Beau Earnest, Motorcycle Cannonball Record Holder Interview & ADV Cannonball Rally News

Beau Earnest takes some time from building his next cannonball ride to talk to us about his Motorcycle Cannonball record. He set a new record at 32 hours and 32 minutes over April 19-21, 2024. He was riding a modified Yamaha FJR1300 with extra fuel capacity and other cool farkles. He covered 2,800 miles in total and only stopped five times for gas, averaging 86.5 mph.

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• 20:32 Beau Earnest Interview

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Welcome to season 2 episode 11, adventure motorcycle cannonball podcast. Aaron, thanks for joining me. Hey, bud. Thanks for having me.

This is great. Yeah, man. Hey. I wanna know two things because I got some I got some information to report from, sunny Sweden. And I'm not saying that facetiously.

I really mean sunny Sweden. It's beautiful here. I said sunny. I didn't say warm. So what's your weather like over there, and are you guys riding yet?

Yeah. We thought that we were out of the out of the spring, but it's rained for five days straight. I rode the motorcycle a couple days, went up to Canada and back, and, it's not looking good. But, hopefully, in the next week or so, we'll be, we'll be back out. But everyone was out for that one day, so it was it was pretty exciting for twenty four hours.

It ended pretty quick. Nice. Really nice. So, what are you drinking there? I got me a high five hazy IPA.

Oh, yeah. Nice. Alright. I got the IPA. I was a little bit I was a little bit jealous after the last week.

I didn't have the IPA theme, so I'm I joined the IPA. So I got a I got a new Sweden IPA here tonight. So Cheers. Here's here's to you. Alright.

So, riding season. So in Sweden, it's been really, really, sunny, and the bikes are out. It's like, it's the bikes are out. The tatas are out. Everything is coming out.

It's amazing. It's, yeah. The Swedes don't mess around when it's like, the first hint of sunshine. It's like summer dresses. Boom.

And all the flowers come out. So it's it's pretty impressive. So yeah. So I got a I got a, I got a, I got a couple rides in this weekend, both early morning rides. And, a little bit later, we can play some field notes on that.

But before we jump into that, I think we should chat a little bit about your pinlock situation. Yeah. So over here, because it's it's so moist, in the air, unless it's just below freezing or very close to freezing, you know, around 40 degrees Fahrenheit or, like, five or six degrees Celsius, we, like, immediately remove our pin locks here. And, and that's just the way it is. And if you're old guy like us, we we all know how to leave the slightest little gap at the at the bottom of your visor.

It's just so you get that natural, you know, anti fogging going on. So, yeah, I am I am happy to report that, that I was able to, remove my pinlock. However, I haven't solved the problem of I would love to take it with me on trips because whenever you do, like, that mountain pass, it's it's you know, when you get around that, you know, freezing or even below freezing for those, you know, five, six thousand foot climbs, it would be nice to to pop it back in. But I think I've just come to the conclusion that once spring is hit, pin locks are out, you know, spring is here, good times. Yeah.

I I keep the pin lock in most of the year, and I I I find that well, it's a sweeten as well because the riding's a bit cooler. But I also do you take your chin damper out? Yeah. I do. I actually keep it in my I have a lone rider glove box on my GSA.

And what I do is I remove the chin dam immediately when it's not freezing, freezing cold. Right? So I also have, like, a great big beard. So that kinda acts like a like a wind damper. But, but you're right.

I removed my chin lock, my my chin dam, and then I a few days later, I end up removing the pin lock. I just remove it because, you know, I don't wanna look through two pieces of plastic. Right? Like, I'm I'm, like, OCD about my visor cleanliness and also preserving it. So not to ravel, you know, ramble on too much about it, but every night, whether it's a campsite or a hotel, I I carry more than one microfiber cloth.

So I go to the hotel or the campsite and I rinse it with water and then I wipe it clean. And I find that, you know, I get dust and dirt on the inside and I don't wanna damage that that pin lock, soft plastic barrier. So that's my that's my justification for getting rid of it is so that I don't damn I don't damage it, and I have better clarity when I'm looking through, my visor. Yeah. I think that's a, that's a good comment.

I think it's really a good segue right into because I made some comments about my pinlock this weekend as well, and it was cold. So let me, maybe we can roll the field notes, and then we can come back and make a comment on those. Let's do it. It's time for field notes. Oh.

A collection of voice notes recorded on location while we're on wildly exciting motorcycle adventures hacked together for your amusement and our public shaming. It is Sunday, March 23 at 05:30 in the morning. I just woke up. I'm gonna go ride the TET, Trans European Trail, do a little section of that. There's a new section that just opened up near, near the Stockholm area that put some more trails in.

