I have spotted a trend slowly arriving in the bike world at the moment that I massively dislike. I’ll explain because at best the title was ambiguous and doesn’t exactly explain the believed affront is
Let me explain, I look at A LOT bikes in my time surfing the internet. Most people have sports magazines and porn but no, it’s bikes in beautiful places or traveling to incredible places. This is when you start to see the way bikers feel and interact.
Biker: “Wow, this looks a great view, I’m going to take a pic of this with my bike in the foreground!”
Ok I see some variation on this but mostly the winning combination is 2/3 scenery to 1/3 bike, unless mountains are involved of course. Really the maths isn’t important, it’s about where you are on the bike, the bike itself and how you got there. We probably consume these without even thinking with the same sort of responses each time. I’m not saying this is wrong at all, it’s the same all across the world. Due to following a lot of Indian bike manufacturers Twitter seems to think I’m in India, which is great as some of the pics that float through my feed are truly staggering (just with a smaller capacity bike at the forefront!).
However, the format for influencers is totally alien to this and frankly I believe it’s to the detriment of the entire industry.
Influencer: “Check me out, it’s me!! Ohh and I’m on a bike and because I got a free lunch I won’t say anything bad about it.”
The format there changes from being about the bike and achievement of being able to take the picture that you did, to a selfy on a motorcycle.
Screwing yourself over.
Arguably a worse thing for this when manufacturers play ball and actually enable this narcissism, maybe they do it for the perceived good exposure or being lazy they know that after a slap up meal and a night in a cheap motel the night before these people are statistically far more unlikely to say anything negative about the product. Plus as they are on to a winner for their own personal brand they aren’t exactly going to rock the boat on their first review are they?
So after a Premier Inn and a fried breakfast your free reviews left and got some free monetised content for their YouTube channels and you got what you think is great advertising. Until of course you release said bike and the first real bikers rip it to pieces and you are left scratching your head wondering what went wrong.
Big hairy Dave: “The rear break is terrible, the seat is uncomfortable and I hate the handle bars.”
Crazy TT Jane: “The stock tyres are totally rubbish, the breaks are awful and it corners like a cow”.
Now if you had just got some real bikers involved from day one this could of been avoided, it’s not like they will care about your demise as they are now off promoting shaving kits or skinny jeans etc.
Now some folk are probably thinking, “Just jealous eh Val? Just because your an ugly biscuit munching old bugger and won’t get invited!” Well the first part is definitely true, on the second I’m not sure I care. Let’s be honest we all love a quirky freebie now and again, the difference between us and them is the free meal won’t get them an easy time….. Also we’d probably moan about the meal too!
Val, out!
Valheru Rides! 