Danny McGee from "SOUTHBOUND" & ADV Cannonball Rally News

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Danny McGee is the filmmaker behind the YouTube ADV series Southbound. We talk about the journey and making of Episodes 1 and 2.  Their adventure motorcycle trip starts in LA, and they travel off-road through the Baja, mainland Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. We also discuss setting up their DR650s, camping, and filming along the way. 

Southbound Episode One

Southbound Episode Two

Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode NICECNC

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_06 (00:03):
Welcome to the ADV cannonball podcast, where we
discuss all things on twowheels, the adventure bike
cannonball and other motorcyclerelated nonsense.

SPEAKER_03 (00:26):
Season three, episode 12.
Welcome to Adventure CannonballPodcast.
I'm your host, Taylor Lawson,and today I am joined by once
handmade boat craftsman, AaronPoufault.
Hey, bud.
How are you?
I'm doing great, man.
I'm sitting down here in thesouth of France and having a bit
of vacation time.

(00:47):
It was a bit crazy.
I had to go south to escape theheat in the in Sweden.
It was crazy.
I came south to get some coolertemperatures, but you know,
that's over now.
Now it's, it's like, you know,95 and the same percentage of
humidity.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02):
Yeah.
But you're next to theMediterranean.
So where are you exactly?
The picture I see on my screenis this gorgeous view of the
Mediterranean.
Maybe you can share someinformation with our listeners.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11):
Yeah.
So I am, I'm right between Niceand Cannes.
So Cannes is over one hill,Antibes is over the other, and a
little bit further down thebeach is Nice.
So about a half an hour trainride to Nice and about a 15-20
minute train ride to the west.

(01:33):
to Cannes.
And yeah, a little bit furtherto the east past Nice is Monaco.
So I'm down there in the thickof it.
And as I look out the balcony,there's 101 meter.
So what's that?
310, 12 feet, I guess, of, maybeit's more, 320 feet of motor

(01:57):
yacht that was just launched byFedShip.
And it's the It's for any of youwho have WhatsApp on your phone,
you are the reason, me included,that that dude has a boat, and
it's sitting out there rightnow.
He just took delivery of it, andI watched him just get delivered
to the boat by helicopter.

SPEAKER_04 (02:11):
Wow.
It just gets worse every day.
We could start a whole otherpodcast, and I'm going to call
it Eat the Rich.

SPEAKER_03 (02:17):
Eat the Rich.
Now, what made me, and I lookedat my phone, I was like,
WhatsApp is, I've never paid adime for WhatsApp.
Who pays for WhatsApp?
I guess businesses do, or I'venever paid for WhatsApp.
Or maybe they're just selling mydata, and that's how he's making
the money to buy that yacht.

SPEAKER_04 (02:29):
Oh, for sure.
Whenever you're sending thatpicture you shouldn't be
sending, they're taking it andthen they're selling it on
OnlyFans.
Oh, great.
Yeah, great.
No, I think that WhatsApp gotsold to the Book of Faces.
So I think there was a huge,huge cash buyout there.

SPEAKER_03 (02:44):
Ah, that could be it then.
Up until then, he was probably,you know, riding the jet ski.

SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
Well, listen, I'm in the Pacific Northwest.
It is hot as can be.
And I'm going to open thisfantastic IPA.
So here's to you.
You enjoy your vacation.
Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 (02:57):
Thank you very much.
And, you know, I've been in thesouth of France.
This is wine region, blush wine,actually, rosé.
And not the rosé of the 80s, youknow, the more refined, a very,
very light pink.
And I've been drinking that.
But in honor of this podcast, Iswung by the liquor store, which
is also the grocery store here.

(03:17):
And I got a BrewDog IPA.
That is a tall one, too.
It's a tall boy, baby.
I got a half a liter in my hand.
Nice.

SPEAKER_04 (03:28):
Stop showing off now.

SPEAKER_03 (03:35):
Don't call me beer can for nothing.
That's it.
Showing off.

SPEAKER_04 (03:39):
I got some news.
So I got some samples in fromour new swag shop partner.
It is wildly expensive.
It is slow to ship, but thequality is, is amazing so uh
they're the same people that doour livery stickers so uh i will
take some pictures because youknow i got my summer bod my uh

(04:01):
my swimsuit bod Nice, you'vebeen working on that.
Yeah, so I'm going to have mywife take some pictures on the
motorcycle with some of thesamples that I got, and I will
post those to the website.
We're not going to make anymoney on it, but because of the
nightmare with that othercompany, I'm going to just sell
them at cost because they arewildly expensive, but the

(04:22):
quality is really fantastic.
So I'll actually print somesamples for you when we're
offline and bring them to youwhen I meet you in India.
So I'll bring you some samplesas well.
Sweet.
I'll pack

SPEAKER_03 (04:33):
lightly.

SPEAKER_04 (04:34):
Also, I had some interesting news.
So I've been fighting withGarmin with getting waypoints
and GPX tracks from my Mac intomy Garmin.
And I solved some of theproblem.
There are some hardware issues.
And this is a tip for anyone whohas a Garmin GPS.
I had to buy a third party GPS.
USB-C to micro USB cable, and itstarted working again.

(04:59):
So the cable that came with itwas a USB-A to micro USB.
It just wouldn't work with mynew Mac Studio computer.
I went out and bought a thing onAmazon, a high-quality USB-C
cable, and it just startedworking.
So tragedy averted.
We can continue to do theCannonball Rally, and that's the
solution.
So anyone who's having a problemloading GPX tracks onto a

(05:22):
garment from a Mac, try a USB-Ccable.

SPEAKER_03 (05:25):
Good tip.
Good tip.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
These things seem like bigproblems, and then when you get
Tim Cook on the line, thingsget...
Oh

SPEAKER_04 (05:34):
yeah.
I've got him.
I've got him a speed dial.
So I just fired him a message.
Yeah.
And I messaged, of

SPEAKER_03 (05:39):
course.
Good.
I think I was, he was actually,his yacht was out here.
I think I saw him take yourcall.

SPEAKER_04 (05:44):
That's right.
Had to stop the boat, you know?
Oh, it's Aaron.
Everyone stop.
Aaron's calling.
Yeah, sure.
I also wanted to let you knowthat on the motorcycle book
club, I put a new book.
It's Mark Richardson's fictionnovel.
It's called running on empty.
It's a really good book.
And it's, I'm not going to talkabout it because we have a whole

(06:04):
interview with Mark, one or twoepisodes down the road.
It's in the can.
I just got to edit it.
And yeah, I just want to letpeople know if you're looking
for a gift or some fiction toread, it's very rare we get a
novel about motorcycle ridingbased in America.
So it's a good read.
I enjoyed it and I've put it onthe club.

SPEAKER_03 (06:22):
Nice.
I'll have to get my hands onthat one.

SPEAKER_04 (06:24):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 (06:24):
it's worth it.
So talk to me about...
CNC.
Now, before sort of ourpreamble, before we jumped into
this, you said, everybody knowswhat CNC is.
And I said, look, I work for acompany that made CNC, which was
a rock tools mining andconstruction company.
And it wasn't until I startedworking there that I truly knew

(06:44):
what CNC meant.
So before you jump in here,please just educate us.

SPEAKER_04 (06:49):
I think, you know, all geeky guys know it's the
it's the computer controlledmilling machine.
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (06:55):
So CNC computer is a computerized numeric cutting.
Right.
CNC.

SPEAKER_04 (07:01):
most of us would know by seeing it but many of us
wouldn't know what the actualdefinition which is an
interesting study i thinksomeone smarter than me could
explain how that happens in theworld but uh so the people at
nice cnc it's a it's a chinesecompany i have been using their
two finger controls on my all mygsas forever i didn't have any

(07:22):
brand loyalty i just went andfound them.
And so I've done about 50,000miles on my two finger controls.
And then recently I added twolittle bags on my crash bars and
I keep a tool bag on one side toget some of the weight forward
because I was having some issuesat higher speeds.
And I moved some weight forwardwith my tool bag.

(07:43):
And then I always like to carrya half cover.
And like, where do you put it?
Right?
Like it's this bulky thing.
So I shoved it in one of thesebags.
Anyways, both these products arefrom Nice CNC.
And they saw my motorcycle atthe Tour Tech Rally.
And so they've given us a coupleof gift cards.
So maybe you can explain how thegift card giveaway works,

(08:04):
Taylor.

SPEAKER_03 (08:04):
All right.
So first of all, it's prettygenerous.
So it's a$100 gift card forNiceCNC.com.
Thank you.
And it's the first person whosends a message via the link in
the show notes, but it's, it's alimited time, right?
So this is so that Aaron, sothis is so you don't get phone
calls or messages like, youknow, a year later going, I got
it.
I'm the winner, right?

