A World Of Dirt...On A 500exc

As Arizona isn't letting me do too much remote riding I head further north to Utah, the plan is to ride to about the center of Utah and then hang a left.

And the first view of the state is a good one



This is Cottonwood Canyon Rd looking down towards Kodachrome Basin



A normal diversion here would be Bryce Canyon, but having been there a few times and making a point to avoid people I carry on north

I head a little east to ride Johns Valley road and then jump to the FR441 dirt road, nice fast dirt that starts to climb





somewhere along this route headed to Torrey, I bump into a couple of cowboys looking for a lost bull, lucky for them I had spotted him about 5 minutes before. I was in an area called Boulder Flat or something like that up around 11,000 feet.

The older of the two cowboys asked, "where are you headed?"
"Torrey!"...cause there's a gas station there...
"This section rarely gets used and the tracks are sometimes hard to see, its more of a snowmobile area now, but to get to the track you'll need to carry on to Torrey, its that way."...and he points vaguely in a direction
...but follows up with, "It's about four miles if you can do it in less than 15 or 20 I'd be surprised, once you get into the boulder field around the corner you zigzag all over."

They are about to ride off after I thank them, but they stop and the old guy gives me a few words of cowboy wisdom, "you know, I used to ride a lot of single track when I was younger on an old Maico, it's tough but fun. Let me tell ya son if you want to ride serious single track easily...(he pauses for effect)...get ya' self a horse!" He does a loud belly laugh and takes off.

After 18 miles I find the trailhead leading to Torrey, back on the GWT, he was right I went all over trying to find a way through, even considered sleeping up there.

Just beautiful country. Enjoying your posts! I have got to get my wife riding!!

Bet it would be fun sittin round campfire with those cowboys, belly laughs all nite!!

Great update Paul, thanks!!

He could’ve been a 'dad joke' stand up comic I was chatting and laughing with them for about 45 minutes. Cowboy 2 just sat there shaking his head

“Get a horse” !!!!
Who doesn’t love that kind of earthy “wisdom”? Can’t make that shit up bro. Fuckin awesome.

Go to Paul's website and read his tire review it will give you some more info for choice. Personally I always run knobbies.

Great update @rtwpaul. Get ya self a horse...bahahahaha...that's fantastic.

What a cool change in scenery as you rode throughout the day; the first two shots are surreal. Pretty damn cool cabin you stumbled upon too.

Knobby side down as you make your way to the central point in NV and then head west.

My wife and I rode up on Boulder Flats and Raft lake back in September. Beautiful scenery, but the roads sure can get rocky. And didn't see a single soul.

Before I move on thought I'd share this:

an alternative post-processing look to one of the photos of the previous post, the kind of stuff I share on IG, if you don't follow, me...maybe you should

The reason I show this is @dave6253 brought up a point in his last ride report (towards the end) that maybe ride reports are dying, numbers are down, only a select few hundred readers seem to show up out of a potential 375,000 inmates, what do we do to bring them back to ride reports, what is the ongoing motivation?

@Rudy and @Baldy (the site owners) and I spoke about this, why are people going to IG and YT.

I am not asking for likes on this photo just interested in your thoughts to bring traffic back to ride reports, the section of the site that made this forum great in the first place???

This photo might get 25-50 likes here on ADVrider, impressions are unknown, for those of you that aren't familiar with impressions on Instagram

Impressions: The number of times your content, whether a post or a story, was shown to users. While commonly confused with reach, impressions are the total number of times your content could have been seen.
​

a detail you can find on a business IG account and similar can be found in YT.

Would access to this information make people want to write, share, and complete more ride reports if we could see that information and know there are actually more than a few hundred looking?

To give you a comparison, this photo on IG below has 28,920 impressions

Interested in your thoughts as I am sure @Rudy is....GO!

I don’t know if this makes any difference, but personally I barely go to YouTube due to poor internet and have never gone on IG or FB. Does that make my “Likes” here count for more?

i'm not on any social media, i refuse to participate in all that baloney, so if your narrative and photos are good, i'm going to read your stuff right here on ADV.

one of the reasons the numbers are down on ride reports is the quality of the reports themselves, often mundane rather than compelling. folks have enough mundane in their lives already, forget the tea party with food photos, bring on the freakin' rodeo.

I’m with Geezerguy, I don’t do IG or facebook and rarely watch YouTube. I am a regular here, and your ride reports are ones that I follow. Your pictures are second to none (you are da man with a camera) and you write very well. Keep up the good work and travel on, looking foreword to reading and seeing more of your amazing photos.

I follow you on IG and FB, typically clicking the like button but not reading comments or commenting myself. I might be a bit weird but I enjoy a well though out picture more than a long, boring video, so I don't watch any RRs on YT. (I've tried). I much prefer reading the RRs on ADV. I've read thousands of pages on here from various riders, sometimes I post, sometimes I don't. I do always says thanks when I catch up or the RR is complete. I'm not a SM guru but it's my guess that the RRs are getting more views than @Rudy and @Baldy know. If I understand what you are saying, maybe adding some type of IGish type tracking might let them know if I'm right.

i follow a lot of RRs and other things here on adv rider but i do not often press the like button as i just don't think of it. I presume there are lots of riders/readers here doing the same. The number of likes via 'like' button do not mirror the actual number of views nor the actual appreciation, i believe.
Can the quantity of 'views' be shown? That might be more relevant.
are 'views' the same as 'impressions'?

I enjoy reading RR here and often check my 'subscribed' threads.
Perhaps the main thread also display subscriber count in addition to view count.

Same as several above, I do not do any of the social media, so if it is here, great, if not, I won't see it. I am guilty of not "liking" all the posts I like, just feel it is a little much. Much more prefer some kind of master "like", "love it", or something like that.

I was thinking a fair amount of the ride reports are down due to the virus, and the limitations between states/countries.

I also don’t do FB or IG but do watch a fair bit of YT.
For those asking about a system to show views here, is that not what this is?
Replies: 835. Views:217,530. HeliMark. 14 minutes ago
This info is from the list of available threads where it shows last to post.

But please RTWPaul, keep yout reports and amazing images going here on ADVRider.

I dont know if this reply will directly help you out or not. But I would like a better way to find out about good RR's other than having to click on each one and read several pages just to see if it interests me. Call me lazy but it's not exactly efficient either. For the most part, the RR's I follow I either noticed it was started by an inmate I recognize, or it was linked in another thread i follow. TBH, if @rtwpaul were to start another epic report right now I probably wouldn't notice it for a few weeks unless it was linked in an existing thread I already follow.

I think some of the better RR's might see more traffic if there was a "trending" section for RR's. I think it would make for a more efficient way to discover other reports which might lead to more views by the inmates here. Just my .02 cents.

For me, the bottom line is quality in a TR is read and appreciated, but somewhat rare on here as well as on most social media outlets. People with true photographic and writing expertise (i.e. you, RTWPaul) have developed these skills over many years and a lot of work/expense...and it shows. Video is another artistic challenge altogether and for most people, they should be banned from posting their GoPro footage (kinda harsh I know, but true).

I like having well written TR's on Adv Rider because it doesn't feel commercial and it really takes me to another time and place. An overwhelming amount of social media content is by folks who have this dream of becoming an "internet star", but really haven't devoted the time, effort or sacrifice to be truly exceptional at it. Don't misunderstand, I really do appreciate their efforts, but will not waste my time with their mostly amateurish and boring results (how much video put to rock music of bike on dirt do we really need??). Sorting through the coal to find the rare diamond is a challenge. Actually, I would appreciate it if Adv Rider had a review process, then moved the truly good stuff to a "TR Stars" area?

While an early adopter of FB, I punted that social media outlet about 5 years ago when I realized I was only enjoying about 10% of the garbage that was on there. I know FB also owns IG, but the IG platform is much better at just sharing a story so I do have an IG account. I'm also a regular watcher of YT and subscribe to several channels that I enjoy, although for me it's mostly musical artists I like.

Waaaaay back when I first joined this little forum, any RR was a good RR. It and BMWSportTouring.com were about the only place one could find folks talking and sharing bike stuff. BMWST owned the road warriors and ADV had this little community of skinny bike riders. By the way, my join date precedes what you see in my Avatar. I joined long before that but took a hiatus from bikes. When I came back I couldn't mine up my login info so just made a new identity.

BMWST appears to be dead now and ADV has blown up. While this used to be a small community, anyone brave enough to type a few words and add some pics got a lot of praise and appreciation. We all stabbed at the Like button on everything because here was a nobody, just like me, doing the stuff I want to and he's talking about it. It was the age of discovery.

Now ADV is so impossibly large that one cannot even scan all the thread titles that were started in one day! So we follow a few members, and we watch a few threads. And we don't "like" the fantastical pics or incredibly well written posts like we used to. We still like them, we just don't hit the button as you've noted. I also am guilty. But if any of us tried to participate here like we did in the old days . . . . we'd get fired and the wife would kick us to the curb. Participation now must be handled like whiskey. A little is really good. Too much time here will wreck your life.

Over the same span of time . . . iPhones were invented. Facebook, IG, Pinterest, YouTube, ad nauseam. Attention spans for all of us fell to about 3 seconds.
So now, whatever is posted better be head and shoulders above the sea around them to keep ones attention.

Maybe it's only natural that a new forum will splinter off of this one someday. It seems to be the way of nature. It'll be much smaller. It will repeat what ADV did to BMWST. And the wheel continues to turn.

Just think, Paul. Then you'll have yet another place you'll have to manage content.

So, there's that. But in the meantime, I pretty much spend an hour or two every single day reading here and love it. But it's a different animal than it used to be.

Paul thanks for your dedication to the club. shooting, posting, writing, editing and creating takes a hella-lot effort and I'm fairly certain that far too much of what you do is just old fashioned hard work and long hours . . . . instead of just riding the world as your story suggests.

So, all of this and a buck fiddy might get you a cup of coffee somewhere. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I promise to pay more attention to that like button. Because I do like so much so often.