Mark Richardson Returns **Running On Empty** a Motorcycle Novel - ADV Cannonball

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
And before we get started, a quick thank you to
Pat for buying us a beer atbuymeacoffee.com and to our
Patreon supporters, Brian,Conrad, and Goatesk for helping
us out at patreon.com.
Now let's roll the intro.
Welcome to the ADV Cannonball

SPEAKER_04 (00:18):
Podcast, where we discuss all things on two
wheels, the adventure bikecannonball, and other
motorcycle-related nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 (00:37):
Season three, episode 14.
Welcome to Adventure CannonballPodcast.
I am your host, Taylor Lawson.
And today I am joined by my goodfriend, Aaron Pufall.

SPEAKER_03 (00:49):
What's up, big guy?
Good to see you.
It's been a while.

SPEAKER_02 (00:51):
Man, I am so excited about what's about to happen.
You mean you're going to crackthat beer open?
That's exactly what I meant.
Here we go.
It's maybe a little bit more.
I'll get into that, but let'sstart with this.
First things first, buddy.
First things first.
Deepa, baby.
Oh, this is, yeah, you love thisone.
Double IPA.
The mighty double IPA from BeerCity, from Air City.

(01:13):
Explosively aromatic, fresh,

SPEAKER_03 (01:16):
and...
Oh, a little bit fruity.
Fruity.
Listen, if there's a placecalled Beer City in Sweden...
Oh, nice.
Nicely done.
I need to go to Beer City.
That sounds like a great place.
I'm rocking a Cobra Clutch byParallel 49, double IPA, 8%.

(01:37):
on alcohol, 473 milliliters.
Here we go.
Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:43):
Nice.
You got a tall boy.
It looks like you're wearingsome of that in your beard.

SPEAKER_03 (01:46):
That's how I roll, man.
Listen, take out prisoners.
Give me a one-way ticket to BeerCity, baby.

SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
Here we go.
Speaking of one-way tickets, Ihad a return flight, I'll have
you know, for starters.
I'm leaving at 3 a.m.
on Saturday, well, morning.
Ouch.
Yeah, you know, it's not whatinitially was planned, but by
the time, the fourth time, thefourth reshuffling of the
flights with Air India, yeah,that's what I got.

(02:14):
So, 3 a.m., but the good news isthat I get to the hotel on
Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Sundaymorning at, uh, at eight
o'clock.
I thought initially I was goingto be there with you, but, um,
I, I missed that extra plus twoon your reservation when I
booked my ticket.

SPEAKER_03 (02:32):
Yeah.
It's a lot.
Cause I'm flying from, uh, NorthAmerica to Tokyo and I have an
overnight in a capsule hotel, bythe way.
And yeah, so that's going to befun or really small.
One of the two and, uh, yeah.
And I'm overnighting there.
So I'm going to drop my bags andi am restarting my photography

(02:54):
journey so i'm taking my fullcamera set and i'm heading into
tokyo and i have a whole uhshoot list and i'm gonna drink
sake shoot pictures eat ramendouble back to my capsule hotel
keep everyone awake with mydrunken snoring it's gonna be
fantastic i have to sleep in myown air filth in a little

(03:17):
capsule which will which will bea fun experience i will be sure
to take a bunch of uh videos andpost them to our social media
for everyone to laugh.
And then I fly to Delhi and thenI have another overnight there.
None of this was by choice isbecause I had a bunch of Air
Canada points and I bookedeverything for free and it's all

(03:38):
coach.
It's all going to be brutal.
And then I also have somephotography lined up for my
overnight in Delhi.
Do you have any plans when youarrive in Srinagar?

SPEAKER_02 (03:48):
When I arrive in Srinagar, I'm going to go get
maybe some reflexology on myfeet because i will have been
standing on them for yeah a fairamount of time um and then i'm
just gonna you know like a likea lost puppy dog i'm just gonna
sit at the station and wait foryou to arrive 36 hours later
nice uh no there's tons there'slots to do in in srinagar um one

(04:11):
of the cool things is that it'spart of the the acclimatization
that we'll need to do before weget up to uh 19 000 i don't know
200 ish feet somewhere aroundthere i know it i know it in
metric i don't it's an eighteight five thousand eight
hundred almost eight hundredmeters so almost yeah nineteen
thousand two hundred feet sowell beyond where the trees stop

(04:32):
growing

SPEAKER_03 (04:32):
nice so speaking of climatization when i'm in delhi
my very first well my secondthing i'm going to do because
first time i check into theimperial by the way i'm checking
into the imperial in delhi it'sa proper colonial hotel i'm
looking forward to that beforei'm stuck in you know mental
mouse ridden campsites with youin Trinidad.

(04:54):
No, no thanks to your bookingability.
But anyways, as soon as I checkin, I, uh, I have a security
detail arranged for a whopping$40 and we're going to
immediately go out and get, um,get stocked up on Diamox and I
don't know how to pronouncethat.
Zyfaxin.
It's the, I ran out of my, um,antibiotic for traveler's

(05:16):
diarrhea.

SPEAKER_02 (05:17):
Is that, hold on, hold on.
Is that different than like stayat home diarrhea?
Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 (05:21):
it's absolutely, you know, let's just say, uh, I love
Indian food, but perhaps thehandling and, uh, uh, sanitary
protocols are not usually whatwe're accustomed to.
So we're definitely going toneed some antibiotics.

SPEAKER_02 (05:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You pick up an extra pack for meif you, if you, if you would,
while you're there.
Um, you know, I just wanted toreflect back when I was, um,
when we were at the scoog and wewere chatting with like an Well,
maybe, actually, during theinterview, we were chatting with
Elspeth Beard, and she talkedabout, sort of made the
comparison between then and nowof when she was in Indy when she

(06:00):
was 23 versus when she went backrecently and led a group of
people around at a motorcycleevent.
And she said the main reasonthat there's less sickness now
is because the availability ofbottled water.
So keep that in mind.
If you didn't peel it, crack itlike the bottle.
If you didn't peel it, crack itor boil it don't eat it that's

(06:22):
the general rule

SPEAKER_03 (06:23):
oh i'm eating everything the whole purpose of
going to india is to geteverything you don't recognize
on the street and things thatyou do recognize it is
absolutely the reason to go toindia but i also know that you
know i also don't want to haveyou know debilitating diarrhea
so let's uh let's get someantibiotics uh on standby for

(06:44):
when that happens

SPEAKER_02 (06:45):
yeah fair enough and um there's a guy um aaron who's
the um He's a Filipino guy.
He's a YouTuber.
We mentioned him when we firsttalked about this and I watched
his video again.
He did two, we'll put the linksin the show notes.
He did two one hour-ish videos.
One of them was an entire houron everything on how to prepare,

(07:08):
including which airlines aredifficult to transfer through,
what they ask for when you getthere, i.e.
size of drones that you cantake, the fact that they want to
see every single piece of ifanything has a wire attached to
it or a battery they want to seeit in the end they didn't
scrutinize anything of his andhe's a youtuber he had he had a

(07:29):
small drone either you know amini dji like we have these mics
and a mini dji and anyway he'sfully kitted out camera and they
never scrutinized anything butthey wanted to see it all so
they had to dig it out but hegoes through this and then the
other video is an hour and threeminutes of him actually doing
the trip which i started towatch and then i was like i

(07:49):
don't want to watch watch anymore of that because well why go
because if i look at this likeright i've seen this right i saw
this on that video yeah he did agood job good job uh editing and
capturing this it looks justlike it is here i was like i
don't want to spoil it it's likewatching the end of a movie

SPEAKER_03 (08:03):
yeah that's a common thing so i'm not sure if we
talked about it best example ofbeing overly prepared and not
going for an adventure wasrecently my wife and i hiked the
west coast trail it's a famoustrail on vancouver island and
everyone has this guidebook.
It's like a Bible for hikingthis trail.

(08:26):
And everyone regurgitated thesame phraseology and they knew
exactly where they were going.
They knew what sites they wantto see.
They even, the lingo wasidentical.
They said, well, what is yourluxury item?
I go, luxury item?
What are you talking about?
And everyone was saying that.
Yeah.
It was like this one thing thatyou could bring that was not

(08:48):
mandatory equipment.
And it was like, it was kind ofsad that everyone was simply
going through a checklist andnot going for an adventure or a
new experience that's all so heyaaron

SPEAKER_02 (08:59):
what was your luxury item

SPEAKER_03 (09:00):
i didn't have one i i well no that's not true i
actually had a little flask ofuh double strength whiskey uh
with me that i had a i had a awee dram each night out of nice

SPEAKER_02 (09:14):
did you like reduce it down so it was it was like
double double strength let'sjust get the water out of that
let's just get it down to theessence of what i really need

SPEAKER_03 (09:22):
yeah my my water that i got out of the the still
river that had aquatab leftoverchlorine and it really set off
the the real mossy notes of thatirish whiskey was fantastic

SPEAKER_02 (09:34):
yeah it's because it brings out the smoke i like

SPEAKER_03 (09:36):
that that's right that's right yeah some poor
bastard was out there in a peatbog getting peat out of the
irish uh countryside and idestroyed it with aquatabs what
a what a brutal bastard I am.

