Latest / Life According to Brian and Jason / #51- How to Travel Aboard and Keep Up with Sports: Life According to Brian & Jason

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#51- How to Travel Aboard and Keep Up with Sports: Life According to Brian & Jason · Life According to Brian and Jason

• 0:10
  All right, friends. Welcome to another episode of Life According to Brian.
• 0:15
  And Jason. Hey, Jason, we're back. It's another week. Dude, here's my question.
• 0:20
  You've been out of the country. How did you know that Tyler Reddick wins at Phoenix?
• 0:25
  How did you get the rest of all the important information?
• 0:30
  Uh, Tyler did, huh? Well, I didn't know. Well, that's a great question.
• 0:34
  The win of the NASCAR Cup is in it. I know.
• 0:38
  I had the same concerns. Well, let me paint you this picture.
• 0:42
  I flew out of Arkansas here, went to Chicago, went to London,
• 0:47
  Heathrow, had to sprint, had to do my best Tom Cruise through the airport,
• 0:53
  back through security onto an international flight, Felicia.
• 0:57
  And when I landed, hey, friends, if you like this original content,
• 1:02
  please buy us a coffee. You can donate by clicking the link in our YouTube page,
• 1:07
  under Life According to Brian and Jason.
• 1:11
  Or in each episode, there also is a link. It'll take you to Ko-fi.com.
• 1:18
  That is K-O-F-I.com. And we have an account there. It's all legitimate and they
• 1:24
  take all major forms of payment.
• 1:27
  We appreciate your support. And again, we are not a monetized podcast.
• 1:31
  And your little love will go a long way keeping this production going. Thank you.
• 1:36
  My phone worked. Ding, ding.
• 1:39
  And I tell you what, traveling in the modern day, compared to 10 years ago,
• 1:43
  I've been to Croatia twice, 10 years apart.
• 1:45
  This time I got Google Fi and it just says we put the international plan on.
• 1:51
  As soon as you land, it says, welcome, your plan works here. Something like that.
• 1:57
  And just right there, man, 4G, 5G.
• 2:01
  And so I'm like, true. All right. I can keep up with everything I keep up with
• 2:06
  in the States through my phone.
• 2:08
  And so, yeah, so we had the international plan, which means,
• 2:11
  you know, don't go crazy on the data, but, you know, unlimited data,
• 2:16
  which you need for maps and, you know, phone calls, lost luggage, which happened with me.
• 2:21
  You know, so that was my main priority is. You lost your luggage.
• 2:25
  Dude, you've had that happen to you. Well, it was delayed. Put it this way.
• 2:29
  When I said I was sprinting through Retro, well, what happened is my luggage
• 2:34
  wasn't as fast as I was chasing. So it just wound up there.
• 2:40
  And so I landed in Croatia and I'm in the Dubrovnik airport.
• 2:44
  So if the word Dubrovnik resonates with anyone out there, that's where they
• 2:49
  shot a whole bunch of Game of Thrones. It's the famous Wald city, medieval Wald city.
• 2:55
  Great. It's beautiful. First time I've been to Dubrovnik, I've been to northern
• 2:58
  Croatia, my first time around there. So I'm only in Dubrovnik for a night because
• 3:04
  then we got to catch a fair and got to head up to Split, Croatia.
• 3:08
  To do our we're doing a sailing and cycling tour of the islands for a week so
• 3:14
  i land my bag doesn't come out the parasol i don't know and.
• 3:19
  Let's just say customer service in croatia isn't really it's kind of a thing
• 3:26
  but not a thing they just they just i went to like where you claim baggage and there's nobody,
• 3:35
  like the window is empty and i'm with a group of other people that had the same
• 3:39
  issue the little transition there and,
• 3:42
  you throw and i'm looking around finally this lady who lost she was doing a
• 3:46
  swimming tour between the islands she's an attorney out of the united states
• 3:51
  she goes there's what we're looking for it's the qr code you had to use your phone thing
• 3:56
  and use your phone service you feel out of form for british airlines and that
• 4:00
  was all like that was it you know so tan's like hey what what do you know about
• 4:04
  your bag i said well we found a qr code on the wall
• 4:08
  said if you lost a bag scan this.
• 4:11
  That was it everything else is in a language i don't speak and so yeah
• 4:16
  i'm like and guess what i had no extra clothes in my backpack you know i did
• 4:21
  put all i I put all my meds, cosmetic, you know, my cosmetic,
• 4:25
  you know, deodorant and all that stuff. That's in my carry on.
• 4:29
  I usually do that just in case I get pumped because it's hard to,
• 4:33
  you know, you take a day of medication. You just, you know, you don't want to lose it. Right.
• 4:38
  And so I had that stuff on me, but, you know, got an Uber, got up to meet,
• 4:44
  you know, my friends in Tannis where they were staying.
• 4:46
  And I'm like, shoot, now I'm on this roller coaster of I leave on a ferry the
• 4:52
  very next morning and there's no way my bag's going to find.
• 4:55
  And so the mission at hand was buying clothes for Brian in a foreign country. So we set up on foot.
• 5:03
  We found a sporting goods store.
