Brian: We're looking up at the cold, dark tunnel of winter ahead of me. At least I am. Robin isn't. No comment. Robin is looking at like, yeah, it gets a little nippy in the mornings around here. You're in, you're in beautiful somewhere, Texas.

Robin: Hill country, Kerrville, where the riding is and the weather's not bad. I will say that today it just started getting by their standards cold. So we're talking like highs in the mid fifties. Oh my God. Lows in the late thirties. You poor things. You are aware. There's a reason I got smart. I'm from Chicago.

Brian: That's why your house is on wheels. This is the upside. Absolutely. But anyway, here in Indiana, 31 degrees, kind of rainy, crappy, but anyway, it's not riding weather. It's wrenching weather, but I don't really have any wrenching to do. So do you have a heater in your garage? Propane heaters. I can turn on and I have like an electric heater I can put in. It's also attached to the house. So it actually, if I keep the insulated door closed, it, even when it's very cold outside, it'll be comfortable ish in the garage. Okay. I can work out there even when it's a really cold, I've changed tires when it's like 30 degrees out. Just put the tires in the house and then take them out to put them on. No big deal.

Robin: Speaking of which that Rebaconda there's no real major issue putting on a tire cold that I could detect tires go on cold. There is no work by the way. I'm not using their lube. I'm using the, uh, you remember when I was texting you for like emergency tips on, I'm out of the fibrous waxy stuff. And you were like baby shampoo. I defaulted to baby shampoo and I'm in, I haven't any issues.

Brian: Someone's going to email and like, Oh no, you'll, you'll rot your spine or something. I don't know. But it's what came to mind as a mild baby shampoo that, well, just Johnson's. I once stopped at a, uh, at a, at a family dollar, like a cheap store that's everywhere in every little town. And I got some bubbles, you know, like to make kids make bubbles with.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: And I use that. I use that for tire lube once.

Robin: I mean, and that's gotta work. I mean, because kids are going to eat bubbles. They're going to try to catch bubbles. You know, they can't be toxic. Has to not be.

Brian: Yeah. It's dollar store. So you don't know it's a gamble.

Robin: You take a look at the demographic. Who do you see when you walk in there?

Brian: Yeah. A little toxic bubbles, at least to their problems. Anyway, some news to discuss.

Robin: Some of it, I just threw into the outline and really need to give it due diligence after the fact, just out of respect, we've lost a name in motorcycling, a renowned name, a legendary name, and that's Malcolm Smith, who is the legendary motorcyclist on any Sunday star. I just looked up some of his stuff on YouTube to remind myself. It was a 1970 something interview about his 1968 race on the Mexico 1000. So during the 1968 Mexico 1000, his car on the way down, it was fine, but they had this sixties Volkswagen on the way back, it broke down. So they had to hitch a ride with a truck full of live sea turtles.

Brian: I remember hearing that story.

Robin: Yeah. He says it just smelled absolutely terrible. He was named motorcyclist of the century, rightfully so just for all of his ambassador level contributions. If you really want to learn more about the guy and you should, there's a reason that these legends exist. Google Malcolm Smith motorcycle and read anything you can find on the man. He does leave behind a website that is MalcolmSmith.com and if you go to MalcolmSmith.com forward slash Malcolm story, there is a lot of chronological information on there that with links to various interviews and stories and websites and dedications, all kinds of stuff.

Brian: So check it out. I remember reading the same story about him and I remember, you know, I've got a whole shelf of magazines from the eighties and nineties back when motorcycle magazines used to exist. Mm hmm. He was always there. And even after long after retirement and his sixties and seventies, they'd go visit him and, Hey, let's go for a little ride and, and you've experienced that too, the old racer just leaves, you know, yeah, just an amazing guy. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe he started, uh, MSR Malcolm Smith racing, which is kind of a brand that long produced and marketed a lot of off-road and dual sport stuff. I've got MSR handlebars on my KLR and I've got a spare set on the shelf because the handlebars always get bent when you fall over.

Robin: Malcolm Smith, motorsports, motorcycle, ATVs, and power sports. And that's the MalcolmSmith.com website. So MalcolmSmith.com where you can see the chronological tale of his life. That's pretty cool. Rest in peace, Malcolm Smith, Godspeed, farewell. Any site news to go over? I wanted to get our social media blasted off again. So I know Brian's been liking every post he sees like, Oh, is that new? Oh, is that doing it? Wait, that's not new. What is this? Basically I've set everything that is evergreen content ish that can always be of some benefit posting to social media every three hours, one of those will end up on all of our social media channels, so I'm happy about that. Just to be getting more interaction, getting more visitors. Nice. That's it. Do we have a jingle for listener questions? We probably don't. Do we, do we need one? You should sing it and you should sing it full bass in one. Listen to our questions, our fun.

Brian: There you go. You just did it right there. How about not? All right. These questions are our, there's a couple of related ones here.

Robin: Let me kick this off full field goal and you can take it from the reins if you want to, but. All right. Svetlana. You made that up, didn't you? No, I did not. About to buy a new motorcycle. Any suggestions? Go sit on a lot of bikes. Yeah, this is clearly going to be a new rider. Figure out what ergos you prefer. Explore what purpose built motors and engines and bikes you want to have for the right tool for the job. And then begin to develop your buying decisions out of that.

Brian: Buy the shiny one. That's blue. That no, um, buy the Triumph. Yeah, there you go. I think there's a really good idea here. Assuming this is a newish rider. I think buying a new motorcycle is something that really should be on the table for new riders, if you can possibly swing it, because you're going to skip so much of the BS that comes with dealing with someone else's bike that you're buying.

Robin: Yeah. Which we'll explore in the rental category soon enough. Continue.

