Brian: In this episode, we'll catch up on real life, both the good and the bad. We'll wish we were at the really big shoes. We'll find out how to spend way too much money on an old helmet without even getting a new helmet out of it. And have what I hope is an interesting chat about field fixery.

Robin: Excellent topic. In fact, the timing is good on so many levels that I can fade in and out of as we go. So what are the announcements that we have here? What do you have to announce? Well, first off, it's not time yet. It may be happening right when this episode gets out. But happy birthday, Joanne Don of GearChick.com. She is turning 31 or maybe 41 or maybe 81, but nobody gets to know. And that's not what matters. What matters is a celebration of her being awesome. Happy birthday, Joanne. Great. Big shout out to Linger Coffee Company. For those of you who remember the one and only Armin A. Piper, podcast host emeritus, she is still out there kicking ass, full fury. So is clutch motorcycle training and all of her motorcycle school related activities. She and the fam just invested right off the cuff, shooting from the hip. They bought a cafe. They've given it the name Linger Coffee Company. And they're just getting started. So if you Google Linger Coffee Company right now, they're really just on social media at the moment. They got a Facebook page. I'm pretty sure. I know they got an Instagram thing going on, all that kind of stuff. Make sure you check them out. We're really happy for, I just think it's really cool that they're always exploring new business opportunities as it were. This is in Colorado. In Colorado. Says right here, Linger is more than just a coffee shop. It's a place to pause, connect, and stay a while. Whether you're catching up with neighbors, sharing stories with friends, or finding a quiet corner to settle in, this space is built for community. Good stuff. Congratulations. Other news. We are back on Pandora, because goodbye, Cloudflare. Now I got this in my notes for announcements. I'll say this now, but I'm also going to say that it's something we should talk about next episode. Officially, there is a CB1000GT. Yes. We will look at it. I'll investigate the specs. I'll explore the motor. We'll talk about the ergonomics. It's a tolerator with some pretty decent luggage. Yeah.

Brian: Related to that, EICMA, the big motorcycle show. There's a lot of new stuff being launched there that I really want to talk about sometime, but there's just no information yet. Here's a picture the manufacturer gave us.

Robin: He may have cured what ails me then. If we can stack and blend that into a great outlook of what is coming for future riding, that could be a lot of fun. What do you got going on, Brian?

Brian: Yeah, the Wish You Were Here, the Pink Floyd song with the dull string, cue that up. SEMA in Vegas. I've always wanted to go to that. One of these days, I'll maybe get there, except it's in Las Vegas. I really hate Las Vegas. It's a huge automotive aftermarket show. Pretty much anybody who's making parts, anybody who's making tools, anybody who's anybody is there. They have a booth. Harbor Freight has six booths. It'd be just a really fun show to go to. Right now, all the YouTubers are generating hours upon hours of content with a capital C. Can't wait. In Milan, Italy, I think it's pretty much the biggest motorcycle industry trade show ever on the planet every year. It's where everybody announces their new models. Everybody's there. I think it's also damn near the only motorcycle show left on the planet.

Robin: I miss the US. The International Motorcycle Show.

Brian: I do miss that quite a bit. Yeah, there used to be a lot more. There used to be a trade show that came to Indianapolis every year that was really cool. If you could somehow get an invite into it, it was industry only, power sports industry, but it was a lot of fun. Again, news is still blasting out. People are figuring out what it means, figuring out what's there. They're figuring out what's real is one thing because everybody brings their little mock up of the bike. Here's a rendering and you can't tell if it's a real image, that kind of thing. Anyway, there's still a lot of that going on at the moment. A couple of things that really caught my eye are Zero has a new electric scooter, which I think is really interesting. There's a link there in the show notes. I think electric two-wheelers, electric motorcycles are going to come from the bottom up. We talked about this before because electric bicycles are hugely popular and I think that's starting to trickle up, electric scooters. Then finally, there are electric scooters from all these sketchy holy fook brands on Amazon. Getting an electric scooter from a major brand of known quality, Zero's killing it. They're doing a great job with it. It looks great. I think it's going to do well. And then Royal Enfield started up a new brand for small electric motorcycles called Flying Flea, which is just adorable. It's a cool looking ride. I guess they have plans on a bunch of them. Royal Enfield is not small and they are doing well. They have the chops. They have the money. They have the resources to make this happen and do it right. They obviously have a huge built-in market right there in India, so that's going to be real interesting.

