0:01

Do you remember Evel Knievel? Or

0:03

maybe you just know the name by reputation? Evel

0:05

was a daredevil stunt rider back

0:08

in the late 60s and into the 70s

0:10

motorcycle. He did these incredible

0:13

one-of-a-kind motorcycle jumps and back in the

0:15

day there was nothing like it. No one

0:17

was doing anything close to what he was doing.

0:20

His most famous was at

0:22

Caesar's Palace, the casino.

0:24

141 feet. He

0:26

would run up a homemade ramp and then 141

0:29

feet going over the fountains in front of

0:32

Caesar's Palace and then he was supposed

0:34

to land on a ramp on the other side to

0:36

go down.

0:37

He didn't make it. He crashed. He

0:39

broke a bunch of bones. He

0:41

ended up in the hospital. Luckily he lived.

0:43

The whole hospital thing turned out

0:45

to be an amazing PR event for him

0:47

that made him incredibly well-known. That

0:50

was a difficult jump that

0:52

as I said had never been done before

0:55

and when you look at it from the outside you would assume,

0:57

you would expect that there is

0:59

some serious engineering going on in the background.

1:02

But there wasn't.

1:03

There were no engineers. There were no scientists

1:06

saying set the ramp at this angle. Get to

1:08

this speed. The ramp should be this long. The bike should

1:10

weigh this. Nope. Evel Knievel

1:13

was shooting from the hip.

1:14

He just came up with an idea and then

1:17

went for it. Went the way that he thought

1:19

it should go. And he may

1:21

have broken 35 or more bones,

1:24

depends on who you ask, and up to 433 fractures.

1:28

433? But it kind

1:31

of worked for him. I mean here we are five

1:33

decades later still talking about him.

1:36

Israel Gillette,

1:38

who we have on today, considers himself

1:40

a motorcycle maniac. Now he doesn't say anything

1:43

about Evel Knievel,

1:44

but I think Israel Gillette, and again

1:46

this is me, he didn't mention anything about this at all, but I think

1:49

he has more in common with Evel Knievel

1:51

than he does with the average motorcycle

1:54

overlander.

1:55

You'll hear what I mean. I'm Jim Martin.

1:57

This is Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us.

1:59

We gotta go.

1:59

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2:57

Alright, well my name is

2:59

Israel Eugene Gillette. I

3:01

was born and raised in Johnson City,

3:04

Jonesboro, Tennessee. And

3:07

you know, I cause as much grief as possible.

3:09

At the moment I'm working as a carpenter.

3:29

Israel, welcome to Adventure Rider Radio.

3:32

Glad to be here. At the moment you're

3:34

working as a carpenter, so that sounds sort

3:36

of fluid. You can change what you're doing.

3:40

Yeah, well, you know, the

3:42

COVID response destroyed my import

3:44

and export business, which was unfortunate

3:46

for me because I didn't get any money out of

3:48

it. And in terms of like

3:50

the stopping that, I

3:52

didn't get any relief. And I'd

3:55

worked a long time to

3:57

set that business in motion.

3:59

Yeah, but

4:04

the process just went back to working as a carpenter,

4:06

but I grew up doing that. So

4:08

I grew up in a wood shop.

4:10

You're, you're probably consider

4:12

yourself somewhat of a motorcycle enthusiast.

4:15

Well, probably, probably

4:18

a bit more than that. Yeah, no,

4:20

I'm a motorcycle

4:23

maniac. You

4:26

know, it's kind of a little

4:29

ironic cause my parents wouldn't let me have a motorcycle

4:31

growing up, but I found out

4:33

a way. I got my first motorcycle

4:36

at 17 and that's a little

4:38

late in life, but I've been

4:40

riding and racing and doing all

4:42

kinds of motorcycle related things ever

4:44

since. What was the fascination with

4:47

motorcycles? They were fast

4:51

and cheaper than cars. I

4:53

probably had a little more natural ability,

4:56

racing or driving cars. And

4:58

I did motorcycles, but

5:02

they were fast and they were cheap.

5:04

So practical reasons,

5:06

really. Practical in my,

5:08

in my view. Yeah, but I mean, it's not

5:10

like you saw the, at that time anyway,

5:12

and I bet you it's changed now, but I mean, it's not like

5:15

you saw the romance of the motorcycle.

5:17

You're looking for something that's fast and cheap.

5:20

Oh, sure. Sure. And, and now

5:22

I'm not saying that I haven't seen the romance

5:24

since. Yeah. I'm not being

5:26

particularly eloquent here. It's just basically

5:29

when I got into it, it was okay.

5:31

These things are really fast

5:34

and they're cheap and I

5:36

would like to, I need one.

5:38

And you

5:40

mentioned racing in there. So you're into racing.

5:44

Yeah. Well, it's kind

5:47

of big. I have a pro

5:49

racing license with Moto America,

5:53

race Daytona 200. And

5:56

I'm trying to race on the Isle of

5:58

Man. which

6:00

is a story in itself and it's been

6:04

a bit of a slog to

6:06

get it done. But I think this

6:08

year I'll be in for the max grand

6:10

prix, which maybe

6:13

listeners are more familiar with the TT,

6:15

but the max grand prix is

6:17

a held on the same course as

6:19

the Isle of Man TT, just

6:22

with say, and

6:25

now it's more, it's

6:28

not club racers so much anymore. The guys

6:30

that are doing the max grand prix are,

6:32

you know, a lot of them are just as fast as

6:34

the guys in the TT. So,

6:38

it's, it's a really high level

6:40

of competition and, but hopefully

6:43

this year I will finally, finally

6:45

get in.

6:47

And so, so the grand prix

6:49

is just maybe slightly below the intensity

6:51

of the TT, obviously. Yeah, sure. Overall,

6:55

the pace is lower that,

6:57

you know, the, the money involved

6:59

is lower, but

7:01

the, this year

7:03

the guy who won, who, well,

7:05

the front, the front two guys were

7:07

newcomers, which I hope to be next

7:10

year, a newcomer, they did 120 mile

7:12

an hour plus laps

7:14

on 600 CC machinery

7:17

or super sport machinery, and

7:19

that would have put them kind of mid pack at

7:21

the TT. So

7:24

it's not like these guys are slow. So does

7:26

that give you a, like a door into

7:28

the TT if you, if you win the grand prix?

7:30

Well, potentially, but I don't

7:33

anticipate,

7:34

I don't anticipate going that fast.

7:37

Uh, now what

7:39

I'm shooting for an eraser Ducati.

7:42

So, uh, you guys out there,

7:44

I know this is an adventure kind of thing

7:46

and venturing what this is about. And

7:49

I've done my share of that. Uh, but,

7:51

uh, for the Isle of Man, I hope to be on my Ducati,

7:54

I race at Ducati V2, which

7:56

L twin it's a, it's a newer one, but

7:59

even. on that fantastic machinery,

8:01

I'm looking at like, if

8:04

I do 115 mile an hour lap, I'll

8:06

be over the moon kind

8:08

of thing. So, and

8:11

to be real honest, anything over 110

8:13

miles an hour I'll

8:15

be happy with, but

8:17

I'm shooting for 115 mile an hour lap. And

8:23

that's really fast. People get

8:26

these in relation to the Isle

8:28

of Man, they have these oddball

8:31

ideas about how fast it is. And,

8:34

you know, Peter Hickman did 136 mile an hour lap on

8:37

his factory supported BMW,

8:40

and he's a British Superbike winner.

8:43

Did 136 miles an hour. So

8:46

like, they think, oh, 120, 115 miles an hour.

8:50

That's not fast. Like you're insane.

8:52

It is so fast. You said that you

8:54

grew up in Jonesboro. Is

9:00

that what you said? Jonesboro,

9:02

Tennessee, oldest town in Tennessee. Right.

9:05

And your dad had a, what do you have a factory or some sort

9:07

of flooring?

9:08

Yeah, yeah. We

9:11

had a cabinet shop and

9:13

I worked in the cabinet shop as

9:16

a little kid doing

9:18

this menial task. I guess dad

9:20

thought it was real important to make sure I was

9:22

out there working as a kid. And

9:25

maybe in hindsight, it was.

9:27

And then we converted from cabinet

9:29

manufacturing into flooring. We

9:31

manufactured hardwood flooring and custom moldings.

9:35

So this is obviously where your roots for carpentry

9:37

come in. I can understand why you fall back on that. While

9:40

you were working there, you mentioned about,

9:42

you know, your dad had you working

9:44

and thought it was maybe germane to a

9:46

proper upbringing for a person to teach

9:48

in the world. You didn't get along with your

9:50

dad so well though.

9:52

No, no,

9:54

and he'll probably listen to this interview, but

9:57

I love my dad. Let me put it that way. So

9:59

dad. I love you. Anything

10:02

I say here, please don't hold against

10:04

me, but I'm going to be somewhat honest

10:06

about it. But that, that, no, my dad

10:08

and I, we, we didn't, we didn't really get

10:10

along real well. Now

10:13

when I was really young, we got along just

10:15

fine. Cause I did everything you wanted.

10:18

As I got older, we didn't, we

10:20

didn't

10:20

really get along that great.

10:23

You know, it was an issue.

10:25

And in teenage years, he went

10:28

off to Eastern Europe after the,

10:30

you know, kind of follow communism,

10:33

which was interesting, especially in

10:35

hindsight. It was a real interesting

10:37

thing. And I

10:39

kind of followed along in the footsteps,

10:42

not just in carpentry, but kind of being

10:44

an adventurer. And I like it saying

10:47

Romain, where he went and

10:49

started the farm, but it

10:51

caused a bit of strife

10:55

growing up. He, he like,

10:57

as far as your family situation, he left you guys there

10:59

and went over. How did that work? Yeah.

11:02

Yeah. Yeah. He left

11:04

to go to Romania. You know,

11:07

like 1990, I mean, they're like,

11:10

you went to Romania the first time with the

11:12

church group in 1990. And then he

11:14

really loved the place and just kept

11:17

going back. And again,

11:19

I can understand why. I mean, Eastern

11:23

Europe and the early naughties was a bit

11:25

the wild wild East and you had

11:27

a lot of freedom there. I mean, a lot of freedom.

11:32

And that was my first international

11:34

trip was to Romania

11:36

in the early naughties. And boy,

11:39

as a, as a teenager, young teenager, 13

11:41

year old in Eastern Europe,

11:44

it was, yeah, I

11:47

don't know how much at the time

11:49

I realized how special it was, but

11:52

in hindsight, I do.

11:53

What do you mean?

11:55

You just need to just do whatever you wanted

11:58

to. As a sad note, the The police

12:00

had no power.

