Robin: this is the first weekly episode of TROs Podcast, and we're going to kick back, spend some time together and look at how we're gonna execute this plan on a weekly basis. And, Onto our first segment stuff. Our listeners might ask us if we had any listeners.

Brian: It's so harsh, man.

Robin: Wow. So this is Brian's baby and he's in charge of the segments and he knows us

Brian: well. Yeah, and these are developed from things that I've heard people ask, uh, I've encountered, uh, and so I'm just making it up until, you know, we get some questions. So if you don't like this, send in some questions. We'll be happy to answer. Um, one that's kind of interesting to think about is, you know, uh, uh, we'll pretend this is from, uh, max who lives in, uh, Albuquerque, and he says, I want to cover maximum ground without wasting two hours of each day, hunkered around in a breakfast, eating breakfast and lunch. So what are some ways that we can. You can, you can stuff in the calories that you need for the day to get through the day and, and, you know, ride fast and shift a lot. And without having to spend a lot of time, you know, looking at menus, waiting on waitresses, calculating tips, you know, going to ATMs, that kind of thing. Are, are the roller dogs in the gas stations ever a good idea?

Robin: That is so brave. Just a, a hero among riders to eat the last remaining breakfast sandwich at two in the afternoon.

Brian: Oh, yeah, that, that, that's rubbery. I tell you

Robin: what. Think about the gas stations that when you arrive, does this look clean? You know, does this place look like it's been restocked recently?

Brian: Does this look infected? And, uh, you know, and, and there's a, there's, there's a smart ass answer. And there's, there's some real answers to this too. Now, one thing you can say is if you are in a very, very rural area, which we like to be in, because that's where all the good stuff is, um, the local gas station is honestly a really good place to grab a breakfast sandwich. In the morning, because these people are farmers. These people are hunters. They're out there, they're in the wilderness doing their thing. We're out there doing our thing. Hey, you know, the breakfast is usually a pretty solid, uh, if you're in the middle of nowhere and you're at a gas station. Now, if you're, you know, if you're on the outskirts of, uh, Chicago or something, uh, You know, good luck. I don't know what to tell you, but, uh, so honestly, yeah, if you want a fast breakfast meet up, make sure everybody gets, I mean, make sure everybody fills their damn tank, which is another pet peeve. But anyway, make sure everybody's filled up. Make sure everybody fills their guts. Make sure everybody, you know, uh, eliminates what they need to eliminate. And then you can hit the road a lot faster than hanging around at McDonald's or hanging around, uh, you know, uh, uh, flows diner or something.

Robin: That's one of the things I learned early on that I actually added to TROs. Pretor discussion of sorts. More of a dictatorship, but to explain, always do what the ride leader is doing. If they pull up to the pump, it may be a while before the next gas stop. So fuel up even if you're three quarters of a tank, right? If they go into pee, go do the same. If they buy a sandwich, you got a little time in breathing room. It doesn't mean you can't hustle a little bit, but the point is we're gonna take a breather and get some leg stretching going

Brian: on. Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing, you know? Um, and even, you know, like later in the day, like breakfast in the middle of nowhere at a gas station is usually a pretty good bet, but like later in the day, you know, like, you know, do you, do you get a lunch? Do you get a snack? You know, and sometimes the ride leader knows, uh, if they've been there before. Sometimes they don't. Um, but yeah, again, eight, you know, Do, do what? Do what the leader does, you know, and, and ask questions too. You know, it's not like you have to just silently follow. Um, and, you know, I've had some of the best lunches in my life at a gas station, you know, like from, you know, home, you know, huge slabs of homemade ham on a, on a big homemade roll, you know, that kind of thing. But, um, I've also had some, you know, horrible stuff going on. Um, So if you're really stuck, like, you know, like if you're, you're, if you're in someplace horrible like a city, uh, you can, like, you can always, you know, you can always get a bag of peanuts. You can always get like a, a hunk of cheese. You know, you can always, you know, but you know, as long as you don't like live on this stuff 24 7, you're gonna get a little dose of energy, you know, get a candy bar,

Robin: you know? Yeah. So long as you don't sweat cheese. Then you're gonna

Brian: be all right. Yeah. As long, as long as you're not getting that orange oil, cheese, uh, cheese, sweat, you know?

Robin: Um, I'm gonna blend this into your next question then too. That's, these are from nobody but us. I love this. What do we wanna call the person who asked it?

Brian: Uh, Fred. Fred Fred's a good, solid

Robin: name. So a couple of guys I ride with are smokers, and it seems we spend way too much time lurking around grubby gas stations while they suck butts. How can we keep the show on the road without causing nicotine fit? I say combine the two solutions if you're stopped, have them eat the cigarettes.

