Robin: We're here with Eric Shropshire of Quadrant Motors, and this is a real treat for us because I tell you what, this is the kind of guy that you want to know if you're looking for something obscure and maybe a little bit difficult to track down, Eric might be able to help in all likelihood. He's the guy. So Eric wrote a fantastic article for TRO a while back on the modus, and while it's the one and only article I think he's written for us, it is a phenomenal write-up and just a really great read. I love your analogy about how the modus motorcycle is kind of like the 427 Corvette, like it's always trying to kill you.

Eric: Yeah, it was definitely like driving a car on two wheels. It was definitely a one of the few bikes I've ridden where I was really afraid that it was gonna get away from me. And you've had quick bikes. And I've had quick bikes. This was a different kind of quickness. This was massive torque, which was not at all comfortable until you got kind of used to it. Definitely not linear power.

Robin: Yeah, not an inline four. That's a V4, right? Yeah, it was a V4.

Eric: They even described it as half of a Corvette engine, which I don't know what it was. Yeah. I know one guy that still has one and, you know, he drives it gingerly. Mostly because I don't get parts for it anymore, but yeah.

Robin: Unobtainium, really.

Eric: The people that have them, I'm not sure how they keep them running. I mean, the guy that I know that owns one is a mechanic. So hopefully that will help, but I'm not sure you'd get parts, which is kind of scary.

Robin: So let's talk about that because, okay, you started Quadrant when? 2018. Right before the pandemic. Oh, perfect timing. Yeah. When you can really find all of the help you need to keep a business going.

Eric: Yeah, it was definitely a hairy experience, but, you know, we managed.

Robin: Yeah. Tell us about the business a little bit. I know that, let's say I wanted to find the battery harness for a Vectrex. What would you do if that's the kind of situation I'm on the hunt for? Or is that even how it works?

Eric: Quite honestly, like I tell everybody else, a lot of it just has to do with Google searches and knowing how to search Google. But I mean, there are people that I know that I can call that have expertise on different kinds of things. You know, there's some motorcycle guys, you know, some motorcycle guys in California, I know motorcycle guys here. But a lot of times obscure things are usually found with individuals that kind of have the experience. I just typically try to call around first and say, oh, you know, you've heard of this and they'll say something like, no, or something else. These are, they refer you to somebody else, but it typically refers you to somebody else and pretty sure you find it. So I think about 50% of the stuff I find is on Google, just knowing what search engine, what search tools to use and then once you find it, you got to figure out whether it works and that's a whole nother thing. I just sent back two parts yesterday that didn't work. It's a crapshoot, but it's fun.

Robin: Yeah. I was thinking that how many times have I gone to a website and searched that resource for the thing I'm looking for, not finding it on their website, then look it up in Google and it links me to the product directly on their website at the top of Google.

Eric: What typically happens with that, a lot of times what happens with that happens sometimes is that they say they don't have it, you go to Google, it says they don't have it and then you realize that Google is wrong or they haven't updated something or they didn't realize they had the part. Like I talked to one guy about a month ago who swore he didn't have a part. I called back, talked to a different kind of guy. Oh, wait a minute. He had that part and he came back and he had it. So the other guy, one guy knows where it is and the other guy doesn't know.

Robin: Top left pocket. I've got it right here in my plaid jacket. Oh, I left that at home.

Eric: Yeah, right. You got to keep calling until you find the right guy.

Robin: How many times has that landed you at the gates of a junkyard or has that happened yet?

Eric: Uh, you know, I don't go to a lot of junkyards anymore because there are sites on the webs that basically search junkyards for you. And so, so typically, uh, I know more sometimes than they know, but I've gone to the junkyard maybe three or four times and found what I'm looking for. But it's usually kind of scary experience, you know, going to a junkyard. It's not fun. It's gnarly man, you know, dodging rats and dogs and shit like that.

Robin: So I was going to say, turn left at the mangy beast. We don't know if it's a cat dog, one or the other. We don't know.

Eric: A lot of times with the junkyard, you got to take the part off yourself.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. And if you call it, if you call a junkyard, the answer is always, well, yeah, sure. We've got that. And you show up and half of half the car's gone or half the bike's up.

Eric: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's crap shit, but it's way easier now than it used to be. I mean, my wife's father used to race cars and, you know, he was literally in the junkyard, like searching around with a, you know, with a, with some tools.

Robin: So, um, for some reason, I pictured whoever runs the junkyard, they let you in and then they hand you a tool, but then you see both of them slowly backing away while you're going towards the vehicle and they're getting ready to run because I know what's under it.

Eric: Exactly. Well, you know, or they have no idea what it is. You know, they just basically, you know, you tell them you're looking for something and they say like, wow, that's what that is. I don't know what that was. So, you know, that kind of stuff.

