Zen & Now, Mark Richardson, Spring Ride Report in Sweden and ADV Cannonball Updates

Taylor sets out for an early spring ride with the guys in Sweden along the Trans Euro Trail (TET). He takes some great field notes for us! Later in the show, Aaron interviews Mark Richardson, the author of "Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." 

Additionally, there's a link to the article published about Mark's ride from San Francisco back to Toronto on his DR600. 

Stay tuned for important news and announcements regarding the ADV Motorcycle Cannonball Rally after the interview.

Episode 12 Main Sponsor - Colombia Motorcycle Rental & Tour Co

Chapters

• 15:44 March Richardson Interview

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Season two episode 12. Welcome to adventure cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson. I am your host, and I'm joined today by, nonetheless, Aaron Pufal.

Aaron, welcome to the show. Hey, bud. How are you doing over there? Man, we're riding out here, baby. It is sunny.

I can't say warm, but it's sunny. You know, clear skies. It's like in the desert. Right? All that heat goes away that's built up during the day, but it is people ride, man.

It's happening. It's happening. Nice. Good for you. I'm gonna get on that bike tomorrow.

It's my first longer ride day, so I'm pretty stoked about getting out on the road also. Next really important question is what are you drinking? I am gonna open a can of the old reliable Juice Force IPA. Nice. I've got I guess at the in the in The US, it would be considered a tall boy, and it is a they call it a dipa here, double I p a.

It's like, and it and it is actually worthy of a Nice. It's worthy of a beer glass. That's a big boy size. Yeah, man. As as our buddy Steve Dovel says, go big or go home.

That's right. Legend. Legend. I had a, I had an awesome IP last night. It was, raised by wolves, I thought was a great name.

All these excuses for awesome names and microbreweries, is always entertainment when the bartender reads out which IPAs are available today. Yeah. Very true. Very true. There's one here called, Twisted Thistle.

It was really, you know, Petey and Piney, and somehow that turned into Twisted Nipple. I mean, it's an interesting how that you know, they just go that way sometimes. Buy the third one. It's us. It's twisted nipples.

Can I get one of those twisted nipples over here, please? Make it two. Yeah. Yeah. Two.

So I just wanted to say that speaking of, speaking of writing, we did get a ride in, and I actually got some field notes off. But before we run to the field notes, I just wanna say that my my writing partners were brilliant. I had Vijay, I had James, and I had Kale. In the intro, in the in the field notes, I said, I'm going to see Vijay and James. I didn't mention you, Kale.

I apologize. I don't know why. We hadn't met before. And I wanna say that the the, you guys were brilliant in the predeparture chat. We talked about what your what your expectations were of the day, and you all laid out something really, really fun and clever.

And, and, Carly, I thought yours was very memorable. In the end, you're like, my expectation is to keep the wheels below me today. I thought that was I thought that was a really good you know, keep the bike upright with the exception of the cornering and, which which everyone did on this trip. So I won't I won't I won't spoil anything else. I just wanted to say, it's really important to make sure that you don't hit the mute button when you've got field notes rolling, because you'll get an amazing you'll be like, oh, I got a minute of content there.

And then you go back and it's just a flat line. So apologies in advance, gentlemen. And with that We're gonna roll those field notes. And I love the first one because you must have your helmet on because your cheeks are pressed in, and you sound like a little kid like this to make a field note. So I was laughing at myself while I was editing.

So I'm going to, roll the field note and give everyone a laugh. It's time for field notes. Oh. A collection of voice notes recorded on location while we're on wildly exciting motorcycle adventures hacked together for your amusement and our public shaming. Alright.

Here we go. It is Saturday morning. God, what day is it? Anyway, Saturday morning, and it's about, eight minutes to six. So daylight savings time just happened, so, yeah, it was a surprise when I woke up and all the clocks had four.

I thought I should get back in bed, then I realized indeed, no, it was time to get up. I'm meeting James, and I'm meeting Vijay to go do the TET, which is on the Northeast Side Of Stockholm, and we'll head up to, Norrtoria. So that should be interesting. Let's see how, let's see how, let's see how it all starts off. This would be the telltale sign.

Sounding good so far. Field knows. Alright. It is 09:30, and we have been riding for over, I think, a hundred and ten, hundred and fifteen kilometers so far, and, it has been fun. We've managed to, end up somewhere South of Nortelja near the Brolsta Brolsta.

How can I how can I see it? Hagen. Bus stop. Yeah. The the bus stop.

Yeah. Well done. Le Havagen. Carlie, how was your day? It was pretty good.

I'm sort of always last, but, trying to catch up. It's it was good. It was fun. Yeah. You managed to keep the wheels below you, which was your ambition for the day.

So I'd say well done there. I think we all managed to achieve that, which was a good goal to set out to remind us that, on your first run of the year, which is your this is your first run of the year. Right? Actually, second. The last one I the last one I had, it was Thursday, so this would be second.

But that was just a short trip, on Thursday. Yeah. So this is the longest the longest amount of kilometers you've put in so far? Yes. Alright.

Very cool. Alright. Thanks very much for joining us today. That was fun. It was fun.

James James and I are gonna head down the road together here. So, we've got another half an hour or so of highway burn just to get back to Stockholm so we can, meet other family obligations as those things as those things do come up. But, you know, it's worth the 5AM start if you can achieve that. James, comments? Yeah.

The Himalaya, performed well. Nice to have a blast out in the on a Sunday morning. All good. Upright. And we're good.

Yeah. Fantastic. And we got your calm sorted out too. Nice. Vijay, you're the leader of this pack today.

Any final words? Beautiful ride. I think the maps did us well. Discovered some new twisties, some new gravel roads, thanks to a few wrong turns here and there. But wonderful, wonderful day.

Could have been a tad warmer, though. Maybe plus one to two degrees more. That would have been perfect. We did have a problem with the sun in our face for a while, right, with the gravel on the road. But, overall, a very, very good ride today.

Yeah. Somehow we managed to do this ride. So we had the sun up in our faces in both directions. I'm not sure how that happened, but we managed to make it happen that way. And, and with that, gentlemen, a fun day.

Thank you very much. Sunday, 11:00, just back from a really, really fun ride. It was interesting. It was the first time that we've had a group ride with four of the individuals, half of the individuals who will actually be attending, the ride in India, in the Himalayas. So it was really nice to meet Kale for the first time, and, James was the first time that he had actually met Kale and Vijay both.

So it was really nice to, to come together and, yeah, and ride and kinda understand each other's riding style. So it was a beautiful place, to go riding. There was very little traffic on the road. We passed the occasional I think we passed a, I think the, I don't know. It's a twelve ninety.

It was a KTM ripping the other direction, and one of these guys was standing up ripping through these gravel roads. It was fun. It was just not a lot of traffic out there, but, a great way to start a Sunday morning off and then, be back at the house. So looking forward to the next time. By the way, my pinlock still sucks.

I think I may have to tear all that down and start again. Boy's nose out. Ladies and gentlemen, could I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story, and I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonball.

Hey, Cannonballers. Thanks for subscribing to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a coffee, head on over to buymeacoffee.com, or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll visit on patreon.com.

Links are in the show notes. Now back to the riveting podcast in progress. And welcome back from, my moment. Yeah. Everyone welcome back to the field note, to the podcast.

The field note was great. When I was a kid when I was a kid, my sister used my sister used to do this thing where she would she would push her face together and squish her cheeks up. She'd say, hi. My name is Chubby. My mama's name is Chubby.

My my father's name is Chubby. Even my dog's name is Chubby. My mama said to me one day, Chubby, how can you smile through all that fat? I said, it's easy, mama. See?

You're gonna have to send her the link. It's all good. Yeah. Anyways, so there are some pictures, by the way. There are some pictures of that trip and the, the last few trips on the a d d, Cannonball Facebook site.

