Travis: TRO Podcast transcribed by A.I. Chepa on today's episode of Elon Musk is Daddy. What are we talking about?

Robin: State of the sports touring genre. Sidebar, it's fine. The flip side of the sport touring coin, namely ADV. There's nuance to it. Yes. And then segment three, all bikes in two. If you had to compress every riding opportunity and style into two motorcyclists that did everything sort of okay-ish. But before we start, for opening banter, corrections, and website updates, let's start with random factoid number one. Two cubic feet of iridium weighs as much as an entire Buick.

Brian: Now, which Buick are we talking about here?

Robin: Yeah, I thought you might ask that. No idea.

Brian: No idea. Okay.

Robin: I'm reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Nice. It's really fun to read. It's a really good book, but it's work. You have to decide that you're willing to work through the information because I'm doing it on a Kindle, which helps a lot. If there's a word I don't understand, I click and hold. I can find the definition. Okay. Flipping back and forth between the pages. Like, I really need to absorb this. Double back two pages. Forward one, back one, forward two. Okay, now I got it. That happens a lot. Yeah. If only you could do that with a real book. Wait a minute. Next on the list. Brian Ringer, we had an episode where I asked you about the porous tape that looked sort of like a burlap and it would adhere to itself repeatedly for a long period of time. And you brought up the term amalgamating tape.

Brian: What was that word? Too long? Friction tape. Friction tape. Okay.

Robin: In the hardware store and you need the kind of tape that you can wrap around your wiring on your bike, that kind of like pseudo loom.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: That you might need to undo. Yeah. And you might need to wrap to itself again. Brian might have you saying amalgamating tape, and I think that's amalgamating is a great word. Technically, as far as the shelves and the pricing is concerned, friction tape.

Brian: They're two different things. Yeah, what I had in mind is stuff that just turns into a blob. The friction tape is, yeah, the stuff you use on wiring harnesses. Don't use electrical tape on wiring harnesses. No. Unless you have to, I mean.

Robin: It turns into sticky snot. Yeah. It slips everywhere, makes a mess. In the heat, it becomes an absolute nightmare. Gets all gooey. Brian, you got something here.

Brian: Just wanted to give a quick shout out to Motopumps at motopumps.com. My old slime pump, which I got at Walmart for 15 bucks, was sort of starting to sketch me out. It's a couple years old. So I looked around on advrider.com, which we'll talk about later, I guess. Motopumps is one of the sponsors there or one of the vendors there. And yeah, they had a little discount deal going. But anyway, this pump, it's tiny. It comes in a really nice bag, very high quality, made in USA. It's not 20 bucks. It's a little more than that, but has a very good quality, five-year warranty, light, small. It's one that plugs into your battery. Oh, okay. You've got the kind that has its own battery, and so you can go around and so forth. But yeah, I wanted one that plugs into the battery, and I just kind of move it. I move my whole kit between bikes, you know, whatever I'm riding. Very happy with it. I actually had to use it a couple days ago. I was at work. I noticed things were getting a little squidgy when I was on the way to work. And oh, yeah. And I had like a 24 psi, and I'm like, okay, got some Windex from the office and found a tiny, tiny leak. Didn't have anything in it. Plugged it, pumped it up. All good. So that was with the Motopumps.com product? It was with the Motopumps. I got the orange one because I'm fashionable that way.

Robin: Stop. It's funny that you bring that up because riding two up with Maggie for the last day of our stay in Wisconsin, having a great time, just wanted to get one last ride out. So she hops on the back of our BMW, her bike. We now know exactly what the problem with her bike is. And the problem is that it's British electrics and British ideas and British. It needs money. That's what it needs. You got to overhand gold bullion at it. So she rides two up with me, and we're hanging out cruising into the Driftless, and lo and behold, we go up a small road that's been torn up. And I'm like, okay, cool. We'll just go rock out, hit the gravel for a little bit, and cruise for the quarter mile that it is. And then I get the warning from the dash. The TPMS is just like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm like, that's really everything I would expect from a bad month like this. So stopped on the side of the road, got off the bike. Man, the pinhole on this leak was so small. I think we rode and ran over like some copper, some wire, whatever it was, it was thinner than needle. Because when I found the hole, I could only feel it, and it was a super slow hiss, nothing going on. It was the first time in the history of my roadside tire repair isms that I ended up using a tire screw. A patch screw. The little screws that you twist into the rubber, and then it has a sealer.

Brian: Looks like a little plastic screw. Yeah. Yeah, and a little handle snaps off. I don't know what they're called. There's a brand name. I don't know. They're not a sponsor. So, you know.

