KabutoAmericas is a company that sells motorcycle helmets. The point here is that helmets help protect you, and the brand is also trying to look good while doing it.
They’re talking about where they like to ride—north of Wetherford and up toward Possum Kingdom. It’s about finding routes that are enjoyable for longer trips.
Topic
Westerplex (Dallas/Fort Worth area)
They’re talking about a place in the Dallas/Fort Worth area they like. The point is it’s a good location if you want easy access to fun roads.
The Ford Ranger is a pickup truck, meaning it has a cargo bed for hauling things. It’s the kind of vehicle people use for work or carrying gear, and the “Ranger” name is also well known from TV.
Term
buy parts
For older bikes, you can’t always just walk into any store and find the exact part you need. You often have to go to a shop that specializes in that bike’s era and design. Getting the correct part helps you fix the real cause of the problem, not just patch the symptom.
A “shovelhead” is a Harley-Davidson engine generation. People call it that because of the shape of the engine’s top end. When someone says they need shovelhead parts, they mean parts made to fit that specific Harley engine style.
“Four speed parts” are the pieces that make a four-gear motorcycle transmission work. If you have an older bike, you often need very specific parts that match that exact transmission design. Getting the right parts helps you fix shifting problems and keep the bike reliable.
“Twin cam” means the engine has two camshafts that help control when the valves open and close. On bikes, people use the term to describe a more performance-oriented engine setup.
The “chopper scene” is a community of people who ride and build custom motorcycles. These bikes are often heavily modified for a distinctive look, and the culture includes events and builders.
They’re saying that if you’re a bit too aggressive, the bike starts to shake more. That shaking can be a sign you’re pushing the engine/drivetrain harder than it likes at that moment.
“Instant feedback” means the bike tells you right away what’s happening. If you twist the throttle or shift, you can feel it immediately, which helps you ride more smoothly.
This is about trip planning and ride duration—how route choice (highway vs back roads) affects total time and rider fatigue. For motorcycle owners, time-on-seat can be a major factor in choosing between a longer scenic ride and a faster commute-style run.
They’re talking about riding when it’s cold and raining. Wet roads can make it harder for tires to grip, and cold weather can make everything feel less responsive. They also had to jump onto the highway to get where they were going.
A pre-planned meetup (like breakfast) is a common group-ride structure: riders gather at a set time and location before departing together. This reduces confusion, helps with route briefing, and improves safety by keeping the group organized.
It means the ride has a planned path and sometimes planned stops. Instead of figuring everything out on your own, you follow the route and join the group activities.
Concept
access to so much in motorcycling
They’re saying riders today can find a lot of info and places to ride more easily. Because of that, experienced riders don’t always need someone else to point them to good spots.
“Casual motorcyclists” just means people who ride sometimes and aren’t as experienced. The idea is that they may need help finding good places to ride, while experienced riders usually know the area and don’t need as much guidance.
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smashing miles across the country
It’s just a colorful way of saying they rode a ton of miles on long trips across the country. It usually means they’re doing big touring days, not short rides.
Concept
48 state this year
That phrase means someone rode their motorcycle through almost every U.S. state in one year. It’s more about doing lots of long trips and planning routes than racing.
LNS motorcycles is a company that makes and sells motorcycle custom parts. They’re known for both classic-looking upgrades and newer upgrades made with modern materials.
An air cleaner is part of the intake system that filters the air going into the engine. A “big sucker” style is just a larger, more noticeable intake that can affect airflow.
Part
bars, risers, wheels, brakes
These are the main areas people upgrade on a bike: handlebar position (bars/risers), wheel feel (wheels), and stopping power (brakes).
Carbon fiber is a lightweight, strong material used for motorcycle parts. People use it to make bikes feel a bit lighter and to give the bike a high-end look.
A “crest spoiler” is an aerodynamic add-on/shape that helps control airflow over the helmet. Spoilers are commonly used to reduce lift and turbulence, improving stability and comfort at speed.
MIPS is a safety system in some helmets that helps reduce twisting forces in a crash. It’s designed to protect your head better during certain types of impacts.
Term
ACT tech
ACT tech is a brand-specific feature in the helmet’s shell design. The idea is to make the helmet lighter while still keeping it strong.
Term
F17
The F17 is the specific helmet model the host uses. They describe it as a full-face racing helmet with good ventilation for hot weather.
A MotoGP-style helmet is built for racing, where speeds are high and airflow matters. It’s usually designed to be stable, protective, and comfortable during long, hot sessions.
A tour pack is like a storage box that sits on the back of the bike. It helps you carry more stuff, but some people don’t like how it changes the bike’s appearance.
PCH refers to California’s Pacific Coast Highway, a famous scenic route along the coast. It’s a popular road for motorcycle rides because of the views and the variety of curves and traffic patterns.
A “chopper fest” is a motorcycle event where people show off custom choppers. It’s usually a mix of bikes, riding, and hanging out with other riders.
Concept
parts and labor build-off show
This sounds like a custom bike event where people build or modify motorcycles, usually with some kind of competition or judging. It’s the kind of event where you’d see lots of different builds and techniques.
This is a contest where people try to start their motorcycles by kicking the lever instead of using an electric starter. It’s harder than it sounds, so you can learn a lot about how well the bike is tuned and how good the rider’s starting technique is.
They’re removing an ignition wire (the wire that sends spark to a spark plug) to see if the motorcycle will still run. If it runs with one cylinder disabled, you know the other cylinders and ignition are still working.
They’re basically asking: if you shut off all but one cylinder, does the motorcycle still run? It helps figure out whether the problem is with specific cylinders or with the bike’s overall ability to start.
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malort
Malort is a very bitter liquor. They’re using it as part of a goofy challenge at the event—people kickstart their bikes and then try to spit the liquor into a shot glass.
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roadside Marty
Roadside Marty is a motorcycle personality the speaker likes. They’re saying he does fun, attention-grabbing challenges at events, and they’d love to see him in person.
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idle hand show
This sounds like a motorcycle event where people show their bikes and talk about how they run. It’s the kind of place where you can learn from other riders’ setups.
Cold start means starting the bike after it’s been sitting and everything is “cold.” Some bikes need extra help (like enrichment/choke) and good tuning to start quickly when it’s cold.
Warmup is letting the engine get up to its normal operating temperature. A bike that’s warmed up usually starts easier and runs smoother than one that’s still cold.
Concept
Red River, New Mexico
They’re mentioning a specific place where they did an event. It helps set the scene for when and where the motorcycle culture they’re talking about happened.
“Chopper centric” just means the event is mostly about choppers—custom bikes with a particular style. People there usually care a lot about the custom build and how the bike looks.
Kickback is when the kick lever doesn’t just go forward—it can shove back at you. It’s one reason kickstarting can feel risky if you’re not used to it.
Car
FLH
FLH is a Harley-Davidson touring model. Here, they’re saying the custom bike started life as a 1977 Harley touring bike before being rebuilt into something else.
The frame is the bike’s main structure, and the transmission is how power gets sent to the rear wheel. They’re saying they kept those parts from the original bike and changed other components.
Concept
patina / "crusty" vs "sparkly and shiny"
They’re talking about the look of the bike over time—either super clean and shiny, or intentionally worn-looking (“crusty”). It’s basically a style choice about whether the bike looks brand-new or lived-in.
A “show bike” is a motorcycle built primarily for display—fit, finish, and styling—rather than everyday usability. The speaker explains that their bike became a show bike due to an event (“Born Free Texas”), which influenced how they built it.
Spoke wheels are the classic kind with thin metal spokes between the hub and the rim. The speaker is saying they personally didn’t want that look for their build.
Disc brakes are a braking system that uses a metal disc and pads to stop the bike. They’re often more reliable and easier to control than older drum brakes.
Term
jockey shifts
“Jockey shifts” is a way of shifting gears that feels different from what you might be used to. If you’re not used to it, it can take practice to ride comfortably.
The front brake helps you slow down and stop, and it’s usually the strongest brake. If a bike doesn’t have a front brake, you have to ride and brake differently, and it can be much harder to control.
The clutch is a lever you pull to temporarily disconnect the engine from the bike’s drivetrain. It helps you start smoothly and control how the bike moves when you’re stopped or creeping.
Rolling back is when your bike starts to slide or creep backward on a hill while you’re stopped. It can happen if you’re not controlling the clutch and balance just right.
Lane splitting/filtering is when a rider moves through traffic in a way that gets them closer to the front, usually when cars are stopped or moving slowly. It’s meant to save time, but it depends a lot on local traffic behavior and timing.
A bagger is a touring-style cruiser with storage bags on the sides. They’re usually bigger and wider than a chopper, so it’s harder to squeeze through small spaces.
The hosts discuss how riders handle dense urban traffic, including lane splitting and how other drivers react. The conversation uses Dallas as a real-world example of recurring congestion and how riders try to move through it safely.
Term
two to one gearing
Gearing is how the bike multiplies engine speed to wheel speed. The “two to one” ratio affects whether the bike feels more punchy at low speeds or more relaxed at higher speeds.
Topic
Road trip route: Helotes to Lake Amistad and Marathon
They describe a long ride with several stops. It’s mainly a travel story, but it shows how the bikes are used on different kinds of roads.
Certified pre-owned means the bike is used, but it’s been checked and approved by the dealer or brand. It usually comes with extra peace of mind versus a random used bike.
Genuine parts are the original parts made for the motorcycle by the manufacturer. They’re usually the safest choice for fit and function compared with cheaper aftermarket parts.
Factory-trained technicians are mechanics who’ve been taught by the motorcycle brand itself. That usually means they know the bike’s systems and common issues better than a general shop.
They’re talking about planning a ride trip across Texas on a custom-style motorcycle (“chopper”). The focus is on the fun roads and scenery they want to see.
Salt flats are huge, flat salt-covered areas. Because they’re so flat and open, they’re popular for fast rides and runs, and the surface can feel different than normal roads.
Big Bend is a major Texas riding destination centered on Big Bend National Park, known for remote roads, desert landscapes, and long-distance routes. For motorcyclists, it’s a classic “ride planning” area because distances between towns are large and the scenery changes dramatically across routes.
A passport is what lets you cross an international border. If your ride goes into another country, you need the right documents, and it affects where and how you can stop.
Concept
international waters
“International waters” is a legal term for areas where different countries’ rules can get complicated. The point here is that near borders, the rules about where you can park or ride can be different than you’d expect.
DMT Dangerous Moto Tours is referenced as a provider of guided motorcycle tours in the area. For riders, tour companies can matter because they often know the best routes, local conditions, and how to navigate remote terrain safely.
They’re saying most of the park is gravel/dirt instead of pavement. Dirt roads can be slippery and require different riding—especially for braking and turning.
They’re talking about doing a longer motorcycle ride that eventually goes into Mexico. That kind of trip usually takes planning and making sure everyone’s prepared for the ride.
He’s basically saying he only invites people he knows (or has ridden with before) so the group ride goes smoother. It’s a way to reduce surprises and keep things safer and more fun.
This highlights the reality of long-distance motorcycle trips: mechanical issues, fatigue, or scheduling can prevent everyone from finishing. It’s a practical reminder that adventure riding involves contingency planning, not just riding skill.
Instead of bringing your own bike everywhere, you fly somewhere, rent a motorcycle, ride for a week, and then go home. It’s often easier and cheaper than shipping a bike across countries.
Topic
Daytona this year
They mention “Daytona” as a place he was at recently. Daytona is a big deal in motorsports, so it suggests these riders are active in major motorcycle events.
It’s when you think so much about what to do that you never get moving. Instead of making a decision and riding, you keep analyzing until it feels too complicated.
Concept
donkey crossing
They’re joking about a simple, practical crossing—like when you have to deal with a muddy or shallow-water spot. The point is to handle the obstacle and keep going instead of overplanning.
Concept
adventure motorcycle
An adventure motorcycle is built for traveling farther and handling more than just one kind of road. It’s usually comfortable for long rides and easier to take on trips than a bike that’s only meant for cruising.
Car
M8 chopper
“M8” refers to Harley-Davidson’s Milwaukee-Eight engine family (often shortened to “M8”). When someone says “M8 chopper,” they’re typically talking about a chopper built around that newer Harley V-twin engine platform, which changes how the bike feels and how it’s supported.
Term
Morse Magneto SNS carburetor 1621
They’re naming parts that control how the bike starts and runs. A magneto helps create the spark for ignition, and the carburetor mixes fuel and air so the engine can burn it efficiently.
Term
Vader wheels
They’re talking about the wheels they chose for the bike. Wheels aren’t just looks—what they’re made of and how they’re designed can affect how the bike rides and handles.
Ape hangers are handlebars that sit much higher than stock. They change how you sit and reach the controls, and they can require extra work to route cables and lines.
Term
paint by chemical candy
They’re describing a special paint style that looks deep and shiny, kind of like a “glow” effect. It’s made by layering paint instead of using just one solid coat.
They’re talking about a custom shop (Daryl Borba’s) where they modified the bike’s frame parts. Custom bike builds often require a specialist shop to get the geometry and fit right.
The backbone is part of the bike’s frame. They changed it from a square shape to a round one, which is a common customization in chopper builds to get the look and fit they want.
They’re comparing the bike’s frame backbone shapes. They removed the square backbone and replaced it with a round one to change the bike’s build and stance.
“Timing it off the rear cylinder” means setting ignition timing based on the rear cylinder’s reference point rather than the front. The host says following the instructions and timing to the rear cylinder made the engine “pop right off,” highlighting how correct reference selection can make or break ignition setup.
The primary is the part of the motorcycle that helps connect the engine’s power to the transmission. It’s where some of the clutch/transmission linkages and mechanisms live.
An FXR is a Harley-Davidson model line (the FXR family is associated with the 1980s “sportster”/performance-oriented Harley era). Calling it an “FXR chopper” implies a custom build based on that platform, typically with altered frame/stance and styling.
Car
EVO motors
“EVO” is a Harley-Davidson engine family people use a lot for custom builds. It’s popular because it’s well-supported with parts and works nicely for chopping and customizing.
Term
I rock Z wheels
This sounds like a specific wheel style people recognize from older cars. The speaker is saying they wanted their motorcycle wheels to look like that classic style.
The speaker compares motorcycle wheel styling to “old Camaros,” meaning classic Chevrolet Camaro aesthetics. This is used to describe the visual callback they want in their chopper build.
“Period correct” just means making the bike look like it did back when it was new. People do it by using the same style of parts and setup from that time period.
They’re talking about a specific style of gas tank (Sportster-style). Tank shape and where the fuel parts sit can change how much gas you get and how easy it is to use.
They’re giving the tank size: 2.1 gallons of fuel. Bigger tanks usually mean fewer stops, and the way the fuel parts are positioned can make the bike easier to live with.
A “petcock” is the fuel shutoff valve on many motorcycles, controlling when fuel flows from the tank to the engine. The transcript notes repositioning it to the “best position,” which can improve usability and ensure reliable fuel delivery.
They’re talking about how far they can ride before needing gas. That depends on how much fuel is in the tank and how efficiently the bike uses it.
Concept
cruising at a different pace
They contrast riding comfort and attention level with cars, saying cruising on these bikes allows them to “catch and scan a lot of things” and maneuver around them. The underlying concept is that motorcycle riding often changes how you perceive space and traffic flow compared with driving a car.
The hosts ask what kind of seat the rider is using, and the response begins describing a custom pan. Seat design matters for comfort and fatigue, especially on choppers where posture and suspension/ergonomics can make or break long rides.
James Carter is mentioned as the person the host works with for the seat/pan work. In a build context, this highlights how custom fabrication and local specialists often play a big role in motorcycle customization.
Seat foam isn’t all the same. Firmer foam usually keeps you from sinking too far and can hold its shape better, while softer foam can compress after you ride a lot.
Swap meets are places where people sell used motorcycle parts. The host is saying that once you learn what parts are called, you can shop smarter instead of just buying random stuff.
A bearing support plate is a metal bracket that holds a bearing in place. If it’s the wrong one, the bearing may not sit correctly, which can affect how smoothly the bike’s parts move.
Part
coil bracket
A coil bracket is a bracket that holds the ignition coil in place. If you’re building or repairing a bike, having the right bracket helps the coil mount correctly and keeps things tidy and reliable.
A “rigid frame” bike doesn’t have normal rear suspension. Because the ride can be harsher, the seat often needs to be shaped and padded in a way that keeps you comfortable and supported.
They’re talking about having a radio mounted where you can reach it easily while riding. On touring bikes, it’s usually placed up front so you can hear it without messing with your controls.
Term
metaglasses
“Metaglasses” here refers to smart audio/AR-style glasses that can display and play sound (the hosts describe them as having cameras). They’re discussing using these glasses to listen to music while riding, but also noting limited battery life.
Term
custom destruction helmet
They’re talking about a custom helmet setup. The idea is that wearing the glasses with your helmet can make the audio experience better while you ride.
Vibrations are the shaking you feel from the engine and road. Riders often use them as a clue—if the vibration changes, it can mean something needs attention.
Term
motor mouse
The transcript sounds like a misheard name for a motorcycle part. They’re basically saying they can feel something in the engine area that might be loose.
Different bikes need slightly different starting steps. On many Harley-style carbureted bikes, you use throttle and priming kicks so the engine gets enough fuel to start, but not so much that it floods.
Prime kicks are basically extra kick-start attempts to get fuel flowing before you try to start for real. It helps the bike catch instead of struggling.
Flooded out means the engine has too much fuel and can’t light it properly. On carb bikes, pumping the throttle too much can cause this, and you have to wait or change the starting technique to clear it.
A carb is the part that mixes fuel and air for the engine. The “Super E” carb is a specific carb type, and if it’s not tuned right, the bike can start poorly or act weird when you give it gas.
Jets are tiny fuel metering parts inside the carb. If they’re the wrong size, the bike either gets too much fuel or not enough, and it can stumble when you twist the throttle.
“Falling on its face” means you give it gas and it suddenly feels like it loses power instead of accelerating. On carb bikes, this often points to fuel/air mixture problems or ignition trouble.
A failing “condenser” (often part of the ignition system on older motorcycles) can cause weak or inconsistent spark, leading to hard starting, misfire, or cutting out—especially under load or when throttle is applied. The condenser’s job is tied to ignition timing/coil behavior, so when it degrades, the engine may run poorly or die.
The charging system is what recharges the battery as you ride. If it’s not working right, the battery runs low and the bike can start fine, then act up once you ride or give it gas.
Psycho Electric is a company that makes aftermarket electrical/charging parts for motorcycles. In this story, using their higher-output charging setup fixed the bike’s problem.
Hog supply is referenced as a source for the aftermarket charging component the host bought. The mention matters mainly as part of the troubleshooting path—where they sourced the 22 amp setup that ultimately didn’t solve the issue.
Shorting out happens when electrical wiring contacts something it shouldn’t, creating an unintended low-resistance path. The host suspects a wire could be loose or touching/grounding while the bike vibrates or spins, which would cause intermittent charging or running problems.
Motorcycle batteries don’t like shaking or getting too hot. If the battery is mounted poorly or there isn’t airflow around it, it can overheat and fail sooner.
“Rigid mounted” means the engine is bolted in more directly instead of being cushioned. More vibration can shake loose or damage sensitive parts over time.
O’Reilly’s is a store where you can buy parts like batteries and other electrical components. The point is that replacements are often easy to find nearby.
Term
auto zones
Places like AutoZone sell car and motorcycle parts, including batteries and related electrical stuff. If you’re stuck, it can be easier to find a replacement fast.
Term
Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg is referenced as a travel location in the rider’s story about whether the charging system/battery issue prevented a ride. While not automotive-specific, it provides context for real-world troubleshooting and downtime.
Topic
Colorado
They mention Colorado as where one of their trips happened. It’s just part of the story about riding and dealing with problems on the road.
A “CEO” (chief executive officer) is the top leader responsible for company strategy and major business decisions. The segment connects leadership changes to layoffs and dealer impacts, which can affect what bikes are sold and how the brand supports local shops.
“Fired a bunch of people” means the company cut jobs to save money or restructure. That can indirectly make it harder for riders to get help, parts, or support through the dealer network.
“Mom-and-pop shops” are small local businesses run by a few people, not big corporate stores. The host is saying these smaller dealers may struggle while bigger companies survive.
Car
low rider ST
The “Low Rider ST” idea is basically a Harley that’s meant to feel more like a cruiser, but still be comfortable for longer trips. The host thinks Harley could make a version like that based on the Pan America.
Air-cooled engines use airflow (and often fins) to keep the engine from overheating. The host is pointing out that the bike they’re talking about isn’t air-cooled, which changes how it manages heat.
A supercross track is the kind of motocross racing course you see in stadiums, with lots of jumps and bumps. The host is saying Harley could take a dirt-bike approach and race it there to prove it can compete.
Car
450
“450” is shorthand for a high-power dirt bike in the 450cc class. The host is basically saying they should build something that’s legit for racing, not just casual street riding.
Hayden Deegan is a well-known American motocross/supercross rider. Mentioning him signals the host’s idea of using top-tier racing talent to validate a potential Harley dirt-bike direction.
The host is describing a specific customer mindset: traditional Harley buyers who want lower prices and mass-market affordability. This “stereotypical Harley consumer” framing is used to argue Harley’s product strategy may be constrained by expectations rather than innovation.
Concept
out-of-line pricing expectations
The segment discusses how motorcycle pricing is often misunderstood: people compare base prices to “tricked out” versions and then assume the brand is overpriced. The host argues that premium baggers and heavily optioned models cost more, and that expecting them to be “cheap” can distort how consumers evaluate value.
They’re talking about how motorcycle companies make money through dealers and used-bike sales. It’s basically about where the profit comes from—new bikes, dealer markups, or the used market.
BMW is more than just a motorcycle maker here—they’re described as having a bigger business model. The hosts are saying they don’t rely only on selling their own bikes for profit.
KTM is another major motorcycle brand mentioned here. They’re using KTM’s situation to talk about how brand networks and ownership changes can affect the market.
They mention Buell as an example of a different motorcycle approach. The idea is that Buell tried to bring newer tech to a cruiser style, which riders might have liked more than Harley’s usual updates.
A “super cruiser” is basically a cruiser bike, but with more modern tech and capability. The idea is to keep the classic cruiser feel while making it ride better with newer electronics and suspension.
Adaptive suspension automatically changes how stiff or soft the shocks feel. It tries to keep the ride comfortable while also helping the bike stay stable when the road gets rough.
VVT means the engine can adjust valve timing as you ride. That helps the bike feel stronger and smoother at different speeds instead of only performing well in one RPM range.
Ride modes are different computer settings you can choose on the bike. They can make the throttle feel more gentle or more aggressive depending on what you want.
Horsepower is basically how much “pull” the engine can make to move you along. More horsepower usually means the bike can feel stronger when you’re going faster or accelerating harder.
A water-cooled engine uses liquid coolant to carry heat away from the engine. That helps the engine run at steadier temperatures, especially when you’re riding hard or for long stretches.
Torque is the engine’s twisting force that helps you get moving. It often feels strongest when you roll on the throttle from slower speeds.
Car
FXR
The FXR is a Harley-Davidson model line known for its distinctive styling and sportier feel compared with traditional cruisers. In this segment, they say Harley “classically did the FXR justice” by using a modern chassis while still nodding to the original design language.
They’re talking about Harley changing its direction so the bikes feel more like everyday fun and lifestyle rides. The idea is to attract more riders who want to enjoy riding, not just hardcore enthusiasts.
This segment is about riders/dealers pushing for policy changes that would legalize or expand lane splitting/filtering. The hosts frame it as a political and regulatory effort—getting more states to adopt rules that make commuting by motorcycle more feasible. It’s a structural discussion topic rather than a technical automotive concept.
Filtering is when a motorcycle moves through traffic gaps at low speed to get past slow-moving cars. It’s often discussed alongside lane splitting, but rules can differ. The hosts are saying legal access would encourage more people to ride to work.
Lane splitting means riding between lanes when traffic is moving slowly or stopped. Some riders say it saves time and reduces traffic stress, while others worry it’s risky. Whether you can do it depends on local laws.
Commuter travel means riding to work every day. The idea is that if traffic rules allow motorcycles to move through congestion more easily, more people will choose bikes for daily trips. That also means more routine maintenance for local shops.
“Harley dealers” are stores that sell Harley-Davidson bikes. The point here is that if one brand’s dealers get involved in pushing for changes, other motorcycle dealers should join too. That way the industry has more collective influence.
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motorcycle advocacy groups
Motorcycle advocacy groups are organizations that lobby for or against laws affecting riders, such as helmet requirements and traffic-handling rules. They often start with one issue and then broaden to other rider concerns. Their goal is usually to shape legislation and regulations in ways that they believe improve rider outcomes or reduce restrictions.
Helmet laws are rules that say motorcycle riders must wear helmets. Supporters argue helmets reduce head injuries, while opponents argue about freedom and enforcement. Motorcycle groups often lobby for or against these rules depending on their goals.
A midlife crisis is when someone in their 30s–50s feels stuck or unhappy and decides to change their life. Here, they’re joking about how most people do one thing, but Randy did the opposite and got a job with benefits.
They’re talking about trying to make a career out of motorcycles. The point is that there aren’t many well-paying jobs in that world, so it’s hard to go from hobby to steady income.
Concept
credentials
Sometimes big companies want proof you’re qualified—like a diploma—before they’ll let you work. Even if you get the job through connections, the company may still need paperwork for their internal process.
“Iron Butt” is a motorcycling endurance thing. It’s about riding very long distances and getting an official certification for it.
Concept
adventure writer course stamp
They’re talking about a course and an official-looking stamp that makes them seem more legit. In creative jobs, certificates can help you look credible when you’re trying to get paid work.
Company
Jim Hyde
They mention Jim Hyde as the person who gave them the official-looking stamp. It sounds like he’s well-known in the motorcycling world the speaker is part of.
“First kick” means the bike starts the first time you kick it. If it takes many tries, it usually means the bike isn’t tuned or prepared as well, or it’s harder to start when cold.
Term
dirt bike style
“Dirt bike style” here means using a starting technique you’d see on off-road bikes. It’s about how you position yourself and kick so the bike turns over more effectively.
They describe a challenge where riders spin around markers a bunch of times, then try to start the bike. It’s basically a timed, dizzying stunt that makes starting harder.
They’re talking about starting a bike by kicking the kickstarter lever. In the game they’re describing, you have to do it quickly and correctly to get the engine going.
Concept
kickstart Mike
“Kickstart Mike” sounds like a person who’s especially good at starting motorcycles with the kick lever during these challenges. The name is used like a nickname for his skill.
A lighting designer is the person who figures out how to set up lights so they look right and create the mood. Here, they help choose the colors and style so it matches what the host wants.
A “metal Harley sign” is a heavy, custom metal display piece tied to Harley-Davidson branding. The host’s description focuses on the practical challenge of moving and hanging something extremely heavy safely.
A “tractor” is mentioned as equipment used to assist with the installation/positioning of the heavy sign. This highlights that the job required real-world machinery and careful leveling rather than just manual handling.
Long Brothers Choppers is a custom motorcycle builder/brand associated with the chopper scene. When a guest lists them among artists, it signals the episode’s focus on custom bike culture and the kind of visuals that go with it.
Evolution Drew appears to be an artist/creator involved in the show’s planned art collaborations. In this context, it’s less about a vehicle and more about the creative community around motorcycle culture.
Bobby Goodtimes is named as a collaborator teaming up with Evolution Drew. This is part of the episode’s discussion of upcoming art projects tied to motorcycle culture rather than a technical automotive topic.
Sweatshop Jeff is a creator the host follows. They’re saying he used to make certain motorcycle-related items (like bags), but he’s doing other kinds of work now.
Company
Brian Ham
Brian Ham is another person in the host’s list of collaborators. The discussion is about who’s making what for the upcoming art/creative projects.
Term
dice
They’re using a dice game to decide who wins the special custom bike. You pay in, roll, and your roll determines whether you get more chances or qualify for the next round.
It’s a motorcycle stunt show where riders drive around the inside of a tall, vertical drum. They go fast enough that the bike sticks to the wall, so it looks like they’re riding straight up.
Concept
campground cabin AC
They’re talking about using air conditioning in their cabin to cool off. When it’s hot at a motorcycle event, cooling down helps you feel better and ride longer.
Topic
Christmas lights trail setup
They’re describing putting up Christmas lights around the trails over a couple days. It’s just part of the event vibe and where they were riding.
They’re describing a route through the woods at night. When lights come on, it sounds like a lot of people and bikes are moving around, which makes it hectic and needs good planning.
They’re referring to a specific event called the “C Lo scramble.” It’s basically a planned ride/chaos setup, and they’re deciding whether to run it in the woods again or change the route/location.
At first, people set up camp right when they arrived. Over time, the way people use the property changed, which affects how crowded things feel and how the event runs.
It means “just the right amount.” Too few people and it feels slow; too many and it feels chaotic. They’re talking about what crowd size makes the event feel perfect.
“Party at the Pin” is another named event they’re planning around. They’re talking about when it happens and how it compares to other events on the calendar.
“Chopper drags” refers to drag-style racing events tailored to choppers/custom motorcycles. It’s a niche form of racing where the bikes are built for style and presence as much as straight-line speed.
They’re talking about “Hell on Wheels” as a named motorcycle event. It’s the kind of show where riders and builders go for the culture, not just racing.
They also mention “Born Free California” as the other main location for the Born Free event. The idea is that the event feels different depending on the state.
Topic
Fandango
“Fandango” sounds like a motorcycle event people go to. They’re discussing how the dates and location could be planned so riders can do more than one event in the same trip.
Twisted Sisters is a popular riding route/area people plan trips around. The idea here is to combine it with other events so you get a longer, more fun ride.
Topic
Hill country
“Hill country” is a region in Texas that’s known for scenic roads and riding. They’re talking about when it’s best to plan a trip there based on weather.
A “camp out” is when riders gather for a multi-day event and camp together. They’re saying it used to be a big community thing, but it changed over time.
Concept
T bar Tuesday
“T bar Tuesday” is likely a recurring rider meetup—something like a weekly hangout or ride night. They mention it as a way some people are trying to bring the group back.
