CREW SHOW - Skog Rally, Sweden Field Notes & ADV Cannonball News

Taylor and friends attended the 2025 Skog Rally in Sweden and interviewed several attendees in our Field Notes segment. 

Daniel Stern, Scandi Flick, Skog 2025 Video
Nomad Sweden, Skog Film
SKOG™ 25 Memories Film
Dan ADV Skog Director’s Cut

Twin Pegs

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV cannonball podcast, where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle-related nonsense. Season three episode seven. Welcome to Adventure Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I am your host. And I'm joined today by Aaron Pufal.

Aaron, welcome. Thank you. What is going on big pimp? I hear you had a exciting week and an exciting day. Tell us all about it.

Yeah. It was a really fun day. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Robert Baldinger. Nice. I think we should open up beer to Mr. Robert Bollinger.

What do you got going on over there? Let me see what I got here. I'm gonna pull out of my koozie, and I got a, I got a pale ale peachy bulldog from Gotland's Breguet Obia. Nice. Yeah.

On Gotland, Island Of Gotland. An island beer. Yeah, man. What are you drinking over there? I have a growler of I don't know what it is, but it's a hazy IPA from the local brewery, Big Pine Brewing.

So I'm gonna have a glass of hazy IPA. Weren't you fancy with a glass? Are you sure I think that might be a bit too high brow for this show. Yeah. Well, wait.

You know, this is the way motorcycling is. One day you're in the mud up to your eyeballs pulling your bike out, and then the next day you have to force you as having a glass of IPA, and that's how we roll. Yeah. I guess, you know, I guess I guess it happens that way sometimes, doesn't it? After all, we are the number two podcast.

Well, there are benefits to being number two. We're on the podium, anyway. That's right. As long as you're somewhere. So tell us about, Scoog.

How was the weather? Tell us about getting there. Tell us about camping. Maybe, maybe start off to tell people what Scoog is. Let me start off by doing a bit of housekeeping.

Yeah. So, and I think it was the last episode, season three, episode six with Sam Manicom. I mentioned that I'd be running into Robert as Goog. And in fact, I did not see him there. But as we just said, I had the opportunity to sit down with him this morning and, and have a chat at the, the downtown Stockholm proper studio.

And how how else can we see that? We can actually hear that interview, and we can also see that interview. Yeah. So probably in about two weeks in mid June, it will be on the ADV Cannonball, YouTube channel as well. That will be for for my shaming, of course.

No. It's fantastic. It's, it's pretty awesome. I just I just skimmed through it, and it's fantastic. Yeah.

It was super fun. I had a great time. Robert is super personable, just like he is, you know, in in his content, how he presents that. And one of the key things that I picked up there that I really liked is he's like, I'm just one of you. I'm just a regular guy who's doing, you know, and doing things for the first time sometimes on camera.

And, that just makes it really authentic. Yeah. Well, he's doing the work. Right? Because a YouTube channel is an amazing amount of work.

Like, I know how much it is to edit and put together a podcast and schedule guests and do the admin and hosting and all this stuff. And I can only imagine how much work it is to run a YouTube channel. So, yeah, he's doing the work, and, and I think that's great. Yeah. So I won't, we'll save we'll save we'll save any more chat about that for, for that particular episode.

Yeah. But let's just say none he was just a it was super fun to hang out and chat. Yeah. Yeah. It was great.

I wanted to mention too, that since they were doing housekeeping, sorry for jumping the gun on that, that we're gonna switch to our summer schedule, which means it's summer. So go on your motorcycle, and we're getting ready for the rally. So we're super busy. So we're gonna drop episodes every two weeks, but I reserve the right to drop an emergency episode every once in a while. Alright.

Fair enough. You're also doing the van conversion. You're still building that out. Oh, man. It's, you know, the next time I say I wanna do big project, just punch me in the face because it is enormous amount of work and I am over it.

I have my hands are covered in in black sick of flex and and three m glue, and, it's just it's just a lot. So I hope to get it done for the Touratech rally that's coming up in a couple of weeks. So, well, let me rephrase it. I have to get it done by the time the Touratech rally comes around because that's what's taking me there. So if you guys see the van at the Touratech rally, come on over and and take a look at my abysmal carpentry work.

Dude, I've seen I saw the boat that you built. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say I'm I'm expecting that it will be it'll be like a mill out somewhere and you'll be like, I should just tear the whole thing out. And everyone's like, it looks perfect to me. Yeah. I think I'm just old and frustrated.

And I'm just I just don't care anymore. Like, if the board didn't fit, I'm like, you know, this is why they make cocking and silicone. I'm like, just put some goop in there, and we're all good. Time to get out the BFH. That's right.

Yeah. Smash it until it fits. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually didn't get out and ride some bikes.

There's a lot of things happening. Ever since meeting people at Skook, I met a lot of people at Skook. I had a a, a chat with, Sven. Sven, he was in the group that we rode in, which I'll jump into here in a minute. And then he's also the guy who let me ride his, his tenor eight seven hundred was like riding a different machine, the way he had it set up.

I was like, there's no way. There's no way this is a tenor eight. Indeed. It was, but I had a chat with him and he's like, are you going to is it BD or someone in The UK? It's a BDR.

It's, AVR, isn't it? ABR. Yeah. ABR. Sorry.

ABR. Yeah. He's riding. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna ride there. I'm like, man, that's a long trip, especially in that, in that skinny, seat that comes on a tenor.

It's gonna be brutal. No. He's taken a different bike. He's got he's he's like he's like, you know, like Robinhood has arrows in a quiver. He has motorcycles in the garage.

Nice. Well, that's a that's a problem I wish I had. Aaron, I've seen your garage. That's a problem that you do have. Fair.

Guilty as charged. Speaking of traveling out of The UK, and it being a long trip, I met Ben from Glasgow, and he was actually in a tent, right next to us when we were when we were camping there. And, I had him up for, for for Crash Kart Chronicles, and it was, yeah, but he definitely gets the award for coming the furthest. So but he's, he's in the he's in the show notes coming later or not in the show notes. Apologies.

He's in the field notes. In the field notes. Thank you. So I did, oh, I just I just see something we should cover here. Let me just back up a second, Aaron.

Badass. Acronym for badass. Did we ever come up with one that we liked? So far, the winner is bold adventures drifting across spectacular scenery. That is the that is the the leads thus far.

Bold Adventures drifting across spectacular scenery. Badass. I'm I'm good with that. That'll work. Yeah.

That's a little badass. I think Brian gets a bit of a shout out for that one. Yeah, for sure. And so it was raining at Skoog, and you're camping. So tell us about how bad it was and if your gear worked and and what you took with you and what you wouldn't take with you again.

Yeah. I don't know if I can get through all that right now, but be here for days. But, what I can tell you is I need to practice what I preach. I was like, you gotta test your gear, you gotta test your gear. And then I was like, a buddy of mine loaned me a an R rating of four or an R four, which is, of course, the higher the number of R rating, the warmer it is, the more insulative quality it has.

And I saw the temperature is gonna be like, just above freezing for the better part of the weekend, the temperature kept getting, it kept getting colder and colder and colder. And then I saw that it was gonna be really cold. And I was like, I'm gonna go out and buy one that's actually a five or higher rating. So I went out, I bought that. And then I left the four here that I had tested.

And I took the brand new one with me thinking, of course, how could a brand new mattress, air mattress fail? Anyway, needless to say, I slept on the ground. Every hour I got up and I was like, you know, I have one of those those bags that you use to you capture air in it, then you squeeze the air into it, and it blows it up. So it doesn't take much to blow it up. But every forty minutes to an hour through the course of the evening when it's really cold anyway, Not a good night's sleep.

So Yeah. You got to test your gear, man. But, you know, you can preach all you want. But unless you can invent five more hours a day, the the unfortunate truth is we just don't have time to to test everything. Yeah.

So I have to say this, that I will not go do another event. Unless I have slept in the tent, on all my gear and everything that I intend to use for that event. I'm gonna spend a full night in it. Oh my goodness. Well, good luck to you.

It sounds like you'll be sleeping on your porch one one day, and the neighbors are like, what the heck is that guy doing? Taylor must be drinking again. Yeah. His wife's like, you're out. That's it.

To the porch with you. To the out to the porch. There you go. Probably get into the porch again. So there's some fun I got some really fun field notes when I was there.

