H.O.G. is short for Harley Owners Group. It’s a community for Harley riders, and “HOG rallies” are get-togethers where members meet up and ride together.
Term
custom bikes
“Custom bikes” are motorcycles that someone has modified to look or ride a certain way. The hosts are saying the crowd they met wasn’t focused on that kind of customization.
Concept
cruiser-style motorcycle riding
They’re talking about a common Harley-style of riding and bike culture. It’s more about riding together and going long distances than customizing the bike.
Burnouts are when a rider spins the tires on purpose, usually to make smoke and show off. The hosts are saying that kind of stunt might annoy some people at the rally.
They’re talking about Harley-Davidson group trips/rallies and how they’re organized. Some rallies move to a new place every day, while others are centered around one main dealership location.
A hub-based rally is when the group mostly stays based out of one main place (like one dealership). Riders come back there each day instead of moving to a new town every day.
Concept
permit
Here, a “permit” means official permission you need to do something. The host is using it to compare structured ride challenges to other activities that require rules.
A “dealership run” is when riders plan a trip to visit one or more motorcycle dealerships. It’s usually part of an event or challenge, so people have a reason to ride together.
Concept
Instagram culture
“Instagram culture” here means the way social media trends influence what people want to do. The host is saying some riders aren’t as driven by that as others.
RNS motorcycles is a company that makes aftermarket parts for motorcycles. They sell upgrades like styling pieces and performance-related components such as brakes and wheels.
Air cleaners are the filters that keep dirt out of the air going into the engine. Upgraded ones can look different and may help the engine breathe better.
Bars and risers are what hold and position your handlebars. Swapping them can make the bike feel more comfortable by changing how high and how far the bars sit.
“Triple digit speeds” means going over 100. The speaker is saying the helmet is designed to stay stable when you’re moving that fast.
Term
ACT tech
ACT tech is a helmet design feature meant to help protect you in a crash. It’s one of the safety technologies the speaker says is built into the helmet.
MIPS is a safety feature that helps reduce twisting forces on your head during a crash. It lets part of the helmet move a little so the impact is less harsh.
Car
Kabuto F17
Kabuto F17 is a full-face helmet made for riding, including track-style use. The speaker likes it because it has good airflow for hot weather.
Roadside assistance is help you can call if your vehicle won’t start or breaks down. It can include things like getting a tow or someone coming to help you.
A touring rally is a group motorcycle event where people ride together on planned routes. The focus is on riding as a group, not just showing off the bikes.
“Fully dressed out” means the motorcycle has a lot of extra touring gear already installed. It’s basically set up for comfortable long rides.
Term
CBO
“CBO” here sounds like a Harley shorthand for a special, higher-end factory-custom version. The point is that Peyton’s dad rides a more premium Harley, which adds to the story they’re trying to capture.
The Chevrolet Nova is a car model made by Chevrolet. It’s known for being around for a long time, so people often mention it when talking about older cars. In a conversation, it can be used as a familiar example of a classic American car.
“Certified pre-owned” means the bike is used, but it’s been checked and approved by the dealer. It often comes with extra protections compared to buying a random used bike.
The Cupra Born is a small hatchback that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It’s made for normal daily driving, like commuting and errands. People bring it up when talking about EVs that are easy to live with.
Rock salt is salt that’s been mined from the ground. If water gets in, it can dissolve the salt and make the mine less stable.
Concept
apocalyptic whirlpool
They’re using “whirlpool” to describe a huge, violent flow of water. The point is that the flooding got so intense it behaved like a massive swirling current, not just normal water seepage.
Car
Honda XL 75
This is a small Honda dirt bike model. The host is mentioning it because it was the kind of bike they rode when they were young.
Concept
Achafalaya basin
This is a big swampy wetland area in Louisiana. They’re using it to describe the kind of landscape they were riding around.
The Dacia Logan is a simple, low-cost car made for everyday transportation. It’s meant to be practical and affordable rather than fancy. If it comes up in a conversation, it’s usually because someone is trying to remember or identify the exact model.
Term
I-25
I-25 is a big highway in the U.S. They’re talking about towns along that route and how riders connect through those stops.
“One percenter” is biker slang for a tough, outlaw-style image in motorcycle culture. The “1%” patch is a symbol some riders use to show they’re part of that scene.
Term
mileage things
Here, “mileage things” means keeping track of how many miles you’ve ridden. People use it to show they’ve been on rides and rallies.
Brand
fast life
“Fast life” is a slogan printed on the jacket. In this context it’s part of the biker/motorcycle style and identity.
A full face helmet is a motorcycle helmet that covers your whole head, including your chin. It’s generally safer than helmets that leave your face more exposed.
Term
bike trip
They’re talking about a longer motorcycle ride, not just a quick drive around town. On longer trips, you have to think more about comfort and gear.
An “iron butt” is slang for an endurance motorcycle ride—basically riding a ton of miles in a short period. It’s the kind of trip that tests how long you can stay comfortable and focused.
Here, “visceral” means it feels very real and physical—like you’re more connected to what’s happening on the road. The speaker is saying the bike makes you pay attention in a more hands-on way.
A locking mechanism is what keeps the visor from moving when it shouldn’t. Here, the key point is that it locks securely and is still easy to use with gloves.
MotoGP is top-level motorcycle racing. The host is saying the helmet/visor design is built to meet the kind of safety requirements used in that racing world.
Mid controls are where the foot pegs/controls are placed on a motorcycle. This affects rider posture and comfort, and the host is saying people want his version.
“Shovelhead” is a Harley engine type that a lot of custom choppers use. When someone says “shovel head chopper,” they mean a custom bike built around that engine.
Part
transmission plate
A transmission plate is a structural mounting spot on the bike near the transmission area. The speaker is saying their foot controls are located based on where that mounting point is.
Forward controls are foot pegs/foot controls mounted closer to the front of the motorcycle. That usually makes your legs reach farther forward compared to mid controls.
A hydraulic foot control uses fluid pressure to move the clutch/controls. Instead of pushing with a cable or rod, it uses a hydraulic system to do the work.
A foot clutch is a clutch you press with your foot. On custom bikes, where that foot lever sits can make a big difference in comfort and how easy it is to use.
Jockey shift is a way of shifting gears using your foot. Custom bikes often change where the shifter sits, so it can be more comfortable and easier to use.
Term
shift happens in the scenes
They’re basically saying that trends in motorcycle communities change over time. When more people get interested in a certain style, it can make those bikes more in-demand—and more expensive.
A V-twin is a motorcycle engine with two cylinders arranged in a V shape. It’s a common layout for classic Harley engines, which helps explain the distinctive feel and sound people associate with Panheads.
To “fabricate” in a motorcycle context means to build or modify parts by cutting, shaping, and welding materials to create custom components. The speaker credits inspiration for learning fabrication skills as part of the chopper-building process.
A “soft tail” is a motorcycle rear suspension setup that rides smoother than a rigid frame, but still looks like the bike has a classic hardtail style.
If the motorcycle frame is cracked, it can be unsafe because the frame is what holds everything together. That’s the kind of issue that usually means you should stop riding and get it checked.
“Detune” means making the bike run less aggressively so it’s smoother and easier to live with. Here, they’re saying it’s running too rough and needs adjustment.
“11 to 1 compression” means the engine squeezes the air-fuel mixture more than stock. More squeeze can make power, but it can also make the engine harder to start and more demanding on fuel.
A “stroker” build uses engine parts that make the piston travel farther, usually to boost torque. “Shovel” refers to a specific Harley engine style, so this is a modified Harley Shovelhead.
High compression means the engine squeezes the fuel/air mixture more before it ignites. That can make the engine feel stronger, but it often requires matching parts so it runs safely.
Low compression means the engine squeezes the mixture less. That usually makes the engine less aggressive and can help it run more smoothly with other changes.
A “cam grind” is a specific camshaft shape/profile. Changing it changes when the engine’s valves open and how much they lift, which can make the bike feel more aggressive or more tame.
Lift is how far the valve opens, and duration is how long it stays open. Less lift/duration usually makes the engine less wild and easier to ride day-to-day.
A carburetor is a device that mixes fuel with air before it goes into the engine. They’re saying you can still have a fun, different-feeling bike even if it uses a carburetor.
A manual transmission is the kind where you choose gears yourself using a shifter (and usually a clutch). They’re saying the motorcycle feels like that kind of hands-on driving.
“T-bar” is a type of motorcycle handlebar shape. Changing handlebar style can change how the bike feels and how you sit while riding.
Term
little man syndrome
“Little man syndrome” is slang for trying to prove yourself because you feel insecure. The speaker is using it to call out people who show off how much they spent.
Term
customize
Here, “customize” means making changes to the bike yourself—choosing parts and putting them together to create your own style.
“Tall bars” are handlebars that sit higher than normal. They change how the bike looks and how you sit on it, and the speaker is using them as an example of a flashy, dated style.
Term
flipped up
“Flipped up” means something on the bike is turned upward—usually referring to the handlebars/controls. They’re listing it as part of a flashy, very specific custom look.
“OEM plus” means you customize the bike, but you keep it looking like it still belongs there—like it could have come from the factory—with tasteful upgrades rather than a total makeover.
“Factory lines” are the original design lines the bike already has from the factory. They want the custom paint to respect those lines so it still looks like it belongs to the bike.
A “tank line” is the main stripe or outline graphic on the fuel tank. They’re saying they’ll keep their recognizable stripe style even as they customize the rest of the paint.
A fairing is a shaped body panel on the bike—usually near the front—that helps with airflow and also affects the bike’s look. They’re talking about how the paint lines will flow across that area.
They’re mainly talking about motorcycle paint customization—how to make it look like it still fits the bike’s original factory style, and how small human details in the paint can make it special.
Concept
flames (flame paint jobs)
“Flames” here refers to flame-style graphics in custom paint—usually airbrushed or layered decals/paintwork. It’s a common custom-bike aesthetic because it visually emphasizes speed and motion, and it’s often done as a full theme across panels.
A custom paint job is a tailored finish beyond factory colors—often involving prep, masking, multiple coats, and detailed graphics. The host is describing a build process where the mechanical work is done and the remaining “creation” is the paintwork.
A lathe is a workshop machine for shaping metal. It spins the part and uses a tool to cut it into the exact shape you want.
