Where will you be in 100 years time? It is certainly an interesting question, especially when you consider what we have seen in the past century of time.
Before the internet, before cellphones, before computers or televisions…before even sliced bread…there was Suzuki. That is right, this stalwart of the motorcycle industry just clocked its 100th birthday.
I do not make a habit of marking the birthdays of motorcycle racers, but Valentino Rossi’s 40th is worthy of an exception to my self-imposed rule. His 40th birthday is clearly a milestone, though any birthday can hardly be regarded as an achievement. To reach his 40th birthday, all Rossi had to do was keep living.
But of course, the fuss being made of Valentino Rossi’s 40th birthday is not because of the age he has reached. It is because he reaches the age of 40 a few months after having finished third in the 2018 MotoGP championship, racking up five podiums and a pole position along the way. It is because the media, his fans, and Rossi himself regard that as a disappointing season.
It is because he enters his 24th season of Grand Prix racing, and his 20th in the premier class, the first year of a two-year contract which will see him racing until the age of 41 at least.
It is because he is one of the leading favorites to wrestle the MotoGP crown from reigning champion Marc Márquez (15 years younger), along with Jorge Lorenzo (9 years younger), Andrea Dovizioso (8 years younger), Maverick Viñales (16 years younger).
And he will race against, and be expected to beat, Franco Morbidelli (16 years younger) and Pecco Bagnaia (18 years younger), two riders who enter MotoGP thanks in large part to the tutelage and support they have received from the VR46 Riders Academy, the scheme set up by Rossi to nurture young talent where the Italian motorcycling federation FMI were falling so woefully short.
Asphalt & Rubber wants to give a special shoutout to our boy BT, who is adding another candle to the cake today. BT is probably A&R‘s biggest fan, at least that’s what he told me emphatically in Austin, Texas last year — after he ambushed me coming out of the men’s bathroom in the media center.
What was an entirely awkward experience, was quickly made 50-shades of awesome by how enthusiastic BT was for our humble motorcycle blog. Firing away questions he had about recent stories, quoting back lines that we had written, and just generally being passionate about motorcycling, BT had an almost stalker appreciation for our musings.
In other words, he is pretty much the guy a motorcycle blogger wants to meet outside a men’s bathroom…that may have come out wrong.
An incredibly hilarious and passionate man, you can find BT performing in Indianapolis, or wherever funny jokes are told, not to mention at just about any motorcycle race that’s willing to sell him a ticket.
It’s fans like the one-and-only BT (accept no substitute) that make all the hard work here worthwhile — along with all our over diehard readers, I might add. Keep on laughing brother, but let me wash my hands first next time. Happy Birthday!
Another year has gone by at our tiny motorcycle blog here, as Asphalt & Rubber turns five years old today. The thing is though, the site isn’t that tiny anymore — one million visitors will come to A&R in October alone.
In the past four years, when I have written these birthday posts, I write the same thing about how I look back on the past 365 days with a bit of astonishment, and then list all the great things that we have done in that time.
At the five-year mark though, I find myself looking all the way back to the beginning of A&R, a time when this site wasn’t really anything at all. With that retrospect, I see how Asphalt & Rubber has come into what it is now — if I had to go back, and try to decipher today from the fog of time, it would all feel like an impossible reality, if I am honest.
Today is a surreal landmark, as it marks our fourth year of publishing Asphalt & Rubber. If you cannot already tell, I am having a hard time believing that four years have gone by since I started this humble motorcycle blog (in the middle of corporate finance class, no less), but A&R continues to thrive despite my best dyslexic efforts.
It astonishes me that our “little” site is visited throughout the world on a daily basis, and that each month more people read A&R than all three of the major US motorcycle print magazines…combined.
Things keep on growing here, and I am deeply grateful now to be publishing the work of David Emmett on A&R, as he continues to be one of the most insightful writers in motorcycle racing, in both the print and online mediums.
This year, I am also very honored to have had regular written and photo contributions from Scott Jones, Daniel Lo, and Jules Cisek this year — their work has helped Asphalt & Rubber earn a reputation for stunning photography, and I hear compliments about their photography virtually every time I meet a loyal A&R reader in person.
It’s the end of October, and there is a picture of me from a birthday track day, so that could mean only one thing: Asphalt & Rubber has aged another year. Now into our third year of this crazy online motorcycle blog experiment, I pleasantly get to reiterate some of the text from last year’s anniversary announcement, as A&R continues to grow beyond anything that this dyslexic kid, who routinely failed writing classes, could have imagined.
This year has been one marked with notable events, as Asphalt & Rubber has come to you live from a bevy of remote locations for our race and event coverage, such as Qatar, Australia, and the Isle of Man. Storming perhaps the last refuge for motorcycle print journalism, we’ve also become one of only two pure-online publications regularly seen in the MotoGP paddock.
But most impressively this year, Asphalt & Rubber passed the 500,000 reader mark, and fittingly this October is shaping up to be our best month ever in terms of traffic & readership…as was the month before that, and the month before that — with all of that math culminating into the fact that A&R has almost doubled in size since last year’s birthday announcement.
And now for the most important news story of the year: Asphalt & Rubber turns two-years-old today (clap you crazy bastards!). Officially now in our “terrible twos”, A&R continues to grow beyond anything I possibly could have imagined when I first started the site one cold October morning in a frost-covered Pennsylvania. Reporting everything from race results to business analysis, from industry news to humorous distractions, we’ve served over 1,800 articles to our now 300,000+ loyal monthly readers.
While I write occasionally, Asphalt & Rubber really wouldn’t be possible without the help from a metric ton of people, most notably Daniel Lloyd (systems administrator / reluctant coder), Dustin Gibbs (web developer / photographer / escape driver), Peter Lombardi (photographer / designer), Jason Yu (photographer / umbrella girl finder), Scott Jones (photographer / resident person over 50), and Tim Hoefer (hetero life-partner / tamed motorcycle rider). Also a big thanks goes out to all our friends (you know who you are) and family (thanks Mom for letting me use your basement) for supporting this sometimes profitable endeavor. But most importantly, thank you to all our readers, who make it all worthwhile.
Want to get in on the love fest? Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, or just leave a comment below.
A year ago today a little motorcycle blog set out to talk about motorcycle news, rumors, racing, and more. I hardly expected anyone to read Asphalt & Rubber when I started it, let alone for the site to reach the 100,000+ readers we have per month now. With this number continuing to grow somewhere near the order of 20%+ each month, A&R seems to gather more steam with each passing day.
As we add a candle to the birthday cake, I’d like to a chance to thank the folks that have helped make the site what it is today. Big thanks to: Jenny Gun, Dan Lloyd, Dustin Gibbs, Stephen Muller, John Adamo, Jeremy Korzeniewski, Jessica Pichora, Jason Yu, Peter Lombardi, Frank Schuengel, Chris Lo, and of course our loyal readers.
