Motorcycle Men
Motorcycle Men
Episode 464 - Talking with ADV Trainer Bret Tkacs
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Hello boys and girls,
Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm speaking with Bret Tkacs and talking about off-road motorcycle training.
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Hello, boys and girls, and welcome to the Motorcycleman Podcast. This is episode 464. And I am Ted, your host, here in the V Twin Cafe, over in Corner Booth. And today we're going to dig into some stories, skills, and personalities that make the riding world such a wonderful and wild place. And today we're talking with someone who has shaped the way thousands of riders tackle the backcountry. Brett Tax. If you've watched his videos, taken one of his ADV courses, or read his articles, you already know he blends deep technical knowledge with a no-nonsense approach to rider psychology. We're going to talk about training, terrain, mindset, and maybe even a little special forces philosophy. So grab your helmet, settle in, and let's get this ride started. But first, the Motorcycle Men podcast is brought to you by Scorpion Helmets, offering high-quality, innovative motorcycle helmets and technical apparel at an incredible value. So to learn more, get on over to ScorpionUSA.com. And Wild Dash Seats. You can improve your comfort and ability to stay in a saddle longer with a cushion from Wild Dash Seats. So if you are tired of those painful pressure points and fatigue, go to WildDash Ass.com and get your cushion today from the real Craig Johnson. And Viking Bags, a world leader in motorcycle luggage and one of the fastest growing companies in motorcycle parts. Luggage for whatever you ride and wherever you go. Tobacco Motorware, of course, as always, for the best in casual riding gear for men and women. There's only one place you should be going, and that is Tobacco Motorware. Visit them at tobacco motorware.com, and our listeners will get 10% off your order when you use the code Motomen. Everyone here at the podcast wears tobacco riding gear. This is great stuff. I won't ride without it. Your safety is worth it, so get on over to Tobacco Motorware and get in Dave's pants. Alright, time now for that little chat with Brett. Joining me today, all the way from where are you? I'm in Idaho. In Idaho? Mr. Brett Tax. Idaho. Idaho. Mr. Brett Tax.
SPEAKER_01Not Ohio, not Iowa.
SPEAKER_02Iowa, Idaho. Brett, welcome to the show. How are you doing, sir?
SPEAKER_01Hey, I'm doing fantastic. I uh I just came in from the shop after putting a hole in the bottom of a motorcycle. So this was a great place to uh to take a break and have a chat. And it it definitely falls back to my uh my saying that I always tell people, which is attitude matters.
SPEAKER_02How does one put a hole in the bottom of a motorcycle?
SPEAKER_01Well, so what you do is first of all, you start by finding somebody who will loan you their new motorcycle with 23 miles on it. And then what you do is you take it out into the Awahi Mountains and you bounce it off a rock. Oh then you call your wife to rescue you and your old Tacoma, and uh, and then you come back and you pull off skid pants so you can figure how easy it is. Because when I do a motorcycle review, gosh darn it, I'm gonna go thorough. I'm gonna check out, I'm gonna make sure we know what the part supply is like, what the dealer interaction is like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm going full board.
SPEAKER_01I don't half-ass anything.
SPEAKER_02That's good. I mean, you you you actually you do an actual test. An actual test. Uh so Brett, now you're here to tell us all about your your schools that you have and your training programs that you have, but nobody for those who don't know who you are. So why don't you tell us who you are, your motorcycle self, and what you do?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I'll try to keep it short. Um, so I've been I'm a motorcycle trainer, it's what I do for a living. I've been doing it for about 30 years now. Oh and uh and and over the years I've I've gone through the whole gamut. I started off by training newer riders, and then I trained experienced riders, and then I did stuff at the racetrack, and I trained kids, and I did a dirt bike school. And on the side, I had a little pet project for adventure riders. And so ran a school, had um, you know, we I at the peak, I think I ran around 4,000 people in a year through my school, so it's a big brick and mortar. Oh, yeah. A lot of instructors and a lot of stuff. Uh military contract, training special forces for 11 years uh on motorcycles. So it had a really fun, exciting, colorful career. However, I have decided that my favorite people to hang out with are um are the guys that are on the adventure bikes. So that is all I do anymore. So I've walked away from the brick and mortar, uh it's just being a small crew, and I travel around the country during the training season. I train people, and in the winter I get bored and I go overseas and take people to other countries. Oh well, there you go. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02What are you riding?
SPEAKER_01So well, it depends on the day.
SPEAKER_02Oh, what a you're one of those guys, are you?
SPEAKER_01But yeah, my my actual my current fleet is uh, you know, I I I've had a lot of the newer bikes, but I keep uh parking a 2018 1200 GS in the garage. It's uh modified for doing abuse to. Okay. And I've got a Tenera 700 Yamaha that I I beat up, but and I've spent time on everything. I love Ducotis, and and I spent you wouldn't believe how many Harleys I've taken out dirt riding on the East Coast. Because that's when we trained on the East Coast, that's all I could rent. And they they got a little muddy during that training. That was always fun. I'm pretty diverse. I'm not hooked into any brand or model.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Well, that's good to have that. So now your training focuses heavily on the physics of motorcycling uh and the psychology of the rider. So, how do those two elements shape the way you coach your adventure riders?
SPEAKER_01So, in general, what I've found over the years is you know, it so let me let me let me take everybody on a little trip. Okay, let's go. Let's go.
SPEAKER_02I'm ready.
SPEAKER_01So when we start off, and this works of whether you're a rider or whether you're an instructor, is you you learn something and you think, well, now I know it, right? And some people do this, they take their MSF course at the beginning of the course, and I took the class, is what I hear from people. Yeah, because they know now. And then pretty soon you take the next one, you realize, oh, well, now I know because the last one I didn't know, and then you take the next one, and well, now I know this, but I didn't know the last. And it turns out you don't know what you don't know until you learn what you didn't know, but you still don't know what you don't know. Right. And and training is exactly the same way, and that's what I've done over the years. And what happened with the military guys is I had a week, I had 40 hours with them. We did daytime training, nighttime training. Uh, most of it was on-road. I'm one of the few people in the country who's as extensive uh time doing on-road training with riders, besides just you know, parking lot. Most training is all in a parking lot or a field somewhere. And what I realized is that I needed them to master it to pass it on to the next generation of riders. I couldn't just introduce them to concepts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I realized, well, they're not instructors, they don't live this, they have regular lives. And probably almost every listener here is the same thing. We love motorcycles, it's a passion of ours, but it's not our living. So we have to like disconnect from it, live our lives, and then come back to our bikes. And then we want to be as good as we can get, but we're not professionals. And so I started realizing I can't train people in formulas because it doesn't transfer.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And this is particularly important when I travel around the world. So I've traveled, I can't, somewhere around 50 countries I've ridden in now. And you'll you'll see terrain that you've never seen before, you will never see again. And as riders, I don't care who you are, street rider, dirt rider, everybody listening here, you have been through corners that you have never seen before and you will never see again. Right. And you have to have a 100% success rate. 99 is not enough, or every hundredth corner you'd be crashing, and that's just not acceptable. And you don't do that, right? That's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So that's what I do, is I focus on the physics of riding. If we understand how the bike operates, how our interactions work with that, how the environment around us interacts with that, then we could adapt to any given environment, even if we've never seen that exact environment.
