Robin: In this episode, lightening the load, tool roll weight remedies that is, then Joanne Don explores the very same topic in riding a tire. Nice. Jordan Lehman is looking for where the road began.

Brian: So we're going to talk about construction techniques and, uh, no. All of such, right?

Robin: We'll find out. Quick announcement, apparently there's going to be a new 24-7 MotoGP channel launching across the USA. Sweet. You can find more information about that on superbike.co.uk. The article's pretty fresh. And yeah, C15 Studios and MotoGP launched the MotoGP channel across the United States. It's dedicated to 24-7 streaming, destination, delivering live racing, original programming, and year-round coverage. How about it, man? That'll be fun. Nice. That makes me a little bit worried because I do remember a radio station when the person who bought, I don't know if it was QFM 96 in Columbus or 99.7, somebody bought it and they lost their minds and they decided to make it an all-lead Zeppelin station. I don't remember what the FCC did, but this is the age of the internet.

Brian: So I'm not really worried about it. The age of ultra specialization. Yeah. I think it'll work better than all-lead Zeppelin. There is more material to work with.

Robin: If you want the all-lead Zeppelin website, go to the all-lead Zeppelin website. Quick announcements for the website. We did revert the weather page. If you guys remember last episode, I mentioned how I was going to use the max levels to figure out the best percentage of the day. There's some complication to this. So I'm working on the weather page, setting things up so that when you take the day's average chance of rain, if the maximum chance of rain is not the same as the average, it gives you the hour at which you're going to face, you know, 75% chance, 100% chance. Plan is to, you'll be able to click on the hourly so you can see what the chance of rain is over the course of the daylight hours of a given day. And it will be divided down the middle against the daylight average, which will make it so basically you get a pretty good figure. It's just getting better all the time. The math, yeah, it's hard, but every time you find the new variation in that math, you use it and it just gets better. It is the most visited page on the website. There are none with more visitors every day.

Brian: So I shouldn't say this is like the official website of Overthinkers Anonymous.

Robin: I saw your expression as I was explaining what I'm doing. And all I could think of myself was, don't worry, Brian. I guess it's worth it.

Brian: Okay.

Robin: It is. People are using it and it saves a lot of people's bacon. The big one is the allergens. People want to know if there's allergens or there's health hazard warnings. Like we got wildfires up here, man. And that actually saved some people from a very allergy prone situation. Okay. Not a correction, but a note from a previous episode. I mentioned how there are a lot of these AI apps that were, where are you going to ride, man? I don't know, through that mini mall and that factory, all that stuff, or that twisty subdivision. One of the apps that I'm curious about, I want to explore and see how good and or bad it is. It's called Detect. And the ads have popped up on Facebook.

Brian: On the Faceballs and yeah.

Robin: D-E-T-E-C-H-T. I'm going to check this out and see if it does even a remotely decent job.

Brian: So that's not a typo. That's how it's spelled, huh? That's how it's spelled.

Robin: How are you doing, man? I got a couple of things to tell you about on a personal level, but you first, what's up?

Brian: I'm good, man. I just had a lot of maintenance. I was working on amidst everything else this week on my bike. Finally got that done. Got up early this morning, like when I was out there in the garage at six. Got it all done. But yeah, new tires, new brake pads all around, flush the brake fluid. I cleaned the bike, which was just awful. I hate cleaning.

Robin: I know you do, but it's really good for, oh, that's an engine mount that I'm missing. You know what I mean?

Brian: No, yeah, I didn't find anything I didn't expect. I mean, I'm pretty tuned into the whole thing and I'm always working on it. Fork oil and upside down forks is just a pain in the butt. Had to get a neighbor to help. He's a real small, muscular guy. He was like flipping through the air, trying to push down the fork spring. So I'm like, okay, I'll push down and then you unscrew this part. And with the fifth hand of the 12 other people, you need to do this. Anyway, what a pain in the butt. All done.

Robin: Wait, you just got new spring compressors, did you not?

Brian: This is for the fork. So the upside down fork tool is basically just a thing with handles on it you push down on.

Robin: Yeah, that's what I remember. We used it on the BMW a while back.

Brian: Yeah, and this bike's got some pretty stout fork springs on it. It takes a lot of gravity to get it compressed far enough to clear the preload adjuster. And also, you know, taking off tires that have like at least a third to a half of their life left, it just sucks. But I hate that part.

Robin: Are you going to do the new pads? You're not going to scrub them?

Brian: Yeah, basically got the bedding in the new brake pad as best I could, at least. Because the procedure, you slow from 30 to 10, 10 times, 13 times, something like that. You slow from 40 to 10 and you slow from 50 to 10, you repeat. Anyway, I got as close as I could in the city. Everything seems to be working quite nicely. The old fluid was pretty cooked. So glad I got that all sorted out. So yeah, all set for the track day. Just need to peel off the turn signals and plate and all that crap and load it up.

Robin: You got this. I got it. Check this out. We were in Madison giving the one and only Travis and Laurel Burleson of the Burleson crew a chance to go out and celebrate their anniversary. Happy anniversary to Travis and Laurel. We were watching their twin boys for a couple of days, having a good old time. It was also an opportunity that we went down to the basement of the house where all of our home is stashed. We start popping boxes to check stuff just out of curiosity. And what do I find? The exact same Siddiqui jacket and pants that I currently have in transit everywhere I go in significantly better shape, completely pristine, almost like brand new. So I'm sure that's going to piss Joanne off to no end. It's got a couple of tears in one spot though. I'm not sure where those tears come from, but it may have been a deer hit. We shall see. And I can now officially confirm rubber is being destroyed. Excellent. It's going away. So yesterday I shucked the daylights out of 200 and some odd miles with Mr. Burleson as well. I'm down to the wear bars now. It's good. I got one more ride on them. That'll be tomorrow when we drop off a bike. You up for some listener questions? I am up for some listener questions. First one I got, YW asks, Hi all, I've gotten more comfortable on the bike the more miles I put on it, but then I've come across a post suggesting that I should clean and lube my chain every two weeks or so. How often should I clean and lube my chain? And is there a life hack to getting that done without a rear wheel stand? And could you recommend some tips for cleaning and lubing? My answers, quickly speaking, you should probably lubricate the chain, one, when you notice that it's dirty, two, probably between four and 600 miles has been my pattern. About 600 miles, when I'm approaching, when I'm just over 500 miles, I'll start looking at it. When I realize there's some spots on it that aren't part of the metal or part of the metal, yeah, it's time to clean her up. I did learn how to clean it really well from watching Brian. Brian doesn't know that he did this, but I've always been used to step one, kerosene, step two, let it dry. Step three, apply lubricant. Step four, I know what I did here. And what I noticed is if the chain's in trouble, yeah, maybe that's a good way to do it. It may need to get some extra stuff on there. Get kerosene on there. Kerosene is harmless on pretty much every version of chain on the market today. Let that eat away everything that you don't want on a chain, let it dry, then apply. And my preference is PJ1. Everybody has their product. Doesn't really matter. But I like PJ1 because it's sort of like a gelatin after it cakes in and you just apply it evenly across and then wipe it around so it's even across the chain. Done. That's it. Let it dry. And next morning, take our first spin for another 600. That's my take.

