Alcan 5000 Summer Rally Special & ADV Cannonball Rally News

In this episode, we have an exciting conversation with Crankshaft Culture about their remarkable achievement in winning the SOP category in this year’s Alcan 5000 Rally. 

More info on the 2025 Alcan 5000 Summer Rally in Andy's article on Gear Junky and OVR.

Additionally, we delve into Martin’s exciting BMW Airhead entry into the 2025 Alcan 5000 Summer Rally.

Chapters

• 3:20 Intro Chat
• 11:11 Crankshaft Culture and Honda in the Alcan 5000 Rally
• 53:43 Martin and his BMW Airhead entry - Alcan 5000 Rally
• 1:31:33 ADV Rally News
• 1:32:54 Music - Death B4 DNF

Transcript

SPEAKER_11: 0:06

Here comes Spockle Claus, here comes Spockleclaus, right down that green lane.

SPEAKER_02: 0:12

He's got panniers stuffed with gadgets for your adventure campaign. Crash bark back to the grip. New LED's deadline.

SPEAKER_11: 0:25

And every case DM gets fresh all colours, they'll be like four and juice. Oh, it's sparkles, too, sparkles, too, shiny beer everywhere. It's your star, but the cards are there. Subscribe clubs, test that light tape. Wild snowfalls on the plane. Here come sparkle claws, here come sparkle claws, write down that green lane. Here come sparkle claws, here come sparkle claws, write down that green lane.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05

Here come sparkle claws, here come sparkle claws, flipping through the snow. All the bikes are tucked in bed, sad they can't go, go, go!

SPEAKER_11: 1:17

Snow riders binge on YouTube bits of dusty summer rides. And spend long nights on forums arguing which tiger actually slides. Oh, it's sparkles, teeth, and sparkles, teeth, and all night, all so bright. Everything from it to the night to the night. Oh boy, the trees keep burning warm. Till we ride again. Here comes sparkle boss, here comes sparkle boss, write down that tree like he's got Two Rolls of Test for Plut. And if you ride a Harley Pan L, well, he brought a toe truck. KTL gets toil again, cause it leaks just like champagne. Here comes Sparkle Boss, here comes Sparkle Boss. Write down that replay and sparkle steeds and sparkles teams and happy holiday cheer is overloaded with gear for your year. So the fall will come again and we'll blast down trails and day. Here comes sparkle pause, here comes spark applause. Right down that greenway.

SPEAKER_08: 3:02

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball Podcast, where we discussed all things on two wheels, the adventure by cannonball, and other motorcycle-related nonsense.

SPEAKER_05: 3:25

Welcome to Adventure Cannonball Podcast. I am your host, Taylor Lawson, and today I am joined by a wild adventurer who is taking his life into his own hands, and he is driving his blue whale from the Pacific Northwestwest to Palm Beach. He is better known to you as my good friend, Aaron Puffall. Aaron, welcome to the show. Yeah, I know. I spent all day practicing that for that one moment. And then it's like the crescendo.

SPEAKER_07: 4:02

The crescendo of chest driving his car. Not very exciting.

SPEAKER_05: 4:09

Yeah. So um, so first of all, before we jump, I want to ask you about that. But um, what are you where are you and what are you drinking?

SPEAKER_07: 4:16

Uh I'm at headquarters here, and I got me uh uh a Washington brewery it's a new Belgium, it's uh Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA.

SPEAKER_05: 4:28

Very nice. I have to say that we're gonna have to um we're gonna have to make this a quick show because I've got this big uh tumbler and I filled it with ice and I filled it just over halfway with gosling's dark rum. And I put a couple of limes in there, and then I poured a little bit of ginger beer on the top just so it didn't seem like tall, full glass of rum. So having said that, considering the fact that we had a bit of preamble, I'm about a third of the way through that, which means that we probably ought to get this going so that I can actually make it through the whole podcast. What do you say?

SPEAKER_07: 5:03

I listen, I haven't had a darkened storm right in years, but I remember on the boat, used to always get a tumber glass, fill it full of ice, or just just right to the top, and then get that dark rum, either goslings or a good Cuban spice rum until the ice is just floating and just knock the edge off of it with some good, high quality, really, really strong uh um ginger beer and you know, skip the fruit because that's just too much work after about five of them. But yeah, I really, I really miss those guys.

SPEAKER_05: 5:36

I'll have one after this one in your honor, but of course we'll be done recording by then, so there'll be no embarrassment.

SPEAKER_07: 5:42

Yeah, and dear listener, please uh open your drink. And and yes, Taylor's right. I am hopping in the the big blue whale again. And uh the wife and I and my retarded dog, we're gonna head down to uh down to Florida with the uh Hey Aaron, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 5:58

Hey Aaron, what's your dog's name?

SPEAKER_07: 6:00

It's it's Taylor. I lost a bet. I had to rename the dog Taylor. I haven't told anyone yet. He doesn't respond to it, but in the spirit of the j the of the wager, his his name is being changed.

SPEAKER_05: 6:14

In the spirit of the wager, yeah. But you know, every time I talk to you and he's like not responding, or you're yelling at him, then it's like it's like you know, explicative, explicative Taylor. Could you please explicit explicit off the explicative explicit?

SPEAKER_03: 6:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 6:28

Like that's the only time I've actually heard his you know a use.

SPEAKER_06: 6:30

It's like totally in vain.

SPEAKER_07: 6:32

It's uh listen, it's a lot. He's a lot. Listen, I'm a lot, you know, it's all good. But fair enough. There's some really important news that I'm not sure what happened to our nomination, but the Golden Globes have uh introduced a category for podcasting. And I checked the list like three times and we're not on there. So I'm not sure, you know, what's happened with the technical aspect of that. Did they lose it, you think? Maybe I'm not sure, but I keep checking, but we're not we're not nominated.

SPEAKER_05: 6:59

Yeah, I hear you. Um, well, you know, there's still time. What can I say? Because it doesn't take long for people to recognize the quality of number two.

SPEAKER_07: 7:08

That's listen, yeah, quality number two here. And you're just a real, you know, there's a lot of things. At least it should be a nomination, right? You know.

SPEAKER_06: 7:15

I tell you what, I've nominated a few quality number twos before, but you know, not as good as for globe, not for globe.

unknown: 7:21

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05: 7:22

Hey, I want to do a uh I want to shout out to Ingvar of Twin Pegs. I met Ingvar at uh Scoog last year. Skoog means forest in Swedish. And uh I met him down there when we had the uh two coldest days of May on record. And um anyway, we went and we uh we rode bikes, ended up in this group, and actually I got twin pegs on my bike then because I was absolutely sold on those. And then you ended up getting a pair on your bike that Robert left behind after doing the ADV Cannonball 2025.

SPEAKER_07: 7:51

Yeah, the best kind of Farco level ever, which is someone else bought it and then they installed it and I inherited it. That's the best way modification should be done to everyone's motorcycle.

SPEAKER_05: 8:00

Yeah, and I can't wait to inherit your motorcycle for that very reason. So thank you for that in advance.

unknown: 8:04

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 8:06

Hey, but I did want to say that I did have a chat with him today. He um he did do romaniacs, uh, and you know, for someone who's hasn't been riding motorcycles their whole life, I gotta hand it to Ingvar. He just he just went out, he did Romaniacs. It's named Romaniacs for a reason. He went out there, he ended up injuring his knee. I'm glad he didn't have to go under the knife and that just doing a good solid workout has gotten him back into repair. But he did in his chat today, uh he did offer us a place to stay in Norway, which is near the Farin Crossing into Denmark. And he also offered to do some scout riding for 2027 Europe. What do you say to that?

SPEAKER_07: 8:45

Yeah, that's awesome. Because especially I'll have the big GSA there, and I'm sure it'll have street tires on it or something akin to street tires, anyways. And um, even in Denmark, a lot of the 2027 Europe route, it's really sandy there. It actually goes onto the beach, which is really it's really cool. It's really special. But if I could talk someone like him into running parallel with me and running the off-road sections on a lighter, like a T7 or something, and then I can do the backbone GPX route and we just meet at the at the pub at the end of the day, you know, that would be really awesome. So any any kind of help like that, especially someone with the resume of of uh doing hard enduro is probably overkill for for our rally, but uh yeah, any kind of help would be welcome for sure.

SPEAKER_05: 9:33

Very cool. All right, well, shout out. I'll touch with I'll touch base with Ingvar and see what he has to say. I'm sure after this drops, we'll probably get a call.

SPEAKER_07: 9:40

Yeah. Um and then I um I wanted to mention on some motorcycle news in the US, you and I, after the last cannonball rally, we did some riding, and I took you um I took you through the Mulholland area and it ended at the rock shop. And I just saw on YouTube I was watching a thrashing supply, and they reopened what's called the Mulholland Snake. So that's just on the other side of the rock shop where we stopped and turned around and went back to the hotel. Yeah. So that's open again. So it was closed for something like three years, and it's quite famous for all the crashing and and um things like that and all the shenanigans, but it's reopened. So it's it's really exciting that the Mulholland Sake uh in California is reopened again. Is it paved or is it dirt? What is it? Yeah, it's paved. It's the Mulholland highways um essentially, and they closed it. I don't remember why they closed it. Maybe it was like a landslide or something, but anyways, it's it's reopened. So everyone on on a Saturday afternoon, when they're going down to the rock shop and then going over to Neptune's Net and all those places, now they can use that stretch of road again, which is really important ground for uh for street riding.

SPEAKER_05: 10:48

Cool to know that there is more routing to be done in California. And uh next time we're out there, we'll have to hit that for sure. And we'll have to hit the rock shop when it's open. No comment. No comment. Planner. And uh and with that, let's uh let's roll the interview with Andy Mercedes, who just finished the summer Alcan 5000 rally.

SPEAKER_07: 11:14

Andy and Mercedes, welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04: 11:16

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 11:17

Thanks so much for having us.

