Robin: It's good to see you. I need a drink because I've already, yeah, hold still. This is that episode.

Anders: Are you busting out the good stuff this time? Wow. So am I going to have to call my sponsor? Wow. I, man, you know, I, uh, as a responsible motorcycle journalist, uh, I always conduct, uh, all of my business, uh, completely sober and not under the influence of intoxicating substances, but, uh, Hey, you know, you guys do you, so. Oh, I'm actually going to go grab another fizzy water just so I don't have to, might as well, might as well want you to be focused.

Brian: Yeah. Damn near Friday.

Robin: I haven't known Andrews for very long on a face-to-face, uh, basis, but I've had the honor of him tolerating long LinkedIn, LinkedIn. That's the one, the one that is the one that claims real responsible behavior. I don't know how they make me feel like I need to behave better on there.

Anders: Yeah. It's like Facebook when you're looking for a job desperately. Uh, yeah. LinkedIn.

Robin: The gray scale Facebook. This guy has been kind to me the entire time. It's my pleasure to welcome Andrus Carlson to the show. Thanks for being here. Let's have some fun and I'll try not to talk too damn much.

Anders: Gotcha. Thanks for, thanks for, um, allowing yourself to be tricked by my, uh, talents and stature in the motorcycle industry.

Robin: One thing you should know, leave as many awkward silences as you want because of what I told you about the silence eliminator.

Anders: I know silence is, is golden. Sometimes silence, uh, sometimes, uh, in Swedish lore is that's when an angel passes through the room. So, uh, the more silences, the more angels passing through the room. That's a good thing. I think same thing applies to beans. Sure. Sure. Okay.

Brian: Yeah, that'll work.

Anders: No, silences are a good thing. Uh, cause as, as I'm learning, uh, because I'm trying to foolishly, uh, undertake a, a podcast of some sort, uh, editing, uh, silences make everything better. Uh, cause then you can really just cut stuff out. And, uh, I recently interviewed somebody who was very eloquent and fun and great and had a lot of great things to say. They were super smart. They just kept talking without pause. The only chance I got to cut things up is when they actually took a breath and then their breath, like they made like sound. And so it was like, uh, it's been very laborious to take a week and basically seven hours to get to 40 minutes of usable stuff.

Robin: The opposite of groove.

Anders: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, what you do is, is really great. And you've got an established podcast and you probably have forgotten more than I'll ever know about putting this sort of stuff together. So I, uh, I very much, I respect your, your craft, uh, and your dedication to it.

Robin: So I think you're the right guy for the job. I think that it's going to be a great podcast. I've actually enveloped some of what I hope you'll take advantage of in this episode to try some ideas, experiment, and I will completely own the fact that these are the ideas of Anders Carlsen. They belong to his. And if he wanted to try to toy with them, let's just see how they go. So you can have some fun and give it, make it worth your while to be here at all. And ours, we have a format. You can't see the format. We have two Google docs. One is the, the sandbox where Brian piles on so much intelligent noise. He's, he's a legit writer, unlike myself. And I try to sift through it. He comes up with these segments and I'm like, okay, whatever. And then we have the actual outline, which is what we reset every time and go with. And I just do all the audio production after the fact. Right now, this episode, we're going to do three segments that are particular to our podcast. They are the Maptastic Mayhem for the California trip, the Book Nook, which should be interesting for the three of us, which is like motorcycle related books. And one that I'm now calling three headed coin, where we take an issue. We all respond to that issue.

Anders: Okay.

Robin: But the first bit is a little bit of opening banter because we got to get some stuff off our chest because we haven't seen each other in a while.

Anders: Sure.

Robin: This one goes like this. Mine is short and sweet. Two words, chain breaker. Sure. It's happened again. Something I now know, I only know now because I went through the relearning process and got things wrong. Now that I've gotten it wrong, I know how to get it right, but that involves ordering replacement parts for the chain and its respective tool. I think there's an article in this somewhere, namely the Know Thyself Because Here We Go Again system of relearning how to hopefully be error free in the process. This happened to be with wiring recently. Like now I'm ready to wire up a freaking NASA ship and now I'm ready to replace a chain now that I've completely wrecked my initial effort. Apart from the course, I ride a shaft drive bike and this is my wife's bike. A stripple. So six, seven, five, stripple.

Anders: A stripple? That sounds kind of exciting a little bit.

Robin: I once knew a girl.

Anders: Say no more. Say no more.

Brian: Did you try to actually use a chain breaker to do what it says on the label? I mean, that's just wrong. Yeah. It doesn't work. There's your problem.

Robin: There's your problem. The first thing I did was I brought in the pin that pushes the cylinder out. Oh yeah. It's just completely just shattered.

Brian: No, it never works.

Robin: Twist, twist. It's like you could feel a coat hanger bending by every turn and then you hear a fling. So here's what I did learn. On that level, a concrete, like a construction nail, a really long construction nail has the same general shape. It can compress through and it pushed it right out. In the end, that train's going in the garbage.

Anders: I had one of those break too, actually. I think they're all made by prisoners somewhere with a backyard smelting sort of thing. I don't know what, but yeah, I had the same thing and it broke. Are you removing a chain or are you putting a chain on?

Robin: Well, the chain is on, but this happened while I was removing the chain.

Anders: Oh, why don't you just use an angle grinder?

Robin: I have one.

Brian: There's your trouble.

Robin: I got this freakish bump in my lip and I'm pretty sure that that is still warm aluminum shard from the last time I didn't wear a mask using my angle grinder. So I've got this giant lump, but yeah, no, I didn't remember. Didn't even think to do it.

Anders: Your lips do look very nice and even luscious though. So that's like the bright side, right? I did this. I did this for you. Did you get worked on? But no, apparently it was just a shard of aluminum, but it looked very nice anyways.

Robin: That spiked through your head. That must've been expensive, man. Nice job. That's my opening rant. Brian, what you got, man?