Robin: All right. I'm going to tell you right now, you've set us up for success for the next episode for sure because I'm now looking at the Cycleworld listings of every bike. Between now and next recording, I'm going to go through all of these and I will skip anything that I'm just not interested in and I will discuss only that which catches my eye.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: I invite you to do the same and we'll see where we line up.

Brian: Yeah, we'll do this independently. The CB1000GT, that's on the list. That's a brand new release from Honda. Robin has opinions already. And Suzuki, and nobody knew this was coming, but I guess, I don't know, is the SV7GX, which is basically an SV650. The image I see is basically a tall rounder, so not quite a V-Strom. So supposedly, I guess it's 17-inch front and rear cast wheels, which is a little different than a V-Strom. I'm going to hope and assume that everybody and their dog makes luggage for the V-Strom. That's the thing that's missing from this image that we see of this supposed new Suzuki.

Robin: If it's the same subframe, that'd be kind of cool, right? Just the same tailpiece?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah, it's got like a tail platform, so it's set up for a tail bag. Obviously, GEV will figure out how to get bags on this thing, or maybe Suzuki will sell them. Yeah. It'll be interesting. It's funny, there's a rendering. The bike's just there in space with no kickstand or no wires holding it up or anything.

Robin: Yeah, there's a little emblem down there, and it says AI-generated image. Oh, no, kidding, kidding, kidding.

Brian: Here's a bike we might build. So, yeah, I don't see anything about luggage, although, well, there is one picture where they show one with luggage on it, so I don't know. That's intriguing, like a small engine. This is the V-Twin engine. It's not the Gixator engine that's in your bike and in the new V-Strom. This is the V that's been in the SV and the old V-Strom, like it's in Maggie's bike. So that's intriguing to have a kind of a lighter weight, smaller more nimble sport tour.

Robin: It's interesting. I'm going back far in their listings, and they actually, this is an ongoing catalog of new bikes until all of a sudden it's like, wait, that's a present bike, and then you're looking at 2023. Yeah. So once you get to page seven, they're just stacking it, which I think is not a bad way to do it. At least you know when to stop.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah, so pretty interesting stuff there. We'll talk about that next time when there's more information available.

Robin: Oh, it's a preloaded discussion. You've already taken over my interest in the next discussion points, and it will be exactly this.

Brian: So yeah, I replaced the cheek pads. So this whole cheek pad neck roll assembly in my AGV K6 helmet was like part of it was coming apart. So I had to bite the bullet, and the only place that had it was the factory. Really? It was a disgusting amount of money to get one here in my hands. What do they do to you? All right, it's a $600 helmet, $550 to $600 helmet. And so basically, this is the part that goes around your neck and up the side of your head. Just that part is $150 on your doorstep. And then there's also the rest of the liner is kind of a cap that goes on top of your head. It snaps into the helmet. A new one of those is $80. $80. Oh, my God.

Robin: I don't know what happened. I've got the Arai Regent X, a perfect fit for me. I think at one point I had pulled the felts, and when I reassembled it, I didn't do it right because it was like a little bit... My ears were disturbed, like my earlobes. If I rode for about an hour, my ears would be sore. And I was like, oh, it's probably because I'm wearing earbuds, or it's probably because I've run wire from my sena. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I washed them again and put them together logically, and immediately now the helmet feels perfect. So there's always that option to pull the felts, wash them, let them settle in, see if that changes anything. But you were saying they're pretty decrepit. When you put the helmet on, does the helmet climb back off?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Do you hear it crying in agony? No, it really wasn't that. It was basically there was a seam on it that kind of popped open.

Robin: Okay.

Brian: Yeah, it was getting a little heinous. I mean, the helmet's a couple of years old. I think it's two years old, maybe. The little seam on it popped open, and I couldn't really see a good way to sew it shut again. And that's the kind of fun thing is you can renew a helmet, and it really honestly feels new. But I think that's just ridiculous. So does Arai and Shoei parts, do they cost that much, too? I mean, is that... Yeah, a face shield on this thing is $100.

Robin: Yeah, I think I paid $75 for the sun visor version of my shield, which I will never prefer an interior sun shield. Again, the exterior sun shield is just... The way.

Brian: The way. Yeah, and AGV helmets, or at least on the K6, they're top of the line. It's a great helmet. It's very light, yada, yada. But yeah, a clear face shield is $100, and it's 120 to 140 tinted. I don't know. Money, money, money, money! Whatever finally got to do it. I'm fixing some crap on my van because I have to live with it a little more in the next few months, you know, because winter, whatever.

