Robin: In this episode, minimalist lighting and the LED hyperflash syndicate now appearing in Albuquerque. We're going to beat the chill with a focus on wireless heated gear. How are you doing, man?

Brian: Aside from the coat of fresh powder outside, I'm doing all right. Making it- It's snowing? Surviving. Yeah.

Robin: Oh, I'm sorry. All right. It's still at least a little pretty. If you have to look at it, is there any pleasure in it? It's fluffy.

Brian: That's all.

Robin: Well, okay. I feel like we've really bonded now. Moving right along. You remember when the suspension leaf springs broke in Indiana on our toy hauler? I do. Yes. When we got here, wouldn't you know it, there I am by the fire pit and I smell propane. I'm a little concerned about this. And the hoses that you connect to like your standard grill, however, seven gallons or whatever they carry, the knobs actually fastened them to the tank. They do go bad after about three or four years. The seals that compress and the temperature goes up and down, the humidity goes up and down. They just start to get a little bit weaker. So it wasn't like a massive fire hose level spray of propane into my fire pit. It was more just like somebody has a gas leak. Now that I think about it, I have a gas leak. It took some time to figure out what to replace those. If you get a toy hauler and you want to haul your motorcycles around and travel and see great places or like beat the weather up North, freedom isn't free. They say, I've never known what that really means. You're going to have to maintain this thing. And this is one of the things you have to do is every three or four years, you've got to check those hoses, see if they're leaking. So it took a long time to find hoses that were safely compatible with our tanks. There's the green knobs, the blue knobs, the red knobs, the black knobs, it all has to cater to the throughput requirements of your rig. So I did the math. I don't know why I even bothered. They were asking for 480,000 BTU for a seven gallon standardized tank. Are you smelting out there? What's going on? Anyway, yeah, I did the math. Our furnace asks for 35,000 BTU, nothing else in this rig asks for more than that. So I got a hose line that works with a 220K, I think 220, whatever. And then last night, the fridge died. They're coming out to claim on that this morning. Fortunately, you remember the shed last time you were here, I've got that 10 by 10 shed as a garage. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's now a walk-in refrigerator. Everything's contained and kept out there in a cooler and it's all nice and chilling. So all right now for significantly more exciting news, like about website code, riveting, take a seat. Everyone get into that Barkin lounger, trying to calm down the scheduled content and social media reposts are working again. In geek speak, it turns out trying to present an uncaptured output buffer through a wrench into TRO's automations. I so wish I could make that sound like it was KFM news, meaning the Kentucky fried movie, you know, but alas, here we are just don't eat the popcorn film at 11.

Brian: The intertubes between the website and the social media, the tubes are all tangled and knotted up or something like that. Is that, is that where you're getting at?

Robin: Yes. And since Joanne's not here, I find this the perfect time to say that it turns out the Revit Air H2O apparently does bill what I thought were merely air circulation vents as front pockets. That is a really nice jacket. I do like, I think it's priced right too. 300 bucks is a great price for that jacket. Learn more about that in the previous episode, de Dion Bouton. Questions from the wild. If you would like Radio TRO to field your questions, email podcast at TRO.bike. You might not get the answer, but you will get an answer. We'll talk about it anyway. Lord Equinox asks, 2003 SV650 or 2023 Svatpilin 401? SV650.

Brian: SV650. Next.

Robin: Yeah. Well, I will add podcast host emeritus, Tim Clark, he had the 401 and he did an oil change and noticed that there was a whole lot of very pretty disco barl sparkle coming out of that. Also, that's a KTM engine.

Brian: Yeah. And the thing for me is like, if someone really wanted a Svatpilin, then they would have bought it already and they don't care what anybody thinks. If you're asking this question, there's a reason for it. Yeah. Talk about a bike that's going to do everything and not break and not piss you off. Yeah. If you have to ask, buy the Suzuki. Agreed. Any year. Just go find one. There's one within 50 feet of you, wherever you are.

Robin: You can find the parts in the dumpster at a pizza hut.

Brian: Yeah. You ready for the next one? I'm ready for the next one. I may have something to say here. Yeah. Let's talk about it.

Robin: Alligator dropped their motorcycle and is feeling discouraged. They target fixed and sloshed the bike into the side of a ditch. Now their confidence is gone. What can they do? Sinner. No. It happened to me last year. So I can definitely relate. Was my confidence knocked? Well, I thought that was my fault. Oh, well, I like blaming you for it, but I don't think it was actually your fault. You can't ride the bike for me, Brian.

