Robin: Robin, hello.

Brian: You have teleported once again.

Robin: I, yeah, 10 days of driving, little digestible hundred mile stints, lots of beautiful scenery and interesting stops, pleasant travels between New Mexico and Wisconsin. Now, greetings from Lone Rock. We are set up. Our footprint is set up. They gave me my garage again. Nice. There's a garage right next to our footprint, a full-size two-car garage. That's it. Hi. You really need a version of me for this episode that is just like me saying rhetorical stuff like Ed McMahon on Johnny Carson. Just, yes. Absolutely.

Brian: Motorcycles. Just laugh and clap like Jimmy Fallon. That's who I was trying to think of. Yeah.

Robin: That's hilarious because I said so. You got to catch me up, man, on all kinds of stuff, and it's your turn running the show. I have no Wisconsin maps downloaded to my dedicated Ride With GPS smartphone, and I have downloaded none of the Trip 7's tour, which is coming up at the end of the month, and I got to make sure that I ruin a Zoom meeting with a bunch of bandwidth usage. So let's get this party started.

Brian: Yeah, this is the only time you could do that, right?

Robin: Right. Mr. Brian, tell me everything.

Brian: Yeah, just got back from an epic, very wet dual-sport weekend in the Smokies. Going to tell you about it. Envy. Got the Brown County Rally coming up. Got a track day coming up. You've got a lot coming up, hopefully all the above, plus the Triple 7's. I tried to replace just one board on my deck and completely re-engineering.

Robin: That's what was in the notes here. Hold on. Do not just replace one board. Okay. Yeah. Please make a note of it.

Brian: Don't look under there unless you're ready to pretty much re-engineer the whole damn thing. But it's been a busy weekend, been a busy week. Came back from Tennessee with a little bit of a bug, so I had to put off recording a few days to recover a little bit.

Robin: I kind of detected that. You didn't even mention the bug, but when you said, I might have my voice back, I was like, oh, he's feeling something.

Brian: Yeah. I don't know what it was exactly. Just sort of didn't feel right for a while there.

Robin: Late spring, you know, multi-state, I kind of felt this too, this multi-state sort of hay fever that can just kind of zonk you earlier in the day where all of a sudden you're tired. The air, the leaves, the environment, it just kind of puts you to sleep for a bit. Yeah. You got to get the immune system back up for whatever summer has to offer, right?

Brian: That's right, man. No sickness, no slowdowns allowed. So opening banner, corrections, website updates. Robin, what you got, sir?

Robin: I had a towering ramp before. I don't have that. I'll read you a little bit of the ramp that I want to get to eventually. Let's just get right to it. I've been trying to come up with methods by which TRO tours might fulfill professional development workshops for motorcycle trainers, like MSF rider coaches, whoever. Nice. I kind of put myself out there. It's weird. The incredible amount of negativity. You're at the beginning of a conversation and they don't necessarily know you or they think they know you, but assume that that's all there is to you. You're at the intersection and they immediately decide to go the wet sock route, the negative side. Let's take the bland route, whatever it is, whatever you call it. So I think it would be great for me to be able to find an outlet inside of what I enjoy doing that expands on that in a way that's beneficial to those who provide safety training and whatnot, regardless of what we're doing. It's more like, are they just observing and writing down information? Do they need me to check some boxes? Whatever it is, I'm not looking for a way to say, go on my tour and then call it professional development. I don't want that. Yes, I want to fill all of the spots on my tours. Yes, I have my own angle about that, but agenda is kind of heavy handed. I wouldn't call it that. Given the difficulty of putting one of these things on, I also wouldn't claim that it's even possible for it to be somebody's primary source of income. So none of this fits the response I got from one particular person. Al, sounds like a fascinating name. We'll call him Al. So Al says that my concept could get gimmicky, pointless, and perhaps even be a negative. CE for a bunch of anesthesiologists, which basically screams, the only thing that can happen is bad things. So they're all going to go to the hospital. I know, because I'm an instructor. Structor. Structor. So I got to say, thanks, Al. Having read a few of Al's judgmental past observations about people who've never ridden a motorcycle before, I got to say, I bet Al was a riot at parties.

Brian: Do you feel better now? Personally, I really like the idea. I think you could do a lot of teachable moments.

Robin: See, that's the part I don't want. I don't want any TRO tour to be a, well, what you did there was, you know, I don't, I mean, if they invite the information, I also can't represent myself as MSF in this environment either. What I can do is invite coaches on the tour, and whatever they see, they document, there should be some studious criteria that they can do with what they want, and then report that as part of a mental, emotional process development in the riding. That's not so bad. That could work out pretty cool. But the immediate, nope, right turn, I'm an instructor. I'll tell you what can't happen. That's my rant. Rant over. What banter you got?

Brian: I'm keeping the road rubber rankings updated. Nice. Tire pricing is starting to shuffle around a little bit. Really? There's still a Bridgestone rebate until I think through most of June, so on some Bridgestone tire models. But yeah, a lot of crap going on in the world, and I think it's going to start affecting tire prices. What's interesting is I just ordered, like I have it sitting over here. I just installed a set of the Pirellis, our favorite, worst kept secret, the Pirelli Angels on Amazon. They're up to 245 bucks a set. Fantastic tires, blah, blah, blah. So I installed one set, and so I ordered the next set. I've actually ordered some things because I think prices are going to go nuts on a few items I know I'm going to need later.

Robin: That's smart. Usually I'll order the set before my, when my tires go on, I order the next set.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Maybe now it's time for me to start stockpiling a little bit more. I don't know.

Brian: Yeah, really. No kidding. But yeah, this set was made in Germany, which I thought was interesting because it's very complicated, but Pirelli, Metzler, Continental, basically a lot of the tire brands that you know and love are part of the same company that is owned by a huge Chinese rubber conglomerate. Okay. You know, and Pirelli is one of those, but yeah, they have factories all over the world, including Europe.

Robin: So it's getting it a trace route, basically, to make sure that wherever they're getting it from, yeah, the country has the lowest impact that we buy it through, but they can source it from wherever they want. They don't OS anything. So there you go.

