Brian: Hi Maggie, it's been a while. How have you been?

Maggie: Good. Yes. Good. It has been a while. I think the last time we talked hmm, I recorded a That gal session you did.

Brian: Yeah. Yes. And is your triumph running correctly now?

Maggie: I last time I talked to Robin it was Still iffy Although she started today I went on a ride so it's only been We're at the end we've been here two months and it was only the second ride I was able to do but we rode the sisters Yes, and it was fun, so Let the record show my extended middle fingers Yeah, you're in Indiana That's all I can do.

Brian: Actually. It was a very nice rideable day today and yesterday But I am as you can hear I am still in Respiratory Recovery, this is a lot better than I was a week ago I don't know what it was my wife thinks it was something we caught from the cat because she got it and she's getting over it and I'm I was a little behind her so Yeah, like the cat was sick and then she got sick and then I got sick so we're figuring yeah, we're blaming on the cat

Maggie: Bats monkeys. Why not a cat? Yeah pigs Birds yeah, why not a cat?

Brian: Yeah, at least it's cute.

Maggie: Yeah, it was We've had our share of cold fronts, too But today was like I think a high of 70 and it was oh, it was just nice.

Brian: It was a nice day Oh, you're killing me.

Maggie: You're killing All right, yeah, I but Yeah, so we're still trying to figure it out. I do Somebody told us it could be the tip-over sensor. You're saying it's a bad ground I'm not looking forward to trying to get to the bottom of the bad ground because the my wiring diagram For my bike it so in my Haynes manual it starts with the Daytona's and then it gets to the triumph without The without the R and the ABS so then my bike model is the last wiring diagram So you've got the first three diagrams. They're like, oh, okay I could follow those lines the different colors the the legend of what everything the key then you get to my bike and it's like they took everything and Through twice as many wires. So the diagram the scale of everything is tiny You need a magnifying glass or a phone To look at it. I'm like, oh Seriously.

Brian: Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna stay for the record here. I think you've got a bad wire in your wiring harness That's intermittent. That's what okay. That's what I think I'm not there, but I'm gonna throw that out there and when you figure out what it is and prove me wrong Come back and say ha So in the pool of money, that's your bet it's the it's a bad Bad ground in the wiring harness. Okay, or they're just a bad wire like the middle of the wire Yeah, it's intermittent like the wire the wire looks fine But inside where the copper is something's wrong. So wire got pinched somewhere or something like that. That's my guess.

Maggie: All right

Brian: Yeah, I chased a lot of these down and It can be Yeah, it can be super frustrating and the other thing you find deep in wiring harnesses I don't know if triumph does this I know all the Japanese bikes to Where you'll have wires that branch and there's just a little there's like a little copper cuff that's crimped around two wires and Sometimes those can so basically there's two wires that are run together and there's a little copper clamp around it little tiny thing and sometimes those get loose and go bad and In your case, you really I believe it's an aluminum frame. Am I correct? Yes Yeah, so you're not gonna have a frame ground on those bikes so all the grounds have to be through All the grounds have to be through wires. And so they branch off those ground wires quite a bit So sometimes those can be an issue But yeah, when you have an aluminum frame, you can't ground through the frame. So that's why But at least part of your frame is aluminum what it looks like. All right So that I'm throwing down the bet if I had a 20 bucks on me. I'd anyway We'll see But yeah, I came after it yeah and Robin said you should write an article about that Tracking down electrical problems. I'm like that's like a subject that you should write That takes three books.

Maggie: I'm trying to figure out what to put in an article Yeah Even in the Haynes manual they talk about if you have if you're trying to chase down Bad wire bad ground bad, whatever. They just refer you to the electric diagram. They don't yeah There's a couple of tests. Obviously you could do like you if it's a battery that's a little more obvious It's not the battery. Oh, yeah, but Anything beyond a really easy tell it's like a refer to the diagram Follow the diagram.

Brian: Yeah, they don't give you a lot of troubleshooting Tricks and things like that. So I have to dig some of those up and put that together That was anecdotal chitchat and one more thing I wanted to I Wanted to bring up because I think you're gonna have some interesting answers Robin and I talked about this last time But okay, what are some the question is what are some kind of weird? Motorcycles like that are not like in your wheelhouse. Do you like it? You're riding a triumph Street street triple, I believe What's something very different than that? That's interesting that you'd like to try or that you have tried and what are some weird things that you'd like to own Maybe one day if you had a lot of room and money And what are some things you'd like to just try out and ride around and see what they're like Good question I a lot of I like a lot of the same kind of bike so I Don't have that many in mind that are different a t-dub.

Maggie: We have a t-dub though. I like those Yeah, I'd love a I'd love a small street a small dirt bike. I got on one in Idaho and I was like, oh Super light. I was like I could do this Yeah, that's the TW anyway, but yeah, you'd probably want something a little more little This was even smaller I think it was It was a Honda It was the smallest dirt bike they had and they just had some models sitting outside and it seemed lighter than the TW like Even on a t-dub. I'm still tippy-toe. Yeah, but on this bike. I was able to crunch down and touch There's like a 125 dual sport.

Brian: They have that's really yeah, that's pretty cool looking. Yeah, I don't know what it is What else is there something weird out there like antique stuff have you ever I don't know What have you are you just what have you seen in a dealership?

Maggie: That's cool looking when we were first looking at motorcycles I loved the look of The older bikes that had those toaster tanks. Oh, yeah yeah, I thought I wanted one for a long time until I Realized that I am NOT as much of a wrencher Or I don't have as much time For the wrenching as you would probably need I'd have to look at bikes in other countries. Oh a Ural would be cool With the sidecar and everything That would be fun.

Brian: Yeah Rob and I both had royal infields on our list too, and they've got several really interesting models, too Like what like the Continentals the 650 twin? That's their big bike That's really good. And they've got the Himalaya Himalayan. I think is how they say it a Himalayan 450 which is a new one and That looks really pretty interesting As it's got let's see I think it has this about the same or maybe even a little more power than a KLR 650 Which is one of the things I'm used to so that would be it's an adventure quote adventure bike That looked really interesting. I've ridden a monkey for about a hundred feet I just I couldn't go far on it because I was trying to get it running for a friend but What about Scooters and monkeys and things like that that seems like a lot of fun, but I don't know I would look ridiculous on it. You would be fine on those You could go a lot faster than I could I would yeah, I would ride a monkey any day.

Maggie: Actually, there's somebody staying next door. Who's got one I I had a little envy there. Yeah, he's got a little monkey I would take a Vespa any Vespa any day.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Maggie: Yeah Yeah, we still have my buddy 125 which is a yeah a Vespa looking knockoff Yeah, I believe those are made in India. I Don't know. They're they might be made in China. I'm not sure but yeah, yeah, it's it's I I can get it to 60 65 but it starts getting death wobble Those little wheels are like The little wheels are no good Yeah. Yeah, those are fun Oh the other day I was in town and this this This woman pulled up At the local grocery store and she had something she was riding something. I have never seen At first from the front it looked like the honda cub but then it was actually a Try it had two wheels in the back and it was vintage like it was an older whatever it was I've never seen anything like it.