• 5:05
  I could read most of the tags in English. I mean, there was only one sporting
• 5:09
  goods store I could even find. It's not like the estates where you have Walmarts
• 5:14
  or anything like that. Nah, you got very small grocery stores.
• 5:17
  Everything's built on a hill.
• 5:19
  You know, you're walking East Tangle Street. There's more bakeries than anything
• 5:23
  else, you know. Right, there you go. I know. You got to do it. They know.
• 5:28
  So I'm walking to find clothes. They keep smelling bread everywhere.
• 5:32
  And so, yeah, we found this little sporting goods store.
• 5:35
  Above a grocery store and sure enough i really found a pair of adidas running
• 5:41
  pants some kind of dry fit kind of shirt some socks and underwear spent 100 euros on that
• 5:48
  about 100 about 115 in euros and threw them in a bag at the grocery store got
• 5:54
  a few things get back home and all right well these are my clothes for the week
• 5:59
  you know because we're going to island i'm even gonna have less choices i mean
• 6:03
  On an island, I'm just going to find like tourist clothing at that point. Hey, you want a hoodie?
• 6:09
  You know, that was about it. And so, yeah, finally that late that night,
• 6:13
  we're out walking the city in Dubrovnik.
• 6:16
  I had to go out to dinner. I had to see this castle, this medieval port city,
• 6:21
  walled city at night. Spectacular. Get a little something to eat.
• 6:26
  And I was just getting ready to get gelato, Jason.
• 6:28
  And my phone rang. And there's this heavy voice on the other end.
• 6:32
  Are you, Brian? I'm like, yeah, you have lost bag. Yeah. Yeah. That's me.
• 6:36
  We need address. And me being a ridiculous American, I said, well, it's on the form.
• 6:42
  Oh, didn't like that. Now you could tell like she's smoking a cigarette on the
• 6:48
  other end. You know, I need address. Didn't even, you know, wasn't even going to chase my comment.
• 6:53
  And so I said, just a minute. And I'm trying to find it. First of all, it's in Croatian.
• 6:58
  I'm like, you know, so Tannis is helping me. we read off a few things she's,
• 7:03
  you know we're spelling it she's like yeah yeah and i said we're staying above
• 7:08
  the mazda dealer does that make any shit oh yeah yeah you'll be there tonight click.
• 7:17
  You're like okay all right sure enough i don't know 10 o'clock that night my
• 7:22
  bag shows up i was in love so uh so that's how my day starts and that's how
• 7:27
  the phone starts and the phone works.
• 7:30
  I'm not even thinking, you know, sports at that point. We spend the night.
• 7:34
  I get up the next morning. It's Sunday. I'm seven hours ahead of my time.
• 7:39
  And I'm like, oh, I got to see what's on TV.
• 7:42
  I wonder if there's Formula One on it because it's Europe. You know,
• 7:45
  it's Europe. Sure enough, there's an Easter mass on that channel.
• 7:50
  Next channel, boom. Formula One, baby. So yeah.
• 7:53
  So I got to watch a little bit of Formula One before we had to head off to the
• 7:57
  ferry. and find our port and become the ferry. So, yeah.
• 8:02
  I didn't even, you know, I like, I like tuning in to the local TV channels when I can see what's on.
• 8:08
  Most of it I couldn't understand, but universal language, Formula One and soccer, right? Or football.
• 8:16
  So in short, man, I did not follow NASCAR, but baseball playoffs,
• 8:21
  I was like, uh-oh, you know, because we're good.
• 8:24
  We were going to these little islands
• 8:27
  and I thought, well, what's the self-service would be like on this?
• 8:29
  And the boat that we're on, it's not a very big boat, only holds like 30 passengers
• 8:34
  plus crew. And so it's an e-bike tour. So we've got to get off to our first
• 8:39
  port. So we get up the split, get on the boat.
• 8:42
  And then I see a QR code for Wi-Fi. I'm like, ooh, sweet thing.
• 8:47
  First day, it didn't really work a lot.
• 8:49
  Jumping off. I'm like, oh, God. My feed's not feeding.
• 8:54
  I got nothing. For a while, it's kind of stunk. But after that very first island
• 8:59
  and started getting onto the other islands as we went through the trip, I had no problem.
• 9:03
  I could find out anything I wanted, but since I'm in a different time zone,
• 9:08
  there's no way I'm watching anything live. But, man, YouTube for the win.
• 9:14
  YouTube replays. That's how I kept up. YouTube was the win, man. Yeah.
• 9:17
  That's how you do it. And so if I wanted to find out how the Milwaukee series was going, right?
• 9:23
  Pull that up. Quick little short. boom skim through it the boat wi-fi,
• 9:30
  if everyone was on it at the same time you know it wasn't working too good but
• 9:35
  if i checked it at other times maybe like like right before dinner most people go down to the salon.
• 9:42
  They get there early find their little seat that'd be like i'm like okay it's
• 9:45
  10 minutes to dinner so then i check my media because
• 9:48
  most people are down talking they're off their phones so it opened up the bandwidth
• 9:52
  on the boat and uh i just check in check scores and then if there was a good
• 9:56
  game I read about in my feed then I just would watch a little bit of the YouTube so yeah yeah
• 10:03
  Man, I missed some good stuff, dude. So you tell me what I missed.