Brian: Yeah. And I've gotten, I've gotten Metzlers made in China. You know, there really isn't any difference. They do a good job of controlling quality. This set happens to be made in Germany, which I thought was interesting. I haven't, I haven't seen a set of German tires in ages. So they're an Italian brand. I know I've gotten them from Italy, China, France, all over the place. Chad. Yes. Yeah. Next, next, they're going to be countries that you have to go look up because you don't know where they are. We're just going to plunk a rubber factory down here. There's a couple of little things I've been like, yeah, I think I'll just grab this because I know I'm going to use it up this summer.

Robin: Well, I'll chime in real quick then and mention another thing that's going on. I am regularly making small fine tuning tweaks to the suspension sag calculator page, just to get little bits of information that will help you know, like, do I need to tighten it? Do I need to loosen it? Things that could have been displayed that are no longer hard to display. So long as you know what your suspension's total travel is, and then using your favorite measuring points, understand the maximum extension of that length before measuring the sag, it will tell you thumbs up, thumbs down. Are you inside the 25 to 33% ratio? And also, what are your target measurements for whatever units you use? I've got it set up where it could be millimeters. It could be inches. It could be mega fancies and mega fancies are my favorite. So we list everything in mega fancies.

Brian: Excellent.

Robin: But yeah, check it out. I'll be coming back to it on the regular, just trying to make it easier to use and easier to understand what's going on, whether or not you're tightening or loosening. It's really all it comes down to.

Brian: Yeah. I have some ideas for extending some of that. And also, you know, there's been a lot written about things like the rebound and compression damping adjustments as well. Most stock shocks only have a rebound adjustment. It's a little, you can't really give a formula for those, but you can give some like, if you feel this, then this, and everybody has a different way of describing what compression pack down or excess rebound or not enough rebound feels like. So maybe we can explain that a little clearer. I don't know.

Robin: This would be good for you and I to have a, one of our writing duels where we are both the battlers and the referees. I've been already starting to get into the dark art of rebound and compression damping so that the people there understand what they're going for, because it's not really super fine tuning. It's just like getting it to where it's right for the rider, but it is a dark art. So I figure maybe I'll enlist you to write your initial description of what it is they're going for. Then I'll read it and see if I can figure it out. And if I need to rewrite it in a different language, then I'll submit it back to you. And when both of us say, that's it, that's the text that needs to be on that page. We will post that to the page. You like?

Brian: Yeah. And it's, it's, it's not like the information's not out there. It's just that like race tech has a very good explanation. It's just very difficult. You have to know your way around it to actually understand what they're saying.

Robin: Now that's the ornate version.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Because my version is very simple. You want to absorb the impact as comfortably and quickly as possible. And there should be no repeat action when it returns to its settled normal status. Yeah. Simple is always more gooder, but the breakdown is always interesting. So if we could combine these two mentalities, I knew that I want to hit a bump, compress, rise up and settle as quickly as possible without my back hurt. Same with the reverse. Yeah.

Brian: All right. Uh, what do you, you feel like some questions from the wild? I'm good for it. So if you'd like us to field your questions, email podcast at TRO.bike or visit TRO.bike and look, there's a contact form somewhere or another. There are many ways to place electronical signals into our brain cavities. And if you ask a question, you may or may not get an answer and it may or may not be correct, but there will be an answer at some point.

Robin: I'll read the shorts. You read the longs. PZ asks, how do I come to a full stop without feeling like I'm going to tip over? This sounds like a new-ish writer to me, but it can be a complex thing.

Brian: PZ says, sometimes I stop perfectly without even knowing exactly how I did it, whether quickly or slowly. Other times I'll stop and randomly feel off balance. Can someone please help me improve my technique? What's the best way to come to a stop? Right now, I'm riding under 15 miles per hour, so I primarily use the rear brake first and then add the front brake toward the end to stabilize more quickly. Not sure what that means.

Robin: I do that. Unless I'm trail braking into a corner hard, then I'm all about the front brake. When I come to a halt, you know music, in drumming we have what's called a flam, which is like you take both hands at the same speed and you drum. That same exact speed, I'll apply the rear brake first. Rear front.

Brian: All right, yeah. Do you ever use a pediddle though? Anyway, there are a couple things I can think of. One, this is the part that I think people have trouble with, letting off the brake at just the right rate when you come to the stop. So if you keep the same pressure from 15 miles an hour all the way to zero, dive, ka-boing, and you'll feel that instability because the bike's moving backwards just a little bit. In a car, you know, that's that's something people have to learn, else they're going boop-bip-boop-bip, you know, they're going through a parking lot. And it's the same thing on a bike where you've got a totally different organ, your hand, doing most of the braking, your foot. I think it's understandable that's a little challenging. I will also mention mechanical issues can cause issues like this. Specifically, if your steering stem bearings on your bike are too, are notchy, like they're worn out and they're kind of, so basically you have a click, like it clicks into position straight ahead, and then it's difficult to do those little micro corrections you do as you're coming to a stop or low speed. If it's an older bike, got some miles on it, and it may have, like if you get the front end off the ground and you turn the handlebars and it kind of wants to go click and then stick in the front, worn out bearings can make low speed handling super challenging. And at the same time, people who have these issues tend to be people who don't really understand that's not right. Like I've seen new riders on an older bike just struggling with this and thinking that's normal.