Brian: Oh, wow.

Maggie: Yeah, so It was not like a Like it was not big. It was small.

Brian: So it's more of a scooter style Was it a gyro like the wheels are pretty fairly close together in the back? No Okay, it was more like a three-wheeled bicycle Yeah power. Okay.

Maggie: Yeah, in fact Probably I could see where maybe it was used to deliver milk or ice cream or something because it looked like it had sweet Okay. Yeah like a big Trunk in the back. But yeah, she wrote it to the grocery store and she had like little picked. Yeah Yeah, she had like little not tassels. She had What I can't think why are words hard right now? She had these things hanging off the handlebars anyway, but yeah, it was motorized. It was actually motorized. I can't imagine it goes very fast It looks like it's just around towner Yeah, and there used to what was it called?

Brian: Oh harley made a thing called a servo car for a long time it was like a delivery vehicle has three wheels and Had a big you could do all kinds of things with it it was like a pickup bed and you could do all kinds of things with it or the Or something like it that's That you see in thailand and other countries Yeah, the three wheelers that are zooming around with people on them

Maggie: Yeah

Brian: It'd be fun to try.

Maggie: I wouldn't want to own one, but yeah oh so Not not the spider, but the other one. Is it the van der hol?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I think they look like a kind of a bathtub or something with that.

Maggie: Yeah I I don't think they look that bad If you're going to go to three wheels, yeah and not like a harley three-wheeler or a a spider, but They're cool. I think they're cool. They'd be cool.

Brian: They would be fun to try out Excellent That's a pretty good and that's I didn't know what to expect and you fulfilled that I had no idea what you would come up with So We've got a sidecar rig that was cool. I mean, I didn't think of that but that'd be fun. That'd be cool to try Yeah.

Maggie: Yes, sir Now you didn't ask me what my next dream bike would be. That's a different question What would okay?

Brian: Hey maggie, what would your next dream bike be?

Maggie: Robin showed me this picture of a bemota Oh, which one the I think he showed me the tessie h2 But I would also take the kb4 either one of those So they got a new tessie I don't know. It says h2. I don't see there's tara tessie.

Brian: Yeah Yeah, because the tessie's got the yeah the swing arm front end They must be using Is that using like the kawasaki engine? Wow What are they using? Supercharged engines, so they must be using the h2 for the kawasaki Sweet that makes sense Uh, yeah There's some cool stuff like that. Have you ever ridden a monster or Looked at one one like that. I think those are No Okay, not your thing. Okay.

Maggie: No, not that it isn't but If I mention another bike that's european and not easy to find parts for Robin will not be happy I Started to say something about ducati and He was like, nope. Nope Nope Okay, he's trying to I think he's trying to steer me back towards japanese, which is fine Not like it wouldn't be fun. Not as many people have a street triple.

Brian: So I like it plus up until this year For the most part she was pretty reliable Yeah, this is a recent problem and You'll find it you'll get through it and you'll be like, oh Yeah, we could have handled this months ago. Yeah Yeah It'll be one of those things i'm sure yeah, bimota and then there's Yeah, there's all kinds of really interesting european stuff. I wouldn't want to live with but I would be fun to try out Yeah, go fun, all right There's one section we have here and I I'll go first and then i'll put you on the spot. Maybe you've got a rant Maybe you don't but the one minute rant what's chapping your ass today and let it all out. You have 60 seconds go So I'll go first just to show you how it's done. Maybe you've got a rant. Maybe you don't but uh, The thing I keep seeing is the chiselers. These are people who uh will They will sit on their butt in their house and they won't ride motorcycles they will not ride for like years Just because they won't they wanted to get that last hundred dollars or twenty five dollars Out of like they wouldn't just go buy a bike It's no I got to get the best deal in the world and this guy wouldn't come down a hundred dollars So i'm not going to ride at all this one this summer I was I just seen some forum posts from people like that and i'm like why? Motorcycles cost money that this nobody rides for free You trade money for fun Just go out and have a good time. So that's my one minute rant this week.

Maggie: I may have others Do I have one? I don't know I have I probably have many that would take longer than a minute It's usually I see it. This is when I see it in the big in bigger cities On the expressway, so you already have a lot more traffic happening and inevitably a sport bike will ride by or whiz by and I see this person riding. Sometimes they'll have like a helmet on most of the time not We won't even go into the whole I won't even give those people. Let's forget those people What gets me is i'll see the back tire so they're riding this hot little motorcycle fast And I get it. We get it. It's fun But I see that silver strip On the on their back wheel because they have no idea or they don't care mostly they don't have any idea That they have worn their tires down and i'm like, oh you are waiting you're an accident waiting to happen and I don't want to I don't want to be around the stupid it splashes. Yeah And if it happens on this major expressway, that's going to be a big thing with a lot of cars around so that that irritates me plus plus The hayabusa bros that ride in groups and they're like they whiz by like they're in like They ride like they're in the fast and furious

Brian: In and out and they weave in and out that's do your thing but you're giving us all a bad name

Maggie: Yeah Yeah

Brian: A little bit of a rant there. Cool. Yeah That's it Okay Yeah, like I said, I think your minute's up. Okay What one of the And we had a really interesting conversation with the joanne. Um, you know, which will be coming up soon Which by the time people hear this they will have heard that But there's also a really interesting article And i've seen some interesting articles on I want to get your thoughts on Ways to make riding more accessible more popular with people and a lot of that You're one of the short Joanne was talking about And one of joanne's blog articles is so you're short and here's how to ride and here's how and i've seen people that are Really short it takes a while, but you can acquire the skills to ride anything you want pretty much But getting there is really tough and a lot of it is a lot of this machinery just doesn't have the adjustability Stuff like that what are What are some of the things you'd like to see manufacturers do other than? That make more bikes that women and short people can ride But what are some of the things you'd like to see?

Maggie: Huh, there's a lot of That's the niche. So I think there are things that manufacturers can do obviously and there are things that There can be classes provided Yeah Yeah, and that would help everybody I'm, not just talking about stuff for for short people But yeah, like Making it safer to jump in.

Brian: Yeah

Maggie: Yeah So one thing There is there's the idea that you anyone who's mildly interested can jump in and just see if it's for them because I don't think this is something you can be lukewarm about either Either you are in or you're not and we see this in classes When people are not quite Committed and they give up easily or they get really frustrated And then you also see the people who really want it That's not a thing You can manufacture but for those people who might be interested, I think having more opportunities There's this group they just have these these events where It's not a full class. I just teach people to get on the bike and ride for a short distance. And so yeah To try to remove that intimidation away and you'll figure out if it's interesting to you or not there is also just Scooters are okay. People can ride scooters. There's nothing wrong with scooters Buell made the flow and the fuel that is not necessarily a big motorcycle and It's designed for the city. It's designed for urban environments and I think that's cool. It's Aerodynamic and it's electric and that's and it's also an alternative way to travel versus having to get in a car or look for transit but There's also I think it's also I think that one has a storage space too Yes.