Right? Oh, nice. Yeah. I didn't see that. But yeah.

I'm I'm, I trust that they're there. That's for sure. Well, you you you know, in order to put because we had some craziness going on there, the actual, when people wanna post, they have to be accepted. Yeah. No.

We had someone trying to sell, sell some fake merch on the, on the website. So we had to, we had to make an approval approval process to have silly post put up. Yeah. But I just wanted to say that the the field notes were awesome. Those guys sound like a a great group of, people.

And I think, as we get older, I think just keeping the wheels under you and making it home without breaking anything is always positive. I'm actually, reading, Sam Monikin's book, I think it's Under the Sun or something about Africa. And this guy, his previous trip, he had seven broken bones in one leg. And in another time, he had an accident where he slipped the disc in his back. I'm like, listen.

I just wanna have a laugh and keep the wheels under me. Yeah. You know, they make you make a really good point there. I'm actually reading that book as well. And if I'm not mistaken, he he and he went back in this.

It was like the this is called, San Monica distant suns. Yeah. That's the one I'm to in this trip. Yeah. And he goes he goes back and he revisits because he's been on the road for, like, five years at this point in time.

And he goes back and he revisits this area, and he's like, I'm gonna go down and ride that road where I fell, and he broke seventeen bones. I mean, that's that was that's a bad accident. Yeah. That's no good. And then later on in that book, when he makes it to South America, he talks about his back.

And I also wrecked my back on a quad biking self you know, I did it to myself just being stupid with a bunch of guys. We were in in Dubai in the desert somewhere, and I was just pushing it. But I'm like, it just stays with you forever. And, my hat's off to him for, sticking with riding. I actually want to mention that I'm meeting Sam, in the May at the Ace Cafe in London, and we're gonna have a chat there.

The manager of the Ace Cafe is nice enough to give us use of his office. And Sam is gonna ride four hours into London, And, I'm flattered by it, and I'm looking forward to talking to him about all these adventures. When you're there, are you gonna are you gonna interview him? Yeah. The the manager?

I thought about that. I don't know how to kinda be polite about and by the way, can I interview you? So, I will I will definitely, ask him for for some time for sure. Yeah. Because I was thinking that would be really fun is if you could if you get a chance to chat with him.

And then there's another one of those Ace Cafe. Is it Ace Cafe that's in LA? No. So Ace Cafe is the old school, like, rockers kind of, cafe. It's a historic place, and there's a modern version of that.

It's called the Bike Shed. And the Bike Shed is in Downtown London, and there's a sister version, kinda watered down version of it in in LA. Okay. Gotcha. That's the one that we had we'd previously spoken about.

Okay. I I wasn't sure if that was or if it was the other one. No. We will definitely go to the one in LA after the cannonball, for a beer for sure. Fantastic.

I look forward to that. Alright. So you did a really nice interview with Mark Richardson. And, I think about that. The questions should you ask are really it shows that you had done your homework.

I have to say that, like you, I was one of those people who picked up Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance thinking it was a motorcycle book. It was a it was a book. It's like something I wanted to read, but it's like I'm reading the Sam Monaghan, and it wasn't. Mhmm. Yeah.

It it's a lot. It's, you know, Mark Richardson describes it better, so I'll just leave it to him. But my advice is to take my own experience and turn it to advice, which is read Zen and Now by Mark Richardson. You can also listen to it. And then if you feel like diving into something deeper, go ahead and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

But don't try to do it unless you're doing it for non motorcycle reasons. If you're smarter than me, a deeper thinker than me, go ahead and try it. But once you have read Zen and now, then you'll be equipped to tackle Zen and the art. Yeah. That good point.

Is there anything else that you'd like to add on top of that before we roll that interview? No. We'll just roll it. It speaks for itself. I just wanna say that Mark is super patient.

You know, he's a pro. He writes for all these, publications. He does TV. He does media. He's a pro, and I just want to thank him for taking the time for our little number two podcast.

And, again, thanks to, Mark for making time and, you know, carrying the water on this interview. So let's go ahead and roll the interview. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter.

Everyone can participate. Head over to ADVcannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. Mark Richardson is the author of Zen and Now, On the Trail of Robert Persick and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Welcome to the podcast, Mark.

It's good to be here, and thank you. Great. Listeners will know that I'm not the host of the podcast, but I really enjoyed your book, and I wanted to talk to you about it. I'm in Port Angeles, Washington today. Where are you?

I'm actually in Coburg, Ontario, which is like an hour east of Toronto, Canada. I actually know it well. I actually grew up in Toronto many, many years ago. Oh, there you go. Yeah.

I know the weather is breaking, for you, and it's also breaking for me. Have you had a chance to, get out on your first ride of the season? No. Not yet, but I will do. I had to drive around in a truck this morning, but, I'll be going out tomorrow.

Double digit temperatures. There's still snow on the ground, quite deep snow. It'll all be melted by the end of the week. It's fabulous. I'm looking forward to it.

Except for those giant piles of snow in the, in the parking lots of every grocery store. I always remember that as a kid. They're fun, you know? You drive into them in a jeep or something, but then you have to make sure you don't get turtles on the top. Right.

Right. That is true. I think, many people have picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and thinking it was a motorcycle book. And then, you know, after about two pages, people realized that it's, you know, it's entirely different novel. How would you describe Zen and the Art?

People have been trying to figure out how to describe Zen and the Art for years ever since it was written. Right? And it was written or published fifty years ago now. Some people call it a novel. Some people call it a biography.

Some people call it a work of philosophy, all of that stuff. I mean, it's a little bit of everything, I suppose. But it is supposed to be a philosophical treatise told through the device of a novel. So as Persick says right at the beginning, he says that there's actually, don't sort of trust a lot of this stuff. It's not necessary.

It didn't happen exactly as you as you see it. But even though it reads as if it did. But, even so, it's it's it's it's an it's an opportunity for Robert Persick to be able to get across his ideas, his whole philosophical thought, all about classical and romantic, ways of looking at things, that type of stuff, which is really complicated. And it's not the sort of thing that that I, and it sounds like you too, can understand easily when we have to read it in some textbook written by Plato or Socrates or whomever. We would not necessarily wanna read those, but we would want to read a story about riding a motorcycle.

And so this kinda sucks us along for the journey. And so Persig uses the whole journey riding from Minneapolis through to San Francisco in a couple of weeks, to describe the way that he thinks about things and the way that the world is at that point, which was actually in 1968, but is surprisingly relevant even now. I think, Hunter s Thompson also wrote in that same way that he would go do something factual and then maybe tweak it a bit for for the novel, but, you know, in a in a in a vehicle, in a way to communicate what he's trying to get across. But, you know, I'm just the guy who rows who rides motorcycles, so don't take it from me. But for but for but for folks that haven't read your book yet, I can best describe it as your story about your motorcycle trip to retrace Bob's road trip.

To me, it's a guide to understand zen and the art, what that book's really about. Additionally, I found it really good about adding some factual history about Bob and the folks in his orbit, that also added some color to the book for me. Would would would you say that's an accurate, way to describe your book, or did did I butcher it? I I usually think of my book as being three different things. My my own book, this is Zenon now.

It's the story of my own road trip and things that happened to me along the way when I retraced the exact same road trip that Robert Persig and his son, Chris, had done in '68. So there's that side of it. And I try and find the same sorts of things that were relevant to him at the time and be able to, get them across with a a slightly more modern perspective, that sort of thing. Try and learn the lessons that he did by following his same route. But it's also a biography of Robert Persick.

Nobody had ever really known much about this guy before. What they did know was pretty sanitized. It was what he wanted them to know. And there's lots of stuff out there, but nothing was ever all in one place. Right?

