Passes & Canyons Blog

This came out of the blue. Per the email above, somebody wants to buy this domain name, www.motorcyclecolorado.com. They have made an initial offer of $500. Do I have any interest in this?

Right off the bat I said no.

Thanks, but I’m not interested in selling.

I got a follow-up:

Hi Ken,
Thanks for the response – it’s greatly appreciated.
All domain names are for sale at a certain price, even if it’s at a much higher price than the initial offer.
Can you think about this and let me know a dollar amount that would make sense for you?

Now, the simple fact is that this website is something I care a great deal about. I have worked on it for more than 15 years and writing this blog is my number one creative outlet. OK, along with my piano. But I wondered, and asked for clarification.

You know, this could depend. Is the buyer interested in the site or just the URL? Because if I could just move the site to a new URL and keep it going I might be willing to sell the URL, though the price would have to be enough to compensate me for all the work that moving it and getting it established with the search engines would entail. If, on the other hand, they want the site, first, that’s flattering, second, I really don’t want to let go of it.

And this was the response.

Hi Ken,
Thank you for the response – it’s greatly appreciated.
This would be strictly for the purchase of the MOTORCYCLECOLORADO.COM domain name, you would still have the website content to operate on a different domain name if you’d like.
Can you let me know a counter offer that you would consider?

That latest email came about three and one-half hours ago as I write this. So it becomes something I have to actually think about; if they wanted the whole site it wouldn’t take any thought.

What would it entail? First I’d have to select a new URL. That could be easy–I could just go with www.PassesAndCanyons.com. I checked just now and it is available. But that’s just getting started. You can put up a site but people have to know about it to visit. When I built this site I spent a lot of time and effort building up recognition of its existence. One way that happens is to get links to your site on other sites. All those links out there now would be broken, except for the home page, which would take the visitor to a totally different site.

Then there would be the edits needed on every single page of the site. And all the links internally. It overwhelms me just to think about it.

Really, I think that’s my answer. I have often said that I write in order to understand what I’m thinking. Writing, for me, is an exploration of my thoughts. And just laying this out here for you has persuaded me that I have to say no. I mean, sure, if they offered me $50,000 for the URL I could take it and just pay someone else to do all the drudge work. But I don’t think they’re going to offer $50,000. And I just don’t want to do all that work.

So my decision is made. Thanks for lending me your ear.

Biker Quote for Today

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

For many years after I built this website I solicited paid advertising and was also open to having specific blog posts “sponsored” by some business wishing to drive traffic their way. In later years I have done away with all that so now when I get emails asking to sponsor posts–easy money to be sure–I just delete them.

A different thing I tried several times was to accept guest posts. I figured that if someone could write a good piece that I felt my readers would find interesting and relevant, sure, I’m open.

That really did not work out. I would receive a contact, I would reply specifying what I was looking for, I would receive assurances that yes, the piece I would be sent would be highly professional and very much of interest to my readers. And then I would receive dreck. Absolute garbage.

If you read this blog you know the kinds of things I write. I write very specifically about rides I’ve done, issues I’ve encountered, gear I’ve tried out, trips planned, and a lot more. What do these so-called professional writers send me? The kind of stuff that would be common knowledge even amongst the newest beginning riders. I wish I could think of a specific example–I’m drawing a blank right now.

But the point is, I write for people who have themselves ridden for a long time. They (you) are not interested in how to pick a helmet that fits, why you should always carry rain gear, how to check out your bike before a long trip. You already know those things. And if you don’t, there are a thousand sites across the internet where they have articles that go into those things in great detail. I don’t get into that stuff.

And those are only somewhat relevant topics. If I could remember some of the things I’ve been sent I could give you examples of some truly irrelevant topics these people pitch me.

OK, great! I love it! After I wrote this I checked my email and found this request for a guest post. Here’s part of it:

I’ve been writing about Fashion, Style for 5 years and I’m confident that I can write a high-quality, informative, and engaging guest post that would be of interest to your readers. As you can see I have a few ideas for guest posts that I think would be a good fit for your blog.

Yeah, right, that’s exactly what this blog is about.

Of course, these pieces come larded up with links to various products or websites where the writer would get a payment for any traffic that followed the link.

Now I do have to say, over the years I actually have published, I think, three guest posts. But isolating those three good pieces from the mountain of dreck is just not worth the effort.

So I just started marking everything that comes in asking to do a guest post as Spam. I don’t even open them. I know I get some follow-up emails saying “hey, at least do me the courtesy of replying and saying no thanks,” but while that would be courteous, if you knew how many such requests I get you would understand why I’m just not going to give of my time for that. Am I discourteous? Fine, I’m discourteous.

And that’s the point of this post. I want it up there so maybe some of these people who are planning to approach me will see it and reconsider. Let me make things absolutely clear:

I DO NOT ACCEPT GUEST POSTS.

Can I make that any clearer?

