Anders T. Carlson on Motorcycles & Creative Writing | One Gang Ep. 022

welcome to the one Gang Worldwide podcast your ultimate ride into the world of motorcycles visit Cycles worldwide.com where we offer a completely free Marketplace for everything motorcycles join our one gang Community where you can connect Share info and swap stories with riders from all over the world join for free at psychos worldwide.com and be a part of the one gang Community right now on today's episode of the one Gang Worldwide podcast we're chatting with Andrew Carlson a Beyond fascinating journalist and notable figure in the motorcycle industry known for his innovative style and approach to All Things motorcycles in today's episode Anders will touch on how he developed his take on the industry travel vintage bikes and managing passions of the day job so get ready for an awesome conversation with Andrew C Carlson right here on the one gang podcast you don't have to get everything right you just have to be entertaining like the greatest sin of all in any kind of writing or any kind of content what we're doing here is be entertaining be be funny be engaging do you know it's like it doesn't have to be informational and and all it just has to be fun to watch today we've got Andre Carlson thanks for joining us man we appreciate you being here and we're looking forward to a fun conversation yeah no problem fun to be here what's up Anders thanks for joining us buddy thanks man thanks good to be here all right well let's kick off this nostalgic ride man uh take us back to your childhood uh where where you grew up uh what sparked your love for motorcycles um how did they in evolve as as you were getting older gotcha well I think like a lot of people I started off uh with like plywood boards and BMX bikes and really just skinned knees and trips to the ER and stuff like that I think that's pretty typical um I you know I didn't get into motorcycles until later I spent a long time uh working really a deadend career um I kept on I moved to Chicago uh and I kept on seeing all these guys uh over at this Cafe this place you wicker Clark uh and I used to see all these guys with like clapped out gers the spray painted black and stuff like that and I just remember seeing one guy he had a pair of goggles on that's all he was wearing he was riding like all mad ma style and I remember I saw him and I was just like oh my God that is the most badass guy ever he was riding an old slabside gixer um and I used to see like classic vintage bikes around old CBS old cois and stuff like that and I just was really on to it and so I started saving up money and uh dropping hey where did you grow up I grew up in Mad Wisconsin Madison okay I love that area been the People's Republic of Madison Wisconsin as we like to say so um so so dir biking uh a big part of it back then yeah yeah you know we grew up in the suburbs so a lot of dirt bikes a lot of trails and other stuff like that um yeah but I really didn't get into motorcycles until years later as an adult um which is probably good if I'd been motorcycling when I was 17 or 16 I'd probably be dead uh so it was uh couple years later uh as an adult uh I started getting into motorcycles and just uh uh growing the uh the addiction from there yeah man anybody in your family rode in the past like your dad or or anybody or or you don't remember anybody familywise yeah you know it really wasn't a big thing in my family my stepdad had an old Indian I think a 47 Indian Chief and we used to see it in the garage we'd go up North and and visit grandparents and stuff and you'd see this Dusty old Indian in a barn uh that was really cool and he always said ah someday I'll get it up and running it back out on the road uh but fortunately that never happened um but going up to the farm up in northern Wisconsin was really fun because that's where little dirt bikes that's where I actually the first time I rode anything with a motor um probably just a little 50cc Coleman or something like that uh but that's where all yes that's where all the fun toys were you know four-wheelers dirt bikes and all that kind of stuff and uh yeah that was uh very formative in my mind for sure for sure very cool would you like uh do you do any camping travel trailer kind of stuff or just mainly out there for the day riding and going crazy maybe just up there on like uh holidays and other stuff like that um I got to be honest like I grew growing up in Madison um yeah it was really really mostly just like BMX mountain biking I was really into uh and then it just sort of took a couple years off to be an egghead intellectual Punk weirdo um yeah I basically took 10 years off from like watching TV or radio or other things like that it was extremely artistic uh anyway once I kind of got out of that um I think that's kind of like when the motorcycle Bud really kind of took um but yeah the seeds were sort of planted early on you know like everybody you know riding mountain bikes dirt bikes little Coleman and other stuff like that been around yep so we take motorcycles and we take riding um talk about how those two worlds kind of melded together and when it clicked for you that you enjoyed it and was it a a love that you that you fell for with motorcycles attached speaking to writing or did you find that they were two separate worlds kind of melded down the road I always thought of them as the same world I remember um I bought my first motorcycle it was a CB750 it was like the worst possible motorcycle I could have bought uh as the first motorcycle because it was 35 years old how old were you to much oh 35 No I was 20 something I can't remember 29 or something I'm probably the bike was 35 years old yeah the bike was 35 years old and I was I think like 30 or something like that anyway it was the exact wrong bike to get because you know it's a vintage bike uh you know things things happen out every week that go wrong with it um but yeah no as soon as I got into it you know anytime I get into something I read obsessively about it so I would buy every magazine I could get my hands on this is back in the days when there were paper magazines um right right so I would just obsessively read Cycle World motorcyclist anything I could get my hands on and when I was a kid I used to be a huge car guy and I loved Road and track uh Car Driver Auto week um all of those magazines so I really grew up reading reading a lot of great Auto journalism uh then when I got into motorcycles you know I started reading um all the the titles that I just mentioned um and really getting into it and then also a really great uh magazine I should mention out of paa called motorcycle Classics uh which is a small Niche magazine great yep and they would have all sorts of great stories uh about trips they took I mean sure they would they would do R uh they would do restoration reviews of you know note the bikes um but there were also like peppered in there were stories like about you know kids just taking an old like Honda Dream and uh riding it cross country and kind of more of a travel journalism thing and I remember reading a couple of really great stories and being like man why can't I do that it's like ah well you can uh if you're dumb dumb and ambitious enough so yeah I think I think writing and writing for me were were really sort of really intwined kind of inseparable actually though when you take a pen to paper or a keyboard to a screen your writing style is unique refreshing creative like really enjoyable a really enjoyable read absolutely did that I mean you talked about taking a 10-year break and going through your artistic time when you first started or in those early years of writing did you find yourself with that style and it was just your personality coming out through the pen or did you kind of develop that over the years of reading what you created and molding your kind of Personal Touch to your writing how did that kind of transpire oh probably started off by copying uh a lot of copying a lot of other writers and their Styles um you know and and I think one of the great things about starting off writing for motorcycle Classics was that they had a really light touch I think that they let each of their writers kind of be their own person and you know some of the stuff I did really was to be honest really not that great um but you know they stuck with it and they stuck with me um you know I I would pitch them stuff and if it was interesting enough they'd be like sure go ahead and you know as much as they would edit for grammar and other things like that um they really kind of left me alone to kind of sort of find my voice uh you know uh write the stories that I thought were compelling and interesting and take some of the rough edges off but honestly they left a lot of that stuff in there know which is which is really helpful uh to develop as a writer sounding all serious like there yeah yeah for sure Hey listen let me ask you a question you said the motorcycle Classics was a magazine that that kind of um inspired you as far as the reading and and how it was laid out um prior to that you you had mentioned other magazines especially the car magazines that you are really into um was there was there somebody out there at that time um that you were reading outside of the magazine part that kind of inspired you for the writing was there some somebody maybe writing novels or what have you uh no not really to be honest uh this is kind of weird but I think writing about motorcycles and other stuff it's it's really kind of its own sort of Silo so I mean as much as I love uh talking about being well there's a whole shelf of books back there you know my background