LIVE
What is up everyone and welcome back to the fast life podcast hope you guys have been
having a good one because I have a good one today for you guys to listen to Cory from
main drive cycle and I went hogging at the hog rally down in Cajun country and I had
a blast Harley Davidson reached out they offered me a opportunity to go down there and photograph
the event and I asked Cory to go since he is from the Lafayette area sorry and yeah we
rode down there and this is a recap of that experience and Cory really laid out a great
history lesson this podcast for you guys so hope you enjoy before we get into it please
take a moment to check out our sponsors Arlen S motorcycles they're gonna get you dialed in
on some cool amazing custom motorcycle parts and if you use fast life 10 at checkout you're
gonna save 10% off don't forget about my guys over at cowboy Harley Davidson down in Austin
Texas got you covered on new and used motorcycles go check them out law tires 1 800 law tires if
you or somebody knows been in a motorcycle accident they are the ones you need to call first
they're gonna fight every possible outlet to get you taken care of and get you back on your feet
and also if you're looking for a new helmet that's gonna change your experience of riding
motorcycles and keep you safe and look badass while you're doing it then look no further than
Kabuto Americas go follow him on Instagram I've been rocking the helmets Cory actually talks about
the helmet in this podcast so let's get into it with Cory from main drive as we go hogging
hey guys you ready to let the dogs out
I'm still feeling like I'm I'm real groggy after that uh that Mexican food so it was heavy
it was good but we're paying the price yeah we're gonna have to keep this shorts on go take a nap
yeah exactly well I'm glad we're sitting here doing this because man like I feel like we owe it to
the world to hear about our hog experience and uh there's just so many things about this trip
and I don't even really know where to begin but it was uh it was just a cool opportunity to go
for one be back in your hometown yeah where you kind of grew up and and that's the first time I ever
spent any like real time in Louisiana like down south you know and dude I'm ready to go back to
dude it was so it was so cool being in a position where I was having some of my Dallas,
Texas peeps in in in my hometown and in my roots it was very strange yeah it was surreal I've said
that so many times but just to see your reaction to getting exposed to all things Cajun yeah right
like you had a genuine and authentic Cajun experience from the food and some of the things
that we went and visited and saw so to get to see like your excitement and the joy that you were
having kind of pumped me up and reinvigorated me for you know this this love that I have for
for south Louisiana because you know and when when I think of south Louisiana obviously I think
of my roots and my family I think of great food great memories but in the context of
motorcycling it's just like my experiences have been like well man our roads are pretty crappy
in south Louisiana and it's you know it's not like you're riding in Colorado or something
right it's pretty flat and it's not it's not that scenic but we still had a great time and
the roads that we rode were pretty nice you know I guess they've repaved them since I've been there
but it was it was an outstanding weekend honestly I think that whole concept of
scenic is just um I think it's subjective right it's a you know your version of scenic versus
someone else's I think we can all agree like Colorado or PCH or you know some million dollar
highways like they're always badass but what's to say about those like those little back roads
driving through the oak trees with the Spanish moss hanging off of it yeah like
that is a feeling too it might not be as grand as like a vista of like the mountains or the ocean
but it equally fills is uh like special if that makes sense it did it did feel special
you know what's interesting enough is that area where we were riding uh with the you know the trees
climbing over the you know making like this archway over the road with all the moss hanging down
that is the that's the area literally where the first decadians arrived
true yeah and settled initially settled it's all in the st martinville area by new iberia yeah
yeah it was I mean the whole so for context everybody listened so what happened was um
Harley Davidson reached out and offered me the opportunity to go down there and attend the
Cajun Hall rally to photograph the event and write a blog on my experience um and it's the first
like paying job I've ever had with the camera I mean I've people have given me money for a photo
I've taken before and things like that but I've never been like paid to go do something and then
have to have this outcome on the other end it would be like if I went and did someone's wedding
right I'm booking you to shoot my wedding come out here do the shots like I first paying gig
yes 100 so to say that I was nervous and um really feeling like oh my god I gotta actually come
through there's a paycheck on any of this if I'm going to shoot stuff for my bike or my friends on
a trip it's like walk away with nothing it's like cool there was no there was no expectation on the
other end right and then you take in like typically when I photograph things it's either of custom
motorcycles or very you know uniquely different or cool places or scenarios right typically a
dealership parking lot isn't ideal for you know just the to set a mood right and so there was a
challenge in all that stuff and and and the people at Harley Taylor all the people that I worked with
gave me a lot of um like reference like we just want to see people having fun on Harley Davidson's
that's what we want to promote to the world is people to see the joy that these bikes bring
so that helped me because I was looking for people smiling hugging you know showing that
they were having a good time on their motorcycle so that helps but I guess assessing it like a
photographer or photographically or artistically it's like well that big mcdonnell sign in the
background doesn't really sell this you know what I mean but you know it was just nerve wracking doing
all that well sure you you've probably got some feelings of like am I ready to do this man I'm
nervous this is the first time in of all people or of all companies the motor company is hiring you
to do it yeah it was right it was cool just pressure um and like I said the hog rally itself
it's just you know I I'd been I mean if you you do motorcycling for 20 plus years you're gonna run
across like a little hog event somewhere you know the dealership you you mess around at or
you know what have you like it it's kind of inevitable in some ways and I mean what's your
like do you remember your preconceived notion of what hog is like yeah it has there been any
kind of like a change in like opinion about it like where would you take yep absolutely I went
I mean I approached the whole thing with prejudice like this is gonna be goofy
I mean this isn't our type of crowd they're not into custom yeah custom bikes or these are people
who are just typically of the older demographic right a lot of them are retired and what am I
going to have in common with these people so I walked in with prejudice and thinking this is
going to be lame and walked away with that was a whole lot of fun yeah just an appreciation for
these people they love these bikes just as much as you and I do just in a different way they put
down way more miles that's what really blew my mind is how many of those folks like just rode the
piss out of those things like we would all brag like we did 20,000 miles this year and they're
like we did 20,000 miles this year it's April you know what I mean no joke and but I mean obviously
in any group like that there's going to be like the locals that are just coming out to do something
on their Harley but then there's a lot of people that are coming from other parts of the country
to be a part of that hog experience and I'm with you I had a lot of man this is like old people
stuff and I think that I really got I figured out how I wanted to say it when we sat down to
have dinner with Ray and the guys at that uh what was that restaurant we ate at yeah um good food
um yeah next door to the dealer uh it's I saw another one the way out of town we were leaving
but I don't know why I'm drawing a blank I am too but um but I said it to him I was like I think that
this is something I think this is something that we like as a rider it's it's always there for you
like this this ha like every dealership has a hog chapter it's all over the country it's there if
you need it right you don't have anybody to ride with you don't really know where to go like you
want to get kind of like your foot in the door or whatever right there that's there for you and it
can work now it's a roll of dice because every because it's you know your local area that joints
it's like maybe it's not your vibe it might not like maybe you're into the Bicola motorcycle style
and your hog chapter is like the youngest person there is 63 you know what I mean that could happen
but what I noticed is it like it just it's something that is there for you and it's
like if you get to that point in your life where you are retired and you can't hop on the bike with
your wife and go ride across the country and do stuff like that seemed like it fit the narrative
very well like it's it's for you it's there for you if you want it but it's like
as some of the members are going to probably age out and pass away there's another
group of coming into it that's like going to use it because it fits their narrative fits there like
you know they're they weren't into custom motorcycles like you and I they a lot of them
because a lot of it people there were from east texas like the nagadosius and you know
tyler they I heard lots of people talking about born free texas so they do kind of go I just think
we don't notice it because we're you know looking at choppers and FXRs and stuff what do you think
well oh first off was it fezzos fezzos that's what it was that's the name of the place that's
really good food good food this is in scott louisiana on itin next to right off the island yeah next
occasion harley but so with what you said are you implying do you think that hog is in fact
is it really only for the older generation or can can there be some type of merging with the
younger culture I don't know that or I don't know if it's possible I don't know if it's possible
either because I think older people get there and enjoy it because it's it's structured in a way
that fits their their kind of pace you know like I mean that that's a really great question
because I don't I'm not saying that if you're young you shouldn't do it because I mean I'm not
young but like I went to it and I met another young person there and we hung out all weekend right
but I don't know I'm really have you thought about that in a way I'm not sure how that those
those worlds can can merge right the younger scene getting involved in hog
I mean perhaps like our bike night people that goes to teapot Tuesday we probably would be
annoying to a lot of them you know like our style of bikes or maybe not so much us but like if we
had some stunt kids that were in there doing burnouts like that would annoy them you know of
course of course well maybe the whole the premise behind hog is it's it's not as valuable to us
because we are very fortunate we are lucky to already be part of a community a thriving community
very large community and if but if you're a newbie if you're a puppy and you're just getting started
with Harley and you don't have any community or anybody to hang out what a wonderful way for you
to meet others yeah they're probably going to be a little bit older than you yeah but it's still
it's there for you it gives you access yeah yeah of course and you're gonna you're gonna meet some
really really great people wonderful people we actually said that while we were out on the
trip to get I think we even talked about it that night at Fezzos it's like yeah it's really hard for
us to give an opinion about it because we have a unique access to a very very deep you know rich
world of other people and motorcycle like maybe not like I don't know like to your point yes it uh
we just have we don't have a lot we have a lot of options you know we're we're turning down more
events and things because like we want to do all of them but obviously you can't do everything so
it's like as opposed to maybe you know them they just feel like man you know what next year we're
doing you know because I think they rotate those rallies in different spots every year so it's every
other year so it's like well you know this year we did these runs at at Cajun Harley next year
we're gonna do the one in uh you know Pueblo or something like that and then do those runs in
Colorado and then yeah let's go back I had fun and you know did you get a feel from talking with Ray
that like I don't I didn't quite I didn't talk to him uh deep enough about this but like how
many touring rallies are there a year I know you say like the touring rally will eventually stop at
each stop every other year but how many do they cram in the span of a calendar year I think there's
like a rally a month somewhere but I think that some of them are touring meaning that it's a
different stop every day and some of them are hub based or there's another term they use for it where
you're going to one dealership and then you're going out and coming back every day
you know and then there's all these challenges they do and go take a picture in front of the
governor's mansion and go uh you know like you can do these routes that they pre like
lay out for you that are gonna take you to see a lot of cool stuff but then there's also the other
challenges you know like there's there's a lot of things in that it's it's so complex but not really
it's not complex it's just there's it's very deep involved with different things you can kind of do
challenges uh you know um like I photographed the a family where the son and the mother and
daughter are the three leading people in America that's visited the most dealerships this year
and it's number one number two number three is this family right so I mean like
if if you were really just like you know I just want to get on ride but I need a permit like us we
rode America to go to force gump spots like that doesn't make sense when you think about it in the
context of this but Harley puts these challenges on their you know on their uh their app the hd
experience thing and oh we know it yeah let's let's see if we can do a run to main and hit
this dealership run I mean it's something to do it might not be you know I think that it's just
it's a reason to leave and it's like it might be a dumb or pointless like um
concept you know but then like I'm listening to David Brown talk the other day
and he's talking about how his dad and his dad's buddy is like you know let's go to St. Louis for
some uh chili chili that sounds good I want some chili from St. Louis let's just go up there it's
like that's the same mindset of these other people the same from home you know and I think that
inherently that's how most of us really are but we are we have so many things like born free and
sturges and you know the east coasters do the same the booty run and then you have like you know
countless things all over the country where you can kind of fulfill that you know as opposed to
they're not really tapped into the instagram culture that we are so it's like you know what let's
just go do a you know a dealership run up to the east coast well maybe that's why we're we're
associating the older demographic to hog is because probably a lot of them are retired yeah and they've
got the time to go see all all the dealerships yeah you know all across the country so their
schedule can't accommodate it yeah but man what was the other guy's name we were talking to at
dinner that night was it mark michael michael michael yeah his story his story is cool as hell
you know he's retired military and he we were kind of we had a really deep conversation even
after you left but it's like he's like you know what I want to ride this Harley out of the country
but after that I'm hard stop and I'm going to fish everywhere yeah that was kind of like hard line
and then we I don't know if we talked about while you were still there but he was like well
I'm from the military so my orders were for two years and then my orders were up and then it was
like I don't know what my life looks like after that two years my life could be in Tokyo Japan or
Germany or Alabama for all I know so I want to do this for two years and then I'm doing this other
thing so it's kind of like a it's I think it's a military mindset yeah and he talking with Michael
like he couldn't even relate to our frame of mind of like wanting to customize and make a bike your own
he just it was just going completely over his head like why I just want to hop on this bike and just
ride just use it as a tool you know yeah yeah and he did I mean he was I think I think he was
leaving like the next morning yeah I'm going back to El Paso it's like 900 miles or whatever and I'm
it was crazy he was on a trike and he's not impaired of anything he's like yeah my girlfriend
you know she likes riding on trikes so we just got a trike I'm like god damn I know but we've
texted every a couple times since then he's pretty cool I dig him a lot awesome yeah but yeah he had
he had said by such and such a date I'm gonna be done with this and I'm gonna be moving on to the
next thing it might have been like RVing and yeah he said RVing yeah you want to go but he
said he wants to RV and fish like bro it doesn't have to be like all or nothing you can't have a
little bit of balance you can do both you know yeah yeah yeah but some people are just wired
differently I guess so uh-huh yeah the whole like I said the whole experience was uh definitely
like I put like this I would do another one in a different area freaking heartbeat um do it
you know I kind of want to do another one but I don't know like it it's just it's access like
when you're in a town and you know like when I've never cared I've never cared to go to Lafayette
it's never like when you think of riding a motorcycle you're like you know the big spots
right and then even thinking of like a 350 mile radius of Dallas Fort Worth which it
technically falls under is essentially you know 350 miles from here we're uh you know
we're out in west Texas we're you know almost a big bend we're
Arkansas you know in the mountains out there Oklahoma like but then the like I said the
experience down there was just it was worth worth it you know what better way to go discover
some new territory than go on to a rally like this like a hog rally where they've got
you know some all the locals have given their input and they've got all these maps laid out