Brian: Oh, very devious. Very devious.

Robin: Yes. Yeah. I'm just, I'm multitasking here. Multitasking. Yeah.

Brian: There you go. Yeah. They want to, you know, they wanna, they wanna suck on their cancer sticks. Um, you know, it's up to them to set their own priorities, but, uh, yeah. Um, and I. And I'll, and, and, and the, the real answer to that question, not that we want to give a the real answer is ignore them. Just, you know, it's not your responsibility. If they're throwing away a cig, what does cigarettes cost now? I don't even know. Like they're like a dollar

Robin: each. You know, it's like 30 bucks for a pack or some noise. Yeah. It depends on where you're, yeah, but I mean, yeah, in college it was two bucks a pack. It went up a quarter. We freaked out. I was in Chicago. Yeah, I think right when I quit smoking, it was about four or five bucks and now it was up to 10.

Brian: Yeah, those are 2015 prices. Yeah, when it's time to leave, just leave and let them figure it out. Uh, the, you know, they might have to, they might have to toss a couple of, you know, $3 cigarettes or whatever they are, but, uh, they'll figure it out and uh, that's brutal and it's harsh, but it's how it has to be. Or you're gonna sit around because. If you have two or more, they get outta sync and so he'll, oh yeah Guy, you know, guy A will like, he'll suck down one and he'll be okay and then he'll see guy two still smoking cuz he is slower, you know, his smaller lungs or something. Now, did you ever smoke?

Robin: No. Okay. So, I mean, I've got empathy for you. It's an addiction. I, I smoked for many years, right? Uh, yeah. I wanna say it was two years. Two years. 10 packs a day, but I think that's backwards. So we'll go with 10 years for a pack or so. A day. Definitely more reali uh, realistic. But yeah, I, I, it's not a lack of empathy. It's a lack of you guys getting your act together. We're not there for you. So if we do leave, you can part of the question. Suck each other's butts.

Brian: We're out. Excellent, excellent advice. Okay. Yeah. And we don't need to burn all these in one episode, but you

Robin: know, anyway. No, not at all. What do, this is your show. What do you wanna do

Brian: next? Let's try a little bit of Uncle Brian's tiny tasty tool tips. Now these are little, tiny tips about your tool sidebar. They're tasty. So let's try this out. Let's try one. Here's one that nobody thinks of, but it will save the day. You'll, you'll make friends, you'll, you will win over enemies, you will gain influence. And that's simply just carry some nuts and bolts, you know, carry some metric. You know, most of the time we're all writing, most of the, most of us are riding metric bikes. Yeah. But carry, you know, carries from six millimeter, eight millimeter nuts and bolts. Carry a few cotter pins, carry a few. Um, Um, you know, maybe even a 10 millimeter nut if you're feeling frisk or something like that. And this is a simple thing. Nobody ever does it. Uh, there's only one guy who ever has nuts and bolts, and that's me usually. Uh, and it has saved the day, time and time again, and it doesn't take up much space, takes up very little weight and feel like a rockstar for, you know, that 30 seconds that

Robin: it takes for safety. Keep your 10 millimeter in your underwear.

Brian: Excellent idea. Excellent

Robin: idea, sir. Okay, now the next heading. It's that guy and I literally just typed that guy into my newest article that I'm writing about an Idaho route that I just wrote. It's the only tag on the entire t r website. There are no tags on that site. The only. Uh, the rest is mostly category, right? So you have content category and then subcategories, and then the article you're looking for. The only tag on the entire t r o server is that guy, and I was just right about this. I think that we need not look at these questions yet. I think that if we're gonna introduce this topic, you and I need to admit in short form each of our most glowing memory of a that guy moment that we created for ourselves. You wanna go first or you want me to?

Brian: I've got one. Um, that's the dumbest shit ever do. I recall. You know, swimming lines, swimming lines. It doesn't matter where we are, but hey, we were in Wisconsin and um, so I came out and my bike wouldn't start. My bike wouldn't start. My bike wouldn't start. Oh my God. Oh my God. Um, and you know, there were several people that had to leave, had to get back to Chicago, had to get back to Indiana and Illinois, blah, blah, blah. Um, And I'm gonna just skip ahead here about an hour and a half. Uh, I took apart probably half of my motorcycle and I had wires and I had testers, and I had, uh, you know, little pinchy, uh, clips everywhere. And I, and, and, and a lot of you probably know where this is going. And, and I know, and I, I modified the wiring on my bike. I, I like, Bypass the kickstand switch. I bypassed the clutch. You know, I was like doing surgery, I was actually doing stuff. I was creating scars on my bike. And as you all know by now sitting here when I didn't know because I was in a state of near panic, uh, you know, some. Some happy, whatever person who I don't wanna speculate about had, uh, just flipped the, uh, kill switch on the bike. That's all. It's not something I do by habit on that bike. So someone had flipped the kill switch and it's not Yeah, and it was a Suzuki, so you flipped the kill switch and nothing works. Um, yeah, and I, I got a Yamaha not long ago and, and it, it's a genius thing where the, the kill switch is actually also your start button. So you cannot do this. So you cannot meet that guy and, and, and take an hour and a half to take apart your bike apart and another half hour to put the damn thing back together, put all the luggage back on.

