Baja ADV Rally in Mexico, winter storage and moto nonsense.

Aaron Pufal, the ADV Cannonball Rally Master, shares his “field notes” from the Baja ADV Rally in Mexico. Taylor Lawson discusses winterizing his T7 in Sweden, and MotoBob reviews the BMW 7450GS. Additionally, there’s the usual conversation about the ADV Cannonball Rally combined with regular biker chat. 

Notably, Aaron seems to confuse the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which is odd.

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast, where we discuss all things on 2 wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Hello, and welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast or adventure cannonball podcast, whichever you prefer. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I'm your host. And today, I will be joined by Aaron Puvall. Hey, Taylor.

Aaron, where are you calling from? And, what are you drinking? I am in Victoria, British Columbia. And because it's 9 o'clock in the morning, I'm having, a coffee, unfortunately. What are you having over there, and where are you?

Oh, well, you know, it's, it's 6:30 in the evening here. It's Friday evening and, which which pretty much means that it's a guarantee that I'm gonna have to be drinking an IPA. Nice. So I got in front of me in Optigords, which is a and they have this new thing. It's called a new Sweden IPA.

I guess in Sweden, they got tired of all the different West Coast, East Coast, this that kind of IPA that said, forget it. We're just gonna make our own. So now I have a new Sweden IPA and, I can say it's it's light and unfiltered, but it's more of an East Coast style. Oh, I'm so jealous. Yeah.

Well, you know, you'll be there in 9 hours. That is the time difference, sir. Alright. So, there's a couple of things I like to that I like to first of all, I'm super excited about this episode. Let me say that, there's some things that I think we should run through today that'll be fun to hit.

One of them is your rally that you've just done. So we'll talk about that. I think we'll, we'll jump. You recorded some field notes when you were there. So we'll at the end of this intro, we'll do the field notes.

We'll listen to those about a couple of questions from you about those because I listened to those in advance of, this podcast. Maybe talk about some, the cannonball, the ADD Cannonball News. See if you have any new people who signed up for this. And, and the field notes segment can take us into a bit about the difference in how rallies are being set up. And what you see is this was the first one that you just attended, in Mexico.

And, I wanna talk about a total bonehead move that I made when I was winterizing my motorcycle. Maybe I can steer some people clear that, you know, I like I like to think of a perfectionist. And you watch you watch a YouTube on how to do it properly, you can still screw it out. Out. Anyway, that's me.

YouTube certified mechanic. Exactly, man. I'm I'm a pro. Sign me up. Give me a give me a certificate.

And then, there's something is a new bike on the market or at least it's a prototype that's coming on the market. We'll talk a bit about that. And then, if we have any, any any emails that come in from the field from our listeners, then we can address a few of those. So with that, I think we should listen to your field notes. It's time for field notes.

A collection of voice notes recorded on location while we're on wildly exciting motorcycle adventures hacked together for your amusement and our public shaming. Field notes, December 5, 2024. British Columbia, Canada. It's 0 degrees Celsius outside, and we need to head to Baja, Mexico for the ADV Baja rally. We'll talk to you from Seattle, the next stop.

Missed my connection in Seattle. So it's at least a 2 pint wait until the next flight to San Diego. Wish me luck. It may not be totally impossible but it is wildly uncomfortable to walk from the San Diego airport to the red light rail transit deal that brings you down to the Mexican border. And that is all I have to say about that.

Alright. Driver's registration time. The van's here. The official Touratech Arch is here, and all the riders are checking in. And there's a dog on the roof.

So, you know, Mexico. It's awesome. I finally made it back to the hotel in Tijuana. The start of day 1 was at Rosarito Beach that is about 30 minutes south of Tijuana. And the start was this morning at 8 AM and the rally app opens at 8 AM and closes at 8 PM.

And I decided to rip down the, Pacific coast southbound to, I don't know, wherever some junction was on the Sea of Cortez, and then I ripped back up all the way to Mexicali and then across the the roof of of Mexico over back over to, Tijuana. So I've been on the bike for 12, 13, 14, 15:15 and a half hours, and, I just couldn't find anywhere to stay over on the Sea of Cortez that I felt comfortable with, you know, the bike. But as far as the Rally goes, the Rally app stops working. Once cell phone reception disappears, it just no longer works. So if I knew that, I never would have gone all the way down, to the bottom of the, of the rally course.

I just would have stayed in a more target-rich environment as far as collecting waypoints goes. But, anyways, it doesn't matter. So I'm gonna hit the hay, and then, tomorrow, I'm going to collect all the, checkpoints here in, the Tijuana area and, see, see where the chips fall. Alright. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

8:10 AM. I'm 10 minutes behind schedule already. Day 2 of the of the rally. And I think after yesterday's debacle with the app, I'll just do my best to ride around and get as many way points as I can. But I'm not gonna ride around like a like a madman.

I don't I don't think there's any points. I saw on the on the chat yesterday, there's a rally chat that someone had scored, like, 6,000 points yesterday. So I don't think there's any point in, in, chasing chasing these young these young guns around too much. But anyways, best effort today. It's pretty warm outside.

I'm going to have a costume change halfway through the day. I'm sure of it. And, yeah, I'm in Tijuana, and I'm going to head right downtown and knock out those downtown waypoints before, traffic gets too too bloody insane. Alright. Wish me luck and, we'll check-in, with you guys later.

Alright. Rosarita, Mexico on the Baja coast, the Atlantic side, and the the rally's over and the checks have been handed out, the medals have been handed out. I've got a medal but it's not gold but it'll have to do that's for sure. And, I got a flat tire last night in, Tijuana. Thankfully it was the best kind of flat right in the middle.

It was a big drywall screw so I was able to, to fix it and, make it back to the hotel and she's holding tire pressure well. So my plan is to head up tomorrow to ADV Baja Garage, leave my bike there and, walk across the border, and then start my journey, start my journey back home. Alright. Hope that was fun, and, I'll have, some stuff up on social media soon. Now we're back.

So just like the just like the introduction says, you know, you really put yourself out there when you, yeah, you put yourself out there when you, yeah, But you, you know, you just start speaking into a microphone and then here you are. They broadcast to, you know, millions of people and then boom. So let's talk about that. I got some questions for you about your field notes. So, you know, they call it adventure, adventure motorcycling.

And I wanna say that the first part of your trip from BC down to Mexico, you didn't even have a motorcycle. Did you? Yeah. So I guess we should talk about how the motorcycle got there is that in the fall, I had done the Pacific Coast Highway run from, Port Angeles, Washington all the way down to Tijuana. And then I had gone over to the Touro Texas rally, in the middle of Texas.

