Robin: Hello everybody, I'm Travis Burleson. I'm Tim Clark. And I'm Robin Dean. And this is the Riding Obsession podcast.

Travis: Today we'll be talking about taking rider training courses in the state of Illinois, as well as a model focus on the Harley Street Rod. For the kit segment, we're going to look at a frozen snot ride, as well as some dry pack and compression stuff sack. We're going to cover some protective modifications you can make if you're a BMW owner, and take a quick look at this month in motorcycle history.

Tim: This episode of the 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 theridingobsession.com. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu. Before we get started here, we should probably recap from the previous episode, newly learned information. Apparently, you do not, we brought this up when we saw the MSF booth at the IMS here in Chicago, Illinois, the International Motorcycle Show. You do not have to be an Illinois resident to take the free motorcycle training course here in Illinois. You simply have to be able to receive mail somewhere in Illinois. Whether that's a P.O. box or a fixed address may or may not matter. Credit goes to fellow rider coach Don Beeren for that information, who would subsequently credit someone else whose name I've forgotten. So there you go.

Travis: Does that not need to be on a identification at some point, or you just need to give them an address?

Robin: All you have to have is an address, from what I understand. I don't think that's changed either. The people who are saying that are pretty confident in the information.

Travis: Somewhere they send you like a certificate or whatever, or they just, they need to put it on their forms to say like, this person at this address signed up for the class.

Robin: Yeah, and then they just translate it to the next state after that. But now, okay, so let's get personal here. Recent happenings and feature segments. We're changing up the order of things here, so we're experimenting, folks. Please bear with us and enjoy the show. Travis, how is your month going, and what year, make, model, are we focused on to date?

Travis: It's going good. Weather's getting a little bit warmer. I did, we had a good garage night there. Was that last week, the week before, last week?

Robin: Yeah, it was last week.

Travis: People burned a nice hole in my little work mat, doing, revving out the moped on the center stand. But yeah, the moped was leaking transmission oil from like the clutch cover. I put a new gasket on there and I replaced the, actually they weren't even Phillips head, they were Stewart and Prince head screws. What is that? You know when you get your set of driver bits with your whatever multi-bit screwdriver and there's Phillips bits that have like little extra indents in the corners?

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Those are Stewart and Prince, and there actually are screw heads that have the little extra cutout in between each of the four that they accept that.

Robin: So it's almost like JIS before JIS was JIS.

Travis: It's kind of like a, it's like Torx before Torx. Yeah. So there's actually, they were Stewart and Prince, the screws that hold that clutch cover on. But I went down to my local Fastenall and got a equivalent with a hex drive with like an Allen head drive so I can actually torque them and make sure they're, and not have to somehow rig up a Phillips head on a torque wrench to get the very massive six foot pounds that those screws take. Do you have an inch pound driver? I do, yeah. So whatever, 72 inch pounds. But I don't have, I couldn't find my quarter, because the inch pound is a quarter inch drive and the four millimeter socket I have is a 3-eighths drive and I couldn't find my quarter inch to 3-eighths step. So I just, I set my 3-eighths drive on six foot pounds, which is like one foot pound up from its lowest setting. Made sure not to mess it up. Oh, funny.

Robin: What's this thing go up to? 400 foot pounds of torque. All right. Big ol' like eight foot long elbow bar.

Travis: Just wait for it to, it doesn't click, you know, it just kind of slightly, slightly bends, yeah. I also started the application process to get a bounded title on the moped. Is that the Michigan thing? No, so my friend in Michigan couldn't get it, couldn't get it registered. Okay. Because he went to a couple different DMVs in Michigan and they're like, oh, there's a title on this in Wisconsin, you need the title. Even though Michigan doesn't issue titles for mopeds, they're the interstate DMV system knew that it should be titled in Wisconsin and have a paper title with it.

Robin: We've been working with border officials to make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

Travis: Yeah. So I just decided to bite the bullet and submit for a bonded title through. So I had to fill all the paperwork, plus the irregular title application paperwork, plus an additional lost title paperwork, take pictures of the van and pictures of the vehicle and send it into the state. And then eventually they might get back to me. I don't know. I haven't heard from them yet. We put new handlebars on the NC700X, did that garage night. That was fun. That was pretty good.

Robin: That was a productive night. Yeah. It's amazing what happens when Robin, Robin doesn't drink any beer.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: When Robin doesn't drink beer, things get done.

Travis: So they're just a little, they're a little shorter than the stocks, but I compensated for that with an extra spacer in the riser. And then they're wider too, which I kind of like. It seems to take the handguards a little better. And I think I'm going to order some shorty levers to put on there so I can move the lever mounts and subsequently the mirrors a little further out as well and take advantage of that. I also put on, while we're doing that, not just the handlebars, the main thing was doing the new braided steel front brake line from Coromodo.

Robin: Yeah. Tim, remind me now, wasn't that, wasn't that goal number one that everybody was supposed to be showing up for? Yes, I think it was.

Travis: Yeah. But the handlebars took exponentially longer than the brake line.

Tim: They did take a lot because didn't they require a alignment nub for the hand controls?

Travis: Yeah. So the, the Honda just had the little pins on the bars to get it. Yeah.

Robin: But we drilled, we drilled in.

Travis: Yeah. We drilled instead of chopping the nubs off, which I think is good because I've never had a Honda one, chop the nubs off and actually have it grip right. So, but yeah, the brake lines feel great and it feels good. And more importantly, they're a couple inches longer to compensate for the wider bars and the risers on it. So, and I put on a auxiliary light bracket that moved auxiliary lights off of the sides, the outside of the crash bar. So the first thing that hits the ground, if you drop the bike up to the nose of the bike. So if you tip the bike over, you don't instantly smash the auxiliary lights.

