TeapotOne Bruce Smart 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Bret Tkacs 🇺🇸 David Goldman 🇨🇦

Photo Credit - David Goldman

https://www.davidgoldmanphoto.com/

https://themotorcycleportraits.net/

https://www.instagram.com/THEdavidgoldmanphoto

We trade bike-season reality checks, garage fixes, and a brutally honest Cove 450 first ride that proves why “race bike” can be the wrong tool on public roads. Then we get three sharp perspectives on living bigger through motorcycles: Teapot One’s GSXR lap of the world, Brett Tkacs’s rider-first bike selection advice, and David Goldman’s Motorcycle Portraits exhibit with audio stories. 

• Beer check and spring riding conditions across Victoria and Sweden 
• RECCO reflectors explained and why tariffs sting 
• T7 garage upgrades and why weight aloft matters 
• Cove 450 Rally street drawbacks, from mousse tyres to harsh mapping 
•Helmet venting problems and cold-weather visibility fixes 
• VW Buzz EV road trip tips, charging strategy, and ferry comfort 
• TeapotOne on riding 54 countries on a GSXR and raising £15,000 for charity 
• African realities, corruption, risk assessment, and why attitude changes outcomes 
• Bret Tkacs on choosing an adventure bike for a coast-to-coast ADV rally 
• Self-sufficiency baseline, bike recovery, fatigue management, and energy conservation 
• Why bolt-on protection can ruin a small bike’s advantages 
• David Goldman on Motorcycle Portraits, audio interviews and the Montreal show 
• Shipping a motorcycle by air, costs, stress points, and what to expect 
• ADV Cannonball updates, practice tokens, Mile Crusher class, and Baja insurance notes 

Transcript

Thanks, Beers, And Spring Check

SPEAKER_09 0:00

Special thanks to Liz for buying us a beer, and to Tiger Coward for the book review, and to Miguel for his hospitality in Portugal.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

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

SPEAKER_09 0:36

Welcome to Adventure Cannonball Podcast. I am your host, Taylor Lawson, and today I am joined by the Waypoint Warden, better known to you as Aaron Puffal.

SPEAKER_06 0:48

Oh, that's the best one yet, buddy. Cheers to you. Thanks, bro. What are you drinking? I'm drinking uh it's my regular goate these days. It's from Squamish BC. It's the backcountry brewing widowmaker hazy IPA. Cheers.

SPEAKER_09 1:05

Nice. All right. So this one, I showed you this picture earlier. Um, I didn't believe it. I was in the uh I was in the um the liquor store here, Sistambu Logit. And it is the state-run liquor store. And it's called The People's Bulldog, and it's by Bulldog Brewing, great beer out of here local brewery. And this one has a cannon on it, like an old-fashioned cannon, like being shot out of it. So I thought it was very appropriate for this show. Shot out of a cannon. Shot out of the cannon. Here we go. Let's see if you can shoot out. Let's do a little nice one. Yeah, man. All right. Um, so is it riding season there? Are people like on two wheels having a good time enjoying the weather, or what's going on there?

SPEAKER_06 1:52

No, it's uh well, I'm in Victoria right now, and it refuses to become spring. Uh the winter is is holding on. It's been very cold the last couple of days. So I had brought my little uh new cove 450 across from Washington, and it was absolutely terrible. It was freezing cold. I I was able to test out my new gear. Nice. All that climb gear was fantastic, but it just refuses to break. And I understand in Sweden it's uh spring is on its way.

SPEAKER_09 2:22

Spring is on its way. I have a colleague, and she's like, do not she's from she's from Britain. She's been in here, she's been she's from London, and she's been in this country for 35, 36 years now. And she's like, do not dare tell me that spring is in the air. I am so sick of hearing people say spring is in the air, and then and then it snows the next day. That is not spring in the air. I said, Well, you know, for Sweden it is. But um today, sunny. Um today it is sunny, the uh light breeze, beautiful out, and not a cloud in the sky, at least it right now, and it is uh seven degrees Celsius, 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and bikes are rolling. It's nice to see them out there. I actually got out for a little toot around uh last weekend.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

Nice. And I remember the last time we recorded, which was about two weeks ago, they were doing the um sailing. What's it called? The ice sailing.

SPEAKER_09 3:20

The yeah, they were they had they had uh windsurfers on on skis. Skates, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:28

Yeah, they were doing that, and now the ice is totally missing from your lake. So and that happened in a day.

SPEAKER_09 3:32

It was nuts. One day, well, truly a week later, but it's still there was still ice, and it had already gotten, you know, it already thinned out some. And it's like a foot and a half during this winter because it was so cold. And then the edge started to break. You could see it like, I don't know, a mile out. You could see the edge start breaking across the lake. And then it was super windy that day. And then I came home from work that afternoon, and all of the ice off the lake, done, gone. How?

SPEAKER_06 3:58

That's it, huh? Spring is here.

SPEAKER_09 3:59

That's it.

SPEAKER_06 4:00

So, today's show we have a report on the COVID, my first ride report, which is really interesting. We have Bruce Smart, aka Teapot 1. He's gonna talk about his uh around the world trip on a GSXR. We're gonna talk to Brett Tax. Everyone knows Brett Tax, and he's gonna help us choose a motorcycle for the ADV cannonball, or we're using that as an analog for any cross-country kind of trip on an ADV bike, and he is the expert on that. And finally, uh, we fit in a really important final guest, which is uh David Goleman. He is a photographer, he's a world-famous motorcycle photographer, and uh he has a show that is opening on Wednesday in March of 2026, which is this week. He has gone around photographing important motorcyclists on their motorcycles in different parts of the world. It really sounds like an excuse to ride your motorcycle to cool places and meet cool people, but nevertheless, he has a showing in a really cool space in Montreal, and we wanted to talk to him about that.

SPEAKER_09 5:04

It sounds kind of like a podcast, but without a camera.

SPEAKER_06 5:07

That's right. That's right. Well, he does a bit of audio recording also, so he does that too.

SPEAKER_09 5:13

I think that's really cool. Actually, I won't I won't spoil it. We'll talk about it later on on the back end of that interview. Um, but I thought that was really good. Yeah, Aaron has got a question for you.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

Where are we number two? There is a very small anomaly in a very small part of California in a very small part of LA County that this podcast is number two for but a fleety moment. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_09 5:43

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_06 5:44

Well done.

SPEAKER_09 5:46

I I uh I bought some cool pants the other day. I didn't really know how uh interesting they were until they actually showed up and I read about what actually what this was. Um have you heard of Rico reflectors?

SPEAKER_06 5:58

I have now, but yeah, my understanding is it came from ski technology for people in avalanches and things like that, or people in search and rescue. But maybe you can tell us uh tell us about it.

SPEAKER_09 6:11

Yeah, but in terms of the reflector aspect, yeah. So um the Rico reflectors, Rico R E C C O is actually the brand name of a kind of uh reflecting um uh a radar which is used to search for bodies uh for people, hopefully not just bodies, um in avalanches, in any kind of a whatever natural disasters. And quite often this is built into ski gear. And um anyway, I got this pair of pants and I was like, what's this hard thing? I was like Rico Reflector. I was like, okay, interesting. I was thinking it was kind of like the military where they have they put an X on you on your helmet or X on your back of your jacket, or so that you can be identified. But this is just a it's like having it on a boat, right? You put up uh like you would see in the sailboats, you have a radar reflector. It's a similar kind of a setup, but it's down inside the um in the cuff of the pant. So it's maybe an inch by two inches, and it's kind of a soft, but anyway, I haven't actually seen myself being reflected back yet, but I'm gonna trust them.

SPEAKER_06 7:11

Well, they just like on boat technology, they use a I think it's ultra-ferrous metal that reflects radar unusually strong. So that's all that is, is a chunk of metal that they know that reflects the frequency of typical radar, same as boats and airplanes. Now, you were talking about the military uh use, they're using infrared light because they don't want to use uh a heavily reflective radar material because you don't want to target yourself. But if if you are the superior force in a conflict, you probably have infrared not infrared, you have night vision essentially, and a beacon that is infrared will really reflect in that. That's why if you're ever in a search and rescue or if you're a firefighter or something, you can't have green flashing lights when people are uh in goggles and they're coming in with a helicopter to rescue. Same thing. You you know, it they use infrared and in rescue work, they use radar reflectors. Anyways, there's your useless bit of information for the day.

SPEAKER_09 8:16

Yeah, thanks very much. Almost spoken like your uh ex-firefighter.

SPEAKER_06 8:20

And I have to tell you, so Taylor goes, check out these cool pants that I bought. So I'm like, I really need a pair of pants. You know, I just wear the same pants. One of the problems is that it has too much, my pants have too much cotton in them. So after several days, they need a good washing, right? So I said, let me look at these pants. So they're they're quite the technical pants. So I'm gonna go buy one. So I went and bought a pair of these pants. You did? Yeah. And I get an email from UPS saying, you owe duties and tariffs and fees on these pants. I had no idea when I went to the website, the company had built a website that was so smart it put the currency and shipping addresses and credit card portals in your native country's, you know, language, right? I had no indication that it was a foreign company and it was being shipped from a foreign place. So where did it come from? Is it from Sweden or Norway? Where are they from?

SPEAKER_09 9:21

I don't know. I mean, mine it was the same thing. It's it like it identified me. It's like, oh, you want to pay in Swedish crowns? I said, yeah. So maybe it did the same thing for me. I have no idea where it came from. Wait a minute. I did, I got a um a request to pay a duty earlier, but the next package to arrive was your book. So we're used to that.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Did you have to pay duty on that as well? Yeah, I had to pay duty on the book. But it was five, it was five euros I put on it.

SPEAKER_09 9:49

Yeah, I had to pay$15 in duty. Unbelievable. So amazing. It gets you coming and going.

SPEAKER_06 9:56

Yeah. So, anyways, the tariff bill, including fees, was a hundred and fifty something dollars on those pants. That's how much the pants cost.

SPEAKER_09 10:05

The pants cost a hundred dollars. That's right. For me, anyway. Yeah. But they were 90 bucks.

SPEAKER_06 10:09

They weren't yeah, it was a hundred and something dollars. I'm like, I totally got hoodwinked. So be careful. It may look like a US or a Canadian or whatever site, but they're really being they're understanding how to fight against this tariff war. But if you don't know where they're coming from, you don't read the fine print, you're gonna get a giant bill in the mail. So did you send them back or did you No? I had to pay the thing. What do they, you know, what are you gonna do, right? What do you just don't collect it and just say all my money back? I guess. I don't know. You know me. I you know. Anyways, lesson learned. I just take the Yeah, we'll just grind the economy to a cult and no one's buying anything. That's just what I'm doing now. We're just not buying anything. Let's let everything go into recession. Screw it. I don't care anymore. Okay, good. Let's move to a happier topic. Yeah, yeah. Hold on.

Garage Time On The T7

SPEAKER_09 10:50

I have some beer here to help with that. Okay, good. In the meantime, let me tell you about my my weekend at uh at Sven's garage last week. Unfortunately, the audio wasn't really good. I had some great conversations with him about jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. And uh anyway, the audio wasn't uh wasn't podcast worthy. Sven, I apologize. Great conversation. Um, but I can say what we did. So we went there, spent a Sven intro with this is all about Taylor's comfort. So that's true. I was like, all right, anyway. So on the T7, that was the ride that I did. I rode over, we installed a um I lithium, I got a BSLI04 forward slash zero six. It's a teeny lithium battery. I was like, there's a ton of space in here. And I was like, Sven, should I pad this thing up? He's like, no, dude, you can put more tools in there. I was like, great thinking. Um, so it's a good space there. I installed a throttle lock. Now, Aaron, I'm gonna have to explain what this is to you because you probably haven't never owned a motorcycle that didn't have cruise control.

SPEAKER_06 11:53

Well, I do now, but that's a story for the next segment. Yeah. So I feel your pain.

SPEAKER_09 11:58

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, thanks. Anyway, it's cool because it's um you roll it with your pinky, you roll it down like the same direction you would accelerate. So as you roll it down, you can you can roll it with your pinky and it tightens up. And basically it's I've had two other kinds of throttle locks, and uh, this is by far the uh I think the safest because this other stuff is like on your grip and it hits the back of your brake. And anyway, good setup there. I also got shorty levers, and I think I got the shorter levers because I was um I was I was bullied by my um somebody on this podcast, not me.

SPEAKER_06 12:34

Yeah. Well, when you have like a little pro tip, you wanna you wanna share it, right? Like you really need this, right? It's really important.

SPEAKER_09 12:40

Yeah, no, they're really good. And we got a long the longer arm on that. Um so I got a the actuator arm on the top of the end, on the top of the motor, uh, the engine. It actually, well, we talked about that, and I was like, oh, there's gonna be a net loss of 10%. So it'd be 10% harder to pull it back. But the lever is long enough that I got and I mounted it, uh mounted the cable and repositioned the actual lead down to it because it comes out at a much different angle. And all those pieces came in the packet from you know, nice CNC. So the arm that I have actually makes it easier. You can do it with one finger. So really nice.

Cove 450 Rally First Ride

SPEAKER_06 13:19

Well, that's interesting because actually dovetails into the Brett interview and my revelation at the end of that, and how I ignored my own advice at the end of at the end of it all. But yeah, yeah, that's the only thing that I actually do in the motorcycles. Now, the first thing I do is take that lever and I and I keep it as a spare. I'll like zip tie it to somewhere on the frame that's out of the way. If you're ever stuck somewhere, you know, don't throw it out, just keep it, right? Yeah. So let's talk about the Cove 450 first ride. Yeah, I want to hear about this. So let's be specific about what I have. I have a 450 rally by Cove, but it's the off-road. So if you go to the website to buy one, or if you go to a dealer to buy one, they probably won't sell it to you. And if they will, it's only for off-road. You can't license it for on the road. Why won't they sell it to you? They'll sell it to you, but they'll sit you down and go, you have to sign this piece of paper that you understand that you cannot get an on-road registration for it. And the reason why is because it's not emissions compliant, it's not noise compliant, it's not safety compliant because it has moose in the tires and it has off-road wheels. So the first part of the story is, you know, let's share being a dumbass to people, right? So the Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So the uh Hall bike's truck shows up. Same driver, hey, nice to see you again, right? It's kind of like seeing seeing your drug dealer because you're a bit embarrassed because there's another motorcycle being delivered to you, right? So he's there, it's raining, he drops a motorcycle. I'm like, let me just kick the tires because that's really the only thing I care about. Will it start? And do the tires have air in it? And he says, I've already started it, it's fine. I go, awesome. I kick the tires, they're really, really soft. So I'm like, oh, and it's haul bikes, so they have an air compressor on board. So I go try to fill up the tires, and the air is just coming out of the beads. I'm going, how is this possible that I have two flat tires? So it's pouring rain. I just sit down and go, dude, is this tire crushing? Because it's a really beefy sidewall on a tire because it's an off-road tire. He goes, No, no, it's it's fine. And I go, Yeah, I'll just ride it onto the ferry and worry about this another day. So as I'm sitting on the ferry, I'm I'm looking at the bike, I go, those wheels are super aggressive. There's no way this can be balanced. And then it just dawns on me, like, oh, I remember this conversation that this is not supposed to be able to be registered, but we did some shenanigans that got it registered. Right. And there's mooses in the tires. And as you're riding on the road, the whole handlebar is doing like speed wobbles at 10 miles an hour because the whole thing's wickedly out of balance. So I was just so embarrassed that there are mooses in the tires, and that's why they seemed kind of flat.

SPEAKER_09 16:05

Okay, which is also one of the reasons where they go, sir, we're not going to sell you this motorcycle sign this waiver because this is what you're getting.

SPEAKER_06 16:11

It's a nightmare. So whenever you sit around talking to people like Joey Evans and Lyndon Poskett and all these guys who are proper off-road, you know, legends, right? And they talk about I essentially ride a race bike, and you're like, oh, I'll just buy a race bike. And I go, No, you're not. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. You don't want a race bike because that's the first thing is on this particular bike, between 10 and 15 miles an hour, if you were to let go of the handlebars, it the bike would just disintegrate. It's so out of balance. Okay. Because moose can't be balanced, those tires can't be balanced. It is a freaking nightmare. So just riding to the ferry was scary. I thought, what is going on with this bike, right? So let's talk about a few things. Oh, yeah. So uh I have an appointment to change all the tires in the moose to Dunlop Trail Max Raids. So that's what I've decided to put on. It's just what the local guy had. I didn't put a lot of thought into it, you know, whatever, right?

SPEAKER_09 17:12

And what are those? Is that like a 50-50 or yeah, essentially.

SPEAKER_06 17:17

It's a little bit more aggressive than the Trail Max missions, which I used to run on my on my GS. So yeah, it's not a pure 50-50, but whatever, it's fine. That's just what the guy had. And he said he could balance them. So nice. What else? Oh, yeah. So when you're sitting in traffic, I get off the ferry and it drops me off in downtown Victoria. And like I start to realize how terrible everything is. So just trying to get off the bike, the side stand has the opposite problem that you hated with the Himalayans. Remember, you talked about the Himalayans?

SPEAKER_09 17:50

Oh my God. It was like it's like if you were to drop the bike, the Himalayan, and then pick it up just before it was balanced, like just maybe just after it was balanced, that's where the kickstand would go down. I hated that. The kickstand should have been another, I don't know, two inches longer on the Himalayan.

SPEAKER_06 18:07

Yeah. So you you felt that the bike leaned over too far. You felt that it was too aggressive. Yeah, too far to the left. Too far, yeah, too far to the left. So this bike, the kickstand was super long and it has such travel and I have such stubby legs. I literally stop the bike and I go, Holy shit, how am I going to get off this bike now without looking like a so when I stop because it's so high, I have to put like one butt cheek off to the side and like put a foot down.

