The Grey NATO - Ep 44 - The English Tour

Published on Tue, 03 Oct 2017 09:52:23 -0400

Synopsis

The podcast features an interview with Nick and Giles English of Bremont Watches about their "English Tour", where they drove classic Jaguar and Porsche cars across the United States, making stops at various Bremont retailers and events. They discuss the logistics, challenges, and experiences of undertaking such a unique road trip with vintage automobiles. The interview provides insight into the planning, execution, and personal connections made during the tour, highlighting Bremont's dedication to connecting with their customers and incorporating their passions into brand experiences.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Welcome to episode 44 of the Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. Thanks for listening. This episode of the Grey Nado is brought to you by Kill Hubris, a clothing company run by fellow watch geek Sam and built around the idea that we should treat others like we want to be treated. The brand offers supremely comfortable pocket tees, graphic tees, raglins, and sweatshirts, along with leather goods, coffee mugs, and other accessories. Check out killhubris.com, more on the brand later in the show, including some new releases. Killhubris, when you believe in something, it's always statement season. We start today's episode on the road with Nick and Giles English of Bremont Watches. I tagged along for a few days of their English tour, and we sat down a couple times to chat about the tour, their cars, and more. Stay tuned, as after the interview, Jason and I will wrap up the show with a solid set of final notes. But first, we pick up the story in Memphis, Tennessee. Alright, so we're here in the corner of a parking lot next to Graceland in Memphis, and the Jag's broken again, so I figured we would, uh... Broken's a strong word. The Jag needs a little bit of TLC, so I figured it was a good time to do a bit of recording. I'm here with Nick and Giles English of Bremont Watches and we're on the English tour. How's it going guys?
Nick English It's a lot of fun and clearly when you're taking two pretty old cars down over 2,000 or 3,000 miles, I think we've done 2,000 today, you're going to get the odd little mod you need to do. But no, we have had sort of a few brake and clutch issues, but it's Tremendous fun. And just seeing this incredible country is just amazing. And you wouldn't see it if we didn't do it this way, really.
James Stacey For sure. Now, where did you you kicked off in New York?
Nick English Yeah. So basically start just north of New York and head down through Philadelphia, Washington. And we did this amazing route down through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Winston, Salem, Charlotte, Charleston. Where do we go next? Atlanta, Huntsville, and now we're in Memphis. So We're going to end up in Texas.
James Stacey It ends up in Texas in just a couple of days, I guess.
Nick English Um, yeah. In two or three days time. Yeah. A lot of fun.
James Stacey And, uh, we, uh, we checked out Graceland yesterday. So Memphis is, uh, Memphis is a treat, right?
Giles English Well, I was at Graceland on my birthday. So how cool is that? And I think it's growing up as a child, there's one place in America I really wanted to do for, um, for everything relating to Elvis and music, come to Memphis. Elvis's house isn't quite as big as it always looked in the TV and the photos, but what a great place.
James Stacey Yeah, and I mean, so we've got Giles on the mic currently. At a high level, why do this? Because it's not just you guys in two cars. You also have two support vehicles, a full support trailer, an on-site mechanic, and Various people kind of fixing things so that you can keep the road not just cars just fixers you have like why do this? What was the idea a year ago or whatever when you decided you wanted to try something like this?
Giles English Yeah, I mean, it's a slightly sort of mad thing to do but it Originally we were thinking about doing a flying trip through the u.s And I had a plane crash and that sort of puts in an old biplane and and that put a lot of that's a trip to bed and the complications. So we'd always personally wanted to go and discover America. And we've been so many times, but it's mostly the towns, the cities, but not actually see the countryside. So that was a sort of a strong reason for doing it. And we had these two old cars that, you know, the type my father restored when we were children. It's been the family forever and it's a very personal thing. And the Porsche 911 1973 that I bought when I was 21, I think it was, sort of had forever as well. And we thought, let's go and do this road trip. And if we could tie in with actually coming and seeing our retailers. So there is a reason for that as well. We could really make the most of it.
James Stacey And the turnout so far has been
Giles English Oh, we've had amazing turnout. So it's, I think it's very easy in in what you do as a as a company is to not actually meet people who buy your watches and America is such an important market to us. So it's been a lovely to connect with watch collectors, obviously our retailers and see them a couple of these retailers I've never been to before. So sure. So it's been a wonderful connection.
James Stacey Yeah, we were at Medna Cow Jewelers last night in Memphis here, and I was really blown away. Connect is the right word, I think, because people came in, and they saw the watches, and they heard you guys speak, and they got to go kind of hands-on, try on anything they wanted. And then the cars really draw a certain type of watch guy and gal. Like, just, it's a real watch crowd that seems to be pulled directly to these cars. And, you know, it was a fairly small parking lot at this jewelry store in Memphis, and they had a bunch of people rocked up and brought their cars, they just kind of got it. I don't think I at least I didn't see any messaging that said bring a cool car if you have it. People just kind of saw what you guys are doing. And I think it's taking an interesting car, especially a car that's been with you or your family for a long time and driving it a long distance is a fairly American thing. And I think it speaks really interestingly to connecting with your retailers in the States.
Nick English Also, James, you know, if you're there's such a close affinity between cars, watches, motorbikes, these sort of things. Sure, if you like tinkering, you would love the workings on in a mechanical watch, you'd love to these old cars, you can actually understand what's going on, you know, at the moment, we've got a clutch problem, as you can see across the parking lot. But you're you can see what's wrong. You know, there's this Oh, this C ring is popped out. And we're trying to sort out way of getting it back in again, in some way, keeping it exactly. And it's, that's the lovely thing. And you can see, you know, when something happens to your watch, you can Most people can at least say there's something wrong. And then if you've got experience, you can repair it. And so when we did this trip, Giles and I have a close mate from Churchill Classics based just north of New York. Great, great guy who they restore and these incredible cars. And we said, if we're doing this trip and we're pretty much seeing a retailer every night, you can't get halfway down and then something happened. That's happened. The clutch went yesterday. Brakes have gone. Giles' starter motor broke. You know, all these sort of things do happen. And so it's a sort of way of making sure we got to the next location. And the insurance policy was Simon bringing his flatbed truck behind, you know, which I think was probably a good idea.
James Stacey Probably a good choice. Now, for the cars themselves, like I mentioned, and Giles, like you had said, both of them have a history within your family. Giles, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Porsche. You said you've had it for quite a long time. So it's a 73T, the 2.4.