is in uh literary criticism and comparative literature and other stuff but obviously like as far as motorcycles go um you know just bring the fun and Anarchy uh I I think it was really just about like thinking back to stuff I read when I was a kid I used to read Peter Eagan when he was head of Road and track you know think of Brock Yates and I think of all the other people that would write really hilarious uh send-ups and and and travel pieces and stuff and so I guess that was in my head yeah when I write about bikes uh it's really that's really kind of what I go back to I really don't draw on any of my other education which is good because I've actually forgotten most of it so really it's a kind of a happy hey uh tell us um you got a excellent story uh you're J&B scotch and cola story I think um he I I it's kind of a two-part two-part question one was tell us about the story give us all the details because that's absolutely an amazing um story which happened to you but then in addition to uh was this how you got your first break yeah um I was going to school in Madison Wisconsin I worked at a liquor store called Badger liquor uh which is still there it's a tiny little uh uh liquor store on State Street which is kind of the main drag you know uh by by campus and all that and uh at this liquor store at the time uh the onion which was a very funny uh satirical newspaper yeah uh was based yeah it was based in Madison uh before they moved to New York and just as it so happened a lot of uh writers and contributors for the onion also worked at this liquor store so we would make really funny signs in the windows um and the owner just did not care what we put on the signs we could swear we could uh as long as it made people laugh and got them in the store and sold bottles of booze and beer and whatnot so we would just make really funny signs and we would really try to outdo each other with uh whatever we could get away with uh as far as outrageous or semi offensive signs um so that just kind of became the culture the store got known for having funny signs the window anyway uh at some point a bunch of Executives from New York you guys started that tradition correct uh yeah I did I personally did not start anything uh I was just a torch Bearer to this uh but got it got it okay um so at some point a bunch of Executives from Jay Walter Thompson which is ning agency in New York uh did we doing like kind of a Whistle Stop tour of the Midwest trying to figure out how to save a dying Scotch brand uh Jane B scotch and they were just looking for ideas they were like how are we gonna get scotch how are we G to get you know college kids to drink Scotch they thought well one idea is to make J&B and cola like Jack and Coke J andb and coke uh at any R when they were coming up with ideas they saw our signs and thought they were pretty funny took a bunch of pictures and they went back to New York and about a week later they called me and my buddy uh working at the store and asked us if they could pay us a lot of money to make really funny signs but for j& B and we said yes very quickly my friend actually my friend did not my friend Rick did not he was you know the 90s don't sell out that whole thing that very Gen X kind of thing he actually had a oh yeah he actually had a tough time fighting the man exactly he did some soul searching uh I was really I I did not need any soul searching I don't actually have a soul so but anyway we agreed to you're not even a ginger right exactly um so we we just grabbed a bunch of beer uh went upstairs we had a little uh Lounge up there and we just got a bunch of used temper paints and we just got drunk and made a bunch of signs and they thought it was really funny they thought everything we did was really great and it led to a naal campaign for a while uh they would fly us out to yeah they'd fly us out to Providence to LA to other places uh just to roll out this whole campaign and and all that and so for two years it was really fun uh we we made a lot were they targeting college campuses yeah or just in general College Camp mostly college campuses uh so for two years it was really fun me and my friends took the money and we started a Ad Agency ourselves uh with third partner uh Michael Kramer and uh yeah for a year we ran our own agency did all these ads uh look for other work and it was kind of a ride man advertising in the 90s was a really weird time uh people took dances it was just kind of like here's a bunch of money could you do something for us and we'll just see if it works you know it was wow right that like Corn Pops commercial my brother just sent to me yesterday speaking of 9s commercial got to have my pops oh yeah uh Paul Paul Walker was actually in that complet I forgot completely yeah he's I'll I'll post it up it's so funny but all right so you've been covering the motorcycle world uh vintage bikes restoration you name it since 2010ish U solely is that accurate so through that time go ahead well I I remember what God what was I doing in 200 oh I was unemployed uh anyway so yeah I I've been writing and covering um a lot of that stuff since 2010 um I do have a day job which is uh tragic and boring and unfortunate and and all that but but uh oh God I am a senior copywriter for Leo Bernett uh the Ad Agency in Chicago gotcha it's uh it's it's a actually it's a really dangerous job uh you know advertising pays well so it kind of comes with you know it's Hazard pay because it literally could bore you to death so it's very dangerous nice uh all right so in that time that you've been covering Vish bikes motorcycles all the stuff that's fun to write about that you've enjoyed and passionate about do you have any um like what of the most memorable moments or or kind of do you have any stories with an unexpected ending or twists or you know in the process what have been been some cool moments that you that really stick out in your memory oh man uh it's really hard to pick just one uh I think all my story ideas uh aside from the stuff I I cover you know reviewing bikes and stuff for motorcyclist right most of my stories came from bad ideas uh but bad ideas make the best stories honestly uh absolutely oh about like uh 10 years ago uh I was drinking heavily with some friends here in Chicago Cho and my friend had a bike that he called hellbitch uh it was a Honda CB 360 and they're known for being not very reliable they're probably the worst motorcycle Honda ever made uh in the 70s uh so it's kind of become a running joke in Chicago uh stev 360s is shorthand for shitty fails un so we were we were drinking heavily and he was talking about this crappy bike that his wife owned and I just said you know I bet you I could fix it you know and he's like no no the thing is cursed uh oh and I was like I bet you I could fix it and I could race it uh anyway so he accepted the BET and the challenge and 500 bucks later I bought a nonworking cb360 uh fixed it up went to a track day and blew it up just totally grenaded the out of the engine yeah uh I didn't just grenade it I ran it I heard it blow up and then I kept running I finished the lap uh on one cylinder and it was just this like like would you run a vacuum cleaner over a jar of nails that's what it sounded like oh yeah uh anyway so long star short I uh I I I fixed it I fixed it with uh and this bike is so crappy that people would give me free engines they would give me three CB 360 engines uh jeez because they didn't want them anymore so I had three spare engines all filled with cobwebs and 20-year-old of oil uh so I thought but I didn't really know anything about making race bikes uh and this is amateur racing obviously so I just sort of would put another engine in and in quick time I would blow that one up too uh and eventually I built a new engine uh took it to Road America and completed exactly half a lap uh before it blew up as well I blown up so many engines that I was unable to I was running the risk of not qualifying for the end of year race Barber which is you know everybody wants to go to Barber and race right Right Barber yep so uh but I did eventually manage to build a working bike and we ran out of races and my friend was like well there's a race in Canada with um VR which is their vintage race bike Association uh let's go race in Canada so 12 hours later I took probably the world's crappiest vintage race bike to Canada and that's soon managed to qualify and so nice the happy ending happy ending of the story was a I won the bet because I was able to fix it eventually and race it and finish races um but B we got the bike to Barber and uh uh got to yeah have a whole weekend of of beer drinking racing and coming in dead last so yay Happy Endings hey man but at least you got the line at least you got a chance to have some fun and and and Chase what you wanted to Chase I'm going to piggyback something off Ben's question what he was asking you um in addition to how did you start writing for these for for the motorcycle uh industry magazines uh which was part of it because he had mentioned that you started writing in 2010 with the travel and the Vintage racing and the restoration part of it how were you able to get that job oh yeah so you know after years of of just writing for motorcycle Classics and doing fun pieces uh you know I ideas that I'd had out of the blue uh Zack Bowman who at the time uh was a rider for motorcyclist magazine just pinged me out of the blue uh and asked if I wanted to do a blur for a story they were doing and I immediately saw the the email address you know Bonnie your Bonnie your magazines and figured out who it was and I was just like Jesus are you kidding yes house dude you