Why 92% of My Fellow Motorheads Don't Subscribe (50th Episode Celebration)
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Annick celebrates reaching her milestone 50th episode. She reflects on the evolution of her content, noting a shift from strictly interviews with international riders to successful solo episodes covering motorcycle culture and gear reviews. Annick candidly discusses the technical challenges of production, such as navigating the YouTube algorithm, managing negative feedback from "haters," and the necessity of embracing a "cringe" phase to grow. The narrative highlights her commitment to building a global motorcycling community and her desire to increase engagement among female riders. Looking ahead, she introduces a new studio setup and seeks audience input to shape the future of the show’s visual and topical direction. Progressing into its next season, the podcast aims to balance educational insights with personal stories to remain a relevant resource for the riding world.
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Celebrating 50 Episodes of FÉROCE Podcast
Annick: Today we are celebrating the 50th episode of FÉROCE. I know it's crazy. I first started this, my only goal was to make it to 50 episodes, and I can't believe that I'm.... here already at 50 it, it is a dream come true in a weird way. You have a vision and then you are able to follow it through it. It's a good feeling and I always tell people to celebrate their wins.
So if I don't do that myself, I'm just a hypocrite. So I am completely celebrating the fact that it has been 50 episodes. A lot of podcasts don't make it that far. Today, I wanna share with you some of the things I've learned in 50 episodes. And if you're new to the show, this will also act as like a little bit of a recap and also give some insight into the background and how everything has kind of come about, what the show's about, and highlight some specific episodes that might be of interest.
* INTRO *
Annick: Hello, my beautiful Motorheads. It's Annick. When I first started the show, my reasoning for doing it was that I wanted to create motorcycle content that would appeal to people like myself and fellow riders. But mostly to share the stories of people who ride and to talk about things motorcycle related that I find in interesting.
And as we all know, even though motorcycling is a very niche sport, there are so many different facets to it. There's so many different people who ride. There's so many different types of bikes. There's different cultures across the world that ride and embrace motorcycling in a different way. I didn't know if I can make it to 50 episodes.
And I'll say that because podcasting or doing YouTube is, it's a lot of work. I don't do this full time. Some people, uh, just assume that I do and I don't. Although I would absolutely love to and I'm going towards that. But as of right now, it's not my full-time gig. So I have a day job just like everybody else, and that sometimes ebbs and wanes on how intense or not intense my schedule is and my clients are.
So it depends on how much I can give or not give to the podcast. In doing mostly an interview show, which is what I started off doing. Solely was that I was just going to interview people who ride. And I wanted to interview, interview people across the world who ride and to tell 'em their stories.
Because if you're into motorcycling, you are most likely 99% into doing other things, whether that's an interesting hobby, some sort of travel. Um, you build bikes, you, you, you knit. You are an arborist. Like there, there are such varied people who do motorcycling, but what I've come to realize, especially in this day and age where it's so easy to check out on our devices, that anybody who makes this step to actually do something in in person and physically takes a lot of effort and motorcycling takes a lot of effort.
So what have I learned in 50 episodes? Alright.
Some things I think are going to be apparent and then maybe some things aren't going to be, well. Number one is that, again, I, I started off doing this only as interviews and I love doing the interviews. I did interviews before this, in health and wellness and in various, you know, aspects of my career.
I specifically, again, wanted to do motorcyclists because they're just the coolest. I mean, like, come on, let's be real here. The coolest. Then I on a whim one day was riding along as one does, and your thoughts wander, and I decided that I wanted to speak on a topic. I didn't wanna do that with a guest. I was just like, oh, you know what, I'll just, I'll just do this episode and, and see how it goes.
And if people like it, they like it. And if they don't, they don't. And I happened to do an episode on how to find people to ride with. Well, it did very well. In fact, it did much better than any of the interviews. So I didn't know if that was something that YouTube was throwing me a bone with because the funny part about it is on the backend, if you really get into like the geeky, nerdy thing about YouTube, you can really go down the wormhole of uh, SEO in trying to make the optimize, they love to use that word, optimize videos to make sure that they get the most views.