Giles English It is indeed, yeah. So I got my first job, I studied engineering and got my first job in the city of London, which was advising banks who are investing in engineering businesses. And my first paycheck for the month, and I was driving through London with Nick, and we saw these two beautiful Porsches, a 911T and a 911S, sitting by a car showroom and I just fell in love with these cars and at the time I think mine was £7000 and the S was £2000 more. I didn't have that money and I Yeah, slightly regret that because that's probably 100,000 pounds more now. But but we bought it and use as a daily car for about 15 years. Put it away, I've done bits of work to it, but it's, it becomes part of your family. And you bring that into New York, it's a bit like picking up your home and moving it. It's the most surreal thing and something you know so well in such an alien environment. And That bit's lovely. You become really connected with these things.
James Stacey For sure, yeah. And the mechanical sympathy with the vehicle and then, of course, experiencing new places with it really increases, like people do with their watches. They take them places, they go on adventures, they travel, and it increases the personal value.
Giles English It's all about these items. None of us need any of these items. But actually, if you have them, you enjoy them, you have this personal connection with it. And it's exactly the same with the watch. And that's what we love about old cars is that You know, yes, you'll have to fix it, but that'll work in 100 years time. But so will your watch. And we live in such a disposable society now that it's lovely to get away from that.
James Stacey For sure. And Nick, how about with your temperamental Jag?
Nick English Do you know, it has been amazing, though. We've done 2,000 miles. We haven't had to put a drop of oil in it. The problem with some of these old cars, so this one, the history is quite sweet. So our father bought it for our mother. It was a bit of a basket case when he bought it and he restored it. And Giles and I remember being in the workshop with him, holding bits that he was putting together. You know, we were young at the time. But it has been in the family for all these years. But it has done relatively few miles over that time. And taking on a trip like this is interesting enough. You get a lot of things sorted. You know, one big thing we need to make sure as you're traveling through I mean, what is the temperature yesterday, today? It's 100 degrees.
James Stacey Yeah, it was 30, 35 degrees Celsius, 37. It's unbelievably hot in Memphis.
Nick English It's warm. And you can imagine these cars in traffic. So we did some really obvious things, like we put a new Alley radiator on with this amazing coolant called Evans Coolant. And it just keeps the car, the E-Types are notorious for overheating and hasn't had a problem. There's a few things like that we did. But when you do these miles, you sort of realize that something that hasn't been replaced for 50 years starts leaking or and and then you place that bit and then it has a sort of knock-on effect to the next bit so we're just going through so basically where Giles jokes that by the time I get this car back to the UK it'll be completely American because we replaced it with all these new parts but the fact is that you know this car I mean It's sort of more of a legacy. It's never going to be sold. It'll be passed down through the generations, this thing.
James Stacey And it's a 1970.
Nick English It's a 1970 Series II, 4.2 straight six.
James Stacey Both cars are right-hand drive.
Nick English Yeah, so you get a few weird comments. So you're sitting in traffic and you've got a big truck driver beside you looking over you.
Unknown How do you do a drive-through? Yeah, I know.
Nick English They're all sort of, you know, it's funny enough, they're more interested in the fact you're driving on the wrong side of the car rather than in
Giles English obviously we put our rally stickers on and it's, it's, um, I don't know, you, you came out with a very good point about the Americans are used to their car tours and certainly we've met, have done the cross state thing. And, um, I think they relate, relate to that and, and I, and they appreciate, generally appreciate, you know, we're here in Memphis, our event last night, these guys appreciate that we've made the effort to come and see them. And, uh, and that's what Bremont's about. We want to connect with our customers.
James Stacey And I'm sure it's fairly universal for anywhere where you grow up with cars, anywhere in the world, but certainly from the North American perspective, people grow up going on trips with their family, these long drives that at the time seemed terrible at times, and then you look back on them so fondly and then you end up doing the same thing when you leave college or before college or whatever. And I think that it kind of like the road tripping thing is kind of ingrained in people. And I think it's a really interesting way to promote what Bremont does, because so much of Bremont's allure is kind of romanticism, whether it's about aviation or diving. Like imagine you have a lot of people that buy the watches that are pilots and maybe divers, but not on whole. A lot of people like the kind of philosophy of those, of those passions of those pursuits. And I think that ties in really interestingly with something that's even more accessible, like a road trip.
Giles English I think that's, I mean, you hit it on the neck and I think it's the, the, the beauty of what we're trying to do is saying, look, go go on an adventure in life. We went on this massive adventure starting up Bremont and every explorer we meet every person doing something different. It's about living life. And it's so easy not to do these things. And you know, for us to take the time out of work to actually get in our cars and organize all of this and the cost. It's so easy to say no, actually, let's just put a couple of ads in a newspaper instead.
James Stacey And how long ago would you have started needing to plan something like this from a logistical standpoint? It's huge. You ship the cars over. Like I said, you have a service team. It's a whole production.
Nick English Yeah, you know, it's, um, it's fun. We made sure it's a good six months, really, by the time you've factor, you know, you have to figure out just silly things like you take your these cars to New York, parking in New York. It's ridiculous. It's actually it's almost comical. So we went, for example, we had an event at our Madison boutique, and we We knew we had to be there for a certain time. And we thought, give it half an hour beforehand to make sure we pull up the right time. Trying to find a car park beforehand was impossible because nobody was prepared to drive a stick shift, as you call them over here. Oh, sure. And then certainly not stick shift on the wrong side. So they just laughed and said, well, we'll park it just there. And they're like, no, no, you're not allowed to. So you have to have a place where you can keep the cars. As we've said, you do need a bit of a support, otherwise you're If time isn't an issue, if we're, Giles and I, doing this road trip and we thought we could do it east to west or the same thing in three times the amount of time, we wouldn't take anyone with us. We'd just tinker and get things done. But when there is a pressure and you're letting people down, you need... You want to do a vent. So that takes time. And then also you want your retailers to really get behind it. And it's been phenomenal. We're so, so pleased. And as you're saying, the Medi-Cal event last night here in Memphis, you have all these people in their cars, We did a great one in Huntsville with Lauren Jewelers a couple of days ago and it was in this incredible, one of these Brenwin Customs sort of man cave, and he had the most beautiful collection.
James Stacey I saw the pictures on Instagram, fantastic.