these printed maps laid it out laid out in the morning with QR codes oh you want to go ride to
Tabasco why don't you scan this route and it will take you down some beautiful back roads and
that's the other thing I've never really been a tour going tours place kind of person and I mean
obviously I do the you know Harley do the Harley Museum because it's you know Harley right but
that was cool going and seeing how Tabasco was made and from the place it was made from and
all that stuff it was uh and there's things like that all the country and different you know types
of uh you know that's that's what I'm saying what better way to go discover these things go discover
you don't know what you don't know yeah what a great opportunity because somebody else has laid
the groundwork here's like a dozen routes you can take today at your own leisure at your own pace
go with other people go by yourself do whatever you want to do yeah but they've done the work
and they've given you some possible destinations to go check out and you'll you'll go discover
Cajun country or wherever you're at and I applaud it it was fantastic if you're ready to take your
motorcycle to the next level with style performance and quality this is where RNS motorcycles comes
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kabuto underscore americas on instagram yeah and that was also what was cool about is that you had
the ability to do a guided ride where you know there was like a road captain leading out taking a
bigger group like 40 50 people or something like that but then like you you could just do your own
thing you know I mean and the guided thing might be fun to meet new people and then if you're there
for the you know the three days of the rally then well this day I'm gonna go in this group and ride
with these people in this group in this group and you're inevitably you're gonna end up talking to
people in medium and so it does kind of create it's like a social club kind of thing is what it
felt like yeah you know well we were really fortunate to ride with Ray right who is Harley's
national yeah the touring rally coordinator for all the touring rallies yeah so you know we had a
wonderful day right just just the three of us me you and Ray who also happens to be a Cajun
he's from Welsh Louisiana which is in Acadiana this is this is Cajun country and so even with him
leading the way riding at his pace you know everything by the book very safe yeah it didn't
even matter like it was fine I I had no problems normally when I'm riding especially like we talked
about it at lunch you're on a you're on an M8 these bikes want to move they want to haul
they're comfortable at 90 miles an hour all day long yeah but even riding at his comfortable pace
and just kind of taking the time to look around and soak up the scenery and appreciate where you're
at I freaking enjoy the heck out of that yeah and not having to lead or worry about leading others
just let him lead and yeah he knows where he's going yeah and then once we got to you know so
for those who aren't familiar we left Scott we rode through Broussard to St. Martinville
through New Iberia to Avery Island Avery Island is where Tabasco was made
and even when we got to Tabasco I mean Ray's walking around all these other people there
Ray what's up like everybody recognizes him because of all the rallies they go to the Isafar
of course and he's been doing it for like two or three years or something like that yeah he's still
he's still needed this he's he's retired military as well right yeah and I mean he he's hit the ground
running with this role I think he told me you know there were 52 weeks last year 52 weeks in a
year I did 52,000 miles that's bananas yeah a thousand miles a week essentially that's bananas
yeah like dude how are you servicing this by how he's well I'm going to dealerships they're taking
care of it yeah and obviously Harley's providing the bike right yeah but what a wonderful opportunity
for him to go see this country and this is his this is his career this is his job yeah and he
I can't imagine how many people this man knows across the country because even when we were at
Tabasco taking the tour eating lunch everybody's like Ray what's up you know yeah yeah so he's
he's got his own community as well yeah and and I got kind of put on game with the Harley Davidson
at while I was there and there it is to to be honest it is a little bit difficult to navigate it
first but like I think anything else like I'm not there yet but I see the value in that there's all
these groups and chats and message boards and there's things you can get on I mean I think two
lane life has has a thing and I even saw Danger Dan has something in there I don't know how I mean
he's probably not very active in there but you know so I I feel like Harley has all these tools but
maybe they've done it I just haven't seen it they got to figure out how to really show the world
how to use these to the like they're in the intention behind it well maybe they have and we're
tuned in to where they're teaching that shit we're not plugged in the hall yeah so maybe that's
where that stuff is being that gospel is being reached and I mean even that the whole concept
of hog it's like okay when we buy a new bike you become a member for a year like you basically
become a free member but apparently by joining it which is not that much money I think it's like
less than a hundred bucks a year or something like that you get like free roadside assistance
like if you break down they'll come pick you up and tell you to a nearest dealership or something
like that which could have helped Matt you know a while back when we were on a road trip you have
you know access to all these events there's just things about it that I think makes sense and
the way it was explained to me is because there's like there's this aspect of money going into hog
they have the ability to facilitate more things for that community because they have it's like if
you're in a bike club and you're paying dues you know what I mean so it's like there's more
that they can do within that group because there's its own like economy or budget or whatever you
would say so well it all makes sense I just know like for for me maybe like for somebody like my
attitude I like I said I approach this with prejudice and this is gonna be real goofy you
know like just let go all that crap not everything has to be about you know you're the coolest cat
on the block or whatever just go have fun meet people these were wonderful people to talk to
one thing I noticed that I kind of I thought was really special there's a lot of couples
that ride it's not just it's not just guys breaking off on the Harleys and just doing
like a guys weekend or whatever there was a bunch of couples you know many of them riding like two
up you know she's on the back clearly these people like get along really well they have
wonderful marriages they want to go tour the country together I find that stuff to be that's
that's the type of goals that I want yeah you know I I want to have a strong marriage throughout
throughout my whole life yeah and to be able to go have fun and see the country on a Harley
that's awesome yeah that's a beautiful thing to me that's something that that's goals yeah for me
that's nothing to like y'all aren't cool we don't know what the heck yeah we're kind of bars are
though it's just a totally different mindset yeah and I mean it's kind of weird because like I
I think I like both I mean I like my bike this is the conversation we were having at
Fezzos is like we were talking to Mike and those guys like well because you know even Ray the the
regional or the the hog I don't know you know touring rally coordinator he's technically riding
the bike the way Harley puts it out like he's not he's not putting his own bars on it you know he
does have a fully dressed out road glide I don't know it's like an ultra or limited I don't know
it's above like the bikes I really look into um and he just rides the piss out of that thing
same thing with uh Chris Harris the actual you know more I guess he's like the main dude
within hog uh out there on the like boots on the ground and yeah they just didn't really care about
it but I mean I think that we have the best of both we love the riding aspect of it and we like
the you know using these bikes as a personal uh maybe not maybe it is a statement in one
regard but it feels better to ride something I feel like I've made myself you know what I mean for
sure um or or kind of like you know massaged it to be what I want it to be yeah and maybe those
guys didn't grow up in like the custom kind of community they weren't into custom cars or bikes
or bicycles or whatever it's just how they came up they're like no this bike is fine the way it is
I'm going you know it's like the memories that they attach to the experience that's more important
than the overall the overall aesthetic of the bike they don't care about the things that we care about
but it's okay yeah yeah it was there was uh fuck what was it um damn Toronto oh so the first
time I got there I got there on Wednesday night because I had to be there early morning on Thursday
and you know like I'm staying like you know I went to the dealership I shot some like you
know sunset shots there just you know trying to shoot as much as I could because my my idea
and my goal was I'm just going here I'm not drinking I'm just gonna go here and work I'm
gonna get up before the sun comes up every day go shoot I got drunk every night what
I went to Fezzos I had my first Cajun dish of the trip which was a sausage uh sausage gumbo
chicken and sausage gumbo favorite um ate that had a beer to go back to the uh hotel
I'm walking in the hotel and there's these old folks just all in the lobby with 12 packs
you're here for the rally I'm like yep like come over here and have a beer with us and
I we stayed up till two in the morning drinking beers in the lobby with all these old folks from
like Tyler and Nakadoshis and stuff they were cool as shit I didn't realize you did that yeah
but I mean I still woke up before sun every day and went and rode and got shots but um and then the
Tuesday Thursday so the first day of it at about noon after getting shots and trying to get the
hang of what I'm supposed to be doing I walk out and then that's when I meet Peyton on the chopper
and I'm like sick like I'm I know I'm not supposed to be shooting this but like all I want to do
is shoot the chopper the whole time yeah we'll kind of chopper we talking here a shovel head
chopper yeah like mine so yeah crusty yeah shovel head chopper but it was it had so much
fucking like soul and it was dope it had a it just had a vibe right and so I mean obviously like
not even beating around the bush like Harley's paying me to go shoot things that they can use
to market and advertise their services and their products right the hog service of being able to
build community and these are the new bikes that people are doing on so you know I'm shooting
everything and you know they can use everything to their disposal but obviously shooting a night
apoco frame or what are we a sandy frame uh shovel head isn't really gonna do much to sell
Harley Davidson stuff right no but I wanted to shoot it so I just did it you know his dad being
on a CBO that whole dynamic was cool and I really hope and I know the blog will come out but I feel
hopefully the blog will at least tap into that relationship a little bit to that that way it's
kind of shown because obviously the the pictures they released didn't really show much of that part
which makes sense for Instagram you know so you think when the blog comes out they may release
a different subset of pictures I would imagine they would you know because to go with the words
of what I wrote like some of those pictures make sense you know originally I didn't send the picture
of you and I at the at the like bayou thing I was like well you know I talked about us being friends
and doing it so maybe I should send that photo too just just in case like they want to use it for
context or whatever but yeah I don't know it was a wonderful experience I mean work meeting Peyton
and his dad I mean the the whole theme for me the entire four-day weekend was our our world is so
small oh yeah running into people in my circle like I didn't know Peyton Peyton for uh like you
were just describing he's a he's a young man he's still probably in his late 20s or something
and he's on a kick only shovelhead chopper magneto fired it's it's cool yeah and then he he asked me
well where are you from it's like well I'm originally from erath he's like oh my dad's from
erath I'm like really what's your dad's name he's like oh Barry broussard I'm like I don't that's not
ringing the bell and then well he said my dad is gonna be here in a couple hours so you'll get to
talk to him yeah him so I did and as soon as I asked him like Barry what year did you graduate
he's like 1984 I'm like oh my god so I graduated in 94 and my cousin married a well-known guy
who also graduated in 84 I'm like you know Mike T he's like oh my god Mike T and I were you know
we grew up together yeah best friends so that that kind of was the first instance of a whole
long weekend just full of like meeting people that oh we all are like six degrees of separation
or we're all you know so-and-so from my hometown yeah well once we met Jeff Abare right the owner
of Cajun Harley he's like oh you're from erath my bookkeeper my right hand girl she's from erath
do you know this name I'm like of course I do of course I do and that just happened over and over
and uh it was it was great it's got like a small town vibe even though it's like Lafayette's a good
size and it's got all these surrounding like communities or cities uh like you know around it
but it did it still it still it still felt like a small town it does Lafayette is a decent size
city I'm sure the population is now over a quarter of a million I haven't looked I'm sure it is I really
didn't get to do much in Lafayette I mean Peyton and I uh for two of the nights was in the bar I think
I FaceTimed him one night we were in there and um and again like the way that the the downtown is
kind of structured and laid out is very uniquely different than a lot of the stuff from like moving
you know from like Texas moving west it's much more gridded off and stuff like that yeah
yeah you're right Texas is much more master-planned right all the roads are running in a perfect
grid either north south east west but downtown Lafayette's just it's wavy yeah it's it's a patchwork
and but that's just it's just I think it lends to the character of the place but you know like
you're you're talking about like it felt it felt more small town right it doesn't feel like a big
city yeah especially because Cajun people are the most inviting hospitable friendly people
that you will ever meet they will give you the shirt off of their back
and everything about Cajun culture is about community it's about having fun
like every small town has their own festival I grew up in Erath our festival is the the fourth
of July festival Abbeyville the cattle festival next door is Delcom the shrimp festival so we
all have our week of the year and they're like supports it yeah the street fair comes in you
know for the rides for the kids to rides and it's there's live music there's dancing in the streets
everything about Cajun culture is having fun eating great food partying so I was a I was an
anomaly growing up in south Louisiana not drinking yeah and not partying because that is our culture
110% yeah I thought was crazy too learning about like the way the the rice fields and
crawfish plantation thing work where it's like ones off and they're off opposite each other's
season yeah right yeah they alternate those crops basically the farmers who farm rice well during
crawfish season they're crawfish farmers basically what they do is their their farm their rice fields
are set up in such a way where they have like a small border or levy all the way around it and
they pump in water flood the field and crawfish happen crawfish happen yeah I mean I get crawfish
I live in Dallas right we have a big ditch in our front yard when we get heavy rain and it
stays wet for a few days I've got little crawfish chimneys in my yard they just happen that's wow
I I can't I don't have like the scientific explanation I'm sure I'm sure Google could tell
you why it happens but they just do so that's what that's how farmers supplement their income
over the winter building up for crawfish season right from like you know the winter months up
until up until May that's full blown crawfish season and we thank them for it because we love
we love our crawfish man yeah I'm not I'm still not really like sold on the crawfish thing like
eating it but I don't mind the meat I just don't care for the work that goes into it but yeah
everything else about Cajun food the the budan the the different types of you know and I learned a
lot on this thing the difference between like Cajun and like Creole so like that whole thing which
was like uniquely different to realize okay like New Orleans and I think Baton Rouge is more yeah
Baton Rouge New Orleans is definitely if you ask someone from South Louisiana what they associate
with being more Creole that's New Orleans yeah so Creole is something that's very hard to define
you could ask you know several different people what is the what does this mean and that you'd
get several different answers but typically when you know from a Cajun's perspective and I'm a Cajun
I am from for people who don't know Cajuns are the people who live in a particular region of South
Louisiana it's 22 parishes that the people who initially settled this area who had came from
Acadia which is modern-day Nova Scotia and I can I can get into that later but
these are the people who who brought with them the French traditions and lifestyle brought that
with them when they settled South Louisiana so they were called the Acadians and just from the
way people talked and they kind of used it as a derogatory term Acadian, Cadian, Cajun it just
kind of all just the way people you know with their yeah with their accent a Cajun, Cajun right
they all so initially used as a pejorative term yeah derogatory a slur yeah but Cajun people
accepted it we like to use a hard C around here yeah yeah and use it as a badge of honor
yeah yeah but they weren't known as Cajuns until they settled South Louisiana
but so basically that's a that's the French that occupied Canada right so Nova Scotia is more
of like your your whole province on that side of like the east coast that's where we first
settled let me give you a very brief primer on on louis Cajun history yeah so in 1604
was the first settlers left France to go settle new France right this was the new world
and what they were considering new France was the area of modern day Nova Scotia new Brunswick
that that whole area but yeah so the again 1604 that was the very first settlers who came over
they all came from one particular region of France it was called Poitou and all these people