So I I managed to get that together, and I I talked to Persick and or I I corresponded with Robert Persick and with various people that he knew and were involved with this. So I was able to write a biography of the guy who was a fascinating guy. And then thirdly, it's kind of an introduction or a little bit of a primer, if you will, to zen of the art of motorcycle maintenance. So that if you are somebody like me who took three goes to get into the book, and it took a while. Right?

And and I kept thinking, well, this book is supposed to be fabulous. Why is this so fabulous if it's, taken me such a long time to read it? I'm just getting bogged down here. And so my book is a bit of a primer for that to be able to help people to understand where he's coming from so that you can read the book yourself and get the most out of it. Yeah.

I I admit, at least three times, I picked up Zen and the Art. I'm like, I have no idea what's going on here. Actually Yeah. I actually felt silly. But I recently finished it, but only after reading your book.

And without your book, I I didn't understand really what was going on. So it was kinda like this searchlight that helped me understand. Was was that your intention when when you wrote Zen and Now, or did you just wanna go on a road trip on the on the budget of your of your publisher? I wish it was the budget of my publisher. Again, there's a couple of different answers to that.

But, yeah, when I wrote the book, when I sat down to write it, I did want to be able to prepare a primer to give some context to the thing so that if you understood where the guy was coming from, what he was trying to do, you could follow along reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance much more easily. And it would make sense to you first time around rather than going having to go back and say, hang on a second. Why are you doing this? What's what happened here? Who is this Phaedrus guy he's introduced?

Stuff like that. Right? It didn't make a lot of sense, but, hopefully, if you got some context, it does. But, no, to be honest with you, Aaron, when I I I first, decided to go on the trip, I wanna do it because it was a good motorcycle trip. It's, it's it's not your standard motorcycle trip.

It's not places that most people go to. It's, you know, across the top of of The US more than anywhere else, and it's really is the road less traveled. I mean, you don't see a lot of bikes, a lot of anybody in, Eastern Oregon and a lot of Montana, that sort of area. You're pretty much on your own. And I wanted the opportunity to do this.

And as I think, you know, motorcycle trips across the country can take a long time. And then you've probably got to get home again afterwards. Right? And I was a family guy. I had two kids.

They were young boys at the time. And for me to just take off on my motorcycle would be a very selfish thing to do. I couldn't just go off and have a holiday. So I did manage to persuade my wife that, you know what, it's always possible that there was a book to be written from all of this and that I wouldn't know unless I went out to look for it, and she should let me go. And so she did.

So I took off, and I did my own thing, for that month or so. Actually, I think it was about six weeks or told that I was away. Yeah. I'm more of a a lighter topic. On those long boat trips, people will will often say that they achieve, like, a zenlight state in their helmet.

They call it helmet time. Would you agree with that, or are we just being being silly about that? No. I think you get it every time. If you can it's it's a weird thing.

I've tried to explain it to people before, and it's not easy to do. And when you're riding a motorcycle and you're on a long road trip and you're kind of, you're out there and and and you've opened yourself up to the whole trip and everything else, which actually Robert Persig in his book right on page two, where you you stop reading the first time. Right? That's where he describes riding a motorcycle and what the appeal is compared to a car. And people have been quoting that for the last fifty years, probably without even knowing it came from Persick.

But that's where he says that riding a motorcycle is like not just watching the TV. When you're in a car, you're watching the TV, which is the scenery outside. It's like it's on TV and there's on the windows. But on the motorcycle, you're actually a part of it. You're in it.

And that's what makes all the difference. But the thing is it's this weird sort of, I don't know, paradox. Would it be that where you're riding along and you're in this complete as assuming that you're you're a little bit experienced, that you, you know, you're used to riding a motorcycle. You're in this this complete state of relaxation and openness, and and there's, like, nothing happening. The road is just going on and on and on.

And, yet you're seconds away from death at any moment. Right? It just takes one pothole, one animal to rush out in front of you, one car to swerve across the the yellow line in the middle, and you're gone. So you are a moment, a blink from catastrophe at any point, although you can also be as relaxed as possible. And it's a weird sort of of doubling up of these things.

Right? They've got the total yin and the yang all coming together on a motorcycle trip at a different way. I think you're just more aware of it on a bike trip than you would be on a car trip. You know, several times in your book, you talk you talk about and he talks about the near death experiences. And there's this quote that I that I scratched down here, and I probably have it wrong, is rattles in the mind and distraction can be more dangerous than rattles in the motorcycle.

Perhaps we are our own worst enemy, because every time I've ever come close to death, it's almost always been my own fault. But as a rider and an observer, would you say that's accurate? Yeah. You you when you knock yourself out of that equilibrium, you knock yourself out of that that sort of zen like state, then it's it's a clash. Right?

It's a scrape of some sort. It's not it's not the way it should be. And when that happens, then that's one more thing you have to deal with. So, yeah, I think that rattles in the mind can be very, very dangerous on the bike anyway. That's one reason why I don't like to use headphones or, earphones.

I don't like to listen to music on a motorcycle trip. I I might do sometimes if I'm on the interstate and it's just the boring interstate, I might do it. But generally speaking, I I generally just sit there and think to myself or sing to myself. That's the worst. My wife doesn't like it.

When she comes along on a trip and I start singing inside the helmet, then, yeah, that doesn't go well. I, I just had a conversation with the current cannonball record holder on a motorcycle, And he said his biggest challenge, you know, after twenty four hours of riding at higher speeds, his biggest challenge was keeping his mind in order as well. But I really like Zen route. It seems to be able to spark conversations with people that you meet along the way. Have you heard of other people following the Zen route?

I'm I'm sure you have. And have they had that same feedback that it was a great way to spark conversation with people? Yeah. People do it all the time. They do it every year.

Literally, every summer, there's a whole bunch of people go out, and they're called they're generally known as persic pilgrims. When I did, which was, what, twenty years ago, it was 02/2004 that I did it, then there were persic pilgrims, but this is also the beginning of social media. Right? The beginning of of of getting online. And nobody really exactly knew the correct route.

It's not in the book. You know, turn left when you get to the general store. Sure. Occasionally, it is, but generally not. And Percy got a bit fed up with trying to describe to people the route.

He said, I didn't take any notes. I just went for a motorcycle ride. So you had to figure it out for yourselves, and people didn't really stay in touch, and you found out about it later by reading it in magazine. Now the social media, people do it all the time, and they stay in touch and they meet up along the way, and it is one of those classic rides. Kinda like doing Route 66 or anything else like that, right, around the world.

I mean, they, it's it's a well known ride now that's easy to follow, and you can take it at your own pace. I very much recommend just for the record, I very much recommend you do if you wanted to do something like this, you do it at your own pace. You don't do what I did, which is to follow it exactly, try to meet the exact same people, all of that. Go the same distance every day. Stay at the same places every day.

Do a bit of that as you feel like it. Absolutely. But if you see something interesting along the way, stop and go and have a look at it. That's what makes it your trip, not just Persick's trip that you're following. But to start following Persick's trip or any other trip like that and then use that as your own sort of way to find something, to branch out and discover something for yourself, that's the way to travel on a motorcycle.

Yeah. I did like that. When he camped, you also tried to camp, and and you also stayed in the small motels and stuff. And are you still sleeping on top of picnic tables like a like a crazy person? Do I do it now, you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, you were the one night you said you couldn't sleep because of the tent, and you slept on top of a picnic table. This was the craziest thing that I've ever heard. Oh, picnic tables are great because they're usually underneath the canopy of some sort.

Right? They're raised up so they're not on the ground and they're you're protected in a way. They're they're terrific. And I've even heard of guys who have, have have, handcuffed themselves to their bikes or put a rope or something so that nobody can steal their bikes while they're lying on the picnic table. It's the best place to be.

But, no, I I gotta admit, Aaron, I haven't slept on a picnic table in Okay. Maybe a decade now. I'm kinda older. Good. Good.