And, the one that really stands out for me, and Christine AC, she's like, men just make it sound so difficult writing. And, she is just so, she's so animated, and it's really funny. Got a lot of great field notes, and, we'll roll those at the end. I think I think by the time they all got crunched down, we still had, like, an hour and three minutes of field notes that I captured. Yeah.

There's quite a bit, but it's fun. You know, it sounds like you're sitting at the campfire at the rally and just hanging out with people and chatting. So it's a great fireside chat to have with friends, and people can, can take a listen. Yeah. There was a lot of greats.

It was it's the group. So there's 11 groups, and I talk about this in Field Notes, but there's, there's 11 actually, in one of the interviews, there's 11 groups of riders, and there's eight to 10 riders in each group. And then there's a, there's a guide, and then there's a sweep, and sort of that makes up the group of people. And then I was initially signed up in group three. And the further the higher the number, the more advanced you are, essentially, with your riding skill.

So I put myself in a at a three so I could ride with my buddies. And then it turned out that VJ is on his GS with basically the same tires I have, which I realized are are absolutely useless in the in in the conditions that we had. And every we rolled up and everybody had knobbies on, like, straight up in the, you know, eighties or, you know, or twenty twenty eighties. And I was like, I think we're gonna I think we've got a problem here. Then it was muddy and nasty.

Yeah. You know, I've come to the realization that you have need to have the tires on that are suitable for the worst conditions you are going to run into during your trip. So even if you're going on a cross country trip, if you plan on going through some mud on a trail, you need to have that appropriate tire. And I think in the ether, people are saying, well, I need a fifty fifty tire or I need a sixty forty tire, but I plan to do the sandpit. No.

You need a very aggressive off road tire even though you may not like it while while you're on the highway because you can't do the sand pit when you get there. You can do the highway on a knobby tire. It's just gonna make some noise and maybe you build be a little bouncy when you pull up to the stoplight. But you need to be prepared for the worst case scenario, and that's just that's just my advice when it comes to tire selection. Yeah.

And that's and that's that's pretty much right in line. You know, Robert just had in his, on his new channel, he had some comment he had some content that talked about tires, and I actually covered that in the podcast with him. But one of the things he says is that, like, he sets up his bike, his Tenere, and he puts, much more aggressive off road tires on it. And he's like, that's because I wanna spend my quality time there. I'll just take it easy on the road.

So I don't need to, you know, slide around and and, you know, take steep or sharp turns when I'm on the road. But I want to set the bike up so it performs when I'm in the environment where I really want to push the machine. Yeah, for sure. And I and I totally agree. So some of the people I got to ride with, it turns out I ended up switching with Vijay, and I ended up in group five, and he went back to group three, which is where we were supposed to both be in.

And I ended up riding with, like, the Twin Pegs group. So it was Zingvar, and, there was Daniel with Scandiflick and, Sven, who's been it was, like, super supportive and super kind. Like, when I was getting up at Sandy Hill, he came and helped me pick the bike up. You know, I think I dropped the bike four or five times this weekend, always in sand, deep sand. But sometimes you just get on the gas and just go for it and go, I'm just gonna keep going until I fall off.

I think that's the prescribed method. So, yeah, you're you're you're doing it the way you're supposed to do it. Yeah. So in the, thanks. In the, in the in the show notes, we have links to, the people who were doing videos.

So, we've got, Scandiflick, and then, there's some other ones that were in there as well. I think there's, at least three. And then, of course, there's I also wanna put a link in here to Twin Pegs because I did end up buying Twin Pegs for my bike, and I love them. That's awesome, man. And I'm also gonna put a few other videos in the show notes.

If people are listening from another part of the world and they wanna get more of a feeling of what SCU is, I found a few videos that can better illustrate that. So do you have any a d d Cannonball news you'd like to share? I do. I'd like to welcome number 39, Josh Skidmore, the most awesome rally name in the world. And he's from he's from Taylor, Utah.

And he's riding, the best bike at twelve fifty GSA. So welcome to the rally. I also wanna mention that we will be at the Touratech rally in Plain, Washington. You can see our obnoxious event display. If you show up, you will laugh when you see it, and it is pretty awesome, but it is obnoxious.

And I wanted to announce that we are in app development mode for the rally and for other rallies. So we have a the ADV cannonball is a checkpoint rally or a waypoint rally, and we couldn't find any apps for this type of rally. So we are in major app development right now. We just passed a, a milestone, so I feel confident announcing it. And so we'll make that available for the community, and we will obviously use it for our own rally.

Fantastic. Nice job on that. Yeah. It's a lot of work. It is a tremendous amount of work and, you know, a huge amount of money, but I think it will pay off in dividends, for ourselves and the community.

And I also want to mention that we're looking for some social media influencers that wanna do the ADV cannonball. So if anyone's out there who would like to get involved, please fire me an email. The email's in the show notes. And, we have two more things. There is shipping available from the rally.

If you need shipping for your motorcycle and you decide to fly home, there is some shipping available from the rally. And the very last thing is the music that you hear throughout this podcast is from Austin Vitz. Yeah. Before we roll the field notes, I just wanted to say that, look, my my intention, generally speaking, when I roll field notes is to get everyone's name in there. I usually ask names in advance, ask people if they wanna be on the podcast.

So, I didn't get everyone's name in here, after we put them together, but I will say that everyone's name is properly spelled in it in the in the actual, show notes. So if it's not properly spelled, please let us know, and I'll I'll sort that out immediately. Alright. Well, listen. We're all jealous that you went to another rally, and, we're not jealous that it was raining.

And, let's all cozy up to the campfire with Taylor and listen to the field notes from Scoop twenty twenty five. And on that, let's roll the field notes. 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 ADVcannonballball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. It's time for field notes. A collection of voice notes recorded on location while we're on wildly exciting motorcycle adventures hacked together for your amusement and our public shaming.

Alright. So here we are is good. We are on Saturday, beginning of the day, and I'm with Daniel Stern. And, yesterday when we rode out, I was in group five, as was Daniel. And, I really I really noticed that you were into this podcasting and that you had this amazing camera out, and you were taking pictures of us trying to get up this bloody sandy hill with, like, you know, a foot and a half of sand.

So, you know, 40 centimeters of sand, on a 20%, thirty % increasing grade. So, anyway, tell us what you're doing here and how many times you've done this goog and and, and what you're bringing to it. Yeah. That Sandy Hill was that was that was quite something, actually. I haven't been to school before, but, I've seen lots of YouTube material from from that Sandy Hill.

It's quite infamous. And one of the reasons actually I think why it's an attraction to a lot of people to come here to to get to try that Sandy Hill because you just see on YouTube people bunching up together. It's almost like a mini bit of Romaniacs where people bunch together and can't get up the hill. So that was actually that was the one thing I was looking forward to. I'm really happy we got to do it because it's it's not always that it's included in the ride here, I think.

But it's my first time here at Skok. I'm actually primarily here because I'm very good friends with twin pegs. And he invited me. He had an extra ticket. So I happily accepted the ticket.

Despite the weather forecast, like, it's been it's been a month where it's been really good weather. It's been sunny. It's been 25 degrees here, and it's been absolutely epic for Scandinavia in springtime. And then we get here on Thursday. The weather completely changes, and it goes from, like, 25 degrees.

And as we go further further north, it drops at five degrees, four degrees, three degrees. And we get here, and it's just, excuse my language, pissing down. And it's almost snowing. And then I I'm I'm sleeping in a hammock. It's like I just bought a hammock.

I was like, okay. I'm gonna sleep outside for the first time, and the weather is gonna be great. And I get here, and it's like two degrees. And I'm just like, oh, no. This is what what kind of crazy bad luck is this?

But, actually, for the ride yesterday, it was really good. We did a good ride. We were a lot of people, 10 people. And the tracks were muddy. There was no mud.

And most importantly, there was no dust. Dust. Yeah. Because that's the that's just a killer. If you're a big group and you're the that that back guy eating dust all day, that's terrible.

But, it's my first time in school. Really, really positively surprised about the tracks yesterday. I was a bit concerned that it was gonna be mainly flat gravel roads, but there was so much variation. We had all types of surface yesterday, and it was, it was an absolutely brilliant experience. So I saw you pull the camera out, and you got some you got a lot of coverage.

So you have a YouTube channel as I learned about when I one of the other guys was like, oh, I talked to Sven yesterday. And, Sven, just as an aside. So with the Twin Peaks, Sven let me we got to the gravel pit, to the sandpit, and he put me on his same bike, the Tenere, and I went out and I was like, I came back, I ran around with the twin pegs on it, and I said, is this really a Tenere? I couldn't believe that it was the same machine that I had been riding. I was like, what has he done to this thing?

