Stats For The Beachcruiser

Hey,

  Yesterday started out as a decent day for Train and myself. Ah, you never know what lurks around the corner.

  There are many things I would like to address but I am not going to do that now. We are going to post our stats for this month for the Beachcruiser. The numbers are incomplete as there is still most of today, tomorrow and Monday before the month officially ends.If I remember correctly months with 31 days usually end at 12:a.m. on the 31st.

  We are doing this because we have been accused of not telling the truth about our numbers. We shouldn’t have to do this but, under the circumstances we want all of you to see them and you can decide whether we are truthful or not.The numbers are compiled on a system called Webalizer-FTP stats. All of the numbers are broken down in every way possible to tell the webmaster where visitors are coming from, hits, visits, etc.In so far as our sponsors are concerned the number of hits for the month are shown. Our sponsors have banners on our website and each time one of the banners is hit it takes the person directly to the sponsors website.We have posted this information before when accused of falsifying numbers and we thought we had put the issue to rest. There are obviously people who do not like us. We don’t know of more than a few but it seems they are determined to hurt us any way possible.We are showing you the stats not because we are bragging or are ashamed or obviously not because we are concerned about sharing them with you.We are doing it because we believe we have been falsly accused of something we ourselves do not like to see.We only talk about our “numbers” on occassion because we are proud of them. Yes, we want people to know who we are and yes, we want to attract potential sponsors for reasons I have already written about.The webalizer is an independent system for which we have absolutely no input. We began to question Alexa when our numbers there fell while our numbers on the Webalizer were growing. We have no control over Alexa and we did use it for a long time as we believed it was an accurate representation of who was coming here.We also used the webalizer at that time but found that after our system crashed about a year ago, our numbers started to fall. We did have a few slow months in the middle of last year for whatever reason. Our numbers and visitors started to really pick up a few months ago again and we got excited about that.When we have spoken about visitors etc we have always been truthful to the best of our knowledge.We said that each of our sponsors should reach about 20,000 hits this month.You can see that they all are over 17,000 with the month not yet over.We projected about a week ago that the hits should approach 20,000. We will see how close that estimate was at month end. The pickup according to webalizer came mostly from overseas.We have acknowledged and thanked our readers from all over the world for coming here.

  This month we added a tool called feedjit. This tool is run by Google. It can be seen on the front of our blog page near the right hand top. The tool is a map that posts visits in real time from all over the world.It does not not tell you the number of visits but tells where readers are coming from. If you use the navigation tool(arrows) you get to see where people are coming from.You only have to click on the map to bring the program up. The map changes as visitors stop by. In countries like Europe because of the time difference the map is constantly changing. We are also are able to bring up where and how people have accessed us and what they were looking at.We think it is a really cool tool. Check it out! Once again we have NO control or input other than when we go to check out what’s happening that day.

  Well, that’s the best I can do. I don’t walk on water and we use tools like these to track our stats until and unless we find out there is something wrong with them.We DON’T fabricate numbers.

  We have learned some hard lessons about people over the last couple of years particularly in the motorcycle world. We have met some fantastic people, gone to some fantastic events and tried to bring to everyone who comes here the kind of experience we wanted before we started The Beachcruiser.We have also had exactly the opposite experience with just a few.We have tried to report on events, give exposure to builders of every ilk, report on the industry and yes, we have expressed our opinion.We have learned that expressing an opinion is a dangerous thing.There are people inside the industry and out who will never say anything they are really thinking and we understand why.Image is a big deal for good reason. The industry is pretty small and most people know each other.As in any business dependent on sales, image, and hype, no one wants anyone tothink badly of them.No one wants to rock the boat and real friendships are just like the real world.They are few and far between. We have been very lucky as we believe over all the motorcycle industry has more talented, more creative, more charitable people than any other.Overall, we believe that people in the industry are more friendly and more helpful than any other. We still think that there is a brotherhodd and sisterhood in the industry that doesn’t really exist anywhere else beyond the military, sports teams, and a few others where people are genuinly pulling for each other and willing to help.

  We are a blog?, an online magazine of sorts and we are motorcycle enthusiasts.We sometimes forget that if you have an opinion you open yourself up to every form of criticism, intimidation, jealousy and hatred that unfortunately exists everywhere these days.My peers are the “older” folks who I have admired most of my life.Arlen Ness, Dave Perewitz, Donnie Smith,Ron Finch, and a number of other legendary builders come to mind as my icons. You can walk up to any of these folks and you aqlways get a smile, they engage in conversation(if they can)  and are exactly who you imagined they were.Bert Baker, Eddie Trotta, Doug Keim, Roger Goldammer, Michael Prugh, Brian Klock, Hank Young, Scott Long. These are great people and great artists who are just a tad younger.Their personna, my respect, my admiration for them has only grown. I probably left out some people which is always a danger when you name names so: forgive me if I have not mentioned someone.There is lots more to talk about and I will do that later.

  In conclusion, we have also been lambasted for not posting comments that were obscene, intimidating and offensive. Well, if you go to any responsible website they do the same thing.You can say anything you want here as long as you can express yourself in some reasonable manner.Occassionally I have made the mistake of getting into the mud with some people who have attacked me, Train, or someone we know to be a great person. We have NEVER however resorted to four letter words,intimidation, or any other sleezy means to make a point.I have a temper and occassionally someone pushes my buttons. I have always been an in your face type of guy and sometimes I get myself in a bad situation. I am not proud of that and my intent has NEVER been to hurt anyone. I stand up for myself as that is all I know.

                                                                   Beach