Welcome to Botches Off-Road.
Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews
to trail stories, tent camping to rock landing,
and all things to do with the outdoors.
Today we got Alex and Mark again.
We're gonna do another quick 30 minute episode
and the topic of today's episode is gonna be very loosely
based around the question of what is the one piece of gear
you didn't think about before you started overlanding,
but now you can't live without.
So I think we're gonna start off with Mark,
tell us about yours.
Mine will be an air compressor.
Originally for a good portion of two years now
I've been running out of Alex's air compressor slash tank.
It was a single little single pump one
that was a air horn slash air ride system.
And for a while it was getting down to where it took
almost an hour to fill up all of our tires
and then another set of tires and it just took forever.
So I ended up getting all top dual compressor,
which is a standard almost any dual compressor now
it's just the same thing, just a different name.
And it has been a lifesaver since.
Alex is kind of angry about it because I have literally done
it where I filled up my tires,
I filled up my brother's tires and I also filled up
like our buddy Duncan's vehicle while he was still
airing up his tires and he was still not done yet.
My little compressor is getting tired.
Yeah, I mean, it's done good for what it is, but an hour.
I mean, God, I'd be lucky to get more than five minutes
off of my compressor before from Harbor Freight.
So that's pretty good though.
To be fair, that's going from somewhere between 10
and 13 PSI to 40 on three trucks.
I mean, that's great.
And I know that tank really helps out a lot
because that compressor would be dead without it.
I honestly think that.
I seriously think that that tank helps just cool things down
and keep things healthy.
Yeah.
I mean, compressors are important for sure.
I know that I have the Thor's Lightning version of yours,
Mark.
Yep.
And as you said, it is for a dual compressor,
what is it?
Dual cylinder compressor.
Yep.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, it's very quick.
The parts that I got with it, the hose seems pretty quality.
The air truck seems pretty quality and I can air mine up.
My buddy Matt's up pretty quick before most other people
are even done.
So interested to maybe in the future incorporate
like a more flight four way system to it, to try it.
Once you start that, once you start with a good compressor,
it's kind of hard to live without one.
Yeah.
Tyler, if you want to sponsor us.
Oh yeah.
More flight.
Yeah.
I honestly, I just thought that it was a really cool.
I saw, what was it?
Some guys that were rock landing on YouTube,
forget what the name of it is,
but those guys were running more flight and God,
they had their lifted Jeeps and they're going,
I forget what is it?
Was it 400 miles of hell or something?
Oh yeah.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Four days in hell or something like that.
Four days in hell.
Yeah. Man.
Just so cool to watch that and then see them airing up
and airing down and their different tires
going over this crap.
Oh, that was so cool.
Now they came out with this hub thing that like,
I don't even know what all it is.
It uses some type of algorithm to determine exactly
how long it takes to air up each tire to the proper PSI.
And you can like adjust it all.
And it's, it is wild.
The stuff that more flight is doing now.
Yeah. Set it and forget it pretty much, dude.
You can set it, go eat your sandwich, go take a poop,
come back and it's done.
That's perfect.
I mean, it doesn't get much better than that.
I always thought that the whole more flight thing
was really cool, but it wasn't necessarily necessary,
which I mean it isn't,
but then I realized that I like to air up at one tire
and then go talk and then come back and air up another tire
and then go talk.
So if I could just hook up all four
and just let them do their thing,
oh, that would save me so much time.
Yeah. I think the first time that I seen the four way
was like ARB, something like that.
Yeah. ARB has their own way too.
Yeah. I haven't seen that there any way near as,
I don't know, as near as refined, I guess,
as like more flight started into it.
So yeah, I think more flight has a solid system out there.
I think that's going to be my go-to.
It won't be for the compressor for now,
just because I have that Thor's lightning
and I got it without, you know,
at the time when I got the Thor's lightning compressor,
I bought the first dual cylinder compressor
that I could have one day delivered.
Yeah.
