The Traveling Larry

• Let’s talk about your petrol-head origin story? The who/what/where/when/how of Larry? How did you get into bikes? What made you into a Petrol-head, did it start as a kid? Or did you come into it later in life?
• Tell us about your machinery – the Bike and the Build (of the Trailer); what kinds of supplies did you take with you?
• The first part of any journey is super exciting but after a while the novelty starts to wear off. Did that happen to you? Or was it one surprise after the next?
• You went round-trip, did you take a different path back? How many states did you see? (How many are left on your list). How many miles? How long did it take? Did you have goals for how long/how far you would ride? 
• Your upcoming book has a unique title “The Traveling Larry, 2 miles too many…” Where did that come from, is there a story behind that?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break Fix Podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder how did they get that job or become that person.

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Mountain Man Dan: It was a crisp autumn day when our guest’s world came crashing down around him. He had been running his small business for years, pouring his heart and soul into it, only to find out that it was on the brink of failure. To make matters worse, his heart had been broken by the woman He thought he was gonna spend the rest of his life with

Crew Chief Eric: feeling lost and alone.

Larry de Benedictus knew he had needed to get away from it all. He needed to clear his head and figure out what his next move was gonna be, and that’s when he decided to embark on a journey that would take him across the country on the back of his motorcycle.

Mountain Man Dan: As he rode farther and farther west, something began to shift [00:01:00] inside of him.

He started to feel the weight of his problems lift off of his shoulders, and the road began to feel like a place of solace and healing. The sights and sounds of the American lands landscape became its companions. The vast open spaces of the Midwest to the winding roads of the west Coast all became part of his journey.

Slowly but surely, Larry began to find his own way forward, and he’s here to share his adventure with us.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, mountain man. Dan, you’re here to help me. Welcome Larry to break fix. So Larry, welcome to the show. Hey, how’s it going? Good. So let’s rewind the clock a little bit before we talk about this epic cross country journey that you took.

Let’s talk about you and your Petrolhead origin story. How did you get into bikes? Did it start as a kid or did you come into it later in life?

Larry DeBenedictis: Probably the most fondest memory I can remember about bikes because like, you know, like B M X bikes too. But probably when I was eight my father got a mini bike, and man, I loved riding that thing all the time.

But the coolest thing I remember about that is one time we let my little sister, Devin, Take it for a ride and she [00:02:00] whiskey throttle the throttle right into like the woods, like into a bunch of brush and like fell over. And I was like wow, that was awesome. And then ever since then I’ve just been like diehard about motorcycles.

Crew Chief Eric: So do you have a loyalty to one brand of bike or another? Have you tried different bikes over the years?

Larry DeBenedictis: I like ’em all, like all different brands. I actually got 33 bikes in my personal collection and they’re all different brands.

Crew Chief Eric: I think

Larry DeBenedictis: motorcycles like women, you can appreciate ’em all and hate ’em all at the same time, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: Are there some that are better than others or are they all sort of the same?

Larry DeBenedictis: I would say the Japanese really have reliability down more than the American brand. But you know, the American brand’s always got like, you know, Harley always get that sound. It’s always got that feel to it. When you close your eyes riding down the road, you always know you’re on a Harley, but you always know you’re on a Harley ’cause you’re working on it more.

So Japanese bikes are great. I got, I think I have like 11 or 12 vintage Hondas alone in my collection. My daily ride has a B M W, now [00:03:00] GS 1250 adventure. That’s awesome. I love that bike ’cause uh, I don’t have to touch anything on it, man. My other ones I get, I’ve got like a, a little shovel head chopper. I love to ride as well.

Pretty much all over the board. I get a few different choppers, some English stuff. Just love them. All. Two wheels is two wheels. I can find any of them like interesting and fascinating.

Crew Chief Eric: Is there one that’s any better to ride than the others? Maybe from a handling perspective or from a comfort outside of the reliability?

Larry DeBenedictis: Oh yeah. The newer B M W I got, so it’s a 2020 G S A adventure, 1250 that is hands down the best motorcycle I’ve ever ridden in my life when it comes to handling power, comfort. The Germans just, they’re just amazing. And that bike itself is totally different if you really look at it from an engineering perspective.

The front end, they have this thing called the tele lever front end. I, it’s actually crazy. It’s like a reverse swing arm on the front end, and it’s got a mono-shock in the middle, and then it’s got dampeners on the top, like mini dampeners, like traditional forks, [00:04:00] but only on the top. It like takes a hard hit and absorbs it with the mono-shock with the light, like little ruts in the road.

It takes the dampener so it’s so smooth, but at the same time, so aggressive. And then also the rear of that swing arm. Also has a knuckle right before the wheel on it that pivots as well. And then, I don’t know, it’s just a very balanced bike. The motor is very low center of gravity on the frame and hangs out of it.

And they just really did a great job engineering that bike. And I’ve got 13,000 on now and I haven’t had any problems at all. And uh, I love that bike.

Mountain Man Dan: Well that’s a considered like a sport touring bike, isn’t it?

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah. It’s like, they call it an adventure. It’s almost like a, like a giant dirt bike. It’s a 1250, it’s got some decent ccs behind it.

It’s just so nimble and it handles amazing. It’s like air over electronic suspension. So you go into a corner and as soon as you get that apex of the corner and you flick it up to get out of it, the bike like knows and it like pushes you so hard through the corner and there’s so much confidence in the bike.[00:05:00]

Crew Chief Eric: You’re one of several people that’s been on the show now that is singing the praises of B M W bikes and I never thought I’d see it happen, you know, versus a lot of the other stuff that’s out there. But it also makes me wonder, since you’re a, a bike collector, are you thinking maybe going backwards and getting some vintage BMWs to add to your stable, to your collection?

There may be some R sixties or R nineties, some of the old airheads.

Larry DeBenedictis: I would, but I’m also, I love custom stuff, so I’d rather get one that’s like in pieces and then build like a chopper with it. I either like buying bikes or all original and just need fixing to get them running. Or I like buying bikes or in pieces and I can customize ’em and not feel bad about them.

So you’re kind of basket cases? Yeah, I, I like basket cases. ’cause you don’t feel guilty when you wanna do something custom. I feel guilty if you take like a nice older bike and then you want to chop it up. You know what I mean?

Mountain Man Dan: I feel your sentiment greatly on that for the fact that even in the car, what it’s, if it hasn’t been touched and changed, leave it original.

Right. But if it’s already been told apart, then

Larry DeBenedictis: it’s, it’s fair game. Yep. Because to restore [00:06:00] them they get so expensive and you’re better off just kind of like doing your own thing. You know,

Crew Chief Eric: this actually foreshadows a little bit more of the conversation we’re gonna have about your journey across the US and part of yours backstory is being a fabricator, there’s the whole part of the construction of the trailer you built for your motorcycle for this adventure.

But let’s talk a little bit about your history as a fabricator and some of the things you’ve done. It’s always kind

Larry DeBenedictis: of been custom bikes. You know, I’m in cars to, I’ve got a 93 trans Am I’ve had since high school. I kept for like 18 years. I recently just got it repainted just to keep it looking fresh.

But I wanna say that I’ve always been in a customizing bikes. I got a, I call it a Johnny Cash, you know, pick a year, CB seven 50 Honda Chopper that I built the frame from scratch and that’s changed so many times over the years. And I wrote to Sturgis like three years ago with my buddy. It’s kind of like a hill climb slash like dirt drag bike.

Now. I like keep knobs on it. I love welding. You ever see a [00:07:00] Smithy mini lathe? It’s pretty cool. If anybody ever finds one out there, it’s a lathe and a miniature Bridgeport all in one that’s like four feet, five feet long and it can just sit on top of a bench. So it doesn’t take up all the room in your shop, but you can make like spacers and, and like small axles and stuff with it and stuff like that.

I just love tinkering with,

Mountain Man Dan: you know, speaking of Smithy one I’ve worked with like grizzly bench top unit.

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah, I think it’s similar, right?

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah, they’re phenomenal.

Larry DeBenedictis: It seems to use, I don’t think I’m going into manufacturing with it, but I mean as far as just being a tinkerer. It’s amazing. Oh yeah. You know, when you need to make something on the spot, you can just do that instead of going to the highway store with a grinder.

You know what I mean? Definitely.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m curious, you said building your own frame for that Honda. How do you get something like that through the d o t? How do you get it registered in Street Legal?

Larry DeBenedictis: It’s kind of funny, like it just started as a stock bike. The more I like got confident, the more I chop it up.

And eventually I just ended up with the neck in the front down tubes. And then I built my own frame from there, I [00:08:00] put it like on a table, made my own jig, and then got like a harbor freight tube inventor. Actually, I borrowed one from a friend of mine. I just built up all tubes. So it still stayed titled as like an 82 CB seven 50 down the line.

It’s, it’s now been a single overhead cam bike for, I don’t know, like 10 or 11 years, and I’m on my seventh or eighth motor in that bike.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s talk about what caused this trip to happen and got everything in motion and obviously there was a massive amount of prep. You didn’t just get on your bike and go, or did you build a trailer beforehand or was the trailer sort of a knee jerk reaction to wanting to get on the road?