SPEAKER_02So that's that's the way I go. All right. Now you said that most riders plateau at some point, and because no one has ever really evaluated their them correctly. So, what is the most common mistakes you spot within the first few minutes of watching someone ride?
SPEAKER_01So, and again, you know, or do we want to think about riders in general or off, you know, because right now I'm focused on adventure riders. Yeah, these are and generally people are focused on the off-road version of it. Because you know, if you ride on the pavement and you never die, then you assume you're better than average. But when you go off-road and you fall down, it's pretty quick. People go, I think I could use some help with this one. Yeah, you know, it's pretty intimidating. So shall we shall we focus on pavement or dirt? Yes. Actually, well, okay, fine. Um, in that case, what I would say is that most riders, and this comes from a lot of following people, being on comms, and and not just being a parking lot, but riding with them and trying to evaluate what do I need to create to train them so that they will not die.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01People are reactive, they're not proactive, and we think we're proactive, but we're not. Yeah, I see. And and I've done this where I've taken uh like trainer trainers, uh, MSF trainers, uh, you know, Lee Parks trainers, and guys out and riding, and I'll have them on comms and I'll start telling them what I'm looking at. And they start looking at me like, what are you talking about? I'm looking across the valley through the trees on the next curve because I'm like, well, yeah, you see that truck. I don't want to be in the curb when I get there, but they're looking at one or two curves ahead, and I'm looking across the valley because I can scan the whole road, what the road's doing, who's coming at it. And so what I find in general is that riders are very poor about looking far enough ahead to slow down the information that they need to process. Let's talk about cornering in general, and just was, you know, everybody can relate to street riding. I don't care if you're an adventure rider or street rider, we all ride through the corners in the street, and every single one of us has gone. And I'm one, I've done it more than once, where you go into a corner and you go, oh, that was that was not good, right? And I'm just glad nobody was there today, you know, and and we we make a mistake and we come out of it and we try to improve. Well, that's just a luck, and that's a that's a real bad way to ride, is just you know, hope hoping things happen. So the ability to to look ahead, to um to make sure that no matter what happens, we are never surprised in a corner. And and that's a that and that has to do with how we read the road, how we interact. And there's some very simple things we can do as riders that will change how we ride. Like trailbreaking is one of them that's really undersold for for road riders. And I think that's what people make is that they're reactive, they're they're allowing information to compress on them faster than their brain can sort it out. And that's a often when people say, Well, I went into a decreasing radius corner and it was closing in on me. No, it wasn't. You were going too fast. Slow down, you know, and and that's what we often don't realize is that I need more time. And either you slow down to process information or you get the information sooner. Yeah. So you have more time.
SPEAKER_02So it seems like it seems like speed is an issue when it comes to road riding.
SPEAKER_01Um, but it's not speed of riding, and that's what I hate is we always think speed because people can ride through corners twice as fast as you might be riding and do it safely, and they never have a problem, but you have a problem. It's the speed of information, and this happens both because we're traveling through time, but also how well and how fast we can sort that information. Age is always a factor, right? If we we don't sort things as quickly as we get older as when we were younger, um, experience allows us to sort it faster than somebody who's new, regardless of age. And so there's a lot of these other factors that come into play, you know, about that information process. When we say speed, it's not the motorcycle, it's the information processing.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay. Ah, now what about off-road? How does that translate to off-road now?
SPEAKER_01It's it's um if we're talking about that topic specifically, it's the same thing. Yeah, the difference is where we look. When we're on the pavement, we're traveling at 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100, whoever, whatever these people are doing on their bikes, right? We've all done all the above and said, well, that was stupid. But um, so we're looking out sometimes miles, you know, to try to look out at what the road's gonna do ahead of us. Yeah, and the dirt that can be all the way from just in front of the tire. If you're thinking about a trials bike where you're moving at two miles an hour, well, there's no reason you can't look down in front of you. That's important. Yeah, but if they look down in front without having a plan beyond that, then we have a problem. And that's the issue. You can look down in the dirt, but you have to have you have to look up first to know what the plan is, and then you can look down and use target fixation as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
SPEAKER_02Ah, oh. But what do you do in situations either on-road or off-road where you especially on-road, where there are curves, like say for I now I've never ridden about let's say the tail of the dragon, for example, you can't see that far ahead. You can see maybe the one or two curves in front of you, but beyond that, you have nothing. So in situations like that, uh, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01So the Tale of the Dragon's actually uh it's a it's a terrifying run. It has nothing to do with the pavement. I've been through there many, many times. And uh it's the other riders that terrify me. It's the other people who can't see their lane. So usually I go through it one direction and then I go to all the secondary roads, which I think are actually much better. Uh, but it's obviously a very famous stretch of road.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the nice thing about the Tale of the Dragon, it's a very consistent um line of curves. The curves are they're they're not, there's nothing really surprising that's there. Uh they're they're they're greater than 90 degrees, but they're consistent radius all the way through, which is nice. And most of them you can see one to two curves. You can look through trees and pick up on the other, depending on the foliage, the time of year that you're there. Right. But this comes back to the concept of trailbreaking. So let's let's back up and pick this one up because it's one of those topics people don't like. Trailbreaking is about controlling speed that matches our vision. That's all it is. And as a rider, we never commit to something we can't see. We don't, we the we can't set our speed at the beginning of a curve if we can't see the exit. All we can do is guess what that speed should be. And we make our best guess, and then we don't overcommit to that corner or the speed or the exit until we actually pick up the exit. And most importantly, as an advanced rider, it's the indicators, the small changes on the edge of the road and the pavement, the vanishing point, these different things that will actually allow you to commit to it earlier than somebody who waits to actually see the road.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that's the that's the baseline right there, period. And I don't care if you're pavement or dirt, you never commit to something you can't see. Right. Exactly. You have to have all the indicators or the visual, one of the two.
