Robin: A previous listener question and discussion has been answered from the Dylan Code episode. One of our regular listeners and questionnaire people, Kevin Butler, did in fact put money down on the Tracer. Congratulations, Kevin. He threw down the scratch on a Tracer. He's planning on joining us for the Wisco Disco Tour on the docket. Other announcements, I just added Lake Michigan's Circle Tour as a two helmet. Tour around the lake for people who have never toured and want to get their wings with like, they want to get familiar with what it's like to go on a real motorcycle trip for five days. Sweet. Check out the site, man. How are you doing? How are you?

Brian: I'm good, man. I am, uh, recovered. Uh, I was, uh, at a business trip to Las Vegas for a conference from Sunday through Wednesday. So four days of travel. And dealing with Las Vegas bullshit. I just don't like the place

Robin: for the sake of saving face. Definitely because of motorcycle business. Cause it's a motorcycle podcast. It was definitely pure motorcycle business because we're motorcycle business people.

Brian: Yeah. Has to do with. The business I have to do to afford all those damn motorcycle tires. I keep burning it up. There's just nothing for the likes of us in Las Vegas. There's nothing there. The one thing I think would be kind of cool though, is like to rent something ridiculous, like one of those slingshots or a Lamborghini or something and go hoon around in the mountains. But cause you can do that in Vegas. You can make that happen. Yeah. You see people in like rental Ferraris going up and down and, you know, being idiots and

Robin: yard of margarita in hand in the passenger seat. It's Vegas. That's what it's there for. The woo girls.

Brian: Yeah. It's, it's just a ridiculous place. And every time I go there, I'm like, man, I'm glad I'm back here in Indiana where things make some sense.

Robin: Feels so much better. Midwestern normalcy. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Something to be said for that. I mean, Nevada's got some beauty to it. Oh yeah. Just not necessarily there. I know there's a couple of circuits there as well. So there's one or two racetracks. I'm not looking it up right now. I'm just rolling dice on one or two and some beautiful mountain pass ranges waiting for anybody who wants to ride the area, Vegas. Hmm. Serves a different purpose.

All: Yeah.

Robin: Where the client, where the client's happy.

Brian: Clients are happy. The, the people to conference are great. I'm hoping I can make, make some more, make some more of that motorcycle money. From this, yeah, that's a good way to put it, but it's got to relate to motorcycles, but yeah, like around Vegas, you know, it's, it's desert, there's mountains around there. It's, it's pretty close to, you know, a lot of neat stuff in Arizona, California and stuff like that. Yeah, but it's just like, for some reason, people decided to make this weird fake Disneyland there and it's very odd. Never been comfortable. That's just me anyway. Do you want to talk about the Wisco disco a little?

Robin: I think we will talk about that at some point, to some extent. All right. First, I have my own listener question because I'm getting ready for that big trip that we talked about in the last episode of planning between here and California, I did get some really great updates to that map from. Uh, one of our mutual friends, Mr. D Graves, Daniel himself, who saw my post on Facebook and said, Hey man, you know what you're missing out on you do this and there's no point to doing that as boring, but if you do this and it's barely a couple more extra miles, you gotta make sure you see, I think it was 36, but if you look in the LA area, if you look at Los Angeles, yeah, there's some beautiful country roads north of it that I'm going to use to bridge the connection up to Monterey. And. And grateful for that. It was very kind of him to reach out about it. So the route's been better. Uh, you know, this is a big trip. I will be hitting a hundred thousand this trip and that means maintenance. So I'm going through some motions. First off, I had a discussion over the campfire about doing the coolant. I may have changed the coolant on this bike one time.

Brian: Then I think it's time. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. All right. All right. I mean, because I'm, the reason I'm like was skeptical about initially is I, it hasn't had any color change, so it's still a pristine, either a luminescent pink or opulent blue. There's no sign of it graying and I'm used to seeing coolant that is supposed to color change over time as it absorbs anything that's not coolant. And it also says, you know, add water. It's like, all I've done is add water to it. I'm seeking your advice, great counsel that is Brian, about should I go ahead and dump it, flush it, spray it out with the air hose? Just,

Brian: I usually don't get caught up in flushing it as long as it's been changed on schedule. But yeah, the, the changes that coolant goes through, uh, I'm not going to get into the, we're not going to get into a ion change or anything here, but the changes that coolant goes through, like if it changes color, you let it go way too long. You need to flush it. You need to do pay special attention. Uh, if you just change it every couple of years, it's more of a time thing. Yeah. It's supposed to last five years. I usually change it. I usually change it. I have to change it on most bikes. When I do a valve check. So on a lot of bikes, not most, but on a lot of bikes, you have to, you have to get the radiator out of the way to even get there to do a valve check. So I ended up changing it every year, every year, maybe every two years. Um, yeah, if you change it at least every five years, you should not see any color change and you should be able to just dump out what's in there. Fill it up with the same stuff again and go on. But yeah, it is important to, to change that every so often. Uh, the second thing people do is they get the idea that motorcycles are made out of like a mysterious Ming metal and exotic unicorn tears and, you know, to a large extent, antifreeze is just antifreeze, you know, you can use the same stuff, you don't have to go to BMW to buy the special juice. Oh, I won't. Yeah. Although, uh, one thing about at least sticking with the same stuff. So if you bought it new and you use BMW coolant last time, then it's probably worthwhile to just go buy BMW coolant the second time, because

Robin: I was going to say, let me hear the sound of my own voice on this one. Residual compatibility.

Brian: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, just get some of what you had in it and then you can just dump it and replace it and it'll be, it'll be fine. On other bikes, yeah, I've done stuff like I've gone to get the Suzuki coolant before. On my bike, I flushed it out because I had no idea what's in there. If it was Yamaha or Watt, probably the original. Uh, I just, I use like the universal Prestone stuff because it's silicate and borate free. You know, it's compatible with anything.

Robin: Well,

Brian: so does old coolant contaminate new coolant? The amount that's left in the engine and most engines, not really.

Robin: Okay. Is that like the blending won't cause a chain reaction that now all of the new coolant becomes as horrible as the old coolant and you know, it's not like that. It's more just like, let the old stay. No big

Brian: deal. It's like oil, you know, on, on, especially on some, some engines, there's a, there's like a, there may be half a quart of oil in there. And it's no big deal. You know, it's. Whatever the point is, you're diluting, uh, the additives and the coolant kind of absorb kind of the bad stuff that happens as it's racing around and all this metal, you know, there's all this aluminum and stuff. And so the additives absorb all that as time goes on. So you, you want to get it out of there. So it's mileage, but it's also time based. So if a bike sits for two years. You know, or four years or five or whatever, you still have to dump the coolant because it's still, uh, absorbing some of the bad stuff that could come from the reactions.