know can I can I write you five pages on um so so they reached out and that was being run by Chris CLE who was a really really great editor at the time and their thing was that they really just like finding nobodies they just like Finding Diamonds in the Rough and people that you know and and just giving lots of different people a chance uh to you know to score some score some blurbs in a by line and uh yeah that was in 2018 so it only took eight years of obscurity and failure to to to get where to land job to to to land at my current level of obscurity and failure so I got you gotcha so that's cool man Hey listen listen you got a chance to kind of um get into some great magazines um I mean if you're an Enthusiast of the motorcycle world like like we are you know it's it's great to be able to at least if you're going to write about stuff write about stuff that you love I mean I think that how many people are going to work every day in your industry right that that WR about [ __ ] that it's just pented paper that's it so uh I wanted to ask you a question about um you wrote this article about the Widow Maker in the idia which was about restoring and racing a 75 Co H1 yeah man take us how how that idea got started uh the things you went through uh trying to put this bike together and and most of all getting it on the track because it's uh I I read the article man I was laughing my ass off so uh please please take the people who are listening to this who may not have seen the article from from beginning to uh to the racetrack sure um I'll try to give you the TLD drr uh summation uh I always wanted uh a triple I just have a thing for two strokes uh particularly uh Co two-strokes H H1s s1s H2S whatever um it just always was stuck in my mind I don't know why it was just seared into my brain and so one weekend when my life when my wife left town I uh plunk down 1,500 bucks uh on a monkey [ __ ] Brown caution tape yellow uh H1 a 75 H1 really the worst possible year of H1 yeah and it didn't run was missing a bunch of parts and uh but when I bought it um and started digging into it um they're very finicky and hard to tune uh ADH you know it's that third cylinder you know you could sit any idiot can get like an RD 350 uh or Suzuki you know 500 or gt 380 up and running you know two cylinders uh easy I guess the 380 has three cylinders anyway RDS are like super easy brilliantly simple really well engineered Coy triples are problematic uh anyway but I eventually did fix fix it I got it running I just couldn't get it running on a third cylinder but eventually uh enough people peer pressured me into taking it racing uh which I did uh I somehow amazingly uh got it running and uh got it to ra and actually scored two third places in addition to blowing it up of course because it wouldn't be a race weekend unless you blew up an engine um didn't blow it up how much work did it need when you got it it needed everything uh I actually because I wrote the article uh the previous owner contacted me and said I think that's my bike and I was like really he's like yeah I uh I I I I I went down on it I I ran over a uh I ran over something in the road on an offramp uh in Milwaukee and totally just waded it up and I never saw it again and I was like oh my God that's exactly what happened to this bike I bought it and the frame was slightly pretzel which I didn't know when I bought it so I had to find a new frame for it uh that took six months I mean you basically rebuilt it you you rebuilt the whole thing from from frame on up man you had to replace almost every part yeah the frame was a 73 unfortunately uh which is mostly the same except for a couple tabs yeah the bike is basically all new um but yeah the the engine was was seized um had the engine redone uh the jugs were redone by Millennium Technologies in Wisconsin they're great uh new wner Pistons uh a friend of mine actually who works at an engineer a machine shop uh reprofiled um all the heads and got rid of the stock sort of top hat uh very conservative sort of a ignition uh area thing uh so so by the time I I sold it it actually ran pretty well and I had Bard it out I think by 1 millimeter so it was actually a 515 uh the thing ripped it was it was a fun bike uh when did you learn how to wrench like I mean I know your passions and with Japanese bikes but how did you learn how to wrench on them uh I learned how to wrench uh I bought my cv750 uh when as soon as I bought it I started imagining there were problems with it so I started taking it apart immediately even though it was totally fine I so I basically started wrenching by making probably 90% mistakes and then 10% uh 10% accidental accidental luck and fixes and everything there was a great Forum it's still around it's called the Honda SOC Forum The soc4 Forum that was a really fabulous place uh also a really fun place to get your popcorn and read the comments um but I just obsessively read and contributed to that forum and I just read everything I could possibly read and you know by the by the mid the mid 2000s uh owning a vintage bike is really within anybody's grasp there's forums people had converted shop manuals to PDFs that you could download there's like 200 people reading the form every day commenting on every little thing you do wrong but also offering helpful advice so you know it was a and I was living in Austin Texas at the time uh and really very few people only a couple weirdos were really into vintage bikes then um but there was just a lot of great resources and it was uh uh if I can do it uh really anybody can I am literally uh illiterate when it comes to diagnosing and fixing problems and thinking empirically so if I can do it anybody can you you can't be that bad man because you you've got a few things I mean we're going to get into more as we go all right so you got this bike running now it's track time take take us take us through that process of uh getting the bike on the track and the the trials and tribulations of uh doing the laps oh god well it usually starts with uh Panic uh nervous sweats and really just kind of hoping the bike doesn't blow up uh and that you've wasted an entire weekend it's great when it blows up at the end I highly recommend blowing up engines at the end of the the rates weekends um but really not to self got it yeah so and then you know if if you're really not sure of your work uh every practice lap is one less lap that you can race you know if the engine has a sell by dates no but but but once once you get a bike dialed in um yeah you know I just spend Friday practicing trying not to blow it up really going at like 75% and really saving that last 25% uh for the Sunday race uh race conservatively on Saturday just to finish you know get a result uh Pro tip if you get 11th place that's like two number one that's like two first place finishes uh two first place good point two for one man very good point lot of people don't know that that's a Racing Pro what kind of speed what kind of speeds were you hitting I probably got up to about a 100 uh on the H1 uh put together an RD 350 that was actually a nice uh replica t td3 or tr3 um get up to like a 100 if you gear it uh if you gear it for like top speed on the Straits or whatever you can get up to 110 maybe 115 uh but then you're sacrificing a lot of power uh corners and stuff so generally you know then you're going for like really goofy like 36 35 uh to sprockets in the back and that just that just makes you dog [ __ ] slow coming out of turns any any uh wipeouts or are you pretty good as far as um my engine locked up uh on the straight engine locked up yeah that pretty exciting um actually it's not very exciting uh it turns out when you're going about 100 miles an hour uh and the engine seizes hey you're riding a two stoke Str so you always have one finger over the clutch lever in case something happens uh and B it was really anticlimactic I was going straight really fast so when it locked up I just kind of noticed that I was slowing down pretty quick and then I figured out like oh oh no oh that's an engine seizure I'll just off the side I got taken out at uh gingerman on my uh tr3 my Rd uh taken out by tell us about it uh I was going into turn seven and a guy in a ginormous bule uh kind of cut in front of me and uh took out my my front wheel um which I was uh extremely irate about at the time uh but right uh in hindsight everyone should go down at the track at least like once uh to see what it's like you know you're wearing a giant leather monkey suit you've got pads you've got a helmet you've got boots you've got all that stuff um obviously terrible things can Happ still hurts though right yeah if you if you barrel roll that's bad because you know then uh your limbs you that's when you break stuff but if you just slide and then hit the grass um yeah you're sore but it's pretty anticlimactic and once you've done it you're like oh well that wasn't a big deal you know and then you maybe add a couple percentage you know it just kind of makes you go a little harder the next time so right right you you still have you still have the Kawasaki no I sold it um I sold it a year and a half ago on bring a trailer Believe It or Not uh oh did you all right cool and then I wrote a story about uh what's it like selling bikes and bring a trailer um it was really interesting it was a fun process all right we'll we'll be getting into that a little bit later so so you were uh at this point the the Bob Ross of motorcycles with your 10% happy accidents wrenching how about going into the 73 the CB 750 that you you documented that trip you made it almost 3,800 miles oh yeah um and that tell us about that Journey you know