I totally forgot to do any of that on this video and it 10 xd, anything else that I had previous done to that. So I thought, okay, well, we'll see if this is a fluke. I always just thought that the interviews would be just more interesting 'cause it's two people discussing a variety of topics and motorcycling. with each video that I put out the solo shows, they started to do better and better. And that was surprising. and I've done different episodes based on different topics. So sometimes it's been on gear reviews, uh, the gear reviews. Are a little bit hard in that, primarily my audience is male and I'm going to share with you guys just some of the statistics behind the show 'cause it'll start to make sense in some of my decisions moving forward of what I'm gonna do content-wise or some of the things that I might go deeper into versus what I had originally wanted to do.
In deciding to do other topics some of the things that I want to talk about was the culture of motorcycling. Like why do motorcyclists do certain things? You know, is there a way to improve the community? Uh, there was an episode where I dissected an article that was written in the Wall Street Journal that I did not agree with.
Which led me to then start doing just some other. Episodes are my take of the motorcycling industry because I have viewpoints on it. I've been in the industry as a journalist. I've worked at dealerships, I've hosted bike nights.
I used to road race. I've been in a lot of different facets of, of motorcycling, so I just wanted to share some of my views with that. And again, there are only views. We are going to also talk about that. A little bit later. So some of the episodes that I might wanna highlight was, well, one was how to find people to ride with.
That ends up that it is a common lament that motorcyclists have. A lot of us are lone wolf riders, but on occasion or separately, some people just like to ride with other people. And depending where you live, you have this, you know, this intense passion for motorcycling. But if you don't have anybody to share it with, like say your partner doesn't ride, or, uh, you, you know, you're just not in contact with other people who ride.
You are by default, a lone wolf rider and maybe you sometimes want to find other people to meet up and talk motorcycles with because it can be helpful. One is sharing cool route two, you know, uh, sharing tools, tips, garages, you know, any of these things rides to the track. You know, there there's a multitude of reasons why we might wanna connect with other people who ride.
Okay. I've done an episode that did really well also, was that I picked apart a Wall Street Journal article about a gentleman who decided to go cross country and said basically that motorcycling was dead. Well, obviously I don't agree with that, so I decided to voice my opinion on that, and that was a fun, that was a fun, uh, episode to do.
And it wasn't to bash this guy, but it was to just show a, a counter to somebody else's viewpoint. Some of the other episodes I've done is I, I get a lot of motorcycles to ride and review, and at first I was like, Ooh, you know what? That's a little bit hard to perhaps put into an audio platform because not only am I doing this for YouTube, but as a podcast, it's an audio file that also goes out into Spotify, apple and any audio podcast platform.
So how do you make some things like doing a review where you're riding interesting to somebody who's only listening and that would fall underneath some of, um, the, the challenges I have had in doing the 50 episodes is some things are easy for audio, which is interview style is very easy for audio because it's a, a back and forth dialogue, which is interesting audio-wise.
What I have come to find out is that it may not always be so interesting visually, and I think that might be part of the problem, why those videos don't do so well on YouTube. I'm going to continue doing them because for selfish reasons. One, I just like to connect with people and I do think that people have some really great stories to share.
Some of the episodes that I, I'll just highlight and they are all equally my favorite. So don't take it, don't take it that like, oh, she's picked out, you know, this or that person 'cause she didn't like, you know, this or that interview, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, but I will say from a podcasting standpoint, when you ask people to, to do interviews, I would like to just note, get used to people saying no.
This is a really funny thing, especially when you're first starting because I, I found out quickly that number one, a lot of people are very self-conscious, more so than you would think, and even the people who you would think are the most, uh, outgoing and the most, you know, vibrant, maybe in like their social media, do not wanna be interviewed if they feel like they do not have control over how they're going to be portrayed.
I get it. Uh, I also realized that when I was first starting, people were vetting me and they perhaps did not wanna be on the show until they thought that it was good enough. 'cause they didn't know what it was going to be like. And okay, I get that too. Uh, you know, what are you gonna do? We all have to start somewhere.
