Vancouver Motorcycle Show

Last 10 days of the road trip....Red Deer was an OK show - weather kinda kicked us but hey this is January in Alberta!

Made it to Vancouver and am looking forward to meeting some of the riders I converse with via email!

Hope to see some of you - the weather is gorgeous here. I'm gonna try and sneak in a head clearing ride if I can find a bike to borrow.

Stay safe out there.
BDB

Scumbags and scammers

I am removing the link exchange program on our web site. There are just too many unscrupulous scumbags trying to link to us that have sites with worms or viruses.

I have deleted all of the bad links and once Ali is at work today I will have that program removed today and we will not have link exchanging available for the time being until we find a more secure method, one that allows us to more easily investigate who is applying.

In the meantime this whole disgusting process has chewed into my time for entering event information, please be patient I have over 400 more events to add to the calendars and will get that done asap!

Stay safe out there.  

BDB

2008 Event Calendars

I have been adding posters to the various event listings and adding in more of the competition events but I could sure use your help.

If you see spelling mistakes or anything that is inaccurate PLEASE email me.

I am trying very hard to make sure that everything we put out there is as accurate as possible and have been contacting the event coordinators but as I said - I am the type o queen...so please, help me out here.

If you know of an event that we don't have listed, please either add it to the calendars yourself or email me - the better informed we are, the better the season we have.

Thanks gang

BDB

The 2008 Edmonton Motorcycle Show - Day 12 on the road

Today marks the 12th day of my 32 day road trip.
The January Motorcycle Show season is a busy and gruelling time.
Standing on concrete all day is hard on the body and the air in these buildings is sooooo dry.

But, it is so very worthwhile. I have had the honor of meeting so many good people!

I have also had the distinct pleasure of working with some great people!

Dave and Al from the Veterans MC Canada have been helping me in the booth, promoting their organization, selling Support our Troops magnets, helmet stickers tees and hats - all the proceeds from the sales of these items go to the Family Support Centre to take the children of serving soldiers out to hockey games and movies etc.

They have also been selling subscriptions to the paper for me. Their help and support is much appreciated.

Then there are the ladies of Travel Alberta North's various Destination Marketing Regions - this week Louise Cote of Grande Prairie Regional Tourism and Nicole Halvorsen of Mighty Peace Tourism have been in the booth talking to riders about the upcoming promotion in the Busted Knuckle Chronicles. All 5 destination marketing offices will be offering information about riding in the north country and through their partners they will be offering specials on campgrounds and motels/hotels.

It is one of just many partnerships with tourism regions that we hope to establish. Finally Tourism departments are seeing the value in sharing information on who is rider friendly!

Laurie Paetz and her team for the 2008 Edmonton Motorcycle Show have done a fabulous job again and if you haven't stopped in to the show and you live in the Edmonton region I encourage you to drop by! It's been a great show so far.

I must sign off for now so stay safe out there.

BD Betty

Changes

Lots of new features and changes coming to the site.....

I know it's rather long winded but I have a letter I wrote that explains what we do and some of those changes I mentioned......

An open letter to all motorcyclists and riding clubs in Canada:

I wish to invite every riding club to share and network with other Canadian communities.

Belt Drive Betty dot Com is your place, a place to tell the rest of Canada and the world what is happening in your community. We are a Biker/Riders version of the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Department all rolled in to one.
All makes, all models, all affiliations and all disciplines – if it’s about 2 wheels or three - I invite you to join our site- it’s FREE.

Help other riders find out more about your club or group, make sure your club’s link is listed in our riding clubs link section – add your information to our events calendars – if you are a member, you can add your club’s information and get it out to the 50 – 70,000 riders that turn to our site every month to find the information they are looking for.

By sharing when your ride nights and meetings are, your rallies and poker runs, your competition events and swaps etc not only do you give your club and local charities some extra exposure but you help riders who are going to be travelling to or through your community this riding season and you also help those who are re locating.