Robin: So you're given that I'm at a hundred thousand miles for all the listeners out there. They're like, Robin, what the hell are you doing? I've gotten pretty good at my maintenance schedule. You know, I've got a good set of heck. I even developed TROs members area, choose your own adventure in maintenance. You know, keep tracking your own stuff based on what your manuals provide. You can enter in. It'll tell you when to do what nice, but for a coolant. Okay. What I have is the coolant IA and IA stands for inspect or adjust, right? So I inspect it and I'm like, coolant look like coolant and then I walk away. So clearly I just learned a thing and we'll make sure that, uh, a little bit more conscientious, it says every 6, 000 miles to inspect and adjust. I didn't put in the notes anything about, well, at a hundred thousand miles. Maybe change it. Yeah. Get your act together, Dean. All right.

Brian: Yeah. The other thing I'll mention is, uh, make sure you either buy it pre mixed or it's mixed 50 50. Oh yeah. There's some people that get the idea that more is always better. And it's like, no, the, the optimal cooling is with the right 50 50 mix. Sometimes you buy it pre mixed from BMW for. 98 a quart or whatever. I don't know.

Robin: That's where I was going to argue with you next is I'm not going to do that. I will not blend in the BMW branding. I won't go through the motions to order BMW anything unless I have to, because I'm gonna have to wait for it. Whereas I look at the ingredients and I look at the boards and discussions in the forums and it comes down to Pentafrost NF nitrate slash phosphate free. That's all it has to be.

Brian: Yeah, you can get that in Napa and I think it's probably the same as BMW uses in the cars or whatever. So I just need to make sure it's the right mix. Yeah, people get the idea there's something exotic in motorcycle engines and it's like, no, it's just a car engine, just smaller and different. It's not made from anything different.

Robin: The 50 50 thing has me a little bit worried though, because I don't know, I'll have to look it up in the manual. I'm not sure what amount of what should go to what. I know we're talking about distilled water.

Brian: Yeah, it'll, it'll stay on the bottle. A lot of them nowadays are just, it's pre mixed. So you don't have to deal with it. If it's not pre mixed and then yeah, grab a, grab a gallon of distilled water for 50 cents. Um, the reality is the tap water in most places won't cause any problems, but distilled is 50 cents. Come on people.

Robin: Yeah. Just get the dang gallon, pitch the rest in the dirt on your plants, whatever you want. Uh, that is good to know. So I will definitely, what, what would you suggest? I'm going to update my records here. Here. The reason for the question is it's been a hundred thousand miles. I'm supposed to inspect and adjust every 6, 000 miles. I'll typically make anywhere between eight and 15, 000 miles per year. What is an appropriate note to say? Like, look, man, if you got 10, 000 or 5, 000 or six, what, when should I definitely be like, dude, replace that.

Brian: I don't have any idea what the BMW manual tells you, but the absolute limit I would go is five years.

Robin: Okay. Not, not necessarily miles, but years.

Brian: Yeah. I would, I, like I said, I end up changing it about every two years, uh, because a lot of times because of other work and something like that. But yeah, I generally change it on motorcycles every two years. Uh, in cars, I always go five years.

Robin: I've updated my notes. All right. Definitely replace every two to five years, parentheses per Brian Ringer.

Brian: Now, whatever the BMW manual tells you. Hey, whatever.

Robin: I will, I will check that.

Brian: Something like that. And you won't go too far wrong.

Robin: Well, we have another listener question from another guy named, well, Robin Dean that comes down to my valves. You'll love this. All right. So my bike's never seen a dealership. I've done all the valve checks myself. And the other day I did a valve check. Right side is good. Right side is, uh, you know, I got go no go's on the feeler gauges. Honestly, I've got way too many feeler gauge sets. I've got two feeler gauge sets and then two sets of go no go feeler gauge sets, because you know, multiple cylinders make life easier.

All: Sure.

Robin: But living in a travel trailer, I ended up handing two sets off to my neighbor and just be like, take these, just get this out of here. It's more space. I don't need it. And filtering through them is like shuffling through multiple decks of cards. I am not a Vegas dealer.

Brian: Nice callback. Well done.

Robin: I can't shuffle 50 decks at the same time and then deal everything out so perfectly, and I don't look good in that corset, but right side's good. Right side is right on spec. Uh, left side, the exhaust valves are just fine. The intake valves tolerance is between 0. 1 millimeters. And 0. 17 millimeters, 0. 1 to 0. 13 slips through like a knife through warm butter. 0. 15 is where we get the scotch tape effect, which is what you're kind of going for. Everybody who's listening has never done valves before. If you have shim over bucket that are easy to deal with, if it feels like you're kind of peeling tape away, but it still fits through, you're doing good. It's highly doubtful that the next level is going to go. Here's the problem. I don't have a 0. 16. The next size I have. Is 0. 178 so I've got a 0. 15 that is feeling a little bit more sticky, a little bit more resistant feels like, okay, I would bet that 0. 16 is not going to go or a definitely 0. 17 is not going to go, but I can't check for sure. So I kind of went with the rule that the gap being too big is not necessarily a detrimental thing. If detrimental is the right word. Uh, basically what I'm asking you is can you put my mind at ease with this? Cause I predict I'm in spec or within spec, but if 0. 178 is the only thing I have to work with and I know it did not go through, what kind of a problem is, am I looking at here?

Brian: So 0. 15 went in with some resistance, so I think you're just fine. So there, but there are two things here. Let's back up. One problem is, um, you need a set of metric gauges. It sounds like you have a set of inch gauges that have conversions on them. Yes. Uh, you can get them. They're a little hard to find, but Hey, you know, you got the interwebs, you know, you got the Google orator.

Robin: That's been a problem. Honestly, I was thinking how great it would be if TRO could create for next to nothing. An order form that's pre populated for custom toolkits for people's bikes. It'd be a great form to have them fill out. We source these things, but in the case of what you're talking about, I'd very much like to have a bike specific set of feeler gauges. And honestly, I couldn't find go no go's in easy access, quick order, basically prime is what I'm saying. I couldn't find them on prime.

Brian: So, You can, you can get gauges that are made in metric, but I have not found any that are not crapped up with inch conversions. Like I do have a couple sets of feeler gauges that are in metric. And so they'll start at like 0. 03 millimeter is like hair, you know, it's really, but anyway, they'll, they'll usually go from 0. 04 millimeters up from there. Uh, and a lot of most, but all the ones I found, not most, all the ones I found have like inch conversions on them. You have to just learn to ignore. Yes. From what I'm guessing, because you said something that's got like 0. 178 is your next one. It sounds like you've got inch gauges that have conversions on them and that drives me batty.

Robin: Well, once I knew, I knew the best part was I had multiple sets, so they were all different types. Nice. So sometimes the millimeters would be the right, it's like, okay, wait, wait, which one am I looking at? I know it well enough that I got through it. I mean, you're right, but also my go no go's the fact that it went 0. 15, no 0. 16, and then 0. 178. Like you're saying, I'm probably in the safe zone, you think? Let's start with that.