And lastly. You get used to people saying no. Right? I don't. I don't take that personally. I did sales for a number of years. If you can't take a no, you're really gonna be hurting. The cool thing that has happened over time is that. The interviews have spoken for themselves because now I have people coming to me to be interviewed, and that is a lovely, lovely evolution.
It is, uh, it's a lot easier and more fun to interview somebody who really wants to be on the show and feels like they actually have something of worth to share. Now, the people who have said no to me, uh, I also think that they had things of value to share, but. To each their own. And it's all good. It's all good.
The video in, in doing this and being public is, is not for everyone. And I have complete and utter respect for that, but I just wanna make a note of that because some people wouldn't, would not even know that that's even something that you have to deal with. And then, uh, getting into scheduling and nailing down people can also be very tricky because, you know, everybody's busy.
We're all busy. So some of the videos. Interviews that I would like to highlight is, or are, is the first one I ever did, which was with Chris Cosentino of Cosomoto, and he spoke about what it took to design a bike and had this passion project for, you know, over 20 years in the development of the motorcycle.
I've, uh, spoken with some other builders like Walt Siegel, who also is a, prominent. International bike designer, and it was cool to talk to him about design details. I spoke with Robert Panya. He was at the Barber Museum. That was very cool. He gave some behind the scenes, insider industry, insider insights on motorcycling.
We had Sara Shilke, of Woman Riders Now who was talking about her online platform. There was one interview that I wish more people had actually seen, and I'm gonna call it out because it, it's, it's one interview that. People who do not ride actually saw, would, would message me after watching this interview and tell me how good the interview was.
That is the Skidmark Garage slash Moto Go Cleveland, which is the episode about bringing shop class back to school. It just, for whatever reason, and you know, like you go back to some of these episodes, like, I don't know, video wise, why so things don't do well, it could be. the SEO, it could be the title, it could be the thumbnail.
It could be maybe the topic just isn't something that's on people's radars, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the content is bad. Or not worthy of a watch, but you know, the algorithm is what it is. And I know that, uh, a lot of people who are content creators also lament about this because some of their favorite episodes of their own shows just don't do well, and you really just don't know why.
It's, it's a mystery sometimes. I just have to say, as much as everybody thinks they've cracked the code on figuring out the algorithm, I can assure you that it seems really arbitrary most of the time. A couple of other episodes that did well and, and this is what's also really interesting, is what does well on YouTube versus what does well on the audio platform are completely different.
And one of the things that I have struggled with is knowing that because YouTube is such a visual platform versus audio. People who are on YouTube, even though YouTube is trying to push podcasts and take that traffic from the other platforms like Spotify and Apple, the regular viewer of YouTube is used to short, snappy videos that are much more vlogging, like where there, you know, quick takes here, there, uh, short snippets.
And a, a lot of content is going that way. Traditionally, podcasting has been a longer form content, which is like me sitting here, you know, talking to you, which, oh by the way, let's interrupt and just take a look around at, this is the new podcast setup. It is a work in progress. I know it's funny that I, I have a plant here, but it ends up that during the day this gets, uh, really great sunlight here.
So my plant is thriving. But, uh, I, I want to show off the initial podcast because I wanna let you know that I listen to you when you guys give me feedback and when I did an in-person event and I was chatting with a gentleman and I, I won't out him, and I said, Hey, you know, was there, is there anything that you would change about the show?
And he's like, you know, I don't really like your podcast set up. And I was like, oh. He goes, it's really boring. I really feel like you need something behind you. He's like, I got a Doug Poland poster and I feel like I should just give it to you. And, uh, and that really, that really tickled me. And so let me just.
Say the reason why I had the other setup, which you might be like, it doesn't look that much different. It actually is. Uh, the other setup was quick and dirty to get the show up and running and as they say, it's better to start and just do it and build from there than to spend all this time perfecting things which.