And we had a display set up there for Cannonball. And, I had met a guy who runs a thing called ADV Baja Garage, and it's an official, Touratech, reseller. And instead of riding all the way back here in the winter, I'm like, well, he he says that he stores motorcycles. And, you know, this is something that we should consider more is that why are we always going back, you know, to home base? So it's just simply doing a calculation of what it costs, to go all the way back, you know, 3,000 miles miles to get to get home just in fuel and campsite fees alone.

I can just leave my bike at his facility for $100 a month. So I had left the bike there. And then when I was there, I saw a poster for this this this rally. So I'm like, what's this rally? And he's like, well, come to the rally.

I'm like, okay. I guess I'm coming to the rally. So, I had figured out how to get home, the most economical, you know, economically way possible. And it turned out to be take a Uber from his facility to the pedestrian crossing, which is a story in its own, let me tell you. And then And just to be clear, you mean the pedestrian crossing?

Is it in Tijuana? Or Yeah. So to cross the border, some borders, especially the Mexican border, will always have a pedestrian crossing. This is unusual in most places, but this particular border lends itself to it. And, let me tell you, don't try to cross into the US unless you have Global Entry or something called Century.

There was the longest line I've ever seen in my life. Now I've seen lineups for anything you can imagine. I don't care if it's other border crossings or crossings or war zones or whatever. I've seen lineups. And this lineup, this queue sorry.

Use user language over there. This queue was so long that I originally joined the queue because, you know, I'm Canadian and, you know, you just do what other people do. And I had looked up, and there was a sign that said, you know, general and then a century. And I said, you know what? I bet you century is kinda like Nexus or Global Entry.

1 of these one of these, or like a TSA, you know, pre or something. So I quickly got on my phone, and wouldn't you know it, Global Entry gained you access to Sentry. So I just started walking down this empty aisle. And I'm telling you, it took me 5 minutes to walk this lineup of human beings just lined up to get into the US. It was really, really, amazing.

So, anyways, don't ever try this unless you have an extreme amount of patience or global entry. So how long did you cross how long did it start to stop on? How how long did you cross? No. No.

I never even broke stride. So I walked up and I just showed the card, like, you know, sheepishly to the guy with the machine gun. He's like, okay. And I just walked right up to to a to a US border agent. And he's like, do do you have anything to declare?

And I go, no. And he goes, have a nice day. And that was that. And I felt, you know, I felt kinda bad, like, blowing past all these people lined up anyways, right? That's true.

Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I used the, go ahead. And then I used the, you know, the, the lady in the box to figure out public transit to get to the airport.

Alright. So that was, that was a bit of that. So so wait a minute. So then you went home, and then we still haven't gotten to the part about my question. So you went up, you left your bike, you went home for a while, then you came back down.

And then in your field note, you mentioned the trip to get from San Diego airport to the light rail. Now before you answer that question, I wanna say a bit of background about you that I do know is that when you're not on motorcycles and you are doing adventurous trips, you quite often do what I would consider a death march. And, so you're into this this long walking thing. God knows why, but you are. And, so you're no stranger to long walks.

So tell me about getting from the San Diego airport to the light rail. How'd that go for you? Yeah. So I had some time to kill. Right?

I got there, fairly early. And I suppose, you know, you get spoiled, especially living in Europe now, is that when you travel in Europe, other parts of the world, you know, everything is walkable. And I had some time and I it's gonna sound weird, but I actually don't like taking buses. I I I'm a bit of a train geek, so I like taking trains and things like that. So it said it was a 2 mile walk, you know, the, the lady in the phone said it was a 2 mile walk.

So I I grabbed my bag and I and I started walking, and it was a nightmare. It was nothing but construction. I was the only person trying to walk. So the only, you know, muppet trying to trying to walk somewhere. And the map had said there's a walking route down one side of the road and there wasn't.

It was, and then I just found myself in the side of a loud highway, you know, feeling like, you know, everyone's obviously laughing at me because I'm walking down this road with my bag. Someone's gonna stop and make and, you know, make sure I've I I haven't escaped the loony bin. Right? And then after a mile and a half, I finally made it to some sort of civilization that I could kinda blend in, and then I was able to, to walk to the actual train stop. And it was a it was a total night nightmare trying trying trying to walk, which is which is which is shocking, to be honest with you.

Yeah. You know, there's a song called I mean, there's a song called Nobody Walks in LA, but maybe it should all be so simple set. I love that song. You're right. Stupid.

There are so many lessons in life that I've I had in in music, and I just haven't taken to heart. You really need to start listening to the lyrics, Aaron. That's right. Alright. So question question that I had.

So, so there was a first day that you were on the bike. You'd said you were on the bike for 15 and a half hours. That's nuts. You know, I like the long you know, we we've done some some long rides together, and I have to say that, none of them have been 15 and a half hour days. So that that's a, that's what that's an iron butt.

What's an iron butt? Iron butt is how many? 20 miles? Yeah. So I've done 2 Iron Butts, and I've done the 1,000 in 24 hours, and I've done consecutively, I've done the 1500 miles in 36 hours.

I recently did that actually going to the dirt days rally, in New Hampshire from Seattle. There's a chunk in the middle of America that's just you just wanna blow your brains out. So instead of just being bored, I made I made a I'm I made a mission out of that, which is I I accomplished both those those iron. Nailed it. Alright.

Good. So the other thing that I thought was really interesting is that you said, first of all, let me talk a little bit about your strategy. But what you ended up doing is that you said in your in your in your notes, your field notes is that you you went down the West Coast. You cut across the Sea of Cortez and back up and then across the hat of Mexico, which is basically the border between Mexico and the United States. And, and that was your 15-and-a-half-hour day.

But when you were, I guess, in the bottom area, when you're crossing from the Atlantic side to the Sea of Cortez side, you somewhere down there, you lost cell reception and the particular app that was being used, there was no cell coverage. Or shall I say, you didn't get to record points? You didn't like, it just didn't function when you're out of cell range. Right? Is that Yeah.

Am I understanding? Yeah. So I suppose I should explain what kind of rally it was. So it was kind of like a checkpoint rally, but it was very similar to the scooter cannonball where you would go to a longitude and latitude, and they're always at really cool places. The organizer did a great job.

His name is Marco. He's the owner of, ADV Baja Garage. And it was an enormous amount of work. All the checkpoints were at really cool places. So let's say, there's a checkpoint at, you know, a giant Jesus statue that's a 1000 feet tall.

Right? So, yeah, that's cool. So you ride to this checkpoint and then similar to the scooter cannonball, you would take a selfie. The selfie would have to include your rally livery on your bike or the your jersey or your, neck gaiter, which is something that was issued to you. So you couldn't ride around earlier and, you know, take all these selfies.