So or put some more routes in. So I'm going to ride that with, my buddy, Vijay. Yeah. You may remember him from V Day with Vijay episode. So we're gonna go do that.

I'm taking the t seven, and he's on a, a GSA twelve fifty. So, away we go. It's, it's zero degrees. It's beautiful. I tried to go yesterday.

I I did go yesterday, out, not on tap, but also out on some, some country roads out to a local castle. And it was so foggy and so cold. It was below zero. When we actually stopped and had coffee at our destination spot, by a flagpole at a castle near here, it was, the the the fog was coming in and the mist was coming in and hitting a tree. The hitting the trees and and freezing on just one side of it, so it was really quite still but chilly.

So I just arrived at at our meeting point for VJ. I'm a little bit early. But on the way here, look, it's it's, it is frosty out. Every all the grass is frozen. All the cars I saw on the road had just scraped the ice off their windows.

It is cool, but it is absolutely cloudless and blue in the sky. It's just beautiful here. I just wanted to stress the importance of testing your gear before you actually go out and, and use it in the field for a long trip. So short trips are great like this to shake down your gear and make sure it works. On the short trip here, it's a perfect condition to test a pinlock because I found that the I got condensation inside my visor like I did yesterday.

And yesterday was so so I mean, yesterday was just like you could cut the air with a knife. But this morning, it's crisp and clear, but cold. So my condensation, of course, froze on my visor, but that's usually not a big deal with a pinlock working properly. But today, like yesterday, I got pinlock. I got the condensation between the inside of my visor and the and the front side of my pin lock.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, pin lock is a piece of plastic which has a keeps an air gap between the inside of your visor and the and the, yeah, and what you see through. So it creates an air gap there so that it doesn't fog up, and they usually work brilliantly. But now, when they don't work, you can't even wipe the the fog away. You can't even you can't even get the, the condensation off because you can't wipe because it's stuck between two layers of plastic. So I'm gonna walk into McDonald's and disassemble my helmet.

Wish me luck. So it's about, oh, it's after eight right now. Vij and I are just finishing breakfast, and we are heading out. It is crystal clear. The sun has cleared away the frost.

Well, at least where the sun has hit. And, we are about to go riding. I just wanted to say this one thing. So we both have, mesh, astena intercoms. And, last time we rode together, we were able to speak no problem.

And this time, we had a hard time getting them set up. And what it came down to is actually the version. So if you haven't upgraded your software, you can expect that you'll have a hard time connecting to your group. The good news is is that in the Sena app, they recognize this. And so, without the, the person who doesn't have it upgraded having to upgrade it, the other Sena systems can go back to the previous version, and make those work.

So those are, information is in the settings. But just to, just to share a bit of information again, field notes. And we are back. Yeah. That was fun.

It was nice to, go for a ride with you guys. Yeah, man. Yeah. So it was, as I say, it was you know, I think I got out a little bit early. Like, when when we got back, like, kinda clock her putting the bikes away.

Everyone else is rolling on the garage. It's sunny. All the frost is is gone. We're like, I think we I got a I got a text message from James. He's like, yeah.

Look at the weather now. I was like, yes. It's beautiful out. We went we went early. But yeah.

So, it was, yeah. When you get the water be when you get the moisture built up between its between the front of your pinlock and the back of your visor, you're toast. You you could do nothing. I just have they kept pinching I kept having to pinch it so that it would at least just make it turn into water as opposed to having it this little, I don't know. Yeah.

Like the the moisture collecting on the inside of your of your of your shower window. Right? And I think that you and I discussed it at length because, you know, we're geeks. And it we think that your issue was that the seal, the the rubber o ring gasket that seals the Pinlock had a bit of a, pinch in it, so you were getting, air inside there. So, yeah, if you're ever gonna install a Pinlock, take the time, disassemble your helmet, make sure the seal is a %, and also, make sure that you're in a low humidity environment when you assemble the pinlock because whatever moisture is in there is gonna remain in there for the entire time that you've assembled it, assuming you've assembled it correctly.

Yeah. So just make sure that you you the the surfaces mate correctly. Yeah. And, just so you know, we are gonna go riding again. Vijay and I are gonna go riding again this weekend on some the, the new GPX TET trans European Trail stuff around the Stockholm area.