I tend to have a problem with, and one of the big challenges in getting through the 50 episodes has been, and I'm sure that some of you can relate to this, is the notion that sometimes done is better than good. I think I totally just messed up that saying, but basically, if you're taking too much time to put an episode out because every part of it needs to be perfect. You're never going to release content, and if you don't release content, then the thing that you wanna grow never grows.
that has been a huge lesson because I, there's a bunch of episodes where I am not happy with the way the camera is, the way the sound is, uh, maybe the environment, maybe.
Well, definitely the editing and. As they say or used to say, you know, the show must must go on. And I struggled with that because as somebody who wants to have control over everything, and, and I could go back to like the people who have decided not, or didn't wanna do interviews with me initially because they wanna control over how they're, you know, perceived.
I get it. Because it's hard. It's hard to put yourself out there. And one thing that got me over that was. During the 50 episodes I came across, you know, there's all these memes, especially in relation to entrepreneurship or putting yourself out there. And basically the uh, the paraphrase of it was, if you're not willing to be cringe, you're never gonna get anywhere.
And I have embraced that and I've had to embrace that. For a multitude of reasons. One is, again, if I tried to make every episode perfect, I, it would take me like two more years to get to 50 episodes because there's just so many moving parts on doing all of this. Even if I were to turn the camera around and, you know, show you what the rest of this looked like and two, things happen over a year. For instance, being sick and there was one day, this was like, you know, months ago, was really sick and I decided to do batch, do like three videos and I would. Talk, talk, talk. Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough wipe. You know how your eyes get like all, uh, watery and, and like dry up and like, you know, make sure I had no boogers hanging out.
And uh, take a drink of water, calm down, and then continue on you don't see any of that because all that gets cut out. All right, hold on. I'm gonna go back to the cringe. I want to, I wanna wrap up the, the new studio thing. So this guy tells me, you know, he just wishes my background was more interesting.
And I said to him, well, one of the reasons why. Was that I did, that was just that I needed to get going.
In an interview platform want my guest to be the highlight of the episode, right? It, uh, an interview is not about me, it's about the guest. So I wanted something that was plain that would recede so that the guest would. Pop out and be the focus of interest. I do understand that that's kind of boring.
I mean, my background was boring, not, not the guest being boring. I finally decided to put this together, and this is a work in progress because I put out on Instagram a call for artists because right here. Right here behind me on this wall. I want a sick piece of art, uh, preferably a photograph or a piece of artwork that embodies the FÉROCE Show.
And I have, when I put that post up on Instagram, I started to get, uh, responses of people to check out and also some artists that came forward and said, Hey, uh, I, I would be interested in that. So I've started the process of talking to people to find that piece of art. If you know of anybody, please uh, send them my way, either in the comments or have them DM me directly in Instagram because I would love to see their artwork.
But I need something that embodies FÉROCE and it sounds like an easy thing. But when I started looking through everybody's artwork. It became very apparent that because motorcycling is so diverse, that the images of motorcycles are very individual and a lot of 'em just are just like, not the FÉROCE thing.
So like, for instance, like a, like a, like say like a seventies Harley, bad boy biker, you know, like, it, it, uh. That's not really me. And, uh, and a couple people were like, you know, do you want a photograph of yourself? And I was like, that might be a little much for me to be sitting here and then to have behind me a picture of myself, I mean.
We can only go so far, right? Like I decide, I dunno, I just, that's, I, it's, I think that might be a little watch. So, uh, looking for something that would be of the FÉROCE spirit. And I'm gonna put a call out there for all you artists or people who know great artists. Please send them my way and let's find a cool artwork.
'cause like, it needs something like, I, I get it. I just, I need a little bit more. I think I might. Change out this plant. Uh, I might change out the lighting. I'm gonna gonna play around with it. So you're gonna see a little bit of an evolution in this next season of FÉROCE which, you know, this is the beginning of it.
And, uh, definitely needs to be a little bit more motorcycle related, don't you think? Okay.
The whole cringe thing gonna go back to that. So the willingness to be cringe, and that has helped me do the solo episodes. The willingness to be cringe is you can't mess it up.
So I have tried a variety of different episodes to see what you guys are interested in and what you like and don't like. I would do a lot more female focused content, but it ends up that women who ride don't really watch motorcycle content.
