ClevelandMoto 558 Mid Ohio Prep

Check out the Video here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot_tgsdmjPE

BMW reveals GS Trophy bike and you can build one yourself. The base model is basically a tarted up R9T and starts at around $18k 

https://configurator.bmwmotorcycles.com/index_en_US.html?country=US&cookie=1#/configurator/27R4/P0N4S,S06AC,S0ZUC/COLOURS

Keep in mind this isn't an R1300gs which comes in at about $3k more. 

https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/new-model-preview/bmw-reveals-r-12-g-s-gs-trophy-competition-bike-for-2026-event-44668126

Harley Stock is downgraded to "JUNK". 

But, what exactly does JUNK mean? 

https://www.cartoq.com/bike-news/sp-downgrades-harley-davidson-junk-status-profitability/

Well, it's pretty obvious people bought the dip:

https://share.google/fa4HEXLu8NLdrI7Id

Under their new CEO they're aiming directly at Sturgis with the new Deadwood. 

https://www.rideapart.com/news/801519/harley-davidson-deadwood-specs-features-price/

India Succeeds where Pierer failed. Bajaj killing it with KTM in their arsenal,. 

https://www.visordown.com/news/ktm-recovery-takes-huge-step-forward-bajaj-mobility-ag-posts-q2-report

Transcript

SPEAKER_12 0:13

Oh, hey. Welcome to the Cleveland Moto Podcast. Hey. Hey guys. We got episode number 558.

SPEAKER_08 0:23

Leg of my boys.

SPEAKER_07 0:26

I'm telling you, we are uh a nice, nicely packed group tonight. We got a special guest, and I'm gonna read off to my immediate left. We have Sean Noel. To his left, Matt Hopkins. A model hub. And to his left? Steve Sleepy. And to his left, Johnny Mack. And coming around the corner, Speedy Pete. And on the other end of the table.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Shanky Smith.

SPEAKER_07 0:48

And behind the bar tonight. Tom Pennington. And it is like a behind the pole, more like it. Are you behind the pole? You gotta orientate yourself.

SPEAKER_13 0:55

Come off the screen. Oh, Sleepy's opening his little present I got for him.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

That's because I it's a masturbatory thing, I think.

SPEAKER_08 1:04

Anything. Yeah, there you go. Keep your hand on the wiggly waterworm. The jerculator 2000. That's how you train in the off season.

SPEAKER_07 1:15

Well, it's been it's really interesting because there's a lot of new bike activity, but Sleepy kept one secret from us. Oh my god. So yeah, I showed up. I'm sitting down here in the basement, and I hear the sound of what can only be described as an inline four cylinder. And it is an inline four-cylinder with fucking much gusto.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

It's got a little anger to it.

SPEAKER_07 1:39

It does have anger to it. It sounds amazing. It sounds like it's cam. It has like it. It just sounds angry. Yeah. So tell the people what you got, Sleepy.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Um, my ugly bite collection number two. Which did you have it up there? I got it up there. Instead of talking about it, let's just look at it. We'll just look at it. There you go. 1200cc of Angry German.

SPEAKER_07 2:03

It is an angry 1200cc German. Yeah, it is. Uh, this is the K-1200 Arrrrr. Uh fucking great bike and kind of slept on by a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Well, it's because it's not necessarily like, you know, a lot of people don't think it's attractive. I personally love it, but I think it classifies as an ugly bike in a way, and a performance bike, definitely.

SPEAKER_07 2:25

Yeah, and they built it for what, five years? Two years. Two years.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Because the following year, but well, and supposedly you can find up to seven. Yeah, because I've never seen one.

SPEAKER_07 2:35

I know that according to MCN, they say that it had a run from 2005 to 2008.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

It does, but uh after seven, they didn't have the nose anymore. Oh, really? They made it more with uh so you can still find the K1200R and it doesn't have this fucked up face. Wow, and so I wanted the fucked up face.

SPEAKER_07 2:52

You wanted the fucked up face. Love it. You got the fucked up face?

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Yeah, but uh it's I mean it's a hundred and it's between 163 and 169 horsepower and 100 foot pounds of torque. And I swear to god, it has a second power band around 9,000 RPMs. And I have not hit, like you said, I think it's limited at 186.

SPEAKER_07 3:09

186, the the GTR that I had definitely, hand of God, slowed you down at 186 indicated on the speedo. I have no idea what that was in real units, but I know that the speedo would only allow you to see 186, and there rem also it wasn't like oh the speedo stopped at 186 and the bike kept going, like an old 80s you know, Honda C B where the speedo stopped at 85, but the bike kept on going.

SPEAKER_08 3:32

Right.

SPEAKER_07 3:32

This was at 186, it was as though you had hit a speed wall.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

Well, considering that it doesn't have fairings, I hit 170, and I was like, that's enough.

SPEAKER_07 3:41

Yeah, that's that's a big difference, too. That you know, the GTR that has all the fairings on the planet, it's aerodynamically perfect. Right. And so at 186 on that bike, you don't yeah, it just felt like more of 140.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Yeah, you have to position your face to be right part of the windscreen and try to keep everything together like that. But it's very interesting because the wheelbase is super long, so it feels unbelievably stable, and then it has telelibre front, so it doesn't have any dive. So you can grab the front brake at 160 miles an hour and it just stops.

SPEAKER_07 4:12

Yeah, I went from and just here locally in the neighborhood, so I didn't go over 35 miles an hour, I'm sure. No, uh, but I gave it the beans in first gear and then caught second, gave it the beans for a little bit of second, and then immediately had to get on the binders, and it did not dive. No at all.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

It takes a minute, like, so I was super excited because everybody was like, you know, I mean it can't dive. It's one of the best handling bug, all this stuff I'm doing thing, and it also has the most efficient, according to BMW, shaft drive ever created on a motorcycle.

SPEAKER_07 4:39

It would have to because that's where your sport bike guys are gonna be like, yeah, it's cool and all, but it's got a shaft drive that steals 25% of your horsepower.

SPEAKER_13 4:47

No, I didn't feel any shaft jack or anything like or snatchiness or it's doing its job back there, but it uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

I've I've been really enjoying it. And the thing about it though, like the Tuano, I was telling you guys, when I had the Tuano, I couldn't get on it and not almost get arrested.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Oh yeah, it was almost impossible.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

But this thing I rode here 90% of the time today at 72 miles an hour, completely comfortable, happy. 4,000 or three, I don't even know how low it was on the highway doing 78 miles an hour, but it feels like a measling. It feels like a GTS, it feels like you're on a Vespa just kind of squirting along on the highway.

SPEAKER_06 5:16

It does not have any kind of cruise control, does it? No. No. If you put a set of bags on it, you would be invisible.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yeah, you're right. You're right. No, you're right. And the thing is, is one of the things I do like about this bike, exactly like the Triumph that I got too, is that it doesn't have any electronics. No, I mean like it has it has a it has trip. It has trip meter, it has a trip meter.

SPEAKER_07 5:37

It has go, it has go, yeah, it does. The definitely the GTR that I had had all the electronics, but it was circa 2007.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 5:46

So it was like it had all the things, but it had them in the 2007 platform where it was like it had sport mode, it had touring mode, it had rain mode, right? But I could not really feel the difference between any of them at all.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Well, and then of course, so it has all the you're saying it has 2006 BMW electronics.

SPEAKER_07 6:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

So it has really fun like individual turn signals, and then a third switch to turn them off, which is the function.

SPEAKER_07 6:12

Yeah, that sucked. Left is one button, right is another button. Off is a third button that you press a different direction.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

Right.

SPEAKER_07 6:19

Well, that's annoying.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

It is annoying.

SPEAKER_07 6:21

At least the Harley has the decency when you want to cancel your left turn signal, you just push it again.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 6:25

Or you just put the bike upright and it shuts itself off.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

You know what I really fucking like though is that it has gauges. I there's something about fucking seeing a needle go like this. I really like that.

SPEAKER_07 6:35

I think that's the that's what makes the R kind of you know, a gentleman's sport bike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it's it's fucking brutal in its power delivery. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_13 6:45

You said you were gonna uh do it up.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Well, all right. So there is, if you want to look up the cup series, I am curious. Yeah. So they used to sell these things. Now it's really hard to find the the fairings and stuff. Yeah. But you know, I paint. And so it's not been finding stuff, and I'm like, I'm I'm kind of I like the yellow and black a lot.

SPEAKER_08 7:06

You want to do the red, white, and blue? Well, maybe you can find like the power cup.

SPEAKER_13 7:09

Why don't you find a shitty set of plastics and look at the power cup, though?

SPEAKER_04 7:12

Come on, dude.

SPEAKER_07 7:13

That is pretty fierce. Yeah. The power cup is pretty you got a belly fairing, I got that, and you get a bum stop fairing.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Did you get Keurig dispensary and just caught the K-cup? The K cup.

SPEAKER_06 7:22

Oh my god, yes. Hell yes. We had a we had a customer in New Orleans that had one of these. Uh-huh. And he would go down to the bars down on the C B D and get wasted and forget where he parked it. So for months at a time, it would just disappear in the C B D and they would go, Oh, that's where I parked it.

SPEAKER_07 7:36

Oh, you got founded. Yeah. Yeah. And this one comes with white power, uh, white power suspension on it and a cup.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 7:43

The WP at the WP the way you say it.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

No, that's just what it is, dude. Oh, I know. I 100% know. That's yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_05 7:51

I don't think a ton of bikes pull off the like two different color rims well, in my opinion, but that one does. I wonder how they cut that.

SPEAKER_07 7:58

Yeah. I wonder if that front rim would look better white.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

I think it might.

SPEAKER_07 8:02

I think it might.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Also, that's a race bike, so who knows if that just isn't a colour such.

SPEAKER_07 8:06

Exactly. Right. Yeah. That was like, okay, well, that was the we got slicks on the back. So that one's got a slick on the back and it's got a rain tire on the front. So that could be what that is. Yeah, I'm sure it was something like that. That particular bike's got a rain tire on the back.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

The guy I got it from was uh um I I I chased this bike for four months. This was a process. This was a process to get this bike at the price I wanted to get it at and and deal with the guy. But the guy was awesome because that bike has a five and a half or five inch rear rear width tire on it.

SPEAKER_08 8:33

It does.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

Mine has a 6.25 because he found the racing rim because he wanted the wide paid the money for a fucking wheel.

SPEAKER_07 8:39

Yeah, I have a sixteen hundred dollar wheel with brand new tires on it. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

And I have the other one too, so I still have the five inch brand new tire on it as well.

SPEAKER_07 8:49

That is a very expensive upgrade.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

And then he was the kind of guy, so he, you know, he but he was the kind of guy that was like, yep, I changed oil every 2,500 miles. Yeah. And I also did the final drive because why not?

SPEAKER_07 9:00

Yeah, because it's there.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

And I'm like, well, no, but how many people like Tom does that?

SPEAKER_07 9:04

Yeah, Tom is the king of, hey, it's there, let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Yep. So I was like, okay, you're my guy.

SPEAKER_07 9:08

Like you're I think I think he's totally your guy.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

16,000 miles. He put most of them on a bunch of years ago, said he did 500 miles a year for the last four or five years, and he was moving it on.

SPEAKER_07 9:17

Well, I will say that the second I got on it, I knew it wasn't the GT that I'm familiar with because I instantly got thigh cramps. I got hip-cause I thought it was comfortable. I got hip cramps instantly. The second I got on the bike and I put my feet up, because my cafe racer, my Gucci Cafe racer has the high pegs on it. Yeah. So I I'm visited by hip cramps the first time I get on that, if I haven't ridden it for a while. And this one, I was as soon as I got on, I was like, well, this is a sporty sport bike now because it's got thigh cramps.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

I kind of freaked out. Hip cramps. Like at first I was like, oh shit, because the way BMW did the handlebars, it's not like you can just get some easy risers and slap them on. Like you're kind of stuck unless you really want to figure something out, right?

SPEAKER_07 9:58

But they're pretty great. They're good. Like they're fine.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

I I find it pretty comfortable.

SPEAKER_07 10:01

This is a magnificent bike, and what kills me is we talk about bikes that are slept on because when I got that, the GTR, when I got that bike, that thing the guy traded it into me for a barely used Vespa GTS that I had involved myself with to the tune of about $4,000. And it had the expanding bags on it and all the good BMW Farco stuff on it. It had about 20,000 miles on it. And you got a much better deal on this one because I don't know if you're telling people what you paid, but it's creepy how cheap you got this bike.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

I like I said, it was a process.

SPEAKER_07 10:41

Yeah. I mean, I get it, it's a 20-year-old bike. But things come to those who wait.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Well, I I played the games properly, and some of the things that Phil has taught me, and other people have taught me, and it was a long game. It was a fucking four or three and a half months.

SPEAKER_13 10:54

Including the folk you put a shill buyer in there. I might have put a shill buyer in there. There may have been somebody helping.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

There may have been a guy who is a total asshole. That just that guy's an asshole, but I'm the nice guy. Wouldn't you want to sell it to the nice guy?

SPEAKER_07 11:07

What a great He said, What?

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Oh my god. That's what a dick. What an ass. I bet you he wouldn't even take care of the bike. I'm going to love this bike. That's why you should sell it to me for this price.

SPEAKER_07 11:18

Oh man. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I can locally or you have travel?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

A couple hours.

SPEAKER_13 11:23

Good. Mm-hmm. Sleepy's not afraid to look it for a bike in two states away. No. Like he's sending me bikes, and I'm like, I'm not going to Jersey for it.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

It's what you want. Dude, okay. If you find a bike that's uh two states away that is 30,000 miles less and mint condition compared to the one that's an hour away, what are you going to do? You're not wrong. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_13 11:44

You clearly bought it right. I need something I can stop and look at on the way home from work.

SPEAKER_07 11:50

I can pick up while they could drop it off of your driveway then.

SPEAKER_13 11:52

I can pick up while my wife and child are out shopping. And hide it in the garage before they get back.

SPEAKER_08 11:58

Yeah. It's amazing. It's beaded for your pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 12:01

I was going to say it has ticklers in it. Oh, it does?

SPEAKER_08 12:03

Does it really? Oh yeah. That's completely unnecessary and only serves one purpose.

SPEAKER_07 12:10

They didn't need to rib the inside of the water worms when I was a kid. It's loose, loose waterworm. Now it's dirty. Now it's got some grid on it. Yeah, that's that's good. A little more tactile.

SPEAKER_04 12:20

Oh, yeah. Damn.

SPEAKER_07 12:22

Oh my god. Well, that's fantastic, Sleepy. Well done, sir.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 12:27

Very well done. Yeah, I was thinking about that one. Yeah, that's I mean, and John got his budget bike running.

SPEAKER_13 12:32

I did. My $300 1973 uh TL125. It is a KO, so it's a first year. First year. It's got the different paint scheme on the tank and stuff. And uh it's not a true TL because it didn't come with the original motor. So I don't have a lot of the goodies that a TL would have. But as it turns out, I had a spare motor sitting there. It's actually an XL100 motor. Okay. But it was massaged by the famous Crazy Ken from the Lake Erie Loop. So he put a four millimeter overboard piston in it. So it's like a 116 with bumped up compression. It's kind of all the wrong way you would go. Like the TL motor would have been lower compression, flat cam, smaller carb. This is all the opposite way. And it's getting, but it is does have a giant sprocket on the back. So you know, I sent the video out of it.

SPEAKER_07 13:20

Like yeah, walking around your backyard.

SPEAKER_13 13:22

I was taking it for a walk, it just idling, going pop pop, and you can walk beside it.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

So that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

Pretty cool. That's the swap shop machine.