He said, got twin pegs, and I got some shorter grips on there. It's the same machine. You also forgot to put put the, the the the what's it called? The ABS off, which doesn't really help you when you're riding off road. But, anyway, it's that makes a difference as well.

It's not only the twin pegs. Hitting the ABS off button is it's a good little pointer. Yeah. I guess the hard thing about, yeah, well spotted and and good point. You're like, did you press the ABS off?

And I was like, no. I got I got when I got on the, when I got on on Sven's bike, he reached out, oh, you know, I turned it on, and he reached over and turned the ABS off. And I was like, that's what's been going wrong for me all day long. I can't do power slides. I can't do any of this.

It just, you know, the bike won't stop. Yeah. So when you, how long have you had your YouTube channel? I well, basically, I'm a photographer. I do still photography.

That's my work. So I love photography, obviously. And about a year and a half ago, I went on a ride in Portugal. I was invited with Ingmar and Joannes. And Joannes is is Ingmar's kind of, nonbiological younger brother.

Ingmar takes care of everything for him, and they live very closely together. But Joannes is also a YouTuber, and I got in touch with him. And he invited me to go on this Portugal trip. And I've never done a YouTube video before. But, as we got back from the Portugal trip, which was, by the way, pretty amazing, I sat down with my GoPro footage, and I just started clipping it together to have sort of a little memory book for myself to edit it.

And and I was just like, hang on. This is this can actually work. When I add this up and I layer this together with some music and and trying to find these small stories within this, this could actually work for, like, a full length YouTube film. So I just went with it, and I just sat down for days and editing. And it kept days.

It kept longer and longer. And suddenly, I was like, okay. This could actually work. So I decided, fuck it. I'm I'm it's I'm I'm gonna try and and and put it on YouTube, see what happens.

And my reason for it was basically just to have this memory for for for my rides that I do. And if anybody likes to see it, then it's just just a positive thing. So I'm doing YouTube in that sense that I don't wanna be a YouTuber. I don't wanna test out gear. I don't wanna be promoting all kinds of stuff.

Of course, if there's gear and equipment I love, I would happily use it, and speak well about it. But for me, it's about documenting the rides and the the adventures that we kind of go on. And that's always gonna be the key element for the Scandiflick, YouTube channel. It's not gonna be click baity, trying to get a lot of subscribers and make this a living. I have a perfectly well, photography business that I'm very happy with as my day job, and I'm I have no intentions of of going YouTube full time.

So that's basically how it started. And and it's been that was I think my first film was right before Christmas, New Year's, like, the year before, last one. So it's been a little year and a half. Haven't done too many videos, but, all the videos that is that is basically there is is is from amazing adventures that that that that we do together in our groups and and also by myself. So that's mainly that's the main focus of it, to try and and and document the the adventures that I have with it.

And and, hopefully, some people would get inspired to to go on a ride themself and and experience the same things. So that's the motivation for it, and that's that's basically the gist of the Scandiflick. So Scandiflick, how do you how do you spell that? Well, it's it's it's the term Scandiflick is, I picked it up from Top Gear once, actually. They had a they had a full episode, a long film they had called the Scandiflick, where they ride through Finland and Sweden, I think.

It it it kinda stems from all the rally drivers from Finland and Sweden back in the nineties. And that's where the term comes from. And Scandiflick is basically when you pull a handbrake, turn into a turn, and then accelerate really quickly out of it. So that slipping and sliding of the tail is is a Scandi flick. It's it's s c a n d I, Scandi as in with the with the English spelling.

And then flick for, like, Netflix or f l I c k. Yeah. That was kind of, I was kinda I like the play with words that is motorcycles and it's very famous term for motorcycle mountain biking and rallying doing a scandi flick. And then the Netflix, like, this is a flick. It was it was kind of a a a two tone Two tone play.

Yeah. Two tone play on it. It kinda worked. And, and, yeah, it was, like, it's it's good fun. It's a good little side hobby.

I kind of I got to a point in my life where I needed something that was more me, playful, finding that inner kid within yourself. I'm a dad of two kids. I'm gonna be 40 in three weeks. And I just one day, I decided this is my life. It's about running my business, which is, of course, still my hobby, but it it's still a job.

It's still a really fucking hard job when you're when you're self employed and you have to make sure you can can make a living for your kids and paying for an apartment in Copenhagen and your car and everything else you need here in life. And you get so focused on those roles being a dad or being being a business owner and being a husband. And and I I was at a point in my life where I need something for myself. So I I got a motorcycle license three years ago almost, bought a bike the day after I got the license and picked up the adventures. And, yeah, it's it's it's it's the best thing I've done for myself in many, many years.

So so yeah. Yeah. Well stated. Everyone has to have something for themselves to make it, like, when you have kids, you recognize that you realize why you get up and do it every day. At the same time, you you need to recognize along the way that you've gotta do something that that fulfills you as well.

So, I'm excited to say that we've got another day of riding together, and, I I would say that if you, if you see me turn that bike on and forget the ABS, I'd really I'll make sure I'll make sure to remind you a few times today. I'll just, I'll I'll just look because you don't we're we're not on the corridors together, but I'll just look at you and go, like, thumbs up or thumbs down. Did you did you remember? ABSR? Fantastic.

I'll take that. I'll take that. Got some sunshine today. That's gonna be amazing. I mean, conditions were good.

Yesterday, we had some light drizzles, but we also had tiny bits of sunshine. Today is gonna be cold, and I don't think we're gonna getting any dust because it's still quite wet from all the days of raining. But, yeah, sunshine, bit warmer temperatures. It's gonna be I think it's gonna be a great ride today. And I'm hopefully, we're gonna hit the the training course after just to go a few rounds through the sand, maybe try some of the hills together.

Let's, let's go check that out. Yeah. That sounds like a fun idea. I'm I'm still a bit, skeptical about taking the AJP up that, Monster Hill. Nobody should do that unless I mean, you need you need, first of all, really good commitment.

Because at the end of the day, it's not gonna be much more than commitment. But just that first little swoop, you have to lift the front a little bit so you don't smash right into the hill. I wouldn't do it for for I would never try that on. It was like, whoo. I when I first saw my friend, Rasmus, was going up on it, the first day we got here, I was like, this guy is made of something different because I do not have the guts to go up that one.

I'll take that as a cue not to do it as well. So, yeah, we have a series called, a a segment within this podcast called everyday adventure rider, and I think I fall into that category. Well, it's a good category. I mean, riding motorcycles doesn't have to be doesn't have to be you pushing the limit on every ride you go. It's such enjoyment just being on the bike.

And and and if you find whatever challenge that fits your riding skills and improve a little bit every time you go out, that's just it doesn't have to be you don't have to be that guy that goes up the hill. It it takes years and years of practice to to get to that level. And it's a lot of fun seeing it and doing it and dreaming of maybe I can do it one day if I get a little bit better, if I practice and and use it as motivation for for getting better on every ride you do. And and, yeah, that's all that's all you need to have fun, basically. Yeah.

Yeah. Good point. So thank you very much for taking the time, and, I look forward to one more day. So thanks very much for taking the time to be on Adventure Cannonball podcast. It was my pleasure.

Thank you very much for inviting me. All I'm looking forward to our ride together today. Alright. So here I am at Scoog. It's about 10:00 on Saturday morning, and we are about to bust out on our in our groups, our 11 groups, and go riding.

And I'm here with Rasmus. Lillemose. Lillemose. Yeah. Okay.

Fantastic. And, one of the things I thought was really interesting about your background is that you actually are with an organization that is firemen riding motorcycles? That is correct. Yeah. Yeah.

We ride with a group called the Ret Knights. We're approximately 10,000 members worldwide, firefighters and firefighters' families trying to work with the community about about being a firefighter and and the the riding bikes. Yeah. No. That's fantastic.

How long have you been involved in that? I've been involved for about five years, at this moment. Yeah. So what what what got you into that other than being a fireman? And riding a bike.

Well, I, I tumbled, I tumbled upon, looking for other firefighters riding bikes, and I found this international organization. I thought that would be a great part of, to be a part of. And, yeah, I just, I called up the the guy in Denmark that was in charge at the moment and said, so do you drink coffee? I drink coffee, and we started like that. Went for a ride, and I've been a part of it ever ever since.