SPEAKER_02Right. Now, well, your courses, and now you're known for your individual individualized uh coaching rather than that one size fits all kind of a thing. Um, how do you tailor instructions for riders with very different backgrounds and risk tolerances, so to speak?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, first of all, I don't use lines. You know, when when you go to most courses, you'll find that the instructor has a curricula, he reads it, you wait in line, you go do your thing, your turn, he gives you some feedback, you go get back in line and wait. I don't think anybody learns very well sitting in a line. I think that's one of the dumbest formats out there, especially when you have writers moving. I don't have to coach you, but if you can make three attempts and I get to coach you every one of three, you would rather do that than get one-third the opportunities to go and get coached every time. Yeah. Let's be honest. A lot of us want to do it multiple times, make some mistakes and not have anybody looking at us. I don't want to be critical. So let me screw it up, figure it out, and then and then give me some pointers. And that's exactly the format that I have. So it allows me to set up a path of travel that allows all the riders to be in motion. Uh, I can increase and decrease the challenges on that same activity based on experienced riders and beginner riders, right? And beginner to off-road, you know, it type of thing. And so they're able to ride at their own pace. And if somebody falls down, they're not holding up anybody else. There's no stress there. If you want to push a little harder, you can pass the other riders, and there's a path of travel that allows you to do that. So you're not being held up by riders who are being slow. And so the idea, the trick here is to take a group of riders and create an individual uh format that allows them to get the feedback, the coaching, and the flow and practice that allows each one to develop. And that's exactly what we do and why I don't do this as a large format school anymore. I'm at every class that my school runs. There's myself and a couple other guys that do this, but I am there every single time because every class is unique based on weather, based on the riders that show up. Sure, the lessons that we need to learn are the same, but the path to achieve those varies every single class.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay. Now you well, you well, you do teach in multiple states and also internationally, right? So how does the terrain, the sand, the mud, the rock, and the altitude change the way you structure your training sessions?
SPEAKER_01And this goes back to what I was mentioning. This is how I got into this physics-based training, you know, mentality is that uh, you know, back in the day when I was building curricula and you know that was similar to the MSF, where I'm like, oh, we're gonna do these cone weave and we're gonna do this circle. And we're by the way, I've never found cones in the wild. So I don't know why we all have to train with them. And you know, there are instructors who believe if you don't have cones, you can't teach people anybody. But you know, unless I'm in a construction zone, I just never see cones on the road. So I I really don't use cones, I use natural terrain. Yeah, but the the idea is that if I have sand in one location and you're training in another location, let's just say you're joining me in Georgia and you're gonna come out to the West Coast and ride in in Utah or or Idaho or something like this.
SPEAKER_00There's totally different animals right there.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, right? But that happens. So if you're training in Georgia, where we get all our slime and mud, I still have to make sure that you have the same riding skills, physics, and understanding so you can ride in that sand. And so that's really how I got into that physics base, so that I can teach you how the bike reacts and how to interpret what the terrain will do so that when you get in these new environments, you have a more chance to have a more accurate prediction of those changes as you develop and learn with them. So you're not having failures, uh, you know, because the problem with adventure training is whether you're doing it domestically in the US or whether you're international, injuries are a much bigger deal. You know, uh ambulances aren't three to five minutes away. A cell phone service may not be there. This is a big problem. Yeah, so I need you to be accurate. I need to make sure you're not exhausted by your riding. I have to teach you ways to be more efficient in how you ride, uh, more relaxed in your understanding of the train and more accurate in your ability to ride. So that's what I have to do, and that's why the physics come into play. And you would have to be there to really understand it. But yeah, so I can train you in Georgia so that when you come out and ride in the sand, you're riding in the sand. You know, and that's the idea. Some places I have hills, other places I don't. But the concepts have to remain constant. Though those physics don't change, right? So that's why we learned physics.
SPEAKER_02Ah, there we go. Now, this is gonna be an interesting question for you. Do you how many riders do you see bring their experience with them and kind of like try to mold that into what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, you know, I I do have a wide range of riders for every class. So those who have never ridden on grass or or a gravel driveway to guys who have actually traveled extensively or rode dirt bikes, taken classes many times, many, many different schools other than mine. There's a consistency uh across the the riders who come to me. I'm I'm not the cheapest guy in town, I'm not the most expensive, but I'm I'm I'm not an economy school. Guys check their egos before they ever show up. There you go. I I do not get people who show up that want to just be confirmed, you know, tell me I'm really good at what I do. Every single guy is there because they have a challenge, they have a goal, they want to get better. And they I don't ask them to leave their skill sets behind again because I'm physics-based. A lot of the things I do help them understand the other things they've learned. They've learned these processes, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't because they don't know why it works when it works and why it doesn't when it doesn't. So the fact that I teach them the physics behind it means that they can go back in their minds and go, oh, now I understand why they were teaching me this. Yeah. And now I understand why it works in that environment. So my goal is to not, you know, eliminate other things they've learned is to explain, is to help them understand because some things are true, but only in certain environments. And that's something that can be very hard to sort out without extensive experience.
SPEAKER_02I know I Have had people uh say to me that I I it's it's it's not relevant, but I bring it up anyway because I think it is relevant, and what I'm bringing up is mountain biking versus off-road motorcycle riding. I I think they're perfectly to aligned with each other because it's 100% because it's the same, it's the same skills that you need for to operate, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, well, first of all, I always have to ask this question because I get guys to say I agree with you 100%. All right, I I'm not even there, there's no debate here at all. 100% they are they are interchangeable, but I have to ask guys when they say they're mountain biking, because that always perks up my ears. I'm like, oh, okay, this guy's gonna do great. And I have to ask them, do you own a mountain bike or are you a mountain biker? Because those are two different yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, right. I own a mountain bike, I and I and I go out and pedal around. But I am not one of those crazy mountain bikers that's launching off cliffs and everything else. And there is definitely a difference in those personalities, and someone's experienced, but also it tells me something about the risk taking. Guys who are hardcore mountain bikers, who are real mountain bikers, their risk tolerance is is huge. All right, they're willing to push things, which means the fear level's low, they are so easy to train because they just do what you tell them to. And that's the biggest problem most riders have with me. That's what limits most riders. It's not their physical ability, it's not because they have a bad joint or they're overweight or they're you know, or they're way past their age prime, because that's everybody that comes to my class. Everybody fits into one of those categories, right? Including me. And so it that's not the limitation, it's the fear. And the fear is the thing that causes you to stop doing what you have to do, and it's uncontrolled fear. Fear is healthy if it keeps you from doing really stupid things, and dying. But when you can't over overrule fear with logic, yeah, that's when it becomes dangerous.
SPEAKER_02Do you see do you see people show up at your schools with that mountain bike experience and try to employ those skills into what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01Um, they show up. It it's not common, but you know, I do get guys who come in with the the mountain biking experience, and generally it's me trying to pull those those skills that they already own, that they already have, and to convert those into the off-road ride, to to relate those so that I can advance their learning at a at a higher rate of of speed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'm the one that pulls it in. It's usually not me trying to pull people back. And I think that might be a difference between me and a lot of other training environments where guys are like, Well, that's wrong. And this is this is the right way to do it. Believe me, I've taken a lot of schools, road racing schools, everything else. And every time I go there, it's always like, Well, they're wrong, they're doing it wrong. Our guys are all champions because they do it our way. Yeah. And you know, what you learn after a while is there's a lot of different ways to do things. Yeah. And you have to start accounting not just for different ways that work, but also what works for different people at different stages and different bikes and different environments, and be able to adapt those. And so I highly encourage people to take other training. And I want to incorporate previous learning, regardless of where it came from, whether it's mountain biking, whether it's shooting, uh, you know, whether it's uh, you know, whatever it is. I I want to pull that in and go, how can I relate that diving even uh you know, and pull that in so they can relate to, oh, I now I understand.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I'd like to see more motorcyclists, ADV riders, ever be get into cycling. Because I just like like I'd mentioned earlier, I just think that these skill levels they translate for each other. And it just not only that raises your endurance, really, when you think about it.
