Robin: Hello everyone, if you didn't know it already, you're about to listen to the second half of a two-part writing obsession podcast We're joined by guest host Don Bearon and are wrapping up an interview with the politely well-informed Isaiah Walker Isaiah is a vintage motorcycle enthusiast who also knows what's what in the electric motorcycle industry His work was pushing new ebike tech in the right direction and he has future plans for that very same area Let's pick it up where we left off

Maggie: Just remembered I meant to ask you about this story so Robin's favorite story of you is You were on a ride Sheridan, uh-huh. Yeah, I think there were three or four of you At some point you were ahead of him you hit a certain something he said we're going at a spirited pace and It was on a bike that I think you were you hadn't quite tuned or something. I I don't I don't recall Uh-huh.

Isaiah: Not sure if this is Probably my first bike in the bike. I still got today. Yeah, I have tuning issues.

Maggie: Okay? Yeah, that might be it and he said you hit this It wasn't a bump. It was well, maybe it was a bump. But basically you got some air you landed He said he saw all these sparks From where he landed and And he said so you got air you landed all these sparks and you you remained at speed Like you didn't slow down at all Maybe maybe intuition kicked in there, you know might have been scared, you know my ass but Stay calm just stay calm.

Isaiah: You know, I do remember him saying something about sparks like that.

Maggie: I I know what you're talking about Yeah, you wouldn't have seen the sparks. But yeah, he said he saw all these sparks and you were not on fire So that was a good thing. So y'all kept writing.

Isaiah: Oh With that bike when I first got it it was leaking gas out and you know You said it had the the CV carbs in it You know the the slides in there and one of them was completely stuck to the top. So it just wasn't running, right? It's like the thing would like putt, you know right like it only ran on three cylinders until you hit a certain speed at like 50 miles an hour and you're at like Three-quarter throttle and then it just completely changed the tone of it It sounded like a sport bike and it just got all this power all because the carbs weren't right But I love that. You know, it's still today. I kind of missed that I kind of feel like going back to that bike and just squeeze in the part of the car to get that thing stuck Just so I can enjoy that again.

Maggie: Oh Good times, huh?

Isaiah: I tell you what, there's something that's really interesting That's coming up for electric vehicles in general But electric motorcycles because it's super important the sound if you look at the Harley live wire and See what they have to offer with it The one thing that they always emphasize is the sound always emphasizing the sound and they have this like I'm not sure if it's a mechanical device, but they have something to create an artificial sound and one thing that that we definitely know is that Music sound it speaks with us. Are you musician? I know Robin definitely is your musician as well Do you do you appreciate listening to Robins music? Awesome. Heck. Yeah Yeah, and so trying to find this sound up for electric vehicles is posing an issue and Harley has thirst and you can hear it and you listen to the prices they have their own unique sound and What's really important is? finding like Something that really resonates something that sounds really cool Something that really like it really wants us to to experience that the big thing is what's called sound genetics it's like this certain model or the certain company will all their vehicles are always make this particular sound and Big example is Ford Mustangs. You hear a v8 Mustang from the early 90s Versus you know the early 2000s to today you can always tell that it's a freaking Ford Mustang So, you know, there's there's acoustics that's that's involved with that But that particular sound it really can help drive cells It really can help establish that this is a quality vehicle or the the opposite But that is something that that's really in question right now is what is the sound of the electric vehicle? What is the sound of the electric motorcycle, you know sound invokes emotion? It has certain textures to it and you know, it makes us dance You can listen to a certain thing and it creates memory like oh man, like that sound takes me back to like 1990 There's something that's really important there. So that's something that um that I'm also really interested in seeing how that's how that comes about Because you know, I told my mom, you know when I was doing this electric bicycle thing I was like mom think about wanting to make an electric motorcycle company. She says what about the sound? What about the sound like you're right mom, you're right, but yeah, it's definitely there and you know Sound is so important that you guys The listeners I'm sure you guys know about Harley trying to trademark, you know They're like potato potato sound and I don't think I don't think it actually was ever trademarked But it was something that they knew was so important For selling their vehicle and something that was so cool that really, you know Drove like customer attention that they went to the effort of trademarking that rumble And so the same thing is gonna happen for you. There's probably just gonna be some College student, you know in this dorm that decides to come out this really cool UFO sounding And then patent it and then everybody's like, you know, you gotta get that, you know get that that voice boxer You know, you gotta get that sound. So that's something that's another thing for it because yeah once again, you know sound is safety and also Drags attention and something that you really enjoy and something that you can kind of relax to you know Meditate to at the same time or even

Maggie: Maybe even the ability to customize maybe you get a choice of Sounds or sounds you can download for when you ride Cuz you know, we're all about Customizing aren't we?

Isaiah: And it's getting more and more like today's youth. It's all about customization, you know, like straight from the factory What do you want? Do you want this tribe? Do you want this decal bubble ball? Do you want these color lights on your stuff? That's oh, yeah Customization. Absolutely. That's a great idea to customize the sound. I like that. It's cool.

Maggie: Well Isaiah We have been talking and we could probably talk another hour and a half, but we've been talking for an hour and a half. I Feel like we covered Most of the big things.

Isaiah: I think so, too I talked to Robin that I've got an electrical like engineering tech friend that's here and he can get into you know much more technical stuff because that's what he deals with for Basically electric motorcycles for battery management for the chargers and all that stuff So I'd like to get him on here if you guys want to have like a tech, you know, super technical episode

Maggie: Yeah yeah, and and I'm sure Robin's gonna want to reach out to both you and your friend because you know he wants to build a team and get like a Catalog or a book written or something for converting. No kidding He's been talking about this for a long time. He brought it up years ago And then more recently he started talking about it again, and he's trying to build a team of people Not for a company per se because there's a lot of heavily produced models Like the say the Ninja 650 or the SV 650 Or even the Honda Shadow that might make good candidates for conversions.

Isaiah: Yes.

Maggie: He wants to put something together Maybe an instructional something he's kind of been talking to people and what they're interested He's trying to gauge their interest in being involved in the project So I'm sure he'd want to reach out to you and your friend.

Isaiah: I'll be more than happy to help out with that I would actually love to do that because that's something that I think is the next step for me with my business is that I want to Import motorcycles from China, you know with internal combustion engines on them you can get them, you know, like a 600 CC for like three four thousand dollars who really cheap delivered to your door and Then just swap out, you know all that stuff put Electric vehicle, you know conversion kits in them and sell them that way

Maggie: Interesting.

Isaiah: Yeah, I kid you not you ever heard of the hawk. It's like Chinese hawk. No, it's like 250 CC It's like it's like two thousand dollars delivered to your door But it's kind of funny though. I had a friend that got one when I was in in Oklahoma He was a business major who was in the formula team. He was our driver He's like shifter car But he decided to get one of these brand-new Hawks It was like day two like the master cylinder like fell off of them for the for the rear brake The clutch lever was like dangling. It was it was it was hilarious but yeah, I'm talking about getting something a little bit better than that, but That's something that we could definitely do. I'd love to help out Be involved and you know If you want to take an old vintage bike or we want to think about getting like a new one then I'm converting it But yeah, sounds awesome.

Maggie: Cool. Cool All right. I have one more question for you. What is your riding obsession?

Isaiah: My riding obsession is my first bike that I got. I still have it It's my 1982 Honda CB 750 super sport with the Bassani exhaust Sound Do you have a picture of it?

Maggie: I do and that to Robin I'll probably Maybe put something like that with when he announces the the podcast in this interview Okay, awesome.

Isaiah: We'll do well.

Maggie: Thank you. Isaiah.

Isaiah: Yeah. Thank you Margaret.

Maggie: I appreciate the time This was this was an awesome conversation You were doing a lot of edumacating But I Hope that people enjoy this and The website is about sport touring. So I don't know what level of knowledge people already have I'm sure it's all over the board, you know in terms of the EVs, but I think you helped I think you answered a lot of things My goal for this was to kind of establish like a foundation, you know to kind of build up Hey, what are we doing?

Isaiah: What's going on right here?