Brian: The Harley in my garage is done and I'd like to have a little celebration. Yeah, Anders, I was working on a Harley. It was kind of a trade for a family member who's doing a lot of work on my house that I don't know how to do. And I was doing a lot of work on his Harley that I knew how to do. And it's just, it's been there all winter. It's been, oh yeah, we're just going to change the oil. And oh yeah, this fork seal's leaking. And oh, by the way, the fuel gauge doesn't work. And oh, by the way, it's a Harley. This oil filter is incredibly stuck. Yeah, it's just a different world than what I'm used to working on. And it's done. We're trying to load it on his truck and then the battery died. We'd had to start it up several times to get everything in position and get it back on his truck. And then the last time, okay, we're ready to put it on the truck. Everything's ready. And then I put my jump pack on it. My jump pack goes, no, we're not doing this.

Anders: Oh, you know what? I'll field this question. Maybe this Harley is just a Harley of the damned.

Brian: Yeah, it's going away soon. I'll be glad of it, but it was interesting. It's not his Harley to begin with. No.

Robin: Gotcha.

Brian: What year is it? It's a 2001 Dyna. And it's a one I was, like I said, I was working on it for somebody else. I had to go out and buy inch tools that, like, I thought I had some inch tools, but I had to go out and buy a bunch of stuff, you know, like, oh, I need this and I need a ball end hex. Oh, that's never fun.

Anders: Is it still?

Brian: Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it's got the same carburetors, my KLR650. So that was, but I didn't have to do anything to the carburetor. Thank goodness. So it's kind of really old school. The wheel bearings were just a battle of, you wouldn't believe, I don't know why. I mean, I've done a lot of wheel bearings, but it's finally done. It's sitting in my garage. Next time he's down there, we'll get it in his truck. I guarantee it. I got the battery tender. This will happen. And then I'll have a whole bunch of space left.

Anders: Gotcha. Well, I'm not really a Harley person. I'm fairly brand agnostic, but my wife rides Harleys and she's got like an 04, 05 Sportster 1200 or something like that. You know, it's a great bike if you like that sort of thing, as they say. Yeah. But I'm pretty brand agnostic. You know, even though I'm not a Harley person, America is a better place with a healthy Harley Davidson company employing lots of people, especially being in here in Chicago. You know, I know tons of people who, you know, from Milwaukee who are employed by the motor company, as they like to call themselves. So even though I am not a Harley man, you know, opinions will vary motorcycling wise.

Robin: That's the most neutrally polite way to basically nullify any comments we've ever made on this episode about them in general. I don't think it's ever been a full-on negative. It's not actual hatred. It's just mislabeling and misinformation coming to the consumer that makes us want to be like, okay, hold up here. And we call those out a lot. I like the way you put that.

Brian: Yeah. It's not my bag, but if it's your bag, that's fine. You know, and it's a lot of people's bag. This one has like, he had these forward controls on it, taking it out to test ride, make sure everything's good and forward controls. I will, I will go on the record for controls just suck. But yeah, the whole vibration, low-tend torque, whatever. Fine.

Anders: Yeah. It's, it's not my thing. I love V twins. You know, I ride a Buell 1125 CR, which has a gorgeous, awesome Rotax, but I think it's a 72 degree V twin. And like, I, I love V twin 60 degree. I rode like a, a newer, I rented a newer sportster nightster evil stir. I don't know what they call it, but it's got the new, the, the, the, the new V max engine in it or whatever. It was really torquey and fun. It was the opposite of a typical Harley V twin. Like it made like gobs of power up around like three or four grand. And I was like, this is a great highway bike. This is really fun. It sounded like nothing at idle, but yeah, 45 degree V twins, not really interested.

Brian: So I used to have a Vstrom 1000, which is the 90 L twin and 90 degrees. So, and those actually sound surprisingly great when you really wind them up. I mean, it's a 9,000 RPM or a red line. You wind that up a lot. Yeah. I've had a couple of twins. Yeah. I like, I like the twin concept, but yeah, the, the over-complication, the separate transmission, the separate primary case, and everything's got its own lubricant and, and there's little hatches and holes and, and I, not, not really for me, you know, I get it. It's fine. But everything was just so ridiculously heavy as the one thing I, that was a practical thing that really, I didn't, didn't appeal to me.

Anders: Yeah. It's a exercise of style over substance, but Hey, Erica, that's, you know, America.

Robin: So you said you had the CR 1125.

Anders: Oh yeah. I actually, actually it's the 1125 CR Robin.

Robin: Well, I just looked it up. It's a great looking bike. I mean, I love this. It's just a great machine. Yeah. It's, it's a cool machine. And I'm assuming that has like the oil in the frame.

Anders: Yes, it does. No, it's got fuel in frame.

Brian: Fuel in frame. Oh yeah. That's a Rotax engine, isn't it?

Anders: Yeah. Oh wow. So oil is in the, is in the case, I believe. I don't think they have it anywhere goofy, like the swing arm or whatever. But yeah, it's really fun. It was, it was so great. It's like Eric Buell finally got to build the bike that he mostly wanted to build. He wanted to put a chain drive on it. It's like, there it is. There's the apotheosis of the Buell dream. Oh, by the way, you're going out of business. Bye. See you.

Robin: Yeah. Right. Like I'll, I'll chip this on the shoulder one time. Did you check out the interview that we had with him?

Anders: I did not actually. No, I got to go back and, and go through the archives. Definitely pick up on that.

Robin: It was downright okay. Thanks to him. You know, he was great. I made sure to bring that down to okay. It was a lot of fun talking to him for a while.

Anders: He seems to be accessible. So he, yeah, he, I messaged him on LinkedIn and he wrote me back, which, you know, I thought that's, you know, it was two words, but still very accessible in my opinion.

Robin: I had initially at this point was supposed to, when I was supposed to intro you, but the fact is that I've got things on here that say things worth chatting about with Anders Karlsson. One thing I learned from Melissa Holbrook-Pearson is don't ask what you're working on. So I'm not going to do that. I promise. But I was curious first off, I love your motorcycle riding. Yep. Brian and I both do. Agreed. Oh, thanks man. It's great stuff. Fooled you. Yeah. Yeah. This is a total hijack.

Brian: You know, Chad GPT is doing great, man. Robin said, Hey, we're, we're interviewing Anders Karlsson. And then that's all I knew. And I saw I Googled Google. It's some damn kicker. Who's, oh, is this guy into motorcycles now? What's going on? Uh, yeah, my twin. So Mr. Beefcake there. But anyway, that confusion finally got that confusion sorted out. I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah. He's a writer. He's been to, okay. So I finally, yeah. But yeah, great stuff. Um, you're channeling some of the, you know, channeling some of the greats, you know, not taking things seriously, which I like, uh, some, some of these writers really get up their own ass and, but you can still feel the passion there.