“T bars” are a type of motorcycle handlebars. They affect how you sit and steer, and in this conversation they’re also part of the speaker’s custom-bike identity.
Maggie Valley is a place riders talk about because it’s where motorcycle events gather. In this story, it’s remembered for the hangout atmosphere around the motels.
Topic
Paradise roadshow
The “Paradise roadshow” sounds like a motorcycle event series. They’re talking about the vibe and how similar ideas might overlap with what’s already happening.
Topic
cheap thrills
“Cheap thrills” is mentioned as an event with a similar vibe to the hosts’ idea. It’s used as a comparison point for how motorcycle gatherings are organized and where the energy comes from.
Topic
motorcycle trans am
They’re describing a long, coast-to-coast motorcycle trip. The “Trans Am” part is about the style—lots of stops, lots of riding, and hanging out at motels each night.
Sturgis is one of the biggest motorcycle rallies in the U.S. The speaker is saying that riding to rallies is a great way to find other people to ride with.
“Dialed in” means the motorcycle is set up correctly—typically tuned for how the rider wants it to run and handle. In this context, it’s about having the bike sorted and reliable enough to ride with others.
Using a trailer to transport a motorcycle is a practical choice, but the speaker is describing a personal “ride culture” rule: start the ride under your own power rather than arriving by trailer. That distinction affects how committed and prepared riders feel to participate.
An “Evo chop” is a custom chopper-style bike built around a Harley-Davidson Evolution engine. “Chop” usually means the bike has been modified for a stripped-down, custom look and feel.
A “gold chopper” is a custom chopper motorcycle identified by its color and style. The hosts reference it as a bike Kyle rode, which helps listeners understand the kind of machine being discussed (a custom, long-stance style rather than a stock commuter).
A hard-tailed bike means the back suspension is removed. The ride is firmer, especially on rough roads, but it can feel more solid and classic for chopper builds.
Soft-tail means the bike’s rear suspension is there, but it’s tucked in so the bike still looks like it has a rigid frame. It rides smoother than a true hard-tail.
An open belt drive uses a belt instead of a chain to move power to the rear wheel, and it’s visible. You’ll want to keep it clean and properly adjusted so it doesn’t wear out early.
“Kicker only” means there’s no push-button starter—only a kick lever to start the engine. It’s more old-school and you have to be ready to kick it to ride.
Using Google Maps to check speed is a practical workaround when a rider wants to verify actual road speed. It’s not a substitute for the bike’s speedometer, but it can help confirm whether the bike feels like it’s going faster or slower than expected.
When you get a new bike, you have to learn how it behaves. Even if it’s capable of going faster, it’s normal to go slower at first until you feel comfortable and confident.
Sprocket bolts hold the gear (sprocket) that the chain rides on. If they loosen, the gear can move out of place, which can mess up the chain and potentially cause a dangerous failure.
Term
retort down
This sounds like they mean tightening bolts to the right tightness. Getting it right helps prevent bolts from loosening later and keeps everything secure.
Taking the rear wheel off is something you do when you need to work on the back end—often the chain or sprocket area. They’re saying they worked hard to make sure everything lined up correctly afterward.
Wheel alignment means the wheel is pointed straight and centered. If it’s off even a little, it can make parts fight against each other and loosen over time.
When someone says “headlight issues,” it usually means the lights aren’t working right. That can be from a bad connection or wiring, not just a burned-out bulb.
Wiring is the electrical “plumbing” that carries power and signals. If it’s loose or corroded, the bike can act weird even if the main parts seem fine.
Points are an older ignition system part that helps the bike decide when to make spark. If they’re worn or out of adjustment, the bike can run poorly or not start.
Term
run out of gas
They’re talking about the bike running out of fuel. Sometimes it’s not just “you forgot”—it can be a fuel system issue that makes the bike seem like it has gas when it doesn’t.
Concept
mitigate the possibilities
They’re talking about planning ahead so small problems don’t turn into big ones. It’s basically “prepare for the common stuff that can go wrong.”
Mag wheels are alloy wheels (not wire spokes). They often work with tubeless tires, so if you get a puncture you may be able to plug it and keep riding.
“No tubes” means the tire holds air without an inner tube. If you get a small puncture, you can sometimes plug it instead of pulling the tire apart to fix a tube.
Tire tracks are the ruts you see in the road from other cars and bikes. If you ride near those lines, you’re often on a cleaner, more predictable part of the pavement.
Lane choice isn’t just about where you’re allowed to be—it also changes what you’ll run into on the road. Picking a safer spot can help you avoid debris and stay predictable to cars.
They’re describing what it’s like to ride a motorcycle around New York City, including Times Square. It’s basically a “how it feels” story about riding in a super busy, dense area.
Car
Road Glide
The Road Glide is a Harley-Davidson touring motorcycle built for long rides. They’re saying their plans are affected because they’re tied to that bike and its commitments.
They’re talking about a motorcycle road-trip route: ride to a port, take a ferry, then keep riding down the Baja. It’s basically how you plan a long ride by splitting it into manageable legs.
Monetizing a podcast just means finding ways to make money from it. Here, they’re saying they don’t focus on making money first because riding motorcycles comes first.
This is about prioritization—choosing riding as the main goal and treating podcasting as secondary. For listeners, it highlights a common trade-off in enthusiast media: content creation can compete with time, money, and attention needed for riding.
“Motorcycling culture” means the community and lifestyle around riding—how people dress, what bikes they like, and the events/brands they’re into. They’re saying the podcast fits into that world.
Concept
brands that you work with
They’re talking about sponsorships—companies that pay to support the podcast or content. The point is that when money gets tight, sponsorship-related budgets can get cut early.
Concept
source of my income
They’re saying the podcast/YouTube started paying enough that it became part of their regular income. Once that happens, they have to plan their work around keeping those bills covered.
Concept
there's no like, fucking playbook to follow
They’re saying there isn’t one guaranteed formula for how to grow a podcast. People have to figure out what works for them.
Concept
tour company
A tour company organizes the trip—like planning the route and handling logistics. For a motorcycle creator, it can make it easier to ride with others and keep the content coming.
It means helping each other in a way that benefits both people. Here, it’s about how friendships can turn into working relationships where everyone gains something.
They’re talking about how it’s possible to start disliking something you love if it also causes stress. The idea is that learning new things and staying curious can help you keep enjoying it.
Off-road riding means riding on dirt or rough terrain instead of smooth pavement. The speaker likes it because you have to make fast decisions to stay safe.
A “hog rally” is a motorcycle meetup event, usually tied to Harley riders. It’s where people show up, ride together, and meet other riders who share similar bikes and interests.
Concept
seven week trip
They’re talking about a long motorcycle trip—seven weeks. The point is that too much planning can make the ride feel stressful, while being open to what happens can make it better.
Term
spring loaded bullshit
A “spring-loaded” part uses a spring to push or pull something back into place. If you mess with it the wrong way, you can break parts and the bike may not work afterward.
When a motorcycle “breaks down,” it means it can’t keep running or something important fails. That usually forces the rider to get help and figure out how to get the bike to safety.
Concept
pre-planned lodging vs couch/garage hosting
Instead of staying in a hotel, the rider ends up staying with locals—on a couch or even in someone’s garage. It’s a more personal experience, and breakdowns can push you into that kind of help.
Metal shavings are tiny bits of metal left behind when parts are being machined, ground, or worn. In a shop context, lots of shavings can point to active work (like engine or transmission service) or to abnormal wear producing debris.
Hydraulic fluid is a special oil that helps parts move using pressure. If it’s leaking, it can mean something is broken, and it can also be really slippery and messy.
A paper map is the old-school way to navigate without GPS. Some riders prefer it because you can plan your route ahead and you’re not relying on phone signal.
Good road design makes turns and speed changes feel predictable. If the rules and markings aren’t consistent, you have to guess more often, which makes riding harder and less safe.
An off-camber turn is when the road slopes in a way that makes the corner feel less stable. Your tires may not grip as well, so you have to be more careful with speed and lean.
Not all roads are run the same way. Some are controlled by the state, others by counties, and that can change how good they are and how clearly they’re marked.
Interstates are the main highways in the U.S. that connect big cities across states. They’re built and managed with more consistent rules than smaller local roads, so driving is usually more predictable.
Term
287s
“287” likely means a specific highway route number (U.S. Route 287). The idea is that as you drive farther west, the road network and where towns are located can change a lot.
A river crossing is when a trail or road has to go through a river. Riders usually wait until the water is lower or safer, because current and depth can make it risky.
Concept
persimmons gap
Persimmons Gap is mentioned as one of the entry routes into the Big Bend area. It’s basically a named pass, and passes can be easier or harder depending on the terrain.
Concept
Alpine and Presidio routes
They’re talking about different ways to enter the Big Bend area, including routes from Alpine and from Presidio. Some routes are tougher, so not everyone can take them.
Concept
wagon routes vs outlaw routes
Different travelers picked different paths depending on what they were using and how much trouble they wanted to avoid. Big, slow wagons need easier routes, while people trying to stay hidden might take tougher, quieter trails.
This is a metaphor for development/road paving expanding over natural terrain, reducing access to dirt and remote riding areas. For riders, increased pavement can mean fewer legal off-road routes and more restrictions on where you can go.
Concept
Summer Moon book
They mention a book called “Summer Moon” that changed how they feel about riding in that part of the country. The idea is that learning the history behind the roads can make the ride more meaningful.
The Texas Panhandle is the flat part of Texas on the way toward the west. Riding there can feel different because the roads and landmarks are more spread out.
Concept
planes
Here, “planes” means large flat grassland areas (plains) rather than aircraft. The speaker uses it to describe how open terrain allows longer sightlines and easier landmark-based directions.
Appalachia is a mountainous region in the eastern U.S. The roads and views there are more twisty and you can miss landmarks if you’re not in the right spot.
Concept
natural border
A “natural border” is a place where the land itself already acts like a boundary between two areas or countries. The hosts are saying people keep crossing there anyway, so it’s not like the border is new or purely theoretical.
Concept
smuggle a bunch of shit
Smuggling means people are moving things illegally across a boundary. The hosts are saying it’s been happening for a long time, and people still do it even with border debates.
Scalp hunting was a brutal frontier practice where people would take scalps to claim rewards. The hosts are using it to explain the violent history of the region and the people who traveled there.
The Texas Rangers were an old-school Texas law-enforcement group. Here, they’re mentioned as part of the historical background of who traveled through and fought in that border region.
Blood Meridian is a famous book that tells a very grim story about frontier violence. They mention it because the topic they’re discussing—scalp hunting—matches the book’s subject matter.
DMT is a motorcycle tour/group name. The idea is that once you create something like a ride or tour, the kind of people who join will end up shaping where it goes and how it works.
The “outlaw image” refers to the cultural branding of motorcycles and riders as rebellious or outside the law. The hosts discuss how Harley-Davidson’s relationship with that image changed as biker clubs attached themselves to the brand in the 1950s and 1960s.
They’re talking about Honda’s marketing vibe—friendly and mainstream. The point is to contrast that with the “outlaw” image people associate with some motorcycle brands and clubs.
“1% clubs” is biker slang for the more hardcore outlaw motorcycle groups. The “one percent” idea is basically about being seen as the small minority that doesn’t play by the normal rules.
“Willie G” refers to a Harley-Davidson family figure. The hosts are saying that his actions helped change the business side of the brand, which then affected how people got involved and how the culture was packaged.
They’re talking about the “outlaw lifestyle” as an image people want to be part of. The idea is that once more people join, the meaning can change from what it originally was.
The hosts discuss a movie that portrays biker culture, emphasizing authenticity (violence, attitude, motorcycles) while also telling a broader story. This is treated as a topic about how media represents motorcycle life and why it resonates beyond just riders.
They’re basically saying riding can help your mood. Instead of sitting around stressed, being on a bike and riding can make you feel better and more in control.
They mean the whole community around motorcycles, not just the bikes themselves. It includes people bonding over riding and working on bikes, even if outsiders only see the “tough” image.
“Building old bikes” points to restoration and customization—taking older motorcycles and bringing them back to life or modifying them. It’s also framed as a healthy, goal-oriented activity that creates pride and community.
This is about how movies show motorcycles and biker life. Making it look real is hard because stunts are dangerous and filming motorcycles takes special work. Some movies focus on the biker world, which can make it less appealing to people who don’t ride.
They’re talking about how movie studios keep making superhero movies because they’re popular and predictable. The idea is that studios are playing it safe instead of trying riskier new kinds of stories.
They’re saying that if an event is mainly for bikers, it might not attract people who aren’t part of that scene. That can change who comes and what kind of vibe the event has.
Concept
flamboyantly action based vs story driven
They’re debating what people want from these movies: lots of flashy action or a stronger story. Different viewers prefer different styles, and that can affect how well a movie is received.
They’re talking about turning one kind of material (a photo book/interviews) into a movie script. Even if the facts are based on real material, the storytelling format changes what the audience experiences.
“Sons of Anarchy” is a popular TV show about motorcycle club life. The hosts are saying some people expected the same kind of action and drama, but the book/movie they’re talking about isn’t exactly like that.
They’re talking about an actual outlaw motorcycle club and how a movie or show might use parts of its history. The hosts are discussing why people connected to those clubs might feel upset if the show doesn’t credit them or portrays things differently than they expect.
Hollister is a real place that gets mentioned in biker-history stories. The hosts are saying the town’s reputation got exaggerated by news, and then people tried to live up to that image.
They’re talking about a movie called The Warriors and using it as an example of how action movies keep you watching. The point is that biker shows have to feel intense to hold attention.
They mention MMA to talk about how fighting looks to viewers. The idea is that real fights can be hard to watch because of grappling, so shows/movies make things more dramatic to keep people interested.
They’re talking about a famous style of motorcycle movies. The idea is that later films borrowed the same “biker culture” setup and tried to make it feel modern.
Car
chopper
A chopper is a custom motorcycle with a very distinctive look—often stretched and modified. The hosts are using it as the kind of bike you’d expect to see in those biker-movie storylines.
They’re talking about an early online radio show for motorcycle fans. The point is that biker culture was finding new ways to connect on the internet back in the early 2000s.
Topic
AT&T satellites hacking
They mention a satellite-hacking story as part of the background. It’s included because it’s the weird real-life connection that led to the biker media/making a movie.
Topic
Michael Lichter
They mention a person named Michael Lichter who shows up in the movie. The hosts are basically saying he was involved in the production in a low-key way.
Car
Panhead Chopper
A “Panhead” is a type of Harley-Davidson engine from an older era. When someone says “Panhead chopper,” they mean a custom bike built using that older Harley engine.
“Self funded” means making the project with your own money instead of getting support from a big company. The speaker is talking about how that approach could help more people create motorcycle content.
Topic
YouTube stuff
The speaker contrasts traditional filmmaking with modern creator platforms like YouTube. The idea is that motorcycle culture is already being documented online, but the storytelling format could evolve into more “movie-like” narratives.
Concept
YouTube vs a movie (guides you through a story vs holding your hand)
They’re talking about how different videos tell stories. A YouTube video often explains everything as you go, while a movie shows you things in a more gradual way. The goal is to balance clarity with mystery so it feels more entertaining.
They’re describing a way to film motorcycle trips like a short film. Instead of just saying what happened step-by-step, you show the scenery and the sounds, and then add just enough narration to make the story flow.
The speaker brings up how music and lyrics can be used to support a narrative, even when the meaning is subjective. The underlying concept is audio storytelling—choosing music that matches the mood and pacing of the visuals rather than using it purely as background.
Term
bike trip
They’re talking about taking a motorcycle trip and filming it well. Instead of just using a small camera, having someone dedicated to filming can make the video look more cinematic.
A GoPro is a small camera you can mount on a helmet or bike. It’s popular for recording rides because it doesn’t require someone to hold the camera the whole time.
A “co-op shop” is a shared workspace where multiple independent makers or tradespeople collaborate under one roof. The segment uses it to describe how local motorcycle culture and skills (welding, mechanic work, photography, blogging) can grow into a network.
“Pay homage” just means you acknowledge where your ideas came from. The speaker is saying they try to credit the people who inspired their motorcycle builds.
Concept
inspiration you don't realize you absorbed
They’re basically saying you can copy or absorb ideas without noticing. Later, when you try to recreate something, you realize what influenced you.
A “builder” is someone who actually customizes or assembles parts of a motorcycle, not just buys one. The hosts are debating what should count as real building and who deserves credit.
“Covered in magazines” means the bike got featured in a motorcycle magazine. Back then, getting your bike into a magazine was a major way to get noticed, especially outside your local area.
“Chopping” the frame means cutting part of the bike’s main metal structure and changing its shape. Welding is how you put it back together, and because it affects the bike’s strength and steering, it’s not a casual job.
Aligning the rear wheel means making sure the wheel points straight and is lined up correctly with the rest of the bike. If it’s not aligned, the bike can feel off and your tire can wear unevenly.
Spacers are small parts that help position components correctly—like centering a wheel or creating the right clearance. Getting them right helps the bike fit together straight and safely.
A “photo shooter” is basically the person who takes the pictures of the bike. Those photos are often what magazines and social media use to show off the build.
“Getting credit” means who people think did the work and made the bike happen. Sometimes it’s not only the builder’s effort—how it’s presented and who helps can matter too.
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV, so it runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It’s built for regular driving and family-style use, and it’s one of Tesla’s most common models.
Building a motorcycle—especially a custom one—is usually a team sport. Even if one person is the main builder, other people help with parts, setup, and getting it seen.
They’re saying the customer is like the conductor of the project. The customer brings the ideas and goals, and the builder turns that into a real motorcycle.
Concept
credit in custom motorcycle builds (magazine credit vs actual builder)
They’re talking about who deserves credit for a custom bike: the person who pays for it, or the person who actually does the work. The idea is that magazines can influence reputation, and the market may eventually reward the real builders.
“SNS motor” sounds like a nickname for a particular engine setup used in custom builds. The point being made is that magazines may label the bike in a way that affects who gets credit for the engine work.
A build sheet is basically a checklist of the custom work on a bike. It records who did what and what the bike is made with, so people know the real details behind the finished project.
Term
build bikes is like someone's coming to them for their style
The speaker is saying custom builders have a signature style. People hire them because their work has a recognizable look, not just because they can assemble parts.
On motorcycles, “power plant” usually means the engine. It’s the part that makes the bike move, and in custom builds it’s often discussed alongside the rest of the bike’s style.
“Cut rate” means doing it for less money, usually with lower quality. The speaker is saying you can’t copy the same high-end look and feel if the build is rushed or budget-focused.
Term
long brother's bike
“Long brother’s bike” likely refers to a specific builder or shop’s signature work in the custom motorcycle scene. The speaker groups it with other named builders to illustrate how each has a distinct style customers choose.
They’re basically saying some builders have a recognizable “signature” style. Even if you start with common parts, the final look can still feel one-of-a-kind because of the builder’s personal choices.
Concept
LBJ grasslands
This is a camping spot near Decatur. The point for a motorcycle trip is it’s close enough that you can ride there and back without making it a huge multi-day journey.
Topic
writing a blog about a moral to sick
The hosts discuss a writing assignment framed as “a moral to sick,” which sounds like a specific theme or prompt for a blog post. This is more of a content/creator segment than a technical motorcycle topic, but it’s a distinct discussion beat.
Adventure bikes are motorcycles built for both street riding and rough roads. They’re usually set up for longer trips and more varied terrain than a typical cruiser/chopper.
Fuel injection is how a modern bike/engine gets gas into the engine using electronics instead of a carburetor. It usually makes the bike start easier and run more consistently.
LIVE
What is up everyone and welcome back to the fast side podcast on today's episode I'm sitting
down with the OG motorcycle podcaster Mr. Danger Dan.
He's actually the one that got me into these podcasts and doing them and helps me out years
ago when we started ours.
So great dude.
He's a chopper riding pan America riding traveler.
He's traveled the world in a sense he is a all around interesting person and anyone
that's ever met him would probably say the same thing.
On today's episode we're talking about just the life that we've lived doing podcasts,
riding choppers, traveling, the family dynamic, all kinds of things and everything in between
if that makes sense.
Anyway, before we get into it, please take a moment, check out our sponsors.
They make all this stuff possible.
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Also, please if you guys are looking for a newer used motorcycle, my guys down at Cowboy
Harley Davidson have you covered.
They got everything you need from new to used parts, service, apparel, they're just looking
for a good time to go hang out on the weekend, go check them out.
Also, if you or someone you know has been in a motorcycle accident, there's only one
number you need to call and it's 1-800-LAWTIGERS.
They're going to get you taken care of on the right path, on the right track, they're
going to fight for you and get you everything you need and deserve.
Also, if you want to stay safe out there, look good while you're doing it and have one
of the highest and most dope helmets coming to the market.
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I'm running them.
My buddies are getting on board.
You're going to be hearing about this brand a lot in the future, so check them out now
and be one of the first.
All right, now let's get into it.
Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?
Fast Life 5, Kiss Life 6, I feel like every time I'm in here there's a new table.
That's the same table though.
It's just like modular or some shit.
I did cut the ends off of it so it would be shorter.
There you go.
I don't, this is, this is the best iteration of the room for camera angles.
The worst iteration of the room for like conversation.
Really?
I don't like how far we're going.
I love it.
Yeah.
Well, it also helps like getting people to talk louder.
Okay.
Oh, that's a good idea.
Yeah.
Yeah, when you put, you space each other out because people fucking don't talk for
a lot of time.
Yeah, like force that thing.
It's so fucking finicky.
She's got to adjust it higher and let it fall down.
Yeah.
I think the next, if I stay here, the next iteration is going to be a couple little chairs.
Like still facing each other kind of, but more like, no desk.
No desk.
Like fucking.
Yeah.
Like antique fucking lounger chairs, like stuff where you're sitting in so you feel
good in it.
Not like you're sitting, like you're just propped real high and awkward.
So I've actually gone to see three different chairs I found on marketplace, like sets.
And I would, yeah, I'll come out, I'm going to buy it now.
But then I'll walk in as I need to sit on them first and I'll sit on them like this
ain't it.
Yeah.
Sorry man.
I'm not interested.
Not all chairs are made the same.
They're not dude.
You gotta find the right ones.
Especially when you're going for a look too.
A look and it's, you want people to be comfortable when they're sitting in here.
And you want them to not look retarded.
Exactly.
If I had this one chair in Milwaukee, I love the way it feels.
But dude, when I see myself with the camera, I'm like, oh, you look fucking retarded in
that chair.
But yeah, that's, that's 100% the thing is just trying to get through my nose.
You guys see that?
Okay.
Cool.
Put it on the mic.
Jason, what's happening?
What's happening man?
Dude, it's fucking raining.
So we're, we're podcast-ception in here, right?
You're doing me.
I'm doing you.
Whatever you want to do here.
Well, I was ready.
I don't know.
I've been wanting to talk to you for a while.
We've been kind of trying to coordinate this all, you know, this year almost.
Well, we hardly have anything going on.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
We can't do this every week.
I know.
We don't live that far apart, right?
I know.
I was talking to somebody on the way over there.
Like I told them I was headed over here and they're like, oh, where are you at?
And I'm like, well, I just left my house this morning.
Like I just, I can just drive to Jason's shop, you know?
It's right.
It's not very far.
It was fucking further on the map when I looked up this morning and said it was fucking
two hours away.
I was like, God damn, is it really that far away?
It was just traffic though, probably when you had to leave.
Oh, the fucking rain.
It's all fucked up.
Yeah.
People are retarded.
And I took the back road.
So it took me like two and a half hours.
You're, where you live has some great back roads.
I've actually ridden quite a bit of them.
I got the best back roads.
Yeah.
You just leave my house and go south.
It just gets fucking so good.
Like, dude, I can go all the way from my house.
Dude, down to the twisted sisters to the back roads into the like the hill
country, fucking River Road, Devil's Backbone and.
Very few lights for hours for hours.
Yeah, a couple.
Yeah.
Even if you go north of you, like Wetherford, all the way up into
Possum Kingdom or all around PK is good.
So if I was to move somewhere, I would probably want to live out
that way in Dallas.
Like if I was on a buy house in a different part of Dallas, Fort Worth,
I'd probably want to go like just west of Fort Worth.
Yeah.
The Westerplex is fucking great.
Is that what you call it?
Yeah, it's the Westerplex.
Dude, Wetherford is like the cutting horse capital of the world.
They're filming all fucking Taylor Sheridan shows everywhere.
There's fucking movie shoots going on one night around my front porch.
And I see this fucking like UFO light, like, what the fuck is that?
Just lit up.
Did we go chase it down there fucking filming?
I don't know, 1784, whatever it was, what they were filming.
They filmed a little bit here in Waukesha at you where I live.
For that Bass Reeves, I think is what it was.
And there's some other show they're working on in Palmer, Texas.
I think there's supposed to be its own show, which is like the town,
like maybe 10 miles behind.
It's called.
But yeah, it's crazy having all that stuff come here, right?
With with all the shows being filmed or where it reminds me of like the 80s
when it was Texas or Walker Ranger, wait, Texas, Dallas.
Walker, Texas Ranger, Walker, Texas Ranger, that's the word.
We just lost that guy, dude.
I know it sucks.
Apparently he wasn't that invincible.
I don't believe it yet.
He's going to be resurrected in three months.
I thought he already was, dude.
It takes three days, seven days, right?
Seven days.
How's that work?
Yeah.
What, uh, I was thinking about this whenever we were talking about doing
this earlier this year, but you started your podcast in 16, right?
Chase, I think you keep up with that more than I do.
I know that I knew exactly you were going to say this.
Is it 16?
I believe because I was thinking that I've been doing the teacher
company for like seven or eight years now.
So yeah, probably 16.
You invited me on in March of 17.
There you go.
And so you're coming up on a year after I think I started in like August or
September.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, fuck.
It's almost been 10 years.
Yeah.
That's crazy to think about.
Uh huh.
Fuck.
I knew you didn't know that.
Fucking dude.
You know, that's definitely not one of those things that I keep track of.
Uh, I don't keep track of a lot of numbers.
Um, as my bookie would tell you, I don't keep track of any numbers.
Really?
Yeah.
That's, I mean, it's crazy, dude.
I, yes, I got to thank you too.
Cause if you wouldn't have had me on early, I was not, I wasn't really listening
to podcasts at all.
I wasn't really, you know, I wasn't into that, you know what I mean?
And then when I, when you had me on a listen to the one, you know, yours
coming up like, what is this?
And then that opened up the door to Rogan to me.
I've always seen clips of Rogan and stuff, you know, on the internet or whatever.
That's how it starts.
But yeah, then like all of a sudden now I'm like trying to watch Rogan from
number one all the way to like, really?
Have you listened to the very first one?
I tried to go back and like, I want to listen to every one.
I'm like, it's impossible.
He was already at like a 900 something.
Whenever I started listening to see it, 5,000 now, what is he at?
I think he's like 2000 something, maybe almost three.
So, you know, he'll do three a week.
I typed in 512 last week for real.
I think is the last one I remember.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
What number is this for me?
It would be four sixty three or you're catching up quick, dude.
I'm trying to stick to just a once a week program.
And so far this year, I've only missed one week.
Nice.
But it's been difficult, man, just trying to have him able to
travel that much and get out.
And, you know, fortunately, there is a lot of great content.
You know, I say content.
There's got great people here that have great stories like the one
I just finally got to have with David Brown.
But I didn't want a legendary man.
You know, I didn't want to force that conversation.
I didn't want to just call, call him one day and say, Hey, I'm
just have a podcast.
Can we do now?
You got a shovel head.
So you got to go down there and buy parts.
He's the only place that has four speed parts sitting on the shelf.
That's a very unique thing, not just in Texas, but all across the fucking country.
Yeah.
So I spent the last almost year basically going to get advice and to
and buying parts for the shovel head and the FXR down there.
I love it when you go in there to like ask David for a part.
He's like, why do you need that?
I'm like, well, it's broken.
He's like, well, why is it broken?
Fuck, I don't know.
But I got to start there and he'll fucking, he'll tell you why you need
the part that you need and give you something to fix what caused that problem.
Yeah.
Without, I mean, unsolicited and without being an asshole about it, too.
Yeah, 100%.
He's fucking great.
When I first went down there, Jake was sweeping floors.
His brother was still there.
David was working in the back, but it hasn't changed much, dude.
You know, now fucking Jake is the red eye of the shop.
You know, the old disgruntled fucking guy in the back.
You know, that's about accurate.
Yeah, you got Corey in there.
Liz was back up there for a minute.
She adds a whole new fucking flavor to that shot, which I thought I'd never
see a girl working in there.
She's cool though.
She's got a great personality.
You know what I mean?
She's on a fucking huge trip right now of her own.
Yeah, you know, that's pretty cool what she's doing.
But yeah, it's, it's, I feel like I need, you know, the podcast with it, with
a man like that, you got to build a little rapport with that person first
before you get them on a show like this to just, so how'd you get started?
You know what I'm saying?
And I, and I feel like I got to earn a great conversation with him over it.
Like, how'd it go?
It was great.
I mean, I mean, obviously he's been on yours a handful of times, I think.
And so I think he's versed in the, in this world.
Yeah, he understands what's going on now.
And he just did the first one I did.
It was like pulling fucking teeth there for a minute.
And then he finally got comfortable.
I did it in his shop.
You know, you're sitting in that throne right there at the register.
We're just smoking cigarettes.
At least I was.
Yeah.
Uh, but yeah, he's fucking great, dude.
Yeah, he opened up and he told us, I mean, I didn't, I didn't have to do anything
really.
I just sat here and said, no way.
What?
It was a good time though, man.
Yeah, the story after story after story.
He's got them, dude.
And we've been running that shop for 50 years.
It's fucking insane.
Right there in Dallas.
Great part of town.
Well, I mean, we're, we're building a little bit of that of our own in this
little podcast world, dude, 10 years.
You know, I know you don't think about those things, but you know, I do.
And, uh, I think it's rad that, you know, we're sitting here doing
this shit still after so long, you know, you more so than me, you know,
I mean, you're doing it.
Fuck, you're about to put out as many podcasts as me.
And you started two years behind me here.
What'd you say?
One year, two years.
Started technically.
You remember when we did that podcast?
It was all at Kenny Kirk shop and we were all sitting in that room.
