Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Adventure Motorcycling 101: In-Depth Training with Bill Dragoo

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Adventure Motorcycling 101: In-Depth Training with Bill Dragoo · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: here in beautiful Norman, Oklahoma with a very dear friend
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of mine, Bill Drigu.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We are in his.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Amazing wood floored shop filled with beautiful vintage and modern motorcycles,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk a little bit about the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: overlanding one oh one of adventure motorcycling. Bill, thanks so
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: much for being on the podcast with me today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Scott, thanks for having me on the podcast and it's
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: been a pleasure to have you this past few days.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have had such a good We have had
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: such a good time. And you know, we had you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: on the podcast a couple of years ago where we
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: talked a little.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Bit more about your life and your travels and things
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But I'd love to dig in a little bit more
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: deeply into the skills and the training that you've developed
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: over decades to help people explore the world by motorcycle.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: Thanks to Haunt Kok Diner pro Tyre for supporting this
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: week's podcast. Head over to Expeditionportal dot com to learn
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: more about all train tire design as we interview their
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: tire experts and take a close look at the dinapro
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: at two extreme as an example of the alltrain tire category.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So let's just kind of go into the like, if
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: someone's just getting started into adventure motorcycling, there's a couple
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: things that we want to have in mind. We want
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the bike that they
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: may choose. We want to talk a little bit about
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the equipment that they may use for safety. We might
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about how they'd prepare
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: themselves to ride on the road and off the road.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: If someone was to sit down with you over lunch
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: or over a coffee and they wanted to get into
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: adventure motorcycling, what would be some of the first things
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that you would share with them.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Obviously I do get a lot of questions about this,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: and I usually start answering their question by asking a
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: few questions. Because a venture motorcycling is so broad. It
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: can be an adventure around town, the local trails or whatever.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: It could be a worldwide you know, long distance travel,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: and a lot depends on the person's skill level currently
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: and what they aspire to, how much they're willing to
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: invest in themselves, and the equipment to get the ultimate machine.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: If you will and be equipped for the travels that
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: they have. So it could be a light bike, it
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: could be a very heavy bike. It could be a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: bike that's very simple or a bike that's very complex,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: And lord knows, we have that whole spectrum covered right now.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more offerings than ever before there are.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's kind of like choosing a pair
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: of pants, a spouse of whatever. What makes you feel good? Yeah,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: what really works for you in the environments that you
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: anticipate putting yourself into. So I don't think I can
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: give you a simple answer for that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe we can kind of run through the different the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: advantages and disadvantages of the different kinds of bikes that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: are out there. You know, you can look at someone
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: who I, you know, have such admiration for like lowest price,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and her has been in the bikes that they've ridden on.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: You know, if you look at early Mondo and Duro
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and all that, these guys were riding two fifties and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: three hundreds, and then of course Lois rode the length
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of the Americas on a two hundred and I think
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the length of Africa on a two thirty or two
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: fifty or something like that.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Very small motorcycles.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: What are some of the advantages of using a small,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: lightweight motorcycle and what are some of the disadvantages of that?
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very good question. There's a there is a school
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: of thought that suggests that the joy factor is inversely
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: proportional to the size of the motorcycle. Sure, and for
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: somebody who struggles to pick up a bike Rosie, Gabrielle, Gabriella, Rosie,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: if you're hearing this, I apologize if I butchered your name.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: But small female and she has ridden relatively small motorcycles.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: She's evolved up to I believe a Suzuki d R
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: six fifty right now, which is not a light motorcycle.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: It's what we call the flat bike. So when it falls,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: she's by herself. She has to pick this motorcycle up.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And we see itchy boots out there. And she's ridden
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: smaller motorcycles and she needs to be They need to
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: be able to pick up their motorcycles. And it's not
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: exclusive of the females. I mean guys too, I mean,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: how fatigued are you? So some of the advantages of
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: smaller bikes are you're not necessarily limited to the distance
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: you can travel it might be speed. You may not
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: cover as much distance in a given day, but overall
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: distances can be extraordinary. People have ridden Honta CT nineties
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: like my wife, which is a little off screen for
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: us right now, but ridden those around the world. So
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: advantages to the smaller machines are clearly that they're easier
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: to pick up. They're very easy to maintain. If you
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: have a clutch go bad, you can pull a leather
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: shoe string and make it a clutch plate and you
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: can get the bike going again.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Ye.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, they're probably not going to do that with a GS.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: It might be a little different. There's so much more power,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: et cetera.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: That a lot of those bikes were carbureted, or they're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: still available in a carburetion, or they're not that old,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: so they they're never going to run as smooth or
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: as powerfully. I guess when a GS is working as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it should and the conditions are right, there's not a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: better bike on the planet. But there's lots of conditions
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: where a GS is and I've experienced it myself where
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what am I thinking trying to get this big,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: heavy bike through whatever I'm doing, and it would have
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: all been easier on a smaller bike, sure.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: I mean an example of that is that the trip
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: you and I took in the south central Utah in
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: November a few years back. We were fighting beamth gs's
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: with equipment on board, and mud turned to sleep, turned
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: to snow, turned to ice, and we struggled front end
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: from wheels were locking up, not rolling. So we've kind
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: of morphed into the disadvantage some disadvantages of the larger bikes,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and then the complexity factor of the motorcycles. The large
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: bikes are great when they're running, they're very nice to
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: go down the road on. And my machine of choice
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: is for years been the bmwgs is up through twelve
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: to fifty, and I've ridden the thirteen hundreds and they're
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: just magical machines, carpets, their time machines, their starships as
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: far as I'm concerned. So I love them. But when
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: things go bumping the night, they're a little more fussy
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: to fix, so you just have to weigh that, and
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: of course budget, you know, it was also a factor.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you look at like Stefano Melgrade is
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a great example of this Italian gentleman that lives in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Mexico City now lives back in Italy. Rode around the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: world on a Yamaha two fifty, you know, and he
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: could get seventy eighty miles per gallon on that bike
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: fully loaded because he wouldn't go that fast. He'd always
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: rode the speed limit. And you know, he got his
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: expenses down to eighteen bucks a day. He would only
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: eat one meal a day when he was traveling around
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the world. It'd probably be a good diet program.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Around the world.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: And I asked him why he chose that bike, and
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it was because of the fuel economy. It's also good
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: for any road you know, it gets. They're very lightweight,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: very capable motorcycles, fuel injected, you know, so you're not
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: affected by elevation as much. So I think there's a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: lot to be said about a smaller motorcycle. So you're
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: going to spend less per day on fuel, you're going
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to spend less on the bike to begin with. Your
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: CARNA for international travel will be less expensive because the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: bike's less money, it'll be easier to fix. There's more
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: likely it's more likely you'll be able to find a
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: part in whatever country you're traveling. Through, So there are
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of advantages to the smaller bikes.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: They can a lot.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Of times guys won't pick them because it's a little
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: hit to the ego and it's too bad. And I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: think that I've experienced that myself, like I don't really
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: want this small bike. I want to be on this
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: big starship. So I realized that even myself, I would
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: shy away from the smaller bikes at times because of
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: kind of the hit that it took to the ego.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: But then I went to Portugal recently and I rode
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it was a one to seventy five. It was kind
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: of like a modern classic looking scrambler made by Yamaha
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: that they had to rent there, And I had so
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: much fun on that motorcycle and the streets in you know,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in Porto, and the streets in these various little small
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: villages and stuff in Portugal, you know, they're steep and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: narrow and cobblestoned, and I was really glad I was
