Robin: Perfectly horrible location to begin this, you know, recording, but I got a mint julep in my hand, and that'll at least make it interesting, and...

Travis: Yeah, well, cicadas, and neighbor, uh, lawnmowers, air conditioner...

Robin: Is that a shop vac?

Travis: I can't see, they're behind me.

Robin: Let's not forget we're next to an Air Force base.

Travis: Uh, what time is it? It's like 5 o'clock, usually the F-16s don't fly over this time of day. They're 9 to 5? They're usually in midday, I mean, not always, but...

Robin: Plus you have a, you have a new dog. So this is a horrible, horrible decision. You ready to get this going?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Alright. Hello everybody, I'm Robin Dean.

Travis: And I'm Travis Burleson.

Robin: And this is the Riding Obsession podcast, coming at you from the perfect location, beautiful Wisconsin and Travitron's back patio. Let's get it going. This month's, well, one of many this month's episodes, because we're going to be playing catch-up with a few different episodes. This episode is about our Trip 7s tour. All that happened, all that was great, all that was not so great. Things we plan to change, other things. This episode of the Riding Obsession podcast is brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe, where they use local overstock produce to give you a quick, tasty breakfast. We are always looking for sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three, oh good, a cicada. Three designated sections of each episode. The front start, the start, the middle and the end. So if you're looking to help us make this, you know, maybe help me convince my cohort here to move us into an actual studio, then...

Travis: Hey, we could be in the basement, but we wanted to be outside because it's a nice day.

Robin: Yes.

Travis: There's only so many nice days, soon it'll be snowy.

Robin: Oh yeah. It's, what is it right now, August 28th, 27th? It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Travis: July, July 27th.

Robin: July 27th.

Travis: So winter's almost here.

Robin: All right, well, I got my medjool up. And we're not, we don't really have a format in front of us. We'll return to the sponsor stuff at the end here and give you all that, but we're not going with the old format. We're going with the original, the current format. We're just talking shop. And the first thing I personally remember was that one of our sign-ups asked if they could tag along with us down to the start point. And it was pretty much all doom and gloom. What, like an hour in?

Travis: Yes, on the, not actually the tour, but just getting down to Kentucky from Wisconsin. It was a cloudy day, you know, maybe some impending rain, and then just heavy thunderstorms, lightning, wind. Purple skies. Pouring, dousing rain. You know, where our navigation kind of stopped working, so we just kind of had to wing it. Because I had drafted like a decent route with some twisty sections. We were going to go through Starved Rock in northern Illinois when we got down there. That would have been nice. But it was just pounding. And then so we call an audible. Robin pulls up the Garmin and just goes, take us to, you know, the next city, wherever we were going for lunch.

Robin: Yeah. Now I've got the Garmin that has the twisty roads option. When I turned that on, it said it was going to be six hours. But in that weather, I mean, that was, yeah, no.

Travis: And then it immediately took us down this road. Big sign, road closed. And it's like, well, no one's going to be working on it, so let's go see. Oh, this seems fine. Turn the corner. Instantly becomes gravel. That's mud now because it's been pouring rain for 20 minutes.

Robin: Pooled sand. It was quicksand with hard, like, large gravel. Large gravel and quicksand. Now I don't think we would have had much trouble with that on our own. But we had, you know, a friend who signed up for this tour with us and we're leading this person through this muck and mar. And it's the very first thing they experienced on a tour that almost certainly makes every rider who's ever signed up for it a better rider. That was quite the immediate impression, I'm sure. But we got through it. I mean, it kind of rained off and on there with multicolor skies, you know. If there's a way to describe the term dark orange and purple, we certainly saw it, you know, on that given day.

Travis: Yeah, and then we rolled into just outside of what must have been Beloit and then just kind of like found a gas station that had, like, a chicken joint attached to it. Though they were out of biscuits, which was terribly disappointing. Like, what kind of chicken joint runs out of biscuits?

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: So to a fail. They were new. Yeah, and then just kind of warmed up, dried out a bit, waited for the storm to blow through, and then I think it was clear skies most of the rest of the way.

Robin: Yeah, we blasted out.

Travis: So where did we go, Lafayette? Where do we start? We only went halfway and went to Lafayette, right?

Robin: Oh, we did make it a two-day, didn't we?

Travis: Two-day to the start, yes. We went to Lafayette, which was about halfway, Lafayette, Indiana. I remember this, yes. Which was nice. We got there and it was like the second half was all sun, but then it was like all flat roads. Like all the good roads we tried to work into getting down to Kentucky were in, like, southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, and we ended up skipping a lot of them because of the rain.

Robin: Right.

Travis: And then once the rain stopped, we were already in, like, central Illinois. There's nothing left. And there's all the straight roads.

Robin: It's still not as bad as slab. It was a pretty – I mean, I can actually handle that. If you know that that's all you've got, but you know that you have a destination, I can still enjoy that ride so long as I'm on what looks like the cover of some movie on some barren road riding along, you know. I can enjoy that for what it's worth. Knowing that Trip 7 is coming up. I mean, that's the next morning. Ah, the quiet of the countryside.

Travis: We're in the not quite the suburbs.

Robin: And Suki's out to help us out. She'll talk back.

Travis: Yeah, because then we got to Lafayette, and it was nice, but it was – Let's go inside. Got this. Poop Deucer.

Robin: She's our Poop Deucer.

Travis: There you go.

Robin: Okay, we've tried to figure this out. What exactly is Suki's job title? So my dog Gypsy, that's the editor of Beef. And Suki, Travis's first fur baby, is the Poop Deucer of our podcast. All right, that's going to be a big hit.

Travis: Poop Deucer.

Robin: Poop Deucer.

Travis: Yeah, so we got to Lafayette, and then we went to this roadhouse bar that was more or less walking distance from the motel we were staying at. Yes. Even though it was that kind of suburb, Schaumburgian part of town where there aren't sidewalks. Yes. So we had to walk through three-car dealership parking lots and a Chili's parking lot.

Robin: I remember this because you two disappeared in front of me, and I couldn't walk fast enough to keep up.

Travis: And apparently— You were on your phone or doing something.

Robin: I was on my phone.

Travis: Yeah, so we get to this place, and their air conditioning doesn't work or something, and it's dripping sweat hot in there. So we drink a couple beers, get some food. The service was not good.

Robin: So bottom line, if you want to sign up for the Trip7s tour, get your own damn ass down there. Don't go with us.

Travis: Because we heard it's going to wing it, and it might be fine.

Robin: We owe you nothing until we get to the rally point.

Travis: And the food was good, and the beer was cold, so that's all right. And then we walk back, and then we kind of more or less beelined it down to Maysville.

Robin: Yeah, Maysville, Kentucky. Maysville, Kentucky. That's right.

Travis: The dogs are ours. She's going to do that.

Robin: All right.

Travis: She's not going to stop.

Robin: I'm not going to. I have no interest in editing that out either. Apparently she has beef. She wants us to stick to the script is the problem. Look, I mean, I've got to be me. I've got to add a little.

Travis: There's just a dog over there.

Robin: There is a dog that exists.

Travis: Well, we can go inside. You want to go inside?

Robin: Let's go inside. Up to you.

Travis: Or just put the dogs inside.

Robin: Put the dogs inside. I like it out here, at least for this drink. All right, bosses. Lulu, you're just an intern for now, Lulu. We'll get you a job title when we carry more, which we already do, because you're awesome. Sweet. Later, poop-dooster. So, does that cover just the arrival? It pretty much does. Pretty much.

Travis: When we got there... Did we work up a couple of nice roads out of Lafayette?

Robin: Not really, I guess. Yeah, I mean, well, we picked what we could. But I will say that once we got there, it was a shortened day the next day arriving, everybody started showing up. So each of our sign-ups made their first appearance, texted me when they got there, made their announcement on Facebook. Oh, and we discovered that one of the riders who paid full price couldn't make it. Oh, yeah. He got a sudden... He got sick. He got ill. I mean, it was kind of a rough scene. He had a bronchial infection. So he knew the deal. He was very patient with us on that. But, yeah, sorry he didn't get to go. But the rest of everybody basically soared in no problem, landed, let us know they were there, and we rallied down at... Oh, that's the first thing. So the first thing is, every time we've done this tour in the past, it's always been like, where do we want to go to eat? Where do we want to go to eat? What do we want to do? What are we going to do? And now I know that diagonally across from the lovely French Quarter Inn where we stay is a pizza pub. It's right there. And they have an outdoor seat that's covered, outdoor seating patio that's covered. Yeah, nice. Nice service. Yeah, pretty good. A couple of local beers. Yeah, decent beer selection. And, of course, the French Quarter Inn is just...