SPEAKER_07: 11:18

It was season three, episode 13, and we talked about the Trans American Trail. And I encourage everyone to go take a listen to that. It was a fantastic look into uh the Trans American Trail, and it uh it helped a lot of adventure riders because everyone thinks they can knock it out in a week. But uh, how how long did that take you guys again?

SPEAKER_00: 11:38

29 days and 317 hours and five minutes of actual driving.

SPEAKER_07: 11:43

Wow. So listeners can definitely tell that these folks uh are not uh new to the industry and they actually crush the miles. But today we're here to talk about the Alcan 5000. And Andy, you just finished with Mercedes the summer rally. Maybe you can tell us when it started and the route it took this year.

SPEAKER_04: 12:02

Yeah, so the Alcan 5000 summer rally started in early September. I believe it was September 1st and started in Kirkland, Washington, which is uh the home of Costco. And also uh Seattle. So uh from there it went north, and we went as far north as the Arctic Circle in Yukon territories. Uh also dipped down into uh Alaska. You don't get to say down to Alaska very often. And uh that included going to Valdez and Fairbanks, and then uh finished in Williams Lake, British Columbia, and in southern British Columbia.

SPEAKER_07: 12:38

Yeah, that's fantastic. When you and I did the uh Alcant together in the winter rally, we also went down the Valdez and uh I have some video up. That was an amazing pass, and we got snowed in. Uh, what were the weather conditions, Mercedes, with your um attempt at the Valdez pass this year in the summer?

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

Yeah, it was interesting. Uh winter was a blizzard and Thompson Pass was shut down both ways, both directions. And in the summer was a lot of fog and driving rain. Uh it was insane. We just got done with uh was it Telegraph Creek, I think, right beforehand, right? And um well, wherever we were, we had tons of mud uh and dirt that was caked onto the Honda. And I remember going over Thompson Pass trying to see something because of course in 2024 winter, when we were driving a different vehicle, we couldn't see a thing. We still couldn't really see a thing. Uh a couple of waterfalls and whatnot. It was still beautiful, but it was so socked in um that I remember sheets of mud coming off of the rear uh windscreen. It was quite, quite spectacular.

SPEAKER_07: 13:36

And what on earth motivated you uh to do this again? This is your third time, I believe. So what motivated you to do a summer rally again?

SPEAKER_04: 13:45

Yeah, this was actually our fourth uh rally, second summer, fourth Alcan 5000. We just love the camaraderie, the scenery, the challenge, uh, you know, everything about it. It uh even after doing our first one in 2020, which was a winter rally where we went all the way to the Arctic Ocean in a diesel vehicle, and um uh it was just it immediately just got into our blood, this idea of all these things that you get to see, and it's really when you get that far north in the winter, it's quite alien. And and there are things you can't do in the in the lower mainland that like the ice roads and and some of this stuff, you know, driving across uh some of the rivers as part of the route. But uh, it immediately just got into our blood. We're like when they passed around the sign-up sheet for 2022, we didn't even it wasn't even uh hey should you think we should do this? It was like we're totally signing up. There's like no question. We I don't even know if we even discussed it. We're like, yeah, we'll sign up.

SPEAKER_07: 14:42

And uh you have a history of using some interesting vehicles. You originally did it in the tractor, which I think is awesome, but this year you did it in the Honda passport. You know, this is a new vehicle to new platform, and you really put it to the test. What was the motivation for taking the Honda on such a untested uh route?

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

You know, we I actually have a history with uh competing with Honda a couple years ago when the um the Trailsport series came out. Uh it was, I think it was in 2023, I did the Rebel Rally with the pilot trail sport, which is their three-row uh seven passenger. Um and it was a really, really great platform, especially off-road. And so when we thought of what vehicle can we do, we looked at the 2026 Passport Trail Sport because it had just launched. Andy went to the launch overseas. Uh, you could talk about or not overseas, um over uh Puerto Rico. That he did that. We he could talk about that in just a second, but uh we thought, you know what, we should talk to Honda, see what has changed with the Trail Sport series, and see if there's something that we can do to test it in a different and extreme way. And they said yes.

SPEAKER_07: 15:49

So I keep saying passport, but I should be saying trail sport, is that correct?

SPEAKER_04: 15:53

Yeah, they make a non-trail sport passport that doesn't have the factory uh general all train tires and and some of the other uh accoutrements. So uh yeah, it's the passport trailsport, and technically we were in a passport trailsport elite, which is the the upper trim level that has the leather seats and as opposed to cloth and a few of the other niceties that were quite good on the uh on the Alcan 5000.

SPEAKER_07: 16:17

Jerry keeps telling everyone, he is the the rally master, he he keeps telling everyone, leave your vehicle stock, it's gonna be just fine. So, what kind of modifications did you do to the Honda?

SPEAKER_04: 16:27

Very, very few. The only actual modification that came outside of uh the Honda catalog was a Rally Innovations prototype light bar. We partnered with them. They're located in Anaheim, California, and they uh created a one-of-a-kind light bar to mount for Baja Design squadron lights on, and then we also replaced the fog lights with uh Baja Designs uh fogs. Uh that was their squadron sports. So, other than that, everything on the car came from the Honda Aftermarket catalog. That includes the optional rock sliders, the uh roof rack platform, the interior spare tire carrier, uh the LED light on the back, and uh the MOLLE panels in the rear for uh for better storage option or more storage options. Other than that, it was it was bone-stock.

SPEAKER_07: 17:19

And the big question is the grand reveal, did you have any problems and did it make it?

SPEAKER_04: 17:24

We had no problems, not a single flat tire. And uh yes, we made it. Uh, we actually took first in our class that's a uh repeat for the 2S class, and then uh we took a second place overall too, which was uh which was wild.

SPEAKER_07: 17:38

Uh maybe Mercedes, you could tell us which class you entered and what that entails as the navigator.

SPEAKER_00: 17:44

Yeah, so uh there are different classes with the Alcan 5000 rally, as there are typically with other different time speed distance rallies. So there is the unlimited class, which is basically anything can go, any rally computer, any rally app, any you know what type of system that you want to run, go ahead, bring it, use it. And then there's what is called the SOP or S class, and that is seat of pants, which essentially is you're flying by the seat of your pants. It's kind of that's how uh the the nomenclature came to be. So that can be uh simple equipment, your stochodometer. Uh we use a kitchen timer and a kids calculator from Amazon. Um we do long form mathematical equations to figure out the incremental times that you're supposed to arrive to every specific checkpoint. Um and that's how we roll. Uh there's also historical classes and with the Alcan 5000 rally, one S or one U, for instance, is unlimited. So one, the num the number for number one would be for passenger cars or or autos or things like that. Two, so if it's two U or two S, so on and so forth, would be trucks and SUV. And of course, that's how we entered was two S. We've run two S every single time. Every year. Oh, yeah, right, of course. We were gonna do 2S, but then with a Pajero, they asked us to be uh the tribute vehicle for the late uh great land legendary uh Rod Hall because he had just passed a few months earlier.

SPEAKER_07: 19:08

You probably won't say this, but I think it's highly unusual to take second overall in your class. Is that the highest that um a manual calculation class has placed?

SPEAKER_04: 19:18

I'm not sure historically, but it was this year. Uh first was uh an unlimited class, uh second was us, and then third was also unlimited. So this year was a little different. We had a lot of new uh new entries, a lot of people who had never done this before, or maybe people who had only done it one or one or twice once or twice before. So you didn't have some of these people who have been doing this for you know, twenty years. So we at four uh Alcan five thousands were one of the veteran classes uh uh teams. And so uh I I think we had probably the second most experience of anybody there, and then the one uh uh excuse me, the two you who won the overall, Peter Schneider and and uh uh Richard, I believe his name was, uh his co-driver, they took uh I'm sorry, his driver, they took first overall, and they have decades of experience. So um it was a pretty green class overall, but uh what was in what was really impressive was some of these new teams and this blows our mind every time we do one of these TSDs a person that has never done this before and they just get the math behind it. This other team they had uh they're from Texas they had uh a uh Ford Maverick front wheel drive hybrid and we were looking at the scores we're like wow they must they must they're they're like right on our tail they must be real experienced and they're like no we've never done this before I'm like how is that possible so uh but they were great actually everybody was great a real hungry group of people they they were all super enthusiastic and had great questions and some of them did really really well for their first time it's great to see new blood entering the sport.

SPEAKER_07: 20:58

Yeah I find with these rallies about half the field is there just for the adventure portion and then half the field is there to try to place really well and are really into the geekiness and the driving skill of the TSD portion. And then I always wear that hat until I make a mistake. I've always had the frustration with some of the TSD rallies there's these little tricks and Easter eggs and I've always griped about that.

SPEAKER_00: 21:23

Was there any uh tricks up uh the rally master sleeve for this year that you guys caught and maybe other people didn't uh I don't know if we'd say any tricks, but um you know with it being a newer field of people and people asking questions and and wanting to learn uh I, you know uh Peter was him and his team um were helping people we were helping people and kind of mentoring people and and we were the first people to say hey don't do this or the Alcan runs this way because checkpoints don't reset to a perfect zero. You know if you're seven seconds late you're still seven seconds late if you go through a checkpoint. And we ran two Alcans before and we never knew that. Our local rally club here does it that way but most others don't. So we tried to help whoever we could whenever we could and so it was a great helpful mentoring kind of atmosphere. That being said is there were a couple of uh instances where you know timing was off or the rally book was was not correct or things like that and people had to shift very quickly on the fly to figure out okay was that my error was it not how how do we fix it? And so as we went through that we did our best all of us collectively as veterans or as newcomers to mitigate those types of instances and still have fun while doing it.