Robin: Nice. And plus don't they turn with your handlebars now?

Travis: So when they turn with the front light, they're mounted, they're mounted static. Yeah. With the, with the front of the front of the fairing.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Pluses and minuses, right?

Travis: Yeah. Well, whatever. I mean, yeah, there wouldn't be a good way because that bike has a standard fairing where there's like the frame comes out and everything in front of the handlebars is fixed, the headlight and everything. So, yeah. And then I just want to give a shout out for my Tourmaster Synergy 2 heated gear that I got last year at some clearance website. And man, I've been riding here in 40 degrees and it's been nice with the heated grips and the heated gloves and the heated vest. It really makes a difference. Went out for a ride today, it was in the 40s, sunny, kind of windy, but fine. Totally warm. Heated gear makes a difference. And even then, and it's funny, like you would think 40 is going to be colder than it is. And you can really just kind of bundle up for it. I bet with that, if I, if I really bundled, I could probably ride deep into the 30s and be fine.

Robin: I guarantee you that's the case because I just did that. So, I took the Hawk out today where, and you were talking about the Tourmaster stuff. Yeah. Shout out to them. And I know Tim and I, we have the Venture stuff because I convinced Tim to get it, but. And I am enjoying that a lot. Right.

Tim: I really do like that.

Robin: South on Sheridan and back. And by the time I got home, it was 32 degrees and the back of my neck was sweating. I just cranked it up. It was like riding a motorcycle in a bathtub. It was the best.

Tim: Yeah. You know, I, I've been comparing it to the feel of having the sun on you, like through the winter, winter on a cold spring day.

Robin: That's a good analogy.

Tim: It just feels like you got the sun on the back of your neck. Yeah.

Robin: It's kind of nice.

Tim: You just kind of like lean back into it and go, oh, yes.

Robin: And with that, Travis, what's this month's model focus? See, I tied those together. They blend perfectly.

Travis: It's like a perfect. It's the same subject. It's just melded. We talked about this a little bit with our review of the Chicago International Motorcycle Show. The Harley Street Rod. I saw when this came out because like, you know, we're not, we're not Harley guys. We're not cruiser guys. But I saw this. So like the Street Series came out and it was like basically the replacement for the old Fuel. It was like a big, they're beginner bikes, right? They're smaller than 500s and a 750. But the Street 750s are cruisers. But that's also the, they're liquid cool. That's actually the architecture for their, their flat track racer is that engine. And so they came out with the Street Rod, which was like this, the 750, but with like kind of a cafe rear cowl on it. And, you know, rear set my air quotes come through the radio rear set foot pegs and low bars looked good. Like there are pictures I saw of it early. I got, I got a link there to the Street Rod site. If you guys want to click on it, looked good.

Robin: Their rear set by Harley standards, which pretty much says to me, they're kind of slightly standard. They're slightly more attentive than a Barker lounger.

Travis: Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it kind of is almost a standard riding position, but here's, here's the thing. If you look, if you look at, there's like a picture and this is like on, on Harley's website, the pictures from the gallery on their website. One, if you look at the first picture, you'll see that there's a big rubber heel pad on the exhaust that's higher than the foot peg. And that's weird. Like that's where you're like, when you get on that bike, that's where your heel goes. And it, it makes no sense. And it's, and it's like they missed something in the prototype phase, put one of these together. And then we're like, oh, my foot's hitting the exhaust. Let's just bolt a rubber pad onto the exhaust.

Tim: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at this picture of this rider and they've got a, the foot peg right against the heel of the boot. So they're not riding the way like we'd normally, you know, I tend to ride on the ball of my foot and that almost puts my heel into any exhaust system, especially like the new Hondas as well.

Travis: But this would be just unreal. But if you look, he does have his, his like heel hooked into the foot peg. But if you look, it's actually hanging off the end of the foot peg because if he moved his heel inboard, it would still be clipping that rubber pad. Then you can't actually operate the brake lever at all.

Robin: That is the big problem. But I don't know how they're trying to really cover that up. The fact is that in a curve like that, whichever toe is closest to the ground will be pointed forward. If you were to shift your body weight, your outside toe would be pointed up. That's how that turn would be taken. So your heel would have to lift the entire foot off the peg and just balance it on the exhaust if you wanted to take it in track format.

Travis: Yeah. And that's, I mean, if you look, if you scroll through the, the, again, this is the gallery in Harley's site, you scroll through to picture six of seven. It's, it's, it's like, they're like, look, look at this thing. We fucked up. Like I, like I said, I sat on one at the bike show and I was like, oh, and I mean, too, if you kind of look at the rider, the picture of the guy in the rider, you can see it's like the seats too low or the pegs are like you just in a weird, I mean, especially I think if you're over five foot five, it's just a weird, it's a weird riding position.

Robin: It wants you to be in duck walk. It's duck walk mode.

Travis: Yeah. It's, you know, it's the monkey fucker. Like you're, you're hunched over with like your knees in your chest and your arms.

Robin: We just got, we just activated the explicit content label.

Tim: So yeah, it's the, uh, the angle of the hip where your thigh is almost flat, or at least this guy's is mine would, my knees would be like above the tank on this. But you know, that's the thing that I've found on the, even at the Sportster that I rode was incredibly uncomfortable for me. Of course, like I totally can't Harley correctly apparently, because I borrowed that Sportster. And by the end of the day, I was riding with my feet on the passenger pegs and my, and laying down over the gas tank. Yeah. That was the most comfortable position for me on that bike.

Travis: Well, they do have a Harley that they do have a Sportster that's like caffeine out like that. There's also the new 1200 iron, which you can option out like that, but it ends up being like 12 grand. And it's like 12 grand for a Sportster. Um, but the thing that bugs me the most, and this is the next picture I have here is the XR1200 and XR1200X that came out in the mid 2000s. Yes. Look at that. How much better is like, they were trying to do that and they fucked it up.

