Robin: Where are you at with one-man caravan? Are you halfway through it? Are you three-quarters of the way through it? Are you 66%?

Brian: I'm like 1% of the way through it. I'm like, oh, this is interesting and I haven't touched it. I need to read. Yeah, I need to read it, I guess. Okay.

Robin: No, but you've already completed Melissa Holbrook Pearson's book, right?

Brian: I did.

Robin: That's a good book. I mean, well, she's written several books. One of them I'm looking forward to reading again at some point, but it's The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing.

Brian: Yeah, I need to find, I had the feeling that I needed to find more of her books.

Robin: The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing is really good. Okay. And that's the guy on the FJR with like a 30-gallon tank. He camel-humped his FJR tank into this junk. That's all he did was ride, really. It's all about long-distance, borderline competitive long-distance riders.

Brian: Yeah, those guys are nuts and we should talk to one.

Robin: We should. It's not, I mean, it's interesting to me to hear about it. I'm not interested in doing it.

Brian: No, not my thing.

Robin: Not at all. I'm more about technique, proficiency curves galore. You're almost done with One Man Caravan is what you're saying.

Brian: I can be very quickly.

Robin: We can't have Melissa Holbrook Pearson on the show until we finish that book. That's her goal. That's true.

Brian: That's it. Okay. I got to finish that book and I finished her book and I got to finish that one because she talks about that. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

Robin: It's a good tie together type thing.

Brian: Will do.

Robin: So the wiring rhetoric you've heard all over Marco Polo between Tim, Travis, and myself and you've been spying vicariously on, I installed a tail-tidy on the Beamer and I'm glad I did because I'm bringing sexy back with the Beamer. We talked last time about some of the screws they install, they bring with it that are just like, here you go, here's your gummy bear, gelatin, wrong threading, Allen head in a Torx area kind of thing. That's still kind of the issue. I love how it says it takes an hour to install. I believe that if you are a smash and grab kind of person, but I've got lit luggage that I built myself. I've got a set of Volo lights on my license plate, which is a deceleration detector. Those actually work way better too with a tail-tidy. If you have a tail-tidy, it's less shaky and so they are more accurate and they actually operate the way they're intended to. Well, the outlet where the wires go into this tail-tidy, it's a very small bit of access. So I've cut all my wires and put just bullet connectors, cut them off, bullet connectors, insulate them, connect them. I'll tell you, man, part one of this conversation is why, why is it that no matter what it is that I want to do that I've done before, why is it that I want to come back to do it again? I have to absolutely suck at it for 75% of the effort. And then the last 25% of the effort is the exact glory you're after. And they're mixed together. In this case, my wire crimper, almost the entire time, I had the crimper upside down.

Brian: You're crimping backwards, yeah.

Robin: So then I do it, I'm like, man, these tools, you know, you tell yourself, oh, these tools really don't work the way they should, so you peel the connector out and then you get your needle nose out and you kind of like fix the bends and then crimp it yourself. There you go. Man, I don't know what it is. And then you realize, oh, that's why the little W shape in the basin of it is intended for the open side so they can curl everything around. Yeah, that's how that went. But all the bullet connectors are there. Everything's kind of tidy, insulated and in place. Problem is the fuse block that I removed, which was one of my own installations, used to go where everything is. And so I need to find, instead of a big clunky six port mini blade fuse block for like a car, I need to find the smallest four port blade fuse panel I can find. Even better if it's got a ground to it.

Brian: Have you looked at, and I swear this is really a real site, Eastern Beaver, easternbeaver.com.

Robin: I think you've referred me to this site many times. Go in there right now, easternbeaver.com. Okay. I am there. Now this isn't the one, oh, the Power Center BR, they got all kinds of stuff. What a website. Look at that. Brian Ringer, you're my hero.

Brian: So he's got the PCA, yeah, fuse boxes, yeah, the PCA, and then he's got a four circuit solution if you want really, really, really compact. It's like pre-wired with fuse holders and all that.

Robin: That may be the only way I can do this. I tried moving the clunky one down to on top of the Bosch electrical system on the Beamer and it was just like, the seat would not go on. So I went at it with a large hammer. That didn't seem to help anything either. Yeah.

Brian: So basically the most compact one he's got is a three circuit solution and basically it's relay powered. So it comes off the battery, it's got a relay that turns it on, and then it's got like a really compact three circuit fuse box. I don't know if that's big enough for what you're doing.

Robin: We'll find out. I'll look into it. Thank you, Brian Ringer. I will bookmark this right now, easternbeaver.com. It is not a fetish website.

Brian: That's right.

Robin: Unless your fetish is awesome electronics.

