Himalayas India ADV Motorcycle Trip Preparation Talk

The ADV Himalayas Motorcycle Tour in India takes you to the Tibetan Plateau and the highest motorable pass, Umling La, which stands at 19,300 feet (5,882 meters). The journey begins with a flight into Srinagar via Delhi, followed by a few days in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). During this stay, you'll have the opportunity to experience the unique charm of a houseboat on Dal Lake, a destination that has recently reopened to tourism after years of conflict between Pakistan and India.

Aaron Palabyab - How to prepare for your trip to the Himalayas - VIDEO LINK

Pelican 1615TRVL Air Travel Case - WEBSITE LINK

SEALSKINZ | Stanfield | Unisex Waterproof - STORE LINK

Sweedish motorcycle training Video - VIDEO LINK

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on 2 wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle-related nonsense. Alright. Welcome to this episode of ADD Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I'm your host. And today, I am here with Aaron Truffall.

Hey, Aaron. Morning, sir, or good evening to you. As it may be, 9 hours ahead of you. So let's start off with some basics like, what you're drinking. I have I made a big mistake last time by drinking leftovers, from my wife's fridge.

So, today, I'm drinking, a contact hazy IPA, and it's ice cold, and I'm looking forward to it. Oh, I can hear all over the microphone. Whatever. You know, is that the one with the dead cat on it or not? It is.

I'm having I'm doing experiment. 1 with the dead cat, one without, and the dead cat for will forever smell like, hazy IPA, which really is is is not a problem for me. You know, you know, it could it could be worse. It could it could it could smell like dead cat, in which case There are many things around here that smell worse than that, but we'll save that for another podcast. Sorry.

So last time, I, I had a like, it was a tall boy, and it was a 10% IPA. And I found that by the end of the last podcast, I was having a hard time stringing sentences together because I'm, you know, I'm only way a £100 and 170, and I'm a lightweight. So, anyway, I know I need to get in some practice for that. So today, I decided I'd go back with the 6% IPA, which was the Utigord's IPA, Bighari Bra Brewery. So it's the new Sweden IPA because Nice.

Sweden got tired of complying with all of the other type of IPAs out there and said, we're doing our own. Doing our own. Anyway, let me try to in in light of, your recent experience, I'm gonna oh, look at that. Spill free zone. Here we go.

Yeah. Nicely done. Hey. What's the temperature there? And where are you sitting?

I'm at the worldwide headquarters of ADV Cannonball. I'm in the man cave in Port Angeles. It is raining. It has been raining for days and, it woke me up at like 5 in the morning and it's around metric. It's like, you know, 6 or 7, degrees Celsius in your in your in your language.

And, and, yeah, it is relentless and chilly. I am I am over it. I'm ready for spring already. Well, I have to say that it is unseasonably warm here in Stockholm, Sweden. We have had yeah.

Normally, we're down below I guess, we're we're below freezing. So, normally, we're at 28 in 25, in Fahrenheit. Right now, we're sitting at about 40, so 5 degrees Celsius. But, yeah, it's unseasonably, but it but it's still not like, I can't like, I did such a nice job, and I finally went out there and I put the other, I put the rest of the, I I ran the bike and I got the, the fuel additive, this fuel stabilizer into the machine, and it's all wax. I mean, I'm talking about even the part where the dirt splatters, right, in front of on the on the on my crash plate, my bash plate.

Everything's waxed. It's all it's all ready to go. And I'm just like, I can't I can't bring myself to take it out and drive it on these on these salty roads right now because I'm just like you know? Yeah. Anyway I hear you.

Okay. Yeah. So let's talk let's talk on this trip. First of all, are there any, any new any new sign ups? What's going on with Cannonball?

Any news to share about that? Sign ups. Yes. Let's switch pages here. We have Lou from Bruceville, Eddie, Texas.

Mhmm. He is on he is on a to be determined, motorcycle. I haven't heard of that one. And then tbt I wonder how many cc's yeah and then mark from rally North Carolina he's on a good old 1250 gsa which I think is the perfect weapon for this because I have one let's do one more. Tom from Savannah, Georgia, and he is on a super tenoray.

Nice. That's 1200. Right? That's 1200? I'm not sure, actually.

But, yeah, I think so. If it says super sure. It must be really badass with a bigger a bigger BRAF machine inside of it. Yeah. I, there's one actually that so in this complex, we have 3 stories of underground parking here, which is nice because it's it usually gets it doesn't get below 0.

Anyway, as I, I walked by one time, I had just gotten my new parking space when we moved here, and I had my my bike. And I was like, oh, and I walked over. And I hadn't really figured out where my parking spot was, but I knew it was down on the left. And I was walking by, and I was like, oh, and I walked over. And I was like, I don't recall putting my cover on like this.

And I and I lifted up. I was like, oh, that's 1200 cc. That's not that's not my bike. I looked around and make sure nobody was looking at me like, is somebody somebody messing with my machine? Yeah.

So but it's it's I looked at it. I looked at the at the, the configuration, and it's a lot more like the GS. Like, the tank comes up higher and the seat drops down lower around it, whereas the, the Tanner A 700 that I've got, which is just the the basic 2022 model in black, triple black. Of course. And, and it's, it's the it's more like a, you know, a a a rally dirt bike setup, as opposed to the GS, which is straight line.

Yeah. Exactly. Alright. So, what do you say we, what do you say we jump into our topic for the day? You know, I just got a couple more cannonball things I want to mention.

Oh, yeah. I know. Some some really big news. Last night, I picked up I picked up the new van, the new sprinter van, and that will help with people. Everyone's asking about how do you get your bike to the start line?

How do you get your bike back from the finish line? And, you know, often, dealerships are so great. They will help you, receive your bike from big companies, big inexpensive companies, out there that, that haul bikes. The big one is called haul bikes. One of the issues with that is, you know, you have to wait and your bike goes to distribution centers and it's on a tractor trailer, and they're not very flexible, and so but it's super cheap.

So if you're using that transport system, you can go ahead and use a dealer. However, we have a limited amount of space now with the new van. I have the van. I have a trailer, a motorcycle trailer, enclosed trailer. So that is more of a white glove service that we will collect your bike at a certain time of day, and we will go directly to, the start or, start line or at the end of the rally, we'll go directly to your house.

We'll do a little, a little milk run. So anyways, we have the van. Lots of work to do. It'll be fun talking about that. We're gonna turn it into a bit of a comfortable transport van.

We're gonna insulate it, it, sound deadening. We're gonna put little charging ports for each motorcycle to keep the batteries topped up, put a cool lighting system in. We're gonna and we're gonna put a, you know, a semi very basic RV setup in there. So, that'll be a fun project for the next 3 or 4 months. Cool.

Hey. How many how many bikes with the trailer? How many bikes will you be able to transport? And then that's my first question. Two part question here.

And the second part of the question is, like, if somebody lives in Texas or Louisiana and the start is in North Carolina, can you can you accommodate those bikes? Yeah. I think so. We'll have to use some we'll have to use some, you know, common sense here. Right?

So if there's one oddball, I might not be able to help you. You might have to rely on, you know, general transport. And it's not everyone because it's going to be a lot more expensive than just using a general transport company. But yeah, we'll have to figure out who we can accommodate and who who may not be able to, to get in the van and I'm not sure how many bikes fit. I think it depends on depends on the bikes.

If I have 2 t sevens and a and a big GSA, yeah, I can see that, but I'm not sure if I can fit 3 GSAs in there. I'm not really sure. So that's part of the consideration with the build out, but I will be working on that over the next few months and I'll post lots of pictures because I wanna annoy everyone with the things that I'm building. Well, that's kinda cool when you're building too. Remember when we were in Colorado it just takes me back for a second.

When we were in Colorado and we're doing that private tour let me I got the tag on to the private tour you had arranged. Let me state that accurately. And you were receiving, like, 3 or 4 bikes. And that guy, was it a Sprinter van? He jammed, like, 3 or 4 GSs in the back of that thing.

It was I was like I mean, he he was the one who dragged them out, and they got they got like, that one tank bag got scratched on the way out. And I was like, that panty or got scratched. And I was like, just so you know, man, you were the one who dragged it past that sharp metal. It was not me. But I remember he had a bunch of them in there.

Yeah. So I think he had 3. That was a really good lesson because the first lesson there was, I'm buying a proper ramp. Now Now this isn't a ramp. This is a full width, you know, 10 foot articulating $6,000 ramp that you drive the motorcycle up the ramp or walk it down backwards.

It's like and it folds up in the back. It's like, you know, it's a big deal because you don't wanna end up on YouTube, you know, loading bike fails. Right? Because it's a common hilarious thing. Right?

So that was the first lesson from watching that guy. And then also that lesson also is, you know, just say no. Right? If you're at risk of, you know, scratching someone's baby, you know, just say I can't take it. And also, the the, this I learned this lesson from my trailer is having e track or l track, but not just have 2 or 3 of them, just cover the whole the whole enclosure with with track.

So, you know, you can stack them in there pretty pretty tight. But, you know, so there's no risk of, scratching someone's someone's bike. That's really the motivation of having your own transport system is not only the the the expedited manner of I'm staying with your bike the whole time it's with me and I'm going directly to your place or with one stop. It's not going to another center where the windshields get broken and all that. It's really, you know, taking care, when the bike is in there and being loaded and unloaded.

So yeah. So it'll it'll it'll be a it'll be a fun, a fun journey with it. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing pictures on that. The stuff you build out, like the like the FJ that you built out that we did the, the rally in when we went to Alaska.

Mhmm. Like, I remember people there was I mean, we were competing against a, a, was it, a 911 Dakar, a Porsche Dakar. Right? 1 of the I mean, it's a Yeah. Super Android, like, Blackjack.

And people were taking like, they're side by side at the at the start, and people were taking pictures of the FJ more than they were taking pictures. They're like, god. Well, that's just the car, but yours was so customized and tricked out. Anyway, it's kinda fun. Yeah.

It's funny. The people that the media that were there, we just got published in, and it was the the Lilienthal's. They published a big spread in a magazine just last month and I think I sent you a picture that they had their press vehicle, and then the only other picture they had was of the FJ because it is it is pretty cool looking. Plus I also think truth truth that matters anyone can just go buy a Dakar, you know, and he you know, I I don't that's cool and all, but someone who supercharges an FJ and does a goose gear conversion and has all the timing equipment and radios inside, I think that's a little more interesting than a guy that just writes a check, but that's also coming from someone that just can't write the check. So perhaps my my opinion is a bit biased perhaps.

Are you are you biased about this? Yep. Maybe a lot. Yeah. I'd say.

Yeah. Yeah. And just and just to, to reference, that was, Mercedes Lilienthal, and that is Crankshaft Culture. That's their Yeah. That's their I guess, I mean, they're all over social media, but Crankshaft Culture.

It was fun doing the rally with them. Yeah. They're fun. I think I think he actually won the the ice the ice racing when we were out on the How dare you? I came in 2nd place out of all of them.

By the way, if we're gonna if we're gonna if we're gonna disparage everyone, I came in 2nd place with the FJ beating all the Porsches, beating all these guys with their $200,000 cars just just for the record, but they won, their TSD portion for manual paper calculation, which is, which is something, that my brain can't can't do. We used a lot of computers. We were in the unlimited, category, but they won overall for manual calculation, pen and paper, with stopwatches, which is really cool. T s d meaning time, speed, distance. Yeah.

They won they won that portion. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Alright.

So there's a lot of stuff I wanna talk about. And there's and I so I so wanna ask you. So last time we talked, we we weren't we weren't on the channel, but you had mentioned that you wanted to do a trade. You were like, I would really like it if somebody would trade me this for that. What what is this and what is that?