(08:25):
So we're going to, so it gets,it's, it's just for a limited
time.
So if you're listening on the15th of August, so for the
duration of the 15th of August,so when it, when the, when the
clock strikes 16th of August,this offer has turned into a
pumpkin.

SPEAKER_04 (08:37):
Yeah.
And it's the first person totext me.
So like if it's noon and you'relike on Pacific Northwest time.
probably not message me.
It's already been one.
So, you know, I, we know we maybe the number two podcast, but
people actually do download inthe morning, uh, on that Friday.
So anyways, just scroll down tothe show notes.
It says, send us a message.
And that literally beeps on myphone.

(08:59):
And if you're the first personto do that, I will, uh, I will
send you the, the, uh, the codeor the offer code for the a
hundred bucks.
And then maybe on the nextepisode or a few more, we'll,
we'll give some more away.
So thanks everyone forlistening.
And that's a, that's a giveaway.

SPEAKER_03 (09:13):
Nice.

SPEAKER_04 (09:13):
Nice.
Probably

SPEAKER_00 (09:14):
We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_04 (09:44):
Danny McGee, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm stoked to chat.
Yeah, and I think you're in away cooler place than I am.
Where are you right now?

SPEAKER_02 (09:52):
I'm in Hawaii right now.
Yeah, just spending the monthout here and working and doing a
lot of free diving and stuff.
So yeah, I'm definitely lucky tobe out here.

SPEAKER_04 (10:03):
Yeah, the last time we saw each other was in...
Aspen, Colorado, you were flyinga drone through an art gallery
and an$80 million home.
So I suppose you're doingsomething awesome like that
there also?

SPEAKER_02 (10:14):
It's not quite as expensive as that, but up in the
mountains and stuff.
And yeah, just filming a lot ofcool aerial, big mountains,
ridgeline, stuff like that.
But yeah, that was maybe almosttwo years ago, last time we saw
each other.
Yeah, we'll have to have a beer

SPEAKER_04 (10:32):
sometime and...
tell you the fallout of all thatone day when we're off the air.
I'm under a non-disclosureagreement.
Sounds good.
Today, we're talking about yourseries called Southbound.
And we'll start off with episodeone, LA to Guatemala covers
4,000 miles.
Can you tell me a little aboutthe travel concept that you have

(10:55):
a really cool concept aboutdoing a month and then flying
home and, you know, doingreality?
Maybe you could just give us abrief overview of that concept.

SPEAKER_02 (11:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, so the whole idea forSouthbound came, I have two
friends, my friend Jonah andJesse, and we were actually at a
concert and we were like, wewant to do something cool and it
should involve motorcycles andit should involve part of the
world that we haven't reallybeen.
So we kind of just made thisgrand plan to do a motorcycle

(11:25):
trip through South America.
And we looked into everythingand like, this was literally
like a month before the trip.
We'd already set all this timeaside.
side we had flights andeverything and we realized
because there's not muchinformation online about it but
we realized basically half ofthe month we were going to just
be doing paperwork so we gottogether and just started
talking about doing something alittle bit different and we were

(11:48):
like why don't we just buymotorcycles in the states and
just start riding south likeeventually we will get to south
america at some point um and atthat point me and jonah started
talking too um about making aseries from the whole trip um
because we both do filmmakingand content creation and stuff
as a job.

(12:09):
And we've always wanted to make,you know, like the things that
inspired both of us in thebeginning was these long form
travel series.
And, you know, it's really, it'sso time consuming, it's hard to
do.
And we were both just kind offeeling like we hadn't been
doing that.
It was something we reallywanted to do, but we weren't
doing it.

(12:29):
And so we're like, all right,this is the moment to do it.
So what we decided to do wasbasically do the trip in legs we
all have you know jobs we got tomake money and it's not like
something we could take off anentire year to do this whole
trip in so yeah we did the firstleg from LA down to the border
of Guatemala the second leg wasCentral America and then just a

(12:52):
few months ago we got back fromthe third leg which was Colombia
Ecuador and Peru and yeah we'rejust we're not actually sure how
many more legs it's going totake to get to the bottom I
think maybe to.
And yeah, we're just going tokeep going.
Keep going south.

SPEAKER_04 (13:08):
So in episode one, it starts off in L.A.
The three of you bought bikesand lots of parts and camping
gear and you and you gettogether like the A-team and
you're in you're building thesebikes.
Have you ever done anything likethat before?

SPEAKER_02 (13:20):
So all of us have done like a lot of backpacking,
a lot of camping, stuff likethat.
And Jesse probably had the mostmotorcycle experience out of all
of us.
He'd done several cross-countrytrips before that.
He had an old Honda motorcyclethat he took across the country
several times.
Jonah had done a bit of streetriding.

(13:41):
And then I grew up in Colorado.
So it was just all dirt bikesthroughout high school.
Just me and my buddies going upcamping and doing single track
and stuff like that.
And so we all had a little bitof experience, but nothing,
nothing like this.
I think there's a yeah, therewas definitely a lot of reasons
that we that people might say,like, you guys definitely aren't

(14:03):
prepared enough to go you don'tknow enough about it but at the
end of the day we were likewe'll figure it out we had a
couple days of writing that wewere actually in the states so
we could get any last minutestuff and yeah just kind of work
out some kinks and yeah justkind of learned most of it on
the fly the first episode Jesseand Jonah it was literally their

(14:24):
first time ever writing dirt andit was on this trip and it was a
super gnarly muddy day and yeahand and I mean, we have like 100
pounds of gear on the back ofthe bikes.
So I was like I was decent.
But yeah, they really had tolearn on the fly as far as dirt
is concerned.

SPEAKER_04 (14:43):
And as soon as you cross the Mexican border, you
were in the dirt and you guysbought it looked like DR 650s.
Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 (14:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we all got the same bike sowe can carry similar tools,
similar spare parts.
And yeah, when when we're inthese places that are just like
really hard to reach and likegetting parts might be
impossible.
We figured all having the samebike would just be the way to go

SPEAKER_04 (15:07):
right after the dirt.
And right after you cross theMexican border, you immediately
went south of San Felipe.
I was down there last winter andI was struck by there are no
power lines.
There are no cell phone towers.
There is nothing.
You are out there on your own.
Were you surprised that it wasso desolate so quickly?

SPEAKER_02 (15:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like right when you getsouth of the border, there's
almost nothing.
It's it's so interesting.
And yeah, just barren.
desert it's so beautiful soamazing but like finding gas is
always an issue and you reallyhave to plot that out like cell
phone service again you don'thave that in most of the places
and just such a sudden changebecause like I mean when you're

(15:48):
across the border you're in likeSan Diego so you're in like a
proper city and then it's justnothing I

SPEAKER_04 (15:54):
think as how do you put it as Americans and
Canadians when you're in thatpart of Mexico and you have to
ask like you guys did with afisherman for some gas or you
need to buy gas from some guy inthe side of the street out of a
plastic bottle that cansometimes be a little difficult
but you seem to really take thatin stride did you feel at all

(16:14):
awkward about buying gas from aguy on the side of the road or
anything like that

SPEAKER_02 (16:17):
um honestly not not too much because all of us have
done a lot of traveling um inother countries like southeast
asia you're ripping around onmopeds and like when you get gas
you just pull over to some dudewho's filled up a bunch of
absolute vodka bottles full ofgas and you're filling that up
so That wasn't that was luckilywith our past travel experience.
That wasn't too much of a shock.

(16:38):
It's pretty cool, though.
Yeah, just like.
It's so different.
And I think that's like one ofthe really cool parts about is
like you get gas back home.
It's not this like event thatyou're going to tell anyone
about, but you find some randomdude on the side of the road
with like a barrel and you spillin your, your tank up.
It's just, um, yeah, it's, it'scool.
And it's interesting.
And it's, uh, it's just reallyfun.

