Episode 1. Adventure Ride Portugal with ADV MOTO HAVEN

On this weeks episode we chat with Greg and Tania from ADV Moto Haven as they tell us about their adventure riding experience tour in the beautiful Algarve. We also discuss helmets and we compare mid budget with top tier and what are the pros and cons of each. We also discuss Chinese bikes and if they are a serious contender against the big 4 Japanese makers.  

Check out ADV MOTO HAVEN https://share.google/32YdY8WGggTQb8Qee

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:18

Hello and welcome to the Chain Reaction Motorcycle Podcast. I'm your host, Brendan McGuire, and I am joined by my co-hosts, Mark Dunn, and the one and only Ross McGuire. And together we're going to be delving into everything two wheels related, from road racing to off-roading, adventure touring, and custom motorcycles and everything in between. So sit back, relax, and join us for the spin. And here we go, episode one about to kick off. But before we kick it off, we do have to give a massive shout out to our sponsors, the one and only Terrence Healy Motorcycles. Terrence Healy Motorcycles is a one-stop shop for all your motorcycle needs, stocking a large range of quality used motorcycles, and also your main Honda dealer for the Midlands, offering the latest in motorcycle clothing and accessories. And Terrence Healy Motorcycles is an approved RSA training centre. So check out the website at thmotorcycles.ee. And of course, massive shout out to motorcycle training. RSA approved IBT centres in Kinigad Plaza County, Westmead, and Terrence Healy Motorcycles, Tullamore. Contact Tony to arrange your booking. Now lads, how are we all getting on? Episode one. How are we feeling? Fabulous. Good stuff. These are all looking fresh and well. Yeah, absolutely, lads. Enjoying our new studio, I have to say.

SPEAKER_08 1:44

It's uh it's looking smells lovely with a Fabrizio.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Fabrize, lad. I I just firmly believe, I just want to maybe I'm I'm weird, but you know, if you if you can walk into a place and there's a nice smell in there, it puts you in good form. Oh, wouldn't it? Yeah, it's the old nerves though. Are you nervous, bro? I'm a little bit, just don't be nervous. We'll get there. We'll get there, we'll get there. Before we move on, before we say anything more, we do want to say uh a massive uh condolences, I suppose, to all the family, friends, and uh all I suppose the fans of the one only Glenn Hansard, who unfortunately lost his life uh yesterday morning in a motorcycle accident. Um Glenn was obviously a very well acclaimed um you know musician, singer, songwriter, Oscar winner, um um a father and uh and a motorcyclist. So uh yeah, thoughts and prayers are with uh Glenn's family and extended family and friends uh at the moment. Boys, what's been going on? Feels like we haven't been talking into these microphones in a long run. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it? It has been a while.

SPEAKER_06 2:42

Well, a lot of setting up here, you know, being done.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Well, a lot of setting up in the background.

SPEAKER_06 2:46

Well, it's been it's been a lot of work for the last what two weeks, two or three weeks. Yeah, absolutely. Every day, something going on with this. Yeah, trying to get it up and running.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're lucky enough. We got all the I say we're we're uh eternally grateful to our sponsors for coming on board for getting our gear. We are very excited going forward. Um, we have some very, very big plans. This being episode number one, we are going to bring it over to Greg Antanya from ADV Moto Haven. Um, we had a sat down, we had them in studio here, had a great chat, just a bit of a background.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Lovely people. Ah, lovely people talk about uh really um down-to-earth people, like fairness, aren't they?

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Yeah, passionate about and fairness. The the kind of it was kind of clear by talking to them to set up this raiding school experience not because they had to, just because they wanted to.

SPEAKER_06 3:31

Yeah, it's a passion for motorcycles and motorcycle traveling off-road. Exactly, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

So we're going to bring you the chat that we have with them now very, very shortly, and uh it does come with a bit of a warning though. Uh don't be surprised if you see yourself checking out Rain Air Flights very, very shortly afterwards. But uh yeah, interesting chat. We had a busy weekend uh last weekend of motorsport and a bit of race and stuff like that. We're gonna bring you all the latest on that now shortly as well. We're also going to be talking, Ross McQuaid is going to be talking uh about some motorcycle helmet comparisons, and we had a look at some new helmets during the week, and we're trying to decipher whether we can the budget will stretch to get them or not.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

The budget will always stretch, lads.

SPEAKER_04 4:10

I don't know, lad. Your budget, my budget, my budget.

SPEAKER_08 4:13

You didn't spend that on bike on bikes this week.

SPEAKER_06 4:15

Me and my wire did. Oh, I have spent stuff on bikes this week. What did you spend on more? I have a back there. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Yeah, yeah. What's that for? Is it bad?

SPEAKER_06 4:25

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Is it?

SPEAKER_06 4:27

It's not as bad as Jason's back there now.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Is it not?

SPEAKER_06 4:30

No. Are the wires coming through on it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

See, what I'm wondering is like how good does your tires like like say if my tire is like both tires are like 65% going to Spain, will that be good enough?

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. You're gonna be on good road conditions as well. So that's gonna be off. Yeah, but we're but the only thing is like it supposedly you'd be absolutely still mad to whip set tires off. You've 65% still good, like you know, like you're gonna probably do about two thousand, maybe two and a half thousand kilometers, you know. So, you know, I 65% still left in the tires. Yeah, I wouldn't be going whipping them off for that.

SPEAKER_08 5:08

Yeah, what what are they? They're road sixes, are they?

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Yeah, yeah. How do you find them? I I find them savage, man. Absolutely class. I love them.

SPEAKER_06 5:15

That's what I would replace mine with.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:17

Well, what's on yours now? I have a road six on the front and uh the older I think must be a road five on the back then. So yeah, I got the road six just to match them, you know.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Yeah, well I had them on uh I had them actually, I think, on the No you rolled fives. Oh, I rolled fives.

SPEAKER_08 5:30

Yeah, because the road five on the front and I put a road six on the back.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Ah, yeah, older savvy tire on you. Have to bang for buck. They're not overly expensive and uh yeah to do the job. Yeah, a little bit less. The difference it'll make, and you won't realise it until you get a bad one.

SPEAKER_06 5:46

Yeah. Oh well if you ride a if you're if you if you ride a bike and uh you have bad tires when you put new tires on it, if you don't feel the difference within driving out your gateway, there's something wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100% phenomenal difference with good tires, like in fairness.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

I used to always have like any of the sports bikes, it was Bridgetone Battle Axes. Remember the battle axes? Oh, yeah. And I just one lad that I knew said they were class, and I just took that that was gospel, and I always got them, and it was like, Yeah, they're grand. And then I actually got was it uh Perelli Diablo or one of those?

SPEAKER_06 6:20

Yeah, or course, a super course supercope motor.

SPEAKER_04 6:23

It got the difference.

SPEAKER_06 6:25

That's a quit slick nearly, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

Holy damn, I guess the difference were absolutely unbelievable. I have to say they're absolutely top class. But uh, yeah, so we've lots of interesting. Did you did you spend a few wind? I spent a few win. I did. I bought uh I don't know, crazy crash bars, is that the right word? Yeah, terminology. Yeah, crash bars, yeah. Crash bars, yeah. For the side of the size of the tracer and uh whoopsie bars. Whoopsie bars, yeah. That's a better name for them. Actually, whoopsie bars is a better one.

SPEAKER_06 6:48

Oh no bars. Oh no bars. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:50

Yeah, no, I bought them because I just had them. It'd be my luck. Obviously, I don't plan on the biggest. Like, whatever about if you if you if you actually crashed a bike, why or not? But like imagine getting off the bike in Spain and just letting it tip over and cracking the engine case, yeah, the side case. Yeah, how much how much were that? They were about 200 euro. That's not so bad. Maybe 170 quid.

SPEAKER_08 7:11

That's alright.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

I'm not being a male mastard, but I actually considered making some myself.

unknown 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:18

Not out of scaffolding joke, but like out of like a bit of like, yeah, maybe like 20 mil round bar or something. Yeah. Because there's nothing in them. And then I was looking at some of them. I could get there was a GV set, SW Motec done a set. They were kind of there, thereabouts. I I could only get it off. You know that that uh website, Louis, Louis. Yeah, and I don't man, they're that's obviously perfectly fine, but I never ordered that an office before, and it was kind of like just a lot of people. I think I ordered something off them. I was I just was thinking myself I don't know if this is a if this is a bit dodge or not. So I went on I think Amazon, but I was looking on some of the other sites, can't remember what it was, and like there was sets of them were coming up for eight or nine hundred euro. I was like, I'm not paying that for them.

SPEAKER_06 7:58

But I'm still glad you didn't make them.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Well, how do you know?

SPEAKER_06 8:01

I could have done a class job. Yeah, no, no. No. I seen your car trailer. I senior car trailer.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Don't you have a thing wrong with that car trailer? It was good enough to collect this go old desk here. I didn't make that car trailer.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

Yeah, thank god. Yeah, there you go. You definitely added onto it, there's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04 8:21

I I I I extended the tailboard while I was fit. I remember making a tailboard to um I was going and panic buying a motorbike somewhere and I couldn't fit it in the van at the time, and I had a trailer, but I had no ramp or no nothing. And I made on our I had an old bulkhead off a van.

SPEAKER_06 8:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

And ah, yeah, sure. A few text crews and a bit of welding and a bit of hope and pressure working. A bit of angling or that was it, lad, I got the bike home anyway. Yeah. That's what it's all about. That is what it's fucking all about, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_06 8:49

Would you let him make a set of uh crash power for you? For me, yeah, for you guys, yeah. For your Harley, maybe or something. No.

unknown 8:59

No.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

That's a lot of ballshit. I've seen your welding. Fuck you, my welding. It's not fucking bothering my welding. I remember that next time you said, oh. You've never welded anything for me. Yeah, here he is, yeah, McQueen. We've two we've two thousand kilometers to do over in York, so it's fucking I'll be bringing bringing a plenty full of a supply of zip ties. It'll be fuck up. We actually need to what are we where we go and do this? Like, obviously, we're talking here, so we're heading to the Pyrenees.

SPEAKER_06 9:22

Ah, look, let's be honest with it, just the way it works. You everyone just bring a small little bit. Like someone, someone obviously bring maybe maybe with the crew, maybe have two or three puncture repair kits. Yeah. Okay. Then basically, then someone had a set of Allen keys, someone had a maybe a couple of different screwdrivers, different socket set, uh quarter inch drive socket set. That's about it, like really you know, or maybe you know zip ties. Cable ties, zip ties, yeah, yeah, a few bungees.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

I'll bring I have a little booster pack. You bring like the I have a booster pack. I have I've got the same booster pack. We'll bring the oaks. McQueid, you bring the Miguel. Yeah. And the bottle of Setlins. Is that fair to me?

SPEAKER_08 10:02

Well, the weld on a hitch to the bike there.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

I will no hassle. That can be the first, but the welding you do for me. No, you're definitely still bringing that anyway. You haven't we haven't.

SPEAKER_06 10:09

Well, there was vicious rumours here last year.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

There was some vi serious vicious rumours.

SPEAKER_06 10:12

And Janelle has a bit to answer about that too, no, fairness.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Apparently there was There's a lot of whispering going on with I believe, yeah. There was some farms filled. Were the farms, the finance farms, filled in, yes or no?

SPEAKER_08 10:23

That's a personal question.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Oh, that's a personal question. See, I I don't know. I wouldn't trust him though. I wouldn't be surprised if he came up one day and said we have to buy in that.

SPEAKER_06 10:33

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

What what what would it be like? You know what, you know what it'd be. But would it change did it change at all? Because you've ridden a couple of bikes lately. Did it change at all?

SPEAKER_08 10:42

I don't think so. Still gonna be the versus there was not there was none that I massively loved over any of them. Well, probably the multistrador, to be fair. Um was that was hands down the best.

SPEAKER_07 10:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 10:54

But being realistic, I wouldn't want to wouldn't be in a position to uh pay for that. Yeah. So out of the rest of them, I go for the versus.

SPEAKER_06 11:00

The versus.