Robin: No, no, they don't get mentioned. They don't get too mentioned. Give me a break. Only the best get that. I'd never used before. I was like, well, this is the moment that that may be the fix. And lo and behold, we cruised home real slow. Side updates real quick here. Something's up with our weather page and that weather.io, which is the API we use to populate the weather information before calculating whether or not it's going to be a good ride. They've upgraded their pollen alerts, for those of you with allergies, to premium memberships only. There are people out there, I know for a fact, that make use of this. They just, they get hammered by ragweed. Tons of things that just make riding impossible. They just can't, they can't even see straight because of their allergies. Premium. So, no, I'm not doing that for y'all. If you want to go to donate.tiro.bike, or if you want to be a sponsor for the podcast, sure, I will make a point to upgrade our systems to... Until we are true to form profitable, you're going to have to just deal with it. I did reach out to them. I feel like they gave me a free, they were like, oh, you seem pretty cool. We'll go and give it to you. And they did. And now my time's up with that. And I've reached out again, not remembering this. So we'll see how that goes. Apologies to the allergy prone. We've updated alerts in your members weather settings page explaining this. Adding your own weather.io API key with a premium account is a likely fix. So I, we do give you that option. So work with that. The good news is, every single episode of Radio TRO now has a transcription available and we will be employing closed captions or basically SRT files in the playback. So the hard of hearing, that will be happening soon. I promise. I just have to get my code organized so that it will actually present things so that you can sit back and listen with everybody else. Brian and I got to, you know, stabbing each other in the wrist over dinner last night about how we're going to do 2025. It's become clear to me that like Brian's got so many good ideas. I've got things I want to do that are more uniform. So we're going to take turn passing the baton of the outlines to each other. And the thing that will always knock our plans off the table is a great interview. This round, it's my turn. We're going to get into some pretty harsh topic discussion here about the sports touring definition, other things that have influenced other people's opinions. There was an article on Motorcyclist Online. A friend of mine decided to bring this article to light. And I clicked it and I read it. This article is, Are classic sport touring motorcycles dead? I don't know what really they're trying to say here. Talks about the bloated big whale machines of the late 90s, early 2000s up to the mid 2000s that don't seem to be selling as well because ADV kind of blew up and whether or not sport touring is dead. I've got a response. I'm really interested in hearing what Brian has to say because Brian does a lot of dual sport riding as well as street. I'm not afraid of dirt. It's just not something I do regularly because I can only carry two bikes. My take on this article is, are classic sport touring motorcycles dead? Good read.

Brian: Good article. But, one thing I'll mention right off the bat, they're talking about classic sport touring motorcycles and it takes a while to understand what are they starting with? What do they consider a classic sport touring motorcycle? And it looks like what they're talking about is the ST, the Honda ST 1100, the ST 1300, the old Kawasaki concourse and the new Kawasaki concourse.

Robin: Any Kawasaki concourse.

Brian: Yeah, 673 pounds, the FJR 1300, which I think is still being produced. It's been around forever and a day. Yeah. There's one thing I thought was interesting, was these are all like the sumo class. These are big ass bikes. Mammoth. And that's kind of your beef. And also the BMW Giganto, whatever it is, I can't keep the alphabet straight, but yeah. K16000.

Robin: Yeah. It's funny that that's what they consider classic. I think that what they might mean is long in the tooth. I get it. I get it. A mutual friend of ours made a really strong case for the fact that he and I have identical engines on bikes that represent the most sporty and least sporty of bikes that we might categorize as sport touring. I guess I debate that a little bit because of the VFR. The VFR is the most aggressive profile sport touring bike on the market. That's the sportiest of the bunch. You pull the luggage off, you've got a full-on track bike. But I've got the R1200RS, which of the beamer category, yes, that's the sleekest of the standard posture sport touring bikes. He's got the R1200RT, which is a lot more trotting along John Wayne cowboy posture, which really works for slow maneuvers.

Brian: And it works for, you know, 950 mile days. Absolutely. To pick a number at random.

Robin: Yeah. But the bikes they're pointing out are not sought after as much anymore for probably a variety of reasons. One is the bankroll. I personally think we're heading into a recession opportunity that hopefully will be thwarted. But these bikes don't just offer themselves up to the new riding public today or even the seasoned riding public that's ready for the next level. I've got a whole spiel here about the article is way off in that it vaguely targets specific models that don't really represent the platform. Most of them more touring than sport. Kawasaki Concourse, the RT, the K16, Brian mentioned the ST11 and 1300s. These are whales the manufacturers crammed into our clown car just as the niche was really taking flight. Another argument, Robin, all you want to do is take a sport bike and slap luggage on it with risers. Yes. And we'll get to that in a moment. That's all I want to do.