Brian: Yeah. More than one writer has gotten into trouble because Eastern Beaver shows up on their credit card and causes domestic issues. What kind of sick stuff are you into? Well, that's my anecdotal, Chad. What's up with you? Let's see. Did a bunch of work on my GS850, took it for a ride finally after I don't know how many months of accumulating parts. And I tell you what, the thing, and this is a topic maybe we should return to, but I've had that bike for since 1997. Wow. So what is that? 20? That's 26 years with one, with that bike. Yes, sir. And at least 130,000 miles on one bike. And you've got a ton of miles on one bike on your BMW. You've owned a lot of others. I've owned a lot of other bikes, not a lot compared to some people, but there really is something to be said for a long-termer like one that you, it's like putting on old blue jeans. I mean, it's just, you know exactly what it's going to do in every situation, you know, and being a 1983 bike, it does a lot of wiggling and wobbling and, you know, and you get used to that. But, but yeah, it was a lot of fun to take it out. I'm not going to ride out in the countryside, but I took it out and ran some errands, did about 20 miles, got on the interstate a little bit, you know, all that.

Robin: That's good. Glad to hear it. I got some riding in myself. Got to ride the sisters and rode as well to Kerrville and back, but that's like right out the door. So nothing as interesting as jumping on the vintage.

Brian: Lots of fun.

Robin: I've already made my rant about my electronics, so I'll save my painting rant for another day and we'll get to the positive stuff.

Brian: One rant per episode.

Robin: This episode is mission critical. I don't care if it takes the entire episode. We are going into maptastic mayhem immediately because we have to figure out some kind of a route between, what was it, Mayberry, Tennessee?

Brian: It's between Mount Airy, North Carolina and Maggie Valley. Okay. Have you opened Ride With GPS?

Robin: I'm about to open Ride With GPS right now, Brian Ringer.

Brian: All right. Robin Dean, you will see, or you should see, a shared route. Oh, no joke, really? That should be that which we seek.

Robin: You already built some noise for me.

Brian: I built some noise. So we can talk about it.

Robin: You know I'm taking credit for all this, right?

Brian: We can make noise and talk.

Robin: Absolutely.

Brian: This is the Robin Dean with no help from anybody else tour. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would expect no less. I'm going into routes. You should see Mount Airy to Maggie Valley, avoid BRP. And I had it shared with friends, and I think you're a friend.

Robin: So that means I need to go to your account, and that's under BW Ringer or B Ringer?

Brian: Yeah, something like that. Now I will say this comes out to 279 miles. Anyway, it's a little more than our goal, but I'm just, I'm going to say the good stuff, there's like, there's some just getting into Maggie Valley and getting out of Mount Airy is kind of dull. So if you don't count that. This looks out freaking standing. So the cool thing, and if you turn on the terrain layer too, and the cool thing is basically there are 33 miles of BRP in this to basically get you around. I think it's around Boone or Blowing Rock. Which one is it? Yeah, around Boone and Blowing Rock. You want to kind of avoid because those have kind of gotten. So basically you get on and off the BRP. So if you look at the cue sheet, you'll see when you get on and off and then that's it. This is lovely. And then, then there's some, there's some absolutely sick stuff there going on. So, and there's a, and there's a lot of stuff that we had that just didn't have time for.

Robin: Right. Well, first thing I'm going to do then, since you shared it, I'm going to copy to my routes and it'll be 777 Mount Airy to Maggie Valley.

Brian: Was it day five, four? Forget which one.

Robin: I let's see. I think it was day four. Yeah. So day one lands us in Parkersburg, day two lands us in Warm Springs, day three lands us in Mount Airy. Yeah. Day four.

Brian: This is day four. Okay.

Robin: So I'm going to view my copy now and actually I'm going to edit it and save it so that it is not available to friends. And if you would please make sure that you make your copy private.

Brian: Yeah. I don't know who, somewhere in here I'll have to see who the hell the friends are. I think you're the only friend I have here on Ride With GPS. That sounded really depressing.

Robin: You got to look up Tim. It did once I said it out loud. You're the only friend I've got. Tim Clark's on there. Travis Burleson's on there. I think Greg White's on there too. GBW. Oh, he is. Tom Burns is on there. He should be if he's not. Okay. My thing is this. If the guys at Ride With GPS are listening, I don't know how to find my friends feed. There's a feed that I don't know how to find my, well, I did find you on there. So I guess that worked out. Let's see here. So this is going to be, oh, friends only. Yes. It is understood. This is a friends only situation. I'm going to set this one to flat out private. So.

Brian: Okay. So you've got a copy of it?

Robin: I do. I have my own copy of it. Man, that really like shrinks down my entire game plan for this episode, Brian Rayner.

