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Never wrestle with a pig.
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You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. You've got a brand new, shiny ADV bike, and while the trips to Starbucks have been a lot of fun, you're thinking of getting the bike a little dirty. If you've always been a pavement rider, venturing out onto the dirt can feel a bit overwhelming. Meanwhile, if you've ridden dirt, but never with a giant ADV bike, it too can seem challenging. We'll cover a variety of ways to get your ADV bike a little dirty, from local exploration to multi-day trips, and cover some training that can help make it feel a little bit less intimidating. So grab a fistful of Throttle and kick up a roost of dirt.
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Keeping it easy for you to get started, I think is really a critical point for this.
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So looking at something that's local to you will really, really help. And if you're a brand new rider, you've never taken a bike off-road off-pavement, more to the point, it really is something that you can get started with in a very easy way.
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And the one that I would suggest that's probably the most approachable and the least intimidating would be to start in like a gravel parking lot.
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You're probably going to find something like this somewhere nearby where you live, you can at least have a little bit of experience of what it is like to get on something that is not pavement. And of course, there's a couple different varieties of these gravel parking lots. Some will be relatively hard-packed.
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Some will be looser gravel. And so you can try a little bit of variation to sort of see you're going to expect as you're riding in these situations. And the great thing about this is it's not so intimidating that you're like, oh, wow, now I'm miles deep into something and I'm stuck away. You're really just going into a parking lot. So it can feel a little bit more manageable The thing to realize is when you are going off of pavement, the bike will naturally move a little bit underneath you. And as a consequence of that, you just have to adapt and you're shifting your balance on the bike a little bit just to be comfortable with it. And that little bit of movement is just a normal part of it. And if you really want to sort of push yourself as you get a little bit further into it, you might even knock on that throttle a little bit and get the rear end a little wiggly see what it feels like. Now, if your bike has traction control, it might temper that and prevent you from doing it. But if you have an older bike, this is another great technique that you can do.
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So when I had my last GS, for example, anytime I would go and get onto a new piece of dirt road or whatever I was on, in order to kind of see like, well, what's the traction level for this bike with my tires, I would just whomp on the throttle until I got the rear end to break loose. And then I kind of, in my head, I sort of knew exactly what that throttle position was, where it would start to break traction. And then I knew I had to be below that if I wanted to maintain traction. And so that sort of learning of how that traction in that condition will help make it a little bit easier for you. So I think that parking lot is probably the easiest way to begin. Now, the next thing that I'd say that can be another option for you is to look at some dirt roads that are near the key thing is roads, not trails. public roads will oftentimes have some ratings in terms of how much they maintained when it comes to being a dirt road. So, some of the, the simplest roads, if you will, the ones that are actually most close to pavement, would be sometimes called like a class one or a maintained unpaved road.
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I like to call these dirty roads because some of them are so pristine and in such great condition that they basically feel like pavement. They just happen to not be asphalt or concrete. They're literally just dirt roads. But they tend to be very easy. They can be ridden even on non-ADV bikes. I've ridden them on a sport bike. I mean, not going for, you know, hours and on hours on it, but if you need to do a quick little jaunt on a road for it, it's not a big deal. So, they're pretty approachable to most everybody, and they're going to feel a lot like that parking lot. But now, instead of it being just, hey, you're on one parking lot, you're actually traveling along that road. So, it's a next step that makes it really easy for you if you're just getting started with getting that bike a little dirty. Same thing if you are an experienced dirt rider.
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Now, you're dealing with a very large bike. And while you might be able to manhandle a light dirt bike, when you've got a large ADV bike, that's not the same thing that you're going to have. It's a much different style of riding because the bike does not respond quite as quickly as a 250-300 pound dirt bike would. You're usually riding something that's 450, 500, 550, even 600 pounds for the big GSA today. So, it's a big bike.
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And it's not going to respond quite as quickly. So, trying it out on some of gravel parking lots, the Class 1 or very well-maintained unpaved roads, is going to be a good starting point. As you start to get a little bit more comfortable with that, maybe even as a beginner you get onto that road and you feel, oh, well, this is actually pretty easy. It's no big deal.