knew each other they all had like the same last names that we have in Louisiana yeah like Abert
that was one of the original founding families that came and settled Nova Scotia the reason that
they the reason that they left France and the lives that they had built there was because
of the religious persecution so Cajun people are diehard Catholic for the most part especially
you know back then so you think about 1604 and you think of like the hundred years before that
that was the Protestant Reformation this is when people who were Catholic were being oppressed
and they were going through basically a religious civil war in France so these people in Poitou
which is a southwestern region of France were given the opportunity like hey do you want to go
and get your own land and settle and take this adventure and go to the new world they jumped
these were not well to do people this was peasant class people very hardworking mastery of farming
and trapping and building dykes and and controlling water flow and that sort of thing so all those
skills translated over very well whenever they went in the early 1600s to Nova Scotia which
they called that it wasn't called Nova Scotia back then they called it Acadia or in French
Akadi so more and more families started coming over mostly like 1604 was just a few families
and then in in the 1630s I believe it was you had like 30 something more families move over
and eventually settle in Akadi and then these people once they had moved and settled into this
area became known as Acadians so that is specifically to those people who settled in that region of
Canada everything was fine they lived there they again they used their same skills of farming
and trapping and they were basically able to convert a lot of this nasty marshland in Acadia
by their system of dykes that they had built and were able to convert all that land from
nasty marshy swampy to arable farmland I mean these people were these people were very very smart
yeah very resourceful so everything would find for decades so now you move into the 1700s and
basically that piece of land that piece of Canada bounced back and forth between the French and
the Brits French Brits they they were just constantly fighting over this land and all
throughout it the Cajuns wanted to remain or the Acadians yeah wanted to remain neutral
they're like look leave us out of it we're happy we we were persecuted in France we want to be left
alone yeah these were substance types of farmers they they just lived off of the land enough to
make a living and just be happy family oriented people well all this was fine and dandy with
there being neutral until basically 1755 the Brits were in control and the Brits said if you
don't pledge allegiance and swear to the British crown this isn't going to go good for you and
they they they wouldn't do it these are fiercely faithful Catholic people they're not going to
pledge any allegiance to a man but only to god above so what happened in 1755 was this was
it was called in French la grande d'arrangement the great upheaval so this was a true ethnic
cleansing they rounded up all these people and booted them out and not just not just booted
them out intentionally destroyed families this was like King George and the governor of this
region was like governor Lawrence or something intentionally destroyed families so in 1755 they
brought 400 men and boys they locked them into a church and put the ultimatum down
and they said no the Katie and said we're not going to swear allegiance so and that's when
they took the men sent them on ships one direction the women another the children another so
none of these people in this exile or this this great upheaval and I think you're talking about
I think you're talking about 10,000 people at this point yeah from all those initial
families that had settled grew into about 10,000 maybe 12 I could be wrong I haven't had Louisiana
history in a long time but um they shipped them again the Brits were in control so they put them
on British ships and they sent them all along the east coast to the 13 British colonies yeah
and they also sent some back to France they sent some back to England they sent some to Haiti well
the problem was these were like these were like slave conditions they were put in overcrowded
ships where they they had to battle starvation and scurvy and dysentery and all these things
and so about half of the people died so not only were the families just utterly destroyed like
you're never going to see your wife again your daughter your kid forget it you're going to one
area you you have no way to communicate you have no idea where your family yeah ended up
it was it was sad this was this was a horrible it truly was an ethnic cleansing
that the British did to the Acadian people and um so basically from 1755 to 1764 they scattered them
everywhere nobody went to Louisiana and it's one thing I should mention some of the people did
escape the British and they went and hid with the the natives in Canada which was like the
Micmac Indians and all that like they they and even while the Acadians were settled for that
whole hundred plus years they intermarried with the natives and and all that sort of thing but
I know this is a longer prime oh it's like it's interesting I love history it's fantastic and
you like have dates and shit so so anyway um I had I guess we I had this assumption that yeah well
they got booted out of Acadia modern-day Nova Scotia and they made their way to Louisiana
absolutely not nobody went directly to Louisiana for nine years they were scattered like I said
13 British colonies matter of fact West Virginia wouldn't even take them they're like we don't want
these French people here these French speak these are French yeah you should know we weren't
speaking English we were we're still speaking French and they kicked them out and said no we're
not even accepting them we're not not kicking you out we're not we won't even take your ship get the
flip out of here send them across back to England anyway and they dealt with shipwrecks and the
disease and all this thing and literally about half of them died so the people who did survive
eventually by 18 1764 so this is nine years after
through through communication you know or word of mouth or whatever they found out that
they could go to Louisiana the Louisiana area which again Louisiana purchase or whatever that whole
area was the middle section of the US right let's call it the middle third of the US but they heard
that the Spanish the Spanish were in control at that time the Spanish were giving land grants the
Spanish were encouraging people to come and settle and they said that sounds good to us
where we can go get land again yeah so they came from the 13 British colonies from England from
France from Haiti and they all started to settle the region where you and I wrote through in St
Martinville, Louisiana that's where they initially arrived yeah yeah and they were they were initially
led by like a Cajun hero he was a leader a fierce fierce leader of the resistance back in Acadia
his name was Boussalei Broussard and he was the one who led that first group of people he had
migrated to Haiti they lost more people in Haiti and then in 1764 they arrived in South Louisiana
and so did the word got out somehow and more people started to come and eventually develop
that that whole region of South Louisiana and at the time though like the Louisiana purchase that
you know just seeing it in the back of my head from like school and everything
that like went all the way to like Oregon or Washington the always to the coast dude it was
that it was I don't think it went that far but it was like that middle think of the whole US and
like the middle section of it and but this was the this was Spanish controlled land and then this
was not belonging to the US it was the Spanish who allowed the Acadian people to come in
you're looking up the yeah oh yeah yeah yeah well it goes all the way to basically Idaho
almost all the Montana all of it's like the middle third of the US right like yeah yeah yeah a lot
Wisconsin you know Minnesota a lot so basically the Spanish who are who are who allowed us to come
and settle allowed my ancestors to come and settle south Louisiana yeah because of their
generosity and wanting to develop to develop south Louisiana and build a stronghold now eventually
I think it was in I think it was in 1803 is when the US purchased all of that from Napoleon
I think it's 1803 they purchased it for $15 million three cents an acre yeah three cents
an acre that whole region became the US yeah in 1803 and eventually a few years later in 1812
Louisiana it's shaped today that became a state in 1812 I went a long way around to tell you that
Creole is hard to define Creole we think of like the New Orleans side New Orleans had more of the
New Orleans had a whole different set of influence New Orleans was a real gumbo pot you had Spanish
and French Caribbean African all that kind of influence arriving at the port of Orleans
and affecting that whole culture there the language even like the Creole dialect we speak
my people speak Cajun French the Creole is a separate little dialect they can kind of communicate
amongst one another so it's not really French it is the the Cajun French that is spoken in
south Louisiana isn't quite the same we've got our own ways of saying things they're the own little
nuances and lingo that classic Parisian French does not have yeah so the problem was well back to
the Creole thing typically Creole and this is not a hard rule Creole foods tend to be more tomato
based Cajun foods tend to be more roux based what is roux flour and oil mixed together making your
own base when you talk about Creole people this is very generic and it's probably not accurate
some people would consider Cajuns to be a subset of Creole because Creole some would consider
as to be French speaking people from south Louisiana whereas some people would also consider
Creole to have more of that African and Caribbean like a lot of like light skinned black people
are considered Creole in south Louisiana so it's a very it's a term that's hard to get a hold of
yeah well when I found out that there was a lot of Haitian in there you could see a lot of the
the flavor or the the I don't know just like the influence the influence like the way that the
people are they looked right there's you know certain parts of the world have they have a look
to them you know what I mean and I feel like I see more of that in Louisiana I mean I'm thinking
of all the rappers I grew up following too you know like they all just kind of look more Haitian
really in my opinion yeah well I mean all these things is what led to the development of south
Louisiana it truly is a gumbo pot of culture yeah um like I said when you talk when you're
talking about true Cajun country Cajun country is Acadiana those are the groups of 22 parishes
yeah it's kind of like it's triangular shape no dude anything north of Alexandria that might as
well be southern Arkansas as far as we're concerned yeah we don't like whatever um but New Orleans is
definitely not in Acadiana yeah um they've got their own types of culture and I freaking love
New Orleans New Orleans is a city rich in culture you know all about it Kyle um the food the culture
the atmosphere the architecture yeah it's got like a Caribbean style architecture I feel like
it's got all the influences the wrought iron balconies and like like those gas lanterns I have on my
house yeah yeah true gas lanterns that's all that's all how New Orleans that that's a New
Orleans staple those lanterns on my house were built in New Orleans I don't know why every time I
hear New Orleans I think of remember that uh Jean-Claude Van Damme movie where he had the gnarly
mullet he was like hard to kill or something like that and he was like you don't remember
these back in the 90s like some of those old movies and he was supposed to be like a New Orleans
kind of uh I don't know so I really don't his accent was on point yeah probably it's like a
cultural appropriation probably I don't know man just it wasn't Steven Segal though no it wasn't
Steven's no it might have been hard to kill sounds like Steven Segal oh man I probably have to google
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law tigers the first call you make it was more they'll be in the comments there was this one where
Sean Claude Van Damme had this gnarly mullet I mean it's sick like by today's standards you know
it had its phase where it wasn't cool but it's it's cool again you know yeah well we are rich
in culture in South Louisiana and honestly I so I moved I'm born and raised I am purebred Cajun
but I left in 1999 to come up here so I have literally lived here longer than I've lived in
Louisiana and from being away so long and obviously just growing up there I I can see how I kind
of like took it for granted until like going on this trip with you and seeing you appreciate all
the things that I just grew up with and like yeah that's how we grew up what are you talking about
this is normal this is how we live what do you mean yeah um it gave me a newfound appreciation
for my roots what's like when you let someone else play with your toy that you don't like anymore
you're like no dude you're gonna follow my shit great analogy but I thought it was cool you know
like you know because we were you and Ray were both helping me try to like get some unique shots
that kind of captured a vibe of Louisiana and the whole finding that bridge the first bridge like
when we left the spot that you got married which was uh called uh Van Winkle Rip Van Winkle Gardens
which is beautiful I got a great story about that too yeah you should tell that one I think it's
pretty pretty gnarly okay so yes I took Jace and Ray to the spot where we got married it's a botanical
garden it's called Rip Van Winkle this was the site of a horrific horrific disaster in 1980
which the people who went through it thought it truly thought it was like the end of the world
it was cataclysmic yeah basically Lake Pinure which is adjacent right next to the town of Delcom
which Delcom is right next to my hometown of Erath these are very small towns we have like two
and three thousand people in our town but anyway Lake Pinure was this relatively small lake that the
Delcom Canal took and fed water from Lake Pinure through the Delcom Canal to Vermillion Bay Vermillion
Bay is our mouth to the Gulf yeah well Lake Pinure was this small lake that was only 10 feet deep
and in 1980 basically the Texaco Corporation was in that lake drilling an exploratory well
because you know there's oil in that ground well one thing I should say is that on the eastern side
the southeastern side of this lake is the gardens right it was called live live out gardens at the
time well live out gardens is on there is in an area called Jefferson Island Jefferson Island was
known for being uh this was a salt mine huge huge salt dome underneath the ground in Jefferson
Island so literally we're talking 1500 2000 feet deep a huge imagine a giant dome a giant pillar of
salt coming from 2000 feet below and just this mountain of salt underneath all underneath the
ground it's not a mountain of salt poking above the ground it's all underneath and honestly this
is just all along the Texas and Louisiana southern coast um to varying degrees this is where salt
deposits formed in the formation of these lands you know millions years ago or however many yeah
which is wild because I never thought of salt being I guess you think a salt flats and I guess
they just scooped this shit up here you know or they remove it from the I don't know like yeah how
they harvested yeah well basically at Jefferson Island this giant dome literal thousands of feet
deep in the ground was where they were harvesting rock salt the diamond salt company or diamond
mining company whatever they were called and effectively what they had done is you to mine salt
basically you drill a shaft where they had like set up elevators and whatnot and they had set up
what's called the room and pillar method you get down to a certain depth where you determine all
right we're going to stop here and we're going to start going out and we're going to build this
giant room giant you know like 80 100 feet tall by whatever room and pillar so you're making a
room but you're leaving strategic giant pillars holding up the roof above you massive pillars
they had they had carved these rooms at 800 feet 1000 feet 1200 and 1500 feet
and typically the ones at the bottom went out even further the ones on top a little bit short
so it's almost like a Christmas tree kind of yeah a pyramid looking shape but again individual floors
you have this think of a shaft like this this one pipe going down that you ride in the elevator
and now you've got a room so you got four different levels well what happened was
so what happened was they were drilling in Lake Pinyur and either through miscalculation by the
engineers at Texaco or inaccuracies in the plans that the Jefferson mining company had provided
to Texaco something went awry and their drill bit this is in November of 1980 they were drilling
down I told you one two three there's four levels well at the 1200 foot level which is not the
bottom but the second to last one the drill bit got stuck so the people on the rig again this is
only a 10 foot deep lake so this is what's called a jack-up barge you get a barge out there you
float it to the spot where you're going to drill I worked on one in the summer in college but
and then you have these huge stilts that they go down and they settle in the lake floor yeah
and they jack up your barge and now you start drilling so it's a whole drilling rig on a
floating barge yeah what happened was the drill got stuck as it encountered the salt mine
because it was piercing through with whenever the drill bit got stuck and they tried breaking it loose
and breaking it loose that started water rushing in to that whole flow that whole room at the 1200
foot level with all those miners that were working there was 55 miners in there and so what started
off as a slow trickle you know and luckily a couple of guys who were very alert saw you know
water trickling which is it's a big problem because what happens when rock salt gets well wet it melts
it it melts so if you get water in your mining operation now these giant pillars that are holding
up the roof above you are going to melt and you're you're in for a bad day yeah yeah so
so they only had one elevator you had 55 men who needed to get up and down an elevator and all the
men from the way I understand it they were all at those two bottom layers 1200 and 1500 feet deep
55 men but the elevator can only ride eight at a time and water is rushing in and it's starting
getting deeper and deeper and you're you think you're about to meet your maker and you're like
hurry up get that elevator up so what what started off as a slow trickle eventually became a massive
massive end of days apocalyptic whirlpool all this these huge expanses of of mines underneath