Nick English The most amazing collection of cars, but you know someone like him, he's so understated, so lovely, but actually he had this incredible collection thing and it's It's so nice to be able to show people occasionally, otherwise they're sort of sitting there and they are pieces of art. So we've had this all the way along, you know, we did a Charleston Watch Society, which was such a great bunch of guys as well. And, you know, when do you get to Charleston? One of the prettiest towns I've ever seen. So this is why it's worth doing it. Rather than going from airport to jewellers, getting in the car, it doesn't really matter what car it is, but doing it by car, the fact they're in old cars is a makes it more fun. Yeah. And certainly more hot, sweaty and sunburny. But it's so hot.
James Stacey But it's a lot of fun. And the cars get a great reaction. You know, we had a very small trip, you know, from where we're staying in Memphis over to the Jewelers last night. And I did a little bit in the Jag and then the Jag decided it needed a rest just a mile or so from the store. So we carried on in the 911 and both get just fantastic reactions. You're getting thumbs up from people in any car you can imagine. Everybody's eyeballing it on the highway. You definitely feel the trucks go by in the Jag, especially that first couple that went by. And they're big trucks in America, aren't they?
Giles English Really big. Much bigger. I think the 911, the early 911 and the E-Type are two of the most beautiful cars. And I think it's quite interesting going along, there's definitely people prefer the E-Type and people prefer the Porsche. And there's a sort of split loyalty between the two, which is great. But I think just having Having these right-hand dryers, as Nick mentioned, adds that whole novelty with English plates on. I've had so many people saying, oh, the police, do they keep stopping you? Are you allowed these out here? But it seems to be working.
James Stacey Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm hoping the Jag will be sorted soon. We're heading our way down to Arkansas on the way to, I guess, Dallas is the final, is the next main stop.
Nick English Yeah, so it'll take a couple of days to do that because you don't have Thanks James.
James Stacey Okay, and we're back. It's the next morning. We are in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We did 250 some odd miles yesterday. I've got both the brothers here. We're in the little breakfast area of a really nice Holiday Inn. And guys, how about we get a sit rep on on the cars? Because when we left yesterday, the Jag was getting fixed or hopefully getting fixed. And then we're going to set it on the road for what was a fairly long drive.
Giles English Yeah, Nick, tell us about the Jag.
Nick English Yes, well, she's done beautifully. She hasn't used any oil over 2000 miles, but we had to replace a bit. Basically, a bit that sticks from the front of the clutch, a cylinder, master cylinder. And it's a brand new part. And that was put on about three days ago, after the original sort of 50 year old part failed. And this new part failed within three days, and it started leaking very, very badly. And although we've sourced another part in Ohio, it's rather gutting for me. It meant that yesterday, the route yesterday was 250 miles. The poor old car was done on the back of a flatbed. So now I've got my brother heavily gloating, saying, obviously, that his car is far more reliable than mine, which is the element of truth in that.
James Stacey And Giles, how's the Porsche doing?
Giles English I'm not gloating at Mick, the loser. Yes, so the Porsche has done incredibly well. I'm proud of her. But she is using a bit of oil, which I'm a bit concerned about. And yeah, from aviation days and car days, anything that uses oil is it shouldn't. So I haven't stripped the whole engine down for a number of years. So I think probably after this trip, with with some great guys from Churchill classics, I'll probably send it back to them and get them to strip it down and we'll see what's wrong with her. What I don't want to do is carry on and do the West Coast and it blow up on me and catch it before anything badly goes wrong. For sure. I had another little problem coming in as we were driving to the hotel. I noticed the, well we noticed didn't we, the front light was slightly wobbly
James Stacey Yeah, we went to we went to shoot some photos. The light was really, really nice when we got in and we wanted to shoot some photos. You know, I'm covering the the trip for shifted mag, and they wanted some pictures of the cars. And obviously we luckily we snapped a few photos of the Jag before it had to hit the trailer. But with the with the Porsche, with the Porsche, we you got it up up over a curb and then into some grass for this kind of backlit beauty shot. And we take a couple photos and then you're walking around the car and just kind of saw
Giles English put a screw together in it but it's quite loose it's not a fitting screw and a little bit of sellotape and I hope it'll finish off for us.
James Stacey Yeah we ended up going from the hotel which is I'm not sure what side of town we're on but then we went up to a place called West Mountain Drive which if you're coming through Hot Springs I think that's where you need to come through even like maybe skip any restaurants or whatever and just swing right up this hill.
Nick English Well it's a fascinating history this place isn't it obviously it was uh we're doing a bit of research it's a big gambling place from the past and You can see that. You know, like a spa town. It's had a lot of money in the past. And there's also one of these towns, unless you're on a road trip, you wouldn't come to. I don't think, certainly as a Brit. Yeah. And you get to the center of town and it is very, very pretty. It's beautiful downtown. This long sort of avenue of trees and beautiful old, almost colonialesque buildings. But then on your left looking up, as you said, this is incredible drive. There's these hills, very, very wooded around here.
James Stacey It was like almost the fall, the way we had a lot of like orange and yellow light coming through the trees, and it was vaguely fall. I mean, we're talking, you know, end of September now, so it's not quite, you know, leaves turning, but it's getting there.
Nick English You can imagine in a couple weeks' time, two or three weeks' time, it'll be absolutely stunning. For sure. And we also found out that there's one famous person from this town, didn't we?
James Stacey Oh yeah, this is, is this where he was born or where he lived? Bill Clinton. Yeah, I didn't know. It's from around here. Hometown. There's a very beautiful wooden sculpture.
Nick English That looks a bit like him, not massively like him. No, but it is brilliant coming to a place like this and I can see why people... It's really beautiful, super green. It's obviously a bit of a biking route as well because we saw quite a few Harley's and things zooming around.
James Stacey Yeah, really cool. But yeah, it was a great drive and we got a handful of more fantastic photos and the headlight stayed in place for all those photos, you know, driving shots, which is great.
Giles English Which is always useful to have a headlight in a photo. And then James, you drove it down the hill, didn't you?
James Stacey Yeah, yeah, I took it back down the hill. It was fun. I've never driven right-hand drive. And it's my first time in like an older, you know, the earlier air-cooled 911s. And just a blast. Really fun. Way, way lighter in all the inputs than I expected would be my takeaway from, you know, a five-minute drive. It was really cool.
