episode 016 movie – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=474bcyKE44k

Transcript:

(00:00) fuel range I’ll wait around and find [Music] out hello and welcome to best motorcycle roads I’m Tom and I’m Todd together we have over 65 years of combined motorcycling experience and 30 years of planning and riding motorcyc cycle trips we’re here to share with you everything we’ve learned over those years our at best motorcycle roads is simple make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be we’ll dive into technology planning packing the roots other tips and everything in between from essential

(00:41) prep to Unforgettable Roots we’ve got you covered before we Kickstart today’s Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it’s our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we’ll put a link in the show notes this segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips we call the toolkit on the toolkit today we’ll talk about Tire gauges and uh because we needed one on

(01:13) this LA on the eclipse trip it made me think of it um we had got to our meeting point um if you remember uh Chris diverged from the Chicago area we came from Iowa and we met in Hannibal Missouri um and uh we got there and we were just getting ready to leave after stopping for lunch which talk about later but and Brad noticed that because I think I think your Tire’s a little low you know so we found a spot and I had brought a tire pressure gauge that I had purchased a while back and I tried to buy a little nicer one because man

(01:45) couple things one if you ever have to check the tire pressure on the back wing of a Honda Gold Wing uh it’s like a contortion event um and I don’t contort very well uh Todd so uh so this usually you want to look for something that now there’s some super nice ones that have like pivoting fronts but this one you don’t really ever want one that comes out the tip in straight ahead you usually you’ll want something that’s at like a 45 or a 90° angle just because you’re having to sneak down in around

(02:15) there you know the Harley front and back has a pretty Wide Tire pretty wide rim and then some bikes the Harley has a single disc on one side so it was actually interesting we ended up kind of getting it in from the left side of the bike even though uh you’re kind of reaching through and it worked out well but yeah it’s really nice to have one and then one that locks that pressure in and so you can kind of get it set don’t and then you can take it off and look oh yeah I’m still a little low I see yeah

(02:41) it releases the pressure so just couple tips you know you can still buy a really nice tire gauge for10 or $15 versus $2 um so yeah I would just it really works well and then this one actually is kind of cool it has a glowi in-the-dark face oh yeah so then you know if you ever need to hit it with the headlight and then go down to it and then it’s gloin the- dark too so just something to keep thinking about as you think about these things that locking the Locking pressure thing I yeah I’ve had those before and I

(03:14) don’t have one now right I have a more of a standard and and the stick you know the old school sticks are okay but you bump them and then they don’t fit with motorcycle tires really uh so yeah highly highly recommend that um and then just making sure that you know probably over stretching the ridewise a little bit here but just you got to watch those pressures um you know some of the newer bikes the new Gold Wing now I can check that pressure on the way it’s really amazing to see so I the recommended tire

(03:42) pressure on the Honda Gold Wings 36 in the front 41 in the back it’s really interesting to see how high those get like really be careful and be thinking about it when you get those tires heated up the pressure goes up quite a bit so especially if you starting when it’s really cold guide wise is the section we focus on planning and safety tips So today we’re going to focus on uh some planning and uh safety tips uh and this is about like heavy traffic uh which is the case uh that this trip on this trip

(04:10) because the highways were jam-packed with cars uh following the the eclipse right and um just super heavy traffic on on the whether it was highways interstates even side roads uh it was stop and go right yeah and I think the biggest thing here um number one everyone’s getting fussy cars bikes the whole works um it’s just no no one’s making great decisions when this starts to happen which is in my opinion an absolute horrible place for motorcyclist to be living yeah um you do not want to be around when people

(04:49) and you know we were seeing it and we actually when we pulled in one of the first times you know Chris was getting the riot act from this guy and we’re just like dude we’re trying to stay together here like just let us stay together it’s like fine pull out in front of us like you can be in front of us and we’ll be right behind you but like we want to stay together and then man I mean it was just and then people left Rane right lane it just like stay in Lane it was only four bikes right we were four bikes four bikes so but yeah