SPEAKER_13 13:32

Oh, yeah. It's an everything Mid-Ohio machine. But it then it's a five-speed, so like I was riding up and down my street side in the sidewalks and stuff, and I'm like, oh, this thing will actually probably achieve 50-60 mile an hour. Oh, good. Oh, that's fantastic. I mean, I I don't know. We'll see. That's fantastic. Uh it's hot though. I don't like the way I think it's still lean at idle. You know what I mean? And it's got it's a little poppy and like pip pip pip, you know, like I want a little more, I gotta work on that a little bit. Okay. But otherwise, it idle it actually does idle pretty good. It's you can tell though, because it doesn't want to restart. Okay, if you don't use the choke, it doesn't want to start. Once you get it going, it it'll stay running. Right. But you have to kind of if it stalls, you almost have to put the choke on to get it going again. Okay. That's all right. I spent the last week or so in my Wii moments doing this, doing that, having a little fun with it. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's great. When I had the frame out, or when I had the motor out, I painted the frame, I painted the thing. I've been trying to zhuzh it up, make it look nice. Oh, that's fantastic. Eventually I'll do the wheels and stuff when I get a set of tires for I need tires from Mid-Ohio. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Because they're old and cracked and I got three weeks worth of work to do before Mid Ohio. I think we all do. Yeah.

unknown 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:44

It's like I said, every time I get a bike running, you sell it.

SPEAKER_07 14:46

Right. Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

I want to know how. Two weeks ago it was May, and we were talking about how fun May is, and we're gonna go to band camp, and all of a sudden I look up, and now Mid Ohio is next week.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah, it's coming up quick, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 14:59

Yeah, unprepared.

SPEAKER_13 15:01

Oh, it's it's coming up fast. I was been saying mid-Ohio, mid-Ohio, mid-Ohio in my head for like three weeks. I know.

SPEAKER_07 15:08

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm gonna have so many bikes to bring because Tom's resurrected quite a few bikes, and we've kind of got the got the apprentice, she's out there resurrecting bikes. So I'm like, I don't even think I need to bring my Coleman scooters. I don't think I need my my Coleman minibikes.

SPEAKER_13 15:24

I was wondering if because I mean I can stop by and take a quick look at them. Yeah, I but if you're taking three black cats and all the other bullshit that you're taking, I mean all the black cats survive.

SPEAKER_07 15:33

The black cats in one of them I've actually ordered all the factory decals for. So one of the black cats I'm gonna trim out beautiful like. So the nicest of the three black cats, I'm gonna bring it back to true fighting standards. And I'll probably keep that for myself just because I I I've grown to adore those bikes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Guys, uh, can you help me out here? Check the screen and give me a little breaking news, breaking news from a Cleveland Moto Podcast.

SPEAKER_07 16:04

We've got breaking news.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Our good buddy Kurt got his new leg today, and he says he will see us in 2027 at Mid-Ohio. Shark Cage Tester. Shark Cage Tester, Mr. Kurt Edwards. Kurt Edwards, congratulations, sir.

SPEAKER_07 16:16

Is monopolo monopod?

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Now he's back to biped.

SPEAKER_07 16:21

Yeah, now he's biped. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_13 16:23

So he's down to only down to two legs now.

SPEAKER_07 16:28

Ain't that the truth? That's cool. The uh yeah, it's been fun. So today, because we are getting a lot of smoke in Cleveland from the wildfires in Minnesota and in Canada.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

It's our fifth season of the year. I don't it is our fifth season.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

I don't think people understand. Like when Phil's saying smoke, it's not like, oh, I can smell a little smoke. It's like I can't see my driveway.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

No, it was really it was silent, silent hill. It really was. I thought we were just living in a campfire.

SPEAKER_09 16:54

Yeah, it smelled like a Chuck E.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Cheese pizza oven to me.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

Like it was it, it had a little funk to it. Have you seen the video of the Canadian train oh with the guys? They're in the train and they're surrounded by the fire. Oh, yeah. Oh my fucking god. They're looking out the train windows and there's just a hellscape around them. The guy's like, I don't think this is good.

SPEAKER_07 17:14

No, no, we're in a big metal box, but just the same. Do you power onward or back the fuck up?

SPEAKER_04 17:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 17:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

And the air quality index was 278 today.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Oh, what is it? Now in Toledo it was 575. 575. Yeah, I truly'll chart. It is. I just came up here, like you know, I just came up here. I just left the news. Yeah. And they said Toledo's getting hit so bad that they're like, do not go outside. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_13 17:39

It definitely seemed worse out at work. And I thought at one point I was getting little bits of ash. Okay. Like Pompeii. Well, yeah, I definitely saw some ash.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Thank God nobody's out cutting their lawn today.

SPEAKER_08 17:48

Hey, right, Petey?

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 17:51

Oh well.

SPEAKER_07 17:52

Yeah, we had a lot of people uh wave off coming to pick their bikes up at the shop today because too much smoke. And uh yeah, it's uh it's definitely one of those things where you're like, okay, that that's happening, that's real. And it's it is kind of shocking when you think about how far that smoke has traveled. Yeah, it's 900 miles away. It's super far.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Zimbo nailed it. If the smoke's still there, it's gonna make Mid Ohio more apocalyptic.

SPEAKER_07 18:13

Well, it's weird because today was a week ago, today was scheduled to be a very, very hot day. Right. But today, I mean, I didn't have to worry about SPF 50, right? Uh I jumped on the motorcycle with no helmet. I was in t-shirt and shorts on the Harley and rode around and did my errands in the morning and rocked in, and it's surreal looking. It it is it is weird.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

I was hoping for a full moon because you ever ride at night with this shit, it would have been fucking amazing. But it's a waxing little moon.

SPEAKER_13 18:41

Well, there was a blood sun this morning. Oh, yeah, oh yeah. I was out there at you know, O Dark 40, and and and the you know, when the sun came up, it was just red and like you could barely see it. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

It was very tattooing when I left. It was very tattooing when I left.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

You got Byron Lewis said over here in the anaerobics, the skin or the sky was literally yellow Tuesday and Wednesday from the smoke.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, it's it's been special.

SPEAKER_06 19:06

Swargent says uh his daughter was in the was in the UP and had to leave because of the smoke. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 19:12

Yeah, that's it's it's a thing. It's definitely a thing that's happening. It is real, and it is I understand for people. My one of my customers said, I can't come out, I've got asthma. There's no way I'm leaving the house today. Oh, it's been messing with me today.

SPEAKER_13 19:24

As soon as I got home, the first thing I did was went and grabbed both of our air purifiers, took them outside, but I had my N95. I'm like, yeah, I had an N95 that I'm like, I'm throwing this on. I rode home with that. I'm like, I'm just gonna look like a nerd. What the hell? It's fine. But then I'm like, while I still got this on, I'm gonna blow out these two air purifiers, add the activated charcoal uh foams to them, and I'm blaring them in the house. Yeah, I was just like, I want to save Haven in here.

SPEAKER_07 19:49

Like I've decided to do my part, and today everything I rode today, everything I worked on, everything I drove today was a two-stroke. So and that that German uh that German that German two-stroke that I was fired up today, it was definitely it definitely kicked the air quality index up a 50 or 100 points. Uh it was it was so angry. And it was just just angry two stroke. Angry German? Angry German dinosaurs were leaving the exhaust. Was it a first start after several years of first start after sitting for about four years? Oh yeah. And first start after the example. The I pulled the plug out. It's the spicy motor, and it's a spicy motor, and I pulled all the bad gas out of it, put in fresh gas, and it chugged pretty it came to life pretty readily, but it just it's running crazy rich. I ran the thing for about 20 minutes trying to get it to uncork itself.

SPEAKER_14 20:45

What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_07 20:45

It's it's a PX, it's a it's a German market P200E with a Melosi kit on it. Oh, okay. And so, and it's got just like the little SIP box on it. The, you know, the it's very mellow build, it's nothing fancy. But what it definitely doesn't have is it definitely doesn't have a vape adjustable timing ignition. And I pulled the plug out after just struggle fucking it for like the better part of 25 minutes, like it'll come around, it'll come around, and never came around. So I pulled the plug out, and the plug looked like the Exxon Valdez. The plug was the wettest, blackest, soodiest looking plug you'd ever seen. I was like, yeah, that could be part of the problem.

SPEAKER_13 21:22

I mean, I don't know how many two strokes I've had to like pull the plug out, clean it. Oh yeah. Uh no more. Pull it out, clean it, clean it again ten times, and finally it'll go.

SPEAKER_07 21:32

Yeah, I'm gonna we're gonna change a couple things and we're gonna come at it again. But I was trying to do anything except tear the carb down, right? I was like four years, but when I parked it, I stored it right. Like I did all the right things to park it and leave it. So it did come up and it did have a beautiful idol.

SPEAKER_13 21:48

You will Italian tune the shit out of something before you pull the carb up. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:54

I'll catch him, I'll catch him out there with a can of ether, shooting it, drawdogging it right in the freaking.

SPEAKER_07 22:00

carburetors and I just walk out and hand Sarah the Sarah the fire extinguisher go here when he catches himself on fire put him out I am I am a huge believer in the Italian tune up and I'm you know the what do they say sex tiger six 60% of the time it works all the time yeah it's or Sex Panther the uh it is it is it has a success rate otherwise I wouldn't do it right yeah the the P the 160 that was that P125's got like a one yeah 166 kit on it or some 177 kit on it and that thing um that thing just oh oh it just it's a monster it jumped into life and it was like I want to go do wheelies and I'm like I want to get you to 50 miles an hour faster than anything in the world has ever gotten you to 50 miles an hour and then that's it.

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Somebody once said you know and like there were somebody was arguing against the Italian tune up. Right. And somebody said well here's the other good part of the Italian tune up if it doesn't work or even if it does you're also going to find out if anything's gonna break in the next 20 or 30 minutes. Would you rather have it break when you're 45 miles or doing it when you're going down the streets full WAP.

SPEAKER_07 23:07

When you're when you are when you are literally visiting your neighborhood right making them hate you you're never more than a short walk away. Right. And so now you're given because most of the time you're not gonna ride like no oh hell no when you squeak the titty like that you're gonna find out if something's going off. Oh it's funny yeah Sarah was funny because I don't think she's ever seen a tune two stroke you know approaching 11,000 or 1200 RPM and she and she was just her eyes just got bigger and she took a step back and she was like is it supposed to go yeah that's what it's supposed to do. I think I think that P125's problem is we put the um the new clutch in it yeah for with the short tooth which is why it only does 500 yeah that's what I'm gonna say it's a 20 tooth clutch it gets out of the hole like a house on fire but it does it gets to like the the you know the the the analog speedometer is useless but I'm telling you that it's about 50 and then it's like okay anything over 50 is going to be be ready to catch the piston.

SPEAKER_04 24:07

Yeah there's um I you know like when you're looking on online and you start looking at weird shit it puts you into that like for a week or two you just keep seeing all the same shit. So I found some fucking like beep like beefed up scooter and so now all I'm getting fed is all these Indonesian kids with like 50cc scooters that go 92000 miles an hour. Yeah but the best one so far was this guy built this thing it was like a hundredcc some it looked like one of the black cats but it's like a current scooter over there two stroke and so the guy's talking in different language and he's showing the parts so he's got like a dry clutch on this thing all this weird shit not a dry clutch but some weird whatever but he's doing all this shit and the guy's sitting there and all of a sudden the dude starts cranking the throttle like he's gonna rev it up but he hits it and it hits the belt and the little bike goes but he's he's a bigger dude so he's holding on to the throttle so he just kind of goes like this and there's a wheelie and he kind of throws it over his back like you know what I'm saying like he just does a cowboy rodeo thing with it.

SPEAKER_06 24:59

Because it's so powerful versus me that just gets the the uh dudes in Thailand racing Yanmar hit or miss diesels.

SPEAKER_07 25:06

Hit her miss diesels or wooden scooters. Yeah right the thousand cc lay down uh drag motors that they're building for all those things and shit just crazy the whole world is crazy hey Marshall wants to know what he should bring oh well he should bring a trailer because he's you know he's picking up the Stornello right so he should bring a he should bring a trailer because I'm taking the Stornello down there for him. Oh thank you Marshall for buying the Storinello because if you didn't and I did I wouldn't be able to buy the bikes oh that's right that's correct oh that's so true yeah that's absolutely true I think he meant more like boiled peanuts or oh I don't know stuff I mean yeah right yeah I I don't know we'll we'll figure out whatever we're missing on Thursday night I'm sure people ever had any of them bowl penis yeah bull penis bold penis I love bull penises hey bold penises are really good typically the universal request is ice yeah that's always the thing and you know I did discover that if you are there so if you're on site by the nice bathrooms they have an ice distribution system there they will sell you ice so you don't have to ride downtown. Yes and so I don't know what the hours of the ice are but it is the just the point being that before you go committing yourself to a trip into Lexington you may want to go to the nice shitters you may want to go to the nice bathrooms and see if that if they're distributing ice there. Because I have bought bags there and it wasn't like they were killing me on the price.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

And the fact that I didn't have to drive into Lexington is right save me money there because then I'll buy a bunch of shit at the gas station I don't need the uh in the pits the uh whatchall it concession stand will do it too oh really yeah okay good to know used on there and get it good to know yeah that's cool yeah so there are places and here's another trick too if you have an an old cooler or a good cooler a really good cooler this is what I've been doing because we have like I I inherited a bigger cooler and a smaller one. I've been filling the bigger one with bags of ice and then leaving it closed. And if you leave it closed and don't open it those bags of ice will last a couple days so then you just transfer it real quickly one over leave the other ones there and you can fare pretty well yeah having a body cooler that is just three bags of ice or four bags of ice is a great idea.

SPEAKER_07 27:20

I just look around for a cooler that's just full of ice and I grab some ice out of it hey there's nothing but ice in this cooler I'm gonna go break it up it's gonna be awesome there's no room for beer I'm gonna break it up I'm gonna throw these red hot beers in there yeah yeah the um one of our uh podcast listeners uh Jim said hey he's a longtime listener he uses iTunes to download the podcast he hasn't been able to get the last um two or three to work uh I did check it today on my on my uh Apple device and it did work now we were late because I got stuck there was a delay so you may have encountered the delay but I did use I did use iTunes today to make sure it worked when I read your email so it it should be functional we did load two greatest hits episodes so there are two vault there are two vault ready episodes that are up and running one was recorded in John's garage which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_13 28:16

I started listening to it I'm like oh I want to listen to this whole thing I just haven't had a chance.

SPEAKER_07 28:20

Yep it's fun it's a fun one because it is a fucking 13 year time capsule to this very weekend. So it's going back in time exactly 13 years to this day and that's a that's a fun way to do it. That's really really cool.

SPEAKER_04 28:32

So it was it was good you know and I learned that um I can't send uh files to outside entities on my work site on your work thing yeah yeah that's too bad that would be a security thing well that's also nice that we're doing the YouTube live because then it's there I know and then if somebody's like I really want to hear it you don't have to well I mean I'm not at Autocross week every week so it's you know and it and it does work.

SPEAKER_07 28:53

Yeah and I have used it's funny because I have listened to it in my truck with my phone on YouTube and just let let the audio roll through my truck speakers and it's fine. It works.

SPEAKER_05 29:04

That's pretty much the only way I consume it. Yeah yeah so you're just I just you're just audio listening through YouTube.

SPEAKER_07 29:10

That's fine. That's good. People are getting it man we like it. We're very very happy with it.

SPEAKER_06 29:14

I never listen to them after they're done because what's in the past is in the past.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

Ah what's in the past is in the past I did a deep dive into the back catalog a bit trying to find the elusive scooter special episode eight and a half.