You wanna trade a bike. What is that? Yeah. So, you know, I've been doing a lot of more road riding with my GSA. I have, the last year they made the GSA.

It's it's practically brand new and, you know, I just be down the road more. I just, you know, I've been riding alone and I just I'm not so big on going going off the pavement by myself. I've been, I've been caught in some stupid situations, you know, where the bikes literally been upside down. I'm like, what am I gonna do now? So I thought, you know, maybe for the next few years, if I could trade my GSA for a, s 1000xr or a m 1000xr, which is essentially the r one 1,000 race bike in a more relaxed posture.

You know, now that I've, you know, shed, like, Ozempic pounds, like, £50, I can't you know, there may be the possibility of not, you know dying on a more sporty bike and you know the reason why you know they're lighter has 200 horsepower it has all the same technology for for all the all the rider assessment and, and the only issue is is is the baggage because I use all my GSA baggage. I have the I have the 2 standard, black aluminum cases and I use a 100% of that. So that's my only hang up is that, you know, maybe I can bolt on some, you know, trash can to the size of it or something, but I would really love to get into a more sporty road bike for the next few years, but have all the same ecosystem as far as the electronics and interface goes, because I'm such a big fan and it's, you know, it saved my ass. I don't know how many times that that BMW system. So, I don't wanna give that but I want something a little more sporty.

I want an inline 4. I wanna, you know, I want to, I, you know, I don't wanna be limited. The fastest you can go on the GSA is about a 120, 125 miles an hour before the size of it gets in the way and you start to wander around the road, it starts to Yeah. Starts to get a little sketchy. So, anyways, I would I would I would I would like to get into a XR if it didn't really cost me a lot.

I remember when when we were we were running by a lake. We were running by a, it was a reservoir. We we were in Colorado, I think, and we were, and I was on your bike. I guess, the one that you've the one that you have now, the one you're riding, and I was on your bike. And and I was like, let's go.

So I looked over at you. We both we both we both put them down. And I remember so we when we loaded these things up with, you know, panniers and I mean, we're loaded. Right? We were traveling with, you know, with kits, so the bikes were heavy.

But I remember you're we're we're talking on the mics, and you're like, yeah. You're not gonna get much past 125 before those panniers start to take off like wings. And I was like and I was like, yeah. That because it wobbles. Setting at 125 is about where I had to pull it back.

But Yeah. And then more specifically, if I have my camping bag on the back so I have, I have a Black Dog Cycle Work held up hat on the back, and I've removed my passenger pegs. So because I, you know, I I just refuse to have the cube on the back. And if I have that on my bike for camping, it's even a little bit less. And then because of the weight just distribution moves aft a little further, even though I'm a I'm a I'm a bigger guy, with my my weight, amidships, the I get steering wobble at about 125.

So it moves from a wind speed issue, without having the camping bag to a aft Stability. Distribution. Yeah. And I start to lose, I start to lose grip on the front wheel, and it starts to speed wobble a bit. So so yeah.

Anyways and, of course, you know, talking out loud, that's gonna be an issue if I if I do move to to, the XR. I I mean, I may need to consider the weight weight distribution as well because that's gonna be a smaller, lighter bike. So, anyways, lots to consider, but I'm getting a little frustrated with the, the 2 cylinder bigger bike, when I'm on the road more. And, I'd I'd like to come up with a solution, but I don't wanna leave that BMW ecosystem because I just I just I just love it so much. Yeah.

That makes sense. Alright. So when when we were out in, we were out when you had done your European trip and, and then you and I you you swung by here, and you were and you picked me up in in Stockholm when we drove west to Norway. At one I think before we left here, you took off your your peak, your sun peak off your helmet. Oh, yeah.

Right. Yeah. So you, I see that it's it's it's sort of ties into what we're gonna talk about as we move, later in this podcast, about the the Himalayan trip. So why'd you take it off, and why would you think about putting it back on? Well, you still have it.

Right? Let's be clear that you when you moved, you you still have it for me? When I moved, I yes. I I put a note on it that said Aaron's Peak. Nice.

And Aaron's Peak. And I and I'm sure that before we go to India, I'll be able to locate that box. So I was just getting frustrated. So after a bunch of riding, especially in Europe, being Audobon and things like that, I was just getting my head shaken. So I have a a nice helmet.

I have the best helmet I've ever owned in my life. It's the carbon fiber to, Touratech Helmet, and I'm in love with it. I've never experienced something so comfortable before, and then, like, nah. Now I get it. Right?

But the problem was was in the morning, I get going. And, of course, you know, maybe I'm hungover or sleep deprived, but I get going and and my head would just shake so bloody violently that eventually I just I went on the tour tech website and they have a conversion kit, for, for that helmet and I took that peak off, and I have not looked back. I missed the peak quite a bit because I'm always, you know, the sun at the beginning and later part of the day is obviously a pain in the ass. Yeah. But but that being said, I just I just can't do with the head shaking anymore.

But conversely, in the India situation, which we're gonna move into now, that topic is that is that, you know, we're we're riding Himalayans, and it's, you know, gravel roads and water falls and I if we go over 40 miles an hour I'm going to be shocked right so for that situation converting it back to the peak is something something that I'll definitely do but but but overall I'm just I'm just done with the peaks and I'm done with my head just being, you know, rattled around every every morning when I'm on the when I'm on the highway. Yeah. Good point. I think it was a comment that Itchy Boots made. She pulled her peak off one time when she was riding.

I think it was Itchy Boots. I mean, this this sort of ties into the a ton of research, on on traveling to the Himalayas, and I think it was one of those where and she was doing South America or something. She was on the way, and it was it was so much there was so much wind that it was just the wind was so much that it would just kept lifting, you know, so much load to get underneath the people to lift up. So, anyway Yeah. Now now now imagine being on the Autobahn, you know, and, you know, another interesting thing is if you're ever near a truck, right, and you're doing highway speeds, you get that turbulent air, when you're flying it.

It's, you know, wake wake turbulence, we call it. Right? But you get wake turbulence from from other vehicles. So I just found myself constantly keeping my distances and keeping away from the wake turbulence with that peak on. And if you ever lifted your head up, you know, over a 100 miles an hour, forget it.

You know what I mean? It's gonna rip your rip your helmet off. Right? So Yeah. Anyways.

Yeah. And it's just it's it's it's unnecessarily uncomfortable, right, if you don't Yeah. Don't need it for that. Alright. Yeah.

So first of all, before we jump into the Himalayan trip, I wanna ask you. Do you have any any New Year's moto resolutions? Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

So last year, I did probably, I don't know, 25,000 miles total total. I think it was, like, 10 countries. So this year, I wanna pre run the cannonball more. I want to, videotape it, and I want to, this is cool. I want to well, it's geeky.

I want to I have a, Instagram Instagram. I have a Insta 360 camera that is compatible with Google Maps. So I want to, street view record the off road portions of the cannonball. So it's a big project, but I definitely wanna try to do it in the spring so folks can physically go see through Google Street View the actual off road route, so put people, at at ease and I wouldn't mind videotaping it. So it's kind of a big project, but if I can, if I could find the time in the New Year, I would definitely, like to do that.

Okay. Cool. That'll also help with people who are interested in signing up for the cannonball, the ADV cannonball, and go, wonder what that route looks like. So, yeah, that's good. I can see that thing.

Would you be able to, like, click on the Google on the Google map and then it would take you to that section of the video? They tie together like that? No. So I've actually done a few experiments with some walking trails, in the fall. So you just go to Google Street you just go to Google Maps.

You Yeah. Look at Google Street View, and there's gonna be a blue line. And then you just zoom into that blue line, and then you'll see I'll either be on my bike or I'll be on my on my FJ or the van, and you'll kinda see that looking down, but then you can look around 360 just like Google Street View, and, you know, anyone can contribute. So if you have a good Insta 360 camera and you learn how to do it, you can contribute anywhere there is in Google Street View. And I was looking, at at the route, and, there was no Google Street View in those, off pavement sections.

And I think people would find it really interesting, you know, when you're thinking about going off road. The more information you can have, the better, especially with a bigger bike. You know, if you have a, you know, a WR 350 or something, who really cares? But when you're dragging around a 600 pound bike fully loaded, you you know, it doesn't hurt to be able to see what the route actually, holds for you rather than just guessing. Yeah.

True. And, and also that ties into planning. Like, I mean, part of the fun of doing a trip like the, ADV cannonball or doing a trip to India is, like, part of the excitement is in the planning of it. Right? Granted, I like to make the point that, that, Ryan f 9 makes a lot, which is just go do it.

Just go get on your bike. Just go ride. It's not always about all the planning and about the right gear and about this. Just get on your motorcycle and go. So, I have to say though, with the India, with the Himalayan trip, it's gonna require some trip some planning, and so is, and so would the Cannonball.

But the, the neat thing about the the Cannonball and about having that that, that 360 view, and the route planning for you, it's like you can go in like, some of the research that I did that I'll jump into here is, is that there's so many people who've who've recorded this before you've gone there, so you have an idea. As a matter of fact, partway through the planning of this, when I figured out the details that I needed, I stopped watching videos about the Himalayas because they didn't wanna go, oh, yeah. I've seen this. Oh, yeah. I remember seeing that.

Oh, yeah. This is that hairpin we should worry about. Oh, yeah. This is the barber gravel riding. Would have been a good experience.

So I stopped watching them because I didn't want to like, I still want it to be new. Yeah. And it's funny because because you're planning you're planning this and I'm not, I've made a point of not watching any videos. I've said, right. Taylor's planning this.

I'm gonna focus my time on other things. I'm gonna be more productive, and I'm looking forward to not being, you know, the rally master or the guy in charge. And, you know, I can be in charge of, like, beer distribution or something. Right? But other than that, it's it's gonna be really cool not not to, be be the guy in charge.

So I'm really looking forward to you taking care of business. Yep. Well, so let's, so let me just give you my, my one moto Resolution. Resolution. Yeah.

And it's not really something I'm gonna do on a consistent basis, but it's one thing that I really wanna achieve. So you're giving up already. Is that what you're saying? No. No.

It's more like it's a line it's it's a it's a it's an item to tick on a list rather than something that I need to do every day. Indeed. You know, it's not like I'm saying I'm gonna do, you know, a a 100 push ups a day challenge. Right. You know?

So what I what I plan to do is to do a an a heavy ADV off road training class. And by the time the class is over, I fully intend to have to come out of pocket for repairs because I wanna make sure I wanna I wanna I wanna like, here's something I wanna learn how to do. Have you seen have you seen guys or gals take a bike up a little incline? So it's just a little bit of an incline, just like the edge of a trail, and the one end goes up or, like, you know, the erosion's come down and surrounded. So you roll the bike into it, and then they just clutch in and then it rolls back, and then they don't fall off the bike.

They don't put a foot down, and they roll in. So they keep rolling up and turning the bike, and so I wanna learn how to do that. That's kind of one of the things I wanna be able to learn how to do because, I don't know, I think it's interesting to do. It's also another way to turn a bike around, and it requires the ability to learn how to balance your bike while rolling backwards, which is sometimes that happens. So it's I thought that that might be a good skill set to have.

So, I didn't wanna be able to get over big chunks of trees. I wanna practice water crossings. I wanna travel spend some time in sand pits on heavy bikes, and I wanna I wanna learn how to turn the bike around by rolling up the hill and rolling backwards without putting a foot down. So that's my You know you know, it's really beneficial to go to a place, whatever you're learning. Right?

