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696: From Newbie to Pro: Off-Road Training with Sierra Nevada Off Road Academy
696: From Newbie to Pro: Off-Road Training with Sierra Nevada Off Road Academy
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About this episode
Sierra Nevada Off-Road Academy founders Jason and CJ break down what “off-road training” really means—beyond seat time and trail rides. Jason shares decades of teaching experience (including the Spree to Four beginner pipeline) and why tire placement, spotting, and risk mitigation matter. CJ adds a personal safety-driven perspective from serious off-road accidents, then gets technical about recovery gear, working load limits, and modern EV/off-road tech. They also explain their modular class menu (beginner, trail leader, recovery, radio/mapping, EV-focused) and their high-touch onboarding/community approach, plus upcoming workshops and how to book private group sessions.
Topics:
off-road training curriculum
risk mitigation and safety planning
tire placement and spotting fundamentals
trail leader workshop and group management
recovery gear working load limits
kinetic rope vs tow strap realities
EV and Rivian off-road drive mode education
mechanical sympathy and vehicle knowledge
club mentorship vs social media trail runs
high-touch onboarding and community building
Cars:
Chevrolet S-10 Blazer
Chrysler Saratoga
Ford Bronco
Ford Ranger
Jeep CJ
Jeep Wrangler
Lotus Esprit
Lucid Air
Toyota Land Cruiser
Learning how to off-road isn’t just about hitting the trail—it’s about building skills, confidence, and doing it the right way. This week, Tyler and Jimmy sit down with Sierra Nevada Off Road Academy (Jason and CJ) to talk about how they’re helping everyone from complete beginners to experienced wheelers sharpen their abilities. From trail etiquette to technical driving tips, this episode is all about becoming a smarter, safer off-roader.
Sierra Nevada Off Road Academy
Website: https://www.snvora.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sierranevadaoffroadacademy/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569130873516
SnailTrail4x4 Discord:
https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuy
MORRFlate Giveaway at 900 Reviews on Apple Podcast. But our next giveaway is when we reach 800 reviews; we are giving away an OnX Elite Membership. We will also give away an OnX Elite membership when we get to 850. However, when we reach 900 Reviews, we are teaming up with MORRFlate for a $1000 MF Product Giveaway. Go over to Apple Podcasts to leave your review now and become eligible to win. Congratulations to A13XMONT, who won a set of tires from Yokohama Tire!
Call us and leave us a VOICEMAIL!!!We want to hear from you even more!!! You can call and say whatever you like! Ask a question, leave feedback, correct some information about welding, say how much you hate your Jeep, and wish you had a Toyota! We will air them all, live, on the podcast! +01-916-345-4744. If you have any negative feedback, you can call our negative feedback hotline, 408-800-5169.
4Wheel Underground has all the suspension parts you need to take your off-road rig from leaf springs to a performance suspension system. We just ordered our kits for Kermit and Samantha and are looking forward to getting them. The ordering process was quite simple, and after answering the questionnaire, we ensured we got the correct and best-fitting kits for our vehicles. If you want to level up your suspension game, check out 4Wheel Underground.
SnailTrail4x4 Podcast is brought to you by all of our peeps over at irate4x4! Make sure to stop by and see all of the great perks you get for supporting SnailTrail4x4! Discount Codes, Monthly Give-Always, Gift Boxes, the SnailTrail4x4 Community, and the ST4x4 Treasure Hunt! Thank you to all of those who support us! We couldn’t do it without you guys (and gals!)!
SnailSquad Monthly GiveawayMarches Giveaway is with our buddies over at Devos. We have the newly released first view of their LightRanger500. This little light is jam-packed with features, from red, orange, and white lights to a motion sensor. It would be perfect for inside a tent, under a canopy, or just general use around the vehicle. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Congratulations to Matt Gardener, you won the Expedition Kit Tire Repair Kit. This kit has everything you could possibly need to repair your tire while you’re in the outdoors. It comes with a plug kit, colby valves, razor blade, sand paper, and of course, the famous adhesive and patches that GlueTread is known for! Sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Listener Discount Codes:SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 Merch
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Show Music:
- Outroll Music – Meizong Kumbang
- Midroll Music – ComaStudio
Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Toyota Land
"...ght now and want to check it out. And this is the Toyota Land Cruiser sun we got from the rising sun for a dri..."
Car
Lotus Esprit
"...eah. Jason, I used to always talk about doing the esprit de four class. And every class we teach, we say ..."
Car
Wrangler Rubicon
"...ft their rig and put, you know, go out and do the Rubicon. So yeah, in their mind. But yeah, it's cool. Ye..."
Car
Chevrolet Blazer S10
"...a couple of times. But before that, I had a 1983 Blazer S10. Oh, it wasn't my car, but it was my car. Sure. ..."
Car
Jeep Cj5
"...d that in his face and we went out and got a 1978 CJ5. And why I wanted to get into that is I had been..."
Car
Ford Ranger
"...as my first vehicle actually. It was a 1998 Ford Ranger that had the shitty, shitty 4x4. The vacuum actu..."
Car
Chrysler Saratoga
"...r. I know. Is that this apartment complex over in Saratoga? And yeah, I drove away and it was an absolute p..."
Car
Lucid Air
"...on the fly. That's it. Right. It's like over the air. You got your app on your phone and it connects t..."
Car
Ford Bronco
"...ts of different drive modes, no different than a Bronco or Toyota these days, right? With hill descent c..."
Select text to request an explanation
Welcome one welcome all to the snail trail 4x4 podcast if you like going off-roading
in Toyotas, wrenching on Toyotas, camping in Toyotas, and maybe even poking a little
bit of fun at Toyotas and of course hearing about how fantastic off-road education is
in Toyotas, then this is the podcast for you. That's right ladies and germs. My name is Tyler
joining me for another episode of snail trail 4x4 podcast is Jimmy. Hey, what up? How's it going man?
Good. Good. Thanks for asking. How are you? Doing pretty good. Nice. Happy to hear. Definitely
had a great weekend. Good. The weather cooled down. Everything's so much nicer. Hopefully it
stays like this for a little while. Yeah, I definitely had a good wine weekend. Nice. I got
some work done on Kermit. Oh, good. So Kermit's off the tracks and we'll get into all that on
Thursday. Okay. So that's great. Today though, we have a really fun interview for you guys with
Sierra Nevada off-road Academy. Jason, Mr. Jason from over at Wheeling Wine and Whiskey,
as well as CJ with a CJ who we've had on the podcast before as well.
They started a business doing off-road training and everything. And so we're going to have them
on today. They're kind of off screen right now in the green room, hanging out, waiting for us to
do the intro. So we're going to take about 45 minutes to do the intro here just so they're
stuck in the green room for a while. Well, if I know Jason, his nose is like a bloodhound and
he'll be able to find the whiskey pretty soon. He already found it, but he's probably going in
for like his third or fourth glass now. Right. So going 45 minutes, we might not get the interview
that we're looking for if Jason's 45 minutes of drinking that whiskey. Right. It'll just be an
interview with CJ and Jason will be snoring in the background. His campfire narcolepsy gets the
best of him sometimes. But anyways, today we'll do really quick get into, because we are at the
start of a new month now. Let's see today is April 6th. Is that correct? No, it's got to be. Oh,
it's today. Wait. Today's March 30th. I'll flip it. Today's got to be April 6th then.
Happy birthday me. Is it? Is it? Let's see. Yeah, it is. Nice. April 6th today, which is Tyler's
birthday. So yeah, first episode of Monday, I should say of the new month and we're in April
here. So that means a couple of things. One is gift boxes. You just hang it down in front of the
camera. Jimmy has trouble getting it in the hole sometimes. We have a couple of things going on.
Now that we're in a new month here, we have gift boxes are open. So if you guys wanted to move
around gift box tiers, you can definitely go ahead and do that. You forgot the other one.
I want to know what the other picture is. That's the fun one. I guess the TLCA one is kind of phallic
too. You want to hang the hang those in front of the camera for everybody to see real quick
before you try and get it in the hole. So this is the the nature's phallic symbols
that Brad from hot metal fab got us. So that's April April's picture. You guys are listening
right now and want to check it out. And this is the Toyota Land Cruiser sun we got from the rising
sun for a drive club. So I don't say the Toyota link. They're a TLCA club, but they actually put
and sponsored the calendar. So the rising sun four by four club Colorado.
Anyways, we're in April. Gift boxes are open. That'll be open through the end of the month. So
what that means is now is the time to kind of move around tiers. It's the easiest time because
everything's open. You can kind of take a look and see what you want to do right now. We're doing
all that. We're going to keep it over on irate four by four, just so the process is the same as
it has been. And through the end of the month, we did a Jimmy did, I should say made our discord
server. So we got some feedback from people. We had people messaged us DM us on Instagram,
text us if you have our numbers and mentioned that they're totally down for discord. So
it was enough positive feedback on it that Jimmy went and created the whole discord server.
So that's in the show notes now. After the month of April, we'll move over all the tier stuff
to support the channel on discord. We'll open it up on discord. So I don't know if we'll
necessarily move it, but we'll open it up on discord because all of its handled on by PayPal.
So we could have it listed in both places. So
yeah, there'll be options in both locations. So we have that open up, check out the show notes,
start joining the discord, say hi, send us a picture of your rig and we'll do something
with those later on. The link for the discord will be down in the show notes. So you can just
click on that link. It'll bring you over. If you're a discord person, feel free to join. If you
have never heard of discord, feel free to join. If you don't really want another way to interact
with us, you don't have to join. Yep. Simple, easy peasy. Let's see. This month's giveaway for the
monthly giveaway is two of our gift boxes. Yes. So you'll get a gift box if you're in the gift box
tier. And if you end up also winning the giveaway tier, you'll get a second gift box, which that's
kind of nice to have the items that are coming in. So you got to see one of them today. Yeah,
it's clean. I like the way that turned out. I think it came out really well. Yeah. The person
that made it was, she said that her sons were super jealous. Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. So yeah,
we'll have those coming out. And I believe we're looking at probably closer to the end of the month
by the time the gift boxes are, you guys are receiving your gift boxes. Yeah. I've got everybody's
email or everybody's sizes for the shirts. And so we put that order in and it's going to take
a little longer than we expected. Yeah. But it's pretty much the end of the month is when we're
going to be getting those in. And that's going to be the long tail item. So as soon as those
show up, we can turn around and get those sent out. Yep. So we'll get those out. We might,
we'll see, we might talk about the gift boxes and what's in them before you guys receive them.
A lot of times we try not to do that because we want it to be a surprise for you, but we also
want people to know what's in the gift boxes in case they want to change their mind about
supporting and joining in the gift box here. They'll have time to do that before the end of the
month. So do you mean I'll talk amongst ourselves and figure out if we want to ruin the surprise for
the sake of promotion, I guess. So let's see what else do we got? And when you're saying that,
I'm like, maybe we'll talk about past gift boxes. Oh, we could do that. Maybe. Yeah.
