Robin: It is 4 0 2 PM here in Sanderson, Texas. I'm coming at you from the desert air motel, the one and only garage. That is Godin, the one and only Joe Godin, who people may have heard on an episode before. So I want to enter this episode with a falsified, but completely positive intention, Brian ringer. Happy new year, man.

Brian: Happy new year, Robin to you and to Maggie and to well, to Joe and to everybody.

Robin: Yeah. He's already somewhere.

Brian: Yeah. I forgot your dog's name.

Robin: So gypsy gypsy is our dog. Gypsy.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: And Maggie's actually sitting over there. I it's a, I am actually going to produce this podcast episode same day. Before I produced the episode with you and Maggie, simply because we've been in transition between Uvalde, Texas and truth or consequences, New Mexico. So we are in transit now. Joe is sort of on the way, but he's just such a great place to be for New Year's Eve that, yeah, here we are. I've been, I've actually been working on his hotel while here. Cause they expanded. So yeah, they're like, Hey, we got, you got, we got your room covered, man. By the way, lift this giant steel plate. We're going to go create a fire pit. Like, all right.

Brian: So how are you doing enough?

Robin: Fair. Yeah. I mean, free room, free champagne and such. How are you?

Brian: Uh, good, good ish. Uh, we had, uh, basically we have always have the week off between Christmas and New Year's off of work. Uh, you know, or at least the office is closed and we're monitoring. But, uh, basically Marge tested positive for COVID on Monday. She was sick all weekend, tested positive on Monday. We're like, Oh, that's what that is.

Robin: It's going around again, man.

Brian: Oh yeah. It's still out there. It's happening. Yeah. And, uh, and I, you know, I don't like, I've been just sort of this low level, blah, blah. You know, I don't think I've tested. I haven't tested positive, but what, you know, I've, I've had something going on in my sinuses for a couple of weeks. It's just very low level. Like, so yeah, it could be better. I need to go out and I need to get more fresh air on a motorcycle.

Robin: That'll help.

Brian: That's hard to do right now. That's hard to do.

Robin: It's cooler there now. What's the temperature where you're at?

Brian: It's right at freezing. Uh, I did get to go out for a nice ride, uh, on Christmas Eve. Uh, just, you know, run some errands and stuff. There's nothing, nothing major, but, uh, it's the last time I've been on two wheels, been working on two wheels, but the last time I've been riding was, uh, was Christmas Eve. So, yeah.

Robin: Well, so then what I also hear is blah, blah, blah. Midwest winter that I, I myself am very familiar with and blah, blah, blah, waiting, waiting, waiting. Oh, window of opportunity writing. Hopefully. Yeah.

Brian: Or right to the grocery store. Woo.

Robin: Yeah. There's also the big gumption of, you know what I'm putting on the gear. I'm going to do it. I'm, I'm going writing. Nobody's going to stop me. The gears on and here I go. And that actually takes like 30 minutes. It's a process.

Brian: Yeah. You got to seal the neck just right. Or you're going to have like a, a hole it's there.

Robin: That's just so I can sync things up. I turned off the recording so we can sync things up. Cause you're recording it as yeah. Anyhow. Okay. So I had the ways I wanted to go about our new year's episode. You've got the ways you want to go about our new year's episode. Let's do them both and let's have a damn fine time. All right. All right. So the first thing is that I did count already and I'm looking at my browser. You and I have recorded, uh, in the time that you and I've been doing this together, full dedication. We've recorded an entire third of TROs podcast catalog in a single half year, a single half year you and I have delivered in my case, sometimes re-delivered old information, but in your case, definitely fresh information, insights, guru status concepts. One third of our total catalog is you and I hanging out and chatting it up. Yeah. And that's, I got to tell you, that's what I always wanted. That's what I've, that's, that's been a great year. I want to thank you for joining us as a permanent, uh, host. At some point you'll be, uh, you'll be what's the word I'm looking for. I've had two beers. So in the sun, you'll be liberated of me and have your own co-host. And I'll be a field guy who produces the episodes and, or not, it depends on, you know, who's interesting enough to, you know, peak your attention and, and, and chat you up for a while. But, uh, when I look, I'm going.

Brian: Yeah. I was going to say, we've also had some really, really fun conversations. Uh, with, uh, with Jasmine, with Joanne, um, and earlier in the year, was it this year you did, you did like just a killer interview with Eric Buell. That was awesome.

Robin: Let's look back here. So on the article train, I've got five pages, so it's like 50 things. Um, this, some of these are articles and some of these are podcast episodes. I can click through them and read them off now. So a guest author, Jason Moeller wrote about choosing your motorcycle transport wisely for when you're shipping your bike.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: Um, then I look at the next list. I've got, um, I wrote about the Milwaukee packout stuff. Kelly Howard asked whether or not, uh, technological advancements on bikes are always a good thing, or whether sometimes they're just a pain in the butt. You wrote about the fear, the writing fear, the reck, the reckoning, coping with writer fear, uh, Tim Travis, Armin A. Piper and myself discussed the Colorado tour adventure plan. Um, Dale Hoke jumped on to discuss motorcycling in Wisconsin. Uh, Kelly Howard talked about gross vehicle weight. Uh, we had, we had, uh, Joanna. I need to look up her last name. Cause I think Govars one second here while I get this absolutely right live and flawlessly Joanna, Joanna Govars Noble, who came on to discuss all things inspiring as an MSF instructor. Kelly Howard wrote the greatest title of an article ever, along with the actual content of it. Never try to impress your passenger with how far you can lean your motorcycle on the first date and other self-evident truths, right?

Brian: Good.

Robin: Uh, Armin A. Piper took us to MotoGP at Coda live. Uh, I wrote about packing bearings on your, uh, RV trailer. So that's how interesting I am by comparison. Right.

Brian: What you know, buddy.

