BMW 101 for Cagers

Just saw this posting on the BMWBMW forum. Apparently, some people still don't know that BMW makes motorcycles, even though BMW started making motorcycles in 1923, long before they started making cars. Be sure to check out my BMW and a Quiz Too for some history about BMW and a short quiz.

Here's an excerpt from the posting:

"While stopped at a traffic light on the Reston Parkway a woman, driving a BMW 7 series car, puts her window down and shouts at me: Something like this;

Woman: You should remove those stickers

Me: What stickers?

Woman: Those BMW stickers. Everyone knows BMW does not make motorcycles. How dare you put those on..."

Read the rest of the posting.

It's a Two-Way Street

Over the past eight years I've written a lot about motorcycles both on the old site and on the Motorcycle Views site, forum, newsletter, and this blog. However, writing can be like riding down a one-way street. I want it to be like riding down a two-way street being able to see my readers waving at me on their oncoming motorcycles. I want to be able to stop at a watering hole and get feedback on what I'm doing right and wrong and have riders submit articles, pictures, comments, and discussions to help the total site grow. I need submissions.

This is not a site in a vacuum. Never was before and won't be in the future. It's a site that depends on you.

At yesterday's Polar Bear run, I had several people come up to me and talk about this new site. They liked it better than the old site. It still has much of the old content but it's much simpler to navigate and is not cluttered with ads. It was nice to hear people talk about the new site in such glowing terms. However, success of the new site depends basically on three things: Search engine placement, User Submissions, and forum growth.

Search engine placement is a complicated process. I'm doing about all I can to foster this process. However, search result ranking often depends on having other sites linking to a site. That proves that the site is important enough to others that many other sites want to link to it. It seems to have the effect of raising a site's ranking in the search results. So, if you happen to have a motorcycle site and like what you see here on Motorcycle Views, consider linking to the main site. As always, I will provide a link back to your site as I always did on the old site.

I have seven items on my Submissions page. These include User Reviews, Motorcycle Pictures, Tattoos, Haiku Poems, Forum Participation, Newsletter Subscription, and Blog Comments. Take a look at my Submissions page to see where you can contribute most to the growth of the site. Nearly eight years of doing this has made it readily apparent to me that "It all depends on you." I enjoy reading the submissions and processing them to appear on the site. Help me out by writing a great user review of your own bike, submitting a picture of you with your bike, showing me your motorcycle-related tat, writing a simple haiku, becoming active on my forum -- it's FUN, subscribing to my newsletter, and commenting on this blog. What could be easier?

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Motorcycle Industry Council Comments on Wild Hogs Movie

Wild Hogs, the new movie starring John Travolta and Tim Allen, opens today. I saw a review on TV today that said to forget it. Another review in the paper gave it two stars out of four. So the reviews keep coming in. Of course, the true test is what the fans think and the box office take will be the final test.

The Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) says, in a release to Business Wire, today that the reviews are mixed. Here's an excerpt:

"We want to give ‘Wild Hogs’ a thumbs-up for inspiring even more Americans to take a look at motorcycling and everything great it has to offer, the sense of freedom it provides, the adventure,” said Tim Buche, president of the MIC. “At the same time, we want to continue to encourage new and returning riders to go about it the right way. After you’ve taken the ride vicariously in the movie theater, enroll in a Motorcycle Safety Foundation RiderCourseSM and learn about two-wheeling in the real world."

Read the complete article.

Of course Motorcycle Views wants to encourage everyone thinking about learning to ride a motorcycle to do so but it has to be done right. That doesn't mean running out after seeing a movie like this and buying a new motorcycle and then trying to learn to ride it on your own. Check out my step-by-step procedure to do it right by reading You CAN Ride a Motorcycle.

I also have a Motorcycle Views Forum where you can ask questions about learning to ride and receive answers from our expert riders. Check out the Motorcycle Views Forum.

As I said before in this blog, I will be giving you my review of this movie soon.

Motorcycle Views Forum - New Feature

After I left the old site, there was a certain amount of confusion among the members of the motorcycle forums that I hosted at the time. All the moderators had been shutout and no one was in charge. Of course, some members liked not having anyone in charge. Fortunately, no trolls have arrived and no heavy SPAM has occurred so the old forums are still relatively sane.