(05:14) thousands of cars it was actually unreal um coming back so yeah I would just say and then you just got to pay attention on these motorcycles and I’m riding an automatic Gold Wing so I’m yeah it’s no big deal but you know those guys were clutching it back there you know and foot breaks and shifting and it’s a pain doing it all over again we should have absolutely just turned around when whatever Direction and avoided everything um but what do you know but it’s just something to think about you

(05:44) know I know when you and I rode down to the tail of dragon we ran into rain and I think there was an accident and two things that I remember about that one this is going to come of a shock I didn’t have any rain gear on but we we were we rode up and it was raining and then I was was like cuz I’m like hey I’m cool we’re moving it was just blowing past yeah until we stopped yeah and then I was like oh yeah now it’s getting wetter but you know rain or those congestion people are just not paying attention and

(06:13) just you know inching up on you or on the phone or on you know whatevers yeah such a dangerous time I mean I just get the heck out of these situations I think and the other problem though too is get out of there right so you’re watching ways which sometimes will update you and say hey I found a faster route so what do you do you follow Way’s decision get off the highway and you don’t realize that everybody else is also watching ways right everybody gets off the highway and now you’re still on the same

(06:44) traffic we were on smaller roads we were at the such the beginning I’m like all right we’re watching Chris was watching ways I had the Google Maps I’m like well it’s telling me that turning left is a 20 minute extra like we’re not going that way and then oh PR soon’s like oh nope it’s six minutes faster now so we get on there we’re and we’re in the best thing in the world we’re zipping along pretty soon we did this we pretty soon it’s like hey man we’re getting close to

(07:05) the interstate I can see it again well this particular Interstate south of St Louis on 55 is not your Interstate with exits it’s just turning on from an Offroad there’s no mer so we’re 30 minutes 30 excuse me half mile from the interstate and it was an hour or or probably half an hour because you’re trying to mer they’re trying to Z merge into traffic and nobody wants to let you in at that point cuz they’re pissed they’re already pissed so yeah that was so bad so yeah it’s it’s tough to see

(07:38) you know the the truck that you were next to in traffic you get off and go all all these side roads finally come back up and you’re right next to them again yeah the only thing we did do at the very end we ended up taking like Business 61 I think when we got into s l that was a little better but you could see it was just red we’d have been we could have went to Kansas and had better had a better idea yeah the next segment is what we call the mile marker it’s our story segment for today’s mile marker we’ll recap our

(08:07) Eclipse trip uh probably the worst news that happened happened a couple weeks before before the trip even started yeah of course Tom has to order a whole bunch of stuff for his bike oh come on now I was talking about you not going on the trip oh well there’s that yeah okay so play on this trip for two months or more or more probably four months been planning this trip and then just a couple weeks beforehand I find out that something at work has changed the schedule has changed and now I have to work I can’t avoid it so

(08:39) unfortunately yeah I missed the full Sol that was a bummer you know I loved it in 2017 and was just looking forward to the trip again and riding with everybody and uh yeah son of a gun I couldn’t couldn’t do it well the good news is is this year we started early so we can end late you know right yeah yeah so yeah I mean um yeah I think we’ve talked about this before for is not getting things too tore apart before um before D-Day I thought I did good I mean I had a day with the bike was complete together

(09:09) beforehand but you didn’t have a test ride did you um maybe maybe a little small test ride yeah yeah um but then Brad same thing um he’s kind of pulling his bike out of the out of storage because it was early I mean it’s early we left it was what 38° I think that morning and windy and windy oh gosh um he ended up having a short on the bike blowing fuses every five minutes he had everything to around 5:00 on Saturday night day before we leave but luckily uh he was able to figure that out and it was a fog light

(09:44) switch that was It was kind of wore out um so he disabled that and and everything worked so had no troubles on the trip so so that was nice um but yeah so day one boom we leave at 7 o’clock in the morning Todd was there to send us off and it was uh almost raining 38 degrees cold cold windy cold raining oh and uh let me guess Tom you didn’t have your reindeer on we were going to be we were going to be rolling we didn’t need it so oh I was looking at the maps the weather did not portray what I was what I was seeing and

(10:24) I I wasn’t even there and I I just know that you waited until you were completely soaked all the way through and then you put your rain gear on right well it was 38 degrees I might have waited till I I may have stopped a little sooner than normal I don’t think my underwear was wet so but then again that was probably because I was heated seat oh true so yeah we stopped at Lone Tree school parking lot and I just I’m like okay it’s time oh okay so you went that far we went the Lone Tree okay yeah