it was like pulling the plug on the bottom of the tub all that water came rushing in very very
quickly into to fill in all the cavities of the of these mines right luckily all 55 men escaped
nobody not one fatality none of the miners nor none of the drillers they all got off in time
the power became so great their whole drilling rig got sucked in the whole barge got sucked in
the whirlpool was so giant that lake pinier all the lake the land around the shore the the whirlpool
was so violent that it started ripping the land and it enlarged the lake significantly that's why
there's that chimney sticking out of the ground behind that tree when I got married at rib van
winkle gardens so the lake grew significantly the force was so strong that the delcom canal which
always always flowed southwards towards the gulf started flowing in the opposite direction
yeah the water started flowing upstream and there was a waterfall where the delcom canal
entered into lake pinier damn and a waterfall that this went on for like I think two days
like 40 40 something hours of this giant whirlpool just like the end of the world is happening here
so did it like melt all the salt and then it collapsed everything inside of it or the water
filled all of the those air spaces in the mines so rapidly that you basically compressed all that
air from the it was literally billions of gallons of water that rushed in yeah and all that water
got all that air got compressed so hard that the air the small little shafts that they had built for
air became a 400 foot geyser 400 foot of just just blasting going freaking bananas damn so
and the power of the suction was so strong like I told you you took a whole drilling rig and
sucked it in it also sucked 11 barges that were in the delcom canal it freaking pulled them in
and sucked them in as well and so I think it was over the course of two days it it eventually
started to to fill in the lake again which again now the lake was much larger it went from being
10 foot deep to 200 feet deep yeah that's that's the port this is the the powerful forces that
we're talking about and just seems a little retarded to be building a you know a mine underneath
a lake in the first place or to be drilling under like underneath it like well the listen this this
whole salt dome in the mining operation had been going on since 1909 oh it's not a problem till
somebody goes poking a freaking hole from above in the lake right and stabbing through and then
now it burst it burst through so all these 11 barges that got suck on sucked under once the once
the lake filled up the barges started rising to the top again boop boop boop boop all 11 barges
eventually came up and it was like the biggest freaking it's not really a it's kind of a natural
disaster but it was caused by it's caused by mankind right but it was an incredible incredible
scene a violent violent scene that must have looked like when you were a kid was like so hey
let's go check it out well I was born in 76 I was only four years old so this wasn't even really on
my radar but I mean you can believe that this was like national news type of deal there's like you
can go on YouTube if anybody doesn't know how to spell pin year uh peig in e you are I think yeah
pin year I mean the things are difficult to spell with french right it's it's not always uh easy to
follow yeah there's letters that don't need to be in here yeah I mean that's just an incredible
thing that happened in south Louisiana in 1980 that's like a story that most people don't know
about until they go visiting like yeah then we go gardens and like why is there a chimney sticking
out of the lake well a house used to be there because that used to be the shore yeah but the
violence of the whirlpool and like I said you can go and look this up on YouTube and there's
like helicopter footage and all that and it looks apocalyptic that's wild don't want to check it out
yeah yeah we so we left that spot and um I wanted to find a bridge like some bayou looking I guess
the the the idea of what you would think the the swamps and and all that so the first bridge you
took us to was like like a main highway it was not really the vibe and then like that I know the one
and it was so it was real close and then to find out that this was like the place that your dad
used to make you go ride a little dirt bike to go get him beer it was awesome it was that was a that
was a cool bridge like it yeah there was a lot of place like I kind of wanted to climb up to the
top and shoot I was like but it looked great that's that's my roots that's the steel bridge
so basically the first bridge that I took you to when we left jet the Jefferson Island area
I said well we got to go through Delcom and Delcom you know sounds like welcome Delcom welcome but
it's spelled d-e-l-c-a-m-b-r-e looks like Delcam Bray but anyway so I took him to the Delcom bridge
and it's like no this is this is just too massive it's on highway 14 like and you said do you do
you know anything smaller and I'm like yes I do yeah and then so in the country of Delcom
the country of Delcom and Erass so heading south in other words heading south meaning more towards
the the Gulf more towards Vermillion Bay is the area called Bayou Tig which is where I was born
and raised the first you know through elementary school and basically it's this steel bridge that
goes over Bayou Tig Tig being t-i-g-r-e that's tiger in French see it makes no sense like why do you
need the extra letters you know I don't know man blame the French but yeah it's this steel bridge
that goes over Bayou Tig and I literally grew up right down the road from there and you know we grew
up I learned how to swim in Bayou Tig this that old nasty Bayou water I mean it's disgusting when you
look over it but yeah that's that's how we swim and had fun yeah but my dad I had a little Honda
XL 75 dirt bike when I was eight years old and my dad being a guzzler you know like to drink and he's
like gory get on that bike go to the country store go buy me a beer and this is country store
ran by like old people they knew everybody everybody knows everybody knows everybody
hi Cory how you doing you know they these people barely even spoke English yeah French was I mean
all the all the older generation spoke French but anyway I would literally hop on my little
XL 75 dirt bike and ride you know a few miles up the road crossing over that steel bridge
can I buy a beer you know buy a beer put it between my legs and rip back home so my daddy
could get get his drink on yeah but it was just wild to to be back 42 years later yeah
with one of my people from Texas and we're shooting pictures from Harley Davidson from riding that
rickety dirt bike yeah to shooting pictures that are featured for Harley I mean that was a full
circle beautiful moment for it was very special you can probably buy a whole 12 pack now I probably
country store isn't there anymore Kyle I have you know it was gone a long time ago but it was it
was a very special moment for me to share my roots with y'all yeah well I mean think about it like
it'd be different like I have things like that here in Dallas but we're all in Dallas but it's
like we're cows from you know Hillsboro you know Missouri like when we go back to where he's from
like he could tell us some kind of stories and it could probably be very unique for him I got a
cool bridge there too for the cover bridge that's red nice so he could like have that experience
of like man it's kind of wild having my friends from Dallas here like we stayed at his dad's house
and whatnot and you know like it's just cool you know being you know a lot of our friends like
when James we were with his family up in uh where were we at um Duluth we are in Duluth yeah I mean
we're from where he was from from but like just being around his mom and his family uh was was
pretty um pretty you're seeing the whole side of your really good friend here that you would have
not otherwise had any type of access to and now you're actually physically there it's special
right like it feels it feels like something cool but yeah I mean that that's literally where I grew
up I mean I've got I've got so many memories of so listen my my parents divorced when I was
I don't know three years old or whatever so I would go live with my mom in town during the week
like during the school year I'd spend like two weeks with mom and my dad who still lived on by
Utig I'd spend weekends with him in the summers the schedule would alternate two weeks with dad
weekend with mom so it's always like you know kind of back and forth you know broken home yeah
kind of situation but my dad did not let having a son stop his partying see my dad was like
typical Cajun you know love to drink and party but he was also my dad was wicked smart
there's nothing this man couldn't figure out or fix or I mean he could weld he could build houses
like he built the the home that we lived in with his own hands and it was a welder he was a deep
sea diver in the Navy he did everything he also was an entertainer he played music in the bars
so he would literally take me he had a gig let's go Corey and I grew up in bars as a child like
you know from four or five years old on up yeah just I've talked about this before an old podcast
and stuff but like this is this was all like these old memories flooded back of like riding back home
with my drunk dad from playing the gig hoping what we don't die going across you know the bridge
and you know my whole my whole childhood was just me being nervous you know like it's just it's
nothing a child should yeah should experience but nonetheless I'm thankful for my roots I'm thankful
for my childhood and the way that everything turned out and being able to take y'all through
like you and Ray take you over the steel bridge take you through my hometown I didn't even tell
y'all but I was leading the way and I just pulled up at my mom's house and like we got to go meet my
mom yeah it would be insulting yeah for my mom to find out that I was she's got she's got that swaggy
accent part of the occasion so it's so when you see someone old down there or older person and they
and they have that that that cadence to their their um accent yeah it's so it's not it's not it's
weird because it's like you're not used to it right and it's a such a distinct accent that it's
like a part of every word they say as opposed to like when you hear someone from like Wisconsin
or Canada it's like you hear it in certain words they say yeah you're right you're right well you
know the the thing about the way that we speak back first off I've lost so much of my Cajun accent
like I've occasionally out here coming out or someone to tell me I hear it yeah really you
still hear it like I guess I still have it but you know the sad part is is that the younger
generations don't really speak French anymore and a lot of that swag that you're talking about
or that cadence that comes from from French and Cajun French in the way that we talk like my grandparents
grew up speaking only French yeah my grandparents English wasn't the best I mean we could communicate
they got better over time so then their their children so that would be my mom and my dad's
generation grew up speaking both the problem was from a state from a governmental level
French starting in 1921 was prohibited from being taught or spoken at schools because the
state of Louisiana these the government want wanted greatly to Americanize these dumb Cajuns
these dumb French speaking people that was seen as something like stupid like these are uneducated
dumb people and okay maybe the Cajun people were not the most educated but they definitely
weren't stupid yeah but the accent and that whole thing was associated with not being not being
smart let's put it that way so in 1921 they locked it down and said you're not going to speak French
at all anymore the children who like this happened is almost an overnight decision starting in 21
and the children who didn't know English this would be like my grandparents generation
they were growing up and all they spoke was French French was all they spoke in the home
and it's the schools taught in French and then now all of a sudden you couldn't speak it anymore
so you would get beat it was corporal punishment you'd get whipped you'd get you know beat across
your hands with the ruler you'd have to write a hundred times on the board I will not speak French
on the playground or whatever so these kids had cold turkey didn't even know how to express
kids had to some kids wet themselves because they couldn't raise their hand and say I need to go
I need to go use the restroom yeah so okay I mean this is this is this is how it went so
so because of that phasing out and it not being accepted to speak French in school well then the
parents at home had and the grandparents they had no reason as the generations went on to even
encourage their kids to learn French because it would only end in punishment yeah so it the language
began to fade starting in 21 until the point where all these subsequent generations like even my
generation I mean I kind of understand a little bit here and there I could say a few things but
I'm not fluent in French like not by any means yeah but the number of French speakers like in 1960
might have been a million in south Louisiana nowadays it's a hundred thousand and there have
been efforts so they made a huge mistake from 1921 to 1968 then they realized okay we screwed up
this is cultural heritage it's not about trying to demean or stop these people these stupid people
from talking they they recognized that there was a problem with locking down and preventing people
from speaking their native tongue so then they started Codafil CODFIL the council development
of French and Louisiana so now these efforts are like well golly we got to make up all this
ground and start teaching it in school again but the damage had already been done yeah if we don't
have a reason like if my mom is speaking to me in English only now we're gonna go manually we're
gonna forcibly introduce French back in it's just not natural yeah I applaud those who can do it
but the efforts never maybe they were kind of helping to fight off the the eventual dying
of the language I applaud the efforts I think if you can speak the language and do everything you
can too but again the whole the the community and the culture as a whole needs to support it yeah
but the damage had already been done and like I said you've lost a great percentage of the people
who still speak French my mom can still flu but who is she gonna talk French to yeah exactly my mom
is in her late 70s all her the old people that's how she would communicate with the old people the
people didn't speak much English well it was funny because you said that it's like
the older folks that I met at the dealership that would come up there they had thicker accents
than like the younger like Peyton didn't really have one his dad didn't really have one either but
man there was this guy that was showing Peyton some old photos that took a I took a photo of
that interaction that dude had a fucking accent on him there was this old lady that came up that
your mom has a pretty thick accent in the way she speaks well not maybe not it's just I think
Peyton said it best it's just it's like it's it's a flow it's rhythmic it's rhythmic right
but I mean like these like this guy that you're talking about with the thick Cajun accent and
whatnot these are the sweetest people man like these are yeah I think most of us that aren't from
there like we think of Cajun accents we just think of like Waterboy yeah you know sure like
what's that guy say homework harder boy everybody know that or something like that it's like
yeah I mean a true like a real you know like a real old person who who speaks with that heavy
heavy Cajun accent yeah it's it's gonna get lost yeah with the as the generations die off
um but those are the people who they're still french-speaking people but like I said a lot of it
has has died and is continuing to fade and uh I don't know how much longer yeah unless there's
like serious efforts I mean there are like french immersion schools right that you can send your
kids to where they're not speaking english you're speaking french from the time you get there to
the time you leave and that's wonderful um so it's useful to have I know like maybe speaking
Spanish is more useful for us up here yeah but it's this is our culture this is our heritage
and it's it's sad that the government yeah you know like the Cajun people have been through so much
I mean you got you got kicked out of France in the early 1600s okay you go start a new land in
Acadia you get kicked out of there because you won't swear allegiance now you come to south
Louisiana you can't catch a break they want you to stop speaking your language because they want
you to be more American so I mean that just speaks to the um the strength of the Cajun people
and the resilience these are um these are there's a good strong good hearted people yeah yeah
knock off that you're gonna say something I think we're all gonna be beige speaking uh an emojis
pretty soon yeah we're all gonna be the same color same what a shame dude the whole world's going
straight fucking idiocracy yeah like you gotta watch that movie now and just see the the the
crossovers it's like it was like a it was a prophecy movie you know it really felt like it um
so many even the old like simpsons episodes have like hit the nail on the head like or you guys
got some kind of technology where you're looking into the future or what but they've they've called
it out just being self aware you know I mean yeah just paying a little bit more listen I don't
like this timeline weird yeah this is a freaking weird time and it's just everything just feels
like it's upside down at least we're still riding a lot of motorcycles fit for now yeah yeah I mean
for now yeah exactly you know um yeah it's just weird but I mean this whole weekend we were doing
this I mean things felt you know it's like we were out of we were out on the motorcycle we weren't
I mean yes we were making content we're taking photos but we weren't like uh we weren't sitting
there on our phones all day and it and you know like you kind of get back to like doing what is
normal which is living you know I'm saying so yeah I think a lot of that is just people need to get
out you know mm-hmm well like I said what a great way to encourage you to get out and go discover
a new place than like a hog touring rally yeah it was a perfect conduit for doing that it's like
even I mean for me what was really maybe is uh uniquely like the first time we we leaked out
with Peyton and I forget the other guy's name the tattoo artist uh Mitch Mitch I know his last name
so Mitch and then his dad Peyton's dad Barry that first little bayou bar we went to oh that was
such a cool experience so that is like the ultimate doubt I was so glad that you got to go there so
that's technically it feels very bayou right but that whole area right there very swamp land
