Robin: Paul Rosner, Brian Ringer, Travis Somebody, Dale Dunn, Norm Felger, and Grieg Witte.

Dale: It's way too early to talk about the old mill bed and breakfast yet.

Travis: Yeah, we're not even to the dragon yet. Speaking of fresh pavement. Yeah, that is where I think, Greg, did you leave us at the foot of the Charihola?

Greg: Yeah, so right in Teleco Plains is where I departed. I'm just not used to the front end of a BMW R1200GS. I just had not been having a very confident time riding for most of the entire trip. I normally am pretty good for carving up turns, and I just was not feeling it. So at that point, we were pretty close to my house, you know, within three or four hours of being home. So I just waved goodbye, said a tearful goodbye to everybody, and headed off back to my home in Middle Tennessee right from that point.

Travis: Took Paul's wet dry bag off of your bike, put it on Robin's bike, and said goodbye. It's not terrible, but there's not much connecting the dragon. It's nothing to write home about. But then we did the dragon, which again was the first time for you, Paul, right? No, I've done it about 10 years ago.

Dale: But 10 years ago, that must have been quite a year. Yeah, well, I did the Skyway and the dragon in the same trip.

Greg: But Jasmine had never done it, and she really wanted to. She was one of the big advocates for, no, as long as we're in the neighborhood, you know, you might as well.

Travis: It doesn't take that long. It's only 11 miles.

Greg: Right.

Brian: Well, hold on. Did I talk about that in the last episode, Brian? Like she'd been sandbagging the whole time, and then she finally let loose a little bit. Yes. And it was like a blue streak.

Robin: Yeah. Travis took the crew. They rocked the dragon. They were stopped for lunch. I don't remember where I was, but I was. I led through it. Yeah. On the way down. And I was in back, just like kind of sandbagging, taking a break. And I arrive and we all had lunch and all that stuff. It was, you know, we were looking at hours, like it was time to go. So like, let's get cooking. And that's when I saw that there was a Miata driver. Oh, he was serious. He was not messing around. He saw that I was interested in going spirited as well. So he kind of waved me past and then he was right there the entire time. He wasn't pushing me, but he was like, clearly like, no, I'm, I'm hanging with you guys going.

Travis: He was a local. He's like, this is, this is the third time out of 10 times. I'm going to do the dragon a day. Let's see what you got.

Dale: I think he was maybe an SCCA club member or something. Cause he had a toe shackle sticking out of the back of his bumper. He had a roll cage and he knew what he was doing. I came up behind him and I thought, well, this is fast enough. And then I was like, you know what? Really isn't quite fast enough. So I stayed behind him and he dove off into one of the many pull-ups, let me through. And after that, I had like the hardest workout I've ever had on a motorcycle. I mean, by the time I got out of that road, I could feel sweat running down my face. Reading hard. My legs were starting to get shaky.

Travis: What day of the week is it? We get there Thursday? Yeah. And I was like almost no traffic. Like, yeah, there's like one or two cars. They pulled over right away. Had no cruisers. Give me any trouble. The whole time, both ways down and up.

Dale: And just absolutely perfect. Brand new, super clean blacktop. They had just painted it. It was, it was like a dream for anybody who was like, I would love to do the dragon.

Travis: Yeah. When you get into North Carolina, it wasn't new, but it was still good for that last, whatever, third of a mile. And I think Norm was dancing with that Miata quite a bit, weren't you?

Norm: Yeah. Well, here's my take on the, on the dragon. On the way down, uh, Jasmine was following me, you know, and we're out, and you know, I was cruising it through. And then on the way back, I go, do you want to go in front of me, Jasmine? And she's like, oh no, no, that's okay. Don't worry about it. And I go, are you sure? And she goes, well, okay. And then as soon as she took off, she was gone. Yes. She ripped it.

Robin: We hadn't seen that quite yet. She'd been holding back. That's what I mean by the sandbag. And because I got to the end, turned around, stopped and faced and was waiting for everybody. Dale rolls in and then I see Paul and I'm like, cool, that's Paul. Why is Paul Brown? And why is Paul more upright? And it was Jasmine. And she pulls in, tears around parks next to us. She just like does that clap where she put the base of her palms together. Her elbows are touching the base of her palms together. That was yes. It was the sweetest, sweetest thing. It was so great to see because she was hauling. Oh, it was great.

Norm: Oh, it's fun. Oh, I also got some really good pictures from the, um, kill boy. Yeah, I ordered about four or five of them. They're really came out really nice.

Travis: There is one of Robin pointing at him.

Norm: I got that one. I got, I, I bought that picture when he's pointing. Yeah, it's not like a, uh, eight by 10 or whatever I bought.

Robin: You're cool, man. That's pretty. Okay.

Travis: So then after that foothills parkway, we got stuck behind like a mile long parade of Harleys that wouldn't let us, it's one of those things where it's like, if there was like two or three of us, we could have like partially passed, weaved into their group and pissed them off probably, and then pass some more and weaved in and pass some more and gotten past them. But with like seven riders, we were never going to pass that big group all in one shot.

Dale: Yeah. I remember we took a break and got to watch the Grom squad go by. Yeah, that was the best.

Travis: They're the best part. It's like, so we're sitting there, you know, like a little overlook, you know, looking down at the river and, and there's, I just hear coming, coming, coming around the bend. And I'm like, geez, what the heck is this? And it's just three Groms with pipes on them. One of them, two up. One of them was two up.

Robin: I wanted them to pass the Harley group. That would have been absolutely perfect.

Travis: Those things are loud with the pipes on them, man.

Paul: About the same horsepower as a Harley.

Robin: Pretty much.

Travis: Oh, you're going to get letters now. If you, you know, if you do the Harley thing and that's your thing, that's cool. But if you're in like a big parade like that, like you got to chunk it up to like. Right. Five rider groups and leave some passing room. You really do.

Robin: You're not yet. Get out of the way, please. You don't need to pass. Why would you want to? Well, because we like riding. We're not on our way to a destination so we could talk about the thing we didn't just do.

Travis: But then we came down and that was the good section anyway. So it was fine. The end section was the good section.