Our events calendars are very powerful tools. There are 17 calendars, one for each province and territory, a national events calendar (for rides and events that take place right across this great country) and the all calendars view which pulls events happening in the next 2 days from across the country for a quick update. The other 2 calendars are: one for our membership to share birthdays and anniversaries the other is for my riding season.

They are highly sort able and search able and when you find the event you are looking for you can email the information to your friends’ right from the calendar! Take them for a test spin….they truly are amazing.

If you want, we can even make you a customized calendar link for your site that just pulls the type of events that your riding club is interested in, save your web pages for the other vital information that riders need to know about your club – we can make you your own calendar and we host if for you.
Remember all of our information leads other riders right to your web site if you have one!

Share your areas favorite day rides in our Great Canadian Day Rides section so that riders coming through can experience what it is you love about your area!

And don’t forget to add your community’s rider friendly businesses to our on line phone book: Belt Drive Betty’s Little Black Book. Part of making a rider want to come your way is letting them know where they can eat, sleep and shop when they come to your town. Available on line, this phone book will be coming out in print in April, just in time for the riding season so get your copy ordered for your saddlebags!

To help you share the stories of your community and to tempt others to come visit, submit your stories to the Busted Knuckle Chronicles weekly Rider Community Newspaper.

Celebrate your fabulous volunteers, your great group and regional events. Tell your road stories or tempt us with stories about your favorite shop, painter, tattooist, restaurant, campground or pub. We accept submissions from anywhere in Canada!

Help make another rider’s riding season phenomenal and a wee bit safer by joining our site and sharing – it’s free and it’s all Canadian!

Subscribe to our Canadian community newspaper – The Busted Knuckle Chronicles and get free classified ads as a bonus! – It’s only $5.25 until February 15th after that it goes up to $10.50 per year.

Get yourself listed as a rider willing to help out other riders when they break down on our newest information site: http://www.canadianriders.ca/ – it too is free!

International visitors are also invited to join our sites and use the tools we provide as a Canadian Riding Community to find the tourism and relocation information you need. Because we are an information clearing house that features information about what’s happening in Canada we do not accept submissions about international events nor do we accept information on international businesses. Instead, we choose to leave that job to those who already do it so well. You may share some of that kind of information in our forums or by submitting a banner or link should you wish to in our links and banner exchange area.

And now for the really big news!
Belt Drive Betty dot Com is going mobile!

That’s right, http://www.beltdrivebetty.mobi/ will be going live in the upcoming weeks!

If you use a Blackberry, Palm Pilot, Smart Phone or have a cell capable of surfing the net, you will be able to access all of the information on our web site right from your phone! The phone book, the events calendars and all of the vital info you as a rider need – delivered right to your phone!

Riders helping riders: that’s what we do here at Belt Drive Betty dot Com
Come and share with us!

A very rewarding week

While in Calgary I had the opportunity to meet with some of the riding clubs, I even attended some meetings. It was wonderful to have that opportunity for a change. Thank you to the CMC Chinook Riders and the Veterans MC Canada. It was awesome getting to know some of you on a more personal level!

I also had the opportunity to go to the famed Harley Diner! I had the best club house sandwich I have ever had!

It's been a great start to 32 days on the road and hope this is a sign of great things to come in 2008.
I hope to meet more riders at the Edmonton show this weekend.....

Stay safe out there.

BD Betty

The Calgary Motorcycle Show

Well Laurie & her staff have done it again.
The 2008 Calgary Motorcycle Show was awesome!

Laurie and the gals put on a top notch show and if you missed it....shame on you.
You still have an opportunity to check out the great exhibits and exhibitions this coming weekend in Edmonton when Laurie and the gals present the 2008 Edmonton Motorcycle Show.

I met tons of wonderful people and we had a whole lot of riders sign up for on line subscriptions to the paper.

The weather was wonderful and everyone I met had a really positive experience at the show.

Hope to see you out this coming weekend in Edmonton. Drop by our booth and say hi!

Stay safe out there.

BD Betty