New year's fucking roundup or whatever the fuck I called it.
Everybody cried in it.
It was weird.
I did.
No, Kenny did.
He got super emotional.
Yeah.
I mean, that was a special time, dude.
I mean, that was a, you know, a time worth crying over really.
Cause that was, that brought a lot of people together.
That was a special place.
Dude, you can't do that in the stockyards right now.
You know, like, it's hard to go to the stockyards and not remember
what used to be on top of the hill.
You know what I mean?
I've been going there for years before that place was ever there.
Playing music, drinking, busking on the streets.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, just cruising the fucking strip and whatever clapped
out vehicle we were in.
Nothing cool.
We'll just look at what everybody else had.
Uh, and then that place came up and it was like, holy fuck.
I didn't know that that shit was even happening.
You know, I was riding a twin cam and I seen a show class magazine in
California and I was like, well, fuck this, you know, that only happens in
California.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Turns out there's some motherfuckers in Texas too.
And a lot of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, I mean, that's whenever I got to meet you for the first time and got
kind of versed in this whole culture that we had here in North Texas with
the chopper scene was 2016.
The Southern throwdown pre-party was the first time I really came out to an
event and got to meet, you know, everybody that was kind of involved in this.
And it was like a star studded event too.
Mac Shaft was down here, fucking all kinds of chopper Dave, Jonathan, Tyler,
fucking playing music in that garage, just straight killing it.
Yeah, that's when I met fucking Eric Vaughn do that.
The whole asshole came up from Houston.
Oh, shit.
Who the fuck is this punk?
Yeah, cause they started a nitty gritty in 16 as well.
Cause this was their 10 year anniversary this year.
Was it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That event's grown into something else.
Have you been down to that?
Yeah.
Yeah, I've done it for the last three years at this new one.
And then before COVID, I did like two years when it was down at like whatever
that place was in Conroe, the backside bar.
Yeah.
I had like the alligator in the pond or some shit.
Everybody would.
There was no fucking alligator.
I've never saw it.
I was like, dude, yeah, bullshit.
It was, it was a sales tactic.
There's definitely gators down there though.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, it's been crazy, man.
Like this whole podcast saying now you finally got a chopper 10 years later,
dude, took you 10 years to finally see the light and get a shovel head.
Well, it's how's that feel?
It's amazing.
It is amazing, isn't it?
There's nothing like it, dude.
It's, it has to happen at the right time though.
You know what I mean?
Like, I think that I know to hear me out on this, like, if there's certain
things that you can get, and if you're not in the right place in your mind and
your life, you're never going to appreciate it for what it is.
You know what it depends on how you get it.
Yeah.
You know, if you did just paid for it back then without going through the
motions, yeah, you probably wouldn't have appreciated as much, you know,
but I think that everything that I've done since 2016 has put me in a position
where the chopper has been, it is what it is to me now.
It's such a, you know, visceral experience.
It's, it's something that like, you know, when I walk out in the shop, like I
have a brand new roguelite, these killer FXRs.
And I'm like, if this thing starts, I'm riding this.
You know what I mean?
That's pretty much the way it goes every day.
If we're to see that right now, it wasn't down there.
It's at the house fucking raining, huh?
Yeah, mine's at the house too.
But yeah, I love it, man.
It's, um, it's also like, uh, everything about it, it removes like the ability
to want your mind to wander as much like, yeah, you're, you're, I've done a
little small trips on it.
It's like, you can kind of get out there and get kind of, you know, in your head
a little bit, but you're just, every time you reach down and shift it, you know,
every time you get a little too quick on it and it, you know, it starts to vibrate
a little too much, you know, there's just a lot of feelings.
And, um, a lot, it's just giving you so much more feedback.
You're just connected to it more.
You know, you feel there's instant feedback.
And for me, like, I love the pace that it goes.
Like, like I just rode the roguelite down to a Lafayette this past weekend and it
was great.
Like I had no issues.
I didn't have to take one single tool with me.
It was sick, but I mean, it was just going through the motions.
Like as much as I want to do the back roads on that roguelite, I'm also like,
man, I can hit the highway and be home in like six hours.
Like, so there's just like that as opposed on the shovel head.
I'm already in a, in like a mindset that I'm not going to be there for a while.
I might as well enjoy the trip because there's going to be parts that suck.
You might as well just at least have some great visuals and shit like that on the
way.
So I don't know.
I love it.
Me too.
I had told Corey, you know, cause Corey from main drive is from Lafayette and I
told him, like, dude, once you get your shovel head back on the road, let's ride.
Let's ride these things down there and go hang out.
I want to see where you're from.
And then the first day I texted him, I was like, Hey, remember when I was
telling him about riding these shovel heads down here?
Yeah, I was just playing, dude.
These roads suck, dude.
Yeah, the roads in Louisiana.
Fuck dude.
It was like, when you get on a really smooth road, you're like, Oh my god, this
is mainly the, the interstates over there.
You know, like you get on the back roads, like the trip me and stray did back in
December, we fucking took off from here to go to the B and B Christmas party.
Dude, we had an epic fucking ride.
Every road we were on was killer.
B and B's in New Orleans until we decided to leave.
And it was fucking 30 degrees fucking raining.
Um, and we had to get on the interstate.
Yeah.
B and B's in Medaree.
Okay.
Just this side of New Orleans.
Yes, dude.
It's beautiful down there.
I got to spend the whole weekend just now riding through it all.
It's, uh, it's pretty insane.
Yeah.
What, so was there like, how does a hog member group ride?
How does that work?
They have like a pre-plan like meet here for breakfast.
There's coffee and donuts.
We're all leaving at this time.
Or is it like, well, the way it works is routes plan.
It's, it's planned routes out of the Cajun country dealership, which is, uh,
there in Scott, Louisiana.
Okay.
And so everybody shows up, you register, and then there's like all these routes
that if you want to do a route on a guided tour route, they have all those, but
you can go down there and just be a part of it and do your own thing.
There's like, there's lots of challenges and things that like they put together,
like take pictures in front of this thing and this and that.
And so I see it as a much different thing than what I'm used to in
motorcycling, but I see the value in it in the kind of age tier of people that
kind of go to that, you know what I'm saying?
Like I go, I went there and as soon as I got there, like this kid was on a shovel
head and we just ended up hanging out the whole time together and it was pretty
sick, you know, he's from there and he was showing me all the spots and all
the cool little, uh, you know, dive bars and stuff like that.
Was it the age of it or was it like their, their experience riding more
that lined up because it seemed like that's like, you know, for some people
that need a little, uh, incentive, I think it's the age thing.
I think it's a little bit of both because I think that their experience
riding is, is a lot of them are like gnarly, like mild crushing people.
Kind of like member Chris Hopper, the hundred thousand hundred days.
Yeah.
He's definitely no hog member.
There's a lot of those guys like that that like, I met the father, a father,
mother, son combo and each one is first, second and third of how many dealerships
they visited in the United States this year.
And where are they from?
Uh, outside of, uh, what's the base down there?
Um, Colleen, it's just like, it's different than like,
the way I was explaining it, and I'm going to do a podcast of Corey about it,
but it's basically like we, I know I, and I, I could attest to use, we have so much
access to so much in motorcycling that we don't really need that for us to fill
or to guide us somewhere.
You know what I mean?
We have so much going on, right?
But for the casual motorcyclists, like it's a great tool for them to be able to
find, meet people, you know, networking, kind of a social network kind of thing
or a social, uh, club type aspect, right?
Where they can do the rides, but then you can also meet someone that is out there
smashing miles across the country.
So you, you'll see one person that looks like they don't ride anywhere,
but the next thing you know, they're on their, you know, their 48 state this year.
You know what I mean?
Next to someone that's like, yeah, we just want to come out and check out the
food and do this and do like the, so there's like a catch all be all.
And honestly, um, very much, how many people were there?
It was about six, seven, 800 somewhere around there.
Fuck that's a lot of people.
Yeah.
And it wasn't like everybody was leaving at once.
Like they had different times.
Yeah.
I mean, but to, for something centered around riding, you know, not just like,
Hey, come look at bikes in the parking lot.
Yeah.
The park, the, the event at the place was kind of, there wasn't people cooking
there on site.
What was on site?
Not really.
They just, you know, law tigers, you know, they had law tigers in the insurance
company next to each other, which thought that was kind of funny.
It's like the two people that kind of fight each other for the most part.
Um, but yeah, they, they don't, and the, and the owner said, like, we used to do
bands on stuff here, but so many people are coming in and out all day that like,
the band will just be sitting there playing to empty parking lot.
You know what I mean?
So, you know, it was cool.
I, the food fucking amazing.
Yeah.
I love, love Cajun food.
Fucking booting balls at the dirtiest gas station you can find.
You're just sitting under a heat lamp.
Yeah.
For a day.
Damn.
So good.
Yeah.
The B and B guys fucking spoiled the shit out of me on food, dude.
Every time I show up there, they fucking go overboard.
Dude.
Yeah.
Dude boiled fucking shrimp, tons of oysters, smoked hams, fucking.
What else?
Fucking these crawfish pies.
Oh dude.
So fucking good.
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That was a joke dude. You laughed, you got it.
I laughed because I thought you were being serious. One of my buddy shows up the other day.
He had on these fucking nice ass cowboy boots and then he had another pair of cowboy boots
that were like this fucking tall taking up a whole saddle bag. He was serious.
That motherfucker had like five pairs of shoes dude. Maybe more dude.
When I first started traveling on bikes, I used to take like two pair of shoes with me all the time.
Stepping out shoes. Stepping out shoes. Yeah. That's where I wear my mox dude.
Yeah. I don't know. I just, well the thing is I have to take all this camera gear to go photograph
it. So I have one saddle bag full of laptop lenses, you know, camera. Nothing got a tour pack?
No, I don't, I don't, I hate the way tour packs look on bikes. Really? I struggle with that because
anytime, you know, my wife already got bags on it. Yeah, but they're still, they flow with the bike
better. It can still look cool without a tour pack. I don't know. I think it could look cool with
a tour pack, dude. That street glad I rode down the PCH this year. Thanks to Tay Biff, dude.
We had those bags, Jim fucking full, dude. Tay was like, had a fucking his, I don't know, sleeping
bag on his fucking fender. That was all he took, crammed everything else in the saddle bags I had.
He's like, you ride this bike, but the, but the only stipulation is all my shit's going.
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. How was that trip, man? Fucking a chopper fest looked amazing.
And oh, man, it's killer right there on the fucking beach, dude. Tons of bikes, dude. Tons
that I've seen, tons that I haven't seen all the David man inspired art, even the David man
originals that were there. Was it the LFG crew doing the fucking circus games in the bag, people
getting to ride and you know, everybody was just stoked to the weather was fucking perfect.
I was kind of shocked at how few bikes came down the PCH. I mean, it just fucking open.
I thought it was going to be like the main artery of fucking motorcycle traffic down
to Ventura. And we saw like three other bikes or some shit for, we saw two, like two couples
on some fucking Jase painted baggers, dude. They were fucking bass boats riding down that fucking
road. They definitely, they might have had all four of those bikes painted by you.
Well, maybe, maybe in another life. I don't get that many of that these days, but
not. I was, I went out to a parts and labor to build well show and it was one of those deals
where the next week was going to be the chopper fest. I was like, man, I was trying to figure
out how I could stay out there, but I couldn't couldn't swing it. It was so good. It was like
pulling fucking teeth to do the kickstart competition though, dude. These motherfuckers
were scared to make their bikes run. I get it. You know, those things are hard to start.
People looking at you, me yelling at you on a microphone. I got to witness a kickstart mic
doing it at nitty gritty. And that was the first one I like sat and watched it from start to finish.
It's pretty fucking entertaining, man, to be honest with you. Yeah, it's fun. I mean,
it's the most fun you can have without your motorcycle moving. No doubt about it. Dude,
Texas Fandango the other day, all these fucking bikes started so goddamn good. I think there was
like 30 of them. We did like six tricks. There were still 20 of them left. Yeah. Finally got
down to pulling plug wires like that will it run on one cylinder because you guys,
yeah, they obviously start any other way. That's pretty. That's how it was going with the nitty
gritty. All the bikes would start. So and I'm sure this is the way it works. But like a kickstart
mic had him like doing the spin around getting. Oh, there's, you know, and that's what I love
is seeing other people do this because they come up with their own fucking ideas, you know, like
calvis up in Milwaukee at the stupid chopper show, like send them into the bar, like gave them a
mouthful of malort, which is some nasty liquor. And then they had to come out and kickstart their
bike and then see who could spit up the most malort into a shot glass. Oh, shit. You know,
roadside Marty does one at, at what do you call it? What's that show up there? Fucking smoke out
with the cycle source guys. I would love to go to one roadside Marty does because he is a fucking
gym on a goddamn microphone, dude. Fucking love that guy. And then let's see who else is doing
I think tiny is going to do one for me at the live to ride and tombs done this year because I don't
think I'm going to make it there. I don't know if he knows that yet, but and then I've got the easy
company guys, they're going to do it for me at the idle hand show up there in New Hampshire.
So like it's cool to like see other people put their spin on it, do it their own way. You know,
I give them like the basis of what I do, which is kind of like just fucking make it fun for
everybody, you know, and then make fun of these motherfuckers when their bike doesn't start, you
know, like that's never happened to me or anybody before. But it's fun, dude. People enjoy that
shit a lot. I think for me watching it was like pure envy. Why just your bike has never started
first kick much less. I mean, I've got it down to where cold start. I can get it started within
a minute for the most part. Minute you got a timed out. Yeah. Yeah. How many kicks is that though?
Usually you kick it a lot in a minute. Yeah. I mean,
well, it's like how fast does it take to start warm, dude? Warm. I can almost usually like if
I'm riding around all day having fun, it'll it'll first kick for the most part. But like I can't
like when they warm up their bikes at the kickstart and then they go kick it after it's warmed up
my warmup needs to be like I need to ride it from here to the shop or my house or whatever.
Well, that's nobody said you can't do that. Yeah. And then it'll it'll pretty much
see you should come out Saturday. I'll let you ride it around. Decatur.
This bike can fucking wait, dude. You're already missing your trip on your shovel head. You need
to leave me at least ride the Decatur, dude. Problem is that Corey Corey can work here without
you, dude. I'm sure you slow him down more than anything. Yeah. Well, the point of Corey coming
over here to work is not just to do the job. It's so that I'm learning something. Yeah.
Corey is pretty fucking sharp. Yeah. He's he's yeah. That's a warm in the bike set really like
takes it to the next level. And you know, I might quit doing that in Texas because
it's so many fucking bikes work so goddamn good. And I honestly, you know, I don't think that
when Kirk Sharp was doing it, you know, he started it just kickers and then he would do it
southern throw down. I don't think he was letting us warm up our bikes. I think that was something
I the first time I did it was in Red River, New Mexico. I put on an event there. Yeah.
Called the Texas Takeover and, you know, just brought a bunch of friends from Texas and we
threw a party at the Bull of the Woods. And I had everybody crank up their bikes to warm them up
and to just get the crowd riled up because they were like all scattered around the patio area
where everybody was hanging out. So they're like here all those bikes running within that small
space. You know, it's exciting. It's just like a call to attention. It's like, Hey,
why are all those bikes running? People will go over there. You don't have to tell everybody.
They're like, Whoa, there's a bunch of motorcycles running. People just get flocked to that.
So it kind of calls attention to what's going on. And it gives people a chance to get their bikes,
you know, warmed up so they start easier. And we can like start them some funner ways if they're
warmed up. You know, well, the one thing I've definitely noticed not to mention like being at
events that are chopper centric and just having one now is that it's like a, it's like kind of
like the car wreck across the street. Like you, everybody has to watch and look at it. You know,
I mean, not car wrecks, probably bad analogy, but like everybody like when I see someone about
the kickstart, I'm like, Oh, let me, let me watch this real quick. Oh, your eyes are just drawn.
Yeah, it's like, it's, it's, I don't know. It's whether that starts first kick or not. Like,
you know, it's just like, I want to see how long what's going to happen there. What is going to
happen? Is he going to kick back, break his leg? Is it going to slip through the kicker gears and
break his leg? That was probably the first thing that was scared that I was scared of. It was like,
I'd never kicked over a bike before I built that thing. Not even a dirt bike or anything. No,
I never rode dirt bikes growing up. So we kicked it over in it. When we first built the bike,
Corey and I, like it was, uh, did it come from a runner? Like, what did you, what did it start
off as? So it started off as a FL, uh, 77 FLH, I think is what it was. Like sort of had a starter
on it. It had a starter on it, but no kicker. So we, we, we, uh, we did everything. The transmission
and the frame are the only things from the bike originally. That's it. Even the motor,
I, when it hadn't bought, when it was already rebuilt, I have the other shovel head still. But
if when I do another chopper, I'm not going that route again. I'm starting with like a motor,
a frame and go in that direction because I'd spent so much money on parts I never even ended up
using it all, right? But the experience of taking that hard telling. I mean, I think it's great to
start off with a full bike because then there's like a lot of little pieces that you end up having
that you end up needing. I didn't use any of it, man. You just like to fucking work because you
made your bike all fucking sparkly and shiny and shit. Another thing I learned in this process is
how much harder it is to make a bike crusty. Like, yeah, you just got to ride it. Well,
yeah, that part. My bike was shiny once, Jase. It was really shiny. It's easy to make it shiny.
That's the only way I know how to do it. I've never, I never went to the school of make it
not shiny. You know what I mean? So school of make it not shiny. So I mean, the force of habit
is hard to break sometimes. Yeah. So it's like, you know, you look at all these parts and like,
I know, did you want to make it crusty from the get go? I was never making a show bike
originally. It was the show bike or the, if you want to call it a show bike became that because
of the Born Free Texas opportunity. You know what I mean? Originally, I was just trying to
put together a showhead and the things I was going to, I was going to do rims on it,
no matter what, because I don't like spoke wheels. You know what I mean? There were certain things
I had all the intentions of doing no matter what. So some of my FXR world, I wanted to bring that
into the chopper world. But I also wanted an overall aesthetic of what, you know, a traditional,
you know, chopper would look like, you know what I mean? I didn't want to go to bat or super huge
rear tire, you know, I did want disc brakes, you know, modern things that I'm used to, but like,
you know, shit that I'm not used to like jockey shifts, shifting a no front brake,
all that kind of stuff. I wanted it to be a hard bike to ride. You don't have a front brake on
your bike. Isn't that awesome? It's sick. And the only time that it's,
it has been a couple of funny times where you're like, I remember I was on the way down to
Van Dango and I was at the, in the park, this is when my bike broke down a little bit later on
after this, but I remember I just started leaning too far to the left and I had the clutch in
on my foot and I was like leaning over to the point where I was like, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. And
I was like, I had to take my foot off and it jumped. And it's just like shit like that that
you don't think about sometimes. You know, if I would have had a break or whatever the case or,
you know, the, I realized that it ain't even a big hill that you need to get stuck on in the
wrong spot before it's kind of a shit show. Yeah. Any rolling back, you either got to feather the
clutch or do some weird thing with your right foot or like hold the leg foot down and then do
the swap out, push the clutch in. It's, but again, it's part of that like more visceral experience
where like you're not just coming up to a light now. And I mean, to the point now where sometimes
you're coming up to like a traffic infraction because you're fixing to run this motherfucker.
Yeah. And that's pretty much what I've done in the last couple of times. There's a couple like,
you know, for me to jump on my bike and pretty much go hang out in the places I hang out,
I got to ride to Dallas. It's 30 miles, right? So I, you know, the exits I usually take now,
I know the ones that have the hills and if I get stuck at this light, I'm pretty much just
going to run the lighter. I'm going to lane split or filter to the, to the front at least,
you know what I mean? So you just learn all that shit. And it's just like backed up and
rested your bike on somebody's car behind you. No, I ain't that, I ain't not that.
No. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a, I mean, that's a, that's cool, I guess, you know, but like,
that's just not something I'm a, I don't want to deal with people in Dallas. Yeah.
People of Dallas love it when you lane split, dude.
They're getting better. I feel like there's so many people moving here from California and
they're used to it. It depends on what time of day you do it. If you do it,
fucking rush hour, nobody's fucking happy. They are fucking swerving at you. They're hawking
their horn. It cracks me up. And then like every 15 to 20 cars, one dude will move out of the way.
Yeah. They'll see you coming and be like, oh, I can, there's plenty of space for this bike to go
by. Yeah. Yeah. Let me move. Exactly. I love it when they do that. I fucking slow down and wave
at them. Thank you. The only time I didn't like it is construction areas where it gets real narrow
because then they're, they're already pissed off. They're in construction and they'll swerve at
anything. Dude, but what's great about doing on the chopper is it's so narrow that you can just
slip through of so many things. They're usually more like you can get through spots that obviously
you can't get through on a bagger or something like much bigger. So and usually it's like,
I haven't had one person haul. I've been lane split like a motherfucker because
when you get down to Dallas from here, if you want to go east at all, you pretty much get stuck in
perpetual traffic that never ends right there in downtown. It's just always going on no matter
when you go through it. So just kind of split for a couple, like a mile or so, and then bam,
you're back open to free highway and just kind of moved through it. Nobody's ever honked at you.
Not on the chopper. On my bagger. Yeah. People lose their fucking mind, you know, but also like
if you come through and you scare people, that freaks them out sometimes. Oh, I'm always just
revving it up. Yeah, especially on my Pan America. That fucker's so loud, dude. I want you guys to
hear me coming. What's your what's your chopper? So like you like how I can't have been able to
keep track where what motors in everything right now, but 59 with a shovel top, four speed ratchet
top, disc brake, two to one gearing, 1621. What do you call it? Holding out good. Wide wide.
That last trip you just wide glide with some A-pangers. Were you on the Pan America or on
the chopper on that last trip? You just deal with like Brian and all them. Oh, it's on the
Pan America. Pan America. Yeah, which I'll go to. Paul had a show in Helotes played John T.
Floors country store. We left from there. Did the twisted sisters. One of them was wet as fuck.
That bitch was soaking wet there. And then and then we went to Honda to this fucking crazy honey
ranch. Spent a day there and then went to took 90 West over the Pagas River High Bridge over Lake
Amistad and stayed in Marathon for a couple days and rode Big Ben. Oh, sick. And then fucking jam back.
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the first call you make. Yeah, since I'm pretty much feeling like I'm not going to be able to
make my California trip on the to go to Diablo, I'm thinking about doing just a tour of Texas on
the chopper. Dude, there's so much good. So much cool shit to see. And I really want to,
I just visually see that bike in the desert somewhere. So taking it out to, you know,
Big Ben, Tarling Wallace stuff just sounds so much fun. You know what I mean? River road is
fucking so good. I mean, Ross Maxwell, Chiso spacing. I mean, all that shit's fucking. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, either any road like going down from Marathon or Alpine, both those rows are
fucking sick, especially when you're hauling ass, dude. Yeah. I mean, gradual turns,
fucking you can see forever. There's mountains all around you. It's the bet. 100% the best
riding in Texas. And I feel like every time I at the hog rally, a lot of people was like,
we're some good riding in Texas, like Big Bend, you know, big, the whole everything,
Tarlingua, Big Ben, Presidio, Alpine, Marfa, the, what is it, Fort Davis or whatever.
Ray up to Van Horn. You know, you could loop in mountains. Yeah. Van Horn, Guadalupe,
that's a sick ride. And then they got the salt flats on the other side of that. It's like,
there's good stuff out there that you could spend a week if really diving into it if you want to,
but oh yeah. But yeah, I finally got a passport so I can go to Big Bend and take that little
donkey ride across to get some tacos finally. Oh, down to Boquias crossing.
Yeah. The first time I went there, everybody's like, no, you don't need a passport. You need
to pet that. That dude would not let us, he's like, no, do you have a passport? You ain't going
over. Right now you can just walk across the river. There's a taco stand set up next to the
hot spring. It's right there. You just fucking walk right across it, buy some tacos. That's a
damn shame. So like the first time I went there, we rode the bikes right across the fucking river.
You just fucking parked it right at that crossing. The one I'm talking about or
on the river road of area top secret. Yeah. Tell me after we fucking rode right down this walking
path for, you know, there's a big parking lot you're supposed to park there. Take the fucking
walking path down to the river, do the hike. We just rode fucking right. My buddy stopped. He was
like, Hey, this next part is going to be a little bit illegal. And I'm like, are you fucking, we
just rode through the exit gate at 100 miles an hour. You know, now this is illegal. Yeah,
it was turns out, you know, parking your bike in international waters. Oh, it was awesome,
dude. I fucking love that area so much. It's amazing. There's still some real outlaw shit
that happens over there. I did the first two tours for DMT dangerous moto tours right out there,
dude. Oh, that's right. So much epic shit on road. And there's even more off road there. Like
that's the next level. I mean, the whole state park, it's all dirt roads, except for river road.
That's the only paved road in the whole state park. The national park, shit ton of pavement,
there's even more dirt out there. And really to see the whole thing, you really got to get on
foot. You know, me and my kids and my wife have hiked around that fucking place and it's incredible,
dude. Yeah, the big bend to Texas, they're gonna fucking either you talked about it last time you
were on, but the tour thing that you were doing, because that's kind of what
Stray does as well, right? But like, you know, taking people on these tours through the different
parts of the country and things. Stray's got something going on. Yeah. This is not like that.
This is yours, please. You know, I'm just trying to curate a group of like 50 to 100 people over
the next 10 years. You know that I've ridden with, there's a lot of people I know that would love to
go on some bigger adventures, but don't have, you know, the friends to do it, or, you know,
they're working, they don't fucking have the time to plan it out. And, you know, I'm just
trying to set it up where we can take advantage of numbers with like minded people that you don't
even have to, you just know that I've met them, you know, I've given them the fucking clearance,
they've at least spent a weekend with me. And it's also to like, the way I got it set up,
you just sign up on the internet, you know, give me your email, I send you a questionnaire,
figure out what you do, what you want to do, what's your experience levels at, and then I have
everybody spend a weekend with me in Big Ben, you know, not to see if you're riding skills are up to
park, because we can get, we can get there. You know, just really to make sure your attitude's
right, and that you like fucking around with me, you know, do you really want to spend 10 days
with me in Mexico? You know, like, let's start with two days in Texas, and go from there. But,
you know, yeah, it's really just to take advantage of the places I've been and the resources I have
and share them with a bigger group of people. You and Mexico would, I would 100% be like,
love to do that with you because of all your experience going down there.
That, yeah, totally makes sense. Mexico's fucking so good. Yeah, so good. Yeah.
I think it's a good idea. I mean, everything you just said makes sense. It's like,
for those people that want to get out there and do stuff, to have someone that kind of feared out,
and it's going to take you to all the good shit, and kind of like, you know, remove the uncertainty
of like, well, you know, we, we fucked up and we spent too much time in Marfa, and the real good
time was in, you know, Alpine or something like that, you know what I mean? So having someone
that can kind of help shaman you into the great experience. I mean, I'm just, I've spent some
time out there. And, you know, now I'm like, you know, I've had people all over the country,
I see their friends of mine, and they're like, damn, when are you going to invite me on a ride?
And I'm like, fuck, I don't, I can't invite everybody. And it's not that I don't want you to
go. And last year, a couple of people like, you know, they took offense to like, are we just not
fucking cool enough? And I'm like, but I got to figure out a way to like, at least include everybody,
or at least give everybody a chance to go on a ride. So this is how I'm doing it right now,
you know, is just putting together a pool of people that have at least ridden with me. And I
can that I'm willing to vouch for. So when I call up, you know, my friend, like, he's like, well,
who else is going? I'm like, don't worry about it. Like, they're all cool. We're gonna have a great
time. I've ridden miles with all these people. You know, in the first two weekends, I did,
it was cool as, you know, it was a handful of friends that I know that I haven't ridden with.
And then it was a handful of people that I've never met before. And everybody got along well,
you know, not all the bikes made it, not all the people made it. But nobody died and everybody
was stoked. Yeah. You know, and we dealt with all the challenges along the way, you know,
the more people you have, the more chances of something happening. Are you doing mainly this
on the pan America? Yeah, it's mainly, I mean, I originally started it to be just off road stuff.
Yeah, yes, I thought I remember. Yeah, turns out a lot of people would like to do this on the road
as well. So, you know, we'll see. I don't feel like there's as much to like, I don't have as much
to offer on the road as far as like support and making it worth it. But we'll see that could
change. I mean, you know, yeah, and really what's going to happen is the people that reach out and
I talked to, you know, are ultimately going to be deciding where these trips go, you know? I mean,
that's like another thing that the weekend I spent with these guys in Texas is where do you guys want
to go? Tell them about where I've been and see what people want to do, see what they have time to
do, see what they got money to do, see what, you know, kind of chances they're willing to take,
you know, I'm sure some of the trips will leave Texas or California and ride into Mexico on our
own bikes. And then I also have bikes in Costa Rica and in Panama and Columbia and Argentina
in awesome places to go everywhere where we can fly in and rent bikes and ride for a week and come
home, you know? Yeah. And at least you'll know that there's some other like-minded people
that you'll be traveling with, even if you're just, you know, pulling the trigger on your own.
Yeah. That's still my ultimate goal in life is to do that trip you did down to the bottom.
It's not getting easier. Yeah, well, I mean, I still hope I still got another 20, 30 years left
so I can, you know, probably see, let's see how it goes. You know what I'm saying?
Still this day, man, that was so epic, man. Oh, it was epic. It was so fucking epic.
And I've been like, you know, I've been chasing that ever since, but also like
spending that time doing that whole trip, I know the place is to go now, you know, like,
you know, I'm going to take my wife back to Argentina. I'm not going to ride her down to
Argentina. I'm going to fucking fly my ass down there with her and ride the wine country,
you know, and then come home. Yeah, it's so badass. I mean, what about like,
have you, I mean, I know you've done to Paul, obviously, like, what's other parts of the
world that you kind of like are looking at really getting out to? I'm going to South
of France next month. I'm going to ride around there with my buddy on a panhead.
Isn't South of France kind of like the sum of the Alps that comes into that? Yeah.
Doing a kickstart competition at one of their events over there. And then
yeah, we're going to spend about 10 days. I don't know where he's going to fucking take me.