12:01

Uh, it was like, there really weren't rules.

12:05

Do whatever the hell you want or whatever

12:08

you wanted. Well, that could be good and bad too. Cause

12:10

they, that could also cause you problems. Somebody else doing

12:12

something that they want to do. Well, sure.

12:14

Sure.

12:15

But that never happened. Well, and

12:17

I won't say it never happened. It did. It

12:20

did. I guess there was a little bit of, you

12:22

know,

12:23

some people didn't like the fact

12:26

that I was a privileged,

12:28

you know, young American running

12:31

around the, the, the, the streets

12:33

of Dora Hoy, uh, Romania.

12:36

Right. Uh, and would give me a little

12:38

bit of grief over it, but that

12:40

didn't bother me. And

12:43

whatever, one of those things

12:45

that you learned from and like, okay,

12:47

not everybody likes you. Most people

12:49

like you, but not everybody likes you. You

12:53

can understand that. I mean, certainly she knows what happened.

12:55

You put your dad, went to that. I mean, this just seems sound,

12:58

it sounds so bizarre from the outset, you know, from not

13:00

knowing, I guess all the details and everything, but, but

13:02

were you part of the reason he went?

13:05

All right. Well, I

13:07

wasn't necessarily the

13:09

lone reason he went. I

13:12

may have been one of the reasons that he stayed,

13:14

uh, but yeah, it may

13:17

be, maybe to a certain degree, uh,

13:19

you know, things weren't going. I, you know,

13:22

I missed the, in terms of expectations

13:24

for me and how I'd progress in

13:27

life and things, I

13:29

missed the mark by a long

13:33

way. And, uh, yeah,

13:38

that wasn't good in school. Terrible, terrible.

13:40

Not a university. I was fine. Eventually

13:43

when I graduated that, you know, did

13:45

well, but, uh, yeah, growing

13:47

up. And now I was, I was a terrible

13:49

failure

13:50

and, uh, he and I did not get

13:52

along and maybe it was like,

13:55

he can see some progress and what he was doing

13:57

there.

13:58

And he wasn't interested.

13:59

interested in the family business anymore.

14:02

And

14:03

I don't know a lot of that's just

14:05

conjecture. Yeah, I'm not sure.

14:07

But yeah, I told even

14:10

told the story, doing my storytelling

14:12

stuff, just talking about how the

14:15

reason dad was in Romania was

14:17

because of me. And

14:22

maybe not at very first,

14:24

but him staying,

14:26

I think, there's

14:29

a lot of truth to that. So he stayed and

14:31

you went back to Tennessee.

14:34

Well, yeah, but I only barely went to Romania

14:36

in the early 90s kind of thing. So

14:40

I was there in 93 and

14:43

spent the summer there.

14:45

But that, yeah, he stayed and

14:47

they changed rules to where Americans

14:50

could buy property in the late 90s. And

14:52

he bought some property to

14:55

put a farm on. And there's

14:58

a farm there now. And

15:01

our relationship

15:03

has had its ups and downs. And at the

15:05

moment, unfortunately, we're in a trough,

15:07

which I didn't see coming.

15:09

But I'd spent a lot

15:11

of time on the farm in Romania. I love it there.

15:13

And that's where I wanna be, to be honest.

15:17

We'll see what happens. I don't

15:19

know. I

15:21

had expectations and I've tried

15:25

to not have any now. I don't know what's

15:27

gonna happen, but he's back

15:29

on the farm for the first time in

15:31

many years. But

15:33

I've spent a lot of time there through

15:36

the 2000 and teens.

15:39

Back in 2009, I went

15:41

back to the farm. He was there.

15:44

I've been there

15:46

a whole lot more since then than

15:48

he has. But at the moment, he

15:50

and my mother are on the farm in

15:53

Romania and I'm back in Tennessee. When

15:55

you say the relationship's in a bit of a trough, you talking about

15:57

something to do with the farm or you talking about with your dad?

16:01

Most. Most. Okay.

16:07

Dad likes to hide things from me

16:09

and he wouldn't admit to it, but he

16:12

knows it's true. So,

16:15

like dealings with the farm, though, I was the one

16:17

there. He'd only tell me just enough.

16:20

And this is similar to what he did with

16:22

the family business. He'd

16:25

hide things from me.

16:27

And I don't know why it doesn't make

16:29

a lot of sense, but

16:31

I'll let things be as they are. And

16:33

I'll just trust that things are working out in

16:36

their best interest. But it frustrates

16:38

me because I kind of like focused

16:41

on being on the farm

16:43

and trying to make it go with that and

16:45

continuing on with

16:48

what he wanted and his ideas for

16:51

the farm while managing

16:53

to somehow make it. I wouldn't

16:56

say profitable, but it sustained

16:58

itself,

16:59

which

17:01

he was kind of on board with and then all of

17:03

a sudden wasn't but that's caused

17:05

a certain amount of consternation of late.

17:08

But I'm not

17:10

I'm trying to be

17:15

more understanding of whatever is

17:17

going on, even if I don't have full understanding

17:20

of what's going on over

17:23

what I had been when I was younger, which is

17:25

just angry and, you know, like,

17:27

volatile.

17:28

So in this case, I am trying

17:31

to implement some better

17:33

understanding of things

17:36

over just, okay,

17:38

well, I understand it, but I'm not doing anything about it. I'm

17:40

trying to do things a little differently

17:43

in relationship with my father. It's

17:47

a work in progress.

17:48

Well, it is, but run

17:51

that time. We need to

17:52

make some big progress really quickly.

17:57

But as long as you're trying, though, isn't

17:59

that it's like such a.

17:59

positive thing, just trying

18:02

the act of trying. Yeah,

18:04

it is. It is. And that's the most

18:06

important thing. I don't know if it's going to work out

18:08

or not. And my plans

18:11

over the past years

18:13

may have changed due

18:15

to it, but, uh,

18:17

now we'll, we'll see. I'm not, I

18:20

don't know. It's a, it's a bit of a quandary

18:23

in this relationship and

18:25

my place in Romania on the farm. I

18:27

don't know. I don't know.

18:30

Are you sitting outside right now? Yeah.

18:33

And you've got flu jays around. Actually,

18:36

yeah. They're blue jays right. I'm looking

18:38

at them right now. They're tiny little blue jays.

18:42

That's great. And I can hear the odd breeze

18:44

there too. Yeah. Hey,

18:46

it in June, 2011, you

18:49

were on a break from university. You

18:51

were out of jail on a $30,000 bond. Yeah.

18:56

Left Tennessee, you headed south

18:58

for the Texas American border on

19:00

a nine year old R 11 50 GS with 75,000 miles on it with

19:02

a goal of reaching Argentina. Well,

19:10

I have, where do you start with something like that?

19:13

I mean, well, let's first start at

19:15

the jail, the jail, 30, why were

19:18

you in jail? What happened?

19:23

You know, okay.

19:24

So I'm

19:26

going to give you a long winded story here. We

19:29

got a little bit of time. Well,

19:31

stick around. You can tell a good story is

19:34

coming up next. I have two things to tell you about. Stick

19:36

with us.

19:45

It's

19:45

coming up on 10 years ago now

19:47

that I interviewed a writer that had written around the world

19:49

on $25 a day. He'd spent four and

19:51

a half years doing it. That writer was

19:53

Renee Cormier. And even back then when

19:55

I spoke with him, he was already taking people on adventures

19:58

through his company, Renee. Adventures.

20:01

Now Renais Adventures is 13 years

20:04

old and they're still taking riders

20:06

all over the globe. Well, even more riders and more

20:08

places now. Riding Adventures largely

20:11

selected from favorite places that Renais went

20:13

on his round-the-world trip. These are places

20:16

that feature sort of big landscapes and not

20:18

many people. He runs with small

20:20

groups under 10 bikes and he offers trips

20:22

into Africa, Mongolia, South

20:25

America, New Zealand, Scotland,

20:27

and Canada. These are upscale

20:30

boutique style accommodations and

20:32

they ride predominantly BMW GS motorcycles.

20:35

Almost 40% of the riders

20:38

this year are repeat customers. That

20:41

clearly speaks to Renais Adventures

20:43

quality and consistency and doing

20:45

a great job at what they do. Riders

20:47

choose Renais because of the passion

20:49

that Renais has for what he does. I mean

20:52

that's the whole reason he went into this is because he

20:55

couldn't let go of it after doing his four

20:57

and a half year trip. He has long-term

20:59

guides that have been with Renais for years including

21:02

full-time staff in South Africa, Canada,

21:05

and the US. Unforgettable

21:07

adventures by day and recharge

21:09

in ultimate comfort by night. Renais.com

21:13

is the website. Anytime you're dealing with them throw in

21:15

there that you heard them on Adventure Rider Radio. Renais.com.

21:21

The whole point of an adventure motorcycle is so that

21:23

you can ride long distances to

21:25

places that you can explore maybe ride

21:27

some challenging stuff, look at the scenery, most

21:29

of all adventure. But

21:32

even on an adventure bike those long distances

21:34

can sometimes be a little much for your wrist,

21:36

your arm, and your shoulder. Throttle hand

21:38

I mean. Holding your wrist locked in one position

21:41

for hours on end or even even 20 minutes

21:44

is sometimes fatiguing. But there is

21:46

one device that is very popular with

21:48

adventure riders, street riders too for

21:50

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21:53

Throttle Lock. And the Atlas Throttle Lock will

21:55

cure that problem and it just

21:58

changes the way you ride too. It really does. The

22:01

Atlas Throttle Lock was invented by riders just like you and

22:03

I. It was Heidi and David Winters on their round-the-world

22:05

trip. That's when they came up with the idea. They're riding

22:08

two up on a KTM. This device,

22:10

the Atlas Throttle Lock, to begin with is

22:13

just a stunning piece of machinery. It is so

22:15

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22:17

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22:19

I think what's going to impress you even more than the way it

22:22

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22:24

has two buttons on it. And right in line with that

22:26

sort of Apple quality design and

22:28

manufacturing, these two buttons provide

22:31

tactile feedback so that you never have to

22:33

look down to see what you're doing. The feel

22:35

tells all. One button for engage, the

22:37

other for disengage. You simply press

22:39

the button and your throttle position is

22:42

held at that position. If you need

22:44

more throttle, you roll more on or roll more off,

22:46

it'll hold the new position. There's no need to disengage

22:49

it to make adjustments. Then to disengage,

22:51

you simply press the other button. It's utterly

22:54

simple, yet utterly fantastic

22:56

in how it changes your ride. Atlasthrottlelock.com

23:00

is the website. Anytime you're dealing with them, throw in there that

23:02

you heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio. Atlas...