Robin: I can, I can still feel how much you love just motors. I mean, you race your licensed racer and all this and all such, which we're going to talk about that in a bit here to race quote,

Anders: unquote, rate racing, 50 year old, uh, bikes, uh, you know, that's, uh, if we're racing, it's like Walter Mitty racing basically, but, uh, it's still, it's still ahead of the game on,

Robin: you got, you got some miles ahead of me on this, but I guess my personal question, do you do anything more personal? IE, uh, other topics, journaling, authorships, any of that stuff as a writer? Cause I know you're a writer.

Anders: Well, motorcycle, uh, journalism pays for virtually nothing in my life. Uh, so before I get home and write about exciting things like motorcycles and other stuff, um, I write horrendously boring, soul sucking, awful work. And it's hazard paid because honestly, the shit could bore you to death. Really just like, like I write things that you don't want to read. If a one in a hundred people read what I wrote, uh, a, it's usually an accident and B uh, that's success.

Robin: Here's a more fun question for you to answer then perhaps the podcast. I'm excited for you. We're going to back you on that a hundred percent. I'm really excited to have you'll probably be the first like peer podcast. We're like, by the way, check out the guys over here. They're doing a different thing. You know, that's how you do it. So, Oh, was that the shirt?

Anders: That's the shirt, man. Oh, here, check this out.

Robin: The, the only thing that I'm going to need you to send me one of those, that's the charge for this. Brian and I get a damn t-shirt. I want a fucking t-shirt. Abso-fucking-lutely.

Anders: I will absolutely send you a t-shirt and, uh, the teacher comes with responsibilities. Uh, uh, since you are getting, uh, a, a, a free t-shirt, which is a form of compensation. Uh, when someone asks you about it, I've got a, it's really short. It's only about 10 minutes, but it's a 10 minute presentation that you have to give to anybody who asks you about it.

Robin: Hold on. You are a member of the super slick, ultra bad-ass motorcycle, mega positive, incredible power, right?

Anders: That is wow. That's like super califragilistically.

Robin: I'm pretty sure you're a member of the super slick, ultra bad-ass motorcycle, mega positive, incredible power. If not, you're going to get an invite tonight.

Anders: I do aspire to, uh, you know, higher tax brackets and more status. Uh, I'm not sure if I'm at that level yet, but, uh, you know, I could be perhaps in a probationary member. Continue on.

Robin: What are the details? We will follow them to the letter.

Anders: I just had an idea for it, like last fall. And, uh, I was hanging out at barber and I was talking to a really, really nice guy, uh, who actually also does stuff, Alan Lane. Um, it's really super nice guy. And, uh, we're talking to the bar about, you know, um, hustling and working in this industry as you do, you know, and trying to sort of make it, uh, make at least a little money, you know, kind of get somewhere. And I was telling him about the podcast and he's like, here you go. Like if you don't have this up, uh, by winter or at least a plan or a microphone spot, um, I'm going to kick your ass. He didn't actually say that, but that was kind of like the importer. And, uh, you know, it's like anything else. Uh, the first step is the hardest, um, followed in quick succession by the 75 other steps that you have to do. Uh, but that first one is the hardest. Um, yeah, it's called fucking motorcycles. And I'm really just trying to kind of highlight, um, failure, futility, uh, and fun. Uh, because I feel like, uh, uh, in, in motorcycling is, is mostly uniformly positive, especially with motorcyclists and other places I've written for. You try to be very positive. You're trying to sort of grow motorcycling. Nothing is ever really negative. It's all sort of positive. You know, we write press releases for new bikes and everything else like that. Uh, but fucking motorcycles is kind of like where I get to basically just sort of say what I really think, not about politics or culture or anything else like that. Um, but really just, you know, uh, some things are stupid. Some things are dumb, including myself. Um, so this is just kind of a venue where I, uh, without sponsorships or any kind of anything or any financial interest, uh, unless it's really lucrative, then, you know, we can talk. But until then, I just get to basically just sort of do what I want and see what I want. Should be fun and totally unprofitable.

Robin: Oh, Brian makes a good point. We need a, we need a, that fucking guy story. Not a, that guy's story, but a, that fucking guy, you might be the person to present this on the reg.

Anders: So we have a, okay.

Robin: It's a regular thing on the website called that guy, which is like, we've all been that guy. I, and the guy who wrote that article is a pretty good go-to for knowledgeable sport touring type rides rallies and such, but there's a picture of him on the way to the destination of the star of the rally on his back. Fine tuning his freaking power commander, because for some reason he's getting 10 miles to the gallon and going no faster than anybody. So that guy, but that fucking guy, that's a big step up. That's a, that's a couple of shelves and I think it belongs to you.

Anders: Okay. Well, who's that fucking guy? Is it the guy that cuts you off or the guy that has more fringe than everyone else on their jacket? Like who's, who's that fucking guy?

Robin: Do you think for me, the short version is a guy that has had all obvious signs around him that say we don't do that. And then they immediately do that. Like they're going to change. Like they're now the new leader of the pack, whatever, like they've made a mistake that is bluntly obvious that just doesn't like, no, this isn't, did you see anybody here do that? Do you not feel the community adjust, adapt to the community?

Brian: That guy who harsh is the mellow. Yeah. It can be a lot of things. You know, that guy is a mooch. You know, we've talked about that. Okay. He shows up on a busted bike and just expects everybody to, oh, I've had that. We've had that fucking guy.

Anders: That's an annual thing at the, the, the ride up in Southwestern Wisconsin. That's a, there's always that guy who shows up on like Suzuki GS that only kind of half works or isn't jetted correctly and won't start.

Robin: And yeah, it's always a Suzuki GS. Cause that is the resources. We were part of the Suzuki GS resources rallies.

Anders: Yeah.

Robin: You nailed it.

Anders: Yeah.

Robin: Like the other version is the guy who shows up and says, what are we doing? When are we, when are we, what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? And then you say, okay, cool. Here's what we're doing. And then they say, Hey, uh, you know what we should do instead of that, that guy, that's definitely a bad guy.