Robin: I'll edit that out. You've already gotten into the interesting stuff. Then you bring in a minivan. Let's move on to listener questions or questions from the wild. If you would like us to field your questions in your web browser, visit email.tro.bike and send us a message. AS asks a simple question, and we got a simple answer. Well, maybe not that simple. Be honest. Y'all actually buy a new helmets every five years? Yeah.

Brian: Yep. About every three years, actually.

Robin: Pretty much. I got to watch the windfall, but once we reach the three-year mark, I start really dialing in and being like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. And opportunity knocks, boom. Buy when you can. I'll put it this way.

Brian: Yo, bro. You ride, bro. About three years, it's not a happy place in there if you ride a lot. And I actually rotate between, I've got a dual sport helmet I use on the KLR just because you got to look right. And I've got my AGV K6 that I use everywhere, you know, on my street bikes. So I'm rotating back and forth, but I'm in them daily and it's just, yeah, they wear out and they're not a happy place in there after about three years for me. You know, if you don't ride much, do you have to replace it at five years like the manufacturers want you to? If you do track days, hell yeah, you do. Yeah. They will look. And if your helmet is not within the last five years, at least for where we go, they'll tell you to go sit down. Please enjoy the observed track day. You'd be a very sad panda. So yeah, if you're doing track days, you definitely have to replace them. If the helmet hits the ground with your head in it, you got to replace it. At about three years, it's pretty gamey. Even if I take the pads out and wash them and things get kind of squished. MD asks, which shop vice should I buy? I think if you ride motorcycles, if you're a motorcyclist, the only choice in a vice that you should have in your shop is called a multipurpose vice, where the dynamic jaw, which is the part that moves, that goes in and out is basically a round piece that goes in and out. And you can loosen these little set screws and it can rotate around. You have the normal jaws and or you can spin those around any angle or you can spin it so that there are these pipe jaws on that are normally on the bottom so you can hold things that are round. That's perfect for working with motorcycle forks.

Robin: For any of you who travel the way my wife and I do, meaning full-time RV style going to where the roads are. One solution for this is a bicycle stand. It is a workable solution that is very similar in behavior to a multi-use multipurpose vice. So you basically have a large clamp. You can hold your fork tubes in it. You can adjust, spin, rotate, do all the things. The leverage isn't the same for that. You might need something a little more robust, or you might need to go to a shop and just be like, Hey, you mind if I borrow a blah, blah, blah. But it does do the job, especially in terms of tubular work.

Brian: Yeah. Fork oil changes for sure. Fork oil splattering on the floor exercises. Yeah. It's what we do around here. Yeah. If you're a home shop, you know, obviously a multipurpose vice, you can use it for a lot of other things as well. You can beat on it and squeeze things and pinch and whatever. So yeah, I thought it was an interesting question. I'm like, yeah, there's, there's one answer basically. If you ride motorcycles or as Robin pointed out, if you ride motorcycles and you don't want to haul around a hundred pounds of cast iron, hold it to your trailer, then there's an alternative, you know, another way to hold the tubular items. Cause that's kind of the hard part about doing forks. You know, you just have to hold the damn things for a while and let them drip.

Robin: And Brian has in his notes here, the Doyle at Harbor Freight, which looks pretty solid. That is a table bolt down, fully rotational, 360 degrees of turnage. Good looking vice. And then you mentioned the Chinese Wilton, which is similar, a little bit less robust.

Brian: Yeah. It doesn't look quite. Yeah. It doesn't look quite as robust. The Doyle's very well finished. They come in different sizes. I think, I think you'd want like a five inch or bigger. And mine is just some no name that I don't even remember where it came from. So it's, it's worked for 25, 30 years. You don't have to get too precious with this.

Robin: Again, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser and send us a message via the contact form, especially cause I'm about this close to getting rid of email at tro.bike. We keep getting, hello, I would like to talk about partner post at website. That is interesting to me. Parentheses tro.com bike dot. How much do you charge for article? Again, as with last episode, it's $5,000. Or if you go to right.tro.bike in your web browser, it's free. You choose $5,000 or free.

Brian: We'll take either. Let's talk about segment one. I'm calling this fabulous fields of fixery. We've talked a lot about mechanical issues. You know what you need to carry on your bike. We've talked about tools. Robin and I both have some good articles on tro.bike on tools. Slap in tools and you can get lists. You can get an overall philosophy. You can absorb just way too much. Part of what we're talking about here is kind of that overall attitude of problem solving on the road. Abstract thought. Abstract thought is part of it. You have things like you have problems with gear. Your waterproof gear is not. A boot sole comes off. Glove blowouts. There are other things that can happen like problems with the person. Someone is sick. Someone gets something in their eye. Someone has a booboo on their little thingy. And we talked a little bit about that too. You need to carry. We talked about first aid kits. We talked about some of the things you need to carry. And then there are other things like I think the fall into logistics. I've seen this happen. These are things that happen almost daily as you're running a tour, Robin.

Robin: Well, yeah, it always something is not right. Yeah, everything falls into logistics. It doesn't matter if it's pre-planning that failed or mid-ride situations that find us. Logistics are always the shadow of the ride. Yeah, they are chasing you everywhere you go. And sometimes that shadow can get ahead of you. One thing that I have become good at over the years is making sure that the bulk of anything that I bring with me on a motorcycle tour can be repurposed in some direction. It's either dual use or multipurpose in some extent. I mean, if we want to exaggerate that, that freaking Leatherman wave is just, you know, opening garage doors all over America. But the first thing that I saw in the notes was like, you know, when you talk about like the boot soles or the cold weather, I was thinking about stuff I haven't done and was wondering about like, oh, I wonder if bringing a garbage bag. And then I realized that way, one thing I have on our packing list is a variety of sized Ziploc bags all the way up to the gallons. You have two gallon Ziploc bags. And in those gallons, Ziploc bags, you can carry things. But let's say that you've got leaky boots. Let's say you are cold. Then those Ziploc bags are immediately dump everything out of them back into your bags. Put those over your socks into your boots. You have just solved a major problem for a good long while of riding. Yeah, it's a very small thing. It's very cheap and it's certainly not good for the world. But the fact of the matter is, is that it solves a problem. Yeah. And everything you have that is intended for one thing should solve things that they were not intended for. And I imagine we're going to get pretty heavy into this. Go on.

Brian: Yeah. And also things like, you know, like a grocery bag from Walmart would serve. Okay, my boots leaking. I'm going to stick my foot in this grocery bag from Walmart. And then when I take my boot off later, I'm going to be outside because it's going to be like a mushroom cloud out there. But anyway. Yeah. I have a roll of duct tape. It's a travel roll of gorilla tape.

Robin: Fluorescent orange. I have the same duct tape.

Brian: So, you know where the problem was. So yeah, someone falls down in the bathroom at the gas station. You got your duct tape. You got your Ziploc bag. You grab some ice out of the Coke cooler. You got yourself a cold pack. Keep moving. You know, that kind of attitude. It's a little bit like I read the book, The Martian, Andy Weir. And I saw the movie, you know, a lot of people have seen the movie. It's a great movie. Very faithful to the book. Science the shit out of it. You science the shit out of it. He never, well, he gets upset, but he always, he keeps working the problem. Keeps working the problem. Keeps working the problem. You can do that in a lot of things. You know, whether it's a social problem, you know, you have somebody who's didn't get enough sleep or drank too much the night before. Like one of those problems, sometimes you have to solve is somebody not writing very well. You may have to have a conversation with them. That kind of thing. You had a whole story about what happened when the drive shaft in your BMW took a dump. That's not something you can fix on the road. And so you leapt into action. You work the phones, you leaned on your community, phone a friend, you know, this, this whole machinery happened.

Robin: Dialing in the distance between the resources, figuring out the radar, understanding your surroundings. Yeah. And also learning everything you might want to know about how your insurance companies can fail you. Ha ha ha. Getting a bike towed is not a matter of getting some guy to drag it to a location. There's a whole process. I just reread that article recently in Ramadan and was happy with the fact that throughout that article, I'm telling anybody reading it, let's take a break here. What is your status? How much phone charge do you have? Do you understand where you're, where you are? Here's the thing of it. And I see so many great ingredients in these notes that cater to this. I am guilty of what you're about to hear. If there's a situation with the bike, I can usually get through it or resolve it. If it's not too, that was a huge mechanical situation with the shaft on the beaver. That one's going to fix itself. Fluorescent duct tape has no place in this situation. Yeah, there's no, there's little ones like, you know, broken levers or, uh, you know, a chain fix. There are some things that you can get by on. So long as you slow your role. The thing I will admit guilt to is I don't know if I can change this this late in my life. The instant there's an issue, the first thing that happens is you lean beyond it. You don't want the problem to exist. No. So you keep thinking about getting it fixed. Let's say it doesn't exist anymore. It's fixed. And no, you got to deal with it. Just calm down. Take a deep breath and focus on which components of my bike can be transferred from that location and turned into a solution so that I can just carry on and fix it later. Yeah. There's an art form to this. Brian can paint you a Rembrandt in these solutions.