I thought it was a bit I thought it was a bit, avant garde anyway. But speaking of, hotels and motels, there was a great quote that I laughed because I ride a I ride a GS, and there was this one mom and pop motel that says, these BMW motorcyclists are nasty, and they don't like our little motels. They prefer to stay at the chain hotels. Yeah. Was that was that some creativity you had on your spot any on your part to take a to to to take a jab at us GS riders?

You know, I no. It really happened. That was in Alright. In Bend, Oregon as as I recall. I remember it was the most fascinating motel.

It was a a wonderful place that was beautifully done up, and it struck me as being, as being some a place where somebody had taken some real care and creativity in creating the the motel. It wasn't just a chain motel. And that was exactly the sort of thing that Robert Percy liked. Right? Somewhere where somebody took some care, took some extra time to make it just right.

But, no, she knocked the BMW riders. She actually liked the Harley guys. But I'll tell you, on this trip, I I I made this ride on my old, Suzuki d r 600. It was a 1986 single cylinder thumper. It was already old, when I did the ride.

In fact, it was the second one that I I owned, both identical. I now have three of them. But I did it on this bike. And when I set off the first three days riding from Toronto through to Minneapolis to begin the ride in 02/2004, I rode with my buddy, Tim, and he was on a BMW GS eleven fifty. And then I we left each other in Minneapolis.

I carried on. There was not one single moment that I did not wish I was riding his GS. This Suzuki was like sitting on a plank of wood. It could get up to maybe 50 miles an hour into the prairie wind at best, and it kept crapping out on me. Right?

Like, the the speedometer cable went the the clutch was going. That suspension actually just collapsed on me. And and I I really wish that I could just sit there eating up the miles on a lovely comfortable GS. And I thought that when I was gonna get home from this trip, I was going to literally park the Suzuki in the garage and buy a GS. And I think it was time to I think the GS 1,200 was coming out around then.

So I was looking at that, and I thought if I don't get the GS, I'll get the Vstrom, the, the big Vstrom, the 1,100, or 1,000. But it'll be one of those two, and I ended up getting neither, as it turned out. That's a whole separate story, but, but I honestly spent the whole thing the whole ride thinking, I wish I was on a GS. It would have been a quite different ride. I was, waiting for the the comment that after the chain hotel comment that you always saw the GSs at the Starbucks, but you you you you didn't do that.

So thank you. Do you still do you still have, Jack Jackie Nguyen? I do. Yeah. She's sitting in the garage, but she doesn't run very well at the moment.

And she's waiting for me to clean her up and get her all ready. But just, last the end of last year, I picked up a KLR six fifty two thousand and fourteen, which I'm looking forward to riding a lot this year. And I also have a Harley Davidson Low Rider, which I bought so I could travel around with my kids on the back and just slow down, smell the coffee, smell the roses, drink the coffee, whatever it is. Right? And and, and and and I don't have to worry about speeding tickets or anything like that because I I don't need to speed to feel I'm going fast.

Yeah. Are are you still doing a lot of your own, motorcycle maintenance? I do all of my own motorcycle maintenance. Yeah. Me too.

Yeah. Which is too bad because I'm not very good at it, but, but I do it anyway. Yeah. You, speaking of a KLR, and you talk about you talk about this time where you always check the direction of your ratchet before you use it. And I felt like, you know, we needed to talk because there was this one time I was working on my KLR, and I was rebuilding rebuilding the the whole engine.

And I don't know what I was thinking, but I wasn't even inverted the way you were talking, but I was trying to remove the head bolts. And for some reason, I was going righty tighty instead of lefty loosey, and I actually crushed the cylinder head just a little bit. The bike still runs, and I I upgraded the cylinder. But did you have a specific experience that made you start this procedure? No.

It's just when I I it's usually changing the oil. Right? And you get underneath. Right. And so it's not you're not looking at the thing going righty tighty.

It's twisted around and underneath the engine, and you're turning it, and you don't know which way is right and which way is left. And so Right. I always just check that I'm going righty tighty before I tighten something up and then put it into place underneath to just tighten up the, the oil drain plug or whatever. And I have to be careful with that because I have stripped an oil drain plug before, and it's no fun. It just it's so messy.

Yeah. You know, speaking of, of, Bob and that, you know, besides the whole spinning into madness deal, I actually share quite a bit of commonality with, with Robert. I've built four little boats. I was a yacht captain for twenty five years and now I'm the rally master for ADV Cannonball, so I'm obviously into motorcycles. I do all my motorcycle maintenance myself.

And I've even been stuck in a shipyard in the Baja for longer than I than I wanted. I was wondering, did you discover some similarities with with Bob also? I discovered more differences with Bob than I I I thought that I would discover similarities. I thought that we would be very much, aligned on the whole idea of riding relatively small and underpowered motorcycles across vast distances. And I guess that was the case.

I actually had the opportunity because of my job. I I drive cars, ride motorcycles for a living. I'm a journalist. And people offered me motorcycles and cars to do this trip in. BMW offered me a seven series limo to to make the drive.

I said, I I don't think that would be quite right. But, I wanted to do it on my old bike because I figured that was the closest thing to what Bob Persick had. I wanted to copy that. But I found that he was he was a patient guy. He did the job properly, and he took his time to do that.

And I I'm far too impatient to be able to do anything like that. I'm not terribly well organized. I think that I've always had 15 things I'm thinking about, And so I never quite get to think about any of them properly, any single one of them. But the main thing that I found a difference with with Bob Persig was that, again, as I mentioned at the beginning, I was a young parent or a new parent. My kid my two kids were pretty young.

I think they were six and four or something like that at the time. And, he was also a parent. And he did this whole ride with his son on the back, Chris, who was, 13 years old sorry, 11 years old. And he was a terrible dad, and he made no bones about it. And he didn't try to pretend that he was being a good dad.

It's part of the storyline that he is a terrible dad. Dad who had gone mad and everything, and Chris wanted to have his old dad back, that sort of stuff. Right? And the I would read about Chris crying in his sleeping bag, because his dad had just snubbed him off with some sort of aloof answer to something. And I would realize that that was somebody I'd never wanted to be.

I didn't wanna ever do something like that with my own kids. And I think it's very much a sign of the times. You know? This was fifty years earlier or forty years earlier at the time, I guess, that, the whole thing was done. And and that that's just the way that the whole, hierarchy fell into place back then.

And I realized that that that although we were seeking similar things, me and Bob Persig, we were going about it quite differently. And that was okay. Yeah. You know, he, you and I and him kinda share a little nexus here is that, he had that that sailboat. Hopefully, it's not the madness nexus, but, you know, he had that little sailboat named Excellence, and it was on the Great Lakes.

And I started my maritime career in Toronto. And, you know, having sailed around the world, you know, you talk about his trip down the Erie Canal and then down the Hudson. I'm like, that is the most memorable trip that I can remember on a smaller boat, not these big, you know, silly billionaire boats. I had more fun on on these on these little boats. And, of course, I've been left on more than one boat by more than one woman throughout my life, but that's a that's a story for a different podcast.

But both your story and Bob's story, you know, really romanticize this narrative while on the road. And you both had all these wonderful interactions, whether, you know, they're factual or or embellished. But I find today that, you know, especially in the last few years, that I just have almost zero interaction with people. I think you may have touched on it a bit. Today's fuel range I have a GSA where I have incredible fuel range and the reliability, you need zero maintenance for 5,000 or 6,000 miles compared to Jackie New and Bob's bike.

It just keeps me on the road. Do you do you find it harder today to to interact with people when you're on these big road trips? No. I don't. I find it So it's just me then?

Well, the thing is I I I yeah. It is. I interact with people, and I make a point of stopping. And I talk to people, and and my kids get get, embarrassed because dad's talking to some guy again. They've grown up now, so it's no longer such an issue.