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As I say, that's why I call them a dirty road. It's not really a dirt road.
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would be a Class 2 or a semi-maintained roads. Many of these will oftentimes have some minor ruts. They might have grades that are up to maybe about 15 degrees. And often, these can still be completed with a road-biased ADV tire.
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Things like the although a more aggressive tire will, of course, be easier. These are just starting to make you feel a little bit more uncomfortable with where, yes, it's dirt, but now it may not be smooth dirt.
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And you've got to deal with the way that the suspension is going to shift around on you. You've got to navigate and pick your line that you're going to go over these ruts and realize that it's going to upset the suspension a little bit. And how do you manage that? How do you position yourself on the bike?
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And you're going to get more comfortable with that. As you get into being maybe a little bit more a late beginner, maybe even into an intermediate, possibly even an advanced rider, you might start to look at maybe the class three or the unmaintained roads. Sometimes these are called seasonally maintained roads. So they do maintain them for part of the year, but not the full year. And these will oftentimes have larger ruts. They might have washes. They may have water crossings, maybe even as deep as like six inches and grades of like 20 degrees or even more.
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Aggressive tires really do help a lot in these type of roads because they'll tend to be fairly loose conditions with all of that. The rutting and the washouts that are coming, the water is just going to run across and it's going to take some of that material with it.
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And it's because it's just loosened up so much. It's not been maintained and compacted down like that class one road would be. So it's just going to be a little bit more challenging.
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Now, often these types of roads form the basis for some of the ADV trails like the backcountry discovery routes, the Transamerica Trail, the TransZero Trail, because they're still public roads, but they're just maybe the harder to travel upon public roads. I think that's where I think maybe the next level that you might consider makes a lot of sense because in the realm of kind of going beyond your local roads, and you may not have some of these type of roads local to you.
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I'm fortunate that in the town where I live, roughly about half of our roads are unpaved. And the beauty of that is you can just get out and hit some dirt.
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Now, the reality is most of the roads in my town happen to be what I would call more like that class one. They're very well maintained. They really don't have ruts, the worst they might get is maybe a couple bumps in them, but they're really well maintained. There are some areas that are closer by to me where I can get into some of those class two roads and class three, but they may not be something that everybody has local to them.
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And so you might consider looking at the next level, which is where maybe you have to travel a little bit to get to some of these roads. maybe even partake on something that's even a longer trip that you might do.
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here in the Eastern United States where I the first one I'll talk about is actually down in southern New Jersey. There's an area called the Pine Barrens.
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the cool thing about this is it's really just a lot of like sand. It's almost as though it was an inland lake or inland ocean at some point. And there's just a lot of sugar sand.
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There's a bunch cranberry bogs that are nearby that area as well. So you are kind of in this in this interesting area that you're riding through. But because of that sand, it is a big challenge and especially on a big ADV bike, because that sand is really, really, really loose. There's also a lot of water crossings that you're going to have down there. it can be very, very challenging, especially on a big bike. And these are still public roads. so you are still traveling along what is a thoroughfare. There's just not as much traffic, of course, but it is something that is approachable The other one that I'd say for the Northeast, and this is one that I used to run a annual trip out of New York City. And I called it the GS trip or the going scenic trip.
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And the intent was it was really focused towards the BMW GS that was, you know, the bike that I was riding and a lot of my friends were riding. And the idea is we were trying to hit as much dirt as possible between New York City and the Canadian border. And we would go up through New York into Massachusetts and Massachusetts.
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We pretty much did the Transmass Trail. this is, I'd say most of it is pretty easy, like a Class 1 or Class 2 road most of the time. There are a couple of sections that would be more of a Class 3, but it's a pretty approachable and it's a good beginner style of route. And this will take you through running basically from North to south along into Massachusetts.
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And then you can connect this into the puppy dog route up in Vermont. And this will tend to have maybe a little bit more of the seasonally maintained, more of those Class 3 type roads.