Brian: Yeah, the first part was, yeah, it'd be great to have a set of metric feeler gauges, you know, as long as you're accurate with your work, it really doesn't matter. You could work in barley, corns, inches, metric, whatever. It doesn't matter. You just have to be consistent and understand, you know, the distance has to be this and that. So the second part of the question is. On every engine that I'm aware of, the valve clearances tend to close up over time, and so it's better to be on the high, like, like, what'd you say? Point one zero to 0.15 is or? Or the 0.17 is, is okay. Especially with the shim system. Basically anything that's in the top half of the clearance, I would be comfortable just leaving that alone. So if you're like 0.14, 0.15, 0.16 or better, you know, 0.15 are better. I think you're going to be fine, uh, because over time they'll tend to get smaller. The main reason the valve clearances tend to get smaller is that the wear that reduces that clearance is, is around the, okay, so there's the face of the valve that's, you know, it's facing the piston. And then there's the ring around the back of the valve face that, uh, contacts the valve seat that is pressed into the cylinder head. Door open, door close. So when the door slams shut, the door I mean, it's, it's tiny, tiny, tiny, like molecule at a time, but it does. That's where the wear happens is on that face that contacts the valve seat. And so over time it tends to. move the valve a little further up in the head and your valve clearance reduces. And again, it's a very, very slow process, especially in modern engines. They, they move very little, older engines tend to have a little more of that. So anyway, as long as you're in that upper half, I would leave it alone. Uh, and it'd be fine. When I'm doing a shim valve clearances, like I take extra time because it's my bike and I got all day. Some people are like, well, if it's point, if it's at 0. 10, that's still in spec. I'm going to leave it alone. It's like, I'm going to go ahead and change that shim because I want it to be in that top half as close as I can get. And yeah, intake and exhaust behave the same. They both tend to reduce over time. But like on old bikes, we're running into issues where if they're old bikes and are high mileage, it's harder to get the smaller shims. There's people out there grinding them. And anyway, it's a big, big mess.

Robin: I'll make you some. I got some corkboard right over here. I got you covered. Don't worry. You know that this topic must have been done to death. I think, you know, big shout out to one of my favorite childhood shows growing up on, uh, was Car Talk. You know they talked about that. I'm glad to be discussing it with you, so I just know that I'm good to go for this thing. Ha ha ha ha! If we're on the high side of tolerance, the valve is opening less.

Brian: Yeah. By, by a very tiny amount. Yes. It does open the valve like that tiny, tiny, you know, you know, one, one hundredth of a millimeter. No

Robin: danger of a lean condition. You're in spec.

Brian: Yeah. The danger of being out of spec, which would be like a, a very low clearance or zero clearance. The danger is. The whole point is to cool the valve. The valve makes contact with that metal valve seat. And in that brief instant that it's there, it transfers heat into the cylinder head, which goes into the coolant you just changed all back up. And so it pulls the heat out of the valve. Uh, and so that's why you had to have a certain amount of valve clearance to make sure it seats firmly and to make sure it sits there long enough. And again, these are tiny fractions of a second. You know, so basically it's, it comes, it slams shut, the door slams shut and the heat and some of the heat comes out of that valve and goes into the cylinder head where it can go away before it opens again. And so that is the function of valve clearance is to ensure that you have adequate heat transfer and you have adequate sealing.

Robin: I'm going to be the listener right now and say that's news to me. It makes total sense that those things, even the motion, the spinning motion of the air is enough to aid in that heat transfer. That's uh, new information. That I will embrace my friend. Mind blown. So I'm good for California is what you're saying. Yeah. Grip it, rip it, dude. What do you feel like doing next? By the way, it's great to see you just, uh, just the two of us, right? No pressure,

Brian: no, no incredibly famous person to feel, uh, we're not worthy. It'll happen again. Speaking of which. Uh, it's like, Hey, we've had some, I don't know how the hell you get ahold of these people even, but we've had some great interviews that turned into like life experiences that I'll treasure. And, uh, it's been amazing. I kind of wanted to just get your thoughts. On who are some of the people that we want to talk to? I mean, not like people we know personally. There are a few of those, but that have interesting stories to tell, but who are some of the people we still want to talk to that are out there and kind of famous and it would be a good hangout.

Robin: I think it'd be great to have relaxed, loose discussion with Keanu Reeves. Oh,

Brian: yeah. Do not talk about movies at all. To talk about motorcycles, purely bikes, which is, it's kind of what we do.

Robin: One of his bikes, he's clearly very happy about it. Has like a modern sport handlebar position with forward controls,

Brian: arch motorcycle, I think

Robin: either arc or arch. The point is that, uh, there's that subtle condescending sarcasm that I see where it's like, okay, that's, is it a sport bike up top and a cruiser down? Because. I've never seen how that can really work, but when he rides it, the smile is too big to ignore. So I think it'd be fun to talk to him about it and talk about touring, really hardcore touring. I would love to narrow the perspective of Jay Leno to strictly bikes. I've watched Leno's Garage where he will side wind a topic of it more exacting science about a bike. And I can tell he knows it, but he skips over it to get to the point of something. And then. We're a boring enough podcast that if he wanted to pick any one obscurity, like a rotary engine, something he's, you know, he's got one somewhere. Oh, I know. Yeah. Dive head first into it and really go cylinder by cylinder or spark plug by spark plug and explain the timing. I like the deep science stuff. I really do like the deep science stuff. We don't get a lot of it because I'm too busy, like filling awkward spaces and keeping things light. You know, most of the guests we've gotten so far, I walk up to them. I'm like, hi, I'm Robin Dean. Does this smell like chloroform? Is that,

Brian: that's how you do it. That's how

Robin: I'll probably edit that out. That would be amazing. I don't know if I, you know, that's a pretty tall reach. This would be an interesting one is to have. The owner and operator of analog motorcycle. He does custom bike builds. And if you look him up, he did an amazing, it all started with this beautiful early to mid twenties, Indian motorcycle engine. Oh, okay. He turned it into this gorgeous, modern, fully fared or half fared sport bike. And it was just. Awesome. And it won like all the prizes across it was traveling with the motorcycle shows and young guy with a lot of heart and a lot of creativity and play. I can't afford them. I would love to hand him a hundred thousand miles on my bike and be like, do whatever you want and get it back to me. Keep it sexy. Look up analog motorcycles. Yeah. You're in for real treat. I'd love to have him back on board. Steven, Christina. I'll put that one in there. Yeah, that would be fantastic. This is, this one's important to me and I'm doing my best to make it happen. She's just downright popular and she's just plain old busy. Cause she's cool. I would like to get Jenya Kronilova on the show just to hang out. She is the lovely, amazing person who taught me how to ride a motorcycle. And Ms. Maggie Dean as well. I think it'd be a great fun to have her on board. She's just good company. A lot of fun to be around. And, uh, I've chased around the track once or twice, uh, now that I've become who I am and obsessed as it were, you know,