cool highlights low lights what do you got well um I highly unrecombined that time yeah you might actually want to be on drugs if you ride a motorcycle in Wisconsin at that time yeah not only did I not head south I headed north to visit a friend in Minneapolis and uh that was fun spent a week there uh getting drunk uh watching various Minnesota sports teams lose um yeah and then I was going to take off and on that day it was 38 degrees and I just could not get the bike to start I had to wait until I think noon it warmed up to like 45 uh and then I was able to kick it to life and uh anyway the first couple days I I headed south uh into Iowa Missouri only the most boring states in the union unfortunately but for like a week straight every day I would wake up pack up my stuff and try to start the bike and it would be 38 degrees it was like uh what's that movie with Bill Murray Groundhog Day Groundhog Day Groundhog Day every day is the same yeah it was like really are you kidding me 38 degrees again uh but eventually I hit uh Joplin Missouri and got into Texas and then the uh weather obviously improved so um yeah it's really how far did your ride oh I went down to Texas I went to go visit old friends in Austin hung around there ate a lot of tacos for about a week or two uh replaced the chain uh checked the brakes did a bunch of other stuff the bike was great really nothing wrong happened to it uh I found out I had the wrong airbox on it I had an airbox from a super sport uh and it was really funny I I traveled through I don't know how many days of rain and I was like man this bike is running really crappy and it's like oh well that's probably because you put sucking it up several gallons of water through the airbox uh but it still ran um from there I went to New Orleans met up with my girlfriend now wife had a bunch of fun down there and somehow made it back in time to Chicago uh to escape the worst of I think it was like by mid November or something like that did you hit any snow no I didn't hit any snow thankfully uh yeah no I got lucky it was really the first part of the trip that was really bad just nothing but rain and cold weather um but here's another Pro tip with with old vintage bikes honestly you can almost always Kickstart a bike uh just really you should just delete the electric starter they just never work if it's 30 degrees out you can keep the bike to life but you'll you'll totally destroy the uh you'll totally you'll totally uh destroy your battery have somebody push you and pop it in second gear right you could do that I'm really not very good at doing that but but other people know the trick uh so your girlfriend was she was this like a longdistance thing or did she fly down to was it New Orleans you said yeah she flew down um we celebrated Halloween together uh saw wean we saw kiss great bands and it's New Orleans so how can how can you not have fun uh yeah no doubt no doubt so yeah it was five weeks of uh weing oh it's really great the best part was I had these leather pants that I bought at a fruit store and they had lacing on the side so they looked like white snake pants they looked like just really ridiculous and everywhere I went David David Coverdale on on an old CB 750 I felt like I felt like David Coverdale yeah I remember walking into a gas station in Mississippi and this uh old black lady uh working the store was like man you are wearing the hell out of them pants and I was like thank you very much just made my day yeah that's funny right what red blood when you when you started this wouldn't want to hear that yeah what red-blooded American male does not enjoy wearing their pants I tell you um so did you when you started this journey were you um mainly just chasing Adventure or did you have a certain goal like you had already planned with your girlfriend that wife that you were going to meet her down there you wanted to visit friends was is there like a part of it that was I want to see how far I can push this bike or was it just basically like you know this sounds fun I want to go take this big trip the plan was actually to write a story about it the whole time uh the plan was to have as many entertainingly bad things uh happened to me and the more hard luck bad things that would happen to me the better the story would be uh as it turns out really nothing bad happened uh but it was still epic and it was still it's just uh just challenging yourself and just being like [ __ ] can't do this I can't do this there's no way I can do that and then being like well maybe I can and push it push yourself Talking yourself into it psyching yourself up and being like sure I mean I think the the hardest part about psyching yourself up for doing something like that is the time of the year you decided to psych yourself up dude that's cold man I mean anybody was ridden and anything below below the 50 to 45 Mark man I mean drop another 25 degrees on a bike so it's like you're you're riding in 38 to 45 degree weather holy smokes man you need David you need uh David Coverdale and David ler Roth leather pants on at the same time man just to get any kind of protection so uh I I would trust David Coverdale uh as far as motorcycle apparel I would trust him over David Lee Roth David Le Roth is all sequins and glitter uh yeah that's true too spand deags right exactly hey you you got a incredible story man I said uh you know any motorcyclist uh in the world who loves bikes boy if they could do their honeymoon this way I think it would be a dream but most women would not consider this a dream as a honeymoon vacation or getaway after marriage um you and your wife did a Chicago to California motorcycle trip uh on on both you guys both each had a 73 Honda uh take us for through the planning of that and then the ride through it and how you guys take take us what how you decided to do this as a honeymoon oh gotcha well my wife does not well then girlfriend uh she doesn't really like to be on the back of uh motorcycles that's really not her thing uh so when we when we got together um I helped her find an old uh 73 Honda that she thought was really great she'd been riding before I uh had but she kind of put it away for a while um but anyway I helped her get a new uh vintage bike and we started dating and we decided to get married it just kind of seemed to fit in line with what we both really LED doing which was just pushing ourselves and taking long trips uh I should note that uh we very smartly decided to start in La uh not and and then ride LA to Chicago that's right so so that way if we broke down uh we would see all the really fun stuff like mountains and deserts and then if we broke down it would be like in the boring first it'd be like in the boring State like uh you know uh yeah good call Nebraska whatever so no offense Nebraska uh so yeah so we we we we spent a couple months planning a route uh it was Loosely based on peewee's big adventure uh the dinosaurs in cison and the Alamo and we narrowed it down to some doable areas and we both loved the desert so we knew that we wanted to go through you know Joshua tree and and and and that sort of area um so yeah we got as a wedding present her brother flew our bikes out to California staged him there he lived thought I was going to ask that's cool yeah I lived around Big Bear Lake and uh we started from there and it was really fun and uh on the first day we encountered 117 degree no I'm sorry that's that's exaggeration I guess it was like 110 or something I don't know we we we hit uh we hit Palm Springs and experienced 105 degree or 110 10 Dee weather uh on the first day and my wife almost had a heat stroke so that was highly romantic uh jeez yeah beautiful the dry heat though dry heat right yeah yeah exactly so um yeah and I was like uh I was pretty it's funny we showed up uh at the airport and her brother saw our gear and we all had like black leather and uh and stuff like that and he's like if you wear that in the desert you're going to die it's July what do you think yeah so he took us to uh to to chaol Motorsports and got us outfitted in white textile sort of clowns uh jackets and that probably helped save us uh yeah That's how little we knew we did planning but we really didn't no we we we understood about 10% of what we were getting into um but it turned out really well and uh it was really beautiful through the desert you know it was exactly as highly romantical uh you know and as and it got cooler obv as we got into Utah and Bryce Canyon and did you guys camp out or or were you hitting hotel rooms we did hotel rooms we tried to sort of treat ourselves we had camping gear and we did camp in uh I think the Tetons no that's not true it's some other it's somewhere else it's it's in Wyoming uh we did camp out uh Ying's so beautiful and camping was really bad we had a tent that was like a oneman tent and we were two people obviously yes so we kind of went light on the camping after that um but we budgeted for things like beer hotel rooms and other things like that Stu yeah that's pretty cool so you've been lucky enough to in your writing Adventures you've come across the world of reviews and you've been able to test ride different makes and models for years um I'm curious we're both curious the the process of writing the reviews um couple parts of this question but what are some of your favorite makes models and and why and then with the ones that maybe don't perform as as you'd expect or that aren't your favorite um your your writing style you're able to pretty eloquently place things do you have to be cautious and kind of temper your your worst reviews to not you know are you cautious about hurting the company there's