Brian: Yeah things like on the bikes could be things like having just some sort of Practicality built into the thing would be important just ability when you talk about the machines themselves and Having more ways for people to just to get a taste safely without Without having to commit to a giant whole class and all that Yeah makes a lot of sense

Maggie: I actually think that can am has done a good job with making riding more accessible with the spiders and they're The rikers that they have out there It's very appealing for a lot of women who may have been Interested but two wheels was always hard a lot of women And there's a lot of groups out there that and they have a lot of storage and so they that is making riding more accessible and For the people that ride two wheels that deem three wheel riders as not real riders Just don't okay Just don't So I actually think they've done a good job of making riding more accessible

Brian: Yeah

Maggie: states that require a class That doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt But like in chicago when we lived in chicago I took a course to learn how to ride a scooter.

Brian: That may sound lame to some people but There were people in there that took the class because they bought the scooter first thought it would be easy and dropped it While they're returning oh, yeah yeah, yeah, like you go to the you go to the caribbean and they rent a scooter next to the beach and the roads are just like Covered with people on the road Falling off the scooters. They don't know what they're doing Yep yeah, and and that's interesting can am had to deal with the spider and riker because it's a new type of vehicle even for people who are experienced two-wheelers so They had to start from scratch and that's interesting yet. Yeah Harley's done some of that. They've had some they've had some good classes and so forth and not and I don't know if they're still doing much of that, but yeah, it's Yeah, more of that support would be done and going back to machines adjustability Where you can customize the machine a little more engineering and a little more of that You're seeing more of that pop up or you have different seat heights things like that Mm-hmm I think triumph does a pretty good job they have some of their later models have you can buy a low version or you can buy different seats and stuff like that, so Yeah, you're not. Yeah, so there's a lot of And one of the things I would love to see on the machines is to pay more attention to the seat because So many bikes now come with seats that are absolutely just awful like 50 miles and the human ass just can't deal anymore yeah, just hire some of the people from the gold the honda was using for the gold wing and study the Study the anatomy of the human ass a little bit and get something people can sit on and enjoy your bikes There's a lot of little things I think that could be done to to bring more people To motorcycling in general. Yeah, I think that's a lot of it Even on something like a sport bike just having places you could hook Like you could hook your rock straps, too Like on most sport bikes, there's no place to put anything if you need to strap something on your seat or whatever Just little things like that like where it's possible to do that or it's possible to accessorize Would make life Would make ownership a lot easier

Maggie: Yeah, I agree There's the world of aftermarket part aftermarket parts there's a lot that but you end up spending so much money and Sometimes things don't fit even though it's supposed to fit robin's tail tidy kit that he got says with luggage But it took weeks for him to actually get it to actually fit He had to do he had to make all these adjustments because the lights Were hitting his luggage his hard luggage It's supposed to be like I didn't understand why he had to still go through all that I think another thing that would make writing more accessible is I think we just also need some more writing ambassadors that aren't Marquez or the super big names, but just more people that people can see because There's a reason that like influencers became so big for a while, especially online but It does people still follow and look at oh, that's cool when some when people see Somebody or something making something seem Oh, is that something I want to try?

Brian: It's doable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, and there's the there's the big names itchy boots my wife doesn't ride anymore, but Every she's so is itchy boots have a new video. It's really Really compelling And there's so many that are on youtube do a lot of motorcycle There's i'm really bad with names. There's several others That are just out there Doing different stuff riding around stuff like that Yeah, and it shows people there's a lot of different There's a lot of different ways to go ride a motorcycle and travel places and have fun And I think that's and a lot of different people doing it the motorcycle doesn't care your gender or whatever it's it's for everybody and You can start to see that, you know that you can start to see that on social media and see it on youtube things like that

Maggie: Yeah There's a woman that I got certified To coach with her name is also robin and I loved The fact that so she was over 60 She is someone who wanted to ride Her reasons for writing were a little different from I think most other people She is a very green-minded person. She had an electric car and she bought a zero And so she wanted she needed the license and she had to go through i'm not saying her last name So hopefully if she ever hears this she won't be impressed She had to take the brc three times in part some of it was some of the exercises were tricky, but also she had Not great instructors the first couple of times. Yeah, but this is somebody who wanted it she took it three times to pass and She rides that bike when it's not sewing. She rides it every day. She uses it to commute but I think that would have been interesting to have That something like that a little bit more known like this is an everyday person. This isn't someone who's traveling across india, which It's so cool to watch that but It's not as relatable For maybe some people.

Brian: Yeah, and just being visible and yeah, I think it's a I'll put it this way. I used to park in behind my office And I started parking in front of it because I think it's important to be visible and just Make motorcycles ordinary transportation in some ways Yeah, so pretty much every day in front of my office It it's there's a bike sitting out there The ups driver knows when i'm here that kind of because he's always bringing me tires Oh, is it for that? No, it's for another one I just brought you tires. Yeah, I know I go through them a lot but Yeah, that's my wife's quote. It's didn't you just buy tires two weeks ago?

Maggie: Yeah, that was for a different bike though Oh, okay, whatever I she doesn't care Speaking of ways that you can Show some love for your machine His name is sean He is from the san antonio area and he can do custom wraps paint protective coatings robin took his headlamps over and found out more about How he does what he does and why?

Robin: So Here we are with sean haley and A barking cat somewhere in the deep background there. I hear a small dark yapping of some I call them barking cats and at any rate, um Sean haley owns and operates Encore trim they do pinstriping custom graphics leather and vinyl repair The website is encore trim.com. That's e-m-c-o-r-e-t-r-i-m dot com You can email them at support at encore trim as well support at encore trim.com and I had I'd already prepared to be tired from the road trip. I had no music on the way here So all I had was me and a lot of my thoughts and like my ears ringing and now we've had two I arrive to him preparing me Turkish coffee in an authentic. He's got the pot and the powder and now we're Hops up sizzling. Yes. What's it called sizzling? Where's the name? And where's the name come from I have no idea But all I know is now i'm wide awake and have to pick questions ask but there were four particular questions I thought would be fun for you to answer because you offer Services that are extremely helpful to people who ride motorcycles flat out we We find bikes will sometimes appear in their model form for a year And that's the only year they did that bike And then the parts become impossible to find or they become damaged and or they the paint goes south or Just about anything or they need customization people start motorcycle related businesses and you provide Just about every Type of service that can complement the interest of any given rider To any given bike when it comes to visual design repair protection and For anybody listening this started out. I am here with sean haley the man himself And when we first met I needed paint for parts that I did not want to replace on my bike And he said I can take care of this I can paint that and I can protect it and jacket it And now I get to sit down with him because I'm here in san antonio to pick up my headlights, which is The only part he ended up taking with him after consulting my accountant maggie Repeatedly on the matter, but sean Tell us how did you first off? How did you start? into this industry What drew you to? Performing these kinds of services from for automotive types any automotive type Initially it was scheduling.

