Episode 019 - On the Road Technology - Best Motorcycle Roads Podcast - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16LK6nVZi0I

Transcript:

(00:00) how many GPS's or too many [Music] GPS's hello and welcome to best motorcycle roads I'm Tom and I'm Todd together we have over 65 years of combined motorcycling experience and 30 years of planning and riding motorcycle trips we're here to share with you everything we've learned over those years our goal at best motorcycle roads is simple make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be we'll dive into technology planning packing the routes and other trips and everything in between from essential prep to

(00:40) Unforgettable Roots we've got you covered before we Kickstart today's Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it's our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we'll put a link in the show note this segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips we call the toolkit this is our segment about motorcycle gear review and tips we call it the toolkit so Interceptor Moto had asked

(01:14) the questions about us and our technology that we've used and so I was just trying to you know I think oh we don't have that much technology but then we have a lot of I guess we do kind of have a lot of stuff and so I guess the first one that I'd talk about is you know the newer bikes are coming with these TPMS sensors but you can add those on and that is kind of a nice um add-on if your bike doesn't have pressure sensors I know that they have some that have a little screen that attaches they have some that

(01:41) Bluetooth to your phone both of those have been options that people have used um you know if they don't have it built built on the bike which is which is nice um not a super techn technological thing but like just bringing like the battery pack has been something that I've used a lot especially you know as everyone hopefully Knows by now we love the headsets and the headsets batteries will go bad if you're like traveling for a long day so a lot of times we we stop we'll plug those in and recharge those

(02:10) so the phone and the headsets they really benefit I think of from that um fuse blocks which is kind of probably the opposite of you know the battery charger is super interesting fuse blocks are a little hard I'm a huge fan of adding on fuse blocks since I was I really like tank bags too and a lot of times I'd plug Electrify my tank bag so whatever I can put in there I can charge up um a lot of times I'd run a hot with a key and then a hot all the time so when we get off the bike if I wanted to charge something that it

(02:44) would still be hot all the time um and sometimes I'd add a fuse block for that the only gotcha these days is the Cann bu systems which is super complicated to talk about but basically motorcycle and cars now are running basically a computer network at all times and so um the electrical system actually works on that too so it sends many sing signals down the lines of the electro wires to kind of say hey turn the headlights on hey turn this on and if you don't put a fuse block in that has a relay that isolates that

(03:22) power it can actually mess up some things and so that's one thing in kind of a modern day fuse block when you add those on you have to make sure doing it properly so generally what you'd have to do is you run a wire from the um from the battery a ground and a hot and then you run a relay that kind of just picks up on those signals ever so slightly that something's on and that allows the system not to get confused and and kind of mess up other things on the systems but having that fuse block is Handy then

(03:50) because then you can plug in extra lights cigarette lighters Chargers heated gear uh things in that nature and there's a really great site that I recommend electrical connection which is like the most generic name in the world but these guys make really really good stuff Eastern Beaver is another great site but they're kind of ADV specific so um Fus blacks are great but you got to be careful if that makes sense yeah well and I I'm not sure that I would attempt it myself but is that something a diyer could do instruction

(04:23) it's not hard I mean you're really just running a cable from the battery a hot a ground and then you're finding one wire that's basically on when the bike is on and you're kind of just using that as a signal low wattage so it doesn't yeah I think it's very doable yeah okay yeah a lot of times these fuse BLS are either put under the seat or you run a wire up if you have some sort of a compartment M um so they're not hard it's just a little intimidating at first it's very

(04:49) intimidating not a little but i' I've I've really liked when you've done that you've done that on most of your bikes you've had I really have and like for a while I even had a switch in my tank bag that I'd switch back and forth if I wanted it to be on the bike power when it's on or off or otherwise so that I could control it um yeah I it makes a lot of sense anytime you're adding additional lights um you know charging whatever it's good to isolate those it's good to put them on a fuse you just want

(05:18) to be safe safe with it and that's what it does when you have a fuse block gotcha yep and then the the kind of fourth thing I think for today just talking about um the technology is just all the cameras I mean the last 3 years the camera technology with between GoPro and insta 360s just kind of gone off the rails I mean we've talked about it in previous episodes but like you know the one where it looks like the camera's floating you know that's that insta 360 and I think it's overcompensating it's