Maggie: Yeah, and then let people's curiosity drive them past that Awesome, and you know, I'm thinking in respect to having your friend who's got the more technical knowledge nothing says that Robin or I have to be the interviewer it could be You interviewing your friend or you guys having a conversation.

Isaiah: So I'll talk to Robin, but I'm sure he would love that Okay, I I think that that would probably be best Sit down have breakfast with yes, that would work out Margaret.

Maggie: All right. Thank you so much for taking the time You're very welcome.

Isaiah: The last last thing I would like to say is the old Motorcyclist saying that four wheels move the body but yet two wheels move the soul and the same is true for electric motorcycles Nice all right.

Maggie: Thank you.

Isaiah: You're very welcome. Thanks Margaret.

Maggie: You have a beautiful night you too and Thanks to your wife for letting us borrow you for this amount of time I'll let her know. Oh, yeah, she'll appreciate it and go go take care of baby girl.

Tim: I know I will that's my turn now All right, good night And that was our gist interview you can find out more about Isaiah Walker via a huge huge vin moto That's Eugene That's Eugene Eugene vintage motorcyclists out of Oregon.

Robin: Yeah, huge not huge Also, we'd love to hear your motorcycle story if you'd like to be featured on this podcast Record your thoughts to an app like a phonic. That's a you Phonic for Android or iPhone Upload the resulting file to SoundCloud and email us the link will polish things up before featuring your tail in your voice and words and Now let's get into this month's featured segments Don We always like to start with a story any memorable instances in motorcycling You'd like to tell the world about have at it.

Don: I do have a memorable instance of motorcycling I'd like to tell the world about let's do this. Well a couple of Octobers ago I Accompanied you and your lovely wife Margaret and one of those triple sevens tours trip sevens Trip sevens. Well, we didn't have seven riders, but so it was kind of like a 737 But it was definitely a highlight of my riding so far Monday or Sunday was great. Monday was great. Tuesday was great Wednesday Blue Ridge Parkway Thursday more Blue Ridge Parkway Something like that. Anyways at the north end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, I peeled off and I went to Monticello and That's about 20 miles off the route that we had got to tour the grounds See the mansion see the gift shop bought a few things Was a tourist Thomas Thomas Jefferson's Estates yeah, and that was I mean there was no way I was gonna get that close to Monticello and that's the my favorite president's Home, that's cool. Now the cool thing Ended up being a really cool thing is that after I left Monticello I had to spend about two and a half hours in the dark in the mountains of Western, Virginia With my GPS mounted high on my windshield Robin still probably makes fun of me for that one, but Corners like it's like a Peugeot driver. Yeah, it's like having a heads-up radar I don't have to look down very far to see the purple line that shows me where I'm gonna be going So I make it through get to the next stop But the next day was very eventful. We're in West, Virginia And this is my main part of the story. I wanted to get to we were heading Through the mountains and there was this beautiful left-hand sweeper We're doing about 45 50 miles an hour through it or something like that Robinson from me Margaret's in back of me. I My Concentration I went from looking where I should look down the road And I looked at the pretty white stripe and that's when I straightened up and drove right into the ditch.

Tim: Oh No Yeah, I mean it was hard.

Don: Yeah. I mean it was a split-second decision Do I try to make it back onto the road in this gravel and hit something hard or do do I go to the pretty? Green soft area I chose the pretty green soft area and as I was flying over the handlebars in my chaps Travis

Travis: As long as you don't land ass first, you're fine

Don: No, no, I landed on my chest But as I was flying through the air I turned my head to the right because I knew that as I was coming down my helmet was gonna hit the ground and I didn't want the front of my facial to get scratched up

Travis: Because it's totally still gonna be usable after this

Don: Well, just the left side of my helmet got scratched up because I I turned my head to the right now My left side and I went boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom down the gravel so three hours later after getting emergency services on the tow and puking on the side of the side of the road Yeah, I found out that Robin wasn't there for that Margaret was keeping me company. I found out that Margaret is easily Gastronomically triggered when other people vomit Kind of walked away because she knew what I was about to do and she didn't want to join

Robin: When you crashed that we always do the order It's usually me and then all of the riders that sign up and then our sweep rider Who is either Margaret or Travis or maybe even Tim, you know this we would just have Somebody who rides in back whose job is to enjoy their ride, but kind of make sure everybody's. All right so the next thing I Remember after we took that corner was was Margaret was the next person I saw in my rearview. That's not right What's going on what are you doing? Why are and she says she says don't crash don't crash and I'm thinking to myself Well, I've I've seen that before I Said all right, I said calmly I said, all right now if he crashed he did it Well, and I took a nice gentle left turn. She pulls over into the the sand and she's she's really I mean, yeah Pulls over into this sidewall this area to pull off and she gets off her bike Leaves it neutral catches it as it rolls off the side stand puts the side down down puts it in gear and she's like breathe I'm like, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, this is this is the gig so I need you to just take a deep breath Get on your bike and let's go handle the situation. She's like and we we rolled up and and whoo my favorite part of that event and I'm gonna hand it back over to you here My favorite part of the event if I conclude it is when I have a picture of you Sitting on your bike on the back of a massive truck and I took a photo and I said don bought a goldwing Anyhow, go ahead you so you're on the side of the road Finished with the vomiting section and margaret, of course is joining you just make sure you don't feel alone in that matter

Don: yeah, so the tow truck came we loaded it up and We're driving Back to the the little town that's just outside the mountain area right there and it's webster springs Not as cool name as dripping springs, but it's webster springs And the the tow truck driver is a guy named paul I I figured i'd just ask him. Hey, do you know how to weld and he looks at me? Around here who doesn't know how to work? so I I grabbed the the twisted, um Fork bracket that you had taken off the bike before we got it up on the truck uh robin that is And I showed it to him. I said, can you straighten this out and add a little metal on the top to reinforce it? He says yeah, no problem So we get to the gas station there in the town where where he works out of it It's his dad's place or something like that. And like I said a couple hours later, he's got it welded Bolted back in the handlebar straightened up a little bit now All i'm missing is the windshield the left mirror Defender and i'm good to go. So I I take my you know, so now I don't have a windshield So where do I put my gps? Well, I took a cargo net and put it on the tank bag So and I gotta look down further, but I still have my gps So now i'm looking at three hours of riding in the dark in west Virginia mountains that i've never been to before in my life, but the previous day I had gotten myself some low stress training on how to handle this And it worked out fantastic. I took it slow There was one 10 mile per hour hairpin turn uphill in that period a switchback Yeah And the rest was pretty cool. I I kept cars or trucks in front of me to clear out bambi and and at one point there was a uh a car with uh, two 18 19 year old girls in it and I found this out later because we were I was behind the car and bambi jumped over their hood And the car came to a quick stop I pulled up next to them. Are you all right? And the driver was freaking out I said, why don't you switch drivers the passenger was laughing her ass off did you see what happened? All I saw were hooves I said Why don't you switch drivers? I still like you to go first because you know if we see one There's going to be more. I didn't see any more bambi on the way, but I made it to the uh, The bed and breakfast oddly enough. I think that girl driving was named bambi No, just just the deer. I didn't ask their names or anything like that But that's my motorcycle story. Yes, you can survive crashes and still look back on them and laugh It's not what you do.

Robin: It's how you do it. Yeah Love it don well done. Well done, and I i'm so glad you're all right. It's uh, you know I've I've been an msf instructor for I think three years now I'm still I still don't feel like i'm all that great at it. But luckily i've always had don to bring out the best in my efforts, so That's uh, if anybody's gonna do it's not what you do. It's how you do it and it's gonna be the term crash Uh, you're a champion my friend Uh, I believe your word for me at the time was dude.

Don: You're tough as nails Yeah, you are could be because I was 55 at the time or 54 54. Yeah, don's a beast man Don's a beast for the record. The bike I was on is a 1993 nighthawk 750 It's the unflavored lukewarm jello of motorcycles It does everything the way it's supposed to it goes it stops it turns But more do you want it crashes and keeps going right?

Robin: Travis what about you man? Wait, okay. It's your turn. What year make and model are we focused on today?