And at that time it was just Thor's lightning.
So eventually when that one goes out,
hopefully in a few years,
I will probably switch to the more flight
just because I'm trying to keep some US based company going.
But yeah, dude, definitely an air compressor is a big one.
What about you Alex?
So I, you know, I've done this before.
So when I really started getting into it, you know,
I expected a winch, I expected an air compressor,
but I was getting some tires mounted and balanced
and the shop had these little Apex RPV,
sorry, one second.
Don't get out of here.
Go, go.
Go on, get.
I had, I had these little,
they had these little RPV valve stem things
that just had a switch on them
and you just pull up and the truck deflates.
And it, on a whim,
I just told them to put them in and oh my God, man,
it saves me so much time.
I can have all four tires aired down in like 30 seconds.
That's super nice for me.
That's, that's probably bad.
Cause I go to talk to and then I come back
and I'm like, oh fuck, I'm at five TSI.
Yeah.
Well, I stand there with my, my gauge
and I can just watch it.
And because I'm watching something move,
it keeps me engaged enough.
Yeah. I mean, and those deflators work so well
that you can sit there and it only takes it, you know,
what a couple of seconds to get down to the PSI you need.
Yeah. I think each one is like four seconds.
Yeah. So, I mean, that's plenty of time to get down to that.
I, I thought about that.
And I know you've talked to me about that a lot
and that sure will be a future one.
I think I'm just going to wait
till I get a new set of wheels or something first
before I get the deflators.
I, I don't think I would put them on stock wheels.
So I think that's a good idea because I feel like
if you're going to put them on a set of wheels,
you're kind of committing to that set of wheels, you know,
across vehicles a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think the ones that I have now, I have some cheapo,
I think they were like Boulder tools,
screw deflators that you just screw on.
And then it's supposed to, you're supposed to set your PSI.
Yeah. They don't really work very well.
And when you set the PSI,
it's you could set it to one thing
and then it doesn't necessarily set at that.
Most likely user error.
Still pretty new with the whole deflating your tires
to certain PSI things.
So it could be me, but then I got speed chucks,
which is probably another 20, $23, $25, something like that.
So all for my deflation system, probably $50 total into it.
And then the speed chucks just speed clip onto it.
So I don't have to keep screwing on the valve stem every time
because that was getting annoying.
And so, I mean, it works good enough for me for now.
And it'll do until I get deflators, but definitely.
I found that if you buy a good quality screw on chuck,
it's a lot less annoying.
Yeah.
Because I've had screw on ones before that, you know,
came with whatever air system I had and they always sucked.
Yeah.
But I bought Apex's high flow chuck,
which is supposed to magically work better with the RPV.
It's about the same amount of time,
but it is a very high quality product.
It screws on very easily on any valve stem.
I mean, it just works really well.
Yeah.
And that for me, it's just that extra couple of seconds
with the clip on the little speed chucks
that I really, really enjoy.
I don't have to screw anything on.
I just pop them on there and walk away.
My wife has two in her side of her door,
so she'll go in there and pop them on hers
and she'll monitor those until we get down to the PSI
cause she's got a...
Do they leak?
What?
Every clip on valve stem connection I've had
ends up leaking really quick.
No, I've used them probably six or so times now.
Haven't had any issues,
but when you're working with deflators,
leaking is not really an issue.
It is if you're trying to get to a certain PSI
cause it won't read out properly.
So I'll use those till I get close
and then I hook up the clip.
It's the same kind of system,
the little clip for my air compressor,
the chuck for it.
And then that's got the PSI readout on there.
And then I'll let out the PSI
till I get to what I want to get.
And then I'll be done with it.
But it's just nice having something that clips on
and clips off like that.
Don't have to spend a shit ton of time screwing in them.
And then thinking about winter too,
it'll be nice to just pop those in there.
Whatever time I have less of outside
is better for me for at that point.
God, I wonder how my Apex valve stems
are gonna work in the snow.