SPEAKER_04 (17:00):
Yeah.
You mentioned before that youmay be criticized for not having
so much experience, but weconstantly talk to people that
are accidental adventurers oraccidental expert ADV riders and
the fact that you had those uhthose past experiences to parlay
into an adv adventure really uhreally speaks volumes but as

(17:20):
soon as you got into the bajayou immediately threw up your
drones uh did you find it hardto stop and take those
breathtaking videos while you'reriding bikes

SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
yeah that's it's it's probably the biggest
challenge of the trip isfiguring out like because anyone
who's done a trip on amotorcycle knows how hard it is
to film um like you have to getoff the bike go back to your
gear open your duffel bag openyour backpack that's inside of
the duffel bag take the droneout have two people ride here

(17:50):
ride back and it's just abalance between like there's
certain places that you go andyou're like I like there's no
way I can't Like, I have to flythe drone here.
This is so cool.
But there's a lot of in-betweentime where it's like, I don't
really want to fly the drone,but it'd be better for the
video.
So, yeah, it's just a constant,like, every situation.
We just kind of talk and we'relike, hey, what does everyone

(18:11):
feel about doing some droneshots?
And it's interesting, too,because me and Jonah are
filmmakers, so we're obviously alot more into the filming side
of it, whereas Jesse...
I mean, he thinks it's cool, buthe really honestly couldn't
really give a shit about it.
So he's always wanting to justlike riffing dirt and writing as

(18:31):
much as we can.
Me and Jonah are trying to film.
But yeah, it's it's it'schallenging every single

SPEAKER_04 (18:39):
time trying to decide.
And notice the even in episodeone, the sound design and the
editing is not what you wouldexpect in a, you know, modal
vloggers YouTube video.
You have any formal educationor, you know, who did all the
editing and sound design?
So

SPEAKER_02 (18:54):
how it's just me and Jonah editing and basically how
we do it is I as we're writingkind of write like I write down
everything that happens in theday, like just make a little
journal.
And basically, when we go intothe edit process, I go through
all the footage and do all thelike, like, like storytelling

(19:16):
stuff, put the voiceover in kindof craft the story.
And then Jonah, he actuallyenjoys the moment.
more like detailed stuff, betterthe color grading, cutting clips
exactly to the music, the sounddesign, all the stuff like that.
He's really an amazing editorand it works out because I enjoy
the other stuff more.

(19:37):
He enjoys that more.
So it's yeah, it's I mean, it'sjust a two man team.
It's very tedious.
And these projects take hundredsand hundreds of hours to do.
But we really love making them.
Like I said earlier, it's likewe do a lot of video work
throughout the year.
And this is like the one projectlike this is for us.

(19:58):
So it's, yeah, it's we really,ideally, for something like
this, we'd have like a team ofeditors and make it so much
easier.
But this is like a completelyself funded trip.
So we just don't have the moneyfor that.
And like, honestly, it'd be kindof hard giving away a lot of
that control because it's, youknow, it's kind of our baby.

(20:18):
So we do enjoy doing editing,too.

SPEAKER_04 (20:21):
It really shows in the work.
And speaking of color gradingand all that, it must be
difficult when you took theferry to Mazatlan and you
started to ride south on themainland, the terrain
drastically changes.
You go into the mountains,you're into the pine tree
forest.
Were you expecting that type ofdramatic change?

SPEAKER_02 (20:38):
No, honestly, like we did a little bit of research
about different spots along theway, but there's so many places
where, yeah, we were just blownaway.
Like we, I had seen photos ofMazatlan before, but I had no
clue that it was really close tothese huge epic mountains with
pine trees and like baja wasjust complete desert and then

(20:59):
the second we get to mainlandit's like really big city and
then big uh like alpine forestsand then we go a little bit
further and there's these huge17 000 foot mountains and that
was kind of the theme of thetrip was just like we we almost
purposely we make sure all theareas we're going to are safe
but we kind of purposely don'tlike look at a bunch of google

(21:21):
photos and stuff like that Justso it is a surprise, it kind of
makes it a little more fun andjust exciting.
Yeah, no, we did not expect thatat all.
Yeah, it was great

SPEAKER_04 (21:30):
to experience that journey with you.
One of the things that struck meduring that part of the video
was, you know, I've experiencedthe Topaz of Mexico and I've
destroyed many a suspensionsystem down there, but I you
guys saw a cattle guard that wasinstalled the wrong direction.
If you were going too fast, youwould have hit that.
You know, it could be reallyserious.
You guys kind of laughed aboutit.

(21:50):
But were you were you shocked bythat?

SPEAKER_02 (21:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that was that was prettygnarly.
And that was actually a timewhere Jonah and Jesse were
riding on their own.
They were I was going up to thenext city.
I think I can't remember exactlywhy, but they took this little
dirt side road.
And so I wasn't there for thatspecific one.
But you like totally if you weregoing fast enough, you would

(22:12):
like you could potentially likedie from that.
But it's in these really remoteareas that probably no one
except for the people that livethere ever ride on.
So they probably just see it aslike, oh, yeah, like the boards
are only this long.
Let's put them this direction,like not a big deal, because a
lot of the roads that we end upon are, you know, pretty rural

(22:33):
and just like, yeah, they're notexpecting random motorcyclists
from America to ride throughthere.

SPEAKER_04 (22:41):
Yeah, there's a YouTuber called Riot The Bean
and he had a terrible accident.
Same thing.
It was a small bridge got washedout and he was ripping and he
had a terrible eye.
It involved a life flight andeverything.
I just once I saw the cattleguy, I'm like, oh, my God, thank
God you guys weren't, you know,going overly fast.
Some of the towns reallysurprised me.
I've done a lot of traveling inMexico, but by water, I used to

(23:02):
be a yacht captain.
And were you surprised by someof the, you know, Spanish era
towns that you saw in which townmaybe struck you the most?

SPEAKER_02 (23:11):
Yeah, no, it was it was amazing.
And those those towns, again,were like almost complete
surprise like we would be youknow a couple hundred miles away
and then someone would say likeyo if you guys are in this area
like you should check out thistown and then we'd just end up
there so it was all like yeah itwas all a surprise and the two
towns well honestly the biggesttown that comes to mind is

(23:33):
called Zacatecas which is incentral Mexico a little bit
north of Mexico City and thattown was just incredible like it
actually felt like you were inSpain just amazing cathedrals
And yeah, the there's a lot ofSpanish architecture and stuff
down in Mexico because, youknow, the Spanish kind of really
took over the place.

(23:54):
But yeah, it was a just aamazing town.
We ended up spending spendingthree days because there was all
these cool little cafes and wehad been just like ripping for
like, I think, 12 or 13 days atthat point.
There was also another towncalled San Miguel de Alende,
Alendre.
And that was another likesimilar town.

(24:15):
It was a little bit moretouristy.
So Zacatecas is a little bitmore preferred just because we
like like there was no touristsat all.
We saw one other dude that was,I think, from Europe or
something the whole time we werethere for three days.
And just finding those likeunique experiences like that
where you're just surrounded bylocals and stuff is is is really

(24:36):
fun and really rewarding.

SPEAKER_04 (24:37):
Speaking of the locals, you were in the middle
of a protest for violenceagainst women.
You were immediately thrown intothe the local culture did that
strike you as uh being a littleodd uh being in this town and
immediately surrounded by aprotest

SPEAKER_02 (24:51):
yeah it was really interesting like we were just
walking around um we didn'treally know what was going on
and the people like we were juststanding outside of our hotel
and like the people at the hotelwere like you guys need to come
inside right now and we're likewhat like what's going on then
they said there was some sort ofa protest and we were kind of
like uh i mean it's probablyfine like we're like i don't

(25:13):
know we're like three good sizeddudes were like, we're going to
be fine.
But we're really glad that weended up going inside because it
got super intense reallyquickly.
And there's a couple of clips ofit in the film because we ended
up on like a second storybalcony.
So I got a few clips with mycamera and then right below us,
they busted in the door of ourhotel and then they saw me with

(25:37):
the camera and they all startedlike 15 women just started
yelling at me.
So I ended up putting the cameraaway.
So we didn't we didn't get toomany shots but it was really
interesting and um yeah we had alot of time to think about that
and it's just like i mean theprotest was huge there was
probably like 20 10 to 20 000people marching um and yeah and

(26:00):
i guess our overall thoughtswere just sort of like it must
be pretty bad if there's thismuch of a showing for um a march
like this um but yeah completelyunexpected and yeah it was
honestly a little bit scary whenthey started like busting down
the door of the hotel.
Wow.

SPEAKER_04 (26:16):
I've, I've had a lot of women that have scared me,
but 20,000 of them, I think Iwill leave the locals to their
own, their own politics and wishthem, wish them well.
And hopefully they get a good,good results out of that,
bringing, bringing awareness tothat important cause.
But you mentioned earlier aboutmeeting some local people.
Did you meet any local riders?
Did you experience any, youknow, they call it trail magic
for hikers.

(26:37):
Did you, did you experienceanything like that from local
riders?

SPEAKER_02 (26:40):
Yeah.
So actually on the ferry backfrom, on the ferry back from, or
from Baja over to Mazatlan we itwas funny we like we we had some
tire problems and anyways we wewe showed up to the ferry super
late and there was a policeblockade and they were blocking
off because there was a bikerace and it was the only road to

(27:00):
get up to the ferry and so we goup to the front and they were
like yeah you're not gettingthrough so we tried some dirt
path like off this otherdirection and this actually
isn't in the film but Jesse wasgoing like 20 miles an hour and
hit a fence that was across theroad that was We didn't know and
flew off the bike.
He was fine.
And then we turned around, wentback to the police blockade.