Brian: Yeah. Like, I mean, a while back we brought this up and it, like, I, I usually carry a clutch cable and I think you do too. That's a, that's a common failure point. But even if you don't have a clutch cable, you can unwind part of the housing of the clutch cable. You know, basically there are ways to make a clutch cable work that is snapped off at the lever. Like they usually do that kind of thing. And things like broken levers, things like, um, you know, having vice grips that you can do a million things with. You can, uh, vice grips can be a shift lever. They can be a clutch lever. They can be a brake lever. They can be a shifter.

Robin: I saw this recently. I don't know if it was Instagram, but same with some of the tools that are under your seat. One of the wrenches can basically be a perfect fit as a clutch lever. What would really suck if it's the exact wrench that would remove the bolt, they would allow it to be a clutch lever because then you've got to, you know, it becomes Schrodinger's wrench.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Like zip ties and duct tape, for example. And it's almost a joke, but it is true. Zip ties, duct tape, multi-tool, vice grips for bike problems. These are some of the materials you need. And I've even done stuff like I'll scrounge around and take a piece of a wire fence and use that. I do carry a little roll of safety wire, like, you know, rummage around in the ditch. If you need a piece of metal and there'll be an aluminum can. And I've done things like that. Oh, I need to make a shim, that kind of thing. I've done things like pull a bolt from the passenger peg I'm not using and use that to replace something that fell out on the brake caliper, that kind of thing.

Robin: Some of that is straight out of zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance, especially with the shims. He ran into a person in need of help, helped him with a beer can. And the guy was like, well, that's not stock. I have to, I'm going to have to replace that immediately. Like, you know.

Brian: I need to go to a dealer. Yeah. I remember that part of it. Yeah. The book had something to do with motorcycles, but not much.

Robin: One I noticed was when the lamination on rain covers for a friend's soft bags began to just shred. As they do. As they do. Well, first off, buy dry bags that go into that luggage. Don't do the reversal of that process. It's a proven fail point that it just, you know.

Brian: Never works.

Robin: Get yourself dry bags, use the dry bags inside your luggage. Yeah. The luggage I bought came with dry bags for this exact purpose. Let's say you're dealing with that rain sheath. Okay. You can use cargo straps to hold everything in place. That is a little fix it that we discovered. It's like, oh yeah. Just basically brace the material against the luggage itself. And it'll hold a lot better.

Brian: Yeah. And stuff like I've packed inside of soft bags. I just use regular old, ordinary trash bags. Stuff goes in the trash bag, trash bag goes in, and then it doesn't get wet. You just let it get soaked. That kind of thing.

Robin: The mindset, if you aren't a wrench or you're not a problem solver, what are you going to do? Are you going to sit there and look at the bike and go, well, I guess we're fucked. I guess I'll go cut my arms so that the wolves can smell the blood. Let's get to that. Let's go ahead and make that happen. Yeah. That's not an answer. If you stare at something long enough, you're going to realize, well, that bolt's barely holding anything together. I may as well use that to solve the problem kind of situation. Right? Yeah.