Travis: Yeah, I mean, first thing, it was hot. It was really hot and muggy. So it's like, first thing, right into the pool. Yeah, they got a pool there. And that was good. I poured myself some... Some traveling whiskey. Some traveling whiskey and a cup of ice, and I hit the pool, and that was all good to go.

Robin: Yeah, it was a good arrival. Good arrival. Next morning, ass-crackin' dawn. I think we tried to leave by 8.30. Yeah, we got up pretty early. And what I... I mean, I'm remembering these things in bass-ackwards order, but I remember that we had a good day of riding on day one. Everybody was getting a feel. I actually ordered everybody based on the vibe I got of their opinion of their own riding as a start. That was important to me. If you felt like you wanted to be going quick, all right, I'll put you up front for a little bit, just for day one, just to get things kind of started. Now, that changed drastically over the course. People think one thing, you know, humility is a lightning-fast ghost, man. I'm just saying, people that were like, I'll just be in the back, they may have ended up in front by the end of the tour. It was rather impressive. So we started out in one order. I want to jump to the nickel. I don't think we're ready to. What do you remember about in between the start and the nickel of day one?

Travis: Yeah, so we kind of went along the river there. Oh, yeah. The river.

Robin: Yeah, nice one.

Travis: Out of Maysville, and then up north. There were some good roads. I think we hit a little bit of a cloud. The weather was pretty much good, except for the end of the day.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, a couple of stops. The map doesn't want to work anymore, so I don't know.

Robin: Are you on your own internet? Huh? You got your internet going, right?

Travis: Yeah, it's just the site is garbage.

Robin: Well, I mean, we can jump around. I can definitely say that the last third of the nickel, the rain was worse than the arrival rain, or the day one, let's get going rain.

Travis: It was about the same. It was more annoying in a group.

Robin: It was more annoying in a group. I do think we got our gear on in time. Everybody got their rain gear on.

Travis: Except for the one guy who was wearing leather. Yes. That was me. Well, it was like, the rain was like, we were riding down the triple nickel, heading into Parkersburg.

Robin: Right.

Travis: We're two-thirds through the nickel, and then all of a sudden, the sky's getting dark.

Robin: The wind's picking up. It's a cold breeze, so you know there's a storm coming. I'm going to say the 4 o'clock, 4 o'clock looked like sundown.

Travis: Oh, yeah.

Robin: 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when it should be sunny and bright, looked like 8.30, 9 p.m. with lightning and heavy rain. Big, big drops. Back to you. You were saying.

Travis: Yeah, so it was like, we're kind of riding and having a great time on the nickel, all the new pavement, nice, and it's like a couple of sprinkles here and there, but it's not really, it's like, okay, do we stop? Do we not stop? Kind of hemming and hawing, and then it just opens up.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Large rain. And then the group wants to stop and get rain gear on.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: And at this point, my leather is already wet, and I'm like, you know, we're stopped, and I'm starting to sweat, and my thing is fogging up, and the rain's, it's raining, and I'm just like, I don't want to try and pull rain gear on over wet leather.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: So I opted out of, and it was warm enough, like it wasn't cold.

Robin: It was a hot day.

Travis: Yeah, it was a hot day, so I was like, yeah, I'll be fine. Not thinking that all that leather is going to be wet tomorrow, despite our better efforts.

Robin: They only provide one blow dryer per room.

Travis: But the rain stopped right as we were rolling into Parkersburg, and then we were crossing a highway to get to the bridge to go over the Ohio River and get actually into West Virginia, and everyone just splashed through this like foot-deep puddle. They're just like, if your boots weren't soaked from the rain, they are now.

Robin: I had forgotten about that. I can only visualize it and imagine it. I remember picking my feet up, and I had to go first to test it. Yeah. So, no, Greg went first. I think I invited, Greg said, do you want me to check it? And he did. Thank you, Greg White. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah. And then we all made it through, and I picked back up, because he had the tallest bike.

Travis: Yeah, and then we had the toll booth, and the guy just waved us all by. But right about the time we got into Parkersburg, the rain actually stopped.

Robin: Yeah. It wasn't you that went through first, was it? No. Okay, go ahead.

Travis: I was riding sweet.

Robin: So it was through Parkersburg where we stopped, and I will say that we had an incident, and a near incident with that last stop sign where somebody perhaps wasn't minding their own fatigue, and they kind of blew a stop sign. That was a close call.

Travis: Oh, it was the car, not a rider.

Robin: It was the rider. No, wasn't it? A rider blew a stop sign.

Travis: I don't remember that.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: I remember the guy who was in a car, jacked up, ratchet straps holding the trunk down car, who went through the toll booth, got over into the left-most lane, and it's like six lanes across with a major intersection on the only bridge that crosses the river. And a jump multi. Yeah, and then we get to the light with the other major highway that runs along the river, and he's like, I'll give you a make a right, and then just cuts across like four lanes of traffic and a couple of motorcycles.

Robin: And it was just a horrible accident of that nature not long ago, which only makes it more paramount that we insist on ATGAT, meaning all the gear, all the time. It is a mandatory requirement along with some level of advanced rider course training for that kind of stupidity to be on the road in front of us. So, you know, all that sweat is on my shoulders, and I'm still happy to lead you through it. Let's call that... Oh, I will say, we landed and we drank. I mean, it was so rainy.

Travis: Yeah, well, till we got there, I poured my boot out. First thing I did is like peel my silks because my leather riding pants are like sport cut, so they go into the boot. Nice. So when it rains, you know, it's like they're not like touring pants that go over the boots that kind of keep water. They just funnel water into the boot.

Robin: That's, yes. Great choice for a, not to give you too much shit here, but great choice for a sport touring outfit.

Travis: Well, you know, it's leather slides.

Robin: Yeah. Well, leather kicks butt, man.

Travis: But the... Oh, yeah. So we get there. I just... We're figuring out the hotel stuff. I peel my boots off and then just dig flip-flops out of my top case, and I'm just wearing flip-flops, like, and like loading in like gear and getting all this stuff. I'm full leathers, leather jacket, leather pants, and flip-flops, walking around the hotel dripping.

Robin: Yeah, and I can tell you right now, if you use this accent when you explain why you need to wear flip-flops to the dining area, I'm sure they're going to be a lot more receptive to your needs based on your explanation.

Travis: And then I ask them how much for the women.

Robin: Hey, how much for the women? How much for the women?

Travis: All right, so... Yeah, so we went to the bar across the street. I ordered a double wild turkey 101, and Robin, who's not really a whiskey drinker, is like, yeah, I'll have one of those. And then we had it and some food, and he's like, okay, I'm going to bed.

Robin: Yes, now do you remember the first time you and I did a big tour, the effect of my coffee drinking was on you? Because the reverse has now happened on a post-ride day, you and whiskey, it's effect on me.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Like now after a hard ride, I sip whiskey and go to sleep.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: That's it.

Travis: Yeah, which is good. Like whiskey packs down nice, and you don't drink as much, so you're not like full on beer.

Robin: Yeah, it's got a certain, I don't know, it's just got a certain, brings out the musk, you know? Amps up the manhood a bit. Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, so the next day, I peeled on my still damp leather. Once I had to wait, there was like another, there was an older couple, we're riding on a, I think like a mid or early 90s Harley, like not a super big, kind of almost a classic Harley, like not a big, but they were two up with full luggage on this. It was like an 80 cubic inch Evo engine or something, I forget exactly, a Road Glide I think or something. Road King. I'm not super versed in Harley models. But they, they were nice, but they had the only washer and dryer, and they were drying out their clothes.

Robin: No. So the only one in the hotel?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Good to know. So on the way to, on the way to, where is it, what's it, what's that, it was just some chain.

Travis: Parkersburg, it was like an Equality Inn, or it used to be Equality Inn, now it's called something else, but.

Robin: Yeah, they've got one set of laundry machines.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: All right, so okay, day two, where are we headed? We're going to the, we're going to West Virginia, we're going, we're going through West Virginia to, our destination is Warm Springs?

Travis: Yeah, I believe so.

Robin: This year?

Travis: This year. And riding with GPS is just not. Playing nice. Yeah, like the Google map interface is just like, you clicked, don't click again, so you have Parkersburg.

Robin: Use the finger zoom, like press and hold control, and then finger zoom on your.

Travis: No, it's just like, I'm just trying to move the map over, and it's just like.