Now, it could be me. However, I have confirmed this with other female content creators that they also do not have as many women as men watching their content, and they also have expressed a little bit of frustration with that because there's so much cool stuff I could do for women and give women and show women and, and you know, I, I, as you guys know, I, I've interviewed some really cool female riders and I also would love to highlight more female gear, which I, which I'll do, but I've come to realize like I, I'm not going to incorporate the gear and the podcast because unless it's unisex, because it, um.
It just doesn't, it doesn't make sense if the majority of the watchers are male. So here's my second ask. If you know of a female who rides, please pass along this podcast and, and share with her, this content because it would be great to just have more women watching and have more women able to connect.
And by connect I mean within the community. So one of the things I could not ever have envisioned was going to happen with this was, I've always wanted to build up the motorcycling community. Right? And, and that has, that's been the goal from the get go, whether that was when I first started riding and I was doing bike hosting bike nights up until now, you know, if I can put two riders together or get people together or introduce someone in the industry to somebody else in the industry, or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
It's important to me to do that because I think that community is really lacking in everybody's lives. On every, on every level for all the reasons. the cool thing that I love about YouTube is if you look at the comment section underneath my videos, I am repeatedly blown away by how awesome you are.
I cannot thank. Enough for following the show, watching and commenting and sharing and expressing, and the people who have shown up from episode one and continue to show up to episode 50, continually commenting and, you know, teasing each other, you know, perhaps in the comments like it. It just really, it makes my heart swell.
And the culmination of that was when I did the in-person meet up to the Färht event this past fall. We had people come all the way from Indiana to upstate New York. We had a gentleman who lives in South Africa, I'm sorry, south America and was home visiting his dad where he keeps a motorcycle and he came to the event.
Uh, we had some boys from, men from Buffalo come out who have watched, you know, almost most of the episodes. And it was just really cool to see people come together. Because of the show. The other thing is that having this. Show, uh, it has made, has, has had people reach out to me and I've met a bunch of new people that I wasn't aware of, um, beforehand, which is, you know, Bike Beards and Brews, who I went on a cool Laconia trip with and then, you know, met his gang of riders.
Uh, who ended up being other content creators. And then, you know, I met the, the Fährt guys from my motorcycling connections in New York City and, you know, then we started collaborating on an event together and we're gonna, you know, do more things in 2026. And it's just, it's, it has snowballed. And then, you know, from doing the show, the people that I've interviewed when I went out to the AIM Expo.
We connected, you know, three people that I interviewed were out at the show, so I got to see them and because we were hanging out, somebody would come up and then we'd meet them and like, you know, everybody's interconnected. And I really think that with the motorcycling community across the world, it's really one or two degrees of separation.
Not even five or six. Like it's just not, it has proven to just be incredibly fun and. The, the support that I get has been amazing. Really. I cannot thank you enough. And, uh, you know, this is the point where I ask you to like and subscribe because when I look at the stats, this is what's so crazy. 92% of the people who watch consistently are not subscribed.
92%. That's bonkers. Uh, you know, I started the show at 68 followers and now I'm up to over 2000. And I am grateful for every single person who subscribes because, you know, this is why people are always like, oh, I can subscribe, like, can subscribe. And everyone's like, ah, do I need to hear it again? Like and subscribe?
Well, it's because nobody subscribes and. I, uh, I was guilty of that. I am no longer guilty of that because I know what it takes to, to do all this and how hard it is to get people to subscribe. It's bonkers that we just don't subscribe.
I don't know. I don't know why.
I don't know, but would love to subscribe. It's like, it's really, it's the free to support the show and it actually does make a difference. Uh, even though people are like, you know, subscribers, it's not as important as engagement. I agree. I totally, totally, totally agree on that because I would rather have, 10 people who are super engaged and we have a great conversation in the comments versus a million people that are just bots saying crazy things in the comments, like to follow their Bitcoin.
Now this leads me into the haters. I, I would be remiss not to say anything about it, but. I feel very lucky that we do have such a great community because for the most part, as I had mentioned, you and the people within this community have been incredibly supportive. And are just nice people.