Brian: Yeah. The thing about buying a used bike is you don't know what's right. You don't know what's wrong. I've had people show up like, Oh, look at this cool old bike. I just bought and you know, they make it to my house somehow. And I push it two feet and I'm like, this thing is a death trap. You know, they just, you know, you just don't know what you don't know. Oh yeah. Yeah. I really do applaud the idea of a, of a newish rider or a, you know, someone who's tried it out and they're like, yeah, I like this. I want to, I want to jump in very much worth considering is buying a very late model or buying a new bike even.

Robin: But to be your contrarian and I'll pass it back to you in a second. I will say that there are those who are really intrigued by the mechanics of it, the history of it. There are people who were drawn to a vintage bike at the gates. So I figure if you're drawn to a vintage bike right off the bat, then you want somebody who knows that bike, or at least a group of people who can help you assimilate your own understanding of that bike to feed off of constantly. There's a Vin Moto in every state, the nationwide organization, they delegate sub organizations out to various states and cities. One at a time, there was chiving meadow Madden. We've talked about this before, but I remember that my CB 500 T was my first bike, if I knew then what I know now, I would absolutely have that bike. Completely sorted, understood. I loved that bike. I just wasn't ready to really appreciate a bike of that. And the CB 500 twin was a, I won't say it was a rare bird. It was a lesser known and completely accessible and easy to maintain bird for sure, that was kicked out of races because they claimed there's no way that this is a production bike. CB 500 T, the new bike, no carburetors, no petcock, ABS.

Brian: Yeah, it's pretty much going to run and work and it'll take a lot of stuff off your plate. You need to put in more money to buy a new bike, but if you have the money, then the money's out of action. But you do get something back. If you sell it later on, it is an asset of some sort, unless you yard sale the thing or whatever. But anyway, it's worth considering or at the very least try to get something that actually flipping runs, you know, buying a basket case, not knowing anything at all about riding, let alone motorcycles, even if you're a pretty good car mechanic or whatever is the toughest way to go and it can be pretty dangerous. You know, if you don't know how brakes work, if you don't know how handling is supposed to work and steering stem bearings and forks, and you know, if you don't know how all that weird stuff motorcycles have is supposed to work, it can be really tough. Get the best you can and start there. And the usual suggestions, you know, there's a lot of really interesting stuff around the 300 CC area. Even some of the stuff like the SV 650, there's decades of Suzuki SV 650s out there that are a great bike for anybody of any experience level, really.

Robin: I always thought the KTM RC 390 just, it's such a great looking bike, a little knife. Also, when you look at the, which Ninja is it? There's a new Ninja 400.

Brian: Yeah. There's a 400 and there were some 300s, 250s. Yeah.

Robin: Now that they've switched a lot of things to the 270 degree crank.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I've kind of figured out again, analogy for this. Tell me if you agree. It's like watching a dog or a horse run. So all of the feet are in the air.

Brian: I get you.

Robin: There's a point at which all legs are in the air, all feet are in the air. And then the hind quarters land first, right before the front leg. So da-da, da-da, da-da. Yeah. The power burst. Yeah. There's gotta be a lot of connection between that and the organic world. Just observing nature and being like, why did we think we could re-engineer nature?

Brian: Another example, like Yamaha has the MT-03. I was looking it up. I couldn't remember the model name. Yeah. It's kind of a standard or naked style bike. Yeah. Dead sexy. Looks great. Annoyingly quick. Yeah. And they've got the, the YZFR3, if you like fairings, you know, so there's something, a lot of people that have bought those as beginner bikes and want to move up to something with more power, you know, they're out there late models used to, uh, for not a lot of money. I'm looking at Yamaha's website. $5,000 gets you an MT-03. Wow. Or another 500 bucks for the R3. There you go. Three grand. You could probably find a really nice used one. Or if you buy five grand and sell it, you know what? The point is you skip a lot of BS. If you get something that just works out of the box, isn't it? You can work on yourself. You can work on the software if the hardware is working, but a lot of people do it the other way around too. They'll buy something that's kind of marginal and they both kind of grow. One thing that may be a little controversial, and I would not lean toward a cruiser style bike as a beginner, something a little more standard is a better way to grow your skills, especially, you know, this is a sport touring podcast. Let's talk about, you know, but. I agree with you. There's a big butt here. If the thing that pulls you out into the garage and makes you hit the button and you can't wait to hit the road, you can't wait to get off work and ride the bike. If that is a cruiser, then that's what you got to do. Yeah. If you're drawn to it, naturally. Motorcycles just don't make a damn bit of sense. So you got to ride what blows your dress up. The foot controls more underneath you and your hands kind of in the control position.

Robin: Limiting the ergos to a very demonstrative standard posture. You can get a classic standard versus a modern standard. And that's a little bit of wiggle room to determine, do I really have the core for a sport bike, or do I feel like reclining into the sunset on a cruiser? Those two bikes alone, which are both still standard posture do have very dramatic differences in ergonomics.

Brian: Yeah. Kind of middle of the road gives you a better platform for building your skills. So yeah, that makes sense. The other side of what you said was a hardcore sport bike is, is not a good choice, not just for the obvious reasons, like it's fast as hell and you'll die. But it also, the ergos are, even if you're young and slim and beautiful, the ergonomics of a hardcore sport bike are going to be a little tough. You're not going to be able to take advantage of what a true sport bike can offer you for a very long time. You should bias a little more towards comfort. People are always like, what's the best performance upgrade I can make on my motorcycle? Gas, spend money on gas, ride the thing, get experience, learn, upgrade your software. Yeah. Then worry about the bike later.

Robin: I will say, however, that in addition to what he said, you can always choose that later, so long as you have a base, you have the opportunity to be like, you know what, I'm totally feeling that full tuck race replica profile. It speaks to me and I'm going to do it. And then you'll feel it. It is the glove that you were looking for, but to start there, it doesn't give you a point of reference. And then anything on a cruiser is so extreme. That's how community angst and argumentation begins to happen because people just don't know what else is out there.