And, he said I just checked in with him, and he said, yes. He will have his software updated for his son. And it's such a pain in the ass. I actually remember waiting until I got to your place in Stockholm when we did our, Norway trip because Yeah. It's such a pain in the ass for with the old versions of Sena to update firmware, and I understand that everyone's firmware is different because it's so inherently difficult.

So they promise on the new 60 that you can update firmware from your mobile device over Bluetooth. So, fingers crossed that actually works. Not that I have a 60 because, you know, I'm poor. So, maybe maybe Santa Claus will bring you one. We'll see.

Yeah. We'll see. I'll see about that. Alright. Onto the next.

By the way, thanks for doing the editing on the, on this field, Dennis. Yeah. It's funny. You kinda feel like you're going going for a ride with people. So yeah.

My pleasure. Yeah. So, I saw a picture of you. I saw a video of you on TikTok, and you were doing some, application of the rally livery stickers. Yeah.

So it's a little bit different system that is out there now. Before, we all used to cut vinyl. It was like a term we cut vinyl stickers essentially out of a colored vinyl, but there's this new system that's out there and it's it's inexpensive and it's really good, but you have to cut, each livery version out of a gang sheet it's called. Anyways I made a little video that shows people how to cut the sticker delivery out of the gang sheet. It shows you how to prepare the surface.

It shows you how to apply it and that's on our TikTok channel and our Facebook group as well. So, as people come to the rally and need to apply their numbers, their livery, you can refer to those videos. Yeah. Nice. And, also, I like to emphasize one thing because I'm pretty you know, I like to keep my bike in good shape.

But it also, the way you the way you cover that in the video shows if you do it that way, you won't get scratches. Right? You won't like, you'll prepare the surface and you put these on, you won't have the the possibility of scratching your, your paint up. Yeah. And more importantly, to clean the surface is important because the sticker will adhere to it better.

So if you just stick it on a dirty bike, it's not gonna stick. You know, it just doesn't work. No. You don't work. So I I wanted to make the I wanted to make the video to avoid the, hand holding on registration day over in, Kitty Hawk.

So I wanted to, you know, get that out of the way now. Yeah. Fair enough. Smart play. And, I understand that you you too are a tailor these days.

Oh my goodness. So I have this new jacket. It's a Klim oh, boy. I don't know what it's called. Maybe Badlands or something.

Anyways, it has the zipper on the forearm, like where your cuff meets your glove. And it's driving me crazy. Cause in the cooler, sorry, in the warmer weather, I wear, you know, a kind of like tactical shooting gloves instead of, like, you know, crazy armored, riding gloves. And the zipper keeps going backwards up my arm, and then the seal gets gets ruined in my cuff. So what I did was this is a tip for everyone.

I it has two zippers on it. So I extend the one zipper all the way up to the cuff, and then I just grabbed the little sewing kit, hence the Taylor pun, and I sewed that. I put one stitch across about five or six times, and I pinned that zipper all the way forward. Now I can still use the back of the zipper and open it up for really hot weather, and I'm really happy with that solution. So that irritation is gone.

So So if that zipper keeps creeping up on you on your fancy climb space suit, your power ranger suit, it's a good idea to throw throw a little stitch in there so you're not constantly fighting with the damn thing. Yeah. A really good tip. Good tip. And the idea, you know, the idea about having tactical shooting gloves while you're driving is that you can combine two sports at once.

Well, I have it. You know, you got to think about where we're riding here. You know what I mean? I actually do remember a picture of you on your Doctor, and I think, you you were being a little bit redneck too on time. So so don't don't don't go and throw stones.

Yeah. I had a Uncle Mike zip pouch, and I had a 40 caliber what I have I think I had a 40 caliber Glock I was shooting competition with at the time. And, yeah, we were riding, you know, High Desert. And, yeah, we were riding just, you know, to wide open fields out in this high desert prairie in New Mexico. And, yeah, you stop anywhere and just let loose.

It was great. Off a little steam. Indeed. Or, you know, or or not even stop. Just boom.

Go. It's okay. When in Rome? When in Rome? When in Rome.

Alright. So campus use is just around the corner. What are you doing? What are you doing for food? You know, being, being frugal, I was in the Walmart the other day, and when I camp, you know, I do a lot of miles.

And I don't have time or I don't have the inclination, I think, is more of the the truth of the matter. So I want to pass on this little tip to everyone. I travel with my little camping stove and my titanium long spoon, and all my dinner meals are ready made, freeze dried, eat in the pouch, dehydrated hiking meals. So it's the pouch. You just boil some water.

You throw it in. Nice. I have to remember to be patient and let it actually, rehydrate for ten minutes and not just just eat it. But, it's getting expensive. It's like, you know, $15 a pouch.

