Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Breakdown to Breakout: Larry Debenedictis and the Motorcycle Journey That Rebuilt a Life

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From Breakdown to Breakout: Larry Debenedictis and the Motorcycle Journey That Rebuilt a Life · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Break Fix Podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
• 0:05
  over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors,
• 0:09
  designers, and everything in between.
• 0:11
  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder how did they
• 0:17
  get that job or become that person.
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
• 0:27
  It was a crisp autumn day when our guest's world came crashing down around him.
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  He had been running his small business for years, pouring his heart and
• 0:34
  soul into it, only to find out that it was on the brink of failure.
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  To make matters worse, his heart had been broken by the woman He thought
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  he was gonna spend the rest of his life with feeling lost and alone.
• 0:42
  Larry de Benedictus knew he had needed to get away from it all.
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  He needed to clear his head and figure out what his next move was gonna be, and
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  that's when he decided to embark on a journey that would take him across the
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  country on the back of his motorcycle.
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  As he rode farther and farther west, something began to shift inside of him.
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  He started to feel the weight of his problems lift off of his shoulders,
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  and the road began to feel like a place of solace and healing.
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  The sights and sounds of the American lands landscape became its companions.
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  The vast open spaces of the Midwest to the winding roads of the west
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  Coast all became part of his journey.
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  Slowly but surely, Larry began to find his own way forward, and he's
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  here to share his adventure with us.
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  That's right, mountain man.
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  Dan, you're here to help me.
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  Welcome Larry to break fix.
• 1:24
  So Larry, welcome to the show.
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  Hey, how's it going?
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  Good.
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  So let's rewind the clock a little bit before we talk about this epic
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  cross country journey that you took.
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  Let's talk about you and your Petrolhead origin story.
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  How did you get into bikes?
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  Did it start as a kid or did you come into it later in life?
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  Probably the most fondest memory I can remember about bikes because
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  like, you know, like B M X bikes too.
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  But probably when I was eight my father got a mini bike, and man, I
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  loved riding that thing all the time.
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  But the coolest thing I remember about that is one time we let my little
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  sister, Devin, Take it for a ride and she whiskey throttle the throttle
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  right into like the woods, like into a bunch of brush and like fell over.
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  And I was like wow, that was awesome.
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  And then ever since then I've just been like diehard about motorcycles.
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  So do you have a loyalty to one brand of bike or another?
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  Have you tried different bikes over the years?
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  I like 'em all, like all different brands.
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  I actually got 33 bikes in my personal collection and
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  they're all different brands.
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  I think motorcycles like women, you can appreciate 'em all and hate
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  'em all at the same time, you know?
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  Are there some that are better than others or are they all sort of the same?
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  I would say the Japanese really have reliability down
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  more than the American brand.
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  But you know, the American brand's always got like, you know,
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  Harley always get that sound.
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  It's always got that feel to it.
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  When you close your eyes riding down the road, you always know you're on a
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  Harley, but you always know you're on a Harley 'cause you're working on it more.
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  So Japanese bikes are great.
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  I got, I think I have like 11 or 12 vintage Hondas alone in my collection.
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  My daily ride has a B M W, now GS 1250 adventure.
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  That's awesome.
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  I love that bike 'cause uh, I don't have to touch anything on it, man.
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  My other ones I get, I've got like a, a little shovel head chopper.
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  I love to ride as well.
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  Pretty much all over the board.
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  I get a few different choppers, some English stuff.
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  Just love them.
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  All.
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  Two wheels is two wheels.
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  I can find any of them like interesting and fascinating.
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  Is there one that's any better to ride than the others?
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  Maybe from a handling perspective or from a comfort outside of the reliability?
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  Oh yeah.
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  The newer B M W I got, so it's a 2020 G S A adventure, 1250 that
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  is hands down the best motorcycle I've ever ridden in my life when it
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  comes to handling power, comfort.
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  The Germans just, they're just amazing.
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  And that bike itself is totally different if you really look at it
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  from an engineering perspective.
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  The front end, they have this thing called the tele lever front end.
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  I, it's actually crazy.
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  It's like a reverse swing arm on the front end, and it's got a mono-shock in
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  the middle, and then it's got dampeners on the top, like mini dampeners, like
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  traditional forks, but only on the top.
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  It like takes a hard hit and absorbs it with the mono-shock with the
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  light, like little ruts in the road.
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  It takes the dampener so it's so smooth, but at the same time, so aggressive.
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  And then also the rear of that swing arm.
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  Also has a knuckle right before the wheel on it that pivots as well.
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  And then, I don't know, it's just a very balanced bike.
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  The motor is very low center of gravity on the frame and hangs out of it.
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  And they just really did a great job engineering that bike.
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  And I've got 13,000 on now and I haven't had any problems at all.
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  And uh, I love that bike.
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  Well that's a considered like a sport touring bike, isn't it?
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  Yeah.
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  It's like, they call it an adventure.
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  It's almost like a, like a giant dirt bike.
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  It's a 1250, it's got some decent ccs behind it.
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  It's just so nimble and it handles amazing.
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  It's like air over electronic suspension.
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  So you go into a corner and as soon as you get that apex of the corner
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  and you flick it up to get out of it, the bike like knows and it like pushes
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  you so hard through the corner and there's so much confidence in the bike.
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  You're one of several people that's been on the show now that is singing the
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  praises of B M W bikes and I never thought I'd see it happen, you know, versus a
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  lot of the other stuff that's out there.
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  But it also makes me wonder, since you're a, a bike collector, are you
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  thinking maybe going backwards and getting some vintage BMWs to add
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  to your stable, to your collection?
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  There may be some R sixties or R nineties, some of the old airheads.
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  I would, but I'm also, I love custom stuff, so I'd rather get
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  one that's like in pieces and then build like a chopper with it.
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  I either like buying bikes or all original and just need fixing to get them running.
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  Or I like buying bikes or in pieces and I can customize 'em
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  and not feel bad about them.
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  So you're kind of basket cases?
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  Yeah, I, I like basket cases.
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  'cause you don't feel guilty when you wanna do something custom.
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  I feel guilty if you take like a nice older bike and
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  then you want to chop it up.
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  You know what I mean?
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  I feel your sentiment greatly on that for the fact that even in the car,
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  what it's, if it hasn't been touched and changed, leave it original.
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  Right.
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  But if it's already been told apart, then it's, it's fair game.
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  Yep.
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  Because to restore them they get so expensive and you're better off just
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  kind of like doing your own thing.
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  You know, this actually foreshadows a little bit more of the conversation we're
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  gonna have about your journey across the US and part of yours backstory is being
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  a fabricator, there's the whole part of the construction of the trailer you built
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  for your motorcycle for this adventure.
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  But let's talk a little bit about your history as a fabricator and
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  some of the things you've done.
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  It's always kind of been custom bikes.
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  You know, I'm in cars to, I've got a 93 trans Am I've had since high school.
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  I kept for like 18 years.
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  I recently just got it repainted just to keep it looking fresh.
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  But I wanna say that I've always been in a customizing bikes.
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  I got a, I call it a Johnny Cash, you know, pick a year, CB seven 50
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  Honda Chopper that I built the frame from scratch and that's changed
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  so many times over the years.
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  And I wrote to Sturgis like three years ago with my buddy.
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  It's kind of like a hill climb slash like dirt drag bike.
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  Now.
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  I like keep knobs on it.
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  I love welding.
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  You ever see a Smithy mini lathe?
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  It's pretty cool.
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  If anybody ever finds one out there, it's a lathe and a miniature Bridgeport all in
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  one that's like four feet, five feet long and it can just sit on top of a bench.
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  So it doesn't take up all the room in your shop, but you can make like
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  spacers and, and like small axles and stuff with it and stuff like that.
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  I just love tinkering with, you know, speaking of Smithy one I've worked
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  with like grizzly bench top unit.
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  Yeah, I think it's similar, right?
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  Yeah, they're phenomenal.
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  It seems to use, I don't think I'm going into manufacturing with it, but
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  I mean as far as just being a tinkerer.
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  It's amazing.
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  Oh yeah.
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  You know, when you need to make something on the spot, you can
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  just do that instead of going to the highway store with a grinder.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Definitely.
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  So I'm curious, you said building your own frame for that Honda.
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  How do you get something like that through the d o t?
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  How do you get it registered in Street Legal?
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  It's kind of funny, like it just started as a stock bike.
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  The more I like got confident, the more I chop it up.
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  And eventually I just ended up with the neck in the front down tubes.
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  And then I built my own frame from there, I put it like on a table,
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  made my own jig, and then got like a harbor freight tube inventor.
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  Actually, I borrowed one from a friend of mine.
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  I just built up all tubes.
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  So it still stayed titled as like an 82 CB seven 50 down the line.
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  It's, it's now been a single overhead cam bike for, I don't know, like 10
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  or 11 years, and I'm on my seventh or eighth motor in that bike.
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  Let's talk about what caused this trip to happen and got everything
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  in motion and obviously there was a massive amount of prep.
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  You didn't just get on your bike and go, or did you build a trailer beforehand
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  or was the trailer sort of a knee jerk reaction to wanting to get on the road?
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  So a friend of mine wanted to move to Florida for a little while and I had
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  a girlfriend at the time, but we were up and down, great girl, but I wanted
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  to be single, so I moved to Florida with him, break up with the girl.
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  Best friend of mine up here ends up getting with her.
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  My mind was like a little bit in a spool.
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  I had a crazy girlfriend down there.
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  Thought it was a good idea to move in with her.
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  Didn't work out, come back home.
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  I had a vintage motorcycle parts business online, mostly all on eBay.
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  It was doing great for years, but then it was on the decline.
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  I saw the decline coming for various reasons and I was like,
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  I gotta do something else.
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  And before I wanted to do something else, I was like, you know what?
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  I think I just wanna take a break and hit the road and just like clear my mind
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  of all this stuff that was happening before I get into some other big venture.
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  So that's what like kinda sparked it.
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  Even when I was 16, when I got my first motorcycle, I always thought, I
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  was like, how cool would it be someday just to say, excuse my French, fuck
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  it, and just hit the road, not have a plan and not try to have a care.
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  Just see what the road like takes me.
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  I was 27 when I moved back home from Florida and I was like, well, I'm not
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  getting any younger and I'm single and I saved some money from the business.
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  So I'm like, I think this is the perfect time to go out on the road and do
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  this thing I've always wanted to do.
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  So now you're back home in New England.
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  Yeah.
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  And you're thinking about setting upon this journey, but you gotta
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  take a bunch of supplies with you.
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  So is that where the trailer was born from?
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  Exactly.
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  I don't wanna have to plan where to sleep because I don't know where I'm gonna be.
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  I was going through all these different things.
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  I gotta get paid to stay in hotels, whatever, this and this.
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  But then my, my buddies is like, Hey, you should build a teardrop trailer
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  and pull behind your motorcycle.
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  Those look sweet.
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  And I started looking into 'em like, oh, those are cool.
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  I could literally just build something that I could sleep in
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  and carry all my gear and tools, which were like my biggest concern
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  because I was on an 89 F X R Harley.
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  It's gonna break.
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  You know what I mean?
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  That's where I really liked the trailer idea, but I liked it because I could
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  just park anywhere, just jump in and it would be like kind of incognito
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  that I'd be sleeping in there.
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  Not many people think that you can sleep in this trailer because it's pretty small.
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  How did you come up with the design for the trailer?
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  Did you just mimic something you saw online?
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  Did you buy a kit?
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  How does it all mount up?
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  How does it work?
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  How does it stay balanced?
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  I guess the general size, I was like, I just want it to be big enough that
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  I can lay down and then shut the door.
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  I basically laid on the floor and I just marked out how big I
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  was and I was like, okay, this is gonna be the base of the trailer.