Robin: Click and drag?

Travis: Click, drag.

Robin: Something's bogging down your, your pipeline.

Travis: No, I think it's the site, everything else is working fine. Anyway.

Robin: I wanted to say that, that, this year for spring, that was my favorite day of the entire tour. West Virginia just set it off for me, it was just so good.

Travis: Oh yeah, we had great weather, like that storm rolled through, and kind of cooled things off a bit.

Robin: Yeah. I love, I love leaf blowers. I really love the sound of a leaf blower, in a podcast. That's going to be too much for me. We have to go inside. Don't turn it off, keep it recording. Don't touch anything.

Travis: I just want to see what the actual levels of the leaf blower were, but they're picking up now.

Robin: Yeah?

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Let's go inside for a bit, because this is going to be what it is. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Do you know when I'm going to ask him he's done? I don't know if he is, probably not. You got the hold button on, right? I don't know. Click the hold button, it's on the side. Hold button. What? You got the hold button on?

Travis: I don't know.

Robin: You do.

Travis: It hasn't gotten any better.

Robin: It has. All right, I'm going to keep talking though, so, West Virginia, man, just such a great section, segment for so many good roads, and so much to tell. I remember that it started out, we saw the results of all that rain.

Travis: Yeah, there was a little bit of damage, wasn't it? Was that the, where we took that one road, and it was like kind of closed, and they were hacking up trees, and stuff like that?

Robin: They were hacking up trees. It wasn't closed, but it was definitely like, hey, just so you know, the rain hit hard, and you could smell the trees response to it. It was just, it smelled like- Broken trees. Broken trees, and spring, and just like, so, I mean, the first portion of that ride is goat roads, that are sort of like, they're almost like National Park roads, but not. So, I mean, we're basically immediately in the super technical. This is one of those inverted kind of days, where you start off with everything, that is not sweepers and twists, and it's minimal speed, rough surface, beautiful scenery riding, and it takes us through these gorgeous forests, and you have these open views to the right, and just every version of unexpected turn over a hill, just truly beautiful, and there's no advanced or technical version of this day, because there's no getting around the fact, that it's gonna be technical. There's just the one route, yeah, and it's- Now, that's actually, I put a ding in my exhaust on that. So, there's one section of road, where the debris had scattered over some potholes, and I was taking a hard right, I was fully tucked, chin over wrist, accelerating, you know, exploding out of the turn, and I hit this divot on a road, that was beginning to disintegrate into the side of the hill, and I heard this ding, and I didn't know if it was my, I thought I kicked up gravel. I only found it after the tour, that there's a dent underneath my exhaust, that I'm hoping you'll help me tug out, like, is there a way to pull that out on a chrome exhaust?

Travis: No.

Robin: So, so we'll fix it.

Travis: I have a stud welder that can pull out a dent, but then there's gonna be a burn mark in the exhaust, where the stud was welded on.

Robin: So you're saying there's a chance, that we can do this without marring it at all?

Travis: No.

Robin: So you're saying, we got this covered?

Travis: Not on a, not on an exhaust either, because you can't get to it from the inside, to massage it out, because of the baffling.

Robin: Thanks man, I knew I was talking to the right guy, we'll take care of it, because, yeah. All right, so, now the second half of this day, is what makes all of that technical goat road action worth it, because it becomes, absolute, 100%, pure, intense, beautiful pavement, mega twisty.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, the occasional logging truck aside.

Robin: Yeah, yeah, I mean, but those guys ride faster than we do.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: You, you want to see something entertaining, you watch an experienced, seasoned, vetted, uh, logging truck driver, haul, full grown trees, down these twisty roads, you're gonna see a show.

Travis: At full speed, like, going like 60, down these twisty roads, not touching the brakes, down the mountain.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Travis: I mean, he's got, he's got like, you know, 40,000 pounds holding him to the pavement, so. We're holding them back. You want to talk about some down force? Yeah.

Robin: Yeah, it was that, I mean, I loved that day.

Travis: I think there was. Was that, did we stop for the, the one rest break, was that where we stopped, um, in like, whatever hollow? The grocery. Yeah, where there's like, you can buy, you can get some, some hot food, and some beer, and some bait, and some guns. Yes. And some tacky, decor, and. In that area. It's like the one shop, for the whole county.

Robin: For, yeah, for 15 miles around, that's, the store. You say you're going to the store, you might, I don't know, you might be saying you're going to the bar, and it's also, that store. I remember, we met some pretty nice locals there, they seemed pretty cool. Yeah, it was in the oncoming side, against the hill, and, they had like a dial-up, like, credit card reader, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do remember that. And, so that continued on, and we just like parachuted, through, gorgeous twisties, that had, that had one of my mentors, my early, in my early writing career, not anymore, he'll, he'll say not anymore, but in my early writing career, one of the sign-ups was, a personal mentor to me, in terms of, my, technical development, and, you know, he said I did it all myself, I said, alright. But, to have him be as drop-jawed, as he was, after, that day, sort of, twisty, twisty, twisty, just delivers us, into Warm Springs, Virginia. Not West Virginia, Virginia.

Travis: Yeah, it's like just over the border there.

Robin: That felt pretty good. So Warm Springs, Virginia, beautiful, beautiful place though. And, big shout-out to, Warm Springs Inn. That's what it was called, Warm Springs Inn.

Travis: We found out that like, the restaurant they built, at the, at the inn, was not open that day, or something, yet.

Robin: Yeah, and I feel like I had talked to them, to ask that they had that open, and they said, okay, I probably should have, reached out to them, again, and I'll remember to do that next time, I'll add that to my notes. We ended up going to Waterwheel, which is, an old mill house, that they converted into a restaurant, now. I'm gonna tell you now, every time I've been there, it's been amazing. This time, not so much.

Travis: Oh, yeah, they kind of like, messed up the steak.

Robin: They messed up, steaks, plural. So, not cool. For the price, it's like you're paying, for the appearance, of a, five-star environment.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: With all kinds of proper, hi, would you like to be, uncomfortable, while I talk to you, to make sure that your etiquette is proper? Here's your second, napkin, that's designed to go into your butthole. Like, I, I'm sorry. I'm not, I would like to enjoy, I'm not looking to, walk in there, you know, you know, in a freaking sleeveless, yellow stained t-shirt, sweating, like, you know, whatever. I, I'm not looking for that, but I would have liked, for it to have been, worth the money. That, did not happen this round. Every other time it has, I don't know what's up.

Travis: I got like, pasta or something, I thought it was good, but yeah.

Robin: I got the salmon. Salmon was great. It was even.

Travis: Yeah, the steaks were a little over, overpriced and overcooked. It is sad, but maybe they had the, the new guy on or something.

Robin: Maybe the cook was from West Virginia. Yeah. That would change things a lot. Not to, you know, I would, more affiliate than with barbecue.

Travis: But yeah, but that's always a good, to like, and to even just sitting, we're sitting on the porch at the inn, and there's this great twisty road that it's on. That's, that's where our route starts the next day. And like, we just saw several packs of bikes. Yeah. Sport terrain, supermoto guys, some cruiser guys, heading up that way. And it's just, it's just the place, place to go riding.

Robin: I am considering doing a trip sevens tour, that's based on one location. And I got to tell you, Warm Springs Inn, if I can hit all seven states, from a, what's it called? A cloverleaf perspective. Yeah. Not to be confused with cauliflower, which is what I almost said. Next morning, are you, what, you got anything to add to that?

Travis: No, it was a good time. We had a good time at the, yeah, I think everyone had a good time at dinner, you know, despite slightly disappointment with some of it, but.

Robin: Yeah. We walked there this round too.

Travis: Yeah, we walked there, had some drinks. I still, I always forget the name that, like, cause I got that Manhattan with that Virginia whiskey. Yeah. And I forget what it's called, but it was, it was really good.

Robin: There are a few things that will make Travis Burleson produce the most 007 adult smile and response. And if you look up our YouTube channel's advanced route coverage, yeah, that was one of those things where he just sifted. And I looked over and my buddy's just smiling. He's just, this is good.

Travis: Yeah, I had a good time. Breakfast was good at the Warren Springs Inn. Then we hit the road, you know, headed.

Robin: To run day three.

Travis: East, yeah. Continuing east. Yeah, and just through the twisties over into, uh, into Virginia. That's when we start picking up the Blue Ridge Parkway, right?