SPEAKER_09 18:37

Nice.

SPEAKER_06 18:37

So now I'm in the ferry surrounded by cars, and I put the kickstand down and the bike wants to go to the right because the suspension is so soft because it's a race bike.

SPEAKER_09 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:49

Because there's so much suspension travel and it's so high. Right. If I sit on it with the kickstand down, it wants to fall over to falling over. Right. And if I try to stand up, I can't because my legs are too stubby. So I had to like kind of so hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_09 19:05

Yeah. So I've just got this vision of you like, you're like, hmm, how long's the ferry ride? I'm just gonna sit here and seem like I'm cool the entire ferry ride.

SPEAKER_06 19:15

Absolutely. And your ego is kicking in. So I had to do the shameful thing, which is kind of jump to the left, put my left foot down. Okay, I'm in this situation. Now my right leg is sticking out like a chicken wing, and I had to like grab my pant and pull my leg over the pull your leg over. It was just so embarrassing, right? And it's the stress is all you know, the stress is triple compounding. I think I have a flat tire. The whole thing's a nightmare. It's and by the way, it's loud as hell. That's that's the next thing here on the list. So the bike doesn't have a catalytic converter, it doesn't have an emissions, it doesn't have a flame arrestor. So when you start it, it sounds like you know, like a like a 50 cal, pop, bop, pop, pop, pop. I'm like, it's the most embarrassing thing, right? So, anyway, so the next thing was you can't find neutral, and that's on purpose. So if you're rolling, if you're in traffic and you're rolling up to a stoplight and you want to just kick it in neutral because you know, you don't want to hold on to that because it's a it's a cable clutch, right? Right, yeah, you know, you want to have it in neutral. You purposefully can't find neutral because why on earth in a rally would you ever want to find neutral, stupid? Right.

SPEAKER_09 20:28

You don't, it's either on or off, right?

SPEAKER_06 20:29

That's right. So that's the next thing that's a nightmare. Yeah. So it has a cable clutch, and the springs in the clutch pack are super aggressive. So it's kind of like when someone says, Well, I want to buy the best Porsche that you can buy. And someone says, Well, you need to buy a GT3. And I'm like, No, you don't. Have you ever driven a GT3 in traffic? It's like the clutch, you need like 800 pounds of pressure on it, and the engagement point is either on or off, right? So, same thing with this bike. The springs must be extra, you know, the extra, extra springs and the and the grip on the clutch, um uh the friction surfaces are super aggressive. So the whole thing's a nightmare, right? Like, can you change that?

SPEAKER_09 21:11

I mean, can you put a longer arm on it like I did?

SPEAKER_06 21:14

I'm not going to. I'm just going to learn to deal with that because I'm not going to sit in traffic with it again. I just understand what the bike is, right? Okay. Um, yeah. So that's another thing that's a nightmare. And then the last thing that's a nightmare is the whole ECU mapping, because it's not for street use, is insane. So it's either on or off. So between 2,000, which is its idle RPM, because it's a higher compression, right? Than the street legal version, between two and 4,000, it doesn't exist. If you just touch the throttle, it's 4,000. Pow. Okay. Pow. So if you're just cruising along in, let's say second gear and you need to just move the bike a little bit because you're in traffic, it just wants bah and went. Wants to go.

unknown 22:02

Right.

SPEAKER_09 22:03

So if you're just trying to I'm just thinking about this, like our trip, right? So we're going to do this cannonball and we're going to have this in the back. We're going to be leaving the east coast of the United States and driving across to Monterey, California, and rolling this out occasionally. I'm like, I was thinking, I'm just going to take some of these talk about knee pads on the last podcast. And now I have a pair of um like hard uh knee pads that go down the shin into the boot. And I was thinking, I don't want to have to travel with all my gear, but now they're having just the first part of this review. We're not even done reviewing this bike, but I'm thinking I might bring my full kit now, just in cases.

Helmet Frustrations And Cold Riding

SPEAKER_06 22:40

But that's what it's for. So that's the proper use case. It's like we're going to leave it in the back. And then when you're on the edge of, I don't know, tin cut pass, yeah. You pop the bike out and you just tear it up, right? You're in the middle of nowhere. It's not going to be obnoxiously loud because you know, we're old now. We none understand what it's like to go through the city at in Paris at three o'clock in the morning waking everyone up. We, you know, we don't do that anymore, right? So, well, we're gonna try not to. So, you know, so that's that's exactly the use case, and that's what we're gonna do with it, right? Yeah, so, anyways, I will receive my custom livery package from my friends in Delhi, India. I'll have that in a couple of days. Nice. I've already installed the two-finger clutch lever. I have my rally windshield that I put on. I have put on the bark busters, even though I probably don't need to, but the main reason I discovered I am putting them on is because for wind protection, because it is it was so cold. It was, it was ridiculous. I'm not gonna put on the rally tower. I bought the rally tower, I'm gonna just give it away or something. I'm not gonna put the rally lights on because it's so heavy and having that much weight aloft just isn't worth it. So I'm I went and bought a cheap couple of GPS mounts, and it's enough because I'm not gonna put a roadbook on it. I'm not gonna put a GPS tracker, I'm not gonna put, you know, an Odo on it. I'm just gonna put GPSs on it because we run a GPS rally and not a traditional rally. So that's another pro tip that you don't need a rally tower for a big, heavy, old-fashioned roadbook. I kind of had the revelation after talking to Brett, which is our I don't know, first or second interview, which is uh, you know, don't have weight aloft. It was kind of a someone had to punch me in the face a little bit and go, you don't need all this weight aloft, dummy. So uh, so yeah, I'll put two GPS mounts, I'll put the phone mounts on, I'll put the power distribution on. Uh, Hunter gave me some bags, thank you. And uh I'll put the back rack on. But that's it. I'm not putting any more weight on this bike whatsoever. Okay. Um, you got a comment here about your helmet. Uh piece of garbage.

SPEAKER_09 24:57

This is the really this is the one that if it had been at a steak in a restaurant, I'd have sent it back.

SPEAKER_06 25:01

And you're probably right. Now, the whole time I was like I hear it was Taylor. Well, you know, I would have sent that back. And I'm like, no, I should have. I just sent that back.

SPEAKER_09 25:08

Hang on, hold on, hold on, Aaron. Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I'd have sent that back.

SPEAKER_06 25:12

You're absolutely right. Again, you're absolutely right. So I'll try to explain this. Like most riders will understand this. So I almost never fully close a visor on a helmet. It just doesn't happen, right? The only time you fully close it is if you're in the serious dust or if you're doing over 200 kilometers an hour or something like that, right? There's always that little bit of a detent, that one millimeter, one eighth inch detent at the very, very bottom.

SPEAKER_09 25:38

Hold on. Is that the one that you could potentially get a frostbite burn across your face with if you were running across like a snowmobile or something?

SPEAKER_06 25:46

You remember that story. Yeah. My buddy Eric has that permanent frostbite that comes back. Yeah. So, and that's the one time you should close it, is when you're doing a speed run, right? Yeah. So it doesn't have it. So it was pouring rain, it was freezing cold. I didn't have my uh, what's that thing called? The second layer. I didn't have the uh pinlock, didn't have the pinlock in. And I could not get any air through. So it was either closed or it was wide open. And I'm like, this expensive piece of garbage, I'm so pissed off with this helmet. This Simpson, whatever it was called, the most expensive one, which is uh the ADV carbon fiber version with all the things I talked about in last episode. Now it's officially the most expensive piece of garbage on the planet.

SPEAKER_09 26:34

Yep, fair enough. Hey, speaking of the pinlock, the other day I was I was cruising around on AliExpress and I saw a heated pinlock. And they and they run this, they had it's two part put on and uh was it on the outside and the inside? But either way, you lined it up, they gave you yeah, and it's electric. And the problem that I had that I saw was just this this big mechanism sitting off the side of the helmet, and I was like, that's gonna whistle.

SPEAKER_06 27:00

Yeah, it's meant for snowmobilers. So if you go on to like the helmet manufacturers, the high-end stuff, yeah, and if you dip your toe into the world of expensive, you know, snowmobiling and snow machines, yeah, that's what that's for. If it's minus 12 or 14 outside and the windshield factor is, you know, negative 45, and you're gonna be on the on a snow machine for a few hours, you have to have a heated visor. Okay, otherwise it just frosts up. It's a nightmare, yeah. And then it's just like we told that story before. So that story was uh my friend ripped across this lake in in the middle, it was negative 45. Yeah. And uh he has a permanent frostbike scar under his eye that gets more prevalent if it gets cold. It's a really interesting scar. It just disappears in the summer. But if it gets cold, it's a bright red line. And that's what that's for because everyone goes to that little detent. But maybe if you've had a few beers or something and it's three o'clock in the morning and you're ripping across a lake, you know what I mean? You forget to close it, that's that's what that's for.

SPEAKER_09 28:01

Yeah, fair enough. All right, so note yourself. Um, I guess this is a uh not an endorsement for a Simpson helmet.

SPEAKER_06 28:09

No, but the Cove bike, also when people say they have a race bike, that's why, you know, and the only time I've ever ridden a bike, race someone's race bike was going to get a coffee out of a bivouac or something. I've never ridden a race bike on the road. Um, so it was really an eye-opening experience. And I'm not gonna fully derace it, I'll just make it so I can ride it on the road to get to a trail because the purpose of that bike is for Baja. Uh, actually, Robert's gonna use it. So when he comes over in 2027 in the spring to do Baja, I have to have that bike capable of doing the off-road sections for four days in the Baja. And then it also needs to be able to go across, you know, the interstate in Texas. So we always talk about the best bike and this and that and the most race bike. It's not, it's always finding that balance. And this was a great example. It was a good object lesson for me to understand the difference.

SPEAKER_09 29:06

So, on on the on the heels of that, let me just start by saying a shout-out to Robert. Robert, please ignore the previous review. You're gonna love it.

SPEAKER_06 29:13

You're gonna love it. I'll fix it all. I'll fix all the things. It'll be great.

Electric VW Buzz Road Trip Lessons

SPEAKER_09 29:16

Yeah. So let me ask you, I know we uh we didn't record, we've been doing, I know on this podcast, it says that we roll every two weeks. We quite often do more frequently than that. Um, last week you were on a road trip. Next week I'll be on a not so road trip, um, an airplane trip anyway. But uh tell me about you the uh the road trip that you did in the VW Buzz to Bend, Oregon.

SPEAKER_06 29:42

And of course, this is going to be a super short episode. So super short.

SPEAKER_09 29:45

So maybe get a second beer ready. Second beer ready. Blow the cannon, here we go.

SPEAKER_06 29:50

So I've never been in an electric vehicle. So we took the my wife's electric vehicle and went on this road trip. It was uh 750 miles. We went from Port Angeles, Washington, down to Bend, Oregon and BACs, which is about 1200 kilometers. And it was a learning lesson. It was it was uh it was another object lesson in in the vehicles. So right now the diesel cost six dollars and seventy-nine cents in the state of Washington and Oregon right now. For a liter or for a gallon? Gallon. Okay, thank god. Yeah, six something, six almost 70 per gallon of diesel.

SPEAKER_09 30:29

I gotta say that how's it how does it feel to start paying European prices? That's we've been doing that for years. We've ever since I've lived in Europe for 10, 12 years now.

SPEAKER_06 30:38

Yeah, no, I know. But if you want to move the giant sprinter van, so it's like, no, we'll take the electric one, even though we've never gone anywhere besides local travel. So we just use it, it literally plugs in in our parking spot, and then every, I don't know, every week or so we'll just plug it in. We don't think about it. You know, we never go more than the city limits with it. It's a non-issue. It's we don't care about the range. We just plug it in when we need to. As a matter of fact, we never charge it beyond 80%, just so the battery will last forever. We don't even think about it. So, anyways, we get in this thing, we get the dog, and we're gonna go to a supercharger. So we'll be driving for 200 miles and we're like, we're gonna go to our first supercharger, right? So I learned that there's something called optimizing the battery. So it was cold. So before you get to a supercharger and you want to just make it as quick as possible, you hit a button and it preheats the battery. It optimizes it to be able to accept as much current as possible. Yeah. So without it being optimized, it said it could accept 80 kilowatt hours of energy, so kilowatt, you know, the flow of energy. And then after I preheated it, it would take over a hundred. Okay, so you bounced that up by 25%. Yeah. So I learned that lesson. But I also learned that it didn't really matter because by the time we pulled in, we had the Tesla adapter. It came with an adapter, so Tesla supercharger to to uh I think it's called CCS1 or something. I'm not really sure. But we pulled in, we're like, oh, this will gonna take some time. So we took the dog out. Uh my wife went to Target. I went to walk the dog. By the time she came back and I went and got lunch, we got an alert from the phone that had it been 100% charge, and we needed to get it out of the parking spot because they're gonna start charging us for being connected to the to the charger. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_09 32:31

Start billing it back if you leave it there.

SPEAKER_06 32:33

That's right. Don't be a douche. You know, my number one rule in life, don't be a douche. Hashtag D B A C. Yes. We're paraphrasing it obviously for this podcast. So it was really fascinating that in 15 minutes or whatever it was, we went from, you know, 5% or 10% charge all the way up to 100% charge. We couldn't even get all the things done. So all this stress about how you're gonna charge and how much time it takes is all BS. Because the fact that it only took 15 minutes, it was more than that, but it was like, you know, it was 15, 20 minutes because we also went to 100%. And we also learned that the Tesla supercharger knows what percentage you're at. And they're like, well, it's a bit of a surcharge because you really shouldn't be trying to shove 100% in because it slows down at the last 10%. The rate of charge slows down. So, anyways, they don't want you to charge to 100% unless you really, really have to. And by the way, you don't need to. So the other lesson we learned was we were going to bend, Oregon, and Bend, Oregon is at the top of a mountain. It's it's brewery paradise. This is a fantastic place. So you can bring your dog to all the pubs, there's outdoor breweries. It's it's it's a fantastic place.

SPEAKER_09 33:45

It's great that there's those cars can drive themselves too. So you can just drink your, you know, drink as much as you want, get in and say, drive me to the next pub.

SPEAKER_06 33:51

It's I so I learned that too. So I put on cruise control and I learned that the car literally drives itself. So you can I can you know yell at the dog for a second or something, right? You know, don't take your full attention off the road, but the thing is steering itself. It's really, really amazing. So we also learned that I was so concerned, because everyone's concerned about range, that as we were climbing up the mountain, it says, let's say there's a hundred miles of range left, but the charger is, you know, 90 miles away. I said, Well, this isn't going to, because I'm overthinking it. It's not gonna be make it the 90 miles because the range doesn't understand that there's we're climbing up a mountain. Anyways, it doesn't care. So we learned after the first couple of days to trust the metrics of the battery range down to the mile. So and this is the computer telling you this. So T knows you're climbing a hill, you're saying. I don't think it really cares that much, is what I'm saying. It's not like it's has it, it's it's it's being conservative in it in its estimation. Okay. And the other thing we learned was that as we chose our chargers to go to, there's real-time feedback, and it says there's four out of five chargers available. This is the charge rate. We saw one that had 350 kilowatt charging capacity. Like that's insane. Like that's right. Trying to fill up a teacup with a fire hose, right? It's it's absolutely insane. So you can see if the charger's online, how many are available, if it's working. So there's no risk. It's real-time data. There's no risk of showing up and the thing doesn't work.

SPEAKER_09 35:28

Right. Or it's showing up and there's five people in line, and every every charger's booked.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

Yeah, yeah. So, anyways, that's we learned that lesson as well. And by the way, I'm telling you all this because in a future project, this is going to matter to us, besides just geeky stuff. But there is a chapter marker below if you wanna, if you wanna skip forward, you can skip forward. And this funny story, we were in Oregon and we pull into this charger, and we're like, what are all these people doing lined up outside of this white panel van? I'm like, this is some creepy shit going on here, right? But it wasn't. It was how do I put this politely? It was these nut jobs lining up. So far, so far you failed on them politely, but carry on. They're nut jobs, dude. They're lined up next to a white panel van with buckets to buy raw cow milk. Wow. Unpasteurized, like suck it out of the tit. Cow milk. And we're like, where are we? Get us out of here. These people are insane.

SPEAKER_09 36:35

These are the same people. Like, if like the next time they rock up there, it's a it's a purple panel van, and they're still on the Jim Jones juice, it'd be like, just put me in, give me a bucket.

SPEAKER_06 36:45

Sorry, it's it's whatever, right? You know, like whatever the ecosystem says that we're gonna show up. I'm like, you know, you can just stop on the side of the road and suck it out of a teeth if you want, whatever, right?

SPEAKER_09 36:59

Anyway, yeah, good, nice, very nice. I was gonna say, what happens if you end up with a uh a wet dog?

unknown 37:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:06

The last positive thing we learned about electric car is we had to take a lot of ferries. It was raining a lot because of Seattle. Is that when you're waiting for a ferry or you're on the ferry, you know, you want to want to manage your climate inside of the vehicle. So if you're ever in a wet climate, cold climate, you'll see everyone's windows are fogged up, it's miserable. And you can't leave the car running on a ferry. And you probably shouldn't really leave it running when you're waiting for the ferry. But with an electric car, it doesn't matter. So it's not really running. It's not running, right? So you sit in the lineup or sit in the ferry, you're all soaking wet. Yeah. So we took our jackets off, spread them across the dashboard, the dog's in the back, he's wet. You turn on defrost or turn on the air conditioning and some heat simultaneously. And instantly you're warm inside, the seats are heated, it's room, it's drying your jackets, it's pulling the moisture out of the air, and the radio's on. It's the most pleasant way of waiting for things is with an electric car. So I am sold on that aspect of it. And we didn't even think about that until we were in the situation.