• 10:06
  When I got back, basically the Brewers are a lock into the World Series.
• 10:11
  And right now we're in the Tampa Bay Cleveland situation. So what did I miss?
• 10:15
  What did I miss? Well, that's what I was wondering. I tried to send you cryptic
• 10:19
  me watching baseball. I'm like, I have no idea what time it is.
• 10:22
  He's probably on the bed. Heads ready to hit the pillow.
• 10:26
  And, you know, here I am sending him. But no, man, it's just.
• 10:30
  No, I appreciate that. Small markets, dude. Small markets. And you know what?
• 10:33
  We can do this in baseball at least. And it's just been good.
• 10:37
  Yeah. Enjoying it, man. Just good pitching. And, you know, you always got those idiots, though.
• 10:43
  This might have been before you left. People who, you know, drinking's involved.
• 10:47
  They try to catch a ball that's going out. Oh. And, you know,
• 10:51
  they reach over too far here.
• 10:52
  And they're like, yeah. And, like, we have to escort you out.
• 10:55
  You know, you're in the mud in the New York metropolitan area.
• 10:57
  Right. Oh. So that happened to the Yankees, I think I read. The Yankees, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:04
  And, you know, sorry, Yankee fan. You know, there you go.
• 11:07
  See ya. You know, I have to say, it was very interesting because I have traveled
• 11:11
  internationally on and off for the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years.
• 11:15
  And when I say on and off, you know, it seems like every other year I'm out
• 11:19
  and about, you know, somewhere, some country doing something with Tannis.
• 11:22
  And I tell you what, my feed was flawless.
• 11:26
  It it kind of kept up with the states really well you know because i'm on a.
• 11:32
  I'm on a android right and then i have my google feed just like jump into you
• 11:37
  know your google your chrome right and there's all your news,
• 11:41
  and there was a little bit about croatia because it knew i was in croatia so
• 11:46
  it would send me stuff like oh you're in this town whatever but most of it was
• 11:50
  straight up what I pay attention to backstates.
• 11:53
  And so it's like, I know it's like in some ways it was kind of bad because it's like I never left.
• 12:00
  You know, I'm standing in a medieval town with all this history,
• 12:05
  but then I'm just reading American trash on my phone.
• 12:10
  So it's like, yeah, you know, whatever your world is, according to your phone,
• 12:15
  it follows you wherever you go now. But in the past, the past,
• 12:18
  it's not always been that way. Haven't you?
• 12:20
  Any more? Or has it always been? I mean. The last 10 years, seven,
• 12:24
  eight years. Oh, easy. Like, say, 10 years ago, when I got, when Tennis and
• 12:30
  I did Eastern New York 10 years ago, you're buying SIM cards at the airport.
• 12:33
  So you had to find the little vendor.
• 12:35
  And if they were closed, they had machines. So, like, when I flew into Germany,
• 12:40
  it was at a bad time. And the, you know, stores are open. So I'm trying to do
• 12:44
  a machine. So I put this little SIM card in.
• 12:47
  And it's just blown out. The data just blew out instantly, you know,
• 12:51
  because I didn't quite have the roaming right. or I was doing too much searching
• 12:54
  or I didn't find a Wi-Fi hotspot, you know.
• 12:58
  So, yeah, it was just a mess. It was just a mess always.
• 13:02
  And then 10 plus years ago, I was in Japan. I had to buy or rent.
• 13:06
  I had to rent a hotspot. And so I'm in the airport in Japan,
• 13:13
  the big one, and found this little booth, this little counter.
• 13:17
  I had this rental. You get this little hotspot. It was like a 4G hotspot.
• 13:23
  And then we were traveling. I was meeting up with our friends and Tannis.
• 13:27
  So it was four of us. We put four of us on our hotspot and that's how we,
• 13:31
  We just made calls using, you know, I don't even know if WhatsApp was around 10 years ago.
• 13:36
  I'm trying to remember what we used. It might have been like Facebook Messenger
• 13:40
  or something. I don't know. And yeah, and then it's just, you know,
• 13:43
  it's kind of inconsistent data because you're trying to use this hotspot off
• 13:47
  all the cell phone towers.
• 13:48
  But it worked, and it was cheaper than rebuying SIM cards or reloading SIM cards all the time.
• 13:54
  You know, and then like five years ago, then like T-Mobile and some other carriers,
• 13:59
  you know, started saying, Hey, yes, you can not buy a SIM card.
• 14:03
  You can fly this international package and it should work.
• 14:07
  It was somewhat wonky, but I have to say Google Fi, we've used that since.
• 14:13
  Tennis and I had left for when I retired. Yeah, since 22, we've been on Google
• 14:17
  Fi. We've traveled many different places internationally since then.
• 14:22
  And Google Fi for the win, I have to say, it's worked everywhere we've gone.
• 14:27
  Pretty well so which is good and bad it's good because you use maps a lot you're
• 14:32
  lost a lot you know internationally you don't know where you're at you're just
• 14:36
  lost a lot and so you're trying to get information you're trying to translate stuff
• 14:40
  that is great the other bad thing is all your bad habits follow you you.