SPEAKER_07 29:26

Eight and a half yeah right eight and a half yeah yeah that's uh it is missing it's missing but it's it's in the lost episodes okay yeah so it'll it'll should come up on a rotation at some point yeah yeah it's in the lost episodes we should do like goals like we should like we should hit a goal and then if we hit the goal and everybody participates then you get to release these special episodes. Well I mean they're they're a hundred thousand they're getting fed out and so right now I think we're on uh bat from the crypt episode 33 and there are 92 episodes in the crypt okay so there's 92 episodes in the crypt and we're in crypt episode number 33 right now we're parsing them out using them for when we can't drop a live podcast I think they've done I think they've been doing their job great because it keeps us steady right having the you know one episode drop per week or you know close to it. So that's good. We like keeping it steady if we can and they're so 13 years old for a podcast that's like a new podcast. Yeah that's just that's a whole new experience for you there's very few people are gonna be like oh I remember this one oh really we don't yeah I don't remember last week but I guess we didn't have one last week. Yeah so they're uh yeah so it's pretty fun. The BMWs since we're talking about BMWs and Sleepy's got his brand new BMW uh they are doing a trophy bike and they're doing it and this is where I always get a kick out of it. They're doing a trophy bike for their own event which is the BMW GS trophy so that's fun and that's cool but I really thought the bike was going to be a BMW GS and it's not sort of because in my mind if you say BMW GS to me I immediately think 1300 CC BMW you know or R1300 GS. I'm not thinking of the R9TS which is called the R12 GS but it's you know it's the hexhead motor it's the it's all the things which is funny considering I own an R9T urban GS but I still just refer to it as R9T with a cosmetics package to make it be like a scrambler.

SPEAKER_04 31:40

Well that's the thing BMW takes every motor they have and then sticks it in all the different variations I didn't know that until I was looking at all these bikes. Yeah and then I was like ooh there's one and then I'd look and I'm like nope that's got jugs sticking out the side I'm like okay when did they make a sport bike version of that you either get the K model or you get the R model.

SPEAKER_07 31:58

Right. Yeah right but the thing is with the well yeah okay yeah and so in my very humble opinion the when I think like oh it's the the GS trophy it's gonna be a bunch of what I would consider to be G S right it would be like the 1300 platform GSs. And I completely spaced it that when I saw the picture of the bike that they're setting up as the trophy I was like oh well wait that's that's the street scrambler thing. Oh okay and they're they're building it just to do that event in I believe Romania right isn't that where they're moving around every year I think it's Romania. It's it's very very interesting. But what I think is interesting about it is this is the bike they're using as the base platform which is you know a a very price friendly $17,000 for a BMW motorcycle. Now of course the GS Trophy edition is not going to cost you $17,000 but they did build it so that the consumer can replicate it. So the consumer can go on the configurator and choose all the things to end up doing you know that bike. And they because BMW does have their website set up that way you can build out your uh trophy package bike using the configurator that will give you all the different things that you need uh and they have the enduro package pro and you can just go through there and add add add until you get this bike up to that twenty four twenty six thousand dollars that they're asking for the um for the the trophy for the I'm sorry for the the the GS so for the event.

SPEAKER_04 33:46

So I'm looking at this thing right yes and you see you see it there.

SPEAKER_07 33:48

Yes I do see it it's an off-road bike it is very much an off-road bike it looks almost like a Vittory and it's 20 like oh it's a lot of money by the time you get it here's the thing if you're off road how much fucking power do you need oh well that's clearly what we know at this point is there is no limit. All the power come on man no but I'm serious unless you're there what is the gravel pit one that they do over in Sweden uh Urzenberg yeah I mean those guys are riding everything as ridiculous as well yes they are but those are all 450s they're not riding that no they're riding like 1200s and stuff I thought very few very few no it's no I don't know I don't know look I'm I need knobbies on my B King yes yeah right that might be number two but it is pretty funny you do get this motorcycle up to that $25,000 magic price tag um you get it up there pretty quickly it works pretty good uh but what it's funny though is because obviously the you know this is the bike that if you want to throw the picture up yeah this is the one that that they're campaigning you know this is what they're gonna have for the bike for a GS trophy for the traditional R80GS.

SPEAKER_06 34:56

Yeah yeah if it had a little bit more blue it had the Dakar on it.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So people not familiar with this competition they assemble teams from half a dozen maybe eight different countries and you can any Joe Blow can try out for the the team and then the BMW selects them and they send you to whatever country they're done the competition in and they give you their bikes to use. So everyone's on identical bikes and it's basically like a six days trials kind of thing. But um it's not all riding skill it's like uh team building kind of stuff where you have to get the bike over a wall or something and all the guys that are on the team have to get the bike over the wall or whatever the obstacle is and then um it's they they uh uh compete for the championship so I don't think the United States has ever won it I think uh I don't even remember who won last year I usually follow it though it's always an interesting location they always uh promote it real well and you know it's a it's a big campaign for them I think if Americans needed to push motorcycles all over walls more they may have a chance that might be something you have to do in third sure oh yeah absolutely I mean the the idea behind the the trophy team uh we it's all about BMW establishes the skill test BMW establishes the stuff you're gonna do and it's not just you know uh the women's GS team when we looked at that uh what did they say when this one came up there's a lot of people that are doing a women's only team that they're set up and we we know most of them through our affiliation with uh uh uh Liza's podcast with the Misfits and so that's great and you know this is gonna be the thing you know you're talking about going out and beating the shit out of these bikes and really really doing really adventure stuff really doing off-roady shit so I'm I'm very very pleased with that very impressed with that I think that's cool the uh but I did get confused I thought for sure I was like hey man aren't they supposed to be using those um those 1300 bikes no they're not they're using the 1200 so that's cool that's pretty pretty freaking awesome the uh and it's it is a little bit of a price savings compared to doing the 1300cc which doesn't hurt and uh so that's that's fun fun stuff but that bike is actually a little bit of a throwback it's kind of an analog version of what they're it's not that the flagship model is all electronic sure and more of an adventure tour that bike is more leaning towards the hot rod dirt bike side of the absolutely and analog yep yeah like I I've I own two R9s right now and one of them has all of the gauges and one of them has one gauge you know one gauge and a little tiny L C D screen that's it that's all you get and that's definitely BMW can do it either way.

SPEAKER_07 37:48

They're very happy to give you all the buttons or as damn few of the buttons as you can handle. So yeah that's kind of cool kind of interesting thought that's thought that was super neat. I know John's gonna be very very happy about this news the Harley Davidson stock has been downgraded to junk status. I saw that and uh it is funny when somebody says like wait a second Harley Davidson is a junk stock and you're like well there is a rating system. I'd rather invest in Royal Enfield. Well I mean Royal Enfield is selling some fucking bikes. That's what I'm saying. Yeah and I'm going with Bashage but six months ago we talked yeah six months ago or something we talked about Harley Davidson selling off well yeah we're gonna get into that we talked about Harley Davidson selling off their bad debt at 30 to 40 cents on the dollar which is it their bad debt or was it just their hope it's just their debt profile it's their debt profile. Yeah yeah it's their it's their debt profile. And basically what that just means is that's just everybody who has a Harley loan right? That 70% of them is going to pay back anyhow bingo that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Oops and saying at what per what interest rate I think we saw it was between 30 and 40 percent.

SPEAKER_07 39:03

It was insane like five right it was it was just insane they'd lost so much money and when you think about the average Harley buyer we did the thing we did the sheet at the shop we looked at a brand new street glide $32,000 and we looked at what your down payment would be and how much money it would cost you to turn that bike in to keep it at the end of the don't call it a lease right can't call it a lease and then if you if anything if there's a scratch on the bike now you're calling it a lease if the tires aren't you know 80% fresh now you're calling it a lease they're gonna hammer you so hard on turning that bike in on the quote what I just heard them advertise or just walk away. I love that I love that statement. You're gonna make payments on this thing for four years and you're just gonna walk away yeah sure you are sure there's zero fucking chance you're gonna walk away it's gonna cost you thousands of dollars and you've lost all your equity but you're thinking like you're thinking like us you know thinking of a of like anybody that's over 40.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

Right you talk to my daughters the young ones and stuff and they only think in month payments yeah you're like oh it's only it's it's 1500 down and only 400 a month.

SPEAKER_06 40:24

Well that's that's where cell phones have trained everybody you have to have a cell phone therefore every month you have to have a cell phone and then every three years you buy a new cell phone which is you never pay it off.

SPEAKER_07 40:34

You never own this device you're just having it.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

But the dentist and attorneys that buy them I don't think the dentist and attorneys are using these financing packages.

SPEAKER_07 40:45

I think the dentists and attorneys are educated enough to know that they're gonna stay the fuck away from this and they're gonna go, yeah, look at me I either wrote a check for it or I talked to my credit union and I got a three month or three year or four year and then I'm done with it. But because that's not necessarily who's buying the Harley's Harley's debt is precious. Harley's debt is worth so many billions of fucking dollars because the vast majority of their buyers are buying way over they're punching way over their weight.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

The other day um I was down in this area actually the day that I came down to see Renee to get the title worked your title through it yeah because I wanted to surprise you guys but I stopped at rock and roll Harley Davis and I because they had an event they had I saw him in the parking lot this thing going on right so I was walking around and I went in the shop and got approached by a bunch of guys oh you ride I'm like yeah I'm like you know whatever not really looking just looking okay cool so then they they they went and these construction guys came in and they were looking at used bikes and they were looking at like sportsers and shit they had on the side within two minutes the salesman I had literally heard the salesman go yeah you could have that sport but you know for the same money you could have this dagger oh he oh by the way selling him on your thing that you're just talking about you didn't even express he already was shooting himself on the foot in the foot on the sale you wanted to make and he was already upselling you to a bike you were showing no interest in not me this construction guy I understand yeah yeah but yeah 100% right so they were like they were they are so jacked up in the head it's ridiculous. Yeah this guy probably had cash probably whatever to get a smaller bike oh look the fish just jumped in my boat let me throw that fish out I need to go get a bigger fish but you can see that this kid he was like 20 something yeah you know whatever construction worker guy great sports buyer and his buddy was like you know they get they basically when you have those two guys you have a sucker because all that salesman has to do is get his buddy jacked up about it now his buddy is on team with the sales guy and he's like dude how could you not do that it's $400 a month look at that fucking thing. Right you know ignore the fucking $28 or whatever fucking balloon payment don't think about that. That's fucking three years away when you have to worry about that. Right. You know it was it was really interesting to see that like you'll crash it by then oh man.

SPEAKER_07 43:04

So but maybe there was something to this because a lot of my people that you know buy buy shares and stuff they always talk about you know you gotta but it's okay it's okay when the market does a belly flop because you got to buy the dip baby you know crypto just did a belly flop you got to buy the dip you got to buy the dip always buy the dip man always that's good news buy the dip. Okay just for the sake of you want to throw this up real quick this is the past five days um you're gonna notice that at one point Harley Davidson's stock dropped down to 24 bucketonies right uh from where it previously was in the mid 30s right so it lost a whole lot of value about 30% of its value real quick in a matter of a couple of days when this news came out that the that the stock is now being considered junk, right? That it was now considered a junk uh you know their rating had dropped so much well look at what happened in two Days they went, they clawed back like six or eight ten bucks a share real fast. I mean, real fast. And if you look at that chart and see what happened to them as a result of being identified as having a problem, well, that gave a lot of people, a lot of people who dumped their shares. A lot of other people bought the shares real quick. They call that insider trading. Uh but if you look at them their earnings statements, their projected earnings statements, look at how many times they missed their product projected. So when they're telling their shareholders how much money they're gonna make next year, look at those big red numbers that say they missed it by 72%. They missed it by 126%. Are you fucking kidding me? Those are big numbers. Those are gigantic numbers. In some case, 126% is more numbers than you started with. Yeah, right. Right? So they are having real problems and selling off their debt for a very short-term pile of money to play with, they're putting a lot of faith in the new CEO. They're putting a lot of faith in this guy because I I just, man, I do I hope the answer, the reason they got downgraded to a BBB minus, right? And from a BB plus, which is something that people consider to be, it's still an okay thing to buy. And when it drops to a BBB minus, nobody in the world, no investment group, nobody's vanguard, nobody's fund is gonna be buying your property anymore. You are now toxic. Nobody's gonna buy that. No funds are gonna pick you up. You have no projection of growth. And everything that I read said, well, based on what we know about money, what Harley's doing is not the way to rescue your company. What Harley's doing is not the way to even stay in business. Bringing in more Chinese stuff and losing your which will probably compromise your legacy buyers, is not really a great strategy for keeping your business alive, and that's why they get devalued. The people who are devaluing it, isn't Billy Joe Jimbob at the end of the street that says, well, they advertise to gay people, I'm gonna burn my Harley. That's not who does their financial prognostications. It's actual investment companies that say, We buy stocks, we don't care whose stock it is, we're not emotionally involved in it. We look at the things the company's doing, and if those things are logical, sensible things, oh, then if they're down, they'll probably come back up again. And we'll ride them back up. And we'll ride them back up again, and it would be a great time to buy the dip. But if the company's war if the company's war strategy is a bad one, then nobody's gonna be like, oh yeah, we should totally invest in a whole bunch of that.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

What if it's so bad that they turn into like a KTM or something where Harley gets bought by like Bajaj.

SPEAKER_06 47:00

And then they start making the bikes. My money is on is on private equity. They're gonna strip it basically because they want to get rid of the union members that are building Harleys here in the country. I agree. That's their basic. They're gonna ship it to China and they're gonna charge you twice as much for half the shoe.

SPEAKER_07 47:15

Right. So for one hour ago, the experts are predicting a 34% decline in their business. So that's in in EPS, in their their in their projected sales. And that's terrible. The company that that's what gets you downgraded. And that's where they're saying we're concerned the the investors are concerned about financial stability, and obviously you can't bring any money in. So that's really the problem. And that that's what that's the problem. And your stock did drop as low as $17 a share. So that's terrifying. When the stock drops 50%, that's a pretty wild swing.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

By now.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

So the buy some the one analysis I had read through. They brought up the the reintroduction of the sportster. And eventually we'll see the sprint that we still don't fully know all the details on, right? And it's it essentially sounded like just a lack of faith and the sportster being the saving grace, which I agree in in the sprint. I I don't think any of us have confidence that they're gonna land at the six thousand dollar price point they were shooting for. So the market's looking at the fact that they do not think Harley can expand their buyer base fast enough to basically pull the plane out of the nosedive it's in.

SPEAKER_06 48:36

Well, they've been shitting on their prospective buyers for 60 years. I don't exactly know that six months is gonna fix that.

SPEAKER_05 48:42

Yeah, I I mean what what gave you that impression? The 30% APR? Right.

SPEAKER_06 48:48

Oh no, I mean every time anybody says, hey, you should change your product to appeal to more people, they go fuck that, we're just gonna build more camo sportsters.

SPEAKER_05 48:56

Well, the hill I I will die on that I've said before is there was one guy. They need to go pay him whatever his number is, which is Matt Levitic, and let him try and turn it around and do the more road starly thing again.

SPEAKER_07 49:09

Yeah, I I promise you the the solution is not what they're doing. Obviously, it's if I I was kind of holding out out, I'll admit it. I'm sitting here and I was like, yeah, you know, this is a really big American company that should be doing this. This is, you know, 5,500 people working in the United States with real jobs and real places that we can, you know, deal with. The problem was their tariff. Everyone sits there and goes, why is Harley Davidson so freaked out about tariffs? Well, because 90% of the box they open comes from fucking China.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:40

So the tariffs are killing them. The tariffs are absolutely murdering them, and they're not allowed to bitch about it too loud because then that's them flipping their fucking whole card about where they're buying all their stuff from.

SPEAKER_06 49:52

But the truth is the only growth market in the world right now is East Asia. So why the fuck they give a give a crap about the American market is beyond me.

SPEAKER_07 49:59

I don't, I it's it is a very, very difficult thing because clearly East Asians that thought for a short while it was fun to buy Harley Davidson, they are not doing it anymore. And the all those bikes that we talk about, all the Benelli slash QJs that are branded Harley Davidson in the Asian market are not selling because they've figured it out. They're like, should I buy the Harley Davidson one or for 30% less buy the bike it's based on? The QJ.

SPEAKER_13 50:26

And just buy some stickers and put all the time. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 50:29

Fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

Well, that's what you see. A lot of those things, and it's like Benda is more popular over there than Harley Davidson.

SPEAKER_07 50:34

Somebody stopped me.

SPEAKER_06 50:36

There's more power behind buying a chinchilla than there is about somebody stopped me the other day on the street and asked about Benda motorcycles.

SPEAKER_07 50:44

That guy was a plant.

SPEAKER_06 50:45

He must have been.