So if I'm doing, like, a racetrack day, you're in that environment. In your case, you're gonna go to a facility with an instructor who has set up these these challenges and these exercises for you, which you're never gonna do on your own. Right? So this guy or girl who whoever's teaching you is gonna say, I've set up these 5 skills for the next 2 hours, and we're gonna and we're gonna work on that. So I have this little hill that we're gonna do that rolling.

I've got these 2 logs that you're gonna go over. I've got these whoops. I've got this sandpit. So in those little examples there alone, you have these, you know, for little time investment, you can knock out 3 or 4 or 5, skill sets in a in a in a in a bespoke environment. You're not just sitting on a trail and you're not really, you know, not in an environment that you can work on those skills.

This guy has set that up for you. I think there's so much value to that. Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned that because one of the things I'm looking at right now is, excuse me, I'm looking at going to so I'm gonna be in the States visiting family here probably around Easter time, and I've been looking for a facility to do some training, exactly that, sort of a heavy off road training facility. And, I've got a, I've got, waiting for information from there's a there's actually a Harley Davidson facility, which is in North Carolina that I'm waiting for a a reply back on about, running off road bikes and, I'm sorry, ADD bikes.

I guess that's the Panamera. Right? Yes. Panamera. Yeah.

Yeah. And then running that, in a in an off road, training facility. And then there's another one I'm looking at, which is a bit further I think it's in South Carolina, and it is it is an it's like an off road mecca. It's an entire park where they're doing, you know, 4 by 4 or 2 I guess, 2 by twos, 4 wheel drive. 4 Like, the stuff we saw in yeah.

4 by 4. What was the stuff that doom buggies that we saw? Like, the buggies up in we were in Colorado over those. Were those 4 by fours? Just regular Ah, you mean side by sides.

Sorry. Side by sides. Here we go. Right. Yeah.

So so they do they rent side by sides, and they rent dirt bikes, and they rent ATVs, and they rent all that stuff. So this is a huge facility. And this guy said, that I've been talking to, he said, he can rent me his, his f his GS f. Is it a GS 310? Yeah.

F310 GS. F310 GS. Thanks. And, anyway, so that's something I'm looking at. And, yeah, I think that'll be good to practice those skill sets.

And what a brilliant segue because that bike is manufactured in India, I think. So what a brilliant segue. Let's take a little quick commercial, and we'll come back, to talk about, the Himalayan road trip. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV Cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure.

Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter. Everyone can participate. Head over to advcannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. And we're back, and Taylor is going to talk about the Himalayan trip that he's planning.

And, no pressure, bud, but let's, let's hear it. Alright. Alright. Well yeah. Actually, there's a yeah.

No pressure. But, if I have to look at the, the trips that I've been able to drop in on that you've planned, I got some pretty tall shoes to fill. So here we go. I wanna say one of the questions that comes up, people are like, there's so many places in the world to travel. Why would you pick the Himalayas?

And I've been to India a few times, and I find the culture really fascinating. I find the the geography really fascinating, the topography, and I think that the actual there's a lot to actually you can you can do a trip like this, and you can see so many different climates and not to mention cultures in in climbing up and out of a major city, for example. So, it's absolutely gorgeous for one thing from, from from what I've seen by being there, But I haven't ridden I've ridden scooters in the cities, but I haven't That was an adventure. But I have not ridden adventure bikes while I've been there. So the purpose of this really talking about this is to increase people's awareness about traveling to foreign parts of the world and have an adventure, especially, you know, the Himalayas.

And, and when I talk about the Himalayas, I'm talking about the Indian side of the Himalayas. It's it's, it's there's 5 countries which which have sovereignty to it, but I'll cover that in a second here. So that's the the one thing is to show interest, to to to increase the interest in traveling to a foreign part of the world like this. And the other part is to show that the planning and trust in a reputable outfitter who has good local contacts. That can be one of the most memorable moto tour experiences that you've ever had in your life.

So, and you can do it without breaking the bank. That's a good thing. Let me just throw that number out here right now. I'm not traveling as far as you are, Aaron Mhmm. Because I'm, yeah, I'm halfway there because I'm in Europe.

For me, it's I don't know. It's, you know, it's a it's a half a day trip to get there. I'm actually gonna go the other way around. You go okay. You're gonna go the wrong way around.

Oh, that's a whole different that's that's that's a podcast. Oh, but there's a slack. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna it's gonna be about 7 hours for me, door to door, so not a big day not a big day.

No. Maybe I'm being an optimist. But for me, like, I'm planning on be about 4,500 US dollars to 5,000 US dollars, assuming I come you know, if I come back with something more than a a scarf for my wife, then get there. You might bump it up a bit. I'm actually flying on on on points.

So Anna flying coach, which is gonna be, you know, trans, you know, transpacific, you know, and then flying over Asia in coach. So I fly from, Victoria to Vancouver, Vancouver to, Tokyo, and I'll spend 24 hours in Tokyo, you know, which will include, you know, drinking as much sake as possible and eating as, you know, as much as I can, staggering back on to the airplane, and then clearly annoying the person sitting next to me in coach, flying into Delhi and then from Delhi into, Srinagar. And you were talking about cultures and maybe you can give us a bit of history on the area, but it's such a dynamic culture just in that in that that journey alone. But when you land in uh-uh Srinagar that is technically what they call the J and K and that is a Muslim area and you know they've had a bit of, let's call it friction, a bit of strife between the, the Pakistanis, India. The Pakistan still kind of claims, claims domain over over, over that area of Kashmir, but the government is, trying to get a tourism back, and, they've had no, no issues in the, in the last little in the last little while.

But perhaps you can give us some of the the history on on the area. Yeah. It's interesting. So when I did some research on this, if you look at, like, the Indian landmass this is crazy. So 71000000 years ago, the Indian landmass was out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, sort of southwest of where it currently sits.

And it slowly moved north northeast, and it crashed into the Eurasian plate. And to this day, it continues to push under and slide underneath the Eurasian plate. And as such, it keeps growing. So I I looked online, and I was like, how much does it grow? And, I've seen anywhere from 1 inch to about, 2 and a half inches per year.

So, but I I really haven't understood why it is that, Everest is dropping a couple of millimeters. And one side's pushing up, the other side's pushing down, I guess. Maybe one plate is pushing one one of the plates down and one of the plates are going up. Yeah. I think Everest is on the, Everest must be on the I don't know.

But, I mean, I should I shouldn't say because I'm not a 100%. But based on that, it's probably on the Eurasian plate. And, from and so the mountain range sort of runs from the northwest to the southeast, and it's a it's a it's a border of India. Again, there's 5 countries, who are there who who have sovereignty in it. So there's the, the India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

They have most of it. And then Pakistan and China have the least, but they do have part of it to the north and to the to the northwest. So, it has over 10 peaks that are over 26,250 feet, which is 8,000 meters. And Wow. Those and and 2 of those 10 peaks, include Everest and Annapurna, so Everest being the most famous.

Actually, I met a guy, I met a guy when I was in Park City years ago, and he had he worked for for North Face and he North Face Gear, and he was a he had climbed Everest 7 times. Jeez. I remember he was he was a personal friend. We all went there. He was friend of a friend, and we all went there.

And I had just flown in from Europe, and I was so jet lagged. And he gave us this really nice, you know, slides. You know, he had like the the carousel, you know, the slide carousel. And he's doing this presentation for us in his living room and covering this and standing up there. And he does his presentation in front of thousands of people.

He's done it, you know, in front of hundreds of thousands of people as an educational thing over the years. And I he got so mad, I fell asleep. I was I was so jealous. It was the end of the day. Had a couple of drinks, and I was like Oh my goodness.

Nobody sleeps nobody sleeps in my presentation. I was like, sorry, man. I'm just whipped. The sound of the carousel turning should should have kept you awake together. You know what I mean?

No. But that was sorry for the aside. This morning, I'm actually looking forward to, to that area. You know, they have they have the you know, that whole border is in flux. If you go onto Google Earth and you look at that area, you know, they have that dotted line.

Right? So it's, like, constantly moving and it's and it's being, it's being contested over. Nothing nothing crazy. But I'm actually looking forward to the highest motor will pass, Jamu or whatever it's called. No.

It's not called Jamu. That's the it's It's Umling La. Umling La. So I'm looking forward to that, and that's obviously because of, because of that topographical feature of the of the area. It's 19,300 feet ish.

Right? So, I mean, we're only gonna go there for a short while, and then we'll come back down because you can't you can't exist there for an amount of time. But that I'm gonna get into the altitude bit in a second here. Are are you implying that my health is gonna be, an issue? That gets this Actually stay tuned.

I'm out there. Actually, no. It I'm gonna I'm gonna I'll I've got a section here that I wanna cover on altitude, and and part of it is, it ties into, into health. And you might be surprised by the answer. Let's do it.

Alright. Interestingly enough, the name Himalaya means dwelling or abode of snow. I think that's super obvious. Cheap motorcycle that does really cool things. Nope.

Nope. That's, again, inexpensive repair. Inexpensive repair. It's a they have a pack mule. It's really awesome, and you can drop it.

No one really cares. I I thought I thought that was the the definition of Himalaya. Good. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're gonna get there.

Alright. So these are some things to consider in the planning phase, and these are things that we talked about. I mean, we planned this trip 14 to 15 months. We actually confirmed that we were gonna work. We got our local agents, and we confirmed that we were gonna make this trip about 15 months.

So, again, now we're now we are, we're gonna go in the 2nd week, end of the 2nd week of September in 2025. And so these are considerations. So time of year. So it's important to figure out the and the information I'm gonna share really applies to, yeah, this particular trip. Some of the details really drill down to this particular area, but, also, it's applicable to any area where you're planning on doing a trip.

So this is kind of a a bit of a checklist about things you need to consider. So far. Yeah. Absolutely. The weather.

The weather and the time of year. So in the north of India, for example, northwest of New Delhi, March to April and September to October, those are the best times without excessive heat. Mhmm. We're we've chosen this section in September. And the reason for that is if you think about snow, right, is the abode of snow.

So you wanna go when it's nice, but the same time you wanna go when it's nice and you can actually see something or take a picture of a clear sky. And Mhmm. What you're trying to do is so fog happens when you have the difference in temperatures between the air and the ground between snow. So if you look at that as the basis for creating bad photographs and you wanna go, I want better visibility, then what you wanna do is you wanna wait for and the and the the monsoon season is through the summer, but we in the north in north, northern hemisphere consider summer. So Mhmm.

That's why, specifically, May, June, July, and August have been skipped because that's monsoon season. So what happens is the the snow from the winter starts to melt. So in the beginning, it's still a bit cold. So if you have March April, it's still chilly. It's getting warm, but you have a difference between the temperature on the ground and the temperature on the air, so you get fog.

Right. And then you've got rain through the summer. And then in September, it's starting to get cool again, and the ground most of the snow, not all of it, but most of the snow will have melted, and the temperature in the ground will have come up. And then the sky temperature has started to the air temperature has started to decrease. So then you find a more of a balance in the temperature.

The rains are over, and then you have a much better opportunity to have clear skies. So Right. That's why we've chosen that particular target area. You know, it's always any any kind of alpine trip. There's always that dilemma is I don't know how many times.

I'm, like, I'm gonna get out in the season, and I'm gonna do this alpine pass. And, like, listen listen dum dum there's 2 feet of snow up there that's why no one else is going and then if you push it to the end of the season I would rather have a little bit of a light snow day in the fall that you got caught out than dealing with winter pack snow. So I think, not going early in the spring for any kind of high altitude, trip, you're hedging your bets. I think that's absolutely great advice. Yeah.