you know you have to be coges into the fact that you know for a lot of Legacy Media like uh Cycle World and motorcycle they have relationships with with with these makers and you know you it's it's not that we're beholden to them but you have to keep it a Rel you have to be objective and you can't right you know it's it's fun listen I love reading hit pieces I love Jalopnik and I love other uh you know uh sort of more fun freewheeling sort of sites like that but yeah when you review you have to be fair-minded and constructive in your criticism and you know like listen we're not the The Washington Post we're not the New York Times we're not you know like we you know uh they can decide not to give us motorcycles to review uh that doesn't mean that we have to be positive we have to be objective but all criticism any kind of nitpicking and stuff has to be in the spirit of of being constructive and you know every riter is different you know I'm 510 5'11 I weigh well I'm not going to tell you what I weigh but you know different bik it's okay you you won't you won't get offended here man like so you know and the type of writing that I like to do is not necessarily type of riding that everybody likes to do you know when I reviewed um the BMW 1250 RS um it's a great Touring bike it's wonderful oh my God that thing is just joy to ride you know because it's a Touring bike it's a sport touring bike um and you know I think that that's a fairly Universal thing among BMW Riders but then when I reviewed the BM k600 Grand America I mean that thing is like Darth Vader's snowmobile that thing is enormous it's huge you're riding this like spaceship and and you know some people hug huge height height wise real tall you mean yeah it's very tall it's a it's an inline six it's a very narrow six but it's still an inline six and it just has charact a character that is is great for people who love uh Baggers who love big J touring R couches um I am not that kind of person but you have to review it in through the the lens of like you know what for for people that you know uh love that kind of bike this is what you're going to get into this is what you're going to experience this is uh the features this works this could work better um this doesn't work at all uh but you really have to kind of like put on different lenses of of different Riders uh when you're when you review bikes so yeah that's cool you keep it in mind that just because it might not be a good fit for me and my personality my writing personality doesn't mean that it won't be for somebody else that's a good objective wave yeah exactly have you had an have you ever had um somebody from the manufacturing company kind of call you or email you uh because they weren't pleased with what you wrote or have you ever had any kind of thing like that I mean I'm I'm asking just because I'm curious because I I think that if I had this job and I felt that the motorcycle wasn't performing like they advertised it performs then I would have to be as honest as possible so people don't get duped into buying something that they shouldn't get and and obviously but you have to take that approach in regards to like you were saying is that you want the companies to be able to trust you and give you give your business your company the motorcycles to test ride but have you had any issues like that where somebody kind of reached back out to you and said something to you not to be personally uh I can't speak for uh the poor editors uh who have to deal with me um but a great example would be last year they I I reviewed the zero the electric bike zero uh the srf Y uh which is their Naked Bike and it was really a lot of fun listen the future is electric uh whether you like it or not I love smoke and internal combustion but the fact is it's going to be uh Mo a lot of most every like electric is where it's headed and as a writer you want to write about what's happening and what the future is not no not so much like what's been and I reviewed the zero in February in Chicago and I took it on a trip up to kosha for a beer run to get Wisconsin beer instead of crappy Illinois beer and how many miles is that uh it's about 70 miles up there and I purposely charged it to about 80% and I got up there I got about like down to like 10% and as as an experiment to view the bike I was like well let's let's go on a trip I I went with a friend of mine who had an old guci and let's see how it goes you know like let's I'm not going to micromanage and plan every little thing you know I'm going to but I'm going to go up there buy some beer find some place to charge it get a bite to eat and see how it goes and the cold weather uh obviously didn't help with battery life um but even without that the range is it's just not up there with with with with gas bikes uh not yet and that's why they they that's why they struggle here you know it's the reason I mean I think in in Europe um everything's closer right so uh you can get around to to more places and and you understand but I I think in the states there's areas where there's such a big gap in between places so and I think that's what what they're I until they can get that battery life much longer than it is now I think they're always a struggle here in the states yeah and I I loved the bike I thought that the fit and finish was okay uh the design was kind of paint by numbers but I thought the power plant and the experience was really positive a lot of fun oh my God the torque uh of the bike is just unbelievable it's this sensory experience is really fun it's just this worring underneath you but I was pretty Frank about what I thought were the shortcomings um and I I can't speak to how the article went over with uh zero or or other people in the in the EV uh sort of category but I felt like it was what did you what what did you say what what what kind of things did you point out I pointed out the range and the limitations on the way back uh I ended up at my friend's garage uh with like 1% left and it was kind of a hairy experience honestly uh yeah man you know worrying about range and the range anxiety that's you know well known to people with EVS uh but I tried to measure that and say listen this bike for right now is really really really fun as like a short touring bike or short trips commuter City bike ripping around Hool this bike is just [ __ ] balls tits fun but right you're this it's not there yet you know Battery tech is not there yet and I listen it's just a trip to it's just a beer run to Wisconsin you know this isn't even touring and the bike I know man I just had a tough time finding a charger that worked uh and it was just a tough experience it's going to get better um but I felt like it was important was that was that your first electrical bike uh that that you rode yeah it was the first uh like electrical bike I'd ridden like uh oh they've given me like like B like uh electric bicycles upco from New Zealand is a really cool one it's like a utility uh EV bike uh what's the other one duper 73 makes a really popular one yeah for a while I was kind of like the electric bike guy um but it was the first like big like full the zero was the full uh first fullsize like big bike that uh that I'd ridden um and it was a great experience but you know there's there's definitely little ways to go uh in terms of the tech do you remember the the best bike that in your opinion that you ever rode like that you test rode then you were like my God or reviewed yeah let's say reviewed in uh that that you you said man if I get if I had the cash I would buy this thing today yeah five years ago uh they put me on an Indian FTR I think it was the first year FTR man that bike was fun that was they still had like the larger front wheels I think they had 19s on the front um so it really kind of had the sort of like dirt track kind of Heritage and styling and that bike was just super I just L the [ __ ] out of that bike uh and we did a weekend of uh riding around the salt and sea uh in down in Southern California just shooting really cool pictures and camping by the salt and sea which is kind of gross that's Co awesome but it was really fun and I drove it up to La it kind of gross it's a little gross uh but you know it's so it's so lifeless in debt that you know there's not even really bugs out there so it was it really wasn't that bad but it was a really fun bike it was just a really great Ripper uh one of the the guy I went with a photographer and uh her dude and this guy uh was able to wheelie anything and he was Wheeling that place that thing all over the place and just a great hooligan bike um you could even throw bags on it yeah and I came back I was a total evangelist for all things FTR I think I got two other guys to buy fprs actually so really I get some sort of discount from Indian I think on my uh affiliate link man did Indians send you any commission checks no unfortunately not they must gotten lost in the mail so Indian reps if you're listening we'll leave his address his mailing address after the show no no no actually as an impartial journalist I could not possibly take any sort of compensation that would my uh honest guy journalism that's funny hey so so what draws you to the classic motorcycles I know that you love The The J World Japanese bikes um is there a specific era or model that holds kind of a special place in your heart oh you know after I tried to race and after I restored the H1 the KA H1 a a friend of mine sold me a basket case Yamaha R5 which is the predecessor to the Rd 350 which was just a fabulous probably the best two-stroke bike of the 70s just cuz it was so simple so reliable and they must have made 100,000 of them