Larry DeBenedictis: So a friend of mine wanted to move to Florida for a little while and I had a girlfriend at the time, but we were up and down, great girl, but I wanted to be single, so I moved to Florida with him, break up with the girl. Best friend of mine up here ends up getting with her. My mind was like a little bit in a spool.

I had a crazy girlfriend down there. Thought it was a good idea to move in with her. Didn’t work out, come back home. I had a vintage [00:09:00] motorcycle parts business online, mostly all on eBay. It was doing great for years, but then it was on the decline. I saw the decline coming for various reasons and I was like, I gotta do something else.

And before I wanted to do something else, I was like, you know what? I think I just wanna take a break and hit the road and just like clear my mind of all this stuff that was happening before I get into some other big venture. So that’s what like kinda sparked it. Even when I was 16, when I got my first motorcycle, I always thought, I was like, how cool would it be someday just to say, excuse my French, fuck it, and just hit the road, not have a plan and not try to have a care.

Just see what the road like takes me. I was 27 when I moved back home from Florida and I was like, well, I’m not getting any younger and I’m single and I saved some money from the business. So I’m like, I think this is the perfect time to go out on the road and do this thing I’ve always wanted to do.

Crew Chief Eric: So now you’re back home in New England.

Yeah. And you’re thinking about setting upon this journey, but you gotta take a bunch of supplies with you. So is that where the [00:10:00] trailer was born from?

Larry DeBenedictis: Exactly. I don’t wanna have to plan where to sleep because I don’t know where I’m gonna be. I was going through all these different things. I gotta get paid to stay in hotels, whatever, this and this.

But then my, my buddies is like, Hey, you should build a teardrop trailer and pull behind your motorcycle. Those look sweet. And I started looking into ’em like, oh, those are cool. I could literally just build something that I could sleep in and carry all my gear and tools, which were like my biggest concern because I was on an 89 F X R Harley.

It’s gonna break. You know what I mean? That’s where I really liked the trailer idea, but I liked it because I could just park anywhere, just jump in and it would be like kind of incognito that I’d be sleeping in there. Not many people think that you can sleep in this trailer because it’s pretty small.

Crew Chief Eric: How did you come up with the design for the trailer? Did you just mimic something you saw online? Did you buy a kit? How does it all mount up? How does it work? How does it stay balanced?

Larry DeBenedictis: I guess the general size, I was like, I just want it to be big enough that I can lay down and then shut the door. I basically laid on the floor and I just [00:11:00] marked out how big I was and I was like, okay, this is gonna be the base of the trailer.

I was like, oh, I’ll just buy like a Harbor Freight trailer and then build like a wooden teardrop structure off of that, and I was talking to a guy at a trailer place. He’s like, don’t do that because. If you blow out like a wheel bearing on that trailer, you will not be able to find another one because none of the parts are like regular.

They’re all from like China. So a guy convinced me and I ended up building my own frame from the trailer and everything, the whole frame from scratch. And then from there I built the wooden box, teardrop, put a metal roof on it. I got that done. And then I had to build a trailer hitch for the bike that was like wicked heavy duty.

And I made a custom one of those. ’cause all the ones I found online, I didn’t think they were gonna be heavy duty enough. So I’m like, I’ll just build it. I finally get like a prototype going and I take it down the highway and oh my God, this trailer was shaking my bike like crazy. The front end, back and forth, the whole thing.

And I’m like, I couldn’t get over like 50 miles an hour without it shaking. I’m like, why is this doing [00:12:00] this? So I started researching and it’s like tongue weight. You need the right tongue weight. I moved the axle like two or three times to get the right tongue weight. Still wasn’t really doing what I needed to do.

Then I started researching again and someone said, you add weight to the front of the bike. So I put these like one inch by one inch solid square tubing on the front of the frame wheels and over the full brace of the bike. That started really helping, like I’d get up to 55. I was like, okay, let’s add some more weight, go back, add more weight, get up to 60.

I finally got up to like 75, 80 at one point, and I let go of the bars. And it was able to go straight and I was like, okay, that’s good. We’re not gonna go over 80 at any point. So counterweight on the front of the bike seemed to be the biggest thing that was helpful. And I found out later on the heavier the bike you use, ’cause I towed the trail with an ultra classic one time, the better it would tow.

Crew Chief Eric: So as folks go online and look at your social media, they can obviously see pictures of how you built a trailer and things like [00:13:00] that. So I’m still a little perplexed like how does the trailer attach to the bike? Where does the receiver go?

Mountain Man Dan: Did you go with the method of where it ties into your axle and comes back around the back tire?

Like most of the conventional ones?

Larry DeBenedictis: Uh, no. So I went from the top of the fender struts on the frame and I built my mount from there. So it still utilized the suspension on the bike because I didn’t go from the swing arm, which I don’t know if that would’ve been better. The only reason I didn’t go from the swing arm I think was because if the trail like bounced, it’d be like pulling my tire off the ground versus like if we hit a bump with the trailer.

The suspension soaked up a lot of it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I, I had pretty nice suspension on that F xr. I had a set of

Mountain Man Dan: OS on the back. You mentioned as you were building the trailer and everything, taking it out, doing test runs, getting up to speed, were slowing down. Did you incorporate any sort of like hydraulic braking system on the tongue of the trailer or were you just allowing the bike brakes to slow you down?

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah, I was just allowing the bike slow me down. ’cause I’ve been riding for quite a while and I don’t take unnecessary chances. [00:14:00] It was really crazy though because like, I think the trailer probably weighed like 350 pounds. 400 pounds and the bike itself weighs like six to seven or eight with the rider.

So you like to 50% of your weight. It’s a lot of weight. It really didn’t have that many problems breaking though. ’cause I never was like in a hurry. It wasn’t like a race, you know what I mean? That’s something I’ve

Mountain Man Dan: learned with, especially with bikes, is if you’ve got extra weight on, you’ve gotta be aware of that while you’re riding.

’cause a lot of people get out, put a lot of weight on their bikes.

Yeah. And

Mountain Man Dan: guys that get these baggers and stuff packed in the bags full of weight and they get out there thinking they’re gonna do like it’s empty. That weight makes effect on a bike. It’s not like a car or a truck.

Larry DeBenedictis: The other thing that, like I always get comfortable with your rear brake on a bike versus your front brake.

If something bad happens, you can lock your rear brake up. But if you lock your front brake up, you’re going down ’cause you can’t steer anymore. That front wheel’s not spinning. I just kind of step it slow. When I would go down these like big mountain roads, I’d like use the thing like a semi what a Jake brake with the gears and like just really hammer the gears down to do a lot of the breaking.

[00:15:00] Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So when you measured it, it’s your height plus you know, some length long wise, not width-wise. ’cause you don’t wanna exceed the width of a lane. Right. So it’s almost as long as the bike behind

Larry DeBenedictis: you, I think it was only like three feet wide. It wasn’t a full sheet wide. So the idea I always had is like, gotta build this thing small and I knew I was having a decent amount of tools in it.

In retrospect, wish I made it even narrower to say, wait, but I forgot to tell you another essential important part of the trailer. The back hatch of the trailer, I made an exterior hatch that was just filled with tools. Like I filled the whole thing with tools, so they were separate from like my clothes and stuff inside.

And then even inside the trailer on like the teardrop pot on the roof, I made a shelf inside with a little door on it to hold all my clothes. It’s pretty closing

Crew Chief Eric: and, and I’m sure it was pretty strategic where you placed those items because of the weight that you were trying to keep in check with the bike.

Larry DeBenedictis: I remember like. The first day I went out, it was like [00:16:00] terrible. The bike was like swaying all over the place. I actually just pulled over on the side of the road and just dumped a ton of self out that I would consider that I really need like a second, um, foam mattress thing. I was like, all right, this is extra weight I guess I don’t need, and it actually helped.

It was funny, you know, it was if I felt like the trailer wasn’t heavy enough in the front, I’d buy a case of water and put it in the very front of the trail on the inside, like a, uh, tongue weight. That would make all the difference. Sometimes it was wild. The thing was so sensitive to like everything. If the wind was really hard, that’d be an issue.

Pushing you from the back or the front going downhill can be sketchy. It was quite a learning experience, like really driving with that thing sometimes.

Crew Chief Eric: So how long did it take you to get from a couple scraps of tubing on the ground to a final product?

Larry DeBenedictis: Probably a good like four or five months because I was working full-time too.

You know what I mean? And it’s like trial and error of like moving the axle and stuff. A lot. Like I finally thought I got it right. It worked

Mountain Man Dan: with building a trailer. [00:17:00] Every state has their different laws when it comes to homemade trailers. How difficult was it for you to get it registered where you’re at?

Larry DeBenedictis: I’m gonna be, honestly, I just threw a homemade main trail plate on and call it a day and just hope for the best. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, new England in general. I’ve never been pulled over because of a trailer plate. Seems like everybody, including myself, we all just kind of swap trail plates whenever you need it on a different trailer.