Right? So I was in the Walmart, and they have Mhmm. In their, like, prepper section and their dry food section, they have ready made, hiking, meals. They have four flavors, and it's only $5.98. So it's super cheap, and it's a lot.

It's actually two servings in each pack. Really? So it's like three bucks it's $3 a serving. It's $3 a meal. Yeah.

But, you know, you end up eating the whole thing anyways. But if you if you do an analysis comparing it to, you know, the bigger hiking brands, it is a huge win. And there's a Walmart everywhere, so you don't have to look for, like, an Outdoor World or an RAI or something like that. You can just stop at any Walmart, and it's $6, and it's dinner for $6. And, you know, they last for twenty five years.

So I I, you know, I have some that have been rattling around in my, in my pen years for for years now. But I just wanted to pass on that tip, seeing as though this spring, that you don't have to go spend a fortune on these ready made meals. You can just stop at the Walmart now. Yeah. That's a really good tip.

That's a really good tip. And, actually, I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell you my favorite ones. The pastel Alfredo is good, and that's my favorite. And then the chili mac and the lasagna are also good, but I get a little heartburn from that. And the worst one is the chicken teriyaki and rice.

But but tea and, you know, tea syrup. Chicken chicken teriyaki. Alright. Yeah. And then what I also do is I always stop at the beginning of a trip, like, at a fast food place, and I grab a handful of salt and peppers because they're definitely, they need a little spicing up.

So I actually travel with, salt and pepper and then a little Japanese spicy, chili powder just to liven it up a bit. But, anyways, that's my camping save money tip for $20.25. Good tip. I like it. Nice.

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This is also available on Amazon if you wanna pay full pop. Nice. Thanks for doing that. And then we have up next the, Bo Ernest interview, and I'm really happy about this. I think everyone will find it really interesting.

He is the current record holder on a motorcycle for the proper cannonball record. I'm a bit of a purist, so he rode from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan all the way to the Portofino, in LA, and that's where the ADB cannonball ends, of course. And, it's a really great interview. Did you have a chance to listen to it yet? Absolutely.

Nice. And, yeah. So let's go ahead and roll the interview, and we'll talk about it on the other side. 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. Bo Ernest, welcome to the ADV cannonball podcast.

It's March the sixth of twenty twenty five. I'm in Seattle. And where are you today? I am in Wichita, Kansas. Oh, man.

Is the weather breaking yet, or are you still in the heart of winter? We turn around and call it winter again Tuesday, and come Monday we'll be back up to the upper 70s. Nice. Nice. We are on the verge of spring here and everyone's excited the bikes are out whenever the guys can get a quick rip in.

So season is almost here. I just wanted to mention my legal disclaimer. This is a fictional interview. So all the weenies out there, spare me the emails, spare me the social media posts. And at the time of recording, you are the current Cannonball record holder for a motorcycle.

You set a new time of thirty two hours and thirty two minutes departing on April the nineteenth of twenty twenty four. First of all, have I got all that data right? Did I get anything wrong? You got it right. Nice.

Nice. So, how was the weather? Because that week can be a little dicey, that that week of, April and some of those mountain passes. When I was looking at doing my run because you got two different route options primarily going from New York to California. You can run the northern route, which is I 80 to 70 through Denver or ride, like, 76 down to 40.

And on my way up to New York, I kept bouncing back and forth because I actually wanted to run the northern route and go through Colorado. But when I got to New York on Thursday, the weather forecast on Saturday was calling for two to eight inches of snow in Colorado. So that made my choice, real easy, honestly. So I took the southern route. Right.

And was there a reason you chose, that week in April, or it was just you were probably thinking about it all winter and you just wanted to get out there as soon as possible? I was working my way around, holiday activities, comp schedules, and looking at the weather. I wanted to run as, quickly out of winter I could right at the springtime. That way, the bike would run, better in the colder weather. I had less opportunity of, dehydrating, and I didn't want to have to be taking layers on, layers off, layers on, layers on.

So I try to choose a cooler month of the year to run. Yeah. You make an interesting point about the police schedules. This, June, I recently did a big trip in Norway, and we noticed there were no cops anywhere, and there are also no RVs, on the road. So picking the right time of year to do this is, is definitely a multifaceted, decision.

You departed the traditional start, which is the Red Ball Garage in New York City, and you left at 10AM eastern. And you made it to the Portofino Hotel at 03:20, 03:32AM Pacific, covering more than 2,800 miles. And the data I have here says you stopped, about five times for fuel. The mathematical average is 86 and a half miles an hour. That's almost a 40 kilometers, an hour.

