Episode 18, in which we talk to Court Butler, the founder of Butler Maps

Call it the Little Podcast That Could … or just call it Chasing the Horizon. Either way, we’re still going strong with the emergence of Episode 18! The last episode – featuring Rod Copes of Royal Enfield USA – is proving to be one of our most popular so far, and if the emails I’ve been getting are any indication, you listeners want me to keep trying to get more folks like Rod on the show. I’m working on it, I promise!

For this episode, it’s a man with a vision. And paper. LOTS of paper. Court Butler had an idea that culminated in 2008 with the founding of Butler Maps. I know, you’re thinking “A paper map company? At the beginning of the Great Recession?” I asked Court about that, and I think you’ll be fascinated by what he had to say. I found the process they use to create maps to be absolutely fascinating and hope to get one of Butler’s cartographers on the show next season to talk some serious nitty-gritty about mapmaking.If

When it comes to the news, you know what I led with. If you don’t, you’ll soon find out. I also got into a bit of info about MotoGP and World Superbike, especially when it comes to who is racing a BMW for which team in WSBK. Find these races deep in your cable lineup if you can and watch them. It’s amazing to watch these conflagrations of men and machines. Get out to a race – any race, whether it’s superbike, vintage, trials, motocross, supercross, flat track, drag – at a track near you and cheer the racers on to victory. Good fun for the whole family and the riders will be grateful you joined them.

In the meantime, enjoy the links and the non-spam comments for the various posts on the website. (SO MANY SPAM COMMENTS! I nuke them all. You’re safe!) I’ll be continuing to add guest blog posts and some of my own, even after the season wraps at the end of May. If you’d like to be a guest blogger and contribute to our open-source project here, feel free to reach out to me via email ([email protected]). I hope you’ll have the opportunity to ride this summer – I’m certainly looking forward to it. I’ll be heading to the MOA Rally in Des Moines in mid-July, taking my time to get there with a route that doesn’t include much (if any) time on interstate highways. After a frustrating couple of years, now I have my job situation sorted out and I mostly have my motorcycle situation sorted out, so I’m really looking forward to some time on the road and getting to do some more face-to-face interviews.

Show breakdown

0.00 Intro
0.40 News
6.08 Discussion with Court Butler
49.13 MOA Plug: discount on ads at CycleTrader.com
50.15 Wrap-up
51.52 Fin

Links

Episode 19 will be out on 16 April and will feature a discussion with Andrew Pain, a photographer with an unhealthy obsession for small-displacement motorcycles. There will be three more episodes following that, and then we’re taking off the months of June and July to rest, refresh, RIDE and prep for Season 2 of Chasing the Horizon!