It could be different in other pots, but it, it never really was an issue. I had a main trailer car plate on the back of this thing the whole time.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, so you got the trailer done, you got the bike sorted, you got all your spares and all your kit and everything you need. And so now you’re ready to set off.

You’re based outta New England. Where do you go from there? How did you just throw a dart at a map and say, I’m gonna head west? Or did you do something like, I’m gonna head south towards the mid-Atlantic, the DC area, maybe grab 66 or Route 50 and do something like that. What was your plan?

Larry DeBenedictis: The plan was to leave like mid-September.

I wasn’t ready with the trail and I didn’t feel comfortable. So I actually left [00:18:00] October 9th in 2014. The plan was to get out of the cold, so to head south first and then west. So that was kind of just the general plan is south and west and then see where I go from there.

Mountain Man Dan: So other than general direction of where you were planning to head, did you have plans in advance of like, I wanna try to stay off major highways and hit man like side roads during those trips?

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah, absolutely. That was my thing. I’m like, I wanna try to do this trip because I didn’t have a timeline when I had to be back. I mean, I wanted it to be an open trip. I wanna do all back roads as much as I can. And because it’s so boring on the highway, you don’t see much. So I wanted to do back roads and have like experiences and like I actually had an idea in the beginning that I was like, I like to work.

I was like, oh, like maybe I can like end up on a farm and like work for a week or something and save some money and then take off. That was the idea in the beginning. Didn’t really play out like that. But

Crew Chief Eric: you know, you’re still in New England and you have two options, right? If you’re going south, you’re gonna take route one or you’re gonna go [00:19:00] 95.

Larry DeBenedictis: I literally would like get on my phone and put avoid highways and just pick like a major city to get to. Nice. Because I always try to avoid the highways ’cause it’s pretty dangerous on the highway with that thing. And you don’t see anything. And I didn’t have a timeline. Once I got the trip going, I found out that I was averaging like 300 miles a day.

So not much. Okay. You know what I mean? But I was trying to see stuff not get somewhere, you know.

Crew Chief Eric: So major cities down the east coast and then how far south did you make it before you started to go west or did you make it back to Florida before? Really kind of setting off.

Larry DeBenedictis: First night I just went down to Connecticut.

Second day on the road I made it down to New Jersey and it was like raining. I remember. That was my first hotel parking lot. And that was, that was quite an experience that first night. The funny thing is like I never slept in the trailer before I was on the road, and the most vivid thing I remember is car lights shining in the windows of the trailer.

I didn’t put shades. So I remember I was sitting in the trailer, thank God I had like a drill on the, in [00:20:00] whatever, and I actually took an old pair of jeans, cut them up and made some window shades out of the jeans just so I could sleep for the night.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re saying is it didn’t leak before, but then you put some screw holes in it?

Larry DeBenedictis: No, no. It actually never, ever leaked on the trip. The windows were made out of plexiglass, so I took out like, it was like an inner frame on it. Ah, and I took out the existing frame and just put the cut up jeans in the window into the back, into the existing pole. So it wasn’t in the roof. It was like on the side.

When you were sleeping in the teardrop, was there anything like a conventional tent where condensation would build up inside? It was pretty good. I mean, it was just, I remember when I was like down south, it was hot, but I put a vent on the top with a fan too as well. I stole out of an RV that I put in there and uh, that helped a little.

But I mean, the good thing is like I never really stayed more than a night in one place, so I was always like moving, you know, from New Jersey. I made it down to York, Pennsylvania the next day ’cause I wanted to, uh, check out the Harley Davidson factory down there. [00:21:00] I got there and it was a Sunday and it was closed.

I met the guy leaving the factory and this is like the first like pretty crazy thing that happened on the trip. You think it’s okay if I sleep in this parking lot tonight? He’s like, yeah, you should be fine. If you want, you can sleep in my house down the street in my yard. I’m like, no. I was like, next question, where are the bars?

And he, he’s like, oh, there’s like a biker bar up here. So I went to this biker bar and it was closed, but then there was like a bunch of like patched bikers outside and I was like, oh. Against those guys, but I don’t want any trouble. Right? I’m by myself. I’m like trying to think smart. They see me, I see them, they see on the trail, they come over, they’re like talking all about the trail with me.

They’re like, Hey, follow this other bar. I was like, all right. I guess like I didn’t know what patch they were or whatever. So we go to that bar and I’m talking to one of the guys, his name is John. Hey, I gotta ask like, what mc are you guys? Or whatever. He’s like, MC. He’s like, we just ride together. We’re just military vets, and they’ll like change, like the whole vibe.

[00:22:00] I felt like I could be more friendly with them because it’s no drama or whatever. So then we’re drinking at the bar and he’s like, Hey, you wanna do the shot with me? And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. He’s like, you have to do it if I buy it though. I was like, okay. He buys this shot of Patron. I was like, okay, I’ve done the shots of Patron.

He’s like, all right, so this is what you do. They call it an infantry shot. He goes, pour a little bit in the palm of your hand. I was like, okay. And then he goes, when I counted three, you gotta sniff this, shot up your nose, hold it for like 10 seconds, and then pound the shot. It’s supposed to represent the pain that the, uh, infantry went on the front line.

I did that shot with him, like, oh, this is different. We’re talking and he’s like, you’re a cool man. He is like, come back to my house for an after party. And he knew the owners of the bar and everything seemed cool. He was with his wife. And I was like, all right. So we actually went back to his house, had an after party having a good time, and he’s like, you know what?

Don’t sleep in that trail tonight. Sleep on my couch. You’re gonna be sleeping in that trail a long time. And I was [00:23:00] like, yeah, I don’t mind the trail. I’ll sleeping in. I, you know, didn’t really know this guy. I figured he had a girlfriend. Like he must be pretty harmless. And so he puts me to sleep on his couch.

And then right before I go to bed, there’s like a pit bull next to me. He goes, You seem like a nice guy. Just so you know, there’s 10 guns in that room, so don’t think you’re gonna pull anything. And I was like, oh man. Oh boy. Have a nice night and shut the light off. And I woke up the next day and I was alive.

Pit bull, like licking my face. That was uh, the second night on the road, so it was off to a bang.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re still working your way south. So how far south did you get before you decided Turn right and go west?

Larry DeBenedictis: From there I went to Gettysburg, which was actually that day with them, which was really cool. It’s very peaceful, but somber.

I eventually made my way from there to West Virginia, West Virginia. All I have to say is like, it’s such a pretty state. There’s like trash everywhere in people’s yards in like the beautiful country I made my way through there. In West Virginia. I took [00:24:00] my first Planet Fitness shower. That was like one of the things like where am I gonna shower?

I came up with this idea that Planet Fitness has a black card and there was like 800 planet fitnesses across the country and I could shower any of ’em as long as I had that black

Crew Chief Eric: card. Interesting. That’s a really smart way to do it. Nice clean shower. Every time

Mountain Man Dan: I would kitchen a planet Fitnesses are a little cleaner than the random truck stops throughout the country.

Yeah. You know what’s funny though? It’s

Larry DeBenedictis: like they get the loves and the TAs and I think they’re like seven bucks for a shower and those are super clean too. They go in right after you shower and clean ’em before the next guy paid for those too as well. It’s,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s not a Bucky’s though, that’s all I’m gonna say.

Larry DeBenedictis: And then Kentucky and then down in Nashville. ’cause I had some friends in Nashville.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re stair stepping your way down. Okay.

Larry DeBenedictis: Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’ve made it to Nashville. You’ve already said you’ve been doing about 300 miles a day. Kind of taking your time on this trip. How often are you filling the bike? How much extra is it costing to also pull the trailer?

Are you killing your fuel economy?

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah. Oh yeah. I think I was getting like only 20 to 25 miles to a [00:25:00] gallon. When you’re probably usually getting like 35, 40. Usually it would fill up around like 85, 90 miles, like just to be safe. And the tank was like 3.2 or three gallon tank, but I always carried an extra gallon of gas on the front of the trail with me.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a good counterweight too, right? An extra seven or eight pounds up there. Up front. Yeah.

Larry DeBenedictis: A spare tire on the front too for the trailer

Crew Chief Eric: in Nashville, you know, great city to be in, all that. Where do you head from there?

Larry DeBenedictis: I was staying at a friend’s house there too, so it was nice. I could sleep on his couch.

We went out drinking one day. We shouldn’t have done this, but this other guy was in a motorcycle, was like, you ever have somebody ride in that trailer? Is you going down the road? No. It sounds like it’s not idea. We were only a couple miles away from my buddy’s house, and uh, he jumped in the trailer and we pulled him back to the house.

While I was driving in the trailer, he made it. I was like, how was the ride? He is like, Oh, not too bad.

Crew Chief Eric: How bad did it shake the bike though? All the weight was off.

Larry DeBenedictis: Oh my God. It was tough riding. ’cause he was like, you know, another 200 pound guy in there or [00:26:00] whatever, you know,

Mountain Man Dan: being a bike guy myself, I know when you have a passenger sitting on the back seat, their movements will throw off the, the gyroscopic of the bike way it leans and things like that.