SPEAKER_08 11:01

I just think I think it's the best one.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

Yeah, but you in fairness to you, like the green one, though. Yeah, which I don't know I have to be green. You've raved about that since you've you had a spin-off one. So that's the bike that stands stands out like for you.

SPEAKER_08 11:11

Oh, that is the bike that stands out, but I don't have Johnny uh Johnny Dunham's money.

unknown 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Why does he have one? No. Oh no, you'll have it to multiply. Yeah. Multi guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but no, but you've been great. You have been on about the the verses.

SPEAKER_08 11:22

I have, I just always have a bit of raw for just the way they look. I think they look fantastic looking, but I did like it when I was on it as well.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Yeah, I don't regret it there. They're looking for yes or no? Did you did you fill in any forms or no?

SPEAKER_08 11:35

There's loads of forms. I'm always filling in forms. I don't think he did.

SPEAKER_06 11:41

I don't think he did, let's play it. Permits today. Permits to I think it was I think it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Yeah, I think it was now because I can't do a bit of reverse psychology here.

SPEAKER_06 11:49

He won't buy it. No, he won't. He's not mad enough to buy it anyway.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

I won't buy a bike. No, he's not man enough anyway.

SPEAKER_08 11:54

I'm not buying a bite.

SPEAKER_04 11:55

The counters.

SPEAKER_08 11:58

I'm not exactly afraid. He is. Not buying a bike. Yeah, I'm terrified. I'm not afraid to spend money. Yeah. I'm not. If I had it, I'd spend it.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

I definitely say I'm not sad. I'm just disappointed with it. Yeah, nothing really worse. Just buying as much as you want. Will we bring over the interview with the one and only Greg and Tanya? Yep. Absolutely. Get out your rain air app, folks. Folks, I'd like to give a massive, massive welcome for to Greg and Tanya from ADV Moto Haven. Joining us after uh making a trip from I think it was at the States he's we're in recently on a bit of a trip.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Just back from the States, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:35

Just back from the States. Okay, that was a good trip. We got a little bit of a lowdown on that trip. That was an interesting, a nice trip you had over there.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Yeah, it was kind of nice. Um, as I say, we had planned, we had a trip last year in 2025, which was a six-week sort of sabbatical. And uh when we booked the tickets, we were like, now what are we gonna do? We have to ride motorcycles. So when we looked at the price of the renting, yeah, it was exorbitant for two of us, because remember there's always two. You wouldn't go one on the back, no. Oh god, no.

SPEAKER_05 13:05

I I think he might be a bit big for the patch.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

He's the worst billion known to man.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

No, no, exactly. So I did that for a year or so, and within a year I was like, right on your mark, this is this is yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we decided that it was cheaper to buy two motorcycles in the States, and we rode them from Los Angeles through the the what they call the backcountry, through these two BDRs, uh Washington, no, sorry, not Washington, Colorado, and then Washington, and finished up in Seattle. My God uh where our daughter lives, and we kind of decided, right, we'll store them and put them in the storage unit and left them there for the year with intentions of going back this year, doing another trip of some sort and then selling them, you know, and getting two holidays kind of out of it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so we've cut a long story short, somebody we knew through the motorcycling industry had happened to message me the day before we were leaving to say, Oh, wants some advice on bikes. And one of the bikes that she was interested in was a 790 that we had in the States. Okay, yeah. So I just gave a lot of advice exactly. And I said, Well, look, if it's what is the rate you're gonna go and you're interested, we have two for sale. So if you're interested. So anyway, be it that management, we got there with the intention of still riding. But um, she came, looked at the bike, fell in love with it, and said, Yeah, so now we were stuck with a now what do we do? So um no, it looks like you're on the back.

SPEAKER_06 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Well, no, not even because there's too much luggage. We had two sets of everything, so yeah. So anyway, to be fair, her brother um said he would sell the bike for us, which he very kindly did. Okay. And uh so then we just put everything in a in a rental, car rental, and did a road trip with four wheels instead, and just did it kind of exactly what we wanted to do. Nice. Still going to all the places and mountains.

SPEAKER_06 14:48

How many weeks did you spend doing that?

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Oh, just only ten well, we were waiting two weeks, ten days of it was on the road. We spent some with the family, and um then we did that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:56

You definitely strike me uh as we so say we've chat saw that act that beautiful accent that we're hearing there. That's a South African accent there, which is uh which as we were really saying, it is a beautiful accent. Absolutely, it's far from Midlands accent, yeah. Definitely you know you're not originally from source, but uh so you definitely strike me as two people that thoroughly enjoy obviously motorcycling and travelling and seeing a bit of the world. How did you come? And like of course, the the having you on here is we're gonna talk about motor uh ADV Moto Heaven. Now I spoke to Bruce, who was your son, correct? Yeah, absolute gentleman, spoke to him at Moto Expo, which is a so show you were at there this year, and uh I just kind of saw the sign and then I got I think I seen Portugal and a bit of ADV, and I was like, What's going on here? I was immediately intrigued. Uh so then obviously got chatting. So, how did you just go from living in South Africa, moving to Ireland, then moving to Portugal? Talk me through that. How did that all and getting an ADV coming?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

And getting into the ADV. Jesus, how do you all fit this into a paragraph? Um in three words or less. Three words or less. Okay, so um 1999 we emigrated to to Ireland. Yeah. Um we weren't intentionally coming to Ireland originally, but um I ended up getting a job offer here, and um so we um took a left turn when we got to London. Um uh flew flew Ryan A into Dublin. Great experience, of course. Yeah, um time. On time. On time, on time, on time. Anyway, um, cut a long story short, um it wasn't very long, and I was made redundant from the job that I was in and and incorporated my own business. Um and Tanya and I then uh along with an uh a business partner built the business up over the next 20 odd years. Okay. And um, we sold the business in 2023, um, just post us actually moving to Portugal. Okay, so three years ago. Three years ago, yeah. Uh the move to Portugal, as as we mentioned earlier on, was uh precipitated by um us wanting to break away from obviously the restrictions um that we felt we were being imposed upon here us here in um in Ireland, as many northern European countries were. And just if we were going to be restricted in terms of movement, let it be in a place where there's at least sunshine. This is this is true COVID. Um so uh we find ourselves in Portugal. Um very soon the business is sold. I'm in a position now where there's not a huge impetus to actually um uh work and earn money. Um we we've got enough money to kind of see us through to through our retirement and everything, but it was kind of a now what? You know, I'm I'm I've only just turned 60 at this stage. Um and um yeah, we kind of looked at one another and said, Well, you know, what are we gonna do with ourselves? Um Tanya wanted to carry on working, which she had at that stage planned to do. Um and um we'd just also just uh while we were uh at it, uh we'd built a small chalet on the on the um property, which we'd kind of earmarked for uh Airbnb. Oh, yeah, beautiful, yeah. But kind of looked at and went, no, that's not the way we want to go, you know, making beds every morning um for single you know, for single nights and things like that just wasn't what we wanted to do. So after uh much pontification, we decided that um we would try and do something in in motorcycling. And um then that obviously, you know, one question leads to the next. Well, you know, who are we going to attract? And um, the initial people we thought about was people that we'd be riding by, you know, just pop down and stay with us a night. And that would that just led us straight back to the Airbnb argument. Well, why would we want to make a bed for a night? And then on top of it, we have a rather steep driveway down to our place, and it's not tarred, it's gravel. Um so um there's a very selective specific radar without sort of.

SPEAKER_06 18:33

What about Pan America?

SPEAKER_04 18:35

Not even I'd say it's built out right over changing.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Well, we had somebody come down on the K1600 GT the other day, and in fairness now, he's actually booked a couple of places with us. So there you go. But yeah, it would be either somebody who knows what they're doing or somebody is completely insane. Okay. Okay, so and I prefer the ones that don't know what they're doing. So um at that stage we said, well, look, you know, uh the only way to attract people here is uh and to stay for a period of time, any anything from sort of two to three to four nights type thing, was to actually offer motorcycle rental. So it was a natural progression, it was almost an organic process. Okay. Um then we asked ourselves the question, well, what type of bikes are we going to use? And um cut that story relatively short, we um looked at a few bikes um without going through the whole re all the reasons why, but we selected um the CF Motor 450 MT, um, went out and bought one, test rode it for a weekend. Grab bike. Was was that impressed with the bike that um I think we only rode it for the weekend and then went back on the Monday morning and bought four more of them. Wow. Wow, okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 19:40

They really are an upcoming uh bike in fairness. Like, yeah, we we we were looking at a lot in their last time.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Yeah, we we I think the first time I spotted them was maybe two years ago over the bike show in Birmingham. Yeah, and I couldn't believe the amount of people that were flocking to the stand to look at these bikes because the first thing that will grab you is not so much the price, it's the detail. They're actually a fantastic looking bike. Yeah, and then you see the way to put together and then, of course, the price is the value for money, but that's that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

You know, when you talk about the bike, you know, you often uh you you use that sentence, oh it's a great bike, and then you add for the price on the end. But I I actually try and find or try and stop myself from doing that because ultimately at the end of the bike, uh but you're nearly devaluing your bike by saying that.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

You're kind of doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And and and my argument is no, it's it's a damn good bike. Yeah, regardless of the price, you know. Um so uh obviously it sounds like I'm plugging this UF motor, which I suppose I am at the end of the day. Well, look, you yeah, you're after buying four of them, so you must be thinking something good about them. We have seven of them now, yeah. So um the the the fleet has grown through obviously demand. Um, you know, initially we were we were gonna try and keep ourselves down to groups of a minimum, sorry, a maximum of four, um, but we found ourselves now having to increase that to six. Right. Um so we've got four four beds in the in the little chalet, um, and then we have a uh guest room in the main house which is kitted out pretty much the same as the other two.

SPEAKER_06 20:58

And obviously you have routes pre-planned to be able to give somebody uh like a route to take themselves?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Typically, no. Um so if if somebody wants to come and rent a bike and go and ride out on the road, okay. We we're happy to give them um routes and GPX files and things like that to follow on sat navs, and we can rent out sat navs with the bikes. Um but um once we start sending customers off on off-road, we've we've learned the dear lesson that you don't give someone more competent, somebody who knows the air. It's it's not even competency. Um competency would be one of the things, but um the the the the Algarve can be a wonderful but yet dangerous place. Um you know you can find yourself in the bottom of a valley, um, not knowing actually how you got down there, okay, and definitely not knowing how you're gonna get back out again. Okay. Um and we've had a few customers do that to us, um, getting phone calls in the middle of the day. Can you come get me out of this this hole? You know, uh fortunately, all the bikes have um a form of tracking on them, so we have a good idea of where they are. Okay. So um we decided no, what we're gonna do is all our rides are going to be guided. Okay. That was my next question. Very good. You know, a typical um, if I can go through a um a typical sort of two or three day event would be arrive the night before, day one, we you know, we take everybody up to the garage, kit them out with their kit if they're using our kit, um, do a little briefing, and then we hit the road. Okay. And when I say hit the road, we go down to a little um training area which we use for for training, um, do a sort of 45-minute skills assessment just to get an idea of who's where in the group itself, do a couple of little exercises, and then we go out onto the trails. And we're out on the trails until about four o'clock in the afternoon. Okay. Um that uh can extend to five depending on um you know skill levels and fit. Temperatures as well, I suppose. Yeah. Um, we more often than not, generally what happens towards the end of the day, the groups would split. So um Tanya would often take people back to the house and they'll go and do their swimming and beers and things like that. And then I'll stay out with one or two of the other guys, depending on girls, if if there happen to be ladies with us. Um, and then you know, it's groundhog day the next day, just repeat, obviously, without their briefing and and and kitting up.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Oh man, I'm getting excited here listening to you talking about it.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

This sounds like a bit of a bit of heaven to me now.

SPEAKER_04 23:12

This just sounds I can I I haven't been there, but I can kind of picture it.