Brian: The Mark Watney, Martian style problem solving, keep working the problem, that kind of thing. Obviously you need some things with you. You need some first aid supplies to deal with basic common problems. You need some supplies. You need some tools to deal with bike problems. And also mindset, your interpersonal skills are a tool. Let's say you show up and your reservation is not in the system and you've got six people to find rooms for, Robin. You know what? So those kinds of things. And another thing is resources, money. There are times when I've used a little money or sometimes, unfortunately, a lot of money to solve a problem that had to be solved, or else we're just going to be sleeping out of here in the parking lot underneath our bikes. Even little things like I'm cold. I'm going to stop at a Walmart or even a Goodwill and I'm going to buy a sweatshirt. Use your environment, but also interpersonal skills. Motorcyclists are a very tight knit community. You know, phone a friend always works. Robin's used that. I've used that. It doesn't always work, but maybe you feel better. I don't know. But there've been times like where a friend of mine, it's a very long story, transmission locked up outside of a farmhouse. Left like a 200 foot streak of rubber on the road and left an even worse streak in his underwear, I'm sure. But anyway, we dragged the bike over to a shed and we're like, well, now what? Anyway, we knocked on the door and the person there was extremely nice and said, hey, no problem. We left the bike there until we were able to come back in a couple of days and come and get it, that kind of thing. Work your environment. Use your interpersonal skills. Don't just sit there by yourself. Pool your resources. The cool thing about dual sport riding with the guys I ride with is we all have KLR650s or most of us. We've got at least three KLRs so we can kind of distribute what we carry and do that kind of thing. And the same thing goes, problems with your body, with somebody's sick, whatever, and things like if you're riding in a group and someone's sick or they need to get back, someone can go with them. Don't go alone, that kind of thing. Lean on each other more. Be willing to do that. I think a lot of people get this lone wolf thing and I have to solve everything or I am the leader of the ride and I have to solve this. I've done that too. Like I'm leading the ride and there's something and we need to deal with it. And then I'm thinking of solutions. And by that time, these two guys over here are like, oh, we'll go do this and we'll solve it that way.

Robin: Part of what you're talking about would steer me into the topic of offline maps. You use your phone, you got to be careful with that because you got to have a cell. No, I don't. I do not. I do not need a cell connection to make use of my phone as a GPS unit. But the real trick is to make sure that you have some, whatever the built-in compass is going to do, it should be able to access some information that's already in place that can then be used to alleviate a situation. In the case of rerouting, it's a big one. It's just like, oh, look, there's an adjunct road. Hell, oh, look at that. The sign literally says detour. Take the adjunct road. You know, most of the time the problem is self-solving. But it's always good to just have what is necessary so that when you look down, there's something to look for.

Brian: Yeah, like if I'm in India and I don't care, I can find my way home. But yeah, but like on a long trip, I'll actually... I pack my last phone, like if something goes wrong with my primary phone, I'll pull my other phone out and it's got the same app and everything on it already, fired up, and I can use it as a GPS. It's a potato, it's not a phone, but I can use it as a GPS. Yes, and even things like, I normally, I don't always do this, I really should be a little more careful about it, but I will at least have a state map. Like if I'm in Missouri, I'm not familiar with Missouri, I'll at least have a state map, you know, some way to get back to the hotel, some way to orient yourself, you know, it's preparation is part of it.

Robin: And at the very least, you can decide whether or not that's a priority. There are times when you and I will say these things, but I'll honestly be like, well, yeah, I'm just not in the mood. I'm not going to take a state map with me, you know, but the fact is that the thought comes to mind and you can always list it out as, oh, this time around, I know I'm going to the rural Kentucky blending into North Carolina or Tennessee at this hour, maybe I better have something.

Brian: The time to buy a state map is not when you're in that state, because everybody in the state already knows where they are. And you know, state maps are not incredibly useful, you know, they're very macro. I've seen people get very focused on what they have on their bike or in their pockets. There's a whole world out there, forage, you know, look for resources. There's stuff you can, and we've talked about this before stuff you can buy at Walmart that's useful. Like if you've got a hole in your gear, like you, not that you fell down on your bike, but you know, you, you trip coming out of the bathroom and the restroom and you tore a hole in the knee of your gear. Well, go to Walmart, get a tent patch. It's a piece of sticky nylon patch it on there. You're done.

Robin: You know, oftentimes it's Kevlar. You can get two Kevlar patches that have high adhesive to one another, put that on the interior and exterior of the hole and seal the adhesive against itself. And it will become tougher than the original fabric you bought.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. There's stuff like that. Or Walmart bags, if your feet are cold, you know, that kind of thing. Farm stores. Like if you have a glove blowout, you know, go to a farm store or any hardware store or whatever, at least get some work, get something on your paws. It doesn't have, you know, the other thing I've seen is people get really panicked over making sure things are perfect. And it's like, well, you, you can keep moving when things are not perfect. You can keep going down the road with work gloves on you bought at a farm store. That's one of those things. Perfect can be the enemy of good. You know, there there's, there's good enough to get down the road. There's okay. I'm shifting with a pair of ice grips instead of my shifter. That kind of brings you to the last part of it is just that attitude. It's like, it's part of the adventure. It's going to make a good story later. You know, that sense of panic, you can't give into that.