very cypress trees cypress trees coming out of the water gator swimming pelicans you know flying
that is technically that's the achafalaya basin this is this huge wetlands
absolute paradise for people who love to hunt and fish so it's not in particular like a little
bayou winding through the land yeah I guess I don't know the names yeah I don't really
sand and knee the what sand and knee the red dead redemption area that's all swampy sorry
my boy the yeah well just it you know I mean we caught it the best time the sun was starting to
set um I got to see my first real gator in the wild which was cool even though it wasn't that close
it's like you you knew it was a gator um air boats right there air boats uh
it in the the sun was setting it had a cool vibe the the bar just on the water it's it was like a
dive bar that you would love good food you know like and it's like man like this is it dude like
I could see that's what I told Peyton after the weekend is like dude why would you want to go
back to san francisco this is sick like yeah san francisco has the vistas and stuff but like
this is I feel like you you blow up all these spots in America I mean they are it san francisco's
a beautiful place but it's like you can't live there you know like unless you're writing programs
and inventing shit like you're not gonna you're gonna have a good life there or yeah I mean you
probably have a good life but it's just like this place is like home and you could uh you could
build something here you know and so I was I was telling was like man you if you want to do a shop
or build a motorcycle based company do it here you know be plant the flag raise it and people
will find you you know yeah that's a great perspective and great advice because there's
not like he said he doesn't have much of a chopper scene or there's not much of a community at all
yeah and laugh yet um he just has like a couple of friends that he hooks up with on occasion but
I mean that bike that the diner that I have in there that I'm working on painting uh he's from
Lafayette uh I forgot to reach out to him while we were down there but I was really trying not to
like put it out there that I was down there because I didn't want like to have a lot of people not
that a lot of people would but I would I didn't want to have to entertain anybody you know because
I have that mentality I have that like if if somebody else comes I feel responsible for you
to have a good time and then if I'm doing that then I'm not able to focus on the job that I'm
doing you know is this for Jordan or one of Jordan's friends not Jordan I this dude's name
is uh fuck got me tripping though it's like Larry I think oh okay maybe I don't know him I don't think
he's uh I don't think he's um Logan I knew it started with L okay so nice dude has a cool ass uh
um like kind of like a sand dune like a truck I don't know but a lot of work into it Cajun last
name I don't have his last name in my phone it's it's Logan Dyna paint job
dude I my the way I name people in my phone is very it's kind of fucked up honestly um Sean Chopper
let's see it's usually like the name Jordan FXR paint job um Chris Cathay Racer that's
Chris uh I you know Eddie photographer LA you know like I just like I need to put something
like almost like an adjective or something there to kind of like describe which Chris this is and
which of course you can in emojis yeah because if you put last names on there I'm like Chris yeah
I feel like because of social media we see we see like Instagram handles more than we see
courier bear you know or cow or like I would probably this is honor Chris's honor yeah
I remember last name yeah I just I you know it's not how you're wired that's why I mean dude I
commend you on that because like you really like retain information and like I want to be that me
and Mitch made this joke I was like Mitch right yeah Mitch nice to meet you Mitch like we kept
trying and I still fucking forgot his first name well yeah that remembering a name right of the
baddest tough it's very he's good but you seem like you do good at well okay listen because I'm
trying to get better at it okay most of the time when someone's introducing themselves to me for
the first time I all I hear is Charlie Brown's teacher yeah oh shoot wait what was that again
yeah Ray oh hey Ray I gotta repeat it yeah I mean I don't know what it is man it's just a skill
that like takes practice yeah I mean a lot more people nowadays too than back in the day
I mean yeah especially through doing all this stuff but like I'm bad with names sometimes and
it's it's not from a lack of not caring it's just like you said maybe being wired a different way
or whatever maybe there's a part of me that feels like well I need to see this person another two
times before I'm like invested because maybe they're not gonna be around you know something like that
no I get it I have abandonment issues that's what it is that's it all comes down to your childhood
yeah yeah like everything everything um but that paint job looks great by the way oh dude it's
I think it's very tasteful I think it looks good and it's it's like busy enough but it's still like
it's still classy enough you know what I mean so it kind of does both I I'm excited for him to get
that but but yeah um yeah the whole experience was wild man like you know even now like I'm still
a little nervous like hoping that Harley liked the photos you know because I when you go on one
of these things like um you know we were talking with Bobby Mr. Photography he helped out with the
podcast last night you know he went to shoot Chopper Fest on the ocean in Ventura so like
you know you kind of have a better your background's a little bit more scenic so
it kind of helps but I've always said that like in my opinion my ignorant opinion at that I feel
like being a great photographer is being able to walk away with something in any situation being able
to use whatever's in existence and find an angle or a perspective that's uniquely captures the moment
in the field so that's the that's the true skill of photography Tim O'Keefe is a master at that right
amen and so it's like one of those things that you have to like get mentally into a place to
do the work and be there and see it and move around and kind of take yourself out of whatever's
going on and just be like almost like a ghost in the ether and just see it from all angles you know
well I thought the pictures came out great they captured people having fun the essence of South
Louisiana you got some of the you know the traditional scenery of our of our you know
homeland and again just people having fun it came through in the photos so yeah I think it's great
I hope it just opens up to more opportunities to do this again I would do another honor I would
do another hog rally like I get it now I see what they do and how they go about it and I think that
instead of going into it with like all these preconceived ideas of what it is or isn't like
it's more like oh dude I'm excited to go to Denver Colorado or Nebraska you know Grand Island
or something speaking of which Joey Barela yeah what's up Joey you Joey was uh messaging me or
commenting on Facebook from the posts that Harley had done yeah well I had like shared it on mine
and Joey was like oh it might be time for me to break out my old hog vest and he put pictures of
oh nice Colorado road captain in such and such chapter I'm like hey do it dude ain't nothing wrong
with that Barela is like a prime example of like he he you know when I met him and he explained
like what he was looking for he's like man like he was a part of all that he really was trying to
find that community in Pueblo and those different towns along I-25 and whatnot and when he came to
the camp out like it really connected him with so many other people and he found like the groovy
one to be in you know he met Joe kid he met Brian from you know Idaho and got linked up with all
those dudes and look at this dude now he's building an amazing FXR for the tour this year yeah he does
good work you know yeah it was just funny I didn't know about his background like from hog yeah
hey we all start somewhere there's nothing wrong with it like I said I came back with an appreciation
I guess I always considered you know when I see someone wearing that type of vest with their
chapter and all that like okay dude this is cosplay you're not in a freaking one percenter club
take it easy but hey whatever they're having fun they're enjoying life and who am I to go
shit on that yeah I'm not gonna yeah it's like they're I mean like we customize their bikes those
vests are like they're uh that's their timeline you know they're they're tells the story right
yeah I mean you could there was I've taken pictures of some of the vests there I was like
man you're I could look at your vests and like it's told me the places you've been
you know some of the accomplishments within doing those like mileage things or whatever and then
yeah so I find that the best thing in that world makes more sense because it's like a badge of honor
it's it's almost like you're you know when you have the military coat and you have all your
metals and stuff but these are like memories attached to these uh you know I get it oh I'm in
no position I'm in no position to demean anybody I'm working on my jacket right here what is that
fast life old fast life you getting this car live to ride baby dang that's from your was this big
wool bagger days or sports for days so uh you remember clay yeah clay he he just brought this
jacket by one day and clay Barnett yeah what yeah he's like hey man I have this jacket laying around
if you want it I was like yeah dude it's been sitting on my chair for like four years dude it's
got the freaking hog a hog patch right there this is an XL dude there's no way okay you pulling a
Chris Farley right here dude it ain't that bad it's a pretty sick little jacket it's got these
little good on your chopper I mean look at that look at the other side drop a gear disappear
brother brother all right I'm doing the rest of podcast and this oh I wish I'd have known
I'd have brought one you got one too yeah I don't have it's not full of patches or anything but
I'm gonna patch this one out dang it's not a bad jacket I like these little things over there why
it's like all the shit that I thought was like super lame like cool to me now so what's next chaps
you getting some job not maybe yeah it's just it's just I don't know like I've never like long
sleep t-shirts and I'm like really into them right now really this is great wait one two three
this is dope hold on oh put that on back when I never wanted to wear helmets so we had to get
incredible don't live to get to get across that's that's that's Louisiana cut right there
Louisiana's a helmet state so that's the one you wear why does this feel like a
jre episode with like Duncan yeah everyone's dressing up actually funny stories like this
helmet right here I bought this at Panama City Bike Week in 2014 of course you did because I wore
a full face to I rode with this it's the first bike trip I ever went on my life like out of state
and I rode with this black bike club and they took me down there and that a lot of the way I've
traveled and showed these guys the travel I learned on that trip and we were walking around
the rally and I was like man I you know I think I don't think Florida's a helmet state but I was
like man I want to get a little helmet so I don't have to wear a helmet on the way back like that
but so I ended up buying this and then it just became like a I like painted a a little flying eyeball
on it a long time ago and you know so you got a lot of miles on that one no dude that's just that
novelty yeah okay I think when Brita first moved here she wore it a couple times
I mean that thing ain't gonna do shit you hit the ground you know it's got a sick paint job though
it's dope yeah it's cool you need the s on the other side the s yeah for what 90s f oh
stucie you have one no like the little three the what the six line or nine line oh yeah yeah
yeah of course of course yeah I don't know man it's uh but well you look fantastic thank you I'm
there's no way this is an XL I wear an XL it's an asian XL Jase a woman's XL it's probably
give it a shot dude oh lord this needs to get that so it needs buttons and it needs change
you know what he should get he needs to get a top hat oh yeah we need to get him a top at
so I can yeah I have all the houses we can outfit it nice oh my gosh we can custom make you one by
that one guy who wears top hey whatever man let them have fun like I was trying to say earlier
I can't clown anybody dude you know my my clown everyone because it's fun yeah but I have no room
to clown any but I try not to make fun of people I generally I genuinely do not make fun of people
but I'm in no position light-hearted yeah I'm not laughing at you I'm laughing with you pal
but listen these people are smashing miles their bikes aren't cool nothing I typically ride cool
bikes I don't even put five grand a year yeah these people are smashing 50 who am I yeah I'm a nobody
you know it's funny like talking about like clubs within like this world uh so my wife's dad you know
he's a forever he was a chp cop in LA back in the 90s and stuff like that but he still rides he has a
street glide and stuff like that he's part of a group of people that do like disneyland they have
disneyland cuts because they live out there in orange county and like like a full ass club but
it's like disneyland that's weird I'm saying but it exists and they're they're a community of people
I don't know I'm gonna pull it up listen man I'm sorry I just I can't get down with like adults who
are like seriously into disney that's weird to me man huh disney adults yeah met the fat girls that
do disney rides for fat girls so they can fit and uh see let you know what rides you can and can't
fit in and what places you can eat out there I don't know man it's just that's just weird to me
people who are like real enthusiasts and go multiple times a year like everything centered
around disney god bless you that ain't me yeah it's it exists um but I just say that to say
that there's like so many like people they they kind of like find ways to create tribes in all
these different situations like like what we we do it in like our bike night t bar somebody
does with their club style uh you know um badge of honor on instagram and that's their club that
they're a part of something right um motorcycle thing's so big it's like yeah I'm not it's I'm
not just a biker like I'm a biker in the t bar Tuesday Dallas vibe or the chopper guys or it's
like you gotta niche down yeah right yeah so you know maybe it's like maybe we should all go join
our dealerships haul group and maybe we should and just I joined it when we were up in uh Wisconsin
for real uh was well we were in Milwaukee you get to go in the museum for free too if you had that
well the reason I went was either pay 30 dollars go in the museum or spend an extra 40 to get
free roadsides I was like as well join it and so yeah I was a member of the hog chapter for about a
year I didn't renew it but you didn't go to any events or anything you just this was a formality
I think you know what actually the roadside thing sounds pretty convenient so in just in case and
we're you know we're traveling so much on these bikes and I was like if I come in a come in a you
know a hand and a pinch so yeah if if if there was something going on locally that I could
just rip to for a weekend to check out I would do it um right now with all the work going on it's
kind of it feels impossible but you know I mean that's kind of like one of the things it's like
when they hit me up you know I might have said it on podcast prior to this but when uh they hit me up
says hey we we got an opportunity for you we love to get you to go shoot this thing I immediately
turned it down I immediately said man I don't think that's for me and I think either a I either
talked to Bobby or it was when Josh came over from formally from Tulane life when he came over and we
talked and I like realized like no I need to do this and so I reached back out and said hey is that
still available because I'll do it it wasn't convenient in the sense of like I have all this
stuff going on here but it's just kind of like an opportunity like you know explain why you initially
said no immediately because I didn't feel like it like it's not my world exactly you know like
but again that goes to the whole thing of like okay well if I want to say or you know even be able
to carry the I guess it'll be moniker of being a photographer then you have to be able to take an
assignment and go like produce something and so you know I'm not saying that I'm like somebody
that wants to be a wedding photographer but there's like something about that it's like man you know
that might be fun to do something I'm not used to doing and you know not saying I'm looking to do
that but you know what I mean like like I when I first picked up a camera there was this idea
there's just like it's just like it's like when you first skateboard it's like man maybe I can
maybe I could go pro maybe I could you know get sponsored one day it's like there's this thing that
in my brain that keeps me like coming back and working on things to get better you know and so
when I picked up a camera it's like this is fun this is cool I could see myself doing this as a job
but then you you know you make a couple good images then you have like droughts you have
uninspired areas you get tired of shooting the same things it's like there's this multitude of
things that get in the way and but what you realize like when you're a working photographer then the
jobs change the opportunities change the it's like you're not going to shoot the same thing over and
over and over again because you kind of already do that it becomes a new thing and it all becomes
skills of again like I said earlier going out and just whatever the scenario is producing some work
from that you know and in that sometimes you'll get something that becomes you know a part of
your portfolio you know well dude when I look back on that that long weekend all I can think is
thank god you said yes because I wouldn't have had that awesome time and like a rekindling of my
my love for my home yeah and you came away with new relationships right you made new friends
and now you're you've grown as a photographer as well right and you you're you're also padding
your resume yeah you're coming up with more skills awesome jobs and hopefully it's just a stepping
stone to more yeah I mean honestly dude like seeing what like Sebastian's been doing you know
von Gasvall bro he is he's killing it right now I mean I was so flat out like envious jealous but
like in the best way in the best way like when he got to do the uh the moon eyes thing and he
him and some you know David and and uh that chick uh Dorian Dorian they all did uh you know Japan on
Harley's I was like that is sick I can't even imagine like I mean I'd it would be fun to be