SPEAKER_01So well, that's a health thing. I mean, obviously, that's uh an issue most of us probably can do better at is better health. So that's definitely a plus. The other one that I just started, and because I look like a complete fool doing it, and I love going back to beginners, and I'm not as natural as people think. I have to work really hard, and probably makes me a better instructor because it's not easy. Everything has to be worked for. But I picked up a trials bike, and it's the same skill. I kind of put that so now I have my mountain bike, yeah, then my trials bike, and then I have my tenareth and my and my big bike. And yeah, I had no bikes for for years. Uh I I actually didn't start riding until I was in my 30s, but that's an interesting sort. I I became an instructor, so I figured I I should buy a bike and learn how to ride it.
SPEAKER_02I tell you what, I give those trials guys who can do I give them so much credit and a lot of respect for them because it's insane. It's insane, amazing skills. Even the mountain bike guys who are doing trials like uh on on bicycles, it just blows me away that the handling skills these guys have.
SPEAKER_01I I uh I joke around when I pull out my trials bike. So I have a gas-gased TT uh TXT 250. And so this bike weighs 150 pounds, 150 pounds, and it's you know, it's a 252-stroke. And I keep telling people it's the scariest bike I've ever owned. What are you talking about? I said, Well, it keeps trying to kill me, and I'm not kidding. That thing has thrown me on the ground more than anything I've ridden in the last 20 years. And uh but you know, it's it's I want to keep improving, and you don't get better if you don't take yourself out of your comfort zone.
SPEAKER_02Oh, sure, that's right. Well, speaking of which, you know, you're talking about gear and stuff like that, many riders are investing heavily in bikes and gear and still struggle off-road. Uh, what's the biggest gear myth uh you wish riders would just let go of?
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's a that's a that's a big one. There's so many out there. Um, you know, for for the industry I'm in, I I think the biggest thing I try to hammer into people happens to be boots. I think when we go off-road, when we come from the street, you know, we focus on helmets and and riding gear and impact, and we don't really think about our feet as much. We just kind of wrap them in leather and we call it good. When we go off-road, we don't realize that's a huge um risk zone. And because, you know, when you're learning, and that's always when you need the best stuff, and that's where I see the people bringing the cheapest stuff because you're not invested yet. And uh because you're gonna make the most mistakes, you know, just dropping your foot and or just rolling an angle as you as you try to catch a bike, or if you get kicked off. Uh it's and it's gonna happen a lot more often. And people ride these adventure boots. And usually I can tell people if the word adventure is in the title of the boot, don't buy it. Not for off-road riding, right? That's that's your road touring boot. It's a heavy-duty road touring boot. There's they're fine, they're great. I own uh adventure boots, but when you're gonna go off-road, especially in a learning environment where you you're deliberately increasing your risk, then you should also deliberately increase your protection. So I would say for gear, that would probably be the one that I would focus on the most, uh, at least for the guys in in the industry I'm focused on on right now. Right.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, talking about uh well, as far as it goes for gear, like that, and you're saying boots is the number one thing. Do you see a rider showing up for your ADV classes in full-blown ADV gear, pants, jackets, or do you see the or and do you see guys just show up in, let's say, Kevlar jeans and a leather jacket? I mean, what what do you usually get?
SPEAKER_01My my guys are committed. You know, when they come to train with me, they're they're making a significant investment in both the the tuition of the course and the time and the time it takes to get to the location because you got to travel. I'm on East Coast, West Coast, but a lot of these guys, this is multiple days to get in. They're they're spending four days with me a lot of times. So they are invested, and I get a lot of questions about what to wear, uh, what tires to have. They want to make sure they're gonna get the most out of it. Right. So I really don't have a problem uh in general with guys showing up with less than than ideal gear. The the only time that really becomes a challenge is those real true beginners. The guys are like, Yeah, this is the first time I've ever touched grass. And they're the ones that usually show up with the worst tires and the worst gear. Because anybody who's been on it before goes, Oh, this is scary. I need it. But those guys, they just don't have the experience and the perception, and they show up and they they and that's fine. We work through it, and I do everything. I'm a risk manager, you know. When I go through, I'm taking people and doing very risky things and doing my best to make sure nobody gets you know injured in the process. I don't care if you get hurt, I don't want you injured. You know, there's a difference, and um, so yeah, it's it's the beginners that I think are are the hardest ones to convince that this is worth the investment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Uh now you have also free online courses to reach riders who may never attend the class. Now, uh, what skills or concepts do you think every ADV writer should master before heading into the backcountry based on those uh online courses?
SPEAKER_01So the it's the basics. You know, almost everybody wants to become uh a master right away. And what they don't realize, and the reason you don't see me have a level one, level two, level three course, is because we're all trying to master the basics, but with a different level of understanding and application. The experts are still working on vision, they're still working on balance, they're still working on traction management, all those same skill sets that a beginner works on. They just have more experience and they can apply those skills in more challenging environments. That's it. Those are the differences. When I do my challenge courses, I have a uh adventure training, which is 99% of the riders who come out. That's the best. And for 1% of the guys, I have what's called the challenge training. We teach the exact same concepts, nothing new, nothing different. Okay. We just do it in more challenging environments and at higher speeds. And so I think for that, they need their they need clutch control. What one of the biggest issues that people have is clutch control. They need to be comfortable being able to get up on those pegs and stand. And I would say, probably universally, uh, as riders develop, the biggest mistake is they sit down when they should stand up, and they stand up when they should sit down.
SPEAKER_02Ah, mountain bike skills come in handy there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's it, right? So they're riding down a gravel road, everything's feeling great. They stand up, they're they're getting air, and everything's great, and they feel like an adventure rider. Like all those videos and all the pictures and magazines, like, ah, badass, check me out. You know, and then and then they come up to the water crossing and they all sit down. And worse than that, they'll sit down and throw their feet out and then paddle walk through it. I'm like, well, you got that all backwards.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you're still along in that gravel road, sit your butt down, save the energy so that you're you have the energy when things don't go right or when you're in a challenging environment. And when you get to the water, you should be standing up. Anytime your little brain alerts you and says, I think I might die, that's your alert that says, I should stand up. This is my stand-up room, right? It's when I'm worried, when I'm concerned, when I'm not sure what's going on. That just means stand up. And you know, as riders first get into this until they they learn how to do this well, that's that's the the major mistake I see with people. So clutch control and um and learning how to stand up when you're scared and sit down when you're not.