Robin: Right. One page back. We got, uh, we got three more pages. I talked about getting the right fit for your helmet. Then we interviewed Murray and Mabel. So Murray Haynes and his lovely wife, Mabel. Uh, then I wrote about route triple six, the devil's highway out of Arizona. Then we did the Buell interview, which got to say, was it the peak of our year? Maybe, but leading up to this announcement about it having happened, I am not disappointed in how the year has been going so far. And then we got that, which was an awesome time. We have to do more of that. Yeah. Got into portable garages. Then Maggie and I went to Boise, Idaho, where I rode, uh, some amazing rides there that I had never, uh, the roads that people just aren't on. And then Brian Ringer, you thank you so much. You joined us for the first episode of your tenure with us. And we, the title was what we doing. What are we talking about?

Brian: Still figuring it out. Yeah. We'll let you know if you ever figure it out. Yep.

Robin: Uh, Tim Travis and the rest of the cast joined us for cloverloof. Uh, then you joined us for powdered giblets. What do you, what do you, what do you use on your giblets? Kelly Howard, uh, wrote about ergonomics and the triangle of pain. Next, next page, last two. And then I'm going to let you chat me up for a bit. Uh, you discussed finding fun roads in the flatlands, a Brian article. Uh, after that, we did our next podcast episode, which was, I don't know how to say this, right. But so a read there, uh, keep the comfort tick safety, which is basically, uh, go fast and turn often.

Brian: No, it's Latin for ride fast and shift a lot.

Robin: Yeah. But the actual translation comes out to turn many times or turn often.

Brian: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It was a Latin professor who actually provided that for us.

Robin: His Latin is more interesting than the original, uh, you know, giving people shit a lot.

Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robin: Right.

Brian: Yeah. Shit's a lot fast.

Robin: Uh, I wrote an article about the muck off the muck off pressure washer. Uh, and then, and then, uh, we did an episode with where you got to meet Murray Haynes himself, uh, in discussion where we had just ridden a Beartooth pass, which was a lot of fun then.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Way to rub that into, uh, this, this poor bastard in Indiana. Yeah. Let's talk about our mountain ride.

Robin: Yes. Look out the window. Is it raining right now? Those tears, the rain is your salty, delicious tears, uh, rising to Madison was another episode we had done. I don't remember much about it. Then you and I got deep on the ride with GPS app and got to interview Alex Gay, who is part of the, uh, scene there.

Brian: Uh, that was cool.

Robin: Yep. Then thank you. Anna Mosa, where we passed it off to Matt Berry, who did a segment on the slow close of the national motorcycle museum in Anna Modis, uh, was, is that Idaho or Wisconsin? I don't remember. I mean, uh, Iowa, Iowa, it's Iowa. Yeah. Um, then you and I did compass rumpus great episode. Things started to get some momentum. We also discussed lottery and the study of finding the right place to stay the night.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. The, with the friendly crack heads. Yeah.

Robin: The friendly crack heads. I wrote an article about rocks, uh, rock straps for the wind, uh, meaning keep a set on your bike. And then the last page to catch us all up, we have, uh, the Bluetooth blues, which was you and Travis Colorado in tow where I had just finished a Colorado tour, uh, tour masters tires and torque, which was, I think I'm in his most recent, perhaps final episode. We'll see the Suzuki ride, which was Kelly Howard doing motorcycle demo rides for Suzuki's newest ride, uh, models. You got a new motorcycle lift. We then went from Mount Airy to Maggie Valley, then toaster oven, trigonometry and other podcasts episodes, which you seem to like very much. I'm very happy to hear. Then we had Jasmine. Jasmine's Islam joined us for a Jasmine's squish mallows and rolling earthquakes. Then you wrote the one rule to tool them all article. And then finally concluded with gear chicks, Joanne Don, that is our year in a nutshell. It sounds like a lot. It was a lot. What a year, man. What an awesome, awesome year. It's a blur. I have no idea what's going on at any given moment.

Brian: So I, you know, the thing that sticks out to me is I can't believe, um, as I understand it, you did not discover rock straps until this year. Is that correct?

Robin: I knew about them. No, I, I didn't. They weren't a discovery. They were more just a forced realization. Like I knew what they were. I didn't want to haul them around. I had my own way of doing things. And then somebody handed me a set and I was like, okay, I should have done this a long time ago.

Brian: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was, uh, that was like, yeah. And you were kind of like, yeah, shut up. I've heard about, yeah, I, yeah, I get it. Okay. Everybody, you know, cause these things are amazing and everybody has to figure that out eventually. Um, yeah, it was a lot of fun and, and talking with, and, and talking about trigonometry was a lot of fun. And, you know, just kept, you know, figuring out how dogs do math was, was an interesting discussion. And also it could help keep people safe. You know, Hey, you, you learn a little something, but yeah, a lot of fun stuff. Did, did a little bit of hardcore mapping with the, the Mount Airy to Maggie Valley and in some of the, uh, some of the discussions about the Indiana end of the, of the triple seven routes, um, a lot of fun. It was really great to meet Jasmine and to meet Joanne and just BS about motorcycling and riding and so forth. You know, with, with someone new.

Robin: We're going to do a lot more of that.

Brian: There's going to be plenty of that coming next year. That was fun. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Good.