Paul: Yeah. That section holds a special place in my heart because Robin was ahead of me. And, uh, I remember the Grom crew passing us after our first break at the foothills, trying to separate from the Harleys and then we get on the bikes and we go, and it's one of those long sweeping, you can see through the turn, you feel safe, the kind of route. I don't know how long it was, but it was a blast, very clean, wide, very fast turns. And at some point we come through to another overlook area and I knew the Grom people were there because I had seen them just hanging out and talking to each other and they heard Robin and I. And I remember just seeing a couple of helmets pop over this little grassy hill. I'm like, oh yeah, it's on now. So I downshift one gear and I just rip it 10,000 RPM as low as I can go, you know, big left-hand turn. And I'm sure they had a blast watching us go through the turn like that.

Robin: It was like looking at the dwarf army and just being like, we're with you. We believe you're one of us.

Brian: We'll see you at Helms Deep. Yeah. That bit between Townsend and Wears Valley is just epic. Pretty new. It's only been open a few years and it's just amazing.

Paul: It's one of those turns that where Robin was saying earlier before this section where he's like, yeah, there's some of these turns are like, when is it going to end? I've been turning left for about, you know, a mile now. Well, that was kind of like that route where he's like, when is this going to end? So long in a turn, you're just kind of like, okay, when am I going to turn right? Or when am I going to go straight?

Robin: I know I looked back at you at one point and I was just like, are you, is this real? You know, you kind of nodded like, okay.

Travis: Went through those sections too, or just left, right, left, right, left, right. Left. And then on 35 mile an hour, just like cranked over transition. There's no straight between them. You know, you're just, you're just going back and forth in a rhythm section.

Paul: Yeah. I'd like to blame that section that roasted my tire. That's what did it. No, that's fair. So you brought that up. Okay.

Robin: Oh, goodness. God. Okay.

Paul: Little warning.

Robin: So that argument doesn't happen yet because this is another mistake is at this point, after the foothills Parkway, once we reach 40, there's no reason to try to do anything more, there's some pretty stuff here. Like when we cross this section, that's actually still in there.

Travis: Oh yeah. Like over those, like over there with the river there. That's really nice.

Robin: But from here, it's like, I do a direct route instead. That's like, stop pretending you're done. You're happy. Go get pizza, go get drunk. Talk shit and sleep in elegance. It's time to bring Norm back into the picture here. The Blunderhassett was great. I'll give you that. It was a new bar on one level, but my new favorite stop is easily the old mill in bed and breakfast in Cumberland gap. That's the place. That's it for me. Loved it.

Norm: I agree with that. That was very beautiful. And I liked that restaurant we ate at. And then that little bar where we went around the corner there, I could have stayed there all night. I'm glad you guys drugged me out of there. But, uh, like I said, though, next year, you got to go earlier so we can get to that little town earlier. Yep. You know, cause that's a cool little place there. I love that.

Robin: That is the plan. Blue Ridge Parkway, 19 Cherahala, Dragon twice, foothills, and then go to Cumberland gap and chill.

Norm: I agree with that. For sure.

Dale: I like it. That, that day has so many epic roads to Cherahala, one dragon, the foothills. It's not worth it. Trying to find the last little tidbit of curves. It's like, you know what? That was a great day. Let's get to the house. Let's get to the stop and just enjoy Bask.

Norm: Agreed. I also thought it was pretty fun, um, blowing down that four lane highway to catch up Robin. Once again, at least the speed limit. And then, uh, Travis was like, no, I might want you for something or another. I don't know. He just took off. I'm just being a jerk. Just being an idiot. Just being a hooligan. But that was fun. I enjoyed that. But yeah, I love that, uh, the mill in there. That was really nice. And the food was great. The breakfast was awesome.

Robin: They liked us and I look forward to going back there again.

Travis: Yeah. I'm trying to remember now, cause we, yeah, we got breakfast at the end. Um, after we saw Robin and his underwear through the cellar.

Robin: Oh, that's right.

Travis: We go to this bar and we hang out and there's karaoke and then I just got quite drunk enough to do karaoke. But then we start exploring the old mill. We can, we come back in Jasmine and Robin, um, have turned in for the night. We're like, Oh, that's a severe weather. Let's go check out the cellar. Come on. Selling this old mill, a hundred something years to go down to the cellar. And there's all the, all the works down there from the wheel. Like when it used to actually be a male, like all the pulleys and stuff or belts are down in there. And then we just kind of see the light seeping out from around in the brick around this door. Right. Cause this old stone foundation, there's light seeping in. I wonder where that door goes. I bet it's like Robin's room or something like that. Open the door. There's a Robin in his skivvies. The fuck?

Robin: There was no, what? There was no fuck. I saw the wall turning and I saw the wall open and I just went, the fuck? It was Travis. Hey, and I look back there, Travis is looking through the door. I look in back and Norm is like, we in pure engineer style is not looking at Travis, he's, he's like 90 degrees from Travis looking at some like gearing or machinery that's in the basement with fascination and then behind him is Paul. He's just like, Hey, beer, chilling, walking around, talking. I came here to have a personal moment, gents.

Travis: Can't not tell that story. Did anyone else go to the bicycle museum? No, I didn't know about that at all. No, Jasmine and I went in the morning. It's just around the corner. There's like this little one room bicycle museum is really cool. That brick building there. To the right? Yeah. Yep. This right here is a bicycle museum.

Robin: Look at that.

Travis: Yeah. Wow.

Robin: So it's just West down the map. When did you have time for that?

Travis: Not that you can't walk around all of Cumberland Gap in five minutes. Yeah, I got up kind of early and I went to the little coffee shop and.

Paul: Okay. Nearly Travis, you, you mentioned that, uh, after you came back, you're like, Hey, you should check out the museum. So Jasmine and I, about an hour before we left, we checked it out. So 25 bikes in there with little, uh, info cards and pretty neat. A lot of, uh, 1900, 1920 stuff.

Robin: Paul, I gotta say, man, and whether I keep this in the episode or not, it doesn't matter. I think you, I think you made yourself very personable on this tour. I wasn't sure what to expect from anybody. There were a lot of new faces to me on this tour.

Paul: Yeah, it was a blast. I think I, Robin, I said to you something at the end of the trip. I said, this trip changed me. It really did in a very good way. I've never been in this part of the country before, at least in the nature that we did it, you know, maybe through a highway or something like that. The time and attention you put into this route and the stops and the experience and even being conscious with breaks, you know, the first breaks a half hour, uh, which is awesome. People can kind of stop and gather themselves and maybe get some water and do whatever.