• 14:47
  Know hey i'm on youtube way too much guess what,
• 14:51
  now i can be on youtube way too much oh yeah what's a
• 14:55
  side note side question so was the was there a pretty good wi-fi where you were
• 14:59
  going particular spots that you were at cell service was half decent
• 15:03
  it would break off out on the like when we had the sail in between islands it
• 15:08
  wasn't as good but the way the way the islands worked off of croatia so,
• 15:13
  we're along the croatian coast you could a good portion of the time you can,
• 15:19
  see mainline at times not all the time and then we just kind of wove our way
• 15:24
  from north to south through these islands which
• 15:27
  follow the coast but you got to go around around the backside of islands in
• 15:31
  the ports and you know and that's so sometimes on the passages you would lose
• 15:36
  but once you come into port town yeah,
• 15:38
  everywhere we went had cell service now when we were out riding the e-bikes
• 15:42
  up and over passes this is islands are really and we go up over we We would
• 15:47
  lose cell service because, how do I know that, I ran Strava.
• 15:51
  So when we started a cycling tour that day, I'd just punch my Strava app and
• 15:57
  turn it on. And it would take off. And if we had good cell service,
• 16:01
  the route will be complete.
• 16:03
  When I ended, I can see our metrics, how many miles we went,
• 16:08
  how long it took us, what was their speed, all that kind of stuff.
• 16:11
  The times where the cell service cracked out.
• 16:14
  Strava then goes into like a weird survival mode and then it doesn't show the
• 16:19
  route it just shows straight lines like where it picked up so dropped it here
• 16:24
  and then you wind up over there and then it has to reset itself the app and
• 16:28
  then this shows a straight line like across a mountain range.
• 16:32
  So it's like it doesn't really know my exact mileage that day
• 16:36
  i was just doing it just you know just for giggles because i country man let's
• 16:40
  go you know i i like tracking all my cycling miles I do in a year and the places
• 16:45
  I go. And I'm like, oh, I got the data.
• 16:47
  It's not like 10 years ago where every second of data is costing big money.
• 16:52
  Now data is pretty cheap, especially on these unlimited plans.
• 16:56
  And so I was like, well, I think I'm on an unlimited plan.
• 16:59
  I guess when Tannis gets the bill for the cell phone, is it $1,000 or is it
• 17:05
  what we thought it was going to be? And no, it's what we thought it was going
• 17:09
  to be. That's the other thing. I remember traveling with the kids when my kids were younger.
• 17:13
  And even regionally in the United States, remember that like back in the early
• 17:17
  2000s, say 2005, I just picked that year.
• 17:20
  If you traveled out of your region and you're on different cell towers,
• 17:26
  you went into roaming, your roaming
• 17:28
  wasn't covered under your cell phone plan. You got a separate bill.
• 17:32
  I don't know if you ever got shocked with a cell phone bill. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 17:36
  Yeah. That happened to us. I think we were back, I don't know,
• 17:39
  Washington, D.C. or something. When we get back home, we got,
• 17:42
  like, a $400 cell phone bill.
• 17:45
  You know, it's like, all right, which one of you kids had the data setting wrong
• 17:49
  on the phone or was a dad wrong?
• 17:52
  Who was it? I don't remember. Yeah. Cell phones have come a long ways for good and bad reasons.
• 17:58
  So to back back to another one, speaking of sports, was cycling clearly everywhere?
• 18:04
  Like everyone transporting themselves with cycling and you were doing a cycling tour.
• 18:09
  Was it evident that you were in Europe for that or not really? No.
• 18:13
  Croatia is not a cycling country at all. Roads are narrow.
• 18:17
  It's a hillside, mountainous region that butts up against the Adriatic Sea.
• 18:24
  And so, of course, that crystal clear Mediterranean style of water means gorgeous.
• 18:30
  And so, no, it's not a cycling country at all.
• 18:34
  We are the oddballs. And the only thing that they're doing cycling-wise are tours.
• 18:40
  And everyone in our group was from the United States, Canada.
• 18:43
  I think that was it. And so, yeah, we were, we were the odd ducks and yeah,
• 18:48
  it's not a, yeah, you go into town. They are a motor scooter culture,
• 18:53
  small car and little motor scooters or motorcycle. That's how they get around because, you know.
• 18:58
  Fuel's expensive. It's basically Eastern Europe. Croatia now is part of the EU.
• 19:03
  So you're on the, you know, you're on their dollar, the EU.
• 19:07
  And you're on the euro. Before, the first time we were there,
• 19:10
  they were under their own currency.
• 19:12
  But Croatia's old Yugoslavia, you know. So when Yugoslavia in the early 90s
• 19:17
  went through their civil war, when they broke up right after the wall came down,
• 19:22
  say, in Germany, so when the USSR broke up, well.
• 19:27
  This was kind of a puppet situation under Tito was the president in charge at that time.
• 19:32
  Yeah, all the dominoes and all the satellite countries started to fall.
• 19:36
  And so, you know, it was all being held together through communism slash socialism.
• 19:41
  And then when all that broke down, they went into the civil war.