If you think about our trip to, to Norway this summer, we were June, I think, 11th or 12th, we were there. And, by the time we got there, you had seen a you you've seen a YouTuber Someone posted the day before, and they were in. They had taken you can either take the high pass over. You can take a medium pass. You can go coastal to get sort of out of Oslo to go northwest.

And we took the medium one because the guy, the day before, the night before, he was in, I don't know, 6 or 7 inches of snow for the whole pass. And we're like, he was we're gonna skip that. That is it, Lillehammer is in Norway? Yeah. Yeah.

So he was in Lillehammer, and it was snow accumulating on the road. So though to be clear, I don't care if it's snow so if there's some heat in the thermal mass of a paved road and now we're talking about specifically a paved mountain pass right so we were talking about a paved mountain pass and there was snow accumulation in lillyhammer but we went a couple of 1,000 feet lower to more of a more of a less of a highway road because who wants to be in the highway anyways and I you know I don't mind it snowing at around 0 degrees C if there's a bit of thermal mass where the snow will melt as it falls on the road. The difference is talking about going to the Himalayas is that we're talking about an unpaved service surface. And if there's packed snow, you know, it's not it's not happening. But that was an interesting, interesting, situation where we had to reroute because of real time data, because there was snow accumulation on the road.

And I'm not I'm not doing snow accumulation on the road with with road tires and, you know, £40 of, you know, sweet ass, IPA in my, in my in my bags. Right? Penniers. Yeah. Yeah.

And even so, like, it snowed. We stopped. We got pictures in the snow, and there were still 2 meters of snow off of the sides that hadn't melted yet. Pack snow. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. And it was snowing. I remember the fog was so thick. I was following a, I was following a a a an RV or a camper, and, and I was like, where is it?

Where is it? Where is it? And I was like, oh my god. There it is. I had you know, I was doing, like, 15 miles an hour, and I jammed on the brakes as it was, like, 3 motorcycle lengths in front of me.

I was, like, damn. It was right there. I couldn't see anything. You know, it's so funny. Europeans are so good about using their rear fog lights.

They're you know, it's like a point of pride to know what they are and when to use them and when not to use them. Right? But when it comes to those darn RVs in in in Norway, there's just no no way of making the back end brighter. And we will talk about that trip and all, and, and all that in the next episode. Alright.

Cool. Before I jump into some of the details here, I wanna throw out some, I wanna throw out some credit. Credit where credit is due is super important. And so some of this information came from watching, sort of the research in in about doing the Himalayas. It came from watching Itchy Boots, and she was on the on the preproduction Royal Enfield Himalayan 452.

And, so that was interesting. And then there's also there's a Filipino guy. He does a lot of motorcycle, moto moto video. He has a YouTube channel called Ride XP, and his name is Aaron. I'll try not to mess this up.

Pallabia. Pallabia. Aaron Pallabia. I'll put his name in the show notes for everyone. Yeah.

Do. And then I think we should give a link to the channel where I received. There's a lot of great information. I looked through that. And, he did so he did, he did not only a video, which is an, like, an hour and 3 minute video of his trip.

The trip that we have planned is Mhmm. Is a little bit different. We're gonna we're gonna spend a bit more time, acclimating, spend more time I'm gonna start at a lower altitude, so we have more time to get up and acclimate before we end up in, Ling La and the high passes. But we're gonna spend a bit more time climbing out, so we can yes. We don't have a possibility of getting, AMS, acute mountain sickness.

Next, we'll jump in. Very bad. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna we're gonna talk about the health thing too.

So, anyway, he did a great one, and it was called, so 50 my 55 minute long video on how to prepare for a ride in the Himalayas. And, again, it was after he had returned. So he had just been there, and his experience was really relevant. So, big shout out to him. Great video.

And, yeah. Nice. Well done. We'll put the link in there. Yeah.

I'll do that. So, these are some things you should really look at. One of the thing when you when you do this trip is what's you know, look at your own riding ability and and ask yourself if you have the experience needed to undertake whatever the trip is. For this particular trip, I think, Aaron, you and I, we're not great, you know, amazing off road riders, but we got a lot of miles under our belts. So I would say that in terms of experience and, in riding off road, then it won't be super challenging.

There'll be, you know, what we call baby chicken days. You know? Yelling over to babies. Baby chickens. Baby chickens.

Why do you why why do you do that, Aaron? Why do you yell baby chicken, baby chickens? We mean, like my flight instructor says, it's like, please stop with the death grip. It's not gonna help you. You know, we are our our our worst enemies.

But I am looking forward to not taking, you know, a big GS and I am looking forward to having a little bike. And I think just having a little bike and not going fast and just having a laugh, is is is is gonna be such a nice experience, and, you know, it all of this is what I would call unpaved. So granted there are avalanches and there's larger size rocks, on the road, so called road, but I feel really confident because it's not off roading singletrack. It is a road where people travel with trucks and stuff like that. Albeit challenging, I feel really confident with my with my skill set.

And, obviously, you have more dirt bike, experience than I have because I have 0. But, but I feel really confident with my skill set considering all of those all those factors. Yeah. So for for for listeners, in terms of this, the level of experience would be intermediate for this particular trip. In intermediate and obviously anything higher than that is good.

And in preparation of that, as I mentioned earlier, one of my one of my New Year's resolutions is to do a bit more training because you could always get better. There's always somebody out there who's better, and it's fun. You know, there's a it's a lot of fun. So I would say that yeah. An excuse to go ride and and have a goal.

Right? So I would say that slow speed maneuvering actually, if you look at the, the video from from Aaron, it's a slow speed maneuvering. He take he had taken a class right before then. I took a lot of slow speed maneuvering in order to get through the Swedish motorcycle license test, which, by the way, is 85% fail rate first time through. Jeez.

Yeah. It's insane. Anyway, the, and that's for, it's a 75% failure rate on the theory and or sorry. 70% failure rate on the theory and a 85% failure rate on the practical. Like, you can't even So, you know, taking it seriously, apparently.

Take it seriously. Right? So so you can't get a like, they'd start with a closed course. And if you can't nail the 5 exercises flawlessly, they let you knock over at least my guy. He's like, you can knock over Acone once, and then you have to, and then if you don't do it on the second time, then you you can you can We're done.

We're done. Thank you very much. Come again for your money again. So so, anyway, I think I mentioned that before. It was, like, 33,500 US dollars or 35,000 Swedish crowns to get the, to get my motorcycle license.

Not cheap. Yeah. No. Not cheap. So experience level.

So I would say gravel riding and slow speed. And I don't mean, like, slow speed, like, 20 miles per hour. I mean, like, walking speed slow. Like, in the training that I did, I did about 30, 35 hours of training in slow speed when I practiced for the motorcycle license, and the I dropped the bike 9 times. And I didn't drop it and crash it.

I dropped it because it just stopped moving and it fell over, and I was you know, like, I got the bike to one side because you're doing slow speed turning and maneuvering. I got the bike to one side. My seat's you know, I'm off the seat on the other and leaning and counter steering, try to make the tight turn on this thing, and I'm doing, like you know, I'm I'm you can't go clutch out because that's too fast. You're riding the clutch the whole time to try to keep the bike moving at that slow speed. And then it would stall and then, kunk, all of a sudden, you no longer have the full momentum, and the bike just falls over.

So anyway, it's funny because every time I've ever had a nice dirt nap, I mean, every time, it's been exactly that. The bike wasn't moving. Right? It's it's just it's just the bike isn't moving. And since I've switched on my regular bike to the 2 finger, clutch and 2 finger breaking, I find that it forces me to keep 2 fingers on the grips and 2 fingers on on the controls.

And that way, I can go in and out of that friction service. And I think I think what you're saying is practice your your your, friction point on your clutching and being able to use your front brake, in concert with with, with your clutching, and you're less likely to have that nice little dirt nap. In the case of the Himalayas, that little gravel nap, probably in a little riverbed, which is which is the worst kind of dirt nap you can have. Yeah. That's that's a good point.

Yeah. Because the water crossings. Yeah. You don't you wanna go you wanna go slowly and controlled in case your the the front tire bank into something bigger than you thought, and you don't end up, you know, just parking the bike right there. So you wanna have some momentum in water crossings.

Yeah. But yeah. Anyway, so the that's one of the reasons I plan to take a bit more training because you can always have more training. And I remember coming out of that out of all of the and that was that wasn't in gravel. That was just on a on a paved surface.

Mhmm. And if you wanna see maybe that's a good thing. Let's put up let's put the link in for the Swedish motorcycle license, training. There's a really good video so you can see what's required. Yeah.

It's quite it's quite cool. I mean, if you think about all the things that you do, to get through that test, all the things you would use with a bike to drive it in the city or pushing it backwards or moving it or then you have to part of it, you have to talk through the entire system like he'll he'll the the guy will say or the the instructor will say female or male or female. So pick a system, one of 9 systems, and they'll say, walk me through it start to finish. Anyway Right. That was a challenge in Swedish, but I'm I'm I'm gonna as you get through.

Yeah. Nice. Alright. So, you mentioned altitude riding, and one of the challenging things here is is altitude. And here's here's here's the part you've been waiting for, Aaron.

It really doesn't have to do with your health. It doesn't have to do with how fit you are. Like, you don't have to be able to bang on a marathon before you go do this. Oh, I'm good then. Sweet.

That was good for you. You're you're you're all good. But if you are, just know that it will take there's less auction in there, so it's gonna take more work to do the things that you would normally do. So, AMS is acute mountain sickness, and there's really no preparation for that other than it's decent to be you know, it's good to be in in you don't have to be in tip top shape to run a marathon, as I say, but it's good to be, that you can perform some level of athletic you know? You don't have to be you don't have to be a a top notch athlete, really.

You just need to be healthy, really, and just know that it's gonna take more work to do whatever you do. So the ways to work around that, hydrate. I know this is one that, Erin, I think you're probably gonna ignore, but I'm gonna say you need to stay away from alcohol. Drink lots of beer is what you're saying. I think what Taylor's trying to say is you should predrink no.

He's not saying that. But Somebody missed it. I think I think you may have missed the point. We can take that offline. Anyway, hydrate, operate at, like, half your normal physical capacity.

Some other things you can do is you can take Diamox. Mhmm. There's a couple of different names for that, but I think, Diamox might be the the, the non generic name. And, yeah, following instructions on how to take that, but you can take it in advance, and that helps with it. Oxygen should be carried.

I wanna talk maybe this is a good time to talk about selecting a guide. And it's sort of the best way to get into this is to deal with somebody, like, yeah, somebody who is, stateside, who has good contacts in whatever wherever you're going, whenever you're planning, you have someone who's got a good reputation for planning trips and someone who understands, shall I say I'm looking at you, Aaron. Mhmm. Your delicate Western sensibilities. How scary.

So did you basically, what I'm saying is you don't necessarily wanna have, like, you know, a mouse in your boot when you wake up in the morning. Would that be a fair statement? I swear, man. I you know, I will I'm happy to go I'll be clear. I'm happy to go poop in the woods.

I'm happy to not shower for a few days, but there are certain things in life, and that is mice. I don't care if you're hiking the Appalachian Trail or wherever. I just I can't stand the the the vermin, And, you know, I prefer to, you know, not fly coach. But I wanna be clear. I'm happy to poop in the woods and and drink whatever beer someone has.

But the mice and the hotels that it's that cultural disconnect. Right? It's this was important to me. Cultural disconnect. Right?