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: on that tiny bike.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: You know, when we talk about small bikes, they're not
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: all the same, of course, So you can have a
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: small bike like CT ninety and the hond A Monkey.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: You know, people have ridden those on BDRs and it's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: kind of a it's gosh, it's a challenge to do that.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Suspension is not great, tire choices may be limited along
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: the way on some of those machines. It's going to
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: beat you up and beat the machine up if you
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: have any kind of agenda for getting there in any
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: kind of a given time. So then you take another
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: small bike. You know, Lois Price rode the x T
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: two twenty five Yamaha in her early book and it
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: was you know, Alaska Artist Circle with TiO del Fuego,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: and that was a pretty good machine for that. Reasonable suspension,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: not motocross suspension, not cross country per se suspension, but
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: good dirt bike suspension, good enough for a lightweight woman
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: with not a whole lot of gear, light with person
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: female or female, not a whole lot of gear, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: a reliable machine to begin with. It was air cooled.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of good things there. And that's
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: another thing, you know, I mentioned the air cooling. Air
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: cool versus water cool move up a little bit. DR
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: six to fifty is still considered a small motorcycle by
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: most standards. Suzuki is air cooled, very simple, carbureted and
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: then versus say the KLR, which is prevalent everywhere, more
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: so even than the Suzuki DR six fifty. But now
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: you got a water pump, you've got water lines, you
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: got radiators. You do have a few more things to
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: go wrong. When you move to fuel injections. Still smaller
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: bikes have them. The new newer Yamaha x T two fifty,
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: for example, is fuel injected, and that's great, much simpler
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: machine to use. It's much less likely to get a
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: grain of sand under an needland seat, and a carbear
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: it and calls you a trail side repair. But if
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: you have a trailside repair necessity on a fuel injected motorcycle,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: it's a little harder to fix.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I mean I look at like that new KTM three
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: ninety adventure R. So you got twenty one inch front wheel,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: eighteen inch rear wheel, a bigger fuel tank, you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: nine plus inches of suspension travel. Somehow they get forty
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: four horse power or something like that, forty seven horse
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: power out of a three ninety. You know, I think
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: on that bike, you're probably when it's run and it's
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: probably going to be kind of magic for travel. But
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: my worry is that when you start to really wring
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the horse power and performance out of a small bike.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You're just asking for it to be less reliable.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: I would think, yeah, you are, you're pushing the limits there.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I think you and I ran across the fell in
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: the corvette, the nineteen sixty four Corvette at the gas
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: station yesterday, and I was admiring the bike and to
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: wipe some drill from my chin and all, and he says,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: I've had this car for epteen years. He said, that's
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: not all it looks like, though, he said, it's a
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: beautiful car, but it has drum brakes all the way around.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: The motor is finicky under certain circumstances of transmission. You
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: have to know how to shift it or doesn't want
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: to sure, and so there are a lot of factors
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: to consider. They're going to do that, and then, you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: moving up the scale a little bit, but moving back
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: in years and I'm sure you're going to touch on
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: this at some point. Well, in fact, I'll just make
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: sure of it. But some of the machines behind us,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: you know, we've got a couple of BMWR sixty slash
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: two's back here so fun. Danny Liska in nineteen fifty
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: eight to nineteen sixty one rode an R sixty from
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Alaska to end of South America, Huia. And there's a
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: fun factor. There's a joy factor there of just riding
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: something funky. Sometimes you just want to ride something funky.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know that I will be riding in R
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: sixty the length of the Cotton It's aytime soon, but
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I planned to enjoy some Arkansas and Missouri backroads on
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: these bikes with my bride. Yeah, in the very near future.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was, you know when you let me ride
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it the other night, which thank you again for that.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: It was just it rode so well, it rode so well.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I was super impressed by it suspension and everything, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: just everything about it, and the fact that it came
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it came into the driveway and the cap
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: on the carburetor had bounced loose, and it was the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: fact that it was still running.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, you'd have to take a couple
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: of shots with the forty five to kill that, Yeah,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: for sure.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Well, let's move up into one of the categories that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I would rarely recommend people consider, which is the midweight
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: motorcycles because they felt and I've bought many of them
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in the hopes that it would be a nice compromise
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: between the size but still has the power and some
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of the amenities. And I was just constantly disappointed in
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: that kind of call it six point fifty to nine
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: hundred range of motorcycle. They just never because by that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: point they're heavy and you might as well have a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: GS because the GS is magic.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: But that's changing.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I think there's some really incredible motorcycles like the new
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Ducati Desert X and Desert X rally, the new nine
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: hundred Ventures a significant improvement over the outgoing model. You know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: there's stuff now from Triumph in that range of weight class,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and you got to Africa Twins and all these other bikes.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts around those midweight motorcycles now?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: When in twenty ten I was in South Africa for
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the BMWGS Trophy, the r excuse me, the f eight
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: hundred GS had just come out and that was one
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: of the real iconic middleweight bikes. D wallt Yellow, you
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: know everybody loved I loved and had one of those
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: motorcycles and had trouble falling in love with it. The
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: suspension was extremely soft, the motor was very zippy, fun
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: to ride on the road, good canyon carver. But when
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: you got into an off road, especially a technical environment,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: which is where I live, then it was very difficult
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: to manage clutch breakthrough of the triad in ways that
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: seemed as smooth. It couldn't be done with my level
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: of skill as smoothly as the twelve hundred at the
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: time GS because it didn't have as much rotating mass.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: So I think that there has been an evolution of
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: those bikes, as you alluded to. You know, I spoke
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: with one of the marketing directors for BMW at the time.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I said, why is the suspension like it is? He said, Bill,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: most people will never ride this motorcycle the way in
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the places that you and these other ladies and gentlemen
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: are riding these bikes. So it's budget. It's budget. We
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: got to keep it within a certain price category to
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: keep it competitive, et cetera. That told me something about that,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: and it was real. It's very real. It's an honest
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: reason I think for some compromises in those bikes, but
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: because of competition, you know, they went to the eight
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: fifty and sticking on the BMWA Lin because I know
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: them a little better than some. But you know KTM
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: their seven nineties or eight ninety, A big difference in reliability,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: a little bit of difference in performance there, but they've
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: gotten better because they had to. Now the nine hundred.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: A friend of mine is actually selling his thirteen hundred,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: and he just got a nine hundred and he really
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: likes that motorcycle. I haven't ridden it, so I cannot
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: speak to that with anything.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they've done so much good with that bike.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I mean where it's got all the off road modes
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of the tracks control, it has cruise control. You know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it's got a big tank on it, plenty of power
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: for sure, and maybe it's just that a little bit
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: extra of you know, mass and stuff. I'm sure maybe
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: they've even considered heavier flywheels and things like that, or
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that applies in that bike.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Actually, twenty fourteen they begin to improve that even on
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the f eight hundreds, I believe twenty fourteen. So if
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: our audience wants to correct me on that, feel free.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: They'll just add some mass to the crank shaft.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Remapping of the throttle things to make it a little
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: bit more mellow. But yeah, they have just improved over
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: periods of time.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really impressed with the Ducati Desert X.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I mean it was the first bike that I thought
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in that category, like, wow, this is this feels as
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: competent as a GS in all road conditions.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But then it was just better off road because it
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: was lighter and more.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Suspension travel and a twenty one inch front wheel and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff. But I think I'm really liking
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that new r GS twelve.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that bike really pushes some buttons for me. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: rode the HP two, the off road HP two when
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: they were first out in two thousand is it seven
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: two thousand and eighty right in there? Goodness, I should
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: remember that. But yeah, I rode one on the Los
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Angeles to Barstow to Vegas ride split utilization of that
