Robin: Dr. Crystal Lume, who I know from, and I'll say it because I'm not sure you're, I don't know how this works or if you're even allowed to, but I'll say that it's from a mass on my lip that this doctor who was on the show managed to cut out of my face.

Crystal: And he tolerated it really well. I mean, he was a good sport about it.

Robin: Did he get a sucker?

Crystal: You know, I give out gold stars.

Robin: I really wish it hadn't happened at a steakhouse and that he'd actually used an actual scalpel, but in the end, it all worked out pretty good. Is there, if we call you Crystal, how should we call you? Crystal? Did I see your last name? Right? Call me Crystal, please.

Crystal: I'm not at work. Okay.

Robin: But you are on call.

Crystal: I am. So, you know, if I have to look at the stupid phone, I'll, I'll try to tell him, leave me alone.

Brian: This adds a little excitement to it. You know, it could disappear at any time. It's a Friday. Anything could be going on out there.

Crystal: And that's why I'm on my fourth marriage because men don't tolerate you disappearing at any time for all hours of the day and night.

Robin: Poof. There's just a cloud in the shape of Crystal just still floating there. And then, then all of a sudden it just fades. Yeah.

Crystal: Right. Just like the cartoons. And it's amazing how often that happens during like unpleasant family events.

Brian: Oh yeah. Got to go. Got to go. Yeah.

Crystal: I know. I'm sorry. I got to go. Yeah. I got my phone call. We'll see in the old days when it was pagers and it would just beep. I could just say, oh.

Robin: We both had those. I will edit that out if I need to. We may be dating ourselves right then and there.

Crystal: I'll freely admit my age and everybody says, what's your, how old?

Robin: I've seen the pictures on the Facebook. Lovely person.

Crystal: Oh, you're very sweet. Yeah. I have some. I'm trying to think of what I have on Facebook. I have some cheeky pictures.

Robin: Absolutely. At any rate, so Brian's got some really wonderful questions here for you. And we did correspond beforehand thinking like, well, you know, I know she's a nice person. I know she rides. She dropped the Ducati bomb on me and I thought, well, okay, we're going to have some things to talk about, but that doesn't really mean much. The real goal here is to inspire a fun conversation on your terms and we'll just see how things play out. Feel free to have fun with it to your heart's content. Friday night. Let's have at it.

Brian: The first thing that came to mind when Robin told me he texted me, he's like, yeah, I'm having a chunk taken out of my lip and all this stuff. So did Robin get to keep that chunk and, and, and, and what did he name it? So I texted him like he should call it Lipton or Phillip. I'm letting him do this, by the way, Joe Lippin, Dua Lipa, Truth Lipper, anyway.

Crystal: I mean, if you put it in alcohol, could you call it Phillip Collins?

Brian: That's excellent. The Lip Collins, Robin's gone.

Crystal: Like the drink, you know, Tom Collins, except to be a Phillip Collins.

Robin: That's perfect. Everybody is now more upset because now I'm able to speak better than before. And that's not good for anyone, let alone the listeners.

Brian: I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time looking at Robin's mouth or anything, but yeah, it did some amazing work stuff that's beyond any of us. So anyway, thank you again. You're so welcome. So you know, you guys were talking while you were slicing away or whatever it is you do. And you said you ride motorcycles as well in Ducati. Is that kind of unusual among, you know, in the medical field?

Crystal: Yeah. I think especially trauma surgeons in particular, don't ride donor cycles as they're called in the trauma room for good reasons.

Robin: I did not know that you were a crazy person.

Crystal: Oh, is that not included on my business card? Surgeon and crazy person.

Robin: Official crazy person. So then you're talking about the local commute, hop on the bike, get to where you're going.

Crystal: Going to the grocery store to just pick up a couple of things, going to see a friend, going, you know, going to the Dairy Queen, which is always a good place to go on your motorcycle.

Robin: Yes. That's true. Local to us, they just closed down rumble seats off of 14. It's no more.

Crystal: I saw that. I drove into Spring Green last night to go to dinner at reunions and yeah, it was closed and I wondered, are they closed for the season or like the finest milkshake I've ever had?

Brian: Well, you're right there next to the cows. You know, how could it be bad? Well, if you were here right now, you would smell why I've been in Wisconsin in like late September, early October. And yeah, there's a certain there's a certain cheesy tang to the air.

Crystal: A real one.