(27:21):
And we were just we saw anothergroup of riders that was that
was also there.
And we were just walking up tothem to try to ask them what was
going on.
And they just like kind ofmotioned for us to follow.
And somehow they had likeconvinced the police to let us
in through the blockade.
And so we were like in thisblockade.
super professional bike racejust riding our motorcycles

(27:42):
through it made it onto theferry and then we got to know
this guy his name is Miguelpretty well on the ferry we were
just kind of talking he spokereally good English and our
Spanish was getting a little bitbetter at that point and he was
such a big help for the rest ofthe trip like we once we got to
mainland we actually stayed withhim for a few days when we were

(28:03):
in Carataro and then he ended uplike posting about our Cause we,
we still throughout the trip, weweren't a hundred percent sure
where we were going to store thebikes.
And he put a bunch of posts outon these Mexican groups about
like bike storage and ended uphooking up us up with this other
guy who ended up like helping usstore our bikes.
And, um, yeah, it was, it wasreally cool.

(28:25):
I wish we could have done alittle bit more riding with him,
but he was just such a big helpto us.
And it was really cool.
Cause it was just completelyrandom.

SPEAKER_04 (28:32):
Yeah.
And it makes the trip throughsomeone else's country a little
more special that you're notjust an observer.
You're obviously part of thecommunity rather than just a
tourist.
You had mentioned that yourbuddy had a bit of a dirt nap
there.
Did you have any serious,serious spills?

SPEAKER_02 (28:47):
We didn't have anything too serious.
We have little stuff here andthere.
We have pretty good riding gear.
One of the companies that likekind of took a risk on us in the
first episode was Revit.
So they sent us like actual goodriding gear, which was awesome.
And like we would be way moreinjured if we didn't have that
gear.
So we had little stuff and thenlike i think the biggest thing

(29:09):
that we had was jonah low sideof the bike near the end of the
trip and he hurt his wristpretty bad but it wasn't
anything too crazy like after alittle bit of a pause we taped
it up with duct tape and heended up being okay um so yeah
we've we ride pretty cautiouslyand we also like mainly do

(29:29):
slower like back roads so if wedo fall it's usually on dirt and
you can kind of like for themost part roll out of it But
yeah, we've been lucky so far.

SPEAKER_04 (29:39):
I noticed that you had to do a little bit of a
repair to one of the gearshifters.
Do you guys at least carry sparelevers now?

SPEAKER_02 (29:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Spare sprockets.
We there's a lot of things we'velearned since that first trip.

SPEAKER_04 (29:51):
Yeah.
But you guys went and it workedand everything worked out.
There are too many people,especially men that are like, I
need to have this and I need tohave that.
I'm not going because I'm notprepared.
You really showed everyone thatyou can just go online and buy a
bunch of gear and hit the roadand everything's just going to
work out, man.
It's it's it's going to be fine.
Speaking about those bikes, youhad a lot of gear on those
little bikes and, you know, youbroke some of the some of the

(30:12):
racking systems.
Did you face any other gearchallenges during the first or
second episode?

SPEAKER_02 (30:18):
Yeah.
So the I think the biggestchange to our gear from the
first to the second one was newpannier bags in addition to
racks.
So we had, yeah, basically allof our racks just destroy
themselves on the first one.
And the funny part is we all endup getting the exact same gear
whether it's like stuff that'son our bikes or like a certain

(30:40):
jacket or a certain chairbecause there's such few items
in in the world that like weneed the most durable item in
any category of things so we allend up with like the exact same
stuff um so yeah the racks werea big one jonah's side he had
like this soft sided luggage forthe first trip was just a huge

(31:00):
mistake because it justcompletely destroyed itself so
we got better rack um betterMoscow bags and then on the
second trip which was actually ahuge help for the filming part
of it I was going to mentionthis earlier um but for the
filming workflow something thathas helped a ton is we got
bigger tank bags and Jonah hashis main camera right in front

(31:23):
of him at all times and then Ihave a DJI mini drone um so at
all times pretty much we canpull off the side of the road we
can have a main camera and adrone and that has just helped a
ton and um and then for otherupgrades to the bikes between
the first and the second one wealso did brand new suspensions
which was a huge upgrade becausethe stock dr suspension just it

(31:47):
honestly it's not very good atall we were bottoming out
constantly um so we got newsuspensions from cogent and that
has made like a it's made itfeel like a completely different
bike

SPEAKER_04 (31:57):
yeah you're definitely over the gross
vehicle weight with all your allyour camera equipment and you
know your food and your spareparts and such and you know
riding these these bikes throughMexico wasn't hard enough.
You guys did some hiking up avolcano up over 16,500 feet and
even into the snow.
Can you tell us about thatadventure and how that idea came
up?

SPEAKER_02 (32:16):
Yeah.
So it honestly started like, Ijust had posted a Instagram
story, um, just wherever wewere, whatever town we were in.
And someone messaged me and waslike, yo, there's this really
cool hike, like down past Mexicocity.
And we kind of looked at somephotos, looked at the mileage
and we were like, ah, thisshould be, this should be
doable.
Um, And so, yeah, we kind ofbypassed Mexico City, went

(32:39):
straight for the hike, and weplanned on just camping like
pretty close to the trailheadand then storing all of our
stuff in like a bush orsomething and then doing the
hike coming back down.
But the problem was it was anational park, and this has
actually happened a few timesthroughout our trip.
This happened to us this year inCotopaxi down in Ecuador.
But a lot of national parks,they allow vehicles, but they

(33:02):
don't allow motorcycles becauseI think people just– kind of go
off trail and do stuff likethat.
So the hike turned from like, Ithink it added an extra eight
miles to the hike because wecouldn't get any further.
So, and we, we had got to thetrailhead or not the trailhead,
but like the visitor center,like kind of late at night.
And so we were reallyconsidering not doing it.

(33:23):
Cause we were like, what are wedoing?
Like, this is, this is reallygnarly hike.
And all of us are really intohiking, but on a motorcycle
trip, we're also really tiredfrom all of that.
But we were just figured like,we're here.
we should give it a shot we'lljust hike up as far as we can
and then turn around like atleast we'll be able to hike to
the highest elevation that anyof us have ever been and it's

(33:44):
going to be all good um and yeahwe just started going we left at
like 3 a.m started hiking andjust like we're feeling okay
like it was really challenging ithink we started at 12 000 feet
got to like 13 14 15 and then wewere kind of like we i feel like
we could do it we can make it tothe the top one it's just one of

(34:06):
those things where you just keeppushing further and further and
further and so yeah we made ituh we made it to like the first
of three summits we actuallydidn't summit the whole mountain
there's another peak that's afew hundred feet taller but we
were like pretty happy with theone that we got to um and yeah
it was honestly one of myfavorite moments from the whole
trip because um yeah it's it'seasy to get sucked into all the

(34:29):
motorcycle riding because it'sso much fun but it's nice once
in a while and like a month-longtrip to just do some sort
activity that um is differentfrom that gives your gives your
ass a break and um yeah it'sjust also nice to stretch your
legs because a month of sittingon a motorcycle isn't the best
thing for your uh for your leghealth

SPEAKER_04 (34:49):
yeah and you guys ran into the mexican special
forces doing some training upthere so it was definitely a
really badass thing that thatyou guys did and i'm not one for
fear-mongering in mexico becausenothing drives me more crazy
than people's first question ohwas it dangerous but you did
have a little run-in with thelocal cartel and I think they
were more upset with you filmingmaybe you could tell us about
that experience

SPEAKER_02 (35:09):
yeah so so funny like we made the made it through
the whole trip with no problemsthe only other weird thing that
would have that happened was onthe same day that Jonah and
Jesse encounter those cattleguards in that remote part of
Mexico they were sitting at thislittle like pull off and a like
in the middle of nowhere and anextremely nice extremely tinted

(35:32):
like Ford Platinum showed up andAnd this guy kind of hopped out
and they saw there was like ashotgun mounted in between him
and the like the driver in thepassenger seat.
And he just kind of came up tothem and was asking them what
they were doing.
And then they were like, yeah,we're just on a motorcycle trip.
And then he left and it wastotally fine.

(35:52):
That was the only other likeweird situation we had.
But literally our last day, likewe had to basically go down to
the border of Guatemala andcancel our vehicle permits
before we stored them.
And yeah, we were like two milesnorth of the border and we were
coming around this corner,pulled into this gas station to
fill up and almost immediately,like a bunch of SUVs pulled up.