Brian: Yeah. Chain lube. I don't want to start another holy war or anything, but do something with some sort of product to your chain at some point. Sometimes, you know, if the bike's sitting in the garage for two weeks, no, you don't need to go out every two weeks. It's more like mileage and how filthy and wet and dirty it is. You know, if I'm on a dual sport ride with the KLR, then I'll clean and lube it every night because it gets kind of, you know, it gets a little bit of dust on it from gravel roads, from dirt, stuff like that. On the, on the Yamaha, I mean, if I'm just doing street riding and the dry, the, you know, nothing's happening. It, you know, it'll go a thousand miles until I, yeah, it looks like it's a little dusty, you know, and I'll clean and lube it. No big deal.

Robin: We don't want them to kink up because then they start to thwack and then they go bad. You got to replace the chain and the sprockets. If you replace the chain, then typically it's a good uniform thing to do is replace the entire set of sprockets along with the chain. What I did not say about what is the more robust cleaning process is if the chain's doing well, the lubricating product itself is a form of cleaner. What you can do is get in a restful position with a rag and your cleaning solution of choice, then hold the rag underneath the base of the chain, spray the top of the chain with the rag protecting everything else from it, and then use that to basically smear it across the chain and clean it at the same time. Yeah. It's jacketing the chain. It's cleaning the chain. It's getting everything ready for the next ride. Then you roll the chain to the next available, however many inches are available on your swing arm. Do the same thing. Do that all the way around. Walk away. That takes all of five minutes. Yeah.

Brian: Part of the question that YW asked was how to get the rear wheel off the ground or how to handle this without a rear wheel stand, or you have to get up, push the bike a little bit, whatever. But if you go to tro.bike, nice little article on the snapjack. You can either search for the word snapjack, all one word, and you'll find it. If you're some kind of nerd like Robin, you go to tro.bike slash question mark p equals one eight one four one. Yeah, that's the numeric URL. That's quick if you're a nerd. Anyway, search for snapjack or however you get there. But a snapjack is this neat little device. You put the bike on the kick on the, I'm sorry, it's not a kickstand. It's a sidestand.

Robin: Sidestand.

Brian: You put the bike on the sidestand, and you put the snapjack up against the bottom of the swing arm on the right side, and you push it in with your foot, and it lifts up the rear wheel just a tiny bit off the ground. Kind of a nice tripod thing. It's pretty stable, and it lets you rotate the rear wheel without a center stand. Very handy device, and there are others like it. This one's easiest to use with one person. Nice little gadget there.

Robin: Quick summary. Get yourself a snapjack. Lift it up. If the chain is in bad shape, apply kerosene. Walk away for a couple hours while it dries. Come back. Apply lubricant. Profit. If it's in good shape, put it on the snapjack. Spray down with more lubricant, and wipe it with a rag. The lubricant will clean everything. Right on. Right on.

Brian: Next question. FS asks, hey fellow Reddit bikers, what are some things you keep on your bike at all times for short two to four hour trips and for a full day or more trip? I'm talking tools, emergency supplies, or other recommendations. I have saddlebags and a big storage bag, so I have room. So the first thing we'll mention, hey, guess what? Like everything else, there's an article about it. There's a resource for it on TRO.Bike. So TRO.Bike, mouse over DigiTools, and look for the motorcycle packing checklist. It's right there at the top of the menu. That is a great place to start. This is intended for long distance touring, so you can kind of edit that as needed. You probably don't need to bring coffee and vitamin supplements and socks on a four hour trip.

Robin: Although I will bring my entire tool roll with me. Yes, tools always. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Yes, we will. I got this clear pocket toiletry bag that is really handy, but it makes me look like I'm wheeling and dealing at every gas stop. Like step right up, step right, merchandise, merchandise, right? But it's like I flipped that out. It's got snack bars, got Advil, you know, nail clippers, dumb stuff that you're just like, man, I wish I had. Yeah. Think of it. Make a night wrap.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Throw it in one of these dumb bags and then you'll have that and it folds right up and is easy to pack. Marine gear. I'll typically have that and a tool roll. That's about everything for a day trip. Basically top case stuff. The rest, no saddlebags. I'm out. Let's cruise. Okay, next question. SN asks, to those who can do a full 15, 20 minute session at full pace on a leader bike every session at a track day, what's your secret?

Brian: I thought this was an interesting question. Now I'm not someone who can ride a leader bike at full race pace all day or anything like that. You've been to track days and you know, at the end of the day, I think you, when we look at each other at the end of the day, we are satisfied, uh, but we have ridden every session and we're tired, but we're not exhausted. And this person is talking about being like exhausted. Like they have to skip one. I am just a yellow group diaper, baby, whatever. It's a track day. A lot of the discussion that I saw around this is around fitness and that's true, but I am not what you would call fit or Sevelte. Robin, of course, is an Adonis on two legs, but I think there's something there. I see it a lot on fast street rides. People are so tense, emotionally tense, and they're scared. You burn a lot of energy by carrying a lot of tension in your body. And I think that's what's going on. A lot of times the track days or at a fast pace street day, a long tour, things like that. People can burn up an incredible amount of energy by if they're uncomfortable, if they're uncomfortable with the pace, if something's wrong, people get caught up in the group. Think if you were to pass me and reach out and whack my arm, ideally, it'll just flop around like a noodle. That's what you need. You need that level. You need to be relaxed on the bike and everybody says that, but it's hard to do. I think that's part of what happens to people at track days or long days in the saddle on the street. They forget to relax. It's easier said than done. You get like actual rigid muscular tension. The entire body is tense and tight and you're not smooth on the bike. You're ratcheting around and you're wearing yourself the hell out.