Brian: nice, very cool. What about you? There, there are some like YouTubers and people doing content, you know, as a noun influencing. That influencing or whatever they're doing out there. Anyway, there's, there's some of those I think would be really cool to talk to. Um, doodle on a motorcycle is her YouTube channel. Her name is Carolyn. Yeah. Or you can go to doodle on a motorcycle. com. She's doing a lot of really interesting content and I think some kind of significant content too. She does this. She's done this thing a few times where she's like, I can't do something or I need to learn this and she'll do. And she'll. Like she couldn't pick up her motorcycle. So instead of like, well, gosh, I guess I need a smaller bike. She's like, no. So she spent like six months working out and getting stronger and practicing picking up motorcycles. Until she could do it without a problem. And there's also a lot of technique to that too. And things like practicing 30, 000 slow turns, stuff like that, you know, it gets clicks, I get that, but it's also like, yeah, if you want to be good at something, you practice, you practice and she takes it to an extreme and shows you the results. That's kind of cool. Yeah. And she's done some really unique stuff. You know, that she did a trip to Sturgis with, um, a bunch of Native American women, uh, and they stopped at significant sites and talked about that history and all that stuff. And she kind of accidentally uncovered or accidentally ended up talking about her own history of her own, her own heritage that has a similar history. It's been, it was really interesting. Cool. Another one is a friend of hers. Uh, named Amanda, I think is her name and, and, and the YouTube channels as the magpie flies. That's also kind of her, her username is blind thistle. You know, these, these kids now have a different name for everything they do. She's yeah, she's done a lot of really interesting skills stuff. And she's been really cool about talking, you know, very openly about some of the struggles, some of the triumphs and stuff like that. It's been amazing. You know,

Robin: you know, the biggest trick to bringing people in like this is to provide them with a fresh Opportunity for them to speak about something that they've been wanting to get out. Nobody's bothered to make it happen. So, you know, like I see that you have itchy boots on there. We'll go from the ground up here for a second. Itchy boots. I've reached out to itchy boots and if you can get itchy boots on here, you win. You win, that's it. Like she was totally kind, but it was like the fastest, kindest, hell no, I'm busy I've ever read. It was just like, yeah, yeah, no, bye. You know, like, thank you. No, it was, I totally, she's ridiculously

Brian: famous. Yeah,

Robin: it was, yeah. It's all, you know, but it's like, what do we have to offer? That is, you know, it's like, that was the thing with, uh, for example, with Buell. I wanted to really ask questions that were, you know, Is some, somebody else, Oh, wow. You sure were brave for asking that now, man. That's a question. That's real questions that he ought to be able to answer and probably wants to. And he did, you know, so that's important. I mean, yeah, that was, yeah, that was

Brian: a great interview. You know, if someone's like famous for something else, just hanging out and talking about motorcycles is, is really the interview we did with, with, uh, Melissa Holbrook Pearson, Like we talked about the books and we talked about a lot of those ideas and, and so forth. But I mean, we got in some heavy philosophy there and it was really fun. I, well, I don't know, fun. It was enjoyable.

Robin: It gave me a new arsenal of mindset to consider at every turn. Yeah. Okay. Wait, I, it's allowed, I'm allowed to go into this territory and at least let the fog of it rest on my head again for a moment before I returned to, okay, take the corner. Do it. It's invigorating and a very, very good light. You got a lot here. These are beautiful. I'm curious about dork in the road.

Brian: He's just some guy who makes goofy motorcycle content. And I don't know, I think we, I think we get along. Yeah. And he's got it, you know, he's got a growing YouTube channel. He's really, he's funny. He's, he's not one of those guys who's like arrogant, like here's how you should do everything, you know, that kind of thing. He's just really enjoyable to talk to. I think, uh, Jocelyn snow. She's an incredible adventure rider, does incredible things on these gigantic BMWs. Um, she runs a training school. You'll find videos on some of these other channels. They go to Jocelyn Snow's school. And, you know, she's running around yelling at him, you know, how to do this and how to do that has some really interesting has some really interesting, uh, teaching techniques and stuff like that. Really amazing person, Brittany Morrow's another 1 and I don't know if she's still out there doing content or anything. Uh, I haven't shared her website's not really active or anything. I haven't reached out. I know I need to years ago, she was in an accident and she wasn't wearing proper gear and she, it really messed up her skin. Um, like she got torn up pretty bad. So anyway, her, she made it her mission life to advocate for wearing proper motorcycle gear, you know, wear your helmet.

Robin: There is literally an article here on our site. This is how to avoid skinning yourself alive. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. She skinned herself alive. Okay. Wow. I don't even want to. Do do do do do do do singing a song to myself.

Brian: Yeah. So she's, she became a big advocate for wearing proper gear, you know, making gear, cool stuff like that. Uh, so I'd be, I think she'd be really interesting to talk to. Um, and also just in general, like people who are deeply involved in the motorcycle industry, like, like we came, we came up with some interesting things to talk with Eric Buell about, for example, some, I, kind of some things I didn't know about, and I think it'd be cool to talk to somebody who works for motorcycle companies. Yeah. Yeah. People who work with or make or sell the stuff we need, you know, somebody from Twisted Throttle, RevZilla, Motorcycle Gear.

Robin: I can probably pull some triggers on that one. I'll tell you what, I'm going to flip it on you then. I also like the reason I want to bring somebody like Steven Cristina in. He put some thoughts in my head that have stuck with me for years about how the world needs more of us. Makers. Yeah. Makers. This is huge. And it really resonated with me. It's what inspired me to take the welding class, but getting people like that on who can solve problems, you know, some of these things, people are charging lavish sums because of the cost of materials. The evil side of it is because they know they can, they can get what you're worth out of you for maybe even the smallest, most minute thing. But if we all learn to take better care, I think we're actually making this word a little bit better because they're not going to suffer any losses from it. And we're going to know how to do things that we couldn't do before. I really want to become a better, a better welder. I really want to be able to resolve matters. I want to have the gumption and the tools to drill into my engine. I can't do that. I want that guy on the show.

Brian: Yeah, it's like on your cylinder head, we've solved the problem, but not, you know, what we had, but it wasn't, uh, it wasn't centered. It wasn't centered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The world needs more makers and the world needs more fixers. Yeah. Like I'm more of a, I'm a fixer. I'm not much of a maker, you know, and I'm certainly not a cleaner. Good Lord. Hip hop album,

Robin: Prince, Paul and the Automator, I'm, I'm the problem solver. I got the brand new revolver.

