Robin: Greetings from Texas.

Brian: It was an epic journey.

Robin: I'm sure it was an epic journey, but the cool thing is this park we're set up and we've never been here before. Oh, okay. We are set up for immediate success. There is no better location for a honeydew list on earth.

Brian: Really?

Robin: Not one. If she needs a single egg, I can jump on the bike and it's going to take me like 45 minutes of nothing but mayhem and curves and rural racetracks with a painted line to anything that's going to resemble a store, no matter what it is. I'm going to have a good time going to do this thing.

Brian: Excellent.

Robin: Got a beautiful site on the river here. And, uh, you of course are invited to come down and check it out.

Brian: Absolutely. So what's good. What's good. Well, um, and this is a topic I think we need to talk about, but, um, uh, I just, I just ponied up. My wife got tired of me like, and we'd go into Costco and I'd be, I'd be looking and stroking and, and, and longing. And so I finally bought a new, it's a, uh, uh, Apple, uh, uh, Mac book air 15 inch. So it's a Mac book air with the M two chip and it's a, but it's a big screen. Congratulations. So I'm coming to you live from my Mac book air. Uh, so that's why I'm kind of at a different angle.

Robin: Congratulations on your new disco Linux machine.

Brian: Yeah, it's a, it is both sweet and tight. It is nice. Um, yeah, uh, yeah. Marge just, Marge just said, just, just fricking buy the damn thing. Stop. That's awesome. Stop jacking around. And she said, I'll pay. And she's like, I'll pay for half. Just buy a damn thing, get it over with.

Robin: And it'll be good to you. It'll be good to you. Just be good to it. It'll last forever. I'm still in the same box from, I don't know how long ago.

Brian: Yeah, we're, we're all Apple at work and it's a, the, like I just earlier this year replaced my iMac that was 11 years old and still like working fine. You know, it's the, the, the hard Apple's hardware is ridiculous. So, and, and that's a topic maybe we need to talk about what makes a good road machine. Oh, I like this. I mean, either this will be the official intro or we will talk about it later. But, uh, I was, uh, for the last several years, I've been just using a cheap Chromebook because if the Chromebook falls off and gets run over by a truck, eh, yeah, a couple hundred bucks, hit the Walmart, you're logged back in. You're you're ready. And this thing, I got to deal with Apple care. Yeah.

Robin: You walk into a hotel room, you throw a crappy computer like a Frisbee. I had one that would flip around and be a tablet for a while there. They don't make it anymore. I don't remember what it's called. We wrote an article about it a while back. It was great. Cause I didn't have to give a flying rat's poop about it. And now I've got something that does open up to a flat screen level. Doesn't flip around into any kind of a, you know, tablet or anything like that. But again, I think we've paid 300 bucks for it. You know, just a $300, anything that you can get some kind of work done or do some map planning. And it doesn't like hang every time you press a key, you know, like, Oh, hold on. That was the letter J. Hold on. I'll, I'll get to here in a second.

Brian: Yeah. And, and my Chromebook actually, you know, like I had a really crappy Chromebook for a while and it was okay. Uh, but then I, like I, I ponied up, it was, it was actually a $500 Chromebook and it was on sale for 350 bucks. And so, yeah, it'll, it'll flip, flip around backwards into a tablet. Nice. So you get a nice Android tablet. Um, and it's touchscreen, so I could flip it around backwards into a tablet. We could all gather around, look at a map and stuff like that. And the touchscreen made it kind of nice. You know, if you're showing people stuff, uh, this, the Mac book, you know, like I, especially for work and for some other things, I need, you know, like you, there's no way to do FTP on a, on a Chromebook. Um, uh, anyway, not without some fierce hacking.

Robin: I had something that was trying and it, it would, it worked, but it was so haphazard and it felt janky and it was like, you've got an extension that has access to your credit cards, you know, like that's not good.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I could have used the web service in any way. So yeah. Anyway, but we can talk about that more.

Robin: Yeah. It down the line. I want to know, how are you doing?

Brian: What's a good word? I am, I am much better right now. No, I am doing great. I'm looking, uh, had a, had a fantastic ride in Kentucky. We'll talk about that. I hope so. Um, yeah, there's some things I learned. I think there's material we've got. We've got, I've got a hunk on Kentucky. We've done hunks on Kentucky.

Robin: It's 6 44 PM. Now we will stop at eight 15 and 13 seconds. Go Brian.

Brian: Oh shit.

Robin: Before we really get started, I had a good, sullen listen. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how you guys got access, but somehow you managed to make another podcast without me, and I don't know how it slipped through the cracks. Somehow, something about you and Travis sabotaging my psyche and talking about, I'll have you both know. I only had to replace tires on a seven store twice. Travis's at least three times comment just had me. I mean, my fingerprints are in the steering wheel right now. Brian, I had to peel them out. Two times I had to replace tires. And two years ago, we had three people who had to replace all of their tires, which was great unless they were doing that in spite of me, who knows?

Brian: In the middle of a tour, like, Oh yeah, we're down.

Robin: Yeah, no, I'm looking at your anecdotal chitchat screen, which I haven't seen in a minute talking about something you rarely do paid full retail.

Brian: Tell me more. I never do this and I don't know what got into me, but anyway, um, I've been looking around. I've been looking, I need like a new, uh, winter, you know, fall, spring jacket, you know, something waterproof keeps the water on the outside. Doesn't invite it in with you. And, uh, my old one's looking ratty as hell. So, uh, I've been looking around for a minute. Uh, normally I buy everything on clearance and I, you know, it just, nothing I liked was out there. So I went into a dealer near here called flat out motorcycles, a flat out power sports, uh, on the, uh, uh, Northeast side of Indy great place. Sponsors wanted to reach out. Tiro the bike. Tiro the bike. Anyway, anyway, I went in, found it on the shelf. Uh, it's a tour master Mariner jacket. Uh, I've been eyeballing it, uh, online and so forth. I tried it on and I'm really, and, and actually the cost was the same as ordering online, you know? So why not support the, why not support the local dudes, you know? Of course. Yeah. Um, and it's, it's a new model jacket. Uh, and I do have to say, I think tour masters raise their game a little bit on this one. It's really, I've, I've, I've worn a lot of tour master stuff in the past. I've worn it out. All right. Um, this one, like you slip it on and it's, it's like you're riding. I mean, it, it's tailored better than anything I've ever put on before. Um, and, uh, it's got the adjustments and so forth. Uh, so far it's been waterproof. I haven't really gone through, you know, real toad stranglers yet, but so far it's been waterproof, which is what you expect. So, so far I love the jacket and, uh, it's been, it's been great. And, uh, it's just, I feel like I don't feel like, uh, I mean, I, I, I feel a little sore because I didn't, you know, get a clearance on it or anything like that. But it was 300 bucks. Uh, I feel like it was still a decent deal.