Brian: What do you got on this? Well, so the first thing you need to do is find someone else to blame if you can. If you can't do that, like everything else, I've got an article about it. If you check on TRO.bike and I think if you search for the word fear, there's an article I wrote about coming back from not one, not two, but three serious injury, motorcycle accidents, why I do this, that kind of thing. There's a lot of detail there for an incident that was several incidents that were a lot more serious than this situation, but yeah, it does. It does rattle you pretty badly and you really have to regroup a lot. A couple of little things I will mention that can help is to kind of review what happened and figure out what happened and why it happened and what you need to do about it. It's the whole reason like whenever there's an airplane accident, there's a big investigation. They figure out what happened and then all the pilots talk about it and then they all like, okay, here's how to make sure this doesn't happen again. You know, there's not like, it's not a blame game. It's a very dry process of figuring out what you can do about it. So that brings you some empowerment. This is a little backwards, but one of the things that's really helped me a lot is doing more dual sport riding. Oh yeah. You know, I bought a KLR and a couple of months later I fell off of it, you know, in Michigan somewhere. And I was just beside myself, you know, I, it was, it was a horrible thing that happened and it falling off the thing is a normal part of riding off road. I mean, you don't want it to be that normal, but you want, you know, it is a thing that happens and usually you're going at slow speed, you're not getting hurt, that kind of thing. Over time, falling off my KLR happens a lot less now. I've learned, you know, I've taken classes, gotten better at different things, uh, things like that, but it also doesn't just shatter the rest of my day. And I don't know if that's available to this person. I don't know what happened.

Robin: Another article on Tierra de Bike, if you go there, hit the search icon and look for better street riding, question mark, get dirty. Yeah. That's a Joe Nardi special. I love that you brought up the dual sport thing, because I mean, in that environment, you were saying that you don't fall as often now training, of course, but you're also not as worried about it. Cause that is the environment. It kind of belongs to that type of writing, like, whoops, let's laugh it off again and continue on as long as nobody's hurt.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: That also points to the regrouping. Brian's talking about regrouping after some serious incident. That is a lot more important to pay mind to in terms of the steps to really make sure you're all right. And that you're going to psychologically be okay. Got to get your mind right. There's a flip side to it though. And that's the light drop where it's just embarrassment. And I've found that people regroup differently, a docile, capable rider when they are doing so well, there's all kinds of different types of ego or whatever, or lack thereof. Brian's got no ego. You know, that guy's like hang with Brian. It's always good. I've told the story before when I pulled the bandit into a gas station and I was slow maneuvering doing my thing showing off and then it stalled, but there was no place to get my feet down because I was in the divot where you enter the gas station. So the front wheels set and the rear wheels set in a little, yeah. So I'm Flint stoning the air and the bike goes down and our good friend Dale goes by hovers gives me a thumbs up while he coasts by and then just leaves me there. So this is one of those ones where really regrouping is just like, you know what? I did everything right. And something went wrong. That happened. Yeah. I got right back on the bike and I went riding.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I guess what I'm trying to say is if anything major happens, Brian's right. It's like go through the motions. And if something light happens, don't beat yourself up too bad. Do you like riding? Cool. Go ride.

Brian: Go try again. Yeah. One other thing I want to ask you about as a MSF coach, yes, I'm the authority on, speak from your throne of authority here are way up on this horse. I can think of a few things, but I'm not an authority on this, but what are some things you can do to get out of that target fixation thing? That is really difficult skill to learn or unlearn or however you put it. Like the second broken leg, uh, I'm really proud of myself for the fact that I have no idea what kind of car hit me because I was not fixated on it.

Robin: I was looking where I wanted to go and I'm like, yeah, I know, but I also have an opinion about that. I'm worried that you won't like what I have to say, but I'm going to get it out of my system. Go ahead. The first off I can hear the Lord of the rings. And when it comes to like the MSF stuff, I, as brethren of the TRO order, I will say that, you know, the MSF, you have no power here. So I, I'm not actually really able to speak for the overhead, but what I can say from being an instructor and writing for a long time, we do coach that riders should set themselves up for a turn beforehand. The terms that I remember are slow, look, press and roll to slow down before you enter the curve, look through the curve all the way as far as you can, and then either maintain acceleration or add acceleration. This is beginning writer stuff, and I don't want to tie myself to it too much. I don't want to get myself in trouble there. That technique never really goes away. The thing that makes it better is experience. So the constant act of setting yourself up for success before every corner after a while, doing that over and over and over again, you're going to stop focusing on the corner you're in and start looking at the next turn. I think I'm at the point now where I'm about three curves in, in my current writing ability, I can calculate three corners. And in rare instances, depending on your, you know, what happens in New Mexico, those three corners are actually a straight line. This apex, that apex, that apex, and you're, you're all through all of them. This takes time. It takes time facility. It takes focus. It takes constant writing, but the other thing that I want to bring up and maybe start a fight with Brian is the 360 awareness part of that pre road judgment. When you're about to enter the corner, you got to have a spidey sense that your peripheral vision, even your hearing, if that's going to be able to help, you might've wanted to know what color the car was. Did you see a red flash? Were they behind a billboard and did they Roscoe P Coltrane right into you? Or did they arrive at a T intersection? Not break, roll out either way. If you're focused so much on that perfect point for the most accurate execution of a turn that you lose sight of all other things, AKA horse blinders. Yeah, that's a different problem. You got to dial back. So I'm not actually, I'm not actually critiquing you. I've never been there with you for any of your accidents. That's good. We both had our fair share. Yours have been difficult. Mine have been egotistical.

Brian: What I will say about that one was it was nighttime and there was, so there's no way to see anything except headlights until it was on my side. So no vision of any branding or color. Yeah. There was nothing there to see except two headlights until it was too late. So in that case, I'm picking up what you're laying down there because I think target fixation is a problem of focus. You're focusing on, yeah, you picked the wrong thing to focus on. What you cannot do is focus on any one thing. It's all important. You certainly can't look at it and say, I hope it moves. Yeah. You do have to maintain that 360 awareness and developing that vision skill is, yeah, that's the advanced class takes a long time.