So and then you would use the app, and then you would upload your photo, as evidence that you were there into the app. So that is the type of rally that that, that this is. It's a checkpoint rally. So my strategy was, it was the first day was on a Friday, and I figured in Tijuana, having been there a few times, is it is it is chaos during the week. So I said, let me go get these way off, in the distance checkpoints first.

And then on Saturday, when things aren't as busy in the morning, I'll I'll I'll knock out, there, I'll knock out the density of, the higher density checkpoints while things are just getting started on a Saturday morning. Now they had they had cautioned us well, I had how do I say this? No one spoke a lick of English. Right? So But let hold on.

Even chest that's half but that's half the story. And how's your Spanish? Here's the other half. Yeah. And, I can order beer and other things, and that and that's and that's about it.

And so the information that was coming to you about the rally was in English and Spanish? Or No. Wasn't in Spanish. So everyone talking in the in the driver's meeting was in Spanish, and the app was in Spanish. There wasn't any English anywhere.

But it's checkpoint route. I just ride to the longitude and latitude and, you know, and figure it out. It's It's not it's not rocket science. Right? It's like geocaching on motorcycles.

Yeah. Exactly. You know? And, you have some fun along the way and and and, you know, maybe maybe score some points. So they had said specifically that you cannot upload pictures as evidence when there's no cell phone reception.

Now, as I wrote south, there's nothing. There's no power lines. There's no buildings. There's no cell phone reception. It is the middle of the desert.

It is akin to, I don't know, driving through the deserts of Oman or, like, somewhere like that where there is nothing. Like, there is no cell phone. Like, I've there's not even a power line. Like, there's there's there's nothing. So that's why, you know, you had no cell phone reception.

But the way it was explained to me is that the app would cache on your phone and you would have access to get to the next waypoints and see the description and and see the example photo. And then when you got to cell phone reception, you would have to sit down for a minute and upload the photos. And as you know, all photos have, have, data attached to it. There's the longitude and latitude and where they were taken, the device was taken on. So there was a way for them to make sure that people haven't cheated.

Fine. Well, the truth of the matter was after I went to the first wait point and I tried to get the next one, the app said, well, no. It just it just went blank. So now I'm like, well I'm down, I've ridden 5 hours, I've ripped it. I'm like, I'm taking this very seriously.

I got down there and then, well, do you just start doubling back? But for what? Because I've got all the I've got hours worth of checkpoints. There's no point going let me just continue going forward not knowing the extent of the no man's land of no power. So anyways, 4 hours later, I passed all the checkpoints.

You know, thank goodness I'm riding a GSA. You know, and I definitely took slowed down the speed, because I was concerned about gas. Gas. Thank goodness for having a GSA in over 300 miles range. So I just slowed down to, like, 80 miles an hour, and, and I made it to the gas station.

And I'm just I'm just so upset that I wasted literally 4 or 5 hours of riding. And I'm like, well, this whole rally is out the window, but, you know, let's just let's just continue to have fun. So that's that's how I ended up wasting half half a day and essentially, not being able to compete in the, in the, competing for, 1st place. So let me ask you, did you ultimately like, when you finally got back in a cell phone reception, were you able to upload those photos or was that window of opportunity passed? No.

That's not the issue. The issue was after I got the first checkpoint that I had on my screen, I couldn't even figure out where the next darn checkpoint was. Oh, got it. Okay. So not it was just nothing like you Nothing there.

You didn't even know where you're going. Yeah. I gotcha. It was a programming fault in the app. Right?

So instead of the app designer saying, once you open the app and you've loaded the app, that information remains in the phone. It didn't. Every time you you clicked on another checkpoint, it would ask the server through the cell phone saying, hey. Give me this information this guy is requesting. Instead of saying, if you design the app properly, it would say, put everything in the phone so you don't necessarily need cell phone reception.

I understand we're we're asking more for from the programmer here, but, but that is the way the app should have been decided if this is indeed the way you wanna run a rally requiring photo evidence. And this is specifically why in the ADB cannonball, we don't ask for photo evidence. It's all done through GPS offline. So there's no ambiguity. There's no, well, you didn't take the picture.

No. No. We're here to crush miles and get checkpoints. We're not here to take pictures. Right?

So that's that that's why we've, we've elected to take a different route. So my question to you is this, is there so the ADV Cannonball, obviously, you're doing that differently. So, the the obvious and potentially simple question is, what app are you using? Because obviously, the one that you would choose wouldn't have this challenge. So Yeah.

So I do you know, I admire that the Baja people created their own app. That's that's that's really great. And so and so did the scooter cannonball people. But, you know, why reinvent the wheel? So there are TSD rallies, time speed distance rallies that happen all around the world, and they're and they're crazy serious about it.

We're talking about scoring down to the thousandth of a second, which which, you know, because I've roped I've roped you into I've roped you into these adventures. And, and so these things work, a 100% on the device. So right now, the gold standard is Rick the rally. And, theoretically yeah. How do you spell Richter?

Is that r I c h t a, Richter? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Richteralli.

Okay. And just to just to jump in, just to back up, you did you mentioned that we had done them before. And just to be clear, that was the Alcan 5000, and that's when we had 4 computers in the car. One of them was just the rally computer talking to the rally master, and then the rest of it was us doing time speed distance math between me as the codriver and you as the driver, knowing whether to speed up or slow down based on the input I gave to the computer as we as we compare that to the book and the points on the side of the road, which coincided to those thoughts. And as you say, to the thousandth of a, of a because of a kilometer in that case because you're doing it in Canada.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's a really intense thing. And you've really made a good point, which is that that rally is in the middle of nowhere. Again, where there's no cell phone, there's no power.

When you're when you're on the middle of great slave lake and there's a checkpoint on the ice, obviously, there's no cell phone reception, so, you know, it has to work. Right? So, so anyways yeah. So for now, that is, that is the gold standard. And in theory, you can start your Rally, in, let's say, the Rally Hotel, connect it to Wi Fi even.

You don't even need a cell phone signal. The app is loaded and you technically don't have to even connect that app until the end of the rally where the next time it connects to Wi Fi or cell phone, it automatically just uploads, all of the cached, all of the cached waypoints, scores in into the server, and then the rally master can score it. You can even run 2 2 separate versions of it. So people who are very serious about it will have 2 separate phones, and they'll create 2 logins. So let's say your your your car number or bike number is 60, you will do 60 on one app and 60 a on another app, just in case, you know, a monster eats your phone or ends up in a cup of coffee.

Fair enough. Good point. Alright. So, Ravi, Rick, that is how you you intend to use that at this point in time. Again, we still Yeah.