He came over, he's come over. Fuck, he was at Daytona this year. He comes over a lot with
his girl, Emma, my buddy, Jimmy, Gypsy, Jimmy, and he borrowed my Pan America. They went and did
like fucking Dollywood and Elvis Presley's house and they came to born. They were born free Texas
when you were in the art show. Yeah. He was on that orange panning of mine. Anyways, yeah,
I'm going to go over there and ride South of France. You know, other than that, I mean, I
want to ride Africa. Australia. I mean, I want to ride Morocco, I want to ride Namibia,
rock ride around Kenya, want to fucking want to ride to the great pyramids, you know, but
I also want to go back to Mexico. Yeah, like now. And it's so much more feasible. And it's cheaper
and the food's fucking great. And there's still places I haven't been in there. But there's also
a lot of places I want to show people, you know, like that last trip me and Brian did down to
Oaxaca was so fucking epic, dude, like the state of Oaxaca is dude, it's next fucking level. I mean,
you got everything from the city of Oaxaca down into the mezcal farms up into the coffee
country, you know, and then you got the mushroom capital of the world. And then this fucking windy
roads takes you down to the fucking ocean. And they got fucking nude beaches and regular beaches
and local beaches. And I mean, it's fucking incredible. And that's on the mainland, right?
It's on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's I like I said, I was hoping to get my cherry
pops finally with Mexico here in a couple weeks, but it's right there. You don't have to go to
California. I don't fuck it. Like I've always said this and I always tell people this. I was like,
you there's no bears in Mexico, dude, you ought to be scared of bears.
You're just the kind of guy that just like slips into everything like, like,
like, you know, you're not even thinking about consequences. It feels like, well, why? Well,
exactly. It's a why. Like I'm an overthinking, like, okay, well, you know, I'm almost like
planning this shit to happen. Consequences are part of the those actions to begin with. Yeah,
like, you want to go to Mexico, fucking go to Mexico, dude. Yeah, I like I said,
overthink it. I watched two I analysis paralysis. I look too much into things and
focus to start what you should start with the donkey crossing. Yeah, exactly. Pay the guy on
the little robot to take you across the ankle deep water. Exactly, dude. Rina donkey right in the
town, get you a tequila, a taco and come back. And then after that, I think you'll be like,
all right, I'm ready to go. I can do this now. Would you you are you mainly doing those trips
over there on the pan America? Do you still do the chopper down there sometimes? Dude,
there's an event in September. I really was hoping I was going to be able to ride my chopper too,
but I don't think it's going to happen. And I was Caliente so guys, they know how to party there.
No, I'm not done going down on my chopper. But yeah, having the pan America just really opens
up a lot of doors. Oh, it's really hoping to ride the M8 chopper down there in September.
But September is fucking. It's busy, dude. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be all over. So you got
party at the pin at the beginning of the month. Then you got congregation, right?
In congregation going on in September. I don't know. I believe it's like I'm not doing either one
of those. Those are both great events though that I've done both of and they're incredible.
I'll be at Chopper Fest in Kansas City. I want to do that one. And then I got a
new event that's going to be the weekend after that. I can't talk about yet up on the Great Lakes
that will be really fucking killer. I did a podcast with this dude, James Folder out of a
Kansas City. He's kind of a part of like this,
which I think is so sick because I see the photographer guy, OKC 183 or some shit.
Yeah. So I did a podcast with him and he, because I saw his photos he took at Born Free Texas.
Yeah, they're great. Sick photos, right? And then I was coming back from picking up that
build that's downstairs I was just talking about. And I said, they have that like where they all
kind of go in on a shop together and everybody has a corner kind of spot. And it's such a
brilliant idea that I wish was more common these days with people like, Hey, let's,
let's get it. It is very common. But here in Texas, we all have shops. Yeah. You know,
there's more space. We're not fucking in a small city, you know, or in a big city. Yeah. With
small spaces. Well, I would, I would love to be in downtown Dallas if I can get a few homies to
come together and we can have like a spot. Oh, you could do that if you went there. It'd be fun.
You build it. They will come, Jase. Come on. Yeah. We learned this a long time ago.
Feel the dreams, baby. Exactly. But that place is just so photogenic. So did you go there? Kansas
City? No, that shop. Yeah, yeah, we did the podcast in that shop. Nice. And I've always
liked the West bottoms down there. It's just such a photogenic spot. But, you know, they,
I haven't been to it, but like seeing the photos of the caves and everything that David
Man used to paint and you could still go to him today and everything is pretty sick. So
that I was planning on going to that last year, but we were so like behind schedule on the
chopper build that I was trying to get that done for Born Free. You know what I mean? So
pretty much the last two years of my life builds have been keeping me off the road.
Dude, this one right now is fucking, it's gone on a little longer and I'd like for it too.
What's the premise on it? What's the premise? I'm building a fucking MA chopper. You know,
Morse Magneto SNS carburetor 1621 with some Vader wheels from led sled customs and some
ape hangers. It's a paint by chemical candy, dude. I mean, the only flames that I've run.
And it's close. It's fucking, you know, it's like to that point where it's really close,
you're just missing some pieces that are keeping me from going a little further. Yeah.
What, what was the initial inspiration and want to go that direction?
Well, you know, I opened my fat mouth and was like, you know, the MA would be a great
motor to build a chopper out of. And my buddy BJ at good times motorcycle supply in Hayes,
Kansas was like, I got the bike for you to do that with. I'm like, fuck, all right, well,
let's do it. So, you know, ever since I did the podcast with that fucking hopper guy, dude,
you know, he did 100,000 miles on that motor. I'm like, you know, I used to think I wanted to
build an M or a EVO chopper, you know, that was going to be the next thing I built was like a
a longer lasting chopper motor, EVO. No, fuck the MAs where it's at. So,
you know, that soft tail platform is great. The suspension works fucking good riding that
paining around. I'm like, damn, you know, having a push button and some suspension is
fucking great. You know, the places I've been able to take my chopper God knows where I could
take this MA. Yeah. So I'm, you know, this leaving the suspension, I went down to Daryl
Borba shop, bad choppers outside Magnolia and we put in a round backbone, got rid of the square
backbone that's in there. You know, cool. We moved the neck around just a little bit,
but it'll be a pretty stock stance. I'm going to Frisco amount of sports, Drutang. I'm pretty
much building my chopper with suspension and modern components. Yeah. Yeah. Can't beat it.
I mean, the Morse Magneto thing, so that's like eliminating a lot. Dude, I got it to run last week.
Fuck. I was just so relieved. You know, that's like magic to me. I don't know how the fuck all
that works. You know, I know how to time a motor, at least I know how to time my shovel head.
And on this M8, there's no like, there's no like timing marks on the fly. Well,
there's nothing to time. It's like all fucking magnet. Well, I don't even know how the fuck the
computer does it, but I pulled all the computer, all the boxes, all the wires off. They're just
sitting on the ground. So they're not any help. And when you get that Magneto, he sends you,
it's the whole nose cone cover that just bolt right on. It's pretty fucking user-friendly.
But before that, you bolt like a worm drive gear onto the end of the cam.
But there's nothing to orientate it, you know? Oh, so it can kind of go on a different.
It's just on however you zip it on. And then once you finally get the mag on there,
you time it off the cylinders. Well, I've always timed it off the front cylinder when I do my
shovel head. In the instructions that I finally ended up following after taking everything apart,
fucking multiple times. It's like, we've had better luck with timing it off the rear cylinder.
And sure enough, it fucking popped right off. Yeah. Which was awesome because I was starting to
think that, you know, it just wasn't going to fucking work, you know? So that felt really good.
And then I figured out Nick was over there the next day and he was like, you're going to run a
foot clutch on it. And I'm like, really, I haven't really, you know, I'd love to, but I don't, I
think there's too much involved and there's nothing really to fucking build off of. And
and then sure enough, we figured it out minutes later. So now it's going to have foot clutch
on there. Yeah, pretty simple little setup, just kind of rerouted the clutch cable using the original
shifter that goes through the primary. That's going to be the clutch lever. It's pretty simple.
Yeah, I think after last year, born free, seeing, you know, power plant and, you know,
Hawks bike, like it just kind of, it did kind of get the bearings. Well, and like,
kind of like I'm sure that you're dealt with, you can get those older low rider, you know,
inmates or you can buy a brand new one for fucking less than 20 grand. Yeah, but you know,
a brand new one. Yeah, you know, like, but you can get it for like seven, eight grand,
six grand in some areas now. Yeah, you can get it for real cheap. Yeah. And just chop those up
because I wouldn't mind doing a like my gold FXR chopper in that kind of, you know, way, if you
will, you know what I'm saying? So that's something. But my next one's the EVO chop. That's where I'm
at right now. I got two EVO motors. I got a set of wheels right under here for it.
And I want to build an 80s style like tough guy chopper. Yeah, deliver cocaine with
all the maybe not delivering maybe doing it. Yeah. Like those wheels were the original wheels
I had ordered for the shovel head, but they never showed up until after the bike was done.
And I wanted them to kind of mimic old I rock Z wheels for the old Camaros. And so I just,
I did a podcast with Oliver from cut rate and we kind of was talking about like styles and I was
like, I just don't know what style I, you know, I wanted to have these kind of looks and these
kind of like callbacks to like a late 60s early 70s chopper. But what would it look like if you
built that in the 80s? You know what I'm saying? Like how would that that kind of translate? So
still four speed still, you know, all the 80s are fucking weird, dude. I mean, 84 was a good year.
But it's weird. Some weird plastic weird fucking music. A lot of plastic cry little sister.
I don't even know what that is. Lost boys, baby. The OG motorcycle movie rides dirt bikes.
The greatest fucking vampire movie ever. The real one that gay ass fucking Twilight stuff.
Oh yeah. It's good times. But yeah, I I'm pretty hooked on it man. You know what the other thing
is that you have the riding side of the chopper, but you have the building side too. And whether
you're building a frame or or you're modifying a frame, like it just there's no box that you
have to sit in. Like everything you do. I mean, you you can kind of put yourself in a box. Like
I want it to be a period correct bike or like this or like that. But you know, like if you had a
bagger, like a modern bagger and you want to build a bike, it's like either going a performance
bagger route or maybe a big will or a fat tire route. Like there's there's like boxes you choose.
You really can't go out of that. It has like a good aesthetic kind of Vecletta. Yeah,
you have Vecla stuff and stuff like you don't even but it just it feels very freeing to just be
creative. Not that you're reamed and inventing anything. It's just like you can go so many
directions like the type of tank you go with. Yeah. And there's a lot of options. So many,
you know, and like on a bagger or you know, I don't think there is though. There's only one
option. This is just a Frisco Sporty tank. I mean, it's the only option if you want it to like
be the most usable, you know, I'm getting like 9,500. What's on your what's on your tank on your
bike? We did a we did a Sporty tank. It's a 2.1 gallon that we move the filler up a little bit
higher, move the petcock to the best position, you know, Frisco mounted it. So, you know,
I like I said, I'm getting about 95 to 100 out of the tank, which not that I'm on it that long,
like, but that's the other thing about riding those things is like it feels
it doesn't hurt. It really doesn't. Like everybody made me feel so like, oh man,
you're the road's going to kill you. It's like, man, yeah, every once while you'll get that one
that you forgot your mouth was open and you just fucking chat in your teeth, right? But for the
most part, you're cruising at a different pace, you can't you're able to catch and scan a lot of
things and and kind of maneuver around it. And it's just not as uncomfortable as I think people
were so adamantly saying it was so uncomfortable. It's not so uncomfortable. Come. Yeah, compared
to what a car fucking it's not that bad, dude. Oh, I love my chopper. What kind of seat are you
running? We made it. We did a I made a pan that I have a guy up in Fayetteville, James Carter.
He's been doing my seats for years. So he did the FXR chopper and he used to do all my bagger stuff
back in the day and he makes a coffee seat. I think so. It's it's it's a harder foam. So you
have more cushion, like you're not like sinking all the way to the bottom of it. You know, like
when you buy a brand new bike, it's like comfy when you sit on it. But if you ride on it, you start
to kind of move all the foam out of the way. And they say, you know, you're kind of sitting on. I
don't know about that. I do. I do. Why the Paris seat is the Paris, you know, the Paris seats are
pretty nice, man. Yeah, mine's fucking great. I think I'm on my third one. Yeah, on that bike.
On the chop. Mm hmm. One of my just wore out the other one I've fucking rec slid it down the
road and blew it out. And then, uh, yeah, I'm on my third one. Sick. I just making stuff fit
perfectly to the bike. That's just that's kind of where I'm from, you know, so I should fit
perfectly to the bike. Perfectly my ass too. Sure. It does see those gaps.
Now that I know what I'm looking at, I can pick up what are you looking at?
I'm just saying now that I know what those, that's all I was telling someone else is like,
I used to go to swap meets before, you know, before doing this chopper. And I'm like, I don't
know what the fuck any of this shit is. You know what I'm saying? And then now it's like, I can go
on like, Oh yeah, that's a bearing support plate or that's this, like you kind of know the parts
and you can see the like maybe not the value, but like I'm looking for this. I'm looking for a coil
bracket or this or that, you know what I mean? As opposed to before I just go to swap meets.
Like, I don't know why people are saying this is so sick because I don't know what any of the
shit is. You know, he's never needed none of it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So now I do.
Well, that LaParis seat fucking built for a rigid frame fits fucking perfect.
They look good. I do. I will give them that. They feel good too. Yeah. I get reminded when
I ride other ones. Now that stock fucking bagger seat was pretty fucking good. Yeah. But
you know, it was not a very long. Yeah. And I could have sat on fucking almost anything
riding down the PCH, dude, whether it was fucking perfect, radio, Blair and Leonard
Skinner the whole time. You're going to put speakers on your chopper, you know, like the ones
that matter to the handlebars or anything like that. No, dude, come on. No, no, just giving up
on the tunes altogether. I never really listened to him. Really? Yeah, even the baggers, you never
took advantage of the radio up front. No, because I come from the era of baggers where we did the
radio to the fullest and it's just obnoxious. And so I think I'm one of the rare dudes that just
really enjoys the silence of being on a bike. Like I don't listen to anything. Every once
like I have those metaglasses now that have like the cameras and shit on it. Yeah. And man, you
put those on in like a like a custom destruction helmet or something. Perfect sound. Like you can
listen to music going down the road with the wind in your face. It's perfect. But those things only
last like maybe an hour and a half, two hours, you know what I'm saying? Before it dies. I don't
care for the music on the bikes. Like I just it's just not my thing. You know what I mean?
I mean, I've never done it until that bagger and I fucking loved it. I mean, until that shovel
head rode up next to me and I'm like, Hey, get the fuck out of here. Just whack the throttle to get
away from them. So I can hear the music again. I'm just I've been list. I've been had the music
for so long. It's just it doesn't do anything for me anymore. Yeah, I tried. I try to do the earbuds,
but it never works. My ears are all fucked. I love listening to some music, especially when
I'm jamming through the woods. Well, that's the other problem now is that on the shovel head,
like I need to hear the bike. Do you? I do. I'm not. I'm still asking questions. You know what
I mean? No, people say that. And you know, if you're on a good long journey, it is nice to
be able to stay in tune with it. Yeah. But then I also feel like, dude, sometimes it makes more
noises when like when I ride without my helmet, I'm like, Oh, it's fixing to blow up. Now I'm just
like, since the helmet down tighter, you know, it's making noises just ignored a little longer.
You know, because then sometimes you'll be chasing your fucking tail over something that's
nothing, dude. Yeah. I feel it more than anything like vibrations. Because everything's rigid,
man. And you do feel like something's loose. Like I can feel that the fucking motor mouse get loose,
fucking frame cracks. You notice that shit. Yeah. So I like I said, it's just tapping into so much.
So it's a it's been a great experience. But you know, I think not being able to start it for so
long, like learning that part, like learning how to kick it, you know, because everybody tells you
how they start their bike. And so you start trying to do their their method. And once I just went back
to basics and said, All right, like, what's the Harley procedure to start a bike? What is the Harley
procedure? I don't know. I'm just saying like, I went back and just said, Okay, I would imagine
it's just like give it some gas, a couple prime kicks. But everybody was like, do three, three pumps,
kick it, then do this. And I would it would be flooded out. Basically, by the time I did that,
because you got super year on there. Yeah. And so the Super E and my jets in there were so it's
been a combination of learning the Super E carb, and how that interacts with the motor. Because
remember, I think I talked to you, we were on the phone once I was like, man, everybody's saying go
to points if I go to points with what's your opinion, you know, he's like, Yeah, do it. I've
done it forever. So Haney put points in when I say that it's house one night. Good job, Haney.
We had a hard time getting started. But when I had it when it when it cut out on me going down
to the Fandango, and I had to go get the van, bring it back. Yeah, what happened? What happened?
You couldn't make it from here to Fredericksburg?
Damn, dude. So you're trying to relieve to Mexico. No wonder you'd rather work on bikes in your
shop. Yeah. Back at the Fredericksburg. So we were we were we were in Wembley, Texas, right?
We were heading the devil's back. Beautiful. And yeah, just like I came around a corner and it
just like was I was given a gas and was just falling on its face like wouldn't wouldn't work.
So I ended up pulling over. Unfortunately, I was like three miles from Jacob Canard's house.
So I texted him he's like sounds like your your your condenser is going out. I'm like,
okay, well, I've never had this bike before this this setup. So this is all like learning stuff
for me. And I've never felt what it did, which was like, it would run. But if he gave a gas,
it was just like falling on his face almost. Yeah. So we get it to Jacob Canard's. He has
like one of those fancy six and ones from worst Magneto. Yeah. So we put that on. And then like
I don't know where it starts working, right? Didn't work right away. Really? We put it on,
it was doing the same shit. And he's like playing with little switches on there. Oh,
yeah, got to work. And I'm like, Oh, fuck sick. All right. Hey, thank you, Jacob. You know,
jump on the bike, mile down the road, same shit had him come pick me up again.
So I'm like, man, maybe it's a coil, you know, because I'm thinking everything the whole charging
system is brand new. I went with a 22 amp charging system, but it was like a V twin instead of like
psycho electric. Psycho electric didn't have any 22 amp charging systems anywhere.
Hog supply did. So I bought one from hog supply and, you know, turns out
coil wasn't the issue. I owned it out and I bought another one just, just so that if I didn't do
that right, same shit. We ended up ordering a psycho electric, just going back to a 32 amp
charging system, put it in there, bam, back to normal. Why did you want a 22 amp? Recommendations
because it's you don't need that much power. Somebody didn't recommend psycho electric or
nothing. Well, they did recommend that, but I couldn't find the 22 amp and psycho electric. Yeah.
And so, um, yes, I ended up being the issue, but the problem, the thing that the battery was dying
on you know, is that it wasn't, I guess maybe, I mean, the charging, essentially the charging
system because you don't need a charging system for the bike to run. But you need a battery
that's charged up and to keep the battery charged up, you need a charging system.
That's, that's kind of where it was weird because when you kick it over,
it would kind of find its, its groove again and start running right. And then you give it a little
gas and it'll go back to Ireland like shit. So I had a hard time. Maybe it was shorting out in the,
in the, uh, what do you call that? Fuckin? Yeah. Like maybe it was touching the, touching the
possible. Did you do, no, I'm talking about the, uh, the, the charging system. Yeah.
Like inside of there, there could have been a wire loose that was grounding out as it was
spinning around. It could, it could have. You know, I just, I kind of changed the whole
charging system on psycho electric. Yeah, I went over. Yeah, no problem now. Right. So far,
I haven't gone anywhere yet. So maybe I try it instead of batteries and switches, dude. Those
are the first things to check. Yeah. Batteries are fucking junk, dude, especially on a rigid
mounted shovel head, they vibrate, especially you say you vibrate a lot. The batteries are
going to go out. You got to have it like well supported, you know, like rubber stops, but
then it also needs like airspace to, to cool off. If there's not a lot of like room for air to
rotate around that battery, it's going to get fucking hot, swell up and. Okay. That's good to
know. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I have like a mounted. And just take an extra battery. Fuck. Yeah.
It's a lot of authority would be upset if I didn't tell you that.
There's auto zones in, uh, in O'Reilly's everywhere. So you're right. I'm pretty much,
you know, I mean, if you're not riding by yourself. Yeah. Well, I think that again,
this is where maybe a new, it's a fun challenge, but also it's challenging for me is that I,
I have to take camera gear and podcast gear when I go somewhere. Yeah. So you can have
batteries to run that fucking bike forever, dude. Yeah, probably charge it up every night,
just plug it into the wall, put some flap, you know, just like tape some fucking connectors
on there. It doesn't need a lot of power. You got all your drills and stuff down here. Yeah,
just take a bunch of those. Um, but yeah, it gets a little bit difficult when you're trying to like
pack out camera. So is the charging system in the battery that kept you from making it?
To this point, I don't know if it was either one cause I swapped both out.
So I'm just going to have to ride around. Did you not ride it back from Fredericksburg?
No, I just came home after that. My wife was headed down to, uh, uh, Austin, um, for a girls
trip weekend. So she wasn't fucked up her whole girls trip. No, she just left me the car and
then I drove home and then cause she didn't need the car once she got there. So she came pick me
up. I dropped her off, went back home and then came back down on the van, picked up the bike,
her, she liked that. So it worked out, you know what I mean? But it's, it's the first time I've
ever like been on a bike trip or whatever and had a breakdown that I couldn't fix on the road.
Really? Yeah. First time. First time. Hmm. Fucking almost 20 years of riding. You know,
first time you've ever hauled a bike off the road. Let's see. I've done that.
Fuck at least once this year. I just gave up. Where did I give up recently? I was like,
babe, come and fucking get me. Oh, I guess it wasn't this year's last year about this time.
No, that fuck seem like recently I was like, Oh, in Colorado. Yeah.
On the way to fucking Sturgis last year. Oh shit. On the way. Yeah. Those on the ways are kind of
the worst, right? Cause like, I feel like if they were to broke down the way home from Fandango,
it would have been way better. Really? Yeah. Cause I'm like, I already did what I wanted to do.
Yeah. Well, the mission wasn't over. It's like I broke down the fucking bike still hasn't ran
since then for real. But she picked me up. Fuck. And then I took my wife to Sturgis.
She never would have got to go to Sturgis. I didn't break down and never would be like,
hey, I'm taking you to Sturgis this year. I mean, maybe at some point I will, but
yeah, it works out well. So how like, I mean, you were, you were captain plugged into the Harley
Ecosphere before. Like how are you feeling about everything they're doing now with the new,
the new CEO and stuff? I mean, what are they doing now? They fired a bunch of people.
You know, nothing's, I don't see anything that's like changing quite yet.
You know, they're not selling a shit ton of bikes and they have a shit ton of dealers.
Unfortunately, I don't like that we're losing the coolest dealers, you know, the ones that have
the most character, the mom pop shops that aren't able to like make it through this fucking rough
time. So the bigger conglomerates are going to make it through, which, you know, I don't think,
I don't know any way to help that. I hate, I would hate to be in their position
making these decisions. You know, everybody belly aches about price and they need a fucking
sports tour and I'm just, I just don't see it. You know, I'm like, there's plenty of fucking
sports tours out there. You know, like, does the, does the motor company need to make a brand new
fucking beginner bike for you to get into riding motorcycles when there's fucking,
they could quit making motorcycles tomorrow and we would still have plenty of fucking Harleys to
ride for a long time. You know, I love the Pan America. I hope that they like do some different
things with that platform. You know, I was hoping they were going to throw some fucking bags on it
and really do up that, that ST, you know, more like the low rider ST, which I don't,
you know, they may do that in the future. I don't really know, but I could see that being a hit. I
mean, the whole performance bagger performance bike, the performance Harley shit, you know, it's,
it's opened up people's eyes to like be more accepting to the Pan America. I think we're like,
yeah, no, we really want it to work good. And it's like, okay, well, look here,
this one works really good. Works better than the MA, but it's totally different. You know,
it's not air cooled. There's not even any fucking cooling fins on it. You know, I love that. Are
they going to be able to keep doing it? I mean, I think they should fucking go drastic and just
fucking, you know, put a 450 out and get some fucking badass like Hayden Deegan racing it on
Saturday night, the super cross track. Yeah. I don't think it's out of line to think that they
could go that far in a different direction and sure people would be bummed out. Oh, I don't want
to fucking ride my bagger because they're making dirt bikes now, but fuck those faggots.
You know, I think that their biggest handicap, their biggest problem is they're fucking the
stereotypical Harley consumer that's like, bring production home and make the bikes cheaper. You
know, like, that's not going to get us anywhere. Yeah. They're in a tough spot, but you know,
it's not unique to Harley right now either. Yeah, I mean, and I've talked about this many times,
like how how are they still making a brandy motorcycle for less than 20 grand, you know,
while trucks have gone up fucking 300% in the last 20 years, you know,
and everybody when they talk about prices, they want to say, oh, the fucking back,
there's 40, 50 thousand dollars. Like, well, yeah, that's for a fucking tricked out bagger from the
motor company. This shouldn't be fucking cheap, you know, and if you can't afford it, then buy
another one, you know, like you shouldn't be able to afford it. Like it's, there should be,
you know, not everybody deserves one. Yeah. And there's plenty of fucking use ones on the market.
Now, I don't know how to like, I don't know how the motor company makes money off the dealers or
the other networks selling used bikes, but you know, I think there's who knows, I don't know.
What do you think? What it feels like that I've heard the dirt bike conversation brought up quite
a bit. And I think that's probably one of the smartest things they could do. Because as far as
like getting younger riders to start prepping them for when they get older with the brand, you
know what I mean? Well, I mean, I think they're essentially doing that with the motor Moto GP.
You know, like that is not only is it bringing in a whole new crowd and whole new audience to
Moto GP racing. Yeah, it's putting Harley in front of a shit ton of kids whose dads probably
wouldn't be like, Hey, look at the Harleys, they're cool. You know, if those dads are watching Moto
GP and it's authentic form, you know, those kids are probably gonna, they're now going to get
introduced to Harley and with the numbers being so close and then being loud and grabbing the
attention of people at those races, like, like it will, you know, I mean, that's so much more
entertaining to see that go by you, I imagine than those sport bikes. Yeah. I think that's a good
long term, you know, like that's good, like long term. But it does feel it would be very smart
for them to lean more into the just the off road stuff with the Pan America to try to just continue
to build up that kind of a side of the brand. You know, if you I'm not very versed in it, but
just like very ignorant perspective outside looking in, you know, you have BMW and KTM,
that's just got this vast network that they built through all KTM went out of business.
They did. Yeah, got bought out by another company. Oh, sure. You know, BMW, that's a hard model to
follow. I mean, they're like, you know, they're, they're doing big thing like fucking got cars
and motorcycles, they're like developing production methods and selling them to all
the other OEMs. Yeah, they're not making money off just their motorcycle cells, you know.
Yeah, that's I mean, they're just got a hard line to toe right now. And I think that
being more open to them doing things, not being as like, I mean, every time Harley puts out anything
new, people are like, that's not cool. You know, like, really, every time it seems like they come
out with something new, most people are like, that's not cool. Fuck Harley. Yeah, well, they just have
such a wide audience of like, the brand means so much to everybody individually, and they have
their own idea of what it means to them and what they think that brand represents and what they
want to see that brand do. And when it doesn't nail it to a teeth, and they're like, you know,
the company died in 1984. Yeah, you know, I could stand behind that argument as well. I mean,
honestly, I think if the motor company went out of business tomorrow, we'd be doing just fine.
You know, there's plenty of fucking Harleys. We're not going to stop riding them.
Yeah, I mean, not that I want to see that happen. I'm just saying like,
there are a shit ton of motorcycles out there. That's what makes it so tough for them right now
to come up with new stuff, keep people excited when, you know, the after markets just, you know,
taking advantage of the shit that is already cool, you know, that has already been proven.
They have to come out with new product. I do feel like if if Harley would have
done what Buell's doing right now with the super cruiser, then they would have gotten a lot of
flack for it or hate or whatever the case might be. What are they doing? They're making a Harley
like motorcycle without Harley parts. Yeah, they're talking about that company without talking about
Harley. Yeah, you know, you can't really. So I get that it's like a very complicated place to be,
you know what I mean? And I mean, but what is what is they what are what is that Buell company
doing that's so unique compared to what Harley's doing? I think that they're putting Pan America
technology in a more traditional looking overall stance aesthetic, I guess you'd say. And just
like Harley's doing with the VVT technology on the inmates and the ride modes and the adaptive
suspension. I mean, that's what I agree. I think that it's there. You know, I was saying like what
is what are they doing that's so different and revolutionary than what the, you know, the low
rider is. Yes. Everybody that I've talked to that's ridden the super cruiser says it just feels like
a Pan America. I mean, it's relatively I mean, yeah, I think the super cruisers got more horsepower,
but it's a water cooled motor. It makes a ton of horsepower, not a lot of ton of torque,
you know what I mean? So the feeling that I think I mean, the Pan America is a water cooled motor.
Yeah, and it makes a ton of horsepower rip fucking dirt, you know, the Pan America out ride any
Harley in the lineup and it'll fucking do some gnarly off road shit. So that's why when they
had posted that that the one from a mama tried the the cafe thing like that. I think there might
be an audience for that, you know, for sure. But who's who's to say, like I said, I feel like
Harley just cannot get a break from its audience. Like you said, they're so, you know, it's it means
so much to so many people that no matter what they do, it always feels like it's unaligned with
them. I mean, I think everything they've been doing is fucking great over the same. I mean,
the coolest bikes I've seen since I've ever paid attention to them, you know, I never thought I'd
want a new bike. You know, once I got a new bike with my first Harley, I immediately went back in
time, you know, got my shovel head been riding that ever since. And then they put out the Pan
America those fucking throwback models with the cool retro paint jobs. Those are sick to fucking
ST. I mean, I feel like they classically did the FXR justice, you know, with the modern chassis,
you know, just making it different, but also like, you know, tipping their hat to it. Yeah.
