Best Motorcycle Story Contest Winner & 3rd Year Wrap-Up

YouMotorcycle as a domain hasn’t been around for three years, but this website has. It started as OurLittleAdventures, but quickly turned into a dedicated motorcycle site and has grown like crazy ever since. Thank you to hundreds of thousands of present and future motorcyclists who came through here. You rock and you’ve given me the opportunity to meet and get to know some amazing people. Thank you!

Speaking of amazing, the Your Best Motorcycle Story Contest brought in some amazing stories! The idea was to collect motorcycle stories from visitors, post them online, and allow readers to have a vote so they could have their say in who the best winner was. I volun-asked Fuzzygalore, a girlie motorcycle superblogger and a bit of virtual role model if she could help judge the contest with me. Naturally, she said yes. Check out her site. She’s Fuzzy. You’ll like it.

Speaking of amazing people I’ve gotten to meet over the years, Madeline “MISSRIDER” Velazquez was first featured on YouMotorcycle in two stories back in 2011. She solo rode her Triumph Bonneville motorcycle across the United States. I was impressed by that. I should have known better. The stories are featured on our page about Women and motorcycling, YouMotorcycle.com/Women and are called Woman Rides Her Motorcycle Alone Across The United States and Female Motorcyclist Retells Travelling Across the USA.

When I met Madeline in person, it was in June of 2012, in Toronto, Canada, on the day of my birthday. We had dinner with local “G” and local Toronto motorcyclist, Cecilia. Despite riding up from Massachusetts, Madeline still had all the party in the world in her. This is a woman of tremendous strength, both physical and mental. The more you get to know her the more her spark, and strong morals and values will not just impress you, but inspire you.

So what the hell was Madeline doing in Toronto, Canada? It was part of her next big ride. She had already ridden coast to coast by herself, it was now time to ride from Canada through to Panama. Madeline would cross more countries than I have matching pairs of socks. To quote MISSRIDER: “Some people call it the ride of a lifetime. I call it just another ride in Madeleine’s life.”

Madeline submitted Adventures of a Woman Motorcyclist, Summer 2012 to the contest. It gave readers a sample of her trip… as if you could really sum up 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) in a thousand words. She left out a lot of the hardships that she went through. It wasn’t just a beautiful ride meeting wonderful people and experience the local cultures of one country after another. When we met in person the second time, after her Panama ride, Madeline told me the other side of the story. This isn’t a ride that you do without pain. Pain that goes well beyond fighting an army of various foreign insects out to get you. Madeline is one hell of a tough chick, an optimist, a good soul, and the embodiment of putting your mind to something, and doing it. A motorcyclist through and through, there are many a bad boy who wishes he could ride like the woman they call MISSRIDER.

Madeline, you’ve won the Your Best Motorcycle Story Contest. Tell your students they’re getting donuts, and put the rest towards your next big adventure!

Sponsors & Support: First off, a big thank you to Fuzzygalore, of the girlie motorcycle blog Fuzzygalore.com. Check this chick out, stat!

I couldn’t do this without the advertisements you see and click on scattered around the site. The next big thank you is for sponsors and advertisers that make a $100 giveaway contest possible. Thank you to Google AdSense (yeah, I said it), Toronto motorcycle dealership Studio Cycle Group as well as to Carol Nash bike insurance for sponsoring YouMotorcycle. Rock on!

Runner up: Honourable mention / runner up was Wobblycat and wife, Wiggly, for their hilarious story. This was the definite runner up and Wobbly not only learned how NOT to do an oil change, the hard way, but hustled to get a LOT of votes. More than that though, Wobbly was also the brain behind the motorcycle contortionist photoshoot. For his work as a motorcyclist, photographer, superhero, and apparently epic storyteller, Wobblycat‘s getting a runner’s up prize he and I will work out.

New Sponsor: Very happy to announce Motorcycle Mojo has linked up with YouMotorcycle for 2013! For the past few years I’ve been reading Mojo religiously. For the past two Novembers I’ve been lucky enough to party with these guys after the Toronto Motorcycle Shows. If you agree that there is more to motorcycling than just motorcycles, you’ll like what comes next. Stay tuned for our awesomeness planned for 2013: Year of the Mojo.

YouMotorcycle a Registered Business: Lastly, YouMotorcycle has been registered as a business, because I should probably start declaring the few bucks the site makes and the expenses it costs me. To quote Jay-Z: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!” – The fourth year online is looking promising! Plenty of goodness ahead. Sign up or follow along on Facebook (just shy of 400 fans) or Twitter (now over 400 followers)!

Adrian S.