(10:56) well we kept thinking we were going to weave around it that’s what half hour from here yeah yeah so yeah but I you know I was proud of myself you know as a we’re 50-year-old men here I got my ring gear on without you know a chair the little winds right yeah so anyway uh we rode out of the rain probably somewhere in Missouri um it wasn’t hot but at least it was enough to get get dried off um and then we ended up in hanal where we met our buddy Chris at uh Big Muddy and that was some good barbecue the only only thing that I have

(11:32) against Big Muddy is there was one guy working there oh he was cleaning the plates he was cleaning the tables he was preparing the Big Muddy and taking orders wow U but this place was not very big well I mean it was like all great barbecue was NE it was connected to the um gas station yeah it was really good it was really good so we got connected there with Chris and then we rolled on down a little further and then um for us um we’re from Iowa so the National Women’s National NCAA Championship was on and so

(12:05) we couldn’t find it anywhere um so Chris ended up finding it on his like XM or something and he was playing it so loud that it was going through the speakers oh all through your headsets yeah so that was pretty cool and then we got into Montgomery City Missouri and I’m like there’s a Mexican restaurant let’s just stop um so we did so we got um we we hung out there and talked to them and after 15 minutes we figured out that we could only watch the alternate Channel where the Sue bird and that other lady

(12:36) was talking about it so but we still it was enjoyable we sat down and waited we thought we were only 30 minutes from the hotel we were about an hour and 40 minutes away from the but but it worked out great it’s kind of we talk about these things here’s Big Muddy was a great plan stop we checked it out it was good MH do Primos in Montgomery city was I not planned stopping it was fun too yeah um just you know audible uh so yeah so that was day two rolled into Raa Missouri nice hotel um stayed there and

(13:08) then got up in the morning early and headed down to Donathan and man uh you know there’s a lot of great roads and great riding in Missouri but Missouri 819 might be one of the great ones really yeah that thing was unbelievable and we picked that up um well yeah we picked that up on the day before as well so out of hand um we were riding on that as well so that that’s a great Road I think it’s the I think it would be considered the old um like Avenue of the Saints maybe oh um I think 61 would have came after

(13:43) but I didn’t check that out but what a beauty of a road down through Lead Mine country which is kind of cool so um the next morning we ended up um in a town that we’ve been you’ve been to before and one of the writers uh Turk Turk is a train buff his dad was an engineer on the train and so there’s a little thing there’s a town I use that term very Loosely because I don’t know how many houses are there six oh and then Bixby Country Store what’s cool about the Bixby store is it’s got the

(14:13) train up above yeah so we stopped there um and I had what had might have been the best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had so bacon egg and cheese oh gosh what was good with a side of pineapple cake I remember that well you know it was almost noon so okay so then we we finally made it down to the eclipse um we were literally uh you know the next town south was Arkansas so we’re right right there and man we we started pulling in we’re like okay this is going to be interesting because there was cars everywhere this must I mean this was a

(14:49) little bitty Town yeah that we kind of picked on the map and there was people and cars everywhere we pull into town and I’m assuming maybe it was the fairgrounds or the the big city park it was packed um so we kind of weaved around through town and we’re looking around and we ended up in a Baptist church parking lot so we figured it’s a win-win if it was the end of the world we were right where we needed to be so yeah we kind of pulled up there and you know very different experience I think than you guys had last time where you

(15:21) had a group of people this was kind of we were just kind of by ourselves and it was a little quieter but what was wild is uh just the number of people when the eclipse started happening you could hear them from that it was pretty cool yeah so uh the fun part is I set up a couple GoPros we’ve got a couple of time lapses and then I haven’t showed you I don’t think yet but the Drone the Drone video too so I had flown a drone for about 11 minutes during the eclipse so yeah pretty cool I mean like what you’ve

