Welcome to Momentum, a motorsports podcast powered by High Gear Success. I'm your host, Heather Wilson Schiltz. Here we share the stories and strategies that keep the world of motorsports moving forward. And I'm excited to chat with Mark Long, the producer and host of DrivenRide podcast and director of media operations for Flint Rock. So thank you for joining me. Hey, thanks for having me, Heather. I'm stoked to be here. So you started your career in radio before pivoting into podcasting. And I was just thinking about it before this interview. in my mind, at least like radio talk shows, I feel like had to lead in a podcast or at least give some inspiration for it. It's just like on demand now. So do you feel that same way or are they not related at all? No, yeah, pretty much. mean, so, um, yeah, like podcasting is kind of just the next evolution of radio. mean, radio has been as a medium has been around for a hundred years now, since about 1920. And, em you know, obviously it's an audio only medium. So that's kind of how podcasts started too. It's just, um, you have everything on demand and you can go as niche as you want. So instead of listening to something that's broadcast at all across your Metro area, or if you're looking online somewhere for a stream, you can find a talk show basically about whatever you're interested in and listen to it on on your terms. ah What's funny is a lot of the broadcast gear like microphones uh and interfaces and all the stuff is functionally the same. You'll see it in a podcast studio or a radio studio. And the other thing that's kind of similar is we call I used to call radio and audio like a companion medium. I still do, but I take refer about it to podcasts now is that you can listen to people talk and podcasts while you're doing other stuff. while you're driving, while you're working out, while you're doing the dishes, maybe while you're riding a motorcycle, you could, you could listen to a podcast as well. So it's very, very similar to answer your question. Yeah. And I feel like kind of the evolution, like you said, podcast started as a audio only kind of platform in the beginning. And then you had the whole YouTube video side of it. And so now podcasts are kind of moving into that video and audio aspect. Although I still feel like so many people, even if your podcast has a video component, they're mostly listening to audio. could be different for different podcasts, but that's what I found at least with this podcast. Yeah, I believe it. It's one or the other. I think people who listen to podcasts are going to listen to podcasts. I think people who are going to watch videos are going to watch videos. The differences though, I think, ah is that somebody isn't necessarily watching our every move right now. They'll kind of have it on as a second screen or the medium screen while they look on the small screen ah or something like that. I had a good friend actually who worked in radio who was like the accounts guy. He was the accountant and while he was doing work, he always basically had like either a game review or some kind of talking head thing on his second screen, just kind of almost in the background. So he was listening to the conversation and he probably, he would watch it occasionally, but it's not like, you know, people are staring at it like you would a TV necessarily. That's just not how people consume media anymore. So, um, however, uh, it seems to be that it's usually one or the other. If you, listen to podcasts, you mostly listen to podcasts in the audio form. If it's in the video form, you're going to have it on in the background, but you're going to be watching it. So to me, it was, makes sense to offer it, you know, the, whatever content you're creating to both people or both audiences as it were. So. When you were in radio, what was your role? Were you a host? Were you kind of behind the scenes? Yeah, no good question. So I started out actually wanting to get into radio because I was listening just, you know, as a, as a consumer, I always thought it was cool. Um, I live outside of Chicago, so it's the number three market in the country. And you have a lot of interesting personalities that come through and Chicago kind of does its media and radio and TV its own way. So I always thought it'd be cool to be on the radio and on air, um, went to school for it, uh, eventually got an on air gig full time, found out that it wasn't for me. Radio was but doing the on-air show every day being in the spotlight all the time was not necessarily for me. So I was thankful to be able to pivot to a behind-the-scenes job called a production director and a production director basically makes all the stuff that people don't listen to so the commercials and maybe some of the imaging and stuff, but I would write record and produce commercials and I did that for I Don't know 12 years 15 years And uh it was a good job, though. It was a lot of fun. And you get to meet people. You still get a lot of interpersonal reaction, but it's more B2B. You're helping clients kind of figure out their voice and their best way to advertise on the radio. And the cool thing about radio still and audio just in general is there is this theater of the mind kind of aspect where