WEBVTT

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Brian Wringer: In this episode, we sit down with Bill Hawkins, author of The Burrito.

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Brian Wringer: And speaking of tasty things, Brian's tiny tasty tooltips, The Thread Files Part 2, will ensue.

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Brian Wringer: And a random discussion from our alliteration grab baguette.

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Brian Wringer: Not even we know what that will be.

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Brian Wringer: Opening announcements, news, corrections, and banter. Robin, what you got?

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Robin Dean: Random song of the minute. If you want to hear our random songs of the minute,

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Robin Dean: visit radio.tro.bike in your web browser.

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Robin Dean: My wife, Maggie Dean, and I are celebrating our anniversary,

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Robin Dean: 21st anniversary this weekend.

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Robin Dean: So this one goes out to her. It's Wonderful by Adam Ant, which is a great song.

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Robin Dean: And as Brian says, a very brave, confident opening falsetto.

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Brian Wringer: Nice. All together now. Aw. Nice. Congratulations.

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Robin Dean: Thank you very much. Also, Wendell Berry passed, a Kentucky poet and writer.

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Robin Dean: I actually was not very familiar, but a friend posted this incredible series

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Robin Dean: of words that are strapped together eloquently, and I wanted to read it because

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Robin Dean: I think it suits the convo quite well.

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Robin Dean: So rest in peace, Wendell Berry. This is a warning to my readers and our listeners.

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Robin Dean: Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness or elegant,

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Robin Dean: because I honor the grace that keeps this world.

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Robin Dean: I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn,

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Robin Dean: angry, full of fits and theories.

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Robin Dean: That I may have spoken well at times is not natural. A wonder is what it is.

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Robin Dean: And again, that's Wendell Berry, a warning to my readers from the selected poems

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Robin Dean: of Wendell Berry. Be sure and check it out. Rest in peace.

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Brian Wringer: Nice.

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Robin Dean: In the news,

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Brian Wringer: I'll read the first one, because it touches on something that I...

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Robin Dean: Go for it. Do it up.

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Brian Wringer: It touches a nerve. All right. KTM's 1390 Super Adventure gets a four-channel

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Brian Wringer: CAN bus accessory manager. What?

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Brian Wringer: So, hexes 222 quid, whatever that is in dollary-dos.

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Brian Wringer: Easy CAN Ordos connects to the 2026 and newer KTM,

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Brian Wringer: 1390 Super Adventure CAN bus and gives four high-power channels of digital fuse

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Brian Wringer: protection and lets factory controls operate auxiliary lights,

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Brian Wringer: horns, navigation gear, and heated kit and,

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Brian Wringer: whatever clown waving stuff you have without splicing into the bike's wiring harness.

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Robin Dean: No hassle with the ABS system. Tell me more.

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Brian Wringer: And basically, we've all done this. So adding accessories is easy until the

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Brian Wringer: bike has five dangling views holders, a battery terminal with a wedding cake

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Brian Wringer: shaped to it and all that stuff.

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Brian Wringer: So, you know, the fact you have to buy this expensive accessory just to wire

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Brian Wringer: new things on your bike is kind of rankling to me. I don't really think that's a great idea.

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Brian Wringer: And CAN bus increases the cost of components and so forth, but it does simplify wiring.

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Brian Wringer: And kits like these, I think people who own BMWs have long been familiar with

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Brian Wringer: that kind of thing, where you have to get a CAN bus converter in order to get

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Brian Wringer: power out of your harness safely.

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Brian Wringer: You know, the whole idea, I mean, I'm glad this thing exists for people who

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Brian Wringer: own these bikes, But it's also, is this the world we want?

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Brian Wringer: Is this the world we want where you have to buy a however many quids or dollary

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Brian Wringer: dues, you know, this expensive box to hook up a set of lights to your bike? I mean, come on.

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Brian Wringer: I'm sure it's a great device. I'm sure it's clean. I'm sure it's wonderful.

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Brian Wringer: I'm a grumpy old man. I'm a grumpy, you know.

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Robin Dean: You're not wrong. In fact, we just wrapped up our interview with Curtis Mender,

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Robin Dean: and one of the questions I asked him was about the threats of buggery in the ECUs.

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Robin Dean: Everything has gotten so proprietary, and it impedes on right to work,

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Robin Dean: because otherwise things get hacked or whatever.

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Robin Dean: Also, when I bought the RS, I think I got really lucky in that I put in a power

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Robin Dean: bus and they were like, oh, yeah, I did use the commander pro turbine. Oh, yeah. Moon lander.

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Robin Dean: I did none of this. I went right into the wires spliced and I connected the

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Robin Dean: system and they were like, well, you got to watch out because that's going to

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Robin Dean: the voltage drop will create a thing with the stuff and it'll be scanning you

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Robin Dean: and the aliens and the satellites.

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Robin Dean: I don't know if you know this, but you're being targeted by the CIA now.

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Robin Dean: You know, it's like Interpol's looking for you.

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Robin Dean: It didn't make any sense. I just realized that some of it is just hearsay

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Robin Dean: do whatever you want with the damn pike

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Brian Wringer: Truth is you know some sometimes on the bmws the ktms etc with the canvas,

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Brian Wringer: yeah you can cause problems if you just start hacking at wires and so forth

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Brian Wringer: there's a middle ground there where it's not all it's cracked up to be you know

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Brian Wringer: if you're going directly to the battery that kind of thing sure it's probably going to be okay.

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Robin Dean: If it gets confused by how much how much of the milkshake's being sucked through

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Robin Dean: the straw and starts to go haywire because of that, that can get a little weird.

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Robin Dean: But yeah, no, I agree with you.

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Robin Dean: And that's why I went modular. Hey, you know, I went with the freaking Suzuki

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Robin Dean: GSX-8R. I'm super happy with that bike. Are you ready for the next one?

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Brian Wringer: I'm ready. Hit it.

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Robin Dean: Dayanize gives elite racers a full test day instead of chasing feedback during

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Robin Dean: race weekends. This comes from MotorcycleNews.com.

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Robin Dean: Project Apex put riders including Valentina Rossi, Marco Bezzeci, and Franco Morbidelli,

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Robin Dean: I hope I said that right, on largely road-derived bikes at Masano to assess

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Robin Dean: more than 95 configurations of leathers, gloves, boots, and base layers.

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Robin Dean: Over 50 Dianese engineers collected feedback on products already developed for as long as 18 months.

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Robin Dean: The useful question is how much 340 kilometers per hour, what is that, about 210?

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Brian Wringer: Something like that.

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Robin Dean: How much of their pace the racer feedback reaches a rider doing six hours in rain and traffic.

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Robin Dean: Extreme testing can expose weak seams and back controls, but comfort at the

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Robin Dean: limit is not automatically turning comfort. Agree? Disagree?

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Brian Wringer: Agree. Interesting. So they somehow hired him for an entire day to switch between

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Brian Wringer: things. And so they're going to get at some things like comfort,

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Brian Wringer: but yeah, they're not going to get a lot of information on street conditions and things like that.

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Brian Wringer: Unless it happened to be raining that day. Raining would be kind of cool.

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Robin Dean: You're going to like this next one.

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Brian Wringer: Boy, crash data. All right, the roughest roads and the deadliest bad road states are not the same.

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Brian Wringer: A law firm study of 2020 through 2024 federal crash and pavement data ranked

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Brian Wringer: West Virginia worst for the combination of road condition deaths and poor pavement.

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Brian Wringer: Rhode Island had the highest share of poor roads at 36.2%, but a comparatively

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Brian Wringer: low condition-related death rate.

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Brian Wringer: So these are deaths caused by road conditions of some sort, like the road's

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Brian Wringer: not there or slippery or whatever. OK, the figures cover all vehicles, not just motorcycles.

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Brian Wringer: OK, so bad pavement is visible to all of us, but the mix of speed,

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Brian Wringer: terrain, shoulders, traffic, etc. may be what turns it lethal.

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Brian Wringer: Interesting. So for trip planning, the question is, should riders avoid a statewide

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Brian Wringer: ranking or use it as a prompt to inspect the exact corridor of where they're

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Brian Wringer: going, think through construction, think through escape room and things like that?

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Robin Dean: West Virginia is some of the best riding I've ever enjoyed.

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Brian Wringer: And it's also the most challenging.

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Robin Dean: So that's probably why.

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Brian Wringer: So yeah, it's hard and we love it. i think the pavement in west virginia when it exists if it exists is,

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Brian Wringer: some of the best in the world but the conditions and the roads are very challenging

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Brian Wringer: very mountainous very hilly,

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Brian Wringer: it's really if you have not been through west virginia it's really hard to appreciate

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Brian Wringer: just how remote it is how rural it is and how hilly and like it's not like alpine

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Brian Wringer: mountains but it's mountains yeah,

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Brian Wringer: it's pretty amazing i mean for motorcyclists,

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Brian Wringer: You know, for us, it'd be like, oh, this is a big negative. We need to go to there.

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Robin Dean: Precisely. ST is like, what? Where are these roads? I must see them and inspect them myself.

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Brian Wringer: I must go. I must go there. And yeah, with anything, it's you have to pay attention.

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Brian Wringer: You have to be on your A game in West Virginia. And I think that's more what

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Brian Wringer: it projects than there are potholes because it's not very cold there.

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Brian Wringer: They don't get too many potholes.

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Brian Wringer: You know, I was joking earlier, but in West Virginia, for every paved road,

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Brian Wringer: there are three incredible unpaved roads.

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Brian Wringer: So it's, it's also one of those states that has just a lot of,

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Brian Wringer: sure, a dirt road's a bad condition, but it's also could be the most fun road

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Brian Wringer: you've ever been on if you're on the right bike. So let's go to there. Uh-oh.

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Robin Dean: So now, see how I'm setting this up? You're ready, but you see this.

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Robin Dean: Here we go.

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Brian Wringer: Yeah.

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Robin Dean: An unlit Indiana sinkhole swallowed a motorcycle and left the rider mostly intact.

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Robin Dean: This comes from inkfreenews.com.

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Robin Dean: A rider entered a sinkhole on an unlit dead-end road in Putnam County at night.

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Robin Dean: The sheriff's office said the rider was traveling slowly and escaped without

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Robin Dean: reported serious injury.

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Robin Dean: The hole was difficult to see before the motorcyclist reached it.

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Robin Dean: This is the ridiculous version of a serious night riding problem.

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Robin Dean: You cannot react to what your light has not revealed yet.

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Robin Dean: How much should speed drop on unfamiliar dark roads? And when is the headlight

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Robin Dean: itself the limiting piece of safety gear?

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Robin Dean: Personally, I hate riding at night. It's just not something I'd look to do.

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Robin Dean: Maybe when I was in Chicago, riding to the old Pintes and Pistons hangout spot

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Robin Dean: and looking hip, trendy, doing all that stuff. But nah, honestly,

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Robin Dean: in the countryside, no, no, thank you.

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Brian Wringer: Yeah, that's my rule. It's mostly, well, it's mostly due to deer,

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Brian Wringer: but now, you know, new fear unlocked. Thank you very much. The picture is appalling.

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Brian Wringer: The picture is terrifying, people. It is a motorcycle in a hole in the road.

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Brian Wringer: I mean, it's what it says on the label.

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Robin Dean: Wow.

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Brian Wringer: Like, I don't ride outside the city on country roads at night.

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Brian Wringer: Now, there's a whole new reason. I will, you know, I'll do things in the city,

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Brian Wringer: you know, where you have lights and there's traffic and blah, blah, blah.

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Brian Wringer: You know, if I need to get from A to B and it's dark, I'll stick to interstates.

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Brian Wringer: I'll try to stay off two-lane highways and definitely stay off of back roads but yeah so.

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Robin Dean: This one and see how i wrapped it back to another bike here you go have fun with us

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Brian Wringer: Why is everything in pounds all right suzuki's sv-7 gx,

00:12:27.284 --> 00:12:35.382
Brian Wringer: got all that turns the old sv650 v-twin into some sort of priced middleweight tour we've got,

00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:42.044
Brian Wringer: The SV650, the beloved V-Strom, you know, that V-Twin sticks it in an upright

00:12:42.044 --> 00:12:48.210
Brian Wringer: fairing with a tank of some size of liters and modern electronics, et cetera, and so on.