The fucking baggers, I mean, they're fucking great. Yeah, I'm telling you, dude, I rode that
bagger this year. And I did not hesitate at all to jump on that thing and ride down the fucking
coast. It does its job well. I've ridden Paul's got that fucking limited road glide, dude, it
fucking rips, dude. And that motherfucker carry suitcases and shit behind them, you know, you
don't even notice any of that. Yeah. I mean, it does the job well. Yeah. So with the new CEO,
I think the goal is to for him to, or I think his goals are pretty much to make the brand more
recreational. I think is maybe in a term of what they were, they were saying. Where did you get
this information? Insider from an insider make it more recreational than it already. That's all
this is a recreational vehicle. Well, I think it's, I think that the brand is obviously is
recreational, but like, I think they could go the complete opposite way and be like, dude,
you can buy this for less than a brand new fucking truck and you can write it to work every
day. The traffic's fucked. You can go around the traffic. Well, that's, that's why I say this every
time I talk to a lot of dealers is like, you know, if you guys would like help lobby there,
I don't even know how this works. I'm just kind of like talking shit in the air. Talking about
lobbyists. Do you're getting political on us? Well, yeah, if you can find a way to get,
if you can find a way to get more states in board with lane splitting or at least filtering,
that would open up commuter travel so much in motorcycling. I mean, in Texas alone, if we could
filter those, those, you know, whether it's on the highway, great point, more people will ride
their bikes to work. It'll be more of a commuter bike. Therefore, we'll build the entire economy
up in those areas because more shops like David Brown's, you know, Brown cycle is going to have
more maintenance coming in more. Well, I bought this bike so I can save on gas and time and what
not. But now I was like, I kind of like riding. I want to go riding in the country now. So it
opens up to more recreational side of Harley day or of riding motorcycles in general. I mean,
it's not a coincidence. I mean, you got a place like California where you can pretty much ride
all year long and almost every part of it, right? Well, now you can lane split. So you have an
incentive to travel to work on that thing. That was like that. I think in Phoenix or Vegas,
one of those like filtering is legal now. I think Arizona is. Yeah. So it's like,
that's a huge motorcycle state. Now more people are probably going to be riding those bikes to,
you know, to work. I think you should do this. You should fucking take up that torch, Jase.
Put together a big lobby group, start going down to Austin.
Honestly, you seem more like the guy that would get their attention if they were there.
I mean, yeah, probably good. But I like it that it's illegal. You know, I don't want it. I obviously,
you know, you're the dude, they don't want weed legal. So you can still buy it from a drug dealer.
Well, you said drug dealers could still make money, dude. Drug dealers used to spend money too.
You know, now they're like fucking Oliver was talking about that on the podcast with Randy
Adams, which is a really good podcast if you guys haven't heard that, like how drug dealers used to
come in and just throw money at the tattoo artist. Like, no, they're ain't doing that no more.
Ain't nobody making money off weed, dude. They're just fucking regular farmers now.
Even though it's like illegal in Texas, you know,
everybody smokes weed. It's everywhere. But no, it's like, I like skateboarding more when it
was like illegal, you know, and there wasn't skate parks to go skate in, you know, it's like,
it's just more exciting when you like got, you got maybe four tries at this staircase
before the fucking security guard comes out and calls the cops. Yeah.
But I think it's, you know, that would do a lot for incentivizing people to ride motorcycles more.
Yeah, I agree. 100%. And that's why I feel like it's something that if more dealerships saw that
aspect, then maybe they could find a way to, you know, they have more market share to be able to
pull and get things happening or whatever the case. I don't fucking know. I'm sure they just
know people like, you know, in my dad's business, they got like the North Texas Automobile
Dealers Association where they pull their money together. And that's exactly what they do is
they pay lobbyists to like, you know, hopefully make the laws working away that's beneficial
to them selling trucks. Exactly. I would imagine that there's something like that in the motorcycle
industry. I mean, you wouldn't have to stop with just Harley dealers. You could bring in all.
Yeah, because it would be all cycle dealers. It would be a rise in tide. And it seems like
there's a fucking group that does this already. Yeah. What is a bait? Yeah, I've heard of them.
Yeah. Yeah, but they're probably more like trying to get helmet laws taken away and stuff like that.
Well, that's where they started, but I'm sure that they're also, you know, trying to get filtering.
What do you call lane filtering? Filtering is when you basically when traffic's had to stop,
you move to the front, right? Or at a very slow pace, you move to the front. Splitting is just
like, you know, if it's anything under the speed limit, you're technically allowed to go through
it. You know what I mean? Or I don't know fucking exactly what it is, but California's splitting,
like you can just travel through the middle lanes no matter what. Oh, dude, they got that giant
fucking lane right there in between the HOV and the regular traffic. Lane splitting in California
is easy. It is like a lane split through Fort Worth and rush hour, dude, with all these fucking
giant trucks and trailers and shit. That's kind of horses sticking their head out.
Fucking cow haulers just pissing down the fucking highway, just rolling out of the fucking side of
that thing. That's real biker shit. Taking a little bit of that to the face. Well, that's kind
of the other, that's that's one of the arguments that like we said at the beginning of this podcast,
like a lot of people, it would take time for the public to understand that things are legal
for it to be able to happen, right? So that's kind of, it's not like you make a law and then
all of a sudden everybody's like, Oh yeah, come on down. I mean, Texas hadn't even legalized
weed. Fucking lane splitting is not coming anytime soon. You know, anything that makes you really
feel free in the state that's supposed to be the freest, you know what I mean? Got our guns out,
dude. Carry that wherever I want, but I can't just like go right down this lane. Yeah, but you
can. I know I do, but the problem is it's like the laws are not for, not for everybody. Those are
for the people that need laws. Okay. I'm just glad. I mean, it's like, like there's no laws
that I follow because it's a law. Yeah, you know, like the things that I don't do, it's not because
there's a law in the books, but some people need that. Fair enough. I'm just saying, I would,
I would, I still do it and I would happily explain my position if I got pulled over.
Oh, I have to. I've fucking been pulled over for it. Not even pulled over. They just catch up to
me in an unmarked car. They let me know that they're a cop and that I'm doing something illegal.
Oh my thank you, sir. Yeah. Carry on now. So the chopper, you almost done with it?
Were you, you were saying you were trying to have it done for County C, right? Yeah,
I was hoping County C or Tennessee, but we'll see. We'll see. Tennessee is probably more realistic.
Yeah, it is definitely a possibility. Yeah, I would really like to have it done for that. So
when I get back from France, I can jump on it and jam straight to party at the pin.
It's got, uh, yeah, the 10s already or what? Yep. He's probably, I think he should be bringing
him up nice this week. He's still down there with the Darrell one of them. He is. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, chemical Randy. You see him up here a lot, but he does live down there.
Yeah, he's, uh, he's been hanging out with our locals.
As they say, I, I, uh, he was a local for a long time. Long time. The last. So you had his fucking,
what do you have? He had a, uh, what do you call it when you like, you get, you get old and you're
like, uh, not a near death experience midlife, a midlife crisis. Yeah.
Where he went and got a real job that had insurance where most people have midlife
crisis. They fucking quit their real job and start living in a van like Randy, he did the opposite.
Well, I mean, I've been on that, that kick too. Like where I really want to move into like a career
within the motorcycle industry. Really? You're going to go corporate on us? I'd like to. Nice,
dude. Like we're a badge and stuff. A bad name tag. Calm down.
Do you have keys on your hip, dude? Yeah. No, I big responsibilities. I've been doing,
I've been self employed my entire, entire adult life, man. Like I, I'm managing, but it's like,
you know, I don't know. It, there's just a part of like the structure of it that I would like.
Everything that I do for a living would be a six side hustle. You know what I mean?
A bike here and there, paint, paint a helmet, do the podcast.
Work eight to five for the man. Yeah. Just fucking clock in and grind, dude. Get home.
You need to talk to Scott. Have some lemonade. You need to talk to Randy, dude. You need to talk
to Randy. Well, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go. It would only be in the motorcycle in the show.
I'm not going to go get a job in the construction industry. You know what I'm saying? So you're
not doing this to make money. What do you mean? This full-time gig. I'm just trying to find
there's not a lot of gigs that pay, pay worth shit in this motorcycle industry.
And what sucks is like everything I'm good at, like I'm not classically trained. So like I couldn't
really, you don't have paper on the wall. Yeah. Like I could dance or approval. I could kill it
in marketing for certain brands, right? Depending on the type of product and things like that.
Well, it's not what you know. It's who you know. Yeah. Well, that's how, that's how I know that,
right? But the brands that I think that I could work and do a lot of help with,
they're not necessarily a mom and pop shop where they would just hire me because I'm
chase or wherever the fuck. Yeah. But somebody will hire you within there if you know the right
people. Well, that's how that works. It absolutely is. Now, you know, some of those big ones,
you at least need some kind of credentials so that they can like run it through their fucking
computer. I have a diploma. I never, I honestly, I know I graduated high school, but I don't know
where my job, like, you just contact him. They'll send you a piece of paper. Do you just like who
ever even asked to see it? Like, I've never in my life go, Hey, man, let me see that diploma real
quick. I don't fuck with those people. Period. I don't fuck with those people.
But there's, there's job, there's a couple of jobs. I do have one that was not hanging up
on my wall, but I got it somewhere in my office. It's a, it's an adventure,
uh, an adventure or something. Iron butt fucking. No, like fucking adventure, writer,
course, fucking stamp. I'm like, Oh, that'd be funny to frame that.
Make you look all official. It's from, dude, it's from a legendary guy. What's his name?
He's got the spot out in California. Hi, Jim Hyde. Yeah, he's a good dude.
Yeah. So that's kind of his stamp of approval. I've also been on the fence of like moving out of
Texas. Really? Yeah. Fucking straight to Central America, dude, like Panama or something.
They won't let me in. Um, no, I mean, if, if I do, I'm open-minded to the opportunities that might
come from whatever to kind of see where you would move if somebody would hire you. Yeah.
If, uh, if the job was writing and, um,
you would leave this little slice of heaven here and walks a hatchee. Yes. 100%.
This is the longest shop. Where are you? You're trying to go to California, Milwaukee,
Tennessee. I don't know. I mean, I would, wherever opportunity presents itself, I would
prefer to be somewhere where writing is, uh, is, is a bigger part of it's, uh, the culture. You
know, Utah, like just areas I can have more access to do more. Sometimes it feels limiting here.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So you take this studio and put it in fucking Arizona or California,
you'd be able to do pocket. You just sit in your office all day long, just run them through like
a fucking one of them spending doors, dude. Like say, I could live where Todd Blueball lives,
right? Pioneer town. You can afford that. Yeah, for sure. Cause if you can, you should
fucking go there now. 100%. I could live there and go do a job wherever it may be, but like I could
run in a weekend, I can record five episodes with people and be good for a month of, you know,
content that needs to come out with this stuff for how long forever, not ever seeable future.
Just like, just for long enough to kind of like have that experience. You can probably go out there
and just fucking take your lady and get a sweet ass Airbnb in the desert to be a lot cheaper than
trying to buy a house there. Yeah, just live in Airbnb. Yeah. Fucking ride around. I guess
if I started drinking more of my interviews, they'd be better or they would be bad again.
Depends on how much drinking. They're dying where it's only much.
Yeah, get emotional. That's
good. Get emotional, huh?
What's just, you know, even thinking about the arc of my podcast over the last,
you know, eight, almost nine years, it's like we went through these different phases, you know,
and I think right now has been the most professional version of it ever. It's fun, but
when I think about the crazy shit that used to happen in this room and the mountains of beer and
dudes pissing in bottles in the back corner, flying drones in here, like just crazy shit we used to do
live back in the day. And now it's like super proper, you know what I mean? I feel like I need to
put a tie on it. See, I'm preparing myself for the corporate world, dude. Sounds like it, dude.
Yeah. I don't say the bad words on here that I used to say all the time, you know.
He already said it today. What did I say? You don't say those words in here. What did I say?
You don't say fuck? There's a handful of them. Fuck. No, we say
no, it's, uh, it's all good, but I don't know, man. It's yeah, my podcast. Let's see right now.
I book it about like a week out. I got Tyler Valentine's coming over tonight or tomorrow night
and just on the way here, I lined up another one for next week. Yeah. Same.
You're, you're my this week's podcast. Yeah, perfect. Cause I'm, I'm, I've been so busy with
everything else. So nice. So did we talk about the cater kickback? We should. Yeah. County seat
kickback, crawfish, boil, kickstart, competition, you know, I'm thinking about throwing a fucking
curveball at this kickstart competition because you know, we've already done nitty gritty chopper
city, the Fandango seem like there wasn't there another one at some point. Nitty gritty. I did
Ventura. Yeah. Nitty gritty chopper city, the Fandango. And now that's three in Texas with
the county seat kickback. These motherfuckers have had all the opportunity in the world.
Yeah. We're fucking Haney one in a nitty gritty. Johnny two shits one at the Fandango on a bar
and fine knucklehead. This third one that's fixing the wind and knife made by Nick is not
getting it easy. You know, it might be like there's going to be crawfish there. I'm going to come up
with something just nasty. They're like fucking stick these fucking heads in your air cleaner,
you know, will it start off a fucking crawfish heads? Yeah, something I don't know what it is.
May not let them warm up ahead of time, you know, maybe just fucking go from a cold start. Yeah.
Well, that's what they did at nitty gritty. Yeah. So Nick, Mike does that. How did Mike do that
when you saw it? So we spoke in here, right? Sure. How did he do it? So Mike, so what Mike did
was he did, you know, there were so many bikes and most of them would start first kick. So if you
didn't start first kick, you're like the first one kick it however you want. Yeah. And then it was
kick it, you know, like, like you're on the front of the bike kicking the other way, then was like
saddled kicking it dirt bike style. And then then it was fine lady to kick it. Oh, he went
straight to lady. Yeah, dude, that's tough, dude. That's like, I just like to wait till
when we know these bikes are going to start, dude. The first one I ever did fucking Lulu
broke her fucking leg because I think kickstart Mike's bike kick back and fucking
snapped it dude. She didn't say nothing. She got back up on stage and played for like three hours.
Goddamn. And then that night she couldn't get her boot off.
And then after that was the spinning on the on the stick. And then it was a race.
And spinning, how did he do the spinning on the stick part? So spin six times.
And then you have three seconds to kick your bike over. Oh, he did one guy at a time. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that when I did the spinning and I got this because I saw him doing that was
as I would make them spin on two sticks, right? I think we even use a fake leg for one of them
because that's all we had. But yeah, you you like you're kind of racing the other person,
you know, where you got to spin around fucking 10 times and then kick the bike.
That way they're not just sitting there waiting till they're not dizzy anymore, taking their time
to race aspect. Yeah, because you could slowly spend there's no time limit on how many times
you spin around or, you know, there's just leaves too much up to the individual person.
So adding the race aspect where there's two people. And I like getting down to,
you know, where there's just a couple of bikes left and then doing something like that.
But I also I don't like it when you get down to like three or four people. I don't want all four
bikes to not start. And then because, you know, after I tell them what a piece of shit they are
and their motorcycle and make them fucking leave, give them the low brow straps. And I'm actually
will you come back because none of the other bikes, you know, I don't like doing that. So you got to
like, get down to that two or three people. The boot chug is always my favorite.
Was kickstart Mike's the first one you've seen you haven't seen any of the ones I did, huh?
I was there at the one you did for Born Free last year. But you got to be up in it. I got pulled
away to something else before like you had just let them warm it up. Oh yeah. And so you hadn't
you hadn't start going on the line yet. And then we are going back to born free California and
you motherfuckers better be there, dude. It was only like six people last year. And I got a knife made
by Nick for the best starting bike dude. And you did like the finals was that born free Texas,
right? Last year. Yeah. Yeah. There was a bunch there and I didn't, I didn't get to see that. I
was somewhere else. I mean that property so big you can easily do. I never even saw the art show
this year. I think I was telling you didn't see the art show in the way back there to look once
I couldn't find it and then the art show in the woods was fucking killer. It really was. I'm going
to pat myself on the back for that one because I wasn't sure what the fuck was it was going to be.
And it ended up fucking working out just right. Yeah. Yeah. Great. You know, my buddy from
mode is it fucking happy? Oh shit, happy, happy design, happy. Fuck. Scott Holt house. Anyways,
he's like a lighting designer, you know, works for the giant acts like chili peppers or fucking
his favorite machine gun Kelly. Anyways, he hooked me up with some lights and I and do
these lights for like state of the art, dude. I mean, I drove to fucking Nashville picked him up
and I could have done anything. I'm fucking playing with like, you know, you connect him
all together. It's all running off my phone. There's all these different colors and he was
I got him on the phone. He was like, okay, first off, don't use any colors. Do not fucking none
of that shit you need all you wanted. You want it to look like an old shitty Chevrolet pickup
truck headlight. Just a fucking light amber glow. The whole light it all up like that and he was
right if I can worked out great art in the trees those big prints from Bobby just like
above everybody's heads had the fucking gosh, the trippers guy from fucking Oregon with the
badass fucking claymation. Yeah, I heard about it. I read a blog on Harley's deal about that.
Really? Yeah, because they were talking about it on that. And then Sean had the glow in the
dark paint, Mike Vandergriff with a bunch of, you know, all the photos this year were from,
you know, Texas people, which I kind of shied away from doing in the past or just,
you know, just tried to bring in shit that people from Texas hadn't seen. Yeah. This year,
I was like, fuck, I want people to see themselves in the tree, you know, that's cool. Yeah, these
two images behind you and me are the ones I brought to yours. Yeah. So I think it's cool, man,
like there's a any kind of wish you could have seen it, dude. Yeah, I'm bummed out because
like I said, I did go try to find it. Dude, Moose made this incredible fucking metal Harley sign.
When it showed up, I was just like, how the fuck are we going to get this in the trees? Dude,
it weighed like 1000 fucking pounds. You know, it's somehow like when we hooked it on the chains
and we were like letting it go down, I was like, if this isn't level, I don't know how
I'm going to change that, you know, like there's fucking links and way to shit time. We had a
tractor back there and it fell and it was like as level as I was ever going to need it to be,
you know, it was cool. Yeah. Yeah. What's your plan this year? Do you have things in the works or
do you? Oh yeah. Yo, yeah, things are definitely in the works. I got some killer artists. There's
going to be a lot of painting this year. I think I only have, I think I've only invited one photographer
so far. Eric Bach, I recently had him on the podcast. He just wrote his Pan America all the
way to the bottom of South America. Oh shit. And he's made three posts about the whole trip
in all of the photos are fucking incredible. Where's he, where's he putting the photos? Well,
he's going to save him. He's like wants to make a book or something. So he's like, yeah, I just
I'm not putting that shit out there on the internet. And I was like, well, sick,
you could bring it to the art show. So he's going to make some prints. I got some great painters
doing the CELO scramble again. And I saw that yeah, which is going to be so killer. So
all right, let me see if I can do this off memory. I got Nate Plum. I got Cody Dunn,
Long Brothers Choppers. I got Evolution Drew from he's in Chicago. Him and Bobby Goodtimes
are going to team up. I got Sweatshop Jeff and Brian Ham from what's Sweatshop doing these days?
They're not really making bags like they used to. Oh yeah, he does all sorts of shit, dude.
You see that calendar he just put out? Yeah, with all the fucking hookers on it. Dude,
so good. He's doing another one. He's going even more raunchier for next year. That one was a
little churched up for what he was after. But I'm just saying like back in the day, like you go to
stuff and you have like all these bag selections that was, you know, because I have one from 2016
that I've run, but like I kind of wanted to see about getting a new one. Yeah, he's got him.
I hadn't been on his website. He has like one on there in California. He had him at Born Free.
I just need to, I need to go see him in person. Dude, he's great. He's fucking great.
Did I name all, did I name six? Were you counting? No, I wasn't counting. Come on, Jamie, pull it
together. You got the dude from Moon Pig Shoppers, right? What's his name? Moon Pig. Yeah, Brian Ham.
So Nate, Cody, Drew. Oh, Ben Jeff, Sweatshop Jeff, Brian Ham, Moon Pig Shoppers. And fucking Brian
Ham was the one that kind of like set it to a new level. He hit me up. He's like, man, is it okay
if I ride my chopper from California? And I was like, yeah, but you're going to have to ride your
new chopper back home. He's like, yeah, exactly. And as soon as I told everybody that, everybody
jumped on board. So everybody's riding their chopper that they're building
to Born Free Texas for the Prince Paints and Still Art Show. They're going to roll dice
and go home with a new chopper. And Jay Ryan from Gusher Cycles out in Nashville,
he hooked me up with this fucking badass Springer. And as a way to like give the guy something,
I'm going to let everybody play a game of silo for this, for the Springer, you know,
20 bucks, you roll dice. And what I think I'll do, we came up with some ideas, but I think I came
up with the idea is you pay 20 bucks, you get three rolls, if you roll silo, four, five, six,
then you get to come back on Saturday night and play, you know, we'll do an official game
with whoever rolls silo the first two nights before those builders play their game.
Yeah. And they'll all roll dice and go home with a different bike. And I'm going to let the builders
this year pick their favorite bike and give all the cash that we raise from the Springer
to one of the builders to go home with. Oh, that's sick. And then I'll also let the crowd vote on
their favorite, you know, just the whole fucking party, dude, with some sick ass shit on the walls.
So we're moving our, you know, we've hosted the pre-party since the first one,
hosted here in Dallas at Strokers. But this year, we're moving the pre-party to Thursday night here
in. Yeah, so we're, we're hosting the pre-party at Born Free. We're going to do it at the bar.
At Yellow Rose Canyon. At Yellow Rose Canyon. But I'm probably going to do,
I'm, you know, because what we do is we usually get a lot of brands to donate stuff and we just,
the whole night you walk in, you get a ticket, we're giving away door prizes all night long.
Nice. But being that like, I'd like to find a way to kind of get some more stuff going on,
get more people involved and find a way to like maybe have, maybe have a photographer too in there
with something showing, you know, just for that night. And then, you know, probably get Bobby
to do his, you know, his photography, you know, step a photo booth, just make it more interactive
and get more people I know involved. That way it feels like it's all their pre-party shit.
Harley was backing it, but Harley's involvement in Born Free Texas this year,
I think is on the table. So we'll see what goes on there and them backing out. I don't even know
what that means, but, you know, it'd be sick to say the fast side pre-party, Born Free Texas,
presented by Harley Davidson. I mean, that's, that was the whole goal when we talked about it
last year, but we'll see what happens. But which is nice because I want to be at Born Free on,
on Wednesday, you know, cause every year doing the pre-party on Wednesday and then mad dashing
that next morning to try to get everything to Born Free on Thursday and set up. I'd rather
just get there set up Wednesday. So you could throw in the party on Wednesday night. No, Thursday
night at Born Free. Okay. So to me, it just kind of like gives something to do Thursday night,
cause Thursday night's pretty, it's usually a chill night, but for some of us, it's like the
night that we go the hardest cause we're so ready to be there, you know, and then we taper off the
the rest of the event. You know, this last year, we did a full, um, espresso martini and old fashion
bar. I heard, I heard everybody belly aching the next day about it. Oh, Jay's fed me so many
martinis and I was just, that's a funny thing to hear your friend say. It sounds like your own fault.
And we, and we had a, one of my hot homeboys do it shirtless. So they were getting it from a dude
the whole time. Think about it. That's gayer than I thought it was. That's how you get the girls
that's how you get the girls. See, that's how you get to work. Yeah, we had chicks all over the place
there. That's awesome. Like, yeah, I mean, the hot chick behind the bar, everybody's hitting on,
you know, like she's used to it, right? But the girls all come because the dudes in his
fucking like, you know, Chippendales outfit giving away martinis in a, in a old fashion.
I gotta tell you a funny story about that. So me and Brian, Brian Helm, we were like the last
men standing. Well, at least that we could find not in Ventura after Chopper Fest.
And we closed down whatever bar everybody was hanging out at. And we fucking, we're walking
back to our Airbnb. And we see like, come around this corner in this alleyway and see a long line
of people. And I turn back and I look at the fucking the door that they're waiting at. And
there's a fucking square sign that says gay bar. And I'm like, there's no way that that's really
gay bar that would just say gay bar. So we just bypassed the whole line and they just let us right
in. That should have been my first clue, you know, you know, like those fucking nice bars where
there's a big line of people and they let the hot chicks in. Well, they let me and Brian Helm in
right out of the game. Sure enough, there's two fucking dudes and Speedos and fucking suspenders
just serving bar. I was like, fuck, it is really a gay bar. And we hung out and we drank until that
place closed down as well. Good time. Last year was fucking hilarious though. And I didn't realize
that until like later on when I was telling the story, how they just let us in in front of the
whole line. Because it was a gay bar. They thought we were gay going in there to drink.
Fuck, that was funny, man. We had a lot of fun that night. That's crazy. I mean,
shit, it's a story to tell. Yeah, dude, it was fun. I think doing a party at Yellow Rose Canyon
is great. I mean, it's a great place to party in that bar. You know, every year it gets fucking
better. And there's opportunities. So like last year, the art show got kind of rained out in the
woods. I didn't want to set everything up for it to possibly get rained on because everything was
very exposed. I mean, we were in the fucking elements back there. And we took some of the
art and put it in that bar. You know, there's fucking, that's all the big there's tons of,
you know, I'm sure the space will get smaller and smaller as time goes on. But
you know, there's opportunity to fucking trick that place out and
you know, do whatever you want. I thought the rain this year made it such
like the storm was gnarly. But man, like that lightning show afterwards all fucking night
long. Yeah, I mean, because you know, we set up on the hill. So we got like a perfect view down
towards a wall of death and all that and just the lightning going on behind it. It was it was a
unique experience. You know what I'm saying? Beautiful. Yeah, it was so sick. And
I mean, it was, it was kind of hot this year, you know, and that rain cooled it off because it
was harder this year than I felt like it's been since they started it off. You know what I mean?
No, I think so. I wasn't paying attention. It was hot. Was it because I don't shower when I go
there and I had to shower this time. I can go three or four days without showering as long as I'm
sweating my ass off all night, you know, or during the day. And this this time it was pretty,
pretty gnarly. Dude, I fucking I got it made over there. I got that little cabin AC just
cranking ice fucking sickles just falling off of it, dude. My wife goes to bed early. She's
just waiting in there for me to come. I think this year, Friday night, I think we were the last
people awake on that entire campground. We started riding around looking for any anything going on
just to see what was happening and couldn't find anything. Those fucking espresso martinis got
you up, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah. We we came to party. So but I mean, like that, I don't know,
it's just like shit like that. I mean, I can't believe you didn't find the party in the woods,
dude. It was back there though. I don't think the lights were on because we didn't see it.
You know what I'm saying? So they might you might have showed up after we fucking shut her down.
And once we ran out of 805 and I brought like fucking, I don't know, like three or four jugs
of tequila and whisky and was just passing out shots. Yeah. It was cool. It was it was a good one.
Yeah, I set up the Christmas lights. There was two trails of Christmas lights going. Yeah.
Back there and dude, it took us two days. I mean, we hung them up right in the middle of the trail.
I think one of them was like 300 400 foot long all the way to like the bar area. And then there's
this trail through the trees when I open when I turned on the lights that night, dude, bikes were
coming down from every direction, people on foot. Dude, it was it was mayhem. Right. So
when you're doing the C Lo scrambled this year, are you going to do that in the woods again?
Are you going to go back out with the hallway? No, I got a whole nother trick up my sleeve.
Okay, cool. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I got some ideas and we'll see. We'll see. We're
really trying to we're really trying to build out that hill and make it like like I I I put my
homies up there that kind of like are with the program. I am where like your boot doesn't shut
down that you sell your shit during the day. And then at night, it turns into a party spot.
So if you're trying to come here and set up with us and then go to your cabin or something at nine
o'clock, you can't come set up here with us. You know what I mean? Cause we want the whole thing
to be live and jump in all night long. And it's on the hill. So you can see it from everywhere
that you can see across the property. So it's a good spot. Yeah, it's kind of uneven
some spots, but we make it work. You know what I'm saying? So whatever, just ask to the excitement.
Yeah, it does be on your game after those espresso. It was it was better the year before
whenever you had the art show right down there because it just had more in that vicinity. Oh,
dude, that fucking night we did the Celo scramble two years ago was fucking crazy. Yeah. It was
I remember calling Oliver Oliver. I need you to send somebody down here with some beer. He's like,
why don't you just come get it? And I was like, you'll see, you'll see, just come down here.
I can't get out of here right now. Dude, that was good. Yeah, we're going to do something like that.
Yeah, it's just going to be in a different spot. You'll be able to see it from where you're at.
Okay. Well, as you've said already, man, that that property just has endless opportunity.
At least now it does, you know, but what always did, I mean, that property hadn't gotten any bigger.
Well, I mean, like as people are starting to see, you know, how much, you know, at first,
the first year, a couple of years, everybody would just camp right as they got in there.
Yeah. And then they would start seeing how big the property is now the camping goes all the way
back to the, you know, that fucking giant filled in the back. Yeah. It's hard to even get a number
on how many people are there because everybody's so spread out the whole time. Yeah, I get a lot of
people that want to do born free, but they they want to come there and then they go get an Airbnb
somewhere. And I'm like, man, you're missing the point. Like, I feel like born free Texas has the
daytime opportunity to do stuff. And then the nighttime. So it's like the unique experience
of born free is that you don't have to leave the property. Yeah, but people need porcelain.
They really do, you know, like there's a, and I'm not disagreeing with you. Yeah. I'm just saying
that there's like, like in Tennessee, where I have like hit this apex of growth where,
you know, Buck was pointing out how if there was a hotel right down the road with a thousand rooms,
there'd be 2000 more people there. You know, just because of that, which I, you know,
it took me a while to wrap my head around because I never considered that. Yeah, people do need like
a, well, then it goes to the whole point of like, okay, well, obviously you want an event to grow.
And I think born free Texas, it, I think once it hits, maybe a, maybe two more thousand people,
it would be like the perfect, how many people you think were there last year? I think it was
between three and five, I think. So I think seven, because, you know, born free Cali's
20,000 people or some shit comes to that 30 or something. Yeah. It's like,
not that that, but it's so, it's so confined that I think that maybe they're born free Texas.
If you had 20,000 people parting, that would be insane.