Was he a decent passenger in the trailer lane still or was he moving and could you feel every movement he was making in the trailer? No,

Larry DeBenedictis: I think he was fine. It, it was just bad because it hit a bump and the whole trailer would like shake back and forth, you know, sway. Now we’re talking go from like 400 to 600 and the bikeway is 600.

So it was like really swaying. It was only like a mile or two. Funny at the time. Not smart in retrospect,

Crew Chief Eric: but we made it whatever. So you’re in the Nashville area, which isn’t quite yet in the direct middle of the country, but you’re getting close. So as you kind of look back over the trip to that point, was the novelty of it starting to wear off or were you still excited and enthusiastic about keeping going?

Larry DeBenedictis: No, I mean it was, ’cause like every night I didn’t know where I was sleeping. So I’d have like a plan. Like I’d try to stay in major cities when I could. I’d go out, go hang out at the bars, maybe meet [00:27:00] people. Find local hotels that were near them and I would just park and sleep in hotel parking lot. It never was like wearing off.

’cause every night you pull in, you’re like, all right, shut the door. The first couple nights it was like nerve wracking sleep. ’cause you’re like nervous about what’s gonna happen. Eventually I was just like, you know what? Just gonna shut the door. Whatever happens happens. If I’m gonna die in the middle of the night, there’s nothing I can do about it before right now.

So just. Shut the door and go to sleep. It was always that like exciting feeling. And then the next day you’d wake up and never seen any of the road ahead. So, and it’s all back roads I was doing every day felt like wicked interesting, like a new adventure every day, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: Did it ever get to the point though, where it was just like, man, this is super uncomfortable because, you know, like you can get uncomfortable in a car on a long trip, but how about on the bike?

I mean, was it causing you any like, let’s say saddle sores or anything like that

Larry DeBenedictis: when not pulling a trailer? I can do like five, 600 miles in a day. On a modern bike. So to do only half, 300, it’s not that bad. You know what I mean? I was getting on and off, I [00:28:00] think like every hour and a half, two hours I was getting fuel.

So it’s not that bad. The only sores you’d get, not to get a little gross, but like, oh, it’s been like three or four days since I’ve showered. I need to get to a shower. And you get that like sweat annoyance or whatever. But I mean, I wasn’t hanging out with many people, so I didn’t like, it was like, and things would happen, so trying to get to like the next planet of fitness, you

Crew Chief Eric: know

Larry DeBenedictis: what I mean?

You like

Crew Chief Eric: timing it out. Right. You know. Well you were saying on a normal ride without the trailer, five or 600 miles isn’t a big deal, but did you ever get comfortable with the trailer behind you? Did it ever get to a point where you were like, you didn’t even notice that it was back there? Were you always sort of on edge wondering what it was gonna do?

Yeah, I was

Larry DeBenedictis: personally always on edge just because like you’d get comfortable and then you’d hit something in the road and it would like shake the bike like crazy. And then you’re like, all right, that’s why you can’t get comfortable. You know what I mean? I mean, you get used to it, but you never like get comfortable.

But I always looked at the trail like it was like a necessary evil because the trail allowed freedom. Yeah. If [00:29:00] you think about it, you’re not limited. Just pull over and sleep. The bike broke down a lot later on in the trip, which we’ll get to the trailer also allowed me the ability to fix the bike with my own tools.

Crew Chief Eric: But the trailer never bit you hard enough where it took the bike down or took you down or anything like that?

Larry DeBenedictis: I did go down in Texas on the way home. It was very low speed. It wasn’t a big deal going out through

Mountain Man Dan: like Oklahoma and Texas and that section. I’ve been out there and crosswinds get crazy. Oh my god.

Was it a major trailer?

Larry DeBenedictis: Oh my God. Yeah. Like that’s what I thought I was gonna blow my motor. Going through New Mexico, Oklahoma, you go from like, you could always cruise 65 to 70 comfortably. I’d be screaming in 50 or only going 50 miles an hour. ’cause that headwind is so bad. That was like the worst riding of the whole trip.

It was taking like a beating on me for sure. Yeah, you’re right about those winds. They’re wild out there.

Mountain Man Dan: Did you have any sort of like fairing on your bike or were you just riding open handlebars?

Larry DeBenedictis: My bike is originally a 89 F fxr sp, which means [00:30:00] like higher suspension dual disc. But I put an RD slash RT faring on it, so I actually had a faring and a radio on it too, which made riding a lot more enjoyable and saddlebags Nice.

Crew Chief Eric: So there in the middle of the country right? You on top of the continental divide. I went

Larry DeBenedictis: to that

Crew Chief Eric: at some point. You gotta keep going west and you got across the mountains. So what route did you take to get out to California?

Larry DeBenedictis: Well, that’s not true. I didn’t really do that. Uh oh. Nashville. Right. And the next city I went to was St.

Louis. This is like back in 14 or 15 when there was those like shootings. Do you remember those? Yeah. I hate to say it, St. Louis was like not the nicest cities I’ve ever been to the United States. I remember rolling through St. Louis at like nine o’clock at night on a Monday and there was just like a hundred people barbecuing in the street.

It was like the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’m gonna stop. So like I kept rolling by. I also couldn’t find like a bar, which I thought would be like safe [00:31:00] enough to go to that night. I ended up just sleeping in a condo parking lot, so from St. Louis, Kansas City, Missouri. Then that was totally different.

Power light district. That was a Tuesday night, and that was pretty cool. Kansas City Royals were in the World Series. I couldn’t find any hotels there, so I actually decided to sleep in a Walmart parking lot that night. That was the first one. Was it a 24 hour Walmart? Yeah, 24 hour Walmart. Everything was fine.

All of a sudden in the middle of the night, well, early morning, I wake up and I just, he had this thing like circling in my trail. I peek out the window. And it was like a street sweeper going around and around my trailer and figured, I’m like, oh my God. But I looked out the window. I’m like, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know I’m in here.

So I’m like, whatever. I went back to sleep and then a couple hours later I wake up that morning and I pick out my window again and there was a guy in an SS 10 truck taking, get a picture of my trailer. I was like, oh, it’s time to get up. Anyway, so I jumped out of the trail and was like, ah, shocked. The guy threw himself in.

He had no idea I was sleeping in the trail. He’s like, you sleeping there? I was [00:32:00] like, yeah. Sometimes he’s like, wow. We had like a laugh and he took off. Those were like the little things on the trip that like still make me laugh to this day, you know? From there just kept heading west through Kansas. Man, there’s like nothing in Kansas.

Just kept going. That was probably the most desolate before Denver. I got gas at a gas station that said no more gas for like 90 miles. So that was like the only time I really got scared that I was gonna run out, but I didn’t run out. Climbed up to Denver and got there. Finally, that was a long day of riding.

I was so tired that night. I literally just went to another Planet Fitness, got something to eat, and then I decided, you know what? All my parking lot’s not that bad. We’ll try it one more time. Right? This time it was quite different when I woke up and I hear people like talking and around my trailer early in the morning and I’m like, oh, maybe it’s just people getting out of a car.

Like, I don’t know. I’m just gonna ignore it. They probably don’t even know I’m in here. Right? So I went back to sleep for another hour again, hour later for people talking. [00:33:00] And this time someone bumped my trail. I’m like, ah, someone must know I’m in here. ’cause like I moved right. So I was like on the defensive, I had two giant knives, would be no guns, but a giant knife in me and I had it in my side and I got ready to like jumped outta the trail, like ready to like fight.

I don’t know what I was walking into. And then a bunch of like people just standing there staring at me and I’m like, what is going on? Turns out I parked under a casino bus stop sign. All these people were just going to work and I had no idea. And they all looking at me. I’m looking, I’m like, all get outta here.

Yeah, that was the last Walmart parking lot. I slept in on the trip.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you’re in Denver and you’re staring

Larry DeBenedictis: down the Rockies. Actually went the next night to family, friend’s sister in Denver that I never met before and stayed at her house for one night and then I came back to Denver and went out in Denver.

I like to stop at like the local Harley dealers, not because I like Harley dealers, but usually there’s cool people that work at Harley dealers, like the gear [00:34:00] heads that work there are pretty cool. So I stopped at this one. I was like, Hey, what’s like a good place to park and sleep? He’s like, oh, you could park and sleep here.

We actually have an outdoor bike storage cage. I’ll leave it dummy lock for you and you could park a trailer in there and disconnect and go travel the city on your bike and then come back at night and sleep. I was like, oh, that’s awesome. So I did that. Went out in Denver, had some fun and when I came back and went to go sleep in the trailer, there was actually a homeless guy sleeping on the other side of the fence.

He shocked me ’cause I didn’t know he was there and he like got up and left and then the next day the guy let me do that, he is like, Hey, uh, turns out there was a security alarm on that fence and I didn’t know about it and I got a call in the middle of the night. I said it had a, just a false alarm from there, though, I left down here.