Brian: We can kind of, we can kind of walk through it a little bit if you want to.

Robin: Yeah. No, that'll be fun. That's a good play. Let me just make sure it's the, how do I set the privacy? Oh, here we go. Click on this. Like you can see what I'm doing. Like anybody can see what I'm doing. Click on this. Make sure you click on that.

Brian: Riveting.

Robin: And then. You're right.

Brian: Riveting audio.

Robin: I need to edit the menu, set the private and then save and that should do it. And yeah, let's talk through it. Do you have yours up?

Brian: I have mine right here in front of me. Cool. You can see it in my glasses a little bit. Anyway. Okay. So we're starting in Mount Airy. Yes, sir. Airy.

Robin: At the Mayberry Motor Lodge, which is a lovely, lovely place.

Brian: Yeah. That, I mean, you can just tell right there. Yep. It's like going, it's like going to a restaurant called Grandma's Breakfast. It's going to be good no matter what. So anyway, if you zoom out, turn on Google Terrain, you'll kind of see how this works. And a couple of important things I wanted to do was Boone and Blowing Rock are like traffic sucks. The other thing I wanted to do, I wanted to really try to avoid US highways. Okay. There's a few, there's a little bit of that, but only some good bits. We also wanted to kind of avoid, depending on the BRP, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the whole way, which would be really easy to kind of fall into. So you really have to work to get out of that. Yeah. But yeah, this basically follows, you know, basically out of Mount Airy, it goes just a little bit Northwest and then gets on a ridge system and goes all the way down to Maggie Valley. The other thing where you really, really have to avoid is Asheville. I mean, Asheville is just a giant festering ball of traffic.

Robin: Yes. Beautiful things to do there if you plan on staying there for a long period of time. We're not.

Brian: Yeah. Like if you're in Asheville, get out of Asheville and there are all kinds of things to do no matter what you're into. But Asheville itself is just super crowded and all the suburbs around it. So I took a pretty wide berth around it. So, yeah, I mean, we're not going to go through the whole stupid thing, but, you know, basically we get out of Mount Airy kind of the most interesting way I can I could find and it kind of goes up over the ridge. It's got got at least a little switchback going on. Yes. And we actually pass over or under, I don't know which it is, but it actually goes like right across the Blue Ridge Parkway. There's actually a little thing, start of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia or something anyway. And and then like, I can't see the road number. Is there a way to make this translucent, by the way? Have you ever figured that out so you can actually see the road?

Robin: I mean, you know, you do realize that if we ask him a question, he'll answer. He told us flat out during the interview, whatever it is you're wondering, it probably already exists. We just, you know, like we all get to ask him about it. We never have. I mean, let me look at my settings here. Global heat map, personal heat map services, bike paths, distance, zoom. I mean, let me look at my own profile setting, location, privacy zone, preferences. Let's see. I've got my mouse over preferences. But first, backups, connected services, the labs, managed subscription, health widget, access token and developers. Let's go with preferences and language units. What does your week start on? But nothing to set the translucency that I can see that's obvious.

Brian: So is there a way to set the color of a route? That's what I was wondering. Like if it's an individual route thing. I don't know. Yeah, right there. Okay. I see there's a little red dot. Like if you click at it and there's a little red dot, but you only get a few different colors. Okay. Like you can't customize it and make it translucent.

Robin: I don't think that needs to happen, but go on.

Brian: Yeah, I think we're on 16 or 18 or whatever the hell it is anyway. So that goes on for quite a while. And you can see there are a few little, like I had some, you know, I had some little, you know, when you click just like two yards to the right of the road, it wants to go over there.

Robin: Yeah. Oh, I see you had some flubs. I call them flubs when I do that because you're just zoomed out far enough that you think you're clicking the right spot. It turns out there's an entire metropolis there and he clicked in the middle of a downtown intersection or something.

Brian: Yeah. So basically we're on a highway, a highway 16 or 18, I think it's 18, something like that.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: And then basically it hangs a right on something called Buckwheat Road. Now I did check out Buckwheat Road using the magic of Google. It's got, it's got three lines on it. That's all I need. Yes. I don't know about you. Nope. That'll work. And the great thing about that kind of thing is that it'll get you, you know, basically we're getting across a whole system of ridges in a way we couldn't on a state highway. What about this one here? I'm going to share this with you real quick here. Sure.

Robin: What about this one?

Brian: That's probably not a road we should use.

Robin: Okay. Well then check this out. Just kidding.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: State Road 155. So that is one thing you can do is if you put the magic do down on the, like the proof pavement, you can see the road name oftentimes in the actual pavement.