Robin: That's proper ergos right there. What I'm looking at in this photo that you pasted into the Yeah, that's an XR1200X.

Travis: It looks like the exhaust is well behind the foot peg. Uh, the, the, the, the foot pegs are further back so that they're under your hip.

Tim: Yep.

Travis: Under your center of gravity.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: And it's just, it's just, that's a, that's a standard motorcycle riding position and why they couldn't achieve that on the 750. I have no idea.

Tim: Yeah. Well, I know that part of the goal for the 750 and the Street 500 was to have an all world motorcycle, one that they can sell in India and try and be competitive with the smaller bikes there and the lower priced bikes.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: So, and as well as the replacing the, the training fleet that used to be the Buick Blast.

Robin: Bottom line guys, what I see here is a bike where it looks like the person who designed it, uh, was, I'm talking about the, the street rod. It seems like they were somebody who didn't want to design a standard bike, but was somehow forced to as though they were told that that's what they were being tasked with. And they went through the motions of doing what they thought they were supposed to. And through and through from beginning to end, they said, this doesn't, I don't like this kind of thing. So I'm going to try to like, they would take breaks to try to make it into a cruiser mid process. So you've got these weird ergos that are just sort of like, I like cruisers, but they told me to do this. And then you've got this bike that is just awkward. And, and.

Travis: I always just built by committee and someone was like, Oh, this bike is going to be sporty. So we need to make sure the exhaust is high enough. It doesn't drag on the ground. And then someone's like, yeah, well, we're going to put these foot pegs here. Oh, now the exhaust is in the way. And now we're out of time.

Tim: It could be that it could be that they just, they, they drew a picture and said, that's the bike we're going to make. And they didn't realize until someone sat on it, that it was all wrong.

Travis: What it makes me think of, cause I was riding my moped today. And so like, you know how that, when you look at the moped, you're like, wow, those are really tall handlebars. And then when you sit on the moped, you're like, no, they're not because this thing is tiny. And then you see pictures of guys on the internet who took the mopeds and put like clip-ons on them. And like, when you, when you look at just the bike without a human interacting with it, it's like, yeah, that looks kind of cool. But then you remember like this thing's only three and a half feet long and a human has to sit on it and there's no way that's going to work.

Robin: Oh yeah, unless you were jockey-sized. Yeah, right. We're talking about a vehicle that when you get off of it, you pick it up and put it in your pocket and then walk into the bar.

Travis: Yeah. So, so that's that, that just, that caught my eye and it came up to my mind the other day. So I figured we'd talk about it. Looking good. Yeah. So Tim, what have you been up to?

Tim: Anything good in the gear department? Went on a group ride last weekend. It was called the Madison Mule, was organized by my friend Patrick. And it was one of those ones where it's like, we're going to go, we're going to meet here. We're going to ride for a little while and warm up here and have lunch. And then we're going to ride for a while and warm up and try not to freeze. But it ended up being a pretty pleasant day and we had, you know, sunny weather and 50 degrees. And it was nice. I got to chat with people I hadn't talked to before. Got to meet some new people. And my friend Patrick is, he was riding a, an XR650, I believe.

Travis: Yeah. The Honda. Yeah. The big Honda Thumper.

Tim: Yep. So he took us through some of the little, some backroads routes through the middle of town. Some urban dirt. Some urban dirt. Yeah. We- How many sidewalks did you jump? How many, how many curbs did you leave? Down on some muddy trails up by the train tracks.

Travis: With the dual sport tires, how did the TKC70s do?

Tim: It felt okay. It felt a little squirrely. But this is also the first time I've been in mud and dirt since I broke the ankle.

Travis: And not on proper knobbies.

Tim: Yeah. Not on proper knobbies on a bike I've never ridden in the dirt. So I was super nervous. I rode a little bit and then decided I'd take the, the pavement for the rest of that. You've got to do something with your mic there, Robin. Oh, sorry. You're just making noises at us.

Robin: Sorry. There we go. I was, I was thinking to myself that, that, uh, I mean, when you, when you took the hit to the leg that you were on a smaller bike that you just borrowed and it was like, okay, I'm putzing around having some fun on it. And now it's like, you're riding on dirt, on Goliath. You were on the ultimate bike of, of your dreams. Yeah. And I was thinking, yeah, I was thinking like, Tim's gotta be, if he's doing that, he's gotta be having a little bit of a upgrade, you know?

Tim: Oh yeah. That thing is such a monster. I am really, really getting a kick out of it, but yeah, that was a little spooky to like, uh, we were down by the Alliant Energy Center sneaking past some barricades.

Travis: Just to do, do 200 yards of dirt and mud.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. And the front tire skipped a little bit and I had that little bit of pucker moment. Okay. We're good. Hey, don't, don't, don't do that. Don't do that. But yeah.

Robin: Okay. Well, geek out for us, man.

Tim: What you got for us? What's the new kit going? All right. So this is also my part of, uh, you're looking outside of even the motorcycle community to see what, what's available to get my, my packing system down. And I went to an event at the Alliant Energy Center this last weekend as well. It was the Canoecopia and the Bike-O-Rama, which is all pedal bikes. And the Canoecopia is canoeing and kayaking, stand-up paddling, things like that. And you've, it's always good to look outside of just motorcycle industry because you're going to see other solutions. And especially the backpacking and camping stuff I found is really easy to adapt. And while I was there, I talked to the, one of the ladies from sea to summit, and I've had one of their dry bags for years on the back of a dirt bike, just beaten the hell out of it. And it's rock solid, durable, and reliable.