That way it can give you an idea of what we've been doing and what kind,
what sort of the gift boxes are like. And we don't have to spoil the surprise, even though
you already know what like half of it is or some part of it is, but it won't completely ruin the
surprise. So we'll figure out a creative way to do that without trying to destroy it at all. But
usually the way that it works, the gift boxes work is that you guys are paying $20 a month
for the gift box tier. $10 of that goes towards the giveaway tier. And $10 of that we allocate
towards the gift box. So then we acquire six months at $10. So it's about 60 bucks is what
we end up getting. We allocate $15 for packaging and shipping. And that leaves us with about $45.
And we're trying to get that into the 60 to $80 range or 80. We're trying to get it around
80 bucks value for you guys. So you're giving us roughly $60. We're giving you about $80 worth of
products and getting it back into your hands. Something cool and fun or something you might
enjoy or some, some sort of aspect that we think would be neat that you guys might not get for
yourself. Yeah. So that's gift boxes. We'll dive more into those probably on Thursday.
That's when we'll do FNGs, birthdays, etc. This time. Let's say we also have reviews. We're
always doing a giveaway for reviews, essentially bribing you guys to talk about us and say how
amazing we are. So all you got to do is go to Apple Podcast, leave us a review and at every 50
reviews. So the next one coming up is 800 reviews. We do a giveaway for an Onyx Elite membership,
as well as some swag items that we've collected from different partners and vendors and people
we've had on the show, as well as some of our own stuff. So at 800, we'll do that at 850,
we'll do that again. And at 900, we have a really big prize pack from Morflate for about a thousand
dollars value. Some really cool stuff coming in the pipeline here from Morflate. And I've
one of them is in production at the moment. Okay, cool. The other one is in the final R&D
stages for the prototypes. And the second and the third one is in final production prototype
R&D, I guess. So it is going through the steps to make sure that the design and everything we've
done and created will work at a mass scale production on assembly lines, production lines,
et cetera. So once that is confirmed, it'll be all steam ahead. Wow. It's going to be really
fun. This one, this one's going to be huge. And I really do think it's going to change
the way the offered industry views inflation again. Okay. That's exciting. Yeah. That's
super exciting. I'm excited for it. So that'll be coming out probably near the end of the year,
but we'll have 900 reviews. That person winning will get a big-ass prize package from Morflate.
Let's see. What else do we got going on? Anything? I don't think that's about it. I think that's
for all the updates. We have a fun interview for you guys today. One of these guys is long-winded.
The other one is precise and to the point. So I'm sure we're going to have a fun interview
with them and a good lengthy one about all kinds of things going on in the education space of off-road.
Yeah. So I guess that further deal. You got your favorite drinks, your favorite beverages.
We'll get this, these guys out of the green room, who I'm sure one of them already has had
plenty of beverages and we'll be right on back with Jason and CJ from Sierra Nevada off-road academy.
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What's up everybody? Welcome back to today's show. Happy Monday here. We have four people in the
studio today. I'm of course one of them. Actually, I'm outside of the studio today. Hopefully you
guys are not looking at the camera to catch my lives, but we got Jimmy here and then we got,
I don't know who that guy is. We got CJ over here. So CJ CJ with the CJ some familiar faces to the
podcast. Some voices you guys have probably heard before. If you've been listening to
snail trail four by four forever, we have Jason, of course, here from Wheeling Wine and Whiskey
as well. Welcome to the Wheeling Wine and Whiskey podcast episode 987. We'll cut that out. Okay,
sure. Sorry, I added that in like two minutes. First edit, 30 seconds in. All right, man. So
welcome guys to the studio. It's fun to be here and to have you two specifically on the casting
couch together. So yeah, this is, I'm glad you cleaned it before you got here. All the dog hair
and stuff on it. This is good. This is good. I'm glad to be here. Yeah. You guys are here to talk
about off-road training, essentially. So Jason, of course, you've been with Wheeling Wine and Whiskey
forever. You've been wheeling your whole life. Most people, I think know your story. I think so.
38 years of wheeling now. That's why I'm wearing a hat to cover up the gray hair.
Yeah, 38 years of wheeling and been teaching for 35 years.
It is. It's over half my life.
53 years old, about to be 54 next month. So don't forget my birthday and I do need more Whiskey.
But no, it's, yeah, it's been, I got into it at a young age and love it. And with the Spree to
Four, our club where I met CJ, we, you know, do that beginner off-roading class or off-roading
101, whatever you want to call it. It's an intro to four-wheeling and it's, it's an in-depth class.
I mean, people come out of the class like, wow, this is cool. And I'd say 70% of the people
want to go to the next step. Whereas the next class, whereas 201, you know, off-roading and that's.
Does the Spree to Four do? No.
That's like, okay, I was like, I've never known about that kind of the intro class.
We've always filled up our classes day or two when it's released. And we used to do
Saturday, Sunday class. I mean, they were separate classes. So we used to have four
classes a year technically. Now we only have two, third week in May, third weekend of September.
But anyways, so, you know, CJ started teaching class with me. And we're like, we gotta do
something. We gotta do something. And so finally, just our, you know, lives allowed ourselves to,
you know, start up the Sierra Nevada Off-Road Academy. And it's really exciting because we are
taking it deep. And CJ's got deep in the weeds with the propeller hat, you know, working load
limits and stuff. And I mean, it's, I've learned a lot in the last, you know, year that we've been
putting this stuff together. So anyways, always learning. Yeah, that's cool.
Yeah. Jason, I used to always talk about doing the esprit de four class. And every class we
teach, we say we learn something. Yeah. So it's 40 years of this esprit de four class going. There's
over 4,000 people that have been trained by esprit de four. It's been that many. Not crazy.
The assistant went through it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You had some firsthand experience of
seeing that happen. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think Tyler's ever been down there. I haven't. I've
got to get out there. Yeah. She still tells the story about where you guys have the, you put the
little four by fours, cut off four by fours down and you have them try to drive over them with
different tires, hit this one with your driver front, hit this one with your driver path or your
passenger front, hit this, you know, rear tire, then rear tire. And she looked at me, she's, and
this was the last one of the day, right? And she looked at me, she's like, every one of those I hit,
I get to have a drink. Yeah, about it. Yeah. She hit every fucking one. Yeah, she did. She earned
it. Yeah. She earned it. And I was like, sure, that's your motivation. Good. I want you to learn
tire placement. Yeah. And, you know, that's, as you guys know, very important tire placement and
driver side is easy to see. Passenger front is not easy to see. Passenger rear, you could turn your
passenger mirror down, but we have, you know, and it's funny to watch that for all the years I've
been teaching that class at Hollister, how it's evolved. And I mean, there's some years I shake
my head that I don't know how we're going to do this with, you know, not everybody showed up,
our volunteers, but it comes off seamlessly every year. But behind the scenes, it's like chaos,
like stuff going on. I'm like, okay. And then nope, it works out. But we have moved
that tire placement. Everybody does it right out of the gate now. We have four tire placements
in the Hollister area. So everybody does that before they go out and do anything else, which
is imperative. And that's been a cool improvement over the years. Anyways, I think that's really
smart because then before you even go out onto into the area, you kind of have an understanding
of your vehicle and how it maneuvers and where everything is.
Yeah. I mean, there's 40 students going through that class in one day. Yeah.
And it takes 40 volunteers to really make it happen.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. And it's been cool. You know, Hollister has been great venue. They're great to work with.
It's the, I've always said, the diamond in our state park system in California, you know. But
yeah, the trail rides and everything. I mean, it's a full day. It's an eight hour day. And
but it's, it's, it's still rewarding to me after all these years to watch these people so nervous
in class, you know, they don't want to screw up their vehicle. They don't, you know, want to be
that guy out on the trail or gal. And at the end, you know, you see them settle in once they go over
the first couple of obstacles, they climb the stair steps and they're like, hell yeah. And then
at the end of the day, they're ready to lift their rig and put, you know, go out and do the Rubicon.
So yeah, in their mind. But yeah, it's cool. Yeah. It's really cool. The excitement level.
Let's, can we take a step back just a little bit and learn a little bit more about CJ?
Yeah. Because everybody knows who you are. Not everybody knows me.
Most people know who you are. Not a lot of people know CJ and your little bit of your back
story and like where you grew up. How'd you get into wheeling? Just some of that, the basics and
what brought you here today. Oh yeah. All right. Let's go back in time, I guess.
They do that on there. So yeah, I got control of the sound board down here. I don't know which
one does what though. Let me, I'll turn that one up for you. And if we have you ever even used
the sound board, I have. Oh, there it is. Where's the one that says Toyota suck on it? Oh, I think
I don't see it. CJ is here, everybody. CJ.
All right. Back to CJ. There's also, there's multiple levels to this if you want to.
Perfect. So I'm sure you're going to be using this one a lot.
Yeah. So I was lucky enough to have parents that had a cabin in the Sierra's up near
Dorrington near Arnold. So I grew up going off-roading. Now off-roading meant taking
the family four by four van. Okay. You got a Toyota four by four van. Nice. No,
pre-previa, the little boxy one. That was a 1989. You sit on top of the engine.
Yeah. Really cool. With the like straight front nose, face-shift nose.
So that was my first four by four. Actually, I'm lying. Did it have the bucket seats in
the back that could turn around? No, it was the front seats turned around. No, no, no, no.
So that was the first memory I have of four-wheeling was in that van. We got it up on three tires a
couple of times. But before that, I had a 1983 Blazer S10. Oh, it wasn't my car, but it was my car.
Sure. I just was four years old. All right. So over the years, though, Sat and Dad's lapped,
turned the steering wheel, you know, got exposed to wheeling on the snowy roads, the
fire roads and stuff. And just like any young kid dreams of having a Jeep someday.
So like any good son, I convinced my dad to let me buy a Jeep in high school.
He refused to let me until I got accepted to college. So once I got accepted to college,
I dangled that in his face and we went out and got a 1978 CJ5. And why I wanted to get into that is
I had been following the magazines. I'd go to the grocery store with my mom and see four-wheeler
magazine, JP magazine, et cetera. Were you guys old enough to look at magazines? I wasn't. I was.
That was the big thing. When the new magazine came out and you go to the grocery store and pick
it up. Yeah. I mean, top truck challenge, right there in our backyard at Hollister. So
all of that just kind of shaped my interest and I just got further and further into it. And then I
even did a high school senior video project about a personal tapestry of who I am. And I found footage
of me as a little baby with a little toy and I picked up the sand, put it on the deck so the
toy could drive through the dirt. And I was like, okay, I've been wanting to drive in the dirt since
I was literally three years old. And then I got a go-kart of me driving my go-kart gravity-fed
go-kart. And the first thing I did was steer off the road into the dirt to keep going to the dirt.
