Robin: Hey Brian, how have you been? I feel like we haven't spent the past 30 minutes together, you know, recording our interview because they are off celebrating their anniversary. That's a non-reality. So how you been, dude? Tell me what's going on.

Brian: I've been great. Did about 400 miles yesterday. I did a scouting ride. Got your email. Meant to thank you for that. Oh God, it's there's some cool stuff down there. I think you're going, I think I made some radical changes, but I think you'll like it. I don't know. We'll see.

Robin: This episode is going to be a sorting process is what's going to happen.

Brian: Yeah. And yeah, but it ended up being like a 400 mile day. So I'm a little, little, little sore in the old keister, but that's all right. That's, that's how you, that's how you get, that's how you get your butt tough, man.

Robin: Let's kick things right into gear. All right. Let's talk about stuff. Our listeners might ask us if we had any listeners.

Brian: All right. And if you are a listener, if you'd like us to field your question or just talk about it, email podcast at TRO dot bike. Who's asking us what to date? I think I'm going to pick out of the crowd of questions. Our listeners might ask us because I think it's related to a later topic and talk about really, really narrow roads, like little tiny half lane, or like if a Ford comes the other direction, you're going to end up as a hood ornament. You know, are they actually fun? You know, how do you, do you, should you skip it? Do you keep safe? Uh, what are, you know, what are some of the ways, how do you think about tiny, tiny roads? How do you think about tiny roads?

Robin: I'm immediately pointed to your article about leading the ultimate sport touring ride when it comes to know your audience and keep an eye on your flock. I will say that from experience, one of the roads we've enjoyed in the past that is touch and go is the national forest park road through red river gorge, which goes up to not a tunnel and not a tunnel is a single lane hole in a mountain. That's a lot of fun to ride through. And the road that gets to it, if you're irresponsible as I am is an absolute blast. However, if you are with those who have even shown you how you can be semi irresponsible in a socially acceptable way and without getting hurt or into trouble, if they tell you halfway in, yeah, I'm not digging this. You might've picked the wrong road. And it has happened. There've been times when we've ridden that road and everybody's like, yay. And we've ridden that road. And other times we're like, no, I'll meet you back. Right.

Brian: Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point.

Robin: Yeah. Branch off of that. You've got this. I know you're the guy with the answer to this. I'm feeding the fodder here. Food for fodder? I don't know. Whatever. You take it. You got it.

Brian: Feeding the fodder, yeah. Yeah. I happen to like those little goat paths to a really unhealthy degree. I really enjoy that kind of stuff. But I've had people, I've had complaints. I've had the thousand yard stare. I've had people traumatized because you're going through this tunnel of trees. And I'm like, oh, did you see such and so? And it's like, no, I was just trying to stay alive, man. And it's just, so you have to, like you said, you have to read the room, read your audience, figure out what's acceptable. And it's also, you really have to ride in a so much reserve on hand because, and you have to constantly change that because you're constantly losing and gaining sight lines. And so you have to keep a very fluid, instinctive, you can't stare at the road in front of you. You have to, you know, you have to be sucking up every photon you can get to see what's going on. It's kind of the most challenging riding there is. And for some reason, I really like it. But yeah, I'm aware that sometimes that it's like even very experienced riders, you know, especially on a larger bike with bags or whatever are just like, nope, this is too nuts. I'm going to creep, you know, if a Ford comes around that corner, I'm going to die. I don't want to deal with it. That does remind me of an instance. Yeah. I've been surprised by a Jeep. And this, this happens more in dual sport riding, you know, on the KLR or whatever.

Robin: Yeah. I can't, I imagine they're not expecting you. I don't do that much. I haven't done that. Well, when I say I don't do that much, I haven't done it at all. But I can only imagine that if they don't expect anybody else to be out there, they certainly don't expect to have to deal with a situation oncoming four wheel cagers, you know?

Brian: Yeah. You can get a face full of Jeep real quick, especially on the tiniest and the worst, you know, the worst roads are the best from that, from that perspective. And you just got to, you really have to stick to the right and expect others are not going to do the same really creep around, you know, those hair pins that might be hiding a Jeep or whatever, you know, be ready for them. And it has happened in one of the ride in one of the rides in Kentucky that we've actually written about on TRO.Bike. Yeah. You know, we had an instant, it was a, it was a paved road, but it was a very, very narrow road. And, and somebody coming in a car basically ran two, two bikes off the road. Nobody got hurt. But one of the bikes needed some fixing and the other needed a fresh pair of britches, I think. But did they stop? They did not. They just, they just sailed along. They were like, they were in the middle of the road and they weren't moving and they acted like they didn't see. And there was plenty of room to see in that, where that happened. It was just sometimes you get somebody, some people are just, you know, not nice. They're just not nice, Robin. They're unkind.