Robin: That's high quality. They, they, all of their stuff is high quality. I think I have a few different things for camping from them.

Travis: Yeah. Which, which you got here that this day pack that looks like it's super thin, light, strong material.

Tim: Yep. Yeah. That's the UltraSil. It's that super lightweight stuff that packs down incredibly small. Yeah.

Travis: Like you can, you can see through it kind of.

Tim: Yeah. It's a wet pack too, right?

Travis: It's a dry bag.

Tim: Yep. 22 liter roll top waterproof backpack. And it packs down to this tiny little package, six inches long, two and a half inch diameter. And it's ridiculous. And the whole thing weighs 3.2 ounces. You can stash that everywhere. Yeah. Really? So you can stash it in your tank bag. You can stash it in your, under your seat. So like you stop by and you got to buy groceries or something like that. You got somewhere to put that or you get rained on and you got some gear to throw it in. It stays dry. So I thought that was super cool, but it was a little expensive and I did get a little bit of a show discount, but still their list price is at 55 bucks. But man, it's super convenient.

Travis: Yeah. No, because I have like a roll top dry backpack, but it's made out of the.

Robin: Made out of like a car's seat interior.

Travis: It's made out of like the mil spec. It's made out We had these old racks. And that thing has to weigh like three pounds empty.

Tim: Oh sure. Or more.

Travis: Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. And my other, I've got a Camelback that is a roll top backpack as well as being a hydration pack. And that thing is almost always with me when I'm on a trip. I just love being able to, you know, sip on water. It keeps you fatigued down if you're going out all day.

Robin: Tim, does this require, do you spray treat it? Do you have to use a, like the waterproofing spray or just let it be?

Tim: This thing is all seam sealed, ready to go. You don't have to do anything out of the box for it. I figure after a year or so of retreat, yeah, you might want to retreat it.

Travis: You might get pinholes in it depending on how you're using it, but.

Tim: Yeah. And of course it's, it's very thin material. It's a little bit ripstop, but you know, you kind of braid through it. But, and then.

Robin: You know, sorry to interrupt, but as a street writer, you know, I'm not a dirt guy. What I like about this is when we're doing like say the group tour, I like the idea of having something like this, or maybe even two or one per case where I can pull everything out of the cases and just have a backpack full of everything that I was riding with and just go on in. I like that.

Tim: Yes. Yes. Yep. And then going on to the more, you know, go into the camping stuff. The other thing I've been getting into is the, the REI brand, lightweight compression stuff sacks. These are. Yeah, they're not messing around. These are not waterproof, but they're pretty rugged and they're very cheap for what they are. I've had, I've had the cheaper ones where like you get your sleeping bag in the bear in there and you start cinching down the straps and they start ripping off. Of course. And you're just like, what was the point of this thing? But these are pretty, pretty solid. And you know, I've got a 40 degree sleeping bag and, and actually my 15 degree sleeping bag fits in this 15 liter bag as well. And just happens that my new Moscow moto panniers, they take two of these 15 liter bags per side and still have room to pack more stuff.

Robin: So you can, you can compress them down and put them in the base for lower center of gravity.

Tim: Yep.

Robin: Ish. And then stack stuff on top.

Tim: Yeah. So I've got my, one of them, I've got my, my sleeping bag in, I've got another one that I can get my two man tent. It's like a large two man tent. And I can get those if I take the poles and the stakes out, I can compress the thing down. So we're looking at, you know, a large watermelon kind of sized, just pretty tiny still considering all that gear, you know, so I can get that in two of those, those two things in one side and still have room to stash stuff on top. Tim Clark, ridingobsession.com rescue rider. Yeah. I am going to be the pack mule on the, on our trips.

Travis: Okay.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: That's because the other panniers for beer. Yes. Yeah.

Robin: So we're, so this writing season, anybody who's listening, we're going to be doing, we're going to be doing some getaway podcasts that are based on us writing together. And what we're going to do is Tim will carry the tent, the sleeping bags, the helmets, the, you'll see the recording equipment, the refrigerator, the Cadillac, the shipping yard.

Tim: We can probably stack the firewood on there too.

Robin: Yeah. We'll stack them for, yeah, you know, and I'll be carrying marshmallows.

Tim: We might be able to get graham crackers in there. But yeah, so I, I'm a big fan of these things. It's yeah. And I do have a dry bag version of those, the compression one. And that's the one that, you know, from sea to summit, that's, I've been riding with for a long time. It's like a 40 liter compression dry bag. That's a duffel. Oh yeah. And that was kind of the, what I used to do before I would throw my sleeping bag, my, you know, air mattress, my tent and some clothes all in that 40 liter compression bag and squish it all back down. And it was easy to strap on the back of the bike.

Travis: And throw it on the back seat and go.

Tim: Yep. Good stuff. How about you, Robin? What are you up to this month and what new articles and what's being published on the site right now?

Robin: Well, like I said, we're starting a new project. I'm reforming the podcast. I'm just experimenting, having a good time doing this. And so we're each getting to our personal notes and we're going through our segments as they are called in the Hollywood place of Hollywoodness. So I got out for a couple of lengthy rides on the new Beamer during a brief warm front, which was a lot of fun. That bike is, I'm already feeling a kinetic energy from it. I enjoy the bike a lot. I'm continuing to learn the manual. Pro tip, BMW's dynamic suspension isn't active dynamic. Turns out road mode is the way to go for cushy riding as dynamic is more of a track feel. Then we installed a few protective mods. The bike now has crash bars, frame and swing arm sliders, bolt covers, tank pads, mud guards for the front and rear, and a not yet arrived carbon fiber Fenda extenda. Because I always get those. These bikes are prone to lots of dirt. Instantly. I rode the bike to Waterford, Wisconsin on a dry day. And when I got home, the bike was straight dirty, just straight up dirty. Big shout out, MSF instructors, Don Berent and Catherine Hartley for helping me get through the process on installing all that stuff. Also, thank you, Travis, for locking horns with the Hawk GT steering head bearings. She feels good. Bike feels really good. Just got back today.