So in your do you have organized rides? Obviously, you're here and you're doing, first aid and you're you're bringing a lot of value to what's happening here. You're part of the staff. Beyond that, in the fireman's riding aspect, is there something else that you do for the community? Yeah.

So what we do is we we join other rider groups and talk about riding safety and and how to take care of yourself, your bike, and and each other on the ride. Other than that, we do some charity. In two weeks from now, we're actually have a big international, event. We we have a big international event, where we have, I think, 70, riders, firefighters from all over the world coming, and we're doing some, some charity. We're collecting money for the, for the group, for research in cancer in firefighters.

So, that's what we do right now. Yeah. That's fantastic. I imagine that the smoke inhalation, is that something that actually is something that would, make it more susceptible to firemen to be having cancer? Yeah.

Absolutely. The the smoke is very, very poisonous. Also, even if you get it on the on your skin. So, skin cancer, there's several several, different kinds of cancer that are connected with being a firefighter today. So So smoke divers is actually a dangerous job in more ways than one?

Yes. Yes. It is. Very. Fantastic.

How many years have you been part of Skoog? This is my second year. I was called up, before last year and said, hey. Do you wanna join? And and I was in, and I was just I was sold.

So here I am, and I'll be here next year again. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate what you what you bring to this. Every time I walk by, you're smiling.

You're happy. It's fun. It's always nice to say hello, and I really appreciate everyone for doing this in English. It's it's wonderful, and everybody here is great. And it's great been been great meeting you too.

So, have a good ride today, and be safe. Thank you very much. We'll see you on the when we get back. Absolutely. Alright.

Here we are. Initially initially, I wanted to begin this segment with the man who came the furthest. Glasgow, is it? Yes. Glasgow.

So, here I have with me Ben Langmead, and, welcome to Adventure Canada Mall podcast. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. So tell me about your journey here. How long did it take you, and what hours did you take to get here?

I got the ferry at 05:30 from Newcastle in England. So it was about a three and a half hour ride from Glasgow to Newcastle. Hopped on the ferry over. And then from Amsterdam, I went up through past Groningen in The Netherlands over to Bremen, I think, in Germany, and then up through Denmark and Sweden. My first time in all of those countries.

The intention was to take the nice scenic route and stay off the motorways, but needs must. And an eleven hour journey turned into a five hour journey. But it was, it was probably about two days all in all. And did you camp along the way? No.

No. I didn't. I just I I booked somewhere in Germany just because it's the first time I've done a journey of this length and the first time I've traveled or ridden a motorcycle in Europe, and I just wanted to make sure that I had somewhere to stay that was gonna be warm and comfortable. I didn't know what the weather was going to be doing at the time. So I thought I'm gonna be camping for three or four days in Sweden.

I might as well have a bit of comfort on the way in, and I'll be having a bit of comfort on the way back as well. Yeah. Because I can say that, you know, a lot of people actually didn't come to this event because, I mean, people got drove through snow to get here. And what's crazy is that the three days prior to this so this is, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in this whole region, it was, like, 20 degrees warmer.

Yeah. Yeah. It was 25 degrees of sunny when I left Glasgow, which makes it so much worse when you get here, and it was beautiful. I mean, coming up through Germany, it was 25 degrees and sunny. Just glorious.

And then as soon as I crossed over the river the straits between Sweden Denmark and Sweden, it was hammering down with rain in Sweden. The following morning, it was sleeting and snowing and raining. It was just miserable conditions. But coming from that heat to this cold just makes it so much more noticeable. So as I said, I wanted to, introduce you initially, Ben, as the man who traveled the furthest.

But here we are after ride day two, which is Saturday, and I think there's a different segment that we're gonna put you in, and it's called Crash Kart Chronicles. Yes. Yes. It's been a fun couple of days. Yesterday, I went down in the sand at very low speed.

That was manageable. You know, I just basically stepped off the bike, and I got some nice battle scars. Today was not as much fun. I went down quite hard in the, in the mud in a forest on a single track. It took three people to manhandle the bike.

I've got a Tenere World Raid, so quite a big heavy bike. Took three people to manhandle the bike out. I've bent my brake lever. I've cracked the bodywork. The bodywork, I don't mind.

That's a battle scar. That's patina, as some people call it, but the brake lever is a problem. So, you know, I'll just find a wrench and bend it back into shape later on. But, yeah, confidence took a knock today. Yeah.

Well, there's a bar right behind us, and maybe we could put that confidence right back in, maybe. Yeah. I probably won't ride the bike after that. Yeah. Probably not a good idea.

So, yeah, it's been a, it's been an amazing couple of days here, and, yeah, it's been fantastic out in the trails. They've had us on about a about a hundred kilometers, so about sixty, sixty five miles a day. And they've had us moving all around all kinds of terrain. I'd have to say primarily forest. Yes.

It's I mean, Scandinavia is just the most amazing country what I've seen of it, but we've done hard gravel into sand in through forest, and it's just changes every turn you go around. It seems to be different terrain, but it's fantastic. So yesterday was a marvelous day. Got my confidence up, and I was feeling great, and speed was going up. And then today, I gave it all back.

But, no, it's it's just the most beautiful country. So you made an interesting comment about why it why it all went, south for you today. Yeah. And that'll mean the direction of travel. I mean so what were the two things that you just mentioned to me a moment ago?

What's your great key concepts or riding? Target fixation. It was I I wasn't in a great frame of mind, and I was hitting mud, which I hadn't ridden on yet this week. And I started to look at the ground, and I thought don't hit that. Then I looked at a tree, and I thought don't hit that.

I looked at about three rocks, and I thought don't hit them. And I managed like a pinball machine to hit almost all of them at the same time. Did you, do you think it's because you had too much breakfast? I didn't have any breakfast. I think that's the problem.

I slept in late because my back was hurting, and my sleeping pad was deflating in the night. And, oh, no. It was it was just these things never start off with that one incident. This started off sometime last night in the first deflation. Yeah.

That's usually how it goes. It's never one thing. It's not like the incident. It's a series of things that that leads to that. Yep.

But, anyway, I just wanna say thanks very much for being on adventure cannonball podcast, and welcome for the man who came the furthest. Thank you very much, Taylor. I appreciate it. Alright. So here we are at Scoob, and I am sitting with Ingvar in the twin pegs tent.

And, good morning, and welcome to Adventure Kennamal podcast. Good morning. Nice to be here. In a couple of words, in a couple of sentences, can you tell us what Twin Pegs can do for a rider? Yeah.

So twin pegs is a new concept for, when you stand up and ride. You get an extra peg in the back of your foot to give you more stability when you stand up and more control of the bike. It's much easier to put, the weight back on the bike, and you have more control. You start to use, more of your thigh muscles because you have support on the back instead of just the cuff. And you can also adjust the height of the back peg.

So if you like to drop your heel a little bit, you can also adjust them so you can still can do that. But, basically, it means that you can stand better, and for a longer time without getting worn out. You also have better control of the bike, and it's much more easy to ride, for example, in sand, like you experienced yesterday. Yeah. Sven let me run his, so I'm running a a t seven, and I got on his center, a 700 as well with the twin pegs on it.

And I went through a sandpit now granted he's got really good tires on his compared to what I had online, but I rode it with the twin pegs. And I have to say it was like riding an entirely, I was like, I got off, I said, is this really a T seven? And the answer was, yes, that's a T seven. So it was an amazing experience in, in driving through the sand, you just dropped your weight into the back pegs and then it just powers through. It was amazing.

Yeah. So and that's that's the, thing, when people see it online, and they think why I don't need this. It's, why why would you want to have this? But that's why we're around at the different events because people need to to test it out and try it and feel it. And, ninety five percent of the people that are skeptical when they try it and feel it, they come back and say, wow.

This is just, amazing. Yeah. I'm one of the converted. So, Invar, thank you very much for taking the time. Before we finish.

I want to say when people want to learn more about Twain, twin pegs, where can they go to learn about it? It's, mainly the twinpegs.mo site. We have all the information there and videos and stuff. And also follow us on, Instagram and, Facebook. Alright.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. We are sitting here at Scoob.

And, when you guys got in last night, you had just come in from Sheppenham? Yes. Exactly. How long was your ride? It was very long.

Around six hours? Seven. Seven. We started at one and arrived at eight. But we took the ferry, so that is, like, twenty minutes on the ferry.

Okay. That ferry is quite nice, though. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

In warm. Yeah. Coffee. Yes. Okay.