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: with my friend Gary Kep between the HP two and
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: the KTM nine to fifty super Endure, which is a
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: beast of them.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: That was a monster.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I love that bike, and that new r twelve GS
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: kind of harkens back to that. It's not three hundred
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: and eighty nine pounds or one hundred and five horsepower
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: that one had. I think it's actually got a little
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: bit of horsepower, but it's a little bit heavy.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Heavier, but I'm a little less suspension hints of that sure,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So I'm intrigued by it.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I think that like, I just like I'll look forward
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: to hear it.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I just like how it looks.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, I do too.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Although the last couple of days with you doing the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: training on the eleven fifty, that eleven fifty GSA.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Is growing on me too, So maybe I won't change
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the bike at all.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Ultimate macho machine. Right, there's one hundred pounds heavier than
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: my old R twelve hundred gs B twenty fifteen or
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: twelve hundred gs.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And hundred pounds a lot on a motorcycle.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't look it looks lighter the way you
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: ride it. But it's it's such a gorgeous machine.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And the fact that it still has a metal tank
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and everything it's it is very it's a handsome motorcycle.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: For you made a comment the other day, and not
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: to disparage any anything modern too much, but I'm gonna
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: nip at it. And that is that they've become appliances
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: to a degree. The way these motorcycles have gotten built.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: And to me, sport bikes, I mean, I'm not a
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: big sport bike ride. I've ridden them. They're fun, they
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: go really fast. They make me go blind when I
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: turn the throttle all the way, which speaks to my
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: skill on those bikes more than it does to any
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: issue on the motorcycle. But when I see them, it's
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: almost like when I used to walk into my kitchen
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: when I was going to ou and I would flip
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: on the light switch and all the cockroaches would run.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: They're all cockroaches. They all look the same, you know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: they all look the same, but they're not to each other.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: They have names, and they wear different weeds and whatever.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: So there's that, And I'm messing with you on that too.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: You know. I realize there's something to love about each
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: of those and something to admire and the skill that
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: it takes to ride them.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: No question, Yeah, no question.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But I think for you and I, it's we want
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to go see someplace interesting and for that you need
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a breadth of capability that allows you to come across
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: any road. And that's what the GS was built for.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: It's Golan Strauss, It's made for any road, and that's
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: what we want to be thinking about when we decide
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: on an adventure motorcycle. Despite the displacement, you know, buy
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a bike that you can pick up.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Buy a bike that's reliable.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Buy a bike that has enough payload and structure in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the frame and the subframe to be able to carry
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: whatever you need to carry along with you. Some people
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: choose to camp as they travel on a motorcycle. Some
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: people don't. But if you need to carry camping equipment
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and you need to carry all that, some of these
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: very lightweight bicycles motorcycles are not designed to have that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: much weight, you know, on the back of the bike,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: So just make sure that the bike has a subframe
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that's meant for that.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of them have plastic subpremes, are no subpreme,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: just a molded fender back there. And we try to
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: convert those to a machine that can be used for
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: a two wheel overlanding machine if you will. You know,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: I've enjoyed and learned a lot from your discussions in
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the four wheel Arena about payload and so it's a thing,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: you know, it really is. If you want that bike
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: to be reliable, wheelbarings to last, change in sprockets to last,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: suspension to last. I mean, and live till you've ridden
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: a bike with clapped out shocks and on a long
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: trip and you don't have an easy, terrifying way to
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: get that replace. It's really uncomfortable. You know, Choosing that
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: the bike according to payload is very important. The old
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Kawasaki KLX two fifty that I built to the three
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: thirty one, and you know, at all the horsepower and
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: kept the reliability to a large degree if I had
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: to steal frame all the way back and it was
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: it was really good for the kind of rugged backcountry travel.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: If you wanted to throw your sleeping bag, a little
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: bit of Dutch and stuff on it and all, then
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: that bike would handle that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Were some of the motorcycles moderns not so much.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just good to know that.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: And you know it maybe learned from me a little
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: bit that you don't have to go with the biggest motorcycle,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you know, go with something that And I'm fortunate that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I'm a big enough person that like an eleven fifty
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: is something that I can manage.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: But go with a bike that feels comfortable to ride.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: That feels comfortable to.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Ride off road, that doesn't feel like it's pushing you
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: so hard where you're gonna get gassed, you're going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: run out of energy, you're going to drop the bike
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and not be able to pick it up. When we're
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: thinking about travel around the world, like you've experienced in
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: all of your motorcycle journeys, Like there's been times that
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I've had to pick up a twelve hundred or whatever,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and it's at the end of a very long day
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in Columbia after fighting the mud all day, and it's
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: like you just want to call for your buddies to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: help you out. You're done, you just got you got nothing,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: you got nothing left in the tank, and a big
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: bike like that, it'll drain.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: You faster than anything else as soon as you start
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: to fight it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: When everything's working, when they're when you're in flow and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the bike's in flow and you're not dropping it, they're wonderful,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: but yeah, be mindful of the fact if you're traveling solo.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You know, can you pick the can you manage it
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: off road all day?
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: And continuing on that theme, Tavia, your fiance and we've
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: worked with the past three days a couple on the
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: actual riding skills and drills, and then some shop time
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: in here too. She was hesitant to ride her F
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: seven hundred is a gorgeous machine, very well know, not abused,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: let's just say that over its time, and an enjoyable bike.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: But it's a little big. She had a Himalayan. It's
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: a bit smaller. You could have selected a smaller bike yet,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: and early on she's making noise about smaller, lighter, and
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: then the discussion rolled around to but what are you
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: going to ride? I mean she's riding beside you on
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: an eleven hundred. You're going to be going highway speeds,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: back roads, interstates whatever. That bike will do that, So
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: what are you going to ride? Well, that's what she's
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: going to ride. And so she brought her skills up
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: to match the motorcycle rather than bringing, you know, then
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: learning the skills on the smaller one, which there's an
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: argument for that to learn a lot of the skills
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: on the smaller bikes are more nervous to ride, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: especially in technical train light to moderate to skill level
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: advanced intermediate, the big bikes actually do really well. They're
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: kind of a tractor, so you can lope along, thump
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: along on those big motorcycles and feel more stable even
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: than say on a ask you five a one, because
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: they're jouncy. The bounce, that's what I noticed on.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: The smaller bikes, Yeah they are really They bounce around
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: On the trail. Yeah, you're not going to go as
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: fast on the day light, but we're adventure Riding is
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: not about going fast. It's about being sure that you're
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: going to.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Get there well.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And you showed her techniques of like how to turn
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the bike, how to lift the bike properly, you know
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: how to hand you You built on a series of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: skills which you know. We're going to get into that
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in a few minutes. But let's pivot a little bit
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: towards personal protective equipment that we want to have when
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: we're riding a motorcycle. As everyone knows it's listening, riding
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle is inherently dangerous, and when you do have
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: an accident, that danger ramps up considerably.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: From that.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: You're usually flying through the air, sliding across the ground, tumbling.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Your body is physically running into something. So we want
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: to be as mindful as we can be of gear.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: You have some philosophies around that. Let's talk about how
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: do we select equipment that we wear on an adventure motorcycle.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, first and foremost, tell me how you're going to crash.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: We'll take exactly what to wear, right down to the brand,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: the size, the armor. How will you secure the armor?
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Do you use knee braces or do you just use
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: in the pants kneat pads if you will, So, how
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: do you actually use that? Yeah, how you're going to crash?