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There's more ruts, more water even loose gravel or rocky road beds. it's a good mix, I'd say.
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So the beauty of this trip is we would do it over four days we were camping each night. And we basically spent three days getting up to the Canadian border and we would stay up in one of the ski resorts right on the Canadian border. And then we would come back down the last day on the fourth day and just slab it back home just to make it really quick. So three days to go up and then another day to come back. So it was about a 1,000 mile round for that particular ride. The beauty of this is both the Transmass and the Puppy Dog Route are within spitting distance of a huge amount of population in the Northeast. so these are easily accessible to a huge, huge number of riders. Now, another one that you can look at would be the backcountry discovery routes. Now, the BDR has many routes across the US, and a classic BDR is typically 600 to 1300 miles in length, and it can be completed in about 5 to 9 days. And while these are a lot of fun, that time commitment can be a bit much for people. So, they've started to add in these BDRX routes, and they're really meant to be a loop. And oftentimes, we'll contain or share some legs with a full BDR, but they can be completed in about 3 to 5 days. And the other advantage of them being a loop, is that you can start at any entry point to continue. So, you could maybe say, "Hey, I'm only going to do part of the BDRX, and I'll do 2 days, let's say, on a weekend, and then the next weekend I'll come back and I'll do the other 2 days of that route." So, it's a nice way that you can easily break up the trip, but still have it manageable, without burden, let's say, in terms of time for a full BDR.
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Now, if you're in the eastern states, I'll say, you know, one of the easiest routes that's out there, so if you're just beginning, I'd say is the mid-Atlantic BDR. So, the backcountry discovery routes, they kind of rate this as a beginner plus, with the idea being that if it's bad weather, or there particularly bad road conditions, it can become a little bit more challenging in spots, at least in my experience with it. It's pretty achievable by most everybody. There's a couple of water crossings, but they were never really that deep, although, obviously, a lot of rain, it might change that. But it's a pretty accessible thing to a lot of riders. Now, closely related to that, of course, is the PA Wilds BDRX, this actually shares several sections of the mid-Atlantic BDR with the BDRX, and this is also that same sort of easy to intermediate, so good starting point for most people.
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One of the things that you'll find on the eastern seaboard of the US is this is one of the most densely populated parts of the country. So, this does make finding ADV routes a bit more challenging, and this is why these routes that I'm discussing here from backcountry discovery routes are relatively new from that organization because a lot of their focus was out west, which is where there's a lot more options and a lot more opportunity to find ADV style riding, whereas on the east coast, it's a little bit more challenging. The last one that they have released here is the Northeast BDR. Now, this is, in some ways, hits some similar roads, or even shares some of the roads that we saw on the Trans Mass Trail and the Puppy Dog Route, although I believe it's more likely that you'll find it in the Puppy Dog Route type of areas. The big thing here is, this is going to be much more of an intermediate to advanced type of ride. It's definitely going to require more skill. And so, if you are on a full R1200 GSA or the R1300 GSA that's 600 pounds, it's going to be a handful to kind of make it through this. So, be mindful of which bike you have and where you want to go. For me personally, this is why I actually got the F900 GS is I wanted to use that bike for the Northeast BDR because it is significantly lighter than my old GSA was and just makes it a lot easier to get through those type of conditions. Now, if you're in more of the central part of the US, you could look at things like the Big Bend Texas BDRX. This is another intermediate to advanced type of a route. in Georgia, they have the Chattahoochee BDRX, which is targeted towards intermediate riders. Out West though, you have so many different options and in fact, a lot of riders before these other routes in the eastern and central states became available. What people would do is they might, you know, rent some bikes out there or they would ship their bikes out West because there's just a plethora of rides that are out there it's insane. You've got things in Arizona, in California, in Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington, Black Hills of South Dakota, Red Desert of Oregon. There's a couple of sections of Oregon, the BDRX and the full Oregon BDR. There's stuff in Utah and of course the full BDR. if you want to do a full route out there, there are a ton of options. But the big thing with the Western states is that the easiest of the routes out there will be more towards an intermediate style of rider.