23:25

I mean, I don't care about the $30,000 bond.

23:27

Why were you in jail? What

23:30

happened?

23:33

You know, okay. So

23:35

I'm going to give you a long winded story here. We got

23:37

a little bit of time here early,

23:40

kind of early in the day for me. Got Blue

23:42

Jays out here squawking and

23:44

got my new puppy at my feet. So

23:47

yeah, I

23:49

don't know. I guess

23:52

I was a really good spot in my life. I was

23:54

dating a surgeon. I had

23:56

a great relationship going and I've had

23:59

a problem with... that, but

24:01

things were going too well.

24:04

And I was driving through my hometown

24:06

of Jonesboro, Tennessee. And I see

24:08

some some Jonesboro police

24:11

with a with a canine unit walking

24:13

around and old and I mean an

24:15

old Honda city. It was like a late

24:18

70s model Honda and this guy was clearly

24:20

poor. And I'm like, you know,

24:22

they're shaking this dude down. You know, he's

24:24

standing outside his car and they're got the dog

24:27

running around it. I wouldn't have

24:29

now. I pulled over and I

24:31

stopped and like why you walking the dog around his car?

24:34

And boy, they didn't like that. They did not

24:36

like that.

24:37

Not one bit and they're like, get out of here. Get

24:39

out of here. I'm like, okay, well, I'll leave you

24:41

tell me leave. And you know, we're in

24:46

a gas station parking lot. I'm like, I'm not

24:48

sure that they can tell me to leave. They

24:50

have to overlap that authority. But I'm

24:53

like, okay, I'll leave. But you know, this is

24:55

some some fascist crap. And like,

24:58

I don't like it one bit. So I

25:00

go out and get myself and I'm starting to drive

25:02

away and one of the cops comes rushing across

25:05

the parking lot. It jumps in front of

25:07

my car like you get out of that car right

25:09

now, or I'll pull you out.

25:11

So yeah, I stopped and get out of the

25:14

car and they're upset. You know, they're

25:16

just upset. They're looking for something

25:19

at that point to charge me where and

25:23

this guy comes and he was steroid

25:25

addled Sergeant Sergeant and

25:27

I'm not making that up. Sergeant Sergeant

25:30

he's steroid addled

25:32

guy end up going to federal prison for

25:34

steroid trafficking actually,

25:37

which was ridiculous because

25:40

he wrote up the most terrible

25:42

police report ever constructed

25:45

for me and which the

25:47

local the john city press Hey, john

25:49

city press I hope somebody there's listening

25:51

to this because you guys really

25:54

really rough me up good. And

25:56

so they just like wrote it straight

25:58

verbatim what Sergeant Sergeant,

26:01

the future steroid

26:03

trafficker. At that time, he was probably

26:05

trafficking steroids, rode up.

26:08

But Sergeant, Sergeant got there and he

26:10

said, what's this I hear about you? I'll

26:15

reframe it because I can't remember exactly

26:18

how the guy framed it. But Sergeant,

26:20

Sergeant came

26:21

and he's got

26:24

his finger thrust in my face

26:26

and he's like talking

26:29

about like, why are you here? What are you doing?

26:32

And trying to drive

26:35

over my deputy or, you know, like the

26:37

sheriff's officer. Or

26:38

well, you wouldn't share if he's Jonesboro police.

26:42

And he, I'm

26:45

like, well, what you're talking about there,

26:47

walking the dog around the car. And he's

26:49

like, that dog is an officer of the law. And

26:52

I said, well, they were walking officer whiskers around

26:54

the car. And he kept me off right

26:56

then. He said, aggravate the sauce on

26:59

a police officer. I'm

27:01

like,

27:01

you're full of SHIT. And he said,

27:05

he said disorderly conduct. And

27:09

next thing you know, I'm going to cross the road

27:12

and the jail was literally across the

27:14

road or is across the road. And yeah,

27:16

the officer

27:18

that run over in front of my car,

27:21

he ended up feeling

27:23

bad about that. Also got fired. He

27:28

didn't go to federal prison at least, but he got

27:30

fired from the Jonesboro police department. And

27:34

yeah, he took me to jail and

27:36

I'm like, well, tell me what my bond is. And he

27:38

did. He never came back. Tell me what my boss

27:40

was. Cause it was $30,000. So,

27:45

uh, yeah, uh, that cost. And

27:47

they put me on the front page of the paper. And

27:50

in the story, it said, I tried to run over the police

27:52

officers in my sauce.

27:54

When they told me to leave and I was going

27:56

the opposite direction and

27:58

the guy ran over me. front of me

28:00

to stop me. So yeah, it

28:02

was, it was bogus. And ultimately

28:05

it ended up, uh, I

28:07

ended up being vindicated. It took a long time

28:09

because they didn't want to let go of it. They wanted

28:12

something. But yeah,

28:14

the, uh, it was part,

28:16

somewhat the impetus or part of it of

28:19

me. Like, you know, this is ridiculous.

28:21

And I did, I did a couple of international

28:24

trips. I wrote across Europe

28:26

was the first thing. And then I,

28:28

after I built up my confidence, uh,

28:30

doing a trans European motorcycle

28:33

ride, I did the, uh,

28:36

the Pan American

28:38

highway basically. And yeah,

28:40

I wrote to Argentina and Chile.

28:43

So you stopped really just

28:45

to help somebody or you thought you were going

28:47

to help them by maybe taking

28:49

some of the heat off of them, pun intended,

28:52

but, uh, that didn't work. You

28:54

ended up finding yourself in jail and then

28:56

you have to put up a $30,000 bond. Don't they tell you

28:59

how you can't leave at that point?

29:01

Well, they could, they could.

29:04

And you know, I was in, uh, it got,

29:06

cause I was fighting it

29:08

and I took it to criminal court and,

29:10

and the judge in criminal court at the

29:12

time, Robert cup, he knew it was bogus.

29:15

He knew it was bogus. He could read that. He

29:18

knew it was bogus, but the DAs were

29:20

holding on to it. I had to be like,

29:22

you know, I had a little bit of criminal

29:25

history, but usually just similar

29:27

stuff. Like I'm opposite. I wouldn't, I

29:29

wasn't out stealing things from people. I wasn't feeding

29:31

people up. I really like telling

29:34

authority, uh, authority folks where

29:36

they can stick it, you know, and, uh, and, and, and,

29:38

you know,

29:40

the DAs are kind of authority. So,

29:43

uh, uh, and, and,

29:45

and I would do it. I'd go in court as a teenager,

29:47

you know, and, and, and tell him like,

29:50

you know, you guys are out of, out of hand. But,

29:53

uh, so

29:55

their memories, they had long memories

29:57

about that. They wanted to give them

29:59

a grief. over it, but the judge

30:01

knew. I remember being in

30:04

court and they were trying to reset

30:06

my criminal court thing

30:08

for sometime

30:10

in June or

30:12

July. I'm like, I can't

30:15

be here, Your Honor. At that point in time, I was going

30:17

to school in Chattanooga, University

30:19

of Tennessee, Chattanooga. And

30:21

they're like, well, why can't you be there? I'm like, I'm

30:23

going to be in Bolivia. Are you

30:27

going to Bolivia?

30:28

Yeah. I'm riding

30:30

a motorcycle. I

30:32

said, I'll be on a motorcycle

30:34

in Bolivia. He said, how are you getting your motorcycle

30:37

there? And I looked around at the court and like,

30:39

well, I'm going to ride it there. And I remember

30:41

one of the, one of the DA's, the assistant

30:43

DA just busted out laughing. I said,

30:45

I was going to ride it there. But

30:49

I did. And he didn't, he

30:51

didn't try to circumvent that in any

30:53

way. He's like, okay. But he put

30:55

it off for much later. He put it off

30:57

for the fall. Oh, you commented. Yeah. Well,

30:59

he knew it. He

31:01

knew it was bogus. He knew the charges

31:04

were completely

31:06

overblown. Yeah. He let me do

31:09

my thing. And hey, judge cup.

31:12

Thank you very much. It was the best thing

31:14

I ever did with my life. So

31:16

you had a little trouble with authority, probably still

31:18

do. What makes me think about that thing we were talking about

31:20

with your dad. Ah, forget it. Yeah.

31:24

So, so the trip though, so you end up

31:26

leaving court and, and did you do

31:28

your trip? Did you ride down to Argentina?

31:30

Yeah. Yeah.

31:32

I thought not without some, some hang

31:34

ups, but yeah. And, and, and I had

31:36

some help along the way. My, my

31:38

buddy,

31:39

when I had, I'd have issues. I had a buddy

31:41

Ari that helped me a little bit. And, uh,

31:44

uh, my cousin, uh, Jim Burkhardt,

31:46

world's coolest nuclear engineer, uh,

31:49

would, would help me a little bit, but basically,

31:52

uh, I left out and,

31:54

uh, yeah, call set border from

31:56

Brownsville, Texas and the mock Morris

31:59

Mexico, which is

31:59

Diabolical by the way if

32:02

it for you adventure riders out there You

32:05

better have some belief in yourself

32:08

making that border crossing. I suggest you

32:10

take another one Is

32:12

really it's really sketchy. I

32:15

mean that month more Browns hold a month Morris

32:18

Boy, that'll that'll set you straight that

32:20

one Yeah,

32:24

yeah just just road just road

32:26

and Mexico is a brilliant place I'm not

32:29

I'm not trying to cast any

32:31

bad light on Mexico at all.