Robin: There's a pile of negatives and they can all affect you from random angles that you don't expect. But what I'm mostly reading into this is there are a lot of cases where people run into the have-tos, meaning they've assigned themselves to a group at a track day, they enter the track and they're not sure what percentile of skill they play at, which doesn't necessarily need to matter so long as they feel like they're safe. They believe that once they've entered the track, they have to keep up with whoever might pass them or that there's the threat of somebody may hit them from behind. So they need to go fast enough to make sure that can't happen. They want to up their game. So they're arriving at a specific personal limit that doesn't leave any space for them to concentrate effectively or feel relaxed enough to get a flow started. That whole ebb and flow. This have-tos thing. I'm saying this so I can listen to myself say it in the future and remind myself that this is the best way to go about it. First, let's situate the mental so that we can enact a plan for the physical. In our minds, we need to be running at a pace where, hey, this is all right. I can probably handle even a little bit more. That's okay. You've found a really good boundary of behavior to keep your thoughts occupying. You're at a pace that is now flexibly non-strenuous to your psyche. Good. Now you can enact the physical plan. So if this was only about the physical, maybe it was. Whatever I just said is for anybody else who can appreciate it. The rest, you can throw it out the window. If it's all about just the physical ergonomics of a super sport or some race replica bike or even a race bike, well, the analogy I like to use is a combination of things I heard from some of my riding mentors over many years. Brian Ringer is one of them. Although you haven't ever said these things, or maybe you have two of the other people I know that we both know mutually. Imagine you're sitting on a bar stool, eating chicken wings, typing an email. All right. The chicken wings are your elbows. Keep your arms relaxed, super relaxed. Concentrate on the effort you require in your core, meaning your lower waist, navel area, that is where you're flexing the most. If you're leaned over like that, you don't want to be resting your weight on your arms. That is not what those bikes are for. You want to be focusing on, well, in my case, it's a one pack. But if you have a six pack, well, keep on working it. That is the angle. You are leaned. You are hanging. You are using your lower body to flex and contour to the machine. But your arms are still relaxed. That's where we say chicken wings. Your elbows are flopping around and you're typing an email. So your fingers need to be free and relaxed at the controls. You can't type an email if you're palming the keyboard and carrying all of your weight on it. Beyond that, yes, it's suffering. Get better, get stronger, be healthy. You will get better and it will affect you physically. You will become more and more well put together for that contour bike. But it's an exercise in and of itself. Kind of a good one. Last thing I'll say is monitor your breathing. Take a deep breath before the curve. While you're carving that curve, slowly exhale. So act on exhale.

Brian: That's my answer. Nicely done. Yeah. And early on in that rant, I heard two things that are interesting that it's never a good thing. When someone is thinking the words, keep up, got to keep up, got to keep it. No, don't. Unless you're Valentino Rossi and you're like half a second.

Robin: Money, money, money, money, money.

Brian: Yeah. Even then, yeah, there's a million bucks at the end. Okay. But that keep up thought is kind of mentally, I think where a lot of fatigue comes from and mistakes happen. Those were fun.

Robin: By the way, if you would like us to field your questions in your web browser, visit this URL, email.tro.bike and send us a message through the contact form. As Brian would say, you might not get the answer, but you will get an answer. Segment one, lightning, the load tool, roll weight remedies. This began with me wanting to have time, which I didn't to sit down and explore, which I didn't products that are the equivalent of any tool you could ever need for your specific bike, but made of helium and feathers, indestructible helium and feathers. So what did I do? I outsourced it. I said, Hey, Brian, it's my episode. You mind making me look cool. My goodness. There's a lot of information already. I've touched this exactly zero. The most Brian has are photos of my current tool roll, which it's pretty minimalist, but the sockets get heavy. Yeah. I, you know what I mean? It'll take my rear wheel off. I need to be able to do that on the roadside if it has to happen, but they're heavy. It's it's a 32 millimeter and it's got to go with, I also have the snapjack, which is not light. It is by comparison to a center stand light, but the point is there's a lot of metal, heavy metal, late Ozzy Osbourne. God rest his soul. Heavy metal in this tool roll. Brian, I'm handing you the mic. I've got nothing to say. Learn me something good. Help me replace my cheap, but workable tool roll with the probably five times the price, but much more lightweight tool roll for use when I lead tours.

Brian: What I have here in front of me, I see some violations. I see some, some principles that I've laid down here of your own making being violated. Like I see a whole bunch of deep well sockets, a couple of things. There are, there are a lot of, you'll see a lot of like aluminum tools. Like I'll give an example. One of the things I've seen is their aluminum combination, tire levers and axle wrenches. And in my experience, those are really not, those really don't work that well or that reliably. So you'd be a little cautious about those. There are like axle wrenches that are like laser cut out of metal and those can be pretty workable. You know, you get them on the axle and you hit them with your boot and you can get the axle not to move things like that. You know, it's sort of an overall philosophy, figure out what, what you need to be able to deal with on the road for what bike or bikes. You know, whether it's just one bike of yours, all your bikes, or if you want to be equipped to help other people as well, which that's kind of how mine is built too. A couple of principles, pre-made toolkits, never really that great. The one that came with your bike, unless you're on a BMW is, is kind of crappy. The one thing you want out of that may be your spark plug socket. Because sometimes some bikes are really weird in the amount of space you have.

Robin: They work freakishly better than anything else for some reason.