Travis: Yeah, that's good. I really like how Honda divvied out the head tube for knocking those races out. That makes it so much like I've spent like weeks struggling with bearing races before, and they have that little notch in them so you can get in there and knock those races out. Good job, Honda, for doing that.

Robin: It's a great bike. I don't know if they do that anymore, but there was some bike that you brought up in the last podcast or maybe it was a podcast before that where it was less assembly bike than we had been used to complaining about. I don't remember what model it was, everything was component based. I like that about this bike because everything's easy to get to.

Tim: That is nice. That's a maintenance task that I've not tackled before.

Robin: It's not a big deal until one of two things happens. One, you don't have any way of supporting all the junk that's coming off of the front end, or B, you start actually trying to knock the races off of the steering head tube. That took a little bit of thwack, and we ended up filing down some jarred metal that was just, it was victim to the circumstance. Anyhow, so this month's read-through comes from a recent article by my wife, Margaret Dean, regular writer for the site. The topic? Motorcycle sharing, rent a bike near you. I'm excited about my new flagship motorcycle, a BMW R1200RS for 2018's riding season. I'm also pre-mourning the eventual goodbye to a long-time love, my Suzuki Bandit 1200. Celebrating the Beamer feels like a betrayal to the ready-to-rent Bandit, which has taken me 55,000 miles through 23 states over five years. She's been maintained, upgraded, repaired, updated, enhanced, in a word, loved. I don't want to sell her, but as many riders understand, multiple bikes result in more maintenance and less time. Whether the motorcycle runs or is a project, you can only ride one at a time, and no matter how much you treasure each bike, you tend to ride one more than the others. With a heavy heart, I wrote an ad listing the Bandit for sale. A week later, a different kind of ad, crafty little opportunistic little ad, thanks to a spying son-of-an-algorithm, gave me an idea. Why not rent the Bandit out to others? Make a buck while she's waiting for a new owner. Put her right next to the Driftless in Wisconsin. Yeah, maybe she'll even be worth more to keep and rent out than sell her. Right? Rent a motorcycle? Say what? My wife raised her eyebrows when I mentioned it to her. The sharing economy has come to motorcycling. Twistedroad.com and riders-share.com have both been called the Uber for motorcycles. Uber has owners of cars driving passengers around like a taxi used to in the old days. With TR and RS, you're not being taxied around on the back of a motorcycle. I'd compare Twisted Road and Riders Share more to Getaround or Turo, where car owners let others rent their cars. All peer-to-peer sharing services operate under the concept of connecting owners with underutilized assets to responsible renters. Each service's platform connects both sides for a fee. Motorcycle rental already exists, but not in the sharing economy. Twisted Road and Riders Share are the first to test sharing in our special market. Twisted Road started from the founders being near great roads without a motorcycle too many times. The Riders Share epiphany came when its founder was in between bikes and noticed his neighbor's unridden bike. The idea of renting someone else's motorcycle sounds great. The idea of renting out your motorcycle to someone else sounds less great. How do you comfortably let someone you've never met ride your motorcycle? We'll get into that. Here's how it works for owners. If you choose to list a bike, both services state the motorcycle should be properly maintained and in good running condition. Think. This is a motorcycle you'd put your mother on. The motorcycle needs to be registered within the U.S., have a clean title, and meet insurance requirements. Riders Share accepts all types of two-wheelers, including scooters. They state they strongly quote prefer cruiser motorcycles because they are statistically safer. As this site focuses on sport touring riders, talk amongst yourselves on that one. Twisted Road doesn't allow scooters, dirt bikes, or trikes. They also recommend model year 2000 or newer and less than 50,000 miles logged. They do accept vintage bikes older than 1990 with market value up to $10,000. Refer to their site for the full specs. Both use the same basic process. List a motorcycle and choose the rate you want to charge. Review rental requests, then accept or decline. Coordinate to meet the renter with your bike. Renter returns the bike. You get paid. Each site does a good job of answering common questions for both owners and renters. What are the renter's requirements? Who verifies or checks the driver's license information? What are the rider's experience requirements? How does gas and insurance work? What happens if there's an accident? There's more in their Frequently Asked Questions sections for both services. The benefits as an owner. The obvious and compelling reason to consider renting your motorcycle is to earn money. Whether the income goes towards justifying the overall use rate of your bikes, pays off the motorcycle, or gets you closer to buying more bikes, the money you receive is a treat like candy or beer. Those of us not living in California or Florida usually ride during the quote warm months, otherwise called the riding season. Some commute to work daily, but many of us ride when not working. This results in days or months of unused motorcycle time. If you own more than one bike, multiply that. Motorcycles want to be ridden. If you have more than one, you can't ride all of them all the time. Because you're a benevolent owner, this is a way to help others in the flock get ridden. This is also a way to give back. This helps other riders in the community explore great roads near you and show them off. You get to network and meet other riders you might not otherwise. Assuming each site's precautions are followed, liability is placed on the renter, not you. How it works for renters. The basic process is the same for renters. Search for a motorcycle, request rental, coordinate to meet the owner for pickup, enjoy the ride safely, and return the bike. The owner may provide or even rent riding gear, but as the rider, don't count on it. You should be prepared to have your own and comply with the state's helmet law requirements. This can mean bringing an extra suitcase or bag of ATGAT all the gear all the time. Golfers, skiers, and snowboarders do it all the time. It's not that serious if you're serious about your experience and safety. You must provide details such as your driver's license, riding history, and insurance information for twisted roads. Be prepared to have your stats run, MVR and background checks, as well as your identity verified. Riders can ride solo or with a passenger. Riders can't rent bikes for other riders or let anyone else control the motorcycle during the rental. You can rent a motorcycle for a day or multiple days. As the renter, if something goes wonky, either yours or rider's shares, motorcycle insurance takes care of it. For the owner and renter pre-ride handshake, the owner's responsibility is to provide a motorcycle that's in good mechanical working condition. You as the renter will do a motorcycle check with the owner at the time you meet for motorcycle pickup. If anything seems awry, don't go through with the rental. Otherwise, once you accept and ride off, the responsibility baton stays with you. That sounds more ominous than it really is. If you were renting a car or motorcycle from a traditional service, you'd bear this responsibility. Twisted Roads requires you to have your own motorcycle insurance. The prerequisite of having this insurance is owning a motorcycle to insure. If you have your own insurance, you have the option of using your own instead of rider shares policy. If you don't own a motorcycle, then you don't have the insurance, which means rider's share is the better and only option of service to use. Their insurance will cover your liability, and yes, they charge for it. If you have the insurance, I'd call them and talk to a licensed agent to double-check that your policy will extend to a rental. We did. Details on that later. This may seem obvious, but make sure you're clear on the bike's details and the ergonomics won't be a problem for you. The owner may have modified the motorcycle so that the height isn't stock. Remember, you're renting a specific motorcycle from an owner and not a rental company. If for any reason it is uncomfortable, you can't just pick another motorcycle and the owner is not required to adjust anything for you. Benefits as a rider. You'll use less vacation days and energy renting a motorcycle locally than riding from home base to Great Riding Roads. This is also more cost-effective than shipping your bike. If you've got a business trip near Great