00:05 John Daub: Hello everybody! This is Kushitani Hamamatsu! Kushitani is a very famous Japanese motorcycle clothing outfitter. They have all the goods, jackets, shoes, gloves, all sorts of cool things. We've been talking with them to see if we could get some equipment for our trip up to Hokkaido. Get some recommendations and we've been taking you inside of this shop. Also talking about our trip to Hokkaido this summer. We're gonna be riding around the entire island by motorcycle and camper. We need the right gear and I think this might be exactly where we're gonna find it. Let's go inside. Say hi to PBG. He's probably trying stuff on already.

00:58 John Daub: Hey! I see you found some jackets. Yeah, these jackets are awesome, man. Look at this. They've got a huge selection here. I don't know if you can hear me. They've got winter weight, autumn-spring hybrids. So we're riding here in Japan in Kanto in summertime. It's smoking hot. It's so humid. And you really need like a mesh type jacket. So they've got plenty of those. They're lightweight. Wind blows through. But we'll be in Hokkaido. It's still warm there, but it doesn't have that humid air. So you need something that's kind of a hybrid of some mesh, but also a little more meat to it to keep you warm.

01:57 Peter von Gomm: Japan's weather in the summer, it is unbearably hot. But the humidity makes it really tough when you're riding on a motorcycle, although the air is coming through. So mesh works. There's an expression, I'd rather sweat than bleed. It means that when you're riding a motorcycle, you probably want to be well protected.

02:20 John Daub: You gotta be well protected. What do you think of this? That is a nice looking jacket, sir. It's got the vent in the back. You know, all the motorcycle jackets, they have protection in it. Can you show me the padding on the elbows? It's like armor. Elbows, you got up here on your shoulders. Those are the points of contact when you're crashing. We have some protection on it. That's why these jackets, they don't just... I can feel the back too. You feel that?

03:01 John Daub: Kushitani is a company that's been around for 75 years. We met the third generation of it. And it was his grandmother who started the company, Kushitani, after World War II. And from that, from the Suzukis and the Hondas, grew into a culture of motorcycle clothing. And they have all sorts of stuff, including these full-on racing suits. The racing suits are so awesome. And they're so heavy. These are about $3,000 for a racing suit. The protection on it. Well, that's for racing. So we don't... I have no intention to go... If you land on your back and slide down the track, this protects you. And it's got it in the booty. If you do a booty scooty, it's really thick. The leather here.

04:24 John Daub: Now, they're originally in Hamamatsu. Does anybody know where that is? What prefecture? Three, two, one. It is in Shizuoka. You can tell from this beautiful logo of Mount Fuji. I've been spending a lot of time in Shizuoka prefecture recently. I love the logo. It's just so cool. And we're seeing all sorts of things for protectors. They have gloves here. Let's take a look down the other side.

04:51 Peter von Gomm: I've noticed like... We know in Japan, there's a culture of trains. There's a culture of cars. You know, a lot of the world car makers... The car makers, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, tons of car makers. But there's also a really strong culture of motorcycles here. Suzuki, Honda are two of the big ones. And along with that, you have motorcycle gear. And I'm just getting into it because I'm getting my motorcycle license right now. But looking at the gear, it's just so much fun to be exposed to something I've never seen motorcycle gear, like had to go shopping for it before.

05:30 John Daub: Well, and the Japanese are very much... They like to coordinate. So when they're on the motorcycle, you often see these guys that are riding where everything matches. Their gloves match the color of the tank on the bike. And they take it very seriously. Can you feel that? The fashion is super important.

06:01 Peter von Gomm: Can you do a catwalk around? I think if the armor in the jacket makes you look like... Who's that guy with the baseball bat from Walking Dead? Negan. You look so much like Negan with that jacket. You just need a baseball bat.

06:33 John Daub: And they've got for the summer weight jackets, they've got all these zippers for different vents. You unzip it to let air through. You know what's really ingenious... Check this out. So let me show you the Presto change over here. Here's the normal zipping. So you've got the air block. It's wind blocking. Locked out. So you're on the expressway or wherever, and the air is being bounced off of you. Well, if you get hot, you just unzip it. You pull over first, naturally. You unzip it, and then it has this. That's a mesh. You can see the mesh in here. The air is going to go straight through that. So you zip it on this part of the zipper, and then air goes in there. You've got a mesh screen. So the air blows through, and it blows through the jacket and keeps it cool. You can put stuff in there. But just really nice. They're really nicely made. The fitting is good.

08:08 John Daub: As many bikers know, oftentimes when you wear motorcycle jackets, they just don't fit well. They're really kind of bulky, or they're restrictive when you try to bend your arms or whatever. These jackets have been thought through very well. So there's lots of mobility in them, and they're just comfortable, and they're stylish. I really like them. It makes you look like a badass.

08:50 Peter von Gomm: The gloves are pretty sweet, too. I've noticed all different kinds of levels of protection and levels and different quality of material, different types of material, mostly in leather. I didn't know about motorcycle gloves until about a month ago, but around the knuckles, things can hit you and fly at you, and you want to have protection on the knuckles, as well as if you were to fall, you want to have extra protection on the palms of your hands. And that's what makes the motorcycle gloves pretty unique. Again, for summer, there's different kinds of them. You can see, again, the knuckle protection here. I believe we're going to get a pair of summer gloves. Imagine you go in a bar. You don't want to get in a fight with someone who has motorcycle gloves on. It looks like a superhero.

10:01 Peter von Gomm: I'm too sexy for my jacket. Too sexy for my jacket. Too sexy.

10:18 John Daub: What was that song from the 80s? I'm too sexy for my – or whatever. Gosh, I can't remember. But we are that old. This yeah, it's a couple bald dudes. Hang on a second, you gotta unzip the set leather. Oh my god, it's really nice. These are like... what do you think, this is too small for me because of my barrel chest?

10:37 Peter von Gomm: What do you think, John? Well, if you were a zombie you'd be the motorcycle zombie walking around just like that, nice and stiff. But these, this style is more for you know a track racing bike things like that. Um, we will not be doing racing at all. We're just touring, trust me, safety first. I've noticed this too, they've got a ton of just normal wear that doesn't have armor in it and I'm kind of digging that. Yeah, these are nice, huh? The windbreakers and stuff, casual around town. But I like the one with armor because if you're a dude walking around town with an armored jacket that's just awesome. No one's gonna... well, oh well, I can punch you in the back and you... well, I don't have it on now so don't do it.

11:23 Peter von Gomm: The bags are pretty sweet as well. I'm learning all the different kinds of bags that each bag has a different purpose, whether it's a tank bag or a side bag or a backpack bag or it's a fanny pack bag. There's lots of different types of bags for motorcycling. You know, I'm still trying to get my bearings so traveling around is really cool. The one place that I want to go next if we can get access to go inside and film is Ricohland [?], which is another really neat place with electronics and things like that.

12:02 John Daub: I like that color, it's like something from the Yeezy collection by Kanye West that matches your car. Yeah, look at that. Oh my god. What do you think? I like it. I think we're not gonna have to worry about bears in Hokkaido, John. We're not gonna worry about the ladies chasing us down the road.

12:25 Peter von Gomm: I don't know, I don't think that's gonna happen. Don't worry about Kanae chasing me, she'll be able to find me in that color. Look at this, is that leather? Yeah, it's leather. Okay, good for the back? No, I don't want the back. You have a hard punch, okay? You can do my elbow. Nice. Chest? Is there armor chest? Chest armor? Oh my naturally my chest is armor. That was a wax on wax off hit. Ready, wax off. You would totally need some Miyagi there. But nice, huh? It is nice. I like it. I love that sheen, the leather. Leather hood works good for motorcycles.

13:01 John Daub: Why? Why is leather such a... Well, John, if you come off the bike you got to have some protection. That's what the leathers all about so if you're sliding scraping along. It's nothing to do with fashion.

13:21 Peter von Gomm: Well it's fashion too, okay man. I make this look good. Just you don't have that... you don't have any chest hair, what are you talking about? I do, all right. And we have the shoes as well as a lot of other... I also tried on this earlier. It's a really light like a sweatshirt material but the sweatshirt has armor in it and this is what's so awesome. Like when you're riding in the summer you want that airflow, you want to have it breathing. And this is a type of a jacket I think would be great in you know spring, even in the summer to wear that. It would be really nice. It's not waterproof but picking a motorcycle jacket is really cool. Most of them seem to be about I don't know twenty to forty thousand yen, right Peter? You know like 150 to 300 dollars I'd say or four hundred dollars. You can get even more expensive but it depends on the season and the material. But I'm really impressed. I'd never gone shopping before for motorcycle gear and this is... this is the first. There's some pretty cool stuff here. This shop is in Setagaya. It's not far from Futako-Tamagawa which is where I'm studying to get the motorcycle license and I'll probably be back again before we go to Hokkaido.

14:34 John Daub: Good field trip before we go to Hokkaido. By the way, let's talk a little bit about that trip, huh? We haven't talked about it. So we're gonna be leaving on July 28 and we'll be riding for the first five days, five nights right on a motorcycle. Then we're gonna come back to Chitose, pick up an RV camper and then do a long haul around from Nemuro up to the peninsula, Shiretoko (Shitoko?), all the way around to Abashiri, Shiretoko, that's right, all the way around Abashiri and down to Asahikawa, Aoiike, the blue pond, and through Furano and Yubari. BA, that's where the blue pond is. It's going to be pretty sweet. We're going to make a documentary which looks like it's going to be somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours long, showing you the Ainu culture that's there as well as some of the really unique attractions of Hokkaido. So I'm pretty stoked about this trip. You know, it's not just the sights that we'll be seeing, but the way we'll be seeing them. I'm really jazzed for you to be on these bikes, because I've done it. I've done this three times now, this will be the fourth time riding a motorcycle in Hokkaido, and it is stellar. And for you it's going to be baptism by fire, but man, what a way to start.

15:59 Peter von Gomm: So I've got a Honda 400X, is that a touring bike?

16:03 John Daub: Yeah. It's a cross, it's an on-off road type.

16:07 Peter von Gomm: Are we going off-road?

16:11 John Daub: I mean, no, we'll be on the road.

16:14 Peter von Gomm: And you've got a Nissan?

16:19 John Daub: Does Nissan make motorcycles? I forget.

16:23 Peter von Gomm: No, it's a Yamaha Tracer 900.

16:26 John Daub: Oh, that sounds pretty cool, Tracer. So we've got one big boy bike, and one little boy bike.

16:32 Peter von Gomm: It's a middle-sized bike, there's smaller ones. Yeah, well, you don't want to start too big, that's fine. That'd be plenty of power for you. Middle-sized bike, okay? Just not speak small.

16:43 John Daub: Aiken? Sorry, I always get your pronunciation wrong. Nice to see you. Is there a link for the trip? Not yet. We're going to, I'm actually editing the video. We had to do a couple of retakes because he had something in his teeth. So I'm editing that. That should, once we apply for it, I think on Monday, it's going to take a couple of days before Kickstarter comes out. So we'll see if the Kickstarter approves it, and then the campaign will be live. It'll be pretty cool. Documentary, postcards, we've got tenugui (traditional Japanese hand towels). The tenugui, they're not bandanas. We have tote bags, perhaps. Some light stuff, but we want to keep it really digital and fun. Light, but useful. Everything will be useful and fun for everybody.

17:27 John Daub: We should get some gloves. Oh man, some white J gloves.

17:33 Peter von Gomm: All right, folks, that's all we wanted to do today. We wanted to show you a little bit around here. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below.

17:39 John Daub: I'll put a link to this location, Kushitani. Long history of making motorcycle gear, 75 years, third generation owners. It's still run by the original owners, and the style is outstanding. You get a little Mount Fuji logo with the Kushitani logo on it. Yeah, cool stuff. Pretty badass.

18:09 Peter von Gomm: Well, thanks for joining us, guys. And there'll be more coming. More coming. As we update the trip and-

18:16 John Daub: Arigato gozaimashita.

18:17 Peter von Gomm: Arigato gozaimashita. That was really nice. They're super friendly. I'm just really appreciative that it's owned by a small, like a family business.

18:28 John Daub: It's like a family business, so yeah, I like that. Yeah, so there you go, Kushitani of Hamamatsu. They have a branch here in Setagaya, right here in Yoga Station. About a five minute walk. Thanks, everybody. See you later.

18:53 Peter von Gomm: See you guys. Bye.