So, what bikes did you ride here? I rode the Kalex two fifty in wind and rain. So, yeah, that was an interesting experience. Pain literally and metaphorically. So tell me how big is the windshield on that bike?

There's no windshield. I am the windshield. Yeah. And, when I saw the bike, I mean, it looks like you're just, you're set to go climb hill, Sandy Hills because you're all knobbied up. I was like, you just rode that thing that far on the highway.

I was pretty impressed by that. Nice one. I was also impressed by myself. Thank you. Fantastic.

Alright. Tell me about you, AC. Yes. I ride a Kawasaki versus, x 300. Yep.

Which is like a two cylinder but, 300 cc. Okay. So quite quite small, but it actually is really nice because you can ride both, like, it is very light. So it's okay for off road, and you can still ride it on highway. I can do a 30 on highways, actually.

That's respectable. And I do have a big windshield. So it was a luxury variation here. And your windshield is the name, Usina? No.

I was riding it front just to take the wind from her. She was riding behind me, like behind a big truck, you know, how riders do it. Like drafting you. Right. So, what was one of the things that we talk about on the podcast is that there's, there's a lot of men in this game.

And if you look around, there's not a lot of women, but women really bring a different, a different element to it. There's a lot of in the, in the interviews that I've had today, there's a lot of elements about people taking more, risk assessment. You know, that's why most accidents are had by men. So, anyway, what I'd like to tell, I'd like to ask you individually is what was your what got you into this? What what was your first thing?

And you were like, I've ridden the motorcycle for the first time and I wanna have more of that. What was that aspect and how long ago did that happen for you? Oh, that's a good question. I think it was always in my family. And then, yeah, I was like, reading the books, seeing the movies.

And, it was somewhere in the back of my head that it would be super nice, but I never thought that, yeah, I will go for it. But then, actually, AC said that she gonna take her license, and she asked if I want, yeah, also do that. And I was like, yes. Actually, I would like to do that. So then it was like, yeah, kind of a community in a way.

Like, yeah, friends also riding. So, it was, yeah, a social aspect, but also, yeah, just a dream that was somewhere here behind in the back of their heads. Nice. So are you riding your machine or is this It's, yeah. My friend landed to me for this event because my machine, my tractor as I was calling it, it got stolen just before Easter.

Wow. Yes. Really? So what was what was your machine? The machine that I was riding, it was the Yamaha XT six sixty Z.

It was like the older Tenere, like the single cylinder. I got it last year just before the Skog. So, the first Skog that I was riding it was with that machine. Mhmm. And, it was like the first adventure bike, of mine as well.

So, it just opened up the whole new world. Right. So you've done you've done Scoob twice now? Yes. Okay.

Okay. Okay. AC, what about you? Yes. Kind of similar story.

So, my uncle had a motorbike when I was really young. I think I was, like, five or six, when he took me on the back of his bike. I don't know. I don't think that's legal, but, let's just say that it is. I mean, I didn't say which country.

Right? No way he took me. And I think I really liked it when I was young. And then, yeah, you see a lot of movies, you see a lot of, like, stories about people riding motorbikes, mostly men, at least at that point. But I always liked it.

And then I always had it in the back of my mind as well that I wanted to do the license. And then, yeah, we had, like, friends. And, at that point, my back then boyfriend had a motorbike and I was like, okay, he has a motorbike. I just started working. So So I started saving money.

So now I can afford to have a bike and a license. I was like, okay, this is a point where I'm like, gonna go for the license. And then, yeah, you're seeing and also some other friends made the license as well. So we were riding a lot together. The motorbiking states, the boyfriend didn't.

Well, you know, you kept the quality aspect of it. That's good. Yeah. No. And then, I was riding road for a while, but always, like, far.

So I did, like, I did the license and the very first thing I or the where one of the first trips I did was actually riding to a rock festival in Belgium. I booked the rock festival in Belgium and bought the bike before I had the license. And I was like, I will manage the license before we go. And I managed the license, and then I drove, I think, a 200 kilometers or something like this, after I have had the license for, like, three weeks, maybe. So, like, one of your first trips out the door was a that's a monster trip.

Fantastic. Yes. Talk about motivation. To a rock festival. So we've had pretty cool.

There's a picture of us. So it was a rock festival in the background. Very nice. I like that. So if you could, if you could say to other listeners, mainly in The US and in Canada, who are potentially women, who are potentially looking at this and going, it's kind of a boys' game, but I'd like to be into this.

What would you say as a way to say you should get into this because it's fun? What would be your advice to them? We'll start with you, Justine. Yes. I I would just say just go for it.

Just to have the confidence because I know it's not easy, but, just go for it. And, yeah. And I know it can be hard, because sometimes, yeah, maybe you can feel a bit judged, or, like, not good enough and that everybody is so much stronger. And, yeah, physically, yeah, probably, yeah. Many men are stronger and it's easier for them to handle their motorbikes.

But, yeah, it's also about, like, the motivation and, yeah. Just go for it. So there's basically there's nothing that a man can do that you can't, and you've proven that. Exactly. Yes.

And especially, if you have the right bike for yourself, I think that was proved today, actually. Last year, I was doing it on Yamaha at an era that said like the roots and that sandy hill that everybody's talking about yeah it was much harder today I mean it was a walk in the park with the Kia likes two fifty. Yeah. I have it doing the, doing that trip today on my tenoray with street tires. They were like they were like, everybody get the cameras out.

Let's watch Taylor. Wow. Fantastic. We do the same. Like, oh, this guy has three tires and a very heavy bike.

Good luck. Yeah. So how so it was a, it was a, it was a breeze for you to get up the hill today compared to your tenoray that you took last year, but maybe it's best someone liberated you from that. Save you the hassle of having to force that hill today. How about you?

How'd your ride get today? Am I right today? Did you take that did you take your bike up the hill today? Yeah. I did.

Okay. It was the second time trying on this bike. Last year, I learned to do it in second gear. This year, I learned, yes. You have to stand up even if it feels a bit scary, but it's actually not that bad once you do it.

It's just, the moment of realization that you need to do it, that you have to do it. But it went alright. I did put it down in the very beginning just for, like, trying, apparently. And then, I actually, I mean, I had help to get up there because, it's it is still tough with my bike. But I managed to go up, so that was pretty cool.

Fantastic. So the question about what would you what advice would you give other women Yeah. To get into this sport? Yeah. I think for me, I think men make motorbiking look more complicated than it really is.

They're always like, oh, yeah. And it's so tough and the, machines are so powerful and, you know, like, it's just a man thing. Like, I'm sorry. I I am I allowed to swear? Say whatever you want.

Fuck off. Seriously. Like, it's not that hard. I'm sorry. They it's like it's, like, just made to look hard, but it's not that hard if you're like, It's exactly what Justyna says.

You have to, like, find the right bike and, like, what we also learned, my, girlfriend is doing her license right now, in Copenhagen. Justyna did her license in Copenhagen. And we had a bit of a bad experience with a teacher from Justina who was a bit like, not really believing in women. So this time we went on Facebook. We found a group which is called women riding in Copenhagen or women motorcyclists in Copenhagen.

We asked, hey, do you have a good school? And they suggested a school and we found the Swedish teacher who is, like, really, really good and, like, half of the group is female because everybody, of course, gets this tip. And, I think he's branding himself as, hey, I can get you through it. And she has the best experience in her, license. So I think it's also a lot about doing some research, find out, okay, what what bikes do other girls ride that are like your size?

Which teachers do they use? Because it is actually not that hard. You just need to have the right people and the right, motorbikes. So this is my tip. Like, don't be scared.

Just make your research and you will find the right situation for you. And then it's actually not that hard. Yeah. Great tips from both of you. Go for it and make sure you, you, you, you size yourself accordingly and get good instruction.

And don't listen to the guys. And don't listen. We all fail. Come on. And, I'm happy that I didn't buy my motorbike, before getting the license because for me it took a little bit longer.

So don't give up. But it was also corona though. Yeah. But third time was the luck time. Yeah.

Also not a great teacher. Yeah. The teacher makes it a lot. If you want to do the license. Yeah.

A huge part of that. So, one of the, we have a tradition on the podcast and, we say don't be a ADV weenie. Be an ADV badass. And I would say that considering the fact where you guys came from and your come from, actually, about motorcycling and the fact that you should just get out there and do it, size yourself accordingly, and get instruction, I'd say that qualifies you both. So thank you very much for the bod being on the podcast, and I will hand you these stickers now.