Robin: That credit goes to Dave Rocco.

Paul: And then, uh, I think, I believe like a break about every hour after that five or six hour ride day is beautifully, uh, orchestrated. Just wanted to say that again, uh, on the record, it was, it was great.

Robin: We don't have time for those kinds of compliments.

Paul: Uh, and, uh, you know, at a stop like this, the Old Mill Inn is great. They, we all love motorcycles. We love riding them and going to the country the way we did, but then ending the day at something like that and having a really good dinner with a bunch of like-minded friends, it was a great week, not one dull moment.

Travis: And I have to say like too, it is, the stops have just improved and improved and improved. The, the French Quarter in Maysville. It's great. Blender has it. The Blender has it. Amazing. Mount Airy is great. The Inn in Cumberland Gap. Fantastic. Those places have such character and it makes it. What are we on now? Day six?

Robin: Yeah. Well, I'll take a moment to say, Paul, thank you.

Travis: You're welcome.

Robin: If we're getting into day six, now that Paul and I've been hugging it out, well, now we're going to have a fight.

Travis: Now we're all looking at Paul's tire going, man, we told you three days ago.

Paul: Well, I gotta be honest that day, Robin's like, would you, you'd fill up the tire, a little more PSI than I had. I went to max. Then you're like, you're going to drive this thing like a baby today. I'm like, okay. So I was in sixth gear the whole time. I think even, even pull it into a gas station, sixth gear. And then I was like, one, two, three, four, five, six, as we're, you know, leaving a stop sign and I was just being gentle.

Robin: A lot of things happened that day where like in the morning I was just like, look, man, uh, now it's going to be an actual heated debate because we actually care that morning. I was just like, no, we need, we need to have it out. And if we did, there was heat and good friendships come from that. We couldn't solve the problem locally. That was the downside. We could not figure out how to solve it. I think in hindsight, if we could have gotten a one 80 at the local joint, it would have been fine, but not even I was sure if a one 80 fit a one 90, I didn't know how to calculate that math yet. Brian fixed that at that point.

Travis: We'd already called in Ringer and he was preparing to load up and meet us in Moorhead.

Robin: The best part. We're going to jump to the end of the route between Paul and Brian. If it's coming from me, I understand. I'm Robin. I am a character. I can be suspect. That's fair. So when I tell you that this guy you've never met is going to put on a new tire for you and you say like, okay, that is fair. So fast forward to the end of the day, which we will only do, and then we'll rewind. The interaction between you and Brian took 15 seconds before you were ready to work with Brian. I'm like, I like this guy.

Paul: He's got the spare tire on the back of his seat, like ready to go. Didn't he introduce himself? Like, I'm going to fix your bike. Oh, see, I think Brian goes, so you're the guy.

Brian: I forget what I said. Yeah. You're that guy.

Robin: Back to the start of this day. Here we are, Cumberland gap. And here this, we are looking at the 2024 route. None of this is going to happen again. This is a dead route, but it was beautiful.

Travis: Some of it's going to duplicate because you have to like, but yeah, we roll out, go through the big tunnel. That's always fun. Get gas. And then, yeah, it was pretty chill for a while. There was some good sections, you know, honestly, like by day six, like I'm just sort of fried. I remember there being like, there's definitely some good sections looking at this, but it's always just like, wait, what curvy road was that?

Robin: That's what's amazing about this. We are zoomed out right now. So if I put the guy on this road and you look at some of this stuff.

Paul: Yeah. Is, is this a day with the long windy road next to the river?

Robin: Yeah, that worked out.

Paul: Yeah. Like that worked out, especially day six being, you know, everybody's tired and hot.

Robin: In the previous episode, I mentioned that somebody had suggested that maybe we need a day where we kind of mellow things out. And it was you, Paul. It happened to be that this road actually does that. You get kind of a, let's take a breather and still be curvy. There was no lean angle. It was just beautiful scenery for a little while.

Travis: There was some talk of even shortening that up. And if we could skip, what is it? Saylorsville? It's gone. Yeah.

Robin: We have reverted.

Travis: Yeah. Oh yeah. This is all gone. The tourist trap with the porn shop. What was the name of the porn shop?

Robin: I remember it was like across the street from a gun shop or some shit.

Travis: Yeah. It's like in the helicopter rides and the.

Brian: The thing with Kentucky roads is you, you have to go look at them because a three digit road may have lines on either side and a line in the middle and plenty of room, or it may be like a barely paved footpath that's three feet wide. And I think there's a couple of those that we, that you ended up on. That's kind of the big flaw with parts of this route. Very twisty road, but like three feet wide, if that.

Robin: I will say that it was sort of like one in three roads were absolute perfection. Two out of three roads were acceptable, but then one in three roads was also like, this is, I can't really accelerate.

Brian: Like I can't do this. Like Kentucky 542 good pavement, but like very little of it, lots of mailboxes, lots of dogs, this is all different next year anyway, but it's kind of where Robin and I kind of started talking about, you have to go ride to stuff, you can't just make it up. And even with Google, uh, street view, you can't quite figure this, some of this stuff out without that, but there were some really good sections too. Yes. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. This was not a bad day. I think I was having a rougher day than anybody else. Cause I just wanted to make sure that my, my peeps were having a good time. They were getting what they wanted out of this entire experience.

Brian: How was that forehead vein doing that day? Robin?

Robin: I'm no, I go psycho. So I don't, I don't go greatly concerned and pumping blood to the freaking psyche. I, I give up. Let's find out what happens. Everybody hope here we go. If we rewind to what happened by Maggie Valley on that dirt road, I saw the look on Greg's face as he rode by on his bike and he just sort of surrendered to like, well, I'm having a good time and I don't have to worry about where we're going. And I heard him go by. He goes, we're on an adventure. We meanwhile, I'm full on nuclear.

Brian: I remember hearing, and, uh, and it really looks like it. When you look at it closely, uh, 32 in the Moorhead was really great. You guys arrived in a nice state. Yeah. My original plan and Robin and I talked about this was to just walk around the corner and say, Hey guys, what's up? But that kind of got blown up because we had to make arrangements. I had like a half worn tire on the shelf. I changed it out a little early last year and I brought that with me. It was a one 80, but it worked fine. It's not that much of a difference from a one 90 10 millimeters. Yeah. One pinky, one pinky and really didn't, you know, I think Paul kind of figured that out, but I could tell by the end of day seven that he was perfectly comfortable again, but, uh, yeah. So we arranged that and yeah, this guy, Paul has never met before. Just parachutes in out of fricking nowhere with a tire. Hey, let's take your bike apart. How about, and we did took it off and I did the three, a tire iron trick. And, and anyway, we've got it all changed. It all worked out. Any torn paint on the rim?