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And of course we don't know that, We don't know
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: the answer to it, so it's very personal. It's a
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: choice that we have to make based on our risk tolerance.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: So gear now has gotten so good that you can
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: wear safety gear year round, and that's a really big thing.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Our feet and our lower legs are by far the
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: most injured part of our body on road and off
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: in an accident, not necessarily leading to death, but to
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: pretty serious and certainly debilitating injury. So let's just start
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: with boots as an example. You know, the best protection
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: boot is going to be something like a full on
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: motocross boot, and I'll star Tech seven and a CD
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: crossfire on something in that category that is practically a
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: ski boot only taller and really holds the ankle, prevents
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: any excess articulation of the ankle. Nothing will prevent twist.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: When you get torchion on the foot, then the lower
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: leg's going to take it. The knee is the next
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: in line. But then you need comfort and you need
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a boot that you'll wear. So a lot of people
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: will shift to a more hiking like boot rather than
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: wearing their safety boots or their off road boots, because man,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: I just hate walking in those boots, you know.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: So sometimes adventure with motorcycle travel, you end up walking
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to go see the museum or whatever. You're walking around
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: in the little village.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And you're right, it's a compromise.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So you can wear multiple take multiple pairs with
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: you if you want to carry that much stuff, or
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: just wear a boot that you feel like is going
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: to give you a reasonable range of protection versus comfort
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: and mobility because articulation to shift to operate your breaks,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: things like that.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It's you know, what are those like that that you like?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's that CD Discovery, right.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: CD Discovery. You can move up there to a CD adventure.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I wore CD Discoveries at first, and They're pretty much
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: all leather, very comfortable, veryppliable, great against abrasion. They have
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: virtually no articulation protection or hyper extension protection of the ankle.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Down and also no crush protection either.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: No crush protection, so you start getting into a little
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: bit stiffer, stronger boot. And the staying with the CD language.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I'm most familiar with the CD Adventure and the Gortex range,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: so you know you get some weather protection with that too.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Certainly an application of oils and waxes and things can
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: make the boot more weather proof with or without Gortex.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: So being on your budget what you want to buy,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and then a very comfortable boot. Oh, and then staying
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: with that that genre, the CD Adventure, any of the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: boots that say adventure, the forma Adventure, any of that
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: line is pretty good protection, but it's not ultimate protection
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: to the degree you can get with a better stronger boot.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: The Oppum Star two can is a real good comfortable boot.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Garnet makes some nice boots in that adventure category that
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: are also very comfortable. But then getting into the more
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: stable stiff boot, I don't want to get two wrapped
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: around the actual boots here. But the CD Crossfire Yeah,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: they make a really a nice hinge articulating. Yeah, that's
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: a great boot.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: But I find that I don't wear them that much.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So a little more as it's a mission. Yeah, and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: they're heavy.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: They're heavy, and they're hot.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, So like I find that I don't wear
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: them that.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Well, you got to make that choice, and that moves
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: right on up the leg to the knee armor to
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: the chest armor. Do we want chest or do we
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: want just a jacket that is ventilated to wear or
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: do we want a shirt I should say that's ventilated.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: So getting into a little bit of brand stuff, Moskamoto
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: has had the philosophy of separating your armor from your shell. Yeah,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: which is clever, kind of nice. You can peel a
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: relatively lightweight shell where you have good weather protection, a
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: little bit of warmth, a little bit of layering. You
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: can shed that, put that in your panniers and then
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: wear like a leat or some of the other sixty
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: six one or whatever type of underneath protection that you
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: want that feels good. Some of that for me is restrictive.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: So you get into climb and we're talking about some
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: of the extreme high brands that I've experienced. Now there
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: are a lot of really good ones that I have,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: not you are Ether that has some really nice yeah.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And I just I like the Ether stuff is kind
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: of timeless. You know.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I've had the same suit that I've been wearing the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: last couple of days for over ten years, and it
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: looks brand.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: New and it doesn't look dated.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's the challenge with some of the really
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: highly stylized adventure gears.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: A can look dated pretty quickly.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Dated, and some people feel like it's a little bit
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: space cowboy issue or whatever buck Rogers or whatever they
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: want to call that if they want to be derogatory
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: towards it. But when they're all wearing it and when
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: they fall down with it, Yeah, and it doesn't matter
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: if you look a little spaced out wearing that. It
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: sure feels good.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: It sure does.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And I had one of those claw and they don't
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: make them anymore, but I had like it was a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: rally high ventilation rally jacket and pants from like it
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: was mesh like like like chain mail almost this, And
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: they didn't make it for more than a couple of years.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And Baja S four. I believe that they were.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Unbelieving it had chess protectors and this very advanced strap
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: system that kind of kept everything in place, and this
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: heavy duty like almost like it wasn't chain mail, but
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: it was like a kevlar weave, but it was just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: through flow of air. So when I was riding in Baja,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you know, you just you felt like Superman because you
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: felt cool and you had a lot of protection, and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: there's you know, dear like that is really beneficial. It's
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: just I find that I really like long trips. So
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: like even on this trip coming out to Norman, Oklahoma,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a thousand miles and we went from
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: everything from it was ninety eight degrees in Phoenix when
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: we left to it was thirty one degrees coming out
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of Taois going over the pass. So you really do
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: want a pretty broad range of capability in the suit
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that you wear.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know I was wearing the Climb Badlands
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Pro for my last experience out west.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: With another great Swiss. Yeah, great suit.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: And it you know, I see a squall up ahead,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: zip everything up as much as I can in the
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: back may or may not be open, depending on how
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: warm it was when I left, But you can really
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: deal with quite a bit of weather there. Going over
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: a Wolf Creek pass it got really cold. It was raining,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: and I was glad that I could keep that rain
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: in the wind out. And prior to that, I was
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: coming out of Moab Utah it was hot. I had
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: the same stuff on, had it on zip pretty good,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: had not been ranged there with all that, And you
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: have great armor built into that too. When you want
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: to when it gets really hot or you want more mobility, though,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you got a big jacket to get rid of. So
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: there's that.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It's personal choice, it is, and that's why I think
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that Moscow stuff is interesting to me. I really should
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: get some of that and test it out a little
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: bit and see how it would work for travel.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: The thing I like about it too.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Is it would be multi use, so like you could,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you know, once you shed the armor underneath at the
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: end of the day and now you're going to go
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: out to grab some food. The jacket works as a
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: jacket like a regular jacket, you know, or you can
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: even get on the plane with it, you know, with
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: a down as a jacket. And it doesn't look like
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle jacket, you know, even though it very much.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Is really well thought out stuff.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd certainly be worth spending a little bit of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: time on that, you know. And then let's talk a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: little bit about helmet. There's a couple of different kinds
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of helmets. What are some of the things that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: You like to recommend around helmets, Well, a versatile helmet.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Also, I use the climb helmet and it's their goodness.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: I'm blanking, Oh this is terrible. Mark is going to
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: kill me. But it's just like it's got some carbon
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: vibrate next to the latest generation with the fiddlock and
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: all that creos plot, the type of liner that has
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: in it, it's almost like a stack of straws. So
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: it's very well ventilated, very comfortable, very lightweight helmet.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I was impressed with how light it was.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, it's a super nice homet. They've got
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: one generation newer than that now. And you know, Turntake
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: makes some really good helmets, you know, the classic Schubert
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: and all your ultra high end Arise ultra high end
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: helmets and their D whatever number they're on now, twenty
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: seven or something, you know, D two, D three, And
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know where they've gone because they haven't owned
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: any of those recently. I've had Showy's before and they
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: were I guess that's the D series. But Showy is
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: a real comfortable helmet for me. They fit back beter
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: than a Naray does, but the climb just fits. It's
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: a little bit noisier, noticeably lighter. I like that, like
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: the I like the way the shield on it clicks
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: into position and it will go all the way shut
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: and not leak up underneath it. I've had good luck
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: with those, whereas with some of the other brands, I've
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: had a little bit of an issue with it not
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: sealing well here or there.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: And it looks like it would easily incorporate goggles if
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you wanted to wear goggles. And then yours has that
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: huge front vent you know, we're in front of the mouth,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: which is that the ventilation is so important. I've been
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: using the Sena Modular, and there's a lot of things
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that I like about the helmet because it integrates all
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of the technology into the helmet itself. For communications, because
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: you know, Tavia is riding her own bike, so we
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: need to be able to communicate, and I've always liked
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the Sena stuff for that. But the one caveat is.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think I would take it internationally because it
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: has a proprietary charging plug. It's like in twenty twenty five,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that anybody thinks that a proprietary plug is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a good idea. When you have USBC, there's not an
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: excuse on the planet for doing that other than you
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: want to charge people twenty five bucks to buy a
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: replacement cord. Right, But it's it makes the helmet unusable