Robin: So they've already gone through all the motions to make sure that when the cutoff switch is engaged, there is no connection to the battery whatsoever. There are some bikes where that can happen, where there's some, you know, well

Brian: like the, like the, the key will come on and you'll see the dash light on the Suzukis. But, uh, you, you'll get nothing from the start button and you'll get no, you know. So that's a rocker switch, right? Yeah. On the Yamaha, the, um, the, the kill switch, it's actually a rocker switch. So one way is kill and the other way is start.

Robin: Yeah, my beamer's like that.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's sheer genius. I had no idea this existed. Um, so yeah, I was that guy. You know, probably a solid two hours out of a, a very shortfall day where wasted on this and like no one ever fessed up and I'm kind of glad they didn't, cuz it would still be awkward years later. So there's

Robin: that guy. Nice. Well, before I tell mine that, I need to make sure that I say something that I'm gonna probably keep in every episode before we go into that guy discussions. And this is read, this is the description, the the descriptive text for Joe Nardi. Joe Con's. Write up about what it is to be that guy. And this is what you would see in Google if you looked it up. It goes like this. I gotta say this just right, just like the side effects commercial. It's gotta be like the side effects commercial. Okay. So slowly it's only one person can hold the that guy title at any given time. That person will retain said title until someone else has a that guy experience. And here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Only one person can hold the that guy experience at any given time. That person will retain said title until someone else has a that guy experience. So, all right, well, mine goes like this since Brian just really made a, a strong case for something I have done to somebody that I didn't realize that that was a thing with them. I don't know that it was you, but I think I did do it to somebody else in the group. Probably somebody who deserved it, probably, probably a friend, a mutual friend we have not talked to in a long time. Uh, but at any rate, I do remember. On a 1982 Yamaha, RJ Seka, uh, 400, what was that thing? The exact, I don't, I don't even remember. Seka for RJ R and J's. Seka 400 cc's first bike and some saddlebag overpack to the gills, some Shanko tires at the time. Uh, you know, I didn't know that, you know, for anybody listening to this, As the tires wear down, they become softer very quickly and softer more, very quickly. Or ro so somebody walks up and he, he pulls up next to me and he's like, I think you got some duct tape on your tire. In rural remote, Wisconsin with nobody around anywhere. And I dunno if I was following you or if I was calling Greg or following Conrad, but either way, I had taken out about 10 inches of remaining tread down to the belts and inch wide. So immediately the day had changed. I obtained my title with pride and I kept my chin up the entire time. No more bad wording was, yeah, my attitude shifted very quickly. Very quickly. So there, that's my bad guy story. Brian Ringer. How do you feel about helping me solve a conundrum that has already been solved once before when we tried to record this episode, but we'll look at it again and see if we can better our

Brian: efforts. I would love to help you solve your conundrum, sir.

Robin: I'm gonna share a desktop array. All right. Right. Uh, so Rob with gps.com. Ride with gps.com. Let me log in. Simple as that. I'm gonna jump to Routes and Ladies and Germs. Originally our plan was going to be, To make this entire weekly episode about perfecting loop routes and maps and things like that, we're doing it cameras off so that whatever Brian says, whatever I say, we have to forcibly be descriptive to keep this entertaining for y'all or tell stories and anecdotes in between. Uh, as it turns out, we managed to get the entire episode done in about five to 10 minutes, so we decided to revisit the situation. Here's what we did first was okay. As you're listening to this, whatever the publishing date of this episode is, trip Sevens is officially scheduled. We only have one spot left. That's gonna be June, I think, June 8th, through the 16th of 2024. So, One thing I've found, some people can't get enough. You know, we set a base limit of 250 miles per day. This is a good base limit. I like to ride about 225 to 275 miles a day. And then my knees, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to keep it sexy on a sport bike. My knees start to complain about it, and so I, I'm pretty much ready to kind of take a break at that point, however, That doesn't change the fact that we've got some real troopers. My co-host here is actually one of them, and they might get to a destination and rather than saying, well, that's not enough. The better plan is, why don't we give them more and they can go right at themselves. So last episode, Brian and I kind of came up with a day one loop that if anybody hasn't had enough mileage, they can go ride. On their own. And I'm looking at it right now, and actually I don't think I wanna change

Brian: anything. Yeah, we can talk through it and, and talk about the choices that we made here and why and, and maybe that will be of interest. So. The only thing

Robin: that I noticed about it was it started getting real exciting, really quick, and then we just wanted to keep on going. We wanted to go see, we were gonna, let's just keep on following this thing, do this direction. And then we counted the miles and we were up to, you know, some insane unusable amount of, of miles.