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  I was like, oh, I'll just buy like a Harbor Freight trailer and
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  then build like a wooden teardrop structure off of that, and I was
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  talking to a guy at a trailer place.
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  He's like, don't do that because.
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  If you blow out like a wheel bearing on that trailer, you will not be
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  able to find another one because none of the parts are like regular.
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  They're all from like China.
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  So a guy convinced me and I ended up building my own frame from the trailer and
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  everything, the whole frame from scratch.
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  And then from there I built the wooden box, teardrop, put a metal roof on it.
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  I got that done.
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  And then I had to build a trailer hitch for the bike that
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  was like wicked heavy duty.
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  And I made a custom one of those.
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  'cause all the ones I found online, I didn't think they
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  were gonna be heavy duty enough.
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  So I'm like, I'll just build it.
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  I finally get like a prototype going and I take it down the
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  highway and oh my God, this trailer was shaking my bike like crazy.
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  The front end, back and forth, the whole thing.
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  And I'm like, I couldn't get over like 50 miles an hour without it shaking.
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  I'm like, why is this doing this?
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  So I started researching and it's like tongue weight.
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  You need the right tongue weight.
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  I moved the axle like two or three times to get the right tongue weight.
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  Still wasn't really doing what I needed to do.
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  Then I started researching again and someone said, you add
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  weight to the front of the bike.
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  So I put these like one inch by one inch solid square tubing on
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  the front of the frame wheels and over the full brace of the bike.
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  That started really helping, like I'd get up to 55.
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  I was like, okay, let's add some more weight, go back,
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  add more weight, get up to 60.
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  I finally got up to like 75, 80 at one point, and I let go of the bars.
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  And it was able to go straight and I was like, okay, that's good.
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  We're not gonna go over 80 at any point.
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  So counterweight on the front of the bike seemed to be the
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  biggest thing that was helpful.
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  And I found out later on the heavier the bike you use, 'cause I towed
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  the trail with an ultra classic one time, the better it would tow.
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  So as folks go online and look at your social media, they can
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  obviously see pictures of how you built a trailer and things like that.
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  So I'm still a little perplexed like how does the trailer attach to the bike?
• 13:04
  Where does the receiver go?
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  Did you go with the method of where it ties into your axle and
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  comes back around the back tire?
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  Like most of the conventional ones?
• 13:11
  Uh, no.
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  So I went from the top of the fender struts on the frame and
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  I built my mount from there.
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  So it still utilized the suspension on the bike because I didn't go
• 13:20
  from the swing arm, which I don't know if that would've been better.
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  The only reason I didn't go from the swing arm I think was because if the
• 13:27
  trail like bounced, it'd be like pulling my tire off the ground versus like
• 13:32
  if we hit a bump with the trailer.
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  The suspension soaked up a lot of it.
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  You know what I mean?
• 13:37
  Yeah.
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  And I, I had pretty nice suspension on that F xr.
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  I had a set of OS on the back.
• 13:41
  You mentioned as you were building the trailer and everything, taking
• 13:44
  it out, doing test runs, getting up to speed, were slowing down.
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  Did you incorporate any sort of like hydraulic braking system on the tongue
• 13:50
  of the trailer or were you just allowing the bike brakes to slow you down?
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  Yeah, I was just allowing the bike slow me down.
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  'cause I've been riding for quite a while and I don't take unnecessary chances.
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  It was really crazy though because like, I think the trailer
• 14:02
  probably weighed like 350 pounds.
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  400 pounds and the bike itself weighs like six to seven or eight with the rider.
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  So you like to 50% of your weight.
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  It's a lot of weight.
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  It really didn't have that many problems breaking though.
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  'cause I never was like in a hurry.
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  It wasn't like a race, you know what I mean?
• 14:20
  That's something I've learned with, especially with bikes, is if you've
• 14:22
  got extra weight on, you've gotta be aware of that while you're riding.
• 14:25
  'cause a lot of people get out, put a lot of weight on their bikes.
• 14:28
  Yeah.
• 14:28
  And guys that get these baggers and stuff packed in the bags full of
• 14:31
  weight and they get out there thinking they're gonna do like it's empty.
• 14:33
  That weight makes effect on a bike.
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  It's not like a car or a truck.
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  The other thing that, like I always get comfortable with your rear brake
• 14:39
  on a bike versus your front brake.
• 14:41
  If something bad happens, you can lock your rear brake up.
• 14:44
  But if you lock your front brake up, you're going down
• 14:46
  'cause you can't steer anymore.
• 14:47
  That front wheel's not spinning.
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  I just kind of step it slow.
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  When I would go down these like big mountain roads, I'd like use the thing
• 14:53
  like a semi what a Jake brake with the gears and like just really hammer the
• 14:57
  gears down to do a lot of the breaking.
• 14:59
  Yeah.
• 15:00
  So when you measured it, it's your height plus you know, some
• 15:04
  length long wise, not width-wise.
• 15:07
  'cause you don't wanna exceed the width of a lane.
• 15:09
  Right.
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  So it's almost as long as the bike behind you, I think it
• 15:13
  was only like three feet wide.
• 15:16
  It wasn't a full sheet wide.
• 15:18
  So the idea I always had is like, gotta build this thing small and I knew I was
• 15:22
  having a decent amount of tools in it.
• 15:24
  In retrospect, wish I made it even narrower to say, wait, but I forgot
• 15:28
  to tell you another essential important part of the trailer.
• 15:30
  The back hatch of the trailer, I made an exterior hatch that
• 15:34
  was just filled with tools.
• 15:35
  Like I filled the whole thing with tools, so they were separate from
• 15:38
  like my clothes and stuff inside.
• 15:40
  And then even inside the trailer on like the teardrop pot on the roof,
• 15:44
  I made a shelf inside with a little door on it to hold all my clothes.
• 15:48
  It's pretty closing and, and I'm sure it was pretty strategic where
• 15:52
  you placed those items because of the weight that you were trying
• 15:54
  to keep in check with the bike.
• 15:56
  I remember like.
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  The first day I went out, it was like terrible.
• 16:00
  The bike was like swaying all over the place.
• 16:03
  I actually just pulled over on the side of the road and just dumped a ton of self out
• 16:07
  that I would consider that I really need like a second, um, foam mattress thing.
• 16:11
  I was like, all right, this is extra weight I guess I don't
• 16:13
  need, and it actually helped.
• 16:15
  It was funny, you know, it was if I felt like the trailer wasn't heavy enough in
• 16:18
  the front, I'd buy a case of water and put it in the very front of the trail on
• 16:22
  the inside, like a, uh, tongue weight.
• 16:24
  That would make all the difference.
• 16:25
  Sometimes it was wild.
• 16:27
  The thing was so sensitive to like everything.
• 16:29
  If the wind was really hard, that'd be an issue.
• 16:32
  Pushing you from the back or the front going downhill can be sketchy.
• 16:37
  It was quite a learning experience, like really driving with that thing sometimes.
• 16:41
  So how long did it take you to get from a couple scraps of tubing
• 16:45
  on the ground to a final product?
• 16:47
  Probably a good like four or five months because I was working full-time too.
• 16:51
  You know what I mean?
• 16:52
  And it's like trial and error of like moving the axle and stuff.
• 16:55
  A lot.
• 16:56
  Like I finally thought I got it right.
• 16:57
  It worked with building a trailer.
• 16:59
  Every state has their different laws when it comes to homemade trailers.
• 17:03
  How difficult was it for you to get it registered where you're at?
• 17:06
  I'm gonna be, honestly, I just threw a homemade main trail plate on and call
• 17:09
  it a day and just hope for the best.
• 17:11
  Massachusetts, New Hampshire, new England in general.
• 17:14
  I've never been pulled over because of a trailer plate.
• 17:17
  Seems like everybody, including myself, we all just kind of
• 17:20
  swap trail plates whenever you need it on a different trailer.
• 17:22
  It could be different in other pots, but it, it never really was an issue.
• 17:25
  I had a main trailer car plate on the back of this thing the whole time.
• 17:29
  Alright, so you got the trailer done, you got the bike sorted,
• 17:31
  you got all your spares and all your kit and everything you need.
• 17:35
  And so now you're ready to set off.
• 17:37
  You're based outta New England.
• 17:38
  Where do you go from there?
• 17:40
  How did you just throw a dart at a map and say, I'm gonna head west?
• 17:43
  Or did you do something like, I'm gonna head south towards the mid-Atlantic,
• 17:47
  the DC area, maybe grab 66 or Route 50 and do something like that.
• 17:51
  What was your plan?
• 17:52
  The plan was to leave like mid-September.
• 17:55
  I wasn't ready with the trail and I didn't feel comfortable.
• 17:58
  So I actually left October 9th in 2014.
• 18:02
  The plan was to get out of the cold, so to head south first and then west.
• 18:07
  So that was kind of just the general plan is south and west and
• 18:11
  then see where I go from there.
• 18:13
  So other than general direction of where you were planning to head, did you have
• 18:18
  plans in advance of like, I wanna try to stay off major highways and hit man
• 18:21
  like side roads during those trips?
• 18:23
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:24
  That was my thing.
• 18:25
  I'm like, I wanna try to do this trip because I didn't have a
• 18:27
  timeline when I had to be back.
• 18:29
  I mean, I wanted it to be an open trip.
• 18:30
  I wanna do all back roads as much as I can.
• 18:33
  And because it's so boring on the highway, you don't see much.
• 18:37
  So I wanted to do back roads and have like experiences and like I
• 18:40
  actually had an idea in the beginning that I was like, I like to work.
• 18:44
  I was like, oh, like maybe I can like end up on a farm and like
• 18:47
  work for a week or something and save some money and then take off.
• 18:50
  That was the idea in the beginning.
• 18:52
  Didn't really play out like that.
• 18:53
  But you know, you're still in New England and you have two options, right?
• 18:57
  If you're going south, you're gonna take route one or you're gonna go 95.
• 19:01
  I literally would like get on my phone and put avoid highways and just
• 19:05
  pick like a major city to get to.
• 19:07
  Nice.
• 19:07
  Because I always try to avoid the highways 'cause it's pretty dangerous
• 19:11
  on the highway with that thing.
• 19:12
  And you don't see anything.
• 19:13
  And I didn't have a timeline.
• 19:14
  Once I got the trip going, I found out that I was averaging like 300 miles a day.
• 19:19
  So not much.
• 19:19
  Okay.
• 19:19
  You know what I mean?
• 19:20
  But I was trying to see stuff not get somewhere, you know.
• 19:23
  So major cities down the east coast and then how far south did you make it
• 19:27
  before you started to go west or did you make it back to Florida before?
• 19:31
  Really kind of setting off.
• 19:32
  First night I just went down to Connecticut.
• 19:34
  Second day on the road I made it down to New Jersey and it was like raining.
• 19:40
  I remember.
• 19:40
  That was my first hotel parking lot.
• 19:43
  And that was, that was quite an experience that first night.
• 19:46
  The funny thing is like I never slept in the trailer before I was on
• 19:48
  the road, and the most vivid thing I remember is car lights shining
• 19:52
  in the windows of the trailer.
• 19:54
  I didn't put shades.
• 19:55
  So I remember I was sitting in the trailer, thank God I had like a drill
• 19:58
  on the, in whatever, and I actually took an old pair of jeans, cut them up and
• 20:02
  made some window shades out of the jeans just so I could sleep for the night.
• 20:06
  So what you're saying is it didn't leak before, but then
• 20:10
  you put some screw holes in it?
• 20:12
  No, no.
• 20:13
  It actually never, ever leaked on the trip.
• 20:15
  The windows were made out of plexiglass, so I took out like,
• 20:17
  it was like an inner frame on it.