It's this was important to me and because you're not part of my culture, you didn't understand that. So that's what we often do is we act as a liaison to go establish partnerships. Figure go go do the trip and say, by the way, next time I come back, you have to carry the oxygen bottle even though because you don't need it. But Right. The guy who who works at his office and never goes for a walk may need the oxygen bottle.

You we'd we're not staying at this hotel again because there's a 2 inch gap under the door, and mister Bojangles woke up next to me. Like, it it's not it's not happening. Right? So Yeah. Got it.

Or this restaurant was better, because it was more to our western sensibilities. Not to say that, you know, give me the the Hilton, you know, frozen breakfast. Please don't. I'm just saying there are certain things when you have the liaison from, let's call it, the Western world that can really go along, really go a long way. Yeah.

Yeah. True. So, yeah. So to that point, let me talk about AMS a little bit more. So acclimatize slowly.

Mhmm. Right? Acclimatize slowly. And if you if you get someone who understands your delicate sensibilities, then, they will they'll be able to cater to these things. And as we said, when we put this together, we wanted to make sure that we had we looked at some of the some of the, the hotels and things that are normal stopping points for this Mhmm.

For the for a trip into these. Because some places you go in this like, for example, there are 2 nights where they're they're sort of it's glamping. So these are high end tents that are put in these areas because they're, a, they're not allowed to have in these in these high altitude locations, they're not allowed to put. They can't get a permit to put anything in the ground because thing. Okay.

Because the ground freezes so much, then by the time like stones. Right? You've seen in a field in northern climates, the stones, you're like, why do they have so many stones there? It's because the freezing and thawing of the earth pushes the stones to the surface. It's the same thing here.

They can't put a they can't put a foundation in these locations, a, because it's challenging because of the permafrost, and 2, they're avalanche prone during Right. During avalanche season. So they're like they don't they yeah. So they're like, take everything out, then when the avalanche stuff is gone, they'll, you know, they'll they'll put these tents in. So in our particular trip, we've got tents for for 2 nights, but not consecutive nights.

So we go a tent at a high altitude place. We stop, and then we, yeah, we've got we have heated water. We won't have a, a, a hot running shower, but we will have hot water to be able to bathe with and to, yeah, do whatever we need there, flushing toilets, that type of thing. So it is as it is it's as western as you can get to be in a, in a glamping situation. So, but it won't be they're not gonna be consecutive, but you can still Right.

You can still bathe in bathe in hot water. Yeah. You could rough it for a night or 2. And then if you have a hot shower every every every second day, you know, you know, it's fine. You know, let's not let's not, let's not get crazy.

Right? Yeah. I'm I'm I'm totally fine with that. And and listen, as long as mister Bojangles isn't part of the package, you know, I'm down. I'm down for whatever.

You're good. You're good. I know. I was teasing you about the mouse thing earlier. So in the places that we've picked, we, we've never heard of that, and we don't expect to see that.

But we will have to do a really, really fun podcast, partly with field notes while we're there, and then a really long podcast about our experience when we're back. So Absolutely. So oxygen should be carried by your guide. Most importantly, acclimatize slowly. One of the reasons that we're starting in, Srinagar, as you mentioned, you and I are gonna hang out in some houseboats.

You can also see that in Itchy Boots. We're gonna hang out in houseboats in Srinagar and Kashmir and take a couple of days, and then we'll be there in advance. And then once we, and once we we meet the rest of the group, we'll be in Srinagar where we pick up the bikes. And then from there, we will ride up. And we will take 2 days to get into, Ladakhle.

And, a very cool touristy town, but it's also where the altitude starts to pick up. And then we'll spend the day there riding short trips around, go to see a monastery, but spend, spend time getting our body issues to the altitude, and this is the best way to do it. And then when you go to the really high altitudes, you just go there, and then you get back out because the only the only way by the way, if you do get AMS, it's like having the flu. You've got a massive headache. You've got you know, your eyes are pounding in the back of your head.

It's a really uncomfortable feeling. It's like instantaneous flu symptoms. So Right. The way to the way to stop that is just to go down or recompress. So or get into a recompression chamber.

And there there are not a lot of them in that particular area. They have a Give me give me my iron lung. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Some other considerations.

How many people should you travel with? Yeah. Aaron, what's the number for you? The number. Right?

This is always the number. You know? If you have an established group of people you ride with, you know there's like, we, like, we know our friend set. Right? We know that so and so is a little slower, and if, you know, someone in the same kind of caliber is with us, we know that that group will kind of split up.

You know, wrangling cats is difficult, and, you know, as we get older, we all get set in our ways. You know, Bill gets up early at 5 because, you know, he thinks he's still, you know, manning the submarine, you know. Someone likes to sleep in because this is my vacation. Right? And it's like a personality nightmare.

Right? So if you know all those factors you can plan the group accordingly if you don't know the factors like when we're taking a tour you gotta keep it in a manageable number and and, you know I have some strong opinions on this, depends what kind of tour it is. If I can just give everyone a gpx file in the morning and I'll see you at the hotel. This one's a little more complicated because we have a local guide and we also have a chase vehicle. So we kind of have to stay as a group.

So it's so important to have people the similar, riding skill set in this in the same kind of fortitude. Like, you can't start whining because, you know, you fell in the river crossing, you're cold. You know, unless you're throwing your bike into the chase vehicle and you're only fitting 1 or 2 in there, you gotta keep up. So keeping that number manageable, you need to be honest with yourself. That's for sure.

Yeah. This reminds me of, so in this particular trip, we've limited it to 9 to 9 people. And, for me That's a big number. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a big number. For me, 6 is ideal. In this case, we opened it up and we have a bit more. And we also that's 9 actual participants, and that's not including, the people on the ground who are our local support. So we have, a lead.

We have a so we have a a lead vehicle or a lead, a lead bike. We have a chase rider, and then we have a local support vehicle that will, that will carry our kit. Right? So you don't so in these trips, you don't have to carry your whole kit, any and and and you can even arrange. Like, one of the things we were asked was, like, do you want us to keep an extra motorcycle in the trailer just in case somebody really wrecks it and he was given a new bike?

And I was like, I'm hoping that's not necessary, but nice to know it's an option. And it's not a hugely expensive option either. Again, we're gonna rent all of these bikes there. And in this particular, we we we decided that we would, we would go for the bikes that, Itchy Boots traveled for traveled within sort of sampled over there, which is the Royal Enfield Himalayan 45 twos. Yeah.

And you were saying about rider skill in a skill level. Keep in mind that if you do a trip like this with a chase vehicle, you know, if you've packed your your gear accordingly, and I have a way that I pack my gear. I'm not sure I have time for that, but you're throwing your gear into the chase vehicle. So now you have a bike that's smaller than you're used to. There's no gear on it.

Right? So you're having fun. Your skill level just went up 50 points just by removing that gear off your bike. I don't know that I don't remember the last time I've ridden a bike without my kit on board. I minimum my my hotel setup.

Yeah. So, so your skill level instantly goes up 50 points just by having that chase vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. Good point.

And I do recall there was somebody when we set this up who said that they would be very interested in having a cooler full of cold beer at the destination. So there was no there were so there was no lead time between actually getting off the bikes and taking off our kit and getting, you know, into a hotel or a bar. It's you know, I I think it was one of your other friends that said, you know, lunch hour should start with a shotgun of beer, but I'm not really sure which one of your friends said that, but he seems really irresponsible. I think I think that you shouldn't associate with with that person at all. Okay.

I think we're gonna we're gonna have to we're gonna have to end the podcast there. But I, I tell you what, when we come back, we're gonna take a, we're gonna take a a quick break, and we are going to pay some bills. And, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about the, the type of things that you should have on a checklist to go with you. Hey, Cannonballers. Thanks for subscribing to our podcast.

We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee dot com, or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll visit on patreon.com. Links are in the show notes. Now back to the riveting podcast in progress.

Nice. Alright. So during that commercial break, I took full advantage of it. Nice. Alright.

Let's talk a little bit about the things that are, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna say I'm gonna cover some basic things, and I'm sure there might be a moment when we actually go off on a on a different tangent here because we occasionally do that. But I say if you want to, like, if you're gonna do a trip like this, go track down that link, follow it in the find it in the in the show notes, and watch that video. Get a pen and paper, and and Aaron goes through an amazing amount of detail. He covers so much detail so fast. It's really quite great.

So I'm just gonna cover the highlights from that that I thought were really good and things that I always consider in, in in trips that I take. So, helmet, I don't wanna put someone else's helmet on. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.

I've seen I saw videos where there was a guy 2 guys, and they rocked up. 1 guy had a headscarf. He didn't even have a helmet. He had a headscarf. And, I think it was local, you know, it was it was, from from that was normal from Right.

Where he was from. So he had a headscarf and no helmet, and he was with a guy who had to go to footwear, but he was the guy who had a pair of, mesh hiking boots. And I remember watching him go through the water crossing, and I was like, oh, man. Is he gonna put his oh, and he put his foot right into this ice cold water, which is snow runoff. Right?

And then and then he and then, of course, he was, you know, he's freezing cold and got stuck in the snow, and it was a mess. But, anyway, the bottom line is and they rented a helmet. He rented a bike and a helmet. It was, like, you know, Craigslist. He rented a bike and a helmet.

It was a bad guy. Though. He did it, but, you know Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But he did all the old checks. For, like Yeah. He would tell us, but did I die? Exactly. And in in the end, he was a young guy.

And, and in the end, he was, he was like, but I did it. I I made it. It was and I was like he I mean, there was days when he was, like, hypothermic and he couldn't he could barely talk. You know? He was trying to get the the words out, but he had a hard time.

He was still recording. You know? I think if I find that link, we'll put that in there too. But if I was like so this so this list is a bit of a there's your things to keep you safe and comfortable. So helmet.

I always take my own helmet. If you listen to Aaron's video, he actually said, in order to get through customs in India and, he said, it's it's better to to to check your helmet. And he said, a lot of the guys, they wear and and as I've done before, because you've got so much weight in your in your boots, a lot of people wear them through. I might I might do that depending on where I am and and weight, but they'll just wear them through because, of course, you have to take them off to get through, through the security check. But, like, I'm I'm you know, I've got Tech Sevens.

I got Alpine Star Tech Sevens, and they are, you know, they're 4 buffalo monsters. Yeah. They're like, you know, they're just one step down from a motocross boot, but they look the same to, you know, to the average person looking in. But those boots, if I put them in my bag, there'll be nothing there'll be no room left for anything else. Right?

So, anyway, so helmet and then, and then take something for inside the helmet like a like a balaclava. Mhmm. Or I've seen people wear, like, skull caps that go inside the helmet, but I want something that comes over my ears. And, just make sure I always tell people that base layer, just do yourself a favor. You know, cotton's rotten.

You know, make sure it's smart wool or something like it. You know, something that's gonna wick moisture away. Don't, don't buy something on Amazon that's the cheapest and wear it for the first time and wonder why you're freezing cold because it's retaining moisture. Just make sure that that base layer whether it's attached to your skull or your or your body just make sure it's something like Smartwool if not Smartwool itself. Yeah.

And you make a good point there. It's it's really important to make sure that all this stuff, like, don't buy this stuff and then put it in the bag and pull the, you know, pull the the label off or pull the the Right. Price tag off. If you don't wear it for the first time when you're in India or for that matter, any trip, anywhere you're going. You wanna make sure that whatever you're putting on, you have, you have used.

Right? You have used and you're you're comfortable with that and you know that it works. One of the things that's really common, and, actually, I was concerned when I bought these Tech Sevens, was that my existing, pants, which are which is a good pair of waterproof pants, was that my, my pants would go over the actual boot because there's so much armor at the shin. And it it is tight, but it does it does go over it. And I was like, yeah.