SPEAKER_07 50:46

They sent that guy from Benelli Kiwi to walk in front of my shopping.

SPEAKER_12 50:50

You heard of these Benda motorcycles?

SPEAKER_07 50:52

Yeah. I was like, what the heck?

SPEAKER_12 50:53

Who are you?

SPEAKER_13 50:54

Gee, if this is happening with motorcycles, I wonder if it could ever happen with cars. Don't tell Volvo.

SPEAKER_07 51:02

My God, man. That is one of the scariest, scariest things about I tell people all the time, they're like, I'm so upset that we don't bring all these really cool cars in, these cool electric cars, that I can buy a BYD in China for $5,000. I want to buy a BYD car here for $5,000. Oh, Jesus Christ. Let me explain to you how telematic unit is. And just for something, do you have any of your friends that work in an American factory or an American place that does American things at all? Because the one thing we kind of have left is our automotive manufacturing. We cannot run a country just based on waiting for each other to get sick and then not healing them.

SPEAKER_13 51:46

Isn't our car industry basically making most Americans poor because of that, though? They're only building cars that are $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $100,000. Oh, yeah. You know, they're not even letting us try to buy a $20,000 car anymore.

SPEAKER_08 52:00

Nope. No, they're not.

SPEAKER_13 52:01

So why do you not why would I have that much allegiance to them? And half of the shit is still being made overseas, or you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_07 52:09

So like there are Buicks being sold that are Chinese cars. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_13 52:12

It would pain me, but I wouldn't care if Chevy went out of business. I wouldn't care if Ford went out of business just like Harley's gonna go out of business.

SPEAKER_05 52:19

That's why there's been so many safeguards in place to prevent the Chinese from coming into the market because they know exactly what's gonna happen. Everyone's gonna go, wait, I can buy a new car for under $20,000. I'll take three.

SPEAKER_07 52:31

Yep, yeah, yeah. Why and why wouldn't you? And the the answer is I do appreciate. I respect everybody having that mindset, but I also know how catastrophic it would be for what's left of American manufacturing. Oh, no, no, no, no. It's not just that.

SPEAKER_06 52:46

Can you imagine what would happen to the used car market if that happened? That's true. If you could buy a brand new BYD for seven grand or a shitty 120 grand.

SPEAKER_07 52:53

Yeah, you're not paying 12 grand for a Honda Element anymore. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

But who who ran most of the Defense Department building during World War II? It was the auto industry. Absolutely. So if you lose your auto industry, then strategically you're putting yourself over a barrel when anything significant happens, like you know. They're already talking about shipbuilding. We only build 30 ships a year when Chinese build 300 a month. Right.

SPEAKER_13 53:26

You're talking as if it's not already dead.

SPEAKER_05 53:30

Well, I mean there's enough supply chain left, but we're not doing ourselves any favors creating this issue at our northern border, whenever 50% of the our our US you know manufacturers exist on both sides of that northern border, as well as the southern border.

SPEAKER_06 53:47

Ah, yes, the USMCA. I hear that bitched about about twice a day.

SPEAKER_07 53:51

Yeah. And I mean they're say they say, and we're looking at this right now, they're saying that seven to thirteen million jobs in the United States are based on automotive production.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

Say that again?

SPEAKER_07 54:01

7 to 13 million jobs. This is just you know, fast, right? Um based on automobile production in the United States. So that's a lot of unemployed people if it lever gets pulled and BYD shows up and it's just like, here's our BYD F-150, and it costs nine and a half grand or 12 grand, and we're gonna finance you at 1% because we're a Chinese company, and that's what we're here to do. Yeah. Um, it's a it plus it's also all of our dollars now are running to China faster than they already were running to running to China.

SPEAKER_06 54:40

So if you want our country to be owned by China more and better, well, somebody's gonna own that $72 trillion in debt.

SPEAKER_07 54:47

Well, that's ouch. I remember when it was only three. I remember when it was 1.7. Yeah. That escalated quickly. Yeah, yeah. I remember when it hit a trillion and I was like, that's a lot of fucking debt. 1,000 billion is a lot of debt.

SPEAKER_04 55:01

You know, you know when I figured out it was a lot? When they took down all the signs, because the signs couldn't keep up. Yeah, the signs that would just run the debt numbers.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Oh man. Oh, that was tough.

SPEAKER_04 55:11

They kept adding they kept adding in deter spots on the side so the building was sticking out.

SPEAKER_13 55:16

Well, the problem Stossel was talking about the fleecing of America at least 20 years ago. And not a fucking thing has changed. In fact, it's got only worse. It's gotten fleecing. Because people are just making like anybody who gets a chance to make money off of fucking offshore our businesses is just doing it.

SPEAKER_12 55:32

Oh, the government, big business, everybody like like private equity who might buy Harley. I was gonna say India or Thailand.

SPEAKER_07 55:39

Right. Every time I've ever seen private equity buy anybody, anything I cared about, I've always prepared myself for the other shoe to drop. I'm like, yep, and done.

SPEAKER_13 55:48

That's the only I love I like Japanese car makers even more because they're making cars in this country that are affordable and people want to buy them.

SPEAKER_06 55:55

Well, you know why they're making cars here, right? We're the only country in the world that has the exact standards that we have, and it's cheaper for them to build it here than it is to build it overseas and then ship it in.

SPEAKER_07 56:05

Well, if we change our that's another protectionism thing, is by us maintaining a different NHTSA standard and us maintaining a different DOT and everything else. If we had recipe, so you just say, like, yeah, um, well, you can't bring that car into America because it doesn't meet our rules.

SPEAKER_06 56:18

But it also prevents American automobile manufacturers from building cars here and shipping to places like Europe.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Well, and now especially because I just read an article today where Europe is now instating laws where they're gonna like go after people that do um planned obsolescence. It's against the law, which is fantastic. It is they care about their people. But unfortunately, most of the American products definitely.

SPEAKER_06 56:41

That's the quote I heard is that in Europe they protect the consumer. In America, they protect the manufacturer that makes always the shareholder.

SPEAKER_04 56:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 56:50

So last year Harley Davidson lost $3.58 billion. That's a B. That's a lot of money. Uh they've also shipped out.

SPEAKER_08 56:59

I wiped my ass on $3.8 billion.

SPEAKER_07 57:02

Yeah, it's that's not good. That's that's pretty bad. The uh it's it's pretty evil. And that's just so it's so tough to even consider that. And you're like, okay, how many employees do they have? All right.

SPEAKER_05 57:14

Well, and how much uh grant money did they get through live wire?

SPEAKER_07 57:16

That's the other thing, is the you know, when you've got that cash infusion of all that grant money, all the live wire money, and you still came up short, you're like, oh man, fuck.

SPEAKER_06 57:26

We can't give these things away.

SPEAKER_04 57:27

Speaking of live wires, did you guys see the video that that bikes and beards dude did? No. He got one for $3,500. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the best one though is there's a reactionary video of a live wire owner who paid full price watching that video.

SPEAKER_07 57:41

And then he's just sitting there going, oh, the live wire came out at 32 and dropped 10 grand in one day because Zero launched their bike for 10 grand less than theirs.

SPEAKER_04 57:52

So now think about that. So this dude bought it and it works. Everything's perfect. $3,500.

SPEAKER_07 57:56

Yeah, he lost 90% of his money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's painful. Um, for just people who care about market share or whatever that means, uh, Harley Davidson at one point, way back pre-COVID, 2019, Harley Davidson Motorcycle Company had 49.1% of the American motorcycle market.

SPEAKER_09 58:18

Jeez.

SPEAKER_05 58:19

That's a lot. Regardless of type. That's huge. It's just like not just crucial.

SPEAKER_07 58:23

It says Harley Davidson's share of United States motorcycle registration. So people don't register dirt bikes. Right. All right. Fell from 49% in 2019 to 34% in 2025. So basically, that is a massive drop.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Yeah, they had half the market and then cut to one-third of the market, basically.

SPEAKER_07 58:42

That's crazy. Even numbers.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

That's just that's a that's a that was not according to their long-term plan, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_07 58:50

No, and it wasn't what the it wasn't the information, and I can tell you, as a shareholder, it was not the information that came out in last year's shareholder meeting or this year's shareholder meeting. They didn't say, BT dubs, we went from half of the fucking market to a third of the market, pat ourselves on the back, you know.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

But they but they did say oops.

SPEAKER_07 59:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we have had a giant windfall. I was very I wanted to save my thing from my shareholder meeting because Harley was talking about they had this giant, giant windfall based on the very shrewd sale of their debt. And this giant cash infusion the company's got. It's gonna let them do all these fun new things. And I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

They burned through that.

SPEAKER_07 59:32

You talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, baby. Yeah, that all that free money.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

But I don't I don't think they had many uh, you know, ways to turn at that point. They they had to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_05 59:43

Uh uh to well, don't forget they sold off part of their headquarters as well.

SPEAKER_07 59:47

Yep, and they said they're gonna they're gonna reduce their costs $150 million. And that's where I'm a little concerned.

SPEAKER_04 59:58

Yeah, if you release cost, you're gonna reduce quality. There's no other way to do it. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:02

Yeah, I completely agree. You'll know it's really bad when they start reporting the average age of their rider again to distract from the financials. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:13

They did say that they had uh $15 million in just restructuring expenses and fees.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:19

Whoa, golden parachutes and that's the first one. That's the first quarter.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:22

That's the first quarter of this year. The first quarter of this year. The first quarter of 2026. Don't worry, run end loaded there. $15 million in restructuring expenses and fees.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:31

Don't worry, though, you're not gonna have to have jobs because AI is gonna come along. It's gonna come and build the mics for us. We're not gonna have to, you're not gonna have to work. Yep. We're gonna just give you income. You're just eventually people aren't gonna ever have to work because there's gonna be robots, and AI is gonna take care of everything. And of course, the people who do all this are gonna be so gracious and they're just gonna pay average people who don't do anything to just live. Yeah. That's what that's what Musk said.

SPEAKER_10 1:00:57

And I believe every word he says.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:00

It's yeah, and when was the cyber truck supposed to come out? Oh, it was on time and under budget.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:06

And beautiful. I I paid a hundred dollar deposit so I could buy that thirty thousand dollar truck. Still huge. And then they cut them when they're like, Yeah, come and pick up your $64,000 truck. You mean your hundred twenty thousand dollars? And then they were like, Whoa, but if you want to come right now, we only have the foundation editions, which are gonna sell you for $92,000.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:23

Oh, okay. Okay, and they're still hugely popular.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:01:27

Well, I mean saw one today.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:29

I did see one today too, but I saw one today with a temp tag on it. And so I saw the temp tag on it, and then I saw the trailer hitch on it. It was black wrapped. So it was a black wrapped cyber truck with a trailer hitch and a temp tag on it. And I was like, I would love to know what this guy, because the temp tag was less than 30 days old. I was like, I want to know what this guy paid for. Like, is he the second second owner? Is he the third owner? Yeah, his bottom dropped. Where is he at? What did he pay for it?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

Oh, there's a dude, there's a dude on, of course, YouTube. I'm always watching it, but it's like some dude in New Jersey or something that has a high-end car dealership, and he's always trading Porsches and stuff. Oh, yeah. So he's got this guy that I know this guy bought two Cyber Trucks because it was gonna be a collector's thing, so he popped full bore into them, paid 120 grand each, so he was 240 into cyber trucks, and the guy was like, bro, we have 15 in the back, and I paid $38,000 for them. So what do you want to do? Oh that fucking guy lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

That is so painful. Oh, that's terrible. That's fucking painful.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:31

And here's the other aspect of the cyber trucks I think is hilarious. A lot of companies bought them to be like, oh, look at us, we have a cyber truck. Oh, yeah, we're cool. We got a cyber truck. And then all the bullshit happened, and now they're like parked behind the building. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:43

When I made my deposit on the cyber truck, we were selling electric motorcycles. I thought, what a great thing to be able to deliver my electric motorcycle to the customer in the back of an electric truck, practice what you preach. This will be fun. And then I'm like, wow, dodged it. Totally dodged that bullet. Yeah, right. Uh because yeah, I'm not, I wouldn't be a happy cyber truck owner. I I'd be right, I wouldn't be happy.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:05

Or you could be like Grumpy Sir Guy and still be waiting 10 years later for his Elio.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:10

Oh, ouch. Phil, you doged it.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:12

I don't oh I dodged a bull.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:21

So I wouldn't be saying all those negative things. You know, I never like to say something negative about something unless we can point to a potential solution and solve the problem. And I have the solution. Well, I'm sorry, Harley Davidson has the solution, and I'm about to buy more stock because they clearly finger the problem up. Finger on the pulse. Insurance fraud. Finger on the pulse of the American public. It's got to be insurance fraud. Launching this year at Sturgis, the bike that's gonna save the company. Oh, and it's not Chinese, well, not a lot of it. Not most of it. Some of it's Taiwanese. Not just a little bit. This is it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

This is what the reason that people are not going for Harley is because of a model, a specific bike model.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:02

This is the bike that Harley Davidson says is gonna save. I mean, the CEO himself is mountain, putting 100% of the power of the company behind the launch of this bike at Sturgis this year. Throw it up on screen sleepy. This is the Harley Davidson Deadwood. No, wait, wait, isn't it? I don't hate this bike, and I didn't hate this bike the first time they launched it in 1993.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:30

Wait, is Deadwood after all their other clientele because they can't get boner too?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:48

With the optional full demo pencil. Now that you've hit a certain age in your life and things aren't working, you deserve the motorcycle you've always wanted. Harley Davidson Blue Chew.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

Let it do the wood for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:59

Oh you're right. It's not a bad looking bike. It's not a good one.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:03

And it's fine because it goes back to their roots, and I think that's the new CEO saying what he should say. It is, it does look like a post-war FLH. It does. Well done, boys. It does.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:12

It looks comfortable.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:13

It looks great.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:14

Yes, you've accomplished in making something that's 70 fucking years old look attractive to old 70-year-old men.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:21

Right, right, right. Yeah. They didn't. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:24

You're beginning to save the company, boys. Go home. Job well done. Round hand job for everybody.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:30

A whole bunch of other soft tails that looked exactly like this motorcycle for the past 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

They were like, listen, Grok, can you do me a favor? I would like a current, current Harley Davidson that looks exactly like an old one, but modernize it.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:45

Chrome's expensive. Keep the chrome off of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:48

Is this the new Honda?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:49

This is like the Honda Shadow, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:50

This is the Honda Shadow VTX twenty one hundred. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

Uh what's the CCs on this guy?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:56

Well, this will be the W. This will be the the Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:00

For only $65,000 it can be yours.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:02

Yeah. So uh but it's $165?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:05

I don't think so. No, it's 117 QBs. So it's uh it's the Milwaukee 8117. So yeah, that's great. You'll be the hottest man.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:14

You'll be the hottest guy on the parking level.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:15

It's 98 horsepower, it's 120 torques. That's pretty good. This is not a shitty.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:22

My issue with it isn't the engine. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:26

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:27

It's 1799.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:29

1799, which is very fucking reasonable for a big inch Harley. So for a big twin Harley, $17,999 is not good for them. Terrifying. Yeah. Considering we know that the Street Glide, which is the same exact bike, can be $32,000.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:47

Yeah, but they're counting on the fact that every dude who buys a $17,000 boner wood or whatever it's called is going to add the screaming, you know, whatever and all. You can? No. It's going to be $25,000.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:58

But you don't need to.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:59

The Harley Davidson.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:00

Because it's already $117 cubic inches. The bike I rode in today is $103 cubic inches and it's more than anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:05

You think somebody's going to leave this bike stock?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:07

Yeah, well, sure. No. Yes. Who cares?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:09

You can't leave the store within stock. But I guess whatever.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:12

Hold on. Stop, Tom. I will have to call you on this one. For $1,799. This is in the neighborhood of 1800, 1900 cc's. It's 100 horsepower, it's 120 torques, right? It has six-axis IMU. It has multiple riding modes. It has extraordinarily good brakes and suspension because, well, Shoah. You know, they they're they're not buying from bad people. Um, it does look to me like a post-war bike should look. I think aesthetically it looks like, you know, if Dan Aykroyd or John Belushi was riding this on a, you know, in and it was in dark gray, dark green, you'd it'd it's sellable together.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