(15:53) talked about before I mean it was funky color out what what I think the most amazing thing to me Tod is 95 98% of the of the sun was covered by the moon and it was still daylight and then boom that last sliver and then P it just temps the temp goes down 15 de there wasn’t quite as much chatter bugs birds like you had kind of experienced I think it was later in the year that’s true this was April you were in August so that is probably a huge difference but boy did it it got dark you know and street lights came on and

(16:28) yeah one of the cool pictures on the Drone as I I got it up there and the camera was not I didn’t put any filters on it so we weren’t really getting like pictures of the of the eclipse MH but what we were get what I did do is do a couple 360s with the Drone so you could kind of see the Horizon oh yeah it was cool it it’s weird to see a 360 degree Horizon with no sun yeah you know so yeah we’ll post that on the YouTube channel at some point here but yeah four minutes of Darkness this time you guys I

(16:58) think had two minutes of yeah yeah so it was it was interesting and then uh you know we left and it was it was the damn traffic it was traffic for unfortunately we screwed up and I didn’t put the the day two map that we planned out the excuse me the second map of day two in because it probably would have worked out great we were going to cut across east to west go to Chester oh yeah we totally blew it oh yeah so we didn’t get to go there so we’ll have to plan that in yeah um on the next one home of

(17:28) Popeye the really cool little Park um you know we’re getting really old now we got to stop at the parks and see the way points so but boy did we on day three on our way home had a great time we were talking to Chris if he would have kept just High tailed at home it was a 4 and a half hour drive for him just to go straight 55 and he’s like I don’t really want to ride the interstate and so we decided that we actually um we rode with him together all the way up on the Illinois side 61 mhm and I think he

(18:00) wrote well all the way to Monmouth uh Illinois so just just really yeah so that was fun um we stopped in um what town is Western Illinois College in um oh I know what you’re talking about not mome maybe it is mome it might be mome it might be we stopped there had pizza at a pizza buffet it was wonderful so yeah we had a nice it was a nice Leisure trip home when we ditched Chris then we kind of we were staying on the Illinois side all the way up to will like crossed in I don’t remember where we crossed you

(18:33) didn’t cross in Burlington did you mustine is where we cross yeah we crossed in mustine boy it was cool though um because in Iowa that was really like a few days before planting season was really going to get started and so we um we able to just like ride through that River Valley what a it was a beautiful day temperatures were just right yeah yeah we had a good time coming back and then uh yeah so it was a good one it was a really good one man yeah I’m sorry I missed it well you know you know how it is uh so but no yeah I

(19:04) mean as far as the uh it was a short trip just a three-day but um I think yeah I mean very very good time so as usual so we’ll hopefully post some more pictures and videos and things as we get a little time to catch back up on that yeah yeah the podcast can be found on best motorcycleroads.com podcast all the information you need will be there uh but you can subscribe on Spotify Amazon music Apple pocketcast and YouTube this is the interactive segment we will be looking for input from you uh we want you to send us your

(19:36) questions and suggestions for roads topics and anything else you have on your mind today’s roadside Q&A comes from Eric and Eric said um newer Rider here uh what’s the safest way to lay down a bike bike to avoid an accident well Eric never lay down a bike never never never no no don’t do it um your your tires have a lot more friction with the pavement than the side of your bike and metal and yeah don’t do it uh just a real heavy squeeze on your front brake uh apply the back brake as you know as as hard as you can without

(20:16) you’ll know when to stop it’ll start squealing yeah yeah don’t lock it up you know don’t jerk your brakes front or back um just a heavy heavy squeeze and uh get get as much speed out of it as you can yeah um but yeah I I know people think of that when you’re a newer Rider like if I have to lay it down where should I go just don’t do not lay it down yeah that’s the worst thing you could do you know and it it could be some crazy circumstance if you did lay it down you might get in front of it and

(20:43) then it’s coming up behind you um but you’re not going to slow down uh laying it down no uh it might even speed up just a little bit well you know Chris has been in a motorcycle accident before yeah and um you know the thing that happens when you start to lay it down and this is why I am very huge on having bags on the bike um because what happened to Chris and this is what happens is your your left foot usually because you’re going to usually lay it down that way it’s possible to do it the other way but your foot goes under the