Cause there's gonna be snow.
Oh man.
There's gonna be snow caked all in my wheel, dude.
I'm gonna have to dig my valve stem out.
Are those steel or are they plastic?
Steel.
Just gonna say you could use like a torch
and just kind of heat up that area.
Cause you know you're gonna get ice accumulation
and all that.
It's gonna be, might be a little harder to pull them.
They've still got O-rings.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't mean like, I don't mean like set a map gas torch
on there and just let them melt.
But I mean, just like heating up the area
cause I don't know how that's gonna work.
Maybe the heat gun.
I was gonna say, don't you have a Bauer heat gun?
I do have a cheap Bauer heat gun that I use for,
in the winter the tractors, their gear levels are freeze.
So I bought this little cordless Harbor Freight heat gun
to just kind of heat them up enough
that I could shift the tractor again.
Yeah.
Maybe we look into, is it alcohol de-icers too?
That could work.
Cause then not plugging, not having to plug in a heater
and walk around with a cord.
Oh no, the heat gun's wire works.
Oh, okay.
I was gonna say, I'm thinking it's,
I'm thinking it's corded and I'm like,
that's gonna be annoying, but.
No, it runs off a Bauer 20 volt battery.
Oh, that's cool.
It's a heavy duty hair dryer.
The basically.
Yeah.
Hardly a heavy duty hair dryer.
Yeah.
But yeah, no, if that like locked the ice
or something like that with the heavy,
heavy alcohol content might help too.
But yeah, that's deflators.
That sounds like a problem for future Alex.
Future Alex, future winners.
That's yeah, we'll cross that road when we get there.
Cause I'm interested to see how that works out too.
My clip-ons I know are gonna be really nice
for that kind of thing.
Because I could just unscrew the valve cap, clip them on.
Right.
And I could do that with gloves on.
So I know screwing them on, I'm not very dexterous.
I don't know how you say that.
My dexterity isn't the best in the cold.
I've.
We know.
Yeah.
My hands got frostbitten a few years ago.
And ever since my feeling has not been,
like I used to be able to go outside all winter
without gloves and I'd be fine.
Now it's like any little bit of cold and oh my God,
I thought my hands are just dead.
So.
I hate what, you know how your hands turn
like that pale white color.
Yeah.
And then they're like just useless.
Oh, I hate when they get that cold, man.
It doesn't take much from me.
And I already have an issue.
Doctors hit me up in the chat with like poor circulation.
Like my toes and my fingers are almost always cold.
My feet aren't, my hands aren't.
It's just my phalanges as doctors might say it.
But they're always cold and it has not gotten any better
with the frostbite.
So.
Iron supplements.
Motherfucker, I am not anemic.
I'm good.
I pump iron, man.
I take iron by the gram.
I'm good.
No, not lead.
Oh, I drink that.
Remember for Michigan, we have that in here.
It's a supplement.
Wrong side of the state, buddy.
Wrong side of the state.
They put that in our water towers.
It's Grant's 80 year old water tower.
That's still wood.
Hey, no, our water tower,
we have a new water tower that was built in 2004.
The wood one we don't use.
Yeah, that's what they say.
It's not even hooked up.
I'm about to say, I don't think the wood
will do anything for the new Grant.
Not to be conspiracy theorists or anything,
but have you ever checked physically?
Yeah, for anyone that doesn't know,
we live in a very small town of 800 people.
And one of the quote unquote attempted tourist attractions
is our original water tower
that is the last standing wooden water tower.
And I think all of Michigan may be the Midwest.
I can't remember now.
Yeah, and just so you know how well that worked out,
I didn't even know about that until like a month ago.
And I've been in Grant for a few years.
Maybe not as much as Alex and Mark have,
but I'd say at least four or five years
I've been in the Grant area
and didn't know about a water tower.
So I knew, you know what?
I know more about never enough being there
than I knew about the Grant water tower.
You're like, what's in Grant?
There's a subway and never enough.