You know, you're kind of saying the bike riders.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:58

Yep, the bike riders. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Like to have one of those old kind of bucket tractor seats and stuff. It would be kind of cool. Like you can do some cool stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

When you Indian already built that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

Well, I mean, I mean as did Kawasaki.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:12

You're saying all the magic is happening because you've got modern modern everything in there in the classic bunk.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:18

The safety is there, the performance for a Harley is there, right? I enjoy riding my Harley Davidson. I choose to ride that bike. I go out in my garage and I go, what do I feel like riding today? That scratches an itch that nothing else in my garage scratches. It has a place in my garage. Now, I didn't spend $18,000 on it. Spent about seven. Okay. But I've enjoyed it every time I've ridden it. I've enjoyed it my entire time I've owned it. It has been knocked on wood. It has been fucking deadly reliable. It is extraordinarily easy to maintain. The valves that will never need adjusting. Well, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:00

If people have never experienced a Harley, they're well overbuilt.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:03

Yeah, they're extremely overbuilt.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:05

Yeah. And I can hit expansion joints on the freeway. I can hit bumps and lumps and dumps, and it just goes down the road. And if I want to crack the throttle and take it up to 120 miles an hour, it will go up to 120 miles an hour. It looks, you look at my motorcycle, you cannot tell me what year it is. There's nobody who can walk up to that and like go, yeah, that's a 2014.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

And you don't really know how fast they are. No. Because like, unless it's like a flamboyant guy that has all the performance parts sticking out, you might not know. But I've seen this on the highway where like you get these like kids on the sport bikes thinking that they're gonna be all jacking this this Harley dude around, and then the you see this thing with, I don't know, 130 cubic inch motors go, you know, and take the fuck off, and you're like, haha.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:44

You can build these motors out to insane torque and horsepower. Oh, yeah, with without anything being on the outside to give away the city.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:51

And since they're so simple, most Joes can do a lot of the shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:54

How about this bike comes stock with heated gear connectors? It's already wired for them, it's already plumbed in. That's so that's kind of interesting, right? Um, it comes with all the expensive lightings. Why would you need to heat the gears up?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:08

I mean, that happens better. Well, it's because the transmission's divorced, now yeah, so are most of the owners.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:17

Now, did Harley figure out something so you don't have to take the entire back of the bike out to change the belt? No. No.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:25

The good news is you only have to replace it at 60,000 miles and not a lot of people.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:28

I was gonna say 40. I'm gonna say 40 is generally considered to be like 40 to 40k is probably a good time.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:37

John, you know, if they had something like a chain or something.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:43

No. What is another thing this bike has? It's got tubeless fucking wheels. Good job, Harley. Good job, Harley, because Triumph still hasn't figured that shit out, right? Well, they're English. But they like tubes, but motorini's motorinis figured out.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:05

That's it.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:05

You're prepared for a puncture.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:07

And the moto pump, it's this big. So your whole thing to fill all your tires, pump and everything. Super tiny. That's funny thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:13

It's a Harley, it also comes with a pump about that size. It also comes. It's not for the tires.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:16

Exactly. Right. So my I guess my point is I said some shitty things about them and their devaluation. I I did talk about their financially, they're in a bad shape. But sometimes having a big fucking scary dog behind you makes you run a little faster than you've ever run before. I mean, if they really think that this might be the result of a big scary dog.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:35

Yeah, because I mean, if people feel like they're actually getting a pretty good value out of this thing, I mean it might attract some of the people that are like 30 and 40 that might not have been considering a Harley.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:44

And for the 24-year-olds who for whom 17.9 is financeable, they can live with that. It's not the 32K for the street glide. Right. This comes with all the USB ports and the Bluetooth and all that shit, which is what the 25-year-olds want.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:58

Does it come in purple?

SPEAKER_07 1:11:59

Uh no. I'm sure there's a color kit thing. It's the Model T. Yes, the Model T. Any color you want. Yep. As long as it's black. Exactly. So I actually have to say, this is not at all a bad thing. But it took exactly one second for a bro dozer, I looked on YouTube, to say, Harley Davidson is launching the exact wrong bike at Sturgis. And I literally watched a 1% well-ish looking guy just throw hate on this bike super duper hard. And everything he threw hate on was all like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing. Like he was angry that the spoke wheels didn't have tubes. Because real men have tubes. Like that kind of thing. What a fucking dumbass. He was angry that there was rain mode. He was angry that there was touring mode and sport mode in the computer. He was angry there was traction control in ABC.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:55

No, he was cheap because he thinks all those things are what make it more than $10,000.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:00

Exactly. But when you consider how fucking how much motor you're buying, how much motorcycle you're buying. That idiot probably wants points in a carburetor, too.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:11

Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Probably. Probably.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:15

He's probably like me. There's nothing better than a Sunday getting the Harley out with the tubes in it, and you get two or three hours away from home, and then you get a flat. And then you spend four hours with higher spoons and fucking hopefully you can find a patch kit or you, you know, something. Because you know, that's that's real, that's motorcycling.

SPEAKER_13 1:13:32

There's very few people in this world that actually could change a fucking motorcycle tire when it load on the side of the road. I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:41

There's a reason why I carry roadside assistance. Right. Yeah. I'm not I'm not fixing that ship outside of the road.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:46

1923 cc's.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:49

It's got some stoutness.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:50

I mean, it's I mean, if you want, if you're buying things based on displacement, I've only got a measly 103 cubic inches on my bike, so you know I'm I'm barely just basically phoning it in. Um, but I've never ever driven that bike and been like, oh, I need more motor. Well, as we know, the size matters. Yes, clearly.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

Well, I did notice that when you ride that bike, now you wear a full-face helmet with a dark shield.

SPEAKER_12 1:14:10

We can see you on your little 103.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:13

So to devil advocate this abyss. Yes, please. My issue with it is that this bike already existed. Yeah. It was the heritage classic. Heritage Classic. It was two grand more. Yep. And it came with a passenger seat, passenger pegs, saddlebags that were lockable, and a taller windscreen. Exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:30

And they're $4,000 on the marketplace right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

No, and it didn't have this electronics pack. Sure. But if we're just looking at new bikes and we want to look at value for engine, like they already had those. They had cheaper like uh soft tails, right? Like the the what street bob or whatever.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:45

Street bob, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:46

Yep. So when we're looking at it through the lens of what's going to save the company, right? I think it only A meteor. It's because the massive marketing push, there is so much coverage for this bike right now. Yes, and there is nothing about it that is super spectacular. Nothing. Right. Nothing. It's a good looking bike.

SPEAKER_13 1:15:06

Exciting to me. I'm not like, oh my god, that's the one Harley I would buy.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

You know what's funny though?

SPEAKER_13 1:15:10

A Pan America, I'm excited about it. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:13

A couple weeks ago, when you showed us that carbon fiber sport bike, everybody here was like, go nuts for it. That's gone. Right. What happened to that?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:21

Same thing that happened in the Bronx. We'll never see it again. Hey, you know why this bike's called the Deadwood, right? They take the good ideas out back and beat them until they come back as a deadwood.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:33

That's right. That's right. The whole idea on this is what are we doing? We're we're in cheapening it, right? We're it's in shidification.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:40

It's letting you buy the bike as a process because you're gonna buy the bike for $17.9, you're gonna finance it. Then they're gonna give you financing so you can put the bags back on it that you want, right? But you couldn't, you didn't want to jump to the Heritage Classic right off the back. So you're gonna finance $1,400 worth of bags, right? And then the passenger and the passenger pouch.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:59

Let us walk you over to the Chrome and Skull Department.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

So you can't show up at the uh biker bar with stock pipes either. You gotta get some.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:05

So and here's where I def this is where I kind of am different than I guess Harley's target buyer, because I would buy this motorcycle the way it comes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:17

Can I borrow it from you?

SPEAKER_07 1:16:18

And then I would leave it the fuck alone because I think that they did a really good job on this thing. And I think that it is if somebody did drop a five-year-old heritage classic in my shop, I would take all the shit off of it until it looked like this.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:37

You know, I give them credit.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:38

Because this to me looks like what I want a post-war Harley Davidson to look like without a foot clutch, without a hand shifter. Yeah, and that's not gonna leak oil and it's gonna get me to work every morning.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:47

I mean, if that is your goal, I like that you agree. I like that my issue is like I I look at it as a functional purchase. Right. That bike does nothing for me because there's no storage. Exactly. I'm gonna put bags on it.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:59

I want a road king. I mean, I would put bags on it, but I would put 30-year-old leather bags on it with studs that I got at fucking at mid-Ohio for 40 bucks because I would want the bags to be beat-up, fucked-up looking leather bags. And that's what I would want to have on this bike. And I would also sit in the parking lot and throw stones at it, you know, because I would want this bike to have a little patina. You know, I I actually don't hate it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:28

Yeah, I love the I love the dome on the front wheel to give it that 1950s.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:34

Yeah, and you're right, it is it is a cheapened out heritage classic. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:40

And if they can market it right where the Triumph Bobber lands, it'll must be worth it.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:44

Yep. And I do like the like John's saying, I have the Road King and I like the Road King. I prefer the full size the full size Harley Davidson, but I've ridden a lot of these and they are great. Like they're they're nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:57

I'm taking my 18 grand and buying the R12 G slash S.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:01

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I meant to remember that from when we got in the city. And that is exactly where you're gonna spend your money. Same price tag. Same exact price tag, same price tag, different strokes, different folks.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:12

Triumph Bonneville Bobber is 15,000.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:14

And I don't have the bottom. Really? Yep. The Triumph Bonneville Bobber is 15,000 for a 1200 C22 motor.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:22

That's a good book.

SPEAKER_13 1:18:23

I wouldn't, I actually would buy the and spend the extra two grand and get the Harley.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:26

I would too. I would too.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:29

One appeals to me and one looks like shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:31

Right. I understand. But to me, the I don't care for the aesthetic of the Triumph Bonneville Bobber. I don't like its look. Does it still have the bobber?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:39

As soon as you say bobber, I'm like, I don't get it. It took me a while to come around to it, but I really like that triumph.

SPEAKER_13 1:18:45

Bobbers are for knobbers.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:46

No, but if you ride it though, if you remember a couple years ago we rode with the high Goldwing.

SPEAKER_13 1:18:52

Oh fuck you now.

unknown 1:18:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:18:56

So that just goes to that just goes to prove what your taste in motorcycles are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

Those fighting words. You don't like those.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:04

Just let those words speak for themselves. So there's the try and fineville bobber. And so if I have if somebody says you you you know you're gonna spend 15 on this or 17 on that or 16 on this and 18 on that, I'm probably gonna spend the 18 on that. That thing looks weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:21

Yeah, the seat sucks.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:22

And I have I have ridden I have ridden these enough of these to tell you that I do not fucking like this motorcycle.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:28

But we rode with this kid a couple years ago that had this bike, but he had beach cruiser bars on it that really around, like and it was super fucking comfortable. Like he let me sit on it right up in the parking lot. I'm like, this is pretty comfortable.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:41

This is weird. This is a very utility. I mean, this is their 1200 bike. They use it for everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:47

I get it. It doesn't look like the same bike they sold in 1937.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

BMW R 18.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:53

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

Uh again, you could probably get that for uh 18 grand.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:58

Oh my lord. BMW yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:00

I think I think the I think the answer is there are a lot of really nice bikes once you hit about $15,000 to about $25,000 that will do all of the same things and know that that bike is not gonna save your company.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:09

No, it's and it's there is a ton of competition.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:12

I agree with you on that, Tom.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:13

Yeah, the BMW starts at $15.4, the BMW R18 base model. Now I don't know who's gonna be buying the BMW base model. I'm not even sure dealers will pay for the it is $15.4 and it is an honest 1800cc engine. They are been uh they are challenging to the sales department.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:30

Yeah, yeah. Uh look at that, no belt.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:33

Oh, oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:35

Right there.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:36

Yeah. Oh of course, though, they did steal that motorcycle, they did steal that seat off a 1992 Honda Shadow, or I'm sorry, yeah. Uh a Honda Magna.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:47

So I love I love how they took the R1200C a couple of years ago and went, well that that failed. Let's try it again.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:52

Yeah, I I you know I can see on this bike how they got the price down to 15.3, the mag wheels, right? Um they definitely said what's that weird body kit that goes with those though? Yeah, you can buy the you can buy the prototype body kit. Yeah, right. You can you can buy the R18.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:10

We can make them really sexy, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:21:12

There can be the R18 kit that is like, oh, this is the one that we promised you first.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:17

So last week during autocross week, one of the stops that we had to do was this museum in Kentucky, or maybe it was in Tennessee. I don't even know where we were, but it was the Cleveland Moto Museum. I posted the case. He was suffering heat structure on the I saw the pictures, yeah. But why doesn't uh BMW, if you can look up a 1931 BMW R2.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:34

Oh, we all know this bike.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:35

Holy fuck, is it sexy, man?

SPEAKER_07 1:21:37

If you if you look at the very first R18 prototype, uh you're realizing that that kind of was where they were headed.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:47

Yeah, yeah, because I mean, like the flowing lines and the frame and the way it cradles everything, it's a sexy function.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:53

I've kicked myself repeatedly for not buying an R26 25 years ago.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:57

Yeah, the R18 prototype, the one that we all talked about in this podcast and got kind of fucking excited about, is not the bike that we got. And you know, when the bike looked like this, this was one of their show bikes. This is you know, one of the ones that uh uh that they they dragged around.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:19

It was close, but if you look at that 31 bike, the way the frame and the oh it's crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:24

The BMW R2.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:28

Oh yeah, it's a good looking bike. Oh yeah, they're super cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:31

That's what I'm saying. I know all the all the pre-war and during war war BMWs are amazing.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:35

Yeah, they're they're beautiful, beautiful bikes. Almost like they got it right. The but again, you know, let you throw that up for the people at home so they can see it. You know? Oh, yeah, I mean they're good. They're very, very cool art deco, like uh extraordinarily beautiful German motorcycles.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:52

Look at that frame, dude, and the gas tank and the blue on the top of it, and everything about it, man.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:57

Yeah, they're cool. Yeah, they're absolutely cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:00

I think I've just realized what I don't like about the Triumph Bobber. It's missing the seat springs. Yes, it is. It is.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:05

Yeah, the the seat is covering out in the world. You're right.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:09

That's what makes it suck. All you gotta do is sell a kid of some springs back there.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:15

I just never can't.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:18

Like I knew it was the gap, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was the gap. But it's a seat spring space. I think it has like a monoshock, like right. It's a mono shock seats.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:26

You can see it in the picture.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:28

But does anyone make like fake fake seat springs you can glue to the bottom of it?