It must be mentioned that the old site and forums have been unguided for two months now. Also, the site is still being advertised to find a new Guide. It could be many months before a new Guide is found, trained, and allowed to build the site from scratch. That's right, the old site will disappear and a new site will be constructed from scratch. The forums may be allowed to stay the same, or some forums may be deleted, or the forums may start from scratch. No one really knows.

However, many hundreds of the forum regulars departed and attached themselves to two existing forums and one newly created forum. The latter forum is now being run by a former "corner host" and the vast majority of the regulars have set up housekeeping with that forum.

In the beginning, I was happy to see that the regulars were attached to a forum that would stay around. Many were worried that the plug might be pulled on the old forum and everyone in the community would lose touch with each other. The new forum solved that for the most part.

I was also not ready to be responsible for another forum when I was trying to establish the new Motorcycle Views Web site. I first created this Motorcycle Views Blog. Then I established the Motorcycle Views Web site. Next came a Motorcycle Views Newsletter. I'm currently getting subscribers for the newsletter from a sign-up form on the site. After I had established a huge number of articles and features for the Motorcycle Views Web site, I started thinking about creating a forum.

The Motorcycle Views Forum is now attached to the Motorcycle Views Web site. It can be reached from any page of the site. Having the forum allows me to stay in touch with a very large community of riders, both experts and beginners. I can now run Polls in the forum and link to them in the newsletter. I can also provide links in the newsletter to important forum discussions as I used to do in my former newsletters. I can also put links to forum discussions in my articles to enable people to discuss important points in the articles.

The net effect is that I finally have back the major pieces of the old site and that's a good feeling.

I hope you will visit the Motorcycle Views Web site and the Motorcycle Views Forum and also subscribe to the Motorcycle Views Newsletter. Together, we will all continue to learn more about motorcycling and develop a great motorcycle community. It all depends on you.

Walt

GoDaddy OCC Bike, Moto Terms, Pics, Forum Talk

I was watching American Chopper last night and found out they were building a chopper for GoDaddy.com. That was interesting since I have my Motorcycle Views Web site on GoDaddy.com and have been quite happy with their service so far. I was amused to see the CEO of GoDaddy.com, Bob Parsons, as he invited the OCC guys to his Customer Service area. Seems Bob likes to award his group with bonuses by letting each person spin a wheel with dollar amounts around the outside and then giving them the amount the wheel stops on. Fortunately, Mikey was standing next to the wheel and made sure each person's wheel landed on $500 and Senior had a pile of cash that he kept doling out to the winners. Everyone seemed happy and apparently Bob Parsons runs a pretty happy shop. I know I had a few problems when I started up my site and I called GoDaddy. I expected minimal help but instead got a very nice young lady who walked me through a 30 minute process and answered all my questions.

I continue to build the Motorcycle Views site. I had all my motorcycle terms and definitions in five files but wanted to separate out each term into its own file so I could link to definitions directly when I'm writing articles. So, I spent the better part of three days creating over 200 files and the result was worth the effort. I also created my top 20 terms based on stats I got from the old site. Here are my Top 20 Motorcycle Terms. Some of these terms are Crotch Rocket, Naked Bike, and Ride Bell.

I'm actively looking for submissions to grow my Moto Pic Gallery. I need pictures of you and your motorcycle. This was a popular feature on the old site.

I'm also looking for pictures of your tattoos for my Moto Tat Gallery. Send them in today.

While you're on the Motorcycle Views site, please take a moment to subscribe to my Newsletter.

Finally, I'm going to be providing links to current discussions going on in the "Still Cruisin' The Curves Motorcycle Forum." Most of the regulars from the old place are now posting there. Here's an excerpt from a discussion by PHIPSD entitled, "What do you look for in a bike?":
"When you go shopping for a bike what features or design elements do you look for? For me the most important by far is comfort and the ergos. In my 50s pain doesn't go away like it used to. Next would be good lighting. The eyes, especially with my night vision, don't work as well either. Third is brakes. Modern traffic and inattentive drivers make this more of an issue every year. Nothing more needs to be said. What would be your list of must haves on that new ride?"
Read the complete discussion