Yeah. For now. So there there there's Revver, which is something that everyone is using, has some functionality, to do everything in one app, but it's gonna require some testing. So I'm not committing to it yet. So I need to do a bunch of testing, and we're considering migrating over as other people are migrating over.

I just I just don't ever wanna disappoint someone in one of my rallies, with a technical issue, and then it just people invest so much time and money doing a rally. You don't don't ever wanna have a technical issue, cause a cause a problem for people. Yeah. And I can, having sat next to you for 10 days, 10 hours a day doing the 5000 kilometers 5000 miles, 8,000 kilometers in 10 days, I can say with with great certainty that it is disappointing when when when, the time zone hasn't changed, where we we went through, what, 4 time zones in that rally. So there are challenges.

And then as as inexperienced drivers or inexperienced people were like, what happened? Did how come how come I'm an hour and 3 seconds late? You're like, no. No. You're only you're only 3 seconds late because it did it missed the hour of time zone change.

So there's a lot of technical, glitches that really can upset people who are inexperienced in rallies and more and more inexperienced people are joining rallies. So it's important that you're saying to make sure that yeah. You make a really good point and I hate to drag on about this field, but it's important because you and I lost our chances of winning the Alcan or placing well in Alcan 5000 because of a trick. So, we won't get into the trick, but there was a trick that they that the the designers did that will catch new people which you and I will never fall for that trick again. That was the loop road.

Anyways, and in this rally, they had a trick that I figured out and I fixed which was that they would put 2 checkpoints almost next to each other. Like you would look one direction and take a picture of giant Jesus and then you would turn around and take a picture of a fountain. And those kind of tricks are designed to get noobs, and that drives me crazy because I want noobs who come to a rally to have the exact same level playing field as everyone else. And, I was able to catch that trick because on the map, I noticed that one of the checkpoints flickered. It's hard it's hard to explain, but it wasn't a solid, solid color change that I had achieved that that checkpoint.

And I just kept zooming and zooming in, and I had noticed that, oh, there's another one right next to it. And that's one of those things that really drives me crazy about some of these rallies is, you know, the guys who are organizing or the the rally club puts in these little tricks to, just to kind of show the new people that you're noobs. And and and I and I will guarantee that in my rallies, I will never have a trick like that, that you can only gain that you will only be aware of due to experience. And I think that's, I think that's something that's important not to not to have. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's nice. It's nice because then it welcomes new people into rallies. It truly is.

So that's that's a fantastic Sure. And it's you know you know, you end up having a positive experience and that, you know you know, it was so much effort and money for me to go to this rally. And if I had known that if I do this again, I know to prepare to be offline. Right? And it's not a lot to prepare for that.

But, you know, the guys who have done this before know that. So I'm like, you know, why bother? Do these things if you need to have prior experience to, to place well and have a positive experience. And that just I think it's important that when you design rallies to avoid avoid that. Yeah.

Good point. So here's I I had 2 quick questions, but it seems like our it seems like our, our our our, field notes are kinda gobbling up the podcast. So a quick question for you. 2 quick questions. 1, you mentioned that somebody in the first day, pulled back 6,000 points in day 1.

How many did you get in day 1? Yeah. So I I think I was exaggerating. So it wasn't 6 1,000. It was it was several 1,000 points.

So each checkpoint has an arbitrary, number attached to it. And, I don't remember how many I got but my strategy was to go get the far afield ones out of the way. My strategy was to get all of them. That that was my my strategy of hubris. Right?

Was just I'm getting all these way points. Right? Because I'm not afraid to crush Miles. Right? So, so I don't know how many the front runners got, but it was a lot.

But by Saturday afternoon, when I had started doing the downtown Tijuana ones, which was, you know, I filmed some of it. So hopefully I can I edit that and put it up on socials? But it's madness. Like you're hopping on sidewalks. You're going to taco stands and ordering tacos.

You're sitting on donkeys was one of the challenges. You know, you're you're filtering through traffic is not is not, is not the term. You're aggressively, you know, riding through traffic. So it was entirely possible to get, all of the the waypoints downtown and get whatever thousands amount of points that one rider got easily if you were diligent about it. And and and I could see that being possible.

But I think I was just downtrodden because, you know, I had wasted, you know, half a day on nothing, and, and I was kinda, you know, upset about about that shortcoming. Yeah. I can I can see that being the case? Again, there's disappointment when you're like, the app didn't work and the technology lets you down, so you don't have a chance of of of placing. So costume change.

You mentioned costume change. I have this vision of you riding down the road with, you know, these crazy tomahawk or these, this pink long hair, you know, glued to your helmet. So what was your costume change midday? Yeah. So, you know, I call them space suits.

Right? So we all look like like idiot power with our space suits on. Right? So we you know, our full climb gear. Right?

So, you know, when you're when you're in the middle of nowhere doing a 120 miles an hour, you know, you want your climb gear on. But when you're literally stuck in traffic and it's midday and, you know, I know that I'm those pants are coming off minimum. And and by by 2 PM, that jacket's coming off. So there's you're always gonna be somewhere where someone's staring at you, literally stripping down to your underwear and and and putting on a pair of pants because it's, you know, a 103 degrees in the shade. So that's that's the limit of my costume change was taking off the Power Ranger, space suit and and and putting on some civilian clothes.

And then, by the way, as the sun goes down, you start putting all that back on. So you always end up taking clothes off somewhere inappropriate, when doing long distance riding. Putting them back on. Yeah. As it goes.

Right? As it goes. Yeah. There's some great new, I just saw an ad that reminded me of there's some great new Moscow Moto gear, which is a heated vest, a heated jacket. It's like a puffball jacket and, the in the, one of the the founders of the company when he does ad and he talks about it, he's like, yeah.

I start my morning, you know, they're right they're riding like high desert and, start my morning and I got it all on. I cut the heater on. You can even take it and put a battery in your pocket and sleep with it. And then as the day gets warmer, it all comes off. At first, the electric, you know, gets unplugged, and then the jacket comes off and then he's down to, you know, just a jersey, and then it all goes back on in the evening.

But, anyway, Moscow motor makes great year in this. They have a funny ad about that. So, so in the end, I did see on social, I saw on ADV Cannonball, Instagram. I saw you biting a metal. I noticed that it was not gold.

I noticed that it was not silver. What what is your metal for? I I actually don't know. So, because nothing's in English. Right?

So apparently, they were doing raffles, and my rider number was 30. And, I was just standing around talking to the few English people English speaking people, you know, having having some beers. So apparently, I had won some raffle drawing. I still don't know what that was because they just gave up and gave it to someone else. And eventually, they just called my name up to to to give me this thing.