Paul: Maybe a small mark, but it was worth it for a new tire.

Travis: He brought the juice boxes and the milk jugs. Yeah.

Brian: What was that little kickstand that you had the Enduro stand or something? It's an Enduro star trail stand. I mean, my bike has a center stand, but on my KLR, I carry one. It's like a little metal stick with a foot on one end and a little hook on the other end. You lock the front brake with a piece of Velcro that comes with it. And then you grab the bike. There's kind of a trick for getting the rear wheel off the ground really easily that a lot of people don't know. And they should, you lock the front brake, put one hand on the left handlebar and the other hand, grab something at the rear of the bike on the right side. And then lift, it'll rest on the front wheel and on the kickstand. And then you could put that little a crutch. I knew you'd have track spools. So we use the spool on the end of the swing arm and it held it up very stable. We could really yank on the bolts and everything. It's a company called Enduro star. And using that, or people use a piece of a crutch or a lot of different things to do the same thing. And then once it's on that, it's actually very stable.

Travis: I was completely surprised how stable it was. 40 bucks. I just, I just Googled Enduro star tracks or trail sand. And it's like a little janky, super basic website. And it says, add to cart. Looks like some guy makes them in his garage or something.

Brian: Yeah, it's pretty basic.

Paul: That was at night at the end of the ride, right? We did it when we got to this hotel parking lot and then I threw the old tire in the bushes there. And then, and then in the morning, I'd like to give a little credit to Norm. Like Norm, I caught you walking across the street and I'm looking for my old tire.

Norm: I took it to the tire shop and I put a $5 bill inside the tire. So hopefully he got it.

Robin: You owe Norm a beer. Yeah, I do.

Dale: Next year, Norm. So I figured, okay, we're good. That was quite the nice impromptu demonstration of how to change a tire.

Robin: It worked out. Yeah. But I had to beat in the hell. I would get the beat to sit. I was just done with my day. I wanted to make, I wanted Mexican food and a margarita.

Travis: Oh yeah. That was, I was, uh, I saw Brian and they were doing their stuff and I went upstairs and then we got our rooms and I took a shower and put on some civilian clothes and walked downstairs and said, yep, they're working on the bike. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to stay out of the way.

Brian: They need me. They'll ask for me. What's interesting is I walked into hotel. I got there about maybe a half hour before it was pretty close. Walked in and they said, oh, Hey, you here with the motorcycle tour group? And I'm like, yeah, I'm meeting in here. Here's all the room keys. Have fun. I was like, wow. All right. It's a very, very nice, best Western in Moorhead. I highly recommend it. Didn't have the character, but you know, it was very nice. Just walk in with a helmet and say, I'm Hey, I'm with the tour group and they'll hand it up. And just six, six rooms that dinner that night.

Robin: And she's not here. I think we all kind of miss Jasmine.

Travis: Oh, for sure.

Robin: She'd have something to say that would inspire us all. I guarantee it. Jasmine was sitting alongside of the table. She was opposite my seat. I was on the far, this side of the table. She was on the far of that side of the table. And I looked over and I want you all to know this. I didn't know that she wasn't going to stay at the next shithole on the last night. That freaking that's not happening. Like, I didn't know that she was going to go direct to her trailer the next night. She was on her last night, having the final dinner with us. And I caught her looking around at all of us, the love in her eyes while she was looking at each of us individually, just looking around the table for the adventure that she had that really hit home. We've been running this tour since 2017. I think, I don't know if she knows that I saw, but I saw. And that for me was a grand slam moment of, I see all of you. I am part of this and I'm going home tomorrow after work. Damn near brought a tear to my eye, but I was too busy telling Paul that, Hey man, all that bullshit from this morning. I want you to know that that's how I actually make actual friendships.

Travis: And you're welcome for the tire. Also shout out to the Don senior, whatever, where the smallest beer you can get is like half a gallon. Oh my God. He doesn't even bigger.

Norm: Norm. What size beer did you get? It was the largest one day at I'm sure.

Travis: No. Cause there was like, there was like 132 60. There was a comical size. You get like a 20 or a 32 or like 126 or something stupid like that. Like, Oh, like it must be a share.

Norm: No, I didn't get that large one. I got like a media one. That's right.

Travis: Yeah. That was a two hander beer. The margaritas come in 12, 20, 32 or a 60 ounce pitcher.

Paul: Robin that night. Didn't we have exactly the same drinks and food? Exactly. Sitting across from each other. It just bam, bam, bam. I'll have what he's having. I'll have what he's having.

Robin: That's not a good, let's do that. It was like back and forth.

Paul: It became a thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think I didn't want to think anymore. That's where I was. I was like, Oh, I'm so tired. Yeah.

Robin: Calgon, take me away. Chicken enchiladas and alcohol.

Paul: Day seven was different. Day six was like, I'm in six gear all day long. And this is, wow, this is crazy. I'm going pretty slow. Take it easy. Day seven is like, Ooh, new tire. Let's do this. How fast can I go through this tire?

Travis: Do we hit that like little gas station, right? The first, the first stop. And it's like, man, we should get breakfast there or something. Cause they had that, like, it was like a little country everything store. And it's like, you can get your gas or some homemade pies or some lunch or some breakfast or a Lego set or drive shaft for your tractor or like, but it was like clean and nice and quaint and the pies and I got those cookies, bakery items.

Paul: That was a good stop in the morning, having some coffee.

Robin: And we're not going anywhere near here ever again.

Brian: We might on a, on a Kentucky ride.

Travis: The crawl. Yeah. Next time we have Ringer does the Kentucky crawl. We got to get breakfast there. And then there was a really like, I remember it started out kind of like, Oh, it's just like pretty. It's nice. And then we hit some like good stuff. And then there's some good stuff interrupted by a bike race. Dale got passed by a cyclist.

Robin: Bicycle. Norm take over. What, what do you remember?

