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Term
wiring schematic
A wiring schematic is a diagram that shows how the bike’s electrical parts connect to each other. It helps you wire everything correctly instead of guessing.
Term
wiring harness
A wiring harness is the bike’s main bundle of wires and plugs. If it’s old or damaged, replacing it can make the electrical system work correctly again.
Term
speedometer
The speedometer tells you how fast you’re going. When people rewire or upgrade a bike, they often need to make sure the speedometer is wired correctly too.
Term
exhaust systems
The exhaust system is the parts that move hot gases out of the engine and out the back of the bike. Better flow through the exhaust can help the engine run more smoothly.
Term
M unit
An “M unit” is an aftermarket motorcycle electrical control module (from Moto gadget in this case) that manages core functions like power distribution and signaling. Because it expects wiring to be done in a specific way, it can force different grounding and signal routing than a typical stock harness.
Brand
Moto gadget
Moto gadget makes aftermarket electrical parts for custom motorcycles. The “M unit” they mention is a controller that changes how the bike’s wiring works, so it can feel different from stock setups.
Term
ground
In wiring, “ground” is the electrical path that completes the circuit. If the turn signal needs to “go to ground,” it means the signal won’t work correctly unless the wiring is connected to the right return point.
Term
turn signal
A turn signal is the light that tells other drivers which direction you’re turning. When you change the bike’s electronics, the turn signal wiring can work differently than it did from the factory.
Term
horn
The horn is the motorcycle’s sound signal. In some custom builds, people remove it temporarily so they can reach the electronics they need to troubleshoot or reset.
Term
hard reset
A “hard reset” means forcing an electronic module to restart from scratch. It’s used when the system is acting wrong and you need it to reboot so it can start behaving normally again.
Term
choppers
Choppers are a style of custom motorcycle. They’re known for a unique, stretched look, and the host is saying they use quality parts on that kind of bike.
Brand
Arlen Ness.com
Arlen Ness is a famous motorcycle customizer and brand. The host is telling you to check their website for what they’re releasing for 2026.
Brand
Kabuto motorcycle helmets
Kabuto makes motorcycle helmets. The host is saying their helmets are designed to cut through wind and protect you, especially at high speeds.
Term
wake stabilizer
A wake stabilizer is a shape on the helmet that helps control the air flowing around it. That can make the helmet feel steadier and quieter when you’re going fast.
Term
crest spoiler
A crest spoiler is a small aerodynamic feature on the helmet. It helps the air flow more smoothly so the helmet doesn’t get pushed around by wind at speed.
Term
triple digit speeds
“Triple digit speeds” means over 100 miles per hour. At that speed, helmet design has to handle strong wind so it stays stable and comfortable.
Term
ACT tech
ACT tech is a helmet construction technology associated with Kabuto’s protective design. While the segment doesn’t spell out the acronym, it’s presented as part of the helmet’s lightweight composite shell approach for safety and comfort.
Term
MIP safety standards
MIP safety standards are the helmet’s safety requirements it’s designed to meet. The host is basically saying it’s built to pass recognized protection testing.
Car
F 17
“F 17” is the exact helmet model the host wears. They describe it as a full-face helmet made for MotoGP-style riding, with good ventilation for hot weather.
Brand
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson is a well-known motorcycle brand. Here, the speaker is saying the bike isn’t a typical Harley—it’s more of a custom “chopper” style.
Concept
chopper method
The “chopper method” is basically a DIY custom-building approach. Instead of doing what the factory says, you experiment and make changes yourself to get the look and feel you want.
Term
fuel injected
Fuel injection is a system that sprays fuel into the engine using electronics. It’s different from a carburetor, which mixes fuel and air more mechanically.
Term
carburetors
A carburetor is a mechanical device that mixes air and fuel before it enters the engine. Enthusiasts often prefer carburetors for their simplicity, tuning feel, and classic look, even though modern fuel injection can be more precise.
Term
throttle body
A throttle body controls how much air can get into the engine. With fuel injection, it’s usually part of a more complex system than a carburetor.
Term
fuel injector
A fuel injector is the part that sprays fuel into the engine. It’s the hardware you’d expect to see with fuel injection, instead of a carburetor.
Term
magneto
A magneto is a device that makes the spark that lights the fuel in an engine. It works without needing the battery, so it’s common on older bikes and some custom builds.
Term
throwing a code
“Throwing a code” means the bike’s computer noticed something wrong. It logs an error so the motorcycle may not behave normally until the issue is fixed.
Term
wires
The bike uses wires to send signals between its sensors and computer. If a wire connection is slightly off or damaged, the bike can misread the signals and act like there’s a problem.
Term
eye bolts
Eye bolts are bolts with a loop on the end. Here they’re being used as solid mounting/connection points for wiring and electrical grounding.
Term
fueling
Fueling is basically how the engine gets its gas. If the fueling is off, the engine can run poorly, so it’s a key part of why carburetors get discussed.
Term
choke a carburetor
Choking a carburetor is a starting trick for cold engines. It changes the fuel/air mix so the engine can start, but you have to use it properly so you don’t flood the engine.
Term
EFI system
EFI means the bike uses electronics to control fuel delivery. If it stops working, you usually can’t fix it by simple carb adjustments—you often need to diagnose what the computer is seeing.
Term
scan tool
A scan tool is like a code reader for the bike’s computer. It can tell you what’s wrong by pulling error codes and sometimes showing sensor readings.
Car
Ducati
Ducati is a famous Italian motorcycle maker. Here, the speaker is working on a Ducati bike and talking about how its fuel system works and how reliable it is for daily riding.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is how a motorcycle delivers fuel to the engine using sensors and a computer. It’s different from a carburetor, and the speaker is saying they’re keeping it because it tends to work well for daily use.
Concept
daily bike
A “daily bike” is the motorcycle you ride regularly, like commuting or errands. The speaker is choosing the setup that’s most likely to start and run consistently every day.
Term
jetting
Jetting is how you tune a carburetor so it squirts the right amount of fuel. Different jets control fuel at different throttle positions, so the “right” jetting helps the bike start cleanly and run smoothly.
Term
pilot jet
The pilot jet controls fuel when you’re idling or just barely opening the throttle. If it’s too big, the bike can get too much fuel (flood) and won’t start or run cleanly until you adjust it.
Term
intermediate jet
The intermediate jet is part of the carburetor that controls fuel when you’re not fully off-throttle and not wide open—somewhere in the middle. If it’s not the right size, the bike can hesitate or run weird as you start to accelerate.
Term
main jet
The main jet is the carburetor part that controls fuel when you’re giving it more throttle. If it’s not sized right, the bike can feel wrong when you accelerate harder.
Term
flooding
Flooding is when the engine gets “too much fuel” and can’t burn it properly. With a carbureted bike, it often happens if you give too much throttle while starting.
Term
SNS carbs
SNS carbs are a specific type/brand of carburetor. The host is saying that with these carbs, it’s common to feel a stumble or cough when you open the throttle just a little.
Term
quarter turn throttle
Quarter turn throttle means you’re only opening the throttle a little—like a small twist. Some carb setups stumble right around that amount of throttle, so it’s a useful clue for diagnosing jetting/transition issues.
Term
altitude
Altitude changes how much oxygen is in the air. Higher up, the air is thinner, so the bike may need different fuel settings to run correctly.
Term
stock
In this context, “stock” means the manufacturer’s original configuration, including the original jetting/fueling parts. Comparing stock vs modified jetting is a common way riders diagnose whether changes (like smaller jets) are causing a lean or rich condition and affecting fuel consumption.
Term
throttle position
Throttle position just means how much you’re pressing the gas pedal. More throttle usually means more air entering the engine, and that changes how much fuel the bike needs to run right.
Concept
higher speeds
Higher speeds can make problems show up that you don’t notice at slower speeds. That’s why people test on the highway after tuning the bike.
Term
vibratey up in the handlebars
If the handlebars start vibrating at a certain speed, it usually means something in the bike’s running condition isn’t happy at that moment. It can be related to how the engine is fueling or how the bike is being pushed.
Car
Harley Davidson hardtail chopper
A Harley-Davidson hardtail chopper is a custom-style motorcycle with no rear suspension. That makes it feel firmer and more “rigid” than bikes with rear shocks.
Term
super steep rake angle
On a motorcycle, the “rake angle” is how the front steering is tilted. If it’s set very steep, the front end can feel stiff and not soak up bumps as easily.
Term
forks to compress
The forks are the front suspension. “Compress” just means they move when you hit a bump—if they don’t move much, the bike feels stiff.
Term
five weight fork oil
Fork oil is the fluid inside the front suspension. The “weight” (like five weight) affects how easily the forks move and how smooth or stiff they feel.
Term
mild steel
Mild steel is a pretty common type of steel. It’s not as strong as some specialty steels, so you often need thicker pieces to make the structure strong.
Term
chromoly
Chromoly is a stronger kind of steel than mild steel. Builders like it because it can let you use thinner metal while still staying strong, but it can be more expensive and harder to work with.
Term
stress relief
Stress relief is a heat-treatment process used to reduce internal stresses in metal after forming or welding. By heating to a controlled temperature for a set time and then cooling in a controlled way, the material’s properties become more stable and predictable—important for high-performance structural applications like aircraft-grade builds.
Brand
Royal Enfield
Royal Enfield is a motorcycle company. The hosts are talking about where the company is based and how it places itself near other motorcycle-focused people.
Place
Milwaukee
Milwaukee is a city in the U.S. that the hosts use as an example of where Royal Enfield of North America is based. The discussion is less about the city itself and more about how motorcycle brands locate near communities of riders and builders.
Brand
Triumph
Triumph is another well-known motorcycle brand. The point being made is that Royal Enfield chose to locate near Triumph, likely because that area already has lots of motorcycle culture.
Car
Jeep Wrangler
A “Wrangler” is a Jeep model known for off-road capability. Here, “cult Wrangler” means a Jeep that’s been heavily customized by a builder so it looks and feels like a one-of-a-kind project.
Term
cafe racers
Cafe racers are a style of motorcycle that usually looks stripped down and sporty. People build them to have a classic, minimal look and a more focused riding feel.
Term
Chevy 350 motor
“Chevy 350” is a well-known V8 engine from Chevrolet. People often use it for swaps because it’s common, supported with parts, and relatively straightforward to build.
Term
trans axle
A transaxle is basically the gearbox and the rear axle/differential combined into one unit. Race cars often use this to fit the drivetrain better and help the car handle.
Person
Colin Chapman
Colin Chapman was the key person behind Lotus. He’s remembered for designing race cars that handled really well, and the host is saying this builder studied his ideas.
Brand
live wire
LiveWire is Harley’s electric motorcycle brand. The discussion is about who might be buying a dirt-bike company to expand into electric bikes.
Brand
Dust Moto
Dust Moto is a dirt-bike brand. In this episode, they’re described as making an electric dirt bike meant to feel like a 250-class bike.
Person
Colin Godby
Colin Godby is the person who started Dust Moto. The host also says he worked on another electric bike company before this.
Brand
upco
Upco is another electric bike company mentioned as Colin Godby’s previous workplace. It’s included to give background on his experience.
Brand
Stark
Stark is another electric dirt-bike brand mentioned as a comparison point. The host is describing where Dust Moto fits in the lineup.
Brand
Surran
Surran is another electric dirt-bike brand mentioned for comparison. The host is saying Dust Moto will target a space between Surran and another competitor.
Concept
250 equivalent
“250 equivalent” means the electric bike is trying to feel like a typical 250cc dirt bike. It’s a comparison so riders can judge what to expect.
Term
pre sold
“Pre-sold” means people paid for the bikes before they were delivered. The host is pointing out that deliveries are late compared to what was expected.
Concept
kiss of death
The “kiss of death” idea is that someone might let a company struggle or fail, then buy it cheaply afterward. The host is using it to criticize how some big players handle early electric startups.
Concept
market validation
Market validation means proving people will buy the product before it’s fully available. In this story, pre-orders are treated as proof that the electric bike idea had real demand.
Concept
top of funnel
“Top of funnel” just means the early marketing stage where you’re trying to get people to notice you. The host is saying their strategy built awareness before serious buying decisions.
LIVE
What's up, everyone?
And welcome back to the Fast Life Podcast.
On today's episode, I'm sitting down with my good buddy, Promethean liver, Chris, who
is recently taking a job at RMFG.com, which is a place similar to Send Cut Send.
We're going to talk a little bit about that in this episode.
For you guys out there that make custom things fabricate, this is a heaven sent type place.
For getting shit done.
Chris is a very interesting dude.
He's lived a very interesting life.
If you listen to the first podcast we did back in October, you can find out about all
the crazy backpacking the world and things like that.
But since then, he's built a really sick, rural infill chopper.
It's what you probably are seeing on the cover of this podcast.
And he has been a big help in my, we have talks, we collaborate, we do things together
and it's been a great friendship.
I love you, Chris.
Before we get into it, let's give a shout out real quick to our sponsors, Arlenes Motorcycles.
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Don't forget about my guys down at Cowboy Harley Davidson.
If you're looking for a newer used bike, they got you covered.
I've been buying bikes from them for the past long time.
That's an actual measurement of time.
And yeah, they've been taking care of me and they'll do the same for you down there in
South Austin.
Give them a holler, new used motorcycles, they got you covered.
1-800-LAWTIGERS-A-VIEW or somebody you know has been in an accident.
They're going to take care of you and they're going to get you on the right path to recovery
and go fight those nasty insurance companies for you.
Check them out.
1-800-LAWTIGERS, first number you call, don't sleep on them.
Guys, we're going to be at Born Free California set up with the Kabuto team over there.
If you're familiar with the layout of the Born Free area, it's kind of by the food area,
by the stage right kind of surrounding the lake that's in the middle.
Come check us out, man.
I really want you guys to try on these helmets.
They're, you know, I've been rocking them for the last year and a half.
I love them and I would like for you to see how they feel in your head.
That way if you get to a point where you're ready to upgrade your helmet, you'll already
know what size you are.
And that's really most of the battle before you order a helmet is figuring out what size
you are.
We're going to be there.
I can't wait to hang out with the Kabuto team and I can't wait for you to check out
the helmets.
So we'll see you there.
Now let's get into this episode with my buddy Chris.
Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?
It's funny that the last time we did the podcast.
It's always been hanging out and having a lot of great times since then, but I was
getting ready to start this build.
I'm wrapping up and now we're kind of talking about that.
Yeah, exactly.
And then, but at the same time, I was like just entering my build and now that's done.
And I guess some sounds like a bragging.
What?
Did I beat you?
Yeah.
I had to build a frame and everything.
Oh yeah.
Fuck, that sucks, man.
Well, you only had what six wires on your bike?
Pretty much.
I pretty much been wiring for like three weeks straight.
I literally cut every single thing I could off of that thing.
It's a headlight, tail light, no starter, definitely no turn signals.
When you, when you think about like, I have like 80 hours in wiring, but I can build like
a 12 of them, maybe tops on a good day.
Yeah.
That was a learning experience.
You know, I think after this part now, I'm a fucking wiring master, dude.
Like I understand it so well.
I'm actually, it kind of gets me horny a little bit, like just thinking about how to lay it
out and ride, like put it all together and route it and bring wires together and step
up the gauge into the, you know, to the negatives.
Like the shit is actually kind of fun, you know,
Do you remember James Davis?
He lives like across the street from the bearded lady in Fort Worth.
Yeah, we went to his house.
Well, I popped in there to drop off some RMFG parts to him and he's doing his wiring
on his FXR and he actually laid it all out on like a piece of plywood.
Like it's a wiring schematic and a factory or something.
Yeah, you can definitely learn out on that stuff.
That's what I have on the table right now.
I have the original wiring harness on one side of the table and then the new wiring harness
on this side.
And it's just, um, it's really not complicated and being able to wire in like the speedometer
and stuff and all this stuff.
It's been, it's really illuminated like how to do those things.
So now like I'm looking at my bikes that I don't have speedometers on.
I'm like, well, I could technically put one on here now.
You know, I know how to do it.
So I don't want to do it, but you know, it's one of those things.
Once you get it, you get it.
And if you don't use it, you kind of lose it.
And then it becomes scary when you come back to do it after a year or something like that.
And building exhaust systems for me.
That's what it's like.
By the time I get done with an exhaust, it feels like it's all flowing really well.
And I should probably start over and do a good one at that point.
But then I get done, put it on the bike and then I ride it for six months and then a new
exhaust comes along and it's another learning curve.
But at least with it, well, I guess I hear what you're saying, but I feel like what the
exhaust is pretty straightforward, but with wiring, you add in a new component and it
wants to do things differently.
Yeah.
You know, I'm not a wiring, I'm not an EE or something like that.
So I don't really know, but I like, we had the little misadventure with the
the M unit from Moto gadget.
And like they want things done a very specific way.
And to like illuminate a turn signal, it goes to ground and all that other stuff.
So you add something in there that's contrary or different than what you're used to
working with.
And it definitely throws a wrench in your brain.
You know, talking about the immunity.
I just felt like that is like the way that you wire one of those is kind of
backwards as to where you would normally wire, you know, grounds, all that stuff.
It does simplify it.
But I mean, the thing is like, in my opinion, when you're making something
custom, you shouldn't have to run things like a horn, which is one of the first
things that most custom motorcycles remove in order to be able to access the reset
mechanism or whatever the, you know, troubleshooting things on.
That's right.
We're getting deep into the manual now because we had to try and hard reset it.
And it was like, activate the horn.
We didn't make a horn.
But you know what?
The other thing that I learned out of that is when you were here helping with
that, the way you were using AI to help troubleshoot it.
Bro, I fucking copied that.
And that's how I figured out what gauge to get, what speedo.
Like I have a different relationship with AI now.
Not, I still don't fuck with AI flyers, flyers, flyers.
But the way that you were using it to troubleshoot the problems that we were
having illuminated a completely different life.