Brian: Yeah. BMW has, does have a pretty decent toolkit, which would make a, you know, which has the basics and so forth. I personally am not a fan of a lot of combination tools. I think carrying like a generic multi-tool like a Leatherman Wave or something like that is a good idea for just general knifing and pulling and pliering. But like toolkits, like, like you'll, you'll see bicycle combination, all-in-one tools that have like hexes sticking out one end and screwdriver bits sticking out the other end and the little half-assed wrench in the middle.

Robin: Things you can lose immediately after use.

Brian: Yeah. They're heavy and you can't get into spaces where you need to get.

Robin: That's the credit card tool. Okay. It's some bullshit that has a bottle opener on it. It's light, but... Oh, a bottle opener.

Brian: That's... That's the reason I have it. Yes. Okay. So multi-tool would have a bottle opener. So maybe, you know, maybe...

Robin: But one of the Leatherman Wave is more like a can opener and it just destroys, you can't drink the beer. It just, yeah, go on.

Brian: And if you really want to save weight, then there's only a few places on a bike where you might need an eight millimeter or 10 millimeter socket. And I can't think of any place where you need deep well sockets.

Robin: They are in the frame sliders on the front and rear of the bike.

Brian: There you go. Yeah. So if you do need those for your particular bike, then sure. No problem.

Robin: Yeah. Brian snickers. But the fact of the matter is I arrived at this tool roll because this thing has everything in it that I need. The problem is the girth, the weight, the material. Yeah. It's easily like 10 pounds.

Brian: For example, there's one of those, it's kind of a, it's got a bunch of stepped hexes on it to fit a lot of different front axle. You know how the front axle is hollow on a lot of newer bikes. Yeah. And so there's one of those, it's, it's a, it's a steel version and it's kind of heavy. Yes. You could replace that with a coupling nut that fits your bike and, and hell with everybody else.

Robin: Yes.

Brian: I like this. A coupling nut goes inside the axle and then you put like a 14 millimeter wrench on the outside of it and you can unscrew your front axle if you need to. Socket head is what they technically call them, but heck, you know, we call them Allen head and Torx stuff. You can do everything you need to do with just L keys. You don't need sockets and bits for those unless you really want to have a little extra convenience and speed when you need those. So you're trading, like if I wanted to go super minimal, then I would have three, four, five, six, and eight hex keys. And that's it. I would not have bits or anything like that. And you can reach anything you need to. L keys are really extremely versatile and can pretty much, I can reach everywhere I need to on my bike with those. Same goes for wrenches. I've got a link down here and maybe we can put that in the show notes or something like that. But there's a Japanese brand called Asahi, Asahi Light Tool, and they're like these wrenches that are skeletonized and they're super light and I want them really bad. They're really cool. Yeah, man. And also, you know, again, if you're riding a Japanese brand bike, you're not going to need your 13 millimeter and 15 millimeter. Leave it at home. You're going to need eight, 10, 12, 14, 17, maybe 19.

Robin: If these are skeletonized, if you use them once and in that use, they get damaged. Well, you had it. When you get done, get another.

Brian: Yeah. And these, you know, by all accounts, I mean, these are very high quality and very durable, so not a problem. You know, should be, should be good to go there. But if you want a little bit of extra speed and luxury, then sure, ratchets and sockets, there's a trade off there. Now, Robin was talking about a 32 millimeter or whatever socket. Is that for your rear axle?

Robin: Yeah. Which if you look in my toolkit, you also notice that I bring channel locks because they kind of solve certain problems industrially. So figuratively, if I had to, I could use a microfiber towel and channel locks to gently get the thing off. But you know what I'm getting at. Yeah. See, I'm with you. It's like the channel locks are an emergency thing that's worth having.

Brian: What size is the nut on your rear axle? 32. My Yamaha, the axle nut is kind of recessed inside the swing arm. 27 millimeter. And they make wrenches that will fit 27 millimeter, but they won't go down inside the swing arm. So what I found is called a single-ended box wrench. It's a box-end wrench with one box on the end, and it's kind of a bottom or the belly of the box and drops down below. And so it'll go inside that swing arm and take that off. So I bought one of those. I had to actually trim it down so it fit where I wanted it to fit. And that's what I carry under the seat on my Yamaha to undo the axle. On my other bikes, one of those wrenches that's cut out of sheet metal actually works fine. So it's compact and light. So I carry that.

Robin: They certainly want a dime for it.

Brian: Yeah. That's one way you could do that. I think Motion Pro and a few others make... Basically, you get a hunk of aluminum, 32 millimeter socket, and it's got a slot at the other end you can stick a tire through. And so that'll give you what you need. So that way you don't have to carry a socket and a socket driver or anything like that. Something like that would be a good way to go as well. I see an article happening in this. Oh, yeah. You know, and for things, you know, like I've seen people carry, like they'll carry the socket, you know, for their front sprocket. And that goes back to the overall philosophy. Really, what are you going to deal with on the road, realistically? Why the hell would you need to take your front sprocket off? And some people, like if you're doing dual sport riding on, there are people who have KLR 650s, and they will change their front sprocket when they get to the end of the road, when they get to the end of the pavement and head to dirt. And so they will actually carry as light as they can something that will let them get that 30 millimeter sprocket. So you really just have to think about what it is you're willing to do on a street ride. You know, how often are you going to need to do that?

Robin: Yeah. What Brian's getting into here is that the longer you and your bike, the more intimate your understanding of it becomes. Yeah. And then you start doing things to it that you read about that. It's like, oh, you can sort of DIY this solution for that thing. And this involves different tools so that you can do it as quickly as possible. But that's not for every bike. And when you sum up for the KLR is one example.

Brian: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Another point is to buy good quality stuff, especially if it's something that you're going to put a lot of strain on. For example, okay, I'm going to carry the Allen keys that I need for my bike. Well, buy good ones. My favorite is the Vera Hex. These things will, I mean, they literally will remove stuff that everything else has stripped out. They are absolutely amazing. Highest quality, you know, buy good quality stuff if you're going to be depending on a little bit more. I even found Torx keys. You can get into a Torx fastener at an angle with these things. Oh, wow.

Robin: Yeah. So it's kind of slots in and rolls.