Norm: That was a fun day, but I was really getting tired myself. Well, we made it to the ferry boat. That's when I thought, well, I don't want to cross it, you know, two times. Cause I have to come back the same way. And that's when I decided to just start heading home.

Brian: That was a good decision, Norm.

Norm: I missed that night. And then I just took the highway home, but I got so tired. I had to pull over at a gas station and just, I slept for a half hour at least. And then I got a Mountain Dew and a Snickers and took off again. And yeah, I was pretty beat when I got home, I did about almost 600 miles that day or 500 at least. You know, I had to get, I wanted to get home.

Travis: Well, the K 1600, you can all do that.

Norm: Going out of Columbus heading North, you know, I was kind of like, God's getting my bearings again. You know, I'm all right. This lady, young lady, I'll add in a BMW car. She wanted to race me. Wow. Who am I to say no. So we were doing, you know, at least the speed limit all the way up to where I had to pull off on 76 and she went up the Cleveland like that.

Travis: It's like the bit from a vacation, Lampoon's vacation.

Norm: It was almost exactly like that. Cranked it up the highway and that was it. I was happy to be home by Sunday. So I had a day to decompress before I had to go to work. You know, I missed the end, but whatever. It was okay though.

Robin: Shove hands for day seven. If you went to work the day after, were you really there? How present were you?

Dale: I have no memory of that.

Robin: Paul's like all over it. Hi, I am back. And it's me, Paul.

Dale: Just another day.

Travis: Let me go through. Let's let's see, uh, Robin's well, whatever Robin does. I don't know. I work in it. Paul works in it. Ringer basically works in it. Greg works in communications sales, which is basically how it works. Oh, Norm's a machinist. He's the only one who's going to lose a digit if he's not paying attention. Yeah.

Norm: It's pretty easy nowadays with all the CNC machinery and all the tooling, you know, you just babysit the machine is all you do not like back in the old days. The old days, it would suck yet. If you weren't careful. Or does your machine even have crank handles on it? No. Well, it does have a little dial that I can spend it.

Travis: Oh, the jog wheel doesn't count. No, I want Dale to tell the story of when the bicycle passed him. Oh, I barely remember that.

Robin: But I remember like we're in their race. They're trying to get around us. That's sad.

Travis: We come up and there's like, it would have been a fun, a pretty fun road, but like we just slowed to a crawl because there's all these cyclists on the shoulder and all the cars are like afraid to cross the double yellow to get around the cycle.

Robin: Oh my God.

Paul: Yeah. Travis, didn't you, didn't you honk at me? Cause I was actually in the way of the bicycle. Yes. And that was, that was the Dale.

Dale: I honestly, I think I remember hearing somebody say on your right. Yes.

Robin: Yeah. Dale was in the way of a bicycle race.

Travis: And then they passed them on a downhill because we were stuck behind the truck and the truck was over just enough for a bite, but none of the motorcycles could get behind and the double yellow line.

Brian: Yeah. We got out of that pretty quickly. And what, yeah, it was, yeah, we got on five 30, five 39. I think that one was a lot of fun because that dumped us right out on 22. Yeah. Like it's, it's one of those little goat roads, but it's a lot of fun. And it dumps you on 22, which is one of the best roads in the country. I think. Yeah. So 22 and, and kind of the halfway points Falmouth. And then when you hit dry Ridge, uh, on the interstate, then that, that fun is over and then a different kind of fun begins, I will say there, there are a couple of these, there are a couple of these roads that kind of ended up a lot more narrow and full of mailboxes than we really wanted. And again, it's kind of those things, you know, gotta go, gotta go write it and think about it. It's like, okay, is this, is this really going to work for someone on a, you know, it did, he made it work, but yeah. And then we, and then we were crossing the river at the, on the ferry at rabbit hash, it goes from rabbit hash to, uh, Kentucky to rising sun, Indiana.

Travis: Yeah. And Robin blew the, blew the corner again, but everyone turned around. At that point, we remembered that like those people take over as lead when something gets missed.

Dale: The most memorable part of that for me was watching bulls backpack.

Robin: Yes. You know what? No, no, no. That's nobody's story to tell except for Paul. He gets to tell that story.

Travis: So day zero, we were finally ringing around before I went to Maysville and he's like, I'll go this way, take the ferry across the river. So we did that. But to take the ferry, you need to like scan a QR code off of a phone pole on your way into the ferry. But we're on motorcycles and the day we were leaving, they're like, wasn't really aligned. So we never could stop to like take a phone out and scan the thing and pay the ferris wheel. Then we just got on, but then the guy never like asked us for anything. And I don't, yeah, but on the way, on the way back with that, with the crew, we had time to stop and scan the thing and go to the website and pay for it. So I'm so used to the, um, the ferry in Wisconsin, the, um, by devil's lake, right? It technically it's a state highway and it is, uh, free Merrimack. Um, so it's technically a state highway and it's free. It's a state road. It's a historical landmark. But it, um, it runs on a cable. So there's a cable that goes across the river and the ferry, you know, they love the ferry and the ferry just pulls itself on this big cable that runs in the river. Well, this one across the Ohio river, uh, it's just like floating and there's like kind of like a tugboat thing that sort of bops you around and hooks on and it's, it's a little bit of a trip cause it goes like on a weird angle, the ramps will drop and you'll start getting off. And then it'll just move some more. They'll like adjust it while people are driving off of it.

Robin: Do not let your bike flow freely. Like stand next to your bike and hold on to it.

Brian: It's a, yeah, it's called a swing ferry where the, the power part of the ship, uh, swings around to change directions. It's on a big hinge on the side. It's really weird. But, uh, yeah, it's like 599, which is annoying. We cross the river, we get off, find a place to eat.

Travis: Paul's got to tell us, so we're on the ferry, you know, we take off our helmets where we're taking pictures. We're chilling.

Paul: It's like one of those Le Mans starts again. You know, we're relaxing on the, and my backpack was hanging on the right side of my bike and totally forgot about it. It was hanging on the frame slider. And, uh, I put everything on, I take off and I'm like, wow, something feels really great and different. Like this feels wonderful. And then I hear Robin's bike. I'm like, wow, wow, like God in it behind me. I'm like, oh, Rob really wants to get ahead. And he passes me. It's like yelling something. And I don't know what it was, but I have a feeling I should slow it down. So I slowed out. I looked down and there's my backpack dragon on the side of the bike. So maybe like a nickel size hole in the bottom. That's about all that that happened. And a little duct tape won't fix. Right.