However, uh, there are haters out there and boy do they hate. And the amount of haters or negative comments, is equal to how many views are on the video. Now, there's two different things. There's one, sometimes I do opinionated episodes. I'm totally cool if you don't agree with me, no biggie. Like we should be able to talk about things.
And with that being said, be very careful about what you say about Harley's unless somebody takes it the wrong way. 'cause they will come with you guns blazing, which I just find absolutely humorous. But I, my point with that is saying that. There are a lot of unhappy people and as great as our community is, you know, there's always gonna be a few people that are just terrible.
But I, I'll give you, uh, an instance of, again, I don't mind if you disagree with what I'm saying. It's just interesting when people are adamant that they don't wanna understand you. Or they're just being mean to be mean, which might be like, you know, picking up, picking on the way that I look. Okay. so, so here's the thing about like, you know, being critiqued or being out in public, um,'cause I was thinking about this the other day.
So, you know, when I was doing the show, uh, especially when I first started. The feedback was is, you know, you're, you're too professional. Uh, you, you really, you know, you need, you know, things are much more relaxed now. You don't need to be like, so professional, you know, just relax and, and be yourself. Okay, so then I move towards, you know, being more relaxed, being more personable, and somebody writes me this comment that I, uh, sound like a yappy Yorkie who says like, too much, it needs to take professional speech classes.
One of many examples, I'm going to say, damned if you do, damned if you don't. So you might as well just do what you want. If you're gonna be on YouTube, you're gonna do any of this stuff. Like just, just do what you wanna do. 'cause ultimately it doesn't matter. And if like, I'm not having fun, then it's, there's no point in me doing any of this.
Right. So with the haters, the funny thing about it is that, you know, people just, I guess, wanna be heard or they want attention or I don't know. So they will, you know, write a whole long paragraph book about how much they hate me, uh, how stupid I am, and how much they disagree with what I say, and I might respond, well, I think you've misunderstood me.
Because for the most part, if you read what their comment is, it's it's apparent that they didn't watch the video, they didn't listen to anything I said and maybe made all their accusations based on the title. Now, I am using AI to create the titles and I'll tell you why the algorithm in people click on titles that are negative and controversial.
I am not that person. As in like, I wouldn't, I don't, it's really hard for me to write a negative title 'cause it hurts me. this is the one thing in this whole setup that I was like, all right, I, I have to hand this over to the bots and ask their help and say. Mr. Ai can you help me create a title that is.
X, Y, and Z and then it will spit out options. And then I will test those options and then they actually do way better than the options that YouTube will sometimes also, uh, suggest. So sometimes the videos are a little bit different than what's actually in the, the, the title, because it is as one would say click bait.
Because if I did the title, which was uh, you know, uh. my ride on the CB Hornet on the most beautiful day of the fall is just not gonna get clicks. But, uh, is the hornet, you know, the worst motorcycle ever made that gets clicks so. Anyway, comments will be made,
and if I call somebody out on that and just say, Hey, kindly, hey, I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Because obviously you don't, you didn't watch the video or listen to it. People will just double down on, no, you're wrong. I didn't misunderstand. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. And I'm like, okay.
I recently had a conversation with somebody. Uh, at Dealer News that there was a, Robin Feld interviewed me while, while I was at the AIM Expo and he asked me about social media and about the negative comments and I basically said to him that once somebody has decided to misunderstand you, and I think this can apply to probably also anything in the world right now, they.
Don't want any reason to be wrong or any reason to try to understand you, and that's where we're at. So I don't give much time or effort towards those people. And if somebody has made a judgment about me, that's fine. Like I, I actually don't really care. The only people that I'm gonna care about. Whose opinion that I'm going to care about is my families, and that's it.
And so my close friends, but the very close friends, and that's it. Uh, because beyond that, you're just going to lose your direction and try to please people that know nothing about you, where you come from, or what your goals are. So it's all good. It's totally all good. And if somebody wants to comment on.