Road Noise And Concrete Highways

SPEAKER_09 38:10

Very cool. Very cool. That's nice. Yeah. Did you have any bad roads?

SPEAKER_06 38:15

Yeah. Oh my God. I never understand what's happening in the interstate system. So I-5 has to be the worst road. Either the surface is so rough that it's just noisy. Because another thing with an electric car is that it's silent or it's close to silent. Yeah. So the only noise you get is the wheel rolling over the surface. So you're acutely aware of the road surface. So maybe it's a negative thing, right? They've tried their best with the bus. They have giant wheels on it. I don't know what the size must be 21-inch wheels. So they've done their best to reduce the amount of road noise with these really expensive wheels. But I tell you, dude, it is so frustrating. I don't know if because I'm like on the spectrum or whatever, but it's just the touch of the chishm. That's just the touch. He's a little touched. But the noise of the road is like, just fix the road. You spend billions of dollars a day on whatever. You can't fix the bloody road. I'm like, come on, guys.

SPEAKER_09 39:15

You know, it's interesting. Um, so Brian Coffin's dad, when we were when we were finishing the the uh the first rally, Brian Coffin's dad, who spent lots of time driving those roads, he said he hated driving in 405. And it had to do with the fact that the uh rigs would get this rhythm because I think they're cement. They're like they're not blacktop, they're cement. And they get this crazy rhythm where like the trucks, I don't know what that experience is. All I know is that it's um it's not comfortable, it's not good.

SPEAKER_06 39:46

Yeah, Tydro's. I think he just hated California because he doesn't like California, but the issue was yeah, the issue is that when you pour a section of concrete, you can only pour a truck's load of concrete. So what happens is when that dries or sets, it sets a little differently than the next one. In a big rig, you get an oscillation, you know what I mean, that that that comes through the cab. And and he has an air seat, which probably was really uncomfortable, which I which I fully understand. But I would say the worst road as a trucker was going through uh in Tennessee. What's the big city in Tennessee? Uh, I don't remember. But if you listen into the back podcast, wherever the rally went through, I was yelling into the microphone because in the rally van, we have all the the ramps in the truck, and it was oh yeah, on the walls. It was, and by the way, that was a concrete road too. So Brian's dad's correct. It was another concrete road, and the noise was just unbelievable. So in my case, it was the vibration coming through which made me angry, and in his case, it was the oscillation that drove him crazy, which I fully understand.

SPEAKER_09 40:55

All right, so just make sure that when you route the future rallies, no cement road, please.

SPEAKER_06 40:59

Great. Another thing, another thing, suggestion that gives me more work. So I thank you for more work.

Shipping Tips And AirTag Batteries

SPEAKER_09 41:05

Yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm here for. Let's talk a little bit about. So when you when you shipped your bike, right? That was right after the rally, you dropped your bike, you dropped some air tags in it, right?

SPEAKER_06 41:17

Yeah, so everyone's putting air tags in everything. So we learned from some YouTube videos to always put two air tags in. But Carrie sent me a message just out of the blue, and he goes, Hey, dumbass, you should buy some uh what a CR10, whatever, whatever the lithium batteries are in those air tags. But I think the reason why he mentioned it was for my fob. And he's right, because if you remember in a previous episode, we have our packing list. So I keep spare batteries in my bike for the fob because they will be.

SPEAKER_09 41:54

So if you're on a Santa Maria 700, this is really doesn't concern you.

SPEAKER_06 41:58

Right. But when you ship a bike by sea, you don't see it for a long time. Yeah. And although Kathy at Moto Freight's great, they pull the bike out, they connect the battery, they start it up for you. Really, that's where their expertise ends. They're not going to start taking apart your bike. But I just went online and I bought a little six-pack of you know Duracell lithium batteries. So I can, it happens to be the same battery for my air tags and my key fob. So, pro tip, thanks, Carrie, for reminding me to buy a package of batteries. So when I arrive, I can change all the air tag batteries and my key fob battery with fresh batteries, not something that's me sitting on the bike for three years. So it was a great piece of advice. Nice that you had me at six pack. Sorry. I just quickly wanted to mention that I received my ride through Japan t-shirt, the supporter t-shirt uh from Adam in Japan. So if you did indeed click on one of the links and supported him, which you can still do, by the way, I would encourage you to do it. He's the gentleman who's doing the 47 prefectures in Japan on motorcycle. And uh he actually sent me the t-shirt. So thank you very much to Adam. And if if you supported him or choose to support him, I guarantee he will actually send you one of his cool t-shirts.

SPEAKER_09 43:17

Nice. So we did reference um teapot one earlier. So I think maybe it's time that we roll the interview. Adventure, endurance, glory.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

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.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

Bruce, welcome to the podcast. Hi Allen, thanks for having me on. Thanks very much for taking the time. You're in England and I'm in Victoria, British Columbia. And I know it's your tradition to have a brew. So do you have a brew beside you? I've gone just for some like um squash. So just flavor and water. That's all I've got. I'm gonna have an IPA if that's all right. Yeah, no problem at all. No worries. Perfect, perfect. We wanted to have you on the podcast because you undertook a really unique around the world journey, and it wasn't your average, you know, GS story. This trip became a book, it became a DVD, and you've just recently released it on YouTube. So let's start off with the madness. How did you end up going around the world on a GSXR?

SPEAKER_05 45:09

It was the bike I owned. You know, I'd I'd literally I passed my bike test, and the first bike I owned was a GSXR 600. Uh, quickly moved on to the thousands, and I just loved the bike. Um, then when the idea to ride around the world came up, I'd already seen that uh Jacques Lucason and Nick Sanders had done it on R1s and the Fireblades. And I just thought, well, if they can do it, it is possible. So why not? And I was trying to raise some money for charity, and I just thought, well, it's quite quirky to do it on the sports bike. The more I spoke to people about doing it, the more people said that can't be done, you can't do it, you're insane. I'm quite stubborn, so that really sort of just lit a fire. And it was the more people told me that's the wrong bike, the more I thought, right, I'm going to do it on that bike.

SPEAKER_06 46:02

And it reminds me of uh one of your countrymen, uh, Jordan Gibbons. He recently wrote a book and his catchphrase that I took away from it was the right bike is the one that you own. Yep. And that seems to be your story. And it ended up being an interesting part of the story. Now that you've done the trip on the GSXR, when you look back on it, did it end up being a positive or a negative thing by taking that bike?

SPEAKER_05 46:23

I think a definite positive. I mean, the reaction I got almost everywhere on that bike was nothing but positive, really. There was only one country where I got a negative reaction, and I think I'd have got that on almost anything at that time. But you know, like up in the mountains in Lao and places like that, I'm going down dirt tracks on this sports bike. And wherever you went in the world, everyone's heard of Valentino Rossi. So they're looking at a fat Scotsman in leathers on a bike, going, ah, Valentino Rossi, Rossi. And they were just saying it with big smiles, you know. So I think it helped. I think it helped break uh break the ice with people as well. And yeah, it was a focal point. I mean, your bike's always a focal point when you're traveling, but having something like a sports bike, uh, it certainly adds to the to the fact.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

Yeah, the video is fantastic. It shows you pushing this bike with street tires through the mud and all these ridiculous situations. And you're absolutely right. It opens doors and people will approach you like, what are you doing? This is this is insane. Um, and how did you end up choosing the route? Because you are taking this unusual bike, and uh, I know you have some history doing some track days and such. So, how did you end up choosing uh the route?

SPEAKER_05 47:39

Uh well, obviously, I was doing it on the sports bike. So in my head, I thought, well, I'll visit all the Moto GP and World Superbike Circuits that they involve in the championship back then. And I just sort of pinned them all up on a big map up on my wall. And then I was, as I said, I was fundraising for a few charities. So one of them was Born Free, and they had various different projects around the world that they wanted me to go to to help raise profile, and ones that I wanted to go to. And then there was just like general sightseeing and friends and family. So, you know, I just plotted all that on this big map, and a route sort of just presented itself, really. I mean, I didn't go as far as figure out exactly what roads I would take. It was just a case of, well, here's all the points. This looks like a logical progression, well, like progressive path. That's the path in general that I'm gonna follow, and we'll wing everything else from there, really. You know, you've got your border, certain border crossings and transit points, shipping points, things like that. They were definite areas that I had to aim for, but everything else, I just sort of, you know, winged it, really, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_06 48:50

Yeah, that seems to be the best way to do these things. And you plan something overly much and never really works out, anyways. But you've mentioned a couple of times the charities. Uh, I don't know what Born Free is and some of the other charities. Maybe you can tell us those missions and were they successful? Did you raise any money or awareness?

SPEAKER_05 49:07

Yeah, um, well, the charities were Born Free, which um Born Free is basically like a wildlife, uh almost conservation type charity, um, predominantly based originally over in Africa, but it's gone worldwide now. Um, there's I think there's literally thousands of different associated projects with that. Uh uh, the other one was British Legion, the Royal British Legion. That's um like a military veteran charity here in the UK. Another one was the St. Christopher's Hospice. They were an end-of-life palliative care hospice that looked after my mum in her final um few weeks. Who else was there? There was the Children's Trust. Uh they're a charity that look after uh kids and young people who've been suffer who suffer from like traumatic brain injuries. Uh and I think, I think that oh, and the Linfon, the Linfona Association, that's another cancer-oriented charity brought about through the connection with my mum. And yeah, I did. I raised about, I think in the end, I think I raised about 15,000 pounds. I think in the end. Wasn't quite the million that I sort of set in my mind, but um 15 grand's better than a poke in the eye with a stick, as they say.

Africa Gets Real Fast

SPEAKER_06 50:21

Yeah, sure, that's for sure. Um you know, when people start these trips, especially leaving from the UK, you don't really get the feeling that you've started your journey until you hit about Africa. What was it like when you actually hit the deserts of Africa? And how did that go on the uh GSXR? And for yourself, with you know, going somewhere that is so foreign.

SPEAKER_05 50:42

Yeah. Um, yeah, you're totally right. I mean, Europe, Europe's Europe, you know. Uh we're very lucky here in the UK that we nip across the Channel and we're we're into mainland Europe, and that opens up so many different countries to you. So I'd I'd ridden and traveled through Europe loads before. Africa's a different kettle of fish. You know, you you cross over the straits from from southern Spain across into uh well, I went to Morocco. Morocco for me back then was a real taste of something out of the ordinary. Now I've been back to Morocco loads. I love Morocco, find it really friendly, it's a great place to travel. But back then it was, oh wow, this this is out my norm. This and then as I headed south uh through Western Sahara, and then it was Mauritania, really. That was where it all got very real for me. You know, the the tarmac kind of stops and you end up in the dust and the sand, there's minefields, corruption's rife with the police. There was loads of military checkpoints because of the um uh the Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram. Do you remember that they kidnapped all the Nigerian schoolgirls way back in was it 2009, 2010 sort of time? Well, they were exploding through Central Africa during 2012 when I was on this trip. So the Mauritanian government sort of flooded the two main roads in that country with military and police checkpoints. And obviously, I was ringing the dinner bell for them, so that they were they wanted paid off every single one, and there were lots of checkpoints. So Mauritania for me was a big mental block, I think. Really, I find I found it really hard coming from a police background. My sort of spidey senses, you know, my my risk assessment was through the roof. Once I got in there, there was just you know, there were Toyota Hilux trucks with what looked like terrorists to me, you know, like guys in full, the full, I don't even know what you call it, and pardon my ignorance, but you know, the full desert garb with AK-47 sat on the back. Um didn't look particularly friendly or helpful. They actually they chased us into the first town and we sort of managed to slip them. It was just uh, it was the polar opposite of what I thought adventure travel was going to be. It was like all the bad bits that everybody warns you about that could happen. It felt like that was happening there in Mauritania. So yeah, Mauritania wasn't a good experience for me.

SPEAKER_06 53:21

But you made it through. And but I know at some point you thought maybe this is a bad idea. And at some point you took a little pause. Was that because of those challenges, or did you run out of money? Maybe you can take us through that journey.

Coming Home And Trip Reboot

SPEAKER_05 53:32

Yeah, um, I got set up by uh the police for the final sort of checkpoint and then the border crossing from Mauritania into Senegal. The main one to use back then was uh a place called Rosso. I think it's moved somewhere else now, but back then Rosso had the reputation as the more the most corrupt border checkpoint in Africa, believe it or not. So uh, and it lived up to its reputation. Yeah, we got set up by the police um who were working with a gang. I'm saying we, because I'd buddied up with a uh South African guy who was riding back to South Africa from Scotland, believe it or not. We sort of buddied up as we entered into Mauritania and stayed together. So we got we got taken by a gang and held for a while. And you know, they were just trying to get as much money out of us as possible. They know travellers hide money. They basically just wanted to try and get as much money from you as possible. And once they thought they had all our money, they kind of believe it or not, they took us back to the checkpoint and helped us through the whole process, getting our paperwork stamped, and then we were just put on a boat, sent over the river into Senegal, given the passports back, and that was it, done. But um business is business, right? Yeah, you know, I I I get it, it's you know, uh, some people have nothing, um, other people are just very greedy, and I think they were a mixture of both. Um, but it it really fried my head, to be honest with you, that experience there. It's um I think I had a realization at one point that if something did happen, the police aren't coming. It's the police that are doing it, and um, the first people who would know is that I hadn't updated Facebook in a while, you know. So it was like, what am I doing here? Uh I'd been relieved of quite a bit of money coming through Mauritania, and I thought to myself, I've still got Nigeria, the Congo, the DRC, you know, all the horror stories that people were telling me about Nigeria and the DRC in particular. And I thought, oh my God, if this is what Mauritania is like, what is that going to be like? And I thought, I've probably got enough money to get to South Africa, but I'd have nothing left by the time, you know, once I was there, I'd be stuck. So I made the decision once I got to Dakar in Senegal to come back to the UK. And I thought, I'll just put my head back down at work, work as much as I can, get some more money together, and hopefully go again. And then, you know, the story sort of was giving a re was given a rebirth because uh a company approached me once I was back in the UK and said they'd been following the trip. They were just away to offer a sponsorship. When I decided to come back to the UK, you know, we arranged a meeting, they put some money on the table, I accepted. I could get me to sort of Australia. I thought I'll figure it out from then on, really. So that sort of rebirthed the trip and gave me a excuse the term, but a massive boot up the arse, really. All right, let's go. Don't give up. Let's go.

SPEAKER_06 56:32

It must have been really hard having to come home almost with the feeling of failure almost. Yeah, it's uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:38

Um, I'll be honest, it's probably one of the one of the biggest low points in my life ever. That I felt a total failure. You know, I'd I'd promised my mum that I would do this trip. I'd spent like three years working towards it. Everyone knew about it, all my friends, all my family. I'd made a big deal about going away and doing this trip. And I think it was something like seven weeks to the day from leaving, I was back in London. So the opportunity to go again really did feel like a what's the word? It was an opportunity that I was never going to pass on, and I would not give up this time. You know, it's like, right, let's go, seal the deal.

SPEAKER_06 57:18

It must have been a lot because as you mentioned earlier, that you were a cop. And obviously you're dealing with high stress situations and you're dealing with sometimes the riffraff. So it must have been really a traumatic experience to going through all that to kind of give up at that point. But how did being a cop prepare you for this trip? And was there anything in that job was encouragement for you to go after this big life goal?

SPEAKER_05 57:44

I I actually think I actually think it probably went against me initially because in the police, you're constantly appraising situations, you're constantly reading people, body language, you know, it's threat assessment constantly. And going to somewhere as hostile as Mauritania was at that point, I was just seeing threats everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And I'd been used in those situations, I'd used I was used to being in the police. So that if something happened, I had a big red button to hit on my radio. And in London, then, not now sadly, but then, say 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if a police officer hit that red button, you were talking 30 to 60 seconds, and you had like the cavalry would descend on you. So it was like the safety net, really. Even if you did get shot or stabbed, you know, you had world-class medical aid that was going to be there in minutes, and all of a sudden I'm over there in Mauritania and I'm seeing all these threat levels and you know people swinging AKs at me, and you know, there's a guy playing Russian roulette with us when we got taken by the gang. You suddenly realize, oh, I'm I am actually done for. You know, if anything happens, there's not that safety net here. You are on your own. And I think that sort of worked against me because I'm seeing all those threats, there's a thing called Polaris Box. I'm not sure if you you've ever heard of this, but you're taught it in conflict resolution. Your attitude affects my attitude, which affects your attitude, which affects my attitude. And if if you don't interrupt that, so if you're aggressive towards me and I'm aggressive back, it's just gonna build and build and build, and eventually you're gonna come to blows and people are gonna get hurt. Someone has to put the big boy pants on and take a step back and just go, let's calm this down. I didn't do that, I don't think, in Mauritania because I was just so hyper. I'm feeling threatened, which is obviously going to have an impact on the people I'm dealing with, and it just goes and goes and goes and goes. So um, yeah, well, a lot of lessons for me that were learnt from that. Because the next time I went, when I got the opportunity to go, it was just big smiles and off we go. It's just, you know, it's not ignorance is bliss, but you have to have a very open attitude, I find, when you travel.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:07

Yeah, I was really impressed in your video that there was a shot of you in front of number 10 when you left. And I was like, wow, that's that's a big deal. Um, what did your fellow uh law enforcement partners think of you leaving and just taking off on a motorcycle?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:21

Uh I mean, they loved it. They absolutely thought I was insane, but they they loved it. A lot of police officers in in the UK, anyway, it's quite an insular group, you know. And um I used to think it was just specific with something like the police, but now, you know, now I'm self-employed and I'm outside of that bubble now. I think most people are like it in their jobs. You become very insular within their job, and you think, you know, you've got all these ideas and wishes. I I wish I could do that, I wish I could go there. A lot of the time you don't because you've got your nice little bubble round about you've got your job and you've got everything that you know that's round about you. You know, it's it's for everything's familiar that's round about you, and it's comfortable. And I and I think police officers can, in my experience, they can sort of just withdraw into that bubble very easily. So they don't step out and go and do other things, they just stay in and they kind of think, oh, I can't do that because I'm because I'm here, because I've I've got this role. I can't go and do that. So I think a lot of people wish they could, but they just didn't. So I think some folk were just living it through me almost, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:32

Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned the law enforcement circle, and now you're in this, you know, adventure travel circle. And what was your view once you got out of Africa of your interactions with the public writ large and the motorcycle community? Has that changed your worldview? And what were some of the experiences you had along the way?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:52

There was nothing worse than how I felt uh at that point in Mauritania. After that, it was just it was the dream I hoped and wanted it to be. You know, it even when things went wrong, people just appeared and people helped and people opened up their lives to me. And and that really has had a very lasting positive impact on me. I used to be a very suspicious person of people, particularly, you know, strangers. If I didn't know them, I I was very cautious and suspicious of people purely because of my job. That trip opened my eyes to a lot of things and um just it made me realize we're all the same. You know, wherever wherever we live in this world, whatever language we speak, whoever we worship or you know, any of that stuff, we're all the same. People just want to look after their family, they want to get on with life. And if they see someone in need, then they will help however they can. You know, whether that is as much as just standing there and maybe they can't talk to you in your language, but they'll stand there just to keep give you company, really, as like a token effort, right through to people who open up their lives to you. And you know, you end up living with them and their family for three or four weeks, and they literally feed you and look after you. Uh I had all of that in the trip.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:20

Fantastic. And I don't want to give away your whole trip because I want people to watch the video that's available on YouTube now. But what was the final data look like? How many countries did you visit? How many miles uh overall?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:32

It was uh uh 54 countries, 74,000 miles in 442 days.