(36:16):
They first pulled up to Jonahand we're basically just like,
yeah, they had problems with theGoPro and they're wondering what
we were doing.
And so they're yelling at himand then a couple more cars show
up like more guys hop out andthey start yelling at me and
Jesse, who are currently gettinggas at the pump.
And we didn't know what to say.
where you're just like, it wasso sudden and...

(36:38):
Honestly, like as quickly asthey arrived, they just
disappeared, drove away and itwas totally fine.
And I think they were justchecking us out.
Yeah.
Just like wondering what we weredoing.
Like the reality is in whetherit's the cartel or like we
encountered another, it's sortof like a anti-government group

(36:59):
called FARC in Columbia.
And really they don't wantproblems with tourists because I
mean, specifically for thecartel, they make a ton of money
off of tourists.
And it's also just really badpress if anything happens.
So you just kind of have to betrusting in those situations and
being like, yeah, bad things canhappen.
But bad things can also happenback home.

(37:21):
So yeah, we did have a bit of arun in, but everything ended up
being okay.
And yeah, if you just are todick and treat people
respectfully, they yeah, theydon't.
We haven't had any otherproblems.

SPEAKER_04 (37:35):
Usually really bad things happen in situations that
you really shouldn't be.
If it's 3 a.m.
and, you know, you're at a dodgystrip club, probably something
bad is going to happen.
But if you're just ridingmotorcycles and, you know,
you're just taking videos, maybehide the camera when you're at
someone's border crossing, youknow, is all.
And speaking of the Guatemalaborder, that's where you start
episode two.
And when you cross the border,you're immediately in the

(37:57):
jungle.
Can you tell us how that bordercrossing went and maybe what
your thoughts were as youentered the jungle?

SPEAKER_02 (38:01):
Yeah, it was it was really interesting because,
again, like a lot of thelandscapes were just like so
surprising, like I thought wewould for sure, like already be
in the jungle.
Like when you think, whenever Ithought of Guatemala, it was
like dense jungle.
Um, but like just North ofborder, like the night before we
went to the border, we werestaying in like a little pine

(38:22):
tree forest, which was reallyinteresting.
That was actually like decentlyhigh altitude.
And then we wound down towardsGuatemala and yeah, like almost
immediately it turned into thislike dense jungle and it was
really pretty, really beautiful.
And that's why I just like, um,like the thing that I like
almost most about these trips isjust being surprised around

(38:42):
every single corner.
Like every single day you wakeup and you're really unsure of
what you're going to see, whatthe landscape is going to be
like, who you're going to meet.
And, um, yeah, Guatemala wasamazing.
Like from the time we, we, Imean, I don't want to talk too
long about it, but yeah, likeGuatemala, we were in, there's
beaches, there's volcanoes,there's like, we camped at

(39:05):
12,000 feet one night in thissuper high area.
Like Yeah, just being surprisedaround every corner is really,
really fun.

SPEAKER_04 (39:12):
By this point, you've covered over 4,000 miles.
People often make changes totheir bikes and gear.
You've already talked aboutchanging to the Moscow Moto
bags.
Did you make any gear changes ordid you find that you had more
or less gear by this point?

SPEAKER_02 (39:25):
Probably a little bit less gear.
I don't know exactly.
I can't think of any specificthings, but just like as far as
the clothing we bring, like Iprobably brought more clothes on
the first trip.
On the next following trips, Ithink I brought like four
t-shirts because I just realizedthat you just wear the same
thing every day, which is yourriding gear.
So it doesn't really matter.
Camera gear has changed a littlebit.

(39:46):
Like we've experimented withdifferent lenses and different
drones, stuff like that.
And then just like making ourbikes a little bit more durable.
So we put like case savers, weput little roll bars up in the
front of our engines, stuff likethat, just little modifications,
brighter headlights.
We got Baja design lights onthis most recent trip.

(40:10):
And there's always little stuffthat you can kind of improve.
One thing that we really did notdo a great job of on this last
one was the like charging portsfor all of our gear.
We actually ended up being inPeru during the rainy season,
which we really didn't want,like the beginning of rainy
season.
And so all of our gear gotcompletely soaked.

(40:32):
So in the next one, we're goingto be doing a little bit better
job of getting more waterproofstuff and having multiple wiring
systems.
So we know that we have one thatworks to charge the gear.
And yeah, there's a millionlittle things like that.

SPEAKER_04 (40:47):
I actually saw that and I didn't know they had
problems.
I saw the little green USB portsby your handlebars.
I thought, wow, those aren'tvery water protected.
Were those the devices thatfailed?

SPEAKER_02 (40:58):
Yeah.
So we actually got new ones forthis trip.
They were like USB-C.
So they charge a little bitfaster and they did have like a
cap that goes over them.
But we were the rain that wewere going through was like
there was one point where it waslike it was like a foot deep of
water on the road.
We're like we felt like we wereboats like going through.
There was just a wall of waterabove us.
So it was just like no matterwhat you did.

(41:20):
you were going to be screwed.
So we're just bringing extra onthe next trip.
That's right.
They

SPEAKER_04 (41:24):
cost like 10 bucks.
Just bring an extra one.
You mentioned and you mentionedsome of the other countries.
So what countries did you coverin episode two?

SPEAKER_02 (41:31):
So episode two, we picked our bikes back up in
Mexico, went down throughGuatemala.
And then from Guatemala, we wentto El Salvador, crossed through
this little stretch of Honduras.
And we're hoping to get intoNicaragua and spend because we
want it.
We kind of had to make decisionslike we only had a month and you

(41:52):
know there's a bunch ofcountries down there so we kind
of decided that we wanted tospend a lot of time in Guatemala
a lot of time in Nicaragua a lotof time in Costa Rica and then a
lot of time in Panama so we weregoing to skip El Salvador and
Honduras it's unfortunate but wejust have to make decisions like
that and so yeah then we I hadan incident where I basically

(42:14):
got stuck for 10 days of thetrip which was pretty brutal
Jesse and Jonah can We'll beright back.
Eventually, 10 days later, I wasable to figure everything out
and make it down to them.
And then we completed the tripthrough Panama.
So it was six differentcountries on episode two.

SPEAKER_04 (42:36):
And I was really impressed by some of the footage
in that active volcano.
I actually flew into thatvolcano from a marina on the
Pacific coast.
The marina manager just happenedto have a little airplane.
And I'm like, this is, you know,this is crazy that I've been in
that volcano.
But the footage you got wasamazing.
in that volcano were youprepared for that or was like

(42:57):
this is just amazing let's justget the drones up

SPEAKER_02 (43:00):
um i mean we we had heard the volcano uh erupted
every like 15 minutes or so umand we had someone kind of
convince us like we we campedout at this little like guiding
outpost the night before and hewas like you have to get up
there before sunrise or elseyou're not going to see the
actual lava so we were like allright sounds good and so we
headed up i think we got anprepared for it to be cool but

(43:26):
we just like it's just one ofthose things that no matter how
many videos or photos you see ofit and I'm sure it's probably
similar when you went there likenothing prepares you for that
it's just so cool and just sucha powerful experience just being
like the earth is alive likemost places don't have lava
coming out of it but right hereyou can really see it it's just

(43:48):
a constantly erupting volcanoand we sat up there for probably
an hour and a half or two hoursjust watching it eruption after
eruption and just basically tillall of our drone batteries were
dead.

SPEAKER_04 (44:00):
Yeah, it was really amazing.
Everyone has to go see that.
It was really amazing.
And one of the fun things Ialways had to laugh at is you
guys aren't exactly moto chefs.
Uh, you know, I saw a lot ofpeanut butter, a lot of cans of
tuna, uh, you know, some simpleflatbread.
Are you planning on improving onthis or what?

SPEAKER_02 (44:16):
Yeah, I think we might be the, whatever the
opposite of moto chefs are.
I We don't really have any plansof improving it.
It's just kind of like you getwhat you can get.
Like even if we were to bringlike nice camp meals, we'd be
done with them in like a weekand then we'd be back to the
peanut butter and tortilla diet.

(44:37):
So and it's a lot of it ishonestly dependent on like what
we can find.
Like a lot of the times we're inthese really remote areas where
we can't get.
We can't even find peanutbutter, which is tragic.
It's always a really sad day.
And so we're eating just likethe most random stuff.
Like if we can find a littlestall on the side of the road
that's selling street food, likethat's amazing.

(44:59):
But yeah, and we try to stock upon stuff when we're in bigger
cities, like the essentials.
But yeah, our diet is not greatand probably not going to
improve just because we can'treally find any of that stuff

SPEAKER_04 (45:13):
where we go.
Well, it's definitelyentertaining and a little bit
cringeworthy for someone who's50 years old to watch what
you're eating.
But speaking of getting food andsupplies, you're not always on
the Pan American Highway.
So how often are you on the PanAmerican Highway and how often
are you off on a little sideroad?