Robin: There's, I've got an itinerant, like I've got a pretty good long list of people that are just going to be a lot of fun to talk to and you might think are hard to get into touch with, but they're really not, they're actually very accessible and I'm excited about that. I think next year is going to be, well, I'm sorry, it's the new year already, Brian, happy new year. So as you, as you hear this, yeah, this year is going to start out with some fantastic voyages in motorcycle discussion and blather and Yammer and all of the things. Um, so yeah, so our episode count was great. Uh, I would like to be writing more. I plan to write more articles. I promise I will. Um, and if anybody wants to know about like, well, where is Tim? Where's Travis? Where's Piper? The truth of the matter is, is that people are busy and they are running businesses and working real jobs. And they've just got so much going on to want to do this enough to perhaps create trouble for those things. And it's not always going to be worth it. They know that the door is always wide open. And if they want to do any segments or if they want to join us for an episode, they know that they have a door with their name on it that welcomes them right into the fold. And the fact is they've just got so much going on. Tim's buying new bikes. Travis is a father of twins and Armine Piper runs a motorcycle training program in well, a, an outfit in Colorado. So things, people got things going on. That's just how it goes.

Brian: Yeah, well, you know, and, and Travis and I have some unfinished business because we've got a whole on, we've got a whole hunk on like motorcycle electrics and technology that I think we could do, or, or maybe, maybe drag in Tim. I'm not sure there's a whole hunk waiting.

Robin: Tim has a tendency to land things like right on their feet in ways you did not expect. He'll listen, he'll listen. He won't say anything. And then he'll just feather the feet. Like, let me plant you here. So you really understand what my take on this is. And it just, it's a pretty heavy hit. Next year's format. I think we're definitely going to keep on doing what we're doing. I think I'm going to start some work to create a generic intro and a generic exit. So you and I can just get on, talk, and then I'll have the server do the work for me. I've already got all that stuff in place. It's pretty easy to do. Um, for a second there, here's, here's one for fun with the website. I thought that maybe the weather page was getting less and less accurate, but the fact of the matter is it's exactly as accurate as it can be. So there's that. I was looking out the window and it told me that the day was like a 0% chance of rain. And every hour that day, it rained at some point during that hour.

Brian: Is that, is the, is it the weather service or just the geolocation thinks you're somewhere else?

Robin: The geolocation knows where I'm at. The weather service is reporting 0% chance of precip. The problem was 0% chance of precip is that it's an impossible thing to really, truly factor. If you don't have the algorithm for how the barometric pressure, the dew point and the cloud cover versus the humidity are interacting with each other. If you don't have that calculation, it's not going to go right. So I might work on that a little bit this year, but, uh, that's all for me. I'm tired of hearing my own voice. Brian, what do you got? What do you want to talk about for the new year's episode?

Brian: All right. Um, I, I hate to use the word new year's resolution, but there are some things that are going to happen this year. There are some things that are going to happen. And, uh, uh, one of those is I'm going to do my first, I've never done a track day, which people are like, what the hell? Why haven't you done a track day? What is wrong with you? Are you weird? Is something wrong with it? You know, anyway, I've not, I've never done a track day, so I will do one this year, at least one. Uh, we need to figure out when and where Robin wants to witness this event. I know. So that's yeah. Coordination, but I make it's, it's, you know, the, the money, everything's set aside, it's ready. I will drop what I'm doing and get to a track.

Robin: It just so happens that I lined up an opportunity for us to interact and discuss these things with the one and only Jason Haraheim out of Madison, Wisconsin, who is, he operates, he works with motovid.com, motovid is the outfit we would probably go through. And it might set you up at either Blackhawk Farms, which is small and easy to remember, or Road America, which is insane-o fast and a lot of fun. So, you know, or we could do Gingerman, whatever the point is, is that we'll get Jason on here, I'll try and stay on the conversation and you roll with it. Maybe that's what should be part of our, our priorities for this year is I'll do field stuff and I'll put you on a constant guest host slash interview with awesome, amazing people just to talk shit, these are options.

Brian: Every, yeah, let's, let's try everything. That's kind of my philosophy. I love it. Try it. Why not? Um, and the other thing is at, in early in the year, uh, I'm going to come out to New Mexico and hang out with you and Maggie and Gypsy and do some riding. I'll probably like, I'll probably fly in Albuquerque and then get a bike on Twisted Road or which, which one is it that, uh, Twisted Road is good.

Robin: There's also a rider's share. Uh, I'm going to, I'm going to reach out to Twisted Road to see if they'll be sponsors and if they say no, I'm going to reach out to rider's share and see if they'll be sponsors. Uh, I will tell you your easiest bet is to fly into El Paso. If there are bikes available there.

Brian: That's that was, that was, that was actually, uh, I looked at that and there's like very little around El Paso. For bikes. Uh, yeah. For bikes. There's some, there's a couple of Harleys and you know, I could, I could have fun on anything. I could rent a scooter and have a great time, but you know, I'd like to rent something sporty ish with a little luggage. Well, it's your bike could be fine.

Robin: Yeah, this is on the table. If you wanted to, uh, my suspension's not doing so great, but, um, Maggie would ride her bike, I'll ride my bike. We'll ride it to you. You take my bike, Maggie rides with you two up and we all ride back.

Brian: Yeah, we could do something like that. So yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll figure it out. But yeah, around, uh, uh, around Albuquerque. Uh, there's a few, uh, I also looked around, uh, um, Oh, Los I'd also looked around Las Cruces. And that was, uh, that was the one where the guys, you know, had the bike in his driveway and there's a bullet hole in his car. I don't know.

Robin: Hey, I've got this bike for rent. All right. It's, uh, it's, it's totally mine. This is totally my bike.

Brian: Look, you want to rent it? This, uh, just keep, just keep, keep some chewing gum in this hole and it'll be fine. Uh, I, the bike, I don't think had a hole in it. His car did, but no, I've been to Las Cruces. It's fine. Uh, but yeah, it would be tough to kind of get an Uber or something up there from the El Paso is the closest airport. We're going to make it work. When do you think I'll make it work? I'll figure it out. Um, sometime in March. Um, there's some other stuff I got to deal with, but, uh, yeah, sometime mid to early March might work or later in April, but that may run in some things you're doing, so I'm not sure.

