The Riding Obsession

Podcast: "Riding on Vibes"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e31/

Brian gives the route line a day off, instead following terrain, weather and whatever looks promising over the next hill. Kentucky still has to wait for a KLR petcock, clogged idle jet and fuel line that dissolves under one finger. His camping advice packs lighter by practicing first rather than discovering after dark that the sleeping bag's temperature rating is creative writing.

Robin finally gets Maggie's SV650 luggage rack and turn signals to coexist through grinding, improvised brackets and bed liner. New Mexico scouting feeds a Berea daydream where Kentucky has apparently paved every cow's commute. Deer then ruin the romance and put delayed apexes back on the agenda.

Joanne likes a flashy helmet but won't let good looks settle the riding-shoe question. Her Armory checks crush resistance via heel, toe and ankle reinforcement before sorting low adventure boots from sport-bike footwear. More money can buy longer life without much more protection while Brian's BOA boots owe their place in the closet to deep clearance.

Riding on Vibes Team TRO rides on vibes, sorts road-trip repairs and asks how much protection short motorcycle boots really provide.

Podcast: "The Burrito"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e30/

Bill Hawkins rode a 250cc Honda from Ajijic, Mexico to his daughter's wedding in Washington state with no phone and a deadline worth keeping. A roadside mechanic, desert silence and a hammock between redwoods give The Burrito something no touring catalog can sell. The Grand Canyon rearranges his sense of scale while the wedding defeats an ambitious agreement not to cry.

Robin survives an MSF RiderCoach gathering where a suspiciously tight U-turn box gives Captain Sport Touring a public humility demonstration. Back home, Maggie's SV650 gets a luggage-rack fitment fight and enough coolant to require a turkey baster. Divisive Dogmas then finds the quickest way to start a motorcycle argument: ask about oil and leave.

Brian continues The Thread Files with rivet nuts for thin metal and wire inserts for threads that have left the building. He sorts installation tools, loose inserts and metric pitch traps before returning to the KLR doohickey's apparently permanent argument. Somewhere between a hot charging fault and a GSX-8R fork cartridge, the service manual still owes him an explanation.

tro.bike

Podcast: "Practice and Resolve"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e29/

The LiveWire's fall from $29,799 to $13,999 makes its launch price look stranger than ever. Norman Hyde clears the screens entirely with an 81-mile navigation-free ride for dementia fundraising. Listener questions weigh fresh tires, a 50-hour coast-to-coast run and the long-term anxiety of electronic suspension.

Robin gives the riding calendar permission to breathe (a string of track days, tours and rallies can turn excellent riding into homework). He trades "two-wheel therapy" for practice and resolve, says a skipped ride is fine if you're still happy and proposes blowing up Berea's tidy route sheet in favor of scouting whatever lies east. Kurviger earns 4.25 stars for quick curves, GPX exports and one gravelly lie while its microscopic stop button sends interface design into solar orbit.

Brian returns from Missouri having witnessed a mint Suzuki 1100GK, refreshed track-day reflexes and one ugly lesson about overriding sight distance. The brake save worked but the "Fe" truck proves that knowing a motorcycle's limits doesn't cancel streetcraft or surprise. He finishes by rehabilitating an old Honda wheel with external and internal thread files, explaining when damaged metal can be massaged back into service and when the correct tool is a replacement part.

Practice and Resolve Team TRO restores riding motivation, resets streetcraft after a close Missouri call and files damaged Honda threads back toward usefulness.

Podcast: "RepreZentZent"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e28/

Robin approaches the squid parking lot without dressing young or handing out a Jehovah's Witness guide to motorcycle safety. He wants seasoned riders to earn relevance with smooth control, track-day credibility and an ability to listen three times before talking once. The younger rider controls what sticks, so the old hand had better bring interesting adhesive and stay with the horse.