Anders: Gotcha. Well, I, I think everyone's probably been that guy, uh, at least early on in their riding career. Again, we can all sort of take it on the chin there. Everyone has done just cringe worthy things at some point or another. Um, so, but, uh, but now as older Statesman of motorcycling, uh, we should totally call those people out and make fun of them. I think. I agree with that. I think that's a fine idea.

Robin: I was thinking about segment one here. We do a thing called Mac map-tastic mayhem. I'm going to show you guys a flash of something lovely. I'm really more than anything. We can adjust some things. I imagine when I show you this map, maybe what you'll say is, well, wow, I know that I've done that. I've done this. I've done this. You really shouldn't do that instead. Do the thing that's well, wherever compared to it, but more important than that, I've got a conundrum about how I'm doing this.

Anders: Okay.

Robin: And no sponsorship yet, but I'm going to load up ride with gps.com. That's rwgps.com. And then I'm going to log in with my Gmail and then I'm going to click on routes. You'll see this in a moment, New Mexico, Jeff, we are looking at this. Oh, look at that right here is very close to where the, my brother's remains will be buried on the ocean side next to California, somewhere vaguely around here, the military cemetery there. This is a route, not the route, but it is a route. If I zoom in here, here we are in truth or consequences. Brian, you're going to get to ride this with me pretty soon.

Brian: Excellent.

Robin: This is the finest motorcycle ride I've personally ever taken, which is one 52 out of true. The consequences to silver city, which then leads up to devil's highway route, triple six, which is not a combination of expressways from Texas through New Mexico. It is only one section of Arizona. That is the history of the road. Anybody who wants to challenge that probably rides a cruiser at any rate. This is devil's highway. I've conquered it once I'll conquer it again. After that, I'm in no man's land. I've never done any of this. This will take, let's see all total. We are looking at 1400 miles. If either of you have ridden Arizona, California, any of that, and want me to zoom in on it and give me some corrections, some betterment, I will make those changes under your advisement. The real question though, is this I'm a 250 mile per day guy, two 50 to 300. I can probably make three 25, but eventually I'm just like, I'm not even interested anymore. I'm just blindly going through the techniques. So one way I could do this is I blast direct on an iron button or my certificate, call it good, and then do this on the way back. Or I mean, I've always been curious about it. It's not something I, this is going to eat my tires up. So you're, you're, but curious, you'd say, there you go. It's all in the receipts. It depends on which clubs you go to then. All right. The gas receipts, that is option B is I could ride this there and then iron, but I hope on tires that, uh, have a scratched up edge. These, you know, there's three options. I could do this both directions. But my first question for both of you is, do you see anything that you are familiar with where you're like, Oh, I know exactly what that is. And that's a mistake by whatever. And you should fix that and do this. It's better. My ears are wide open because it's going to happen.

Anders: Oh, I don't think so. I mean, mistake with like, like an unfun road or like a bad road, some reason, or it looks like a fine route to me. Oh, there's a little town in Arizona called Oatman. Um, it's up by like where the original route 66 is. Um, it's just actually North of bullhead city and Laughlin like oats, man. Oatman. Yeah. They got like wild, uh, very, very, very inbred wild burrows in the town. It's a total tourist trap. It's a really fun.

Robin: That's perfect.

Anders: Yeah. On the way in is a really pretty route. Um, yeah. I mean, if you blink you, you're like, am I in the Mediterranean? It'd be, it's really beautiful. Oh, it's, it's really nice. Uh, and then Laughlin is really nice because there's gambling. You can smoke in casinos if you're a smoker. Um, uh, but it's not Vegas. It's kind of like a miniature Vegas. Um, it's just very chill. You'll probably spend most of your time there, uh, in the arcade playing like motorcycle riding games. They have like a bunch of, I don't know, like when I went there, I'm not really a gambler. I don't know. It's just a really fun, great little tiny corner of America. I really enjoyed it, but your route looks great. I've never been on any of those roads. I think until you get to, are you going through 29 palms? Let's find out. Yeah, you are actually, I think you're going roughly around by it's run by where Joshua tree national park is. Um, that's a gorgeous area. Nice. Well, it's not a very exciting road there, but I'm assuming once you take a right turn near Albuquerque or Yucca Valley, I guess it is. I've been around there. I've actually been through big bear lake. It's a very pretty, you'll probably have a great time.

Robin: I hope so. Thank you for that, by the way. And I'm going to take your, I'm gonna take Oatman to heart. If I can make it work and it doesn't crank up the mileage too crazy. I think I might just have to do that with your name on it. Be like, Hey, he told me to come here.

Anders: Oh, holy shit. Lake Havasu. They have a, uh, they, they, they literally took, uh, London bridge and dismantled it. They bought it and then they rebuilt it in Lake Havasu, which is really strange place for London bridge to have ended up, but that's what they did. And it's just a total spring break sort of town. Um, I don't know. I had fun in Lake Havasu.

Robin: When you say London bridge, you're greatly cultured. So London bridge, you're talking about like London bridges falling down.

Anders: Yep. I think so. Yeah.

Robin: For real in Oatman or 29 palms in, uh, Lake Havasu city.

Brian: Yeah.

Anders: Yeah. It's right north of, um, well, I'm pointing at my screen. Like you can see where my finger points. That's a fun area. Um, Oh man, Lake Havasu. I'm highly jealous. Your sounds ideal. Honestly.

Robin: So this is an open invite thing. I put this out there. I'm using some logic. I was taught by some of Brian's compatriots and himself, which is everybody is welcome. Nobody's invited.

Anders: Oh, okay.

Robin: If you decided you wanted to do this, you know what I'm going to be doing. And I welcome anybody to join me for this.

Anders: I would love to join you. I'll have to take a rain check. I got this whole, uh, working and mortgage kind of thing happening or whatever. Uh, but someday, someday I will, I will join. You probably know, I mean, you probably know, uh, a hundred times more, uh, interesting routes and places and stuff. I mean, that's basically what you do. So I, that's why I hang around and keep people who, who know more than me close by. If you can't be talented, get close to people who are, you know, so see the problem in this group right here is we've got three artists.