Robin: No, that's actually quite good. So I'm going to be riding. Yeah, I'm going to be riding a, uh, uh, so for the listeners out there, um, my youngest brother, my youngest older brother passed away. Uh, he had MS, lived a heck of an adventurous life and had, uh, plenty of stories to tell. Uh, he's no longer with us and I'm going to ride a memorial ride to his memorial celebration of life. Uh, that will take me through the mountains. That's going to run. So Brian, as this ties to you, that's going to be from the 27th of March all the way through, like April 7th, you know? So if you, if you want to do late April or if you want to do early to mid March, those are wide open, totally wide open. So all good.

Brian: All right. I'll figure it out. And, uh, I'll figure it out. And yeah, I've got some other stuff, uh, planning the, uh, there's the, the GS Suzuki rally in June. Oh, okay.

Robin: What were the dates on that? What are the dates?

Brian: The dates on that are there? I changed them for the, because so you can do the triple seven. So the dates are like, Hey, I'm running the thing. I can, the dates are, do, do, do, do. Let's see. This is Brown County, right? This is the Brown County. Hoorah. Yeah. The Brown County Hoorah starts on June 20, 2024. And then everybody goes home on Sunday, the 23rd. So we live on Thursday.

Robin: I'm going to be there. Okay. I know I can do this. I know I can do this. It's going to take some career negotiation, but it's going to happen.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And I actually moved it back. I moved it a week because you've got the triple sevens tour and some of the, some of the long timers that, uh, don't even have a Suzuki anymore and a couple that do, um, uh, asked about that and I was like, okay, yeah. And then, and then usually there's a, uh, some of us, a loose confederation get together in the smoky mountains in early may, uh, and a lot of times that's a dual sport ride and then other times, and last year we did a street ride and it was epically awesome. So we may do that again. That was, I have to laugh.

Robin: Go on. You were saying.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, as you, you just can't decide, you know, what you want to do is load up a trailer with like eight bikes, get the knobbies, you know, get everybody has a knobby bike and everybody has a street bike and you want to spend like three weeks, but you know, we don't have that kind of time, so, yeah.

Robin: You need a front rack front of your vehicle. You do a front rack for a dirt bike. Cause it's the lightest of the bunch. I would imagine.

Brian: Yeah. Well, not a KLR, but yeah. And then, uh, I'm, I'm, what I want to do is I haven't been to Wisconsin for ages. I'd love to do that later in the summer.

Robin: Yeah. Come on up. Well, maybe we can combine all that into a single thing. Um, or, or not a lot of things. I think we should combine that into many visits and many things. We'll be there all summer, which I've said 40 times, trying not to repeat the same material over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Um, yeah, that, that'd be awesome. Well, I just had a Brown County in the mix and we don't know, I'm sure we don't know about like the Missouri Ozarks or any of that stuff just yet. But I will be at the Kentucky crawl for my 50th birthday. We're going to stay in Kentucky near Georgetown for the entire duration for the entire month of October. Well, post well, yeah. Yeah. So I will be in Kentucky on my birthday and look forward to attending the crawl. I'm going to invite as many people as I can and we'll have as many groups as possible. It's going to be great.

Brian: Sounds good.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: And I've got, yeah. And last year was our first year in Georgetown and, you know, I, I know how to fix, I know how to fix a little, a few details that were just like, like they weren't a nine or 10 out of 10. They were more of an eight or seven, you know, so I'm going to fix a few things like that, uh, you know, get like, get instead of 15 miles on a two lane state high or, you know, us highway, that's boring as hell, just blast down interstate, get it over with and get off and hit the Hills, you know, a couple of things like that, I, I got, I can fix in the routes, but yeah, that brings me back to when you

Robin: and I were discussing this trip seven stuff that you and I went over for the Kentucky, I'm laughing to myself because I'm going to tell you right now that I think that the roads that we figured out to, Oh no, it was the roads we used to avoid the blue Ridge parkway. Do you remember this?

Brian: Yes.

Robin: I believe that some of those roads I actually have already used for the trip sevens tour and they are exactly as fantastic as you expected, but I do remember at one point, one particular rider because of the semi depressed dilapidated rural folk housing of a particle board nature that we saw this particular fellow rider who was on that tour afterwards kind of walked up and said, Hey, wow. Wow. Yeah, that was rough.

Brian: That was rural. Yeah.

Robin: I remember it was totally worth it. Anyhow, you know, it's just, you know, country living, you know, a lot of people have that summer home that isn't quite up to the standards of the summer home. You picture in a Magnum PI.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, well, West Virginia is kind of the, the, the, the reigning King of that sort of thing, but yeah, there's some, there's some engineering that people have done with a single wide trailer that is just. Chef's kiss, you know, just, I mean, uh, just, just like, uh, I got to stop and take a picture. Yeah.

Robin: And, uh, yeah, the, with the group, the whole group, everybody. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. And, and for the, you know, and for the last part of that in Indiana, you know, it, it was, it was a little too primitive. So I've got that route fixed up and changed, but if you want to provide the, the, the goat path, uh, route to people as an alternative, you know, that's up to you, but we'll see.

Robin: Yeah. I still haven't quite perfected that moment in the gray area where you're going from, these are wonderful sweepers to this is insanely goat road. That, that perfect dial end where it's like, all you're feeling is the gravity of the bike, gripping the pavement and you're curving and you're curving super tight, super tight, super tight, but it's neither open wide sweepers, nor rough goat road, it's a fine tuned instrument that in terms of opinion, I would think.

Brian: Yeah. Well, and there's, there's the thing I always run into in North Carolina is there's, there's one road in particular, I think it's 192. I'm not sure, but basically there's about six miles of gravel in the middle of it. Like it's a wonderful road and it would, it would solve a lot of problems because of what it connects. Yeah. It's, it's somewhere, uh, east of a hot springs and every time I draw a route, it ends up on that and I had to, oh yeah, there's, there's gravel in the middle and this would make people unhappy. So I'll, you know, I'll go here or whatever.