Brian: Just don't start beatboxing, whatever you do. It would,

Robin: it would go all the way back to like fat boys era. And that's nobody needs that. And this microphone doesn't need that mess. Got no spit on it. So do we want to go on to segment two? Yeah. What is segment two? What do you want to do? The joy of crap. That is golden.

Brian: Yeah. There's, there's just a pile of poop emojis here. The joy of crap. And the topic is what's the crappiest bike you own? Uh, why did you buy it? Why did you love it? What did you do with it? And things like that, because like, especially with, uh, vintage bikes or weird bikes, there's this kind of concept of a bike that's flawed. But the flaws are somehow endearing. Like it's not perfect. You know, it's janky in some way, but it makes, it just makes it lovable. Like a, like a dog with three legs, you know, you know, what's your personal experience with a crappy bike?

Robin: Answer a question with a question. Does it have to be a generally crappy from the manufacturer kind of thing? Or can it be a bike that it could be something great, but you never got around to getting it right?

Brian: Yeah. Either one. You know, in my case, I think the crappiest bike I ever owned was the first bike I ever owned. And I think a lot of people could say the same. It was a 1977 Suzuki GS 400. Uh, it was kickstart only had a drum front brake, had the wrong tires on it. I, the guy who owned it before me, like he did a beautiful paint job. Like it had gorgeous tough paint on the, uh, side covers and on the, on the tank. And he didn't, it's just like nothing else. Like he didn't do anything mechanical, but he made it look good. Had like a too skinny tire. You know, tire was too skinny up front. Cause that's what, that's what monkey down at the Harley shop had on hand. And then had like this really fat, way too fat tire on the back. Same reason. Hey monkey, I need a tire. All right, here you go. It's rubber. What do you want? It's rubber. It feels more like glass. Shut up. And, and like a lot of people, the reason that bike was great is it got me started and I learned a lot because it was crappy. You know, I've said before that it's really a good idea if you can possibly do it. If you're buying your first bike, buy something new or buy the newest you can possibly afford. Because that's what I do. You just don't need to deal with all the crap of a crappy bike when you don't know what you're doing yet. Like, I can ride around, I can ride a bike around a block and I can pinpoint all 10, 12 problems it has and know what to do about it. If somebody new to riding rides a piece of shit, uh, shit of a junk. Around the block, they have no idea what's normal and what's not. And I, you know, I've, I've seen people run into that and, you know, people have gotten hurt from that too. So, but yeah, the GS for it, like it had just enough power to be interesting. I could haul a passenger. We couldn't like get up a Hill real fast. The thing always started on the first kick. It had a lot going for it. I could write it to class. And you could get up at the time at Purdue, you could get a permit where you, and you could put your seat permit on the bike and you could park anywhere you could, you could slide in. So you could go into the parking garage and get in those little corners, or you could be on the street and there'd be little corners and so forth. Full on

Robin: motorized bicycle.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Put your motorized bicycle wherever you want. You can carry it in the building if you like, you have a harness.

Brian: Yeah, I just rode that damn thing everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. It wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't charge the battery, so I had to charge the battery every day. And if I went too far away from home, I would have trouble getting back. You know, it was just a, like now I know exactly what to do about all its problems. I kind of wish I had it back. Oh yeah. Uh, but back then it was just, yeah.

Robin: So that's CB 360 territory, man. Same idea. Bizarrely incompatible with all bikes around it in the same era. No cross referenced parts. No, just, Oh, it's just a different bore or it's a different, a taller cylinder. No, the frames I think were possibly different between the two. It's just a ridiculous mess. The CB 360 or so I've heard. And our previous guest. Has mastered the art of the CB 360 through his vintage racing and probably still wants to set every C3, I don't know. He'd probably want to burn them all the ground. It was just so much trouble for him. The posts in the articles he would write about, uh, you know, he had Stinky's garage, which is no more, which is a website. Yeah. He was a CB 360. I guess it'll do. Oh my God. And then aficionado over the course of like five years before like, okay, I guess it'll be enough of that. Uh, my turn. I'm going to go with, uh, opposite your comments about that bike, a great bike that I just was nowhere near ready to have, which would be the Honda CB 500. And it was a hulk of pissed. It was an awesome bike. I just added Jordan Liebman back to the list of people. I need to, he needs to be on the podcast next, if not Jenya, uh, Jordan Liebman, because he built my first bike for me. He had five, I think it was like five or six CB 500 Ts in a garage and compiled my first motorcycle for me. Proof of concept got on. I was like, I was like, well, I mean, so what can you tell me about, I didn't know power. I didn't know maintenance. I didn't know engines. I was like, well, what can you tell me about speed and all this? And he just super bands the bike down the, like he's working on it. He's wearing his coveralls and he just goes, yeah, it's a quick bite. And he thumbs on, hits the kickstart and just throttles out full gun on his, on his chest, on the bike, it just comes back on his chest, stops it, reverts it, we get back to work. This is my future. I'm like, I have no idea what just happened, but apparently I'm going to own this thing by handshake. That would be the, the worst bike I ever failed and the greatest bike I should have ever been good to, it was awesome and I blew it. It's one of those bikes where Honda got, I think the story goes, I've told it before, I think I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, they got disqualified. During a super bike, sort of vibe, whatever it was during a race, because there was no way that that was going to be a production bike. And then they made like millions of them or something. You know what I mean? Like they didn't believe that this bike could exist and then it did.

All: Yeah.

Robin: The, the version that you told though, I got to say, sorry, but my buddy, Wes G host has been on the show. I think, or his, his music certainly has. When I got my sake of 400, which was an awesome bike, that bike was great. So simple, easy access, perfect gateway. Uh, and you could ring it out to 12, 000 RPMs and not be upset about it for a twin. Give me a break. Well, West head. He was like, oh yeah, I have a similar bike. I have the Yamaha vision five 50. Which is like a borderline,

Brian: it's

Robin: an inline V, inline V twin, meaning like the cylinders are in line with the gas tank, a Hawk GT ish, fully fared, liquid cooled, uh, 550 cc's, I believe. Unobtainable parts that carburetor. No, it does not exist anywhere. It does. And it's like almost 90, almost a 90 degree motor, almost like a 90 degree. Is that right? No, no, no. Yeah. Like 90 degrees. Like the right, it's like a Vstrom engine ish kind of vibe going on. Right?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Vstroms are 90 degree engines.

Robin: Very close to that on what is meant to be like a sport profile. We got it running once and there's a backstory to how it got so hurt when you're young and dumb and the bikes we buy, that would be the worst bike. Cause it ended up in my garage for a year and a half and. No, there you go. That's a great freaking segment. I like that.