SPEAKER_06 23:15

Well, I I we go on holidays to Portugal quite a lot now.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Yeah, Portugal's beautiful, and especially where you're users are up in. Is it Sil Silves? Is that Silvus, yeah, yeah. Sylvus, yeah. Stonefall from Albufera.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

About, yeah. As we say, the drinking capital. If you know Alba Fera is not far.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

Yeah, I know I was in it. I don't remember much about being there.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I was gonna say where the Irish go to really get drunk. They can't get drunk enough yet. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's just cheaper.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah, we are fortunate, as I say. We're up just about seven kilometers outside of the town of Silva. So it's in a valley, it's quiet, there's nobody. You wake up in the morning, it's just the birds and the bees, you know what I mean? So and if the weather's lovely, you can sit outside and have your breakfast, which is gorgeous, you know. So we are very blessed to have found this spot in where we are.

SPEAKER_06 23:58

Sounds like a little slice of heaven, all right?

SPEAKER_03 24:01

It is, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

And the trails, you might be asking, so the trails you kind of tend to go on for the day, how big of an area are we talking here?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Like, could you literally head off for uh a couple of hours, or do you do a certain loop, or you know, is it kind of like a national park type area or well, all the off-road um routes that we would do, um, and pretty much all the off-road tracks that you would see in Portugal are public byways. Okay. Um they um are graded and not necessarily maintained, but initially uh created by the government, and of often also private individuals. But um uh you have to allow um people through um these on these roads because they're often like for instance on our uh if we cite our property as example, it's not a big piece of land, it's only just on a hectare. Um we've actually got a road going straight through it, and we can't stop people riding on it uh or using it because it goes to the next piece of land. Yeah, okay. So then we have to just like a right-away type of thing, exactly, and it's all dirt roads, and uh so in to answer your question about the distances and and um sort of uh the area we cover. I mean uh the the longest day we'll do will take us out as far as Monchic from our place, which is 45 kilometers. So we'd stay within a 50 kilometre radius, but we could be out for 10 hours. That's clear.

SPEAKER_06 25:15

Um there's a big difference with 45 kilometers off-road and 45 kilometers on yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah, yeah. You're maintaining about 30, 35 kilometers an hour when you really are moving on a bit, and then you take rest stops and things like that, and then that drops it back down to sort of 20, 25 kilometers an hour.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Yeah, stunning though. Beautiful, beautiful. It must it must be like I'm just a you're a boat living the dream. And I know I'm sure obviously there's a lot of hard work involved. It's not all glamorous. It's not I know it's not all glamorous, but ex like a little thing you said there to be able to wake up in the morning, go out, sit outside, and have your breakfast. That's something you kind of would probably take for granted. You know, that's something you don't but I haven't lived in Australia myself. I I get it. When you get the sunshine, it's just you you're instantaneously, aren't you? Oh, way better. Even here the past couple of weeks, you just automatically find yourself in a better mood. Everybody's in a good mood. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable. Talk us through then. So obviously, people would fly into is it Faro Airport?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

That's the one Faro would be the closest airport, it's 50 minutes door to door. Okay. I've tried to do it faster, and I just can't. Just 50 minutes. You've tried anything. Try to beat us that now. Exactly. Try to beat us at now, exactly. Um, so yeah, we're 50 minutes door to door. It sh it seems like a long time, but actually because the motorway is not like the M50, it flows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you don't actually realise it that it's it seems that far. But um, we do it now in our sleep, obviously, because we bounce boards all the time. Um but yeah, it's um it's a great spot to be.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

And to Ok, it's something we we spoke about as well, and uh obviously it will m urge you to people that you want to your website, people that are thinking of taking the trip. What kind of level of rider would you necessarily is there any particular level you would need to be at to go to one of these, or depending on your level, does that determine maybe the trails you go on, or you know, that sort of way?

SPEAKER_03 27:05

We we we found okay, we've had people come who have never seen a stone. Okay, and then we've had I'll cite an example Brian McCormack, I'm sure you know who Brian McCormack is coming out, and I'm going, What on earth is he coming for? Because what are we going to be able to offer him that he hasn't done in his life before? You know? Yeah. And um he came out and absolutely loved it, just the the environment and riding motorbikes without the stress of racing and all that. And as I say, had people come out who've never seen a stone and now they have to see a stone because just to get to the house, they have to ride on the dirt. Um, and I think m my greatest thrill is to see people coming out there and the hands are shaking as they're filling in the indemnity forms, you know, because they're so terrified. That's it, yeah. To be leaving two or three days later and they're smiling for like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm actually riding on a dirt road and I've never seen a stone before in my life. So that's a great it must be a great feeling, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:02

It is, it is.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

That's that's the best fun for me is to see people starting out at the bottom and then leaving with you know huge. Newfound skills, right? Exactly, exactly. Um, as far as what what was the question about um the trip?

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Yeah, is there with the trails, is there like depending on somebody's skill level, will that determine where you bring them? Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

So that's why it's very important, as Greg said, at the beginning, we take them out to the training area and do about 45 minute skill assessment, and within a couple of minutes we can pick up who needs help, who doesn't, and what sort of skill people are at and what trails we can take them on. So we will have some easy trails, we have some intermediate ones, and we have some really hardcore ones.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

When, you know, depending on the day, depending on where we're at, as you say, believe it or not, skill is one thing, bike fitness is another. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So you can be the fittest gymnast who can pump weights and what, but if you can't do all day on the motorcycle, you're gonna suffer. Exactly. So we have to assess people as we're going along. We could Greg and I wake up in the morning and say, Right, we're gonna do this, this, and this. And then halfway through the day we go, Oh, you know, this one's struggling or this one needs a bit of help or whatever leads back and all.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

You're constantly assessing people like that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

And my my job is Greg's always in the front, he leads because I'd get lost in a cardboard box. So I'm I'm telling Charlie, and my job is to make sure that everybody comes home in one piece and is looked after and doesn't get lost.

SPEAKER_07 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Um, so yeah, we will assess people and then do trails. And sometimes, as Greg says, we could split up, somebody's not feeling well, they've had too much, they want to go back. Fine, let's go home. I'll take you an easy loop home back to the pool. Greg will go and do some of the hardcore stuff if they want to, or alternatively, you want to stay at till the sun's setting, we can do that too. You know what I mean? It just depends on people's skill level and what they're able to do.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

What they're able to do. So it accommodates everybody. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:50

What would be the demographic now between male and female going like? Would we like you know, if there's female writers out there listening?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

It's very far from where we'd like it to be, to be honest. Because um we, you know, Tanya being a lady. Yes, exactly. Yeah, um, she likes to be one anyway. Um we'd like to encourage the ladies more. Okay. Um the the few that we've had come have had an absolute ball. Um uh we had a young les with us uh to to cite an example. She actually booked for herself her father and her uncle. Um, I think it was about January, and they come, they came in March. Um, and um they uh the the one thing was very noticeable by her email was do you have bikes that are low enough for us? No, long story short. I think that the tallest in the family is five foot two or something. And they only wanted to ride on the road. Okay, so um uh anyway, um Anna, she she arrived with her with her dad and her uncle, and we took them out um on the trails and everything, and uh you know they were very, very clear about the off-road was not what they wanted to do. Anyway, we managed to coerce them to say, well, look, we'll do a little bit about 45 minutes on the end of the first day and just see how you get on with it, you know. Um and um they came back at the end of the day, obviously having to ride through a couple of puddles and streams and things like that to get back to the house, um, beaming from year to year. And of course, the next day we took them out again, same thing. We let them ride road for the rest of the day, but we also said, come, let's go and do say 10 kilometers of some fire roads that we did, and the same thing. They left having um done things that they otherwise wouldn't have done and definitely didn't want to do. Okay. Um but the thing about it, I suppose, where I'm focusing on Anna here was that um you know, I think she possibly went away uh thinking, well, maybe this off-road thing is something I can do in the future. The other two, maybe not so much. Okay. Um but yeah, uh, we'd love to encourage the ladies. Um the general demographic in terms of age group um uh would be you know from your mid-40s onwards typically, and that's generally got to do with um obviously, you know, you're not looking after young kids anymore. Yeah, there's always a lot of things that happen in life around about that age. Um, your finances start um resembling something of a level of sanity. Umidina, yeah, um and then yeah, I mean, the the the the oldest fellow we had right with us, I think, is 72 or something. That's full Anderson. Um, but anyway, so um what I did want to mention, just listening to to Tanya describing us doing the initial assessment, um, is that um, and this is for the in the spirit of full disclosure, while we do um do a little bit of a skill assessment and we try and mentor people and give them some sort of sense of what are the techniques to use to just get yourself around on a trail. Yeah, we don't do um full-blown off-road training as such. Yeah, yeah. We have um uh what we do have is four times a year. We have uh two schools each time. Okay. Of two days each. So it's eight days um so yeah, it's eight days a year, where we have a professional instructor come out from the UK um and he goes through a full-blown structured syllabus um where it's a matter of you do um the the sign-on process and and sleeping arrangements and meals and everything, all pretty much the same, but the actual activities are slightly different, whereby you go down um to our training, the area that we call our training area, you do what we call flat work, um, which is a series of exercises, and then you're out on the trails for the afternoon, and then the following morning you'll do the same thing back up to the back of the trailer.

SPEAKER_06 33:26

It's kind of like a kind of a roll and assessment all the time.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Exactly, constant and just checking how people are getting on, and then um back out on the trails on the second day. And um, it's quite an intense intense affair. Two days is enough. Most people are pretty um uh pretty tired by the end of the second day. Um but yeah, so that's the other thing that we do do.

SPEAKER_06 33:46

Um but as you said though, like if you were to go out there and be completely green, but you you you know you've never ridden off-road or anything like that, but you really have a growth to do it. Yeah, like there is trails here that you can go on with yourselves guided and they're friendlier, a lot friendlier. Like, you know, it's not going to be vastly intimidating to anybody, like you know. Not at all. You know, so like yeah, I'd be I'd be kind of conscious for people listening that um you know, don't be put off about thinking you have to do X amount of training days before you can do this. Like, you know, if you're a competent rider, maybe on the road and you know you you have a certain level of of skill, you know, you may maybe you should try and do this, like you know, give it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

What we what I've found is if you've got clutch control, you can ride off-road. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um it's a great way to do it. If you've got clutch control, we can teach you all the basics, do you know what I mean? To get you through a day or two or three cases, you know. If you want to go and do Red Bull Romaniax, Decor, whatever, well then you do you're moving on. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, differently. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

Yeah, there's a there's a fri a really good friend of ours, Janet. I'll give her a shout out here. She's been she's been riding bikes on and off for years, but I think she went and done uh there's a uh company set up here, I crowd is it more ireland or something? They do a bit of like that, like off-road training and stuff, and which there's not really an awful lot of that Ireland in in Ireland at the minute, but it's getting better. But he she she attended one of their training days, I believe, and uh just absolutely loved it. And she had um she had a 650 V something, and um she decided no she was gonna go at this and she went off and bought a gorgeous CRF 300, and now any chance she gets, she's in a out in a bog somewhere or a forestry trail, and she just absolutely loves it. And we're actually seeing a lot of that in Ireland, we're seeing a lot more females are getting into it, yeah, particularly that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

Yeah, this is what we're trying to get across here. Is you know motorcycles uh in general is a male-dominated thing, you know, and we we are trying to uh encourage everybody here, yeah, everybody, you know, and like getting over to Portugal. How bad could it be to spend four or five days in Portugal learning how to ride off-road in a in a controlled environment with people that want to teach you, you know what I mean? Show you how to do things.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Yeah, I'm just picturing here. So imagine getting up in the morning, sitting outside, having your crunch in a corner flex in the sun, the birds are singing. Yeah, Barry's teabags.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

These berries teas it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Thank God for the berries, but uh then get yourself a breakfast, cup of tea, head up to, as you say, up to where you get the bikes and the gear, head off, see some unbelievably scenery, just yeah, stuff you know that the dreams are made of. Learn a new skill along the way, meet some fantastic people, you know, create memories, which is life is all about at the end of the day, and new friends. Yeah, and new friends. Yeah, at the end of the day, you're not gonna be on your deathbed thinking about oh Jes, I've 20 grand in the bank. You're gonna be reciting, you know, that's what it's all about. And then at the end of the day, you you mentioned something there about having a beer and a swim in the pool. Yeah, I mean, does it get anywhere?