Brian: Yeah. So like you have a ball end on X keys, you actually, they have a ball in for Torx. That's pretty cool. Yeah, man. I had to buy them. You can't help yourself, can you? I can't help it. Yeah. I talk about bankruptcy.

Robin: Right here, right now, everybody listening. I am going to take Brian to task. You have to write an article about this and you can leave nothing out. All of this is excellent. This needs to be a thing.

Brian: It really does. One of the things I see take up a lot of bulk is people bring a full size screwdriver. Like it might be a multi-bit screwdriver or something like that. But really all you need to bring is something is a few bits and something to turn them with. That can be a lot simpler than this whole plastic screwdriver handle takes up a lot of space. And again, it's stuff like that. Just think through the bulk. Is it really worth it? Even if it's a little uncomfortable, it takes a little longer. Can I still get the job done with something smaller, lighter? That kind of thing.

Robin: I'm glad I assigned you to it because you're basically doing my shopping for me, which is great. This is vicarious spending is what it is.

Brian: In your tool row, I see like a giant pair of vice grips.

Robin: Okay. Here's how we can spend some time on this while Joanne's getting ready for her segment. So explain yourself, Robin. We're going through the whole tool roll. They are tools that I already had that were in small-ish form. I slapped them into an 11-pound bag. And let's be honest, that's fine. I mean, that's okay. It's heavy, but not really. It's not the kind of weight where people say, goodness gracious, why would you? No, it's workable. But what Brian is suggesting is it can simply be better. Oh, yeah. So top left, you got Allens of every sort, but they are sockets. And they don't all have the same insert. So as a result, I'll say right here, right now, you scroll down, you're going to see an entire row of reducers and expanders to compensate for the different outlets on each of the sockets that I bring along. I do have that giant steel adapter for the hex outlet that is on my front axle. And it's big and clunky. And I was just wondering about materials and lighter and all that stuff. Middle top pocket is a little bit funky. That's where I've got like the Leatherman Wave add-ons. So you notice the credit card thing. Yeah, it's got a bottle opener that actually works. That's kind of cool. It weighs almost nothing. So I kind of think like, well, why not? It's good for dart games, I guess. I don't know. But I've also got an extender. That folded over blue sleeve is the 40-bit set that converts a Leatherman into a large variety of Philips and JSO and Torx and Allen with an extender that you fasten in so you can get into things. It also has that ratcheter, which I bought. That's what's below it, is an actual ratcheting tool. Next pocket over, I do have a perhaps unnecessary spark plug check tool, the gap check, and a suspension sag measure along with a shaved down tire valve stem removal tool. I cut off the prongs and just, you know, take the donut.

Brian: And the thing is, there's even like a smaller version of that valve stem tool if you really want to get goober about it.

Robin: Yeah, this should be the visual source for how we can do the Tiny Tasty Tool Tips. In the future. Next sleeve down is the pile of sockets. And you just discussed a lot of random variety solutions for that. The deep wells are there because there are a lot of things that, yeah, actually the bolts are pretty hard to get at. And they go deeper onto the threads than the normal will allow. Next to that is a bunch of lightweight stuff. We don't care about that. Rubber gloves. Tire plug. Yeah.

Brian: The seal mate.

Robin: Yeah. Nice. These are easy. They're simple. A little rag just in case. Tire plug adapter. You know, the tire plug inserts. So again, down another row. There we have a mini ratchet wrench that fastens onto sockets. And an extension. And an adjustable wrench. And all the reducers and expanders. So these could also be eliminated with some what you're talking about with take hex keys instead of hex sockets.

Brian: Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff. Like on my bike, caliper bolts have a 12 millimeter hex head. So basically, I have a 12 millimeter wrench. I'll put the 12 millimeter wrench on it. I'll kick it with my foot or something to loosen them up. And then I'll spin them out. I have a plan for every fastener on the bike.

Robin: That's the idea. Last sleeve. I'm going to defend some of this. The snap jack. The snap jack is probably the heaviest thing in the bag. But it's just so handy when you're taking a long trip. That definitely stays as is. But Brian, you have another product that I think might be lighter. You've got one that's shaped like a Y that can work with spindles.

Brian: The one I use, it's called the Enduro Star Trail Stand. And it is incredibly strong and very, very lightweight. And takes up very little room. If you go to Endurostar.com, you'll see an action. And somewhere on that site is a picture of my Vstrom 1000. Big, big bike. Big, heavy bike. This thing had no problem. This thing's very strong. You've seen that in action.

Robin: I have. I'll keep defending this. I do bring wire splices. And it could be touch and go. But that one's so small and dumb. And it works. It's light. There's really nothing to it. I also bring a spanner tool. For the shock. Yeah, I'd like to get a suspension adjustment tool for my bike, specifically in my garage. But this has come in handy for others who did not think to bring theirs. This is an adjustable one. It's also a little bit heavy. Maybe I can find a lighter one. But I will also defend the channel locks. Just because in an emergency, for whatever reason, channel locks will answer the call. However clumsy and awkward as they are. If you need to get the axle bolt off before the lion eats you, it'll jaw out the bolt with a big old dumb smile on its face. And you'll get it done.

Brian: And I mentioned Motion Pro. That axle tool you've got, they've got an aluminum version of that. If you want to do that, shut up and take my money. You can spend all the money. Last part of this is you can get ratchets to have aluminum handles, for example. Yeah. And they're much lighter. And they actually work just fine. A couple of things to mention. One of them is stop over tightening everything on your damn bike when you're in the garage. I think that's one of the things that makes a bike serviceable. Last time I had to change a tire or fix a flat on the road on my KLR, you have to remove the rear wheel because it's a tube tire. I think I had a six inch adjustable wrench, opened it up all the way, put it on the axle, gave it a boot, it opened up. Because I knew nothing was over torqued. Everything was free and ready to go. When I worked on other people's bikes, sometimes on the road, you end up with a real problem when something's really seized on there, or they stood on a breaker bar to tighten up something, and you're not going to be able to handle it. And you see the same thing in cars, you know, lug nuts on car wheels.

Robin: Think about this. If you were to back off from the torque spec by 10%, 20% even, maybe more. Some people would argue more. You're going to be okay, probably, unless it's some kind of fluid reservoir. One thing that does happen. I mean, I personally am a cookbook mechanic. I read the manual and use it and forget it and open it up every time I do anything. I love being at spec with torque. Yes. As my wrench loses its calibration, I know maybe I'm slightly loose. That doesn't matter. It's fine because here's the deal. In a lot of these cases, we're talking about metal on metal. You're going down the road. The temperature is changing. It's up and down. The bike is vibrating. There's a lot of vibration, static vibration coming from the road kinetically to every nook and cranny and bolt that fastens that nook to the cranny. This causes the metal to do things. It will actually become tighter. Usually on its own. It'll still be easier to get off because you stayed at spec, but you can be loose. It is okay.

Brian: Yeah. Most people tend to over torque things really badly though. Right.

Robin: You don't want your swing arm to have dimples. That does not mean your axle is on. For more tool-based philosophy, just go to TRM Bike and search for the word tools. You're going to find Brian's article. One rule to tool them all on building the right toolkit along with lots of other tool-based readings. Brian really knocked that one out of the park. Go to TRM Bike. Look it up. Have a read. And now, since I'm looking at the one and only Joanne Dahn, that means it's time for The Armoury brought to you by GearChick.com.

Joanne: We're talking lightweight and dual purpose. I mean, I've had friends who wear everything on anything, race suits on Harleys. I've seen people wear all kinds. People have strong personal preferences, how they want to express themselves. But what I wanted to say was when you're shopping for adventure things, the hardest part for people to understand is when you want adventure thing for that 50-50, that more of a paved lifestyle, I'd say like 70-30 street to dirt or 80-20 street to dirt. When you're in that, and I classify that as adventure because I know everybody defines adventure differently, everyone. But I'm referring to the people who mix more pavement than dirt. And they're on, say, an Africa Twin, you're on a bigger bike. Typically, you're not on the dirt most of the time unless you're really good, right? So for the folks who are like kind of in that 80-20, 70-30 lifestyle, the lightweight aspect, when you look at gear, it's not geared to you so much. It's geared toward the true 50-50 people. So when you're trying to decide like, you know, am I going to be too hot in this Climb or Revit Gore-Tex shell? The answer is yes. If you're doing, say, 20-80 street to dirt, you know, because the more time you're going to spend on the dirt, the more work you have to do. You're not just sitting and being inactive. So since you're being more active, you're going to get hotter. And that's not even talking about like how hot someone gets. Like, you know, taking into consideration the fact that I run like an iceberg in the summer, you know. So this is just to share with people which direction to just start with and why gear is so different. Because the more you sit, the less active you are. Standing up on the pegs for like half an hour straight and having to navigate really hard terrain, it's work. The gear has to be lighter. That's why it sucks to wear touring gear on the dirt. If you have touring clothes, say you have like an entry level, you know, just an easy like a Joe Rocket touring jacket, right? Super easy, it's waterproof. You have 18 bikes. You wear it on your Harley all the time and it's great. Or you wear it on your Goldwing. But hey, now you have an Africa Twin and you want to maybe wear that. And as you're getting out on the dirt and maybe you're going to do some BDR. Well, that touring coat, even though it seemingly feels light, the minute you get out there and there's heat and you're standing and you're sitting and you're having to actively move your body, it will feel like you're wearing a spacesuit.

Robin: Yeah. When you go Swiss Army Knife utilitarian on the machine and now you're carrying all the kit.

Joanne: But here's the interesting thing, right? As you start to bridge the gap, let's say you have your Africa Twin and you're pretty technical. You're pretty good on that to where you're going to do. You're a true 50-50. You're doing pavement, but you're also doing an equal mix of dirt because you have the skills to do that, right? Or that's what you're doing. Well, then you do need to shift into lighter gear, but you don't want to wear motocross gear. If you wear motocross gear and you're in a 50-50 lifestyle, all that gear is going to melt on the pavement. It's going to shred. It's going to melt. It's going to be too ventilated. You're going to be too cold. You're going to have to layer a lot more because you're too cold in one, you know? So then you have to look for that awesome heavy off-road product. So when you look at gear like what Klim has, right? They have jerseys. They have like a range. Revit too. Revit has like the ultralight jersey and then they have heavy one. And a lot of people complain like, oh, these jerseys are so heavy. So like for Klim, they have a Dakar or they have a Mojave pant and then they have, I think, a Mojave jersey and that's the outfit. Revit has their Territory pant and then they have a few different jerseys. Some of them are a little heavier, but it's because if you look at the descriptions of these jerseys, they have abrasion-resistant fabric. So when you are looking at dirt things and if you notice that there's abrasion-resistant fabrics on your slide zones, then you know for a fact they're designing that jersey for you on your dual sport, on your BDR trip, on your enduro rally or something, you know, where you're going to be doing pavement and dirt because you can't wear motocross stuff on the pavement. So that's also why people complain because they're using their adventure-oriented kind of hybrid off-road gear when they're doing dirt all day. And if you're doing dirt all day, then you really should be wearing more motocross product. Yes, if there's a chance that you're going to go 10% on road, that's where you have to compromise. 10%, if you're literally just crossing the road, you don't need abrasion-resistant gear. But even if you're going to go down the road a mile, if it's only a mile or two, you'll probably be okay. You have to be careful about what you choose and why certain things seem so hot. But it's because you have to have that middle for the people who are not doing true dirt and not doing true pavement. I'll throw you some suggestions. The territory, it's more off than on because there's way more mesh. So it's this really balanced suit where there's a ton of mesh, but you'll see where you slide your hips, your seat, your knees, your elbows, your shoulders, they're reinforced, but it's really light. Because it is a dual-purpose oriented outfit, it is much lighter than wearing your street mesh. The fabrics are different, the materials, but also the placement, because the thought is you're standing a lot and working. So where the mesh is matches how you should be riding. That's probably the alternative, the territory to Klein's Mojave. Let me see if I can find that up. Klein has a Mojave jersey and a Mojave pant, and those are really heavy jerseys. I'm not sure if they have like a true mesh jacket-pant combo for the dual-dual purpose, because induction is a street garment. It is too heavy for the hardcore 70-30-80-20 folks.