SPEAKER_02 (09:54):
It reminds me, I just, I don't know how to
flashback to like in yachting.
And then somebody asked me onetime, it was a yacht I was
running and somebody asked meand they said, what's the,
what's the, what's the newgirlfriend like?
And I said, well, she's like,she'll get on a boat one time,
the first time she's on the boatand she'll say, it's very
important to me.
It was like, whatever you need,give us your preferences and

(10:15):
we'll make sure that they arehere because our job is to make
you happy.
So she'll say, I would like youto send a team of 20 Sherpas in
December up to the north side ofEverest and get the moss that
grows on the rock that you can'tget to.
And I want you to bring thatback and make me the tea.

(10:36):
And then we go, all right.
So then she showed up on theboat.
Next time we were like, we, wesent the Sherpas as amazing as
they are.
We, um, we lost four, but sixmade it back.
We got you the moss.
We made you the tea and here itis.
And she's like, that is so lastweek.
So it's like, what?
That sounds about right, by theway.
Yeah.

(10:56):
Yeah.
And then we're like, then she'sthe girlfriend is like, well,
what don't you have?
I'll have that.

SPEAKER_03 (11:02):
Oh my God.
That sounds about right.
Listen, at the end of this trip,when I go back to Tokyo on the
way back, I'm going to get atattoo and it's going to say,
eat the rich.
That is my new mantra movingforward.
All right.
Well, fair enough.
I think you're going to lose alot of clientele, but you know,
that's true.
I don't have any clientele.
Who's my client?
my clientele are exactly like uswe ride adventure bikes we were

(11:26):
sleep deprived we crush a beerand then go to sleep in the
hotel and then we try to do itagain this is hashtag Riley life

SPEAKER_05 (11:33):
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(11:54):
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(12:17):
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SPEAKER_03 (12:29):
We have a great interview coming up, but I just
wanted to mention that one ofthe travel tips that they had on
the WhatsApp group is that whenyou get off the airplane in
Srinagar, see if there's aduty-free shop and buy all the
beer that you can carry.
Because apparently in Srinagar,it's not exactly a big party
town.

(12:50):
So I will do the same.
When you come to pick me up, Iwill make sure I buy all the
beer I can at the duty-free shopin Srinagar.

SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
Excellent.
I'll pick you up in a...
hell yeah you will tuck tuck dowell do well baby um hey i just
wanted to um to do a shout outso talk about packing gear so
one of the things we always sayhere is like you've got to test
your gear before you take itinto the field and

SPEAKER_03 (13:17):
you

SPEAKER_02 (13:17):
totally did that right and i'm gonna guess what
you're not doing that i'm notgonna do it i'm gonna i'm gonna
take a risk ready i'm gonna takea risk here's the risk i'm
taking but i'm gonna base it onthe 10 000 reviews for the
Moscow Moto Basilica jacket thatcame before me.
So Moscow Moto, because of thetariffs in the States, during

(13:38):
when the tariffs, before theywere coming in, they ordered a
bunch of gear to be built.
They got it shipped in and thenthey, they turns out they were
overstocked.
So they put a, in year, in, inthe States, in the US, they put
a 40% discount on some of theequipment.
And I, and I, yeah.

(13:58):
So I bought this jacket and umbought the basilica jacket 40
off i was like because i wasalways kind of like a little bit
crowded out because i was it'sit's it's expensive gear and so
i i bought it it showed up and iwas like great i've got a you
know i've got a week before thetrip i'll have everything packed
and it showed up and i was like

SPEAKER_06 (14:18):
oh my god that's small

SPEAKER_02 (14:20):
so it just didn't do it so i um i called the customer
service and i said hey look umis there any chance you guys can
uh can spin this a And I justwant to do a shout out to Silke.
Pretty much everybody at MoscoMoto rocks and Silke took great
care of me.
She took my old jacket back andshe got me a new one and she

(14:40):
expressed it out.
And anyway, I got it.
It fits and I'm going to use itfor the first time in India.
And I'm just going to base onthe fact that it got such a high
review from the other 10,000people who bought it before me
and just go with that.

SPEAKER_03 (14:55):
Nice.
I love that we are suchhypocrites.
You've got a brand new jacket.
I saw a brand new tank bag slashcarry on bag.
I also saw a brand new tail bagthat you have there.
We're such hypocrites.
I have a brand new photographybackpack that is totally
untested.
I have a brand new bag for myhelmet for my personal item on

(15:17):
the airplane.
And we're such hypocrites.
I love it.
So the next podcast will be usin India saying nothing worked.
It was a disaster.

SPEAKER_02 (15:24):
Look, I do.
I just want to say something inmy defense.
I have had that Moscow Moto tankbag for, which I will also say
matches my jacket.
I've had that for two years nowon my Tenere 700 and I love it
because it comes off the bikewith a couple of snaps of like

(15:45):
four snaps, click, click, click,quick release.
And then it turns into abackpack and it also allows you
to snap your helmet onto it andcarry that.
So how can you, how can you losewith that?

SPEAKER_03 (15:54):
Yeah, it looks good.
Actually looks brand new.
That's why I thought it was new.
I also wanted to give a shoutout to everyone in the alcan
5000 they just left yesterday ontheir great adventure and i just
wanted to give a shout out tothem

SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
i saw that mercedes had posted something about them
picking up their their goodiebag on the way out the door and
i was like those are way bettercolors than when we did it i

SPEAKER_03 (16:16):
know yeah they're uh did you see that as well no i
didn't see that but my my babyblue alcan 5000 rally shirt is
uh definitely something that isuh sleepwear and not exactly uh
clubbing wear.
That's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (16:31):
Oh, great.
Can't wait to, uh, can't waitto, to, to see you sporting
that.
Cause we're sharing a room andwe were in India.

SPEAKER_03 (16:36):
I'm so sorry for you.

SPEAKER_02 (16:37):
All right.
So, um, if I'm not mistaken, youdid a really amazing interview
and, um, and I listened to it aswell.
So I got to say that you did doan amazing interview.
What do you say?
We, um, we talk a bit aboutthat.

SPEAKER_03 (16:51):
Yeah.
Mark Richardson is our onlyreturn guest and he's a Prince
of a dude.
And, uh, yeah, I was reallyhappy to talk to him about his
fictional novel it's calledrunning on empty i wrote a
review about that and put it onour motorcycle book club which
is on the adv cannonball websiteso yeah great book it's very

(17:13):
rare to get a fictional workabout motorcycles but like any
good work if you study peoplelike huntress thompson it's very
important to have a thread ofreality through a fictional work
and as a motorcycle list who'sdone i don't know hundreds of
thousands of miles in in the u.she goes to all the great

(17:36):
motorcycle locations and i'mlike yeah i've been there i've
been here i've been there andlike in your mind you're going
on that journey so it was a realpage turner it was a fantastic
read and you can get it onamazon

SPEAKER_02 (17:47):
fantastic and with that i think we should roll the
interview

SPEAKER_01 (17:51):
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 stop whatyou're doing and listen.
Cannonball!

SPEAKER_05 (18:07):
Hey, cannonballers.
Thanks for subscribing to ourpodcast.
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 intro.

(18:30):
progress.

SPEAKER_03 (18:32):
Mark Richardson, welcome back to the podcast.
It's good to be here, Aaron.
Thanks.
And I said, welcome back becauseyou are our first guest to
return to the podcast.
And I think it was season two,episode 12.
And we talked about yourblockbuster motorcycle book, Zen
and Now.
It was tough getting ahold ofyou.
I think you just got back fromthe UK.

(18:53):
Maybe you can tell us about thattrip.

SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
Oh, it was okay.
Thank you very much.
But I didn't get to ride anymotorcycles.
It's just too bad.
I kept looking at, I was drivingaround in a car.
It wasn't so bad, but even so, Iwas looking at all the Royal
Enfields and the Triumphs andeverything else.
And I was there for my birthday.
My wife got me a copy of ClassicBike Magazine, and I got to
admit, I was flipping throughthe ads in the back.

(19:15):
I could just, I don't wantanything big and fancy for my
next bike.
I'd like an old vintage bike,but I don't want to have to
spend too much time fixing itup.
I want to be able to actuallyride it.
That's the trouble.
So I'm only halfway through themagazine though, but I'm still
thinking about it.
Perhaps

SPEAKER_03 (19:31):
you'll find some inspiration I hope so.
We've talked about the Britishbike culture many times on the
show.
And last year we did our specialseries over there.
I was so inspired that I'm goingto be shipping my motorcycle
over to London after our rallyin late October.
And the idea is for people likeyou, if you want to use the

(19:52):
bike, just give me a ring andyou can borrow the bike.
It'll be stored with Kathy atMotoShip.

SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
It's a GSA, right?
The BMW?

SPEAKER_03 (20:00):
Yeah, just a box standard GSA.