SPEAKER_06 36:53

And chatting and having a laugh and talking about you falling off or me falling off, exactly. You know, that's that's the fun side.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

I mean, we often say that uh people arrive as customers, but they leave as friends, yes, you know, because it's it's about an all-inclusive. We keep it small, as you say, six people, so it's not too big, there's no clickiness, nobody's putting you know exactly it's everybody's included, and as you say, sitting around the dinner table, we go out to a local restaurant every night, uh, sitting around the dinner table, everybody's talking about the experience, and you know, the tail's been long or short or you know the beers, you know.

SPEAKER_06 37:26

It must be fantastic for ye. Yeah, you know, as a couple looking across at this like, you know, I know if you've worked hard all your lives and you're out in Portugal now, and this is what you're doing now, but it must be hugely satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

It is, it is it's it's it's almost a dream come true. You know, when I say almost a dream come true, there are some things I still like to achieve with the business, obviously. Of course. Um it needs to to stand on its legs fully. It's it's it's at that point now, at a tipping. When I say tipping point, it sounds like it'd be tipped the wrong way. It's not really likely, but um it's it's where it needs to be. Um, you know, we've been going 18 months now, and um, I think we've had uh uh up to 80 book 80 bookings through us.

SPEAKER_04 38:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you've lost your headphones. Sorry, your your headphones are a bit of a malfunction here with headphones, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

We've we've had 80 80 bookings through us. Um so you know that's way beyond the success that we were expecting and hoping for, you know.

SPEAKER_06 38:22

So um well to me it sounds like a success story anyway, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Like it's it's becoming one, absolutely. Someone once said to me, self-praise is no praise. So sometimes when you when you when you're getting praise, take it something.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

And look, to be fair, we've got to give a shout out to David too. Um David is uh an employee that works for us, he's more like our other adopted son. Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry, Nigel. Nigel Cruzwell's one listening to this. He's my other other other Irish adopted son. David's our Portuguese adopted son.

SPEAKER_04 38:55

Our Bruce has to come first, I'm afraid. I was hoping you were going to minute to Bruce there. I was thinking there's going to be a row.

SPEAKER_06 39:01

He's going to have a live on it.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah, but he he was naturally conceived and delivered. So there's no adoption papers in that.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

But um, yeah, so David, we we were very fortunate to find him um when we moved into the house through his father who was helping to build a garage and that with us. And he was coming on for three months, and three years later, he's still with us. So um and he's he can turn his hand to anything. You know, he was qualified chef, but he can cook, build, do everything. And he's kind of our right hand or Greg's right hand man, if you want to call it that. He helps with the cleaning and maintenance and looking after bikes and stuff. Got his license and starts riding, and he can ride with us now and all that. So yeah, he's brilliant and he's a great support for us too. You know what I mean? Well, when we're there.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

You know, it's the people you surround yourself with. That's that's the key to it. Another question did you just have to learn Portuguese? Or did you have a bit of it? Or are you in the Portuguese?

SPEAKER_03 39:59

That's what we had, David. Everybody has to have a David.

SPEAKER_06 40:04

We we have a Paul in our group. We yeah, we do have a Paul in our group.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

It's an extremely as much as we would love to learn, we can we can order food, so we'll never go hungry, you know, as most people. But um, the language is a very difficult, complex language, and um we struggle with it. You know, obviously, having work been working before, obviously dealing with an Irish company speaking usual day, it's very difficult to go practice. I would love to be able to speak it fluently, but um yeah, I can't see it happening in the near future. Uh you never know. You know, if you need to go down to the council and have a proper conversation, it's very, very difficult. You know what I mean? So that's where David is great to kind of in-between person. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

Again, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's something it's you can take for granted. You would take it for granted, yeah. But I mean, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 40:52

Now, the Algarve we are lucky. I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people go there, is because of the English spoken language. Okay. You have so many different you've got the English, you've got the Dutch, you've got the Germans, you know, and every other national. English would be the neutral language for all of everybody. Yeah. For sure, yeah. And most of the younger people in the Algarve speak English. Yeah, because of those two of them.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

And of course, the answer comes back in English, which doesn't really help us a hell of a lot. Right, okay. Um then they start speaking English back to you, um, even conversationally. So it's it's uh it has moved on, I suppose. There's an awful lot more English speaking people out in the well, yeah, and and the Portuguese themselves speak uh a lot of them speak English too, especially down in the El Garf because of the I suppose it was a holiday thing, you know?

SPEAKER_06 41:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

What is that? Random question here, but what was that pasty? What was that thing?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

There's a there's a list eldinata.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

Is that the unique thing here? Oh god, have you ever had a little small custard? They're like, yeah, they're like the size of like a kind of a cupcake that they've got a soft custard. Yes. That's kind of a typical breakfast tart that you would have.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

So that's one of the things you'll be getting. Um if you if you're any breakfast meeting white. Don't worry about the bikes.

SPEAKER_06 42:09

Another question I'd like to ask you as well, how do you find the motorcycle scene in Portugal? Yeah. Itself. Like you know, I know you have your off-road school, okay, or your off-road centre, right? But would you do say do you do a lot of road riding out there yourselves?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Surprisingly, very few uh true adventure riders, to be honest. In fact, the adventure community that we're aware of in Portugal predominantly is um expats. Really? Yeah. Um, there are a lot of Portuguese that'll do Enduro and Motocross. Um, and then there's a huge um uh cohort of of riders that'll ride on the road, very much like Ireland. And it's um it's almost a mirror image of what you would find in Ireland, you know, you know, from cr cruises all the way through to sports bikes. A lot more women, actually. A lot of closer, yeah, yeah, huge ladies. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

If you go on a Sunday spin, they go up to the local, you know, find a lovely route, and there's a little coffee shop in the middle. Okay, they're also drinking beers, which is a little bit of a hard, yeah, yeah. Um but lots of women, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Funny enough, Ireland has gone a little bit like that now in ways, which is great to see it. You've got these, there's huge um amounts of female raiding groups, motorcycle men of Ireland or one in particular, and they've got these like splinter groups up, they're all over Ireland. I would I'd have guessed if a good a couple of hundred members.

SPEAKER_06 43:26

We could have a couple of chapters all over the place, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

These different groups, and they'll go for their own spins, and they're grit they're they're a fantastic bunch of people. But they're organized.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

It's a very intimidating sport, unfortunately, for a woman. I mean, I I know specifically, yeah, exactly. I mean, I'll tell you a story that happened to me. We were this was right in my early days, so and I was young and not young, but younger and new to motorcycling. Well, not new. I'd ridden a scooter when I was 16 and then gave it up for family and that got back into it in 2010. And of course, I was very green at this whole thing, and we'd go Go out for these Sunday morning spins and you'd meet at Sparwell and whatever. And I would arrive, and I remember this one particular time I arrived, went in to pay for the fuel. And there were these lads in when they didn't see me, and I was around the back or whatever. And this other lady arrived. And I remember saying, Oh my God, so and so's arrived. I won't mention any names. I am not babysitting her today. And I went, is this what the lads think about women riding? And this was obviously back in 2010. And I was horrified and I was like, right, that's it. I'm going to do everything within my power to improve my skills so that people don't think when they see me arrive at the station, petrol station, that they have to look after me. Do you know what I mean? I want to be independent. And don't get me wrong, I love being looked after. You know, there's no shame in asking for help. Absolutely. I do that all the time. Oh, here, I can move my bike around, it'll take me 10 minutes, but you can do it in a minute. Would you mind? You know what I mean? Practicality. Exactly. So um, yeah, so it was that's the mindset, and I think it has changed over the years. Men have done a lot, a lot better at it. You know, yeah, no, I think that's it. But that was always imprinted in my brain, going, is that what people think? You know, so I've been trying to do the all I can to encourage women to go up and go, look, it can seem intimidating, but with the right partner or the right encouragement, you can do this.

SPEAKER_06 45:17

That's a great way of putting it now, in fairness, because like as we said here, this this podcast is for everybody.

unknown 45:22

Correct.

SPEAKER_06 45:23

You know, and it's not it, this is not a male-dominated thing by any stretch. We want to have everybody, you know, enjoy this motorcycle world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 45:32

Exactly, it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you know what I mean, what you're into. You know, if you have a passion for motorbikes, you know, it doesn't matter. You'll fit in just fine. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just a question on that and having a look on your website. And again, your website is uh advmotohaven.com.com. Correct. Um, and I'd urge people to go over and have a look at it. But then you do another one. There's like a there's a couple of different packages you offer, but is there one that's like a seven day, seven to ten day riding package or something? That could be ACT.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Yeah, so um we've obviously got the packages which we've built around the actual facility itself. Um, and then um there's there's two other packages. When I say two other there's uh actually, yeah, there's two other packages, and then uh which is the ACT trip, which we're doing from the south of Portugal to Braganza, which is a city in the north, and that's a 1200 kilometer trail ride. Um, it's about 70, 60 to 70 percent off-road. Um it's all sort of nature trails and everything. Um, and that will be done over six days. It'll include accommodation, um, fuel, food, it's pretty much all in. And then we're turning around with uh another group and coming back from south uh from north back to south again, doing the same trail but just in reverse. And then next year in February, we have on the cards, albeit that we've uh we still try to build interest in it. We've got a few um interested parties, is our trip to South Africa. Seeing this on the website, yeah. Um that'll be running um so very similar, sort of uh format where we want to start in Cape Town um and ride a group from Cape Town up to the Kruger National Park. Um for those that don't know what the Kruger National Park is, it's I think if not the it's certainly one of the biggest um nature reserves in the world. It's 600 kilometers north to south and about 200 kilometers wide. Um it's kind of where you can go and rarely get to see the big big uh big five in in its in its natural habitat. Um spend a day doing a bit of a safari, and then those customers will go off um to Johannesburg and leave, and then we'll have hopefully the next group come come in and drive ride. They will start off with a safari and then ride back to Cape Town. Um that sounds fantastic. The idea is to take in as as much um off-road as we can um between uh on on the it's 15 nights and 14 days in total.

SPEAKER_06 47:54

And over there, what bikes are you using over there?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

We're gonna use a little CF Motor 450s as as the uh as the baseline bike, but customers have got choices to upgrade to the 800 MTX, or they can the the the rental company we use and have used numerous times in South Africa have um right up to BMW 30 number G's. Okay. Um the uh those that want to do the off-road bits, um, I would suggest that they go for a uh a smaller, lighter bike. Um luggage has been carried for you anyway, so there's no need to have a big bike carrying luggage for you. Um and then um what we've got is we've got breakout routes where um if you don't want to do the the hardcore off-road stuff, there's alternative routes where you'll be able to take join the dots with um road riding with road riding. And we're gonna be taking in what is known to South Africans and some people that have been to South Africa, some iconic off-road um routes going into like what they call the Cedarberg, um, which is a um semi-desert, sort of very arid area. Um some lovely trails in there. Um there's a thing called Baviarn's Cliff, which is kind of a there are two sort of real rite of passage um trails that you can do in South Africa. One is Bavi Ant's Cliff, and the other is a thing called Sarni Pass, which sadly I think in the next sort of five to ten years is going to be tarred, but currently it's it's an unmaintained pass that um uh scales um one of the mountain ranges in South Africa, the Drakensburg, up to about 3,000 meters, I think it is. And at the top is the border between South Africa and a small um independent state called Lesotho. Okay. And um, if once you cross the border, there's a little pub. Generally, what we do is you ride up cross the border, go and have your cup of tea or coffee or hopefully non-alcoholic beer, okay, and then ride back down. Um and stay in a hotel locally and then head on off to for for the rest of the route. Um but um if any I I I challenge anybody to go and look at um Sarni spa pass spelt S-A-N-I and then pass and um see some of the people riding up, but it's it's a great gas for those that want to give it a go. It's uh it's a tough old ride. Um exactly, and it's um it's not particularly long. I mean, the the the the the difficult part is about eight kilometres long, okay. Um with it really getting quite tough for the last sort of two kilometers. But um, once once you get to the top, it is really one of those sort of fists in the air. God, I really made a type thing.