Brian: Yeah. There's a certain something going on there. I don't know what it is about this particular time of year, though. I don't know enough about cows and cheese and how that works. Oh, yeah. We're talking about motorcycles, aren't we?

Crystal: Oh, yeah, that's right.

Brian: So the good question, how did you get started riding and, you know, and how crappy was your first bike?

Crystal: My dad rode when I was a little kid. I think he got his first bike in marriage probably when I was about eight. And so I would go on rides on the back of the motorcycle and then my brother, who's five years younger than me, got a dirt bike when he was eight and I was five years older. So I learned how to ride it, although my my father said, girls don't ride motorcycles.

Brian: I'm like, had the opposite effect, right?

Crystal: My brother taught me how nice. And so when my dad didn't know, though, I would ride the bike, but, you know, officially I wasn't permitted to.

Brian: There's one of those little whatever Honda dirt bikes.

Crystal: Yeah, it was a little Honda Kawasaki. Oh, two stroke.

Robin: That sounded like a two stroke to me.

Brian: Very good, very good. We know dad found out at some point what happened.

Crystal: He just said, OK, he found out when I went to college and I got, you know, I couldn't afford a real bike, but I got a scooter that, you know, is not the same, but you're in the air and you're moving.

Robin: So people do race them. I see clips of legit known motorcycle racing names and they just have these exhibition goof off things where they're all in full leathers at the track on scooters, on step through motorcycles, and they're they're going at it. They're fully tucked. They're riding them as assertively. I don't use the word aggressively. I always say assertively. It's quite something to see. How can you turn down seventy five miles to the gallon?

Crystal: As a college student?

Robin: Yeah.

Crystal: That was heaven on earth. It cost me 50 cents to fill the dang thing. Yep. It was awesome. Half gallon tank.

Brian: You could run around all week. Was that one of those where you had to put the oil in the little tank next to the gas tank? Yeah. Yeah. I remember those in the seventies, eighties, you know, they were all two cycle engines and then later on they cleaned them up.

Crystal: Yeah. This was, I think, 84 or 85. It was awesome. I mean, for a college student, it was perfect transportation until it got stolen. So I go to the impound lot, they call me and say, hey, we got your bike. I'm like, great. And I call and it's in pieces.

Robin: Yeah. They hand you a box. Here is your box of transportation. Here you go.

Crystal: Wah, wah, wah, wah.

Robin: Well, that kind of thing was always bound to happen. I mean, the thing that led me to ride motorcycles at all was the day that I finally realized wait a minute, I'm allowed to do this.

Crystal: You don't need anybody's permission.

Robin: Yeah. I pay for a mortgage. There's nobody that I need to answer to. I want it. I'm not even going to reason with what, like a lot of people talk about in sales, how we legitimize the purchase. I don't need to legitimize anything. I just want it. I'm going to do it. So you did. You bought the right thing to buzz around town on. Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. I happen to know this as inside information, but so when you were in school the first time, what was that degree? I started in music.

Crystal: I started as a flute performance major, and then I quit for a couple of reasons, mostly to put my evil first husband through law school, which he quit three days in.

Robin: Ah, now your current husband's a lawyer too, yes? Number four. Yes. I'm not making any story of this or any convo of this. Just seeing where that goes. It'd be great if he was the one that was the prosecution against your first husband. That would have been fantastic.

Crystal: Oh, that would have been, that would have been a real, uh.

Robin: Dice roll.

Crystal: Yeah. You know, we've joked because he's in the Minneapolis Twin Cities area, and you know, we have so many of the same haunts that we used to go to, and I joke, how many times did we cross paths and just not know it? Yeah. So I was a flutist, and I dropped out of school and played professionally while I put my husband into law school. I'm not going to say through, into.

Brian: Into and then he left. Okay.

Crystal: I'm like, oh, well, okay then.

Robin: Impossible for me to not fall back on it, but I was walking the dog through the woods and I was thinking about, well, we're going to be talking to her today, the motorcycling, and then I remember the music and I immediately started hearing the narrator for the Stolbo books in my head. We had to listen to him for basic music history, and I heard that voice that cantata, Johann Sebastian Bach, number one. And then they'd play the music and I'd fall asleep and then I'd wake up and take the test. Neither here nor there. That shook loose a weird one. It's still a musician. Once you're a musician, you're always going to be one sort of, but I want to bring something back here. It's an interesting question about when you're among your peers, high up on that shelf doing what you do. Does the topic of your motorcycling come up often and if slash when it does, how regularly do they defer to the dangers? You really ride any of that? Do you get it a lot? What are some of the more interesting, namelessly speaking, doesn't even have to be where you're currently at your current residence.