Robin: We talk about new learning all the time, but the actual act of writing, when you're in the writing, that's that moment where now it's like, find it, execute, see it, execute, decide it, execute. And you're repeating this, a constant state of high alert. You get used to it and you start to understand.

Brian: And it's enjoyable. You know, that level of concentration takes you out of your day-to-day life. And I've seen exercises where like, you know, there's a corner set up with cones at a parking lot. And then, you know, you throw like stuffed animals in it or something, you know, you, there are things you can do that are very basic, you know, don't look down, uh, in, in dual sport writing, you know, the, it's real easy to get fixated when there's a bunch of big rocks, you know, you have to be much further ahead of the bike than that. So there's, there, there are some things you can do to kind of train yourself out of that, but yeah, expanding that awareness. So it's not like there's one red thing you're looking at right here in front of you and you can, but you have awareness of everything around you. Yeah. That's hard. It's hard to develop. It takes time. It takes a lot of practice. Well stated. The next question.

Robin: Hum Kaj asks, what are these names anyway, go on. Forgot to winterize. How screwed am I? Just to save time here. If you go to TRO or if you go to Google and type winterize space TRO, we're going to be the top head for that. You'll get two things. One is how to properly winterize and how to properly de-winterize, which believe it or not is not per the climber manual, very much a, the reversal of the disassembly process.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: You're going to clean and lubricate everything. You're going to winterize the fuel, the oil, and the seals. You're going to winterize the engine, the electrical, and the pivots. You're going to raise the rubber off the ground if you can. It's not that big of a deal. Brian and I kind of touch and go on that, but raise the rubber and jacket the metal in something, you know, like chrome polish or whatever. That's about it. There's a lot of ornate little steps between that I'd like to subscribe to because it helps me keep my bike clean. I like to know where the issues are. And this article is written by yours truly so that I myself can follow it. Most of the stuff I write is written for me to refer to in the future because I'm forgetful.

Brian: And so to actually answer the question, how screwed is he? Probably not.

Robin: Nah, maybe some stable. If you put stable in the gas and lift the front tire off the ground on the center stand, walk away, put it on some carpet and be gone. You'll be all right.

Brian: Yeah. I would say if it's a carburetor, the biggest issue at this point is fuel. Flow bowls. So I would, I would drain the flow bowls if you, if it's a carburetor bike, if you can, if it's a fuel injected bike, I really wouldn't worry about it. I'd put some stable in there and slosh it around.

Robin: Unless it's kerosene by now, but I mean, it takes, that takes like three, four months for it to really go bad.

Brian: Yeah, it'll be all right. Put the battery on some sort of battery maintainer for a day or so, and it'll be fine. I wouldn't really try to start it unless I can write it 10 miles or so.

Robin: I mean, the battery's probably got at least a 50% charge with no dead cells. You can charge it right back up and then just leave it that way.

Brian: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It'll be fine. Yeah. Even with a battery maintainer of some sort, even that brand, I just put them on for about a day, once a month. If you leave it on there all the time, it can, it can, it can keep trying to top up your battery and kind of reduce its lifetime quite a bit. Yeah. All you need is just top it up once a month or so you'd be fine. You're not, so you're not too screwed. Level of screwedness is probably like a two or three, not even percent percent. Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: Not, not a big deal. If you'd like us to field your questions, once again, the email is podcast.tro.bike, or you can visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and visit us through the contact page. Segment one, mixed signals, meaning aftermarket LED solutions. All right. This segment is brought to you by twistedroad.com. Visit twisted.tro.bike and get yourself a discount. Now through careful selection, one thing I can put my faith in with twistedroad.com is that the majority of the bikes listed on there are in safe working order. One way to keep your machine in good standing for you or anyone you're renting to is to properly maintain, if not better, its ability to keep a rider safe. Now let's take a little walkabout around that particular statement. When it comes to my latest auxiliary ordeal. I like electrics. I like putting in auxiliaries, all kinds of stuff on my bikes typically. Tell me a story, Robin. You've heard it. I got an aftermarket exhaust. I love that aftermarket exhaust. It scares Brian. And that's always fun.

Brian: Very brappy. Yeah.

Robin: I also have a tail tidy on my bike because I don't like that excess junk that squares off the back of the bike. And if you're thinking, well, now he's got no fender, don't worry. I put on a rear wheel hugger. The spray behind the bike is minimized. I'm not going to compromise here. I love the tail tidy. And despite what you may be thinking, and when the story gets going, the turn signals are in their designated location, which is in a specific spot where there are divots in the luggage. So they are where they would normally be, even with the tail tidy exhaust as ridiculous as it is. It's so damn sexy. It projects its blast directly into my rear right turn signal. I have seen this on two separate occasions. I've been informed that somebody saw a light flash and then I did not have a rear right turn signal. So here's what's going on. Step one, ride bike. Step two, let exhaust fill rear right turn signal with unburned fuel ash of some kind. That builds up. Step three, be a responsible rider and express your intents to fellow drivers by turning on your turn signal. Step four, detonate turn signal with electrical to all the fuel that's been built up, all the ash. It just melts the lens right off. So I don't want to get rid of anything. I want to keep that exhaust. I want to keep my setup, but that means I need to replace those signals with something else. Relocating them is not really a good option. It's not viable because of those divots in the luggage. Anyplace else, it would look weird and it wouldn't work so great.