Travis: I wanted to talk about I guess not a specific model, but the new Neo sports cafe trademark registered tm line from honda I'm loading. I got the links there so we I we've We've talked about the new cb1000r. I think before, uh from last year's bike show you wrote an entire article You wrote a full spread on that bike. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, but now so they've they've since come out with a cb300r Uh based off of the cb300 line cb3 cbr300 cb300f cb300x um Though oddly not a 500. They don't have they have not done a retro neo retro cafe inspired Why does this say cafe?

Robin: What is this crap?

Travis: I don't know and then but they did do a uh, They did do this treatment on the 650 Uh, which I like because that engine is just beautiful The 650 engine is beautiful.

Robin: There is nothing cafe about this bike zero This is why I want to talk about it because I wanted to see robin get angry Well, I agree we heard that we heard that the kids really like the term cafe so if we build a standard or a modern standard motorcycle and and Dump the word cafe on top of it, then they'll want to buy it. This is a fail I mean a cafe racer Is based on the history of what amounted to moto gp i'm gonna be reading about this in a bit So you best be you best be ready. All right You there's no forward profile. There's no assertive profile. There's no clubbeds for one.

Tim: There's no club Yeah, they're standard bars on them.

Robin: These are standard handlebars and there's no rear set.

Tim: I mean they are actually modern I mean, they're pretty it's like a kind of a sporty but it's like a naked kind of more upright with a little bit forward Lean, yeah, they're not tucked Yeah, you're not seeing really anything different than like an fco7 but with a little less aggressive styling.

Travis: Yeah Yeah, I want to put I want to put another link in here So this is uh, the 650 which I think would maybe be I mean the thousand would be cool So there's the but there's the 650 f this the same platform different styling. So it's got a You know stormtrooper headlight instead of a round headlight It's got a little more plastic cladding on it, but it's the exact same bike so Cafe means it has a round headlight And a little less plastic False, yeah Robin, what are you going to do in 2020 when they come out with the honda cb bobber?

Robin: That's cool. Is it I mean Well, is it actually do you do I mean you like the bike I think they look like they they look good.

Tim: Yeah, but yeah, but like But it makes no sense to put the word cafe on it.

Travis: No It's not strip. Well, too. It's like it started out. Well, the the cb1000 is It's tangentially related to like a decade old Fireblade like the engine and but like there's not there's not a bike that's directly related to that In any way the cb1000 it's its own there's not it's not a stripped down version of anything It's a bike that was specifically it was yeah, it was specifically designed to be itself with like some Kind of wrencher like if you look at the last gen cb1000 with the like the stormtrooper gas mask headlight It's like okay. This has a more classic styling sure But it's like the the 650 But there's there's a fully ferret 650. There's the uh Cbr 650 and then there's the cb650f which is like the more modern Naked and then now there's the r which is neo retro cafe and then and then one based on the 300 platform, but then I also got the link in here, uh, just for perspective of the Yamaha sport heritage lines, which includes the vmax somehow. I don't know how that works and the bolts That doesn't make sense to me at all, um, but then the xsr the 900 and the 700 which are based off of the mt 7 and 9 um They still have the sr400 in there and the the sr400 and the vstar 250 Classic I like I would love an sr400. I would take an sr400 any day of the week.

Tim: I do like that one, too That's just pure classic bike it's modern tech, but Styling from like the late 70s.

Travis: Yeah, well, it's like it's fuel injected, but it's air cooled It's kick only which I kind of love about it.

Robin: Wow. That's cool. So is it magneto?

Travis: No, it's modern fuel injection digital ignition, but there's no electric starter on it But when that came out a couple of years ago Yamaha said like you you could kick this over with your hand

Robin: Nice, so it's sort of more like a like an electrical tell the bike to be operational thing

Tim: Well, yeah compared to like, uh, the old-fashioned ones i'm sure that there's like a you know, a Sophisticated modern, you know automatic decompression and that sort of thing.

Travis: So it's going to be really easy to kick Yeah, well, i'm sure it's probably just a centrifugal decompression lever on the cam that's That works. But um, yeah, you're not going to get that kick with the with the digital ignition the fuel injection You're not going to get that the kick back that breaks your ankle like the old srs like the old 650s Yes um And just one more thing. So if we want to uh, if you pull up the cb650r 650 inline 4 neo retro cafe Uh and go to the gallery look it's got this pretty bitch in color dash Like the 1000 doesn't have a color dash unless they put it new for the for the 2019.

Robin: Let's see if I can find this I'm not talking still i'm not talking Fucking cafe my ass Yeah, I don't uh Oh, that is a nice, you know what you know what it is. You know what it is though It's a great standard motorcycle, right?

Travis: And yeah, like I if they would if they would have just stuck with neo retro Cool, I get it. It's got it's got a round headlight and a metal gas tank and like metal cladding on it.

Robin: It's yeah That's geometry. That's just that's just shape.

Travis: Well, so it's not like but it's not yeah It's more of a classic shape. It's not the modern transformer naked like the mt09 or the mt07 Yeah, right.

Robin: I'll give you that.

Travis: Yeah But uh, but yeah cafe just is like no it's not a stripped down version of an existing bottle It's like like like bobber is to cruiser as cafe is the standard Yeah, right. It's like it's like it means you took what this bike is and took all the bits off of it and put like low bars on it and rear sets and It's not that it's you could cafe this bike But that's not what you're buying when you've it would demand clip-ons

Robin: I think clip-ons or some deep club men's deep or club men's yeah, which I would I would love to do It's just that they don't they don't know the history of the term or where it comes from They don't consider that alcohol was banned for a time and the kids were riding cafe to cafe You know like don's laughing dag. What do you laugh at don?

Don: It's just the the the mental imagery of the alcohol The brits alcohol's fun not with bikes well That's the alcohol and the bike combo.

Robin: That wasn't intended. It was more like there was no alcohol available at the time and so Instead kids would ride their motorcycles from cafe to cafe to cafe and then it became a race And then they would mod them and compete and then all of a sudden became like wow, this is this is freaking cool I mean and then all of a sudden you started to see opportunity for some real modernization of the racing realm and Then that became moto gp Long story short, you know, that's when you start putting your feet back put your body forward. Am I wrong?

Don: No, no. All right. I'm looking at a picture of this. Uh Neo sports cafe race standard motorcycle with a bullshit name Yeah, you know, I mean with a couple thousand dollars you could turn my cb1100 into that Absolutely rear sets clubbins are done.

Robin: Yeah But they don't do that by default.

Travis: They want to make the claim So that is the uh, the honda neo retro cafe line. I thought we'd take a little look at Um, I think they look better than the yamahas than the xs xsrs

Tim: yeah, I agree with that and Still i'm very much a fan of honda's might have been very easy to maintain I love the long service intervals and I don't mind I don't know how this compares against the competitors as far as horsepower, but they tend to detune their engines a little bit more

Travis: for that platform for the mt 900 and 700 platform. I prefer the fully the fully windshielded and luggaged tracers versus the uh, the naked mts or the xsr with like the Pseudo retro styling. I would rather just have the the one with the fairing in the windshield Um, but anyway

Robin: bottom line if our interview with isaiah Has the effect that it should all of this is going to be obsolete soon You know, you know I am very I

Isaiah: Yeah Yeah

Robin: Well, i've got some heat on my my pitch here that like part of the problem Is that companies such as harley are consistently trying to figure out new ways to inflate the price to something bigger When the economy today and in the future is going to need bikes that are affordable.

Travis: Yeah, so you could get a um, depending on uh You know government incentives, etc, etc, etc, you can get like a base tesla model three for 35,000 Let's be talking about electric transport like yeah Torquey as hell. I mean, it's cool. I'm sure i'm sure that's cool. I'm sure the live wire is cool I haven't ridden one. They look cool. I've seen them but like 30 grand. It's like that's insane Anyway, that's yeah, we're diverging. Um, so tim you got some new some new gear to talk about I'm sure i'm kind of interested in this chair because I have the tusk handguards on my uh, I want this chair I want that.