Before we get to the minutia of the bike build, why did you choose that day of the week and the specific time you left Manhattan? I chose 10PM on Friday because I was looking at the, the road patterns coming out of New York. Around that time is be right before the big party and the club scene starts happening. And then running on the weekend, you I mean, you got some extra added traffic for, weekenders, but you don't have to deal with the, morning rush, the evening rush, the morning rush. And 10PM, when I factor in my math and where I was shooting that to end in California, I wanted to go through LA on a Sunday morning at after bar hours.

That way, the roads were as empty as possible because LA, on that final fifty, sixty mile home stretch, can either be a make it or break it moment, for traffic wise, for cops, for recs, for all that extraordinary stuff that's just out of your, control completely. Yeah. It sounds like you had a a really precise plan, when you're going to arrive. So you must have had a specific time in mind that you were looking to beat. Is that accurate?

Yes, sir. I I was actually shooting to be closer to the thirty two hour mark, but, little hiccups along the way, prevented me from getting getting closer to the thirty two. But all the math I did, god, it's a lot of math when you start figuring out that amount of, miles you have to cover. Everything kept shooting me right around thirty one and a half to thirty two hours. And so I just based everything off LA traffic and New York start time.

So everything else that fell in between, really didn't matter because I would be able to make it up on that in between those forest stretches of cities. It's just LA and New York, you really gotta focus on. Especially when you're trying to start off on a positive note, You don't wanna get caught in rush hour traffic and having to go through the tunnel or anything like that. It sounds like, there's a lot of factors to consider. I'm I'm also considering an an attempt, but nothing as crazy as the overall, time.

How much time did you spend preparing just on the planning of of your attempt? Outside of working on the bike, I probably had a good thirty to forty hours worth of, sitting down with math, looking at, time schedules, looking at holidays, gathering people for support because you need somebody along the way. If nothing else, you need you need an outside source on your verification at your start and your end time. So reaching out, making connections. I probably had a good thirty to forty hours involved just in that.

Can you describe that, that having to have an outside source at the beginning and and the end? What are the options that are available, and what option did you finally settle on? You could go with a couple different variations with it. But I went I I wanted it to be as, highly recognized as possible. So I went with, having, people there in person at the start.

And then I was also running, a couple different, tracking apps. One was called Joiner, where you can download it and everyone else can be added to a group, and they can follow your live GPS location along with your speed. And then, I ran GPS speed tracker, Beeline, and a couple other fail safe tracking gaps to document my actual run. Wow. That's a lot.

Yeah. There's a lot of people out there that always question these things. So the more human or data verification you can have, you know, the mo the better. The most common question the most common question I think you get is, your average speed. Can you describe the variety of speeds on the open road that you would have to, achieve to, make up for the slow spots and the fuels the fuel spots?

In theory, you have to you have to be in the triple digits, 95% of the time because you're gonna run up into situations where you got, truckers turn around jockey in for left and right lane. You got your cities you gotta worry about, your soccer moms. So you also have to you don't want to ride like a complete maniac the entire way because all that's gonna do is just draw attention straight to yourself, and you're gonna end up in a, you're gonna end up getting stopped by the cops. So you have to find that fine line in between the upper nineties to the low one hundreds to stay consistently. And if you can do that, and then every time you get caught in this little bind because, let's say, semis are blocking your left lane, and then as soon as they break free, you gotta punch it to turn around, bring your average right back up.

You don't wanna get caught just sitting there at 87, 80 eight miles an hour on the highway all day because you'll never you'll never break the record. Were you, running any applications that kept a running tally of your average speed, or did you just have something in mind? What kind of technology did you have to help you with that estimation? The only thing I had wrote down to run off my verification of time wise with mile per hour was I did a state to state, let's say, going from all the way from Pennsylvania from, east to western side is, let's say 300 miles. And so I broke it down into the mile per hour that I needed to maintain for that state.

And so when I would cross Pennsylvania at, let's say, 01:15 in the morning, if my piece of paper said you needed to cross it at 01:10 in the morning, I knew I was five minutes behind schedule. If I could cross it ahead of that schedule, I knew I was, the average was higher than what the previous record was. Right. And those are obvious landmarks. That's a really smart way of doing it.

You know, the major challenge is obviously fuel. Can you maybe tell me about this great fuel cell that you had mounted on your bike? Yeah. I went with a, a 15 gallon fuel cell that I baffled fairly heavily to the point where it would only hold 13 gallons. I had it, fixed to the passenger section of my motorcycle rubber mounted with a, inline fuel pump.

