Robin: I've been organizing the lodging for sevens.

Brian: Yes.

Robin: And really only needed to change one or two places. I think it was two locations. Cause you know, we go up to, to Moorhead, Kentucky, and then jump West to, uh, Madison, Indiana.

Brian: Yes.

Robin: So I've managed to isolate all the places I need to book with and call them up. They told me to call in the morning so I could talk to their managers about group bookings and things like that. But the thing that got me was that no matter what I did, the price that is shown on Google is worthless.

Brian: Yeah, no, yeah. Completely worthless. Has nothing, no relation to reality.

Robin: Not at all. So I had to go through that and one of them was so the difference was so big. I said, I'll take my business elsewhere.

Brian: I'm like, sorry, not even interested anymore.

Robin: Yeah, no. Once you start cranking on the 200 mark for something, oh, it's on the river. No, I don't care. It's that river's dirty. That's the Ohio river. You jump in that river, the water will throw you back out.

Brian: Well, in Madison, you do, you want to be near the river because up on the, uh, up on the Mesa or the table above the town, it's just, you know, any other town who cares, you know?

Robin: So we found a really nice little place. Pleasant owners, restaurants everywhere, one restaurant on site. So I think we're going to be all right. It's looking good. I think I know which one you're talking about. It needed to happen that way, you know, because you want to get off the bike for that last ride of the entire tour and be like, yeah, we did this. Let's go have a drink, eat some food. Excellent. That's my first bit of anecdotal chitchat. The other one was I think you finished one man caravan at this point, right? Yes. I have read it. I have not. Okay. You're giving me all this crap for not reading it. You beat me to the end. I still have, like, I think, uh, he's in Asia. That's all that's left is I've got like three pages of Asia.

Brian: Oh, okay. Yeah. And there's, and yeah, there's the U S and yeah.

Robin: Anyway, wait a minute.

Brian: Is there though? Is this a multi-volume book? No, I mean, yeah, he, he, he kind of glosses over the whole act of getting on a ship and getting back to the U S.

Robin: Oh, okay.

Brian: Spoilers.

Robin: Don't worry.

Brian: Yeah. And then he has to cross the U S to get back home. Okay. But, uh, yeah. And then it's, it's mainly the last bit mainly is that, uh, he starts to reflect a little bit. And so you get a little bit of the lessons learned and, and, and thinking about it. That's the main draw the last, last bit of it. So anyway, you'll get there one, one word after the other sounded out like you did on Sesame street. You'll get there, man.

Robin: Brown dog jumped. Then the other thing I wanted to mention previously your episode with Maggie was a lot of fun. All right. When you went over the bikes, one came to mind, you might want to look this up. Have you looked and seen the Bermuda Terra? I have not. I've never heard of that. What's a GTS the Bermuda Terra.

Brian: I'm Googling away, you know, Bermuda's website is a cycle world. Here we go.

Robin: I love Google image search. That's the way that's the only way I ever do it anymore.

Brian: Oh, okay. It's got the Tessie front end. Uh, yeah. And, and nice.

Robin: Now what are the benefits of that?

Brian: Uh, supposedly you kind of get around all the issues of, of, of forks, telescopic forks, but then you also have just a lot more complication. Um, yeah. Interesting.

Robin: I would file that under. I would love to ride one. I would love to ride one love to ride.

Brian: Yeah. If I had to, if I had to buy it, if I had to spend my own money, um, I wouldn't want to buy it. I wouldn't want to maintain it for as long as I keep bikes.

Robin: Yeah. I mean, do we already go over our list? Like, did we already discuss all of the bikes? I would own the, I want the jigs sater. The new jigs sater is the most beautiful bike. I've seen the zero. We talked about the trail one 25 for its durability.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: The continental GT from Royal Enfield. You brought that up with mags, which is just a great bike.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: But I would love to ride the Vectrex. All right. I need to Google the Vectrex. What the hell's a Vectrex? It no longer really exists. It was a prototype project kind of thing. The scooter. Oh no, they stepped through. No, it's a, it's an early implementation of the electric bike platform.

Brian: All I'm finding is scooters.

Robin: Seriously?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Well, let me just go to tro.bike. It's a website for sport touring motorcyclists.

Brian: Why? What was that again?

Robin: Robin tro.bike. You can get a bot bike HTTPS colon forward slash forward slash TRO.bike. The riding obsession. Your sport touring motorbike fix. Vectrex electric super bike. Check the chat window. If you click on that JPEG, that is, that is the image that we.