paid by Harley to go do something that I normally do like that would be fun because a little bit
of stress will be relieved because now I just got to capture something I'm used to being around
like I'm I'm familiar with this right but like I would love to like right now I think them a lot
of them just rode up the the California coast to go to the one moto show I'm like man I really
would have loved to be a part of that you know this boy goes like to to California in the west
coast like I come to Dallas yeah yeah he's like he'll just hop on a dyna I know he flew this time
but yeah just hop on that dyna and do a couple of iron butts and here I am it's and it's cut it's a
custom motorcycle he's got it dialed into his liking yeah and I think that shit's super cool
when like him and FX DLS Brooklyn and those dudes are out there like making their bikes
uniquely theirs but then also laying down miles on them you know I'm stoked that I was able to meet
yeah when he came out he's a great guy he's been like almost a week with us man it was like
great conversations every night uh you know him like being around him makes me want to go
photograph more because he wants to go photograph versus like yeah he's a genuinely interesting
person who's not just surface level boring he can have stimulating conversation and inspire you as
well 100% yeah so yeah I don't know I don't know what come of it you know hopefully they dig them
hopefully this what we're talking this podcast is like that's not how we want you to describe the
events or but I just I feel like it's always important to be honest and authentic even if like
you don't really have the the best like click you know like uh you know sound bite of like
what to say it's like I I would say this I walked away from this event as you said a while ago with
a lot of appreciation for southern Louisiana to the point where I I generally want to go back
with some friends to go link up the new friends I got and just have some of those same experiences
again right uh or what'll become the new version of that also caveat like we also got to do it in
April early April as opposed to like it might suck down there in June you know it's not fun so there's
also that maybe we wait till the winter time maybe uh or maybe after born free Texas you just do a
little big loop out of there go down there for a couple of days um so yeah I walked away from a
lot of appreciation of that uh I got to do photographs and and I was tasked with writing
something which I I went through an error where I was really trying to do the blog stuff a lot
more but it did get a little taxing um just another thing I'm trying to promise the world
that I'm like I just don't have the time in the day to do all this stuff so well I do like um
the way the article came out I mean I know you had me kind of look over it just for commas and such
but it had a good flow you have a gift for putting your thoughts together in a good way so
in the written format yeah I think I was trying like they said between 800 and 1000 words and I
was like trying to I'm a C student all day long dude like I'm gonna do exactly what you asked me
in that regard but where I messed up is I read some of my other friends articles that they had
done for Harley and I'm like man I'm getting too personal like I felt and I'm not throwing shade
at them or anything I felt like they said the thing that they should say you know what I mean
and I was trying to do a story arc of these people I met and how this bridge between you know this
young guy on this bike and his dad who's a part like I'm trying to sell a sitcom basically you
know what I mean that's what it felt like I was like I need to dial this back you know okay everybody's
own personality is coming through so yeah there's nothing wrong with that you know I was planning
on vlogging that whole trip and so I filmed everything on the bike going there and then when
I got there I was like I'm so nervous about shooting that I need to just I don't need to add this layer
of need to do this if I'm doing any camera work and he's be with the camera yeah and you're you're
on there dime yep so you need to be double dipping yeah exactly yeah just stay focused on the assignment
right yeah but like I said I I know that when I mentioned to you that we should ride our choppers
down there at some point and uh I remember I said at that that uh that bar that uh restaurant next
door and I was like hey man remember uh when I said we should write our choppers down I was like
I'm just playing it dude these roads weren't that bad it's not that bad but some of some of the
back roads coming in because I did all back roads from Dallas all I didn't do any major highway
down there and there was some spots once I crossed over into Louisiana I was like god oh man you know
and the whenever I went up to meet you that's Sunday morning because you were staying in rain
yeah and uh the roads that I took from from erath through Kaplan going up into rain through
indian bayou and rain that's typical Louisiana crap just a patchwork of well of patches and it's
yeah yeah it sucks and that's that's kind of how I remembered riding in south Louisiana
I mean I would still ride the chopper down there it's not when you when you're on a chopper you're
kind of like you're looking at the road more than if you're blasting at 90 miles an hour on a road
light that's true so like you're you know it's just a part it's a different that's why I keep
saying visceral because you're you're doing more things on a bike that has less things to do on it
you know what'd you think when you jumped on the roguelite for a minute it was fantastic
it's very I mean I know this is a this is a much bigger heavier bike than my m8 softtail right my
shriek bob but it felt it felt nimble and light not hard to maneuver yeah it it just felt like
easy to ride quite honestly they did shout out to Harley they did a great job on the the design
and engineering of the bike for sure for sure other thing I wanted to ask you is like you got to
do a a semi long trip in the new cabuto helmet what's your thoughts of that let's sell the sell
those helmets baby offer code fast life not yet it was um it's fantastic I absolutely and I'm not
I'm not just saying that because you're affiliated with them or anything like that the helmet was
incredible um I come from a background of riding like Japanese helmet right showy has always been
my brand and I I associate showy was with like top tier I mean they've got like a wind tunnel
yeah forever they had one before everybody else right they they take they take design and safety
and aerodynamics you know they take it very seriously so and we all know the Japanese do not
mess around when it comes to quality and just the overall workmanship but that helmet was very
showy like like the quality was just as good if not better and same thing is like I used to rock
a showy rf 1200 I mean from the first time you put that helmet on it's like oh yeah there's no
like hot spot where it's crushing your skull or pushing your cheeks or whatever like it felt good
right from the jump it had good airflow I absolutely love the look of it
yeah I feel like we were talking about earlier without not throwing any shade
any other helmet but it's like there's this evolution I feel like visually that I'm getting out
where like I the other helmet we've been associated with is starting to become
it's dating this time period it's almost like it hasn't evolved into like a neck I don't it's
still a sick helmet it still looks good but I guess my taste is changing yeah I'm over that's
the that way the it's nothing to do with the helmet the helmet's great my taste is changing to
something of a different look and I actually really love I've always liked the shape of the bell star
helmet you know like I like that kind of spoiler coming off it it's just very agree racy and that's
why I've liked the shape of the mod banded because it seemed like it had a little bit of that
elongated kind of like you're tucked in the helmet you know the flow is going over you yeah
but the arrow blade which is the newer model that that the cabuto dropped has
like the shape that you want but it doesn't have as many like external spoilers that are like
you know stuck on if you will that you would you know for me to paint one it's hard to get the
the stuff needed to reinstall those things correctly that's why I haven't really dived
deep into painting these helmets yet but as you see I got a couple downstairs I can blow apart and
see what is going to take to do them and I'm actually excited to paint them because of it
being a new canvas now and giving me a little bit of a of a new playing field to figure out how to
flow a style into it or whatnot so there's a lot of that going on I mean I've I've just been a
little bit stagnant with wanting to paint helmets lately so I have like three or four left on my
list and I really haven't taken any in and I don't know how much I want to take into that
I really want to paint bikes nobody's asking me to paint bikes anymore all my really good customers
like the the wentons and those guys that I love the death like they keep me they keep me
doing well with helmets and I will always be forever grateful but I'm like I want to paint a bike
dude I want one of those yeah yeah well look I'm I'm super anal I'm very picky and I don't just
say I like something just for the sake of saying it like I was very impressed with this helmet and
for me to come out and actually give it kudos yeah and like my thumbs up of approval I mean it
yeah it's a damn good comfortable stylish helmet yeah get one again the one I the one that we're
talking about in question is the arrow blade f like yeah um and I think it looks very very
appropriate like in the Harley lifestyle and on on the Harleys as well right some look some other
helmet brands and such look more sport bike I thought that this aesthetic fit very well with Harley
and and function functionally as well because I like to ride I like to ride with my visor open
a lot with ray bands underneath and it's you know it's it's got the carve outs for for your sunglasses
obviously it's got the pockets for your for your audio yeah and so I've never really been a good
like resource to say whether or not I think something's loud or quiet like sound wise but
and I guess not to compare it to anything but like did that was that a bother of you to feel
like you heard like a lot of outside noise well well this trip was honestly one of because
like some of the weather we were riding back in it was it was chilly that morning so I was riding a
lot with it closed and we were you know we were ripping so it was too much to have my my visor open
but even when it was closed I thought it felt I mean no helmet's gonna be quiet like you're in
this little vacuum chamber but relative it was definitely on par with any other top brand you
could think of as far as like airflow and just the overall comfort and like the wind noise and such
and like I said I like to ride with my visor open and sometimes intermediate
it drives me nuts when the detents aren't strong on the visor and you start ripping and it starts
either slamming down or sorry or it goes up yeah that's that's not gonna happen on this helmet it
is super strong and I like coming in the center like that rather than like offset and it's getting
all cocked so that center and the the mechanisms are super easy to operate so bravo to that team
they said that basically they have to have a locking thing for it to be approved for certain
safety ratings and moto gp has to have that yeah so the visor is the same visor that's on the f17
helmets which is their moto gp helmet it's the same visor everything it's just that clicks onto
this helmet as well no idea so that's why it still has that locking mechanism on it okay yeah well
it's it's very easy to use even with gloves on I had no problem opening and closing yeah um and some
some like locking mechanisms on other brands are very they're funky yeah they're just very
funky and hard to operate with gloves and it's not the case with this one yeah where are we at right
now 150 cool oh I want since we had you in here I figure we can all go down a chopper oh chopper
tangent a little bit yeah chopper chopper talk I still I still can talk in this subject I still
know enough when you're gonna finish your chopper dude I know I'm sorry it's I apologize like I told
you dude I get mine done at your stops well he's always over here I have been and honestly I don't
have that much more to do to finish you know my chopper Nadine right to finish the fab work and
like send it off to get you know for you to paint it and such but I've just been in like hustle mode
there's a demand for people wanting my mid controls and I'm here I'm here to provide so
property taxes aren't getting any cheaper every year so I'm here to hustle I'm here to make money
if you want to buy my parts I'm not going to keep you waiting so I have been in this mindset
of you know for the past several years all I've made is like those Frisco mid controls which are
very high-mounted chopper foot controls and that's been great but then when when you and I did your
shovel head chopper last year I kind of reintroduced an old an old kid the what I call it training mid
controls that that are much lower that amount to the transmission plate and so since your bike came
out people started hitting me up hey when are you going to make these again so I did and those have
been selling really well and like we said many times before dude my most fulfilling most fun
thing that I love the most in life is creating and designing and bringing like something into
fruition that didn't exist before so I also developed three three new foot control kits as well
like I'm playing with Nadine I've got two new kits foot kits again mount to the forward control
position two that are for hydraulic foot control for foot clutch right so you for jockey shift
applications and then the one that's for a standard foot shift and they I think they're cool because
like two of them especially the foot position is significantly closer to you than a traditional
forward control so it's much more you're not all stretched out and you still have like a nice bend
in your in your leg it's very very comfortable no it's not quite mids but sometimes on bikes the
mids are so far back that you're you feel kind of cramped this is very comfortable for a foot
control position so that's what I've been doing it's just I like I said I've been hustling and
plus I've got like home projects and stuff like I'm building a deck and doing home improvement stuff
but um hopefully here in the very near future I'll be able to finish the little amount of
fab work that I have. Have you not thought of like you know because like when you made that
tell light license plate bracket like why not bang some of those out and sell a few of those it seems
like that would be a decent little hustle you know yeah perhaps I don't know I mean I I think
it's probably because I can't I can't hardly keep up with foot controls like they keep me busy
and I'm thankful I'm thankful for everybody's ever spent a dime with me that's great because I mean
you're keeping my you're fueling my passion and my creativity and I'm getting to have fun and make
a few extra dollars yeah to support my family so I don't I don't need to do any of this I enjoy
doing this and like I said I use this money to have fun with my family and and for doing stupid
paying not so fun stuff like property taxes and which I don't look forward to every year so that
helps to fund that sort of thing so yeah I can imagine property taxes in your places you don't
want to know what I submit the year yeah yeah yeah I mean with Kyle getting on one which I think
we're gonna be doing that I forgot we're soon we're gonna be doing another quaint zone with
Jaden and probably going down that rabbit hole of like Kyle's chopper journey but yeah it's exciting
for me with him jumping on it now is because I do you know sharing these experiences with people
is like really what makes it dope it's like riding with anybody else on a bike is cool regardless
of what it is but when you got someone riding a bike like yours and this thing it feels a little
bit more like we're both in the trenches like yep you know what I mean 100% of course it's nothing
and I mean it's um it's contagious when you have a friend who's so freaking hungry and wanting to
soak up everything about this medium this new motorcycle medium and I've been pulling everyone up
yeah choppers are fun you know we were talking about this with Graham last time I don't know
I'm gonna put this podcast out first or his but I really feel it's going to be interesting to see
how much shift happens in the scenes that we've all kind of been a part of with
you know look thrashing and those dudes are so like like uh they get they just people dig what
they're doing I dig what they're doing right so y'all went to the uh the thing in surges last year
and there was so many people at that event right the uh the taco run thing right so with them
jumping on panheads and wherever they end up taking these bikes like how many people are gonna be
you know influenced inspired by that that are gonna want to go down this path so
it's good for guys that that make products and it rises that tide a little bit but
like anything it does bring a lot of people in it that's chasing the trend you know which
great now panhead prices just went up huh well I mean they always been up again another surge
we need to get evo prices up baby oh easy wait till I'm done yeah well I I don't mean like
chasing trends and whatever I mean in some form or fashion like I got inspired to jump on a chopper
through the channels in which that inspired me therefore I wanted to try it so yes in a sense
I'm chasing a trend or you know in that like simplistic uh you know way of saying it but
I hoped that people won because of the a true challenge of riding a different type of bike
having a different type of experience on motorcycles not just because well that's what
these guys are doing and these guys are doing so I need to do it too to be one of the guys
if you're hanging if you're riding around if you like we've always seen this happen when we were
doing all the t-bar stuff James remember it shows up to bike night on a on a v-rod and before you
know it the dude's like I won't bike like y'alls he's not chasing a trend he's literally inspired
by what we're doing and he wants to do it too he's like I want to do that too that looks like fun
you know same way I got heavily inspired wanting to learn to fabricate helping you do the gold
fxr chops like dude this is what I want to do but it's like if I didn't get inspired by it I wouldn't
be chasing this uh these skills and this stuff now you know so well as long as people are doing it
for the right reasons not just to hop on a trend but it's coming from a place pure within you
I applaud it let's go baby name my chopper bandwagon bandwagon write it on the belt
no you need to draw like one of your dicks on the tank but like find a way to make it