Giles English But I mean, really, it's a particularly modern feeling car to drive, isn't it? Even though it's something so old. And I think, you know, the E-Type is definitely a 60s generation car, but the Porsche was very felt of very 70s. Real development in the technology. And, yeah, and it's here, Nick.
Nick English Yeah, but you keep going about the fact it's here, but the fact is you're going to have to completely rebuild your engine. Well, my engine hasn't used a drop of oil the whole trip. But it's amazing what is interesting.
James Stacey The part that failed for yours is this like tiny, stupid little ring that had already been replaced.
Nick English Yeah, well, I think these master cylinders, the clutches are immensely sensitive. It doesn't matter if it's a new and modern car, an old and modern car. And all you have to do is fiddle them a little bit and they need replacing. They're sealed units, so you can't get inside. There's no maintenance. Yeah, there's no maintenance. But it just shows, interestingly enough though, if you are doing a trip like this and you are on your own, or you are thinking of doing a big one, you do need some key spare parts. And there's some obvious parts. And it's about getting to know your car well. I mean, I've learned a huge amount more about V-Type over the last few days than I did before. And these are the obvious ones that bits that fail if they do. And I mean, your car, I mean, it is done brilliantly.
Giles English You always had problems with your brakes, didn't you? And what's fascinating is they pulled out half a cup of water from draining your brakes and... Which is a bad sign for anyone who doesn't do brakes.
James Stacey You don't want water in there at all.
Giles English Which isn't a good sign, but I think what we've learned is that every annual check, you should drain your brake fluid and replace your brake fluid. Not just top it up, which most people do. Drain it down. It really absorbs water and that kills your brakes.
James Stacey The interesting thing, you know, if you zoomed out a little bit is if you had selected other two different cars or cars that were more common to where you decided to do the tour, you could have sourced parts. But, you know, you got three or four people on the phone trying to find a master cylinder for a Series 2 Jag in Memphis. I mean, probably not a ton around. It's not zero. There's going to be, there's going to be Jag guys everywhere.
Nick English I do agree. However, you know, what's amazing again, by modern technology, but also doing this road trip and meeting some amazing people. So that event we did at Medley Cow, night before last. And we had watch guys, we had car guys there. All of it. Quick call out or, you know, a social thing out to tweet out just saying that I need a clutch master cylinder. We had one guy trying to turn up with two that he thought might fit. And I don't think it would take that long. We ended up finding one in Ohio, as I mentioned earlier. But it is incredible how through today's communication, you can sort of spread the message out and people are so willing to come and help, which is incredible.
James Stacey Yeah, and I think that's a good kind of path into another topic we want to chat about, which is kind of the social media angle for something like this. You know, a lot of the tour is about sharing kind of face to face cars, the watches, all of that with kind of like minded people and not so much finding an audience, but engaging with the audience that Bremont already has and expanding that into their friends or other people who might be in the town that no watches or no cars or something like that. And, you know, it all kind of ties in together. But with the with the social media angle, how do you find the efficacy of that as a way to share your brand. I think it's been very successful for Bremont for many years.
Nick English I think any brand for today's market, if you're not doing a bit of it, you will be behind, obviously. But for us, just being able to, as we said earlier, engage with people you wouldn't have otherwise engaged with. The people that have come into these events often find out about you en route. So you're sort of picking up people on route, which is a wonderful thing. And it might be retailers from another store that have heard about you, but you're not actually passing through and they join in and they drive willing to drive a long way to come and say hello. And it's, it just gathers a bit of momentum, which you can do. And getting a message out for British company through America. I mean, we're doing a look along route, it's about three, three and a half thousand miles. And doing that without this social media will be a bit of a dense squib in comparison, I think.
Giles English Yeah. And I think people, when you're buying into a company and a brand, you want to discover more about them. Is it just a straight marketing machine? And I think doing something like this people can connect. I mean, they keep seeing Nick's car being broken, they connect with that. And us and Grace and whatever, but it's, it's more and we are a personal small business that wants to really get to know our clients. And I think doing these sorts of things can help. And, you know, and most importantly is we're actually physically meeting these people as well. So, you know, these events, people, oh, I've been following you, they come to the event, but they actually meet us and they can hear about the watches from our mouths.
Nick English So you have got a hilarious thing.
James Stacey Oh, yeah. Weird. You had a weird connection over Instagram, over an Instagram photo.
Giles English This is, this is last night. This is great. So I had this text from a well-known car photographer in the UK, and he Instagrammed me and said, I can't believe it. That's my car. I owned it 25 years ago. So I bought it from him through a garage. And he's saying it's amazing to see it en route on a journey. So pleased. And he sent a photo of him in black and white with this car. And then he said, Did you realize Terence Donovan used to wear in that car? And Terence Donovan, the great photographer. And I had, you know, obviously no idea. So I've learned something new today. So suddenly you have a history. It's quite a photographic car. Yeah, so suddenly it's a bit of history. So I've got to sort of do some searching now. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and you wouldn't get any of that without without doing this. And I think social media is, you know, to our sins, it takes up a lot of our time. But it is an amazing way of connecting with people.
James Stacey Yeah, I think that's really cool. And just for credit, that photo is this really great one of you passing a bridge. Do you know what bridge that was?
Giles English It was the bridge in Charleston. I don't know the exact name of the bridge. So it's going from Charleston.
James Stacey It's a really fantastic bridge, beautiful structure. And the photo was shot by by Andy Wilson, who's a friend of yours and is on the trip taking some lovely photos makes me Scared to pick up my camera somewhere, somewhere behind or to get a better angle over my shoulder. But everyone should follow Andy. It's Andy photo folio. So folio like portfolio on Instagram or just hit the show notes. We'll put the link in there. But his work is really cool. And and he he's got some some really cool stuff from the trip in general and lots of stuff for planes as well.
Giles English Yeah, he's a pilot and actually go back. One of our first videos we did was him in a forced landing in a Yak 50, flying, he happened to have a camera on his head and wearing a Bremer watch. So we've known Andy for years. He's a fantastic photographer. For him to come on the trip and properly document it. I'm obviously working with Jaguar and Bell stuff and Globetrotter on this. So getting some proper photographs was lovely to have.
James Stacey So the next stop for you guys is Frisco with Timeless. And that's an event tonight. I'm flying out of Dallas just before that. And then what's after that on to the next?