Brian: Yeah. It where we're starting, uh, Parkersburg, West Virginia. It's right across the river from Ohio. Um, and this is in, uh, this is in a really wrinkly, hilly area. Um, and so we started looking at it like, okay, if you're in Parkersburg, but you haven't had quite enough, you know, what would you want to do? And, and the other thing to think about for these types of problems is what, um, the other thing we want to think about for these types of problems is we want to give people options like, You know, maybe they get out 50 miles and they're like, you know, that's enough. Or maybe they get out 75 miles, or maybe they're just the red-eyed, slobbering, nail biting, redness,

Robin: descending, gimme the curves.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and so give them, you know, here's, here's more than enough for you to satisfy your, your evil thirst. So, um, So one of the things, yeah. So one of the things we started to do with this is, is try to is, is, is had that idea in mind. You wanna give people a lot of options. Uh, and if they have a GPS on their handlebars of some sort, uh, whether it's a phone or whatever, uh, they're going to be able to see those options and make those choices. Um, They're, they're gonna be riding on their own. They're not gonna be led through things. You know, they're not gonna be wondering, you know, how long, how much longer does this go on? I'm tired. My, my knees hurt. Um, and

Robin: they're also not gonna have the screen duct tape to their face. There are a lot of people that I listen to that are like, I don't need any distractions. I just need the sunset and my American bandana, cuz America is my helmet. But the fact is that if you can look down while stopped in a safe location, you can tell where you are. You can find your way back when you're done.

Brian: And these. And these also stick to numbered routes. So you can take a grease pencil and write down some numbers on your tank or your windshield or something. I mean, it's not complicated. Um, and if you decide, you know, hell with this, I'm done. You know. So one thing, one thing I always start with is, uh, I, I switch, uh, whatever I'm using for mapping, right, a GPS or whatever, I switch to the topographic, uh, view and I look for all the wrinkles. I look for the most wrinkled areas, and in this case, um, You actually see a lot. There's actually a lot more, plus there are roads that follow the wrinkles across the river in Ohio. Uh, West Virginia tends to have a lot of gravel roads and we're trying to stick to pavement for this in this, in this case. So anyway, yeah, where we started, uh, what's that road? I can't read it. It's 26 or something that we,

Robin: they always cover the line, the number up with the line. It's a crack up. So it takes seven Ohio, seven by the river out. Do northeast towards Marietta, I think. And then we pick up 26 and then it just goes all haywire. Yeah.

Brian: And 26 looks and, and I'm sure it is. I I don't think I've been on that one. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's nuts. It's great. It's what you're for. It's silly. You're gonna, so basically, You know, you're gonna find your dealer, you're gonna get that in your veins right now. You're gonna, you're gonna get right out of town. You're gonna cross that interstate and it's gonna get crazy. And so that's, you know, that's what we want. Someone who's, and again, you think about that state of mind, you know, you've had a day of twisties and so forth, and you're raring to go for some more. Here it is. Boom. You know, as soon as you, as soon as you get past the last McDonald's, you're on it. It's gonna be great. And then, um, if the day

Robin: felt short,

Brian: make it tall. Make a good way to put it. What we do is we go, we basically head north, uh, northeast out of, out of Parkersburg through Marietta, and then it gets crazy and we keep heading northeast and then we basically go back and forth up and down out of the river valley. And so that's another nice trick is when you have a lot of elevation changes and your near a river valley, like the Ohio River, uh, Scribble in and out as many times as you, as you possibly can before you fall over an exhaustion. And it's gonna be a guaranteed good time.