Shawn: I was looking for something I could do part-time I wanted to be able to balance out with my life and make Enough to get by in a relatively small amount of time and I had a friend actually at the time that was putting on Vinyl tops. Okay vinyl tops. So I started installing vinyl tops. What is a vinyl top? How old are you? 1980 I started And they would take a sheet of vinyl and put it over the back end of a car over the whole roof Yeah to make it look like it had a convertible top, but it was just really vinyl on top of the sheet So right. It's a rag top. It's a solid rag top It started as just the sheet vinyl and then they came out with some of the companies would make it look like a rag top So they would put supports Not really supports, but the structural support looked that way and then canvas over the top So it looked like it had ribs and a convertible top, but it didn't really so you didn't have this

Robin: Yeah, so i'm thinking like not the chrysler little baron Definitely the buick. Yeah, buick's did this. Okay. Yeah, i'm with you.

Shawn: Oh, we did it on mustangs t-birds We put a vinyl top on anything you could sell to somebody.

Robin: Yeah Yeah, here we do it at the dealer level. Well, the sun's really hitting i'm sure that's really Did you ever look at somebody and be like why?

Shawn: Oh always I always didn't like them But that was what he did when he had a free schedule so I but pretty shortly you have to cut and trim and I should have learned how to do vinyl repair before I started doing that because Pretty quickly you cut too far and then you need to the repair process After cutting a couple of tops too far and having to replace them and pay out of pocket then I started drifting more towards the repair side learning how to do vinyl repair and Some of the guys when they put on a vinyl top they'd actually do pen striping along with it And so I learned how to do that and Amongst all of those things that matched I have a short attention span so I could do a little bit of this and a little Bit of that and a little bit of something else the next day

Robin: It's interesting. So you were bridging Something that it's something that you might have been bad at once or twice and had to get good at as a result And then it bridges over into a skill. So you're clearly a pretty quick learner and a pretty Attentive learner to take on stuff like that because I remember you mentioned doing plastic repair or vinyl repair at least Yeah, both. These are no joke. I just tried my hand at painting clear It was just rust-oleum on black metal. I managed to mess that up I want to get it right but here I was it takes a particular some people are good at one thing and not good at another and you seem to have Not only a jack-of-all-trades going but a master of many The flip side of that is for most consumers They don't get their hands on the equipment that actually allow them to do the job, right?

Shawn: Like a vinyl repair kit you go buy a vinyl repair kit They'll give you this tiny little thing that says heat it up over the stove stick it on the vinyl Yeah, you need 300 degrees for at least three minutes to cure The liquid vinyl it's not going to work all the knowledge of how to use a heat gun without burning your kit Yeah, or how to mix the colors I get repairs all the time where somebody tried to repair something They bought a kit that was easy to use If you know how to mix colors, otherwise, you got a weird color blob on your repair Learning to mix colors that was a big one learning how to Create surfaces that look like the original surface. That's an ongoing project There's always new surfaces coming up and new plastics They they come up with new plastics that nothing will stick to and so then you have to find what's the new process for getting something to stick to this plastic and Then new adhesives are coming out one year When they change from solvent finishes to water-based finishes on cars I put moldings all around the car and the guy called me the next morning say hey your moldings fell off I thought he was joking No, they don't just fall off Yeah, come on out. They're laying there right by the car. They literally just fell off the car And so I find out a few weeks later that 3m Had still been using the formulation that they used for the old paints But now they're using The new paints for a high solids paint and it has a what they call a lower energy And the adhesive has to be different.

Robin: So that was the transfer For from the green back adhesive tapes to the orange back in the 80s You've got a product you've got It's problem solving People say here me but me motorcycle ugly make pretty and you have to be the one who says This resolve is not going to work because of the new some new factor some new Element in the mix that just says okay. I'm gonna have to figure that out for you then which i'm sure There are countless people that are going to be grateful for just because you've got the the willpower and the time and the interest Try to figure out the solution to the puzzle

Shawn: A lot of us just that the interest because it's fun You're trying to sort through and figure some of these things out on somebody else's equipment So

Robin: Online is more frustrating if you were okay, this this would be a fun way to do this We didn't talk about this, but if we stack up my question two that we were talking about We stack this up in an interesting way if you were to go through The one hand primary topics for each finger of the things you can do and summarize your process For each of those things. Can I use your hands, too? Inside of a marginally well-structured paragraph or five how what would it be like down the line? I I can help with this I can help with that and the way I go about it is yada without letting out your top secret information that has Made you the go-to guy in san antonio for such things.

Shawn: Oh, wow. Okay. So that's yeah That's a pretty big topic there.

Robin: I like to be lazy.

Shawn: So i'd make you do all the work Somebody comes to me and they've got I just kind of Use my bike because then I can Okay. Yeah, you brought some parts. It was carbon fiber It had what was probably a very poor quality clear coat over it that started peeling off way too soon Was I happy? Not with the way it was no Yeah, you look at the clear coat on my wife's car is a 2011 I I don't regularly wax it but the clear coat's still good.

Robin: Yeah, we'll say this I would look at it directly, but i'm afraid I would lose my vision. It's beautiful

Shawn: It's got none of a sheen to it going but toyota clear coat is notoriously weak And and here you've got these parts that are only what a year or two old and the clear coat's all peeling off It was a bad Job to start with yes some adhesion failure there with the coating So being able to strip all that off you got to look at different ways to approach it It's got to be smooth And it's also got to have a way to adhere And so I'm getting into too many details.

Robin: This is good.

Shawn: This is fantastic Okay, this is so you either got to strip off the rest of the clear which I watched back in the 90s chevrolet Went through this all the suburbans were losing their clear coat. Oh, yeah, they shifted into waterborne finishes and They were waiting too long from the base coat to the clear coat and then it wasn't adhering So then a couple years down the road the clear coat starts peeling Because the base coat had cured too much and you've got a good chemical bond you've got an 80s rust bucket So you've got a whole body shop full of guys with razor blades scraping clear coat off an entire suburban It's 40 hours of work for suburban Is that type of thing you got to get in there and you got to scrape off all that clear you get it all smooth And you get your base primer, but everything's got to be clear So it's got to be a clear adhesion promoter then you get your clear coatings to go back over it That would just be one approach if you want to see the carbon fiber you're talking about time

Robin: Yeah a lot of it's all about time and prep work and i've been told that about painting And here we were just discussing how impatient a person I am versus all of my friends I hang out with people that are very patient.

Shawn: I have to because they have to tolerate me so another approach if you're okay to switch colors would be to blend out like feather That clear coat that's been peeling and then cover it with a wrap film, you know get and there's carbon fiber wrap film It doesn't look exactly like real carbon fiber, but it's really cool and going 100 miles an hour.

Robin: Nobody would notice I don't I wouldn't want that. I would want something that is if it's not going to be real carbon fiber Just do something wrap it like you're saying with something really cool.

Shawn: There's 200 colors There's yeah, like half a dozen manufacturers of real high-end wrap film And it's a good uv protected product.