00:12:48.668 --> 00:12:53.742
Brian Wringer: The UK tests list 211 kilograms wet, 450 or something like that,

00:12:54.206 --> 00:13:03.367
Brian Wringer: a 795 millimeter seat height, and a 6,999 pounds or whatever they have over there starting price.

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Brian Wringer: This is well below the tracer 7 or or tiger sport 660 prices,

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Brian Wringer: pretty interesting and i like what they're doing here but isn't that just a

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Brian Wringer: v-strom or did they make it more of a tour and not an adventure sounds like

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Brian Wringer: it's more of a sport touring than an adventure bike so okay.

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Robin Dean: But i think they taller rounded it a little bit with a more lengthy suspension

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Brian Wringer: It's not exactly a v-strom i mean they already have those suzuki has always

00:13:29.134 --> 00:13:33.355
Brian Wringer: been really good at parts bin engineering and this is a fantastic example.

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Brian Wringer: This is new bike news with an old bike argument underneath it.

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Brian Wringer: Considered inexpensive, whatever that is in American dollars,

00:13:40.621 --> 00:13:44.944
Brian Wringer: would you rather tour on a proven engine and simple suspension with money left

00:13:44.944 --> 00:13:49.595
Brian Wringer: for luggage and hotels or pay for the latest chassis and higher output?

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Brian Wringer: And I think it'll be a solution for a lot of people. What I don't know is whether

00:13:54.804 --> 00:13:56.184
Brian Wringer: it's ever going to come to the U.S.

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Robin Dean: I keep thinking they're going to do away with the SV engine since they turned

00:13:59.684 --> 00:14:04.074
Robin Dean: over the V-Strom to just what is equivocally the Strom because it's using my

00:14:04.074 --> 00:14:05.803
Robin Dean: motor, you know, and that's cool.

00:14:06.267 --> 00:14:12.804
Brian Wringer: Yeah, like the GSX-8R and the V-Strom, the current V-Strom, use the same 800cc

00:14:12.804 --> 00:14:17.664
Brian Wringer: parallel twin, but the V-Twin is still soldiering on and the SV,

00:14:18.344 --> 00:14:19.781
Brian Wringer: I think they're still making the SV.

00:14:20.246 --> 00:14:23.270
Brian Wringer: They put this bike together. Whether it's coming to the US, I don't know.

00:14:23.729 --> 00:14:27.438
Brian Wringer: I think it'll be a solution for a lot of people.

00:14:27.902 --> 00:14:30.880
Brian Wringer: Throw some luggage on it, go places, ride fast, shift a lot.

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Robin Dean: I like it.

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Brian Wringer: The more options, the better. And Suzuki's always been, Suzuki,

00:14:35.598 --> 00:14:39.366
Brian Wringer: you know, from the 70s, has always been really great at that parts-band engineering,

00:14:39.830 --> 00:14:42.379
Brian Wringer: and also engineering for value.

00:14:42.814 --> 00:14:46.169
Brian Wringer: Not like cheap, but like you get a lot for what you pay.

00:14:46.628 --> 00:14:49.890
Brian Wringer: It's on brand for them and looks good. Go buy one.

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Robin Dean: Yes.

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Brian Wringer: All right, Ed. What's going on in your world? Have you been sweating today?

00:14:58.145 --> 00:15:01.471
Robin Dean: I planned this last night. This morning, trying to beat the heat.

00:15:01.930 --> 00:15:06.178
Robin Dean: The feels-like temperature down here is 104. I wanted to try to beat the heat,

00:15:06.178 --> 00:15:10.632
Robin Dean: and it is International Maggie's Bike Maintenance Day.

00:15:11.090 --> 00:15:17.081
Robin Dean: First thing I did was I installed her SW Motec top case rack for the GV luggage,

00:15:17.540 --> 00:15:23.333
Robin Dean: which does not play nice with the SV650's tail tidy, whoever made the one that's on there.

00:15:23.757 --> 00:15:26.410
Robin Dean: So I had to grind off the turn signal mounts.

00:15:26.862 --> 00:15:29.579
Robin Dean: The tail tidies there, the plate's there, ground off the mounts.

00:15:29.748 --> 00:15:32.215
Robin Dean: Still need to blast it with some bed liner or something.

00:15:32.673 --> 00:15:36.439
Robin Dean: And then ordered license plate L bracket, turn signal mounts,

00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:39.824
Robin Dean: which will be arriving tomorrow. And then everything will come back to normal

00:15:40.114 --> 00:15:42.134
Robin Dean: with lower signals, which will be kind of nice, I suppose.

00:15:42.604 --> 00:15:49.338
Robin Dean: Then I upped the coolant to super Uber Max big overfull because we did that track day.

00:15:49.756 --> 00:15:52.049
Robin Dean: And when I got home, it was on the low.

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Robin Dean: I got the remainder of that bag of engine ice from your place and I poured it all in.

00:15:58.731 --> 00:16:03.287
Robin Dean: And now it is well beyond the word full line.

00:16:05.417 --> 00:16:09.823
Robin Dean: The cap called, and it's wondering if you can fix the plumbing kind of thing at the reservoir.

00:16:10.276 --> 00:16:13.831
Brian Wringer: So figure out where that goes and where it is, and make sure it's not directly

00:16:13.831 --> 00:16:14.879
Brian Wringer: in front of the rear tire.

00:16:15.343 --> 00:16:19.761
Brian Wringer: Because, yeah, it will expand. And if it's all the way to the top of the cap,

00:16:19.761 --> 00:16:22.785
Brian Wringer: some is going to get pushed out. So you might as well take some out.

00:16:23.232 --> 00:16:24.330
Robin Dean: Rock the turkey baster.

00:16:24.788 --> 00:16:31.743
Brian Wringer: Rock the turkey baster, and it'll make a mess, and it'll be slippery and stinky and no good.

00:16:32.184 --> 00:16:36.961
Brian Wringer: There'll be a tube going to the radiator. So just under the radiator cap,

00:16:36.961 --> 00:16:40.171
Brian Wringer: there's a tube, and then it ends up over at the reservoir, which is on the other

00:16:40.171 --> 00:16:41.656
Brian Wringer: side of the bike for some damn reason. Yes.

00:16:42.321 --> 00:16:42.446
Robin Dean: Yes.

00:16:42.998 --> 00:16:46.706
Brian Wringer: Then there'll either be another tube or there'll just be a hole just throwing it overboard.

00:16:46.706 --> 00:16:49.784
Robin Dean: So I guess I'm going to keep working on this bike all night then.

00:16:50.243 --> 00:16:53.986
Robin Dean: You know, I screwed up the turn signals. I managed to screw up the coolant and

00:16:53.986 --> 00:16:57.261
Robin Dean: then I'm going to work on the chain. So let's get the trifecta going here. This should go well.

00:16:57.725 --> 00:17:00.406
Robin Dean: My own bike, which I actually know, then it's time for that.

00:17:00.406 --> 00:17:03.734
Robin Dean: I need to do a wash, degrease, detail, oil change, air filter,

00:17:04.198 --> 00:17:05.841
Robin Dean: clean up the chain and sprocket.

00:17:06.288 --> 00:17:10.246
Robin Dean: Brake pads are on order. Actually, they've already arrived. The tires on a pre-Kentucky

00:17:10.246 --> 00:17:14.396
Robin Dean: monitored performance plan. And, you know, I want to get as much destruction

00:17:14.396 --> 00:17:17.266
Robin Dean: locally and then don't worry, you know, I'm going to wrap a con of the crap

00:17:17.266 --> 00:17:18.310
Robin Dean: out of that before it's time.

00:17:18.774 --> 00:17:19.111
Brian Wringer: Good.

00:17:19.657 --> 00:17:21.136
Robin Dean: Chain and sprockets, they're dirty

00:17:21.136 --> 00:17:24.463
Robin Dean: as hell, but overall they're still functional. There's no resistance.

00:17:24.922 --> 00:17:27.246
Robin Dean: I don't want to mistake dirt grime and neglect for a dead chain,

00:17:27.246 --> 00:17:30.396
Robin Dean: but, you know, I'm going to confirm. I know it's going to, it's going to happen

00:17:30.396 --> 00:17:33.662
Robin Dean: when I'm in New Mexico, but I believe that chain is good until then, at least.

00:17:34.126 --> 00:17:37.496
Robin Dean: The tank grips are starting to lose their adhesive. Need to reset the service

00:17:37.496 --> 00:17:40.886
Robin Dean: light and then a bit of shopping for all the stuff I packed,

00:17:40.886 --> 00:17:41.864
Robin Dean: the touring bits, you know.

00:17:42.306 --> 00:17:44.529
Robin Dean: Luggage organization, supplies.

00:17:44.987 --> 00:17:49.246
Robin Dean: Lastly, man, I just got back from Indianapolis hanging out with you for a couple

00:17:49.246 --> 00:17:52.493
Robin Dean: of nights. You know what I was going through with the MSF Rider Coach Tour.

00:17:52.952 --> 00:17:56.784
Robin Dean: So that's the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Rider Coach Tour.

00:17:57.248 --> 00:18:05.659
Robin Dean: It was a great experience, also excruciating and difficult to maintain tolerance and also

00:18:06.118 --> 00:18:12.857
Robin Dean: empowering and inspiring and also oppressing and judgmental

00:18:14.105 --> 00:18:20.318
Robin Dean: I mean, you get that many people who are going to have expertise in the same location.

00:18:20.775 --> 00:18:23.922
Robin Dean: There's going to be all kinds of, it's going to be intense. And it was,

00:18:24.387 --> 00:18:25.715
Robin Dean: I had my highs, I had my lows.

00:18:26.175 --> 00:18:27.659
Robin Dean: I just did the best I could to

00:18:27.659 --> 00:18:30.486
Robin Dean: get some, as much out of it as I could before it was time to go on home.

00:18:30.950 --> 00:18:36.964
Robin Dean: Yeah, that happened. You have to hang out with Dr. Ray Oaks a lot in near silence.

00:18:37.423 --> 00:18:40.589
Robin Dean: I just kind of thought he might like that. You know, I'd see the guy and just

00:18:40.589 --> 00:18:43.013
Robin Dean: chat a little bit, keep it mellow, whatever.

00:18:43.477 --> 00:18:49.979
Robin Dean: It was so cold in there that I had to go outside and just get the sun to just get the bake on.

00:18:50.362 --> 00:18:52.243
Robin Dean: And lo and behold, he comes walking out.

00:18:52.701 --> 00:18:56.747
Robin Dean: It was just the two of us standing next to the range in silence,

00:18:57.212 --> 00:19:02.837
Robin Dean: just basking in the sun, being like, yeah, they got to fix the AC in that place, man.

00:19:03.296 --> 00:19:07.199
Brian Wringer: I'm a lizard. So you had like different sessions where you talk about stuff

00:19:07.199 --> 00:19:09.542
Brian Wringer: and learn stuff and things like that. That all makes sense.

00:19:10.006 --> 00:19:14.849
Brian Wringer: The other thing, I think you mentioned you tried out several bikes or were you

00:19:14.849 --> 00:19:19.719
Brian Wringer: like working on exercises or was this intended to kind of look at the bikes

00:19:19.719 --> 00:19:22.394
Brian Wringer: and see how they function, that kind of thing? What was that all about?

00:19:22.835 --> 00:19:26.777
Robin Dean: They set up a specific exercise from our basic rider course.

00:19:27.241 --> 00:19:32.888
Robin Dean: They invited us to test some of the new bikes that are prospects for any given fleet next year.

00:19:33.352 --> 00:19:37.602
Robin Dean: I quickly found out that those were not the standard dimensions of that exercise,

00:19:38.066 --> 00:19:43.349
Robin Dean: to which other people were equally surprised and other people were equally suggestive

00:19:43.349 --> 00:19:44.569
Robin Dean: that we should know better than

00:19:44.569 --> 00:19:48.515
Robin Dean: to not look at that and understand exactly what the measurements were.

00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:54.199
Robin Dean: Which is not how trust works, Brian. When you see rider coaches set up an exercise,

00:19:54.199 --> 00:19:55.928
Robin Dean: you think to yourself, that's going to go perfectly.

00:19:57.229 --> 00:20:01.257
Robin Dean: The first bike I hopped on was an MT-03. I know that bike. It's top heavy.

00:20:01.716 --> 00:20:03.422
Robin Dean: It does not have much of a turning radius.

