Brian: How many days were you away from your rolling home there

Robin: that, yeah, I showed up at your place on Friday before the trip sevens tour, we did everything that we did, took off Saturday morning for day zero.

Brian: So you showed, you showed up at my house on the 7th of June.

Robin: So 400 plus miles got to your place after that, ran sevens after that. Uh, stayed with my brother for four days. And after that went to the next weekend's rally to meet up with you once more.

Brian: Then you got home on the evening of the 22nd.

Robin: Yeah, two weeks easy. You could say it was a roller coaster of emotional experience, but two weeks is two weeks. I mean, you count to 15 seconds. Sometimes that can feel like a long time. I think you and I ran the gamut, everything from me sponging every opportune leachy assist from you I could request. To me, grumbling at you with angst and saying you deal with these guys. I'm leaving. These are the most important ingredients in a long term friendship. I've known you since 2013, I think.

Brian: Something like that.

Robin: Over 10 years. And we've never had the opportunity to really be like, okay, let's really understand one another a little bit better now, even though we run the podcast together.

Brian: Let me show you this other side here. It wasn't a big deal. Anyway, go on.

Robin: I could not have gotten through any of that stuff without you, and I probably could have gotten through some of it a little better without, I don't want to say it. It was all a new perspective in so many ways. Here's the story.

Brian: Chit chat and banter, the whole thing.

Robin: We'll start with the 777 day by day, all the way to day negative one. We have a common rule that we learned a long time ago. Brian knows it, I know it. You don't do major maintenance on a bike within three days of a major event. And unfortunately I had no choice. This had to happen. The last episode that is currently out there before this one about, uh, it's called B four Detour , pay on Words. Oh,

Brian: very clever.

Robin: I'm gonna call this one after two, or as in after two day minus one. I met up with Travis near the Illinois border. We knocked down over 400 miles to get to your house. Both pretty tired, pretty exhausted. Getting to know our bikes again. I arrive at your house and we're going to tackle this pre tour maintenance in the quiet and secret of our own knowledge of the situation, but we got to, Oh, there's a lot of cooks in that kitchen. Yes. I told Travis on the comms, sit your butt down, have a beer, don't do anything. He knocked that out of the park. He got there. He saw what was happening and he grabbed a chair, stood far away, took a, took a seat and just started drinking beers while I immediately promptly started drinking all your whiskey. Thanks for that. Hey, no problem. Immediate here. Have this calm down. Despite what you heard at the beginning of the previous episode, the old shaft removal meant an unexpected gear oil loss. It leaks from the rear speed sensor, helps the DTC calculate it's oversampling on which wheel is spinning at what rate that is actually also a high pressure weep hole in case of emergency weep hole for overcooked oil to fire out of, should there be an incident. And pulling everything apart the way that we said. Now it comes a bunch of oil, an unknown amount of oil. And with those bikes, you kind of want to be accurate about it. So Brian, of course, well, I'll go get my measurements and my gear oil and we will replace the gear oil. And we did.

Brian: Yeah. As I say, we even scared up a, uh, a crush washer. Yes. So you could feel like, okay, this is done to my specifications. I don't have to think about it.

Robin: Yeah, that worked out great. There is that section of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where he helps the guy out with shims for like his front forks or something like that. And he used like some beer cans, the random person that needed these things, who always went to the dealership with such thing. He's like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know about this. It's like the exact same metal, the exact same density. Just use it. It's going to get you where you're going. He's like, I'll have to find the nearest dealership that, you know, I'm not going to be that guy.

Brian: No. I remember that incident in, in, in Zen and the art. That's like, yeah, I know people like that. And I've run into them. Yeah, I don't know. Beer cans and my German bomb motorcycle. What? And we didn't have to do that. Actually. I had the correct washers, had the correct oil. My house stays in one place for years at a time. So you kind of accumulate shit.

Robin: The new shaft was incredibly resistant to installation. Yes. I'll give you that. It wasn't broken in. That's for sure. All of the things I used to have to do to put a shaft back on was for some reason no longer required. The old shaft, which was notched on both U joints in both directions, would just, if you get the right angle, it'll slide right on. This one, um, I remember the first couple of times I did this, we had to tie string to the front, get it at the right angle, tug the string and jiggle, tug the string and jiggle, press, press, jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, hope, hope, hope, lots of hope, and then eventually, oh, and we're on. Maggie was actually the answer to that the first couple of times I did. She was like, let's take some string, drag it through, get it lined up. She was the one that coined that procedure and it has always worked. I just didn't expect we were going to have to do it again. I forgot the process, so. Okay. There was that moment after the second whiskey, where it was just like, I'm going to turn my back now. I think I told you, I need you to disappear. This disappear, this problem for me. Cause I'm losing my mind. And you did now by myself in my garage, I probably would have been okay with a crew of people saying, well, let's try that. Let's try and the cooks. I was just like, I don't, I'm, I'm no longer a cook in this kitchen. Somebody get me out of here. So I started to freak out, but it got done. Thanks to Brian. And thanks to Tim

Brian: and Travis and Tim basically grabbed a spatula and like, I'm gonna go make burgers and they did. And it was awesome.

Robin: Yeah, thank you. Both of them. And then, uh, I didn't even want to talk anything. Travis came out to talk things down. I was just done working. I was done wrenching. That was day minus one.

Brian: Yeah, that was minus one. This is day zero. Okay. Got it.