Brian: So not a bad thing. Yeah. You were saying? Yeah. Anyway. How do I get out of, yeah, anyway.

Robin: What town are you looking at now? Because I was just over by Sparta.

Brian: That's a very good question. Yeah.

Robin: Cities are a good reference. So we're in, we're in Mount Airy, everything's sort of slabby and we end up over at Sparta and we're heading due West, everybody, whoever's listening.

Brian: Yeah. And so we go up a North Carolina 16. Yes, sir. And then, and then we get on the Blue Ridge Parkway for, it's like 33 miles and it's actually kind of one of the best parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway. That's cool. Ain't even mad, you know, you can't get mad. No, man. That's good. And that works. And the cool thing is basically that we stay on the Blue Ridge Parkway and it gets you past Blowing Rock and Boone. Okay. Gets you just past Blowing Rock and Boone and then you, then you hop off. And the other thing I really tried to avoid US highways, but if once you're off the Blue Ridge Parkway, just past Blowing Rock, you get on 221 or yeah, 221, which is pretty nutso. I'm looking for it now, but what, give me a city reference. Yeah. Blowing Rock. You get off the BRP just west of Blowing Rock.

Robin: Okay. How many miles into this route would that be? If you mouse over the elevation map down at the bottom?

Brian: 110.

Robin: 110. Okay, cool. Wow. You're already like deep in. Gotcha. All right. I'm looking at this. 221. Excellent. 221 is part of the original version, I do believe, which so it's fantastic that we got to keep that.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And then we kind of have to, we're doing some funny business here. There's some funny business to get through a few towns on, what is it? It's still 221 on 181, I believe is what you end up turning on.

Robin: Okay. Over by Grandfather Mountain.

Brian: Yeah. And then you're kind of getting on 19E for just a little bit, and then you got to get over to Roan Mountain. So basically, you got to do a little jog over to Roan Mountain. So it's a little dull there, but there's a lot of places to eat, stuff like that. Okay. So somewhere in here, maybe a good, between Grandfather and Roan Mountain, maybe a good spot to look for some grub.

Robin: Yes. Well, but covering 280 miles, I don't think lulls are necessarily a bad thing.

Brian: That's right. So then you turn left on, damn it, 143, and it's on, and it's on, like Donkey Kong.

Robin: That's up by Roan Mountain?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Yes, sir. Okay. So Roan Mountain, I don't know where we're at in relation to, this cracks me up a little bit. Hopefully the listeners won't laugh too hard at this, but the road that we use currently as our promo for the Trip 7's tour, which by the way is sold out. However, we're doing a New Mexico thing. You heard it. You listened to the beginning of the episode. You heard my awesome, majestic advertising voice, but the road that we use to promote the tour, it's a small out of nowhere, awesome road that hardly anybody uses out of Candler, North Carolina. It was just wide open from start to finish, and I just hosed it.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: That worked out. Anyhow, so this is a lot like that, where Roan Mountain, you're like, okay, here's another road that maybe nobody's on. Let's do this. Look at that. Look at what Brian Ringer did. This is great.

Brian: 221, 2.

Robin: Due South, twisty, twisty, twisty, then due West over to 226?

Brian: Yeah. Basically, it's a 261, and then it takes a fork mountain road, and again, this is one of those local roads, and you kind of scope it out to make sure that it takes you over to a different road, takes you over to, what'd you say, 226? Okay, got it.

Robin: Yes, sir. Out of Red Hill.

Brian: Yeah. Takes you down to Red Hill, and then you- What state is this?

Robin: This is North Carolina.

Brian: It's kind of relentless, yeah, 197, you get on that for quite some time. Now, one thing I want to point out that it just damn near killed me to leave out is if you look just south of Bakersville- Yes, 80. North Carolina, 80. It makes me weep to leave this out.

Robin: I've never been on that, and it's the same thing every time. You're right on the mark. Every time I see that, I'm like, where did this, how do I want to go to there?

Brian: I want to go to there, yeah. It is nuts, and it is so much fun, and it just doesn't. Unless you're, the way 80 works is if you're on 19E and you're bored as hell, hang a ride on 80, and you'll get up to the BRP and all that.

Robin: Well, so it is part of 226A. Now, 226A at one point was a part of something we did, and I'd have to weigh that against the old route, but this looks like it's just going to be so different from the previously validated and 100% badass route that we did beforehand. Was also fantastic, but this has raised the bar for sure.

Brian: I hope so. Yeah, so it just makes me weep to leave out 80, but there's so many other good roads, but there's a couple that I've made sure to include I'm going to talk about here. So yeah, 197, blah, blah, blah, and then you get a little bit, like it goes along the river just for a little bit, just so you can kind of uncurl your toes a little, and it's something called Huntingdale Road. I don't know. It's too perfect to pass up. It's got lines. It's got lines on it, but it goes where I want it to go.