Robin: That is pretty cool. You have a constant return to a major artery that gets you directly back home. And if you're like, you know what, I, I can do another one, let's, let's do another one. Then you continue onward and we, maybe we haven't perfected this one, but you know what we have that we didn't have before. We have a bonus loop and it's a damn good one. So that's pretty. Baller. I'm pretty happy about that.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And the, you know, and. And what's cool about this, um, and again, you kind of have this strategy, like there's an area where you, the loops kind of go real close together. And so it's, it's really obvious, like if someone's done or they, or they're just whatever and they want to head back and. So basically you can head back to the river and there's a river road on both sides of the river, which, you know, the Ohio. The Ohio is a major one, and most of 'em are this way. In the US at least, there's gonna be a road on either side of the river and it's gonna be very, very scenic. But also, shall we say, more relaxed. So when you're done looping and looping around, and we're not gonna go into, you know, I don't know if you want to go into all the detail of, you know, 26 and then you get on two 60 and then 5 37 and, and you know, you basically, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. It's an unrealistic amount of miles cuz you'd have like a 450, 4, 500 mile day if you did this. Plus the. The ride to get there. But the point is you've got a lot of options.

Robin: If you did the whole thing, we'd have to question your sanity, but the access to it is always there. I think we'd be questioning your sanity as well, at being ridiculously impressed and yeah, it's a spaghetti bowl. What is interesting to me about this is you were talking about the topographic maps, and I'm gonna start using those a little bit more often too. I also like the hybrid satellite view, just cuz it gives me a sense of what, uh, If you see a pile of establishments in the middle of anything, it might be like a ski resort if you're in a major big state of something like that. But what you're doing is, you know, why is this, I dunno if you can see my cursor here, but as I'm circling around this, yes. This stands out as a mushy, you called it mushy when we first tried to record this, which I like. Why is it greener than the other, you know, sort of aqua green around it.

Brian: Yeah, I don't know. I, I honestly could not tell you what the, cuz I think it may be like a US uh, a US or state forest area. And these are, you know, like, like they're areas that have towns in them and so forth. But basically the land is, is, you know, is, is being slowly purchased and you know, is, is. They're trying to keep it, uh, in some state of pristine, whatever. But it's

Robin: pretty disgusting, isn't it? You know, like I, I've been hearing stories about places like Bozeman, Montana, where it used to be nowhere, and now it's somebody who, with influence said that's what they like, and now it's what everybody apparently has to like, so they wanna build, they wanna tear down, they wanna build, they wanna tear down, and then there's no. Space left. It's like, honestly, I've had this discussion before. Get an old beater house. Fix it up. Shut up. I don't know where I can go to be alone anymore if people keep on taking on the hipster vibe.

Brian: Yeah. And this, and like this area is a good example of one and, and, and also this whole area of West Virginia and so forth is, it's kind of like there's, there's not a lot of macro features to the landscape. Um, you until you get further south, you know, and you know, like when you're talking about day two and so forth, then you're talking about some real Appalachian ridges and stuff like

Robin: that. It's crazy. Day two is one of the routes that we are not like, I don't have any changes I wanna make to it. I'm actually considering changes with day one. We already have, day one is the only day of our Trip Sevens tour where I discuss options in terms of the hardest route isn't the default. So the default route is the triple nickel, which is a wonderful ride. It's very curvy. It's a, it's a good time. It really is. I'm looking at it right now. It's like, Tons of curves in it. It's a little bit more high traffic, but the alternative that we have is some 300 plus miles. I might down it a little bit, but 300 plus miles of how you manage to create the physics that would allow a curve to be decreasing radius in both directions. It seems impossible, but Ohio has done it so. Having told that joke a thousand fold, it's like, I don't know, maybe I'll edit it down to being the priority one, but the nickel is more like a warmup. Anyhow. I'll probably ask everybody at the beginning every time, but the first two days it's like, yeah, you're talking about West Virginia, man. We got that one pegged actually. You want me to load that up? Alright.

Brian: One more thing to say about this. This one here, uh, we'd mentioned earlier, uh, basically the return to home base is along the river, you know, to let people Yes. Calm down a little bit. Uh, and also you're gonna be, you're gonna be shagged, you know, depending on how greedy you get. You know, like I tend to get really super greedy. Uh, it's, you know, it's, it's a fault. Uh, and, and, So basically the return is, is, is kind of along the river. It's, it's gentler. It's a little more open. Uh, probably a little more travel, to be honest. Cool Water.

Robin: Cool

Brian: breeze. Cool breeze. Uh, there's gonna be, and there's a, there's a nice, there's a cool bridge in the middle, that kind of thing. And that was deliberate, you know, like, You know, if you run it, uh, clockwise, then basically you're gonna have a chance to calm down. You're gonna have a chance, you know, to get back to home base with an interesting ride that's not as challenging. Uh, and it's gonna be a little bit safer. I think when people are, are kind of shagged at the end of the day. You kind of hooked it up. There's

Robin: a gas station before the bridge too, so they can gas up before the next morning, before they arrive.

