Joe Conrarty, um, one of the most informative riders for the site. He had a Shiver, is it a 750? Is that right?

Travis: I think it was a 750 before and they bumped up to 900 now.

Robin: He had the 750 and it was just a beast of a bike. Eventually sold it across, you know, it got passed around, but, uh, incredible machine.

Tim: Yeah. I always considered the, uh, Aprilia's to just be a really close competitor to the, uh, Ducati Hypermotard.

Robin: Well, that's the thing. Now there's a person that I don't necessarily, I don't necessarily get on with this person about the quote, but I sure do love quoting this person that I don't get on with. And this person used to say, Aprilia is for people that think Ducati is too mainstream.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: I love that. And it makes sense. It's, there's tons of truth in that. Yep. They are awkward to get parts for, expensive to fix and complicated as all heck, but they run great.

Travis: Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, Tim was a little enamored with the Dorsoduro. Yeah.

Tim: I, I really, I get a kick out of it. Something about that bike just looks like it's a whole lot of fun in a small package.

Robin: Well, that's what Conrarty has now.

Tim: Oh, he's got that Dorsoduro now?

Robin: He's yeah. He had the Shiver before this and then he got this.

Travis: And he doesn't have, he doesn't have the 900 cause that just came out.

Robin: But yeah, he had the 1200. He had the, he had the Dorsoduro 1200 and he wrote it for like.

Travis: There was, it was a Dorsoduro or was it? I don't think there was a 1200. Oh no, there is, there is a 1200.

Robin: It is a butt stopping 1200cc Dorsoduro that he rode for 2000 miles in a fall, like three years ago, dead stop. And he already got his iron butt. So he just said, screw it. I'm going to ride it home anyhow. He wrote it all the way home from like Arizona. I think you got it in like Arizona or New Mexico. He wrote it all the way home on that freaking, on the stock seat. Yeah. He's, he is a guy's a man's man on a few different levels. There's a reason we call him Krusty.

Travis: But those look good. It's the same engine, the Shiver and the Dorsoduro. And I have, I think they have TFT, the full color TFT dashes now, which adds to their prettiness. Yeah. I don't know if you guys went through KTM at all. Yep. I mean, I like the 390 Duke looks good. It's like a, that'd be a cool little bike or the RC. Well, I'm surprised the RC 390 surprised. It was like, I'd say under six grand. Like if you wanted a track day, if you wanted a track day bike, RC 390 is the way to go. Like, you're not going to kill yourself. You're going to learn your skills on a reasonably sized bike. That's going to be super good. And it's under six grand. Yep. I also thought too, they, they did a, like their nomenclature. So they have like their, there's the 1290 Super Adventure. And now there's a 1290 Super Adventure S, which is like, you were talking about like 2118 wheel sets versus 1917 wheel set. That's like the 1917 version of the 1290 Super Adventure. I just don't. And then they also have the Super Duke GT. Yes. I don't know why you'd get one or the other. I don't, I don't understand, but that's what they're doing.

Robin: Um, well there's displacement a little bit there. Same engine. I mean, if you're talking about the Duke series, the Super Duke versus the GT, I don't know if there's any change in how that's tuned.

Travis: Oh, maybe a little bit. Yeah.

Robin: Maybe the ECU's are tweaked just slightly. I mean, the GT has luggage. Yeah. I don't believe the regular Duke does. The Super Duke GT is their, it's their, it's their sports tour. Yeah.

Travis: There's a Super Duke GT, there's the Super Duke, and then there's the Duke, and then there's the Mini Duke. And then there's the, then there's like the 1090 and the 1290, and there's a 1290 Adventure, and there's 1290 Super Adventure, and the 1290 Super Adventure S. Yeah, I can't, I can't keep their lineup, I can't keep their lineup straight.

Robin: That's where it starts to get kind of fuzzy.

Tim: Yeah, their off-road stuff is just about as confusing as well. Yeah. Because the EXCs, EXCWs, and such.