So I actually don't know what it's for. I don't know if it's for last place or the most miles or or third place. I'm actually not I'm actually not I'm not sure to be honest with you, but but it's super cool. You know? You got a medal anyway.

That's great. Yeah. Was it was it a participation medal or Maybe. Who knows? Well, everyone didn't get one, so you had to accomplish some sort of some sort of stupidity or milestone, one of the one of the 2.

Excellent. Well, that's that's why we do this anyway. Right? It's it's just so you can just step out of your I don't know. I think about it.

Like, people say, why do you like to ride motorcycles? I'm like, well, clearly, first of all, you never have if they're asking the question. Right. And then I think, like, the other day, I went riding. It was like the last ride of the year for me here in in Sweden.

You know, there's snow on the ground right now. And and I came back and I hadn't ridden for a while and, like a while, I hadn't ridden for, like, I don't know, 2 or 3 weeks. I got on the bike and I came back and I was just, like, I was super excited to be back on the bike. And, I came back and I was like, that was so much fun to ride. And my wife is like, what was what was fun?

And I was like, yeah. I I I was like, this is fun to ride. I like to ride. It's fun to ride. It's you can't really explain it.

It's funny. And it's funny because you end up complaining more more than anything. So by the time, like, 10 PM rolls around on day 1, and now I find myself at, you know, 4000 meters elevation and the dashboard's yelling at you because it's plus 1 degree c and there's a snowflake warning. You're like, what the what in holy hell am I doing here? Right?

Right. Yeah. You get to the hotel, and you're like, oh my god. What am I doing here? I gotta get up in a few hours.

Like, it's a very, like, type 3 type of event you know, type of of adventure. And not everyone has to do this. You can go, and, you know, you can go from one hotel to the next and meet at the pub, which is something, you know, that I enjoy doing too. But every once in a while, I think it's important to do that type 3 type of adventures also. Yeah.

That's true. I I agree with you a 100%. Alright. Aaron, that is the longest field notes we've ever done. I think next time I'm just gonna give you one question, not 6, and we'll just we'll just go from there.

You know? And and then when I go get the bike, we should touch on, the even the concept even the concept of riding in Mexico. I get on a ferry a lot that goes from Victoria to Port Angeles, and there's always a gaggle of bikes there in the summer. And you always hear about the hesitation of that. So let's let's let's make a note for field notes and, talk about, the the the truth about riding in Mexico and the, and the pros and cons to that.

Yeah. And if there's a gaggle of bikes, maybe it would be really cool to, like, interview, you know, talk about whether you're going north or they've already done their trip and they're they're heading home or, and maybe interview some of those people Yeah. To find out kinda what they're doing and what their hesitations are. Maybe you have a key question that we're trying to chase. Actually, let's put that out there to the listeners.

What aspect of it would be interesting for you guys to learn, if Aaron's gonna chat with these people when he's on the ferry going from the US into, into BC as he does almost weekly, isn't it? A lot. Oh, save save us all that, Aaron, the field the field reporter. It's gonna be a train wreck. Oh, but it's so much fun, Aaron.

It's it's it's it's so much fun. Come on. You can't deny us that. I mean, the intro says it all. Oh my goodness.

Alright. So let's let's, let's change to another segment here. Let me ask you, are there any this segment will be cannonball news, adventure cannonball news. Are there any you already mentioned you already talked about the the that you're, you're trialing some other apps to see, the Revver app versus the Richter Rally app. What other news do you have to share?

Any new competitors? Any shout outs? Anything? Yeah. We just finished booking all the hotels, which was $80,000 in hotels.

So, yeah, I'm gonna have a I'm gonna have a stiff drink tonight for that. So hopefully everyone shows up. Yeah. We had 2 or 3 sign ups already in December. Thank you guys for signing up.

An interesting thing I had to change was I had limited space to, 30 hotel rooms, but I assumed everyone would get their own their own hotel room because people are as antisocial as I am. But it turns out people actually have friends. And so this surprising fact, was interesting because you could have more than 30 people. So I had to make a rule change is that we're limited 2025 to 30 hotel rooms. So the actual number of competitors, will depend on who chooses single occupancy and who chooses double occupancy.

So that was one of the changes. The I learned, booking hotel rooms that even though I may prefer, first of all, we're doing nothing but Hilton branded hotel rooms simply because, you know, a guy who shows up on a $35,000 motorcycle probably doesn't wanna stay in a super 8 hotel with, you know, crispy carpets and and scratchy sheets. So, but I I had originally wanted to stay in, like, Hampton Inns and stuff. So it turns out that when you call and try to book a block of 30 rooms, the smaller hotels, they don't really have someone on staff that is in charge of that, and it's not really in their business model. So I had to change the route just ever so slightly to go to, like, Hilton Garden Inns, in places that have, meeting rooms because we'll have driver meetings.

We have some receptions, throughout the rally. So after a really long day going across across, the interstate, there's one terrible day that we have no choice but to take an interstate, around the Route 66 area. We're gonna have a reception. So, places like Hilton Garden Inns and casinos are more conducive to that. So there was this minor minor route change, but we're very clear about the route isn't the route until the start of the rally.

So, yeah, all the hotels are booked. The route is pretty much in stone now, and then it's just a matter of populating, the on road waypoints, populating the off road waypoints, and then figuring out when we'll do the, extreme waypoints, which will be revealed throughout throughout the the rally for extra points. So let me ask you. Will there be any information that you share in advance? Yeah.

So the route is, is on an interactive Google map on on the official web page. So you can go and look at the route. It's advcannibal.com. Advcannibal.com. I'll put that in the episode notes.

And, yeah, so you can go peruse, the route. Just don't go download it because, you know, it may change. That's why that disclaimer is there. So you can go see the route, and, you can see the effort that is put into it. It's not just, you know, an AI generated route.

It's, you know, a combination of experience like this one road we know is really cool or it's, you know, brought up from Butler Maps or it's, you know, from from former rally. So the route is highly curated and not just, not just let's bomb across the country. Let's let's do something that's really, really interesting. Let me ask you, Aaron. I'm thinking about it.

You said any any motorcycle, any kind of motorcycle can participate. Is that correct? Yeah. And you know what? It's a real shame.

So far, it's it's the it's the the entries are, you know, the usual suspects. You know, they're all large displacement, larger displacement, ADV bikes. And, I I, you know, I'm really hoping that someone shows up, like, with a bagger from, like, 1970 and kicks everyone's ass. Like, nothing would make me happier. Right?

Yeah. So so I'm, you know, I'm I'm hoping there's something interesting. Or there's someone looking for some serious, you know, some serious, self self punishment where they show up with, you know, a 150 cc dirt bike and and, you know, they they don't mind arriving at the hotel last every day. So, you know, anyone can show up with with whatever they want. You know?