• 20:19
  Ah, and I took out the existing frame and just put the cut up jeans in the window
• 20:24
  into the back, into the existing pole.
• 20:26
  So it wasn't in the roof.
• 20:27
  It was like on the side.
• 20:28
  When you were sleeping in the teardrop, was there anything
• 20:30
  like a conventional tent where condensation would build up inside?
• 20:33
  It was pretty good.
• 20:34
  I mean, it was just, I remember when I was like down south, it was hot, but I put a
• 20:38
  vent on the top with a fan too as well.
• 20:40
  I stole out of an RV that I put in there and uh, that helped a little.
• 20:44
  But I mean, the good thing is like I never really stayed more than a night
• 20:47
  in one place, so I was always like moving, you know, from New Jersey.
• 20:52
  I made it down to York, Pennsylvania the next day 'cause I wanted to, uh, check out
• 20:57
  the Harley Davidson factory down there.
• 21:00
  I got there and it was a Sunday and it was closed.
• 21:03
  I met the guy leaving the factory and this is like the first like pretty
• 21:07
  crazy thing that happened on the trip.
• 21:09
  You think it's okay if I sleep in this parking lot tonight?
• 21:12
  He's like, yeah, you should be fine.
• 21:13
  If you want, you can sleep in my house down the street in my yard.
• 21:17
  I'm like, no.
• 21:17
  I was like, next question, where are the bars?
• 21:20
  And he, he's like, oh, there's like a biker bar up here.
• 21:23
  So I went to this biker bar and it was closed, but then there
• 21:26
  was like a bunch of like patched bikers outside and I was like, oh.
• 21:30
  Against those guys, but I don't want any trouble.
• 21:32
  Right?
• 21:32
  I'm by myself.
• 21:33
  I'm like trying to think smart.
• 21:34
  They see me, I see them, they see on the trail, they come over, they're like
• 21:38
  talking all about the trail with me.
• 21:40
  They're like, Hey, follow this other bar.
• 21:42
  I was like, all right.
• 21:43
  I guess like I didn't know what patch they were or whatever.
• 21:46
  So we go to that bar and I'm talking to one of the guys, his name is John.
• 21:50
  Hey, I gotta ask like, what mc are you guys?
• 21:53
  Or whatever.
• 21:53
  He's like, MC.
• 21:54
  He's like, we just ride together.
• 21:56
  We're just military vets, and they'll like change, like the whole vibe.
• 21:59
  I felt like I could be more friendly with them because it's no drama or whatever.
• 22:03
  So then we're drinking at the bar and he's like, Hey, you wanna do the shot with me?
• 22:09
  And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever.
• 22:11
  He's like, you have to do it if I buy it though.
• 22:13
  I was like, okay.
• 22:14
  He buys this shot of Patron.
• 22:16
  I was like, okay, I've done the shots of Patron.
• 22:18
  He's like, all right, so this is what you do.
• 22:20
  They call it an infantry shot.
• 22:22
  He goes, pour a little bit in the palm of your hand.
• 22:25
  I was like, okay.
• 22:26
  And then he goes, when I counted three, you gotta sniff this, shot
• 22:29
  up your nose, hold it for like 10 seconds, and then pound the shot.
• 22:33
  It's supposed to represent the pain that the, uh, infantry went on the front line.
• 22:38
  I did that shot with him, like, oh, this is different.
• 22:40
  We're talking and he's like, you're a cool man.
• 22:42
  He is like, come back to my house for an after party.
• 22:45
  And he knew the owners of the bar and everything seemed cool.
• 22:48
  He was with his wife.
• 22:49
  And I was like, all right.
• 22:50
  So we actually went back to his house, had an after party having a good
• 22:53
  time, and he's like, you know what?
• 22:54
  Don't sleep in that trail tonight.
• 22:56
  Sleep on my couch.
• 22:57
  You're gonna be sleeping in that trail a long time.
• 22:59
  And I was like, yeah, I don't mind the trail.
• 23:01
  I'll sleeping in.
• 23:02
  I, you know, didn't really know this guy.
• 23:04
  I figured he had a girlfriend.
• 23:05
  Like he must be pretty harmless.
• 23:06
  And so he puts me to sleep on his couch.
• 23:09
  And then right before I go to bed, there's like a pit bull next to me.
• 23:12
  He goes, You seem like a nice guy.
• 23:14
  Just so you know, there's 10 guns in that room, so don't
• 23:17
  think you're gonna pull anything.
• 23:18
  And I was like, oh man.
• 23:20
  Oh boy.
• 23:21
  Have a nice night and shut the light off.
• 23:23
  And I woke up the next day and I was alive.
• 23:25
  Pit bull, like licking my face.
• 23:28
  That was uh, the second night on the road, so it was off to a bang.
• 23:32
  You're still working your way south.
• 23:34
  So how far south did you get before you decided Turn right and go west?
• 23:38
  From there I went to Gettysburg, which was actually that day with
• 23:41
  them, which was really cool.
• 23:43
  It's very peaceful, but somber.
• 23:45
  I eventually made my way from there to West Virginia, West Virginia.
• 23:50
  All I have to say is like, it's such a pretty state.
• 23:53
  There's like trash everywhere in people's yards in like the beautiful
• 23:56
  country I made my way through there.
• 23:58
  In West Virginia.
• 23:59
  I took my first Planet Fitness shower.
• 24:01
  That was like one of the things like where am I gonna shower?
• 24:04
  I came up with this idea that Planet Fitness has a black card and there
• 24:07
  was like 800 planet fitnesses across the country and I could shower any of
• 24:11
  'em as long as I had that black card.
• 24:13
  Interesting.
• 24:13
  That's a really smart way to do it.
• 24:14
  Nice clean shower.
• 24:15
  Every time I would kitchen a planet Fitnesses are a little cleaner than the
• 24:18
  random truck stops throughout the country.
• 24:20
  Yeah.
• 24:20
  You know what's funny though?
• 24:21
  It's like they get the loves and the TAs and I think they're like seven bucks for
• 24:25
  a shower and those are super clean too.
• 24:27
  They go in right after you shower and clean 'em before the next
• 24:30
  guy paid for those too as well.
• 24:31
  It's, it's not a Bucky's though, that's all I'm gonna say.
• 24:35
  And then Kentucky and then down in Nashville.
• 24:38
  'cause I had some friends in Nashville.
• 24:40
  You're stair stepping your way down.
• 24:41
  Okay.
• 24:42
  Yep.
• 24:42
  So you've made it to Nashville.
• 24:44
  You've already said you've been doing about 300 miles a day.
• 24:47
  Kind of taking your time on this trip.
• 24:49
  How often are you filling the bike?
• 24:51
  How much extra is it costing to also pull the trailer?
• 24:55
  Are you killing your fuel economy?
• 24:56
  Yeah.
• 24:56
  Oh yeah.
• 24:57
  I think I was getting like only 20 to 25 miles to a gallon.
• 25:00
  When you're probably usually getting like 35, 40.
• 25:03
  Usually it would fill up around like 85, 90 miles, like just to be safe.
• 25:07
  And the tank was like 3.2 or three gallon tank, but I always carried an extra gallon
• 25:12
  of gas on the front of the trail with me.
• 25:14
  That's a good counterweight too, right?
• 25:16
  An extra seven or eight pounds up there.
• 25:17
  Up front.
• 25:17
  Yeah.
• 25:18
  A spare tire on the front too for the trailer in Nashville, you know,
• 25:22
  great city to be in, all that.
• 25:24
  Where do you head from there?
• 25:25
  I was staying at a friend's house there too, so it was nice.
• 25:27
  I could sleep on his couch.
• 25:29
  We went out drinking one day.
• 25:30
  We shouldn't have done this, but this other guy was in a
• 25:33
  motorcycle, was like, you ever have somebody ride in that trailer?
• 25:36
  Is you going down the road?
• 25:38
  No.
• 25:38
  It sounds like it's not idea.
• 25:40
  We were only a couple miles away from my buddy's house, and uh,
• 25:44
  he jumped in the trailer and we pulled him back to the house.
• 25:46
  While I was driving in the trailer, he made it.
• 25:48
  I was like, how was the ride?
• 25:49
  He is like, Oh, not too bad.
• 25:52
  How bad did it shake the bike though?
• 25:53
  All the weight was off.
• 25:55
  Oh my God.
• 25:55
  It was tough riding.
• 25:56
  'cause he was like, you know, another 200 pound guy in there or whatever,
• 26:00
  you know, being a bike guy myself, I know when you have a passenger sitting
• 26:03
  on the back seat, their movements will throw off the, the gyroscopic of the
• 26:07
  bike way it leans and things like that.
• 26:09
  Was he a decent passenger in the trailer lane still or was he moving
• 26:12
  and could you feel every movement he was making in the trailer?
• 26:14
  No, I think he was fine.
• 26:15
  It, it was just bad because it hit a bump and the whole trailer would like
• 26:19
  shake back and forth, you know, sway.
• 26:21
  Now we're talking go from like 400 to 600 and the bikeway is 600.
• 26:25
  So it was like really swaying.
• 26:27
  It was only like a mile or two.
• 26:29
  Funny at the time.
• 26:30
  Not smart in retrospect, but we made it whatever.
• 26:34
  So you're in the Nashville area, which isn't quite yet in the direct middle of
• 26:38
  the country, but you're getting close.
• 26:39
  So as you kind of look back over the trip to that point, was the
• 26:44
  novelty of it starting to wear off or were you still excited and
• 26:47
  enthusiastic about keeping going?
• 26:50
  No, I mean it was, 'cause like every night I didn't know where I was sleeping.
• 26:53
  So I'd have like a plan.
• 26:55
  Like I'd try to stay in major cities when I could.
• 26:57
  I'd go out, go hang out at the bars, maybe meet people.
• 27:00
  Find local hotels that were near them and I would just park
• 27:04
  and sleep in hotel parking lot.
• 27:05
  It never was like wearing off.
• 27:06
  'cause every night you pull in, you're like, all right, shut the door.
• 27:10
  The first couple nights it was like nerve wracking sleep.
• 27:12
  'cause you're like nervous about what's gonna happen.
• 27:14
  Eventually I was just like, you know what?
• 27:16
  Just gonna shut the door.
• 27:17
  Whatever happens happens.
• 27:18
  If I'm gonna die in the middle of the night, there's nothing I
• 27:20
  can do about it before right now.
• 27:22
  So just.
• 27:23
  Shut the door and go to sleep.
• 27:24
  It was always that like exciting feeling.
• 27:26
  And then the next day you'd wake up and never seen any of the road ahead.
• 27:31
  So, and it's all back roads I was doing every day felt like wicked interesting,
• 27:35
  like a new adventure every day, you know?
• 27:36
  Did it ever get to the point though, where it was just like, man, this is super
• 27:40
  uncomfortable because, you know, like you can get uncomfortable in a car on
• 27:43
  a long trip, but how about on the bike?
• 27:45
  I mean, was it causing you any like, let's say saddle sores or anything
• 27:48
  like that when not pulling a trailer?
• 27:50
  I can do like five, 600 miles in a day.
• 27:53
  On a modern bike.
• 27:54
  So to do only half, 300, it's not that bad.
• 27:57
  You know what I mean?
• 27:58
  I was getting on and off, I think like every hour and a half,
• 28:01
  two hours I was getting fuel.
• 28:02
  So it's not that bad.
• 28:03
  The only sores you'd get, not to get a little gross, but like, oh, it's been like
• 28:08
  three or four days since I've showered.
• 28:10
  I need to get to a shower.
• 28:11
  And you get that like sweat annoyance or whatever.
• 28:13
  But I mean, I wasn't hanging out with many people, so I didn't like, it
• 28:16
  was like, and things would happen, so trying to get to like the next planet
• 28:19
  of fitness, you know what I mean?