00:20:03.881 --> 00:20:08.529
Robin Dean: But I got good at riding the U-turn box at the basic rider course that I just

00:20:08.529 --> 00:20:09.651
Robin Dean: coached a couple weeks back.

00:20:09.982 --> 00:20:12.429
Robin Dean: So I was like, God, that thing's fun. I'm going to do that. I go in there and

00:20:12.429 --> 00:20:15.514
Robin Dean: I make my turn. I look. I'm like, oh, you're not going to make that.

00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.839
Robin Dean: And oh, you're about to fall over. and, oh, you're going to put a foot down.

00:20:20.292 --> 00:20:27.049
Robin Dean: So all these rider coaches see Captain Sport Touring over here fumble around

00:20:27.049 --> 00:20:30.867
Robin Dean: on this bike and make a fool of himself, you know. It was embarrassing.

00:20:31.689 --> 00:20:35.436
Robin Dean: So then I just started smoking all the clutches. No problem. Fine.

00:20:35.894 --> 00:20:39.879
Robin Dean: This is how things are set up? Cool. I'm going to go burn out the clutches making

00:20:39.879 --> 00:20:42.866
Robin Dean: these U-turns in this 16-foot space. It was fun.

00:20:43.377 --> 00:20:46.825
Brian Wringer: It's supposed to be a 20-foot width or something, and for some reason they—.

00:20:47.284 --> 00:20:52.102
Robin Dean: 20 on the test, 24 on, you know, let's see if you can get your act together kind of stuff, right?

00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:55.335
Robin Dean: That sounds like I'm bitching. I'm not. It was an honor.

00:20:55.800 --> 00:20:59.683
Robin Dean: It was an honor, and I hope they do it as much as possible every year,

00:21:00.037 --> 00:21:03.289
Robin Dean: whatever. I just think it's great to get everybody together like that and hear

00:21:03.629 --> 00:21:08.501
Robin Dean: such a wealth of knowledge in one location. It was galactic.

00:21:08.942 --> 00:21:12.709
Brian Wringer: And I'm not an MSF writer coach or anything like that. And even I,

00:21:12.709 --> 00:21:15.889
Brian Wringer: you know, I can see like the community and the friends and the people,

00:21:15.889 --> 00:21:18.596
Brian Wringer: you know, there are, you know, the community around that is amazing.

00:21:19.049 --> 00:21:19.977
Brian Wringer: Just the people I've met.

00:21:20.436 --> 00:21:24.519
Brian Wringer: If you're wondering how Robin knows people from all over the United States and

00:21:24.519 --> 00:21:27.232
Brian Wringer: some countries, that's a lot of it right there.

00:21:27.627 --> 00:21:32.213
Robin Dean: In different languages, people see me walk in the door with the MSF and they all go, oh, dang it.

00:21:32.735 --> 00:21:33.368
Robin Dean: That guy.

00:21:33.827 --> 00:21:41.048
Brian Wringer: It's that guy. Maybe he won't see us. On my part, it was fantastic to have you and John visit.

00:21:41.518 --> 00:21:42.227
Robin Dean: Thank you for that.

00:21:42.685 --> 00:21:45.754
Brian Wringer: It was a lot of fun to have you guys hanging around and send you back to your

00:21:45.754 --> 00:21:49.175
Brian Wringer: conference, and I could do what I wanted, you know, the rest of Saturday. So that was nice, too.

00:21:49.634 --> 00:21:51.010
Robin Dean: Shout out to Three Letter John, by the way.

00:21:51.468 --> 00:21:56.344
Brian Wringer: Got a nice ride in Sunday. I thought it was interesting. We took five hours

00:21:56.344 --> 00:21:59.189
Brian Wringer: to get to Leavenworth from here.

00:21:59.636 --> 00:22:05.702
Brian Wringer: I got home in about two hours, 15 minutes from there, and that included some farting around.

00:22:06.155 --> 00:22:10.543
Brian Wringer: So that tells you how much, you know, how much interesting stuff we did. It was a fantastic ride.

00:22:10.996 --> 00:22:16.482
Brian Wringer: Also got some much-needed maintenance done, got the fork oil changed on the Gixator.

00:22:16.946 --> 00:22:17.277
Robin Dean: Thank you.

00:22:17.828 --> 00:22:21.583
Robin Dean: Learned how that whole system is put together, too. Thank you for that.

00:22:22.042 --> 00:22:28.836
Brian Wringer: Shout out to Suzuki and Showa for requiring a special tool with no information on said special tool.

00:22:29.476 --> 00:22:35.536
Brian Wringer: So if your right fork seal ever starts to leak on a GSX-8R, just light a match and walk away.

00:22:35.896 --> 00:22:36.599
Robin Dean: Molotov.

00:22:37.051 --> 00:22:40.936
Brian Wringer: Molotov it. I have no idea how the hell that fork comes apart.

00:22:40.936 --> 00:22:45.116
Brian Wringer: But the left side, you could do, as long as you have the tube of appropriate

00:22:45.116 --> 00:22:47.994
Brian Wringer: size, too, and a second person.

00:22:48.458 --> 00:22:52.417
Brian Wringer: I think for the second person, we'll need to find another fat guy to hold that down.

00:22:52.870 --> 00:22:55.378
Brian Wringer: Might make it go a little better. I'm not sure. We'll figure that out.

00:22:55.831 --> 00:23:00.916
Brian Wringer: There's some weird special tool needed on the right to pull the cartridge and press and push.

00:23:01.374 --> 00:23:04.576
Brian Wringer: And the manual is incredibly vague about what the hell it is.

00:23:04.576 --> 00:23:09.396
Brian Wringer: So, fortunately, we didn't have to go that deep. We were able to look at the

00:23:09.396 --> 00:23:14.546
Brian Wringer: instructions, think it through, and then notice the next to last step was setting the fork oil level.

00:23:14.546 --> 00:23:18.686
Brian Wringer: So we were able to dump it out, dump fork oil in. It took a good 20 minutes

00:23:18.686 --> 00:23:22.225
Brian Wringer: of burping to get all the air out of the cartridge system.

00:23:22.683 --> 00:23:23.264
Robin Dean: Right side.

00:23:23.722 --> 00:23:26.892
Brian Wringer: Yeah, and again, only on the right side. The left side was easy.

00:23:27.350 --> 00:23:30.781
Brian Wringer: Come on, why is this so complicated? But the seals are great,

00:23:30.984 --> 00:23:34.328
Brian Wringer: change oil, and you swore that you felt a difference.

00:23:34.792 --> 00:23:39.187
Robin Dean: It feels better. Thanks for the assist. Would you like to field an onslaught of questions?

00:23:39.645 --> 00:23:45.926
Brian Wringer: I suppose we can. If you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike

00:23:45.926 --> 00:23:49.195
Brian Wringer: in your web browser and send us a message.

00:23:49.659 --> 00:23:54.634
Robin Dean: When a Tracer 7 idles rough, stalls, and flares to 4,000 RPM,

00:23:54.936 --> 00:23:56.741
Robin Dean: where should diagnosis begin?

00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:02.215
Robin Dean: So a 2021 Yamaha Tracer 7 with about 24K on it has developed an uneven idle,

00:24:02.558 --> 00:24:06.163
Robin Dean: occasional cold bias stalling and a check engine light

00:24:06.627 --> 00:24:11.271
Robin Dean: every hot or cold start briefly jumps to roughly 3,000 to 4,000 RPM before settling

00:24:11.405 --> 00:24:15.176
Robin Dean: while the bike runs much better once moving battery and charge readings appear

00:24:15.176 --> 00:24:19.636
Robin Dean: normal and the rider plans to read the stored code before clearing it well

00:24:20.314 --> 00:24:23.221
Brian Wringer: I mean, it'd be maybe a start. Yeah, wouldn't it?

00:24:23.221 --> 00:24:27.739
Robin Dean: The question that just answered itself. If you have the special tool,

00:24:28.197 --> 00:24:32.121
Robin Dean: plug that into your Tracer 7 and just see what it reports.

00:24:32.481 --> 00:24:34.403
Robin Dean: Unless that's just an ODB thing. What do you got?

00:24:34.855 --> 00:24:38.901
Brian Wringer: Yeah, I don't know if that's an ODB 2 bike or not. The physical thing that comes

00:24:38.901 --> 00:24:41.729
Brian Wringer: to mind for me is an intake leak.

00:24:42.187 --> 00:24:45.392
Brian Wringer: So if something, if the throttle body's popped off of something,

00:24:45.850 --> 00:24:51.719
Brian Wringer: clamps loose. if the throttle body synchronizing port has lost its cap,

00:24:52.701 --> 00:24:54.070
Brian Wringer: something weird like that.

00:24:55.021 --> 00:24:58.041
Brian Wringer: I would look for something like that. But yeah, I'd look for the code and figure

00:24:58.041 --> 00:25:01.691
Brian Wringer: out what's going on because the other thing could be something like one of the

00:25:01.691 --> 00:25:04.049
Brian Wringer: sensors got unplugged or it's not functioning.

00:25:04.513 --> 00:25:08.431
Brian Wringer: See what the code is. That's the place to start. And to just kind of lift the

00:25:08.431 --> 00:25:11.630
Brian Wringer: tank up and look and see if anything looks like it's out of place.

00:25:12.094 --> 00:25:12.553
Robin Dean: Next one.

00:25:13.093 --> 00:25:18.212
Robin Dean: Why would an F4i charge normally cold, but quit charging when hot?

00:25:18.664 --> 00:25:25.141
Robin Dean: A Honda CBR600 F4i shows about 14.5 volts at the battery with the engine near

00:25:25.141 --> 00:25:27.951
Robin Dean: 60 degrees Celsius, then drops

00:25:27.951 --> 00:25:31.424
Robin Dean: to roughly 12.8 volts once coolant reaches about 100 degrees Celsius.

00:25:31.882 --> 00:25:36.306
Robin Dean: The rider wants to know whether heat is exposing a regulator rectifier fault,

00:25:36.445 --> 00:25:39.121
Robin Dean: a stator problem, or another failure in the charge circuit.

00:25:39.141 --> 00:25:43.980
Robin Dean: It sounds to me like the fan is just bogged down or drawn far too much power or something.

00:25:44.433 --> 00:25:48.081
Brian Wringer: The answer is yes, it could be any or all of the above. Yeah, that's one thing.

00:25:49.021 --> 00:25:52.891
Brian Wringer: If it's at 100 Celsius, it's 212, then the fan should be running.

00:25:53.349 --> 00:25:56.501
Brian Wringer: And it may simply be that if it's sitting there idling and the fan's running,

00:25:57.332 --> 00:25:59.903
Brian Wringer: that's the voltage you get with the drain of the fan.

00:26:00.373 --> 00:26:05.321
Brian Wringer: So definitely you want to wait until the fan goes off to make sure you check

00:26:05.321 --> 00:26:07.811
Brian Wringer: the voltage and make sure you're checking at the correct RPM,

00:26:07.811 --> 00:26:11.380
Brian Wringer: which is usually 3,000, 4,000 around in there, that kind of thing.

00:26:11.838 --> 00:26:16.381
Brian Wringer: All of the above is also possible. If your regulator rectifier is near the exhaust,

00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:19.644
Brian Wringer: it can get hot and cause problems.

00:26:20.097 --> 00:26:25.281
Brian Wringer: Oftentimes, if that happens, it will stop regulating, so you'll get too much

00:26:25.281 --> 00:26:28.415
Brian Wringer: voltage at the battery. So that's probably not what's going on.

00:26:28.816 --> 00:26:32.371
Brian Wringer: Second thing that can happen is as the stator heats up, assuming this,

00:26:32.371 --> 00:26:35.561
Brian Wringer: I have no idea what the charging system looks like on this bike.

00:26:36.601 --> 00:26:41.111
Brian Wringer: If it's your normal stator that's sitting in an oil bath, as it gets hot,

00:26:41.111 --> 00:26:46.201
Brian Wringer: it can expand a little bit, and if you're dropping one leg of the stator, it'll...

00:26:46.776 --> 00:26:52.049
Brian Wringer: Generate some electricity, but not enough to keep up. That may explain a little

00:26:52.049 --> 00:26:53.122
Brian Wringer: bit about what's going on.

00:26:53.581 --> 00:26:56.192
Brian Wringer: Testing that would be pretty tough. You need to get it nice and hot,

00:26:56.650 --> 00:27:00.477
Brian Wringer: pull the connector apart, and then test the AC stator output.