A core tenant is is is, you know, being a badass and and being self reliant. Right? So I I don't really care what someone shows up with. But so but, so far, it's, you know, the, the usual gang of Usually, the gang of the twins and yeah. Yeah.

So let me ask you, is it is it like, if I showed up on a Hayabusa, would I mean, there are there, like, off road sections where that would be extremely, you know, potentially hairy on a bike like that? Or Yeah. That that's a that's a great question. So, you know, as I get older, you know, I'm not I'm not looking to go crazy off road. Right?

So you can you can purposefully do the entire route without ever going off road. They are optional off road sections. So to answer your question, yes. You can actually show up with a busa and and and and not only get all the on road waypoints, which would get you an award, you could also potentially win. However, if you wanted to do the optional off road sections, you you know, you should obviously you could be an adult and do whatever you want.

I've I've seen videos with the guys with busas, you know, going up sand dunes. Right? So, you know, go for it. That that that would make an excellent story. But, but but at the end of the day, choose your choose your weapon according to the mission.

Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Yes. If my t 7, my 10 or 8 700 wasn't sitting here in, in Stockholm, that would be a, a good weapon of choice for that.

Yeah. For sure. So when you and I were riding in, in Norway last spring, listen, I was impressed. Like, you would take off down a tunnel, and I had to open my bike wide open to keep up with you. Like, so it may only may only but it may be 700 cc's, and I'd be on maybe on a, you know, a a a a Giant GS.

I'm like, yeah. That thing moves. Right? So, you know, there there's there's no reason why someone can't do it on a on a 400 or 700 as long as you can do what I like to say is, you know, be good it would it would be it would behoove you to be able to do 80 miles an hour all day if if if if you so chose, you know, chose to. Yeah.

And comfortably at that. That's I guess that's it is unless you're just a glutton for punishment. Right? Well, you're you're you're you're just showing your age. There there are people there are people that do the scooter cannonball, and there are people that do the ant the antique motorcycle cannonball on these nightmare machines.

Right? So there are there are people that, you know, don't don't mind the self the the, you know, the self pain. Right? Alright. So there's there's a, I think that might be a good segue to talk about, things that we have seen or come across recently in the news that, that might be worthy of mention.

And a moment ago, you talked about, like, a 400 or 450 or something competing, which what an amazing segue over to what I saw in the news in Moto Bob. He did a great cover on this, the new the title of this of this, YouTube for by Moto Bob is, a new 2025 BMW F450 GS concept preview. Everything you need to know at EIMCA 2024. So one of the things that I thought was interesting. First of all, I, I recently took my my, my t seven over to a friend's house.

It was actually it was actually a business function for the corporate thing, and we had, like, a a a day where someone hosted us to have a a meeting, the department day at their house. So I took my Tenere, and, and the husband came home, and he used to race dirt bikes as a kid. I had no idea. He wasn't, you know, he wasn't part of our team. So husband came home and he said, can I get one of those, but maybe a little bit smaller?

Because the Tenere is pretty tall. It sits higher than your GS. And he's like, is there something smaller? And I said, yeah. And a friend of mine had just bought a Royal Enfield Himalayan.

Actually, that's James. Shout out to James. And, this is maybe this would be the segue sort of the the teaser for our our next episode, and we'll talk about the, why why James bought this Royal Himalayan in the the Royal Himalayan, and that is because the actually, it's gonna be 9 of us total. We're gonna go across the Himalayas on bikes and they are gonna be the new Himalayan. So there's a tease for what's to come.

But anyway, so there's this market. I think that's a 402cc, then you got the CF moto 40450. And that segment is becoming more and more interesting. And I have to say, look, maybe it's you you made a comment a moment ago about me showing my age. I'm really gonna lay it on the line right now.

So my Tanner A weighs 204 kilograms. I don't know if it's dry or wet, but either way, it's a heavy bike, and it lays so flat when it drops. But now we've got bags on it, so it's a bit higher. But I I've talked to people who ride bikes who are older than me and they're like, I couldn't ride my GSA anymore because it just I can't pick it up if I'm by myself and I drop it. It's just too much weight for me.

So there's a big push for this. And as I see it, the adventure as as the adventure market is really on fire, and all these manufacturers are putting and building bikes for that market. They're recognizing that the adventure riders are also more and more people are entering this market segment who are previous may have been baggers, but people who truly want to use their bikes. And like me, they're getting a little bit older, and they don't wanna be picking up 204, you know, dead lift flat off the ground, kilos. So this lower segment, smaller 400 cc, 4 50 cc segments become really, really popular.

And a big part of it has to do with the fact that these bikes are lighter weight. They still have the power range, and you can and you can throw them a lot around a little bit easier. So Yeah. For sure. So that that particular, YouTube, by Motobob, I thought that was really well done.

He is, he has a really technical background. He goes in some great detail about it. And and one of the part about about, one part about halfway through where he talks about the fact that they've gone to a smaller front wheel. It's more of an off road machine with the exception of a smaller front wheel, like the Tenere and the setup Yeah. Is, is 21 on the front and 18 on the back, which gives you some really good options for, for choices around, you know, sticky wheels, different types of wheels that you want for your, for your uses.

And he makes a comment that it's quite possibly that they've set this up so that in the future models, they can just change the fairing up around it and have the wheels so you have a better geometry for road handling like the, like the GS, for example. Like like Yeah. For sure there's a guy out there already who's building a kit that you can change, you know, the front brakes and the front fender to put a 21 inch wheel on it. I guarantee there's there's there's a guy out there. Once that prototype moves moves to production, just like the GS, you can you can you can go and change it.

You know, you know, this this is the the the compromise of buying any motorcycle. Right? So when I'm on my GSA and, for instance, this this this last rally, you know, 90 percent of it is on road. And the whole time you're on the road, like, this is a sport bike almost. Right?

Like, this is really great. You're carving things up. You're you're you know, I can with the saddle bags, not the panniers on, I don't have the the cube on the back, but, you know, fully kitted out, I can do about a 125 miles an hour before it starts to get squirrelly. It's it's the it's the it's the air speed that causes the bike to to move around on the road. If I take the bags off, I can I can squeeze a little bit more out of it?

You can see my stupid video, online taking my GSA on the Nurburgring, which is which is comical. But, you know, you love that that 19 inch wheel. But the second you go on to the dirt road, I'm not even talking off roading, you get into a little bit of sand. The only thing I can think of is my mind's eye is is envisioning that little 19 inch wheel rolling over those rolling over that sand and it's all I can think about. But you know, that's, that's compromise, right?