Nick English We're still planning. But no, so tonight we're driving to Frisco and hopefully we're going to go off and take some wonderful photographs around there for a day with Andy. We haven't done quite as much photography as we'd hoped, but it's always like that. You have these greatest plans when you leave England and it is actually hard. When you've got a deadline and you have to be from A to B at a certain time, not be able to stop. get out, take some lovely photographs, find the right places. It takes it does take time. And so you never quite do as much as you'd have.
James Stacey Yeah, you could lose a whole day to scouting.
Nick English Exactly. So so we need to do a bit more of that. So and then we're trying to focus. So we're definitely going to Texas, we're just going to figure out now, which part of Texas we end up in, whether it's a Dallas, you know, Houston, or, you know, San Antonio widget, we're just working that out now.
James Stacey And then Frisco is the last stop in the
Nick English On the tour, yes it is. And then back to England for you guys? So then back to England and then the plan is we would love to finish this route with the West Coast as parts of other parts of the U.S.
James Stacey would love to take these cars to as well. English two or two?
Nick English Almost certainly because it's such a show it's a lot of logistical planning to get two cars over from the UK. You kind of want to make the most of them while they're over here. As Giles said we have got great friend who runs this incredible historic restoration company up in northern New York and called Churchill and there and then they're going to look after them and try and get at least sort out jars his bag of nails anyway.
Giles English And what we've got is suddenly we've had quite a lot of interest from other people, other sort of friends saying I love it. I mean, the idea of a trip, can we come and join you? So be quite fun to do with properly eight cars or something. So when that comes into town, rally of some sort, do a rally. I think in hindsight, we've tried to squeeze too much in too many events and distance. And actually, we've just realized it's such a massive place America. Yeah. The scale of it is just unfathomable compared with with UK. And actually, we would like to do more discovery. And just, you know, even last night, that's just A little town you could drive straight past.
James Stacey Yeah, and you wouldn't have seen the beautiful streets and you wouldn't have seen that mountain. It was a very short road we went up. We were five minutes from downtown.
Giles English And then you're in the middle of nowhere in deep forest.
James Stacey Up really high, too. View of the whole city.
Giles English So I think doing that and discovering a little bit more would be great. But it takes a lot of planning.
Nick English For sure. Ideally, as Charles said, you almost need, each place you go to, you need one more day there. So that immediately doubles the length of the tour. But you'd get a lot more out of it. For sure. Because you can plan these beautiful routes. And if you're careful, you would have... I mean, planning is everything. If we'd had time and we would have driven the route beforehand, found out all the best places to stay, all of the best routes to take, and you'd know exactly how long everything takes. Things like Waze and Google Maps are brilliant and they do help, but you're not going to find those perfect, perfect. the lanes that you remember forever.
James Stacey Driving the road twice is, you know, you could send a fixer or somebody down to do it ahead of you. But I mean, it's a it's a big undertaking to do it once. It is.
Nick English It is. That's the thing. So I think you're better off, as Giles said, just taking a bit more time over it.
James Stacey Well, and I think also like I think in how at least in the three, three and a half, four days I've spent with you guys, you can see that it was well planned, but you're still taking two old cars on a very long drive.
Nick English The best thing we did was so funny, Giles and I, I think I mentioned this last week, originally it was, right, we're going to take these two cars. Claire, who looks after us, helps us back in England, just said, look, you sure you're going to be all right, you two just going off and shipping these cars? Yeah, don't be silly, we'll be fine. She said, I do think you've got to think about perhaps a mechanic. And Giles said, we can fix most of it. This will be fine. But you sure you don't want a flatbed or something behind the car? Because if one car breaks down, what happens to the next one? Okay, we'll do that. And she's proved right in every typically at every junction.
Giles English So you I think you can do the fact that if you have to spend five hours on the side of road fixing something, you miss your event. Yeah. And you just can't take that risk.
James Stacey Especially because like with the medical event we had, I mean, I met some red bar guys that came in from St. Louis. Yeah, that's a good four and a half hour drive. They left work early that day. and drove a good distance and imagine they got there and like sorry guys they're like two three hundred miles away on the side of a highway somewhere.
Giles English So no that worked out well especially well for Nick.
Nick English Yeah well you're a funny guy you're a funny guy.
James Stacey It'll be tough the next trip you'll have to just sabotage the other cars.
Nick English Yeah I know I don't think I need to. Even the score. He's using as much oil as it is fuel.
James Stacey It's a little thirsty. But hey, I think that's as good a spot as any to leave it. Hopefully there's a next tour and we can obviously look forward to those sorts of events in the future. But thanks a bunch, guys, for being on the show. I really appreciate the time and obviously the invite to come tag along on the adventure.
Nick English James, thank you so much. And I want to come see you do some doughnuts in the car park in Giles' car now.
James Stacey It's got too much tread on those tires.
Giles English You've got to fix that. No, it's been a real pleasure having you with us. So thank you very much. Thanks a bunch, guys.
James Stacey Chat soon.
Jason Heaton Okay, so we're back in the studio. James, wow, that sounded like an incredible trip. What, now that you're back home for about a week, what has kind of sunk in as kind of your favorite impression or what will stick with you the most from that whole experience?
James Stacey You know, the evening we spent in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when we got into town, we're kind of on the outskirts of the town and it didn't really, you know, it looked a lot like a lot of the States looks, you know, there's a Walmart and there was a, you know, a couple of restaurants and some fast food. And we were at a, like a Best Western and we drove into town and on our way into town, we, we wanted to find this one road, which I mentioned in the interview, this West mountain drive and driving up the road, it was like very much, um, like the North, uh, the Northeast where, you know, it's lots of trees and foliage, and then just a beautiful road that somebody built for small kind of state park idea. to get to the top, and then there's a loop at the top. So we drove partway up, and myself and Andy, the other photographer that was on the trip, got out of the cars and kind of set up for some drive-by shots and that sort of thing. And we just kind of played around on those roads. We went up to the top, and so they did a bunch of passing shots there, and we just kind of enjoyed. We were almost fully alone. There was a couple other people up there, but it was really beautiful. You're high above Hot Springs with a great view and these awesome cars. And then I drove the 911 down, maybe it's a mile or a mile and a half, something like that, back down to the main drag in Hot Springs. And that's probably what'll sit with me. That or just kind of like with a road trip, you could just kind of get that ingrained view of sun and sky and the car and the color and all of that. It all stands out because it was such a kind of fun trip. And I spent, it was several hundred miles in the in the left seat of that 911. It was fun. It was really nice to get to know Nick and Giles a little better, especially Giles, who I spent quite a bit of time with in the car.