The ADV, only 100 imprint in the world. Oh, okay. ADV badass stickers. So thank you very much for being on the podcast. Yes.

You're welcome. Thank you for letting us be on the podcast. Yeah. So they say, every now and then, a blind hog finds a walnut. And I think that what I'm about to share is one of those little gems.

So if you're out and you're camping in the wild and your boots, especially waterproof boots because their moisture doesn't come out of them, if you if they're wet at the end of the day riding, which likely they will be, take some hand warmers and fire them off, shake them up, and throw these little hand warmer packages in your boots as you go to sleep at night and you'll wake up with dry boots. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for taking a a moment to, to chat with us. So when we first came in here to Scoob yesterday god. What day was that?

The May 22. I think we had just passed some snow getting here. A little bit chillier than we had expected. And you were kind enough to help us set up our tent, shall I say. But you guys had already gotten here.

When did you get here, and where'd you come in from? So we got here already, the day before you guys on now Wednesday evening in a car, in a van with the bikes in the back, drove from, just outside of Copenhagen in Denmark. So just to drive in the car too easy, four and a half hours. Very nice. In hindsight, I know that my buddy, Vijay, I was like, Vijay, let's get a trailer, put them on, put the, the crook on the the, hook on the back of the car, and then we'll drive.

And he goes, Taylor, we should drive down. Now I'm thinking that you pick the smarter option. So, what are you riding? And, actually, I was really so I was I was really pleasantly surprised. When we started talking, you said, I came here as a as a guide.

Yeah. Tell us about what I got there. Tell us about that. So so the guide is, the the rides that are on this event, is with groups, of approximately 10 riders in each group. And each group has got a guide that leads the ride, so knows where to go.

It's got the GPS track, and obviously has to lead the way. And in the back, there's a sweeper as well, to make sure that everybody gets through. So that's what I do here. So I'm a guide on one of the groups. Is this your first time being a guide?

This is actually my third time on this event here at school. Okay. Very cool. So have you been, so if you're the third time as a guy, you must've been here more than three times to school. No.

I actually haven't. I was invited as a guide for the first time, from a friend that was a part of the organization back then. Oh, fantastic. So, how do you get to be invited as a guide? You must have some a lot of background and on riding the machines that you're riding.

So tell me what you're riding and what your background is on on riding these bikes. Yeah. So what I'm riding here at this event is my, beloved Honda XR six fifty r, which I've had for eight years. And that's the one that's been to Skorp for three times. Otherwise, that I've got a KTM six forty adventure.

Nice. And, I've got a, I just bought another Honda XR 400 as well. And then I've got a Honda CRF two fifty x. So is it sounding a bit like an addiction? It is.

It really is. Yeah. So I don't have kids, but I've got bikes. Fantastic. How long have you been riding?

I've been riding since 02/2001. That's when I took my license. So I was at 52 now. So I was, what what was I back then? Younger.

Younger. Yeah. Yeah. But but pretty I mean, I didn't start writing when I was 18. So so pretty late, obviously.

When I started writing, I wasn't sure what to do about what it was gonna be. Right? But obviously I've sort of gone that way. And that's what I do when I don't go to work now. So, we usually keep work out of this, but your work doesn't pertain to motorcycles, does it?

No, it doesn't. No, no, not at all. Yeah. Most people, this is a place they can come and get away. And they're like, yeah, I met a guy last night.

He's like, yeah, I'm a bond trader. And this is how I, how I blow off steam when the bond market is not doing well. Yeah. No. For me, it's I mean, I like my job, but, this is my passion kind of thing.

So that's what I do. That's what I do for holidays and stuff like that. That's going on a motorbike. Fantastic. So a lot of people that I've spoken to from Denmark have said that the riding in Sweden is quite different and there's more off road.

Well, off road riding is illegal and technically in Sweden, but there's a lot of gravel. It's like there's 250,000 kilometers of gravel roads in Sweden. Yeah. In, in Denmark, we would call riding in Sweden on the gravel roads and the forest roads. We call that off road riding being Danes because we don't have gravel roads.

We do have in places in Denmark, but not where I live. So it's either, you know, going to Sweden or going on a holiday, where you can find some off road, you know, loose surface thing. So today when we were out riding, we so we I think there's ten ten groups. Are there total? 11 groups.

And there's roughly how many in each group? Eight to 10 people. So at one point, you passed me with your group. You kindly asked us to move our machines off of the single track so you could get your team by. And we were all waiting to do this sandy hill climb.

Have you spent time on that hill? No. I haven't. It was actually last year, it was a part of the track, whereas this year, it was sort of a a loop you could do. And it last year, it was chaos.

We waited an hour just to get onto that hill and, you know, looking at another hour, so we actually bypassed it. Same for this year, sorta. So I still got that one to do. Having been the last bike up today with, I think I have Michelin Anakee. Like, the they're like they say they're '80 twenties, but I think they're more like '99 ones.

And so I pretty much had street tires going up there. It was the last bike up. It was super loose, and I'd have to say that, you know, it's you need knobbies. You need knobbies and a lot of patients to get up there, but I didn't, I didn't manage to do it all in one go. I needed some help to get that, to get the tannery up the hill today.

But, but a fun challenge that you went up there again. Yeah. I mean, I don't like sand really. I'm improving. It, it doesn't freak me out as much as it used to, but I still need to be able to hold that throttle and just keep going.

But my brain kind of goes, nah, don't do that. Stop. Yeah. The the scary bit about gravel, I mean, about, well, a loose gravel for one, that's super scary. So you gotta get the weight back and then get on the gas.

But, you know, there's this crazy thing about getting on the gas. At some point, you need to slow the machine down, and that's the scary bit. Yeah. Yeah. And and the weird thing is everybody keeps saying, you know, which is true that you need you need to be on the gas.

You need to get some speed up. But my brain kind of goes, yeah. Yeah. Speed is good. But the the faster you go when you crash, the more it hurts kind of a and and I know theoretically that's not how it works, but but that's what the brain kind of told me.

Yeah. Yeah. And the, today, the the guys and I were were chatting at the break, and they're like, yeah. These loose gravel, that's really interesting. And the sand as well, and they were comparing it.

And they're like, they all came to the same conclusion that, yes, it it's not fun to crash, but gravel hurts a lot more. I've actually never never thought about that. Yeah. Sand's much more forgiving. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I haven't thought about that. And don't put it into my brain. Thank you.

Just take that away. Take that away. It's done. Sorry about that. So one of the things that when you when you first came up, you're super helpful.

And, I love to see women at these events because so often when we talk about this, I think I don't know. I think the majority of the people we have listening to the podcast, most of the people who listen are in America and in Canada. And I don't know how many women are involved in that. But every time I see a woman who is involved in this and who has a passion for it, as do you, I wanna find out, like, what was the first thing that made you say? First of all, well, we wanna have more women in this in this sport.

And, what was the first thing two questions. What What was the first thing that made you go, I've gotta do that? Like, your first bike, your first experience that made you say, I need more of that. Yeah. It's, so obviously, I took the license just to I have two older brothers, and when we were about 18, 20, they had bikes for a few years, and I was kinda, oh, that's that looks really interesting.

And then time went on. And, eventually when I got the license, I was kind of, this is cool. And I just had my first bike was a Honda CX 500, just a plain road bike, really cozy. And and I, I sort of started, okay, I'll I'll go for a weekend ride. I'll go to Sweden.

And and I was kind of looking down the side road gravel, and I was kind of, it's gotta be something down there. And I have no idea where it comes from because there's no one in my family. I knew no one else riding bikes back then. So it was just something inside me that went, oh, and and this thing about going, you know, with a tent and outdoor, and I've done that, but not on a bike. So it was just something growing inside of me and going into the desert, going deserted places and stuff like that.

So I sold that one and bought a, BMW R 80 GS. That was the first bike with a knobby, mainly because my brother was kind of, oh, then you need an R 80 GS. And I was kind of, oh, alright. I'll get one of those, he said. And then it's just progressed from there.

Very nice. It's it's, it usually starts as you see something, but, you know, that comes from within you. Right? There's something within you. Like, you're like, I don't know where it came from, but there it is.

And it's really nice that you're able to follow your your desires and follow your hobbies. And, also, here you are sitting next to this Honda six fifty r, and, and you're out there crushing it. So I think that's really nice to see. It is. And and I actually feel quite privileged to, you know, to be able to do that, to to ride what I do, to ride that bike as well, and, actually, also to go the places I ride and do it by myself as well.