I hate heights, like I’m terrified of heights. How am I gonna get to the west coast without going over the Rockies? Right? I decided to go north, head up to like Seattle and then I could cut over when they’re like not as big up there. So that’s what I did from there. Wow.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. So that [00:35:00] takes you up into like Montana and Idaho and all the, those states.

Mountain Man Dan: I wanted to see those states anyways. What does that do timeline wise? ’cause you were leaving the north to get away from the cold. Yeah. And then so you’re heading back to the north.

Larry DeBenedictis: I think we were like two weeks in at this point, because I remember where I spent Halloween, Spokane in Washington. And so from here I go up to Wyoming.

It was really windy in Wyoming too. And there’s like nothing in Wyoming, so no. Like really big city. It’s like even Cheyenne isn’t that big. Like I crossed through there and I end up landing in this little town, I think it was called Glendo, population 200. So like very small town. I go to this bar and grab a drink and I’m sitting there with the bartender and this girl came in, I remember with her dog kind of flirting with me, whatever, but she had a puppy and it was like pooping and peeing in the bar.

I’m like, this thing’s not trained like I don’t know about this. I asked this guy, I was like, oh, where’s a good place to sleep? He was like, oh, you can sleep in the parking lot out back of the bar. [00:36:00] I was like, all right, cool. But this girl was like flirting with me, trying to get me to go back with her. But I was like, nah, I don’t know, I’m, I’m not going back to like a house that’s got like poop and pee in it.

You know what I mean? So I chose the ladder and I, I slept in the trailer that night. That was the coldest morning I woke up, it was 17 degrees out. I got woke up by a freight train too. I planned for the call ’cause I bought heated gear from cycle gear if anybody’s ever looking for good plugin, heated gear, cycle gear’s got really good gear.

So with that on, it’s not that bad. Did their gear have adjustable temperatures or is it just on off? It’s got like four settings and it works really well. At the time they had held a warranty on ’em too, which was really nice ’cause they broke once and I was able to just walk into another one and grab a new jacket.

Cycle gear is a really good shop. I kept headed north and I ended in a town called Thermopolis, Wyoming and Thermopolis. It’s got all like the hot springs in it, right? Doing some sightseeing there. I found myself looking at these wild buffalo walking towards him and some guy in a car yells out [00:37:00] to me. He goes, you shouldn’t get any more closer to those buffalo.

And I was like, whatever. What is this Taurus? He’s like, really? They stopped eating. They noticed you. And I was like, all right, this guy might know something. Right? So I walk up to him and I start talking with him. He just has a whole family and everything. I told him, you know, I’m on my trip or whatever. He goes, wow, that sounds really interesting.

Would you want to come over for dinner? Yeah, I don’t, I don’t care. I seem harmless. He had like a family and stuff. I was planning to go to his dinner. I’m like, I wanna go check out these hot springs. So I, I went to these hot springs and those are really cool. It was like a resort from the seventies.

Worked it outdated, but pretty cool to like swim in natural pools. But they have like the hot spring come up. So I ended up going over to this guy’s house for dinner. I’m sitting there with him and his wife and his kids were having dinner and he ends up having kind of like a crazy story. He was a Bosnian refugee and lived in Chicago.

He was living, I guess in a bad area of Chicago. Saw like kid get like shot cold blood in the street and he just decided to move his whole family to this like small town. [00:38:00] Thermopolis, Wyoming and get away from all the crime and stuff. ’cause he like was trying to get away from in Bosnia as well after his family went to bed like, and like really got stories going.

But I was like, all right, so I’m gonna go to bed in my trailer. He is like, no, you’ll just sleep on my couch. You sure? He is like, yeah, so let me sleep on his couch. Like I always think animals have like a good sense of like feeling good and bad. His like cat laid on my chest and his dog was like licking my hand in the middle of the night and he’s like, yeah, when you wake up in the morning, my wife will make you breakfast and then you can go.

He’s like, I’ll be gone before you get up to go to work. So I woke up, his wife made me breakfast. That was quite different to being in the middle of nowhere and someone like inviting you in, you know, lots of nice people I met on this trip.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’re working your way Wyoming to the Montanas, Idaho, into Washington.

At this point,

Larry DeBenedictis: actually, I made my way from Opolis. To a town called Bozeman, Montana.

Crew Chief Eric: Anybody that watches Yellowstone has heard of Bozeman.

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah, so funny. Pre Yellowstone days. So Bozeman was a [00:39:00] Tuesday night and it was supposed to, I just wanted to chill, sit at like a bar, just writing my journals, trying to write my journals every day, like what’s happening?

And I was just gonna do that and call an early night, go to bed or whatever, and hit the road again. And then I met these three guys. This girl, all of a sudden, like my quiet Tuesday night turned into like a full fledged party and we’re going from like bar to bar drinking and this other girl they were with, she was by herself pretty well buzzed now she’s like, Hey, I’m having like a little after party, you should come by.

So I took her up on the offer and I had my journal with me still. I ended up going to her house and we’re talking, she’s like, blah, blah, blah, my boyfriend. And I’m like, wait a minute, you have a boyfriend and you just dragged me all the way here to somewhere. I don’t even know. These guys end up driving me back to my bike and I end up going to bed on my bike and then as soon as I got back to my bike, I’m like, oh my God, I left my journal at this girl’s house.

So the next day I wake up and I’m like quite hungover. I gotta find this journal. So I like retrace my steps all the way in town, trying to [00:40:00] find out who knows these people and trying to find this journal and I could never find it. Fast forward to like years later, I had an idea how to find this journal.

I lost, I put an ad in the Bozeman. Paper basically explaining what happened. One of those guys from that night contacted me, said, I know where your journal’s at. And I was like, no way. He overheard some women in the hospital talking about this story and laughing about it, and then he was like, I was there that night.

Long story short, I never got the journal back. He just lost touch and my journal’s still out there. This girl, Rachel has it, I guess. So Rachel, you’re out there. Send me back that journal.

Rewrite tons of stuff in journal number two. From there, I go up to Spokane, Washington for Halloween, I dressed like a homeless biker for Halloween, ’cause that’s all I had. I knew a girl that I used to go camping with when I was younger. Our families did, she lived in Seattle. She put me up with her boyfriend in her place for like three [00:41:00] days.

So that was cool. I got to hang out in Seattle, get off the bike. The best thing I remember from Seattle was like the salmon. I’m like, oh my God, I know this other random girl I met in Sturgis one time when I was there with a friend of mine years back. I’m like, I still remember. I was like, oh, let’s see what she’s doing.

And we met up with some drinks and whatever and went out a couple nights later. From there, I left Seattle and I started heading down and I went to Portland. Great City. I didn’t think so. You think so? Or what?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s more laid back than Seattle. You know, a little less professional. You can, you can have some fun there.

Larry DeBenedictis: I was more like nervous, like so many homeless people, you know what I mean? And like there’s a cool motorcycle shop there if anybody ever wants to go called CC Motorcycle Co. And then Voodoo Donuts. Yep. I’m sure people know about Voodoo Donuts. I went to this little dive bar and I was talking to this bartender, police was called ous.

I was like, Hey, I parked. My bike on the street next to like this church looking thing. I’m like, you think it’s okay if I just sleep there? It seems like I’m not busy [00:42:00] street. She’s like, yeah, I think you’ll be fine and whatever. I was like, all right, cool. Have a good night. I wake up the next morning, she sent me a picture of me sleeping in my trailer and I didn’t know it on the side of the street, so I thought that was kind of cool.

That’s actually like the picture you saw on my profile.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It’s a beautiful shot too, of great lighting there at night.

Larry DeBenedictis: Yes. Got woken up that morning to what I thought was a tow truck, but was another street sweeper sweeping there. I was like, time to get up. So hit the road south again. I pretty much started making my way to California.

Crew Chief Eric: Are you just following the coastline the whole way down?

Larry DeBenedictis: I did in Oregon. It literally reminded me of the Goonies, you know, it was shot there anyways, but I, that’s all I kept thinking about. So I followed the coastline down to California pretty much to San Francisco area. It started getting like really high.

I hate that. You know what I mean? The height thing. So I went inland, but I went to San Francisco. I was there for a little while. I always find like interesting things at bars. I guess. I was at this other bar. I was talking to this girl, you know, I really didn’t think anything of it because her father’s [00:43:00] name was Larry as well.

So I asked her, at the end of the day, I’m like, where should I park and sleep in San Francisco? Which was wicked hard to find parking there to sleep. She’s like, there’s no good spot. So I was like, well, you know, like I’ll figure it out. Nice meeting you. She’s like, No, I mean you should like stay with me. I ended up staying with her for like three days and she like showed me around the city and man, she was like a real like San Francisco hippie.

I remember like one night after watching a movie, she’s like, oh, you wanna have some popcorn? Oh yeah. And I was like, where’s your microwave? She’s like, microwave. She’s like, I don’t use microwaves. She did like the Stovetop pub going and I was like, wow, you really have like the old school, like San Francisco hippie thing.

Crew Chief Eric: So you had mentioned, you know, you’re always fixing the bike kind of par for the course with that age of Harley and things like that. But California is where you find yourself with your first big problem.