Brian: It looks like a lot of the, I think the off-road oriented stuff like this does not come with armor. Usually it has pockets, so you have to buy that.

Joanne: Here's the thing, that territory, there's light level one armor because that's really oriented people to people who are maybe new, maybe you're a beginner, and you're just kind of starting out. You're going to do some 50-50, but you're not out there doing the expert trails. You're going to do some of the easy trails, and maybe you're not wearing a full rooster. You're not going to wear a protection jacket, an armored shirt underneath. So then you use the armor in the shoulders and elbows. However, if you're going to go out on the dirt, you should be wearing a body protector that's right up against your body, because also body protectors are really light. The material is usually like a stretchy, soft, moisture fabric. It's usually a shirt, so when you're sweating, it's not warm, but you don't want to weigh it down with street armor. I would recommend don't use the armor. Let's say you go to the RevZilla Adventure Fest, and you need to throw a jacket on to go downtown to get dinner. Sure, pop your street armor in there, do the five-mile ride. This kind of arrangement is for layering, because also remember, if you're doing more dirt, that means layering. If that implies you're going to layer, you're going to do a body protector, and then a jersey, and then a jacket maybe. You don't want to do your whole day in the dirt with a full Gore-Tex jacket. Unless, say, you're riding around the world, riding from here to South America, and you only have one outfit. Maybe, but I mean as a methodology to gear up, your thought process shouldn't be, I'm going to wear my adventure kit out on the dirt all day at 90-degree heat.

Robin: If you're going to the coffee shop on your shiny Triumph Tiger, then...

Joanne: Yes, that's where you might. But even then, you might want to wear a territory. But every case is different. Every ride is different. But generally, that's what you want to look for. So, if you're shopping out there, remember, abrasion-resistant fabrics implies pavement time. No abrasion-resistant fabrics imply zero pavement.

Robin: Similar banter at higher revs can be found via the GearChick website. Visit GearChick.com and dig in. If you want to ask Joanne anything, the email is help at GearChick.com, and that's G-E-A-R-C-H-I-C.com. So, segment three, Moments in Motorcycle History, which I'm having way too much fun with these topics. This route, Jordan's been wanting to delve into the history of roads for quite some time. Only he could make this interesting. Only he could make this good. Having hit it at the perhaps cliche Route 66 and Highway 80, it's finally time. Let's all kick back, learn something we may or may not already know about how that beautiful mecanum became so.

Jordan: We're talking about roads today. We're getting into roads because up until recently, there weren't any. I just figured because we're going somewhat historically, somewhat sequentially, that we should discuss why we ride on them. If it wasn't for roads, we'd all be riding dirt bikes. Or not at all. Let's just start at the top. The National Road. The history of the National Road goes back to George Washington, he being our first President of the United States of America, and Thomas Jefferson, and a guy named Albert Gallatin, who was Jefferson's Secretary of Treasury. George Washington had lots of land west towards Ohio after the War of Independence, which was not yet a state, and he wanted to have better access to it. Honestly, I wonder if the impetus behind the whole National Road project was in part a ulterior motivation for a few insiders. Not that that ever happens in politics, but the federal funds were used for their personal interests in this case, but they said everybody's going to benefit from it, so they started this project called the National Road. This gentleman, Gallatin, Albert Gallatin, suggested a network of roads and canals to connect the Western Territories, because they were called Western Territories back then in the late 1700s, to the new nation, 13 Colonies, and at the time, the entire project was projected to cost $30,000, which is about $100 million in today's money. It's kind of crazy. The incorporation of Ohio as a state in the Northwest Territory opened up land for sale to citizens, which in turn paid for about one-third of the first phase of this road. The National Road was authorized by Jefferson in 1806 and it opened in 1818 as far as the Ohio River in Wheeling, Virginia. It was also known as the Cumberland Road. Cumberland is right at the western edge of Virginia and the border of Pennsylvania, and there were other paths and whatnot within the state of Virginia, which is where we're talking about, the beginning of this road, but they really wanted to be able to go west. And so George Washington, who had a lot of land in Ohio and further west, wanted to be able to explore his territory. It's like somebody gave you a present, but you can't open it. So the National Road was authorized by Jefferson in 1806 and it opened in 1818 as far as the Ohio River in Wheeling, Virginia, ahead of the dominance of the railroads, which wouldn't have shown up for another 30 years, effectively along the southern border of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Maryland. There are many people that consider Maryland a southern state. And if you consider the Mason-Dixon line, it does bisect a lot of these states. This is a federally funded road that is being developed for trade, travel, and mail, which is becoming a big deal. And it also allowed trade from the west to work its way east and pumped cash into the economy. And in 1825, Congress appropriated an additional $150,000 to reach Zanesville, Ohio. Triple nickel. That's where it is. Eventually, the need to widen the road became apparent because you started getting traffic and you have a one lane road. Whether somebody's coming towards you or passing, somebody's got to get out of the way. So they started widening the road from 9 feet to 18 feet. Now, this road was effectively the McAdam method, right? There was a gentleman in England named McAdam. That's where the word comes from. His name was John McAdam, who invented this type of road. But I would say he probably just altered an existing design because the Roman roads are still out there and they're over 2,000 years old. You could still walk on them, probably drive on them. And they were made in a similar method. But anyways, this McAdam guy developed a type of durable road that had a two inch layer of one inch broken stones, a four inch layer of two to two and a half inch broken stones, subsoil, and then an additional layer of four inch stones and subsoil again. That's the proximate sandwich, which is McAdam. This system, all done by hand. People with hammers taking a rock and saying, that's too big. Let me smash it and make a smaller rock out of it. This is why this kind of construction takes a really long time and it's very expensive. But that's how it was done back in the old days. I mean, we didn't have roads. We had to basically invent it. And this McAdam guy, I don't know if it's a patent or whatever, but not concrete. It's not asphalt. It's compacted, aggregate. Thank you for letting me be able to use the word aggregate. So this is how the construction was done. And this is federal money. By 1833, it got as far as Columbus, Ohio. And by 1838 to Springfield, Ohio, AKA the city at the end of the Pike, they called it. And there's still a tavern there that you can visit called the Pennsylvania House. Two years later, being 1839, 1840, the national road would reach a town called Vandalia, Illinois. It's terminus, its final point. And Vandalia in the 1830s, 1840s was actually the capital of Illinois. Illinois has had three capitals. But what's interesting is that this road terminated in Illinois on the east side of the Mississippi, not so far from this town called St. Louis. So really, we were able to take this road, this national road from Virginia and Maryland, all the way across the eastern states to the middle of the Midwest to the Mississippi. Now, what's the Mississippi good for in the 1800s? Everything. Locks and dams and boats getting things from here to there. Canada all the way down to Mexico. Getting to the Mississippi was a good time to stop and pat everybody on the back and celebrate. But they got that far, right? So Vandalia, Illinois. Okay, so here's the thing. The road bypassed certain towns. It went to Columbus, but it bypassed Dayton and Eaton, Ohio. They were denied the request for the road to go through their cities. And so they privately built, they call it the counterfeit pike, that ran just south of the actual road and later known as the Dayton Cut-Off, now the Dayton Turnpike, which met up with the road in Richmond, Indiana. Lots of shenanigans. So basically, you had the federally mandated road, and then you had a counterfeit road that was basically its equal in quality that ran just south of it and met up at the same exact point so this people could go through these people's towns. And it was done by the state. So there was competition going on. It wasn't sanctioned. They just went ahead and did it. These are roads that you can still ride on today. So the road began in Cumberland, Maryland, and it terminated in Vandalia, Illinois, which is the Illinois capital at the time, not far from St. Louis and the Mississippi, which tied in with the shipping needs. It was completely manual labor, meaning dudes with hammers and shovels, but it was fairly permanent. Once the road was built, it needed maintenance. The federal government delegated maintenance to the states through which the road ran. The states, in turn, installed toll stations about every 20 miles and charged for allowing the transportation of animals, for instance, sheep, hogs, cattle, horses and riders, sleds, sleighs, oxen, and each type of carriage, for instance, dearborn carriages, sulky carriages, chair carriages, a chase, I don't know, French word, with one horse and every additional horse. So just like today, if you go through a toll booth, pulling a trailer with your motorcycle in the back, you're going to get charged an additional amount to pull your vehicle through that toll booth. This started back in the 1830s. One guy riding his horse across the state, they charge you more for somebody with additional horses, additional axles, et cetera. This started back then. So on the national road, we have a new institution called mile markers, and they were installed every single mile, and they were known as milestones because they were made of stone, set on the north side of the road for every mile, as well as distances to the next significant city ahead and behind. The mile marker would tell you what mile you were at and would also tell you approximately how far you were from the next city. Just like we have on the roads today, but now we have big green signs. Back then, they had pyramid-shaped white posts or whatever kind of shape with it chiseled out of the rock and painted that you can see. Of course, you weren't going 75, 85 miles per hour back then. Now on the road, you're going as fast as one horse can pull you. So you have time to stop and take a look and, okay, we're three quarters of a mile from Dayton, Ohio, et cetera. I have a list here that I could probably share to the website. Toll rates in 1838, for every score of sheep and hogs, six cents. Score is 144, I believe. I don't know. Four score, you look it up. You Google that. For every score of sheep or hogs, six cents. For every score of cattle, 12 cents. For every horse and rider, four cents. For every lead or driven horse, mule or ass, three cents. For every sleigh or sled drawn by one horse or pair of oxen, three cents. For every horse or pair of oxen in addition, three cents. For every dearborn sulky chair or chaise, I don't know if that's a French word or not, six cents with one horse. And for every horse in addition, three cents. So that was the going rate back in 1838 to cross these toll booths. And that pays for a road.

