Still Wandering in Indiana

Woot!

I love me some Ralph Stanley claw hammer banjo but I don't know if me or Elvis can tolerate the amount of banjo music you will hear on the Kentucky Adventure Trail.

My matriarchal ancestors are from western Kentucky so Elvis has a trip there in his future. Banjo country for sure but not nearly as much as eastern Kentucky.

Everything will be fine as long as your bike keeps running.

Not much motorcycle content in February in Indiana---but I sure wish there was. I keep telling myself, "one more day closer to riding season," but I really need some saddle time.

(Well, I guess there is motorcycle content in Indiana if you can build a bike from scratch using cheesecake calendar's like JB2!)

Despite the content coming out iffy, I’ve really enjoyed having the ride videos to edit on weekends. It gives me a chance to re-live part of the riding season and learn more about where I went. Once I got the process down - the editing for my type of video is simple enough.

Riding season is a long way off... but in a moment of weakness I scheduled three days of skiing in Colorado next month. If you were to tell Deb you had an “out of town business opportunity 3/2-4” and showed up in Baggage Claim at DIA at 7pm on 3/1 - you could bum a ride and hotel room for three days at 11,000 feet. Don’t you need to be exploring potential documentary storylines for your students?

Oh, this could go badly quick...

She loves skiing as much as I do. Grounds for divorce if I were to leave her home while exploring "documentary" sites in Colorado.

It could indeed!

@72 Yamaha RD350 - Have you ever watched Million Dollar Bogan? He puts together some pretty crazy, but very real, VLOGs on YouTube. I thought of him immediately when I watched a few of your short-clips. String them all together with a little narration and some music? Thinking seriously about a couple of GoPro's. I ride with a guy who is a professor of said media. The possibilities are endless.

Truthfully... I have a very hard time watching MDB. Here's why: I grew up being taught to be grateful for the things that I have and to take care of them. For that reason, I can't relate to people who deliberately misuse vehicles - whether they be Jeeps, pickup trucks, cars, or motorcycles. Junkers - sure. I don't have a problem with that. But the newer the vehicle is - the harsher my reaction. I don't care how much money he has or how much money you gave me - I couldn't do that. I'd rather give away a brand new vehicle to someone deserving than to beat the living sh_t out of it just because I had a bank account big enough to afford to repair or replace it.

There's a right tool for every job. Personally, I'm not entertained by Danny and his antics when he tries to do something with an 800lbs touring bike that it's not designed to do. The consequences in those situations are deserved and his frustrations and tantrums are juvenile. I would think one should be past that stage by age forty.

I frequently click on his videos because there is, on occasion, ten or twenty seconds, of redeeming ride video in an exotic location. I find his sidekick to be entertaining in his understated manner. Most episodes I exit early because I just can't take it. Trashing two rental Harleys on their ride to Alaska and back and then b*tching about the extra charges - WTF did they expect. I didn't keep up with the entire HD saga but he seems to have toned down his language a bit... which is the least of my concerns.

So there's my view on MDB. I bet you are sorry you asked.

I'm considering picking up one or two more Hero7 Black cameras to add a couple different views to my rides and videos. I haven't decided the mounting configurations but vibration and clear viewpoints are the primary considerations. I may try out shoulder mounts as I think those would give good views if aimed at 10 o'clock (left shoulder) and 2 o'clock (right shoulder). The downside is that it multiplies the complexity which can increase the distraction from the ride. I'm also considering trying to mount a remote microphone underneath the seat where it can be isolated from the wind but pick up engine sounds clearly. This might require one of the cameras to be mounted on a saddlebag crash bar. And if all of that plays out then I'll likely upgrade my iMac to better handle multiple video files. My current iMac is circa 2011 and, surprisingly, it works ok with one file as long as no other applications are running.

Make no mistake, my videos will never be conventional "entertainment" for anyone other than those with too much time on their hands and absolutely nothing to do. That's the market demographic I'm targeting and I'm fairly certain there's no way to monetize that market so I should be safe from competition.

Joel: My wife went with me to Colorado two years ago. I "mistakenly" did not carry some of her bags at high altitude although I did book a hotel with an elevator. Shockingly - she's decided that she's ok with not accompanying me to Colorado ever again! YMMV.

No, not sorry I asked. If you had heard of him I actually anticipated your response to the letter. His honesty is brutal as is his use of the Road King. M$B isn't for everyone. I admire that he challenges himself and does what others are too afraid to do. Does he have a toxic, to some degree, personality? Yeah. But hey, if we were all alike it be a boring effing world. Right?