SPEAKER_07: 22:35

Yeah there is a lot of work that goes into a rally and especially a TSD rally I'm looking forward to doing another TSD rally and you're absolutely right when something goes amiss for instance there was a local time issue uh one day and the Richter rally computer said you are you know 60 off and like we kind of paused but now I know just keep going stick with the math in our case work you use our rally computers and just ignore that because they will adjust it later.

SPEAKER_04: 23:05

But as a newcomer you're like you hit the brakes and you're like oh my God something has has gone wrong but that's really great of you guys to uh mentor uh these people what other kinds of cars and motorcycles uh really caught your eye this year oh there was a it's always kind of a a feast for the eyes if you're a uh a gear head so our friends Lance and his driver they were in a Volvo uh V70R which was uh not very high off the ground so uh but they did great they took third overall uh yeah they did great uh there was a I think it was an 86 Audi 4000 quattro that was an interesting choice uh there was a a raptor uh they did they did well and then the guys from Texas were in a front drive uh raptor I'm sorry front drive uh maverick on highway tires those guys were awesome they got three flats uh uh they had two spares with them and then they had to patch one of their uh or plug one of their tires and our friends uh uh Shane and John were in their were in their Jeep our friends Jesse and uh Debbie were in a uh jeep Grand Cherokee so there was a little bit of everything some of the bikes were also fantastic our uh one of our friends he uh he was on one of our he was on our uh our our awards team if you will uh he had Martin he had Martin Walker he had a BMW uh uh motorcycle and he had put a larger I believe thousandcc engine in it but it looked like a almost like a little dirt bike it was incredible and uh he's probably six four he's big guy too so uh but yeah no it's always interesting to see uh the vehicles that get entered and uh Martin actually is coming on the podcast right after you uh he he's uh nice enough to talk with us and I'm sending him some equipment so it'll be nice to see hear the uh ADV perspective on this and I've noticed you have some great vehicles in your driveway I watch follow you on social media do you have any plans in the future on bringing some quirky vehicles besides being spoiled in the luxury of the Honda? Well you never know the uh the Pajero our 991 1991 Mitsubishi Pajero diesel is ready to go at any point it could use about 200 more horsepower but um it it would get the job done there would probably be some late nights uh just because you know it uh it's happiest around 60 miles an hour 100 kilometers an hour.

SPEAKER_00: 25:32

You never know with us though I mean we had visions a couple years ago we were talking about can we lift our Yaris? We had a 2007 right a to Yaris that we had for many years and it's a little uh lift back right so it was uh the hatchback and we thought oh you know I don't know what we're gonna do for storage. We're gonna put the you know spare tire on the roof we're gonna hang you know get five gallons of gas on the hood because we have no more no more room to put anything but for us we always think outside the box whether it's a new vehicle and partnering with a manufacturer such as Honda uh and then aftermarket partners like uh rally innovations in Baja Designs or if we bring something quirky so stay tuned.

SPEAKER_07: 26:08

Yeah I was really jealous to hear you got those uh Baja Design lights because uh I'm definitely a fan of those. And you know I plan on doing the winter rally uh coming up. I'm not sure exactly what vehicle or what team I'll I'll be with but I'm excited to do some podcasting on site. We just finished our rally and we got a lot of feedback from listeners saying they really liked our segment called Field Notes, which is I just yammer in the middle of the night into a microphone, but they really wanted a daily podcast. So we will definitely um you know chat with you and other rally goers on the next winter rally. I just don't have it in me to do a summer rally the the bugs aren't for me and the gravel and the washboarding uh really isn't for me. Maybe Andy you could talk about the actual road conditions as you got further north because there's a lot of you know scuttle butt as to what the road conditions actually are. Maybe you can shed some light on that.

SPEAKER_04: 27:03

Interesting thing is as you've done the winter rally um the roads are actually worse in the summer because the potholes get filled in with snow and ice uh there's you know the the roads are grooved for for traction yes it's very cold and can be slippery but the ride is better in the summer especially when you get up towards the Yukon territories uh Yukon territory um near Alaska that Alaska Highway by the border of Alaska and the Yukon territory is terrible it's got we have jokingly for years called it the Frostheave Highway because there are these rollers and I mean it feels like you're almost leaving the ground every time you hit one and then there are moon sized craters. Oh yeah there was a section and I think this was still it was either southern Yukon Territory or northern British Columbia and it said there was a sign that said broken pavement. There was a sign right slow down and this guy he was in like a uh GMC Yukon or something and he was towing a uh a speed boat and he went he went around us and we slowed down and he hit this so hard his boat trailer left the ground and I mean and I'm talking like six inches off the ground I'm not talking like you could just see a little daylight. It went flying and he came back down and then he pulled over at the next pull off and we went past him and our friends Jesse and Debbie behind us they said did you see that we said what and he says his leaf springs were broken so when he hit that it it ruined the suspension on his boat trailer in the middle of nowhere so I'm not sure what would have happened there but it was uh it there was some real bad spots and we did the Dempster of course also uh from Dawson City up to uh the outside of Dawson City up to the Arctic Circle and we had never done that in the summer and that was uh that was uh hairy, dirty dusty pothole strewn and flats lots of people had flats and including we ran across a uh a an RV of German tourists and they had uh uh a rented RV duly set up in the rear we pulled up and I you know because you stop that's the rule of the road up there you stop and help people and I stopped and I said you guys okay and he said I I don't speak your language and Mercedes says what language and he he says it's German and somebody over here to my left speaks fluent German so these these guys were were great and I'll tell you what they couldn't have been luckier to be honest and I'm not tooting my own horn but up there we had a translator Mercedes I had a tire patch kit another guy had the compressor we had a small army of people that were willing to pull off both of those they had dual flat so both tires on that dually were were blown out. So we had one guy jacking this thing up we had another guy taking the tire off I plugged the tire had to do two plugs on it and they asked Mercedes you know how much this cost.

SPEAKER_00: 30:00

Yeah they actually wanted to pay us and I said no no no no payment you know and and of course I'm saying all of this in German to my best German uh ability and they were just shocked that an American knew how to speak German. But uh that being said is they kept on insisting and then Andy what did you say? I said that I had a beer in Deutschland.

SPEAKER_04: 30:18

Absolutely so a beer in Germany.

SPEAKER_00: 30:20

Yeah a beer in Germany and then they went oh my god they started laughing but we exchanged WhatsApp information and then uh the one gentleman did message me and said uh we did get back down to uh the next town and they were waiting for tire place and and whatnot and sent a couple of photos afterwards so they were extremely grateful.

SPEAKER_04: 30:39

And that was only one of the flat tires on the dempster I mean there was at least two more that we're aware of and we ran across uh uh a young man and his uh his girlfriend they were heading from Anuvik down to I think Whitehorse to get away from the cold to get away from the cold they were stopped and I just said hey are you guys and he says I don't suppose you know anything about Toyota Tacomas I said well what you got and he they had some sort of break error and it wouldn't start and so we just started going through the fuse box and John our friend John in in the Jeep noticed that uh there was a fuse that said break. So he pulled that fuse and it was blown and it started right up. So you you help people in those areas.

SPEAKER_00: 31:18

And you kind of have to MacGyver your way through with what you have and who might be nearby.

SPEAKER_07: 31:23

Jerry's position always is keep your car as stock as possible. It just reduces the amount of things uh to go wrong and obviously your experience with the Honda proves that you got a a brand new vehicle off the showroom strap some lights to it and off you went and uh I also agree that all debts from the road should be should be paid in beer. And isn't it always true that the greatest stories we have are when things go wrong or we stop and help uh someone when things go wrong for them.

SPEAKER_00: 31:50

And I always find that uh the rewarding part of uh rallies all of it happens but it's how you handle it and hopefully it's not too crazy right at that get-go but uh yeah I mean they make for really good stories for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 32:03

You know what we uh I start calling it road karma and we were building up lots of road karma whether you believe in karma or not I believe in you know paying it forward and you know what goes around comes around and uh you know when we break down hopefully somebody will help us which has happened many times.

SPEAKER_07: 32:20

You were in the seat of the pants category and I have a bunch of questions from listeners about our checkpoint rally and I didn't want to scare people away from a TSD rally. So maybe Mercedes you could help me by maybe telling me what's involved if someone wants to just get started in a TSD rally and then maybe what is the most basic fallback uh you know back of bar napkin way of uh navigating a seat of the pants rally like the Alcan 5000.

SPEAKER_00: 32:53

Yeah I mean they're every the best way to say it is everybody starts from ground zero. Everybody starts from somewhere and the biggest thing for me as a navigator is stay on route. If anything else or if everything else goes out the window, stay on the course from the root book that the rally master says time speed distance rallies are not races. They are not speed competitions. They're based on accuracy. So you can't go faster you can't go slower. If they say go 35 miles an hour for 2.9 miles, that's what you really should do. And when you pass through a checkpoint and you're off on your time then you need to kind of recalibrate and pick it back up. So stay on course is the biggest thing. Some people say okay I'm gonna try to hit every single checkpoint and figure out all the math and do all this other stuff right from the very first rally. Hats off if you can figure that out. I'm not a mathematician I'm a creative person and for me my kitchen timer and my you know Amazon calculator works plenty plenty good but um you know there is math you can do to figure out each line of directions to say okay if you need to turn left on Smith Street and 0.22 miles you're supposed to be there at you know 815 and 32 seconds then the next numeric is like 818 and 29 seconds and and this and that. But don't worry about all that stuff. It'll come if you want it to just stay on route have fun and just stay the course and ask questions.