Robin: If you have a way to get your bike's front end off the ground, it's ideal if you have a center stand built into the bike, which not all bikes do. Not sure what Brian would tell you about anybody that doesn't have one, but if you have one, put the bike on the center stand and have somebody gently lean on the back of the bike so the front end comes off the ground. Turn your handlebars slightly to the left and when you let go, ideally, they should fall to the left. And then if you bring them to the right, ideally, the same thing should happen. Now, there are things that may fight you on this, which are the cables. But this is a big bolt to look at as a possible thing that could be creating havoc for you. Backing out to just a bike that's completely new and tuned and in great shape. Getting a good clean stop going is a great way to show off, believe it or not. You know, you're approaching an intersection. Yeah. You know that that dense white line is the point you're supposed to stop before because big trucks may need to make a tight turn in front of you on a hairpin corner. How far back that white line is, you need to stop by that point. You gracefully are applying the brake, as we say in certain environments, progressively to come to a stop. But that's more if you're coming to an emergency stop. If you're coming to a predicted stop, as you're coming to a stop, you can begin to slowly and smoothly release these controls, only enough that your bike is still stopping, but your inertia is not compressing the front end. And then your left foot drops. It touches the ground smooth. You stopped exactly where you wanted to. Everybody saw it. That's not bad.

Brian: And if you really want to show off, just keep both your feet up and stand there. Nobody. Anyway, we've done that. Yeah, it can be done. I'll throw in one more stupid thing that's just, I don't know if this helps or not. First time I broke my leg, it had problems healing, blah, blah, blah. So for a long time, I rode one footed. My left leg worked, but it didn't work well and it hurt. So I basically left my left leg on in the same place on the foot peg. 99.9% of the time when I stopped, I would come to a stop and put my right foot down. So I'd have to, yeah, I'd have to use the front brake to kind of hold the bike and and, uh, put my right foot down without ever moving my left foot. Uh, I'm, I'm two footed. Now I've gotten, uh, the third time I broke my leg and actually I got much better physical therapy. So when I came up to a stop, what I would do is, is, is make a very slight wiggle of the handlebars to make sure the bike would fall to the right side. So I'd come to a stop and then there'd be like, just a very slight twitch to the left, you know, teetering a little bit. So I'd catch it with the right foot. Otherwise, so I didn't have to put both feet down.

Robin: That is a problem-solving effort on Brian's part. Right. You can do the exact mirror of that to get your left foot down.

Brian: Yeah. So the idea is to be aware of that little micro input to make the bike start teetering to the left. So you may, you get your left foot down while your right foot's still on the brake, and then you put both feet down, use the brake or, or just use it to hold it or, or whatever, but play the bike in your favor. Yeah. These things just take practice. Any practice you can get at low speed handling is going to help with your stopping as well. Even if you don't come all the way to the stop or come almost to a stop and then smoothly take off again. I think that's an MSF exercise actually. RWF says I started riding about a month ago and so far it's been an absolute blast. I wish I'd started years earlier, but there's no point dwelling on things that can't be changed. The only downside is that almost every time I mentioned riding to someone, they inevitably tell me to be careful, joke about me crashing or dying, or share a story about a friend or relative who had a motorcycle related accident. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Yes. All of us. Yeah. What kinds of comments do people typically make when they find out you ride a motorcycle?

Robin: That is a harsh truth.

Brian: All of this is just a wow. You go first. I've heard so many stories about my uncle Fudd who killed himself on one of them devil machines. I got the guy who came up to me in Kentucky and said, I used to be normal. He had a giant dent in his head.

Robin: See, that's the thing of it too. I once rode a motorcycle and never learned how to ride it properly. And then I crashed because I'm not interested in developing anything involving learning or skill. And now I don't ride anymore and you guys shouldn't either.

Brian: Yeah. Everybody's got a story. Hell, I've got stories too. If you care to have a discussion, you don't have to have a discussion. And I've said this before, the people who care for you, the people who care the most about you, see and value how much motorcycling makes you happy. Oftentimes in unexpected ways. Casual acquaintances, people who don't see that or don't value your joy in it, they do things like this. And it's something you have to put up with to an extent. If you feel like engaging with this stuff, it doesn't really help, but it may make you feel a little better. You can discuss things like risk management. I've done this before. Oh, my uncle Fudd killed himself on one of them devil machines. All right. Tell me the story. Was uncle Fudd drunk? Yes. Was uncle Fudd riding his own bike? Yeah. Well, he borrowed his buddy Harry's. Okay. Did uncle Fudd have any training? No. Did uncle Fudd have a license? Did he have insurance? Did he have, was he wearing a helmet? Never. Why the helmets will kill you. Yeah. It'll come on clean off. If you engage with this kind of stuff, you can get the idea across like anything else. There are ways to significantly manage the risks of motorcycling. Risks are still there. Some risks you can't get rid of. I don't have the stats off the top of my head, but a very large proportion of motorcycle accidents involve alcohol. That's easy to avoid. A large proportion of accidents involve people who are not licensed. A large proportion of deaths involve people who do not have helmets on. Not a lot of riders have any advanced training. So this is a new rider. I would definitely tell them, make sure you get the training. If you haven't already the, the base training and sign up as soon as you can to get more training.

Robin: Yeah. Keep getting the training as it is available. I really dig what you're laying down.

Brian: How deep you go into this when you're talking to someone is up to you.

Robin: I think that it's been to my advantage. If I can keep it short with anybody who should make such comments to give them three notions of the expertise that I seek, whatever that next level is, like I'm making between 10 and 20,000 miles of technically challenging pavement every year. That's a good number. That's a lot. I am interested in leveling up my game through professional instruction whenever I find it to be a feasible option or available to me, as Brian has mentioned in previous episodes. And it's interesting going to track days, the way they show you how to choose a line and break points that allow you to clip multiple apexes through a series of curves. These kinds of statements, let them know that, oh, oh, okay, this person's serious. They mean it. It's a good way to either give them more intrigue or walk away from the conversation. Anyhow, what are we doing next?

Brian: Basically, I'm going to recap. I just got back from a wonderful dual sport trip to the Smoky Mountains area in Tennessee, North Carolina. Segment one. This segment is sponsored by twistedroad.com. If you visit twisted.tro.bike, we'll hook you up with your discount for your first ride. And today we're going to be talking about places I've been, places we're going. Robin's going to go a lot of places. Anywhere you're going, Twisted Road, there's someone renting motorcycles there. So twisted.tro.bike, get yourself a discount, get yourself a bike, go ride it. Do we need to make it more complicated than that? T-W-H-T-T-P-S colon slash forward slash forward slash. Before the Smoky Mountains trip, did a demo day at the local Triumph dealer.