Travis: Well, too, and they're like, oh, this is a, this is an enduro bike for driving through southwestern parts of Arizona, and then there's a hair scramble bike that's for northern parts of Arizona and southern Colorado. Like, it's so specific on their dirt bikes. Yep, yeah.

Tim: But, uh, I think one of the big things that was kind of a pain was KTM had such a small footprint for their overall layout, that their bikes were so close together that I had a hard time taking pictures of any of them. Like, if I wanted to take a picture of the ones in the middle, there was just no chance.

Robin: All the seeds started to blend together.

Tim: Yep. Yeah. But, you know, I love the function of them, but I don't find them very pretty.

Travis: Well, they all have that new weird wacky transformer headlight, like the shield with the wraparound LEDs.

Robin: Oh, I know what you're talking about. Those are weird.

Travis: I don't really like that, yeah.

Robin: That's odd. It looks, it's sort of like a demon horn.

Tim: And could I get a color other than black, orange, gray, and white? But that's our thing, man. Sure, yeah. You know there's other colors, right? Really? Yeah, yeah. You got grayscale and you got orange, and that's all they have. I would love to see, you know, something different.

Robin: Watch next year, they'll just have an entire line of just purple.

Tim: I'd be on it. Yep.

Robin: Tim, talk to us about Triumph.

Tim: Triumph.

Robin: You got into some of this noise.

Tim: I did dig through the Triumph. And, you know, after a test drive last year, I just fell in love with the 1200 Tiger Explorer's engine. That thing is just, it felt fantastic. It surprised the hell out of me. It's a nice little, it's a shafty, you know. So it's, you know, if you get past that it's a big tall adventure bike, it would be a fantastic sport tour, because you don't have to do the chain maintenance or anything like that. From what I was told, it's like the transmission is easier to service than in any of the fancy BMW GS series. You know, I found the cruise control a little wonky, but it had cruise control, which was pretty fun. Yeah. I didn't see the 800s there. You know, the Tiger 800s weren't around at all.

Robin: They are still going to manufacture them this year, yeah?

Tim: Oh, yes. Yeah, I think they've got three flavors or more. I'm not entirely sure, but they had all their, oh goodness, all their classic variants, like the Thruxton and, you know, whatever.

Travis: Yeah, the Street Twin, the Street Cup, the Street Scrambler, the Thruxton, the Thruxton R, the T120.

Tim: Yep, and they all are just basically the same bike with a little different dressing and trim. Um, I didn't get a look through on any other sporty stuff. They, I did see, uh, was it a Speed Triple they had on the floor?

Travis: The Speed Triple, the Daytona, and the Speed Triple.

Tim: Mm-hmm.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: Um, yeah, I like the Triumphs. I've, it's one of the few that does the retro style, even with their fake carburetors, that I still find attractive.

Travis: Yeah. I was gonna say. Oh, yeah. Just a quick, a quick note on the Tiger 800 series. There's, there's the Tiger 800 XR, the Tiger 800 XRX, the Tiger 800 XRT, and the Tiger 800 XRX Low, the Tiger 800 XCX, the Tiger 800 XCA.

Robin: So how do you say those if they pronounce it the, like, some people say X like a Z.

Travis: Zer-ze-ze-ze-ze-ga-zo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Bizarre Bizarre.

Robin: Yeah, okay, so we're on all balls here. This is definitely where my energy began its escape. And I mean, towards the end of the show, I could feel it. I went through Royal Enfield knowing full well that, one, they're much better this year. And two, they're still nowhere near good enough. I expressed that I am both hopeful for their success and not interested at all.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: No longer paying any mind to anything I've seen before either. So as I was walking through, I kind of sidestepped Dainese. I just wasn't in the mood to look at overpriced stuff. Or not overpriced. No, they are not overpriced. I'm going to take that back right now. Oh, well-priced stuff that I'm just not going to buy, you know. Nah, I'll just move on. But Travis, you got some stuff at the Ural.