Robin: Day zero. Everyone gathered in Maysville, Kentucky. We got to know each other. We ate, we drank, there was a loud festival in town. So when I asked Travis to find a nice quiet place to eat, it wasn't really an option. Everything was just loud, loud, loud everywhere, but we did manage to sit down, did manage to chat, got the feel for everything and everybody was so cool. Felt like, all right, this is a good start. And lo and behold, it was, we went through some of the general mindset stuff that the video portrays. It kind of made sure that we know that there are certain flexibilities to that. I might not be always visible up front. I might be way up ahead looking for whatever, but it worked out. So day zero as an orientation was great. Day one, which hits the triple nickel in Ohio from Zanesville down to Barkersburg, West Virginia. Yeah. I kind of forgot. I make all these notes. I have all the information. I have a way to operate and I always abandon it right when the tour starts. Cause I'm just so I'm thinking about the customers thinking about the customers, right? Half of the day is mild riding. There's a flinch in the beginning of holy crap. That was awesome. Followed by a lot of scenic Ohio, rural, pretty landscape, because I need to make sure that everybody that I haven't met before is sane. I need to make sure that people haven't written this year are. There's a process of, are we riding staggered? Is everybody in a good formation? There were some hiccups here and there, they were corrected. And I was becoming frustrated with myself because my own notes say, date one is going to start out mellow. And then we headfirst dive into the nickel and it's like, yee haw for the rest of the day. The other thing I forgot was that like, usually I've, I've got two, you know, Navigation systems going. I've got ride with GPS on my phone and I've got my actual standalone GPS unit. Keep the standalone GPS unit zoomed in, keep the other unit zoomed out. When you get an alert to a road name, look at your GPS unit. It's easier to read. You can tell what you're coming up on. It's easy to identify. You make the turn, you're done. Whereas with ride with GPS, it's got a lot of like, would you like to press this feature and none of them are attractive when you're in the motion, like moving. That's never going to be good. All in all, everybody had a ball. They had a great time. There was a lot of hand seal clapping at the end of the day.

Brian: And you had a kick ass group of people.

Robin: I did. So Travis Burleson is sweep you as a guest lead when we got to Indiana, but all the customers, big shout out. Thanks for making it happen. The order I would typically see them was either Paul Dunn or Dale Rosner. Those are mismatched names, but those two guys were always entangled. So it was either, I'd either see Dale Dunn or Paul Rosner. Hey guys, shout out then Norm Felger, who, wow, solid, sturdy, reliably quick writer, incredibly skilled, incredibly safe way to go. Jasmine Islam, who's been on the podcast, exactly what you would expect, just the sweetest person. And she's sandbagging. I know this for a fact after seeing what she can do on the dragon. She is sandbagging. Actually before her was Greg White and Travis. Thanks for helping me make this happen. Day one at the end of it, we arrived in West Virginia at the Blenner Hassett hotel, which is supposedly haunted. I might add. This is the most elegant hotel we've ever put on the tour. It was high brow. Absolutely top tier, beautiful. I felt like royalty. They were everybody there was lovely. Everybody there was beautiful. All the rooms were lavish and the dinner was delicious. The breakfast was, it was awesome on site bar. What a, we went for a walk by the river. They're just a great way to start things. Don't worry. It'll get worse.

Brian: So it only go down from here. No, it's fine.

Robin: Right. Yeah. I mean, it's at a pretty high bar. Luckily we met it again, but. Uh, day two, I don't know what to say about West Virginia. There's nothing to change. West Virginia's day two is perfection. It's untouchably good. There's zero change nitty. There's no reason to change anything. The whole day, I think it was like 240 miles of just perfect curves all the way to Virginia, where we arrive at the Warm Springs Inn, which has been developing for the better. They're, they're like taking in students from around the world who are like becoming doctors. Electronic engineers and all this stuff. They're the staff receiving us. Like they're on scholarship to come visit America and see how not to do things, basically. Let's go to America and learn what not to do. It'll be great. And they, they are the ones receiving us at this place on at the end of day. Yeah. Day two, day two, big shout out to them for another lovely evening there and a beautiful dinner and a beautiful breakfast, everything on site, the quiet and peace of the night in the rains. It was great. Wake up the next morning, day three, this did not go well for me. Day three was a bad day for me. Nobody knows. They know that I'm stressed, but the customers are still like, yes. Yay. Hooray for everything that is happening. They're all happy. Travis, on the other hand, has a comm that's connected directly to my helmet. He had to hear this. I believe it was either on the way from your place or on the way to your place. I'm pretty sure it was on the way from your place where I parked my bike, filled it up with gas. And then the suspension collapsed and it was just tall enough that it fell over to the right side.