SPEAKER_08 1:23:31

Yeah, you can just buy them from Royal Enfield and stick them on, that'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:34

They could get the guys that make their fake carburetors, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:36

And the fake Kickstarter leather, too, yeah. Right, because it's got the fake LMAs, so it's got the fake MLs on it already. So you should be able to just go ahead and have fake seat springs too. And this is one of those things where Harley, I'm sorry, where Triumph went so hard, like we need to fool everyone into thinking this bike's a fucking rigid. Right? How can we what can we do to fool people into thinking that this bike is a is a rigid? And they did. They they made a straight line go from the rear axle through the paint of the gas tank. Almost.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:11

Right? And they did everything with that, you know, the rear fender that's just floating above the tire, so there's no uh suspension travel gap between the tire and the fender. They did everything they could to make this thing look like a rigid, and then they stuck a seat on from the future.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:27

Yeah, you're right. And then if you took the rear fender off, it's a castration device.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:32

Well, yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm not saying you're not, but you could bob that fender very tastefully, move that stay and bob it, you know, even a little more Bobby Bobby, and it'd look pretty cool if you got that thing just about vertical. If you got that rear fender stay just about vertical, and then ditched that seat and get like an old LaPara seat and chuck it on there, it'd look really nice. Yeah, you get an old leather lapera seat on there and throw it on, it'd look nice. Yeah. But it's just the idea again. Is this right? I want to spend 15 grand. No. God, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:01

Not when there's other triumphs that are better looking.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:03

Yeah, yeah, you're right. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to see if there was any uh anything else. But no, that yeah, I think that's a pretty interesting, pretty interesting thought experiment. But yeah, it's they they've definitely taken a bunch of stuff off the Heritage Classic to be able to introduce a bike that's affordable.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:22

Thank you, Tommy.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:23

But yeah, that's that's wild. The next news item is India. Oh India. Oh India. Oh India. India has got to be having the party of the century right now over at the Bajaj headquarters. Bajaj Mobility AG. What the fuck was that? Okay. Saddle down. Oh, I thought something blew up. That was uh that was it, that was one of our transistors. Yeah, we lost it. It was one of our tubes.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:57

We have a lot of electronics, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:58

There's a lot of it, there's a lot of electronics here. You just have to survey for the magic smoke. One lithium device, and then we're all done. So, yeah. I all I have to say is Bajaj, we just talked about Harley Davidson losing 30%, right? A lot of motorcycle companies are having a very tough time. Bajaj went up 80%. 71% is in their motorcycle sales. 71% of a giant company. In case you weren't listening several months ago when we talked about how big Bajaj was, because nobody really fucking in America has any idea how big Bajaj is.

unknown 1:26:40

No.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:41

But Bajaj as a company is worth more than the state of California. Well, I'd made that up. It's not true.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:48

And they could not be a better blueprint.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:50

Very convincingly.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:51

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:52

They couldn't be a better blueprint for Harley if they tried, because you have this company that had this legacy image. They were known for like what three scooters, essentially, right? For almost the entirety of their existence and have pivoted 180, sure. Killed off their legacy scooters, oh, absolutely electric scooters and motorcycles and all this stuff. Right. And they they managed to make it work and Harley can't figure out how to pivot.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:18

Yeah. And whereas Bajaj kept saying, Oh, you want one of those BMW? We'll build that for you. Yep. Oh, you want one of those KTM? We'll build that for you. Oh, you want one of those Vespa? We'll build that for you. Oh, how much of that Vespa how much of that Vespa LX150 is made by Bajaj? A lot more than you think is. And we can tell which ones they are by the because of the squeak they make. Right? Uh Harley Davidson is worth $2.71 billion. Market capitalization that is worth $2.71 million. They lie on their balance sheet because they say they have assets, but they sold off all their debts, so we can't count that. Can't trust that. 2.71 billion. 2.71 billion. Bajage, 167 billion dollars. That's more. That's more. That's $165 billion more. Now it breaks down into different companies because they have Bajaj Financial, which is worth $66 billion, which is still more. That's just their financial company. That's still $64 million more than Harley Davidson.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:35

Is that like Harley sold off?

SPEAKER_07 1:28:38

Yeah. Bajaj Holding and Investments. Bajaj Holding and Investments is $12.5 billion. That's just their holding and investments. That's $10 billion more than Harley Davidson just for their holding and investments. Now, the part of the company that I didn't even know existed, which is Bajaj Electrical.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:58

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:59

And that's $0.39 billion. Okay, so we finally found one part of Bajaj that was worth less than Harley Davidson. Bajaj is not fucking around. They are not fucking around. I don't know if they are the most valuable company in India.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:22

Where do they compare to Hero?

SPEAKER_07 1:29:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:25

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:26

Because that's their biggest competition.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:28

Well, what's Royal Enfield's parent company? Royal Enfield. Well, they've got another name they go by, though.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:34

Oh, Iker.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:35

Yeah, Iker. Yeah, yeah. What's the value of Iker?

SPEAKER_07 1:29:38

So in terms of market capitalization and profitability for vehicle, Bajage is worth significantly more than Hero Motorcord.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:44

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:45

Yeah. Hero. So here we go. So if we're just going to do market cap, market cap Bajaj is 31 billion. Hero is 10 billion.

unknown 1:29:55

Dang.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:56

Revenue and profit, Bajage is 2.6 higher than Hero. So pretty fucking big.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:02

That's been the past 10 years.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:04

Right. Yeah. So that's amazing. That's that's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:11

Well, we all remember when the son came, the sun inherited Bajage and he killed off a Cheatac and everything else. And everybody went, What are you crazy? And he said, No, we're concentrating on the future. And everybody went, no, no, you're nuts. Wow. And then he modernized the business, and now they're building BMWs and $300 billion later. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:29

Damn. So Bajaj Auto is recognized as the most. I'm sorry, I'm going to say this again. Bajaj Auto is recognized as the world's most valuable two and three-wheeler company.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:39

Wow. So Tom, I wonder if that kid just walks around going like this. Oh, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:44

Right? Everybody said, how can you kill off the Cheatek that has been a Bajage since 1940, you know, 1968? Everybody gets one for their wedding and he went, fuck you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:53

That's the best fuck you dad we have ever.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:56

Totally totally losing money on this shit. Yeah. So uh the oil company of India, Reliance Industries Limited, is worth more. Um, it's 17 trillion rupees, right? And then we go to the HDFC Bank, then we go to Bhati Airtel Limited, whatever that is. The State Bank of India. India. Tata Consultancy Services Limited, which I no, that's not Tata. That's Tata Information, IT. And then Bajaj. So that's it. So that is that is pretty fucking big. They're bigger than Unilever. So that's that's saying something. So here's here's to you, Bajaj. You nailed it, buddy. Um, you have and we knew you when.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:40

Yeah, I'm so proud to have you in my shop in 2001.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:43

I mean I got it's still I got still in the garage right now.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:45

Right, right, right. Yeah. We knew you when. We knew you when.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:48

We knew when you had dirt floors. Oh god.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:52

Oh, it's two months ago. We we knew you when sometimes the bikes you shipped over had somebody's lunch in them. Yeah, we knew you when. But it is crazy how much money they have made and what a fucking recovery they have been for KTM. Because we were talking about KTM going bye-bye under Pierre, right? We were talking about like their finances were untenable by any fucking thing. And isn't it great that you're like, oh, look, oh, you know, we're we're KTM in the motorcycle industry, we're kind of a big deal, and we're gonna make some cheap affordable bikes that are gonna make our profitability go fucking through the roof. Who are we gonna have do it for us? Well, who's on time and under budget? Bajaj. Well, we'll we'll have Bajaj build our shitty ones. Oh, fuck. Oh, that's gotta hurt.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:45

But you know, like I heard somebody explain this like with all this manufacturing coming from overseas. Everybody always categorizes like an area like India or China, but it's not. Like basically, you should be mad at whoever ordered what they're making. Yeah. Because you know what I'm saying? Like the person, like like everyone's like, oh, China makes all this shitty stuff. Well, that's because some American here in America ordered that level of shitty stuff to bring in to sell to you because that same company can also make some pretty fucking fantastic stuff. No, but I'm saying, but like that's that's my point, is that like like it just comes up again and again.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:23

Because you asked Matt, I did look it up. Iker is worth 21.5 billion USD. So three Harleys? 10 Harleys.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:33

That's gotta sting.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:34

Yeah, that Himalayan really stings. That's gotta sting. I'm sorry. Well, how much what was the market share for Harley Davidson in 2019 or 2015? 50 fucking percent, 49.1%, and Iker royal Enfield is 10 times the size of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:54

Well, it makes a little more sense why they were so confident when they decided to come to North America. They're like, we're gonna open our headquarters three blocks down the street from Harley Davidson, right? Like throw the gauntlet.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:04

Well, when we were dealing with Enfield um Classic Motorcycles and Sidecars, uh, our our friend uh Kevin Mahoney, uh, he he has now gone to his third retirement, where he's now working as a park ranger at Yellowstone. And he's a great dude. This is an awesome guy, but he ran a company called Classic Motorcycles and Sidecars Incorporated, where he was importing Indor sidecars for vintage motorcycles, and somebody was like, Hey, you're moving all those boxes from India into the United States. Could you move put some Royal Enfield motorcycles there? And he was the he was the U.S. distributor for Royal Enfield motorcycles. Our catalogs that we got as Enfield dealers were classic motorcycles and sidecar catalogs. They were fun little books, fit in your pocket, had about 90 pages, and every page was bright, shiny color photographs of all the accessories you could get for your Royal Enfield motorcycle going back to Year of Our Lord 1955. Fucking cool. And about 60% of those parts fit on your C5, Chris, your modern fuel-injected unit constructed engine. And they had a fun little code on every product. You'd open up the book and there'd be the product you wanted to buy. And you'd be like, okay, Springer solo saddle, vintage-looking 50s Springer solo saddle. And then there would be like the the suits of clubs, the suits of cards. There'd be a club, a spade, a heart, and a diamond. And if it would fit on the old 50s bikes, you'd get a spade. If you'd get a if it fit on the 70s and 80s bikes, you'd get a heart. If it fit on the new UCE bikes, you'd get a diamond. So on a lot of the parts, you get all four suits. You get all four all four cards there. And so it would be really fun when the customer would get this book. And if you'd order something like a baseball cap from them, they made sure that you always got one of those books. So then you could rip through it on the toilet and be like, okay, the book says that this cool, you know, hot dog tin uh tool roll holder will fit my bike. It will fit your bike. Oh, I want a pedestrian slicer for my front fender. It will fit your bike, right? I need these handlebars, it will fit your bike. The entire six days trials kit to turn your Royal Enfield into the Woodsmaster off-road, you know, Torque Torky 500cc single. Yeah, there's everything you need. And then they would have pictures of the bikes in there that people had built and be like, This is the GT kit. You order these 18 pieces, and if you've got a B5 or a G5, this is everything you need to make your bike into this chrome gas tank, the whole works.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:51

That's kind of awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:52

It's kind of fucking awesome. Yeah. And that was one of the things that Kevin did. And of course, also in the book were the sidecars. You could have three different styles of sidecars, and they were also spec'd out which sidecar fit which bike. It was like granimals. It was really hard to fuck it up. So it, you know, some of the kids did. I mean, we we know there was always the one kid who came in and couldn't match the rhino to the fucking giraffe. So, you know, poor kid. Expensive clothes, mom couldn't get him to dress right. But I always loved that part about Royal Enfield. What I didn't love about Royal Enfield was that the guy that was running the show here in the United States was trying to have input with a very, very big Indian company who thought that warranty was an American term for stealing money from the manufacturer, right? And so, what do you mean there's a problem with your bike? We made 63 million of those last year and nobody complained. Well, because there's a different level of standards in India and Oklahoma, right? Yeah. The Indian people are like, look, I got a brand new bike. And I they they let me have the box it came in. That's considered to be a value-added benefit because you now have a shed, right? But in America, they expect everything to line up and the holes to go in the same place.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:05

And the bike to do more than 45 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:07

Or not leave, or not, you know, or not have a voracious app, you know, appetite for head gaskets or whatever. That's the difference. And when Royal Enfield went to the unit constructed engine the very first time, yeah, there were a lot of fucking teething pains until they got the new factory put together, until they were building things in a different manner. Those 500cc continental GTs, just in case you forgot, um it's a good-looking piece.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:35

It is 650 too.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:38

Well, now, but but they weren't originally, and when they were originally, we were selling these at the shop, and if you don't think we sold a handful of these right quick and hurry, we did. And so that's a good-looking machine. And they were value priced. I mean, these things were like $59.99.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:58

And it was it literally looked like a baby Norton.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:00

It was a great little bike, right? Except was it leaked gas from all the parts that we're not supposed to leak gas. And you know, a lot of the mating surfaces where rubber is was involved was a bit of a suggestion, not a planned up, you know, planned idea. It was a really cool bike. I we sold uh a whole lot of them, and then we had a whole lot of them come back in for a whole lot of problems. Um, the two that we gave to the United States National Transportation and Safety Highway Administration, that's right. They bought two bikes from me, because that's what they do. And to keep to keep it fair, to keep it uh even, NHTSA doesn't just say, Hey Honda, give me two bikes, because then Honda's gonna give them two really good bikes.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:45

Oh, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:46

So what NHTSA does is NHTSA takes your taxpayers' money and they go buy the latest Hummer H3 from a guy that doesn't know they're coming. And it's great because it's the best sell you're gonna make the week. You're not gonna have to argue about it one bit. They legit show up and they're like, Yeah, I need to buy two of those. You're like, oh, oh, okay. Well, do you want anything special on them? No, do exactly what you would normally do. I want everything to be normal. And I was like, Oh boy, I better do these right.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:14

Was that so that was uh Punjab from Germany?

SPEAKER_07 1:40:17

No, this way No, no, no, this was this is the Nazis that run Nitza. Oh, okay. The NHTSA Nazis. And so I did I did prep these two bikes, and I prepped them good, and they said, We do not want to see either of these bikes have more than 30 miles on them.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:36

Yep. So I put 30 on them, I dropped the oil, I put fresh oil. Because these royal enfields in that era, that you'd you drop the oil and string would come out, and like, you know, animals' legs would come out. You never knew what you were gonna get, and I'm not even sure that we could call what was in them oil, right? So I gave it two oil changes in that short hop, and I went and I retorqued everything. These two bikes had the best fighting chance on the road of any two bikes I've ever prepped because I knew where they were going. And then they said, Oh, I said, Well, do you want these delivered? Because you're in Ohio. The testing center is down in Ohio, and it's in Marysville. Um, it's the old Honda facility. Yeah, and I was like, Oh, I can deliver them. And they were like, You you can? You know, we we have a truck for this. And I was like, I I I can deliver them. I, you know, for 120 bucks a bike, I'll deliver them. And the guy was like, Yeah, that's great. That's that's cool. And I was like, Cool. And so I took them, I loaded them in my truck, and I drove down there, and I had to go through a 19-layer security process where they took my phone and they put it in a little Faraday bag, a little Mylar bag, and they put it in their thing. I had to sign my phone in, and then they came out and they took a brief walk through my truck and made sure I didn't have anything in my truck that would be like a recording or an audio device or anything else. And then I had to get a track safety briefing because the entire facility is inside a giant like three or four mile racetrack because they're taking vehicles up to their highest attainable speed on that track. And they have all kinds of figure eights and ABS uh water testing, brake testing. They have a giant spray bath thing that like inundates the vehicle with water. Sweet jumps. Oh, it's sweet jumps. Oh, there's the in like the 45-degree incline thing that you know they have to drive the vehicle up, and the parking brake has to hold at like a 45-degree incline and shit. The skid pads. It's cool, it's a really neat facility. But when you go in there, you're like, oh, okay. And the the lights flashing red at the stop sign, so you stop, and then it's like here, here, here, here, here. And you're like, I think those were Corvettes, but they're covered in invisibility paint. So it looks like they have moles and shit. And I'm like, that was cool. And then the little light goes green, and you drive across the thing, and then you look over and you see some truck you've never seen before climbing an impossibly high hill and then sliding backwards down it. You're like, this is fun. And they've got off-camber shit. It's it was a neat place to be. I drove them to the motorcycle testing area where I got to go in, and because I'm there, I have my little visitors pass. I parked my truck way too far away, so I could walk through the entire building. And I walked through the entire building, and I saw motorcycles that I was like, I have no idea what that is. I have no idea. I don't even know what that bike is. And it was a future bike that we eventually might see or might not see. And they were testing them, taking them apart, and putting them back together again. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:38

What year was this?