Brian: The joy of crap. Yeah, for me, it was the gateway drug, but yeah, I sold it. And I told the guy when I sold the GS 400, I told the guys like, look, it doesn't charge the battery. You know, I was dumb. I dumb at the time. I had no idea what to do about it. I told him, I said, it doesn't charge the battery. So you got a full charge on this battery. You got about 50 miles. And then the bike will stop running. You're going home. If you're riding, you better be going right home. So I told him you have a taillight warranty. When your taillight's out of sight, we're done. You know, I never want to see it again. Yeah, he actually, he actually ended up, I don't know how he got something fixed. Anyway, he ended up riding it back and forth 50 miles to work for a long time. Like every day he would ride back and forth to work at this and he would use it to save gas. And. We'll work for him for a long time. So

Robin: it sounds like you're getting into your endearing flaws. Do we want to keep this segment going?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: So the endearing flaws, I mean, that's a really cool thing. I remember that this isn't a flaw of the bike, but my Hawk GT, I could not figure out why it was getting a reverse backfire, like a carburetor backfire.

All: Okay.

Robin: Big shotgun. Boom. You know, I'll be riding the racetrack and I'll be like third gear. Oh, I'm coming up on turn one. And gingerbread mom, mom, mom. I had some gas and the huge, huge, angry boom from this little 650, I'd learned enough to know, okay, I'm going to go through this thing, try to sort it out. And then I got to the, the diaphragms of the carburetor. They looked just fine. I see this little itty bitty sliver of a slit at the top. And I, I text a picture to a friend who knows better than me. I was like, this could do it.

Brian: Womp womp.

Robin: Yeah, that could do it. Replaced. No problem. I kind of missed that bike. Not going to lie a little bit too small, but

Brian: yeah. And I think, I think endearing flaws, I'll use the example of, uh, I've got an 1883 Suzuki GS eight 50. It is heavy. It is large. It is an absolute hoot to ride that. Big, giant, flexible, wiggly thing. It's an absolute hoot to ride that thing really hard. Like Suzuki figured out ergonomics, they figured out geometry and they figured out handling, uh, several years before anybody else. Like Kawasaki always had, like in the seventies and eighties, Kawasaki made power and that was it. You know, it took him a long time to figure out handling, but Suzuki figured out handling in the, in the mid seventies before anybody else did long before anybody else did so that the GS eight 50 handles a lot better than it's a weight would, would, would tell you, I guess what I'm getting at is, you know, it's still, it's still a, you know, it's basically made a frame welded together with. Boogers out of water pipe. I mean, it's so when you get, when you, when you, when you're hauling the mail enough to make this thing. And you do, I've witnessed what this bike can do with you riding it. You get this, like the frame is flexing, you know, you can feel things approaching their limits. The fork, it's a 37 millimeter fork on a bike that's damn near 600 pounds. I mean, it's a, you can feel the fork flexing. Uh, And you just feel so damn alive because. You can get to the spike, you know, human beings can get to the spikes limits and not attract too much attention. You know, that, that, for me, that's really fun. You can, well, that you've also steered a

Robin: battleship into a groove. Yeah. You get on a bike like that for the first time. You're like, Whoa, okay. And you slowly figure out the yaw and you're trying to get the, like, this is a lot of weight and then you start to feel like, wait a minute, I know that if I start doing this at this point before that corner, it's going to look like that in the corner and do exactly what they ask that once you feel that groove and you get that rhythm going, that's, uh, that takes time.

Brian: Oh yeah, no. And it, it's, it's such a hoot. So it's really fun to. Like you're going into a segment of twisty road and there's some sport bike guys ahead of you and they can't get away from this fat guy and his fat old bike, you know, and you just wait, hi, how are you doing? It's never going to be the bike. It's always the rider, especially on the street. Yeah. I've done this, you know, like you go into the dragon and. Like at the beginning, you know, people, and they're like, Oh, I'm going to pass you as soon as I can. And then you never see him again. It's, it's, it's stupid, stupid fun because it's so imperfect. I have, I have a fork brace for this bike. Everybody's like, Oh, you gotta have a fork brace. So I bought a fork brace. I put it on, I hated it because. I was using all that wiggling and all that rubber banding around on the front end. I'm using that feedback and I felt like I didn't know what the front tire was doing with a fork brace. So I took it off and this is

Robin: starting to sound a lot like that. I once knew a girl topic, but

Brian: yeah, I've had that. I've had that bike for 25 years. A long time, 27 years I think I've had that bike. Yeah. You know, we know each other real well and, and so that familiarity, you know, just makes it a lot, just so much more fun. And so, yeah, the crappiness of it is just character, you know, that's just how it is.

Robin: Good character. I like this next one too. So the questions is, what if we could only afford one bike and it's a crappy bike. I'm gonna go with by crappy, maybe metal quality. Cheese bike, you know, probably a Suzuki, but I gotta say that, uh, what is, what is the fairly popular and pretty legit Chinese brand relatively new to the market in terms of advertising in the States.

Brian: Oh, I see. Like if you could only afford like one new bike and you had to spend as little spot, that's interesting question. I hadn't thought about it that way.

Robin: It's a way to look at the question. Cause I like this answer. It's more fun to talk about this answer. I think I'm looking at the Royal Enfields and not a Himalayan. I don't know what it is. Everybody is up my ass about ADV these days. Robin, you should get this. Go ADV. Let's go ADV and Robin. Hey, Robin, you want ADV? Like, and then it's like, you know what? Yes, I do. And you know what else? No, I can't because there's just not enough space for those bikes. And I'm not giving up my love of street.

All: Right.

Robin: The street bike is not going anywhere. It's what got me into riding to begin with. But the, the Continental GT.

Brian: Yeah. So Royal Royal Enfield is, yeah, the Royal and they're made in India. They're not Chinese, but, uh, yeah, for a new bike, that'd be a great answer. I mean, they look especially like the continental, I mean, they look great. Yeah. Serious sex appeal there.

Robin: No, they're not USD. Okay. And they don't have anything. They're just good bikes. They're a six 50, I think. Yeah. A continental GT, the six 50. And then I would, if that were my situation. I would buy that bike and I would slowly make the independent conversion. Let's say I'm going to be stuck with that for the next 10 years or five years, whatever. It will have a fixed half bearing at some point. I will upgrade all of the doodads using all of the, you know, online orders and Alibaba's and Amazon's, and I'm going to trick that thing the hell out.

Brian: Oh yeah.

Robin: It's going to take time, but I'm going to make it in this, in my current bankroll. Yeah. It'll take a year and that thing would be exactly what I want it to be. Fork brace, rebar, gasket replacement. I would just sexy

Brian: it up. Absolutely PMed. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm looking, I'm looking on their website, the Continental GT 650. And this is the top of their line. This is their 71 49, 71 49, 7, 149. And slipstream blue 63 49 in British racing green.

Robin: Give me, you know, it's a start. It's like right there. Like, give me that. I'm going to, I tell you, first thing I'm gonna do rear sets, half fairing heated grips, general upgrades. You know, I will make that the one and only, I mean, I would love to send that to analog motorcycles and have Holmes just make me my bike, you know, it's on.