SPEAKER_02Nah, correct. Well, on that, you've built a reputation for reading a motorcycle's behavior before even looking at the rider's behavior. So, what bike's movements tell you that the person is not controlling it or controlling it correctly?
SPEAKER_01All right, so I I I gotta admit this. Okay. I um I really don't like riders that much, but I love motorcycles. So I'm actually out there to save the motorcycles. And if I watch the bike, the bike will tell on the rider every time. Oh, yeah. And I'm just watching him ride across the field, and the bike will be like, damn it, Brett, tell him to friggin' relax because he's holding on too damn tight. So it turns out that the bike will tell telegraph what's happening before you ever see what the rider's doing. Oh, yeah. So I watch the bike first, and when the bike tells me something's going wrong, then I look at the rider to confirm it. And obviously, there's a pattern with this after 30 years of, you know, if this happens, I look for a certain aspect. But as I go up, if a if a bike looks unstable as it goes through a corner, if it's in a turn, uh immediately you can look up and you look for tension. You know, okay, what's causing the tension? You know, is their body position where? And almost tension almost always comes from poor vision. So when I see the tension, my eyes go directly to their head. Where are they looking? You know, are they looking in the right spot? Are they looking too far at? Are they looking down? And then I can move down and start looking at shoulders, arms, hands, position. Are they out of balance? Uh you know, what's their speed? Are they going fast? Is that is that tension and fear coming because it came in too fast? Should they be coming in slower? Is it a slick surface? Did I see them slip just before that that caused the tension? So I'm always going through this this whole list to try to find the root cause. Because if I coach a symptom, we don't solve the problem. You know, so I and that's so I'm always looking at the bike because the bike's the first thing that tells me what goes wrong. Oh, yeah. And then it tells me where to look. So that's that's what I do by that. It's just because I really love motorcycles and I just hate them being abused. So I train so that I can help abuse motorcycles get abused less often.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So yeah, so that's right. The motorcycle is uh betraying the rider. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Like, Brett, please, please tell them to stop.
SPEAKER_02Now, for riders who are transitioning from road to ADV, what's the single most important mindset that then mindset shift that they need to make to ride safely and confidently out there on the trails?
SPEAKER_01Number one thing is motorcycles don't want to fall down. They do everything they can to stay upright, and street riders have a hard time letting go. They have, let's just say they have control issues. So street riders, when they come out, and I've always said I can make a dirt rider an incredible street rider, but making a street rider an incredible dirt rider is a feat for sure. And what happens is we're not used to the bikes wiggling. So if you think about like here's a concept that a lot of a lot of riders don't understand, and that's rake and trail and momentum, right? They think you hear this gyroscopic procession, it's the wheel spinning, and that's what makes the bike stable. And it has certain stabilizing characteristics, but it's not what it's not actually what rights the bike and keeps it going straight. It's rake and trail, the angle of the forks, and the offset of the steering axis and the and the uh axle, right? The pivot of the wheel. And and the longer those are, the more stable the bike is in general. And we need momentum behind that. There's a certain kind of a magic number of speed, and it varies, say 12 miles, 15 miles, right? Kind of depends on the bike and situation, but it's somewhere in there. And you start to get an inherent balance. Well, when we are on the road, that front wheel is constantly trying to be knocked over by the back wheel. So if you think about it, when you're going down the road, there's one part of the bike that always wants to be in front, and there's one thing that's always in the way. And it's the back wheel that wants to be in front, and the front wheel's always in the way. So as you're driving the back wheel forward, that front wheel is moving left and right constantly as it's being pushed out of center with the back wheel trying to get to the front. Ray control is what self-corrects that. So as the wheel starts to tip off one direction, rake control, bring it back to center, and it just naturally swings through that center the other direction. So you end up with this little wiggle. Well, with high traction and on the street, it happens so quickly. Very few of us ever actually feel that happen. Yeah. Except sometimes in a corner, when you're leaning over, you'll start to feel the front end a little move and people freak out. It's actually, it's actually okay. It's not a problem, right? Unless we're holding on too tight and then we die. But um, but as we're as we're off-road, it becomes more pronounced, especially in sand. And even street riders have often ridden through gravel or sand and they feel the front bike, the whole bike starts to wiggle and they panic and they grab a hold of that bike because they have control issues and they think they're the one keeping that bike upright. And when they lock in on that bar, they keep it from self-correcting. The bike falls down and they blame the bike when it wasn't the bike at all, it was them, right? They're the ones wanting to do that. So being able to let that let that go. And basically, the concept I here, let me simplify for you. It's me teaching riders how to get out of the way. There you go. Because they're the problem, right? And and I think that's the hardest transition for for street riders is to understand that they're the problem, not the solution, and that the bike doesn't want to fall down. And it's the design uh of that bike, it's the physics behind the riding that keep us upright.
SPEAKER_02There you go. I say, and you know, uh a funny thing is I've uh while I have never ADV ridden, I can tell you that uh as a mountain biker, when you come to things like sand, soft dirt, gravel, the front wheel wants to stop while the back wheel wants to keep going. So your notion of the front wheels in the way is a hundred percent true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it it absolutely is. And and and people learn, you know, they they sometimes slow down when they should speed up, and they just don't understand how those things happen. And certainly if you're a mountain biker, you know, these things make sense when the bike moves around underneath you, and uh you know, the difference is, I guess, with a mountain bike and even a dirt bike, a lot of times is that they're light enough that you can kind of muscle it, and even if you're misbehaving, you can get away with it. Yeah, when you're riding a 600-pound adventure bike in the sand, you lose. You're not muscling that. It's yeah, the fight's lost. So it it becomes, and I think this is why I love, I absolutely love adventure riding so much, and so much more than than I think any other aspect of riding. And like I said, I've done road racing and and everything else, and I love so much of this, and I love traveling and road riding, and I love road riding, but adventure riding is it's because it's such a strategic game. Yeah, you have to be able to think your way through it, you can't muscle through. And as I get older, that's the thing I have left, right? I mean, I don't have the same physical abilities I had, I don't have the same fear threshold that I have because I don't bounce anymore. I just sort of crack. Flop. And um, yeah, you just sort of land with a thud instead of a bounce, and you don't jump back up anymore, you know. Um, and so I think adventure riding allows me to ride at a lower speed and to ride in an environment where it's still very challenging because it engages my mind, it engages my skills. But when I have a mishap, you know, a lot of times I'm running at a much slower speed. You have tipovers, you're not crashing. Yeah, and um tip overs are okay, that's not a problem. You know, we pick it up and we go on we go. But when you crash, bad things happen. Yeah, that's it. And the older we get, the more often it's bad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now, with ADV riding, as far as it goes for training, or even just in general, uh, I know that again, going back to mountain biking, there's a there's a thing called body English. Does that apply with ADV riding as well? Well, define what you mean by body English. Give me an example. Uh, that is you're navigating through a tight space, for example, and you're going to use your body to offset or counterweight the bike. So you can do what you need to do. And it's those little movements that you make that keep you uh where the bike likes to be, which is upright. So I'm just does the same thing apply with ADV.