Brian: Oh,

Robin: expand that experience. When you're screaming some into somebody's ear via an intercom about how upset you are. Expand that over the course of an entire day. Day three was a leadership nightmare for me personally. Travis saved the day. Start to finish every day. Had my back. It was mostly amazing. The route was absolutely fantastic. My turn by turn directions were gone. Oh, okay. Okay. Anybody out there listening who knows, well, paper maps, paper maps, you don't need that, you don't need that, that's fine, you're right, you're absolutely correct, unless you've designed what you're doing around it. And in this case, that particular section of the route had been imported into the main route and had no queues. I had designed it elsewhere, brought it in, and there were no, there was no turn on this street, there was no slowdown before this, alert, there's a hazard here. You can say these things shouldn't matter, and they don't. I know how to use paper maps. I know how to navigate on a I'm going for a ride by myself, or a couple of people, or a rally. I know what I'm doing. However, this is a hardcore situation where I need to know where the main threats are and have documented them so they alert me when they're happening. I didn't have any of that. Got it. Okay. Yeah. It was a bug on my part that I made. So we had like four or five U turns due to roads layering. There's a section in West Virginia where you look at the map and there are roads on top of you. There are roads below you. They look like they intersect. They do not. And there was a point in time when I looked down at a road that I was not on and saw, Oh, good, there's a customer that road's going to take 15 minutes to get to Travis kind of swept in and said, okay, then we remembered that we can always daisy check. So one of the things that we sometimes forget to mention in our articles about leading a tour is if you have a sweep and the sweep is well versed in leading as well, then whenever you make a mistake, stop, have the sweep rider wait at the next turn, get everybody turned around, let them pass you by to the sweep rider, they are now the lead, you are now the sweep, repeat. And this was something that, Again, I always put this to practice and forgot to do so. So there's a, there's a lot being demanded of both people in this case. I guess I'm half my paycheck for that day. That was day three. So I made a note of it. I think I've corrected it. If not, I certainly will.

Brian: Okay. So you were warm Springs and you went through boiling Springs.

Robin: Yeah, I forget what the town, it was like Roanoke, I think.

Brian: Getting around Roanoke is a pain.

Robin: That was rough. But we got through it and everybody was happy. Everybody had a good day. Everybody enjoyed their day and that's all that matters. Day four, we're going to get up from Mount Airy and we're going to ride to Maggie Valley. This was a pretty damn good day. Unfamiliar curves, our design, the work we did in previous episodes, that worked out really well. Nice. Everything was going fine until I left my cell phone at a gas station and was about 40 miles from it. Travis kind of got to pick up the baton and take all of the credit for our newest grand finale section for that day. Like big ups to my clientele. The people that went on the tour, they're the ones who kept me calm. Cause they knew I was getting stressed out. It actually was Jasmine. She was like, how about you go get your phone? Travis leads us along the route and then everything will be fine. Lo and behold, like I called my phone and the person who found it picked up. Hi, sir. Yeah. Your phone. But I got my phone back and Travis led them and, but he got to take all the credit because that section that they did after I went to get the phone is like absolute bliss.

Brian: Excellent.

Robin: That's day four. Uh, now I forgot to get the Creek side rooms at the Jonathan Creek in there. Likely I was trying to save money for everybody, but, uh, mom showed up with pizza next time we'll just have mom show up because the pizza, you know, they've got nice pizza in town. We don't need to do that. She can just come hang out. It'll be fine. Okay. Are you ready for. The first bruising that is going to come to both of us from both of us.

Brian: All right. So you wake up in Maggie Valley, full of pizza and then done, done, done.

Robin: I was excited. I was so happy that you and I had gone through all of that effort to say, let's avoid the BRP, we're going to do everything. Look at these beautiful, beautiful roads. You remember this like you went you and I went to painstaking tasks and we talked through them We looked at him. We analyzed him. We were careful. It just goes to show you're right, man You got to put eyes on the road physically to really decide and the decision is oh hell. No do not Improvise roads to avoid the BRP to the churala. Don't do it. It's just not worth it The short of it is that we got on our bikes and took off and all of a sudden it was over Great. These are great roads. Awesome. Yes, yes, yes. And then this is a little bit neighborhood ish. The corners are a little bit tight. There's a lot of mailboxes and there's not a lot of escape path. There are people jogging and bicyclists. Okay. And then dirt, it's going to go for three miles. These are switchbacks. It's not well packed. It's enormous rocks. I finally stop and everybody knows that I did not intend this. I'm like, Travis, get us back to the BRP. He pulls up, he does his thing. Beep, beep, boop, boop. You know, you hear all the sounds going off while he's calculating everything. He finds the way in, they take off before, like I started to put on my helmet and I kind of stopped myself and I realized there's nobody around me for miles. I put my helmet on my seat and at the absolute top of my lungs, full volume, as loud as I could shout it. I screamed FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK As loud as I could, And it felt so good that I did it twice and blew out my voice. They're probably a good mile ahead of me now. I get on my bike, I stand up, and I start gunning it down this road just like, Hell yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah, we're getting out of here. We're gonna solve the problem right now. And then, I come to a T intersection. I'm alone. Now, I know they heard me. I know they did. They told me after the fact, because I jumped the bike. I'm hauling full bazookas all the way up to the freakin T intersection in the dirt. And I don't know where they went. I have no idea where they are. And I'm sitting here. I lift my helmet up again, and for a third time, this time with a little bit of a Tarzan effect because my voice was shot. But I let off another special character spelled various wording. Right. I'm in a state of surrender. And, uh, then I hear, uh, Hey man, I look over 30 yards away is Greg White. Yeah, man, we're all right here. Ride the bike over and we're back on the BRP.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: Having looked at the route again, the trick is this change, nothing and do everything get on the BRP in Maggie Valley. That is the start of the section of the BRP. It's actually good, true, twisty and tight and fun. And the speed limits actually feel kind of. It's a lot of fun to be on the BRP right there. And you're not there for long. It's like maybe 20 to 30 miles max from Maggie Valley. Ride the BRP to 19. Take 19 to the Cherahala. Ride the entire Cherahala. Do the dragon, have lunch, do the dragon in the opposite direction. Pick up the new section of the foothills Parkway. When you get to the end of that, do not try to improvise at all. Just go straight to the hotel and Cumberland gap, go to the lodging, get a pizza, get some wine. You will be very happy. And that's what our tour will do from here on.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Deep breath and just chill.