Brian: Yeah. The one last thing I will say is there, there are a lot of bikes with fairings that are not full-blown sport bikes, you know, especially like all the 250, 300 CC, 400 CC, even if they look like a race replica, it's more about the riding position is a little more standard, a little more upright, if you'd like that look, you can get that look without having to perform the physical sacrifice to assume the positions. I mean, if I was a new rider, even as a larger person, God, there's so much stuff, and even for smaller people, for shorter people, there's so much good stuff out there right now.

Robin: It's gotten so much better. Yeah. The industry's developed. They have options now, new tech, new world. Yeah. Some things that had to be no longer are, therefore they're not in the way and ergonomics can be adjusted to make use of the space that used to be taken up by some iron clad previous, we didn't know any better tech now that's not there, so the seats can be changed. The profiles can be changed. There are smaller bikes out there that do try to be the race replica and they do succeed. The R3 does it. So does the RC 390, even though I don't know if they actually still make that bike.

Brian: Like the R3 is, is pretty racy, right? Riding position.

Robin: Yeah. It's close.

Brian: The CBR. Yeah. Honda had a little 250 that actually has a pretty standard position, but it's got a fairing and it just looks sick. It just looks great. You know?

Robin: Yeah. I miss having a pocket bike.

Brian: Next question.

Robin: Jeffrey asks, what do you think about riding when it's below freezing?

Brian: Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt.

Robin: Yeah. I've got a video of me on the Seica in Chicago, riding over black ice. That's fun. Because I couldn't resist. I wanted to, I just, I got a motorcycle. I got it late in the season. I wanted to ride and I got all the kits so I could tolerate it and did. It's great. I say do it. And then you'll know that you can ask yourself every time. Am I up for that? Yeah. You could say yes or no on your terms, because then you'll have something to think about what it's like writing below freezing and I think both Brian and I have done plenty of it. Do we look forward to it? It depends on the mood by default. Probably not.

Brian: The big determinant for me obviously is traction. Like I've ridden to work when it's, you know, 17 degrees and actually below zero, but it was dry. So you can engineer ways to stay warm ish, or at least delay the onset of frostbite for the 20 minutes it takes to get to work. You can engineer that. And, and that's, I guess we'll leave that aside for the moment. Heated grips are mandatory on all my bikes, heated gloves, maybe, you know, there's stuff you can do, but yeah, the big determinant is traction, moisture, stuff like that. One of my sayings is there's always some traction to be had somewhere, but if you are on ice, that's pretty much zero traction. So you need to avoid those. The neighborhood where my office is tight tree line streets and a lot of high rise buildings. And so it's very dark down in there. And so even if it's dry at my house, that's kind of a more open suburbs. It's still going to be wet and icy and frozen down at my office. So a lot of times I have to, um, no, I can't, you know, I'm not going to do it today. I've ridden in snow. Snow can is doable. It's like dirt or sand. Yeah. You have less traction, but not, not really zero traction unless it's packed down to black ice, like you, like you talked about perfectly doable. You can also get way too heavy and talk about, you know, your decision matrix of risk factors and blah, blah, blah. But the idea is I try not to pile too many risks on just for the sheer hell of it, unless I'm really screaming and clawing at my skin and I got to go ride like the sake of Tory. Yeah. Motivation. If I'm writing the work, you know, like, okay, I got dark, wet, possible ice. How many risk factors do I want to pile up at once? I'll drive or I'll work from home. You know, I'm not so yeah. Deciding before you go, try not to get caught in weather, you know, pay attention to stuff like that. And the short days in the winter are often, even if you get like a 50 degree day, but start by five. So man, yeah. You got to really shorten your, uh, your timeframe.

Robin: Yes. In fact, I'd be more worried about the health from writing than the social health from winter, which we'll get to in a moment, I'm sure.

Brian: So what I want to do next, I want to talk about we're staring in, into, uh, the abyss of winter here. And one of the things I like to do is dream about where I would like to go places that are warm, places that are sunny, and they're also places that are far away. So, you know, what are some places I could do a fly in, rent a bike on twisted road and have a great time when it's still icy cold here, it's going to have sunshine somewhere, somehow that's kind of something we did this spring in April tour, do you have a name for that? Or it's just the truth or consequences tour to their consequences tour. That's right. True.

Robin: I flew out. So truth, truth or consequences. I am not editing out the fact that you called it the tooth or consequences tour that will remain in the episode.

Brian: Unless you pay me, you have to buy audio engineer, audio engineering. Anyways. Uh, so what I did this spring, I flew out to Albuquerque, rented a bike on twisted road, got the ride, and it was a blast getting from the airport to the bike was, was real interesting. There was a neighbor who didn't have anything else to do. And so I paid her to give me a ride and, you know, and lift an Uber. Don't really, it was a whole thing. It was a lot of, it actually turned out to be kind of fun. I hop on this bike, uh, on the outskirts of Albuquerque and loaded up with all my crap that I brought on the airplane road down to truth or consequences, met Robin and Kelly and Maggie and Greg, and we had an absolute ball in the mountains down there. It's just fun to think about and remember that. And also figure out the logistics for doing something similar this winter or this spring. So I went to twisted road, put in truth or consequences, truth or consequences as a tiny town. So there's airports in like Albuquerque. And then there's one in El Paso that you can get into on Southwest. I looked around and I thought it'd be fun to talk about what is the most inappropriate bike for, for New Mexico mountain roads. You're going to show up with a pile of luggage, top off a plane from Indiana, blinking in the sun.

Robin: And then hop on the Polestar Rototiller engine mini bike that you bought at a tractor supply. And you're going to ride that in the mountains.