Robin: Yeah. So then you got double back if you want to do any of it, or you have to just be prepared to explain to them, Hey, we're going to do some gravel.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's nothing, it's nothing horrible. It's all doable, you know, and, and so you, and, uh, you know, it's kind of like, uh, uh, 32 out of Cole, uh, Cosby, uh, Tennessee, um, it's just, it, it's like, if you thought that dragon was a tight road, you know, no, that's nothing. This 32 is this tight road. And then at the state line of North Carolina, it just turns to gravel, like it's just done. Yeah. And so you have, but you only have about a mile of gravel. It's easy gravel, very hard packed. Even if it was rain, it'd be fine on a street bike. So like when we were out in that area, we did that. I just said, Hey, there's going to be a mile of gravel. Just suck it up.

Robin: And right there, like, like be prepared. I'm doing a lot of power in the words. I'm going to go do my ride. If you're following me, here's what's happening. And then, you know, push people off of you or let them tag along and take care of them. It's all right. But I know that I get 52, 59, 52 slash 59, which is a favorite road of mine in New Mexico, something you and I will ride it dead ends into a T intersection. So I love one 52 and I love the 52 slash 59 route. 52 slash 59 could connect to one 52. If it weren't for the fact that the T intersection ends at a, uh, off-road vehicle only sign. Like they, like, that's the one where the state paid money to put a sign up. Yeah. It's like, we would really recommend that you have a four wheel drive lifted Bronco that doesn't have any Chrome on its rims, you know, that kind of thing.

Brian: Yeehaw only.

Robin: Yeah. So maybe I'll, I mean, if you get the right bike, maybe I'll send you off to give it a taste test. I wrote it for a little bit and just was like, it's fine. But I kept feeling my, my DTC kept kicking on. I could not suppress it. Um, which bothered me. And I also like my plastics.

Brian: Yeah. So yeah, 2024, I've got, it's a big, it's going to be a big year. Lots of riding. Uh, and then like my, I have a, I have some related relatives that are living in New Orleans now. So my wife and I are going to have to go down there at some point and yada yada. Yeah. So it'll be, but that, you know, I don't have anything to do with riding. There's there's it's flat down there. It could. Yeah.

Robin: Do you have a trailer? I do. So you could tote the beastie behind you. Yeah. I don't think there's any part of Louisiana that I wouldn't want to at least explore riding. That could be a lot of fun.

Brian: Yeah. It's not real exciting. It's all, you know, there's no curves or anything. It's all really pretty flat, but it's also just, it's a really, it's, it's fairly flat, but there are a lot of curves around rivers and, you know, you basically work to work around all the waterways. So there's not a lot of Hills, but they're yet to work around the waterways. And it's really very different terrain than you've ever really seen before. Yeah. Yeah. But whether, whether that'll pan out, I don't know, or just fly down there, fly back a couple of days, you know, whatever you're going to have a good time. That's going to be good. Anyway, you slice it 2024 is going to be fun.

Robin: I was just thinking about the fact that I had, uh, Kelly Howard and Murray up here for a shout out to Murray Haynes for his birthday, Murray Haynes birthday was like a two or three or four 17, I don't know, weeks back and Kelly at the same time was like, you know, what are you doing? So he trailers up. So I've got Murray, his wife, Mabel and Kelly here. I'm bringing this up because they were trying to get out and do some more riding as well before I had to, before we were going to take off. And I'll tell you something. I got a lot out of that visit because we froze. I had an oil leak on the left cylinder of the bike and I learned to how to freeze the gasket and then bring it back out so that it re-rubberizes and takes form. And I actually used automotive grease on the outside of the contact point and that allowed it to seat better. Um, and also they got to see my handiwork on that amazing, did we already talk about the helicoil? Have we discussed that?

Brian: Like officially, officially a la podcast. Uh, I don't think we really have.

Robin: Okay. So who should do most of the talking about this, me or you, you might have a really interesting perspective on how this went, but the nicest things you said, I will say are, Hey man, it's all right. You jumped into the deep end. You actually did this. You know what I mean?

Brian: That's right. Which meant a lot.

Robin: Tell the story about my noise from your perspective, because you were the solution. You solved the problem. You helped me make things. Oh, that's right. I had just gotten the bits to do things last time we chatted.

Brian: That's what we did.

Robin: All right.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got everything. And actually I, and, and yeah, it may turn into an article. I'm not sure, but I've got your outline.

Robin: I've got all that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to write it and I'm going to use your suggestions as interjected content via Brian. I don't know how to give credit for those, but I'll find a way. It's going to be, you know, it's own color coded box. That is the Brian ringer solving the problem section of it, but go on.

Brian: Yeah. Um, so anyway, you had a, you had a five millimeter bolt broke off. Is it held on like a guard or something on your, on your left cylinder on your bike, right? And your BMW. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and basically the torque, it just snapped off and you had this bolt in this aluminum. Uh, the good parts of it, it was easy to get to, um, you know, it wasn't down inside something and you had a lot of meat to work with there. There's a lot of aluminum and so forth. Um, you tried a lot of things, all the usual things to get the bolt out. And these things did not do, did not work or they wouldn't, or they just weren't practical. You couldn't, did you even, did you try a welder or did you drag a welder in there? I don't remember that.

Robin: Didn't have access. Not really.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I didn't, it wasn't going to happen. I like that you tell your version and then I'll tell mine. Cause Mike comes with all the distress. You wouldn't have distress. I had distress.

Brian: Well, yeah, you'd never, you'd never fixed anything like this before. And you were also working with like, I remember the, one of the, one of the things that made us a lot tougher and I, it was the reason you broke drill bits was your, uh, you had a, you had a cordless drill, but it was just off or on. It wasn't, it wasn't variable speed. So you can just like tease it in there. No. And that took me away. I'm like, why are you having trouble? And then I didn't, the drill was like B or not, you know, or nothing. Like, Oh, okay. That's okay.