Brian: And see, I'm really, you know, thinking back on designing that route. It's like, how did we get that one section you were talking about? It's like, how did that happen? I'm not even sure. Me neither. Something hopped on us. Yeah. Well, yeah, because it was like going along 441 and then it just kind of went off and then and then back to Cherokee, which that doesn't make any sense. Why would I have done that? Something was weird there. But anyway, everybody lived.

Robin: You owe no explanation. That section is paved until it's not. Yeah. And you and I checked it and the section that isn't will never be seen again by this tour. We already have a good thing. There's no reason to change it. It's proven itself.

Brian: The new section of the Foothills Parkway. That's worth the price of admission right there. Isn't it? Drop jaw perfection. Yeah. For those listening at home, we're talking about the section. I believe it's from, it's from outside of Townsend to, uh, where's valley. It's just epic mountain road, sweeper goodness. It's amazing. Uh, brand new, just opened just North of Townsend. You hang a right and head, uh, head East and it takes you all the way to where's valley, uh, the fun way. Special. It's really special.

Robin: One thing that I think we'll probably have everybody on here. At some point to talk with you directly and I'll just sit back with my arms crossed. One thing we did see on the chair a hollow was a mustang had done a full 360 into the guardrail Nice and was hanging off the side. So we had to wait for that the driver and his passenger. We're fine So at least there's that much things like that happen It's another reason why I think we'll probably pull the tour back a week to get on these roads just a little bit sooner than the general public, because it gets dumb really fast. So I think that like the last week of May, first week of June, that's right when you want to get out there and have it to yourself.

Brian: Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. And also pay attention to the day a week, but yeah, there are times it's always going to be dumb.

Robin: I want to get you more talking about days, six and seven. That was a very long day and you ended up in Middlesbrough, I believe. Right? We stay at the Old Mill Inn in Cumberland Gap. Shut up, shout out to the Old Mill Inn. That is beautiful, elegant character, charm, clean, luxurious, lavish, historic, modern, it's perfection. Nice. They will be our first call every time from now on and reasonably priced with good food and walking distance. And beds from the food in diagonally, awkward stumbling distance.

Brian: Very nice. Yeah. And I believe you had talked about there may be, maybe possibly rearranging things. So you have like a, like almost a short day or a second day somewhere or something like that. I know you're not, not certain yet, uh, what next year is going to hold.

Robin: I think I can have it both ways. I have an idea about this. We'll talk about it. I will say that days six and seven were comparatively bad, not from the customer's point of view. They were still quite happy. They didn't know they were just so happy to be riding and tearing ass through all these corners. It was you and I that knew this is an experiment. Some of it is better than expected. Some of it is worse than is tolerable. It was a, a mix in all directions that didn't take away from the experience at all. So that let's get that out of the way. First, there's no harm, no foul here.

Brian: Right. So, uh, so day six from Middlesbrough to Moorhead. How was that route? Some of it was really good. Some of it, it all looks good on the map. That's for sure.

Robin: I should probably get corrected on this. If Travis were around, he could correct all this stuff. What I remember of that day was that it does a great job of doing everything we wanted to do on paper until you bring in the real world of neighborhood living. They are packed with slow rollers and houses. All kinds of trouble in that regard where while the roads, if they were podunk and particle board trailer housing, that'd be fantastic. Cause they'd be moonshining roads, right? They weren't. But that's a, that's a broad sweeping statement. That's, that's me like picking one bad moment and expanding it like a blanket over the entire thing. And that's not how it went. The truth is I would say the two thirds of it was outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. I began to take issue with the fact that for seven writers writing seven states, seven days, We're spending too much time in Kentucky and not really getting Indiana to stretch out the way we might like that has been fixed.

Brian: Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah.

Robin: What do you remember about day six, the planning of it and all that stuff?

Brian: Okay. Yeah. The day six, I wasn't there for day six. Um, I parachuted in at the end of the day. Yeah. And that was kind of one of the big things is we weren't, uh, again, this is, uh, the principle we talked about was, you know, we need to go ride him and make sure, because, you There were some three digit state roads, which in Kentucky can mean anything from two actual lanes complete with mustard and mayo, complete with lines, or no lines at all, nothing. We tried to scout that as best we could online, but yeah, some of it, as you said, some of it can get a little neighborhood y and where you don't want to be too antisocial. So this fall, we'll make sure and scout some of that stuff.

Robin: There's a section in West Virginia where we do deal with a lot of single lane. Like there's, there is a road in West Virginia where I don't know how they divided this into two lanes, but it's like 3. 5 feet wide oncoming. However, incredibly fun to ride. There's an open field of view. You can actually maneuver it. It's super tight cornering, super tight, but the pavement is really, really smooth. And I think that combination lends itself very well to, Big, dumb grits. Like if you're moving at 30 to 50 miles per hour through very, very tight corners, but the payment is hilariously good, that's just goofy. I welcome that in a heartbeat. I think that Wormwood road.

Brian: The, it was, it was Fish and Worm Ridge Road. That was day seven. Absolutely not. That was a cluster or whatever. Anyway.

Robin: Well, we were warned. You took Dale on it. And he was like, I think this might piss people off. And then we did it anyway. Cause you and I are you and I,

Brian: I did it anyway.

Robin: I had a blast.

Brian: I'm kind of glad we did. If I'm being honest, anyway,

Robin: you and I had a blast. But that's going to get into the conversation here.