Dale: Could have been worse.

Robin: I was nightmaring about it. I was like that guy, he's good. If he takes a hard Rick, I just rolled in. It was like, you're like, why are you a dick? And I was like, I'm going to speed limit. I am stopping you now. You were, you were going to survive this thing.

Travis: While we were waiting for the ferry, you were like, Hey, sweep, figure out some food on the other side for lunch. So I'm like Googling stuff. And there's like a couple of good looking places, but like, this is like the little tiny town in, in Southern Indiana on the river. And it's like, how would you like some meat with your side of meat? I'm like, well, I know we have vegetarian people with us. So let's, let's maybe find something with salads on the menu on the internet.

Robin: Play that shit up all you want. Travis, you were a brilliant sweep.

Travis: Absolutely. I'm setting up. I'm setting up why the place we stopped, we will never stop that again.

Robin: That suck.

Travis: Yeah. Um, but I was like, Oh, here's like a biker, like a biker friendly, you know, brother, but, um, it was like, well, if we show up, whatever, it'll be fine. It's like, it's like a bar and grill. Turns out in Indiana, you can still smoke indoors.

Robin: Yeah. Through your neck. If that's the situation. Hey, what can I get you?

Travis: Mandatory bar. They did have the food was okay. It wasn't great, but it was cheap.

Norm: Norm. I want to interrupt. I'm going to get rolling here. It's starting to get dark and I'm in this parking lot, looking a little shady.

Brian: I forgot about that.

Norm: Why are you in a, why aren't you home? Uh, I was out riding the bike and then I tried to make it home and I thought, well, let me just pull over here and you're on the bike. So, yeah, I just wanted to sum up, you know, I had a really great time. The people we are with was just great. I mean, it just worked out so perfect. You know, I don't know what else to add. I just definitely got my money's worth. That's for sure. You were the heart of the tour, man. I'd really like to do it again next year. Uh, I do have a big ride plan next year to out West, but I don't know. I might go to squeeze this in too.

Robin: Oh, you may be able to squeeze a seven day tour in.

Greg: Well, Norm, I gotta say, haven't known you for years through the GS resources route. We've never ridden together before and it was just a real freak to get to ride with you. It was a lot of fun and you were hustling that big thing around like, like nobody's business, man.

Norm: Yeah, it handled pretty nice. And, uh, yeah, it was a pleasure riding with you too, Greg and everyone. Really? I mean, it was, it really had a good time, you know, it was just every aspect of it.

Travis: One of the big takeaways is great. We all know Greg is the hillbilly whisperer, but Norm is like the hillbilly shouter, like Greg is like when the hillbillies come out of the woods and start chatting, he's just, he's like, they're smiling and nodding and we stopped, we stopped in nowhere. And Norm was just like, Hey fellas, how's it going? What are you doing today? Charming the pants off of anyone.

Norm: Oh yeah. I like talking to strangers to a degree, you know, and things like that. Well, that's cool.

Brian: Thanks for joining us, Norm. We're good to talk to you again.

Norm: Oh yeah. I really appreciate it. Uh, you guys take it easy. Have a nice night.

Travis: Bye Norm.

Norm: Hey, bye.

Travis: Uh, I'm just going to note. None of us knew Norm was somewhere in a gas station on his motorcycle for this call until just now.

Robin: And as impressed as we are, none of us are all that surprised either.

Brian: He's an animal, a manimal. So what I just sent you, Robin, this is the route we should have ridden in Indiana. Okay. So this is the route that actually works in Indiana and it is paved.

Robin: Okay. I believe you.

Brian: I'll believe you. Yeah.

Robin: Thank you. Paul. Paul is going to feel, Paul's my lawyer. Paul is my lawyer. You can feel this question.

Travis: I think how you have to point out that it's paved. Part of the pit is when 156 was closed though. Right? That was part of the problem.

Brian: Yeah. So, so what happened was we crossed the river. We have, uh, you know, smokes and sandwiches and Rocky's bar and grill. Rocky's. Yeah, brother. What happened from that point is I was, I was leading because I live in Indiana and the problem that happened was I had the wrong route loaded. I had gone down there like the week before and I built a revised route for Indiana that is actually paved and actually, you know, has, uh, more than six feet of pavement. So this is the route we should have done. The route we did do was all wrong. And it wasn't the quality that, that we seek for it's not real, not quite representative of this area of Indiana. We, we did fit some good curves and so forth.

Travis: There was that one road next to the like Creek or river, whatever, where it was like, this used to be paved. Yeah. I think they just like came by with like a, like an asphalt mill and just like ground it. And then that was it. Like they didn't deconvert it. And it was like weird patches, like paved for like 30 feet. And then like, it wasn't gravel. It was broken asphalt. Re chopped. Finally milled into like that.

Brian: That was a weird road. We're all about weird roads in Indiana. Let me tell you. No, actually we got back on the route about, about right where your screen is now. Yeah. And one, one thing I'm really oddly proud of is, is I said, Hey, y'all want to ride the worm? It's this horrible, horrible road, but it's got a funny name. Let's go ride the fishing worm Ridge road.

Travis: And they did it once. I figured it wasn't 46 curves and three miles. Was that what we figured out? So I'm like that. Somebody got it. Well, some of it.

Brian: Yeah, you did. Yeah. It's like a little tiny segment of road. It's called fishing worm Ridge road. It's outside of VV, Indiana. And I was like, Hey, there's this really crappy road, but it's got a funny name and everybody was down for it. And we all did it, took a picture by the sign and, and a farmer's dog showed up and hang out with us. It was, it was, that was sweet. That's a scary ass road, isn't it?

Dale: That was formerly paved double track. I would barely call that a road.

Brian: I'm just hoping everybody who owns an F three 50 up there on that road that lives on it was, uh, was at work that day. And I think they were.

Travis: What was the road that I was talking about? Like by the, that was like, had like a, a Creek running next to it the whole time and it was like, kept switching. Should be on this route here because yeah, we got screwed up.

Robin: We got our ass kicked.

Travis: That's where we like stopped and took a little break for a while. Yeah.

Robin: Don't, if you're saying this shit to protect my ego, do not, because there's a story that is untold here.

Travis: Oh no, this isn't the one you crashed on Robin.