Brian: Here's my, here's a cheap bike. Make it expensive. Yeah, that would be a lot of fun. That, that thing is just dead sexy. You get it. Yeah. You can't, yeah, you keep going down Royal. There's also some India, some Chinese brands that are doing, they're doing well. I can't remember what they are, but I know some of them are,

Robin: but they've got my respect. Because they bring availability to an economy of young people who don't have any money full of old people asking why aren't spending there's their first gateway. Not bad.

Brian: Not bad. And one, one thing, and I think a topic, maybe we'll, I think we'll talk about this later, kind of the idea for a long time that GS 850 I mentioned was my only bike. And you've had pretty much a single bike. You have access to Maggie's bike, but you've had pretty much a single bike for several years. Obviously, there are disadvantages because if it's broken, you know, you know, you know, ride, no working variety. Yeah, you know, and I've had three bikes in the garage for a long time. That just seems to fit all the segments. Yeah, there's some advantages to just, you don't have to switch, you know, you're, you're just. You just, it's like pair of blue jeans. You just know it inside and out over time. I took the crappy bike question a little bit different way is in that, like, if I had to like, you know, sell everything and hit the road or whatever, I would probably, I'd have to put the Suzuki in storage or something, but I would probably. I'd probably keep the KLR 650. It does some of everything well enough. And it also has a lot of that joy of crap. So I took it as a bike I already own, you know, or I have owned. It's like, that's, it's kind of a objectively crappy bike in some ways. It's also one of the most fun bikes I've ever ridden. And a lot of that's because it's kind of crappy. It's like, well, it doesn't have a lot of power, but it may not be fast, but at

Robin: least it's slow. We need to try to get Brian Ryder on the show. He is the gentleman from YouTube's regular car reviews. Okay. And that would be somebody worth talking to because he's done a lot of bikes and he's got a lot of insight on bikes. I'll look them up. I think I've seen them pop up in my feed. Some of it's extremely harsh. The R6, the Hayabusa, these, the Harley, he's just no holds barred, but he, that's always just the intro sarcasm in the beginning. True to form respect in the middle and through the end, but he did an episode about it. He had a six by six Uh, he was driving around the six by six, learning about it, how all ultimate apocalypse machine road warrior stuff. And at the end he's like, what I want this, it's a huge side profile view of this six by six. Would I want this? Not so much. I mean, you can drive it on like Elmer's glue, it could burn anything. But then the next line, he's like, I'd really rather go this route. He pulls up on a KLR and that's what the apocalypse, would he want to be in a six by six? Not as much as he'd like to be on a KLR. Yeah. Saying volumes to me.

Brian: What's next, Mr. Ringer? It's Brian's Tiny Tasty Tool Tips. You gotta do the jingle.

Robin: What I need to do is get an auto harmonizer and like, make it play like a, like a, like a diminished chord, a constant diminished chord over top. It's just sound like hell.

Brian: Yeah. It literally would sound like something you'd hear out of hell. Yes. It would be like. T pain and Satan

Robin: constant diminished harmonization. That's not a cord. It

Brian: is now. Yeah. All right, Robin. You've got everything. Someone you've got all the normal stuff.

Robin: Yep.

Brian: You've got everything. You've got wrenches, you've got sockets, you've got screwdrivers. You got pliers, you've got, you got wires, you got everything else. Yes. You know, what's next. How do you take things to the next level? What are some of the specialized tools people should, should look at and get started with? If they own a motorcycle and they want to keep it running.

Robin: Let me see if I can announce. Let me see if I can come up with like five to 10 off the top of my head in under a minute. All right. An oil filter, a socket, the one that fits over the oil filter.

Brian: One that fits your bike. Yeah. Good one.

Robin: If not that a strap wrench, how about also a strap wrench, a telescopic breaker bar, every reducer and expander connected to itself. For different sockets and wrenches so that no matter what you can eventually get to the thing. All right.

Brian: Okay. Good, man. I didn't think of these. These are ones I didn't think of.

Robin: Extra compact

Brian: bottle

Robin: jack.

Brian: What in the hell are you doing with a bottle jack?

Robin: I'll put my bike on its center stand, put a piece of wood on top of the bottle jack. Oh, okay. I got it. Tripod the bike in a state of emergency. Excellent. A rubber mallet. Absolutely a rubber hammer. Oh, yeah. Micrometer. What's the thing that measures the distances? It's digital. You roll the little thing and it expands and shows you the digital readout for weight.

Brian: There's a digital caliper. There are also digital micrometers, which I

Robin: micrometer.

Brian: I've

Robin: got a micrometer

Brian: when it's digital, that will read in metric is important on metric bikes.

Robin: Yes. Or they'll do both. And then I've got one that is, uh, that's, we're getting to my top, my top drawer now.

All: Yeah.

Robin: So in the top drawer, micrometer feeler gauges, um, uh, It is always a mystery to me. What's in that in there until I know exactly what it is I need. And it's like the calculator drawer of calculating and it always saves the day. It's got the stuff that will solve the problem for rear that seems specialized, but actually isn't. So if you can just imagine the micrometer bias, I actually have an inch pound screwdriver in there. Right. Yeah. Ooh, a good jewelry kit, a good jewelry repair kit with all the different bits and the tiny, tiny torques for your computer, that stuff can come in handy.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Oh, but the best tool I will stand by, and I think I've said this many times before come straight out of Travis Burleson's mouth. And that is whatever cheap handheld low spin power drill socket attachment you can get where you just take the little drill and it just backs out the thing. You don't have to keep on using the old ratchet wrench. That's what I got right off the top of my head. I've got more. I love it, man. The top drawer, harder to remember.

Brian: Okay. I'll throw out a few and I will reveal that you've mentioned things that I haven't thought to mention. So, I like having this diversity of thought, Robin. This exchange of ideas. Let's start with tire stuff. Oh boy. You're going to need some way to break beads. I'll leave that up to the, the reader as an exercise for the listener stuff, you know, balancing like I have, I, I like put skate bearings on top of a couple of old Jack stands. You know, you can come up with some way to, to, to make a balancing stand. You don't have to buy one.

Robin: That's your next article. You need to write an article with instructions. Really good instructions on how to do what you just said, because my balance stand is a little bit.

