Blog Archives
Yellowstone-Red Lodge June 2010
Excellent trip. I’m at a loss for words if you can believe that (mostly because I’m tired). Other than running with my choke partially open for most of the day Saturday, the trip was flawless. Here’s the map (Google maps threw a hissy fit when I tried to map Scott’s attempt to get us lost in Harlowton, so that’s approximate). Pictures coming soon.
Also, my SPOT personal GPS tracker page shows the points at which I pressed the “check in” button. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to limit the page to just this weekend’s activity, so it show last weekend as well. Figured out how to delete those couple from last weekend.
Photos
[mudslide:picasa,0,friarjohn,5487646012742882769]
BonnevilleAmerica.com
Yes… apparently it’s still having problems.
No… I have no idea what’s going on. I’m in the dark, too.
Rat It Out
Suddenly this looks very attractive to me (everything blacked out with stickers on the gas tank, but not the handlebars).
Might have to find me a spare tank. I wouldn’t do this to the tank Gene and I are working on.
Forums for Triumph Fans
I read somewhere that list posts are popular on blogs. So here’s a list of forums. Heh. However, listing them here in not necessarily an endorsement. I spend 99% of my motorcycle forum surfing on BA.com, only occasionally checking in on some of the others.
Triumph Cruisers
- BonnevilleAmerica.com
Triumph Bonneville America, America and Speedmaster (disclaimer: I’m a moderator) - Thunderbird1600.com
Dedicated to Triumph’s new watercooled 1600cc cruiser. - R3Owners.net
Triumph Rocket III – defectors from TRat? Or maybe from… - R3Owners.com
Triumph Rocket III - New Bonneville Riders
Also defectors from TRat?
Triumph General/Misc
- TriumphRAT.net
All Triumph Models (some more than others); draconian moderation policy - Triumphosophy
A no holds barred offshoot of BonnevilleAmerica.com for those who can’t abide that site’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) - Triumph Torque
“the reincarnation of T595net to reflect the progression of the Triumph brand beyond their flagship motorcycle model of 1997/1998″
Custom Building Resources
While most of the above forums focus primarily on modern Triumphs, I’d say these two focus on older models. Personally I just love custom bikes of all kinds.
Is Harley Doomed?
This guy seems to think so…
One of the things that fell apart after Vietnam was Harley-Davidson’s business. All those war surplus bikes got used up. The new bikes were no longer cheap or particularly good. Only the outlaw mystique endured and when Harley came back to life in the 1980s it was because the company was selling the idea of the outlaw as much as it was selling motorcycles. Harleys became the Outlaw Machine because that is what Harley-Davidson wanted you to think.
If you couldn’t afford a motorcycle, the official outlaw company would sell you a tee-shirt. They cost more than just ordinary tee-shirts but that was only because they included a magic ingredient. The magic was, when you put them on you became an outlaw, too.
The simple fact is, Harley stopped being a motorcycle manufacturer long ago. For decades Harley has been a company that sells magic on credit.
Harsh, but not without some truth. A lot of truth, in fact. Harley is flailing around in a death spasm, trying all kinds of crazy stuff, like axing Buell, ditching Lehman Trikes and bringing trike production in-house, and frantically expanding into foreign markets. It all comes off as desperation. Just because I’m a huge fan of Triumph doesn’t mean I want to see Harley go away. No worries on Triumph, however, they’re the only motorcycle company that actually made more money last year, with a substantial increase in sales.
TRat and HD, Sittin’ in a Tree
Today I received, for the first time ever as far as I can remember, an email newsletter from TriumphRAT.net (TRat). Didn’t know I opted-in for that, but whatever.
An aside: I don’t visit TRat very often. When I do it’s usually because one of my weekly Google News Alerts for either “Triumph Motorcycle” or “Triumph Rocket III” has indexed one of their forum posts. I have a little bit of a dubious history with TRat. I think I found them before I found BonnevilleAmerica.com (BA.com) and indeed, probably found BA.com because of TRat. I had contacted one of the owners, Shawn I believe, because we were using the same content management system, Post-Nuke. We had a few genial exchanges about the software. BA.com quickly started to eclipse TRat, both in amount and quality of information about the Triumph Bonneville America (and later Speedmaster), as TRat didn’t really cater to cruiser riders. I spent 99% of my online motorcycle surfing time on BA.com.
Over the years TRat went through many changes, good and bad. One of the bad changes, IMHO, was their draconian moderation and censorship policy, which I ran up against a few years ago. They don’t allow links in their forum posts to any other site, personal or otherwise. The mere mention of BA.com in one of my posts and in my profile saw the former deleted entirely and the latter “cleansed” of the “offending” information, all without my knowledge. This time my exchanges with Shawn weren’t quite as cordial. Eventually my account was deleted entirely. I do have a new account, and I still don’t use it much, but that explains why I received this email newsletter. Shouldn’t be too hard for them to figure out my username. If I get deleted again I’ll know they’ve found this post.
So the original point of starting this post, and the inspiration for the title, was the following header graphic in the aforementioned newsletter:
A HARLEY SPONSORED TRIUMPH WEB SITE!?! I don’t know who is more desperate, TRat for advertising revenue or Harley for market share. I’d say it’s a tie. I can’t fault TRat for taking the money, and I can’t help but think this has something to do with Harley’s latest trick, their “Competitive bike exchange” program:
Regardless, it’s all about eyeballs. Well money. But online eyeballs = money.
For the record, I have been a moderator on BA.com for over six years. We have a moderation policy but it’s not effected by money. The site isn’t monetized at all. We only edit posts for offensive content to make the site family-friendly, and limit discussions of politics and religion because they serve no purpose on the site and only end up offending people.