Brian: Yeah, we don't want to look weird.

Robin: Hey, I like riding. I like my bike looking cool. Okay. I like that. It's a thing I do. Let Brian have his comments. But I want to look cool. I want my bike to look cool. First off, I'm getting hyperflash on my dashboard. Hey, your signal's out. You know, and anytime I turn on the signal, the front signal is going spazzing. I need to find a solution for this. I'm thinking LED, hopefully one that has a system in place that stops the hyperflash. My first choice is an all-in-one license plate bracket that has additional lighting. It has the plate light, it has additional brake lights, and it has turn signal light. The add-on solution beyond that is I want to add combination brake and signal LED strips on my luggage or come up with some way to interrupt the current brake system so that it signals for me. Before I hand the mic over to Brian, who's going to help me a lot here, I already know it. Honestly, I was hoping this could be all about the products, but I didn't have any time to look anything up. So I'm on the hunt. Let's look with the first situation, the all-in-one license plate bracket. Either this is going to be a product or it's going to have to be modular. I'm okay with either, but I will say that the simpler a bulb is, like they make these bolts on that are actually informative. They go right on the license plate bolt. And while you would think, well, those suck. No, these are so bright. But if they're bright and they're small and they work, they will cost 20 times anything else that you could get that could do a better job and be a slightly bigger or uglier or definitely not what you're looking for, or say Harley on it. The only ones I've found so far, they have a brake light and they have a license plate ball, but they don't have a signal. And I need the signal. So I'm thinking about maybe yellow LED strips or the bolt-on lights that I was just describing, but the brightest ones I can get. I want it to be effective. I'm not looking to get squid-style flush mount crap that doesn't tell anybody anything. It needs to work, but I do need to be stealthy as I can possibly be when they're not in a state of operation. Then there's the matter of the lights that are already on my luggage. I need to find a relay that is default on so that my turn signals can activate them so they go to default. They click off. So they're on. When the signal goes on, they go off on instead of on off. Then I can use my brake lights on my luggage as turn signals as well. It's a lot. And I've been up against this for a couple of months now, and I'm only just now getting ready to make the buy as soon as I can find the products I want to employ in my something, something, multi-syllable words, important stuff here.

Brian: You have a couple of problems here. One of the problems is you're getting a lot of exhaust heat pointed directly at your turn signal on the right side.

Robin: One very specific spot. And if that signal weren't there, it's just free-flowing right out the back. No problem.

Brian: I think I'm picking up what you're laying down on your second issue there. There are all kinds of LED, like there's flexible strip style. There are some ones that are very small, and they have like an aluminum body that might be worth investigating as a way to deal with that heat. That way they're not going to be affected by the heat as much as something that's just all plastic. Although metal, even if they have an aluminum body, it does cast aluminum body on the turn signal. Yeah. They could. Yeah. It's hard to tell. I don't know how much heat we're talking about here. Talk about blue pipes. Now you got a blue signal. Yeah, really. It basically slowly melts that plastic over time. It starts looking ratty. And yeah, it takes a while.

Robin: Well, I think the metal actually is the bigger problem because I think it cooks up the screw that holds the lens on, and that heats everything up on the inside. So the metal is the bigger problem.

Brian: And then the plastic kind of melts, and the screw comes out, and you're kind of done for there. I wonder if you could ride around with like a thermocouple right there. I've got an electrical meter that has a thermocouple. So you plug this in and put it on temperature, and you can put this probe. I wonder just how hot it's getting.

Robin: Like, is it getting so hot you need a deflector? How hot did it get, Robin? Pretty hot. Hands you back a molten tool. Yeah. You tell me. I can't read the dial anymore.

Brian: They're small. They've got an aluminum body. You know, there's no screws or anything like that. So something like I'm showing you here on my screen would probably, and they're cheap too, you know, I don't know how bright these are, you know, but something along those lines could withstand heat a lot better than something that's made of all plastic.

Robin: Maybe. Now, the only problem I see, though, is that these, as cool, those are really neat, and I would like to have that bookmark when you get a chance. The downside is that they are lollipopped out, meaning they fasten perpendicular to the bike. I think it'd be nice to find something that fastens on parallel to the bike into the license plate screw outlets, but is also bright enough that nobody's going to say, those suck, because typically they do. Typically, they don't tell anybody anything. They're not bright enough. I think that's the direction I'm headed, and I do, oh, I love the LED strips there.

Brian: Yeah, and they're LED strips that are flexible, like they can wrap around forks in the front. Those are three-line. Those can also be fit in a lot of different ways on the back. Something to think about there.

Robin: That's a three-line setup, because look at the diagram up top. Go back to the product picture. We're looking at a small LED strip that has black, red, yellow, and that means that you've got a ground. You've got a red. It's probably doing brake signal, and it's also doing turn signal. I'm wondering if that one does the sweeping turn signal, or is it just a blinking thing so you get two of them? You know what I mean?