Brian: Yeah, there's always a, there you go. Heck yeah. That's kind of what we think about and how you create these, you know, you create these experiences, you think about the state of mind, you know, what is this, you know, if, if, if somebody is dumb enough to go try to ride this, if they're man enough or whatever, you know, what, what, what are they looking for? And, and, you know, and, and basically give them a lot of options. Give them, give them a warmup and a cool down, or just throw 'em in the deep end, that kind of thing. Good thinking.

Robin: What do we wanna talk about

Brian: next? So we could do another route since that's kind of, I, I think maybe to an episode. Oh, I like it. Like we, we could stay in Parkersburg and we could go the other direction. We haven't talked about this yet, so there's, there's a couple things we could do. We could do another, another loop from Parkersburg doing something else, uh, which would be, you know, like could go go south and so forth. Or we could do another loop that is, I want to have a nice relaxing. Like someone who's, so we, we've put together a route for the, for the slobbering addict, you know, for the, for the fiend. You know, the, and what, you know, uh, you know, what if, uh, someone wants, you know, I want to go out and have a nice little buzz around, um, or like 75 miles or something like that. So maybe, maybe we can put together something like that and talk about that. I think

Robin: we should do it. We won't likely do that in the future, but we should talk about it so that people understand how, the reason being is that we already have our escape routes in place and they are beautiful. Okay, so here is all, I'll switch to the train so you can see it. That's true. This is the entire trip Sevens escape route. Every, the whole thing, all seven days. And this is where we would usually stay. It goes to the forest and the river and it kind of, oh yeah. It, it's pretty, and it's, it's calm and it's pretty and it's calm, you know, repeat. Yeah. Or if they wanted to, they could just follow the river. Yeah. But talk about the, the philosophy, the theory, the methodology behind it. That's the real key to this.

Brian: Your escape routes are basically less technical routes that are a little more maybe, you know, that are fun and so forth, but not like a Okay.

Robin: Yeah. I might have scenic. Let me double check if I have scenic too. But keep going. I'm listening. I

Brian: see like a really cool valley there and back from Parkersburg that I think we could talk about. That could be a, a kind of an interesting, if you look at, um, if you look at 47 and 14 out of, uh, Parkersburg, Yep. And you see how they straddle a valley. I'm

Robin: about to. So let me enter this in here right now, Parkersburg, just enter that into ride with gps@ridewithgps.com. I'm gonna click start route here. I'm gonna switch to Brian Mode. Terrain mode That is, and now I'm going to, we

Brian: wanna see the lumps.

Robin: Yes. So here I am zoomed out. We're, uh, we're starting dead center Parkersburg. I'm in add to route mode, and which road am I looking for?

Brian: Okay, so if you look, if you look southeast of Parkersburg and, and, and you're on a, a topographical map, you can see there are two roads that that straddle a valley. And so if we wanna plan a ride that's really super scenic, what you're looking for is contrast, and you're looking for sight lines. So if you're looking at 47. To 53, to 47 and 14 straddle this really what's, I'm sure it's a gorgeous valley. I mean, I've never been there. That is amazing. So the idea here is you have those contrasts and so when you're going down 47, you could see across the valley to 14 and see the hills, uh, you know, on farms and there's a river. And it's just, you know, so, you know, like even if you've never been there, you can envision this is gonna be really cool. And then there's, and it's gonna be, there's plenty of twisties. Yeah, there you go. And that is nice. And so you come back up, uh, 14 to Parkersburg. I don't know how many miles that is. And uh, well

Robin: let's catch the listeners up cuz this'll get confusing real quick. The idea is that we took 47 due southeast, 2 53, make a R onto 53, which is still just valleys and rivers and creeks. Over to

Brian: 14 what?

Robin: 14 and Elizabeth. Here's another question I was gonna bring up. I, I think I know the answer to this, but it's something I feel like people might like to know. The circular numbered roads that is a state route, if I'm not mistaken, right? So State Route 14. Yes. All right. It's state Route 47 down to please hold for Robin Frying Brain down to Street Route 53. And then back due northwest by way of state Route 14 into town. And we've already managed to make, you know, an extra, you know, a little 45, 45 minute or 45 mile route there. You know, we can keep going too if we want. Yeah, like there's, you

Brian: see, there's a little, uh, see there's a little white line hanging off a 14 and going kind of around town. Uhhuh, well, hold on,

Robin: let me, lemme zoom it out here. Checking it out. Where's that? Which number is it? Petty road. Petty