Robin: Do we disinfect that?

Eric: You're right. So, uh, we're going to do this like 2018. That's when we started. The business has just kind of transformed a little bit, but we're still around. How so? Well, I don't know. We, we, at first I think we really tried, we were kind of flying by the seat of their pants and, you know, the pandemic kind of changed the business model a little bit. And, um, I decided that I was going to carry more inventory than I wanted to, which almost killed us. So now we are back to basically finding specific things for people.

Robin: It's still a big service, man. I mean, you're, you're basically a man in a chair for everybody.

Eric: And motorcycles have become more important because for some reason we've been meeting more people who wanted motorcycles and we had some pretty obscure stuff for a while.

Robin: So, you know, that goes around. We happen to specialize in that sort of thing here at Tiro dot bike.

Brian: During the, uh, during the whole pandemic thing, um, there was like the period where you couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do anything, and then people slowly started to realize like, well, wait, uh, if I am out riding a motorcycle, I don't have to get anywhere near another human being, but then suddenly, suddenly everybody was riding, everybody is, you know, motors buying motorcycles. Uh, you couldn't get tires. I mean, it was just, you know, the, the, I remember, you know, there were darn near fistfights over oil. I mean, it was, it was, yeah. Suddenly people were putting on miles. They're like, well, I can be by myself and antisocial and I can pee in the woods and I never have to come anywhere near a person. And so it's virologically safe. It's still, you know, has its own dangers, but yeah, that there was a big bump there and it's still like motorcycle prices are still pretty wild.

Eric: Things are starting to come a little bit more full circle now, but yeah, it was crazy for a while. I mean, we had a couple of close ones. I mean, literally we had a guy show up once. I'm not kidding to buy a motorcycle with, I think 15 grand and a paper bag. Wow. He's in the back counting out 15 grand cash.

Robin: And I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, one jail house dollar at a time. Exactly.

Eric: It's like, I didn't ask a lot of questions. You know, it was one of those kinds of transactions where I put the buyer and sold together, uh, we got the bike stored for him and these guys were literally in the back counting out cash out of a paper bag. And I was just thinking like, please get the hell out of here. Please take the bike. We're in my mind when you take the bike and get out, please.

Robin: Helicopter spotlights sold. I'm out. Yeah. But literally it looked like a paper bag that an oil sandwich had been in. It was a nice paper bag, which is messed up because I mean, we had you on here because honestly, Eric's a class act, man. I mean, quadrantmotors.com, right? Yeah. Great site. Great resourcing. Give us some obscure ones that you took you a minute to kind of think on that you had to stew on for a bit. Any obscure bikes at all?

Eric: Well, I don't know how he's fearless as we are. They're crying nine, nine, nine for a while. That was kind of like this demon seed that nobody wanted. Everybody wanted, but nobody, everybody was scared of because nobody could know what had been done to it and where it had been, um, I wrote him a couple of times and I was convinced that whoever got it was going to burn it, kill themselves. So that bike finally went away. Uh, we had a Moto Guzzi for a while. Moto Guzzi, California, which if you know anything about Moto Guzzi to California, California has came in many different trims and I'm looking at that up now and he wanted a specific, he wanted a black one. We had a guy that gave us a seventies vintage K100 BMW.

Robin: Oh, wow. Is that the flying brick?

Eric: Yeah, that was a cool bike. Um, and that one, that was weird. We had a guy show up with this old BMW R90, uh, that was original. Like the guy had, I think, I don't know, some old guy. I don't remember that. I couldn't tell whether he had bought it new or inherited it, but literally nothing had been done to it.

Robin: An R90 over six. Yeah. And it was just like running.

Eric: Sunburst orange. What was it? No, no, it was black. You know, it was an orange one. I mean, it was like, this bike was like eighties vintage. And so that was an interesting thing where I was going to say, you know, you should go take it over here. I don't know what happened to the bike, but it was strange. It was around for a while.

Robin: Do you have a brick and mortar location that people can access?

Eric: I had a brick and mortar location and I have a brick and mortar. What I'm doing now is I co-located into a repair shop. Sure. Um, and so I have an office in this repair shop. Now I had a brick and mortar, mortar location for a long time. And, um, that became, it was just, it was just, it was just a little bit too much. I mean, I love the location. I love having space, but it was just too much. So now that we're doing more location stuff, we don't need that kind of space anymore. So I'm located in a German repair shop. He repairs mostly German cars. Uh, he has a BMW bike. Uh, you know, we've switched a couple of little weird stuff, old triumphs, a couple of old Harley's. The funny thing about the guy that was counting out the 15 grand for this bike in the back, this guy, the guy had never ridden the motorcycle before. Oh no. Oh no. And he was going to ride home on this modified Harley. You ever seen those Harleys with the, with the big front wheels and the air suspensions in the bags, you know, there was a certain kind of, yeah, but it was one of those kinds of custom bikes. And he actually got a thing and the guy who sold him the bike was going to teach him how to ride in my parking lot. And I was telling him, no, you have to go across the street. Cause I don't have insurance for that.