That's pretty much Grant for you.
Man, that is the saddest explanation of our town
that I have ever heard.
Coming from like inner city to living in country.
Like I will say this at my high school
in Fife Lake was smaller than Grant's.
So Grant's got that.
But other than that, dude, going through Grant,
there's like, is there any place to eat?
Yeah, I guess you could go to the old train depot restaurant.
Other than that, you have Family Dollar.
The only, one of the only good Mexican stores
that were in there where you could get
some like really authentic foods gone.
So they just-
No, they moved.
Is it the same people?
Is it Tomasula's or is it something else?
I'm pretty sure it's the same people.
I hope so.
I absolutely love that place.
I was in there with one of my farm hands not too long ago
and it's the same kind of thing.
I mean, I can't say they have as good of an inventory
as they used to, but it's pretty close.
Dude, God, I'm such a slut for authentic tacos.
I miss having that little Mexican restaurant
that was next to Tomasula's
that always had like banging Mexican tacos, dude.
Yeah, man.
There's just such a need for it around here.
I hit up every food truck that's in Grant and O'Hago area
that's got tacos.
Hey, Friendly Neighborhood Editor here.
This is the point in the episode where I realized
that I'm an extreme big bag.
But-
They're always Tex-Mex.
I know, it's the hole in the wall places
that are the best.
I'm gonna butcher this, but taquerias,
or taquerias, they're like little restaurants with stores.
Those places are always the best.
All right, man.
Now that we're on Mexican food,
what is one piece of gear that you never thought of,
but you could not wear without?
Yeah, speaking of Mexican food
and what it does to you typically,
mine would honestly be a shitter,
not a pooper as they call it, a commode,
a mobile outhouse.
A latrine.
A latrine, a hole in the ground.
But no, I got a Amazon special heavy duty
for my fat ass latrine little sit down toilet.
And I will say I've been camping my whole life.
I have been sitting on logs,
arranging logs to a triangle
so that I could maybe sit on those.
I have been digging holes and squatting.
This most recently, I tried to do the whole strap thing
where you put a strap around the tree
and let that hold you up a little bit while you sit.
Fuck that, didn't that work?
The strap hurt like hell.
How heavy of a strap did you have?
Oh yeah, dude, it was at least a 12,000 pound strap.
Next time I'll get winch cable, I can hear it creak.
But no, I mean, the strap hurt, obviously.
I mean, things not meant to do that
and you're putting all your weight into it.
Tree bark is fun until you have bugs crawling up your ass.
It's just- Nothing's better than ants in the butthole.
And nothing's worse than trying to cook an authentic,
let's say Hispanic meal out at camp
and then having to shit five seconds later
and then having to run 40 feet into the woods
and find your perfect log because we're getting old
and we can't squat like that anymore.
It's annoying and it's time consuming
and anybody who knows me, I don't like wasting time.
So I have a, previously already bought
changing room shower awning
that folds out on the side of my truck.
And then we bought the, just an Amazon special U-shaped.
And I looked for U-shaped in particular
because I don't like the full donut
that you could typically get with the seats.
I like to be able to reach and get everything.
It's cause he's got a massive dong.
Yeah, I have to be able to flip it somewhere.
It's just, no, it's my massive ass and my rolls
and I can't, I wanna make sure that I get in there
and clean it, especially when you're camping, dude.
A clean butthole makes you feel like 10 times better
when you're camping.
It's the truth, I'll stand by it till I die.
You feel better.
And the only thing that gets even close as good
as a feeling is a river boo day.
Taking a poop in the river and having it boo day.
Spreading that right on down to the kids
swimming around the bend.
Yeah, I mean, typically,
typically if you're gonna let logs float,
you yell timber first, but yeah, I mean,
if you wanna surprise them, yeah, I guess you didn't,
you don't have to.
I think that might be the worst hot tip you've ever given.
Yeah, you want a hot tip, I'll give you a hot tip.