SPEAKER_02 (45:28):
We're probably off it the majority of the time.
I think probably like 90% of thetime we're off the highway.
We try to not spend a ton oftime on the highway just because
it's a little bit moredangerous.
And also we kind of just try tofind the twistiest dirt dirtiest
road um that we can and highwayriding is fine like if we really

(45:52):
need to cover some miles andstuff we'll get on the highway
and get from point a to point bbut if there is some sort of
alternate route we'll usuallytake that so yeah it's probably
it might even be less than 10where we're actually on like big
highways

SPEAKER_04 (46:05):
it's really great it really shows in your adventure
too and sometimes you guys getinto trouble but you know with
those small bikes and withteamwork you know you guys
always seem to uh get out ofwhatever trouble you get
yourself into once you made itas a group to panama after your
little separation time therewhat was your plan where are you
storing your bikes and how doyou plan to get around the gap

SPEAKER_02 (46:25):
yeah so um so that one that one was actually pretty
simple there's a there's acompany called overland embassy
and they actually specializebecause there's no roads between
north and south america sothere's actually quite a lot of
travelers that come throughthere in mexico it was a little
more challenging because therewasn't it's not like a common
thing for people to do but yeahi Panama there's this company

(46:47):
that's called Overland Embassythe dude who owns it is named
Alejandro he's super cool dudehe restores a bunch of old land
cruisers and defenders and stuffso walking through his yard I
was like ugh I need I need oneof these.
But yeah, so he basically storedour bikes and we've already
we've already done the thirdleg.
So he stored our bikes for about11 months.

(47:09):
And then when we when we wantedto do the next leg, he shipped
them via airplane down toBogota, Colombia.
And then we just picked them upthere.
We had done all the paperworkbefore we left.
So we didn't even have to goback to Panama for that.

SPEAKER_04 (47:24):
And maybe could give us an idea what the cost was to
store your bikes and to shipthem.

SPEAKER_02 (47:28):
I think it was like.
Maybe a hundred bucks a month orsomething like that to store
them.
And then I think it was athousand to ship them, which I
thought was actually prettycheap because if, even if you
get a cargo container on a boatthat takes like two weeks, it's,
I think it's like only 800 bucksor something.
So it's not that much moreexpensive.
And yeah, it was just reallyeasy.

(47:50):
We just went to the airport inBogota, picked up the bikes and
then we were good to go.

SPEAKER_04 (47:54):
Yeah.
That's what I paid also inTijuana recently, a hundred
bucks a month.
You took care of it.
They put the charger on.
and that's around what I'mpaying also shipping when I when
I ship my bike to Europe I seeit's about 1500 bucks and then
by air it's about 1800 bucks andthat's you know crossing the
ocean so yeah it makes perfectsense plus you have a reputable

(48:15):
team that's that's handling itand they understand motorcycles
and it sounds like a white gloveservice which is great

SPEAKER_02 (48:21):
oh i was just gonna say i had a friend ship his van
on a cargo container down tosouth america and he had like
the whole thing looted and losta bunch of stuff and we just
didn't want to deal with any ofthat actually make a really good
point

SPEAKER_04 (48:34):
that with air cargo it's a little a bit of a more
professional environment that toput it politely, you guys did a
lot of miles on those DR sixfifties.
Are you happy with your choiceor would you choose something
else?

SPEAKER_02 (48:46):
No, honestly, that's the, I think that's the perfect
bike for what we want to do.
Um, we could have gone like withlike a KTM, uh, like, uh, we, we
actually ran into a friend whowas riding a, uh, KTM 500 EXC
and he had ridden it fromGermany.
And then we met him in Columbia.
Um, and that bike was reallynice and actually I think Jonah

(49:09):
actually when we got back fromthe last trip he bought one out
in LA and I think I'm probablygoing to buy one too but the
problem with those bikes is theparts are much harder to find
like the DR has been the exactsame for like 20 some years so
and it's kind of just like asJesse says it's like the tractor
of motorcycles so pretty muchanything we like we can have so

(49:31):
we can bring simple parts to fixmost things and then if there is
something that needs somethinglike like more advanced most
mechanics will be able to workon it um and it's it's a little
bit heavy but it's like it'salso solid on the highway when
we need it to be like i i reallydo think for a trip like this
it's the perfect bike i thinkyeah the biggest the biggest

(49:53):
reason being that it's easy torepair in these places where if
we had a ktm or something likethat it'd be a lot harder to get
parts

SPEAKER_04 (50:01):
one of our sponsors is a tour company in columbia
and their most popular bike thatthey rent is a DR650.
So it seems to be appropriatefor the area as well.
And really the only trouble youguys had were flat tires.
So how many flat tires do youthink you've had and how great
are you at changing them?

SPEAKER_02 (50:19):
You'd be shocked at how not fast we are still at
this point.
I have no clue how many flattires that we've had, but we
usually get a few per trip each.
I think this trip was the firsttime, this most recent one in
South America, I don't think Igot a flat, which is crazy.
We had other other flats butyeah and we we have a big like

(50:40):
like a lot of people in thecomments are like why are you
not running tubeless tires butthe thing is like if we pop a
tubeless tire and we're in themiddle of nowhere like there's
we would rather have a tire thatwe can patch repair and maybe
it'll take a little bit of extratime we'd rather have something
that we know will work even ifit's more effort than something
that if it goes like you're justkind of screwed

SPEAKER_04 (51:00):
yeah everyone's got an opinion until they're stuck
in the advantages to both.
And people will get intofistfights at bars about this.
And we will leave it to smarterpeople to figure that out.
But how do you summarize a triplike this?
Has this been the biggestadventure of your life so far?

SPEAKER_02 (51:18):
Yeah, yeah, most definitely.
Like, I've been super fortunateto do a lot of really cool
traveling.
Like me and Jonah, several yearsago, we went to Mongolia and
stayed with these nomadicfamilies for like 10 days and
done a lot of traveling in a lotof different places.
But there's just something aboutbeing on a motorcycle that you

(51:38):
just feel so much more in tunewith the places that you're
going like any temperaturechange you feel it any like rain
you feel it you're like you'rereally in the environment and
also it's I think you're just alot more like open to things
when you're not in a car like ifyou're in a car and you have
this little cozy place that youcan go and like hide from the

(51:58):
world it's a lot differentexperience like when you're on a
motorcycle you roll up to a townand if you stop you're instantly
just out with everyone likepeople will come up to talk to
you you'll talk to them and evenlike the amount of problems that
we've had have led us to some ofthe most like amazing
experiences meeting all thesepeople that we never would have
met otherwise so it's just yeahit's a completely different type

(52:22):
of travel and yeah I mean theplaces that we've been able to
see because we have motorcycleslike I mean there's no way we'd
ever be able to get there if wewere driving a car or doing a
van trip or something like thatbut Yeah, it's been really
special.

SPEAKER_04 (52:38):
Everyone I talk to on the podcast always says the
same thing, whether it's CharlieBorman with his old motorcycle
breaking down and, you know,there's a team will show up
because it's a vintage bike orif it's, you know, Ted Simon,
I'm waiting under a treebecause, you know, something
great will happen.
All these little interruptionson motorcycles seem to give us
great access into the placeswe're visiting.

(53:01):
And there's always a great storythat comes of it.
But, you know, our podcast isabout motorcycles and this
adventure is based onmotorcycles and you know where
did you start to learn to ridewhat was your first motorcycle

SPEAKER_02 (53:12):
back in high school or maybe it was end of middle
school beginning of high schooli got a old xr um and a lot of
my friends had a lot of like250s and just did a bunch of
dirt riding like we'd go out tothe track and do single track up
in the mountains and stuff sothat was the first bike that i
ever had um and then uh yeah ithink i had that thing for like

(53:33):
four years or something and theni started traveling and then
ended up up selling it so i kindof got out of riding motorcycles
and i just missed it a ton sowhen we first started talking
about this trip like i wasreally excited because i just
absolutely loved riding um andyeah just i don't i kind of
missed that little bike likeafter riding the really big one

(53:55):
now um i miss having that littleone to rip around the track and
just doing like little lines upin the mountains that honestly
with our bikes with all theluggage we just aren't it able
to do right now.

SPEAKER_04 (54:07):
I'm going to ship my bike to Europe in October and
I'll be bikeless here and I havean old man, giant GSA, but I
will replace the bike on thisside of the pond with a small
little bike.
You guys have really inspired mewith that.
I'm going to go ahead and addyour movie, your series to my
motorcycle film club on ourwebpage.

(54:28):
And I'm also going to add it toour show notes.
Maybe you can tell us wherepeople can see your other work,
your drone footage.