Robin: Yeah. It's our first, it's our first, uh, touch on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which, uh, some people absolutely love the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some people are bored out of their mind by it. I've decided we need an advanced route for that day.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, there's, I mean, too, there's, there's, um, the BRP itself, there's good sections, there's boring sections. we, and that's where we stopped in, uh, an overlooking, uh, Buena Vista and talked to a local who like, bicycled up from Buena Vista to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I remember that, man. When it was like, 2000 foot elevation change.

Robin: Yeah, he took, he took photos for us.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Cyclist energy, man. Really talkative.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Super high on like the, the endorphins.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Just healthy as it gets. He's like 85 years old. He wasn't that old. he wasn't.

Travis: He was like in his sixties.

Robin: But you know, it's like the whole, the whole like he's in, or maybe fifties. He's in significantly better shape than I was when I was 30.

Travis: Yeah. Um, yeah, cool. And those guys, they had their, uh, the one guy, they had like the dog trailer.

Robin: Mm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Travis: So they were on like Carly's or cruisers and he had a trailer, like a camping trailer, but it had like a dog crate in it and his dog would ride in the pack in the trailer. Yeah. It was like service dog.

Robin: That was a hot day. I was worried about the dog, so he seemed to have him covered.

Travis: But that was a good kind of more mellow day. Weather was perfect.

Robin: Yep.

Travis: I mean, really, did we see, we saw a little bit of rain. Well, like day six or something.

Robin: Yeah. But that said, we're not even near that.

Travis: Yeah. But it was like perfect weather.

Robin: Yeah. The Woodbury Inn. I've gotten notes about this.

Travis: Yeah. That, and that took us down to, to Meadows of Dan, right? Yeah. And that doesn't include, that's not the one where we take, that was a 220. We all got lost. And that's the next day, right? That's day four.

Robin: That's the next, yes.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: One of the funnest days of the tour. Well, hold on. So the Woodbury Inn, I got a note here. For the third time since I've met that hotel, motel, which I think is beautiful. I love the setting of the Woodbury Inn in Meadows of Dan for the pond, the room locations, the onsite restaurant. The problem is that every time I've been there, it's been under new ownership. It's always confused and it's always undone. So the Woodbury Inn is under new ownership again. It's now called the Antler's Inn. And I called, and the restaurant was closed. The restaurant was closed, which completely, that was the first day that I was like, Hey man, you want to take lead and I'll take sweep. It's the sweep writers responsibility to perform all things logistics. Make sure that the pricing is right on the rooms. Once we arrive, you said, you quoted us at this, this is the price we expect, uh, that kind of thing. And if there was going to be a restaurant, well, if there's not, guess who has to figure out the food situation? I'm already in a mood. And it's like, okay, their restaurant was not open. They did not reach out to let us know this information. So I had to take a bunch of orders for a location and get back on the bike after a pretty long ride, go into town, grab the food, put it in the luggage, bring it back, serve it out. That is part of the tour is to take care of our signups.

Travis: yeah. So I mean, like if you go into proper Meadows of Dan, which is a tiny little town, yeah. Uh, but there's like a nice cafe there, a couple of places. And it turns out there's a, there's another end that's in the town. That's right across from the three places. You can get breakfast.

Robin: Yes. And I'm going to look at those places. So the antlers in, you know, I'm going to have a little chat with them and have a little bit of a proof of concept as to what they can offer us. And if they want to, uh, negotiate a little bit of a reciprocation on that situation is another thing. When you provide a coffee maker, it's good to provide coffee cups. Also not everybody wants to drink only 30 variety of non-sugar sweetener with their coffee. They might also want creamer. Now I had neither creamer nor a coffee mug. I'm not saying that this isn't a luxury that I'm complaining about. I'm just saying that we paid money to be there. That's the only thing I've found in my room. So the next morning I come walking out, I don't, I don't take sugar in my coffee. I come walking out. I've got the whole carafe in my hand and I'm drinking black coffee out of this dusty carafe. Just making sure I can get awake enough after the previous night to get ready for the next day. So then we went, what do we eat the next morning? It was a great, great breakfast joint.

Travis: Um, yeah, it was just like the little cafe there. I met as a Dan, let me, uh, right across the street.

Robin: There's a B and B that we're going to consider. Um, as of now, unless you call the antlers in and talk to them and ensure that you know that they're going to be a, an actual hotel motel, not a construction zone that happens to have a, an Airbnb available.

Travis: Uh, let's see. It's right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Uh, Jane's Country Cafe.

Robin: Jane's Country Cafe. Thank you for taking care of us. They took care of us on the foods.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. We got dinner from them and breakfast.

Robin: This episode. Okay. So the middle episode, this episode of the Writing Obsession podcast is brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they serve local overstock produce produce to make a quick tasty breakfast. And by Jane's Country Cafe of Meadows and Dan, where they take care of everyone better than they need to be.

Travis: Yep. And then across the street from them is the poor farmer's market, which is like a gas station slash shop slash produce stand slash deli slash knife shop slash cast iron warehouse distributor slash you can get biker vests that come pre-patched with things like live hard and ride die and look at bad born to be bad.

Robin: Look up, uh, regular car reviews, Harley Davidson, the FLHTC.

Travis: Oh, that's incredible.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to get on our bad guy outfit.

Travis: Yeah. So they, you can buy like a biker vest that came pre-patched with the generic patches anyway.

Robin: So that covers day three, day four.

Travis: Yeah. So we're now on, cause we got breakfast at Jane's, which was awesome.

Robin: Day four.

Travis: And then more BRP, but with, uh, with side journeys, which was the best part.

Robin: Now we ensured that our writers were comfortable on the BRP. Yeah. Two went, two went direct. Two went direct and good on them. They wanted to enjoy the beautiful views of the BRP, take a mellow cruise, arrive in Maggie Valley, which they did. And the rest of us proceeded to do our best to traverse the technical route of that particular day, which was as bombastic as I've ever remembered.

Travis: Yeah. So right when we turned off the BRP, there's that, that super steep, like, it's like a four lane highway. That's so, and they're just, they're just warning signs. And it's a major trucking route for some reason. And there's like a million truck emergency pullouts. And you're going down this like 10% grade with these semi trucks. And we unfortunately got stuck behind one. So we're just, we're just crawling with the brakes on the whole time.

Robin: Yeah. But it's going to be a long day. So we're ready for that. Your punchline day has to end with, when you're, when Osman told you to go up. That, that is a punchline and a half.

Travis: Oh yeah.

Robin: So basically the, it's an exponential technical day. It starts off with a little jaunt and it's like, okay, that was, I'm not even sure that was even worth it. But hey, you know, I looked back and I was like, yeah, it kind of was. The second is twice the length, but still kind of goat roady and hectic and rough surface, but it's fun and it's pretty. And it's, it's better than the BRP. The third section, the third section, it's all over. That's what's up. Oh, 221 for one.

Travis: Yes. We come down there and that's like some nice fit. And there's like, there's like a bunch of like biker lodges there. So there's actually a lot of, a lot of riding around there.

Robin: Yeah. That footage is actually on our YouTube channel as well for 221. Look that up.

Travis: But we, so I was riding sweep and I was kind of sandbagging and hanging back and then riding faster to catch up with the group. Cause I was riding faster than some of the guys in the back, which is, which is fine.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: That's why I'm there to make sure that, you know, if I happen upon someone on the side of the road, I'm there to help them. But we get to this, there's this, this tank where there's two, so there's the bridge, the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's like a Swedish. And then, and then there's a front, there's a frontage road on either side of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And then a road that intersects all three of them. And there's like a million little, but it's like BRP doesn't have like interstate level exchanges. They're these little ramps that are like 30 feet long.

Robin: Yeah. Some of them have like omni-directional entrance exits.

Travis: Yeah. and so I'm like looking at Oz and I'm looking at, so I'm trying to catch up to the group and go by this like kind of chalet area where there's tons of bikes. And I think I see the group. Oh. Yeah. Like I saw like an FJR and a BMW. I was like, oh, that's him. So I double back into this like chalet parking lot thinking like everyone stop for a break. And nope, that's not them. So keep going. And then I look at Oz and it's like take the third of the fourth, right, fifth ramp to the left, right. I'm like, what? So I go and then it's like, you turn. Oh, that's the wrong one. But then I figure out where I am on the frontage road for the Blue Ridge Parkway. I was like, okay, I know this is a good road. It's going to take me like three miles back and then get out Blue Ridge Parkway and keep going. And so I did that and it was a fun road. So it was fine. And then, so then I get back on the Blue Ridge Parkway, go back to three miles, doing exactly the speed limit. And then, and then get off and like crawl and look at the map and look at my surroundings, look at the map, look at the surroundings and make sure I'm on the right third, fourth road when you get off the intersection after the bypass.