We've gone back and forth on AI and virtues or lack thereof.
And I've clearly been on one side and I don't want to, you know, I sympathize
with the people and all of their reasons to be against it.
And believe it or not, I have some too.
But as a tool.
Yeah.
And in this case, you know, there's a manual, right?
And it's pages and pages long.
And it's hard to read and keep track of every single thing you're learning
to trace down one thing.
Right.
When you know how to do, you just need to trace down one thing.
So in the case of AI, plug it into chat, clod, whatever.
Yeah.
Just upload the digital manual and ask it the question that you're asking
yourself and boom, it's there.
Yeah.
And that's pretty much what I ended up doing.
I just, I said, Hey, I'm looking to do this.
This is my situation.
Like basically also like listening to you prompt it.
I learned kind of how I need to tell the fucking app.
Yeah.
This is what I'm working with.
You can literally just start by asking it like it's a person.
Okay.
Yeah.
You can just ask it.
I'm not comfortable with that yet.
I know.
I know it's kind of weird.
So I've switched from, uh, cause I have like so much stuff in my AI.
It's kind of like my personal assistant.
Um, I put data and information into it to recall later to build a project and
idea, I'm using it at work.
Um, these are all separate projects.
So like each project has its own set of data, its own memory.
There's a beginning prompt in each pro project.
So like RMFG customer service, you are a customer service agent, blah, blah, blah.
You tell it who it is, what it's doing, how it's acting.
Yeah.
And then it builds on all of that data.
So those are all separate projects.
And I started when chat came out and it was all just like one big bucket.
And about a month ago, I switched over to Claude, exported all of my data,
started a bunch of projects and kept everything separated.
And now I'm, you know, I mean, I talked to Claude more than anybody to call it a body.
It's not sexual yet, right?
No, but the, where I was going with this is not even a good joke, but my
wife calls it Claudia, Claudia, my, my, my extra girlfriend.
Yeah.
Well, that's, that's been one of the things that, you know, I've heard stories
about how people like relationships have kind of failed because people would
communicate with that more than their own partner and stuff like that.
But yeah.
But again, like you said, if you use it as a tool, it makes sense.
I, I'm against the whole flyer for an event thing because of, um, first off,
like it's like saying, fuck you to all the people that learn how to use Photoshop
and acting like you don't need to.
I get it.
Maybe, you know, it's the new calculator, right?
Why, why learn how to do, uh, you know, add, subtract, you know, division and stuff.
But at the same time, you still have to know how to math.
Yeah.
Calculator doesn't know how to math.
It just put in, yes.
And that's really all it is.
I don't know if I want to spend the whole night talking about AI.
I actually, in my, in my spare fun time, I listened to all of the doom and
gloom AI podcasts.
I don't know why.
I guess I'm just trying to like play devil's advocate against myself, but.
I think it is all it's cracked up to be.
I think it can do a lot.
It already is doing a lot.
Is it going to destroy the world?
Maybe, but I think it's going to, I think it's just going to fold in there.
Just like email, the fax machine, the horseless carriage, and it's going to
become a part of life.
Well, like I said, the way that it's been unveiled to me now is like, it's
literally just a very, very efficient search engine.
So instead of going to Google and typing something in and you get 400 things that
like whoever did their SEO, now you're actually getting what you ask for.
So it's, it's almost like going back to the original way that a search engine
was supposed to be before it got kind of a hoax into like being a sales agent
for whatever.
Totally.
And the moment AI goes like advertising model.
We're gone.
Yeah.
Gone.
Well, I think something else will take its place.
Anyway, let's not talk about fucking AI.
Let's talk about motorcycles.
Well, so we did that last podcast and didn't, you know, we've been hanging out
for a year now it's or now we're past a year now.
So our relationship is very, we're, we're past our first anniversary.
But anyway, I mean, like, dude, when you started building that bike and
I feel like the bike build in the efforts that you put into like social
media and making the YouTube channel all kind of converged at the same time.
There was definitely some sort of catalyzing thing that happened.
And I intentionally put in the effort.
To kind of do it that way.
And then it just kind of worked.
I was like, Oh.
Um, and.
I don't want to cut you off because I kind of know what you're going to say.
But, um, people are asking a lot of questions about it and even suggesting
like, Oh, you're like a social media maven now.
And I, I just want to put out there.
I don't really think I am.
I think it was half accident and half just fucking around.
And then you kind of find something out.
Me and Dustin were actually talking about because Dustin called me today.
From LFG and we were like, uh, he's a, Hey man, how was that podcast?
Chris was like, well, we haven't done it.
He's going to come tonight.
He goes, dude, that message me this morning blew up.
And I'm like, I can't remember what it was whenever we first met, but I know
today it's kind of difficult to grow organically like the way mine grew.
You know what I mean?
Like, and I would say probably the way David probably grew, you know,
cafe racers of Instagram back in the day, right?
And now I guess with the new algorithm shit, they don't really want to
like a David, I mean, David makes his own content now for the most part.
I, in a lot of regards, the way that page was started was like, you're building
a cafe racer.
I'm the place to post it.
You know, I'm the magazine.
I'm the catch all be all for it.
So yeah.
So for anybody listening, David, good friend of mine, friend of ours.
Um, he for like the, the first couple of years of Instagram, he had the largest
motorcycle based Instagram period.
And it was really just a re-aggregator of like, you know, he modeled it off
of cats of Instagram, which is just a bunch of fucking cats.
And he did cafe racers because it was into at the time and it was a thing going
on and as a million followers, it had a million, it's had a million followers for
yeah, quite a while years, right?
And they're kind of all dinosaurs and, um, no shit to you, David.
Um, but like the engagement is low on that stuff and the algorithm really focuses
on and somehow it knows this stuff because it's probably AI based, but it
knows when you're putting in something that is going to carry and it kind of
searches for that by placing in front of people and seeing how much they watch
and also how much they engage.
So I'll spell out the whole recipe right now.
Okay.
There's no gatekeeping here.
They want engagement.
They want to keep you on the app, right?
They want to keep you.
They want to keep you on the app.
So the amount of time that you watch, the amount of people that send it as a message,
now there's the repost feature that repost it, that comment that like, and in the
first 10 minutes, first hour, first day, if that climbs up a lot at the beginning,
it's going to go to the moon.
If it doesn't, it's going to stay on the ground.
Yeah.
And so I had been noticing, I'd been seeing this.
I started when I was on Instagram and you see some of these posts, whether it's
motorcycle or car or otherwise, and you see it has, you know, a million likes, not
just because usually likes are a percentage of views, right?
Or your followers or whatever.
I'm like, how did they do that?
So reverse engineered it.
Visual hook, sonic hook.
If you can win a second, because everybody does it, you see something not interested.
Your brain already decides.
Yeah.
And your thumb is already in action, right?
It's like driving when something pulls out in front of you.
You've already got to turn, right?
Subconscious, right?
And so if you can win a second, you can win two more seconds.
If you can win two more seconds, you'll win five more seconds.
And you can literally see this in the data on the back end when you see view
insights or whatever, and there's a curve, like how many people drop off.
You're not going to keep everybody forever.
But if you win that for a second, so how do you do that?
There has to be something kind of engaging to your eye in the most simple terms, right?
Like, whoa, what's that?
I'm going to watch another second.
See what happens.
It's like a nip slip or.
So that's, that's the funny thing.
All right.
A little, little side quest here.
Um, since this algorithm has been working this way, I think we've all seen the rise
in sexy girls doing whatever they can to win that for a second.
And then you win a little bit more and all this other stuff.
And the guys are fucked by your, your, your absolutely done.
My brain's already trained like, OK, this girl clearly doesn't have a shirt on.
She's saying some nonsense, but maybe there's going to be something.
Yeah, maybe if I stay around for five more seconds, she'll do the whole like,
well, you know, and then it shows the mirror and straight, you know, whatever.
Yeah, yeah, we've all, we've all seen it.
It is disgusting.
I'm kind of disgusted with myself, but it's still, we all fall for it though.
We all fall for it.
No, like I said, the guys are fucked.
It's built into our DNA and they've hacked it.
Yeah.
But back to the hacking.
So when the first second of visual hook, that's something that hooks you.
There's a few other things you can do like a sonic hook.
That's some sort of sound element, right?
Like we've all seen that and people are using these sounds a lot.
The fa, fa, fa, right?
Or as an example, that's the thing you can do.
So I'll just cut straight to what I do.
I do that.
And then I keep it.
One second clips, one second clips, try and keep it linear
so people can follow a progression.
Like there's this guy, Dusty Lumberco, I think.
He's in he's a Canadian woodworker, blah, blah, blah.
He's got all the sponsors, got tons of views, blah, blah, blah.
And he basically build something out of wood like every day.
And he just puts it at like two or three X speed.
And that two or three X speed and the cuts that he's doing
puts you on the trail and you're going to watch it all the way through.
And the algorithm sees if you watch it all the way through,
if you watch it a second time, a third time, algorithms like,
Whoa, this guy's got fire here.
Let's send it out to somebody else.
You hook them and it becomes literally viral.
Yeah. So.
All of this was intentional, but I didn't intentionally try
and focus on Instagram, which is the ironic thing.
I really like.
So you have to like to do this, right?
And and I've poo pooed social media for a long time.
And a lot of it's it's an easy position to get into.
But I feel like once you get a nugget of like, oh, shit, this shit worked.
You're naturally going to be like, let me see if I can do it again.
And then it becomes fun.
It becomes like a bit of a craft in itself.
So back to what I was about to say, I really like making long format videos.
I like the craft of it.
I like the storytelling of it.
And that is lost on short form Instagram, TikTok, whatever.
There's no fucking storytelling unless you're really, really good at it.
So I like to make in the YouTube videos.
I used to YouTube a bit back in the day, but on the other podcast,
we talked about the film I made and whatever.
That's all on there.
But I kind of came back to it.
And then when I was done editing a long form, you know, YouTube
video, I would just take all the action bits and do a cut down and edit it,
you know, vertically and all this other stuff for.
And the YouTube growth has been solid.
Like when I started this build, I had like 6,000 something subscribers.
And now I have 11,500 and the growth is always slower on YouTube.
And you don't get that virality really.
Not it's different.
But anyway, I would I'm very happy with that growth.
It's not focused on Instagram, but Instagram has fucking exploded.
Yeah.
I mean, I was telling Dustin that like you had a handful of million plus
more or less viral like videos that kind of, you know, 100% like really
like drove that that stuff.
Like, like I said, you were playing the you figured out the algorithm
or how to make what you do work with the algorithm and whatnot.
And how do you feel about like, you know, because you and I, we spent a lot
of time after bite night at the second bar, going down rabbit holes
about content creation, making videos and all that type of shit.
So is there something about like making a YouTube video that that maybe
feels a little bit more like you're making something for longer?
Like it's like when I think of a real, I think of a real as more like a.
I don't know.
It's like a commercial.
It's like it's such a little snapshot.
It's like it's like a bottle rocket.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, it's good analogy.
I'd rather, you know, build a rocket ship to be honest and go for a story.
You know, going on that tangent of the wormholes that we go on the second
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I got something to say, I guess, you know, I'm not like on a mission or dying on a
hill or anything.
But like, if I'm going to tell a story or say something, you need more than 15
seconds to do it.
And so I feel like I get to do that there.
And with building a bike, I like to share.
I like to gate keep, you know, when I'm hanging out with friends, I like to ask
questions about how they're doing things.
And they like to ask me and I like to tell.
So it's just another format to do that.
And there's the posterity of it.
Like after you build the bike, share the bikes there, but it's people can actually
go back and see, see what the process is like, even my sometimes like, I'll go back
and watch something of my own, not all the time, but sometimes I do.
My film, I probably watched like 23 times a year.
I'll tell you straight up, like I, if I haven't made a video in a while, I literally
will go watch a couple just so that I can remind my inner self that, Hey, you know
how to do this.
Yeah.
So go do it, you know, and or, or see where you left off and try to make it better
this time, you know, something like that.
But yeah, I'm with you on that.
So for the longest time, building and filming seemed dreadful.
It was very difficult.
It's, it's like, it's not even doubling the work.
It feels like tripling the work.
Moved into this house January of 2025 and set up the garage, like from scratch.
Uh, got all the lights in there and all this other stuff.
And when I started working on projects, started with the Ducati, now back to the
Ducati, but kind of got pushed to the side with the end field and something just
started to kind of click and I was able to have fun managing the camera and the
build at the same time.
And one of the things that it did do was slow the whole process down, which
actually somehow made building the bike more enjoyable.
The turnaround of the whole bike was relatively quick.
It was a very simple bike.
Yeah.
Um, but it actually made it more enjoyable, which is the exact opposite
of how I felt about it before.
Maybe something just clicked.
Uh, but at the end of it, I did feel like I got two great things.
I got the bike and I got the video and that's been, you think there's like an
aspect of pacing that had to take place so that you didn't get too far ahead of
yourself in certain areas of the build.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, um, my mind is like going through all the different ways to think
about her different moments or how I could even say it, but, um, I can definitely
get hasty when I'm building and it slowed me down.
That's like, whatever, come back to like, I'll just run and get this thing done.
I'll run and get this thing done.
And maybe skip a little step, maybe.
And, um, I think there's also an element of like, now everybody's watching.
Yeah.
Have to do it nice and right every time.
Keep my shop space clean.
You don't want all the comments being like, yeah, you didn't torque that bolt.
I didn't see any lock tight on it.
That's not how you do.
That's not the torque sequence.
You know, they'll jump on you for that.
Yeah.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
But I try also with the videos to not let it be so mundane, like here's a 60
second time lapse of me socket wrenching, you know,
yeah, same.
I try to think of any time of, you know, doing a YouTube video, like I, as much
as everybody in the world thinks that the writing footage is like so much fun to
watch, it's like to me personally, and maybe I'm different.
It, I don't want to watch someone ride a bike.
I don't, I want to see them pass the time and go to the next spot.
And if you can find some cool visuals, cool angles to show me that, that, that
transition from one place to another, I'm cool with that, but I'm not trying to
watch you ride the entire Lolo pass.
You know what I'm saying?
Well, I think it comes down to pacing and not to, you know, jack each other off
here, but I think you understand pacing really well.
And at the end of the day, it's storytelling because like your, your
vlogs, and I think, you know, I'm not watching all your analytics and everything,
but I think your vlogs are doing quite well compared to all the different
kind of stuff you put out, podcasts, build updates.
I think the, the fucking, uh, my YouTube is like, doesn't know what to do with
me because I'll put out a 15 minute video and then next week it's a three hour
video and then, then 43 hour videos in a row and then a 15 minute video.
And it's like, there might be something to that, but I wouldn't let the algorithm
hold you back from doing the things that you do.
Well, I think right now, like it's probably the purest form of like enjoyment
of doing it because like when I'm, when I'm making a vlog or going through
that process, like I'm not really thinking about it in a sense of like, Oh, well,
I'm going to get to thrashens level or some kind of thing.
Like there's no kind of expectation on the other end.
I think that's a mistake.
I think, I think it's a mistake for anybody to say, to have like a concrete
outcome of where they need to be, where they need to go, how quickly they have
to get there, all this other stuff.
I think if you're doing it for other people, other than the way you want to do
it, you've made a mistake and that will somehow come through in the video itself.
And people can smell it.
And it's not like they're like, Oh, he's trying too hard.
Yeah.
It's, it's always for me just been about figuring out or getting the skills both,
you know, tech technologically, you know, on the tech side and on the mentality
side of just, if I could just accurately show the life that I have going on, I
think that this might be pretentious.
I think it's interesting, you know, the bikes, the people, the rides, the events,
the shit that goes on.
But unfortunately, I also want to show the party in the drinking.
Well, I'm sure somebody's going to misconstrue that as like, Oh, this guy's
full of himself.
But I think at the end of the day, this whole scene to scene, it's about culture.
It's about goings on.
It's about people.
It's about all these things.
And with the internet, a lot of scenes have expanded because it's given a little
window insight access to it all.
And I think, you know, so many people in this space or anything like it, anybody
from the outside would ask, like, why do you put so much time and effort and
dedication to all this?
It's, it's all contributory.
Everybody's trying to contribute.
I know that's what you're trying to do.
I know that's what I'm trying to do.
And I think anybody who's worth a shit, yeah, will recognize that.
And yeah.
And I agree.
That's kind of, you know, where the, I set a goal for myself this year, you know,
partly I'm based on, I couldn't keep up with the pace that you had at the
beginning of the year, building the, the Royal Enfield shop.
Cause you were doing a week every week, like putting one out and that, you know,
obviously that helps grow things when you can be that consistent.
But I just, there's no way.
Well, don't beat yourself up.
I was unemployed at that time.
Now I'm reemployed and the pace has slowed way down.
Yeah.
But I'm looking forward to getting back to some stuff.
It's not going to be a frame up custom bike builds back to back.
Um, so I, like you, I'm going to have to explore a couple of different things.
Still same theme, still same idea, but it's going to be something new.
And maybe it's not as good or at least, you know, performance wise.
Yeah.
That's kind of where I try to keep on mine.
Is it like I'm, I'm not placing the value on anything that I do based on like
how many people view it.
And you know, when it comes to long form content and making YouTube videos, I
really keep this in the forefront of my mind, which is kind of contradictory to
like all the stuff we were just talking about, about trying to be viral and things
like that.
But a lot of the things that I have found in the last couple of years that have
really been motivational to me or have been inspiring, which same fucking word,
same meaning like has been stuff that's been out for 10, 12 years, but it exists
in a form that I can go and consume it and get the message that was put out 10
years ago.
And so if everything, you know, not to make it as a generalization, like over
everything, but if everything is about like fitting today's standards and how
does that look in 10 years from now?
When like maybe my FXR chopper build process or this one for the customer
Cody, like that might be something that when someone watches that 10 years from
now, like, you know, or they watch your role in filled a documentary, which was
over 10 years ago, right?