Brian: So anyway, day six, um, there was a tire issue. A text was sent. I ended up throwing like a half worn tire that I had on the shelf on the back of my bike with my little air pump, we changed the tire in the parking lot. And I'm glad we did because the old tire kind of looked, it looked worn down, but it wasn't showing cords, but we pulled it off and you could like, you know, Feel how thin the material was. We're like, okay, I'm very glad I went to the trouble of bringing this in. And also like changing, you know, doing the three tire iron trick to, to break the beads. Changing a tire with three little bitty tire irons in a parking lot. You know, it's like, yeah, it can, it can be done. And here, here it is being done. That was kind of fun.

Robin: It was taken care of. It was a balanced, I don't know, whatever we, but it was fine. The bike, he was happy with it. Everything worked out. This person did not. Expect that they were going to need a new tire because they did have tread. There is however, a person who's been on the tour before who knew better, who ended up needing a tire at the right time. That person who I hope hears this, that person was like, this is not good. I need a tire now. And they immediately left and met up with us later with a tire that fit their bike. And opportunity was the whole game. Like, I mean, they, they had tread. They weren't going to have tread. And when they knew they weren't going to, they knew that when they didn't have tread, they wouldn't have access to a tire. So they were like, okay, now is the time now, now, now, now, now. I think that would have been a good cue for anybody, but it went the way it went and that's fine. I will say that for day six, we have reverted to a previous version of the Kentucky section. And what I remember of that section is that it is well sculpted. It's a damn good time. And it actually does solve the day break scenario. Here's my idea. If they did so much on day five with the chair, a holla and the drag, both directions and the foothills and 30 miles to logic, that's a 325 mile day. People are exhausted. They're spent. They don't even do this that often. It's a new mileage mark for them. There are people out there, blah, do it all the time. Nobody cares. It's true. You do. You're not the people we're referring to who are trying to get out for the first time of the season and do something big. This section of Kentucky inspired by one of the customers, by the way, Paul, who was like, maybe you should do a day out, you know, where it's like super chill. The great thing about what you designed for Kentucky, it shoots up 66. I believe is that we looked at that zoomed out and it looked epic, epic, epic, epic in practice, it was actually a breath of fresh air in slow, grandiose sweepers, big turns. The kind of terms that don't even require much lean angle. You're just kind of in the countryside. You're taking corners, but they're not like, if you were going to have a good time on those corners, you got to be going triple digits and it was glorious. It was beautiful. And I am actually grateful for it because if I remember correctly, we do ride that at the beginning of the original. What we have definitely reverted to. We are reverting to my previous Kentucky ride. It is sick. I need to reconfirm a lot of it. It might test anything that doesn't have the juice. I'll probably test new stuff for, but I remember it is 80 percent can of whoop ass with an opener like that. That just says, look, take a deep breath. No pressure, stay alert, but get your breath back. We'll take our time. And you conquer like a hundred miles before you know it, you know, a hundred miles off of a 250 mile day. That's a short day, which I think is good. Problem solved. And day seven, after some miscommunication and thorough banter, turning the rally. Oh

Brian: yeah. Uh, yeah, it turned into, uh, it turned into a, uh, fecal follies. Yeah. Anyway, go on.

Robin: So we, we now have perfected Indiana.

Brian: By moving it a long distance West, totally different part of the state.

Robin: You helped me so much. Thank you. What is that town where I entered the

Brian: state? You're basically going to cross the river in Canalton. There's basically two towns there, Canalton and Tell City are close right there, close together. And

Robin: I take a right.

Brian: And you take a right.

Robin: We follow the Ridgeline and that's going to be

Brian: beautiful.

Robin: Yeah. It's like, and then I connect, I don't remember what I connect to something else. I don't remember what. 62, 145. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, so one 45 into French Lick pick up one 50.

Brian: Well, basically, yeah, don't take one 45 all the way to French Lick, but there's, there's kind of a go around the other side of the reservoir. You end up in French Lick, hang a left on one 50 to Shoals and then take a right on four 50 to Bedford. Amazing. 62, 66 or may is amazing. Uh, the Southern section of one fair one 45 is amazing.

Robin: Got to say that is 150 miles of damn good time. It is a really good ride. That's the kind of miles I want to conquer in Indiana to really lay claim that yes, we do ride Indiana and yes, Indiana is an absolute blast. It's the perfect grand finale to the entire event. I will say, humorously speaking, Brian has been receptive to my requests the whole time. What we have discovered, a couple of interesting things. One, there's a huge difference between scouting roads and scouting routes. I need to check this and make sure in the customer's view, it's going to work. I was like, you know, Brian's like, well, okay, we did this. We did that. We do this. We did. And you can hear all these numbers going by. Do you remember that? Do you remember doing this? Do you remember doing this? Never has there been a better, not argument, not fight about like, dude, I can't make use of this. I have no idea what any of that, I don't remember any of it. And we got it out. It was said that like, I know how to make a, an okay omelet. You sit me down, I'm going to figure it out. But Brian. Lives in this state knows the roads and runs rallies there. Then I'm basically just sponging off. I'm just stealing his rally routes and turning it into something that people are paying for. You know, I'm hoping, Hey, would you be interested in making the omelet for me? And Brian is dealing with a rally. He's dealing with people. He's dealing with conversations and interactions and getting the food prep for all these people for this vintage GS rally, what he hears is this. And he's like, yeah, sure. I'll help you. I'll help you know, which roads to go check out. And I'm like, Cool. All right. I said routes. He said roads. We don't know that there's a bridge out in our conversation . So he takes a bunch of brown eggs and two glasses and he shakes it up into a raw yolk with some shells in it and hands me my glass full of the brine ringer omelet that I, that I asked for. And I have no idea. And eventually like I'm getting tense and there's no reason for me to get tense. 'cause I'm looking at the guy who. Literally said, Robin step back. I'll fix your bike for you before your tour, but he's my friend and he helped me and he still helps me. Brian. Thanks for helping me figure out Indiana, man. Thank you. That was trip sevens.