SPEAKER_04 50:17

Yeah, just as you're like as and again, as I mentioned there, just on your explaining some of that like for for people that are into motorcycles, you know, this is like the till for a trip like that, this is something that you're going to be looking back on for the rest of your life. Do you know what I mean? And I'd always been advocated, and we would always be an advocate for you know good mental health. And obviously, we've a bit of a mental health uh epidemic going on at the minute, but you know, sometimes a trip like that can be a massive reset for someone. So sometimes you know, life gets in the way, and even if it's the go to you know, like to as I said to Portugal for a couple of days, you know, sometimes you know you let work get in the way, and we all like we have jobs and we have families and commitments and all that, but there's not one thing wrong with a man or a woman taking a few days out for themselves. Doesn't mean that you don't love your kids or your husband or your wife any less. It's very important, it is very important because I guarantee you you will be all the better of a father or a husband or a wife or whatever it is, if you can, you know, just reset, reset yourself, you know, you know, and that's and it's bad.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

And even for us, I mean, if you think about our iconic trips, if I have to remember, like 200 2012, when we went out with all our mates to Europe. Now that was our first big one. Oh my god, and that was all that was one of those moments as well. Uh when was it? 2014 when we took people to South Africa, 2016 to America, you know, and these were just mates that we just organized tours with. That's weird. They they all have memories, and you know, you come back from them and go, You're you're you're fabric after this, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 51:47

But see, this is it. Like, we I think everybody gets caught up in looking at it online and stuff like that, and one day this and one day that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

But like tomorrow it's very hard though when you're watching TV and you see these really difficult trails because only uh people only put up difficult stuff, they never show you the easy stuff, yeah. And that one that was that one, the fellow that we started watching before we went to America because we were going to do these BDRs and we said, right, let's just do a bit of homework. But he was one of these influences where you could follow him and go, you know what? He's giving me the real deal here. It's not just the hardcore, you know what I mean. I want to know what it's looked like.

SPEAKER_06 52:22

Well, that's what I find online. See, if you if you look at an awful lot of stuff people put up, if it's a kind of a male thing, it's it's always going to be the hardest, yeah, the toughest, you know, you know, so hardcore. But and it puts people off sometimes. Yeah, but if you look up like female riders then doing something very, very similar, or even the very same trail. They don't have that ego, you don't have that ego, you'll see them picking the bike up like Ichie Boots is very, very girl that's that would come to mind there straight away. Like, you know, yeah. Very good.

SPEAKER_04 52:52

Allie Horns, another one of the players. Very, very good in the case. Ellie came to fix us.

SPEAKER_03 52:56

Yeah, she came and roaded uh sort of a morning with us, yeah. She's great, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

Allie's very no, but it look what it is, and I I would always say, and we're we always are testament to this when we're but book it. Yeah, don't wait, don't say, Oh, yeah, I love that. If you have something and you can do it, book it because if you book it, you'll go. Go, yeah. Don't make the book and just go on and book it, and then you can start.

SPEAKER_06 53:19

Well, we're sitting, we're sitting here across from the two e in fairness, and we can see it. People like all we can do is describe this fee, but we're looking across the G2 and we know that this is coming from somewhere that you love doing, like what you love doing, and that you know, you can't sell that sort of stuff. That's that's that's real. That's real. Yeah, you know what I mean. That's not something you know, you can oh a salesman's pitch type of thing, like you know. No, you you either have that or you don't, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

I mean, obviously, you know, from our perspective, we've been very blessed in in a variety of ways. Um, one is obviously we owned our own business, so you know, leave was never an issue. You know, I never filled a leave form in my life, you know. Um, because I've pretty much uh obviously when I say in my life, uh obviously since I've owned my own businesses, which is since 1996, so that's an awful long time not to have to fully leave form in. And then secondly, you know, um the earning capacity of somebody that owns their own business is generally um a little bit more flexible, if you want to call there's certain things called directors delights, which you can make um use of thanks uh thanks to the tax man for for those benefits. But um, yeah, so that there are those benefits which have allowed us to do certain things, which let's say you know the the average mere mortal who's who who's got a nine to five job has to think twice about and then plan a lot more than what we would do, okay. But it's it's a little bit like what you're saying here, Brendan. You know, you you you just need to commit, yeah, okay. Um I'm not saying go and max out your credit card because that's not a great idea, because the mental health that you're going to go and sort out on one end is just going to be replaced by how the hell am I paying my credit card at the end of it? So yeah. Um, but if if there is half the capacity to actually do it financially, then and and then there's and there's a will to do it, then just do it. And even if it's not with us, you know, um, and you find that it's a more economical way of doing it, just get out and go and do it. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_06 55:05

Like in fairness, there that just proves my point, though, because as I said, you know, this is coming from a place that you want to see people enjoy themselves, and here you are saying if it's not even with us, go and do it with someone else. So that to me speaks volumes on the way you think.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

You genuinely have a have a have a level of passion for it. Absolutely. I mean, there's you know, we we max out at six, we were very clear about it. Then we also we we don't want to do much more than three groups a month, you know. So then you kind of do the math and you work out that's not a hell of a lot of people, where and you consider the the expanse of the marketplace, you know. Um we've um we were very fortunate to be invited to um uh display or sell us um on the CF Motor stand at the ABR this year, very two representatives from um the two owners of CF Moto UK came out to us in May and um cut a long story short, um the um the young lass who's who's now the wife of the owner um Harry Hinckley um Jasmine, she had never ridden a bike off-road before, other than a couple of laps around a um uh a motocross track. And anyway, um she um had such a whale of a time herself that she said, no, no, no, we have to have you people on our stand. And we ended up being on on um CF Motor stand. But the point where I'm getting at is this stage, the the immensity of the crowd around us, you know, 20,000 um people at the ABR festival, and they're only a you know a drop in the ocean in terms of people that are really interested in doing this interesting in doing it, you know. Um and the level of interest was was mind-boggling to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 56:39

Um people that you know, I can I can tell you. But it was great fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:46

I think it was a roaring success uh the festival, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 56:49

It was hugely successful, yeah. Yeah, it's something again we we want to put in the cards for next year. Now Janet, she was over at she absolutely raved about, you know, but it's definitely one. Look at next year, it's it's building up. We're gonna go to Portugal at some stage. We're gonna have to talk about that now uh at the end of this. But uh yeah, I I think as I said to you, like what you're doing for people out there. It is like, for instance, flights, flights to to Albufira into Faro. If you get ahead of time, you can pick up flights for next to nothing. Like they're they're cheap as they're exactly. You're carrying a backpack with you.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

You're not even carrying a, you know, you can do the cheapest possible flight, and as long as you can carry you know a backpack that'll fit into the smallest little um tester that uh Ryan I use. You because ultimately we kit you out with everything, you know.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Um and I think I think the the the market that we uh aiming, not aiming at, but um I don't know how to describe this, but people that are you know stuck here in Europe, the weather's lousy, okay. You weather in Portugal is fabulous at that time of the year, they would just want a quick getaway, they don't want to have to plan this much year advance and it's a whole two weeks they've got to get permission slip signed, and you know the whole nonsense. They can just go, you know what, we can do midweek for three days in the middle of the week, or I can do a long weekend or whatever. Are we free? Boom, and they come out.

SPEAKER_07 58:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

And it's a quick, you know, as Brendan says, like and we're not overpriced, so it's it's affordable. Yes, you know, it's a good one. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 58:11

Because you don't you don't have to do you know the top of the range one. You can come out, put your toe on the water. Absolutely. You know, and right fair enough, you you've never done an off-road. Well, this is your time now. I'm gonna do three days out here. What's the worst thing happen? I can go out here, have a ball of a time, find out that I absolutely love this.

SPEAKER_04 58:28

The only downing side of it will probably be I'll come home going, I'm gonna buy myself an off-road by now. And I need to get to get more across how much.

SPEAKER_06 58:36

But you know, you know what I mean though, but it is like it's definitely it's it's it's uh it's a thing people should need to do it. Just go on do it. Absolutely. Get online and look at this thing for definitely.

SPEAKER_04 58:47

Definitely jump onto the website and urge everybody to jump onto ADV More Hair.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

We're also on Facebook and Instagram if people want to see the the pop-up stuff for you know what we're doing here, there, and everywhere. You know what I mean? They can you can follow us on that and make contact that way too. So um, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 59:05

Get in contact, send an email and take take the first step. I would urge anybody to be able to do that. Receiving is the first step. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 59:10

Yeah, we're going we're gonna go 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 59:18

We're getting in the back of that. We're going to be used now. You're smuggling us. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, we could talk to you for for hours. Um, thanks Emily for coming on. I really, really do appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Yeah, no, it's our pleasure. Our pleasure. It's just it's lovely talking to people that share a genuine passion for motorcycle and uh you know all into us. It is absolutely the best that we wish is not only the best of success, we will be over there. We spoke with this before. We will we're gonna plan on getting over there, maybe new in a few days next year, and uh we'll bring everybody along with us on the trip. And uh, yeah, long may it last and onwards and upwards for uh ADV Mo Heaven. Okay, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks. Lovely stuff. Thanks for you guys.

SPEAKER_03 59:59

Mind yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

And that was the one, Noni Tanya and Greg from uh ADV Mohaven. So, like I warned you, it is um it's going to be an expensive year next year for a few people, I think. As I said, I would urge anybody that can chip onto Ryanair and uh Jimanta ADV Mohaven and the prices and stuff. Like we've had some of the prices, and you know, obviously chat to them and send them an email with your thoughts and stuff like that, and you can get a bit of a look on the prices. But like, yeah, you're just like there's for example, like three-day, four-night adventure package, twelve nine five. That's your combination, meals, guided riding.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:33

So, all you'll have to do really is just go out, get yourself a couple of cheap flights, and away you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

And away you go.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:38

And you know, only need a backpack with you. Honest to God, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:41

South Africa trip sounds last. Oh, yeah, yeah. It does, it does, it does in fairness. It looks at it. But they they are very passionate about what they do. Oh, they are, yeah. Yeah, they're in it for the right reasons, as I say. You know, I know everyone has to make a few quid, but they really are in it for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at what I said, we we might try and uh check it out next year. I don't think we'll squeeze that and else into the diary this year because it's uh the old calendar is uh filling up there fairly fairly lively, but yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:05

And uh bank balance is emptying twice as quick.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:08

Yeah, it's a sort of a yeah, it's a it's it doesn't equal out now, I can show you. No, no, no, no, no. Replenishing is a lot harder than getting rid of.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:16

Yeah. An awful lot fucking harder than it was. And now it's time for a little thing we like to call the roster port. What have we got, McQuator?

SPEAKER_08 1:01:30

Helmets, wear them.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:34

What's the story? What are we talking about in particular?