Tim: Yeah tusk has been a go-to Brand, you know, it is the house brand or rocky mountain, which is a pretty big online distributor. I believe they're based out of utah um But the thing that we're talking about today is the tusk compact camp chair so it's a lot like the more expensive option helinox and but it's You know, it's not expensive and it's got to be Through a photo in the in the uh Outline here so you could take a look at that. That's the large version. They've got a medium and a large medium is 30 260 pound weight limit And the large is 40 With a 330 pound limit and it's a little taller. I think it was uh, 11 inches tall Or some versus nine or something like that.

Robin: That's a good price.

Tim: It is an outstanding price I paid a hundred more than a hundred dollars more than that for the the fancy helinox one that I have Yeah, now the the helinox one is rock solid. It's light um, and you know, i'm a big guy and it never complains at all, you know, even on a little bit on Uneven terrain. Mm-hmm. So but what you're getting here? You're not getting as light of weight You're getting a little more durable fabrics and a little thicker walled, um, uh tubing What'd they make it out of? It's it's an aluminum tubing. I'm sure i'm not don't I didn't look closely enough to see what uh, the mix was but all those poles are shock corded aluminum and It's super fast. I think you've Watched me like shake my chair and until all the poles snapped into place Yes, which is pretty entertaining. Yeah. Um, i'm like I am not going to use my other hand to put this chair together Yeah it so yeah, so i'm i'm Very happy about this. I love the tusk brand everything i've gotten from them has been you know An outstanding value for the money Mm-hmm, you know, i'm Like i'm pretty happy about like how I found out about this was from one of my good friends. Um, chad burger. He's uh, he's been doing a lot of Photography and writing for a lot of you know getting into involved into especially the adventure writing stuff. He writes for advpulse and a couple others Um, he's the guy who put together the route for the trans wisconsin adventure trail Oh and he he does guided tours on this as well, he's he started out with lone wolf expeditions, which has put a A link to there, but I believe he's working with ride adventures and if I remember the The trans wisconsin is the only united states Um tour that ride adventures has a tour guide for So it's it's been a while since i've talked to him about this i've had um Yeah, as I know another one of my friends has helped Run a couple of the tours And has enjoyed doing that experience a lot

Don: A couple of years ago tim my brother and I went to the boundary waters And he brought along his helinox chair And the first time I sat in and I weigh him by about 35 pounds at the time One of the tubes popped right through the pocket at the top of the chair. Oh, no Yeah Uh, but he kept he brings along with him Uh a repair kit First that he put together for sailing so it had some pretty strong thread in it and sewed it up Nice and yeah But yeah that style of chair really comfortable. I asked my son a couple of years ago for uh for one for father's day actually it was last father's day and Love those love that style of chair very light compact Stick a couple of them in your in your saddlebags chaps. Just carry them in your chaps. Yeah, carry them in your chaps Yeah, probably fit in my back pocket You know now the one my son got for me has a telescoping legs So I don't have to sit quite so close to the ground That is nice, but it does add a little space a little more a little more weight to it. So it's not one pound. It's Maybe one and a half pounds.

Tim: Oh yeah, and I I've you know, they're they're definitely light enough to take with you. I took mine on my big trip and you spend a long day on on the bike without any back support and So nice to sit up and in a nice chair.

Don: You didn't try strapping it onto the bike and sitting on it. Well, right?

Robin: Nope No need for that Really tim because I wouldn't put it past you man don's not wrong.

Tim: He's not off the mark on that one Okay, i've done some really silly things All right. So that's that's the main Thing I wanted to talk about was you know, if you're a motorcycle person that likes to camp off of the bike You don't want to just you know Your other option is usually a a picnic table and those are not that comfortable Mm-hmm or going in and laying down in your tent, you know and if you're there early and you don't want to do that and then next thing I have here that I was interested in is the showy Itht heads up display helmet prototype. Oh, really? Okay This is the first big player to start public to publicly talking and showing a smart helmet So this was announced at this year's, uh, las vegas consumer electronics show And I've was unable to find much in the way of solid details of what its capabilities are No estimate for when it's going to be available You know who knows what the price is going to be. I saw one speculation a thousand dollars and up There have been a lot of kickstarter product projects and some startups and I don't know if any of them actually ever delivered products to customers

Travis: Well, there was there was the one where they spent all their money on lamborghinis and blow and then didn't deliver anything Yeah, was that the scully Yeah and then there's a there's a there's another one that's like an aftermarket like Big giant heavy ugly thing that like bolts onto the glues onto the side of your helmet I don't know what that's called, but it's like not very good and it's like very large and not um, but if if a brand like like shoe is getting in like they They're a premium brand with premium products. I imagine it. It will be Refined

Tim: Yeah, and i'm sure it's all Integrated with your headset and bluetooth connected to your phone I wouldn't be surprised if there's an app that drives navigation and stuff for it

Robin: Well from the look of the image, it looks like it's integrated into your chin Like that looks like a heavy downforce front end

Tim: right, and you see the the second little lensing thing in the so it's yeah a little bit of a Projector screen, you know, that's your heads up. So it's you're going to be looking through that At the road, so I don't know what just information they're planning to display there Hopefully it's not too distracting. I know a lot of people are very much against Electronic aids in the helmet or even music but I know I know travis you and robin both Are music or communications in the helmet just fine.

Travis: Yeah, absolutely Yeah, well, I mean, yeah if you're if you're on a group ride the comms are just so nice to have and then Or even like in instances where someone crashes, um, you know, i've told the story about laurel's crash this last summer it's like I I Maybe wouldn't have known for three or four corners, right? Oh, yeah, you know if we weren't on comms, you know, so um That sort of stuff is good and just on long rides like it's nice to be able to listen to stuff So there's one of the other things that I did not tell you about I did register for the chicago Auto or motorcycle show I did not register for it.

Robin: I could just go and pay the 20 bucks or whatever Uh what you've got press credentials you have history.

Tim: I don't think it's too late. You can just uh, You know just search through your emails.

Travis: I'm sure that yeah, well the other thing is is Yeah, the other thing is is I gotta take a day off of work and I gotta do the whole thing and there's not I mean I can go and go with you just because I like you tim. I like spending time with you.

Robin: Yeah, but like there's There's like nothing No, but you're the perfect level of cynical that I need to have in that event Just be like wow, look at this boring shit that you're over promoting.

Travis: That's from 10 years ago Yeah, I mean, there's nothing there's nothing really big coming out this year.

Tim: I mean, I can't think of a bike that You know, i'm just gonna go to the harley booth and take pictures of people with really bored expressions Ha ha ha Sounds like fun that makes me giggle That is good The photos you I still have the original photos that we never used But yeah, so i'm i'm a gadget nerd and so the showy helmet kind of got me excited. I you know, i've in one part. I Am not a fan of electronics that are built into helmets I like that. They're streamlined, but I tend to go through helmets more frequently than that because I fall down And I want to be able to transfer it, you know helmet to helmet like my communicator is really easy to swap to another helmet I don't want to spend a thousand bucks on a helmet and then you know next spring go out and screw around on a dirt road and Knock it up against a tree

Travis: Yeah, well that's what what I really what I really want in helmet technology Is I want a box that goes on the bike that like wires into the bike There's no batteries to charge like a bluetooth box That you find somewhere in the bike and you stow it in and you run it off the mains on the bike And then you just run a cable or maybe bluetooth, but like you run a cable up to your head That just does speakers and microphone and there's no batteries There's no batteries in your helmet to charge to go dead. It's all just running off the bike You can have you know huge power On your bluetooth comms because it's running off the mains, you know, it can bluetooth to your phone You can have a controller whatever for your comps But it's like the helmet connection is just as just speakers and microphone And it's and you don't and you don't have to charge it and the battery is never going to die That's what I want to see that's pretty good.

Robin: That's pretty good I mean because then you just have a solid and then you can get a significantly greater fidelity.

Travis: Oh, yeah And then maybe a wireless option like if you don't want the cable running up to your helmet You get the little battery pack, but the battery pack is just running Audio and signal to the unit like it's not the the the battery on your helmet Isn't sending bluetooth data out, you know, it's not running a processing system Yeah, it's it's it's not broadcasting 200 meters out to your comm buddies or whatever It's just going to the bike. So you don't need you don't need a hydra radio or anything on it See, this is what? Yeah Anyway Onward onward and upward.