Brian: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I found. Okay. So they, they built that and then they actually somehow came up with some scooters and then they died. So anyway, yes, that would be a take it out for a rip.

Robin: We had the Diavel on there, the Modus, now the Terra, and I've never been on an R7. I think I'd behave on it.

Brian: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And, uh, and, uh, like we mentioned the Modus and we actually kind of talked about it last time, but the, uh, like, I don't know if it's still there, but there was like a 2018 Modus on, on, uh, advrider.com.

Robin: Oh, wow. What'd they do to it? Anything like that? It's not really ADV profiles. You know what I mean?

Brian: No, but I mean, it's, it's like the biggest community of motorcyclists on the planet. And so pretty much anything that's where I've bought my last two motorcycles and nice. Uh, but yeah, it's, uh, yeah. So there's a guy that's selling like an immaculate, uh, 2018 Modus and you know, of course everybody's scared to buy it. Cause you know, where do you get parts? Where do you, you know, what do you do?

Robin: But it's not a perfect bike.

Brian: Yeah. If you're kind of rich, it'd be interesting. It'd be very interesting to ride.

Robin: Yeah. But it's got, you know, it's got a couple of minor flaws. You know, there are some lines to that bike that are not, if you look at the way the exhaust is in, is lined up against the chassis, it's kind of the wrong angle. Yeah. So they did a great job of being a new company, but the, you know, little things like that, it's that engine that's just unheard of.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Now that was a brilliant move.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, when I, when I forgot to put on my list, cause it's a tricycle is, is a Can-Am. I've never ridden a Can-Am. I'd like to try it. Yeah. I know you have, I think you've instructed on them or something, but, um, I would like to try it. I don't know how interested I would be, but I'd like to give it a whiz.

Robin: One of the funnest things you can do on those things is you can really fall into a curve because it's push pull steering with rubber in front of you, two sets of tires in front of you. So if you start to feel it getting away from you, it's more than likely you're getting away from it because the G force is just hammering the outside wheel as you take a corner and it just buries in, it really digs in. So that's pretty good. It's like riding a snowmobile on pavement. They're a good time. They're not, they're not a bad thing. They're a good thing for somebody in a way that we can definitely as sport tourers approve of. I got no beef with that.

Brian: Yeah. And it's not just like, um, you know, my legs are too decrepit to hold up a bike, a motorcycle. It's a different thing. Like you said, snowmobile, it's its own thing.

Robin: But then at the same time, it is there for the people who are just, you know, it's all starting to fall apart and they, they couldn't bear not having the handlebars in front of them. That is definitely an outlet. And, uh, if they were spirited before they'll be spirited again.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: They don't lag.

Brian: Yeah. They'll figure it out. Yeah. It's either that or a Miata. So, right. Uh, and there are lots slower. So just get handlebars for me. Yeah. Somebody's probably done it real quick.

Robin: Website updates, revisits, announcements, corrections, et cetera. I just want everybody to know that I corrected an issue at TRO dot bike with the motorcycle rental page under digi tools. Brian experienced this and informed me that he couldn't find a bike because the site had broken one query string parameter was being used by two scripts, both of which encoding slash decoding differently and throwing a WTF error. Well, that's been fixed. So have a, have a gander and have at it. Brian, the episode's yours.

Brian: Excellent. All right. You know, something we haven't done in a long time. What's that Brian? We haven't answered any listener questions. You know, what else is something we haven't done in a long time? Black tar heroin? No. What's something we haven't gotten in a long time. What's that? Listener questions, but we did Brian.

Robin: Oh, as a matter of fact, we received an actual question from a regular listener. Although I don't remember who that regular listener was.

Brian: Let's go with it by way of our contact page. Someone asked the question, how does a writer evaluate his or her skills for one of your tours to know if they're ready or capable, such as they won't be a drag on the rest of the group? Well, Robin, I would say, first off, don't worry about it.