Brian: Hey, no problem. Yeah. From what we talked about and what you're planning, I think the next year is going to be amazing. Hopefully I can make it happen. I've got ideas. Maybe we'll make some special arrangements. Got all kinds of ideas. Yeah. Now we'll skip the, uh, we, we rode a fishing worm with ridge road. Um, and everybody did it and they smiled for the photo, but yeah, you're not doing that again, are you? It's like six feet wide. No. And semi paved, which is worse than unpaved.

Robin: Takeaways from the tour. One new tires are mandatory, possibly with proof of receipt. Okay. This will never happen again. You best show me a receipt on them. They can't have any tread wear at all. Also, I made the point already, but the Kentucky route, it's still going to be a constant can of whoop ass, but it's going to start with a long hundred mile crescendo of mellow to hectic over the course of 250 miles.

Brian: And you, and you're, yeah, you're going to go completely different. You're going to go more West. Uh, and, and before you go North, you're going to cross the river at a different point. You're not going to ride on a boat, which I thought that was kind of cool, but.

Robin: It was. Travis says, well, we'll just skip that. It's a pain in the ass. We won't do that. I'm like, it's, Bikes on a boat. Yeah. Bikes on a boat, man. There are things that you and I will do that nobody paying money wants to do. We have to know what that is.

Brian: I was leading in Indiana and I had the wrong route loaded and I didn't realize it in time. But anyway, at some point, if it ever, if the stars ever align, we will have to ride the route that I had planned in Indiana and it does kick ass. I'm in. It's over, uh, east of Madison, Indiana. But from rising sun, Indiana to Madison, Indiana, and it really does kick ass. It really is on real roads. Uh, the worm is optional. The sand pit is optional.

Robin: How do you feel about me and Maggie setting up near Indianapolis for October instead of down in South Kentucky? What do you think? You like this idea for a whole month?

Brian: Yeah, we'll just go ride all month. I won't get anything done.

Robin: Excellent. We'll talk more about it. There are things I have to do that are in South Kentucky, but I think that may be the plan. Rally recap, there will be zero sensitive information. There'll be no mention of negatives, except for you and I communicating like that on our terms, I did notice this. You, you said, well, you're track trained and I wanted to say something. No critique here. I really appreciate the line art thing. You and I have equally effective, but very visually contrasting differences in our cornering strategy, a lot of the same ingredients.

Brian: And I was, I was really interested because I, I had never thought about it. And I, you know, I followed you, you followed me a lot, but I was, I would have a hard time describing what the difference is. I mean, I know what I do is maybe very different than other people. Maybe we can talk about that, but it would be, I'd be very interested. And again, I, this is a fresh thing. I have no idea what you're seeing. What do you see that is different?

Robin: They need to hear your voice a little bit more than mine for a second, at least. And then I'll tell you, I'll give you my bit. So let's say you're following me devil's highway of LA was, yeah, it was April of last year, April of this year. Geez, man, what a freaking year we're having. So April of this year, you're following me through devil's highway in Northeast Arizona. My cornering, what do you see?

Brian: Some things are obvious, very smooth, no sudden moves at all. Maybe there's a difference here. I'm extremely aware of exactly where my tires are and that they're where I want them. What I can't really tell is if, if, if you move around the lane a little bit more, one of the very common mistakes I see when I follow people is that they cross the yellow line. And you and I both are pretty religious about that. We never do that.

Robin: I mean, with an open field of view, maybe, but it's very, I don't feel right about this.

Brian: Well, there's a Buick in a way. Yeah, you could do what you have to do and you don't speak of it. And I do see. Like you don't hear that brap until it's pretty late and you have a very clear, you know, this is a street technique. You don't hear the, you don't hear the throttle come back in until, you know, until late in the corner, the late apex, you know, and that's, that's a, that's very much something I do as well. I'm not, I'm tipping into the throttle a little bit. You know, you don't hear it until, you know, the field is pretty clear. Slow in fast out is what I do too. Uh, so yeah, the, the one thing I do that may be different is that I. Keep, and I use options to change my line quite a bit in the middle of corners. And I do that a lot.

Robin: That's the one I think twice in an entire so far year of writing that threw me for a loop, created more distance between us where I was like, okay, let's, let's hang back on this. So the thing I saw that made me think about it and kind of watching, and I was having a blast, an absolute ball, just watching and writing my own ride and thinking through it. You will enter a corner, very often, middle, middle, middle, not throughout the entire corner, but you would enter middle so that at a speed where you knew if you needed to tighten up for an early entry, you could, and you also knew that if you needed to release and go wide, you could. So you're giving yourself two options to work with. Entry speed is very similar. You and I are going in the way we go in. But you've set yourself up for a binary operator, you know, is it ternary, is that three, whatever. Try optional corner approach where you can, you could stick the whole middle if you want to kind of bland, but you don't have to, or you can chop in or you can go wide and deal with whatever. My own strategy tends to be to bury in from the outside because I know the limits of the bike. I know that if I see loose gravel, I'm still going to be able to hook in before it. So I come in from the outside and I'm already trying to cut deep into the inside from the start. And it's just a matter of how hard am I pressing on the knife. That means that I'm always coming from the outside of the corner where you're in the middle, and when you make your decision, it may end up right in front of me.