Tim: Yeah, robin. You're up. What articles are you going to read this episode one article?

Robin: And it's pertinent and i've been inspired by my anger this month it's motorcycle type clarifying the different types of motorcycles redundant title for a web page, but the seo says that Motorcycle type and different types of motorcycles were important. So motorcycle type clarifying the different types of motorcycles Motorcycle type it starts with ergonomics New and transitioning motorcyclists might ask themselves which motorcycle type is best for me A question that can both inspire and intimidate anyone in the market for a two-wheeled purchase Newer riders are rarely familiar with what's out there while seasoned enthusiasts collect a towering array of prospects to contend with Many different types of motorcycles could be the right tool for the job But modern marketing word salad has blurred the well-defined lines of yesteryear a while back We eased our staunch opinion on what constitutes a sport touring bike to include our adv cousins The overall point of that article is to explain a 50-50 split between ride and rider That's 50 percent of the genre stemming from a given bike's st Designation or lack thereof and the remaining 50 percent falling on whoever's at the helm assertive spirited riders To define motorcycle type in a more generalized kingdom inclusive fashion It's better that we combine that 50-50 math into a singular bike slash rider figure before knocking it down a notch Let's say to 49 percent of the total equation the remaining 51 percent belongs to posture Or to throw more ten dollar vocabulary into the mix ergonomical amismications, I mean Ergonomics a brief rant on motorcycle type and its meaning with respect to the many different types of motorcycles being sold today I'm gonna try to avoid ranting beyond this section It'll be difficult and I still might lace underhanded phrasing into the mix subconsciously But hey, it's sort of an opinion piece, right? My real hope is to tighten up community perspectives for a better clarity and categorization Let's cut through the brush burn it down to basics and grow new logic from its ashes Over the past decade or so motorcycle manufacturers have begun adding certain contaminating buzzwords to the commercial lingo These efforts blend whatever phrasing will influence buyers to halt their search in favor of bikes that might not suit their needs Harley's sportster 1200 sport is one such moniker Vaguely hinting at the idea that they've ever mass manufactured a true to form sport bike outside of buell Which they haven't now that isn't to say that sport cruisers don't exist They do but let's not go there just yet warning labels a lack of historic knowledge sometimes I myself have been guilty of Also distorts the reality of buyer slash seller descriptions Somewhere lurking in the depths of craigslist is an ad where the headline reads for sale sport bagger bobber cafe I cringed when I wrote that show up at this writer's doorstep and they'll ask 3500 bucks for a half rusted out 1976 cb360 That's somehow infused with the front oven of an 80 dr 400 complete with cast iron tractor seat and shaker cam paint job If you're new to writing, here's a slideshow on our article page It displays sport bagger bobber and cafe posture the layout of these bikes Sport is sport Bagger is a type of cruiser with low luggage Bobbers are stripped down cruisers usually with only one seat no passengers The term cafe points to cafe racers, which really are the gateway to all things modern sport bike Rear set pegs clubman handlebars and caffeine made these bikes the innovative outlet that eventually became today's moto gp Visit wikipedia and look up cafe racer to learn more Especially before you go letting others call any old mid-70s bone stock honda a cafe racer new but weird Another backlashingly negative impact on those in manufacturing power kicks in when unresearched designers on uncoordinated teams Synthesize different types of motorcycles into some frankenstonian motorcycle type. Maybe one guy was thinking sport bike and the other cruiser We've seen many visual arguments and ergonomic contradictions that put riders feet on forward pegs Their backs hunched over to grab not quite super bike bars of some bizarre nature ladies and germs, I give you the Cruiser only designer's idea of a sport bike often referred to in our podcast as the monkey humping a football monkey humper for short other bikes that miss the mark include Yamaha's scr950 high bars and knobbies on a v-twin cruiser do not a scrambler make Harley's pan america. Nobody wants to ride something this heavy on an unpaved surface And the bmw r9t glambler wow guys you really nailed that down-home feel at thirteen thousand dollars Standard bike designers imitating cruiser designers imitating sport bike designers could get ugly What we need here is to dial things back traveling through space and time to when the combustion motor didn't yet exist There were and still are these animals that once tamed would allow us to hop onto their backs before carrying us Wherever we needed to go Horseback riding in relation to motorcycle type. I don't often take social cues from the biker community I'm more of a riding enthusiast than bestower of the tasseled vest hierarchy But when I hear my forward controlled friends invoke the description term Iron horse, I always respond with a nod of understanding Nothing better exemplifies the point i'm taking a millennia to make here than the following ergonomics associated with horseback riding perfectly complement the physics of Motorcycling and can help riders choose a motorcycle type that best suits their wants or needs For example one posture typical to cruisers think victory is feet forward back upright with a slight recline on a horse We're walking our posture sits at the steed's shoulder with less stress on our lower back Our feet slightly forward giving our ride a more leisurely feel Next we straighten up for a trot. This is the classic standard motorcycle such as a honda nighthawk Our posture is more attentive yet relaxed enough for long distances Our feet rest under our mid thigh in line with our shoulders picking up the pace, but still trotting our feet move slightly back Delivering us into modern standard territory. Think of the honda cb1000r Let's ramp up our commute to a rolling gallop Our knees are tucked high into the saddle shoulder each foot is aligned with our upper thigh Only our knees and core keep us in balance Arms relaxed at the reins through every turn. This is the world of sport biking and our colt is a yamaha r6 The similarities are obvious enough Bridging the gap between equestrian and motorbike techniques isn't rocket science There's a catch though, and it's a pretty big one put out to pasture Horses are an organic sentient puzzle of muscle and bone The methods we use to ride them are frozen in time Once transferred over to a motorcycle bike frames don't independently change their shape to walk trot or gallop steel is cold and rigid So it's up to the rider to give it life. Once awake static ergonomics of the beast dictate the posture of its rider And that is where we find opportunity for logical motorcycle type definitions. Yes Horseback riding is the key to defining different types of motorcycles Think i'm wrong head over to cycle ergo and fiddle a bit. Just google that Eventually, you'll discover they're one in the same a big Thanks goes out from us to them as we'll be using a good many of their images to support our topic in the article the three basic but different types of motorcycles Now that we're in the actual nitty-gritty of our topic finally, jeez Let's scale things down to three basic profiles before dipping into the gray area drum roll Please they are as follows the standard motorcycles such as The nighthawk the cb1100 or the ninja the sport bike such as the gixxer the gsxr the r6 or the daytona The cruiser such as the scout the v-rod or the yamaha bolt What obscures this simple list? Bad marketing the kind that tries to over capitalize on at-home modifications. We as consumers tend towards don't take the bait Staying away from the promotional hubbub The fact is that your back is either reclined cruiser upright standard or forward sport Your knees are either slightly extended cruiser Casual standard or bent sport your feet are either in front of you cruiser Vertically in line with your knee standard or hiked under your thigh sport What's your angle the graphics in our article taken from cycle ergo show a rider who is 5 foot 10 With a 31 inch inseam. I myself am 5'7 and have plenty of friends over 6 feet So this should suffice as an average norm to those of you who are perhaps shorter Check out their site and enter your dimensions These are just for posture related examples without delving into matters of terrain or utilitarian function Keeping basic posture and comfort in mind is a surefire way to either eliminate bikes from your extensive Possibilities list or focus on an outlet to explore Said truths will often conflict with how sales reps and insurance agencies look at your selections Some bikes look as if they represent a specific profile when in actuality They're a completely different thing the gray areas in between the kawasaki ninja for example. That's a sport bike, right? Well, not really The default ninja profile is actually a modern standard It's the front fairing that gives it that aggressive look and feel often influencing public opinion as well as your insurer's bottom line Also called a sport standard this motorcycle type hides comfortable ergonomics behind an aesthetically intense chassis Sport standard is a hidden gem one that we as sport touring enthusiasts Often find ourselves drawn to for assertive spirited riding in a sporty package Compare it to a triumph street triple also a standard noting the near identical posture of the rider With a satisfying mention of the term sport standard comes that cursed word Sport and all the premium insurance scenarios that may ensue our suggestion Keep the verbiage to modern standard during that phone call with your insurance agent kissin cousins Next let's compare the ninja street triple and triumph. Daytona All three are connected in a bizarre knot for anyone trying to market or insure them The ninja uses the same ergos as the street triple but is considered a race-ready sport bike by many The modern standard street triple on the other hand makes use of an identical motor as the daytona But as a naked standard meanwhile The daytona is the only bike of the three that caters directly to track Junkies and the like a true sport bike often referred to under the guise of rr stipulating race replica Let's try that again Next in the article We've got two fantastic machines both bmws one is an r1200 rs and the other an s1000 rr I get them from a distance and at different angles. They might look quite similar Have a look at their compared rider posture though hint The r1200 rs is a modern sport standard and the s1000 rr literally has rr in its name Opposite your sport bike chassis with a standard ergos is the cruiser chassis with performance power The triumph rocket 3 roadster is a 2300 cc Cruiser, let me rephrase the motor on this 148 horsepower 163 foot pound torque freak show is over a half us gallon I also mentioned somewhere in my initial rant the concept of a sport cruiser so many times I've imagined how odd that concept might turn out yet. Many have managed to do it quite Well, three such examples are the honda ctx Harley's v-rod and the ducati diavel. Let's add some fog to those gray areas Everything up to this point is based or expands on three different types of motorcycles that are most common as an ergonomic reference standard sport and cruiser This only covers the horizontal When vertical considerations and terrain come into play the often talented dirt dual sport and adb crowd will make their presence known erasing lines altogether I've jokingly grunted a huff As members of the standard bike with sport motor on stilts crowd poke their head in to mention their v-strom versus tenere tiger multistrada Some tall apocalyptic bike being a great sport tourer spoken a bit differently like sports tourer I'll quietly admit that i've indeed been passed on the outside At track days by a good many of these pogo sticked curve carvers. They're one of us for sure even if as a subset Adventure sport is the moniker being thrown around in industry circles kind of has a nice ring to it My conclusion is that if you want to know which motorcycle type is best for you Sit on as many as possible and kindly ask the salesperson to refrain For simplicity consider whether you want to walk cruiser trot standard or gallop sport After that, you're ready to dial things in more exactingly via those gray areas And of course we here at tro hope you'll land on sport touring because there are types and motorcycling with type