a bandwagon dick yeah you know what I'm saying he does want to do one of his like his famous
waiters I was going to do something on it I don't know if it'll be a penis but it should
probably be a penis I think it'd be I think it should be one of those maybe let's get the stance
right first you know like maybe that should be the top priority can't we don't there's no time for
that kind of talk right all right where's the cock gonna fit city it's stitched in his seat
oh boy uh there's probably some play on words where you can use some term for penis and the chopper
or you know we'll whiteboard that I guess you know focus group it so you are you I mean you're
Sturgis every year right yeah so I mean you have the the soft tail as the backup but is there not
this feeling of wanting to have like a fresh build at Sturgis well yeah there's always that feeling
but it's still a new bike for me like this having this this inmate soft tail I can't take much credit
for it right um Marcus and Stephanie initially owned it and then sold it to Tim O'Keefe and then
you painted it so it's got a little bit of all my family in it but it's still new to me and I love
the bike I think um I would still have a wonderful Sturgis experience even though it's not like one of
my builds yeah whatever I don't have this ego where I need to like go flex on people no I just
want to go have fun in Sturgis but it's still a new bike to bring to Sturgis every year and that's
that's perfectly fine by me yeah it'd be nice if I had Nadine all done and I could bring it for
another go round which I think I will after the second round of remodeling you know makeover
but maybe some other time I mean you could literally just be a born-free builder right now
for Texas get it done for Texas you know I know you don't like joining the I'm okay I'm not looking
for anything yeah anything like that it's okay he's going right there yeah yeah I just well he
rode it home from there and that's when he noticed that the frame was cracked on yeah the next day
I'm like oh god I rode home with a broken I'm assuming it happened at some point on the way home
but I I love the direction that the bike is going like because at first I had this attitude
like I'm not touching it this was Lloyd's vision and all and then once that frame broke and I
realized there are truly some things that needed to be addressed I had no problem but like okay
I rode around with it looking in his vision or with his vision for the first year and now I'm
I like the way that it's turning out it's got it's got Lloyd's DNA all over it but with my little
yeah a little bit of my seasoning you know I made mufflers for the first time yeah those look cool
thank you um but I think little baseball bats is what they remind me of that's what that's what
that's what I said because Nadine's a hitter that's why I made him I gave him a I gave him a baseball
bat profile yeah I dome the end and it looks like a thick wall yeah it does yeah so I hope it's
almost machined out it's what it looks like yeah it looks like it's carved out of a chunk yeah
but I do need to detune this bike it's just too nasty and gnarly it's too difficult to start it's
got almost 11 to 1 compression on a stroker shovel and like I want a little I want a kitty cat
I'm gonna unfortunately the pistons are very expensive from sns to go from the high compression
version to the low compression they're like a freaking grand for some pistons but whatever
so I'm gonna put low compression pistons which will bring the compression down to like nine or
nine and a half to one and then also the cam is too gnarly it's a C grind I'm gonna go to
Andrew's B grind less lift and duration so hopefully these things in combination will
kind of give me a tone it down yeah and look I I don't weigh but a buck 75 right I'm not like
freaking Brooks who just walks up to the bike and starts it straddled and just boom boom boom
you know like it's a little 50 cc moped or something you know uh I'm doing my best it's
giving my everything and when you're dealing with a magneto fired bike yeah these are very faint
sparks so that's another thing that makes it more difficult I'm keeping the magneto I'm not
getting rid of this cool but I'm gonna try my best to detune this bike and make it a little bit
less gnarly because I'm already I mean I got the roguelite coming up next it's got to get a
little bit of sauce on it and then you know I'm getting super antsy again after you know watching
Kyle like helping him figure out these things that I had to figure out and then now it's like I really
want to go start like I'd like to next year I'd like to collect some stuff this year like maybe
early next year yeah try to like pump out like a like an evo chop and maybe ride it to California
but then again if the thing keeps going well with Harley and I get to be a part of the program
again next year like there's just so too much can change between now and then so look here player
yeah you need to sell some freaking bikes because you got a stable down there we're gonna have
difficulty walking around and navigating this shop you need to get rid of some before you
keep accumulating I want to have all four bikes done for like a couple of weeks so I can flex
just to you know just see all four bikes dialed in and done like yeah I mean if you really think
about it like if you take away the gold FXR chop and that's on the equation I have three different
styles of bikes they have three different types of experiences on it they got the roguelite that's
just like does it the chopper does it for me internally differently right something there
but the the FXR like the the Ventura FXR is just literally like a ripper a fun bike that's narrow
that's fun that's got suspension it does it all like the roguelite does not as fast as a roguelite
but it has storage it can travel we can do those things so those three bikes really just like
check all the boxes of each one feels different to ride it's a different experience right we were
reaching out and saying they want to do another bike or do a chopper it's like the goal needs to
be to do a bike that feels different not try to make the bike be a roguelite but it's a chopper
you know like the point is that it feels different but ride a carburetor there's nothing wrong with it
make it a hardtail like these people that want to have like I mean I get the m8 chopper thing
like the soft tail it's it's cool you know we we've nerded out about your knees stuff and
you know the stuff that like the ration of those guys did was cool it's like I get that
and if that's calling you cool but I'm telling you right now the best part of the chopper
shit is the stuff that everybody's trying to avoid the hardtail is not bad you know the jockey
shift it's so it's fun jockey shifting takes fun to a whole different level of the motorcycle ride
I mean yes a motorcycle is like a manual transmission inherently but this actually
feels like a manual you have a shifter dude you know a knob you know and you're banging the gears
like you would like you would if you were in a like a sports car or a hot rod or something you
know so no laptop needed or nothing just a pure spartan motorcycle that's so much feedback yeah
and people are probably just annoyed with it by now because I'm preaching about it but like
that it really is it's refreshing and I think that if like if you're bored with the motorcycle scene
you know it's like it's just not fun to you it's not this it's like bro change the bike you're on
that it's it's just maybe you got tired like this you're not married to this thing right so it's not
your whole identity right it doesn't have to be and I'm I'm guilty of like preaching like this is who
I am technically I'm still fucking I'm still a t bar daddy you know what I'm saying I'm still
t barring it out right but like there is a part of me that would like something with some different
style bars but change the bike try something new go down another path don't be get out of your
head of thinking like oh I'm copying people or you know I'm not I don't want people to think I'm
a clout chaser like dude if you are interested in a chopper or if you're a chopper dude that's
interested in an FXR or a bagger just fucking do it you know what I mean like you don't owe anybody
an explanation for any of that stuff you know yeah I'm just sick and tired of seeing people like
flexing through how much money they spent on their bike and with these expensive parts and all that
like that just ends up with an absolutely so soulless result I think like that that whole
not that whole era that's never going to go away there's always going to be people yeah
with little man syndrome that have to flex but personally I'm just so I mean we talked about
this ad nauseam I'm just so sick of it like freaking make something man learn learn a skill
learn how to customize with your bare hands instead of scrolling through and adding this to
your cart and buying these parts and putting it on and look it's custom not really what did you make
yeah I just feel like if it's starting to feel like the the the movement of when the FXR scene
went to like this OEM plus factory looking bikes with like upgraded parts it become it became the
ultimate flex because it's hard to stop when you're used to like I'm used to having these
type of bikes you're talking about where it's got this it's got that it's to the nines it's got this
paint job right now I even feel like my style of paint is synonymous to a style of motorcycle
that is not necessarily that's becoming the new big will and so I'm in this weird boat myself where
I'm like man like I contributed to this like trend it's gone this direction and now I feel removed
from it it's okay it's okay yeah personal evolution and so like I'm gonna like I don't know if the word
is it's definitely not renaissance I'm in a rediscovery period of like really trying to redefine
like the look of bike like my roguelite is not gonna look like a roguelite that I've ever had
I'm 100 percent trying to take the energy from the brown FXR the ventural one and try to capitalize
and build from that to where it creates something of that era but feels custom I love it you know
because I love hearing that because now I don't want you know like the style that I've been doing
the helmets that we've put out like all the brands do it now so it's the norm so finding a way to
tone it back and make it classy is the only way I can see of standing out now it's like
learning I learned a lot doing that chopper and that FXR that it's very easy to continue to add
it's very like intentional to know when to stop yeah thank you well said and that's the hard part
to learn because I'm used to the wow it needs more I need this I need that but now it's like okay well
you just you're refining the the palette of how you look at customizing something and there's
always a gonna be an audience for the over not over the top in a bad way but just the everything
bike right sure I get it some people are really insecure like that I mean there's there's dudes
and choppers that have that type of shit you know I saw a meme today of some dude that looked like
straight out of 06 tall bars the flipped up had and matching everything and crazy on a chopper
but it was just like that's cosplay the same way that you know some of this other shit is
as well you know what I mean so I don't know well dude I'm excited to see what you come up with
this on the new I haven't even designed anything yet I just know I'm it's gonna be green that's all
I know really yeah never on the green bike before well I mean this is like when you painted my tour
bike right for the first FXR tour that was very OEM inspired but still clearly fast life with your
signature lines and I freaking love the way that paint job well that's how this this FXR that
I've been working on is gonna be that as well you know it's it's uh it's gonna have factory lines
but I've got to find a unique way to jazz it up but not but keep it in that family of like
again OEM plus like like where it it's almost like how do you make it look like this is a CBO
version of whatever this bike is like it's a it's a flavored up style paint job you know
you're still gonna do your signature tank line yeah on that one I will for sure um what about the
road line I think the road line is gonna just depend on how I flow things because I would like
for the road line not to look like your typical paneled outside of the tank side of the fairing
whatever I want to find lines that feel like it could be OEM but you know it's not it's like you
clearly know this is a custom motorcycle are you gonna um try to stay away from points or you're
not not gonna abandon that that's I think the points is what puts you in that category of what's
been going on now it's like finding a way to soften those edges well you definitely were a
disciple or a an apostle in the the points game yeah and the points game factory started copying
off of you yeah um you know like the the new road glide that that baby or not baby like the
two one and black one that like Oliver Jones got uh like that is a good looking bike and I feel like
that scheme like is a that one and I think it's a purple one that's similar to that that those
are like lines that I feel like Harley did a good job with that fit that FXR like OEM FXR culture
that wants an OEM looking paint job it's good colors good combination good lines and so I kind
of want to take that and figure out maybe new lines in that vein or build from that in some way
I'm not gonna say there won't be points but I'm trying to avoid them I don't want it to look like
my previous bikes fantastic look all I want to see from people is just the human touch yeah yeah I
enjoy seeing even you know little what would be considered flaws that doesn't bother me at all
I mean to a certain extent I don't want booger welds but um to tell that a human made that or
laid that that line down in the paint job or whatever I think that's special yeah that's that's
we're doing these things in the same way that you're kind of evolving and like the uh I don't
even know if it's evolving it's like you're having fun again building things and creating things
he's having fun on a new bike a new experience a new project and I'm you know uninspired by what
I've done and I'm trying to find that inspiration again through doing new things new ways you know
I'm saying so um it's crazy that that FXR is the most understated bike I've ever built for myself
right the gold one with the gold wheels and stuff the brown one the Ventura but yet it's garnered me
one of the biggest opportunities I've ever got as you know as a bike you know builder whatever you
want to call it right so there's just something too that it speaks to the to the real customer
based if that makes sense I don't I don't want to be like generalizing so much but you know I
think I mean even thinking back on some of the paint jobs you've done in years past seems like
the ones that resonated with people the most like even when you did for mark uh big trouble right
isn't that dinah that was very oem inspired and people were they loved it yeah you know raving
about it so yeah I always say it's like the last thing I want to do is get famous for the type of
paint jobs I don't want to do yeah and like as of recently it's like all I get hit up for is flames
I'm like I dig it flames are sick you know flames on that one I got a roguelite coming in a week
it's flame it's getting flamed out that I'm excited to do um you know trust me there's a part of me
that would love to just flame out my roguelite but I feel like that's that's it's it's too easy and
there might be a flame on it it might be something incorporated but like right now like
right now I'm solely focused on getting this FXR built of course once that's done I think that my
my shift can shift or my my mind can shift over to the roguelite and like really down I just I got
all the parts I just need to coat things and paint it that's all I really gotta do so it's not like
this uh this the only real thing I have to create in that process is the paint job so not like your
figure not like we had to do today's figure out this wiring to make all this shit work right I mean
right so we gotta get you a lathe bubba dude I want one so bad let's put some feelers out on this
podcast if you're in the Texas region or the surrounding states and you have a lathe that
could work for chase yeah I'll trade some paint for it for sure you know like please preferably
American made yeah something you know what a grizzly or something yeah with a minimum
8 to 10 inch swing and 36 inch bed length stuff I don't even know what it is I'm gonna get a
lathe and lose a finger all right guys this is fun thank you Corey for all the help thanks for
having me wouldn't help me with that experience and Kyle appreciate you uh running the cams
no problemo yeah this is fun thanks for having me we are a little bit uh I'm tired as fuck that
food really put me to sleep I'm getting my second win now all right yeah I drink a thing of coffee
and I'm still like chilling all right thanks thank you hope you guys enjoyed it I want to thank Corey
for not only going on this trip with me but coming in sitting down the podcast once again
and just dropping some good knowledge and his experience and I really truly guys had a blast
at this event um I guess what I would say is don't sleep on these hog things you know and
they might not have the flash and and the uh a lure that say some of the events that I know a
lot of you listeners and myself go to but I generally walked away with some new friends and
I think that ultimately that's one of the best uh currencies you could think of from attending
event is the new frown friendships and uh relationships so yeah try it out guys trust me
and once again I hope you guys enjoyed it and I want to thank you all for listening I want to
thank you all for your support of this podcast myself included and I really want to encourage
you guys to check out our sponsors and possibly check out our patreon as a way to support this
channel and the things that we're trying to do with it so that's all I'm gonna say about that
I appreciate it hopefully you guys have a good one and uh I got another podcast dropping real
soon for you all can't talk today you have a good one peace
About this episode
The hosts recap their Cajun Country HOG Rally trip and admit they came in skeptical, then left impressed by how welcoming and deeply rooted the Harley community felt. Along the way, they talk through rally formats, guided routes, and the value of HOG membership, while also diving into Cajun history, language loss, and a vivid Louisiana geography lesson. The back half turns toward bikes, photography, helmets, and custom-building philosophy, ending with a more appreciative view of the rally and the region.
Harley-Davidson Motor Co. reached out and hired me to ride down and photograph the Cajun Country H.O.G. Rally. I reached out to my favorite Cajun, Cory from Maindrive Cycle, to ride with me back to his hometown!