Brian: Absolutely. Not believe you don't. Yeah. Don't bleed on my parking lot. Believe it's unreal. How many people try to do that? Yeah.

Eric: By the way, that's kind of, uh, kind of what we've been doing lately. We've got a couple of builders. We're starting to work with. It's a builder from Wisconsin. It does some cool shit. Like building bikes. Basically. He builds bikes from five to seven fifties. Usually if I'm seven 54 is three 54 is five 55 50 floors.

Robin: Try it a minute. What's this guy's name?

Eric: Never ending cycles. Yeah. The guy had never ended cycles. It was a pretty extreme guy. He's a nice shop up in, uh, right outside Milwaukee. And, uh, he builds a lot of custom bikes, literally out of oil. You know, you're a little bit of inches bikes. He was working on a BMW, but a lot of Honda seven 50 floors and things like that. He turns them into like cafe rations.

Robin: Just like, okay. Is it the kind of guy that's hacking into a perfectly good bike?

Eric: Or is he just, no, he finds bikes that are, he buys, he finds builder bikes typically. Either somebody will give him a bike or he'll find a wrecked bike and say, I can turn this into something for you. But he's not taking apart stuff. That's that's, that's nice. And you know, if he, he finds a vintage when it's running, he doesn't like mess with that, you know?

Robin: Well, this is all very cool. And now we know the website is quadrant motors.com. If anybody wants to go check that out, trust me. If you need somebody to just be at the gates of whatever it is you're looking for, Eric might be able to help you out. So make sure to reach out and email them through the contact page and throw a couple of bags of money at them and paper bags. Make sure you take the sandwiches out first. At least I will talk to them.

Eric: Yes. And what I tell people all the time is I don't mind calling, call me before you do something stupid. Like I'm more than happy to talk to Brad before we do anything stupid.

Robin: With that Eric's our third, he's our guest host for this episode. I'm saying, Brian, shut me up. Take the reins. What do you want to do, Brian? And how do you want to get Eric involved?

Brian: We haven't really covered this before, but like one, there, there's a lot of topics to think about, like if people are selling a bike or buying a bike, you know, what are some of the, you know, what are some of the dumb mistakes to avoid? Like one example is people will, they'll add up what every Farkle or modification they did. And then they think it's worth that. And it's kind of like, that's, you know, it doesn't work that way.

Eric: First thing is, like you said, the bike is worth what the bike is worth, you know, it's worth paying extra for those, but the resale value of the bike has never worked any more than the bike itself. Never buy a crotch rocket unless you take the ferry off. There's all kinds of crazy crap that can be hidden by a ferry. You know, people will say, I never dropped the bike and you take the ferry off and there's, you know, the scrape marks down the side of the engine or the frame. And so, I mean, that's, that's the biggest thing. And I know it's hard to do sometimes, but you got to take the front fairing off, but you got to take the sides off and just look at the frame and make sure that it's, it is what they're telling you to do. Because unfortunately there's no car for bikes. You can't really check whether a bike's been hit or next. And the only way you can check is if, you know, the bike has a salvage title, obviously something was up, but other than that, the bike is kind of hidden. So, you know, I would just make sure that, you know, you, um, and the, you know, the, the, the biggest thing was that you'd be surprised how many people will buy a bike without riding it. Yeah. You can't buy a bike unless you wrote it. And if you don't want to ride the bike, then find somebody that knows how to ride the bike and have him ride it. Because by riding the bike, you can tell all kinds of different things about the bike that you wouldn't necessarily know. But I have run into so many people that have bought a bike just because it looked good and then they read it, wrote it. And then the other thing I would say is that, uh, bikes are very personal. And just because one guy has a Hayabusa and you want to look cool on the Hayabusa, that doesn't mean you can ride a Hayabusa. You know what I mean?

Robin: Yes, sir. Eric Shroffshire, ladies and gentlemen.

Brian: Booza, man.

Eric: You know, buy a bike that's like, that speaks to you, don't buy some shit that somebody else's bike, just because you want to look cool. Cause you know, I mean, classic story, they were the best player. They bought the thousand CC, whatever he bought, you know, right. I didn't look down the fucking street into this career, not even going 20 miles an hour because you know, he's on a bike that he doesn't know anything about. Yeah. They're not jewelry. They're not. Uh, you know, it's really a personal thing. So don't, don't overbuy and don't underbuy. Don't buy something that's, you got to go out really quick and don't buy something that you can't control. And you can tell that by the time I buy a bike, but just, just look at it. Tires are worn. Typically it's been written really hard and, or it hasn't been taken care of. You know, if there's a lot of life, it's not clean. If it's rusty, that kind of stuff, just look at the bike, you know, but really much harder to buy vintage bikes than it is newer bikes are typical, a little easier, but vintage bikes. You know, you really got to take to somebody that knows what they're doing to basically understand what's happening. That's what I would say is biggest thing is don't buy stuff that you can't ride.