00:27:00.917 --> 00:27:06.109
Brian Wringer: So put your meter on AC and make sure you're getting the appropriate voltage.

00:27:06.109 --> 00:27:08.589
Brian Wringer: Again, look in your service manual for what that's supposed to be.

00:27:08.589 --> 00:27:11.439
Brian Wringer: It could be anywhere from 24 to 60 volts AC,

00:27:12.232 --> 00:27:16.421
Brian Wringer: from between each of the two, each of the three legs of the stator so each of the three pairs,

00:27:16.885 --> 00:27:21.839
Brian Wringer: you may find when it gets hot one pair is not really generating so you may need

00:27:21.839 --> 00:27:26.099
Brian Wringer: a new stator there again that is complete guesswork i don't know third thing

00:27:26.099 --> 00:27:27.590
Brian Wringer: that may happen is you may have,

00:27:28.054 --> 00:27:33.255
Brian Wringer: corrosion in a connector somewhere so when you pull apart that connector to your stator,

00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:36.999
Brian Wringer: the connection will get worse when it gets hot and,

00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:40.140
Brian Wringer: as when a connection gets resistance from crud in it,

00:27:40.605 --> 00:27:43.939
Brian Wringer: it'll get hotter and hotter and hotter so when the bike gets hot that'll get

00:27:43.939 --> 00:27:47.048
Brian Wringer: hotter and so like if you pull the connectors apart and you see,

00:27:47.513 --> 00:27:52.479
Brian Wringer: evidence of burning or creepy green horribleness in there look at the entire

00:27:52.479 --> 00:27:56.189
Brian Wringer: chain of the charging system look at all those connectors eyeball those very

00:27:56.189 --> 00:27:58.559
Brian Wringer: carefully and you may find something there so,

00:27:59.018 --> 00:28:03.186
Brian Wringer: so the answer is hell i don't know but here's some things to check all right.

00:28:03.639 --> 00:28:07.946
Robin Dean: Last one is if 80 liters of camping luggage is not enough

00:28:08.405 --> 00:28:11.365
Robin Dean: should you add saddlebags or subtract gear

00:28:11.823 --> 00:28:16.219
Robin Dean: a moto camper already carries a 40 liter top case plus a 40 liter waterproof

00:28:16.219 --> 00:28:18.369
Robin Dean: bag on the passenger seat but

00:28:18.369 --> 00:28:22.724
Robin Dean: once another 20 to 30 liters rackless saddlebags are the obvious option

00:28:23.137 --> 00:28:27.019
Robin Dean: yet the exhaust outlet may sit too close to the bags and the rider does not

00:28:27.019 --> 00:28:28.436
Robin Dean: trust the existing heat protection

00:28:28.889 --> 00:28:30.532
Robin Dean: i know this answer because i've done it

00:28:30.991 --> 00:28:35.269
Robin Dean: go ahead and get the saddlebags get the saddlebags you want get the best possible

00:28:35.269 --> 00:28:36.848
Robin Dean: fit in saddlebags for your machine.

00:28:37.313 --> 00:28:41.648
Robin Dean: Let's assume the average sport tourer going state to state through the twistiest

00:28:41.648 --> 00:28:46.098
Robin Dean: roads is probably going to be looking for society and maybe a beverage once

00:28:46.098 --> 00:28:49.178
Robin Dean: they're off their bike, and that usually involves a hotel.

00:28:49.178 --> 00:28:53.335
Robin Dean: So the camping thing is more often not in the mix.

00:28:53.794 --> 00:28:58.635
Robin Dean: When camping is in the mix, that's when all of a sudden it's all about that passenger seat.

00:28:59.088 --> 00:29:03.858
Robin Dean: In a default state, two hard saddlebags, a good top case, and when you're going

00:29:03.858 --> 00:29:07.940
Robin Dean: to go camp and take up the remaining space with rock straps right there behind you.

00:29:08.393 --> 00:29:12.920
Robin Dean: That one bag that's on the passenger seat is the camping system.

00:29:13.164 --> 00:29:14.121
Robin Dean: That's my answer. What do you got?

00:29:14.580 --> 00:29:17.813
Brian Wringer: Yeah, pretty much the same. They're going to need to figure out saddlebags.

00:29:18.284 --> 00:29:19.509
Brian Wringer: I think they need more capacity.

00:29:19.973 --> 00:29:24.288
Brian Wringer: Could you go minimalist and, you know, and like run around naked while you wash

00:29:24.288 --> 00:29:27.758
Brian Wringer: and dry your underwear every night because you only carry one pair?

00:29:28.750 --> 00:29:32.418
Brian Wringer: I'm sure there's a minimal way to do that, But yeah, figure out the saddle bags,

00:29:32.418 --> 00:29:36.117
Brian Wringer: get some racks, hit up GV, whatever, make it happen.

00:29:36.569 --> 00:29:40.209
Brian Wringer: Hard bags are incredibly worth it. I don't care who you are or where you go.

00:29:40.668 --> 00:29:45.518
Brian Wringer: If you go long distance, hard bags or a really good soft bag setup where it's

00:29:45.518 --> 00:29:48.226
Brian Wringer: really stable is, which is what Robin has.

00:29:48.690 --> 00:29:50.588
Brian Wringer: Fantastic. Worth every penny.

00:29:51.035 --> 00:29:56.438
Robin Dean: It's time for segment one. When I first landed in Indiana and got our rig set

00:29:56.438 --> 00:29:59.255
Robin Dean: up, it was a beautiful night right on the river.

00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:02.274
Robin Dean: And I needed to go up on the roof to check some stuff. So I did.

00:30:02.553 --> 00:30:07.185
Robin Dean: And while I was up there, I met my neighbor, Clay Hawkins. Clay is a good man.

00:30:07.649 --> 00:30:12.738
Robin Dean: Since then, Clay and I have kicked back for regular whiskey tastings and blabbermouth

00:30:12.738 --> 00:30:15.264
Robin Dean: of the Riverside Campground order.

00:30:15.833 --> 00:30:21.609
Robin Dean: Then one day he hands me this journal of sorts, this, uh, not a memoir.

00:30:21.609 --> 00:30:24.499
Robin Dean: I don't know what you'd call it, but it's, it could almost be a movie script.

00:30:24.499 --> 00:30:30.839
Robin Dean: It's basically 30 pages, which is about the right length of present tense documentation

00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:37.137
Robin Dean: of a journey from the middle of Mexico, not New Mexico, Mexico to

00:30:37.689 --> 00:30:44.475
Robin Dean: a daughter's wedding in Washington state on a 250 CC dirt bike.

00:30:44.934 --> 00:30:50.500
Robin Dean: This was Clay's dad who set out to do this at 58 years old.

00:30:50.959 --> 00:30:54.089
Robin Dean: Now, you might start thinking about like Jupiter's travels. You know,

00:30:54.089 --> 00:30:56.584
Robin Dean: he went around the world, then he did it again in his 70s.

00:30:57.043 --> 00:31:03.295
Robin Dean: Now, this was a whole different thing. There he is, middle of Mexico, 250cc dirt bike.

00:31:03.655 --> 00:31:09.139
Robin Dean: He begins his ride in an effort to hide and escape from all,

00:31:09.139 --> 00:31:13.846
Robin Dean: you know, he went through four drug stops just to get to the States.

00:31:14.641 --> 00:31:17.515
Robin Dean: It's an amazing read. He didn't do this for us.

00:31:17.956 --> 00:31:21.299
Robin Dean: He doesn't know us that. He did this for his family to know what it was like.

00:31:21.299 --> 00:31:25.543
Robin Dean: And it's all about him getting to see his daughter and walk her down the aisle.

00:31:25.997 --> 00:31:29.949
Robin Dean: I can't speak highly enough about it because it's not about the journalistic

00:31:29.949 --> 00:31:33.490
Robin Dean: quality. It's about the imagination and what you get from reading it.

00:31:33.943 --> 00:31:37.234
Robin Dean: The vivid description. And he's always in the present tense.

00:31:37.542 --> 00:31:38.471
Robin Dean: It's a very spiritual thing.

00:31:38.854 --> 00:31:44.209
Robin Dean: So I got to sit down with Mr. Bill Hawkins, or as he would tell me to say,

00:31:44.209 --> 00:31:49.504
Robin Dean: just Bill, and questioned him about this particular story from beginning to end.

00:31:49.956 --> 00:31:55.721
Robin Dean: Once you hear this, know that it will be made available on TRO per his permission,

00:31:56.197 --> 00:31:59.912
Robin Dean: and I invite you to check it out. Here's how that interview went.

00:32:23.259 --> 00:32:28.019
Bill Hawkin Like at the bank, that would be William Brian Hawkins.

00:32:28.327 --> 00:32:29.096
Robin Dean: Good to meet you, sir.

00:32:29.096 --> 00:32:29.551
Bill Hawkin Thank you.

00:32:29.882 --> 00:32:33.996
Robin Dean: Thank you for being here. I've got my own sloppy notes here that I'll turn into

00:32:33.996 --> 00:32:35.736
Robin Dean: questions eventually, I promise.

00:32:35.736 --> 00:32:39.106
Robin Dean: Okay. But while I was reading through what I'm going to call,

00:32:39.106 --> 00:32:43.066
Robin Dean: I mean, maybe a journal, a memoir, whatever it was, something that you did that

00:32:43.066 --> 00:32:47.826
Robin Dean: I also did was write in constant present tense, you know, vertical thinking.

00:32:47.826 --> 00:32:49.764
Robin Dean: You were always, this is where I am.

00:32:49.962 --> 00:32:53.696
Robin Dean: And I think that matters for a sense of action. But I took notes.

00:32:53.696 --> 00:32:59.238
Robin Dean: I was like, the journal, if not memoir, might call it the burrito, right?

00:33:00.277 --> 00:33:04.526
Bill Hawkin Yeah, of course. Burrito is Spanish, but the is not Spanish.

00:33:05.166 --> 00:33:05.786
Robin Dean: El burrito.

00:33:06.946 --> 00:33:10.389
Bill Hawkin Right? Somebody called me on that right away.

00:33:11.051 --> 00:33:13.646
Robin Dean: You were on a 250cc Honda.

00:33:13.907 --> 00:33:16.374
Bill Hawkin Yes, sir. And everybody shakes their head.

00:33:16.839 --> 00:33:26.445
Robin Dean: Started in? Ajijic. Ajijic. A-J-I-J-I-C, Hockey Peak. Hockey Peak. Yeah.

00:33:26.898 --> 00:33:31.594
Bill Hawkin Yes, it's a place of many springs coming out of the water.

00:33:32.058 --> 00:33:36.676
Robin Dean: Things that we can talk about. No direct nuts and bolts, no absolutes,

00:33:36.676 --> 00:33:38.235
Robin Dean: no exacting nature about it.

00:33:39.471 --> 00:33:44.092
Robin Dean: You began the trip with fear in your head and joy in your heart.

00:33:44.551 --> 00:33:50.019
Robin Dean: As the miles went by, which one became stronger? What did each teach you?

00:33:50.477 --> 00:33:58.575
Bill Hawkin Well, I'm by myself in the great metropolis of Pozlajara, which is a great big city.

00:33:59.040 --> 00:34:02.651
Bill Hawkin I don't know what's comparable, but it's really big.

00:34:02.819 --> 00:34:07.701
Bill Hawkin It's New York with the Mexicans, and there's another New York called Mexico City.

00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:13.099
Bill Hawkin Uh, you go into any of those, you're going to get all confused at lost at all

00:34:13.099 --> 00:34:18.144
Bill Hawkin that, especially when you're by yourself with limited Spanish.

00:34:18.608 --> 00:34:23.256
Bill Hawkin But I finally found it with the help of a taxi driver out there somewhere.

00:34:23.715 --> 00:34:25.034
Robin Dean: Steve Brown, same language process.

00:34:25.034 --> 00:34:30.279
Bill Hawkin Steve Brown, I just, I told him what highway I was after and I could say the

00:34:30.279 --> 00:34:35.505
Bill Hawkin numbers in Spanish and, you know, it didn't take him long to figure out.

00:34:36.107 --> 00:34:40.852
Bill Hawkin Lost. But I just, I couldn't wait to get on something that looked like wide

00:34:40.852 --> 00:34:45.575
Bill Hawkin open spaces. And that, gladly, I was real close to the open spaces.