Roads, you could extend the business trip a day or two, rent a motorcycle locally, then return it, fly back home. No pre-planning and epic road trip required. It's an opportunity to try out and ride a different motorcycle at a reasonable rate. A quick view of both sides shows a variety of bikes available. What if your motorcycle is down but there's an upcoming touring trip or ride you really want to make? Twisted Roads or Rider's Share? To the rescue. If you don't have a motorcycle or are in between bikes and you've got three years experience riding, you can rent from Rider's Share. Are you a rider visiting the U.S. from another country? Good news, because each site addresses what you need instead of a valid U.S. driver's license. Twisted Roads site offers a detailed list of acceptable licenses from certain countries. Rider's Share requires a valid motorcycle license or equivalent and passport. If in doubt, you should contact Twisted Roads or Rider's Share directly about your license eligibility. Now let's get into what no one wants to think or talk about. When things go wrong in the sharing economy, who's liable? Both Airbnb and Uber have been in the news because of things gone wrong, and both companies claim they're not responsible. Airbnb states they're not a hospitality company but a tech company. If Airbnb was considered a hotel company, owners renting their spaces would be innkeepers. Innkeepers have a duty to guests to treat you in a considerate manner, furnish safe lodging, and keep you safe from others. Why wouldn't Airbnb and Uber step up and quote do the right thing when things go wrong? There are no legal precedents yet. They don't want to indirectly automatically assume responsibility or liability, as this could open up the floodgates in a litigious country. If something bad happens while a renter is on our rented bike, are people coming after us? What protections, if any, are in place? We had these questions when considering Twisted Roads and Rider's Share. Resident author Margaret Dean works in the financial industry, and she sees what happens when doo-doo hits the fan. People go for blood. Usually that means getting an attorney and going for other people's money. People know you're better off suing a company than a private citizen or finding out who has more in insurance assets to sue. Both sites answer questions about how they respond if a renter damages an owner's bike. It makes sense, as that's a main concern for owners. As far as motorcycle sharing service problems and response tactics are concerned, we wanted to know how each company responds if a worst-case scenario happens or a rider causes an accident that isn't minor. Rider's Share is open about having a corporate policy that covers a rider. They charge the renter for it as a part of the rental expense. If you have your own motorcycle insurance, you can submit evidence of this and waive their insurance, just like with car rentals. Twisted Roads is open about requiring the rider to have their own insurance in order to use their platform. The rider's insurance is the first responder if there's an accident. Early reviews of Rider's Share mentioned their liability policy providing $1,000,000 in insurance protection. Their current certificate insurance reflects $300,000. This is a bit confusing and may warrant asking Rider's Share to clarify if it bothers you. If a rider was at fault for an accident with two or more people getting hurt, $300,000 might not stretch far, depending on your legal jurisdiction. There's less protection in the same hypothetical scenario with Twisted Roads. The limits will likely be what the state requires of drivers. Not many people buy more than the minimum limits required by their state. We live Illinois where the limits are 25 over 50 over 25,000. This means 25k injury or death of one person in an accident, 50,000 injury or death of more than one person in an accident, and another 25k damage to property of another person. Twisted Roads corporate $1,000,000 liability possibly would kick in if the rider's insurance limit gets exhausted, but it's still something to think about. But be gone ye owner-renter negatives. It may not be all doom and gloom. In 2005, the Graves Amendment was enacted to give car rental companies relief from assuming vicarious liability, meaning car rental companies weren't automatically stuck assuming all responsibility for actions of renters. Graves defines the owner being in the business of renting or leasing vehicles. Motorcycles are considered vehicles, but as to whether an owner renting a motorcycle to others through a sharing service would qualify as in the business of renting or leasing is unknown. On their how it works page under what is motorcycle sharing, Ridershare says, so by sharing we really mean you can now start your own motorcycle rentals business. Does renting one motorcycle qualify you under the Graves definition or would it be incidental income and not apply? These are worthy questions your accountant and or attorney can address for you in your situation and state. What about my motorcycle insurance as a rider? Does it respond if I'm on someone else's bike? Is my insurance still good enough for my motorcycle if I rent it out to someone else? I called our insurance company and talked to a licensed agent. I recommend you do this if you're considering Ridershare or Twisted Roads as an owner and or renter. The agent answered all of our questions with confidence. If we rent out our bike, we do not have to convert our personal auto policy to a commercial policy. The renter's insurance would be primary and respond first in an accident. We would not be responsible as the owner of the bike. Now just a disclaimer, we're not attorneys or licensed insurance agents. This is what our agent told us specific to our policy and us. Consult your own professionals for peace of mind. As for our take on motorcycle sharing and rental, do the pluses outweigh the minuses? Ridershare and Twisted Road connect owners with idle bikes to renters with time, money, and desire to respectfully borrow well-maintained and properly running motorcycles. Each platform approaches the owner's and renter's side of the house in a similar way. Where they mainly differ is how each treats insurance and what vehicles owners can offer to rent. Ridershare takes the insurance burden off of the renter by providing their corporate policy as coverage. Twisted Roads relies on the renter's motorcycle insurance to respond first in an accident. Ridershare allows motorcycles, scooters, dirt bikes, even trikes with a preference toward cruisers. Twisted Roads eligibility limits stock to street motorcycles outlining age and mileage. Owners can turn a motorcycle into an income-producing asset. Surveying the average rental rate per day, if you rented a motorcycle out three days a month, you could earn $304.50 a month. That's gear, a motorcycle payment, a weekend ride, savings for that MV Augusta or Modus. Speaking of, as a renter, there's a listing for an MV Augusta on Twisted Roads that I'd rent in a heartbeat. I've never been near one, as we don't have any friends who own one. I'm not going to go to all the trouble of finding a company who rents them for the day, but if we knew we were going to be in the area of where this beautiful motorcycle happens to be, why would I consider it after I brought up insurance and worst-case scenario issues? I assume risk as a rider on my own bike every time I leave the driveway. My wife's signature concludes a 10-page waiver whenever she goes on her annual skydive, which outlines all the dangers, potential death risks she takes when jumping out of an airplane. We risk our lives every time we get into a car, on a commuter train, or on board a commercial airline. It comes down to you deciding the risk versus reward question. Ridershare has been around since 2016. However, both are fairly new in the peer-sharing network. We think this service is a benefit to owners, and renters and motorcycle selection will get better as they grow. Note to Twisted Roads and Ridershare. The International Motorcycle Show just left Chicago and would have presented another way to market your platforms. We are leaning towards trying the concept out. Stay tuned for a future update to this very article. Now to our listeners, would you consider renting out your motorcycle? This is a new concept to the riding industry. What auxiliary bikes would you offer or rent yourself? What ideas do you have for this service? Your input is invited. Visit theridingobsession.com and scroll down to the bottom right and you'll see how you can post an article. So thank you for listening. That article was originally by Margaret Dean. I rephrased it so that it was in first person male form, and you can find it on the site right now under our most recent, under the blog role in articles. And now we're going to move on to this month in motorcycle history, a poorly organized segment by yours truly, corrected by the one and only Travis Burleson.

Travis: Go get it boys. A quick recap this month in motorcycle history. March 6th, 1993 was the first big daddy rat's hole custom motorcycle show, which I think is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Yeah, that'd be took place in 1993, Daytona. It started at 8am, ran till dusk at Daytona's Ocean Center. March 16th, Eric Estrada's birthday. Eric Estrada. So if you're born 1949, he's turned 68 this year, you're a fan of the television show Chips, or you've seen the Dax Shepard reboot this last year with Michael Pena and Dax Shepard. Dax Shepard starred and directed in it, but a fun motorcycle romp as the show was a little cheesy. I mean, it was, you know, the 70s.

Robin: A lot cheesy. I'm a fan of Dax Shepard. I forgot to actually, you know, oh, it's good silliness.

Tim: You will get a giggle out of it.

Travis: It's going to be fun. It's, it's, you know, it is what it is, but a iconic motorcycle image in the American consciousness. It's like you got James Dean.

Robin: That's a theme song. You do know that's a theme song, right?

Travis: Yeah, yeah.

Robin: You're looking at me weird, man.

Travis: I'm trying to remember. You got James Dean, right? You got Red Without a Cause. You got Marlon Brando. Marlon Brando. You have Easy Rider, and you got Chip, right? Like you're talking about like historic things in media in America. Quick Access Motorcycle Candy. Yeah.

Robin: Those are the first, those are the first bites I think.

Travis: Someone who doesn't know anything about motorcycles, they're like that, they'll know, they'll know those things. Like it's like those guys, Evil Knievel.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: And that's it, right?

Tim: What about the first Mad Max and the Kawasaki Motorcycle Gangs?

Travis: That's a deep cut. Have you watched the first Mad Max? That thing's like a freaking snuff film.

Tim: I've watched it through, yeah. Yeah, it's an art film.

Travis: That's an art film. I love that movie. Yeah, I mean, it's good. And you know, the other ones are definitely more interesting.

Tim: Mel Gibson only went downhill from there.

Travis: Yeah. Gallipoli was good. I like Gallipoli. It's a war film though. I never saw that.

Tim: Yeah.