uh and they're so modular that I really I really ended up loving the Rd 350 and r5s just because they're so simple and you can swap them out the heads there's so much redundancy and this is exactly what people didn't like about Japanese motorcycles in the 70s they thought oh they're all the same they're saving money they're cost cutting you know there's no style there's no soul and that's just total [ __ ] because 50 years later you know when I had a problem with my rd350 or when I was building a replica race plik there were like 25 people online in Arma or other communities who'd already done what I'd done there was just a whole Community a giant community of people out there that any problem you had tons of aftermarket stuff uh the Banshee four-wheelers have a lot of analogous Parts like there're still and you can get really great like re cages and so you could upgrade and soup it up and you could it's really just like the most plastic 70s like sort of two-stroke platform there is and there it's it's uh really just honestly like one of the best one of the best uh 70s Japanese motorcycles that that you could get into if you like two strokes if you want to go to the dark side hey but by any chance did you see um I think it was either this weekend this past weekend or the weekend before the meum uh they had the U 73 H2 did you see that it brought see that 80 82 or 84,000 that is I mean that blew me that's crazy me away but you know what happened they had to um cancel the bid because um they couldn't match to VIN numbers I saw that so I read about oh you saw that I read about that earlier I was like man I've never seen a Kawasaki bring that kind of money in my life that is insane money yeah it's and this is like super inside baseball for old vintage bikes but yeah it was crazy I remember seeing one of I think a 72 H2 went for I think 55 and the first thing I I started seeing all the forums blow up and the first thing somebody said was those decals are facing the wrong way they're actually tilted the wrong way uh so but apparently the buyer didn't mind or didn't care uh you know the Market's going to do what the market does um you you follow this pretty pretty uh strongly as far as like let let me ask you because my my my strengths lie in the American bikes to Harley sure um as far as value is concerned so the Japanese stuff I'm kind of learning as as I'm getting older and and and appreciating them more and more um what is what is the V like what bikes is there an error um in the Japanese uh side of the motorcycles or is there a brand Pacific years that kind of I I mean is is the cowi H2S and H1s really the beginning of something to come I think so you know uh 10 years ago or so CB 750s uh especially sandcast like really early ones started getting big money Vic world who is a really amazing restorer this is the guy that sources OEM uh screws you know that had been laying in the back of a warehouse for 50 years uh restores them perfectly you know right down to like the clear coat on on bolts and stuff like that you started seeing the CB 750s go for 20 25,00 000 which at the time was astounding um and now that's kind of been blown away and I think the co H1s and H2S by reputation are becoming very desirable and the reputation is not really all that well deserved to be honest the the H1 was the real Widowmaker mostly because it had a short wheelbase uh the weight distribution was way too far back and tires at the time were just terrible uh so they were really dangerous they were really meant to go in a straight line and that's about it uh but prices have been coming up on H1s and H2S uh a lot that said uh I think previous to the meikum I think the record for a H2 a 72 H2 that's the blue one that you see that had the blue painted Fender that's the one that everybody wants everybody wants that first year uh 72 and 73 they went to a longer wheelbase and 74 and 75 but those first year H2S uh started getting 40,000 on a bring a trailer but meum just kind of blew that away and it's uh it's good and it's bad um you know a rising tide lifts all votes you know I have a 73 did they make a lot of those models they made the blue ones or are they sought after they're very sought after they did make a number of them it's a mass-produced product you know I couldn't tell you how many they made but they were a huge success and they piggybacked on the H1 which was already a huge success so these are not rare bikes what's rare is that they haven't been wrapped around a telephone pole or you know that they weren't uh yeah you know left in a in a barn after they were crashed and rest into the ground that's that's the rare part and they've been also been messed with like um a fun thing about Japanese uh 70s jaet bike owners were that a lot of guys would buy Hondas and Suzuki and Yamahas um the guys who bought the Yamahas oftentimes would mod them you could buy Yamaha production Racers right out of the box from a dealership um but and Suzukis and stuff A lot of times were kept stock you know they might put a new pipe on it or whatever uh Honda owners same thing Co owners like as soon as they got home they would just ditch the Chrome pipes and they would start putting all sorts of other stuff cois were meant to be tuned cwis were meant to be messed with and made to go faster and they were the muscle bikes at that era yeah yeah and like your average co uh owner back then had like a shark tooth necklace and drank beer out side of a 7-Eleven and raised people for beer money uh Honda owners I'm not so sure about but so so I think the the CI prices the H2 and H1 prices are are are high because they have a place in people's imagination uh fairly or not as being dangerous fun irresponsible they're two strokes I mean giant middle finger the EPA uh and people really kind of love their reputation uh I do so sorry that's that's probably a lot more than you want to know no man I did I listen I'm all about like the education part of it man so talking to you somebody who's who's in that world as far as the Japanese uh knowledge man that's that's awesome to me so I appreciate that that was cool so this kind of Segways perfectly into the next question um when we were talking prior to the show uh you had a few pretty entertaining stories about buying and selling um I guess tell us some of your tell us some of your favorite stories about oh God about both uh I should start by saying that I I hate selling motorcycles uh not that I want to keep all the ones I have I hate the process of sorting through these Froot Loops and dingleberries and other people that are on Craigslist Facebook Marketplace you know and it's it's the process of selling it is you take 10 bucks for it yeah uh I I I frankly honestly uh price my bikes lower so that I have to so that I can spend less time talking to a perspective buy and I'm usually always just really super upfront I'm like this might not be the bike for you man you know what you're going to have to work on this bike yeah you know if you know about these bikes here you go this is an issue I fixed that etc etc um yeah I was helping a friend of mine uh on that topic a friend of mine a couple years ago sell uh it's just a crappy old Honda and a kid showed up and he's likew I don't know anything about selling bikes why don't you just just hang with me and just help me and you know talk to this kid and I was like okay so he came over uh we started the bike uh I rode it around the block came back and the kid was like great sold and I was like don't you want to ride it and he's like no no that's okay and I was like all right so money was exchanged and the kid got on the bike and it was pretty evident from the start that he did not actually know how toide motorcycle and he got about halfway down the block and was stumbling I think he almost dropped it and me and my friend just ran over to him and we just picked the bike up and said we're not going to let you you you can't ride this home this is Chicago this is like City traffic like didn't want to kill you yeah man tell you what like I I I will ride it to your house and leave it where you live and then after that you're on your own but you can't I'm not going to let you this bike out of my garage and just into the front of a a bus um a pull so right um other than that other stories um I don't really have any like super negative the bring a trailer uh thing was was interesting it was fun uh it was a mostly positive I didn't get as much as I wanted um but that's the marketplace for you um but yeah uh other times um yeah I sold my uh my race bike my Yamaha tr3 replica bike um but that was just to somebody within the Arma the u v vintage motorcycle racing community so that was actually pretty easy because everybody's on the same page we all build bikes we all have addictions to motorcycles and vintage bikes so that was pretty easy um but yeah I I really just oh and the CB 360 the the crappy bike that I raced I sold to uh I sold to some kid and I put a joke price I was like 2400 bucks knowing full well that I was not going to get 2400 bucks but I did get 2,000 and this this guy was his first bike and I I I I took his money I I helped him I went to his garage three times to sort out issues that he have it came with three free service visits um and after the there was not a fourth one two grand man sleep at night yeah so um and and I I and then I I helped him out three times I sorted out all the issues that that that it had I was upfront about what was wrong with it it was his choice to give me $22,000 which was really worth about half that uh at then of the fourth time I just blocked him I was like you know what bu bewar time asking for help