So something has been in me since childhood to drive through the dirt. That's a little bit of
the background there. Yeah. That that Jeep led to another Jeep that led to another Jeep and then
got rid of that Jeep and went back to the second Jeep. Okay. That's the story. Is that what we have
today? That is I have a 1981 CJ7 and that is what I've had now 20 years. I got it my freshman year
college. Okay. When did you get Bobcat? Freshman year, huh? I got Bobcat in 2004.
Is that freshman year college? No, I was just graduating college. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. This
might be 22 years. Yeah, 22 years. Where was your first 4x4 rig? My first 4x4 was my first vehicle
actually. It was a 1998 Ford Ranger that had the shitty, shitty 4x4. The vacuum
actuated 4x4. That did not hold 4x4 ever. No. So he has that to be fair. My first 4x4,
my first car was a 1988 Dodge Durango with a 5.9. I remember that. You come into the meetings with
that. And I had 32 inch tires on. I did a torsion bar lift and I did some black diamonds at Hollister
in that rig. Nice. And parents like, you need to get a Jeep. So I don't know if my first Jeep
story, well, my only Jeep that I bought story ever got told, but I bought it when I was a senior
in high school. It was 1990. And I saw it, you know, this was back when you looked in the classifieds
in the paper. So these little tiny, you know, blurbs and it was, you know, 74 CJ5, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, whatever acronyms, right? No, short tags and all that stuff. No, no, no, yeah.
It was tiny. Yeah. It was abbreviated because it was in this tiny little box. Anyways, I don't
remember the whole details. All I remember is buying it from this kid and he cried when I drove away.
Oh, your heartbreaker. I know. Is that this apartment complex over in Saratoga? And
yeah, I drove away and it was an absolute piece of shit. It was brown. It was root beer brown was
the technical, I think, but it was a metallic shit brown is what I called it. And it had a brown
astroturf grass in the floorboard. Really? Yeah, it was bad. It had a just stereotypical
straight, straight six, 300 or no, 258, 258 straight six with a three speed. The T 13 or
T 13, T 14 were the two three speeds. Absolutely crap. I took it out a couple runs at Hollister
and one of the like second, third run, I was halfway up five fingers and the
transmission actually a snap ring broke all the gears shifted and it locked up.
And I literally had to drag it down a steep hill. I kicked actually I kicked the
transfer case into neutral so I could get back down. Anyways, then then the whole remodel
started. But yeah, I got it in 1990 and I still have that deep through five remodels since then.
So five fingers is the only hill I've never made it up really Hollister. Yeah. And it's usually
closed. That's why it's open. It's been open a lot now. It's been open quite a bit. So I met Jason
at Hollister before we ever officially met. I was out there in my CJ five is the yellow
CJ five on 32s and just kind of getting a feel for the Jeep and learn a little bit. And I saw this
primer gray CJ five on 33s. Whoa. And it was doing the mini Rubicon. Okay. And I was like,
Oh, there's some suspension stuff there. Like I want to meet that guy. That guy's got a Jeep
just like me, but it's doing the mini Rubicon. Man, someday I'll hopefully meet that guy.
Now I'm sitting on a couch next to here. We are now your business partners. Now we're business
more bad decisions off road.
Nice. Okay. So you guys have both been wheeling a very long time, very intimate with vehicles,
vehicle knowledge, your motor heads, your gear heads. So how did that evolve from
this a spree to four and combining what you guys have been doing all these years. It's pretty
just for your experience wheeling, your love for going out and playing with vehicles
to Sierra Nevada off road Academy. Like how, how does, how does this all get connected now and
bring us to Sierra Nevada off road Academy? Good question. Well, I alluded to it earlier.
It's people taking the spree to four basic class and wanting to learn more 70% of it.
I think that's a low number, but, you know, that's not scientific, but that's just my guess
is that, you know, these people would come up to us and go, we want to learn more.
Yeah. What's next? What's next? How do I use a winch?
Yeah. Do you do a winching class? Do you guys teach people to prepare for the Rubicon, you know,
and rock crawling and stuff? And no, we don't. And it was, and we talked about it in the club
extensively. I mean, we actually did plans. We were going to do it. And then, you know,
came to our senses and said, no, let's just do what we do well. And that's beginning,
you know, with our volunteers. It's all volunteers. Nobody's paid, right?
And then so that's where CJ and I joked around, you know, it always starts with that like, hey,
we're going to start a podcast. And then a podcast gets started, you know, run a campfire.
But it's like, yeah, Bear Lake. And so it's like, you know, hey, you know, we should,
doing an advanced class and this stuff. And then, you know, we're both deep in our careers.
And then, you know, things change when I moved to Nevada and like trying not to work as much as I
used to. And then he changed up his lifestyle and said, hey, what do you think? Should we start this
up? And I go, absolutely. And, you know, the, I've been fortunate in my career choices and
stuff I've done. It's always been fun. Yeah. You know, and stuff you've been interested in.
Stuff I've been interested in, you know, they say, don't make your hobby, you know, your work
or your passion, your work. But I think it's the opposite. You better be passionate about what you
do because you're doing it a lot, you know, to survive, to put, you know, bread on the table,
so to speak. So I've always gravitated towards stuff I enjoy doing because, you know, I want to
wake up and do what I want to do and not be like, oh, my God, I got to go do, you know, I got to
go work on these Toyotas at this Toyota shop or something, you know, it's like the bane of my
existence. So anyways, yeah, so that's, that's how it kind of came about. We said, let's do this.
Yeah, I was done with corporate America. I had had 15 years working in tech.
Really, really cool stuff. Passionate about it. Some people might know I'm a film, was a film
major. So love selling stories, love video encoding, love all the problems of scaling video on the
internet. And we did a lot of nerdy, cool stuff for a long time. And I got further and further away
from why I got hired. And I kept getting pushed into corners I didn't care as much about. Really
cool, compelling corners like the lead up to AI and edge computing nerdy stuff that would be very
lucrative if I had stayed in that career. I just can't wake up for it in the morning. I'm like,
20% if I'm passionate about it. And I could just tell I was phoned it in. I had a life changing
accident and that kind of just put some perspective. I laid there in the hospital bed and said,
I'm never working another day here ever. And I hung around for another year and a half to get
the insurance and to help my team. I was a manager and I wanted to get my team placed elsewhere in
the company. And then April 1st, two years ago, I quit. So we're celebrating two years tomorrow
as of this recording. So April 1st joke, see you later. And three days after best decision I
ever made, I just everything left all the stress left my body. And I was like, what was I doing
delaying this? I'm so afraid mortgages, responsibilities, adulthood, all this stuff.
You'll figure it out. Just do it. So I quit, called Jason up said, Hey, man, we got ticking
clock. When you were recovering and I remember talking, I came and visited you a few times
at your house and you could barely get out of bed and stuff sometimes. And it's like,
you're like, we got to do something. We got to do something to teach people. And so
that was kind of the spur of it. And then you were really adamant when you were recovered.
There was, I don't know if, I mean, we've talked a little bit about your accident on the show.
I know when it first happened, we kind of mentioned what happened. Do you want to
tell people from your perspective, just a highlight of what happened? Because I think
that's a really big context for getting into off road safety training.
So I'll be vulnerable for a second and I'll share two little stories. One is that,
yeah, about four years ago, this June, four years ago, I got crushed between two jeeps off road.
We're volunteering for our adopted trail. Literally, literally crushed. Literally
crushed between two jeeps. These are not the kind of jeeps that have plastic
bumpers that are made in the 2020s. These are the kind of older jeeps that have steel.
There's no crush crumples on them. So someone started their jeep in gear and
wasn't in the vehicle and control the vehicle when they started it in gear.
And it went right over a more flat compressor. So those things are built like tanks, just
and nice plug. Yeah. And then I got basically crushed between the jeep
and the other jeep horizontally sideways, right in my pelvis region. And long story short,
helicopter ride, three and a half months in bed, literally learning how to walk again with a broken
pelvis, a broken sacrum. I kind of knew at least in life and said, Hey, this is,
I'm not going to run away from this hobby. I'm going to double down.
And I said, I want to make sure no one ever starts their jeep in gear again.
Back up 18 years prior to that accident, I was the guy that turned the key,
not in the vehicle. And it started in gear and I broke my buddy's femur.
So full circle karma. I don't know what you want to call that.
Hope not karma. We're a good dude. But you accidents happen at any point. And this
is at the end of the day, airing up at the trail head. You're done with the trip.
This is the least dangerous part of the entire day. We were using chainsaws and winches and
pulling trees across trails. Just a freak accident.
It's when you let your guard down and we talk about all the time, this is a super risky hobby
to be in. We're dealing with thousands of pounds of vehicles and equipment and
working loads on recovery systems that if something goes wrong, it goes wrong very quickly
and very dramatically. And so we're always harping. You got to keep your head on a silver.
You got to be aware of everything going on you at all times when we're out doing this.
And that's just one of the things you guys get to now teach and implore on people now.
Yeah. And it expanding on that is we're out in remote areas. We're not around the corner
on Fifth Street where the hospital's four blocks away. We're out in the middle of the
wilderness and it might be an hour before any helicopter can come to you if not longer.
It was three hours to get to the ER. And that whole story is crazy. And it was like,
and we had planned, not you don't plan for it, but I mean, you were prepared, right?
I wasn't there. I was back at camp. But we have a satellite phone in the club at the time.
Well, satellite phone was back at camp. It didn't go out on the track.
I had done all my ham radio research. I had had APRS text messaging set up. I had tested it the
day before, confirmed the new repeater was up, had talked to some of the local folks on the
highway four pass. I mean, I had done everything I needed to do to be able to text message updates.
The accident happened. I was in the shadow of the mountain, couldn't get a ping.
And I lay in there with a broken pelvis, barking orders to hand me my iPad. I think
I can do this. And I'm trying to get it to work. Nothing was working. And then our,
one of our helpers went the wrong way up the hill. I was only a mile and a half from a fire
station. But they went the other way. They went the other way to get cell reception.
And so just little things like, Hey, where's the closest hospital? Where's the closest first
responder? What does that look like? And then now with Starlink and now with all the new
phones that can do satellite comms, like really, there's no excuse not to be able to have within
two minutes comms to something to get help. Yeah. And one of the big things that we talk about,
because off-roading is risky, no matter what you're doing and as safe as you want to be,
is mitigating risk. And that's the whole thing. We're doing a risky thing. And it's like,
how do we mitigate risk? So you mitigate risk with knowledge. And there's a lot of stuff that we
talk about. And, you know, we've all done, you know, various levels of it, but haven't really
kind of put the whole package together. And that's the thing that CJ has helped out with. And, you
know, saying, look at these are the things that let's spend five minutes before we go out on a
trail ride. Even if it's on a trail that we've been on a hundred times, the Rubicon trail,
let's talk about, you know, I don't know if Jimmy has an allergy, if he gets stung by a bee or
something, you know, an EpiPen or something, you know, stuff like that. So it's interesting.