Brian: Probably not. I didn't say anything about that, but yeah, it's kind of a, and again, we're just looking at cheap stuff on Amazon. Had to do a little more research. LEDs are cheap, and they work if you get the right ones. There's just flexible strips that are in a strip, and there's a lot of different ways, a lot of different form factors. So you're thinking about something attached to the bike that's not even where the turn signal is, not even sticking out in that flow.

Robin: It'll go on the edge of the license plate bracket. That is my plan. And when my luggage is on, I also intend to deal with that, although it's going to be a reversal of the signal. So if I have these in place, they will go on when I turn the signal on, whereas the brake light will be off. So they'll be alternating on my right side and left side. You'll have the luggage blinking at a different time than the left turn signal. You know what I'm saying?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: They'll be going back and forth. That's kind of cool, really. But so long as they don't think I'm impersonating a police officer.

Brian: There are a lot of different form factors. You can get things to light up on the back of your bike. And I also think you could pretty easily fabricate something out of a strip of steel or stainless steel or aluminum or something if you want to hang it off your license plate bracket or whatever's under there. VHB.

Robin: I am very good at fabricating VHB.

Brian: The second part of the issue is... Hyperflash. Yeah. Well, there's three issues here. Yeah. Hyperflash is the other one. We'll get to that. I'm not sure I'm understanding your problem exactly, but one of the things we may need to do is get like, they call it a trailer converter. So what you can do is you can take basically a European set of lighting signals and convert those into something that would work on a trailer. So it's a little box. It will basically create the right signals to feed a bulb. So like if you look at a trailer, if you have running lights on, it's got running lights. And then when you put on this, when you put on the signal, it goes off and on. Or when you do the brake lights. So it also manages when you put on the brake lights, it turns them both on. But if you have the brakes and the signal, it'll manage that for you. Okay. I've thought through that. Maybe something worth exploring for this.

Robin: Preloaded answer. I'm sure this is me, you know, waiting, listening to respond, if you will. You know what I mean? The big problem I'm faced with, I've got a pair of three wire LED strips on my luggage. They are ground, running, and hot. So you got brake on, brake off. I don't know if they're using diodes or voltage to change that. I think it's just like upping the LED count or doubling the wattage that's coming in, whatever that is what it's intended for. In order to run signals, it gets into a whole issue where if I tie my signal into that, then when I apply my brakes, that same signal will come back to my... The brake lights will trigger my turn signals if I do it that way. I will apply the brakes and my turn signals will come on because I've spliced them in. Which is why I think an interrupter relay, if that's a thing, is what I want. A relay that is on by default. And when the turn signals go on, the relay goes off. And then I can maintain the blinking.

Brian: We're just talking about this. I don't have a diagram. What you may need to consider is a diode. Okay. It will keep those lights from feeding back into your turn signals. Like a check valve. Yeah, it's just a one-way check valve. It's a check valve, electrical check valve. So if you're getting stuff that's coming on that you don't want to come on when these lights come on, that means they're kind of backfeeding one of the other bulbs. So we'd have to sketch it out. I'm not going to bore people with the whole thing. But that's one way to do that, is to put a diode in the circuit. And it's not difficult. It's plumbing.

Robin: Well, I can conclude it with either I can graduate my knowledge and learn something new, go your way, learn more about diodes, voltage, feedback loops, and how to eliminate them, all of that in the electrical to make this work. Or I can basically just run a cancellation relay so that when the signal's on, it removes all power from the LED strips to begin with. So no matter what, one of them is blinking. You know what I'm saying? And then just say that I did it on purpose. But if I do that, and you're looking at the right side of the bike, and I'm making a right-hand turn, you're going to see my signal go on, then my brake light go on. And my signal go on, then my brake light go on. It's going to do that cycle, but only on the right-hand side, which might be kind of cool. I just need to look up the legality of that. And that's going to be an interesting topic for next time is, is it legal to have alternating signals on a single side of your vehicle? I do not know.

Brian: As long as you're not like blue or green or something. As long as they're the correct colors.

Robin: Some states you're allowed, with our toy hauler, you're allowed to pull a toy hauler that is pulling a trailer. Texas lets you do that. New Mexico lets you do that. But then there are states that are like, absolutely not. You know, you're not a locomotive.

Brian: You know, one thing that would be really wild is there are some modules for managing the lighting and electronics on a bike that can do some pretty wild stuff. Like I think that's a little more than you wanted to deal with. But yeah, there's ways to do that. Ready for segment two, the armory brought to you by Joanne Don from gearchick.com. G-A-R-C-H-I-C dot com. No K. Today's topic, talk a little bit about wireless heated gear. I like this idea. Nothing tying me into the bike. Tell us more, Joanne.

Joanne: Robin, you said you were kind of thinking about wireless heated gear. And Brian, you might be thinking about it as well. And are you thinking about wireless versus corded? I'll give you a very quick breakdown of why you would choose one or the other. So, you know, if you go on the Amazon, you go on the RevZilla, you go to your favorite outdoor best pro shops, and you're going to find wireless heated vests, right? And even sweat. I saw a guy in a hoodie. In a hoodie, he had a button on his jacket and it was red. And I was like, oh, that's heated, isn't it? And he said, yes. I was like, oh my God, that's cool. So there's a lot of snow, ski, outdoor equipment out there with heated products, socks. You can do base layers that are heated, shirts. Now, I've only had personal experience with jackets and a full sleeve. But the key difference between your wireless, which is typically a seven volt battery.