Brian: It's okay. They can, they can, they can be wonky. Yeah. I've got a homemade balance stand that is ugly as all hell. And it's hilarious. I'll you know, tire levers, yada, yada. You know, all that stuff. I'm not going to go into detail. If you have a bike with tube tires, you have to have some tube crap. You need a, you need like a valve core puller tool. So you can snake the valve core through the, or valve stem through the, uh, uh, through the hole. And you need talc for your tube. Don't put in your tubes without any talc on them. And no, don't use cornstarch on your tube. Use talc just by the way. Uh, and things like new valve stems, nobody ever replaces the damn valve stems. And so you get like these 10 year old guilty as charged pieces of rubber that are barely hanging on. Stuff like that. Uh, and the other, the other rant is you, you gotta, you gotta get some tire mounting lube, you know, instead of getting some bear snot or bacon grease or whatever people are using

Robin: pro tip, get a brush for it to get a brush. You can dip in it and slap it on with a brush, not your bare hands. Cause that, that is annoying.

Brian: Yeah. It's like it. What 16, 17 bucks for like a gallon, which for most people, not me is a lifetime supply. So go into Napa, say, I need some Rewglide and, and you'll walk out with something, uh, workable. Don't use dish soap, please. It corrodes aluminum and I hate finding it years later. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. People use dish soap as tire mounting lube and it, it over in the longterm, it causes problems. And I think you kind of touched on valve check stuff, barometer, metric feeler gauges we mentioned out earlier, callback, callback, callback.

Robin: Go no go's are a lifesaver. Get go no go's.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Which are, if you're wondering what that means, it means that they, it's two different measurements. One that should fit through and another one that will become larger and maybe it can fit through on tolerance, but you want to reach a point where whatever's beyond tolerance stops.

Brian: Yeah. And especially if you have a shim and lock nut, like some older bikes or some older BMWs, having two sets of, uh, feelers is going to be important there. Chain stuff like a chain breaker, don't use a chain breaker to break a chain. That's not what they're for. You, you need a chain tool to rivet the new master link. If you need to remove a chain, just buzz it in half with an angle grinder. Yes. Don't try to push a modern chain apart because they're, they're much tougher than the, uh, than the old chains. You're great. Your grandpappy used X stands for weapon X. You're not going to win. Yeah. You're not going to win that one. One thing a lot of people overlook is a fork seal drivers. You can get like a cheap kit that actually does a great job on a lot of, uh, you know, like you can get like a cheap Chinese kit. Of a, of a fork seal driver that kind of expands and contracts. It'll do a good job and other stuff like fork, fork tools for your bike. If you have upside down forks, there's like a little kit you can get of the, you know, to hold the damper rod out here and move this and stuff like that.

Robin: I think we need a new name for USDs. It needs, they need to be called the universal standard forks for modern times. Yeah, USD is just better. It is. Well, imagine you took your arm and you flipped your forearms up to your shoulders and your biceps down to your forearms. Like that's what the old style of fork system is reverse arms. And this makes more sense.

Brian: Yeah. If you have upside down forks working on them is it's still perfectly possible at home, but it is more complicated. Just get the little Amazon toolkit. It's fine. It'll, you know, crappy is fine here and it'll, it'll make life a lot easier. The other thing is a little bit like one of the things you mentioned is have like an air or battery electric impact gun for, and then have the, you know, what you need for your sprocket nut, because that's the, that's the easiest way to get a sprocket nut off is just buzz it off with the impact. Uh, and then also if you're taking a regular, uh, regular forks apart, you also need the, uh, hex impact bits to get up in there and get that out without having to go through a lot of pain.

Robin: This can start to become an argument. Because of the idea that like, I don't necessarily need to go to the trouble to get the battery and the thing for the impact wrench, find the impact socket, fasten that on, and then put all that stuff away for the moment when I could just go, you know, loosen it up with the breaker bar, get the little guy that I'm already using for everything else. Fasten the socket onto the expander and then go, did it count to maybe seven and then I've gotten it off.

Brian: Yeah, it's kind of like, like if you do a lot of work on your cars, you know, having an impact is fine, but yeah, that, uh, you know, that, that way you don't have to put a lot of force onto the bike and possibly pull it over on yourself.

Robin: Yeah. Or have you ever like sprained your wrist on an impact wrench? Ridiculously painful.

Brian: Or like a drill. Yeah. Oh man. Ow, they, they catch on something. Yeah.

Robin: So yeah, I can't throw myself across a room with this if I try hard enough, you

Brian: know, If you only, if you get a good one. Yeah. The other thing I would mention is, uh, you can make it yourself. So go to like a farm store and get like the biggest syringe. They, they use for injecting cows and get like some tubing and like make a stick out of wire, out of a hook coat hanger, five bucks, you can make yourself a tool for setting fork oil level. Because when you set fork oil level. The amount of oil in your forks is not important. The level is what's important because it sets the air gap at the top. So it makes sure the spring effect of the air is the same on both sides. That's another whole nother rant, but anyway, you can buy this tool for motion pro for like 80 bucks or whatever it is. Or you can make it yourself for like, you know, one trip to the farm store and hang around in the cow section. That is pretty good. And get some tubing. You stick it down there, a measured amount, and then you slurp out the excess. So when you put your forks together, you put in, like, what you know is a little excess, and then you slurp out the excess, and it's exact at the level you want.

Robin: That's been a topic of argument in the past that I learned a lot from was, you know, who said, was Joe Godin. I was like, we're gonna replace the for coil. And you look at the forums, and the forums say, whoa, make sure you know, use the thing and the stanchions, and you gotta make sure you get the cartridge oil outta the cartridges. And I'm reading this on the forums, and Godin looks at me and he says, Robin, we're gonna dump these things out. And then the amount that we measure that we dumped out, we're gonna put that much back in. That simple,

Brian: yeah. Yeah.

Robin: Pour into a measuring glass. And then fill that exact same amount back up and put that much back in and your gold. But what Brian's suggesting, unless you've been leaking. Right. And then you, well, how much is in there? I don't know. Fantastic concept is that you have a unit of measure that is up to snuff.

Brian: Yeah. You want to set the level, the, the, the amount's not really relevant and a very blah, blah, blah. But setting the levels a little more accurate and, and achieves the purpose. It's also good for the reverse brake bleed. Oh, the syringe. Yeah. I've never gotten that to work. Right. But yeah, you need a different syringe. Don't use your fork oil syringe. So when you're, when you're in the horse section, you know, I need to inject a horse, uh, make sure, you know, I need to inject two horses and get, you know,

Robin: the reverse brake bleed. If you're going to make a video about it, don't do it on a bike that has speed bleeders when you don't know how to recognize that it has speed bleeders, but we managed to break them and do the video anyhow, which is fantastic. But if you go to tro. bike and you look up in the search bar, reverse brake bleed, there's an article all about it, but what you're doing is you are subtracting all brake fluid from the system. And a clean syringe, no used anything, and then compressing the fluid back through the brake lines and essentially pressing all the sediment up into the master cylinder where it can be extracted until you have clean fluid, no air bubbles, no, nothing. It's extremely simple. Got that one from Mr. Radermacher, by the way. I think that's a pretty damn good episode. And I want to thank you for steering the boat. Oh, shucks. Why thank you.