Brian: Well, guess what I found in Las Cruces, which is south of truth or consequences. Some absolute madman legend is renting out a bright green Benelli TNT 135. I want you to picture like a Honda monkey, except like more pissed off Italian teenagers, pissed off. Yeah. This thing is pissed. It's bright green.

Robin: He's running angle cut, straight pipes on like a one 25 or one 30. And I'm telling you, those are bone stock, man. That's not like a bad bod. They look like that's no, this thing's angry right there in the description, not responsible for close encounters with a third kind abductions or pursuits with men in black.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: That is no joke.

Brian: 135 CC single cylinder, all bad-ass.

Robin: Full description, feeling a little out of this world, bop around town on this Italian mini bike, small wheels, big fun. That's awesome.

Brian: I'm like, man, can you, I can just imagine. Yeah. Like, Hey, I'm like, I'll show up. I'm with a whole crap ton of luggage. You know, six, one, two 40. Yeah. I'm going to ride your ride, your Benelli in the mountains. It's Italian super bike.

Robin: How would a 45 liter top case look on the back of that thing?

Brian: Oh yeah.

Robin: Would you be able to put the bike into the top case when you weren't riding it? Pull the, pull the top case off, pick up the bike, place it into its case, close it up, carry it inside.

Brian: And that's the thing about this. It's like, it's such a weird, wild world out there. And there are people like, yeah, I'll put this, I'll, I'll make a little money on my bike and throw it. I think it'd be hilarious to ride around that thing. See what happens. Yeah. You couldn't carry much. So that'd be tough. One of the others I thought was funny. This is one in Albuquerque and I'm not, this is either super appropriate or super inappropriate. So you helped me decide Robin. Good luck. We've got a 21 year old, a 2003 Kawasaki ZZR 1200. This is a monster sport touring bike kind of right up our alley, but it's a train wreck. Keep going. I mean, from the factory, this bike is a freight train. Now is this, is this the weapon you need for the tight twisty beat up mountain roads of New Mexico? It's got the power.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: It could do the job. It's a big old beast.

Robin: I'm more concerned about the missing components. When I first opened it up, I was like, that's the, that's not a ZZR. It's missing most of the plastics. They converted it over to a pseudo naked, probably because the plastics are now made of unobtainium.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: So now it's this street fighter-y modular headlamp attachment that either does or doesn't do the job. The bike is suspect is all I'm trying to say because of the pictures and the plastics it's suspect. You could show up and discover that like, yes, I'm aware. And yes, I maintain the daylights out of it. Then I'm like, okay, we're green light. It's a rental. All right.

Brian: It's one that's interesting. Like you're placing a lot of trust in the, uh, in the owner and how, how well the, all this work. Yeah. Cause it's got like a little alien eyeball robot headlight assembly on it. It's not the stock at all.

Robin: Let me read the description here. Sport touring bike is perfect for long trips. Comes with super comfortable Cabro seats with optional attachment for passenger seat back. It's a 520 pound bike, 1164 CCs, 32 inch inseam mandatory. And it's, yeah, the original was a sport touring machine, but I really 158 horsepower though. Yeah.

Brian: That's serious, man. The thing that's fun about this, if you look further down there, it's like one of the least expensive bikes to rent in the whole state, $53 a day.

Robin: Yeah, man.

Brian: The best bargain award in New Mexico. Yeah. You'd have to show up and hope. Cause I mean, basically it's basically bulletproof. Yeah.

Robin: Part of me is just like, what's not to like what's the worst that could happen that I'll get to that. We did an interview with Eric Shropshire, which was a great interview for Quadrant Motors. He finds obscure luxury and rare machines for people to buy. He wrote our article about the Modus, which was a great read. If you get a chance, check that out. Touring a bike. I remember Eric, he loved his ZZR. If I remember right. Yeah. He had the ZZR with the beetle bags. It's a fully faired machine. There's no naked version of the ZZR. Not one. It's a ZZR is a fully faired machine at all times. So I think this person's description of the bike would be better suited to the customer base if it started with, let me explain.

Brian: Yeah. And this is one you'd have to show up with. You'd have to show up with your own soft bags to throw over the back and off you go. Soft bags and a backpack, strap a backpack on there and just go like hell. I think it'd be fun. Uh, and it's a bargain. Got risers on the handlebars. I just think it's kind of hilarious. It takes some, uh, what do they call it? Some trust, some, some whospa or whatever.

Robin: That's why I say, if he would just put in the description, Hey, I'm aware this is a fully faired machine. And let me explain that concludes itself with, yes, I maintain the daylights out of this for you at the low, low price of $53 a day, plus fees at twisted.tro.bike. And you'll get a coupon from us to you through twisted road.

Brian: So you can rent this lavish luxury sedan of a machine, or you could rent this Italian exotic 135 screaming CCs of absolute death on two wheels power for $56 a day.

Robin: If you want to feel the same terror at 65 miles an hour, then a normal bike would give you at 120.

Brian: You can rent that dual exhaust and a trellis frame and a 135 CCs of, of raw.

Robin: It's like the factory spec version of the Tuono on 15 inch wheels. Where do they need to go? Robin twisted.tro.bike sign up for twisted road. Get yourself a coupon. Go for a ride.

Brian: I've got an article on tro.bike about the etiquette and the art of riding a borrowed bike. And maybe that should be required reading for the intrepid twisted road rider. So we're going to try out something called velocity philosophy. I like to think about why and how, and the reasons we ride and the reasons we ride like we do and the, and the mental game underneath it all. So let's start our first velocity philosophy. We're going to come right out of the gate with how to ride slow without chewing your own arms off and frustration. I come here before you to admit I have trouble with this. Do you agree, Robin, that, that you also have trouble with this? I share your frustration. I did my first track day this year. Robin's done thousands of track days, whatever. I had this idea we would be free of this frustration when we were in an unrest, a relatively unrestricted environment. We were not.