Robin: Oh, okay. Seven volt. Thank you. Yeah.

Joanne: To a plug into your motorcycle, 12 volt is you're going to get more power from the 12. And so that's better if, say, you're going to ride from, you know, New Mexico up to Washington, and you're going to do a really long ride for a few days, then you want as much heat as possible. And you want that battery to run all day, right? So if the temperatures are running lean, and you need it to last the longest from, you know, 9am maybe to 6pm, you just want that all day, you're going to have constant, consistent heat delivery if you plug in and set up a 12 volt solution. Now, there are less choices, right? Not as many people are thinking about you and your silly motorcycle. So there's only like two brands to choose from to get a full sleeve choice. Now, here are the other benefits. A lot of the full sleeve choices have heat down the sleeve. How great is that? And it is amazing. And the technology has come a little further. We do have a couple better choices today. And they have developed the technology a little further than when they first came out like 20 years ago. You know, we all know Gerbing and the motorcycle world. If you're looking at 12 volt plug in, Gerbing was the first to invent it. They invented a motorcycle rider focused jacket that was meant to wear underneath another jacket. So when we talk about these things, they are liners, they are not outerwear. So they are meant to wear underneath a really good wind blocking garment, whether it's a heavy raincoat, which is not the best, but that's an example, or your heavy waterproof Gore-Tex jacket. That's the ideal partnership, right? So a 12 volt will be full sleeve. There'll be heat down the sleeves and around the neck, usually, covering your full chest to adjust above your stomach. And then the back of your chest, like the upper part, though, it's not going to go all the way down to the waistline. It's meant to cover your core. So think about your lungs. Yeah, your core where you need the heat the most, right? Sometimes people just like vests because if you run really warm, like Brian, I imagine it takes a while for you to start to get cold. For you, you might be really uncomfortable with full sleeve and neck heat. That might be too much for you where you're trying to, you know, stay warm when it's 40 degrees out. But if you had full heat, that actually might make you too warm. And to where, hey, I just need my core covered, then a vest is great, whether it's a 7 volt or a 12. Now, the other benefit to the 12 volts is if you do a girbing, for example, now, girbing kind of pioneered it, right?

Robin: I have the girbing vest.

Joanne: How old is your girbing? When did you buy it?

Robin: Four or five years ago. Okay. Guide slash girbing, G-Y-D-E, with a wireless remote.

Joanne: Great. You're in a full 12 volt product, I mean, with the vest. And then the gloves, I think, are smaller. But whatever, you have a plug-in solution. So you get maximum heat, maximum surface area. What's changed about new girbing, let's say you bought one 20 years ago, and we know people who still have them. The heating elements were just wires. I have a warm and safe product, which is a competitor to girbing, which one of the co-original founders of girbing went off and started this company called Warm and Safe. And they are actually the best choice if you're a woman, or you need a women's specific cut and can't wear the men's versions, warmnsafe.com. They are amazing. And they have four generations of products. So now they've also developed where now instead of wires that you feel, it's actually heated fabric. So girbing's heating element in your vest is really good because basically if you cut that open, the panels of heat, they're not wires. It's actually micro wire in fabric. So it's like the surface area and heat delivery is more consistent. It's also warmer.

Robin: Netabots.

Joanne: Yeah. You're not just feeling it in one little location. It's like it's spread out more. Now here's the thing with motorcycle. And now here's the thing, your vest, I wouldn't be surprised. I actually don't know how they change that in the seven volt product. I don't know if they use the same material and they have to wire it. My theory is they use the same material and then they, it's just not delivering as hot of heat as your 12 volt can, because it's got continuous, you know, it has more battery, bigger battery to draw from. And I believe a higher wattage. Sorry, I'm not an electrician, but I can just tell you that your heat, the heat off your vest is probably giving you a higher intensity of heat, right? Then say a cheap $30, $20 heated vest product off Amazon.

Robin: Auto zone impulse buy.

Joanne: Yeah, because I was actually, I know, I was shopping on Amazon the other night to find a heated vest for myself, for walking our dog, because we're getting some teens here, very cold temperatures. And I already have a heated, I don't need to buy a new one for the bike, but I just wanted a cute one to wear around town, $30. But I, I would be curious to see how much heat they really deliver and how hot it, how warm it really gets. Because with germing, they even warn you, you're not supposed to wear that against skin. You know, you don't just put a t-shirt on and put your germing on.

Robin: Oh, it'll burn you.

Joanne: It will because the T the temperature, the surface heat, it's too hot for your skin. And you're not supposed to do it like that. You're supposed to wear your base layer, which is your maybe wool, smart wool shirt, or just a long sleeve shirt. And then your gerbing jacket on top of that. And then your fancy winter riding motorcycle coat on top of that. So that's where the seven and twelves can differ. And the big difference when you buy just like cheap, you know, Amazon or AutoZone vest product is you're going to get limited heat. It's not going to feel as warm for as long. Like I doubt you're going to get the intensity of heat for the length of time. And the other thing to think about, which people forget, if you take your mesh jacket and throw it over your heated vest, you're losing heat. But here we go. There's a lot of things that come into play with that, like your personal heat tolerance, right? How hot you get and how fast you get hot. And then your bike, because if it has a ton, like you're on a gold wing, maybe where you get no wind.

