AUTHOR - LONGMIRE

Fictional Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire hates motorcycles as much as Indiana Jones hates snakes, but the New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson loves bikes as much as he loves his horses and Wyoming ranch.

With his 19th novel The Longmire Defense set for early September 2023 publication, we spoke with the 62-year-old West Virginia native about his motivation and discipline for writing, how he spent several promotional tours visiting bookstores on his BMW motorcycle, and that time many decades ago when he nearly lost an eye during a motocross race.

ACTOR & PRODUCER

You might know Zahn McClarnon from his iconic roles in Longmire, Fargo, Westworld, Reservation Dogs or Dark Winds. After meeting him in the Buffalo Chip at the 2018 Sturgis Bike Rally, we were pleased when he agreed to be our guest. He had one condition: motorcycle talk first, Hollywood second.

It was a joy talking to a fellow 1966 baby who spent his formative years in the Midwest. You’ll dig our conversation about his motorcycle origin story, all the places he’s ridden, which bikes he’s owned, and which bike he’s eyeballing these days. He also drops a spoiler about Dark Winds: Season 2!

Henri Boulanger’s first Quail Motorcycle Gathering experience was in May 2016, meeting Keanu Reeves in the Arch Motorcycles booth after chatting up Mert Lawwill on the green minutes before. After riding through the Mojave desert to watch Travis Pastrana don a cape and jump over the Caesars Palace fountain in early July 2018, Henri rode across the country with Gary, stopping to watch flat track racing at Sturgis before spending two days on the salt during Bonneville Speed Week in August 2018.

For this special 2023 Quail Motorcycle Gathering podcast episode, Henri stitched together two-minute conversations with 20 attendees, including custom builder Hugo Eccles, Quail Motorsports Director Gordon McCall, museum curator Robb Talbott, 4-time GP world champion Eddie Lawson, lead judge Somer Hooker, and MC Paul d’Orléans, among others.

LE MANS & EVS

Oudenaarde is a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of East Flanders. For centuries it was known for its tapestry production, and in modern times the Tour of Flanders bicycle road race ends there after several laps up the mighty Koppenberg climb. The youngest team manager to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans – Torsten Robbens – also lives there, and is our second European podcast guest.

Robbens has been riding motorcycles with his twin brother Bjorn since they were 4 years old, planting a mechanical seed of curiosity in them both. After 10 years in F1 and Le Mans endurance racing, Torsten acquired the storied Saroléa motorcycle brand with Bjorn and developed a modern electric bike to race at the Isle of Man TT.

DRAVOT & CARNEHAN

Jared Zaugg founded Dravot & Carnehan, a strategic management consultancy, specializing in lifestyle, automotive, mobile technology, and travel. Named after the dynamic upstarts in Kipling’s classic The Man Who Would Be King, Dravot & Carnehan is inspired by those who blaze their own trails with character and flair. 

With Dravot & Carnehan, Jared and his wife Brooke identified a gap in the market and pioneered a new approach to motorcycles as art. Hosted at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, California, “Legend of the Motorcycle” was launched in 2006 as the first world-class concours d'elegance exclusively for motorcycles, attracting a burgeoning international audience of collectors, judges and aficionados.

PARTS MANAGER - BMW MOTORCYCLES SF

Illinois native Matt Park is a retired Marine who runs the parts department at BMW Motorcycles of San Francisco. With a personal soundtrack and demeanor that oozes style, class and character, Matt is the pure reflection of what vintage looks like in 3D. His bikes, his cars, his house, his clothing, his beard: all authentic, imperfect and classy.  A founding member of the Sunday Moto Club in August 2017, Matt relates his origin stories with cars and bikes in this podcast episode, sprinkled with where he’s served around the world, and why he digs living in Niles, a small San Francisco East Bay canyon town gloriously stuck in 1955, where none other than Charlie Chaplin – working for Essanay Studios – shot The Tramp in 1915. 

CREATIVE DIRECTOR - FRANCHISE PIXAR

Jay Ward has several Formula One, MotoGP and NASCAR legends on speed dial. He's a car and motorcycle buff whose expertise takes him worldwide to judge at concours competitions. No stranger to a wrench himself, Jay managed the parts department of a Bay Area Harley-Davidson dealership after art school before his jump into show business almost 25 years ago. In this episode, Jay describes to Henri and me his introduction to motorcycles and cars, making his way into Pixar, and how his deep knowledge of four wheels caught the attention of the top brass, catapulting Jay into the Pixar stratosphere and up the creative ladder.

FORMER MOTOGP TEAM DIRECTOR

​Livio Suppo is our first guest of 2023. He is best known for leading Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez to multiple MotoGP world championships for Ducati and Repsol Honda, respectively. Based in Monaco, Suppo was candid, jovial, and transparent about the current state of MotoGP, how things have changed, the riders he managed, the advent and growing popularity of electric mountain bikes, all while raising a boxer puppy named Spyder, who managed to make an appearance early on during our conversation.

DRUMMER - INTERPOL

Fashionista and professional cymbal-smasher Sam Fogarino shares stories from the early days of Interpol in early 2000's NYC, breaks down the uniquely post-lockdown creative process they developed while recording their latest album The Other Side of Make-Believe (2022), and opens up about navigating a brain aneurysm after a successful world tour in support of Marauder (2018). We get into classic motorcycles, Sam's self-described 'mechanical dyslexia', and the upsides of moving from vintage bikes to something a bit more modern. He's come a long way from West Philadelphia and it's all thanks to a leap of faith and a fateful audition.