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: for international travel because.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: When you don't sell because it had that, you could
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: have had to sell a lot of cords to make it.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right because it you know, unfortunately, you know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: if you're in Columbia, you're not going to You're not
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to get a replacement cord, so then
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: your helmet's down. So yeah, just you know, for those
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: that are listening that develop products for travelers, use USBC.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's waterproof.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It like, there's not an excuse, there's not an engineering
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: reason not to use USBC. Like the bottom my phone,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I can throw it in the in a in a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: bucket of water and it's fine because they figured out
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: how to make USBC waterproof, so you can. There's no
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: reason not to do that, but I really like the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: helmet otherwise. I do like modular helmets when I'm traveling
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: because I can flip the helmet up to talk to
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the police officer, look them in the eye, and they
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: can see the expression on my face, and then I'm smiling,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and it opens up a little bit more of the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: interaction with locals.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: You don't seem quite as intimidating.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: A lot of times when I'm coming through a little village,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'll flip the helmet up so they can just see
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: my face and see my expressions and things like that.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: It's probably not a good idea to do that, but
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I choose to because I want to. I want to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: interact with the community when I'm going through a place
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: on a motorcycle.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: So I think that's pretty commonly accepted as a good
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: idea to have a modular You know, your alternatives are
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: to wear three quarterface helmets and it's always open, including
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: when you crash, or a full faced helmet which you
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: have to pull off and here's sometimes get a little
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: worn out from that. Yeh, tample for training you if
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: we're taking them off, put them all and taking them
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: from so I don't use a modular anymore. I've used them,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: and I've found them to be a little bit heavy
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: for me. I'm small framed, and it just gets to
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: my neck after a while.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And I find because I do have some neck injuries,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: and it does. It can in heavy winds or a lot
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: of buffeting and stuff, it can really fatigue my neck.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: You're right, absolutely, and that's one of the downsides to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the modulars is that they tend to be heavy.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: And then you have the transitional lenses for bright sunlight
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: versus nighttime. Very versatile in that regard, but with a
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: helmet that has the vents in the beak on it,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: the sun hits that irregularly and you end up with
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: a kind of a mottled face to look through. It
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: seems that I don't know, I'd like to know more
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: about this, but it seems like his mind, my creos
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: has gotten older, that has gotten more. It's almost like
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: the screen has got a like a plasma screen that'd
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: have an image ghost image on it. It's almost like
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: it's stuck. It doesn't completely change its modeling. I'll experiment.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never tried those transitional lenses, but I do
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: always recommend that people apply a pinlock. It is a
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I believe that it is a safety, very important safety consideration.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: When we're traveling long distances. We can be going from
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: hot climates to cold climates and you can end up
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: with a fogged up wind screen and that is just
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: terrifying when you get a flash fogged you know, face screen.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: When I've used them, I've liked them, and I don't
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: think to install mine.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Always plocks, yeah, I just throw them on as a
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: matter of course.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: But all right, well, let's let's move on a little
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: bit into some things that people want to be thinking
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: about when they're learning to ride. And the first thing
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that comes up to my mind is training. And of
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: course it's top of mind because I'm here with you,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: and you were so generous to allow Tavia and I
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to book a custom class with you. Your son runs
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: your dart school, but you still do some custom training
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: for travelers, for people that are getting ready to do
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: big expeditions and things like that. So we were very
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: fortunate that you had some time in your schedule and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that we could book you for three days of training.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So talk through a.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Little bit about what kind of like what the course
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: was that we did, why you structure it the way
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you do, how.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: You kind of set up the pace or the flow
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: of the class.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: Sure, and just touching on what you said there. It's
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: hard to retire. I had a big birthday last week
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: actually out in Colorado. I believe I was in Ura
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: during the big seven to zero. And I still feel great.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: I'm still very mobile, I can still ride.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I watched you ride for the last three days.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you. So it is very hard to truly
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: and completely retire. I love my son Ben doing what
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: he's doing, taking over dart and running the larger classes
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: and all, and bless him for that. Wish him all
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: the best. I am. I love working with him. He's
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: very good, very talented. I also love to teach. I
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: absolutely love it, and it's very difficult for me to
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: completely pull back from that. So private classes, custom classes
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: where it's one or two people all the way up
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: to maybe three or four or something like that, that
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: seems to be still working for me, and I will
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: do that from time to time on an on call basis,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: mostly locally. In my traveling, I'm getting more into the
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: vintage motorcycles. I want to spend more time with my
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: wife doing some of the things that we do in
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: the overlanding arena with our old land Cruiser and our Forerunner,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: and you know, building a four sixteen four sixteen military
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: trailer plan to it's in my mind being built and
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: sitting out there under the trees or collecting leaves. But yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: so there are some things that I want to adjust to,
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: so I'm getting a little bit more protective of my time.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I like to train. I want to keep training.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: I want to keep my hand in it and stay
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: sharp with it. With TAVIA, you always have to evaluate
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: where people are. A lot of folks come in, especially
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: if you're a private or a custom class, and they say,
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: I just want to learn how to do gravel roads,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: or I just want to learn how to do sand
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: or I just want to ride technical rocky terrain or
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: something like that. Well, okay, let's do a little bit
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: of a routine here and see how you do on
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: some of the fundamentals. Without the fundamentals, none of that works,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: So at some point it's a good idea to get
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: in and go through those basic elements of balance and control.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: You know, how do I turn on a motorcycle in
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: tight technical terrain? It's different. We have to almost reverse
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: what we do on the street to do it well
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: on the dirt. We have to counterbalance our turns and
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: that sort of thing. Pegweight steering AKA and duro steering.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: How does that work? When do I apply weight to
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: the pegs? Which one? How is that influenced by my
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: body position? Is it only pegs or is it body
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: position two? A lot of discussions out there, and a
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: lot of people are hanging out their single to train
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: right now who are good riders and maybe very personable people,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: but some have some it could be questionable techniques and
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: how they do it. I went to Hecklinch in Germany
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen became internationally certified to teach what I
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: teach adventure off road adventure riding skills, and.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: That's the BMW Certified Distructor Yeah, which I believe is
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: still the gold standard for certification of a trainer.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I believe, yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: And I've taught my son the principles that I've learned
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: there and a few others who have worked with us.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: You know, with Tavia, we did a little bit of evaluation.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: She kind of had an area that she wanted to
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: work within but I think once she saw that, Okay,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I need to go step by step and build this
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: foundation of skills before I can do that will or
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: this will Yep, she began to buy into it, and
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: we've had some fabulous results with her.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Incredible.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: We sat at the dinner table to night you and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: she got here and she says, I come to a
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: stop sign and I'm just I lose my balance. She's
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: not real tall. She's five three, I think it is,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: and she's ride that F seven hundred. Not a super
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: tall bike, but it's kind of like two little tippy
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: toes or one foot firmly down. Well in our second
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: or third exercise is dispelling the myth that the bike
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: is too tall, the concept of the three lega table
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: being more stable than a four legged. So we make
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: sure that the concepts are understood intellectually and then they
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: feel it kinesthetically when they ride the motorcycle. Why does
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: this work better than that? They see it? They witness
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: it when I ride and do the demonstrations, and then
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: sometimes there's a simulated practice that they'll go through. But
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: she just got it, and once she did, she began
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: to click through and be more open and more receptive
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: to the next level of training until we're completely through
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: a strong level to a strong intermediate level of skill.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, including loose steep climbs and descents, And you had
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: her skidding the rear tire and you know a lot
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: of things that I think the weight of the motorcycle
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and the fact that she can't easily get to the
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: ground was the most disorienting for her, the most concerning
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: for her. But you dispelled all that. You showed her
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: how to get a foot firmly on the ground. You
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: showed her how to pick that. She paid her bike
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: up for the first sore.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: She could not pick that bike up. She said, I
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: will never be able to pick this motorcycle. I've tried,
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: and you did it, and she's done it multiple times. Yeah,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: She absolutely has experience.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: A great Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion with Hon kok Dinapro
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Tire on Expedition Portal dot com. An impressive event with
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: attendees from all over the country and a parade of
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: jeeps that stretched all the way through town.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: There's a couple areas of the training that I thought
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: was really would be good for us to touch on
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: for those that are listening you talk about the triad.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Let's go into some about the control of the motorcycle.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: Sure, clutch, break, and throttle. So we profess that balance, control, judgment,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: and attitude are the four cornerstones of adventure riding. Balance
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: and control are more kinesthetic balance, our ability to stand
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: on our two feet to ride a bicycle or ride
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: a motorcycle. Control, as it applies to that is the
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: ability to use the controls clutchbak, throttle, that triad to
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: maintain wait for it, balance, Yeah, So how does that work?