Robin: There was a busy day that day.

Brian: So it was a lot of people out there. We're all in the yellow group. So we have, we have restricted rules where and when we could pass. I was a little surprised by that. I was like, I thought I'd finally be free of the, of the Buick problem, but I wasn't. Maggie and I had, you know, we talked a little bit of, and you and I have talked a little bit of here about the art and science of the sketchy pass. And, and me or me shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't, shouldn't ought to do that. I know what I just did. I need to get out of here now. I'm going to leave. One thing I find that kind of helps me at least on public roads. These roads were not made for us to go right around on high speed. They were made for people who need to get somewhere. They were made for farmers, babysitters, getting to the next baby truckers, people going to work, stuff like that. So we're the weirdos and how we're using these resources. So we kind of have to keep that in mind.

Robin: Yeah. I was just telling the neighbor that breaking speed limits, I'm pretty selective about it. So long as I feel like I've got a handle on what my eyes have seen in front of me, I always only ride the road. I can see making judgments before riding any given section that my eyes are capable of processing before I try, you know, it's all okay. How much is ahead of me? What can I get away with? And I guess that there's a certain innocence in the way I say that. What can I get away with? It's more about, am I representing myself poorly to people that live here? Cause that's not good. It happens every now and then, but it's just like, that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to fire a massive motorcycle's middle finger at the world.

Brian: I wrote an article entitled Velocity Philosophy. It kind of talks about this and actually I dig into the ethics. Is it okay to do this? There's a whole section on be nice to slow pokes to having some manners about how you pass and so forth. There's times you're just, you're just there and you're going to have to be there. And so you just have to be there in a moment and soak in what you can, you know, look around at the scenery, enjoy the hills and so forth that you don't normally see and before that back off, like there's no reason to hug them.

Robin: Like you're just itching and sweating for that opportunity to get around. You know, you be cool. Just back off, be a writer. You'll see a chance where it's like, okay, screw everything. I'm going around.

Brian: That's an option, but, or just take a break and take some pictures, stuff like that. You know, just do something else besides sit there and just boil in your own juices.

Robin: Got to get around, got to get around, got to get around.

Brian: Change your mental philosophy. Something I do in places I know well, like if I'm in Indiana and I'm kind of stuck behind somebody on a, I'll just take off on a back road and ride that for a while, usually I know where I'm going and I can Wisconsin, you don't like your scenery and are stuck behind somebody take the next right or left and you're going to get the same awesome and you're going to have a whole road to yourself. And we also have discussed in the past, you know, like it was today, like a attack day or is it a, is it a red mist day or just a, just a light pink mist, you know, we're just going to, we're just going to cruise around. It was very interesting in a way that, you know, Kentucky was definitely, we were just all in, we were in sync. We were locked in, dialed in just all out. And we were out of juice on Sunday, just kind of out of it. The ride back was very enjoyable, but it was, it was dialed down somewhat. Whether an outside observer could have noticed this. I don't know, but overall it was just really super mellow, man. And that was its own fun.

Robin: It was, but you also got me thinking about how honestly the mindset and the energy isn't necessarily what will change. A lot of it has to do with what you are ready to take on. If it's a lot, I shouldn't have to be like, okay, ready up. Here we go. You know, it's like, if you do that, you're already working too hard.

Brian: Yeah. Don't force it.

Robin: If I'm going to ride slow, so long as I'm grinning, I'm happy to be on the bike. I got no beef with that. I do have beef with people telling me what I should be feeling. You should slow down or you should speed up. That's not for you to say.

Brian: But if I can find that neutrality, basically keeping it all natural, if you're pushing it, then you'll have the arm pump, like you're, you'll be gripping too tight and you'll see people get angry. I've been riding with some very, very, very solid, solid people. I haven't seen anybody get mad a long time. And it helps to remember, like if you're on like a little tiny backroad that goes from nothing to nowhere. If you're behind a tractor or a truck or something, they're going to turn. They're there to pick up some cows or deliver a tractor or something. They're going to have to turn off at some point. They're not riding this for giggles. Like you are, you know, remember we're the weirdos. We're the ones out here that actually like this stuff. Most of the people are like, ah, this is just in my way. I wish this, you know, I wish I, I wish this was an interstate. Sometimes that'll be like, yeah, I'll just, I'll wait and see what happens. Oh, look, there's a driveway. Maybe they're going to go up there. Some days, some roads, it's just going to be crowded and you're just going to have to deal with it. Find some other way to entertain your brain, take another route. I think Megan and I talked about, they just set a mental task for yourself, like ride only in the right-hand wheel track. You did that. And that was fun. I mean, that was actually made a very slow Ray ride really fun because I really had to pay attention.

Robin: And a little bit of like that arm lock you talk about, but it's more humorous. Like, Oh, stay, stay in that. Stay there, stay there. You know, it's like kind of a fiddling around a bit. Nothing wrong with that. I noticed that you have in here settling for the light pink mist when you really had an appetite for destruction that day. And I feel like, honestly, if I land on the light pink mist, I'm gold. And there are times when I'll ride with somebody who isn't necessarily up to the same shelf of mileage and experience. I'm trying not to be a jackass about how I said, you'll ride with somebody who just doesn't have what you have. And then they're following you and they are not keeping up and you're barely working. That's fine. You found the pink mist, stay in it. You're having a good day. Watch them. They're in the purple mist by their standards.

Brian: Really? It's not hard to ride with somebody who's a lot slower than you are. Just stop and wait for them. Everybody can have a great time. You know, ride your own ride is the oldest advice in the world, but it goes back to the mammoths, I think. All right. Own ride.

Robin: Ride your own pterodactyl.