So when my stock gas tank's gauge would start to read low, I could reach down through a toggle switch, and it would, fuel from the auxiliary tank right up into my stock tank. And then once I saw my fuel level where I wanted to be, I would turn that that toggle switch off and close the valve so I wouldn't have any extra pressure mounting upon that fuel pump. And, you know, for all the the geeks in the room, how did you get the fuel into the tank? Did you just put another hole in the tank, or how how did you physically get the fuel into your main tank? So I bought, extra, locking gas cap, and I broke the lock off of it.

And then I drilled straight through a hole, and I made made me, a copper pipe 90 degree fitting. So when the fuel line would come up from the fuel pump, it would just get tied straight into the that nipple that was on the, gas cap. And so it just dropped it would flow straight down into the stock tank without me having to, lift or manipulate anything. That's a great solution to a complicated problem. And then, Drill a hole.

Yeah. And did you, build that tank? It sounds like, you know, I saw the picture. It looked really, really perfect. Did you build it, or would you have someone build it for you?

No. That was an off the shelf buy, but I reached out to a couple speed shops here locally in Wichita, and I, purchased some, extra strength high density foam to go inside of it to help with the sloshing. That makes sense because the, you know, obviously, the balance that that fuel tank was so so high up on your bike that that was probably a really, prudent, prudent thing to do. I also want to ask another common question always is how effective, was your laser jammer? So my laser jammer worked three times.

I only ran across cops sitting on the highway with the laser jammers three times, and, it worked beautifully. My radar detector had actually picked up the cop signal way before I even saw saw them on the side of the road. And then once I got closer, so I and I left my jammers on just to see how they would react, and they worked beautifully, all three times. So you're saying so, you know, we've all used radar detectors. Right?

So you're saying that they were running radar and they and they just had them on. It's just that classic situation of the cop sitting on TikTok on the side of the highway, and he's just got his KA band blasting away. Is that is that what you're saying? Yeah. He had his Ka blasting.

And then, when I came across one of them, they were actually standing on the outside of the car with his, with his laser gun, turn around pointing it at people. But he let he messed up and left his, Ka band still on. So I caught that well before he was able to, hit me with a laser. Wow. Well, that worked out great for you.

What what's your opinion on the laser jammer? If if you know, you've obviously researched this that, you know, hypothetically, if if, you know, man a is flying down the highway at a hundred miles an hour and and mister police officer pulls that trigger, will the laser jammer be effective in in, messing that up? Yes. If you have it mounted properly and you're running a good laser jammer system, like what I am, it will disrupt their signal for, up to three seconds, and then it will shut itself off too. So that three seconds gives you that cushion for the cop to get a actual lock on your speed.

So, theoretically, they they can't technically pull you over and write you a ticket for speeding until they have an actual number wrote down. Right. That makes sense, actually. And I always tell people that, you know, going going at a at a spirited pace on a motorcycle is a lot different than a car because you just roll off that throttle or grab one or two fingers of brake, and you just brush that speed right off. And I think three seconds is more than enough time to scrub off that speed.

Oh oh, yes, sir. You can, you can I can just let off the throttle on on this bike at a hundred within a second and a half? I'm down to 80. Yeah. And you're in just in case, just in case people are wondering too, as as I am, how did you hear the radar detector?

Did you use any of your comms, or were you relying on the visual in indicator? Believe it or not, my radar detector was, see I had it mounted onto my, right side throttle housing, where your switches are at, and it pointed forward. So it was visually visually, there to look at, but I could actually hear the radar detector going off while going down the road through my helmet and through, my Bluetooth while I was talking to somebody or listening to music. It was, that loud. That's great.

That's good to hear because people always wonder about, you know, the noise, the wind noise, and, and all that preventing you from from hearing it. What what would you change technology or bike wise if you were to to do it again? Technology wise, I'm pretty happy with, besides, my Bluetooth comms. They completely quit charging on me, in Oklahoma City. So from Oklahoma all the way to California, the only way of communicating I have with anybody was to reach up and, look at my cell phone.

And, it it just wasn't very feasible to do. So I would definitely go with, taking two sets of comms in case one quits working at a time. And then bike wise, I'm pretty happy with the bike I chose for that run. Cannonball two point o is going to be an entirely different breed, species of a bike. So we'll see how that comes, comes into play here soon.