Robin: Well, the brown streak will be there, so it's perfect.

Brian: And yeah, and then there's a little bit of a lull. You have to get on 19W again. Okay. And then the cool thing is 19W actually gets pretty damn good, kind of wiggles its way through a valley. And also, even by the most direct route, this is a 200-mile ride, so there's a limited amount of diversions. There's a limited number of diversions you can take. At some point, you just have to get there, or you're never going to get there.

Robin: And at this destination, it is worth getting there. It's one of those places where you can really... Oh, yeah. It's a completely independent experience of being on the motorcycle for the duration.

Brian: Yeah. So, yeah, 19... But the thing is, this part of 19W gets very good. It gets extremely good, and big, big, big sweepers, lots of fun. And then you're... I hope you... No, I don't know if you can see where we're going yet. Okay. Anyway, then it gets on 3... What is that? 332? Something like that? Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. I mean, I'm way ahead of you. I'm all the way looking at those noise and bluff. So 293 is that, or whatever it is, 229, 229, I think it's 229.

Brian: Yeah, there's some 212 going on. Let's... Oh, shit.

Robin: Which is just... Yeah, it's North Carolina 209. And I'm looking at it, and it just looks ludicrous.

Brian: Yeah, 209 is ludicrous, and it is... So yeah, there you go. So basically, yeah, you're getting on 208, and you're ending up in hot... Is it Hot Springs? What is it?

Robin: Well, you're going to go through Fines Creek, but that's just before you get down to 23, heading into Maggieville.

Brian: So yeah, this 208 is really cool. So anyway, when you hit Hot Springs... There it is. Yeah, Hot Springs. And again, distinct from Warm Springs. Yeah. Like, 209 South is a classic. It is nuts. Yeah. You're going to... Yeah. And then all of a sudden, you get like a... There's like one straight stretch. There's like two straight stretches. It's really weird. I don't know how they did that. But anyway, yeah, 209 is absolutely nuts. It's a classic. You got to do it. You know, it's one of those you got to do if you're in the area. They call it... They give it a dumb name. I don't know how you're going to dignify their dumb name. Anyway. And from there, you basically... You end up in Lake Generaliska, and then you zap over to Maggie Valley, and you're there.

Robin: Brian, you've answered the call. This is draft three of this tour. Draft three. The only thing that's changed is those two days. I want to make sure I say this because we have mutual friends who are going to be like, What'd you do? You just had Ringer play it all for you? I'm like, no, no, I did not. I invited Ringer to be my protege and learn about... No, these two days were something that I've been wrestling with since we first did it. I think the first tour was 2017, I believe, was the first Trip Sevens tour. And it was pretty good. But it wasn't. Holy damn. You know what I mean? And then we developed, in particular, the most advanced twisty sections we could find. And Travis and I invented them. We tested them. And it turned into, yeah, now we got something real to talk about. Except for Mount Airy is beautiful, and Maggie Valley is just a great place to go. How do we do that and not do the Blue Ridge Parkway? Especially because of the over-discussed story about the park ranger who pulled Tim Clark and I over. By the time he got to us, he was both sweating and laughing, because have you ever watched a park ranger turn a Suburban around on a two-lane parkway? It was the most Austin Powers shit you've ever seen, and he was giggling while doing it with his sparkles on, and we're just waiting for him. It's an old story, but he gave us a warning, and he was totally just like, thanks for the workout. And he was like, you know how hard it is to turn those things around? And we moved on.

Brian: Excellent.

Robin: Brian, thank you. The next episode, we should talk about your Kentucky stuff that you were like, uh-oh. When Dale was like, well, this bother people? And if the Brown Streak says it could bother people, it could bother people. So we'll figure that one out, too. I can't thank you enough, man. Map testing mayhem, check.

Brian: Done. In the books. Yeah, there's about 30 miles of the last day of Indiana that I'm going to reconfigure. But the original, full-strength, caffeinated, fully 200 proof is, I think it should be available. But yeah, we'll talk about that.

Robin: A day's going to come when I need you to be my sweep. Travis and Tim get dibs because they just always have been a part of it. Now it's like, I can't see any other reason not to invite, you know, the deal.

Brian: The vacation time I get is just a crying shame. But anyway, I may, if you want to sponsor this podcast, reach out to podcast at TRO.bike. Do you feel like we need to shorten this at all? It's 279 miles.