Brian treats wrenching as a side door into trust, because a fixed bike makes room for one useful sentence about earplugs, helmet fit or threading the clean line through gravel. He separates quick shifters from Honda's e-clutch, tests whether a top case can moonlight as a Barcalounger and keeps chin-mounted cameras safer by blaming the real hazard (fiddling with them). Missouri roads, aging FJ09 hoses and the retiring-friend population keep the practical complaints well fed.

Joanne turns gear evangelism into consequences and actual shopping, starting with Brittany Morrow's recovery story and the fact that protection no longer requires a stormtrooper shell. For riders without money or mentors, she points toward used gear, local groups, eBay and Facebook Marketplace before Brian builds a complete new Cycle Gear kit for roughly $430. She closes the passport window on West Africa, provided everybody agrees to visit after the mud has left.

RepreZentZent Team TRO explains how seasoned riders can earn a squid's attention with visible skill, practical respect and gear advice that doesn't arrive dressed as a lecture.

Podcast: "Putnam in Place"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e27/

Robin arrives at Putnam Park with Maggie's bone-stock SV650 in tow before slowly melting his knee pucks anyway. The track turns its cornfield disguise into elevation changes, blind apexes and a throttle lesson from Turn one to "Dead Bear". His verdict keeps both halves intact in that the riding is excellent, the people mostly mean well and organizers should write down the unwritten rules before shouting them across pit lane.

Brian enters novice on a tall FJ09, gets the full tech-inspection ritual and discovers he's the lone sport-tourer among numbered race bikes. He learns to plan passes two corners ahead, nearly drags the center stand and earns praise before accidentally taking an extra victory lap (the checkered flag apparently had a limited travel budget). Fresh pads, rotors and Spiegler lines are already queued.

As for the circuit, Putnam hides an immaculate ten-turn playground behind quiet Indiana farmland. Garage rentals go for $55, runoff is generous and the pavement looks freshly ironed. Intermediate makes it official by launching first, knocking off the morning dew.

Putnam in Place Team TRO learns Putnam Park's unwritten lines, decodes blind apexes and finds out what happens when a checkered flag goes missing.

Podcast: "Type Two Fun"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e26/

Robin turns rider suffering into a choice instead of a personality trait, from a cold memorial run toward Florida to a closed Kentucky road that accidentally ends at Maker's Mark. The carrier question gets practical with 500-to-600-pound capacity for a Honda XR650L, solid receiver hardware and lights that remain visible behind the bike. He later argues that speed belongs with sightlines, restraint and enough manners to avoid creating one more cager with a motorcycle villain origin story.

Brian admits get-there-itis dragged him through a Missouri storm for 400-ish miles when one cheap Sunday hotel night would've fixed everything. His chosen suffering runs colder, from a minus-17 commute with pensioned suspension to a snowy Cherohala retreat that stayed fun until freezing became the actual stop sign. Between war stories he tests flock-lined nitrile gloves, warns against mystery Amazon motorcycle kits and offers one clean speed policy ... "be irresistible, be gone".

Joanne brings boxing defense to The Armory and tells riders to stop treating triple-digit heat like a character test. Wicking base layers, ventilated full-face helmets, light-colored mesh, hydration packs and cooling layers make heat manageable, while naked skin gets the hair-dryer treatment with worse consequences. Her final baguette move asks riders to lend strangers one charitable thought before judging their gear, bike or bad day, then save "what a butthead" for the evidence.

Type Two Fun Team TRO sorts useful suffering from get-there-itis, builds a triple-digit heat defense and finds a polite way to disappear down the road.

Podcast: "Maps 2 Apps"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e25/

Robin flips last week's paper lesson into a 40-app panic spiral, then rescues it with a plan. His new Maps to Apps Testing Grounds will put one navigator at a time against GPX handoff, offline maps, rider-aware routing and whatever feature manages not to melt when the cell signal is gone. Track-day prep later turns the same appetite for options into canopies, coolant rules, taped wheel weights and a choice between Maggie's SV and the paid-down GSX-8R.