SPEAKER_08 1:01:37

With this trip c uh to Spain coming up, me and you were half talking about where we changed the helmets because we've had the I-91s. I've had mine since Christmas. You were slightly before that. The HJC I-91s. Yeah. That is, uh, you've had you got yours just before Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

Just before Christmas, which, like, to be fair, people are listening to this going, Jesus Christ, sure it'll last longer than that. They do. 100%. We were just kind of thinking.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:00

It was it was we were delving the toes into it, because you never had did you modular before that? Let's go to shy talk here.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:06

Let's just stop all shy talking. We had no intention to change our helmets until this other nock went off and splashed the cash on. What did you get?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:18

I bought a shoe in the tech. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:21

There's always one, isn't it? Always one.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:25

You know, look at that. And you had the HSC. Ah, well now, lads, in fairness, I got four years out of mine. And in fairness, I put a lot of mileage on it. That that has been everywhere with me. So it in fairness to it, I would not knock it by any stretch. Um look, I just I basically haven't any war out with this stretch. Um obviously it's getting loud, and you know yourself, it's not as comfortable. The pattern is getting a war and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:49

This probably would be my one complaint. Now, not having AS compared to other than say the shoe that I had before that, which was a full face, which you can't really do a direct comparison against that. But they are on the louder side of things.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:03

That would be modulars can be, like in fairness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:07

There's more gaps, there's more yeah, there's a lot more stuff going on, you know. And obviously, uh your modular helmet is going to be uh tad heavier than your standard helmet.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:16

It is, yeah. I wouldn't complain too much about the weight on it. It is heavier than your new showy. Yeah. But when when you have one in each hand, you can definitely notice the difference. Yeah. But when you have the HAC on by itself, it doesn't bother it's not overly heavy.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:29

I never really had any problems with mine um apart from maybe uh it got uh whatchall it anti-fog gunner uh got watering behind it, so I had to change that one time. On the pinlock. Yeah, the pinlock itself. It was my fault anyway, but yeah, I changed out not bothering it again. Um just as I said, I done a good bit of research on the modulars and what was good and what was not. Uh I wanted something that was quiet. Yeah. You know, because after a while, wind noise does it's not bike noise that does your your hearing, it's actually the wind noise that does. It's because it's a constant yeah, it's a constant kind of kind of groan in your ear the whole time.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:06

Anybody anybody that's dumped beside a console for too long ago we're talking about.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:09

So that's basically it. So as I said, I'd done a good bit of research on them, and uh the showy um was coming up in the top three, so I said I knew a guy that's all showies. Yeah. Sound fella, I believe. Yeah, yeah. He was on the ball now, fairness done. Yeah, I'll sell it here. Yeah, decent. That was sound of a lot of people. Convinced me to come up and have a look, and uh, yeah, absolutely. I have it now. I suppose I must have it about a month or more, haven't I? Months or two. Now, and uh be honest with you, I have um I've used it a good bit now coming over to the to here and uh a few spins that we're half been on, and yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:45

You notice the difference.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:46

There is a difference, let's worth every penny. I'll be honest with you, yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:51

But they would be in the premium product. Oh, where they are, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:53

Look, you know, yeah, they are price-wise, they're look, they're up there with the top, you know, the top helmets, but the minute you put it on, yeah, it is a just a different ball game. I want to be honest with you, like just just the feel of the helmet on your head, the where everything fits in your ears, just to see them disappear in the helmet, they don't get folded over. Um the vision out of it, then as well, the helmet, the visor seems to be slightly further back, so you seem to have more vision to the side. Yeah, it seems to be way, way better. Uh the ventilation system on it, um it's absolutely unreal. Because you know, sometimes these vents are kind of just nearly for show. Yeah, you don't actually feel any air, which is you open the very top one. And I'm not joking you, it is yeah, it's like happening hurricane in the helmets. Let's say in that much wind, it's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

Like, and by times, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Especially if you're in warmer climate.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:42

To be fair to the HIC, it's not bad either. No, it's good. No, no, like at that inflation wise, it it is grand.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:48

Well, like for um well, the way I look at it is like that's a kind of um entry level. Yes, well, I wouldn't even say entry level, Ross. I'd actually go kind of mid section helmet. Yeah. Okay, because like you know, you can buy a helmet for 110 euro, like 125. So if you go buy a 991, they're I don't know what they are, anywhere between 250, 300 odd or whatever, something around that, you know. Still very doable. Um and like without a doubt, if I was tipping my toe in uh buying a moder helmet for the first time, that's what I'd be doing.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:16

Oh, definitely, yeah, yeah. If if anyone is thinking of making a change there and they don't want to spend yeah the best part of show's 700 euro there about yeah, you can stick on another little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:26

Yeah, closer to nine, I think, are they? Yeah, they're yeah, yeah. Well the noise.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:30

Yeah, see, uh I w where I'm caught is, and this is my own. I I do like the HSE, it's absolutely class, but where I actually genuinely did put out, I got a size too big. Yeah. I should have gotten the size down from it. Yeah. Minus too. It's not like it's not mad loose on me, but I like I put it on and it was kind of like, yeah, it's snug, but not overly snug at all. And I didn't even think to try on the XL.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:55

And uh that's definitely the double XL.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:59

Yeah, but you're even when we were over turns, it's like you tried on the bigger side showy, and I convinced you to try the slightly smaller one because I had um I had a large uh HJC and I thought that was it, like it was granite. It's just too big. Yeah. Alright. Now hard to believe, yeah, hard to believe, but I'm a medium and a showy. With that head. Yeah. I'd make this head for Hint. Shoe barely got in that door there with that thing. Tell anyway, I can squeeze the hell around here.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:32

If this podcast goes viral, it'll definitely be a 2x LG.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:37

I know, but no, I look, listen, um so far so good now. What we're what I was planning on doing is we'd do a kind of a year review of it. Yeah. Because you know, we'll I'll I'll I'll be honest about it and I'll tell you all what I think of it after the year. I'll put we'll put a good few miles up on it. Uh I'll um I'll tell you the do's and don'ts. Yeah. The good by the bad. And so far, it's like anything new, it's great. Yeah, you know. I do like that there's a kind of um a little curtain underneath your chin. So when you saw that, that yeah, it is absolutely makes it nice and snug, and then there's a kind of a little nose piece that goes over your nose as well, it just clips in. Yeah, and it's yeah, it just even do us those little things.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

Because I'm telling you here now, when you're out on a fresh cold day, it's to bridge your nose. Oh man, when the cold wind gets it out, it just your whole face gets known. It's horrible, absolutely wrong. And I I don't like wearing the kind of half bad claviting. I can't do it. Browns, I hate something that's covering around your face. That browns me. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:35

Everyone else wish you would, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Yeah, even one without the eye holes in it. Uh no, I don't like them. I don't, but the HCSEs for about 260 quid, they're they're grey helmets. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:47

They're nice looking helmets as well. They're like, I'll be honest with you, Liz, they're uh like they really are a really good helmet. Like I I've had two of them now and I put big miles on both of them, you know. Um, and like you can go and get all the your your comms for the HSE, they come with their own comms as well. You can buy HC. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

Is there the slot in it for the comms?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:05

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Slot in it for the comms, alright. Is there?

SPEAKER_08 1:09:08

Yeah, but um you still have to you still have to if you go into that market as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:12

Yeah, now I have to dip my toe into that now. The showy do their own kind of set. Um but I don't know. Show I have a showy make jackets and boots and trousers as well. No, nothing. If you do, and they they're listening. Hands up Mark will model it for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:30

Yeah, I'll tell you, there's one thing I actually don't like about it, and I did mention this to you. I think the button for the drop-down vibe. Oh, it's in a weird weird position.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:37

It's in a weird position, it's not that big. It's kind of halfway up on the side, isn't it? It's on your left hand side, it's on your left hand side.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:43

In comparison to the HSE, it's nice and big, right at the bottom of the helmet, we just flip it down. Yeah, that is it is, it is, it does a nice difference.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:49

Yeah, it does actually, yeah. I was the same as G, I didn't like it straight away. I was like I was rooting around for it all the time. But then it becomes secondary. That's because I was so used to the HSE, it was just right under here. Yeah, but when you get used to it, it actually makes sense because you just lift your hand up and it's you know your index finger, you just go whit down with it. That's it, like you know. But anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:06

Modular helmets by and large, whatever brand or model you go for are the job. Like they are uh like anyone that buys both worlds. Especially if you're heading out for a cup with a couple of lads and the helmet and temperature, if you're pulling up anywhere to say something, or like if it's uh yeah, exactly. Going to a shop, if you're off Coalbridge, whatever one fagging, one nah I don't know about the fag, but one clip of the yoke and away you go.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:29

Yeah, a lot a lot of shops don't want you wearing helmets. They don't, no, no, petri sessions. And they'll actually tell you coming across forecourt, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:37

Which is weird because you're after you're going in to obviously pay for the shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway. But there are very handy. I look, uh I've advised people over the years to buy tribus, or even as I said, buy a cheaper one, see how you get on. And everybody ends up with one. Yeah, that's it. And it ends up becoming their own.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:52

I wouldn't go back to a full face. No. If you had a HJSE say you had the HSE RPN of the 91 that we are the 91i that we had one was saying our 260 quid, but it had an absolutely class colour scheme on it. Or you had uh Shoi GT, what is it the GT? No, it's the Neo Tech. But it was just plain white and it was a hundred euro.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:24

I buy the show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

But and I look like a guard. I get you. You would look like a guard, but I get you, but like it is important, I think that's not that it's important, yeah. It has to look cool, though. Yeah, yeah. Like obviously that doesn't help safety or comfort around.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:37

No, well, look, the way I look at it is it's something that's going to be on your head for X mountain hours during the day. Yeah. You know, I know yeah, look, it's great when they look deadly, but you can't see the outside of them as on your head. Yeah, you know, so um I prefer to have something a bit more comfortable.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:53

I know, I know. See, you're you're a clever man, you've you know I mean you've no, it's not that I've made loads of stupid decisions wearing helmets. That's why that's why I I bought a new helmet as well. Oh, yes, they can get to actually properly wear it, yeah. It's the Harley Davidson, it's a Harley Davidson uh derived two-in-one helmet. So it actually the front of it, like it looks kind of like a Simpson helmet. The jaw comes off, yeah. Yeah, it clips off, which I I'll never wear with the jaw off, I don't think, because it just doesn't look right. But anyway, um yeah, it clips on and then there's a little pop-down visor on it. Um it's purely because it looks cool. Yeah, I wouldn't say they're the best helmet in the world, I don't think. Now it's nice, it is very comfy and stuff like that, but I'm actually raging because it's kind of false advertising.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:35

I did uh the drop down isn't fully tinted, it's not fully tinted, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:38

So how slightly smoked? It's only very, very slightly smoked. Really? And on the ad it shows it like black, like as black as that phone.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:45

So would you still have to wear sunglasses under the ink?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:48

Yeah, really? I'd say you probably would now. I was raging, man. Absolutely raging. Because when I even when I took it out and I flipped it down, I was like, Oh, look, but it's actually when you get out into the light and you flip rump you go, I'm absolutely raging.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:59

Yeah, very little different.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:01

No, no, no. So that's that's one thing that's annoying, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:04

Yeah, because that's kind of where you're buying it, really, isn't it? Yeah, well, it's all about looking cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

Yeah, like obviously it has the safety standards and all that, yeah, 110%. But you're you know, you because you you want it to look cool, yeah to be fair. Yeah, and uh it doesn't look as cool as I thought it was gonna look. So I'm a little bit disappointed. And I I ordered it and uh it came in. I had to wait for it to come in. I don't mind any of that, but yeah, slightly raging.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:22

Was there any of them there in the shop, any of them at all? And were it different?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:26

Not not that model, but there was some class ones, and I'm raging I didn't get one of them now. I was like, no, I saw this one in the picture, I was like, This looks class, and it is cool, I like it. It's a kind of a matte colour, it's kind of a matte. I have something similar, yeah. Yeah, and has the big Harley Davidson badge in the back and some front. No, it is a cool looking helmet. That's the only little thing I just wish that was a bit a little bit after, yeah. Could you actually get a little tint thing and put on it? No.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:50

I don't know. I I don't know whether you pull up some lad tinted windows and say something. Yeah, do it. Any chance you might tint this thing for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:58

Do the front windows the back because you can have a rattle can on it. Rattle can be fully black then anyway. I mean, look for it.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:06

You don't need it look, it'll be cool on you in a minute.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:09

Well, it was wearing funny as a sandwich, aren't you? Thanks. Um, another thing you wanted to mention that you Julie noted as well. Um actually something we need to talk about as well. But anyway, starting off with the super bike factory. Yeah. It's gone. Is it everywhere gone?