Brian: I would say the Suzuki GSX-S1000 GT, and I think there's a plus in there. Yes. Gets real, real, real close to, I'm guessing that gets close to your ideal. I've ridden an FJ1300. I've not ridden one of the Hondas. I mean, they're easy to ride and so forth, but they are behemoths. You kind of wonder why. You can make a very comfortable bike. You can put luggage on a bike that doesn't have to be that heavy and that big. You know, the weight is the main issue. The Hondas especially are crazy. To my taste, you know, if you bought one, you'll love it. Hey, more power to you. But like you said, the VFR is a real good example of one, and they came with factory luggage. A lot of them did. And, you know, the GSX-S1000 GT plus Suzuki. Anyway, like that one's a really sporty bike with really good luggage, but it's also got really good ergonomics. It is kind of a do-it-all. I like that.

Robin: Shout out to Travis Burleson about the Suzuki. I actually posted this to the Super Slick Ultra Badass Motorcycle Megapossess of Incredible Power. I'm out of terms, but honestly, it comes back to Travis who came up with this. It's been decided that the only tires suitable for the Suzuki GSX-S1000 GT plus are the Bridgestone Battleaxe Adventurecross Scrambler AX41-S. Because we need titles long enough that listeners can walk away while owners are still reciting them.

Travis: Hello, and welcome to a new segment we're trying out called Travis's Titular 10-Minute Talks. Titular, of course, meaning holding a purely formal position or title without any real authority. Since I seem incapable of making any sort of podcast's recording date on time, we're going to do a little short solo segment where I talk about something for 10 minutes. Today, I'd like to talk about sport touring. Now, The Running Obsession has always been a sport touring focused motorcycle website and community. And the lines of what sport touring has been have blurred over the past decades. There was certainly a time where almost all the big manufacturers had a motorcycle specifically called sport touring. But that seems to have changed and we're going to run through a couple of models and just talk about the concept of sport touring for a minute. I did pull up all the manufacturers websites and there are a couple of titled by the manufacturer models as sport touring. Namely, Yamaha does have a sport touring section on the website with the Tracer 9 GT, Tracer 9 GT Plus, and the FJR 1300, which is still there. If we look at Kawasaki's website, they do still sell the Ninja 1000, which you can get with side bags. A sort of quintessential sport touring motorcycle. It looks like they have discontinued the Concourse name badge, as they up until recently sold the Connie 14 or the Concourse 14, the 1400cc engine. They do sell the Versys 650 and 1000, which could be argued to be sport touring motorcycles. They run on 17-inch street rubber, but do have a taller profile. Something I believe the motorcycle press has dubbed tall rounders, which is something we'll touch on with some of the other the other brands and models available as well. In that the sort of sport touring segment has merged in many ways with the adventure bike segment and you get adventure bike styled motorcycles like the Versys class or the Yamaha Tracer that run on sport bike tires. And to that I would even say any of the more road-oriented quote-unquote adventure bikes that run on 17-19 tire configurations are really quite road-biased. They do make more road-biased tires and those 19-17 inch adventure bikes are really just tall sport touring bikes. Thinking of bikes like the Vstrom the Vstrom 650 and the Vstrom 1000 or 1050 depending on the year you're buying. Bikes like the Ducati Multistrada or even some of the BMW lineups. A lot of our 1300, 1200 GS bikes that don't have adventure in their name spend most of their time on the tarmac. They are really just tall sport touring bikes. Even KTM has a sports tourer segment listed on their website. Listing the 1290 Super Duke GT and the KTM 890 SMT. Though Super Moto Tour is a bit of an anachronistic name. Don't know how much sense that makes but that's how they're selling it. And even back to Ducati you can get factory luggage for the Super Sport 950. Indicating that the manufacturer would intend you to do sport touring on it. Sadly one of the brands that seems to lack a real sport tourer in their lineup, at least in the United States, is Honda. Now some have made the stretch that the recently revamped Goldwing is much sportier than Goldwing's of the past and canteen at sport touring but it is much too big and heavy to qualify as a sport tourer, I think in my book, and still lands as a grand tourer along with bikes like the BMW K16. Now in Europe they do sell the NT1100 that uses the 1100cc twin motor from the Africa Twin and is sort of a lighter weight more sporty Goldwing, but they do not sell that in the United States. That said if we do consider our tall rounder segment or adventure styled street bikes the NC750X or 700X like I used to have is certainly more of a sport bike than an adventure bike with its 17-inch cast wheels and makes a great tour to which I can attest. And even then the CB500X or recently renamed and X500 again falls into that 17 rear 19 front slight adventure sport touring road biased motorcycles. And Suzuki lists a sport touring segment on their site though. They only have one bike in it the very cleverly and sexily named GSX-S1000GT and GSX-S1000GT+. But like I had said before the 650 and 1050 V-Strom bikes really fall into that tall rounder tall adventure styled sport touring bike category. The new 800 does have a 21-inch front wheel which I think does take away some of the sportier nature on pavement but you could possibly even consider that along with bikes like the GSX-8R and the GSX-8S because we can't forget that naked bikes also make great sport tourers. So I would argue that the sport touring segment is alive and well in the United States. We have a fairly good selection of bikes to choose from off the shelf but even that said someone more daring than me has said that any bike is an adventure bike. You just point it toward adventure. And I would say the same can be said for sport touring. Currently riding my 2020 Honda CB650R a naked street bike street fighter, I guess you could say and of course have done lots of touring on that. You just put some bags on the back I got a tail rack and I put one big duffel bag on the pillion seat and the tail rack and that's all the luggage I needed. I typically not a fan of windscreens on bikes just for my stature it's hard to have one that works well and doesn't buffet my head. I'm sure someday I'll find one that does. So I don't mind the naked bike. Our regular contributor Brian Ringer will attest to the windshield woes having ripped the windscreen off of his old Versys 1000 and also his newer FJ09 noting that the dirty air is way worse than just full clean air. You could go sport touring on a Rebel 500 just go do sporty roads and do sporty things with a backpack on or some luggage on the side. You could really take almost any bike even a more adventurous adventure bike and if you're riding sportily on fun roads and doing so for an extended period of time, I would call that sport touring. But those are my ruminations on the state of sport touring in this day and age.