Brian separates the route planner from the screen on the bars before anyone mistakes Google, Apple or Waze for the assignment. Locus Pro remains his learned habit, north-up remains his apparently criminal preference and every contender has to preserve the shaped route instead of converting it into an interstate abomination. He also brings MotoPumps tire-inflator advice, practical sag checks and a novel track-day strategy (read every organizer's rules).

Joanne replaces hard-shell mythology with CE Level 2 impact absorption and fit that follows a rider under leathers. A full-length protector with a kidney belt is the track-ready standard, while a proper insert can still serve a casual novice if the suit has the pocket. Her bottom line is simpler than the catalog, meaning bring the protector when fitting the suit, buy known gear and don't attend a track day without spine protection.

Maps 2 Apps Team TRO sorts forty motorcycle navigation apps, fits real track-day spine protection and turns organizer fine print into a safer prep list.

Podcast: "Apps 2 Maps"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e24/

Robin folds paper-map survival into sun position, town signs and trip-meter resets, then sends the route through Idaho 93 where a boring straight line somehow earns a love letter. He also weighs dealership trust against DIY limits, puts torque wrench range to work under the RV and sizes up rear-opening helmets without letting a novel latch become the next Jägermeister. The Cyborg weather voice is now free, though Indiana still answers with a yeehaw.

Brian packs a state map, grease pencil and enough orientation sense to escape the pink line when electronics quit. His route lesson covers fixed scale, road-name mismatches, missing gas stations and the awkward truth that Bo**er Hollow may be US 12 when the sign finally appears. Between turns he vets the Trail Tech Voyager Pro 4, recommends ClickSpring for civilized decompression and argues that a trustworthy shop is worth both the wait and repeat business.

Joanne refuses to let an electric bicycle cosplay as harmless once it joins traffic at traffic speed. Helmets, gloves and abrasion protection follow the risk rather than the label, with modern armored hoodies and riding shirts giving city riders fewer excuses than they had in 1996. Her Brammo year proves electrics have their own kind of fun, even when San Francisco hills can eat the battery before the return trip.

Apps 2 Maps Team TRO trades pink lines for paper maps, puts e-bikes in traffic gear and asks whether volts might be motorcycling's gateway drug.

"Motorcycle Tech Screens Bring It All Together"
by Robin Dean
Read: https://tro.bike/?p=33848

Motorcycle Tech Screen: Combine DVR, TPMS, GPS, Smartphone A motorcycle tech screen helps simplify the ever expanding collection of handlebar mounts while reducing LCD distractions.

Podcast: "Rain Roulette"
Listen: https://tro.bike/podcast/2026e23/

Robin turns Midwest storm dodging into Rain Roulette, a judgment test built from tire confidence, body temperature and how much wet mesh a sane rider can tolerate. He owns one midnight floodwater run as the wrong answer, then shifts to Waze motorcycle routing, a separating tire that needs a trailer and a three-minute traffic gap for reclaiming famous roads from Jagoff Junction. Somewhere between scorched socket adapters and new torque wrenches, MotorcycleTraining.us also moves back to active project status.

Brian arrives with a Vulcan 900 charging rescue, fork service paused for fresh seals and Putnam Park plans that may start in Sport Bike Track Time's intermediate group. Rain Roulette gets practical when he argues that synthetics matter, summer showers can be harmless fun and shivering ends the debate even if the rain suit goes on after you're soaked. He also labels an Africa Twin DCT countershaft replacement an operation rather than baby's first engine teardown, with the eBay-engine escape hatch quietly waiting in the syllabus.

Joanne maps rain gear to climate and the rider's internal thermostat. Humid-weather riders may be happier in mesh plus a compact motorcycle-specific shell, while cold travelers gain more from laminated waterproof systems (anyone buying a two-grand Klim kit for July should check the mission profile before the receipt clears). She closes with fit-first two-piece advice, then helps route Jagoff Junction toward weekdays, early mornings and roads without souvenir names.

Rain Roulette Team TRO weighs rain gear, wet-road judgment and the fine art of reclaiming famous roads from Jagoff Junction.