That'd be like giddy up back in the day. Boy, I mean, that campground was just smaller,
so it felt like 20,000 people. But yeah, I feel like a few more would be like this perfect,
like Goldilocks zone of like the right amount of people to have the party never end or always feel
like it's got something going on versus, you know, then maybe if you get too many people,
then it loses that kind of like feeling that it had or whatever. You know what I'm saying?
Dude, I think you could have a shit ton of people there. I mean, that fucking rally to the crater
that they used to do. I mean, that place used to be filled up campers everywhere. Now it would
get pretty gnarly. Did you party at the pin Shawshank last year? Nope. So this will be your
first year to do it this time? Yeah. And they've got now camping down the street at this racetrack.
They're going to be doing races out there, chopper drags. That's cool. They're going to be doing
all sorts of shit. I think the one event that I really, really want to try to hit this year is
with the IO boys to do the hell on wheels. Oh yeah, that's the one I'm trying to go to.
Yeah, that's a good one. He's doing a kickstart competition for me this year. Yeah.
You're Nick's doing that one. Yeah. I think Nick was Nick's been doing that one for a couple years
now. So he's doing that one. Winter gets a knife. Winter gets tickets to Born Free Texas.
Come on down. Will be dope as if like the hell on wheels could roll into chopper fest, Kansas City.
Is it that close? Yeah, because I want to say the hell on wheels is like around. I think it's
right around the time that party at the pin is in June. No, the, uh, Idaho, Idaho. Yeah.
I don't have a calendar right there. There's so much shake going on all year long, dude.
I ain't mad at it. You know, I mean, I would be more stoked if they were,
if there wasn't as many as it would make people go to others.
True. They would travel out more. All the events would be bigger
if there wasn't as many options. Well, I mean, you could say that about party at the pin,
you know, having two events or Born Free having two events, you know, it's, it's kind of like,
it's kind of like giving like a little bit of structure to another part of the country that
doesn't maybe have an event that feels like that. But then again, to your point, like,
I think the point of Born Free, not many people are going to Born Free Texas and Born Free California.
Agree. And that's why I think that like why I'm such an advocate for it, because I feel like
it's the one event that feels different from each other that's, you know, you can go to one and
have a completely different experience at the other and be equally as fulfilled, if you will.
Yeah, depending on what your cup looks like. Exactly. But to your point, yes, I do agree.
There's so much going on. I mean, you know, nitty gritty the next week in this Fandango and then,
you know, the county seat kickback is, you know, a little bit of a gap between it. But now we have
that going on in Denton. There's, I mean, I get it. There's a, there's just opportunity and
people have ideas and they want to, you know, do it. So I'm not, I wouldn't hate on that aspect.
But yeah, it'd be so sick if people could all collaborate together, maybe an event that has
more riding aspect could maybe ride to a final destination of another event. Like what if,
I mean, there's some guys that did that for nitty gritty, dude. They fucking, they left nitty gritty,
did exactly what I did the other day, twisted sisters out to big band, then landed back at
the Fandango. I mean, that's the fucking move. It is. I mean, so that, that's why there could be
a benefit to these things if people planned a larger trip to hit both or whatever. You know, so
I would love to add an event in Texas down in the fucking, the Hill country or fucking
the twisted sisters. I mean, Fredericksburg so close, you know, but there's no good time of
year to do it, you know, and the time of year that you would do it is kind of like the hot
season for everything else going on. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, October in Texas is awesome. March,
April, good time in Texas to be out. You know what I mean? You have to do a more rain in this
month, but, you know, for the most part, it's good camping weather, you know, that's why like
nitty gritty being in March now is, is I'm a big fan of it because it's typically maybe a t-shirt
during the day, but sweatshirt hoodie at night, you know, good, good, you know, get you a fire going
shit like that, but whatever happened to your fucking camp out, you just quit doing that.
Yeah, I feel like it, uh, it ran its course like, um, in the early days of the performance
bagger and this whole performance community, it was, there wasn't really anything that was
kind of structured for that community. And our camp out was all about these bikes and
so many people from across the country would come and it created a lot of, a lot of things,
a lot of brands, a lot of businesses, a few marriages, a lot of things came from a lot of
good stuff, but it got to a point where things, now the whole industry was about performance
motorcycles now. So everybody was getting pulled in all these different directions and
you know, I just felt like, you know, it, it served its purpose. It got people together
when there was nothing else for them to get together on. And now that the industry is about
performance baggers and, you know, motorcycles, every, everywhere you can go, there's something
performance related. So, um, and it's a lot of work and there wasn't really, it wasn't structured to be
a profitable. Yeah. Um, yeah, you got to do that. If you're going to keep doing them, there's,
you got to be making some money. Yeah. I mean, the only way I made money was doing a,
was selling t-shirts like we would make a camp out shirt and then that would sell. But
you know, if the numbers would start going down because people would, you know, I'm going to do
Daytona instead or I'm going to go to the camp out that's around the corner instead. Well then
it's like, okay, well, how many t-shirts do I make? Do I make 3000? Do I make, or not 3000,
I'll make 200 shirts or 300 shirts or, so it just got to a point where I was like, man,
and then it's like every time I would talk about charging 10 or $20 to get in for the week, it's
like the internet would lose their mind. Like I'm, you know, if you, if you start out free. Yeah.
So it ran its course. I had a good time, but like I really wanted to, I mean, that area is
fucking great. It is. It's a beautiful area to ride. I mean, it would be nice if there was a little
bit more attractions to ride to other than just good roads. Like if you could do a good road
and then there's like this sick ass, you know, steakhouse on the other side of it, cool, but
they're, you know, the rural part of Oklahoma just doesn't have a whole lot of a whole lot of
that, but it does have good riding and good stories to be made. So it ran its course, man.
It really did. You know, how long has it been since you did that? We ended it, what, two years ago?
So 24 was the last year of it. And then this year, I think some of the dudes that go to bike
night are trying to, I guess, revive it or something like that. So they're doing a T bar
Tuesday thing, but I'm not associated with that at all. No, no more T bars for you. No, I mean,
I was T bars on my choppers baby. So T bar the world, but it, I think that like, I like the
idea of a run. I think the run feels good. I love that idea. So the same way you're talking about
doing big Ben, like I always thought it'd be sick to find like, whether it's through Colorado or
through like a Maggie Valley, like find a couple of those motels where you can sit in your bike out
in front of the hotel, you know, and just ban, like do a couple of spots, runs to different ones.
Well, and I love the idea like to fucking the paradise roadshow. Just the idea of like finding
a fucking cool hotel. You know, those shows are in cities, but like finding one in, you know,
broken bone, just like fucking renting out all the rooms, you know, we don't need any more people
than what whoever shows up at the motel, dude, whether you got a room or not, you know,
same right there. That's kind of a, that was kind of like one of the things on my mind that I
really wanted to do. Cause the original, um, FXR jam, the East coast jam was in Maggie Valley and
it was at like one of those like motels. And the same way that I would sit at a campground
by a fire and talk till four in the morning, we did that in the parking lot. And it felt just as
special, if you will. So I liked the idea, but you know, when the paradise roadshow started
kicking off, it's like, fuck, that's a really good idea. Or what was it? Uh, cheap thrills had the
same vibe that event that was going up in Northeast, I believe. So it's like, it's there, but like,
if I felt like if I did that now, I'd just be copying that. So I'd rather just support those.
It was just so same, you know, we did the motorcycle trans am right in the 1921 from coast
to coast, different motel in a cool spot. Every single fucking night, all the way across the
country was fucking killer. Every night working on bikes in the parking lot, looking for welders,
finding welders, looking for part finding, I mean, whatever, it was fucking awesome.
You know, the speaking of that, the one disappointment that I have
and about like the chopper thing is not a lot of people ride choppers.
So it's like, I have this bike that I fucking cannot, I can't keep myself off of it. And all I
want to do is ride next to another one. Really? Yeah. And I, you know, there's some chopper dudes
in Dallas, you know, you got Stefano and, and Elliot and some of those guys, but I've ridden
with them once, but it's kind of like, I can't, I want to find someone that wants to go ride with
me to Big Bend or ride me down to Galveston and let's stop in Houston and go see Daryl. And
like, I want to ride this fucker, but I want to ride it with some other dudes and choppers.
And I feel like everybody wants to do it. But like Haney, Haney wants to do it. We talked about
all the time, but Haney's like pulled in a million directions. Like he's at party at the Penn East,
West, you know, this that like he's got all these events. So his vacation, his time off is,
you know, kind of subjugated to those things instead of like, Hey, let's take two weeks off
and go ride to Colorado. This, this, this and this. So you ride, but you're never home.
Because I ride. So like even now, you know, it's because I don't sit around and wait on people
to go ride with, and it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, you're not going to find those people
overnight. You're not going to find those people bitching about it in your shop. You will find those
people. If you get out and start riding to those places, because there are people out there doing
it. They're less worried about connecting with other people, even though they'd love to. Yeah.
But the first priority is riding and going out there because there's a lot of other people doing
it, but you ain't going to find them because they're not watching podcasts. They're fucking working
on their bike, getting ready to go ride it. You know, probably listen to the podcast,
maybe a little danger, Dan, maybe bringing back the road shows. Dude, now you just know.
Come on. We go bring those back. Dude. Those are some good times. Yeah. They were great time
listening on you going to boogie or was it a, you know, fuck, I got BNB racing building my
motors now, dude. There's a lot less fucking problems I run into when I take off on a trip.
Now, the last trip, you know, I fucking, you know, shit does break. It happens. You get flats.
You ride with other people. There's definitely going to be shit that happens. Yeah.
But yeah, you'll find those people if you just get out and start doing it. Yeah. Just ride to
the event. You know, like that's one of the cooler things about riding to the big events like Born
Free, Sturges, Daytona, because guess what? There's other people riding out there to those events
and you see them on the road. Yeah. So, you know, the didn't, the didn't guys, Sebastian,
you know, the B team do what? Nothing. The B team is there. They do stuff, but like they've invited
me to a couple of things that just didn't line up with stuff. But like, I guess I'm looking at
the culture the same way I looked at the culture that I've been a part of. And I'm like, well,
you would think there's, I don't know. I guess sometimes when you're on the internet, you feel
like things are bigger than they are. You know what I'm saying? Like the scene, the FXRs are
everywhere. And then you go ride places. You're like, you don't really see them that much. Same
thing with choppers, even, even more so, right? I don't mean to say that. Like I'm just sitting on
the internet, like he would go right sounds like you're fucking putting words on like I haven't
been riding this fucker all over the state of Texas. Well, you just get her dialed in,
but literally just, just doing it. Like, and also nobody wants to invite somebody who just put
their chopper together to go on a chopper ride, you know, when they've had their shit dialed
and they're trying to go places, you know, like, you know, but if you're out there doing it,
that's another thing, you know, but like, like one rule I came up with a long time ago, like when
we leave on a ride from house, you don't get the trailer to my house. You don't get to start the
ride at my house from your trailer. If you can't ride to my place or ride to whatever the starting
destination is, yeah, you know, I'm going to be a lot less likely to make this trip conducive to
making sure you can be on it. You know, like if you can't get here on your own without trailering,
you know, so see, everybody's putting words in my mouth. No, I'm just saying like,
you just got to start off by riding, you know, like if you lean on that crutch of, I mean,
I never would have been doing any of this if I would have been waiting on somebody that knew
how to fucking fix my motorcycle to go with me or in the day because I didn't, I didn't know how to
do it. And fuck, I didn't know anybody else that had time to go do what I was going to do. And if
I would have let that stop me from just going, you know, then we wouldn't be sitting here probably.
Yeah. I mean, to that point, like I said, I've just wanted to get out,
I want to find some people that are wanting to do the same type of shit. You know what I'm saying?
Okay, it's tough. It is very tough to like, you know, I had this conversation with Nick the other
day of like, how lucky we are to have gone on some of the trips that we've done where we've had
five or six grown men that have worked their lives to a point where they had the money,
they had the means and they had the time to all go together and ride to a place. Like that's
special. Like that is not something I take for granted, you know, and I've been able to do it
a lot. So it seems like it's more feasible, but it's not for everybody, you know, like that is tough.
Like even if you're riding motorcycles that fucking work and you press the button every
time and they just go, you know, like it took you a while to get that way when you're riding
your bag around to find other people that would ride your bagger, but going places and doing those
things, you know, also help show people that you can do it and they want to be a part of that.
And there's going to be people looking for people like you that are doing it that want to go, I
want to go with you. And you're like, well, fuck, does your motorcycle even work? What kind of gearing
are you running? You know, like, are you going to be able to run the same speeds as me? Are you
going to be working your machine overboard? And we fuck your shit up. Like you just start, you know,
I get it. I mean, fortunately, like you met, you've met Kyle, right? Jive ass honky. Yes. So he
just got his Evo chop. And so, you know, I was putting together a super e-car for him downstairs
and like, he's down. I mean, he, he go, he's done all the big trips with me. So he's wanting to do
some shit. So I'm excited to have him on board because he's, you know, I let him ride my gold
chopper to that, that Texas stampede last, last fall. And he's like, dude, I want something like
this. Texas stampede. What's that? That's what they did in the stockyards last year. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Yeah. It was cool. It had a good vibe. I don't, I don't, I haven't heard anything about it this
year. I don't know what's going to happen with that. But you know, but yeah, so Kyle rode that
and now he's like down. And I think he's a, we, me, him and our other buddy, Jaden, we do these
podcasts called quaint zone, which is our Wi-Fi password here. Just some random word. So we've
been doing those for a couple of years now and they're supposed to come on like next week. We're
probably going to talk about his whole chopper horniness that he has right now. What did he get?
Just a, it looks like it was a hard-tailed 99 soft-tail frame. So it's still EVO or not 99 or
I don't know what you're, it's an EVO soft-tail shot, you know, hard-tailed. It still has
some of the things like a clutch and stuff, an open belt, kicker only, but it's like, it's not
like a four speed kicker. It's, it's got like a different top on it. So, and it's not a cow pie
either. So, I don't know. It's a five speed. I guess it is a five speed, but it's weird. I haven't
seen that transmission before. I'm new to that world. You know, most of the older bikes I fucked
with their FXRs, rubber mounted base stuff. So, you know, but yeah, he's, he's got it. He's ready
to kind of make it his and I'm not going to have a riding buddy and he lives fucking 30 or 40 miles
west or east of Dallas. So we'll both have to put in a little bit of work just to go have a beer
together. You know what I mean? But I'm, I'm just hungry. For lack of a better term, I'm very horny
right now for chopper shit. So, you know what I mean?
Oh, well, you know, like, my wife was trying to explain this to me yesterday, one of our,
we were at a wedding this weekend, wedding party. And, you know, like kids run from that shit,
you know, like somebody who's excited and anxious and wants to like love on this kid,
the kids like fucking just runs away from it, you know, like, oh, it sounds like girls, you know,
like, you want to attract girls, you know, you should ignore them a little bit.
Yeah, go do your own thing. Sounds like that's what you're doing. That's what you're going through
right now. You're so anxious and excited, trying to grab a hold of something. It was like, whoa,
you know, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I'm gonna do. I mean, I was planning on doing the,
and that's the thing is that most of the things I am doing is kind of alone because,
you know, all my other friends right now are riding modern bikes. So like them being limited
to 70 miles an hour to stay up with me on the road or, you know, hinder themselves while we're
riding places that seems miserable. Dude, I had no problem rolling with those shovel heads down
the PCH on a brand new bagger. I feel like it's on a, those guys must not have their stereos plugged
in. Yeah. Well, the, the bagger, I feel like it, you can only go 70 miles an hour on your bike.
Comfortably. I mean, it'll do 80, but like you feel it more. So I don't, I don't know what it's
supposed to feel like or not feel like because it's new to me, right? So when I do, I mean,
there's times when I'll ride it to bike night and I'm doing like 70 and I just have like my
Google maps up so I can see how fast I'm going. And I'm like, this feels pretty good. Like the,
like everything feels smooth on it. Yeah. But then there's times when like I'll,
on the way home from biting, I don't know if it's a cooler air or whatever it is.
I'll be cruising like 85 and it feels just as smooth after bike night.
Yeah. They run better after a few drinks, dude. It's cooler out. Blood's a little thinner. You
can ignore a few more vibrations. It just feels better, dude. So yeah, it probably
would run that fast all the time. It probably will. Like I said, I'm just not used to it.
So like if you were to ride it and you were to push it up there and say, yeah, this feels about
normal, like I said, I have nothing to compare it to. So same thing when I had the breakdown,
like when you rode to Fredericksburg, were you by yourself? I rode with Kyle. He was riding his,
his, um, low rider and then our other buddy, uh, Connor was on his low rider ST and they were
chilling. They were cruising with me. They knew that they knew I couldn't go that fast. So, um,
I bet it'll go way faster. Probably will. But like I said, I'm just learning it. And also,
I don't want to fuck it up for I, you know, that's part of it. It is. But I don't, you got to find
out. You got to find out. Yeah. That's what I did. I found out. Well, that's just part of it.
Then she's better to just get used to that shit. You know, like, yeah, so far that's, that's really,
that's the only breakdown I've had. I mean, I've had a few bolts coming loose. I've had to keep an
eye on and retort down the proper way. And like I was getting my sprocket bolts will come out
and I caught it once. And then I've now got PTSD from it because I've had that happen on
other bikes, but then I took the rear wheel off, like really busted ass to make sure the alignment
was perfect in the rear, torqued all those right. And I haven't, how did you do that
with micrometer or a dial indicator, basically just getting in there really tight to make sure
everything was in the right spot because you measure off of what was the, I measured everything.
I measured the bolt coming, the bolt, uh, the adjuster. Yeah. The adjuster I meant measure between
the holes. Um, I think the first time when I put it together, it was just slightly off a little bit
and it was causing like that as, you know, when your wheels slightly cocked in any direction,
it'll, it'll work those prime or the sprocket bolts out over time. So, um, that's dialed.
I need to, I need, you had mentioned something about the battery earlier. I really need to try to,
I have a secure little thing. It's from a, like junior's handmade. It's a really clean piece
that goes in there that holds the battery, but it doesn't really have a back hold like,
so it kind of just bounces. It's kind of, if you think about it, it's bouncing,
but it's kind of like acting like a rubber mounted. Is it? I think so. It's not bouncing.
I don't know. Like that? Not so much. Not that. It's just kind of wiggling. It's wiggling. Yeah.
Like if it, it just moves, but it's not, it can't, it can't slap anything.
You know, like it can move in something, but it's not that, that, that like that.
Not banging. Not banging on anything. Should be fine. Yeah. Should be fine.
I mean batteries though, they will fucking, they just quit working dude. And someone,
David Brown mentioned these, those bad, these small batteries aren't really made to go for a
long time. You know, like just little shitty with the fucking blades on them. Yeah. Yeah,
but it all depends on how they're used, the load that they take and everything, the heat cycles
with everything on there. Yeah, but I needed the breakdown because like I said, I've never,
I've never had that experience. And now that I kind of know what that feels like,
I know what to check on. Dude, I remember I fucking busted the battery in the middle of
West Texas. Dude, I call it bacon. I'm like, bacon, what the fuck dude? I can't afford a
fucking tow truck. I'm gonna, should I just push the bike and walk? I ended up using like
a water bottle and busting off the top of the battery and filling it back up with water
and fucking got down the road just like that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
And then bought a battery someplace. Yeah, like I said, I remember listening to the road shows
that you used to do and you would talk about, I mean, you had like headlight issues and, and then
heard battery more wiring and fucking points, everything, dude. And then I wouldn't know what
the fuck it was. The troubleshooting was, you know, that's what made those shows fun is because I
didn't know what the fuck I was doing. And I would just talk about it. I would think it was one thing
and then I'd find out it was something else. Yeah. You know, or I'd run out of gas a lot.
Fuck dude, I ran out of gas so many times. Yeah. Well, fortunately, I've, I've, I've learned from
your road shows. So a lot of the things I did on this bike was more to mitigate the possibilities
of certain things. But you got mag wheels. Yeah. So you got no tubes, no tubes. Nice.
Riding with him is why I never want to ride with a, I never want spoke wheels because
just spokes. There's so many, there's, there's however many spokes possibilities of
something getting loose, getting off, you know, poking tires, you know, having to have a tube.
You know, there's times where we rode to Cali together. If he would have had mags that
his front tire popping would have been an easy plug and we're back on the road for a while.
Well, it wasn't even the tire. It was the tube itself. Yeah. Brand new one too. And it just popped
like four days in. Yeah. On Father's Day on a Sunday in the middle of Nevada.
Yeah. People want to help then. Yeah. So I mean, to me, don't get me wrong, like I love the way
a traditional like spoke wheel looks on like an old chopper. It's, it's classic and trying true,
but like every bike that I personally have, I want the ability to travel comfortably on it.
And that's kind of why I've always liked the mags going the max direction, but
in beta wheels, sick. You know what I mean? I love those too. So yeah, I've had pretty good
luck with my spoke wheels on my chopper. Yeah. I had one and I only have one incident I could think
of where like a flat was very difficult to deal with. But I think I just ended up with some fix
a flat. Yeah. Filled that whole thing up. Yeah. And it got me down the road.
Yeah. I've been pretty fortunate. You know, you got to ride within the same tire tracks
the rest of the fucking world is using, you know, like people find themselves on a motorcycle,
well, you can ride anywhere in those fucking lanes. I like to go where somebody else has been before,
you know, you ride just even just on the line or just to the center of the lane. Yeah,
you're more likely to pick something up because you're less likely that some other car has been
through there and picked up whatever may be on the road. Yeah. For sure. You, uh, you ridden
your bike to like New York City yet? Yeah. Yeah. The chop? Yeah. What was that like? It was fucking
so sick, dude. All right. It was so fucking sick. No rules just riding wherever, however,
all concrete is available to be traveled on. Dude, we fucking parked it right on time square
to fucking hot dog stand. Dude, just fucking blown away. How many fucking people were there?
That's probably my, I always tell people New York is one of the funnest places I've
ever been on a motorcycle. You know what I mean? It's a fun spot. It is. People would 100% not
associate that with good, good writing, you know, by, oh, it's fun. Right. It's fun writing. That's
crazy is getting the opportunity to work with Harley and have the new bike. It's like, it's a
blessing 100%. Like it's so like awesome to be able to do this with them, but I always say it
couldn't have come at such a, maybe not the word wrong time, but a time when my mind is really on
something else right now. You know, it, I don't want to say inconvenient because it is inconvenient
because I wanted to ride desires. Yeah. I wanted to ride the chopper to born free.
I wanted to ride the chopper to Sturgis, but now there's obligations with the road glide and
brands and Harley and which I even feel like a dumb ass for even saying it because it's,
it feels like such a complaint on such an amazing opportunity. You know what I'm saying?
But I'm just being honest, fucking, you know,
here's what it is. Yeah. Well, you know, you're just going to have to ignore some things. You
know, one thing about having a chopper, dude, you can just be a degenerate, you know,
fuck this guy's motorcycle, dude. I mean, he doesn't really need it that bad. Yeah. You
should probably ride to Mexico. You know, I want to. I mean, I feel like this guy can wait.
No, that I mean, I really do. You know, you got a chopper. The problem is that, uh, no, I can't do
that. It's a little different when he's paying for it. Yeah, I need his money to go to Mexico.
All right. Now we get down to the bottom of it. Okay. That makes I am a degenerate. I have no
savings. I just have skills and these skills give me the ability to make it through the day.
You gotta finish his bike. So you got money to go to Mexico is not that expensive. Yeah.
Yeah. But getting there, you know, really, you should just fucking leave here, go straight
through mainland, just fucking gas isn't any cheaper there, but everything else is
okay. Just fucking ride straight to Mazatlan, take that ferry across,
ride the Baja all the fucking foods. Incredible, dude. The people are incredible. Yeah. Everyone's
while you get to see like a bus on fire or some shit. Maybe there's a roadblock because the
farmers are fucking pissed off and they're stopping traffic. Oh, shit. So good. I'll go down there
with you. Let me do that. Well, you gotta get on there on your own first. I only need you after
that. I already know how to do it. I mean, you know, I'm not saying it's out of the question, but
when you do your your chopper tours, I'll do I'll do that with you chopper tours. Yeah.
You know, let's see the chopper tours. It'd be just like everything else. Like you got to do two
weekends with me. I got to make sure that I can even I don't even know that you and I have ever
ridden together. Roughly 10 years knowing each other for the most part. I mean, I've heard stories
that you're a horrible person to ride with because you'll just leave. Is that how you are with your
tour? You're like, you just dip off on them and be like, sorry. No, not at all. No, I mean, I do
leave. But those people that say I'm leaving them, I never said they were, you know, you're never
riding with them. I never like said, Hey, let's go for a reason. So it's not like I left them.
They just like weren't very good at following or they, you know, they thought one thing.
Found out something else. But I, you know, I am that way too. Like I
know on the tours, it's totally fucking different. You know, I mean, I the main goal with those
tours is to get everybody out and get everybody back in, you know, like hopefully alive, you know,
were you inspired by like doing stuff with Bear and everything on those? Oh, a hundred percent.
Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, what I learned with Bear.
Yeah, definitely inspired what I'm doing now, you know, and inspired me to do it a way that
I think is more conducive to my lifestyle and the people that I work with and, you know,
everything else I got going on, you know, it's not going to be like a full time endeavor.
But yeah, I definitely learned some stuff working with Bear.
How is the, how has the t-shirt game been going? I mean,
you've been pushing that pretty, pretty good for a long time.
Yeah, I mean, it's fucking, you know, selling t-shirts. I'm not even selling t-shirts. I'm
selling subscriptions. Yeah. It's good. You know, it's probably not as good as
what most people may think. And it's definitely not as good as I would have thought
when I first started. But I think it has a lot to do with, you know,
probably me and the way I run the company, you know, I do a lot of firing, you know,
and I don't have any employees. Yeah. But I fucking fire customers or somebody complains
about a color or design or a shop. I just fucking send them their money back. Yeah.
And say thank you, but that's not what this is about. This is about, you know,
spreading the word about all the small shops around the country that help
keep people like us on the road, you know? I mean, that kind of brings up another question. Like how,
how, how do you currently, and how has it been for you to monetize your podcast over these past
10 years? Well, here's what I do. So like you're painting motorcycles and I'm like, not. I'm just
riding just like fucking this guy right here. I'd be like, dude, I got,
I prioritize me riding motorcycles over everything. So the, you know, I haven't done a great job
of monetizing the podcast because my first priority is, is just to fucking ride motorcycles,
you know, it really is. I mean, that is like, when I say you have a chopper now, you can be
degenerate. I mean, I say that because that's, you know, I use that as my excuse to like,
like I just got, I mean, I literally have a problem, you know, like it is not,
you know, it is not healthy the way I live, not for me, not for the people around me,
you know, definitely not for my family. But, you know, I love it and I'm going to let it kill me,
you know. Well, that's, uh, now everybody's like, see, that's CJ's. That's how you should
really do this podcast. Fuck making money. Like it ain't about money. It's about,
I don't have cameras. I mean, I probably should, but that's, uh, you know, you talk about
fucking sticking shoes in your saddleback, you know, I got to make room for my crocs and my
coffee maker, you know, well, the, um, you know, I remember you had said this to me that you, when
I first started and cause I mean, like when you first start this podcast, like even for myself,
like it wasn't like it made money, you know what I mean? It takes time and whatnot, but
I did have this connection to all these brands and stuff within this community because I've been
working in the motorcycle industry for so long versus, um, someone like you on the outside,
like you weren't from the motorcycle industry, right? So not at all at all. You know, I mean,
now I would say you are very much a part of the culture of motorcycling through and through,
right? Um, I think it's just a part of me. Fair, you know, um, but the, the same thing is like,
you know, for me to be able to live and whatnot, the painting motorcycles does facilitate the home
that I have and the bills that I have to pay. But like this podcast thing, I mean, it's been
up and down. There was a point in time where I thought I could do this for a living and then
they're coming at the shit. And you know, when you're the brands that you work with to help keep
this thing funded, when they, you know, you're the first thing to go before an employee goes,
if things aren't going well, you know what I'm saying? So it gets kind of complicated to keep
things going. The truth is like, if I had like a main gig that was paying the bills and then I,
I didn't rely on this, then I would be completely content with it, not making that much money,
if any at all. Yeah. And you may not do it as much either. Yeah. I won't feel obligated to,
but it's like when you, when you get like, I always said that when this thing did make some money,
like let's just say 23, it was, I was literally going to shut the shop down and just do a podcast.
And I was like, but I had spent two years like really not trusting the money that came from it,
right? Because I was like, I'm not used to making money that way. It's like some white
collar job shit, you know what I'm saying? So I was like, this is really strange that like
this, the YouTube, I mean, YouTube's never really sent me a lot of money, but you know,
YouTube's like, here's $400 this month. I'm like, sick, you know, pay the bill. But once it got to
the point where I started getting used to it, it's like, I, it's like, I got, okay, well, that's
now a source of my income. That's going to pay the shop rent and the, and the mortgage at the house,
blah, blah, blah. I just need to paint two bikes a month or two helmets a month. And then I can
continue to have this lifestyle and travel and whatnot. Well, when that shit started going
south, it's like, fuck, now I got to paint more. I was trying to quit painting. And then I'm like,
Hey guys, I was just kidding about not painting anymore. Bring me that shit because the podcast
went back down. You know what I mean? It's like, so it's, it's just a weird thing to kind of like
navigate how to, how to, yeah, I mean, and there's no like, fucking playbook to follow. Everybody's
trying to do it on their own. There's fucking tons of podcasts, those companies you talk about
that you're working with, you know, they're just starting their own podcasts, you know,
like, why fucking pay some, we've already got people on salary, we can convince them to do that on
the side. Yeah. Oh, you know, I make a bunch of sacrifices. And like I said, my so does my family
so that I can do this. And they don't go unnoticed. And, you know, it takes a fucking village. Yeah,
I mean, it really does. I got I got a support system, support team, a support, I forgot a family
that makes this possible. You know, am I treating them right? You know, just in the last year or
two, I've started to realize like, I've done a lot to make sure that I don't dislike riding
motorcycles or talking to people about motorcycles over the past, I guess, 10 years now, like that's
kind of been the main goal was to like, not let this take away what I love so much. But, you know,
what I love so much is really like, what is over there? What's on the other side of that hill?