(21:15) bike on the wrong side of the bike and then the bike comes and basically cimps off your ankle yeah and then you’ve got an ankle that’s just spinning round and round and the same exact thing would have happened to me when I hit that deer except the bags were there and if I have a scar on my ankle exactly I’m sure where Chris now has a pin and it was the deepest gouge you can imagine and but then my bike triangulated or pivoted on those things and my foot you know popped out but otherwise I know exactly where

(21:47) it would have cut you know um but you’re right and I one one thing that I did especially and they’ll they’ll teach you this if you take any motorcycle rider safety classes there’s a couple three things that really press on to you one if you’re running over something you know you want to break before you get there and then actually let up accelerate you’re lightening the front end and then you hit the brakes when you get over it so you’re kind of you know using inertia to do that the other thing

(22:11) that they will do and you know I used to do it a lot my dad used to do it when I was learning to drive a car it’s like I’m going to tell you to say stop and I’m want you to stop as hard as you can stop I mean you really need to practice stopping fast yeah it’s uncomfortable you know yeah and until you do it you just don’t know what that bike’s going to to feel like I mean I know you you’ve had a couple close calls where you’ve been able to sneak through but boy oh boy oh boy and yeah yeah it’s it’s

(22:37) unreal how much power your front brake really does have correct your front Brak has got a lot of power it can really pull the speed down quick correct without without skidding because you know the weight is going on to that it won’t skid like you think it will um it will eventually it will eventually but I tell you I’ve locked up both of them it was not a good idea but no I mean for real though scrub scrub the speed uh you know if you if you hit something you might come up on top of it but don’t

(23:05) don’t and know your bike I mean I would say bikes that are post 2010 2020 they have a lot of M an like brakes so you’re just going to lay as hard as you can yeah the other thing to note too and they would talk about this in the writer safety course is trust your tires when you’re in a corner with a bike you actually have more surface when you’re cornering than when you do when you’re straight up yes so like it’s kind of again it’s a mental Pro it’s a mental process but lean it over more most

(23:35) people are not leaning the bike over to the point of trouble you know in a turn yeah in a turn sorry yes that’s what I meant yeah so you’re right and you know your brakes will work in a turn you just got to there’s some you want to test that as well you know yeah so yeah it nine times out of 10 I think you’re going to be better to be on that bike yeah and I’m glad you mentioned if you’re going to run over an object to break his hard as you can and then let go let up and then it it light like you

(24:02) said light also allows the suspension to work let me repeat that so if you’re going to run over something hit the gas when you go over it and brakes when you get get over it yeah you’re lightening the load on the front tire with the with acceleration and then you’re lightening the load on the back tire with the braking so yeah a funny story the guy we know Lincoln he actually did Lay the bike down he said I hopped on top he goes I didn’t even know what I was doing I slid the bike down the road but yikes

(24:28) you might want practice that if you no don’t practice it no no never practice it does it is possible yeah he got lucky not probable he got lucky yeah that was the nine times from the one time yeah now it’s time for The Last Mile it’s the way we close out every episode with our Reflections Todd what’s your reflection of this last ride well I I just really wish I could have been there I I felt so bad that I had to just two weeks out or three weeks out I had to tell you I I couldn’t be there but I do

(24:59) appreciate you guys uh including me on a couple of phone calls and some some chats while you’re riding and then at the hotel and kind of giving me updates I mean you made me feel like I was there and still included so I I did appreciate that well they were missing you at do Primos as well so yeah the Supreme nonos were really good oh I I’m no doubt about that but no I appreciate it and uh yeah I’m sorry that happened yeah well I was super excited to finally see the real cpse I think last time I kind of was an

(25:28) idiot and didn’t go and watch the real Eclipse so you know I know um I think we were talking about 10 years as the next option if we don’t want to go to Iceland 10 years we can go to like Montana maybe it was so so uh you know it’s a little sketchy on which of us might be able to ride a motorcycle by then so uh yeah so I was glad to see it it was fun for me to do the photography that we did so looking forward to seeing how that comes out as well if this episode up your day please don’t keep it

(26:00) to yourself like it subscribe to it and share it with your crew we’re all about the thrill of the ride and the bond it creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive and remember bikes friends and endless roads the stories ride forever take care [Music] [Music]