A Promise To Mum

SPEAKER_06 1:03:40

Wow, that's quite a bit. And this isn't a small undertaking, and a lot of us have that fear of setting off, just like you said, your fellow coworkers would never dream of it. What was the thing that really gave you that kick in the butt to go and do something so extraordinary?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:56

It was my mom. My mom fought cancer for nearly 10 years. Um, sadly, it got the better of her. So, towards the end, I'd move my mum into to stay with me. Um, long story short, my folks had emigrated over to Spain, but when our cancer had come back, I'd said, look, come in, come and live with me while you're going through the treatment, because she'd come back to the UK for the treatment. Uh, and as she was getting more and more unwell, um, we were just sat on the couch one day on the sofa watching the TV, and Long Way Round came on the TV, you know, the Ewan McGregor Charlie Borman. And funnily enough, my mum had bought me the box set years and years and years before when they first did it. And I didn't even ride a bike at this point. And the box set when I saw Long Way Round really lit a fire, and I thought, I want to do that, but I didn't ride a bike, I didn't have the money. You know, again, here I am, I'm putting all the reasons, the roadblocks why I can't do something. And I started moaning to my mum, just saying, Oh, it's all right for McGregor, Hollywood A list, all that money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like everyone does. And my mum just turned round and she said, Look, you've always spoken about riding a motorbike and you've never done it. And you've always spoken about travel and you've never done it. And she said, Don't get to my stage where you face the end and you regret what you've not done. As far as we know, you only get one chance at life. So look after those that you love, but live your life. Every time I say this, I get the old chills up my up my spine. It really was like an epiphenal moment, you know, like the let's go for it. And I just picked up my laptop there and then, and I Googled how do you pass your bike test? Um, that came up and I booked it. I literally just booked it there and then. Fast forward a wee while um the day I passed my bike test, my mom was now at St. Christopher's Hospice, you know, the end of life palliative care place. She didn't she didn't want to pass away in my flat, bless her. So she elected to go there. I picked up my brand new G6R600, got into my Power Ranger. Outfit and I rode the bike to the hospice, walked into the ward, saw my mum on the bed, shook the keys and said, I've done it, I've passed my test. So she gave me a big hug and then she just said, Right, promise me you'll do that trip. So I I promised her, and um, six days later she passed away. So I was like, Right, I've I've got to do this trip then. And um again, even then, I thought, I'll do it. I can't do it now. I've got a job, you know, I've got a mortgage. Um, I I have a son. Although my son didn't live with me, um, I had a son, you know, got you've got responsibilities. And I had an incident at work where I was I was chasing one of London's finest through the streets, and he he turned round and pulled a gun on me and literally pointed a gun straight at my face and pulled the trigger and it misfired, it just went click. So um once we dealt with him later on, it was either that night or a couple of nights later. I've gone out for like a curry and some beers with some friends, and um I told them about this uh this dream I had of riding a bike and um the promise I'd made my mum. And one of them just turned round and he said, Jeez, like if ever you needed to boot up the arse, that's it. That's your mum going, get on with it. Like, stop making excuses and go for it. So um it was like right, okay, I'm gonna do it. And back then, this was like 2009. Back then we had the Olympics in London at 2012. So I knew I wouldn't get any uh time away from the police till after the Olympics. So I just decided, right, 2012, October 1st, that's my mum's birthday. October 1st, 2012, I'll go. And that was it. You know, that that I had a date then, and off we went.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:40

That was it. Now that you have the book and the video and you're here sharing your story with us, it's obvious going to inspire people. What do you think your mom would say that she's has this legacy of inspiration?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:51

My mum, my mom would be she would be proud in in me to do to have done this, uh, and then she would just be overjoyed for anybody that has that dream and just goes for it. You know, like my I think my mum always spoke about travel to like Australia and New Zealand, and she never did that, and that was a big regret of hers. So, you know, I I I think it it really did mean a lot to her that I was like, right, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go for it. And I'm sure she's up there, she's up there looking down, I'm sure she is.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:24

Absolutely. And you had other people in your family that you had to, you know, get on board with this. I know that your your wife Nikki and you and your son, what what did they think about all this?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:34

Well, um Nikki, my my wife, we weren't married yet. Um, we met and I had already made it known in the department. I I I worked in diplomatic protection in the police. That's why I could get that picture at Downing Street. Um so did my wife. She was actually away traveling when I first joined the department. So everyone was telling me you need to meet this Nikki. She travels like you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So when she came back and um we hit it off, we ended up going for a drink. And you know, it was an interesting first date. You know, she was telling me about her travels, and then she was like, Right, okay, what's this I hear about you disappearing for two years to travel? So Nikki was uh aware of this trip from day one, uh, and she was aware of the reasons why I was doing it, the promise I'd made my mum. So she never ever starts, you know, uh stood in the way of that. She's she's a fantastic person. Um so yeah, she's she's literally stood by me from day one, really. And any mad idea I get, she's just like, right, okay. I think she knows when it's just an idea and when the fire gets lit and it's going to happen. Um so yeah, you know, she knows that's that's just me. Um and my son, uh I I had like three years from deciding I was going to do the trip to when I was leaving. I had three years. So I made a point of chatting to my boy about it. And we I put him on the back of the Jyxar and we toured around Scotland, and then we went across and we did some touring around Europe as well, just to give him a little taste as to what it was that I was going to be doing it, uh what was I going to be doing. Um and he was all for it. He loved it. You know, he was how old was L? He was 15. Oh, he's 14, almost 15, when I when I left. You know, looking back, and when I chat to him about it now, he was like, Yeah, you know, all his mates at school were following along on YouTube and stuff.

Post-Trip Blues And What Next

SPEAKER_06 1:10:32

So yeah, they they enjoyed it. Yeah, it's important to have that group around you to sometimes encourage you because Ted Simon told me when when we were chatting that, you know, we we build prisons around ourselves, whether it's jobs or a family, and you're very fortunate to have a group around you what that was the complete opposite. When you finally got home, what was that like? Because I've I've done a lot of traveling in in my life, and I find when I get home, you want to tell everyone your story, but life just kind of chugged on without you. Um, what was that experience like for you?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:02

I I found it. There were two parts. One part I found really quite frustrating because of exactly what you just said. You know, I come back after being away and experience all these amazing things. And I felt like it really changed me as a person. And I came back and all my friends and my work colleagues are still moaning about the same old things. Everything they were moaning about two years previously, they're still moaning about. And they've not done anything to fix it. That just infuriated me, to be honest. I was just like, if you don't like it, don't do it. Change it. You know, if if they are annoying you, move away from them. Just like I I can't kind of came back a bit of a hippie, you know, like you're a master of your own, your your own life here. Uh figure out what you want to do and just make it happen. Like, stop put as you said, stop uh raising the prison wall, stop putting roadblocks in front of you. Uh-huh. And then the other part was the post-trip blues. No one had spoken to me about post-trip blues. I'd I'd been to loads of the big adventure travel meets and stuff. No one ever mentioned it. But it hit really hard. You know, I I I found the first year being back really quite tough, to be honest with you. Really tough. What's the point? What next? You know, you've you've lived the dream. What do you do now? So that that was hard, but really hard.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:24

And just in case there's some people listening who who get that kick in the butt and start doing this, what advice would you give to them? Or maybe the question should be, what would you have done differently?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:37

I always say if I was given the opportunity or got the opportunity to go again. Had the need, because it it it wasn't just I want to travel, uh I had to travel. There's a there's a difference there for me. If that ever happens again, I won't do that three years of planning. I don't feel like there's any need for that. I would literally pick my phone up, my passport, my credit card on the bike and off we go. And I'll deal with whatever comes my way. That's the benefit of experience having done it. And I know what it's like when you've not done it because you want to make sure all the I's are dotted, all the T's are crossed. I get that. But um I would just go. You know, if I if I if I do this again, I'll just uh go. And the other one is uh take your time. Take your time. There's a huge part of South America I just flew through. I hope at some point I get the opportunity to go back and properly travel. You know, as as everyone says, take the path less uh travelled. Just uh you see that you see that road to your left or the track to your right, take it back. Just take it and go and see where it goes, you know. Enjoy it. Make the most of where you are.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:50

And I have a bunch of questions here, but I'm gonna kind of put them into one here. Is that uh, you know, what are you up to now? Or maybe the question should be do you have any big trips planned in the future?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:00

Uh well, now um I resigned from the police in 2020, literally a month before the world shut down with COVID. Um and I resigned to go for it with my touring company. I'd started a touring company called Chicken Strips. Uh so uh that is now doing very well. You know, the world, I was gonna say the world's got back to normal, but it's all madness again, isn't it? But um yeah, uh I have a touring company called Chicken Strips, predominantly European tour. So we're we're busy all year with that. Myself and another guy, Simon Weir. He's he's a bit of a big name in the in the sort of European um motorcycle world, at least. Uh we've just done our first international tour to Australia uh a couple of weeks ago. So yeah, we're planning for next year already, New Zealand, hopefully next year. Aside from that, my whole teapot one brand. Um, yeah, I'm a full-time sort of content creator now, really. I've got my own podcast, Brew Time. Um yeah, it's just it's just busy, busy, busy, busy, living the dream.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:04

No regrets. Yeah, you definitely are. Um, I'll put all those uh links down in the show notes, and we're coming over that way. We have a rally that's running in Europe and we have some interviews in UK. We're gonna talk with uh Stuart Barker. Do you know who that is?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:18

Um no, who's who's that? Stuart Barker.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:21

He's a writer and has uh published a bunch of books uh on racing and Islam TT. Oh wow. Yeah, Lois Price. Oh, yeah, no, Lois, yeah. Yeah, we're gonna chat with her and a few people. So we're we're looking forward to coming back to the UK and uh talking to some fantastic, interesting people. It always seems there's so many interesting people in the UK for some reason. Uh is it in the water? What's what's going on over there?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:46

I think it's because we're a little, you know, we're a little island nation or you know, group of of different countries here. And it's so, like I said, it's so easy for us to travel because we can just nip across the channel and we're onto mainland Europe. And then once you're on mainland Europe, it just opens up a smorgasbord of different countries, which you can just travel overland through. You know, there's there's very few borders there, um, and it's just so easy to travel. So a lot of people go for it.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:16

I actually ship my motorcycles to uh Moto Freight. Oh, yeah. And they have, yeah, they have that that facility right there. And it's and you're exactly right. It's it's the doorstep to the world, whether you're staying within the United Kingdom or you're taking the the ferry across. It's just there's so much to do from there. So maybe, maybe that's the reason why there's uh so many great stories there. But thanks so much for taking the time. I know we've kind of gone over here, and thanks for sharing your story. And hopefully, uh hopefully the story will inspire some people to get on their bike.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:45

It's my pleasure, Aaron. Thanks very much for having me on board. Really appreciate it. And um, folks, if you got any questions, feel free to reach out, social media, email, whatever you want. Just um reach out and I'll do my best to get back to you. All right, thanks very much for sharing a brew with me.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:01

Pleasure. Cheers. And we are back. Nice one. That was a good interview. It was short, but it was really good. He's um he I love I got the accent. He reminds me a bit of our friend Ginger James.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:14

It's the best. I forgot to get him to do uh uh a little bit fruity. I forgot to ask him to do that. I forgot to ask him. Well, I guess there's another reason to have to meet him again. Uh we're gonna try to see him and a few other people when we're in the UK, and we will feed him a few beers and try to get him to say some of our key phrases on the on the podcast.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:38

Yeah, good idea. I love it. That's great. All right. So um yeah, his around the world trip story was fantastic. And uh he's got a great message there, which is go live your life.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:49

In that same vein of living your life. The the the big takeaway, as as you say here in the notes, is just don't worry about the planning. Right? Just he said the only thing he would do differently is grab his credit card, choose a direction around the world, and just go. And uh maybe even more to the point, the fact that he did it on a GSXR is ridiculous. Yeah, to say the least. It's unadvised, but it just proves the point. As uh Jordan Gibbons would say just the bike that you have is the bike that you should go on. Or I'm I'm uh paraphrasing there, obviously, but that's the point, is what he's trying to say. He says, Grab your credit card, grab whatever bike you're on, and just go.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:30

Yeah, exactly. Um, and there was a good comment in there as well that you referenced, which is kind of stuck out for me, is the reference to Ted Simon about being prisoners in the behind the walls that we built ourselves. He's like, just go.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:45

Yeah, it's a great interview, good dude. And he's got a great channel, by the way. And um the other piece of advice is take your time, don't just barrel through. But we're all guilty of that, right? You know, we have all these pressures and we just want to get to where we're going. Um but in a perfect world, I suppose, if you could um slow down, that would be the the last piece of advice.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:04

And on a final note about the interview, I love the name of his company, Chicken Strips.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:10

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:14

Yeah, fantastic. All right. And uh you did a lot of interviewing. You got three on the books here, man. You're a busy boy.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:22

Yeah, it's been a busy week for sure. But uh, you know, we're following our philosophy is super short episodes. So we're really on track with that.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:30

This is I'm about to get into my second beer here. That's it. It's a short one.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:35

Uh so Brett Tax. I love how he says um he says, I have both of my names are spelled wrong. Yeah, and and and he and he covers that, I won't spoil it, but it covers that at the end of at the end of the interview. And uh, and with that, I say we should uh roll the interview.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent and hornifying news story. And I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonballer!