Robin: So the deal is great. Okay. Good artists, create great artists, steal. And then like, who are we stealing from? If we're just like trying to figure everybody's looking for the resource, that's good. Okay. So then I guess I would love to hear what you, if I need to be there on April 2nd, who knows what could happen in the twisties. And I've been debating, like, I don't have an iron butt placard, no darkness involved, but this is my second brother lost. And the first time I lost a brother was the maiden voyage of this bike down to Florida, uh, for, and I tried an iron, but I'm not very bright. And so I didn't realize that I didn't have to eat the whole plate in one sitting. I could have gotten some sleep and gotten up and like picked it up where I left off. Didn't do it. So this is another thing like that, where I could, I'm not necessarily going to conclude the bike. Melissa Holbrook Pearson told me she shunned me on that. She was like, it doesn't matter where you're riding. This is not the end of that bike. Go ride the thing and shut the hell up. It was kind of a message. But you know, should I take this as round two and bust a, an iron butt to my brother's memorial, spend time with my fam and then do the long ride home? Or should I risk whether or not I still have the chops? I had the chops. Do I still have the chops to curly twist the shit out of my ride all the way to the destination in time for something like that?

Anders: I don't know. Uh, you know, sometimes motorcycling is like a forest fire. Only you can prevent bad stuff.

Robin: Yeah. Great reverence. Appreciate that.

Brian: Yeah. Honest. If you want like a logical approach at it, your tires are going to be fresh or leaving. Yes. I would pack in the twisties on the way out. So I'd leave as early as I can leave, you know, take however many days you can. I would just rail it out there. And there's something about traveling, the changes in the landscapes and the land, and you're going over the mountains and the passes and through the desert and so forth. Maximizing that experience on your way there, I think is going to be really interesting. And then you can just, then you can make another decision when it's time to come back. Do I want to do this iron butt thing? You know, am I, am I still butt curious? Did I still want to have, do I still want to prove my buttocks? My really fucked up. I'm trying to think of a way to make it even worse, but anyway. Yeah. So you can decide, do I want to, do I want to do this or do I want to put the tape back on the roll and go back the other way and see how I feel, you know? So it leaves that option open. You're like, you're going to feel drained. You're going to feel like, okay, I'm emotionally drained. I need to recharge. Screw this. I need some twisties on the way back. I'm going to just, I'm just going to, I'm going to do the same. I'm going to do maybe a different route and keep it twisty and not worry about the miles.

Robin: On arrival back home, we're leading the tour. That's when you're showing up and we're going on the New Mexico thing.

Brian: So what you're saying is I'm going to show up and you'll be like, Brian, grab a spoon. We're putting tires on.

Robin: It's very possible. Truly it is. But I will tell you that like the one thing I wanted to get out and I don't even know how to logically tie it together was that, uh, for sure, nothing will shut me down spiritually. Like I won't be so outspoken if you put a beautiful twisty curvy landscape in front of me and there's nobody but me on it, which has happened once or twice. That is, that is some drop draw shit. That'll, that'll hammer you into submission about how small we are. Yeah. I could probably handle some of that. That's the president of the fresh, the fresh tires comment. That's really the gold. I got to stop letting go of. It's true. I'm going to be swatching these out. Uh, the Dunlop road, smart threes was a fantastic tire Dunlop. If you're listening, uh, my email. Anyhow, so good shit. Thank you both very much. Uh, what bike are you riding? It's a 16 BMW R 1200 RS. I'm not a Beamer guy. I'm kind of agnostic as well.

Anders: That sounds fancy. Are you rich or something?

Robin: Or no, no, no, no. In fact, I am riding the wire is what I'm doing. I'm taking all the logical statements of smarter people and saying, I can prove you wrong and saying, I can, uh, yeah, you can go be an adventurer and a career.

Anders: And it's a fine bike. Uh, I wrote a 23. I'm not a Beamer guy, but I was like, this is a nice bike. You know, it's totally Romulans. You could, you know, do four or 500 miles a day if you want. Um, it's the RS. So it's not like a huge giant windscreen. There's probably enough to like add at least like 50 or a hundred miles. If you're really pushing it a day, I added the thumbnail.

Robin: So I've got the 1200, not the 1250. Oh, I think my bike looks better. They changed up the headlights, but I also got the thumbnail windscreen and man, I put it's we're approaching a hundred thousand miles since I bought it in 2018.

Anders: Wow.

Robin: I love the bike. I really do. And I'll never buy another Beamer. That'll be it. You know, like I'm give me the most basic, whatever I'm hearing too much of my own voice. Do you guys want to have some fun with some questions? Absolutely. Sure. All right. One of our most regular question askers, Kevin Butler, he brings up, and let me, I only noted this down because I was kind of hammering out while I was talking to him. He put his bike out on cycle trader. It was a paid listing. He was immediately contacted by a viewer and he was asked to click a shady link, review my ride.com for the history report. So basically the viewer wanted them to like, if you could please go ahead and provide that for me and send it to this blah, blah, blah. But it's a 1980, I think he says a 1992, 1992 Honda CB 650. Do you really need the vehicle report on the bike?

Brian: I'm going to need a warranty on that. Yeah.

Robin: Okay. So you guys ever provide a vehicle warrant or a history report yourselves for anything ever?

Brian: No. Yeah. It was a scam.

Robin: Yeah. Review my ride.com.

Brian: Yeah. I don't, I don't even know what that is. I'm not going there. Is it shady? Let's find out. Oh, review my ride.com. Robin, Robin disappears. Yeah. I started going, busting all Dr. Who TARDIS on y'all. Uh, anybody wanting you to go put in information on a website is sending you to a place that's going to collect your personal information and steal your identity. Hey, put in your social security numbers.

Anders: Yeah. That sounds pretty scammy to me. I mean, unless you're selling something through like Mecham, it's like, you know, and it's getting vetted. Uh, I don't really see the point in. Yeah. Review my ride.com sounds a little fishy. I could be wrong. Unless of course, review my ride would like to, uh, provide a lucrative sponsorship for my upcoming podcast, fucking motorcycles. In which case, uh, review my ride, uh, sounds like a fabulous resource. Motorcycles to you buying and selling. They're great. They're totally prominent.

Robin: Yeah. Good answer. Yeah. So bottom line, don't heat anybody. You got a bike. You're asking this much, you know what it is. You've provided details. I say just, uh, you know, meet them face to face and be like cash in hand, no test rides.

Anders: Yeah. Just be like, is that a title? Great. Awesome. Response. Right. Even everything super done, you know, no low ballers.