Robin: And the word is unkind. I do remember during a tour, a lot of the times, even upfront, there are different ways to, to do everything, right? One of the things I like to do is if the roads are that hectic, I know that whoever's behind me, I've probably watched them riding enough to trust whether or not, or to decide whether or not I trust their judgment. And usually that's the person I want next. And it's a customer, but I trust that they, they seem to get it and I'm going to let them have that. So I'll play, I'll play, I'll play plow is what I'll say is I will ride quickly enough up ahead to observe anything that is just over the top. Sometimes I'll get enough distance in front of them that if I come up on a head of deer or, or, you know, an accident in a corner or somebody with their hazards on that, there's just nowhere else they could be that I can hook the U-turn in my lane, double back, find the next open straight, turn back around, throw my hazards and get the flock in order again. It's work, but it's a doable thing. There was one time when I think this was at a rally. I think this might've been the Ozarks. I don't even know if you were with that group, but I went around a blind and a truck was in my lane and the person behind me said that they saw, so my bike's on the camera here. If my thumb is pointing down and my fingers are pointing out, my fingers are the luggage and the thumb is the point direction of the rear tire.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: As I went around the corner, I found my line and I found it and the bumper of the truck, man. Yeah. This is why, this is why I, I worship the delayed apex open, go wide, open up the view, hook in and make your apex the beginning of the straight. You know what I mean? Like when the straight is straight, be on the edge of the road or whatever part of the road makes sense to, you know, maybe you're on the inside line, but you get an open field of view Yeah.

Brian: Whatever makes sense and prioritize your viewing, you know, don't be hanging off or any of that crap. In fact, you know, a lot of times borrowing a little bit of dirt bike technique or the cop motor technique where you're, get your head where you can see, don't worry about, you're not going to, you're not going to drag peg and all that crap on a tight, on a tiny tight road. You shouldn't.

Robin: Did you find a way to get through the corner safely and did it work? Did it make sense? Did the bike go down? Are you safe? Well, then it worked. That's all you can ask. If you want to paint the perfect picture of technique, you know, there are people in our, that run with us who will say, well, technically I, I took the thing that says, if you take approach a, approach B and approach C and order, sometimes you worry about C and B when you get hit, at the funeral, you've won.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: No, that's not the outcome you want. You want to use all of the tools. Even if somebody told you, look, I'm not going to tell you that's a tool, but there may be some extra stuff in the box there. You're allowed to use them. Yep. What was the question that we invented for this? I forget.

Brian: Go pass. Yes. The other thing, and we'll get off this in a minute, but the other thing is, I find a lot more enjoyment sometimes, like in the early spring or in the, you know, after the leaves have fallen or before the leaves come back. Sometimes it's fun to go visit those and you can actually see quite a bit more. It's a preview of what you're going to see anyhow, right? Yeah. And if you're in places like, like Missouri, they actually cut back the brush pretty well off the edges of the, of all the letter roads. So you have, that's one of the nice things about Missouri is that they actually spend the money to cut back the brush and you have a chance. You know, you see deer, but you have a shot. In Indiana. No, they're like, screw you. You get pavement and that is it.

Robin: You did this to yourself. Deal with it.

Brian: That's terrible. But yes. That was a great discussion from a dumb question. That wasn't a dumb question.

Robin: It was a great question, but it's also why we have an outline because we can do whatever we want and stop whenever we want and know that we've got content for the viewers. We're not doing, let's not do Maptastic Mayhem this episode. We'll do it next week or actually we'll be recording it on Thursday. So we'll record on Thursday if you're down. I'm down for Thursday, man. Then we'll go big with it because one thing I did not expect, I mean, I kind of, I kind of did, I kind of did, but to your credit, you were detailed enough to come up with multiple prospects. When we do the next episode, it's going to be a big one for Maptastic Mayhem because I'm going to need your help. I'm not going to be good with the decision. I'm going to have to ask, okay, how much not curvy awesome do we suffer from if we don't do this variation versus that variation? And you've, Brian emailed me three maps, these awesome, here's some options and here's some whys and here's some possibilities. But if you think this way or if you think that way, and I'm just going, this is, I can't, I don't, I don't think. Let's keep this Brian-tastic. I want to do tiny tasty tools tips. All right. Brian's tiny tasty are tiny, tasty, and they're tool tips. Back to you, Brian. Yeah, something like that. It's not a podcast unless it's awkward.