One of the classes we teach is a trail leader workshop. And smart. And so it's not just beginner
skills of wheeling, intermediate skills of wheeling. It's like, Hey, I'm an intermediate
skilled wheeler, but now I'm leading groups of people. What does it look like to lead a group
of people? Yeah. Do I have a liability waiver? Do I need a liability waiver? Am I with an
organization that requires a liability waiver? Do I do a driver's meeting? It's not just the
radio frequency. Let's go. Who's got first aid skills? Who's a resource I can go to? So every
trail group should have emergency contact. Yeah. Emergency contact for each person.
Someone should identify in each group. Is there a first responder in the group? Who's our medical
point person? Who's the trail leader's point person? Who's the recovery point person? Yeah.
Ideally, those aren't the same person, but you better believe every trail leader is all three
things usually on the trail. So it's just being a little more intentional about stuff.
And so we do a whole class just on how to be a trail leader. And that's something that came
about because of the other communities I wheel with looking for something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. I know you guys do a bunch of wheeling and you guys enjoy the outside. So do you really
get the knowledge or get the ideas for classes by just being out there in the community and
listening to what people are talking about on the trail and be like,
we can build a class around that. Or is it or I guess it's just experience at that level,
you know, of like, what do we really do feel that needs to get done?
Yeah. And it's been cool because the classes that we've done, you know, and we get a little
background from the individuals, but, you know, it's like we meet them and we've done video chats
prior to the class, you know, to find out what they're looking for. What do you want to get out
of this class? You know, and it helps us. So we hit the ground running with them and go, okay.
And then we adjust during the day, you know, we, you know, have a kind of a plan in place,
if you will. But it's, it's fluid. And as people are learning stuff, I mean, like this last class
we did at Hollister, for example, it was a beginning offroading class. I should you not,
these people excelled and listened so well, we were rock crawling by the end of the day. You
don't rock on a beginning rock, you know, off road class, they were spying each other. They were
spying each other through rocks. Now, the rocks weren't huge, but I took them on this one section
that, you know, was obviously to us, it's like, okay. But, you know, and that's the other hard
thing. Ryan, he was teaching four wheeling all these years, stuff that's nothing to us anymore is
like huge to the person, you got to put yourself in those shoes and like, I got this new vehicle,
I don't know how it works. I'm nervous as hell. So that's, that's always a check for me. I'm always
in the back of my mind going, Jason, this is their first time, their first time. So they're
going over this and they do great. And one guy goes, can we go up this over here? And I'm like,
heck, yeah, we can. You guys are doing great. And then a couple people did like,
stuff that I would never put people on the first day. But you, you pivot and you're like, yeah,
we're learning good here. Or, you know, sometimes you got throttle back and go, okay, you know,
they're not retaining, you know, and it's, it's, we don't want to hurt them or their vehicle or
anything, but it, it's cool to see people pick stuff up right away. And that, that light bulb,
that proverbial light bulb comes on and they're like, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
That's a lot of the benefit to going out and wheeling and learning from people who have a ton
of experience out there, right? We've harped in the past about wheeling and finding clubs,
finding offered clubs to go wheeling with, right? As if you're a beginner and you're looking to get
out there and start, you know, what can these vehicles do? What's the capability of like
equipment here? You know, finding an off road club, finding trainers that run classes that
have the experience that can help guide you through that, you know, all the gear is super
capable. It really comes down to user knowledge and how do you impart knowledge or absorb that
knowledge is one thing. You know, are you a fast learner, slow learner, but having 20 classes?
So that's because you're the actual, the, the, what was it? The wheeler. I'm the co-wheeler.
But I think you nailed it. And that's kind of the story. I've seen the evolution in any of us
who've been in Jeep clubs or off road clubs for a while. They're not, they're not dying breed,
but they're kind of rarer and rarer these days because we have Facebook groups and we have
Instagram meetups. And, and I'm like, you know what, like someone took me under their wing
when I joined a spree to four and took me on their first Rubicon trip and even towed my Jeep
there in case I broke, like people older than me took me under their wing. I don't see that
mentorship happening on a Facebook group that meets up for a trail ride. We want to do a whole
Instagram groups versus off road clubs. And I think that's a step where you're used to
learn by joining a community. And you learned a little hard way and it wasn't as intentional,
there wasn't a curriculum, but at least you learned through osmosis. And nowadays people
are hopping on these organized trail runs that are beautifully laid out, 50, 60, 100 vehicles,
you know, all the Jeep jeffery runs, et cetera. And they just follow the leader. They don't
actually learn any of the wheeling skills. Going on right now. Yeah.
As far as you just follow the car. You don't know actually learn how to drive your own vehicle.
And if anything happens, typically it's a lot of the blind leading the blind
in Facebook group trail runs, meetups, et cetera. Whereas if you get involved with a club, you
typically have people that are way more vested interest. And then beyond that, you get into
training classes that are people that are very vestedly interest in your succeeding and having
success out on the trail and learning. And that's the whole point of training classes like this.
So, yeah, that's always been something like Jimmy said, we've wanted to go over
and do Facebook groups versus clubs, off road clubs, but there's a whole nother
level to it in training organizations, training companies like you guys.
I've seen it. Oh my God. I want to say a million times, but realistically over a thousand times,
I've seen people, you know, buy whatever rig, put all the aftermarket stuff,
and they go out wheel and they think they're going to be great, but they don't have the
skills, right? They didn't learn how to wheel in an open, open diff rig and stick shift or
whatever it may have been. You know, their first wheeling rig, their first wheeling rigs,
this $100,000 Jeep that's, you know, maybe even has portals on it. And just, yeah, just crazy,
right? And it looks cool. You know, the mall crawlers, so to speak, and they're super capable,
but the driver's not. And, you know, it's fun getting people like that that go, hey, and they
realize I need to learn how to wheel and getting them out there and showing them stuff. Yeah,
Stevie Wonder could drive your rig, you know, just point and shoot. But why are you going on that
line or what's the safer line to go on? You know, how is my rig going to react when I drive up this,
you know, four foot boulder? You know, how does the suspension work and
everything? And, you know, I always love to go back to mechanical sympathy.
People that don't work on rigs are, you know, I get it. And it's not a diss on anybody. You know,
everybody comes from all these different walks of life. But if you're not a mechanical person,
and you, you know, you've got the means to buy this cool rig. But you don't know what the sounds
are and stuff. And conversely, I mean, some of the minor sounds of just a skid plate getting,
you know, going over a rock sounds terrible to somebody that's never been off road. But,
oh my God, what did I do to my rig? Nothing. It's fine. Keep coming forward. Or, you know, or,
yeah, the drive shafts getting ready to leave the chat and they're still on the throttle. So
mechanical sympathy is just one of those things. And I wish I didn't have as much as I did because
there's some stuff that I'm just like cringing going over, knowing the stresses. It's usually at
Sand Hollow. But yeah, it's cool to get to impart that knowledge and watch them pick up on it and
then see their skills improve throughout the day. And it's all seat time. It's all seat time. But in
that short, you know, time during the day that those hours, you watch them progress hour to hour
to hour. And that's what's super cool and rewarding as a instructor, you know, and doing
something that I love. It's cool to watch that unfold in front of you, so to speak, you know.
And at the end of the day, we have a little wrap up and talk about, you know, what was your
highlight of the day? And it's so, so fun to hear that, you know, what they learned and how excited
they are about going off-roading again. Yeah. It's the aha moment, right? It's the light bulb
that Jason talked about earlier. And as a teacher and instructor, that's you love watching your
student have that aha moment where they break through the next layer of learning and they
fall in love with the hobby that we dedicate our lives to, right? That's addicting. That's fun. And
at the end of the day, when we should, you know, we put out some cheese and crackers or some something
and we're chatting about the day, like it's nice to hear those stories. Yeah, we do do it up on the,
you know, food side too. You don't go hungry at our class. You know, if it's an overnight deal,
you're not going to go thirsty around the campfire. You know, we, I came from, you know, a hospitality
industry and it's always a nice touch, you know, and just to make people feel calm in the morning,
a cup of coffee, a home baked muffin, you know, just to get the day started and kind of break
the ice a little bit like, Hey, what's your experience? What are you doing? You know, what
do you want to get out of today and blah, blah, blah. And it really helps. It goes a long ways
just to add to the whole, you know, like CJ says, it's a high touch, you know, experience and
it sounds like it's very highly personalized too. It is. I haven't, I haven't gotten the opportunity
to attend a lot of quote unquote off road training classes before from different companies, different
places, but it sounds like you guys put a lot more personal touch into the classes
than what I've ever heard of before in offer training classes.
Hey, I'm a nerd. We all know that was mentioned earlier. And I did a lot of competitive analysis
and said, Hey, how do I want to approach this business? And a couple of things stood out. One
is a lot of these businesses are taught by folks that are ex military or ex, they're just in a
uniform of some kind and are not approachable. They maybe are intimidating to certain demographics
of people. First and foremost, okay, so they're going to teach it a little bit more like a
structured thing and it's going to be a little bit more rigid. We want to be a little more flexible,
a little more nimble. Second was, Hey, we want to offer a premium service. That means a premium
experience before the class, during the class and after the class. So onboarding all these classes,
you got to make a phone call and check in somewhere like, well, anyone who's 35 and under
likes to go on the internet, click the button and sign up for something and know what they're
signed up for, get an email that validates that and some confirmation. So we've kind of streamlined
the whole onboarding process where you fill out a little questionnaire, you get a, the waiver is
already submitted, like everything's just handled all on your laptop or your phone before you ever
show up. We do a pre-meeting so we can talk about what you want to learn. And then meeting. Yep.
And then is that like the whole class shows up on the zoom meeting or is it like a one-on-one
with the instructor kind of thing? It depends. So we offer one-on-one private classes and they'll
be one-on-one. Sometimes someone's a little more anxious. They want to get on. Other people don't
always make it or they've been in other classes, but we'll try to do a group, a group zoom.
And then, yeah, as Jason said, the class is pretty flexible. We have curriculum. We just,
it's all modular. So we pick a call from what we want to make that happen. And then after the fact,
we do a shared photo album. People become friends that day. We get a group chat going. We've got a
an online community that we're fostering called, that's on Halo. Halo is a platform,
H-E-Y-L-O. And a lot of car clubs are moving to it. Okay. And you guys heard of it? Uh-uh.