Robin: That's a short answer. What's the long answer? The long answer is that every time I see these things, I'm reminded of the massive to-do list I have for the site. It tenses me up. I get freaked out. Currently we have a star count somewhere toward the top of each tours info page. This will soon be changed to helmets, like three and a half helmets kind of thing. I don't know how that'll work, but you know what I mean? Maybe I'll use half helmets for the half helmets. Huh? Oh, sorry. Fuzzy bear that noise. So five helmets equals many days of constant curves. Four equals less days, but same intensity. Three is an even blend of technical and sightseeing opportunities. Two is painted lines and sweepers at a modest pace. And one is the same as two, but with a lot more emphasis on showing new touring riders the ropes and lots of group discussion. The Lake Michigan Circle Tour, we've operated that before. We've put that on the site before, and it's really no place for anybody who wants to feel rubber gripping pavement. It's more just, let's go do a thing. And it's a lot of fun, but you really aren't going to be in hardcore sport touring mode. It's just something that, you know, when I started this site, I wanted to make it about inspiring people to travel, whether it's for the riding. Go places. Yeah. Or the destination. Either way, go places and enjoy going there. As for being a drag or, you know, holding everybody up, the concept of that. Truth is anyone in back worries about it, but it's incredibly unlikely that you'll A, hold anyone back or B, be frowned upon. I've had some molasses slow riders join us for group rides, and not once have I ever had to wait at the next turn for more than say 60 seconds. And that's fine. Heck, two to three minutes. It's just as fine as it is unlikely to ever happen. And never worry about holding people up. It just doesn't really occur all that often.

Brian: I've had people express the same. Oh, I'll just hold. And it's like, no, I don't. As long as you stay on the bike and you show up eventually, I don't care. I will wait all day. And it's really never a problem. It's really never a problem.

Robin: With all the above levels three through five on our helmet count that mandates that you need to have taken some kind of advanced training. I've got it in here in my notes for you. You need to have taken an MSF arc. Well, I mean, that's, that's okay. That's an advanced parking lot course, but you might benefit from a track day. It's not mandatory, but it's helpful. And tons of people sign up without ever having done so. So it's not really that big of a deal, but anything that is next level and actually forces you to feel the physics of your bike a little better than a beginner is probably better than not having done so.

Brian: And one other thing I would say in these helmet ratings, I might add is, is a lot of it. These are public roads. You know, anybody can pilot, you know, a motorcycle over them. It, a lot of it is more this, the relentlessness and the intensity of it. Like on the triple sevens tour, we've deliberately worked to make it exhausting. So I think that that's one thing that takes, it takes some experience to get, you know, to get past that hump and where you can do 250 miles where 220 miles of it are intense and, and still be safe and alert at the end of the day. And even then there, there are workarounds if you're just not feeling it that day, or you had some bad shrimp or something like that. It's not so much the, each curve, it's just that there are thousands of them. And so you have to be able to stay alert and that's a skill of its own. Seasoned is a good word.

Robin: Seasoned the man you were just listening to say all that stuff. I mean, he's been a riding pal of mine from the very beginning where he already had years of experience and insight. When I had just gotten my first 400 CC 1980s motorcycle, when I was just trying to figure out my own identity as a writer, the guy you're listening to with me right now was already way ahead of the game. Great question though. That's a, that's a fun question to answer, right? That's a good question.

Brian: Yeah. It's just like, don't, don't worry about being, you know, right. That ride your own ride. I mean, I'm fricking serious about that. Ride your own ride people.

Robin: I'm going to make a video for our tours that is specific to that topic and is going to give a blanket discussion on how to not ruin this tour for everybody else. I think it needs to happen. Yeah. It needs to be watched. They have to check a box that says that they did stay on the bike, stay on the bike, real one, fly the plane, fly the plane. I got the shakes for this year. I mean, I'm ready to do it, but I'm also just like, let's be more careful than usual. Cause there's so much discussion of it. Yeah. If you'd like to ask us a question, please email podcast at TRO dot bike. That email will reach Brian and myself and Maggie Dean. I'm not sure who all is on the forwarding list for that, but point is podcast at TRO to bike. If your question is selected from the large quantity we get every day, you will receive an answer.

Brian: No guarantees, no guarantees at all. But if you're lucky, there may be discussion and it may be entertaining. If you're especially lucky. Let's talk about what are some of your controversial mark motorcycling opinions? Let's, let's each, let's each come up. I've got a couple. I've got a lot of controversial motorcycling opinions. Like I don't have a rant because I, other than I haven't been able to do any writing and in a couple of weeks and, you know, I've already ranted about that. So that that's just annoying. Hey Brian. Hey. Yeah. Don't worry. I have your writing.

Robin: I've gotten to go right.

Brian: You're writing for me. Good.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Controversial motorcycling opinions. Fight, fight, fight. Let's do it. I think sometimes cheap motorcycle tires are perfectly fine. Agreed. Oh, well that's no, that's not entertaining for anybody.

Robin: Well, let's go back to my old opinion about specific branding.

Brian: Okay. Yeah.