Brian: That's smooth, wasn't it?

Robin: Smooth.

Brian: All right. I'll just pick one at random here. Let's see. Now I, some bikes have actually, actually have a pretty good toolkit. I've, I've had occasion to, to monkey with BMWs and the toolkit that comes with the bike actually has some pretty good Torx wrenches and has some different stuff. You know, you can do some things with it. And, but like Japanese bikes always skimp on the toolkit. It's just never, never the greatest, anything like that. We're getting to the tool tip. I swear we're getting to it. Anyway, the tool tip here is no matter what bike you have, the, even if the rest of it is garbage, pull out the spark plug wrench that's in that toolkit and keep it with the rest of your tools. Keep it, or at least keep it with that bike. I don't know why, but like a Suzuki will give you a toolkit with like cheddar cheese and sawdust crap in there. And they'll give you this little janky sheet metal spark plug wrench, but it is the most convenient way for reaching the spark plugs without tearing out the radiator and all these other things.

Robin: I'm reminded of Zen and the art of motorcycling. The phrase assembly of Japanese bicycle requires great peace of mind.

Brian: Tiny little fingers and great peace of mind. Yeah, gather mana, feel your, feel your calm, center yourself. Anyway, the tiny tip, what's tiny about it is hang on to the spark plug wrench and whatever kit you get, because it's going to be the most convenient way to get to the spark plugs if and when you need to do so. BMW has a good one that comes with theirs, although they're not hard to reach either. They're just pointing at you.

Robin: Here's a busty gal. Everything's right in field of view. It's just two projections of, it's all right there. It's all right there. That's a, the right burlesque show, you might see a BMW motorcycle on stage at some point.

Brian: That's a great analogy, Robin. I'm really glad to have that insight into your brain.

Robin: I can't tell if you mean that or if you're patting me on the head, but either way, let's go with it.

Brian: Two tiny tasty tool tips or just one. Let's do two.

Robin: I'm going to go with you, man. This is your show. I hope that you'll make Murray feel comfortable when he arrives.

Brian: Yes, I will. Okay, here's another one, and this is more of a repair tip, but if you break, breaking a clutch cable happens to the best of us, you know, whatever. If it, if you, if you break your clutch cable at one end, it's usually at the other end. So the way to get off the side of the road is you take the little ferrule off the end of the cable and just get violent with it. You have to get a pair of pliers or whatever, pull that off, and then you'll see that the cable is made out of like a spiral of wire. And so what you can do is you can actually unwind and then cut off some of that spiral of wire for the cable housing, and you can gain access to a couple of extra inches of the cable inside the housing. You know, run that through there, run it through, run it through your lever, run it down your lever, clamp onto a pair of vise grips, you got a functional clutch again, and you can, you can, you can, you can leave before the vultures find you. Not bad. A lot of people, yeah, you break a clutch cable, a lot of people just get a trailer. It's like, no, you don't have to do that. You can, you can, you can get a little, get a few extra inches and get in there.

Robin: What I like to do is bring an extra clutch cable.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Now my current one is push, it's not push pull, it's...

Brian: Hydraulic.

Robin: Mineral oil.

Brian: Hydraulic, yeah.

Robin: So I don't really think, I don't think I have a problem, and I, if I'm the, if I'm the, I would, I'm asking you directly, if I'm the kind of person who on Maggie's bike, we got an extra clutch cable, and you don't have to respect it, but it will get you out of, you can get home, because you've got one waiting there. You can wrap it up, you can coil it, you can totally maim it. It's going to be there, and you can order a new one if you don't like what you've done to that when the time comes, but you'll have an extra one. Brian's tip, I like that. I wouldn't have thought, okay, yeah, vice grip that or recoil it, anything you can do. But my question for you is with a hydraulic clutch, am I faced with the same mentality that I have? Do I need to have an extra clutch cable, or is that being fed in a braided line? Learn me something good here, gooder, if you can.