Yeah. I want to talk to you guys about your Discord server and a possible option. It's pretty
cool. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we just set up the whole Discord thing. We're going to announce it,
I think last Thursday's episode. So, yeah. I mentioned I'm always interested to hear about
community. Yeah. Yeah. It's just an opportunity to have a chat, forums, events you can publish,
you can even do paid trips, all sorts. Well, geek it, geek on it. But we want to foster
a relationship with our customers. It's not a transactional thing like you went river rafting
and then you never see that person again. Yeah. We want to be, hey, like you took a
beginner class. You might be interested in the intermediate or a trail run we're going to host
or a meet up, just like you guys do with your podcast communities. And so we really just try
to be intentional from the beginning and notice a lot of the other folks in the industry, which
there's not many, frankly, out there. Not that many. I believe we all rise with the tide. We're
all trying to level up the community and the industry as a whole. But there's a space here to
do something a little different, a little special. So we're trying to keep it high touch and high
value. Yeah. And I just, it hasn't been said yet, but I want to make it clear. We are not the experts
of off-roading. We have a lot of experience. We've got some great training, but every time
I've taught the Esprit of Four class, it's one of the first things I say, we're going to learn
today with you guys. And we do because back when I started teaching class, there was not electric
vehicles. There was not electric lockers. There was not electric parking brakes.
All this technology, so we've evolved with technology teaching the class air conditioning.
You didn't even have air conditioning. You know, that was air conditioning and a jeep. Oh my God.
Power steering, what? Back then, they probably just went to square headlights for you too.
That was the one change that I really didn't like in the jeep deal.
Did Chris just show up?
But no, you know, so it is you evolve with that, right? And then so CJ being heavily involved in
the EV world, you know, that was just like mind blown for me and learning these vehicles and what
they can do. And of course, I had my, you know, biased opinions when I first, you know, saw these
things and that thing ain't going to get off or out of electric. You got to have, you know,
there's no, you know, combustion engine, you know, you got to have got to have no replacement for
displacement, man. You got to have big V8 in your rig and, you know, just got to hear it coming
from two miles away on the trail. But it is amazing and it's been cool to see what
the new technology can do and how it's evolving and it's evolving. I mean, just our last trip,
you know, with the Riviera, CJ is like, oh, it just got an update. I'm going to see how
this wheels today. So it's different. It's wild. Every month, there might be a new update and some
of the drive modes get updates. And so now rock crawl mode goes faster and I can use it between
trails, not just on the trail. And the suspension might be softer or handle body roll differently
or the traction control kicks in sooner. It's unbelievable. It is wild. And it's on the fly.
That's it. Right. It's like over the air. You got your app on your phone and it connects to your car
and you download the software immediately. And it's not like, when you put your car in the
garage that night, it just downloaded, you know, the new software and it's like, you know, my truck
does that to update the FM stereo or something and the satellite radio, I guess. But it's just,
it's mind blowing because what we're used to doing is getting out, you know, wrenches and
changing something and making our own adjustments. They're literally doing it on the dash on this
touchscreen. And it's pretty cool technology. The latest, the latest quad motor Rivian has RadTuner.
Okay. And it allows you to go into the drive modes that we've all had. So there's lots of
different drive modes, no different than a Bronco or Toyota these days, right? With hill descent
control and sand mode versus Baja mode. Those all do something. We just don't know what they do.
So Rivian, Rivian heard that and said, Hey, I'm going to put a mode up here
that allows me to dial in the front rear bias, dial in the suspension firmness, dial in the
suspension roll firmness because it's a hydraulic sway bar. That's not a physical sway bar.
There's about eight or 10 different categories and you can just make your own mode. Yeah.
So that's what I thought was really neat. I don't want to say neat. It was, it was,
it was neat to figure out when I had the Bronco because you had all the GOAT modes on it. And I
was like, what the hell are they doing with these GOAT modes? And it's literally just taking the
different off road variables. Right. That a vehicle has lockers, sway bars, traction control,
traction control, remap the gas throttle. Absolutely. All these different variables.
And it just sets every variable to different thing for different mode. And that was really cool
getting to ride around with the Rivians out at Johnson Valley this year. KOH was getting to
learn about how Rivian has all that set up and launching the rad, the rad controls. So, yeah,
sorry. Yeah, you guys got to write a lot. Totally geek out on that stuff. And that's a
whole other podcast that you should do with CJ because he's got a ton of knowledge about that.
It is, it is, it is crazy. It's a future, you know, and like it or love it or you hate it,
whatever. But it does have its limitations. And I've witnessed it. But what's cool is
our adopted trail was it three years ago? Four years ago coming up this June. It'll be four years
ago when a few Rivians joined us on our adopted trail. You know, and we actually had one pull a
big ass log, you know, out of the way and stuff. And I'm like, well, yeah, because we know it's
got a lot of torque and horsepower, right? And it's heavy. And it's heavy. And the battery's
down low. I mean, there's a lot of bit on paper. You look at this thing, you're like, this is ideal
off-roader, you know? But it was so from four years ago when I first watched it off-road and
it struggled up a hill climb. And it was digging, you know, unnecessarily on one of our hill climbs
because it was loose and it's like this tire started spinning. So it said, OK,
no, put tire power to this tire that's not spinning and stuff. It's so much better now.
Yeah. You know, so much better. Is it there yet? I don't think it's there yet to like,
you know, we're going to freaking this is the go to vehicle, but it's getting there.
I think all of the ideas and ideology behind electronic sensors and motors and everything
like that. I think that idea is there. It just needs stronger parts to be able to handle
the GVWs of the vehicles in rock crawling and more extreme situations. Yeah. I think for
90%, 95% of off-roading that occurs out there with the general public,
electric vehicles are there. But I think for that other 5% of getting a little extreme,
doing more rock crawling with them, et cetera, that they just need a little bit stronger components.
But we no different than any other stock. Yeah, exactly. Right. We have more
upgrade opportunities with our Toyota Broncos and Jeeps, but 100%. They have been fun to play with.
I think the important thing is we're focused on that in addition to the rest of the industry.
We're EV literate in our instruction and people who have these vehicles want to take
classes that are just EV specific. And so that's a lot to those cars. You just want to know what
you're getting into. Exactly. So we've offered that in addition. I've had the opportunity to also
be in non-rivy and EVs and continuing to focus on that. And Jason talked about training and I do
too. Like I'm taking another training class this coming week. We don't know everything.
And we prove that by attending other classes and continuing to learn more. And so
just trying to take that adoption is knowledge's power on the trail. And let's just make a business
around that. Yeah. And you impart the knowledge you have, the safety factor. And again,
mitigating risk. It's like, let's mitigate risk. And so we teach this off-road recovery class. And
it's like, okay, you know, kinetic ropes are using for everything are new. I mean,
they're they're really new in my world. But what they've been around for 10 years or whatever.
But people go, OK, I get the I get the concept. It's like a rubber band. Yeah. And you know,
we're going to tell this to you. But people don't know that after three pools with a kinetic rope,
it's a tow strap at that point. It needs to relax. And you tell that to people and they're like,
what? I didn't know that was there. About a rubber band. So there's a lot of things that we've done
as veteran off-roaders. And we just use it because it's there. Oh, that D ring that. Oh,
we got soft shackles now. OK, that's cool. Let's start using it. Well, there's a proper way to
rig a soft shackle, you know. And yeah, I understand, you know, the loop goes over the knot and stuff.
But how is it supposed to be? How is it rated? You know? So you get a lot of people that have been
off-roading for a while and we tell them something and they're like, oh, crap, we've been doing it
wrong all these years. Fine. It's worked. I've done some sketchy shit. I've done some sketchy
recoveries and I'm here to tell about it. And I got all my limbs and fingers and toes. But
there's stuff that could have gone seriously wrong for sure. And so mitigating those risks,
knowing what your recovery, you know, it's fun. We do a thing. I know CJ wants to talk here in
a second, but I just one thing I want to share is that people, they bring out their recovery gear.
What do you got? Bring your stuff. We encourage it. You know, a lot of it's, OK, yeah, you got some
factor 55 stuff. You got a legit freedom rope, whatever. And then there's a lot of Amazon
stuff that pops out. Oh, yeah. And I'll let CJ take it from there. We won't name any names at all.
But it's been fun to take it a little more intentionally and learn more about the recovery.
I took a recovery course about a year and a half ago and it just humbled me.
And I do enough. Isn't it amazing how much you don't know what you don't know?
Once you start learning what you don't know, you're like, oh, my God, I should be dead right now
from all these years of shit that I've done. We've all got the stories. And we're here to
tell them, thankfully. You know, we were, I've watched, years ago, I watched a
a screw pin bow shackles, the technical term, D-ring,
fly through the back of a tailgate on a blazer through the back of that tub, the bed of that
blazer, because an older square body through the back bench seat and bounce off the headrest of the
driver. Wow. So he was close to having to go through his head. And now I know why that happens,
you know, and I think that's part of the risk. But yeah, a lot of the gear you buy will say
maximum braking strength. That's great. I like maximum. I don't want to know the maximum
strength that broke. I want to know the minimum. So you don't have an MBS, MTS,
average, how each company is rating stuff. And guess what? None of it actually is kind of decided
upon, especially in the off-road recovery world. Very few products are purpose built for off-road
recovery. We're borrowing from other industries like overhead lift and tow and industrial and rigging.
So we teach a little bit about that. We learn about that safety factors and
working load limits. Working load limit is based on your MBS usually, you know,
some sort of safety factor. So your working load limit might be 7000 pounds for your 7.8 kinetic
rope. The vehicle I'm pulling out is more than 7000 pounds. I put five miles an hour into that
rope, which is really slow, by the way. It's 150% of that vehicle's weight. I'm over the working
load limit at five miles an hour. How many of us have seen someone pull out at 15 or 20 miles an
hour? They're lucky to be alive. And myself, I've done it too. I'm guilty of it. So we just,
it is all about risk mitigation. Some of the things I've upleveled on recently is like
having a tether to my rigging. So if something does fail, where is my weak point? Let me do a
second attachment so that it doesn't go flying. And so just upleveling and thinking more critically
about recovery. So, you know, if you're interested in recovery, hit us up. We'd love to nerd out with
you. It's something that I think all of us who spend time on the trail can come up with.
Yeah. And so like we adjusted, we, one of our first recovery classes was with some mechanical
engineers. They love the numbers. Oh my God. Yeah. So spitting out numbers and they're just like,
oh my God, this is okay. Wow. Okay. Let's try this, you know, and so.
They're calculating the pull force of a four to one direction of a 20 degree angle.
I love that stuff. Jason's like, hey, CJ, this is yours.
Jason's like, where's the bourbon? I think that's it. And, you know, we're based out of,
do a lot of trainings at Hollister Hills down in Bay Area, California area. Jason's up in
Minden, Nevada, as you all know. And so we're doing some trainings up in Nevada. We've done stuff
down in Johnson Valley, but Bay Area, I got all the nerds. Yeah. And I love it. And we nerd out
together and a lot of them have bought fancy new four by fours. They want to go learn how to use
it. They got sold the lifestyle. So how many different types of classes do you guys do?
Yeah. We've been talking about this. I'm like, you guys could have obviously an offered safety
201 class. Like we mentioned at the very beginning, people coming out of the intro to
beginner classes and need something more. There's winching. There's recovery. There's
there's how to be a trail leader. Trail leader. You could teach, you know,
what are the mechanics of your vehicles? And when you bind up your drivetrain,
what do you do without a trail kind of thing? Trail etiquette. There's so many different topics.
There is. And so we have like 700.
I mean, it is a little bit menu, to be honest. But that's the thing that's evolved is the
trail leader program has evolved. It went from a one day thing to honestly, to do it
full turkey is like three days. Wow. You're relearning the beginner stuff so that you
know how to teach folks. And you're making sure we're level set. So we have the same skills moving
forward. You're learning all the trail etiquette, trail leader mechanics, best practices that just
keep moving. Don't don't have the rubber band effect with your row of 15 vehicles behind you.
Keep the group small, split up, mate gunners, tail gunners, all the radio comms. But then we
also teach some recovery and first responder type basic stuff because that's important as a trail
leader too. So how do you manage a group when something goes wrong? Who is your safety person
who's not involved in the recovery, but watching the recovery? The recovery person is too busy
doing the recovery to be the safety person. So just some basics of how we structure and
to really do that hands on and put practice spotting, practice leading, it's a three day
workshop. Right. And I'm sure if you have a handful of people, you're doing something like
you're leading this next section of the trail. And then yeah, then it's your turn to start doing
this. And when you do that for a few times, that takes longer and longer when you have multiple
people like leading it. So no wonder. Yeah, it's trying to keep classes small. And that's
really important to us is to have that personal instructor ratio. And yeah, exactly. And you
know, one of the philosophies of Cal Poly that I went to college at was learning by doing. And so,
you know, a street four, when we did the class, you know, we used to have four hours of lecture.
And then it went down to three and two. And now it's like barely an hour and a half of lecture
because we spend a lot of time out in the field. And same thing, you know, we try to get all that
stuff vetted out in the Zoom meeting and stuff so that we are spending time out in the field and
practicing because you talk about this stuff and you tell somebody how to do something. And it's
like, okay, now go do it. And, you know, like guiding, you know, and it's like, okay, be very
clear, concise, you know, hands over your head so the driver can see you. And then they start,
you know, waving their arms frantically. And it's like, no, you know, so when they get that
immediate input of like, oh, okay, yeah, you told me how to do this. But I start to wave my hands.
And so it's like, no, and then then once you correct them, they're like, all right,
we need you a little bit more. It clicks and being out there in the field. There's just it's,
you know, most people are visual learners. And it's just in getting that instant feedback
out there. And it is something as simple as guiding, but it's key. And that's how, you know,
as a teacher, you got to figure out what's what's effective, what's going to work, right?
And, and, you know, the the book smart stuff is one thing, but to actually be out in the field
and watch something happen, you know, why did this vehicle just get stuck on that rock?
Well, there's too many variables in offer, and you can't like being book smart is one thing. But
there's so many different variables going on around you that you can't just be like, oh,
this is the scenario that we're going to play out in theory, right? You've got to be out in the
field doing it. Like you said, seed time is everything that goes for being out on the trail.
So we take it for granted what we know. And we do a kinetic recovery practice. And we talk about it
and to really go into the details of all the little nuts and bolts that are going to happen
in 10 seconds in a kinetic pole, take a half hour to really talk about who's going to be in charge,
who's your point person, how do you, and what happens after you pull them out of the ditch?
People just keep going. Yeah. So sometimes you need to stop. And it goes on and on. And
having somebody who has a kinetic rope in their bag, who's never pulled somebody out,
they don't know what it feels like to be the polar or the pulley. Yeah. And so just by switching
that and doing it a couple of times, different speeds, they get a feel. Oh, that jerked. Oh,
that was soft. Yeah. Oh, this is how this is working. Yeah, I've never been the pulley.
Really? Yeah. Wow. I don't get stuck. You don't go off road much.
So yeah, it's been really fun to learn with our students, learn how to
help teach, improve our teaching, and just find out what they want to learn.
You also get a lot more insight as to what are the things that is misconstrued. I think a lot
of people get a lot of their off-roading information for recoveries, safety off-road,
from Instagram reels and YouTube videos. How you guys get a really good insight as to, oh,
everybody saw this video from Ronnie Dahl about towing, pulling on a ball hitch, right? A toe
ball. You get to see that kind of stuff and that feedback from people. And then you can be like,
oh, that's a terrible video, you guys. That's good in concept, but here's really what's going on.
And here's why, and this is bad, and blah, blah, blah. And so you get to see a lot of that and
have a lot of experience now, not just from what you guys know and from your experiences wheeling
for 40 years, to now being able to see what everybody else is bringing to the table, what
they've learned, and what the learning habits are out there. Yeah. Example, one of our classes was
get your hitch receiver, your toe hitch on the back. You also get where your safety chains
hook up. Yep. Oh, can I pull from there? People put chains on there and like, no. Oh, wow. Well,
why does it say that in the online manual for the toe operators guide for the Rivian? Oh,
to put to hook up a toe, to just win a recovery, pull it onto a flat bed thing. Like, well,
that's a static pull, not a lot of load. You're not in a like, you're not in stock situations.
Like, yes, these, these are again, guides for certain use cases. Let's talk about what we're
doing off road and talking about the physics of all. Now, to be fair, that chain loop is like
double laminated thick. It's actually a really good spot. I would never recover a Rivian off of
that spot, right? We taught, we teach not to do that. But just example of context and awareness,
right? Because there's so much information out there. It's not bad information. It's just out of
context. Yeah. Nice. That's cool. When do you guys have upcoming classes? Like, what are you guys
looking at for the year? I mean, you guys, you're only two years into this, a year and a half.
Like, yeah, when did it start?
What do you classify as your official start? 20, 25, 25, 25.
And there was a lot of zoom meetings and, and just hashing stuff out because we didn't
want to just start to start. So, you know, we wanted to have a nice, you know, high touch
experience right out of the gate. Yeah. And so, we basically spent all 20, 25
polishing and making it to where we got it to a point where we're like, okay, we're ready to teach
class now. Okay. Yeah. And then, yeah. So then we hit the ground running, end of last year,
started classes and been pretty busy since. Haven't really looked back. Yeah.
How many classes do you think you've done so far?
Days or actual classes. Some classes were three-day classes.
Yeah, just classes. I've done about 10 classes.
Yeah. There's been like 10 classes. That's pretty good.
We're, you know, coming towards the end of March now, getting into wheeling season a little bit
earlier than I wanted to be this year, but here we are. But yeah. So, we're working on some stuff.
I'm actually going up to Oregon next week to scout out some locations to do a training in Oregon.
We've got a couple of communities up there that are looking to do a group training. So,
trying to put a two to three-day workshop together. So, we will go to you or that area. If there's
enough critical mass, that's also where I'm taking a training. So, that's kind of works out.
We got some stuff May 14th and May 15th at Hollister. So, we're doing a trail leader workshop
slash intermediate skills workshop. So, I think spotting, I think just being more intentional
on trail, learning a bit more vehicle dynamics and then also how to lead groups. And then,
we're doing a recovery class the next day, May 15th. That's 15th, the other Friday.
When people join your class, are they driving your guys' rigs? Are they driving their rigs?
Or is it, do you have to be present? Like, or do you have to have a vehicle to do it? Or like,
how does that work? As of right now, we'd like you to bring your own vehicle. There might be
exceptions to that where, you know, we want you to experience something different and try it out.
But yeah, this is in your own private vehicle at this point. That's also for our insurance reasons.
Yeah. We don't supply vehicles. Okay. But yeah. And you got to learn your vehicle. I mean,
that's one of the biggest things we teach right at the beginning is, you know,
know your limits, know your vehicle limits. Sure. And your limits are way more than the
vehicle's limits, as we know, right? Your vehicle is super capable. And it's, you know,
staying in your lane, so to speak, when you're first starting out. Crawl, walk, run. Okay.
Sure. You know, keep crawling. Yeah. That's what you guys are still on the crawl.
But yeah. No, so that's the key. So there's a lot of concepts and stuff there. And it's,
you know, I mean, a lot of this stuff, like if you guys took our class, you'd be like,
okay. And then by the end of the day, be like, holy crap. You know, it was eye-opening to me,
the stuff that we were going through in the curriculum and stuff. And it's like,
there's, yeah. Yeah. I've wheeled. I made it to the end of the Rubicon. Great success, you know,
and that's some people, they do it once and they're, they're good, but it's, it's learning,
learning, learning every day. And there's, you know, there's many different ways to skin a cat.
Is that what it goes? Yeah. Yeah. My jimmy is, I should pull it up on my phone. That's a whole
list of jimmy isms. I was at work last year on the fairway moment. You'd say something during a
podcast. I was like, oh, I'll add that to the jimmy isms. Throwing a dead, swinging a dead cat
in the yard or something. But yes, it's, it's yeah. I mean, on top of that, we offer different classes
for different types of folk. And what I mean by that is I've got an online beginner's workshop. So
if you want to sign up on demand, just schedule a zoom call with me. We do a two hour slide deck.
Now, some people would be, what are you doing? That's awful. Well, that's not for that person,
but some people really want to feel and feel more comfortable before they ever hit the dirt.
So it's for that person. We also do a class. I do a radio programming class. So people are,
by radius, if you want to nerd out and like level up, let's just do a one-on-one session.
You should take that class, Tyler. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. How do you program on Starlink?
We do a radio programming class. I do a mapping class. So I had somebody say,
hey, I want to drive from here to here via dirt. How do I even go about that project?
Let's pull up guy. Let's pull up Onyx. Let's look at our different resources and figure out how we
might go about that. So we learned quickly early on that like, yeah, there's all the hands-on stuff.
We want to do that. But there's also people just looking for a little bit of a booster shot of
something that they want to level up on. And so we're offering digital classes as well as in
personal classes. I think that's really cool. Because I think in a way, you're going to,
like you're doing so many different varieties in so many kind of different directions, it sounds
like, you know, we've obviously talked about all the off-road stuff, but now you're doing mapping
classes and radio classes as well. I think it's good for you guys to open that up and do this
wide variety. And then it's really going to help you kind of find your niche and where is great
for you to focus on or where do you want to move or what do you really want to promote? I think
that's a good thing for you guys to do. As business owners, I mean, I took an approach to say, hey,
I don't know where this is going to take us. But I need to be open to see where it goes. I'm not
going to have too much of a predestined five-year plan. I have a six-month plan. And let's see
where the demand is. And we're working on some other projects too that aren't consumer grade. It's
more of the commercial or fleet vehicle side. And what would that look like? And we want to do
events from the very beginning. We want to do VIP trips. So what does that look like? And what
are the muscles we need to make that happen? We're also partnering with local off-road shops
say, hey, I have customers that want to do customer rides. Maybe I want them to take
your beginner class before I have them join my customer ride. And say, hey, how can we all
work together to build this off-road community that just has a better time on the trail?
Well, yeah. And they know that the vehicle that they're building is super capable, but the person
that's buying it or doing the upgrades is not. And yeah, there's a little danger issue there. So
that's one of the other things I was going to say. It's interesting to me at my stage in life
in 53 years on this earth is to be successful in business is you have your strong points,
your personal strong points. But you want to pair up or your business, you want to build your
business around people that you're working with that are different. And CJ is great with this
propeller hat stuff, the computer stuff and all that stuff. That's not my strong point.
My strong point is my experience being out off-roading and pushing the limits and doing
mechanical and all this stuff. And being extroverted.
And extroverted. And I never used to be early on in my childhood. I was not an extrovert. I was
an introvert. So I don't know what happened. I think it was beer and whiskey and wine and all
anyways. Yeah, but it's good because when I had the landscape business, we had three people
involved there and we had the person behind the computer that was doing all the finances and
that they did great at that. We had the pie in the sky idea person that's like, yeah, we can do this.
And then I was the guy that had to figure out how to do that. And it worked. Yeah, it worked well.
So it's good. And so when CJ and I were talking about this and I take a step back and go, okay,
can you succeed at this? It's like, yeah, well, you can succeed at anything. You put your mind
to it. But it's like having the components there and realizing that because if everybody's on the
same page, it's not going to go well typically. So it's been fun learning from CJ. I think CJ
has learned like one or two things from me. So it's, you know, just trying, but it's it's cool
to things not to do. Yeah, it's nice. Exactly. I wouldn't do that. But no, it's cool to see,
you know, it evolve and it comes back to passion, you know, we talk about it a lot on our podcast
and the passion. And if you got the passion, you'll figure it out and make it happen, you know.
But that leap of faith is a little scary and stuff. And, you know, financially,
my last few years have been pretty frightening on the books. If you look at the books, but
I can relate to that. Exactly. But, you know, it's been some of my best years of my life too.
It's without the stress and the BS of chasing that dollar every day. So anyways, yeah, it's
are your classes pretty localized to Northern California or like you said, you're going up to
Oregon soon. Will you go pretty much anywhere if I guess the price is right quote unquote,
but the price is right. Absolutely. I mean, I think I'm excited to wheel more and more of the
country. I mean, I'm a Rocky mountain and West kind of guy. I haven't had the chance to go back
East as much. I'm part of the Rivian Close of America is a larger community. And so I think
there's opportunity to possibly go out and do Rivian specific trainings for that community
around. But that's going to be a fly in and, you know, bring some basic stuff.
If we tow our whole packaged somewhere, that's different cost a lot. Yeah, it's a business,
right? It's a business. And, and, you know, we were committed from day one that, you know, we're
not a charity, you know, yeah, we want to help out and we'll do stuff and all that. But, you know,
it's it's a business and it's got to make sense. Got to make financial sense. And,
you know, but with that and doing it right, you know, the insurance is ungodly expensive,
all this stuff to do it right. And that's what we committed to.
So our price reflects that. But it, you know, the people that have experienced our class are like,
worth every penny. So that's cool. That was validating. You know, we had a session down and
Joshua Tree did a little morning session, classroom training for an hour and a half.
Someone walked out of that said, that was worth it. Just that was worth the price right there.
Like, yeah, we've got a lot more going on. Jason and I shared, you wanted a high touch,
just that we want to surprise and delight. We want you to walk away and have something
that you weren't quite expecting in a positive experience. So that might be sure could read
the end of the trail or whiskey tasting around the campfire, if it's a multi-day event,
or just a piece of knowledge that you never even would have thought of.
And I think that's what we're really anchoring on as we want you to walk away
really, really happy. And that it was worth it. And we spend thousands of dollars on a rooftop tent
or a rack or some other bolt-on thing in your car. You can't drop a little bit of money to learn
some knowledge so you don't roll your car over. I don't know. So you make it back home afterwards
really? To go experience all those thousands of dollars that you have. So you can come home and
go out and do it again. Yeah. Drive with skill, explore with confidence. That's our motto.
Yeah. Is that really your motto to just make that? No, it really is. I'm not that smart.
It's written down right there. Oh, is it? Okay, there you go. Yeah, no, I remember that.
That was one of the things we worked on. I sat in the talking minutes yesterday.
Oh, yeah. It's cool. And yeah, I'm excited to see where this thing goes so far so good. And
we've done some fun stuff. And I know there's some new stuff we're going to be doing here
in the future that's going to be exciting. So more fun stuff to come.
I really like that. I don't want to say you two specifically are involved, but I know you two
very well. And I know how your brains operate. I know the experience you come from. And I know
what you want to really give back to the industry and help with the industry and grow
that knowledge base in the community, right? So I'm really excited to see
where this goes for you guys because I think there's a lot of different avenues that could go.
I think you'll need to grow and scale a lot more to really hit all of them,
but I think it's going to be really fun to watch and see what we talked about,
where this is going to niche down, to really find where that demand is, what people really
want to see because you guys are a wealth of knowledge. And it can go a lot of different
ways. And I think that time over the next, I think over the next year or so,
we'll really start figuring out where it's all going to be at to be able to start that growth
wave to then spread out to really impact your full knowledge on everybody in the industry.
So yeah, and it's the relationships, right? And having been around for a few years
and the people I've got to meet, and especially through the podcast, but
you know, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's
it has and it's like, you know, I'm like, okay, going through my mind,
Rolodex and like, who could help us with this? And you know, I'm like, oh,
I'm going to call this individual on there. And they're like overwhelmingly, yes, I want to help
and I want to, I want to make, and it's pretty cool. So, and it's
one thing I love about the offered industry pretty much everybody within the industry
is all very much like, no, yeah, the rising tide raises all ships. Yeah, exactly. Let's,
let's make the industry better. Yeah. And I think anybody who gets
approached in the industry with an opportunity to better the industry,
everybody's on board with it. It's been really cool. I was spoken with other instructors
and we're not competing. Yeah. They're just looking for another gig. Yeah. Like, hey,
I got trained up here. I'm from here. Come up. We're going to build a network of people that
we can rely on and use. And that's just kind of how it has to work. And it is. And it's like,
yeah, we're, we're trying not to step on anybody's toes or anything. Be very respectful. And it's
cool because it comes back. And, you know, we're like, I asked this individual, would you mind
helping out? They're like, yeah, you don't even have to pay me. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is
a business. We're paying you, you know, you know, but it's cool. It's really cool. And
as you know, the need for knowledge is out there. And, you know, I touched on it briefly,
the side-by-side side of things. And I got involved with that when I moved to
Northern Nevada and bought a side-by-side. And I got in this thing and, you know,
I got a lot of off-road experience and I'm like, holy hell, this thing can frickin rip.
And you can get over the henna bars in a hurry, right? You see all these accident stuff. So,
you know, that's going to be another thing that we're offering is side-by-side training. And,
you know, unfortunately, probably the people that really need it most won't take the class,
but the ones who do are going to be better prepared and know what that vehicle is capable
of off-road. I wonder, you mentioned side-by-side trainings because they have those in states
like Utah, right? And, or did Oregon implement one, two as that I hear? Or was it, there's
some license or something that you want? Well, Utah had an online off-road training because
we got our off-road license for Utah when we went to Trail Hero, you know.
So now, California is going to be implementing an off-road training very similar to what Utah did.
And I don't know if there's a way to, if there's an opportunity there
for you guys to get in on some of that and offers class specifically for
getting people ready for that. I don't know.
I mean, that's good. Yeah, they're doing it with the Boater training now, which is good. I mean,
it is, you don't know what you don't know. And there's a lot of people that go out and buy a
$100,000 wake ski boat and fricking don't know anything about boating. So yeah, it's the same
thing. You know, gotta, gotta have some knowledge. So it's a start, but it, more than an online class,
it needs to be out there showing people what happens and how quickly it can go south.
Yeah. What about other opportunities? So, you know, we covered, you're, you're,
you're mainly right now, you're doing classes on NorCal. That's just because that's where you're
located. You're willing to go to other places, but like, if people wanted to reach out about their
local group, how, how would they do that? Are you open to it? What would happen to you?
Yeah. Take us through the process. That's a great question, Tyler. And we, we actually
have a, some, a group in our spree to four club that's part of another group. It's a Bronco only
group. I'm like, man, we got this great group of people on Facebook. We go out wheeling all the
time. I'd love to do something just with the Bronco club. Okay. Not a problem. We do a private
group session. So we'll have public sessions up on our scheduler and a calendar on the website,
www.SNV, O-R-A, or Sierra Nevada Academy.com. But we also can do private classes where we'll
work with you a couple of months out, schedule something, and we'll give you a private link
to sign up, private payment, even a discount code, et cetera. Never shows up the website. So you know
it's only the people that you want to show up to that group. So that's a nice thing to offer.
We're working with some other instructors to do women's only classes. Oh, cool. Yeah. That should
be really cool. And we have some friends that participate in Rabell Rally and they were asking
for certain skills and certain trains and maybe not Rabell specific, but rally type training.
Skills that will help in the Rabell. Yeah, exactly. But they're also applicable a lot of places.
100%. But what does it look like to have certain demographics of people that maybe
don't feel as comfortable in traditional public training sessions offer classes that they want
to attend? Nice. I think the vehicle. The personal touch. And that's the key. And it's,
you know, I see it. I mean, people are nervous at the beginning of the day. And I try to ease
their, you know, calm them down and like, Hey, we're going to, we're the states for you. Yeah,
we're going to have fun. We're going to learn a lot of stuff. We're going to get dirty.
But at the end of the day, you're going to be like, Heck, yeah, I'm, I'm ready to do the next step,
you know, more confident. Exactly. Yep. Explore with confidence. Good job, Jimmy. Yes.
I like it. Yeah. Reach out to us. It's cj at snvora.com.
Jason at snvora.com. So you heard about Offroad Academy on Instagram and the World Wide Web.
Did you know that's what WWW stands for, Jimmy? Yes. Cool. So I just learned it yesterday.
Sounds like you guys are open for opportunities. You definitely have your, your planned
classes, your planned courses that are planned throughout the year that you've got it got,
that you've got set up at venues already, but you're also open to other people calling in and
saying, Hey, I need a custom thing for my group. Yeah. The best thing is we did a private training
for an off road shop. And they said, we want to level up our staff. We want to see what you're
up to. We want to start hosting runs. What does it look like to do that? Okay, let's put that
together. We did, um, I think I'm doing father's day special, father and son spotting classes.
That's a fun way to, can I write a two year old? Yeah.
So I've been thinking bachelor parties and bachelor parties and other things were like,
Hey, if you have a group of four people, that's kind of the minimum to really get us going to
show up, especially at the Hollister. It's an easy trip down. That works. And so I think,
you know, if you have something you want to dream up, talk to us. Yeah. If you don't, you know,
that we have some dates on the website and everything of classes that we're offering,
but you know, you're like, Oh, I can't make that date or I want to do an advanced recovery class,
you know, in May, call us up. Um, we are totally flexible. This is our day job. Yeah. This is not
a side gig. This is not a side hustle. This is not, you know, Oh, you know, we're just kind of do it
when we feel like you're like a penciled in the calendar. Exactly. This is our, this is our day
job. Um, so it's, it's pretty cool. And Jason and I are both open to one-on-ones. So if you're up,
if you, Tahoe, millionaire, you want to go out, he'll do a one-on-one coaching session with you. I
love that. And people will take a day off work or they have a wellness day or something else. And
we'll do on a weekday down to the park. There you go. Go wheeling. Yeah. It's pretty cool to go
wheeling during the week. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've been enjoying that. Yeah.
Where is everybody? We got this whole place to a class at the, at the Rubicon on a Wednesday.
Absolutely. I think we're there. Absolutely. I'm waiting for Barrett Lake to open up. When's that
going to open up? It's going to be really early this year. May, I'm guessing May. I'm hoping.
Man. Yeah. That's the only caveat of my poor ski season that wheeling season starts earlier this
year, which means I need to get working on my junk. Um, so yeah. Well, cool. Um, thank you so much
guys for coming down. I know you both came. We're kind of in the center here in Sacramento from
both of you guys. Yeah. How long did it take you to drive up? Two hours. Yeah, it was two hours from
to drive. The car drove itself. Oh, that's true. You got that even thing. He was, he was working on
prepping for the podcast while his car was driving. That's true. So contacting his assistants.
I was sadly listening to the snail trail podcast on the way down.
I couldn't get enough of these guys. I was caught up last summer, but I am like episodes behind,
but I, I missed episodes, I should say. Um, but I'm, I'm
sure they're not all gold nuggets. You know, but it's good, good stuff. And I commend you guys
on 690 fricking episodes or whatever you're on now. It's a lot. It's a lot because obviously I,
I do it and Chris and I, it's just, it's, it's hard, especially that we're apart to do it and,
and timing, um, and, and Chris's job is very demanding and getting even more demanding this
summer. Um, so yeah, it's, it's tough. Um, and for you guys crank out two episodes a week,
three, three. I mean, yeah, you got your call in one, two, your callers. So yeah, whatever. Um,
good luck. Yeah. But it's good. It's good stuff. Happy to be here. Hey, congratulations on Wheeling,
wine and whiskey. Cause I think in April you guys are seven years. Are we, are we, is it April or
year? Yeah, I guess you're right. You're right. Yeah. You're right. And you were a matter of,
I mean, you guys were podcasting prior to us on that other podcast, uh, the, um, what was that
called? The, uh, I see our four by four podcast. Yeah. You still talk to Greg and those boys.
Okay. Um, yeah. No, it's wild. I can't believe it. And it's fun. I mean, it's like,
at Kayways this year, the funny story. Um, I was walking through hammer town talking to somebody
and somebody came up to me and get, are you, are you Jason from the wheel?
And they recognize a voice and it's just, it's crazy. Uh, it still blows me away and it's a
lot of fun. And you know, we said we keep doing it while we're having fun. And so, um, here we are,
six years later, still going and cranking out the episodes. So, um, yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah,
you're either, I can't, I don't remember your guys's exact date. I remember ours, but I mean,
you were a matter of days, I guess I can look on, uh, yeah, the phone was either very
extremely early. Yeah. I remember, I remember early April. Now that you say that, that's
interesting. Um, but yeah, it's just, you know, all off-roading. This is what we do. This has been
my life and, uh, enjoying it. So, um, let's see. I was saving this knowledge for, or this, this
for the, my final words, but I'll say it now. And because it ties into what you guys are doing
with this year off-road Academy, uh, Sierra Nevada off-road Academy, excuse me, and Wheeling,
Wine and Whiskey and what we're here for too is it's just knowledge, right? This is, we're just
sharing knowledge one way or another. We're sharing ways that you guys, um, can be smarter
out on the trail, be smarter within the community, tread lightly, do all whatever it needs to get
done to like keep our sport a sport and not have us lose it one way or another. Right. And keeping
people alive or keeping smarter decisions out on the trail. You know, what you guys are doing
is you're educating people. What we're trying to do, you know, is we're all, and Wheeling,
Wine and Whiskey, it's education too. And it's, uh, it's just being smarter, getting educated
is, and learning is a very important in life and everything you do along with, you know,
putting that into the off-road context, you know, it's just helps in every situation.
Yeah. Growing, right? Yeah.
Here we go. I still work the soundboard. I like it.
Apple podcast is not going past our, I go all the way up to 65. So I don't,
or down to 65 is not showing all episodes, but yeah, whatever it is, April something.
But yeah, good stuff. Enjoy it. You guys keep doing what you're doing.
And buy more Fords and Jeeps and, uh, yeah, keep, keep it going.
And Rivians. So if people wanted to reach out and get a hold of you guys,
those are the best ways, email, Instagram right now, see what you guys are up to,
Instagram website, website. Yeah. Websites here in Nevada off-road academy. Um, yeah,
it's been good. We've got some, uh, we've been working with Justin at factor 55 and getting
that equipment. So that's been, been really good in testing that stuff. Um, and, and there's some
other, you know, companies out there that are great. So we're, we're building these relationships.
I actually bought my first pair of, you know, traction boards, which I'll be grudgingly,
but, uh, yeah, I got action tracks, um, uh, traction boards because they're flexible. And I,
I saw him work with Nick Bailey at Avalanche technical first hand, you know, and again, that,
that scene. The only time I've ever seen traction boards working is with Nick.
Yeah. It's, it's amazing. He just, he knows exactly how to set them up or to place them. The
placement is everything on them, how to operate the vehicle to use them properly. Um, and he just,
he's got it down and he's the only person I've ever seen that's been effective with
traction boards. I'm like, that worked really damn well. I've never seen anybody.
Exactly. So that's exactly where I had my aha moment go, oh, they actually do
fricking work in these situations, you know, but on, um, on the rocks in the Rubicon are not
a place for traction boards. So I got it. You're, you're still scrolling, but you know, my android
device to episode your teaser episode, uh, episode zero came out in, on, um, April 19th.
Oh shit. Yeah. There you go. Middle of April. Yeah. And then your, um, actual first episode,
the introduction, introducing ourselves was May 7th. God, I got to listen to that. It's good.
You ever go back and listen to your old episodes and just laugh.
No, I have a hard time listening to the current one.
It is, it's, it's crazy. I can't believe you had six years. That was back in, uh, yeah,
good old 2020 or COVID era. Um, so our podcast, and that's what I tell a lot of people,
it got us through COVID, it got through by passing on my father, you know, just life events, right?
It was like something to look forward to every week. You guys do this every Tuesday, um, and,
and make a day out of it. And that's cool. It's just, you got to have those things to look forward
to and going off-roading, whatever it is. But, um, yeah, anyways, let's, uh, uh,
Chris has just came in the door and it says wrap it up. So he's good at doing that.
But yeah, thank you guys for having us and, uh, appreciate the four roses single barrel.
Um, it's way, way above any whiskey. I thought I'd be drinking here. I see fireball over in
the corner. So thank you. Thanks for having fireball. Yeah. Oh God.
Uh, yeah. Well, thank you guys for coming down, making the trip down, um, to do this,
uh, teach everybody a little bit about, uh, Sierra Nevada Off-Road Academy, what you guys are doing,
what it's up to, kind of what you're, your, what you're looking to do with the company, the,
what people, if they have questions or they're looking to get some training, what they could
be looking forward to with that personal touch. I think that's a really cool way to take the
business. So, um, we're definitely looking to get you guys back on and maybe talk about
some of those fun little topics. There's a lot of really good informational topics that we can
talk about. Um, so we'll have you guys back down, uh, to hang out in the studio some more,
have some more whiskey and, uh, have some fun topics and conversation education with everybody.
Sounds great. When's the dad joke drop at the very end after, after everything's closed up?
Okay. Did you have one now? No, I was looking forward to it. I see that. I see the box over
there. Oh, yeah. That's right. All right. All right. Well, thank you guys. Yeah. Thank you.
Final words to wrap everything up, Jimmy, since I always put them on the spot like this.
Yeah. What do you got? Uh, well, I had to come up with another one because I used mine earlier.
Oh, okay. But, um, I'm, I actually seriously want to take your trail, of course. Um, it's that I
trail lead. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be something great for me. Um, I've been wheeling,
you know, for super long time and I think I am the shittiest spotter, uh, out there. Like,
I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I, you know, it's just, I need, there's levels that I
just need to learn. And, um, I think being a trail, being in, you know, doing what I do and we
actually somewhat host, you know, these outings that we do, I think it's just as a level up that
I need to learn as well. So that's, uh, I'll have to look at your guys's website and find out a good
thing that'll work for me and, um, put my plug myself in right on. Yeah. That'd be cool. Jason,
final words for everybody out there. You know, drive with skill, explore with confidence and
Toyota sec. I was waiting for it. CJ final words for everyone. I'll just say, take that leap,
follow your passion. You can't go wrong. Yep. I like it. And with that, my friends, keep growling.
Anybody have any jokes? Well, I was just listening to the dirt drive, the dirt nerves or whatever
they're called down there. And I was walking up to the kitchen. They pulled me into their podcast.
And when I left, I told them the, the course light joke. And so that was, that was on their
podcast that they aired. Okay. Yeah. What's the course light joke? You know what? Course light
and having sex in a canoe having common. I feel like I've heard this. They're both
fucking close to water. Nice. Do you know what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls a colonoscopy?
Colonoscopy. Uh, I don't know. Cameron Diaz.
What do you call the colonoscopy? I don't get it. I don't get it either. Cameron Diaz.
Oh, camera in the ass.
I was thinking, yeah.
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