SPEAKER_08 1:14:24

It's gone all across England. Your man over in Newcastle was saying that they were closed now.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:30

Remember, he didn't say the superbike factory, did he?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:34

I don't know. They've got they've gone into liquidation anyway. Um look, the the model they ran their business on, lads. Like it was peculiar because I was massive turnovers. Yeah, massive turnover bikes. Like I I bought a couple of bikes out. Well, no, I thought I bought one bike out of super bike. I know bikes I did buy afterwards came from there as well, but I bought personally myself bought one, I bought a train of tiger over, and like I was got chatting to the guys in there and uh kind of flew over and rode it home or whatever. And um But the the the markup on the bike they're getting is like I think it was fifty quid a bike lag. Yeah, that's what they need massive turnover. So like this this is why when you go into into the superbike factory they have 500 bikes in it, like and churning them out like they're just just boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:18

And have had they had like a couple of places across the UK.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:21

No, they were just well as far as I know, they had there was one major big spot that they had, because they actually where I bought my bike, they had moved to another premises which was bigger again. And um, yeah, like it was there's look, it was just like walking into a candy shop for lads that won't like bikes. Like it was just like if you wanted a Train Tiger, there was 25 of them over there. If you wanted you know, if you wanted uh a BMW S1000 R there's 25 of them there, whichever colour, whatever miles. It was just it was unbelievable, but it it it's just a business model. I don't know, like it's just gone now. It's very sad to go on because there's a lot of a lot of people are out of work now over like yeah, that is sad now, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

As Ross was saying there earlier on, we were over in in in Newcastle two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:07

Uh two weeks ago now, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

Yeah, one of the lads stag dudes were over there, and uh we of course, us being us, you know, it was a Saturday, we were slightly hung over, uh and we just kind of we were trying to prolong going on the beer. So we had the breakfast around eleven o'clock, and then we said, look at we'll wander up to town, there might be no more bike shop. So we put it into the phone. I remember saying to you, was it like West End Hill or something?

SPEAKER_08 1:16:28

Or West something hill, yeah. And then it popped up literally. There was about there should have been about eight bikes. A literally bike shops one, two, three, four, five or an army in a row, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:38

Yeah, different different manufacturers and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:40

We just put it up on you and you're and I was like, I was like, Jesus Christ, look at all these bike shops, this is unreal. And a five minute walk from where we were. Yeah, literally a five minute walk from where we were. So we headed up anywhere and walk along, and then as we kind of headed up, we were like, There was one big one, was it MS motorcycle? Something like that.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:55

That the KTM and Kawasaki or something. They were like a dinesi outfitter or something as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:02

Yeah, that was a big shop, yeah, but closed. Closed. Yeah, but we just kind of thought it must be just sad it's closed. Then we walk up, then there was a classic motorcycle shop that had closed, gone out of business. This is this and Sarah, this is Saturday.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:14

No, but these were closed. Permanently closed. Closed, closed, shut down.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:18

Walking up, then there was another two that was like an off-road shop, but then there was two or three other bike shops. One was like an old Honda place, yeah, it was closed down. Then there was two other kind of shops that sold motorbike parts and breakers. They were all closed, they closed down our business. They were all derelict. So we're walking up on the. These are going back into the 70s, like these shops are open since the 70s, you know, and they've only old stock places, like you know. Old stock places. So we walked up and uh we're walking along, and there was this there was one little shop there, and they had a couple of bikes outside it. So we were just kind of having a bit of look around them. There was like uh Road Star Drag Star 1100 or something, or 650 or something there, and then there was a really clean uh um oh Lord, is it the VFR? Yeah, it was a very, very clean VFR.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:10

It's the same as uh there was the BMW.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

The BMW, the S uh XR.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:15

Oh, yeah, XR really nice one of them. I think that was a 25 player.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:18

Really unusual colour one. But we were just admiring the bikes looking around now, and next thing out comes this old man who it was his shop.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:24

And I just knew mechanics more so than that.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:27

Yeah, I just knew after two minutes looking at them, I say, I am chatting to this, I don't give a fuck. He had a pair of snap-on overalls, smoking fags, and you just knew be the look of this old school type setup. There was nothing this lad didn't know about bikes, yeah. And he was probably a bit kind of reserved at first, yeah, keeping an eye on you.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:42

Yeah, too dodgy looking. Too dodgy looking with steaming heads, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:47

Yeah, but when we got chatting to him, he just was an absolute soundless lad.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:53

The other buckle that was there with him, it was um he owned the XR.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:57

Yeah, uh that was right. He was just in getting some tires and stuff on it. Yeah, but uh we we just got of course, us being us, just our chatting to him, having a crack in the hall, and uh I kind of peeped in just inside the door and he had this uh which I don't I don't like them anyway, but it was uh absolutely mint TLR. Oh TLR isn't mint, absolutely mint. And I was kind of looking at Jes, that's a gorgeous. Next thing I looked over, here was this fully stretched Hayabusa, yeah, and no engine or rating in it. And I said, What's the story with that? And he says, Oh, he says, that was mine, he says, and he showed us a picture I has up in the wall. I I think I showed you the picture, on you. Martin Stanton is his name, and he had uh 252 pounds, 046 miles per hour standing start mile in July 2020. And this guy was what was he well in his 60s or?

SPEAKER_08 1:19:46

Oh, well into his 60s, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:47

Well in the biggest, yeah, but he'd all these different that that's what he doesn't, he builds a lot of the bikes, anyway. But say we got charged. Stretched out booze, yeah. Stretched out booze, and then the K5 jigs are there, load of work onto it, load of different stuff, and uh he did like uh all his tools all snap onto all, you know, in the exact rights whatever was shiny, just real old school mechanics.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exact same.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:08

Exact same when he wouldn't be it wouldn't be snapping to be parks or something along things. The middle aisle, the middle aisle of magic, that's middle aisle bandit, but uh so obviously we got chatting to him, and then I was just saying to him, he's like, What's the story with all the the shops closed down? And he started telling us, and your man that was there, he was a much younger your man, he says, This was the famous I think it was like West End Hill or something. If there's people in the UK from that part of the world that'll know exactly this best, but he said, Your man says, When I was younger, he says, Me and my dad used to come in here, he says on Saturday mornings there was nothing up this end of town, only motorbike shops and cafes. And he says, We'd ride in, he says, Me dad being getting breaks done, or maybe he'd be looking for a jacket or whatever. He says, We'd get the bike being getting fixed up. We'd go in, he says we'd have a cut, we'd have the breakfast or a cup of coffee and the whole lot. He says, I'd sit up on the wall and there'd be lads wheeling bikes and riding up and down all day. He says the place would be just uh hoppy hopping and to see it now, man, it would absolutely bring a tear to your eye. And what does he reckon? Just reckons online sales. Uh then I think obviously the economy's not the best over there.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:17

Big big dealers only wanting shops outside of towns.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:21

Well, I think they're all like I suppose the way it's going. If you look at every town now, lads, um the councils are pushing yeah, your rates up. Yeah, pushing rates up in the middle of town, like they're nearly pedestrianizing all towns, like, right? And they're pushing all big businesses out to industrial states. Yeah. So I suppose that kills a vibe of bless straight away, you know. Definitely.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:38

You know, and then you know cities are changing though. Like, I think the demographic, like you know, you've you have a huge influx of you know, people from other countries, you know, obviously living in a place, and that that demographic has probably changed and you know, they're it's just you know, they're not they're not probably in it's not something that they're particularly interested in, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:54

He did reckon though the second hand market had fallen completely on its arse.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:00

There was a shop across the road right in the corner. Yeah, it had all snap-on signs and it was a breaker's on. They said, What was the crack crack the place there? And he says, Oh, I said that was mine. He says, I was closed. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:10

Well, I was just listening to a guy today um and he was saying that the classic bike market in England has fallen flat. Yeah, they reckon that anything 60s and 70s now, if you were after something like that, now is the time to buy because uh you just reckon that the the artist's falling over now. Go over there because the generation that wanted them bikes have obviously got on a little bit now, and you know, they're not really using them as much. And what's happening is there's no one there to fix them. That's mad. So, like I was just listening to a guy today was saying like he had whatever, some say a Triumph T 100 or something like that, and he wanted to get work done on it, and he asked about five or six different shops, will they do a bit of work on it? Like, and every one of them said no. No, and the problem was no one want to do anything with a carburetor. That's mad, isn't it? Zero. Did not want to even touch it. So I ended up some he actually he got talking to some guy that was working for BMW, he had some old BMWs or something, and he had a guy that he brought his bikes to. So he ended up getting sorted out, but he was just saying the the classic bike market has changed. Now it's really like uh it's kind of mid late 80s, 90s stuff now. Yeah, but see, and that's our era. But that's what I was just gonna say, that's our era.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

So it's the likes of lads that not particularly us, but like say lads, like a lot of the time when lads get to a certain age or or women, of course, maybe the kids are rared, uh, the mortgage is gone or whatever they go to get to a stage of going, so I'm gonna treat myself. This is the bike I always wanted. And then because that age group has moved on, they're the kind of bike, it's kind of people in that age. Well, that's what he was hearing out. You know what I mean? That's mad.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:44

Yeah, he was saying, like, you know, like because there was one time like like you just couldn't give away, like, you know, maybe uh first generation, you know, uh hundred percent you know, SR Thousand or Genesis or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:55

It's not long ago, lad, you'd be on like Mark One bandits. You could you could you'd be struggling, like even a half clean Mark One bandit 1200, you'd be struggling to get 1500 more.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:05

Struggling.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:05

Struggling. Now we now a half any sort of y'all could be three grand. Yeah. Same as we said it before ZX9s, Gen 1 ZX9s, absolutely worth a fortune now.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:15

Like, it's funny the way it's gone, like, because look, even I just remember looking at stuff like even your very first years or thousands even like you know, there was a time you'd buy one of them for three grand, like three and a half grand. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Five and a half thousand now for something like that. I remember even my I had my K5000 and I remember like it was real low mileage, it was mint. And uh I can't remember at the time I was selling that now, it's a good year ago now, like I think I I struggled to get six and a half grandford, like that's mental. Yeah, but you get you get fucking a grand for it now the same money, yeah. You know what I mean? It was clean, like it was mint low mileage, like it was one that you could have put in a in a collection if you wanted to, like, yeah, but like I remember at the time I was like I can't believe this, like I can't even get six and a half grand for this thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:54

Like, but sure, I I sold my K3, my first K3, Jigser Thousand, about six years ago, I'd say maybe five five, six years now, probably about six years ago. And I think I got two seven for. It was immaculate. Now it was sixty-six thousand kilometres on, so it's the age of side, but the bike was absolutely mint. Got two seven fur, struggled now, really did struggle to get two seven fur. I seen it back up for sale about four months ago on Dundee. Imam was looking for three eight, and I wasn't on it for four days, and it was gone.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:28

Gone. So basically, the advice to anyone out there is if you have uh late 90s or mid 90s to very early 2000s sports bike or any bike of that generation at this stage, or hold on to it.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:41

Hold on to it. So you're saying is that phase is gonna be worth a mint.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:44

Yeah. Yeah. Some down, there's not too much of that bike that's original, but uh yeah, but this it's the way it's gone. And then there's another thing I wanted to bring up, lads. Bikes from China. Yeah, yeah. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:57

Well, that's what he said. Yeah, yeah, all met said that as well. He says a lot of the Chinese bikes coming to Africa since yeah, CF Moto.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:04

They were take they had I think they had the biggest dealership around that area, he's saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:07

Yeah, he said that they were two of them. He said it started off, there was one, and within the past couple of months now there were three dealers for them.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:14

Yeah, see, uh again, I was just doing a bit of research for the podcast here and I was looking up stuff, and uh like they are coming big time. Like Honda, Yamaha, all the the the big Japanese brands are gonna have to look out now. Yeah, I'm telling you for sure. Because like these Chinese bikes now, in fairness, like it are they're not a piss take anymore. No, no, like it are loaded. These bikes are good bikes now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:41

But you could even look at CF Mo or producing the parts for okay, I haven't knows they're doing KTM's parts, but they're doing somebody else's parts now as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:48

I think well, uh you know the CF Mo had a uh they would have done stuff with BMW as well. Yeah, yeah, that's the one, yeah. Yeah, uh like you see it at school, even we're often talking about like you know, they use CF MO's like absolutely no problem with them whatsoever. They had a couple of KTMs, broke their hearts.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:05

CF MO's, chance brockets, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:08

Yeah, see, look at it's like that. I suppose what it like and and and um Tanya and Greg say it themselves, they've got a good support network over there, that's probably the thing here.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:16

If it if they take off here, it's you know, I think they are like you you will you will see standalone dealerships, I'd say, in the next two or three years.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:24