Travis: There's a topography in motorcycling. That's a differentiated Uh And anyway that brings us to our updated site features and developments.

Robin: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes So for you web dev geeks out there. I only learned recently to not close my php tags on the site Php closing tags are well documented. It's completely optional sometimes causing trouble with scripts and excess white space I went through every php file on our server to shave those off Faster page load times were immediately nodes before I was really kind of blushing when that happened. I was like, oh, yeah No, I know so rather than restarting the php engine over and over you just leave them blank.

Travis: And uh, yeah Um, yeah, what's next ref? Uh listener questions I have the ones from facebook up too. So Okay. Yeah, I will manage this. So the first one we're going to do is uh from tom burns Has tom contributed to the site at all?

Robin: Yeah He is now a uh resident author.

Travis: Yeah, so uh, but tom is uh an associate of ours a friend an acquaintance a writer good guy, uh, but his question is i'm curious what your thoughts are On manufacturer service intervals and more specifically valve clearance checks, so he has a zx1000 Uh as robin likes to call it. I guess that's a ninja 1000. It's like a Current gen maybe last gen current ninja 1000. Yeah, it's just one of those things where they smack that ninja emblem on everything Yeah, a ninja dirt bike versus 1000 off-road, right? the Uh, the manual calls it to be checked at 15 000 mile intervals But in other countries he says it's 26 000 miles And there's speculation about the newest being due to tighter emissions in the united states So maybe there's a difference there in the manufacturer People on the forums have not found valve clearance to be out of spec even at 60 000 miles He's currently at 18 000 miles. He's going to check but it seems like a big waste of time And he asks if we concur and calls us doctors doctor Doctor um, excellent. So so here's i'm just going to keep rolling on this so Um, I mean the ninja 1000 is a sport touring bike. I mean the engine is derived from like the zx uh, the zx10 like the the super sport it is but um But it's you know detuned kind of for more street Formidability, are you thinking of the zzr you're thinking of the zzr?

Robin: I mean the zx 1000 is zx 1000.

Travis: It's not the it's not the ninja double r Yeah, whatever the it's the the architecture. It's this it's your standard sport bike. Yeah Let's take our super bike engine from like last generation and like detune it a little bit Or retune it for like mid-level power and longevity um, but either way so it's like the engine is uh The architecture is a high stress architecture that's been retuned for longevity, so Yeah, there you go. So it wouldn't super worry about it too. Um It's a modern liquid cooled double overhead cam probably Shim under bucket or shim over bucket design.

Robin: It's shim under bucket. Those are all shim.

Travis: Yeah, they're They're usually very stable um That being said so like all of my modern bikes i've had i've like Almost never had to make an adjustment on them The drz was the one exception but that was pretty beat up when I got it

Robin: A lot of this comes down to the air filter Uh, if so long as you maintain your air filter and if you go through a cloud of dust and a dust bowl Then yeah, you'll want to be concerned about maintaining it. But if you Modern valves are usually titanium So I don't know if the ninjas are i'm also curious about the fact that like 15 000 miles that equates to 24 000 kilometers. So is there some like Spec confusion between like the beamer forums cause a lot of communicative hiccups because of like the difference between Uh miles units.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah So so it might be but so to to sort of answer his question. It's like I would just check it. Yeah It's winter you got time Checking it isn't usually super intensive. I don't know. I mean on that bike you'd have to get the plastics off get the valve cover off Uh, I don't know how difficult that is but Chances are you're not going to have to make an adjustment It's going to be in spec and it's and it's probably going to be fine like unless in like You know tom takes care of his bike assuming he changes the oil all the time and he's not always you know beating on it It's probably fine.

Robin: I would check it But if even if you do then you could just order individual shims as necessary.

Tim: Yeah, once you know, yeah Now one of my questions is is if you're checking it in a garage, that's 35 degrees Yeah, yeah, how different will that be? If that same motorcycle in the same condition, you know, how would it measure at 70 degrees? for the temperature that spec probably Was it designed for aim for the center of spec?

Robin: They give you two variables. Yeah, the the minimum and the maximum

Tim: So just remember there's a little bit of a little bit of temperature variation can uh They do contract

Robin: There's going to be a gen 6 version of that back for uh for 19 Uh, the mods aren't really all that different the forums are calling it The they're calling the changes majorly minor In essence, it's going to be a generation 5.5 than a full six like there's still going to be cross compatible

Travis: It's going to be a refresh not really a full gen change. Yeah Um, but yeah, so that's uh, yeah I would follow your manual. I would check it just you know It's better to be safe than sorry Um, but chances are you're going to check it and it's going to be fine and you know, it's not going to matter but it's Also, it's a it's doing valve checks is you know, if you've never done one If you're not like a a real wrenchy guy um It's it's like the most minor get into your bike that you can do and it's a good bonding and learning moment

Tim: I agree I'm probably gonna have to do that this week this winter on my bike as well because I have beaten the piss out of that poor bike

Travis: If you're an adventure rider, definitely if you ride off-road definitely check your valves.

Robin: Yep Travis what kind of mess has facebook made for the uh, okay.

Travis: Well, we got we got a couple of questions. One is from uh, tim's uh tim's uh roommate there And uh and girlfriend, uh, and it's just a basic one which you might have covered in the past We can go go around the table here. What was your first motorcycle?

Robin: uh, my my first motorcycle was a 1982 yamaha xs 400r The seka the seka 400r. Yes I tracked it. I Did not respect that bike and I overloved it. You doubled its value in suspension components Incidentally, I had a six hundred dollars freaking I had it was a combination of a progressive the brand progressive and racetac up front I I loved that bike because it was my first bike and I Treated it like a an assertive newbie would go on Don, what was your first bike?