You know, discover the fucking the curiosity is what drives me. But trying to figure out how
to balance that and do some things that are more proactive and diversifying what I've got going
on and working with other people and bringing them into the fold and taking on that responsibility
because I do have fucking two kids that just keep eating more and more, dude. Yeah, you know, my
fucking kids are getting big. My youngest kid fucking, dude, he fucking put me in a rear naked
chokehold. Fucking black. I pissed myself, dude, Christmas night last year, dude, my kid choked
me out so fucking hard. Yeah, I mean, they're getting big, you know, but I'm also like, you know,
throwing them to the wolves to some extent, you know, I have a pretty old school mentality on
raising kids. And, you know, that's at least an excuse I use like they're going to be fine
whether I'm here or not, they're going to fucking, you know, most people I like had a
fucked up childhood, you know, so I'm trying to fuck theirs up, you know, so that people like them
one day, you know, at least that's what I tell myself. It makes me feel okay about just leaving
those motherfuckers. Is it the right move? Fuck, I don't know, you know, is this sustainable? You
know, sometimes I think it's not. Sometimes I'm shocked that I've made it as, you know, as far
as I have doing what I'm doing the way I'm doing it. But I've also like kind of like let some things
go or not taking advantage of some opportunities because I'm like, dude, you know, if I say yes to
that, then I have to do this or that, you know, that complicates things. You want me to make a video,
you know, fuck. You know, try to not take myself as seriously as I once had, you know, while also
like trying to figure out new ways, you know, like I would love to go do that like that South
America trip, I would love to go do that in Africa, spend the next fucking eight months just like
finding out what's next. But I can't I can't do that and be okay with myself. Yeah. So figuring
out ways to take advantage of the places I know the people I know and the resources I have and
using them more efficiently so that I can spend as much time with my feral kids, you know, and my
wife, you know, and it's never seems to be enough because it's always like seems like it's more and
more, you know, it's not getting easier. Yeah, you know, what's that's what's crazy is like,
I've been doing this for 10 years and it's only gotten more difficult to keep doing. Yeah, somehow,
which is insane to say out loud. But that is the truth. It is absolutely the truth. You know,
even with, you know, the people around me, it's like,
fuck, I don't have like a community in my area that rides motorcycles, you know, when I come
home, I'm fucking with my family. All the guys I used to ride with the Water Street winos,
where our blood alcohol content was always higher than miles ridden. We don't even get
together and drink anymore or hang out and ride, you know, like, because when I'm on my bike,
I'm fucking gone, dude, you know, like, fuck, I know some really sick places to go.
And I'm being pulled in so many different directions. But you know, using the podcast,
the kickstart competition, the tour company, just the motorcycle, you know, the brands, Harley,
you know, the companies that I work with this, like, you know, their friends, they started out
as friendships and now we're figuring out how to scratch each other's back. And, you know, me,
come to a place where I can like comfortably ask for money and feel like it that they're,
it's worth it in return. Like I'm not like, you know, not asking for a handout. You know,
I'm just like, Hey, it is more difficult for me to do this now than it was two years ago.
Show me that you care about me being able to do this again next year. And those conversations
have been very well received. But it's also because I've, you know, I put in some work up to this
point, you know, yeah, I can definitely attest to the whole like it's gotten harder thing because
you know, when I started this on, on my end, like there wasn't that much expectations. And then
whenever we were like, you know, two years in, we're like, you know what, I want to build a
studio and I want to go video. It's like I pushed myself because I'm, I'm a constant like,
I don't know, I want to feel like there's another goal to chase within whatever I'm doing. And
the video was a goal. And then now the recent goal has been like more what I'm doing in the, in the
world of motorcycling that's changed kind of the conversations that come across the table. But
finding like I, for everybody out there and to just connect with you is like, I live very cheap
like my livelihood, like everything, like we, we live in a very cheap home, like we don't have
car payments. We, you know, we're not balling. We're none of that. It's just like, I want to
be able to travel more and do more of that. So I need to have as least amount of bills as possible
so that it can be possible to be on the road, you know, but that's why it's getting to a point
where it's like, man, I just kind of feel like I need to need a gig, you know, just to pay the
bills, do this on the side. I have a weekend off. I can go jump on a bike and not have a worry in
the world for two, three days, whatever the case may be. Well, people definitely underestimate
the, uh, you know, the pleasures of having a job you can clock out of. Yeah. 100%.
You know, it's, it's tough. And then you, not to say it's tougher than fucking a lot of jobs out
there. You know what I mean? But you, you mentioned it a while ago. It's like also staying in love
with all this stuff. It's, you can find yourself starting to hate motorcycles because a lot of
your stress comes from motorcycles in one form or another. You know, you know, I always just
let the curiosity, curiosity, you know, drive my actions. Like, you know, going from the chopper
to the Pan Am, you know, like that was, that was, I didn't do that because Harley needed somebody
to fucking showcase a motorcycle. No, I was already on that path, you know, and like, you know,
building an M8 chopper, you know, like just something new, you know, like just like what's
on the other side of that fucking mountain. I'm like, well, what can we do with this fucking bike?
You know, it's a, it's fun and intriguing. And I think like, you know, learning something new is
healthy, you know, like it's absolutely good to fucking puzzle your mind and try and work through
some problems. And that's the only reason I like riding off road so much. And like places I've never
been because you got to make like split second decisions, you know, where you could get fucking
hurt really bad if you don't make the right decision. I love that pressure. And so fucking good,
you know, we're good under pressure. That's kind of the only time I work is under pressure.
Yeah, same. No, that's a good point. I mean, finding the challenges in life is what keeps
you kind of like grant like a live feeling, you know what I mean? Yeah, just fucking
winning, dude, having small victories, and you can figure those out on your own. Like, you know,
small victories, fucking just keep you going, dude, being having something to get excited about,
having something to look forward to, you know, having something to achieve gives you like the
reason to go down the road, you know? Yeah, the destination can do it. The destination can be
a goal or a fuck, you know, whatever it may be. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I feel like the goals
that I set is what kind of keeps me motivated to go through things. And I think it's kind of like,
I used to associate to my, you know, my little brother, right? Yeah, this band, he or just him
in general, but he had a band that started getting kind of good, right? And all the time I felt like
he would like, you know, I'm done with this, I'm quitting and they would get a little bit of a
of a like an opportunity that kind of reignited ignited the passion or the or gave him a little
bit more fuel to keep going a little bit further. And I feel like that's what happens a lot in these
these kind of worlds where like, I'm at a point now where I'm like, you know what, I really want to
start, I want to move this into another direction, but then something will happen on this side.
That's not like changed my life thing, but gives me another jolt of like motivation to keep going.
Yeah, it's just a little breadcrumb. Exactly. And it does take you to a bed,
like I'm in a much better place than I've been before, but it's like, it never solves a problem.
It just kind of kind of more or less just
illuminates a new problem. You know what I'm saying? It's just a clue. Yeah, yeah.
Fucking gives you direction. Let the wind blow you around.
That's what you got to get out there on that chopper dude, just fucking point it west.
Don't set up no fucking podcast. Just take them as they come as the opportunities arise.
That's kind of what we do. A lot of times when I ride, I do get out, you know,
I'll reach out to bigger brands that I'm like wanting to do, but, you know, like,
you know, this past weekend, you know, I'd go into that, that hog rally. And then I met this
dude Peyton that's riding around that shovel head and chopped it up with him. He had just moved back
to Lafayette from San Francisco. So he was telling me what it was like
building his chopper and riding around. Like it, like that would have never happened the way it
happened and feel as organic and cool as it did. Had I been following this dude on Instagram for
months and then we linked up, there was no expectations. It was just like, where the fuck
happened happened, right? Yeah. And so I do a test of that that, you know, just getting out and being
open. You know, that was a big thing that like when I did my seven week trip on the gold chopper
downstairs, like I wanted to photograph the country and ride the country and spend an
exorbitant amount of time on the road. Very inspired by Todd Bloop ball in his book.
But I spent a year prepping for that trip and all I did was create expectations the entire time.
So the entire trip was a fucking mind fuck of like, I didn't get enough photos here. This
the last time I'm seeing the Pacific Ocean, did I get enough? Is it right? I didn't do enough
podcasts. Like it was just so much that I hinged to be gone for seven weeks that I felt like I owed
it to my life to have a lot to show for it. And it really, it didn't ruin the trip, but it really
exposed things about myself that I definitely have needed to work on and have worked. There you go.
There you go. Then the trip worked. It did work. And hindsight, it didn't work on the plans I set
though. Yeah. Well, fuck those plans. Yeah. But this is the way I am. I'm a planner, you know,
like I, you know, control freak for the most part. That's the way I am. Yeah. Well, you know,
that shovel head will teach you some more. Yeah. Just getting started, dude. Because it's that's
probably why it's so, so enticing, you know? Yeah, because you don't know it. The curiosity.
What's can it get me there? It will. It can. Yeah. You know, probably not going to get you the
way or the way you think it should or the way you want it to. You know, I've said this many times
with some of the most epic things that have happened to me in my life was from breaking down
someplace. You know, like that's South America trip, dude. I fucking dude, it was killer. It was
so fucking killer. I mean, the places I got to see the food I got to eat the roads I got to ride.
Yeah. But one of the most memorable things was when the thing finally fucking quit working and it,
you know, it wasn't even that it quit working. I tried to fix some shit that I should have ignored
and fucked it up completely to where it didn't work at all. Because I fucking broke some plastic
spring loaded bullshit. And I had to rely on the people around me, dude, I ended up having to
reach out to somebody and, you know, his brother showed up after driving 10 hours and picked me up
in a fucking Toyota Hilux and we stuck the bike that weighed as much as that truck in the back of
that thing and drove another 10 hours back where he came from. And I got to like immerse myself
with their family. I was stuck there with no ride, dude. We were fucking cooking food every night,
drinking wine and eating beer and meeting his family and him having people. It was incredible.
You know, like I really got to not just see the culture from through a window, you know,
I had to go inside. It took my motorcycle breaking down to have that happen.
And I wouldn't give that back for the world. I almost wish it would have broke down more,
you know, in some other places for real. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I know that. I know that feeling of like
when you know someone in town or like you go sleep on someone's couch, you get way more,
I feel like you get a better experience than if you just grab a hotel, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, you immerse yourself in it. Yeah. And then, you know, that's something I like,
I try to do that a lot for people that come through here. Like I'll put them up or take
them out, whatever the case may be. But some of my closest friends now are people that like, you
know, I might have knew them online, but I was like, Hey, man, I'm coming through and still
podcast and like, why? Well, I get your hotel room. Like, man, I can sleep on the couch or
fucking in the garage. I don't care. They're like, fuck, we don't want you sleeping on our couch,
dude. Yeah. And I'm like, come on, man, let me sleep on the couch. I always say the shop. I'm
like, do you got a cot? Dude, just put me in your shop, dude. Yeah. I don't want to sleep in your
kid's bed, you know, just put me in your shop. I'll just sleep on your floor of your shop. Yeah.
One time I showed up to a shop, dude, and I swear the fucking whole floor was me and kickstart
Mike. The whole floor is covered in like hydraulic fluid and fucking metal shavings. Like
Mike was like, dude, I've worked my whole life so that I can buy motels. That's what we're doing
right now. We're going to get a fucking motel. I was like, okay, all right, not all shops are
created equal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in that case, I understand. But you know, to the point of like
what you were saying and what I'm trying to just cosign on, it's like finding a way to like get
involved with the people around there. It's like the difference between being a tourist. What I'm
saying is you just got to take off on that shovel head. Oh, wait on nobody. Just fucking go.
You know, maybe even like get rid of your cell phone, pull out a fucking paper map, dude. Well,
I don't, I don't care. I don't put my phone on the, on the bars or any of that stuff. I usually put
it in my backpack behind me. Really? Yeah. I'm pretty good. I know where you're going, dude. I'm
good with maps. Like I kind of map. Do you look at it ahead of time? I'll just study it and be like,
okay, and, you know, the next gas station is going to be whatever on mile markers or, I mean,
when you go west, it's not like you have a lot of turns, you know what I mean? Like
going east, I'd probably have to have, I'd like to find somebody to talk to that knows a lot about
how the roads are laid out and how they number them in the consistencies involved from, you know,
and I've talked to people that know like state roads, you know, different states have different
procedures when they build roads and like, you know, how they, you know, down to how they mark
the turns, you know, like what the radius is, how fast you can go around them or when the warning
signs show up when it's 45 mile an hour speed limit or 65 or 75, you got to slow down to 45.
You know, just little things I pay attention to are consistent in some places and some places
they're just fucking, they're just not done very well at all. There's a road in Mexico that I always
talk about. It's outside of Orizaba and it's the old main road to get out of Orizaba to go to Oaxaca
and it's so fucking killer, dude, but they will never make another road like that. Like
engineers are just way better at making roads. I mean, this road's got like off camber turns,
decreasing, increasing, I mean, it's just fucked up in the, in the pavement's great because trucks
can't even drive down it. Like that's how fucked up the road is, but it's, you know, the pavement's
great, but the road is just fucking wild, you know, and there's no fucking signs. It's so killer,
but you know, no place is making roads like that anymore because they have like engineers that decide
just like when you build a house, like you got to build it to these specs. Well, the states each
have their own, you know, specs of how they build the state roads down to counties. And then there's
like the national road system that fucking, you know, the interstates. It'd be cool to talk to
somebody that knows that shit really well because that shit fascinates me looking at numbers all the
time, going East and you know, just like, you know, the odd numbers are going North and South,
even numbers are going East and West. There's other things like that that I'm not aware of
that I haven't picked up. I'm not super versing it, but like what fascinates me is like as you look at
East Coast versus going West, the placement of towns like on the East Coast, I think it's like
five miles on center in a lot of areas because that was like the time it took to walk to market.
Really? You know, versus here were 30 miles on center, just about all the major towns on like
Texas and a lot of the Midwest. I mean, the central part of the country is all like 30 mile
sports spreads on stuff. But out East is crazy. Like you look at it, it's all five miles apart,
just about every little, you know, town or whatever until you get, you know, like a place
like Philadelphia will grow up into one huge place. But like the old fucking like the back
country, if you will, because everybody was like walking to shit back then, you know, early parts.
Now here was trains and then obviously whatnot. But I think the way the town like the railroad
built the towns going West, right? So that dictated a lot of the spread of the towns,
which then dictated a lot of the routes that people would go to those towns. So like when you
get your 287s, that's kind of like, you know, well, that's until you get to the Rockies though.
And then it all changes because the natives and the people like the commandees in the middle.
Yeah. And all that affects all that. That shit's interesting to me. Yeah. I mean, the mountains
definitely changed a lot of that terrain too, because now you kind of go back to more of a,
I guess you would say a primitive, you know, maybe more of a like necessity based town stuff where
this place is tucked in the right spot for resources. Yeah, because there's a river crossing
coming up and a lot of people stopped here to wait till the river was good to cross. Yeah. Or
till the mountain was clear to go over. Dude, and all those tracks were also fucking, you know,
traveled by natives and wild animals ahead of time. That shit fascinates the fuck out of me.
Like West Texas, there's a guy named, Oh, what's his name been been something dude,
he was a highwayman for like 50 years, but he's written a lot about West Texas. Yeah,
the Big Bend area and how all those roads and trails were traversed years ago by the trade
from the Candle area that they were smuggling in from Mexico. And just the way to get it,
there's three ways to get into Big Bend. There's the persimmons gap,
fucking and then two others, you know, the route you come in from Alpine and then Presidio.
And then there's another, there's a couple other ones, but those are like harder to do,
you know, and they're all based on like, well, if you're going on a
course, you can get there this way. If you've got a wagon, you got to go this other way because
the wagon will make it. And then if you're an outlaw, you skirt all of those places and you
have your, they have their own route that's a little bit more technical that is less traveled
or they won't run into as many people. Yeah. And then the rows are built off of all that,
you know, and now the fucking concrete slowly taking in like a cancer and just fucking covering
our entire country. We can go ride more places.
You're right. I'm not a dirt guy. So you just, you know, but I get what you're saying,
a hundred percent, you know, well, you know, when I, when I read that whole fucking empire,
the summer moon book, it completely changed my, uh, my, um, joy of riding through these parts
of the country that I think most people, your appreciation. Yeah, it changed the ground that
you can cover, you know, like reading about all the stuff, all the, you know, the, the,
the people that settled in West Texas and Kansas and all that. Like I swear to God,
like after I finished reading that book, it was right before Sturgis like 2020, 2021,
22, something like that. And I rode all through, like instead of going 35 north or going away to
Colorado, I went to the Panhandle of Texas and went up north through that. And I'm like,
it was just dope seeing these towns that I, that I've read about. And then it's like, it just,
like I said, again, it changed my connection to it. I wasn't looking at these sleepy ass towns or
this flat road as like, oh, this is boring. I was like, no, this is interesting. Like
some shit happened here a long time ago. Fucking all over the country. What blew my mind is how
well that book put in perspective, how the commences were able to cover such a vast planes
and being able to give directions. You know, cause like when you're in the mountains in the
Appalachia, if you say, you know, follow the sun that way until you see a fucking cliff. Well,
if you fucking, if you're one hill over, you may miss that cliff. But when you're on the planes,
you can say, you know, follow the sun until you see this fucking structure that they can draw on
the dirt, which is some weird looking peak. And then fucking, you know, head towards the north star,
you could give directions and get people to cover a vast amount of land, a shit ton of miles
in the planes, more so than you could in the mountains anywhere else. So they were able to
like control a giant area that was tough to live in because they could point out the water sources
and they knew where those things were, where if you didn't know about that shit, you know, that was
the edge of the frontier, you know, where it turns to planes, like people just fucking quit going,
not only because there wasn't resources, but because the commandes were fucking killing them.
You're like, get the fuck out of here, dude. Empire of the Sun Room was a great book.
Yeah, I think that old Taylor Sheridan was like, I think I read something about they were trying
to make a movie about it. You know what I mean? Which I think it'd be dope. I mean, that's just
super interesting to me. Like I said, it really changed my perspective on a lot of it. You know,
yeah, to do a justice, though, it'd be fucking rated X rated X. Dude, for real. I mean, yeah,
I mean, what they fucking went through, you know, what's crazy is like, you know, it talks about
Cynthia Parker, like not wanting to go back to the fucking Eastern way of life after living with
the Comanches. She's just like, no, I think these guys got it going on. I know they make me work.
All the men are just out there fucking killing shit and smoking their pipe,
watching the ladies prepare all the leather and the food and build the fucking TPs and move the
TPs and yeah, it's fucking savages, dude. Yeah, I think she got buried like East Texas somewhere.
I forget where it's like, uh, like somewhere like that we we passed like on 30, I think,
going up to like Texarkana and shit like that. But you know, I rode the I rode my bike down.
Actually, when I went to go, I drove through it. I went when I did a podcast with Daryl
Borba a couple of years ago, I wanted to drive through Fort Parker and all that stuff to check
out that stuff. It's dope, man. Like I love all that shit. And then going down south, you get to
where all the Germans and how they put them, they let all these immigrants have this to kind of be
a buffer between the Indians and the white man, I guess you'd say. And it's just, it's fascinating
shit to me, you know, and there's, I mean, you've, I think, uh, like you just being kind of immersed
more into like, you know, hanging out with Evo and them out there in Terra Lingua, like you just
get these stories and it's kind of, you're just talking about with, uh, you know, being able to
go get taken in by this family in, you know, South America to get your bike work done. Like
you're in Terra Lingua area and you're with Evo and the other people from there and just the
stories and the history. That place has got some wild fucking stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody
was pointing out this fucking, this whole airport that, you know, they used to, I mean, they used
to smuggle a bunch of shit in and they still probably fucking do, you know, people were up
all in up in arms about building a wall through there because it's a natural border.
Well, they've been smuggling shit over there for fucking years, you know, like a long time. I mean,
still every fucking day people cross that border illegally and go to work in Terra Lingua, you know,
every fucking day. Um, you know, not that I'm saying there should be a wall, but to act like
there's nothing, you know, that a wall wouldn't prevent some things is kind of fucking ignorant
as well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Wes was telling me that Carol Shelby and his fucking Racing Foundation
Built River Road. You know, I mean, that road is fucking epic. Yeah. You know, Carol Shelby's
history of just buying that ranch to begin with, to test race fucking vehicles out there in the
desert. And it's like, there's like no rules. He was the one that started the chili cookoff.
Somebody told him that he couldn't turn fucking chili making into a sport. And he was like,
we'll see about that. You know, wild. And, uh, yeah, the in the trade routes,
even all the mining that used to happen out there, dude, there's some ruins that I can
take you to their fucking incredible, dude. This country is so full of amazing rides and stuff.
I mean, that that crossing, uh, in the heat, this blackjack crossing is named after general
blackjack person who was the first, you know, US military guy to, to get the military, the US
military to buy Harley Davidson's and bring them into war. And they fucking outfitted these JD's
with fucking 50 cow machine guns. And they were down there fighting poncho via on the fucking Texas
Mexico border. That shit is hard to ride on a fucking Pan America. I can't imagine on a JD with
a fucking 50 cow. Some dude riding in the side seat fucking, you're just, you know, there's parts
scattered throughout that fucking desert to teeth and fucking just spokes, you know,
whatever the fuck fell off those fucking motorcycles, dude. And that was like, you know,
fuck, they would cross that. I mean, you know, the fucking old before the Texas Rangers,
they would cross into Chihuahua with scalps of Indians and scalps of Mexicans and get paid
fucking bounties on however many scalps they could pull. Have you read Blood Meridian?
No, not yet. Dude, that shit. What's that one about? It's about some scalp hunters. Scalp hunting,
you know, kind of draws. There's a guy named, uh, Bigfoot, Bigfoot Wallace. He was one of the
first Texas Rangers. It's loosely based on his life and a bunch of other people like the Glanton
gang. Uh, the judge isn't imaginable. They might be making that into a movie. You know, what I was
really hoping, what I was really hoping was, you know, Jeff Nichols did the bike riders. Bike
riders. He was introduced to the bike riders from his brother Ben Nichols, lead singer Lucero.
Ben Nichols did an album called Last Pale Light in the West that was a tribute to the
book Blood Meridian. And I was really hoping that fucking Jeff Nichols would take that
next bait and make the Blood Meridian and do a movie. I mean, Scorsese tried to do it.
What's that other goofball that did? Like, I think he did Grandma's Boy.
Anyways, they've tried to do it multiple times and it just hasn't been successful because it's
so fucking gnarly, you know, like be rated X if they did it justice, you know.
What did you think of bike riders once it finally came out? Oh, it's fucking killer, dude.
It was fucking killer. I mean, it's such a good job of storytelling in so many different ways.
You know, and it put some sick ass bikes on the big screen, you know, put some friends of mine
on the big screen. Yeah. Some that were already there and some that hadn't been.
And it was just, you know, telling that story in a way that really stayed true
to like the origins of that story to some degree, while also being just different
enough where, you know, there was some separation, but also telling the broader story of like,
you know, how it changed. Well, you know, like how when you create anything,
it ends up being controlled by the people that it attracts, you know, like in anything that
happens anything like, like when I talk about DMT, Dangerous Motorcycle Tours, that is, you know,
whatever whoever that attracts is ultimately going to have control as to where we go and
how we get there. I mean, that's the same. That's the Harley story, right?
What people do on the bikes is what kind of changed the course of it. Yeah. I mean,
they fucking ran from it for a while, then they took advantage of it for a while. And now they're
just like trying to figure out how to, you know, survive right now. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, they,
they didn't like the outlaw image, you know, the fucking, you know, the biker clubs that were
attaching themselves to that Harley Davidson in the 50s and 60s. And they were like, you know,
they didn't want to have anything, they didn't want to have anything to do with that. You know,
just like Honda put out their slogan, you know, you meet the nicest people on a Honda. That was
to say, Hey, we don't have 1% clubs riding our motorcycles. That's what I said on the last podcast.
They had like a commercial where they had like a guy in a suit, like kissing his family and they
think it's on a motorcycle. Yeah. So Harley was, you know, they sympathize with that thought. They
didn't want to be the, the, the motorcycle brand that was, you know, that people thought about
when they think about 1% clubs. And then turns out, you know, Willie G buys a company back and
he's like, no, everybody wants to be a fucking part of that outlaw lifestyle. So we're going to
sell it to all the doctors and lawyers and let you guys dress up and be fucking outlaws on the
weekends and ride your fucking Harley's dressed in leather. And, you know, you can go to Sturgis,
you can go to Daytona. But yeah, it's, yeah, that's a good point about the movie. It does,
you know, that what you said about how you started this with this idea, but ultimately the people
that haven't it, it becomes what, whatever they want it to be, essentially. Yeah, those fucking
kids shut up and killed that dude. Like, fuck you, you're not fucking gnarly enough for us.
Yeah. We, we had this idea of what this club was and, and you're not representing it,
even though you started it. So we're going to kill you.
That's actually, you know, honestly, in a way, I think maybe that's probably why
subconsciously I might have, you know, into the camp out, like maybe I had an idea of what I
wanted it to be and it was growing into something else or whatever, attracting people that didn't
have the same goals as you. I think it is what it was. Yeah.
Yeah. That's why I think that movie was, it wasn't just like a movie for bikers. You know,
I think it was hard for people to see or take it in because it was done so well to stay true to
that biker lifestyle, you know, the violence, you know, the fucking, the attitude, the motorcycles,
it was done really well to stay true to that. But it also like told a broader story that's
very common in all aspects of life. And it was just done very well. Yeah, I can see that now.
I mean, I enjoyed the movie when it came out, you know what I mean? Like I watched it,
it just felt good to see motorcycles on the big screen like you had mentioned. And
you know, hope we, there's so many good stories I think that people could find,
you know, Todd Blueball story, his book, that would be a fucking epic movie. They could probably,
especially with this day and age, with how many people are burnout and just on edge and anxious
and depressed. It's like, not that that was what his book's about, but what the solutions to
a lot of those problems might be on a motorcycle out in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, I call it win therapy for a reason. Yeah. And I just feel like, you know, if maybe
Hollywood air quotes could take on a biker, a motorcycle centric thing, and maybe leave the
club side of things out for a while and focus on the good, not the good, but just like the true
benefits of being on, you know, on a motorcycle, the discovery, like we're talking about the,
all these aspects, there's so many great stories that could be said through that.
Have you seen Born to Lose?
That's the one that just came out recently. I haven't seen it yet.
Yeah, they're like doing the film circuit right now. Yeah.
You know, it touches on, it touches into that motorcycle culture, it touches into
fucking, you know, chicks and drugs and choppers and building old bikes and the connections that
can be made and, you know, how it can be healthy, you know, and it can be, even though it looks,
it is dangerous and it looks evil from the outside, there are some really good things
that are just inherently good when you work with somebody to accomplish a goal and build something
old. It's an interesting movie. Yeah, I'm glad I've got to see that.
Yeah, I saw that they had did like an initial screening of it when it first came out in San
Francisco at one of the events, I think, or they threw an event forward or something like that,
right? Yeah. But I haven't seen a way to watch it yet.
Well, they're doing, I think this weekend, they just did a showing yesterday, maybe,
and they're doing another one and that's in like Charleston or somewhere, Winston Salem.
Okay. They have a film, some kind of film, what do you call those fucking things?
Yeah, yeah. Festival, yeah. Yeah, hopefully it'll be out by the end of the year,
either in theaters and or streaming. That'd be, that'd be cool. It'd be nice to see more stuff
like that, you know what I mean? Keep our boy, Jeff Milbourne, employed. Jeff Milbourne is doing
just fine. He's doing fine. He's doing just fine. We need to find a new dog, but he's doing just fine.
His dog passed? Yeah. I need to reach out to him.
Yeah, I mean, bikes in Hollywood. I mean, that's a fucking tough one, especially old ones.
Yeah, I mean, you know, and it's like, it's also like not great for the masses. And you know,
movies that play it so safe right now, that's why they make so many fucking DC comic movies,
because so many people like those comic book movies, but they're not taking chances these days,
you know, like even with comedies, you know, like they're, it's watered down for the masses. And
you know, it's like, you know, one thing I've seen, like a Tennessee motorcycle music revival,
right out of the gate, they came in hot with a fucking badass music lineup first few years.
But because it was a biker event, they didn't get any, anybody that wasn't a biker didn't show up
to see that music, you know, like it, people, they want to keep their distance because, you know,
the bikers are bikers. And people feel like they're not going to be accepted to be around or
be a part of that if they're not bikers, which, you know, they could be wrong, they could be right.
I'm sure they're right, most instances, sort of like do a film that's like trying to communicate.
I mean, I feel like bike riders did it, like they communicated with everybody, but
you had to like, you had to immerse yourself in that world, which I'm sure was tough for a lot
of people. I mean, I don't think that movie was as well received as,
you know, as I wanted it to be. Yeah, I think a lot of people probably wanted it to be more
flamboyantly action based and not story driven the way it was.
Well, fucking, they, that preview they put out looked like it was going to be just fucking,
you know, run them down, shoot them up, shoot them up. You know, like it, it, it made it seem
like it was going to be action packed the whole way. And then it was not that at all. I mean,
it was, but it wasn't, I think most people did that. I mean, the book is, is a photo book. It's
very, it's not really a story. It's just, it's interviews, right? So I mean, them writing a
script off of what was there and adapt and adapting it to what it is. I thought was, was
a great, you know, situation. But yeah, a lot of people that never heard of it or whatever,
like, you know what I'm saying? Like it's just, I get it. And that's what some of my friends
that weren't really versed in this world of motorcycling says, like, Oh, I thought it was
going to be more like sons of anarchy. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, Oh, well, the book wasn't
like that. Well, dude, I mean, the way that he took those characters out of the book, put them
on the screen and also told that story that I talked about while also taking, I mean, if you
look into the history of the outlaws, it's just really well, it's so well done that I could see
how some people would not be stoked about it. Yeah, because it's not done exactly the same way.
You know, it's like made for a screen, but yeah, you know, it takes a lot of cues from actual history.
Yeah. And then not giving the club its due credit, you know, I could see how they would be,
you know, like, Whoa, you took a bunch of inspiration and yet.