Robin: Oh, that's right.

Brian: That was a hoot. Like I got there at 10 a.m. when they opened and like I didn't get lunch or anything from until 4 p.m. I was out riding other people's motorcycles. It's the best thing in the world. Just to try all the, going to be an article about it on twistedroad.com?

Robin: Yeah, face value. I'm editing that article now. Well, don't need to do much editing for Brian, but I did not know there was a Tiger 800 sport.

Brian: I'm going to have to edit myself out of that one for six solid hours. I mean, I was like, I was sore. I mean, it was, I was hopping around on these things. It was so much fun. And the Triumph dealer, Triumph Indianapolis did a great job of putting on, basically, I think Triumph USA has a trailer that goes around with a whole bunch of bikes on it and they stop at a dealer and have a little sign up process. I don't know what they do to determine whether you know what you're doing or not. I guess you show up with enough bugs on your helmet, but yeah, they scan your license. There's some database stuff going on. There's a, and they give you this little card. And so you go stand next to a bike that you want to ride. A guy comes along, a little elf comes along and scans your card and he scans a bike and off you go. So the Triumph dealer is right on the edge of downtown. So they're like in this really hip area. They share a parking lot with a, with a microbrewery for and yeah, within a block or two, you are, you're in a very different area. And they had a little route for, but took about 20 minutes. It goes through all this, you know, like one or two curves, you know, not much, not much really interesting, but you could, you could, you could wick it up a little bit. You get a good idea of what each bike is all about. And let's just say the streets of Indianapolis are good for testing suspension.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. Railroad tracks, you know, it was kind of fun, but it was, it wasn't one of those where they escort, you know, they escort a gaggle of riders. I don't know if that's you. They just said, follow the route and, you know, follow the signs and come back someday. And, and I, that's what I did.

Robin: That's cool.

Brian: So you didn't have a lead or a sweep, right? Wow. Yeah. Is that how most of them normally do it? Like where they, you get escorted or.

Robin: It depends. I liked K&M cause they, we had a lead and a sweep rider, keep them safe, but it was an hour long ride and we got to plan the route. I think it was important that we were the ones that planned the route. When, when I did it with Suzuki, it felt like they were like trying to just get it done so they could say they did it. Whether or not it had any impact on the customers was anybody's guess. The route was only 20 minutes. There was a lead and a sweep, but they said, here is your route and you will ride it. And it wasn't a very good route.

Brian: Yeah. You know, I don't know what Honda's doing. Two thing, a couple of highlights I'll hit. I don't know how these people are nuts, but they were turning people loose on a Rocket 3. And this was the Rocket 3 with 2.5 liter, three cylinder, 182 horsepower. My dad's here. Can he follow me? Great beginner bike, isn't it? Um, and this, and this one had the evil Knievel paint scheme of all things, bad omen, $26,000, $27,000. And they were just like, here go. Holy crap. I mean, the fact that they had the engineering to make that engine bolts enough pieces to that engine to make it rideable. Yeah. Yes. I may have hit one fourth throttle briefly at one point and then I peed myself, but the P went back in because of the crap and the G force. Yeah. Well, it's got like a little drain that it just happens. Everybody. Um, oh man. Yeah. That bike is, that bike is absolutely stupid. It's crazy. It's nuts. I'm glad they make it. I do not want one. Like if I were, if I were like Jay Leno and I had everything else on my garage and I was bored, I'd be like, okay, I'll put one in my garage. It's a ridiculous bike.

Robin: Well, I've got the text from you. Exact wording, Brian Ringer, the Triumph Rocket 3 is knucking foots. It's something like that.

Brian: Yeah. My favorite bike of the whole day was the scrambler 1200 XE. Now the XE is the important part because it's a, it's a 1200 parallel twin, great engine, enough said there. It's a great engine, lots of power, lots of grunt. And then the scrambler has the high pipes on the side. It looks really cool and so forth. But the XE is the version of the scrambler that has actual like off-road suspension. This thing made me want to commit horrible acts. I mean, this thing was, uh, I took a picture in front of it. Uh, I took the picture I took was in front of some graffiti that featured a raised middle finger. Cause I think that's what this bike is. It's so much fun. Yeah. 15 grand. I don't see it happening, but it's only $1,800 more than the normal scrambler, which by comparison is just, eh, you know, I rode the normal scrambler 1200 and it was like, okay, same engine. This is great. But the suspension makes all the difference. And that's kind of one of the neat things. Yeah. Triumph makes a lot out of what, uh, you know, a few variations of engines and so forth and carefully engineer the experience you want. Now I had strict orders from Robin to ride the Tiger 660 sport.

Robin: Yes. Which in my defense, I didn't know there was an 800 sport, which they both look, they're just a cool bike.

Brian: Yeah. It's a triple and there's an 800 sport. Uh, they have the same chassis. So the ergos are the same, very comfortable, uh, very reasonable ergos. They're very compact bikes. They're very small, very lightweight. And the 660 is really, really very surprising in the power you get, the torque you get, how flexible that engine is for an engine that size. It's a really, really wonderful engine. Accessible. Yeah. It's easy to handle too. And it's, it's, it's, it's probably, it's a lighter one. Now the surprise for me was they also got an 800 sport. The new Tiger is a 900 and it's a very different bike.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: The 660 and 800 sport are street bikes. They're kind of tall rounders. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're definitely a hundred percent street bikes, but the 800 is the one to get, in my opinion, like the 660 had surprising power, but the 800 had, oh my God power.

Robin: And I looked it up, it had 115 horsepower, you know, we can handle a less forgiving machine and that kind of torque, that kind of power. We're ready for that. We can handle that.

Brian: Yeah. And it's really like my, uh, like my Yamaha FTO nine has a, has the same amount of power, 115 horsepower, uh, 850 CC engine at 800 triumph. It's actually smoother. They use a different firing order. So it does sound very different, but it's a triple. That's the one that I was like, okay, yeah, this is nice. But the 660 is, is under 10 grand. I mean, that's a hell of a lot of bike for the money. Yeah. So I wrote that immediately. I, I didn't, you know, they're going to, they're going to make a stop, you know, am I supposed to thank you for taking the assignment?