Don: Mine was a uh, an ebay success story. I picked up a 1980 honda cb750 custom Uh from some guy in grand rapids, michigan nice, so so the the uh 80s cruiser layout Ujm. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I like them. Obviously Um, I I put uh, I think about 28 000 miles on it in three years Oh nice, and then you were talking about valve adjustment that that killed me on that bike the screw valves Yeah, well it no it had a shim over bucket And I was following the instructions in the climbers Book, which ended up being wrong

Travis: uh did it tell you to do like the were you trying to do the uh, the cheater way and like Not pull the cams Correct, and then drop shims down into the engine

Isaiah: No, I never did that Okay.

Travis: Oh my Yeah, it's just easy to pull it so if you have if you have uh shims and buckets with overhead cams So if you have overhead cams, uh, and it's not a screw adjust take the cams off Yeah, and always always put those you know a rag down into any spot where something can fall Where the cam chain goes down into the crank?

Tim: Yeah, yeah zip tie the cam chain up so you can get it keep it from falling all those silly things What was your first bike? Tim depends on how liberal you want to be with the definition motorized My first was a 1988 honda elite 80 Oh, yeah, I picked it up when I was in college and you know tiny little scooter looked like looked like a buck rogers space shuttle out of angular Panels to it and everything and I rode that everywhere. I loved it. It was Because I just spent like two and a half years at college walking everywhere All of a sudden I was mobile again I I was in provo utah and i'd be riding it up to salt lake city to visit my sister and which was quite an ordeal at the time You know I'm on the scooter for two hours each direction It was a little ridiculous.

Don: Um Yeah Yeah, I love that little thing yeah travis you're talking about star or stormtrooper front ends this thing looks like it's uh, a battlestar galactica Cylon Oh, yeah, they're they they are our wedge.

Travis: They are an 80s wedge shape that makes it fast Very very fast Yeah.

Tim: Yeah, and then uh, my first actual like motorcycle with transmission and everything was a was a 98 Honda was a shadow aero 1100 is one of the uh, the big harley clone kind of things. Yeah You have a lot of chrome a lot of flash. It was This like slate blue and black with a little orange trim white wall tires Did you have a windscreen? Nope. Nope. Never put a windscreen on it had floorboards It was comfy Cruising man.

Robin: I was a cruiser. I was a cruiser.

Tim: I I went to I went to a couple motorcycle rallies. I went up to evanston wyoming for a rally and okay Hold on.

Robin: Holy cow. We gotta tighten up you can you can make a topic of that. All right, so Travis you're you're your first motorcycle first bike. Uh, my first wait, how tall are you travis?

Travis: I'm six one Go on, uh, my first two-wheeled motorized transport was a Chinese two-stroke ebay motor bolted on to a bicycle frame. I found on the side of the street in college I wasn't seeing that coming.

Robin: All right, go on

Travis: And then and then after after vibrating several bicycle frames in half with that motor Um after several years and I was in college and I finally found an old trek frame at a At a thrift store that was crow molly that held up and then I got a proper motorcycle My first one was a brand new showroom new 2009 honda rebel 250s Yeah, the classic and uh, yeah, I did I did like a 900 mile trip on the old 250 I did made a custom seat for it did all the did all the things.

Don: Uh, great little bike. You're six one Yeah, you're my height.

Travis: Mm-hmm on a rebel Yes, I I made it I I the the custom seat helped a lot, okay But they're as crazy as I am, yeah, I I wanted a nighthawk but they were just hard to find. Um, I'm not 250 Uh, anyway, there's one other facebook question Yeah, uh from jason cavallo as in someone maybe you went to college with or something I grew up with high school. Yep Yep, and he says and this actually kind of brings us back around to that shoey and I have some things Um, who who asked the first question by the way sylvia shout out to sylvia.

Robin: All right, go on jason follow. What's up, man? All right.

Travis: Here's he says, uh, he's got a two-parter. Uh I'll leave the second part up to robin. Maybe don um First part is are there certain criteria that you look for when purchasing the helmet? I certainly have some opinions on that second part Uh follow-up question, can you make motorcycle sounds with your mouth on your podcast?

Robin: Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay So this question could be for all of us so we can go ahead and i'll do this but uh, So I look for the personally I look for the snell rating That's my priority is the snell rating all the way but I mean modulars don't have snell rating No, but I do if it's going to be a modular helmet Then it's got to pass the roll-off test and we just I just revamped the showy article From he was like one of our first seeding articles And so I talked about you know whether or not It can endure the actions of the human body while it's suffering the crash And the showy actually can it passed the roll-off test with flying colors? So I would look for that. Does it pass the roll-off test? Does it pass the uh, the hinge and parts test if we're specific to modular? Is that what he asked?

Travis: Uh, no, he just said what do you look for in in helmet?

Robin: Well, then let's just go with standard helmets I look for the snell rating snell at s n e l l that is a that is an exhaustive test And everything that they put into that don you want to chime in on this, you know your stuff as well as I do

Don: well, I I wouldn't go for a snell because Well, it's it's geared towards track Okay, and i'm not a track dude not yet

Robin: Yeah, but you're you're talking about what if it can handle track. Do you think it's not?

Don: Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah But I I like uh, my first priority is modular because I sneeze a lot Oh, I can appreciate that uh Allergy season with the full face kind of sucks. Yeah, I like a few bells and whistles. I like the I like a Drop-down visor.

Travis: I like comms You won't get a sunshade.

Don: Uh with uh, right uh I like vents I like Uh the little chin thing under my you know, the little fabric under my chin chin curtain. Yeah Yeah, whatever that's called. Okay And if I if I had the money I would go for Something a little bit more expensive like a shoeie and that that's quieter Um, but I i'm okay with the noise I get in my built Schuberth c3 pro is the quietest helmet on the market. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, how much are those? Yeah, about 800 800 to 800 to 1200 depending on the options.

Don: Yeah, so I spent uh, Uh, let's see 180 on my first helmet 150 on my second 300 on my third and uh the current one, uh 260 with the uh, Uh instructor discount nice with with the comms built in built right in right? Yeah, and and it's comfortable comfort, you know is really important too.

Tim: Yeah and fit is One of the biggest things that I was going to say is it is You need to put the helmet on in the store You know and make sure you don't have the pressure points um as I I know a lot of people who have started riding motorcycles who especially Even sylvia never had anyone explain to her how to know if a helmet fits you or not So that was an interesting process to go for when we bought her a new helmet this spring uh, it's Very much like where are you worrying about it? How do you test it how if you grab it grab the chin and roll it back and forth How much is it going to move, you know, how what are you expecting for there?

Don: Yeah, i'm i'm really glad we cover the helmet in the msf courses. Yes Because if if we don't you know people aren't going to buy a well-fitting helmet and that's going to hurt And they're going to leave it on the shelf and it's that's where it's going to be when they crash

Travis: Yeah, and it's um, well if I if I can chime in and just kind of echo off tim here about fit, um, and it's tricky because i've I've tried on helmets and like Wore it around the star for half an hour and bought it and then when I rode it Rode in it for two three hours. I had Hot spots. Yeah um Another so I mean you can google yeah, like the roll-off test or like tim was saying where you kind of grab the helmet and And roll it forward and also side to side to make sure it doesn't move. Um What I like to do to to really test fit Um, especially I think if you're a woman um, because women tend to have a little less jaw and a little bit rounder face and so they'll really feel the um The cheek the cheek pad pressure and think something's too small when it's not um Is pull pull the chin pads out or pull the cheek pads out? Um, like they should just pop out. It should be easy Yeah, if you're not familiar get someone in the store to help you if they don't want to help you Don't buy a helmet from them um Pull the cheek pads out and put the helmet on and then really think about how the helmet fits around the crown of your head Because that's the yeah, that's that is the business end of the helmet So it's like how does it fit around the crown of your head? And that's where you know, you're you're You're cheaper helmets hjc And other things I have an hjc they fit my head really well But they kind of are all sort of one shape and there's some variation from model to model But then there's brands like arai Where they they have a really round one and a slightly off round and then a longer one and a really long shape One.

Tim: Yeah, I love my showy, but arai covers the gamut Yeah, right has some really interesting features on some of their models that they have a a layered foam that you can pull out a layer of foam to customize exactly how much cheek pad you need and i'm I like that you brought up the the cheek pad because I have the same problem like the showy medium Fits the crown of my head. Perfect. Um in the gtr, but the cheeks pads are way too tight So I have to get the large size Cheek pads, which is counterintuitive, but you go to the large size Helmet, you're basically giving more internal volume.

