Saturday, July 30, 2016

It's on again

After getting permission from the minister of finance and warfare last year things have been set in motion for another EPIC motorcycle tour. Last years trip didn't eventuate and has been delayed but its back on now with bike hire now confirmed. And who knows there could even be an international bloggers meet up involved. The destination has now been confirmed and dates locked in. Look out my kiwi blogging friends we are coming to play in your back yard. Lock up your daughters.

North Island New Zealand
Looks like this will be part two of the amazing journey we started back in 2014, with a 9 day tour. One thing for sure it will be EPIC. Bring it on! I can't wait. Now to get started on the planning......

Thursday, July 7, 2016

When a blog dies......

I like to read up on all things motorcycles and I happen to follow quite a few moto blogs out there on the interwebs, whether they be on blogger, wordpress or other platforms. I also happen to follow a few Vloggers on youtube like RJ and Adjrian Nickelodean and a couple of others.

Some of the blogs I follow are quite active and post up new posts everyday and then others like myself only post up every couple of weeks or so. I notice some blogs haven't been updated for 8 months or 12 month or sometimes 1 or 2 years. I recently last year found a young Aussie blogger from Adelaide called Riding with Ash, to which I subscribed to and read all of his posts some of which were quite well written. He rode a Yamaha MT-09 naked bike.

Here's a quick pic of his blog, link is above.

Riding with Ash



There are not a huge amount of Aussie blogs but when I find one I usually subscribe and see whats going on in other Aussie riders worlds. This was a fairly new blog and it started out very quickly with regular posts then it stopped again as quickly as it started. I often wonder why a blog will go along then suddenly stop with no new posts. Why are there no more posts???? Did the blogger get bored with it, did they not get the attention on their posts that other social media platforms provide an instant response and gratification from like facebook, instagram etc, did it become a chore rather than an enjoyable thing, have their live's become so busy with the real world that they no longer have the time to post? The possibilities are endless.

What ever the reasons they can be many and varied but I am always left wondering. Geoff at Confessions of an Aging Motorcyclist put up a post to let his readers know that the blog wouldn't be receiving any more updates because of his hectic social life, how hectic can a 68 year old's social life be anyway? But at least he never left anyone hanging, on what happened.

Now where is this all going I hear you all thinking. Just the other day I came across a Moto Vlogger on you tube called Snarkies Vlogs. He is another young kid from Adelaide in his early twenties who rides a Kawasaki ZX-6R and is a bit of a genius at video editing. From one of his particular vlogs I learnt a startling revelation that came as a complete shock. Snarkie was talking about a lot of riders crashing in the Adelaide Hills and he was explaining about this one guy that run his own blog called Riding with Ash. Click on the link below and start it at about the 7:50 mark to find out what happened.



Video courtesy of Snarkies Vlogs, no copyright infringement intended

Yes that's right Snarkie goes on to explain in the above video that Ash was killed on his bike while out riding with one of his mates. Such a sad thing to have happened no matter what the circumstances actually are. Now I know the reason why there were no more updates to his blogs. I feel incredibly sad for his young family.

I have also wonder recently about giving away blogging as I've been kind of feeling like I don't have anything else left I could possible say. If that does come to pass and I do hang up the blogging hat then at least I am going to put up one final post to let everyone know that I'm ok and that I'm just giving it away. I would hate for people to wonder what had happened and may fear the worst but hoping that it wasn't so.

To all the riders and bloggers amongst us, ride with care, stay vigilant and have fun and come home to your loved ones.



Cheers