Robin: There's a limit to the fun, depending on if the person simply didn't prepare at all. And now they are an anchor. What are the steps? For example, in the case of my R 1200 RS, when the shaft blew out, that was on a four lane highway in the middle of pretty much nothing, but it was a main road. Even if there were limits to what steps I could try to think through to solve the problem, the point is that there were steps, even in the most remote moments, it's like, okay, well, what am I going to do? If you're in a position to solve a problem, depending on your access. I mean, if you see an auto zone or an O'Reilly's, you're probably going to be able to solve your problem or God forbid a hardware store. I mean, when you're out there and you've got friends with, and you, Oh, look at that. We're all on metric bikes. Oh, look at that. You're not actually using your luggage this round, but your rack is there. And there's a detachable bar, all the screws that bolt fits. We've got some cable here. These are the proactive motions to take that lead towards being at least ride able, maybe with the right crowd writing for the remainder of the rally with zero problems. In fact, you're going home and realizing this is a better solution and you're going to upgrade your bike to this. You know what I mean? This life hack, this one weird trick, as they say, one weird trick. Yeah. I would like to hear your take on this. And like a bit of self-awareness is key. You run into a situation, you have to get innovative. How do you navigate the rabbit hole of what will versus won't work to get the bike to where you are either moving again, or you are at least going to be safe and sound. I've got my version. You've got yours.

Brian: Basically, you start with triage. You know, what are your priorities? Safety. Obviously, you're on a four lane highway, get the hell off the highway and as far away as you can, that kind of thing. Your ideal is to spend like 30 seconds and chuckle to yourself at, and, oh, silly, you know, click, click, and then you leave again. Well, that's not going to happen always. A big part of it is again, not panicking, working the problem, looking at it logically, and prioritizing. First, I need to get it safe. I need to get everybody safe. Secondly, we need to figure out, okay, what, what happened? What is it? What is it? And then figure out what do we have? What are our resources? What can we get? What can we do about this? What's it going to take to get there? You know, things like a mutual friend who was, you know, I think he fell in a ditch or something. And then we, oh, when the bike was upside down, somebody noticed, oh, there's a white stripe around the tires.

Robin: They did a donut. Then they went down because they did a donut in the grass. And then as they took off, I noticed that there was a piece of duct tape on the back of their tire. And lo and behold, that duct tape was belts.

Brian: Belts, yeah. The immediate problem, well, okay, picked them up, dust them off. Okay, you're good. Let's go. The neat thing about what happened there was there was a convergence of four or five people who all ended up conspiring and using the tools they had at hand, which I think it involves cell phones, it involved rapid thinking.

Robin: Oh, yeah. The first thing was like zippo lighters, the cell phones came out just, chick-chick-chick, chick-chick-chick. Everybody's calling a different place, some of them, it's a busy signal. That's because I'm calling them right now and I'm on the phone with them already. First step, tire.

Brian: First step yeah, get a tire. Yeah and then, and then resources like money had to come out. So, he had to, he had to cough up a credit card, if I remember right, paid for the tire and The dealer put the tire outside the back door and then there was a whole thing picked up the tire and then there were people with tire irons and this whole village just boom, bam, bomb, you know, problem was gone a few hours later.

Robin: Nobody had tire spoons, I don't think. So breaking the bead, we didn't have a Brian Ringer method to break the bead. So we used the weight of a motorcycle trailer, the hitch point to drop onto the, just pop the bead right off. No problem. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. It was like that whole thing was just a beautiful example. Okay. Work the problem. Everybody got laser focused and he didn't get like all like panicked about it either. Okay. This is happening. This is what we're doing. You know, this is a priority, no problem. And the problem was solved by, you know, seven o'clock that night.

Robin: Well, in that person's favor, they don't really get panicky about anything. That person is extremely chill. There's another thing to it though. If you're by yourself and you still have all these resources, moderation is a very nice thing. The fact that there was even distribution, when you're traveling in a group and you can get everybody on the same page, even if you're the one person who knows how to do everything that's about to be done, if you can get a group of people on the same page about the order of what you're going to be doing, the delegation, the moderation of all the effort, that's a way easier situation than if you're on your own. If you are on your own and you just watch your pace, it's going to get done. You might have a little bit more sweat on your brow, a cut or two on a finger, but if you have the same resources, all of these things can be done solo.