How I look physically and try to tear me apart on that, Hey man, it is what it is. I only one person, I decided to like look at what they look like after they made like a bunch of. Crazy. S which by the way, if you guys think that you're, uh, um, you're hiding behind your, you know, user 29, Armadillo five, six J on YouTube.
It is so easy to figure out who you actually are and where you live on Facebook. So just saying that, so the person who did. Make all those comments. Oh man. If I was just such a jerk and I could post the picture, which I just wouldn't, I, I just would have to say, I feel sorry for your wife and your grandkids and your daughter and those pictures that are on Facebook, because you must just be a terrible person to live with and be around.
And I feel sorry for them. And if I. Ease their pain. By you being mean to me online for one day or one hour, five minutes I have at it. I, I'll, I'll take the hit for, for all the women out there. I, I will take the hit. That is, I have no problem doing that for, for, for the other women out there in the world.
So anyway, that's all we're gonna cover on haters because the haters are gonna hate. Again, a lot of angry people out there. To me, that's a waste of time to, give any effort towards any content that I don't like. I just never would do that, so it's hard for me to relate.
Now, if you are going to critique or make a comment, I went to design school and we would spend hours in critiques to drop and run and say.
I hate your podcast studio. It's terrible. why am I gonna listen to you? Now? The gentleman who I met in person said. I don't like your, he, he was not as harsh with his words, but he was like, you know, I think, I, I don't, I think your, your background's really boring and he made a suggestion. I have a Doug Poland poster that I would love to give you so that you could just have something going on in the background.
That's constructive feedback. He was offering something to him that would perhaps make this a better set. I have respect for that and I will listen to you if you wanna critique me on that level. And if you wanna, if anybody wants to volunteer their time and help make the show better, dude, come on in, come on, come on.
I got room, I got positions to fill. So, uh, just putting that out there.
The other episodes that I want to highlight from this past 50 episodes have been the bike reviews. I am really fortunate to be able to review motorcycles, and I am thankful for every time that I'm given a bike. You know, some people think that that is, I guess maybe from the outside looking in, it would seem as though.
We had this skewed vision of what actually happens behind the scenes on social media, whether that's Instagram or YouTube, and I'm gonna use those two because those are the primary platforms that I play in.
Now, to get bikes from manufacturers is actually. Quite hard and it looks like everybody's got a bike, but, or I, I don't even know. I don't even know really what it looks like, but my point with that is I had been very happy to see that the bike reviews do very well and I wasn't sure how they were going to do, because again, the, you know, there's the audio portion of this and how do you make a bike review?
Cool. Just. Audio wise, and i'm tired of the ones that are just, they, they just read the stats off the cart.
17 inch front wheel bramble brakes, uh, 31 inch seat height. Yes, all of that is important. It's also the stats that I could get very easily looking at any. manufacturer's, website, I think it's important to call that out because, uh, if you are going to provide information to people who potentially are interested in the bike, it's good to know, but a lot of those reviews are just boring.
And I have been trying to figure out ways in which to present bike reviews in a way that is engaging in the way that I would want to. Hear it. And a lot of that has to do is I wanna know how the bike feels and how the bike reacts and how I would use the bike. And I think that a lot of. Reviews, just don't necessarily capture it.
That, and that's fine. Uh, that's what I'm here for. And moving forward, I'm going to try to do more of the bike reviews. I actually have, I have, uh, actually a lot of footage from this past year of having ridden bikes, and I literally could do probably another 20 episodes just on various bike stuff. And it, it comes down really to editing and finding the time to, to edit it and put those episodes out.
But I, I want to get those episodes out or some of that information out because, you know, the next year's bikes come out or some of the modifications that change the bikes, you know, from year to year may not be relevant with the newer model. So. There's that. I also would like to do more of the editorial where I speak on specific motorcycle topics.
So if there's things that you guys like, let me know. I, I wanna know in the comments like what. Episodes appealed to you because I'm more than happy to do more of that. If there's stuff that you're just not engaged in, or you find boring and you're like, you know, you, you always cover this. And it's like, it's, it's not that interesting to me.