00:34:46.045 --> 00:34:51.172
Bill Hawkin But, you know, I was elated just to be out there where I had some elbow room,

00:34:51.172 --> 00:34:56.959
Bill Hawkin not too much traffic, and practically no traffic after about 50 or 20 minutes.

00:34:57.423 --> 00:35:01.402
Bill Hawkin I was out. I didn't have a cell phone. I didn't have any connections with the

00:35:01.402 --> 00:35:06.938
Bill Hawkin outside world and so if i had broke down i was i was broke down broked

00:35:07.812 --> 00:35:14.602
Bill Hawkin yeah and i don't know that trip was uh glorious because i was on my way i didn't

00:35:14.602 --> 00:35:16.133
Bill Hawkin know what else to say about it

00:35:16.932 --> 00:35:22.442
Bill Hawkin i felt free and you know that feeling of having the wind blowing in your face

00:35:22.442 --> 00:35:24.647
Bill Hawkin and you know it doesn't matter where you're going

00:35:25.100 --> 00:35:28.101
Robin Dean: It's jumping ahead but i know you had gas canisters on bars

00:35:28.554 --> 00:35:33.122
Bill Hawkin I had two plastic containers that had bath soap in them that I picked up from

00:35:33.122 --> 00:35:40.572
Bill Hawkin the grocery store, one for each handlebar, and I had enough gas to make it through

00:35:40.572 --> 00:35:43.084
Bill Hawkin the denture without having to hitchhike.

00:35:43.612 --> 00:35:47.113
Bill Hawkin I wouldn't dare hitchhike out there. None of what I would have done.

00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:52.240
Bill Hawkin But I was prepared, and I used it. I had to start having flat tire, and

00:35:53.243 --> 00:35:59.860
Bill Hawkin I got pretty close to the underworld, another little town, and found my way

00:35:59.860 --> 00:36:03.163
Bill Hawkin to a little tire shop, mechanic, anything you wanted.

00:36:03.622 --> 00:36:09.125
Bill Hawkin Of course, you've got to understand, no Spanish, flat tire, not a problem. You can point to it.

00:36:09.590 --> 00:36:12.230
Bill Hawkin I think it was on the weekend, and he was the only one there.

00:36:12.230 --> 00:36:13.554
Bill Hawkin He was a great little guy.

00:36:13.798 --> 00:36:14.540
Robin Dean: He knew what he was doing.

00:36:14.540 --> 00:36:20.160
Bill Hawkin He jumped right in. And I felt mad about it. So I jumped in too and just to

00:36:20.160 --> 00:36:21.645
Bill Hawkin let him know I'm not a weak link.

00:36:22.110 --> 00:36:27.131
Bill Hawkin We both got greasy and he took the back tire off. And it was a little more complicated.

00:36:27.595 --> 00:36:30.880
Bill Hawkin I ate him too much because he saved my ass.

00:36:31.600 --> 00:36:32.367
Robin Dean: You pushed it on him?

00:36:32.594 --> 00:36:38.070
Bill Hawkin Yeah. I couldn't have done it by myself. Anyhow, I enjoyed just working with

00:36:38.070 --> 00:36:40.935
Bill Hawkin him a little bit, being his gopher and all that stuff.

00:36:41.388 --> 00:36:47.599
Robin Dean: Did the fear of the threats around you outweigh the smile you had in your face doing it?

00:36:48.052 --> 00:36:53.091
Bill Hawkin Not at all. I knew that they weren't going to show up on dirt bikes.

00:36:53.555 --> 00:36:57.800
Bill Hawkin My best doubt would be go that way or that way, take your pick,

00:36:58.440 --> 00:37:03.215
Bill Hawkin go like hell, and you're probably away from them in about three minutes.

00:37:03.673 --> 00:37:07.638
Bill Hawkin I might be lost, but they won't be there to watch me be lost.

00:37:08.097 --> 00:37:11.800
Robin Dean: Throughout the journal, you refer to God as the big ranger.

00:37:12.207 --> 00:37:12.625
Bill Hawkin Yep.

00:37:13.780 --> 00:37:19.166
Robin Dean: Which moments made you feel most strongly that the big ranger was looking over your shoulder?

00:37:19.386 --> 00:37:26.927
Bill Hawkin Oh, everywhere. Once I got in deeper into the flat plains of deserts of Texas,

00:37:27.391 --> 00:37:32.831
Bill Hawkin it was what we all but smokers know about the wide open spaces out there, probably.

00:37:33.289 --> 00:37:36.064
Bill Hawkin At least the ones that we cared to talk about.

00:37:38.125 --> 00:37:42.212
Bill Hawkin I always felt safe. I haven't had a drink since then.

00:37:42.664 --> 00:37:47.469
Bill Hawkin And I don't want to make this a meeting about AA, but spirituality is a big

00:37:47.469 --> 00:37:50.489
Bill Hawkin part of that whole thing that we do.

00:37:50.942 --> 00:37:55.784
Bill Hawkin I knew there was such a thing as spirituality when I was about eight years old

00:37:56.213 --> 00:38:00.056
Bill Hawkin because I had a huge spiritual experience.

00:38:00.509 --> 00:38:06.689
Bill Hawkin I'm up there in the woods in the blackberry patches by myself with my little

00:38:06.689 --> 00:38:08.665
Bill Hawkin brother picking blackberries.

00:38:09.083 --> 00:38:14.973
Bill Hawkin I knew where I was. It was a familiar path and all, but there was nobody listening. That's the key.

00:38:15.444 --> 00:38:19.326
Bill Hawkin And there was a great big tree up there. It was huge.

00:38:19.431 --> 00:38:25.185
Bill Hawkin Had a trunk probably about that, but it felt like this to me because I was a little kid.

00:38:25.636 --> 00:38:30.709
Bill Hawkin Yeah, but it was a pretty big tree, and it obviously had taken 100 years for

00:38:30.709 --> 00:38:34.025
Bill Hawkin it to get the way it was because it was dead, and

00:38:34.542 --> 00:38:40.239
Bill Hawkin on that very day, with no wind blowing, I heard a few birds in the background

00:38:40.239 --> 00:38:46.563
Bill Hawkin that stopped immediately because that tree, without any pressure on it at all, decided to follow.

00:38:47.017 --> 00:38:51.458
Bill Hawkin And that thing went over, popping and cracking, hit the ground and smashed

00:38:51.922 --> 00:38:59.277
Bill Hawkin All the dead branches were flying through the air. I'm just spellbound. It didn't scare me.

00:38:59.737 --> 00:39:03.579
Bill Hawkin I felt like something had just given me a present.

00:39:04.032 --> 00:39:05.300
Robin Dean: You were how old at this time?

00:39:05.300 --> 00:39:06.122
Bill Hawkin I was eight.

00:39:06.581 --> 00:39:08.525
Robin Dean: A woman looked at your bike and asked,

00:39:08.983 --> 00:39:09.837
Brian Wringer: Is this your life?

00:39:11.770 --> 00:39:16.116
Robin Dean: And you answered, yes, ma'am, this is my life.

00:39:17.130 --> 00:39:20.670
Robin Dean: What did that answer mean to you at that moment?

00:39:20.670 --> 00:39:25.870
Bill Hawkin At that moment? I had just finished sitting on the mountainside looking at the

00:39:25.870 --> 00:39:33.288
Bill Hawkin only summer snow that I'd ever seen, being from Indiana. You know, I'm a flat lander.

00:39:33.752 --> 00:39:38.250
Bill Hawkin I had just gotten wasted by this big-ass mountain over here.

00:39:38.250 --> 00:39:41.635
Bill Hawkin It looked like it had the hunks of snow on it the size of this town.

00:39:42.430 --> 00:39:48.920
Bill Hawkin I wanted it to let go, but it didn't. But that was my first close-up experience

00:39:48.920 --> 00:39:53.030
Bill Hawkin with it. And I'd been up there for about an hour just, I don't want to say meditating,

00:39:53.495 --> 00:39:55.625
Bill Hawkin just enjoying it and soaking it in.

00:39:56.090 --> 00:40:02.400
Bill Hawkin I can remember, you know, not all the details, but I can remember quite a few details about that.

00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:08.300
Bill Hawkin So I go down to the parking lot, and there's the big bus and all the nice old people, which I now am.

00:40:08.300 --> 00:40:14.240
Bill Hawkin One, she got off there, and she was very interested in my bike because I looked

00:40:14.240 --> 00:40:18.925
Bill Hawkin like a sort of a, I don't know, a masculine lady.

00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:22.849
Bill Hawkin Living on the street, I was pretty dirty most of the time.

00:40:23.308 --> 00:40:27.390
Bill Hawkin I was very polite with her, but that had double meanings, of course.

00:40:27.770 --> 00:40:30.106
Bill Hawkin She didn't get the other meanings, so it doesn't matter.

00:40:30.570 --> 00:40:31.841
Robin Dean: Among the Redwoods,

00:40:33.380 --> 00:40:34.035
Bill Hawkin You wrote that

00:40:34.413 --> 00:40:41.739
Robin Dean: Nature made you right size and smaller. The Grand Canyon made you feel the same way.

00:40:42.192 --> 00:40:45.959
Robin Dean: Why was feeling small so powerful and comforting?

00:40:46.493 --> 00:40:50.922
Bill Hawkin Too and that's the thing called surrender we learned about that in the other

00:40:50.922 --> 00:40:56.466
Bill Hawkin program which i promised i wouldn't get into but it's such a part of my life i can't help it

00:40:56.930 --> 00:41:02.358
Bill Hawkin but we have to surrender let go and let our higher power the guy that was through stuff

00:41:02.822 --> 00:41:06.567
Bill Hawkin they're so huge you can't believe and there's even bigger ones way up there

00:41:07.024 --> 00:41:11.182
Bill Hawkin on the mountain side but down here you're swirling through it it was a it was

00:41:11.182 --> 00:41:13.630
Bill Hawkin a national park i think and

00:41:14.147 --> 00:41:18.988
Bill Hawkin some trees had fallen over the road And we're cut, was six feet high.

00:41:19.435 --> 00:41:23.998
Bill Hawkin Pierce this tree with a chunk of them had taken out, and you'd just drive right through there.

00:41:24.451 --> 00:41:28.317
Bill Hawkin You start feeling pretty small when you're around these big things.

00:41:28.781 --> 00:41:33.321
Bill Hawkin I just felt like a church. It came together at the top. There was no sunlight.

00:41:33.768 --> 00:41:38.394
Bill Hawkin I felt like I was at church. If somebody played an organ out there,

00:41:39.265 --> 00:41:41.227
Bill Hawkin I think I would have camped for the night.

00:41:41.691 --> 00:41:47.322
Robin Dean: You decided that there are no wrong turns on this trip. only other turns,

00:41:47.502 --> 00:41:49.139
Robin Dean: other being the keyword there.

00:41:49.586 --> 00:41:54.085
Robin Dean: Did that become a way of looking at life after you came home?

00:41:54.631 --> 00:42:02.700
Bill Hawkin After I came home. I wish I'd known how to work all these possibilities, how to get through life.

00:42:02.816 --> 00:42:06.193
Bill Hawkin I wish I'd have known more about some of the other choices.

00:42:06.623 --> 00:42:12.180
Bill Hawkin I got wrapped up in the big city and the hustle bustle and I was a blue shooting

00:42:12.180 --> 00:42:14.378
Bill Hawkin suit guy. I was in a design business.

00:42:14.848 --> 00:42:20.690
Bill Hawkin I was making presentations to guys that are way smarter than me and I'm up there

00:42:20.690 --> 00:42:25.370
Bill Hawkin trying to convince them that I'm just as smart as they are and what i was what

00:42:25.370 --> 00:42:27.695
Bill Hawkin i was doing actually i was pretty good

00:42:28.240 --> 00:42:33.540
Bill Hawkin i hated it i just hated it i did it for a long time i actually i did that for

00:42:33.540 --> 00:42:40.228
Bill Hawkin 10 years with a partner and i went in one day and i said you know what i can't do this anymore

00:42:40.692 --> 00:42:44.410
Bill Hawkin that's when we went down to the farm took the kids down there ripped the phone

00:42:44.410 --> 00:42:46.073
Bill Hawkin off the wall throw it in the yard

00:42:46.532 --> 00:42:50.690
Bill Hawkin it was an emotional time but i was like trying to figure out who the hell i

00:42:50.690 --> 00:42:55.861
Bill Hawkin was i'm a cooking I said, boy, we grew up on a coal mine, and I'm in here doing this.