SPEAKER_04: 34:20

There most everybody is really cool about answering questions until you start beating them I I do want to say too that I think most people are are who are really enjoy the who enjoy this activity they want it to grow. It's um it's often looked at as something that is done by people that are older and I think the math scares some people away especially younger people but I think that uh Mercedes advice is really good like don't worry about the math at first just enjoy the route stay on the route and once you learn that the rest will come. So don't be afraid to try one of these don't be intimidated by it just sign up and have fun and do one.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

And another thing I wanted to add uh that Andy was was uh talking a bit about is when you start these as a newcomer, you don't have to be in the seat of the pants class. You can get you know rally apps or rally computer or something. I mean heck I think Rabbit is, was it five bucks or something to buy the app or whatnot and you can run with your phone and what you have, you know, GPS that's in your phone. And a lot of newcomers um from what I'm understanding are starting in the unlimited class because it's a lot easier. You get instant feedback as to while you're doing the competitive part, not the transits, that's just getting from point A to point B. The competitive part, the actual TSD portion, it'll give you immediate constant feedback as to you're going a little bit too slow. Okay, you're going a little bit too fast, this and that. Whereas the SOP teams, the seat of pants teams, you're basically regulated to okay you cross this checkpoint it'll tell you or you you know if you do the math at this point where you turn then you have to be there at this precise time. Some people are good enough where they can say during a a longer bit, let's say two miles, they're like, yeah you're running a little bit slow, catch up this and this. We literally just run by the seat of our pants. So it's it's a sport that everybody can do. There's a lot of like you know you know fathers sons there's you know siblings there's um you know husband and wife although some people don't say don't do husband and wife um we've done it we're still married we've been married for 21 years um it but just have fun. That's the biggest part and anybody could do it in just about any car and it's not very expensive.

SPEAKER_07: 36:28

I definitely got into the the apps and running all the screens and having the computer tell you to tell the driver uh what to do and the navigator mainly kept the driver uh following the course just as you say uh Mercedes but the mistakes that we made were of course and you really hit the nail on the head was I made a few navigation mistakes or uh let's just say I didn't follow the navigator's uh instructions exactly right. But anyways, we're definitely looking forward to doing an another winter rally and we will be doing the uh the unlimited class but there are folks that just show up and go, okay, when I pass this cattle guard we need to do about 60 miles an hour or whatever the speed is and then at the next checkpoint uh you just need to adjust your speed to you know whatever whatever the um the book says and you can just do it as basic as that for your first outing and then maybe by day two or three or the next time around you can start to get out a calculator. Um I wanted to uh ask you guys can we put together a petition to pressure uh Jerry to get us to the Arctic Ocean for the next winter rally oh for the next winter I I don't know but I do know that the 2026 summer is getting to the Arctic Ocean.

SPEAKER_04: 37:41

So uh we plan on uh seeing that in fact we'll cross both Arctic circles um in Canada and the United States.

SPEAKER_00: 37:48

And that's if you do all the optional extreme control routes.

SPEAKER_07: 37:52

That's awesome. And listen congratulations I know navigating the Alcan 5000 isn't easy or any kind of DSD uh rally and I it's a big deal that you finish second overall in the seat of the pants category. So congratulations to the both of you for that.

SPEAKER_04: 38:06

Sounds great thanks for having us on say hi to Martin for us.

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

Yeah likewise thanks again.

SPEAKER_09: 38:10

Adventure endurance glory this isn't just a ride it's the ultimate test of rider and machine the ADV Cannonball rally challenges you to ride from ghost to ghost navigating checkpoint to checkpoint by GPS and pushing past your limits take on every off-road stage and you'll earn bragging rights and the coveted Rough Rider trophy. Own the twisty tarmac and you'll claim the checkpoint crusher award every mile counts every choice matters rack up the points and your name could be etched forever on the winner's cup this year the routes are harder the mileage is longer the glory is greater the ADP Cannonball rally is open for registration.

SPEAKER_05: 38:57

Fortune favors the bold sign up today and we're back nice one yeah first of all I want to say that they as a couple I mean you mentioned the years they've been married and the fact that they do this they are always so upbeat so positive. So let me back up a second and say for those who hadn't listened to the previous episodes um when Aaron and I did the Alcan 5000 by the way I like the hat you've chosen to wear today I'm wearing my uh Alcan 5000 hat for the equation yeah for equation for the Alcajan for the Occasion how much have you had the drink already my God me and the dog are hitting the Alcase hard hard yeah bro i'm I'm I'm drinking hard liquor over here and you're drinking harder and you still can't you can't even hold it together.

SPEAKER_07: 39:52

You know it's funny because the last episode or two episodes ago I had said that the winner of the cannonball had Their name emboldened on the trophy. It's not, I was trying to say emblazoned. Emblazoned.

SPEAKER_05: 40:05

You know, it's really funny. As you said emboldened, I went, hmm, I'm thinking we're gonna have to do a correction on that.

SPEAKER_07: 40:11

Yeah. Oh, great. Well, thanks for telling me now. Let it, you know, let it go to the public. And then now it's uh now it's corrected. But, anyways, listen, I blame all the uh misuse of words uh on the IPA. No, fair enough. Or you can blame it on me, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 40:26

Blame it on Taylor. What are friends for? The dog I meant. Yeah. The dog. All right. Um, look, a couple things I want to say. One, I love the fact that they use a kitchen timer and a kids calculator from Amazon to compute their long format mathematical equation to determine the incremental time to arrive at a particular waypoint. That is amazing. I mean, she's out there doing it's just nuts. I look down. I like when you're driving anyway. When I look down and I was doing the calculations and we had computers, I mean, I, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't make you feel good looking down at your lap at a clipboard and calculator. I still have to do some math, but that's nuts. She's awesome at that.

SPEAKER_07: 41:01

Yeah. And I think if you want to get into TSD, I think I talk about it when I talk to Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_05: 41:07

When you intro those three letters, you need to clarify that you because it's easy. People who have dyslexia might mix that up. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_07: 41:15

Guilty. No, so time, speed, distance, rallying. You know, if you just want to go for the adventure, you can do pure see the pants, in my opinion, which is less than a calculator and a kitchen timer, which is just, well, we need to go, you know, 48 miles an hour for, you know, X amount of miles until you hit this landmark. You actually don't even need to do the math. You can just go and just wing it proper see the pants, right? So don't feel intimidated. And it's a lot of fun. It's always a good group of people. And especially the seek, the secret part of all this is when you do the winter ones, like not necessarily Alcant 5000, but there's one up here that's um the Thunderbird. There's one on Vancouver Island, which is uh really intense. They're on logging roads. And the secret to it all is that the speed limit on the road is like, let's say, 60 kilometers an hour, and they'll make the speed like 58 kilometers an hour. But good luck doing that in your Subaru WRX STI because it's solid ice and like six inches of snow on it. So there'll be a stage where there'll be, you know, six cars in the ditch and sweep's got to pull these cars out. So, you know, make no mistake, it sounds guilty, uh guilty, it sounds geeky, but uh some of these rallies can be a lot of fun within within the confines of speed limits because the um the environment is so challenging.

SPEAKER_05: 42:34

Yeah, I remember when we were doing that one section, we had just, I think we had just left the US back in the Canada. But we part of this rally was we're going through a small neighborhood. And it just like you described, it was covered in snow and it was a 35, it was actually actually back in the US, it was a 35 mile an hour zone, and the speed that we were supposed to maintain was 27, and we got stopped by the police. And he just like stood out in front of the car on the road as we're driving through, and so he stopped, so we didn't run him over, and he's like, he's such a nice guy. He's like, So hey, what do you guys do? And we're like, and you're like, we're in the middle of a time section of a rally, we're not breaking the law, can we please go? And I was like, and then and then and he's like, Well, what I well, I guess I just wonder what all you he goes, are we are you detaining us? He's like, No.

SPEAKER_06: 43:22

And then you were like, Boom, you drop the foot on the and then we four four steaded tires slid slid away from him, and he was just kind of standing there shaking his head. Like, I can see him going, Well, that wasn't very polite.

SPEAKER_07: 43:35

Well, listen, it's like at that point, we were still, we were still doing well. I haven't really screwed up yet. And uh Taylor's right, one of the big things is when you're doing like ice racing and this type of rallying, the first thing you do is figure out how to remove all of the safety systems on your vehicle. Because even not even trash control, but the safety systems that don't allow the vehicle to slide sideways really interfere. And it's not like a temporary cut in power. It it shuts off the engine essentially for about a second or two. And you just can't recover from that. So, yeah, every time you want to leave or do a speed change, all four wheels are spinning and the cops like, what are these people doing? Like, listen, I'm not breaking the speed limit. I just got to maintain the speed, right?

SPEAKER_05: 44:21

But to be truthful, since we had a computer, and you know, again, we are total noobs at this. Uh, I have to dare say we still are compared to Andy and Mercedes. But you can take a 30-second, you can, you can draw, you can reset everything 30 seconds back, which we didn't do because you know, the the interruption was what, 15, 20 seconds of rudeness, and then we blast it on and we ended up screwing up anyway. But what we should have done was drop back 30 seconds or a minute, whatever it took us to do, and then like go, okay. And it would reset the time on all the computers and then the needle so you'd know whether to speed up or slow down two seconds in that in that anyway. Live and learn, don't stop.

SPEAKER_07: 44:58

Yeah, but also we're there for the spirit of the TSD. So I actually understand the purpose to have it's called TAs, right? Time allowances. But I'm like, you know, I want to make the time up, you know what I mean? Like we're supposed to have a little bit of the fizz, right? Like, and not just do math all the time. I want to keep the time. I don't want to use the TA if I don't have to. And I understand why it's there. Like if a train is going across the course, yeah, that's to me, that's a reason to use it. But if you made a wrong turn or you had to stop and talk to a cop, you know, because he's trying to figure out what's going on. I I don't know. That's part of the rally, I think. That's all. That's just me.

SPEAKER_05: 45:32

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I think that there might be some police officers listening who would disagree that they would think that you should take a time allowance for that. But I'm just saying, you know.

SPEAKER_07: 45:43

Yeah, and they're and they're the worst defenders during their rally. So please spare me, okay?

SPEAKER_06: 45:48

Let's move on to the greatness that was achieved by let's move on. Let's move on.