I wanna know. I wanna know. I actually read all the comments and I respond to all the comments myself. Nobody else does it. I do this for me and for the business, but I also. Don't wanna be talking into the void and it not be relevant to what you find interesting. And so, you know, we're a community, so like, let's, let's, you know, let's do things together.
So I am going to, okay, so topic wise, so this also brings up. I put a post on Instagram and also brought it up in a previous episode that I went out to the AIM Expo in California underneath the media pass, and got to see the new releases and did a, did a ton of research and talking to people while I was there on different products and such.
I'm going through all of that content and I asked on Instagram, what do you guys want to know and hear about? So please, in the comments. Put, uh, what you're interested in and if I saw covered or I made a note of it, in my wanderings and in my talking to people while at aim, basically the next episode will be, I will say like a q and A on the AIM Expo.
I think that'll be really fun to do and it will get your questions answered. and I've been trying to
work through my thoughts about the AIM Expo and those thoughts are related to trends in the industry where motorcycling is going and connecting with people in person, which was just awesome. It really, the aim event it made me miss the old motorcycle shows that used to.
Go across the US. 'cause I think that it's a bummer that those aren't happening, that that company went outta business because of COVID. So there will be links below here on some of the episodes that I spoke about.
I am incredibly grateful to have made it to the 50 episodes. Now the question is where do we go from here? I'm trying to think about, you know, what is the next goal? Is it 75? Is it a hundred? And I'm feeling like I need to keep it open a little bit because the audio part of this show does not do as well as a YouTube version.
I shouldn't say that. I, I would say that the audio. There's less connection with the audience. So if you are listening to this episode and you continue to listen to the episodes via Apple, Spotify, any of those audio platforms, please reach out to me and let me know because I am getting to a point where if I am going to invest in this.
Show and try to take it to the next level. It's probably going to be more on the visual side of things. And if that's the case, do I continue doing episodes that work for audio or do I only do episodes that work for visual? I'm kind of at a crossroads here, so I would appreciate your feedback on this because again, we're co-creating here, this show, right?
some of the other wins that have happened this year is the apparel, and please go to liveferoce.com and purchase an apparel. If you get onto the email list, you'll receive a 10% discount. Buying apparel is a great way to support the show, especially as we move into this next season.
I'm calling it loosely the next season, but I really do think this, this, we're like with the new podcast set up and, uh, some of the things that I am starting to plan for 2026, which will be some travel. To some events, that it will be, it. It's gonna be a fun year, and I would like to take you all along on these adventures, which, you know, it's fun, right?
It's fun. It'll be fun. And to also be able to meet some of you out on the road while riding.
Besides the apparel, if you would just like to support the show with a donation, you can buy me an oil change at buy me a coffee. Every single dollar goes back into the show and. Making it, just making it better. And I think that you've seen the evolution if you're a long time viewer that uh, things have gotten cooler, better, uh, and the onboard camera still figuring out all the tech, that's definitely a work in progress and I will hope that we'll only continue to get better and better and better.
And, uh, I, again, I just thank you so much for being with me for these 50 episodes. It really warms my heart. I look forward to. Showing you guys other interviews where I'm going to, you know, I started to change things up also with the interviews, which I forgot to mention in that I went and saw Steven's Berg, oh gosh, Steven, sorry, SERS Berg, that I went.
To in person and did both a garage tour in an interview. I would really like to do more of that, and I think that you guys would probably like me to do more of that, which also please comment on. It takes more time and effort to do those kind of videos. Uh, not impossible, just takes more time. So these are the type of things that, uh, you know, I, I would really like to in the next season.
Focus more on and just start to make things a little bit more in person. Uh, but until then we got this new podcast studio and I'm pretty excited about it. Um, there's some soundproofing around a little bit, which you can't see off camera again. I'm gonna suss it up. Maybe change the lighting, maybe change the plant.
I just wanna say LA again 'cause I can just cannot say it enough. Thank you so much. Really heartfelt. Thank you. If you see me out in the road, please say hello and as always, ride smart. Ciao.
* OUTRO *