Larry DeBenedictis: And I was gonna go surprise one of my friends. I think in Lancaster, California, which is like a few hours outside of la and I’m on my way there and all of a [00:44:00] sudden I’m going up a big hill and the bike starts like chucking like really bad.

I was like, oh man, something in my tree or the clutch or something. So I get to the top of this hill and I’m able to coast down to a town and the next morning I, I do an inspection of the bike and it turns out, I don’t even know how my belt didn’t break, but a bunch of teeth on my belt had worn off, so it was only grabbing every so many revolutions on the rear sprocket.

I call up my buddy who lives in Lancaster. I was like, Hey, I was gonna surprise you and just show up. I just need to know before I get there. Like, if you have a spot, I could work on my bike. He’s like, oh yeah, no problem. So I was like, all right, cool. I’ll figure this out and I’ll call you. I came up with an idea.

I end up renting a U-Haul truck. I put my bike in the back of the U-Haul and then put the trailer on the back of the U-Haul, and I drove to his house with the bike and the, the back and the trailer. And then I finally got there and I returned the U-Haul. Actually it worked out pretty good. I get pitches of that as well.

I spent like a couple weeks at his place fixing the belt on my bike, actually converted it to chain drive ’cause this [00:45:00] was like the second belt I went through on this bike.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah, I’m sure the extra weight in the trailer was definitely hard on the teeth for them. Uh, rails,

Larry DeBenedictis: you know, and 89 F X R doesn’t leak any oil at all.

Right. It stops leaking when it’s empty. Very true.

Crew Chief Eric: Combination of weight and oil on the belt. You’re all the way on the other side of the country at this point. Let’s say by bird’s flight, you know, 3000 miles away from home. How many tires did you go through at this point?

Larry DeBenedictis: The first tire I went through, actually it was.

When I had the belt brake, I noticed I needed a tire, so I had the rim off. So I got my first rear tire there. So I think the ratio I went through was like two to one, two rears to one front, because you gotta remember they had extra weight on the rear. So it was really like making a curved tire into a flat tire, you know,

Mountain Man Dan: even without pulling a trailer.

I noticed that with my bikes, I tend to go through two groups of extra one front.

Larry DeBenedictis: Exactly. It kind of goes that way. Anyways, I suppose tire pressure and all that makes a difference.

Crew Chief Eric: So at this point, how many miles have you clocked on your journey?

Larry DeBenedictis: 6,000. Because you gotta remember I’m doing back roads [00:46:00] and I’m not going straight across, two thirds across the United States, and then I went all the way up again, starting my descent down.

My next buddy was just in LA so he was only like two or three hours away. And then all of a sudden I’m driving to LA and my bike stops going like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. But not like a tick, like a knock. Oh my God. Like really? I get to my buddy’s house, I go to a couple shops and they’re like, oh, you got Pistons.

Slap in your bike. Which means fortunately, you know, it’s top end. And I was like, no. So I was like, what am I gonna do now? So I came up with this like idea like, well, I can fix it myself, but I don’t have any way to work in it because he had, it was at an apartment and I can’t work on it in the, in the apartment.

So you know what I did? I actually rented out a storage unit to work on the bike. The funny thing is the first month’s free. There you go. Nice. So I went to these people and I was like, are you sure it’s okay for me to work in there? I’m like, once I start working in there, I’m like, it’s gonna be torn apart.

They’re like, yeah, just no sleeping there. And I was like, why would I sleep in a [00:47:00] storage unit? Apparently lots of homeless people are sleeping in storage units in California. I actually worked with a, uh, a shop out there called South Bay Customs. That was wicked nice. I gave him in my cylinders, he had new pistons to order, and then he was gonna get a machine, I think it was like 20 or 30 over to match the pistons.

And so I gave him to him. Meanwhile, because of this hiccup and the other hiccups, I was supposed to be like kind of in Arizona by this time, and I booked a flight outta Arizona to go back home. But my grandparents had a 60th wedding anniversary party. And I was like, I wanna go home no matter what, wherever I am for this party.

And it was like Thanksgiving and then come back and continue my trip. So I had a flight booked outta Arizona at another like family, friend’s place. So I was like, how am I gonna get to Arizona from la? I don’t have a car or whatever, a bus. So I was taking chances on this trip already. So I was like, let’s uh, keep these chances rolling.

So I went on the old Craigslist and found this thing called rideshare. I [00:48:00] jumped in with this guy. It was like 40 bucks. It was so cheap. I was like, all right, if this doesn’t kill me, this is a deal.

Like, yeah. So I jumped in with this guy and like two other people. He was driving me to Arizona and I was supposed to meet up with my family, friend’s, husband, and he was gonna pick me up somewhere near Phoenix in Arizona and then bring me back to his house and stay there.

Crew Chief Eric: And the bike is still in storage at this point?

In

Larry DeBenedictis: storage in la? Yep. And all torn apart, like you can see pictures of it on my Instagram. I’m getting close, I’m in contact with this guy and then all of a sudden my family friend goes, pick me up. He goes, I’m not gonna make it, man. I’m gonna fall asleep driving. He’s like, you’re gonna have to get a hotel or whatever, or good luck.

I was like, are you serious? Like two hours away from arriving or an hour. The driver of this guy goes to me. No worries, my friend. I know a woman who takes some fellow travelers like yourself. What? He’s like, yeah, she doesn’t have a problem with taking in travelers. I was like, I guess it’s either this, so like a $200 hotel room.

So I guess why not? [00:49:00] Right? At this point, what do you got to lose? Oh yeah. So I get out of the car. Just take my stuff out, meet this girl for like a second. This as weird as you think it would be. Walk in just lizards everywhere. Well, it was a lizard lady. Big lizards, small lizards. It wasn’t a dirty house or anything.

It was just lizards everywhere. All right, here we go. Here’s another chance. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. She shows me your room. She’s like, yeah, you can sleep in there for. I’m like, oh, shut the door. I was like, if I get out of this one alive, there’s nothing that’s gonna

Mountain Man Dan: kill me on the strip.

Well, did you wake up the lizards licking you? Like you had the cats and dogs licking?

Larry DeBenedictis: Man, I was so worried about that. I woke up, she just showed me all her lizards. Took like a three foot one, put it on my shoulder. There’s a good picture of it on my Instagram. And my guy showed up, finally picked me up and I was like, I, I’m happy to not go back there.

Let’s put that right.

Crew Chief Eric: You may get to Phoenix, you fly home for the party. Everybody’s probably asking, what have you been doing? You know, you’re recounting the stories up until that point. Yeah, and it’s kind of [00:50:00] fun. You’re res sinking in normal life, even if it’s for a weekend or for a couple moments, but now you find yourself booking a flight back to LA to get your bike.

Larry DeBenedictis: I was just going back to Phoenix ’cause I already made these flights. So I get back to Phoenix and I was like, well, what didn’t kill me once probably won’t kill me twice. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: You went back to the lizard lady? No,

Larry DeBenedictis: so I went back to Craigslist to ride share, right? So I was like, all right, here we go again.

Some woman comes to pick me up, goes to stop the cop breathalyzer on this car, and then we’re driving back to la It’s me and like two other guys. The guy in the front seat with him, like turns out his mother got hit by a drunk driver. They’re oddly enough, fine talking in the front seat the whole way. And then we get back to LA and I pretty sure that they like stayed friends, maybe even more than friends.

But I was a pretty crazy ride as well. So I get back to la, get my bike all back together and everything. I start heading south again to San Diego.

Mountain Man Dan: Earlier you were staying [00:51:00] off of major Roads, but while you were out there, did you hit the P C H

Larry DeBenedictis: A little bit here and there, but again man, I hate heights and no guardrails.

When something’s like nerve wracking for me it’s not enjoyable no matter how beautiful it is. It was more about having experiences with people, I guess on the strip, get down to San Diego and I had another friend there, I spent some time with him. We’re in a club one night I seen him like eat something and I was like, what was that?

An extracurricular San Diego was pretty wild. We end up in like a penthouse, just partying all night. It was pretty fun there. But anyways, like after San Diego, I left there and started headed to Phoenix again, and I get to Phoenix.

Crew Chief Eric: You wanted to stop off and see the lizard lady, right?

Larry DeBenedictis: No, I was good with the lizard lady.

So I get to Phoenix at this point, and now it’s Christmas and then now it’s January 15 was like a crazy winter back in Boston. My luck struck me that I was in Arizona and it was a family friend, and I was like, yeah, I guess I’m gonna keep heading home now just because I’m [00:52:00] traveling. I was like, I don’t want this to obstruct things I normally do in life.

Anyways. I had some friends back home and they were planning a trip to Punana. I was like, all right, I’ll take another break and I’ll go to Punana. So I actually flew outta Arizona, went to Punana for a wild, crazy vacation, and then came back there.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’d you do with the bike? Did you leave it in the airport parking lot at that point?

No,

Larry DeBenedictis: at my family friend’s horse ranch in Arizona, I was ready to leave to go back home. Now they’re like, you’re gonna drive home in the winter. I. I don’t know, whatever. I’ll get through it. It’s gonna be miserable at points, but I’ll get through it. They’re like, why don’t you just hang out here for the rest of the winter and then go back in the spring?