Crystal: Oh, sure. Well, you know, often the discussion revolves around, well, how much life insurance do you have?

Robin: Kind. I've heard that one. Very nice of you to ask. And it's like, why do you care? Do you want me to add you to the policy?

Crystal: Yeah. I had one ER doc say, so if you come in and you're brain dead, do you want me to even try to intubate you?

Brian: Oh, okay. Thanks. And now for our next comedy joke. Yeah. One time I was out on a ride and I got a call. My mom was in a car accident and broke her wrist. So I say, okay guys, see you later. Here's a map. Figure something out. Bye. So I went up to the hospital, went in, you know, her surgeon comes in and is like, okay, yeah, we're going to, you know, her wrist is blah, blah, blah, tibia, whatever it is in there. Ulna? Radius? Yeah, try the radius. That's the arm. Yeah. Yeah. You can tell we're not doctors here. Phalanges. Anyway. He's like, oh, you ride a motorcycle? Here's my card. You're going to need it. Like, oh really dude? My mom's hurt.

Crystal: You know, surgeons are not the most emotionally developed human beings on the planet in general.

Brian: Some of them, some of them, maybe, I don't know. Here's my card. Call me. To be honest, full disclosure, I've broken my left leg three times in motorcycle accidents and I still ride. I broke on my right wrist two times.

Crystal: Well, start putting your bike down on the other side. Break a different one.

Robin: Even it out a little bit. There's no way I'm editing that out.

Brian: Why is it always on the left? Don't know. That's the way you put the bike down. Same damn femur every time.

Crystal: Actually, most people put the bike down to the left.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. You see that off road too, for some reason.

Crystal: I don't know why it is, but I, yeah. Most of the injuries are on the left side.

Robin: For a lot of people that are going to crash no matter what, we always advocate maintaining skill. We always write ADCAT. Everybody needs to continue learning, otherwise we stagnate. But the people that are typical to an accident aren't as comfortable turning to the right as they are to the left because when you're turned to the right, your throttle is by your waist.

Crystal: Right. And I think you're pulling the brake harder in an accident. It might let up on them.

Robin: Yeah. Without the skill needed to maintain self-control at the handlebars. We always say, you know, sitting on a bar stool, typing an email. You can't type if you're leaning on the keyboard. So you want to stay relaxed. Everything you do is about maintaining your composure, focusing on your core, but turning to the left, your hand is further away and there's a lot more isolated control when you can see and feel it's all right there. I am talking too much. You said, I have three broken femurs from motorcycle. Is it weird to ride to ortho appointments?

Brian: I always made a point of, I'd get my little folding cane, start riding to the appointments as soon as I could. Just, I don't know. People were like, this guy's hobbling in here with a helmet. What the hell?

Crystal: I'd love to see the crutches, you know, threaded through the backpack.

Brian: Yeah. Criss-crossed. Yeah.

Crystal: Yeah. Criss-crossed.

Brian: They gave me the sexy granny walker, I guess.

Crystal: Oh yeah. Those are great, aren't they?

Brian: Oh yeah. Those, those fold up pretty well. Usually I'd wait till I could get around on a cane and so forth. One of the things I found is if I found a doctor who was more into sports medicine where it's about getting you back to what you do, then there was like zero crap. And it's a luck of the draw, depending on when you, if you get the one who's just not really oriented toward in that way, they do tend to give you a lot of crap. Yeah. It's joking in a way, but. Well clearly you shouldn't be doing this anymore. Okay.

Crystal: Well, yeah, especially as you get more gray hair, they get a lot more judgmental.

Brian: Yeah. You're too old for this crap. You know, like, oh.

Robin: This is good timing.

Brian: Yeah. And even I can't explain why I feel like I need to ride.

Crystal: Well, that's why it's the riding obsession, right?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. We're obsessed.

Crystal: I am. And I had for a while before I met my current husband, uh, on my Facebook profile, it said, I'm not single. I'm in a relationship with power and speed if it showed a motorcycle.

Brian: All I know is Ducati. What, what are you riding now? And then how did you end up with the Ducatis?

Crystal: I've had a variety of things. I had a little Indian for a long time and then that also got stolen and that really pissed me off. This is 40 years ago.

Brian: Okay. So it was an older, okay. One, I.

Crystal: It was an old Indian.

Brian: Was it one of those where they made like these little, they call them dual sports now, but like a scrambler or something. Right.

Crystal: And was it one of those? Yeah, like that. Okay.

Brian: I can picture that.

Crystal: Yeah. So it was small. Oh, cool. You know, because I'm a relatively vertically challenged, finding bikes that I can ride is a problem.

Brian: Yeah.

Crystal: I had a gap in riding from about 28 to 42 because husband number two said, you can be married to me or you can ride a motorcycle and you can pick. I married him.

Brian: Okay.

Crystal: He didn't want to be left as a single dad just because I have a need for speed. So that's when I got my first Mazda Miata.

Brian: Oh, nice.

Crystal: Yep. That was the trade off. I'm like, if I can't have a motorcycle, I'm getting a really good convertible.

Robin: Yeah. Well, I think it's almost a cliche. It's almost as big as a Goldwing. Oh, you didn't say what I thought you were going to say. Yeah.

Brian: It's almost, no, I didn't say it, but it's almost, yeah, it's almost a cliche. When I can't hold my bike up anymore, I'm going to get a Miata. I know people who have done exactly that.

Crystal: It's a good transition. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah.

Crystal: You can still go really fast and you're small and maneuverable, you have the wind in your hair. Yeah. Except you have four wheels.

Robin: You can roll cage them. You can track them. We always say that you can ride your motorcycle in any manner you wish using whatever techniques you wish. So long as you choose the correct venue, the street riding versus hitting the track. The racetrack is the place for speed. You can take stunting courses. You can do slow maneuvers, cone courses as a challenge and drifting. All of these things exist. We're allowed to do whatever we want. It's just a matter of being respectful of what venue we choose to perform these actions in. What are you riding now? Well, thank you. What do you want to ride next?

Crystal: A Ducati Monster. That's such a great bike. First, there was this, I don't care about the husbands, they're bumping. Then I rode a Harley 100th anniversary soft tail.

Brian: I can picture that.

Crystal: Pretty heavy bike.

Brian: They're easier to handle than it looks, aren't they? I think.

Crystal: Yeah. I thought so too. It's so well balanced, unless you put it down. I was stronger then. But Harley made a 100th anniversary edition of their soft tail.

Robin: Yeah. I'm looking at it.

Crystal: Yeah. I have the classic biker chick picture with that. I'll have to send that to you, Robin. Oh boy. It might even be on Facebook. I might have that one on Facebook.

Brian: You got the chaps, you got fringe.

Crystal: I got a leather vest and jeans and boots.

Brian: Good stuff. Bandana? I think that's part of it too. I don't know.

Crystal: I rode that until divorce from husband number three, and then the bike was a point of contention. As you do in divorces, you chew your leg off to get away, and left the bike behind.

Robin: Oh, ouch.

Crystal: What can I say? I haven't had a regular bike for a while, but during that time, I lived with my brother. He had a Victory. He's big into ... He's a real motorhead, and he's in one of these vintage Japanese motorcycle clubs in Minneapolis.

Brian: Oh yeah.

Crystal: And they have a collective where they all come together and they play and work on their bikes together.

Robin: Vin Moto. So there's Chai Vin Moto for Chicago, Mil Vin Moto for Milwaukee. We got Mad Vin Moto, which is pretty cool. You're talking about Minnesota. I'm sure it's a Vin Moto based environment. Yeah, Minneapolis. We've taken part in that many times, so I'm very familiar with it. That's cool. And he was into metric bikes, which is great.

Crystal: Yeah. So I got to play around with lots of bikes and hang around and go on rides and borrow. But right now I'm in a drought.

Robin: And this led to a conversation that I can't wait to land right on Brian's shoulders, only for the ease of wrenching and the simple maintenance and parts availability that are clearly priced right. What bike are you thinking about next?

Crystal: I'm jonesing for a Ducati Monster.

Robin: Nice. I did not know how you were going to respond to that. We've talked about the Monster. Do you like to wrench on bikes? Have you wrenched on your bikes in the past? I would imagine you've definitely got the facility to do it, more so than yours truly here.

Crystal: Well, you know, I grew up with a dad who was a tinkerer and a carpenter and my brother's a motorhead. So you just by osmosis, pick up a lot of things. Plus, I mean, I'm a body mechanic. Yes. Get that? Body mechanic.

Robin: Yes. Yeah. I smell what you're cooking, picking up what you're laying down. I don't know. This conversation probably never actually happened. But the running joke was a mechanic and a surgeon are sitting in a bar. They are a heart surgeon. And the mechanic says, you know, what I do is very similar to what you do. I pull the carburetor out of the bike. I repair the carburetor. I put it back in. You work on the heart of the human body, put it back together. You know, there's a lot of similarities. What do you think the biggest difference is? The surgeon thinks for a good long while and says, why don't you pull the carburetor out and fix it while the engine is running?

Crystal: I like that. It's like level up.

Robin: Well, I don't even know why I'm saying this. I think I would become extremely frustrated with a bike like the Ducati Monster just because all of the cartilage of it, just trying to figure out, okay, the air filter, we've cliched this joke, want to replace the air filter, disassemble everything that is not the air filter. And I don't know if the Monster is truly like that, but the trellis frame, I mean, it doesn't change the fact that when you look at the bike, it's like, Ooh, it's just such a, it is a great looking bike. Yeah.

Crystal: You know, to kind of swing to the other side, the other thing I'm thinking about and I went and looked at is a Grom.

Robin: Oh, you can have both. You're allowed to have both. Get both.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Both.

Brian: Both is the answer. Yes.

Robin: Absolutely.

Brian: The answer.

Robin: I want to see both. Dr. Crystal Lume pulled over on the side of the road in cuffs because she was riding one of those dwarfism unicycles to the grocery store, fully modded out, loud pipe, just wheeling everywhere, stoppies and all that. That'd make my day. That's a great thing.

Brian: I had a neighbor across the street who, uh, she's a lady of a certain age, uh, yeah, little tiny lady and had, had a Grom and like just buzzed all over town. You know, I helped her get it running, you know, one time when it had a bad battery and then she actually had two of them. So her, when her daughter was visiting, they could buzz around on their Groms. It was crazy. It's funny as hell. And then her daughter moved away. So she sold one and I got it running, but yeah, they're fun little guys.

Robin: I'm going to put you on the mic and like put the spotlight on you then based on these responses. Number one, take a moment with this. Why Ducati?

Crystal: A, they're beautiful as hell.

Robin: Okay.

Crystal: And number two, my husband has one.

Brian: Okay. Obviously you need a pair. Yeah.

Crystal: I'll be honest. I had kind of heard of Ducati, but I'd never seen one and I never, he has an 848 Evo course.

Brian: Yeah. Okay.

Crystal: Lovely bike. And he won't let me touch it or walk within a foot of it.

Robin: Full tuck race replica. Yeah. That's a great bike. I've negotiated with them at the racetrack once or twice. We've negotiated. They're a contention machine. It's great.

Crystal: He got me kind of hooked on the Ducati. I think they're beautiful. We went out to Las Vegas recently and EuroCycle, the whole showroom was huge. I kind of like the Moto Guzzi's too. Those are kind of sweet looking bikes. You can get them a little lower, which again, my problem with the super bikes is that they're just too tall for me. At 5'1", it's a stretch, literally.

Robin: Yeah. And lowering them creates very strange geometry. I've learned that the hard way several times. Yeah, it doesn't work. When Maggie got, she's on a Triumph Street Triple. I wanted her to be comfortable. She wasn't planning on racing it, so we lowered it and that brings the front wheel closer to the motor. I didn't think about all that was happening. My spatial geometry kicked in. I was like, oh, I've done a bad thing here. And she's one footing it now. So have you ever considered that? Just like the single foot, one foot down at a stop. Get a tow. Yeah.

Brian: Like there's more than one monster, which do you have an idea of which one you're looking at?

Crystal: See, now you're going to ask me technical questions. That's what I have my technical consultant for. No, I don't know. Which monster?

Brian: Let's see. How many monsters do they have? Well, they got the Monster and the Monster Plus. Monster Plus, Monster ST, Monster 7.

Robin: The Monster Plus is a taller rounder, a dual 17 inch wheel, high suspension, and on the Wisconsin roads, that's not so bad, but it is something that a lot of people would have to use what we call the fancy start with. And then the current iteration of the Monster, it's almost as though they bred the SV square tube frame with a Honda CBR series with that modern trapezoidal headlight. The one I always loved was the one that was a lot more hollowed out. It was just a trellis frame.

Crystal: Yeah. And I think I'd probably look at an older one like that.

Brian: Like some of the older Ducati models, not older, but you know, our air cooled ones, the 696. Right. You know, the ones without the radiator are going to be a little lighter. You still have to service the belts and all that stuff.

Crystal: Yeah. But then they're not good short rides because they get too hot. That's the only problem with air cooled engines is that if you're not putting enough air over them.

Robin: Check out the photos. We talked about the trellis frame. The original Ducati Monster 1000 had that very SVS round headlight, full trellis, all access frame. And it's strange that with the generations, you can watch the trellis get covered up. So the next generation took a quarter of it away, then another quarter, then another, and now it's all sheltered and inaccessible, you know, take up to the dealership. We've had an episode about that alone.

Crystal: Yes. My husband's Evo course just came back from Milwaukee's Ducati shop a month ago.

Robin: He's happy?

Crystal: Oh, he loves it. He loves his bike.

Robin: Well, I guess if you're going to specialize in something like Ducati, you best get it right. So Ducati is sort of like on the horizon for you. You're feeling it. It's a wanting.

Crystal: Yeah.

Robin: There's a yearning there. Have you any plans and have you had any experience? Have you taken a bike like that to the track at all? Done any track riding?

Crystal: Because I don't have a bike right now. I have my second Miata.

Brian: Oh.

Crystal: My first Miata I destroyed. We'll just put it that way and leave it at that. But my second one, I decided I wanted one with a little more oomph. And so, found it on eBay in 2013. My Miata was modified by Ryan Pila, who is a Miata racer out of the Hamptons. So he made two Miata's identical to break the land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats. And mine is the twin of the one that broke the speed record because, you know, you have to have a spare in case there's a problem.

Brian: How cool is that? I was wondering why you were calling Miata's fast. And now I know. This brings up two previous episodes, by the way.

Robin: Three episodes back was when we did part two of the Trips Evans Tour and we got not stuck behind a Miata on the Dragon. That driver was fantastic. And when they were not so fantastic, they just pulled over and let us go by. And they were right on us the whole time. It was pretty brilliant to witness. It also brings up the Land Speed Rich episode. I need to reach out to Rich Scheidlich, who's a land speed record guy on motorcycles at the Salt Flats. Ryan Pila. Yep. I'm looking at this fire engine red front end with a custom front rims for less drag and the transitional fade to yellow. Oh, that car is on fire.

Crystal: Mine is just plain black.

Brian: You're a sleeper.

Crystal: Yeah. But it's got a roll bar and it had bracing harness. I swapped the racing harness out when I got it to put in regular seatbelts just because the harness was uncomfortable for long rides. And at that time I was living in Tennessee and working in Minnesota and drive back and forth between the two. And let me tell you, Missouri Highway 35, two in the morning, great place to just bury the pedal.

Robin: Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. So you've heard. It's Google. Google told us. We may or may not have found the same articles on Google about Missouri 34, which is equally stupendous, especially on two wheels. And I would imagine that whoever wrote about that for Google would say that that was track grade pavement.

Crystal: 35 is a freeway, four lane, two lanes each way. And in the middle of the night, you know, there's no traffic on or off. So you don't have to worry about t-boning somebody that didn't stop for the stop sign.

Robin: Did you manage to ever track that car?

Crystal: No, I was going to take it to Road America this year here in Wisconsin.

Robin: In Plymouth. I'm familiar.

Crystal: Yes. However, I had to get it taken in because I have some issues with the linkage and I just got it back today. And my wonderful husband went to lacrosse and got my baby and I came home and it's in the driveway today.

Brian: And you're sitting here talking to us.

Robin: Yeah. We're in the way is what we are. Do you have a favorite resource for that next opportunity to really break three digits in your Miata at Road America or something like that?

Crystal: I break three digits all the time.

Brian: Now, come on now. Look at this face. If you were a cop, would you give her a ticket? I would be like, no, ma'am. You keep being awesome, ma'am. Go on.

Crystal: So I have to tell you the story. 2021, I had just moved here to Richland Center and my lease was up on my Audi. You know, for fun, I decided to lease an Audi for three years. And it was great. I got an Audi S4, which is just a beast. It's a four-cylinder, but man, can it go? My lease was up and I was taking it back to the dealer and I was on I-90 going from lacrosse into Rochester going about eight or whatever.

Robin: You are my doctor.

Crystal: And my husband was behind me.

Robin: You are my doctor. You're my...

Crystal: Because I needed a ride home.

Robin: You're my doctor. I have found if I could have a surgeon as a general practitioner, you got the job. Okay.

Crystal: Well, you know, if I get a little too shaky and I have to cut back, I'll let you know. And I come over this crest and I'm thinking, you know, I really should slow down. And I passed this car parked on the side and I didn't register. But the little cherry lights came on and like bleeped and bleeped and bleeped and bleeped. My husband pulls up right behind him, you know, and there's a cop's at my window and he's looking back like, what the fuck is going on here? Do you know why I pulled you over? Yes, officer. I was going a little too fast.

Robin: Let me count the ways that I know why you pulled me over.

Crystal: Exactly. And he says, well, do you know how fast you were going?

Robin: That's a no. No, I do not. No. The answer is no.

Crystal: And I thought to myself, they'll impound the car. And I said, maybe 90.

Robin: Ooh, but you gave him a number. That's never.

Crystal: Okay.

Robin: Well, no.

Crystal: See, even my lawyer husband has not told me this.

Robin: Never say the number. Got it. Never say the number. Fellow friend of me and Brian always gets out of it just by being this humble looking, kind looking guy. Little do they know.

Crystal: And I was thinking to myself, gosh, how fast did he clock me going? Because I really wasn't sure.

Robin: At least the speed limit.

Crystal: 70. So then my husband walks up to me and he says, officer, she's taking this car back. The lease is over today. She hasn't been able to drive it for months. And you know, if she aired it out a little bit, you know, I'm just so sorry, blah, blah, blah. He gave me a ticket for 99 miles more.

Brian: There it is.

Crystal: I don't know how fast I was really going. He said, I only charged you for 99 miles an hour, which is still not saying nothing.

Robin: I half expected you to say that. So basically he tases my husband and then seems to give me a ticket for it. Yeah.

Crystal: Well, see when my husband gets pulled over. Yes. There was one time he has this gorgeous three 70 Z that thing can move. One time was maybe two years after we started dating and we're on the I-90. The cop pulls him over 10 at night. We're just coming back from dinner. And the cop says, well, you know, sir, you were speeding. And he says, well, if you had a car like this, wouldn't you speed too? And I'm like shrinking away.

Robin: I don't remember.

Crystal: I'm thinking to myself, a, the cop doesn't make in a year with this car, probably costs be just for an asshole.

Brian: How did that go? Did it turn out?

Crystal: Well, that did not turn out well.

Robin: One of my favorites and I won't mention names. I don't even know if I've told this story before because it's one of a recent, it's a recent one, but I do remember that in the middle of the night, a friend blew through a red light in a very small town. Nobody was awake 3 a.m. and this friend, they just knew nobody around and they just softly go through the light, maybe nine or 10 miles over the speed limit. And they get pulled over. The officer knows this person says, what are you doing, man? And the driver says, I'm just going the speed of traffic. And the officer officer looks around and he's like, the hell are you talking about? There's nobody on the road right now. And the driver says, well, somebody has to set the pace. I don't want the chance to use that, but if I ever have to use it, I will pull that right out of the arsenal. What about touring and travel? You said if you were down by Tennessee and North Carolina and Arkansas and Missouri and then Minnesota again at some point, and now you're here, do you seize the opportunities to travel, be it on a bike or in one of your four-wheeled bikes as you have right now? Have you toured on any bike before? Is this something you look forward to doing in the future?

Crystal: It is something I look forward to doing. Yeah, I did from about 2007 to 2013, I took a number of weekend road trips and that was a blast. Toss some things in saddlebags and off you go for the weekend. That's really awesome.

Robin: Any favorite destinations?

Crystal: Smoky mountains are beautiful, although it's really kind of a pain in the butt because you get stuck behind people.

Robin: There's either the parkway or the roads that stitch the parkway, right? If you're lucky, you get one of the roads that stitch the parkway that nobody wants to use, otherwise you're heading towards sliding rock, things like that.

Crystal: I mean, I love the West, but you know, it's hot. Washington State, the Cascade Mountains, that's gorgeous to go through, but then it's the rain.

Brian: You got to pick the right season, right? The right suit, the right season, and still get wet.

Crystal: You know, honestly, Minnesota is beautiful, Wisconsin is awesome. I enjoyed touring in those, lived in Alabama for three years, and there's some parts of Alabama that were really fun to go through. The tail of the Appalachian Mountains in Northeast Alabama has some really beautiful scenery, lots of interesting, you know, when your butt gets sore and you need to get off the bike because you've got a cramp that you can't work out. There's history and interesting things to stop and see.

Robin: I don't think I've seen much of it. I might have to pick your brain about that one at some point. Yeah, no worries. We try to see them all at some point. Brian, you got something in here about in the zone, state of flow, state of zone, in the flow, flow of the zone, in the state.

Brian: Something like that. When you're really in the zone and you're riding a motorcycle, you get in this state of flow, you get in the zone, you know, you see everything expands, time slows down, stuff like that.

Crystal: It's meditation.

Brian: It's meditations of worth. I think that's kind of the thing everybody has in common. One of the reasons, you know, you get in that state of flow and that's kind of what I was wondering. Is it a little bit like that when you really get into something like a challenging surgery, stuff like that? Do you really get focused and you get in that zone?

Crystal: Oh, absolutely. You know, there's operations where I finish and then I sort of stand up straight and go, holy crap, why does my back hurt? Well, it's been four hours, you know, and it felt like 20 minutes. You're in an altered state of reality. It's different than motorcycle riding in that it's a very hyper-focused, I mean, I literally don't hear the music that's playing. I don't see the people around me. I don't feel my back screaming at me or that my feet are saying, you know, we're sore and tired and it's time to stop. I don't feel any of that until I'm done and I step back and go, I'm too old for this.

Brian: That might answer part of some of the first questions is like, why the heck do you do this?

Crystal: I tell you, there is no feeling in the world like having put somebody back together that fell apart either from an illness or an injury and having to leave the hospital and turn around on their way out and say, thank you. There's just no feeling like that in the world.

Robin: I did thank you, right?

Crystal: Yes, you did.

Robin: Just want to make sure I had a hand in that somewhere. That's an amazing way to tell it.

Brian: And now I'm thinking back, did I thank the surgeon? I think I did thank the surgeons that put me back together all three times.

Robin: What you're talking about, and I'd rather inspire this conversation than hear the sound of my own voice, but I feel like it hit me in a certain way, what you just said, that it's not just endorphins. You can do strange things in strange contortions, so long as at that logical moment, linearly speaking, it makes sense to be in that position. One example is you freeze frame a sidearm pitcher from the Yankees. When you get that freeze frame of when their elbow is hyperflexed outward and it just looks, how can that be? But at that exact moment, it is a fluid, endorphin-driven, completely facilitated by their own body, not going to leave a scar, not going to do any harm. It's where they should be at that given time. You just ride that through the process for the betterment of the person that you're operating on. I think that I speak for any motorcyclist that no matter their skill set, if it's that dope who went and drank an entire 40 and then rode into a pine tree and thought he drank gin, or if it's somebody who is absolutely dedicated to obtaining more skill and using it in the right environment, things can happen. And we all are extremely grateful to somebody like you, who not only does what you do on a grandiose level, on that shelf, you also ride a motorcycle. Give me a break.

Brian: Too cool. Thanks. Yeah. And it's sort of like motorcycling and what you're talking about with doing a really intricate surgery, stuff like that. It's access to a higher level of consciousness, I think.

Crystal: A different plane of existence.

Brian: I feel sorry for people who just go to work and push spreadsheets around and never get transcendence, you know, in any way. It's easy access.

Crystal: Like I said, I'm in a relationship with speed and power. You know, those things are intoxicating.

Brian: I feel the need.

Robin: Who wouldn't want that? Literally is, as long as it's in the right environment. And it's just so great that we finally landed that point that, you know, it's just, it's just like fixing the carburetor, surgery, it's just, it's like we're one in the same, running. Anything else you would like to say to our listeners about your passion for riding, about the next bike, any plans on the horizon?

Crystal: Well, I have to go on one of your trips.

Robin: Bring it.

Crystal: I have to get a bike, make sure that, you know, my body physically isn't able to ride again, because it's been a little bit.

Robin: We can work with you on that. That'd be fun. Get a bike, get some ATGAT. I'll probably ask you to take an ARC and I'll probably ask you to attend a track day. Once all that is set, we will go on a motorcycle ride, rolling her eyes. I saw the eye roll. Surgeon, doctor, call me, Crystal. It's a real honor and pleasure for us to have had you on the show. I'm extremely grateful for you doing this.

Crystal: You're very welcome. Anytime.

Brian: Thank you very much, Crystal. It's been wonderful.