Robin: So you found the correct left, right that was on the third, 15th road.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Backwards.

Travis: Yeah. And so now I'm, and then that's the gut where that's the last section where it's like single, you know, no line.

Robin: Yeah. Or two white lines on the outside of the lane.

Travis: Maybe.

Robin: If you're lucky.

Travis: Yeah. And that's like this, like super up and down. So you come to these corners and to initiate this corner, you go backwards up and slightly to the left. Like there's these mountain backs, you switch back, you know, mountain roads. It's like kind of really rustic stuff. And I'm like, man, did I miss the guys? Did they stop and wait for me? No, I can't call anyone. There's no signal on my phone.

Robin: Okay, let me chime in on this bit. So rewind a little bit and we're still ahead of Trav and we, we end up in the same spot, which is kind of, it's sort of this Swedish town or Swiss, Swedish, Swiss. I get them mixed up. Apologies, no disrespect, but this town is sort of a tourist trap. That's a tourist trap because you get freaking trapped there. And the mistake we made was I listened to my instructions say, take a left on from, and I'm not using the same app as Travis. Travis is using Osmond, which is, we have an article about that. It's a lot like having a rally navigator. Every turn is mentioned, you know, in a thousand feet, turn slightly left.

Travis: Yeah, but I don't, I don't use, you keep it just visual voice navigation. I just like cool.

Robin: So I use ride with GPS because for me, I've got a, you know, I've got an executive account on there that says turn left on street name. And I didn't hear the freaking street name. So I'm looking at the map. I'm trying to make sense of it. There's a lot of goat roads there. I approached this left. That seems obvious. I make that left. My two signups that are following me, make the left with me. And we get confused and make a weird U-turn. That's a lot of work. I'm at this point, I'm thinking, well, okay, so Travis is now ahead of us. It's all right. We've lost Travis. We're 75% done with the day's routes. No big deal. All right, keep on going. So we find a way back to where we're supposed to go. And we continue on. Now, this goes on and on and on, riding, riding, riding, riding. And then I, maybe I'm getting a little bit fatigued. I see a road and I'm looking directly at a sign that says no outlet. And I just ride right into it. Like, okay, I'm going to another no outlet. And then I have to turn everybody around again. Now, one of the riders stays behind to redirect the tail sign up to continue on. He's really telling him to stop, but he thinks continue on. So the sign up passes him, nodding his face like, okay, all right. Now the sign up is leading the tour. I have turned around. I wave myself by the sign up that directed that person and am chasing this person down. I look up ahead. I see another no outlet and said sign up rides into the no outlet. I follow them to a fence where I find this person sitting in front of the fence on his bike, staring at it like a dog. When you say something like, want to play ball? Or want to go for a walk? And they kind of turn their head. He's going to look at this fence all confused. We turn around. I know Travis is probably already at the destination. Sweepers, sweepers, sweepers. Everybody need a break? Okay. We stop, laugh it off, joke about how, yeah, we'll catch up. We're almost done. And lo and behold, when we all mentioned, I wonder if Travis is there yet. I hear the sound of a two wheeled helicopter in the form of an NC 700. Travis rolls up. Hey man, wow, that sure was confusing back there. And that is, that led to a lot of modifications that are going to take place in terms of alerts on my map.

Travis: Yeah, but that was the, so I'm hustling down this road because I think, I'm like, well, clearly slaughtering it. It's like, yeah, I'm going to have fun. I'm going to have fun. I have no cell signal. I can't figure out where the rest of everyone else is. And then I'm coming down this road and kind of into this valley and I look at my phone. I'm like, oh, signal, I can call them. Oh, there they are. And come to a stop. And then I'm like, man, my brakes are getting squishy. And then I pour some water on my brake caliper and just, yeah. Like I was cooking my brakes so hard.

Robin: Just a boil. All of our brakes were spongy. All of them. My brakes were like, they wouldn't start to tell me that they were marshmallow until I reached almost to the grip. And you know, I keep mine pretty close to the grip. So, we landed at a hotel we've never been to before and that place, I don't know that we'll stay there ever again. It was just a little bit weird and the next morning, I'm trying to even remember, where was that even? It was the, let's call it nameless because I don't know them that well. I don't want to mess with them.

Travis: I don't even remember where it was though.

Robin: You know, I know what it was. What did we do for dinner? We ordered pizza and my mother was there.

Travis: Oh, yes, that was Maggie Valley.

Robin: Yeah, well it was Maggie Valley and that's the other thing about Maggie Valley is that, let me see, hold on, we're juking at Hendersonville.

Travis: The tour, the advanced tour. Well, no, let's talk about Maggie Valley real quick.

Robin: Okay, go ahead.

Travis: So we roll into Maggie Valley. We're staying at the place we don't normally stay and it's like a Wednesday.

Robin: but Hendersonville's before that.

Travis: And nothing's open.

Robin: Nothing's open. Now, before that, we ride through Hendersonville because it tries to go by my mom's house.

Travis: Oh, yeah, that's right. So we're like scurrying the suburbs of Asheville.

Robin: Mom's meeting us. She's meeting us at Maggie Valley. We do all this work and we get stuck in traffic to go through Hendersonville, North Carolina traffic which is totally not worth it. That's going away because she was so happy to just like she, you know, she's got our car while Maggie and I are traveling the States. She's got our SUV. She was like, she gets in the SUV, she drives down, we catch her or we see her at the hotel. She gets us pizzas. You know, she just has her back in that regard and thank you for that, Mom. So that's that's how that went. So Maggie Valley. Mom's there. Everybody's there. Everybody made it. One of our signups kept Mom company the whole time we were hanging out. But that that hotel's over.

Travis: Yeah. Well, too, it's like so you're on the Maggie Valley. There is a Polaris Slingshot meetup going on.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: So the three-wheeled Polaris car thing.

Robin: Which is a motorcycle side-by-side motorcycle.

Travis: But there's like guys that get them all like like overlanded out with like roof racks and like luggage or like crazy LED paint job display fireworks shows bolted onto the side of them. Yeah, it's like it's a weird weird mix of people that ride at least that take those to a rally. But yeah, we got some pizzas had a pretty decent time and then we split up the next day out of Maggie Valley which is like Maggie Valley is great because it's like the Tale of the Dragon deals gaffs right there the Terrible Sky was right there.

Robin: Too many options.

Travis: But you can't you can't you have to pick kind of one and do it.

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Unless you're gonna you know stay there for a couple days and just do out and back.

Robin: Unless you're more baller than the ride leader and you want to do a 600-mile day. Yeah, I mean it was there's also the museum man. I mean I think I should base it out of there if I do an Overleaf. There's the Wheels Through Time Museum which is amazing. That's the best motorcycle museum. I'm I don't know of any others that are that good. Somebody feel free to inform us. We'd love to do that might be a good topic discuss the best museums that are legit.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: Wheels Through Time is a real motorcycle museum worthy of appreciation and respect. I wanted to say that I also am concerned I don't know how it happened but that's where the flat happened. Whether it was sabotage whether it was like anti-Not Harley sympathy or why are you parked that way noise and somebody like shot a coat hanger but I had like five pieces of coat hanger or some kind of thin metal in my rear tire. It might not have been sabotage. I might have just run over it.

Travis: I think you probably just picked it up.

Robin: Probably just picked it up at the freaking breakfast joint but immediately was alerted I got this hazard blinker on my freaking dash saying hey guess what.

Travis: Yeah. I don't think the Polaris Slingshot guys sabotaged your bike.

Robin: Yeah. Now they're lucky that we wave at them at all. You know nice car side-by-side motorcycle engine.

Travis: I mean they're fun some guys like one guy had a like turboed out and he's like it's making like 350 horsepower you know it weighs like 900 pounds. Yeah. It's like how does it even how do you even go?

Robin: Yeah. I've ridden the Can-Am Riker 900 and I'm telling you right now unless I'm extremely mature about my throttle use I'm barking the rear wheel. They're just crazy. So that's where I had a hazard on my rear wheel and that plagued me for the rest of the tour but I still got to ride I just patched it a plug patch plugged it plugged it like 30 times because I bored it out too much. Lesson learned basically poke a hole in there get the plug in call it done.

Travis: Yeah. Don't try to like clean up the like you just like you ream it just to make sure there's no debris in the hole.

Robin: Yeah. And I did not pay mind to that truth.

Travis: Robin stick something in a hole gets real excited just doesn't know when to stop.