Sure. But my wife gets fed up. You know? Why are you talking to that guy? Whatever.

But the the good thing is that you're probably not in such a grumpy mood because you're not trying to fix your bike. Right? There isn't something that's gone wrong. Although, there's always something that goes wrong on a road trip. Right?

And that's all a part of it. But I should ask you, have you read Lila, the sequel to zen and the earth? No. No. Because that's about right taking a a small boat down through the locks and down through the canal system and the river system down to New York City.

I think you touched on that, and it's something that I should definitely, I will I will have it in queue in my next my next my next book for sure. I well, good luck. It's a Great. It's a bit of a slog read. Yeah.

Yeah. I I should correct you. This this is an opportunity for me to correct something, by the way, from my own book, that you you mentioned that Bob Persick when he rode Zen and the Arts, he made some money, and he bought his self this this boat. And he wanted to go around the world on it, and he called the boat the excellence. He didn't actually call it the excellence.

This was my one concession. And in fact, I would argue that this is the only thing in the entire book that is that is not completely 100% accurate, but in my book, I mean. But it was actually called Aret. Aret was the name it's it's a big part of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance that that, Bob Persick was searching for Aret, which is the correct philosophical term for something like excellence. Excellence is probably the closest translation to it.

It's from the original ancient Greek. And it's searching for excellence in everything you do. Right? So the fact is the actual boat was really called the arete, But Persig wrote to me and because we corresponded a little bit, and he asked me to not identify his boat because he was terrified that people would come and find him because of it. He went into reclusion.

Okay? He he didn't want anybody to know where he lived. If you read my book, you'll see that I all I say is that he lives somewhere in New England. He's passed on now. He died several years ago.

I can speak openly about this sort of stuff now. But at the time, he did write to me and said, please don't identify my book as I read, my boat as a rat. Please give it another name. And I asked him if excellence seemed to work, and he said, sure. And I said, well, great.

When you die, I'll change the name to to back to a rat. And he said, fine with me. But he's he had had people knocking on his door looking for you know, searching for the meaning of life who were as he would as he said, many of them are clinically insane. These are not people you want to necessarily meet in the middle of the night. And he didn't want to meet them because he had met a few of them, and it had scared him, and he didn't wanna do it anymore.

So I changed the name to excellence. And the next edition, I'll change it back to Iran. Yeah. You know, and that's and that's understandable. You know, we mentioned, Hunter s Thompson prior, and I had spent a lot of time in Aspen.

And, you know, the property that he lived in, like, where he famously did all those crazy things, is owned by a family member, and it is just covered in no trespassing signs. And, you know, I just avoid people, like, in general, but they must still to this day have that issue, especially like you say with, social media and stuff is where you can just find out anyone's address. So if you had given out his his, his boat name, you know, you could just go on a a I s and find and find where the boat is. So that that's that's definitely worth, worth having a little bit of, you know, a little bit of a tongue tongue in cheek name changing the name to, excellence. Well, I didn't tell him at the time, but Mhmm.

I knew exactly where he lived. And I'd looked up his house on Google Earth, and I could see, like, this this is where his meditation room was. This is where the tree was that he mentioned one time in something, because it wasn't that difficult to find through a little bit of detective work. Right? Mhmm.

And it's easier even now to do that sort of thing. But I didn't tell him that because that would just worry him even more. I really enjoyed one of the one of the quotes is a cold beer and a working motorcycle. That's all that matters when you're on the road. Do you still have that philosophy?

The cold beer always at the end of the day. Right? That's the important thing. Yeah. But the end of the day, the cold beer and if the motorcycle is still running and you don't have to spend your evening wondering about how to make it work the next day and you know that you gotta get up early and fix something, then that's that's paradise.

You can just relax over that beer in the evening, preferably, to my mind, sitting on one of those white plastic chairs outside a motel room. Right. That's that's ideal. Yeah. It's so hard to find you know, always roll the dice, not to be the cliche GS rider, but it is always hard to find that cute little motel.

And I always keep a list of the ones that are winners, and it's always pleasant to have something quirky and fun. But I also wrote down another quote that I enjoyed, that motorcycle maintenance is easier than relationship maintenance. You make this observation about halfway through your trip. And I also related that to talking with Anthony Bourdain when he was still around. And he said the same thing when you were talking about your kids, and you took a month, and you did this trip.

I thought about the way he described it and the way I also describe it when I'm away for work, when I go away for a month at a time, is when you're on the road there's always this feeling of, I don't know if it's guilt, but surely an urgency to get home. You feel like you need to get home. But then when you're home, you start immediately planning the next adventure. Do you think this is a trait of motorcyclists or do you think it's a trait of authors? Or as you being a, doing what you're doing now, do you still have that feeling whenever you're on a on a on a longer trip?

Right. No. I find that the way to get around that is to have a fixed date and to know this is the date at which I'm supposed to be home. If I'm home after this time, then that's a problem or could be a problem for whatever reason. But until then, I've got my time is my own, and I can go slowly.

I can go fast. I can go whichever, but I've got until, you know, this date a week Tuesday or or tomorrow or whatever it might be to not feel guilty at all about being away. And I don't. And I I I I still do lots of trips. I love trips like that.

Last year, I took a fabulous trip on an Africa Twin. I went around Lake Ontario, all the way around. Took the ferries at the other end of Kingston. That's the only way to cross over the the border these days. The only fun way to go cross the border.

And I stayed at a a a motel with a plastic deck chair and all of that stuff, which took a little bit to find. You're quite right. But I had a very fixed plan that I was gonna go this far. It wasn't got wasn't a wasn't an iron butt or anything like that. Right?

It wasn't a thousand and one. I was gonna take it relatively easy, but still push it a little bit. And and, yeah, I got home on time, and I still had that cold beer at the end of the day with a working motorcycle, and it was just ideal. And I'd I I'll happily do that for as long as I can. Last year, I was gonna say, I I actually went on a Zen trip again.

Last year was the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the book. And so a bunch of people got together, in Minneapolis. There's probably about a couple of dozen of us who were Persick pilgrims. And we just some of them went on the entire trip all the way from Minneapolis to San Francisco. The last two, I think, both were both in cars.

They they didn't even have bikes for it. But we sent out and, you know, I I was with my wife. I was riding Honda Goldwing for that one because she said she wasn't going on anything smaller than a Goldwing, and she was gonna be on a bike. It was a hundred degrees across the North Dakota and the like, but, it was a fabulous trip. Just not having to go too far, but making the most of what you've found along the way.

Mind you, Persig's trip, he goes quite quite a long way sometimes, three or 400 miles in a day. And if you can just imagine that on something that only made 27 horsepower with a kid on the back and everything else, it it would have been brutal. Oh, yeah. For sure. You know, I can do 750 miles a day on my on my GSA if I'm really pushing it, but it's just it's just terrible.

You know? But speaking of, there's so much to talk about there. I wish we I I wish we had more time because when I grew up yeah. When I grew up, I spent a lot of time in that Ganonakwa area there. I remember the Ganonakwa ferry being this this great this great ferry, and I remember spending summers in Picton.

I was a DJ at a place called The Hayloft, and I used to stay at Isaiah Tubbs Resort up in that area. So it seems like our paths have crossed so many times, but I wanted to bring you back to heading south on 01/2001. You talk about the Persigs missing the Avenue Of The Giants. And then I've actually made a somewhat guide for people that that are constantly taking that route, and it seems they always miss these important stops. When you were riding south and you took the Avenue Of The Giants, did you plan that, or was it, like, I saw a sign, and I'm just and I'm just gonna take it?

I was trying to follow the route as best I could, and I wasn't free of the route until, there's a climax point, right, which is near Casper. Yeah. Casper, California, right on the coast. That's where the final showdown happens, right, between the the the the father and the the the ghost, Phaedrus, and the son, all of this stuff. And that's where the That was up on the cliff.