SPEAKER_00 (20:01):
Oh, be happy to do that for you happy Aaron

SPEAKER_03 (20:04):
thanks yeah anytime it strikes me as odd that this
is your second time on thepodcast and we don't really know
a lot about your start inmotorcycling perhaps you can
tell us the first motorcycle youhad

SPEAKER_00 (20:16):
right so uh yeah so I'm throwing back here I'm
throwing back like 45 years agobecause I'm old now right I'm in
my 60s and I've got my firstbike when I was 15 I was still
living in the UK I left the UKto come live in Canada when I
was 18.
So I got my first bike, which Iwas supposed to get for my 16th

(20:38):
birthday.
That's the youngest you could beand you could ride a powered
form of transport at the time.
So my buddy was selling a HondaC50 step through scooter.
And I persuaded my parents thatwe should get it now because
it's the perfect bike for me.
So we got it when I was 15 andthree quarters.
And the idea was that I wouldjust sort of get to know the

(20:59):
bike by riding up and down ourlittle local country road, which
was only very small and short.
And I would do that until I wasold enough to actually get my
license and ride properly.
So of course, that lasted abouta day.
And then I started venturingfurther and further afield on
this motorcycle, highly illegal.
I was underage, not insured,anything like that.

(21:20):
I had my first crash on my veryfirst day.
I remember wailing into thisright-hand corner and thinking,
right, how do you do the brakesagain?
And I stuffed my right foot downand just went piling into the
ditch.
And I about 40 miles an hour.
But I managed to get out ofthere.
I didn't hurt myself too badly.
Never told anybody it hadhappened because I didn't want
my parents taking the bike away.

(21:41):
And I rode, I think I crashedevery day for a week.
But I was lucky because I wasalways riding on very remote,
unused country lanes.
I didn't want anybody to see meor the cops to pull me over.
So because of that, whenever Idid crash, I could pretty much
pick myself up again and pretendnothing had ever happened.

(22:03):
And I did that for three monthsuntil I turned 16.
And then suddenly I had mymotorcycle and I was so happy
and I eventually crashed it intothe side of a car at 55 miles an
hour, which was an immensespeed, top speed for that C50.
I was very proud.

(22:23):
But I was on my way home from amotorcycle safety course and
smashed into the side of thiscar that actually did run a red
light.
And rather than trying to breakinto avoid it.
I was 16, so I sped up to avoidit and just hit it a little
harder.
So that was my first bike.
And then I got another moped, aHonda SS50, because I was 16 and
could only have a moped.
And that sucker only went at 25miles an hour.

(22:45):
It was pathetic.
Although it had five speeds anddisc brake and it looked cool.
And then I got a naturalmotorcycle when I was 17.
I got my Honda 250, a CJ250T,which was a very utilitarian,
boring looking motorcycle, butit would do 85 miles an hour.
So I was happy and rode around.
And I think I got, I mean, Icrashed that within a month on a

(23:10):
roundabout in the pouring rainwith cheap Japanese tires fitted
to it, which I decided wascompletely the fault of the
tires and not at all my fault.
But I managed to get all of thatsort of teenage hoodlum boy
racer stuff out of me withouthurting myself too badly, which
was partly luck and partlytraining because I did go to

(23:32):
motorcycle school, so safetyschool for both mopeds and
motorcycles.
And I sort of survived thosefirst two years, which I haven't
had another accident since then.
So I feel blessed.

SPEAKER_03 (23:45):
I think many of us have been in the same position.
When I was a kid, I dropped myCB750 Supersport on my left
knee, and it will remind meevery once in a while about my
irresponsibility.
But it sounds like you got offpretty scot-free.

SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Right.
Well, It helps when you'relearning on little bikes as
well, which is what I was doingin the UK.
You could only ride bikes withso much of a cubic capacity.
Nowadays, they have horsepowerlimits depending on your age,
which of course we don't haveany of that sort of stuff here
in Canada or North America,right?
It's whatever you can afford toensure.

SPEAKER_03 (24:20):
Yeah, you got the freedom to wrap whatever you can
afford around a tree.

SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (24:24):
And you've been writing automotive journalism
and motorcycle journalism for awhile.
Did you start that as soon asyou arrived in Canada?
I

SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
came over at 18 years old and I didn't think
anything about writing.
I didn't even know I wanted towrite.
I went into, I got a job.
I got another job.
I worked for a few years.
And then I decided that I wantedto travel and I wanted to travel
on my motorcycle.
I want, because I had come toToronto and I wanted to see more

(24:55):
than just Toronto.
I'd been driving around cars andtrucks.
I had a motorcycle.
I would travel around on my bikei i went from a honda get
another honda g a honda 364which was the one that came just
before the much much better 404and then i when i turned 21 for

(25:15):
my 21st birthday i bought myselfkawasaki gpz 750 brand spanking
new uh i i love that bike iremember that i i bought myself
some some leather jeans and aleather jacket for my new 750
but i I wanted to do double dutywith the leather jeans.
I wanted to be able to wear themdown the disco as well and pull

(25:38):
dates.
So I got a tight pair of leatherjeans.
And I remember that I went toGuelph.
My buddy gave me a ride toGuelph to collect my brand new
750 GPZ.
And the owner of Two WheelMotorsports, Colin something or
another, he gave me the key andhe said, well, there you go,
Mark.
It's your bike now.
And I said, thank you very much.
I took the key, put it in theignition, swung my leg over the

(26:01):
saddle It ripped the pants rightup from ass to sack.
And I rode the whole way homefrom Guelph with a gaping hole
in my tight leather jeans.
And my mom had to sew them upfor me.
It was very embarrassing.
Anyway, I survived those years.
But it wasn't until I decided toleave my job and take off and

(26:22):
see some of North America thatI, on a motorcycle, which was
now my Suzuki DR600.
I traded in the GPZ 750.
because I got too many ticketsand I went too fast.
And I knew that was a bad thingto do.
So I traded in for the slower,more adventurous bike and took
off and just sort of traveledaround.

(26:42):
But I was traveling around for,I did it for a year, all over
North America, up to the Arctic,down to Mexico, that sort of
thing.
And I was writing lots ofletters home.
So because I had nothing else todo when I pull into a coffee
shop or a lunch stop orsomething, right?
And I really had no money.
But I was writing all theseletters.
And this waitress came up in abar in Texas, a diner in Texas,

(27:06):
and I was with a couple offriends.
And she said, what do you do tome?
And I said, well, I was about tosay, well, I'm just a bum
because that's what I was.
But one of the guys I was with,Dale, said, Mark is a journalist
and he's traveling America towrite about the American dream,

(27:28):
which I wasn't.
But I thought, well, you knowwhat?
That sounds pretty good.
So I decided, yeah, that's whatI am.
And then I started tellingeverybody I was a journalist
writing about the Americandream.
Then I thought that I probablyshould write about the American
dream.
So actually, I applied tojournalism school, got into
journalism school, which was adisappointment because I'd
wanted to carry on traveling andgo around the world.

(27:49):
I wanted to do the Ted Simonthing.
But I had promised my mom thatif I got accepted to journalism
school, I would give it a tryfor a year or the first semester
at any rate.
And then I did that.
But just before I startedjournalism school, I did
actually write a story for CycleCanada magazine about riding up

(28:12):
to the Arctic on my DR-600.
And I sent that in.
And the editor, John Cooper,said, yeah, we love the story.
We'll print it.
We'll give you$300.
And I thought, wow, there ismoney in journalism.
I could do this.
This is fabulous.
I should do more of this.
I had some slides to illustratethe story.

(28:34):
And I remember I met BruceReeve, who was the editor at the
time, or the sub-editor, Iguess, who was staying in some
dingy motel at Daytona Beach,Florida for Bike Week.
And I met him and delivered theslides to him personally.
And I was impressed by the factthat he was staying in this
motel and somebody was payingfor that for him.
I thought, journalism, that'sthe way to go.

(28:56):
Bike journalism.
But then that was the end of mymotorcycle journalism.
career for a little bit because,as I said, I went to journalism
school and then I became anactual journalist and I did real
journalism for a decade or soand got to travel around some
with that too.
But then when I came back, I wasworking at the Toronto Star.

(29:19):
I had come back from being away.
I'd been working in Africa for acouple of years and I worked in
the UK again for a couple ofyears as a journalist.
Then I got a job with theToronto Star as an editor and I
won in to see the editor of theautomotive section.
And I said to him, hey, I'd justlike to write you an essay about
what it is like to ride amotorcycle.

(29:40):
Would you be interested in thatfor the automotive section?
I'm an editor now.
I'm not a writer.
So I just want to do somewriting and get this off my
chest.
And he said, sure.
He said, do you know much aboutmotorcycles?
Because our motorcycle writerjust quit.
And I said, oh, let me thinkabout that.
And then the next day, I came tohim with 52 column ideas.

(30:01):
for motorcycle column and I saidI can do all of these and I'll
do them for cheap as long as yourun one every single Saturday
when this paper is delivered Idon't want you to run it when
you got space or when you knowonce a month or something I want
to be regular in this so here's52 and there weren't all reviews
of bikes and stuff I can'tremember what they were but

(30:21):
there were all these differentideas and he said and my price
was pretty cheap I think I wasasking for like 20 bucks a story
or something because I justwanted to do some writing so So
that was my break intomotorcycle journalism.
And then after I left theToronto Star and became a
freelancer, I started branchinginto magazine writing as well,

(30:43):
and now websites and everythingelse.
And ultimately, I wanted to beable to write books about
motorcycles, which I've nowdone.
That was a very long answer toyour question, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 (30:53):
If readers are anything like me, we want to
know about the guy who's tellingus this story.
I think it's great.
And today you're here to talkabout Running on Empty.
Running on Empty is a fictionalnovel, and I really enjoyed it.
And I especially enjoyed all theaccurate locations all around
the US.
Have you been to all thoseplaces you wrote about in the

(31:13):
book?

SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
Yeah.
I mean, this is a story thatgoes ultimately from Florida to
California and goes throughTexas.
It's the meeting of a couple ofdifferent writers.
One of them is a newbie writerwho's inherited Harley Davidson.
His name is Grant.
And he's the guy from Florida.
And then there's the sort ofgrizzled biker guy, Zach, his

(31:36):
name is.
He's from Detroit.
And he's escaping a debt, a baddebt.
So he gets the hell out ofDetroit.
And they both go to Sturgis forone reason or another.
They meet up there and the storygoes from there.
Zach is also using thisopportunity while he's escaping
his debts to try and find hislong lost son, who he last saw

(32:00):
20 odd years ago.
ago, when he was escaping, Zachwas escaping from a very weird
cult.
And he wants, all he has is aphotograph of his son, and he
wants to try and find his son,and maybe the son's mother too,
Zach's wife at the time.
And all he has is a photographto go on.
So the two of these guys meetsomewhat reluctantly in Sturgis,

(32:23):
and one thing leads to another,and they end up crossing the
country in the search for theson.
But this was, for me, you knowwhat, people had, I I'd written
another book before this,another novel, Bird on a Wire,
it's called.
And this is a sequel in that thecharacter, Grant, you meet in
Bird on a Wire.
You don't have to read the firstnovel to enjoy the second novel

(32:43):
or either on any particularorder.
But the point is that after Iwrote Bird on a Wire, people
said to me, hey, Mark, I thoughtyou wrote about motorcycles.
I was kind of hoping to readabout bikes.
And there's no motorcycles inBird on a Wire.
I said, well, no, that's notwhat the point of it was.
But enough people had said thatthey wanted to read something

(33:04):
with motorcycles that I thought,well, you know what?
I can't actually think of anygood novels or not novels I've
enjoyed about which havemotorcycles in them.
Unless you want to think of Zenand the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance as a novel.
But there aren't any.
And people say you should writeabout what you know.
And I had this story in the backof my mind that I wanted to get
out there.

(33:24):
And I guess these guys, I mean,they could have been driving RVs
or they could have been hitchingor riding bicycles or whatever.
But I wanted to ride somethingwith motorcycles.
And I wanted the roads, I wantedto get across all these feelings
and thoughts that I've hadwhenever I've been out on the
highway on a good road trip.
And I'm very proud to say that Ihave traveled on a motorcycle.

(33:48):
I've ridden a motorcycle toevery single US state, including
Hawaii and including Alaska.
And I've also ridden to everysingle Canadian province and
every territory except Nunavut,which is kind of tough to ride
to, you got to admit.
And I wanted to get across someof the favorite places, the
feelings that I'd had, what I'dobserved, what I'd seen in some

(34:10):
of the better places that I'dbeen to.
And I wanted to, more than that,I wanted to get across the
feeling of what it's like toactually ride a motorcycle
rather than just drive a car insome of these iconic places and
on these iconic roads.
And so it's not all sunshine androses.
I mean, my guys ride in pouringrain on the Million Dollar

(34:32):
Highway between Silverton andDurango and Colorado.
Deadly highway.
There's no guardrail.
You look down 2,000 feet intothe mist and you hope to not
crash.
They ride in the baking heat inthe Dakotas, the wind of the
loneliest highway in Nevada.
I've been to all these places.
I wanted to be able to describethem.

(34:55):
There's even the Pacific CoastHighway, of course, in
California a whole bunch ofothers.
But ultimately, they are justthe transitions that are used
between the scenes that describethe whole mystery behind
searching for Zach's son anddealing with the cult that's
behind everything.

SPEAKER_03 (35:15):
That journey took everyone through the Million
Dollar Highway and Gunnison, allthe way down to Durango.
And I've spent a lot of time inthat area, like a bunch of
motorcyclists surely have thatare listening.
And Zach, Zach's a veryrelatable character in the book.
You know, he's a bit of a Bit ofa disaster.
He had not much of a familybackground.
I think we can all relate toZach in some form or fashion.

(35:38):
And I'm highly suspicious thatmaybe you formed the character
after me.
Is that possible?

SPEAKER_00 (35:45):
Well, that takes my answer away here.

SPEAKER_03 (35:48):
The only thing I'm missing is the cool jacket and
eye patch.

SPEAKER_00 (35:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Zach has an eye patch and aglass eye.
And people have asked me,actually, who is Zach?
I mean, Zach's not you.
Mark, are you the other guy?
Are you Grant?
And I said, well, maybe Imight've been years ago, but I
was concerned with Zach that Iwas going to make him out to be
a cliche of a grizzly biker.

(36:14):
And in many ways he is, but I'vemet a whole bunch of guys who
are cliches of grizzly bikersand it still fits.
And I mean, geez, you go toSturgis and you see the people
at Sturgis and you recognizethat these people are out there
and they do exist.
And they have lives and they'reas important as anybody else.

(36:35):
Ultimately, though, to answeryour question, Zach is based
around a guy that I knew manyyears ago called Ian, Ian Kaner.
And he was a very good buddy.
And we rode together, in fact,across America, back when he had
a Yamaha XS11.
And I still have my dirt bikeand the like.
And we went to Sturgis togetherand experienced it all.

(36:59):
And I last saw Ian in maybe 10years ago when he got married
and I haven't seen him since.
But Ian doesn't have an eyepatch and a glass eye, but he
pretty much is the epitome ofthe grizzly biker.
And I would like to think that Imay have done him justice in
this book.

SPEAKER_03 (37:16):
I'm happy to hear that you've been to Sturgis
because your description ofDeadwood was spot on.
You were probably polite aboutwhat happens at Buffalo Chip,
which can be a littleoutrageous.
But yeah, it's good to hearyou've been there.
And Zach is really relatable fora lot of motorcyclists because,
you know, truth be told, we'reonly a couple of bad decisions

(37:39):
or, you know, happenings awayfrom ending up like Zach.
Was that your idea behind thecharacter?
Oh,

SPEAKER_00 (37:46):
yeah.
I wanted people to be able torelate to the story whether they
rode motorcycles or not too,right?
I thought it was very importantthat you should be able to enjoy
this book if you don't careabout bikes.
And ultimately, hopefully, youmight be interested in
motorcycles at the end of it.
And you might be curious as towhat motorcycles have to offer,
or you might just be a littlemore open towards people who do

(38:08):
ride motorcycles after readingthis book.
But yeah, it absolutely had tobe relatable.
It absolutely had to besomething that I'd lived
through, you've lived through,the reader has lived through, or
would like to live through, orwould not like to live through,
because some pretty bad thingshappened to quite a variety of
people in this story.
And some of it you expect, someof it you don't, some of it you

(38:31):
will anticipate, some of it youwon't.
I really did stretch my writingchops a little bit with this
storyline, I must admit.

SPEAKER_03 (38:38):
I think by chapter eight or nine, the shit really
starts to hit the fan.
And I really enjoyed thefriendship between Zach and
another character named Jay.
And this friendship is reallyput to the test with, well, with
a few interactions, but one ofthem especially with a dirty
cop.
And, you know, I think we canadmire that brotherhood, that

(38:58):
friendship.
Do you have a friend like Jaythat you can rely on?

SPEAKER_00 (39:02):
I don't have a close buddy who rides a motorcycle
like Jay.
I have close buddies who ridemotorcycles.
Nobody's quite like Jay.
Jay was a bit of an amalgam ofeverything.
Jay is a guy who runs amotorcycle shop.
It's a chop shop, caters toeverybody, including gang

(39:22):
members.
And I based him a little bit ona guy who runs Bronco's
Motorcycle Shop in Milton,Ontario, who used to sit my
motorcycle.
And he wasn't a buddy of mine,but he was a guy I trusted
implicitly with the bike.
And I thought, you know what, ifI knew my way around a
motorcycle enough to be amechanic, which I certainly do

(39:43):
not, then this is the kind ofbike shop that I'd like to work
at.
So Jay's bike shop was likeBronco's bike shop in Milton,
Ontario, to me, or at least theway that I wanted to think it
would be.

SPEAKER_03 (39:53):
I'm sure that many of us can relate to the
brotherhood or the promise ofbrotherhood as it relates to
much of MC bike culture.
And there's always a super coolbike shop involved in every one
of these stories.
Yeah.
But in the beginning of thisbook, we're introduced to some
of the characters through acrazy, violent, religious cult.

(40:17):
Was this cult modeled after anactual group in the US?
No,

SPEAKER_00 (40:22):
it's an amalgam.
Again, it's an amalgam of awhole variety of different
cults.
I've always been fascinated incults.
I've known people who have beenmembers of cults.
I've watched every documentary Ican think of about cults, and
especially suicidal cults,doomsday cults, things like
that.

(40:43):
I just find them to befascinating.
And so I wanted the cult that Idescribe in my book to be a
whole group of these things, butto also be quite believable.
I wanted the leader to beenigmatic.
The leader is a guy called Juan.
But in fact, his followersfollow His followers call him
Juan, right?

(41:03):
From Juan.
And you never quite, until theend, find out whatever happened
to Juan.
He's always looming overeverything in a little way,
right?
I wanted him to be bothunderstandable, but also scary.
And I wanted him to be not avery nice guy.
And of course, what youultimately, when you look at all

(41:26):
these various cults, half ofthem come down to sex.
And the cult leader just wantsto have sex.
with every woman in the cult.
And sometimes every guy too,they don't care, right?
They just want to have a lot ofsex.
And so one is like that too,right?
You had to have sex witheverybody.
And he had to have sex withZach's wife.
And it was understood and partof it because whatever child

(41:48):
came about from any kind ofunion would be the promised
child who would be the newMessiah.
This is the kid, in fact, who isZach's son, who was to be the
promised Messiah, was groomed tobe the Messiah who, well, you
find out what happened when youread the book.

SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Yeah.
I'm glad you clarified that abit because when you first
cracked the book open, you'relike, what is going on?
Do I have the right book here?
It's a bit, it's a bit wild, butit all, it all makes sense.
Obviously by, by chapter two orthree, it definitely catches you
a little off guard though.
But speaking of the intersectionof motorcycles and religion, I
just finished reading throughdust and darkness.

(42:27):
Have you read that book?
Jeremy Krieger.
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:30):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He sent me a copy of that bookwhen he first wrote it.
And I reviewed it, actually, inthe newspaper when it came out.
And I thought it was a goodbook.
I enjoyed reading it.
I think you should read it ifyou haven't read it.
I mean, you've read it, but Ithink that anyone listening to
this podcast should read it.
But they should keep an openmind to the whole book.

(42:56):
Jeremy is a fascinating guyhimself, right?
Have you ever met him?
No, no.
Not yet.
Have you ever had him on thepodcast?

SPEAKER_03 (43:02):
No, but he is scheduled to come on in a few
days, I think.

SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
Cool.
Say hello from me, will you?
I will.
I will.
We met at a motorcycle shop, amotorcycle show, sorry, in
Toronto.
We had tables next to each otherand I was sitting there selling
my book and he was selling hisbook and he sold about 10 copies
of his book for every one that Isold of mine.
But then that's because he wasalso jumping up and saying, hey,
you should read my book.

(43:27):
And I've heard nothing but goodstuff about his writing.
And I really do enjoy thevarious books that he's
produced.

SPEAKER_03 (43:33):
I absolutely enjoy reading things by people that
are much smarter than me.
And if you add some motorcyclestories in there, you've got me
hooked, that's for sure.
And in preparation for this talkand also for Jeremy's talk, I
did a little research.
As you know, I organize amotorcycle rally based in the US
and I have to use Google Maps alot.

(43:54):
And you're constantly seeingchurches everywhere in America.
And I was shocked by thisnumber.
there are 360,000 registeredcongregations in America alone.
Do you find that number asshocking as I do?

SPEAKER_00 (44:09):
That is a lot, isn't it?
You got to remember that they'reall tax exempt too, right?
Which I think would account fora whole bunch of them.
But it's a lot.
And I don't know how you canhave so many, I must admit.
But I did a lot of research intothis book and into religion and
into the idea of of religiouscults.

(44:32):
Being not a very religiousperson myself, personally, but
when I did run up against stuffthat I needed to fact check, you
know who I contacted?
Zach Kurylik.
Does that name mean anything toyou?

SPEAKER_03 (44:44):
Yes, it does.
I actually emailed him yesterdayon another topic and I did
happen to ask him if he was theinspiration behind the Zach
character and he denies it up

SPEAKER_00 (44:57):
and down.
You know what?
He is the reason Zach is calledAh, see, I knew it.

(45:30):
buddy, my good buddy, CostaMazuris, who writes about
motorcycles based out ofMontreal, Ontario, Montreal,
Quebec.
Anyway, that's the only otherlittle gem in there.
But no, Zach is not a grizzlyguy for sure.
But he did read my book.
He enjoyed my book.
But he also is a person offaith, and he knows his Bible
inside out.
So when I was looking forspecific references in the

(45:52):
Bible, I could contact him, andhe would refer me to the best
places to find the extension ofthat.
He was a but also really keen onthe idea of religious cult
members who rip people's eyesout and stuff.
So, you know,

SPEAKER_03 (46:06):
it's more than just me.
Boy, I sure hope Zach hasn't hadto resort to ripping out
eyeballs of folks submittingarticles to his publication in
his role as editor.
But I'm sure he has politely puta few articles into the
recycling bin.
Can you tell folks where theycan get a copy of Running On
Empty?

SPEAKER_00 (46:25):
The only place you can get it is through Amazon.
I published this myself.
I went through all the correctchannels to do so.
Uh, so it's, it's not a vanitypublication at all, but I did
keep it through Amazon as I didwith my other book, uh, because
my fiction, I like to selfpublish.
It's a different process from mynonfiction where I, I kind of

(46:46):
have traditional publishers forthat.
And I think that that's alsoimportant because with
nonfiction, you kind of need tobe able to, to demonstrate a
legitimacy, right?
That an editor has been throughand assure you're not lying or
making stuff up.
But With fiction, I could givemyself a wider realm.
So Amazon is the place to go tofind it.
There are other books calledRunning on Empty.

(47:07):
There are a whole bunch of them.
So you got to make sure that youlook for the one by Mark
Richardson.

SPEAKER_03 (47:11):
And if there's any confusion, we've added Running
on Empty to the Motorcycle BookClub that is on the ADV
Cannonball website.
So there's no confusion there.
And I've left my review also onthat page for folks.
Maybe you can give us a scoop.
Is there anything interestingyou're working on in the near
future?

SPEAKER_00 (47:29):
I am.
I don't know if you'd find itexciting, because it doesn't
have motorcycles in it, I'mafraid.
But I'm just beginning work.
I just published another book, anonfiction book, Story of the
Trans-Canada Highway, called TheDrive Across Canada.
It was published in May, whichis kind of the book I was born
to write in many ways, because Iwas born on exactly the same day

(47:54):
as the Trans-Canada Highway wasopened in British Columbia back
in 1962.
So I found I found that therewasn't a book that told its
story and told the stories ofthe various adventurers who
tried to drive across thecountry before there were even
roads.
So I wrote it.
But in doing that, I found oneguy, this fast-talking,

(48:14):
loudmouth guy, a journalist fromEdmonton, Alberta, Canada, who
tried to drive across thecountry in 1930.
He took a McLaughlin Buick, athrough the bush north of Lake
Superior and ultimately didn'tmake it.
But it's a fast, I thought itwas a fascinating story.

(48:37):
And I've since found out allabout this guy because he's
briefly famous.
He's famous for like six monthswhile he's trying to do this
thing.
And then he injures himself andleaves it to somebody else to
try to finish the journey forhim, which also is a failure.
And the car just ends up rustingout in Thunder Bay.
But he then goes to Halifax andgets interest.

(48:59):
in driving around the world.
He wants to take a car, which isshaped like a torpedo, with two
seats in it, side by side.
It's going to be painted red andwhite.
It's going to be made out ofnickel, because that's a
Canadian mineral.
And he wants to call it MissCanada, and it's going to be
painted in red and white and redupholstery and everything else.

(49:21):
And he's going to drive aroundthe world in this thing,
promoting Canada's interests.
And he's this big talker, andthe journalists all write
everything down faithfully.
And then he just disappears.
And so I'm writing his story.
I found his family, which was afluke, a stroke of luck, I must
admit.
I found the family and it'smostly a novel.

(49:44):
I should be considered a novelbecause I'm having to make up
huge chunks of it where I justdon't know what happened.
But I do know the bones of hislife story.
And so I'm writing a story abouthim and I'm really looking
forward to getting into it.

SPEAKER_03 (49:59):
Absolutely.
the risk of embarrassing myself,I was born in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada.
That's not the embarrassingpart.
The embarrassing part is I'venever done the Trans-Canada
Highway in any real portion.
And that's a real shame.

SPEAKER_00 (50:15):
Well, you know what?
The Trans-Canada Highway in manyplaces is now just a kind of
trucking route.
So in Quebec, for example, it'sjust a way to get across the
province to get down to theMaritimes.
And the same thing in NewBrunswick.
It's just a fast three-laneinterstate with restricted
access junctions and all of thatstuff.

(50:36):
But what it is good at isgetting you to places so that
you can go off the highway andyou can go onto what's often the
old roads that used to be thehighway, like in Quebec on
Highway 132, running along thesouth shore of the St.
Lawrence.
Oh my God, it's beautiful.
And you can carry on and goaround the Gaspé Peninsula.
Oh my God.
And in New Brunswick, you canventure off the fast three-lane

(50:59):
interstate where everybody'sdoing, you know, 70 miles an
hour.
And you can go into the oldroads that used to be the
TransCanada way back when, someof which are flooded out now,
others are fine, through thebackwoods of New Brunswick.
And it's a way to get you tothese places because that's what
a highway is for, right?
It's to get you to adventure.

(51:20):
And it really is the journey isthe destination and everything
else, I must admit.
I think it was Ted Simon whofirst said that,

SPEAKER_03 (51:25):
by the way.
Yeah, I think that's the entirepurpose of this podcast.
the rally that we run, and allthe miles that we crush.
But thanks very much for writingthis book.
Thanks for sharing some timewith us and telling the story
about the book and somebackground.
And again, everyone go to theMotorcycle Book Club on our
webpage for more information orin the show notes.

(51:48):
And hopefully the next time wetalk, I will have conquered the
Trans-Canada Highway and we cantalk about that.
And I'll look forward to seeingyou doing that.
Again, thanks for coming on.
I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_05 (51:57):
Thanks for inviting me.
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(52:17):
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(52:38):
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SPEAKER_02 (52:58):
And we are back.
Yes, we are.

(53:28):
interviewed them before hasasked because anybody we bring
on the podcast, you can, you canjust go like Elizabeth Beard,
super hard to interview.
Lyndon Poskett, super hard tointerview.
How do you ask a question that athousand people haven't already
asked the same question of?
Anyway, shout out to AaronPoopball for doing a great job

(53:49):
at asking the questions andhaving a conversation seem very
natural and covering things thatweren't previously asked.

SPEAKER_03 (53:55):
Well, I'm a fan, right?
Like Mark Richardson is a greatwriter.
He, uh, he's obviously a greatorder and, you know, he's
well-traveled and it's just coolto have a, um, a chat with
someone.
And this podcast is a greatexcuse to force yourself to read
those books or watch thosevideos.
Uh, here's a pro tip foreveryone.
Half that book was read while Iwas walking the dog.

(54:18):
So there's a app by 11 studios.
I think it's called where beforeI take the dog out, I screen, I,
sorry, I capture with my camera.
a chapter or two and then ipress read and then ai which is
good ai by the way it's quitequite natural it's not perfect
but it's it's almost there sowhile i'm walking the dog for

(54:39):
like 30 45 minutes i can knockout a a couple of chapters

SPEAKER_02 (54:43):
so wait a minute so you so the book the book's
electronic

SPEAKER_03 (54:47):
no no

SPEAKER_02 (54:47):
it's it's a paper book okay so then walk me
through this no pun intended

SPEAKER_03 (54:52):
no no hey you're on fire today buddy taylor the pun
master So you're so wild.
I love it.
Put that beer down.
And you know, you know whateveryone, the problem is he's
smashing a double IPA.
This is, this is the problem.
The problem is I'm almost donewith

SPEAKER_02 (55:09):
it.
We better get through this.
We better finish this podcast.
I thought it was going to falldown.

SPEAKER_03 (55:13):
Well done, sir.
So, yeah, so I have the paperbook and you know what, normally
I'm reading it, but if I need togo leave, I use the camera on
the phone while I'm in the app.
I photograph the pagescarefully, right?
I watch the margins and then Ipress read and then you choose
the character with AI and it'squite good.
It's, it's, it's quiteconvincing.

(55:34):
And then as you're walking adog, you threw in some
headphones and the AI will, youknow, do OCR, pump it through an
AI, and then we'll read the bookto you.
So, uh, it, it was nice to readthe book with my eyes, but when
I had to walk the dog, why notcontinue reading?

SPEAKER_02 (55:49):
So you use the optical character recognition.
Do you, do you still use that,um, you know, that job monkey AI
go?
Yeah, man, they'd be walkingdown the street.
Dad, what about does it come outand talk to him?
No, I

SPEAKER_03 (56:01):
didn't use that one.
I don't think that goes with thecharacters.
You know, in my mind's eye,Zach, you know, the motorcyclist
with the eye patch is inRastafari.
You know what I mean?
It's not exactly

SPEAKER_02 (56:14):
that guy.
Fair enough.
Okay.
I have to say, though, in termsof character development, he
does a really, really good jobwith character development.
And as you intro, before we rollthe interview, he does a lot of
this and he ties into It's likeif you want to be a really good
liar, you've got to ensure thatthere's some little red thread

(56:34):
of truth throughout the entirebit of it.
So he does that in his characterdevelopment.
So a lot of it, as he was toexplain in the interview, is
that he does tie it into otherindividuals who are real people
in the world.
Sadly, not you, but Zach, forexample, yes, with a different
spelling.

SPEAKER_03 (56:54):
Yeah.
And, you know, a lot of authorswill tell you this.
You want it to be as believableas possible and only alter a
little bit of the story to makeit, uh, you know, over the top
and, uh, and interesting.
And I think he mentioned TedSimon again, and what people
don't know is him and Ted, youknow, are friends.

(57:15):
And when we interviewed him thefirst time about Zen and now,
uh, about the Robert Persickjourney on his way home from,
uh, traveling the, the, I thinkthey call it the Zen way, the
Zen journey.
trail.
He hung out with Ted Simon forlike a couple of days and worked
on his motorcycle.
So it's, you know, it's, it'sreally rarefied air and it's

(57:36):
really cool to, uh, dip your toeinto that once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 (57:40):
Yeah, it's nice.
We've had some really fun peopleon the podcast and people who
are rich in this.
And I think one of the coolthings about a lot of the people
that we've had and we've chosen,and the reason we've chosen them
is because they're quite modestabout it.
They're just like, this issomething I did.
And you know, I, something Ienjoy doing and they're
passionate about it.
They didn't, they They didn't doit to be the first.
They didn't do it to set somenew standard.

(58:04):
They did it because they likedit.
And they just happened to bereally good at it.
And that's what makes, I think,it very authentic.
It also makes them, people seethat and it makes them popular
because people want to read thatand be part of that, experience
that.

SPEAKER_03 (58:15):
My interview with Ted Simon, you may want to go
listen to it or not.
I'm not sure, but I think it'sseason three, episode one or
something.
But it wasn't my best work.
I was really, really nervous tolike be in Ted Simon's home,
like on birthday and hang out soit wasn't my best work but it
was cool to talk to him and hangout with him and just kind of
you know swim in his presence itwas it was it was pretty cool

(58:38):
they say but never never nevermeet your

SPEAKER_02 (58:39):
heroes

SPEAKER_03 (58:40):
is that

SPEAKER_02 (58:40):
it

SPEAKER_03 (58:40):
yeah but that's totally false everyone I've ever
met on this podcast has beenawesome you know what I mean but
maybe I just haven't spentenough time with them but but
it's always been a positiveexperience and I'm and I'm
better for it

SPEAKER_02 (58:53):
yeah

SPEAKER_03 (58:54):
and that's

SPEAKER_02 (58:54):
one of the reasons I'm looking forward to hanging
out with you this week in India

SPEAKER_03 (58:58):
Yeah.
Well, we got to get there.
So it's funny.

SPEAKER_02 (59:03):
Why do you have to say that?
Like you totally threw a wrenchin that.
I'm like, Oh God, they got toget there.
It's going to take like 36hours.

SPEAKER_03 (59:09):
Well, because everyone's flights have been
literally canceled.
I don't know how many times, butmy flights have not been
altered.
No, sorry.
My flights have been altered.
They've changed some equipment.
So my seat assignments havechanged.
And anyways, I will bellyacheabout that when we're having and
a beer on the aft deck of thehouseboat.
But you guys have had flightsliterally canceled and I haven't

(59:34):
had any, you know, schedulingchanges.
I've had equipment changes,which is going to be really
fantastic for my fat ass to besitting in coach.
But, you know, not that I'mupset about that, but you guys,
you guys have had so manycancellations.
I'm so thankful that we're goingvery early, several days early,
just in case there is some sortof snafu along the way.

SPEAKER_02 (59:56):
Yeah, man.
Love actually just in cases.
Sorry, I had to throw it in.
I do want to talk about, if youback up here and talk about the
interview, I love the fact thatwith Mark Richardson, when his
first bike, the plan was for himto ride up and down this country

(01:00:19):
road on this small bike when hewas underage by a year, and he
was just going to practice onthat road for a year.
You know, it was a short road,he even said.
And then he was going to be ableto, after he was more mature and
he had mastered the road, thenhe would get to a bigger bike.
And like the first day he wasdone with it, then he took it
and he piled it up.

(01:00:40):
And then he continues to talkabout every single bike he owned
that he piled up.
And then he was like, you know,but it's amazing.
He talked about your knee.
It's amazing that he's been ableto walk away from all of the
incidents that were, you know,that happened.
his brain was writing checksthat his body couldn't cash, but

(01:01:02):
he still walked away.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:02):
Yeah.
When you're young, you could dothat.
You can fall off your bike at,you know, 40 miles an hour, low
side it and go, Oh, I hope noone notices.
Uh, but when you're our age,like I am not interested in
falling off my bike at this age.
I already got enough problems.
I don't need any new ones.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:17):
Yeah.
I was thinking about it.
I was like, like, uh, I was, Iwas leaving the office today.
Um, some of my colleagues werelike, so what do you think is
going to be the biggestchallenge?
And safety guy is going to gowork, go ride a motorcycle
through the Himalayas.
And so the college were like,what do you think is going to be
your biggest challenge?
And I was like, so just to makeit fun, I was like, I think just

(01:01:38):
surviving it, not everybodylives through this.
And they went, what?
And I said, no, not everybody,not everybody comes back from
this.
And they were, they believed mefor a moment.
And I was like, no, in allhonesty, I think the main
challenge is going to be the,the altitude so that we're going
to take diet mocks so we don'tget acute mountain sickness.
And, and And then, you know, soI don't come back and wither and

(01:02:00):
blow away from acute diarrhea.
So these are the main concernsthere.
And I think that's about it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:05):
Yeah, but don't estimate the terrain, right?
Like I've avoided any kind ofresearch.
But what I do know is landslidesare common.
There was just hundreds ofpeople killed in the area
recently because of landslides.
It's almost 100% off road.
Granted, the reason why I'm notstressed about it is they're
tiny bikes.
They're little 400s or 450s orsomething Four fifties.

(01:02:29):
Yeah.
And it's going to be a walk inthe park cause there's no
luggage on it except for stuffwe need for the day.
So I'm not stressing about theriding cause it's not like a
1250 GS or something like that.
So, but you know, make nomistake.
It is, it is an off-roadjourney, uh, to be sure.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:44):
Yeah, true.
And then the one thing that Idid additional saying that I did
say was I was concerned aboutthe, uh, the deep water
crossings and, uh, and, andthese boys did make a point.
Our, our, the guys that weretraveling with our lead and our
sag, uh, they did say are sweep.
They said, get waterproof socks.
And the only reason you needwaterproof socks is if your

(01:03:04):
boots are going to fill withwater.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:07):
Yeah.
Well, I don't have a giant, youknow, tech sevens anymore.
I just have, I'm not sure whatthey are, but they're, they're
the Alpine stars, ADV type of aboot.
And there's only like low rise.
Yeah.
There's only two buckles on it.
You know, I'm not, you know, I'mnot riding around off-roading
anymore.
Right.
We kind of stopped all that inthe last, in the last few years.
So, but yeah, there are plentyriver crossings, you know, my,

(01:03:30):
my strategy is just going tosend it through the water.
Don't be gentle.
It's a rental.
And, uh, hopefully I don't gettoo wet.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:38):
Yeah.
I think, I think the mainproblem I did a, um, I did a
little research recently on, on,um, water crossing.
The main problem is, uh, if youdon't get your weight far enough
back, if your front wheel, likeyou can't see where the front
wheel is going to hit.
And if you, if you hit a rockthat throws your bike off to the
side and you've got too muchweight committed forward and it
throws you out like you knowdropping you into a rut or

(01:04:01):
something then you can getdropped off you know the bike
goes left and you go right orvice versa so the main thing is
to first of all watch first ofall don't be the first through
and then watch where the frontwheels make it through watch
when somebody has you know abumpy you know rocky transition
through but they get throughwithout their front wheel

(01:04:21):
getting whacked out and thenfollow that line through so as
soon as somebody starts goingthrough get behind them and
watch the line they take andthen make sure you take the same
line for the, you know, for theperson who doesn't drop.
And then if that, you know, ifall that fails, make sure you've
got tech sevens and waterproofsocks like I do.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:38):
So dear listener, what he's saying is I'm going to
go first because I'm the fattestof all of them.
And I, and I plan on justsending it.
So I will go first.
And if I make it, they're justgoing to copy my line, which is,
which is a genius strategy, bythe way, but not so genius for
me, unfortunately.
Your

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:56):
words, not mine, but true.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:58):
True.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:02):
Sad but true, sir.

(01:05:28):
says he's traveling the worldand he's writing about the
American dream while he's inAmerica.
And then he went to journalismschool and he actually did it.
I think that's great.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:38):
Yeah, that's really awesome.
I think that as we get older,especially when we're not
chasing a bunch of women aroundas we used to, it's a good
access card into someinteresting interaction.
So rather than just sitting atthe pub by yourself, scrolling
on your phone, for instance, onmy return journey from the
Himalayas, I'm overnighting inDelhi and I reached out to the

(01:06:03):
official Royal Enfield club inDelhi.
They're called the RoyalMavericks.
And if you guys are listening,shout out, I'm looking forward
to meeting you guys.
And we're going to do somepodcasting in our research into
Royal Enfield.
We're going to do like a factoryRoyal Enfield kind of dive into

(01:06:27):
things in the Himalayas.
Leia's.
And then I want to dive into theRoyal infield culture.
So I'm going to go embed myselfwith the Royal infield club, the
Royal Mavericks, and I'm reallylooking forward to meeting them.
And obviously that's going to bea podcast interview coming up.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:43):
That's really cool.
I think about, I didn't know youhad set that up.
That's fantastic.
It reminds me of when I did, itwas a Valentine's day drop and
it was a V day with Vijay.
Vijay is going to be on thistrip with us.
And he talked about, so I thinkit was Bangalore he grew up in,
and he bought a Bullet 500 andyou had to buy the Royal Enfield

(01:07:05):
motorcycle.
So let me just back up a momentand say, where we're going once
we get out of Leh, it's allmilitary controlled roads.
If the road washes out, thenthere's military bulldozers in
there fixing.
It's all military controlledbecause it's, if you go to one
location, we look, we're goingto look into China.
If you go to another action,another place, one of the places

(01:07:27):
I think when we first go thepass into the lake, I might be
mistaken here, but as Iunderstand, you can look into
Pakistan.
Vijay said that when he was ayoung guy, and this was in the
interview, he said he bought aRoyal Enfield because to be in
the Royal Enfield Club was theonly way you could get access to
this part of India.

(01:07:49):
And he bought the bike, he gotinto the club, he booked the
trip in the military, and theytook you around to the different
sets of barracks, and you stayedin the military.
barracks as you went throughthis particular region.
And then they had a skirmish orsomething happened, whatever the
level of discontent was withPakistan, and they closed it all

(01:08:10):
down.
So he was sitting on thismotorcycle and he's like, I love
this bike, but now I can't useit for the purpose I bought it
for.
Because if you didn't have thatbike, you couldn't do that trip
with the military.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:22):
And we have fixers that are arranging all this.
And apparently we had to sendthem our passports and we had to
get special permissions andregional visas to get into these
areas.
But because we have these, thesefixers that are putting all this
together, we are going to haveaccess into all of those areas.

(01:08:43):
And I'm really happy that Vijaywill finally be able to achieve
that goal and be able to ride inthese specific parts of the
Himalayas.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:53):
Yeah, it's cool.
Because when I met him at aparty, and I was like, I'm
thinking about doing this.
And you and I had already talkedabout that.
And I said, i'm thinking aboutdoing this and he's like i'm in
and then and then and he wassaying he got his brother-in-law
in so vj and sanjay will both bejoining us on this trip so uh
for the listeners out there youwill hear interviews from both
of them as the uh as the yeah asthe weeks roll forward

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:16):
yeah and uh and i'm looking forward to checking out
these royal infields in their uhin the area that they were
specifically designed for and uhnamed after that'll be fun

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:26):
yeah hey look before we leave the mark richardson
interview i just want to say onething okay maybe 10 um but i'll
conclude with this one so i lovethe fact that when he he's like
he showed up and he realizedthat there was a way to actually
make money to get paid to rideand write about motorcycling and
he found that niche and it'sit's a bit reminiscent about the

(01:09:49):
first time when i was living inannapolis maryland as a kid and
i was going to like sailingschool in the summer i know
sorry.
And then I remember seeing thisbig yacht sitting on the end of
the dock.
And then I was in like the malllater that week.
And I saw this girl and she hadthis, the name of the boat, this

(01:10:12):
big sailboat on her shirt.
And I was like, hey, is that thesailboat that's in town?
And she's like, yeah.
And I said, what's that about?
And she told me that there wasactually an industry where you
could get paid and somebodywould actually pay pay you to go
drive someone else's boat.
And I was like, there's no waythere's, there's no way people

(01:10:34):
would pay you to do the thing.
That's the most fun that I wouldjust do for free forever.
Anyway, back to that 20 years ofdoing that.
I realized it's a pretty amazinggig.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:42):
Yeah.
Unfortunately I should havetalked to Mark about that
because instead of becoming aproper journalist, we became
motorcycle podcasters, which isnothing but a giant hole you
shovel money into.
And it has totally backfired,but it has been a A fun journey
nonetheless.
I'm going to write you an emailabout that.
Maybe you can sell it.
I appreciate

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:05):
that.
What a disaster.
That's all I got to say aboutMark Richardson.
I thought it was a greatinterview.
And I loved it when he boughtthe last comment.
I love it when he said he boughtthe tight leather pants for
leathers for protection.
And he wanted them to have dualpurpose.
So he got super tight ones.
And then on his new bike, Ithink one of the bikes he had,
he slung his leg over it.

(01:11:25):
And he was like, then it ripped,cracked a sack.
And then they were, they had tohave my mom.
So I'm up.
Anyway, fun interview.
You did a great job with that.
Yeah.
I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:35):
Let's do some cannonball news.
If you don't mind.
Yeah, man, let's roll with it.
Okay.
I wanted to shout out to number34, Wayne and number 13, John.
So very sorry.
You guys can't make it.
Sorry about the last minutecancellation, but yeah, that's
life.
Hopefully we see you in 2026.
Yeah, man.

(01:11:55):
Yeah.
And I want to specialize thanksto my friend Rob.
Rob is going to roll with me ina Sprinter van.
Normally he rides a sweet-assspecial edition 1250 GSA, but
he's going to roll with me inthe Sprinter van for the 2025
Cannonball Rally, and he isgoing to be our media
specialist.
He's bringing his cameraequipment, so we're looking

(01:12:17):
forward to Rob helping out.
Fantastic.
Oh, dude, that's really good.
You're going to

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:22):
get some good coverage there.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:23):
It'll be nice to talk to someone instead of
talking to myself.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:26):
Well, you know, I understand you can have a pretty
good conversation with yourself,Aaron.
But I just want to say onething.
It's really important that henever let the camera go over to
the dash so no one can actuallyrecord the actual speed the
Sprinter van is running at.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:40):
I don't think the diesel Sprinter is going to go
that fast dragging the trailerfull of motorcycles, but we will
give our very best cannonballtry for sure.
And I wanted to mention that therally tracking page and the
rally leaderboard page, arepublic and they are now live on
the ADVcannonball.com website.

(01:13:03):
So if people want to followalong with the 2025 ADV
Cannonball Rally, they can seeeveryone's position on the Spot
Wallet page.
And separately, you can see thelive scoreboard as people crush
checkpoints across the country.
So that'd be fun for listenersto watch that.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:24):
Like if someone's doing the rally, like they're
busy, they're doing the rally.
so if like they can give it totheir friends and loved ones to
say watch me watch me try tobeat taylor try try be hard to
beat me that's right nothinggoes faster than 747 baby i'll
be on the west coast waiting

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:45):
yeah 520 knots is kind of hard to beat but uh yeah
yeah people can follow along andwatch scores uh accumulate and
just a reminder it startsoctober the 6th 2025 for our
inaugural ADV cannonball.
What else we got here?
We have, we have some, yeah,I've been talking to some people
about their strategies.
It's been interesting.

(01:14:06):
There's a poll up on Facebook tosee if people's motivations are
touristic or if they want tojust place in a top 10 or win.
Most people are just comingalong for the ride, but there
are a few masochistic peoplethat are trying to get all the
checkpoints, which means notonly have they plotted out to

(01:14:26):
get the options, optionaloff-road sections some of these
people want to double back andget the paved sections as well
so i'm really excited aboutpeople really grabbing a hold of
the cannonball spirit with twohands even though this is uh
going to be quite masochistic asthey show up at midnight to the
hotel uh you know weathered fromthe road but hey listen if they

(01:14:50):
want to uh win they got to uhthey got to do the work so my
hat's off to them for planningto get all the checkpoints which
was Nevermind tension.
I thought that people wouldchoose either paved or unpaved
and there are awards availablefor both, but I never thought
that someone would try to getall of them.
So let's see if they actuallyaccomplish it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:11):
That's pretty cool.
So I guess I'm just going todeep dive into strategy for a
second.
So that means that having donethe strategy on that, people
have recognized that by tryingto nail down both paved and
unpaved, they can win by notgetting the bonus that you get
for being first at the hotel.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:31):
Yeah, the bonus is the first to arrive bonus each
day is 25 points.
However, if you got all theextreme checkpoints and the
paved and unpaved checkpoints in2025, that is a greater score
per day than just rippingthrough missing the extreme,

(01:15:51):
let's say missing the off-roadpoints and achieving the first
to arrive bonus That istechnically less points than
being a glutton for punishmentand trying to get all of them.
So, however, I will say, listen,this is all academic because
there are road closures.
There are fires.

(01:16:12):
There are mechanical failures.
There is weather to contendwith.
There is fatigue.
Who knows what is going tohappen?
Just like Mike Tyson said,everyone's got a plan until they
get punched in the face.
So good luck to everyone.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:27):
Everyone's got a plan until you bite somebody's
ear off.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:30):
Right.
Listen, that might be a strategyalso.
I would consider thatunsportsmanlike conduct.
But if you rip off someone's earat the start line, it'll make
for great social media.
But just to be clear, that'sunsportsmanlike conduct.
Don't be a weenie.
Don't be a weenie and ripsomeone's

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:49):
ear off.
Don't do it.
Not worth it.
You're not going to get bonuspoints for this.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:54):
Yeah.
In more pedestrian news.
and more realistic news.
All the hotels have been booked.
So that's exciting.
And all the checkpoint files arepolished as best as they can
get.
I noticed a few little namingconvention mistakes that I had
in there.
Those have been fixed and theschedule is also finalized and
that's on the website.

(01:17:16):
So if you are a part of therally, please poke around the
whole website.
Look at the schedule.
It has restaurants and pubswe're going to.
It has the address of the hotel.
hotel if you have an issue andyou just want to navigate to the
hotel that information is thereuh the practice routes are on
the schedule uh everything isdone everything is finalized so

(01:17:39):
sorry finalized so you willnotice in the naming convention
of all the files the word drafthas been removed and we're a
little ahead of schedule buteverything is finalized so
everyone have at it

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:52):
really good job because i know the level of
detail of the documents that yousent out there i know one of the
things you sent out was amazing.
Like every single lat and lonfor every waypoint and every
checkpoint, whether it's extremeor otherwise, was in there and
you're like, you're welcome.
And I know that the amount ofwork that goes into that, just
what it takes to plot a course,you know, in an automated GPS

(01:18:15):
system from Fort Lauderdale tothe Bahamas to Nassau, you know,
you've got a bunch of waypointsin there.
It takes a lot of work.
So really good job on that.
And thank you.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:24):
Yeah.
And there's, I've noticed somepeople have proofreaders printed
out and laminated thatspreadsheet to have on their
tank bag.
Cause there's other informationin there.
So it's a great example of, eventhough this is a GPS rally, a
checkpoint rally, and we relyheavily on computers and GPS and
displays, having a paperprintout of all of the

(01:18:49):
checkpoints can be a usefultool.
Even though this is a paperlesstype of rally, there's no road
book.
it can be useful to print outthe spreadsheet that I made.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:02):
just want to just throw this in there is that
remember, if you didn't practicewith the equipment, if you
didn't practice with the app, ifyou didn't practice with any of
these things, and you didn'twin, remember, there might be a
correlation.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:17):
Yeah, for sure.
And I've actually gone above andbeyond.
So if you arrive a day or twoearly in the Outer Banks, I have
set up a practice journal gpxroute practice checkpoints and
even the scoring app after youcheck in and you and you get
your token for the scoring appyou can go run a mini rally as

(01:19:38):
many times as you want on theouter banks and it's not a
terrible place to be ride amotorcycle around you know to be
sure so uh there's no excuse andi realize life gets in the way
and we all have things to do butif you want to come and practice
come early to the rally and thiswill be a tradition no matter
where we are in the world nomatter what year it is we're

(01:19:59):
always going to have a miniaturepractice rally for people to run
on their own so there's noexcuses i don't you know in all
seriousness i don't want peopleleaving the start line and
they're messing around withtheir their gps's and their
phones i don't want that i wantyour eyes on the road and i want

(01:20:19):
you to have a good time and thesecond nature portion of the
rally should be your rallyequipment and your now skills.
So please come early practiceand have your eyes on the road
and having a good ride.
It is a tough route.
Fatigue is going to be aproblem.
The roads are even the pavedsections are some of the

(01:20:41):
twistiest roads around the backof the dragon is not a joke.
You know, ripping through highaltitude, you know, mountain
passes is not a joke.
So I would rather you eyes uphaving fun being prepared and
ignoring the navigation skills.
portion of it.
So please, I know I'm harping,but please be prepared and have

(01:21:01):
more enjoyment of riding ratherthan frustration with
navigation.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:06):
We joke a lot about riding fast or otherwise, but
the truth is that it'simportant.
Think about the sustainabilityof this.
If you plan on doing the 2026,you need to survive the 2025.
Don't go out there and get hurt.
Don't go out there and get hurt.
It's really important thatpeople do this, have a good
time, but do it safely.

(01:21:26):
And do it within yourcapabilities.
And if you're going to go backto the rant you had a moment ago
about three bullet points up,which talked about, you know,
you mentioned fatigue.
It's like, don't forget thatpeople who potentially want to
capture all of these waypoints,every waypoint out there, I
mean, every checkpoint outthere, you want to capture them.
We're still human beings, youknow.
Some are, you know, like you,Aaron, superhuman.

(01:21:49):
But then there's the rest of usout there.
And then we just got what wegot, man.
But be safe.
Be safe.
Have a good time.
And it's sustainable that way.
You make sure you can go backand do it again and then learn
from your mistakes like Aaronand I did in the Alcan 5000
every day was a list of, oh myGod, how do we screw that up?

(01:22:09):
But learn from it and have funso you can come back and
continue with this in any event,whether it's a cannonball or
another one.
But be safe and come back.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:19):
Yeah.
And there was a comment I madeon Facebook that if you do have
a horrible accident and you needto be airlifted, please get your
phone out and stream it.
Cause that would be awesome.
Social media content for us.
I'm just saying, be a good lad.
And as you're splinting your,your, your femur, just make sure
someone is recording it so I canuse that in social media.

(01:22:40):
That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:41):
Yeah.
So it's a really good tip.
Yes.
On the heels of our seriousness.
That's really nice.
So thanks for, thanks for addingthat in.
Yeah.
As a safety professional, I feelgood about that.
Thanks Aaron.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:50):
Listen, you know, you know, we, we, we, we very
rarely practice what we preach,uh, that's for sure listen and
on that note if you don't mindlet's roll the outro

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:05):
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 coffee onbuymecoffee.com slash ADV
Cannonball or directly help savethis sinking ship for the price

(01:23:25):
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'tbe an ADV weenie.

(01:23:52):
Keep your right hand cranked andyour feet on the pegs.

UNKNOWN (00:00):
...

(00:00):
...

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Mark Richardson Returns Running On Empty a Motorcycle Novel

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mark Richardson Returns **Running On Empty** a Motorcycle Novel