Brian: Yeah, with a hydraulic clutch, the issues you're going to have on the road are like, after a drop or something, sometimes the little banjo bolt can come loose, and it can drip a little bit, something like that.

Robin: The gaskets or those sealer washers in there, the copper ones?

Brian: Yeah, sometimes you can tighten those, but you can snug them back up, and it'll be fine. Once in a while, you'll get something like on a hydraulic clutch, and usually this is something that's just neglected maintenance. It builds up over time. They get worked a lot more than a brake master cylinder, so you really have to flush your clutch system a lot more regularly than your brakes.

Robin: Brakes are every two years. It's had the same mineral oil for 90,000 miles. Has it turned black? No. I mean, maybe I should crack it, but it looks to me like it doesn't. I've been told that if you don't ever have a problem with it, it doesn't ever need to be replaced.

Brian: Well, yeah, and the mineral oil systems are a little different than most of them use brake fluid. It's just a hydraulic system using brake fluid, so that may be different. On brake fluid, yeah, just flush it every year because they can build up, and there's all kinds of noise that gets down in the slave cylinder and all that stuff. But yeah, with brake fluid, definitely flush it more often. Yeah, the only other, like, if you spring a leak and, you know, if it just springs a leak out of nowhere, there's not a hell of a lot you can do on the side of the road, to be honest. But there is, it is common after a drop or something for, like, one of the banjos to get a little tweaked or something. Sometimes you can just tighten those up and carry on. But it's also one of those things to check pretty carefully once you pick the bike back up, you know, okay, oh, wow, there's some damage on the clutch lever. Does it actually still, you know, freaking work?

Robin: So yeah, my bump shifter am I going to be using, like, I've got a slipper clutch, which helps. I don't know how much damage I've done to my transmission, but I have used the quick shifter on my bike religiously, and so hopefully my clutch is doing good. As long as you never screw up, it's fine. Nice. I want to bring somebody in who clearly, we totally didn't record this episode backwards, and this person hasn't appeared yet, who I got to ride Beartooth Pass with, and Big Horn, right? Big Horn. So Murray is telling his side of the story of me riding through Yellowstone to get to Cody, Wyoming, to hang out with Murray and his lovely, amazing wife, Mabel, who, by the way, are celebrating their 25th year wedding anniversary today and spending time with us on this podcast beforehand. If you haven't heard the previous episode already, Murray and Mabel is one of our monthly production points. They do a dual interview for the hour and a half episode. Have a gander or listen, I don't know, how do you gander with your ears?

Murrae: Yeah, you had talked about a tire change in Brian and, you know, kind of getting mentored there, and I was just saying, yeah, there's a young guy that had an early F1 at the racetrack and something had happened to his chain adjusters. And so, you know, he came over and said, can you help me? What do I do? And I said, yeah, give me a ball-peen hammer. And it was one of those quick fixes that astounded him. And he goes, you can do that? I go, yeah, look, it's all fine now. Just adjust it and go race, you know, it's all good. Just make sure everything's torqued down. But and that's kind of how life is with this sport that we're involved in. You know, I mean, it's friends you never imagined and situations you never imagined. And I think it's one of those delightfully adventurous things in life, because it can be so predictable.

Robin: I was starting to say that it's you can make friends for life through circumstantial debt and ridicule.

Murrae: Of course.

Robin: Just by getting something wrong enough that everybody had to stop in their tracks to befriend you and make it right. You then can bring attention to the next gathering for forever. On and on and on every year.

Murrae: There's a standing rule in motorcycling that a bike only falls over when there are enough people around to laugh at you. And that's absolutely true. Then help you pick it up. But that's that's kind of one of Murphy's untold rules of motorcycling. So the well, so the story goes, we get over there on Sunday, we kind of take off Saturday afternoon from grilling. We go partway and we get to Cody Sunday and we unload and do all this stuff and kind of relax and say, yeah, this is going to be a great ride. And so, you know, Monday, we're kind of, you know, waiting for Robin scratching our heads. I said, yeah, I know. He said it's about six and a half hours. And so he leaves first thing in the morning. I will see him like one 30 ish, more or less. And so finally, late morning, I call Mads and I said, hey, just call to check on Robin, because we're thinking, depending on where he is, we might go for a ride. And her response was, well, go ahead and go. He's still here.