So it's like, I want to make stuff that just means something to me and put it
out there and hopefully it gets some success now just to, you know, keep the
ball rolling, but I'd rather, I'd be so dope to be able to have somebody find
that video in 10 years ago.
Dude, that shit you did 10 years ago is fucking inspiring me right now.
And that's to me the fun and the, uh, I think that to me, what you just said
goes straight back to what you said about, I think it goes back to what you
were saying before, if it's good, if it's quality stuff, if it meant something
to you, it's probably going to be pretty good.
And then it's timeless, like classic music.
It's not classic because it's old.
It's classic because it's withstood this, the test of time.
Yeah.
And you never know.
You might, you might make something that you're really proud of and it was
kind of bunk for the first week.
No views, right?
But especially on YouTube, fuck Instagram, fuck TikTok for all this stuff.
It's not going to live that long, but on YouTube, that shit's there forever.
Yeah.
And if you start chasing the wrong stuff and what you're trying to create, it's
going to take you to probably not a place you want to go to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just intentional.
Like that.
That's, I think that's my whole purpose with it all.
It's like, I wanted, you know, what I was trying to say while I go before I
got a little sidetracked is like, I made a promise myself to put out at least two
videos a month.
Yeah.
I did not last month.
Last May I was balls deep in the spike.
So what I'm doing is, okay, well, now I owe May two months.
I owe two videos for me.
And so by the end of the year, I should at least need to have 24 videos that I put
out throughout this year is basically the goal that I'm trying to stick to.
If I have to pay a late fee, I'll put 26 out.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But that's kind of the plan.
And hopefully, um, like say, for instance, this one, I just put out, uh, this week,
I knew I needed to do something.
I did not know if I really had anything to show that was really a substance, but
I feel like, well, okay, well, what if I just kind of catch people up?
What's going on?
Bikes almost done.
Shovel heads kind of dialed.
We're doing this show.
We're going to this place.
Let's go ride around Dallas.
Have it shot.
I think that's enough.
Yeah.
I think, you know, it may not serve a wider audience, but your core audience.
Yeah.
And if you are making it for anybody, cause eventually, you know, you never forget
about like people watching it, um, especially once you get to like at least
a minimum level where you see same people commenting or people bring it up.
Like in person for like, oh, shit, you actually watched it.
Um,
which was still kind of surprising when you saw it, but you know, if your video
has a thousand views, that means there's a thousand people out there that has seen
your face on a screen.
I went through, I've gone through this weird, uh, phase over the last, uh, almost
10 years of putting out podcasts and shit where you go through this phase where you,
you don't think anybody's watching or listening.
And then all of a sudden you feel like everybody is, and then you get, you kind
of operate on that, that kind of playing that like, Oh yeah,
everybody's listening to this podcast and then you rise and not, not everybody is.
It's kind of an up and down kind of deal of like,
So that's kind of what I was about to say with the, the core audience.
So the core audience is like your top 10% the people that are going to watch
because you put something out and you're ultimately, I was going to think
about the audience.
You should do first rule, first filter is like, you make what you want to make.
And when you're trying to consider your audience, consider that the, the core 10%
not the top 10%.
That's kind of beside the point.
Like the core people and think about them.
Don't think about like, Oh, what if this other person watched it or whatever?
Like, you know, if, yeah, imagine some famous person commented on your video,
don't let fucking Brad Pitt get in your head and be like, Oh, I'm making a
video for Brad Pitt or, you know, some, some bullshit like that.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
That's, that's kind of where it's just a weird kind of like thing.
You have to almost check yourself every once in a while.
And basically what I've been getting at is over the course of the last 10 years,
there's, there are times where you feel like, you know, there was parts of this
podcast era where it felt like it was literally the source of information for a
whole style of motorcycling.
And then obviously that's changed and re getting back into like, okay, well,
who is actually listening, especially when I started doing more chopper shit.
I don't want me to the chopper dudes really listening to this stuff.
And I'm not necessarily making content for them or not.
I'm just kind of like, I'm interested in said person and the things I want to talk
about, I hope that like that core, core audience that you're, you're referring to
will go down these paths with me.
You know, I think that I think they are.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like they are.
I mean, we're seeing a lot of chopper interests, you know, happening.
But I think that's just happening in general.
Like a lot of people are looking, I don't know if it's like more of like, like
another way of like being a part of something more nostalgic.
You know what I mean?
Like there's so many aspects of, I feel like society right now that's
looking for something more tangible.
And even though a motorcycle is a very tangible thing, whether it's brand
new or 40 years old, there's something about that older bike that like is
saying something about what you're saying to the world and why you're on it or
some shit like that.
You know, yeah, I don't know.
Well, there's a lot of things I could say about choppers.
I don't build a lot of choppers.
The most recent thing I did and it by anybody watching this, at least nine
out of 10, that's not a chopper.
This is not a Harley-Davidson.
Oh, no, it's a chopper.
Which is fine.
Oh, no, it's a chopper.
Usually, usually the chopper like chopper haters come if you have any sort of
suspension.
I don't want to go down that road.
I don't care about the chopper haters.
But what I wanted to say is like, my method, if I can borrow the term method or
like my ideal version of building a bike is the chopper method.
It's let me put this thing on here.
That's not supposed to go on here.
Let me delete all these things that the factory that built this bike said I
needed.
Yeah.
Let me think of something a little bit outside of the box.
Haven't seen it done that way.
And let me do it myself and try it.
I think, I think that's like the original chopper ideal is like, this is probably
just a little bit above my pay grade or way above my pay grade.
Yeah.
But I'm going to go for it.
And then the outcome is just awesome.
Yes.
So that's like, to me, that's the, we've been using the word core a lot, but like
that, that is the, the central theme of whenever I'm building anything, that's
yeah.
So I kind of foundation.
We're going to switch it up.
Yeah.
Foundation.
That's the foundation of how I would approach building anything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the, I think the story, did we talk about the story of the infill
chop that you just finished and like how that was like an original?
I forget.
I can't remember if that was on the other podcast, but maybe for the context
of people listening now, what's the, the quick story behind that bike?
Yeah.
So it was a complete accident, like wasn't intending on it at all.
I do have a certain section of my heart dedicated to Royal Enfield amongst many
other things that I like to do.
Yeah.
Um, and like I made this documentary about Royal Enfield culture.
That was a Kevin Costner field of dreams situation.
Yeah.
Um, and it was actually a.
A person who supported on Kickstarter, the film and, and then I got home and then
I built like a very mild custom.
Um, it wasn't like frame up or anything based on this exact bike.
And then he bought that bike.
Talk about influence because I bought it.
And then I, one of the things I did, it came fuel injected, but that motor
platform had a carbureted variant in India.
And I got all the parts that converted to carburetor because chopper shit.
I, that's the core idea of the foundational ideal.
Right.
So, um, he bought all that stuff and then it sat on his lift for years.
And then he called me one day last year and he was like, I have to get this
thing out of my garage.
My wife's going to kill me.
If you do something with it, you can have it.
And that was just like, I know exactly what to do.
What would you say is like, uh, you know, I, I'm a fan of like carburetors
over fuel injection, not talking like high performance things like that.
But what is, what is your take on like removing fuel injection to have a carburetor?
Is it?
Well, I'll give you both sides of the coin.
Okay.
Um, simply put a carburetor is better to look at than a throttle body.
It's not so much the throttle body.
It's like all the wires attached to all the things that come along with it.
It's, and, and some of them are quite simple, right?
Um, you know, it's not the fuel injector sticking out of it.
It's not the fuel line that leads to the fuel injector.
It's all the other stuff.
And with the chopper ideal, the idea is to simplify to the nth degree and you
kind of limit yourself with that.
Whereas a carburetor, especially like, you know, let's talk about Harley
Davidson choppers, like if, if you don't have a magneto, is it really a chopper?
Some people would say that.
Those nerds.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But well, you know, nerds know their shit.
And it's so simple because it's literally a regulatory nerd.
It's cool because it has this like very cyclical thing about it.
The motor turns, it turns the spark.
It's like a chicken and the egg.
It's a beautiful thing.
It's like they both exist.
The motor turns, it turns the magneto, which fires, which, yeah, which the
spark creates the motor turning plus the gas and all this other stuff.
What happens first is spark or the turn.
And it's, yeah, yeah.
Well, the turn happens.
The kick, which begins the turn and then it just goes on.
The god of the chopper.
It lives harmoniously together.
Yeah.
So I think that's, that's the really cool part about it.
Um, and when you remove all that stuff, it just becomes so simple and, and pleasing
to look at because there's just not that much to look at.
You focus on the things that are there.
Small side tangent just because it's on my head, my mind, but kind of in line
with what we're talking about.
That was also one of the reasons why I kind of wanted to remove the
immune it stuff because the immune it when we were messing with it, it was
throwing a code essentially saying, we're not going to let everything work
because there's this thing that we're not getting right now.
And yeah, we could have, we could have spent the time and figured it out.
But what I thought about for the instance of the owner of this bike is like,
what if he's out riding and this thing decides, Oh, well, there's a little
weird irregularity in one of the wires and now it's not working as opposed to
like, I think you nailed it.
I think you nailed it.
It is contrary to the concept of what the bike is supposed to be in this
regard.
Now, Moto gadget, they're from Germany.
They have very strict rules.
You have to have a horn.
So in that context, they have simplified it.
Yeah.
You know, and when you throw the minimum bar of like German engineering,
everything working harm harmoniously for harmony's sake, then, you know, that
kind of fits the equation, so to speak.
But I think I've gone with him unit before and I've skipped it on other stuff.
Um, I don't think that I've ever gone too far to one side or the other with it.
And it kind of has felt weird.
It also feels weird.
It's like, all right, I have this really technical, tiny little box and I'm using
like 10% of the functionality of it.
It's so clean and that's kind of like probably like what was enticing me to
want to run it in the first place is because I wanted it.
You know, I'm building this bike for this gentleman that's like a forever bike.
It's his birthday or bike.
He wants it forever.
So I wanted to build a, you know, if someone takes it apart in 20 years to
modify it or do something to it, I want to be like, Oh, that was some good stuff.
They weren't fucking around back in 2026.
You know what I'm saying?
As opposed in the way the immune system looks as good.
I mean, the breaker situation, I mean, I, every bike I own right now, other
than the Roguelad has breakers and I've ridden my gold chopper everywhere.
And I've never had an issue with wiring on a bike.
Um, obviously, like removing all the extra shit that comes on old
carbureted bikes also helps.
Yeah.
So like if you have an FXR and you want to make it work, you know, minus the
turn signals are adding a shit ton of wires to it.
Like the amount of wires that it turns signal, uh, ESM easily like 50 feet of
wire, it's so much more.
It's like now, like I'm, I'm like the full length of the bike times four.
Yep.
Times two, because the negatives.
Yep.
So then she's the ground out at like, at the handlebar or whatever.
But, but then you have a bunch of eye, eye bolts grounding everything.
Yeah.
And it just, it looks tacky.
Like I want the wires to come apart and come to, come to a, a home under the
battery, uh, in the battery box area and stuff.
But I mean, essentially like in some of like, uh, Cody, the, the
general, I'm building a bike for some of his like maybe concerns about going
carburetor versus all the other things was he's used to carburetors on a dirt
bike, but not on a motorcycle.
I think so many people have this in their head that carburetors are somehow
unreliable when it's technically the most reliable thing there is.
You know, and I didn't really understand that too, because my, I had concerns.
I mean thrashing and like fueling and, and to any life they did a whole thing
like she like, we're buying old carburetor bikes and riding in the
Sturgis and everybody's bike worked fine, except for the chopper that kept
falling apart.
You know what I'm saying?
So it was like, there's not, it's not a carburetor is, is a bad thing.
You know, literally for a hundred years, motorcycles ran on carburetors and cars
did until, you know, when did fuel injection come into play at early 80s?
Right.
So, um, I think, yeah, carburetors are as reliable as anything else.
Now you have to, it requires more from you.
It's not just a hundred right, you know, yeah, yeah.
But that's like, as a man, like you should want to know that shit.
Right.
As a man, you should want to know how to choke a carburetor and turn on a motorcycle.
But you know, but you know what the most emasculating thing is when you're
running an EFI system and it breaks down and you're like, I don't know what the
fuck to do.
Is anybody?
Yeah.
Like, is it like a scan tool or something?
You're kind of resting on your laurels a little bit with the, with the carburetor
example, but yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I think there should be some, I mean, we're riding a motorcycle should, uh, it
should invoke a lot more of like a, you should be connected to the bike more.
And I think a carburetor provides a very unique connection to it.
If you're a horsepower junkie or any, you know, there's other ways, there's,
maybe I'll let you in.
This what was, what's the, what's the caveat?
What's the other side?
Oh, I was just, I was going to steer it back there.
Yeah.
So I moved into this house, set up the garage.
I started working on this Ducati.
It's a 1990s parts bike, 900 super sport.
And the motor is from 1999.
It's the first or second year of fuel injection.
That same motor came carburetor and can easily be converted back to carburetor.
Yeah.
I'm keeping the fuel injection because it's going to be a daily bike and that's
kind of the antithesis of what we just said.
We could, that could totally carburetor and be just as reliable.
Yeah.
But fueling, if it gets, you know, whatever it, it always works.
And the Ducati as there's, I think there's a myth that even I believe that, you
know, they're kind of temperamental, they're Italian, you know, they, the fuel,
the fuel injection in the whole system behind it is like from the stone age.
Actually, it's very basic.
And it's just super motorcycle fuel injection is trash.
Not this one.
It isn't.
So I can't say that I'm good authority, except that I've had a little cheat code.
My friend Dan Ducati Dan, we call him.
Um, he's, he's, he's better than AI when it comes to this stuff.
He knows fucking everything.
That's nice.
Yeah.
And, um, you know, steeped, he's actually like a senior electronic specialist for
Jaguar land rover.
So he's, he's clearly on the level.
I mean, Jag, I mean, if that was like Jaguar, like, yeah, you got to fucking
know how to Jaguar has always been played with wiring problems, maybe in the 80s and
90s, right?
But, but now it's like a rolling computer.
Right.
Yeah.
And, um, so like he's, he's clearly used to playing on a level in the
stratosphere compared to where we are, but he's also a huge Ducati guy.
So I get, you know, easy access to him and he'll help me with all this other
stuff, but he also just knows a bunch about the platform.
Just like, you know, the beauty of the Harley community is that there's so
much knowledge within a degree or two of separation, right?
You know, somebody who knows the shit.
So he's been that for me.
Uh, and he was like, dude, this is a great fuel injection system.
I'm running 20 year old fuel injectors in mind and they run great.
So I was like, all right, I'll keep that.
And I know that cause I want it to be able, it's not like a fast, fast bike,
but I want it to be able to do what it's supposed to do.
And I'm chopping some shit on it.
It's going to get pod filters.
And he was like, yeah, you can just run pod filters.
You don't have to change anything in the map.
And if it was carburetor, I have to rejet it.
And, you know, I know a bit about carburetors, but I'm not like, yeah,
I'm not either.
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That's also kind of like the point of like, you know, I've been, I've
want to, you know, and that's in that super E carburetor.
It's like one of the most common carburetors you'll ever see out there.
I've always been a Makuni guy and I feel like Makunis are like just kind of
idiot proof.
Like you really don't have to do much to them.
Um, you know, every once in a while, you might be, you know, have to adjust the
main screw on it, which like helps the idle kind of act right.
Yeah.
Um, but I've always wanted to learn the S and S and like, I'm, I'm nervous
about riding that to California because of the, I've, that's what you have on
your job.
On the job.
But, you know, on that, so the dude Cody, when he bought that FXR that, uh, that,
um, motor or the bike came from one of the engineer dudes at SNS, right?
Already, already set up, jetted for every day.
Jetted for that EVO motor.
So when I took, I pulled that car apart and I looked at his jets.
I mean, it's a stock motor and I was like, it, uh, you know, for the longest, so I,
so I copied the jetting online, right?
And it's a typically, I think stock is 28 point something on an intermediate 68 or
some shit on the main jet and like 40 on the pilot jet or some shit.
Well, his was set at 32 on the intermediate and 60 on the pilot and then 68 on the, um,
the main and you know, me and Corey, you know, I was having those problems
starting the bike because I mimicked it.
And, uh, you know, I was giving it too much gas is what was the problem when I
first started kicking it.
And then when it wrote, you just said was that the, the pilot was much larger.
So the pilot to 60.
Yeah.
So the, uh, so you're giving a gas and it's just flooding it out, right?
But now that I know that I'm not, I don't have to give as much gas.
So anyway, um, come to find out through AI is that the quarter third
throttle or the quarter turn throttle, uh, hiccup and cough is a very,
very common thing on SNS carbs, right?
And apparently, and then the AI also said, well, a lot of people will run a
higher pilot jet so that the handoff from the main or the, uh, intermediate
jet to the pilot is a little bit more of a better transition.
And I guess that might be what's going on there.
I'm still an idiot.
So if you're listening to this and you're like, Oh my God, you fucking dumbass.
It's all right.
You call yourself a chopper rider.
We're all idiots here.
Yeah.
But anyway, um, I just did the video on it.
So when the bike, when the, uh, charging system took a shit on me, I put the
jetting back to completely factory perspex of SNS, right?
And then I kind of had to learn to re-kick it.
And then I've had a cough the entire last month and a half, right?
I said, you know what?
I want to fucking go back to the other jets that was in there and see if
that changes something.
And dude, I wrote, I, when I went and wrote all day Sunday, it was fucking perfect.
Not one cough, not one hiccup.
It's smooth on the jets that it came with from the guy at the factory at the SNS factory.
The SNS.
Yeah.
So it's a, again, it's a 32, uh, what do I say?
Intermediate intermediate, 68 main and 60 pilot.
And it's funny you say intermediate.
I always thought of it.
I just called it the needle.
It looks more like a needle.
You know, everybody just called it.
I don't know.