Robin: And that brings me to Maggie Dean. Oh wait no we're still on so I've got notes here about staying on an alternate route because there are some bad roads leading off and lots of Well we split up Yeah.

Travis: This day. So I took two riders and we did Deals Gap and Tail the Dragon.

Robin: The Deals Gap is Tail the Dragon.

Travis: Yeah.

Robin: The Deal of the Dragon and Tails Gap.

Travis: Yeah. Which is like amazing like it's a good ride. We well we had perfect like it was a Thursday it was like 10 a.m. Mm-hmm. We had the road to ourselves like I mean so we got to the like the Deals Gap Trading Outpost whatever the gas station there the resort. Yeah. And you know it was there was there was bikers and some sports cars around and stuff a couple of can-ams or whatever Polaris slingshots but it wasn't like super crazy busy and so we stopped you know went to the bathroom got some gas Did you have to sandbag? Did you wait for cars or anything? I kind of sandbagged a little bit but like like the first two three corners because then you change counties as soon as you go go up there like you go into the next county right?

Robin: I did not know that.

Travis: And then it was we got slowed down by two Park Service trucks that pulled out of the way as soon as possible.

Robin: That's see that's how it's done.

Travis: And so I just like I just killed I killed I did the Tale of the Dragon all of it 99.99% of it full speed with no with no interruption. That's wonderful. And too like I'm not like I don't know like you see these people of like people crash down the dragon and say what kind of dumb crap like the speed limit on that road is 35 miles an hour

Robin: That's plenty if you go if you do nine you're fine ten you're mine

Travis: Yeah, well if you just go 35 miles an hour the entire time still a good time Yeah, like you don't have to go 60 to get to the next 30 mile an hour corner. Yeah just just like set if you can set cruise control at 35 miles an hour and nail all the corners of that speed you're killing it.

Robin: Now there's the inversion of that too. I love what you just said but the inversion of that also is if you see somebody blazing a path up to your rear view mirror and they respectfully hover behind you giving you a good two second rule of safety thumb and you continue to remain in their path of travel for more than eh the next opportunity to pull out of their way move the fuck over we are not trying to push you through the dragon and we're not interested in your opinion of our preferred pace just pick an opportunity and get the hell out of the way

Travis: Yeah, especially if you're on a bike and there's a bike behind you just hug the right like on the next kind of straightish bit hug the right lane like hug the right side of the lane and they can just pass you in the lane and it's totally safe

Robin: So long as you wave us you know we are not trying to be rude we are leaving space to let you know hey okay that's cool but look we're here and we're trying to get around be cool and back to the inversion of that that Travis started with you don't necessarily have to set the road on fire to have a dang good time just do what feels good to you within a safe skill to risk offset yeah

Travis: maintain

Robin: like you can use two-thirds of your skill but leave a third of a buffer to protect yourself

Travis: yeah I mean it's your classic road riding road craft basis is like you're not on a racetrack you're on a public road you don't go 100% on a public road

Robin: no you want to go 100% take a track day go to a track day build your

Travis: you don't explore your limits on a public road

Robin: yeah you can use 100% at a professional okay where are we at sorry

Travis: anyway so then we did Dragon and then came up and then went the rest throughout there and did Joppa Mountain because it was getting kind of hot and we were getting kind of tired and getting kind of hangry for the rest but then we did I think we maybe skipped one kind of back roady section and then but I made sure we did Joppa Mountain Road

Robin: Joppa Mountain's cool

Travis: and that was awesome I touched some hard parts for sure on Joppa Mountain Road and the guys were really plussed on Joppa Mountain yeah and then and then I just I googled and that was like one of my big scores on like this barbecue joint outside of Joppa just past Joppa Mountain Road yeah we stopped for lunch at this barbecue place and it was awesome I'm going to see if I can find it real quick you're not talking about

Robin: well oh I missed a thing Krista's General Store and Deli which is right off of the BRP on day 3 the 221 day that's where you want to stop and get barbecue

Travis: oh yeah that's where we stopped that was really good they have a monster truck so you know it's good

Robin: yeah monster truck Krista's General Store and Deli right off the BRP at a rally point that's where you eat lunch on day 3 back to day 4 sorry

Travis: yeah so Joppa Mountain Road I'm trying to find this place so it's just yeah it's like off of it's in Tennessee there yeah I was over here by like the stretch Pete's Place

Robin: Pete's Place yeah that's where you eat barbecue

Travis: yeah so I forgot where we got maybe it was barbecue Pete's Place is in Maynardville, Tennessee and man the waitress was a sweetheart you know it was like late mid afternoon it was like 3 o'clock so it was like it was dead

Robin: but she's like what you want honey

Travis: yeah and so we got some great food and they were like yeah on a Saturday night like we gotta make people wait at the door because this place is slammed

Robin: wow

Travis: and like party so it's like

Robin: so it's the local

Travis: if you ever that way in Maynardsville, Tennessee or down that way I'm trying to think it's not that far from what is that what's the city there Knoxville just north of Knoxville check it out it was super good and then we made it up to where was the stop that night

Robin: that day we end up

Travis: in Kentucky right

Robin: yeah we end up in oh yeah

Travis: because we got in just before the rain

Robin: yeah

Travis: and there's a weird thing on the route where it takes you down this side neighborhood road

Robin: Manchester, Kentucky

Travis: yeah it takes you down instead of just staying on the highway and going right there you go on this little side neighborhood road that's like dilapidated it's paved but it's like five feet wide and it's like goes up these little hills that are like twenty feet twenty feet tall on a twenty percent grade you're just like it's like a mini it's like a mini motocross course that's paved five feet wide I remember

Robin: it's like

Travis: why did we do this instead of just staying on the highway for the last five minutes

Robin: right and it was because of the goal being twisty and you've arrived at Manchester now

Travis: yeah and it just started pouring rain

Robin: so before I tell my version of the day because we did a different route I will say that on that little road having had silence and music well music going in my helmet the whole time that was the final time that Greg White chimed in on the comms and his exact words are you recording are you good yeah Greg White chimes in and he says he says Rob he says Robin are you fucking kidding me right now his exact words oh and that little silence that little side road that little side road are you fucking kidding me right now like no anyhow so should I start my version yeah well at that point I bet he was kind of done oh he was fried so so okay our version of the day starts out in Maggie Valley wake up you know we have breakfast at Pops which is delish you know biscuits, gravy all that kind of stuff

Travis: yeah they were they were very busy with the still took good care of us the Polaris Slingshot Rally

Robin: it was slow service but obviously for good obvious reasons she was hustling the kid was hustling

Travis: yeah it was I mean it was good you know bacon and eggs kind of place

Robin: hop on the bike you guys go your way we go ours I've got a nice deviation that you and I have written that put us on the chair-a-holla now I missed it last time because I was getting a tire done but we got to go to the chair-a-holla it was me and two of the sign-ups three of the sign-ups two of the sign-ups

Travis: two because there were six of us so we went three and three

Robin: yeah picked up the chair-a-holla blasted it out had a great time stopped at um stopped at one of the overlooks there they happen to have a restaurant I think or like a snack bar or whatever chilled enjoyed the view picked back up and followed on I think we may have gotten on the foothills because there was a new section of the foothills that we wanted to see I don't even remember if we did that because my memory is pretty shot colorful college years what can I say but I do remember that I wanted to ride a valley forest back road that looked like total chaos of awesome through Kentucky uh five times the curve sort of like 221 compared to the BRP and uh my cohorts were like yeah I well one Greg himself was like I wanna see this

Travis: oh the 66 is on your scouting

Robin: that's what's yeah we were gonna scout 66 so we stayed on 66 um and Greg was he said I would like to see this so we zoomed in on it got a feel for what was involved and we said yeah I warned everybody this is a scouting run we've never done this we don't have to are we gonna do it the answer was yes and what we found was it was sort of a it was sort of a it felt like 30 to 60 miles of the tunnel of trees uh deep forest hillside looking down to the valley clearly a flood zone of wet rainy trees it had already rained there we had missed the first rain some debris in the road but just gorgeous uh slick pavement a little bit nerve wracking there but a lot of you know the housing was a little scary too this was this was uh uh I don't believe in our

Travis: Appalachia

Robin: yeah it was Appalachia and a lot of trailer homes but uh a lot of you know dead raccoons on the side of the road just whooping ass through these twisties kinda slick totally worth it absolute keeper until we got to that last road before Manchester and the exact words I remember like uh away we got hold on oh it's Laurel hold on uh Laurel Burleson so I don't remember where we were what was I saying