00:42:56.324 --> 00:43:01.938
Robin Dean: You later wrote that going alone was something you did not want to do,

00:43:02.396 --> 00:43:04.038
Robin Dean: but something you needed to do.

00:43:04.502 --> 00:43:08.896
Robin Dean: What did solitude allow you to discover that you might have missed with a companion?

00:43:09.355 --> 00:43:13.300
Bill Hawkin Well, I think you know the answer to that as well as I do if you've been out by yourself.

00:43:14.185 --> 00:43:18.527
Bill Hawkin But it seems to be multiplied by those damn wide-open spaces,

00:43:18.991 --> 00:43:24.988
Bill Hawkin plateau areas out there i've only experienced total silence two times in my life

00:43:25.499 --> 00:43:29.550
Bill Hawkin one of them was out there on one top of one of those buttes that you can see

00:43:29.550 --> 00:43:34.351
Bill Hawkin for 50 miles there were no birds there was no wind

00:43:34.816 --> 00:43:39.930
Bill Hawkin there was nothing swear to god i think if i put a bucket over my head taped

00:43:39.930 --> 00:43:45.578
Bill Hawkin it up at the bottom couldn't have gotten it that quiet i just stood there for a minute and

00:43:46.480 --> 00:43:51.162
Bill Hawkin sunk in that this was something I'd never experienced before in my life, ever.

00:43:51.701 --> 00:43:59.075
Robin Dean: In your bottom line, you said you'd lost my fear of the unknown and found my self-confidence.

00:43:59.533 --> 00:44:03.130
Robin Dean: Was there one particular moment when you realized that change had happened?

00:44:03.589 --> 00:44:07.555
Bill Hawkin It happened in the middle of the ride. Early on. There for a minute,

00:44:07.555 --> 00:44:10.984
Bill Hawkin I thought that first flat tire, I could have died.

00:44:11.414 --> 00:44:14.975
Bill Hawkin But the big ranger had my back. He always does.

00:44:14.975 --> 00:44:16.737
Robin Dean: Well, that and some Mexican dude.

00:44:17.805 --> 00:44:19.872
Bill Hawkin Yeah, right. That was God.

00:44:20.133 --> 00:44:20.975
Robin Dean: That brought it together.

00:44:20.975 --> 00:44:21.253
Bill Hawkin Yeah.

00:44:21.712 --> 00:44:26.255
Robin Dean: The journal is filled with brief encounters from the mechanic in Mexico who

00:44:26.255 --> 00:44:30.959
Robin Dean: would not charge you to the Navajo waitress who shared that quiet morning with you.

00:44:31.842 --> 00:44:35.290
Robin Dean: Which stranger has stayed in your memory most clearly and why?

00:44:35.748 --> 00:44:40.035
Bill Hawkin Well, gosh, that was a good one, that waitress. When I was headed into the Grand

00:44:40.035 --> 00:44:43.446
Bill Hawkin Canyon, I was 10 minutes away.

00:44:43.898 --> 00:44:45.803
Bill Hawkin Straight down, it was early in the morning.

00:44:46.261 --> 00:44:50.335
Bill Hawkin It had rained. I wanted to get something to eat. She was the only person that

00:44:50.335 --> 00:44:54.667
Bill Hawkin was a little restaurant. She was playing beautiful flute music.

00:44:55.131 --> 00:45:01.179
Bill Hawkin She was beautiful, 100%, whatever the tribe. That was a gift in itself.

00:45:01.643 --> 00:45:04.459
Bill Hawkin I don't remember what she gave me. It didn't matter.

00:45:06.165 --> 00:45:06.955
Robin Dean: Here's a bowl of sand.

00:45:06.955 --> 00:45:14.785
Bill Hawkin I got my money's worth already. And I get on down the road to the Grand Canyon,

00:45:14.785 --> 00:45:17.810
Bill Hawkin and that was the first person through the gate that day.

00:45:18.274 --> 00:45:23.899
Bill Hawkin And I was able to get to a place on the rim where I could stiff over the log

00:45:24.126 --> 00:45:26.245
Bill Hawkin barrier that was there to keep people back.

00:45:26.697 --> 00:45:31.057
Bill Hawkin I said, I ain't doing that. So I went and sat on the edge of the rim.

00:45:32.213 --> 00:45:38.536
Bill Hawkin Grand canyon with my feet there straight down oh my god i just i was crying

00:45:39.036 --> 00:45:41.344
Bill Hawkin in the pathway before i even got to it

00:45:41.803 --> 00:45:42.627
Robin Dean: I could feel

00:45:43.074 --> 00:45:49.506
Bill Hawkin The strength and the experience of this thing was going to be really powerful and it was

00:45:49.959 --> 00:45:50.493
Brian Wringer: I like that.

00:45:50.957 --> 00:45:55.386
Robin Dean: Seattle and aaron's wedding were the reason you had a deadline but the ride

00:45:55.386 --> 00:46:00.566
Robin Dean: changed you before you ever arrived did the journey affect what it meant to

00:46:00.566 --> 00:46:02.415
Robin Dean: walk your daughter to the altar

00:46:02.874 --> 00:46:08.636
Bill Hawkin Oh yeah oh yeah but we we both agreed that we weren't gonna cry and sob and oh

00:46:09.076 --> 00:46:09.706
Robin Dean: How'd that go

00:46:10.014 --> 00:46:15.581
Bill Hawkin Well not well i mean this is my little girl for crying out loud you know

00:46:16.045 --> 00:46:21.076
Bill Hawkin i still i make her sit on my lap every time she comes to visit right now and

00:46:21.076 --> 00:46:25.786
Bill Hawkin one time i forgot the last time not this time she said dad you forgot to ask

00:46:25.786 --> 00:46:28.196
Bill Hawkin me to sit i said well what are we waiting for.

00:46:29.188 --> 00:46:33.886
Robin Dean: Last question I got for you. On your 58th birthday, you wrote that the trip

00:46:33.886 --> 00:46:39.521
Robin Dean: reopened emotions you remembered from childhood, but had lost somewhere along the way.

00:46:39.805 --> 00:46:40.095
Bill Hawkin Yeah.

00:46:40.560 --> 00:46:45.796
Robin Dean: Which memory from the trip still brings that childlike feeling back most vividly?

00:46:46.255 --> 00:46:51.880
Bill Hawkin Oh, man. You know, from that trip, there was probably 20 I could use for that answer.

00:46:52.344 --> 00:46:55.902
Bill Hawkin The Grand Canyon was one of them. And the redwoods.

00:46:56.366 --> 00:47:01.236
Bill Hawkin I slept with a hammock strung between two redwoods.

00:47:01.695 --> 00:47:06.431
Bill Hawkin I didn't have enough rope to get around, so I could hang my hammock and help a tree.

00:47:07.767 --> 00:47:12.526
Bill Hawkin But to be laying there and looking up at these two things was just like,

00:47:12.980 --> 00:47:15.370
Bill Hawkin boy, I hope you guys don't drop me.

00:47:17.459 --> 00:47:22.520
Bill Hawkin It was wonderful, and I woke up that next morning, and there was a squirrel

00:47:22.520 --> 00:47:27.143
Bill Hawkin sitting pretty close to me, kind of watching me, trying to figure out where I came from.

00:47:27.490 --> 00:47:32.686
Bill Hawkin I told him that, I appreciate you coming down. It's a long trip from up there.

00:47:33.939 --> 00:47:42.027
Bill Hawkin That was an experience. The whole redwood tree experience was just wonderful. Those are two good ones.

00:47:42.490 --> 00:47:47.244
Bill Hawkin Oh, my God. it. I just sitting on a chalk line road in the middle of a desert.

00:47:47.378 --> 00:47:48.939
Bill Hawkin There's nothing out there but me.

00:47:49.405 --> 00:47:55.450
Bill Hawkin It didn't have to be beautiful. It gave me all the space I could handle to be

00:47:55.450 --> 00:47:59.585
Bill Hawkin alone and just meditate a little bit, just let it all come in.

00:48:00.043 --> 00:48:02.860
Robin Dean: That's all I got on the question side. Is there anything more you might want

00:48:02.860 --> 00:48:06.720
Robin Dean: to say to anybody out there young and wanting to know what the world's really

00:48:06.720 --> 00:48:08.054
Robin Dean: all about on their own terms?

00:48:08.518 --> 00:48:11.868
Bill Hawkin That was the big number on my bucket list.

00:48:12.222 --> 00:48:16.959
Bill Hawkin And I was 58 years old and I knew that I need not wait any longer.

00:48:17.423 --> 00:48:21.700
Bill Hawkin We were also having troubles at home with my marriage. She didn't want me to

00:48:21.700 --> 00:48:25.700
Bill Hawkin go because I was going to get in a wreck and she was going to have to feed me

00:48:25.700 --> 00:48:28.064
Bill Hawkin the rest of my life. And I said, well,

00:48:28.528 --> 00:48:28.964
Robin Dean: I'm going.

00:48:29.503 --> 00:48:30.107
Bill Hawkin And, uh,

00:48:30.926 --> 00:48:35.686
Bill Hawkin triggered the divorce crap, which came after this story.

00:48:36.150 --> 00:48:40.893
Bill Hawkin I do not regret it. And neither does she. We're still okay.

00:48:41.427 --> 00:48:43.581
Robin Dean: No wrong turns, only other turns.

00:48:44.033 --> 00:48:48.619
Bill Hawkin Right. And everything worked out. I've seen her several times since we,

00:48:49.066 --> 00:48:51.179
Bill Hawkin that's been 25 years ago.

00:48:51.615 --> 00:48:55.918
Bill Hawkin So that's no big deal. But big deals, they were all big deals,

00:48:55.918 --> 00:48:58.399
Bill Hawkin Matt. There's a hundred of them.

00:48:59.508 --> 00:49:03.072
Bill Hawkin That's why I went. I was a different person when I got back.

00:49:03.525 --> 00:49:06.410
Bill Hawkin I'd do it again if I could, but it wouldn't be the same.

00:49:07.248 --> 00:49:07.875
Robin Dean: Should it be?

00:49:08.397 --> 00:49:08.728
Bill Hawkin Oh, no.

00:49:08.828 --> 00:49:10.598
Brian Wringer: It's always be a little different.

00:49:10.598 --> 00:49:13.599
Bill Hawkin Yeah. But I'm lucky to have the health I had.

00:49:14.051 --> 00:49:14.905
Robin Dean: Mr. Hawkins, yeah?

00:49:15.323 --> 00:49:15.752
Bill Hawkin Bill.

00:49:16.310 --> 00:49:17.029
Robin Dean: You want me to call you Bill?

00:49:17.308 --> 00:49:19.090
Bill Hawkin Oh, hell yes. All right, Bill.

00:49:20.508 --> 00:49:22.147
Robin Dean: Thank you again for...

00:49:47.721 --> 00:49:48.128
Brian Wringer: Nice.

00:49:48.447 --> 00:49:49.217
Robin Dean: Pretty amazing, right?

00:49:49.553 --> 00:49:54.284
Brian Wringer: That was the burrito. How do you pronounce the name of that town where he lived?

00:49:54.574 --> 00:49:55.869
Brian Wringer: That was his dad, I believe, right?

00:49:56.333 --> 00:49:59.144
Robin Dean: He says it in there. I'm not even going to try. How about that?

00:49:59.595 --> 00:50:04.153
Brian Wringer: Okay. And I followed along on maps. And yeah, it looks like a wonderful place

00:50:04.153 --> 00:50:08.165
Brian Wringer: in Mexico, right on a lake. Beautiful, tropical paradise type of place.

00:50:08.628 --> 00:50:11.543
Brian Wringer: And yeah, the whole trip when he mentions towns, I was following along.

00:50:11.543 --> 00:50:14.323
Brian Wringer: It's amazing. I've been to some of those places. I haven't been to a lot of them.

00:50:14.781 --> 00:50:17.933
Robin Dean: Well, you know, it means we need to move on to something tasty.

00:50:18.468 --> 00:50:19.826
Brian Wringer: Tastier than a burrito?

00:50:20.291 --> 00:50:24.505
Robin Dean: Brian's tiny, tasty tooltips, almost as good as a burrito.

00:50:24.963 --> 00:50:29.193
Brian Wringer: So last time we began the thread files by talking about thread files.

00:50:29.193 --> 00:50:32.592
Brian Wringer: So speaking of threads, let's continue the thread files.

00:50:33.055 --> 00:50:36.649
Brian Wringer: Let's talk about threads, the things that things screw into.

00:50:37.107 --> 00:50:38.269
Robin Dean: The things that get screwed.

00:50:38.728 --> 00:50:43.763
Brian Wringer: So the next thing to talk about are tools and materials that let you put threads

00:50:43.763 --> 00:50:49.363
Brian Wringer: back in places where the threads are no more places where threads are long gone

00:50:49.363 --> 00:50:50.562
Brian Wringer: or if you're fabricating,

00:50:51.021 --> 00:50:55.113
Brian Wringer: how do you put threads in where you want threads to be right up front i'll say

00:50:55.113 --> 00:51:00.123
Brian Wringer: this applies more to people who are hand who are dealing with vintage bikes but,

00:51:00.679 --> 00:51:04.301
Brian Wringer: Even on a modern bike, you can get into a situation where Mr.

00:51:04.301 --> 00:51:07.187
Brian Wringer: Helicoil becomes your friend. Robin's been there.

00:51:07.639 --> 00:51:08.028
Robin Dean: Yes.

00:51:08.574 --> 00:51:14.042
Brian Wringer: These are good things to know, good skills to have. First thing I want to talk about is rivet nuts.

00:51:14.512 --> 00:51:15.151
Robin Dean: Riv nuts.

00:51:15.604 --> 00:51:18.031
Brian Wringer: Riv nuts. Rivet, insert, nut,

00:51:18.031 --> 00:51:22.593
Brian Wringer: blah, blah, blah. Just slap that into Amazon and you'll see what I mean.

00:51:23.052 --> 00:51:25.954
Brian Wringer: Basically, these are used to put threads in thin metal.

00:51:26.407 --> 00:51:29.981
Brian Wringer: If you have sheet metal or something that's a relatively thin or whatever,

00:51:29.981 --> 00:51:31.399
Brian Wringer: you can put threads in it with that.

00:51:31.858 --> 00:51:35.501
Brian Wringer: These are not going to be liquid tight threads, so don't use it to try to replace

00:51:35.501 --> 00:51:39.711
Brian Wringer: your oil plug threads or whatever. But it can be very handy in a lot of applications

00:51:39.711 --> 00:51:43.551
Brian Wringer: on motorcycles. It can be really handy for fabrication if you're putting things

00:51:43.551 --> 00:51:45.748
Brian Wringer: together out of sheet metal, pipe, and things like that.

00:51:46.206 --> 00:51:49.571
Brian Wringer: These tools for installing rivonets, they're all made in China and they're all

00:51:49.571 --> 00:51:51.741
Brian Wringer: pretty much identical. They use the same mandrels, etc.

00:51:52.383 --> 00:51:57.050
Brian Wringer: Take your pick. I have one from Harbor Freight under the Doyle name,

00:51:57.509 --> 00:52:02.896
Brian Wringer: and it comes with M5, M6, and M8. So metric 5, 6, and 8 millimeter.

00:52:03.302 --> 00:52:04.277
Robin Dean: What, no quarter 20?

00:52:04.736 --> 00:52:08.161
Brian Wringer: That's right. Well, that comes with that too. So it also comes with some inch

00:52:08.161 --> 00:52:09.635
Brian Wringer: stuff, which I don't really care about.

00:52:10.100 --> 00:52:13.231
Brian Wringer: You put the insert on, you put the right mandrel on the tool,

00:52:13.231 --> 00:52:17.130
Brian Wringer: you put the insert on the mandrel, you stick it in a hole, you squeeze the handles,

00:52:17.588 --> 00:52:24.920
Brian Wringer: and the tool compresses and collapses the rivet nut insert so that it locks it into the hole.

00:52:25.373 --> 00:52:27.410
Brian Wringer: You take it out and you can put a bolt in it.

00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:32.131
Robin Dean: Imagine sticky string going into a tire, only the tire is made of metal and

00:52:32.131 --> 00:52:34.405
Robin Dean: you want to mount something on it with a threaded bolt.

00:52:35.641 --> 00:52:40.221
Robin Dean: You basically hole saw an outlet and then you compress the rivet nut in,

00:52:40.221 --> 00:52:41.441
Robin Dean: you put the rivet nut tool in, and

00:52:42.306 --> 00:52:46.641
Robin Dean: as you bring the arms of the rivet nut tool together, it mushrooms the back

00:52:46.641 --> 00:52:50.471
Robin Dean: of the mount point against the metal and creates a seal so that you can then

00:52:50.471 --> 00:52:53.235
Robin Dean: apply nuts, bolts, whatever. You get a point.

00:52:54.409 --> 00:52:58.716
Brian Wringer: Pretty handy for general, you know, vehicle, whatever, home stuff,

00:52:58.716 --> 00:52:59.738
Brian Wringer: anytime you're dealing with metal.

00:53:00.202 --> 00:53:05.146
Brian Wringer: There's also a version, an arrangement with a nut and a bolt you hold,

00:53:05.146 --> 00:53:07.456
Brian Wringer: and then there's bearing in between them and so forth.

00:53:07.456 --> 00:53:12.636
Brian Wringer: But the upshot of that is you can get a kit where you hold part of the tool

00:53:12.636 --> 00:53:15.926
Brian Wringer: with one hand and then you tighten the other part and it does the same thing

00:53:15.926 --> 00:53:20.038
Brian Wringer: without having to get the whole rib nut set or tool.

00:53:20.583 --> 00:53:23.503
Brian Wringer: These are cheaper, a little more compact if it's kind of restricted.

00:53:23.961 --> 00:53:28.185
Brian Wringer: And the cool thing about this is you can get mandrills and inserts for different

00:53:28.185 --> 00:53:33.597
Brian Wringer: sizes. In metric, you can go all the way down to 3mm and all the way up to 12mm.

00:53:34.050 --> 00:53:36.959
Brian Wringer: And again, these are all on the Brazilian River.

00:53:37.423 --> 00:53:41.485
Brian Wringer: And they're one of those weird things that they all seem to be made in the same

00:53:41.485 --> 00:53:44.306
Brian Wringer: Chinese factory under all kinds of weird names.

00:53:44.770 --> 00:53:46.965
Brian Wringer: And they're all actually pretty decent quality.

00:53:47.465 --> 00:53:51.665
Brian Wringer: No one knows how, but it's one of those weird things where just to search around

00:53:51.665 --> 00:53:55.440
Brian Wringer: on Amazon, make sure the kit looks like what you're after.

00:53:55.899 --> 00:54:00.478
Brian Wringer: You can get yourself set up pretty cheap. A good starting point is the $50 kit,

00:54:00.944 --> 00:54:06.743
Brian Wringer: at Harbor Freight, and they have similar kits, and they all take the same mandrels on Amazon.

00:54:07.201 --> 00:54:12.005
Brian Wringer: Pretty handy stuff. I keep the kit around, obviously, because I have way too

00:54:12.005 --> 00:54:14.162
Brian Wringer: much crap in my garage and just added it.

00:54:14.625 --> 00:54:18.254
Robin Dean: Because I've got one that is no longer seated properly and it just spins.

00:54:18.717 --> 00:54:24.135
Robin Dean: It's in a difficult to access portion of the bed of the truck where I have the

00:54:24.135 --> 00:54:30.810
Robin Dean: base plates for my Milwaukee Packout tool sets. I need to get those stabilized. Maybe you can help.

00:54:31.269 --> 00:54:34.235
Brian Wringer: So what you want to do is you want to get a bolt that fits in your insert,

00:54:34.687 --> 00:54:35.849
Brian Wringer: which I'm sure you have somewhere.

00:54:36.312 --> 00:54:40.293
Brian Wringer: And then you want to get a nut that fits on that bolt.

00:54:40.549 --> 00:54:44.225
Brian Wringer: And so you put the nut on the bolt put the bolt down on the insert and then

00:54:44.225 --> 00:54:48.535
Brian Wringer: you'll hold the bolt and then tighten the nut in order to kind of pull that

00:54:48.535 --> 00:54:50.783
Brian Wringer: up some more and tighten it a little bit.

00:54:51.242 --> 00:54:55.642
Robin Dean: Okay never mind I've got this covered now well done.

00:54:56.170 --> 00:54:59.435
Brian Wringer: Yeah that's one thing rivet nuts can work a little bit loose over time if they

00:54:59.435 --> 00:55:02.178
Brian Wringer: have some strain on them but you can deal with that,

00:55:02.643 --> 00:55:05.765
Brian Wringer: you know the idea is you want to get the nut get the bolt down in there and

00:55:05.765 --> 00:55:10.115
Brian Wringer: then use a nut to Sometimes you want to have like a little spacer in between

00:55:10.115 --> 00:55:13.707
Brian Wringer: there or a washer so you're not tearing up the surface of it.

00:55:14.165 --> 00:55:19.275
Brian Wringer: So that's one way to put threads where threads were not or where threads disappeared

00:55:19.275 --> 00:55:20.893
Brian Wringer: or where whatever happened. All right.

00:55:21.346 --> 00:55:21.787
Robin Dean: Threads.

00:55:22.346 --> 00:55:25.660
Brian Wringer: Threads, the thread files. We're talking about the thread. It says the thread

00:55:25.660 --> 00:55:27.094
Brian Wringer: files and these are the thread files.

00:55:27.553 --> 00:55:32.560
Brian Wringer: So next up are thread inserts. And the brand name that you've probably heard

00:55:32.560 --> 00:55:37.086
Brian Wringer: of is Helicoil. And it's basically a, the cross section of the spring is square.

00:55:37.544 --> 00:55:40.624
Brian Wringer: And then they're wound so that the square is on its side, like a diamond.

00:55:41.083 --> 00:55:45.025
Brian Wringer: That spring will form an internal thread that's quite strong.

00:55:45.489 --> 00:55:51.260
Brian Wringer: Strong and so the kits include a drill bit and then they include a tap for making

00:55:51.260 --> 00:55:54.167
Brian Wringer: that external thread so the spring.

00:55:54.638 --> 00:55:59.530
Brian Wringer: Threads into the hole so you make the hole bigger you tap it for that larger

00:55:59.530 --> 00:56:03.570
Brian Wringer: size for the outside of the spring you wind that spring in there and then you've

00:56:03.570 --> 00:56:07.710
Brian Wringer: got internal threads in the size you want and they're super strong,

00:56:08.175 --> 00:56:12.090
Brian Wringer: and again the neat part here is this is one of those things that the kits all

00:56:12.090 --> 00:56:16.860
Brian Wringer: look the same in some factory in China, and they're all actually really good

00:56:16.860 --> 00:56:18.148
Brian Wringer: quality. I don't know why.

00:56:18.595 --> 00:56:26.728
Brian Wringer: Under $30, you can get a kit that includes five metric sizes, M5, M6, M8, M10, and M12.

00:56:27.186 --> 00:56:31.383
Brian Wringer: And you can also get individual kits for certain thread sizes, things like that.

00:56:31.842 --> 00:56:38.104
Brian Wringer: For example, a lot of these kits include threads that are 10 millimeter by 1.5 pitch.

00:56:38.569 --> 00:56:43.845
Brian Wringer: Most Japanese motorcycles use 1.25 pitch on M10 and M12.

00:56:44.304 --> 00:56:48.180
Brian Wringer: So, but you can get individual kits for those and include a drill bit.

00:56:48.180 --> 00:56:50.498
Brian Wringer: They include a tool for putting the insert in.

00:56:50.962 --> 00:56:54.400
Brian Wringer: They include the tap for making those threads that the spring winds down into,

00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:56.477
Brian Wringer: and then they include several inserts.

00:56:56.947 --> 00:57:02.787
Brian Wringer: There's a little punch tool where you break off the little tab inside the spiral.

00:57:03.251 --> 00:57:06.136
Brian Wringer: So when you're done, you break that little tab off so it gets out of the way.

00:57:06.595 --> 00:57:11.164
Brian Wringer: The point is, it's pretty cheap. They're actually decent quality. And...