SPEAKER_01A hundred percent. Um, but it's even more critical. Uh-huh. And and again, if you think about it, it's a it's a mass equation. Yeah. So if you're really, if you've got this bike that that's underneath you that weighs, you know, 50 pounds or 20 pounds or whatever your bike is, you know, depending if it's electric or not, or or whatever. Definitely electric. You know, and you're riding on top of it, and let's just let's just say you're oh, so I'm 195 pounds, right? And and I know a lot of guys we're gonna be spanning out both sides of this number. I have a significant weight advantage over that bicycle. No, yeah. And so if I move, it's going to move and it's gonna make a difference. When I'm riding 600 pounds and I'm 200-pound rider, 195, I'm a third of the weight, which means that I have to be more precise, more accurate, and more exaggerated to get the effects that are necessary. So you again goes back to you need to understand what those are and how to get there and how to move. And and again, I work with an older audience. So my average riders are 45 to 65, and I span outside of that up into the 70s, and I've had a rider over 80 come out with me. And I get guys down into their, you know, I've had a cut one teenager and you know, sometimes in their 20s, but it's pretty solid, you know, that 45 to 65 is a is a pretty good solid bell curve there. Um we're, you know, that's not your prime physical age. So again, limitations, weight, you know, life, careers, families, all these things take a toll. And so again, we have to be um wiser about how we understand this so that we can make this happen. And and what makes my job fun is working around all these limitations. Yeah, working around the fact that, you know, somebody comes out and they're on a bike with a 34-inch seat height and they're five, six. I think that's awesome. I think it's great, you know, because now I have to go, well, let's learn the techniques, get around that. Yeah. Or we come out with a guy who's, you know, he rolls into class and he's 280 pounds, and you're like, this is a big boy. And he goes, Yeah, I lost 150 pounds. True story. Wow. True story, right? And I'll tell you what, and and you know, there's a lot, you know, the body doesn't just recover from that sort of a lifestyle, but the fact that they're out there trying to do things and they are so incredibly thankful that they're not being judged and they're they're allowed to do this. And I'm of course you're allowed to do this. But I get to work around those limitations. I get to work around those challenges and help them achieve that. And that makes it so much fun because every writer to me has a unique story, and you know, I just have to figure out how the physics don't. Changed, but the way we get them to work does. And that's a that's a hoot. It's a fun.
SPEAKER_02All right. Awesome. All right. So you did an article for Cruiser Magazine. Uh it's uh and the qu it's special forces in the meaning of ass. So in the article that you talk about special forces concept of embracing the suck. Now, how does that mindset translate to becoming a better ADV writer?
SPEAKER_01All right. First of all, we have to understand why it's called ASS. Um, so I have a little bit of a humor uh on my side. I I created a course out on a and this was based off of this program. Uh, and and it was called Smart Ass. And it was actually scan, mark, adjust, react, you know, um, you know, react and throttle. And then yeah, ASS was just advanced street skills. So, you know, I was just advanced acronym. And you don't know how much I had to work at it to get that acronym to work. Because I was like, what words can we use? Because damn it, I'm gonna make this happen. So um, so that's where that came from. And and I did the program. So the program I did for the special forces was not uh, I did some downrange combat stuff with them and things, but the main program I did with them was actually street riding. Uh, this was them riding on their own personal bikes. These were usually experienced, you know, they were all experienced riders, many of them are instructors. And and I my goal was to change the culture in their riding with the special forces groups. And so we had to go in, and and really training was the the venue or the the the way that I helped achieve that, right? Because if if I could convince them they could ride better, then I had their attention. What I really had to do was change their mindset, how they looked at things, how they made choices. And you don't do that by making rules. And now that this program is dead and and I don't have to do it anymore, I can tell you that there were a lot of rules and laws broken along the way because we um we, you know, I can't go, hey, we're gonna follow all the laws and rules, and we're gonna ride at this pace, and we're gonna have this stagger formation, and this is how we're gonna do the training, because as soon as nobody's watching, they're gonna ride the way they ride.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I've never had a chance to do that. So I just went, we're not your mothers, we're not here to babysit you, and we're not here to report on you. And we would just go ride. And they would ride at the pace they did, do the same stupid things they do. And our goal was to give them education, experience, and skill sets that allowed them to make choices to change the way they rode, to make them safer riders. I didn't say legal riders, safe riders, right? Uh, so that they would make better choices. And that's the the direction we went with that. So the advanced street skills were all about that. The embrace the suck is a term that comes from the army guys, and that's just when things really, really suck. You know, they just like you know, you just gotta go with it, which you know, for the adventure riding, you're always hearing me say attitude matters. And I would say, smile while you ride, attitude matters. And guys go, Oh, yeah, I always smile when I ride because I'm having a great time. I'm like, no, no, no, you're missing the point. It's like me being out uh the other day with a brand new motorcycle that didn't belong to me and me punching a hole in the engine case. That's not the time to throw a fit. That's when you're like, okay, well, here I am. Uh, how do we make the best out of this? How do we get out of this situation? Get home. What do I learn from it? And that's the attitude that matters. And the embrace the suck is that same concept of just look, if you have a bad attitude, if you're just thinking about how awful things are, well, you get you're not going to improve. And that's never going to help a situation. So, you know, just calm down, embrace the suck, or in in my case, attitude matters. You know, keep a positive outlook and just you know, remember you paid a lot of money to be doing what you're doing. You put a lot of effort to go into where you go. So when shit goes wrong, yeah, just embrace it. You know, this is you chose this, right? You chose this.
SPEAKER_02Well, you see, you know, you know, you describe in the article how uh discomfort and uh adversity reveal a rider's habits. Okay, now what's a an example of stress habit that you see often that you have to try to break a rider of?