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

Hey Cannonballers, thanks for subscribing to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a comfy, head on number to buymeaComfy.com. Or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. Back to the riveting podcast in progress.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:31

Hey, glad to be here.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:32

And I'm in Seattle in a hotel. I've put my wife down at the lobby bar with the dog with uh mimosa in hand. And uh, where are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:42

I'm I'm just hanging out, getting ready to hit the road. I've got training starting up next week. We're getting into our training season, so I just took a break from you know uh doing tires and loading trailers and sorting out gear and uh just to give a chance to chat with you and all the listeners out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:58

Awesome. I have wanted to have you on for a long time. Thank you so much for taking the time. Everyone knows uh as far as our rally goes, a coast-to-coast ADV rally, and really just how to buy an adventure bike. I'm not qualified. And thankfully, you've taken the time today to give us a hand. Maybe it's a tough question to ask. I know you're a really modest guy, but maybe you can give us your credentials.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:23

So, you know, kind of a background, and I always try to explain this. It's very interesting. I've been doing the adventure training thing since uh the what is it, about 2008 or so. I've been training since '96, uh mostly street riders. I got into this actually by accident, believe it or not. For me, I'm not a racer. I'm not an X-racer, I'm not an X stunt rider, I'm none of that. I'm a street rider who got into dirt, who got into adventure, who who who tries different things, goes to different schools, get different certifications just to become better as a rider. But if I have to define myself to the adventure world, I'm a traveler. And so everything I do, the way I think about riding is from a traveler's perspective, which means I'm looking at efficiency, I'm looking at safety, I'm looking at the fact that you may have to ride through terrain that you've never seen before, and you have to be successful 100% of the time. So that's kind of where I come from. I've traveled the North American continent, uh, so north, central, south um you know America. So from you know, from Canada down to Argentina. I've ridden all the length of Africa down the West Coast to Nigeria, Congo, all of those places. Uh I take people around the world with me. I've taken them to China, Nepal. So, you know, I'm just kind of a guy that likes to get around and and try different things and spend my time in the summer training people. So that's kind of the the big picture of of who I am and where I come from.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:42

You're a certified trainer and and you're recognized by different groups, and you've got a fantastic YouTube channel where that training continues.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:49

Yeah, I was certified with MSF for over 20 years. I did the total control stuff. You know, I've I've I've trained on the racetrack, I write curriculum. I'm a my degree, my college degree is in education. So that's you know another you know facet that goes into that. But uh so yeah, no, I I'm definitely out there. I do a lot. I've been training adventure writers for a very long time. Uh you know, as far as schools go, I'm I may be the oldest in the in the country at this point, but uh I don't know if that's good or bad.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:17

Yeah, we're not gonna talk about our age, okay? We're gonna just ignore the premise of that statement. Here's the challenge. We have a East Coast to West Coast rally. This is not a race, and we do it in eight days. You must be a hundred percent self-sufficient. The eastern portion starts off with twisty dream sport bike roads, and then we have some slab days in the middle, uh, which you have to be able to trudge through. And then when we hit Colorado, we've got gravel, hard-packed, fun, flowing mountain passes like Tin Cut Pass. We have, I think it's called Edge of the World or something like that. And then we start getting into Moab where we have some sand. And then we're gonna go through Death Valley, through some paved sections, and there we're gonna hit some loose dirt in California, and we're gonna end on the Pacific coast. So that is the absolute worst case independent, uh, self-reliant ADV dream. And I have no idea how to start a conversation when people ask me, as the guy who's running the event, what motorcycle should I have? So maybe you can help me to start to answer that question for listeners and rally goers.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:35

Let me start off with the obvious mistake that I think a lot of riders make and they just go, what's the best bike? And obviously, there's a lot of factors that go involved with this when you're talking about rider skill. Uh what do you want from a bike? What do you need it to do? I mean, let's face it, we're not going to be world-class racers at the end. Like you said, this is an event, is something that you get to hang your hat on, but it's not a race. And when you're just going, what is the most competent bike to do all of these tasks? And obviously, we land on on bikes like the like the GS series, you know, the 13s and 1250s and 1200s, or or even, you know, given where you're going, you could even grab multi-strauders or fantastic on the pavement. And that's great. But I think we're missing the essence of what this is really all about. When you talk about adventure travel and when you're doing an event like this to go across, a lot of times it's just it's something you can prove to yourself or something you can accomplish. I mean, there are people traveling the world on Yamaha XT250s, you know, these these tiny little bikes, or people traveling on scooters, there's people traveling on Harley Davidson road bikes. I mean, there's there's there's a whole uh a whole mixture of this. And to be honest, I was humbled years ago. I talked to Ted Simon. You know, he wrote the book Jupiter's Travels, and he had traveled the world years ago on uh on a Brit bike. And in my ignorance of the time, and I was chatting to him, I'm like, oh, have you ever thought about a KR650? Well, you know, now I'm in a time where I'm just like, that would have been an awful choice for doing that. I mean, I lacked all I had all this great advice, but no experience to back it up. And it's embarrassing the conversation I had with him. I'd love to get hold of him and just say, I'm really sorry for even speaking. Because, you know, I just I had to have sounded like an idiot. But the idea is that we're looking for something that meets those needs. What makes you smile? What makes you happy? What do you want to say at the end of it? And then we can dial in on what is, you know, what is capable. And for some people, they want easy. That's great. Take the one that's most capable to do everything. And for others, I think it's you know, there's uh other things to consider. And also when you start talking about size, I mean, is is a 1200, 1300 really right if you're 5'5 or if you're 105 pounds, or or you know, you deal with these other factors that are involved with riders, uh, you know, where you start talking about these small 450s, like the you know, we see the the Chinese bikes coming in now and CFMoto and Motor Marini and these other bikes that are putting out these 450s that are really very competent motorcycles or or the the small bike, you know, the the whole small bike thing that's going on right now with the KLE 500s and the you know the 390 KTM and just there's just a plethora of options. Or do you want to go the other side and grab something that's more street oriented and then go, can I ride this off-road? Because frankly, the reason I still ride a 1200 GS is just I love people coming up to me when I'm out in the middle of nowhere and just asking me, are you lost?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:33

Yeah, most of these routes I say are planned for a you know, GS 1250, something like that. But I have to tell you that now that I now that I'm older and I've lost a lot of my confidence, I am loving the 1250 ripping through the mountain roads. I'm loving the 1250 when I'm on the slab day. And then the minute that front little 19 inch wheel I've just kind of lost my confidence. And that's why I want to talk to you is that I'd really like to see more of the smaller bikes. Last year we had a DR 50 and it was fantastic to see him roll and with the bigger bikes of that after the matter the guy's idea to accepted a feeling that are not doing more than 70, 80 miles an hour on the highway anyway. So top speed has to be put into perspective, I think, because you know we're just not going that fast anyway. So I'm I'm finding it hard to balance the slab days with the very difficult sandy days.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

And I think that's a great point to bring up because as you're if you're considering, if you guys are listening to this, and and obviously if you're listening to this this podcast, you've probably thought about doing something like this. And these are, I mean, when I'm looking at the you know what the event is, it's what around 500 miles a day on average? Is that about right?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:06

Yeah, it's between 350 on the really twisty, fatiguing days and as much as 700 on a highway day. Because if it's just a highway day, we just want to knock it out. So the way I describe it to people, it's not about mileage, it's about time. So you will be in the saddle all day.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:23

And that's that's the part that people need to really consider here because we have this balance. When we get on the pavement, you get on something like your GS, and they're fantastic. They're smooth, they're quiet, they're they're not very fatiguing. You get on something like a DR400, let's just say, you know, we'll even take it a step back from that 650. And you know, you can get pretty beat up, you know, you know, running those speeds, even if it's 80, 70 miles an hour with the winds, and you know, you're going across open plains. There are definitely plenty of places for that. And then you have to balance that because as soon as you take that big GS off-road, now you're dealing with the fatigue of wrestling that through the sand and everything else, where these smaller bikes will be a lot more comfortable. So obviously that's something that every rider is going to have to scale and weigh. What can they do to make each bike better in each environment? But let's go back to the the one of the first things you said that I think is very important. And it's very important for anybody considering doing something like this, whether it's at your event or just doing it on their own, because you know, let's face it, I'm not invested in your event. I'm not invested in these motorcycles uh specifically, in other brands or anything else. I'm invested in the riders. That's what I'm all about. And so I love seeing people go out and do this, but it's that self-sufficiency element that I think is really important for people to weigh and consider. And that's where you see people going, oh, you need to have this big bike because that's an adventure bike, or hey, that's ridiculous. You have to have this little bike because it's easier to handle. And the truth is it depends on the rider. And if you get out there and you realize you can't pick up the bike that you have, or you can't pick it up multiple times, which you know certainly is a good possibility. And let's let's not forget the fact that when we're doing this, we're fatigued. We're we're taking time. And the most challenging terrain based on your description is going to be on the West Coast, which means multiple days, long days, fatigue is going to be a factor. You're going to drop a bike in places that on a rested day wouldn't be a problem. And if you're not able to recover that bike in those situations or to stay relaxed and not feel threatened by that bike in those challenging situations, that's going to be a big issue. You don't want to get hurt when you're out there and you have to take care of yourself. So being able to recover that bike, self-recover, being able to uh maneuver it and move it around, being able to do basic repairs on it. And let's face it, most of these bikes are really reliable nowadays, but flat tires are uh they just happen. And if you can't do a flat tire on the bike for whatever reason, then that's a skill that's missing. You have to be able to know that stuff. And I think these are some of those factors that riders need to contemplate. Uh, you know, we have fuel distance, you know, how fast can you ride? What's your fuel economy gonna go? These smaller bikes can lose fuel economy pretty fast when you start cranking them up. And so how, you know, are you are you using those fuel stops to take a rest, to break, um, iron butt style, or are you uh is that gonna wear you out because you have to detour to get fuel where you could just keep moving along? And you know, I don't have the answer for that. And the truth is I neither neither do you at this point, because it's it's the individual, it's the it's all of you guys who are listening to this that have to be very honest with yourselves of going, what would be the best thing to make this happen? You know, what could I actually put 750 miles on on pavement? And that's a long day. That's a very long day, uh even on pavement. And 350, when you're adding twisties and dirt, that's that's no that's no short day either. And yeah, I think that's where things need to come in and where a lot of the small bikes are going to have some huge advantages. Uh I again I just got off the IVEX uh you know from CF Moto, and I was absolutely um amazed at how well it cruised down the road, how little fatigue there was riding, uh, how light it felt off-road, and how and the wind protection. This is a cheap bike. This is a$6,500 bike. And you know, for people to discount these options to to accomplish something like this, or or to say, well, I need to save up for this big expensive bike to do it. You don't. Let's go buy a used Tenor A700. They're the market right now is flooded with them. You can buy them for a for a song and a dance and and go out and do something like this. Throw a$300, six-gallon tank on it and ride across the country. That's the only thing you have to do. It's so yeah, there's a lot of these small factors that I think are good. And I do think it'd be nice to see people kind of move away from just the big GS focus and go, what else can I do this on? I mean, do it on a venture scooter. I don't care. I mean, I I think it'd be fun when you start thinking about what could I do it on? Maybe one year do it on the best bike for you that you know you can be successful, and then go, huh, can I up the challenge? What if I did this on fill in the blank? And and could I still accomplish this? Could I get a couple buddies to go with it and we can compete against each other, even if it's not against the top slot, but it could be against others that that are of like type or like-minded riders.

Can You Pick It Up

SPEAKER_06 1:34:17

I think you just gave the the best bit of advice there, which is can you self-recover your own bike? Let's say at the end of the day, the sun is going down, you're behind schedule, you're in Moab, you're in the stand. Can you recover your bike? Can you pick it up? Can you get it going again? That's always been my baseline, in my opinion. Can you self-recover your own bike at the worst of your physical uh condition? And it doesn't have to be with the rally. The rally is just a great analog uh for a hypothetical discussion because many of the people listen to the podcast don't necessarily do uh the rally, but you know the rally is that clean today is the guy on his bike with the stuff top to the back and he's going across the miles, and it's whether you're staying on the pavement exclusively or you're taking our optimal off-road route, um, you know, that's fun to discuss. But you just wrote that 20 to 450. Now, you know, you're you're an advanced rider. Can you settle the discussion? Can these things ride across the country?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:18

I could easily now that particular bike, um I unfortunately I put a hole in the skid plan while I was out riding it because it had the factory skid plate. And it turns out it's 1.47 millimeters thick. So that you know, it's aluminum foil down there. But with a good skid plate on that bike, uh, and just that, because and I'll come back to the protection uh debate, but with that particular bike, if I got on it today, I would do your rally in a heartbeat. Right. I wouldn't have a problem with it. It has fuel economy, it has good airflow, it has enough motor to cruise comfortably in the 70s and 80s. And I and I'm not trying to sell, I I have no no market in CF Moto or the Ibex, and you know, I I've got a lot of other bikes and I love riding a lot of things, but it just kind of illustrates the opportunity for people to have a very capable motorcycle for a very good price to get into something like that. And yeah, I could I could take the Marini uh Vittory or the or the uh the CFMoto and and take it cross-country in a heartbeat. No problem.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:18

Yeah, we just had a Cove 450 rally kind of given to us by Cove. And I won't be taking that on this year's rally, but next year we're starting off in the Baja. And I think that is the ultimate weapon for ripping across the sand in the Baja. Now, you're going to have a very tough day when we go through the highways in Texas. But I think that I do not want to, you know, going back to your baseline, I don't want to be good doing four days of uh Baja riding with a GS 1250 at 50 plus years and someone who's obviously overweight. Uh I think I think we've we've all learned a very good lesson here is that you do not want to be in trouble by yourself with all your gear on your bike trying to pick that bike up. But I do feel confident about taking these more inexpensive 450s off-road. And I think they're going to make it.

Protection Without Turning Tank Heavy

SPEAKER_00 1:37:12

Before we go into the the bike itself, I want to address an issue that is um well, it's it's an issue across the the board. Um but yeah, obviously there's ergonomic setups and all that, but that it's the protection question.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:27

And you know, I think this is one of those things where a lot of times people buy bikes and then they put so much on them. And the first thing they do is they open up the catalog and they start changing foot pegs and handlebars and crash bars and skid plates and tailbags and luggage, and and they don't realize it. They just took this bike that was an incredible form uh performer. Lightweight, easy to pick up, easy to ride, and they turn it into a a tank. And it's like, okay, you just took a bike you could self-recover, and you've made it something that you can't because it's just so heavy. And also, if you think about this balance, for example, I I've got a Tenor A700 in my in my garage. It's one of my it's my current what I use is a dirt bike. And you know, I run I do run crash bars on it because I teach a lot, and so I set the bike down in places I wouldn't normally do. But if it's just me out riding and I'm not in in heavy rock territory, I'd rather run with plastics because I can replace those pretty cheap. And it just makes the bike lighter. The lighter it is, the less likely I need that protection. And uh so I think having riders look at their bikes and go, okay, what is the value of the weight I'm putting it on? And where is the weight? If it's a skid plate, it's gonna be high value and it's low, it's low impact. It's it's under the bike, it's under the center of mass. If it's you start doing upper crash bars and and even hand guards, you know, which you know most of us end up running, but you could run two inch levers, two-finger levers instead, and then just run less weight, make it easier, and you still have the protection, you're not gonna break the levers if they tip over. So I think riders really need to consider how they set that bike up so they don't destroy the advantages of these bikes. And again, if you're talking a small bike, as as we're kind of diving into on these these 300s and 400s and so forth, or 450s, is that you know, when you start making them heavy, that it becomes a huge disadvantage because the power to weight ratio is a much greater impact when I add 15 pounds of crash bars on that bike versus 15 pounds of crash bars on a GS 1300 with 145 horsepower. So, you know, and where you know uh uh the uh since we brought the iBecks up and the Marini, those are forty-four point eight horsepower. So that 15 power pounds makes a big difference. So as far as the the more um the more common brands that we have, I mean we we see the K and I have not spent time on the new um Kelly 500 from um from Kawasaki, but you know, certainly that's one that's coming in. I'll be very interested to see how that is. You know, Honda, uh, you know, they do have the new Trans Alpin. Definitely taking a look at it. It needs some protection on the bottom side. They have some design choices that make you go, this this needs to be wrapped up before you take it out. And you know, it's traditional Honda, so it's wrapped in a lot of plastic. But that may be something that somebody's looking for if they want that kind of protection. You know, the 500 that's been out, you know, they changed that out so they have a larger front wheel on it now that that's a little better performer. And for a lot of riders, especially shorter riders, you know, that's it that's a great bike. It'll do a lot of things. I I just ran a tour through Morocco. We were all on Ten Ray 700s, except for one guy, and we rented a 500 for him to ride with us, and he hung with us the whole time. All the twisties, all the highways. Uh, and when we got in the dirt, he plugged right along behind us on that on that little Honda. So there's definitely a lot of options out there. When you start getting down to like the 300L from Honda, you know, the dual sports, you're really taking a hit on those highway days. I mean, I I think doing 750 miles of highway, especially dredging highway, you know, with that thing wrapped out, maximum throttle to do 85 miles an hour would be exhausting. And it that would be a hard run. So I think that's you know, that's where we have to again find those balances. And I I wish we had more options besides the uh you know, the cove and the and these Chinese bikes have come in. They've really hit a market that's impressive. Now, if you look at power and you look at weight, the Marini, which is the same power plant and frame and and wheel set brakes and everything as the IBEX, it scales dry weight the same as a Ten Ray 700. So, you know, you're getting instead of 75 horsepower, you're 45, and of course, you know, there's a different price point and everything. But you know, you know, there's still weight on those bikes, and and that's a lot of times where they get their they get the price point down is they're they're not shaving weight on certain things and the way they're building them. But that also, you know, that takes us to one other element, and I'm gonna throw it back at you here is we talked about picking up the bikes, and you know, the the spreadsheet or uh uh a list of specs on a bike isn't gonna tell you what you really need to know. You know, looking at that 44.8 horsepower doesn't tell me much until you ride it and go, wow, this is really impressive. Picking up that 10 array, which I'll tell you, I'd rather pick up my 1200 GS all day long than to pick up my 10 array twice. I mean, it just doesn't carry its weight well. It carries it very high. When I'm riding, it's wonderful. But when it's laying on its side, it really loves gravity. I mean, it's just it is drawn to gravity with a with a vengeance. You know, those are things that people have to realize as well is that you know, you can't just pick a bike on a spreadsheet. Go, if you can, ride it, but can you know, can you see what it's like to pick it up? Can you see what the load balance is going to be? You know, do you need to change suspension? What are other the other expenses and costs and change that are going to be involved in making that a capable motorcycle? I'm not even going to say the best, but a capable motorcycle for a task like the rally. And you know, that might be different than if they're doing a BDR or the TAT or the Trans you know, Canada, or even if they're just going to Argentina and they wanted to do the Gringo Trail down the down the coast. I mean, there's whatever that mission is for that bike, you've really got to weigh those out and go, where are we at? You know, what what is the you know, what's the dealer network? What's the reliability? What's the workability? Can I work on this bike? I rode an XT600 through Africa because it was a carburetor. There was nothing going on with that bike. I could pretty much took a nine volt up to it and make it run, right? There's just and I could get parts out of Europe. So if I had a problem, I could ship them down and get them to me. And and so, you know, I don't want a complex computer-laden bike in in the middle of you know Nigeria. You know, that was just a bad place. And so, you know, these are all considerations we have to make as riders.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:41

I think also you made a really good point about choosing your mission. But first I have to make add a mission here. As I'm a little embarrassed because I run religiously the two-finger levers on everything. That's really the only thing I do. And now I just realize why the hell have I been putting bark busters on all of my bikes out of the box when I've been putting two-finger levers on when I could just throw a couple in saddlebags as a backup. You just really blew my mind there. I'm actually a little embarrassed of that of that revelation. But anyways, that's the purpose of these kind of conversations. If someone can point something out that you've been doing, maybe you do differently. But I'd like to go back to uh the Meta, and you make a really another really good point which even if you have a brand new DSA 1300, uh you can choose your MECA. So in our specific use case, which is an analog for cross-country touring, you can do the the 20-mount road, how the those bikes are like sports bikes, and then you can do the highway data path, and then you may feel comfortable with dipping your toe into a Itentica path, which is a path gravel road. And then maybe you may want to do going into Moab, but then you're gonna be like, you know what, I'm gonna change my mission and I'm gonna take the paved road today, and I'm not gonna be embarrassed about that, and I'm gonna leave the stand to the guys on the Himalayan 450s. I think you make another good point of choosing your mission according to what you're riding.