Jason Heaton Was the kind of the drive, you know how long drives in old cars can be almost tiring or tiresome just because of the noise and kind of the vibration? Was the 911, was an old 911 pleasant to be in? Could you guys carry on conversations?
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, because there was no AC in the car, you definitely had to have the windows down. Yeah. So the AC was kind of your 280 AC, two windows down, 80 miles an hour.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey And, you know, it was pretty hot. So there was a mix. You're definitely talking over the wind noise, but it wasn't impossible to keep a conversation going. We chatted for, you know, the bulk of those drives and the car is supremely comfortable. It just eats up the miles. You're seated in a very relaxed, like my legs were straight out in front of me, which I found very comfortable. And, yeah, no, I had no trouble with general comfort. There were times where, you know, we weren't moving so quickly, so we didn't have the airflow, so the cabin would get quite hot. But, I mean, that comes with an old car. It's part of the charm. And those 911s are surprisingly light controls and very easy to drive, even for me, having never driven a right-hand drive car. And yeah, just a very capable Grand Touring sort of platform, especially for a car that's kind of very sporty in the corners and seemingly ahead of its time.
Jason Heaton I imagine the E-Type was a different experience.
James Stacey Yeah. You know, I only got a few miles in the E-Type. We drove from the parking lot where we recorded the first interview over to this really great jewelry shop, watch retailer, Medna Cow Jewelers in Memphis. for the event and the jag didn't make it the whole drive. A little fitting that maintained pressure to the clutch came apart and the clutch just went dead. It had some trouble getting into gear and then Nick could kind of feel it coming in the pedals and got it out of gear and then that was it. So maybe I got 20 or so minutes in the jag and definitely just due to not having a roof Yeah. Uh, you're, you're at the will of the sun. Yeah. Uh, so definitely warm, but what a gorgeous car. And, uh, mechanically I would actually say it did a lot better than people would have joked that it did. The part that ultimately saw it in a trailer was a part that had just been replaced and it was just a bad replacement part. Uh, the clutch, the clutch master cylinder. Uh, other than that, the engine ran really beautifully the first 2000 miles and would continue to run. It was just more question of, um, you know, some proper brake maintenance, uh, which, you know, they needed to do on the road and then the, uh, the problem with the clutch. So conceivably, if you replaced that part with the absolute best part that you could find. the car wouldn't have had any trouble making the road. But I mean, that's also kind of the... That's the adventure of it, I guess. Yeah, that's large. Not so much the point, but that's a main tenant of this sort of a thing, which really is a crazy and complicated undertaking, especially for a brand the size of Bremont to take both of their founders, guys that are kind of constantly doing the kind of figurehead of the brand thing around the UK, especially.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey depositing them in a different country with their own kind of legacy cars and having them go on this long trip. I mean, they had some support from the folks at Churchill Classics as far as mechanical support. And then they had Mike Pearson, who's a fan of the show. Hey, Mike. And a really great woman named Claire Pretty, who were kind of their fixers throughout the route. And as you can imagine, it's not just the cars. You have to do hotels and keep everybody on schedule and make sure you're making the next event.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure.
James Stacey And it's a, logistically, it's a very big thing for, I mean, it was six people to accomplish.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then along that they accepted kind of the stress of bringing on people like myself and James Lambden from Analog Shift, you know, tagged along, and Adam Kreniotz of Red Bar, and they also had Josh from Watchanista. So they had a handful of other people kind of come in and throw a monkey wrench into their plans. And then suddenly, I think, you know, obviously they would feel some need to entertain or, you know, support the experience of the various people that came along. But I had a really great time. It was fun. It was certainly nothing like a press junket or a press trip. It was really just kind of, you know, get in this seat and see how it goes. Yeah. Which I loved.
Jason Heaton Talk a little bit about the... I was very fascinated from from the photos, um, which showed a lot of sunburned faces, but, uh, of the, um, sort of the on the fly field repairs that had to be done. I saw, you know, specifically the Jag I saw parked under a tent a few times with the, with the hood up. And how was that accomplished? I mean, did, did they have a trailer full of parts or how did that work?
James Stacey Yeah, they had a trailer with, um, what they thought was, uh, the wisest collection of spare parts that they would need for something like this. And then of course, leaving enough room to trailer one of the cars, if it, if that's a bit required. Yeah. And a lot of the spots where, depending on the big city, you can find the spare parts you'd need. So there isn't necessarily a need to have multiples of everything, but one of most things that could go is fairly smart. And obviously they're not carrying transmissions or engines or that sort of thing. Just, you know, wear and tear parts and the ability to do things like brake service and repair a tube or a wiring or something like that. But all of that support was from, again, this car restoration and sales company called Churchill Classics in northern New York. And they had a big Land Rover, Range Rover, pulling a large trailer. And so they had the ability to service the vehicle in a parking lot and keep them going as best as possible. And really, they did a really impressive job throughout the trip. The mechanic's name was Jared, and he did some really wonderful things. And, you know, he was, I would say he was probably one or two years younger than me, you know, very late 20s, maybe early 30s. And his knowledge on these cars was just absolutely fantastic.
Jason Heaton So he had to be knowledgeable about both the Porsche and the E-Type, which I would imagine are quite, quite different machines.
James Stacey Yeah, two very different things. I mean, The impression I got was they were knowledgeable about all of it. But for the majority of stuff, and certainly the Jag and the 911 fell well within their wheelhouse.
Jason Heaton Did the 911 have any mechanical issues on the trip?
James Stacey No, it was pretty much bulletproof. It was drinking quite a bit of oil, so that would suggest that the engine's going to need some pretty serious work. And they were joking that while the Jag did kind of what you expect stereotypically for an old British car to do, which is to have something fail,
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey At least it failed in a very predictable and technically kind of easily repairable way. Whereas they were really worried at some point that if the 911 went, it was going to go in a very catastrophic manner.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Wow. You know, like I, you know, I'm writing a piece about the whole experience for shifted mag, uh, out of New York. And like I mentioned in that both of these cars are like well-loved drivers. They're not like garage Queens or museum pieces. They definitely could have gone an easier route, but I think it would have kind of cheapened the experience for them.
Jason Heaton So kind of shifting over to the watch side of things. How many events did you go to? One or two?
James Stacey I just went to the one at Medinacal.