Travis: Yeah, there's some other stuff. Yeah, I saw the Royal Enfield, the new Twins, the 650, whatever they call it. And then the 650 GT. And then they have the Himalayan there. They're like Adventure Pike. Literally looks like someone welded it together in their garage.

Robin: Now, hold on. The story goes that our friend up here, the customizer up here that I mentioned before that I will not affiliate with this situation, he was customizing one of their bikes for a showpiece. And the oil strainer broke when he torqued it down to even a mild tension. And when he ordered, he called them and they sent him a new one. It was broken when it got to his door. I want them to succeed. Royal Enfield deserves to do well. They're trying. But man, more than aluminum foil.

Travis: Yeah, I saw a couple of three wheelers that were neat. So there was the Urals there. They basically all have the same one bike with different things bolted onto it. But they had a cool burnt orange color and a cool matte purple color. I don't know if PGP came out with some new matte colors, something like that. But it seems like several of the manufacturers had really good matte finishes.

Tim: Almost like vinyl.

Travis: Then the Vanderhall was there with like the three wheel car things, the GM front wheel drive three wheel car tub things. Again, we talked about them last year. I haven't seen anything new. And Moto Guzzi had a V7 stone in a really nice, again, matte kind of blue color. I thought it was really good looking. But that's kind of it for any oddball stuff. That's not one of the major manufacturers.

Robin: Now we can venture into the actual, the bizarre, the bizarre bazaar. It's a bizarre bazaar. Okay, this was actually the first area I went to after walking into the show. The long side of the entry wall. Before it, I had a few custom bikes. Saw that Venture Heated Clothing had their own booth as well. Tim and I had been talking about their stuff. We'll get to that. Made it to the bazaar, much like anyone listening. I have a love-hate relationship with the bizarre bazaar. Well, it is where new and upcoming services and products make their debut. Some of them really interesting. It's also where lesser budget meets lesser interest. Very next turn. That's where the bizarre feel kind of stuck around. But the services were mostly travel guides and rider destinations. These are some really fine folks. These were some good people. And there was a company out of Ohio that's, they run some hotel chains that they're trying to just get more people to visit. And they're right near what are called the Windy Nine. These are nine really nice motorcycle routes in the Ohio land area. There's also Arkansas destinations. The guy I was telling you about over at the BMW booth for Alaska Adventures. He's the one that was presenting at CycleWorks in Barrington there. One guy, Colombian motorcycle tours. I would love to do some of that. This is also where the guy who makes Tim's new luggage was hanging out. Get a chance to talk about that in a second here. Further down the same row, I met the first of few products that officially blew my mind, man. I was grabbing flyers here and there and anywhere. And just asking for information to kind of get through everything and know what I was going to write about for the site or promote on the webcast here, on the podcast. And then the rep said, sure, I'll get some information. And then his beautiful co-rep reached for flyer. And instead, she waits and he hands me the battery. It was, what do they call it, guys? I'll just have to edit that in. The point is they're an insanely ultra lightweight battery, all right? And he handed me this battery and I wasn't even stunned at first. He handed it to me. I was like, oh, that's cool. This is like an empty floor model, right? Like there's nothing in it. And it was light as a feather. And he says like, that's the battery. That's the actual battery. I'm like, I mean, is this a sealed? Is there, is it a water? What the, am I supposed to add anything to this? He's like, no, it's a fully sealed unit. That is a fourth the weight of a normal sealed battery, but it puts out twice the amperage. It's like 2000 versus a grand or something. I forget the numbers. I'm going to be writing a full article on these guys. So it puts out twice the amperage. It weighs a quarter of the weight. I don't know how they pulled this off, but the other, okay. So dig this too. If there's vampire draw on your bike when it's turned off and it gets really low, it powers itself off ceasing to distribute any power to the bike. So that when you come out to a quote unquote dead battery, you just are like, oh, crud. There's something that's been drawing from it. You just press a button on the top of the battery. It's like a little pushable section of plastic and it reactivates with enough power to start your bike. That's awesome. This blew me away. I love this. So Tim, your turn, man. What's the bizarre, bizarre, bizarre. All right.