Brian: Again, this is Travis Burrellson for the Riding Obsession at TRO.BIKE MUSIC Further down the article they get to the Yamaha Tracer, you know, and I've got the earlier version the FJ09. It's extremely comfortable, very comfortable ergonomics but still plenty sporty. You are getting into tall arounder territory though. It is a tall arounder. Yeah, it's a little tall. It's not off-roady at all, you know, despite what people say. It's big enough for two people. If you're carrying a passenger long distances, then maybe not the best, unless you're tiny.

Robin: But yeah, this brings me up to the middleweight options. I mean, not to be confused with middleweight displacement, because light bikes can have big motors. You know, my 1200 is a 1200. These are, in my mind, the modern voice slash outlet. Yes, I'm reading this from my notes. For sport touring, the bike's gotta visually cut like a razor blade, and the rider should subconsciously draw our attention for no other reason than they clearly know what they're doing. These are skilled rider bikes that look like they're intended to handle. This still pretty cool opinion piece basically says, are old motorcycles old? Here are some old motorcycles that are old. We've spread the word sport touring over them like butter on toast to create angst in the comments section. Or what is clearly filler content because another rider missed their deadline or something. Like, I don't know. Point is, sport touring doesn't apply unless they're just trying to push the ADV stuff harder. So, of course, it pushes ADV because, I don't know, maybe their core readership is based around aging knees? God. Dear kids, sport bikes are fun. Travel is fun. Slap bags on your sport bike and go be good to the world. But you know what? Let's sit on ADV a little bit. Hit it, Brian.

Brian: We'll hit it here. We'll get there. Worrying about categories? Who cares? Get some luggage on there. See if GV makes something for your bike. If not, get some soft luggage. Get out and travel on whatever you got.

Robin: Yeah, get out there. Hook shit up. That's right, man. Before we unleash the kraken on ADV, we do have a listener question. I need to create reverb for the coughing in prep. I get real phlegmy. Yeah. KB asks, What's your approach to motorcycle security during rallies, tours, etc?

Brian: All right. A couple of things. Part of it is, that's one of the big reasons I really, really, really prefer hard luggage. You'd lock your stuff up. It's out of sight. Yes, you could get a big screwdriver and get inside hard bags within five seconds or just rip the whole thing off. But hard bags are like the thing to have. If you're in the company of a lot of motorcyclists, nobody's going to mess with your stuff. And if somebody sees somebody stealing, they're going to say something, you know. For example, I've been to, when they had MotoGP and Indy, I just left my jacket and my helmet on my bike. 60,000 motorcycles on the back straight, parked. People just aren't going to go through and start messing with stuff. I hate to call it a brotherhood.

Robin: It applies in some ways. It does.

Brian: Yeah. One thing I can say is here in Indiana and Kentucky and some other states, there's no helmet laws here. So, generally, your helmet is like kryptonite. Nobody's going to even... I will say the only people that you really have to watch around helmets are kids. Little kids will make a beeline for a helmet. They'll try to put it on their snotty little diseased heads. They'll drop it on the ground. They'll drag it through the gravel and then they'll throw it off the porch.

Robin: It's weird. Those would be like the exact lyrics to the original Captain Kangaroo intro.

Brian: Yeah, grab the first helmet you see. And if you tell the kid, no, not a toy, then you're the asshole. I always take my helmet in with me and my jacket with me when I stop to eat. Why? I once saw somebody using a helmet as a urinal and I just don't want that to happen.

Robin: Wow, people.

Brian: I saw that one night and I'm like, you know, I'm going to now I'm going to think about that the rest of my life. And 30 years later, I still take my helmet in with.