Brian: I know what I got. Right. Right.

Robin: And Craig's list, you know, can't we actually take a VIN number and get a vehicle history report on our own independently?

Brian: Uh, there's not really a Carfax for bikes. Huh? And, and a VIN is not some sort of secret information, you know, but, and you can provide that, but on, on bikes or really isn't such a thing. You just have to go look at the damn bike and decide. And I've, I've bought and sold bikes where it turns into a job interview, you know, where you're trying to figure out, you know, this other guy's a or not. Am I going, you know, is he going to kill me and wear my skin? Is he going to show up with counterfeit money? Is he, you know, what's going to happen here? And the same, you know, like people, like when I buy a bike, people have been like interviewed me, like, you know, are you going to go out and splatter yourself? Are you going to treat it? Well, are you going to, you know, you're going to feed it, you know, the five W 40 that it wants that kind of, yeah, it's not a kitten or anything, but people act like it, you know, like you need to take good care of this. I'm like, okay, I'll make sure and take it to red line before I sell this person, my child.

Robin: Yeah. You take any generic bike, you put anything into it that's personal to you or you remedy the mistakes you made previously and then make it personal to you. It's the same back and forth. But like, before I hand this thing off, this thing that is supposed to be no longer important to me that is so important to me.

Anders: Yeah. A bike. I usually sell it for probably a couple of hundred less than I could get. I, I really literally, I don't want a new relationship. I don't want a new friendship. I don't, you know, I really just want go away. Yeah. Literally just like you want this bike. Great. Pay me that money and good luck. Thanks.

Robin: Which is, it's a little hard because it isn't, we are an overblown cult. So there's a very good chance you're going to see this person again for some reason or another.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Like how long do you maintain the digression of like, ah, good for the ice. I don't see them.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: That doesn't always play out. But yeah, no, those are rocking answers.

Brian: So yeah, like in, like in the, in the vintage world, um, there, there is a, there is a thing where like, I, I did, they're not kittens. I get that they're machines, but I really would not want to sell a good bike to somebody who's gonna, I've been watching American chopper reruns and I'm going to chop the rest end off and I'll hard tail it and i'm gonna make me a chopper to a booper and make it really cool and i'm gonna weld

Robin: a bunch of wrenches on it like sir that's that's a 1967 honda dream could you please not yeah do that somewhere else not with mine we got another one this one's a little ranty question two john asks i am interested in the wisco disco ride but i'm not sure about the type of riders the reason for my question is that there are two of us riding baggers and we are of retired age 65 plus we're not big fans of riding with a lot of crotch rockets and this triggered me we are more laid back relaxed riders it's not that we don't know where the throttle is but we're just easier going would we fit into your group we live in northwest indiana and ride all over the state but we avoid crazy expressways like i-65 and 80 slash 94 you

Anders: know you you seem like you're in a sport touring and he's he's on baggers uh as long as he doesn't

Robin: mind being 30 seconds but like he went to a sport touring site read about like the profile of what we tend to do and then wanted to like ask is he welcome the back and forth says yes it really does

Anders: oh you just have to do something to find out you know just like i don't know come on along we'll see you know yeah nothing else move yourself probably uh you know unless we're assholes which doesn't sound like that's the case you know uh yeah i don't know and i would really

Brian: reiterate that that there's there's no expectation anybody keep up with anybody else as long as he's comfortable with the overall mileage each day you know it's going to be you know i know you like to have things around 250 miles a lot of twisty roads and so forth so it's going to be six to eight hours of saddle time and of overall mileage as long as they're comfortable with that they can have a blast if they want to stop more often they can stop more often you know the one thing i would make clear is if if somebody wants to stop more often and take pictures and stuff like that that's fine just so you're you're not dredging the dishes for them so maybe you make arrangements that kind of thing but yeah that's something you can work out that morning yeah

Anders: i think as long as you end up in the same place every night uh meeting for lunch at some point you know so you know if there's multiple chances to sort of catch up uh people can go their own pace as long as you know you kind of just a couple times during the ride just like oh cool now we're all back together proceed from there it sounds like the dude has like competition uh experience you know and all that he just prefers to ride slower and lower and uh heavier and uh life is full of like like little ironic moments uh you really have no idea like when those ironic moments are like you know uh uh if i got older and rode something with tons of fringe i fully expect that to happen actually so i think that's going to be just a delightful counterpoint to the first 20 years of my riding existence so i like both those answers i'll probably edit mine out

Robin: i'll shrink it down let's robotify it so it's just motorcycles good you should go tour see you there and it'll be you guys talking that area wisconsin it's not like

Brian: tight technical like 10 mile an hour corners all day but it is you got to be on your a game and you

Anders: got to stay there that's a that's a great point actually um yeah if you're in like the driftless area there's there's road apples um gravel and other stuff and uh depending on how depending on how how many farm roads and stuff you take a big listen you know an electric glide is totally fine as long as you are experienced with roads and as long as you know what you're getting into then it's no problem but you know if you're expecting to just be cruising on you know uh sedate sedate four lanes and uh you know bigger two lanes um yeah we don't do a lot of sunset rides

Robin: but i don't mind those either really so long as they're advertised as such this one is advertised as a little bit more it's an equal balance of uh scenery and twisties i did post everything i just wrote to the msf like the rider coach people the ones that i trusted the response of most and it came down to you know what man not the worst response but it's got it's there's some condescension in there you could have just told them that so long as they can maintain their pace lay back and do your thing and it totally makes sense i kind of wish i had said hey man rather than the crowd tracker vibe if you're comfortable riding with safety-minded technically proficient riders then you can ride whatever pace you like and you're welcome in the club yeah that's kind of the real vibe yeah you guys ready for segment two sure lay it on me daddy dean all right we got three segments and some honors room space to test things out too uh segment two we're talking about the book nook this is loose the book nook is a new thing that brian put in the sandbox i was like that looks cool and he brought up a couple of books that you know motorcycle related or even just travel related books that are worth the reading i don't hate this at all you also show ghost rider as a drummer and a musician i gotta say that my favorite thing about loving neil burt's work both musically and literally is that i because i'm a huge groove head i'd never bring it up i meet a lot of people who kind of play drums and or kind of do this or that and they're just like hey have you you know he's not he's not even here to defend these comments but the fact is like i read the book i read ghost rider travels on you know the healing road that's a that is a depressing freaking book it's beautiful it's dark i don't recommend people read it in winter maybe intermittently take a page out of it now and then just putting it out there the other one you mentioned you can't see this but he brings up roadshow landscape with drums account it's these are both neil pert books okay which is available on amazon for kindle i mean you can just find it on kindle it's not hard to find you can just read it on kindle now my thing with reading anything neil pert i think one in just say 20 sentences is going to be made up of an unnecessary you could have said this in a different way oh well maybe it didn't need all that well he's neil pert it's the