Robin: It's designed to Conform to pretty tight corners certain things but if you get in your case, you had a lot of angular I handed this man this jagged Chinese star of a front motorcycle fairing that was all just sharp edges and corners and Random, it looked like bad teeth And I said here Can you do that for this and I remember immediately you brought up the term seam? Yeah, there were gonna need to be some seams and at first I was like that's so, you know And then he shows me his truck. You showed me your truck was there And the scene I couldn't see the scene until you pointed it out and then when you did point it out It looked like a contour line that belonged on there like it would have been pinstripe In a manner of speaking.

Shawn: That's the idea try to make it look like it belongs and it Me explaining things to people sometimes is over dramatic because i'm used to looking at stuff six inches away as i'm working on it Most people look at their car and passing as they go out to get in it in the morning Or their motorcycle. It's like when you're washing it, you'll be close. You'll be dealing with that But other than that, it's not something people would notice Yeah, so you're trying to be meticulous about it because that's part of the service.

Robin: It is service, right? It's just me how I like to be And these are the magic words i'm tedious this is what our listeners this is where it's at Most of our listeners they can wrench Some of our listeners they might be able to paint or they might actually know a little bit about what you're saying But you're using the words that tells them. You know what there's hope There's hope for that part that they're like that's never gonna get buffed out But you could always just protect it and then cover it and then reprotect it Is a way What's another one of the things you do? Outside of that I know you mentioned pin striping.

Shawn: Yeah, I do pin striping either with vinyl or with paint I've striped a few bikes. I don't go for the crazy designs, but quite a few of them I had one that went into a show magazine years ago. He had done a set of double flames And so we did the outlining of the flames with a paint stripe and then he had a mid coat clear on it Then they cleared over the paint stripe outline of the flames.

Robin: It makes it go faster and gives you a little better gas mileage Thank you So then your process All the prep work all the time you put into it What goes into some of the what is your favorite thing to do of all these things?

Shawn: different different Yeah, it's just the variety that I enjoy like the so I've been doing pin striping with vinyl tape for 13 years And I kept getting people that would ask me because I was dealing with shops that were half body shops And sometimes they would need a paint strip and I would run across guys periodically that did paint striping and Oh, this is great. They're so awesome. And some of them were so artistic. They didn't know how to answer the phone I would give their card to my customers and then my customers would get mad at me because the guys were at the coast doing t-shirts or Otherwise just weren't available to do service

Robin: I decided and so if you're reading some of the google reviews on encore trim Just know that they may not have been on court trim just yet But

Shawn: Some of these guys Yeah, I just decided I was gonna have to learn how to do it I started laying out guidelines because I could lay vinyl really straight and I got the brush and I would practice painting between those lines and I did that for about three years and it was excruciating And one day a guy came out and I was getting ready to lay the guidelines on It was a new shop. They just called me first time I've got the car out behind the shop where nobody can see me And he comes out the manager says now, you don't do the guidelines like those other guys Do you know because you can't make it look right with that? What are guidelines? Oh laying down a Like a paint masking so it becomes like a trace Yeah, so you lay the tape down above and below the line you paint it and then you peel out the masking tape It leaves a little edge Okay, yeah, which most people would never notice but this particular manager was real that was important to him He didn't want it to look like that. I said, oh, of course not sir.

Robin: It was the real deal.

Shawn: Yes. Yes So that afternoon I learned how to do freehand paint striping He needs this it is job I learned it I had to redo it like 15 times, but I finally got it to where I wasn't at least crying over it And the guy walked around the corner and just expressed shock and awe that it looked so amazing and I felt shock and awe that he felt that way But okay, this will sell i'm down the road. So from that day forward I started doing freehand pin striping and In about three more years. I did the very first one that I liked It was excruciating I was doing all this work and it bugged me to death.

Robin: I could see every little dip So then were you learning the other things while you were masked that only makes sense You didn't learn one master one and move on to the next they just blended.

Shawn: No, it's all together because yeah It's a weird in the body shop industry I get these runs of different stuff like I might have a month where I didn't do hardly any striping And everybody needed repairs. They got bullet holes or they got Glass scratches and plastic panels or leather seats and Punctures and leather seats or where I'll go ahead and assume for legality that nobody's ever driven up and said hey There's a bullet hole in my car.

Robin: Don't say nothing. Can you fix it?

Shawn: I've had people that were in denial. It's usually shops Okay. Yeah, I went and looked at one. I said who got shot. They said oh, no, it's a hole in the door panel I said, yeah, it's a bullet hole then Once I got in the car I started looking around I realized they had covered the headliner turned out it was a detective's car He'd had to shoot somebody that was with him Wow, like they had a Somebody in the passenger seat.

Robin: Yeah, okay Keep that from incriminating no names on that. But I will say that I did find a bullet It was at the bottom of the door panel. Oh, so you actually felt wow the shell casing at all or not? Yeah This is where it takes a gun person. I'm not a gun person, but I have tons of friends who are gun people I've gone shooting before but I don't you know But it takes somebody who know what an entry looks like and an exit looks like for a particular bullet to be like That's a bullet Yeah, it was just and then there was still blood down the bottom of the seat.

Shawn: Oh, it was really grody This keeps getting better I just did the door panel, you know, that was my part of it They had already covered up everything else, but apparently it was a legal thing.

Robin: It wasn't yeah, I know it was already reported already Apparently But this is another skill that was layered on top of a skill you had been already developing now you're developing and it all blends in and the wraps you use those are Let's talk about the designs that people get okay, you know as a sport bike rider as a sport. We're a sport touring website We're all about Jagged lines sport profiles. I made the comment the other day that made me feel like finally I figured it out We're all about motorcycles that look like the frame is trying to eat the front wheel Interesting Yeah, yes downward angle yeah make go fast aggressive so I guess When it comes to getting a design, you're not big on doing the design work You're the guy who can put that design where it's going But you can do design work or you have a person I can do that's not my strong suit

Shawn: Me all through the 80s that we just had rules of film I got a really big one six inches wide one time and I would just go crazy with it and I would cut things out And I had a friend that had been an architect and he had his architect's tools out on the side of the cars He was my competitor but we were friendly and Yeah, he'd make these amazing shapes. I was like, how are you doing that? and I see his little plastic architect tools and So we would the problem for me with designing is I would have a blast on the first side of the car I could come up with great designs But then my attention span was gone and they would still want the other side of the car done And that was excruciating. I think I got lazy with design because by the 90s and into the early 2000s There were so many that printing came in to play and so they could print amazing designs on vinyl Which wasn't the case before I used to take an airbrush and do Like sunset scenes on vinyl with vinyl Paint it was the canvas. Yeah Yeah, and you paint on the canvas and mostly to match something that had already been done but man, there's so much available now in the aftermarket of It's already been designed. All you gotta do is put it on.

Robin: Yeah, that's not a bad thing.

Shawn: My brother had a What's the a montana trailer and he repainted it and then he ordered on amazon this kit and it had all these like wild designs pages of this stuff like large sheets and so we laid them all out in the yard and we Figured out what goes where and where it was going to go and that was fun It was the hard work of that was again.

Robin: This is and that was early That was a while ago.