Robin: So the the large size are thinner than the medium size pads This spins directly into what I was gonna echo off of don which is okay in terms of when you're gonna spend Let's say you're looking at modulars or no, you know, let's just look at any helmet in general. You can get An expensive helmet that is well designed Is capable of integrating incredible features into the helmet There is always A cheaper version of that helmet. It may be equally comfortable. The difference is they're going to build their features On to the helmet. So if you haven't seen space balls Go watch it and you'll know what i'm talking about.

Travis: You'll get the same features, but the buffeting is going to talk to you Yeah, and so yeah, there's there's considerations, you know for for style and appearance and features, you know modular sun shades venting um Quietness, uh, and obviously as as you as you go up in price Those things are going to get better like how it's going to be quieter.

Robin: It's going to have nicer lining that's going to have You know and it's going to have Polarization not all of them are polarized. Sorry, tim.

Tim: They're only a handful that have They're a handful that now have transition lens visors as well.

Travis: I think yeah bell has that I think on theirs I've got them.

Robin: They're they're incredible. They are really quite something

Travis: Well, that's where the um, so my helmet I just carry a dark shield and a clear shield and swap them out Um, because you can't get a snell rating with an internal drop down Uh visor in it The way a ride gets around that is their pro touring shields have an external drop down sun visor That flips up like a peak outside the helmet when it's up and then comes down over your visor when it's down All right, so there's no there's no gap in the uh in the structure of the helmet that's nice

Tim: yeah, but one of the other things that you'll get with some of the more expensive ones are like the showy gtr that I have has got little red pull tabs underneath the cheek pads and those are Quick rapid if you just tug them the cheek pads come out and the helmet's able to be removed easier in an emergency situation only only let the uh, only the uh First responders don't do that yourself If your friend goes down Yeah, be careful with neck injuries.

Don: Yeah one other One other option that's good to get is the removable liners And can anybody in this group, uh speak knowledgeably about the the new rating system that's coming out?

Travis: I know I don't have the info yet.

Don: Okay. Yeah, but um save that for another show.

Travis: Yeah, I would just end with um, The best helmet you can buy kind of actually what don's that is the one you will wear yeah, absolutely That's right We we have we have expertise on site with this episode. We've all had we've all had and seen accidents.

Tim: Oh, yeah All of us every last one of us I have personally thrown away I think five or six helmets Because of damage I hit a deer.

Don: Yeah I you know, i'm not gonna make it Well, I could make a sound of my my motorcycle on this podcast, but here's the sound of my head bouncing down the gravel So, so now everybody make a motorcycle sound broom broom He was the leader of the pack Vroom All right, anyway, um the comedian that did that with the names of the jeep the motorcycles done as a oh, I don't know There's a couple.

Tim: I don't know uh Tim Oh, yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim: Oh Email your questions and concerns via our contact form which is located at tro dot email or by calling two two four three five eight three zero one zero

Travis: Or look up the riding obsession on instagram or facebook and tag us make us popular

Robin: Which brings us on to this week's mess a la moto brought to you by The super slick ultra badass motorcycle mega buzz you have incredible power power power power power

Don: Hey, I I gotta I gotta I gotta show off my chops on this now Yes, i'm on this one the super sick ultra badass motorcycle make a pussy of incredible power

Robin: Oh, yes, he did it. He did it guys. He's now he's a legitimate member. We should make him a moderator All right, let's be real quick ladies and germs we got gypsy dog with a uh Mini bike chopper. Oh, yeah, we updated our photo at the super We got a bunch of riders doing wheelies on public roads and crashing yeah, don't do that it loves it We okay. We so we have yeah, we have people crashing. We have the history of the vfr look that up on v on youtube um That's a really good one or or her roar.com h e r o r r um, they took a mini cooper and they Gave it what was it 900 horsepower and said it 120 horsepower bike speak.

Travis: Yeah, they put a Gtr engine in it.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah, was it? Okay Nissan gtr engine and send it up bike speak at 920 horsepower. That's pretty wicked my favorite line in that man That that thing's loud. What is that? What the that's the best? The historic racing footage that was great. Uh, the revs institute of automotive research Um under historic racing hd look them up on youtube motocross Stupidity people look if you're going to get people getting getting whiskey throttle on dirt bikes with no gear on Take a course learn how the clutch works because if you don't know you're doomed Uh grand tour is out.

Travis: That was the next one. If something goes wrong put one in the clutch Oh Travis the ducati desert sled Oh, yeah, so this new the off roadiest of the neo retro scramblers Um, what channel was this even? Uh, one of the youtube channels out of the uk, uh bike world um took the new ducati desert sled, which is the the off roadiest version of their scrambler line And just beat the piss out of it. They were rough dirt and mud and grass jumping it Yeah, I don't think a stop I mean a stock one would have bottomed out a lot and they would have but uh I was impressed.

Tim: I was impressed I don't know If i'd buy one, you know, I like they are really small compact bikes With pretty considerable motor. I think it looks like it'd be a lot of fun, but I think they're too small for me.

Robin: Yeah What's next? Uh, then there was the the guy in the shopping cart the grocery cart Yeah, there's the if you want to if we want to see the new reicher just look up machinery passion and you'll see that that historical picture of the 1951 lawnmower built by indian motorcycle company is not actually built by an indian motorcycle company It was built to look like it was made by indian motorcycle and it's a lovely lovely lawnmower and I would love to have one

Travis: Yes. Oh, yes. Um, oh then the bmw I think we should turn it off here, but the bmw self-driving motorcycle Yeah, they're gonna they're making bikes that can drive themselves They even put down their own side stands and all kinds of bullshit and it's yeah It can stop and start and go around corners all with gps and robotic control.

Robin: Yeah, here's where i'll trim it off I'll trim it off here the female riders making history in the car uh Amazing this year the cars rally a lot of female riders and a lot of them kicking it And and and the paraplegic guy who got disqualified and there was a whole outcry about that. But why did he get this? Why?

Travis: um

Tim: It's it's it's a long story, uh, they had some mechanical problems and they were told by some of the officials that they could Skip some of the checkpoints and take the highway for a time penalty and it came down to that That was the incorrect information and they were disqualified for missing checkpoints

Robin: Wow, yeah That's that's right

Tim: Yeah

Travis: Yeah, um

Robin: I'll tell you while I was doing no bueno the last thing travis just commented He just liked this or did the smiley face for the research on my ergonomics of the bikes to discuss that article I just did an image search on Motorcycle ergo.com or cycle ergo.com and some of the humorous graphics like they really don't limit the height of anybody So you can be like 11 feet tall as a passenger on the back foot Which is a little awkward looking or you can have a 20 inch in seam and be six feet tall Which on a street triple r also looks awkward Um, anyhow, all right. We'll cut it off there. I'm shutting this one down. We'll clamp out of that and then um, yeah, so uh, tim, let's let's close that uh, First off special. Thanks to don bear and man It is our pleasure to have you here today, sir. It was my pleasure and thank you for having me Yeah, stick around while we close out and uh, maybe we'll let you see the end bit. Um,

Tim: Tim go ahead this episode of the riding obsession podcast brought to you by volo lights the inertia triggered brake light Automatically warns followers while engine braking learn more about them at volo lights.com And also by the ugly apple cafe of madison wisconsin where they use local overstock produce to offer a quick tasty breakfast

Robin: The writing obsession.com is always seeking sponsors for this podcast Sponsors are given their three focused mentions toward the start middle and end of their designated episode Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment. We could use your help with that I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is scheduled for the spring of this year Dubbed the trip seven store seven riders will cover seven states in seven days starting may 26th of 2019 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 writing obsession.com Visit the group tours link which is anchored under events in our navigation menu don baron recommends that tour

Don: Ah, thanks, man at the time of my life

Travis: And that's our episode for this time around tune in next time for more discussion all things specific to sport touring or universal motorcycling as a whole For the writing obsession.com i'm travis burleson

Robin: I'm, tim clark, and i'm robin dean with don baron here. See ya safe travels everyone