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 15. We are depressed from November to March.

Hey, did you notice this website was offline for . . . oh . . . nine days?! You better believe I noticed.

I have been through web domain hell. Despite diligent efforts by the support people at my web host, HostGator, this experience could hardly have been worse. You cannot believe the relief I feel about getting the site back online.

It all started, sort of, on Sunday when I went to log into my blog to post for the coming week–this week. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that page in the image above, reading “This Domain Name Has Expired.” There was a link to renewal instructions but they were pretty generic and I took the more direct approach, I called my web host.

The point is, my account was set up so that they would take care of renewing my domain name. I had recently received a couple emails from an outfit I wasn’t familiar with saying my domain was about to expire but “knowing” that HostGator had all in hand, I assumed this was some scammer trying to get money out of me. I sent those emails to my spam folder.

The guy I reached at HostGator looked up my account and and said that they had screwed up and he would take care of it. He said I should be back online in 24 to 48 hours. I thought things were taken care of. After speaking with him I discovered an email from HostGator from the previous Tuesday–in my spam folder–telling me the domain name had expired. If I had seen this notice from my web host vs. some outfit I didn’t know I would have paid attention. But it had gone to spam.

Two days went by and the site was not back. I contacted HostGator again. That person spent a long time with me and thought he had it all set up but rather than an email confirmation was needed and while we waited the time just dragged by. Finally he said it would come sooner or later and we broke off.

Frequently yesterday I checked to see if it was fixed and it was not. This morning I called HostGator again and was a bit more angry. The guy I got was super nice and did his very best to be helpful but ultimately, after nearly an hour, he told me that HostGator does not maintain my domain name, a company called Registry Rocket via a company named ENOM did, and I should contact them.

So I called Registy Rocket. That person asked for my domain name and quickly said, “We don’t maintain that domain name, HostGator does” and immediately transferred me to HostGator–right back where I started. I hung up and called Registry Rocket back and when the the rep asked for my domain name I told her first not to do anything until I told her what was going on. Only then did I give her my domain name.

She checked and said no, HostGator maintains my domain. I said they told me you did and she said no, they are wrong. So she transfered me to HostGator again.

I told the rep I got this time that one of her coworkers had sent me to Registry Rocket, who had sent me right back to HostGator, and “One of you has got to be wrong.” She checked a little further and found that HostGator does indeed maintain my domain. It had been the other way but at some point they migrated a bunch of domains over and mine got lost in the shuffle. Wonderful.

To make a still rather lengthy story short, she got it taken care of. And now I’m finally back.

What an incredibly exhausting, frustrating experience. In the meantime, a ton of traffic to the site has gotten that same “domain name expired” message and Google has undoubtedly taken note and severely downgraded my site’s rating. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’m not in this for the money, because if I was I’d be filing a lawsuit right away!

It’s frustrating when you see something coming, you anticipate it, wait for it, and then get distracted and let it go by unnoticed.

That happened to me last week. I had known for a couple months I was drawing near the point of having put up 1,000 posts on this blog, and I intended some sort of recognition of that fact in that 1,000th post. Look at that section of my blog dashboard above. It shows there are now 1,005 posts on this blog (1,006 when this one goes up) and 1,002 of them are mine. Just slipped right by. Whatever. I’m marking the occasion now.

Of course you might well ask who put up the other three. I had to check myself. That would be Matt Wessels. I knew Matt had put up two but I had forgotten he put up three. Matt was someone who I knew and thought could make a contribution here and he was very interested. So I set him up.

Obviously his interest flagged pretty quickly. Too bad. I was looking for some good stuff from him. That’s where the “Good Intentions” in the header above comes from.

Matt had written about the Motorcycle Safety Foundation and kind of annoyed them. They expressed an interest in what they felt would be setting the record straight and I encouraged Matt and them to talk. Nothing ever came of that.

Not that I haven’t been guilty of the same thing numerous times over the course of 1,000 posts. Most recently I had written some things that annoyed the ethanol industry and the sent me a bunch of information and asked me to present their side. I told them I would but the issue faded away and I’ve never had the time where it was a higher priority than anything else. Similarly, there have been a number of times when I’ve written about something in progress and promised to follow up, only to fail to ever do so.

My apologies. If this blog was my full-time job and the way I earn my living I could have devoted the resources to making these things happen. But I’m just a guy doing this on the side.

So anyway, I guess I’ve demonstrated that I’m serious about this, and I think I’ve put up a bunch of good stuff. And I certainly hope you agree. Now let’s see what I come with in the second 1,000.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m not easily distracted. I just . . . OMG, do I hear a bike?

Permit me to boast a little bit here, there were some really good numbers on this website last month. For the first time ever, www.motorcyclecolorado.com had more than 15,000 unique visits in one month in May 2012.

What is especially exciting about this (to me, at least) is that this is only the beginning of the season and customarily the numbers continue to rise each month through August, so that record is likely to be beaten, and soon. In fact, just a few days into June, if the entire month goes like these days have it would come out to 18,000 unique visits in June. I’m not going to count on that, but if it’s anything close that suggests it could hit 20,000 by August. Yow! That’s just incredible.

Before this the best month ever on the site was 14,860 visits in August 2011. The exact number in May this year was 15,247. That compares with 11,740 in May of 2011. It’s that kind of growth year after year that continues to blow me away.

So once again, as I have other times when I’ve announced big numbers, I want to thank you–all of you folks who have come to the website and found it useful–for making this possible. I built this site for you and nothing can be more gratifying than to see that you find my efforts valuable.

Note: On a totally different subject, in case you saw my recent post about the EagleRider photo contest in which I have a finalist entry: You may have clicked on that link to go and vote for my picture and had problems. It seems a lot of people are having problems. I learned first off that Facebook, where the contest is in operation, had a server failure and was offline for awhile. But even since they got their operation back up there continue to be problems getting in to vote. I wish I could explain it but I can’t. All I ask is that you try again and perhaps bookmark the URL so you can vote each day through June 29. Here’s that link again: http://www.facebook.com/EagleRider/app_124405271018078

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Call made to push Congress on motorcycle-only stops

Biker Quote for Today

A day without a wheelie is like a day without sunshine.

It almost slipped by me that this blog just reached its fifth anniversary. It was April 8, 2006 when I first posted Passes and Canyons Enters the Blogosphere. That’s pretty amazing, at least it is to me.

I’ll come back to that in a moment but I also want to pass this bit of news along. I was contacted recently by Lenore Bates of the Colorado Dept. of Transportation asking if I would include a link from my Great Roads page to their site where they have some good information on Colorado’s scenic and historic byways. I said sure, you bet, and gosh, it would sure be nice if you could link to my site from yours as well.

Well, sure enough, she did and now the CDOT website is directing people to Passes and Canyons as a resource for people looking for information on scenic roads in the state. That’s pretty much guaranteed to boost traffic on the site a bit. Thank you CDOT.

So back to the blog. It’s not like I started out with a lot of energy. I was still building the Passes and Canyons website and figured I ought to include a blog but I really didn’t feel I had much to say. In fact, for the rest of 2006 I only managed to post to the blog once, twice, or three times a month, and didn’t post anything at all in November. I had had the same experience as a newspaper editor. I occasionally ran personal columns but only when I was really driven to say something, which wasn’t often.

Finally I got serious about it and told myself I had to post three times a week. I had to! And an amazing thing happened. I opened my eyes and looked at everything from the perspective of whether it could be a blog post and suddenly I was flooded with ideas. Then I started writing for other publications as well, until I concluded I had to cut back on the blog to twice a week because I was just too busy elsewhere. That’s where we stand today and I have no intention of cutting back any further, no matter how busy I get doing other things.

So thanks for helping make this website and blog the successes that they are. I look forward to continuing with them for many years to come.

Biker Quote for Today

The older I get–the bigger my rear sprocket gets

Eight months ago I went up Taylor Canyon and over Cottonwood Pass shooting pictures and gathering information to put these places up on the Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website. Taylor Canyon is a beautiful canyon, with lots of good motorcycle-accessible camping spots. Cottonwood Pass is only paved on the east side but the gravel road is passable on the west. Both deserved to be on the site.

I’ve been busy. But I finally got it done. Here are some photos from these places.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
SuperSkin helmet touted as lifesaver

Biker Quote for Today

To me, the best kind of trips are the ones you planned on the way, allowed yourself to change, and maybe didn’t end up where you expected.

You’ve probably already noticed. At least if you’ve ever been to this blog before.

After four years with the same basic design, we’re making a big change here. The blog has already changed, as you can see, but the Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website will not get its make-over for another day or two.

This has been a lot of work for my brother and for me. He is a professional web designer and I guess he decided it was time for me to have a more professional-looking site. I built and have maintained this thing all by myself all this time. I don’t have the skills to do what he does. I’m a writer; he’s the designer.

Here’s an interesting example of what he’s done. You see this picture in the body of this post? And you see the image across the top of the screen. They are the same picture. It’s the second shot on the Hoosier Pass page.

What I saw as just a shot of the road at the top of Hoosier Pass he saw as a defining photo to make the theme of the whole site. Just crop a lot from the bottom and a lot from the top and you have a guy on a motorcycle with the mountains behind him . . .

When he asked me if I had a high resolution copy of that image I couldn’t understand what he wanted it for. I was impressed when I saw.

So anyway, I hope you think the change is good. There have been a few mishaps along the way and it has been a lot of work for both of us. I doubt you’ll see another major change for at least another four years.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Motomarathoners cruising some of the best Colorado has to offer

Biker Quote for Today

When you feel like playing hooky, play it. When the sun is shining, go for a ride. If you need a motorcycle, just buy it. Sooner is better than later.