Brian: One of the things you mentioned was pacing. There's something really neat in the world of adventure riding, which I hate the term, but like dual sport riding, it's half a joke and it's half absolute God's honest truth is the first thing you do is take a picture of your upside down bike and the reason it makes a good story. That's great. And you can point it and you can laugh at it. But the main thing it does is it forces you to do two things. It forces you to slow down and instead of getting angry and going all Hulk smash and picking up your bike and not realizing your wrist is broken or whatever, it makes you slow down. And it also helps you like think positively. You think in the future and you take yourself out of the moment just a little bit to think, oh, this will make a great picture to put on the website. And so everybody can laugh at me and we can all laugh together. Uh, here's my bike. It got sleepy. So the first thing you do, if you fall over off road is you take a picture, forces you to do a self inventory. It forces you to slow down. It forces you to have a good attitude. Just that little simple thing actually does several things to help you actually solve the problem. And then you can figure out, okay, how do I get the bike upright? It's like the first thing you do, no matter what is slow down, think through what you need to happen, start working the problem. If you just start yanking and I don't know, you know, the, this thing quit and they start taking it apart without actually stopping to think what actually happened, you know, I did that once I came out, my bike, I came out of the hotel and my bike wouldn't start. I had like half of the side of the bike apart before someone walked up and pointed out, Hey, dumb ass, your kill switch is off by kill switch.

Robin: Brian means cutoff switch because we don't kill anything in this class. Oh, wait, this is not an MSF course. All right. So you left the kill switch on.

Brian: So I left the kill switch on and a kickstand was down anyway. I don't use it. And somebody had turned it off probably as a slight prank. And I panicked. I had half the bike apart before looking for electrical problems.

Robin: The calm of working the problem can be easier said than done. And I'm a living representation of that. I was just at the mailroom at the park we're in right now, went up there to get my two tires. I'm supposed to have three by the way, but I got two of them. And a box full of baked goods that Maggie had. And I was on the scooter. I know that I've hauled all of these things on the scooter before, but now I've got the top case. And as a result, the tires didn't want to fit and I get on the bike and then they fall off. The baked goods don't want to go and fit. It's like, what am I, one thing cannot go. So what did I do? I'll tell you what I did, Brian. I re-engineered the structural layout of the baked goods until it was basically shaped like a giant cardboard ball and then shoved it into the space on the bike, and then I leaned up against the tires. It's difficult to gauge the patience required to start working the problem. One thing I'll tell you, pain does not help. I definitely have chronic neck and shoulder pain that can create migraines. So when you are stuck and you are observing a problem, the solution doesn't always find you as easily if you're in physical pain, you have to find balance and just be like, okay, one thing at a time, let time go by. That's the first rule. If you're me, if you are a hothead, yeah.

Brian: Let some time happen. Yeah.

Robin: If you're a hothead, if you're easily frustrated, if you are quick to Hulk smash anything, you're going to have to just slow down to a ballad and just, okay, I'm going to turn this bolt. Even if you don't know your solution yet, it's going to have to be a calm moment before you start trying to.

Brian: And I've actually mentioned this before, but one of the, one of the important things to do, get out of the middle of the four lane highway, don't try to resort out of shift lever or whatever.

Robin: Rebuild your transmission on the white line.

Brian: Yeah. I need to check my piston pin in clearances. Yeah. Get the hell out of the road. That kind of thing. Put on some sunscreen. If you're me and you're part of the pale force, get a hat on, maybe push the bike into some shade, get comfortable, you know, take a dirty t-shirt out and put it down so you can kneel down on it or sit on it. You see the same thing when people are over their head, when they're, when they're learning a new skill or writing and they get really tense and they get that death grip on the bars. Same thing happens when you're dealing with something new or unexpected, uh, mechanically or logistically or whatever, people get physically tense. They get in these weird postures. They're in pain or in the sun there. So a lot of times, yeah. You're trying to figure out a route and it's like, Hey, let's go over into this tree instead of the direct sunlight next to this dead possum, let's go over here and fix it or figure it out. It works wonders. Yeah. Very good.

Robin: Do you feel like preparing for the next episode? Cause I think I have a topic now. We're going to talk about the new bikes, aren't we? Yeah, I just think that's a really great plan. Dimmed their motorcycles. Let's you and I read through that list of bikes and see if we can dig around a little bit more. Independent of one another, see what catches our eye, see what peaks our interest, excellent. See what we predict about the generations and how many parts and whatever we'll be able to get if we were to make such an investment and discuss what to anticipate in the 2026 line. Sounds good to me. Let's get out of here.

Brian: See ya.