32:33

You just do it Yeah, talk

32:36

about it like no Mexico's really

32:38

lovely people the best food in the world

32:42

Go do it, but

32:43

maybe don't take the Browns will

32:45

not Morris So

32:48

what that wasn't your first long motorcycle

32:50

trip then no

32:51

the first

32:54

one I bought a 1985 are

32:59

BMW

33:01

and off eBay UK

33:03

and flew over and picked it up and rode

33:06

Romania and So

33:09

and I still you know all these bikes

33:11

that I've owned

33:14

Sentimentality and stuff like that. I've never

33:17

kept one except for that one and I

33:19

still have I still have that bike It's

33:21

sitting at the farm in Romania under

33:24

a car pulling. Why what's the

33:26

idea that I

33:28

Just I I don't know at the

33:30

time I didn't have time to sell it Or

33:34

couldn't figure out how to sell it and

33:37

but it was my first transcontinental

33:39

motorcycle trip and Yeah,

33:42

I still got it now and I probably won't sell it

33:45

That one's gonna that one's gonna stay with me

33:47

or stay in Romania if I go back

33:51

Yeah, it was nice, but you

33:53

know in hindsight It was just

33:56

that was kind of precursor to that South American

33:58

trip. I just

33:59

kind of give me faith in myself

34:02

like I can do this and you know

34:05

I can make it happen and I did it with very

34:07

little money and uh just

34:10

spending most of my money on fuel not

34:12

eating and

34:14

uh but uh yeah

34:16

it was one of those things it's just a kind

34:19

of a dry run for that South American trip the

34:21

South American trip really

34:23

uh was was the one that

34:25

uh kind of

34:27

made me who I am kind of thing

34:30

the South American trip going down to Argentina back

34:32

in 2011 um what was it about

34:34

that that trip that you say really made

34:36

you who you are now

34:38

well just the adversity that I had to

34:40

overcome during the trip and I did it

34:43

with with very little money and you know

34:45

for a trip like that uh

34:47

and it's just me you know uh

34:51

I'm sorry Daisy that I left

34:53

you home

34:54

poor Daisy got left it home

34:56

uh but that's a day

34:59

yeah that Daisy was my

35:01

black lab border collie mix

35:04

I had her for 15 years

35:06

uh and she was the first motorcycle

35:09

dog that I had but

35:11

uh

35:12

I didn't have enough

35:15

uh what your faith in myself or

35:17

faith and well yeah there's a lot

35:19

of uncertainty going into it and I left her home

35:22

it's a lot of followers agree to it

35:24

yeah well it is and uh

35:26

but if I

35:28

if I had to do over again I would have

35:30

taken Daisy with me uh but

35:32

but yeah at the

35:34

time I was just you know

35:36

there was like Facebook just getting started

35:39

in 2009 you know 2010 when I did the trip

35:43

uh

35:45

but it was like I

35:48

didn't have a lot of info to

35:50

fall back on I had the adventure

35:52

motorcycling handbook or adventures

35:54

motorcycling handbook uh yellow

35:57

one uh which guys probably got

36:00

Yes. Oh yeah. I devoured

36:02

that thing. And

36:05

my girlfriend at the time had bought it for me.

36:08

And she was a Spanish

36:10

professor at UTC. And she bought

36:13

me this book. And

36:15

man, I read the covers

36:18

off that thing.

36:20

And it was

36:22

good. That's where I was getting all my info from.

36:25

Now things are such

36:27

with the end social media that you get

36:29

a lot. You go on horizons unlimited

36:32

or some adventure rider

36:34

kind of stuff. And everybody will have all

36:36

the answers for it. But

36:38

at that point in time, didn't

36:40

really have that kind of resource. A

36:42

little bit you go on the,

36:45

there's ADB

36:48

rider, like

36:51

a forum or something. But

36:53

just the info wasn't as prevalent as

36:55

it is now. So there

36:57

was a lot of unknowns and you just had

36:59

to go out there and do it. So

37:01

but it was good.

37:04

It was good. You gained a lot of confidence

37:06

in yourself doing something like that. When

37:09

you say adversity, you know, the adversity

37:11

of the trip, was it just the adversity of traveling by yourself

37:13

going through all these countries and making the trip on

37:15

your own or are there specific things that happened there

37:18

that you had to overcome that were really difficult? Oh,

37:22

all kinds of example, me just

37:25

just okay. Okay, so I went to

37:27

jail

37:28

in Mexico.

37:30

That

37:31

was my, that was

37:33

my first time with problems

37:36

with authorities on the trip

37:42

was in southern Mexico. I went

37:47

to which one

37:49

did I go to the some of these

37:51

ruins down in southern

37:53

Mexico, Plinka. So I went

37:55

to Plinka, mine ruins in

37:58

Plinka.

37:59

And I got

37:59

blink a

38:00

and I was already kind of facing some

38:03

issues because I'd ordered a new ATM

38:05

card

38:07

Right and now the ATM

38:09

card you go into the bank and I give you one there

38:11

on site back Then it wasn't the case

38:14

you had to wait on it mail

38:16

so I got a new ATM card for this trip

38:19

and You know most all

38:21

my money was in in the bank and

38:23

I could had no access to it I was waiting on the

38:25

ATM card

38:27

Well, I got the ATM card

38:30

But I didn't have the code for it. They

38:32

send you the code separate, right? Separate

38:36

So I had the card and

38:39

I'm going down You know, I'm going through

38:41

Mexico But I just had a little bit

38:43

of money to get me by now I

38:45

get I get the blink a and I'm running out of money I

38:47

mean like basically have no money left

38:50

and I don't want to cross the border You

38:52

know out of Mexico into Guatemala Till

38:55

I have this code

38:58

so I found a defunct

39:00

Volvo dealer and

39:02

Gate was

39:04

open. It was trenchly the rain

39:06

was torrential. I mean it was coming down.

39:09

So I went to this defunct out

39:11

of business Volvo dealer and I

39:13

go back in the old change bay and set up

39:16

a tent next my BMW and

39:18

I end up living in this

39:21

old Volvo dealership for like a

39:23

week and Waiting

39:26

on this code to come so I could access the

39:28

money in my accounts

39:30

So while I'm there I try, you know, I'm like

39:32

well hell like they got the biggest

39:34

ruins in mine ruins

39:37

here I need to go see that and

39:39

So I go there

39:41

and of course I've got all my all

39:43

my valuable stuff and you know

39:45

walking around ruins with a big bag

39:48

of stuff it desirable at all,

39:50

so I was trying to Get

39:53

them put somewhere safe and and

39:55

the lady is so the tickets like

39:57

oh, it'll cost you this much I'm like, well, I don't have

39:59

that

39:59

I just have enough money to get into the place

40:02

and she put her hands up like I'm

40:04

not gonna help you. So

40:07

I'm like well I saw a gate open

40:10

and some you know it took you know

40:12

like some university

40:14

guys going

40:17

in that archaeologist whatever like

40:19

I have the gates open and I

40:22

got on my motorcycle and I drove into

40:24

the ruins and drove around and boy

40:27

those uh those university guys did

40:29

not like that at all and

40:32

uh so I got in there and parked next

40:34

to one of their cars and next

40:36

to the ruins and uh they called the police

40:39

they made a whole big deal of

40:41

it and uh yeah they put

40:43

me in jail over that it was fun

40:46

too though when when cops got

40:48

there they they kind of like tried

40:50

to figure out who was going to ride my r11

40:53

50gs back to the

40:55

plink a lock up in the center of town and

40:58

uh the one guy got to be

41:00

the dude that got to ride the bike so

41:04

and he was real excited about it but he

41:06

was not a very big guy and it

41:08

was my stuff it was my bike

41:10

was fully loaded you know it was

41:15

it was it was it for the the faint of heart

41:18

like you didn't know what you're doing and

41:20

uh it just from the sheer weight of it and

41:23

uh but yeah you know got

41:25

riding air-conditioned comfort and the back

41:27

of a pickup truck back to the plink a

41:30

lock up and watch my bike get

41:32

the grid back as well and

41:34

and they pull into this uh kind

41:37

of open uh air

41:40

sort of jail kind of thing

41:42

and like a courtyard in the center you

41:45

know and it was in the center of town

41:47

and

41:48

and i go we pull

41:50

in and there's this poor unfortunate

41:52

soul with his wrist laying out of

41:55

one of the lockups it was open air lock

41:57

up

41:58

and i'm like oh my god

41:59

Are they going to put me in there?

42:01

And, uh, but they didn't, they,

42:04

they put me out with the prostitutes in the courtyard

42:07

and there were these prostitutes

42:09

and I don't know, uh, it's a little

42:12

spicy here, but I don't know if they did

42:14

it intentionally, but, and I'm

42:16

pretty sure they did, but they had these prostitutes

42:18

like locked up to a table at

42:21

another level in the courtyard. So

42:23

the prostitutes were sitting up like

42:25

another four feet higher than a year or two

42:28

and a half, three feet higher than

42:30

you. And they had just me just

42:32

sitting there and I, and I wasn't, I wasn't

42:34

handcuffed like they were, they were handcuffed

42:36

to this table, but I was

42:38

just sitting on it on a, uh, you

42:41

know, just a regular old chair in the middle

42:43

of this courtyard looking straight

42:46

over towards these prostitutes who were

42:48

linked up and they were in their cocktail dresses

42:50

and you're like, you're sitting

42:53

that way, looking in their direction and it had

42:55

to have been done on purpose. It had

42:57

to have been done up for it. It

43:01

was completely weird, but every,

43:03

every cop in town came

43:05

by and my bike was parked

43:08

right there next to me in this courtyard

43:10

with prostitutes straight in my line of

43:12

vision ahead of me and every

43:14

cop in town came by to check

43:17

out the bike and talk to me, even

43:19

though they weren't speaking to English, you know, like, and

43:21

they, they kept talking about how

43:24

terrible their Yamaha's were. Uh,

43:26

like, they didn't like the Yamaha. They liked

43:28

to be, um, no, really.

43:31

So what, what did they, what'd they do with you? They were, they're keeping

43:33

you for what? Well,

43:35

it was

43:37

something like, it

43:38

was basically the, the, the Mexican

43:40

equivalent of trespassing,

43:42

you know, and, and it wasn't like,

43:45

uh,

43:46

it was something you could pay a fine, right? But

43:49

they didn't know what the fine was. The magistrate

43:51

had to get there to set the fine for me.

43:54

Uh, so they set the fine.

43:56

Finally, the magistrate came and they

43:58

set a fine, but I didn't have.

43:59

that many pesos. It was, it

44:02

was something menial. It was like the equivalent of like 30 bucks

44:04

or something. Right. But I didn't

44:06

have that many pesos. I was waiting on the ATM

44:10

code, but the

44:13

guy, the magistrate, he was a fancy

44:15

dude. Trump didn't want to be

44:17

dealing with this on a weekend kind of thing, but

44:19

he came

44:20

and he want me, he let me use his,

44:24

he had a blackberry. So he was

44:26

like, he was real fancy at the

44:28

time he had a smartphone. And

44:30

so he let me use his blackberry, check my email

44:33

and my brother had gotten the piece

44:35

of mail

44:36

and check it cause he was on the lookout for

44:38

it. And he'd forward

44:41

me the ATM code and the

44:43

magistrate walked me around out

44:45

of the lockup to the square

44:47

there in blinker. And I

44:50

was able to withdraw the

44:52

however many pesos, roughly 50 or 30 bucks to pay them. And I

44:56

got

44:59

released. Well, $30 that's the

45:01

substantial fine for them.

