[visordown.com] - Ive had a blast thank you

[Ninjette Newsbot]

The Visordown Cadwell Trackday

20 years old and not a clue


Ride safe and if you can't ride safe, come on a Visordown rideout


Kneedown in jeans ... you can do it, but it does hurt


The Flying Cow ... it didn't last long


I sold that bike to pay Visordown server fees. Worst thing I did, best thing I did


30 years old and not a clue


Today is my 'last' day at Visordown. It feels weird saying that because it's never really felt like a job or a thing I have to do, it's always been my passion, the thing I've just done. But now I'm off, to pastures new.

I'm really proud of where Visordown has got to in the 14 years since I started it. When I was 17, I used to post on motorcycle forums as Copius_17, causing trouble. I designed a website using the MCN logo and sent them a screenshot saying I could build that website for them, I could help them out. They told me to piss off, infact they threatened legal action (hello, Sean W!). I don't blame them.

When I was 15 and devouring every piece of motorcycle literature I could lay my hands on, I thought to myself 'There has to be a better way of finding out about motorcycles than this' and there is, you're here.

That's why I started Visordown, to allow bikers to get more from their biking by exchanging information, meeting up on rideouts to find new roads, trying out new bikes they never would have considered, meeting people they never would have met. I wanted Visordown to help people like me, who were hungry for knowledge, get more from biking. I didn't mind hearing it from 10 journalists but I wanted to hear it from 1,000 owners too! It's amazing to think that people have got married having met through Visordown. Children exist, partly due to Visordown! That's cool. We won't mention the divorces caused by Visordown (sorry about those).

I have some amazing memories of some crazy times. Rideouts where we thought 8 people would turn up but 88 turned up and there you were, riding like lunatics down roads you didn't know with people you'd never ridden with. Sometimes it went a bit wrong but that was all part of the fun. We organised trackdays, had house parties, went touring, had fun. I hung out with people from all walks of life, people I'd have never met had it not been for Visordown.

Visordown helped show me - and I hope others - how cool biking is and how cool bikers can be.

I sold Visordown in 2007 as I was struggling to keep up with the site, work a 9 to 5 and have a life. I saw the opportunity to take Visordown onto the next level and build it into a place where even more bikers could come and learn everything they needed to know in order to get more from motorcycling. The sale put a few people's noses out of joint, some of them are still bitter to this day but what we've done over the last 7 years is grow Visordown's audience over ten times what it was. It makes me feel really good to know that even though it's not quite the raw, undiluted site it was, more and more people are discovering motorcycles - and hopefully some of the great experiences I've had - thanks to Visordown.

In the early days it used to frustrate me when people would slag-off Visordown articles when we were first trying to produce our own features and content. I would think to myself: 'If we don't do this, all you'll have is printed magazines, which you also say are ****, so give me a break!"

Fortunately, thousands, tens of thousands of people check into Visordown every day to get up to speed on the motorcycle world. It has taken serious amounts of hard work getting Visordown to where it is today: a self-supporting, stand alone website that offers so much more than a magazine ever could. Lots have tried, lots have failed.

I couldn't have done it without Adam Abel and James Cohen, two guys who helped me for years and pushed me to do more. Visordown wouldn't be what it is without you either. If you've contributed one picture, forum post, review or comment you'd helped shape Visordown into what it is, so thanks for being a part of it.

If you see me tootling around London on my Visordown-stickered SH300, give me a beep!





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