Travis: uh 66 Slick Roads

Robin: awesome ride uh so arrived in Manchester, Kentucky

Travis: Manchester, Kentucky

Robin: yeah

Travis: meanwhile like we've been there like an hour and a half two hours already yeah I went to the uh ABC and got a bottle of whiskey and the Rite Aid and got something I forget what we did what did we do for dinner did we Taco Bell or order pizza

Robin: oh we went next door to the friggin' huddle house

Travis: oh there's a huddle house next door that's right

Robin: yeah I mean there is a continental breakfast at the hotel in Manchester but it is garbage

Travis: it was like stale Cheerios yeah cereal and yogurt cups

Robin: yeah nothing so the huddle house is everything there and yeah I mean I've never had a dull experience going to Manchester, Kentucky it's always something a little bit off and uh next morning we woke up and which is you know okay let's get to the huddle house there's a couple of uh instagrams with that one

Travis: yeah Manchester is kind of like this Kentucky former Kentucky mining town that's kind of burnt out

Robin: it's a little bit burnt out and it's where people will just appear out of the forest the forest chuds as my wife would call them the forest chuds come out of nowhere and just start like going to the huddle house and speaking gibberish to people to scare them off um well we wake up we've eaten breakfast we hop on the bikes and we're about to hit some of the most beautiful territory not necessarily the hottest riding but so gorgeous to go through Daniel Boone National Forest where are you going? you got your mic on? yeah okay you do? where are you going? just out to grab a beverage oh okay nice hey hook me up um just gorgeous territory going through Daniel Boone National Forest on the gorge side that's Red River Gorge which is a lovely place a beautiful beautiful national forest um we take the the forest road there the park road

Travis: which is very twisty yeah I mean last time Robin and I did this section uh we kind of stayed around that area yeah that's when I picked up the socket in my tire but there's that place that we need to make work the whatever station are you talking about the one that's also a hostel? it's a hostel and like a brewery yeah and like a rock climbing center yeah

Robin: it's a place where people go to be uh foresty and Coloradan in the Kentucky language um so we rode now we started off the day pretty good we knew there were gonna be there was gonna be some rain eventually and then well then it hit so we got hit hard

Travis: mid forest ride on this forest road

Robin: yes and

Travis: that they just repaved

Robin: well it's it's maintained

Travis: so it's like this super slick kind of oily asphalt that's all covered with trees

Robin: right now I've been testing some specific tires I've been a fan of the Michelin R5's uh but I've found that they melted down quickly so I switched to the Pirelli Angel GT's which are a little bit more lumbery in the corners but the rubber is hard and lasts a long time despite having ridden over apparently 20 coat hangers um this day in Daniel Boone was my day to test their behavior in the wet so I was approaching what I would call a reverse turn it was kind of a big reverse turn by DOT standards meaning a left and then a right I brought in some momentum I began to lean the bike I uh was chin over wrist fully tucked I kept the bike as upright as I could but all of that momentum threw the bike into a slide not just any slide a deep slide I felt the whole bike tip deeply to the left both tires drifted about four maybe five feet and then when I straightened it up and tried to regain yeah um the whole bike did the exact same thing to the right so I slid to the left terrified myself need a new underwear right there and managed to repeat that process

Travis: slide to the left slide to the right yeah now clap three times

Robin: like that that that was horrifying and now I realize I'm running this show that's what I went through I've got people behind me that might discover this information the hard way

Travis: yeah but we weren't going as fast as you were

Robin: that is true not everybody is making use of that particular pace so fortunately everybody did have a little bit of a dance in the rear tire but nobody had the same full on two wheel drift that I experienced uh the road remained beautiful

Travis: two wheel butt clenches maybe

Robin: two wheel butt clenches so the road was beautiful as it ever was everybody had a good time uh I don't remember anything after that thing I think that was

Travis: so we did not a tunnel

Robin: oh not a yeah not a tunnel

Travis: and then we stopped the sun came out we stopped at the intersection there

Robin: uh

Travis: to re-re-patch your tire or plug your tire

Robin: my third my third double tire plug patch effort back to you

Travis: uh yeah and then we continued on the route there I don't remember the rest of that day very well

Robin: it was just I mean Kentucky is where things begin to mellow out taper off oh yeah

Travis: so just yeah it was kind of like mellow er winding you know valley roads

Robin: yeah I would say it's everything that we were used to enjoying throughout the entire tour we've had so much of it that now we're really in our element so any real hazards are just like yeah all right well let's just do it right then

Travis: yeah by the time you're at this point you've been riding every day through so much crazy stuff that's like unless it's like the craziest tight twisty you're just like oh okay

Robin: yeah you've have arrived you have arrived at more experienced and better riding of your own making and that's what I would say that day in Kentucky is in the dry maybe it's different but you're heading north again things begin to change in the mindset you know

Travis: well see I mean like I said once we got out of Daniel Boone we had clear skies

Robin: thank you my friend cheers um yeah the clear skies did a lot for us so where do we land that day um and do I have any notes about it let me see that um I think the only notes I have left are particular to things that need to be added to the suggestions and behavior of our signups but where do we land let's see after Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky ah we arrive oh two

Travis: we forgot a thing about the beginning of that day when we go through Booneville Kentucky we stopped for gas at Valero and then that BS truck rolled up like no bumpers no license plate no bed looking at us that ain't no Harley not dude he doesn't know what a Harley is like he you know guy no teeth big beard yeah and then this the nice lady who was behind the car was running out screaming because the guy got gas and didn't pay different story I remember that stopped him yeah and then he gave her some money and then he's like that happens every month he gets his check and he comes down and tries to steal gas

Robin: yeah that's messed up that is messed up where I'm trying to Elizabethtown

Travis: oh no dude was that when was that the day that we hit some more rain and then we found that other barbecue place

Robin: I don't remember

Travis: was that day 7

Robin: day 7 is Indiana

Travis: yeah so it must have been day 6 where we we hit some rain and then we found I found that really good barbecue place we stopped

Robin: yes that sounds correct to me

Travis: but where exactly that was I don't really remember

Robin: well the trail takes us to Elizabethtown which is a beautiful city it takes us to a nice place to stay good rooms

Travis: we were all looking for our manic pixie dream girl to turn our lives around but didn't find one

Robin: is it is it where Elizabethtown

Travis: Elizabethtown yeah

Robin: yeah it's a good movie that's from the movie

Travis: yeah yeah okay that's the movie that more or less spawned the manic pixie dream girl

Robin: makes sense

Travis: concept

Robin: yeah

Travis: not initially but it's a good movie

Robin: I'm gonna have to watch that I've not actually seen it I've only heard about it and they mention it in the hotels hi you've reached blah blah blah in Elizabethtown where Hollywood blah or something shabba dab

Travis: did you see that one movie that was filmed there that one time

Robin: yeah it's everything we have so come enjoy the tourism that's all about that we have Elizabethtown world where you can relive the movie in VA VR whatever

Travis: I really hope you can relive the moment where he ties a uh he ducks in case the kitchen knife gets overcome because we're gonna tear it on footstep so what the

Robin: okay now I have to see this flick alright so Elizabethtown Kentucky is our landing place for that day good rest there because it's a nice joint nice hotel good place to stay

Travis: why did I not remember that

Robin: I don't remember I you know it's somewhere in the notes

Travis: I think at that point we were just in the fall so like in that point of the ride

Robin: what else is left yeah no I had that's absolutely it so the next morning the next morning is the grand finale and in my mind that grand finale is the Indiana near the Brown County area still Daniel Boonish the 450-150 combo um however flooding

Travis: oh yeah so we're heading south so they shut down um highway um the

Robin: I think so now Brian Ringer the guest author for the site you look up

Travis: yeah because you're supposed to take Highway 66 but the but the Ohio River had taken up the bridges there's like several of the other roads that were possibly bypasses bridges out around the water

Robin: yep and Brian Ringer guest author for the site look him up on there he's uh he's written some some of the most excellent content our site has seen in a long time about places like Kentucky and such he uh was our what do you call that shout out he was our shout out for uh

Travis: yeah he was like our scout rider goes down there

Robin: he lives in the area and he knows those roads he coordinates a rally there for the GSResources.com which is a Suzuki rally uh he's where we got those routes from for this tour he redirected us so we would stay in the highlands uh got us all around it managed to ride the 450-150 combo had a great day I don't remember where we ate but uh it did rain again which brings up two points that uh will be regularly iterated to sign-ups for this tour number one um do not groupthink is a mistake um groupthink is a it's gonna take away from your experience do not wait for the group to do the thing and look at them hoping that they will if there's something wrong with your ride you need to stop and correct it so that you may continue on in comfort and enjoy the process so that will be regularly iterated um but we did get to ride the 450 combo we arrived at uh it was Nashville, Indiana this place is a little bit under-managed they uh it's a nice hotel lovely pretty they quoted us at a specific price they charged us three times that price I then corrected it after the fact and they were completely cool in Elizabethtown? and then where at? yeah oh Applebee's that's elegant they have like a cool like kind of cool air show with like a big kind of indoor outdoor cool area like big skylights yup and uh paper heifers oh oh oh oh oh goodness things there's there's the poop-deucer yeah UPS man the poop-deucer has detected UPS man our podcast poop-deucer Suki the dog where? ah Lulu incoming our intern is a little bit overzealous about these things what'd you get?