00:57:11.674 --> 00:57:15.323
Brian Wringer: It can be a real lifesaver if you're working with bikes that are more than a

00:57:15.323 --> 00:57:18.420
Brian Wringer: couple of years old, especially if you're into vintage stuff.

00:57:18.867 --> 00:57:21.673
Brian Wringer: So last time we talked about how to repair threads. Now we talked about how

00:57:21.673 --> 00:57:24.567
Brian Wringer: to put threads where threads weren't before.

00:57:25.008 --> 00:57:29.467
Robin Dean: Where they were once and once, then became not that, and then are now again. Yes.

00:57:29.885 --> 00:57:33.773
Brian Wringer: Yeah, that's deep, man. Maybe next time we'll talk about solid thread inserts

00:57:33.773 --> 00:57:40.524
Brian Wringer: because, well, you can't really use helicoils where you have to seal against liquid.

00:57:40.692 --> 00:57:42.223
Robin Dean: Let's not get too crazy

00:57:42.843 --> 00:57:47.033
Brian Wringer: Let's not get crazy i'll get to those later but yeah they're you can put in

00:57:47.033 --> 00:57:52.343
Brian Wringer: solid thread inserts for like spark plugs or oil drain plugs things like that

00:57:52.343 --> 00:57:53.951
Brian Wringer: but we'll we'll cover that next time.

00:57:54.404 --> 00:57:55.466
Robin Dean: Nicely done man

00:57:55.925 --> 00:57:58.815
Brian Wringer: That wasn't that tiny but it was tasty and it was a tool tip or two.

00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:05.195
Robin Dean: It's time for segment three and this round it's the agb no i didn't say kgb

00:58:05.572 --> 00:58:11.447
Robin Dean: agb as in the alliteration grab baguette. Give me some French music.

00:58:28.548 --> 00:58:30.023
Robin Dean: Brian, you got to spin the wheel.

00:58:30.458 --> 00:58:34.642
Brian Wringer: All right. We're running low, so we might have to spin a few times, all right?

00:58:34.642 --> 00:58:37.233
Robin Dean: Spin a few times. Go ahead. It's fine. It's fine.

00:58:37.633 --> 00:58:44.855
Brian Wringer: Spinning away. This is random internet, let me tell you. This is peak internet. Oh, my goodness.

00:58:45.302 --> 00:58:48.382
Brian Wringer: This is going to be wild. All right. The letter for the day is D,

00:58:48.782 --> 00:58:53.402
Brian Wringer: and that stands for divisive. Is it divisive or divisive? It's divisive dogmas.

00:58:53.662 --> 00:58:55.408
Robin Dean: Divisive dogmas, yeah. Yeah.

00:58:55.861 --> 00:59:00.162
Brian Wringer: So no matter how deep the niche goes, there's always room for argumentation.

00:59:00.586 --> 00:59:02.711
Brian Wringer: So let's keep it light. Let's keep it positive.

00:59:03.135 --> 00:59:06.246
Brian Wringer: What are the things that will cause an argument no matter what?

00:59:06.687 --> 00:59:11.231
Robin Dean: Walk into a room full of motorcyclists and say, what oil should I use? And then leave.

00:59:11.678 --> 00:59:13.172
Brian Wringer: Your work is done. Yeah, that's all you need.

00:59:13.172 --> 00:59:19.182
Robin Dean: The next morning, you will read in the news about a hugely volatile event that

00:59:19.182 --> 00:59:22.382
Robin Dean: took place near your locality at the time you said those words there

00:59:22.382 --> 00:59:23.799
Brian Wringer: Was a mushroom cloud yeah.

00:59:24.252 --> 00:59:29.918
Robin Dean: It just started to deconstruct the universe behind you as you walked out that's one

00:59:30.365 --> 00:59:31.758
Brian Wringer: Tires are always another one,

00:59:33.185 --> 00:59:40.313
Brian Wringer: And especially if you're in an adventure or dirt space, oh, my God.

00:59:40.754 --> 00:59:45.393
Brian Wringer: No, these are no tires you should definitely use. These tires you can only get

00:59:45.828 --> 00:59:48.389
Brian Wringer: from the Czech Republic twice a year.

00:59:49.259 --> 00:59:52.126
Brian Wringer: They're the best on the planet, and I will fight you.

00:59:53.583 --> 00:59:58.558
Brian Wringer: Tires, tubes, how to load a trailer, how to strap down a bike, instant fight.

00:59:58.924 --> 01:00:02.181
Robin Dean: Totally. And I love the trailer one because

01:00:02.949 --> 01:00:08.549
Robin Dean: one of our mutual friends once rescued me and my bike and just wheeled the bike

01:00:08.549 --> 01:00:14.082
Robin Dean: into the bed of his truck, placed it into a chalk, and we left. No straps.

01:00:14.488 --> 01:00:19.389
Robin Dean: The chalk was that good. It was a secured chalk that was designed to capture

01:00:19.389 --> 01:00:22.156
Robin Dean: the front wheel, and then we just drove.

01:00:22.609 --> 01:00:27.469
Robin Dean: Whereas I've also been with another one of our friends who proceeded to load

01:00:27.469 --> 01:00:32.170
Robin Dean: up a bike and then put enough straight it looked like spider-man had been there

01:00:32.629 --> 01:00:37.174
Robin Dean: there must have been one two three four five six there were probably eight straps

01:00:37.621 --> 01:00:40.645
Robin Dean: there's a spectrum a broad spectrum yes

01:00:40.877 --> 01:00:44.519
Brian Wringer: Yeah you know there are topics like this that are always they're almost banned

01:00:44.519 --> 01:00:48.779
Brian Wringer: on a lot of spaces like you you'll see a rule we're not talking about this here

01:00:48.779 --> 01:00:51.489
Brian Wringer: we're not talking about and I think one of those is if,

01:00:52.749 --> 01:00:57.787
Brian Wringer: If you're in a sport touring space or whatever, just don't bring up Harleys, okay?

01:00:58.142 --> 01:00:59.332
Robin Dean: Yeah, just leave it alone.

01:00:59.464 --> 01:01:00.919
Brian Wringer: Don't bother. Leave it alone.

01:01:00.919 --> 01:01:02.081
Robin Dean: Because somebody's going to get agitated.

01:01:02.494 --> 01:01:06.876
Brian Wringer: Loud pipes, do rags, pirates, don't bring it up. It's just going to go south.

01:01:07.207 --> 01:01:07.967
Robin Dean: Just leave it be.

01:01:08.426 --> 01:01:09.105
Brian Wringer: Leave it be.

01:01:10.009 --> 01:01:15.648
Robin Dean: Let's talk about speed. You wrote The Manorly Gentle Rider's Guide to Speed, the main title.

01:01:16.838 --> 01:01:21.941
Robin Dean: I hear it all the time in various corners, you know, and I've arrived at,

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Robin Dean: well, what is speed then?

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Robin Dean: Because one person's speed versus another person's speed, we all know that person

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Robin Dean: in our life that we've ridden with in the past where, well, we were really going

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Robin Dean: for it. And I was like, you haven't even swung over the bike yet.

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Robin Dean: And then there's another one who was like, I was kind of holding back.

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Robin Dean: And I was like, really? Because you're in a different continent now.

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Robin Dean: I love this line. And anybody who rides faster than you is a maniac.

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Robin Dean: And anybody who rides slower than you is a moron.

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Brian Wringer: George Carlin.

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Robin Dean: George Carlin. It's difficult to address the fact that we are not the bar. You know what I mean?

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Robin Dean: And that goes away. The instant we've said it to ourselves, there's some satisfaction

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Robin Dean: with saying like, okay, I'm not the bar.

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Robin Dean: Okay. And then now I've said that, I'm going to go judge everybody around me. You know what I mean?

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Robin Dean: I'm going to judge them for everything. thing speed is another good one

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Brian Wringer: Yeah i've had i've had people get mad at me for how i'm riding my bike and i'm

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Brian Wringer: not riding your bike go do do what you want buddy,

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Brian Wringer: you know or if you're talking about like you should always be one mile an hour

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Brian Wringer: under the speed limit and you know in the shoulder on the right lane or that's

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Brian Wringer: a topic that always gets people,

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Brian Wringer: there's also this is very specific but on the klr 650,

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Brian Wringer: try bringing up the doohickey in any given room of klr 650 riders if you don't

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Brian Wringer: know what this is it the technical term is it's,

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Brian Wringer: it's the balance shaft chain tensioner now in the early klr650s,

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Brian Wringer: it was a piece of stamped sheet metal and it cracked and it fell apart and it

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Brian Wringer: destroyed a lot of engines and through the years they're still making the klr650

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Brian Wringer: they are still making essentially the same engine,

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Brian Wringer: throughout the years they have upgraded the the doohickey from sheet metal to a pretty beefy,

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Brian Wringer: cast and machine part over four or

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Brian Wringer: five stages. I've got several stages of doohickeys in my garage right now.

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Brian Wringer: And Kawasaki has never once admitted to anybody in any way, shape,

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Brian Wringer: or form that there's ever a problem with this thing.

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Brian Wringer: And so to this day, the doohickey is still a little bit of a problem.

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Brian Wringer: It doesn't fall apart anymore.

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Brian Wringer: It's got a spring on it. So every oil change, you're supposed to loosen a bolt,

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Brian Wringer: let the doohickey create tension on the balancer shaft chain, and tighten it again.

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Brian Wringer: And what happens is the spring is too long on a lot of them now.

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Brian Wringer: So it varies. Some bikes, it's fine. Some examples, it's not.

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Brian Wringer: You don't know unless you look.

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Brian Wringer: And so a lot of people will go ahead and replace the doohickey,

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Brian Wringer: put on a torsion spring that cannot run out of travel.

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Brian Wringer: So should I replace the doohickey on my klr 650,

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Brian Wringer: will start a fight because there are people even in even in the 80s there were

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Brian Wringer: people who are convinced it was just internet bs and that never happened and

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Brian Wringer: so forth sorry i've seen it i've seen it happen that kind of thing,

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Brian Wringer: and in later models it became less and less necessary to do but you still have

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Brian Wringer: times when it is necessary but yeah there are people who will make blanket pronouncements

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Brian Wringer: on either side they'll get very very angry with each other over the doohickey.

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Robin Dean: You've been freshly hipped to regular car reviews and our motorcycle playlist,

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Robin Dean: so you got to see his take on the entire thing as well. Very good.

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Brian Wringer: Yeah.

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Robin Dean: Have we done this to death?

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Brian Wringer: Have we done it to death? I'm sure we could go on, but we're not.

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Brian Wringer: We'll release the controversy to let you complete that sentence in your own brain.

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Robin Dean: Next show is yours to operate. What are some things we want to talk about next time, Brian?

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Brian Wringer: No idea.

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Robin Dean: Even better.

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Brian Wringer: We're getting ready to go to Kentucky. Something related to that and something

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Brian Wringer: related to what we've been talking about between ourselves is,

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Brian Wringer: and we talked about last time, was the 81 ride where you do 81 miles without

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Brian Wringer: looking at a GPS or a screen.

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Brian Wringer: And actually, I did that the entire ride down to Leavenworth and most of the ride back.

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Brian Wringer: Where I had my screen on my bars, but I'm in my home state. I know exactly where

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Brian Wringer: I am. And we just we just vibed and we went.

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Brian Wringer: Of course, maybe that maybe that kind of thing is a good topic.

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Brian Wringer: What can we do to get rid of the screen?

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Brian Wringer: How do you go for a ride? And that's something we talked about wanting to do

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Brian Wringer: in Kentucky, because we're sitting there in Berea, Kentucky.

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Brian Wringer: We're going to be sitting there.

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Brian Wringer: You can see Disney like you're at the entrance of Disneyland.

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Brian Wringer: What do you do next? Do you make a plan? Do you follow a map?

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Brian Wringer: Or do you just go run screaming towards the ride that you, the big tall ride

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Brian Wringer: at the end? You know, that kind of thing.

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Brian Wringer: Maybe we should talk about that. Title of it could be vibe riding.

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Brian Wringer: How do you ride for the vibes? How do you, yeah, I'm going to go down that road

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Brian Wringer: and see what happens. That kind of thing. Let's talk about vibe riding and let's

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Brian Wringer: not talk about the vibe rider, which is a product we don't need to really discuss here.

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Robin Dean: Good idea. Well, I like your plan. You ready to get out of here?

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Brian Wringer: I'm ready to get out of here. Let's go.