Right? Up on the cliff looking out over the water. And then they end up they go down to San Francisco and, you know, the rest is sort of history. Right. They actually carried on in the original trip.

They carried on. They went to Los Angeles, and then they took a long time coming back. But, anyway, until I got to that point at Casper, I was trying to follow the route exactly as it was. So I had been reading passages in the book. There was something about a a strange house or a strange hotel or a restaurant or something.

This guy looks at them out of a a window in a strange way, something like that. And I was and it was described a lot there's a lot of beautiful description in the book, that when I did it, a lot of the stuff was still there. You could see it. You know, the houses hadn't been painted yet even though it had been forty years. So I figured when I did the Avenue Of The Giants, I figured that this was probably the way that they had come.

It probably come through here. And, oh, I just happened to be on the Avenue Of The Giants. I didn't even realize it at the time. Mhmm. To be honest with you, I didn't like the Avenue Of The Giants at all.

Made me feel very claustrophobic. I don't like, you know, I'd much rather be out on a prairie. But hey. But that whole thing in in my book, I talk about I I had a flat tire. Right?

The my front wheel blew. And I hear this voice telling me that everything's gonna be okay. I talk about, I talk about having dreams in which there are eagles flying around in the dream and stuff. All this stuff actually did happen. I wrote it all down, and I I made references to everything.

And somebody pulled criticized me in a review one time saying, obviously, you know, this reference that Richardson makes to a bald eagle, just making it up for the sake of, you know, alliteration or whatever it was. I don't know. But I have the photographs. I have the photographs of everything to prove it. And that and so when I sat down to write the book, I was able to look at the photographs, listen to the recordings that I had made of the way I felt at the time, and and give an accurate rendition.

The remarkable thing is that when Robert Persick did his trip, he didn't have anything like that. And yet he his trip was his description was as accurate as it possibly could be five years after he had actually done the ride. I don't know how he can do that. The guy was a genius. Yeah.

But, you know, people are always going to come up with some sort of BS for the one star review. Right? Because no one would believe all of our similarities, and we've never spoken before ever. For instance, when you had your flat tire in Eureka, I had a flat tire in Eureka. It it was my own doing.

I had destroyed a ADV tire by ripping across the desert way way too quickly. But my experience in Eureka was entirely positive. The guys at, this one powersports place, I I took off my my rear tire and I stood at the door when it opened and I'm like, can you please help me? He's like, come on in and and he found a tire and I was off on my way. But there are so many stories that that people share and, you know, shame on whoever wrote wrote a review for questioning the fact that these things really, really do, do happen.

And when you left, the book leaves off with you down in the bottom of California. Did you ride home? And if you did ride home, can you tell us about that trip? That was actually a better trip. I have I, I have written the story of this trip.

I, I used to write for an outlet called Canada Moto Guide, and I think you can still read it there. I'm not sure. But my if you recall from my book, my bike was crapped out. The suspension had gone. Like, literally, there was no oil in in the spring.

I just had a big spring. It was dangerous. The I had, no clutch, and, my brakes were shot. My tires were shot. Everything was shot, it seemed.

So I was I stayed two or three nights in San Francisco. I actually arrived there on my birthday, on my 40 birthday. Right? That was important. As as I said, you you have a fixed date to do this stuff.

Everything you do in the middle of it is fine. But the trouble is or the thing is that with the trip out the Zen trip out to California, everything I was as I said, I'm following the exact roads and everything. When I came home, I could do my own trip and go anywhere I wanted. And I just had to be home within three weeks or whatever it was that I'd said. So I actually I needed to fix the bike up, so I phoned up Ted Simon.

You know Ted Simon? I do. He lived at the time, he lived just North of San Francisco, couple hundred miles there up in the Round Valley. And, I went and stayed with him for a few days. And we drank a lot of two buck Chuck and, talked all about his books and and stuff.

And I fixed my bike, and I got it running. And everything about my bike was was okay at this point. I had the second bike at home. So, in fact, I got my neighbor who was a mechanic to go into my garage, rip off the, the suspension, the shock absorber. Because you can't just buy these things.

This is I said it was already an old bike. And he took off the shock absorber, sent it to me, took off the clutch, sent it to me, mailed it to me Purolator or whatever, and I put it all on at Ted's place. And then because I'm too cheap, I didn't like to just toss the old one because I figured I might be able to fix it. So I strapped it all to the back of the bike into its own bag together with my tent that I never used, all of this stuff, and sets off. And I went to I went straight to Yosemite, and then I went to Death Valley because I'd always wanted to go to Death Valley.

And this is August, and I'm on an old air cooled dirt bike, which tends to overheat. And I rode into Death Valley, and I remember I get to the first place. I come in from the top, and I just thought, this is dangerous. This is a hundred it showed it was a 20 or something in the shade, right, at the gas station at at Norman. I can't remember the name of the place.

But there was a motel there, and I stayed there that night. I said, I gotta stay here. I remember that I I I parked the bike outside the the office. I went in, said, have you got a room? He said, yes.

How much is it? He said, $60. I said, deal at half the 10 times the price. And I went out, and I couldn't pull the clutch or the or the brake. I couldn't touch them without my gloves on because just sitting under the sun, that was too hot.

But the point is, I went through Death Valley the next morning. I left really, really super early in the morning, so it would be relatively cool. And I went through the lowest point of America at Death Valley. Right? 200 feet below sea level, whatever it is.

And then I get to the other side. I get to Vegas, and I I want to ride back home, but it's really, really hot. It's a 15 in Vegas. It's no fun. And the worst thing is that the bike is no fun to ride because I've got all this weight on the back of it from my shock absorber and my my old shock, my old clutch, all of this stuff, and my tent, and it's just thrown out the whole of the balance.

I got to Saint George, Utah. I had these great plans. I was gonna take the loneliest highway. I was gonna go look for UFOs. I was gonna do all this stuff.

And I got to Saint George, and I was just so hot that I stopped at a welcome center, like welcome to Utah center or whatever it was. And I sat under a tree. And first, I I went into the welcome center. I tried to get in to ask them which was the best route to take after I'd looked at the map. Should I go directly north on the interstate to Salt Lake City, get over, and I would at least be right getting somewhere.

Maybe Denver would be cooler. Or should I take this other route that went through valleys and things off to the east? But the welcome center was closed. They were closed for lunch or something like that. And I'm sitting outside and looking at the map, and I've decided to take the interstate.

And this woman comes up to me, and she says, hello. She says and I said, hello. And she says, are you from, you from Ontario? And, my license plate said Ontario. Right?

And I said, yeah. I'm from Ontario. I was in a grumpy mood. And she says, oh, I'm from Ontario, she says. Yeah.

That's nice. A lot of people from Ontario. And she says, where in Ontario? I said, oh, it's near Toronto. I'm I'm looking at the map.

I don't wanna talk this far. It's near Toronto. And she says, oh, she says, I'm from near Toronto. Where where near Toronto? And I said, well, at the time, I said, well, Milton, Ontario.

Like, go away now. And she said, oh, I'm from Milton, Ontario. And it turned out that she was on a fly drive holiday with her husband around that whole area. They'd rented a car, and they got discounts because their son worked for Air Canada and had discounts for taking stuff back and bags and all of that stuff. I gave her my bag with the heavy suspension and the and the tent and the everything else in it.

And she took it away and, you know, brought it home to Milton where she lived three blocks from where I lived. And I picked it up when I got home a month later. And by the time we'd finished all of this, I went into the welcome center, and they said, oh, yeah. You don't take the interstate. You take this Valley Road.

This is Route 12. This is one of Road and Track's top 10 roads in America. This is the road to Escalante with the Razorback and everything. I had no idea. Oh my god.