SPEAKER_01So in in that situation, um a lot of it is you know, some of the guys, it's an environment. Now, it most people would think these guys were they well, they should have been the ideal rider. You know, if you think about they're all military-aged, they're not, these aren't new guys, these are special forces, so they're not coming in as uh as 18 or 20-year-olds. These guys are all uh senior NCOs and above. They're locked in, they're the smartest guys in the army, and these guys are sharp. I mean, they really are. Their support guys are good, the team guys are amazing. I mean, they are brilliant guys, they are very average riders, you know, and it and it turns out that um for them, it really we had to show them what they didn't know to get them to want to know more. And and one of the ways I did this is we had a a knowledge exam we would give them on the way in and the way out. Now realize this program developed, you know, from day one all the way through. We were changing it almost sometimes weekly. We would just get evolving it, same way I do the adventure program. And we had the freedom to do that because our results were um amazing, right? The the army they never questioned us. We had uh we had no bad reviews the whole time, and they basically just said, Yeah, don't ask them questions, just go do your training. We don't want to know what you're doing because it works. And if we ask questions, we might not be able to let you do it. And uh, and so I guess having having these riders take these tests thinking they know what they do, and even though we told them you're not supposed to know this. This is we're gonna give you the same test at the end of the week. You don't have to know any of this. We just want to know where you're starting. And asking them questions like, Oh, uh, if you have a modern sport bike on clean dry pavement, what is the full potential of the front brake in that braking environment in a maximum braking situation? And they look down the list and like, well, 70, 30, 80, 20, 90, 10, whatever it is, and they'll pop in 70-30 because that's what they were taught in their MSF class. Well, every single one of them has seen a sport bike do a stoppy. How much braking is that back wheel doing if it's up in the air? Nothing, right? Well, duh. Well, why aren't you guys thinking, right? Because they weren't taught to think anymore. And and these guys are the best in the army. If they're if anybody can think in the army, it's these guys. And um, and so when we went through and we were asking all these different questions, like, you know, what's the threshold of traction? 10 slip, 5% slip, 15, 0% slip, negative 10, and they walked through. And when they go, well, we mean it's 10 slip. If the tire's slipping, how's that maximum traction? We had to go through sheer factors and talking about all these advantages. But it brought to their attention that they didn't know shit. Wow. And and that was huge. That's quite revealing. When I rode with them, we did the same thing, and we weren't trying to embarrass them riding, but when they saw that they're riding what they were the best in their group, but that just meant their group sucked. Uh you know, they all of a sudden these guys aren't used to not being the best, and they antied up. As soon as they realized that they weren't, they weren't the top of their game, they were 100% in. Like, okay, come on, teach me what I gotta know. Wow. And and so that's where that humility, that adversity, that that stress, you know, really gave us an advantage. And and you know, you can't reach everybody, but you certainly you know do your best. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now, in the article, the the uh you got into hardship and its meaning and purpose. Now, how can the riders uh ooh, sorry, how can riders use that idea to stay focused and safe when they're on the trail, when fear starts to creep in?
SPEAKER_01So the and I think what you're alluding to here is you know, when we look at military, and this is true for law enforcement and fire, and I'm I'm former fire in another lifetime, you know, when I was young. Um what we train through fear, right? So you they train to to run into situations that the rest of us instinctively run away from. Right. If you hear gunfire, we usually don't run to it, right? That's a bad thing, you know. If a building's on fire, most of us go, This is bad, we should leave. And we do, and that's a good thing. But yet firefighters are running into that building, right? And so what they learn is that training, the only way that uh training can be effective is if it's if it's a reactive thing, right? If it's just what you do without any thought. And so they learn how to push through these terrifying uh environments. And and most of these guys that I worked with, these are combat veterans, these are not just you know weekend guys, these guys have actually been in combat and they've been in those situations, and you still have to do what you have to do. There is no option to opt out, right? Um, I I've got a great story about um I don't know if you guys are into philosophy, but I'd love to share your philosophy story if you're fire away. Okay, so um so you might know, and and those of you listening uh right now of the uh great philosopher sim uh uh Homer. Everybody knows Homer? Homer philosopher, right? Uh the great American philosopher Homer Simpson.
SPEAKER_02Okay, oh go please go on. I would love to hear this.
SPEAKER_01I've told this story many, many times. So here's here's a story about uh uh you know philosophy story from the great American philosopher Homer Simpson. So Homer Simpson has um you know three children and you know specifically has two older ones, one's good, one's bad. Right. So we have Bart, he's the bad one. We have Lisa, she's always the good one. In this particular story, Lisa is at school and she's just really upset with what the school's doing. It's not meeting her her agendas. You know, we know she's you know kind of this liberal-minded kid, and and so she's really upset. So she's um she's acting out and she's just causing all kinds of trouble at school. And Bart's watching this, he's like, hot damn, you know, this time it's not me. So finally, word gets back to Homer and he's standing there, and Bart's standing in the corner watching, just giggling, because you know, it's Lisa's time, she's gonna get busted, and Lisa's there, and and Bart looks at Lisa or or uh Homer. Homer looks at Lisa and he looks at Bart and he looks at Lisa, he looks at Bart and he goes, Bart, come to your room. And Bart's like, what are you talking about? I didn't do it. Lisa he goes, Boy, in times of trouble, you go with what you know. And that's exactly what we do as riders. You know, if we if we never practice uh you know riding under stress, if we never practice riding at certain lean angles at certain speeds, if we never practice breaking at certain uh, you know, trying to break to a 1G threshold, which is what most bikes are capable of, is near 1G, plus or minus 0.1, uh, then when it happens, it's not magically gonna happen. You know, you took an MSF class, you got an A score. That's a 0.63 braking. You know, the average uh rider out there, ABS or not, is around 0.7. You know, your minivan's stopping at 0.96. You know, you suck, right? Whether you have ABS or not, you're you're underbreaking these bikes. And if you think that suddenly you're gonna have that ability to stop behind a car because, you know, it's an emergency, you're wrong, right? We are reactive. And that's that goes back to this adversity thing, this ability to train through their fear, right? So that their habits become the first reaction, not the fear. And they use that to their advantage so that we can advance our skills as riders. And we often would take their real life experiences and tie them into the training, even so much as the way they shoot and the way they use their vision, you know, the way they open up their visions, they can track more area rather than pinpoint. And as riders, we focus, but we shouldn't be. We should be opening our vision so we're picking up on both sides and all the area for movement, and then when we get movement this threat, then we change our vision. And we are able to take these skill sets they have and and hone them and use them effectively. Wow, great!
SPEAKER_02That's some good good stuff, man. Wow. All right, I got what I have for you right now is 10 rapid fire questions. Are you ready? You're ready. All right, here it goes. Brace yourself. Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_01Number one snow, green, blue. Uh um, yes, eggs, and um shoot, that last one got it. All right, okay.
SPEAKER_02There we go. Ready? Number one, hard panniers or soft luggage.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, these are supposed to be fast? Well, you gotta give me context.
SPEAKER_02Where am I going? No, no, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Okay, if I'm going to Argentina, then I'm taking hard panniers. If I'm going to South Africa from Spain, I'm taking soft panniers.
SPEAKER_02All right. I didn't think it was gonna be that difficult. Favorite terrain? Sand, mud, rock, or forest two track.
SPEAKER_01Um, I I actually I get a I get a hoot out of mud. It kicks my ass. Really? And I like I think I like things that are challenging.
SPEAKER_02Wow, how about that? Most underrated ADV skill.
SPEAKER_01Most underrated ADV skill. A rolling mount and a rolling dismount. Oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Okay. Bike you would take around the world tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01Around the world. If I did that today, holy shit, around the world. Like, okay, are we going top to bottom or um are we going around the equator? That makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're going, we're going around the equator.
SPEAKER_01Around the equator. Around the equator. If I did it tomorrow, gosh, I would say I'm gonna have to take um no. I was gonna say BMW because I I had the same bikes in every country. You can always get parts for it. Uh the Hemalayan's quite the beast. I'm gonna have to take a BMW. I don't want that 1300 because that damn thing keeps breaking. I think I'm gonna take an older 1200 BMW. There you go. Okay, cool. It is not the best bike, but it sure would be a hell of a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Coffee before or after the ride?
SPEAKER_01Oh, never before. Never before. Never before. Because then you get about halfway through and then you're looking for a bathroom because everything just broke loose. I can't do that.
SPEAKER_02Uh, most common bad habit riders don't know they have.
SPEAKER_01Um morning wood riding posture. Yeah. Yeah. They stand up, they look like I and I just I came up with that term recently. It's the only way to describe it. They they look like morning wood is they're riding their adventure bike. They're just locked out straight up. They don't move. The bike leans, they're still with it. They're not leaning forward or back, they're just stuck straight up in the air. And I'm like, guys, that's a terrible way to ride a relax.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. GPS or paper maps.
SPEAKER_01Uh, we're in a we're in a modern age. I'll take GPS.
SPEAKER_02All right. Best training drill for five spare minutes.
SPEAKER_01Best train um uh dead, uh, so I would say a full lock, you know, U-turn. Really? Yeah, full lock U-turns at the lowest speed you can go. If you can stop in the middle of the U-turn and keep going, then that allows balance. You're off center, it's a clutch and uh clutch balance and brake drill. It mixes everything.
SPEAKER_02Really? Wow. All right, yeah. Uh dream riding destination you haven't hit yet.
SPEAKER_01Haven't hit yet. Dream. God, I love being warm. So let's see. I've been all through there. You know what? I have not been to Kenya yet. I think I'm I think I want to go to Kenya.
SPEAKER_02There you go. There's a new new location for your school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I have trained in South Africa and I've done tours down in Botswana, but uh Kenya, I don't think uh I don't think I quite have the market for that one. What about Namibia Namibia? I've been through Namibia. It's uh it's there's not many people, but it's super cool. I've got pictures of me up at the border of Angola, and that's where the tribes are where they cover themselves in mud. Oh, geez. And so you go out and the you know, the whim, they it looks like National Geographic. All the things you saw in the old. He's got foods flapping around and and mud caked in hair and kids with stuff, you know. But yeah, that was a really cool, um, really cool coming out of Angola, and that's at the top of Namibia. And then as you come down, it just turns into pure sand and no people. It's it's quite the experience. Wow.
SPEAKER_02All right, number 10, last one. One piece of gear you'd never leave behind. My credit card.
SPEAKER_01Seriously, of all the things, your credit card. Well, and and I tell you, this is why people overpack constantly, especially when they're new. Yeah, and I you know, I can always buy it. You know, if I if I'm short on something, if I'm cold, if I'm hot, if I'm whatever, I can always end up purchasing whatever that gear is. And I've changed different boots and helmets, and obviously, you know, I'm gonna find a helmet anywhere. There's there's always gear you're gonna have. But yeah, if you got a credit card, you can solve pretty much anything. You know, it's funny because I'm gonna call that important.
SPEAKER_02When you talk about packing too much or whatever, I've always went on the notion that if you don't have it, you can't put it on. That kind of a thing. So you bring it, but then it's a question, do I need it? Am I gonna need it? Maybe. Well, I don't know, maybe. So you just bring it anyway. I mean, it's that conundrum.
SPEAKER_01It's it's absolutely 100%. And you know, I the the interesting thing is is after all my travels, you know, and and like I've ridden from uh all of north central South America all the way down to Argentina. I've done Europe down to South Africa, doing the West Coast, so you know, the Congo and Nigeria, and I've ridden in all those countries. Uh, I take tours over to China, Nepal. My packing list that I have, whether I go on a four-month trip, whether I'm doing a weekend over in Iceland or whether I'm here in the States doing a weekend, is almost identical. Really? It changes not almost not at all. Now, I might change the type of riding gear I'm bringing, like a different jacket if it's a four-season versus you know, if I'm going for a short week and I know what kind of temperature it is, I might choose something different than if I'm going through all four seasons. Like a lot of these world trips, I've, you know, you're going everything from freezing to you know 100 plus degrees. So that you know, that's a different pick. Yeah. But the same number of underwear, pants, uh t-shirts, there's always a button-up shirt so I can clean up, you know, when I'm out traveling. Um, you know, that stuff stays the same. The tools, it doesn't matter whether I'm stuck in the Awahis, you know, south of my house here in Idaho or whether I'm in Namibia. Shit's broke. And I'm on my own, right? So if I can't fix it, we got a problem, you know. And credit card, you know, yeah. Well, exactly. Well, sometimes if you're in the middle of nowhere, you know, that's that's a problem too. So maybe I should have said cash. Uh we're talking world travel, maybe cash is a better call. But yeah, it's um uh yeah, it's I guess uh yeah, anyways, that that's kind of worse. Well, but I can just keep rattling on the street. No, I get it. It's like hold it. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, right? It's like you know we've got a time limit here at some point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you know, hey, listen, I want to thank you very much for being on the podcast. You've been an absolute joy to have on. Uh, very informative, very uh learning. I I learn stuff. So, but thank you very much for being on the show. Hey, listen, don't go anywhere. I want to talk to you when we're done. All right.
SPEAKER_01All right, thank you, Brett.
SPEAKER_02Take care. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me on on board, and uh, it's been a pleasure. You have great questions. Uh, you had me thinking on a few of those. I really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02You're welcome, man. Thanks a lot for being on the show.
SPEAKER_01All right.
SPEAKER_02That wraps up our conversation with Brett Tax, a writer, instructor, and thinker who continues to push the ADV community toward smarter, safer, and more intentional riding. Whether you're new to the dirt or decades deep in the sport, there's always another layer to learn. And Brett has a way of making those lessons stick. So thanks for joining me and Brett here in the V Twin Cafe, where he told us all about his training courses. Now you can learn more about Brett by getting on over to BrettTax.com. That's B-R-E-T-T-K-A-C-S.com. Links will be in the show notes and of course on the Motorcycleman website at motomenpc.com. Hey, don't forget to get over to the Ride with Ted YouTube channel and watch some of the many videos I have there. And if you'd please also like and subscribe, that would be a tremendous help to the channel and of course to the podcast. Don't forget you can get my book, The Road Most Traveled, right now on the Motorcycle Men website. Of course, it's still available on Amazon, and the audiobook is still available on Audible. Hey, for the rest of the Motorcyclemen team, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for supporting the show, and as always, keep the rubber side down, the shiny side up, and thanks for listening. And remember, you say stupid crap so you don't have to. Ride safely, kids, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