Tim: Yeah. Oh goodness. It looks like most of my notes are here in this section. I spent a lot of time going through here and I talked to a lot of people here. Yeah, most of, for the most part, when I'm first making a pass through, I kept my distance and, you know, I just, the first people that kind of jump at me were, was this lady holding these little gel, they're like crystallized gel packs that when you break the crystals, they heat up. Three inch by three inch, half inch thick little blue jelly thing. And it apparently had like some crystals. When you crack the crystals, it turns into a gel and heats up.

Travis: So yeah, we saw, we saw that.

Tim: She was selling it as like therapeutic heating pads when she first handed to me and it warms up. I'm like, oh, that's cool. What do I do with this? Shove it in the back of my gloves and put it in my pants? What am I supposed to do here? She's like, oh, you know, people use it, you know, when they get sore muscles, riding at the end of the day, you sit on your back. Like, oh, okay. I had no idea what to do with it. I just like handed it back and I can take a picture of you. And she like grabbed her, grabbed whatever co-workers at the booth and like a picture of the cute girls.

Robin: Oh, this was that shot. Yeah. I'm glad they were, that was, that's pretty important stuff.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. And if you, and I was totally spaced it and I didn't get a brand name. I have no idea, I have no idea who they were. And, you know, we'd talked about the anti-gravity batteries guys.

Robin: And so that's who I'm thinking of. It was anti-gravity. That's who I was talking about. They have a reset switch on their batteries and they're crazy good. Okay. Anti-gravity.

Tim: I think I confused him a little because like the room, you know, the backup jumpstart is like distant second to my concerns. I'm like, I'm going to pull up to a campground where there's nothing. I've got to dig my own toilet. And I want to charge five gadgets while I'm in the tent. Okay. Just an unusual request for him, I think.

Robin: What do you mean for the jumpstart ability?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm like, okay, you got two, two USB outlets on this guy. Can I run this through a USB hub and charge multiple things simultaneously? You know, and I, I didn't get a clear answer out of him, but no big deal. Yeah. And then I went to a Moscow motor booth and it was unattended when I first got there. So marked it for later. And when I did come back later, you know, I was talking to you guys over the Voxer and like, wait until we get there. So I did buy my luggage from him. And of course, like when I'm talking to him, I'm like kind of smooth a little bit and say, you got any shop or any deals for the show? He's like, well, I got free shipping. I wasn't too blown away by that. But I got it. I can throw in a can opener. They're like, oh, you'd better, you better show me that can opener. And I was just giving him a hard time. And it's like the cheapest little bit of low folding metal. I was like, oh, you sold me. So yeah, I, I did. I, I handed over my credit card and spent a lot of money there. And, uh, totally forgot about the key, the, uh, can opener. But when I went back the next day, he remembered me right away. It's like, wait, let me get this for you. He walked over and grabbed the, the key chain with the can opener on it. One of the things that I noticed is like, it was both Allstate, Regressive and State Farm Insurance all had booths there. They were all running kind of the same sort of scam. It's what I considered it to be, where they would say, come and fill out a survey and win a prize. But it wasn't a survey. It was a contact sheet where they want your name, your address, your phone number. So I gave it to him. Yeah, I got wins of the night. Got my trucker shirt from Allstate or my trucker hat. Yeah. And you know, this, did you see the big blue chieftain on the pedestal behind the little electric cars for the kids?

Travis: I think I did. I think I just bypassed it though.

Tim: Yeah, it was a monster.

Travis: Fully loaded dresser. Yeah, yeah.

