Passes & Canyons Blog

Do what you love and the money will follow.

Have you ever heard those words? Do you believe them? Well, I’m putting them to the test. First some background.

I’ve been a writer all my life, and I’ve been riding motorcycles for more than 20 years. That doesn’t count the numerous times when I was a kid when I had the occasional chance to ride. By 20 years I mean since I bought my first bike. So what could be more natural than to put the two together?

OK, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve been in the newspaper business and various other lines of work but the one thing they all had in common was that I was a writer. Most recently I’ve been doing contract work as a technical writer. On my most recent gig I knew first of all that it would end. That’s the nature of the beast. I also knew the economy was in the toilet and that getting the next gig could be very difficult. So I put aside as much cash as I could while I had the income and when the end came I was ready.

I’ve been “unemployed” for a couple months now but I’m working harder than ever. But no, I’m not looking for a job. I’m working to make a living as a biker.

First off, I’ve turned my gig at Examiner.com into an almost full-time effort, and as of yesterday I’ve moved from Denver Motorcycle Examiner to National Motorcycle Examiner. Second, I’m doing what I can to make more money off this website. I’ve always had the Google ads, and they’ve always paid enough to support the website without me having to dip into my pocket just to pay the hosting fees. But now I’m actively trying to sell ads on the site, which has the potential to provide serious income. We’ll see.

Third, I’ve been talking with Dan Patino at Monkey Gripper Motorcycle Tours about working for him this summer as a motorcycle tour guide. Considering the focus of this website, that seems a perfect fit. Now all we need is for the economy not to totally crush the tourism industry and to get some people signed up for tours.

And fourth, I’m considering the possibility of becoming a motorcycle riding instructor. To that end, just this weekend I took the Beginning Rider Course from T3RG Motorcycle Schools. The possibility of becoming an instructor was really only one of four reasons I had for taking the course, but because the course is required if you want to be an instructor, it was fortuitous to be able to do so just at this time.

So we’ll see. I’m doing what I love and while I’m not making nearly enough to live on so far, things do seem to be moving in the right direction.

And doors do seem to be opening up. For instance, in my work with Examiner.com I have helped build a group of the motorcycle Examiners around the country. We try to coordinate our efforts and work together whenever the opportunity presents itself. Well, there is a new East Bay Motorcycle Examiner who just started, Gabe Ets-Hokin, who just today posted his second ever post, which is part two of his introduction. It turns out to my extreme interest that he has been a motojournalist since 2004 and is currently the Online Editor for Cycle World magazine. Holy smokes! I now have a contact with an outfit I’d love to become involved with. It may never happen but you never know.

Rest assured, I’ll keep you up to date on how this progresses. I’m not saying you should be all that interested in how I make my living, but I would think just about anyone would be interested to see whether you really can do what you love and end up making it your job. Who knows, it might be the inspiration someone else needs to do so as well.

Recent from the National Motorcycle Examiner
Emotional day ends Run For The Wall

Biker Quote for Today

You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.

Tags: National Motorcycle Examiner

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under Miscellaneous, Motorcycle Safety, Motorcycles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.