If you're pooping in the river,
make sure your face the right way.
Think about it, think about it.
Make sure your face the right way.
You ever try to poop the wrong way up a river?
You don't want logs floating in your way.
You're wrong, yeah, you just get,
it just drags across your nose.
Was that a fish?
Yeah, man, that's a feeling you don't wanna feel.
So let me tell you that, dude.
Five in the morning, I had to poop bad.
It was super, super rustic.
We were on a small island that was probably 20 feet
in Fife Lake and I was in high school.
And I ran out there.
We were on a hot dog and butter diet
and ran out to the river.
Didn't even think about it.
It was one of my first times pooping in the river
and pooped the wrong way.
And I tell you what, I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget it.
I feel like pooping in the river is the wrong thing to do.
Why?
Fish do it.
They do, but like, I used to have a dog
where he always shit in the lake, dude.
And I always felt so bad for the people around us.
Fuck, why?
Fish do it.
I understand.
It's probably not the best way because of what humans eat.
And, but I could tell you that where we were at that time,
and I haven't done this since,
mostly because I'm traumatized,
but where I was at the time,
it was through saplings and stuff.
There was, you couldn't even dig a hole.
There was roots everywhere.
So I would have to have crossed the river,
which I was not doing in the middle of the night
or that early in the morning.
And it was just kind of the best thing
that I could do at the time.
And trust me, I paid for it.
You know, five in the morning,
you're taking a poop in the Manistee River.
You ever taken a poop in a spring fed river before?
No, but I'm sure it was cold.
It was fucking cold, dude.
It was cold.
I did it the wrong way.
I stumbled and got deeper than I wanted to,
got my shirt wet.
Like, dude, I was almost butt naked in the middle of a river.
My friends are sitting over,
oh man, it was just embarrassing.
I was like, dude, it's not the best way.
And this is all bringing back to the point to where
maybe at one point when you were younger,
you're like, hey, just squat, hey, blah, blah, blah, you know?
But it's getting to the point now where
I just did this for the first time,
Labor Day weekend, I used this toilet.
I will never, never go back to anything before.
It was $40 and I would buy it every fricking week
if that's what I needed to do when I was camping.
It's that much better than squatting
in the middle of the woods.
Use a trash bag, use your little kitty litter,
and then you pack it out, obviously.
You pack in, you pack out, don't leave a trace.
And it's so nice, dude.
And in the middle of the night,
you can sit there and poop in the cool, calm 2 a.m. night
and listen to the critters out in the woods.
It's so much better than trying to struggle
not to poop on your shorts, right?
Yep, I am excited for this weekend.
I can't wait to poop on your toilet.
Dude, you can, I will let you.
I'll share the love, man.
You know, and the thing is,
the bags fit right over the seat.
So I'm not saying that anything about camping
and overlanding is horrendously sanitary,
but when your own trash bag that you're using
is over the seat, if you're worried about touching butts
or anything like that, then no worries,
because nothing touches.
So it's about as sanitary as it gets.
Do it up, I'll have that set up.
And yeah, dude, that's definitely something
that I will never go camping again without.
It also kind of opens up different avenues for comfortably
camping in areas that don't have easily accessible holes
to be dug or a little bit more public areas,
state parks where you have your toilets.
Sometimes the toilets aren't someone to sit in.
And I have to think about my wife too and her comfort level.
When we decided to get this last year,
we just hadn't used it till this year.
She was pregnant and we were like, dude,
getting up every 10 minutes or running to a potty
is just not gonna be good.
So yeah, I think it was a really good purchase.
I think that's definitely something I can't live without
until the next thing pops up.
I could argue the fridge,
but we could live with the fridge.
And that's something that I've thought about a little bit.
So, yeah.
Well, thanks for your guys' insight.
This has been a pretty good episode.
Yo, again, like I say, every episode,
this would be a good place for us to read off some boosts
and just share the love that you guys shared back to us.
So yeah, well, have a good one.
And we'll see you.