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: That's kind of the physical part of it. And then
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: judgment and attitude are more of the mind and of
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: the heart, and they all work together to create a good,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: happy adventure rider. How does the triad work? How does
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: the clutch, break and throttle work? We talk about and
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: this is just sort of a sampling of what we
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: would discuss in class and what we would apply in
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: class and you would experience there is a continuum with
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: the clutch. Let's just go with the clutch only. All
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: the way in is a minus five, all the way
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: out is a plus five. Halfway in is not necessarily
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: a zero. The zero point is the point at which
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: the clutch begins to take up, it will either you'll
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: feel a motorcycle tugging on flat ground, or it will
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: hold the motorcycle on the hill as zero moved on
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: that continuum just a little bit based on load, whether
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: the motorcycle's trying to be pushed backwards, just being held
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: in a zero position on flat ground. So we really
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: work with how to manipulate and modulate that clutch. When
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: we're first taught, it's okay, there's the clutch. You just
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: get that out. Make sure you got enough with this
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: twisty thing over here that it doesn't stall when you
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: do the breaks down there, stomp it. Don't touch that
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: one up there on the handlebar. You'll go with the
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: handlebars and don't hit the bar. That's our instruction. We
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: can take that clutch throttle, so the clutch is no
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: good without the throttle. This is applied power. This or
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: this is available power. This is applied power through the clutch.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: We make a certain amount available, little more than we
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: might ask for from the motorcycle, and then we begin
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: to feed that in to about a one or a
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: two or maybe a three on the continuum, and maybe
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: that's where we stay at a low speed environment, especially
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: if it's really technical, rocky and all. So if we're
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: insistent on that clutch going all the way out, we
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: get into gear changes and I need to drop my countersefs,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: rocket and things like that. Where it's all of that
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: can be managed right here with this clutch. The clutch
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: is stound enough to do it. Now we put the
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: bike in tension against itself. The rear brake. Front breake
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: works too, but the rear is simpler. So that's where
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: we start the evolutionary process of this by contention. So
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: we apply a little bit of rear brake against the
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: clutch and thrattle. And the example that we use is,
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: you know, a person can lean only so far before
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: they have to take a step using the crutch, our leg,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: not the clutch, and then the other person might be
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: leaning against that person. The two work together, they can
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: lean much farther. So if one person is a clutch throttle,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: that married partnership, the other person is the break, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: you put those intention against one another, you can do
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: things you could not do independently.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how it settles the bike down. I feel
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: like it attenuates a lot of the things that might
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: be inputs, especially if it's the rear brake. You know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the challenge with the front brake is it's very light application.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: You're being very mindful of modulation, because the front brake
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: will want to destabilize the motorcycle if it's applied to heavily,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: or even if the train the conditions change, which results
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: in a different amount of grip, whereas that rear break
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: is a lot more forgiving.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: The break's more forgiving, it's less powerful. It's only accessible
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: straight lines are left turns. If you're in a really
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: steep right turn. Say you're doing the garage, which is
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: a competition manubridge like a maze that you're working in
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: and out of, and you're doing a right turn within that,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: sometimes you have to position your body where your toes
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: are pointed into the turn, and if your toes are
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: pointed into a right hand turn, you don't have access
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: to this, especially if you've got a little tiny brake
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: pedal then, which is better for rocks and roots and
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: debris that you don't catch it. Then it's real difficult
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: to pigeon toe and get cramps in their legs and
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: all to use the rear brake. So we can use
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: a little bit of front brake. As I said, it's
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: a higher level of skill, but it's very effective. You
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: see writers, you know my son is one of them.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: To both my older sons, Jake and Ben, are masters
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: at this. So it's beauty to watch. It's ballet to
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: watch to see how they can ride in these low
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: speed and.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: That is another advantage of the gs because of the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: linked braking, So you're applying a little bit of rear
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: and a little bit of front even if you aren't
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: touching the rear brake.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let which in that environment may be less
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: helpful than just being lazy going down the road squeezing
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: the front brake, and you get good stopping. We have
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: to be careful with that too, because we can stop adequately.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: You lose a small percentage, You lose a percentage I
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: shouldn't say small, it's a fair percentage of the rear brake,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: but you still get some so the bike will always stop. Well,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: it's using both brakes, but sometimes you want a little more.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: You want to be able to skid the rear tire
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: for direction control, stability or whatever. So don't get caught
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: up and using only one break or the other. It's
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: usually the other way around. A lot of cruiser riders
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: learn to use that rear brake. There are brakes that
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: are connected rear to front on some machines too, so
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: you get a little bit of the front application. I'm
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: a purest, I'm old school. I'll acknowledge that I want
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: to be the one riding the motorcycle. I did a
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: test on a Hunt Africa twin a few years back,
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: and you know these corn cob controls with fourteen switches
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: and buttons on each side, and I think there actually
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: are fourteen, at least on one side. I don't enjoy that.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I don't want the motorcycle doing my thinking for me.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: Sure I want to, And so we teach pretty analog
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: so that you know what you're doing and you also
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: know what your your rider aids are doing. Now, the
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: rider aids are good, mind you, They're getting much better,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: and so there is a time and a place for it.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: But I would say that is after you learn to
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: manage these things on your own and you know what
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: they're doing, so you'll know what happens when you mute them.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: If you turn down traction control, you turn down abs.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Well like we talked about the other day.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: If you have a mechanical failure where the ABS stops
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: working entirely, you need to be able to know how
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to modulate the brakes and not get in an act.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: And that's a real thing. It could be nothing but
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: a wheel change or a tire change, and you pull
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: that the wheel off, and you don't pull the little
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: censer out, and you break that center hooks on the
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: brake disc. Now you've got no ABS working, and so
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: you've lost that safety measure if you're not adept at
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: managing your brakes in a balanced fashion.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: When you were working through the training with us the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: other day, we kind of started off by getting a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: little bit deeper into the principles of like how we're
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: setting the bike up, how we're counterbalancing on the bike,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: our body position on the bike. Let's talk a little
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: bit about ergonomics, body position, how body weighting and peg
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: waiting is important. And then let's also talk about I
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: think it was the three s's about when we're standing up,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: what are the advantages are standing up? It's a little
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: bit about body position and ergonomics.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Sure, so let's start with why we stand, you know,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: seated we're bagged. Standing, we actually engage those three s's
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: steering suspension in sight. So steering by that I mean
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: you can apply weight to one footpeg or the other
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: to initiate a turn, and this puts less responsibility and
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: force on the contact patch on the front tire. It's
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: like pushing a bicycle down the street by the seat
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: not touching the handlebars. You can lean it left or
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: lean it right. In the bike. Because of the geometry
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: of the bicycle or motorcycle, it turns, it falls into
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the turns very natural. So if we initiate a turn
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: by applying peg weight or peg pressure on one side
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: or the other simply by relaxing the knee on the
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: other side, that starts our turn for us steering suspension.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: So suspension we have so much suspension on the motorcycle
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: might be seven eight inches on the big Gs's it's
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: about all you got. It's not bad, but in some
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: cases it might not be enough. You've got a heavy motorcycle.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: You got load on it with your gear load and
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: all that. So if you stand up for whatever your
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: weight is in my case, one hundred and seventy pounds
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: then plus gear. Then I've got the distance between the
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: seat and my crotch to move up and down. That's additional.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: It's like a second springing of the weight. So you
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: get an additional benefit from the suspension. So steering, suspension,
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: and then sight. Seated on the motorcycle, imagine a windshield.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Then you can when you look out across that windshield,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: the angle is pretty far out. You can't see right
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: in front, whereas you're standing, you're looking down. Same thing
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: for distance. If you're seated and there's a hill, a
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: fence of building, whatever, then you can only see so
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: far past it, whereas when you stand you can usually
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: see significantly farther, depending on how those angles are working out.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: So that's why we stand how we stand. Initially we
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: teach that you stand in a comfortable position. That would
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: be the arches of your feet on the footpegs, so
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: you're not constantly engaging your calf. Fatigue as a factor,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: and fatigue leads to failure. Too much fatigue leads to failure,
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: So it does fear, and that's another story. Start with
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: our arches of our feet, kneeds slightly bent waste, slightly
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: bent elbows, just slightly bent. We're not in a motocross
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: full on attack position. But because you just can't do
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: it long enough. No, there's no point in having all
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: this tension in your body. You want to just be
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: kind of loose on the motorcycle, hands resting lightly on
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: the bars, and then of course head and eyes up
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: as much as you can. This is not a praying
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: mantis position, nor is it the full on attack position.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: It's not bent way over, and it's not stiff legged
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: or pelvis forward straight up, and we see a lot
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: of that. Some riders just they'll ride pelvis forward almost
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: you know, putting your crotch up against the tank bag
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: or something.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: It's not really tall bar risers, and.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: They put really tall bar risers and so they're you know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: they're very comfortable standing like that. But a sudden jolt
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: it's going right up through your legs, up through your spine,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: or kicking you off the footpage.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Or if there's a sudden change in speed, breaking, accelerating, whatever,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: you're just not in a good position to counteract that.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: So we teach the cone of balance. The cone of balance,
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: if you imagine a cone sitting inverted on the seat
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: of the motorcycle. We move all the way around on
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: that cone of balance, accelerating, decelerating, left turns, right turns, braking.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: As the deceleration would imply, we need to be able
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: and ready to move around on the motorcycle in order
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: to be able to manage it well. Sure to initiate
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: a turn, then well, and then then bike set up.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: You know you mentioned the bar risers. I mean, if
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: I put my wife Susan on a motorcycle, she has
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: a certain fit. If we put you on the same motorcycle,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: you have a completely different fit. So I believe that
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: there are times and places for bar risers or tipping
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: the bars up, and without getting into the the too
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: much into the weeds on that, just know that sometimes
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: it's good to have them. Sometimes they're not necessary.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: So I mean maybe twenty milimeters bar risers or so
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: you think on my bike not very tall. Yeah, they're
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: not very tall.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: And I did notice in the past I've preferred to
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: have my bars up a little bit higher, but you
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: and others continue to reinforce that. You know, Scott, you
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: want to be a little bit more bent over, You
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: want to have a little bit more of your weight
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: on the bar and so I've hesitated in going with
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: anything taller, whereas Tavia on the seven hundred, she doesn't
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: have bar risers at all, and she doesn't need them.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: She's in the right position because she's quite a bit shorter. Yeah,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: that really does make a big difference. Now let's talk
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit about counterweighting, you know, in tight turns
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: and at low speed. And this is an exercise that
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you can describe to the listener that they can go
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: out and do on their own.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And let's evolve very briefly from induro steering,
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: which I call also pegwaight steering, So it's waiting a
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: peg in one direction versus the other going down the road,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: down a trail, whatever, and it's very fun. You know,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: you hardly have to touch the handlebars, and it's this
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: beautiful dance that you do. So if you're going around
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: cones or obstacles or whatever, it's like a wall to
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: one two three one tooth one two three, and it's
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: almost all done with peg waiting. The bike lean moves independent.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: The body lean legs are kind of loose on the motorcycle.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Now we move to counterweight steering, so we initiate the
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: turn in the same way. Now I have heard instructors
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: say always weight the opposite peg. Wow, you can really
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: get into some trouble with that, because one, it hardens
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: up the bike. If you're trying to turn right and
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: you wait the outside peg. It will help the bike
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: not to slide sideways if you're doing this on gravel.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: But if you initiate the turn with your say you're
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: turning right with your right foot peg weight, then as
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: you get into the turn, you begin to transition outside.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Now we're moving to a counterweighted position. So chest parallel,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: chest and shoulders parallel with the handlebars as you turn.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: If you point your feet in just a little bit
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: with that turn, it's very natural for you to make
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: that turn, and then your weight is moved to the
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: outside a little bit or a lot, depending on how
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: tightly you're turning. So in a real super tight turn,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: then you need to do a lot of counterweighting. So
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: first thing we do in a turn, if it's going
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: to be a tight turn, look, then press, we turn
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: the bars, we lean the bike, and as it begins
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: to roll into the turn, then we transition our way
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: to the outside of that motorcycle. And then once the
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: turn is completed, if we're going to turn back the
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: other way, we're already pressing on the outside, that becomes
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: the inside. The bike floats over naturally, and then we
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: smoothly bring our bodies to the other side.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: And you gave a really powerful demonstration of the reason
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: why we do that. Because the further that we can
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: get the bike to lean over in the turn, the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: tighter the radius of the turn. And there are times
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: on the trail you're doing to switch back, for example,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: you know there's times you just need to counterbalance in
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: order to get the bike leaned over enough to make
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the turn, Whereas if the bike's very upright, the turn
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: can be three four more five feet wider than if
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you lean the bike over. So that was really an
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: important one and I realized, like even for on my motorcycle,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: because it's quite heavy, that I had to put quite
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: a bit of my mass, which I'm quite heavy, I
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: had to really counterbalance the bike and then I could
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: make a very tight, comfortable turn with the motorcycle. It
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: was interesting to see how well it worked.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: I had the good fortune of training the Fourth Police
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Department for their off road program a few years back
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: when they got off road motorcycles for some of their patrols,
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: And first they took me through their on road program,
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: and there's a one element of their training called a keyhole.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: You ride into the keyhole, you make a circle, and
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: you come back out that hole. The keyhole is I
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: believe it's eighteen feet in diameter, which is pretty much
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: the minimum that a GS. Now they're doing it on
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: Harley's that a GS will turn if it's upright.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Sure, And we shrunk it to a smaller amount than
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: that sixteen or seventeen feet. And I could make the
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: turn when I first got in it, even with some
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: of my ability to lean the bike and all. But
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: they taught me some key points about making that turn. Look,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: with all the cones that are in that turn, I
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: believe there were three that you actually need to see,
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: the one on the right just at the exit of
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: the straight part of the keyhole, the one at the
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: three o'clock position, and the one at the twelve o'clock position.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: So you come in, you aim for the first one,
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: and then you aim for the second one, which is
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: the three o'clock. You lean the bike, you head as
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: close as you can to the twelve o'clock position and
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: then you look at the exit. All of the others
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: don't matter, and it makes it so much more simple
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: that same principle. And of course you're leaning, you drop
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: the bike, and now you have traction, so you can
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: use centrifical force to help you hold that turn. You
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: don't need as much counterweight. You need a little bit,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: but more than counterweight. You're using a centrifical force. You
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: can really get a lean the track tack patch holds
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: you and it's magical to do this. So I learned
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: a lot from them, and then we worked on the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: off road portion of what we did, which got more
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: into counterweight.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Now I do you touched briefly on the idea of
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: peg waiting on a gravel road at speed. I've been
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: told that and this isn't a counterweighted tight turn. This
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: is you're going thirty five forty miles an hour and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: it's gravel. I've heard that you do want to wait
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: that upside peg as much as possible to put a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: little more vertical load force into the tire. You find
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: that's beneficial or is that kind of an old wives table?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, And here's why so, Obviously I gave you conflicting