But the Yamaha FJR 1,300 did, it handled everything I threw, throwed at it. The seat, was made by Russell Day Long in California, which, hands down, if you haven't heard of them, you need to look them up. One the best seat I've ever sat on in my entire life. Nice. Instead of, asking what Two Point is, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna make everyone stay to the very end.

You know? I gotta have, better ratings for this podcast, so we gotta keep everyone hanging on. Yes, sir. Instead of, me leading you in in in your own estimation, what was the most difficult part, of your attempt? Most difficult part, I would say, would be concentration.

Because once you get out on the highway and you start blasting, things can start to get fairly complacent once you've been on the road for five, six, seven, ten, twelve, twenty hours. You have to be able to find a way to bring yourself back into the moment instead of just allowing yourself to go through the motions because that that's eventually is gonna wind up getting you killed at the end or someone else hurt in the process. So complacency is probably the hard was the hardest thing to deal with. Yeah, for sure. I think we've all done silly, long road trips and we always catch ourselves being complacent.

As the speeds get higher, especially on a motorcycle, you don't have that safety cage, you know, around you. As times get lower and lower, for all attempts, and folks need to go faster and faster, you know, I like the idea of these fun subcategories the more I look at all the different lists. For instance, let me look here. The car rental record is thirty one hours. The pickup truck record is thirty four hours, and the record with the deceased passenger is thirty seven hours, and so on and so on.

I'm considering, doing the same run you did, but on my GSA, it's an adventure bike. I haven't looked at the list yet because, you know, I don't wanna psych myself out or anything like that. But what is your opinion as an official record, record holder now about these subcategories and kind of breathing a little bit more fun life, into into these records besides just being the overall record holder? I think the subcategories, bring help help bring folks who couldn't just go out there and and take the overall record because what Doug and Arnie did and what the new feller just did, last year is is getting to be harder and harder and harder. So breaking it down into these smaller categories allows folks to, achieve a dream that they once had of whether or not running running the race or being able to say, hey.

I now hold the record. Whether or not it lasts, three weeks, it lasts five years, you're you're you're opening yourself up to a broader category, I do believe. Yeah. I think so too. Plus, you know, the more people that get in get involved, I think it just, you know, in the motorsports community, I just think I think it's just fun.

And here's a neat little record or a neat little tidbit. Out of all the cannonball runs that have been happening, there has not been one accident or fatality towards the the runner or, someone else on the highway. So safety is one of the biggest paramounts for it as well. No. I think I think the general public underestimates how careful people are and the amount of effort someone like you puts into this.

It's not something you did. You didn't you didn't you didn't shotgun a can of beer and then just go off and do this. Clearly, there's a lot of, preparation involved, and, you know, I can't see anyone doing doing anything that's gonna jeopardize all that work. So yeah. So people are always are always careful, about these things.

And then, obviously, you're gonna make another attempt. Maybe, if it's okay, I don't wanna give away all your secrets, but maybe you can shed some light on the new the, the next attempt. Sorry. Yeah. So when I first learned about the Cannonball years ago, I always I've always been a Harley Harley guy.

And I was I had built a bike one winter, and I was gonna see how it was gonna handle at the speeds that were necessary to do it. And the bite that I chose was just a, unfortunately, poor choice to, to pick on. So I scratched the idea, went back, did did it with the Yamaha, and current currently, I hold the record. So I have reverted back to my Harley world. And over this past winter, I have been slowly building a, a new bike to make a new run-in twenty twenty five ish.

Being a record holder, does have a little bit advantages here and there because when you reach out to certain manufacturers or companies, you're more like more than likely to get a discount or sponsorship with them. So I've been very, fortunate to have reached out to the rack companies to have been to, get this bike in the position that it is right now. Because to take a Harley from coast to coast at, a higher rate of speeds is go requires a lot more, pockets than it does on the Japanese bikes or some of these, venture touring bikes. I'm looking I'm really looking forward to getting out on the open road here and, let's and seeing if I can, set a new benchmark. So whatever you build, next, you, you may choose to keep it or sell it.

But, clearly, with your reputation, it's not gonna be a giant giant hole in the ground that you shovel money into. Oh, no, sir. So like my, like, my current record bike, I have it sitting out here still covered in all the bug guts from my record run. It's kind of leaving it, quote, unquote, in our shrine state. And with this next one, I'll do the same thing, hopefully.

Oh, I I thought that you sold that, that FJR. No, sir. I still have the FJR. Okay. That's awesome.

That's really good for you. That's awesome. I think I sent you a sticker. Did I send you one of our badass stickers? Yes, sir.