Travis: so you still recording?

Robin: that's alright let's get it done you still recording? I did it? where at? yeah I'm at hour hour 22 well I'll tell you what I've still got mine going that's correct poop-deucer's right you wanna add batteries and do a quick click or something it saved that other one right?

Travis: oh yeah it saved

Robin: that's fine no problem I've been doing a bunch of talking so you may only hear one side of this that's alright I'll try to amplify Trevitron in the background right I'll just hyper compress everything with a sonic limiter yeah I'll just run a limiter super heavy sonic maximizer

Travis: sonic maximizer

Robin: yeah

Travis: limitation photon

Robin: photon torpedoes on stun wait that's a phaser I don't care do it engage you're not Captain Kirk that's right what's where am I at here

Travis: Elizabethtown so we roll into Nashville, Kentucky oh we're talking about like the hotel in Elizabethtown

Robin: yeah hotel in Elizabethtown was nice and then now we're riding the 450 150 up to Nashville Nashville, Indiana the Nashville Inn I don't remember alright well you're battering and then Travis is gonna look that up while I sip this here

Travis: I'm batterer-ian you're batterer-ian

Robin: hit record again I'm live you're live well then you're recording so we're back so we were on our way to Nashville, Indiana the name of the place I don't remember

Travis: I'll get it here in a second if Rider GPS wants to behave

Robin: if you click on the if you click on the the POI point of interest it should have the URL

Travis: the name of the place yeah I just gotta like the Rider GPS doesn't the map is like really unresponsive so I don't know if it's just Google or if it's their server I think it's your computer's CPU no Google Maps works perfectly smooth like if I go on Google Maps like no problem

Robin: ok

Travis: it's Rider GPS's site

Robin: I'll have a chat with them that's a paid service so I'll have a little chit chat

Travis: I'm not paying I'm not

Robin: no no

Travis: I'm on the free version

Robin: that's one of the things that the profits from people visiting the website pays for is our ability to create tours and maps and routes and all that stuff so whatever that hotel is it's nice they overcharged us they didn't mean to they fixed it no big deal there was a Greek place that delivered gyros gyros gyros gyros

Travis: oh yeah Nashville I remember now because Nashville is this weird little tourist trap

Robin: strangely wasn't it Bloomington, Indiana that would have been better

Travis: yeah because Bloomington is like a big college town so this is like Nashville is this little tourist trap and then you go over the hill out of town and there's this inn which is nice it works but kind of pricey for the quality they're going for that kind of B&B where it's like oh your quaint beds are from the 1950s and I'm paying you extra for that experience for some reason

Robin: there's no breakfast or

Travis: and there's only one place that delivers food there and it's the Euro place if they're not too busy

Robin: and I checked the office three times they said they make coffee at a specific hour they are not kidding I wanted my coffee at like 5 o'clock you're not going to get it until 7

Travis: but we had a good time I mean post ride so it was like officially done we went into town cause two one of the riders was on a naked bike and wanted a more comfortable seat solution and so we looked up and there was a couple of motorcycle specific places in town so we went and one is right on the tourist drive and it's just like cheap garbage cruiser bad guy leather costume

Robin: plastic chrome

Travis: yeah it was like these 500 dollar leather jackets marked down to 120 woo and it's like no it was like paper thin leather garbage it smelled nice inside and just packed like a costume shop like you can't even walk in there and every rack is just packed tight and we're like do you guys have like what are the air hock the seat cushions or like skin no we don't actually sell motorcycle stuff we sell leather costumes yeah we sell leather motorcycle leather motorcycle costumes

Robin: well didn't they give you like toot about it they're like come on maybe back in the 90s

Travis: no they were like we used to maybe carry stuff like that but we don't anymore it was like ok fine let's buy it let's go and it was like hot so we're just like ugh novelty shop let's just get out of here and like there's tons of traffic there's some guy on like a on like a busa with with a girl on the back and not wearing any gear and like every stop and there's like a stop sign like every two blocks America

Robin: America America's my helmet like what are you doing jerk just stop being annoying so this brings up now you wouldn't have had to experience that if and this is the other thing that's going from my notes into the likely recommendations for the tour sign ups double check that you'll be able to ride comfortably on your bike on your bike for long periods of time your seat should be comfortable spend the scratch get the custom seat and not the pre-manufactured one go to somebody who knows their stuff

Travis: yeah I mean to the this rider's defense he did have like the aftermarket seat

Robin: he did but those are pre-made

Travis: yeah but it just wasn't I mean better than the stock seat but I mean even I really like my seat and it's still like on those long days like my my butt hurts and I don't know if there's even a solution really for that like cause even the one that I had on the beamer that was custom made for me was really good like you get six hours in and you're done

Robin: six hours of anything sitting down and you're gonna run out of steam anyhow next morning we we headed home I mean that's that's it I don't want to talk about the ride home I just want to say that it was good we stopped somewhere was it in Bloomington we stopped probably we stopped by just to check it out it looked like it was pretty good or somewhere

Travis: some college town we stopped or maybe where's uh Purdue

Robin: it was Purdue it was it was Purdue was that back in Lafayette or something we were on our way it was like the it was a college

Travis: it was a college and we went to like a a nice like a nice kind of brew pub kind of place and got like brunch and it was really good

Robin: it was a good hang and you know everybody seemed happy yeah the weather

Travis: the weather was great and we made the best with like the high flatland crosswinds

Robin: be careful with that thing

Travis: um but uh yeah that was really the thing is like just like you're on Illinois State Road flatland and there's like a 30 mile an hour crosswind and you're just like getting blown around and like you stop like every hour and you're just like it just it just beats you up and makes you tired

Robin: yeah no I will say this just just to really conclude the tour on our way home after the tour was over in no way shape or form did we activate our route in an effort to do our best to find anything twisty technical or challenging

Travis: no it was get home take a shower see our wife

Robin: yeah go home to the go home to the wife

Travis: yeah it's a good way like it fills up your twisty your twisty cup

Robin: I hope you'll join us again we're gonna try to run it in the fall um to my not benefit the opposite to my to my downfall Travis Burleson probably will not be able to make that tour though I would give anything to have him on it again I really would

Travis: yeah unfortunately I have my wife and I are

Robin: let's talk about that for a second let's go there so let's be optimistic here for a second now um we'll use this as the intro for Tim's part of the next podcast Travis what do you want to tell the world man

Travis: oh yeah so my wife and I are expecting twins twins so I'm gonna be busy

Robin: so again when I started this website I really wanted to make a life of it um even if you don't like the name I don't care we'll change it eventually but this is the this is the world that we want to live in and you visiting your this website you listening to our podcast uh you clicking a link to Amazon or some crap and buying something that that helps us you want to donate we welcome that you can donate to uh donate what is it well more on that soon um but this episode of the Writing Obsession podcast has been brought to you by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin where they uh use local overstocked produce to give you a quick tasty breakfast and we are also looking for sponsors for this podcast uh we are sponsored given three uh advertised designated things in the episode at the beginning the middle and the end and uh that helps us buy better recording equipment it helps us pay our mortgage everything you need uh everything we need to produce this information so uh those of you who don't want to donate if you're into writing visit the website and look for the link on the right hand side of any given page it'll say write about

Travis: do you want to be a moto journalist

Robin: be a motorcycle journalist help us out uh thewritingobsession.com would like to expand and become something bigger, more beautiful and more lucrative yes because hey money is not the worst thing in the world it's just the thing that is worst in the world anyhow um for thewritingobsession.com I'm Robin Deem I'm Travis Burleson sign up for our Trip7s tour for fall I haven't listed it yet but do and uh no matter what safe travels everyone and Travis congratulations