Skills, Fitness, And Saving Energy

SPEAKER_00 1:45:10

So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna deviate our conversation a little bit here. And uh, you know, we've been we've been focused a lot on bikes, and that's important. Well, everybody loves to talk about bikes and what they're gonna do. And we've been talking about the capability for us to handle the bike, but we haven't really talked about how we modify our abilities to actually do this and accomplish this so that we can choose the bike we want. Because, like you said, if you're intimidated for the bike that you would like to ride, then that's not a good choice for you. And the one thing about being intimidated by a bike, and you know, whether it's you're concerned about the weight on the street or picking it up or how it handles in the sand, is that that creates fatigue. When people are stressed out, when you're worried about things, that fatigues you as a rider. And one of the things I do as a trainer, actually, probably if I have to underline anything or or put it into one category, is my whole goal is to conserve energy. Every technique I teach, every everything I do is to help people save energy because we make mistakes when we get exhausted. So if we get exhausted, we're gonna make those bad choices. When we get exhausted, we don't react the way we do, we delay in our decisions. Uh, you know, and and so this starts from day one from the first moment you get on the bike. How do I conserve one calorie? And those calories add up throughout the day. And those calories at the end of the day, and this should always be true, it's no different than if you're flying an aircraft or if you're taking a boat out to sea or whatever. You need to have a third of your energy in reserve. And if you don't arrive at the end of the day with a reserve, you were just you you made the end of the day by luck. Because things happen almost always towards the end of the day because that's when we we make mistakes and that's when we're exhausted. And so we have to have that energy so that we can self-recover, so that we can set up a tent if we're stuck out in the middle of nowhere and be able to handle that so we can hike out and get help, whatever it is, and also so that we don't make bad choices that put us in that situation to begin with. And so that that conservation of energy goes back to the way we strategize, the way we see things, the understanding the physics of how that bike works and why it's like uh when we get in sand, everybody freaks out about sand because that front end is wiggling back and forth, and people think that means the bike is unstable. When in fact, that feedback is the stability of the bike. That is the bike staying upright. And because we're misreading what's going on, we end up stressing out, we tense up our body, we we freak out our minds, we wear out, and then we make the mistakes that cause us to fall down in sand, and we blame the bike in the sand rather than what we're doing. And so, you know, if to to make a choice of a bike, whether it's a big bike, a small bike, uh an expensive bike, a$30,000, you know, uh Ducati, or whether it's a$6,000 Chinese bike, uh, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. We've got to match our skills to our goals. And and so that means riding skills and understanding, but also like physical. I mean, and nobody wants to go to the gym. Nobody ever wants to hear, oh, you know what? You save a lot of money if you just lost a few pounds, right? Because you're you're spending a thousand dollars to put uh a different can on your bike to save five pounds that's not going to do anything for your performance, but you won't stop eating crap. Whatever. You know, you know what I mean. I just like wait, it's like, come on, you know, just so the preparation goes all the way across the board from bike selection, from riding choice, from the way our mind is looking at things to the way we take care of our bodies so that we are successful and that we have fun because that's the only reason we do this is to have fun. We that's the goal.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:42

And speaking of training as a as a foundation, um, are you still giving trainings here in the US or you or are you just doing these big exotic trips?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:50

You mentioned I do YouTube, and my YouTube channel is it's supported only by Patreon. So I don't have there, there's there's no money coming from YouTube. It's pretty a very direct audience. So that is strictly to help out riders. 80% of my my viewers on YouTube are international. So about 20% of them are in the in North America, Canada, and the US. I don't hide anything. When I do those videos, I give everything. I don't do little secrets and go, by the way, if you want to get the rest of it, come take a class with me. I don't do that. I I give it all, but that only goes so far. Watching a video only does so much. And so my living, the way I make my living is training riders. So I travel around the country every year. I go over to the East Coast in Virginia and Georgia, I do classes over there in the spring, and then I come back and I do them in Idaho and then Washington, Oregon, and Utah are where I currently do training. And these are usually one class or a couple of classes per state. And it follows early season because that's when everybody wants the training before the season starts up. And then in the fall, I might pick up one or two. And then in the winter, when it's really cold and nasty and gross, then I take people to other countries. So we look for places near the equator.

unknown 1:49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:59

So that Is what I do for a living, and it's all I do anymore. I don't train street riders. I don't have any contracts with the military anymore. I don't train police anymore. Uh I don't do any of that. All I do is hang out with guys on adventure bikes. So my entire life is about taking guys that are past their prime on bikes that don't belong in the dirt. And we go out and we do silly things in the dirt and we smile and have a good time about it. And that's that's all I do now for as my living.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:27

Well, you've got me fired up for a riding season, that's for sure. And I have to caution everyone who's listening is that I have looked at your website of classes once or twice, and there's never any space left. So if you're thinking about it, maybe you're planning for next year at this point. Is that still the case?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:43

I do try to to match the demand, you know, but you know, it's all it's always a shot in the dark. Like this year, I had two reserve dates. I just opened both, so I have like some new spots in Georgia. I just opened up, and I just opened a new class in Idaho because I had a reserve date for that. And I'm like, we haven't even got into the season where people start looking for classes, and I was already booked solid in those areas. And most of my other classes are only a few spots left. So I I haven't even started the training season and and I've got maybe two or three spots in each of the classes on the West Coast, which the f or East Coast, which are the first ones I do of the season. That's where I'm heading off now. So they do fill up really fast, uh traditionally, very, very fast. But I I do my best. Um but you know, I've had guys, you know, trail me for sometimes over two years to try to get into a class because they keep waiting and they don't jump in when the the classes come up. So if you do want to train with me, I I'd love to have you out. Again, that's that's what I my my passion is fired up by helping riders, you know, accomplish the goals they want to do. I I just I love doing that. Uh and and that's also why I do the YouTube and I do that for free. There's no subscriptions or anything because I just want to help riders not make the early mistakes. And I think if we're looking at adventure riders, most of us are older. I'm 54, uh, and I'm dead center on my bell curve. You know, riders come to me on average 45 to 65. You know, obviously we go off a little farther than that on both sides, but you know, there's there's a personality, and most of us at that point realize that paying a few dollars to learn something rather than saving the money and learning through pain or having the pain and not learning and then pain to learn, uh, that we would just rather learn to upfront and and you know accelerate our success rate. And that's what I'm all about.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:28

Yeah, that's fantastic advice. And I also just want to mention everyone, we don't want to scare anyone away. And I also want to mention that when you're doing one of our rallies or one of these, you know, middle-of-the-road, semi-competitive, friendly competition, how I like to put it, rallies, 75% of the field just want to make it to the finish line or maybe win one of our awards, which is like a checkpoint crusher award, something like that. And we find a lot of guys are teaming up. And that is a fantastic strategy. If you're a little unsure, or maybe the weather isn't so good, and you really want to go to that mountain pass, maybe share a beer with someone the night before at the previous evening's hotel, and maybe you guys can leave together and there's some security, massive security with uh two people riding together. Maybe that's that's some sound advice for people as well.

Training Access And Attitude Matters

SPEAKER_00 1:53:20

Perfect. I uh and I'll give my I've got two pieces of advice as we wrap this whole thing up. And the first one is don't wait. I I I hear that all the time. As soon as I retire, I'm going to, or once I do this, I'm going to. And life moves on and it's very unpredictable. And if we just wait until we think things are perfect, that we have the perfect bike or the perfect opportunity, or we're in the perfect health, sometimes the opportunity never happens. And I think it's very important for us to realize that we just need to do things because there's always a better reason not to. And so don't wait. And the my my last piece of advice for you, and I I say this often in the videos always close up and say, remember smile when you ride because attitude matters. And I want to take you back to the very beginning of this conversation. And we were talking about you know recovering in the sand, about having to be able to get out after you're exhausted and the day has been not quite going as planned, or the weather went uh let's say less a little less than pleasant. That's when attitude matters. It's not when things are going well, it's not when we're smiling and everything's failing along and the weather's perfect. It's when everything goes wrong. That's when attitude matters. That's when you have to keep a clear head. That's when you have to remind yourself you chose to do this because you decided this was supposed to be fun. And to keep that that in check and just go take a deep breath. Attitude matters. Let's just let's just move on. This is this is all good. This is just an experience in life, and I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:53

There's no way you could have known this, but the interview we just played before yours was Bruce Smart. He runs a YouTube channel called Teapot One. He rode a sport bike around the world, a uh Jigser. And his mother's advice as she was passing away was live your life. And I I just can't, you know, every once in a while this happens on his podcast when these things line up. You know, your message is absolutely right. Be prepared, be trained, have decent equipment, don't stress too much about it. Other advice we've got from people are is the best bike to take on the adventure is the one that you own. That's another great piece of advice. But yeah, if not now, then when uh is uh another piece of advice. But you've um you've really closed this um uh this chapter with some great advice. And thanks very much for um for giving some advice to uh to everyone. And maybe you can give us the name of your YouTube channel and your website where people can get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:51

So the hardest part is just gonna be spelling my name. And Google's a great way to find me, but just the first name, you just gotta remember my first name and my last name are both misspelled. So the first name is Brett, it's B-R-E-T with one T. And the last name is T K A C S. And that's just pronounced Tax. That's how I say it. So T K A C S. And you can find my website at just Brett Tax.com. Or you can go to YouTube and just type in Brett Tax. Uh or better yet, just type it into Google and you'll find podcasts, uh, articles, websites, videos of probably anything you're looking for. I think last time I looked, my channel is almost 300 videos deep. And also I did a channel uh several years ago before I moved over to that. And those videos are all still up online as well. And if you put my name in and what you're looking for, you'll probably get those as well. So thanks for letting me come on the channel. Thanks for letting me talk to all of you out there that are listening to us today. And don't forget, smile while you ride, because attitude matters. And we are back. Another nice one.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:00

Yeah, I think he is he's so down to earth. Like I remember when I was kidding up, like trying to buy figuring out what I should put in my toolkit. And I remember going back to him specifically and like taking notes on the things that he said to go, okay, I need that in my toolkit, need that in my toolkit. And um yeah, he just gives really straightforward advice and it's based on experience. So that's kind of nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:24

On his website, he's got this uh AI generated tool based on his data. So he spent a lot of time on this. So that's how I ended up wanting to talk to him was I kind of reached out and I said, I know you have this tool, but maybe you can come on in a podcast way. So if you are thinking about buying another bike, go to his website. He's got this tool that's really advanced with a lot of information for how to choose a bike. And maybe it can just help you think of some other options that you maybe not have thought of is what I see the tool as being most effective as. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:58

These are some things that stuck out for me on this particular interview. Uh, one of the things I know that you're gonna hate is the fact that he wasn't so much focused on, it wasn't all about bikes. He was really good at steering the conversation. He's like, okay, and and he would say what he was gonna do, and he did exactly that. He'd say, now I'm gonna change the focus from the bikes to the rider. That was one thing I was like, that was a really good, it was this was really well delivered. And then he did precisely that. And he talked about maybe getting uh the bike that is best suited for that particular rider, their ability, their size, you know, the length of their legs, that type of thing. So we talked about that. And um, it obviously makes sense that he made a career out of training riders, uh, not motorcycles. So he's really, really focused on the rider. Um this is one of the things that you know you and I uh talk about and we hate uh an overlook point uh is it maybe you should not think about actually getting in shape for the riding season instead of just tidying up your suspension.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:54

How dare you?

SPEAKER_09 1:58:55

How dare you? Yeah, well, like you know, hey, if if the suspension fits. Um I liked his perspective on needing to be able to pick up your bike multiple times. And I also thought it was quite cool that he said you should have at least you should rock up there with at least 30% of your energy left. And in his techniques, it talks about saving a calorie, everything you can do to save a calorie.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:20

Energy conservation.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:23

Another way to think about it is every time you hop on the throttle is you're burning a little extra fuel. So every time you're standing up, every time you see a bump and maybe you want to grab a little bit of air, or every time you want to power slide around a corner, you're burning not only extra fuel, you're burning your fuel. So, how much fuel will you have in your tank by the time you reach the rally hotel each night? And I will say that why I try to talk people out of getting extreme checkpoints for that reason is because I want to make sure you have enough in the tank for the next day because it's a multi-day thing. So it's not only that day, it's the next day, the next day, the compounding fatigue issue, right? So it's a really good piece of advice is conserve your caloric fuel tank to make sure that you can make it to that night's hotel and also survive the next day.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:12

Right. And that evening have enough strength to do some 16-ounce curls. That's exactly only have a few of those, but you know a few of those. Yeah. Um, I wholeheartedly agree. I know that Carrie will as well, is that the Tenor A700 seem to have a stronger gravitational pull than other machines. And I mean all other machines. They lay flat, man. They are flat layers.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:36

They're flat and the weight is a little more aloft.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:39

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Interestingly, 80% of his audience comes from abroad. Again, similar message that we've seen and heard from many, many people here is don't wait. Like these are his advice. Use like advice on picking a bike and doing a trip. He's like, don't wait, quote unquote. And his last one is really, really cool, which is smile when you're riding because attitude matters.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:00

Absolutely. Yeah. You're supposed the whole point of this is to have fun, right?

SPEAKER_09 2:01:04

Right. He's like, You're the one who chose this. You're riding through the snow or the rain or whatever's happening. You're like, you chose this. Remember that you chose this.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:11

Whatever it ends up being that day, it's still better than being behind your desk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:15

Yeah, very true. And here we go. Our third interview. We got David Gold in the interview, and he is a world-renowned photographer, and he's been up to a lot of really, really cool things. Um, and it won't spoil that, but I say we should roll the interview.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:33

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 coast to coast, navigating checkpoint to checkpoint by GPS and pushing past your limits. Take on every off-road stage, and you'll learn bragging rides and a coveted Rough Rider trophy. Owned a twisty tarmac, and you'll claim the checkpoint crusher award. Every mile counts, every choice matters. Rack up the point, and your name could be etched forever on the winner's cup. It's your duties are harder, the mileage is longer, the glory is greater. The ADV Cannonball Rally is open for registration. Fortune favors the bolt.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:30

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:31

Great. I'm in Victoria, British Columbia. And where are you today?

SPEAKER_03 2:02:35

I'm in Montreal, Canada.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:37

Nice. And you're here to talk about your motorcycle portraits exhibit, and it's opening on April 1st. But you've been taking motorcycle pictures and people who ride motorcycles for a long time. Maybe we can start there.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:51

Yeah, well, so I'm a commercial photographer by trade. Uh, I got started in the music industry. A lot of people know the Blink 182 album cover that I shot, Enema the State. It's a long time ago. Uh, from the music world, I moved into more documentary work. So, music, I was living in LA, and then I moved to New York and I switched my focus more to documentary work. And anyway, during that time, I was traveling a lot overseas, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh for UN women and for different NGOs and things like that. And it was becoming very aware to me how motorcycles in developing countries were used as a utilitarian tool where a father could get his multiple kids to school, get an education, help to get out of poverty, versus in the developed countries, very much a luxury item. And I had been doing stories where I used GPS and audio and VR to kind of show a more broad sense of a portrait, tell a more of a backstory. And I thought it'd be really interesting to show how motorcycles have this sort of, there's a fundamental connection, often an esoteric connection that people have to their bikes. And I basically just started to do this series in the beginning. I wasn't so clear on the direction I was going. Uh, but over time it developed into very clear uh questions that I ask. I ask everybody uh a handful of audio, like questions that are recorded for audio. I use GPS to geotag the location. And although I've been told that anytime somebody gives a percentage check, they're 100% wrong in their in their number. But a vast majority of the percentage of this project, I shoot using my motorcycle as a mobile photo studio. Occasionally, I may be somewhere where somebody is and I don't have my bike and I'll you know I'll drive there. But the vast majority I use the bike and and I've traveled over 60,000 miles. I've photographed close to 200 people in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, uh, and Australia, and a little bit of India. And uh basically it's called the motorcycle portraits. It's uh it features people whose lives are deeply connected to motorcycles, builders, racers, collectors, and world travelers. Uh I try to show the inclusiveness of motorcycling, men, women, black, white, straight, gay, whatever. And the connection that they have is more than just like, oh, I like bikes, you know? And that's basically it. Uh, I've been shooting it for kind of eight or nine years now.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:19

Wow, that's impressive. And then maybe you could describe the exhibit. So it's in Montreal. Maybe we can start with the venue. What kind of cool, awesome venue is your exhibit in?