I'm just also learning the lingo.
Cause the needle can be a different shape.
And then there's a clips where you can raise and lower, which basically,
there was a guy that asks like a comp, one of the comments on that YouTube video
and it's like, Hey, would you end up going to, I tried to answer it, but
I also felt like, man, I don't want to, to answer it and then have
to explain it for 20 minutes as to where I got this idea from and what is actually
happening.
Cause I don't know if that would work in a different part of the country because
of altitude or whatever the helmet might be, what exhaust are running.
I just know that it's working for mine.
Yeah.
And originally when I did the, uh, when I rode that bike to Oklahoma and I was
getting like 85, 90 miles out of the tank, like that's what the jetting was.
And then when I changed the jetting back to stock and I rode the Decatur and then
came home, I fucking ran out of gas like it with less jets, like with less,
putting less gas in it.
It fucking, it makes no fucking sense.
Interesting.
So what was your throttle position?
I don't know.
Fuckin it's more open even on smaller jets.
So if it's more open with smaller jets, it's.
I mean, I don't know either, but like, I'm just, I'm, I'm saying out loud what I'm
thinking, like the smaller jets and you have to hold it open.
You're dumping more fuel.
Whereas if you have bigger jets and you have like a sweet spot, that was just a
trickle.
What might be someone, someone help us with our carburetors.
We're trying to, what might be the issue is it also, that was the way the jetting
was set up when I initially started riding the bike.
And I also was still learning how the bike felt at higher speeds.
So I didn't push the bike as hard as I have no idea how fast I'm going, but like,
you know, when it starts getting a little vibratey up in the handlebars,
like I'm going to back off a little bit and make it towards not that.
Yeah.
And maybe I'm getting used to the vibration and I'm pushing it harder.
That's, that could be an issue too.
So next weekend I'm going to ride it's a Paradise Roadshow with me and Kyle and
some other buddies are going to ride down there.
So I'll see what kind of like highway miles I'm going to get then.
Cause I want to know before I go to Cali.
So I want to say that I can do 95 miles an hour.
I think that'll be good.
95.
Yeah.
I mean, 200 miles, if you went there and back in a day, that's 400 miles.
I think that's a real test, but you can't.
Yeah.
I'm very like, uh, you know how like something that
is so unfamiliar and you're so tuned into it.
And then you get to that point where it starts to feel like set, like, uh,
like subconsciously we were saying earlier, it's like subconsciously I feel
like kicking a bike.
Now I don't even, like I can feel it.
I can feel, I, all right.
All right.
What's it?
I, it's like, I'm not thinking about it as much as I was before and
everything starts to feel a little bit more, um, like connected.
It's weird.
It's a dope feeling, but I wonder if like that was one of the main things I was
in love with about this whole process.
And now that it's becoming kind of like not as visceral because it's now just a
part of like, I'm getting kind of like, where's my, can you grab those rocks
over there real quick?
So I can shuffle them.
But it just, I wonder if like one, you're saying that, that the feeling is wearing off.
Or I don't, I don't think it is, but I'm saying, I wonder if that feeling does wear
out because I start to just trust everything so much because there's no,
I don't have any worries anymore.
I wonder if the worrying is what I, what I'm in love with is the uncertainty.
You know, you like the stress.
A level of stress is like, it keeps people feeling alive.
I think, yeah, little dangerously.
Yeah.
I think, I think I can agree with that.
I, I like a little bit of.
He tension, you know, tension.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Again, just trying to figure out the words to put, to, to like ask the questions
or put out the feeling as to what's been so sick about riding this whole bike.
I still can't really, you know, it, again, I might have said this before, but like,
it drives me nuts when somebody hits me up and says, man, I'm really thinking
about building a chopper.
I want to do a chopper now, but they want to do everything but chopper shit.
I want fuel injected.
I want this.
I want that.
I was like, dude, like everything that you want is what like makes it not feel this way.
Like if you want to do a chopper, do it the hard way, it's not hard.
Tells are not that bad.
You know, it's certain people, certain setups, right?
But I don't know.
Anyway, ran out of breath in that one.
Put a bike, put a bike shock in your seat.
If you're worried about a hard toe.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So there's a couple of tricks that I felt, dude, you rode my bike.
I rode your bike.
Yeah.
And I told you, I felt like your bike was stiffer than mine.
And you rode my bike and Trey said the same thing.
It was always definitely stiffer.
And I, I, you know, I'm not, not that like well versed in all of motorcycling,
but I had never ridden a proper Harley Davidson hardtail chopper before.
And I've ridden a couple, you know, retarded things that I've built ridges
and stuff like that.
Um, and I was like, well, it's a rigid.
It's rigid.
Yeah.
Um, and there's a couple of theories as to why it feels so rigid.
I'm not too concerned because it's going to live in New York City and it's not
going to be going super fast and all that stuff, but it was remarkably more rigid
than yours.
Yeah.
I have a couple ideas about that.
Uh, actually Dejong was like, I think your super steep rake angle is not allowing
the forks to compress at, so the front end feels rigid, right?
Even though there's forks and I have like five weight fork oil in there.
Yeah.
But also like I, I'm trying to figure out a way to weigh this thing.
If you know anybody that has scales for a bike, better than just like hanging it
from a hanging scale somewhere.
Yeah.
Um, I feel like it's under 300 pounds and I used 120 wall tubing, which is
standard wall tubing that you would use on a rigid frame build.
I think I could have gotten away with 0.95, but, um, and I'm always concerned
about making it strong enough.
Like, you know, I'm not an engineer, so I kind of overbuild some stuff and I try
and like go just to the limit of overbuilding where it like, is it overbuilt?
But I know it is.
And, um, so it might just be, you know, not absorbing the weight.
I used 120, um, it's mainly 120.
There's sections.
I'm sorry, not 120.
10 20.
There's a section where it's 10 26.
That's all mild steel.
Yeah.
Um, you know, it's not chromoly.
Chromoly is much more, it flexes where you can do the thinner stuff.
But, um, with chromoly, like to really get to those characteristics, like in an
airframe, you would have to, um, stress relief it by heating it to a certain
temperature for a certain amount of time at a certain rate and cooling down and
can't do that.
So I just went with mild.
It was cheaper.
It was D O M.
So it's nicer.
Um, two things doesn't have a welded seam, but it's probably a little bit overbuilt.
And, um, it wasn't that uncomfortable for me mainly because of the bike shock.
Yeah.
So pretty, well, do you think possibly that because the bike is just inherently
lighter, then maybe it's not transferring enough of that dampening frame itself is
not dampening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, I think that is at least one contributor almost willing to bet my motor
weighs as much as the shovel head motor.
It's fucking heavy, dude.
Probably iron cylinders and shit like that.
It's, it's pretty, pretty not that little motor in this thing is heavier than it
should be though.
For real?
Yeah.
Damn.
I don't know.
It was a, I just, when I wrote it around the block, I was like, this is pretty
fucking heavy, but it, it's the stance is sick.
Dude, like when you ride it, like you feel great.
It feels like on my gold shop, my gold effects are it's like you're, you're
in attack mode almost.
Yeah.
It feels cool.
I had very different, um, a very different shape in mind for the handlebars, but
then when it came time to sit on it and like make the bars, I was like, I don't
know.
So I was like, let me just put my hands where I want them to be.
And I built bars for that.
Yeah.
No, I think it all came out real like so taste one.
And it's a testament because I mean, like mama tried, uh,
then right, it was that mama tried, right?
No, it wasn't.
Oh, you just went to mama try.
That's right.
Hand built is where we were, cause we were trying to get it done for mama tried.
Or, uh, yeah, we missed, missed all that.
I was trying to, so, um, I never met the guy.
I don't even know his name, but, uh, cycle showcase reached out midway.
He was like, I got a box for you if you want it.
And, um, Larry was really pushing for both you and I to be there.
And I really wanted to go like, I've been wanting to go to cycle showcase for a long
time, but it's like a week before mama tried and it's, it even feels kind of
fucked up to say right now, but like mama tried as a whole experience outside of
mama tried, like being Milwaukee in the winter with all the Harley shit going on.
Yeah.
Or bite shit in general.
It's just, and everybody, it's just kind of, it's hard, you know, not to want to be there.
I wanted to be there.
I thought it was very nice for him to reach out and invite, um, and Larry love Larry
and he was like, you should go.
Yeah.
Whatever.
So, um, miss that one just cause it wasn't going to be done on time.
And I know, I know to avoid the feeling of like, let me just jam through the end
and get a terrible idea.
Um, and then I was hoping for mama tried, but, uh, somebody told me that they
had like already overbooked and it was still kind of tight.
Yeah.
So I was like, I'm not even gonna try for that.
I think I told you that because I reached out to one of them to see about the
purple bite going up there, which I had no idea.
You told me that's right.
You told me that they were overbooked.
And yeah, they, I mean, they have a, the venues relatively small for how big it is
now.
Yeah.
And what I'm worried about is if they, cause the problem is if you go to a bigger
spot than that, it's not going to have that aesthetic in that vibe.
And so to me, maybe it's the age old trouble with every motorcycle show is that
I think it might need to be another day.
I think maybe they need to open up Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Now, because there's so much, like it's like, you want to go on Saturday
cause everybody's there, but it's so f**king packed.
Yeah.
That you can't really see anything and that place is small.
So it's like, if you go to the convention center, then it loses all.
It's like swag and style.
Yeah.
But if you maybe open up, I would not recommend the convention.
So hell no, it just happened a couple of times and it's kills events, man.
Yeah.
You know, but I don't know.
Um, you don't know.
Yeah, I was asking him about like the purple bike going up there and, uh, you
know, he's like, man, it looks sick, but we just don't, we've already booked out
everything.
I was pretty late to the game asking to bring it.
So, but no, I mean, you're, you're, you got to have to hand built show.
Got it to hand built showed.
I go every year because I like to go to MotoGP and I've been going to hand
built show for a while and it's, it's really just about meeting up with your
friends and it's in a backyard.
There's no reason not to go.
Um, and then I went to the one show and I didn't think it was 2000 miles from here.
I did the gas calculation.
It was going to be at least $1,000 in gas alone one way.
And 2000 miles is 30 hours of driving.
It's all one way.
So you can do it all.
No way it was going to go.
Uh, Royal Enfield of North America.
So like they're based in Milwaukee.
Um, it's funny.
Um, but they brought it up there.
I know, I know why they're there because, you know, they, it's a motorist.
It's where people who know motorcycles live and work.
Right.
Yeah.
Royal Enfield did the same thing in, in, uh, England.
They set up their headquarters right next to Triumph.
Yeah.
Um, that's strategy things.
So anyway, they drug it out there.
Big shout out to them, uh, for doing that.
But I was able to go, I went because the bike was in the show.
Uh, no reason why you shouldn't go to the one show.
It's not like dedicated chopper show, but dude, the one show is a fucking
rad time, right?
Time and tour is just, uh, it wouldn't be that way without him.
Yeah.
And shout out to his wife, Tori, you know, Tor's wife is named Tori.
Is that in Washington or Oregon?
Oregon, Portland.
That's what that.
Yeah.
Um,
um, fucking awesome show, dude.
And, uh, they had to go through a venue change.
Um, they're so like in 2020, it was like the last show.
It was like February 20th or something, then COVID happened.
And in 21, they were able to do it out outdoors.
Um, kind of outdoors, a big ship building.
So it's like a warehouse, like 60 feet tall.
How sick would it be if they lined up?
Wouldn't it, wouldn't Portland where they did the Chaz thing or some shit?
Where they started their own community in Seattle.
Oh, that was Seattle.
Oh, I was going to say it'd be sick.
Never heard of that.
Well, like during the COVID stuff, like they like took over a whole city block
and just turned it into their own city within it.
Really?
It's like either Portland or Seattle, right?
Sounds like a Portland thing, but Seattle kind of same thing.
Yeah.
In a way.
They want up each other.
So like they had to go through this venue change and, um, it became like, it was in
the spring, it wasn't in the winter.
The one thing that I loved about the motor show back in the day was that somehow
it always snowed like a foot that weekend.
And they don't, I mean, they get snow, but not like heavy snow.
Yeah.
But it was cold and it just like brought everybody together, like in huddled masses.
And, um, when they moved to this one, they had to like reinvent it because it kind
of lost what it was just by virtue of the venue itself.
Yeah.
And so this new one, I was there in 21 and 23.
So it's been three years since I've been, and like it's right back up to
speed is a fucking wicked show, the one show.
Well, they got all the right pieces of the puzzle.
They just had to reconfigure it basically.
Yeah.
That's like three, 400 bikes there and all kinds of bikes.
And if you only like choppers, like there's a good 50 fucking choppers there.
Really, really good ones.
To your point of like a wintertime thing and it brings people together.
It's like,
that's what mom and try does.
Yeah.
There's always an event with that recipe.
Yeah.
There's always an event where half the people that are there on their bike,
they're just not into the crowd.
They're not into the aspect of the networking or the hanging out with your
bros or any of that shit.
They're just like, I want to go ride my bike.
And it's like, I understand that, you know, like I get that a holy, but like.
And when you have a something like you have a born free Cali,
like a lot of people are like, I want to be there and it's hot.
And it's this and like, well, I could be riding the coast right now or riding
the mountain. I'm in California, especially if you're not from there.
Then it's always going to be pulled.
I get it.
Just don't go.
Yeah.
That's that's what I get at when trying to tell people is like, look,
you come to this event, just immerse yourself in it, be a part of it.
And while you're there, a part of it, you're going to get to do something that
you could always go ride that mountain and always ride that coast.
Like plan the event, plan the trip.
So you do those things too.
But I've been to places like that where people that are like, oh,
I just want to go ride.
I was like, dude, we just fucking rode here.
Yeah. What are you talking about?
Like calm down, dude. Get a beer.
I think the shows are more for socializing, catching up with your friends.
And that's that's what I love about shows.
Like I mainly go to custom motorcycle shows.
I love custom motorcycles.
Sometimes I don't even look at the motorcycles.
I'm just too busy catching up with friends.
And it's always like every single one you add two to five more friends.
Yeah.
And then after 10, 15 years, it's like a reunion.
23456 times a year, which is awesome.
Or you get to a point where you like some of your closest friends are
literally like these people that you end up connecting with at events all the time.
You know, and then you get a little bit older and you end up seeing them more
even only at these events, right?
But you end up seeing them more than like your childhood friends
that you're like my best friend, right?
Yeah.
I mean, that's exactly what I'm dealing with right now is I'm getting ready
for Born Free California and we're going on a trip, right?
I'm going with people I met at events.
We're going to ride out there together.
We're going to do the event, but that's just a small sliver of this trip.
And then on top of it, so then we're going to go right after the event, right?
And then the thing about it, I'm excited because being from California,
I get to see people that I haven't seen in years that are from there, right?
And see the people that I've met traveling with you to California
and see people that I don't get to see on a regular basis.
I'm more excited about that than seeing any bike there.
Yeah.
I mean, like Born Free, I guess to put it in perspective is like, you know,
you know, being in the industry, like I work in this industry, I, you know,
whether it's painting or working on these bikes or doing this podcast.
So like for me, it's a chance to go shake the hands of Corey from,
from Arlen S. Zach, go see Brian from Clockworks, go see Chip and Mikey
from Sanio Custom, go see Mike and Grant.
It's all about like keeping those things, like those relationships alive.
Say, look, I'm here again.
I'm still relevant, you know?
Or I'm still alive at least, you know, and it's like doing that, it keeps it.
That's how all a lot of my opportunities come from being present at these things.
And one thing that I've been saying a lot that you kind of always
illuminated to me is that, uh, not like I've always been this way, but like,
you put it in good words.
It's like being a good fucking hang, being the kind of person that like people
want to like, oh, fuck, I want to hang out with J.C.'s here.
Yeah.
Trying to be that has gotten me a lot more places than my fucking
paint work has gotten me, you know what I'm saying?
So because if it's like, oh, he's a great painter, but God damn, he's insufferable.
And pro and I probably can be insufferable to certain crowds, depending on like.
Yeah, I think you have to accept that there's going to be some percentage
of people that just aren't going to like you, or at least that's how I go through life.
And I'm like, yeah, that that 10% off the top, I'm not even going to worry about it.
Yeah.
But I'm you're a social person.
I'm a social person.
I think that's a natural thing for people like us to want to go through.
And then there's other people that just like they want to be on the
bike every single fucking day.
And they, they're bikes in front of them.
It's like, you know, putting candy in front of a kid or something.
Can't can't.
So I was reminding them of what they want to do, which is, which is fine.
That's fine.
I mean, it's just probably not a good thing anyway.
Yeah.
There's a reason why we're the ones last people at the bar every, every night.
And fuck, like I think about like, you know, when Sebastian von
Gasvall to Josh from my right, when these people come to my house and
stay over, we're up and we're up in the kitchen till four in the morning, not
even drinking, just talking about all the different things that we're into, that
we connect on, that we find like, when we talk about these things, we inspire each
other, you know, like whether it's photography or making videos and
content or building bikes or whatever the case would be like the, that
conversation just doesn't really end to me, you know?
So we got to cut off here and we'll pick this back up next week.
Yeah.
So, well, especially with you, you somehow pull it out of everybody.
It's not so difficult to pull out of people like Sebastian or me or anybody
else, but you keep it going.
I'm glad you landed on a podcast.
Fuck, I don't know.
Like, yeah, thanks to all the homies that pushed me to do it.
So anyway.
Um, but I think you, you know, you were building this bike, you know, kind of
calling back to the beginning of this podcast.
You're building this bike.
You're doing this like social media push.
And I remembered, you know, talking with you quite a bit about how you were
really wanting to get back into the job force, you know, like the,
there was a possibility of just doing YouTube as like a full-time gig or pushing
it to that direction.
But like, I think, I think you and I are in the same boat that we kind of like
love doing it, but the idea of it, like trusting it, that it's going to be
consistently paying off every month, like a job would be.
Yeah.
It's kind of a scary thing.
It's a scary gamble, you know?
I think, I think that first of all, that's right.
I think there's a few contributors to that.
And like we already touched on earlier, there's a concern is like, do I need to
squeeze all the juice from my cherished lemon here to will it ruin the love of
doing what I love to do anyway?
Am I going to sell out?
Am I going to become, you know, a shill for brands or all this other stuff?
Become performative or put, even put yourself under the pressure of like, I
need to upload something every single week.
Yeah.
Which is a lot of pressure.
And it's especially difficult when the subject matter of what you're making
videos about is expensive.
Right?
It's, I wish I could, you know, like the makeup girls, they just talk, put makeup
on and I guess that's expensive too.
I wish I could just get on.
I don't actually wish, but you know, I just pull your titties out.
Yeah.
I got a few.
I want to get on this.
I get a few real quick.
All right.
The feet finder for the guys just doesn't seem to work out the same.
We don't, we don't get the same ROI.
You know, I would, I would.
I put it right back into the motorcycles.
Right?
Right.
Just use one, use one to feed the other, but no, I'm with you.
Makeups is a lot, not that they're, they don't invest money, but they don't
invest the same.
The, the money they're investing is minuscule compared to what we're doing
with motorcycles.
It's just so much more expensive.
Yeah.
And, and it's not as easy to just go, okay, cool.
I'm going to drop a couple hundred dollars or a couple thousand dollars every
week just to continue to tune in.
Yeah.
That's, that's challenging one.
But, but also, so we'll just continue this conversation while Jace is.
Yeah.
Um, I've always, maybe I should get, do it when he's back here.
You can edit all this stuff.
Right.
Um, I've always subsidized my building with my own income.
And because I would do that anyway.
Um, well, obviously with the building, but like the, the videos and stuff.
So I've always been employed unless I took a sabbatical to go do a thing,
which I did when I was bartending.
Um,
I'll let you tell that story in a second.
I got it.
I got to tell you something you said earlier, kind of really resonated with me.
It made me, made me laugh with the whole, you, you post videos and, and you
forget that people actually watch it.
I remember as it worked one day and, uh, somebody that doesn't know any of my
social medias was at work and said, Hey, uh, so I was at my house the other day.
And all of a sudden I heard your voice on, on the TV.
My mom was watching one of your barbecue review videos and I was like, what the
fuck?
Yo, because I started thinking like, I don't know if I want my coworkers,
parents watching my YouTube channel that can go awry really fast.
And I thought to myself.
Just stick to the barbecue stuff.
Right.
I started thinking to myself, damn, like, I can't believe that, uh, I, you forget
that it's in the world and there's people outside the people that you think are
going to watch it that can run across your videos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess that's the reason why you should always make what you want to
make.
Yeah.
And don't, don't chase any like, you know, funny little thing that might not
age well or whatever.
But I know exactly what you mean.
Like it's, it's happened a couple of times now where I was at a show or
something and somebody they're like, Hey, I'm like, I don't know you.
And, and then I mean, usually they're cool, right?
Yeah.
Generally, um, like, you don't know me, but I watch your videos.
You can convince me to get back in the garage and dust off this project from it.
And it's a really good feeling.
Yeah.
So, and your videos definitely like invoke that, that kind of feeling to want to
let go in the garage and do it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So, well, let's get, let's talk about, uh, the, the first prompt you just had for
me in the column of prom now.
Um, but, um, yeah.
So I wanted to get back to work because I was unemployed, but kind of in this funky
space where my previous employer was me, was my business.
Started a company, uh, paid myself through that company for like three and a half
years, very difficult to go back to something, not that, uh, ended up landing
it RMFG shout out.
Um, can talk about that a little bit later, but it's a startup.
It really checks a lot of my boxes, but I've always subsidized what I do with my
own income, building, making videos, all this other stuff.
And that has been my trick to focus on what I, what I want to do.
Cause you know, you have your income, you got to pay for your self to live,
family, whatever, and, um, whatever you have left over, like that's going to show
you where, what you really care about.
Right.
Yeah.
That's where, where energy goes, something flows, something like whatever.
Um, so that's, that's how I, I focus on, uh, keeping it kind of pure, but I was
talking about just a second ago, how expensive this hobby or passion or thing is.
And, um, you know, to kind of throw a topic out there, um, with this growth of
social media, I'm starting to get people reaching out to me, wanting to sponsor
some stuff.
And it's, it's really become kind of a, not a conflict, not really a conundrum,
but I feel like there's a very fine line to walk.
And we spoke about this a lot.
Cause obviously this podcast is sponsored, all this other stuff.
And it's difficult because a lot of people are going to be like, Oh, well,
the fucking sponsors, uh, like, you know, they're put in front of my face.
I'm not going to even look into it.
And, and a lot of advertising, especially digitally has become a blind spot for a
lot of people.
And then there's the whole thing of like, I don't want to be like a corporate
shill or something or like buy this stuff.
And, you know, everybody follows some big account, some big personality, some
big influencer, right?
And you know, when they're like getting paid, whether it's like marked or whatever,
it's just like, why are they talking about this?
Why are they forcing this down my throat?
And that kind of sucks.
So I don't want to do that, but I have a couple of things coming up.
Um, and you know, I don't hold any secrets.
And if this bars me from getting future sponsorship, then this is what you got.
But, um, there's a couple of sponsorships I'm actually really excited about.
And it has brought me kind of back into the beginning of the thing.
It's like, how do I tell this story?
It's like a new constraint.
It's like, all right, I'm going to do it in my, and they say, like, they're pretty hip to it.
Do it in your own authentic voice.
Like, yeah, of course.
Me, the algorithms voice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
Um, but it's like a new problem to solve.
And I kind of like that.
So for example, Miller welders hit me up and I was flabbergasted.
Yeah.
Cause.
You know, I'll just preface that by saying I'm getting hit up by all these Chinese
companies.
Um, and you know, I'm not going to say like, you know, fuck this, fuck that, blah,
but it's, it's kind of like, you know, I'm not really interested.
And they want to do the affiliate model where that forces me to be like, buy this
stuff so I can earn.
Yeah.
And I think that's like a conflict of interest.
Whereas Miller is like, you know, the creme de la creme of American built
welders, they've been around forever.
And I don't even have a Miller welder.
Yeah.
I would love to have one, but I went with Everlast.
It's a solid welder.
Um, and they stipulated in the terms that I can't show any other competitors or
anything in there, but they sent me a welding helmet, right?
And, um, it was really interesting.
And it's about to go live in like a couple of days, right?
So they, they wanted to, uh, they're trying to showcase this helmet.
And it's like relatively new technology.
It's super crisp and super clear.
And I've always advocated, like, if you're going to use something every day, or
if you're going to use, if it's an important tool, get the best thing that you can.
Yeah.
If it's a once in a while tool, you can go the cheap route because you can't buy
the best thing unless you're just fine.
Right.
And so I kind of, I never knew, um, about this new technology.
I've been used to, you know, being able to comparatively see nothing.
Yeah.
And so I put this helmet on, I'm like, holy fuck.
But, and so I thought to myself, it was like, how do you, if, if I just get on the
camera, like Miller sent me this helmet, it's really good.
You should buy it.
Yeah.
Like that's, fuck that.
But you should see this.
So it kind of sold me.
So I was like, how do I tell the story back to the constraint?
How do I show the story?
They gave me the helmet and like a welding jacket and gloves and I had to wear it in
the video because like safety department, whatever.
I don't normally wear that stuff.
Um, but, uh, you know, it's like a $500 helmet.
I never would have bought it because I would have allocated those dollars somewhere else.
You're used to what you are.
But now that I've used the helmet, I was like, if I fucking knew, I'd go buy the helmet.
So now I'm trying to like actually advocate for getting a nice piece of gear that I think
is actually worth it, even though I didn't go out and buy it myself.
And so the like, how do you tell that story?
And I was like, you just have to see this to believe it.
So I thought about like, how do I like tape a GoPro in there to see it?
It was all fucked up.
And so I ended up buying Oakley meta glasses and I got the Oakley's not because I
liked the frame, but because it has the center mount, um, camera.
And I came over to use yours, the Ray bands, and it put, it's off to the side.
And you couldn't see the helmet.
You'd see like the whole shell of the helmet, not even through the glass.
Yeah.
So they sent me this $500 helmet and no pay to make this post.
And then I spent $670 on the glasses to get the shot.
So I'm, I'm like a bad influencer, I guess, but it's back to the like, all right,
I really want to do this in a good way.
You're putting out more than you care about the fact that you just got it for free.
Like you're, it's a great opportunity to work for a company like Miller.
Right.
So like, well, when they tasked you with the thing, you want to go above and beyond
because you hope that'll open up the doors.
In general, you don't want to put out shoddy bullshit.
Yeah.
Oh, this is a great helmet.
I was going to chime in on what you just said, like as a, as a relatively new
welder or somebody that's very novice in that world.
Seeing is one of the biggest things for me.
It's like, like I have a cheap ass Harbor freight, like auto darkening helmet.
And when I wear, when I go to Corey's house, I forget about welding helmet
and he's got that fucking like square.
It looks like it came out of like the Simpsons when he's holding the thing.
I, I'm like, dude, how do you do this?
So he's like, all right, I'm ready.
And then I do the fucking head flip thing.
And I'm just like, I stress out doing it.
Yeah.
So seeing is better for me.
And I would spend 500 bucks easily if I knew, or if I felt like it would give
me the ability to weld more consistently in a better, you know, follow my line,
things like that, because I'm just not used to welding.
So it's not like, I literally said in the, in like the voiceover of the video,
I wonder if my welds will improve.
And I could have said that a few different ways.
And it's kind of a faux pas to blame your equipment as to why you're well.
But, but fucking A, if you can see, yeah, that's like, yeah.
Because I mean, yeah, the idea is your take well.
They're all right.
So this is you want to do your pat.
You want to do a, you know, what do you call it?
Like a, a dry pass or a fucking, you know, just a, a practice pass or whatever.
You know, so you want to know that your hand motion can do the thing.
But I'm still getting used to dabbing with, you know, pulse or whatever the case may be.
So like sometimes my hand motion that I practice, I didn't practice dabbing.
So now there's things going off.
Now I'm off my line or whatever the case may be.
But the other thing I wanted to chime in on, and I know that you and I, we talk
about this passionately, cause I think we both come from maybe not opposite trains
of thoughts in this idea of marketing.
I'm pro my thought process is the dead way, but you know, you were talking about earlier.
It's like, what's, I think right now, because, you know, companies have had the
opportunity to just put a product in someone's hand and get subsequently a viral video that
probably sells more for their brand than the person that they like have been connected
with on a legacy or a long-term thing.
Right.
Trying to figure out how to write words to say what I'm getting at.
Is it like social media is open at the door so brands can make a lot of money with like
very little effort of putting something out.
Like I give this person a helmet and then we just sold 500 of them because this dude
made a great YouTube video.
Right.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, you got one helmet, you know, not a big, not a problem.
It's like, that's the, hey, I'll do this to do that.
But I missed the, the part of especially in the trade side of things where when you get
your skills to a certain point, you got the opportunities to go be a part of a brand.
You know, not just like it's like guaranteed, but like you got to put yourself out there.
Right.
You got to do the social media.
You got to do all this, but you got to be good at it.
And then it's like, oh, that's a so-and-so.
They're sponsored by house of color.
That makes sense.
They're a great painter.
Yeah.
You know, or that person, uh, it rides for Holly Davidson.
They, those dudes build cool bikes or they ride or they do something.
Right.
And to me, it's like a brand like, this should be fine.
Trying to figure out how to word this.
So it doesn't like, uh, turn into a two hour back and forth conversation.
Um, it's right.
You're giving me time to think.
Yeah.
I really wish that brands spent more time figuring out who they wanted to align
themselves with and why.
And then when they come to that person, they have some kind of direction as to
what they want to do with that relationship, but are also open minded to the person.
If they're willing, they're interested in working with that brand as to how they
can coexist together.
And I say that to say that how many brands reach out to me to want to work with me,
that I'm open minded to, because I know about their products or their shit.
And they have no fucking marketing idea of what they're trying to do.
Right.
It's like people had marketing, uh, people that worked in their brand.
And then when social media came out for the last 10 years, they haven't had to
have a marketing person.
They could just give a product away, give a helmet away to this person, give it to
this person, let them just shout you out on Instagram.
It does the job for you.
But now we're at a point now where I think that consumers are overseeing or they're,
when I'm saying they're over there, they're tired of seeing.
Hey guys, a lot of people have been asking me about what I use here and here.
Like nobody believes you, right?
Yeah.
That might be true, but it's like, it's just not the thing.
So if a brand says, you know what this year, 2026, we want to align ourselves.
We like what Chris is doing.
Devin's doing and Jason's doing.
We want to work with them.
We want to bring them together.
We want to make them a part of our marketing strategy for this year.
Right.
Let's get with them.
Let's offer them something that helps them do what they do, which then in turn
helps us give something to show the world.
Yeah.
It's like, I give what you mean.
Instead of just eyeballs on social media, how do I get back to that brand ambassador
that, that encompasses what the brand ideals are, is opposed to just,
that's it right there.
A set of, a set of eyes on a, on a video and it's over.
That he said it right there, brand ambassador.
I think brand ambassador is gone.
I agree with you in the context that I know you're talking about, but I think
we just talked about several different points.
Yeah.
And I have an answer for all of them, but I want to kind of build a case.
So, so just let me run for a little bit and let me preface by saying, I am not
a classically trained marketer.
I've never held an official marketing position until RMFG.
I'm the one man marketing department.
Yeah.
But they professional, you're getting paid to be a marketing guy.
All right.
So, so let me, let me tell you what I, what I think I know.
Yeah.
First of all, you have to think of it from the business perspective, right?
They're, they're operating on dollars and cents.
They have employees, personnel, department heads, all this other stuff.
And in the classic business sense, if you cannot measure, you cannot manage.
That's the name of the game of running a business.
And so they've set up structures, KPIs, key performance indicators.
And a way to measure all of this stuff.
And they're in a way, it can confine you.
To, to operating in that kind of way.
I'm going to have to jump around here.
So bear with me and then we'll kind of pull it all around.
When, when a large corporation or a brand, they, they are going to be
looking at these KPIs and planning usually for the upcoming fiscal year.
And so they have a budget for that.
And their marketing team is like, well, I have to perform inside of these constraints.
I have to plan.
I have to show where I'm going to allocate this money.
We have to be ready to go and then we have to see it through.
And then we'll measure again.
Yeah.
In the world of social media, it's in such flux and changing all the time.
It's impossible to react to that.
And it's impossible, not impossible.
It's very difficult for a company to give an undetermined budget and the
freewheeling nature, especially in the classical corporate structure to just
navigate all of this stuff because the algorithm changed in, you know, the third
week of Q two, so we got to rewrite Q two's plan and Q three's plan, et cetera.
So they're going to be operating kind of this slow.
You know, brand ambassador, I think worked for a while.
I'm going to jump to a new thing, whereas like a lot of marketing for a long time
was spray and pray kind of a way.
Yeah.
Like billboards, everybody's going to drive by this and they're going to see Coca
Cola, Coca Cola, Coca Cola.
McDonald's only sells Coca Cola.
Taco Bell sells Pepsi products.
Yeah.
So you kind of know when it, when it's baked in and maybe that's
seriously one way or another.
And they've had 50, 60 years to bake in their brand identity and posture and all
this other stuff, whereas a newer brand has to, first of all, establish themselves.
Then an existing brand that has a new product, a new initiative, they have to
figure that out too.
And the latency is really, really slow.
So it sounds like I'm advocating for the brands.
I'm not.
I'm just trying to understand their side.
So that people like us that are like on the influencer side, we're a third
party, right?
We're a contractor so that they would be interested in working for us.
So now I'm going to move to a new topic.
Whenever they're working with somebody, they're contracting somebody, you're
trying to solve a problem, right?
You hire a deck contractor to build you a deck because you want a deck.
If they're contracting you, it's because they feel that you can reach an audience
or something like that.
And they're going to be scanning so many people for who can solve this problem.
And at the end of the day, like, let's just go straight on the nose.
Harley Davidson is filled with motorcycle riders.
The company is filled with people who really understand, live, breathe the brand.
And they know, not just because of their nine to five hours, but their whole
life has been informed by what they've learned about motorcycling.
And that's going to steer some things, but they're also going to have higher
ups that constrain all of this stuff.
And so I'm not saying that you can tort yourself to be a shill so that you can
get some Q2 budget and then move on.
But it's important to know this kind of perspective that they have so that you
can work inside of it.
And I think the foundation of what you got to do is keep showing up the way
that you keep showing up and eventually it will show up.
And this year, they gave you a fucking bagger.
Like he gave you a 30 something thousand dollar bike.
And that's like your first brush with Harley Davidson corporate.
So I think it's showing up.
Um, I can get also kind of frustrated when I have this great idea.
I really want to do it.
And then they're like, Oh, sorry.
It's not that they're like, you're not good enough.
It's you're just not solving the problem that they need right then.
Yeah.
And then there's the smaller stuff, which is, I feel like just really
coincidental, like another sponsored post I have coming up is with any gravity
batteries.
I approached them because I need batteries, two of them and are
like 500 bucks, um, for two different projects I have coming up.
And, um, I approached them and I was like, I have a rate.
I've never had a rate.
Um, but I'm going to put the rate on the side.
I just want the batteries is what I'll give it to you.
And I had to fucking chase them and how them.
And I learned that from David of cafe racer of Instagram.
Yeah.
It was like, if you just be persistent and omnipresent, they'll throw you a
bone just because you're persistent and omnipresent, not just because you have
a million followers.
I, I've made the pitch and like shown all my numbers and my numbers are for
my audience size.
Let's I have 44,000 followers on Instagram at the moment.
And I have like six or seven videos in the 3456 700,000.
I have a handful in the millions.
And those are like, that's what I would, know I would be looking for.
I'd be looking for somebody who's on the come up that has has good messaging.
I'm talking about myself.
So I'm a little bit biased and is outperforming what they're doing.
And I'm not going to expect to hitch my wagon to them forever.
I'm going to go on a short ride distance with them and I'm going to get an
outsized value.
So now I'm kind of flipping the tables a little bit.
I agree with you.
And we've had this discussion a lot that the, these companies are not looking for
that outlier, that outsized value.
They are staying in the safe zone because their employees themselves where they can
show, Oh, this person has a million followers.
So I know I'm all over the place, but I want to jump to the KPIs.
This person has a million followers.
That puts me in the safe space for a green light.
But what's, so I know the quantity and now I have a KPI to measure against, but
what's the quality of their influence?
Are the people watching their stuff actually watching all the way through?
Are they actually influenced?
Are they going to go take actions from this?
And I feel you have to go much deeper to actually see that.
So, and in some ways it's actually impossible.
And this is the point that I know you're going to make and I'm going to make it for
you.
You are not just an influencer.
You've been around, you've built trust, you've built relationships.
And so if somebody in a marketing department is pitching you and, you know,
marketing boss is saying, yeah, but, you know, we're looking for somebody more in
the one to 200,000 follower range that has this kind of reach, blah, blah, blah.
And he doesn't meet those things, but that shows nothing of quality, especially
when it's offline.
The influence that can be delivered offline is far more valuable than online.
And that is impossible to measure.
And so I feel for these marketers who really go out of their way or really know
their shit and be like, I'm willing to bet the house on this.
And then they can't because policies or the companies that are just fucking,
they're spraying and praying, not hitting one target because they just don't know better.
So I want to say this one thing because it's fresh in my mind.
Because you said that, like, and I understand the bit, like the company side of this,
like they're looking for the best optimization of their resources, you know,
their, their time, you know, there's somebody that's working that job to do all
this stuff for the individual, for you.
So here's the deal, like, maybe I'll paint this picture for you.
You got to steal a Miller.
You do a good job, right?
But Miller starts sleeping on you.
You know, you fucking sold a lot of those helmets because you saw their post,
you saw what it did just on the outside, not even seeing their analytics.
You saw what happened, right?
But they don't follow up.
Now, how do you justify?
All right.
So now fucking a Harbor Freight hits you up.
Hey, man, we saw what you did with Miller.
We love it.
We're willing to pay you now.
So now it's okay.
Now I'm in a business because I'm in a business of marketing and influencing,
right, which to be clear, I'm not in that business.
I'm in the business of doing podcasts.
I'm in the business of riding bikes.
And I'm in the business of painting them and customize them and going to show
the people in the world what happens when you do these things and the experiences.
So when I get with the helmet brand, you know, I don't want to leave.
I don't want to tell everybody buy this helmet.
And then next month, because they changed their marketing strategy.
Now I have to find a new helmet brand.
Yeah.
Because then what that does is it deteriorate, deteriorates the trust that their
brand and your brand.
And you do that compound that by everybody in social media, everybody that's
an influencer, every, every podcast, every YouTuber.
And now nobody trusts that whole platform for marketing because it's all like this.
So there's like this, I'm thinking like maybe out like bigger than the smaller
picture of this, but as a brand, you know, you, I think brands instead of like a
campaign, like we're going to do this campaign with, with so and so for, you
know, Q one.
And, and I'm like, well, bro, you're, you're, you're a, you're a one year kind
of company.
Stop talking in cues.
Yeah.
Like you ain't got that kind of money to be acting like that.
Right.
Figure out who you want to work with, get a plan together and do some shit and
then give the, the, the person you're working with time to allow their
audience to trust that that's a real fucking connection to the product.
It takes time and you're not going to get your money back right there, but
you're planning a garden and that garden that you're planning is going to pay
the dividends.
If you're selling something sub hundred and fifty dollars, then I get it.
You need to sell fucking tens of thousands of those to justify the thing.
But legacy brands.
So I, I agree with you on a couple of points.
I think that a long term talk so fast.
And I wasn't trying to, a long term partnership should be cherished on both
sides and be reciprocal.
I disagree that like, oh, I went out and sold all these helmets and therefore you
owe it to me to do X, Y, Z retain me for this amount of time or give me a kickback.
At the end of the day, if it's in the contract, contract.
If you were, if you were contracted to do some stuff for some time and you sold
an outsized amount of helmets, you're, you know, you don't have a, um, and, and
so understanding the other side, which in this context is the brand, I think you
have to readjust your focus, not you, but like,
I, to be fair, that's what I'm having to do now, which is kind of, it's counter
intuitive because of the way that I feel like the way I, the relationship I want
to have with the brands that are sponsors.
And where you've ended up is you, you've hung it out there for a brand and it ended
one day.
Yeah.
And, and, and that sucks.
Not just from the income that you were used to from them, which is fair.
Yeah.
Anybody who has a disruption in income in their life, like they're going to feel
that, I think that's totally fair.
Um, but also like you kind of went for bat to bat for them.
And, um, it sucks, but that's all it's always going to be the case.
Uh, to be fair, yes.
That is, that is probably the thing that like it was the, I've, I've worked
with a lot of brands and I'm still very close with through this podcast in the
eight years we've been doing this.
That one brand was the one brand that we were so ingrained together that.
I think for their end, breaking up with me was harder.
I don't think they did it well, you know, but at the same time, like it was,
it's just, it's a strange place because like, like, like, for instance,
like all the nests, they've been supporting me for, uh, four years now.
Bro, if they said, Hey, you know, we want to try something out next year.
I can't be mad.
Those dudes have been 100% standing behind this podcast and helping me keep it alive.
Yeah.
And they gave me four years of support and I, I am beyond grateful for that.
Right.
And I still love their product.
So I'll still be running their shit when it gets, if they decided to go another
direction, Thunder max, you know, again, a great company I've been working with
for many years.
When I get done with the road, glad it's running their computer on it.
Right.
Like they're not a sponsor of mine, but you know, when I get in, when I got
another fuel injected bike, Hey, yeah, that's, you're the guy.
Fuck with, I'm not going to another brand right now.
Yeah.
So, well, I think one thing we can agree on, and I think it's the theme here is
that the reason brands go with influencers short, medium and long term is
because they're getting a value out of it.
Yeah.
And would it be for the people that, for the influencers that do it well,
they're not just like, Oh yeah, I'll post it.
Here's my rate.
See you later.
The people that go above and beyond, and especially when they're like super
small and they're, they've created a space, I think, I think it is, it would
be nice that a brand treats them more as a human than like a contract.
How's your numbers look this month?
I got to give a little bit of a hot take.
Something you said earlier, I kind of agree with when it comes to the influencer
model, I think they're still spraying and praying in their, their idea.
It's if I can put my product in front of this many eyeballs, we're gonna,
we'll spread it around.
We just, we're gonna, we're gonna give it to enough people that maybe we can put
it in enough eyes, we can make some sales out of it.
And I don't think, and I think Jace's mentality is instead of doing that, put
your eggs into, put your eggs in a basket that believes in you that you actually
are, you can, you are more likely to get a return on investment from.
Somebody that actually believes in your product, somebody that will actually
have a response rather than if I just give it to 20 quote unquote influencers,
we might get some return because it's gonna be a bunch of eyes.
Cause to me, that's just the, that's just the digital billboard.
You're just putting a digital billboard up to be, what are you saying?
It's fair and elaborate on that.
Like all I'm getting at is that if you're, uh, if you're not, the model of being,
uh, on YouTube or podcasts or, you know, whatever, TikTok, whatever,
and getting sponsorships and getting paid or getting product.
If you're changing the products every month and you're not like a reviewer of
products, meaning that like, Hey, I'm not beholded to any brand.
I don't, I'm not a Simpson guy or a Kabuto guy, a fucking bell guy.
I'm just the guy that somebody gives me a helmet and I'll tell you what I think.
And if you're not that kind of guy, which there's not as many of those in the
motorcycle industry as people think.
Like the camera world is way different.
Right.
Well, I'll get, I'll give respect to people like the camera world is a great example.
I have this new camera.
You already know what I like and what I don't like.
Here's what I like and don't like about this camera onto the next camera.
Yeah.
You're comparing apples to apples.
You're just, uh, you know, you're like a, not a judge, but like you're a person in
the jury.
This is how I ended up on this one.
I think that's totally fair.
Um, the, the people that are going to wear your colors on their back, I think are
soldiers for you in a way back to the spray and pray.
First of all, there, there is a strategy.
If you look at a sales funnel, marketing funnel, top of the funnel is brand
awareness and you have to have brand awareness.
Middle of the funnel consideration, remind people that you're there.
Uh, that's even before consideration, consideration of people.
That's more of the sales funnel.
Like I'm considering this.
Should I go with M&Ms or Skittles?
Right.
And then for legacy brands, like literally M&Ms and Skittles are on NASCAR cars.
So you need to have a billboard that way.
But again, or not again, an important thing to know is that this strategy, the
fundamentals of it are different for every single product in every different
space.
Are we talking about candy where I'm just reminding like, oh, damn,
I think I want some scandals.
Yeah.
Or like, am I, I'm buying a helmet.
There's a hundred helmet brands.
Which helmet am I going to get?
Am I going to get for style, for comfort, for price?
That those are all relevant things.
And those companies are going to market to their core audit, buyer.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's just the nature of running a business.
So I'm sympathetic to it.
I'm just trying to like hash out all the details.
So everybody's kind of on the same page from, for the brands, like, I think any
company is going to want to work with a trusted partner.
And if you have a trusted partner, don't like double cross them.
Yeah.
That's not real.
And from the influencer side, like work with good partners.
And maybe it's not, you know,
don't take every, don't answer all those emails.
Viking bags is not worth it.
I'm literally about to do three sponsored posts.
It's a one and done deal, but it's brands that I like.
And they're my first three and they're about to come out like in one month,
which is funny to think that I've ended up here.
But I've actually said no, I've counted 11 people that have approached me.
Yeah.
And I hadn't even had one yet.
I was like, yeah, that's not to pat myself on the back.
It's just, I think that's important for anybody to do.
Yeah.
If you don't believe in it, don't start, you know, it's like, I don't know.
You know, like as soon as you have a YouTube channel, as soon as you, especially,
you know, a podcast and there's an email link to it, you get hit up by every fucking
Pakistani leather maker, every Chinese billet.
We can give you Arlen S, but it's fast life Ness.
You know what I mean?
It's like everything under the sun and it's really hard to sift through it.
Like, you know, I delete 99% of it.
And rarely do you like in American companies, not American made, but American companies,
like you get the Viking bag post.
You get the first manufacturing collab post.
And I'm like, you know, who the fuck is running your marketing?
Like sometimes when I get those emails, I'm like, does this fucking work?
Yeah.
Does this work?
Like you're, you're literally the like dude at the bar, just asking every girl for a number.
Yeah.
You have, you're not even considering like I want that number and that number.
No, I want any girl with a vaginas number right now.
That's it.
Maybe even if they don't have a vagina, we'll, we'll deal with that later.
You know what I'm saying?
There's a crowd for that.
There's a crowd that like so you, you're just like, you have no strategy.
And I think that's what like has brought this whole like conversation upon.
Is it like you're a brand?
What is your brand identity?
Who are you?
What are you about?
And if you know who the fuck you're about, then you should be able to align
yourself with people because you are paying attention to the consumer market of
where you want your shit to be where you can go, you know what?
That person is somebody I want to work with.
I want to grow together with that person.
Yeah.
Right.
And you build loyalty.
Yeah.
Maybe you should have a contract.
So it's like, well, that dude built me up and then I kicked him in the curb and
got the, the next best influencer out there.
Right.
That those are, that's the, uh, it's just business shit that I fucking hate
saying or hate hearing, but I understand it.
The thing is that like with this social world is that you can't build an
audience if the only way you can make money is through taking these products,
these, uh, opportunities.
And then every month it's a different helmet brand, you know, Ruroc, the helmet.
You remember that brand?
Did they push it to every YouTuber?
Some of them got paid.
Some of them got helmets.
The amount of shit people do for fucking nothing.
You know, the, the, the cool.
I advise against that.
Associated people who advise me against that.
And here I have the only two sponsorship.
I did it for Miller.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
There's certain brands you do it for free.
Like, you know, if Harley asked me to do something like I would do it.
I mean, to be fair, that the video I made for Miller is 22 seconds.
And I shot it one night after work.
And it cost you $600.
And it cost me $670.
No, I'm going to push back on that.
Because I, I know that the, I know the amount of stress and thought.
If you Miller is watching, I really hope that they watch because I'm actually
going to let them know, like, I'm going to bring my numbers.
Like I, you actually got a few extras because I talked about you on a podcast
in front of your target audience.
All 40 people.
But if they're watching now, I actually have a plan to come back at Miller.
And again, problem to solve that I have identified on their end.
And a problem to solve on my end, actually.
And I have a pitch for them.
I'm not going to reveal what it is, but I'm going to wait for this to go out.
And if it does pretty well, and so far the interactions with, um, I looked
at her up on LinkedIn, she's like, I think she graduated college in like 22.
So she's, she's young, but dude, social media, she's got, and she's probably
studied it and all this other stuff.
Um, but she's work and she's working for a big company now and all this other stuff.
I was like, yeah, I'll do this on the chin, but I actually have an ulterior motive.
I'm going to come back with a pitch for them that I know is a pain point of theirs
and something to solve on my set side.
And, oh, I said, I was going to wait until the numbers come back.
I was going to add all these little ancillary sprinkles on top, such as
mentioning it on this podcast, the direct marketing pitch, which I
fucking believe in, by the way, appreciate it.
Not, not just saying the shit.
Um, you wouldn't have left your job set in traffic to come here to do this
podcast if you didn't believe in some kind of way.
No, no, we haven't even talked about RMFG.
It would, that's not a fucking town on that.
Yeah, I gotta take a leak first.
Um, what?
Um, to, I think that's, that's ultimately the thing.
Like we got to wrap this social media talk real quick.
So say, say your final piece on it.
Cause we like AI, we got to end this.
So we'll do it all fucking night.
Yeah.
Um, you guys, you're ending this at the social media talk at two hours.
Yeah.
This is like, this is interesting.
We don't, we don't speak for less than three hours ever.
Right.
100%.
I think it's critical to at least try.
And, and I think that there's as much value in building the trust with a
partner and showing that you're actively trying to measure and help them manage.
As opposed to like, you paid me, I made, made the post.
I don't care how it does.
And if you're doing that in an ongoing way, then I think that they're going to
see val, they're going to see you more as a partner, as somebody who's actually trying.
And even, even if the metrics aren't exemplary, I think, I think that the value
actually continues to extend just because you're trying to measure and show.
And ultimately, not even the person who knows, like, Hey, I made this post and then
it got this many views and somebody commented, I bought one.
And that kind of matched the value of what they paid me to even talk about in the
first place.
You can't measure the people that bought one and didn't comment.
You can't even measure the people that you had a conversation with at the bar and you
know that bought one because you can't just like, Oh yeah, you know, that podcast, I
talked to my friends at the bar and three of them bought one.
Yeah.
So, so I'm going to say, like, doesn't count from what I do at work.
One of the things that we do, because we have dedicated contracts, right?
With our customers.
One of the things that we do that's proprietary for us in that business is we
do CBD, which is customer value delivered, and then we track it through VDAs, which
is value delivery added.
So there are things you can do that maybe don't have a quantified cost associated
with it or savings, but you, if you track that and you create those metrics, that's
how you can help with that KPI, right?
So for an example, I work in the transportation industry.
If I can, not everything is going to be, okay, I backhauled this.
I saved you this revenue.
But if you don't have something in your warehouse, right?
You don't, you have an operational issue and I can step in and I can save that.
It may not have a dollar figure, but that has created a value that in turn kept
your operation running smoothly.
So there is a quantified.
Well, I think any good business manager is going to know that value saved
is as good as value earned.
Exactly.
100%.
So I think, I think for Jay's lost opportunity in many ways costs more than
the opportunity you gain.
And I think if Jay's can find a way to, to articulate that through value delivery.
So like if he is a, if he has a, a deal or is working with a brand, right?
As, as a trusted, as a, as a trusted source, right?
Yes.
You can't, you're not going to have a, a use my discount code.
So you can track this metrics.
Cause that's the only reason why they do those discount codes is because that's
how they can track with their API.
How many actually do we sell, right?
But instead, if he creates this metric that's like, Hey, on top of what you gave
me in the views we got in this, I also attend these events and this is what I do.
And this is the influence and reach I have.
If he can find ways to better articulate that, I think that could, that could help.
Hey motherfucker.
This is what I do.
Right.
Because you're right.
The marketing person, they don't understand how many miles and how many people
he's interacting.
They're just looking at metrics.
They're not looking at the fact that that's why I was bringing up the whole concept
is like, look, what does that person do?
What do they stand for?
Do you want to align yourself with that brand?
And what does that say about your brand?
Right?
Yeah.
We were just in an era where like brands were like, they would be changing their
entire fucking like shit this month for, you know, a certain demographic of people.
Right.
That was them telling the world what, what their brand is about.
Yeah.
So when you align yourself with people, like, why not?
You know, I, I want to work with said person.
I, I could think of a hundred.
Dude, you're a great dude to work with.
Like I different styles.
Like I, if, if I was working in a brand, I would have a more, um, you know,
what it's kind of a weird kind of like dream of mine to want to be in the marketing
department of a brand to try out these ideas.
Uh, you're getting to live it at this point, but like, I want to see what it would
be like to take the idea of what this company is and find the people I want to
align with and build together as opposed to I'm going to do this or pay you and
you do that as opposed to like the same way that your job right now is building
with you.
Yeah.
They hired you to do a job, but they're growing with you each other.
And when you grow with somebody, um, you don't look at like, oh, well,
shit, we had a good month last month.
I'm, I need more money now because my loyalty is to the growth of this partnership.
Yeah.
Right.
And when you have a relationship with a, with a individual, I hate the word
influencer, but just some of the you partnered with, yeah, there's like
something tangible they're like, Hey, I'm fucking with you for a year.
Let's build some shit.
Yeah.
Well, I'm like, you know, we agreed on a price.
I, I, I want you to make a million bucks.
Yeah.
You know, cause then next month, next year, you're really, you know, we did
a fucking great time.
I want to do that again.
Well, I think, I think people like you and I, we're, we're builders, not just in
the, in the sense of like building bikes or building some things like, all right,
here's an idea.
How do we reach it?
Here's all the things we're going to do.
And then we reach there together.
And if somebody jumps off at the finish line, see you later.
Yeah.
Then.
Yeah.
Essentially, like, I think the thing that drives me, and I don't know how you would
end it, but I had the CEO of Simpson Motorcycle Helmets tell me before they got
bought out of a Holly, tell me that we, he goes, I appreciate everything you did
for this brand and you have been an asset to it for the last, you know, since
we've been a part of it.
And then two years later to get kicked out basically because they want to like
align themselves with whoever has, you know, they want whoever has the
best numbers, right?
Yeah.
We were the, then when top nine was the thing on Instagram or.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Top nine posts, right?
From 2017 till 2024, three every year, our images, our posts.
When you say our, you mean yours.
Mine.
We're in Simpsons top nine, the majority of them, you know, and then, but then
of course, one of my friends leave the new people didn't want to play the game.
And then of course it goes away, right?
So that happens.
But then when you build with the comp, like with the company, and then they
just decide to, uh, Hey, you know what?
We appreciate that you got us off the ground, but now we're going to just jump
on board with some other people who are air quotes bigger than you.
What does that say about your company?
As far as like, cause you want loyalty of your customer base, but you're not
at the end of the day.
Your own.
I feel for you, Jay.
So you know, you know, I'm on your side.
I'm still mad, dude.
I'm just playing.
You know, I'm on your side on this.
Yeah.
But.
And.
First of all, these things happen.
See, season's changed.
It's just business.
Right.
Yeah.
No, I know it's a cop out statement, but at the end of the day, the
business is going to make the business decisions.
And if they are truly in fact run by people who don't know better, then it's
going to reflect and maybe they play prodigal son and they come back, or maybe
the business goes into the ground, or maybe it's just not the cool helmet anymore.
The world has moved on.
And maybe you're a part of that too.
Yeah.
No, that's kind of what it is.
I just think that like it, the moved on part, like I'm beyond that.
Like I'm happy where I'm at now.
Like Scott, Kabuto, the things we're doing, I'm fucking really comfortable.
You put, you let me put one on my head and it's the thing is, it's like, uh,
it's closure of like something that was so in such a big part of my life for
the last 10 years almost.
Yeah.
And to not have a real closure or have a real, uh, well, I think you said it
well, it's like an old girlfriend that you're never going to forget.
And, you know, I think that says something.
She starts talking to everybody in the motorcycle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, all that.
Yeah.
One of those.
You're with your new hot girlfriend, but the ex-wife that you, that broke your
heart keeps walking in and you just cuts you deep every time.
Yeah.
It's just everybody gets one.
Everybody gets one.
That's all right.
Well, I mean, kind of moving this forward because like I said, we'll do this all day.
Um, and I appreciate though, like I like talking to you about this
stuff because I like your perspective.
It's, uh, for me, like, uh, I think it's important and I appreciate this friendship
that we have because when we do have these kinds of conversations, you're not
necessarily like, you're right, Jace, you're right.
Like you, you have, uh, such great insight to things that need to be thought about,
especially, well, I try and play devil's advocate against myself or against
anybody and I try not to veer too hard into contrarianism.
Uh, and I can be a little bit of a contrarian sometimes try not to do that.
But ultimate, like even in this conversation, like, you know, that you
and I agree or aligns not on every single point, but like, you know, if, if we're
going to break this down, I want to understand the other side and, uh, and I'm
even having these conversations.
I had a great conversation.
Shout out Mark Boucher, BMW, Motorrad, just talking it up.
Um, Sunday after the one Moto show, uh, he's an old friend.
I've known him for a while and I was asking him questions and he was really
just reaffirming stuff that I already know.
And I'm like, Oh yeah, right.
Why didn't I have that front and center in my mind when we're talking about this
or that?
And so I think it's important to see anything.
If you're trying to solve a problem, right?
You're trying to solve for X.
You don't look at X.
You look at all the other fucking, you know, letters and numbers going on.
Understand those and then you'll eventually arrive at X.
To be, to be fair, like the problem I'm bringing up might sound like I'm just
talking about it from my perspective, but I'm talking about it from the
perspective of the entire, let's just say Harley Davidson motorcycle industry where
this model creates more and more distance between brands and the culture.
Yeah.
It just, it benefits brands, I guess, but it separates or severs the ties between
the people that are making videos, podcasts, photography, whatever, whatever
is monetizable through influencing their quotes.
This model severs the ties of authenticity.
Well, let's, let's go with that theme, but break off in a new direction.
Okay.
I love all kinds of motorcycles.
I call myself a non-denominational motorcyclist.
It's a pretty gay, pretty fucking gay term, right?
I love Harley Davidson's and you give me a lot of shit for this.
I don't really fuck with Harley Davidson too much.
Not as a motorcycle.
I've owned one.
I bought a brand new one.
Thank you, HDFS.
Financial services.
And crazy.
He's like, no,
I fuck, I love, I love the brand because it's like, how do you not like Coca-Cola?
Right.
I love the motorcycles themselves and I like all the culture behind it.
But one of the turnoffs for me genuinely is this kind of echo chamber situation
that they have going on.
And to your point, when there's like brand pushes and this and herd mentality
and all this other stuff, it just kind of turns me off.
Now, if it was a little bit more simple and pure and steadfast in the players,
the movers, the shakers, the things that are done, I think it would be a lot more
appealing.
And so I'm just trying to take a different kind of viewpoint on what you're saying.
If there was less of this kind of like, well, I did this, you did that to
multiple stuff, it might be a little bit more.
Well, you said it best while ago, you said echo chamber, like for lack of a better term.
I know echo chamber is usually a political.
Yeah, but it's also using like a derogatory thing.
Yeah, I'm not trying to be mean, but yeah, I mean, in general, like it's it's
using that condensation, right?
So the thing is that like, I think I think that I'm good with that.
Like I'm happy being in this echo chamber of Harley Davidson because that's a
world that like you're fighting the good fight.
Well, I just like it.
Like remove the podcast, the, you know, I hate the word influencer side of this
out of it.
I still want to ride these bikes.
Yeah.
I'm not saying that I couldn't enjoy these other motorcycles that exist.
It's never been about that, but like my involvement in motorcycles is so deep
and so like, like you, you've said you slept in my house, like you walk in my
house, there's fucking bikes everywhere.
There's pictures, there's this, there's no fucking Indians on the wall.
You know, there's no Yamaha's up there.
Like my life for the last 20 years has been Harley Davidson motorcycles.
And it's not from a lack of trying to go anywhere else.
It's just like I haven't felt I needed to.
Yeah.
You know, well, I don't think anybody can knock that.
There's something you like, like,
but I mean, I like Porsches.
I mean, I can't afford that yet.
And if I get to a point in my life where I can have a Porsche, I'll probably
have a Porsche on the wall somewhere, you know,
well, it's funny you say that because Porsches for the past 10 years have been
in vogue, right?
And we can see it.
There's a KPI right there.
The value is skyrocketed in everything that and because they've been in vogue is
what has made it appealing.
But here's the thing you can't knock Harley Davidson for.
And they have there, you can say everything about Harley Davidson, the good,
the bad, the ugly, but they've been a constant presence as a brand, as a bike,
as an experience, as a culture.
You can't knock that.
It's yeah.
And if they start doing some weird shit at the top, it doesn't affect what's
going on on the ground.
You know, you can't buy that.
You can't make it.
You literally can't even make it.
It's just somehow happened.
Yeah.
And that I think, I think that's awesome.
And I understand why people get attached to that.
I mean, I have my own attachments like, well, they just figured
that fucking out, they're doing it wrong.
Yeah, I do that.
I do that too.
Yeah, I.
Maybe for instance, like as I do like a lot of bikes, there are bikes.
I see that like the whole cafe racer realm.
I see that, especially knowing a cult, you know, like seeing the bikes
he builds a cult Wrangler, like I see like the fabrication side of that
where like what he does and like I see how.
Colts is an interesting case.
I love Colt because he's able to pull so many different elements into one bike
and do it.
And there's a handful of people that are able to do that.
But that's the thing is that cafe racers in general are adjacent
to the fabrication side of what Harley-Davidson is, in my opinion.
Yeah.
So like the way you can customize in the way a cafe racer is kind of
like this stripped down version of whatever the original bike was with this
aesthetic is the chopper of that world.
Right.
Yeah.
And there's something about it where like I draw a lot of inspiration from that
world.
I do.
I like, I love the bike she's built.
I, you know, genuinely like the things that I see that come through cafe
racers of Instagram when I see that.
Um, David's got some taste.
Exactly.
For sure he does.
I like all that stuff.
I'm influenced by so many different cultures outside of Harley.
But it's like kind of like, all right, in the house, in the home, we need to
make sure our shit's good and not get fucked up because this culture of
Harley, the reason it's on my fucking neck is a loyalty thing.
And loyalty is what I'm essentially talking about with marketing and branding
right now is when you have no loyalty, you have something that doesn't
mean anything to anybody.
And when you start playing this game of like, I'm for hire, I'm for this or I'm
for that, then the loyalty that I have for Harley has nothing to do with the fact
that they gave me a Harley.
Yeah.
And first of all, they didn't give it to me.
I've already blown four fucking dudes.
No, the circle jerks have been real.
Dude, I got calluses.
They're not even from fucking sanding.
I'm just playing the, there's a job attached to it.
It's not like I woke up one day and there's a Harley sitting in my garage.
You actually helped me with that video.
We had to go, I had to make a video.
I had to do that.
Um, I think you got to make more than one.
I barely helped.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I'm trying dude.
Um, the thing is, like, I love this brand reminder, nothing is free.
Yeah.
None of the shit's free, dude.
You know, all the homies that reached out jokingly that I should have just
jokingly were responded.
Like I felt like I'd, Hey man, you know, you got a free bike.
That's cool.
Now it's more expensive for us.
Like, nah, dude, like first off, like, go do what the fuck I've been doing for
the last 10 years, motherfucker.
Like, all right, Eric, get me here.
Do what the fuck I've been doing.
And when I think about what I've been doing and I look at like von
Gasthorpe right now, I'm like, fuck, I'm not even touching this dude right now.
Yeah.
He's grinding, riding, photographing, making sick stuff.
I'm like, it's so hard to do all this stuff.
I wish it was just because, uh, you know, I think, I think ultimately what, what
you're trying to communicate is something that every, all three of us in
this room know is that you actually care and you actually hang yourself out to
dry, to do it.
And it feels unrecognized.
And it's not that people do it for recognition, but recognition does count.
It would count from a brand and it would count from the people that follow.
But I, I, I have to feel, you know, I operate as a pessimist, but I am a natural
optimist and I feel like the people who, what's the saying?
Um, the people who know, don't care.
And the people who don't know.
People don't know matter, care, whatever.
I feel like George Bush, I feel like George Bush right now.
Point is you don't get fooled again.
Right.
That's probably a good segue.
Like, so I remember last time we talked, you had just started doing like you just
come onto your company, doing the social media stuff.
And like, how was your response been with that?
Yeah.
So, um, okay.
We're talking about RMFG for anybody watching.
I hate to mention a competitor, but we're kind of at that stage.
Anybody knows send cut send.
We're kind of like send cut send.
You're like, okay, yeah, me too.
We're going to do this too.
Uh, we're a little bit different in that case, but I want to talk to like the
crux of the thing and it's a bunch of things.
It's not just one central thing for me at least.
First of all, I like to build stuff.
I like to use the latest tools.
Allah AI.
I like to increase my ability to make stuff.
So RMFG is, um, we're at what we call a digital sheet metal shop.
We're actually adding a tubing laser literally next week.
So we're going to be adding a tube, you know, tubing capability, but unlike
send cut send where you can upload a file and have a piece of sheet metal cut
out, bent, tapped, countersink hardware, insert, even powder coat.
And then you could like bolt it all together.
We'll actually fixture, weld and finish a whole part for you.
So, you know, we're focused right now.
Uh, a lot of our business is kind of B to B business, but everybody goes
through the same portal.
You go to RMFG.com, you upload your step file, you get an instant quote, you
check out like Amazon and it gets shipped to you.
Same, similar to send cut send, they've kind of, uh, added to their stack of
services with CNC machining, which is fantastic.
And I still use send cut send was a huge disciple of theirs.
And then I learned about RMFG.
New company, same kind of thing, slightly different strategy.
They're in Fort Worth.
I live in Fort Worth, always nice to support local, but, and then also like,
I'll save the three days and shipping and just get my part sooner.
So I would go pick it up, got to know the guys, and I was a customer of
theirs for like a year before I started working there.
And really liked the mission.
The founder, Kenneth, he is, um, super, super smart guy.
Um, he's got like Silicon Valley chops, but he grew up blue collar, Fort
Worth, um, really kind of best of both worlds in a human being.
Fusion.
Um, yeah, really.
And, um, started this company, got some pretty solid investment, nothing major,
but enough to get started.
And I think they started in July of 2024.
So we're coming up on two years now.
Yeah.
And, um, I met them in January, just when I opened up my garage, you know,
bought the house, set up the garage, literally learned about them from an Instagram post.
And, um, I think he was boosting it a little bit.
Um, not like proper ads or anything, but like just boosting the post, learned about
it and some, he was, he was talking about like the software and what he's building.
I was like, but that's a laser welder in the background.
And then I was like, yeah, somehow I could sense it.
I could like sense it was close.
And then I went to the page, learn there in Fort Worth.
I'm like, what the fuck?
This is super cool.
So I went in, got to know them, started ordering my simple, you know, I don't
even have a band saw anymore.
Fuck that.
We just have it send it out.
I don't have to lift a finger.
It costs the same amount.
Like if I go to sheet metal supermarkets and buy, you know, one by one,
one foot square and then cut it out on a band saw the amount of money I spent on
the material that I'm going to scrap is the same amount of material that I'm
going to get in the finished part as laser straight.
So I don't even do that anymore.
I haven't done that for years because of services like send, got send now RMFG.
And, um, they're just a bunch of young guys.
Like Kenneth is like 32 years old and they have a bunch of like 20 somethings
working this equipment.
And what I learned was that he's a coder and he writes all the code to make
the shop floor run efficiently, but also to be able to unpack these not super
complicated, but the end of the day, you have to have skills to achieve the bends
in the bending department, like with a press break to bend the metal.
And the software does it also.
He can hire somebody who basically has zero experience.
They have the aptitude, but they have zero experience.
And in somewhere between one and six weeks can be fully trained on this equipment.
And that is their unique value proposition that gives them velocity to enter
the space of making metal.
To be in the world in the competition world of what's in cut scenario offers.
And isn't there some other companies out there that have that kind of?
There are.
And I actually didn't even really know about them.
I knew about another one, uh, OSH cut, OSH cut and, um, fab works I learned about.
Uh, there's, there's, there's a few others.
And the interesting thing, and this is going to segue into another important
point that I, I really believe in.
I think that everybody watching will believe in is that, um.
Sheet metal parts making stuff in this country was ubiquitous at a time.
And now we've just kind of accepted that it's just not done here anymore.
Yeah.
And there's a bunch of very valid reasons for more than just like chest beating
that we need to do that stuff here.
And we've lost a lot of that tribal knowledge.
Well, here's a KPI for you talking about KPIs.
There's like, it's like a 70 something billion dollar a year industry, which
compared to SAS or software or whatever.
Yeah.
Isn't anything, but that's today 70 something, I think 75 billion dollar industry
today that comprises all sheet metal shops in the country.
Something it's like 75, 75, 75, 75 percent of those 75 billion dollar, uh, total
shops are owned by somebody who is, it's not 75, it's 65 years or older.
They can't even sell their shop to somebody who's going to keep.
So there's this massive pie.
And now with the effort after COVID, after tariffs, after the wanting to reshore,
uh, for all of these kind of geopolitical positions, and it's not even a political
statement.
There's more demand to make basic metal stuff in this country, amongst other things.
The supply is shrinking and there's a few people and send cut send is doing a
fantastic job.
They've been around for like 89 years now.
People are still now only becoming hip to the services that they can provide to them.
And people have literally started companies building products with them as
their dedicated supplier.
And this is a drop in the bucket, but this is how we start building stuff in
this country again.
And I'm, you know, a proud American, but I'm not like a chest thumping American.
But this is something that we need to fucking, this is something that we need to do.
And so even just as a garage builder using this service, but I've also started
a company that we covered in my last podcast where design a great product, a great
brand, and we went overseas to China out of verse, just necessity.
Virtually.
That was the, the name of the game.
And that's fine.
Like if that's how it has to go, you can't build an iPhone in the United States.
Literally impossible.
Yeah.
And there's a bunch of anecdotes as to why, if you want to find out.
But this stuff we can do.
And so I'm really excited to be a part of this company.
And now we can start talking about marketing again, because I got hired
as my official title was head of content.
And this is, and, and I want to, I want to scratch your back on this one because
Kenneth, you know, he's like on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z.
He's like super young millennial.
You and I are like older millennial.
Yeah.
Like right at the edge.
I'm like at the bottom of elder millennial.
I'm the first year millennial.
But he was like, what year are you?
82.
Yeah.
Yeah.
81, 82.
And then like, I think 86 is the end, but I was January 87.
So I'm like, basically right there.
Yeah.
You were conceived before.
I mean, you were made.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
You're still cooking.
He was swimming.
He just.
Um, but anyway, he, he, uh, I've been talking to him.
And it was a place I really wanted to go work for the, for the mission.
I remember the.
And I was unemployed.
I was like, I'm going to do anything.
And I've been, you know, everybody's door down about like, Hey, you,
you're cutting metal out.
Just send it here.
Yeah.
Before you got the job before I got the job because I, I know for a fact,
like on my chopper.
Um, so Corey goes back to the word of mouth and what we're talking about.
Exactly.
Right.
So Corey for main drive, I'm running his training mid control.
Uh, set up and he didn't have a, uh, a break stay, master cylinder
stay, uh, just in stock, but he gave me the step file and said, Hey,
just order this and I ordered it for our R M F G.
Yeah.
And literally like I, not even trying to sell this thing, but like I,
because I'm this the only time I've ever used a service and I don't know how to
use, I don't know how to make a step file.
I don't know.
Yeah.
You and I have been talking about you wanting to show me how to do this.
Show me how to do that stuff.
And it's, it's a skill that I really want to learn because I've already
needed it like 20 fucking times on this last build.
Um, but literally I ordered this 11 item and it was like in my garage,
two days later.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
So like, and this is before you even work there.
Yeah.
And to me, I, I, I get the thing and so I could see it as a, like a bike builder
out there that's like, has an idea for a product and you want to like kind of
streamline something, but you don't want to have to be like co-orced into having
500, uh, you know, order to make it profitable, you know, 500 item order.
Yeah.
So you, you can order one of anything.
And, and so what we call that in the industry is high mix, which means we're,
we're doing, we're not a dedicated supplier where like you have to order a
minimum order quantity of a thousand and we can be your supplier up to a
threshold of 10,000.
You could order one or 1000 and our real sweet spot in terms of pricing and
speed and all this other stuff is between an M O Q of 10, not it's not an M O Q,
a quantity of 10 and a hundred.
That's like our real sweet spot.
Yeah.
So that's great for somebody who's building a short run of things, people who
are prototyping, people who are then trying to get from prototyping to the
first bit of scale and then want to reassess from there.
Um, but also like, I like the idea, but, but also the speed and we have to be,
um, cost competitive because if people are going to say, I just can't afford that.
I have to go to China and, you know, talk on WhatsApp at three in the morning
and wait three months.
I have to do that because of the price.
And the main way that we're able to do that is with volume and with the software.
You know, what's, you know, what's kind of weird is it nowadays in the motorcycle
world, something being made, not out of billet feels cooler.
I think there could be a couple of factors for that.
I think first of all, it's probably the, the soup to shore.
It's what people are interested in today.
It's the aesthetic, the vibe that everything's going on.
But I think inside of the context of the conversation we're having is that
it's more attainable.
And the ironic thing is that billet is a one-off billet pieces just as attainable.
All you need is a step file.
It costs more.
So if you're making stuff out of sheet metal, it, it, I mean, like Corey's parts,
we don't have an NDA Corey.
So I can say this if I want to, but I'm sure you'll understand.
He's, he's crafted his own mid sets.
It requires some round bar that needs to be bent.
We don't currently do that.
He gets that somewhere else, but everything else is sheet metal.
And we can cut that out, bend it and have it to him in like two or three days.
He's also, you know, like with 50 miles from, he lives here.
Uh, so like the shipping is really short, but if you wanted to pick it up,
you could pick it up.
Yeah.
He could pick it up super fast.
And that's what I was doing.
And then he can take that and then weld it all up.
RMFG actually takes a step further where we will actually welded up and deliver it
to you to the same spec as you would build at home.
I hope.
And I know we would.
Yeah.
We, we also do a lot of remakes.
We're trying to, this part of our speed that we're trying to build up.
We've really been in business for like with our full stack of services and our
current workflow for really just a couple of months.
So this is the concept of like building a business like this to like get the
ground floor, like figured out.
Yeah.
And then not, so in startups, they talk about, about your burn rate, which is
basically how much money you're spending versus how much money you're earning.
And you have to, you know, come up to plane above that quickly.
And we're probably not making any money right now.
Um, it's part of the learning phase.
This is well accepted in software, right?
Cause like usually you're paying a very little bit of for software, but your
engineer has cost, you know, quarter million dollars a year and you got to have
an army of them, right?
So, um, I think, I think.
Our velocity is really exciting right now.
We're getting into the thick of it.
We're like, we're kind of behind right now.
Like when I left work today, we had 25 late shipped orders.
I think that'll come down to like 18 tomorrow, but we actually need to be
picking up velocity.
So, um, you know, now I'm just like talking to you as a friend.
Um, I've been saying for a couple of like two weeks now that I have 3.7 jobs at
work.
Um, yeah.
And that's what I really, I really liked being after zoos starting my own
company to start up, your neck is on the line.
I love the team mentality, the mission.
We got to do this and put in the extra hours, put in the extra work and in the
long run, if it works, it's going to work out nice for you.
So I, I like that carrot and the pressure, the tension.
Like you were talking about, I like my own kind of tension as well.
Yeah.
But let's, um, you know, I could go on and on about this stuff, but let's go back
to the marketing, if this is the theme, one of the themes of this, of this, um,
conversation.
So Kenneth had the wherewithal is like, I'm going to spend money and you know, I'm
not making tons of money, but I'm paid.
I'm very happy.
Um, we're going to have a dedicated marketing guy.
My, my title is head of content, right?
We haven't changed the title.
Now that I have,
I feel like I wouldn't want content that contents.
I didn't like it either, but anyway, I want to go down that, that thing, but it's
irrelevant.
The job, the job and the work.
And I knew I was like, all right, I'm not going to just be like a guy that makes
videos.
I know that I'm going to go in and I'm going to tackle this thing and this
thing and this thing.
And I'm going to deliver.
I want to be a revenue source for this company, not something hanging on the
balance sheet because, oh, this is our semblance of a marketing team.
But we're this new company.
How do we differentiate the brand, the service versus other existing services?
There's really not too much to go on, especially when we're literally building
this stuff in real time.
And so I talked to Kenneth about this and he was like, just tell this story.
Fuckin' A. That's how you start a brand.
You just start telling the story.
I have another thing that's popped in my head.
I'm going to come back to it in a second, but it's going to come back to what
we were talking about earlier.
So I started doing that.
People started following along.
I started doing paid ads.
I have experience with running ads on Facebook on meta.
Um, and it, it's doing really well.
We're growing revenue.
We're growing velocity.
Let me ask you this question on that.
What you just said as a brand, I do believe it's important to just do the
thing, pay the meta thing to get your shit out there.
Right.
Because for it is, it's a slippery slope and there's a lot of details about
how you do all that stuff and what's I'm saying.
So it's like, if for a motorcycle brand, like if you, a lot of $1,000 a month
to go towards, you know, just meta or whatever that I'm going to default
back to brand strategy, there's gun.
Yeah.
You, you have this sandbox to play with.
You're going to have a percentage of that sandbox to spray and pray.
It's, it's part of the whole cast.
I think it's it, what's the, I'm, I'm drawing a blank on the whole, like
it's, it's three degrees of like connecting with the product before you buy
something or four or two.
So it's like, if you work with a brand like me and they hear about it on the
podcast, but then every time they open up their fucking Instagram, because they
started following this brand or even better that they've seen on the side of
the highway and like, Oh yeah, I've seen that before.
But then somebody they trust comes out of their mouth and you're like, I'm in.
Then when that Facebook marketing ad pops up, it's like the final like, you
know what, I want to get this.
You know, it's a whole tributary.
So it's like, so at that point, to further my point, it's like, all right,
well, I was a part of that decision making process for that individual.
Yeah.
As to how all this works.
So like when they go to your, your, your fucking, uh, your Facebook or meta ad and
they buy the product there, um, I don't get credit for that.
No, but yet I was a part of helping that person decide to do that shit.
I want, I want to give you an, I want to give you an example.
And this is back to like how I, I would, I'm just trying to figure out how to
keep, keep this show paid for so I can keep doing this to calm down.
So this is how I would run things.
If I'm in the marketing department, it just so happens that I am, right?
Yeah.
So first of all, just tell the story.
And that, that works out for our case in point.
Um, that may be very different for a large legacy, large corporation.
That is also a legacy brand such as Harley Davidson.
Just tell the story of what's going on.
I'm sure that if Harley Davidson just showed imagery of engines being put
together, people would watch all the way through the stuff.
It's going to affect their algorithm.
That one's for free Harley.
Um, the next thing is what we were talking about, about genuinely connecting with
people.
So this guy popped up on my personal Instagram feed.
It's called project R1D shout out to R1D.
Jonathan, I think his name's Jonathan.
Anyway, I saw him, he's building a sixties style.
It's a Lotus formula one car with a Chevy 350 motor in it and a trans axle and
all this other stuff.
And he's building it from scratch.
He's read all the books from Colin Chapman.
Colin Chapman was the guy behind Lotus.
He basically defined handling characteristics for race cars.
Yeah.
He's read all the books.
He's building it himself.
He's making little tweaks, but it's in the style of this like 1960s formula one
car.
He's not an engineer.
He's self taught.
And this, the structure of this car is it has a tubing subframe in the front and
the rear and it has tubing a arms, but it's connected with a monocoque, which
is just sheet metal.
And so you're creating a sheet metal structure.
It's like, Oh, we do sheet metal.
And we're about to turn on laser tube cutting.
Yeah.
And I need to come up with, this is back to my problem to solve.
Right.
I need to come up with effectively a marketing campaign to launch all of this
stuff because I can blast it from the mountaintop as a brand, but I need to get
other people on other mountaintops to do all of that and sing in unison.
So I found this dude and he's just get this telling his story of what he's doing.
It's the typical, and we've all seen this on social media day one of fill in the
blank day 10 of fill in the blank.
You follow that recipe.
If there's an audience, they're going to swarm on you like bees on honey.
So I saw this guy.
He's it like post 12 is a dedicated Instagram for this project.
He's at like 3300 followers.
Buck and bingo.
Let me help.
So I reach out to him from the brand Instagram like, Hey, sorry, your thing.
Really exciting.
I think you're doing a great job.
I have an idea of how we can help.
Would you be open to a call?
Get on the phone, zoom, FaceTime, reiterate exactly what I just said.
I think we can help you.
Uh, I know you're still in design phase.
There's some testing.
I can give you a couple coupons to start.
These are the things that I'm kind of looking for, but you know, kind of balls
in your court.
Now we're getting into instant influencer strategy, but like what you're doing
right there, I wish that exists in the motorcycle world.
You are, get this, get this.
He's not ready to build yet, but by the time he's ready to build, we're going
to be up to, to what the laser tube bending and capacity and all this other stuff.
So I'm trying to, trying to time it all.
And you know what he did?
He has, it's a big project he's doing.
He has a day job.
So he's trying to keep his content going.
So he's like, I'm waiting on this and that.
So I'm going to start designing the steering wheel.
It's a laminated steering wheel, a bunch of different layers and there's some
aluminum flat pieces in there.
You know what he did?
He didn't ask for anything.
He just bought straight from our RMFG.
That is, yeah.
This is an $80 order, but still, yeah.
That's $80 that you guys wouldn't have sold.
Had you not, it's more than the $80.
And you connect with the person.
He then said, he wants to try the product out.
He wanted to talk about brand affinity, the brand fucking reach out to him like,
Hey, we'd like to help.
It's like, I don't even need the help yet.
And I think you can build a bunch of stuff like that.
And, you know, a lot of our customers, um, they're not just individual hobbyists.
We have a lot of, they all come through the same door.
So there's no really differentiation between B to C or B to B, but we have a
bunch of people that are ordering every month, $1,000, $10,000, $60, 80, 90,
$100,000 worth of stuff.
And we kind of treat them all the same.
We're, we're not giving them freebies.
We're actually asking, how can we help you?
Or, Hey, we're struggling with this.
We kind of dropped the ball.
We want to let you know, like, fuck, the brand is reaching out and saying like,
and I say brand, it's, it's a company.
It's a service.
There's a difference between selling a product and selling a service.
We're selling a service to them.
So they're a little bit more beholden to us because we're making what they need.
Yeah.
As opposed to like, Oh, I need, what jeans am I going to buy?
Yeah.
Um, but you're, you don't have a monopoly on the, on that, on that service either.
So you're still, I mean, it's still, they could go to another service if they
wanted, but they're, you being transparent with them is being beneficial
cause it's helping, it's helping continue.
They're probably also, but I hold it to somebody else.
Like when you tell them what's going on, they can relay that to their,
but I do want to get back to the basics here.
Cause we talked about these seams already.
I don't want to rehash all of them.
New company has the opportunity to try a bunch of stuff.
CEO founder has vision.
He took a risk hiring a guy who kind of knows this stuff, but doesn't have the
formal rigidity, does the stuff, has the autonomy to do the stuff actually makes
it happen and then it starts to grow.
And there's inherent flexibility in this model to make it happen.
And I'm not saying this is going to be, you know, is it flying colors now?
Maybe, maybe not.
Is it going to be tomorrow?
Maybe, maybe not.
But I think it's worth risking all of this stuff.
And now I want to make the example that I was going to say before.
Have you heard about this acquisition of dust moto by Harley or by live wire?
No, I haven't heard about that.
Dust moto is a, an American dirt bike brand.
The founder, Colin Godby is a, he was lead engineer of upco, another two wheeler
electric bike company founded in Australia.
But by, I want to say they're Korean, they are Korean.
They laid off the entire American workforce.
He got a little bit of investment money.
He said, I want to create an electric dirt bike that slots right in between a
Surran and the Stark.
Basically it's a 250 equivalent.
And they started designing in public, developing in public.
It's one of those two.
From day one, here's our plan.
Shared fucking everything.
Started developing, they had the traction, money they knew they
were going to get so far and they could create some velocity along the way.
And then they got the excitement with that velocity and they sold the founders
50, which is like they pre sold 50 bikes and they were supposed to be delivered
by now, they're not yet delivered.
And that's, that's probably to be expected.
Yeah.
And the founders 50 that are going to take that leap, like they're going to be
fine, right?
Yeah.
But they continued going with that.
They built so much momentum.
They got acquired by technically not Harley Davidson.
Cause we know live wire partition from Harley Davidson.
It's a whole technical thing.
It's fascinating how they do this shit with money.
I wish I was a quant guy.
Anyway.
Um, and Harley, and Harley is notorious for this, what they call the kiss of death.
Right.
Yeah.
Where, and this happened to Alta, another, you know, ahead of its time, electric dirt
bike, but basically they looked under the hood and they're like, this is all
fantastic shit, but we also see that you're about to die next month if we don't
invest.
So we're going to let you die and then we're going to buy the brand for pennies
on the dollar.
And this has happened tons of times and, uh, dust moto made it happen.
And how did they get so far?
I gotta say is because of the fucking marketing strategy.
They got the investment that pre live wire because of that, they got their pre
orders, which is market validation because of that.
And they built their awareness, their top of funnel through all of that.
They also got their feedback about what to design.
They literally named the bike, the bike model, the high tail.
They crowdsourced it.
They literally said, what should we name this thing?
They got a bunch of suggestions and they picked the best one.
Yeah.
And I think if you really want to connect with people, because people have this
blind spot to advertising, because we've been advertised to for 150 years now.
And even when the algorithm changes or even when a new piece of tech comes out,
we figured out really quickly, but we had people that were the things that were
really interested in will still permeate through.
But you have to tell that permeable story.
Guys, I had to cut this podcast off.
Me and Chris talked for over four hours.
Uh, while there was some good gyms of conversations in the later hours of this
podcast, uh, there was just so much drunken nonsense in between it that I didn't
want to waste your time.
Uh, do want to thank Chris for coming out.
It's always a pleasure to sit there and talk with him.
I highly, um, look up to this man and all the work he puts in and the way that
he goes about it.
It's definitely, uh, changed some of my perspectives as to how I approach things.
So thank you, Chris.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
And real quick, guys, uh, we're going to be down at Paradise Roadshow.
If you're going to be in the Austin area this weekend, Paradise Roadshow is
looking like it's going to be a sick time.
Uh, me and my buddy Kyle Jive S.
Hongki were riding choppers down there, uh, straight hipster shit.
I can't wait.
Um, and more importantly, if you guys are planning to be at Born Free, I
set it in the intro.
We're going to be set up with Kabuto over there in the food court area.
It's a great helmet and I really want you guys to come by, hang out, try one of
these helmets on.
You ain't got to buy it.
Just try it on.
And if you get to that point where you're ready to upgrade your helmet, uh,
you'll know which size you are and where to go.
So I really appreciate you guys listening to these podcasts.
Please don't hesitate to check out our sponsors to help keep this show alive.
And don't hesitate to support our show over on Patreon.
There's a link down in the description.
And that's literally how we fund this shit.
So thank you.
And we'll see you on the next one.
All right.
Peace.
About this episode
Chris Promethean Liver joins The Fast Life Podcast for a wide-ranging catch-up: his new role at RMFG.com, plus the hosts’ ongoing motorcycle build and wiring stories. They dig into helmet fitting and specific gear, then pivot into how aftermarket electronics can complicate troubleshooting—sometimes requiring a hard reset. The conversation expands to AI-assisted diagnostics, and later to how social media algorithms reward watch time and hooks. It closes with chopper culture, carburetor vs EFI debates, and the business of making and marketing builds.
Original notes
Chris is a man of many talents, and since our last podcast (October 2025), he has built a Royal Enfield Chopper from scratch, grown his social media and YouTube channels, and landed a marketing job at www.rmfg.com. Hear all about it in today's episode!
Chris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prometheanliver/
Chris's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/PrometheanLiver
Join our Patreon community to gain access to our Patreon-only podcast, Garage Talk, our chat room, and ad-free episodes!
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Big thanks to our Show Sponsors
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