Tim: The big Indian chieftain. Yeah, it was, you know, I'm getting better at talking to people and asking, can I take your picture, you know? So, although I really enjoy a lot of candid ones where people aren't really paying attention to me, which I get some pretty entertaining shots of crowds.

Robin: You get the license to do it on your net, you know, and you got the press pass, but then it's just a courtesy. It's a nice thing.

Tim: Yep, yep. So, and I also went back over to the venture booth and bought a vest and the heated gloves. And I'm glad you talked me into going back and getting the gloves.

Robin: Yeah, are you happy about those?

Tim: Yeah, yeah. I haven't hooked everything up and tested it yet, but I'm hoping to make time for that this weekend.

Robin: It's getting warmer, man. The season's getting rolling slowly. It's going to happen. I feel it changing up. Yep. We're at the top of the peak. We're going to head into warm weather slowly.

Travis: Yeah. I was out on the moped today, testing, shaking it down. Yeah, the only thing I really saw over in the bazaar, they caught my eyes, they were like, they're not even motorcycle related. ArcadeDLX.com. They had these really cool like multi-arcade, like a standing arcade box with like multiple. Oh, yes. Like you have multiple games built in, you know.

Robin: Oh, straight up. There's like a Centipede and Galaga.

Travis: You can load it up with whatever. And they got some of them have like super high def flat screens built in and like. So they're modular old school component systems. Kind of, yeah. That is killer. Yeah, then there was just a lot of bedazzling and writers for Jesus and stuff like that. It's like the back of the back wall. There was so many rhinestones and fringe, leather fringe. I couldn't, I couldn't handle it. And then, yeah, the tour guide stuff I thought was good. Like Robin mentioned that the Windy Nine and some of the other. And there's a couple of just kind of like in like the Appalachian and Virginia sort of area. And a lot of those are just they're not even, some of them weren't even like tour guide services. It's just like the state tourism board and they have motorcycle maps. So I thought that was, that was pretty cool.

Tim: Yeah, I remember seeing like the Charihola Skyway. One was handing stuff off, things like that.

Robin: Which is a nice ride. If you've never been on the Charihola Skyway, I've ridden it. It's a good time. It's, it's kind of expressway-ish. But it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a pleasant cruise, I would say. It's got some twisties in it here and there.

Tim: Well, I think the only thing else is when I went back on the second day with my brother, managed to get a chance to see the stunt show, which was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. So there was one guy that I'd heard of his name a lot of time is Chris Teach McNeil. Apparently in his, his full-time job is an elementary school teacher and he's just like world-class stunt rider. But one of the things that I don't, you probably can't tell from the photos, but he's running a mostly stock G310. I did see that.

Robin: Yeah, it looks like it's right off the lot.

Tim: Yeah, yeah. That BMW G310R.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: And he's, he had to make it work a little harder, but he was doing all the tricks with it. It was pretty damn cool to see. And then the other one was the S1000X or whatever that is. S1000R. Oh, that thing is such a monster. So yeah, going from the bike with like 30, 35 horsepower to the one with over 200. And you could almost tell, like, as soon as that thing grabbed and, you know, revved it up and it finally got traction, he almost had to get off the gas right away. Because it was so damn fast and he'd cover ground so quickly.

Robin: And with that, that was this year's 2018 IMS International IMS Motorcycle Show Show brought to you by Progressive, Springs, or Deterioration, or just Progress in general.

Tim: This episode of the Riding Obsession podcast is sponsored by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they lose, where they use local overstocked produce to offer a quick tasty breakfast.

Robin: I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is scheduled for spring of this 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, and we hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via TheRidingObsession.com. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu.

Travis: That's our episode this round. Tune in next time for more discussion on all things specific to sport touring or universal motorcycling as a whole. For TheRidingObsession.com, I'm Travis Burleson. And I'm Tim Clark. And I'm Robin Deen. Safe travels, everyone.