Robin: Here's the picture that I sent to Murray while he was communicating with her.

Brian: Oh, man.

Robin: Yeah. So if I if I'm going to, if we're going to do this like court of law style, Murray, thanks a lot for that, by the way.

Murrae: No question. It's all good. I just wanted to be TA so I could go for a ride or not.

Robin: Yeah. So my ETA was vaguely this week.

Murrae: Yeah. If you're if your arrival was imminent, I was going to sit on the picnic table with a bottle of bourbon and greet you on your way in.

Robin: I like that.

Murrae: As it turned out, she said, go for a ride. So, you know, Mabel and I took off for Yellowstone and we thought we'll go over there. We'll go up to the top of the hill, turn around, come back, just, you know, get our legs at a different altitude, let the bikes acclimate, you know, that kind of stuff. So we go over there, we head over, we get through with our we have our senior passes, which are good forever, apparently, with all national parks. So we flash those and they say, oh, we love your lights. Have a nice ride. So we take off. So far, it's looking good. Well, we get to the top of the pass and all of a sudden the clouds roll in, the temperature drops, you know, and we're saying, we don't want to deal with this. Let's just turn around and rock and roll back to Cody. Well, on the way in, the storm followed us, caught up to us in a temperature drop from the low 90s to the low 60s. We were both soaked because, of course, the liners were back at the RV because a beautiful day in Cody and we got back to the RV and I said, are you OK? And she said, yeah. I said, are you OK? And I said, well, normally I would say everything's wet except for the crack of my ass. But today everything is wet. It was that kind of a storm and it was cold. So we hustled in, you know, drank some bourbon. And then, you know, Robin showed up later. It was great. He just kind of rolled in and we had a place for him to sleep and a place to park the bike. And we had this grand plan of these rides. And it was phenomenal.

Robin: I'm in Mackie, Idaho right now. So I take off and, you know, immediately it's like I've got a lot of straight line riding to do, a lot of back road country to just enjoy, get through Yellowstone. And the thing I have learned not to do is ever trust the weather here in the PNW. Whoever is the weatherman, he should be drinking bourbon when he wakes up because he doesn't know. He has no shot at this. So I cross into, you know, get through Yellowstone, which by the way, no, riding in Yellowstone is not fun. It's pretty if you're going to see stuff. But if you're looking for a sport touring ride, don't go to a national park. That's where people stop in blind corners to enjoy a view. So I'm taking my time through there. The same Buffalo, I said this in the last episode, same Buffalo that was there when I went through there with my brother, nephew, and my wife is still there, only it's turned around and its ass is facing everybody. And everybody's still slowing down to take a picture of the Buffalo ass. Pass the farting Buffalo, make it through the state. I get there and immediately they're just like, hey, you're there. This is where you got, you got sleep in here. Come on in, have a glass. We sat down, we had a break and got ready to go out to dinner. But that's what got me was that in the future, I think everybody knows with Robin, act independently until he gets there because they waited for me to go to dinner. They were waiting for me so we could all go out to have dinner at like Thursday on a Wednesday or whenever I got there, you know what I mean? So I get there so late and we all go to get Mexican. It was awesome. It was awesome. I got a great photo.

Brian: Cody, Wyoming, I imagine they roll up the sidewalks and shut the doors pretty early.

Robin: Yeah, but we found a place.

Murrae: Yeah, more or less, but we found food. Yeah, but part of it, too, is I have the commemorative Doc Holiday whiskey cups. And yeah, that's that's what we were drinking whiskey out of the whole time that Robin was there. I don't know if you remember the scene from the movie where he's flipping the cup around like it's a six shooter. Those are the cups.

Robin: So and he keeps them frozen. Yes, he's got two frozen tin cups ready for bourbon. And you pour them to the top there. That's about a finger and a half to two fingers of bourbon for your enjoyment. It was awesome. It's perfect. Now we're on to day one. We have the tale to tell of the actual ride.

Brian: OK, I'm looking at Cody, Wyoming. I have no idea where Beartooth. Talk me through it. What's happening?

Murrae: Beartooth Highway should be Route 212 and it's actually in Montana. And it's on a northeast corner of Yellowstone. OK, so we picked we picked a road with the most dots on them to get there and then took that road. Yeah, up to we just kind of we just kind of cruised and just just lightly hummed along. No, yeah, no throttles on the way up there. And we actually stopped. I'm looking at a map here now. We stopped in. I think it was Cook City for lunch.

Robin: We did lunch in Cook City. Yeah.

Murrae: Now, so we stopped in Cook City, which is high up and had a great burger and there was an expat French waitress, which.

Brian: Whatever, go for it. Yeah.

Murrae: So we actually had a a nice lunch and then there was when we went back, there was a cut over, which is Route 296, which took us back to 120, which took us back to Cody. So anyway, right. Long story short, I love going fast, but I'm also cautious with forestry and animals and, you know, wide open range and that kind of stuff.

Brian: And yeah, and sometimes there's farting buffalo here.

Murrae: So there's farting buffalo. So we start back and all of a sudden there's these Harley guys behind us, you know, and look in my mirror and I go, I see Robin back there and I go, all right, well, let's see if these guys can keep up. And so I kind of up the pace from that little town all the way over to the 296. And so, you know, so we go through these corners and I'm a racer. So if I get up to a certain speed, I ride certain lines and use certain body positions and it's just second nature. So we got the turn off and we pull over and stop because Mabel being a woman and not having to hold my beer and watch this gene in her DNA, she tends to be more sensible. So we pull over and the.

Mabel: Yeah, but you pull over after the turns. So I flagged her down.

Murrae: Yeah, so this is live. So Robin, Robin flagged you. So and we, you knew where it was. So anyway, the Harley guys pull in and, you know, the guy who was able to keep up came up and said, oh, that was awesome, dude. And I forget the quote, but it was at some point I said, and then a couple of other guys, the word was mad man. Well, OK, so we were talking about motorcycles and I was talking about the R1200. The Harley guy said, yeah, I said, I just didn't want to have that heavy a bike. I said, I got a 500 pound bike that makes 130 some odd horsepower, 100 plus foot pounds of torque. And I just didn't want to have your bike. And I said, ever since I turned 70, I went for a sportier, lighter ride.

Brian: I grew up a little. Yeah, yeah.

Murrae: That guy next to him goes, you're 70. I said, no, actually, I'm 74. He said, you're a mad man that he didn't just say that.

Robin: He said there was a lot. It was awkward silence. If I can keep it, if I don't crop it out during post-production, there was awkward silence. He was you're a mad man.

Murrae: Yeah, big. So, yeah, and little did he know that that was a reserve pace. I'll put it that way.

Robin: Remind me about that terminology. So because while you were talking to him, I was telling the buddy behind him like, yeah, look, you're about to hear some noise. The fact of the matter is that that's that is racer retired Marines of Armacred. Just kick back and watch.

Murrae: So we had this great ride back to Cody and we actually kind of let the Harley guys pass us and just kind of chilled out on the way back to Cody. And then, yeah, it was amazing roads, amazing environment, great writing. I think Mabel had not been on those roads on a motorcycle before. And so maybe a long time ago, she's I can hear the gears. She's here in the background now.

Mabel: Well, I wrote to Jacksonville, Wyoming, and I went to Yellowstone. Well, I went to Yellowstone with a friend on their soft girlfriend on my Harley.

Murrae: Yeah.

Mabel: And then I came out and did that Rockefeller Road. Yeah. So all the way down to Jackson, Wyoming.

Murrae: So she had been around that area on her soft tail in the late 80s. So girls riding forever.

Robin: Brian, did you manage to pull up there too fast? Have you did you pull it up yet?

Brian: I'm looking at yeah, I'm looking at Red Lodge. I'm looking at Cody. I'm looking at 296. I'm looking at 212. I've got a little slobber going here.

Murrae: 212 between Red Lodge and I look at the map here between Red Lodge and Cook City is essentially called the Beartooth Highway.

Brian: Yeah.

Murrae: And that's one of those. Put it on your bucket list rides for folks, especially Harley. So, you know, we got back to Cody and had some food and drank some bourbon and told lies and laughed about the day. You know, I mean, it was just standard motorcycle operations. You know, what can I tell you? If you can't.

Brian: Yeah, I know it works.

Murrae: Yeah, I mean, it's like racing everybody. You know, you bump elbows on the track and then you get off the track and you help each other fix bikes and and tell lies and drink beer and, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's just it's all the same thing.