• 19:44
  And so, yeah, the West has really
• 19:46
  only been going to Croatia for about the last 30 years, tourist wise.
• 19:50
  You know, so that's what makes it a special part of the world is,
• 19:53
  you know, no one was really going there.
• 19:55
  Why? Because they were not a tourist destination under communism.
• 19:59
  And so, so here you are, you got all these beautiful, basically less,
• 20:05
  it's just less populated and less touristy.
• 20:09
  Now that you have Game of Thrones, I kind of threw that out the window,
• 20:12
  but still it's way less than Italy and things like that.
• 20:15
  And so a lot of these historical sites are pretty well preserved because they
• 20:20
  just haven't had the population of tourism to screw it up. not much.
• 20:25
  So it's just a different place and that's what we liked about it.
• 20:30
  I like to get away from the mainstream a little bit.
• 20:33
  It was fantastic getting out on these islands. I thought for sure the locals
• 20:37
  would be ugh and some were but put it this way we didn't get any international
• 20:43
  signs of being friendly if you know what I mean or anti-friendly.
• 20:48
  They know it's part of tourism and they just kind of had to kind of wait until
• 20:53
  they go around someone a little fast around you, but most of the time,
• 20:58
  the locals are very tolerant of us.
• 21:01
  I wouldn't say they're thrilled with us because these roads are already slow
• 21:05
  enough because they're windy, twisty, you know, and you're trying to get somewhere. And it's funny.
• 21:11
  It seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. The minute you're in a car,
• 21:14
  everyone's a race car driver.
• 21:16
  Wherever you go in the world, everyone's just, you know, just hammered down
• 21:20
  everywhere. I don't know what it is. You know, everyone's in a hurry.
• 21:24
  It doesn't matter what country you go to. So, but anyway, yeah.
• 21:28
  But no it's uh it's definitely not a cycling culture and that's what makes it
• 21:33
  even i guess even more special what we're doing we're out showing people yay
• 21:37
  we're on bikes.
• 21:40
  We come into ports you know we're always in a little small town in ports and
• 21:45
  so there's more boats than people that kind of thing you know so we're all lining
• 21:50
  our bikes up like we're harleys you know you back them in you know and get to
• 21:54
  go bikes and four yeah it was just yeah
• 21:57
  it's just kind of a bizarre trip because it's like you're the only ones doing
• 22:01
  it there's one island the highland of the bar it's a bigger island
• 22:05
  that had a lot of cycling tours by other companies there so it's first time
• 22:10
  i actually saw the people on bicycles i was like whoa who are these people and well
• 22:15
  they were more serious cyclists than us but yeah you know there's anesco historical
• 22:20
  sites on that island things like that so that brought more more tourism but uh No, man.
• 22:27
  I was surprised. No one crashed it out of this whole group. No one biffed it.
• 22:32
  No one put a bike down. We didn't have any bike problems other than maybe one
• 22:37
  battery I heard conked out one day.
• 22:39
  Great brakes on these bikes. They were a Swiss e-bike by a company called Flyer and Heavy.
• 22:46
  And so what you paid for is to move these bikes from island to island and the guys who worked,
• 22:52
  on the boat put those bikes on the second tiers of the boat deck up top every
• 22:58
  day they'd hand them down put them on the port and put them back it was quite something.
• 23:04
  I would do it again I don't own an e-bike but it was lovely to ride an e-bike,
• 23:11
  would you buy an e-bike after this?
• 23:13
  I think yes Yeah, I think I think Tannis and I would enjoy him.
• 23:19
  And here's the whole point. There's two purposes for e-bike.
• 23:23
  One is the first purpose is just you can go more places. You can go farther
• 23:28
  and get back and not be just.
• 23:30
  Obliterated you know just destroy your leg muscles things like that so for example
• 23:36
  if we both had e-bikes we have a greenway that's 42 miles each direction here
• 23:41
  in northwest arkansas there can bella vista goes down to fayetteville
• 23:45
  coming back so that's a long day
• 23:47
  you know i don't know you know 84 miles on you know most of it's isolated from
• 23:53
  cars but you do have to cross certain streets. It's not just straight.
• 23:58
  But now, the way we do it now is we just chunk it. So we're on regular bikes.
• 24:04
  We go out, we'll ride 10 out, 15 out, come back. If we had e-bikes,
• 24:09
  we can start here in Bella Vista. We can go the way to Fayetteville and back in the day.
• 24:13
  So it just extends your range. And the same thing goes in mountain bikes.
• 24:17
  The trend here is, for me, at my age, my fitness level 20 mile day on a mountain
• 24:23
  bike you're you're dusted you know it's a lot of elevation gains a lot of up
• 24:27
  and down you know so most of the time i go on 10,
• 24:31
  to 5 miles on a mountain bike on cross-country trails which is good
• 24:35
  yeah you know it's technical you know up and down up and down around you might
• 24:39
  stop off on a jump feature somewhere
• 24:42
  mess around but you know it's a good workout versus on an e-bike an e-mountain
• 24:48
  bike full suspension e-mountain bike You can go do that same route that would
• 24:52
  take me four hours to go do it in an hour and ride the next day,
• 24:58
  and the next day. This is our future.