Shawn: Oh, this is two years ago two years ago.

Robin: I mean so two years in this industry I imagine development of tech That's a long time. And so now you can probably get even more design and more systems But it also again i'd bring up that word hope where it's like it gives writers with and otherwise Paint's going to be difficult finding somebody who can do it. Well, it's going to be difficult but there's a way to go about it that'll give you a design you like and You're a person they could reach out to about such things and do you receive back? Do people send to you and have it sent back? Every once in a while.

Shawn: Okay, probably more because I do wood grain repair if it starts to happen more. Are you okay with that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's I had people send me wood pieces from the east coast that had damage. It was fake wood But being able to recreate a wood grain look and it was a lot of fun who wants to do that?

Robin: I mean when it's fun Okay Fair i'm at the other guy not the guy doing the work. I like that It sounds like he would like you like the puzzle one. Yes the challenge. Yes. This is year 43 Of doing this. Yes 43 years. Yeah, I started 1980. Well, you should have left with that.

Shawn: We wouldn't have to do the entire interview I don't know what I like the best. It's the different part the variety of it. It's always something a little bit different and a new type of damage a new type of plastic finding out all these plastics you can't weld this plastic or there's a six thousand dollar welder to weld this type of plastic because it Oxygen Causes it to Have problems and so you got to inject nitrogen gas and it sounds like that's a real thing.

Robin: It is.

Shawn: Yeah Yeah, you're speaking from not an imagination and actually no Polypropylene it's like aluminum it oxidizes when it's exposed to the oxygen. Oh, wow So it becomes so if you're going to weld it It just doesn't bond right? It's like you've got a contaminant in between the plastic Even though all you're working with is the plastic because of the oxidation and the temperature change So you create a barrier and then it's a weak spot So you have to flood it with nitrogen gas to be able to effectively weld it

Robin: I won't announce your address, but this is a tool that you have access to I approach it a different way, but I make it work. Very cool.

Shawn: I like that Duck, yeah, I don't have enough demand for it to have a six thousand dollar tool Yeah, besides I wasn't sure I could get the kitchen pass for that one Very cool, so my last question is What Why do I say? Yes Yeah, because right i've got several guys that work in the field I work with a lot of body shops, but the last couple of years i've really started scaling back we got a trailer during covid and I enjoyed traveling and I enjoy that you travel because that worked out pretty good. It was fun This is a new friend in our industry that i'm very happy to have met You and I don't hesitate to refer people so somebody probably every day my website Is crazy high on google. That's encore trim.com But if you just search leather repair san antonio, i'll be one or two nice it's For leather repair. There's not that many competitors and probably 80 of the ones listed don't do leather repair There are upholstery shops or some other type of thing but to actually take a piece of leather that's got damage on it And refinish it so that it looks new again There's not too many people to do that.

Robin: Oh, we're gonna have some fun now because I thought this was I was this I was gonna let you go there and we're gonna do a cool little wrap up But no, we're gonna make this a little more fun real quick here If I could get my hands on an extra Passenger seat or if I could get just my passenger seat to you with a tail bag that the type of tail bag I I have I happen to like I mail those to you Could you create an adapter system for it whereby if the bag isn't on that seat a person could still sit on it But if they wanted to they could pin the bag directly into the seat They could take the bag and place it on the seat and pin it to the seat And then it would be fastened to the seat take on take off. Is this the kind of thing? Do you do that? Can you possibly send me pictures? I would there it is. That's the best answer Let me see what you got. So if it were a a do you ever work with seat cushions? Yes, boom That's a great answer.

Shawn: I get people to call me almost every day off my website And they a lot of times are just asking questions and I have no hesitation to point somebody to somebody that will Do the work like I get people with purses and they want to strap sewn on or something and I can do it But usually if they can go to a saddlery shop or an upholstery shop, they'll do it cheaper

Robin: You talk about repair you get to pick and choose what you work on and ideally you're trying to help people solve their problem

Shawn: Yeah, so like yesterday a guy pulled up and he had a pool cue case that he wanted to put a snap on But he actually brought me an extra strap that he wanted me to cut the strap off and sew the new strap on It was going to get very complicated and then he wasn't really wanting to spend much money And so I just put a new snap on it for him and painted it black so it would match the pool cue And so he came and left in about 20 minutes Okay, it was just yeah, it was fun. And my wife beat me up for doing a job that cheap but It was fun, but otherwise I could have sent him to I don't have a hesitation about that If I know how to resolve something and it's not me doing it. I I am plenty happy with what work i've already got

Robin: That's pretty cool because you're here to help people You're helping people obtain Whatever it is or after and the look and feel of their vehicle in my case motorcycles So he clearly only works on motorcycles everybody only motorcycles and this has been an interview with sean haley The website is encore trim.com that's encore Trim.com you can email them at support at encore trim and I can't thank you enough. It's pinstriping custom graphics leather and vinyl repair Paint protection film you can put on racing stripes and signs you can put on clear shield and wraps Dash and plastic trim repair. It's all on the card He's also got full interior repair and restoration leather furniture restoration custom leather auto interior upgrades clear paint protection film Check out the website encore trim.com i'm out of breath. This has been an interview with sean haley sean.

Brian: Thank you so much my pleasure So, where do you dispose of your tires One thing that's cool here in indianapolis They have curbside trash pickup and in our There's different vendors doing different neighborhoods, but in our neighborhood We have these huge trash cans basically on trash day you Roll the can out and you put the tires inside the can but on top of your trash And they go and that's it. That's all you have to do. They take care of they recycle them.

Maggie: It is a beautiful thing that is Yeah Okay, that's really nice.

Brian: Yeah, pretty much Wherever you are in the u.s. Anyway, and i'm sure most of the world you may have to do some digging online for your county or your city or whatever, but there's going to be a There's going to be a legitimate way to get rid of used motorcycle tires Whatever that it'll be there there'll be look for Look for tox drop or something like that or hazardous waste there in your county or Household hazardous waste hw is the technical term and you'll find it you'll find something In some places they take take it to the such-and-so tire shop and you might have to pay a buck or two per tire to get rid of them, but it's it's worth figuring out unless you I don't know if anyone's ever come up with much use for used motorcycle tires

Maggie: Yeah Yeah, that's a good question.

Brian: You hear sometimes some playground material is from used something but it's not i've never heard that it's tires Yeah, like they'll chop up tires car and motorcycle tires and make rubber mulch and things like that But yeah in our neighborhood, it's super easy. Um They go away with the trash and they pull them out and as long as you put them on the top So they can pull them out don't hide them Then they just they go away and I don't know what happens next i'm I hope they don't just end up in the landfill or something but yeah, it's a Wherever you are, there's a way to get rid of them. That's legit more or less Let's see here Let's do a little bit of stuff Our listeners have asked or might ask if you'd like us to field your questions email podcast at tro dot bike That's podcast at tro bike and you will get an answer eventually whether it's a right answer or a useful answer You'll get an answer We'll be happy to answer a question There's a couple of these that you may have some input on maggie one topic I think is pretty interesting is What are your tips? For being able to work while you ride or if you're on a trip carrying a laptop Being productive things like that. Do you have do you want to talk about that?