SPEAKER_02 (54:34):
Yeah.
So just on YouTube, same placeyou can watch Southbound.
We're just distributing it thereright now.
And yeah, it's on the samechannel.
So you can see like differenttravel films stuff like that um
all my drone videos and also oninstagram my handle is at mcgee
i share a lot of more i share alot more there um just like the

(54:57):
everyday moments and stuff likethat so

SPEAKER_04 (54:59):
yeah it's really great everyone should check it
out i think there's that venndiagram of motorcyclists we like
the drone footage and all thatgeeky stuff it's really awesome
anything with adventure we'realways excited to see and I just
wanted to say that, you know, asan older guy, the teamwork and
the friendship amongst you threeis not easy to come by.
So I hope you guys continue youradventures and I hope you

(55:20):
recognize how rare thisadventure is.
And you guys, please come backand talk to us after you finish
your next episode.

SPEAKER_02 (55:28):
Yeah, that sounds great.
I really appreciate talking withyou and appreciate you having me
on.
All right, man.
We'll see you again soon.
Take care.
You too.

SPEAKER_03 (55:41):
And we are back.
Yes, we are.
Aaron, you're doing a great jobwith these interviews.
It also happens to be a loteasier when you are working with
someone who is a professional.

SPEAKER_04 (55:54):
I met him in Aspen when we were doing some work
down there and you know, we werejust chatting about motorcycles
because we had a bunch of bikesthere and he's like, oh yeah,
I'm heading down to Mexico andwe're going to, we're going to
do it every few years.
Sorry, every few, we're going todo it once a year and we're
going to do a few weeks everyyear and we'll just ditch the
bikes whenever we're finishedour three, four week stint on

(56:15):
the bikes.
I thought it was a really coolconcept.
And then a year later I saw hisvideo and I go, wow, he's
actually doing it.
So I reached out and I said,let's, let's have a chat about
it.

SPEAKER_03 (56:23):
I guess right after you had done the interview, I
watched the, the first one.
And then this morning I actuallywatched the The second one, you
know, I'm on vacation.
I did watch it at 1.25 speed,and it's still a comfortable
listening speed, but it's great.
And it was, what, 117?
It was an hour, 17 minutes.

(56:43):
It was a great full-lengthfeature just to sit back and
relax and chill out.
So that was quite nice.
There's a couple of things thatreally stuck out for me.
And one of them is that if youtreat people respectfully,
then...
you're going to get a long way.
And these guys have respect in,um, you know, in droves, right?
So they are extremelyrespectful.

(57:04):
They take in the culture and,uh, and they're just nice guys.
So they, you know, they didn'tget into any trouble.
They got into a couple of, youknow, like a couple of sketchy
situations with the, uh, the,uh, as you said, with the
interview with the, um, thewoman's rights, uh, parade, a
lot of anger there.
And then also with the drugcartel was, they just wanted to
make sure that they weren'tfilming, you know, them in that,

(57:24):
in that particular area.

SPEAKER_04 (57:26):
Sure.
And if you were to ride acrossAmerica, you would, you would
get into trouble too once in alike the fact that they had
these little dr650s theyassembled them with you know
less than perfect parts to getgoing and they destroyed them
and then moscow moto came in andgoes guys stop with this
nightmare let me send you somegear and uh and then they're

(57:47):
they're all better off for it sobut they went and they didn't
really have a plan they didn'treally know what they're doing
and they made it so you knoweveryone stopped whining and
you're never going to have theperfect bike and just go out and
do it and you're going tosurvive and it's going to be an
awesome adventure

SPEAKER_03 (57:59):
yeah i have the same gear that they um I was really
happy to see that the...
the Moscow gear that they havebeen given.
It's the same gear I put on the,on the Tenere 700.
I love that stuff.
And he made a comment in thesecond one.
It's like, this gear is so easyto take off and on.
And every time I'm someplace andI pull it off, people just look
at me and they go, man, that'sso nice.
It is easy to take off and putback on.

SPEAKER_04 (58:19):
Yeah.
So I used to have a set of thosebags for my GSA for going off
road.
And, you know, I just don'treally do that much anymore.
And I've switched back to thehard bags because if I'm camping
at the hotel or checking into acabin, I can just open the bags
and pull the liner bags out andthen the dirt doesn't come
inside.
So there is no perfect solution.

(58:40):
But for me right now, when I'mdoing less off-roading or if I'm
doing a section of off-pavementthroughout the day, I still
prefer the hard bags, but I'mnot doing anything silly
anymore.
I'm not dropping the bikes.
Everyone's seen my pictures ofme destroying bikes.
You know, that's just not mything anymore.
But those young guys, they'reout there getting it.
And I think it's fun to watch.
That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 (58:59):
Yeah.
I thought it was a smartdecision too, that they all
bought the same bike so theycould carry limit the number of
tools they need and also limitthe number of spares because
what's the chance that boththree bikes or two bikes for
that matter break a a shiftlever on the same day.

SPEAKER_04 (59:15):
Yeah.
And I think it's great that theyactually carry those few levers
now instead of having tojerry-rig it and get home.
So yeah, good for them.
Yeah.
And I'm looking forward totalking to them again when the
third episode drops.

SPEAKER_03 (59:28):
Yeah.
One of the things that you and Italk about, I think in our last
episode, we're like talkingabout doing a through hike.
You're like, yeah, we're goingto do a through hike.
And in the first episode, hetalked about one of the most
rewarding things they actuallydid was one of these hikes.
And they hadn't planned on it.
They did it in like, you know,training shoes.
Um, but they did it and they,um, and in episode two, since

(59:48):
they had such a good time in thefirst one in episode two, they
actually hiked a volcano.
I won't, uh, I won't say where,but, uh, I don't want to spoil
it, but it was quite cool.

SPEAKER_04 (59:56):
Yeah.
And it's just, just did it on awhim and you know, that's what
you do when you're young.
You're like, ah, let's go hikethis volcano.
Okay.
And you just, and you just go dothings, which is, which is
awesome.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:05):
Yeah, that's cool.
Um, and then they store theirbikes for 11 months and then
they come back and then theyride them for four.
So the last time it was, um, Ithought that was quite cool.
They met a guy who set him upwith the company because it was
at the north end of the DarienGap.
or shall I say the west end ofthe Darien Gap, but on the north
side of Darien Gap.
And then they were gonna comeback and the third episode was

(01:00:26):
gonna be the other side of theDarien Gap south.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:28):
Yeah, and that company, I forget the name of
it, but that company has a goodreputation.
And I've spoken to a lot ofpeople that have used that
company, even with like trucksand four by fours and other
forms of transportation.
So they are a reputable groupfor handling that specific
mission and they do it well.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:48):
Yeah.
Episode two, they actually showthat.
They show the name of thecompany outside setting up and
they give it a reference.
So if you want to figure out whothat is, if you're planning on
doing a trip like that, go checkthem out.
One of the things that'sinteresting, and it's a red
thread that runs through everysingle one of these episodes.
interviews or stories or anyoneyou talk to is that there's a
red thread and he summarizes itreally really nicely he says

(01:01:12):
there is just something aboutbeing on a motorcycle that you
feel so much more in tune withthe places that you are going
end quote and the problems thatthey encounter lead them into
meet people that they would nothave met otherwise and finally
the motorcycle gives them accessto places that they would not
have been able to access hadthey been on anything other than
say foot or horse so that's thered thread we hear throughout is

(01:01:33):
that it gives some access to theculture that you just wouldn't
get another way.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:37):
Yeah, for sure.
People want to come up and talkto you.
Once that pane of glass isremoved, once that cage of the
car is removed, people for somereason will come up and talk to
you.
And I think also the regularperson in these third world
countries are on two wheels.
So you kind of relate thatyou're both on the same mode of
transportation and there's someinterest.

(01:01:59):
There's like a professionalinterest in, oh, that looks
different than mine.
Let's talk about that bikeyou're run because we're all on,
we're all on the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:06):
Yeah.
It's, it's also quite cool that,and this is same thing from
Alspeth Beard.
anyone we've spoken to and theysay when something goes wrong
that's when the adventure beginsand on bikes these bikes that
they're running something'salways going wrong quite often
it's in the only flat tiressometimes within a within a you
know within 30 meters of thelast flat tire but nonetheless

(01:02:30):
that's when the adventure beginswhen they didn't expect it to go
a certain way and then they sortof mean people that they
normally if they just riddenpast them and hadn't stopped and
never would have met thosepeople

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:38):
and listen if they could bring you a cold beer
while you're fixing your tirethat that even works out better

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:42):
it's even better if you're drinking a cold beer
while they're fixing your tire.
Just

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:46):
saying.
Right.
That never works.
That never seems to be the wayfor me.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:49):
Hey, speaking of travel, I did some interviews.
If you'll think back to theepisode that we did about
school, And I think it was, Idon't know, the seventh
interview in, I talked to, andI'm not going to get it right in
Danish, but her name, if you'rean English speaker, is Dorothy

(01:03:10):
Krogh.
And anyway, she just left for aseven-week adventure to ride her
DRZ 400 Suzuki, big tank trickedout for some off-road
backcountry adventures inAustralia for seven weeks.
Yeah.
Shout out to her.
Be safe.
Have fun.
And we'll talk to you when youget back.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:30):
Absolutely.
I'm jealous.
That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:32):
Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have
your attention?
I've just been handed an urgentand horrifying news story.
And I need all of you to stopwhat you're doing and listen.
Cannonball!