Brian: road. Okay. So you're, you're almost in town. Yep. Oh, I see it. And then that could, that could get you closer. So, so yeah, the whole, the whole point is, um, okay. We're like, oh, that's a, that looks like a nice valley on the top of, and then you can, uh, yeah. Then you can, um, uh, You know, you know, you know it's gonna be scenic, it's gonna be a less technical ride. So this is gonna be a good option for the people who aren't the, you know, the red eyed nail biting, you know, tracks in their arms curve attics, you know that? Yeah, that can't get enough. Uh, this is gonna be a nice relaxing ride. And what do we got? Like 55, 60 miles. Perfect. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. I like this. I'm actually gonna save this as, uh, 7 77. Uh, probably it's better if I type in the keyboard that's actually connected. Is that how that works? Usually 7 77 dash day, one dash bonus. Loop parentheses, scenic. All right. And make this private cause you gotta pay folks. You gotta pay for this stuff. You gotta pay for this stuff. Save. Pretty cool man.

Brian: Robin's all

Robin: about the Benjamin's. It's all about the monies. You got quarters. I'll take the quarters I need. I got laundry. I got laundry to

Brian: do. Here's another one of Uncle Brian's tiny tasty tool tips. They're tiny, they're tasty, and they're about tools.

Robin: This time you mentioned Tasty. You didn't mention Tasty last time. Do you realize what it takes for me to edit these things? Brian, do you even think about me? Brian? Do you even know Brian has saved my butt so many times. Nuts and bolts, man, all day.

Brian: Nuts and bolts. So yeah, we talked about nuts and bolts. Let's talk about something else. All right. I ride like all my bikes are Japanese bikes cuz I'm like poor or something. And, um, we're metric centric. Yeah, metric centric. And I happen to ride sometimes with, with Eurotrash. You ride those Eurotrash bikes, you know the German stuff.

Robin: Austrian stuff. What? I see what you're doing. I can, I'm right here. You do know that I'm right here next to you. Right.

Brian: Uh, you're right here. You're right here. I can smell you.

Robin: Um, I can, I can hear you. It

Brian: hurts. Hear what I'm talking about. But yeah, I'm glad they're slumming around with me and my, you know, my poor little reliable Japanese bikes. But, uh, anyway, the point, and I do have one. The point is, um, I also, I like, I carry stuff that is not necessarily all just stuff I need for my bikes. Uh, you know, like, you know, the 8, 10, 12, whatever I actually carry, I. Some stuff that fits other people's bikes because I'm nice. I'm nice that way. I, I'm a giver, I'm a helper. Uh, so I have like things like torques bits that the, you know, that these German and Austrian and, and, and English bikes need.

Robin: What are you, oh, well you're not talking about me anymore then.

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's them, you know, so stuff like torques bits, you know, they take up very little space and they may help a guy, you know, whatever. They may help somebody somewhere. So I, I carry 'em. Um, and things like, uh, I also carry a 13 millimeter socket and a car, 13 millimeter wrench. Uh, there are no 13 millimeters on Japanese bikes, but there are on, you know, on a lot of the Euro trash. If you happen to run across somebody on a Harley, uh, it's close enough to a half inch to probably get them some help. I don't know.

Robin: I wanna apologize to my fellow BMW riders for Brian's behavior on this episode. His phone number, if you'd like to call him, is. It's not quite

Brian: racist, is it? It's, uh, something poor elitism.

Robin: Yeah. We both like Suzuki and people think that's like the discount Honda, which I call bullshit on. I don't think that's real. Yeah. But I, I love Suzuki, but they do make an affordable buy. It's the right purchase.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and things like, uh, and like another thing I do is like, uh, even like if I'm on my kr, it's got tube tires, I still have my tubeless patch kit with me. Because, you know, the thing is with tools and so forth, uh, you know more than half the time you're, you're, you're dealing with somebody else's stuff, you know, busted bikes, so, Um, and the other thing is it also helps, you know, I have one toolkit. I just move between bikes and so I don't have to think about what I need to take in and what I need to take out. So I have tire irons when I'm riding a bike with tubeless tires and when I'm riding a bike with tube tires, yeah, I've got a tubeless, uh, you know, plug kit or, uh, the, the sticky string kit.

Robin: You know, it'd be a good idea for next episode. Go to your packing list. The thing that you always pack, the things you always have, you're going to the rally, you know you might need 'em and you bring them itemize that. Cuz I won't do a compare and contrast. So I've got mine already set up on the site. Don't look at it, you know, let's have some fun with it. We'll go down the list of the tools and bits and I can,

Brian: yeah,

Robin: one of my favorite lines I've ever heard, and I had the things that were, were needed that day. So did you, we kind of had a combined effort, but I handed you my tool bag. It's not a tool roll, it's a tool bag. And you looked at me and you said the bag. A greasy, oily mess of, of hardware nuggets that might get you rolling again, if you're lucky.