That's probably not gonna that's probably so it's important to make sure you check you you put all your gear on at the same time and, and you layer it up because you may have you're like, oh, I'm gonna wear this this rain jacket, which you need to take rain waterproof pants and and waterproof jacket as a as an additional shell if you're if you don't already have something a good quality like a gore tex or something else. There's a bunch of bunch of different makes out there. And Ryan f nine actually, he does a good video on, on where Gore Tex lines up in terms of its waterproof in this. He's like, it's it's waterproof and breathable. He's like, yeah.

It's actually one or the other because as soon as you put water on the outside, it stops being breathable. He doesn't agree with anyone that. He he he was a bit harsh. Right? So, you know, I've had the original Badlands climb jacket for 10, 12 years.

And the only reason I stopped wearing it because it was just too big. So I just recently purchased, what did I get here? The Klim Carlsbad jacket and a smaller version of it. You know, it was $750. But, you know, unless it unless we are soaked sorry, socked in to a day of rain, I'm happy with my, you know, Badlands pants, Carlsbad jacket, you know and then I just change my base layers and I've been riding like that for 10 15 years and I swear by it and the only time I'll put an outer shell on I have a oversized, north face rain shell I'll only take that if I know I'm going to spend a whole day in the rain.

So I think he was a little harsh, on that. But I can go through a monsoon rainstorm for an hour and then just keep on riding. And like I've said a 100 times on this podcast is I wear gear to protect me from the environment, and then if it also, you know, is safe, that that's that that's awesome. But I but I wear gear to protect me from the environment, which goes hand in hand with, you know, protecting you from, you know, road rash. Yeah.

Yeah. Fair enough. So on the topic of body armor, I know you and I we have a difference of opinions here. But in terms of body armor, what I do is I wear a Knox jacket, which is a, it's a mesh jacket, which has all the armor in it, and it can be worn alone. I think it's a Knox mark 1.

It can stand alone as just a jacket which qualifies. Mhmm. In Sweden, the requirements to wear back protection, etcetera, are extremely high. So, yeah, so that that does qualify. But it has, it's got elbow, back, shoulder.

Yeah. That's it. Anyway I didn't know that. What'd you do with your kit? What'd you do with your jacket?

Well, I took I took everything out except for except for the shoulder pads because, you know, it makes me look more badass. But everything else You know, there's a good reason. Well, first on my old jacket, it has this front plate that it interferes with the zipper. And I'm like, how am I ever gonna, you know, need this? And then the elbow pads never were in the right place.

And then the back pad was just it's the jacket is so heavy. It's like £20. So I just removed all the armor except for that. So except for the, shoulder pads. And then on the new jacket, I didn't even put it on.

I just I was checking sizes, and I'm like, yeah. I I checked the size by removing the armor. So I actually don't don't wear any armor, but, you know, not everyone is as as, as stupid as I am, I suppose. Oh, I don't know about that. Alright.

Well, I keep referencing Ryan F. Mime, but he did one where he actually he, you probably would agree with this because he talked about pulling out all of his armor because he did a test on what it actually took to break a bone Yeah. Versus yeah. I mean, it'll help you keep from getting scratched up, but maybe, you know, the impact wouldn't help you from breaking a bone, etcetera. Anyway, it was interesting he did a he did a, did a, a review on on that.

Okay. I didn't know that. Yes. Yeah. That's that's a pretty good one.

And he would he isn't agreeing with you. He took out all of his armor. Yeah. Alright. So, body armor.

And so I have, hip armor in my pants and also knees, and then I have a over the boot, over the boot pants. Mhmm. It's just barely fit, I might say. Yeah. Me too.

One of the things I still I just bought a new pair of, Richa, full zip side full size zip rain pants. And I got a size larger than I normally take so that I could make it fit over everything. And to be honest with you, I still need to check that because I gotta dig the I gotta pull the boots up Right. To make sure it fits. But, again, I'm gonna make sure everything fits the way it should before I put it in a bag and take it over because if it doesn't fit, then I'm not taking it.

Yeah. The when I I touched base with our, our local contacts, and I had just purchased a set of Alpinestar Tech 7s after a ton of research on on boots. And before I had a pair of, of it turns out that these guys are wearing the same thing. They said that's a good level of protection, although a lot of people do this in in hiking boots. Right?

You don't need you don't need to have a huge because these these you're not doing, you know, we're not traveling high speeds on this. High speed travel high speed driving in high speeds is not something you need to know how to do to run to do this particular trip. It's more like it's it's the hairpin turns where you're driving slowly, and then there's sand. And you're driving on the on the left hand side of the road as opposed to the right hand side of the road. And, yeah.

You're looking to protect your ankle when you tip over for that dirt nap and the bike is gonna fall and it's gonna it's going to bend the ankle in the way that it's not designed to and a tek7 will support from the shin down and prevent you from bending the wrong way and having and having that sprain or break and that's your biggest issue here is not falling and you know needing that elbow pad. The issue is is you're going to fall and the bike is going to injure your ankle. So out of all the equipment in this particular case study, your you know your boots are and your helmet are the most important things and you know the data supports it. You look at all the injuries, it's ankles, it's it's hands, and it's all all because of off road, off road injuries. So the best thing you can protect is your ankle.

Yeah. That's actually one of the things in, that, as I say, the Swedish the Swedish motorcycle exam or or car exam as well. It's it's it's really thorough. At first, I was like, oh, why did it make this so hard? And then I got through it, and I was like, man, I learned so much.

I was so Oh, maybe help. Have been on the backside of it. But one of the things is it was actually a test question. It says, what is the where the most injuries happen? What is the most common injury and most most injured body part?

And it's from the knee down on motorcycles. Ah, well, there you go. For that the data supports it. Yeah. For that data supports it.

Let's see here. Waterproof socks. Aaron, when did you learn about waterproof socks? I Waterproof socks. What you're talking.

It sounds sweaty and toenail fungus y. There's a I had no idea what waterproof socks were until, until I learned about them, and I was like, are you like, come on. Are we talking about, like, socks that are just really good at water wicking? What are they? And the answer is no.

There are waterproof socks. And Okay. In the in the US, a really good brand is, seal skins, s k I n z, I believe. Okay. We can put a we can put a link in there.

I will put a link, and I will order I'm writing it down right now, and I will order a pair to this witchcraft that you speak of. Yeah. It's quite it's yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna get some of those as well. And then travel with 2 pair of gloves.

So Oh, wait a minute. Is obviously important. 2 pair of gloves. A winter pair that are waterproof and a summer pair and, even a summer pair that are waterproof if you got them, but something that can vent and that can potentially dry if you go through a light shower and it's still, you know, fairly warm. So in this particular trip go ahead.

I wanted to say something about gloves because I see people who are kind of newer and they're in the ADV world and they show up for a ride like this, which is a 40 mile an hour ride, with these huge climb racing gloves and carbon fiber knuckles and all this and they keep stalling your bike. Listen, if you go look at a a motocross racing rider, they have almost like second skin. They have like their chest gloves to protect you for sweat and grip and sun damage, and there's nothing to them. So I I travel with 4 pairs of gloves, and my normal riding gloves are like 5 11 tactical, you know, shooting gloves. They're very thin.

They're very thin left, leather, and that's what I ride with most of the time. My next warmth layer is I put a second skin underneath, and then I switch my 3rd layer after that. It's a really raining day. So my my third option is I switch to an actual rain glove and then if it goes below 0 Celsius I switch to a winter glove. But if you show up with these giant gloves where you have no articulation, you can't feel the clutch, and you wonder why you're constantly stalling your bike and tipping over is because you can't feel anything.

So do yourself a favor if if you're a little hesitant about don't it's not going to help you. The carbon fiber knuckles and the and the you know 1 centimeter thick leather is not appropriate for doing 40 miles an hour in your chest working friction surfaces, to get through a water crossing. Yeah. Fair enough. Good point.

I have to say though, I'm pretty I'm pretty, I'm pretty pleased with the fact that you have, let's just call it a glove fetish, to be polite. Listen. Don't yum my yum. Listen. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fetish shame you.

Why would you do that? Goddamn it. No. I have to say because when we were in Norway, you were like, why do you keep taking your glove off to check the GPS? I'm like, because these gloves don't let me make like, I gotta take them off to get you're like, that's ridiculous.

Use these. So, anyway, I think that and and what did I do? I gave you my extra set of rain gloves that were, touch compatible. Yes. I know.

I know. And and and that's why we're still friends. Right. And that's why my hands are cold. And that's why your hands are cold.

Myra, great. So thanks for that. No problem. So one of the main things here to focus on is is layering. Layering is the way to go.

And there's tons of companies out there. It's like Adventure Spec. They do they do so many good videos. Greg on Adventure Spec, he does an amazing amount of videos, and they do such I've never seen anyone do an hour or longer video on a newly introduced piece of clothing or how you get the measurement right. It's amazing the amount of detail that they go into when they, a, build a product in terms of the r and d and in terms of the explanation of how it fits you and how you should size it Sure.

And whether you should wear a jacket with, yeah. What happens if you keep you know, do you if you're a medium, do you just get medium and everything and then you could pack it all in and then the top layer's a medium, and then you've got your armor on and then your mediums, and then you can't actually get your handle something that I handle bars. So he talks about all those things, and he talks about from, you know, from using the gear. So, anyway, there's lots of ways to layer, and in this, it's no different. Layer it and, and make sure that you can because as you're you know, you start your morning we mentioned this on the last podcast.

You start your morning and it got everything on. I'm actually considering buying the, the Moscow Moto, the the, it's got the the the plates in it, the heated jacket. I'm considering buying that for this particular trip. Yeah. Because when you when you unplug it, we're not using it on the bike, then you very simply have, like, a, you know, a puffball jacket that you can wear around the campfire.

Yeah. You know, I think that I think that every guy over 70 on their on their Harley Davidson going to Sturgis is, is complaining that, they forgot to bring their heated gear also. So we all we all have to, we all have to admit that there's a actual comfort in, in heated gear, and at some point, there's no harm and Yeah. Shame in trying it. Yeah.

No. But the truth is that it's dangerous not to. I mean, I don't know. I'm not you know, I'm a skinny guy. So, like, if I get cold, you know, my fingers don't work so well.

I get really cold. I can travel with Norway. I remember going across that pass, and, and it was rainy and, you know, it was pretty nasty. I got I've got, brush guards. I got bark busters on that.

Mhmm. And I got heated grips, but they're they're, they're a Yamaha factory heated grip. Some of the aftermarkets are a bit a bit, put a bit more, horsepower out. Mhmm. But I remember I remember going, man, my fingers are really stiff, and that could be dangerous.

You know, like, you Yeah. Sure. You pull your whole you, you know, you move your whole body back. You like, your whole arm is frozen from the elbow and shoulder out, and you just move your body back to clutch in. That's not safe.

You shouldn't do this. I find that when I get obviously, I travel with a lot of gloves for that, you know, to to combat that. But, you know, having to physically stop and change your gloves is is something that you know personality wise we don't always do and it gets dangerous for me that especially when you're you know going through a high mountain pass on like an American highway and you get core shiver like you are physically you know not quite hypothermic but you know you should have stopped you should have put another layer on but you didn't, and you're getting that core shiver and, and you know your body isn't functioning correctly anymore. So, we are our worst enemies. We may travel with the 4 layers, but saying guys I I gotta stop and put another layer on.