45:04

Oh, especially in Southern Mexico. It's like,

45:07

it's, it's very poor down there.

45:09

What other kinds of things really made

45:12

the trip?

45:13

Uh, you know, I had to replace

45:15

clutch in San Jose, uh,

45:17

Costa Rica, and there are BMW

45:20

shops all throughout Latin America

45:22

and all over the world.

45:24

Every country's got at least one of an Argentina.

45:27

I think Argentina has

45:29

a knack for causing problems

45:31

with, you know, freedom in general.

45:34

So

45:36

BMW, it and having a shop

45:39

in Argentina anymore. At least they did

45:41

at that time.

45:42

But, uh,

45:44

yeah, it's San Jose. I had to replace

45:47

clutch and I'm a BMW GS.

45:50

That's a big deal. So

45:52

that cost me some time in San Jose.

45:54

Uh, then, you

45:56

know, just causing the daring gap, it

45:59

causes its own. Set of problems. I

46:01

didn't intend on being on a boat

46:03

and floating over but the time

46:06

spent And San Jose

46:08

getting clutch replaced Necessitate

46:10

that I fly it and and you

46:12

know, they said it's gonna take this long X

46:15

X number days And it ended up taking

46:17

like a week and a half or two weeks or

46:19

something and I was stuck in in Bogota

46:21

You know put a little my thumbs

46:23

for two weeks 100 I

46:25

was gonna I was gonna make it You

46:30

Know and yeah, and then

46:33

at the end of the trip the first part of

46:35

the trip at least

46:37

Crossing from Bolivia and Argentina

46:40

ended up being a complete nightmare

46:42

and

46:43

I just

46:45

had to get Proactive

46:47

about and got shot at those guys I

46:50

was I was in I was in there legally

46:53

I mean, I had the stamp in the passport But

46:55

they wouldn't let the bike in and they

46:57

insist on have I don't know how many different

47:00

Insurances I had on the bike by that time

47:02

because every country and sell you their own Insurance

47:05

in the States, but but it

47:08

like you guys have insurance I like well sell

47:10

me some insurance, but

47:12

most countries you could buy it there at the border,

47:14

but not in Argentina you could and So

47:18

I went in trying to buy insurance and

47:21

all the

47:22

You know all the insurance agencies

47:25

were out of business and like

47:27

it was nothing I was nothing I could do and

47:29

I was getting ready to miss my flight out

47:32

of

47:36

Buenos Aires

47:37

which was like 1200 miles away.

47:40

Is this going down or coming north? Yeah This

47:43

was going down. So so my trip

47:45

I end up doing in two two parts.

47:47

I

47:48

I Did

47:50

over summer break from from University

47:52

and then over Christmas break

47:54

I went back

47:56

I see so this was the end of summer

47:58

break. This was the first long one

48:00

and I was trying to get the Buenos Aires to

48:03

fly out and you know I was

48:05

running out of time

48:06

already missing a week of classes and

48:10

yeah I got to the border with Bolivia

48:13

and Argentina I can't remember the

48:15

name of the border town but it

48:17

was interesting because I was sitting there you know

48:20

like trying to figure out what I was gonna do they

48:22

had some deal where they had free trade

48:25

between them if you walked

48:27

in the cross there

48:30

was a business for these guys carrying

48:32

baggage across the border

48:34

from Bolivia and Argentina

48:36

right that's crazy like a bunch

48:40

of worker ants you know like

48:43

I'm loading a truck on one side and walking

48:45

over exactly exactly

48:48

but so so what they're trying to find

48:52

trying to find insurance because again

48:55

I was legal I mean my passport had the Argentinian

48:57

stamp in it but it

49:00

was no insurance to be had and I was running

49:02

out of time and I had 1200 miles to

49:04

cover to get the Buenos Aires from border

49:06

and eventually I just got

49:09

aggravated and I made a little video of it

49:11

and I had my had an old you

49:13

know it wasn't GoPro it was some

49:16

something drift I think was the name of

49:18

it and I put

49:21

the helmet cam on me I'm like you

49:23

know these guys aren't letting me in I'm gonna miss my

49:25

flight can't afford to miss my flight hop

49:27

on the bike just ride through the border

49:30

you know some guy jumps out in front of me

49:32

tries to like stop me and I just zigzag

49:34

around them and I'm off and

49:37

I saw when I went into the

49:40

town there in Argentina where there was

49:42

another checkpoint like you know just on Mount

49:44

Skirt's town so I went out into

49:46

the desert and went around it and

49:50

I was on the road

49:51

and so for like a hundred miles I was

49:54

I was freewheeling

49:56

and came over a rise

49:59

Uh,

50:00

looked off in the distance. There was another checkpoint.

50:03

And boy, they were waiting on me. Oh

50:07

yeah. Oh, they knew they had plenty of

50:09

time. Well, he was 100 miles in every

50:11

better. All he did. I could wrangle was out there

50:14

waiting on me and I come over to the hill. Now

50:16

I see him off in the distance. I'm like, uh, oh, and

50:19

I turn around and go back. And,

50:21

uh, and I

50:23

found a bridge and I went and hit under the

50:25

bridge and these, these federales come

50:27

on a pickup truck. And I hear him go

50:30

over the bridge

50:32

and then I hear him stop.

50:33

Oh man.

50:35

And, and I gassed up, go back

50:38

towards checkpoint up the side of the bridge.

50:40

Back towards checkpoint on the other side of the bridge

50:43

and federales it unloaded off the

50:45

back of the pickup truck. And one particularly

50:47

just overachiever

50:50

just popped off every, it was a nine

50:52

mill. And he popped off every

50:54

round and that is that the nine millimeter.

50:57

What all he unloaded all of it. Now

51:00

he was running and I was on the other

51:02

side of the bridge. His chances of hitting me were

51:05

extremely low. Yeah. But he unloaded,

51:08

he unloaded. So

51:11

I'm back. And at that point, if I did, if

51:13

I wasn't already motivated to get away from, I

51:15

was definitely motivated to get away from it. And

51:18

so I go back towards the checkpoint again.

51:21

And, and I remember seeing the opening

51:24

on the side of the highway and by

51:27

highway is two lane, but you know, it was

51:29

the main, main route. I remember

51:31

seeing the opening in the fence cause it's kind of line

51:33

by fence, but I remember seeing the opening. So

51:36

I go and hit this opening and I'm going off

51:38

into the desert. Uh,

51:41

but there's like kind

51:42

of this

51:43

kind of brush, heavy brush

51:45

and not quite sand

51:48

dunes, but do niche like knobs

51:51

and things, and I'm trying to get

51:53

up them. And of course, you know, adventure,

51:56

motorcykes, we have this problem. We overload,

51:59

especially on our. trips. We pass

52:01

way more stuff than we need. And I'm already

52:03

on a big bike. I'm a big guy. I've

52:05

got too much stuff. And going

52:08

up this hill,

52:10

the I'm

52:13

smoking the clutch. I don't have, I've

52:16

got a GS, but I don't have the adventure model.

52:18

I've got a five speed gearbox. I'm really

52:20

slipping the

52:21

first gear. And,

52:23

and my,

52:25

my clutch is smoking. My bike

52:28

is just literally smoking. It's

52:30

a big plumes of smoke coming off

52:32

the back, slipping this clutch. This

52:35

is the BMW with the dry clutch, which

52:37

is prone to burnout if you abuse

52:39

it.

52:40

Oh, and I was, and I've

52:43

already replaced it in Costa Rica.

52:45

And I was just

52:48

smoking it. I mean, and

52:50

like, if they didn't know where I was at,

52:52

they definitely knew then cause I had a smoke

52:54

signal going up off the plate.

52:57

And I look back and their pickup

52:59

truck pulls in there. It's not the guys that

53:02

shot at me, but another pickup truck.

53:04

And he pulls in by himself. This guy

53:06

is kind of high ranking

53:08

sort of police guy. Yeah.

53:10

No uniform, anything. He pulls

53:12

in and his Ford ranger. And I'm

53:15

looking down off this knob and

53:17

I make it to the top. I make the top knob,

53:19

but at that point, he was not no use

53:21

in running anymore. I, the gigs up.

53:25

So I put the kickstand down. I see the guy

53:27

down there. I just kind of wave at him and I take

53:29

my helmet off the film cam and I look, turn

53:31

around that means like I did at the border. I'm like,

53:34

all right, this is the way the trip ends, you know,

53:37

and I set it up on the rear

53:39

view mirror stock.

53:41

And then other pickup

53:43

truck full of federalis pulls up.

53:54

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57:06

So at this point like I mean you've screwed

57:09

up big time here, do you are

57:11

you thinking that you're gonna somehow talk your way

57:13

out of this or because you're a fool?

57:15

What's your thought process? Aren't you picturing jail? I

57:18

was like, I

57:18

had one I had a lot of adrenaline

57:21

going, right? I mean I was just

57:23

I was racing up this hill like

57:25

500 pound

57:29

fully loaded more than that really.

57:31

On the run for your life?

57:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't know,

57:35

I didn't know. But the guy

57:38

that showed up and it's good that he was there,

57:40

he didn't

57:42

want to kill me, you know. But

57:44

I'm like

57:47

well let's see, yeah I turned

57:49

the helmet, I had enough wherewithal

57:52

to talk to the camera, you know.

57:55

I'm like well this is the way the trip ends and

57:59

About that time, then the

58:02

other pickup truck loaded with federal,

58:05

he's rolls up and

58:08

the one that had to be the guy that

58:10

shot at me, he hops

58:12

off and he starts running up the hill.

58:14

I got my hands up,

58:16

he's got his gun drawn on

58:18

me, running up the hill,

58:20

and on camera, like

58:24

I get get out and he kicks me in the ribs a

58:26

few times. Thanks

58:28

a big show about putting me in the cuffs and walking

58:30

me off the hill. Yeah. And

58:33

well, they had a hell of a time getting that bike

58:35

off. It was way up there. They

58:40

couldn't ride it off. A bunch

58:42

of them had to push it off. And

58:45

so they put me in the pickup truck, the

58:47

initial guy that showed up there at the

58:49

little bluff, the Sandy bluff. And

58:53

I remember him coming over to the pickup

58:56

truck and he had the SD card

58:58

that's my helmet cap and he looked

59:00

at me at smiles like we got the roof right

59:02

here. We got the roof right here. And

59:06

yeah, they took me over to

59:08

that checkpoint, which is a hundred miles inside

59:11

the Argentinian border, but

59:13

I wasn't there illegally,

59:15

right? I mean, I was legal. I

59:17

had the Argentinian stamp in the passport. It

59:20

was the bike that wasn't legal. Well, and

59:22

also, I mean, you've obviously broken the law

59:24

by booting through. I mean, I don't know. Does it being

59:27

your legal entry matter at this point?