Robin: Are you supposed to thank me for getting to ride all those dang bikes? That's awesome.

Brian: Oh yeah. But it was, yeah, it gave me, gave me a structure for the day. Like, okay, I'm going to review, you know, I'm going to have a little review of these, but yeah. Uh, the, the 400 CC single, the is, is, uh, really for what it is, they're, they're selling them. They're selling them by the truckload and I can see why it's a really nice, it's a really nice little bike.

Robin: Anyway, after that, yeah. Good luck. We'll see, see what your interest is going to be at this point.

Brian: Yeah, really. Four days after that, we took off my friend, Tim and Woz, and we went to North Carolina, Tennessee, Smoky Mountain area with KLRs, do some, do some dual sport riding. It was a hell of a lot of fun. The end. Yeah. There's a Best Western in Newport, Tennessee. It's clean. It's comfortable. It's quiet. It's got lots of trailer parking and it's right before you kind of plunge into the mountains. It's a really, they got a Walmart, they got auto parts stores. It's a great base of operations. Uh, and it's definitely, you know, it's not as crowded as South of the park, like Robbinsville and you know, all around the dragon and tear hole skyway area. It's less tourist traps because most of the people in Newport are there for the lakes. So there's a lot of bass boats, a lot of truckers, stuff like that, but it makes a great base. Yeah. We kind of switched there a while back and for our dual sport riding, it's great. I'm looking at it now, just kind of surfing around on the maps. A lot of great roads paved and unpaved there. We've, we've done street and, uh, and dual sport trips. I do have to say that if you're using a ride with GPS to slap together a route, then you should make sure that it's in, that it's not in hiking mode because, uh, some, uh, trails there that are, they're hiking trails, not, not rideable.

Robin: So I To solve that problem, you got to switch to the Google maps, overlay maps, map setting so that when you click on roads, it knows that they're roads. You have to choose which layer you're using to plot your route.

Brian: There's a little person walking and a little bicycle and a little car. Oh yeah. Okay. Sure. Sure. So I don't know why or how, but the little person walking was click. So the route I was trying to follow was like trying to go up the Appalachian trail, literally at one point we're like, oh, okay. That's, that's not going to work.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Had a great time, had a lot of rain, which on a dual sport ride, rain is actually not bad because it keeps the dust down as the people following always get, you know, end up looking like a powdered donut. And so I could have done with a little less rain, you know, after a while, your gears is just going to get soaked. Especially when you're going slower, you're, you know, you're riding off road and you're standing up a lot. You know, if you're sitting in one place on a road bike, you can kind of arrange things so that the water mostly misses you or runs off. But when you're moving around a lot on a dual sport ride, you really just have to kind of give up. Plus I've got my off-road light right boot leaks. It's Gore-Tex. I contacted Gore-Tex. They said, go away, kid. They said, contact the retailer. I contacted the retailer. He told me to contact Gore-Tex. Gore-Tex back and forth, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, screw Gore-Tex. So I've got a right boot that leaks. It is what it is. On the last day, I had a flat tire along highway 32, which was really interesting. And basically it traces down to the two track, the Tusk two track, which is Rocky Mountain ATV's house brand of tire. Yeah. I mean, I've mounted hundreds of tires. This tire is the worst and the toughest I've ever encountered by a long, long way. And so it took, did you still get a five minutes?

Robin: It took three. Okay, gotcha.

Brian: It took a bit. It took three of us about an hour. I had, I actually strapped on like a long tire iron onto my bike. Usually I can do it with little tire irons. I strapped a very long tire iron onto my bike just because I knew this tire was so bad. Sure enough, it went flat.

Robin: Shout out to our mutual friend, Paul, who's got a nice KTM dirt bike and was trying to make sure he knew how to put a tire on or take a tire off in the wild while he was camping. It may be a good idea to get, you know, a bead pro tire spoons carefully strapped to your swing arm.

Brian: Yeah. Motion Pro has a, it's called the bead pro, I think. And it's like a little fork thing that, that helps pop the bead. I do it with three tire irons as a...

Robin: Brian has saved so many of us from a roadside situation. And some of us have learned how to do it ourselves, thanks to Brian's know-how. Yeah.

Brian: I'll say that video on breaking the bead has got quite a few views actually. Yes. We finally got the tube changed and about 50 miles later, it was flat again because pretty sure I just pinched the tube. And that's the first time I've ever pinched a tube. Yeah. I said, screw it. I rode the flat like 15 miles up 209, which is like a really twisty road. I'm tired. I'm mad. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mess with this thing by the side of the road. It's starting to rain. So I just rode it 15 miles of twisties and then hollered for the trailer.

Robin: I don't see you get upset often.

Brian: I am not changing that tire by the side of the road again.

Robin: So you are human.

Brian: Yes.

Robin: Got it. Nice.

Brian: I have to say riding a flat tire is kind of a skill of its own that I've gotten a little bit better at this time, I guess. Does this tire make me look flat? But yeah, some really great gravel roads, dirt roads. We don't tend to do, we don't do like single track and stuff like that. We're not, we're, we're looking for the worst roads we can find. We're on KLRs. We're not on little bitty bikes. Had a great time with that. But yeah, came home, had to cover the living room in gear and dry it all out. Real quick notice, uh, doing what little planning needs to be done for the Brown County Rally coming up in June. The hard part of all this, we got everything else. There's like no planning at all. It's just completely like pick a date and it's done. And people just show up and they ride and they hang out. It's a vintage Suzuki rally, but everybody's welcome.

Robin: Nobody's invited.

Brian: Yeah. The rooming list is always the challenging part of this damn thing. Cause there's only so many rooms. And usually what happens is we get a bunch of people and then I have a waiting list and then people drop out as the time gets near and then I have to move people around and so forth. Basically we buy out a small hotel in Bedford, Indiana, and it's a great time. It's one of those old motor courts. So we all kind of hang out in the center. We're not visible from the street. It's a vibe of its own. It's a chill vibe. It's a, it's a cool time.