Robin: I think that's manageable. The hardest part of that is that the day before, I think it's over 250 miles. And then that day is over, it's around 280 miles. I think if there's a way to shorten it, we can look at it, but we got to be very careful not to miss out on some really great riding that day. The most tedious truth to it is, everybody after this long day, after our dinner in Mount Airy, after your alcohol, if you find any, I don't know if that's a dry candy or not. I don't remember. I need you guys to go to bed. Get up early and get eaten because we need to get going so that we can enjoy Maggie Valley.

Brian: Yeah. Good luck with that.

Robin: Right. And then you get to Maggie Valley and it's like, then you have to convince people in Maggie Valley, now that you've eaten and now that you've had a drink or two, go down by the river and enjoy it. Go to bed. I need you to get up and tell me what you're planning to do tomorrow. Because then there's like five big route options that day. One of them involves Jarrah Hala and the dragon and it's just, some of these people don't do that kind of thing. And being able to get them to maintain energy and be able to do those things is going to be a whole different shpoopy. Yeah. Fortunately, we have multiple routes. That's a big deal. Always, if you're going to run a tour of this magnitude, have your main route, maybe a couple of days where the route could be a little bit harder or longer or whatever. You've got your escape route for emergency purposes and you've got your, I need a break. There is always somebody on this tour who loves the Blue Ridge Parkway and can't wait to do it again because by that point in the tour, they've realized who they are. Different animal.

Brian: But that's easy enough. Okay. Go. Here's the Blue Ridge Parkway. There's a sign that says Maggie Valley that way. Easy. Yeah.

Robin: Go that way. Go that way. Watch your gas dial. You're going to find some. Don't worry about it. Keep on going. You'll end up in where we're at. Did I thank you already? I thanked you.

Brian: You thanked me profusely. You blew so much smoke up my ass, I'm going to get cancer. The other thing you can do also, there's a lot of points where someone who was so inclined could kind of exit on 19, 19E, 19W, and do the same thing, end up in the same spot with a really, really scenic ride and a lot of really cool little towns, and they would just miss a lot of the twisties, but that's what somebody wants to do. So we could design some of those routes in future episodes. We got all winter.

Robin: Yeah, man. And I promise I will be here to make that happen, or at least set you up so that you can make it happen with somebody, and then I'll produce the result, and then I can just sleep. At any rate, let's skip reheated rehash and save that for next week because I need to be in the right frame of mind to present my factual defense of correct opinion about sport touring being a sport bike with luggage. Okay, moving right along. I will say this. Give me one second to find this on the website.

Brian: Where is this website, Robin?

Robin: TRO.bike, Brian. It's your sport touring motorbike fix. At TRO.bike. All right, so I've clicked on sport touring defined, a motorcycle genre, which is our current argument and reheated rehash discussion. I'm not going to go into it this round, but what I will do is take this moment to thank Marco Wickstrom for his comment about, you know, thanks for the article. I agree with all, especially the rider mindset. So I predict he probably has something like your bike, which is by default, it's an ADV bike that's been converted into a hyper motard, dual 17s. That's debatable, but okay. Precisely. That's why we get into this. This is why reheated rehash exists. That debate, we will continue it. I'll read more of that article next week and we will build off of that. I want to get to the two-headed coin because I don't know, I'm going through some stuff right now and you have been a hell of a podcast leader and created a hell of an outline for us to sponge off of. What do you want to talk about on two-headed coin?

Brian: Let's talk about our furry little companions. Let's talk about dogs. Dogs. Yeah. So two-headed coin, stuff happens like a dog running at you. What do you do? Quick, what's the right thing to do? And slow, let's talk about why. What's the rocket surgery reasoning here? And so you have dogs that are openly hostile coming at you, wanting a piece of your ass. And then you have dogs that are coming at you and you don't know why. Some of them just like to pretend chase. And I've had dogs that actually, they want to, like, they kind of hide and then they actually will like leap out at you. And you know, like they want, they like surprising people. They think, you know, it's dog humor, I guess. So yeah, like, you know, dogs are, it's different than a deer or whatever. They're smarter.

Robin: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Back to basics. Fast answer. What's your fast answer?

Brian: Fast answer? Slow down, then speed up.

Robin: What Brian said is my fast answer as well.

Brian: Oh, is it? Okay. I didn't. Okay. So a slow answer is there's a dog headed your way, whatever his intentions are, or her, you don't know what the dog wants, you know, or what you, you know. Sometimes dogs, like they have their own mind and their own sense of humor. You don't know what they're doing. But what you want to avoid is an interception. You do not want that dog to be able to intercept the path of your motorcycle. So what you want to do is throw off the dog's calculation because they're over there doing trigonometry. They've got some calculus going. They're doing math. And they are, most dogs are not, they're not trying to actually come and bite you. They just want to chase you because it's fun. But some dogs that do want to intercept you will have a route calculated in order to intercept you. So, you know, if you're going 60 or 80 or whatever, you know, this dog has a chance of getting, you know, of intersecting you and that causes a problem. So what you want to do is throw off the dog's math. Dogs, dogs are really good at trigonometry, but they're not really fast at it.