(05:47) taking like two I'm not exactly sure I'm guessing two lenses and covering up that the stick part so it just looks like the first time I saw it I'm like this is amazing it's like a drone or what is a drone following yeah it's cool um but I think they're just cheating a little bit with like the overlapping video that's what I think yeah okay but I'm a huge fan of onboard cameras I mean they're kind of a pain in one sense like with the GoPro that we've been experimenting

(06:13) with like I was running that GoPro 12 at 5.2k I mean I think the file sizes were like 11 gig yeah we haven't even been able to kind of render those yet but um you know a lot of people are buying and they're really reasonably priced 130 to2 $100 permanent Mount cameras that are on there they're HD picks they take video all the time and then if you push the button they'll like save it a separate one so you have the whole video the whole time then any time you push the button it takes an actual picture and a

(06:46) video like 10 seconds a video um man it changes everything about like things yeah so this is this is really a big upgrade then from like a standard dash cam that will like continually recycle video after 30 days or whatever it does that so these will recycle so it's like first in first out but like a 32 gig chip when you're doing like a 1040 like an HD video I mean you're talking about like 30 hours of video so like if you put a new chip in every day you're not riding for 30 hours a lot of times so

(07:19) yeah yeah you'd be okay but and it's not quite you know it's not H it's not 4K it's not you know and there's some of those are coming on the market but it's just kind of like that basic View and I think it works pretty good mhm yeah yeah I like the idea of having that as a you know a dash cam just for safety as well but for sure but now like you said the the resolution is so high that you can use for all kinds of stuff yeah yep ridewise is the section we focus on planning and safety tips so in today's

(07:49) ridewise I want to talk a little bit about uh cargo weight uh we've had a couple of questions about how much weight can I actually pack on my bike and it you know and that depends on how many riders you know if it's you know single Rider or if you're going to go two up but um in general uh weight uh limits for most bikes is anywhere between 350 and 450 pounds however um you need to actually look at the book um to determine um and you start by taking the gross vehicle weight of the bike and that will be like the

(08:21) maximum um and then you subtract out uh the actual weight of the the wet weight or the curb weight of the bike so for examp example if the gross vehicle weight is 1,000 lb but the curb weight the wet weight that's with the fuel and all the U you know fuel uh um I want to say liquids it is I mean gas water oil oil and all that uh say say that's 600 lb so you have a 400 lb uh uh capacity there for your passenger or cargo uh that's left over and that's for you as well so um I was looking at uh my my

(09:00) Honda Goldwing for instance um my curb weight is 893 lbs uh that's full of uh Fuel and Fu uh fluids uh the gross vehicle weight is 1310 lb so that gives me like 417 lbs um of of leeway there for myself my passenger cargo accessories and then um it also gives me some weights for each of the compartments like in the Gold Wing It says 20 pounds you can put in your trunk uh 20 lbs in each of the two saddle bags uh each fairing pocket 4.

(09:37) 5 lbs I don't know what would weigh that lead I suppose but or the trunk Side Pockets one pound so right cargo it's saying 71 lb but you know really if you just do your calculation that grow gross vehicle weight minus the the curb weight um that's what you have to work with and you really don't want to go over that um some people do I think people do all the time if you're too up you're definitely over that especially no way I mean by the time you get any packages packaging I mean that means both writers are less

(10:11) than 160 you know 180 yeah to get enough weight for the the goods I don't know and then when there's two of you on it you're carrying a lot more stuff usually I mean especially the same amount of trip you know I mean if you're going four or five days so you've got all the weight but then also I guess you also have the the spring load right like so you'd want to like your bike I know you can adjust it on the well I think you have to stop but it'll adjust um the bike that I'm riding has an aftermarket

(10:42) suspension so you'd you have to actually take the seat off to change it but similarly I think that's the other piece of the puzzle and then back to our TPMS sensors right like um making sure that you have maximum air pressure I think when you're at maximum weight mhm um just so those tires hang in there yeah and then you know time of the year too if you're in you're in the middle of summer you know hot right and you're out on the highway and it's 90° your pressure is going to start going up

(11:12) so it's important that you take a look at that as well and and kind of keep an eye on that yeah that's really important too because you're right I mean like I know that like tire pressures can adjust 7° um you know as they go so yeah yeah the next segment is what we call the mile marker it's our story segment this is a story segment we call the mile marker and it's done with like spotlights today like one time we record in the daylight Todd I tell you uh you know usually it's we're out here at like midnight doing

(11:42) we're getting blasted by the Light yeah hopefully that is interesting so feel like I look at you and you're like an angel Todd I well I am so back to kind of you know tying in this technology on trips you know we did talk a little bit about the fuse blocks and again that's been helpful for me to keep things uh powered um I really like the convenience factor of it as far as fuse block blocks go outside of the chargeing the headsets I don't know that it's changed like any of the actual trips that we've had MH but I can tell

(12:16) you like changing over from GPS from maps for me has been great um when you say from Maps so literal paper maps well yeah so like how when we first started writing and you know you'll see it we've seen it on the um forums and things people will still like what what's the best thing the planet trip Maps you know paper I'm not going for paper you know and I get it for me it was a total Game Changer though because we all were running tank bags or some sort of a a map holder at the time you know and I'm going to be

(12:56) honest like I think it's completely dangerous to be looking at your paper map yeah while you're driving um especially the roads that we're riding you know and I mean like you know we weren't used to GPS's so you're used to reading a map which is different than you know there's no Blue Dot on the map that tells you where you are on it right there's no um it doesn't Orient based on the direction that you travel and so I mean there's definitely some I love looking at Maps but also like a GPS to

(13:25) me was a complete and utter better thing even if you don't go in and plan your whole entire route for me looking at that next Corner that's coming up some of these things far the corner is yeah you know turkall has he likes his GPS but he doesn't like to go in and pre-program everything so what he would do is he'll just take a plain old 3x5 recipe card and he'll plan his rout out and then he'll write down each like Waypoint and then when he gets to that way point he'll put it in the GPS and

(13:55) then he stops puts the next one in so I mean you don't have to go crazy about overly planning fig things you can gole but I'm telling you like having that like kind of in your peripheral as you're driving I I don't know why you'd want to not do it especially when you spend all this money for a motorcycle and you're going on these trips why you wouldn't want to have some sort of GPS is beyond me cuz and I still love looking at all the maps to to plan it out but but I look at some of the rides

(14:24) that we've ridden we'd Miss so many roads if we didn't do it that way cuz that's how we find those great roads you know we talk about that Kentucky ride just some of the cool roads we've been on you know it's been wonderful and like my biggest fear now is that I forget which the good ones are you know I talk I I want to be better about documenting the day we get done so we don't forget those things so yeah but yeah and and if you do have the route uh saved in your GPS just being able to hear the warning

(14:52) coming up yeah in two miles you're going to make a right exactly just so much nicer any we hold each other in that same sense not in a negative way but like hey um you know I know that when I'm leading I'll be like okay we're going to turn left in a mile you know so be ready um just because like there's no it's harder you know when you're looking at that paper map you're guessing you know and you get close but uh yeah right yeah nothing worse than having someone in the front of your uh group suddenly

(15:22) slam on The Brak to try make it happens everybody yeah um also just we talked a little bit about add in the cameras man I've loved that part of it um I before I had the cameras mounted to the bike I would set a GoPro up and I always got fussy about the video so i' like do a um you know like a want take a picture every 60 seconds M and some of my favorite pictures have been taken that were the what I call like automatic picks I have a great one it's posted in our living room of me sitting on the the

(15:54) old Gold Wing in French Lick and there's like a picture of French Lick sign in the back it's just a cool picture I mean it's just works so yeah and then lastly I mean we've talked over the times about two or three times we've had flat tires and I just think of TPMS if they' have had those on there I mean it's $40 um you know purchase that you can add on and see that boy I mean we've we've luckily not had any like accidents but $40 is definitely worth preventing an accident for sure yeah so I don't

(16:26) know we'll keep brainstorming more ideas as we go and think about integrating some of our technology ideas in here but uh these have been the ones for me that have changed kind of our writing well and I yeah I'm definitely going to get some TPMS monitors I haven't used them yet but I certainly don't like to get down on the ground and you know try and check that pressure you know it's it's just getting getting harder and harder every year to kneel on the ground so we're going to definitely have to do

(16:53) some goat yoga before we go next time all right the podcast can be found on best motorcycle roads.com /p podcast all the information you need will be there uh but you can subscribe on Spotify Amazon music apple pocketcast and YouTube this is the interactive segment we will be looking for input from you uh we want you to send us your questions and suggestions for roads topics and anything else you have on your mind today's roadside Q&A comes from Mark uh Mark is going on a longdistance trip and wanted to know what we do about roadside

(17:27) assistance that's a great question that hasn't come up before I'd like to know that no what do we do well we've had to use it um you know just made me think it's something about tell a minute check with your check with your insurance company um you know if you have motorcycle insurance hopefully of course um they usually offer roadside assistance uh Towing and what that means is they'll you know bring a flat bed out um you know if you're broken down somewhere and they'll you know winch

(17:55) your motorcycle right up onto a flatbed and uh they have all the tools to do that and the the straps and they ratchet it all down so yeah um check with your own insurance company on that and it's so cheap to add that on it doesn't cost hardly anything just a a less than 10 bucks probably for the whole year um but there's also AAA uh you can get AAA memberships um you know AAA is not that expensive yeah I haven't owned long do yeah we have it with because we have some kids and we just used it actually recently um he

(18:27) couldn't find his Jack and they came out changed his tire and then he moved on and got some things fixed yeah it I it's not very much for a year and there's a lot of if you look it up there's a lot of other kind of benefits they give you too so yeah that's a good one look into that like paper maps I think triaa probably would trip ticks right that triaa uh USAA and Harley they offer uh roadside assistant uh the American Motorcycle Association Mo motorcyclist Association uh they offer some

(19:01) memberships that include uh roadside assistance uh someone mentioned Good Sam RV and travel club membership I'm not familiar with that one but especially if you're camping I suppose because I know that's part of the good camping yeah yeah um but any you know Progressive and State Farm all of those uh will will offer some sort of um roadside assistance and then there's the Harley Owners Group hog um they offer you know that that sort of coverage their deal yep BMW has MOA or BM BMW st.com they probably won't even let you

(19:37) tell a BMW unless it's p BMW MOA sorry that's a joke that's the joke you can't do anything to that bike without asking Germany first oh I see um so anyway uh check into all of those but definitely get yourself covered on some roadside assistance we've we've had to use it right for sure and ask Brad next time about D too he doesn't like to talk about it but we went when we went to the tail of dragon his battery died one time when we were sitting there trying to figure where to go I went to get jumper cables

(20:10) and before I got back then literally this guy named Daryl stopped to help him so he had Daryl so you know you might just findl yeah he jumped started him got him going gotcha now it's time for The Last Mile it's kind of where our way to close out the episode with our reflection so Todd what what for you cord well the TPMS sensors it is Wireless that's not striking a cord well it's it's wireless and you said it's like 40 bucks and I'm thinking to myself why haven't I done this I mean we've had so many Tire

(20:41) issues you know along the way and I don't have these yet and why not so I'm going to add those yeah that's that's on my list and you know I really really like the idea of having uh you know a dash cam or a camera mounted to the you know to the bike just for you know not only capturing great views and you know accidentally C capturing something cool but you know just for safety um so they can play the video at the time of your death what you think that's right that's right as I'm sliding down the side of

(21:10) the highway no yeah I I really like that I'm going to do that cool uh for for me I guess I would say um the movement to GPS's and that's kind of where the teaser plays in I remember one trip I had two G I used to mount an old Garmin and then I had the new Garmin and I like the old Garmin for like the telemetrics you know all that stuff and then I had the new Garmin for the maps and then we' sometimes we'd have our phone so we'd have up to four you know GPS's on board at a given time yeah and you know it's

(21:43) funny how you guys make fun of me for all that and then you start to add them right afterwards so oh yeah yeah yeah but no so that's kind of I REM I had and it was I had three GPS's on a Gold Wing a 78 Gold Wing So more technology and computing power than they landed the moonlander but you know no no computer on the bike so but no I just love going and riding I like to play with the tech and integrate it with what we're doing so yeah and I think the last the last time we took a trip or maybe the last couple times I've

(22:11) mounted my 10 and 1 half inch tablet up there that's where things got crazy I actually bought a surface go and I had it mounted I was watching TV but it never like it didn't have it didn't I didn't realize like so like the Google Maps wouldn't work on like a Windows tablet oh I didn't know that no it was because it didn't have like it's not the Android right well it didn't have any Cellular Connection like like there was no way for it to like know I thought it would work without it cuz I was trying

(22:42) to even like use my hot spot or something it doesn't work it doesn't work no it doesn't like navigate oh yeah yeah I wouldn't have guessed if this episode revved up your day don't keep it to yourself like subscribe and share it with your crew we're all about the thrill of the ride and the bond it creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive remember bikes friends and endless roads the stories ride forever take care [Music] [Music]