Robin: Good looking jacket, man. It's got that thing where I look at my BMW and it's got these jagged angles and trellis frame. It's sort of like, if you look at that bike long enough, you can see multiple bikes inside the same bike that amounts it to, you know, like somebody was sculpting it out of clay and your jacket has, it's, it's what I was thinking of was like digital camo. Yeah.

Brian: I know what you're talking about. Uh, yeah. And mine's the, uh, uh, if you're looking up the tour tour master Mariner, uh, minus the Hy-Viz, minus the Hy-Viz version. Yeah. Well, is that green? Yeah. It's kind of got a, it looks a little greenish. It's more like a gray with, uh, with flashes of Hy-Viz. And it's got a lot of, uh, reflective stuff on it in different spaces.

Robin: I imagine if a car headlight shines on that, it's got all kinds of hidden prismic reflectors. It's a disco ball just waiting to happen.

Brian: Yeah. And it's pretty much $289.99 everywhere you look. So, you know, whatever.

Robin: Um, I like it. It makes me miss. They don't make the Cedici. It's not the great brand that people go after, but the Cedici isn't the Rapido or the Ultimo. Uh, what did I have? Hey, it's good stuff. Whatever it is I've got. It's like made out of the same stuff as fire hoses. I upped the armor. I always buy a cheap jacket that will survive one wreck. And I upped the armor in it.

Brian: Good idea.

Robin: This one has all the pockets and the visual layout that I want for the whole GI Joe Destro attack thing.

Brian: Yeah. And that's kind of like a, like my climb jet, my climb a mess jacket. Obviously it's a really expensive jacket, but I got it for like half price. That's a nice jacket. That's the best summer jacket we know of. Yeah, that, that it's, it's, it's incredible. Every detail and, uh, yeah, it's got the D3O armor. That's the induction to, uh, induction. Yeah. I don't, I don't remember which one I, it was on clearance. So it wasn't a current, current model. But, uh, yeah, I, I bifted hard off road and in South Dakota and landed on the D3O shoulder armor and, you know, road back. I mean, it, it, that, that D3O stuff is, or D30, whatever the hell it is. D30. I don't know. I can't tell. Stuff's great. Yeah. The D3PO armor is great. I did test it. I did test it. I had a, I had a giant bruise on the shoulder that, uh, echoed the armor, but. You know, I also did not have a broken clavicle. So, hey, I'll take it. So, yeah, one thing, uh, I think you and I talked about last time, or maybe it was me and Travis. Uh, it's been a while, been a minute. Um, uh, I, I was doing some, uh, doing some previewing of the routes and so forth that we'll get into. But, uh, uh, there's a ferry between rising sun, Indiana and rabbit hash, Kentucky, and it was really cool. I talked, there was a couple of younger dudes on, uh, and, and they had actually, uh, first bikes. There was, there was their first bikes. And it was really cool because, uh, both of them had picked out reasonably sensible first bikes, you know, instead of, oh, I need a Hayabusa or I'm just not a, you know, I'm just not a man, uh, you know, one guy, he had a new, uh, he had bought a brand new XR 150 L and it's a little Honda dual sport, um, smart choice, he's been having a ball on it. And, um, yeah. And the other guy actually got a, had a sportster and I know sportsters are a larger bike, uh, but they're actually, they have a low center of gravity. They're actually really easy to handle. And his had the mid controls. It didn't have the, you know, the feet forward stuff going on. So yeah, it was kind of refreshing to talk. Somebody is not going to be, yeah, like this is a good first bike. I'm going to, you know, maybe I'll move on to something else later. That's pretty neat.

Robin: At least they cognitively thought that that's the direction they were going in and they managed to land something that they're able to maintain and handle, you know? Yeah. They made the concerted effort to buy something they felt was reasonable for where they were starting out at. I find that admirable by itself. You know what I mean?

Brian: Yeah. And the thing is, you know, I've seen a lot of people buy a, an old bike that's all messed up, you know, cause they're all, they always end up messed up. If, if it's your first bike and you buy an old bike, you don't know what it's supposed to, how it's supposed to work. And, you know, I always tell people something, you know, I always tell, I this may be surprising, but really, really consider buying a really late model or buying a new bike, because at least you're, you can be fairly confident it's going to work the way it's supposed to. Yeah. You can hear what's supposed to sound like off the dealership floor. Yeah. And yeah, just, I mean, if you're gonna, if you're going to jump into this, you know, jump in with something good. And, and that, that where that's one less thing you have to deal with. Uh, I, I, uh, worked on a bike that a guy was riding around with like the worst steering stem bearings I've ever experienced. Notched. It was like clunk and it would just stick. Yeah. And then you could, you know, you had to effort to move it. He had no idea. Like he rode that thing to my house. I'm like, what the hell? This is, I know. And I rode it like one block and back and I'm like, this, we, we got to know this will not stand. He had no idea. Yes.

Robin: It's not a train on rails. He thought it was. You're allowed to control the handlebars. Yeah.

Brian: What's been going on with you, Robin?

Robin: We are here in Texas. We're in Concan, Texas. It is gorgeous here, man. In every direction. Now everybody talks about, have you ridden the sisters? Have you ridden the sisters? Have you been on the sisters? The three sets. And that's a great combination of roads. That's fantastic to be right here, which is quite frankly, why we're here is because Hill country is all Texas has. I mean, you can look at Texarkana sorta, but not to get to Arkansas. Do you really get anything more? So what is Texas Hill country? People will say Kerrville. I don't disagree, but I have to say that where we're at is a lot more personal, rural, beautiful, peaceful.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: And you can take the entire shape of all of the twisted sisters routes. That's a Texas ranch to market 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 6, and 3, 3, 7, the twisted scissors. You take the entire sisters and just twist it to the right or the left. Just a hair. You can get roads that aren't completely over the top high traffic that nobody knows about that nobody has any intention of going on on a weekday on a Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And just hoon it in peaceful, constant grinning, peaceful joy and go to the grocery store that takes 140 miles. I'm looking at your face right now. Cause you know, we got video going and I see this, this like winter's coming desperation. And Brian, I will let you have the Beamer. I'll ride Maggie's street. Triple R. You just come on down. You got to pay for the airfare.

Brian: I got to get down.

Robin: I'll pick you up at San Antonio, but we got a place for you. That's how we'll do this. That's how we're doing. And it's great.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: I will say Maggie's bike. Isn't spooling again.

Brian: It what it's, it's not starting or again, or it's not starting again.

Robin: Yeah. So we've got it on the tender. I'm just going to, I don't know, but I'll tell you what, she's stepped up and knocked to the park. She's really trying to figure it out and proud of her. Maggie Dean, the one and only.

Brian: I was looking at a topographic view and yeah, that's a lot, like that's a lot hillier than it is over, you know, in the Austin area, you know, it has easy access, but it's a lot hillier over there actually. Yeah. So there's like a lot of little hills and that's just a great recipe for.