Brian: Yeah. Well, I've, I've bought bikes. I haven't ridden a couple of times, but I kind of know what I'm doing. I'm different, I guess.

Eric: But yeah, they're arriving at me. We're by stuff like that. Noise that we might be getting into something we can't really get out of, but that's different.

Brian: Well, one, one way around that. Um, and I've, I've actually done this when I sold a bike to a guy that. They hadn't taken a class, didn't know how to ride yet. And, and he was open with me about it. He's like, I want to buy this bike and all this stuff. I don't know anything about it. And I was like, okay, well, uh, you're not going to test ride it. Cause you don't know what you're doing. And, um, so I basically offered to demonstrate it for him. I said, here's what I'm going to demonstrate. So you're going to show up, I'm going to roll the bike out. It's cold. It's been sitting all night and we're going to, you know, and I explained. So basically I did the inspection. He should have known how to do for him. And then I, and then he followed me in his car. I'm like, okay, we're going to go on the highway and I'm going to go shift through all the gears. I'm going to go real fast and I'm going to slow down. And, and that worked out really well. And, and so normally when I sell a bike, I I'm, I'm reluctant about test rides, unless it's somebody I know, which fortunately usually is, but yeah, but yeah, I'll demonstrate it for them. And I know it better than they do. But, you know, but if it's a stranger and you don't know who it is and it's somebody that doesn't have any kind of reputation, then yeah, you're kind of on your own. Um, yeah, but the other big thing I've seen is people like, oh, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, uh, bill of sale. I don't have a title easy to get, you know, and that if it doesn't have the papers, it's not a motorcycle, it's just some parts, you know, that's very true.

Eric: And I mean, it's just, unfortunately for a lot of people, well, for us is that, you know, it's not a long, like I said, there's not really car facts for bikes. You know, there's not a really a way to know. I mean, nobody cares, you know what I mean? And it's very, very difficult to explain to people. Like, you know, just because it looks good, doesn't mean it is good. And there's all these different sub models and weird models and all this kind of other stuff. So, uh, vintage bikes are typically much harder to take care of them. The older, I mean, newer bikes, obviously, cause gotta have the guy that knows how to work on it. Or if you don't know how to work, that becomes a whole other thing, you know?

Brian: So I've been that guy several times for V for vintage Suzuki's and, and I've said to people don't buy this bike and they buy it anyway, well, it's red. I like it.

Eric: Yeah. Classic story about that. Talking about vintage Suzuki's, there was a guy that called me and I just assumed he knew what he had. But it turned out he had bought a two stroke Suzuki, I forgot which, which model he had and he was pouring gasoline in it.

Robin: Oh, no, no, no, no.

Eric: Oh, no. He just had no concept that you gotta mix the fuel with the, with the additive. And he's talking about, what are you talking about? And we're like, well, but that's the kind of stuff you're talking about. I mean, I've heard that kind of stuff before where people just buy stuff and they have no idea what it is and you know, that kind of stuff.

Brian: Now the guys show up on my driveway. Oh, I bought an, I bought an old Suzuki. Can you look at it? Sure. And he shows up with a bunch of baskets, like milk crates.

Robin: The guy showed up at the rally and you guys built a bike out of a truck. Didn't you?

Brian: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. That's happened a couple of times at the old, at the vintage rallies. Now there are a couple of times that's happened where someone like it's, it's a perfectly respectful and respectable thing to do, you know, the guy says like, Hey, I'm having trouble with this bike. I'm going to trailer it in. If you guys are bored, I'll buy you some beer, you know, look at it and so forth. And that's fine. And then we've also had the, that guys that show up that, um, like they show up, like they barely make it. Like they just, they push it into the parking lot and then go crack a beer and wait for somebody to fix their bike. It's like, no, that's a party foul. But yeah, if you tell don't now, yeah. Whatever you do, don't buy this bike. And, uh, sure.

Eric: I hope to buy this bike and I'm explaining to them that this was kind of a weird bike. Which is one of the reasons I tell people that took the fairing off. Cause once I took the fairing off, you know, I can tell it had been dropped.

Brian: It's always dropped by the, by the previous owner.

Eric: Exactly.

Brian: It's never the current owner that dropped it. It's always the last guy and it makes it right.

Eric: But, uh, I took that bike down 55 and I quickly realized that, wow, I am way too old for this lower back, all the, all the bones cracking. Oh, it was one of those things like, you know, I don't like this enough to potentially die. You know what I mean? I just, it looks great. Goodbye. But you know, it was, it was twitchy. The only bike I ever drove, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a 2001 or 2000, the first year that Kawasaki does redesign that 1000, their leader bike, which was probably the scariest motorcycle I've ever ridden.

Robin: Literally the ZZR, the ZX 1000. They did a 1400. That was just stupid.

Eric: Well, that thing was the least controllable. This bike was not controllable. Uh, hold on. Let me look it up real quick. I'll tell you exactly what this is.

Robin: Since we have while you're doing that. I remember you were talking about the, you know, the types of bikes and things like that, or just meeting with people that have some junk. Here is the old Craigslist joke. Typical CL sports bike ad GSXR CBR ZX for 4,800 bucks in an abandoned apartment complex. Selling my sport bike too hot to ride as I don't own a shirt or a helmet. I went to fix it up, but needed more travel tattoos. I'm white. So that makes sense. I know everything. I know several hundred dollars, including a bail bondsman due to poor life management skills. Never wrecked except one wreck. By wreck. I mean, tipped over by tipped over. I mean, went through an F one fifties windshield.

Eric: Oh my God.

Robin: These ads exist. They're out there. I do remember that our article talks about what to do to prepare your bike for sale, which is if you wouldn't buy it, then it's not ready for the bill. You're asking. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, take the time to give it some love. So it's actually worth it to the next guy down the line.

Eric: Then so many people buy bikes just to basically thrash them around. I mean, leader bikes are famous for that. You know, everybody wants, uh, everybody wants to be cool and have the leader bike and, you know, be the bad-ass and get women and all that kind of other stuff. But it's just, it's just typically, uh, it's just usually typically a recipe for disaster.

Robin: I mean, how are you going to get women? If you don't know how to ride the thing and look the fool, man, I have people show up to me all the time.

Eric: I'm going to bike bikes that don't even have licenses. Like they had my motorcycle license and don't know what a motorcycle license is. And I pissed off at me because I won't let him ride the bike. I don't have insurance. Yeah, no, no. And what, yeah, no. Learn how to ride a bike. Take a course. I always tell people to learn either get somebody to train you or take the motorcycle course and at the very least, the very least take the course, you know? So yeah, the bike I'm talking about, it was like a 2000, I think it was a 2003 or four I was talking to an R ZX 10 are very spicy. Yeah. That year that we designed a bike to be more like a race bike. So it was super lightweight and, uh, you know, leaner engine with a lot of horsepower. It was very simple. The reason you can't find one years that they're all wrecked because it was so uncontrollable. They're great on the track and, you know, to get it on the expressway, go on like a hundred miles an hour is fine, but around town, you have to, if you hit the gas a little bit too much, you'd be in the back of a car and you know, just a steep square of a rake angle on the front end.

Robin: I'm looking at a racer right now on the same bike.

Eric: So yeah, it was a scary bike, man.

Robin: Look it up, man. If you see the images, the rake is just already slammed full up and down.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. And they redesigned that bike two years later because they realized it was way too. Intense. And they said, yeah, it's a much better balanced bike. At least it doesn't pee on the carpet anymore.

Brian: Like to own it and maybe look at it, but yeah, actually climbing on the thing.

Eric: Rob was a young guy. He can still write crap like that, but not me.

Robin: Yeah, that's me. 50 years old this year. I'm just a spry young devil.

Eric: You can do it, man.

Robin: Actually, I am on the hunt for a track weapon of sorts, but I want to build out. I got a friend that just got a SV six 50, these fiddling about. And I think after I got to ride a six, three, six, I was kind of like, yeah, you know, I could go for something raw that I don't have to worry about. If I'm protected, it's just a hunk of plastic with some broken bits that aren't going to come off or hurt anybody else it's getting to be that time. But I'm going to have to store it up North. Cause I don't do that kind of thing down here. Brian. Robin. Where do you want to steer this conversation next?

Brian: I had a story. Like, um, if you go too far, the other direction, like when I, when I bought the bike, when I bought the last bike I bought, which was a, uh, it's an FJ 09 Yamaha, pretty middle of the roads, 40 touring bike, you know, not, not anything crazy, but anyway, uh, the guy who owned it was like 76 years old and like we had to go through a whole job because he wanted to review my writing resume and make sure, cause he was just like, I don't want to sell it to some old, some kid is just going to splatter himself.

Robin: So he's willing to fire the customer.

Brian: Yeah. Wow.

Eric: Well, you know, you give the guy credit. I mean, that's pretty intense. I mean, did you pass the test? That's the question.

Brian: Uh, apparently I did. Yeah. But, uh, he, but yeah, I, I, so we went through my resume and my, my training credentials and I'm surprised I didn't have to fax him anything notarized. But anyway, did you wear the suspenders? Oh, I should have.

Robin: I should have. Yeah. Old seller wear suspenders.

Eric: Good idea, man.

Robin: You probably wouldn't have had to pass the test if you looked the part. Bring a pitchfork, rooting, tooting.

Brian: I'm looking for a gold. Yeah. He, he was, he was selling it pretty, he had a, it was, it was a really good price. And, um, part of that was the, like the, the tires were shagged and the chain was about done and it was due for the first valve check, you know, all that stuff. Right. And it was like, it was, I didn't care cause it was February and I needed something to do, uh, for a few months. And, uh, but so yeah, I got a really good price on it. Immediately. Spent a bunch of money getting everything up to snuff and did the valve check the way I damn well wanted to do it. And I had to have had a very happy couple of years with it, but I've had that a couple of times and I've had a, when I sold a bike, I've had a guy like put me on the phone with he and his wife interviewing me about, you know, how well I've taken care of the bike.

Robin: And I don't know, I don't like the way he's looking at the bike.

Brian: Like I had to make like, uh, finally the guy's wife was like, well, I think this guy's, you know, he sounds like he knows what he's doing. And like, I actually won her over and he bought the bike and he, he lives in, yeah, he lives in Nebraska. And every so often I'll see him, an AV rider, you know, he's like, Hey, I'm still riding it around. You know, I cleaned it up. Like I, I, when I sold it, it was just like, this is filthy. I don't know how to clean bikes. I'm I know how to fix them. I know how to work.

Robin: Well, you actually did wash a bike recently. We have an episode that is proof of concept that Brian Ringer washed a bike. You were talking about like the personalization of it. I mean, have you, have you done much personalization of that bike yet?

Brian: Who me? Um, not really. Well, a little bit. Like I, uh, one of the things I always do is I hate windshields. I don't know why it's just me. I'm weird, but in the bikes are individual, you know, you can't pick one out for somebody. So like, I took the windshield off and kind of put some of the pieces back. So it looks, doesn't look like something's missing. Um, and FJ 0 nines came with these like weird alien transformer hand guards and those are all gone. So I took that stuff off. Yeah. It was like these plants, like they, they wouldn't protect the bike or in any situation.

Robin: Bikes got weird with the transformers movies. All of a sudden they all had to look like a robot with a face and you know, they got really odd.

Eric: Yeah. Well, you know, they're trying to look modern, man. They just don't show how things work.

Robin: Well, okay. Then let's talk about there's two kinds of music, good and the other kind.

Eric: Right. I understand.

Robin: Okay. Look at the jigsaw. I am in love with this bike. Yeah. Maybe you haven't landed your point yet, but the point is that the jigsaw just looks so beautiful. And I see what they're trying to do now. It's just that if people look for the headlights to be the eyes of the machine, they're in for a disappointing cycloptic effect when the actual eyes are those dark cavernous, angry side panels that you see going on and the, the gems are the headlight, you know what I mean?

Brian: I think the overall point was Eric's is that, uh, and it, there's a quote from, um, um, uh, Patrick Egan, who's, you know, a writer who writes about motorcycles, blah, blah, blah. But he says, I, I know some men better than I, than my own brother. And, and, but I don't know anyone well enough to pick out a motorcycle for him. Right. I mean, yeah, there's, I don't know anybody I could go out and say, here's the bike you need. Um, it's, it's incredibly individual.

Eric: Yeah, completely. Yeah. I mean, the things that speak to me are very weird sometimes. Like I'll write something like, oh yeah, I get this. You can get on something and just like it. And it doesn't matter who understands it or who disagrees with you. It's with works for you. It works for you.

Robin: And well, right there, you need a key chain that just says, I don't know. Fuck it.

Brian: You want it or not?

Eric: I wrote a bike about three months ago that I didn't think I would like it all. And I just fell in love with it. And I'm probably going to end up buying one because I'm stupid.

Robin: What is it?

Eric: It's a bro Davidson sports to us.

Robin: Wow. Uh, yeah, man.

Brian: Wow. Robin. Robin didn't expect that.

Robin: I did not. I did not expect that. What was that noise? That's a sports drew 1200 sport, which is neither sport or stirrings of sport. It's not what it claims to be, Eric. It's a grandson of a B-Rod. Okay. That's cool.

Eric: Look at the new sports to rest and tell me you don't like that bike. It's cool. Bike. There's a 1200. It has high exome. Okay.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is, I remember it being a freaking monkey fucker. No, this is a different bike.

Brian: Is this a, is this has a Pan America engine?

Eric: Yeah. It has a similar engine to the Pan America, but it's okay.