SPEAKER_05: 45:52

Let's move on. Look, and the university's absolutely crushed this. So, first of all, doing a seat of the pants, which is an they did um a two S class. So if you're a number one, you are a sedan. If you're a number two, you're a truck or an SUV. And then S is for C to the Pants, SOP class. We did Unlimited, which was a computer one. So they did second overall in the entire rally with a calculator from a kid's calculator and a kitchen timer. So that's impressive unto itself. And of course, with that, they also won their class. So anyway, summer alley, uh summer rally 5000. And I think it was a great interview. I think you asked really good questions. Um, I mean, they talked about their Honda Passport Trail sport, um, and the fact that for the most part, it was stock, other than you know, some lights. But they are great sports people. They're they have such a they um they're super competitive, they work great together, they're an amazing team, and they absolutely are pumped up to do this stuff. They're super, they're super jazzed by this.

SPEAKER_07: 46:58

I think uh if you want to read more about their their last event, I think they're on Andy just published something on Gear Junkie and OVR. So you can uh they'll both those will be down in the show notes as well. And then their actual, they are crankshaft culture. Yeah, yeah. They have their own, their own uh marketing company, racing team, whatever you want to call it. They're out there, they're out there getting it done, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_05: 47:25

Yeah, for sure. Um, one of the things I thought was great, and we experienced this as well as competitors against them was well, in the same rally, we weren't in the same class, but they are so positive and they're so willing to help, and they create a really nice mentoring environment. Um, one of the things that I thought was really interesting is that they said this to us then, and I heard her say it again. They said, we will help anybody answer any question and we'll help you get better right up till the moment where you start beating us. Then the information stops, which is which is fair enough, right? But it creates a really good sense of camaraderie. And we we sense that there. We sense, I mean, every rally I've been to, there's always been that. And there's this sense of um of belonging, and there's a lot of loyalty and support for each other. It also ties into their story about um helping people along along the way, about the um they had these uh these German guys and they had a dually and they had a dually flat tire. They had so two flat tires were down with so they they blew them out and and they helped him in at the end. They were like, you know, Mercedes is uh she is you know, she used to live in in Germany, um, and she speaks German. So she was fortunate for them that they had a translator. I thought that was, you know, amazing. Um, yeah, I thought that was was really good timing and uh the right people stopped to help them. So that's always nice. And the fact that he wanted to get paid in a beer in Germany was a was was was pretty much how most of people roll, right?

SPEAKER_07: 48:52

Yeah, it's very important. I think that all all debts on the road should be paid in uh in beer. And, you know, they didn't talk about it, but I was talking about it last night with someone that, you know, when a car goes off the road, there are two times that can happen. If it's during a stage, it's important that the people that go off the road immediately hold up their piece of paper that says okay. So you can just ignore them and keep on doing your stage, right? Like we're okay, and then sweep will come pull us out. That's fine. But when someone goes off the road during a liaison, that's when everyone, that's when the fun starts. Because once you're in the ditch, everyone can get their winches out and their and their kinetic ropes and things like this. So the minute someone goes off the road during a liaison stage, that's when the lights come on and everyone gets to spring into action and everyone tells you the right way of doing it.

SPEAKER_05: 49:38

Yeah, it reminded me when um when Drew took his uh the uh the Porsche, the Porsche cayenne went off when he did the uh he was passing. It was like a two-lane road, and he was passing an 18-wheeler, and it was just snow was blowing out the side, and he passed him, and then next thing you knew, he was off on the side down two meters in an embankment, and he was like crunching through all the snow. And we we were this whole thing like all the the whole the whole uh we're in a it was a transit section between the two uh time sections. So everyone's just stopped in the middle of the road. And I remember the cop came by and he's got all the tow gear and everything, and he's like, you know, he sees all these rally cars with all of this equipment and trucks and you know, everything you need to pull someone out of the dish. And he's he rolls up and he's like, Looks like you guys got it covered here, and he he just kept on going.

SPEAKER_07: 50:24

Yeah, he's like, My shift is over, I really don't care anyways. I gotta go home. And he's like, I gotta go.

SPEAKER_06: 50:29

I still got a hundred kilometers before I get home.

SPEAKER_05: 50:31

That's right. Um one of the things that they um oh I had an aside here. So when I was a kid, there was a I grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, and then there was this, there was a story about a guy who he stole a car. This is back when you know carjacking was a new thing. So he stole a car and he he he sped to get away. And he went through this little section um in Annapolis and he stopped behind this long building where it's it's kind of you know a hidden away area, long big industrial building. He parked in behind it. And back in the day, you had these, you know, these sunblock, these things you put up in the windshield to block the sun. And on one side is a picture of, you know, whatever, a sunset or a beach scene. And on the other side, it said, help call police. So this guy goes in there and he he puts this this thing up in the window and he leans his seat back and he's you know, like he's he's laying down, he's hiding. Um and then he gets a knock on the door and he opens this, he looks up, and this this, you know, this really nice person is standing there, and they said, Hey, um, we see that you put the sign up that said, Please help call police in the window. And it just that time the radio call comes in and says, Man, in a in a in a in a just stole sedan.

SPEAKER_06: 51:48

And he it was the dude, he put the wrong side out, and he got caught. He pulled it behind the police station. That matters. Anyway, that reminded me you put the sign up that says I'm okay. You're like, help call the police.

SPEAKER_05: 52:02

Oh my god. Anyway, so great. Some people, you know, there's smart thieves and there's not smart thieves. Take a pick. Yeah, that's true. All right. Anyway, a final comment about their um about their rally is that they in terms of getting into it, they said a couple of things. They said for newbies who want to potentially get into this, it's not a super expensive event for one. They said, Don't worry about the math. And the one thing that we read that was actually in the in the uh in the book, in the um the road book, and that's the quote that says, Better late than lost. So as you, and it's something that you guys discussed in there. It's like, you're better just to navigate, the same thing you talk about in the ADV cannibal. It's better to maintain your navigation. You might be a little bit late, but you won't miss a turn. And that's where you really get screwed up, is if you miss a turn. So that said, the final comment from her was just go there and have fun. It's a great sense of camaraderie, and you will definitely meet people that you will want to be in touch with for a long time.

SPEAKER_07: 53:00

For sure. And we're gonna roll the interview in a second with Martin. Martin just finished the same rally with his air head, and he won his class, which is the motorcycle class, I think two rallies ago. I think this is his third rally. So really pay attention to this interview because if you want to do one of the Alcant Summer rallies uh on a motorcycle, you know, run what you brung, right? Like this guy has an this guy has a air head and just regular tires. And, you know, as long as you have a road, a roadbook holder, this is uh this is all you need. So uh if you're interested in doing something like this on a motorcycle, Martin is is evidence of uh how easy it is to do. And with that, let's roll the interview. Martin, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 53:49

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_07: 53:50

Martin, you just finished a 2025 summer version of the Alcan 5000 rally and you did it on a motorcycle. But this isn't your first time. Maybe you can tell us what the thought process was or what inspired you to enter that first rally a few years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 54:07

Um, I didn't know better.

SPEAKER_07: 54:10

Was it a friend, or did you come across it on the internet or YouTube or something like that?

SPEAKER_01: 54:14

I was reading a write report on ADV Rider of somebody that did it, and uh he had high praises about that. And I was always looking to do a trip up to Alaska, but just didn't feel confident to do it by myself. And uh I looked up on the Alcan 5000 website and saw that uh there are cars, there are motorcycles, there are support vehicles, they arrange all the hotels, and the price was seemingly quite reasonable$2,000 for 10 days. So in 2016 I signed up for the 2018 rally, and uh first they said uh they're full, but they put me on the waiting list, and then at the beginning of 2017, year and a half before the rally, they uh accepted me to the rally.

SPEAKER_07: 55:03

Yeah, we had the same experience when we did the last winter rally. We were also placed on the wait list, and then actually last minute, we got the uh the green light from Jerry, which was great. And uh on your first Alcant summer rally, which motorcycle did you take?

SPEAKER_01: 55:18

Well, when I then got the news that I entered the rally, I was not even expected to do the rally, so I had to figure out oh, what am I taking? I had like a 2007 BMW Cross Challenge, it's a 650 model, but that was getting a little bit long on the tooth, had some electrical gremlins, but I always had airhead bikes, so the classic uh BMW boxer bikes, and I decided, well, it would be fun to have a have an airhead, do it on an airhead. And my friend was uh selling a street model, and I got it from him, and I made myself a nice custom GS bike out of it, fitting. I'm really tall, have long legs, made fit my body and rebuild everything, the engine transmission to have it reliable. And that's the bike I used for the last three L cans.

SPEAKER_07: 56:05

Wow. So people right away who you know go buy things off a showroom floor probably you know recoiled a little bit when you said that you bought an airhead and then you rebuild it. Could you put everyone's uh uh skepticism to rest? And did you have any major mechanical failures?

SPEAKER_01: 56:23

Um in 2018, my bike was felt a little bit underpowered, my fuel mileage was a little bit bad, and people behind me were complaining that they smelled fuel, unburnt fuel. So I went into the carburetors a couple of times, but okay, I I finished and I made it back home. And then a couple weeks later, my coil died. So after I rebuilt the whole bike and put a lot of money in, the one thing that I cheaped out was the$200 for a new coil.

SPEAKER_07: 56:52

So there's a cheap German joke in there somewhere, but I'm not gonna go for the low-hanging fruit. It's really fantastic that you use such a classic bike, and it just goes to show that there's always tinkering with an older bike, but especially those old GSs, they're just built so so darn strong. And you know, this was a combination TSD rally, and there's a lot of liaisons in between. So let's talk about the TSD. How did you do that on a bike? You're just by yourself. And every TSD that I've done, I have a navigator that is yelling at me and telling me what to do, and I'm just the idiot driving. So, how did you accomplish both those important tasks?