Robin: I'll send you a link to something special that we do that. I'm not going to talk about, or nor am I going to market because I want to keep it to myself. You know what I mean? This road was made for me. You got to tell me about Kentucky, man. All right. I don't care if it takes over the entire episode. All right. Tell me everything.

Brian: I got together with five different guys, five different good friends. People I've ridden with a lot. Um, and, uh, we, we changed it up a little bit. Uh, usually we'll get together around the Florence area, which is just South of Cincinnati. It's kind of like, you're just out of the city and you commute a little bit and you've got some great friends. Uh, and it's easy access. It's right on the interstate. Uh, this time around, we went another hour South into, uh, and stayed in Georgetown, Kentucky. It's right outside of Lexington. Uh, easy to get to right on the interstate again, if somebody's coming in after dark and, um, uh, shout out to the, uh, Baymont down there. Uh, you know, usually a Baymont is just like, there's something wrong in every room. Uh, this one here, this one here was just eerie. It was like everything, everything was fine. It worked great.

Robin: When I flushed the toilet, the coffee machine goes on.

Brian: Yeah. And, uh, just something, there's something that's normally, and this one, this one was, was, was great. They had Rick like really good Google reviews and everything. Anyway. Um, there there's, there's just some really, you know, is, is really interesting to come up with some new routes and, and some new things to think about and so forth. Um, and one of the great things about this group of guys is kind of that, that, that Zen they have. They, they, they're there to ride. They're not at work. Uh, and so it's a, it's automatically a good day. Um, like for example, uh, we got there Thursday, went out for an afternoon ride. Uh, it started raining. So we changed the route around a little bit to get back a little sooner. And you know, it was cool. I mean, nobody was bothered like, Oh, well, you know, we just put on our, you know, like some people had to put on rain gear and I just kept going and my stuff. But you know, it was cool. Yeah. Um, and what the cool thing was the next morning, uh, everything, the rain stopped about 6 AM, but everything was just really super wet, like almost all day. Um, and we had a route that went South and went through some really intense twisties, uh, kind of in a red river gorge area. Okay. Um, and the, the cool thing is, you know, even though the roads are wet and dirty, it's still fun. You know, no one, no one got upset. No one, um, no one cried and whined, you know, no one was bothered by it. It was just like, it is what it is. We're here. We're having a group, you know, we're here. We're on motorcycles. It's automatically a great day.

Robin: Riding through red river gorge. There was a day in the wet and it's a park roads and people weren't necessarily all that excited about it. I personally, I don't know. I just don't really hold back. I enjoy those roads. I take the risk now and then. I've never really run into too much trouble other than, Hey, can you chill out kind of thing, if anything, but this was on a weekday. So there was nobody there. Right. And I remember that they had, it was almost as though it was brand new seal coat. I had the bike in rain mode. You and I had talked about some tech that we might like to keep. And I thought, well, dynamic traction control, I could take it or leave it. I want injection. Number one, I want abs. Number two, cruise control is somewhere, eh, whatever I I'll take it or leave it. I would love to have it, but a cramp buzzer might do the job. In this one case, rain mode and DTC did work out in my favor because I went around a corner full confidence and the whole bike stepped down way lower. It, it slid first. And as I realized, yeah, this slide, this slide isn't ending. This is low. My crash bars might be touching. I can't quite tell. I'm not sure if my luggage is, but this is not the lean angle that I was prepared to be, and not that I've never been in that lean angle, but when you're not prepared to be in that lane, wow, that's a hell of a lean angle, the DTC kicked in. And then it straightened up for me to kind of did a little wiggly wiggly. And then it did the same thing to the right. Cause that's how slick the roads were on that particular day. Nice. And I just remember thinking to myself when I was listening to your last episode, I was like, man, one of the few moments where I was like, yeah, I'm glad I got it. Let's never say that again. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. Keep on right. Back to you. So you're in Red River Gorge. You're leading these guys through in the rain. There's no bitching and moaning. Yeah. They're all on the bike, smiling with the rain gear on.

Brian: That's fun. Yeah. It wasn't raining that morning, but it was still very, very wet. And under the trees, it just didn't dry out and there were leaves on the road and all this stuff. And, you know, and, and, and I didn't think anything of it. And it was, and then, you know, a couple of hours in, I was like, wow, no one's. This is, this is what's cool about this group of people is that they're these riders are there. You know, this is not a problem. Uh, everybody had the skills needed. Everybody had, you know, there were, uh, there were a couple of vintage bikes. Uh, so there was no, there's no contraction control or anything like that going on, uh, for some of them. And was brown lightning there. He was, uh, no, the brown streak. The that's, that's, that's what I have dubbed him. Uh, anyway, a couple of small micro thoughts here. Uh, if there's a, if there's a ring road around a small city, just take it going through the middle of the city. Like the GPS wants you to sucks. Sorry. Even though it's a charming downtown. Um, and also I learned, I, I, uh, one of the things I like, I'll improve my routes and I'll prove my, uh, just something to consider is, uh, us highways are always, even if they look great, if it's a us highway and not a Kentucky highway, it's going to suck because it's going to be full of people, um, even though it's just as twisty, it's going to be, you know, it's going to have RVs with bad head gaskets and, you know, it's just going to, so like a net area for 21, one 27, four 60, uh, just, uh, and then, uh, there was, there was kind of, um, on, on Friday, there was kind of a, about a 60 mile commute before anything got any good. And, uh, I, I've kind of thought about some ways to make that a little better. You know, some days you're, you, the hotels would need to be where civilization is and the good roads are where civilization is not.

Robin: So we're going to be getting back to the trip sevens thing at some point, it's going to be like, here's the corner of help me. Yeah.

Brian: So that kind of like Georgetown was a great base of operations places that, you know, everything was there, you know, hell they even had a Walmart, you know, and, uh, but who doesn't have a Walmart, but it was, uh, going to the Southeast toward that red river gorge area, you know, we kind of hooned around in there, uh, yeah, it was a good 50 mile commute. So one of the things I'll probably do next time is actually hop on about 20 miles of interstate just to get through some of that and then get off of that. You know, instead of like, we tried going out for 62, uh, um, Paris and it was just, you know, us highway full of dump trucks, no, I mean, cause you're adding in intersections and stoplights is the thing it's a highway, so you can have crossroads, not exits.

Robin: So I get what you're saying. Sometimes it's just not, you want it to be, you want it to happen, but it's not always going to be worth it.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And I really, um, and the other, the other thing was like, if you look to, if you look to the West and North of, uh, of Georgetown on a map, uh, you'll see US 127 and you'll see like 10 miles to the East, you'll see Kentucky 227. And they both actually end up in the same city. And 227 is just epically just sweeper, sweeper, sweepers. I mean, it's amazing. It's a wonderful road. There's nobody on it because they're all over on 127. Now you're talking about due North West or Northwest of Georgetown. Stan. Yes. From stamping ground North, uh, on two, on two 27, absolutely choice grade a primo, uh, you know, that right there is a stake.

Robin: Oh, that's just silly. I mean, if you're zoomed in too far, you'll see, okay, whatever, what's it doing? It goes up to Minersville. Yeah. We'll look at Minersville due North of that on two 27. You'll know what we mean.

Brian: Yeah. And if you also, and if you look a little further to the West, you'll see 127, which is like the parallel route. Forget that. Eh, don't even bother.

Robin: Well, Google maps, that's a big old yellow line. So that's US highway 127.

Brian: Yeah. You don't want to be on that, but two 27 is yeah. North of Minersville all the way up to Owington. And then actually it goes on from there and it's, and it remains quite good up until you get to Indiana.

Robin: It looks like all I want to do is get lost in this area. Just write two 27. Oops. I doubled back and I took three 30, you know, double back and went to 1883, you know, to six Oh seven, 2018, three 68. It all just looks like, oops, I'm sorry. I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I'll be hanging out here eating.

Brian: Yeah, it was. Yeah. And exactly like, yeah, six Oh eight to six Oh seven three 30, three 30 goes all the way to Falmouth, which is, and it's actually a really nice, you know, if you're, uh, we use that as kind of a tap out route, uh, out of Falmouth. And I know 22 is kind of the, the star of the show and in Kentucky, but man, three thirties quite nice. And it goes on and on forever.

Robin: I laugh a little bit. Cause I zoom in and I see 3,103, 3,103. I'm like, well, it takes some zoom to see that. I wonder if it's any good. And I dragged the little guy, the street view over it. And it just ends a little bit of the ways in like the UPS driver doubled back and said, Nope. And the music started just a good old boys, dude, not delivering that package.

Brian: Yeah. You have to watch it. And I really tried to, I really tried to stay on the roads that had at least one painted line. So you have, you know, in your hierarchy, you have, you have, you have the white lines on the side, yellow lines in the middle. That's that's at the top. And then you have just white lines and then you have just the yellow line and then you have no lines. And I tried to stay off the no line roads. I mostly, mostly did that this weekend.

Robin: So that was well done.

Brian: Quite an accomplished. Yeah. And what, what, what nice thing I'll say about the guys I was there with is, um, you know, as is, as happens quite a bit, uh, the Brown streak and I were like, we were the only ones left at the end of the day because, um, I really like this atmosphere where people can come up and say, ah, I'm done. I'm heading back. What's a good way to get back. No, no shame, no excuses. No, like, you know, like, eh, I've had enough. You know, I'm, I'm heading back. Okay. Yeah. And I, I, I always try to have that atmosphere and sometimes you still get people who are like, are kind of embarrassed and it's like zero embarrassment, no judgment, you know, oh, great. Here's a great way to get back. And, um, so yeah, by the, you know, by the end of the, both of the days, Dale and I were the only ones left, so whatever.

Robin: I am not surprised. He's an energizer bunny, man. The guy can just ride and ride and ride. And half of the reason I came up with these bonus loops is because you run into people like him, then I had you help me create bonus loops is writers. Like the, the Brown streak will say, uh, oh, that's it for today. I'll be like, shoot, man. Here's another 150 miles here. Go at it. Go do it. I hope that he's looking forward to sevens this year.

Brian: Yeah. He is. He can't wait. Yeah. And if he wants some numbers, uh, you know, 22 between Falmouth and, uh, I think, uh, dry Ridge is kind of the best known. It's like, it would be the dragon of Kentucky if it had a dragon. And now we've said it out loud. See, that was a mistake. Our listeners, they had a stupid name. Okay. Cut that out.

Robin: Yeah. Edit it out.

Brian: Yeah. 22 to 27. Like we mentioned one 65, which is over, uh, uh, east of Falmouth, uh, 89 down in the Red River Gorge area. I had, I'd never seen that before, man. That was cool. And you mentioned three 30, all in your own 36, 77, seven 15, 2016. You really can't go too far wrong. And you know, unless you're, unless you, unless you're on a dull road, you're going to see a Walmart soon, you know, so stay out of that kind of crap. And, and you really cannot go wrong because it's all just, there's no mountains. It's all just Hills. And so there's roads just absolutely everywhere. It's just a target rich environment.

Robin: We had that conversation, man. It's like really comes down to Kentucky and West Virginia.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: And what life risk you're willing to take around the society in those environments. But you know, that's tit for tat.

Brian: Yeah. Um, and, and yeah, I do have to say like, uh, so on Sunday, Dale and I, uh, the Brown streak, uh, had a bonus day where we had, uh, uh, just a hoot getting back to Indiana and then he went east and I went north and, uh, we actually ran all the, we, we did it the other direction. We ran the planned route for the triple sevens in Indiana. And what we discovered was we need, I need to revise about the third, though the Western 30 miles of that. Because it is primitive. It is, it is, it is adventurous. Now we'll keep that as an option. Are we talking about what we did for sevens?

Robin: Yeah. Get on it. Cause I mean, I'm ready to like work on the Southeast quadrant of the whole thing. Not that you owe me anything. You've been cutting me favors since day one. You're just chilling me down checks. Like, here you go. Let me help you out here. It's getting to be that time. Well, winter's not really even here yet, but when it does, it's come to winter. I got to start calling, finding out where we're going to be doing the lodging.

Brian: Oh, okay. Yeah. So I got to know the roads. I mean, you'll still end up in Madison. We're just going to, I'm just going to re what I'm going to do is give you a kind of a new main route for that Eastern 30 miles, because it is, it is, it's like dirty, there's like lines on the pavement. Yeah. The pavement looks like the pavement looks like somebody dragged a plow down and it makes your bike wiggle around. And I was, and I was, you know, and Dale and I are kind of like looking at each other and kind of like, you think that'll make people mad? I don't know. Um, yeah, maybe. So anyway, I'll I've, I've got, you'll still end up in Madison. Madison's a wonderful place. Okay. There's a Fairmont that's actually newly remodeled overlooking the river. You know, I know it's a chain motel, but, uh, it's a really, that's fine. Yeah, there's a, like if you, uh, like if you look up Madison, there's lots of places to stay that are on the river down in the river town, don't go up on the plateau, but, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll tweak that a little bit, but what we'll do is we'll provide that track. Now, if you guys want to go bushwhacking, you know, if somebody is on like a Goldwing and they want to do some bushwhacking and switchbacks and filthy roads and lines on it, they can try it. It's fine.

Robin: I'm definitely not afraid of a single instance, 10 mile an hour switchback. But at the same time, when you take what a lot of people would deem a goat road, like, man, this is way too tight. And you step it back one shelf. Yeah. It's not a sweeper. Sweepers are great. I love sweepers, but if you're not going mock eight and you're going just fast enough that, yeah, this is tight, but you still feel like the bike is planted on the ground, that's where I'm just like, this is silly, you know, that's where I start feeling happy if we can find that we're gold, but anything from that level up is what will not piss people off so much. It'll give them exactly what they paid for. You know what I mean?

Brian: Yeah. And so the rest of it, uh, from, yeah, like you end up on one 29 outside of and the rest of it going east all the way to rising sun is fine. There's like 25, 30 miles. I'm like, yeah, we probably should revise this, but I tell you what it is. It's a, it's a hoot, like I've already scouted it, but until I had someone else there riding with me, I'd never occurred to me like, yeah, this is a, this is a, maybe an individual quirky thrill.

Robin: If the Brown streak says, um, so you may want to revise this. You've, uh, you've found something that we want to mark as a giant hazard cone.

Brian: They leave it on the map. You know, like, Hey, if you're Harry Chester enough, if you've got the, if there's somebody, you know, there's somebody like on a BMW GS and they're like, yeah, I want to go adventuring.

Robin: They go ahead, have at it. But in the end, it's like, I condense everything down. Yeah. We find the best creme de la creme. I keep three versions of this seven day tour. The three maps are I'm all in. I'm mostly in, but I could use some breathing room. And at this point, I really just want to go see some museums that those are the three versions of the map. I want to go see the ball of twine. That's fine. Either way, everybody has the day they have that matters. Thank you for testing it.

Brian: Well, I had tests. I just hadn't dragged anybody else with me. Like I knew that, you know, I knew these, I just, it never occurred to me like, wow, this is, yeah, this, this might be a little much or actually the opposite of much as the, the, the, you know, like there's no lines, there's no, you know, no room, uh, uh, and one last thing I'll mention about the Kentucky trip. I passed, uh, we passed in Northeast and somewhere, somewhere in Kentucky. On the way back to Indiana, uh, we passed a giant field full of pot. I've never passed a pot field before. They have tobacco fields all over the place. And it looks like, uh, there's some of them are retooling. Apparently. Are they growing bud or are they growing hemp? Well, I don't know what's it smelled. It smelled like pot, you know, uh, smelled like fresh pot maybe, or something took over a field. No, no, it was, this was cultivated. This was cultivated. They were growing the stuff and, and they, they have medical down there, I think. Uh, and so, so it's got to come from somewhere, so might as well support the local, but yeah, it was just a field, you know, and there's no dogs or razor wire or anything. I started smelling something. What was that right?

Robin: Sweet. Yeah. Sarsaparilla.

Brian: Yeah. It's kind of, and, and, uh, and then I'm like, oh, well, look at, look at all those spiky leaves, how about Dan? How about that? Interesting. But yeah, there's, and, uh, and the tobacco fields in Southern Indiana and Kentucky kind of surprised people sometimes. They're like, what the hell is that? It's tobacco. That's, you know, that's what it looks like before they chop it up and make cigarettes with it.

Robin: You know, this ties really well into the next thing I see in the discussion points, blends perfectly, Locust Pro.

Brian: Locust Pro, kind of like we talked about last time. I have, um, I think I use, I think I'm the weird one here in the way I use GPS is like, I'm not using it to get from point A to point B or follow a route. Uh, so what I do is put a bunch of tracks on a screen. It looks like a spaghetti bowl. I give them different colors, different transparencies. And then, you know, I, and then it's on my, it's on my handlebars and I've learned the art of seeing it when I need to see it without paying attention to it.

Robin: Pick a line, stay on the line. Is that the idea? Like, if it's red, we're going hot. We're going to go kick ass on this line.

Brian: Yeah. Or, you know, uh, this truck is pissing me off. I'm going to go take the blue line. Smart. I'll, I'll make those, I'll make those game time decisions like that constantly. And you know, if you're, if you're trying to follow it, you'll just be lost. But, um, anyway, yeah. So the app I use on it, I, you know, the cheap Android phone and it's called Locust Pro. It's like eight bucks. And then you buy these low coins, which is a stupid system. They have, uh, where you, where you buy the offline maps. So the maps are all downloaded into your phone. So there's no data connection needed. Uh, and you can, you can put your, you can put your tracks, uh, GPX tracks on Google, uh, drive and load them in from there, or you can load them in a couple of different ways. Um, and it, and everything's configurable, but the original developers were German and Polish. So support in English is scarce. Yeah. And let us say that the decisions made in the interface and the app are, um, are, are odd vector. Is it all is a vector based? Yeah. The learning curve is damn near vertical, but once you get it set up, like it zooms in and out automatically, uh, when you turn the power on and you're, you're, you know, the USB power comes on for the phone, uh, the phone comes on automatically, um, you know, and you can configure all that, you can configure the speeds of where it zooms and how far it zooms and what it does. Uh, you've got elevation shading, so you can see the hills and stuff coming up. Um, so once it's all set up, you, you really like the only time I touch it is when I'm taking the phone off the bars, you know, to go and have lunch or something.

Robin: That sounds good. So it seems like your end goal is smartly experienced and casual. It's a casual base of experience where it's like, you know, how to follow a route, you know, when it's time to deviate from around, I think that's a shelf up from me. I designed a great route. I follow that route.

Brian: I don't use the audio cues. I know you you've used those for a long time where you have a, now that's another thing that came up last time.

Robin: The thing where people would say you thought it would drive you crazy. Ride with GPS is cues. I mean, you can configure them. I don't think that even by default, they do anything beyond tell you once when you're about a half mile ahead is your next turn and then right before that turn, it'll announce something. So in a quarter mile turn left on Brian has Bluetooth road. And then right when you get to that road, turn left onto Brian has Bluetooth road. That's all it does. So it's two per road change. It's not like Osmond, which by the way is like a rally car driver.

Brian: Oh God.

Robin: In three miles, quarter left turn hot, right. Okay. And four miles, it's way ahead of the game. And it's just announcing to you how to drive a car at a bajillion miles an hour. That is Osmond, which I've handled before, but it will not. It just won't shut up at all. It's going to tell you everything about the degree angle of every turn and things like that.

Brian: Yeah. And if you're, and if you're on a really winding twisty road, it thinks everything's a corner. And the ride with GPS is a lot smarter about that. And no, I never did look up. I, there were chickens in the road a few times, you know, as you find in the hinterlands. And, uh, as I, I never have. And the thought was like, I wonder what the etiquette is. If you, if you run over someone's chicken, you know, what do you have to stop? Uh, you eat it. And I'm good eating. Yeah. Yeah. Bag it, throw it in the back of a bag, tag it, bag it. I think, uh, yeah, I think it's like, uh, I, I do know if like somebody's cows in a road and, and like, they're responsible for the damage to the cars. If you're, if you're farm animals are damaged something. So yeah.

Robin: Unless you're an open cattle country.

Brian: Yeah. Then it's up, then it's your fault. Uh, yeah, that's true. And, uh, not much of that in Kentucky, but, uh, but we, you know, like in, uh, yeah, in Tennessee, we've been in actually, you know, where you have to go through and do some dual sporting or not duals, yeah, dual sporting, where you. Have to open the gate and go through. And then, uh, or in West Virginia, I believe actually. So yeah, they, they did have some, some rangeland where you could go through, like it's a public right away, but, but yeah, what happens with the cattle there is your problem.

Robin: So they're trying to maintain the, the cattle ranges for the farms. They have to have a way to get them from one point to the next, but that doesn't mean they can't be public access use either. So combining the two means here's your musket head on out. The war is that way. Good luck.

Brian: Yeah. So yeah, you basically are expected to leave the, leave the gate the way you found it. And again, it's mostly dual sports stuff. You know, there's not going to be a paved road going through a, through a cow pasture, but it is not uncommon.

Robin: What's this? I see about heavy maintenance on the GS eight 50.

Brian: You're about to do Healy coils. Yeah. The exhaust, uh, the exhaust bolts strip out, have stripped out. Like they always do on every bike everywhere. But, uh, yeah, it's starting to cause some ticking and so forth. So I had to do some telecoils and I've had like five minutes to work on it in the last three weeks. So anyway, yeah, basically I had to weld up a, I had to weld up a. A hole in the exhaust, like, you know, 40 years of exhaust and it's a long story. Anyway, there was a hole in it that came that basically eroded. It didn't really corrode for water and stuff, but it just eroded at the head.

Robin: Now this was your aforementioned welding job that caused this, right?

Brian: No, no. My, yeah. So my, I, to my astonishment, I managed to make an airtight weld. That's actually a fairly good repair. I don't know how I did that. Uh, with my little Harbor freight welder. Well done, sir. So anyway, I got to take the whole thing back off and a little, there's a little ceiling sleeves. And again, they're 40 years old. They crumbled the dust and, you know, it's, it's old bikes things. Um, so yeah, I got to get that done.

Robin: And, uh, well, if you're doing that, are you going to check the valves on the FGA nine then?

Brian: Uh, and this winter I'm going to do that. It's going to be due. It's going to be, I've got 20, I've got like 22,000 miles on it since the last valve check and they're due at 24, but shim over bucket shim under bucket. That's a shim under bucket. And I mean, I don't, it's, it's, it's, it's easier than a lot of bikes with shim under bucket.

Robin: Okay. So the triumphs like that, does it have the openings in front of the cam where he can get underneath? You don't have to take the cam off.

Brian: Yeah. You got to take the cams off to, to, you can, you can check them and if they're okay, you can leave it alone, but you do have to take the camshaft off to change the, yeah. So like on the GS, the, on the GS, the shims are on top and, uh, you could just press them down and blah, blah, blah, but on, uh, on most modern bikes, yeah, you have to take the camshaft out if you got to change any. Uh, when I, I did the first valve check on the FJ at 21,000 miles when I bought it, the guy sold it the perfect time. Cause it was due for everything. Anyway, I did the valve check cause I wanted to make sure it was done. Right. And like I had 11 out of the 12 valves had to be changed. Uh, they had to change the shim.

Robin: So off comes the cams off and then the timing has to be situated. So my question for you, what is the benefit of under bucket versus over bucket?

Brian: Uh, the valve clearances stay the same for longer. They're lighter. So you can, they can tolerate higher RPM, uh, as an assembly and it's more reliable. Okay. Um, yeah, the downside is, yeah, the cams have to come out if you need to change them. Um, yeah, I, I mean, obviously I do all of my own work and that's kind of a problem because a lot of times a dealer will check them and as long as they are somewhere within spec, they'll leave them alone. They know they hate doing that's how I do it.

Robin: If they're within spec, I'm solid. Rail on it, beat the daylights out of it.

Brian: When I did it at 22,000 miles on the bike or whatever it was a little early, it's supposed to be 24,000, but they always get tight early on Yamahas. But the, uh, but I set them all, I actually finagled, I got everything finagled and swap things around and tested until they were all like within, uh, one or two of the top of the range. And that way your clearances will stay in spec a lot longer. So I expect when I go in that I, I probably won't have to change any intakes at all. I may have to change some exhaust, uh, shims, but they're, you know, but yeah, so I, I take the extra time and it was like February. What the hell else do I have to do? No.

Robin: Well, so now I'm looking at your tires here, man, from the Kentucky ride. These pictures tell a big story that tread that siping. The thing about the Dunlop road smart threes, which is what you and I both seem to like using these days, you know, they're cheap. Yeah. When it comes to sport touring tires, look for dual compound and then buy the cheapest set of next level tech compound tires. You'll be perfectly happy. You'll be perfectly happy. So long as you kind of filter through the results of what it is you're after. I'm not really a big fan of like Shanko all that much, but you know what I mean? That's like the Dunlop road smart threes are crazy cheap and they are crazy good. And I see all these posts about the Michelin R sixes. We're not going to have that talk because the Dunlops are the way to go all day. That goes out to Murray Haynes, by the way. Shout out to Murray Haynes. You ain't sold me on the Michelins anymore, man.

Brian: God, they're so expensive. I mean, they're fine, but they're God, they're expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And these, these they're okay. They're okay. Yeah. But yeah, these road smarts I've, I've, I've had good luck with them and 250 bucks a set around in there. Uh, and this is, I think, uh, and I know everybody's wondering what the hell we're looking at, but I took a picture of the old tire next to the new one, cause I, I always had the, I had, I bought the extra set of the new ones, you know, a couple of months ago, these have about 8,000 miles on them because these things are lasting and they're being, they're being abused. Yes, sir. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. And I always change them both by the way. But anyway, but yeah, these are, this is like, I've done, I've been doing some really fun riding this last year, as you can see, uh, these are hard, you know, there's no flat spot in these, like you normally get on how we, you know, when you have to deal with how we were, yeah, I was kind of, I'm kind of proud of this.

Robin: We want to talk about tool tips or questions, website updates, revisits, announcements, corrections, et cetera. First, the corrections. My tires went bad twice on trip sevens. Travis is wrong. Two times I had to deal with that. Yeah. That's my only correction as for the website. Let's see. Transcripts are now working. There was a bug with transcripts for the hearing impaired, being able to read the podcast episodes, by the way, there's a key phrase above each transcript about as legible as we are intelligible. So that's the best you're going to get. Enjoy it. Laugh it off. Have a good time with that, but they are now working. They load reliably and we're happy about that.

Brian: Sweet.

Robin: Here's a big announcement. My favorite podcast app is actually just Google podcasts.

Brian: Me too.

Robin: It's simple. That's the key, right? Well, Google podcasts is going away. I'm sad about that because it was a great platform. So Dave in Idaho, you're going to want to find something else. Just get a Pandora or Spotify or Apple podcast. Well, if you don't have an iPhone, it doesn't really work. Does it? If you go to an episode page, click on the choose my player or whatever it says on there, it'll give you a huge list of options through which you can get software to listen to TRS podcast.

Brian: Yeah. And, and Google podcasts, Google podcasts is not really going away. It's going to be turning into a, some sort of YouTube product. Okay. So there it is. It'll be there. They're just changing the name and, and you know, all your videos of Britney Spears are going to be mixed in with your podcast or something. I don't know.

Robin: All your podcasts are belong to us.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Whatever.

Robin: What's this about a charger? I see.

Brian: Yeah. So, uh, my new phone was kind of picky about like, it wasn't keeping up, you know, cause it's sitting here at the screen on all day and it's on break cause it's in the sun and doing GPS things. And, uh, so what I discovered is you have to look for something called PD. Uh, I don't know what that means, you know, power distribution. I don't know. Anyway, you look for a PD charger with a USB-C connector and that will keep up. That will, that will stuff electrons into your phone at the rate it needs. Just a very small thing that I discovered and I thought maybe someone would need to Now it's time for debate here.

Robin: What were the temperatures like when you were riding in Kentucky then? Is that when you kind of discovered the need for this?

Brian: No, I, I just, when I recently got this new phone, it's a, it's a little, it's a Motorola Android phone cheap as hell. They work great. Whatever. Uh, just, it's just what the new phone, uh, yeah, the temperatures were like, uh, the first day was, it was like 80 was the high on Thursday and then the weather system came through and then after that, the high was like maybe 60. Well, your timing is perfect.

Robin: Is that a power on off switch there? Yeah. It's got a power on and off switch. Uh, that's cool because I have to replace the ones that we got now. This will be the new update to that article, which we get a lot of traffic for about what's the best USB charger. And it's 16 bucks. I mean, that's not bad at all. So we'll link to that in this episode's page at Tiro the Bike.

Brian: Tiro the Bike. Yeah. So this one seems to work pretty well. Haven't tried it yet, so we'll, but, uh, and there, there are many like it, but yeah, they do, what you want is PD charging and that will keep up with your phone, I guess it gives extra amps or bolts or something.

Robin: Let's let that bring us to stuff our listeners have asked or might ask. And I'm going to go ahead and man, this, we need to jump on this next episode. Let's kick these questions asses. Cause these are loaded questions. Loaded. I'm not going to read them now. I'll read them next time. So I'm going to go with my own question because I'm selfish and that's that I'm getting some paint work done. I need my BMW paint codes for my front fender. So the paint codes for the gray front fender on a 2016 model R 1200 RS, where do I find these codes without having to call a dealership?

Brian: That's a very good question, Robin. Do you have an answer? I know where to look for Japanese bikes, but I have no idea where BMW hide it. Do they put it in the features anywhere?

Robin: I don't have any idea. I'd have to look it up by serial number. I bet.

Brian: Yeah. Well, like when I look up parts for my bike, uh, my Yamaha, for example, it's, it's, uh, like the, the, the code for the whole bike, it's like separately under FR, which I don't know if that means I, in my head, I said, I think fire red, it's actually magma red. The color is called magma, magma. It'll say FJ09, blah, blah, blah. And it'll say FR at the end. So that that's the one, my bike. And so I can go in and I have no clue whether BMW does the same thing. Uh, whether there's a code on the end of your, uh, but yeah, what the paint codes are, I have no idea.

Robin: The hardest truth about this is that at one point I was looking at the page and had it bookmarked for the exact information I'm looking for. And now it's just been so long that I don't remember how I went about resourcing it to begin with. So I reached out to the Facebook group. That was a mistake. The first response called the dealership. That's going to go great. Well, so what did you say? Where do you want to jump to next? Cause I think the stuff our listeners have asked, we should come back to full angst.

Brian: Yeah. There's a whole hunk on technology on the road. Yeah, right. There's a hunk. Totally.

Robin: And no question. We are not fielding any questions until these get covered because they need to be, here's one.

Brian: I want, I don't want an answer to, I mean, I want an answer, but I want you and I to think about, and I want anybody who's listening to think about is be careful. We're going to fall on it. Okay. We're going to fall into this conversation. All right. Uh, you, you, I, I finally figured out, like I've, I've seen the rubber ducks and the jeeps and I'm like, what the hell is the, what the rubber ducks? Why'd all the jeeps have rubber ducks in them? And I still don't really know how that got started, but anyway. Uh, so the, the rubber duck just means, Hey, nice jeep. Here's a rubber duck. And you can buy rubber ducks that, you know, you can buy like, you know, of course the, the, the, the fine people in China have stepped up and now you can buy like thousands of different designs of rubber ducks, you know, they have Mohawks, they have classes, you know, they have whatever. So if you see a jeep, I will guarantee you on the dashboard of that jeep will be an assortment of rubber ducks because jeep people carry around rubber ducks. And if they see a jeep and they want to say to the person, Hey, nice jeep, but the jeep person is not with their jeep, then they will save you, they will give you, they will put a rubber duck on the jeep and you come back and you're like, Oh, someone liked my jeep. How nice. I'll put the rubber duck on the dashboard. I don't know why rubber ducks. No one knows. I don't. I that's as far as I Googled. I didn't really care. So what should we, what should motorcyclists do? What's our rubber duck.

Robin: If we're being honest, I get rubber ducks on the sevens tours because they provide rubber ducks at the different destinations. They're little tiny ones.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what jeeps have. Yeah.

Robin: So I've got, I mean, rubber ducks are actually, that's not uncommon, I guess. Somehow it's managed to branch out into different platforms. We were getting these little itty bitty rubber ducks at three different hotels we would stay at along the way.

Brian: Really? Yeah. Okay. So maybe, so maybe the answer for what's our rubber duck is rubber ducks. It's happened before. Yeah. Huh. I didn't know that. Interesting. So it's something like a miniature truck nuts. Would that be, would that be, that would probably be too classy.

Robin: That's a little too slightly offensive. That's like fine dining. Yeah. I was like that. That's a little much. 24 karat gold dingleberries doesn't really play. Does it?

Brian: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, that's something to think about. Okay. All right. That's the only thing I had there.

Robin: Let's get this out because we're not fielding questions, but I'll at least announce it. If your question is selected from the large quantity we get every day, you will receive an answer. It may not be the answer or a good answer, but it will be an answer. No guarantees is what we're saying. And if you're especially lucky, there may be discussion. That email is podcast at TRO dot bike. And yeah, let's go down to Brian's tiny, tasty tool tips. Cause I had an experience. I want to hand this one. I want to trigger you. The mic is yours, but I'm going to throw the freaking gasoline on the fire and say, hit me with a scenario. I needed tires on trip sevens. It was just a rear. I needed a rear tire on sevens. And I go to a dealership that had a tire that would fit a good enough tire to get me through the event. And then I would change them out to something better. When I got home, I arrived there. I've got a single set of swing arm, five lugs. Boom. Here's my rim. You know, I pulled the valve for him. I had everything I needed to hand them a wheel and have them return a balanced remainder of the tour go fast shoe of sorts. And after they handed me the wheel back while I put the lugs back on, everything was set and I really just needed a better way to tighten them on. And I went into the dealerships. I was like, may I please borrow a torque wrench? Their answer was yeah, no, we don't, we don't loan tools out.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: All I need, hand me a torque wrench. It's set to 40 pounds. I will take all of these lugs into place and be on my way. All I have with me is the smallest of ratchet wrenches enough to get the lugs off. But to get them on there in a way where I feel comfortable riding, if I kick that thing, it's going to break the bearings inside. It's not going to tighten them up anymore. I've got no way out of there and they're holding me hostage. Just give me anything to tighten these things up properly. And the answer is an ongoing. Yeah, we're going to have to talk about that. Not cool. They have gotten mentioned for this situation. Don't recommend them. Then Tim Clark told me something I did not know. If I were to have taken my wrench and just give it a little kick, get everything on there. And if I ride to an AutoZone or an O'Reilly's or a CarQuest or maybe a Napa, they will usually loan you a tool for nothing. Here's your tool, do the job and you'll be on your way. So keep in mind if you need an accuracy tool of any kind and you're getting the side eye from somebody who just took your money, if you can just get it to the nearest chain automotive store, you've got a solution to wait for you there. They do care. They will have your back.

Brian: Yeah, that's a good one. I like that. Whether you need to torque those precisely, you know, I don't know. You could also just buy a breaker bar or buy a stronger ratchet or something like that and give it a good tweak. It'll be fine. And you could torque it later if it bothers you. But if you've, I mean, how many tires have you put on this bike over a hundred and however many thousand miles are on that thing? You know, you know what it feels like. So you could do a safe job without a torque wrench. But yeah, that is a great one because any, you know, O'Reilly, AutoZone. I know, I know for a fact, O'Reilly, AutoZone, Advance loan. But what they do is you buy the tool and, you know, they basically put a hold on your card, you take the tool, do what you're going to do with the tool, and then you bring it back and they drop it. And it's just a courtesy for there. And so that's a really good solution. I mean, they're open late. I wouldn't have thought of that. The other solution I would have thought of was to hit a farm store or Harbor Freight or something and just buy a cheap torque wrench and, you know, 20 bucks.

Robin: If it's going to be on your mind, I'm curious if they make one that's like a, like a collapsible one, a collapsible, like a collapsible torque wrench would be a great thing. Somebody should make one.

Brian: What they do make is a torque adapter. Uh, so it's basically a little box. You, your ratchet goes on this side and your, uh, socket goes on the other side and it sits in between and it'll give you a digital readout of the torque. Uh, so if you really had something that was crucial and you'd really, you know, like field repairs, I've never thought about a torque wrench to be honest.

Robin: Yeah. Well, you, as long as it's not too tight and it's tight enough, then what's the problem. But still that's a pretty cool concept tool, but that's going to be the next thing we'd link to as a product in this episode pages, the add on torque adjuster.

Brian: Yeah. And whether that's something practical that you want to carry with you, I don't know, uh, it's, if you pass a town with a Harbor Freight, you might think about it. The, the principle here is if something is going to be on your mind, take care of it. Yes. And for example, on the Kentucky tour, uh, uh, Tim had just replaced his rear tire and, um, and he noticed that he was missing a cotter pin on one of the, there's like the brake linkage. It's an old bike, you know, they have that. And he was like, oh, let's just go on. And I was like, no, there's an auto zone over there. It's going to work. We're all going to be thinking about it now. So let's take that out of our box of crap to think about, because it's not a very big box.

Robin: For $1, your top case is going to be full of cotter pins. Let's go get them. Yeah. You'll you're never going to buy cotter pins again.

Brian: Yeah, exactly. I like, he bought a box of cotter pins and there, you know, put one in there and, and, and, and, and the matter was solved and off our minds and out of our box of crap to think about. And so that, so like torquing those rear lugs on a BMW, single side swing arm, yeah, you can, you could, you could probably, you could, I'm, I'm, you could certainly ride perfectly safely the rest of the tour without it. But if it was going to be on your mind in the slightest, do it the way you want to, so you don't have to think about it. And that's the way I feel about, you know, that's the way I feel about a lot of maintenance and tires. And, you know, if you're thinking about your tires, stop thinking about them, put on new ones, you know? Um, maybe more than once. Yeah. And, and stuff like, um, if something is wrong, stop and frigging fix it and don't let it get worse. Uh, sometimes people will get caught up in that. Oh, you know, I don't want to stop the group or I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to make anybody mad or I don't want to, you know, we're already late for lunch, whatever that means. Uh, you know, if, if, you know, if you need some more powder on your giblets, if you need, uh, you know, if there's something wrong with the bike, you're uncomfortable, if you're too hot, you're too cold, just pull over and fix it before it becomes a problem, you know, just don't, don't have things on your mind. I mean, try to be organized so you don't have to stop, but yeah.

Robin: Yeah. It's, it is so crazy difficult to convey that truth sometimes to people that, Hey, it's all right. You know, I'm here, you know, or I'm not, I'm not sitting in front of my computer, talk to some dude in a zoom meeting, actually, that'd be lame.

Brian: That'd be lame as hell. That's one of the things is, you know, these, these guys and, you know, a lot of the people I've ridden with, uh, I really love it when you're at that level where you don't even, you know, they just, everybody literally does their own thing. I mean, we're, we're there together. Uh, but people have like, it doesn't even occur to them to, to do something that they wouldn't normally do just for the group, you know, my birthday.

Robin: Yes. Okay. That weekend was my birthday. Now, next year will be my 50th birthday. I want it to be the Kentucky crawl. I want to get all my buddies down there. We're going to make this happen.

Brian: You should, you should. Yes.

Robin: So we'll get a bigger onslaught, multiple teams of writers or no, no, no, no. 21 writers back brother, brother, brother.

Brian: Commemorative patches and, and hankies, uh, uh, bandana. That's what it was. No, we won't.

Robin: I'm going to skim through here. Cause we're going to put some poops next to the things we didn't cover this week. We'll skip shop tools. We'll skip chronicles of wire. It sounded to me like, did you guys complete reheated rehash?

Brian: Yeah, we, we completed that article. So whether we want to go on to another article or I was, I wasn't sure. I like the discussion around it. I don't know. I think it worked. I don't know.

Robin: No, I thought it was fantastic. I had another article of mine that I think I'm ready to deliver, but we're going to have to wait until next time.

Brian: Yeah. Let's close this out. We've got way too much material. I like that. All right. Shall we begin the exit process? All right. Uh, please make sure your tray tables are in the upright and locked position.