Brian: Uh, we haven't gotten to that part yet. Probably the road he's thinking of is further South. No, that was after fishing worm Ridge road, go West a little bit. So one of these roads here was where we had the, uh, issue.

Robin: You call it an issue. Now everybody, I'm telling you right now, this cracks me up that everybody was super worried. I appreciate it. I do, I do care, but so if you, Travis has heard the previous episode, I was fine. And I was like, I hope everybody else is fine. And as I began to put my butt on the seat, the bike immediately just became on the ground. It wasn't a matter of like, I sat down and then crashed. I proceeded to sit down and my butt eventually sat down on the dirt and then the bike was clocking. The bike was like a minute hand going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Just going in circles and I had to power it off. Everybody on the tour rolled up on me and was like, are you all right for an hour? I was like, yeah, the only thing I'm not okay about is my fucking paint. And I'm going to divide it between Greg White, Dale Dunn, and Brian Ringer are paying for the paint job on my luggage and then we'll be somewhere that way about it.

Dale: I've got, I've got a half a roll of duct tape, that color in my saddlebag. Oh, you are now.

Travis: So this is, we turned down this road. There was like a road closure. And then we like double back and we're on some like back road. And I don't even know, cause not on the, it wasn't on the route. We're just following Ringer. It's like pavement ends under construction. So it's like one lane's like closed, closed the other lane. It's like, it's not even gravel. It's sand. It is just loose pebbly sand. Not great on sport bike tires. This has been made clear. No, you did not go into this off at all in the episode, at least not in the final cut. Cause I listened to it today. Yeah. But I think what happens, you get cross-routed.

Dale: Yeah, I had a front row seat to that. And about the time Robin sat down, his bike did two fishtails from side to side, rear end, trying to figure out which side of the sand it wanted to be on. And then it was over.

Travis: From way in the back, what I see, I just see Robin's bike fall over and then start to spin on the, on the cylinder head, cause it's a BMW, it must've done like three circles before it stopped.

Dale: Yeah, he got to stop before I could take action. Cause I was trying to figure out, okay, this is like four feet from me. I could wedge my front tire up against his back tire and stop the rotation. But he made it to jump in there and you know, his, his video game platforming skills kicked in and he jumped in at just the right time and hit the kill switch.

Robin: What else was I going to do? I looked at it inside and was like, yeah, that's the situation. Crash bars. I sold the crash bars. Turn that shit off. Let's go check the cylinder head and see how much oil I lost. I'll bill you. Oh, it's all right. Hey guys, don't worry about it. I'll bill you.

Brian: Just have, have your people bill my people.

Robin: You gotta be able to ride the bike for me. My decisions are your responsibility.

Brian: Makes a good story. It does. We made it to Madison and really, I said, Norm made a good decision by, by heading home and missing the, the, this hotel was not. That was a shithole. Okay.

Travis: It was a motel. The weird Italian restaurant. The Mayberry motor lodge was a motel. It was a nice motel with class and style. Personality. Yeah. The, whatever we stayed in Madison was subpar, but the Italian restaurant was baller though. I'll say that. Yeah. I liked that to cross the parking lot. The restaurant was the guy you were like, can I get a gin and tonic? And he's like, oh, we're out of tonic. And then he like gets on his scooter. He went and got drives down to the store, buys tonic. Unreal. That was money.

Robin: Black, olive, Italian and Madison, Indiana. Shout out amazing restaurant. Go there. Eat there. Be good to them. They deserve it.

Brian: Madison does have some really, really, really cool places to stay, but they're all down by the river and they're all like 300 bucks a night.

Robin: And we will never see them.

Brian: And I thought it was funny. Like I, we get there and, and Jasmine's like, and I don't know if she made this decision in the moment or what, but she's like, uh, yeah, I'm gonna go home. And maybe she looked around and decided that maybe she just, I think you're just, she had a lot.

Travis: I mean, she had to get all the way back to Long Island. Like, and so she had to drive right back to her, uh, car and trailer, which were between Madison and Maysville. And then she was gonna, she had been, she was telling us, cause she's got to test the model. Why? And she's like, yeah, I just go to a charging station, plug in the charge. And then I sleep in the car and I got UC and it's cool. I could see someone going, uh, yeah, I'm a go.

Brian: It was, it worked. We were all tired. It worked out. Yeah. The last day that's not going to happen again. And then, uh, Robin and I had a pretty nice ride back to Indianapolis. That was a good hang, more relaxing day. Robin could just like take your mind off the hook and just follow do the Greg White. That was much needed.

Travis: Yeah. I'm not in charge. This is fine.

Robin: Oh, Greg White's led me on a many a ride. So I know that he understands. I know that. See, this is how insensitive Greg White is. He knows exactly what I'm going through, but he's making this face right here and thinking you're about to suffer. I'm going to watch if that's a service that I can provide for Greg, if that's his fetish, I'm happy to provide.

Greg: It's like I said that night at dinner, Robin, you know, you can't be too hard on yourself. It's, it's hard leading a ride like this and getting everything right. You know, you got to cut yourself some slack. Beth, you did a great job.

Brian: Thanks man. Thank you. I'm the one who screwed up the last day. Don't, so I'll take that one.

Greg: I looked at that and saw your dirty fingerprints all over for sure. But yeah, I mean, all the routes you put together, the places, the lodging, I didn't get to experience that last night. So I don't know what that was all about.

Dale: Not much. It was serviceable.

Greg: We had great weather. I don't know. Did, did you guys end up riding through any rain at all for a whole week?

Travis: No, yeah. Nine days for me and no, no rain. The night we stayed in Warm Springs was the only time it rained and that was overnight.

Greg: Yeah. Right. And what a great group of people. I mean, I've met all the best people riding motorcycles and this group was no exception.

Dale: Yeah. That was an epically good week. Absolutely.

Greg: Even though I'd previously known many of them, getting to meet Paul and Jasmine and ride with them was a highlight.