Robin: And that, that drill speed wasn't exactly insane. But it was enough that it wasn't, there was no governing it. There was no, when you release the trigger, it's not getting slower that that doesn't, I need a better drill.

Brian: Yeah. So, so yeah, when you, when you're, when you're trying to drill a hole of challenging, so the challenge is you have this hard, hard, it's not hardened, but it's a steel bolt remnants. It's five millimeters. So it's tiny and it's in the middle of a bunch of soft aluminum. And it's, it takes, uh, it takes a pretty high level of experience. I think to be able to successfully stay in the center of that. And the other thing you just, you had no chance because you had to be able to like, uh, go like two RPM. Yeah. Okay. So you can see exactly what that bit that drill bit is doing, and you can kind of massage it around to keep it on track because all it wants to do is skate off that, uh, steel into the, and chew into the aluminum. Yeah. So, so anyway, there was, there was, there was a degree of panic. There was angst here.

Robin: There was, yeah, I've got plenty of that. I've got plenty of that to provide any situation of this nature of distress confusion. If I've done it before, I P I feel pretty good. I'm pretty confident in what I know how to do, but the things I haven't had to do that everybody eventually has to do, I just, I've never seen it go well for me the first go, or it's been really rare. You know what I mean? And writers out there, this, this discussion, it can be about me. If you want to be angry at me about the, the boringness of this, this chatter, but the truth is it's about you. These things are going to happen to you. And I want anybody out there listening to this right now that to know that, that, uh, yeah, there are a lot of us who find ourselves in a situation where the thing we've been so good to had a sudden and unexpected flaw and getting through the motions of resolving that matter, it's very painstaking if you have my budget. So yeah, small details that, how were you going to know that I didn't have a variable speed power drill, you know, or think about it, right. And I will say this, my, my only critique of the massive amount of help you gave. The, the, the ludicrous amount of assistance that your information provided, Mike, my critique is this. Don't bother with the steel left-hand bits. Go right for the carbon. What are they called? The, uh, um, the cobalt, uh, the, uh, cobalt bits. Yeah.

Brian: Are there harder?

Robin: Yes. Whatever the next level up that are just hardened, angry metal, uh, left-hand bits go right for those don't wait. Yeah. Straight head right to that. And don't, don't look back because then you'll have them.

Brian: Yeah. The, so yeah, to make a very, make a long story short, uh, what, what ended up happening is that the, and this, this is just, this is just inevitable. You know, you just didn't have the right stuff there. But anyway, what ended up happening is the, the drill bit basically skates off the steel and partly into the aluminum. So what we ended up doing was, okay, there's plenty of meat here. And we're set up with like a piece of tape on a drill bit. So you're not going to punch like six inches in there and hit an oil passage or something. Uh, there's plenty of metal there. And the other part of it that helped this work was the guard. I think that went on there as a piece of plastic. If I remember right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got, so basically you've got some slop there. So we're like, okay, fine. This, this damn thing wants to drill a hole over here, two millimeters off rather than right in the center where I want it fine. And so you went with that. So you, you drilled the hole and yeah, it was like 30 seconds. You know, it takes 30 seconds, but it takes, it was a mental like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to poke a hole in this beloved motorcycle.

Robin: Oh, it's hard to do. It's hard to make happen.

Brian: Um, so anyway, yeah, I drilled a hole, you know, so basically we just said, fine, we went in, went with it, uh, drilled the correct hole for the, uh, the thread insert tap, which is a little bigger, uh, and again, it was maybe two or three millimeters off of where it, of where it actually should be, but there's, there's some wiggle room in, in the part and so forth. So it was going to be fine, you know, without, without just, I don't know how much ceremony and other things. There's no way to get this back on track. Anyway, when I did that and then, and then I discovered this was your first time using a tap. I didn't know that either. So like, uh, so then, and then you're, so that's what I said. You started at the deep end because you're, you're tapping a hole in, in a mix of aluminum. It was kind of half aluminum, half steel, uh, using a, a thread insert tap, uh, which is a little bigger. And then, and, but yeah, it didn't take long. It was just getting, you know, getting in that middle barrier. It's like, okay, I'm going to do this and, you know, turn the tap in, turn it out to break the chips. And you very quickly picked up, you know, I was kind of telling me, you know, this is what you need to feel for, you know, it's like, okay, that got easier. Okay. You can go in and out and anyway, and then you put them up.

Robin: Yeah. When it was kind of, it kind of felt weird. Yeah. If it was starting to resist the point where I was about to crack the block, then it was time to back off, get the bits out. Yeah. That, that I was, I think I'm subtle enough to take the steps. Um, but what got us was the drill. Like when you were telling me about how to tap something, I've wrenched enough to know how to listen to somebody who's done something before you've done these things many times, a lot of wisdom on the other side of the mic. You know what I mean? Um, so getting through the motions of a description and taking steps on my own, that was one thing, having the wrong bill, uh, the wrong drill. That was just a fiasco. The, um, and after that was just questions, you know, should the Healy coil be able to escape this outlet when backing it out answer? Sometimes that's all right. It twists in when you tighten it up, it gets super stuck. Well, it all worked out. It really all didn't work out. And here is something that's actually interesting about all of this is that, uh, so my brother that I was mentioning before, Jeffrey David Pape, Sergeant Jeffrey David Pape of the U S army. Uh, he was a Korean translator. He was fluent in Korean, uh, and worked at the demilitarized zone. And, uh, he was also the head of security at the San Jose Sharks hockey team rink in San Jose. They're, uh, just quite a passionate person to know, just an amazing spirit of a person to know. It, this ordeal that Brian helped me sort out and he, when Brian helped me, I was extremely unwell, extremely not well. Now Brian laughs, but it was not a good appropriately. I know it's, I know it's funny, but I was not in a good place at all because I had just lost my brother. And the one thing that I am fully invested in mentally and emotionally, that is the project that is this bike was going south in ways that I had no outs, I'm rural, I had no access to a solution. It's all me and the hope that I can get to the hardware store an hour away to get whatever they hopefully have ongoing is this issue. So this issue is the last thing that my brother and I ever discussed. Oh, I had, I had taken a picture of the broken off bolt and posted to Facebook because sometimes I'd like to post to Facebook and yes, our podcast says these things, but to post on Facebook just said it was a photo of the issue and it said, fuck, right?