Was it a wonderful road? And it was immediately cooler because I raised I went up into the mountains and suddenly, I'm three, four thousand feet higher than I was. It's cool. It's beautiful. The weather's lovely, and my bike is handling gloriously because I've gotten rid of that big heavy weight off the back.

It was fabulous. And then at Escalante, I'm looking at the map and I'm thinking, which direction should I go now? And and I noticed this tiny little bit of red type that says highest road in America. Mount Evans is just West of, West Of Denver. It's actually about a hundred feet higher than Pikes Peak.

And I thought I gotta do that because I just did the lowest road in North America. So I rode my bike all the way to the top of Mount Evans, 14 Thousand 2 Hundred and something feet. It was a beautiful day. I didn't even have to adjust the jets on the carburetor. It got all the way to the top, and I stood on the tippy tippy top of it on on this fifth highest mountain in Colorado, and it was fabulous.

And then I came home. And the thing is that when I came home, I went down and I rode around the the national park that's there. Most of that there's a bunch of parks. I can't remember the name of it. Most of the this particular park was above the tree line.

It was very high. And then I left the park and dropped down down towards the plains. And I knew now that I was on my way home, and I would never be at this height again. Right? I'm dropping down all the way.

But I've got a GPS attached to my handlebar, and it's got an altimeter on it. And I can see that I'm at 10,000 feet and 9,000 feet or whatever. But more than that, I'm looking at my speedometer because I'm a guy. You're a we can understand this. My speed my odometer is about to turn 88,888.8, and I have to see it.

I have to watch it. Right? I have to look at it. So so I get I'm going down this road, and then the odometer turns around to all the eights. And I think, oh, I gotta take a photograph of this.

I pull over the first soon as I can, pull over beside the road. I get out my camera, and I take a picture of the odometer with all the eights. Eight eight eight eight eight. And out of the corner of my eye, I look at the altimeter, and you know what my altitude was? 8,888 feet.

Serendipitous. And I have a photograph of it. I can prove it. Who knew? When when I saw that, eight is a lucky number in Asia.

Right? It's the number. Mhmm. When I saw that, I knew I was gonna get home, and I did. I got home on time.

Nice. You you you said that you went there, the original trip for your 40 birthday, and then there's an Easter egg in your book. It says 42 is the meaning of life. So are you a big sci fi fan? I like Douglas Adams.

Geek would start smiling when you said that. Right? Yeah. I know. I do like Douglas Adams.

I'll give you that. Yeah. You mentioned, Ted Simon. And if you go to the page where I list your book, we have a, motorcycle book club. You'll also see, obviously, Ted Simons' book there, and you'll see that it's signed.

And we had hired, Ted for a private rally in Aspen and then, as a guest speaker, and then COVID struck. Oh. And, you know, he's living in, in France now. So the the best we could do was was have a signed copy for everyone. But, you know, if I if I had the the world's unlimited budget, I I would I would love to fly out there and, and have and have a chat with him.

But, unfortunately, our, our little number two podcast, just just just doesn't cut it. But I, I sent you a sticker. Did you did you get the sticker in your in your in your, package? The sticker? The the ass sticker?

The That because I got a couple of stickers. Okay. So it's important that that you have the sticker. There is a very rare You sent it to me, but it's cut in half. Oh my goodness.

What happened? Someone must have opened the box. Well, I will send you another one. Okay. I will send you another one because this is our limited production certified badass sticker.

And the fact that you did this writing and, you know, you've been to the lowest place and the highest place in America and you've and you've ridden across the country, we wanna present you with a, ADV cannonball certified badass sticker, and I will send you another one. And can I stick it on my KLR? Of of course. Only a badass would have a clipper that he crushes miles on. This is this is really important.

And we're, unfortunately, we're we're overtime, but I always ask, Ox, there's one very important question. And what is your feeling on the Oxford comma? This is a very important question. I love the Oxford comma. You would love me too.

And no one believes me why it's important to me. I love the Oxford comma, because it's so clear. It's so obvious as to what you're trying to say. And the publication that I write for, Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, it does not use the Oxford comma. And so every time they take out my Oxford commas Mhmm.

And every time I give them something, I include the Oxford commas, hoping that one of them might just be able to make it through, might skip past the copy editor. But, no, I love them. I think they're great. Alright. Well, we're definitely gonna publish this then because we're in agreement.

If if if if you said no, I might have hit delete. Well, well, thank you so much for speaking with me and, putting up with, me. I'm not the the velvety tones of the, the the the normal host, but, I think we've slogged through it. So thanks very much for spending some time with me. It was no slog at all.

I enjoyed it. Thanks, Eric. Okay. Thank you, sir. Welcome to Colombia.

Colombia is home to some of the best adventure motorcycle riding in the world. Three Andean mountain ranges, stunning biodiversity, rich cultures, and roads that will leave you speechless. Imagine riding through lush coffee farms, past streaming natural hot springs, towering 200 foot wax palm trees, and into the high altitude Paramos, otherworldly landscapes that can only be found here in Colombia. With no seasons, only altitudes, you can ride from cool mountain air to the hot, humid tropical lowlands in a single day. At Columbia Motorcycle Rental and Tour Co, we take care of everything.

Whether you're looking for an all inclusive experience, a guided tour, or the freedom of a self guided route, we've got you covered. All you have to do is ride. The Colombian Andes are calling. Are you ready? Visit columbiamotorcycletour.com and start your adventure today.

And we are back. Great interview, Aaron. Yeah. He's a pro. He definitely, he definitely carried the interview.

And, again, he's great. Yeah. I mean, he is a pro, and he did I wouldn't say he necessarily cared the interview. I think that he he worked well in terms of the, work well. He he responded well because you you obviously did your homework.

You read the books. You read his book. You had intelligent questions to ask him about his book in terms of I thought it was pretty it was thought it was pretty brazen of you to be like, here's what I think your book you know, it's it's like, here's what your book means to me, and you weren't so far off track. I thought it was really interesting when he explained like, he said his his book was sort of a threefold for threefold. He said, one, it was a story of his own trip as he had retraced the the, the the route that had originally be done been done by Robert Persick when he did that in his son with his son in 1968.

I have to say '68 was a great year. Point number two, the, it was a biography on Robert Persing, and that had never been really done before. I hadn't collected all that. And then the third thing, which I thought was really on point with what you said is that it was the introduction or it's a primer to the reading, the art of the motor Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance because it isn't a book about a motorcycle trip. Partly it is, but it's really about it's it's a philosophical perspective of different different comparing different aspects of that.

So you're the deeper thinker here. No. I I think you make a great great point. More to the point about the the biography is that no one had ever done it, and it was an amazing amount of work to you know, it must have taken them years to track all those people down, reach out to them. And the result of having that biography in Zen and now is that it helps a layman like me better understand Zen and the art, which you're just better to equipped to approach, a book like that.

So I think there's a lot of benefits to, reading Zen in the art. Sorry. Yeah. Zen. And now before reading Zen in the air.

Yeah. I think I'd like, I never got through the, the I think I got two chapters in. I was like, what is what is going on here, man? I'm not getting this. So I just put it down.

But I think if I I go the other route, just like you just recommended and and take this one on first, do, Zen and Now first by Mark Richardson, and then go back and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Robert Persick. I think then I might have an a deeper appreciation for for both books. Yeah. For sure. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a link in the in the show notes.

I was about to say field notes. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes of an article that Mark Richardson wrote for Canada Moto Guide, and it's great. So my prescription is go read Zen now. And then after that, take a look at this article that he, published in a Canadian magazine, and it has a bunch of great pictures, and it puts a button in the whole trip. So he does this, this pilgrimage on the Zen route, and he ends up in, San Diego and then his bike's broken down and then he, he heads back and he stops at Ted Simons, you know, commune in California.

He repairs his bike. He meets some people that are from Toronto. And then he, you know, goes through the national park and then he finally gets home. And he writes about all this in this article, which is which is quite short, but it's, it's a great as a motorcyclist, it's a great cap on the trip. Because we always wonder, Ed, did he make it home?

And what happened with the motorcycle? And, you know, tell me more about the trip. So it's a great, finisher for that book. Cool. And he does still own that motorcycle as you said in the interview.

Yeah. Jackie knew. Yeah. He still got it, which which is crazy, by the way. Can you imagine doing a trip like that on a old d r six fifty across the country?

Like, we're so spoiled with our big GSs and your Tenere. Me even thinking about riding across the country on a tenoray, you know, gives me gives me hives. But, you know, we're just we're just so spoiled with our great big adventure machines. Right? Yeah.

Fair enough. So you did just mention here that there's a great photo of Mark and Ted Simon. And I'm just curious to know if there's a possibility in the future that we might get a picture of you and Ted Simon. Yeah. So I was inspired by by this story, and I saw the picture.

You know, partially, I was like, yeah. Sure. You went to Ted Simons when when I'm interviewing. And I saw the thing and I'm like, everything he said was factual, not embellished because, you know, authors have a a way of adding a little flare to their stories. And everything was dead to factual.

I'll say, you know, this is too much because we had worked with Ted Simon, on a private rally in Aspen, and he's on the motorcycle book club page. I thought, you know what? This is too much of a coincidence. So I reached out to Ted, and I said, hey. Remember me?

The guy from Aspen. And and I said, you know, I know your birthday is coming up. And would you mind if I come interview you? Because I feel like, you know, I'm not mister spiritual at all. But it was just too much happenstance that all these threads were coming together and all roads led to Ted Simons.

So Ted Simons said, come on. I'm in the South Of France. So next thing you know, I may have had a few IPAs, but I did book my ticket. I'm on my way to Ted Simon's place for his birthday on May 1, and we'll have a little conversation about his, his, book Jupiter's Travels. Yeah.

Very cool. So indeed, there I do expect to have a picture. Everyone listening expects to have a picture of you as well. So alright. Good.

And, also, as you mentioned before, in the communications with Ted Simon, he actually has another sort of writer's commune as well where people kinda drop in and he helps them write. So he kinda has that still going on. You know, there's always so much conversation. Right? So if you read Jupiter's Travels, he's actually an amazing writer.

And that's my problem is even reading Zen and Now and talking to that author and reading Jupiter travel. I've read it, I don't know, three, four times. Half the time, I'm just yelling at myself in my internal monologue is, like, these guys are really good writers and just happen to be writing about something that I'm interested in, which is adventure travel. And half the time, I'm like, I can do this. I can write a book.

I have a great stories and I just don't do the work. So I have so much admiration for these authors for doing the hard work, putting pen to paper, and then editing and publishing. So, so yeah, I always have that that internal conflict when I read something as great as Zen and Now or, Jupiter's Travels. Yes. The same thing if we reflect back to the, the interview that I did with Jordan Gibbons in London, and he's like, I don't even I don't know if that was in the I'm not sure if that'll be you know, there's always conversation inside and outside of what's recorded.

And I I think he actually captured that in the recording, and he said, you know, I'm just it was a, it was a it was I'm glad it's done, and it was a labor of love, but it was really hard to finish it. Yeah. It's a lot of work for sure. And more to the point, talking about this article in Canada moto guide. So I started a new Google doc as we always do.

We have a hundred of Google docs running, but I started a new one about my journey of talking to mark, booking my flight. And then I have a bunch of other interviews and activities lined up in Great Britain and in South Of Spain, South Of France. So I'm going to write a little bit of an article, and I'm for sure gonna bother someone like Mark if he can help me publish it. So, I'm gonna get off my fat ass. I'm gonna put pen to paper, and I'm gonna make a commitment here today to, get something published.

I'm I'm sure no one will pay me for it, but, perhaps it'll be my my first foray into getting something published. Yeah, man. Go with it. Why not? Right?

What the hell? Yeah. Alright. Is there any rally news that you have to share? Yep.

So I sent out an important newsletter to the twenty twenty five competitors, and this is only for the people that are registered. And we have set up the official rally notice page, and that has a password so that's password protected. In that newsletter there is instructions for the final payment for twenty twenty five competitors. We still have five hotel rooms available but I thought we got some feedback from March Moto Madness that people are asking where is the final payment, how do we do that. So I went ahead and sent that out for everyone.

In that email, there's the spot wallet tracking information. And what else we got here? And I also want to mention that the physical awards for the twenty twenty five ADV cannonball rally will be mailed to you after the rally. I don't want everyone taking around a 35 pound chunk of glass in your motorcycle, which is kinda silly. So I will mail those to everyone because we have some questions about that.

And I also last last thing. Sorry for rambling, Taylor. I want to mention that in the password protected rally notice page, we're going to include all the competitors' basic contact information, like phone number and email address. It's a rally tradition. I've had a bunch of competitors ask.

I noticed that there's someone in Georgia, and I'm in Georgia, and I want to reach out. Maybe we could ride together to the start of the rally or or ride home or help, you know, get each other's bikes prepared and just be part of that rally community. So I'm gonna go ahead. If there's no objections in the next few days, I'll go ahead and put everyone's contact information so we can have a little more of a have a, community preparation for the rally. That's really great.

I think about when we did the Alcan five thousand, and that information was sent around. And there was so much information that was shared in that. And as you said, it's a community. And whenever I talk to people, whenever I chat with people who are put their information up on the Facebook site and say, hey. You know, I've joined this group and it's always like, welcome to the community because that's truly what's being built here.

So I'm really happy to be part of it. Yeah. So already, there was one gentleman that I'm in touch with quite a bit, and he was at March mode of madness. And there were two other cannonballers there, and they were all talking about it. And then there's a gentleman who's going to pre ride, day one.

And there's someone else that, oh, I'll go with you. And then I had some requests of of that person as well to check out some some intel that I had. And so yeah. So everyone's getting together. Everyone's riding together.

It was preparing together. Everyone, there are smaller groups after the ride that are gonna ride home together. So, yeah, it's gonna be a a good whole summer of, community rallying. Nice. That sounds like fun.

I'm looking forward to riding in, in LA, in the, the national forest out in LA as well after at the end of the rally. Yeah. For sure. LA is so rich with riding. There's there's proper, you know, holy ground for riding roots.

There is, you know, rights of passage for places that go like Neptune's Net and the rock shop and Josie's hideout, and we could go on forever. But you could spend days in LA just having some of the best riding of your life. So I'm looking forward to having you there, and I'm looking fair to I'm looking forward to carving up some canyons there as well. Nice. And, and as a rite of passage, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if we can just skip the four zero five.

For sure. We'll go to the bike shed. We'll shotgun a few beers. The next day, we'll go up and tear tear up some canyons. How about that?

That sounds great to me. Awesome. Alright. Well, I guess that's it. And, unless you have anything else, Taylor?

That is it. Another another fun episode. Great. I just wanna say thanks for editing the the field notes. Again, apologies to my my writing opinions for not getting your your your information in the beginning.

And, and to you, I think it was a great interview. Look forward to the next one. Alright, Taylor. Alright. Roll the outro.

Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a five star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods. You can buy us a coffee on buymecoffee.com/advcannonball.

Or directly help save this sinking ship for the price of a pint at patreon.com/advcannonball. Follow us on all the socials with the handle at adv cannonball. If you'd like to send us a question or comment for the air, or if you are a musical artist and want your royalty free music played on our podcast, or if you'd like to contact us for advertising opportunities, email us at podcast@advcannonball.com. Thanks for listening. And remember, don't be an ADV weenie.

Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks.