Just a blue-collar worker doing the humble hustle on Episode 233 with Andy Myers

There are just too many stories to write notes about; Andy Myers is one of the believers, a man who knows what it’s like to try, to build, to succeed, and to try again. Much respect for a man who walks the walk. Join this self-proclaimed introvert for a wild ride around the world. Thanks, Andy. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

12:56 – I’ve never had a job and I’ve never worked. 

22:16 – I dropped out of college after a beef with a marketing professor who gave me an F for a product I’d already sold and was receiving royalty checks on             

27:22 – We got into design and opened a factory in Mexico and started making clothes for some pretty big companies, REI, Columbia…

32:09 – I showed the product to Nora’s family and told them, this is what we’re going to make – they’re like, “you should probably go back to bed” it was pretty cute 

34:46 – this is the coolest motorcycle story of my life

37:22 – all my life, it’s all I’ve done – offroad and motorcycles and travel and design

44:33 – Wow, I don’t want to go back to living in a truck, I better pull back the reins a little and make some hard business decisions

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:01.060] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:45.280] - 

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[00:01:13.020] - 

Have you seen 4Low magazine yet? 4Low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4LOW is the magazine for you. 4Low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:47.590] - Andy Myers

Hey, Rich. How are you doing, buddy?

[00:01:49.010] - Big Rich Klein

Good, Andy. Myers, how about yourself?

[00:01:51.800] - Andy Myers

I'm in extreme pain, my friend.

[00:01:53.560] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, no.

[00:01:55.120] - Andy Myers

But it's okay. It's my problem.

[00:01:58.850] - Big Rich Klein

What's going on?

[00:02:00.390] - Andy Myers

I hurt my back again. I've already had back surgery and everything else. And up in Sturgis, I hurt my back, and I've got multiple bulging disks, and the doctors in America are In America, it is horrendous. So it's been a month, and I finally last Friday got my first MRI, and my wife called the doctor today and said, What are we going to do? And she's like, Well, we can get you on October seventh and see if you need a surgery, and if you need a surgery, that'll be in January or February. I slept in a fetal position last night because I'm in so much pain. I'm like, I can't wait till January or February.

[00:02:43.690] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:02:43.820] - Andy Myers

So right when you called, we were having a family meeting and we're discussing when do I get on the plane and go back to Bangkok and see my doctors in Thailand because they'll have me in and out of surgery within a week or so. Wow. It's just American American Medical. I was in the little debate last night listening to Trump and Harris talk about the Unaffordable Health Care Act was the most infuriating thing I've ever heard in my life. So that's where I'm at with it all. American health care is the worst in the world.

[00:03:20.020] - Big Rich Klein

It's not health care. The health care industry is all run by the insurance industry.

[00:03:27.520] - Andy Myers

It's only about your insurance, and they're not in. And listening to Harris, Trump say he was going to fix it, but he didn't have anything better. And listen to Harris say, Well, we got cheaper medical, we got cheaper prescriptions, we got cheaper prescription, we got cheaper prescriptions for making. You're not You're not talking about solving problems. You're talking about putting bandages on problems for companies to make an ungodly amount of money off of the people. You're not talking about solving a problem. The surgery I need is just a one-day surgery. You can walk right in, they can do it, and you can walk out. Then you're done. I know this. But telling me they can't do it till January or February is lunacy. I'm just in pain, and I'm just I don't know. I got a lot of stuff to do, and I can't walk. I physically cannot move at all, really.

[00:04:23.170] - Big Rich Klein

Are you up to doing this, or do you want to wait?

[00:04:25.500] - Andy Myers

No, I'm fine. I can talk. It's not a problem. It's an It's an unbelievable inconvenience, right? Right. That's all it is. It's just a massive inconvenience. I don't know how to say it.

[00:04:38.750] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I've been waiting to get my knee replaced, and they want me to And I'm to the point where I can hardly walk. I wear a brace all the time, but I use my cane a lot. But we went to the 49er game on Monday night, and there was a lot of walking involved. And I was feeling okay before then, but now I'm just... It's like I don't want to be on it for another week or so because of the... I mean, it's just not the knee. It's the pain goes all the way down into the foot, all the way into the hip.

[00:05:16.480] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I know.

[00:05:18.160] - Big Rich Klein

I know the herniated disk thing. That's what happened to me when I put on all my weight. When I was 30, I blew my disk out and I wouldn't go in for a surgery because I saw all my friends do... Any of my friends that had They herniated a disk and they had replacement or whatever the hell they did, fusing it. They were back in in eight months or a year getting another one done. I'm like, well, fuck.

[00:05:42.200] - Andy Myers

I was lucky, man. I did mine in 2010. They did an L4 and L5 surgery on me. And I've been good for 14 years. I mean, I went for five years doing Muay Thai, throwing leg kicks. I I freaking road motor cycles around the world, raced the vintage cars for the Nora 1,000, ran the UTV rallies on each one of those. I'm doing 150 miles a day. This last one, I just did this past May, We did four rides, and each one of them were 100-mile rides.

[00:06:19.250] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:06:20.350] - Andy Myers

Yeah. And then, of course, I got super fit. And then I've been doing these Motorcycles and coffee events, and I got to build 20 by 40, 20 by 50 booths with cafeteria and serving coffee and everything. I was fit. Then something in Sturgis just had picked something up or moved wrong. I was done, man.

[00:06:47.460] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it's amazing how little something can... You don't think it's going to be a big deal, and all of a sudden, man, it just goes.

[00:06:58.250] - Andy Myers

Yeah, it's horrible. It's the absolute That's definitely the worst thing I've ever... I've experienced in a long time, and I've been hurt a lot in my life, and I'm used to pain. I mean, I've literally seven concussions, chopped my fingers off. I have no chin, I have no shoulder. I've broken every single bone on the right-hand side of my body. I've torn both my knees apart. I've done it all, man. I've done it all. I've done more shit to my body than most people ever just because of pro mountain biking and rock climbing mountains. I used to climb mountains and shit and did that survival stuff, that bear guile shit for a while. Don't ever do that. That was fucking And some scary shit. When it goes south, man, it goes south fucking fast. I was writing for magazines and shit. But yeah, I did a lot of terrible things to my body in my life on top of my fucking drinking and shit. So lucky to be where I'm at. So I just don't complain. I just wake up and say, Fuck it. I can deal with the pain and go for it. My biggest fear right now, Rich, is me going to the I was going to Thailand and trying to get through the airports.

[00:08:18.600] - Andy Myers

Because I can't walk for them like 20 feet, 30 feet, right? And so that's my biggest fear. But my hospital, if you ever need it, I'm serious, if you ever need it, I'll give you the information for the Boomerung Grad Hospital in Thailand. It's one of the top 10 hospitals in the world, and it's where I've done my surgeries and everything else. But if you get to the point where it just sucks, just call me. Fly to Thailand. It's 600 bucks, man, to fly there. They told me they're going to pick me up at the door with the airplane, take me through their special line there for medical tourism and immigration, and then they'll take me straight to the hospital and get me taken care of. But that hospital is absolutely amazing. They did my back surgery, everything for six grand versus 80,000 in the US. It was the best. That's what I did. I called them and I just said, Hey, this is Andy Myers. What were you a patient here? I said, Sure. They looked it all up and then, Mr. Myers, we can have you in here on this day. Do your MRI?

[00:09:32.710] - Andy Myers

The doctor, we talked to the doctor. They put me on hold. Doctor, we'll see you on this day. Let's get you in here as soon as possible. I think that's what I'm doing. I'm going to fly back and get that taken care of.

[00:09:45.340] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I hope you're able to do that and get taken care of. That's for damn sure.

[00:09:49.880] - Andy Myers

Me too, because I physically can't do a thing. It's terrible. It's miserable. Last night was terrible. I mean, you're in the same boat. If you got a knee problem.

[00:10:00.600] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I'm sleeping maybe a solid sleep for maybe 2 hours a night. The rest of the time, it's tossing and turning 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there.

[00:10:11.260] - Andy Myers

Last night, I fell asleep because I was just stretching. I had my knee up to my chest, and I woke up in the morning and I still had my knee to my chest. But it felt great. It was the best position I could have been in. I was like, I slept. It didn't hurt. Yeah, fetal My position on my couch in my living room is terrible. I get it. No, I don't know what you want to talk to me about in your podcast. I'm just an Andy, man. I just hang out.

[00:10:45.300] - Big Rich Klein

I know you are, but you've got a cool story. I believe you have a cool story. All the things that you've done. And this podcast, it's about the individuals that I interview and their life story. But what I hope the listeners glean from it is maybe not just a better understanding of the person that I'm interviewing and what they've gone through, but what their drive was to continue doing what they did to get where they're at today. Everybody I've interviewed is a success story in some way. Some of them, it's been a really hard road Just get beat down, stand up, get beat down, stand back up, get beat down, stand back up. And then finally, things come together. That's my story. And that's what I want people that are interested, enthusiastic, and off-road, especially, because that's the focus of it. But it's the life story on how they can do the same thing if they wish to get out of the mundane life that they're in. Because nobody really likes working 9:00 to 5:00 and punching a time clock and sitting at a desk for somebody else. There's people that have accepted it because that's their way of life, but it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:12:22.410] - Big Rich Klein

And so what I hope to do is if I can get one person a year to just say, Fuck it. I'm going to go do this. And this is my dream. This is what I've wanted to do. I'm just going to step on it and do it. That's cool. That's what this podcast is all about.

[00:12:42.890] - Andy Myers

That's cool. Yeah. And I think you fit that mold.

[00:12:49.850] - Big Rich Klein

Looking at your history just from around 2000, it's pretty incredible.

[00:12:56.800] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I've never had a job, and I've never worked, and I don't have any government loans. I don't have any debt. I don't have a credit card. I have nothing. I started out basically homeless, right? So, yeah, I just built up everything by myself with my wife. I don't have any brothers and sisters and stuff. So it's just me and her and the kids. And that's it.

[00:13:22.290] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I think we're going to start this interview a little differently than what I've done others. I'm just going to take it from when we started on the phone call, if you're okay with that.

[00:13:31.680] - Andy Myers

Yeah, that's fine. It's fine, too.

[00:13:33.760] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, well, then what I want to do is I want to introduce everybody that's listening right now to Andy Meyer. Andy is... He self-styles himself as Just a blue collar worker doing the humble hustle. I love that tagline. That is you, absolutely 100 %. I think that fits a couple of other people that have been on my podcast, including myself. I didn't come from anything special. My parents were definitely blue collar, and I figured that was going to be my life. And it has been, but I've done it my way. And Andy, it looks like you've done it your way, too. So let's talk about that.

[00:14:21.170] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I've never really had a job. I started as a kid and owned some labels and played in bands and did that, learned my marketing and all my stuff. I was fortunate enough to be around some amazing marketing people when I was growing up and really learned a lot from them. Some of those guys, specifically two of them, are two of the biggest names in marketing in the world. They've become. Being around them and understanding and being around the, you got to hustle or It's just nobody's going to help you. I've also always maintained the attitude that no one's helping me, so I've got to make it happen on my own. That means that you put in 18, 20 hour days and you work ridiculously hard seven days a week. There's no quit. You have to do it. You just have to do it.

[00:15:25.880] - Big Rich Klein

Even your recreation and downtime is still focused around whatever your hustle is at that point.

[00:15:35.760] - Andy Myers

When I was a kid, when I was a young man, I used to do the mountain bike, our little bike stuff, rock climbing, and all that country adventure stuff and writing for magazines. I was probably, what, 21, 22. I was coming down Gates Pass Road on a training ride down in Tucson, and I got hit by a car and broke every single bone in the right-hand side of my inside of my body, physically destroyed me. I was literally in a... This is the only thing that's weird in my life, but I was literally in a hospital room by myself. Parents weren't there. I don't have brothers and sisters. Because I'm an introvert and I'm alone, no friends, nobody was there. I swear, Jesus, God, whatever you want to call them, came into that room that night and was like, You only get one chance in life, man. Don't screw it up. I made a decision at that point in life when I was 21, 22 years old, that anything I did from that day on would specifically revolve around everything I love to do. I would make my living out of it. Whether I was living in a tent, homeless, living whatever, it didn't matter.

[00:16:54.700] - Andy Myers

I was just going to do what I absolutely loved. That's what I did. The I got out of that hospital, I got better, and I jumped on a bicycle, and I cycled most of the world. Well, Mexico, Central America, Europe, Eastern Europe, Spain, and Italy. Then I met my wife and That was it. I've never had a job. I just finished college degrees and paid off my college degrees and within three years of graduating and never took on any debt, no credit cards, and just worked ridiculously hard.

[00:17:34.190] - Big Rich Klein

Where were you born and raised?

[00:17:37.630] - Andy Myers

I was born in Cincinnati, but I moved around like a vagrant with my family, like a bag of bombs. We lived in Ohio, we lived in Colorado, and we lived in Arizona. But I've since then lived in Thailand, London, and Mexico.

[00:17:54.580] - Big Rich Klein

Mexico is where you met Nora, right?

[00:17:58.040] - Andy Myers

I met Nora on my birthday when I was bicycling parts of the world. I met her in Mexico City on my birthday. I vowed after I met her. We just talked, and I just told my friend when I was there, I'm like, I'm going to marry her. He's like, You're never going to see her again, man. You're leaving for the next year to go ride a bicycle around the world. I sent her postcards every stop I did when I could. Then when I got, this is pre-GPS, pre-email, pre Google Maps and all that crap. There you are tooling along on my little bicycle around Europe with no idea how to speak any languages. We also didn't have the Euro. We were all independent currencies then, and there wasn't very many ATMs, especially in Eastern Europe. But anyway, I was sending her the postcards. I got home and I drove down to Mexico, down to Baja, and I met her, and we've been together for 30 something years.

[00:18:58.900] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. That's awesome.

[00:19:00.500] - Andy Myers

She's everything to me.

[00:19:05.980] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. That's what our relationship should be.

[00:19:11.410] - Andy Myers

Oh, yeah. She's right here beside me right now with me working, so it's good. That's awesome. Yeah, she's my everything.

[00:19:20.260] - Big Rich Klein

Let's start at the beginning, which you've already done, but the bicycling trip through Europe and everything. What was your mindset going into that? What were you looking for?

[00:19:38.640] - Andy Myers

I wanted to understand who I was. I went to college, and I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I was going. I was really a confused young man. I played in music. I created a product while I was in college at Northern Arizona University. I sold it to a big company, and that's what I did is design products, and I would sell them to companies. I'd receive commission checks or royalty checks while I was going to college, and that helped me pay for a lot of my college. I dropped out of business school up there because we had a falling out with one of the teachers. That's a very interesting conversation. That's a great one, actually. But moved back to Hollywood, played music over there, woke up one day and just realized that just wasn't for me. I wasn't that guy. I moved back to U of A and went to school. That's basically I realized then that I needed to discover who I was, and that was a really good way to... I'm really an introvert, so I like to be alone. I like to be in the middle of nowhere by myself.

[00:20:52.910] - Andy Myers

It was good for me. It was a cleansing. It got me focused on who I needed to be.

[00:21:00.090] - Big Rich Klein

You said your parents moved around a lot. Was that because of work?

[00:21:05.430] - Andy Myers

Yeah, just work. My dad, he built sales rooms for big newspapers. So he did the Cincinnati Inquiry, Cincinnati Post, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Mesa Tribune, Tempe Tribune, Tempe Daily News or whatever. And a bunch of magazine. And he did one up in San Jose. He did one in Trenton, New Jersey. But that's what he did.

[00:21:29.750] - Big Rich Klein

So moving around, do you think that's what led to you being an introvert, is always being the new kid? No.

[00:21:38.290] - Andy Myers

Being the only kid.

[00:21:39.200] - Big Rich Klein

The only kid?

[00:21:41.370] - Andy Myers

The only kid. Just being the only kid and moving. Yeah, I guess moving around because you don't really establish a friend base, right? So wherever you go, you just are alone with people. You're just alone all the time. So you just find your way to do things and how to get through things. So that's pretty much it. But I always had a marketing side to me. So it was pretty good. It was all right. Okay.

[00:22:04.930] - Big Rich Klein

And then you were talking about falling out with an instructor and leaving college for a while. You said that's an interesting story. Do you want to talk about it?

[00:22:16.150] - Andy Myers

I created a product for the mountain bike industry, and I had long hair, like dreads and stuff, and I was a crusty kid. It just a mountain kid just living in the woods. It didn't look the best, but I lived on my bicycle. I didn't even own a car. I didn't own a car up until I was probably 22, 23 years old. I just rode a bicycle everywhere. I created a product and I was in the marketing class. It was things where they would ask you to create a product, bring it to class, market it, show us what you got, all that stuff. I did that and I walked I brought my bicycle in and I was just dressed the way I was. I did the presentation and said, This is what the product is, blah, blah, blah. Walked out and the guy gave me an F. I'm like, I'm not an F student, man. I'm a straight A student. I don't get Fs. You know what I mean? He's like, Well, your presentation, you didn't dress right, you didn't look right, you didn't clean up, you didn't do this, you didn't do that. I just dropped a stack of checks on his desk and said, I've already sold that product These are the royalty checks I've been receiving now while I'm here at the university.

[00:23:35.570] - Andy Myers

He's like, Holy shit. I'm like, Yeah. I go, If I would have walked into that company all dressed in your suit and clean-cut and looking like that, they would have laughed me out. You have to be respective to the industry you're in, and you got to be part of that industry.

[00:23:48.740] - Big Rich Klein

Know your market.

[00:23:50.340] - Andy Myers

You got to know it. You got to eat, shit, breathe, live it. You can't just walk in and bullshit it. Excuse my language. That's it. Then I walked over to the dean and I said, I'm out, man. You got teachers teaching here that don't really know what they're teaching. He's like, You can't drop out. You're one of our top students, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm out. I moved back to Hollywood and went back to Hollywood and Vine, Hollywood Billiards, and got in a practice shed and started practicing with bands and realized that ain't for me anymore. That lifestyle went away a while ago.

[00:24:30.810] - Big Rich Klein

Europe. Then you got on your bike and hit Europe.

[00:24:33.750] - Andy Myers

I went back to U of A, got hit by the car. Oh, that's right. Then I got hit by the car the second week I was there. Then from there, I went to Europe after I graduated from U of A. Then I took off on the bike. Then lived in Mexico and was a professor down at the Tec de Monterey in Guadalajara, Taitism, which is Mexico's number one school. I taught international business and the history of Mexico to Mexicans in Guadalajara.

[00:25:05.920] - Big Rich Klein

That must have been interesting.

[00:25:08.410] - Andy Myers

That was a life-changing thing. You only hear about Mexican people not having any money, being poor, and all of this. Here I am at the most elite school in all of Mexico, one of the most elite schools in South America. Teaching these kids, these really ridiculously high-level wealthy individuals. It was absolutely amazing. It was amazing. It was one of the most eye-opening things I ever did in my life. It was wonderful.

[00:25:44.110] - Big Rich Klein

How many languages do you speak?

[00:25:47.790] - Andy Myers

I speak four. I speak English, German, Thai, and Spanish. Wow.

[00:25:54.100] - Big Rich Klein

I can't even get away speaking good English.

[00:25:57.860] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I don't know how good I am at German. My German went away, but I still can get away with a little bit here and there.

[00:26:06.710] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. I took Spanish in school, and I took German in school, and I can order a beer and find the bathroom in both languages, and that's about it.

[00:26:21.640] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I get that. When I lived in Mexico, of course, I ran the companies there that we own. Then in Thailand, I owned a business there for five years, and I had to teach myself Thai. I wrote a business curriculum for a dual language school in Thailand, and I wrote it for business Thai. I told them this is how businessmen need to be able to speak Thai, as opposed to the first day I went in there. There's an orange, there's an apple in the tree. I'm like, Well, that's not going to get me anywhere. I wrote the whole business curriculum for a Thai language school, and it helped me learn Thai really quick so I could do business over there.

[00:27:11.490] - Big Rich Klein

Incredible. Timeline Otherwise, you get off your bike. That's when you taught in Mexico?

[00:27:22.410] - Andy Myers

Yes. After I did that, and of course, me and Nora were chatting, and the email had come around, and we were emailing back and forth from Guadalajara, and she's in Mexicali, Baja, and we're chit-chatting, and she's graduating from college. When she graduated, I moved back, moved to Mexicali, and I started designing for... I was already designing clothes, but I've been designing clothes since I was a little kid. But gear, not clothes. We got into design. I opened a factory down there to make clothes for some pretty big companies. We did some stuff for REI, we did Columbia, we did some stuff for Columbia, we did some stuff for some pretty big companies. Me and her were running it. Not those companies that I just mentioned, but a few that I don't mention ever didn't pay their bills. In Mexico, it's brutal if you don't pay your bills. It's a very socialist country. It's not like America. And unfortunately, they didn't pay, and you've got 50 plus employees on your dollar, and you got to pay them every week. We couldn't do it. We weren't getting paid. Money wasn't coming in, and I lost everything that I had saved up for.

[00:28:49.270] - Andy Myers

Me and Nora lost everything. Then it was really bad. During that time, there was a period of time in Mexico when the in the 2000s where the economy was so good that there was actually a labor shortage, where there was just too much work in Mexicali, in Mexico, and there wasn't enough employees. So some really underhanded tactics were going on to get employees to go from one business to another business. One of those things is that we always had to pay people in cash down there. This is pre-direct deposit into your accounts and all that stuff, at least in Mexico. Every Thursday, you would have a big wad of cash in your hand and you make a payment to all your employees. Well, one of our business associates had a mole in his company. That mole told the wrong people that he pays on this day with cash, wrong people walking in his building and time to give him his money. He says no, and they shot him in the head in front of all his employees. My lawyer called me on that day and I said, You know what? Just close it. That could have been us.

[00:29:58.670] - Andy Myers

There's no need for this. We're making any money, and it's really stressful already. We don't need someone getting hurt. Let's just be done with this. Let's wash our hands of this. We lost everything. We were actually getting married the following week. We asked everyone to give us our wedding gifts and stuff in cash or with receipts so we could return them. Yeah, it was horrible. My best friend at this time, my best friend, ran in my suit. Parents bought Nora's wedding ring because I had nothing. We got married and I had my little S10 pickup truck and we jumped in it. For our honeymoon, we drove around the United States and I took Nora to all the different places in the United States to eat different types of food. We went to Mesilla Valley for hatched chillies, and we went to barbecue in Texas. We went to Cajun food down in Louisiana. We went to Tennessee for pancakes. We just had a good trip. It was really cool.

[00:31:05.080] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. Again, doing it your way.

[00:31:10.140] - Andy Myers

I guess so, I didn't know. I just didn't have anything. We just slept in the truck. I was lost. I was really lost because it was hard. But I created a product called the Dickey. It's a thing we used to... I used to make them for when I'd cycle up in Flagstaff, and it keeps you warm. And the Dickey, if anyone remembers a Dickey from World War One, it was a patented product. It was a really cool product, wraps around your neck and hangs down the front of your chest. Anybody who does any outdoor stuff understands the purpose of a Dickey. You don't get cold, and you don't get cold on the back of your elbow. You get cold in your chest and your throat. If you can keep your main artery running up through your neck warm, it will keep your body warm because you're keeping your blood warm and because your body pups so much blood through your body, most important artery is either on your wrist or on your neck. So if you're ever out and you're getting hypothermia, put your hand over your wrist or on your neck and keep your neck and your hand warm.

[00:32:09.660] - Andy Myers

That hypothermia be staved off for a while. Anyway, so I made that product, showed it to the Norris family down in Mexicali, Baja. If anybody knows, Mexicali is one of the hottest places in the fucking world, excuse my language. They don't have very many motorcyclists, and they don't have snow. I show it to her dad and her mom. This is what we're going to make. We're going to sell it to a motorcyclist. They're like, You should probably go back to bed. They're like, There are no motorcyclists. It's not cold. It was pretty cute. Me and Nora went to the first day of Arizona bike week on Grand Avenue, and we're already motorcycle people. We have four mil two milk crates and four pieces of wood, and we're sitting on the curb, and we put all the product on the pieces of wood, and the bikers rallied around us. They bought every single thing. In 110 degree heat, they bought it all. The next day when we got back to the house, Bob Drone, Oakland Harley Davidson, calls me up, orders a whole bunch of stuff. Anybody knows Oakland, you know what Oakland and Motorcycle is having in common.

[00:33:34.730] - Andy Myers

After that, two days later, Rick Conley from Custom Chrome calls me and places a massive order. We were embraced into the motorcycle market. It was pretty amazing.

[00:33:46.020] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Then all of a sudden it's like, Okay, now we've got to make all this product.

[00:33:51.080] - Andy Myers

Yeah, we worked. My parents let me live back in their house. We took over their garage, and me and Nora would sit in the garage and cut. I would cut all night. Then during the day, we would sow. Well, she would sow, and I would go work jobs so I could pay off all the problems we had in Mexico. We worked multiple jobs, and we cut, sowed in that hot garage. Our neighbors in that neighborhood would watch us. Next thing you know, after they all get off work, they would all come to the garage and help us. They'd bring cases of beer, and they'd They all come in and they help us package product, cut product. We're talking grown men with jobs. They'd just come in and hang out. Even the ladies would come over and bring food and stuff. It was really beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful things.

[00:34:43.500] - Big Rich Klein

That was in Mexico? Was that in Mexico or was that in Arizona?

[00:34:46.340] - Andy Myers

That was in Arizona. We got ready and we thought we were cool. We thought we knew what we were doing. We go up to Sturgis, and this guy sells us a booth, and we get screwed on the booth. This old man walked by and his name's Bob Anderson. This is probably the coolest story. This is the coolest motorcycle story in my life. He looks at me and he's like, What are you kids doing? We're like, We got screwed, blah, blah, blah. He's like, Come on. He drags us up to Main Street in Sturgis, goes inside of his store, tells all these vendors, Get out of the way and make room for the kids. He makes room for us. We He set up, and Bob Anderson was one of the founders of Sturgis. It was his store, it's Anderson Hardware. It's still on Main Street. He's long past by now. If it wasn't for him, we did two years in his store. He let us use the bathrooms for showers, and we slept in the back of our truck and in the behind the store. It was pretty cool. He was badass.

[00:35:52.250] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome.

[00:35:54.410] - Andy Myers

And then our company blew up. It just blew up. I don't It blew up. It was pretty amazing. It just worked 24 hours a day.

[00:36:04.560] - Big Rich Klein

And that was Schampa?

[00:36:07.030] - Andy Myers

Yeah, it was Schampa. It just blew up. Amazing. And during that time, I was like, I had this mass... Me and Nora being from Baja and me being an off-road kid and motorcycle kid. I was like, Let's do a motorcycle show. We put on the first Arizona Motorcycle Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center. That year, well, the year before that, the Sand Sports show had just started. Of course, I was at the very first Sand Sports show. I was blown away. That thing was packed. It was unbelievable. It was just in one hall. Anybody who was there, and I've got a few people that I know that were truly there at that first one, they'll testify. That was one of the most amazing things you could have ever been at. They out of beer in the first 2 hours. It was insane. The amount of people was just unbelievable. It was just one hall. It's nothing like it was today. I got together with the guys who put on the Off-Road Expo and Sandsport. I said, Hey, I want to do a sand expo in Arizona. Do you guys mind? We all made a great pact.

[00:37:22.020] - Andy Myers

We were like, Hey, I'll come to your show and market our show. You can market your show at our show. It was really cool. It was a great it's synergy. I started put on the Arizona Sand Expo back in 2002. Yeah, it just blew up, man. Then I was doing the Motorcycle show and we started doing the Discovery channel Biker build-offs with it. All during that time, I'm growing companies and building land companies. It was just doing all the shows around the country. Then we started going to Europe and we started going all the in Europe, so much so that we had a flat in London. And then Baja, of course, we went to Baja for all the races. It was just amazing. It's all my life, it's all done. It was off road and motorcycles and travel.

[00:38:17.500] - Big Rich Klein

And produce products.

[00:38:19.350] - Andy Myers

And design. I love designing. I have eight patterns now.

[00:38:23.090] - Big Rich Klein

Let's go back to that first one, that first product you designed while you were in college for mountain biking. What was it?

[00:38:33.800] - Andy Myers

It was just a pad for a mountain bike. It's because I freaking wrecked on a mountain bike and ripped my nuts open, my nut sack open. I was like, We should probably put a pad there.

[00:38:54.060] - Big Rich Klein

Out of necessity.

[00:38:55.740] - Andy Myers

That's it. We created a product. I was like, We should I really make a pad. I hired a bunch of ladies off the res up in Flag, and they'd come to my apartment. A lady here in Arizona who's one of my childhood best friend's mom, and she was an entrepreneur, and she owned businesses. She funded the entire project, and she funded several projects of mine, helped me out. To this day, she's one of my best friends. She paid for it, and she got her lawyers involved for patents and making sure I got my right royalties and all of that together. We had a bunch of res ladies, a bunch of Indians, Native Americans, working in my apartment all day while I was in college, while I was in school, and I'd come home and they'd have all the product ready and I I'm going to sell it. I was like, Well, this isn't going to work. I just started selling products to bigger companies. That's what I did for a long time. And then I moved on from that for a while. Nice.

[00:39:57.740] - Big Rich Klein

Very good. So we actually met in Baja. I may have met you with your first off-road expo. I believe I was there at one of the first ones down in Phoenix. I think it was 2003 or 2004 or something like that.

[00:40:19.870] - Andy Myers

Yeah, we were at- Go ahead. Yeah, we were at the Convention Center for a while, and then the Phoenix Convention Center went through some changes where they redesigned the Convention While they were doing the construction, we moved out of there and I took over the entire state fairgrounds because we were having the Motorcycle show and the off-road show together at the same time. I literally... I mean, it was pretty ballsy for a little kid to do, but I was a young guy. But I literally rented out the entire facility. I mean, the track, all the buildings, all the parking lots. It was a pretty lofty endeavor now that I look back on it and talk about That's pretty crazy.

[00:41:01.760] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, absolutely. I was at the Convention Center, and then you and I talked about putting some rock formations or something together at It never came together because there was a noise ordinance or something at the fairgrounds. And then, of course, the dirt expos later on and stuff. But then we met again when you were sponsoring Pete.

[00:41:36.500] - Andy Myers

Yeah, that came about. We were doing the magazine, so I did the Sand Show, and I created Desert Sports, which eventually became Dirt Industry magazine and Sand Industry magazine. I was doing that just because it was just pure love for the desert and what I and my lifestyle. That's the only reason I did it. I never really did it for economic gain. I just did it because I loved it. I was down there and I met Josh Rigsby, and me and Josh have a lifelong friendship. Then we met Pete, and we were working with Pete quite a bit. We were working with a few different people down there. Me and Pete were like, I was like, I'll I'll sponsor you. Me being me, I just went huge with it. We had Pete, we had Josh, we had the Class I car, we had the Petrophy truck, we had all the dirt bike guys. We were sponsoring Steve Hengeveld a little bit, not much, but Steve's a good friend of mine. Then, of course, we had our dirt bike teams. I think we had two dirt bike teams. We had We had Lime and Sheer and his dirt bike group, and we had Craig and his dirt bike group.

[00:43:06.770] - Andy Myers

We had a map. We took over the entire hotel marina. What does it call, the marina? What is it called? Marina something. The big pink hotel? Yeah. Yeah, the pink one there, Marina. I don't know the name of it.

[00:43:19.910] - Big Rich Klein

You'd think I wanted to- It's the marina. Yeah, it's something Marina.

[00:43:22.670] - Andy Myers

Yeah. We'd take over that whole complex, basically. It was freaking amazing. It was definitely one of the coolest communities you could have ever been part of. That whole group was amazing, tied together by Josh and Pete. Those were really, really beautiful days. Those were beautiful days in my life.

[00:43:46.680] - Big Rich Klein

And Pete was, he's being inducted into the into Ormhoff, the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame this November. Yeah. And November third. And it's That's a treat for me. I'm very happy to see that. And being part of the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Board of Directors, I'm absolutely thrilled that he's being inducted. Although too late, I wish he was still with us to be able to accept the honor himself and be able to hold that trophy up in front of people that were doubters or haters and say, See, Even the commoner can do it type thing.

[00:44:33.460] - Andy Myers

That was a beautiful thing with me and Pete. We were both just kids trying to do it, right? We had a really, really wonderful synergy. Unfortunately, my wife had plans for a family, and it was during the 2008 period. I'm looking at my wife and she's trying to have children. We were doing in vitro and all that, and it's extremely expensive. I just can't. With 2008, the show is slowing down dramatically, life-changing, looking at businesses and just looking at the whole world at that point, and I was like, Wow, I don't want to go back to living in a truck. I better pull in the reins quite a bit here and make some hard business decisions. Unfortunately, I had to cancel contracts with sponsors. People have a sponsoring at that time made people unhappy as people get unhappy when you don't give them money anymore. That was a falling out with me and Pete, and it was terrible. While I'm not a social media guy, I don't get on there and bitch him on and do all that. I never got in there and said anything. I don't know where that all went, but Pete was really unhappy with me, and it is what it is.

[00:46:02.980] - Andy Myers

But at the end, after he had an accident there, and not when he died, but before that, me and him got back together and We embraced and we became really good friends again. I can honestly say that the last couple of years with Pete was pretty wonderful for me and my family because he was coming back to the shows. He was hanging out with me. I would meet up with him at places, and it was very cordial and amical. Again, I use the word beautiful because that's the only word I have for it. It was beautiful. All right.

[00:46:43.020] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, Pete was a fiery type personality. He could be your best friend one minute, and then he could be felt he was wronged or you did something that he didn't like. It was tough. But that's one of the things that also was... It was Pete. So that's...

[00:47:11.530] - Andy Myers

Well, this is what makes individuals, right? Everybody's got a style, a way of being. Mine is introvert, very quiet, and his was loud, and that's what I loved about him. He was there, and I'm like, We worked really well together because I wasn't loud, and he was loud, and he was a personality, and that's what it takes sometimes when you're just doing, you know what I mean? And you're trying to get out there. You need that. And we needed each other at that time, and it worked. I think everybody who was affiliated with that group when we were Schampa and the trophy truck, would agree that was probably the best days. I don't care what everyone says. That was definitively the Shampa teams were the best days of all of us I'll back that up to the day I died. I think it was wonderful. I think it was absolutely wonderful. If you think about the commodity and all the friendships in the people that were developed by all that team, the lifelong friendships, I don't think you get that anywhere else. I don't think you get that anywhere else. We needed that alpha in that group.

[00:48:21.670] - Andy Myers

While I'm an alpha male, I'm a different type of alpha, but you needed that alpha like Pete that was the focal point to draw it all together, and he did a great job.

[00:48:30.820] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, agreed.

[00:48:33.120] - Andy Myers

He did a wonderful job. What he did for off-road racing and the common man and the backyard builders and all of that world was probably more important than I don't think there's anybody else that's given that contribution to the every man, every man builder type world. The class 8 guys loved him. Class 7 guys were all at the 1400 guys, the pre-runner guys. That was his grind, man. That was who he was. You don't have a truck called Harbor Freight because you're rich.

[00:49:13.010] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And that thing never seemed to break down. Oh, yeah, it did. It did, but it just- I've been in it when it broke down. But I can remember going down on the track making sure the trophy truck made it, things like that. We did that. Some good times.

[00:49:40.510] - Andy Myers

But he did wonderful. And that was a great part of my life. That's something that I'll never get back. I'll never have again. But at least we all had a wonderful moment in that moment of time, right? Right.

[00:49:56.620] - Big Rich Klein

You also did some motorcycle adventuring through Asia?

[00:50:02.220] - Andy Myers

Well, let's do the Off-Road Hall of Fame because that's coming up. For me, that's a big deal. Back in '98, '99, I sponsored Dakar Guys, and one of the groups I sponsored was John Deacon, which was the BMW Gloss team. That was famous for now because we have Jimmy Lewis being inducted.

[00:50:25.960] - Big Rich Klein

A very good friend of mine.

[00:50:27.560] - Andy Myers

Jimmy's a friend as well. I Jimmy was on the team with John Deacon. Being able to sponsor that group was wonderful back when I was just a kid, right?

[00:50:40.900] - Big Rich Klein

Then we move on, and I've been able to work with the Nora 1000 for quite a while now, making safety apparel, sponsoring them, doing things for Mike Perlman.

[00:50:57.140] - Andy Myers

Mike is one of the one of the most amazing guys I've ever met, and he's a very good friend of our family. To have Mike Perlman being inducted, Jimmy and Pete- Trifecta. That's pretty spectacular to be part of some... I mean, it didn't do anything, really. I'm just the guy that... But I was there and it makes me proud. That's it. I don't know how to say that. I do need to get tickets reach for the family.

[00:51:29.160] - Big Rich Klein

It's a great show. It really is. Oh, I've been to.

[00:51:33.020] - Andy Myers

Yeah, I've been there. But I've got to get tickets for this this week coming up for me and my kids and my wife because we all need to be there. But yeah, it's a Hall of Fame, this is a big one for me and my family. We have to be there. Cool.

[00:51:45.980] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. So I know that Mike should be there, and Jimmy, of course, will be there, and Pete's family will be there. I'm sure that I'm sure of that, of course, and a lot of his friends. So it'll be... It's going to be a good family gathering. I'm looking forward to this one more so than I have others in the past.

[00:52:12.870] - Andy Myers

Now, I think this is, like I said, it's our little community, right? Yeah. I think it's awesome. I think it's going to be one of the best. I told my wife, I'm like, take the kids out of school. We're all going. This is important. We'll only do this once in life. Let's get it done. Cool. I'm Looking forward to it. Like I said, it's going to get the tickets. Then back to the adventure bike, motorcycle stuff. That's something that developed out of bicycle riding around the world. I mean, I used to ride back and forth from Flagstaff to Phoenix on Wednesdays to see my parents, and I rode on the bicycle. It's a good 200-mile ride. Get up at 3:00 in the morning and ride. I've ridden the entire state of Arizona on bicycles and But my love for travel really took off with the motorcycle thing. I've motorcycled a lot of the planet, every continent except Australia and Antarctica, of course. Wow. I've been everywhere on a motorcycle and every type of motorcycle from a Vespa, a Harley, a BMW. I've done Hondas, I've done scooters. I've done it I've done every bike you could just about imagine.

[00:53:33.440] - Andy Myers

And of course, this is our 27th year at Sturgis. And yeah, it's 1,000% who I am as a human being. I don't know football, I don't know soccer, I don't know baseball or basketball. I only know off-road and motorcycles. That's it. That's my love, and that's what I do.

[00:53:57.080] - Big Rich Klein

Very cool. So what was on those adventures on the motorcycle, what were some of the biggest hurdles that you had to overcome?

[00:54:13.290] - Andy Myers

On the bike, nothing really, just besides being fit and in shape. As far as doing documentaries and taking film crews around the world, that was definitely a challenge, getting through immigration, getting through customs, getting all the gear through all those places.

[00:54:36.440] - Big Rich Klein

All that's on YouTube, isn't it?

[00:54:38.940] - Andy Myers

Yeah, on Motorcycles and Coffee.

[00:54:40.040] - Big Rich Klein

Motorcycles and Coffee, YouTube channel.

[00:54:43.470] - Andy Myers

Excellent. Yeah. That was it, really. Just logistics of getting film crews around and having chase vehicles, setting up... I have always tried to work with Nat Geo guides, people who've done Nat Geo documentaries and assisted with National Geographic documentaries. I've always tried to use their guides to help me because no different than people trying to cross America, our founding fathers and all of that, they all use guides. If you don't go to a country, you don't use guides, you're going to miss a lot. That's all I can tell you. You're going to miss so much in the short period of time you're going to have access to that location. You want to see as much and you want to embrace that culture as much as possible. The best way to do that is with a world-class guide and backcountry guide. I'm in the backcountry, so it's backcountry guides and backcountry people. And that's how you're really going to understand a culture. So getting great guides, I guess, would be a hard thing and people that can speak languages and stuff. When you ride by yourself, as we've done, The only hurdles there is just language barriers, really.

[00:56:03.330] - Andy Myers

I've never had any real problems. Cool. Yeah, it's pretty basic. I think the riding is I don't know. The worst accident I've ever had was in India. I was riding on Ducati scramblers, and we just finished up a ride through Rajasthan, India, along the Pakistan border. And really a unique bike to be doing a 1,200-mile ride on. Got to New Delhi, and I was rear-endded by a semi. I heard the semi locking of his brakes behind me, so I put it in second, did a drag bike start, gassed it off the line as hard as I could, and the truck hit me, and his bumper was a square bumper, and it went in between my tire and my fender, my rear fender, and it locked in like a Lego, and he just pushed me down the street. I never hit the ground. It was absolutely, absolutely the best accident you could ever have.

[00:57:13.680] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly, because you didn't end up under the truck.

[00:57:16.720] - Andy Myers

I didn't end up on the ground. It was awesome until the mob scene came around, and then we had a mob scene. And of course, I was with my buddy, Sid, who one of my really good friends. He's like, Do not take your helmet off because I'm the only white guy, right? He said, Don't take your helmet off. Mob rules is insane. Mob scenes are horrible when you have hundreds of people blaming you for a problem and they're all screaming at you. Luckily, Sid called a local motorcycle club, believe it or not, and they showed up, about 100 guys on bikes and dispersed the crowd and unhooked the and told me to get the hell out of there.

[00:58:02.280] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:58:05.900] - Andy Myers

That's the real world, I guess. That was the only real problem I ever had, like accident-wise or anything, but that's it. That was pretty amazing, actually. But I've ridden all over, done the highest roads in the world. I've done Mongolia, Siberia, then South America, Europe. I've done all Southeast Asia. My Southeast Asia trips aren't like most people where they just go in Laos, and I'd go up there, ride crisscross Laos 15 times by myself just camping in the jungle and stuff. In the Cambodia, I've probably done 10 times. But I do that with Randy, who's one of my writing partners. I've done a lot. Vietnam, I've done three times. Backcountry, of course. When I say backcountry, it's real. It's backcountry. It's cool. I don't know. It's what I do.

[00:59:10.860] - Big Rich Klein

It's awesome.

[00:59:12.170] - Andy Myers

I hope I'm not being too boring for your listeners.

[00:59:14.880] - Big Rich Klein

No, absolutely not. I'm not bored. If the listeners are bored, well, they can go do something else, but I'm definitely not bored. The other cool- Go ahead.

[00:59:26.150] - Andy Myers

The other cool thing about the Nora 1000 and my relationship with Mike Perlman, and of course, my relationship with Sal Fish, which I've had a relationship with Sal forever, and anything to do with score. Of course, Roger's wonderful. For me, he's wonderful. Score, the mint, Martellies, all of those people, Dave Cole, I've been making all their safety apparel since forever.

[00:59:51.560] - Big Rich Klein

And ours. And yours.

[00:59:53.350] - Andy Myers

I've made everybody's best in the desert. Me and Casey Foulkes had a wonderful relationship. Our relationship relationship was based around motorcycles, not so much racing. But yeah, I've had relationships. But for the Off-Road Hall of Fame and the Nord 1000, the most cool thing I could have ever done in my Probably my life is be friends with Lyman Sheer, who's also completed the Baja 1,013 times on a motorcycle. I believe it's 13 times now. He is legacy. That guy is the shit. There's nobody more amazing than Lyman, and most people don't even know who he is. But he rebuilt the very first car to ever race the Baja 1,000, which originally was the Mexican 1,000. That was a 1953 Triumph TR3. That car raced in 1967 at the very first Mexican 2000. It was left in Mexico, and it was a chicken coop. Lyman went down 43 years later. Pulled it out of, I think it was San Yannis, and pulled the car out, dragged it home, and rebuilt the entire car for the 50th anniversary of the Naha 1,000, which AK is the Mexican 1,000, the predecessor to SCOR, right? I got to drive it.

[01:01:21.400] - Andy Myers

I got to race the very first car to ever race the Baja 1,000. To this day, I'm grateful to Lyman for so many things he's done for me and my family. But that was one of the most amazing experiences. After that race, I was sitting around and Bruce Myers, Myers Banks. He's like, What are you going to do next? I'm like, I don't know. I thought I just write a UTV down here. He's like, No, no, no. Do the Banks with Wyman. Wyman rebuilt a Myers-Manks toad for the 1968, I believe, Mexican 1000. That was the first time the banks toad raced. The toad was used for the motorcycle guys, and they would pull the motorcycle guys out of the desert, if my memory is right. So you would have all the guys, Malcolm Smith and those guys, and Bruce would go down there with the Toad, which is spelled T-O-W-D. He pulled the cars out, but he also raced it in that car. So Lyman rebuilt a Myers-Manks Toad for the 50th anniversary of that car, and I got to drive it as well. Then, of course, we had the problem there with the COVID stuff and a few things, but we were able to do a rebuild of Sal Fish's 1970 Baha Bug.

[01:02:47.750] - Andy Myers

We did that for the 50th anniversary of Sal Fish's bug that he raced in 1970. I got to drive that, and Sal actually got to drive it in sections and race, which was awesome. It was another beautiful thing. He raced from La Paz down to Cabo for the finish line. But to be part of that with Sal was, wow, I mean, how What's the unit? I can't explain that to anybody? In my little world, in my little niche world, our little niche world, Rich, that's probably those three things I did there were probably the most amazing things I've ever done in my life.

[01:03:29.080] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. To be part of that.

[01:03:32.510] - Andy Myers

I've done three 50th anniversary cars, and Lyman's building another one right now, and he asked me if I could drive. I know Mike Perlman's cars. We're building Mike Perlman's cars, too, what Lyman is, and his 50th anniversary car. So there's two of them they're building now, and I've been tapped to drive one of them. I don't know which one they asked me to drive, but we'll see if I get to drive one or not. But if I do, man, I mean, how do you... That's it. That's awesome. That's badass stuff, right?

[01:04:06.380] - Big Rich Klein

It's pinnacle stuff, yeah.

[01:04:08.420] - Andy Myers

I think so. In our little world, in our little thing that we do, that's the shit in my opinion.

[01:04:18.710] - Big Rich Klein

So let's talk about the expos and what you've been doing there over the last few years. Are you still doing the Car camping?

[01:04:33.390] - Andy Myers

No, we do. I'm the only guy left putting on off-road shows. It's not a corporation or whatever. I am the last family show. We are it. We've been doing it in Arizona since 2002 or one or whatever that is. It's just evolved and we're back at Westworld. I changed the name up to the Dirt Expo. It's gone through a lot of name changes just because sand was sand. That was cool. But that's one thing. That's a niche thing. Then it was the International Off-Road New TV Expo due to the fact that I was the first person to put on an off-road expo type event in Baja. I did it in Mexicali, so we wanted to call it International because we were going back and forth across the border, and we did that twice. That was really cool to be able to be that guy that would brought that to Mexico. Then we changed it to Dirt Expo just because we wanted to incorporate everyone, and I wanted to clean our name, and I wanted all of that. Me and the guys at Casey Highlights and Maxis and a few other companies that have been with me forever since I was a kid.

[01:05:59.170] - Andy Myers

We had some meetings about that. We made a judgment call that the Dirt Expo would be a much better name. We changed it Dirt Expo, and this is the second year of that. We're back at Westworld. It's by, I don't even know what would be 2002 to 2024. It's like 22 years of doing this. I guess that's what the number would be. It's badass. We were able to do an event up at Havasu, and it went over extremely well up there. We still do the UTV Rallies, which is going to take some massaging because it's weird. It's become different. It's big, but it's different. I have to make it. I have to evolve with it. Now I'm doing the Arizona Outdoor Expo, which is core to my heart because it's Arizona and it's outdoors, and that is where I live and die. But the Dirt Expo is huge. For me, it's huge. It's my way. It's the biggest get-together of every single person I know in the state of Arizona. All the community comes out, all my friends come out, and I get to hang out with my friends. I just get to see all my friends, and we get to get together, and we bring together a big group of companies and a lot of cool things.

[01:07:25.240] - Andy Myers

It's another one of those things. It's absolutely beautiful. I get to be with all my friends and hang out with How do you beat that? That's what I want to do. I don't know how to put it. I guess the business part of it, the show and the vendors and all that, honestly, that's probably second to everything else. The biggest part of this is just to be with my friends and bring my community together in Arizona because nobody else does it.

[01:07:50.990] - Big Rich Klein

You're doing it in the fall this year?

[01:07:53.430] - Andy Myers

I do it in December. First week in December, every year.

[01:07:55.300] - Big Rich Klein

First week in December, okay.

[01:07:57.260] - Andy Myers

Every year for 22 years. It's the best time to do it. Everybody's like, Do it before sand season. Do it before the. Do it before my buddy. Arizona is hot. December is perfect. If I do it after Christmas, it doesn't work. It's just perfect to do it right before Christmas. Everybody's out. People are shopping. The weather's great. It's Arizona. The wives are shopping, and if they want to come to the show, great. If they don't, the boys can come, and we can all just get together and have a really nice weekend together and enjoy the day and see some really amazing cars and some off-road stuff and meet with some great companies and bring the families together. I've always been about family. I always believe that kids get in free. I don't need to charge for that. Yeah, that's it. It's just Arizona off-road community comes together. We all hang out, and I'm proud to say I've been doing it for 22 years.

[01:08:59.920] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent.

[01:09:00.680] - Andy Myers

It's like my big party, right? My big Christmas party. How's that?

[01:09:03.830] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. What do you think is next on the horizon, just staying with the hustle?

[01:09:15.080] - Andy Myers

Well, we're doing the Motorcycle and Coffee thing now. That's probably my end game. I don't know besides... I don't know. I think that's where I'm at. I I found peace and joy in that. It took me and my lawyers a long time to get the Motorcycle and Coffee trademarks. We got multiple trademarks on that name. I've been out on the road now for two years, going to all my biggest motorcycle events, hanging out with my community, hanging out with all my friends from New York, Laconia, all the way down to Barber Vintage days, to Sturgis, of course, Dayton, just hanging out with all my community and hearing feedback and learning more about what I need to do with water cycles and coffee. I'm going to start, hopefully, we got a tour coming up in January where we do a custom bike show. Then we'll be at Desert Wind, Harley-Davis in a Mesa. Then we'll be at San Diego Harley, Bartels, Harley in Santa Monica. Then we'll be at Quade. Then we'll do our Grand Stop, our Championship show at Las Vegas Harley. Then hopefully, I start up in brick and mortars and establish a 501(C), where I can have museum stuff come in for bikes and really do that.

[01:10:42.740] - Andy Myers

That's what I want to do. I want to listen to loud music. I want to design cool shit. I want to make great coffee. I want to look at art, fashion. I just want to hang out and just go away that way and just really enjoy what I do. That's cool. That's the thing me and Casey had in common is Casey Foukes from Best In The Desert. Best In The Desert was originally a motorcycle event, right? It didn't become a truck event until Kurt But the dude said, When the truck's in here. Casey did. And Pete was part of that because that number 2 truck was, I believe, the first trophy truck, trick truck that was ever made. But me and Casey had that. When he doing his Transamerican Trail ride with me banning on those guys, he would call me and we chit-chat on the phone quite a bit. And of course, he passed away. And when he passed away, as motorcyclists do, we ride. So you ride to the funerals. So I rode from Phoenix up to the Orleans Hotel there where they were having a ceremony. And it was raining, and it was muddy, and it was snowing, and all the Chase, James were calling me, making sure I was okay, that we're all going there.

[01:12:03.900] - Andy Myers

I'm on the Harley, and I get there, and there's no other bikes. I was like, Oh, shit. I'm like, Did I make a mistake? I walked in there, and I'm all grungey in my motorcycle shit. It's all full of mud and I'm soaking wet. I look up right when I walked through the door and all it was was all his motorcycles all the way around the whole the room there where they had the ceremony. I was like, fuck, I did the right thing. Yeah, that's cool. That was another beautiful thing. And people came up and shook my hands and said, You did good. Nice. I think so. I think so. That's my love affair with motor cycles and off-road, tied into one last closing statement. How's that?

[01:12:56.080] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Great segue. Absolutely. I I hope to get to see you at Ormhoff this year at the gala, November third.

[01:13:06.420] - Andy Myers

I hope to see everybody there. I hope to see everyone and everybody can hang out and have a beautiful night, right?

[01:13:15.340] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I hope your back gets taken care of and that you're able to get back on your feet and do what you love to do. And that's that hustle.

[01:13:25.990] - Andy Myers

Hustle and ride my motorcycle.

[01:13:27.800] - Big Rich Klein

There you go.

[01:13:29.280] - Andy Myers

Right on. Well, thank you everyone for listening. I hope I wasn't too long winded.

[01:13:36.790] - Big Rich Klein

No, I think this has been a great interview. Thank you so much for spending the time. I knew it would be great. No problem.

[01:13:42.310] - Andy Myers

No problem, Rich. I appreciate it, buddy.

[01:13:44.920] - Big Rich Klein

All right, Andy. I'll talk to you later. Thank you, sir. Okay. Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.