Maggie: Yeah ways to work while Riding a motorcycle While there are people that can do everything on their phone. I am not one of those people Yeah, I need some sort of thing that I can type on What do they call those?

Brian: What do they call this something? It sits in your lap. I think Yeah, they call it.

Maggie: There's a name for that I would bring either either a tablet or A laptop and by laptop, I don't mean my main laptop We actually have a specific What we call affectionately as the lappy. It's a smaller laptop that if something happens to it We're not going to be in the hurt

Brian: Okay

Maggie: Yeah We never we generally try not to travel with our real laptops on the bikes So yeah, i've brought my i've brought the lappy before i've brought I've brought a tablet definitely so we each have two phones because as a full-time rver you need a phone you need a you need mobile service and you need backup mobile service because Different parts of the country have different types of reception different

Brian: Yeah, like one's verizon one's something else. Okay. Got it. Yeah, something like that

Maggie: So one one will be stronger in some areas and the other one will have to Come in when yeah the first one the primary fails yes That is a must do if you're full-time traveler and you can't trust the maps when they say Oh, yeah, verizon's got this covered or t-mobile has that You can't trust that So I travel with both phones We so we each have a plan on both a phone on each plan I also have a A fast charger for the phones because phones run out of juice. Yeah, that's really it It's so it's not a ton. It's not it's not too heavy when you have a couple of phones and Maybe a small laptop a small little lappy Okay, but yeah Interesting.

Brian: Yeah, because one of the things and and I For the last several years i've i've carried a chromebook on on trips and There's they're small. They're cheap. They're durable. They're entirely disposable and pretty much everything I do at work or personally everything's You have to sign up with someone or run your life and some people that's apple for me. It's google all the gmail services and so forth and yeah, a chromebook worked really well for me for quite a while and Yeah, if the thing gets stolen or bit in half or something I can go to walmart and Best buy or something 300 bucks or so i'm Back in business in 20 minutes

Maggie: Same we also carried a chromebook for a while until yeah, it was disposed

Brian: Yeah, they and They have their limit you have to really understand what they can and cannot do and work around those limitations If you think a chromebook is a computer you're going to be very frustrated so that's why I always tell people they're extremely useful but It's that you have to understand a lot. You have to have a pretty good understanding what they can and can't do I recently bought a macbook air and It rides in the bike it rides into the saddlebags just fine But it's also a little terrifying because it it's one of the little the less expensive apple machines But it's still a lot of money in my mind yeah, and But it's a lot more capable. So I usually i'll switch depending on what i'm doing. Um, But yeah, i'll commute and so forth i'll bring my macbook back and forth but Um, but yeah, the chromebook is a really good machine if you understand its limitations Or an older laptop or something like that and you said tablet are you talking about you have a tablet and then you have a Like an ipad with a keyboard so you can still type Yeah, because then do your writing. Okay Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah the Sorry, go ahead I was gonna say then there's obvious stuff. You have to get a good case which you know Or I on a chromebook I used I got like a good foam sleeve that fit it tightly so it'd fit better Not take up as much space and I had all the accessories in another bag so you can pack any way you want to so You basically use like an ipad with a keyboard For something my ipad is pretty old.

Maggie: So I don't use it anymore. But But I did and the other advantage of having an extra lappy Is you can take it out to the garage? you have your specs you have If you have an online haynes manual like that can live out there without having to transfer your main Computer over so that's nice too. So that's also how we use it and also for us Sometimes in the old days anyway when we would coach a class there was a classroom portion and Sometimes you had to make sure you had the slides ready to show the class during the classroom portion they did away with that, but Now it's all online. But yeah, it was it's just nice to have the extra That yeah, like you said, maybe it's only a couple hundred bucks. But if something happens to it, you're not like You're not dead Life is on the other computer Yeah, you're not dead.

Brian: No. Yeah, and I there's nothing stored on the hard drives. That's all I'm also most of what I do is writing and of course emails and stuff like that. I'm not doing a lot of graphic design And with web development most everything's on servers and stuff so when I do that too it's There's not a lot like if the hard drive poops out. There's not actually a lot there most times depending on what i'm doing Do you guys only do one question per episode? We could talk about another one You and I are going to have very different answers on this I think and I think it's going to be an interesting But how much do you really need to know? about maintaining and fixing motorcycles Changing tires and so forth What level are you comfortable at are you trying to achieve more? I know you're I know you're working through this problem on your triumph and so forth but My answer would be you need to know how to change tires change check valve clearances blah blah blah Or at least you will enjoy yourself and have a better time and spend a lot less money if you know all that but then we've talked to some people lately who Buy a new bike and then take it to the dealer and just they don't they just they don't spend their energy on that And that's valid too. That's a way to do it, too So, where do you sit in this continuum when I first got the bike?

Maggie: I was on that side of the continuum. I would take my bike To a triumph dealership and I would have them do the major stuff Robin showed me how to change the oil And he's got a thing about paying somebody else to change tires. So we would change We would change we by him mostly him would change my tires I did learn how to clean the chain. So I did their super simple stuff, but I paid somebody else to do anything harder than that Now i've come through in the middle and i'm more on the other end where We're traveling into different states. We're in different rural areas. I'm usually far from the triumph dealership I also don't make the income I used to make so uh, it's not It's not so easy for me to just drop money on here. You fix my problem or you make you do this for me also, I Did pay a garage In austin last year to fix the starting problem. They did not fix the starting problem. They thought they did They didn't actually so you can do that and again if and it's not a it's not a I don't want to make any judgments about whether You can or can't spend the money. It's that even when you do that's not Always going to work and again because Since we each can only have one bike. We only have the space to pull a bike So we can't just go to another bike I have come to understand that It's nice to be able to know a little bit more about your own ride And funny enough. It was a stipulation when he when we he first got into writing. I was like, okay, but I want you to Understand and know how to work on it. And here I was not doing that. And so now now with the starting problem And we we've tried a few guesses and it seemed to be it. Nope. That wasn't it. Nope. That wasn't it Now I understand how that would be Nice if I had been more Knowledgeable and had been doing a little bit more i'd been more involved in my own bike

Brian: Excellent, yeah, and and the short way of saying that is the more the better it gets I think yeah it's some people aren't interested true, but but yeah, I think the more about how this thing works that just the more confidence you have and The better writer you can you can be I think that makes a difference too

Maggie: Yeah, because you're putting you're putting time and effort Into maintaining that care into this machine And I I do think there's a relationship Between you and I think it just helps the relationship like I was talking to my bike today. I was so happy that she was cooperating and I got nervous because I heard a funny sound and I thought Do I have a flat tire? And I was like no and I I talked her out of it. I'm like we're not letting that happen today It's been over a month since we've been out We're not getting a flat tire and we didn't Yeah, I know it sounds silly but I do have a relationship relationship with my bike So even though I don't ride nearly as much as robin I've had her since 2016 actually the end of 15 So this is a long-term bike. This is This is the bike that i'm still invested in Yeah Yeah, and that's a whole nother topic.