Brian: That makes sense.

Robin: Oh, it's almost got a fat Bob vibe to it. Okay.

Eric: It was a joy to ride it. I really enjoyed it. It was tractable. It was easy to ride.

Robin: It was quick. It was let's clear up. I withdraw all of my previous statements, all of them, but I don't know. I just, it spoke to me. What can I say? It's got, it's got a scrambler exhaust.

Eric: Yeah, I know, but I challenged and everybody wants to badmouth Harley Davidson. And I understand that. I mean, that makes me shitty bikes. I get it. Yeah. Right. I understand that. Trust me. I'm one of those people. I've been one of those people years. I would challenge you to go to a dealership and ride with, I'll let you ride one of them because they're not selling any bikes anymore. So let you ride anything.

Robin: So write that and tell me that you don't like it. I'll do it, Eric. I will do it. I will do that. And I'll report back. Yeah. I think it's worth it.

Brian: I like the headlight too. That it's, it's yeah, there's a lot of good ideas here. Yeah.

Eric: That's that's I can ride to Denver on, but it's really cool bike. Right. Thing about Harley, they have a lot of R and D money. That's so yeah, they did do a good job on this one particular bike. I just thought it was really cool.

Robin: You know, you know, so the question then becomes if that's the case, do they know that, do they know that they did a good job or are they going to move well onto the next thing victory for us?

Eric: Well, I don't know how well it's selling. So, I mean, yeah, I don't really know. I'm just telling you that all the things that I've written in the last year, that's what I enjoy it. Now I don't, you know, it's not what I probably should buy because, you know, I'm one of those traveler guys that wants the, you know, I'm the guy that went to Denver three times nonstop, but yeah.

Robin: Well, okay. So that raises a question. What should you buy?

Eric: Probably another sport touring bike, you know, something that's more long distance, you know, I would probably buy a used, uh, Honda Pacific coast. Well, Pacific coast, man. Come on, give me a, give me a, give me a, give me a better, uh, give me a better, uh, thing than that.

Robin: Literally says rubbermaid inside the luggage.

Brian: Yeah. No. A V-Strom with 80,000 miles on it.

Eric: I had a friend around the Pacific coast and they loved it, man. It's a great, you know, they just, they are cool.

Robin: I'm throwing random noise in the air. It doesn't see anything sticks.

Eric: No, no, no, no, nothing like that. No, we're not doing that. Sorry. FJR. Uh, FJR is a great bike. Uh, it's nice. It was a Kawasaki. The concourse. The concourse is a better bike to me. I agree with it, but I think it's better. I just think it's a better bike. I mean, the FJR was tried and true, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm getting to, I'm getting to the hills where, you know, gold rings starting to look good. You know? Sure. I have not tested the 15 hours. I don't know if I can do it anymore, but I can try. Oh yeah. You know, I can send you the story of me writing the ZZR 1200 to Denver in the, in the rainstorm with lightning.

Robin: Well, what did you do? The Lake Michigan circle tour in two days, right?

Eric: Yeah, I did that. I did that two days.

Robin: Yeah. Which is a really great way to see the sites, Eric. Nice job, man.

Eric: I had a really cute girl in the back. I didn't give a shit.

Robin: Oh yeah. You were seeing the sites. Well done, sir.

Eric: I don't really understand what I was thinking at the time. I think I was into like marathoning and I wanted to basically just keep writing. And so I did, I wasn't interested in stopping.

Robin: Yeah, that's blood clot territory. Be careful.

Eric: Yeah, that was a long time ago. I was back when I was stupid, but I did it. The Denver trips were a lot more intense. That was a basic, easier trip. The Denver trips were really kind of, I did the Denver trip once where my wife was following me in a car. Oh, there were times where I was just cursing myself. You know, I can be in this one crawl, this area relaxing. Instead I'm on this fucking bike in the middle of Nebraska looking at nothing. Just getting blasted. Just getting blasted. Yeah.

Brian: I I'm just going to throw something in here. Um, I was, I was on Honda's website. I was going to say something about the gold wing. And, uh, I noticed that the, uh, the Fury is back. Whoa. I don't know if you remember the Honda Fury, the, uh, the, the kind of the chopper, how could I forget the Honda Fury front wheel six feet in front of you?

Eric: That is one ugly ass bike.

Robin: It's Thursday on the seat. Is it Friday at the wheel? What time zone is the front end in?

Eric: You know, it's funny as I like about the Honda side. Cause I just went on it. The funny thing about it is you can actually build a customer. Oh, wow. Which is kind of cool. The new gold wing is kind of cool. I liked that bike a lot. I drove that. I liked it a lot.

Robin: Well, if you're looking at that, why not the ST?