I'm 62 and have no plans to lighten up... yet. To each his own.

I...on the other hand...intend to place crochet doilies on my seats!

Is that on the Triumph or the little Kaw... or both? Where do you come up with those great one-liners?

@JB2: I'm that predictable? I must have that broom handle stuck pretty far up my @ss.

You aren't far off the mark from what the SCR was designed to do. Personally, I am a recovering clean freak and don't like spending my discretionary time cleaning things. I rode my VStrom through something like that once and it took me two hours to get most of the mud off. I don't mind cleaning bugs off Elvis and keeping him presentable but I wouldn't intentionally take him down a road like that. In my upbringing it's disrespectful. But I wouldn't hesitate going through that on a KLX, CFR, or DR. Those things are made for it.

I turned 56 last November. At this stage in life I want things to be predictable, enjoyable, and drama-free. I should be smart enough by now to insure all those are satisfied. Maybe I over did things in my younger years and am just worn out. Who knows. What I do know is that it was -28F the other morning and just letting the dog in and out the front door was an adventure in itself.

Joel: As hard as that KLX seat is - your candy @ss needs a lot of crocheted doilies underneath it.

JB is STILL getting the mid out of the crooks and crannies. On the bike too!

Jokes on you, Mike! New seat on KLX. Shouldn't need anything more than a knitted
doilie. Save's the crocheted ones for the more sophisticated Triumph.

Let's do a 500 mile day this summer and see who's crying for a crocheted doily!
400?
300?
200?
100?
Closest Starbucks for you? Nearest Steak'n'Shake for me?

@72 Yamaha RD350 - Back in the early 90's Dad and I were touring with a good friend Tim Dickey. Tim and I were both clean freaks. Every night, in the motel parking lot, Tim and I were busy cleaning our Harleys. They had to shine, they had to be perfect. Dad would sit back in a chair and watch us clean our bikes reminding us they would only get dirty again the next day. Somehow, someway his old Electra Glide Sport never looked dirty. On the evening of the day he died I was alone in the motel room with my thoughts. Couldn't get to sleep. Every time I would fall asleep I'd awaken to the vivid image of him covered in a plastic sheet lying on the highway. As I sat in the chair outside the room I decided then my clean-freak days were over. My days of being predictable were over. From that day on I would do my best to make every ride an adventure. And I have. There is a small amount of me, parallels if you will, in M$D's VLOGs.

I watched almost everyone of your short vids on your Alaska ride thread. Good stuff my friend. In my mind I had hoped you had not heard of Daniel Hayes. It took me a while to warm up to his brash and curt personality... just look up "bogan" in Australian. I think you are already on the road to editing a wonderful trip video with narration and music. I'd stand in line to see it if you did.

I have a close friend, Dave Barr, who circumnavigated the Arctic Circle in the winter so he could make a lot of the water crossings while they were covered in ice. He is a double amputee and rode his Sportster in the very worst conditions of winter to complete the adventure. He is a motivational speaker and reminds us that on our tombstone there is the date you were born and the date you died... all you get is the dash in the middle. Words to live and ride by.

Even though we all approach our rides differently we all still step outside of our comfort zones when we face the world on two wheels. Riding a bike not intended for the task at hand really amplifies the experience. And yes Joel, I grin every time I find another nugget of Wyoming mud hidden in the Yamaha. Good memories that you cannot buy in a store. Oh, and Kim wants your crochet pattern for the seat doilies!

Does this conversation sound like a bunch of bikers hemmed in by winter and COVID? Come on sunshine and summer!

EDIT: For those of you who haven't heard of Daniel Hayes this video by M$B really covers who he is and some of those parallels between him and I really shine in this episode.

I had started steam cleaning the Triumph before it got cold. First time cleaning it since I got it.

No philosophical reason...just rather be riding than cleaning. I'll finish it up once it warms up a bit.

Tell Kim I'm pretty sure the pattern is in the TouraTech catalog near the fur-covered footpegs.

I have some video that MondayDad shot of our ride to the Morgan-Monroe Forest last summer. His helmet cam does a nice job. I'll transfer it to my better computer and edit it.

Saved it for the depths of winter just to have something interesting to do. Scenery won't match what Mike has posted in his thread---but it beats the snow-covered yard I see out the window.