Looking for ride reports and pics!

Hey everyone,

Hopefully the moderators won't kick this but I'll give it a shot anyways (this is not a ploy for money or services in any way at all)...

I have been on this site for a while now after buying my VFR in May of this year. I know that's only a blink compared to some people's VFR resumes and that's exactly why I am posting this. I am also on other sites like Horizons Unlimited and ADV Rider as the VFR is not and has not been my only bike.

I love reading ride reports and going through all the pictures attached and I like looking at motorcycle magazines and going through all the reviews and the sections like "me and my bike" and "my first ride" and things like that, but there really doesn't seem to be a great reader based magazine out there that kind of combines all of that. I want to read ride reports and see great pictures without reading through everyone's "aweosme trip! I'm IN!" to get to the meat of the story. That's part of the fun of reading online ride reports but I have been thinking about trying to start an online (at least at first) magazine that will most likely be free.

I want to have people send me in their stories and their pictures and they'll get put into a publication that a ton of people could see. How cool would it be to have your stories and photos shared with a large community of like-minded people? Your words. Your gorey details. Your biggest accomplishments and your most horrid failures. If the publication ended up making any money (not the goal as much as making a cool online publication that a lot of different people could enjoy) there would definitely be some dividends paid back to the people who submitted the stories. Now how cool is that. Tell your best and worst stories, send in your pics and get paid for what was either an awesome time that you can share with a lot of other people or for what was a terrible time and only money and spreading your misery could help ease the pain...

I want to make this artistic, too. I am an artist/graphic designer at heart and want to include sections from people who have an artistic eye or did some cool photoshop work to a photo of their bike...WHATEVER! That will be what's fun about that. It will be something new and different and probably weird or fun or both every time.

So if there is anyone out there who wants to give this a shot (remember, this is in the infant stages right now...I am mostly trying to get out there and get people's permission to publish their stories and pictures) let me know. I will set up a dropbox folder or something like that so you can submit your stuff. As I said, if there is any money to be made (which is not the intent), dividends will go out to the writer/photographer.

If you want to submit a ride report to me, try and keep the word count down to about 1000 words. I would DEFINITELY be willing to split up some of the longer rides into a section in the mag of the story as it progresses edition by edition.

I am also looking for info/pics that could fall into the following subjects:

- My First Ride (story/photos of your first ride/bike)
- Me and My Ride (photos/little excerpt about your and your current bike(s))
- The Road that changed my life (part of a ride ((or the whole thing)) that changed you forever)
- MotoPorn (obviously pics of bikes/parts/parts of bikes...girls optional but welcomed)
- MotoArt (the artsy section talked about earlier...just about anything you think is cool and not normal will fit in this area)
- Maps (rides you liked and I will work out some sort of rating system)
- Test rides (not sure how to do this one yet, but if you've done one recently and want to share, let me know)
- The Last Page (you should probably know what this is but if not, don't worry about it)


I think this could be something really fun and really cool for people to get their experiences past and present out there to the masses in a way where it's just the story and the images and none of the senseless stuff you find nowadays in a lot of magazines...

I am not opposed to any type of riders. If you have a fun scooter story, send it to me! As long as it has less than 4 wheels and is powered by a motor, I want to hear about it! European Alps with rented Harleys? SURE! Baja California on tiny 250 2-strokes? SURE! I think you get the point now.

I don't really want to do a ton of writing for this so hopefully you have a good sense on how to tell the story. Some submissions can be just photos, but I want to focus mostly on ride reporting. I think there would even be specific types of ride reports in the mag. One section is sport riding, one for sport touring, one for touring, one for dual sport and one for off-road...

So PM me or let me know if you are interested and I will get the ball rolling on getting somewhere for you to submit to me your stuff.

Thanks a lot guys!

 

Here's the link to an old ride report with pics that I posted a coupla years ago Eightangrybears.

Dunno if it fits the criteria for any of your ride report categories though.

Prolly might have to make up a whole new category "MotoWeird". :lol:

Enjoy.

Click me.>>>>>http://vfrworld.com/forums/general-...ell-long-im-here-i-might-well-enjoy-ride.html

 

I like it. Thanks man. It's going to take me a bit to get some of this stuff all together, but I have included you on my list of contributors and will let you know when things get going...I like the custom paint, man...as an artist at heart (and an engineer during the day) I definitely appreciate uniqueness.

Got any closeups of the tank? I would love to include that as part of the "MotoArt" category.

Thanks for letting me use your pics and story, man!

 

Um, my initial knee-jerk reaction is that it's just too artsy, too peripheral an exercise for me...

I'm left thinking that my personal insights would be lost in a melee of other cyber-texts that'll end up being read with greatest interest by some fat-fucking-slob in a filthy wifebeater, as he sits on a spooge-spattered keyboard in the moisture laden furnace room of his mummy's basement.

Oh, shit...did I give my real location away?

 

fair enough. I don't think it's going to end up like that, though. I think there are a lot of people out there who like reading ride reports enough to want to take part. There are whole other online communities devoted to it and I just thought I would try and get some of my VFR brethren to join in as well.

It's a start, too. I think eventually it could be something worthy of being printed (in the distant future, that is) and all driven by reader contribution, not some editor in chief writing about how much he liked the long term ride Ducati just GAVE him for a year to "test out."

Some of the most interesting reads out there are on ADVrider but are littered with people's comments on how cool the report and the pics are. That's all well and good, but it can get consuming to go through 1000's of posts to read the whole story. The idea of this online magazine is that people could write their whole story of rides they enjoyed (or sections that would be in concurrent editions) and then people could reply to the writer and the other readers in a different section. This would allow the reader to enjoy the complete story and then read people's thoughts afterwards if they so chose.

I realize VFRworld isn't the #1 place to try and get people's trip reports and stories because it is more of a specific bike community than a ride report community, but I just wanted to share the opportunity with people who also have my favorite street bike of all time...plus I can see a lot of the "MotoPorn" section (which is a bike feature, not an adult section) involving the VFR...

 

As requested,coupla pics of my old gas tank.


Right side view.



Left side view.



Top view.




As you can see the murals on the two sides of the tank are slightly different from each other. Look very closely at the two Screamin' Demon Jokers and you'll see that they aren't identical either. This was done purposely.
When I discussed the paintwork with the artist I insisted that he paint it this way so that there would be more to see for the keen-eyed observer.


Here's a pic of my old seat cowl for you as well Eightangrybears.