Jason Heaton And it was a pretty good event, huh?
James Stacey Yeah, really well attended. You know, some guys from St. Louis came in from the Red Bar group there. So Chrono Grant on Instagram. I chatted with him for a while. It was a treat to meet those guys. And they had a U2 pilot was there. Oh my gosh. And yeah, it was amazing. And a ton of really cool cars showed up. A lot of that's on the Instagram, at J.E. Stacey. So it was a really fun event. I mean, to have a really cool watch event where you actually have people from the brand with a cool hook like the cars and the ability to see the entire line of watches. Yeah. You know, and have some food, have some drinks, talk with other people. There was, like I said, lots of really cool cars showed up. It was fun. It was really like a very positive thing to see that kind of turnout, especially people traveling from great distances to check it out.
Jason Heaton It just sounds, I mean, just to kind of wrap up, I mean, it just sounds quintessentially Bremont. I mean, you know, we did the townhouse thing over in London back in the spring. And just that level of interaction you get with Nick and Giles is so rare for a watch brand to do something like that. And then the way they kind of mix in their own personal passions, I've found to be unique. You know, they're not, they're not out just sort of branding their watches with some random, random thing, you know, the, the flavor of the month sort of thing. These guys, you know, they kind of live this stuff and I, I love that about them. And I, I heard that they're, um, they might be doing a sort of a followup tour on this next year. And if anyone, uh, that works for any of the retailers here in Minneapolis is listening. Um, now's your chance to, uh, to start carrying Braymont. We're, we're sorely lacking, uh, Braymont here in the twin cities. And, uh, hopefully, uh, maybe before then we'll, we'll get a Braymont retailer and, uh, could be part of that tour next year. So anyway, that was, uh, uh, sounds like a, an awesome trip. So, um, yeah, great interview. And, uh, I guess that kind of wraps it up.
James Stacey Yeah, just wanted to say obviously a big thanks to Nick and Giles for the invite and for taking the time to sit and chat. I mean, the one day I got them was like 35 degrees in the sun. And you know, the Jag wasn't running. It was not like the most relaxed moment for me to turn the mics on and they were great. And then when I got them the next day, it was they just woken up. And like, both of them were kind of, you know, like me and Neil, you know, leaning over a cup of coffee and just kind of pointing your face at a microphone. So I appreciate that. And then a huge thanks to Mike Pearson and Claire pretty for just kind of sorting out all of the details for the travel and, you know, lots of great chats on the drive and that sort of stuff. So it's a nice team of people that put together something like that. And I think that's the effect you see at those events is people kind of gravitate to the realness of it.
Jason Heaton Okay, well, great. That kind of Wraps up the main topic for today. Should we jump into final notes?
James Stacey Yeah, for sure. Let's do it. OK, and before we get to final notes, we would like to point out that this episode of TGN is brought to you by Kill Hubris. If you haven't checked out their site, I highly recommend it. Their clothing is great. They have a lot of really cool accessories and it's the perfect sort of stuff for upcoming gifts giving season because there's a good chance that nobody you're buying for is going to get the same thing from anyone else. They just released their highly anticipated statement season motto tee last week, and they will be adding a few more colors to a favorite of Jason's mind, their line of washed pocket tees this Friday at 10. They teased the colors on Instagram and they look really good for the fall. I love kind of a rich, you know, darker tone t-shirt for the fall. And you can shop the entire collection at killhubris.com and you should follow on Instagram at killhubris for more brand info. and for pics of Sam's watches.
Jason Heaton Yeah, good idea. It's really been great how this relationship came about. You know, Sam was a longtime listener of TGN and a fan of the show, sent over a couple of goodies for us to check out and now it's turned into a nice little sponsorship. So we do thank Sam and we encourage our listeners to check out Kill Hubris. Like James mentioned, you know, gift giving season's coming up and there's a lot of kind of cool little stuff like keychains and stickers and coffee mugs that make some great I guess stocking stuffers if we want to look ahead to December. So thanks, Sam, and do check out Kill Hubris.
James Stacey Okay, so for final notes, you want to kick it off?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Anyone that's been following me on Instagram over the past couple of weeks has noticed that I've developed a fondness for a brand of NATO strap called Haviston, which is out of the UK. Haviston, you know, I kind of caught wind of them through various people's Instagram posts, and I'm kind of a sucker for a good sort of theme or story behind any product. And what Haviston has done is they've kind of modeled their color schemes of these handful of NATO straps that they offer after the color schemes of kind of World War II Navy and Air Force paint schemes on ships and on planes. And I picked up three of their straps. I grabbed the M-22, which is was sort of a camouflage paint scheme for Navy ships during World War II. The carrier strap, which is kind of this multi-blue tone strap, also styled after naval vessels. And then the redstone, which might be my favorite. It was sort of a cream, black and red striped set that strangely enough really works well. And it's modeled after the this paint scheme on the redstone rockets that were developed, you know, after, after world war two, during the cold war, um, to launch the, uh, the mercury and early Gemini missions into space. So, um, the other thing I like about the, the Haviston straps is that the weave is unlike any I've, I've seen, you know, it's sort of this thicker, I don't, it's not seatbelt, um, feeling it's, it's more, it's kind of a thicker weave. And then it sort of has a different weave around along the edges. But I think what the cool feature is, is that the second keeper is sliding, but it's also captive. So it's sort of between the two layers of fabric, so it doesn't slip too far one way or the other. And the length of the strap is such that, you know, for most people, you don't have to tuck it, because you can kind of slide that second keeper up and it holds it in place. So, you know, we're obviously big fans of Toxic Nato's and our TGN straps are from Toxic, but there's certainly room for for more than one NATO in the drawer on the watch and I'm kind of smitten with Haviston these days.
James Stacey Have you checked them out? I haven't, no, but I like the look. If you're partial to the kind of stripy NATO look, I think that's a pretty solid option and definitely the folks on Instagram that would, you know, are kind of constantly buying up whatever the new stuff is and showing it on, they all seem to be fans, so I'm sure they're very nicely made. They look great and I do like that creamy With the red. Yeah, it's a good good color option. Very cool. Yeah What about you?
Jason Heaton What have you got today?
James Stacey So my first one is a YouTube channel called unbox therapy. No, they have 8.7 million subscribers So I'm imagining I'm just very late to this You know, I've I love tech reviews. I really enjoy YouTube for its ability to show me anything from cell phones to gadgets to cameras, lenses, all that kind of stuff. I think it's great. It's one of my favorite ways to procrastinate is by watching tech reviews for stuff that I'll never buy, just like I do with cars and, uh, well, pretty much everything else really. And with Unbox Therapy, they're doing their own thing. It's, uh, it's really fun. I think it's very funny. It's very entertaining. Uh, the, the kind of main guys delivery, his name is Lou. His delivery is fantastic. And you never really you know, they're not just covering the same kind of pillar devices that you'd find on some of the other really big channels like MKBHD. And if you're into tech reviews, whether that you know, they do some really popular videos, you know, cool gadgets under and then like a certain amount, but then they cover all the new phones and they cover some of the crazier side of tech stuff, the weird Kickstarter stuff, lots of stuff about wallets. Kickstarter is very big on wallets. So they do a lot of stuff with kind of new designed wallets and the card cases and things like that. So by all means, check out a couple, I'll link a few of the videos that I enjoyed the most into the show notes. But if that kind of seems up your alley, if you like the kind of tech review thing, and you haven't come across these guys, for whatever reason, it's, it's really good. And the production value is really high. And I find it really watchable. Huh, cool. I'll check that out. And how about you?
Jason Heaton Yeah, so kind of Along the tech theme here as well, I came across this video of a guy who was flying a camera drone. He's a very skillful drone pilot. He was flying a camera drone alongside, above, below, and between the cars of a moving train, moving freight train. Fantastic. I don't know if you watch this. I did, yeah. It's incredible. I was actually watching a kind of a larger monitor and it was actually making me a little bit kind of queasy watching it because like he'd do this thing where he'd like get really close and sort of pull back and go upside down or something and it was like it was insane and he was doing it you know using like I don't know what you call it like you probably know but the the goggles that you wear. Oh yeah like the VR set. Yeah like a VR set and he was piloting it from you know a parking lot nearby and that part of the beauty of this video is that it's set in some sort of mountainous region. I actually, I guess if I read the article more closely, it looks like a Wyoming or yeah, like it looked definitely like the American West. Yeah. It had beautiful, beautiful sort of mountainous terrain with, you know, pine forest and the train is kind of weaving through the mountains. They're going over, you know, a trestle, a covered trestle and, um, just, uh, you know, certainly the technology is cool, but I, I just was blown away by his piloting skills to, to kind of, and his boldness to kind of go where he went with this thing. He went inside one of the boxcars. I mean, it's incredible while the train's moving. For sure.
James Stacey So check that out. It's a really impressive display of skill and a testament to how far drones have come. Yeah. I know that a lot of these guys that do it at a high level, they're modifying the drones extensively to get the kind of performance they want from them. But whatever the reason or however they make it happen, it's a beautiful piece of footage. And, uh, and it's amazing to think that somebody's, you know, maintaining their own personal balance and the contents of their stomach while flying that thing. And some of the motions, some of the motions are outside of the range of what you'd even expect from a fighter plane. Yeah. Cause you can do successive rotations. There's no fuel to be concerned with. And, uh, it's, um, it's some really great stuff for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Cool. Uh, you got another one?
James Stacey I do. I have one more. So this is a piece from NPR's Parallels website called How the CIA Found a Soviet Sub Without the Soviets Knowing. And I actually don't want to give away really any of this. It's one of these kind of great medium reads. I wouldn't call it a long read, but it's a really fantastic story about how back in 1968 the Soviets lost a sub deep in the Pacific and then The US Navy and the Air Force worked with the CIA along with Howard Hughes to devise a way of essentially sneaking that sub off of the bottom via the guise of a privateer mission in the area. Yeah. And because there was a lot of belief about what was and wasn't possible, along the physics and technology required to remove a sub from the bottom of the ocean. The American government got away with a lot. And it's a fantastic story. It's in the show notes. And it's a just one of these great kind of historical stories that can be, you know, they can finally fill in a few blanks as the information is declassified. Yeah, which is one of my favorite types of things to read as these, you know, new information on something that's many years ago.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So it's great. I highly recommend it. You should definitely, you know, kill a coffee break or whatever, skimming through it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's a great story. It's one of those things that reminds me how much truth can be stranger than fiction or could be the subject of, you know, some spectacular sort of spy movie or something. I mean, it's just it's great. For sure. Well, I've got one more. This is also kind of a medium read article. It's on one of our favorite websites, AdventureJournal.com. And it's it's it's so TGN, but you know, I'm pretty confident It's beyond what what you and I would be doing anytime soon. This is this guy Rode a bicycle between the Colorado's hundred highest peaks and then climbed them all self-supported non-stop and it took him I think 60 days to do this and the articles kind of explains what he did and then it's sort of an interview with him on you know, what were the best and worst aspects of the trip, you know, camping in the rain. And, um, they also talked about what gear he used and, you know, which, what boots did you wear, what shoes, you know, how, how light did you pack? Um, you know, he existed on like peanut butter and jelly burritos and kind of what food he could scavenge along the way. And, um, you know, just such a minimalist trip and just such a, just such a brutal exercise in endurance. I just, uh, I, I couldn't believe it. I was reading it. I was just so impressed, you know, This is the kind of sort of modern self-made adventure that I think is so exciting these days. You know, you read about all these old expeditions to climb the house mountain or whatever people are doing or, you know, we're doing back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. I think this is the kind of stuff that's really exciting nowadays. It's people that will just try to figure out how they can chain together, you know, a hundred high mountains in Colorado and then ride a bike between them all and to do it in 60 days. I just, it was just a truly incredible story. So.
James Stacey Yeah, unbelievable. Just a really insane project to even imagine just thinking that, oh, this is what I'm going to do.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey You know, however long ago and I mean, like I'm at a loss for words at a certain point. It's a really fantastic and crazy thing to do. So kudos to his name is Justin Simony. Oh, just really, really cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, for anyone who's ridden done sort of endurance bike rides and or you know, climb to, let's say a 14,000 foot peak or something. Um, you know, you know how sore and beat up you get just doing one of those things, but to do back to back to back to back a hundred times in two months is just, just an absurd level of, of masochism. Sure is.
James Stacey But, uh, yeah, cool stuff. Well, as always, thank you so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J E Stacey, and you can follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write thegraynado at gmail.com and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout a siesta by Jazza via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And until next time we leave you with this quote from the poet Reiner Maria Rilke. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.