59:30

Well, it would it would in terms

59:32

of what they could charge me with.

59:33

Right. I wasn't there

59:36

illegally, but but yeah, yeah,

59:39

but they didn't know it was like and

59:43

Argentina is not on the US

59:45

is friends list, right? They'd like Argentina

59:48

has a they just they

59:50

just reelected

59:53

and by I'm making quotation

59:55

marks here

59:58

reelected Christina creature. who is

1:00:00

boy, she's a, she's a mess as

1:00:03

their president, law

1:00:05

president or whatever.

1:00:07

So she's not, our team

1:00:09

is not our friends list, but at the same

1:00:11

time, like,

1:00:15

I was more trouble than I was worth

1:00:19

sort of things. And so I'm sitting

1:00:21

there at this beautiful

1:00:23

sunset too. They put me in this little

1:00:26

room at the checkpoint, like, you know,

1:00:28

I don't know, attention room, just

1:00:31

a beautiful sunset and end

1:00:34

up taking a photo out of the out

1:00:36

of the room. And just thinking like,

1:00:39

what's gonna happen? You know, what's gonna

1:00:41

happen? Am I going to Argentinian prison?

1:00:43

Like, what's gonna happen? Yeah, are

1:00:45

you worried? Well, yeah, clearly.

1:00:48

You should be. I'm just sort of wondering, like,

1:00:51

is he thinking like a normal person? Yeah,

1:00:53

I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know,

1:00:55

you know, but I did have a camera on me. I

1:00:57

took a picture. And

1:01:01

after a few hours,

1:01:03

they took me out to the,

1:01:05

to my bike.

1:01:07

And they took all the bags, which was,

1:01:09

as I mentioned earlier, overloaded. Yeah,

1:01:11

they threw it out on the

1:01:13

ground.

1:01:14

And they had a beagle layer. This

1:01:16

beagle drug sniffing dog

1:01:19

went over it.

1:01:20

And you

1:01:23

know, that didn't have any

1:01:25

drugs. I bought

1:01:28

some, some of them, coca

1:01:30

leaves in Bolivia, but everybody there

1:01:32

chewed them. So I had a big bag of these leaves,

1:01:35

which I was chewing to help keep me up. But

1:01:38

everybody did it. So that was no big deal. But

1:01:41

they were they were they were they were sniffing over

1:01:43

everything. And I remember

1:01:45

very distinctly,

1:01:47

there I had a big Ziploc bag,

1:01:49

big Ziploc bag.

1:01:52

And they they pull it out and they saw

1:01:54

the Ziploc bag and everybody looked at each other.

1:01:57

Like, oh, we got him now. We got him now.

1:01:59

Yeah. they pull it out and it

1:02:01

was my journal and addiction. Each

1:02:07

other like, Oh, sorry. So

1:02:14

they didn't find anything

1:02:16

like, why

1:02:19

does this guy run from it? Of course I was

1:02:21

running for him because they wouldn't let me in. They're

1:02:23

being awesome about some insurance that

1:02:25

was unobtainable. And

1:02:27

are you, are you able to understand them? Are you able to speak

1:02:29

Spanish? By then?

1:02:32

Well, no, not when I left.

1:02:34

Uh, but, uh, can you ask me and y'all

1:02:36

motor three, three

1:02:38

small, uh, tour, uh, terminus.

1:02:42

I don't know. And then I could, I could,

1:02:44

I could like butcher, butcher

1:02:47

some, some conversation in,

1:02:49

in Spanish.

1:02:50

Uh, so, uh, and,

1:02:53

and having the English speakers there was,

1:02:56

it was a premium at that area.

1:02:58

And you get to a point of sorry, sure. Something's

1:03:00

not an issue. You'll find people speaking English,

1:03:02

but at this area, it was very remote.

1:03:05

So, so they can't talk to you. They're not asking you directly.

1:03:07

Why, what were you doing? All that sort of stuff? Very

1:03:10

few. The guys that showed up

1:03:13

were high up in the government. Like,

1:03:15

yeah, exactly.

1:03:16

But they, they wanted to search and they thought they'd

1:03:18

find something. They didn't find anything other

1:03:20

than my journal.

1:03:22

So, uh, yeah,

1:03:25

they ended up deciding, Hey,

1:03:28

he's got nothing. It was like, could

1:03:30

we charge him for this or that? Like

1:03:32

maybe, but it's more trouble than

1:03:34

it's worth. Right.

1:03:36

I think, and I don't know for

1:03:38

sure. So they end up

1:03:40

having me go back out, pack

1:03:42

my, pack my stuff up

1:03:44

and this is, this is, you know, the end

1:03:47

of summer here or it's fall

1:03:49

here, but down there, it's still cold.

1:03:51

It's like, you know, it's the end of winter

1:03:54

or early spring down there, I

1:03:56

guess.

1:03:57

And, uh,

1:03:59

you know, the sun is, gone down and

1:04:01

they had me go and pack up my

1:04:04

bike. They pack it up and

1:04:06

they have an escort for me to go the

1:04:08

hundred miles. They have like a three

1:04:10

police vehicle

1:04:13

escort back to the border. So

1:04:16

I pack all my stuff back up which was

1:04:18

no small feat.

1:04:20

And yeah they escort me back

1:04:22

late at night. It is freezing cold

1:04:25

and yeah they do the hundred miles

1:04:27

back with the police escort back to the border.

1:04:31

They have a

1:04:34

interpreter there. Her name is Abigail

1:04:37

and Abigail took some interest

1:04:40

in me and they seized

1:04:42

my motorcycle at the border.

1:04:44

So they put it in the

1:04:48

lock up. And

1:04:51

then she takes me to a hotel

1:04:53

and the next morning they come get me and

1:04:57

took me to this guy. There was some

1:05:00

bureaucrat high ranking guy. I

1:05:02

was like hey

1:05:03

there's this thing if he'd have paid the $50 or

1:05:06

the equivalent of $50 fee. I

1:05:08

don't know how many Argentinian

1:05:11

pesos that is but he wouldn't

1:05:13

have had to have the insurance. So basically

1:05:16

I pay this $50 fee

1:05:20

and I go to get my bike out.

1:05:22

My bike where it had been on the Bolivian salt

1:05:24

flats in the water

1:05:26

had developed an electrical glitch

1:05:29

in it

1:05:30

and it would try to start on its own.

1:05:33

And in time I didn't realize this but

1:05:35

it being you know a smart motorcyclist

1:05:38

when I park something and in this case

1:05:40

in the seizure lot and

1:05:43

they put it inside there at the

1:05:45

federal police offices at

1:05:47

the Bolivian Argentinian border.

1:05:50

It tried to start

1:05:52

on its own with no key no nothing. It

1:05:54

just started cranking but I was in gear. So

1:05:58

when he did that it pushed itself. off

1:06:00

the side stand and

1:06:01

just, and, uh, busted

1:06:04

the windscreen off of it.

1:06:06

So the next day when I get

1:06:08

to go reclaim my, uh, uh,

1:06:11

bike, it's got no windscreens,

1:06:13

busted all the pieces and like, yeah, it tried

1:06:15

to start on its own. And at the time I'm like,

1:06:18

the heck it did. It

1:06:22

did. You were thinking that they did this

1:06:24

as a retaliation or something. I don't know

1:06:27

what I thought. Oh, like somebody was

1:06:29

there goofing off on it, right? Yeah.

1:06:32

Let's make this BMW for his fit. But

1:06:36

I don't know what they're doing. Word,

1:06:38

that was my fault.

1:06:40

But I had no time to think about these things.

1:06:43

I had to get to point. It's already, so I had a flight

1:06:45

catch. And at that point when

1:06:47

I finally got my bike back the next day,

1:06:50

after I got a shot at, uh,

1:06:51

I had

1:06:53

about just under 30

1:06:56

hours to make it 1200 miles.

1:06:58

And, uh, so, you

1:07:01

know, I had to get going and

1:07:03

get moving and I was tired, you

1:07:05

know? I was like,

1:07:06

and, and I had no windscreen.

1:07:09

So hug that

1:07:11

gale goodbye. Uh, they had a race,

1:07:13

they SD card. They didn't want me to have any,

1:07:16

any kind of like, uh, proof that

1:07:18

any of this ever happened, uh,

1:07:21

which I've tried and maybe I still

1:07:24

can get that, that, that fix. I

1:07:26

forgot that SD card somewhere, but,

1:07:29

uh, I take off, I stopped where I got

1:07:31

shot at and, and found one of the

1:07:33

bullet case that you're one of the casings that

1:07:35

they did shot at me and that's a

1:07:37

reason I know it was nine millimeters. I

1:07:41

found one of those and, uh, yeah,

1:07:45

I had to stop along the way, uh,

1:07:48

to take a little nap, but, but I made, I

1:07:50

made my flight. I got out of there by minutes.

1:07:53

Uh, and left

1:07:55

the bike there at parking, you

1:07:57

know, long-term parking at, uh,

1:07:59

at Buenos Aires, an airport,

1:08:02

so I had no time to do anything else.

1:08:04

So yeah, the parking there was expensive.

1:08:07

So when you get on the plane and you're, you know,

1:08:09

the plane's taking off, you have time to reflect,

1:08:12

what did you think about what you just did?

1:08:16

You know, I

1:08:18

didn't know what to think about it, to be honest.

1:08:21

I don't even remember being on the plane. I

1:08:23

remember everything getting up to it and I

1:08:25

remember making the flight by minutes.

1:08:28

And I knew that, you know, I was going

1:08:31

back to, to school that semester.

1:08:33

You know, I mentioned earlier that I was a

1:08:35

failure as a student up until the university,

1:08:38

when I got to university, I was, I was

1:08:40

killed and studying economics. I had like

1:08:43

4.0s.

1:08:44

I got back that semester.

1:08:47

I think I had a 2.3 or something. I

1:08:50

like, I did not care about

1:08:53

class. I did not care about whatever.

1:08:56

And if I was having problems

1:08:59

with whatever, I

1:09:01

just didn't care. I did not care.

1:09:04

Why?

1:09:05

I don't, you know, I

1:09:07

don't know. I don't know. It was like,

1:09:10

I, but I was, I was, my point

1:09:12

that I'm getting at is I was

1:09:15

a different person.