I'd say before that, Ross. Yeah, to be honest with you. Like if you'll put it this way to you, if I said to you, right, there's a brand new CF Mo out there, yep. Uh it's seven and a half grand, there's a four-year warranty with it, yeah, or a hundred thousand miles, something like that, okay, or five year warranty. Or you can buy a three year old whatever, right? And it's the same price. Yeah. Oh, you'd buy the brand new one. You would. Yeah, well see, there you go. You you would you would you would really have to think about like you're looking at say the warranty for a start, you're looking at the brand new bike, you're looking at the backup of from a dealer, and like it's very important, it is like uh every dealership Or every bike brand should be judged on the backup of dealers. That's my opinion, and all like to be honest with you. If you're promoting a brand, you have to be able to back it up. Oh, definitely. And I genuinely think, you know, I uh from what I'm seeing and what I'm reading, and I have done an awful lot of research on them, we've seen them at the shows, yeah. Like we've sat in them all, and I'm telling you, there's not one of them that's not a bad bike now, in fairness at this age. No, no, no. I don't hear anybody cribbing about them.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:30

No, everyone that we've talked to that has ridden them has said, like even that um the Coves.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:34

Yeah, the Coves, yeah. That's one we I think we we will be making arrangements to get out for a test drive, you know, and tell you one.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:40

If if anyone if anyone wants us to give us a spin on a CMO, I quite happily take a spin on one.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:46

Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's why like when you look at Honda, Honda have really dropped their prices. Like unbelievable. And I think they've realized now, you know, to compete, they have to. Now look at Bang for Buck. I might as well be honest, just me personally, if I was given the option for the hot Honda or the equivalent of CF Mo that was maybe a grand or two cheaper, I probably would go with the Honda. Yeah, not because I don't think the CFO will be reliable, purely just at the minute after sales value.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:14

Yeah, but I suppose it's the way that's gonna go. That will go, yeah. Yeah, the way that will go up. Yeah, they they will go up because they will get a following.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:21

But it's it's the same as like uh all the Jap cars when they started coming over here first. Second hand market non-existent, yeah, couldn't give them away. But I would know when Kia started doing so, like CF Moto are doing like a three or four-year warranty. When Kia started doing that seven-year warranty, everyone's like, Well Jason, maybe these aren't aren't as bad as you can.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:37

Well, like if you can set over something and say a four-year warranty, and fairly you have you have faith in your product, like yeah, I'd be the same as you, Brennan, now like you know, I'd be like, right, okay, I can buy uh whatever, say uh CBR 600, I could buy a TF Moto and uh C B R 600's a grand here or 1500 quid deer, right? Right, I might probably be edged towards the Honda, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:29:58

Yeah, but if it's two or three grand.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:59

Yeah, well, this is what I'm saying to you, Ross. But that's me because I'm riding bikes years. But if I was kind of a a newcomer, right, and I'm going, that's three grand. Yeah, that's my biking setup for the year, like that's uh a new helmet, clothes, insurance, insurance, everything maybe a trip away. Yeah, like and it does make sense. And it does make sense 100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:19

So and it like that, the more dealers are out there, even in other countries, like it's a bike you're gonna get, you know, if you've got dealers.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:25

There's absolutely no problem with dealerships with CFO.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:29

Well the the um we we heard it there in the interview. They had three dealerships with all that's right, then within half an hour, and then the KTM one was like 120 kilometers or something.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:39

Yeah, that's right, yeah. And then you had to drop the bike there, leave it there, and drive back 120k, and then go back, collect it, and back. Like, that's that's an RD.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:47

It is 100%, yeah. Yeah, definitely useless piece of trivia for you, but you said something there about the Japanese stuff. So, do you remember the old expression, Jap scrap? Do you remember that old expression? Yeah, do you know where that expression came from?

unknown 1:30:58

No.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:58

World War II.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:00

Uh well, yes, around that time. So yeah, great little alert fair flight. I saw that. It was uh yeah, do you know how how what it was about though, how it came about? So, like for years before the for before um kind of the World War II period, uh Japan were buying flat out buying scrap steel out of America. Became jab scrap, and then one of the bombs they dropped on Pearl Harbor had that etched into it. What do you think? Your jab scrap now?

SPEAKER_06 1:31:28

No way.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:29

Yeah, they were building their military over it, yeah. Mm-hmm. Never be thought too easy he gets buying old scrap steel. There you go. You have some piece of trivia. I knew you'd like that, McQueen. You're a bit of an old uh history buff there, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:39

Yeah, you like your stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:40

He loves his old stuff like that. But we've been talking there, as I say, obviously, this is our first step, so we have some big old plans going forward. We've got, like as we've just discussed there, we've got a lot of products that are going to be coming into us in the next couple of weeks, uh, bikes included. I can tell you, kind of as it stands at the minute, we will be having the new uh Harley Davidson Pan America. That'll be out for a test drive. We're getting the new, we will have the new Jucati Multistra, um, the Pike Speak one and some stuff. Ah, the brand new one. Uh there's no difference, they're all the same, I've brought it. The Pike's Peak one, that'll be coming out for Spain. We've got some new Hondas coming and some Yamas and a few bits and pieces. Uh so they're big names. All yeah, yeah, all good stuff. But we will be, as the fellow says, we will be putting it to its paces. We will be telling you the good, the bad, and the indifferent, uh, like it or long. And that's the simplest the way it goes. Um before we wrap up episode one, which I've thoroughly enjoyed so far, um I think I'm gonna hand you over to the one only, Mark Dunn, uh, and you're gonna let us know what's going on this week, Mark. Okay. And now it's over to Mark with everything you need to look forward to this weekend. What are we going doing?

SPEAKER_06 1:32:55

Well, look, lads, there's loads of stuff on this weekend. If you're interested in the rally scene, you have uh Black Sheep, MCC, and Lungarvin. They have a charity run on, lads. It's on August the second. Um there's gonna be uh sign-ins at 12 at St. John's Special School. Uh the aircode is X350R25, and stands up at half one, lads. So that's one for if you're around around that neck of the woods, um then we have oh yes, the the fuel burners. That's on the 2nd of August as well. Uh spin to Johnny Fox's pub uh in the Dublin Mountains. Good old Johnny Foxes' highest pub in Ireland. Highest pub in Ireland, mice. Yeah, uh they're meeting in the filling station Edwardstown, County Longford. Uh on the boys on the lads. On the lads, and uh they're meeting at 10am and stands up at half 10. So that's one for a couple of spins if anyone's knocking about. Um so yeah, that's that.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:55

That's that, and then we've the mid-Anturn 150 is on this weekend.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:58

Mid-Amturum 150 is on this weekend, lads. It starts uh to 31st of July. Um, roll close at 8 a.m. So if you want to be getting up to see uh a bit of racing and a bit of practising, you want to be getting up there nice and early. If it's been anything like the rest of the racing this year, it'll be fantastic. Um and then it's on August 1st as well, and the roll closes at 7am, lads. So nice early start uh roll closure. So get yourself there, get your parking.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:26

It's a very well known, very historic. Do you want to know a few fun facts about the mid-Antrim 150? It was started on the 24th of July, 1946. I remember it well. Uh that is a fact.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:37

Is it actually in mid-Antrim or is it slightly to the north?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:39

It's in the mid lad. It's in the mid. Yeah. Uh and it was founded by uh Home Guard routes. So it was founded by the transport section of the 2nd Antrim Battalion of the Ulster Home Guard.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:49

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:49

Dad's army. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um the Clock Circuit's a fast public role course, of course, running through and around Clock Village. People know familiar with the area will know Clock Village. Uh, and it has legendary winners, the likes of Robert Dunlop, Ryan Farquhar, and the one-nony Philip McCallan. So uh yeah, two you're talking 200 plus mile an hour uh um you know, in stretches, narrow stretches of that. So that's definitely one to be looking forward to this weekend. Last weekend, oh sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:17

Look, last weekend uh I suppose we had uh Armai, the race up there and in the race of legends. Yeah, the race of legends. In fairness, it did not disappoint from what we've heard. We weren't there ourselves, but we had uh a couple of people that we'd be very close with and we'd know them very well, and uh they go to an awful lot of it, and they said it was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, um I know the second day in fairness they got a little bit of rain and a bit of haze coming over, but um no, uh seemed to be very well run. Uh facilities absolutely top-notch. Um toilets in every fielder you go to the city. I believe, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:54

I genuinely that's one thing that was said on a couple of times um was that the facilities, the paddock facilities in particular.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:01

Unbelievable team, yeah. Um loads of places to eat and all the rest. But uh look, the big race, the race of legends is the kind of one everyone was there for. And uh Michael Brown's he took the big one. Uh then he's second.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:16

Some weekend, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:17

I looked at it and um he was resting away anyway, it was raining. But uh he was gone. And next minute, the boys came along and you know, second and third. But I looked at a video and the uh the title of the video was No One Told Michael Brown It Was Rain. And it was just funny because he just went by it felt like forever before second and third came like you know, but Paul Jordan came in second, and uh Philip Crowe was third, and then down south we had a couple of our riders down here done very, very well. We had uh Michael Sweeney. Go on to make it. Yeah, he was a big sixth. Yeah, uh, you had Brian McCormick.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:55

Go on, Brian.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:56

Yeah, fair play to him. He was an eighth, and our own man knocking around here, uh Kevin Keyes, he done uh he got in the ninth. So, yeah, top ten as well. So, look, listen, absolutely fantastic weekend. Uh, all went off without any incidents, which is always brilliant. Uh, what we need, you know, going forward with road wrestling. And uh big uh hats off to any of everyone that's involved in the mid-antrum 150. It's accredited. And uh no one had a bad word to say. It was all very, very good, very positive.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:22

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was a say that was definitely something that was was shared between a lot of people that I was talking up there, just said how well it was run. Just in the interesting one of that, I would usually jab on to like if I'm not if I can't go to race at Jabon to YouTube to the commentary corner, and they'd usually have it. They weren't there. Um this year they weren't they weren't for whatever reason they weren't at it. Then I saw an ad for the Kings of the Road.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:44

That was more my first time using them. It was 20 quid uh you pay to see the races, which probably is a little bit unexpensive.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:50

Per race or is that like a season pass?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:52

Uh so it's for the weekend. Yeah, so you get the qualifying and uh yeah, which in fact look at it's not bad as well. It's a tenor a day. It's a ten or a day. Uh I think for 54 euro though, you get a whole season pass, and it tells you what ones that are. Yeah, they do other road race and stuff over in the UK. Well, they have coverage is very good, like yeah, but they have their own little standing as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they do, we correct.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:11

And plenty of cameras around the track, like it's not just one spot.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:15

Yeah, whole job lads.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:16

It is when you when you break it down to like a ten or a day, lads.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:19

100%.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:20

Yeah, but if you're doing 54, you get all the race. All of it, yeah. So like it's it's it's it's it's well worth getting at.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:25

As I would say, if you can at all go and support the race, go you know what I mean, make the effort to try and get up there and spoke, you're you're supporting the race, you're spawning the riders and the local economy up there, and uh that's what it's all about. Yeah, if for whatever reason you can't, you can't, you still you're not you're not gonna be missing out on the action. Jump onto the king of the roads or the commentary corner, you can have a look there and fair play to them as well for doing their bit for keeping everything going.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:45

And look, that's what keeps it all going, lads.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:47

Absolutely, 100%. Boys, I think we'll wrap it up there for episode one. I think we'll give ourselves a little round of applause.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:51

I think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:52

That went off, that went off kind of smoothly enough-ish, maybe. Well, look, we wait for your feedback. You'll be the judges. You will be the judges. Don't hold back.

SPEAKER_08 1:39:00

No, yeah, um, don't pull any punches. No, we want we want a lot of feedback now.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:04

We do, we do, 100%. We you'll find us on Instagram there at uh the chain reaction podcast. Um, we really appreciate it. If you can give us a like, a follow, a share. Uh, again on if you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, if you can because say this is going to be our first episode, um, we're putting everything into this. If you can just give us the five-star review, we'll really, really, really appreciate it. It does, it makes a massive, massive difference.

SPEAKER_08 1:39:26

Give us a follow on TikTok as well. We'll be on TikTok as of today.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:30

As of today. So, yeah, look at we'll leave it there for episode one. Thanks a million for listening. Um, yeah, any of your correspondence questions rather than you have, get in contact with us, and uh, yeah, we'll catch us all back here next week for episode two.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:43

Looking forward to overnight. Thanks.