Anders: ramble on i mean i'm not a rush fan i love women yeah yes dude kidding that's a joke rush fine fine i appreciate even though i'm not a huge rush fan um yeah i haven't read those books i think my wife actually i think got a copy of ghost rider um i meant to pick it up is even though i'm not really a giant fan neil pert's drumming or whatever um i don't know it seemed like an interesting backstory um i would give it a shot i wish i sorry i don't have any uh anything to really say about his writing style or whatever um but you know one thing totally for sure neil pert is probably a nice guy and good writer was god rest his soul what are you pass away yeah

Robin: he's been long gone oh that's i didn't know that okay yeah no that's all right that's all right that's why i'm kind of being i'm trying to be as careful with my words as possible you know what i'm saying like when i was growing up one of the things that inspired me to become a drummer was neil pert and after i was 15 i learned about things like fishbone oh siri let's let's take a hard turn here and just go that way now the thing that never changed was the gratitude that some of our favorite bands will give rush that's cool but i will say that the people i'm trying to avoid having a conversation with are the ones that are still writing it so hard like this is the thing that i i remember like i've got my bald head and my go-to this is what i have to work with i'm gonna ride this out it's all i've got left like there are people like that musically who it's like they don't know about steve gadd or about vinnie caliuta or about dennis chambers or about these amazing musicians that are out there they just are like i've found a thing and i'm holding on to it for dear life please don't let any other new information get in the thing is that these other people are grateful to drummers like that because they inspire people to get into music i've read neil pert's work i've enjoyed it very much but i don't know if it's reflective of the same situation among writers i don't know i'm going

Brian: to go ahead and admit i have not read either one of these i'm interested in reading them now ghost writer is like you said it it's a depressing topic and what got me interested is i read an article once where it mentioned you know neil pert and like they're in milwaukee or something and it's december like a friend he hired a friend of his that traveled around with them and that guy's job was to keep the bmws ready to go at any time and then they get done in one city they get on the bikes and they ride to the next city that sounds awesome both like that just sounded like an awesome gig for that guy and it also sounded like an awesome thing to do not have to deal with a tour bus you saying that

Robin: actually rules the opinion because you know it could be that they're jumping on the slab heading to the next town or whatever but i know in the book for a fact that there are moments when they're hitting some roads that they didn't expect seeing things they didn't expect to see and that matters

Brian: a lot yeah and just a minute you know like like you and i are all of us you know we ride to decompress to get in touch with reality and not the unreality of what we have to do to make money and you know whore ourselves out and it's it was interesting me to find out that a guy who lives the dream for a living still needs that escape and still needs to get back to that you know that was interesting and he's got the resources to just hire a dude which i thought

Robin: was freaking great yeah rock star rock star noise anders did did you read the book anders no i never read it and i i did read that one and it's exactly as heavy as you would expect the road show one i have not and as soon as i get through about the stack i'm into right now right now i'm reading a racing in the rain i'm gonna have to put that on let's check that one out because you say that one's more obscure very good okay this is where i'm handing the steering wheel and the gear shift to anders you're gonna run a podcast man this is great fucking motorcycles steering wheels here

Brian: wait wait what what we're i'm handing him the hell cycle podcast man well i mean you've seen

Robin: some weird shit on a motorcycle right you ever see the guy that's got the cruiser right for our anecdotal moment oh my okay field test anything that you're like i'm not even sure if i want to do this on my podcast if you want to field test it right here is the no man's land where you're welcome to do whatever you want and i hereby attribute everything that's about to happen for i don't know however many minutes this is not tro property it is the idea of one mr anders collison who i'm i hope i haven't offended yet but i'm gonna drink more anyhow no i am

Anders: uh i'm a child of the 90s i'm pretty unoffendable i don't know that's that comes with a bunch of clauses and uh all that but which we won't get into um sign this contract please i'm driving now what am i supposed to am i supposed to uh like a like a dry run of fucking motorcycles or yeah i am literally handing you the keys to

Robin: the ignition and if there's anything you'd like to discuss i that's really the truth of it the easiest way is what would you like to talk about for a moment what what has inspired you right now

Brian: hit us with a free sample of fucking motorcycles hell yeah boy that's a really great question

Anders: on the floor here i do actually have oh i've done like three episodes that i've edited and that are in the can so to speak they take fucking forever to do as you well know it gets easier and i haven't done this yet um but one of the one of the topics i had you know these topics are supposed to be slightly offensive um and funny and kind of disarming um you know it's really more about moto culture than it is like inside baseball you know i mean it's it's really not about talking about like oh the rise of the 270 degree crank uh you know like uh versus you hear that brian in line fours and you know i mean really most of it is just kind of like um skewering but then also celebrating things that that we like um in in my job uh there's a lot of talk about ai and embracing ai tools um and ai is fine and great listen there's a lot of really fucking boring writing out there that honestly should be done by a robot um a lot of what i do you really shouldn't bother a human with that listen i like getting paid to write shit uh boring shit but if you can somehow automate it and then just have somebody at the controls um that's awesome uh but for like what we do here for motorcycles things that we love ai i don't know so i had one uh thing that i was going to do with a guest and that was uh human versus ai motorcycle reviews i did this with uh zach bowman who edits he's the head editor for utv driver which is you know a little four-wheelers polaris's side by sides but he comes from he was actually one of the first people that got me into motorcyclist because he worked at motorcyclist um he's been at road and track he's been at a bunch of places just really a great guy has been a friend to me uh everything um and so i was going to do this thing where i i did human versus ai so i i typed in hey what's a

Robin: oh where is it here it is for us you can do this here right now oh yeah i've got a subscription to chat gpt the for the api system oh cool okay ask them if the the 1125 cr is a good motorcycle and see what it says well okay so here are our options do you want gemini or chat gpt4