SPEAKER_05 (01:03:45):
Hey, Cannonballers, thanks for subscribing to our
podcast.
We appreciate it.
If you're not a cheap Canadianand want to buy us a coffee,
head on over tobuymeacoffee.com.
Or better yet, buy us a case ofSweet Ass Craft IPA.
We'll list it on patreon.com.
Links are in the show notes.
Now, back to the rivetingpodcast in progress.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:10):
Aaron, is there any ADV Cannibal Rally news you'd
like to share with us?

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:15):
There is.
I know we're over time, so I'lljust rip through it here.
So I posted for competitors aall-in-one GPX file, which can
be used for Garmin or whateverapp you're using.
So in that GPX file, it has allthe segments for each day, the
optional off-road segments, andit has the checkpoints all in

(01:04:36):
one file.
So don't go enter yourcheckpoints in manually.
I saw someone doing that.
That's really cool that you'redoing that, but you can just
grab the one GPX file and youcan pull it into whatever, you
know, whether you're usingBasecamp or an app, it's all in
one.
It's super easy.
And I wanted to mentionshipping.
We have a couple of people havecanceled.
So 38 dropped out, number 20dropped out, number 21 dropped

(01:04:59):
out.
So there's some shipping spotsavailable.
So if you're looking forshipping, please reach out to me
and let's welcome number 32.
Roberto is from Asheville, NorthCarolina, and he's on a suite
1200 GS.
Very nice.
Welcome, welcome.
Yeah.
And let's talk about 2026.

(01:05:19):
So Cary Label has signed up.
for 2026 from North Carolina.
And he's on his Triumph Tiger1200 Rally Pro, which is a
badass machine.
Hunter is back and he has signedup for 2026.
And we all know he's on histrusty F900 GSA.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:39):
Very nice.
Welcome back, Hunter.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:41):
And I just quickly want to ask, some people have
been asking about the CheckpointRally app.
That is a scorekeeping app forthe ADV Cannonball Rally or
other rallies.
And how does it work?
There's nothing for you to do.
So just download and install theapp, keep it up to date.
And when you check into therally after you've signed the

(01:06:01):
waiver and promise not to sue mewhen you drive off a cliff, you
simply get a token.
It's a little code.
You will enter it into the appand then you never have to touch
it again.
So there's nothing for you tolearn how to use except for open
it, leave it open and enter thattoken into the app.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:21):
And that's it.
What if I accidentally shut itdown right before I cross the
finish line?

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:25):
And you're a Muppet.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:26):
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Now everyone knows Aaron.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:32):
Yeah.
You know, it's funny because inour regulations, I say to cover
my ass is that you should have aseparate phone running the
scoring app, have thecontinuously powered, in other
words, recharging all time andopen, and then set your phone,
your iPhone up to never close.
Just get a cheap iPhone.
And that's the reason why.
So even during testing theproblems we've had are not my

(01:06:54):
fault by the way there's oneproblem is the common one is
they'll install the app enterthe token and then immediately
when the the phone asks you theos asks you not my app but the
os asks you would you like togrant gps access to your device
and they freaking click no i'mlike you moron this is the
purpose of this freaking app isto have is to have access and

(01:07:15):
then it'll just stop workinglike your app is crap i can know
you're crap because you you youdenied access to the GPS for the
GPS app.
So I think it's just ourinclination to deny access to
our very important, you know,GPS location.
And then the next thing they dois they deny access to

(01:07:37):
notifications.
And then when they drive througha checkpoint, they're like, it
didn't tell me.
I'm like, well, because you toldit, you couldn't give you
notifications, you Muppet.
And then, and then the thirdthing that happens is after a
few days, Apple will ask you,this app has been gaining access
in the background to your GPSdata.
Would you like to continuegranting it access?

(01:07:59):
And then everyone's like tinfoilhat response is no.
And then it stops working.
I'm like, okay, well then it'snot my fault.
Like you've denied access to it.
Like, you know, I can't help youwith this.
And then they're calling yourapp doesn't work.
So no, you don't work.
So anyways, and then the fourththing that's happened is some of
our testers have been, let'scall it advanced users, right?

(01:08:21):
And they were running it as partof a suite of apps.
And then they would wake up inthe morning, open the app and
they throw it in the background.
Okay.
It does work in the background,but every once in a while they'd
forget to open it or they wouldclose it by accident and then it
stopped working.
So that was another.
So that's why we simply havethat rule, a cover CYA rule,
which is just have it on aseparate device because even

(01:08:42):
these advanced users wereclosing it by accident.
So anyways, those are all thefailures and you'll notice that
none of them are a programmingfailure.
or an app failure.
They're all just user failures.
So anyways, that's my rant aboutthe GPS app.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:56):
Yeah, indeed, Arendt.
I see you have some energy onthat.
I also know you did a lot ofwork to make sure that these
things do work.
And then these are things thatbecause of global data privacy,
et cetera, et cetera, the phoneis required to ask you if you
want to continue to do that.
And as you say, your tinfoil hatresponse is, no, you cannot have
access to my phone any longer.
Why have you had access thisfar?
Because you forgot that you saidyes the first time because the

(01:09:18):
instructions said, make sure yougive it access.
So these are great things thatyou've obviously now gotten your
instructions.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:24):
More than that, I won't give you the token to
activate the app, I'm going todo that.
When you come to check in, I'mgoing to set it up on your phone
and I go, it's working and I'mgoing to prove it to you.
Now, if it stops working, it'syour problem.
So, you know, I may be a littlefired up about it, but I'm like,
you know, I don't want anynegative feedback because
everyone at a rally loves acomplaint.
So I'm just getting it out ofthe way now saying it works.

(01:09:45):
We know it works.
I'm going to set it up for you.
And if it stops to work, it'sbecause of something that you've
done.

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:52):
Right.
And if it's and if it'ssomething that you've done, you
will quickly be referred to rulenumber one.
and rule number...

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:57):
Rule number one is don't be a weenie.
Rule number two is if you thinkof complaining, please refer to
rule number one.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:03):
It reminds me of the...
There was a complaint card andit said...
It's a complaint card.
If you'd like to file acomplaint, please fill out the
information on the back.
And it was like a little tickbox.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:16):
Right.
That's exactly it.
So anyways.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:21):
All right.
Hey, but, but the, uh, to closethat point out and they did a
lot of work on the app and thenthe testing that you did on it
was bulletproof.
So well done there.
And it's up on Android now.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:30):
It's on Android, but we know Android is, is
inherently less stable.
So if you choose to be like, Idon't know, anti-Apple for some
reason, and you choose to run anAndroid app, that That is your
problem.
Go for it.
You do whatever you want.
But if your Android crashes orthe app crashes or the GPS stops
working or whatever happens,that is your problem.

(01:10:51):
But we feel really comfortableabout the iOS app.
I have been testing both.
I have a Samsung tablet.
I have a no-name brand Androidphone that I keep with my GSA.
I run software on that to resetmy computer on my GSA.
So I have them.
But even just using them or evenactually being a developer with

(01:11:15):
the Google Play Store, it's evena nightmare.
You would be surprised that itdoesn't even work right.
So the whole ecosystem is justless polished.
So anyways, I know that'sanother rant.
So I'm going to drink my beerand shut up.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:28):
Yeah, maybe we should both do that.
And

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:32):
with that,

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:33):
anything else you'd like to attribute or are we at
the end of your list?

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:36):
Here's my final contribution.
Roll the outro.

UNKNOWN (01:11:40):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 (01:11:42):
Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast.
Please give us a five-starreview on your preferred podcast
platform.
That really helps us with thealgorithm gods.
All hail the algorithm gods.
You can buy us a copy onbuymecoffee.com slash ADV
Cannonball or directly help savethis sinking ship for the price

(01:12:02):
of a pint at patreon.com slashADV Cannonball.
Follow us on all the socialswith the handle at ADV
Cannonball.
If you'd like to send us aquestion or Thanks for
listening.
And remember, don't be an ADVweenie.

(01:12:29):
Keep your right hand cranked andyour feet on the pegs.