• 28:22
  You like timing it out.
• 28:23
  Right.
• 28:24
  You know.
• 28:24
  Well you were saying on a normal ride without the trailer, five or 600 miles
• 28:28
  isn't a big deal, but did you ever get comfortable with the trailer behind you?
• 28:33
  Did it ever get to a point where you were like, you didn't even
• 28:35
  notice that it was back there?
• 28:36
  Were you always sort of on edge wondering what it was gonna do?
• 28:39
  Yeah, I was personally always on edge just because like you'd get comfortable and
• 28:43
  then you'd hit something in the road and it would like shake the bike like crazy.
• 28:46
  And then you're like, all right, that's why you can't get comfortable.
• 28:49
  You know what I mean?
• 28:50
  I mean, you get used to it, but you never like get comfortable.
• 28:54
  But I always looked at the trail like it was like a necessary evil
• 28:57
  because the trail allowed freedom.
• 28:59
  Yeah.
• 28:59
  If you think about it, you're not limited.
• 29:02
  Just pull over and sleep.
• 29:03
  The bike broke down a lot later on in the trip, which we'll get to the
• 29:07
  trailer also allowed me the ability to fix the bike with my own tools.
• 29:10
  But the trailer never bit you hard enough where it took the bike down or
• 29:14
  took you down or anything like that?
• 29:15
  I did go down in Texas on the way home.
• 29:18
  It was very low speed.
• 29:19
  It wasn't a big deal going out through like Oklahoma and Texas and that section.
• 29:23
  I've been out there and crosswinds get crazy.
• 29:25
  Oh my god.
• 29:26
  Was it a major trailer?
• 29:28
  Oh my God.
• 29:29
  Yeah.
• 29:29
  Like that's what I thought I was gonna blow my motor.
• 29:32
  Going through New Mexico, Oklahoma, you go from like, you could always
• 29:35
  cruise 65 to 70 comfortably.
• 29:38
  I'd be screaming in 50 or only going 50 miles an hour.
• 29:42
  'cause that headwind is so bad.
• 29:44
  That was like the worst riding of the whole trip.
• 29:46
  It was taking like a beating on me for sure.
• 29:49
  Yeah, you're right about those winds.
• 29:50
  They're wild out there.
• 29:52
  Did you have any sort of like fairing on your bike or were
• 29:54
  you just riding open handlebars?
• 29:55
  My bike is originally a 89 F fxr sp, which means like higher suspension dual disc.
• 30:02
  But I put an RD slash RT faring on it, so I actually had a faring and a
• 30:06
  radio on it too, which made riding a lot more enjoyable and saddlebags Nice.
• 30:11
  So there in the middle of the country right?
• 30:13
  You on top of the continental divide.
• 30:15
  I went to that at some point.
• 30:18
  You gotta keep going west and you got across the mountains.
• 30:21
  So what route did you take to get out to California?
• 30:24
  Well, that's not true.
• 30:25
  I didn't really do that.
• 30:27
  Uh oh.
• 30:27
  Nashville.
• 30:28
  Right.
• 30:29
  And the next city I went to was St.
• 30:31
  Louis.
• 30:31
  This is like back in 14 or 15 when there was those like shootings.
• 30:35
  Do you remember those?
• 30:36
  Yeah.
• 30:37
  I hate to say it, St.
• 30:38
  Louis was like not the nicest cities I've ever been to the United States.
• 30:41
  I remember rolling through St.
• 30:43
  Louis at like nine o'clock at night on a Monday and there was just like a
• 30:46
  hundred people barbecuing in the street.
• 30:49
  It was like the craziest thing I've ever seen.
• 30:52
  I don't think I'm gonna stop.
• 30:54
  So like I kept rolling by.
• 30:55
  I also couldn't find like a bar, which I thought would be like
• 30:59
  safe enough to go to that night.
• 31:01
  I ended up just sleeping in a condo parking lot, so from St.
• 31:04
  Louis, Kansas City, Missouri.
• 31:07
  Then that was totally different.
• 31:09
  Power light district.
• 31:10
  That was a Tuesday night, and that was pretty cool.
• 31:12
  Kansas City Royals were in the World Series.
• 31:14
  I couldn't find any hotels there, so I actually decided to sleep in
• 31:17
  a Walmart parking lot that night.
• 31:19
  That was the first one.
• 31:20
  Was it a 24 hour Walmart?
• 31:22
  Yeah, 24 hour Walmart.
• 31:24
  Everything was fine.
• 31:25
  All of a sudden in the middle of the night, well, early morning,
• 31:28
  I wake up and I just, he had this thing like circling in my trail.
• 31:31
  I peek out the window.
• 31:32
  And it was like a street sweeper going around and around my trailer
• 31:36
  and figured, I'm like, oh my God.
• 31:38
  But I looked out the window.
• 31:38
  I'm like, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I'm in here.
• 31:40
  So I'm like, whatever.
• 31:41
  I went back to sleep and then a couple hours later I wake up that morning
• 31:45
  and I pick out my window again and there was a guy in an SS 10 truck
• 31:49
  taking, get a picture of my trailer.
• 31:50
  I was like, oh, it's time to get up.
• 31:51
  Anyway, so I jumped out of the trail and was like, ah, shocked.
• 31:54
  The guy threw himself in.
• 31:56
  He had no idea I was sleeping in the trail.
• 31:58
  He's like, you sleeping there?
• 31:59
  I was like, yeah.
• 32:00
  Sometimes he's like, wow.
• 32:02
  We had like a laugh and he took off.
• 32:04
  Those were like the little things on the trip that like still make
• 32:06
  me laugh to this day, you know?
• 32:08
  From there just kept heading west through Kansas.
• 32:11
  Man, there's like nothing in Kansas.
• 32:14
  Just kept going.
• 32:15
  That was probably the most desolate before Denver.
• 32:18
  I got gas at a gas station that said no more gas for like 90 miles.
• 32:21
  So that was like the only time I really got scared that I was gonna
• 32:24
  run out, but I didn't run out.
• 32:26
  Climbed up to Denver and got there.
• 32:28
  Finally, that was a long day of riding.
• 32:30
  I was so tired that night.
• 32:32
  I literally just went to another Planet Fitness, got something to eat,
• 32:35
  and then I decided, you know what?
• 32:37
  All my parking lot's not that bad.
• 32:38
  We'll try it one more time.
• 32:40
  Right?
• 32:40
  This time it was quite different when I woke up and I hear people like
• 32:45
  talking and around my trailer early in the morning and I'm like, oh, maybe
• 32:49
  it's just people getting out of a car.
• 32:51
  Like, I don't know.
• 32:52
  I'm just gonna ignore it.
• 32:53
  They probably don't even know I'm in here.
• 32:54
  Right?
• 32:55
  So I went back to sleep for another hour again, hour later for people talking.
• 32:59
  And this time someone bumped my trail.
• 33:02
  I'm like, ah, someone must know I'm in here.
• 33:04
  'cause like I moved right.
• 33:05
  So I was like on the defensive, I had two giant knives, would be no guns, but
• 33:09
  a giant knife in me and I had it in my side and I got ready to like jumped outta
• 33:13
  the trail, like ready to like fight.
• 33:15
  I don't know what I was walking into.
• 33:17
  And then a bunch of like people just standing there staring at me
• 33:20
  and I'm like, what is going on?
• 33:22
  Turns out I parked under a casino bus stop sign.
• 33:25
  All these people were just going to work and I had no idea.
• 33:29
  And they all looking at me.
• 33:30
  I'm looking, I'm like, all get outta here.
• 33:33
  Yeah, that was the last Walmart parking lot.
• 33:35
  I slept in on the trip.
• 33:38
  Well, you're in Denver and you're staring down the Rockies.
• 33:41
  Actually went the next night to family, friend's sister in Denver that I never
• 33:46
  met before and stayed at her house for one night and then I came back
• 33:49
  to Denver and went out in Denver.
• 33:51
  I like to stop at like the local Harley dealers, not because I like Harley
• 33:55
  dealers, but usually there's cool people that work at Harley dealers, like the gear
• 33:59
  heads that work there are pretty cool.
• 34:01
  So I stopped at this one.
• 34:03
  I was like, Hey, what's like a good place to park and sleep?
• 34:05
  He's like, oh, you could park and sleep here.
• 34:07
  We actually have an outdoor bike storage cage.
• 34:10
  I'll leave it dummy lock for you and you could park a trailer in
• 34:13
  there and disconnect and go travel the city on your bike and then
• 34:16
  come back at night and sleep.
• 34:17
  I was like, oh, that's awesome.
• 34:19
  So I did that.
• 34:20
  Went out in Denver, had some fun and when I came back and went to go sleep in the
• 34:24
  trailer, there was actually a homeless guy sleeping on the other side of the fence.
• 34:28
  He shocked me 'cause I didn't know he was there and he like got up and left
• 34:31
  and then the next day the guy let me do that, he is like, Hey, uh, turns
• 34:34
  out there was a security alarm on that fence and I didn't know about it and I
• 34:38
  got a call in the middle of the night.
• 34:39
  I said it had a, just a false alarm from there, though, I left down here.
• 34:43
  I hate heights, like I'm terrified of heights.
• 34:46
  How am I gonna get to the west coast without going over the Rockies?
• 34:49
  Right?
• 34:50
  I decided to go north, head up to like Seattle and then I could cut over
• 34:54
  when they're like not as big up there.
• 34:56
  So that's what I did from there.
• 34:58
  Wow.
• 34:58
  Yeah.
• 34:59
  So that takes you up into like Montana and Idaho and all the, those states.
• 35:04
  I wanted to see those states anyways.
• 35:05
  What does that do timeline wise?
• 35:07
  'cause you were leaving the north to get away from the cold.
• 35:09
  Yeah.
• 35:10
  And then so you're heading back to the north.
• 35:12
  I think we were like two weeks in at this point, because I remember where I
• 35:15
  spent Halloween, Spokane in Washington.
• 35:18
  And so from here I go up to Wyoming.
• 35:21
  It was really windy in Wyoming too.
• 35:23
  And there's like nothing in Wyoming, so no.
• 35:25
  Like really big city.
• 35:26
  It's like even Cheyenne isn't that big.
• 35:29
  Like I crossed through there and I end up landing in this little town, I think
• 35:33
  it was called Glendo, population 200.
• 35:36
  So like very small town.
• 35:38
  I go to this bar and grab a drink and I'm sitting there with the bartender
• 35:43
  and this girl came in, I remember with her dog kind of flirting with me,
• 35:48
  whatever, but she had a puppy and it was like pooping and peeing in the bar.
• 35:51
  I'm like, this thing's not trained like I don't know about this.
• 35:53
  I asked this guy, I was like, oh, where's a good place to sleep?
• 35:56
  He was like, oh, you can sleep in the parking lot out back of the bar.
• 36:00
  I was like, all right, cool.
• 36:01
  But this girl was like flirting with me, trying to get me to go back with her.
• 36:03
  But I was like, nah, I don't know, I'm, I'm not going back to like a house
• 36:06
  that's got like poop and pee in it.
• 36:08
  You know what I mean?
• 36:09
  So I chose the ladder and I, I slept in the trailer that night.
• 36:12
  That was the coldest morning I woke up, it was 17 degrees out.
• 36:17
  I got woke up by a freight train too.
• 36:19
  I planned for the call 'cause I bought heated gear from cycle gear if anybody's
• 36:23
  ever looking for good plugin, heated gear, cycle gear's got really good gear.
• 36:27
  So with that on, it's not that bad.
• 36:29
  Did their gear have adjustable temperatures or is it just on off?
• 36:32
  It's got like four settings and it works really well.