And everyone over the comms like okay. Right? So you're being honest with yourself and saying we should stop and put another layer sometimes, even though everyone's everyone's gonna groan, you know, go ahead and do that. Yeah. And, obviously, even thinking about that with the, the actual pair of you know, I've got a good pair of of waterproof pants that are riding that are heavy, cordura, and I bought a pair of, of just rain pants that are actually lined to go over that because yes.

For that area of reason, so if you, you know, you can. You might be already wet, but you gotta stop and put that gear on because now you're stopping the, the windshield on the outside of that particular piece of gear. So it's important to do it. And I've been there where it's been quite uncomfortable to the point where I I felt like I couldn't I couldn't, yeah, move my digits to, to shift or break properly. Alright.

Let me talk about comms. I remember the first time that I went out and rode with you and you said, Taylor, before you get here, you need to buy some Sena 50 is it r? 50 s? I think I had misadvised you, but a 50 series Sena at at this 6 series SENA. Yeah.

It is the is the correct one. Yeah. With mesh. You're like, whatever it's gotta do, whatever it says, it's gotta have the word mesh in there. And Not Bluetooth.

Bluetooth Not Bluetooth. For rider to rider communications is a disaster. You know? So we will often refer to the comm system as a Bluetooth headset or a bluetooth comms and that's wrong. It uses bluetooth communication to connect to your bike or to your phone, but the comms portion is on the FM frequency, but they call it mesh, and that's and that's the key to riding as a group.

Alright. So something I wanna point out here is but I was really torn. So, I had just purchased this bike here, and I came out to ride with you guys. Well, maybe I maybe I hadn't purchased this at the time, but I came out. So I bought the Sena.

I got my helmet all set up, really nice, Harman Kardon speakers in it. And, I I know I wanna I wanna ask you about how you do your headset because you do it a bit differently than I do. I use a I use the, I did a cutaway on my helmet. I went in and I took a knife and I cut out the foam, the hard the hard foam, and then I I put the Harman Kardon, speakers in there. And then I use, I use a MOTOsafe brand name MOTOsafe earplugs, for touring size, and it has a hole in the middle so the sound can get through.

Mhmm. So Oh. Anyway, that's so but but in Sweden, I say I was really torn because in Sweden, they use mainly Cardo systems. So when I ride with guys here well, actually, it's a lot of the guys that I ride with here, I'm like, they're like, what should I get? And they go, get a Senna.

And then and then they're like and then, like, Taylor, what happened? I got a Senna, and nobody but you can ride and talk to me. No. A lot of the guys use part of the cool kids club, so that's all that matters. Well, at least part of the Senna club.

Let's just go with that. So the the cool thing about SENA and and and, in the group that we're riding with, we advise that people have SENA because it can take up to I think it's 25 or 26 riders, and it's just VOX. So when you speak into it, then it, it it turns on the mic, but you can put 25 people in. And then what's cool if you have a whole string of riders, then you the first one wants to talk to the last one, and let's say that there's a mile between them. Bluetooth, you lose them in a very short, you know, what, line of sight.

But let's say you've got a you know, you're doing some switchbacks and somebody's, you know, behind a rock. What happens is in the in the mesh system is that every single antenna along the way becomes a transmitter Mhmm. So your message gets transmitted back through all of the other frequencies. It becomes a bit of a snake, and your message can make it to the last rider. Yeah.

It's really, really important. You know, this is a whole this is a whole episode, but, also, you know people who aren't technology savvy having the microphone like eating the freaking microphone is important like it should be touching your your your lips almost uh-uh and that's the proper way to have a microphone and having your Vox Vox level set is also important, but taking some time and having all those things physically set up and digitally set up correctly. There's nothing worse than listening to the one guy who's breathing hard all the time, because his Vox isn't calculated right or you can't hear the other guy because his microphone is up out of the way. So there is some, there is some barriers or some skill sets to be learned and don't just blame it on the technology. My SENAD doesn't work.

No. You don't work. You're not using it correctly. So I don't like hearing on these people talk about things it doesn't work. It's usually such just some old guy being an old guy, but these things work.

They're rock solid, but you have to use it correctly. And, there's a there's a there's a few skill sets to learn. So, so be aware of that. Yeah. And there's a lot of it's a good point.

And, I have to say that I resemble that comment in the sense that when we were riding, it was just 2 of us. We were like, Taylor, your mic is open. I'm hearing the wind on your mic. And you're like, but I had my I I can't remember the setting, but I went into my app. So with SENA, there's an app, and you can go into the actual settings of the of the of the piece of equipment, and you can, you can dial them in.

You can set in your box setting. You could do a lot of other things, but I don't know anything about Cardo. I've never used the system, but I can say this. I remember I had buddies who had Cardo system here in Sweden, and they said, can we get them to, to talk to each other? And I'm just gonna say this.

IPhone, Android. They don't they don't talk. It is proprietary. They both have mesh systems, but they are proprietary, and they will it's like it it's like, you know, pick up the phone and and, and call Google and ask them what their algorithm is What are the details for the algorithm? They're they're not gonna tell you.

Right. No one's given that up. It's like it's the secret sauce. I think there's some cat compatibility through Bluetooth. But then again, listen, unless you're riding on, you know like an I ten formation you know you're not and I mean like interstate 10 formation heading to bike week in Daytona unless you're doing that bluetooth just isn't going to cut it.

So just when you're doing a trip like this try to get everyone on board the same page, and it's it just makes the ride more fun, it makes it more safe, and people don't miss turns or we're constantly giving these other tips like when we're doing things we probably shouldn't be doing like oh take the the path on the right or watch out for this rock or, I'm a once you go around that switchback, it's a bloody disaster. Just pass me because I fell. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of positive things to having a good a good comm system. I actually want to tell, tell you quickly the way I run my comms is, after years of pulling into the hotel or the campsite and just, you know, you did a whole day of riding, I hear for, like, 6 hours. I'm like, oh, that's because of wind noise.

So, what I do is Wait a minute. I'm not following. I get tinnitus in in my ears. So Gotcha. You got the buzz in your ears after you've been clogged.

Yep. It's like you're trying to sleep and, oh, you know, your ears are yelling at you. So that was because, you know, you have to wear earplugs for the wind noise, and then you're cranking your speakers up all the way. So this pain in the butt solution that I came up with is I wear in ear monitors, that a band member would use. I'd I'd like to change the Shure monitors and I have disconnected my speakers and I bought an adapter for $10.

So I put in my in ear monitors which act as ear plugs and earphones. They're they're musician monitors and then I plug that physically in to the Sena and I bypass the speakers. Now this is a pain in the butt, You know? Don't do this if you're just going down to the to the to the beer store. So, on the new Sena because the the model Sena that I bought already had that.

So I didn't actually have to buy the adapter to receive the 3.5 millimeter. It already had that in it. It was built into the actual, into the the hardware. So Yeah. I I tried that.

I had bought the wrong one. So I had bought a different version. I think it was an r or something like this, and it didn't have that that jack. So I had to go on the Sena website and think for $10, they make an adapter. So that's the way I do it.

But when that unit finally dies, I will obviously get the proper unit for the new the new way that I that I run my Sena. Yeah. That makes sense. I've just opened up my Sena app. I think it's a a 50 a 50 s as in Sierra.

Yeah. You have the s with the jack on it, which I also like more because you can pop it off and charge it without having your helmet propped up on the on the table in the hotel room or the or the campsite, so I like both those features with that particular unit because it pops off the helmet and it also has the jack built in. Whereas mine is more of a sport bike or a cruiser style where it's a little more low profile, and I and I obviously bought the wrong one. But it works fine it's just I buy this adapter the adapter by the way only lasts you know 6 months before the thin wires kind of wear through so I always keep a spare in in my bike so that is my penance that must be paid for not doing enough research, and getting and getting the wrong unit. But it works.

It works great. Speaking speaking of units, when you say 6 months, you ride a lot. So I'm thinking that maybe, like, for me that might last, you know, 2 years. Yeah. It might yeah.

It may last a lifetime and, you know, you know, one of my trips is 6,000 miles is a is average trip. So, anyways yeah. So I I can usually get 10,000 miles on one of these adapters, but eventually, you you know, the one ear stops kinda kinda kinda working. But, anyways, I definitely swear swear by it. It's a pain in the butt, but once you get used to it, it's great.

Yeah. So the end of the story is that it's important to have the same kind of gear that you're riding with, same kind of, comm system that you're riding with, and don't rely on Bluetooth, work with a mesh system. And I have to say, just in terms of, you know, trying to use hand signs or tell people you wanna stop and you're gone or whatever. You know? It's like after a while, it just gets a bit ridiculous.

Like, you guys are you can have a this reminds me. When I was a, when I was a dive master in the Caribbean, there was a couple that so I'm you know, before we go down, I'm doing the you know, getting people's weight set up on their belts. And we go down and we dive, and I'm like, this is how you say I get with the group, and this is how we say get with your buddy, and this is a grouper, this is a lobster, this is a shark, this is a turtle. And you end up going through this sign language of what things are, and you have a very limited vocabulary. But I went diving, we had these people come on the boat one time in the Caribbean, and they were she was deaf, and he was a I don't know if he was whatever it was.

They had full on amazing conversations, you know, with with amazing amount of detail in sign language. And, of course, when they went diving, it never stopped. So the whole time they were underwater, they were having these amazing conversations, and I was like so watching them reminded me of the first time that I put helmet comms on. It was the difference between going, here's a grouper, here's a lobster, and we should probably go up now because you're low on air. It was a it was a difference between that and then watching these two people who are underwater with this amazing amount of communication because you're doing the same thing and, you know, you can be with a group of people, but on your bike and riding alone.

Yeah. But as soon as you got that comm involved and the and the comms are as sweet as the comms that I'm talking to you with right now. Mhmm. And they are so buttery smooth. And when you get the right right level of, of ear protection with speaker input, it is just like hanging out and having a conversation in a coffee shop over a cup of coffee with a friend.

It's fantastic. Yeah. So if you haven't done it, I highly recommend it. Yeah. I think also you make a really good point is that when I ride alone, which is most of the time, you know, I'm usually riding faster because you're on your own being irresponsible and, you know, because you're on your own being irresponsible and you know changing speeds you know along along the along along the way it is easier when you're when you're on the road sorry when you're on your own And I find that I'm listening to music when I'm writing faster.

I'm listening to audiobooks and podcasts when I'm going slower, and I'm just using mine for that purpose and a phone. But when I'm with people, I never listen to music, and I'm enjoying that interaction interaction with everyone and sharing and sharing sharing the experience. Unless, of course, they left their VOX setting too low and their mic is always on, and you're getting a good noise. Listening to breathing. It's really it's really the height of technology listening to someone breathe.

Yeah. Thanks for that. I apologize about the Norway thing. Alright. Alright.

So let's talk about luggage. So you gotta get your kit there. One of the things that's important so you gotta get your stuff there. How do you get your stuff there? Again, you go to Aaron's video.

He goes to amazing amount of detail about what he bought, how he got his skier over, what he packed, what he didn't. Main main point of the takeaway there is he packed his helmet, and he bought a specialized bag to carry, you know, wheelie, motocross or, you know, a full a full kit. He did say one thing that was really important to understand, and I recall this from my two trips to India, is that they especially because this particular area in the Himalayas, it is a you know, it's sort of their their badlands. It's sort of the Indian, you know, there are parts of this trip where you can look into Pakistan and you can look into China. You look across the border.

So this mountain range is the dividing line between these countries, and it's a it's a natural barrier because you you it's just not easy to get across. No one's bringing an army across that. No one's coming across with a tank. Right? There's this is not happening.