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: casers there so to stick the wheel to keep the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: bike from drifting. Yes, the weight goes on the outside.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: That minimizes drifting. But I like to feel out what
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: is this traction really and how much fun do I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: want to have? Sure? If I want the bike to
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: slide as I roll into the Let's say I'm coming
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: into a decreasing radius turn on a hero gravel road
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: that's consistent gravel. It's almost like red cinder that a
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: runner would run on a track. Great fund to ride
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: down very quickly and let the bike drift. So go
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: into the turn a little bit hot. You can step
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: on the inside peg as you're decelerating and overbreaking with
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: the rear a little bit so not maybe just a
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: little touch on the front, but you're breaking with the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: rear and that rear will begin to step out. You're
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: pressing the inside foot peg. It's going to step out more. Sure,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: but what you got is margin at that point if
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: you need to begin to minimize that or reduce the
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: amount of slide, because you're gonna get side slipped really quick.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: If you're coming in hot, overbreaking with the rear stepping
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: on the inside peg, You're doing everything you can make
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: this bike fall down, so it starts to slide. And
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: now you begin to step on the outside peg. Your
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: weight is your body is to the outside on both
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: It's to the outside as you're stepping on the inside,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: and then as you begin to apply pressure to the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: outside you can roll on the throttle. Bike will drift
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: beautifully out and around the turn. The difference between the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: inside peg and the outside peg is your margin. If
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: you start out hot stepping on the outside peg, bike
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: gets you've got nothing left. I mean, you either go
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: off the road or if by the grace of God,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: you get a little more front break and don't lose
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: the front. You know, it's all these things you start
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: throwing it out. There's like drop an anchor and dragging
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: your feet and praying and hoping you hit a head wind.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe there'll be a burma ahead or back. So we
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: don't want that. So when I'm playing on these roads,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: I'm going really quickly down the gravel road and dusty vessels.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: My good friends with West thirty eight motif. I plug
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: him a little bit, but we have so much fun
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: riding together. We know how to stay out of each
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: other's spray, and we go We'll go flying into these
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: turns and we'll both do the same thing, and we'll
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: set up these drifts.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Like corrugated choreograph choreograph drifting.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: Then we roll it on and at the end of it,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're just giddy as teenagers.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Honkook Dina pro Tire, welcome to you to visit Expeditionportal
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: dot com and enjoy a series of adventures from the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: Cheap Beach Event in Florida, the Broncos Stampede and Jeep
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: Invasion in Tennessee, and the off Road Expo in California.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: Thanks Han Cook.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: These are really important lessons and my goal with this
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: podcast is to get people, first of all, intrigued in
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: the idea of adventure motorcycle riding because it's been it's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: one of the most joyful things that I do and travel.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like it deeply connects me in with the place.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you're going through a village and you smell
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the smells and you can smell the coffee being made
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: or the beef being cut cooked excuse me, over the
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: fire or whatever, and you know, if it's cold you're cold,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: and if it's hot, you're hot. But you're so much
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: more approachable to the people that live there because almost
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: everyone in the world knows what a motorcycle is and
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: they or they may own one, or their uncle may
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: own one. So it's just so much more approachable when
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: you're on a motorcycle as compared to a car. So
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I think adventure motorcycling it can be such a joyful
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: way to see the world.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: It's a less expensive way to see the world. And
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: often cases.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: And you're you know, you're just you're you have to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: learn a lot of really interesting skills. So I want
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted the listener to kind of get intrigued by
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: the idea of adventure motorcycling and then if they want
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: to find out more information. You write a lot for
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal. You write and so does your wife, Susan.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So you've written a lot about adventure motorcycling for the magazine.
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  Speaker 1: You've been on the cover of the magazine as a motorcyclist.
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  Speaker 1: How do people find out more about you, about your school,
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  Speaker 1: how do they follow your work?
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  Speaker 2: Where do you publish your work in the.
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  Speaker 3: World, Well, my name Bill Dragou. If you can get
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  Speaker 3: the spelling ride on that like mister McGoo only dr
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  Speaker 3: build dragou dr agooh dot com, build regou dot com.
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  Speaker 3: That's my website and there's a link on that website
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  Speaker 3: to Dartmoto, which Dart Moto is now my son's website.
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  Speaker 3: So his training is there. You can contact me through
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  Speaker 3: my website and you know, phone numbers there, email is there.
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  Speaker 3: Let me know and you know, if you want to
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  Speaker 3: put something together, I'll be happy to help with that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, And then you write for a couple
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  Speaker 1: of different magazines. What are some of the places that
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  Speaker 1: you write your content for.
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  Speaker 3: I do I keep I have columns in that magazine
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  Speaker 3: called Outdoor by four magazine, and that column is called Treadmarks,
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  Speaker 3: and it's just a general column that I just talked
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  Speaker 3: about stuff. You know, I have a lot of I
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  Speaker 3: have discussions about children, teaching children to ride, teaching children
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  Speaker 3: to ranch on motorcycles here, which is just a big
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  Speaker 3: passion of mine. You've met some of the people that
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  Speaker 3: have mentees. I was looking for that word. And then
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  Speaker 3: you know, I talked about old trucks and I talk
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  Speaker 3: about events that have happened. They're old buildings and I
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  Speaker 3: just like old stuff too, but and then new stuff
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  Speaker 3: airplanes and by any motor travel and then Ride Texas Magazine.
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  Speaker 3: I've kept callum in that magazine for gosh years now.
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  Speaker 3: And it was Dark Tips, so dart as Dragoot intro
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  Speaker 3: rider training tips, you know, cause you get that is
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  Speaker 3: what I did. Dark Tips was in there. There are
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  Speaker 3: a lot of ours and pictures on how to ride
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  Speaker 3: these motorcycles well off road, and a lot of scenarios
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  Speaker 3: riding with people like my friend Tom Thompson. Jocen Snow
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  Speaker 3: is a model for one of my one of my
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  Speaker 3: articles called Tapping the tap and go exercise. So have
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  Speaker 3: a lot of fun with those, and they're very informative.
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  Speaker 3: That has recently transitioned to Bill's garage. It's more general
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  Speaker 3: now sure, and so we just talk about general stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Bikes, cool bikes.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Bill, it's always a joy to be with you.
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  Speaker 1: I mean the trip that we did across Utah and
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  Speaker 1: Sinway's Utah Traverse trip was epic. I mean that was
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  Speaker 1: unbelievable and that was what really first showed me the
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  Speaker 1: breadth of your capability as a motorcyclist. You won the
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  Speaker 1: GS Trophy I believe you were fifty five years old
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  Speaker 1: when you won that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to play some teams that's right for
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  Speaker 3: that competition.
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  Speaker 2: And that's right.
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  Speaker 3: We competed in twenty tens, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: You want to position on the US team for that.
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  Speaker 1: And so you're an incredible rider. You've spent a lifetime
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  Speaker 1: riding motorcycles, a lot of that off road, and of
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  Speaker 1: course you like to ride on road as well. But
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  Speaker 1: it's just been a joy to be your friend and
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  Speaker 1: to get to spend a couple of days with you
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  Speaker 1: doing this training. So I'd highly recommend those that are
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  Speaker 1: listening get some motorcycle training. Find a reputable trainer in
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  Speaker 1: your area, you know, look for someone maybe that's got
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  Speaker 1: the BMW training certification. That's a good place to start.
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  Speaker 2: And there's some incredible tours around the world.
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  Speaker 1: Our good friend Meetcho Escobar out of Columbia does incredible
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  Speaker 1: adventure motorcycle tours down there, So there's a way to
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  Speaker 1: go see the world by motorcycle, even if you don't
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  Speaker 1: own your own bike, but go out and check it out.
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  Speaker 3: Scott. It's so much such a pleasure to have you
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  Speaker 3: here again at our home, and you know we're on
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  Speaker 3: the crossroads between I thirty five and I forty seventeen
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  Speaker 3: miles south of that. It's just a blessing to have
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  Speaker 3: you stopped through. Anytime you're on the way, you.
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  Speaker 2: Can thank you.
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  Speaker 1: For those that are watching the video, you can see
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  Speaker 1: we're in Bill's garage and this place is as cool
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  Speaker 1: as it gets.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a bunch of vintage.
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  Speaker 1: BMW's and Harley's and you know, all kinds of fun
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  Speaker 1: motorcycles and gear and gadgets and stuff in this garage.
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  Speaker 1: We thank you all for listening, and we will talk
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  Speaker 1: to you next time.