SPEAKER_07 1:43:40

This would have been whatever year that Enfield Continental GT launched in. So maybe 2013, 12 or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:48

It's it's crazy when you start to learn about some of these testing facilities to see some of the stuff. Like through my job, you know, we go to Siemens, all these places with these garages, and they have these testing facilities where like the floor in this one room where they're doing so all the sensors that are on your cars, you know, like the bumper sensors, side sensors, and stuff, they have a room where they can start, they put all this testing gear up, but the room has to be completely level. Okay. So they're like, they paid this company to come in to make this cement floor that's like a hundred by two hundred feet perfectly fucking level. Like you can take a guy with the colour.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:23

Listen, Morty, you can't handle this level.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:25

Yeah, like dude, he he hands you a marble and you drop it, and it just goes, boom, it just drops down. It doesn't do anything. It's like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_07 1:44:33

But go somewhere. Yeah. If you were a 10 millimeter socket, you'd be on Mars by now.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:38

Well, that's like maybe I have to level my garage. But but like, so like they have all these sensors, and the thing is, is like they check to see if self-like they're doing the self-driving car sensors and the bumper sensors and all these different sensors in this place. And like you realize how much like, and this is all going on, and we don't we don't know about any of this testing, you know. And then they have every single car there, every new car they're testing, like with hundreds of gases against the exhaust, so they can tell exactly what's going on with the exhaust, but they have to have the actual gas. So you go to a room and then there's a hundred fucking tanks of gas. It's like it's insane. It's fucking insane.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:12

So I took these two end fields in, and these were the Continental GT535s, if I remember correctly, because it was basically their same 500 with a little bit of a cylinder kit on it, and fuel injected, you know, that's that's good. And it came with Perelli Sport Demons on it, which was amazing, shocking, right? $59.99, 29, 29 actual Indian horsepowers, right? And I took it in and I dropped it off, and within five days, I got a phone call from the testing center that said, Um can you come back down and pick these up? I believe we have a fitment issue. And I went, what's that? A fitment issue? He goes, uh they're just all the gas just fell out of both of the bikes. Oh and I said, Really? And he goes, Phil, I'm not lying to you. I'm I'm not he goes, both bikes were completely watertight for five days. And we we came into work this morning, and the smell of gas hit us in the face as eight gallons of gas was on the floor of a room that is not meant to have eight gallons of gas on the floor. It's kind of a big deal around here. We had to empty the whole building, call in the EPA crew, 200 people had to go out, we had to get all the doors open, all the fans going. And he goes, So can you can you get down here and I'm gonna we're gonna give you one. We're gonna give you one. Can you make the gas stay in the gas tanks? And why is it both of them? And I was he goes, we've seen a lot of stuff. That's why we do two bikes. We do two bikes to see like a little bit of an average. Maybe you know, to rule out the ringer thing or whatever. And I was like, Yeah, no, yeah, we've we've water from leaked on us, two minutes, whatever, you know, whatever. Right? So I go down, I pick them up, I bring them back, I get everything cleaned out, I permatex the living shit out of these fuel pumps. Because the fuel pump is what's leaking. It's that giant circle Indian rubber gasket that is, by the way, only compatible with gasoline that has one ingredient. And this is America, the Heinz 57 of fucking gasoline, where we have at least three things that are in our gasoline that are completely repugnant to that rubber seal, because that rubber seal is Indian rubber, which means it has never been, it hasn't seen real tree for a very long time. It's been recycled, recycled, recycled, recycled. So, yeah, not very great. And took them back down, said a million apologies, and by then the gas smell had started to dissipate from the building, and I was and he's like, Yeah. He goes, Well, I gotta tell you, I've been doing this for 20 years. We've tested thousands and thousands of motorcycles, and everybody here has a very strong opinion about this motorcycle. They either love it or they want it to die a thousand deaths. He goes, When we did the dyno run, we had a hundred people spectating the dyno run because the consensus was that it is was either gonna make 15 or 19 horsepower. It advertises 29. And everybody was kind of like, this is gonna throw two 200cc numbers, right? And they said, we were shocked to find out that that it did produce about 21 of its advertised 29 horsepower, but the valve float was significant. We're like, yeah, I've been there. Tell you all about that. I can tell you the speed that it was going on the dynamometer when it did that. Like, yeah, yeah, I I can tell you. I can also tell you that the 6,000 RPM red line is extraordinarily optimistic. Yeah. The needle goes to 6,000, but I think the motor makes it to about 4,800. And they were like, okay, and so we never heard anything else from them until I got a very angry call from the not Kevin Mahoney, the new Iker family appointed management of Royal Enfield USA that called me and they were like, Why'd you do us so dirty? And I was like, What do you mean, why'd I do you so dirty? Oh, well, we've got we've been contacted by the the you know NHTSA talking about how like NTSB and they're they're decertifying our vehicle. And I was like, I I didn't do you dirty, I prepped the living shit out of that thing. In fact, I did you solid and I went down there, pulled it out, replaced two gas tank seals on the fuel pump. I think I did you pretty clean.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:46

Oh no, it you know, it failed myriad failures. And I'm like, that sounds like a U problem, pal.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:55

Yeah, and that's the ones that also had the transmission issues.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:58

Uh John will tell you. That every single C5, B5, G5 that we that we sold, within a span of about 60 or 90 days, it went from being there's a small problem with second gear in some of our transmissions, to there may be a small problem with second and third gear in a few of our transmissions. To it turns out quite a few of our transmissions have a small problem with second and third gear. And John, meanwhile, has already done five total tranny rebuilds. Second, third, and fourth. Then it turned into oh just fuck it. Here's the whole stack. And they literally sent us their performance gearbox, their backcut, square cut gear kit, and they were like, just throw money at the problem. And well, we did. We had to John did. John put an atrocious number of transmissions. And BT Dubs, there are people that we sold bikes to that we called and said, you need to bring that shit in. Because when they locked, when they were five, those were like some of the first five we sold.

SPEAKER_13 1:51:12

They were brand new, unsold. I had to prep them so I could start them and make sure they ran before I tore them completely apart.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:21

Yeah, there were ones that got out into the world that never got that service done to them. So that's why I'm very reticent when somebody I can imagine there were dealers that were like, Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:51:29

Uh so after you do this dealership, you're supposed to take a punch and punch go tunk tunk. Yeah. Put two punches in it. How tempting would it be to just be like done, dink, ding.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:40

And then because they, if you said it took you three hours, five hours, seven hours, they paid you that.

unknown 1:51:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:46

Royal Enfield under the Kevin Mahoney era, he was very, very generous with his warranty claims. And that's why India had a real problem with Kevin Mahoney being like, yeah, warranties exist and we should be giving the customer a product that's not going to implode.

SPEAKER_13 1:52:01

I thought we got like 500 bucks apiece for doing that. I think we did. But it took me less than two.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:05

I you had it down to a science. Yeah. You were knocking those fuckers out, man. It was it was pretty cool. We did make money on that for sure. Sorry, Kevin, if if you're out there and you heard that.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:15

I just we can still be friends. I just found a yellow continental GT that's never been removed from the box, and the guy thinks it's worth $7,500.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:22

Oh, this is I mean, they were they I'm not joking when I tell you that they were $49. They started out at $59.99. We bought two of the yellow ones at the end. That was the last two that we got, and they had discounted them to $49.99 to try and make them disappear. And we we did finally got rid of them and and uh became no longer a dealer. Uh because that all the C5s, the C5s were pretty great. Um, they did they did all right, you know, unless you tried to go 80 miles an hour. If you try to go 80 miles an hour, then they got expensive.

SPEAKER_13 1:52:54

Which I always said they just needed a restricter. Uh sprockets. Yeah. They were geared too low. I mean, you know, they were meant to be a tractor. Like if you put uh you know a little bit different gearing, set a chain in sprockets, it probably would have cruised a lot of things.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:09

Every single person that got a Continental GT looked at it and said, Cafe racer, because it is a cafe racer. And so they looked at it and said, Cafe racer. And then they said, Well, how fast does it go? As fast as it can, which is never the right in answer for a Royal Enfield engine. Not doing the ton. Right. You don't. Oh my god. That was that was the big thing. Was like, will it do the ton? It's a it's a 500. It's a 500, it's it's a 535, in fact, or 525. It's 535. It should be able to do the ton. And I'm like, this is Royal Enfield, dude. Don't don't do that. With a steep enough hill, it'll do it once.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:44

Yeah, it'll do it one time.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:47

If you if you lose it off a trailer doing 120, I yeah, yeah. We had a guy bring what did they look like again?

SPEAKER_13 1:53:54

I I kind of remember.

SPEAKER_08 1:53:55

You don't remember? Oh, I'll bring another picture up just so you can see it. All right.

SPEAKER_13 1:53:59

Maybe everybody would like to see that.

SPEAKER_08 1:54:01

Yeah, but they had to rig one.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:02

Go ahead and pull it up.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:03

They're beautiful, they're beautiful bikes. Yeah, they're very sexy, they're very pretty.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:08

So, what what other engine would fit in there? So if you can find one for 500 bucks with an XS 650 in there or something?

SPEAKER_07 1:54:15

Yeah, maybe. I mean, they did they did actually try that and change. I'm telling you, they used the word featherbed. They licensed the company that made the featherbed Harris or whoever the fuck it was, is the same company that made these frames. These frames got to say legally got to say the word featherbed.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:34

Well, yeah, wasn't Harris uh involved with the development of that bike?

SPEAKER_07 1:54:37

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there's some real prestige there, there's some real integrity there. What there isn't there is seals that seal.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:48

That bike could have had first gear be one to one, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:53

So let me ask you this though. Okay, so if the frame and everything's pretty cool, yeah. If I and I, you know, I've ordered some things off Alibaba before. You can get a 500cc motor that probably has 30 horsepower now for like 700 bucks. So, like, what is is it worth to do that at all?

SPEAKER_07 1:55:09

No, because like the the the suspension, those uh rear suspension were I believe they were like pattern payoles, and I'm almost certain that the entire back reservoir area there was nothing in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:21

Oh, like the ones you can cut.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:22

You could just cut the thing off and it didn't do anything. Um, every single person we sold it to had brought it in and said, rear shocks too hard. So we'd back the adjusters all the way off on the rear shocks, and they were still too hard. Uh it was ridiculous. You'd hit a tiny bump on the back tire, and your ass would come off the seat every single time. Uh ergos were not great. Uh yeah, and if and if you went 80 miles an hour, your likelihood of losing the head gasket was astronomically high. Yeah, it was really, really bad. And keeping in mind, 500cc 29 horsepower.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:02

I mean, leather's only good for some leather head gaskets. Leather head gaskets. Yeah, it was it was a problematic platform, and that's why I'm so happy that you know they seem to have it their shit together with the um 650 parallel twin and with the Himalayas 450.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:19

They seem to have their shit together, like don't they make a cafe version of the 650, even more so than like yeah, yeah, they do, and they make the C the Christmas uh tribute C5.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:30

They're redoing the C5, but they're doing it with a 650 twin motor right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:35

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:35

That's at dealerships, and they're beautiful. The classic, yeah, yeah, the 650 classic, and it looks just like the C5. Um they have an ad for it on page four, I believe, of uh the VMD program. Oh, okay. Yeah, because they're big, big sponsors, right? They're spending money, and clearly they have money to spend more than Harley does.

SPEAKER_13 1:56:55

Is there actually a featured mark this year?

SPEAKER_05 1:56:59

Yeah, I don't think they have like four because it's like Royal Infield sponsoring one portion of the other.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:04

Okay, so they're spreading it around.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:06

Kenda is sponsoring camping this year, which then all the comments were like, so how many tires do you bring into the burnout pit?

SPEAKER_07 1:57:12

That's a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:15

But I'm I'm pretty excited about like the show because it's like 50 years of AMA superbike. So they're gonna have all like these winners and bikes. I'm losing my mind on that. Ah, that's pretty cool. It's great, really cool.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:25

So Turn 14, of course, Turn 14 distribution is sponsoring this entire motorcycling adventure in the United States. Uh Turn 14, which used to be Tucker Rocky. Ah, uh, they are the big competitors to Parts Unlimited. And Turn 14 also does automotive parts and truck parts and all kinds of stuff. So Turn 14 is a big dog, but it's a big dog. And if you're listening, for a big dog, your fucking website should work better than it does. Get on your own fucking website and try to get a YTX 7 battery, you bastards. Come on, go on your own website as a dealership and try to buy a YTX 7 battery and then try to price compare it against other batteries that are also 7 amp hours in the same configuration. You can't fucking do it. Meanwhile, I can do it on Parts Unlimited in seven fucking seconds if I'm going slow. You know? Um, you know, I could yell at my fucking computer, go to Parts Unlimited and show me every 7 amp hour battery, and it's like brrrrrr, and it'll stock them by like, okay, dealer cost on that one is you know X. Yeah, sure, I'd like to order 50 of those. Great, they'll be there in seven minutes. Yeah, you know, that's parts unlimited. Turn 14 is fucking awful. Yeah, they have the worst interface. If if you are trying to find parts at your dealership and you're resorting to turn 14, you'd better already know the part number for the item you're fucking trying to order. Because they do not, there is no flexibility in their program at all to just be like, yeah, I just want to look at all the chains that fit my motorcycle, right? I just want to see what my options are. No, you need to give me the part number for the particular chain you're looking for. Well, yeah, that's not how customers shop. Yeah, that's it. So, yeah, so there's gonna be vintage days.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:08

Yeah, that's coming up, isn't it?

SPEAKER_07 1:59:09

It sure is.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:10

What is that? How many of us, how many of us here at this channel?

SPEAKER_07 1:59:16

July 24th through 26th, motherfucker. Ten days from right now, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:59:21

How many here takes seven months of work to do this weekend?

SPEAKER_07 1:59:23

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. We're all gonna be super busy.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:26

Yeah, right. Oh good.

SPEAKER_13 1:59:27

My bike's already loaded on the trailer, sitting in the front yard. I went up to Canyon and picked up the KLR and the CT70, and I just dumped the trailer in my front yard. And I'm like, eh.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:38

Yeah, we haven't gotten our media credentials yet. Um, I don't know if anybody got their camping passes yet. I didn't check to see if I had anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:46

I have about six printed out right now.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:49

So I'm gonna try to get all your guys' by the middle of next week. And I think what I'm gonna do is give the binder to Bruce. Okay, because Bruce is going Wednesday.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:56

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:57

Because he paid for early entry and racing and all kinds of shit. He did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:01

So he's going Wednesday, so I'm hoping he can go and rope the shit off and just sit there with the fucking binder and do it. Nice.

SPEAKER_07 2:00:07

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, I like the sound of that. That's that's pretty neat. Yeah, I I see zero problem with that. Yeah, having everything squared away and having you know, having that stuff done.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:19

That takes a little pressure off.

SPEAKER_07 2:00:21

It does take a lot of the pressure off.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:22

There's nothing worse than getting up at 4 a.m. and having that, like, oh yeah, you gotta get their hair.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:28

It's fucking terrible. Yeah, last year we're pulling the you know, big toter home out of the driveway, and I'm getting messages from Liza with her phone number to call her, and I'm like, what's going on? Oh yeah. She's like, Sleepy's trying to fight people. We need your camping shape.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:43

Shit is bananas. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:46

It was getting a little rough.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:49

I got on my nerves, man. I'm like, look, we're trying, well, because you know why? Because for once in my life, I wasn't trying to scam anybody. Like, I was also true. I was honest, and this fucking guy was pissing me off, man. Right. I'm like, look, motherfucker. Not only do we like we have 15 fucking camping spaces and we're currently occupying six. So suck my fucking dick. Like it wasn't like we were even trying to scam an extra one or even we weren't even close.

SPEAKER_13 2:01:13

I mean, if you told him that and he wasn't satisfied, I can't believe I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:18

He told me I need to see the physical copies of him here. I don't care if people go offline, make sure you have the thing. I told him, no problem, dude. Next year, three-ring fucking binder with everybody shitting it. And that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:27

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:28

And if the same guy shows up, if not, I'm gonna be like, look, call Captain Sarge, fucking army guy, and tell, you know, and there's his fucking binder.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:34

That's true. Yeah, that's absolutely that's that's what you do.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:38

Yeah, that's that's exactly.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:39

I did find mine. So I do have my my tent, my tent camping passes are here for 2026. I bought nothing. They're physically here.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:47

I'm staying with Bruce. There you go. It's perfect. And you. Yeah. And you, and you, and you're staying with everybody. Stay with everyone, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:01:55

I figure the worst comes the worst. Uh if nothing else, I'll just spend the $24 to buy a one-day pass. A one-day pass, exactly.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:03

Right. For as much, for as much as people stress out about this fucking thing. Keep in mind, folks, that you can walk up to the front gate and go, I want to come in here.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:16

And they go, How long do you want to come in here? Today would be good.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:21

Good, $24. Can I go in? You can go in. How long can I stay? Until we throw you out Monday morning, right? That's what it is. And like people are like, Well, I don't have the pass for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Fucking get your monkey ass in here on Thursday night or Friday night. Get in. Be in. Be in there.