Robin: There it is. Go on.

Brian: So what you want to do is slow down and the dog will change his trajectory. You know, he's recalculating, recalculating, got his little Bombardier computer in here and then speed up again. And by that time, the dog won't be able to correct his course enough to get in front of you again. So you slow down, he corrects his trajectory, and then you speed up again and the dog's going to hit the road behind you.

Robin: I have to wonder if it was you that I stole that line from, but I thought it was my friend Don Barron, fellow instructor.

Brian: Wasn't me.

Robin: The line was something to the effect of dogs, they're really good at trigonometry, but they're terrible at calculus.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you just change the situation, the dog will miss you. Their little ballistic computer.

Robin: Dogs are watching an object that is in a constant rate of motion go by and deciding at what point at their most manageable speed, they'll be able to intersect with you. That's their strike point. You see lions go after the gazelle, whatever it is. They have a judgment point where they're like, this is where it's going to happen. And if you stop for a second, they don't actually take the time to figure out what they're going to do next. They just stare at you and say, derp. And then you move on. Now, not all dogs are like this and some dogs are downright too fast. Like there are going to be dogs where it's like, it doesn't matter if you slow down, they're coming at you and that's how it's going to go. So get on it. But in the end, yeah, that's, that's a pretty good method.

Brian: Slow down, make the dog changes path and then, and then speed up and it'll miss you. And the thing is, you don't know what dogs are going to do. Most dogs just want to get some exercise and bark and chase. And so they're not really actually trying to intersect you. Some are, and there are some nasty dogs out there. You don't know. So you have to, you have to assume the worst and then slow down till the dog changes course and then speed up again.

Robin: Track record, any herding dog that is shaped like a brick that is supposed to be streamlined and agile. But if it's a herding dog and it's just shaped like a log, that dog has always been a problem for me. Somehow it's faster than the others. It's more angry than the others. It's just agitated from the start.

Brian: They're better at calculus. Yeah. Than average dogs. Yeah. What do you want to talk about next? Let's do a tiny tasty tool tip or two. I've got one for you too. TROs, tiny tasty tool tips.

Robin: And it's actually Brian's tiny tasty tool tips, but propriety rights. He's already on the podcast, which means it technically belongs to TRO. Take it away, Robin. I'm a giver. If you use the tinfoil from last night's toaster oven tacos while baking in heat shrink tubing, you'll always know when it's time to veer away with the heat gun. Smells delicious.

Brian: So what you're saying, so what you're saying is, is, is recycle your foil and use as heat shielding. Okay. Yes. I like it.

Robin: I went to the toaster oven, I pulled out the aluminum foil, and then I walked out to my garage, I'm sorry, tent, and, and I held it underneath a specific point on the bike, expensive plastic parts, and then proceeded to use a heat gun directly on those points. Super expensive, rare, unobtainium plastic parts that had heat shrinking underneath. And hopefully my soldering of all my busted up wire connectors is still intact. There you go. Your turn. What do you got?

Brian: Excellent. Excellent. All right. This is one for more of the home shop. I have found it very, very handy to have, if you go on Amazon and you search the word endoscope, endoscope, E-N-D-O-O scope, you're not going to find medical equipment unless you're like really sick in that way. But what you are going to find is a tiny camera on the end of this sort of flexible cable, and it plugs into your phone or your Chromebook or your computer or whatever. And you can use that to peer into little spaces. And they're like 20, 30 bucks. I mean, they're cheap as hell. Really? It's a great way. Yeah, they're very cheap. Sometimes they call it a bore scope, something like that. So yeah, if you lose something down in an engine or you need to see like, you know, you need to look inside a cylinder bore or stuff like that, you can stick this thing in there. They're about 9 or 10 millimeters. They're no less than that. They're maybe 8 millimeters across. You know, it'll tell you in the specs. And yeah, you just plug it in and open. Usually I just open the camera app. I use a Chromebook just so I have a big screen. So I'll open that, open a camera app. It shows up as another camera. And I can, like I used it to look inside my cylinder bores to make sure there wasn't any valve damage when I had exhaust issues on my old bike. So stuff like that.

Robin: That's a brilliant plan, you know, because little bits fall into bigger bits, fall into little bits. You never know. Yeah. I got to hand it to Maggie Dean, though. She did something special the other day. A bolt from the gas tank rolled down the frame and underneath something where there was some hosing or whatever. I heard the, ah, damn it. You know, she was doing the work. I was like, oh, that's my girl. So I walk over there and she's like, I don't, I don't know where I went. I don't know. Which such is life. You know, that happens to all of us. So I was like, yeah, well, good luck with that. And I walked away, walked back over to my bike. I don't, I'm not, you can have that. You're working on that bike still. You go at it. And then I hear her say, okay, I know where it is. I know where it is. Those eyes, man. She's like, can you help me now? Yeah, sure. Come over there. That Allen head steel, whatever you had to be standing and do not move to see it. And I just thought, wow, that's some good vision. How are we going to get that? And I got to hand her a tool that had not been out of the drawer in a long time. And I handed her the spring grabber and she went in there and squeezed, got it around thing, let it go, picked it up, brought it back out. So proud way to go. Maggie Dean shout out.

Brian: Excellent. Yeah. I have like an assortment of magnetic grabbers, but even those, you know, if you're snaking down through metal, through a steel parts, you know, sometimes I'll grab on it. Yeah. You got to have all the above. All the above is what you need to get that kind of crap. One or two per episode. I think we've covered two. Excellent.

Robin: My tinfoil was legit. Wasn't it? That was legit, man. The condition might not have been legit, but it was still legit.

Brian: Yeah, you could. I mean, if you're really, you know, if you're boring, you could just use new foil off the roll, but you know, why not salvage it from somewhere?

Robin: Delicious smell in the air. It always tells you when it's time to veer away. I will say this, this happened. Make sure you angle the tinfoil in the right direction so that you're not cupping air as you're blasting into your hand. You need to fold it away so that you're deflecting air away from your hand while you're holding the tinfoil in place.

Brian: True. We need to talk about wires. Yes. Because wires scare people. Let's do one other thing. Let's do it. What's the weirdest thing you've ever avoided lying in the road? I'll go first because I just sprung this on you. The weirdest thing I've ever avoided on the road, and this was on Highway 64 outside of Cashier's, North Carolina. There was a brand new toilet. Someone. Someone was on it? No, no. Someone was not on it. That would be an even better story, wouldn't it? Yes, but go on. No, there was anyway, there was a brand new toilet in the middle of the road, smashed to like the box was there, and the top had come off the box, and then there were, you know, like the toilet was like half smashed, half in the middle of the road. And this is a tight, twisty, winding road along a creek. Very busy, too, because, you know, there's a lot of growth in that area. But yes, someone was on their way home from Home Depot and lost their shitter.

Robin: They lost their shitter.

Brian: Yeah. So yeah, and actually, I was like, oh, that's hilarious. And I'm like, oh, crap, that's a lot of sharp shrapnel all over the road. So finally had to kind of, you kind of had to dodge around. And I'm like, someone's going to have to deal with that at some point, but it ain't going to be me.

Robin: My story is similar to this, told several times on different episodes of the podcast. So I'll just try to get it out quick. Two words, particle board. Yeah. My first big tour was with Travis and we were heading to Portland. I don't remember if we're on our way back or on our way there. I think we're on our way there. A lot of rain, a flatbed truck full of sheets of particle board. It was a windy area. You see the signs that say danger, windy area. Lo and behold, one of them got free and the wind just threw it straight up into the air. So the whole thing went straight up instead. You know, that, you know, son of Jarrell, that freaking rectangle that's flying through the air. Right. And then right when it's stabilized and was getting ready to come down, there's a lot of different wind pressures from different directions. It absolutely exploded. The biggest piece was probably the size of my hand. So this four by eight sheet of particle board was just everywhere and raining hell down on us while we're riding through. And it's just Splinter City, right? It's just here is a world of hurt. And if you hit the right piece in the right way, you're going to pop a tire. You could. It is feasible. So I was like, well, damn, here we go. A laughable moment.

Brian: Well, glad you avoided it. And you're here to be with us. You're here. You're here with us today. Yeah, I did once see, I'll just tell another story just because why not? This is a really short one. It was dark and I was almost home and I saw like some sparks and I saw something, some lighter sparks on the road ahead of it. And basically a ladder had just fallen off the truck ahead of me. And I didn't see the ladder come down or anything. And I just saw the sparks from the ladder sliding along the road. And I avoided whatever was going on there. I didn't want to be part of it. So I avoided that. And as I went past, I'm like, oh, you know, it was dark. And as I went past, I'm like, oh, crap, it's a ladder. And it was, you know, I'm not even going to come back and get that. It looked like a good, nice ladder, but. Yeah, well, that was a nice ladder. I'll pass. I'm going to come back. I did that with a lawnmower once. I came back with a car and picked it up. Nicely done. Good mower. And with that.