Brian: There's more topics we can talk about if you want to. Uh, like we can, like for example, we can debate how much gravel is too much gravel for a street ride, and you will probably have more input because you've ridden with more strangers than I have. Yeah. Or is that a whole episode?

Robin: It's gonna be a lengthy discussion. I think we'll save that for next round. But what we can do right now to wrap this one up, before we get into the concluding statements, what we'll do is, uh, I'll share my screen again. We won't plan another route, but what we will do, I will start the planning process. For Warm Springs, Virginia, for the bonus lap at that location

Brian: are the springs warm? Cuz the hot springs are, are a little bit, a few miles away.

Robin: You know what, Brian? They don't return my calls anymore cuz the questions like that right

Brian: there. And where are the cold springs?

Robin: Can you, can you tell me where the, the Intolerably Uncomfortable Springs are? I would like to, I'm not tense enough. I'd

Brian: like to, yeah, I'd like the Soapy

Robin: Springs. Yeah. That's in Shrinkage Springs. Where, where are

Brian: those springs with the, with the monkeys in them, or is, is that in Japan? Well,

Robin: you'd have to ask Tim about monkeys. Where are the monkeys? He only arrives back from a tour on his monkey once a month, so he'll be in the monthly episodes. Here's warm springs on the shared screen. Yep. And the real trick to this setup is we will plan a loop in Warm springs next week, but the real issue. Is that after Warm Springs, whether you approve of this logic or not, the tour is called 7 77, trip Sevens is the name of the tour because it's seven riders, seven states, seven days, and quite frankly, the beautiful writing we do after Warm Springs. Yeah, it's beautiful, but it's a little bit short-lived because. We end up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and I don't wanna ride the Blue Ridge Parkway. No. So that would be day three. Okay. So the Blue Ridge Parkway is part of the optionals, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Lighter. B R P. I'm looking for day three. Default. I don't know that I have one, so I'll just load up the beast. So we're gonna load up the big trip sevens entire map for a peak here. The full route perfected as it stands, the best version of the this entire seven day extravaganza currently loading. Here it is. Look at that. Boom. Here's the monster, right? So Warm Springs, that's, that's where at? Somewhere up here. Warm Springs, Virginia. This is West Virginia. I can't even see over my own icons there. It's warm springs cuz there's the food

Brian: and the, the. Well, yeah, the, the hot springs are right down the road, so that's easy to find. Yeah. I'm,

Robin: I'm getting, I'm getting very, very frustrated, man. Could you please, could you please, could you please, we take this six 60 whatever here, and it, it's lovely, right? But if Warm Springs is the 500 mile mark for the first. For this leg of the tors so far, eventually, I mean, I'm looking for it. I know that moniker is out there where it's gonna say, Hey, guess what? It's time for the Blue Parkway. And it's like, yeah, okay. 45 miles an hour for the day. I guess it is. Yeah. Actually, this doesn't look as bad, but I know it happens. And while I'm scrolling and making you nauseous here, know that the goal is to avoid that. This has gotta be where we start, right around here. And, uh, PHEM. Nope, that's 40, huh? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I got this completely wrong. See, this has gotta be a, a real pleasure for the listener. Here it is. Here we are. So the Blue Ridge Parkway is up to 760 marks. So we do 160 miles, and then it gets really Blue Ridge centric. Okay. Yeah, I

Brian: got it. We'll work

Robin: on that. It looks like maybe I avoid it for a minute. I did something new.

Brian: Well, yeah, the Blue Ridge Parkway starts basically if you go straight south from Warm Springs and Hot Springs, um, it kind of starts there. So you guys kick into it, uh, further down the line there. Got it. Okay. So

Robin: 210 miles of the goods and West Virginia does have the goods, and then the rest of the day is the b r p down into where we're gonna stay for the night. And I, I mean, maybe that's not so bad. But I'll tell you what, man, it's a lot of b r p, not sure what to do about that. So let's let that sort of simmer for the incredible amount of money we're making. It's the least you can do is, you know, process this diligently, dedicatedly, no attention put anywhere else, uh, other than this amazing podcast. Absolutely. That has tens Brian, tens of listeners. With that, I'll stop sharing my screen. Let's do the concluding bit. That's

Brian: our episode for this week. Tune in next week for more discussion on planning killers, sport touring rides, and other topics specific to sport touring. There may even be more Tom Foolery and Jack and Apes for the Riding Obsession. I'm Brian Ringer. And I'm Robin Dean. Safe travels everyone.