Every traveler does it their own way. For Maria Schumacher, that means taking her time. Maria shares her story of how bumping into Sam Manicom (a former guest on this show) changed the course of her life, how recent travels in the US stack up against traveling in her favorite country, Venezuela, and how picking the best adventure bike is a very personal decision. She also shares ten common mistakes travellers habitually make. (Number four is overestimating daily distances.) She also shares one of the least discussed aspects of hitting the road—travel fatigue—and how, if you don’t know how to address it—it can cut you and your dreams off at the knees.

From cheap shots to well-judged commentary, ADVRider’s commentary section is interesting. To say the least. In the first of what will become a month feature, podcast host Neil Graham reviews a selection of stories from the past month along with the best comments. From travel stories to bike stories to things so odd that all you can do is scratch your head. Only on ADVRider. 

This week our guest on The Lowdown Radio Show is Emily Roberts, who is just as wonderfully mad as her flaming red hair would lead you to believe. Emily’s story is compelling for a few reasons. Firstly, her family business is the last standing motorcycle print magazine in Canada, and Emily is a full-time motorcycle journalist for it. Secondly, she’s a hardcore off-road rider. How hardcore? Her recollection of racing in Baja is probably not a tale you want to listen to if you’re dining. Emily is also—from the age of 11—a riding instructor, and she gives us tips for trials and trail riding, and slips in cautionary tales of aggressive cacti and what to do if you’ve eaten iffy Mexican seafood and feel the urge to fart.   

And stick around to the end of the show where the essential tool for customizing your motorcycle will be revealed.

This week on the Lowdown Radio Show Motorcycle Global’s Michael Uhlarik joins us to talk about the global motorcycle trade. Much of which is far more unexpected than you might think. For instance, Michael hunted down the most searched motorcycles online in India, Italy, and the US. Two of those countries most often searched for aspirational bikes while one country chose a sensible, economical, middle-of-the-range motorcycle. The results will surprise you. And then we discuss what’s selling in each of those three countries and what’s not, and, as a bonus, we delve into America's Motorcycle Industry Council and how its secretive sales numbers are out of sync with reality. On the show this week we show some photographs, too, so if you’re unable to imagine the splendor of Hero’s 125 cc Splendor Plus, then check us out on YouTube.

Do you know where your parts come from? It’s a serious question. One posed recently in a most unusual public confession by Nikola Maletic from Perun Moto, a manufacturer of high-end bits for your ADV motorcycle. Tired of having his parts copied by another manufacturer—even to the degree that they reused his catalogue photos and descriptions—he didn’t get mad, go online, and lose his mind. How old-fashioned of him. Instead, he solicited the views of the public on what has become an issue of increasing concern: where does the stuff we buy come from? Is it made in a manner that dovetails with my beliefs? Are employees paid living wages? And, specific to the Perun Moto case, do we, as purchasers, have an obligation to honor intellectual property right for those who’ve invested the time and money to make the bits we buy. 

This week our guest is John Bentham, who just this year published Bike Week, a collection of photographs taken over more than a decade at Daytona’s notorious spring gathering. Bentham first went to Daytona in the mid-‘90s and would return another dozen times when his career as a New York City editorial and advertising photographer allowed. It just so happened that John’s attendance at Daytona began at the event’s peak and, in part, his chronicling charts Daytona’s decline as a very peculiar cultural phenomenon. How else could you explain an event that brought tens of thousands of people and millions of dollars to a town, and yet never garnered a notice on the city’s official website. Additionally, ADVRider managing editor Zac Kurylyk pops in for a quick review of the jacket that saved his ass.  

This week, Lowdown Show host Neil Graham and ADVrider editor Zac Kurylyk wrap up 2025 with a conversation that ranges across all segments of motorcycling. From Zac's recovery following his bad crash last fall, to Neil's successful return to the racetrack, to the future of Harley-Davidson and KTM, the difference between Dakar and the Africa Eco Race in the upcoming rally raid season—they take a look at every segment of the world of motorcycling in a conversation just like something you'd hear between friends at an off-season riders' meet-up, as they think about the year behind and the year ahead.

Aaron Pufal is far more than just a man with a grey beard. He’s the grey-bearded mastermind behind the ADV Cannonball coast-to-coast GPS rally. It’s not like the old cannonball runs, those ones in which you’d rip through Ohio at 130 miles per hour at 3 am after having ingested a fistful of little white pills. No, this a rally you can do on your oversized adventure bike while following the law of the land. But you don’t even need a bike that’s more than you needed in the first place, because this is a cannonball you can do on your KLR, turning the event into a bowling ball. Just add an extra bungee-cord to your milk crate and off you go. And you can even opt out of the off-road sections and do it on your Electra Glide.

Ex-Confederate motorcycle designer JT Nesbitt—whose current project is re-imagining the American motorcycle with his audacious Magnolia 4—stepped into the fray recently and wrote an open letter to New York Times bestselling author Scott Galloway. Galloway’s book, titled “On being a man,” discusses the so-called “masculinity crisis” affecting young males—the very same young males that not so many generations ago were drawn to motorcycling. Nesbitt, who’s this week’s guest, took exception to Galloway’s language and suggested a cure that would give disaffected young men their mojo back. And, wouldn’t you know, it involves a motorcycle. 

Michael Uhlarik from Motorcycle Global joins Neil Graham to talk about—wait for it—motorcycle seats and mirrors from a designer’s perspective. And then Neil makes the case for an ADV motorcycle inspired by Kawasaki’s 400 cc four-cylinder ZX-4R screamer—a high-spec, small displacement bike with all the tech of a big bike but without the bulk of something like a 1290 Adventure. Like a 600 cc V-twin not built to a pauper’s budget. Wait until you hear Michael’s shockingly (predictable) response, you’ll be (un) surprised.