uh it's almost the equivalent of reading a book where you picture the characters in your mind rather than seeing them on the screen. Same deal with radio and audio, where if you have the right sound effects and the right voices, that creates a picture in somebody's mind, which is a little more, I would say, even interactive than just a straight video. But I did that for a long time. Decided that I had kind of done all I could with the radio world and decided to move on to do podcasts and some videos for people and still have my hands in the radio industry here and there, but mainly focus on podcasting and... all kinds of content now. I feel like it would be difficult, like you said, to be in the spotlight all the time, whether you're on the radio or on like a TV news broadcast. I mean, you really can't have a bad day. You know, if you're feeling a little down or you're a little sick, like you just have to perform regardless. Like you have to get up and go to work versus if you're working behind a laptop screen, like the personality and the energy level doesn't have to show, right? Yeah, exactly. mean, it's, it's, know, it's kind of ironic because I'm, I, you know, host a podcast now and put myself out there in front of video and audio and whatnot. But yeah, you're a hundred percent right. You can't, no matter what's going on in your personal life, people are kind of looking to you to brighten their day or to get them going in the morning or get them through their work day or be that source of entertainment. And so if you're kind of a downer or you're not having a great day, it's, it's not going to work well for you. Um, so you, really do kind of have to keep that, um, professional kind of veil on. Now there are people who, I mean, it takes a special kind of person. Um, you know, I'm just not wired that way, um, to do it every single day all the time. there are some people I've met and they're, good friends of mine. They just, they love the spotlight. They thrive in it. That's where they get energized. And I'm like, I can't even imagine how you guys do that. Like just put me in a room with a studio and a computer and I'll come out, with something really cool at the end of the day. And that's where I shine. But yeah, after, after a while it, it does kind of wear on you. Um, which is kind of cool with, podcasting because you can again do it kind of on demand and. You know, with radio, when you say something it's there in the moment and then it's ephemeral it's gone. People aren't necessarily listening back to it as much. with a podcast, somebody can discover, your show a year after you've started two, three, four years after you've started and go back into your back catalog. and explore everything that you've done or everything that you have to offer. And then at the same time, keep up and keep track with what you're doing. There's a little bit less of an expiration date, as it were, on podcast content. but yeah, it's a tough gig, but if you're wired the right way and you like the attention and you get energized from it, ah you can be very successful at being in front of the camera. Is there a radio voice that you developed and do you get to utilize that in your podcast life? That's a good question. um so I always tell people like that. I, when I am, and when I tell people that I used to be in radio, it's like, I can hear it. You have such a great voice all the time. or some people will be like, well, can you do your radio voice? And it's like, I'm actually doing it right now. I can't not speak like this anymore. I lived out West for a little while away from the Chicago land area. And as I've gotten back into town and done less radio stuff, I think my Chicago accent has come back. My Midwestern accent has come back a little bit, but ah it's mainly the diction and the enunciation in my voice that I can't get rid of. If you do listen to Driven to Ride and the introduction, usually there's a little like 60 second introduction about what's going on with the guests and some context. That's a little bit closer to what like the radio production voice would be, but it's mainly the same thing nowadays. I love that. I'm a pretty fast talker on a normal basis, especially when I get excited. So I really have to try to focus on that when I'm doing the podcast. And it's funny too, like I'll slip into my Southern Ohio twang a little bit sometimes. And my husband is from Minnesota, Wisconsin area. And sometimes he'll be like, I did not understand a word that you just said. Like I was just rambling on so. so fast and with an accent that he couldn't even understand what I was saying. So I can definitely understand that kind of diction element to hosting a podcast. Yeah, I remember, I remember when I was in college, I read a book by Walter Cronkite, who was, legendary broadcast journalist uh on TV for like kind of the golden age of television through the middle of the 20th century. And he spoke about as half as fast as he normally did in conversation. And that's where he kind of got his signature speaking cadence and voice from, if you ever watch him on YouTube or anything like that, he speaks really slowly and it's, it's a hard skill to develop because normal conversation, you want to speak faster, you want to get your point across, or you're just with friends and they can understand when you run words together or a significant other. mean, I've been married four or five years now and it's basically just kind of grunts and guttural noises that my wife can understand when I'm slurring words together. I usually can flip it off and stay professional in a setting like this for the most part. How Driven to Ride started and what inspired you to launch a podcast focused on motorcycling? So I've been motorcycling most of my life. um I grew up in an automotive household, let's say. So my dad was a mechanic. He still is, works in the automotive industry, worked at car dealerships, motorcycle dealerships, service riders, service tech, service managers, sold cars, all that kind of stuff. so it was actually normal for me to have like multiple cars and like multiple motorcycles in the garage. And growing up, was like, wait, not everybody has like six modes of transportation. They can just pick at you know, at their leisure, that was, uh, that was unusual to me. And I found out that that actually was the norm. But so I started on a little mini bike when I was a little kid and graduated to a dirt bike for a little while. Um, and then got on the street and kinda, uh, never looked back from there. Um, got my motorcycle license at 17. Um, and I rode through college rode you know, through my professional career, still ride obviously today. but as I got out of radio and got into podcasting, Like we were talking about how niche, you know, podcasting and stuff can be. It's you started making content for other people and it's sometimes it was interesting, sometimes maybe not so interesting. And I was like, well, I'm doing all this stuff for all these different people. I should do something creative because at the end of day, I'm a creative person uh that I want to do and how I would do it and make have total creative control over it where nobody can really tell me how to do it or what to do. And I can figure out the best way to do that. so I figured what's something that I've enjoyed all of my life that's just kind of been second nature to me. And that's been motorcycles. And uh so that's kind how the idea was hatched. Fortunately, I was able to get connected with some cool people in the motorcycle industry to um figure out kind of the format and plan. And we planned it for somewhere around six to eight months before even like releasing it. uh had some episodes all done and everything and kind of tested it out. in my production director uh life, I kind of had to be an interviewer. Sometimes people would come in without a script idea or anything, or they just want to be interviewed. And then we'd take some of that audio and put it together and make a commercial out of that. And so I gained my interview skills from that, from years of doing that with people and figuring out what makes people tick. And I've always kind of been a naturally curious person anyway, so I don't really hesitate to ask questions. And if something in a conversation sparks my interest, I try to follow that lead or something like that. So it kind of was a happy accident that I was able to take what I love, which is motorcycles, and combine it with my day job, as it were, as audio and video production, and then just use some of those interview skills that I've built up over the years to be able to do it. That's kind of how it was born and that's kind of what we've done for the last two years. And it's been a good ride so far and don't see it stopping anytime soon. So that's kind of how it started and um how it's been going so far. Is there anything that you've learned either through podcasting or about the motorcycle community that you didn't expect when you started this podcast? Yeah, it's been a positive surprise. ah There's a little bit of competition, I guess, in the radio industry. There's a lot of egos. There's a lot of strong personalities, a lot of different personalities, a lot of great friends, ah but a lot of strong personalities and a lot of egos. And in the motorcycle world, was I don't know if I want to say I was expecting that, but I want to say that I was kind of bracing for, you know, talking to some of these people who have been legends in the motorcycle world for lack of a better term. And I was pleasantly surprised that everybody was so generous with their time, so friendly, and just like welcoming, like they just want to hang out and talk about motorcycles. mean, you know, one of the first people we talked to was Ricky Carmichael, who is a, you know, big deal motocross racer, the goat. mean, you don't get you don't get called the goat by just being an average motocross racer. And uh he was so generous with his time. We talked for like an hour and a half and he just answered every question. And everybody I've met in the motorcycle industry is just been so friendly, regardless of their accomplishments or the esteem that they hold in the industry. that's about 99.9 % of the people I've met have been very friendly, very down to earth, very normal people. ah And I think that's due to the fact that motorcycling is kind of a great equalizer. It doesn't matter how much money you have. what kind of esteem you have. just kind of comes down to whether or not you enjoy writing and that's kind of this common theme that binds a lot of people together. in regards to surprise about podcasting, I had to kind of drag myself into the video world kicking and screaming because again, I come from the audio world and radio and I remember I was in college and we had the radio station here and then down the hall was the TV station and You know, it was this was I was right before I got through college right before they started making everybody take these integrated media. So you have to take a little bit of TV, a little bit of radio, a little bit of Web, a little bit of digital, all that kind of stuff, which is smart. But I was able to get past that without having to do that. And I was like, and I'm not doing TV. I don't need to worry about them and be on the radio. What do I need any video experience for or whatever? And then I, you know, in researching how, you know, a lot of people do podcasts. I'm like, all right, well, video is a thing now, so I better get in front of the camera and get used to that. And I'm kind of surprised how fast I got over it because I was so keyed up and so nervous about it. thankfully with my, I think, prior production experience, it's just a different flavor of the same thing. And it doesn't really bother me as much. Hopefully I don't come across super awkward in video form. Nobody's had the heart to tell me that yet. So I'm just gonna, just gonna go ahead and maybe say that, I do halfway decent with it. I mean, you were talking about your college experience. I feel like mine is kind of comical to look back on now because for those same reasons that like I was a PR track in journalism and so I didn't take the broadcast stuff. I avoided math classes like the plague. Yep. Those accounting classes. mean, everything was kind of PR focused. And then when I started in the industry, I was doing magazine writing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. and then now like the podcasting element and being a business owner, like all the things that I avoided, like kind of came full circle and all the skills that I learned are still super relevant. just wish I would have broadened my horizons a little bit when I was there because you don't really know what you're going to go into later on. You might have this plan, but it's life's funny like that. Yeah, man. mean, I remember when I started in the radio industry, I was like, man, I just I want a nine to five. I want just some stability. I never wanted to do freelance work. I never wanted to do like my own projects. I just didn't want to put myself out there that much. And I realized that, if you're going to to want to do something creatively fulfilling, you do have to put yourself out there, whether you like it or not. especially if you're going to share it with other people. But if you can take the time to learn how to push your best foot forward and try to constantly improve, you can kind of figure out the rest as you go along as needed. think we're kind of lucky in the fact that there are uh so many... Kind of examples to learn from maybe on like on YouTube and social media, whether that is business or that is accounting Yeah, it's an interesting full circle moment for sure. I know exactly how you feel. Who were some of the people that influenced you or encouraged you to ride? So, you kind of talked about the family aspect a little bit, but were you encouraged by family members to ride or was it kind of outside people or celebrities that really sparked that interest? I grew up in an automotive household, so it kind of like wasn't a question. mean, we didn't own a dealership or anything, but my dad again, worked at dealerships for a really long time and still does. He worked at a place called Downers Grove, Yamaha for a while when I was kind of in my teen years and I would go there to, you know, pick him up from work or visit at work or whatever. And he's always been just a motorcyclist. I mean, as long as I can remember. Um, when I was a kid, like a little, little kid, I really wasn't interested in it all that much. Like we'd go to car shows or bike shows. And I remember when I was like this big, he was like, you weren't really interested in all this. Sorry. And I said, no, I was into computers and video games and stuff. You know, it's the early nineties. So, but as I got older, um, he got me a mini bike. When I was like maybe seven or eight years old, it was like from the seventies, it was made by Sears Roebuck. was from a, a swap meet or whatever. And You couldn't get me off that thing once I got it. lived in kind of an unincorporated area. So was able to ride up and down the streets and there was a little field down at the end of the neighborhood that was undeveloped that I kind of rode on. And yeah, I don't know what ever since then it was, um, and they would just let me go. My parents just let me go on this, this little, this little mini bike unsupervised, you know, this is mid to late nineties. So it's a little bit different time than it was now. Were you asking for the bike or he just showed up with it one day and was like, Hey, I got this for you. I think so. had a 1970 Chevelle that he was restoring this back in the day. so I would, is before the internet. So we'd go to swap meets and he'd look around for parts and pieces for the Chevelle or whatever and drag me along. Cause, uh you know, what else am I doing? And from what I remember, em I like saw it and I was interested in, I thought it was cool. And he had one like it back in the day. And so it might've been like a 50 50, he bought it for himself, but then like, you know, bought it for me to ride kind of thing. And yeah, so and then my mom had a Honda Elite 80 scooter that I kind of graduated to riding up and down the streets illegally, no license, all that kind of stuff in my mid teens. And then eventually uh my best friend from high school, his name is Mike, and he was a dirt bike rider. Him and his dad rode dirt bikes, I mean, forever, as long as as long as he was a kid. uh KTM guys, KTM and Yamaha guys, so good company. And uh I remember one time he goes, do you want to go dirt biking with me and my dad? And I said, sure. Uh, cause you know, I never really ridden a motorcycle with a clutch and a gear shift and all that. And my previous experience was a Honda elite 80 and a Sears Roebuck mini bike. Um, so I went out with him. actually skipped a day of driver's ed to go ride dirt bikes with him. Not a bad situation. No, no, it was totally worth it to me. I went to this place called Kai Tracks in Ottawa, Illinois, which is unfortunately not around anymore. I looked it up and not around, but it had a little motocross track. had a couple of trails. had a mud pit, all this kind of stuff. they taught me kind of how to work the clutch and the gear shift and all that and how to take tabletops and how to uh run the berms and stuff. I tell you what, Heather, by the end of the day, I I thought at least in my memory, I'd like to think I was getting at least six feet of air. I was hitting these tabletops. was, you know, I was 15, maybe, maybe 16 years old, um, you know, putting the leg out, getting around the berms and stuff, taking the whoops. mean, I was just, I was just the best and, I loved every second of it. was so fun. And I was like, well, this is what a real motorcycle feels like. I was like a little TT 250, I think is what it was. And so, you know, we went a couple of times. We went to the Badlands in Indiana. My dad eventually got me a dirt bike that I took out there and went riding with. And like I said, he worked at a place called Downers Grove, Yamaha, and they would go out to motocross tracks and bring a trailer of bikes and spend the day out there. So I spent a fair bit of time doing some dirt riding just to get started. And then when I turned 17, you know, or after I graduated from high school, I was pretty young for my grade. I took the MSF course as soon as I could. My parents had to sign the permission slip uh to let me do it. And I was just excited. I wanted to ride on the street. so ever since then, I've kind of been a street rider and my dad would kind of I went through the MSF course and then I had to go through the Ed Long course of motorcycle riding, which was I'm going to ride next to you for like a month and you're going to follow me and I'll follow you and you'll kind of see how this all works. And I was able to sneak out and on my own on the 4th July of 2006. And I said, Hey, you know, I, you know, I know I've just got my license and stuff, but I'm going to go meet some friends at, you know, the 4th of July. you know, fireworks or whatever at the park and there's going to be no parking. So obviously I need to take this motorcycle by myself to park somewhere halfway decent. Okay. So then, then all bets were off and I was riding all over the place. I was right. I, you know, I went, eventually went to college and brought a motorcycle down there and then, it just kind of went from there. So to get back to the question, It's always been kind of a family thing. uh know, my dad's sister even rode to his older sister. So she, you know, it's just kind of always been in the family and it was cool that kind of have family and friends support the riding as, especially as I was early in my, you know, career as it were. And I've just been kind of riding ever since. Imagine that you probably have had several bikes throughout the years. Do you have one bike that was your favorite? Like that you'll never forget? Do you still have it? Have you sold it? Yeah, no, I'm kind of an oddball. I've learned in the motorcycle world. I have owned three motorcycles like the entire time I've ridden I still own the same three motorcycles So I started on a 79 Honda CM 400 which is like a CB 400 if you could kind of picture that but it's just a different frame style It's a little bit more of a cruiser Style you know, UJM motorcycle. got that when I was 17. My aunt sold it to me for a dollar. And that was the, yeah, that was the bike that I rode, um, in to high school all the way through college. and I still have it, it's sitting in the garage. then when I was in radio, I worked in one small town in central Illinois and commuted to another small town in central Illinois. And it was about a 40 minute drive. And, uh, I was like, well, this driving, this sucks. I'd like to maybe ride or do something a little more entertaining that way. So I was talking with my dad about it and he's like, well, I used to ride this motorcycle. It's a Yamaha FJ 1100. It's, you know, got a lot of, you know, a lot of torque and it's great on the highway and it's kind of a sport touring thing and blah, blah, You should look into it. Long story short, ended up buying at a 1986 Yamaha FJ 1200 from a guy in Ohio actually. And off of eBay, I sent him like 500 bucks and then paid the rest. I want to say I paid like three grand for it, which is insane. ah But I had my girlfriend at the time drive me out to Ohio and paid him, you know, the rest of the cash, took the thing up and down the street and said, all right, let's head back and drove it back, rode it back. And I thought, well, if something wrong is going to happen with this motorcycle, it'll happen there. And uh this was like Easter weekend, I think of like 2013. And I made it all the way to Champaign, Illinois. And I was just too cold. I didn't have the right gear. I was borrowing somebody else's helmet. cause I don't, I don't remember where, where mine was. Maybe it was just old or something or whatever. Um, but didn't have the right jacket, didn't have the right gloves. It was too cold. And I just remembered like the coldest I've ever been. So we stopped at a hotel and just warmed up and crashed for the night and then rode at home. And I that's, sitting at my parents' house, kind of being restored a little bit. When I moved out west, I took both motorcycles with me. And unfortunately, that one parked got hit ah by a pickup truck. Somebody backed into it and there was a lot of cosmetic damage. you know, it's a 40 year old motorcycle, so it needed just some love and some time. So we're almost done with that. And then when we moved back to Illinois from out in Idaho, where I was living, I realized I wanted a Yamaha XSR 900 that came out in 2016. And I remember I just loved the look of it. It kind of reminded me of my little Honda, you know, grown up in fuel injection and ABS and real suspension and all this stuff. And so I kind of pine for one of those. I'm like, well, I knew I was moving back to Illinois. I'm not. It was a hell of a trip shipping two motorcycles out to one half of the country. I'm not doing that with three on the way back. So. Couple of months after we moved back, found one and I used one in Northern Illinois and bought that. It was like learning how to ride all over again. mean, again, you know, these two old motorcycles are carbureted. have, you know, drum and disc brakes, no ABS, no traction control, no technology at all, no fly by wire, anything like that. So this was like learning to ride all over again. And uh that's kind of been my daily sense. ah I took that out to Sturgis. I've ridden it. kind of all over the place around here. It's a great kind of in town motorcycle. It can get you on the highway. But I've ridden, know, obviously a fair amount of other motorcycles and dirt bikes and stuff like that. But those are the three that I've bought and those are the three that I've kept for almost 20 years now, give or take. it's a weird thing apparently. guess, uh you know, a lot of people buy and sell motorcycles and change them up and all that. I just, I'm not a buyer and seller kind of guy, you know. I feel like it's definitely a sickness for some people that they have to buy and sell and have the latest greatest. I lean a little more like you where I tend to just keep them and pay them off. Again, different mentalities on stuff. I don't like to have loans continuously for the rest of my life. So I like to buy something and pay it off. it's funny that you said that you bought that bike from your aunt for a dollar, right? Yep. So growing up, obviously my parents were very generous and we had all kinds of motorcycles and I didn't really own them, right? But the downside of that was sometimes they got sold out from underneath of me. So there was like a time when my dad came home and he's like, yeah, I sold your bike to like, it was actually another family friend. Cause you haven't ridden it in a while. And I was like, what? You know what I mean? Like I was so heartbroken and he actually felt really, really guilty about that later. But, then as I got older, again, my, um, my free ride, It was just kind of on the dealership tab and I saying like, Hey, I want to buy this. And it's like, it's fine. And I'm like, no, Hey, I, want to buy this. I am going to own this. So, uh, it can't get sold out from underneath of me. So, um, yeah, but I, definitely love the paid off aspect and tend to keep things for awhile. Although I feel like it is starting to get to that age where maybe I need to upgrade a little bit, but yeah. It's, uh I, I did get some, when my dad worked at a motorcycle dealership, he also used to work for a Harley Davidson, dealer too, for a little while. So I got a little bit of the taste of the demo bike scene where it's like, um, and like in hindsight, I can't believe my dad, he'd come home with like a brand new Honda CBR 600 and I'm 18, 19 years old here. Here's the keys. Good luck. Don't crash it. And I, You know, it was mid 2000s. the sport bikes were a big thing. And, I, uh, let me go unsupervised. And, uh I took full advantage of that and went faster on some roads than I probably should. And, um, or like he brought home a, Kawasaki ZX 10, um, that he let me throw a leg over and we went for a ride together. And I had an, uh, experience where I was on at a stoplight at the front of the line. And I just was like, well, let's see just how fast this thing can go, how fast I can get this thing going fast. And I was in second gear and I was doing like 75 miles an hour in like a 45 mile an hour zone. And I was like, all right, cool. That's a, there's a some respect for that power. Like, I think I learned that the right way. Um, and then, yeah, I had, you know, being able to go out on dirt bikes and stuff. And, my dad and I took a trip, when I was 20. 23-24 when he was working for Harley-Davidson and we were able to rent a couple of he had an electra glide and I had a street glide and I'd never ridden a motorcycle that big before and I had to come to his uh it was Illinois I think it was Illinois Harley-Davidson or one of them around here or whatever to rent these motorcycles five o'clock traffic in the Chicago land area on a bike I've never been on before that weighs like 800 pounds And yeah, let's, get this thing home and then we'll go through Wisconsin and over the weekend and enjoy it. So was a kind of a trial by fire there, but it is nice to be able to just walk in and pick a bike or have somebody say, yeah, throw a leg over this motorcycle. It's the dealers. You don't have to worry about it right now. Just don't crash it. I feel like that might be changing though, because before, you know, you had the demo bikes and now a lot of them, at least some of the manufacturers that I know of basically are locking the bikes where you need a computer to unlock them and they to be sold before you can do that. So it kind of eliminates the, the dealer gets to ride it for a couple hundred miles before they sell it options. So maybe the thing of the past coming, coming up soon. It's liability thing, I get it. yeah, yeah. mean, you know, one of the perks maybe of working in a dealership, maybe you can get it, maybe there's some ways to uh get away with it still, or maybe the used bikes or something. Yeah, definitely for the used bikes. Yeah. Is there a ride or a trip that stands out as one of the most meaningful or memorable to you aside from being the coldest you've ever been picking up a bike? Are there some more positive memories? yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my dad actually that's that Harley trip. My dad and I rode kind of just on the weekend just unplanned just through South Central Wisconsin, rode all the way up Mississippi to like Prairie du Chien, which is, you know, the western edge of Wisconsin, you know, went to Dubuque, all that kind of stuff. And it was kind of like my first like real motorcycle trip in my early 20s. And it's just that was where it was like my kind of love of travel and just enjoying the road kind of started where you get, you know, I had an iPhone, but this wasn't like constant GPS, uh no itinerary or anything like that. You just kind of had to figure it out. And so we, you know, would stop at someplace that looked good or stop for gas. I've said this before on the record, but Wisconsin is um unusually beautiful. I think a lot of people sleep on it just like. Maybe they sleep on Ohio for some great riding roads and stuff, but there's actually a lot of curves and elevation and stuff that you can enjoy. uh so that was a really cool ride. I mean, obviously Wisconsin and Harley go together like chocolate and milk. So it worked out really well and it was a great just cruising ride and whatnot. And then another ride that I did was actually in Idaho. So I lived in Boise, Idaho for five years and made a really close friend of mine. uh at the radio station. Just one day I knew a new guy was coming in, but I noticed a Triumph Scrambler in the parking lot. so I went up and said, hi, my name's Mark. And is that your Scrambler? And he said, yeah, my name's Dan. uh we've been friends ever since basically, and we wanted to take a trip out to Yellowstone. So we did this kind of crazy Scramble run for a long weekend out to Yellowstone from Boise. uh riding a motorcycle through you know, not just any national park, but one of the biggest and best national parks, the first national park in the country uh was, I mean, breathtaking. I mean, from the sweeping curves and the wide open spaces to the elevation there, you want to talk about elevation. I mean, we were riding on this road and you can look down this canyon of several, like thousand feet. I have no idea what it was or where it was, but it um was in Yellowstone and Just some phenomenal riding there and. to be able to get. live animals too. Yeah. a little dangerous at times. Yeah, my buddy Danny would send me videos of buffalo charging motorcyclists or whatever just to keep me on my toes, I guess, or whatever. uh we saw a couple but they were, you know, at a safe distance. You didn't try to pet them. Don't pet the buffaloes. uh Stay away from the bears. All that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's, uh you know, thankfully we didn't get eaten by bears or anything like that. had a, uh, unfounded worry about that for some reason. You know, we're camping with all these other people, but the bears are going to come eat us specifically. We actually went to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons last year. Not on motorcycles, but I mean, the views are phenomenal. Unreal. Yeah, it's unreal. Yeah. And we rode, we rode from Boise through Eastern Idaho, which is very picturesque in and of itself. and there's this pass, basically you go over these foothills of these mountains and then you go down, and descend into Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is at the south end of the grand Tetons. And it's like 2000 feet or a thousand feet of a difference. And, um just to kind of cruise those, those roads going down was super cool. And then come up, yeah, south through the grand Tetons. North to Yellowstone is just, yeah, it's breathtaking. And like you said, Wisconsin is beautiful. I just told my husband he had to move to Ohio because I don't like their winters, but the summer and fall up there is absolutely beautiful. So, yes, it's definitely on our list to get our motorcycles back there sometime when we go to visit and just ride the back roads. Yeah, yeah, the Midwest is great. mean, even here in Illinois, I mean, I'm in the western suburbs of Chicago and, uh you know, you go a little bit farther out west and there's a little bit of hills and a little bit of curves, at least enough. It's not, you know, it's not like eastern Ohio or the driftless zone of Wisconsin or whatever, but it holds its own okay for a nice weekend. When you're not on the bike or working on the podcast, what does life look like for you? Uh, well, as you know, as an entrepreneur, um, you really don't get a lot of time off. I, you know, I saw this joke and it's, it's completely true. It's that I, you I wanted more time to myself or more time, more free time. So I quit my nine to five and started working 24 seven on my own job or my own business or whatever. And, uh, so, no, but, uh, I, travel a lot. Um, some of it for work, some of it for fun. Um, the cool thing about doing the motorcycle podcast and having a business and stuff is kind of making, can make travel an excuse or a business. If I can find a good business reason, I can make travel an excuse. So ah like I went to the AMA vintage days at mid Ohio this past summer, which was super cool last year. I went to Sturgis. Again, this is all for work. So it's important. ah I went to the Barber Motorsports Museum for their vintage festival back in October. ah and got a couple other cool places that I'm heading to in the very near future. And yeah, so I do a lot of traveling. My best friend, Mike, actually, uh from the dirt bike days, he lives in Switzerland now. So I've been to see him a couple of times. A lot of college friends have kind of scattered all over the country. My wife and I really love to travel. She's not a rider. She'll ride on the back as a great passenger and enjoys that a lot. You know, we do a lot of travel, which is cool. then, um, yeah, I don't know what I spend time with family, uh, play video games here and there, um, try to play some music here and there. I grew up playing, uh, bass and bass guitar, from like fourth grade all the way through college. So there's, that's kind of another strand of creativity, um, that I just kind of doodle around with for fun, whether that's just playing, um, by myself or producing, you know, music just for fun. Yeah, but work a lot and travel a lot. You know, being an adult, guess, I don't know, I'm in my mid to late, I can't even say mid 30s anymore. I'm 37, so I guess I'm in my late 30s. So, ah you know, my wife and I just moved into a new place. And so, we're looking at what the next stage of life is, ah you know, in that. So all good things, though, all good things. Tell people where they can connect with you or follow Driven to Ride. Yeah, so everywhere, basically YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, just search for Driven to Ride and you should be able to find us. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. And we do have a website if you want to see some photos and read a little bit more about the different guests we have or the different places that we've been. Just driven to ride podcast dot com. And you can also find all our links there. But anywhere you think you'd find a brand presence, you should be able to find us. And for anybody that's listening to this episode, be sure to check out the episode where I was a guest on Driven to Ride. I will link to that in the show notes as well, but I had the pleasure of being a guest. so Mark interviewed me a little more on that one. I interviewed Mark a little more on this one, but be sure to check that out as well. And I appreciated the opportunity to be a guest. Yeah, yeah, I remember you were not hesitant. I'm trying to think of the right word, but you were interested, I guess we'll say, in having the tables turned on you. And now you know how it feels to be a guest. It's a different experience when you're on the other side of the table, but it's fun. Thank you to everybody who has tuned into Momentum. This has been a production of High Gear Success. If you want to connect or recommend a guest, head to MomentumMotorsportsPodcast.com. Until next time, keep the momentum rolling.