Yeah, but there's usually some something that could be something that could go both ways,
they would be upset if their name was on it, they're going to be upset if their name isn't on
it. Yeah, but it's it's strikingly like I wonder, I would love to talk to Jeff and see like, you
know, where did the inspiration like, where did you decide that some kids would come in and kill
this guy? Was that because you did research on the history of that club outside? You know,
like, did all this inspiration come from just the book? Yeah. Or did you go and look at
what history you could find about the outlaws club itself? Or all other clubs? You know, like,
where where did the rest of that story come from? Well, it was also unique, you know,
talking about how you know, because it documented this in the movie, but basically the difference
between the people that were coming home from Vietnam versus the people before, you know, like
when they ended up beating up the one dude, that was kind of like their original member
that was talking about going to be a cop versus, you know, the people. Todd is buddies that came
back all fucking hot. They've been killing people over there. A little violence was, you know,
just a little violence for what they were used to. Exactly. Yeah. So I thought it was it was a
good way to tell a story. And I think with some kind of accuracy as well that like, prior to that,
clubs were rowdy, but it was more like Marlon Brando and the wild, it was a wild ones or wild
bunch or something like that, running through, you know, town and just having a good time and it
being disruptive and well, I think, you know, that started in Hollister. And then, you know,
they fucking the news put their spin on it, you know, to make it seem like it was wilder than
it was. And then the people read that and they're like, Oh, we want to be that wild. No, not what
actually happened. We want to we want to do what they said happened in the news. Yeah. Yeah. You
know, and it's just like art mimicking reality, reality mimicking art. And it just like being
this crazy, endless feedback loop. Yeah. That turns into sons of anarchy.
You know, a serial killer. Yeah, it was it was wild. I mean, I enjoyed Sons of America. I mean,
everybody says it was dumb as a full shit anytime. It's a it's like watching.
You know, there's that movie the warrior warriors. There was like about MMA fighting.
Are you talking about the Warriors? No, not the New York. Not that one. No, I'm talking about
was that the one with the two brothers? We had Tom Hardy in it. And it was like they were MMA
fighter dudes. And like, there's just it's like a if it was just like a normal MMA fight watching
that show would be like people will be booing because they're on the ground, you know, grappling.
So a movie has to keep you engaged, right? Well, you can't watch like sons of anarchy has to be
wild like that because they're not really making it for bikers. They're making it for the world
that, you know, kind of who you're saying like it needs to be wild and crazy so that it
there's some truth to it. There's some kind of like rooted truth in that. But it's like, okay,
well, it seems like it could be plausible. Yeah, right. That's why a lot of things say it's like
based on a story loosely. Yeah. It's not an actual. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I dig it all. But
well, there's like the bike riders is like the only film that I'm aware of that covers that in
between the wild bunch and like easy riders. Yeah. All the other motorcycle movies were like
post easy riders versus like choppers riding around you could easily do. I feel like you could
easily just take the premise of easy riders and just modernize it and do something similar to that.
Like like 21 days under the sky. Yeah. You know, maybe with like more of a story driven,
you know, narrative not so much just like, have you seen that movie?
Fuck, what's in there? It's so fucking well and badly done all at the same time. Oh, dude,
it's so fucking good. Oh, this fucking guy, I'm gonna butcher it. I can't I can't do it. There's
a fucking good one out this guy. He was he's just like a personality. He was a fucking musician.
He played Sturgis all the time. His him and his brother, I think it was started
this biker radio show on the internet. Like it was the first
biker radio show on the internet like back in early 2000s. It happened to coincidentally
coincide with their cousin getting out of prison for like hacking the AT&T satellites.
And somehow they got him to to build this biker radio and create maybe he didn't create a
following. Maybe they attracted a following. Yeah. Yeah. But then at some point, one of them,
maybe his brother won the fucking lottery and they made a fucking movie and right out of the gate,
dude, the guys like at a crossroads on his chopper, it fucking breaks, he gets fired from his job,
his girlfriend fucking leave or no, that's what happens. His fucking biker, his his chopper quits
running, he gets fired from his job and his girlfriend leaves him. And then next thing you
know, he's at the crossroads talking to the devil. Dude, it's so it's good, but bad. Oh,
it's fucking both. It's so both. It's so both. It's like the story. Like when you say it,
it sounds like, Oh, this is good. You're like this. But the acting is kind of like subpar.
It's a bike bike. Real bikers made the movie. Okay, like bikers. Yeah. Like Michael Lichter's
in the movie. He didn't even know he was in the movie. They like brought him over to fucking shoot
a bike and they were, you know, videoing him. Oh, Beners in the movie. For real? There's a
bunch of people on the movie. I don't like, you know, from the industry. There's no fucking actors
in it. Fuck, what is this guy's name? It's worth watching. You can get it on Amazon.
Oh, are they on like modern bikes and everything? Like, no, he's on his fucking Panhead Chopper.
Panhead. Okay. He ends up like by the end of the movie, he's got a Captain America chopper.
You know, shit. But yeah, I'm sure most of the bikes are modern, but you know, the bike that
doesn't run is his kickstart fucking panhead or shovel head. And the guy was like a, you know,
he was a fucking character in the industry at Sturgis. He played at the chip like every fucking
year. You know, he was a personality and he fucking, I think he died in a motorcycle wreck
like four or five years ago. Fuck, what is his name? The born to lose movie you mentioned, like,
when though, when more stuff like that comes out and it starts to like be interesting, I think
it'll inspire so many more people to make maybe, you know, self funded. Well, I mean, I thought
the fucking bike riders was going to do that, you know, well, maybe the bike riders had some kind
of influence on this movie, even though I know this 100% it did. I'm sure they saw it being
possible to do something like that. I mean, I mean, it's with, I mean, film is changing so much
right now. I'm all of us out here and I see us. There's so many people out there making YouTube
stuff that the only thing really lacking right now is like, instead of talking to the camera,
you're not looking at the camera anymore and make a movie about it. You know,
get rid of the eye contact with the lens, tell this story of us going across the country.
Um, whether it's in document, document, you know, documentation form or, you know, just like
living out this, you know what I mean? Like Stray's doing? Yeah. Yeah. I love his videos he makes,
you know, but you know, like the Yin and Yang one was great. You know what I mean? And at first,
and I've been thinking about this a lot, the cell phone movie. Yeah, exactly. At first, my first,
like shout out to Tay, watch of it. You know, I watched it when it dropped and I sat on the couch
and I watched it on my big screen, right? Which more people, you should watch motorcycle content
on your TV and not your phone. You'll like it a lot more. It's better. I guess I gotta get a big
screen. Just get a TV and watch on TV. So when I watched it, I was like, cool, cool. What's going
on? What's going on? I was, I was trying to watch it as a YouTube video, right? Because as a YouTube
video, like I'm used to somebody explain it to you every step of the way. But then the second
time I watched through it after, I think I had a conversation. You saw it as entertainment for your
eyes. I saw that it like, you know, a movie doesn't tell you everything upfront. A movie guides you
through a story, right? A YouTuber is almost like holding your hand through the whole situation,
right? So it's finding a way to balance it out. Not to say that Alex was like, you know, or I think
it's actual, I think it's not to say that he had all this grand idea, but I think the simplicity
of it is what made it so fun to watch. And then as they got used to each other, you get more context
towards the end of the of the of the movie, if you will. So what I'm getting at is like, I feel like
finding a way to document some of the things that you or I or people do on these motorcycles
and the travels in a way of like not doing it like, Hey guys, it's your boy. I'm about here.
We're in Columbia. Just broke down, you know, instead of being that way, show the breakdown,
show the show something that is Columbia and tell the story through visuals and and
soundscapes, if you will. And then just fill in the blanks with with like
some kind of dialogue that actually helps carry the story, but doesn't like give you too much
information to where you, you know, it's not that exact. That makes sense. You know, good music is
subjective or it's not such that it's a there's a little bit of ways that you can make that music
fit your narrative in one way or another. The words, the lyrics could be literal things, but
they feel different to individuals. You know what I mean? And that's the way a movie can come across
or if you do it that way, or some shit like that. I'm sure there's somebody doing it right now.
Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, I, to me, I'm nowhere near the place of being able to do that, but
do you digest a bunch of YouTube? Uh, in certain times, like when I'm working upstairs a lot,
I do because I'll, I'll work on my desk and I'll play YouTube videos. But if I'm downstairs,
like I've been for the last month or so working on this bike, I'm just, I'm, I'm too engaged with
other stuff to have something playing. Now, I thought I don't ever use this TV in here anymore.
I thought about putting that downstairs and just putting YouTube on downstairs while I'm working
and casually viewing it when it pops up. But I try to watch a lot of stuff. You know, I find a
lot of inspiration through YouTube versus Instagram. You know what I mean? But it's a little bit more
time consuming. Pinterest is where it's at though, dog. Pinterest is the best place.
So where do you get your paint ideas? Uh, maybe not paint ideas. Are you being serious? Yeah.
There's a lot of inspirational shit on there before you get inspired. They got things I'm into,
like, you know, the, the architecture, the graphic design, the color palettes. Yeah. You
could find good color palettes and stuff. It's once you curate a feed on there based on your
interest, it's actually interesting stuff, but without the context of comments and likes and
all that shit, it's just, it's just things to be interested in and check out, you know? So
I dig it for that aspect. You know what I mean? Photography, ideas for photo shoots,
you know, outfits for like, if you were going to make a, like a scene, you know, I think about
that type of shit, man. I, in another life, I love to make a movie, you know, I don't know what
that looks like now, but I'm not saying I would never like consider doing something like that
if I got there. So fucking Stray's making a movie. He is? Yeah.
About? Fuck, I don't know. I have no fucking clue.
I just know he's going to shoot a movie. I just seen, he made a post recently about,
he's got Cody Dine, you know, a couple of checks and I don't know, he's going to be
fucking got some movie idea. That's cool. Dude, one of my buddies has such a killer movie idea.
I fucking hoped that he's a, he's a filmmaker. I just hope he's able to pull it off because
it's so fucking good. Nice fucking slash him. Horrific. Could be so fucking good.
Like Blair, he could be Blair, which style, just small budget, just fucking, oh man.
Yeah. If I could figure out how to get my boy sacks, sacks, and he used to, he used to do what,
what he's doing here and run the cameras and help me out in the shop and stuff,
but he moved to Salt Lake. But since he's moved to Salt Lake, he's become a really fucking
super dialed, uh, you know, videographer, creating stuff, making a lot of,
it'd be so sick to be able to go on like a bike trip or something and have him like
document it from that perspective instead of having to hold a GoPro up and film like that.
And with the complete sole purpose of capturing those, you know, 21 days on the sky, kind of
landscapes and, and lighting situations and shit like that. I mean, that 21 days was,
I mean, that's, watching that was the only reason I went to that, you know, chopper supply
because I found that I saw that that existed the same way that the show class magazine
showed you that that existed, that movie showed me that it existed. And then I used the internet
to find out how close it was to home. And then it was chopper supply over there.
And I need to go back and watch that at some point.
It's good, man. And then after you meet all the dudes finally, and you hear all the stories from
who all was in it, uh, Kirby is Troy. I forget how to say his last night, last name, um, Gentry,
and then three G nut. What's his name? Grossman. Grossman. Those are the four main ones.
And then it's crazy is like when Todd was doing his book, he was on the, on the road at the same
time they were on the road. And he had intentions of me, they were both at, uh, uh, Brooklyn
Invitational Engineering Block Party at the same time, but supposedly they were going to cross pass
at one point. So I don't know. It was, it was sick. And then for me, like that should open up all
these rabbit holes of like going back and finding all these old blogs that were still out there
from this culture. And that shit's badass. You know, I really wish I could have been in it then.
You know what I mean? It's, it seemed like it was just so much going on and it was
organically finding each other through different channels than just following each other on
Instagram, you know? Yeah, you had to like, uh, you had to, you had to put something out there.
You know, you had to commit. You had to like showcase whatever you had going. There's a
little bit more effort involved. Yeah. You had, well, you would find the guys that were into the
shit in your town. Like, and then you would start like a co-op shop or so co-op place to get like,
like brave town or the chun up there, whatever the case may be. And then that would turn into, well,
this dude's the welder. This dude's the, you know, mechanic. This dude does photos. This dude does,
you know what I mean? This guy's got the band and they just had all this shit. And then actually,
you know, they have a blog and, and now they find the other blogs and now it's like, you know,
it just seemed, I can't say it felt cause I wasn't there to feel it, but it seemed as if
it was a very, very unique point in time. I think we saw like the, the, the climax of that at the
early giddy ups when they would all show up there to see you get out, party each other. Yeah. Yeah.
Missed that shit man. I had, but not to just say like, Oh, those were the days cause today's the
day two for whatever we're doing. So it's like, I want to take inspiration from all these things
that these other men and women did and figure out how to like, you know, same way I did my
chopper. Like, okay, I love a lot of the things that people had already figured out before me,
but I want to figure out how to make this feel like mine. So how do we take culture, not take it,
but how do we steal it, take advantage of it and pillage it? No, how do you ever happen? How do
you build it for all of it? How do you build upon it? You know, yeah. I make it a point.
Everything I do to pay credit, pay homage to the people who inspire me for whatever it is.
When I, when I did that gold bike, there's not a time that I take credit for that bike publicly
on a podcast, on a video or whatever. And I don't say Corey's name. And usually I'll also say that
the two bikes that inspired me to build that bike that are these two individuals,
they have nothing to do with that bike other than they were an inspiration. But the point is,
is always like paying homage to where that shit comes from. I pay homage to you all the time
throughout my podcast over the years for you helping me start mine. You know what I mean? So
I think that it's a, you know, we can always kind of grow it, but to your point, you should always
be given credit to the people that did it before you or the people. Yeah, if you're aware of it,
I think there's a lot of times where you take stuff in and you're not even aware that it affected
you, you know, and it's in there. You saw it, you saw it done this way, but you didn't, you didn't
realize how much it affected you at that time until you get to the point where you need to recreate
something in that vein and, and then it comes to you, you know, like, I mean, I'm sure my chopper
was inspired by more than David Mann paintings, but that's the only person I could think to like.
Yeah. Really, it was also like the shit that that was all I had or, you know, like it was
limited resources as well. But, you know, I'm sure that other things were built the same way
because of limited resources. Yeah, I think that's the, but I guess what I'm saying is like,
you don't always know what affects you in the moment. It's like when you talk to
musician in their heyday, they're like, fuck, I don't know what that song's about, dude.
You know, I was going through, you know, people don't even realize this shit as it's coming out
of them because they're like, they're so just fucking, you know, in the, you know, in that
thing, dude, you know, and it's just coming through them, but it's coming from someplace else.
Yeah. You know, I don't think everybody's aware of it and you can like,
you know, even people may think that it's their own style or that they created it
when they didn't, you know, I don't think that's like,
I don't think that that's like disrespectful to some degree. You know, it can be if it,
you know, if it persists to some degree, but yeah, I don't think it's disrespectful either
at all. I mean, I feel like it's just literally, you know, if you ever, most musicians
liked other bands and their style is built up of all the things they like. Most artists, same thing,
you know, I like this, this isn't this, whatever you do, you build bikes, you do this, you do that,
you're kind of a collection of all your inspirations, right? That's your unique version of it,
but there is a little bit of pepper and salt and all these other things that make this flavor.
I guess what I'm saying is some people, unlike you, right, where they have inspiration, but they
don't acknowledge it because then it would affect what they're doing, where you, you can
acknowledge it and say, I'm doing this because of that. Yeah. Where some people are like, they may
not, they may not have done it that way if they didn't realize that they got that idea from this
person or that person. Okay. So it's just subconsciously they're being inspired by things
that are not drawing the connections between correct, you know, yeah, for sure, there's that.
I mean, I think that there's definitely things that slip through the cracks of me that something
I might have been inspired by that I saw at some point that I then did, but it's, it's also like,
I think what I hear a lot going on is people that like won't, they aren't doing anything
in their bikes other than buying it, but want to be builders or whatever the case may be. And
every time they get a chance to be on some kind of podcast or public or video or whatever,
they're like, yeah, I built this. And then, you know, you hear these horror stories about dudes
that like did all the work or did all this and got no credit for it kind of shit, which I can be
sympathetic. I can sympathize with because in my early days in this industry, like I did a lot of
shit, a lot of covered magazine bikes that I have no mention of my name in it. You know what I mean?
And at the time that was like nowadays, I mean, you get your bike in a magazine now, it's cool,
but back then that was our way of like growing past our local market. You know what I mean? So
it was a much bigger deal that if your bike or you got a bike in a magazine that your name was
standing behind the thing you did, you know? Well, I mean, I know a bunch of builders
and they don't know how to frame a house. Yeah, yeah. You know,
and they never have framed a house. They don't need to. They're still home builders, you know,
they don't do any plumbing. But they're able to do everything it takes to bring all that shit together,
you know, and to act like that that you're not a builder because you didn't fucking
chop your frame and weld it, or you didn't paint it, or you didn't align the rear wheel and build
the spacers. You know, that doesn't mean you're not a builder. And I do, I do, I don't agree with
the fact that you can't like people get upset when somebody takes credit for something when they
didn't do it all. This guy built those wheels. This guy's the one that actually chopped his frame.
I was like, yeah, yeah, but he this guy over here had the initiative and want to and the desire
and figured out whatever it took to get him to do that. Now the guy's bitter later on because he
didn't go, Hey, if this ever gets in a magazine, you better say, Hey, I fucking did this. Yeah,
that's kind of fucking lazy. You know, like, I can see how you might feel that way when somebody
ends up getting some benefit or some kind of recognition that you feel like you should get.
But you know, there's a lot of other things that go into that recognition, you know,
the guy put together the photo shooter, you know, met the right guy said the right thing,
shook the right hand, bought the right guy shot, you know, flirted with the right. There's a lot
of other things. I think all of those things are part of being credited for building the bike,
you know, and then those things can be used, you know, I guess where it gets like gets to be
bummer is when somebody gets that recognition and then doesn't do something positive with it
afterwards. But you know, I mean, you know, born free invited builders, any invited builder, you
did every bit of work themselves, you know, when the final product, you know, looks rad and works.
I think I think we're talking, we're saying the same thing, because my model is always about
it takes a village to build a motorcycle, you know, as much as I am trying to do more and more
myself, I still have to rely on people, right? And I think everybody's that way. But I think
what I'm talking about more so is just like the there is, you know, the bike that I'm doing
downstairs, the customer is literally the conductor, if you will, of what we're doing,
because it's his ideas funneled through me into that project, right? So he's just
much as part of the build like you're saying, but I think that like,
and if it becomes a successful build, right? Yeah, he gets credit for picking you. Yeah,
exactly. You know, like this should he have to say, Jace, did all this work for me in the magazine?
But if it gets in a magazine and he might want that, but should he have to? I don't know. He
could have picked anybody to do that. What do you've gotten the product? Maybe not. But he's
the one that decided you were the one capable of doing it. I think back in the day, I think this
was like a, it was just an unspoken like, yes, that's, that's my guy. We always wanted to see
everybody grow. Like, why would you want to take credit for something that you physically didn't
do? When you look at a magazine, but he did do it. If he's having you do it, he's giving,
he's providing the money to get you to do it. The line that says, like, so does he say it's a,
it's a so-and-so name motor instead of an SNS motor? You know what I mean? Like, what is the motor?
What is the builder? Who painted it? What is the front end on this? Well, when they start asking
questions like that, yeah. Those are the things that are in the build sheet at the end of it,
right? Oh, I don't know. You ever see the magazine? I'm not saying, I'm not saying that,
that the owner doesn't get credit and shouldn't be, I mean, they are the most valuable asset of
this process because they're the one creating the opportunity, right? But there has to be this
aspect of like, well, I think the market will correct that because when somebody comes at
them to do something like that, and now he can't use you because he didn't give you credit in the
magazine, well, he's not going to have the longevity, you know, the market will, you know,
fix itself, it will, you know, it will end up giving credit, you know, except for the nice
guy doesn't win, you know? Oh, yeah. So, and if he finds somebody else to do the same work and
create the same product that has the same, you know, caliber or standard that he asked out of you
and he gets somebody else to do it, well, you know, I mean, didn't he did do it again, you know?
When I look at like the top builders that in my and on my Mount Rush more of like people that I
am inspired by, I see them and I've gotten to meet all of them. The way they build bikes is like
someone's coming to them for their style, their thing that you can't really get that power plant
style from cut rate. And you can't really get the cut rate style from power plant. But they have
two unique things that like they're going to do their way or a hawk bike or something like that or
you know, even a long brother's bike, you know what I'm saying? Like everybody has a unique style,
you know, fucking Al Emerson, one of my favorite builders, right? So, in a way that yes, a customer
is kind of picking the genre of style that they want and finding the person that fits that the best.
Their vision is based on things that already exist. And if they didn't make the things that
exist and they are literally picking from a world of yeah, but if they get somebody to do
something like if they if he if he gets you to do something you wouldn't normally do. Yeah.
You know, yeah, it becomes unique. Yeah. Well, what I'm saying is your style doesn't show through.
Yeah. And if you are as good as Emerson or you need or Oliver, then it doesn't matter who asks
you to do it. It doesn't matter if your name gets mentioned in the magazine. Yeah, we can see
that you know that that person did that. Which once again is just like, you know,
the credits there may not be easy to see. No, but it will it will it will shine through in the end.
Yeah, those guys are all fucking, you know, legendary and have their own style, you know,
which and I'm not trying to pick on you or anything, but like, I saw those bikes out in
California, you know, I don't have the eye for these things. I'm like, oh, they got fucking
bass boat paint jobs. Jayce could have painted these, you know, like these are performance
baggers. They got painted fucking Simpson helmets that match their bikes. Yeah. Fuck. Jayce must
have done this. You know, I'm not good enough to pick out the nuances, you know, and I'm sure
you're not the only one painting bass boat baggers all over the country. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't see
that. No, I understand. Yeah, I understand. But Oliver's bikes. Man, I can see that dude. Yeah.
This shit's bad as fuck. I love them all, man. They do cool shit and, you know,
Oliver always like his old, like his Doberman bikes that he did back in the day and
he's just got a unique look that I could have never, ever created that. You know what I mean?
Now that it exists, like I could create something like that. Well, we didn't grow up the same way
as he did. You know, yeah, yeah, 100%. He's got a unique story and unique perspective and,
you know, in a creative way of expressing it that comes out in a lot of different ways.
Do you find it like doing this podcast over these years? Like
do you, when you meet people and you get maybe inspired by them, do you find it hard not to
like want to go down all these different rabbit holes in life and try something that maybe you
heard about on the podcast? No, I go, I go down rabbit holes. Yeah. It's fucking, it's that curiosity
there. Yeah. It gets piqued by error. It's what drives me to want to talk to people I do want to
talk to, you know, it's because I'm curious about something. You know, I fucking got an adventure
bike and that was because I, you know, I've talked to somebody with an adventure bike and rode an
adventure bike and I fucking love that shit. Yeah. No, it absolutely does. It, uh, but I would say
more than that. It's like, you know, being able to talk to so many people and like, even when I'm
not curious about it, you know, but still knowing that they have something that's, that is valuable
to share. And I don't mean valuable in a monetary way, but like, you know, there is something I
can learn from this person, even though, you know, they are painting baggers bright colors, you know,
like I know there's still something here, you know, in being able to be open to that, you know,
and see that instead of my narrow minded is, well, fuck dude, I guess we're not going to talk about
how to get across the border in Mexico right now. You're like, you don't have any experience doing
that. And, you know, when's the last time you went through New Wave? I want to talk to somebody
that went through Nuevo Laredo last week, you know, I want to know how that is right now.
You know, but to look beyond that and see, you know, see things from a broader perspective,
you know, and go into the podcast with a mission while also being open to see where it goes and
see what the person wants to talk about and, and, and expand upon whatever that may be.
Hmm. I dig it while I'm still like, I just want to go to Mexico. I want to go get some
right now. I don't have a good cowboy hat. Yeah. And dude, I can't just can't bring myself to buy
one in America because there's so much better and so much cheaper across the border. You know,
to buy the hat I want here in America, it's like fucking 800 to $1,200 right now place outside
Monterey. I can get it for a hundred bucks. I damn. And it's awesome to go there. I get to get
it home. Wear it, wear it. Fucking strap it on the bike, dude. Same way I got my last one home.
Strap it to the back seat. I mean, look at Nick. He has that big ass hat in the feather. Oh yeah,
he goes through those motherfuckers like one or two a year, dude. He just got a new one recently.
I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it's not quite as decorative. Doesn't look as dirty.
I meant to ask him that when I seen him the other night. Yeah. Like, when did you get this is a
new one? This is a new one. We'll ask him this weekend. I need to have him on again. I haven't
we haven't talked in a while on the podcast. He's fucking on it. Yeah. He's going camping at the
LBJ grasslands this weekend, which is like about 20, 30 miles north of Decatur. Yeah.
Yeah. That's where the, the Denton dudes invited me to go camp there, but it was like,
I had some shit going on. I couldn't go, but yeah, sounds cool as hell.
It's the LBJ. I've only been up there to shoot shit, but
I don't think I've ever camped there. Well, no, no, I don't camp that close to my house unless
I'm going to my fish camp. Yeah. You know, I can fucking just ride home from LBJ. It's just right
there. This is right there. I'm just going to ride up Saturday morning.
We got all that. Yeah.
Am I making you tired, Jase? No, I do. I'm tired getting yawning. What time is it?
I stayed up late last night. I was working. I was editing photos till like one in the morning.
Dude, where are you? Where are we going to see your photos?
Fuck, if I know, there are Harley owns them all. You just submitted them all, send them over an
email. Well, Taylor messaged me and said, Hey, just wanted to check in because I get,
I have to write a blog about a moral to sick. So I'm like kind of stressed about it because like
the whole weekend I thought about what I wanted to say. And then last night,
I jumped on Harley's, you know, website where all the blogs are read some of the chicken ricks.
And I'm like, God, damn it. Like all this stuff is just like, it feels
like just this is what they asked for. This is what they get instead of like truly like trying to
say. Don't worry about what they have. Worry about what you got to give them.
And the best way you can do it. And then when they water it down, then you can be like,
well, I gave them the good stuff. Yeah. And they turned it into this.
Yeah, I have to have that delivered by tomorrow. I got to write another article for Chalmers magazine.
I, I, I've been, me and Carrie have been around each other so much and we've talked about doing
a podcast and it's kind of like the David Brown thing where I wanted him to get to know me and
open up to me a little more before we sit down and do one. But very interested to do that.
That documentary they did on him, the origins thing was, was pretty dope watching that whole thing.
Oh yeah. You know, yeah, that guy's a pretty good storyteller, isn't he?
Yeah. Yeah, like he's got a great story. Chris just got great people around him.
He's a family man. Yeah, I enjoy the time I get to spend with him.
Yeah. And until I watched that, that origins, I didn't know his relationship with a, you know,
easy rider over the past, the magazine stuff. And a lot of the things that I've always said,
like, man, if I do a magazine, it's kind of the same shit he said that he wanted to do
whenever he took over choppers magazine. So I'm interested in it, man. Like I,
he's fucking less me do whatever I want now. Yeah. I'm like, dude, I, you know, there's,
I'm writing a street glide. He's like, I'm gonna give a fuck. You know, I'm like, well,
in this, I'm only fucking writing new adventure bikes. He's like, I don't give a fuck. You
can do whatever you want in the choppers magazine. I'm like, dude, I don't know if I can go,
you know, I think he wanted me to do one on DMT, dangerous motorcycle tours. And I'm like,
there's not a fucking chopper anywhere, dude. It's all suspension, fucking fuel injected,
adventure bikes. It's like, whatever. Well, I think the one, I think the one that just came
out is the Trans Am that I did in September on the 21. And then the one that's fixing to come out
is the PCH to Ventura for Chopper Fest. And I think he's already asking for another one.
That's awesome. I'm like, what, I want to do one on that fucking BNB trip to Medaree for the
Christmas party. It show that fucking motorcycle we blew up. It was like, what a fucking Christmas
story in August or some shit or June or July, whenever, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
who knows? I dig it, man. Okay, let's wrap this thing up. I got shit to do. The rain's not raining.
Jay, thanks for having me out. Thanks for reminding me. I've been doing this for almost 10 years.
Yeah. And I'm glad you fucking taken the torch and you know, you like got all the cameras and
lights and shit. You got Jamie over here. If you ever need to use it, you can bring him over here.
No, it's two hours, two hours too far. Thank you. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed it. And
if you're here, if you're listening to this part, thank you for your service. You guys stuck in
there by me and another podcaster just did some podcasting. That's what you just saw
or heard at least. And I appreciate you guys listening. Big thanks to Dan for once again
helping me get my podcast started many years ago and congratulations to him and his 10 years of
getting out there, sharing people's stories, living an extraordinary life on motorcycles
so that he can share with us on episodes like this one. Yeah, it's pretty surreal sometimes
to do all this stuff. But thank you guys for listening. Please don't hesitate to check out
our sponsors. They truly do make this stuff possible. Also, our Patreon is a lifeline to
this podcast. And if you want to support it, keep it growing, keep it on the road, keep it alive.
$5 a month less than what you pay for, I don't know, a Red Bull a day or so, less than a beer
will help support this show and keep guys like Danger Dan and many others able to come on and
share their stories and experiences. So thank you guys for listening. We're going to catch you on the
next one. Peace.
About this episode
Danger Dan joins The Fast Life Podcast to mark nearly 10 years of motorcycle podcasting, swapping stories about choppers, Pan America travel, and how the motorcycle community (and events) have evolved. They dig into building rapport for interviews, the visceral feel of rigid/chopper riding vs modern comfort, and the culture behind kickstart competitions, Born Free Texas, and other Texas rides. The conversation also covers troubleshooting a new M8-powered build, Harley’s direction under new leadership, and why lane-splitting could grow ridership. Lots of travel planning, event chaos, and “keep riding” philosophy.
Dan is one of the first motorcycle podcasts to hit the world back in 2016. 10 years later, Dan is still going strong and has had a wild ride through the years! Endlessly riding his chopper across the country, Too also riding a Harley-Davidson Pan America to the southernmost point of South America. Dan is a traveler, a biker, and simply an adventurer!