Robin: A 1982 Aspencade. It's my first bike.

Joanne: Right. You're on your first bike, your 82 Aspencade. And then you do mesh and heat. Well, that's different because you've got a huge wind block. So you might actually be able to feel a lot of the heat coming off of that jacket. But I can guarantee you that someone who runs really cold could not do that. I can't do that. I need a gore or a wind stopping shell on top of my heated liner for me to even feel it. And that's even if I jack it up all the way. So it's really important that you don't try to wear your heated jacket as a jacket on the outside. It has to be an interior layer. And if you don't feel like the heat is strong enough, you either bought a really cheap non-motorcycle vest or jacket that has nothing to do with motorcycling and wind protection at speeds, highway speeds, or you're wearing a seven volt or you're wearing a product with a too light of an outer layer because these gerbing products don't and warm and safe, they don't have tremendous wind stopping. Although I want to say some of the newer gen wind, warm and safe products have a more wind stopping soft shell. I think they're using like a different material to help with that, but they're not designed to be outer products.

Robin: Brian and I dabbled in a segment a while back that we never really got around to developing because there was too much argumentation trying to get all this formatting better. An idea for something that should exist and doesn't yet. I love the idea of a way to keep a battery charging at all times for a heated vest on the bike. You know what I mean? So it's a quick switch of a battery. Seven volt you're saying that's probably not going to do it if you're riding in anything sub 30 degrees, which not a lot of people do. I've been known to. Sometimes you get desperate.

Joanne: At least you can buy another battery though. At least you can have a spare wireless.

Brian: Yeah, one of the things I wanted to bring up was, for example, I have some Milwaukee M12 tools and Milwaukee sells, you know, the tool company, they make drills and stuff and they actually sell a line of heated vests and jackets and so forth that run from the tool batteries.

Joanne: Interesting. Yeah.

Brian: So something like that, that could, you need a charger that plugs into a vehicle and then wire that into your bike and put the spare battery in the, supposedly those will run, you know, a two amp hour battery will run it to 12 hours. I don't know if I believe that. Interesting. That's not a lot of heat.

Joanne: I'm looking at it.

Robin: I love that you brought up the Gerbing product line since it's what I currently have. That was, you know, that was immediately relatable. I don't necessarily mind having the SAE. I mean, I get to ride a motorcycle with heated clothing. What could I possibly complain about that much? I will say that the constant onslaught of heat is a bit of a misnomer because it depends on the bike's charging system deciding if it's going to let the battery deliver power based on how much charger is in the battery.

Joanne: That's a whole other.

Robin: That's a whole thing.

Joanne: That's a whole other thing if you're on like a little 250, right? You can't even run both of those. It's too much.

Robin: It'll be bipolar. You'll be like hot, cold, hot, cold, right?

Joanne: So yeah, your bike has to have enough power to available, right? After all of its controls and lights, you have to have extra available to run. And generally I find the rule of thumb is, you know, if you have a bike that's more than a 600 CC, it's going to have plenty of power. Unless you're running every...

Brian: Unless you're on a Suzuki, yeah.

Joanne: Or you're running like...

Brian: Believe me.

Joanne: Every aftermarket lighting accessory. But on my 650 Twin, I mean, I ran heated...

Robin: Toaster oven.

Joanne: Grips and jacket. No problem. But yeah, if you have a seven, you can buy a battery, right? A portable battery. And then you could buy two, right? And have one charged up.

Robin: So do those quick disconnect? Have you seen them where like, does the battery just pop in?

Joanne: Yeah, it's in your pocket. Yeah. I mean, that's how seven volt the wireless vests are and jackets. So there's a battery in the pocket.

Robin: I didn't know if it like had a USB cable stuck out. And that's your only way to charge it. You get one battery, that kind of thing.

Brian: The seven volt ones have a battery. It looks about like this. And you plug it in and you whatever. And this is just a regular power bank. Like the cheap ones...

Robin: That was Brian's pager, by the way.

Brian: Like the cheap ones on Amazon will run off of just a power bank USB. That's only five volts.

Joanne: They're probably not drawing as much heat and power, right? So when you do a plug-in product, you do a motorcycle, I'll call them motorcycle products. When you do motorcycle heated products, the connector is not USB. The connector is like your standard little DC round plug. But they're much smaller. My husband has one, Evan. He has one of Gerbing seven volt products. And he uses it to walk around and do stuff outside. And he doesn't use it on the bike because we're wimps and we're not running in the winter right now. So he has a little battery and it's in his pocket. It has four heat levels, right? There's four levels, one to four, but you do have to dig into your pocket to get it. It lives inside of your front hand warmer pocket. You would have to pull over, but you totally could. Like after a few hours, if it runs out, you just pull out a spare and plug that in. But you do have to get to your coat. It's not something you can do while you're riding. Yeah. So that's the benefit to a motorcycle product because if it's plugged into the bike and it's a 12 volt, you also can mount controllers on your motorcycle. And I did that too. So I had a little knob and I can just control the heat whenever I want. And it was amazing. And I installed them myself and I didn't have to pay anyone to do it. They're really, it's really not that hard to do it.