• 36:35
  At the time they had held a warranty on 'em too, which was really nice 'cause they
• 36:38
  broke once and I was able to just walk into another one and grab a new jacket.
• 36:42
  Cycle gear is a really good shop.
• 36:44
  I kept headed north and I ended in a town called Thermopolis,
• 36:47
  Wyoming and Thermopolis.
• 36:50
  It's got all like the hot springs in it, right?
• 36:52
  Doing some sightseeing there.
• 36:54
  I found myself looking at these wild buffalo walking towards him and
• 36:58
  some guy in a car yells out to me.
• 37:00
  He goes, you shouldn't get any more closer to those buffalo.
• 37:02
  And I was like, whatever.
• 37:03
  What is this Taurus?
• 37:05
  He's like, really?
• 37:06
  They stopped eating.
• 37:07
  They noticed you.
• 37:08
  And I was like, all right, this guy might know something.
• 37:10
  Right?
• 37:11
  So I walk up to him and I start talking with him.
• 37:13
  He just has a whole family and everything.
• 37:15
  I told him, you know, I'm on my trip or whatever.
• 37:17
  He goes, wow, that sounds really interesting.
• 37:19
  Would you want to come over for dinner?
• 37:21
  Yeah, I don't, I don't care.
• 37:22
  I seem harmless.
• 37:23
  He had like a family and stuff.
• 37:24
  I was planning to go to his dinner.
• 37:26
  I'm like, I wanna go check out these hot springs.
• 37:28
  So I, I went to these hot springs and those are really cool.
• 37:30
  It was like a resort from the seventies.
• 37:32
  Worked it outdated, but pretty cool to like swim in natural pools.
• 37:36
  But they have like the hot spring come up.
• 37:38
  So I ended up going over to this guy's house for dinner.
• 37:40
  I'm sitting there with him and his wife and his kids were having dinner and he
• 37:44
  ends up having kind of like a crazy story.
• 37:46
  He was a Bosnian refugee and lived in Chicago.
• 37:50
  He was living, I guess in a bad area of Chicago.
• 37:52
  Saw like kid get like shot cold blood in the street and he just decided to move
• 37:57
  his whole family to this like small town.
• 37:59
  Thermopolis, Wyoming and get away from all the crime and stuff.
• 38:03
  'cause he like was trying to get away from in Bosnia as well after
• 38:06
  his family went to bed like, and like really got stories going.
• 38:10
  But I was like, all right, so I'm gonna go to bed in my trailer.
• 38:12
  He is like, no, you'll just sleep on my couch.
• 38:14
  You sure?
• 38:15
  He is like, yeah, so let me sleep on his couch.
• 38:17
  Like I always think animals have like a good sense of like feeling good and bad.
• 38:21
  His like cat laid on my chest and his dog was like licking my hand in the middle
• 38:25
  of the night and he's like, yeah, when you wake up in the morning, my wife will
• 38:28
  make you breakfast and then you can go.
• 38:29
  He's like, I'll be gone before you get up to go to work.
• 38:32
  So I woke up, his wife made me breakfast.
• 38:35
  That was quite different to being in the middle of nowhere and someone
• 38:38
  like inviting you in, you know, lots of nice people I met on this trip.
• 38:41
  So you're working your way Wyoming to the Montanas, Idaho, into Washington.
• 38:46
  At this point, actually, I made my way from Opolis.
• 38:49
  To a town called Bozeman, Montana.
• 38:51
  Anybody that watches Yellowstone has heard of Bozeman.
• 38:55
  Yeah, so funny.
• 38:56
  Pre Yellowstone days.
• 38:58
  So Bozeman was a Tuesday night and it was supposed to, I just wanted to chill,
• 39:02
  sit at like a bar, just writing my journals, trying to write my journals
• 39:06
  every day, like what's happening?
• 39:07
  And I was just gonna do that and call an early night, go to bed or
• 39:10
  whatever, and hit the road again.
• 39:12
  And then I met these three guys.
• 39:14
  This girl, all of a sudden, like my quiet Tuesday night turned into like
• 39:18
  a full fledged party and we're going from like bar to bar drinking and this
• 39:22
  other girl they were with, she was by herself pretty well buzzed now she's
• 39:25
  like, Hey, I'm having like a little after party, you should come by.
• 39:28
  So I took her up on the offer and I had my journal with me still.
• 39:33
  I ended up going to her house and we're talking, she's like,
• 39:35
  blah, blah, blah, my boyfriend.
• 39:37
  And I'm like, wait a minute, you have a boyfriend and you just dragged
• 39:40
  me all the way here to somewhere.
• 39:42
  I don't even know.
• 39:43
  These guys end up driving me back to my bike and I end up going to bed on
• 39:47
  my bike and then as soon as I got back to my bike, I'm like, oh my God, I
• 39:50
  left my journal at this girl's house.
• 39:52
  So the next day I wake up and I'm like quite hungover.
• 39:55
  I gotta find this journal.
• 39:56
  So I like retrace my steps all the way in town, trying to find out who knows
• 40:00
  these people and trying to find this journal and I could never find it.
• 40:04
  Fast forward to like years later, I had an idea how to find this journal.
• 40:09
  I lost, I put an ad in the Bozeman.
• 40:11
  Paper basically explaining what happened.
• 40:13
  One of those guys from that night contacted me, said, I
• 40:16
  know where your journal's at.
• 40:17
  And I was like, no way.
• 40:19
  He overheard some women in the hospital talking about this story
• 40:22
  and laughing about it, and then he was like, I was there that night.
• 40:25
  Long story short, I never got the journal back.
• 40:28
  He just lost touch and my journal's still out there.
• 40:31
  This girl, Rachel has it, I guess.
• 40:33
  So Rachel, you're out there.
• 40:34
  Send me back that journal.
• 40:39
  Rewrite tons of stuff in journal number two.
• 40:43
  From there, I go up to Spokane, Washington for Halloween, I
• 40:47
  dressed like a homeless biker for Halloween, 'cause that's all I had.
• 40:51
  I knew a girl that I used to go camping with when I was younger.
• 40:54
  Our families did, she lived in Seattle.
• 40:57
  She put me up with her boyfriend in her place for like three days.
• 41:00
  So that was cool.
• 41:01
  I got to hang out in Seattle, get off the bike.
• 41:03
  The best thing I remember from Seattle was like the salmon.
• 41:05
  I'm like, oh my God, I know this other random girl I met in Sturgis
• 41:09
  one time when I was there with a friend of mine years back.
• 41:12
  I'm like, I still remember.
• 41:13
  I was like, oh, let's see what she's doing.
• 41:15
  And we met up with some drinks and whatever and went
• 41:17
  out a couple nights later.
• 41:18
  From there, I left Seattle and I started heading down and I went to Portland.
• 41:24
  Great City.
• 41:25
  I didn't think so.
• 41:26
  You think so?
• 41:26
  Or what?
• 41:27
  It's more laid back than Seattle.
• 41:29
  You know, a little less professional.
• 41:31
  You can, you can have some fun there.
• 41:32
  I was more like nervous, like so many homeless people, you know what I mean?
• 41:36
  And like there's a cool motorcycle shop there if anybody ever wants
• 41:39
  to go called CC Motorcycle Co.
• 41:41
  And then Voodoo Donuts.
• 41:43
  Yep.
• 41:43
  I'm sure people know about Voodoo Donuts.
• 41:45
  I went to this little dive bar and I was talking to this
• 41:48
  bartender, police was called ous.
• 41:50
  I was like, Hey, I parked.
• 41:52
  My bike on the street next to like this church looking thing.
• 41:56
  I'm like, you think it's okay if I just sleep there?
• 41:58
  It seems like I'm not busy street.
• 42:00
  She's like, yeah, I think you'll be fine and whatever.
• 42:02
  I was like, all right, cool.
• 42:02
  Have a good night.
• 42:03
  I wake up the next morning, she sent me a picture of me sleeping in my trailer and I
• 42:07
  didn't know it on the side of the street, so I thought that was kind of cool.
• 42:11
  That's actually like the picture you saw on my profile.
• 42:14
  Yeah.
• 42:14
  It's a beautiful shot too, of great lighting there at night.
• 42:16
  Yes.
• 42:17
  Got woken up that morning to what I thought was a tow truck, but was
• 42:20
  another street sweeper sweeping there.
• 42:22
  I was like, time to get up.
• 42:23
  So hit the road south again.
• 42:26
  I pretty much started making my way to California.
• 42:28
  Are you just following the coastline the whole way down?
• 42:31
  I did in Oregon.
• 42:32
  It literally reminded me of the Goonies, you know, it was shot there anyways,
• 42:35
  but I, that's all I kept thinking about.
• 42:37
  So I followed the coastline down to California pretty
• 42:40
  much to San Francisco area.
• 42:43
  It started getting like really high.
• 42:45
  I hate that.
• 42:46
  You know what I mean?
• 42:46
  The height thing.
• 42:47
  So I went inland, but I went to San Francisco.
• 42:50
  I was there for a little while.
• 42:51
  I always find like interesting things at bars.
• 42:54
  I guess.
• 42:54
  I was at this other bar.
• 42:55
  I was talking to this girl, you know, I really didn't think anything of it because
• 42:59
  her father's name was Larry as well.
• 43:01
  So I asked her, at the end of the day, I'm like, where should I
• 43:03
  park and sleep in San Francisco?
• 43:04
  Which was wicked hard to find parking there to sleep.
• 43:07
  She's like, there's no good spot.
• 43:08
  So I was like, well, you know, like I'll figure it out.
• 43:11
  Nice meeting you.
• 43:11
  She's like, No, I mean you should like stay with me.
• 43:14
  I ended up staying with her for like three days and she like showed me
• 43:17
  around the city and man, she was like a real like San Francisco hippie.
• 43:22
  I remember like one night after watching a movie, she's like,
• 43:25
  oh, you wanna have some popcorn?
• 43:26
  Oh yeah.
• 43:27
  And I was like, where's your microwave?
• 43:28
  She's like, microwave.
• 43:29
  She's like, I don't use microwaves.
• 43:32
  She did like the Stovetop pub going and I was like, wow, you
• 43:35
  really have like the old school, like San Francisco hippie thing.
• 43:39
  So you had mentioned, you know, you're always fixing the bike kind
• 43:42
  of par for the course with that age of Harley and things like that.
• 43:45
  But California is where you find yourself with your first big problem.
• 43:49
  And I was gonna go surprise one of my friends.
• 43:52
  I think in Lancaster, California, which is like a few hours outside of la and
• 43:58
  I'm on my way there and all of a sudden I'm going up a big hill and the bike
• 44:01
  starts like chucking like really bad.
• 44:04
  I was like, oh man, something in my tree or the clutch or something.
• 44:08
  So I get to the top of this hill and I'm able to coast down to a town and
• 44:11
  the next morning I, I do an inspection of the bike and it turns out, I don't
• 44:15
  even know how my belt didn't break, but a bunch of teeth on my belt had worn
• 44:19
  off, so it was only grabbing every so many revolutions on the rear sprocket.
• 44:23
  I call up my buddy who lives in Lancaster.
• 44:26
  I was like, Hey, I was gonna surprise you and just show up.
• 44:29
  I just need to know before I get there.
• 44:30
  Like, if you have a spot, I could work on my bike.
• 44:33
  He's like, oh yeah, no problem.
• 44:34
  So I was like, all right, cool.
• 44:35
  I'll figure this out and I'll call you.
• 44:37
  I came up with an idea.
• 44:38
  I end up renting a U-Haul truck.
• 44:40
  I put my bike in the back of the U-Haul and then put the trailer
• 44:43
  on the back of the U-Haul, and I drove to his house with the bike
• 44:46
  and the, the back and the trailer.
• 44:48
  And then I finally got there and I returned the U-Haul.