Robin: Well, so that's his version. And I remember that at the start of that day's ride, I remember that day being everything that Murray said and then some because I was following Murray and the whole time I was like, OK, this is day one. I'm not going to push. This is not a GS Resources Suzuki rally. Murray expressed that there was a place where I could rest my head and I got to chase him around while I'm chasing Murray. I can tell you right now that either he's sandbagging or he's he's kind of letting the edge go. He's letting the edge go. He's either sandbagging and then things picked up a notch. I was like, OK. Eventually, I said, I'm going to go for it. These guys have been hugging on us too long. So I went around because I knew the Harley guys had something to prove. We had a little bit of fun and stopped and I had officially caused trouble at no more than the speed limit with Murray Haynes. Murray on his anniversary date. Tell us about day two and we will release you from your contract and pay you accordingly from our infinite sums.

Murrae: Well, that that whole area has so much history. And of course, the main history that people recognize from there is the Little Bighorn, because that's the area where Custer lost his scalp and the Lakota nations rose up and said, we've had enough of this crap. And I guess the women actually went in and took care of him, which is often the case in tribes is that the women are the instigators.

Robin: So that I don't get this wrong. How do you say your tribe name?

Murrae: My tribe name, Ojibwe is primary and Scottish. And I have a little Western Apache somewhere back there. So just I just grew up around folks and ceremonies and that kind of stuff. I think our whole wedding thing is on the other podcast.

Robin: Yeah, it is. This is all about the ride. This is the weekly episode. Nobody's going to hear this.

Murrae: Right. And so, you know, we're just headed for the Bighorn. And so we go out and we go up and we get up to what was a Greybull. Yeah, it was a straight shot to Greybull. And then we took 74 around to 14 and 14a is an alternative route.

Robin: We didn't expect that.

Murrae: Well, 14 is a common route. And I suspect that they built 14 because 14a just became incredibly challenging. I mean, it's one of the Mabel's waving her fingers at me.

Mabel: Out of Greybull, it starts kind of going down and we go into this beautiful, beautiful canyon.

Murrae: Right. Yeah, the canyon right at the beginning.

Mabel: So that's still for today.

Murrae: Yeah. Can we get up to the top?

Mabel: Right.

Murrae: So we leave Greybull and we immediately come into an area that's called Bighorn National Park. And the first part of it is this insanely beautiful, small, tight canyon that has all these curves and the river is there and there's markings for, you know, geological stuff. It's just this section out of time. And so we go through there and I'm going, wow, this is just blowing my mind. It's been so long since I've been here because when I was a kid, my dad brought me up there to hunt antelope, whitetail and mule deer in that whole area. So I had some familiarity, but it had been years since I had been there. So we work our way through them. We're just like our minds are blown and we stop and take pictures. And, you know, I'm going, yeah, I could put up with this for like the next 48 hours or so. Right. And so we don't need to go into Yellowstone. This is like heaven because there's not a whole lot of traffic and it's gorgeous. It's a beautiful day. So anyway, we get up to the top to the junction and we stop there and we run into a guy with his kid who is a challenged individual and they're on a soft tail and he tells us the story of what he's doing, which brought back kind of memories of what is then in the art of motorcycle maintenance where a person took off with his son. So kind of the same same deal. And so we take off. And as we get up, there's at one point there's a 10 percent downhill grade, which is like half of that. Yeah. Which is virtually unheard of, which is why I think the road was made as a safe alternative. So anyway, we get up to the top and we're kind of rolling downhill. And there is these curves that seem to be OK. Road's a little rough. There were some unpaved areas. And at one point I went around a corner and in the apex of a descending radius corner that I don't think it was off camber, but in the apex, there's a cattle guard that's half off out of the road and I'm leaned over and kind of on the gas. And so I just said, OK, just loosen up and go with it.

Brian: See what happens.

Murrae: Sneaks up on you. And, you know, I give some of that credit to the BMW system with a suspension and everything else. I mean, it really controls itself well.

Robin: All praise Euro trash bikes, right? Yeah. You hear that, Brian?

Brian: You hear that, Brian? Wouldn't have been a problem on the KLR, man. No, anyway.

Murrae: Nothing like the KLR. It's a great motorcycle.

Brian: No, it isn't. Anyway, go on.