Brian: I'm a go ahead and I'm going to be out of sight here in a few minutes. You can relax, do your thing, enjoy the scenery. Trust me. I will be there. If there's a, if there's an intersection or stop sign, I will wait. It never takes very long.

Robin: Funny though. It's really hard to convey that people understanding what riding your own ride means, acknowledging it, nodding with a humble smile of, wow, that was really inspiring and I agree with you completely who then proceed to launch their bike into the moon. They heard it and they abandoned it at some corner just by whatever. And yeah, there's also that. So I guess that no matter how good you get at conveying the ride your own ride message, continue to get better at it because there are people that wholeheartedly believe it and then don't acknowledge it the instant they're throwing a leg over the machine, the half of every ride is standing around gas stations.

Brian: And so you listen for signs like, oh man, I couldn't keep up or almost lost it. You know, the words keep up. I'm like, no, do not keep up with anybody. That's not a thing. Nobody keep up with nobody, nothing. It's not a thing. We, we don't do that here.

Robin: I'm not interested in what you're doing beyond the fact that you don't slam into me and I don't have to turn around and find you, these are the two most important factors to you keeping up as it is.

Brian: Yeah. I like what Jason Harahim said. Don't touch other motorcycles with your motorcycle. And there's something about landscaping. I don't know.

Robin: Anyway, there's no need to add to the landscaping. They have a service that provides it.

Brian: Article on, uh, TRO.bike about it touches on a lot of these things. Uh, the article's called velocity philosophy search for it on TRO.bike. Pue maintenance. Pue maintenance. Now we may need to workshop this section name a little bit, but this is the idea of what it takes. We talk about the machines all the time, but let's talk about what it takes to maintain the human machine. This is a short one. One of the things that's, it's hard to do in winter. And one of my goals this winter is to work more on fitness and strength. Relose some weight that I regained and really come into spring a lot more fit with more endurance, uh, physical endurance and more physical strength. I want my leathers to be loose next spring.

Robin: You just feel better.

Brian: Not a sausage, uh, stuffing exercise.

Robin: If you're feeling better than that's not a bad thing. I mean, we should all be able to just feel good. No, just being slightly active. I'm guilty of a two every day, especially lately. I'm getting in front of a computer. I wake up, I sit in front of a computer, all of my success, all of my goods, all of my bads in a given day, all of my high points in the day, and they're all in my mind because I'm not actually moving beyond my fingertips and I'm really glad that Mags has stepped up and been like, Hey, let's go for a walk. And she's gotten me out the door. She's like, I'm going to go do yoga. You should totally come over to the gym. Probably she's trying to send me a message, but six years ago, you and I were both looking very different than we do now. There's no shame in living life in the way I really always feel better moving regularly, even if it's just a walk.

Brian: Absolutely. And you've been very fortunate and skilled and so forth. And you have not taken the damage to your skeleton that I have. More exercise and movement is very helpful for that. You know, like my shoulder hurts like hell right now. You know, my left leg is obviously a absolute nightmare. So all the accumulated damage gets a lot better when you're moving around, when I'm moving around and about seven years ago, 2019, I lost like 90 pounds and I've gained 20 of it back. I need to reverse that. I need to keep going. I mean, I was a big old mess. I'm less big of them, but I'm still a bit of a mess, but that's one of my goals this winter is to work on that. One of my goals for next year is to ride more. Obviously did a lot of writing in 24. It was awesome. You had a good year, man. I did. I hope you do it again next year. Very solid year. Yes. So one of the things I want to do more of in 25 is, is do some, do at least one big dual sport ride. I didn't really do a big dual sport ride in 24 West Virginia, Colorado, something like that. In 21, we did a South Dakota for a week. Part of that's why my shoulder hurts now. Other than that, it was an awesome week. Dual sport riding really demands a lot of strength and endurance, more so than, uh, you know, in 50 feet, you're going to be in an absolute drench sweat and in some places and on a dual sport ride. So I need to level up. There's something called seasonal affective disorder. Uh, the acronym is sad. Basically it's just the wintertime blues and you know, it can get very, very bad for some people. And I think all of us have a touch of that, you know, where you just kind of. When the days get short and it gets dark, you can get lethargic and not all the way down to depression sometimes.

Robin: Yeah. Down with the daylight savings thing. Oh, make it go away.

Brian: Yeah. Moving exercise strength, eating right, sitting around in the dark, weeping because you can't ride and eating ice cream, that's the opposite of what we want to go for here.

Robin: There's no getting around the fact that it does trudge on the winter. It's long for everyone. Even me, our winter is two and a half, three months in New Mexico. And that may sound short. It definitely makes my years longer, but I will say that if you know the length of a winter, if it were a day halfway through the day, it'd be just moping like, come on, this is the longest day ever, right? Finding as many different activities that actually spike your interest to some degree that you can hop around on one or two won't do it have many, you know.

Brian: Sunlight is a big factor too. Yes. What little sun you get, get out and get in it. I went public last year. I said, I'm going to do a track day. And by God, I did a track day. So I'll go public this winter and say, I've got several specific things I'm doing for my own health and increase my fitness and so forth over the winter. I want to show up in the spring, stronger with better cardiovascular fitness.

Robin: Well, we want that for you too. Go for it. That's awesome. You got this. I will support you to the extent that we can. Oh, you also just had me looking at West Virginia for ADV bikes.

Brian: So I'm over here on twisted.tr.bike looking at their, I mean, if you thought West Virginia had nice paved roads, oh my God, off pavement.

Robin: I've heard the off-road there is incredible. And I don't get to do a lot of that because I've never had the window. Maybe it's my turn, man. Maybe I need to chase you on my rent bike.

Brian: Be a hoot. And one of the things on twisted road, what's the URL again? Twisted.tro.bike. There's a KLR650 for rent in pretty much every town in the country on twisted road, so just saying.

Robin: Go into a diner. You got a restroom? Yeah. Uh, can I borrow the KLR? Yeah. It's on the other side of the building. Yeah. Everybody's got a KLR.

Brian: Yeah. Just put some gas in it later.

Robin: Key with a giant stick on it. Big old hubcap.

Brian: All right. We're going to call this the fixes in. We're going to talk about those road fixes, the MacGyvering, the keeping going, the independent motion study. When you're by the side of the road, wondering what happened, why your bike doesn't go no more, that kind of thing.

Robin: And this might involve little things that can be dealt with and bigger things that can't be in that environment. And the Greerio, how do you decide?

Brian: We'll see where it goes today. I just wanted to mention some of the basics of, we're going to call it rubber up for safety.

Robin: You want to go with that or not?

Brian: I don't know.

Robin: Maybe we'll, I know what you're doing. Go ahead. It's your show.

Brian: Let's talk about your tires. Obviously tires are important to your safety and blah, blah, blah. With modern bikes. It's one of the more common failure modes that can either alter a trip where you have to go find a tire in the middle, or it can put you on the side of the road and you can't just go to Walmart and buy another tire motorcycles or their own thing, and it's a, and it's a whole pain in the butt 180 over 55 zero 17.

Robin: Come on, Walmart. You can't do that.

Brian: And you can't find it at Walmart. I think every rider should have, if you're going to go very far, you need to have on your bike some way to put air back into your tire. I carry a pump that plugs into the motorcycle battery and I'm actually going to trial or test out a pump. Robin has one that use on the tours. That is basically self-contained. It's got a lithium ion battery in it, and you can pump up tires just without having to plug it into the bike. You got to have a way to put air back in the bike and you got to have a way to plug a puncture because I don't know what the percentage is, but 90% of the time or more, your tires not destroyed. It's got a hole in it and it won't hold air. So you got to have what you need to fix that with you because triple a doesn't have that. Joe's garage at the next small town doesn't have that. So you got to be able to handle it. And you don't necessarily need to be able to like change the tire in the wilderness or anything like that. Although if you're on a dual sport bike, you should be able to do that. But like, if you're on a road bike, I think the bare minimum is a set of tire plugs. I use the ones from a Neely, N-E-A-L-E-Y, in my opinion, are the best on the market. What sets them apart from any other silly string? They're a sticky string type of tire repair where you poke it in from the outside, but they're skinnier. So you poke them in and then you spin the handle and then you pull it back out and then you cut them loose.

Robin: What is it like two and a half turns? What's the rule?

Brian: One and a half turns. One and a half turns. Pop it. Yeah. So what happens is it ties a knot inside the tire. So the plug can't pop out and it puts like four thicknesses of the string. So you basically end up with a thicker, stronger repair that cannot come out of the tire. And they work. They don't use glue.

Robin: They can.

Brian: Usually they come with rubber cement that's gone the instant you open it. It's usually dried up. The Neely's don't need it at all. You should actually tell you not to use it because it'll make them weaker. Oh, really? Yeah. Poke them in one and a half turns, pull it out, cut your tool loose. I've had amazing success with those. So I think that's kind of the minimum to carry if you're going very far from home.

Robin: Now it's not going to convince everybody. There are still people out there. They're like, Oh no, no, no, no. You know, I know that we have, I've got triple A, right?

Brian: Triple A doesn't have, they don't got you.

Robin: But worse than that, like we have friends who will allow you to put a sticky string in and then when they get to the hotel, like, Oh, I got, I gotta get another tire then. Like, I don't know that you do. I've witnessed it myself. Part of this conversation was inspired. I'm sure by the fact that a friend of mine needed a tire repaired that had plenty of good tread. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to put it out there to the whole committee. I texted Brian first. I also reached out to Travitron. I reached out to a lot of people like, Hey, you know, it's just a curious question. What do you prefer? Sticky string or plug patches with complete indifference, which by the way, all anybody confirmed for me was that, yes, I'm allowed to be absolutely indifferent. I like them both identically. Since the tire was not on, we went with the plug patch because it seems to retain the shape of the interior. It was a big plug patch. I knew how to do them. I, you know, the packaging instructions are completely intuitive. Chinese English or not. They are completely legible to the extent, you know, what you're doing. Little graphics are not a hard thing to do. The glue held the tire held. They didn't go that great after that. But the point is everything was workable. So whether it's sticky string on a mounted tire, which I totally will trust through the life of the tire or a plug patch on an unmounted tire. I don't think you have too much to worry about so long as you do it. Right.

Brian: Yeah. One of my rules with motorcycle tires in particular, if you put a plug in a tire and it's bothering you and it's on your mind and it's taking one tiny fraction of 1% of your attention off of staying alive while you're in motion, then buy the damn tire now, I will make you laugh.

Robin: You ready for this? The tire was an R six with tons of tread on it.

Brian: So it's only money, but that's only a lot of money.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah. It was a Michelin R six tire.

Brian: But the PR sixes did recently drop significantly in price.

Robin: It's not a PR six and I will fight you with a spork. It's not a PR six. It's an R six. Okay. They dropped the P after the four. Damn it.

Brian: Okay. Fine. Anyway, if you go to TRO.bike, Digitools, RoadRubberRankings. That is Brian Ringerland right there. We keep an eye on tire prices. And I just noticed in the last couple of weeks, Michelin prices dropped significantly, Dunlop prices rose significantly, Michelin road six. They still call it the pilot. So you're saying they don't call it the pilot. It's just a road six.

Robin: Yes. Wow. They did that with the road five. So it was the PR and the PR two, which is still the one and only tire they should bring back. They should bring back the PR two, sell it dirt cheap and let us be, let it leave us alone and leave us with the PR two. The PR three stepped out, the PR four stepped out of the wet and then they dropped the P and just went to the R for the R five and the R six.