• 44:50
  Actually it worked out pretty good.
• 44:52
  I get pitches of that as well.
• 44:53
  I spent like a couple weeks at his place fixing the belt on my bike,
• 44:57
  actually converted it to chain drive 'cause this was like the second
• 45:00
  belt I went through on this bike.
• 45:02
  Yeah, I'm sure the extra weight in the trailer was definitely
• 45:04
  hard on the teeth for them.
• 45:05
  Uh, rails, you know, and 89 F X R doesn't leak any oil at all.
• 45:09
  Right.
• 45:10
  It stops leaking when it's empty.
• 45:12
  Very true.
• 45:15
  Combination of weight and oil on the belt.
• 45:17
  You're all the way on the other side of the country at this point.
• 45:20
  Let's say by bird's flight, you know, 3000 miles away from home.
• 45:24
  How many tires did you go through at this point?
• 45:26
  The first tire I went through, actually it was.
• 45:28
  When I had the belt brake, I noticed I needed a tire, so I had the rim off.
• 45:31
  So I got my first rear tire there.
• 45:33
  So I think the ratio I went through was like two to one, two rears to
• 45:37
  one front, because you gotta remember they had extra weight on the rear.
• 45:40
  So it was really like making a curved tire into a flat tire, you know,
• 45:44
  even without pulling a trailer.
• 45:45
  I noticed that with my bikes, I tend to go through two groups of extra one front.
• 45:49
  Exactly.
• 45:50
  It kind of goes that way.
• 45:50
  Anyways, I suppose tire pressure and all that makes a difference.
• 45:54
  So at this point, how many miles have you clocked on your journey?
• 45:57
  6,000.
• 45:58
  Because you gotta remember I'm doing back roads and I'm not going straight
• 46:00
  across, two thirds across the United States, and then I went all the way
• 46:04
  up again, starting my descent down.
• 46:06
  My next buddy was just in LA so he was only like two or three hours away.
• 46:10
  And then all of a sudden I'm driving to LA and my bike stops going like,
• 46:14
  tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
• 46:16
  But not like a tick, like a knock.
• 46:18
  Oh my God.
• 46:19
  Like really?
• 46:19
  I get to my buddy's house, I go to a couple shops and they're
• 46:22
  like, oh, you got Pistons.
• 46:24
  Slap in your bike.
• 46:25
  Which means fortunately, you know, it's top end.
• 46:27
  And I was like, no.
• 46:29
  So I was like, what am I gonna do now?
• 46:31
  So I came up with this like idea like, well, I can fix it myself, but I don't
• 46:34
  have any way to work in it because he had, it was at an apartment and I can't
• 46:38
  work on it in the, in the apartment.
• 46:39
  So you know what I did?
• 46:40
  I actually rented out a storage unit to work on the bike.
• 46:43
  The funny thing is the first month's free.
• 46:46
  There you go.
• 46:48
  Nice.
• 46:49
  So I went to these people and I was like, are you sure it's
• 46:52
  okay for me to work in there?
• 46:53
  I'm like, once I start working in there, I'm like, it's gonna be torn apart.
• 46:56
  They're like, yeah, just no sleeping there.
• 46:57
  And I was like, why would I sleep in a storage unit?
• 47:00
  Apparently lots of homeless people are sleeping in storage units in California.
• 47:05
  I actually worked with a, uh, a shop out there called South Bay Customs.
• 47:09
  That was wicked nice.
• 47:11
  I gave him in my cylinders, he had new pistons to order, and then he was gonna
• 47:15
  get a machine, I think it was like 20 or 30 over to match the pistons.
• 47:19
  And so I gave him to him.
• 47:20
  Meanwhile, because of this hiccup and the other hiccups, I was supposed
• 47:24
  to be like kind of in Arizona by this time, and I booked a flight
• 47:28
  outta Arizona to go back home.
• 47:30
  But my grandparents had a 60th wedding anniversary party.
• 47:33
  And I was like, I wanna go home no matter what, wherever I am for this party.
• 47:37
  And it was like Thanksgiving and then come back and continue my trip.
• 47:40
  So I had a flight booked outta Arizona at another like family, friend's place.
• 47:44
  So I was like, how am I gonna get to Arizona from la?
• 47:48
  I don't have a car or whatever, a bus.
• 47:50
  So I was taking chances on this trip already.
• 47:53
  So I was like, let's uh, keep these chances rolling.
• 47:55
  So I went on the old Craigslist and found this thing called rideshare.
• 47:59
  I jumped in with this guy.
• 48:01
  It was like 40 bucks.
• 48:02
  It was so cheap.
• 48:03
  I was like, all right, if this doesn't kill me, this is a deal.
• 48:08
  Like, yeah.
• 48:09
  So I jumped in with this guy and like two other people.
• 48:12
  He was driving me to Arizona and I was supposed to meet up with my
• 48:15
  family, friend's, husband, and he was gonna pick me up somewhere near
• 48:19
  Phoenix in Arizona and then bring me back to his house and stay there.
• 48:21
  And the bike is still in storage at this point?
• 48:24
  In storage in la?
• 48:25
  Yep.
• 48:25
  And all torn apart, like you can see pictures of it on my Instagram.
• 48:29
  I'm getting close, I'm in contact with this guy and then all of a sudden
• 48:32
  my family friend goes, pick me up.
• 48:34
  He goes, I'm not gonna make it, man.
• 48:35
  I'm gonna fall asleep driving.
• 48:36
  He's like, you're gonna have to get a hotel or whatever, or good luck.
• 48:39
  I was like, are you serious?
• 48:41
  Like two hours away from arriving or an hour.
• 48:43
  The driver of this guy goes to me.
• 48:45
  No worries, my friend.
• 48:47
  I know a woman who takes some fellow travelers like yourself.
• 48:50
  What?
• 48:51
  He's like, yeah, she doesn't have a problem with taking in travelers.
• 48:54
  I was like, I guess it's either this, so like a $200 hotel room.
• 48:58
  So I guess why not?
• 48:59
  Right?
• 49:00
  At this point, what do you got to lose?
• 49:02
  Oh yeah.
• 49:03
  So I get out of the car.
• 49:04
  Just take my stuff out, meet this girl for like a second.
• 49:07
  This as weird as you think it would be.
• 49:09
  Walk in just lizards everywhere.
• 49:14
  Well, it was a lizard lady.
• 49:15
  Big lizards, small lizards.
• 49:17
  It wasn't a dirty house or anything.
• 49:19
  It was just lizards everywhere.
• 49:21
  All right, here we go.
• 49:22
  Here's another chance.
• 49:23
  I don't know what I'm getting myself into.
• 49:25
  She shows me your room.
• 49:26
  She's like, yeah, you can sleep in there for.
• 49:27
  I'm like, oh, shut the door.
• 49:29
  I was like, if I get out of this one alive, there's nothing that's
• 49:32
  gonna kill me on the strip.
• 49:33
  Well, did you wake up the lizards licking you?
• 49:35
  Like you had the cats and dogs licking?
• 49:36
  Man, I was so worried about that.
• 49:39
  I woke up, she just showed me all her lizards.
• 49:41
  Took like a three foot one, put it on my shoulder.
• 49:43
  There's a good picture of it on my Instagram.
• 49:45
  And my guy showed up, finally picked me up and I was like, I,
• 49:48
  I'm happy to not go back there.
• 49:50
  Let's put that right.
• 49:52
  You may get to Phoenix, you fly home for the party.
• 49:55
  Everybody's probably asking, what have you been doing?
• 49:57
  You know, you're recounting the stories up until that point.
• 49:59
  Yeah, and it's kind of fun.
• 50:00
  You're res sinking in normal life, even if it's for a weekend or for a couple
• 50:03
  moments, but now you find yourself booking a flight back to LA to get your bike.
• 50:08
  I was just going back to Phoenix 'cause I already made these flights.
• 50:11
  So I get back to Phoenix and I was like, well, what didn't kill me
• 50:14
  once probably won't kill me twice.
• 50:16
  Right?
• 50:16
  You went back to the lizard lady?
• 50:18
  No, so I went back to Craigslist to ride share, right?
• 50:23
  So I was like, all right, here we go again.
• 50:25
  Some woman comes to pick me up, goes to stop the cop breathalyzer on this
• 50:30
  car, and then we're driving back to la It's me and like two other guys.
• 50:36
  The guy in the front seat with him, like turns out his mother
• 50:39
  got hit by a drunk driver.
• 50:41
  They're oddly enough, fine talking in the front seat the whole way.
• 50:44
  And then we get back to LA and I pretty sure that they like stayed
• 50:48
  friends, maybe even more than friends.
• 50:50
  But I was a pretty crazy ride as well.
• 50:52
  So I get back to la, get my bike all back together and everything.
• 50:56
  I start heading south again to San Diego.
• 50:58
  Earlier you were staying off of major Roads, but while you were out
• 51:01
  there, did you hit the P C H A little bit here and there, but again man,
• 51:04
  I hate heights and no guardrails.
• 51:06
  When something's like nerve wracking for me it's not enjoyable
• 51:09
  no matter how beautiful it is.
• 51:11
  It was more about having experiences with people, I guess on the strip, get
• 51:15
  down to San Diego and I had another friend there, I spent some time with him.
• 51:20
  We're in a club one night I seen him like eat something
• 51:23
  and I was like, what was that?
• 51:25
  An extracurricular San Diego was pretty wild.
• 51:27
  We end up in like a penthouse, just partying all night.
• 51:30
  It was pretty fun there.
• 51:32
  But anyways, like after San Diego, I left there and started headed to
• 51:36
  Phoenix again, and I get to Phoenix.
• 51:38
  You wanted to stop off and see the lizard lady, right?
• 51:42
  No, I was good with the lizard lady.
• 51:44
  So I get to Phoenix at this point, and now it's Christmas and then now it's January
• 51:49
  15 was like a crazy winter back in Boston.
• 51:52
  My luck struck me that I was in Arizona and it was a family friend, and I was
• 51:56
  like, yeah, I guess I'm gonna keep heading home now just because I'm traveling.
• 52:00
  I was like, I don't want this to obstruct things I normally do in life.
• 52:03
  Anyways.
• 52:03
  I had some friends back home and they were planning a trip to Punana.
• 52:07
  I was like, all right, I'll take another break and I'll go to Punana.
• 52:09
  So I actually flew outta Arizona, went to Punana for a wild, crazy
• 52:13
  vacation, and then came back there.
• 52:16
  So what'd you do with the bike?
• 52:17
  Did you leave it in the airport parking lot at that point?
• 52:19
  No, at my family friend's horse ranch in Arizona, I was
• 52:22
  ready to leave to go back home.
• 52:23
  Now they're like, you're gonna drive home in the winter.
• 52:26
  I.
• 52:27
  I don't know, whatever.
• 52:27
  I'll get through it.
• 52:28
  It's gonna be miserable at points, but I'll get through it.
• 52:31
  They're like, why don't you just hang out here for the rest of the winter
• 52:34
  and then go back in the spring?
• 52:36
  Well, you know what, that sounds pretty good.
• 52:37
  While I was there, I learned to work a horse ranch, learn to ride
• 52:41
  horses, and then I also got part-time job as a server at a restaurant.
• 52:47
  Since I'm like always been like an entrepreneur, I came up with
• 52:50
  an ad on Craigslist and I did mobile mechanic work out of my
• 52:53
  motorcycle 'cause I had all my tools.
• 52:55
  So I made like some decent money doing that on the side as well.
• 52:58
  How did people respond when you showed up with the bike and trailer
• 53:01
  behind it to work on their stuff?
• 53:02
  Well, I wouldn't show up with the trailer.
• 53:04
  I'd just show up at the bike 'cause they had like hard saddle bags on it.
• 53:07
  Just filled with tools.