Brian: Well, they don't make the ST anymore. Do they? The ST has been discontinued discontinued. Yeah. Like the new gold wing. Like I've not ridden one of those, but I'd really like to give it a try at some point, the top box and sportier one.

Eric: That's a nice bike, man. I will say something about the ST. The ST is probably the finest traveling motorcycle I've ever built. Big ass gas tank, super smooth V4, but the problem with that bike is it's not exciting. The truth. It's reliable. And like people said, I have tested, unfortunately, cause a friend of mine had one, you can, and you can, his bike fell over with no damage because of those little pucks on the side. Yeah.

Robin: Is this friend of yours? Is he like the bike? Cause I've got a friend who bought that bike and he was meant for he's okay. He's not exciting, but he's reliable.

Eric: Still has that bike still loves it. But if you really want to turn around the country, that's one of the best bikes to buy because it doesn't break a seven gallon gas tank. It just rolls. It's perfect.

Robin: I think it was an ST 1100. It was the first bike I ever sat on that. I felt like I was getting into it. Like I was getting into a motorcycle. The windscreen was so big.

Brian: Yeah. And they're heavy.

Robin: The bike is just not exciting.

Eric: It doesn't really move you, but if you really want to travel and you don't care about, if you're not one of these vain fuckers like you and the rest of us are, it's the best bike to buy, you know, we all got into writing for a reason. The only bad part about that bike is that it's hard to find rear tires for it because it's a one 70 tired out of one 80 and it's a weird size. But other than that, the bike's great. I mean, that's the bike I probably should buy. Oh yeah. Probably buy one cheap.

Brian: What you need obviously is a, is an H2 Kawasaki.

Eric: Well, yeah, I haven't written that.

Brian: That's obviously what you need. Yeah. The H2 is a paging Kelly Howard.

Robin: Yeah. You know, I got a buddy who's got one. So he sold it to him, said there's nobody needs that much power. And he looked right at him. He's like, I don't need it. I want it. I have not ridden that bike.

Eric: I've talked to a couple of people that have, and they tell me it's surprisingly easy to ride. It's not super explosive unless you get on it. It's not twitchy.

Robin: In other words, I've ridden the bike. I've ridden the H2. And what did you say? What'd you think? I will tell you that the throttle is smooth as butter, but if you ask it, it's going to give it to you immediately. I reversed the rotation of the planet for a split second there.

Eric: It was a lot.

Robin: There's only two times I've been on a bike where I handed it back to the guy and said, Nope, man, take your bike back. Cause the other one was a turbo BUSA. Another moment of like, yeah, this is just too much. I know myself well enough. Self-assess take the thing away from me.

Brian: Booze, the speeds, man, booze, the speeds.

Eric: Yeah. I have no desire to have it, but you know, there are people out there that are crazy enough to buy it. So whatever.

Robin: Just get a helicopter. Screw the bike, get a helicopter.

Eric: I'm past the age where I need pissing rights anymore. It's not really what I want to do, but let's talk about that for a second.

Robin: We have a thing happening in April down here in New Mexico. I think you should come down here and go for a ride with us.

Eric: New Mexico, huh?

Robin: Yes, I would do that. New Mexico, April 14th. These are the best roads I've ever personally enjoyed.

Eric: I will have to find the appropriate motorcycle to bring down there though, because that's, that's the key.

Robin: Yes. Or rent one.

Eric: Yeah, I don't, you know, I have this thing. I don't rent bikes. I don't like ridden bikes. You know, the problem with renting bikes are, is that.

Robin: It's kind of like giving yourself a stranger. Yeah. I just can't do it, man. I, you know, if you know what that is, Brian, you know, I know.

Eric: There's two problems with this plan of me coming in April. First of all, the weather up here in April is dicey. So I'll have to get out of Chicago, but once I'm out of Chicago and going South, it should be all right, but you know, we'll see what happens. I got to find something to ride. Or I can go my, I can probably go next door to my next door neighbor. Who's got seven bikes in his garage and just steal one of those. Yes. Two of which I've sold him. So I guess I can just borrow one of those back.

Robin: Yeah. This is legal documentation that is happening. Please understand you're now contractually obligated to be here. We look forward to your answering the call.

Eric: He's got a, he's got a BMW that I can probably ride. So that'd be kind of good. I'll probably ride that.

Robin: That sounds good. Tell me more about Quadrant real quick and we'll promo you out and then that'll be our episode for this week. If you want something specific, what you want, we'll help you figure it out.

Eric: If you were looking for something specific, we'll help you find it. If you have something that you're thinking about buying, call us first and we'll help you go to quadrantmotors.com or you can email me at ericatquadrantmotors.com.

Robin: Eric Schrapshire, you're one of my favorite people. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for inviting me. Nice to meet you, Brian.

Brian: Hey, nice to meet you, Eric.