SPEAKER_03 2:05:29

It's kind of a cool uh event space in Montreal on Saint Laurent. The people that own it are this Argentinian couple. And to be honest, I just sort of went in there asking if they if they do shows, you know, because I was new to Montreal. And we got to talking and they were into doing it. So it's it's kind of a cool space, and there's a bar. The guy makes beer. They're really into, you know, they're Argentinian, right? So they're really big into soccer, football. But they're they're super down with doing this. They have food like empanadas and that kind of vibe. And then and again, like he brews beer. So yeah, so that's the space. It's not like a huge museum or anything, but it's a it's a cool place, and the the owners are very cool. And yeah, I'm stoked to do it.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:13

The exhibit of itself, so you walk through the door, maybe you could describe what people will see.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:19

Basically, uh, I'm gonna have my motorcycle there to kind of show. Well, I say I'm gonna have my motorcycle there, but right now there's snow on the ground in Montreal, and and it starts uh on Tuesday, I Tuesday or Wednesday. So I'm hoping that there's one decent day where I can get my bike out of storage and and just sort of rip it up to the to the event space. The goal is to have the bike on display to kind of show that this is what I use to travel. And then there are, well, there will be 20 uh framed prints that uh that actually Fuji was kind enough who had sponsored me on my trip uh through Europe. They had sponsored me and they printed and framed all these images, which a few years ago were on display at the bike shed show in London, uh, which was really, really cool. So I brought all of them back. So that, like I said, there's 20 pictures. Um, and then there's gonna be a huge picture of um Troy Bayless that I'm just having printed right now. It won't be framed, but it's gonna be quite big. There's QR codes, so you can uh scan the QR and then you can hear the audio interview of each specific subject. And that's basically it. The front half of the space is a bar with, you know, with the with the beer and wine and whatever and some some food. And the back is is the the gallery space where there'll be the bike, there's music and and photos on the wall.

Montreal Exhibit Plan And QR Audio

SPEAKER_06 2:07:44

I was just poking around your YouTube channel and I saw that you were in Australia on a 900 GS. Is that the bike that you shipped everywhere, or is that just happened to be a bike that you you borrowed over there?

SPEAKER_03 2:07:55

Yeah, so my bike is a KTM 790 adventure of 2019, and I had taken it to Europe uh thanks to WestJet. They kind of sponsored me, and I was their ambassador a couple of years ago. So basically, they they allow you to fly your motorcycle to Europe to a number of different points, like in I flew it to Dublin, I flew home from Paris. They also, I believe, at least at the time, they flew to Barcelona and Amsterdam and maybe one or two other places. So I I flew the bike to to Dublin, rode around the UK, then rode it uh to France, took the you know, the little tunnel, and then ripped around Europe for two months in the Alps and Spain and Portugal and Italy and all that. So, but everybody that I spoke to about taking the bike to Australia, they were like, dude, don't even bother trying, you can't even come in with muddy boots to that country. So I was very lucky that I was able to connect with BMW Motorrad Australia, and they loaned me this 900 GSA, which was incredible.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:00

Yeah, it's a really nice bike. The winner of a rally uh last year wrote a 900 GSA. Fantastic bike. But I like the concept of riding your bike for a mission. I think a lot of times we're just riding around, we're not really sure what to do, but I really like your concept. We're doing the same thing in May. We're going over to the UK. Uh, I've already shipped my bike there the traditional way. I didn't know that you could stick your bike on the bottom of the airplane uh with West with WestJet.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:26

But uh Air Canada also offered it. The in fact, the guy who used to run the Air Canada program moved to WestJet. I didn't know that WestJet ran it. I was trying to get to Air Canada and then I just sort of searched and found the WestJet had it. But but anyway, apologies. Go on.

Flying A Motorcycle Overseas

SPEAKER_06 2:09:41

No, it's a it's a great concept. Actually, seeing as that we're talking about, it what is the process like? So you you ride up to the cargo area and you drop off your bike and then hop on the same plane? Is it is it really that easy?

SPEAKER_03 2:09:53

It's almost that easy. Uh so I was living in Halifax. The thing with WestJet is their wide-body planes essentially originate in Calgary. So if you imagine we're we're in Canada, all the littler planes, all the smaller planes, basically have to get to Calgary and then they fly to their overseas destinations. So if you're coming from BC, it's great. Who cares, right? You're kind of going in the right direction. For me, I mean, I can't complain the price was right, but I had to basically I drove the bike, I rode the bike up to the Halifax Airport to the cargo department, put it on a pallet, strapped it to the pallet, said goodbye. I took uh a commercial flight to Calgary, the bike essentially took a cargo flight to Calgary. In Calgary, the the bike was transferred to the wide-body plane that I was on. And together, holding hands, not really holding hands, the bike was below. We flew to Dublin. And then when we got to Dublin, I sort of just walked over to the cargo area, had to deal with some sort of bullshit. It can be very, very stressful, even when you know a hundred percent that you have all the right information, because the recipient might not have that information. So, but at the end of the day, or luckily before the end of the day, I was able to get the bike and I had to pay a little bit of money, like I don't know, a hundred bucks or something to release it. Uh, and then I was free to go. And and I had essentially 90 days, like three months of sort of a like a tax-free kind of ride. It and then uh and then I just left from Paris. And I will say, getting out of France that was stressful because of the language challenges. Whatever, that's how it works. And and uh it's not too bad.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:39

I think it's funny that you live in Montreal now and you must have those same language challenges.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:45

Oh, dude, I I um if you look at the YouTube video of the last video from me leaving France, there's just a litany of swearing of me in my helmet just going bonkers. Like, I don't know if you swear. on your podcast, but I'm yeah, I'm I'm pretty blue all the time. And this it was just there was actually I had the um on the KTM, you know, you have the kickstand uh shut off sort of switch. Well I had that removed because sometimes when I had bounced the kickstand would bounce and and the bike would shut just for a split second. So I had it removed and I was so stressed out in trying to take the bike to drop it off. I got off the bike and the thing just went flying up a curb towards um what do you call it like a kiosk where a security guy was like the bike was aiming right for the kiosk. It was chaos and I was stressed.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:37

But whenever we talk to someone who does a lot of international travel they always say you know schedule the whole day for a border crossing and you know retrieving your bike is kind of like a border crossing. So I, you know, I suppose we should be in the the right mindset, but I don't have the patience and it sounds like you may have half the patience.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:54

I think not knowing what you're getting into helps you to absorb it. But you definitely need to sort of adopt that Zen mentality like you can't change these people you just got to roll with it. Yelling and screaming is not going to solve anything.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:08

Yeah but it sure makes me feel better.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:10

But yeah I agree.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:12

It seems that some of our guests and some of your subjects we share a bit of common ground here. I noticed that Ellsbeth Charlie Lyndon Austin and actually Brett Tax is in this episode today which is just goes to show that her community is is so very small. Is that kind of your view with the adventure bike community?

SPEAKER_03 2:13:32

It is small. I have the attitude I so as I said I'm a like a documentary photographer a long time ago I started doing a series of the correspondence at 60 minutes and I wasn't hired to do this. I met Bob Simon at an event and I asked him if I could photograph him he was very kind and he allowed me to come up and when I was up there at the offices I looked around and I thought oh my God Andy they were all alive then Andy Rooney and and and Morley safer and all these guys that I kind of grew up with watching I thought if I could get one or two then the rest will follow. And it's kind of been a little bit of how I look at this series. There are certainly lots of people that are connected I do know to a certain extent because I've heard people say it that when somebody who I'm looking at to be in the series recognizes other people in the series then they might be more inclined to agree to be part of it. So but in the context it is a relatively small community it's like oh yeah that guy everybody does know the other person like I've not I don't think that I've ever got to too many like anybody that hasn't been like I hadn't been referred to by somebody else. It's kind of how I do this series like if I was photographing you I'd say who do you think is a great uh subject and you'd say so and so and then and then I'd have you as a reference point you know you know like Aaron suggests that I reach out to you and here's why and then oh yeah I love Aaron he's an awesome guy yeah what do you want to do?

Blink-182 Cover Story

SPEAKER_06 2:14:59

Plus your other work um also gives you credence so the most recognizable photograph is that blink 182 photo with you know the one with the hot nurse in case people are are wondering what we're talking about. How on earth did you get that gig and how did that concept come about?

SPEAKER_03 2:15:15

I was working in the music industry in LA and that's what I was focusing on I was shooting bands and I was what they called doing tests like doing creative things for my portfolio uh that were self-funded if I had an idea I would shoot it and then I would this was as I was kind of transitioning from uh an assistant to a photographer and I would do these tests for my book and then I would reach out to art directors or creative directors at record labels and I'd say hey can I show you the new stuff that I have or whatever. And they were always looking for new new photographers. They were always open and encouraging of that. So over time I would go to see this one guy and like and then one day he just called me out of the blue and he's like and you got to remember they like that album that I shot was that is the album that blew them up not from me but that's just was the timing. So before that they had a a following but nowhere near what was before so when he called me he's like oh I have this band would you be interested in shooting the album cover and I'm like dude I'd shoot the album cover for like a chapstick you know lip stuff. I don't care. So I didn't know who Blink18282 was at the time it was just an opportunity to shoot an album cover. So that's how that happened and then you asked me how did the concept come about but originally the album was going to be called Turn Your Head and Cough and as a man you know Turn Your Head and Cough the doctor basically grabs your nuts and and asks you to cough to feel if you have a hernia or something. And it just seemed like the right physical thing that there's a glove and obviously you know she's this hot nurse or whatever. So that was the the graphical element in my mind that sort of justified it. But then in the end they turned it to enema of the state literally the day of the shoot they were like hey we're changing the name of the title to enema of the state and I'm like I don't know whatever it's still the same thing like a glove is going up your ass. So it seemed it seemed like it was aiming in the right direction.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:10

Yeah well that's obviously really creative and anyone who's in the Montreal area uh should definitely go check out the exhibit if you if it's half as creative as as that one photograph is it's it's all going to be great. And where can people find out more about the exhibit and more about your work?

SPEAKER_03 2:17:26

The motorcycle portraits can be seen on the website which is the motorcycleportraits dot net and it's plural motorcycleportraits uh dot net and my personal photography my documentary and commercial work is just davidgoldmanphoto.com and the show is at a place called espace um I don't know you pronounce it because I'm an Anglo Espace Amalgam which is just like Amalgame is how how it's spelled A-M A L G A M E. And it's uh 5691 Boulevard Saint Laurent in Montreal. It starts this coming Wednesday April 1st and the opening event or the opening whatever is from 530 to 8. But then the show continues until April 12th and uh the only thing is they're not open on Monday. So it's every other day.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:17

Awesome. Well hopefully the the snow clears so you can rip down there and put the the bike in the exhibit it seems like an important part of it. And hopefully one day soon we can get the actual host of the podcast to sit down with you and uh and learn more about these amazing photographs you've taken with these amazing people on motorcycles uh sometime soon perhaps in Montreal or maybe our past will we'll cross somewhere yeah that would be great I would love that it'd be great to talk more about it. Well thanks very much for coming to the podcast and good luck with your with your show.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:46

Cool thanks for having me and we are back.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:49

Hat trick baby first time three times third time's the charm and yeah man with a super artistic guy at the end I think it was the full round experience of having some a masochistic round the worder then we have someone giving us some some advice and then we have an artistic end this is uh this is my dream episode thanks to everyone for coming on yeah super nice um yeah so this is you you mentioned this in the beginning but maybe you could talk a little bit more about his uh show in Montreal. Yes I'm a little bit jealous to be honest with you because I go around and meet a lot of the same people if you go through that list we've met a lot of these people a lot of these people we call friends and I'm like why didn't I take a little extra time to take some good images um which I will start doing because why not if we're talking to them anyways and we're learning their story why not take some images but that's the premise of it was what a great excuse to ride around on motorcycles and meet super cool people and take really good images. I will say his images are really good. So if you are in the Montreal area go and see his exhibit it is a continuing project so the the exhibit will grow he's being in the ABR festival he's been in the bike shed so this is a growing moving show uh but there is a big difference between a professional photographer and a guy with a microphone and a camera obviously yeah or a hack like me with an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:18

Oh well this thing is a Pro Max Pro Max hey it's a Pro Max hey what kind of guy do you think I am what what do we have an Android here?

SPEAKER_06 2:20:26

Oh we just got seven unsubscribes right there.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:28

Yeah seven that you know that happens every time one of the things I thought was really cool in his show is it's a QR code and then you can hear the audio of the interviews he did while he was taking their photographs.

SPEAKER_06 2:20:41

I thought that was a really cool add-on it's like a mini little podcast which was really great. I didn't mention it during the interview but he talked about shipping your bike in the same aircraft you're in and I didn't say anything but when I came back the last time from Europe I actually threw Kathy at Moto Freight they arranged it through Air Canada. So I actually did this so from London Heathrow to Vancouver because Canadian customs is actually easier to deal with than US customs surprisingly which is usually not the case because you know fun please but in this specific case it was cheaper and easier. So unfortunately it shipped the day after I got back I actually flew into Seattle now that I actually think about it I flew to Seattle the bike flew to Vancouver because that's just what my flight was I think it cost 1700 US dollars to fly direct from London Heathrow to Vancouver and I did all the customs paperwork myself which was surprisingly easy. So there's a great case study so in 2025 it was 1700 bucks in the airplane that you can fly on as well. So um that's an actual real data that you can use.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:58

And then to ship your motorcycle on the ship that you just took it from LA to London how much was that one?

SPEAKER_06 2:22:03

It was a lot less it was like 1400 bucks or something like that. But you only do that if you're kind of done with your bike for the season you know which I was so we dropped it off after the rally we just dropped it off and I don't think about it until I go pick it up in May. So yeah everyone wins in that scenario but you if if you are in a rush you can you can ship it to most major airports in the belly of the plane that you fly on if you contact someone like Cafe. So if you are happen to be in the Montreal area Wednesday April 1st from 5 30 to 8 p.m swing by and visit David Goldman's show the motorcycle portraits yeah and that runs till April 12th and hopefully the weather clears for him yeah let's do my write out quickly so in the show notes there is a link with all of my ride out destinations and this week's edition is the Baghdad Cafe on Route 66. I was there maybe four or five years ago uh it's in my Instagram feed and it's actually open again. So I just happened to see the guys from Tulane Life they went there just last week and it was open. So there's you know an interesting character there uh he has the doors open and I think he's selling like stickers and stuff but if you're we know that over half of our listeners are in Europe. So everyone in Europe knows the Baghdad Cafe because there was an indie film made uh I think it was some really artistic people from Germany or something. But uh most Americans don't know why it's it's interesting but that's why uh it's because there was an indie film made but anyways that's this week's ride out and it's in the link in the show notes. You can click on it and it pulls up a Google map and it has all my recommended ride outs nice thanks for that and I also wanted to mention that just down the street a few miles uh down half a day's ride or something like that past the Baghdad Cafe there's a new hotel that finally opened in Topak and it also has a nice little biker bar. So if you're riding Route 66 you can stop at the Baghdad Cafe a few other places and there's actually a nice new hotel to stay at on Route 66. So that's part of that as well.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:17

Nice. Hey Aaron Pufal you got any ADB cannonball news you want to share yeah because this is a super short episode we'll just rip through it quickly.

SPEAKER_06 2:24:27

Yeah go if you want to do any of the route this year just reach out to me I'll give you a practice token for our rally app please do that. A special thanks to Josh Skidmore he also got a rally uh practice token and he crushed some checkpoints in Moab this past weekend so thank you.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:48

Very nice just to be clear we're talking only about the US rally now.

SPEAKER_06 2:24:52

Sorry yes I don't have the checkpoints made for Europe. So the 2026 if you're in in the US and you want to get a practice token just reach out to me and I'll issue that to you.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:03

Very nice. Josh you're a rock star.

SPEAKER_06 2:25:05

Yeah absolutely thank you and it looked like you had some fun too which was cool. So and also if you're signed up for the 2026 rally we didn't have categories but if you are not interested in getting the first to arrive bonus please reach out to me. My phone number is on the rally notice page please reach out to me if you don't mind joining the MileCrusher class we're just trying to make the morning start a little bit expeditious. So if you're not interested in getting the first to arrive bonus please reach out to it to me and everyone will be thankful if you join the Mile Crusher class to help expedite this morning start process.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:43

Break that down for a second so does that mean that instead of having an uh like you instead of starting off like if your number is 10, you won't start at 810. If it's an eight start time you'll start in the tranche later.

SPEAKER_06 2:25:53

That's exactly right. So you won't have a specific start time you'll just start with everyone in the Mile Crusher class, which is a lot less stressful and a lot less time. And if you could please help us out, you will benefit as well as everyone else.

SPEAKER_09 2:26:08

Nice. Tell me about this new hat you're wearing buddy.