• 53:09
  Got it.
• 53:09
  But I wouldn't ask for any money up front or any, and then like I'd get into
• 53:12
  working on things I wouldn't take on jobs.
• 53:14
  I wasn't confident and I couldn't fix, you know what I mean?
• 53:17
  Yeah.
• 53:17
  And that worked out pretty well.
• 53:19
  And what did I really have to lose?
• 53:20
  I was kind of just hanging out anyways, so the time finally
• 53:23
  came, first week in April.
• 53:25
  I was like, all right, it's time to hit the road again.
• 53:27
  And from there I headed to New Mexico.
• 53:31
  Climbing up to those mountains is like going from like 75 degree, 80 degree
• 53:36
  weather in Phoenix, and then heading up to Flagstaff four hours away.
• 53:39
  It dropped to like 40 degrees.
• 53:41
  Never realized like how much of a difference it would be up there.
• 53:43
  Stayed there one night and then from there I headed east
• 53:47
  to Amarillo, the top of Texas.
• 53:50
  But I ended up meeting some people at a bar there, and
• 53:52
  they let me crash to the place.
• 53:53
  It was always crazy how many people were like so easily willing to let you
• 53:57
  stay at their place as long as you, they thought you weren't gonna kill them.
• 54:01
  I kept rolling east and then I got into Oklahoma.
• 54:04
  Mom.
• 54:04
  And when I got into Oklahoma, all of a sudden my bike starts cutting out again.
• 54:09
  I'm like, oh my God, what's going on?
• 54:11
  So I pull over and I pull out my multimeter.
• 54:14
  Now my stater alternator went.
• 54:16
  This guy pulled up while I was broken down on the side of the road.
• 54:19
  He went by too tall, this giant tall guy.
• 54:21
  He is like, you're all right?
• 54:22
  And I'm like, I don't know.
• 54:24
  He's like, well, if you need something, gimme a call.
• 54:25
  He gave me his card.
• 54:26
  I end up calling him.
• 54:27
  I was like, Hey, I don't need any money or anything.
• 54:29
  Like I just need a place to park my bike and like work on it and
• 54:33
  I'll figure it out from there.
• 54:34
  And he's like, yeah, I got a property up the street, some trailer or whatever.
• 54:37
  He let me park in the driveway and tear apart my bike.
• 54:40
  Him end up being pretty good friends and it was such a crazy thing.
• 54:44
  So where I was living in Arizona was this place called Apache Junction, and
• 54:48
  he has a winter house out there and he usually stays there, but he didn't
• 54:51
  go there this winter for some reason.
• 54:53
  He would've been staying where I just came from and I just met him
• 54:56
  in the middle of the Oklahoma, getting the bike back together.
• 54:59
  He's awesome.
• 54:59
  Driving me around all these different parts, places and
• 55:02
  getting parts for the bike.
• 55:03
  Put it back together.
• 55:04
  But I did notice the motive was making another ticking sound before
• 55:08
  I was putting it together, before it broke down, sleeping in my trail.
• 55:11
  The night before I was supposed to leave, I was like, if there is a guard, if you
• 55:14
  can just get me home on this bike in one piece and safe and the bike not blow
• 55:18
  up, I don't know what I can do for you.
• 55:20
  I'll be ever feel like you're serving.
• 55:23
  And the next day I wake up, go stock the bike.
• 55:26
  Still make this ticking sound.
• 55:28
  I look over the bike one more time.
• 55:30
  There was just a choke cable rattling on top of the motor.
• 55:33
  I took a zip tie and tied it down and the thing sounded mint.
• 55:36
  What so crazy.
• 55:38
  You know, because I fixed the charging issue, but I was like hearing him.
• 55:41
  Oh my God.
• 55:41
  And then that day the bike just like ran great.
• 55:44
  So I get down to Dallas, Texas from there, and then I shot over from Dallas.
• 55:50
  I did a short John to Austin, down to San Antonio.
• 55:54
  Nothing happened there.
• 55:55
  Then I shoot up to Houston.
• 55:57
  That's when I took a little spill on the bike.
• 55:59
  I went down, I was going to a red light.
• 56:01
  I went to come to a so, and it was like big ruts from a tractor trail,
• 56:05
  and it put me down, but luckily I wasn't heard and I was able to fix
• 56:08
  whatever I needed at an auto zone.
• 56:10
  It wasn't too bad.
• 56:11
  From there, I went to New Orleans.
• 56:13
  That's another weird city in the United States that I had a good time there,
• 56:16
  but it was so sketchy that I decided to pay to asleep in a parking garage
• 56:22
  that night with the trailer just to feel like it had some safety to me.
• 56:26
  So I paid like 20 bucks to sleep in a garage, and I was happy to do it.
• 56:29
  I leave and I go to Memphis, but then I tracked back to Nashville
• 56:33
  to see all my friends again, hang out with them for a couple days.
• 56:37
  Do you ever do Tail of the Dragon?
• 56:38
  Yeah, I did that with the trailer and that was, oh my God, that was phenomenal.
• 56:42
  That was really awesome.
• 56:43
  I'm amazed you were able to do, are you, I'm sure you weren't
• 56:46
  flying up the tail of the dragon.
• 56:48
  I actually got another tire there at the base of it and everybody's like,
• 56:52
  you can't bring the trailer up there.
• 56:53
  It's crazy.
• 56:54
  And the guy doing my tires like, I think it'll be all right.
• 56:57
  I was like, yeah, I think I'm going with your advice.
• 56:59
  Well, the thing with the tail, once you get up there, you gotta go back
• 57:02
  down 'cause there's nothing you can do once you get to the top.
• 57:04
  Yeah, I know.
• 57:04
  But I was lucky because I think it was in like the middle of
• 57:07
  the week, like a Tuesday or something, so it wasn't as crowded.
• 57:10
  So up to Asheville, stay there for a night and then now I'm back down in Charlotte.
• 57:15
  So Richmond was my last night on the road.
• 57:18
  That day was like a pretty good stretch.
• 57:19
  That was 666 miles.
• 57:21
  I remember that day was wicked sketchy.
• 57:24
  Even from like the morning I woke up that morning, somebody almost hit me
• 57:27
  in the parking lot of the hotel I was staying at and like, oh boy, riding home
• 57:31
  over some crazy bridge, a tractor trail, like almost pushed me off the road.
• 57:35
  I remember my father get home and you know, me and my father met up.
• 57:38
  We cracked a beer and a shot together, and I was just glad to be home.
• 57:42
  The craziest part about the story happens the next morning, and this
• 57:46
  is gonna sound like a country song, but I let my mother borrow my car.
• 57:49
  She blew the clutch out in it, so I had a running car before I left.
• 57:53
  Then I had a truck and I had a flat tire, so I couldn't take that.
• 57:56
  So all I wanted to do is see my grandmother and drink a coffee with her.
• 58:00
  I got on the bike very reluctantly and I got an iced coffee and then
• 58:04
  I pull outta this iced coffee shop.
• 58:06
  Going down the road nice and slow, not to spill my coffee.
• 58:09
  And somebody I know from high school hit me on my bike and in a bad
• 58:13
  accident, pretty much totaled the bike.
• 58:15
  And I went flying over the handlebars and I smashed out the windshield of a
• 58:19
  car and I'm like laying there in shock.
• 58:22
  From the accident, but also from like, you gotta be kidding me, I just did
• 58:25
  15,000 miles and seven months on the bike and this happened two miles from home.
• 58:31
  Hence the title of the book that you're writing, right?
• 58:34
  The Traveling Larry.
• 58:35
  Two miles too many.
• 58:37
  I'm laying there, right?
• 58:38
  These people come from like a hairdresser salon helping me out.
• 58:42
  I felt my back and it was all cut up and I had blood on my hands.
• 58:45
  I was like, just tell it to me straight.
• 58:46
  It's my spinal cord hanging out.
• 58:48
  Like am I gonna be paralyzed?
• 58:49
  And they're like, no, I think you're gonna be okay.
• 58:51
  You just have some scratches.
• 58:52
  So I start telling 'em all about the trip and they must
• 58:55
  think I'm like out of it, right?
• 58:56
  My dad's friend live right there as well, and he heard something
• 59:01
  and he came over and he seemed like on social media what I was doing.
• 59:04
  And he was like, you're not gonna believe this.
• 59:06
  This guy just got back from traveling the country.
• 59:08
  These people's faces, I'll never forget their face.
• 59:10
  They're like in shock that I was really telling them the truth.
• 59:13
  That was it, but it really made me question some things.
• 59:16
  That's a hell of a journey that you went on there, Larry.
• 59:19
  Would you do it again?
• 59:20
  Have you made any plans to do another trip like this in the future?
• 59:23
  Yeah, I would definitely do it again, but I wouldn't do it across the U S A i'd.
• 59:27
  I'd wanna do a different country.
• 59:28
  Maybe like Europe or Africa, knowing that people in general seem to be
• 59:33
  very nice wherever you go makes doing a trip like this a lot easier.
• 59:37
  You know, mentally I wouldn't do it with a trailer again.
• 59:40
  I would try something else.
• 59:41
  I would try to be more adventurous in planning out a route to maybe stay
• 59:45
  with like strangers or something.
• 59:47
  Like they had this thing called couch surfing.com or something where like
• 59:50
  people would randomly take you in.
• 59:52
  But actually another guy, that guy too tall told me about this
• 59:55
  book called the Gold Book, which is a gold wing member's book.
• 59:58
  They have like stages in the book from like letting someone fully stay
• 1:00:01
  in your house to like letting them wrench on your bike in their driveway.
• 1:00:04
  And it was like people all over the country we're in this book.
• 1:00:07
  So you could probably like call up these people and say, Hey, I'm
• 1:00:11
  gonna passing through, could I like sleep in your yard with a tent?
• 1:00:14
  In retrospect, knowing that people are like nicer than I thought to believe.
• 1:00:18
  I would probably take more chances with staying at different
• 1:00:21
  places and ditch the trailer.
• 1:00:22
  Would you do it with a bike again or with something else?
• 1:00:25
  No, I'd love to do it with a bike.
• 1:00:26
  Again, I'm a little older now, so definitely like the newer
• 1:00:29
  B M W and like the B M W could allow you to go off road as well.
• 1:00:33
  So on this trip, were there any key sections of the journey road wise that
• 1:00:37
  were some of your favorite roads to be on?
• 1:00:39
  West Virginia was absolutely beautiful.
• 1:00:42
  And then Montana was awesome too because Montana, I feel like
• 1:00:45
  you're always riding a river.
• 1:00:47
  The roads kind of like Fall Rivers for some reason, from what I
• 1:00:50
  remember, Northern Idaho with the lakes like coming up on the mountains
• 1:00:54
  on quarter d'Alene and stuff.
• 1:00:55
  So it sounds like you only have a handful of states, at least on the continental
• 1:01:00
  US that you haven't been to yet.
• 1:01:01
  I actually have only three left Arkansas.
• 1:01:04
  I was right near, I put 'em like, I just couldn't see why I needed to go
• 1:01:07
  to Arkansas, so I didn't North Dakota, which I should have been to, 'cause I've
• 1:01:11
  been to Sergi like three or four times.
• 1:01:13
  It's right above it.
• 1:01:14
  And then Alaska.
• 1:01:15
  Even Hawaii though, I made it a point, I went there one time, I
• 1:01:18
  rented a Harley to say I rode a motorcycle in that state as well.
• 1:01:22
  Very cool.
• 1:01:23
  Are there any like key locations through this trip you took that you
• 1:01:26
  would recommend to people to visit?
• 1:01:28
  I'm sure what Bozeman is getting blown up because of Yellowstone,
• 1:01:31
  but Bozeman was pretty sweet.