Brian: This is riveting. Okay.

Robin: See, now that's the thing of it. Some people actually enjoy this kind of shit.

Brian: Anyway, I thought that was interesting and newsworthy. TRO.bike, Digitools, RoadRubberRankings. We keep like half an eye on motorcycle tire prices because we go through a lot of them. One thing I will say very quickly about that is that we've gotten pushback on, well, I write these and they last 7,000 miles. What are you guys doing? No, they don't. They don't. Or they're not writing very much or something.

Robin: That person starts at every green light in sixth gear and rides to the groceries. Like, like they ride. No, that's just, you remember when we were talking about people that ride ADV who no matter what they have to be standing.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I bet you he's standing on his bike with a megaphone talking about his tires, mileage, the tire hyper milers.

Brian: I don't get, I will say that I've often had the experience where, where I get. Half the miles out of a set of tires that normal people get. Yes. Robin and I both have had that experience where like, if I get 3000 miles, other people are liable to get 6,000.

Robin: I actually have slowed my role after the ContiMotion experience. With my attitude towards a tire that didn't last long. So like the ContiMotions lasted 1300 miles, the whole strip.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: That's what I felt all of a sudden a zing gone. And that's because I went all the way down to the belts in 1300 miles. And I'm not that vicious. I'm vicious enough that I'll give you this much. I would totally admit to the fact that yes, I like to ride assertive, but I softened my review of the tire given the people's response to the mileage. I got even that their type of writing versus my type of writing. Very different.

Brian: So I'm tracking the mileage. I get, I'll report what I get. And this has been, you know, the whole time I've been writing, you know, it's always, oh, I get, I get three that well, I get 6,000 well bully for you. You know, what are we talking about? Oh yeah. We were talking about fixing tires. Uh, we got, we got on a digression, didn't we? Yeah. Tire plugs, a tire pump of some sort, bare minimum, know how to use them. That's going to get you out of most of the jams on the side of the road.

Robin: One of the things about the pumps is that the one that I have, yes, I like it very much, it's also been rebadged by different distributors, so it's the same pump with a different branding on it. That should tell you something probably not going to last crazy long. I would say that mine has lasted a couple of years.

Brian: It's a cordless. So basically you recharge the battery inside it, and then you can just walk around and blow up motorcycle tires.

Robin: The one I have is the Cyc Plus A2 and it's really good. It's set it and forget it. You basically power it up. You set the pressure you want, you click it on and it inflates the tires. Pretty compact. It has an USB output for charging your phone. And it has a micro USB input for charging the unit. But at this point, now that it's about a year and a half, I think two years coming up old, I will say that the battery goes very quick in a sit still. It doesn't have to be powered on for the battery to go dead. Luckily though, I bring a jump pack with me. If it charges for 30 seconds to a minute, you can run it from the direct charge power. And so that's not really an issue. What is an issue is that as it gets older, the accuracy of the set it and forget it. It can't quite tell what the pressures are as it's inflating. It's kind of loses track. I think that I would like to start carrying in addition to that, just a hand pump, which I know that that is excruciating after 15 minutes of let's get me out of here. I think it is still a means to an end if it's a problem.

Brian: Yeah. The cordless one is a really good concept. Like the execution's a little shaky and the one you got, but overall the concept for what you do leading tours is a really good one because it's so easy just to go around from bike to bike, adjust pressure and get going for what I do, which is normally by myself or a couple other people, normally what I have with me is I have a, a Moto pumps. I have a really nice pump that plugs into the bike battery. It's tough. It can, you know, it can beat around on the back on in the box for months and then still work. I do have a, a cordless one on the way. I'm going to give it a try, see what happens. The thing with the cordless ones is if you have to reseed a bead a couple of times or something major you're dealing with, and you could run out of gas, the idea of having a bicycle pump with you would give you that last resort if you're really, yeah, this thing is doing a thing with air.

Robin: It's only going to take a day. Just if it's going to do the job, be happy that you did it. Pat yourself on the back. How much pressure is it supposed to take for a max PSI 42 tire to seed a bead? Is it supposed to take more than the max pressure? If you've lubricated it properly, roadside, peed on it, whatever, like what is it supposed to take?

Brian: It's not supposed to take more than what's on the sidewall. I may have heard from someone somewhere that there are times that that doesn't really work out that way. Even when you're in the privacy of your own garage and maybe we'll get into advanced tire technology, rubber up for safety later on, but you can break the bead and you can change a whole tire and you can reseed a bead if someone's like going off the road and knock the bead off the tire, I've seen that before. This is all possible at the side of the road. People are like, oh, I need to get a shop. It's like, well, we can probably get this going again.

Robin: That was last episode. If anybody hadn't heard it, listen to the previous episode with Jamie Pauls. Brian has a lot to say about people on the side of the road deciding that a fix is not a fix.

Brian: I'm going to lie down, call the vultures over anyway. But yeah, you, you, you can break a bead. You can, you can see a bead. If you're working on a bike on the side of the road, one of the secrets that makes your life a little easier is that the tire is already fully warmed up. So like if I'm in my garage and it's 28 degrees and I'm trying to see the bead with a little battery powered pump, that's probably not going to end very well. But if I'm by the side of the road and it's 80 degree day and we've been riding and the tire's warm, somebody did something stupid and one bead came off. I've done it a few times and you can reseat that normal pressure. The bead should reseat by that point. I've may have heard there are times you have to go a little higher. Don't lie down. Don't die. Don't call the vultures in. All right. I think that's an episode, isn't it? Yeah, man.

Robin: Great outline. If you didn't know already, Brian and I are going to basically take turns being in control of the outline. I've got my version, he's got his. And we're just going to enjoy doing whatever it is that inspires us along the way. Thanks for listening and cool. Brian, get us out of here.