I I ride quite a lot by myself. And I feel I feel really privileged to be able to do that in, you know, sort of the way I am because I know it's it's not everybody that says, oh, I just wanna go riding for a month or two by myself. So it's, I appreciate it, really. It's it is. It's nice to be able to and, also, it's the appreciation of that and the respect for it, which is I don't see any prosthetic limbs.

So I think you've managed to keep your bike up for, have you had any major spills when you've been traveling by yourself? No. Not by myself. And I'm I ride when I'm by myself, I ride pretty defensively knowing that I'll be the one to sort out any mishaps. And I know I'm not the strongest being female.

I know that I've only had a a limited number of times a day that I can pick up the bike, for example. So so I know but I sort of need to plan plan for that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So not any major hips hips.

Only I've I've been in the Outback Of Australia once with a broken rear damper. But things, they just it it sorts itself out. You meet people and then, you know, as long as you don't get hurt, it's a part of the adventure even though it's annoying. Yeah. It is.

If I'm thinking about the, the opening line of Ted Simon's book, Jupiter travels. And, he's he's he's run out of fuel. He's in India, and he's waiting. And he says he's like and this is just how the the new unexpected adventure begins. And, it's a common thread.

In in the interviews that we've done, Sam Manicom, some a lot of these people that we've spoken to, Charlie Borman, these people, the common thread throughout all of them is one is that the motorcycle is a way to access people, to access a culture. And, the other common thread is that, it's an opportunity to to share and to give back and to a friend in need is a friend indeed, and then people are always there to, to sort you out. And then you have a whole different relationship, and and then your adventure's in a different direction. So it sounds like you had the same path there. Yeah.

Yeah. And and that's I think that's a part of that's one way to travel that you don't plan too much, you know, because you you pick up things along the way, like suggestions where to go or, once in Australia, up on the West Coast, I met this family at a caravan park, and he was kind of, oh, hang on. If you're gonna go through the middle, my brother, he manages a farm in there. And that was, you know, six weeks later, I passed that place. And it's sort of, you know, if if if I hadn't met him, I might not have gone that way or, you know, stayed stayed that place.

So you stay there? Well, I did, but they weren't at home. And it it was quite funny. So I went into the farm. There was nobody home.

And, there were two dogs around, so I was kind of they can't be that far away. And, you know, it looked really inhabited, sort of. And I waited a couple of hours, and it got into the afternoon. And I was kind of, it doesn't make sense to leave because then I'll just go 50 kilometers up the road and and, you know, camp somewhere. So I put a note on the door saying, it's me.

I met your brother. It's me in the tent in your, you know, at the driveway. And I went to bed, slept the night. And in the morning, I got up, changed the note saying, it's me. I met your brother.

I stayed the night. Thank you. And I left. And I don't know. You know, they might have gone grocery shopping or something.

That's pretty funny. I was just as you were telling that story, I was thinking about Little Red Riding Hood. I was like, can you break it and have some parge and try the beds? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was the two dogs, they were really funny, and they it was an old dog, just wanna be scratched, you know, and a young younger dog that was just all over the place. And they so I went, you know, just for a short walk around the place and just to spend the time while waiting. And they just followed me everywhere I went.

And when I pitched a tent and got into the tent, they would stay outside and even lie up against the tent. It was really nice. It was just this special until, you know, during the night, one of them got up, went around the tent and peed on the tent. But that's that's not a Up until the up until Heath, you were soiled. Yeah.

But it's it and it's it's sort of, you know, intruding in a a foreign place, sort of. But I was kind of I could leave as well, but this is a part of and I I was invited, sort of, and I didn't break anything. So I was kind of I'll just stay here and hope if they come home, I hope they are friendly people. Yeah. If if they were anything like their brother, then they probably were.

So he's like, yeah. But it's it's experiences like that. And had you been in a car, do you think that would have happened? No. No.

I think that's the bike thing. And, I would say being female by yourself on a bike, you you I think people are they see you are a bit more vulnerable, and they wanna look out for you. Not in a, not in a bad way or a you can't handle it. Let me help you. But just there is just something I feel that people, they sort of, are you okay?

You know? Is there anything we can do? Yeah. And I I mean, I haven't tried the other option being a guy, but but, but I think in a way so it it's a tiny bit easier to travel being a female being a female in that sense. It's interesting you mentioned that.

As as I said, about a month maybe it's two months, two and a half months now. And when I was in London, then I interviewed Elspeth, who actually is here as a guest speaker tomorrow night, which is super fun. She talked about in her book, she wrote about that, and she wrote about being a a woman. And at one point, she cut her hair back, and she said most of the time, she said when she had her helmet on, people didn't know that she was a woman until she took her helmet off. Then there was then then there was a hugely different experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I've, you know, I've pulled up at a, rest area and, I could hear the people near the car talking. Oh, there's a bike and whatever.

And when I took the helmet off, it was just, oh, it's a woman. And you hear they hear him say that. Yeah. And, it's okay because, you know, statistically, they would expect a guy. And the bikes that I ride, they they do look a bit rough.

And so, you know, they're not purple or anything or pink. But but so that is what people expect. I actually today on the group, Ryan, today, we met a pretty annoyed Swedish guy. When we got there, there was the tail of the group in front of us. So two from that group was talking to the that guy, and he was really annoyed.

That was my group. That was your group. But you so you would have been ahead. He was annoyed because he was he felt that people were going too fast past his property. And, so we arrived, I arrived as the first one from my group.

And so we just sat and waited while they talked to the guy and actually on, not on purpose, but I took my helmet off just to because sometimes it can sort of calm people down a bit being a female. So I deliberately, I wasn't gonna take part of the conversation, but I knew, okay, maybe that can help a bit deescalate. Yeah. And yet I don't know. It didn't escalate from there.

And I think they've spent talking, spent some time talking at that point already. Yeah. I, when they came back into our group and I said, what's going on? They said, well, this guy is gonna go out there and barricade the car. And, you know, he's a farmer, which means of course he has guns.

And there was all this conversation. And then I said, well, what was what's the problem? I mean, there's gonna be a bunch of bikes riding by here. And they said, I think one of the guys in my group said, well, there were skid marks. So someone apparently was going extremely fast.

And I went, ah, that could probably do it. So I do have, I have one final question for you. And as and it was a nice segue here from your comment, being a woman. And what would you say to other women who are potentially interested in motorcycles or interested in this aspect of it, the adventure aspect of it, but haven't delved into it because, as you say, it is male dominated statistically. Before you take your helmet off, they think you're a man.

And what would you say to the women who were thinking about getting into this? I would say follow your own nose in terms of how to do things and what to do. And that's I think that's a general thing for advice for also to new people into to motorcycling, but but women especially. I reckon do what you feel like, in in terms of speed or where you wanna go, how you wanna stay. It doesn't have to be what everybody else does, to do what you feel like.

And, also, if possible, to put away that thing that, that you have to be able to do everything like the guys can or technically or, you know, engine wise or whatever. But I know that quite a few women, they are sort of maybe because guys, they are really quickly to help, and they are quickly to say, oh, I'll sort that out for you. So I guess it is sort of a balance to figure out you need some help and take the help, but still find your own ways to do it. Yeah. Great answer.

Thank you very much. We have a, we have a tradition here. We have a tradition here on the podcast, and we have 100 certified badass stickers. And, I'd say that you are definitely due yours. So here's me presenting you with your certified badass sticker, and, thank you very much for taking the time on adventure canon mob podcast to speak with us.

So I'm here at the SEGRA IO tent with Yosef, and it is a well, actually, I'll just ask Josef what this is about, and, and maybe he can give us a bit more details on it. Yeah. So what we are creating is basically a tool to create, good routes for motorcycle riders, and also apps to use the routes and navigate. We initially started it because we started adventure riding, for cofounders. We bought Tenere seven hundreds and KTMs, and we didn't know where to ride and how to find the good roads.

Yeah. And me and Jimmy, one of the cofounders, are, engineers. So we thought to ourselves, the map data is out there with OpenStreetMap. It's available for everybody to use, and, we could maybe do something. So Jimmy sat one summer and created a proof of concept web page, simple road planner.

So we created some routes in Sweden and then went for a trip for a week and came back and were amazed by the roads we took. So fast forward maybe a year, we quit our jobs and, yeah, sat down and created apps for Android and for iPhone and also for the web as you can sit on the web to plan routes with different modes, mainly adventure mode, which is the popular one. The one we use is to find good gravel roads in Sweden and also the whole world now. So that's, basically what we do. We create navigation for motorcyclists.