Robin: We're going to have some more of that next episode as well. Jordan, always on it. Always a pleasure. Brian, Joanne. And everybody think, what would I like to talk about? Because it's cool and motorcycles and something, something.

Brian: Robin, I think it's time for you and I to reprise a discussion. Oh no. And to delve into the sources of this. This can't be good. One of the things I've really, I've kind of been thinking about is how you develop those mental maps of your environment. When you're wayfinding, when you're routefinding, when you're planning, when you're solving problems on the road, you got five people who are hungry, come across a closed road. You're dealing with all that and so forth. What I think is really interesting is you and I have very different mental maps of the world around us and the roads that go through that world. So there we were at a gas station, nevermind where, and Robin's like, I'm trying to accomplish this, that, and the other. I was like, well, you just take 337, 37, 58, 125, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Robin: I asked a question and you answered a question that nobody asked. A string of numbers. Yeah. I gave you a formula of communication that was receivable, digestible, and you answered with not, I don't want to answer that question, but an answer that was unusable. You knew the goal. You knew what I needed to accomplish. And instead you handed me broken pieces of glass. I said, here, glue this bottle back together. By the way, once you do, it'll have nothing in it. Yeah. Yeah. You want to fight, we'll have a fight. We can make that happen. See you at track day, mister.

Brian: Yeah. I think we just have fundamentally different mental maps of the world. And that is, I think that's going to be fun. So we'll talk about how that works.

Robin: This is an opportunity, Joanne. If you're just sitting there, you take a breath and you think, okay, well, what am I hearing? And where am I in this conversation? That is entirely up to you. What is something that this discussion inspires in you that you might like to talk about on your terms, on your podium next episode?

Joanne: Rides that you planned to be one thing, but turned out to be a completely different thing. Unpredictable, had no idea, but turned out to be great. What actually comes out of it is something really amazing. Because a lot of us are, we worry about, well, what if the stop isn't right? What if I don't get there in time? You know, what if I don't have a hotel room? What if things go wrong? The things go wrong, but it's still amazing.

Robin: I like it. I have a question for you. When I arrive at a situation, which motorcycle-based GPS is going to get me out of that situation with the most ease? I need gas. Let's go find gas right now. My BMW Navigator 4, here's an abandoned gas station, and you can buy your meth next door.

Joanne: I really like the new Zubo that I have, the XT2. You heard it here. Are you guys ready to get out of here?

Jordan: Yep.

Robin: Let's get out of here.