Travis: Anyway, March 25th, Herbert James Burt Monroe's birthday. So, you know, Burt Monroe is born in 1899. He would be 119. So, back one year prior to 19, double aught. But he'd be 119 this year if I did my math right. Maybe 120? I don't know. But he's known to most as the subject of the world's fastest Indian. The movie that documented or told the story of his setting a New Zealand motorcycle speed record for a standing start open class quarter mile with a time of 12 seconds. 12.31 seconds. 12.31 seconds at 138 miles an hour aboard his 1936 600cc Velocette MSX. Velocette. So, I mean, this happened in the 60s and he was on a 40-year-old motorcycle and set the record. It's pretty crazy. And then the last moment in motorcycle history, March 31st, 1973, the queen of motorcycle jumpers, Debbie Lawler, jumped her Suzuki 76 feet over a line of parked cars at B-Line Dragway in Phoenix, Arizona. So, a feat to behold a solid 15 years before I was, no, a solid decade before I was born. That's some serious hotness.

Robin: Which brings us to some serious, brings us to even more interesting is updated site features and developments. Let's talk about internets, people. Okay, everybody, hold on to your seats here. Let me get you through this. For all of our members, the self-caching cron job is now working properly for faster page delivery from our server. The maintenance area was offline for a short while due to a non-secure link logging users out over and over again. That's working. Made one minor alteration to our suggestion that, oh yeah, made one minor alteration to our suggestion that group tour riders keep watch over the people behind them. The keywords are in straights and at stops. These details are important. Now, onto our listener questions. We have none. There aren't any listener questions this episode. If you'd like to ask us a question or challenge us to research the answer slash solution, email your questions and concerns via our contact form, which is located at tro.email. That's tro.email. Or by calling 224-358-3010. That's 224-358-3010. We look forward to fielding your inquiry.

Travis: But if you're going to ask how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck can chuck wood, I'll tell you right now it's as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. So don't bother us with that one again.

Robin: On to this week's mess a la moto, brought to you by the super slick ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power.

Tim: Power. Power.

Travis: Power. Power.

Tim: Power.

Robin: The super slick ultra badass motorcycle mega posse of incredible power is super slick. It's ultra badass too. And as a sidebar, it's also incredibly powerful. Okay, so the first one on the list for me was the indoor ground racing. That would be the ultimate winter solution.

Travis: If you get enough ventilation going. The like bi-level go-kart track?

Robin: Yeah, it's an indoor go-kart track. I love it. And we do know people that are tall enough that their knees would block any passing. Yep. It's both of you guys.

Travis: Yeah. And did you see at the Mama Tried show? So they had the indoor circle track racing, and there was a moped class. One of the guys on the moped forum posted the video, but it didn't have any sound. And people were like, Hey man, there's no sound. He's like, yeah, there's no sound. Just put 600 angry bees in a box and shake it.

Robin: Lovely. Cruisers, people, listeners, this is a sport touring website. We do cater the motorcycle community, but essentially, cruiser people don't typically come to our corner of the web. Any kind of cruiser lacks the suspension to land a 10 foot jump in your neighborhood, especially if you overshoot the landing ramp.

Travis: Yeah. You're not Evel Knievel. Someone was trying to be Evel Knievel and overshot the landing ramp by like 10 feet. Yeah. Flat bottom from 10 feet up and then immediately got thrown off the bike.

Robin: Yep. That looked like it hurt quite a bit.

Travis: Probably taco the rims.

Robin: Keanu Reeves on the Graham Norton show. If you haven't seen it, look it up. Keanu talking about his accident where he shattered a tooth and shaved the front of his shin down to the bone. And then one of the people that was standing by asked if they could get an autograph. She asked if she could get an autograph.

Travis: Yeah, it was pretty funny. When there was something funny about him riding a Throbbin Norton between his legs or something like that.

Robin: Oh, because Graham Norton, yeah. A missionary. It was a Norton Commando. Yeah. Riding a naked.

Travis: Yeah, riding a Norton Commando.

Robin: It is a naked bike. And then this one I actually kind of take seriously. This Wolfpack app. Wolfpack. Yeah. It's for Android and iPhone. It's an app that is supposed to help you organize and coordinate group rides safely and effectively. Apparently, it has a sort of a pull over to the side of the road social aspect where if you get lost or if you deviate from the group, you can let everybody know or something like that. But I really am looking forward to checking this out. I think this will be the next thing that I review on the digital realm for the website.

Travis: Yeah, I saw that. I haven't. Yeah. Next time we're in a group ride, we can try it. I don't know.

Robin: Yeah. All three of us will go on a ride on a route we all know and we'll experiment with it to goof off and see if we like it. Yeah, I think that's about it.

Tim: Tim can close us out. This episode of the 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.

Travis: Also owned by my wife. You want to plug your sponsorship? What's new at the Ugly Apple, Laurel?

Laurel: Oh, the Ugly Apple is a great place for breakfast if you were in Madison, Wisconsin on a weekend in the summer. All local fresh stuff made by hand. Super delicious. And also I have jams and jellies and preserves for sale.

Travis: When do you start operating at the giant Madison Saturday farmers market?

Laurel: April 14th is the first one. It will be cold. I will have hot coffee and other delicious things. Mini fritters.

Tim: And the fritters are amazing. You're married to the owner of the Ugly Apple Cafe. Certainly am.

Robin: What are the odds of that, guys? What are the odds of that? That is just... I didn't see that coming.

Travis: Why do you think I put on 20 pounds in the last year?

Robin: Oh man, Laurel is amazing. That food is rocking. She's our follow back sponsor whether she knows it or not. 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 ride through seven states over the course of seven days, starting in late April of 2018. It's a twisty, sport touring getaway of epic proportions. We hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via theridingofsession.com. Visit the group tours link, which is anchored under events in our navigation menu.

Travis: Sign up. Don't make me go on it with Robin alone. Well, that's our episode for this round. Tune in next time for more discussion on all things specific to sport touring motorcycling or universal motorcycling as a whole. For theridingofsession.com, I'm Travis Berleson. I'm Tim McLaren. And I'm Robin Deen. Safe travels, everyone.