Murrae: There's lots of pullovers for brakes because, you know, there's trucks up there and there's cars up there. But I think the locals kind of had the spill on what was going on up there and avoided it. And so, you know, you got tourists in their RVs and whatnot, smoking the brakes down the hill. And so you just pick your heart. And so at one point we come up on this little rise and I can see the downhill all the way down to the bottom of the valley in the turns. And then I see the road and more turns. And I got like six miles that I can see everything. And so I just said, OK, bang. And we took off. And I think Robin. We spelled I. I think Robin was surprised because, you know, I just for a short distance, I hit race speed.

Robin: I will say that he he reached spirited pace so that there's no fallout on this one. People say Brian is fast. I've been told I'm fast. Brian and I are not fast. Back to you, Marie.

Murrae: Do it where it's appropriate and safe. And the only reason that happened there is because I could see for so far. And so, yeah, I just made that choice. So and so we kind of of we owned it a few miles. Yeah. And then we stopped in this little town and had some astoundingly good barbecue recommended by a local deputy sheriff and rode back to the RV and drank some more whiskey and took showers and hung around. And yeah, I would try.

Robin: I would try to tell the story about how we arrived at that barbecue joint. But I also look at the time and I think you're going to have an anniversary dinner tonight. And I don't want to I don't want to ruin it for you, too.

Brian: Excellent.

Murrae: I'm going to take off here and put some actual pants on and get to the restaurant.

Robin: In our contract, if you're going to be on this podcast for an interview, you are not allowed to wear pants. They offer some threats in particular cultures, so we don't allow it. Murray has obeyed this and I thank you for signing on and and all of this. We your checks in the mail. But ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only Murray Haynes with the backdrop of his lovely wife, Mabel Chin. And I appreciate you taking the time to tell the story of the riding. It was a blast. Oh, there was a rodeo after. That's all that matters.

Murrae: All I can say is any time let's spin wheels any time I'm up for it.

Robin: I'm going to get you on the list. Excellent. Let's bring you in on other things we do and invite you there.

Murrae: Sure. That's a two way street. It goes your way, too. So and now I got a new one with Brian. So it's great.

Brian: Great to meet you, Murray. Have a good one, sir. I was kind of following along on the map here. I had Google Maps up here and looking at 14. And yeah, when you get over here, you can see all the way down that valley. And then he goes into that story. I'm like, oh, OK, a sight to see.

Robin: Boogeying was done. Boogeying was done. We killed disco. It's dead. So with Murray, the lesson that I learned, he provided me with his self-awareness of what he was, what risk he was willing to assess, what risk he was willing to acknowledge and take on. And when it opened up, I use it two dimensionally. He just became shorter and that way.

Brian: Yeah. If you're behind him, you'll see like a red shift.

Robin: He's on the same bike as me, man. I mean, the same engine. I've got the 1200. He's got the 1250, which has like a VTEC thing is going on. The 1250 version of my engine. They added cam changes.

Brian: It wasn't the engine. You know that. Yeah, yeah. This was the guy on it. It takes a while to learn to have a selection of what you're doing, you know, like you don't have to be eight out of ten, nine out of ten. You never go to ten. No, you know, seven. You know, you've got like a whole, you've got like a whole dial over time, you know, and it was, I don't know, early on I had like one speed, you know, and later on I'll, you know, I use as much as I feel like at the time and whatever, you know, whatever factors you have. And that's what, you know, that's, that's what he's learned.

Robin: Yeah. Well, in, in, in a level that I don't know that you and I don't spit up your drink thinking about it.

Brian: He's a, yeah.

Robin: He's a racer. He's Arma.

Brian: Yeah, his, his, his, his 10 is, is my 100 or something like that. I'm sure.

Robin: I try to keep it at 60% max with, you know, how we record the audio and there's audio spikes, there'll be spikes of eight or nine, but I'm looking for 66.6666, like the rule of thirds. I want to be hooning at 66% of skillset use. And anytime I spike over that, it is a instance decision-making process. How do I feel? And do I really got this? And then I'll spike to 75% or 80%, 85%, bring it back down real quick because you're assuming a risk one curve at a time. It's very point and shoot. Here's this group of curves. Bang.

Brian: Yeah. Don't use all your reserve or, or however you look at it. I had, I had a, I had a very complex thought and I was like, no, we'll, we'll save that one.