Brian: Is this? like for a lot for what 15 years I had one motorcycle and So there's a lot of benefits to that too You can just you have this telepathy between you Over time and then when I bought when I had to put a second motorcycle in the garage It was really an adjustment to learn to switch between them it was Like I could ride one for a week at a time and then by like day five i'd be comfortable again and then I'd go back to the other one the next week and and Be all messed up for two or three days at least And now I have three bikes and I can just hop between them and it's not a big deal But that's an it's one of those skills. You don't even think about it. You have to learn As time goes on But yeah, like on my old gs850. I built the engine that's in it. I built I have had every nut and bolt in there. So I know exactly what's going on with it and That's a pretty cool feeling And like we were talking with we were talking with jasmine She's in new york city and they have some excellent high quality mechanics and dealers there And she's just I don't want to think about it. I so she So she's got people she can trust and So that's a different approach different People she can trust and she just has them deal with it because she's got a she's got riding to do She's got other things to think about and Yeah, that's that's a valid approach too and i've I've taught I don't know how many people i've taught several people to change their tires and all but one or two What they learned is they don't want to change their tires. They're like, yeah, this sucks. I'm not going to do it It's like Here's what I learned today. I could do it if I had to now, but They're not interested anymore and that's fine, too. That's just There's no right way to approach this approach this whole silly hobby I think it comes down to What is more important to you and how you're spending your time?

Maggie: So I agree jasmine has a totally valid point and I was on that side of it, too but that was because we were in one place we were stationary, so Yes, I could find I had a dealership. I trusted with mechanics that we knew and Yeah, actually when they left that dealership they went to a different garage we followed them and I took my bike to them So I totally get that but now i'm in a very Different place a very different situations For me now. It's also My chain is rusted And Maybe if I had paid more attention I would have gotten that taken care of I would have gotten a new chain or I would have cleaned it more often Those little things are happening and Yeah, it's it just depends Excellent.

Brian: All right. Let's do Two-headed coin stuff happens quick. What's the right thing to do and slow and why? What's the rocket surgery reasoning here? So today's topic for two-headed coin quick. What do you do? Slow what's the reason? We'll just lump in together a lot of like mental slash physical issues Maybe you didn't get enough sleep. Maybe you've got a hangover. Thanks to strong waters the night before Uh, maybe you're hungry Maybe you're doing a little peepee dance So, what do you do in those situations where your mind is? Being pulled away or it's not there or it's a ball of fuzzy pink yarn. What do you think maggie?

Maggie: Quick what do you do? I have been on the sevens tour. I was a sweep writer where that wasn't an option So I just made sure to Once i'm on the bike i'm focused. So that's not usually a problem. It's Before getting on the bike and if at least for me I find the mental game is all about my confidence so you can tell you can very easily tell when i'm not confident and So I try to get myself Hydrated I breathe walk around And pain relief at the if I have to Yeah, that that's yeah, that's real close to yeah The quick answer is stop And deal with it.

Brian: Whatever's going on Stop and deal with it in some way, whatever If you're if you didn't have any sleep Try some caffeine if that's your jam walk around do some deep breaths Drinking water will handle a lot of those except the last one If you got to go then go and get that off your mind Yeah, that's the thing people are sometimes oh I don't want to hold up the group or whatever If there's a problem just you got to stop and deal with it That's I always tell people It's okay. We're not 90 of the time when people stop it's just they need to put on a sweatshirt or they're cold or they're they need to Eat a granola bar or something like that but yeah, like you said things like Drink some water If you're hung over drink some water eat a little something and keep doing that Don't overdo the caffeine if you can possibly help it um And I always carry a few a little bit of carry some water carry some snacks When you're out sport touring You're the good roads don't have stores on them

Maggie: Right

Brian: You know everybody has to carry something And if I see somebody that's looking hangry or whatever here is my food and water just here Take care of yourself. You're a human good lord And yeah part of like when i'm leading a ride rob and I've talked about this before when you're leading a ride. You gotta You gotta be aware of the bladder situations and And First the first segment stop after 30 minutes because everybody's going to have to dump some coffee Just part of the deal but And get that off of people's minds is the main point of it.

Maggie: I will say that males Have an easier time of just pulling over and Doing the pee wherever they need to It's not that you can't as a female but it's a different mechanism and there's a little bit more Splash back that you have to deal with that's not As easy to control, but I found that they do actually make these Gadgets that you can travel with if you had to I have not Pressed the button to buy Yet, but just the fact that i'm aware So if I were going to do another tour I would I think I would get one I think it's called the sheenal

Brian: It's like urinal except sheenal Which is that's terrible.

Maggie: That's a terrible name.

Brian: It's awful. Yeah and yeah, so even with a bunch of dudes I Really do my best to find an actual gas station rest stop something walmart, whatever just Nobody wants to Nobody wants to see that But we You know what a plastic cup would do Yeah, if I just carried an empty plastic cup Yeah, all you need is a little privacy and I can be done Or wear like a big skirt just put it There was some right. Yeah, there women were Like they had on like armored pants and stuff, but they're all wearing like these big skirts over them, which I don't know Seems like it would get in the way. But anyway, let's do a tiny tasty tool tip. So here's tiaro's tiny tasty tool tips And you want to do the jingle robin always does the jingle I could try it one or two per episode This is my favorite part. We talked about this a little bit earlier. So I'll elaborate on this a little bit One of the things you have to do as a sport touring rider is you have to be able to deal with a flat tire and so if your bike has tubeless tires, we talked about that before you carry a The little rope plugs they work fine. They're fine They're not gonna you're not gonna die just poke Pull the object out poke a rope plug in there pump the tire up because you brought a pump, right? And you'll be fine and you can rock on Now the tip is if you have a bike with tube tires You have to carry a little more stuff to get you home And you also have to know how to use it Like I said, i've taught several people how to change tires. They don't want to change tires but generally They could if they needed to We need tubes in the tube bag And generally if you're doing any if you're on pavement at all you really need to have both tubes Although most flats are on the rear you There's an old legend that you can put a front tube in a rear tire And and it'll get you home. It really doesn't work on the street. It really doesn't work on pavement It'll work on a little dirt bikes and stuff but yeah tire irons and I carry a couple of things to make this easier And that includes a little tiny container of tire mounting lube You can get them in a camping store A little tiny container of talc which makes the the tube easier to deal with and it'll slide around. It's like a dry lubricant And I carry a few little squares of uh, plastic from like a Milk bottle or something like that and use those as rim protectors And three tire irons you can do it with two but three makes a lot easier and then a little valve snake like you can snake it it's a little wire you snake it through the The valve hole and you can hook it on to the valve and tube And guide it back through again, and it'll save you like an hour And do that So yeah, basically so if you ride a bike with tube tires just make sure you carry a tube kit with everything you're going to need to get home because AAA is not going to be real interested in coming and helping you

Maggie: Nice, that's awesome. A great Tiny tasty tool tip.

Brian: It wasn't that tiny was it? It was just one All right