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So, you'll probably want to do some of these things that we talked about, if more of that, hey, do some of your local roads first just to get a feel for it before you want to go and jump out to doing a full BDR out west because they are going to be more challenging. And in some situations, especially like Colorado's BDR, you're getting up into the mountains and if you have maybe a fear of heights, remember a lot of these roads being dirt roads, won't have guard rails so it can feel a little intimidating looking at the drop that's next to you. So there may be something that you look at as a later stage that you would participate in. We're also fortunate in the U. S. that we have the Transamerica Trail.
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Now this is a trail that goes from the east to the west tries to hit as many dirt roads as possible over its entire duration. The beauty of this is that there are so many sections and they're really crossing across the entire U. S. that you probably have something that is reachable from wherever you are in the country. So you can at least hit some sections of it.
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if you are maybe further up in the northern part of the United States, it might be a little bit more challenging, but there's still a lot of options. And this is why I wanted to kind of give a broad range of some of these type of roads that are available out there for you to just get your bike a little bit dirty.
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Now, of course, a lot of our listeners are in Europe, and Europe has some similar challenges that we have here in the northeast United States in that it's very densely populated.
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There are not as many options for getting off pavement as you would have, let's say, in less populated areas. So if you're in the western United States, there's huge areas of just natural land. If you're down in the outback in Australia, you've got huge options out there, Africa, huge options. But in Europe, it's going to be a little bit more challenging to find some stuff. And it doesn't mean that there aren't areas.
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The U. K. has a lot of green lanes that are available that you can take and just explore.
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But one of the really cool things is a project that was put together that's in its vein very similar to what we have with the backcountry discovery routes here in the United States. And this is the Trans-Euro Trail. A Trans-Euro Trail is a hundred thousand kilometers of trails all throughout Europe. And the legs can be picked up from most anywhere in Europe. So you've got things that are reachable.
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You could do a weekend and hit a couple of sections. So it's another great way that you can extend it and turn it into a multi-day trip, which can be a sort of a fun experience. I did want to give a bit of a what are the variety of ADV-style trips and trails that you could sort of follow. And when I say trails in realm, I really mean roads.
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Because all of these ones that I've covered, these are technically publicly accessible roads. And there are some pavement sections in most as well, because you do have to connect dirt roads together.
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But what I would say is if trying to move beyond that sort of that local environment where you've hit some local roads into there, it may be worthwhile for you to get some training. And you know what?
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You've probably heard me on this podcast before. I've talked about how training I think is something that a lot of motorcyclists need to take more advantage of. Because one of the challenges is as you're riding going along and you think you're doing amazing, your own ego is going to play a role in almost hiding the faults that you have in your technique. So having a person who's really skilled at being able to observe you and then make tips and suggestions to you on how to improve it can really help step your game up a little bit. there's a number of different courses that are available. So here in the United States, of course, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation offers a lot of training for basic riding. But they actually have something called the Adventure Bike Rider Course. And the goal of this is, again, it's meant to get you out on some dirt and give some feedback to you of how you're actually riding We talked about the Backcountry Discovery Routes and a big fan of what they do. But they actually have a great resource of several US-based trainers all around the country that can help guide you on riding your adventure bike off-road. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes, but there's just a ton that they talk about. And if you're in the UK, you might want to look at Magellan Motorcycle Tours. They are a tour operator that will do tours throughout UK most Europe.
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They actually have some winter training in Spain specifically oriented towards adventure riders. So, that might be a good option for you to take a look at.
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Another good resource in Europe would be to look at BMW. And they have a lot of these throughout Europe oriented towards riders of all different skill levels. So, if you're a beginner or an intermediate or an advanced rider, they're going to have training classes that will hit each one of those levels to just help you continue to grow and cultivate your skill set. no matter whether you're in the United States, whether you're in Europe or other parts of the training is something that I would really encourage you to just take advantage of to bring up your skill levels as you're starting to think about some of these longer trips. And just how to really make them as successful as possible. So, the worst thing that could happen is you go in naively and you say, oh, I'm going to go and hit an advanced level BDR and I've never taken my ADV bike off-road.