All: Mm hmm.

Robin: Which is nobody's business but yours! You don't owe me. Fuck all this is a . You know, you don't owe me that . Yeah. It's your corner. I have no business trying to, there's no, there's no me looking at you being like, whoa, why did you do that? You know? It's like, no, it's yours. You own it. But it did get me once in Indiana where I was like, I'm gonna come out. Oh, he's how he is right there. . And I kind of giggled to myself, ah, you know, I, I had control. I was just laughing at, we had definitely arrived at the safest point in the corner. With the least amount of remaining reaction available to us. And it worked out just fine. The calculations were correct, but boy, howdy, were they on the nose? Like they were, they were down to the wire. Correct. Like, okay, good.

Brian: Yeah, I do. I do a lot of correction. There's a lot of push, push. You know, there's a lot of that you probably don't even can't see, but there's a lot of correction mid corner. And the thing is, um, I'm looking at the next corner. The correction is from memory. Like I want to be here, here, here. Like if you were to graph it, you would, it would look like, I don't know what I'm doing. I think sometimes,

Robin: well, a lot of it, sometimes you have to be, this is it's street writing.

Brian: This is street. This is Indiana. I don't know. There's everything on the roads. There's all kinds of stuff. This

Robin: is the surface conditions are not perfect. You may need to, what I do think is brilliant as seasoned riders, to the extent that we can claim it. If we enter a corner and we see the debris field, the problems, the patchwork, the loose gravel, the yada, yada, we actually have gotten good. You were not looking at that. We're looking at the not that it's the Miles Davis thing. You know, it's not the notes you play It's the notes you don't play. So if you look at a corner and you see the one Outlet for the smoothest transition through that corner. I mean, maybe it'll involve some adjustment like I'll start tight here But I'm gonna release and kind of go wide into that because it it goes through a rut of smooth That is a way that's a way to corner a good way to corner

Brian: And you'll see kind of, uh, that whole preserve your options thing. Uh, when I crest a hill, I can't see over like a lot of times I'll, I'll actually, the brake light will come on. I'm loading the brake just a little bit and you'll see, there'll be like, I'll swoop up a hill and there'll be like, if you're able to see my speedometer, there'd be a big drop and then once I can see it's on, you know, And I popped over, I don't know how many Hills in Indiana and Kentucky and Tennessee and North Carolina, where there's a tractor on the other side, there's 2 tractors and they're having a conversation. They're stopped and there's big pointy things or there's cows and. And so, yeah, when, you know, cresting hills, you'll see, like, a little tap of the break and, but, yeah, it's, it's about preserving those options. And I hope it works.

Robin: Awesome recap. Is there anything specific you want to talk about, about the rally or any of that? I had a great time. It was a good hang. Good people. Shout out to three letter John, who really brought it all together in a variety of ways.

Brian: Yeah. Awesome to meet him and awesome to, uh, he's just outgoing as hell. He just gets along with everybody. He's, you know, he's showing people stuff. He's, he's teaching. He can't help himself.

Robin: And I see your dumb ass question. I think it's a great dumb ass question. And I insist that we build on that.

Brian: All

Robin: right.

Brian: Here's my dumb ass question. You keep talking about a sweep rider. Travis was your sweep rider and we're talking about future rides where I may, and I will probably be a sweep rider. What exactly in the mind of Robin Dean, TRO tour operator, extraordinary, exactly what the hell is a sweep rider and what are the. Duties, responsibilities, skills, etc. of a sweeprider in your mind. The

Robin: duties and responsibilities of a sweeprider don't take away from their opportunity to have a damn fine time. Depending on the crowd, I invite sweepriders to rubberband it. Meaning, Get a good handle on how people ride and wait for a good number of minutes before you decide to take off so that you too are having a wonderful time. However, in a perfect situation or the way it's always gone with me, the sweep rider is the person who is riding in back. They have all of the equipment necessary to administer first aid and or CPR as they have the equipment to call in the. Unconscious 30, 000 short lived helicopter tour from the site of a situation to the location of a solution. Because they'll have a spot X. We have a spot X now, thanks to customers on a previous tour. You were on that tour. They are ready to find a rider who has lost their way and guide them back to the main line. Now that has not really happened. Like, except for on one occasion, which changed how we do things. What I mean is if a rider has lost their way and the sweep rider arrives where they are, the sweep rider will then become their guide and lead them back to the pack. Who will be waiting. They're the freebie customer who also does search and rescue first day, CPR, guiding people to where they should be. Solving problems for the lead rider is big.

Brian: You mentioned that. Yeah.

Robin: It's huge. All the peripheral thinking that's going on up front when it's not just about like, Hey, you didn't have to follow me. No, they paid to follow me. They want to be there. And I need to cater to them in a way where I'm hyper aware. I'm analyzing what's ahead of me. I've got 360 awareness that is processing their actions and that is overwhelming. So when you arrive at a gravel road below the road, you thought you were on because of a mishap with the map planning and you're sitting there trying to figure out what to do, and you're starting to lose your mind because you're tired and fatigued and the sun ain't getting any higher. You know, it's like the sun's going to go down at some point. We've got a place to be. These people are here for a vacation. They need chill time. They need to decompress and interact with one another. To have the right sweep writer, who's going to be like, I know exactly what everybody here needs, step up, solve the problem, not everything about the lead writer can be a spontaneous solution. There are going to be times when the lead writer has no sense of self has no sense of care anymore. Like they're just trying to get wherever they can safely. It's easy to lose it. So to have somebody be like, Hey, you're still a bad ass. And I want you to know that I've got you. Why don't you take a break and getting back? And to have. A great writer who's signed up for this tour. Tell me that about getting my phone that I got nothing but gratitude. Travis knocked it out of the park. He always does. So it was Tim Clark. Those are the two guys that I know will, uh, be the bottom of the pyramid if they need to be. For the most part, they're just ants in the backdrop trying to make sure problems are solved. But you know, you wake up to the coffee already made. Oh, you're going to have a good day. Does that answer your question?