that's a little much now man it's only two grand buddy yeah yeah I I actually have a funny story too you were talking about that kid that that came paid for the bike and then I didn't know how to ride it I I've been I have a shop here and been selling motorcycles too uh since 2005 Harley and I had this one guy come down from the West Coast of Florida I came to the shop and he wanted to look at this bike I had this big bagger like custom paint all that crap on it and I I I as a small business I never let anybody ride the bike unless they had cash in hand or you know a check because Li ability is too great so he gets on it and he almost dropped it just just sitting on the bike I'm like dude I'm like I'm like you all right he goes no no this is my bike I'm buying I'm like look I'm just going to be honest with you I like I've been doing this a long time man this bike is just too big for you if this is your first bike you're going to a 900 pound motorcycle is your first bike it's not going to be an easy bike just just to throw around and get comfortable with so he got started getting an attitude and I was just trying to help him right so I'm like ego yeah yeah ego man he's like oh don't tell me what I need to do this and that this is the bike I want to by I'm like fine I'm like it's your money it's your thing I'm cool whatever you want to do that's what we do I said but you can't test drive it uh until you know I have the cash in hand so he ran over to the bank got a cashier check came back I'm like look man I I said I've been doing this a long time I'm just telling you I just just from experience and I'm only doing it because as a rider I want to make sure that you're comfortable rid in a bike and you enjoy this passion it's not just because the bike looks great and you're going to show it off to somebody so he's like no I appreciate that but listen this is it so he takes off we have this road uh 714 which goes out to okobi which is the center of state and at the end of 714 there's a real sharp turn before you get into another road to get to okachobee yeah dude he went straight through into the bushes didn't cut the corner was going too fast I get a call he crashed it like 24 miles from the moment he bought holy how to to where he was going man and I was just like sorry man you know I'm like I I can call a tow truck what do you want me to do but you know this is and so it's it's tough sometimes you know you try to be upfront with people and you tell them the right thing it just motorcycles are dangerous because they're dangerous because they get into the hands of young you know the sport bikes the young kids jump on them theyve got adrenaline as you get older you obviously learn how to ride better and safer but when you're a kid I remember when I got my first sport bike I mean the areas that I was driving 80 90 miles an hour the the fact that I'm still here at 53 thank God man you know so yeah it's funny it's it's not like a car there it is a unique sort of thing to to try to sell or Buy in that you know a car obviously there you know there's obviously there's protocol with with the test drive and everything but generally speaking if you hand a car off to to somebody and they test drive it uh really nothing's going to happen uh it's it's a pretty safe simple thing but with with riders you just don't know who you're getting um there's it's hard to know it's like oh is this does this person know how to ride are they experienced are they you know right and as much as you want to certainly sell sell a bike and and get cash in hand you know you do have a sort of obligation to be like I I I just don't want to see you die uh maybe if you die down the road that's okay but like I see tomorrow or something yeah um yeah it's funny uh what I the first bike I bought the CB 750 the absolutely wrong bike for any new Rider to get uh you know it's 500 lbs and I contacted the guy it's a great looking bike but I told him honestly I was like and I didn't know what I was doing and taking the course I'd ridden little Rebels and Suzuki Savages and parking lots with msf and everything uh but I to be honest and this is such an uncool thing to say I gave the guy an extra hundred bucks if he if he rode it to my house I was like I'll give you hundred bucks like I don't really know this bike and anyway he did that he was really nice he gave me a a free uh eggshell helmet uh that came with it and I think it it took me about two weeks I would just rid it around the block and it took me about two weeks until I actually dropped my balls and took it out on like a road and it was probably about another two weeks after that that I before I got the nerve to uh to get out on the highway yeah I I I'm a cautionary I am not an example uh for for anybody as far as what first B to get the speaking of younger Riders to bring it back to the writing aspect um what information what advice I guess better way to ask this is what would you want to hear when you were starting out uh copyrighting and people who want to follow in your footsteps for what you're doing what would have benefited you to hear when you were starting out what would you tell your past self oh as far as writing or writing writing with a t so riding you know whether it's about motorcycles or yeah uh don't I'm kiding that's that's terrible advice I really don't know you know I I took that long trip uh to New Orleans and back that 3800 mile trip and then I just wrote the piece for a week and I just sent it uh with no prior contact to motorcycle Classics and and uh I I didn't get any advice nobody I didn't have anybody to talk to uh in that Community who wrote I didn't know anybody who wrote I just kind of did it and just to see what would happen I spent a lot of time on the piece I you know put in ton of like hours editing and trying to make it shorter um and they said yes and they thought it was an interesting piece and then we cut it down about another thousand word any advice just just try just just do it uh that doesn't sound that doesn't sound like really sightful but just [ __ ] try man uh and if and if nobody wants your your pieces uh I guess nobody really cares about blogs anymore but I don't know just keep at it and you know you get better by doing something you know so you're really GNA whatever you do you're going to suck the first time so just get the sucking over with right just suck for a while yeah until you suck less suck faster yeah and just keep sucking keep sucking till you get finding who you're finding who you're uh trying to emulate or finding you know for you Car and Driver other magazine writers and their Styles maybe absorbing um styles and writers that you appreciate that you look up to that might help people get off on the right foot at least having something to emulate yeah and I would say like you know don't don't worry so much about getting things right like whatever your story is about whether it's the trip you took or a bike that you're putting together or maybe you want to cover newer bikes and you just want to do reviews of a bike that you think is great or you have access to um yeah you don't have to get everything right you just have to be entertaining like the greatest sin of all in any kind of writing or any kind of content what we're doing here is be entertaining be be funny be engaging do you know it's like it doesn't have to be informational and and all that it just has to be fun to watch read experience watch great advice yeah you're definitely you've got that down um so before we get into the speed round I wanted to ask you for people that are I mean you're hilarious just talking to but the stuff you write is is really entertaining just like you were just saying um it's a fun read you're learning but it's also fun you you absolutely crush it and I'm curious for people who are interested who haven't heard about you and and don't know exactly like who you're writing for where can people find you where can people find your your work um are you active on any Social Media stuff and you had mentioned one other big thing about potentially uh starting a podcast yeah um you could find me on motorcycles.com I've been writing for about uh since 2019 off and on so um yeah if you go to motorcycles.com look at the by line if you see Anders Carlson you know it's a quality article um same thing same thing with the Cycle World um I don't really have a a site that Aggregates all the stuff I do um nobody has time for that um so there just past issues just my name and then like dumb dumb things about motorcycles and a bunch of it will probably come up so uh speaking of Dumb and you can on motorcyclist I saw you can look up you can type in your name and then you'll get all the Articles or you can sort by by publisher and there's there's a ton of great writers on there author sorry auth Byron Wilson Andrew churny just and Adam and that's why we that that was the reason we reached out cuz we you know we shared the Articles we read them and we were like man this guy's going to be fun to talk to so that's why we just I we love your writing style like Ben was saying so that was a great thing keep up the amazing work you're doing so that's the best of it all fooled you fooled me yeah suckers suckers and what about this podcast man you got a podcast roll speaking of uh speaking of dumb ideas um yeah I'm I'm I'm trying to put together a podcast called uh can I say this uh swear words of course okay well it's a podcast called [ __ ] motorcycle uh and I think it's going to be a a sort of fun take on a fun not very serious take on motorcycle culture motorcycle Trends everything from like inside baseball like you know why are inline fours