SPEAKER_01: 57:29

I never did something like that before. So in 2018, I really had to jump in and make myself familiar with that and wrap my head around it. I was able to buy a Rally computer, one of the last ones. Uh, it's a red watchdog, and they no longer make that. But even with that, I had to sit down and do the time divided by speed, gives you the distance calculation, and you write it down, and then when you write along that time section, you make sure that at that landmark at this checkpoint you end up at the right time. And you wiggle and and you weigh through that, but so does everybody else. I mean, there are cars with GPSs and two laptops in in the car or navigators, and they're still trying to be there on the second, you know. So, and uh I got better over the years, and uh it's it's really like a really nerdy, nerdy thing of rallying. But uh, once you get into it, I mean it's really man, I'm on the second, you know, and I mean, yeah, it's there's something exciting about that.

SPEAKER_07: 58:34

Yeah, there's something gratifying when the app says, you know, ahead or behind by one second, you're like, oh my goodness, I'm actually I'm actually pulling this off. And you know, that rally is so interesting because most of the challenge is making it to the next the next TSD stage. So my question is, how did that older bike handle the fuel issues with making sure that you had enough fuel to make it to the next uh station?

SPEAKER_01: 58:57

After my issues in 2018 with the bad fuel mileage, I improved on that by having a dual ignition, having a bigger tank. So my fuel mileage is around 40 miles, 40 to 42 miles, and uh I can do about 190 to 220 miles on my gas tank. And I still have a rotor packs with me. So I'm I'm good for 230, 240 miles. And most of the gas stops, fuel stops were the first was 150, 160 miles, and when when it was really more than that, 180 or 200 miles, the organizers arranged for a fuel stop, not only for the motorcycles, but uh there were also a couple of classic cars that had limited uh fuel range.

SPEAKER_07: 59:44

Right, that's interesting. We we never had anything like that arranged, but we also carried a bunch of fuel in the rotor packs, but we never used it. Did you find you had to dip into that fuel storage?

SPEAKER_01: 59:53

Actually, I filled my rotor packs up here in California and rode around for that 9,000 miles. And when I came Back here had the same fuel in there, so no, no, I never used it.

SPEAKER_07: 1:00:03

I think the sweep truck in that rally carries a little extra fuel, also. Yeah, but people always talk about road conditions, and not always does the Alcan 5000, either the summer or the winter route, actually go up to the Arctic Ocean and down some of those dirt highways. Uh, what is your experience being with the road conditions for the rally?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:24

Well, I never went up to the Arctic Circle. I stayed mostly the highest up was Fairbanks, and uh the roads up to Fairbanks, and uh I went up a little bit up the Dempster, but not to the Arctic Circle. They were reasonable well, you know. So, and I would not say I beat myself up on that. Um, the longest off-road stretch is the Blackwater Street Road in um British Columbia from Quinnell, and then it goes around uh Prince George. That is around 80 miles, and it's just they're graded forest roads. Yeah, sure. In some of the corners you have some washboard, but I mean it's not technical. So right.

SPEAKER_07: 1:01:03

So it sounds like did you have the optional go further section that you didn't do, or did the route just not bring you all the way up to the Arctic Ocean on the years that you went on the rally?

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:14

Uh both of that. Either there was was no uh it was not included, or this year it was included as a go further option, which is for extra points. And some of us on the motorcycles looked at it, but we were in Dawson City, and going up to uh to the Arctic Circle was back and forth. I was thinking around 16 hours. Yeah, and there were three cars, and I listened into them trying to convince themselves to do it, and they had like two drivers. Yeah, and they left like four o'clock in the morning, go up, and uh they had a couple of uh technical issues, and uh yeah, it took them 16 hours, you know, on a bike that would be that would be really like a challenge.

SPEAKER_07: 1:02:00

Yeah, for sure. That's some uh iron butt territory, and like like you say, that's the the less uh maintained section of the roads, and that's what has always discouraged me from going all the way up to the Arctic Ocean in the summer. It's the bugs and the and the road conditions, just you know, I'm just older and I guess I just just don't have it in me anymore. But you know, uh what about the weather? Did you experience any adverse weather on the on the back of the bike?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:28

I must say, I mean, they have global warming up there too, and they're fighting actually more fires now, and it's dry conditions. Uh this year we had two days of rain. One day was really bad, and I got soaked, but that was my own fault because I didn't uh uh dress up right. And then overall, it's mostly you're like 10 even this year. We had 13 hours on the bike, and it's not particularly cold or wet, but just the time gets you, and sitting on the bike for that long, it just creeps up on you. So you need some heated gears, you need some layers, you have to manage your body and eat and and get off the bike and stretch.

SPEAKER_07: 1:03:09

Did you happen to go up to Yellowknife uh that year you went? Yes, we did. And was the forest burnt out up there? Because I went up there recently and the fire ripped through there, and it was miles and miles of burnt forest. What was your impression of that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:23

It was like outer, like from an outer world somehow. I mean, you have that it's almost like a desert landscape with with those burnt tree stumps, and it's a really flat landscape, not much elevation, and it's it's eerie. There was a fire close by, so the light was was shrouded with some smoke, too. It was a weird experience, and uh we spread out in that rally, so I was riding most of the time by myself, you know, being out there by yourself in this landscape, it was it was different, yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:03:55

Yeah, I find a lot of rallying, especially this long distance um type of rallying, it is a it is a solitary kind of event. It's not like a short course time speed distance or a stage rally where everyone's compressed, everyone seems to get spread out. You mentioned about taking care of yourself. What was your strategy for food and water? What did you bring with you? Did you eat in the morning? Did you you know carb up at night? What was your strategy overall?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:21

Um, I do uh trips around where I live here, two multi-day trips. So get some saddle dime in, condition my body to it. And then uh two months before that, I start a little bit more working out, walking, using my stationary bikes, doing stretches, eating better. So I lost some weight, gained some muscle, I would say. I felt strong. And uh this year I felt the most comfortable on my bike. So after three aircans, I have the bike setup perfect, I have the gear perfect. And what I noticed, I I eat the same for breakfast and during the day that I would eat here too. So I don't want to upset my stomach and my body with introducing something different. You know, and in the morning I have oatmeal with some nuts and maybe some fruit, and that's something I can pick up everywhere and can carry along with me. I don't have to rely on hotels. And during the day, I have maybe a piece of fruit or not much actually. I have some carrots to nibble on, some hummels, some of those tuna packages. And then the big meal was then that was the goal actually for me to push so hard in the evening to make the cutoff time when the hotel kitchen closes so that you have a warm meal in the evening. And uh some of the other riders or the car teams, um, especially the ones that uh do the touring option that don't take part in the competition, they stop for lunch, you know, and just stop along the way wherever they want, and they have an hour sit-down lunches, you know. But if you're competing and want to make miles, and this year especially, there were a couple long sections where you're fighting daytime. It was really just gas and put something in your face, go to the washroom and go, go, go.

SPEAKER_07: 1:06:06

So yeah, it's always a challenge with those small towns making it to the hotel before the kitchen closes. You know, they want to get out of there a certain time and they could care less that there's five more bikes coming in for sure. You know, you mentioned about the challenges there. Did you find anything that is your your your high point and your low point as far as your uh your emotions and uh you know wanting to be over? Was there anything you really celebrated or anything that you really dreaded about it?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:32

Well, the couple of low points. Sure. I mean, you just have to embrace the suck. You know, it's cold, you're tired, you have another four or five hours to go. And uh I had an accident once where I crashed in 2022. That was a low point, but I could pick myself up, fix the bike, and continue. But those are just temporary low points, you know. You just like I say, you have to embrace the suck and and battle through that, can be rewarding then, because then you come up to some of the high points you're on South Carnel Road, and the weather is perfect, and it's a flowing gravel road, and the the landscape is amazing. The same with you going down Denali Road, you have rainbows all over, and the sun is shining, and and the fall colors are out. I mean, you we rode it with that, you know.

SPEAKER_07: 1:07:20

So yeah, can you tell us about your accident? Uh how it happened and what what you broke and what you broke on yourself, if if anything.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:27

It was uh Blackwater Road again from Cornell uh out to I think to the backside of Prince George, 80 miles of gravel road, and there was a timed section at the beginning, and then they left us only, I think, an hour and a half for another timed section, and it was like 60 to 80 miles of gravel, so you really had to push hard. The buddy of mine that came with me in 2022, he crashed right at the beginning. So I took care of him, and then he told me, You just go, go, go and make that make it to the next time section. I just pushed too hard and then ran out of skill. There was a left-hand turn. I could not make that turn, I just went straight. I jumped off the bike and uh the bike flip-flopped and broke the handlebar, the whole headlight crashed, fender was gone, and my whole rally equipment, the roadbook holder, and everything was just flopping around. But uh a couple people stopped from the from the rally and we zip tied it together, checked me out, and I was back on the road in 20 minutes. And uh then when we came to that time section, the organizer said, Well, sorry, we cancelled that time section because we realized uh we cut that time too short and everybody was really racing and driving unsafe to make it to that point, you know.

SPEAKER_07: 1:08:44

So it would have been nice if you would have known that before you had your accident. Did you uh hurt yourself in any way?