Brian: I think it does. Yeah. And it's kind of, kind of what I gathered from the stories and so forth. Yeah. And this isn't like the old, uh, Goldwing Harley trip where you've got a road captain and a, and a road colonel and a, and a, and a road sergeant and a

Robin: I'll eat it. I'm a road captain. That doesn't mean anything. And it's not a thing.

Brian: And the road corporal and the road privates. And I don't know, I don't know how it works. 30 hand signals and you strict formations. Each one of you carries a letter and then you make a, you spell a word. Yeah, no.

Robin: Well, I would say we have an episode, but we can go big with this one. I don't want to talk about Wisco Disco. I don't want to hear the sound of my own voice anymore. I know that the listeners don't. You want to do something fun?

Brian: We had a discussion about the, uh, the quick shift on your bike.

Robin: Oh yeah.

Brian: Uh, did you, you, you learned, I think you went out and you learned something. Is that, is that what I see

Robin: here? It's not an analog adjustment. So I have to plug in my GS911 with the bike on the center stand, activate the calibration process, put it in first gear and ride it in first gear for 10 seconds at 2000 RPMs, shift a second for 10 seconds, 2000 RPMs, every gear, 10 seconds, 2000 RPMs, and it will calibrate itself. What I haven't figured out yet is. Do I want to do this calibration after I run it up to where the dogs aren't lining up? You taught me this, that the dogs on the gears, they ovate at the corners a little bit. And so what used to be a shift assist is now on a cold motor, ready to ride. Like once it warms up enough to ride, I get wah, pop, wah, pop. And it sounds sexy as hell. And then after a full day of riding, it's. It sounds horrible that I should probably wait until the engine's good and hot before I calibrate, but I don't know what, uh, what effect will that have on the low side of it? You know, the cold side of it.

Brian: The gear dogs, they're basically these blocks on the back of the gears that, that mesh together. The gears are sitting next to each other. And over time, you know, they get just a little rounded on the corners. It's almost microscopic if you look at it in your hand, coupled with that, there's just normal wear of. You know, all the shifting components, the shift forks and all that stuff. Uh, even, even like the shift linkage, I don't know if you have shift linkage on that bike, but, uh, and things like that. So we talked about, you know, what calibrations like you may need to calibrate the point where it cuts the ignition and you may need to calibrate. The delay and how long it cuts the ignition to allow the shift to happen.

Robin: And that might be automated. What's weird is that it shows like voltage levels. The, the readout that you receive in the report after it self calibrates is a per gear voltage. That's what it looked like. I don't know.

Brian: Might be a resistance value. So basically in that process, something needs to be recalibrated and yeah, if you are having the most problems when the oil is super hot, and again, this is a high mileage bike, you know, a hundred and whatever thousand miles on it. Yeah. Go out and get it blazing hot like that, ride the hell out of it. And then, um, and then run the calibration. What it will probably do is loosen things up. I guess it'd be a good way to put it. It will, it will increase the time of the ignition cutout a little bit. Like you might even not be able to perceive the, the difference. It'll give it, it'll give it time to mesh. And it will also, uh, maybe change the engagement point when, when that shift starts to move and there's a sensor or switch on there. Like, I don't know if it's just a switch or if it's like a potential meter where it, you know, it has a constant resistance value as you move the shift lever. I don't know. In a nutshell, it sounds like it'd be a good idea to, to go get the bike good and hot, since that's the situation where you're starting to have trouble, uh, recalibrate it, uh, it won't cause any problems when the bike is, is warm or cool. At, at worst, you would have a little bit more of a delay to allow things to mesh, and it may not even be something humanly perceptible. You might not even notice. Millisecond stuff, doesn't matter. Millisecond stuff, yeah. If it were like a manual system, you know, where you have to, you have to bend a tab with a switch or move a screw or something, you know, then it sounds like it does itself, so give it a chance and see what happens. I mean, I have seen instances where there's a sensor inside a transmission that gets dirty over time. And so the resistance values, uh, kind of get wonky, like it doesn't know what gear it's in.

Robin: I'll just throw a hodgepodge of super clean and brake cleaner. And Plexus and just see what happens in hope.

Brian: Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Try that. Yeah. Throw some fork oil in there, whatever. So that may be part of it, or maybe part of the recalibration, like, Oh, the resistance values have changed so that it knows what gear it's in. And so it'll recalibrate to that as well. So I'd say give it a, give that a shot. I, I saw that on there. I thought it was interesting.

Robin: We've skipped everything that will be the pulp of your next episode. I'll be the color commentary in the background instead. What do you think? Do we have an episode of Robin talking at Brian? We have an episode of some sort. Yeah. I think next time, like I said, next time you got to steer the ship. It's yours. I needed to get all this out. So

Brian: yeah, it looks like your weather held up. Okay. Like your internet connection. So that's good.

Robin: It's going to rain again for all night. Hey, you know, if this state can get a little bit of rain, I think they're going to be okay.

Brian: Yeah, really?