Well, you know what, that sounds pretty good. While I was there, I learned to work a horse ranch, learn to ride horses, and then I also got part-time job as a server at a restaurant. Since I’m like always been like an entrepreneur, I came up with an ad on Craigslist and I did mobile mechanic work out of my motorcycle ’cause I had all my tools.

So I made like some decent money doing that on the side as well.

Mountain Man Dan: How did people [00:53:00] respond when you showed up with the bike and trailer behind it to work on their stuff?

Larry DeBenedictis: Well, I wouldn’t show up with the trailer. I’d just show up at the bike ’cause they had like hard saddle bags on it. Just filled with tools.

Got it. But I wouldn’t ask for any money up front or any, and then like I’d get into working on things I wouldn’t take on jobs. I wasn’t confident and I couldn’t fix, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Larry DeBenedictis: And that worked out pretty well. And what did I really have to lose? I was kind of just hanging out anyways, so the time finally came, first week in April.

I was like, all right, it’s time to hit the road again. And from there I headed to New Mexico. Climbing up to those mountains is like going from like 75 degree, 80 degree weather in Phoenix, and then heading up to Flagstaff four hours away. It dropped to like 40 degrees. Never realized like how much of a difference it would be up there.

Stayed there one night and then from there I headed east to Amarillo, the top of Texas. But I ended up meeting some people at a bar there, and they let me crash to the place. It was always crazy how many people were like so easily willing to let you stay at their place as long as you, they [00:54:00] thought you weren’t gonna kill them.

I kept rolling east and then I got into Oklahoma. Mom. And when I got into Oklahoma, all of a sudden my bike starts cutting out again. I’m like, oh my God, what’s going on? So I pull over and I pull out my multimeter. Now my stater alternator went. This guy pulled up while I was broken down on the side of the road.

He went by too tall, this giant tall guy. He is like, you’re all right? And I’m like, I don’t know. He’s like, well, if you need something, gimme a call. He gave me his card. I end up calling him. I was like, Hey, I don’t need any money or anything. Like I just need a place to park my bike and like work on it and I’ll figure it out from there.

And he’s like, yeah, I got a property up the street, some trailer or whatever. He let me park in the driveway and tear apart my bike. Him end up being pretty good friends and it was such a crazy thing. So where I was living in Arizona was this place called Apache Junction, and he has a winter house out there and he usually stays there, but he didn’t go there this winter for some reason.

He would’ve been staying where I just came from and I just met him in the middle of the Oklahoma, getting the bike back together. He’s awesome. [00:55:00] Driving me around all these different parts, places and getting parts for the bike. Put it back together. But I did notice the motive was making another ticking sound before I was putting it together, before it broke down, sleeping in my trail.

The night before I was supposed to leave, I was like, if there is a guard, if you can just get me home on this bike in one piece and safe and the bike not blow up, I don’t know what I can do for you. I’ll be ever feel like you’re serving. And the next day I wake up, go stock the bike. Still make this ticking sound.

I look over the bike one more time. There was just a choke cable rattling on top of the motor. I took a zip tie and tied it down and the thing sounded mint. What so crazy. You know, because I fixed the charging issue, but I was like hearing him. Oh my God. And then that day the bike just like ran great. So I get down to Dallas, Texas from there, and then I shot over from Dallas.

I did a short John to Austin, down to San Antonio. Nothing happened there. Then I shoot up to Houston. That’s when I took a little spill on the bike. I went [00:56:00] down, I was going to a red light. I went to come to a so, and it was like big ruts from a tractor trail, and it put me down, but luckily I wasn’t heard and I was able to fix whatever I needed at an auto zone.

It wasn’t too bad. From there, I went to New Orleans. That’s another weird city in the United States that I had a good time there, but it was so sketchy that I decided to pay to asleep in a parking garage that night with the trailer just to feel like it had some safety to me. So I paid like 20 bucks to sleep in a garage, and I was happy to do it.

I leave and I go to Memphis, but then I tracked back to Nashville to see all my friends again, hang out with them for a couple days. Do you ever do Tail of the Dragon? Yeah, I did that with the trailer and that was, oh my God, that was phenomenal. That was really awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m amazed you were able to do, are you, I’m sure you weren’t flying up the tail of the dragon.

Larry DeBenedictis: I actually got another tire there at the base of it and everybody’s like, you can’t bring the trailer up there. It’s crazy. And the guy doing my tires like, I think it’ll be all right. I was like, yeah, I think I’m going with your advice.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, [00:57:00] the thing with the tail, once you get up there, you gotta go back down ’cause there’s nothing you can do once you get to the top.

Yeah, I know.

Larry DeBenedictis: But I was lucky because I think it was in like the middle of the week, like a Tuesday or something, so it wasn’t as crowded. So up to Asheville, stay there for a night and then now I’m back down in Charlotte. So Richmond was my last night on the road. That day was like a pretty good stretch.

That was 666 miles. I remember that day was wicked sketchy. Even from like the morning I woke up that morning, somebody almost hit me in the parking lot of the hotel I was staying at and like, oh boy, riding home over some crazy bridge, a tractor trail, like almost pushed me off the road. I remember my father get home and you know, me and my father met up.

We cracked a beer and a shot together, and I was just glad to be home. The craziest part about the story happens the next morning, and this is gonna sound like a country song, but I let my mother borrow my car. She blew the clutch out in it, so I had a running car before I left. Then I had a truck and I had a flat tire, so I couldn’t take that.

So all I wanted to do is see my grandmother and drink a coffee [00:58:00] with her. I got on the bike very reluctantly and I got an iced coffee and then I pull outta this iced coffee shop. Going down the road nice and slow, not to spill my coffee. And somebody I know from high school hit me on my bike and in a bad accident, pretty much totaled the bike.

And I went flying over the handlebars and I smashed out the windshield of a car and I’m like laying there in shock. From the accident, but also from like, you gotta be kidding me, I just did 15,000 miles and seven months on the bike and this

Crew Chief Eric: happened two miles from home. Hence the title of the book that you’re writing, right?

The Traveling Larry. Two miles too many.

Larry DeBenedictis: I’m laying there, right? These people come from like a hairdresser salon helping me out. I felt my back and it was all cut up and I had blood on my hands. I was like, just tell it to me straight. It’s my spinal cord hanging out. Like am I gonna be paralyzed? And they’re like, no, I think you’re gonna be okay.

You just have some scratches. So I start telling ’em all about the trip and they must think I’m like out of it, right? My dad’s friend live right there as [00:59:00] well, and he heard something and he came over and he seemed like on social media what I was doing. And he was like, you’re not gonna believe this. This guy just got back from traveling the country.

These people’s faces, I’ll never forget their face. They’re like in shock that I was really telling them the truth. That was it, but it really made me question some things.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a hell of a journey that you went on there, Larry.

Mountain Man Dan: Would you do it again? Have you made any plans to do another trip like this in the future?

Larry DeBenedictis: Yeah, I would definitely do it again, but I wouldn’t do it across the U S A i’d. I’d wanna do a different country. Maybe like Europe or Africa, knowing that people in general seem to be very nice wherever you go makes doing a trip like this a lot easier. You know, mentally I wouldn’t do it with a trailer again.

I would try something else. I would try to be more adventurous in planning out a route to maybe stay with like strangers or something. Like they had this thing called couch surfing.com or something where like people would randomly take you in. But actually another guy, that guy too tall told me about this book called the Gold Book, which is a gold wing member’s book.

They have like stages in the book from [01:00:00] like letting someone fully stay in your house to like letting them wrench on your bike in their driveway. And it was like people all over the country we’re in this book. So you could probably like call up these people and say, Hey, I’m gonna passing through, could I like sleep in your yard with a tent?

In retrospect, knowing that people are like nicer than I thought to believe. I would probably take more chances with staying at different places and ditch the trailer.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you do it with a bike again or with something else?

Larry DeBenedictis: No, I’d love to do it with a bike. Again, I’m a little older now, so definitely like the newer B M W and like the B M W could allow you to go off road as well.

Mountain Man Dan: So on this trip, were there any key sections of the journey road wise that were some of your favorite roads to be on?

Larry DeBenedictis: West Virginia was absolutely beautiful. And then Montana was awesome too because Montana, I feel like you’re always riding a river. The roads kind of like Fall Rivers for some reason, from what I remember, Northern Idaho with the lakes like coming up on the mountains on quarter d’Alene and stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: So it sounds like you only have a handful of states, at least on the [01:01:00] continental US that you haven’t been to yet.

Larry DeBenedictis: I actually have only three left Arkansas. I was right near, I put ’em like, I just couldn’t see why I needed to go to Arkansas, so I didn’t North Dakota, which I should have been to, ’cause I’ve been to Sergi like three or four times.

It’s right above it. And then Alaska. Even Hawaii though, I made it a point, I went there one time, I rented a Harley to say I rode a motorcycle in that state as well.