Fantastic. Yeah. Excellent summary. As as most people, what they do summary. No.

It's really good. And, obviously, there's a lot that goes into it. Like, we we could probably talk for an hour Yeah. About that. And we may we may have to do that at some point.

Minutes. Yeah. We'll have to chat. To keep you short. Yeah.

So thank you very much for, for jumping in and giving us some details. And, hopefully, we can appeal to the the the majority of the listeners are in The US and in Canada, North America, and, hopefully, they can start picking up. And and to find out more information about you and about this app, where can they go? Our website, Stegra.io, we have links to, we have a Discord channel where you can join and talk to us directly and give us suggestions and feedback on on the apps. And, also, we have our support email if you have any questions.

What is that what is that email address? Support@stegra.io. And can you Is it s t e g r a dot I o? Yeah. Exactly.

Alright. Fantastic. Thank you very much for taking the time. Alright. So it is Saturday night.

It is a closed down evening of the what number, Skoog? Number six. It's 26 25. So, I'm here with Martin Bivo, who is the founder and the brainchild behind this, if you could say that. But maybe you could flesh that out and let me know if I'm actually on track there.

How did you come up with the idea to meet in the woods and to do all the things that we're doing here? Can you flesh that out with some background? Yeah. I actually, I I'd been riding my bike and had a bottle of grappa, And I thought, well, this would be nice if I could invite some people, to So we're gonna wait for that GS to roll by here and then we're gonna kin you with this. Alright.

So let's pick it up at Grappa. Yeah. I I it was actually, a bottle of Grappa staying up late one night, and I thought I should make an event. I'm good at creating things for people, and I bet I could make an event that would attract, adventure riders from all over Europe and maybe even further. So so that's that was, that was the the the seed that started the whole idea.

Alright. Well, I'd say that you've, you've definitely succeeded with that considering that you let's just it might be interesting to talk about the number of tickets. And when we talk about that, I just wanna say that I waited online, and the moment that it was actually gonna be announced, which you saw the tickets, was my birthday. And I told everybody, we have to wait because I need to make sure I'm here at 08:00 to press go. I have my credit card information, and I had to press go to make sure I got a ticket.

How many tickets do you sell? And tell me about the number of people who are here and how that works. Well, we have a hundred tickets to sell. And, we have, in addition to that, we have about 30 to 40, staff and, guides and sweepers. Because when we do our rides, there is always a guide upfront, and there is a sweeper in the back to make sure that, we don't lose anybody.

But as a number of tickets we sell, it's a hundred tickets. And, we started with 60, then we went to 80, then we went to a hundred. And, maybe we'll increase it to a 10, but that I think that's about maximum that this venue can hold. Yeah. It, so we had roughly 10 people in a group, and we had 11 groups today.

So sweepers and and, so that's yeah. 10 people in a riding group. If you're if you're well matched Yeah. Then it's a good it's a good number of people. If they're not well matched, it's not a good number of people.

But it seems like at least the group I was in this year was really well done. Yeah. I mean, we try to, we have a questionnaire, that people answer when they when they're online ordering their ticket. And, couple of the questions we ask for is, how they rate themselves as riders. And, of course, that's it's it's very iffy because not that many people want to, join a testosterone pumped place like this and start by saying I'm a complete, novice.

Everybody wants to be mediocre or an expert. Yeah. That's a really that's a really good point. Because when I put myself in there, I knew I was coming with some friends, and I knew that they didn't they didn't have the same level of experience as I did. And I put myself in as a at a as a rider at their level so that I could ride with them.

So I downgraded myself so that I could potentially ride with them. It turns out that one of them got put in a higher group, and we ended up switching groups, and he ended up back in the other group, and he was well matched. And then I, I found myself going through the woods today, at a on a straightaway and it was just clean and beautiful. And you could see the start, you could see the finish and there was a sweeping dip in the middle. And I was like, yeah, Clicks through this chunk of woods.

I had a just I should really not be looking at the trees right now. I should look at what's ahead of me, but it's amazing riding and fast and beautiful here. Yeah. Yeah. It is.

It is, I mean, I'm I'm sure when you say you you misspeak because, the speed limit is, is 80 in there. So so, yeah, I'm I'm I I will correct you on that and say you probably or maybe 82 or something, but not not not like I don't think. Well, you know, the, the speedometer on my bike does read high, so it could be a it could be a a an error there. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably. I I'd say so. We also put some some business, back into the community. I know that, everything we buy, for the kitchen, for the bar, I mean, everything is bought locally. So so we do put money back into local businesses here.

Yeah. I mean, think about just the fuel alone. I mean, these you know, we're fueling these bikes once a day. Right? So there's that.

They're buying food at the store. So, yeah, there's that aspect as well. Yeah. So what are some of the things that you've changed since it was a smaller venue when you first began this? You said it was 60.

Yep. And it got increased more. What are some of the major changes that you've made to this as you've as you've progressed throughout the years as as sure as you've done this? Well, I I wasn't sure how possible it would be to serve so many people, the meals here, since everything has to be prepared over an open fire. In the first couple of years we were here, we had very little electricity down there, very little power.

So it was just, I think the first year at least, the matter of, testing it out. Is it possible? You know? Can we can we make 60 people happy, in this type of venue? And, the first year was a crazy success.

It rained for four days, and everybody was just happier as pigs and shit. You know? And, the next year, we were 80, and we had the same thing happening again. It just rained all four days. And, then we increased the number of guests to a hundred.

And so then we've had actually three years, with, really good weather and and, you know, everything good, except then this this incident last year. Yeah. And I think now with this year's, this year's changes, We've hit our top form, and and, this is what you have experienced the last couple of days. It's what it's always was supposed to be. I like what you guys did.

You talked about I wasn't here last year. It's my first year being here. And you said you would change the food, the food setup. So tell me about the changes. Talk to our listeners a bit about the changes that you made between the years prior to this and and then this year.

Well, we've had, many different chefs. So, we've had many different interpretations of, what the Skoog food is supposed to be. And, unfortunately, most of the chefs that we have had, this type of project has been out of their out of their comfort zone. But, Jonas, who is the chef, this year, He is, a professional chef. He is a teacher at a culinary academy out on the island, Bornholm.

And, with him, planning and execution has been completely without stress. Fantastic. And you've got your family here as well supporting in this activity. Yes. My wife is a sous chef under, chef.

Very nice. It's nice to see this is a family it's a family event here. One of the things that you mentioned when we first introed at the beginning of this, you said, previously, we had people standing out in the rain queued up for food. And then this year, how did you avoid that? Well, this was actually Jonas, Jonas's, solution to it.

He's he was here, yes, last year, and, he said, this is crazy having these people lining up for food, like, you know, like, like in a in a prison thing. You know? It's it doesn't make any sense. Why don't we just buy a a a stack of large trays? And, we prepare the trays, and, we ask people just to sit down at the table.

And then we carry the table or carry the the these trays and serve people at at the table where they're sitting. So, of course, what what that has has led to is that, with this system, everybody at a table, gets food on their plate at the same time. Besides, they don't they don't have to stand in line. I mean, it's it's they come with their plates and their cup and their cutlery and sit down at the table, and voila, there's food. I can say from the perspective of receiving it in that regard, then it was absolutely, it was well done because there was not there was not a moment that I, that I sat down or or had to wait in line for anything in this whole event.

So it was really well done in that regard. Yeah. Thank you. I I I'm really, really stoked to hear that. Yeah.

So I just wanna say from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for taking the time to chat with Adventure Cannonball podcast and also for putting this event on and putting yourself out there and, and making it possible. You also do some amazing videos and, reviews of motorcycles like the AGP, which is out. And, how can people who wanna learn more about you and learn more about SCOOP, how can they learn more about you? Well, I mean, the the platform that we use most actively is actually Facebook. So if they go and find our profile on Facebook on Facebook, basecampnorth.com .org, sorry, Then everything we do, all future projects, links to video reviews, everything is posted on, the Basecamp North profile.

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And remember, don't be an a d v weenie. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks. You know it can go wrong when you hit the road, but good luck can come along. Or so I've been told that maybe those streets aren't paved for gold, but at least I had to go. Before I got old, they didn't really expect this disaster, but I think they still wanna go faster.

Mondo Sahara. Mondo Sahara. Mondo Sahara. Mondo Sahara.