Robin: Well, see, now you jinxed my luck. You like ruined my future with that shit. I'm going to intrude. Here's what I do. It depends on the location, the environment. You got to read the room. You got to read the situation. I've got bags that fit into my side cases. I don't have a tank bag. I don't have a passenger position bag or anything like that. Like no fabric tailback. What I do have is really nice fabric bags that fit into my hard luggage and they carry everything. So when I go to, say, like the hotel for the night, and I think that's probably the biggest question about the security is when you are parked for the evening, what am I doing? I park in first gear. I've got my key. I lock my handlebars. Sometimes, most of the time, it depends on if it's a rally. If it depends if I know the environment, whatever. And then my soft luggage has bags in it. I pull that stuff completely out. I keep my top case completely locked, which the only thing in my top case, there's a bag in my top case that I also remove, but I've got a tool roll in there that I keep locked up. That's it. Sure. And I go inside. Now, let's say I'm being casual. We're stopping to eat or taking a break. Something has to be dealt with. And if it's an environment like a Wally World or a box store and I'm going in there. Yeah. I mean, I've been known to take my stuff in, but another thing I like to do really is there's an article on the site that points to what is essentially a luggage lock. It's a retractable luggage lock with a four pin. It doesn't matter. It's got rolling lock variables where you can fill it out and then you can open it up by pushing a button. It's a cable, just enough of a deterrent. Yeah. Being a steel cable that if somebody were going to get all the trouble in broad daylight, it's going to look kind of questionable what's going on there, you know?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: And I don't ever park my bike, you know, by the dumpster or the top secret locations by any place. I'll wrap that through the chin bar on my helmet, through the sleeve of my jacket, take my belongings in, click it around the handlebars and roll on.

Brian: I've got like a short cable that I can just, I can lock my helmet basically under the seat. So the seat pops up and there's a little hook in there just for this purpose. Nice. There's a longer cable I have if I happen to want to lock a jacket up or something. The other thing is, yeah, when you're stopped overnight, do what you can to, you know, to keep it stable in case it gets bumped. You mentioned put it in first gear, maybe turn and lock the handlebars. I'm guilty of not doing that as often, but a lot of times I'll just leave it on the kickstand instead of the center stand, because that's a little more stable. If some drunk is sitting on it or somebody's kids climbing around on it, stuff like that. We tend to kind of park in a mob. So, you know, there's, there's like six bikes and two parking spots. And yeah, maybe that helps people see them.

Robin: You know, anybody who walks up to that mob, they need to ask themselves, am I smart? Is this a smart move? If you go to TRO.bike and search for helmet lock, you should find an article that says this isn't just a motorcycle helmet lock. But the idea of that post is 23091. TRO.bike forward slash question mark P equals 23091. On to more important things like ADV ate all that.

Brian: Robin kind of started on an interesting rant and then we kind of let it go for the moment. Full disclosure here. I have a KLR650. I like riding off-road. I like riding on dirt roads. That's dual sport, not ADV. That's dual sporting. I like that kind of thing there. When I go to advrider.com and look in and participate a little bit. So you'll find me there too, once in a while. I've actually bought my last two bikes from advrider.com. I sold the last bike I sold. It's a huge audience of motorcyclists who often have more than one. That's a call forward to the next segment. Yeah, it's a good marketplace of motorcycles, but having off-road skills has been invaluable. I really love that. But the whole term adventure riding, the whole getting a sticker that says ADV, putting the little sticker of the Bedouin, you know, from Dakar.

Robin: It's basically a Bluetooth advertisement.

Brian: Yeah, it's really cringy. I'll be buzzing down a gravel road, bopping along, enjoying the instability and so forth. Let's face it. Let's see. You'll see guys, middle-aged dudes, anytime they're not on strictly pavement, they have to stand straight up like meerkats.

Robin: I know the way.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I will show you.

Brian: They cross a little bit of grass, they're up in the saddle, they're standing up. This is the only way to ride off-road. You know, I've invested $15,000 in the Touratech catalog. It gets a little cringy at times. That's all I'm saying. This whole culture is really weird at times. Off-road riding is a lot of fun, paved road, primitive roads. I'd say primitive road riding is more of what I'm into. Because trails are just non-existent in Indiana. They just don't, darn here, there aren't any. The more primitive and backwards and crappy the road, the better. There's some really gnarly stuff out there. We go to the Smokies and there's all kinds of really primitive stuff there too. It's a lot of fun, a lot of stupid fun. But yeah, making it into a fashion statement where you're all, you know, that's really cringy. I had to look this up to make this sarcastic comment.

Robin: The diehard, brand new gear, super clean, just bought a huge adventure bike, knows how to stand up on a perfectly level gravel road rider, is the equivalent of that explorer who leads locals into the brush and is wearing the khaki pith helmet, the repro explorer adventure colonial khaki looking hat. That's who that is. I will show you, go forward and make the path clear for me. And then he's the explorer hat, the khaki pith helmet.

Brian: And I think the thing that, where I find a lot of irony in this is that, you know, we're quickly paving the entire damn planet. And right about the time that off-road capable bikes are more and more popular every year, you know, ADVs, you know, aside from the cruiser segment, we'll leave that alone. Adventure bikes, I hate the term, but adventure bikes are a huge segment. Most of them never go off-road. They're still, you know, they're still capable bikes. And this comes right as back roads, trails, primitive roads are closing. They're getting paved in great numbers. It's kind of odd. We're sort of losing this aspect. And you see the same thing in cars and trucks, you know, like four-wheel drive. Everything has to be all-wheel drive, four-wheel drive now. You cannot sell a station wagon. You have to call it an SUV. And it's kind of the same thing happening. It's cosplay, you know.

Robin: I will say in favor of the genre that people are riding. That's not so bad. The fact that people are interested. But I think the adjective term, it kind of comes back to, look, what you're really looking for. If you actually want to be the epitome of what this horde of riding style represents, you want to go listen to back-to-back Tim Clark episodes on an Africa twin with Moskow moto bags riding through riverbeds with nothing but baby heads and sand for hundreds of miles. That is, I'm going to go ahead and pull the word adventure out and just brand that right on there. Better man than me. In that environment, goodness gracious, way to go. But just taking some simple training, which I would like to do. I'm not against any kind of training. I know the people that would train it, they know what they're doing. But the whole concept doesn't come with, I've ingested fundamental information about it, bought expensive gear, and now I'm just trying to go buy a latte and pick up babes.

Brian: Oh yeah. And on ADV Rider, the website, people make fun of themselves all the time. This will look great in front of Starbucks. So clean. They're self-aware about it at least. Yeah, that's totally chill. Yeah. You can, and I've been in classes with people on the BMW GS, whatever, 1250 giant, the giant BMWs. And those things are spooky capable when people know what they're doing. There's no way something that large should be able to do those things. So they really are incredibly capable bikes. Here I am in my little crappy KLR, you know, it's all good fun. Just kind of, I don't know, the cosplay is kind of weird.

Robin: Winding down this segment, I'll read your wording and this, hopefully this doesn't turn into a giant negative episode, but it's like any other corner of the riding world. There's a lot of stupid stuff, but a lot of great stuff and fun as well. It's always seemed kind of ironic to us that there's a surge of interest in off-road or maybe just off-road style. Just when we're getting close to the entire planet being freaking paved. I don't know. All-terrain riding is indeed an absolute blast, but yeah, we also get why the whole adventure cosplay shtick is getting a little bit old. You gotta mean it. Whatever kind of riding you want to do, prove it. Full soul. Which brings us to segment three. The way Mags and I live, my wife and I, we can only comfortably haul and maintain two machines. Well, that plus a scooter, which is kind of stuffed awkwardly into the back. Point being, if one were to have a bike for every mindset and terrain, even if they only achieve master of none usability status, what would those two bikes be? Brian, I've read your solution many times and your opinion about it. Fight, fight, fight.

Brian: I have my answer and we'll get to that. I tried to answer it for you and there's something Peter Egan said was, you know, like there are some people, there's some men I consider brothers, but I don't know anyone well enough to pick out a motorcycle for him. So my answer for you is going to be off base. You've been absolutely slobbering. We've been visibly salivating over the Suzuki GSX-8R, the Kickstarter. Can confirm. And so to me, I was like, well, that makes sense. That's got to be one of them because your RS-1200SS, RR-1250, it's a damn big bike. So the Gixxator to me seems like it would be a good track weapon. Hopefully someone's going to come out with racks so you can put hard luggage on it. I would suspect GV's hard at work at that already. And then you'd really have something going there. The second thing is I believe, and I'm not sure, but that should be within the range of what Maggie would be able to physically ride because she's smaller. She could do it. And so that would make sense to me as one bike. And as far as what the other one is, I have no idea. And you had a really interesting, and again, this is me picking out for you. So now do it for you. I already did this exercise. So my motorcycle world right now is in perfect balance. I have vintage, I have dual sport, and I have sport touring. So if I had to pick two, we'd have to keep the sport touring, which is right now, it's my Yamaha FJ-09. The main reason I have that bike is because I wanted something modern. I wanted to make sure I upgraded to something with ABS. That was the big dividing line. Like, okay, I'm finally going to jump into something. It's a magic moment. The thing is incredibly comfortable, really friendly ergonomics. It has really good power, about 100 to 115 horsepower, something like that. It handles really well. I'm very happy with it. Obviously, you've seen it firsthand, really bonded with that bike.

Robin: And sometimes I see it get really small in front of me because it's getting farther and farther away. That's a quick bike and you're quick on it.