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And you're doing it on street tires. You're going to have a really terrible experience. And it'll probably bite you and you will say, I never want to take my bike off-road. So, ease into it.
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Now, the thing is, we've talked for most of this episode thus far really about what I'd call our non-paved roads. These are actually roads that are public thoroughfares that you can travel along. Some people will think about trails. And trails is really where dirt bikes really spend most of their time. These are not public thoroughfares. It's not typically something that you're going to find like a car or a truck driving along. They're really something that's a little bit more technical. definitely far more elevation changes.
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They're much tighter turns. And if you've hit all the public dirt roads, you've done all of these big trails, the Transamerica, the Trans Euro Trail, all the backcountry discovery routes, you might be looking for something even further. And this is where you might consider a trail. Now, the thing I'll say is, while any ADV bike can hit the trails, they aren't necessarily the easiest bike to get through those.
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There's a reason why dual sport bikes and dirt bikes exist That lightweight bike, with a huge amount of suspension travel is going to be substantially easier to manuver through these tight, twisty sections of a trail than your 500-600-pound ADV bike. the weight that we have in an ADV bike, while it helps for stability at highway speeds, it allows us to have that larger engine that we want for traveling long distance over big highways. That does make picking it up a lot more tiring. And this is why you, while you can take your ADV bike out on a trail, and I've personally done it as well, it can be more challenging. So it's something that I would say, get through some of unpaved roads first before you consider getting into it. And if you really get the bug, you get this really super excitement about getting out in the dirt, you may even still consider maybe getting a dual sport, or at the very least, a lightweight to mid-weight ADV bike. To make it a little bit easier for ya'. This is why, personally, I downsized from my boxer-based GSA down to the F900GS because it just was fitting better for the kind of off-road riding that I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to go on more technical trails, on more technical dirt, then was practical with the big boxer.
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And this sort of hit the middle point for me quite well because I, if I want to get to the trails, I've got at least 100 miles to even get to them. So I'm not doing it on a KTM 500.
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It's just not realistic to ride 100 miles up highway just to get to that. But if you're nearby that, you might consider one of the or lower capacity dual sports, lighter weight dual sports, just to make this easier.
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And I will say the first time that I actually ever rode like a KTM 500 was I had my big 560-pound R1200 GSA out on some trails and it's a big, big bike.
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one of the other riders there was on a KTM 500 and he offered to let me try it out. And we rode, you know, rode a few miles and he rode my bike. And I literally have to say, it felt like cheating. Everything that was like really a struggle and you were everything you could do possibly on your ADV bike. Just felt like, oh my God, this is so simple on this bike. It really felt like cheating. just be thoughtful of a big ADV bike is awesome. It's a great touring bike. And if you want to do these tours on the dirt roads that are around the globe, they're phenomenal for it. But if you want to get on the trails, there's a reason why dual sports and lighter dirt bikes exist.
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we covered trying some local dirt roads near where you live to get a little taste of what taking ADV bike off pavement might be like. And even a simple gravel parking lot can help and give you that experience. We then looked at the next level that many ADV focused routes are there put out by organizations like the BDR, Transamerica Trail and Trans Euro Trail. And these multi-day adventures can bring you into areas you'd never explored before. And the trip can be a great way to get some dirt underneath your wheels. We also looked training to level up your riding and having a knowledgeable instructor who's observing your riding and offering trips really can help improve your skills. And we touched on trails, which could be the next horizon. Though for many ADV bikes, they could be a lot more challenging. But then you might think about doing a smaller dual sport or dirt bike for those situations. So my question for you is, have you taken your ADV bike off pavement?
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And if so, where? Share your thoughts through the text of the show link in the show notes, or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail.
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Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.