You can't buy buy the bike that you're gonna that you're gonna ride whatever surface on the most. And I think if you if you're honest with yourself, you know, if you're honest with yourself, you're gonna be on on on the road more. Yeah. In most cases. I was just thinking about, this, this June when you, when you were doing your European tour and you swung through Sweden and picked me up and went over to Norway, and we did the, the Trans European Trail for I don't know.

We did it for a very short while, but it was someone who just gone through it. Right? They just had gone through with the greater, and it was all, like, beautifully done fresh rock. And I don't think it was a grader. I think they just they just spread some new gravel on, and it was the worst gravel in the world.

They were like they were like marbles. It wasn't even graded if someone had, you know, put brand new gravel down. Yeah. And you and I were kitted out. Like, we had our bikes were heavy and, especially yours.

And, and I and I remember going through it, you know, sitting on a 21 inch front wheel and I was pretty comfortable although it still wasn't I was like, yeah. What do you what do you say we get off this? You're like, yeah. Let's get out of here. But I was like, I'm like, you have these adventure riders, and they were like, oh, yeah.

So, the truth is that we do spend most of the time on the road. But when you, I have to go. I have to say, there was that time in Colorado earlier. Was that this year? 2023.

Last time you were at Colorado was was last year. Yeah. Last year. So 2023 in in October, and we went over Hagerman's Pass. We stripped both GS's.

Oh god. We stripped both GS, took all the panniers to go all the kit off, and we treated them like dirt bikes. And What a dumb idea. It was it was, you know but look. The here's the end of the story.

None of them got damaged. That badly anyways. But who cares? That's that's that's what they're for. Right?

I think your ego gets more damage. You know what's funny? Because I I had put that picture on the on the Cannonball, Facebook page. The picture you wanted to hear? The most yeah.

It gets the most clicks. I'm like, why do people always love people suffering more more than any any of their victories. Right? I I think it can be well summarized by this statement that everyone loves a train wreck. You know?

Yeah. Click click. And I'm and I'm the conductor of this one, baby. Oh my god. That's too much.

Alright. Let me let me did you have anything that you wanted that you that you focused on? No. But we should, schedule talking about about that European trip. We should talk about, transporting bikes internationally.

We should talk about how I set that bike up for that particular trip, the mistakes that I made planning. You know, I plan several big trips, you know, professionally and for myself each year, so there's always a lesson learned. Why I wanna go back and do it, again properly, because I hate something that isn't done correctly. So, yeah, let's let's let's let's make a note and let's, and let's and let's talk about that next. Yeah.

Good. Let's, let me let me mention. I mentioned earlier there was a total bone head move that I made about winterization. And it's also while we're on the topic of interesting things that are on, YouTube. And every year when I wanna winterize my bike, I go and I look up Ryan F9 how to winterize my motorcycle.

And I think Canadian. Yo. Oh, yeah. Well, and he I don't even think he apologizes in this one. Tip it all.

So so here we go. Yeah. It's called 10 minute motorcycle winterization, Fort 9. Ryan f 9. And, so I took some basic notes on it.

It's really it's really worth watching. It's 10 minutes. It's time well spent. And I have to say that the, the 10 minute winterization is is really, I don't know. I'd have to say mine was closer to to maybe 3 hours.

But then again, I'm a perfectionist. So here's my total bonehead move. So I'm like, I haven't hadn't watched the video. And I go, I fill the bike. I finally get a day where it's not snowing and there's not there's not, you know, like, they've already put salt on the road.

I'm trying to get a bike to the place. You can go to a place down here in Stockholm. It's there's lots of places, but you go to this and it's a heated bay. So you go in, you pay by the by the minutes, and you go into a heated bay that has a basically, it's a pressure wash station with the vacuum cleaner and power and lighting and, air in it for for blowing the water off. Everything you need, and it's it's a it's a little, a bay with, with heavy, rubber curtains between you and the next car for detailing your car.

So I go in there. I get the bike. I spray it down. I get it clean. I I, I use your trick and I use the, the, the leaf blower, you know, the leaf blower that you put a 18 volt, Dewalt battery in, you know.

Mhmm. I have I have a plug in one. So I use that, get the bike dry. And, and I I press the fuel tank when I get there. I swing by the store on the way home and I pick up my steel stabilizer.

I get home. I mix up. I figured out what the ratio is for a 16 liter tank and I dump it in and then I go, wait a minute. I didn't get any of that fuel stabilization into the actual work. Fuel system.

Right. Total idiot. So so no. But who who remembers this ever? Right?

That you should even put it in during fueling. Right? This is an anyways. Right? Right.

So that's So we have to go yeah. Yeah. So for me, now the, the for me, on the checklist for winterization is to watch the winterization video before I take take the bike down to the bay and, and and press the tag and do all that stuff to it. But anyway, there's some there's some good things in there, just to sort of his main point. She talks about, the tires, overinflate your tires.

We put them to the maximum pressure and then tight and then on the side and chalk. Yeah. He says put put, o p for over pressure on them. And then, and then, you know, market somehow. So, you know, and then and then if you're gonna put it in a cold garage, park it on, cardboard to separate the tire from it's it's more important on separate the tire from it's it's more important on sticky tires on, on on, soft tires.

But, separate your your cement slab from it because the slab may go to 0, but, you know, inside the garage may go well below 0. So to separate your tire, from there, he talks about coolant is obvious stuff. Check the pH and check the freeze temperature on it. If it's okay, leave it alone. Don't change it out.

On the battery, he talks about adding a, adding a heavier charge cable. He actually in his video, he talks about adding a, a particular brand so that you can actually use it to jump it as well if you need to without because the little cables are just burned. They'll melt. Oh, that's such a great idea. Instead of having the pigtail, which I have a million of them, I add to everything, I'm adding the wrong one.

I should have a heavier gauge, like a 10 gauge or something to use it for jumping. That's such a good idea. Yeah. And he and he even talks about that. He's like, oh my god.

The flight it's like 25 or $30 for that particular thing, Canadian. Mhmm. Just for the just for the just for the lead off your battery. But and and he talks about 4 that's like $4 American then. You're all set.

Or yeah. Or it's or it's a or it's 500 Swedish crowns. Alright. Right. I'm killing.

Yeah. Everything's more expensive in Sweden. Rule of thumb is 1% discharge on your battery per day. So, he also talks about if you get it for the battery charging, sometimes just one that's a triple charge isn't really good for your battery, but there's one that he mentions in his video where you actually it takes it through I think every 30 days, it takes it through a full discharge cycle. It takes it all the way down and then brings it back up.

So it it runs it through a full cycle. I had no idea this thing existed. Yeah. That ain't yeah. Obviously, wash the exterior of the bike, you know, try to get it home without covering it in salt again.