It's going to, wind up going. That is, that is our limited production certified badass sticker, and I'm so glad you got that. And, I just wanted to, say thanks very much for, sitting down with us here and, giving us a preview of what you have going on, next year or or whenever your project's finished, telling us, about, about your attempt. And I just wanted to say thanks very much for being a a certified badass. I appreciate y'all having me on your show.

It's been a pleasure. Okay. Thanks very much, boy. I appreciate it. Yes, sir.

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Visit columbiamotorcycletour.com and start your adventure today. And welcome back. Aaron, I know you always say I've got nobody pipes and but, man, it and and you're and you're just, you know, a hack, but you did a great job in that interview. I think you did a great job in all these interviews. You do your homework, you ask smart questions, and I think that it was good.

And, in the way that you handled this one, he was so forthcoming. He's just what a gentleman. He just so willing to share. It was like looking, you know, looking behind going to know the, looking behind the wizard, looking behind the curtain and going, oh, that's what's going on here. It's like he shared everything.

It was amazing. Yeah. There are always great interviews out there with these guys, like, on VinWiki on their YouTube channel. But it's a highly polished and, produced interview, and I just wanted to get some of the geeky details out of him. And, he was so willing to, to share his experience and his, his preparation, his execution of his cannonball run, and and equally as importantly, he shared his future plans, and you guys didn't see it.

But when we were done chatting on the air, he took me for a, tour of his next project. So he's building a Harley Davidson with I think it's a 20 gallon fuel tank on the back of it, and he's gonna reattempt to beat his own record, with the Harley Davidson. So I'm, I'm looking forward to talking to him again when he when he crushes his own record. Yeah. Cool.

Represent the brand. Nice. That's really good. Alright. So tell me, we have some, we got some news items, got some Cannonball news you can share.

Yeah. Just a few things. Number 38 is Thomas from Coastville, Indiana, and he is on a Moto Guzzi v 85 t t. I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds really elegant. And, a bunch of people are, a bunch of competitors, sorry, are signing up and doing the hard work to get on our Spot Walla location page.

So number one, three, nine, 11, and 28, they are all on the location page, which is really fun. Actually, you're on the location page, and I'm on the location page also. So I will leave the link for that in the show notes so anyone can see as competitors start to get online so people can see that. Very cool. Very cool.

And, obviously, the instructions that you painstakingly wrote are paying off. Yeah. No one has said this didn't work stupid, so we're very we're very happy with the positive feedback. People are smart. Right?

So there was one gentleman who has a Zillow or a Zello, sorry, a Zellio. So that's another satellite tracker, and I don't have instructions through that, but he just figured it out based on the instructions. So even if you don't have a Garmin inReach Mini or you don't use, SW tracker on your iPhone, there are other ways of connecting, and I think people are just figuring it out. So, yeah, thanks for everyone who signed up early because it makes me feel better that just not crunch time on sign up day. Sorry.

On registration day that everyone's trying to figure it out and we find a glitch. So thanks for all the people who did the beta testing. Yeah. Great job. Hey, Aaron.

I forgot to mention this at the top. Do you know what ranking we are in Southwestern Australia this week? No. I don't know. I I I don't get a lot of fan mail from Australia, but I'd I'd love to hear something positive.

Lay it on me. Well, if you can if you think number two is positive, then you can take it as positive. But we are the number two ADV motorcycle cannonball sorry. ADV motorcycle podcast in Southwestern Australia. Love being number two.

Makes me wanna work harder. There you go. Oh my goodness. Is there any any, additional news that you like to share other than where you should subscribe and you should follow. And our handle on every single social is a d v cannonball.

That's on all the socials. And, if you can join our Facebook group, that'd be that'd be good. And, if you leave a five star review on whatever platform you're on, that really helps out the algorithm gods. It's amazing how much that does, actually. Yeah.

It's a game. It's a rat race, but, unfortunately, this is the world that we live in. So I'll hail the algorithm gods. I'll hail the algorithm gods. Alright.

Well, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you taking the time out of your out of your day over there, Taylor. Alright. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.

Alright. Roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a five star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods.

All hail the algorithm gods. You can buy us a coffee on buymecoffee.com/advcannonball, or directly help save this sinking ship for the price of a pint at patreon.com/advcannonball. Follow us on all the socials with the handle at adv cannonball. If you'd like to send us a question or comment for the air, or if you are a musical artist and want your royalty free music played on our podcast, or if you'd like to contact us for advertising opportunities, email us at podcast@ADVcannonball.com. Thanks for listening.

And remember, don't be an ADV weenie. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks.