Electric Motorcycles with Lightning CEO, Richard Hatfield

 (upbeat  music)  Hey  there,
 I  am  Len  Bilello,  your  host  of  the  Arrival  Eye  Podcast,  and  this  is  Episode  78,  and  today  we  have  a  very  special  guest.  His  name  is  Richard  Hatfield,
 and  he's  the  CEO  of  Lightning  Motorcycles,  one  of  the  premier  electric  motorcycle  companies  in  the  world,  and  they've  been  in  business  since  2006.
 and  you  know  when  the  first  Tesla  came  out  2008  so  do  the  math  there.  Now  there  are  20  companies  currently  at  least  that  make  electric  motorcycles.  You  have  Italian  company  called  Energica.
 You  have  Cake  in  Sweden  which  I  think  they're  about  to  go  bankrupt  or  out  of  business  and  you  also  have  zero  motorcycles  here  in  the  USA  and  I  think  it's  kind  of  funny  that  an  Italian  company  would  be  making  electric  motorcycles.
 motorcycles  because  anybody  that's  owned  a  Ducati  that  was  made  probably  before  2005  or  any  Italian  automobile  like  a  Fiat  or  a  Lamborghini  or  a  Ferrari,
 I  mean  the  Italians  are  great  at  style  and  performance  but  they  usually  suck  at  the  electrical  systems.  Now  you  may  remember  when  Robert  Duvall  in  the  movie  Full  Metal  Jacket  said,
 said,  "I  love  the  smell  of  napalm  in  the  morning."  Well,  if  you  have  an  electric  motorcycle,  you  won't  have  the  smell  of  gasoline  or  oil,  but  you  may  have  the  fragrance  of  burnt  rubber  because  the  performance  of  electric  motorcycles  can  be  mind -blowing  and  life -changing.
 So  in  addition  to  riding  safety  and  enjoyment,  we're  going  to  talk  to  Richard  about  electric  bikes  in  general  and  how  they  may  present  their  own  unique  aspects  of  safety.  Now  if  Richard  was  riding  here  on  his  motorcycle,
 I  wouldn't  be  able  to  hear  him  coming,  but  I  know  he's  out  there.  And  Richard,  I  want  to  say  thanks  for  joining  us.  And  I  believe  you're  coming  to  us  from  Hollister,
 California.  Is  that  correct?  That's  it,  Hollister,  California,  between  San  Jose  and  Monterey.  All  right.  and  I'm  here  in  Manhattan,  and  we  got  a  little  bit  of  spring  weather  coming.
 Did  you  ride  today?  - No,  I  didn't  get  a  chance  to  ride  today.  I  was  working  all  day,  so  unfortunately,  but  I  think  I'll  get  a  ride  in  tomorrow.
 - So  now,  do  you  go  into  your  lightning  offices  every  day,  and  what  is,  do  you  commute  to  the  office?  How  does  that  work?  - Yeah,  so  we're,  you  know,
 we  live  seven  miles  away  from  our  facility.  So  either  drive  or  write  in  every  day,  kind  of  up  in  the  hills  away  from  Hollister  a  little  bit.
 Our  property  actually  backs  up  on  the  California  off -road  park,  which  I  think  is  4 ,000  acres  of  off -road  trails  for  motorcycles  and  ATVs.
 - Excellent.  - Excellent,  excellent.  And  we're  going  to  jump  around  a  little  bit  because  I  want  to  talk  about,  you  know,  some  of  the  really  exciting  things  about  electric  motorcycles.  I  was  telling  Richard  that  I  don't  have  an  electric  motorcycle,
 but  I  do  have  an  electric  scooter  that  I  use  for  commuting.  And  I  noticed  that  you  have  gone  over  215  miles  an  hour  on  an  electric  motorcycle.
 Is  that  true,  Richard?  - Actually,  no,  no,  I  don't  have  an  electric  scooter.  involved  in  building  the  bikes  designing  it  but  the  guys  that  are  more  talented  than  I  am.
 The  two -way  record  was  259  and  it  went  to  186  through  the  time  lights  and  it  was  a  pre -production  version  of  our  our  whitening  218  and  the  main  difference  between  the  two -way  record.
 18  and  the  Bonneville  bike  was  the  218s  have  headlights,  tail  lights,  lights  and  plates  and  make  more  horsepower  than  the  Bonneville  bike.  Oh,  okay.  Oh,  when  I  was  watching  the  YouTube  video,
 maybe  I  just  wasn't  paying  attention  because  we  all  have  OCD  these  days,  but  I  thought  that  might  have  been  you.  Have  you  taken  that  bike  or  one  of  your  bikes,  you  know,  around  that  speed  or  are  you  allowed  to  tell  me  how  fast  you've  gone  on  one  of  your  bike?
 Yeah,  you  know  150s,  60s,  70s,  but  not  over  200.  Okay,  and  that's  about  what  some  of  these,  you  know,  Japanese  sport  bikes  are  doing  here  in,
 have  you  ever  been  to  Long  Island  at  all?  I  haven't  been  to  Long  Island.  Okay,  Long  Island,  you  know,  is  a  suburb  of  New  York  City,  and  there's  at  least  90  miles  of,
 you  know,  coastal,  you  know  on  the  south  shore  of  Long  Island,  we  have  some  of  the  best  beaches  in  the  world.  We  have  a  great  concert  amphitheater  where  I've  seen  many  shows,  but  there's  this  one  road  called  Ocean  Parkway.
 And  if  you  can  picture  a  road  that  is  flat  and  smooth  as  a  pool  table  that  goes  for  about  70  miles,  that's  what  Ocean  Parkway  is.  And  that's  where  a  lot  of  people,  you  know,
 open  up  their  bikes  when  they  can.  And,  and  you  can  actually  see.  see,  you  know  If  there's  police  around  but  it's  also  beautiful  because  on  the  right  hand  side  If  you're  going  east  towards  like  Montauk,
 which  is  pretty  famous  Is  the  ocean  and  on  the  left  hand  side  oftentimes  is  the  bay  because  you  know  Long  Island  is  not  that  wide  Especially  around  that  area.  So  if  you  ever  come  down  here,
 we'll  have  to  Take  a  ride  Let's  talk  a  little  bit  about  Sounds  good.  You're  early  days  in  motorcycle  and  you  were  telling  me  earlier  So  your  first  street  bike  that  was  registered  and  insured.
 What  was  that  and  how  old  were  you?  That's  a  good  question  I  think  the  first  one  that  was  registered  insured  it  was  when  I  was  16  was  a  Norton  750  commando  That  the  local  Norton  dealer  in  the  small  town  and  Iowa  that  I  grew  up  had  had  dragged  drag  race  for  two  seasons  before  it  became  a  Kawasaki  dealer  and  started  racing  two  stroke  trip.
 And  so  and  you  were  16.  Okay,  go  ahead.  Yeah,  but  I  actually  started  writing,  you  know,  my  parents  had  a  property  in  the  country  and  so,
 you  know,  I  started  writing,  you  know,  mini  bikes  and  then  mopeds  and  and  then  had  a  Ducati  scramble.  and  then  a  Ducati  250  road  bike.  So  in  that  kind  of  rural  area  at  that  point,
 nobody  really  cared  that  much  if  you  rode  as  long  as  you  see  the  more  heavily  traveled  areas.  Funny  you  mentioned  mopeds.  We  have  this  all  girl  moped  gang  and  not  on  the  gang  club  here  and  they're  called  the  Clams  and  they  all  have.
 you  rebuilt  refurbished,  you  know  1970s  and  early  80s,  you  know  puke  mopeds  some  of  them  have  like  these  little  binaries  and  we  have  this  thing  Yeah,
 two -wheel  Tuesdays,  you  know  and  they  come  and  The  smell  of  their  mopeds  right  because  they're  all  oil  and  gas  you  know  gas  mixture,  you  know  And  it's  just  so  refreshing  and  I  know  you  know  the  electric  bikes  don't  smell  at  all  and  maybe  you're  burning  rubber  but  it  just  reminds  me  of  like  a  of  a  different  time  when  we  were  young  when  you  would  you  know  kind  of  smell  the  the  combination  of  the  oil  and  the  gas  and
 we  had  a  gang  of  Vesperiders  out  here  called  the  Vesperados  oh  wow  yeah  you  know  Vespers  are  great  too  I  mean  I  was  in  Italy  I  studied  in  Italy  years  ago  and  I  had  a  Vespa  for  a  month  there  and  was  one  with  the  manual  transmission.
 So  I  kind  of  got  carpal  tunnel  just  changing  the  gears  all  the  time.  But  it  was  really  fun.  I  want  to  talk  a  little  bit  about  electric  motorcycles  here.  What  are  gears,
 Len?  Well,  that  brings  us  to  the  next  question.  And  do  you  fool  around  with  not  fool  around?  but  do  you  use  any  AI  at  all,  personally  or  professionally?
 A  little  bit.  We  have  other  people  that  do,  but  I  played  with  it  a  little.  Yeah,  me  too.  And  the  reason  why  I  ask  is  I  ask  the  ChatGPT  to  tell  me  some  of  the  differences  in  electric  motorcycles  versus  gas  motorcycles.
 And  one  of  the  things  it  says--  that  smoother  acceleration,  electric  motors  have  to  deliver  instant  torque,  which  can  be  advantageous  for  many  riders,
 could  be  tricky  for  a  beginner  rider,  but  they  don't  also  don't  have  to  worry  about  switching  gears.  And,  you  know,  which  for  many  years  was  a  problem  for  certain  types  of  riders,  right?
 So  let's  say  we  have  a  28  year  old  woman  or  man  from  Haslett.  Haslett,  New  Jersey,  who's  been  writing,  you  know,  let's  say  a  Kawasaki  for  the  last  eight  years,
 and  he  or  she  may  want  to  move  over  to  an  electric  motorcycle.  What,  you  know,  what  are  a  few  things  that  you  would  tell  this  person  as  far  as,  you  know,  differences,  advantages,
 and  just  things  to  keep  in  mind,  would  you  say?  So,  you  know,  it  would  depend  on  which  bike.  but  one  of  the  things  we  kind  of  stress  is  You  know  if  you're  at  a  stoplight  or  or  you  you  know,
 you're  not  ready  to  ride  There's  a  little  switch  on  the  right  handlebar  near  the  throttle  and  it's  either  you  know  driver  neutral  and  and  we  You  know  we  tell  the  good  if  you  don't  want  to  go  put  it  in  neutral  particularly  the  higher  power  bike  Because  you  know  you  really  don't  it's  not  like  a  gas  bike  where  you  didn't  have  to  pull  a  clutch  in,
 add  some  throttle,  get  some  revs  up,  clunk  it  into  a  gear,  slip  the  clutch,  you  know,  to  go.  So  the  electric  sitting  there,  if  you  drive  and  you  hit  the  throttle,
 it's  going  to  go.  And  if  it's  a  high -power  bike,  you  want  to  make  sure  that,  you  know,  you  request  the  amount  of  acceleration.  So  that's  the  one  caution,
 but  the  others  are,  you  know,  you're  not  going  to  be  able  to  do  that.  know,  it's  so  much  easier  to  write,  you  know,  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  shifting,  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  clutch,  you  know,  you  twist  the  throttle  to  go  and  you  twist  it  the  other  way  to  regen  and  slow  down.
 And  we've  had  the,  you  know,  the  opportunity  to  work  with  a  lot  of,  you  know,  very  talented  professional  motorcycle  racers  and  virtually  every  one  of  them  has  told  us  that,
 you  know,  have  to  worry  about  shifting,  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  shifting,  you  don't  have  to  worry  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  shifting,  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  shifting,  you  don't  electric  tool,  an  equal  gap,  it  would  be  faster  on  the  electric  because  it's  just  less  that  they  have  to  manage.  You  know,  they  can  just  focus  on,  you  know,
 on  the  corner,  on  the  grip,  on  the  tire,  and,  you  know,  not  worry,  you  know,  where  are  they  at  in  the  torque  band  or  they  have  to  shift,  you  know,  any  of  that  other.  Got  it.  And  I  noticed,
 you  know,  the  bikes  that  you  have  currently  on  your  website  and  for  sale,  you  know,  they  all  are  sporting  varieties.  And  you  know,  we  were  talking  about  Alice's  restaurant  earlier  before  we  started  recording  it  up  here  in  New  York.
 We  have  Hunter  Mountain  and  Bear  Mountain,  or  which  is  like,  you  know,  70  miles  away.  So  a  lot  of  people  kind  of  go  up  there  for  a  week,  you  know,  for  a  day  trip  and  back.  Or  even  like  going  away  for  the  weekends,
 are  these,  do  you  think  that  you'll  be  coming  out  with.  something  I  don't  want  to  say  traditional  because  that's  maybe  not  the  right  word  but  maybe  something  more  along  the  lines  of  like  that  has  saddlebags  or  an  FJ  1300  even  I  have  a  BMW  R  1200  R  that  can  have  you  know  a  sportier  look  but  I  could  put  some  saddlebags  on  there  and  go  away  for  six  or  seven  days  if  I  want  to  do  is  anything  like  that  in  the  future
 if  you're  allowed  to  tell  us  yeah  so  we're  we  have  a  prototype  right  now  that  we're  working  on  It's  a  dual  sport  adventure  bike  kind  of  somewhere  between  You  know  Dicati  multi  strata  v4  BMW  GS  KTM  1290.
 Oh,  okay.  That's  what  he's  saying  but  you  know  we  can  have  the  bet  on  it  and  You  know  a  more  upright  comfortable  bike  for  one  long  distance  Got  it.  Yeah,  cuz  the  Royal  Enfield  Enfield,
 I  tell  you,  I  don't  know  if  they're  popular  in  California,  but  they're  very  popular  here.  I  would  say  the  two,  you  know,  bikes  that  people  that  newer  riders  are  going  for  here  would  be  triumphs.
 If,  if  people  are  making  a  little  bit  more  money  or  the  Royal  Enfields,  um,  because  for  $6 ,300  out  the  door,  you  get  like  a  two  or  three  year  warranty,  a  bike  that's  good  for  80 %  of  the  people  riding,
 especially  if  it's  their  first  bike  and,  you  know,  Royal  Enfields,  their  quality  is  probably  right  up  there  with  triumph.  So  we're  seeing  a  lot  and  they  like  the  versatility  because  you  can  get  the  saddlebags  and  still  go  away  for  a  day  or  two.
 Yeah,  no,  it's  a  great  value.  And  India  is  a  really  motorcycle  market.  One,  it's  one  of  the  biggest  markets  in  the  world.  And  then  secondly,  it  has  to  be  priced  as  a  great  value  and  then  third.
 third,  it  has  to  be  just  viable  or,  you  know,  or  you  don't  get  a  second  chance  with  the  consumers.  So  yeah,  there's  some  great  product  coming  out  of,  out  of  India  for  sure.
 And  I  would  assume,  and  I  haven't,  you  know,  I'd  love  to,  you  know,  one  day,  I  don't  know  if  there's  a  dealer  here,  uh,  you  know,  ride  one  of  your  bikes,  but  I  was,  do  you  have  the  different,  uh,  riding  modes  like  sport  and  economy  and  and  all  these  things  and  almost  like  the  Tesla.
 Do  you  have  like  I've  written  in  a  few  Teslas  actually  the  revels  taxi  cab  service  here  are  all  tested.  Do  you  have  a  mode  that  kind  of  limits  performance  when  the  battery  gets  low.
 How  does  that  work?  Yeah,  so  we  have  four  writer  modes.  We  have,  you  know,  track  performance.  Street  and  rain.  Yeah.
 And  so  it  basically,  you  know,  limits  the  acceleration  and  the  peak  torque.  And  then  you  can  set  the  regeneration  to,  you  know,  how  much  you  want  the  bike  to  roll  off  of  the  throttle  and  how  that  ramps  in.
 Oh  yeah,  that's  all.  You  can  set  all  of  that  with  a  cell  phone.  - Oh,  fantastic.  And,  And  let's  talk  a  little  so  I  get  obviously  your  ABS  and  all  these  other  things.
 So  from  a  safety  perspective,  and  I  guess  everything  else,  I  mean,  the  people,  they  must  say  to  you,  Hey,  this  is  a  great  bike.  I've  been  watching  some  of  the  YouTube  videos,  even  on  people  that  own  different  electric  motorcycles.
 For  the  average  rider,  if  they  were  to  buy  one  tomorrow,  do  they,  how  long  does  it  take  for  them  to  get  used  to  the  fact  fact  that  it's  not  making  that  much  noise?  You  know  we  never  hear  anybody  really  remark  about  that  because  again  you're  familiar  with  the  Tesla,
 you're  familiar  with  you  know  electric  acceleration,  but  that's  really  kind  of  the  standout  feature  that  people  you  know  get  that  that  infant  torque  and  you  know  and  the  bike  just  just  makes  almost  the  same  torque  when  you're  first  starting  as  it  does  at  Redline,
 so  you've  got  this  really  big  wide  torque  band  and  you  just  roll  into  it  and  it  just  keeps  pulling  and  stretching  your  arms  and  that's  really  what  we  hear.
 You  know  people  come  back  with  a  big  smile  and  again  they're  super  easy.  easy.  It's  so  well  We  we  again  when  we  had  you  know  the  different  professional  writers  write  it  You  know  by  the  second  or  third  corner,
 you  know,  they're  not  read  for  the  clutch  anymore.  They're  you  know,  they're  just  riding  the  bike  Got  it.  And  do  you  think  you  know,  I'm  sure  obviously  commuters  is  probably  a  Great  market  for  this  is  that  I  mean,
 let's  say  we're  talking  a  year  from  now.  So  it's  April  19,  2025.  Would  you  say  that  the  majority  of  people  that  are  buying  lightning  motorcycles  are  using  them  for  commuting  as  opposed  to,
 you  know,  weekend  getting  out  of  town?  How  do  you  feel  about  that?  Yeah,  I  think  it's  a  pretty  good  mix.  I  think  a  lot  of  people  are  commuting  on  them.  And  then  going  on  out  on  weekend  rides  and  enjoying  them  back  on  the,
 you  know,  on  the  hills.  Cool.  And  let's,  and  talking  about  weekend  rides,  you  know,  we  have  a,  I  don't  know  if  you  like  volleyball,  but  we  have  a,  this  really  nice  restaurant  that's  right  off  of  Ocean  Parkway.
 It's  called  the  Salt  Shack.  And  they  have  probably  more  volleyball  courts  east  of  the  Mississippi  than  any  other  beach  restaurant  ever.  Right?  I'm  not  talking  about  California,
 but  there's  at  least  like  50  volleyball  courts  right  on  the  beach,  right  on  the  ocean.  And  they  have  a  beautiful  restaurant  and  a  band  pit  where  they  have  like  all  these  80  covers  bands.
 And  we  try  to  take  a  group  ride  there  once  a  year.  And  from  Manhattan,  it's  probably  74  miles  each  way.  And  then  we'll  probably  ride  another  25  miles  just  around.
 So  we're  probably  talking  about  75  miles.  150,  probably  a  good  200  mile  day.  And  I  remember  the  first  time  that  I  saw  you  on  a  webinar  was  last  October,
 when  you  were  announcing  that  you  had  technology  that  was  unique  to  lightning,  where  a  lightning  motorcycle  could  ride  with  ICE  bikes  because  the  charging  time  is  now  greatly  reduces.
 Can  you  talk  a  little  bit  about  that?  Sure.  So  our  top -sec  bikes  right  now  have  the  what  we  call  the  extreme  fast  charge  battery  pack,
 which  is  a  silicon  anode.  So  it  has  really  two  big  advantages.  One,  the  energy  density  is  much  higher  than  the  other  electric  bikes  have.
 So  we're  usable  battery  pack  size  for  most  of  the  other  bikes  are  in  the  60.  17  kilowatt,  uh,  we're  at  12 .3  usable.
 So  it's,  you  know,  almost  50 %  more.  So  it,  it  realistically  out  on  a  ride  like  that,  going  70  miles  an  hour,  then  the  freeway  enjoying  the  bike,
 you  know,  you're  over  200  miles  range.  And  then  the,  the  other  advantage  with  the  silicon  dominant  data  is  we  can  charge  from  20%. %  to  80 %  in  10  minutes.
 Hey  we'll  be  right  back  with  more  of  the  show  but  first  I  want  to  tell  you  about  our  sponsor  the  Hammond  Law  Firm.  Now  John  Hammond  is  the  founder  and  CEO  and  his  firm  employs  attorneys  who  also  ride  so  if  you  get  into  an  accident  you're  gonna  need  the  right  help  professionally,
 physically,  mentally,  and  financially  and  legally.  They've  done  that  for  me.  They  can  do  that  for  you.  Now  there  is  a  link  in  the  show  notes  to  their  firm.  There's  also  a  link  to  a  printable  card  that  you  can  keep  in  your  wallet  or  you  can  call  them  at  1 -800 -HA -Y -M -O -N -D.
 And  John's  gonna  be  on  the  show  in  a  couple  of  weeks,  so  we  look  forward  to  that.  And  now,  back  to  the  rest  of  the  show.  Wow,  yeah,  so  that  is  a  kind  of  a  big  game  changer  and,
 you  know,  know,  I  noticed  that  you're  connected  to  Eater  Holkman  on  LinkedIn.  I  don't  know  if  you  know  him  that  well.  Do  you  know  him  very  well  at  all?  Not  really  well.
 Okay.  Well,  he  was  on  the  show,  but  he's  from  Columbia.  He's  been  in  the  United  States  for,  you  know,  many  years  He's  written  a  book  or  two  about  his  life.  He  had  a  very  kind  of  tough  upbringing  in  Columbia  and  now  he  lives  in  New  Jersey  He's  got  seven  motorcycles  motorcycles,
 two  horses,  one  wife,  and  I  think  a  couple  of  daughters.  And  but  and  the  reason  why  I  bring  him  up  is  that  he  leads  a  lot  of  rides  on  the  weekends  and  you  know,  we'll  have  anywhere  from  14  to  25  people.
 And  whenever  we  stop  to  get  gas,  you  know,  and  none  of  them  are  electric  bikes,  but  you  know,  by  the  time  everybody  goes  to  the  bath  and  gets  a  cup  of  coffee,  fills  their  bike  up,  checks,  you  know,  it's  at  least  a  35  minute,
 you  know,  or  a  deal.  So  I  can  just  see  that  if  we  were  with  an  electric  motorcycle  like  a  lightning,  you  know,  the  12,  you  know,  the  10  or  12  minutes  that  it  takes  would,  you  know,  be  nothing  because  I  think,  you  know,
 the  bigger  the  group  you  ride  with,  you  know,  A,  you're  stopping  more  and  sometimes  it  could  be,  you  know,  a  joke,  but  it's  also  fun  too,  you  know.  Yeah.
 You  know,  it's,  you  know,  the  one  of  the  employees  that  we  have.  has  one  of  the  28  kilowatt  hour  bikes  and  he  was  out  riding  with  a  group  in  the  Bay  Area  of  other  electric  riders.
 I  think  there  were  11  or  12  of  them  riding  and  after,  you  know,  100  miles  or  so,  everybody  else  was  stopping  for  lunch  and  kind  of  waiting  in  line  to  see  who  could  use  the  charger.
 You  know,  he  was  able  to  just  go  in  order  lunch  and  didn't  need  to  charge  the  bikes.  That  was  a...  you  know,  it  was  a  step  forward  and  being  able  to  not  have  any  excuses,
 you  know,  when  you're  comparing  it  to  a  gas  bike.  Is  there,  are  you  seeing  like  the  people  that  are  getting  lightning  motorcycles  or  maybe  even,  well,
 let's  just  talk  about  lightning  motorcycles.  Are  they  coming  from,  you  know,  one  or  two  particular  brands  and  that  you're  you're  seeing  whether  it's  Harley  BMW  Honda.
 Are  you  seeing  anything  like  that's  telling  you  any  data  like  that?  Most  of  them  are  coming  from  you  know,  high -end  European  or  Japanese  bikes  and  a  variety  of  different,
 you  know,  major  marks  What  are  jacati  owners  and  most  of  them  have  a  Tesla  or  some  other,  you  know,  high  performance  electric  electric  car,  and  they  want  that  kind  of  experience  on  their  bike  as  well.
 And  a  lot  of  them  have  the  gas  bike  and  the  electric  bike,  and  what  we  find  from  most  of  the  customers  is  the  lightning  more  and  the  gas  less.  I  have  to  ask  this.
 So,  since  you're  the  CEO  of  a  very  well -known  electric  motorcycle  company,  Does  the  CEO  of  a  very  well -known  electric  car  company  like  Tesla,
 does  he  ever  give  you  a  buzz  and  say,  "Hey,  how's  it  going?"  You  know,  I  haven't  had  conversations  with  Elon.
 I  have  had  a  number  of  conversation  systems  and  we  have  a  fair  amount  of  interaction.  When  we  first  started  the  company,  we  were  two  blocks.  We  were  on  American  Street  and  Tesla  was  on  Bing  Street,
 so  we  were  two  blocks  apart.  You  know,  there  was  a  lot  of  kind  of,  you  know,  communication  and  everything,  but  yeah,  so  we,  he  was  fairly  famous  for  his  comments  that  he  had,
 you  know,  a  near  serious  crash  on  a  bike  in  South  Africa  and  does  not  work.  wanna  produce  motorcycles.  But  who  knows,  maybe  at  some  point  you  will.  - Got  it.
 You  know,  one  of  the  things  we  talk  about  a  lot  with  our  guests  and  we've  had,  you  know,  you're  gonna  be  episode  77  I  think  and  we  probably  had  over  90  guests  and  a  lot  of  times  we  talk  about  a  pre -ride  approach.
 We've  had  this  gentleman  Bart  who  runs  one  of  the  most  successful  kind  of  retro  YouTube  channels  and...  And,  you  know,  when  you  have  a  retro  bike,  your  pre -ride  approach  is  a  little  bit  different.
 You  have  some  carburetors  and,  you  know,  fuel  petcocks  and  things  like  that.  But  I  guess  with  an  electric  motorcycle,  what's  the  pre -ride  approach?  Turn  it  on?  Is  there  anything  else?
 I  don't  know,  check  the  tires.  I  mean,  anything  else  that  they  need  to  do?  - Yeah,  no,  that's  tire  pressure.  Look  at  what  the  battery  capacity  is,
 you  know,  it'll  be  full.  you  wrote  it  last,  get  where  you're  going.  You  know,  you  don't  have  to  warm  it  up,  you  don't  have  to  worry  about  any  of  that,  and  you  don't  have  any  oil  levels  to  check  or  anything,
 and  you  know,  they're  actually  really  easy  on  breaks  because  of  the  regeneration.  So,  you  know,  there's  less  maintenance  and  less  things  to  go  wrong.
 So,  we  don't  have  this  as  a  problem.  going  up  and  down  and  valves  opening  and  closing,  and  valve  springs  and  camshafts.  We  just  have  a  rotor  that's  spinning  on  two  bearings,
 so  it's  a  much  more  simple  machine.  I  know  a  lot  of  people  with  electric  cars,  especially  Tesla's,  are  thinking  any  electric  car,  they  tend  to  go  through  tires  a  little  bit  more,
 but  it  seems  the  weight  of  your  motorcycles  are  basically  the  same  as  normal  motorcycles.  So  So  does  the,  not  really  the  adage,  but  I  don't  think  do  electric  bikes  go  through  tires  quicker  than  normal  bikes?
 If  you  really  enjoy  them,  they  do,  you  know,  if  you  have  it  and  you  push  it  in  the  corner,  you'll  use  tires.  But  if  you  use  the  torque,  you  know,  everything  you  can  use,
 you  have  less  life  from  a  chance  because  of  the  torque.  So  those  are  really  the  consumables,  our  tires  and  chains.  >>  So  you've  been  riding  for  a  while  and  one  of  the  things  that  we  talk  about,
 and  you're  commuting  a  lot,  do  you  ever  take  regular  advanced  training  and  do  you  do  track  days?  What  do  you  do  to  musicians  practice  their  guitars,
 singers  practice  singing?  singing.  What  is  your  philosophy  on  training  and  practice  for  motorcycle  riding?  - So  I  have  done  practice  and  track  training.
 You  know,  these  days  when  I'm  riding  bikes,  you  know,  unfortunately  I'm  just  kind  of  unwind  and  test  out  a  bike  or,  you  know,
 testing  another  technology.  So.  We're  an  early  stage  company.  We're  working  all  the  time.  Every  time  I  get  a  chance  to  get  on  a  bike,  it's  enjoyable  and  an  escape  from  being  in  the  in  the  facility  and  pushing  things  forward.
 Yeah,  not  do  out  of  work  on  improving  my  writing.  at  this  point,  just  enjoying  it.  - All  right,  that's  cool.
 You  know,  one  of  the  things  that  we  do  here,  we  have  this  place  called  Randall's  Island  here  in  New  York  City,  Jesse  Owens,  if  you  remember  who  he  was,  he  won  the  gold  medal,  I  think,  yeah,  right.  So  he  was,
 there's  a  stadium  called  Icon  Stadium,  and  it  has  one  of  the  biggest  parking  lots  in  New  York  City,  and  nobody  ever  uses  it,  because  it's  like  on  this  island,  they  have  to  pay  a  $3  toll  to,
 but  a  lot  of  people,  people  a  lot  of  us  go  there  and  practice  sometimes  and  even  I'll  just  do  that  if  I  have  an  afternoon  free  just  because  you  know  here  in  New  York  your  chances  to  ride  you  know  are  so  few  and  far  between  sometimes  you  want  to  keep  your  skills  you  know  up -to -date  and  and  I  want  to  kind  of  talk  to  you  about  that  you  know  in  California  you  probably  see  all  sorts  of  motorcyclists  riding  from  you
 know  people  in  their  20s  30s  and  40s  is  there  any  do  you  think  there's,  what  would  you  say  are  the  top  like  two  or  three  mistakes  or  ways  people  that  you  see  personally  riding  could  do  to  improve  their  riding  style  and  really  not  even  style,
 just  improve  being  safe  on  a  motorcycle?  No,  that's  a  great  question.  Yeah,  I  mean  you  you  know,
 I  think  the  distracted  Right,  you  know  the  with  You  know  not  not  really  folk  I'm  sure  it's  the  same  there,
 you  know  when  you're  freeway  here  with  a  lot  of  heavy  traffic.  I  think  You  know,  it's  really  critical  to  to  if  you're  splitting  lanes,
 you  know,  keep  keep  an  eye  on  all  of  the  other,  you  know  People  in  the  car  and  you  know,  watch  their  front  tire  It's  you  know,  people  will  pull  out  and  switch  lanes  quickly.  I  think  you  know  breaking  or  you  know  early  You  know  people  that  don't  work  on  skill  as  much  get  on  and  a  lot  of  trouble  breaking  Rather  than  been  really  trusted  by  the  tire  You  know  get  it  get  into  a  corner  a  bit  too  hot  and  then  you  know
 break  stand  it  up  and  go  off  I  think  that's  an  issue.  That's  one  of  the  things  I  do  when  I  write  is  You  know  practice  being  smooth  trail  breaking  into  course  practice  He  was  just  coming  up  to  a  stoplight  or  didn't  outside  and  tried  that  that  transition  from  slowing  down  to  being  stopped  stopped  as  imperceptible  as  possible.
 For  me,  I  think  that's  a  useful  thing  in  your  practice.  - You  know,  you  make  a  few  good  points  there.  You  know,  we  had  one  of  the  first  guests  I  ever  had  was  Eric  Anderson,  one  of  the  early  employees  and  founders  over  at  Scorpion  Helmets.
 And  he  kind  of  says  a  lot  of  what  you  just  said.  But  I  also  want  to  talk  about  distracted  riding  because,  you  know,  today  we  have  so  many  more  distracted  riding.  between,  I  mean,
 even  pedestrians,  but  what  is  your  feeling?  And  I've  had,  like  I  said,  80,  you  know,  more  than  80  guests  between  the  heads.  You  know,  we  have  helmets  coming  out  with  heads  up  displays.
 We  have  dashboards  on  our  motorcycles  that  look  nothing  like  the  dashes  of  even  10  years  ago  that  have  a  lot  of  information  and  even  some  GPS.  And  here  in  New  York,
 I  don't  know  how  it  is  in  California,  but  it's  probably  the  same.  I  see  a  lot  of  people  with  their  Samsung  Galaxy  S  phone,  their  iPhone  bolted  to  their  handlebars.
 Do  you  have  a  feeling  either  way  of  whether  that's,  I  don't  wanna  say  right  or  wrong,  but  whether  you  would  recommend  against  it  or  for  it?  - Well,
 you  know,  there  clearly  are  some  advantages  to,  you  know,  know  using  turn -by -turn  if  you're  going  someplace  you  haven't  been  before  but  if  if  you're  just  using  it  to  Messages  and  you  know  use  your  iPhone,
 you  know  going  to  your  head  watch  and  and  you  know  You  know  that  could  certainly  be  a  problem  where  I  like  to  write  You  know  Hollister  is  there's  a  little  bit  more  out  in  the  country  and  there's  a  wide  south  and  high  25  past  Pinnacle  snow  park  and  down  banking  city  and  so  the  nice  little  hundred  and  twenty  mile  loop.
 That's  really  kind  of  you  know  Out  through  some  beautiful  You  know  country  a  lot  of  traffic,  so  you  know  in  that  kind  of  an  area.  I  think  You  know  being  distracted  is  not  such  a  big  deal.
 Although  yeah,  it  still  can  be  right  but  But,  you  know,  if  I'm,  you  know,  in  the  Bay  Area,  on  the  freeways,  I  mean,  it's,  it  takes  all  of  my  focus,
 you  know,  just  to  buy  on  the,  the  people  in  the  cars  around  me  and  what  they're  doing.  And,  you  know,  they're  staring  at  their,  and  doing,  you  know,  everything  else  and  changing  left  to  left  in  a  term.
 Yeah,  I,  I,  I.  not  be  using  it  at  all  at  that  point.  I  would  agree.  And  I  tell  people,  I  say  keep  it  in  your  pocket  number  one,  you  know,
 with  an  electric  motorcycle  you  don't  have  the  problem  with  the  vibrations.  But  you  know,  we  even  have,  and  I  don't  know  when  the  last  time  you've  been  in  Manhattan  was,  but  these  things  called  pedestrians  rich,
 they're  like  nothing  you've  ever  seen.  They  cross  against  the  light.  while  face  timing  or  putting  on  makeup.  I'm  not  just  even  the  women,  right?  Men,  whatever.
 I  mean,  they  do  everything  except  look  where  they're  going  and  they  cross  against  the  light.  So  it's  like,  and  that's  why  I  tell  people  like,  at  least  in  the  city,  like  if  you  go  out  to  the  country,  whatever  you  want  to  have  you  listen  to  your  music,
 or  turn  by  turn  do  it.  But  in  the  city,  there  should  be  no  reason  why  you  have  a  phone  and  that  leads  me  to  my  next  question.  You  sound  like  a  pretty  even -keeled  person,
 but  I've  only  known  you  for  like  35  or  40  minutes.  Did  you  ever  have  a  problem  or  no  people  that  ride  that  had  some  problems  with  experiencing  road  rage  while  they  ride  or  on  a  motorcycle?
 - Oh,  sure,  yeah.  Yeah,  there  was  a  woman  who  was  a  journalist  in  Los  Angeles  who  wasn't  actually  a  motorcycle.  She  was  an  avid  motorcyclist,
 an  electric  motorcyclist,  but  riding  her  bike  through  Los  Angeles  and  you  know,  came  up  to  a  stop,  stoplight,  and  you  know,
 somebody  in  a  car,  you  know,  came  buzzing  by  her  and,  you  know,  she  gave  her  an  angry  indication  with  her  hand  and  and  the  next  something  she  got  before  they  did  and  they  plowed  into  her.
 She  woke  up  three  days  here  in  the  hospital  from  my  home.  And  even  though  that  you're  not,  you  know,  you,  you  ride  every  day.  So  you're  probably  a  very  skilled  rider.  Um,  do  you  remember  the  TV  show  I  dream  of  Jeannie?
 Oh  yeah.  Oh  yeah.  Me  too.  That's  one  of  my  favorites  growing  up.  Let's  say  Barbara,  and  she's  still  alive.  She's  like  93.  I  don't.  know  if  you've  seen  her,  but  she's  still  doing  like  the  comic  con  and,
 you  know,  other  con,  you  know,  circuits,  you  know,  signing  things.  And,  but  let's  pretend  Barbara  Eden  was  here  with  us.  And  she  was  still  a  genie.  And  with  a  blink  of  her  eye,
 she  could  increase  or  improve,  let's  say,  one  facet  of  your  motorcycle  riding  skills  by  a  factor  of  five.  five.  What  factor?
 What  do  you  think  would  need  the  most  improvement  from  Barbara  Eaton  in  a  genie  suit?  You  know,
 I  would  ask  her  for  a  bigger  assembly  line  and  some  injection  and  passing  equipment.  But  you  know,  I  would  trade  that  at  this  point.
 But  yeah,  if  it  was  forced,  forced  to  decide  what  would  I  do  on  motorcycles.  So  as  I  said,  where  our  home  is,  we're  backed  up  on  this  big  off -road  part.
 And  I  guess  what  I  would  wish  for  was  the  time  and  the  skill  to  go  out  and  really  get  good  riding  off -road,  you  know,
 sliding  a  dirt  bike  around  and  get  really  comfortable  with  that.  that.  Oh,  you  didn't  have  a  chance  to  do  that  like  earlier  in  your  riding  career.  I  guess  that  in  Iowa,  maybe  not  a  lot  of  dirt  roads  or.
 Yeah,  there's  a  lot  of  dirt  roads,  but  you  know,  more  of  high  speeds,  right?  So  it's  still  different.  Yeah.  No,
 I  hear  you.  Yeah.  And  I  never,  even  though  I  grew  up  on  the  island  near  sand  and  beaches,  we  never  did  that  either.  My  first,  you  know,  bike  was  a  Kawasaki  and  I,  missed  that.  I  had  Trudy  Hardy,  who's  the  CMO  over  at  BMW  Motorrad  and  she  was  nice  enough  to  offer  me.
 She's  like,  Len,  why  don't  you  come  down  and  take  one  of  our  off -road  courses  down  in  Greer,  South  Carolina.  It'll  be  on  me  and  on  her.  I  said,  oh,  that's  great.  Thanks.  And  it's  just  tough  to  find  the  time  to  do  that,
 but  I  definitely  want  to  do  that  because  everybody  says  it  makes  you  such,  you  know,  a  better  rider.  rider.  Um,  when  you,  when  you  take  that,  you  know,  one  of  our,  one  of  our  engineers  and  employees  was  a  professional  road  racer  for  25,
 John  Higby,  race,  uh,  McCow  and,  you  know,  Daytona  race  for  Beall,  race  for  Ducati,  you  know,  really  talented  guy.  Yeah.  And  that  was  in  his  early  fifth,  takes  his,
 you  know,  100,  450  out  to  the  off  road.  Um,  and  he  has  a  course  out  there.  and  he  times  himself  and  tries  to  knock  a  couple  fractions  of  a  second  off  of  this  course  when  he  goes  out  there.
 And  it's  just,  you  know,  all  of  the  skills  of  being  able  to  just  have  the  muscle  memory  to,  you  know,  have  the  front  end,  you  know,  push  and  catch  it  in  the  rear  end  and  just  be  really  comfortable  with  that.
 You  know,  if  you're  out  in  a  situation  where,  you  know,  there's  a  wet  patch  in  the  road  and  you're  coming  in  a  little...  those  skills  that  just  be  invaluable.  That's  for  sure.
 I  want  to  talk  a  little  bit  about  hot  air.  And  by  that,  I  mean  the,  I  don't  know  if  you're  an  Instagram  person  or  not,  but  you  know,  my  feed  is  flooded  with  airbag  jeans  now  for  motorcyclists.
 And  of  course  we  have,  you  know,  companies  making  airbag  vests  and  jackets  and,  you  know,  neck  guards  and,  and  everything.  airbag  and  Honda  has  the  motorcycle  that  has  an  airbag  built  into  it.
 Um,  let's  talk  about,  have  you  seen  the  Honda  motorcycle  with  the  airbag?  Have  you  seen  any  videos  of  it  or  anything  like  that?  I  haven't.  No,  I've  seen  the  MotoGP  stuff.
 Okay.  Uh,  what  about,  all  right.  So  let's  talk  about,  do  you,  do  you  personally  wear  any  airbag  type,  uh,  safety  clothing  when  you're  riding?  riding?  Uh,
 I'm  not  currently,  but,  uh,  I  really  should.  Um,  yeah,  I,  um,  yeah,  I  don't,  but  I,  I  should.  I  agree.
 I  mean,  oh,  well,  let's  talk  about  what  is  your  typical,  do  you  ride,  you  know,  you  have  a  relatively  short  commute,  but  as  we  know,  you  never  know  when  you're  going  to  go  down,  what  is  your  typical,  you  know,
 riding  gear.  And  I  know  the  weather  is.  probably  pretty  good  You  know  most  of  the  year  round,  but  like  if  for  you  know  this  time  of  year,  what  are  you  riding?  What  are  you  putting  on?  You  know  right  to  the  office  Good  quality  easy  jacket,
 you  know  good  quality,  you  know  helmet  You  know,  it's  just  jeans  at  this  point,  you  know  good  lighting  shoes  Yeah,
 so  So  yeah,  not,  uh,  you  know,  not  all  the  gear  that,  that  would  be  useful,  but  I  got,  have  you  been  down  on  an  electric  bike  or  any  other  bike?  Uh,
 yeah.  Yeah.  I,  uh,  I  was  down  and  in,  uh,  I'm  one  of  the  gravel  roads  in  Iowa  when  I  was,  you  know,  fifth  and  two  hot  in  a  corner  and  thought  that  I  could  be  Kenny  Roberts  and  flat  track  it  through  and  it  didn't  quite  work  out  that  way  and  ended  up  high  sliding  and  sliding  down  collecting  a  lot  of  gravel  and  you  know  so  that  was  memorable  and  then  coming  out  of  Alice's  restaurant  testing  a  bike  there  was  a
 construction  zone  where  they  had  sprayed  the  asphalt  with  oil  and  then  put  sand  over  it  and  yeah  and  you  know  it  was  going  pretty  pretty  good.
 good  They  were  resurfacing  the  asphalt  and  I  was  following  the  lead  truck  and  we  came  around  the  corner  of  the  truck  chains  because  it  was  a  dump  truck  in  our  lane  dumping  more  sand  on  it  and  Just  I  like  it  was  really  low  grip  turned  the  bar  a  little  bit  too  fast  and  and  High -sided  You  know  totally  on  my  part  landed  on  a  shoulder  toward  my  shoulder.
 So  never  an  accident  with  another  vehicle,  it  sounds  like  then,  right?  No,  no.  Yeah,  I  did  a  whole  episode  of  the  Senate  to  you.
 It's  called  AMC,  all  my  crashes,  of  which  is  like  seven  and  25  years  or  so,  maybe  27  now.  And  I  think  three  or  four  have  been  with  uh,  uh,
 other  vehicles  in  three.  or  four  have  been  without.  And,  you  know,  I  remember,  and  one  of  the  things,  you  know,  especially  in  the  city,  maybe  not  so  much  where  you  are,  what  I  tell  people  is  even  if  you're  at  a  stoplight,
 that's  not  the  time  to  relax  because  you  have  these  cars  that  are  texting  and  they're  not  looking  and  they're  not  thinking  about  seeing  a  motorcycle  in  front  of  them.  And  about  a  month  after  9 /11,
 I  was  riding  a  BMW  R8.  and  I  was  at  a  stoplight  and  I  was  hit  by  a  bus,  a  New  York  City  bus  that  just  didn't  see  me.  And  back  then  we  had  cops  on  every  major  street  corner.
 And  thank  God  the  bus  was  like  maybe  going  10  miles  an  hour  by  the  time  he  realized,  but  you  know,  I  went  down  and  the  cops  came  over  and  they  picked  the  bike  off  of  me.  And  thankfully  the  bike  landed  not  on  the  exhaust  side.
 So  my  way  wasn't  you  know  burnt  or  anything  like  that  and  they  asked  me  they  said  hey  do  you  want  us  to  give  the  bus  driver  a  ticket  we  saw  the  whole  thing  it's  totally  his  fault  and  I  said  well  how's  the  bike  you  know  they  said  oh  it  seems  okay  it's  like  no  I  got  to  go  to  work  it's  okay  you  know  but  but  you  really  should  have  you  know  your  bike  in  neutral  I'm  sorry  in  gear  ready  to  move  and  look  at  your
 mirrors  because  you  don't  know  you  know  who's  coming  up  on  the  back  and  and,  um,  and  are,  so  are  you  near  that  famous,  uh,  Moholland  driver?  Is  that  a  different  part  of  California?  Yeah.  That's,
 that's  Southern  California.  Okay.  Have  you  ever  done  that?  Or  the  tail  of  the  dragon  or  any  famous  roads  like  that?  I  haven't  been  tail  of  the  dragon,  but,  uh,  you  know,  again,  near  Alice's  restaurant,
 you've  got  skyline  and  highway  nine  and,  you  know,  one  direction,  uh,  there's  like  20  miles  of,  you  know,  S  term.  on  top  and  12  the  other  way  and  14  the  other  way.
 It's  just,  you  know,  my  commute  in  was  when  I  lived  there,  it  was  just,  you  know,  every  day  was  an  adventure.  - And  you  know,
 quick  question  about,  you  know,  we'll  go  back  to  the  electric  bikes  real  quick  because  we  just  got  in,  and  this  is  not  even  a  sponsor  thing,  but  one  of  our  sponsors  is  an  insurance  company  for  motorcycles,  and  they  have...  a  unique  kind  of  pay  per  mile  thing.
 But  even  like,  you  know,  when  people  talk  about  it,  you  know,  so  and  they  find  most  motorcyclists,  you  arrive  less  than  3 ,500  miles  a  year  and  they'll  save  money,  etc.  But  I'm  curious  if  somebody  buys  a  lightning  motorcycle  tomorrow  and  then  they  have  progressive  or  all  state  and  when  they  say  how  many  cc's  is  your  bike,
 what  do  they  say  when  if  they  have  an  electric  motor?  Is  there  a  dropdown  that  says,  "How  many  kilowatt  hours  is  it?"  Or,  I  mean,  how  do  people  approach  that?  - I  think  that's  really  well  done  right  now.
 But  yeah,  but  they  had  been  originally  when  people  were  buying  the  bikes,  the  insurance  was  really  cheap.  And  then  over  the  years,
 the  insurance  in  California,  they've  been  looking  at  everything.  has  gone  way  up  including  including  our  bikes  but  when  you  say  that  the  first  time  we  went  to  Bonneville  you  know  to  try  to  set  a  speed  record  we  we  broke  the  did  the  first  run  broke  the  record  they  put  us  an  impound  and  the  over  to  tech  the  bike  and  so  he  has  a  little  you  know  clipboard  with  the  checklist  right  same  thing  you  know  CC  none  cylinders
 no  you  know,  valves,  none.  And  after  like  going  back  like  halfway  down,  he  said,  you  have  a  chair  in  a  bottle  of  water  and  supposed  to  be  here  for  a  little  while.
 Yeah,  I  don't  know.  I  mean,  I  guess  I'll  have  to  ask  some  of  my  friends  that,  I  don't  know  if  Eater  has  an  electric  bike.  I  think  he's  thinking  again.  I  know  we're  coming  up  on  an  hour.  You  got  another  two  or  three  minutes  just  to  hang  out  with  us  for  a  sec.
 Sure.  - Sure.  - Okay,  cool.  - I  hope  you  can  come  up  here  and,  you  know,  ride  one  of  our  bikes.  I  think  you'd  enjoy  it.  - I'm  sure  I  would,
 and  I'll  love  to  take  you  up  on  it  one  day.  Is  there,  well,  two  more  questions.  So,  and  I  probably  should  have  looked  on  the  website,  but  the  website's  going  so  good.  I  was  like  all  over  the  place.
 I  didn't,  how  does  somebody,  if  I  live  in  New  York  or  New  Jersey  or  Connecticut,  Connecticut,  do  you  have  a  dealer  network  or  they  sold  through,  how  does  one  buy  it?  Yeah,
 so  we're  kind  of  taking  the  Tesla  path,  right?  So  you  come  onto  the  website,  you  know,  build  your  bike,  decide  what  you  want,  the  place  of  the  order,  you  know,  we  ship  it  out  to  you  and  then  we  have  local  kind  of  third  party  maintenance  people  that  take  care  of  anything  that  they  need.
 And  again,  you  know,  most  of  it  is,  you  know,  change  in  tires.  But,  you  know,  any  good  shop  doing  that,  if  it's  beyond  that,  we  have,  you  know,  more  technical  shops  that  we  would  go  on  and  diagnose  the  problem  and  see  what  would  need  to  be  addressed.
 So  they  deliver  it  right  to  your  house,  like,  in  a  truck,  and  you  just,  they  give  you  the  keys.  I'm  sure  there's  not  a  key.  It's  probably  a  fob,  and  then  it's  yours.  And  then  it's  probably  not  even  a  600 -mile  break -in,  right?  Because  it's  not  an  engine.
 So  you  just  ride  it  till  yeah,  yeah  get  on  it  get  on  it  and  go.  There  you  go.  There  you  go  Hey,  we'll  be  right  back  with  the  rest  of  the  show  But  first  a  word  from  our  friends  over  at  boom  Motorcycle  insurance  now  if  you  love  your  motorcycle,
 but  hate  overpaying  for  anything  Including  insurance  boom  has  a  better  way  and  that  is  a  paper  mile  motorcycle  insurance  model  that's  designed  to  save  you  money  because  you  only  pay  for  the  miles  that  you  ride  and  they  offer  the  same  great  coverage  as  bigger  insurance  companies  but  at  a  lower  cost.
 Now  you  can  get  a  free  quote  by  clicking  on  the  link  on  the  show  notes  or  you  can  call  them  at  1 -888 -871 -2421  and  tell  them  you  were  referred  by  the  Rive  Alive  podcast  and  now  back  to  the  rest  of  the  show.
 Can  you  tell  me  one  of  your  most  memorable,  and  let's  make  it  since  we've  both,  maybe  been  the  last  10  or  15  years.  So  one  of  your  most  memorable  times  on  a  motorcycle  and  my  memorable,
 I  mean,  happy.  So  you're  up  to  say,  "Oh,  I  went  down  or  I  ran."  So  what  are  like  one  of  your  most  happy,  memorable  moments  riding  a  motorcycle  in  the  last,  let's  say,  15  years?  Yeah,
 that's  an  interesting  one.  I,  I,  you  know,  not  like  one  thing  really  jumps  out.  It's  just,  you  know,  blue  skies,  sun,  warm  day,  not  too  hot.  I'm  on  the  bike  and  it's  a,
 you  know,  nice  pervy  road  going  out  towards,  uh,  towards  binocles.  Um,  yeah.  Um,  I  was,  you  know,  there  was  one  time  I  was,
 you  know,  test  riding  a  customer  bike.  one  of  the  two  18s  with  140  horse  at  the  rear  wheel.  And  I  went  up  Skyline  and  down  Woodside  Road  and  I  just  had  this  great  ride  and  I  was  coming  back  in  where  our  facility  was.
 And  on,  you  know,  kind  of  a  just  a  two  lane,  you  know,  road  coming  back  into  the  more  populated  area.  And  I  just  got  this,
 you  know,  idea,  I  wonder  if  I  could  get  the  throttle  all  the  way  open  and  I  twisted  the  throttle  and  held  on  to  it  and  my  heart  rate  went  up  and  front  wheel  came  up  and  set  it  back  down  again  and  it  looked  at  speedometer.
 It  was  just  coming  down  under  90  at  that  point.  And  I  was  like,  okay,  that  was  a  day.  - And  that's  one  of  the  things  I  like  about  this.  You  know,
 I  mean,  I  go,  you  know,  we  have  a  lot  of  motorcycle  meetups  on  Tuesday,  we  do  some  group  rides,  you  know,  on  the  weekends  with  people.  And  then  I  also  appreciate,  you  know,  the  solo  rides.  And  just  this  last  fall,
 I  had  a  wonderful  opportunity  to  visit  the  sets  of  two  of  my  favorite  movies  and  probably  the  last  25  years.  The  Blair  Witch  Project,
 I  went  to  Berkinsville,  Maryland,  which  is  about  six  and  Berkinsville,  Maryland  has  about  is  has  exactly.  150  people.  I  could  probably  throw  a  baseball  from  one  end  of  Berkinsville  to  the  other.
 But  it  does  have  a  little  patch  of  dirt  roads  that  I  went  in  just  as  it  was  getting  dark.  And  I  got  out  just  before  'cause  I  didn't  want  to  experience  the  Blair  Witch.  And  then  I  went  over  the,
 the  Francis  Scott  Key  Bridge,  you  know,  before  that  happened.  And  I  went  into  Delaware  to  the  St.  Andrews  School  where  they  filmed.  filmed  the  Dead  Poets  Society  and  the  roads  there.
 Yeah,  it  was  great.  And  it  was  one  of  my  favorite  movies,  you  know.  And  would  you  believe  that  they  would  not  let  a  55 -year -old  man  on  a  motorcycle  into  the  St.
 Andrews  School  parking  lot?  What  was  the  reason?  They  just  don't  let  anybody.  No,  I  was,  you  know,  I  was  just,  yeah,  I  just  went  up,
 but  no.  But  no,  but  I  went,  but  you  can  see  it  fine  from  the,  from  the  front.  And  I  had  a  very  nice  conversation  with  the  security  guard  who's  about  my  age  is  like,  listen,  I  can't  let  you  ride  in  here,  but  you  can  ride  around.
 And,  you  know,  he  told  me  the  history  of  the  school  and  we  talked  for  like  20  minutes.  And,  you  know,  we  both  were  fans  of,  of  Morrissey  and  the  Smith.  So  we  talked  about  10,  him  for  10  minutes.
 So  it  was  really,  really  ended  up  being  a  nice  conversation.  You  meet  the  nicest  people.  I  hate  to  say  it.  you  know,  the  old,  you  meet  the  nicest  people  on  a  Honda.  I  think  you  just  meet  the  nicest  people,  you  know,  motorcycling.  Have  you  ever  seen  the  movie,
 "Why  We  Ride"?  I  have,  yeah.  It's  one  of  my  favorite,  you  know,  I  had  Brian  Carroll  on  the  show  a  couple  of  years  ago,  he  was  great.  We  talk  about  that  movie  a  lot  with  our,
 you  know,  friends  and  people  that  we  ride.  And  we  had,  we  actually  rented  out  an  area  of  a  restaurant  where  we  had  about  25  people  watch  it  right  in  February.  February  because  you  know  We  were  getting  stir  crazy  here  in  the  winter.
 So  we  had  to  do  that.  So  I've  seen  a  few  times  about  Billy  Joel's  collection  and  in  his  shop  is  that  something  you've  ever  been  by?
 As  a  matter  of  fact,  yes,  and  I'll  send  you  some  pictures  he's  got  what  quite  the  collection  I  tell  you  and  it's  only  about  30  minute  minute  ride  from  here.
 It's  on  the  north  shore  of  Long  Island,  which  is  kind  of  like  a  little  bit  more,  you  know,  a  little  bit  more  older  money,  but  he's  got  a  beautiful  place  there.  He's  got  every  type  of  different,  he's  got  Ducati,
 he's  got  Harley,  he's  got  some  old,  he's  got  an  old  VW.  Remember,  remember  that  Herbie  car  from  the  Herbie  movies,  the  VW  bug?  Yeah.  Yeah.  He's  got  one  of  those  in  there,  but  so  it's  like  mostly  motorcycles  and  they're  all  organized,
 you  know,  very  well.  And  yeah,  so  if  you  ever  come  out  here,  we'll  have  to  take  a  ride  out  there.  Anyway,  I  know  you  got  to  get  going.  I  definitely  appreciate  the  time.  We're  going  to  put  some  links  to,  of  course,
 lightning,  more  information.  I  know  you  have  Instagram,  your  website,  so  people  can  find  you.  And  thanks  again  for  being  on  the  show.  Yeah,  thanks  for  having  me.  You  know,
 one  of  the  great  things  about  hosting  this  show  is  I  get  to  speak  to  passionate  people  and  Richard  is  certainly  one  of  them  and  his  Line  up  of  electric  motorcycles  are  definitely  performance  oriented  So  if  you  like  performance,
 you'll  probably  love  electric  motorcycle  and  while  nobody  knows  what  the  future  holds  I  would  think  that  there's  definitely  a  place  for  electric  motorcycles  somewhere  In  our  sport  in  our  hearts  in  our  hobbies  that  type  of  thing  So  I  want  to  thank  everybody  that  made  the  show  possible.
 Number  one,  our  vice  president  of  music,  Rob  McLaughlin  of  the  West  Coast  Hearts,  our  vice  president  of  commercial  music,  Mr.  Liam  Murray  from  Queens,
 New  York.  And  I  want  to  thank  people  like  you  for  listening  to  the  show.  Hey,  if  you  have  a  moment,  please  rate  or  review  the  show.  You  can  go  to  arrivealivepodcast .com.
 You'll  see  tools  to  do  that.  You  can  also  email  me  at  arrivealivepodcast @gmail .com.  Or  like  I  said  earlier,  you  can  leave  a  voicemail.
 Go  to  arrivealivepodcast .com.  You  will  see  a  microphone.  Feel  free  to  leave  me  a  message.  Only  I  get  it.  Don't  worry  about  that.  So  until  next  time,  my  friends,
 have  a  great  day  and  thanks  again  for  listening.