1:09:16

I was a different person. That was a life

1:09:18

changing thing

1:09:20

that I had just done. And,

1:09:22

and when I was on that flight, I couldn't

1:09:24

quantify it,

1:09:25

you know, and, and again,

1:09:28

this may be today, if I were to

1:09:30

do the same thing, it would be different, but

1:09:32

the connectivity and social

1:09:34

media is so refined now, you

1:09:36

know, where you're going, you know, where you do it,

1:09:39

then I, you know, I'd have to stop and get

1:09:41

wifi and get on, you know, the internet

1:09:44

and things like that. It was different.

1:09:46

I don't, you know, pulling the computer out of your pocket.

1:09:48

Now some really fancy people would have

1:09:50

had that. I did not have that. Yeah. But,

1:09:53

uh,

1:09:55

no, I, when I was on that flight,

1:09:57

I couldn't, I don't know that

1:09:59

I was saying.

1:09:59

I was just tired for one and

1:10:02

yeah, what a thing. To

1:10:07

this time, to this day, this

1:10:10

portion of my life, it's easily the best

1:10:12

thing I've ever done with my life. There's

1:10:15

no question about it. The trip in general.

1:10:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not necessarily

1:10:21

jumping on your bike and booting it through a border. Going

1:10:23

around with regards. This is the,

1:10:26

I can't help but think of those as one of the moments you think,

1:10:28

what was I thinking? When you're

1:10:30

doubling the plots there. Well, yeah, I made the flight. I made

1:10:32

the flight. Of course you did, but you could. I made

1:10:34

the flight. You

1:10:36

could just as well be in some Argentinian prison

1:10:39

still right now making friends. I

1:10:42

didn't, I didn't, I didn't. It

1:10:44

wasn't clear, but did I get, did

1:10:47

I achieve what I had hoped to achieve ultimately?

1:10:50

I didn't,

1:10:51

I made my flight. I did it. It

1:10:53

was an assertiveness

1:10:55

that other people wouldn't have had.

1:10:58

Generally speaking, nobody would

1:11:00

have done that. And they would have had to rebook

1:11:02

a flight. They'd had gone

1:11:04

through a bunch of bureaucratic stuff trying

1:11:06

to find out that, hey, I only had

1:11:08

to pay $50 to get out of this

1:11:11

because nobody was helping me. The

1:11:13

only reason I found that guy that was willing to help

1:11:15

me is because I pulled

1:11:17

some crazy stuff.

1:11:19

Now, in

1:11:21

my old days, would I do that again?

1:11:23

I don't know, probably not, probably

1:11:25

not. But

1:11:27

at the time I felt it was my only option.

1:11:29

And that's what I did. I think

1:11:31

it's interesting that you say, I don't know, probably

1:11:34

not. You're not even convinced

1:11:37

at this point. But okay, but

1:11:39

you could just as easily, picked up

1:11:41

one of those nine millimeters. You could just as

1:11:43

easily, like we said, be in a, been in a prison Argentina

1:11:45

because something completely different. But what I really

1:11:47

want to ask you is, because you said that this sort of, this

1:11:49

trip changed you as a person. You came back,

1:11:52

you had a different attitude for going

1:11:54

to school. What was it about

1:11:56

you that changed? Did you become more

1:11:58

bold or did-

1:11:59

Definitely, definitely more bold. And

1:12:02

I was already pretty bold. I mean, my,

1:12:04

my whole life growing up, it was, it

1:12:07

made me very bold. But it,

1:12:09

for instance, like, I was, I

1:12:11

was a little apprehensive about leaving and doing

1:12:14

the trip like, you know, what am I going to encounter

1:12:16

on the trip to South America, you know,

1:12:19

riding a motorcycle by myself. Yeah,

1:12:22

definitely more assertive, more,

1:12:25

more, more confident

1:12:27

myself. Like I can make this happen.

1:12:29

If I wasn't before,

1:12:31

after that, I was very, very confident.

1:12:34

So is that the confidence in your ingenuity

1:12:37

or just in your brute force that you will

1:12:39

just sort of force your way through?

1:12:42

Well, I

1:12:44

tell people I have a

1:12:46

bull in a China shop method,

1:12:49

international travel.

1:12:50

So brute force is kind of a

1:12:52

way of looking at it, but also

1:12:55

ingenuity plays a part. I'm not saying I'm

1:12:57

the smartest guy in the world, but

1:12:59

I'm certainly not the biggest

1:13:02

idiot either. So, you

1:13:04

know,

1:13:05

there's something to be said for assertiveness,

1:13:08

right? You know, and authorities can see it. They

1:13:11

know that they see it and be

1:13:13

like, is this guy worth our time? Making

1:13:16

their best interest to get rid of. There's

1:13:18

something to be said for that. And

1:13:20

it's proven itself time

1:13:22

and time again. Now you might get locked up

1:13:24

in the process. You might get beaten up in the

1:13:26

process, but you might get shot at it,

1:13:28

the process. But ultimately it's like, is

1:13:31

he worth all this? And

1:13:34

you're willing to accept those side things. I'll

1:13:36

call them side things. Man, man,

1:13:39

dealing with bureaucracy is a beating in itself. It

1:13:42

is. No doubt. You wrote, and

1:13:44

I think it's on your blog, no matter

1:13:47

how little or big you dream, how

1:13:50

much you plan or how hard you work,

1:13:52

forces both seen and unseen conspire

1:13:54

against even the noblest endeavors, best

1:13:57

laid plans and most diligent labors. flexibility

1:14:01

and ingenuity help overcome such

1:14:03

opposition, but nothing works like

1:14:05

willpower and perseverance In

1:14:09

that Israel you don't see anything about force Perseverance

1:14:16

is staying at it. I mean, you know beating

1:14:18

it. I'm gonna be I don't know about I don't

1:14:20

know about force Hey, I

1:14:22

want to talk about your dog. You've got a new puppy

1:14:24

there at your feet You've you've

1:14:27

had two other dogs you've ridden with What

1:14:29

made you decide to get a dog and stick it in a motorcycle?

1:14:32

Panier well The

1:14:35

thing

1:14:35

with my first dog Daisy, you

1:14:38

know I was in my early 20s like 22 years

1:14:41

old or something. I've always had a problem

1:14:43

like maintaining But you know

1:14:46

like significant others or relationships

1:14:48

and things like that. Uh

1:14:50

So I got I had Daisy

1:14:52

and man. She was just the best dog ever Went

1:14:56

everywhere with me But when I started

1:14:58

doing motorcycle adventuring when

1:15:01

I was riding, you know Though I was riding

1:15:03

all the time Maybe you're talking smaller

1:15:05

trips or maybe I'd motorcycle

1:15:07

the coast or something like that But when

1:15:10

I went to did my first transcontinental

1:15:12

trip, you know Dromania or whatever she

1:15:15

stayed behind and when I rode down

1:15:17

to South America She stayed behind and

1:15:19

then when I tried to do a failed trip

1:15:22

around the world because couldn't get Russian visa

1:15:24

and the Middle East Was a no-go zone

1:15:26

for Americans

1:15:28

She stayed behind and

1:15:29

I felt bad about each time I'd come back.

1:15:32

She'd be less and less enthusiastic What

1:15:34

I'd show back up like don't like and

1:15:37

and I thought you listen, I'm never leaving

1:15:39

you behind again I'm sorry Daisy you

1:15:41

deserve better than this And

1:15:44

I'm never leaving you mine.

1:15:46

So so I took her with me, you know, I

1:15:48

was delivering bikes around Europe They

1:15:51

did some other trips but I was I

1:15:53

had a motorcycle shipping business when I finished

1:15:56

school Delivering all over North

1:15:58

America. Well, you know

1:15:59

United States, I went into Canada a little bit.

1:16:02

And then

1:16:06

I'm like, well, let's see how this works

1:16:08

in Europe. And it didn't work as well, but

1:16:10

I'd make enough money to buy fuel.

1:16:12

And in my springer van over

1:16:15

there, I'd

1:16:17

keep my Yamaha

1:16:20

Tenere, the Z-Tenerate fuel

1:16:22

injection one. So I had one of those

1:16:25

over there and I kept it with me and I'd ship

1:16:27

enough bikes where I'd stay

1:16:29

full, but I

1:16:31

ended up doing over a hundred thousand

1:16:33

miles in 2014, 2015. I

1:16:38

was there for about 18 months and

1:16:39

did over a hundred thousand miles around Europe

1:16:41

shipping

1:16:43

bikes. But I kept my bike on

1:16:45

board and

1:16:47

I

1:16:48

was in Rome. I was there,

1:16:51

went to Ducati, Rome to pick up two Benelis

1:16:54

to go to France. And I had Daisy

1:16:56

with me, of course. Daisy ended up

1:16:58

doing

1:16:59

overland a million miles with

1:17:01

me. And most of that was in sprinter

1:17:03

vans around North America, but she

1:17:05

did a hundred thousand miles in a van in

1:17:08

Europe. She

1:17:10

ultimately ended up doing some mileage

1:17:12

on the bike, which is a story I'm telling.

1:17:15

But I was there in Rome

1:17:17

and I'd never been to Rome before I wanted to see

1:17:19

Rome. But

1:17:22

parking for a sprinter van in Rome was

1:17:25

near impossible.

1:17:26

And if you find a parking spot,

1:17:29

it's like, is it safe? You got

1:17:31

a load of motorcycles in the back of

1:17:34

your van.

1:17:37

Other people's bikes. But I

1:17:39

was there at Ducati, Rome and everybody was

1:17:41

kind of taking interest in Daisy. But these

1:17:44

Benelis

1:17:45

I

1:17:48

was picking up were going a long way, going back to

1:17:50

France. And

1:17:53

I pulled my bike out that bit at

1:17:55

the back cause those guys were going to sit there

1:17:57

for a long time. So I had my bike.

1:17:59

pulled out and I remember

1:18:02

pushing this Benelli up or one

1:18:04

of the two Benelli's eyes pushing up and I'll look over

1:18:06

in the distance and Daisy's sitting

1:18:09

in the shade underneath the paneer

1:18:11

on my on my

1:18:14

Tenerife, my Yamaha.