Brian: And my brother's go ahead. Yeah, I could. Well, that was the thing. I was like, okay, you, you needed a win here and I'm like, okay, we can do this. But yeah, you had to, you had to calm down a little bit.

Robin: I really, really did. But he actually, the last thing he and I discussed was he sent it to me in a message on Facebook and said, sorry, bro, with the, with the picture. And I was like, you know what? And I want you to know that I mentioned you specifically. I said, I've got, I've got friends that are deep into these kinds of situations that are on it and helping me get through it a millimeter off or not. You bastard. Kidding. Of course, Brian Ringer. Thank you very much. All the help. Oh, hey, very welcome.

Brian: Yeah, it was cool. And now you, now you have a new skill and, uh, some tools and, and you'll probably never break another M5 bolt again. Yeah, but no, never.

Robin: It'll never happen again.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: This is the point in the conversation where we're going to wrap this one up, but you've got 10 minutes before we do to tell a great Harley story from your friend.

Brian: All right. So the situation is, um, my brother-in-law, my, my wife's brother is a contractor and he is helping us do put new siding on our house. And as a partial exchange, I'm doing a bunch of work on his motorcycle. And he has a couple of Harleys. No, I've never in my life worked on a Harley before I've ridden them. I've spent several thousand miles on them, but I've never really done any work on them. And everything, everything is like different. Like, it's not, it's not the difference between Suzuki and Honda and Yamaha UJM. Yeah. Or even BMW, whatever. I mean, these things are, why is it, you know, I, I, why is it like this? Um, but in a lot of ways, it's still just a motorcycle. It still works about the same way, you know, does the same things. Um, and this is, this is not like fixing things. This is a bunch of upgrades. So I'm, I'm, uh, installing a heated grips and a phone charger and a phone mount, uh, you know, a Ram mount with a rubber mounted on it, so it'll anyway. Um, and so it's just, it's just electrical work, you know, and that's the same as any other bike. But when I, when I do electrical work, I do it like it's a, it's, it's going to be underwater and it's a military operation, you know, I don't mess around. You know, I make sure I sealed. Um, so I'm putting in a relay operated circuit to run the charger and the heated grips and, and all that stuff. And then I'm going to be doing, you know, all the changing, all the fluids, uh, changing the tires. I've got the tires at home. Um, one of the, one of the great things about that I wished I really jealous of, uh, if you own a Harley, you can go to any dealership, you can walk up to the parts counter. I, you can walk up to the parts counter and you can say, Hey, I need a such and so for a such and so 2001, blah, blah, blah, I use alphabet soup for the, I don't know what, anyway, it's a, and there's a damn good chance. They actually will have it in that dealership. I mean, I went to the, I went to the, I was, I met somebody for breakfast and I stopped by the nearby Harley dealer. Cause I needed a few things and I walked out with, they had the fork rebuild kits I needed. They had some of the O-rings and gaskets on site right there in house on the shelf. Does that boggle your damn mind or what? It does. There's like two BMW dealers who do a pretty good job in the country. Yeah. Other stuff like that. But I've, I've gone into like a Suzuki dealer and say, Hey, I need an oil filter and they go, Oh, I'm going to have to order that for you.

Robin: Oh, slow boat.

Brian: Yeah. I'm like, well, I can do that. You know, I, what, what, what value do you provide here, buddy?

Robin: Yeah. But yeah, my favorite response from any local chain store is I can get it for you, but probably by tomorrow, which actually is not a terrible answer, you know, by tomorrow is not a terrible answer, but it's still more of a, like, I can probably get it in the next two days myself. I'm sorry. Trying to support, you know, locally, but yeah, go on.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So like when I order Suzuki or Yamaha parts, uh, or Kawasaki, um, there's actually a couple of local dealers who have a really good online parts operation. So you, you order through their website and then you, and then so if you, you know, I live nearby, so I can, uh, I can tell them, you know, we'll call. And then when my parts get there, these, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not lying. These guys actually call when the parts get there and tell me that they're there. And I go get them, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's at least three business days, uh, to get anything for Suzuki, Kawasaki, blah, blah, blah.

Robin: Whereas the Harley like grows out of your floor when you think of it.

Brian: Yeah. And it's, you know, like, and they, you know, obviously they have the market share and the numbers and, and all that. It's, uh, but there are advantages, you know, the ownership experience could, you know, and the other thing is if you go, you know, if you go to Harley dealer and get service, you're probably going to get somebody who knows what he's doing or she's doing. Um, uh, around Indiana, if you go in to get service, it's, it, it can get pretty iffy because it's not really full-time work, uh, unless they have, you know, and there's hardly anybody has a snowmobile anymore. Uh, there's really not, you're not getting the best and the brightest. They're over at the Chevy dealer or they're working on heavy equipment, you know, stuff like that.

Robin: So, well, it's hard to get the best and the brightest, no matter what you do. Honestly, these days, um, you know, we just had, we just got broadsided by a deer and I took the truck in and then on estimation, they were like, yeah, it'll probably take us about three weeks. I'm like, okay, that seems like a long time since it's a, an American truck in Texas. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt there. Three weeks go by and they say they messed up the bed liner and that they were going to need to do a new bed liner. I was like, what are you talking about? So I show up there to look at it. Cause I have to be going to the grocery store in the same town. This is, you know, a 30 minute drive. And I, I see that the kid has taken, this kid is 20 years old. He's a fresh mechanic and I've got nothing but empathy for him because I'm glad that we have a maker who is doing maker things, but he had gone at the, uh, basically the bed liner had been painted over the bolts that allow you to loosen the bed to put on the part that needed to be replaced. So he went out with a, right. And he went out with a cutting blade. So instead of going at it with a whole saw, which, you know, right there in throughout my entire bed, I've got the Milwaukee pack out products inserts, and I went at them with a whole saw per the way I was taught, you know, just drill in, drill in, peel away that section of bed liner, put in the rivnut, fasten things in place. So this kid went at it with a, uh, like a turkey carver and just, so, so I looked at, after I left, I told the GM who owns the place, I was like, why didn't he use a whole saw? I come back to check it out. And the GM bought that kid for Christmas, a whole saw set for Christmas. Mechanics have to provide their own tools. They got to provide their own tools. So he didn't happen to have a whole saw. He's new, the GM bought him a Christmas gift. And that's like, that's not, that's not cheap. That's a nice, that's nice. Um, but like, then I looked around, I was like, they tried to hurry it. They got it back to me in four weeks, not three, four.

Brian: That's pretty good. That's actually pretty good.

Robin: That it's missing a bunch of the vehicle plugs that hold the interior liner, the fender in place, the paint ran, uh, whatever. I still am just so happy to see the truck, but you know, yeah. Getting good help is not the easiest thing in the world. Anyhow, I'm, I'm, I digress. You're talking about the Harley bike that they had parts on site for. That's beautiful.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Crazy thing. And I really like, uh, like I've seen Pan America's on the road, but you know, I got, I got a chance to take a good hard look at, look at a couple of them in there. And, uh, you know, they, they, um, I want that's on, uh, it was on my list. I think Maggie and I talked about this, but, uh, the Pan America is on my list. I want to ride one. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to own one, but I do want to ride. I do want to take one for a good hard flog and, and just see what the, what the hype is all about. But yeah, they're out by all accounts. They're there and there, they knocked it out of the park on that one. The other thing is they had four electric bikes up front. They had, they had two live wires and they had, I don't remember. I didn't see, I couldn't figure out what they were. I just, you know, I'm like, they're, they're, they're so hip that they can't put the fricking name on the bike. Uh, but I don't know.

Robin: Live wires going independent. They're going to be a Harley owned company that operates independently of the Harley name. They're going to become a brand.

Brian: Yeah. So they had like the actual, well, they actually, they had like four live wires there and they were also up by the door. There were two live wires and there were two other electric bikes. I don't know. There was, they were a little smaller. They may have, I don't know who it was zero or whatever. I don't know which, I don't know who's left. I've lost track, but the, like one of the live wires and two of the, those, then both of those other electric bikes had sold tags on them. You know, like they were just waiting on their owners come pick them up.

Robin: So they're selling a good sign. Really?

Brian: Yeah. Uh, but you know, Indianapolis is kind of, there's a lot of electric vehicles around here. I mean, it's kind of a hotbed, um, believe it or not, there's a ton of, uh, ton of charging and a ton of people with electric vehicles. Um, and there are a ton of people who live downtown and apartments or townhomes or condos or whatever. And they just parked their Tesla on the street and it's no big deal. You just like, when you go get groceries, you go out to a grocery store and it's got a charger, leave it there, do your grocery shopping, charge it up once a week. It's fine. You know, this whole, you know, you don't have to go. Yeah, it's, it's, it's fine.

Robin: And so it's a workable solution there. There's no problems, only solutions. It just hasn't really found its way to that perfect solution yet. Everybody wants to frown at something and say, yeah, brush that off. Let's move on to the other thing. That's already the previous version of whatever we're doing. There's always options to sell.

Brian: And I think, you know, and I think in, uh, so basically I think in Indianapolis, there's, there's a, you know, people are used to EVs. People use them a lot and, you know, just for this, from that little sample, it was kind of cool to see, oh, you know, they're actually selling them. Yeah. Sold is a good thing. People are out using them this summer. So I'll look out for them. I have, I have, I don't think I've seen, I've seen some zeros and stuff on the road, but I don't think I've seen a live wire on the road, but, uh, yeah.

Robin: Well, the zero SR slash S that is the most fun I've ever had on a motorcycle.

Brian: That's right. Yeah. You've heard. So yeah, that's, that's also like, that's on my list of, uh, I definitely want to ride it and one day I want to own. I want to own an electric motorcycle. Cause I, my commute is seven miles in the city. It's ideal for an electric bike. I could go all week on a charge and I won't debate.

Robin: I do love the sound of a good bike. I love the sound of a combustion motor. I do love the sound, but when it comes down to, uh, performance and tucking into a corner and twisting go and constant torque, give me electric all day. I'm not seeking it out. I'm just saying that when it's next and when it makes sense, that's going to be a great route. That's going to be great venue. Let's just call it a venue. Not a, not a forced one way street, but a venue. It'll be pretty cool. But Hey, with that, we've arrived at the hour. We got to close it out because I got to produce this thing in time to pretend like it's actually happening at midnight. So, Oh, the ball's dropping. Brian, here it comes. 10, nine. I don't know why the seconds are going by so fast. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Hey, uh, happy new year, Brian ringer.

Brian: Happy new year, Robin Dean and happy year to Maggie and to, uh, to a gypsy Dean and, and all the rest. And, and, and, and hell tell, tell, uh, tell Goden, tell Goden. I said, Hey, and happy new year too. I promise I will do that.

Robin: I promise with that. You want to take us out?