Toy (Hauler) Story

April 17, 2018

Ash & I are at Summer Lake Hot Springs near Paisley, OR. We stopped here for the night to catch up on email and blogs, and relax a bit after an awesome weekend working with the Rawhyde Adventures team at their Adventure Days event in California.

Rawhyde Adventure Days

Huge thanks to Jim & Stephanie Hyde, and the entire Rawhyde team, for hosting another epic, flawless, and totally fun event. Rawhyde Adventures – if you haven’t heard of it – is an official BMW Adventure Training School located on a beautiful 120 acre ranch in the Southern California mountains. It’s a totally unique experience, check it out.

Orientation on the first night.

Our booth.

This being our first road show of the year, we remembered to bring bags but completely forgot to bring stuffing. We found some gift wrap and and party balloons in town, which worked fine, and also set a festive mood for the weekend. Thanks for the idea JC!

This is Jim Hyde, adventure riding pioneer and the founder of Rawhyde, demonstrating the ‘safe way’ to retrieve drones from trees

Ash and I did two presentations at the event. One was on ‘Time’ as it relates to extended international motorcycle travel (i.e. how much time you need, and how to get it without quitting your job), and one on how Mosko Moto was started.

Exchanging Baja notes with some fellow moto travelers, who were headed south from the event.

Saturday night raffle.

Mosko Mobile Office

For the last 4 years, I’ve been crisscrossing the country for motorcycle shows with my camper and trailer. Here’s what that rig looks like.

The camper worked great when I was working shows solo, and I was only on the road for a couple weeks at a time. Now Ash and I travel everywhere together, plus we’ve added two dogs to the team, Kade and Brady. The camper doesn’t feel quite as big as it once did, plus we’re working double the number of shows, so the road trips are getting significantly longer.

So we decided to get something bigger. Like, a lot bigger.

In fact, the new rig is so big that I feel kind of silly towing it around. It sure does make the long road trips a lot more fun though. Ash and I spend a lot of nights in rest areas, truck stops, and Walmart parking lots (like 4 of the last 7 nights for example). It’s really nice to have some living space and enough fresh water to take showers.

The new Mosko rig has a separate bedroom, lots more living space, a garage for bikes and samples, and 3 extra beds for the rest of the team. Here’s a photo tour.

This is the view of Summer Lake.

This is the garage, when we were packing for California last week.

We had our first mechanical issue in Cali. A banjo bolt failed on the hydraulic jacks. Big thanks to Phil @ Rawhyde, who’s a wizard with all things mechanical. He welded the broken bolt back together, and got us back on the road.

Apparel Revisions

Over the last 2 months, Andrew, Ash, Lee, Chris and I have all spent a bunch of time in the new Mosko riding gear. We also got a bunch of feedback from our 6 independent gear testers. There was lots of overlap in the feedback, so we headed to Portland last week to meet with Maia & Gary at S Group and document the final revisions.

The bearded dude in the pics below who is not Lee or Andrew, is Scott Bryan. He’s joining the Mosko team in May (from DaKine) to head the Mosko apparel program. Scott’s in Asia at the moment wrapping up some final design projects for DaKine. We’re SO stoked to have him on the team. Much more on Scott soon.

The new Basilisk label looks awesome! Thanks Dan Cox.

These two binders contain one-each of our trims and fabrics on the jacket and pants. Apparel is very complicated.

If you follow us online, or if you saw our latest ad in Upshift Online, maybe you noticed the new riding diaper we introduced on the first of April. More info on our website here: Mosko Technical Riding Diaper.

Backcountry 35 v3.0

We’re working on the Backcountry 35 pannier v3.0. If you have suggestions, please share them on our advrider.com thread soon. We hope to wrap this up in the next few weeks.

We’re designing a new locking system for v3.0, as an alternative to the Steelcore locking straps and locking latch. This sliding cable lock would lock the bag closed, and also lock the bag to the bike.

Andrew has been in Taiwan, developing ideas for a new custom lock. We’re also brainstorming ideas for a custom latch as well.

Reckless 10/40 Mounting

We’re experimenting with a new mounting option for the Reckless 40/10. If it works, this would fit pretty much any dirt bike, no drilling required.

Death Valley

Andrew spent a week in Death Valley, riding with the BC35 v3.0, the new BC35 cinch, and the latest apparel prototypes. Looks like another epic trip, wish I’d been there!

Other News

Huge thanks to Pedro Garcia at Taller de Diseno in Monterrey, Mexico for sending a surprise gift of this awesome Mosko Moto lettering. This is now the very first thing you see when you walk into the new Mosko shop. Thanks Pedro!!

Check out Ash’s ‘Industry Insider’ article in the April edition of Upshift Online.

Jason at Future Folk Supply in Parkdale, OR started welding up some cool new bag displays for rallies and shows. We hope to have them for the BMW MOA event in Idaho in July.

Paul Arcaria & Aida Valenti got the first-ever Mosko Moto tattoos last week in Peru. So cool! Ash & I are next. Follow Paul & Aida’s world travels here: Life Unloaded RTW

The UNRally

Last week, Ash and I stopped on the road for Chinese food. A fortune cookie said:

“The UNRally is happening. Lucky Numbers 6,7,10,20,18”

We ate that cookie, so the fortune must be true.

If you’re unsure what an ‘UNRally’ is, join the club. We know where it is (Alvord Desert in SE Oregon), and we know when (June 7-10, 2018), but we’re hoping someone emails us what before then.

Let Me Google That For You found this weird post from last year. Also this link to sign up.

A little birdie said attendance this year is limited by the not-so-little BLM, so if you’d like to join us, now’s the time to sign up. Everyone in the pic below hopes to see you there.