1:18:16

I'm like

1:18:17

she'll fit there. And

1:18:21

that was the light bulb moment

1:18:23

and so I go back over and

1:18:26

I pull the lid off pull the junk out of

1:18:28

the the paneer and I you know tap

1:18:30

on the seat

1:18:31

and Daisy pops up there and at this

1:18:33

point she's pretty old

1:18:36

she's like she's like maybe 11 12 years

1:18:38

old so

1:18:40

she could pop up because she was in good shape she

1:18:43

pops up there I'm like she

1:18:45

knew she knew she was a smart dog hey

1:18:48

you let this paneer here and she's looking

1:18:50

down she's giving me the like

1:18:52

yeah yeah yeah because she kind

1:18:54

of hated my she had a love hate relationship

1:18:57

with

1:18:57

the bikes I did buy an R75

1:18:59

with the side car for

1:19:01

her to ride around with me but generally speaking

1:19:04

I'd get on the bike and she'd turn away

1:19:06

and huff and like I'm clearly not

1:19:08

going anywhere but she moved

1:19:11

she's like oh yeah yeah let's try this

1:19:14

so there in the parking lot in the car to your room

1:19:17

I I told Daisy in the

1:19:19

paneer and ride

1:19:21

around the parking lot and she's digging it man

1:19:24

she's like this is great this is great

1:19:27

and yeah the first

1:19:29

the first dog in the paneer trip

1:19:31

was around Rome and

1:19:34

after that she and I did did

1:19:36

quite a few good sized trips

1:19:39

on the bike went down to Morocco

1:19:42

and road and Turkey

1:19:45

did a big trip from Romania to Turkey

1:19:48

in a huge snowstorm which was a which

1:19:50

was a good tale and

1:19:54

yeah she was the

1:19:56

she was the first Moto Mud International

1:19:59

Wow that's That's pretty incredible. So,

1:20:02

Daisy rode around for what

1:20:04

was years, I guess, in your bike.

1:20:07

Well, until she passed away in 2017, which

1:20:09

was kind of unexpected. She

1:20:11

was 15 years old when that happened.

1:20:16

Then you got another dog.

1:20:19

Dan, yes. Dan, and

1:20:21

that was because I've

1:20:23

had Daisy for 15 years, and

1:20:27

it wasn't quite fair. I went to the animal

1:20:29

shelter and, uh, Dandy,

1:20:31

he was, uh, he was

1:20:33

there and the animal

1:20:36

shelter that Daisy had come from, uh, had

1:20:39

contacted me, the lady that runs animal shelter

1:20:41

there, had contacted me and said, Hey, we've got

1:20:43

this border collie here. Maybe you'd be interested

1:20:46

in him. And I went

1:20:48

there and poor old guy, he was

1:20:50

skittish and

1:20:51

almost fully grown, but skittish. And,

1:20:54

but he was smart. You can tell he was

1:20:56

smart. And I'm like, I can talk

1:20:58

with him and immediately he kind of knew what I

1:21:01

was saying. And I'm like,

1:21:03

well,

1:21:05

you know, I don't know if your skittishness is going

1:21:07

to work for me,

1:21:08

but you're smart and I'll give you a shot. And,

1:21:11

uh, yeah, after, uh, letting

1:21:14

him kind of get comfortable with me for a few days,

1:21:17

I took him out to kind of abandoned road

1:21:19

on my DR six 50 or,

1:21:21

and had a guy meet me with the DR

1:21:24

six 50 at this abandoned road. And I

1:21:26

threw him in the pan here and, uh,

1:21:29

took him for, took him for riding. He was

1:21:31

just,

1:21:32

just a real savant. And like, it just

1:21:34

a natural motorcycle dog.

1:21:37

He just hunkers down in the pan year and

1:21:39

loves it.

1:21:40

Oh, he was great. He was great. Just

1:21:42

perfect, uh, uh, riding stance.

1:21:45

Everything is like immediately

1:21:47

just great. I was

1:21:49

pushing the boundaries and I did a wheelie

1:21:52

and he didn't like that too much, but

1:21:55

then he left me too

1:21:57

much too young. Uh,

1:22:00

And he ended up being

1:22:02

the best motorcycle dog, like skill

1:22:04

wise in the history of the world. I mean, like

1:22:07

off road, hard off road, really

1:22:10

flying on road. I mean, we, we,

1:22:12

we go fast. And I mean, like not

1:22:14

racetrack speed fast, but just

1:22:17

a notch under that. And he'd hang in there.

1:22:19

Um, but, uh,

1:22:23

I went to race on the Isle of Man Southern 100

1:22:25

event this year. And

1:22:27

Dan went with me and we drove

1:22:29

from Romania to, uh, uh, the

1:22:32

Isle of Man. Oh, you know, we got to take a fairies

1:22:34

wrong way, obviously. But, and

1:22:37

apparently got bit by a tick at some

1:22:39

point. I don't know if it was in the UK or on the

1:22:41

Isle of Man, though he was on, you

1:22:43

know, the fancy playing tick stuff. And

1:22:46

I never saw a tick on him, but he

1:22:50

had a terrible infection and

1:22:52

I treated it when we got back to Romania.

1:22:54

That's when the symptoms showed

1:22:57

and he got better. And then we came to the States

1:22:59

and he relapsed and

1:23:02

then

1:23:03

a lot more vet visits and

1:23:05

he got better and

1:23:07

then we, I went back to Europe

1:23:09

and did another road race and in Germany,

1:23:13

and he was in great shape. And the day after

1:23:15

the race in Probert, Germany, he, he

1:23:17

bloated up again. And there

1:23:19

was another relapse and, uh,

1:23:22

he never got over that one. Uh, you

1:23:25

know, our,

1:23:29

when he was starting to relapse, I was

1:23:32

supposed to go to do this, uh,

1:23:36

horizons, unlimited meeting and

1:23:38

tell some, some stories, make

1:23:40

a presentation there in, in Austria,

1:23:43

the first horizons, unlimited Austria. And

1:23:45

I

1:23:46

was thinking about

1:23:47

just canceling that because Dan

1:23:49

was getting sick again. But I thought, you know

1:23:51

what? No, let's go down and do that. And

1:23:54

I'm really happy I did. Cause

1:23:56

Dan

1:23:56

was still enjoying it, even though he was

1:23:59

bloated up. You know, his liver

1:24:01

was failing. The,

1:24:02

uh,

1:24:05

yeah, it was, it was good that I did that. And

1:24:07

he got to be a bit of a superstar

1:24:10

that he was, he was, he was a superstar,

1:24:12

a really smart dog, the best riding

1:24:15

dog in the history of the world. And,

1:24:18

uh, he got to really be the center

1:24:20

of tension and, and, and get some, get

1:24:22

some applause and shouts

1:24:25

and people loved him. But,

1:24:28

uh, after that, you know, we, we drove

1:24:30

back up to the UK and, uh,

1:24:32

got a flight home and, you know, two days

1:24:35

after we made it back here to Tennessee, passed

1:24:37

away in my arms.

1:24:39

Um, so

1:24:41

that was, that was

1:24:43

like six weeks ago, a little over.

1:24:47

And now this, this new puppy is going

1:24:49

to be your new companion for

1:24:51

riding the motorcycle.

1:24:53

Maybe we'll see. Uh, you

1:24:55

know, Dan was so good at

1:24:57

it. I don't anticipate that

1:24:59

that Duke is going to have this type

1:25:01

of skill for it. And he may be too

1:25:03

big. His mother was a border

1:25:06

collie, but his dad was black lab

1:25:09

or is a black lab. And he's like,

1:25:12

I don't know. He may be too big for the pan

1:25:15

year. We'll see. I don't

1:25:17

know. I don't know. I'm

1:25:19

not going to make him do it. If you can't do it,

1:25:21

that kind of thing. Yeah. What do

1:25:23

you do? What if you do, you can't, though. How does that

1:25:25

affect your rides?

1:25:29

I don't know, you know, and I, and I hate

1:25:31

to be heartless, but I'm

1:25:33

not going to stop adventuring cause

1:25:35

he, you know, he's unwilling to go. I

1:25:38

think he'll go. I do. I

1:25:41

may have to modify and rather

1:25:43

than, uh, do the pan year, which

1:25:45

is the best, you know, a little point for

1:25:47

the pan year thing in terms of the dog will

1:25:50

fit in a pan year in terms

1:25:52

of weight distribution and things like that. That's

1:25:54

the best keeps the weight low. You

1:25:57

can really go hard on road, off

1:25:59

road.

1:25:59

harder than you can with the dog sitting on a

1:26:02

pillion.

1:26:03

But if I have to change

1:26:05

it to the pillion, I mean, I've done that

1:26:07

before. It's not as desirable

1:26:09

in terms of just like flexibility,

1:26:12

but that's what I'll do. But

1:26:15

it's too early to say. I mean, this is a puppy.

1:26:17

He's like, he

1:26:20

was only born just before Dan died, kind

1:26:23

of thing, you know? So he's

1:26:25

a couple of months old. So we'll see.

1:26:29

I'm not sure, but he's got potential. He's

1:26:31

a smart dog, I can tell.

1:26:34

Israel, thanks so much for coming on. Best of

1:26:36

luck with the new dog, and I've really

1:26:39

enjoyed talking with you today. Thank you so much.

1:26:41

Thank you very much for having me. Check

1:26:43

out Moto Mud International. Let's see what

1:26:45

this new pup does. I

1:26:48

was speaking with Israel Gillette from his

1:26:50

home in Jonesboro, Tennessee. You

1:26:52

can find out more about Israel at his website, daisygillette.blogspot.com,

1:26:57

or his YouTube channel is Moto Mud International. We've

1:27:02

got some great photos and those links in

1:27:04

the show notes on our website. For this episode,

1:27:06

Adventure Rider, we're going to

1:27:08

be talking about the Moto Mud International. So,

1:27:11

let's get started. So, I'm going to be talking to

1:27:13

you about the Moto Mud International. You can find

1:27:15

out more about it on the Moto Mud International

1:27:17

website. For this episode, adventureriderradio.com.

1:27:44

We want to remind you that this episode has been brought to you by Green

1:27:47

Chili Adventure Gear, greenchiliadv.com,

1:27:50

Motobreeze Chain Oiler at motobreeze.com,

1:27:54

and the best rest products at cyclepump.com,

1:27:57

and we'd really appreciate it any time you're dealing with these. companies

1:28:00

anytime email or otherwise let them know you heard them

1:28:02

here on Adventure Rider Radio.

1:28:16

Well that about wraps up another episode of Adventure

1:28:18

Rider Radio and we sure hope you enjoyed listening to it as

1:28:20

much as we did making it. Hey the show was built

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1:29:09

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so on the 21st you can always find it where you find your podcast

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but if you go look now there is a new episode out now.

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Good fun on that. Anyway, time to get out there and

1:29:23

ride your bike again. My name is Jim Martin. Thank

1:29:25

you so much for listening and I will talk to you next

1:29:27

week. Heather

1:29:36

Ellis I'm Heather Ellis and you're listening

1:29:38

to Adventure Rider Radio. you