SPEAKER_06 2:26:11

Yeah it's fantastic. So on the store we had the previous hat with Scully on it and then we changed it to the new hat. It's embroidered it's really good. So if you're just looking at it it doesn't look it but it's really really the best thing we have on the store so I just if you're looking for a hat get the new one it has the linear international rally logo on it and not the round Scully logo. It's really really good. Nice I like the look of it thanks. Yeah aha 2027 yeah so you have to get Mexican insurance when you're in the free zone in Mexico and one of the writers who have shown a lot of interest wanted to get some information on that. So through our partners there this is the information you got he just picked some random days in March of 2027 for a quote and this is what he said it was about 175 bucks for insurance for 11 days he got a hundred thousand dollars liability and it covered his$15,000 bike full theft coverage. So for$175, that's all the insurance was so it's not a super big burden. If you're thinking about doing a 2027 Baja rally that's one of the extra things we have to think about. And he randomly reached out to um a random Mexico motorcycle insurance company we will have a partner by next year when we have the route settled we'll have a link you can click but just to give some people some feedback that's about what it'll cost for insurance.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:45

That's relatively inexpensive. If you think about what it was going to cost us in India remember that it was going to cost$800 per rider.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:55

Yeah that was a little different scenario but this will cover you for the obligatory liability insurance and if you're concerned about theft it'll it'll cover you for that as well. So this is the minimum minimum requirements and we will have a chase vehicle or maybe two in Mexico. So I realize we're all about independence and all that here in the rally and we're talking about specifically rally news right now but only in Mexico we will have a chase vehicle a sweep vehicle you still need to be independent you still need to you know be able to self-recover your bike and all that but we if worst case scenario you do ride your bike into the Pacific Ocean or the Sea of Cortez uh we we will have uh a chase vehicle for that portion just because there is a little extra risk involved so we we will cover you for the bike and all that but you have to have insurance if you get pulled over by the policies fantastic but no one's gonna do that because no one's breaking any laws so or they just can't catch you.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:52

If they happen to be on a COVID 450 setup for off-road desert run.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:56

That's right be like I'm sorry I'm operating at the uh 4000 plus RPM range boom you know the beauty of the Baja is there's nobody you're not bothering anyone in the middle of the desert right so that's the purpose of going down to Baja is you have a little bit of you know unadulterated freedom. You know we have a a little bit of that in 2026 but in Moab and places like that. But for four days in the Baja it is be an adult you're gonna have to take care of yourself. So yeah there's no one there's no one to bother you in the middle of the Baja.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:27

I got to tell you a story just as an aside so this uh this yacht captain that I that I used to know he worked for a uh a Chevy dealer and the Chevy dealer was based out of Southern California and they every year you know like you would plan these rallies you know these motorcycle trips through you know through Colorado and and the surrounding region this guy would he would plan a Baja rally for his boss and they would take all of these off road vehicles that either they took him in trade or whatever. So they would take these things so he had this big not a suburban but like a Chevy Bronco no those are those are no that's a Ford. Yeah he had something like this I don't know whatever it was it was a big off-road vehicle short wheelbase and they took it out and they were ripping through the Baja way faster than they should have and they came over a ravine and then they stuffed the front end and they ended up whacking the bottom and it just stopped running. The linkage came apart anyway they had to um they took it to these local guys in the shop and it was like this um the drive shaft had this this U in it like a perfect U. So they so they so they they so they took it to a local shop and these guys spent all night with torches beating it straight again. Nice and then and then they finally got it back in the car and the car the car ran until they got to the next location where they had that part waiting for them and guess what when it showed up it had a U in it no the part that those guys spent all night beating out of it then it wasn't that wasn't the I understand what you're saying. That wasn't the problem they straightened this they straightened this piece of equipment that should have should have had the bend in it.

SPEAKER_06 2:31:08

That's hilarious. Anyway you know that is the Baja spirit right if you you can go to a local shop and he's he's got a welder there and all that but you know I suppose some guidance may be necessary is is the there's you know guidance.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:21

Well they have the internet now they didn't have the internet back then.

SPEAKER_06 2:31:24

That's right there's always a 12 year old kid with a YouTube channel to teach you how to do something correctly.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:30

Exactly exactly all right um we probably lost a couple more subscribers there when I mixed up Ford and Chevy so apologies for that snowflakes everywhere it's all good but there we go here we go fortunately in Sweden the snowflakes are melting literally okay new signups let's go for the 2027 Europe ADV cannonball rally and that is Pieter Kuhlin from Switzerland on his R1200GS in the Mile Crusher class check out the YouTube channel Happy Face on a motorbike that's nice we've got a lot of happy a lot of a lot of like smile it matters right yeah there's a lot of attitude matters there's a lot of positive people that's great yeah and here we have the 2026 America's ADD cannonball rally Brian Roman from Johnson City Tennessee I believe on his ibex 800 and he's on the wait list because again we are we have packed that one already antonio txierra that's a really um that's a really common Portuguese name or Brazilian name or Brazilian Portuguese I've I know several people with that last name Brazilian from Brockton Massachusetts on his T yeah man on a T7 also on the wait list.

Boat Stories And Wild Work Moments

SPEAKER_06 2:32:48

Nice welcome guys welcome and uh I received a bunch of messages which is hilarious. So this is obviously the end of the podcast but I've received a bunch of messages people loved our our boat stories and they asked for some some new ones and I'm gonna tee up one for you here. I remember this crazy story you told me about being in Australia docks and one of your stews got roofied or something. Maybe you can tell us that story.

SPEAKER_09 2:33:16

Yeah it was interesting so it was after it was after the um the owners had just left the boat so typically what happens is you're you're on a boat trip and then the owners you know they got on the dock in a golf cart and then they're on the way to the airport or to a limousine or whatever whatever whatever happens you get them sorted out they're on the way and then the first thing you do is you go back you take off your cruise shirt you put on something that you know doesn't identify you as being the captain of the boat and you crack a beer or you make yourself a a rum and coke or whatever it is. I have to say it's a bit awkward when they when they come back because the plane didn't go and you're drinking. I've had that happen one time as well. I was in the Bahamas on the back and they came back and we're on the back deck like we you know the boat next door Came over and we got hors d'oeuvres out and we are we're and and then and then next thing you know is on on the on the dock there I'm in Atlantis Marina. I'm on the dock and uh I'm on the boat, you know, sitting in that spot where the owner was sitting, you know, an hour before he left for the airport in a golf cart. And that's when Chalk seaplane was flying. So we just had to send him around the around the other side of the basin and then around the other side of the marina in a golf cart, you know. And they they were standing on the back deck, and I was like, who are oh, right, yeah, yes, sir. Let's get let's get right back to you. We put these cocktails away and what can we get you? I was like, man, that was such a tough blow.

SPEAKER_06 2:34:35

And by the way, having a better time than than they were.

SPEAKER_09 2:34:37

Exactly. We're like, we're having like the music's on, and they were having a great time, and everyone's smiling, and you know, we're not complaining about the you know, the one thing that didn't, you know, that didn't work on the boat. Right. Yeah, anyway, um, Australian docks. So that's in Palm Beach, and the owners had just left. They didn't come back. So we went out with the um uh another captain friend of mine, um, Steve Walker, and he um he so we went out to this club that was like the head of the dock, and um, I had a stewardess, I won't mention her name, and she got roofied. She was a um she was a New Zealand girl, she was a ballerina and like a professional dancer, and this is just like something she did on the weekends going out and doing boat stuff while uh her husband was in uh architecture finishing his final year's masters or something. But anyway, so we went out and uh she got uh roofied in this bar. And it turns out that uh in communication with my buddy Steve, he's like, Yeah, this isn't the first time this has happened in this bar. So we don't know, we don't know, we we never figured out who who actually did it. But nonetheless, this Seward S was super muscular. She was petite, but she was super muscular. And let me say the Australian docks are most docks are made of wood, but these docks are made of that what's that, the uh the corrugated aluminum?

SPEAKER_06 2:35:59

Corrugated aluminum top. I know exactly a loud, obnoxious corrugated aluminum. I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_09 2:36:05

And I tell you what, you know what gets really, really loud is when you put a body in a shopping cart and you roll you roll them down the dock because they're unconscious. And you roll them down the dock to the end of the dock because you're the biggest boat at the end of the dock, and you're all the way down the dock. And then I had to get her out of the cart, and I had to put her over my shoulder, and I had to walk down this gangway from the from the dock to the boat, which of course the tide had come up, so I had a big step up from the from the dock to the gangway, and this is little Bedsonzoni, it's only like a foot and a half wide, um, looks good, it's Italian. And I got her over my shoulder, I walk, I walk onto the boat, around the back deck, and then I have this little uh, you know, I'm on a ferretti. So I've got to lift the back hatch and I've got to walk down these really steep Italian stairs with a sharp aluminum edge on them. And I've got to try to get turned around so I can get down the stairs without banging her steps. And then I was like, this is this is just it was just not so nice. Anyway, you know, next morning she woke up, she's like, hey, how you doing? And I was like, Oh, okay, okay, like nothing ever happened.

SPEAKER_06 2:37:23

Wow, she had no side effects from it.

SPEAKER_09 2:37:25

She had nothing, nothing at all. Like, like, like it was just, you know, you know, like a normal Tuesday.

SPEAKER_06 2:37:30

Gross people, right? It's just absolutely insane, right? Nuts. Actually, you mentioned the Chocks Airline, and we didn't put this in our script here, but we used to get our friends and boat owners to take Chocks Airlines. So it it would take off out of Miami, and it was a float plane, sorry, it's a boat plane. So the hull of the plane would be the flotation. It would take off out of there and it would land in Nassau Harbor. It would come up out of the water right behind Atlantis. So it was really, really convenient. But we always did a joke. We say, well, don't sit by the wings because water will come in, you know, as the airframe would flex, water would come in. And then lo and behold, you know, we'd send friends and family on this thing. And then one day it came across a news feed that the wing fell off of a Chocks airline flight. It crashed and everyone died. So great advice.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:27

Yeah, exactly. Those are um, let me see, what are those? Those are it's a Grummond G73T, turbine mallard, amphibious aircraft. Actually, it's the same thing Jimmy Buffett used to fly.

SPEAKER_06 2:38:43

Right. But his the wing didn't fall off, I guess. Or did it? No.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:47

His wing, no, no, no, his wing did not fall off. But he he um he had a song that he wrote which was about um getting shot at when he flew into Jamaica one time. And they shot at him and thought he was a drug runner. And um, they put some rounds through the aircraft. Nobody got hurt, but he then he he went down and then he he they figured out who he was and some people got in trouble.

SPEAKER_06 2:39:09

Wow, that's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:39:10

Yeah, because he was down there performing, right? And then they shot at him. He we flew his plane down from I don't know, Miami.

SPEAKER_06 2:39:16

Right. Wow, yeah, crazy story. That's that's amazing. So we have two more, but we'll we'll we'll just save them. But I'll just finish this one last one because it's the timing's unique. So Ramadan just finished, right? When I was in Dubai, at the end of Ramadan, they have a cannon that fires at sunset. So Ramadan, you wait till sunset and then everyone eats again. So you fast all day, and then at sunset, everyone can, you know, feed their pie holes, right? Right. So in a big city, they have, especially the old town in Dubai, which is next to the Dubai River, they have an old tradition where they lit off a cannon. So everyone would kind of be on standby and then everyone would break fast and they would eat. But you know, I was I didn't really know because I was based out of the Palm Jumera, which was a modern place, and it didn't have a cannon. So I just happened to have the prime minister of South Korea on board, and I picked them up from old Dubai. We would exit the Dubai River, go around Palm Jumera, and then go into our marina over in Dubai Marina. Anyways, we pull off the dock, we're heading for sea. It's chaotic, right? I got Secret Service on there at helicopters, we got, you know, incredible amount of security. There's boats ripping around everywhere. It's chaos, right? And all of a sudden, there's this massive, huge bang. It was so strong. I felt it in the hull of the boat. And and you would relate to this. I had the big MTU 4000s on that boat. So the controls were like these massive, you had to put a whole hand on each control. Yeah. And I just put two hands and I put them in a neutral. And I go, what happened? Did we just my first instinct was did the engine blow up? Right. What happened? Yeah. Because it's gonna sink soon. Yeah, the boat is so big that you can't really feel the engine, right? It's like a huge tri-deck, 120-footer, right? I like slipped it in. I'm just kind of cruising, but I can't cruise for too long because I'm in a river. I'm like, oh, did we take fire? Like, did we just get hit by a projectile, but I see no one else kind of, and I just put it back into a head, yeah, you know, a head neutral, a head idle. And I'm like, they tell forward, yeah. Yeah, and I'm like, what happened? And I look over at one of the head security guys and he goes, Iftar or something like this. I'm like, uh, it took me a minute to register that it was a cannon, a blank cannon, that signified the end of the fast in a end of the crash from Ramadan. Okay. Right. Scared the crap. It's just think about it now. I stopped breathing almost for a second. I'm like, I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm jumping off this boat. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_09 2:42:09

Yeah, yeah. That's funny. Yeah. There's another story. I'm gonna I'm gonna save the one about the vessel in distress for the next podcast. Okay. But there was one thing I did want to say. I was working for the wealthiest man in Mexico, and I was running a little boat. It was a 116 azimut, and I had just taken delivery of it for a friend because he couldn't make it. He was finishing his last gig actually in Mexico, and he couldn't make it there. He's like, Can you take over the boat for me and then um receive it from the shipyard brand new and then do a trip with me in the Bahamas with the owner on board the boat. So we went out there and um I ran across the bank, and this boat drew about six feet, just two meters. And I ran across the bank, and I know that I was the guy's like, I know I've been here, like we're in the middle of nowhere, and you can't, you can see a couple of like rocks on the horizon. Like it's tough to look at a chart and figure out where you are, right? I mean, I knew I knew I knew where we were. But if you if you're just like not driving the boat, you're not paying attention, and you just happen to look around, you can't go, oh, I know where that is, where that is, unless you like grew up there and you knew the waters really, really well. And so we're going across, we're dodging coral heads across the bank. And I know that at this particular speed, that if I slow down, I'll never be, I'm not gonna hit the bottom, but I'll because of the squat factor, I will never be able to get the boat back on a step. And I'm doing about, I don't know, 25 knots, which is pretty good for a 116-footer. And so the owner comes over and he says, we have to slow down because the hamburger buns are blowing off the top of a. I was like, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, we can't, we can't do that. So I said, look, if we put if we throttle back right, and I guess of course everyone on the podcast knows this, but a boat that may draw six feet when you put it on a step, now it's only drawn four. So when you pull back, you you can't get it back on a step. So I was like, if we stop this boat now, it's gonna take me four hours to get there because I'm only gonna be able to cruise at four or five knots, four or five knots. I'm not gonna be able to make it at 25. So I've got about an hour run ahead of me. And he's like, no, no, no, no, I know where we are. It's okay. And he reaches for the throttles. So I was like, I'll be right back. So I ran from the fly bridge control down to lower control, tried to match it, and then took tried to match it by pushing the throttles forward and then took control over it and ran from the throttles down there. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, go ahead. And he was, he was like, he was at the bottom of a bottle of uh, I guess they were drinking really high-end rum. Like they do bottle service there. Like, you don't order, you know, your individual drinks. They're like, what are we drinking? Everyone's drinking rum. They drink, everyone drinks now tequila, whatever it is the bottle comes out. And you just drink whatever mixture you want, but you drink that bottle. He's on the top, and I've taken full control downstairs, and the other captain is driving the boat. In the meantime, he's up there and he's showing his friends and he knows what's up. That he's he's steering a boat and he's moving the throttles back and forth, it's doing nothing, but he's so wrecked, he thinks he's doing it. And I was like, I gotta let him save face, man.

SPEAKER_06 2:45:20

Whatever, dude. As long as we don't spend the next six hours and arrive at night, by the way, in the middle of nowhere, right?

SPEAKER_09 2:45:26

Yeah, it exactly. Dodging coral heads because the light, the sun was perfect. It was right behind us, just setting behind us, so I could see the coral head still. Well, this wasn't setting, it was still just a bath overhead. But it was um one of those times where like, I gotta make sure he doesn't pull his throttle back. Cause if I do end up getting to a shallow spot, the next thing we're gonna see is a bit like you. That that story reminded me when the cannon fires for Ramadan. I was like, I was like, the next thing we're gonna see is both propellers on that last sandbank out the back of the boat. I'm gonna have two big holes in the bottom, and the shafts will be laying back there.

SPEAKER_06 2:45:56

Yeah, and that's happened quite a bit. So just so people understand what a bank is, you will see nothing but horizon. You will see no land. You may see a marker, I don't know, somewhere if it's there. But all of a sudden, the water will go from 4,000 feet to eight feet or six feet or four feet. Easy, easy. So that's what like the Grand Bahama Bank or the Great Abaco Bank or the Exuba Bank, those are the big ones. And and the the water will be crystal clear and it will be eight feet of water, and there's no sign of land. It's the most bizarre, scary feeling you've ever had on a boat.

SPEAKER_09 2:46:31

Actually, if anyone wants to open up your Google maps and then type in Grand Bahama Bank, if you look at that, there's a big or look, type in Andros, A-N-D-R-O-S, and that is um a Bahamian island, and you'll see that that body of water around it and that huge bank, that's where I was. Um, but that is the largest, most shallow body of water in the world.

SPEAKER_06 2:46:56

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, anytime you look at a satellite image, there's this great big light blue, gorgeous, you know, chunk, and that's and that's essentially where you you drive boats over. Um okay, we'll save more boat stories for for for next time. Later, later. Quickly before your travel plans, because it's a short episode today. Uh we have a pretty good song. It's called Lost It on the Draw. So that's gonna play after after we stop yammering, and then we'll roll the outro.

SPEAKER_09 2:47:22

I am going to be in Marrakesh, Morocco on a family trip. Nice. How long? Yep. So we're gonna fly down. Actually, my my uh my 20-year-old son, he's been now out for six and a half months. So we'll see him. We're gonna meet him there. He's been down there, uh, yeah, just traveling around, hanging out on the coastal areas, doing kite boarding and surfing and whatever else he can get his hands on. Um, so he's been enjoying that. So he's gonna come back into Marrakesh and we are gonna be there for just one week, and we're gonna do day trips in and out of there. So I'll be um picking up some GPS points and figuring out where some great riding spots could be in the future.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:01

I'm not sure if 2028 Europe will be there, but for sure maybe 29 will be there. But there the next one of the next big European rallies will be uh will be a hundred percent based in in Morocco for sure.

SPEAKER_09 2:48:14

Nice. I like it.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:16

Well, I think that's it. I think we've yammered enough. And with that, let's roll the outro.

SPEAKER_07 2:48:23

So my deed the clock's table. Set down at the table. So my clock stable, sat down at the table. Should have walked away when I was able lost it on the show.

SPEAKER_10 2:50:58

And satisfies the algorithm gods. All hell the algorithm gods. A special thanks to our Patreon supporters. You're keeping this dick and chip afloat. Thanks for listening to the A T V Cannonball Podcast. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the peg.