SPEAKER_13 2:02:43

Don't leave and you don't have a problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:46

God, people, do we have to spell it out for you? Yeah, if we have to fucking spell it out for you. There is more fucking, there is more bullshit around like, well, I don't have a tent pass and a camper pass and a bathroom pass and an early exit and a parking pass.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:04

If you're a person, you're not going to be able to do that if you have a fucking RV or a big camper car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or all this other shit.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:11

If you are and dude or if your camper has a mailbox on it, you might be, you might be too late for you to get the good camper pass that you need at this point. Well, if you're just in a car, yeah. Oh, I got people freaking out on the the vendors thing because the swap meet, oh all the swap meet spots are closed. Go on the fucking swap AMA, go to the AMA Vintage Days forum on the Facebook thing. I've counted 30 people that are like, does anybody want two spots at the end of row B?

SPEAKER_08 2:03:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:38

You know, there's plenty out there. So if you know if the train left the station and you decided you wanted to be a vendor this year and you desperately wanted to be up there in the swap meet, there's plenty available. Some of them maybe even be discounted prices, you know.

SPEAKER_13 2:03:53

If I really got facilitated and I weren't, they wouldn't let me drive into the camping area on day one, which after day one, like just drive in and out like I would just park over in the fucking overflow parking, unload one of my bikes, ride over there, hang out for a while until I figured out how to bring my car over at O Dark 30 or something.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:11

Exactly. And I'm gonna remind you, I'm gonna read this again for our podcast listeners out here.

SPEAKER_13 2:04:16

Grab any one of the camping passes that will be in that.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:18

Are you ready?

SPEAKER_13 2:04:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:20

A tent. Tent. You know what a tent is, guys, right? It's the thing you pitch in the morning. That's right. So a tent, camping rules. Tent and RV camping rules. Maximum, one motor harm home RV, and that's the plus symbol, two portable units, or three portable units total, which means three pop-ups. I mean, it means three pop-up campers. If it says Coleman on the side and it gets taller, that's three portable units total. Portable units include tents, vehicle, pop-up, etc.

unknown 2:05:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:06

Three. So that means if you get a car and your town, that's two.

SPEAKER_07 2:05:09

So if you have your car, if you have a car and you have a trailer, a utility trailer, and you have a 10x10 pop-up, that's three portable units. Gotcha. Per spot. Plus a motorhome. Okay. And a motor home. One vehicle per site. One vehicle per site. So in your tent camping, in your tent camping area, you get a vehicle. You're supposed to maintain a five-foot spacing between all units. Okay, great, no problem. Uh RV pass is required for all self-contained units. If your unit's not self-contained, if it's a trailer, it's dragging behind your car, again, that is a portable unit. Uh this is not difficult. This is really, really easy. And it's kind of hard to fuck it up, I hate to say. You know? But people will stress themselves to the moon on this. And that's because security's so heavy-handed on Thursday. It's because they're trying so desperately to make that shit work.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:17

So and like they were on a thing today talking. Right. And like they were people were bitching about stuff, like they're usually doing stuff on and uh they have events right up until fucking like Tuesday of that week. But I was like, why can't you let people in Tuesday and Wednesday just to clean up?

SPEAKER_07 2:06:32

Because they're literally cleaning up from the event they had the other day.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:34

Right.

SPEAKER_07 2:06:35

This is what you have. If you have a tent, if you have a tent pass, it'll look like this. This is what it looks like. It says tent camping pass directly on it. If you have one that says an RV camping pass on it, it will look just like this. So that's what you should, that's what you should be holding in your hands. They have numbers on the bottom of them, which is what we learned last year. Um, this particular one has a number on the bottom, and it says display it on the campsite. In perfect world, there's a four by four post standing there that has a left number and a right number, 768 and 769. And then that is the area where you're supposed to affix your displayed on the campsite this thing, this pass, so that when you know Johnny Security Kid rolls up in the golf cart, he goes, Oh, there's the pass, and there's another pass, and there's another pass. Well, but what what did you just claim all these spots? No. Harry was there an hour ago, he went to go take a shit. Mark was there on that one an hour ago, he went to go get dinner. Becky was there, you know, two hours ago.

SPEAKER_11 2:07:35

Even at that.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:36

Okay. Our things are there.

SPEAKER_11 2:07:37

This is pass number one. This is these, these are all bot and paid. Exactly. I'm the first guy.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:42

Because they're like, you can't save spots. And I'm like, you're not saving spots. You're not saving spots, these were bothered. They're bought and paid for spots. Yeah. They have the they have the signage there.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:52

His clarification was I need to have the passes in your hand if you're gonna be talking to me.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:57

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:58

And so remember, we were trying to get people to text us their passes. And they're like, no. He's like, no, because they're not here. You're not saving a spot. Right. So I figure if we show up with the passes, we're not saving spots. We have the passes. Do you want me to nail each one to a thing? Cool. I can do that. But I have them in a binder, too.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:13

We can take them, they're in the binder, and we can take a staple gun and we can zap, sap, sap, zap, sap the whole way down. It's just gonna say and they're gonna they're gonna play the game of like, well, then where is he? Right. Well, he was here.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:23

He he got the he ate the lettuce.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:25

He's fucking in the shoulders. Don't eat the lettuce. I know you're tempted to eat a bag salad, guys. It's not worth it. Yeah. Do not if you're if you're with the sound of my voice. If you're within the sound of my voice, do not get the lettuce at Taco Bell. No, do not eat bag salads. Apparently, this is not this is not the poo you want to have. No. Apparently, this is the one that you want to avoid at all costs.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:48

They're saying it lasts up to four weeks. Oh, wait.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:52

I saw a couple months potentially. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, it's not. I can't handle a modium ID or AD for all the band camp.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:59

No, they're saying that some people, after four to five weeks, have to be hooked to IVs just so they can shit their brains out with IVs hooked up to them.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:05

Oh, I can't handle that. I gotta make it, I gotta make it clean through Mid Ohio.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:09

No, we gotta get through.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:10

I'm only eating pizzas from now until the end of Mid Ohio.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:13

The country in less than 30 days.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:15

I know all of the above. Okay, I'm only gonna eat pizzas from now until forever.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:19

I know.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:19

I'm gonna really Because anything that goes through a pizza oven is dead.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:22

Well, as long as you cook anything, you're fine.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:24

Right. So boil your lettuce. Unlike some boiled iceberg. Yeah. I get a whole bag of spinach, I'm throwing it away. I get a bag of baby leaf spinach. I trust Aldi. No, no, I'm throwing it away.

SPEAKER_14 2:09:36

We threw everything a week ago. I was never heard about that. Like, no, we're on.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:40

I mean, I've been a bachelor for the past two weeks since Meritson, California. But like, I have been eating pizzas like, you know, every safe. Three nights a week.

SPEAKER_13 2:09:48

Brand new thing, a baby spinach and arugula, right in the garden.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:50

Throw it away. Don't do it, don't risk it. Don't have the creepy crawlies. Don't have explosive diarrhea for AMA vintage days, guys.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:02

But I was freaking out a little bit because I found a sale on cherries and I ate all these cherries, and I kind of forgot that cherries are basically prunes. So when I got home, I was having an issue, and I'm like, fuck, I got the bug. I'm like, I know it, I know I got the fucking bug. But then everything was cool. It ended up.

SPEAKER_13 2:10:16

What if you just soak them in vinegar? Vinegar kills a lot of stuff. Like I'm telling you, man. Douche them. I'm just trying it, let us know.

SPEAKER_07 2:10:23

We'll uh we'll let you come visit in the parking lot. Okay. You're you're absolutely right because I was like, okay, AMA vintage days, we do not want to be sick for that. No. Because the bathroom situations are not good.

SPEAKER_14 2:10:33

Didn't you just eat the salad?

SPEAKER_07 2:10:35

Yeah, I ate the No, I didn't eat the salad, I ate the crude. Can you imagine if there's an outbreak in the middle and it's just overflowing with diarrhea? You mean more than it normally is? Do you have a picture? Yes. John? I gotta find that. Describe the situation to our podcast listeners.

SPEAKER_13 2:10:53

Only to be that guy who obviously stood on top of the porta potty seat, squatted down and took a shit that was six inches above the level of the seat, took off his Harley Davidson do-rag, wiped his ass, and tapped it off like a cherry. Oh, it's disgusting. The Portageon, the mountain of shit Portageon rising out of over the seat.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:21

The poop. So it's over the seat. Also, you look and you're like, that dude needs to go to a doctor. Like they're like, there's sometimes a turd that you're like, that came out of the phone.

SPEAKER_14 2:11:30

You can look at the layers from three days. It's light brown, dark brown, like each meal is laid out in strata.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:37

And this is what we do, we can tell you guys as QC, as quality control engineers for AMA vintage days, we can tell you that in 20 years we've seen it go from within sight of our campsite six Porta Johns. Within sight of our campsite, six Portagons. And now it is within sight of our campsite two Portageons. There's more people. A hell of a lot more people. Record attendance year upon year upon year upon year. We're responsible for a lot of that. Give us four more tortageons.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:11

You need to bring your own unit in.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:13

Yes. Yeah. Not joking. It's not a bad idea.

SPEAKER_13 2:12:17

That's why some people have bought RVs and that's why some people have trailers, because that's nice to have your own shitter in your own shower.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:24

Yeah. Cleveland Moto will be bringing a post hole auger.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:30

For your everlasting, for your everlasting personality. Bruce's gonna do some land application.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:35

So Bruce is getting that Wednesday? See, that's where the money's going, is for the outhouse. I was cleaning out my mom's house. Remember when we went to the case.

SPEAKER_13 2:12:41

I think Bruce is out there listening. I'm not getting it.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:43

She has one of those like toilet extenders. Yeah. But I'm thinking if you just put that on the ground, that gives you a nice little pocket. Oh, it's drop one.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:50

They're perfect and they're free. Yeah. Right? So I mean everybody's giving away one of those things. It's got the handles, it's got a three-inch horizon. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:57

We just make a little cesspool cesspool. Yeah. Yeah, just put a five-gallon Home Depot.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:01

Bring the fuck, bring the 12-inch post hole logger, and that's it. Put a little chemical down in there, pour a little chemical down in there. That's it. I can shit on an MRE box like a pro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:12

You had to do it in a tank.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:14

No, you don't shit in the tank, man. Don't don't you read the fucking rules? There's a rule, man. Nobody ever shits in the tank.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:21

What if you were like on a mission?

SPEAKER_07 2:13:23

You hang off the you take a you take a seven-foot altitude poo. You hang on the bustle rack, you put your feet on the hole, you grab the bustle rack, and you hang, you hang two.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:34

Next week on Scat Talk.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:36

No, it's just how you do it, man. Yeah, it's just how you do it. You just let it drop. That's it. Or you do the MRE box trick.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:43

Just gotta watch the elevation.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:45

The MRE box trick works great. It's fantastic. It's probably the greatest thing in the world. And then you just burn everything. You just light it up and run away.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:52

We need to see if when Bruce is there Wednesday night, if if security dissipates, if he can relocate a few porta jobs. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:01

But I mean, we gotta relocate them from far away. We gotta relocate them from like way far away. So they don't even miss them. We need to relocate them because they're kind of on skids. They're kind of on like four by four, slightly beveled edged skids. So you need a high torque, low rope situation.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:19

Is no side by size, but skid steers might be available.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:23

Or an international cadet.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:24

Or an international cadet would probably tug a portage on uh one that's that's fresh.

SPEAKER_13 2:14:29

This wasn't the best year for it.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:31

Yeah, but but oh, that is brilliant. I mean, that is crap.

SPEAKER_13 2:14:35

This was rate up to but the year before it was actually up and out. Why do you have a picture of this in your head? Because I'm like, look how fucking ridiculous this is.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:43

The first thing is when you complain to management, you're like, okay, this is unsanitary. It's Saturday night, you guys haven't been here to clean the shitter in way too long, or you don't have anywhere nearly enough shitters. There has to be a mathematical formula somewhere for how many shitters you need for how many people are in the campgrounds.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:59

Do we know anybody at AMA?

SPEAKER_07 2:15:01

Yeah, we do. Yeah. And I don't think, and I here's the thing I don't think AMA pays for those shitters. I think that I think that's entirely Mid Ohio pays them, pays for them. Yeah, I think. And I think that that's why there's not as many as there used to be.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:14

Well, we talked to them. I really got the understanding of the separation. Sure. You just think it's like, oh, they rent the track, but the AMA is doing everything.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:21

No, the AMA is just like, hey, we're here, but that's Yeah, and next week it's gonna be whatever racing organization, and the week after that's gonna be their racing organization, and the Portajo's stay. Right. They just have a crazy contract with Portageon Incorporated to come out and treat them all.

SPEAKER_05 2:15:35

They changed companies this year, I think.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:36

Well, that's more information than I knew.

SPEAKER_05 2:15:38

Yeah, because the the contact for like the RV pump out, which is who also does the Portageons, is a different company this year. So I had no idea. Fingers crossed, maybe the situation's better this year.

SPEAKER_13 2:15:48

Yeah. Well, you know that they have a dump station there, right? Yes. You can dump it.

SPEAKER_12 2:15:52

And I have to pull the trailer out and all the way to the other side.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:55

Yeah, it's by the nice bathrooms.

SPEAKER_13 2:15:57

Well, yeah, on your way out.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:58

Yeah. Yeah. The dump station is where you line up for the lap of those.

SPEAKER_13 2:16:01

This is what I talked to you about. Crack the valve and take a few laps to the campsite.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:07

Like the fertilizer wagon.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:08

Yeah, I've I've seen some people doing that. We've seen some people doing that. Hey, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna drive up there on the hillside because I think I left my baseball cap over there with the RV.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:21

And you're like, oh, okay. And then you see the Amish kids playing it at the hotel. Right. The honeywagon happened.

SPEAKER_08 2:16:27

Pull up to the fence, let her rip. Yeah, so anyway, that's that.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:31

So yeah, get your uh get your shit together for AMA vintage.

SPEAKER_13 2:16:34

There'll be an extra green spot on the satellite image next year.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:36

Oh, it'll be super, super green after we're done. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:40

Uh not to jinx us, but did you see the weather forecast?

SPEAKER_07 2:16:43

Don't even talk.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:44

Okay. How much smoke is gonna be around? Right, because the wildfires aren't out there.

SPEAKER_13 2:16:50

That would.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:51

That would. Although, here's something to think about. If you keep shit outside, cars or motorcycles or things like that, that can cause a bit of acidity. Yeah. Um, so if if it rains and there's that much smoke in the air and your shit's just sitting outside, you're gonna get something out of it.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:06

You may want to give it a rinse. If it has to live outside, you may want to rinse yourself.

SPEAKER_12 2:17:10

Yep. Or comment. I've got bad news. We have acid rain, regardless of the city.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:13

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I know, but I mean this could be like in two days, yeah. It could fuck your shit up.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:18

It could be really super acidic. That's it. Anybody else got anything? Chris got a joke?

unknown 2:17:22

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:23

No, no joke. What the fuck? He's not funny anymore. No, can't rely on him being funny anymore. All right. That's it, guys. Go ahead. What do you got, Sleepy? I got one. You got a joke?

SPEAKER_04 2:17:34

Yeah. So Mickey was gonna get divorced from Minnie, and he was at the lawyer and he's talking to him, and he's like, hey man, you you you can't you can't divorce your wife because she's silly. He said, I didn't say she was silly, I said she was fucking goofy.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:50

On that, folks, remember to ride fast and take chances, please. Out of here, Jenny Mack.