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:51

I was bruised up and uh but a couple of Advil and I could continue. My bike uh was a little bit in a bad shape with no headlight on the handlebar risers were torn off, and uh I phoned around and there was uh not much around. It's mostly like snowboom snowmobile country up there, but there was a custom Harley shop, iCandy custom Harley out of Smithers, and uh went over there and he found uh old dirt bike fender in the rafters. He took my headlight buckled and bang bang bang, dangled it and put a head uh Harley headlight in there and helped me with everything else. And I was out there in an hour and a half and could continue the rally. The bike looked looked really red with a red fender and Harley headlight, you know. But so that it was a good experience at the end, meeting that guy and and accepting the help that he had to offer. So yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:09:45

Same old story we hear all the time. It's not necessarily about the adventure, it's the stuff that happens along the way and and the the people you meet and those in the stories that you take away. You know, everyone will want to know is what tires did you run on that bike?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:59

In on my air first run, I expected a lot of dirt roads. So I used uh the trusted TKC 80s and uh I shipped uh another set up to Seattle and had the organizers carry that for me. So along the ride, uh I could change the rear tire. But it was not really needed because most of it is paved now, so you really have to go out of your way to find some gravel roads, and then it's really like nicely graded gravel roads. And then from then on in 2022, and this year I went with the MITES 07 Plus, and I leave here in California, do the whole rally and uh 7,000 miles, and then by the end of the rally, I have a rear tire waiting for me and change it. The front tire I still have on my bike, and it probably has like over 10,000 miles on it, is also Miters 07.

SPEAKER_07: 1:10:50

Yeah, those specific Mitas tires are fantastic for uh crushing miles. But the big question is everyone will want to know how did you place uh on your various attempts at the Alcant 5000 Summer Rally?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:03

The first time I did it, I was in fourth place. Then in 22, I was in first place, and this year again I was in fourth place, and uh yeah, I made a big mistake on the on the day to last, and uh that cost me third place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:11:18

Wow, that's really amazing that you did uh first one time. I've entered a hundred rallies and I've never placed anywhere near first, no matter how many times.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:26

In the in the mo in the in the motorcycle category, not in the overall.

SPEAKER_07: 1:11:30

Yeah, no, I listen, it it doesn't matter. The category is the category, but that's I just want to impress on listeners how amazing that is to accomplish the distance, the TSD, the calculations, everything. Everything has to click. There's always that that one thing that goes wrong. What was the one thing that went wrong for you on this last attempt?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:52

It was the day two last from Dees Lake to Smithers in British Columbia, and it was raining the whole day. It was like an eight-hour ride, and it was raining, raining, and I didn't notice that I had a hole in my my rain gear. By the time I noticed this, I was soaked down to the to the bone. I was on my second set of gloves, I was tired, I was cold, I was hungry. I had like eight days of rally behind me. Um, there was an optional uh dirt road, the mid and forest road, and I skipped that because I think oh it's probably all muddy and slippery. I just want to go to the hotel and dry out. And then right before the hotel, they had a uh a timed section, and I said, you know, I don't want to do that timed section, I want to go to the hotel and just dry out and eat something. And I was thinking the penalty would be around 60 points, but I was mistaken, it was 300 points, you know. And that that was one of the things that I noticed. I was just by myself without a riding buddy, and you're just in your own head, you have nobody to exchange ideas with and talk things over. The other three guys that I competed with, there were three buddies from British Columbia, really nice guys, and they were doing everything together. They did their timing calculations together, they talked it over the strategies and everything. They did the forest road, the dirt section. One of them got a flat tire, and it was so bad they could patch the tire, but he had to go into town. So he skipped into uh skipped the time section too. He went into town, bought a new tire, had it mounted, but then he rode back to the beginning of the time section and did the timed section. And that didn't occur to me. I could have just gotten to the hotel, dry out, eat something, then go back and do the timed section at my own leisure because there was no really starting time. It was open for the whole day. Ah, it was a flying start. It was a flying start. But like I say, I mean, after they told me that, I say, oh, why didn't I think of that? Yeah. If you're just by yourself and cannot talk things over with a buddy or with somebody else, you know, that that that cost me uh third place.

SPEAKER_07: 1:13:58

Yeah, we can't understate enough how complicated TSD rallying, and every rally is different. There's a different way of doing it, there's different rules. And you're absolutely right. When you're on your own, it is incredibly difficult to uh you know work through all the uh all the challenges. So I guess the big question is you've done this three times. Are you gonna do it a fourth time?

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:18

In 2022, when we went up to yellow knife and all those long stretches, I say, oh, that's just boring, it's dragging on, you know. And then three months later, they came up with uh this 25 uh Alcan rally, and I signed up. This time I said, you know, I'm just everything is just flying by. I cannot remember where I was, it's just so fast, it's just miles after miles. And I see people in campus on the side of the road, overlooking a lake, sunshine. Oh, I want to do that, I want to enjoy that. You know, so I'm done. I'm done. I did it three times, you know, I'm done. Then two weeks after we finished, they came out with 26. And I was a little bit it bugged me that I only did fourth place. So you signed up. I signed up, and this time they're actually going up uh to Inovik, they're going up to the Arctic Ocean. The rally ends in Fairbanks, and if the weather is good, I would probably go from Fairbanks up to Dead Horse 2. So we'd have the Arctic Ocean up there too. So this one is is really then a highlight, I think.

SPEAKER_07: 1:15:21

And then maybe that's it, maybe that's the last one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:24

Well, then the next one is four years after, so that would be I would be 70 by then. So let's let that's uh let's hold a little bit off, maybe in a car.

SPEAKER_07: 1:15:32

Hey, listen, Ted Simon, when he ran went around the world the second time, he he was over 70 years old. So you know, this is not an excuse. I know, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, thanks so much for sharing your story. Thanks for you know sharing your time with us, and uh, I'm sure we will see you on the Alcant 5000 at some point.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:51

Thank you, thank you. Looking forward to that. Thanks, sir.

SPEAKER_09: 1:15:54

Hey Canon Ballers, 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 the case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll list it on patreon.com. Links are in the show notes. Now, back to the riveting podcast in progress.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:19

And we are back. That calls for a cheers, buddy.

SPEAKER_07: 1:16:22

Cheers to IPA.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:23

Oh, yeah. Cheers to Dark and Stormy. Cheers. But we gotta, we, we gotta, we gotta definitely finish this episode because I'm halfway through this tumbler.

SPEAKER_07: 1:16:32

That's not a tumbler. It's a freaking glass. That's the size of a water glass.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:35

It is a water glass, actually. It's just uh it's a half a liter.

SPEAKER_07: 1:16:43

It's impressive.

unknown: 1:16:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_07: 1:16:46

First I was like, oh, you had one drink. Ooh, what a lightweight. And then you you had a swing of it and go, holy moly, that's a size of a mason jar. It's impressive. It's the size of your head. It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:57

Back when IKEA used to make big glasses. That's right. All right. So let's um let me go back to uh to Martin's interview. First of all, I thought you asked some great questions. And um one of the really important questions that I had in here, like, I'm gonna interview Martin. We talked about this, you know, for some time now. And I was wondering how he did the job. So you and I are in the vehicle, and I am turning, turning the pages and lining up the triple decimal places and entering the information in the computer and sending it to the computer on your dash, and then we're getting a new needle reading, and then I'm talking to you about speed, and the next speed's going to be, and we're gonna drop to this. And he did all this on a motorcycle for his first time, and he won that. He won that rally. Like he won motorcycles, and it was his first time out, which I thought's nuts. So, anyway, the great question how do you do all this? It's a two-person job. And his response had something that Mercedes said, once you talked about just jump in. And if you don't want to worry about the long form math, just buy a rally computer. And he did that.

SPEAKER_07: 1:18:00

Yeah. And it's interesting because we had talked to Satisha a while ago, and he's like the world champion, guru, master. He writes his own stuff. And one thing that was really illuminating to me was these old school rally computers. My sensibility immediately was well, the old school rally computer that has the wheel sensor probably isn't as good as a GPS-based one. And that's the that's the opposite. In fact, the wheel sensor version uh is sometimes more accurate than the GPS-based version. So we had we had um uh refined our process to use a high accuracy external GPS and then using iPhones and iPads as the computer. But the truth of the matter is there are people getting really technical with it with using a combination of high accuracy GPSs and wheel sensors, and they're getting it down to, you know, fractions of a meter of accuracy. But the way that Martin had been doing it and the way that uh the other team did it, it's truly seat of the pants. It's, you know, I think I'm going about this speed, and I think I should be at the next landmark by around this time. And it just goes to show if you uh have some driving skill and you know, you're good at seat of the pants, because that's what it is. It's like flying a plane, seat of the pants. If you feel like you're doing the right speed and you know, you're taking the line in your mind as the driver, like I think this is the line that the rally car would have taken when they set the route up. There's a lot of nuance to it. And Martin obviously has that uh that skill, that inherent skill of knowing how to run a rally.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:41

Yeah. He's obviously a good rider with a lot of experience, too.

SPEAKER_07: 1:19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:45

Um, one of the challenges that he talked about was the lack of information. So he was so same thing we had. There was one section which was really tight. So the the the traverse sections or the transport sections, what do we call those? Between transport liaison sections between So you may have a time section in the morning which is only like twenty miles, and then another time section which is planned for in the afternoon, and quite often, uh especially during a winter or even a summer rally in this case, it could be that that section is a little bit uh like the liaise is a bit too long of a section to get there in time for whatever that start might be. So in this particular situation, what he didn't know was that he was rushing for it. So he and his body were rushing. His buddy crashed, and then I think I'm not sure he I can't remember if he actually crashed in the second uh time or had an accident just before. But nonetheless, he was racing for this. It turned out that it was cancelled anyway. So uh this is something that we talked about and something that we addressed when we were actually uh doing the Alcan 5000 2024 winter edition. So this is something you put into your uh checkpoint rally app. So can you talk a bit about that?

SPEAKER_07: 1:21:00

Yeah, so first let's talk about on TFD rallies. So there are two types of starts. So if you're doing a liaison and there's another time section later in the end of the day, there may be a time start. So let's say the the next time section starts at four o'clock and you need to be there by four. Rally organizers are now implementing flying starts. So you can get there whenever you want. And when you pass that first landmark, that's when the timer starts. So that's one way of making it a little bit quote unquote safer. Uh, because I don't agree with canceling sections afterwards. I think it's really unfair for the people that made the effort to get there. Uh and Cannonball obviously has a little bit more liberal attitude with uh being more independent, let's say, and just getting the job done. Yeah. One of the things we did in our app is we have a messaging feature. So I can push a message through to all the devices and it makes a really awesome sound as a message from the event organizer. And for that reason, so if there really is like, I don't know, uh a Ternator came through, or space aliens are picking up people off the road, we can broadcast a message as a message and say, hey, this section is canceled because you know there's you know an act of God or something like that, right? So we've we've uh uh developed that messaging feature essentially, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:22

Yeah, that makes sense. And um just a comment about the app. I know that in the previous podcast or in several podcasts, you've said, hey, if you want to sample this and start using it in other in other rallies, then contact me. And you've had actually you've had some Scandinavians, you've had some Swedes actually contact you about using the app. You want to touch base on that?

SPEAKER_07: 1:22:39

Yeah, so we have a bunch of people, but some people are let's say more enthusiastic than others. Yeah. And everyone has a different idea of how what the app should be. Uh I you know, I'm happy to let it people use it. It doesn't cost me a lot in you know, database fees and stuff to have other rally goers use use it. So I think it's called a Scandinavian adventure meet is using it. There's a few uh rally goers, uh rally organizers here, and a bunch of bicycle rallies. Cool. Yeah. So there's uh interesting and there was a sailboat, there was a yacht club that wanted to use it because they didn't want to have a committee boat way out in the middle of the ocean. So there's other uses that I haven't thought about that the app is being used for. Yeah, so anyone who wants to use it for a checkpoint rally, uh, they're happy to use it. Uh, I don't mind helping them set it up. There's a video how to do it, it's quite self-explanatory. And the reason I let people use it is because it helps me with uh finding bugs and it helps me with doing stress tests. So we actually found a bug which was what was it? It was, I forget, it was obscure. It was something like if you changed a rally entrance name or something, it caused a glitch. So we find some that's what it was.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:50

If if they if they um if they lost their phone and you had to give them a new coin.

SPEAKER_07: 1:23:54

That was it. That was it. So if someone had lost or destroyed their rally phone and we had to reissue a new token, the security system wouldn't release any tokens because it thought you were cheating. Right. So we had to change the programming that if indeed we issued a new token, it would turn off the security features for the previous rally token. We're really getting into the minutiae here, but that's the reason why I let other rally people use it for free, is because we we always learn something every time someone uses it. Now, people have different ideas of how the rally app should work, and there's always a bit of miscommunication of why it's set up a certain way or why I'm not interested in making that feature, is because I want to keep it as rock solid as possible. And I have a process and I don't want to fail. So it's not about being feature rich, it's about being as basic as possible and achieving the goals that we have, which is tracking checkpoints under any circumstances. That's its main goal.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:56

Is that how you choose your friends? Basic as possible.

SPEAKER_07: 1:24:59

Yeah, basic. Don't argue. Do you drink IPA? You know, are you able to do these things?

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:09

Check, check, yeah. Am I willing to name my dog after you? That's all right. Check he's sleeping right now, so he's doing all right. All right, yeah, fair enough. So it's if we don't get through this, I'll be sleeping too.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:20

Anyways, to the point, I wanted to just make the point that as we, you know, every time we talk to people, there are several things that we that we keep hearing. One is that uh, and reinforces things that we've done and made changes accordingly. And this particular one was that uh he didn't get a message that if it had been sent, if there had been a way to communicate to somebody on a motorcycle in the middle of God knows where, without any cell phone communication but satellite communication, he would have been able to get the message that said, Oh, by the way, this section has been changed, or by the way, this section has been pushed back, or something like that. But anyway, good for building that into your feature. As a final point, the lure of the return to the event, even after the struggle of all the challenges, it reminds me about a story about my firstborn son. So two months after my wife endured 31 hours of labor, she looked at me one evening and she's holding the baby and she says, I want to have another. And I said, Where were you two months ago during those 31 hours that you were in labor with this kid? So our brains, like when signing up for the next event, our brains trick us into only remembering the the amazing part. And that also has to do with the fact that the amazing parts really etch into our mind a timestamp of a really fantastic thing that happened in our lives, which is why people sign up over and over again. So anyway, I just want to make that point.

SPEAKER_07: 1:26:41

Yeah, there is no amazing part to having kids except for making them. I just want to be clear on that subject. All you breeders have been brainwashed by this, you know, genetics and you know, hormones that happen when you produce children. But as someone who doesn't have children, believe me, you're all being brainwashed. There is nothing positive.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:02

Anyways. All right. ADV ADV, let's let's let's go to the next segment. What do you say? Shall we should we shall we move the show along? Let's do some cannonball news, everyone. Fantastic. Here we go. And new rally entries. I love these names. These are great. People are getting really creative now. They're obviously listening and they're getting super creative.

SPEAKER_07: 1:27:21

I I have I wanna I wanna caution people because it says in the rally, it says in the entry form that your rally alias is for the purposes of I don't know, let's say you're wanted by the FBI, right? Or let's say that you know your F wi your ex-wife is trying to serve you with, you know, papers or something, right? That's the purpose of having a rally alias, right? But your rally alias should be the thing that other rally goers call you. So if if you're trying to make a rally alias that is, you know, I don't know, Gussifer, well, that's what we're gonna call you, right? So this gentleman has chosen Happy Buddha, which I think is awesome. But just remember that I'm gonna call you Happy Buddha for the whole length of the rally. The entire rally.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:04

That's right. You'll be happy with it. Hey, this reminds me of an I'm gonna take a moment for an aside. So just occasionally I do.

SPEAKER_07: 1:28:09

Hey, why not? We've been doing it all podcasts.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:11

So hey, the whole podcast, hey, and you know what? Somebody told me I should be the podcast host, so here I am. So I'm gonna roll with it. So um, when I lived in California in uh in Monterey, which is coincidentally where the next year's uh rally is gonna end, uh that'll be fun. So there was a dinner party where they were setting up these two people to meet. And her job was she was she worked for the core, she had a company, and she used to serve, like she was serving people divorce papers or whatever it was, whether they whatever the whatever they were. She served papers to people. And she had a whole team of people who work for her and they couldn't get this one guy. And he was a uh he was a race car driver. And so this is all supposed to happen before she goes out to this um to this dinner and she's like, I'm gonna get this guy. So she jumps in her Porsche 911. Sorry, did I get that? Is it Porsche or Porsche?

SPEAKER_07: 1:29:04

I know that there's you know it's all good.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:08

How do you say it, Aaron? It depends how many IPAs I've had. Based on what you've currently had, how do you say it? It's a goddamn Porsche. Oh, okay. I said it right then, thank God. All right. So she jumps in her Porsche 911 and she uh, you know, like like Sally from the from the from the cartoon cars, and she um she goes out and she gets to this guy and she ends up uh chasing this guy in race in disguise. This guy's a professional race car driver. And she gets into this red California clay and he's doing these donuts and he's spinning up all this dust, and it's just like a it's like a scene out of a movie. And she ends up positioning her car and she blocks him, and she walks over when the dust has settled, and he's waiting to figure out where to uh like he's looking around waiting for the dust to to truly to settle, and he can figure out how to get out of there, and he realizes that when it's finally settled and he can see she's standing next to him with his open window and she says his name and she serves in the papers, and then she gets him. Anyway, she gets back in her car and she goes to this dinner and she sits down and she's she's there with her friends, she starts telling this crazy story. And um anyway, then her date walks in, and it's the same dude she just served. No way. Yes, it's the same guy. So they were like he walks in and he goes, You wouldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:30:26

This uh, you know, this this individual has just served me this nice lady has just served me papers for my divorce, and he's like, Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:38

Anyway, and he goes, and there you are. Anyway, so they introduce each other and they sit and have a very civil dinner and they ended up.

SPEAKER_06: 1:30:45

I think they they ended up dating for a little while after that. But that must be like I'm pretty pretty sure you're getting a divorce and you're pretty slippery.

SPEAKER_07: 1:30:52

Well, that could be a uh could be a good recipe for a good night, anyways. You know, who knows?

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:57

Well, I guess I was gonna say it was pretty dare I say it was racy. Hey oh didn't and with that allow me to jump into uh new rally entries, and you feel free to cut that.

SPEAKER_07: 1:31:10

Never don't edit anything.

SPEAKER_06: 1:31:13

Hey, by the way, I got a comment. I got a comment about when we both broke down at minute 54 in our last podcast. We both laughed for 30 seconds. So you got some a lot of comments about that.

SPEAKER_07: 1:31:24

Well, we're at minute 53 plus the interview, so this is at least two hours into it already. So there are people waiting for their names to be announced for the rally, so get to it, young man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:33

Happy Buddha from Puget Sound, Washington on his 1250 GSA. Nice Chris Comley from Hatborough PA on his heart of Davidson Lorata Stio. Dutch Westmoreland, Tennessee, on his Triumph Tiger 1200. Andrew Bryce from Cochrane, Alberta, on his African 12 Africa twin. And Moto Ed from Sony Plain, Alberta on his Yamaha T7. The cool kids already know that this is a T7, but it's a Yamaha Tenere 700. Named after the desert section of the Decar race. Deccar rally. Yeah, Tenerei. It's actually T T-E-N-E-R-U, the circumflex Agu on the east. And uh and with their brother Aaron Bryce from Al from Victoria, BC on a staccati desert X, and the three of them have formed Pyro FX Canada. Nice. Welcome. All right, welcome to all of you. And um, if we don't talk before Santa brings you lots of Farkles, by the way, that was a great song.

SPEAKER_07: 1:32:39

Here comes Farkle Clause, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:41

Here comes Farkle. Are you gonna roll that one in here? I rolled it at the beginning. I'll roll something else at the end. All right, fantastic. And to that, I say a uh Merry Christmas to uh all of my red-headed friends and to all for good night. Good night.

SPEAKER_08: 1:36:56

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