THANKS A MILLION!
The Bike Shed Times reached a major traffic milestone this week — it’s one millionth website visit.
Editor and founder Peter Terlick was delighted to announce the achievement, noting that the continued growth of interest in collectible motorcycles was driving readers to The Bike Shed Times.
“It’s no great surprise that 2021 was our biggest year to date, with almost 250,000 website visits,” he said.
“But people might be surprised to know that more than half of our 2021 traffic resulted from people visiting our Bikes For Sale page, and that our best-read article for 2021: Investing in classic motorcycles — our Top Ten bikes and how to pick your winner was written in 2018.
“And it seems our readers can never get enough stories about motorcycle collectors and collections. I think many of us wish we had enough room in our sheds and cash in our bank accounts to have a big collection of wonderful old motorcycles.”
Peter said emerging technology was going to change the mainstream motorcycle industry rapidly in the next few years, as consumers and manufacturers demanded transport and recreational vehicles powered by electric engines.
“Battery technology has been the bottleneck holding back electric cars and motorbikes to date, but it seems we’re fast approaching a tipping point. Electric and hybrid cars are now common sights on the road, and motorbikes will undoubtedly be next.
“It seems to me that those of us who grew up on petrol power are remaining nostalgically attached to the bikes of our lifetimes. I think that’s the reason classic bikes continue to be popular as possessions and as investments. We all know their days are numbered!”
Peter said there had been many highlights on the road to the 1,000,000th website visit.
“There have been some great articles, from our very early interview with Moto Guzzi guru Mario Poggioli and our visit to Ian Boyd‘s collection of Vincents, and of course our first article on the West Australian collector they call Toad which had a huge number of readers right across the world.”
On the business side of the business, Peter said the introduction of a page to buy and sell special motorbikes had been “momentous” for The Bike Shed Times, while a refreshing of the website in 2021 had “lifted the look” to a more engaging design.
“And we had another big moment just this week when we sold a 1973 Norton Commando 750 for a seller in Canada to a buyer in Western Australia. It was only one bike, but it was our first successful sale of a bike outside Australia and I’d be surprised if it was our last.”
Peter said he was “very grateful” for the support he continued to receive from readers and advertisers and was looking forward to keeping readers engaged for another million website hits.