Robin: Oh, it's a cakewalk. Like, I don't mind it. I just always find it fascinating. Like, couldn't I just get some heated gear on right now or have it waiting in my... I guess there are benefits to both sides and all in all, you're riding with heat. So what is there really to say about it, you know? And I got to say to the listeners out there, Joanne, she should not be selling herself short. When she talks about, oh yeah, we wimped out. We're not riding. They live next to an ice giant that has a cave. This is, it's Colorado. It's cold. Like I'm Chicago and I'm looking up at them like, damn.

Joanne: Oh my God. I'm not way up there.

Robin: Oh man. Yeah. But you know, it's cold and you're tough and it's cool.

Joanne: I've ridden in, but I have ridden in below 40 temperatures with like the coldest I ever rode was like 35. It was at elevation. This was in the Bay area and this was Easter weekend. And I was wearing three, four layers because my jacket at that time was a leather mesh combo. So I had that underneath that was the rain liner, which was a full sleeve raincoat.

Robin: Did you find that that was the worst of both worlds?

Joanne: No, actually the hybrid, the hybrid, it was a rabbit jacket. It was the best jacket. When you live in San Francisco, like a hybrid leather mesh product is the best because San Francisco weather is unlike anything else. And it's very unique. It was, I was, it was incredible. It was actually the perfect for me because the temperatures in the Bay area when you're riding are very mild and you're really not dealing with some of the non, you know, a lot of the nonsense we deal with. I had that outer plus a rain liner for the wind block and then the heated, because it was 40, it was like 35 degrees out. It was freezing. That was the only way for me to stay warm. But I didn't do that often. Riding in the cold is not fun. I just knew.

Robin: I guess I'd rather be hot, you know.

Joanne: Exactly. So that's part of the key. I run really cold. So for me, a light seven volt product probably wouldn't do it. I want all of it. I want the whole sleeve. I want my whole back. I want everything. And the other, again, that other company I want to throw out.

Brian: A fire pit on your passenger seat, a cocoon of fire.

Joanne: Yes, that's exact. I want a dragon underneath my jacket. So for the ladies, I'm going to throw out warm and safe. Well, actually for the men too.

Robin: warmnsafe.com, right?

Joanne: warmnsafe.com. They've been around forever. The girbing is where you go. We need a really boxy cut. You just need the most room and you literally can size down in a girbing. But with warm and safe, it's more true to size. And it's for those of us who are a little more petite or if you're taller and slender, this is the way to do it.

Robin: Similar banter at higher revs can be heard via the Gearchick podcast. Visit gearchick.com, dig in. Okay, I have not perfected this portion. We're working this out, but we want to do a wind down, a roundup. Brian, what do you want to talk about? Oh, Brian's got some notes in here. Yeah, I got some notes.

Brian: Brian, what do you want to talk about next time? Yeah, I think, Joanne, you're going to have some things to say here. I think next time, one of the themes I'm going to bring up is, I'm calling it paper riders. And, you know, it's internet season. We're all online. We're huddled in our, around our fires with our heated vests on. And we got nothing else to do except go on the internet and argue about motorcycles.

Robin: Listen to Radio T-R-O-W-B-I-C.

Brian: Yeah, T-R-O-W-B-I-C. Anyway, it's a season for this sort of thing. And thinking back, I've bought my last few motorcycles. I'd have to count it up, but without ever having seen the bike. It's kind of about that art of how you decide whether a motorcycle or a gear, piece of gear or a helmet. We talked about helmet fitting, and that's really complex. When you can't go lay hands on it and put it on your head or sit on it, how do you decide whether a motorcycle is going to be right for you? I mean, I committed to buy my Yamaha. I hadn't even sat on one before. And it was wonderful. You know, it's worked out really well. And the big digital gamble. Yeah. The whole art of going from paper or spec sheets or whatever to, yeah, I think this is going to work. This is going to work for me or it's not going to work for me.

Joanne: I think there's a lot of context there because, for example, let's say, God forbid, I lose my Triumph because it's a 2012 Street Triple R and it was a specific color way.

Robin: You can have Maggie's. You can have it. I'll give it to you.

Joanne: Is it black and gold?

Robin: Gunmetal gray and red. Nope. And I want it gone.

Joanne: Black and gold. Tell her to sell it. Black and gold.

Robin: She's selling it.

Joanne: No. So black with gold wheels, 2012. I love that bike because of the color, but also for what it is, right? So God forbid that bike goes away. I probably won't be able to replace it. However, if I saw somebody selling one in, I don't know, New York and I'd sight unseen, I probably would be more comfortable buying it if I had enough documentation, right? To support that. Okay, the bike's in great shape and I've got records and the seller's legit. I would be more comfortable. Or I'd send a friend. I'd be like, hey, any friends who can check this out for me? That probably would be my go-to is, hey, the person told me this about the bike. Can you just go check it out and confirm it? Then yes, I would buy it sight unseen.

Robin: Yeah, I've done that before. Again, I want to thank twistedroad.com for having her back. Visit twisted.tr.bike and get a discount. I want to say thank you, Joanne. Thank you, Brian. You want to get us out of here. Adios.