Anders: uh i've been using chat gpt4 but uh listen do as choice would you okay so let's get this right

Robin: how much creativity on a level one out of zero to two zero to two create great i i think we're going for one point i'm going to do a 1.5 okay it'll start to hallucinate that's the thing it starts to hallucinate and that is an actual term okay okay so top p frequency penalty presence

Anders: penalty okay is the uh buell 1125 cr a good motors see so we're gonna do like it's like uh was it wasn't casey jones it was uh was the other one john henry the man versus machine the man versus

Robin: the steam shovel i've ramped it up to 1.75 okay this is just shy of this thing's gonna go haywire and start talking about like blenders at some point in the response okay here we go cool boom submit okay going like oh it's hallucinating it's hard hallucinating so let's just let's just shut that down real quick unless you want to read the hallucination i can try you try i can probably beat the hallucination so you know i mean my college years were pretty exciting so oh it's it's in chinese so hold on uh at 1.75 on a scale of minus one to two okay the perception of what constitutes a good or bad motorcycle may vary significantly from person to person because it berga's screen in may is off nerve condition okay that's too much we're done that's that is a hallucination we're gonna go for level one now okay you're modulating the crates i'm modulating its freedom to to source its own response here we go submit okay that's that's better i'll start reading now here the buell 1125 cr is considered a decent motorcycle with specific pros and cons pros decent it is known for its powerful rotax helicon engine which provides a strong performance to its unique design and appearance make it stand out among other motorcycles am i giving it enough jazz flair with the voice here jazz hands oh yeah three it has advanced technology features for its time like fuel in the frame and oil in the swing arm cons some riders find its aggressive sporty riding position uncomfortable for long rides two its looks can be polarizing some people love them others not so much three maintenance can be difficult since buell stopped producing motorcycles in 2009 hence getting parts could be a hassle in conclusion whether the buell 1125 cr is a quote good motorcycle largely depends on individual preferences and what you are looking for in a bike it would be advisable to test ride it before purchase if considering this model see right there

Anders: i'm gonna issue with every single one of those conclusions right there now the difficulty of sourcing parts since buell is not in business anymore that's a challenge that's fun like that's that's not a negative so i mean right there the ai is clearly incorrect as far as the polarizing looks i would have to say that that's also pretty incorrect i think it's pretty clear it's a consensus that it's among the most beautiful motorcycles ever designed so again right there oh there we go i can see it some riders find it aggressive aggressive sporty riding position uncomfortable for long rides i think that's harley riders i

Robin: think that's harley riders talking about a harley built bike you know it's appeal during the harley

Anders: years right so yeah the cons i mean sure if you're fat lazy and out of shape i guess uh which can be polarizing we've already touched on that um this whiskey needs a straw i really i mean the height of i mean george brought if he was still alive would have probably designed the buell 1125 cr in my opinion uh yeah no this is just clearly incorrect uh the rotex helicon engine yeah that's strong performance this is honestly this is just boilerplate stuff uh so i think clearly here the human motorcycle reviewer has triumphed over the uh the ai motorcycle review so my job

Robin: is safe or so let's do you see what i'm doing now i'm going to raise this up to 1.33 so this is the rule of thirds okay let's see what she does let's see how she goes having access to this api has been exciting to say the least because of all the stupidity the bad decisions i can make

Anders: from it let's see if it begins to lose rather i powered uh praise for being rather high powered with a rated output of a puck yeah i wish mine had 146 horses it might have 130 by now there it is

Robin: keep going you see this yeah and it took that little amount to get an opinion out of it to cause it to hallucinate man that is that is wild does that not creep you out and it's still going it's not done we're down on we're down on uh pat's largest mind spiring yeah if you mess with ai and just give it a little bit too much self-control this is what you get my favorite line so far is in essence the specific attributes and varietal distinctions it possesses make it makes it loved by some writers most global ped competence electronic engineers owed bitter still others become amicable selectively discerned styles within broken unoriented displacing what is sayicism well you can't really argue with it 32 that's cesium 32 polonium motorola disparity time once i see the word disparity i start to get scared i start to feel bad for the machine

Anders: so in conclusion uh human motorcycle reviewer still the best uh still defeating ai so far easily yeah

Robin: man okay this has been way too much fun and there's probably way too much of me in this episode it's probably going to be another game of me editing myself out which i do regularly if you haven't read any of my message to you in facebook there's like you know a dissertation

Anders: in every one of them don't think twice man like you know i i try to be short like i i'm in the ad world so in my head i have an egg timer like whenever i start talking i'm like i've got about 15 seconds and then i'm gonna start losing people um yeah being verbose is a good thing and i think you're a great you're a great host and i think that you've got a lot of story listen

Robin: you know i don't have editing that shit out that's getting edited right out of this episode

Anders: i wish i like my the sound of my voice makes me wish for deafness

Robin: your voice lovely and mellifluous and you are mistaken my friend i am a projecting voice and nobody needs any more man cow in the morning anywhere you really do have a radio voice though

Anders: honestly like some people have that voice you hear that voice and you're like oh that guy says because that guy's voice is like that he sounds authoritative my voice is like this weird like what is rot is there like interference i keep hearing this noise and that's that's

Robin: here's the secret i'm always concerned that most of what i'm saying is skewed ill-informed and not well thought out so i try to be as very careful and clear as possible so i can have brilliant people such as yourself and my co-host brian if i can just get the thought out and then get the response i'm doing fine i'm gonna get something out of it i'm gonna become a better person for it probably not in the voice though i'm probably not gonna get a better voice than this annoying noise that i'm dealing with here anders if you would please tell us a quick brief stint about your podcast on the way out and we'll settle this thing down basically and i don't want

Anders: to oversell this um it's going to be kind of like 10 superbowls where all the teams win um there's really kind of like you know how there's jesus christ and there's like bc and 80 like before and after this podcast again i don't want to oversell it it's going to kind of be one of those moments in history uh where really you'll never think about motorcycling in the same way after you listen to it but you be the judge uh when it comes out you know you can decide for yourself if it's groundbreaking or merely epic fucking motorcycles i'm also expecting uh wild like lucrative amounts of money to come in uh so you're so ridiculous money yeah yeah yeah there's carlson

Robin: thank you so much for being here man thanks for having me on man