Robin: Somebody that no longer ever wants to hear from me ever again in this world, never needed to, in the beginning to begin with made a great statement about how any tire is great. If you align it with the best perspective purpose for that tire. Okay. Then again, we see all over the freaking internet and we just had Joanne Don talking about how much she loves the Michelins. And I see everybody buying the art, you know, they are sixes. I got, I bought the Michelin R fives. I got the R sixes. Oh, they're amazing. They're amazing. Yeah. They're great. I think they're overpriced. And I think that anything with a modern dual compound is worth feeling out and seeing if you like it. Yeah. Even if it's on the cheap, my favorite sport touring motorcycle tire is going to be the cheapest dual compound touring labeled tire, but the shinkos Brian, the shinkos.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Now were you the one that changed that tire for me? I'm not the one that changed the tire. What do you mean? SAKA 400, 1982 Yamaha XS 400 RJ SAKA. Oh, were you the one who changed that tire? No, I had nothing to do with that one. Here's the thing. Neither did I. So for that reason, I'll say they are a fantastic tire because I never had any problem with them. Somebody else had a problem with my tire because they did all the work for me.

Brian: I'll go ahead and say it on my vintage bike on my GS eight 50. Uh, I use, uh, I use the shinko, the seven twelves or two thirties. Uh, they're cheap, uh, and they work really well. They just don't last as long as the more expensive tires, at least in that use. And again, that's a vintage bike, uh, with tubeless tires. Um, I get about 3,000 miles out of them.

Robin: I may need to correct myself. It may not have been shankers. I think I had shin, Shang, uh, Cheng, Shen.

Brian: That's the one I used to run a bunch of those on my, uh, I wore out. I don't know how many of those on my, on my eight 50. And again, they worked okay. They just didn't last. Sometimes there's a good place for those, you know, at least on the shinkos, you know, I've been able to, I've, I've pushed them pretty hard on, on that old bike and they work fine. They last about 3,000 miles. Normal people get about double that. Um, and I guess I basically I swap them out every year and I get a fresh set of tires every year and it's like a hundred, you know, it's, it's, it's cheap. So it serves a purpose. Now, some people, you know, some people like, and there are like Kenda tires, for example, and vintage bikes are terrible. You know, they're well-known to be pretty, pretty bad tires. Um, and then, uh, but Kenda's coming out with a new one for sport touring sizes might be good. The early feedback is good. You don't know. Um, it, it's one of those things like we're, uh, or like a dual sport tire shinko has some really good, cheap dual sport tires, um, that work, uh, do work great. Um, it's kind of one of those things experiment with and see what you think. Um, it's also a sign kind of a head game. If you're, if it's something you're going to be thinking and worrying about, just spend the damn money. You know, if, if tires are on your mind, put, get them out of your mind. And so if that takes spending money or changing them before you really wanted to just do it, it's worth it.

Robin: But well, I'm seeing the Dunlop road smart threes. One 80 55 17. That's the rear for $142. I'm seeing the front one Oh eight. So can you name a comparable tire that is cheaper than that?

Brian: I cannot.

Robin: Okay.

Brian: So that is not, yeah, that is, yeah. That's a, that's a premium tire. They have the road smart for this out now, which is like 500 bucks a set. You know, it's like double the price or something crazy shit. The, and, and this one, yeah, it's a great, it's a dual compound last a long time sticks works in all weather. Uh, I've pushed them hard. You've pushed them hard. I mean, they just work. And for that money, I'll just keep buying them. I just spooned on a set about two months ago.

Robin: You know, they're cheap enough that I, who, one of our friends walked up. It was like, Robin, what do you put your, uh, tire pressures at? I'll do 36 front. I'll do 42 rear. If I'm two up with luggage, I'll do 39 rear. If it's me and luggage, I'll do 36 rear. If there's no luggage and it's just me. Great tire.

Brian: Those are like a really rare intersection of, of cheap and good, amazing stuff.

Robin: I hope they never, ever go away. Or, you know, who really found that for us? The father of twins with a house in Madison, Mr. Travis, of course, he's going to find these tires for us. He's desperate to find tires like that. He has no other choice. It's all about the Benjamins.

Brian: I mean, I found them just because that was what was on my bike when I, when I bought it and yeah, I bought it with like shag tires. The chain was crunchy sprockets, barely, you know, sprockets are just down to gums. I mean, there were no teeth and that that's of course, that's when I buy a bike and, uh, but yeah, it had, that's what it had on it. So I just like, eh, this is what I'll get.

Robin: So wait a minute. Why did you think I was going to argue this point? If I got the Dunlop road smart threes, which basically they are just, you know, you want some here, just have them. They just mail them to you and you pay them later. They give them to you on the trust system.

Brian: I don't know. I thought maybe you'd have a little, uh, a violent opinion about the, you know, those shinshine Korean tires, the chin shings. Yeah. They were, they were, there were a Chinese tire. They're no longer sold and they weren't all that good.

Robin: They didn't betray me, but they betrayed the person who helped me. So I guess I have to, that's my only argument. I guess. Can cheap tires be bad? Yes. Cheap tires can be bad.

Brian: Let's try a new segment, Robin. Let's try new segment stuff. We want someone in China to start making, Oh, it doesn't have to be China earth, but it could be in the U S someone on earth needs to start making this.

Robin: Somebody on this one sided objects needs to create this item. Okay. You go first. Cause I got to think about it.

Brian: What I want is like all these pieces exist. Somebody just needs to put them together, you know, 3d print something and sell it to me and I will buy it. I want a combination of a tire pump, a power source with the lithium battery in it and a jump pack that comes in a rugged case that can bounce around in my saddlebags for six months. Someone, you know, come on someone. So I've got a jump pack. I've got a, I've got a tire pump. I've got a jump pack that will serve as a power source. Uh, and I've seen tire pumps will serve as power source and none of these are in a good case. Uh, so you have to come up with some way to keep them from turning themselves on. You know, they come with like stupid touchscreens and stuff. So someone needs to put all this together into one rectangle. That's got batteries and a pump and little jumper cables and sell it to me.

Robin: Agreed. I'll give you two. All right. The first one is a book bag and I don't want one that has my little pony on it, but a book bag that is the right dimensions to fit into a small top case. It is an actual backpack. Every single one of the, Oh, that one looks smaller than the one I had before. I order it. I fill it with stuff and I go in there and I have to go through a mesh, a grab this with that hand, squeeze that down while pulling down. Then the side of the top cases lid will hold that place while I crease the other side and all. Nope. Didn't good. Something must be caught behind. Check around the back. Okay. Move that from the hinge. Okay. Oh, it closed. Look what I did. I did a thing that's, that's got to go. I need a case that doesn't fight me so much a book bag that will fit more easily into the top case of my R 1200 RS.

Brian: Well, next time you're in Texas, look up somebody who makes luggage for horses. I think you can get custom luggage made. Hence the saddle bags. Yeah.

Robin: Okay.

Brian: I like that.

Robin: Understood. The other one I'll give you is an in-bag charge system. This is something I'm actually working on. So where you're trying to make sure things don't turn on, I'm trying to make sure that batteries don't die. So I need to drill into my top case, seal a line somewhere that is fairly obfuscated and then have that create circuitry and USB ports that go out to everything. I want to keep charged while I'm going to the road.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I made the joke last time, but it's like, eventually you're going to wonder why is my bike stator glowing?

Brian: It's fine. Yeah. And that's something you kind of have to, you like, you can do, you can get there from here, but you got to buy the parts and haunt Amazon and right. Yeah. And, and, and so you can put it together. Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Someone were to like Eastern beaver or somebody would like that were to, you know, put together the electrical kit to do that. That'd be kind of nice.

Robin: Hey, I'm back. So you know what that means? I'm ready to sing the jingle. Jing the single. Let's do this. Tarot's tiny, tasty tool tips.

Brian: One or two per episode. Wow. You should like double and triple that. So it sounds like a chorus.

Robin: I can't actually, I've got Melodyne. I could harmonize it. I could totally do a mono neon. Look up mono neon. He's a bass player. This guy is amazing. He will transcribe spoken word and then he'll harmonize it and it gets really messed up. Wow. So that's worth seeing. Mono neon.

Brian: Very nice.

Robin: Tiny, tasty tool tips.

Brian: A couple of things. If you, if you ride a bike with tube tires, carry this stuff to get yourself home because you cannot find it on the road and change your tires at least once, at least know how to do it so you know what you're doing when you get a flat, not if. So you're going to need tire irons. You're going to need, you're going to need tubes. You're going to need, and one thing that makes it a lot easier is a little valve snake. It's a little wire that it screws into the valve stem and it lets you kind of guide it through the hole in the rim. Otherwise you're, you're going to be fighting that for half an hour. And the other thing is even, even people with tubeless tires might think about this, but carry it like a, well, maybe not with tubeless tires, but like a, I carry a tiny, tiny, tiny little container that's got some actual tire mounting lube in it. And I carry another tiny, tiny little container with talc in it for the tube. And you know, it's just adds that little bit of extra luxury when you're next to the road and you had to bust a tire down to have just a little bit of lube with you really helps improve the experience.

Robin: I don't have to say anything. Our listeners are doing all the work right now for us.

Brian: Oh yeah. And I'll go, I'll do one other. There, there are, you know, sometimes like if, like I've seen it where someone goes, you know, visits the, visits the landscape, shall we say, and a tire comes off the rim and you have, you know, and anyway, if you need, if you need to lubricate, you know, to either get a tire pump back up or pull it off the rim and get the dirt out or something like that. You can improvise tire mounting lube in a couple of different ways. Just plain water actually is, it can be pretty helpful. Or if you have any shampoo with you, a couple of drops of shampoo and a little bit of water can, can, can, can lube it up and do great. And then one time I was going to, going to a friend's house to change some tires and I forgot the mounting lube. So I stopped at a Dollar General and bought some bubbles, you know, like the bubble stuff for kids. Yeah. Or dogs. Yeah. It's just a really weak soap and it's nice and slippery, does the job. So, you know, there's, there's stuff like that you can do if you, if you might need a tire mounting lube. I see a debate in here. Oh, I'm a master debater.

Robin: I'm angry that you put an argument in the wrong place, Brian Ringer. All right, let's hit it. Hotel parking lot drops happen. How they happen is a whole nother topic. Engine guards can save a lot of heartache and cash. And I consider them mandatory for a traveling bike. Now that my bike has paid off, I pulled the crash bars. I sold them to a kid who bought the same bike as me. They gone. Now, I will admit, I tell you, there are a couple of photos of my bike with crash bars on it. And they don't look as bad as I remember telling myself when I wanted to pull those crash bars off. But now I've got the lower cowling on, the scoop is back on. It looks great. You can't have them on there with those crash bars. I already got the engine cover guards. I don't know how much they're going to help if the thing did a flip, but you know what I mean? It's, uh, yeah, I don't know that they're as mandatory as, I don't know, this guy says this guy, this guy, I don't know.

Brian: Okay. So like, if you were to go out into, I wouldn't. Okay. If you were to go out into the, uh, wouldn't do that either. The dirt road where your bike's parked or wherever you're at. Yeah. If you were to go out there, grab ahold of it and then gently lay it on its side. Um, would that like poke a hole in the engine? Probably not. It would sit on the jug. I think on a BMW, it would end up kind of teetering on the cylinder. It would rest on the luggage too. Yeah. And the luggage you've owned that bike a long time. You're, you know, exactly what you're doing and risking. Uh, so that's another factor. Um, another factor is, um, there's a lot, there are a lot of bikes that if they tip over in a parking lot, like, you know, just somebody backs into it or something that's actually going to bend the radiator. And, you know, and usually we'll start a leak. Yeah. It's really like a lot of bikes are really badly designed in that way. Uh, even a KLR 650 will, if it just tips over on the left side of KLR 650 without crash guards, we'll bend the radiator, which is just stupid for a dual sport bike.

Robin: Shout out to three letter, John. I got a buddy of mine, John Barthol, who he was looking at trading two bikes for one. So he could downsize to a full grown sport touring beast. He was looking at the FGRs. He's had FGRs in the past. He knows their generations. He knows a bike, but then he realized that if that bike goes down on its side, if it hits the mirror mount, that mirror mount apparently goes into big, heavy sections of frame. Yeah. If you break the mirror mount, you can total the bike. That is rough.

Brian: Yeah. That's a whole rant because nobody designs their bikes to, to just had for normal things to happen, you know? And that's like, everybody was astonished to super tender, a Yamaha, uh, the super tender, uh, people were astonished to find that it was actually designed. So when it tipped over, you know, it, it didn't have trip ending damage, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of bikes that just, if it's in a parking lot and it just tips over, um, you're, you're not going to be, you're not going to get home without a trailer. And I think that's kind of, so, you know, it depends on the bike, but yeah, that's something I like on my, on my Yamaha and my, and all my bikes I have, you know, especially the dual sport bike it's armored all the hell. Cause it needs to be. Cause I'm not that great, uh, at staying on, on top of it, but the, but yeah, it, it basically, if it could handle just getting shoved over in a parking lot and I can pick it up and ride away, that's what I want because I don't want to be 300 miles from home and, and, oh, there's a broken, you know, this broken lever, I'm pretty much dead in the water. You know, that's no good.

Robin: Maggie's talking about that lately. We're thinking that we don't want to get crash bars for her bike. She's got the engine guard protectors on there. They are kind of crash bars. Yeah. Yeah. Some that'll help. Yeah. Now that the bike is back up to stock and she's thoughtful and conscious as ever, and just kicking butt riding around, there's a lot less tension between us. If the bike should go down, the thinking is that if that should happen, it would be great. We're thinking about getting the protective knobs, those giant skate wheels. Yeah. I would love to see hers shaped like a V with two skate wheels sticking out the right and left. So that if she needed to drop it, it would just kind of boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing. Just sit there. That could be good. Those can be a really good idea. Yeah. I don't know where to find them. Oh, I don't really know how to shop for them. It's not like it has to be a triumph branded twisted throttle.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Take out money from your IRA to invest in them kind of thing. I think there are sources that are just on the cheap and they just go over a bolt. This is me asking our fans. If you know what that is, visit the page that's dedicated to this episode and enter your information in the comments. I will seek it out.

Brian: Link from AliExpress.

Robin: No gray hair the last time I ordered stuff from them. And by the time it got to me three decades. So no, let's go to two.

Brian: Let's go right to two headed coin stuff happens quick. What's the right thing to do slow and why what's the rocket surgery reasoning here? I'm going to throw you a curveball, Robin running or standing water in the road.

Robin: It depends. That's my short answer. As for my long answer, ride it if it is no higher than my axle bolts. And sometimes I'll discover that it is higher than my actual bolts too late. And then I will, well, make a decision to probably continue riding it. There are a few known bridge crossings in Texas that are water crossings that I've been across many, many times. There was one time where I saw an oncoming truck go through and I thought, well, it doesn't look too bad, but they have the foot measure. They have a yellow sign that measures and feet where the water actually is. I think it was around the foot and a half mark. And I wrote through it when I got to the end, the truck that was waiting for me was, you know, you did it. Look at you, whoever you are, a guy on motorcycle, whatever. But yeah, that's not a big deal. There are some conditions that have to be met though. I mean, you don't necessarily want to be on top of algae. Yeah. Well, yeah. Snot pavement. Yeah. It's got to be porous. That's my answer.

Brian: What about you? The short answer is stop and look at it, make a plan. Don't just, I never just plunge right in. And this is someone who has spent some time underwater. This is someone speaking whose motorcycle has spent a lot, has spent a significant amount of time underwater. I've crossed a lot of water in dual sport riding. I've failed to cross some water in dual sport riding. So, so yeah, short answer, stop and look, make a plan. You can, you can get through some surprisingly deep water, you know, depending on your machine. If you, you know, if you got knobby tires, what's underneath it and all that stuff. You can also get surprised by some really, really deep stuff. Cause like whenever there's a water crossing and it's actually a road, people in four wheel drives like to like turn it up and sit in the middle and spin their tires and, and dig it up. So there's, there's some stuff. If a lot of people have been through there, it's just, you can't even see the bottom. Yeah. So I I've, and there are many times I've just like, you know, I, I, I can't tell what's in there. I'm going to go around. I'm going to just find some other way, especially if there's like not a truck coming the other way where you can say, Oh, that's only six inches or whatever.

Robin: You're not necessarily talking about pavement. You're talking about them digging up soil underneath everything I've seen. It's been a paved bed. So I've never ridden through anything that was muddy.

Brian: Yeah. And you know, and it depends on why it flooded. Like if it's a, if it's a flood, if, or why, why the road has water on it, you know, there are some places. Yeah. Well, there's a paved water crossing. That's just how it is. I just didn't feel like making a bridge. And, and as you mentioned, a lot of those get really super like zero friction. Like I can handle some friction. Those are something left, but the, you know, the zero friction will get you. All you can do with those is just try to stay in wheel tracks.

Robin: And there is a lot to be said for understanding a zero point inertia while you're on the throttle going through something like that.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Keeping a neutral state of the motor and the idling and the pace and nothing is trying to do anything. It's, but it's still managing to coast on its own power through whatever it is you're trying to traverse. Yeah. Practice that practice, practice writing so smooth that you don't even sure you're writing.

Brian: Yeah. That, that, that, that's a really algae can just be super rough. But anyway, if you're on a street ride, what is most common, like in Southern Indiana, it's really common for there to, for, for roads to flood and hilly areas and a lot of, in a lot of areas, Kentucky, every place. And so, yeah, in those cases, it's really important to take a look at it and make sure, especially if it looks like it's moving at all. It's really common for the roads to get undermined. And so you can be like, oh, this is just pavement. It's a foot deep. I'll just splash right through it. And then you, you know, and then half the road's gone. If you do need to do that, stay in the middle, that kind of thing.

Robin: I remember there was an internet meme of people walking around the cities and they were diving. It was like a CG video of people diving into potholes.

Brian: Yeah. You don't want that to happen. You don't want to disappear in a sinkhole. Two-wheeled pilot. Let's get into it. The first hunk of the two-wheeled pilot. The first thing I'll say is I am not a pilot, so don't accuse me of being a pilot, but I have noticed that there are a lot of things flying and riding have in common. They both require your full attention. They both require a lot of skill and both flying and riding can turn you and your machine into a smoking meat-lined crater. So don't screw up.

Robin: But hell, man, what is wrong with you?

Brian: A smoking meat-lined crater. So anyway, there's a lot of things I've had in my mind for a long time. A lot of things. So there, I think there's a lot we can learn from the concept of aviation safety. You know, the, the, the ways to approach training, the ways to approach skills, how to handle emergencies and overall mindset and, and a lot of the, how you learn from mistakes. So I'll just, I'll, I'll ease into this with a really simple one. There's a saying in aviation that goes aviate, navigate, communicate. And, and it's also something I've said many times is keep flying the plane. In other words, when something starts to go wrong, keep flying the plane, keep riding the bike. Don't give up on, you know, don't just let go of the controls and, and, and become a crater.

Robin: There are things that are flying. There are things that are riding. Some of them correspond with each other.

Brian: So in aviation, if something goes wrong in the air, keep flying the plane. A lot of airplanes have, have ended up on the ground, in the ground, not on the ground because they're trying to figure out like a burned out light bulb and forget to keep flying. And the same thing can happen a lot faster on motorcycles. So it's basically about keeping your priorities straight. Keep flying, keep aviating. Yeah, yeah.

Robin: I'm with you.

Brian: Yeah. And in the second, you know, in an airplane, the second priority, aviate, navigate, communicate. So keep flying the plane, figure out where you're going. And then if you have time, tell somebody what you're up to. And so it's not, there's not really an analogy in motorcycling other than keep flying the plane, keep, you know, stay on the bike, keep controlling it, stay in control. You know, don't just let go and freeze up. Target fixation, for example, is one example of that, where you give up control almost involuntarily on a motorcycle because you get surprised and all of a sudden, ah, I forget to fly the plane and go right into that thing you're looking at. Don't freeze up. Don't stop.

Robin: I think a lot of riders, I'm not going to say every rider, but a lot of riders have experienced that terrible sensation. You arrive at a situation that you should not have arrived at. For example, you didn't ride only the road you can see. That's one of my rules. But that isn't to say that I haven't ever made a mistake and dropped my guard and let that happen. It may have happened recently, in fact, where you find yourself in a situation and your, your mind and experience are fast enough to look for the right way out of it very quickly until you discover that all of those ways out are problematic in some way. One version of that is if you're coming around a blind corner and you feel I've totally got the braking to handle this, but you discover that in your path of travel is a large rock in the escape path around that large rock is loose gravel that's on the inside and on the outside. Oncoming trailer who is using some of your lane to make their turn in normal conditions or even two of these conditions I can manage. But when you arrive at all three are having a dance off, you've got to deal with that. And that is where you have to decide not to freeze up. These are situations where you will have a split second to maintain calm. And as Brian is saying, keep playing the dang plane. Does that cater to what you're talking about?

Brian: Yeah. It's an expansion upon the whole idea. Enhancement. Yeah. It's an enhancement, man. Yeah. Target fixation happens. Everybody. That's an element of it where you can just, you, when you do anything you do where you're giving up control, you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna try to land in the ditch while you gave up control. It's really your, your odds, you know, it's all about odds and your odds are better. If you keep control, we've beaten this one to death. All right. The horse is dead.

Robin: There's no version of like, I'm going to try to crash as softly as possible. That's going to be guaranteed to work to your advantage.

Brian: Off-road. There's a little bit of that because there was at lower speeds, there's a time to hold on and there's a time to let go. I'm imagining that's part of the fun. You're reusing the outros, aren't you?

Robin: Well, I am, but you don't want to tell the public that then they're going to know I'm going to leave this part in, by the way. Oh, you are? Take it away, Brian.