Travis: And Norm, I'd never met Norm before. So talking about rides home, I had a great ride home. Like left, left Madison. It was like crisp and bright morning. I took seven up towards Vernon. And then the, the, there was like signs, road closed ahead, road closed ahead, road closed ahead. And by like the fifth road closed ahead sign, I was like, I think they might be serious. There's this many signs for this long. There's probably a bridge out. So then I just like, just like, okay, what's the next like little county road that I could take over to highway three, which is like the next highway over. And I just happened to get off at just the right point and like caught this like covered bridge. And I sent you guys a picture of it. I don't even remember what road it was on. Picturesque, barn red, wooden, maintained, nice covered bridge. I was like, Oh, how quaint. And then I had a great ride. It was 457 miles, I think from Madison to Madison. I didn't like eight and a half hours. The heat wave had come in and there was this big South wind blowing all the heat up. So whenever I was like North bound on the like Illinois farm roads, I took the back way up. I was doing what felt like the speed limit with a 40 mile an hour tailwind.

Robin: Yeah, that worked out. I mean the same thing. So Brian knows this. You guys haven't met three letter John and three letter John. And I were on the phone the entire time for the same 400 miles for me direct from the last destination on the tour, all the way home, so 425 miles, whatever it was, all the way home on the phone with three letter John while he was doing an iron butt between Bedford and I don't remember where he lives. I will say, I want to pass the mic around real quick. I care about the tour. I care about the people. I want everybody to get what they want out of it. I don't want 24 hours for anybody to be subpar or upsetting, which is about why we also vet the riders. You got to have what it takes to go on a tour like this. You have to have what it takes to do a route like this. You need to be skilled. You need to be trained or at least to have some history of training that may be it needs a refresher and you're going to put yourself in the middle of the pack to do so whatever. That's all right. Point is I was supremely honored by everything from my co-host on the podcast, Brian Ringer, helping me kind of try to change some things. Maybe they didn't work out. Doesn't matter. We, you, you went out of your way to help me make an effort at it to Travis. You're always my first call. You were the perfect sweep and you were also the perfect baton picker when I was just like, dude, take the fucking baton, get it out of here. Make it go, make the problem go away. Mostly Greg, get rid of Greg. Norm's not here, but damn center of the core. He was the heart of this whole thing. He didn't speak. He just made it work between norm and the opposite, the comforting, making shit, right? Robin, go get your phone. Travis has this Jasmine to the fiery. I get what you were going for. Robin. I'm in, I'm right behind you, Paul, to the robotic perfection. Absolute. How the fuck are you doing on that piece of shit, Dale?

Travis: I'll say anytime we stopped. So we had two CBR 1000 RR 25th special editions. We had a fully loaded, you know, BMW K 1600 GT had a K 1200. GS had your R 1200. My like pretty Neo retro. The bike that got the attention anywhere we stopped was Dale's diarrhea. Shit bomb crashed like four times and put back together. 1980 Suzuki GS 1000. Anytime we stopped anywhere, that was the bike people wanted to see there. They want to talk about Dale's bike.

Robin: Outriding us all on it. And then to Greg, I've always turned to you. You don't like it that I do, but I've always turned to you and your face answers my questions. You've had a wise response. You were like, I'm sick of this response for other people. Don't ask. And so I'll just wait and I'll see it. And I'll be like, okay, you, you don't have to talk. I get it. I know the answer. You've always been ahead, whether you're behind or not. I feel like you're somebody I can lean on. This was seven motherfuckers and an eighth who just couldn't be there because it's not an eight person tour. Fucking it was my pleasure. Thank you for trusting me and thank you for giving me a chance to do my best to falter where I needed to. With that, are you gold? Would you consider putting dollar bills in my pocket to try and do this again?

Dale: I remember thinking towards the end of the tour, I think I said it out loud. It's like only Robin would be crazy enough to make, take on this project, try to make a seven day tour and like hone it to perfection every time. There's something else he's trying to polish and make it a little bit better. And it's just an awesome week every time.

Travis: I hope I can do it next year. If you like riding twisty roads, it is, it is ice cream three squares a day for seven days in a row. It is, you gotta be ready for that. There are points where it's like, can we stop having fun now? Getting a little tired.

Robin: Yeah, totally. Greg, did you have a good time for the duration you were there?

Greg: Oh, absolutely. I did. My writing was not what I wanted it to be and I'm going to work on that. But every other aspect of the tour, as I've mentioned earlier, just the routes, the people, the venues, all the work that you put into it is absolutely wonderful and I hope I get to do it next year. Me too. Can't wait.

Robin: Paul, nobody cares what that guy's opinion is. I've written with Paul several times now before this tour. I'd do that anytime. He is skilled. He is quick. He knows his shit. The dude is a freaking beast and he's just, he's going to monster through the situation because nobody will tell him how it is. He has to experience the dismemberment plan that it is for him to be convinced that it's anything that could possibly be reality. Was it worth it? Are you good?

Paul: Absolutely worth it. I think it was a perfect storm. It was not only something we all love to do. I knew that. Robin is the only one I knew going into this, so I didn't know what to expect. The seven days on a sport bike, 2000 miles, all this was just throw it to my face and see what happens. And it ended up being something I'll never forget soon because the route was, I could tell it was well manicured, a lot of effort, even during the ride. Every stop I could tell Robin's mind is just turning. How could that be better? Is everybody having a good time? How could that be better? Is everybody having a good time? You know, in the back of my mind, I wanted Robin to have a good time also, and not just think this is work, work, work, you know, I'm on the job. I'm on the clock. Um, so I, I could see right away that there's a lot of time and painstaking effort involved. And the same thing with Brian, which I haven't met yet. I knew Brian had a lot of, uh, say at the route itself too. And, uh, everybody else too. It was well balanced team of riders. Everybody brought their own little personalities in, everybody respected everybody else's time. Everybody's there for everybody else at all times, no matter what, how you doing? Do you need anything? It was a lot of fun. Nobody was there for their own self benefit. Everybody was there for everybody to have a good time. So really enjoyed that between the experience of everybody doing what they loved and everybody's personality being pulled together like that for seven days, but I would do it again in our beat. I would drive across the country to go back and do this ride again. And with your two trucks and your two trailers and your- You and I both might have to- And yeah, so yeah, to, to Robin, like kind of to that point, who knows? Maybe we'll go together to make this trip next year, but I think we'll probably be out West about around that time.

Robin: Our paths are going to cross deep West and we'll figure it out. We'll suffer through the progress just to get there. Maybe we can.

Paul: Yeah.

Robin: Let's roll the dice.

Paul: Absolutely.

Robin: That was the most eloquent and most awesome review. Thanks, man. Yeah, welcome. Print it up. I'm just in there for a free vacation. Well, Brian, do you want to take it out?

Brian: Let's get out of here.