Robin: Totally. I mean, I've been to a variety events with you in the past and somehow if you're involved or some of the known regulars who would plan such a thing are involved, there's a certain way that you guys seem to go about it where it just kind of creates a very relaxed atmosphere after the ride or even before the ride. If somebody's trying to figure out what to do, it's mid ride. When crazy Robin is looking at Brian saying, I need a route, Brian. And he said, hands me a ball of maps.

Brian: You got your forehead vein going. Yeah, man. The cool and unique thing about the Brown County rally is it's in Indiana. It's in the hills. There's no mountains, but it's a lot of Hills. It's a really great roads, really great scenery, but I just hand out maps and I leave. Yeah. Figure it out. People go ride. You can't go wrong here. You cannot get lost. You can't end up on the wrong side of a cliff.

Robin: But that day you were standing at my bike waiting. Well, yeah, that was a yes. This is the morning I wanted to wake up to. Let's go. We're going to do that again. The Brown County this year. Absolutely. All right.

Brian: Yeah. What would you call them these days? I got some homies, people that I hang with.

Robin: You've got deep pockets in the friend jacket for sure. A quick shout out to Joanne Don. Segment two. The Armory.

Joanne: So why does your helmet feel so heavy? I'm going to give you a few of my personal experiences with my own helmet. Also with customers that I've helped when buying a helmet, you know, talking to customers about their experiences and finding out what's really happening when they come in for a lighter weight helmet, or they tell me they've had problems. So the first thing that I've noticed is that sometimes people who are riding motorcycles with little or no wind protection, like an unfair naked or just something that's minimally fared and no windscreen, but they're wearing helmets that really aren't optimized for maximum efficiency at speed and aerodynamics. If you're faced with the full force of wind, especially on the freeway, well, you need a helmet that was really designed to work that way so that it's not buffeting as much. So you're not fighting the wind as much, but let's be honest, for those of us that do have naked motorcycles, you're always going to fight the wind. The way you help minimize that discomfort is to go with something really aerodynamic. And typically these helmets are sport oriented because that's the idea when you're on the racetrack, you know, you need your helmet to be so aerodynamic that you're not fighting the wind and the wind just goes right over you. So that's one thing to just consider. Look at the make and model of your helmet, find out what kind of riding it was really designed for, upright riding, forward riding, cruising, like what kind of motorcycling was that helmet designed for? And then look at your and see what kind of fairing you have. And also it needs to be a fully street focused motorcycle because a hundred percent street helmets are the ones that are the most aerodynamic and are the most comfortable at speed. Another common issue that comes up is sizing. A lot of times you're being sized and fitted by someone who may have only had three or four months in that position sizing gear, or it's not really their specialty, but it's their job. Example, maybe a parts manager who it's their job to sell you parts and motorcycle gear, but maybe that person is way more versed in parts than gear because gear is its own thing, just like parts is its own thing. So maybe you were sized incorrectly and you're sizing up too much. It's a size big because anytime your helmet isn't snugly fit perfectly to you, that's more room for wind. But also now the helmet isn't really grabbing you or hugging you all the way down to the base of your neck. Yes, that's how your helmet is supposed to feel. It's supposed to feel like you put your hands on the side of your head. That's how secure your helmet should feel because the more snugly it is fitted to you, then the less movement. But this is again, also hinging on the fact that you were fitted correctly in the right helmet shape for your head shape. So a good example of this is let's say you have a very narrow head from ear to ear, but you got sized into a helmet that was rounder, which implies a wider helmet from ear to ear. And it's a little loose sideways. You can jiggle it a lot or you can move your head sideways inside the helmet, even with the strap on your chin. So if it's too wide, then the helmet might be resting on the top of your head. And that's something I learned the hard way after I did my first long distance ride. I was going about 300 miles that day and I never ridden that far. I'd only gone like 150 and I started to feel a hot spot on the top of my head, right in the center. And that's because the helmet was resting on my head because mine is really narrow left to right. But I was wearing a helmet that was rounder, so roomier left to right. It was wider for someone with a little bit wider head in the back. Mine is pretty small and pointy. I'm an extra small slash small. Another thing that can happen is if you purchased a very beginner focused helmet, let's say something at the $150, $200 rate, you know, a helmet at that price point is to give you bang for your buck, right? The protection you need, the basics that you need, a nice shatterproof face shield. And we're talking full face helmets here because, you know, an open and a half, you're never going to get the aerodynamics that you will with a full face helmet. I would say you virtually will never. So really fulls are what we are kind of addressing here. But when you go in something that's entry level, it's really there for your basic protection and comfort. And if you want more aerodynamics and you want that helmet to really allow the wind to flow over you really at high speed, then you need to invest in something that was designed to do that, that has some wind tunnel testing, that has some R&D and engineering behind it. And that's part of the reason why you invest more than $200, $300 is if you want to get to the point of helmets that have really, you know, brands that have put hours and hours and hours of R&D into it to make sure that that helmet is really comfortable at speed. That's where you're going to step up to the next level of price and spend more than $400 because that's how you get access to a helmet that is going to feel lighter and be more aerodynamic because the more aerodynamic it is, the lighter it will feel. Another thing that I've seen is that the center of gravity on the helmet is really high. So if you put your helmet sideways and try to place it in the palm of your hand, if the top of the helmet is immediately dropping, well then you can see that the center of gravity is high. So again, another reason to spend more than $100, $150 on your helmet is now you're going to get these really well-balanced helmets where the center of gravity is evenly distributed. And this is the most important when you have a really small head. I'm a small, extra small, so that means you're going to measure in around the 52, 53 centimeter mark. When your head is this small, wearing a helmet shell that is also shared with a large or a medium makes a huge difference. It doesn't take many grams or even, you know, it can only take like an ounce for you to feel that heaviness because the shell is bigger and your head is smaller. So the smaller the helmet shell, the lighter it's going to feel for you. And this is where, you know, numbers as far as the weight of the helmet, it is important, but it's not the end all be all. And you need to take into consideration the center of gravity and where the weight is distributed on the helmet because a top heavy helmet is going to feel heavier than a heavier, well-designed, well-distributed weighted helmet that has a low center of gravity. That's actually a really good lead into the other thing I see. If you choose a modular, modular helmets are not optimized for aerodynamics and weight. They are great, right? They're really convenient. And let's just, let's be honest here. The reason you're buying a modular is convenience. You're not buying it because it is more protection than a full face, because we know that's not true. I'm not saying that modulars don't have protection. Of course they do. They have a chin bar, they have side impact. However, if you measure the impact protection of a modular against many full faces and in general against a full face, a full face can take a harder hit and it will protect you better from the side than a modular. Again, not saying modulars aren't safe, but we're trying to do comparisons here. And if your number one priority is I want that helmet to be as light and aerodynamic on my head and to feel that comfortable, then you need to look at a full face helmet, specifically a higher end premium brand that has at least four shell sizes. Because the more shells a brand uses, the smaller your size will be. Example, if you look at a lot of Arise, they are five shell sizes. So that means my extra small doesn't share the same size as a medium. It's its own shell and its own mold and it's only ever going to be an extra small, ever. But you look at like a $150 helmet, there's probably two shell sizes. So extra small to medium, say, will be one shell. That's why your helmet probably looks huge if you're a really small petite face or head. Again, in that 52 centimeter to 54 centimeter space. Those are the things that I've seen. I'm not saying there's one solution, but these are all things that you want to look at to see, gosh, why is this happening besides the weight of the helmet? Yes, a four and a half pound helmet will be heavier than a three and a half pound. Of course, that's math and science and we're not negating that. But these are other factors that can come into play because even if you have one of the lightest weight helmets, you still might be sized incorrectly or fitted incorrectly and that will also make a huge impact. So these are other things to look at and to scrutinize when you're looking at your helmet. And there are really great apparel fit specialists out there, especially with motorcycle helmets. But I'll tell you this, that the ones that really know what they're talking about, people like myself, others who've been in the industry a long time selling performance helmets, it takes a long time to really nail fitment. We call it a dark art, Harry Potter fans. It's very challenging to get the fit right on the first try and it takes a lot, a lot, a lot of practice with your customers talking to them. So there's an army of factors and we haven't even talked about the mental factors about helmet fitment that come into play because I've had customers that are just claustrophobic and terrified of wearing a full face helmet because they've worn an open for so long, but they've decided for the protection factor, because we know full face are always more in protection than an open or a half period. It can be really anxiety inducing. It can be challenging. So I just wanted to call out some of the things that I've seen in my experience that really contribute to the factor when your helmet feels heavy or just feel like your neck's getting tired, aside from the obvious reasons. So I hope that really helps. You can always drop me a line at help at gearchick.com no K and I'm happy to answer your questions or jump on a little video call if you ever need help with fitment and sizing. That's all I have for you. Talk to you next week.

Robin: Shout out to Joanne similar banter higher revs can be heard through gearchick.com That's Chick with no K. Gearchick. Go there and dig in. That brings us to segment three moments in motorcycle history with Jordan Lehman.

Brian: Robin's got no idea at this point. He's lost. He's just as lost as George Wyman is. But anyway, we're pretty sure George Wyman is doing more in one journey than 10 future riders will do in our combined lifetimes. Take it away, Jordan.

Jordan: George Wyman, he departed Kimball, Nebraska, traveling through relatively flat terrain, pretty much grain country. The first 12 miles consisted of rolling hills and sandy paths, but the roads soon improved, becoming firm and smooth. He covered 35 miles in about three hours reaching Sydney, Nebraska, another division town by about 1015 am. When he got there, the people look pretty tough, and they taunted him as he's riding by. He just completely remains silent and gets gas. He refuels and departs again by 1030 am. By 1215 pm, he arrives in a town called Chapel, Nebraska, where he stops for what he would call breakfast, which is actually lunch. And he's back on the road by 107. So it's really less than an hour. And he finds that the road is pretty good, and that's ended. The conditions of the road deteriorated so badly that he returned to the railroad tracks, continuing all the way to Ogallala, Nebraska, which is one of Kermit the Frog's favorite towns, and all this despite being rained on. He covers about 114 miles that day, but the first 65 miles took five hours. So he's barely doing better than 10 miles per hour, which is way better than he's done in the past. And along the way, he crossed briefly into Colorado near a town called Julesburg, which is his only glimpse of the state. And then he reenters Nebraska, and he finally ends the day sleeping in Ogallala, we assume in some sort of structure. Upon arriving in Ogallala, he learned from the locals that the region had been enduring nearly two uninterrupted weeks of steady rain. Such weather, they explained, was typical for late spring, especially May into June. It had left the roads in deplorable condition. Undeterred, he got up early the next morning and set out at 645 in the morning, hoping to make as much progress as the conditions would allow. Almost immediately after leaving town, he encounters deep mud, gumbo mud, which stretched for a grueling 10 miles. Each mile was a battle, with the thick clinging mud taking his strength and the bike's strength away. When the mud finally gives way, it was only to be replaced by loose, dragging sand, offering no real relief and proving just as difficult to ride through. His progress was slow and exhausting, and recognizing the difficulty he was facing on the disintegrating road, he once again turned to the railroad tracks, which, even though they're bumpy, they offered a little bit more consistent of a surface for him. He followed the rails for the next six miles until he reached the small town of Paxton, Nebraska, and there the skies darkened again, and the rains came down in a huge downpour and forced him to take shelter. He doesn't say where he took shelter, but he waited out the worst of the storm for about three hours until the rains subsided. This is where I put my finger up. I'm gonna drink my wine. Yeah, pinky out. 1230 afternoon, with the skies a little bit lighter, he sets out again. The next leg of the journey, 31 miles to North Platte, Nebraska, and along the way, the sun broke through the clouds. He gets a little bit more encouraged. The road, however, was still pretty bad, alternating between a little bit of riding here and then walking and riding and walking because the sand was deep and it's basically taking all of his energy to get through it. His bike bogged down a few times, and he had to push it by hand over a few long stretches of that section there. When he reaches North Platte, he stopped to refuel and gather his strength. From there, he pressed on through more difficult terrain before arriving at Mattsville, Nebraska. By the end of the day, he had managed to cover 70 miles, most of them under miserable conditions. It was a hard-fought victory over the elements, in his words. It was quickly becoming an unforgiving journey across the American frontier. After a restless night in Maxwell, he's still tired from the previous day's riding through mud, sand, and rain. He wakes up early and presses forward despite the physical toll. The morning greeted him with clearer skies but brought no promise of easier riding. The roads ahead remained largely unfit for travel because they were basically pounded on for weeks of storms. They were barely passable even under the best of circumstances. So he continues again, alternating between riding the wagon tracks and the railroad tracks as the conditions fluctuated between packed earth and loose sand, but mostly it was loose sand. Riding was nearly impossible for long stretches, forcing him to dismount frequently and push the machine across miles of soft, shifting ground. To make matters worse, a stiff wind picked up as the morning wore on, blowing hard from the east and directly into his face. He says the gusts tore at his clothes and sapped his energy, turning even the flattest ground into a punishing ordeal. Every foot gained required sheer determination as both rider and machine strained under their combined resistance of wind and sand. By the middle of the day, he reached Brady Island, a small town with little more than a couple buildings. He paused just long enough to catch his breath, have a drink, and make a few adjustments to his bike. He had to make up time so he continued on his way before he got caught in another storm. So he got back on his bike and went eastward again, trying to reach his next waypoint, which is Gothenburg. Railroad probably followed the Platte River. Brady Island to Gothenburg is about 20 miles, and it's exhausting this mix of rutted roads and open prairie. The wind never stopped, and the sandy ground turned the journey into a test of physical and mental endurance. A few times, he was forced off the road entirely, navigating across open fields or beside the rails just to find a more suitable surface. As the sun started setting, he rose into Gothenburg. He had covered about 40 miles that day, but every mile felt like three. Exhausted, windburned, coated in dust, he finds shelter. His progress was slow, but it was progress. So really, the entire day, it looks like he did 40 miles, which is pretty miserable considering he's already out of the Rockies. From Kearney, Nebraska, which is after Gothenburg, his account of the day leaves no doubt that it began under grim conditions. The roads were saturated from the recent rains, they were in bad shape, and it was soft earth and ruts. He decided to abandon the roadway entirely and take the railroad tracks, which became more reliable across much of Nebraska. He continued on to Grand Island, followed the rails. Even though it was supposed to be better, it wasn't. The sand was piled high between the ties, and he found himself dismounting frequently to push the bike, struggling through patches where the wheels sank deep into the sand. It was slow and grueling, and at one point along this stretch, he barely escaped disaster when a fast-moving mail train rode up behind him with basically no warning. It basically shook him up. He didn't fall off the tracks and ditch the bike like last time, but it shook him up pretty bad. This is the second time, which is not bad, you know, for over 1500 or so miles at this point. This might be the third time. I know the first time was an embankment. Anyways, this is the second or third time that he almost gets nailed by a train. Along this stretch, he nearly escaped disaster when a fast-moving mail train came up behind him with no warning. Faced similar close calls before, but the speed and suddenness of this particular train left him badly shaken. Nonetheless, he continues on, reaching the small town of Chapman after covering only 11 miles. At Chapman, he paused for a quick meal, what he calls dinner, but this is basically lunchtime because that's how he confuses things, and he took the opportunity to look at his bike, and he found six spokes on his rear wheel had broken during the morning's ride. He had to stop and repair them because it was causing serious mechanical issues for him. He continues to ride on after fixing the spokes, bouncing and pounding his way over the rails for another 16 miles until he arrives in Central City. In Central City, he realizes that the repairs to the wheels and the bike can't be ignored any longer, and he stops to fix them. Now the wheel is wobbling around like a Pringle, basically. So we've got the main wheel, and he's also got the hub, which is being pulled by that leather belt, and they both got to be centered. So he's got to get all that squared up. That's a little bit more challenging than just tightening a few spokes and getting on your way. But he does that in Central City, and he doesn't get back on the road till like 4.45 p.m. After he leaves Central City, the roads are a little bit better, and he makes it pretty steadily, riding into twilight another 44 miles before he gets to a town called Columbus, Nebraska, and he gets there at 8.25 p.m., and that's it for the day. But he manages to do 108 miles that day versus the 40 of the day before, so this is a whole lot better. This is like a testament to his ability to ride as well as fixing while he's riding it. This guy is the complete package.

Brian: Yeah. What do you want to talk about next episode? Robin, I have no idea. Oh, idea. You're steering the ship. I really, really like your idea of some sort of education or training happening on one of your tours. Okay. Whether that's training and how to give, like one of the things I've seen people do is train people on how to do what they're doing. There's a next level, I think, of leading a ride. People may be interested in that. Some people just want to know there's a nice bar with some beer at the end of the day, and some people may be like, yeah, I want to learn more about how we find these roads and what are the things to think about, stuff like that.

Robin: I think it'd be good for me to set up a checkbox where anybody signing up could say, I need this to be formatted for professional development. I'll see what I can come up with. I have no idea what the requirements are for CE. What variety of not me telling people how to do things can we assign a person to be responsible for on their own terms, five senses while they're on a motorcycle? That could be a good topic right there. I like that. When Joanne comes back, she should have her opportunity to talk about waterproof versus water spoof, meaning Brian doesn't think there is any waterproof gear out there and he wants to fight anybody. Somebody fight Brian. Fight, fight, fight. We might have a fight on our hands. Excellent. Jordan Leeman will pick back up, I'm sure, with some George Wyman stuff. That's all I got. Brian, you good? I'm good. Let's get out of here.