Brian: Oh, that's awfully generous of you. Anyway, like that bike or something close, you know, like they're still making the Tracer, which is the upgraded version. It's got hard bags, you know, had the GV set up and so forth. Not really good for two up. Marge and I went for a ride for about 40 miles once on it, and she had enough. And I've got dual sport covered with a KLR 650. Oh, absolutely. At most, if it's a bike I have to live with the rest of my life, it's going to be a KLR 650. If it's something like I can replace it in the future, it would, you know, I might think about a DR 650 Suzuki. They're simpler. They're air cooled. They wear out sooner. If you have to get through interstate to get to the good stuff, the KLR is a little more streety. And my KLR, it's been through absolute hell and it's armored to the teeth. It's heavily, heavily customized. Big bore kit. I've done so much work on that thing to get it exactly where I want it. So I've already got my two-bike answer. And then plus I have the vintage bike, which I'm, you know, I'm going to keep that forever too. So I'm going to have a three-bike solution.

Robin: Oh, yeah, yeah. This is merely an exercise. Merely an exercise.

Brian: Yeah, if it had to be two, it'd be dual sport and sport touring. And if it had to be three, then I had vintage in. So I may change things around later on. I may get a Tracer or I may get something else that's sport touring. But the thing I really enjoy about the Yamaha, the FJ09, I didn't really expect this either when I bought it. I don't know. I almost bought it on just how it is on paper without ever riding one. But how lightweight it is. Yeah. I mean, it's close to the weight of the KLR, weighs a little over 400 pounds. And the FJ09 weighs, it's under 450. Probably not with all the luggage on it. Yeah, for what it is and the ergonomics, it's incredibly light.

Robin: Also with a higher center of gravity because of the tank position, things like that. So the cornering on that thing is going to be phenomenal. I think so. It's funny you brought up the KLR, any of that. There's a great regular car reviews. We've mentioned regular car reviews in the past, RCR on YouTube, regular car reviews about the six by six. It's like a multi-fuel military vehicle that can run on like goat milk or whatever you need it to run on. It'll do. And how it's the ultimate apocalypse, ultimate apocalypse vehicle. And at the end of it, he's like, no, if I was going to do the apocalypse vehicle and they show the six by six and he rolls in from behind it on a KLR, I was like, this is what I would want. And then he just takes it. Hell yeah. Well, I'm going to take my turn then and say, yeah, correct me, please. Yes. It's time for you to understand where you stand in the standing of the standery. I disagree with your assessment because the GSX-8R, which yes, I am slobbering about that bike, which is perfect for me and my world has modern standard ergonomics. Now the classic standard would be like the CB650 Nighthawk or the 750 Nighthawk, you know, you're upright, your feet are slightly forward. The modern standard just brings your feet back. That's all. Those ergonomics are my go-to for all things paved and sport touring on public roads. So while it is technically a sport bike, it doesn't offer race replica ergos for track days, like a fully tucked gallop position where you're focusing on your chest core. Your wrists are just over the tank. You're basically eating your GUI is just up against your nose because you're, you're just going quick. Anything with a double R, triple R, quintuple R on the side of it, that race profile, this bike won't do that. Do I still love it? Oh, give it to me. I want that bike. But if I had to pick two bikes for the remainder, I'm thinking maybe like the Royal Enfield Himalayan. Okay.

Brian: That was an unusual choice. I have to say.

Robin: Why Robin? Why would you say that? I'll tell you exactly why. Why Robin? So simple. Those bikes are so simple. I think they're oil cooled. I'm not looking right now. I'm sorry. I should have it open in front of me. You tell me they're not liquid cooled. I believe that they are air and oil cooled. They have an oil cooler up front. Everything is right there. Are they injected? Yeah, they're injected. So there's going to be an ECU and things like that. They're not fully analog. And I do believe they have that like Bluetooth interface for your phone and all this stuff. But all in all, every component of that bike is direct access. The tank comes right off. All the bits come right off. They're the type of parts that if they get warped or messed up, you can just use a rubber hammer and bang them back into their shape and then put them back on and right away. They probably would run on kerosene or stale gas or tiger piss, whatever the fuck. The thing is, is that they're so silly and simple, and they have a larger front wheel to a smaller rear wheel definition. So the profile says I can probably do some pretty good gravel work. I can probably do some moderate two track. Single track, you're getting a little risky unless you pull some stuff and you're just going slow by yourself through the backyard. But not only that, it'll still be torque. It can still perform on the pavement. The turn in is going to be a lot different. The step in is going to be a little bit wonky because you have a larger front wheel. Tim Clark goes into all that stuff. It's different. Details, details. It's up to the rider. But it's a tourable machine on both pavement and gravel. Yeah. So that could be convertible to a paved and off-road situation. Let's get into my personal favorite territory, which is the sport biking. I'm going to say go with the R1 or a Gixxer 1000.

Brian: Mm-hmm.

Robin: You can get so many aftermarket things for this. New old stock, even for the aftermarket. Tall risers that turn it into a modern standard sport bike. Four inches up, two inches back. Okay, get you some ape hangers. Yeah. Absolutely. Some tassels, a get back whip. Yeah. You could turn any Gixxer 1000 or R1 or the new R9. I'm looking at that.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Into a modern standard sport bike, modern standard ergonomics, just by getting the outboard kit, the aftermarket kit. What's more is I remember learning through Paul Rosner that you can get clip-ons that are also adjustable. So they can go from a purely modern standard ergonomic profile to a full-on race replica. We go in that way. We go in quick profile for track days. You don't have to dismantle anything. You just undo a couple of screws, adjust them. Put them back where you want them and off you go. Yeah. So I'd be able to track the bike. I'd be able to tour the bike. And with Maggie's bike, we'd be able to tour the bike and we'd be able to offer the bike. And that's how I feel that it is a blanket example of ways to get innovative and just be like, let's do it all. Two bikes is all we got. Very interesting.

Brian: And the Himalayan, a small person like Maggie, it restricts your choices of bikes in some ways, but it also opens them up because Himalayan 450 is going to be, she's not going to weigh it down. She's going to be fast as hell on it if she wants to be. Yeah. Yeah. Now I do have to say you, you'd said you were talking about the R1 and they just announced the R9. It's got that. Look at that. Triple engine. That's just rude. I love it. Look at that thing.

Robin: Look at it. It's two wheels on an arrow. It's forward now.

Brian: And you know, it corners. Oh yeah. I've really become a fan. This is weird. But the thing I really have enjoyed, I didn't know this until I owned a Yamaha was their parts prices are so much more reasonable than any other manufacturer. Absolutely. It's really weird. Like I ordered parts and I'm like, that's the first time I ordered some stuff. I was like, oh my God, this is nobody talks about that. But yeah, this, the new R9 is looking mighty stinky. I have to say, look at that in mirror integrated signals. Awesome. I mean, there's a picture of a guy on a track. I mean, you know.

Robin: Oh, it's a race replica all day. You know, it doesn't have the double R on there, but it is definitely ready for a track day.

Brian: Yeah, no, it's not going to, you know, it's not going to have, it's not going to have like a hundred. It's not going to have like, you know, 287 horsepower or whatever it is.

Robin: The R1 has no, but man, I've got 124 horsepower right now. And I'm looking at the Gixator, which has, I think like in the late eighties, early nineties horsepower. And I'm fine. I'm fine with that. I want it. I'm good. I'm cool.

Brian: Yeah. You know, like, oh, it's like, no, I don't, I don't want any more power. Right. I make enough bad decisions.

Robin: You know, there's a certain point where you learn to corner well enough that you realize it's not required. I'm fairly okay at cornering. So most of the time I'm looking back and waiting up, you know. I don't need a straight line wheelie.

Brian: You were talking about the Himalayan 450. Let me draw your attention. MSRP $5,799. Yeah. Brand new for them for the Himalayan. Crazy. That's a lot of value. And even the other Royal Enfield models, the Continentals, the new 650 twins are pretty tasty. If you like that sort of thing.

Robin: We've talked about that before. That's 650 GT. I have a little bit of a eye for.

Brian: Yeah. And apropos of nothing, I wanted to point something out to you. For sale ad on ADVrider.com. This is a 2015 Zero S with less than 2000 miles. What's he asking? Yeah. 3250. That's crazy. That's nothing. Here's the thing. I don't remember what happened to the Zero, the company. They're still around.

Robin: They are being very careful. Their investment is stable and thought out in a way where they're not trying to conquer the world. They're just trying to sustain and make people aware and make things available. That SR-S is still the sexiest electric bike I've ever seen. And the most fun I've ever had on a motorcycle. The SR-S is bar none the greatest entertainment I've ever experienced on a two-wheeled machine. Nice. Dumb as hell fun. Wow.

Brian: This one has like, I guess they came with, it's obviously Jeevy hard luggage, but it says Zero on it. Rebadged. Yeah.

Robin: A lot of that going on. Jeevy's cool like that. We know what we're looking at. Hey, Jeevy. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thanks for doing that. You know, like, here you go.

Brian: Call it factory. I thought that was the coolest thing I've seen. Or two bikes. Well, actually three. No. Well, I need four. One to just commute on. Then it would be something like this. One of these days I will have an electric bike for in-town commuting and so forth.

Robin: Well, to the listeners, if you're interested in the bike, you want to look for George NVA on ADV Rider. Beamer's Uber Allies is what he says, but George NVA on advrider.com is selling the Zero S. Check it out.

Brian: Coolest thing I've seen in a while. So I wanted to bring it up for no real reason. Okay. We're going to postulate five bikes. Somewhere in the four or five bike range is something like this. An electric would be in there. I think it'd be a lot of fun.

Robin: So I got to go. Maggie just pulled in. We managed to bury an hour. Anyhow, how do we make a smooth transition out of this episode? Look, a dolphin.