• 25:00
  Yes. Yeah, yeah. It just extends your range.
• 25:05
  Is it the same workout, I would say? No, no.
• 25:11
  Depends on how you use it, you know, depends on the settings you do and what you want to do.
• 25:16
  Can you turn it off? Yes. And ride it. The problem with an e-bike is they're heavy.
• 25:20
  So it would give you a really quite a workout if you turned off the motor.
• 25:24
  But the point is, is really, can I do more in a ride than I would do normally?
• 25:30
  And the answer is yes. And I would love them. I would love both.
• 25:33
  I would love just a cruising kind of one for the greenways. And I would love
• 25:37
  one for a mountain bike. Now, for gravel riding, going out, I don't road ride
• 25:41
  anymore because it's just too dangerous.
• 25:44
  To me, American road rage, roads are narrow, especially up here.
• 25:48
  So I get out on the gravel.
• 25:50
  That I want to keep traditional, old school, no e-bike because I enjoy that.
• 25:55
  I enjoy climbing, you know, climbing those hills, going down those hills. Right.
• 25:59
  Yeah. So I think, yes, I don't, I think kids, kids who have been born in the
• 26:05
  e-bike world, What are they going to own? E-bikes.
• 26:09
  They're going to look at old bikes that you and I rode and go,
• 26:11
  huh, what do you do with that?
• 26:14
  There's packs of kids right around now. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There, yeah.
• 26:19
  I know. They all have their little helmets on here, tearing up the trails.
• 26:22
  Oh, yeah. Are they banned? Sorry, we're all over the place.
• 26:26
  Are they banning e-bikes like that? Can't do that or what? Well,
• 26:30
  that's a whole. You know of uncertainty? Well, there is.
• 26:33
  You're not supposed to. You're only supposed to ride class one e-bikes on our trails here.
• 26:39
  Class two and class three are the ones that have more.
• 26:42
  They're more motorcycle-like. Okay. And they're the ones that tear up the trail.
• 26:46
  Class one, like what I rode in Croatia and what you would ride here,
• 26:51
  it's pedal assist. So like the harder I pedal, the more that motor kicks in,
• 26:55
  I can kick it into high and low.
• 26:57
  If I want to go up a steep, you know, climb, I can put it on the high,
• 27:01
  gives me more assist, but I'm not, I'm not spinning the tire,
• 27:04
  right? Not, you know, it's not a motorcycle.
• 27:07
  So it's just giving me pedal assist. But class two and class three,
• 27:10
  those are, and the line's a little blurry on that. It depends on how you,
• 27:14
  you know, they're trying to standardize that classification out there.
• 27:18
  Put it this way, if South Park just did an episode on e-bike that shows you
• 27:23
  the controversy and for what it's worth, it's fantastic.
• 27:26
  They do a great, you know, yeah, they do a great job.
• 27:31
  I mean, it's obviously raunchy and it's really like, you know.
• 27:36
  It's done up. But they do it justice on the exact part of the problem, what it is.
• 27:43
  And, you know, it's like anything comes down to the user. If you're an idiot
• 27:48
  user, then people are like, those damn e-bikers, you know.
• 27:52
  But if you're a kind and respectful user and you use the tool as it's designed
• 27:59
  and you use it where it's supposed to be used, it's not a problem.
• 28:01
  In fact, you're getting the benefit out of it. So, yeah. But, you know...
• 28:06
  You're in Colorado. A lot of those mountain bike places there you guys have
• 28:11
  in the mountains, you know, the chair lift kind of place, they don't allow e-bikes there, any e-bike.
• 28:16
  Well, because you're going down. They don't want people going up.
• 28:18
  Right. Well, they're just trying to preserve the landscape, so to speak.
• 28:22
  And I don't know all the reasons because I don't live there,
• 28:25
  but I hear it here because I'll be out on the trail or, you know,
• 28:30
  hanging out down at the shop or something. And people are like,
• 28:32
  yeah, man, I took my e-bike to Colorado. I couldn't ride it.
• 28:35
  Know and so on it here you gotta earn it well that's that that's at a chairlift
• 28:41
  situation now you can ride them out on regular trails but yeah but anyway
• 28:46
  i know i know but the whole point is this what this trip taught me,
• 28:51
  is e-bikes are part of the future brother it's here to stay,
• 28:55
  get used to it you know just another one of those things your phone's gonna talk to you Oh, yeah.
• 29:01
  Now my phone's talking to my bike. What's going on? Oh, yeah.
• 29:04
  I know I'm not there yet, but I think this experience has taught me,
• 29:09
  yeah, the world's moving on.
• 29:11
  Are you going to join it or not? I could have been that one idiot on that boat
• 29:15
  that said, no, I'm riding analog. And yeah, they would have dusted me.
• 29:19
  I would have, I don't even know what they would have done. They would have been
• 29:22
  like, yeah, we're not waiting for you. Here's an e-bike or you don't go.
• 29:27
  Yeah. Cause I don't, there'd be no way I could have kept up on some of those
• 29:29
  rides. Other days I could have, I could have hung. Depends on what kind of bike
• 29:33
  they gave me. Yeah. But you wouldn't have enjoyed it. You would have been.
• 29:36
  I know. But other days, no way I was going to be able to hang. So, you know, so, yeah.
• 29:42
  Anyway, well, that's that's my experience last couple of weeks.
• 29:45
  OK, well, the last thing we got just came back. You're back into the heat of
• 29:49
  it. I talked about sports. OK, tonight the Rays are playing the Guardians.
• 29:52
  Who do you like? Well, that's a tough one. Tampa Bay, too.
• 29:56
  Let me ask you this question. To answer your question, I have to ask you a question.
• 30:00
  Have the Indians ever. When's the last time they won the World Series?
• 30:04
  Have they ever? It's been a long time. It's been a long time,
• 30:06
  right? They've knocked a little bit.
• 30:09
  I mean, you know, they would be under the Indians. You know,
• 30:11
  they're under the Guardians now, but the point is. Now, Tampa Bay,
• 30:16
  correct me if I'm wrong, they got one, right?
• 30:19
  One World Series under their belt as a franchise. Well, let's see.
• 30:23
  They have one. They have two. They bought one.
• 30:26
  Yeah. Well, I have to say, I really don't have a favorite in this.
• 30:33
  It's like whoever earns it. That's why I'm enjoying this one so much.
• 30:37
  Since I got back to the States, I picked it up and gained three.
• 30:41
  And, man, great games.
• 30:44
  Just back and forth, back and forth.
• 30:46
  The Rays have never won. The Rays have never won. Okay, they have never won a World Series. Okay.
• 30:52
  And the Cleveland, let's see here.
• 30:56
  They've had appearances.
• 30:58
  Two World Games, 1920 and 1948. 1948, right.
• 31:04
  Wow. So, and they were Crazy, that's crazy right there And they were under a
• 31:10
  different name At that time, that's funny
• 31:13
  They were called the Dodgers back then, even though the other Dodgers moved out west.
• 31:17
  Anyway, so yeah, well, at least franchise-wide. That's why I'm just,
• 31:22
  whoever wins, wins. But I will be for the Brewers in the World Series,
• 31:26
  I have to say. Yeah, what's the thought on that?
• 31:29
  Well, one, I own the hat. Got a sweet hat. Got mine out today.
• 31:33
  I'm like, oh yeah, I have a hat.
• 31:36
  And so I got that hat out. And two, they've never won it, you know.
• 31:39
  It's just, it's a small market. Milwaukee's, you know, Milwaukee's famous, but it's a small city.
• 31:45
  You've never been to Milwaukee. The Braves go, they've never won it either. I know.
• 31:50
  I know. But to me, they seem like a newer franchise than the Brewers, you know? Right.
• 31:55
  Yeah. And you got that Florida. I mean, they could be a bigger budget team than
• 32:00
  they are. They're in Florida, man. You got 20 some million people in that state,
• 32:05
  you know, versus Wisconsin's got what? Eight people, you know, something like that.
• 32:10
  And so I'm going to go with the true under I'm going to go with the true underdogs
• 32:15
  in this one and that is Milwaukee group. Well let's see if they can even get their Rays.
• 32:20
  So I'm picking the Rays tonight. I think they're going to do it. It's been tough.
• 32:23
  Oh you think it's close out tonight? Okay. Alright. So they're low Okay.
• 32:28
  Good man. But the Guardians are tough. But I think the Rays got a little eye
• 32:31
  of the tiger in them. Okay. So my prediction is the Rays. Okay.
• 32:35
  Do you have a prediction tonight? I think it's going seven.
• 32:38
  I think I think Cleveland's got a last gasp in it, is my thought.
• 32:42
  So we'll see. But anyway, dude, I know we're all over on this one.
• 32:46
  We're trying to weave in international travel and sport. But it is,
• 32:52
  you know, when you travel, you try to keep when you can, when it's appropriate.
• 32:57
  You know, I wanted to also detach when I could, but it's also the best time of year.
• 33:02
  I've waited six months for playoff baseball, so I had to check.
• 33:06
  But I really wasn't checking on anything else. I mean, I did check on my house,
• 33:10
  you know, because my house is connected to my phone.
• 33:13
  And I had to see how that's going, you know, make sure the power is on and the
• 33:17
  ring doorbell and, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, texted people.
• 33:21
  But yeah, I was really what's nice is when you're in different time zones,
• 33:26
  you know, you just it's out of sight, out of mind.
• 33:28
  And then, hey, when you were texting me, I have I put my phone on don't disturb
• 33:34
  10 at night to six in the morning.
• 33:37
  And so when even when you switch time zones, it adjusts for that.
• 33:41
  And so, yeah, so anytime my, you know, family or friends are texting,
• 33:45
  whatever, when I was gone and it's middle of the night over there,
• 33:48
  because, man, me and Jetlight, we're not friends. Yeah, just it wouldn't bother
• 33:52
  me, even though I was probably up.
• 33:56
  Right. At least for a few first couple of days.
• 33:59
  Coming back home is not so bad, man. But going forward, that Jetlight just hammers
• 34:05
  me. So I think that's probably why I got sick a little bit on this trip.