Mountain Man Dan: Very cool. Are there any like key locations through this trip you took that you would recommend to people to visit?

Larry DeBenedictis: I’m sure what Bozeman is getting blown up because of Yellowstone, but Bozeman was pretty sweet.

That Thermopolis place in Wyoming was really cool too. That’s like a hidden gem the way to Amarillo. Do you ever hear Cadillac Ranch?

Yeah.

Larry DeBenedictis: That’s sweet. I actually did. I actually painted on there something like the traveling Larry. Nice because it just gets covered up with spray paint. But the Cadillac ranch is pretty trippy.

It’s literally in the middle of nowhere and it’s just like there. Then also if you go to Mount Rushmore and make sure you check out Crazy Horse right next to it that nobody ever checks out. That’s [01:02:00] another cool.

Crew Chief Eric: You got Deadwood out in Wyoming too, right?

Larry DeBenedictis: Deadwood’s cool too. Yep. Costa State Park. That’s awesome.

That’s great riding.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s been about eight years since the trip. You’re looking back over your copious notes, your journals, everything, all jokes aside. That really is the title of the book. You’re working on the Traveling Larry, two miles Too many, and you’ve embarked on this journey of 80,000 words. Is that the new challenge for you is trying to chronicle all this to get all the details in and put the book together?

How’s that going? Yeah,

Larry DeBenedictis: the hottest part is nothing for nothing. I went to a tech school, right? Taking the journals and writing the journals was easy because I just wrote down what happened. It wasn’t a big deal. Right? Whereas there was something as mundane as eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to staying with the lizard lady.

So I’m voicing the journals speaking into the computer and putting ’em in the computer now, but I gotta go back grammatically fix ’em. That’s the tedious part, and I hate it. So if anyone out there has a better solution, a way to do this, I’m all ears. But what I think I wanna take from [01:03:00] here, I got the physical journals in front of me, but I’d like to give it to somebody in the raw form and have ’em cut it up and say, you know, who cares about this?

No one cares that this happened, but like take the good stuff out and make it more like a readable book.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s kind of similar to a book that was just published recently. It was Alan Rickman, the actor that passed away, who played Snape on Harry Potter, if you recall. He is been in a bunch of films. He was also in the original Die Hard.

He would write journals every day while he was on the movie sets and whatnot, and they turned it into a book. Oh, really? Absolutely fascinating to look at his handwriting and his doodles and all this kind of stuff that’s in the book.

Larry DeBenedictis: It’s the worst coffee stains and all the stains on the, but

Crew Chief Eric: it gives it that originality.

Yeah, it gives it that uniqueness. Right. It’s pretty cool.

Larry DeBenedictis: I lost that first journal, so I got smart and I wrote a note on the next journal and wouldn’t you know it, I lost another journal, but because I wrote that note, some girl shipped it back to me and she wrote like an excerpt in the journal. As I was writing, I would take like a pause and write, be like, Hey, I’m [01:04:00] in a Starbucks right now and wherever.

So, and I’d like put in my own thoughts as I was writing and maybe things that were going on at the time. I finished the physical writings back in May of 2020, so it took me like five years just to get caught up in the journals. You know how it is just life’s busy. I run two businesses and try to focus this on much as I can, but it, you know, you’re still gonna make a paycheck.

I got like an end date. Everything should be in the computer and ready to hand off to somebody. I don’t know who that somebody is. If anybody else is listening and is an editor and you want to get in contact with me free to give them the wrong stuff and edit it down. Probably August 1st, I should be done.

I’ve actually put it on a timeline where it’s realistic now.

Crew Chief Eric: Like any journey, it all starts with that first turn of the wheel or that first step. So you’re well on your way for sure. So what would you say is maybe the biggest thing you learned from the trip

Larry DeBenedictis: when you leave New England? People are super nice.

I mean, people are nice in New England too. Everybody’s super nice and it’s weird how the media like will make it seem [01:05:00] like we live in such a harsh world. But then you really get out there and start meeting all new people and everybody’s super nice. People are so willing to help just for nothing. The other thing, money and happiness, they don’t exactly correlate.

They’re not linear. You know? I’ve had more money and I’ve had less money, but this trip definitely had less money and living less. And I was more happy sometimes on this trip than other parts of my life. I would say experiences can bring you more happiness than money sometimes. And then the other one is getting back to the end of the trip when I got hit.

I’m a spiritual guy. I don’t know how religious I’d say I am, but it proved to me that God exists because when I said those prayers in Oklahoma, he did exactly what he said. He got me home safe. After that you were on your own. And then after that I was on my own. And then I had a cousin who’s pretty spiritual and religious, and she goes, that’s the thing.

I was like, what do you mean? That’s the thing. She’s like, you try to make a deal with God. If you just had asked him to help you, he would’ve helped you. And I do. I do feel like God was saying, why are you trying to make deals with me? Just should have asked. [01:06:00] Because that accident, I could have died. It was really bad.

Like my head smashed out the windshield of the car and I was so lucky that I was wearing a full face helmet and saved my life. I think that it was kinda like a nudge to me. People should be more spiritually aware of God in this life and just be happy for what you have too. You know? Because like I said, I didn’t have a lot on that trip, but I was generally happy

Crew Chief Eric: from the moment you set everything in motion.

There was that turmoil, the business, the girlfriend, all that kind of stuff. And then let’s say almost a year later you come back home. Were you a different person?

Larry DeBenedictis: Oh yeah. You know, I’m much different than most of my friends. Like I can walk up to anybody and talk to them. Even now sometimes, like I still have that yearning to be in like a place where I don’t know anybody and be a little uncomfortable just because you have better experiences sometimes.

Being on the trip made me realize that the materialistic things we have aren’t as important as people really make them out to be, you know? To get that next iPhone or whatever. That next one up doesn’t really matter. There’s like way more [01:07:00] important things if you just look what’s in front of you and be grateful.

I think life will treat you better.

Crew Chief Eric: So Larry, we’ve come to that point of the episode where I’d like to ask the final question, which is any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far?

Larry DeBenedictis: Just I guess if anyone wanted to follow me, follow me on Instagram at the traveling Larry.

Anybody who does publishing or editing or anything of that matter might want to help me with my story. I would be happy for that and, and maybe anybody who’s in film or something. ’cause I feel like this would make like a great Netflix series or something. I don’t know. I just wanna tell my story and get it out to the world.

Shout out to everybody on the trip that I met. They were really nice people and if anybody hears this, I’d love to hear from anybody I met on the trip, and, uh, Rachel, if you’ve got my journal, please send it back.

Mountain Man Dan: So Larry realized that his journey wasn’t just about getting away from his problems, it was about discovering something new within himself and putting the courage to face his challenges, his head on. And with that newfound [01:08:00] strength, he knew that he could take on anything life through his way. We’ve said it many times before.

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. And the story is a great example of that motto, big times. Lessons learned, lessons learned and spiritual maturity are captured in the stories surrounding his epic adventure found in the pages of the Traveling Larry, two miles Too many. You’re interested in learning more or picking up a copy of Larry’s book?

Sure. To follow him on social media at Larry that Benedictus on Facebook or at the Traveling Larry on Instagram for more details.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. And Larry, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and sharing this story with everybody. And I tell you what, you know, we didn’t really talk maybe too much about the bike, but the bike is what brought you on all these adventures and it’s really a story about man and machine and like Dan said about spiritual maturity and that whole cycle of when you left home and when you came back and how it changed you and the bike did all of that.

Good, bad, and indifferent. I admire what you did and I’m glad you’re gonna keep doing it [01:09:00] and maybe doing it in other parts of the world, you know, congratulations and you know, let us know how it goes.

Larry DeBenedictis: Thanks Eric, appreciate it. I love being on here. And if you know I can help you guys out in any way, feel free to reach out.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about G T M, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual FEES organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon [01:10:00] for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and G T M swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newton’s, gummy bears and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction to Break Fix Podcast
• 00:27 Larry’s Life-Changing Journey Begins
• 01:28 Larry’s Petrolhead Origin Story
• 02:12 Motorcycle Collection and Preferences
• 06:04 Building and Customizing Motorcycles
• 08:19 The Birth of the Motorcycle Trailer
• 17:37 The Journey South Begins
• 19:23 Adventures and Challenges on the Road
• 20:52 Unexpected Encounters and Experiences
• 23:34 Crossing the Midwest
• 30:21 Reaching Denver and Beyond
• 34:59 Journey Through the Northern States
• 36:12 A Cold Night in Wyoming
• 36:44 Exploring Thermopolis and Meeting New Friends
• 40:43 Halloween in Spokane and Seattle Adventures
• 41:18 Portland to San Francisco: City Hopping
• 43:49 Mechanical Troubles in California
• 47:20 Arizona Detour and Lizard Lady Encounter
• 53:27 Heading Home: The Final Stretch
• 57:42 The Accident and Lessons Learned
• 59:20 Future Plans and Final Thoughts
• 01:02:07 Reflecting on the Journey

Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

Consider becoming a GTM Patreon Supporter and get behind the scenes content and schwag!