In the fuel and heat, and what he does is he's like, mix a jerry can of a stabilized fuel, and then take it out, drive it, you know, make it get the bike hot and come back in, press your tank, with the stabilized fuel. So first of all, mix the fuel, take it out, put it in the bike, run for the system, bring it back, and then add to it, press the tank. So you get any so there's no air in your tank. So you don't get any condensation in the in the air, as the temperature change. It talks about wax, it says use, carnauba wax.

He talks about the reason for that and then he goes into he's got this, he's kind of like a 3 pack of of kit where you you spray down the chains a high pressure like a a cleaner and you spray your chain. Mhmm. You get it clean. Yeah. Then you lubricate it.

That's a wax he's got in there. And then there's like a w d 40 and then you spray all the metal which is sort of a water displacing. Yeah. Comme desiccating. Especially if you're if you're in a store in an environment, I have a constant battle.

I have a like a like a man cave, like a barn. And my constant battle is not heating, it's the all the dehumidifiers removing the humidity. And let's face it, you know, we're not managing the the atmosphere in our in our in our storage sheds. So that's a really good idea just to coat everything with w forty, which by the way stands for water displacement formula 40. So that's stands for.

Yeah. That's what its original its original design was for that purpose was not to lubricate things. It's actually a terrible lubricant. It's actually made to displace water and and protect metal, which is its primary function. I had no idea.

You know, you learn something new every day. My my job here is done. There's a couple more things. So he said, obviously, lubricant after you clean it, this particular one he had was wax. But he also he does a video about what the best, what the best, chain lube is.

And it goes through all this high end stuff, and he did a, a full testing on, a full testing on what chain loops are the best that, you know, sort of bang for your buck. And then, after watching that, I started using my old, bike oil after oil changes as my lubricant because, because he's like he's like just use, you know, you saw oil, you know, like, you know, chainsaw oil. It's the cheapest. It's 3 50. Yeah.

It's a gummy stuff you can get and it doesn't fling off. So, anyway, that's what I use for my chain. And, and then let me see what else did you say here. He said, yeah, coolant. You can get the, that strip test.

You dip it in and see if it's gives you the right, pH. I just have my bike serviced, so I didn't bother with that. Not to mention you gotta put a bunch of bearing down to get to it. And, you know, I said, no. I'm not gonna do that.

Right. And the last thing was he said you can put steel wool in the exhaust or he said, that's so smart. He said or you can just take a a sheet over it and then put like a rubber band over it so that a mouse doesn't think that that's a great spot to stay warm for the winter. Oh, man. That is a great idea.

I've had a mouse in my in my air cleaner before, but that is a that is a genius idea. Wow. I gotta I gotta, watch that video. So you know what? Let's, let's, put that link in the, in the show notes for, for everyone.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We'll do that. And then and then he the last thing he said is don't cover your bike in the wintertime with a waterproof cover.

Cover it with something that it can breathe so that it doesn't hold a more short bike. So anyway, there's some good points. I thought they're really good points and and Excellent. Point the point to myself is to watch the video before I go, I'm just gonna go watch and put some fuel in. Yeah.

Or add a whole another checklist. So, you know, being old guy is my note, app on my phone is full of checklist. Don't know if it's a recipe for Jamaican beef patties or if it's like a checklist, things I need at the store or a checklist for starting something. I seem to have more and more checklists that exist in my life and it's, it's helpful as long as you remember to refer to them, and that seems to be the the the major the major problem is not referring to the checklist or the video. Wow.

Okay. Sorry. As you were saying that, I just I was just glancing over to grab the, the link, and then I saw a video by, Robert from Nomad Sweden. He was just a couple hours south of me here, South of Stockholm. And it says, this is my last video.

8 hours ago, it came up. Clickbait. That's for sure. That's clickbait. I don't know.

It's only 2 minutes. Propagating click clickbait. The next the the next thing you're you're gonna talk about is, you know, UFO sightings over over over Sweden. Wait a minute. That that we can do an episode on that next time, but not not now.

Okay? Perfect. Next time. Next time. Next time.

Next time. Alright. So look. We're let's see what else we wanted to, to cover today besides, you know, taking this out to be, you know, twice as long as we had initially intended. But, hey, you know, conversations just go on sometimes like that.

Yeah. We can also just save, save, the rest for, for our next time as well. Yeah. Let's do that. Alright.

So for for the next time, I think that might be interesting to talk about, you mentioned some interesting topics. We can also like, we don't have time anymore, but, we'll talk about some, some shout outs and some, mail that we've had from the from our listeners. And, and I think it would be interesting to talk about the, the planning that went into the Himalayan trip and, and why it is that we chose to start at lower altitudes versus flying into higher altitudes, things like that. So the planning aspect of going into and doing the Himalayas. So I think that's gonna be our our teaser for next time.

And Like a professional, I love it. Yeah. Just like, yeah. Gotta leave gotta leave and want more. Actually Leave and want more, Taylor.

I got I'm I'm super excited to talk about that too because that's, that's coming up. I granted, we still have a few months away, but, you know, September 2025 is right around the corner, buddy. It it'll be here in no time. And with that, Aaron Prufahl, thank you so much for joining me in the adventure Cannonball podcast. Great.

Thanks for having me, and roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a 5 star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods.

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Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks. Aaron, guess what? What? I just went back and listened to the podcast we recorded. Absolute genius.

Pure gold. Pure gold. Some some might say that we shouldn't be geography teachers, based on yeah. You know, when you did the field notes bit, when you when you actually recorded them, you know, you were it was great because your voice is all over the place. You're up, down, background noise, etcetera, etcetera.

You could definitely see your mood and your, and the tone within that. But one of the things that that you said, which was clearly because you were exhausted and you had just done that trek down there, but you're like, 15 and a half hours in the bike. I was just over on the West Coast, of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean. You and I both know that is the It's not the Atlantic Ocean. I didn't really say that, did I?

You really did say that. And to make it worse, I doubled down on it. Yes. Because I speak with authority, and you just you just fell into line. Yeah.

Yeah. I just I just yeah. I'm just dumbass. I didn't Anyway, I just thought I thought I'd share that with you. Called that that's called losing all your all your credibility in one shot, but it's all good.

There you go. And and and and, and there we are. Yeah. Well, I you know, I was tired and, you know, who knows? That probably was Don't say that.

Don't say that. Don't say it. Don't say it. Really bad ceviche or something. So I was, you know, hallucinating, but who knows?

Yeah. Indeed it was. Alright. Well, anyway, I thought I'd share that with you, but go back. If you wanna have a good laugh, go back and check that out.

Oh, god. No. I'll just take your word for it and never listen to it again. Alright, brother. Have a good night.

Yes, sir. Bye. Bye.