• 34:08
  But if I don't get a down day when I travel,
• 34:12
  Like this trip was go, go, go because we're under in the agenda.
• 34:16
  It's the first time I've ever done an adventure, uh, travel,
• 34:19
  you know, where you travel in a group.
• 34:21
  Yeah. It's a venture travel and you know, you sign up, you got a group leader
• 34:25
  and you know, they, they ride, they drive the agenda.
• 34:29
  And so that's why I was a little disconnected from the world.
• 34:32
  Mostly I had my few minutes here and there to check, but my whole day was stacked.
• 34:37
  You know, we had to be up at a certain time. We had to have breakfast at a certain time.
• 34:40
  We're on the bikes at a certain time. We had our briefings at a certain time,
• 34:44
  you know, and then you had dinners and then at, you know, certain courts,
• 34:48
  you had to get out, find your own dinner and some, you know,
• 34:51
  we're on shoulder season.
• 34:53
  So that means half the town's open, half the town's not. And so,
• 34:57
  yeah, you're just trying to soak it all in while you're there.
• 35:00
  I would highly recommend it. Anyone looking for something different,
• 35:03
  unique. I don't know of any other group that does this in the world,
• 35:07
  but Sail Croatia, look it up and see the cycling side of Sail Croatia.
• 35:12
  I would highly recommend it.
• 35:14
  Anyone can do it. If you can ride a bike pretty well, anyone can do that.
• 35:18
  You'd buy, open up a whole new world to people who wouldn't be able to cycle it normally.
• 35:23
  Yeah, there you go. There's my glowing free endorsement.
• 35:27
  Sounds good, dude. Yeah, yeah. I know. I was a little hesitant on doing this
• 35:31
  one because Americans, Americans kind of mess up these touristy places, you know, and I,
• 35:38
  here's why is, oh, we show up in droves and then we demand our ways.
• 35:43
  And the people there don't like us.
• 35:46
  But then I was looking around Croatia and I'm like, most of these are people
• 35:49
  from other places because Game of Thrones has far-reaching all around the world.
• 35:54
  So it's just not American.
• 35:58
  I guess it is kind of sad in some ways that we all flock because of TV shows.
• 36:04
  It's cool, but you guys wouldn't know that. Right. Well, my first go around
• 36:08
  in Croatia wasn't because we even thought about the TV show.
• 36:12
  We're going because some of the best preserve, well, one, they have one of the
• 36:16
  most beautiful national parks I've ever seen in my life. It's a waterfall park.
• 36:21
  I think it's called Let's Be, Let's, yeah.
• 36:24
  Just look up Waterfall Park in Croatia. It's unbelievable.
• 36:28
  And then it has old Greek and Roman influence back in the day.
• 36:33
  And it's the Adriatic. It's just this crystal clear, phenomenal water that we
• 36:39
  don't see in our part of the world very well, very much.
• 36:43
  And Dubrovnik, I didn't realize, was this huge port city back in the day.
• 36:49
  Like they were the kings of basically the Mediterranean region for trade back
• 36:56
  then, even though they're North of the Mediterranean, they were,
• 36:59
  they were a city state. So that means they weren't run on any other government.
• 37:03
  They were that powerful. They
• 37:05
  could stay separate from countries and conquerors by making trade deals.
• 37:11
  And yeah, they're amazing. Yeah. They're like a lot like Venice. And yeah, I, I,
• 37:16
  Just from the cultural side, it's a phenomenal country, but just from the pure
• 37:21
  beauty itself and mixed bikes with it, win-win.
• 37:25
  So you should go, dude. I'm telling you. Dude, I would love to.
• 37:29
  Yeah. Sign me up. Sign me up.
• 37:32
  Well, if you ever wanted to do it, I'd go back. It was that good. Okay.
• 37:36
  That's good. I need some advice. Just don't do it in October during baseball season.
• 37:42
  Well, that's true. That's right. Who's winning that? What? I know. I know.
• 37:46
  I don't know. Well, that's all right. That's all right. Well,
• 37:49
  guess what, man? I think we confused our listeners enough. I think we should
• 37:52
  wrap this baby up. But gone all over. Well, that's all right.
• 37:56
  Sometimes the best conversations are the ones that all come back together.
• 38:01
  And I think in this is, you know, the world we live in is pretty special.
• 38:05
  And you can go anywhere. And for me, I got to see Helsinki on this trip.
• 38:11
  What does that have to do with Croatia? I was just flying through Helsinki. And I got laid over a day.
• 38:15
  So there we go that's where you have to go next you have to go to finland yeah
• 38:18
  i know i'll save that for another podcast but that's the whole point if you
• 38:22
  want an adventure just trying to fly somewhere is happy adventure nowadays
• 38:26
  anyway well friends thanks for joining us on this
• 38:31
  episode of life according to brian and jason and until next time
• 38:36
  yeah share this with a friend and you know if you ever want an adventure yeah
• 38:40
  look it up that was a great great adventure that most people can do it and it's
• 38:45
  pretty fast cost effective so if you enjoyed this share with a friend
• 38:49
  don't forget to like click and subscribe and you know throw us a little love
• 38:54
  you know buy some coffee as well so thanks for joining us we'll see you.