So in terms of luggage, the main thing that I wanna focus on or at least say is that you need to carry luggage to get your kit there and then have it roll around in the back of the truck when you're transporting it from spot to spot, it should be waterproof. We made sure that we worked with a local resources who have a an enclosed vehicle. That isn't a problem because someone is with it all the time. So you need to make sure your kit is, is waterproof, and you need to be able to potentially break it down into into smaller waterproof bags. The other thing that you need is you need to have the ability to carry what you need for your day on the bike.

Mhmm. And that includes it's like think about you talked about this previously, Erin, about you start off in the morning, then you got everything on, and then as a day gets, you know, as a day gets, the temperature increases, you start taking off, taking off, taking off. You, you know, you stop to have lunch, and then the afternoon, it starts getting cold again. You start putting it all back on. So you need to have a place for all of your layers when you're peeling them off.

So have a Yeah. Don't be that guy who's stopping the whole the whole, stack to to go, change from morning to afternoon, base layer. Make sure you have it there and don't be the pain in the ass for everyone. But also think about it and don't suffer. So, there's, definitely be prepared, for the changing climate.

Be prepared for the day and don't be that guy who stops the whole the whole convoy. One of the things I wanna just make a note back to the, the plug in jackets, whether if you have any heated gear, is that you can you can skip one stop for switching out gear simply by unplugging or turning or turning on your gear. That's one that's one more I don't know. That's another change that you wouldn't have to make just by plugging or unplugging the gear. Turn it on.

I gotta come to the dark side. I think I'm talking about it next fall. You may you know, maybe they gave us a 2 for 1. Let's do it. That's our next sponsor is, we're gonna roll the commercial right now.

Yeah. Sure. That's it. Yeah. Mosca Mota makes great gear.

It makes that's why my bike's fully kitted. Yeah. I'm I mean, it's it's, yes. Right. Just for the is white, medium, or large?

So, if you're carrying a drone and other things, carry a small drone. I think it's how many let's just 2.49 2.49 grams or 2.49 200 What is it? 49 grams. I think that's the standard 2 under 250 grams, I believe, is the non FAA or permit requiring. Basically, the smallest DJI drone is the one that you want.

And Okay. And yeah. Don't worry about the rest of it. Just get the smallest DJI drone. It's that way for a reason.

You can sneak in the extended battery for an extra few grams. No one will know, unless you're like in the UK or Canada where the fun police will come and weigh your drone. In that case be more cautious but, but yeah and you actually can't fly in the national parks in India and you can't fly in base camp at Everest. So, just be aware of that. I'm not the biggest rule follower, but I rule I, you know, don't don't be the douchebag of the group that gets everyone the stink eye when you're at the pub that night.

Yeah. Fair enough. But I I think it probably wouldn't get that far. One of the one of the comments is that in India, you know, the the fun police, they are most definitely they every single wire, everything that has a piece of copper in it is coming out of your bag. So just have it as a separate bag, have it in have it in, clear, have it in ziplocks, and have it set so that you can quickly take it out so that, again, your reference, you're not that guy.

You're not that guy who's holding up the whole security line because you didn't prepare for this. So every single thing that has a wire in it, and I don't care what it is, it's gotta come out in the in the Indian security in the airports. They're gonna go through everything. Sure. And, again, that has to do with the fact that in this particular area, in the north of India, northwest of New Delhi, this is a, you know, like, military outpost area.

And as as you indicated earlier at the top of this, Aaron, is that, there's still some yeah. Pakistan Pakistan is not necessarily they're like, oh, we think maybe we have some rights here. It's been fairly safe now for a long time, but that's, not the way it it used to be. But as a result, they're very, very cautious. So make sure that you have are prepared for that.

Yeah. And don't have and don't let that stop stop your trip. You know, nothing drives me more crazy as and when you tell someone, I was just in Mexico, and I have a countdown timer as well. Were you work? I'm, like, no.

Stop. The the when you do a risk assessment, a a data driven risk risk assessment, you're more likely to hurt yourself driving or riding your motorcycle than you are to have a terrorist attack in Kashmir. Just stop with the nonsense. Go have fun, you know, be be aware, but don't let this topic stop you from, having that adventure. Be be clinical about your risk assessment, and and and and that's not really part of it if you're honest with yourself.

Yeah. And the truth is that if you have a good local resources, you're gonna get that information in advance. Right? You're gonna know. They're gonna contact you and go, you know, no one's gonna put the the the dollar above your safety.

You're gonna go, you know what? We, we got a we got a situation here, so no one's coming in. Yeah. You know, whenever, you know, I've had to, handle security, for lack of a better term, it's it's it's quite simply avoiding the situation. You know?

Whenever you hear, people getting into trouble, it's because some would then say it's time to leave. If it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you're at a strip joint in Tijuana you're more likely to get into problems because your friend is trying to get into trouble or buy something he shouldn't be at 3 o'clock in the morning and he's drunk. But if you're if you're able to say it's time for us to leave or have your local guide says you shouldn't go over into that pub, that is 90% of the issue, but unfortunately media and things that get reported, don't, don't give us the full picture. So, you know, when it comes to this part of the world, it is so safe, and it's so welcoming, and just, you know, don't put yourself in a situation that's obviously Yeah. Yeah.

Good point. Alright. Let's see here. So I think that pretty much oh, one more thing about luggage is if you have those things, if you have an extra drone or if you have those things that you wanna get into the country, there's a couple things you might wanna take on the bike to get set up on the bike. One of them, if you start with electronics, you may wanna take a some a mechanism to attach your phone or your GPS to the handlebar.

Take all that kit. The bike that comes with will not come with that in the rental. Good idea. I'm looking at the back of my phone and what I have. Quad Lock is what I have right now.

So I'll I'll take my Quad Lock mount, and I'll also do a bit of research to figure out the size of these, the handlebars, the standard handlebar, OD, outside, diameter of the handlebars on the Royal Enfield Himalayan 4 50 twos so that I have the right insert disc so that it it actually fits. That's one thing. So if we move further back, tank bag, I'll probably take my tank bag because it also has water. I got a Moscow Moto, and it has a water bladder in it for 2 liters. So I'll keep that on the actual tank, keep weight low, keep it forward and centered.

And then the other thing is a is a tail bag, a waterproof tail bag, and you can you could put all those layers in that you have to and you wanna you want like, your waterproof stuff. So 20 to 30 liters. I don't know. I'll I'll see what fits. I'll buy both, and I'll see what fits, and I'll send the other one back.

Nice. Maybe 20 maybe 20 liters is enough. I don't know. It's funny. I didn't think about any of that.

That's actually both are really good ideas. I think that's, that's I'm an anti tank bag guy. I I hate tank bags. I like to stand up, and not have it in the way, especially with a big GSA, but both those, ideas for waterproof bags are fantastic, and, I think I may have to put that on my shopping list. Maybe we should just chat with Mosco Moto and go, yo.

What's up? You know, when you put when you put yourself in in line for a a a heated vest. Right? Yeah. By the way, by the way send us, you know, matching branded, you know, we'll absolutely put it on our social media.

Yeah. Fantastic. ADVV Cannonball podcast. That's right. Alright.

So that's really all I have to say about luggage on that. Yeah. I think we can end there. I'll I think I'll just tell everyone how I travel. You know, I travel with a Pelican Air 1650 travel.

This is the maximum size for international airlines. There's like a treaty or something. So this is the biggest size by all the airlines that you can check. So I check my jacket, my boots, and my pants. And then all that fits into a Pelican Air 1615 and then Is that a case?

It's a hard case. It's super lightweight. It's an Air version, Pelican Air and that can be thrown anywhere. It's a roller, no one's gonna be a hard time about it and then I have a backpack which I take enough clothes for the day when I'm traveling air and if I'm also going for 24 hours let's say Tokyo or something I have enough in there and I keep my bathroom bag in there and for my personal item I carry my helmet in a helmet bag not a fancy one just one that protects the visor from getting scratched. That's how I travel.

I check my gear in the the pelican case which doubles as a great bag for throwing in the back of the truck. My backpack I could take on the airplane. I take enough clothes for the day and my bathroom bag and then I carry my helmet. And that's how I travel. You may not want to do that, but that is the way that I do it.

And the shoes that I wear on the airplane, are, are like tennis shoes because nothing worse than spending 48, 50 hours traveling with, with boots on and you just get the get those stanky feet. No one wants stanky feet. That's true. I think I may based on the size, I may have I may have to travel with my with my tech settings on my feet because they're just so big. You're gonna hate it by hour 5 when you're watching a rerun of of whatever.

I'll only have 2 hours left at that point in time, Aaron. You'll you'll still have 39. The worst. And then, I think I wanna tell everyone about my bathroom bag, but I'm not gonna do it today. But it is important, especially with an India trip, about what to pack in my bathroom bag because it doubles as my so called first aid kit, and let's save that for the next time, but, I'm really passionate about it and I'm always the guy who's medicating everyone, and there's a reason for that is because, for all the years of traveling internationally and not ending up looking for the doctor for a prescription, or carrying a nonsense first aid bag that no one ever uses.

But for some reason, it's a it's a piece of jewelry people find it necessary to have on their on their bikes. So let's, let's let's shelf that for the next time. Yeah. It's like, I've got my I've got my red bag. I bought Yeah.

I bought this kit. I bought this kit. We're good. Yeah. Sure.

But one of the things that I yeah. One of the things that I thought was interesting maybe as a as a the preview for what's coming is you had watched a video about someone who was traveling in India, or somewhere, maybe Mexico. I'm not sure where, but they got they got, traveler's diarrhea. Mhmm. And then and then you were like, and then the doctor prescribed them something or other, and then you went into great detail about the fact that they potentially gave them the wrong prescription, and it was probably because it was the cheapest thing, and it was the only thing they have.

Yeah. So So they prescribed Cipro, which is more of a UTI, antibiotic, but it's cheap. It's, like, $3, for not even, 30¢ for a whole course. Whereas that there is something better for travelers diarrhea. So I just travel with all this stuff, and there's ways of getting it, and we can get into into all that detail, but save yourself the the hassle.

Save yourself from getting something that is not the right thing, and let's talk about that in the next podcast. And, and let's not waste money with nonsense nonsense that you carry around for no reason. So let's, let's get into that next time. I have to say that, it's a bit it's a bit of low hanging fruit here, Aaron. So I'm just gonna say, you really know your shit.

Hey. Oh. Which is the most common disaster. You know what I mean? Let me close by saying, everyone please contribute to our Spotify playlist.

It's on Spotify and it's, ADV cannonball. Please contribute to that. If you can't find it, just, email us, your contributions to the playlist, and we will in the outro, our our our email address is there, and it's also in the show notes. And, in our next newsletter and on our website, our trophies arrived for the ADV cannonball, and they are sweet. So the trophies that people, are awarded and take home have arrived, and the perpetual trophy, the awesome super awesome giant cup that was custom made finally arrived.

So please look at our newsletter. You can sign up for advcannibal.com for our newsletter and, in our blog. There's some photos there and on social media. Check out our super awesome trophies. Alright.

Very cool. And, and if you if you wanna know more about this, this India trip or other trips that we can arrange, then, then please do email. Yeah. And the, the, email will be, at the, at the outro. You have anything else, Taylor?

I think that's about it. I mean, we could go on for hours about this, but I think that, there's only a certain amount of seat time people can people can take. Right. Like, anyone's listening at this point anyway. So I'm gonna polish off my beer, and, we're gonna play the outro.

Thanks so much for, hosting us, Taylor. Yeah. Thanks very much. Another fun time. I appreciate it.

Have a great night. 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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