going away and everything's going parallel twins to what's the worst motorcycle you've ever ridden you know just kind of fun stuff like that and I've noticed that yeah not this podcast but other times it kind of go on for about 60 Minutes sometimes and I I just can't pay attention to anything for more than 20 minutes so the idea is to kind of make it a short shorter format so we're going to waste time blathering on about motorcycles we're just going to waste less time yeah doing it than other podcast so all right cool cool bite-size bite-sized pieces I'm interested to hear as you're publishing uh different platforms how you're going to be able to name you know the actual name of the podcast I wonder if it's going to be like dollar sign at sign exclamation point motorcycles I think we'll we'll we'll change it I wonder what you can get away with yeah we'll change it for every uh episode I think every every episode will have a new logo the the U uh will be like a torz bolt or uh it'll be a different sort of fun symbol every time who knows so yeah it's I think alleven we're definitely we're definitely gonna look out for that so that's going to be cool all seven listeners will be really impressed I think so ni and two of them are right here that's that's right so the other five listen and pay attention that's exciting man all right man you you ready for some speed round questions we'll have some fun with this thing all right let's do it best motorcycle ever built in your opinion Honda C 750 okay sorry that's boring best no it's not that's best place you ever rode and why the bad land I love the bad lands the bad lands um mostly just because it's just this terrifying wonderful emptiness of just being out there and there's there's nobody around um yeah and it's also just the polar opposite of where I grew up Wisconsin which is which is great but I don't know I'm always fascinated by uh by by out you know places out west so yeah that's a beautiful place absolutely uh fuel injected carburated or electric oh carburated all the way okay good favorite cruising speed 40 to 50 75 to 100 or 100 plus oh I don't know it's pretty nice to be at 100 uh assuming you've got some wind protection um yeah I don't know 100 is really nice on my bule uh I have have a bu 1125 CR uh cuz you know by American uh even if they've gone out Amic um so uh they're back though you know yeah they are back I'm glad to see that I don't think Eric be has much yeah me too but uh but you know the name plates uh the world is a more interesting place with Fs in it so anyway 100 plus they put 100 plus all right and they're putting out a very nice motorcycle right now so um all right uh next question favorite Riding Road curvy straightaway Trails dirt or Scenic uh curvy one law you would change if you were president to help the motorcycle community hm this one's kind of complicated um I would I would mandate uh I would have the US government mandate uh little miniature Neutron bombs in all new cars sold so that when they have a close call with the motorcycle uh each motorcyclist will be equipped with a button that would detonate the neutron bomb blows it up uh so that the car the offending car in question and Driver would be neutralized that's that's what I would do dude it would be okay you won the game end the speed round he won the game best answer answer of all time right there and and if that was the case it' only be motorcycles driving anyway it' be paradise favorite motorcycle movie of all time oh it's probably everybody's favorite movie I the first metad Max uh just all those Co Z ones and like there even yeah that counts yeah no it's just a it's a fun exploitation flick it's it's it's kind of hard to beat cool B lands Vibe too yeah favorite book you you would recommend everyone should read oh yeah um uh there's a compilation of a Peter Egan's columns that he wrote for um I should know this Cycle World of motorcyclist doesn't matter it's called leanings and it's just really great it dates back to like the 80s and the 90s and he just talks about honestly he's probably one of my favorite writers and he's uh obviously a senior member of the motor writing Community but leading by Peter Egan there's two of them actually so it's two compilations cool cool we'll put we'll put that in L up for sure uh go to alcoholic beverage oh Miller High Life Miller High Life okay the high life is my life last me La last me lever what would it be oh steak and onions with cheese curds I'm surprised you said I'm Sur Miller too man because you guys got some great uh breweries in Milwaukee and Wisconsin in in in Illinois too actually so yeah someone told me that Frank Sinatra was buried with a hip flask of uh Jack Daniels in his pocket uh when when I go someone's got to take a just a bottle of of the champagne of beers and put it in my pocket that see me through the after so there's a lot of great beers out there but there's only one that you really want to re reach for on a super hot day so champagne of beers all right all right uh if you could meet someone past the present who would it be Gandhi Gandhi MC Jesus MC budha CI MC Jesus okay if you're if you're stranded on a desert island what is one music album you would have one one i a or baned or bned if it's easier oh see that's way smarter if you had the ban then you could Force the band to play whatever music you wanted um all right oh we didn't think about that that way that's yeah that's tricky I don't know think of a collection of albums by the band not the actual band that's a loophole that's a really hard question that's like you know like like which is your favorite color of the rainbow I mean you know it's hard to decide one or the other uh like most most people have said weird out Yankovic really that's been a notorious answer I I man I really don't know I'm so schizophrenic part of me I I love like death metal but then I also like classical music and then I circus music too uh it's really hard to say um circus music I even like the dead honestly like early Grateful Dead would be uh if I had to listen to that all all for the rest of my life on this desert island that's an Eclectic collection too they had a lot of different styles in in the great dead for sure for sure maybe like working men's dead you know downt oh yeah if you could uh swap lives with a cartoon character for a day who would it be and why uh pep Lew oh he got he got taken off the a because they don't even show that no more because the woke generation says it's it's a rapist feeling of uh his axe that's I love man he was the man thought he was kind of charming he was always on the M he was Charming you know that that that poor cat you know I know pep why not yes that's a great one hey what what's the most unusual Talent you possess that nobody knows about or very few people know about uh I speak Swedish fluently which is a zero help or benefit to anything I do in life except communicating with my family you know communicating with your family and how do you say Anders uh you would say Anders on B yeah it's let's just stick to Anders your rers though uh all right all right last question if you could make a rule for a day and everyone had to follow it what would it be get out of my way like Mad Max way or or just get out of my way I don't know uh you know I live in Chicago everything is crime Street Hassle and gridlock yeah you know just get the [ __ ] out of my way for today I don't it's a shame that's who you're looking for no no no it's good answer good answer I mean I I love Chicago but I hate Chicago at the same time it's like I understand and it's all because of the way it's run so like anything it's a unique crime syndicate here so yeah man yeah man for sure so Anders hey man we just wanted to thank you so much for uh taking the time out of your schedule uh thanks for sharing all the stuff you did as far as uh the the reviews your your background your history a lot of fun a lot of fun getting you man hope uh hope some of it's uh interesting and fun and uh makes for you know decent content that people think will it will for sure one last question too before we go what else what else do you have in the garage or if you have a garage sure oh yeah I've got the got a bu 1125 CR which I just love the [ __ ] out of um I have a 73 Kawasaki H2 that needs restoration I have this is the only fun bike to ride in the city of Chicago is a Honda Navi an $1800 um Grom like mini Grom honestly it's just the easiest thing for jumping curbs and going between cars yeah Tastefully breaking traffic tires are perfect yeah what else do I got oh I got a tastefully yeah I got a 81 Suzuki gs450 that is this year's race bike uh so there's a uh so got where are you keeping all these uh do you actually have a a decent enough garage space no I rent out a place I've got a A buddy of mine uh we have a shop space uh on the west side of Chicago the phenic west side of Chicago cool um but it's in a nice bit yeah we we rent it out of place um it's in this big old industrial building um which is what do you have a couple of lifts in there yeah yeah we' got lifts my buddy's got his he's he loves Beamers so he's got a he stores his BMW 325 in there um so it's nice like bigger space right right yeah awesome man awesome well we wish you a kickass Year stay healthy I hope you don't mind maybe we we'll get we'll get you back on the show towards the end of the year give us some uh scoop on the new stuff you've been riding and uh and and um you know fill fill the viewers ears with some uh knowledgeable information cool well thanks for having me out and uh we'll uh we'll catch up look for link some point so sounds good be good take care take it easy