• 1:01:32
  That Thermopolis place in Wyoming was really cool too.
• 1:01:35
  That's like a hidden gem the way to Amarillo.
• 1:01:38
  Do you ever hear Cadillac Ranch?
• 1:01:40
  Yeah.
• 1:01:41
  That's sweet.
• 1:01:42
  I actually did.
• 1:01:42
  I actually painted on there something like the traveling Larry.
• 1:01:46
  Nice because it just gets covered up with spray paint.
• 1:01:48
  But the Cadillac ranch is pretty trippy.
• 1:01:50
  It's literally in the middle of nowhere and it's just like there.
• 1:01:53
  Then also if you go to Mount Rushmore and make sure you check out Crazy Horse right
• 1:01:57
  next to it that nobody ever checks out.
• 1:01:59
  That's another cool.
• 1:02:00
  You got Deadwood out in Wyoming too, right?
• 1:02:02
  Deadwood's cool too.
• 1:02:03
  Yep.
• 1:02:04
  Costa State Park.
• 1:02:05
  That's awesome.
• 1:02:06
  That's great riding.
• 1:02:07
  It's been about eight years since the trip.
• 1:02:09
  You're looking back over your copious notes, your journals,
• 1:02:13
  everything, all jokes aside.
• 1:02:14
  That really is the title of the book.
• 1:02:16
  You're working on the Traveling Larry, two miles Too many, and you've embarked
• 1:02:20
  on this journey of 80,000 words.
• 1:02:22
  Is that the new challenge for you is trying to chronicle all this to get all
• 1:02:25
  the details in and put the book together?
• 1:02:27
  How's that going?
• 1:02:28
  Yeah, the hottest part is nothing for nothing.
• 1:02:30
  I went to a tech school, right?
• 1:02:33
  Taking the journals and writing the journals was easy because I
• 1:02:36
  just wrote down what happened.
• 1:02:37
  It wasn't a big deal.
• 1:02:38
  Right?
• 1:02:39
  Whereas there was something as mundane as eating a peanut butter and jelly
• 1:02:41
  sandwich to staying with the lizard lady.
• 1:02:44
  So I'm voicing the journals speaking into the computer and putting 'em
• 1:02:48
  in the computer now, but I gotta go back grammatically fix 'em.
• 1:02:52
  That's the tedious part, and I hate it.
• 1:02:54
  So if anyone out there has a better solution, a way to do this, I'm all ears.
• 1:02:58
  But what I think I wanna take from here, I got the physical journals in front of
• 1:03:02
  me, but I'd like to give it to somebody in the raw form and have 'em cut it up
• 1:03:07
  and say, you know, who cares about this?
• 1:03:09
  No one cares that this happened, but like take the good stuff out and
• 1:03:12
  make it more like a readable book.
• 1:03:14
  It's kind of similar to a book that was just published recently.
• 1:03:18
  It was Alan Rickman, the actor that passed away, who played Snape
• 1:03:21
  on Harry Potter, if you recall.
• 1:03:23
  He is been in a bunch of films.
• 1:03:24
  He was also in the original Die Hard.
• 1:03:25
  He would write journals every day while he was on the movie sets and
• 1:03:28
  whatnot, and they turned it into a book.
• 1:03:30
  Oh, really?
• 1:03:30
  Absolutely fascinating to look at his handwriting and his doodles and all
• 1:03:35
  this kind of stuff that's in the book.
• 1:03:36
  It's the worst coffee stains and all the stains on the, but
• 1:03:39
  it gives it that originality.
• 1:03:41
  Yeah, it gives it that uniqueness.
• 1:03:42
  Right.
• 1:03:42
  It's pretty cool.
• 1:03:43
  I lost that first journal, so I got smart and I wrote a note on the next journal
• 1:03:47
  and wouldn't you know it, I lost another journal, but because I wrote that note,
• 1:03:51
  some girl shipped it back to me and she wrote like an excerpt in the journal.
• 1:03:56
  As I was writing, I would take like a pause and write, be like, Hey, I'm in
• 1:04:00
  a Starbucks right now and wherever.
• 1:04:02
  So, and I'd like put in my own thoughts as I was writing and maybe
• 1:04:05
  things that were going on at the time.
• 1:04:07
  I finished the physical writings back in May of 2020, so it took me like five years
• 1:04:13
  just to get caught up in the journals.
• 1:04:15
  You know how it is just life's busy.
• 1:04:17
  I run two businesses and try to focus this on much as I can, but it, you know,
• 1:04:20
  you're still gonna make a paycheck.
• 1:04:22
  I got like an end date.
• 1:04:23
  Everything should be in the computer and ready to hand off to somebody.
• 1:04:27
  I don't know who that somebody is.
• 1:04:28
  If anybody else is listening and is an editor and you want to get in
• 1:04:32
  contact with me free to give them the wrong stuff and edit it down.
• 1:04:36
  Probably August 1st, I should be done.
• 1:04:38
  I've actually put it on a timeline where it's realistic now.
• 1:04:41
  Like any journey, it all starts with that first turn of the
• 1:04:44
  wheel or that first step.
• 1:04:45
  So you're well on your way for sure.
• 1:04:47
  So what would you say is maybe the biggest thing you learned from the
• 1:04:50
  trip when you leave New England?
• 1:04:52
  People are super nice.
• 1:04:53
  I mean, people are nice in New England too.
• 1:04:55
  Everybody's super nice and it's weird how the media like will make it seem
• 1:04:59
  like we live in such a harsh world.
• 1:05:01
  But then you really get out there and start meeting all new people
• 1:05:04
  and everybody's super nice.
• 1:05:05
  People are so willing to help just for nothing.
• 1:05:08
  The other thing, money and happiness, they don't exactly correlate.
• 1:05:13
  They're not linear.
• 1:05:14
  You know?
• 1:05:14
  I've had more money and I've had less money, but this trip definitely
• 1:05:18
  had less money and living less.
• 1:05:20
  And I was more happy sometimes on this trip than other parts of my life.
• 1:05:23
  I would say experiences can bring you more happiness than money sometimes.
• 1:05:27
  And then the other one is getting back to the end of the trip when I got hit.
• 1:05:31
  I'm a spiritual guy.
• 1:05:32
  I don't know how religious I'd say I am, but it proved to me that God exists
• 1:05:35
  because when I said those prayers in Oklahoma, he did exactly what he said.
• 1:05:40
  He got me home safe.
• 1:05:41
  After that you were on your own.
• 1:05:43
  And then after that I was on my own.
• 1:05:44
  And then I had a cousin who's pretty spiritual and religious,
• 1:05:47
  and she goes, that's the thing.
• 1:05:49
  I was like, what do you mean?
• 1:05:49
  That's the thing.
• 1:05:50
  She's like, you try to make a deal with God.
• 1:05:52
  If you just had asked him to help you, he would've helped you.
• 1:05:55
  And I do.
• 1:05:55
  I do feel like God was saying, why are you trying to make deals with me?
• 1:05:58
  Just should have asked.
• 1:06:00
  Because that accident, I could have died.
• 1:06:02
  It was really bad.
• 1:06:03
  Like my head smashed out the windshield of the car and I was
• 1:06:06
  so lucky that I was wearing a full face helmet and saved my life.
• 1:06:09
  I think that it was kinda like a nudge to me.
• 1:06:12
  People should be more spiritually aware of God in this life and just
• 1:06:16
  be happy for what you have too.
• 1:06:17
  You know?
• 1:06:18
  Because like I said, I didn't have a lot on that trip, but I was
• 1:06:20
  generally happy from the moment you set everything in motion.
• 1:06:24
  There was that turmoil, the business, the girlfriend, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:06:27
  And then let's say almost a year later you come back home.
• 1:06:30
  Were you a different person?
• 1:06:32
  Oh yeah.
• 1:06:33
  You know, I'm much different than most of my friends.
• 1:06:34
  Like I can walk up to anybody and talk to them.
• 1:06:37
  Even now sometimes, like I still have that yearning to be in like a place
• 1:06:41
  where I don't know anybody and be a little uncomfortable just because you
• 1:06:44
  have better experiences sometimes.
• 1:06:46
  Being on the trip made me realize that the materialistic things we
• 1:06:50
  have aren't as important as people really make them out to be, you know?
• 1:06:54
  To get that next iPhone or whatever.
• 1:06:56
  That next one up doesn't really matter.
• 1:06:59
  There's like way more important things if you just look what's
• 1:07:01
  in front of you and be grateful.
• 1:07:03
  I think life will treat you better.
• 1:07:04
  So Larry, we've come to that point of the episode where I'd like to ask the
• 1:07:08
  final question, which is any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
• 1:07:12
  to share that we haven't covered thus far?
• 1:07:13
  Just I guess if anyone wanted to follow me, follow me on
• 1:07:16
  Instagram at the traveling Larry.
• 1:07:19
  Anybody who does publishing or editing or anything of that matter
• 1:07:24
  might want to help me with my story.
• 1:07:26
  I would be happy for that and, and maybe anybody who's in film or something.
• 1:07:30
  'cause I feel like this would make like a great Netflix series or something.
• 1:07:33
  I don't know.
• 1:07:33
  I just wanna tell my story and get it out to the world.
• 1:07:36
  Shout out to everybody on the trip that I met.
• 1:07:39
  They were really nice people and if anybody hears this, I'd love
• 1:07:42
  to hear from anybody I met on the trip, and, uh, Rachel, if you've
• 1:07:45
  got my journal, please send it back.
• 1:07:50
  So Larry realized that his journey wasn't just about getting away from his problems,
• 1:07:54
  it was about discovering something new within himself and putting the courage
• 1:07:57
  to face his challenges, his head on.
• 1:07:59
  And with that newfound strength, he knew that he could take on
• 1:08:01
  anything life through his way.
• 1:08:03
  We've said it many times before.
• 1:08:05
  It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.
• 1:08:07
  And the story is a great example of that motto, big times.
• 1:08:10
  Lessons learned, lessons learned and spiritual maturity are captured
• 1:08:14
  in the stories surrounding his epic adventure found in the pages of the
• 1:08:17
  Traveling Larry, two miles Too many.
• 1:08:19
  You're interested in learning more or picking up a copy of Larry's book?
• 1:08:23
  Sure.
• 1:08:23
  To follow him on social media at Larry that Benedictus on
• 1:08:26
  Facebook or at the Traveling Larry on Instagram for more details.
• 1:08:30
  That's right.
• 1:08:31
  And Larry, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and
• 1:08:34
  sharing this story with everybody.
• 1:08:36
  And I tell you what, you know, we didn't really talk maybe too much about the
• 1:08:39
  bike, but the bike is what brought you on all these adventures and it's
• 1:08:43
  really a story about man and machine and like Dan said about spiritual maturity
• 1:08:48
  and that whole cycle of when you left home and when you came back and how it
• 1:08:52
  changed you and the bike did all of that.
• 1:08:55
  Good, bad, and indifferent.
• 1:08:57
  I admire what you did and I'm glad you're gonna keep doing it and
• 1:09:00
  maybe doing it in other parts of the world, you know, congratulations and
• 1:09:03
  you know, let us know how it goes.
• 1:09:05
  Thanks Eric, appreciate it.
• 1:09:06
  I love being on here.
• 1:09:07
  And if you know I can help you guys out in any way, feel free to reach out.
• 1:09:15
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about G T M, be sure to
• 1:09:18
  check us out on www.gt motorsports.org.
• 1:09:22
  You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports.
• 1:09:26
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
• 1:09:30
  our text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.
• 1:09:38
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:09:40
  Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:09:42
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
• 1:09:46
  to remind you that G T M remains a no annual FEES organization, and our goal
• 1:09:51
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• 1:09:56
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• 1:10:00
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• 1:10:23
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• 1:10:28
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