What is TheKneeslider.com all about?

Comments on “borrowed” content, breaking news and technical skill.

Long time readers of TheKneeslider.com already know racing coverage is pretty light around here. We do cover some of the goings on of Valentino Rossi and a few other racers but only to highlight their skill, not so much to cover the points race towards any particular championship. Demonstrations of high level technical skill, in any form, are always interesting and inspiring to watch and they often give us ideas and sometimes the motivation to try something new where our own skills need work or perhaps, don’t yet exist.

The skill shown within the technical side of motorcycling, everything from the design process at its most basic “sketch on a napkin” level to building the finished product is a large part of our focus here. We cover new models and concepts at the shows, old models that are interesting for any of a thousand reasons and motorcycles built by small shops and individuals all over the country and all over the world. We touch on the business side of things, too. No matter where you are, if the tech side of motorcycling (and engines and tools) is your primary interest, TheKneeslider.com is a good place to visit.

The Kneeslider has no axe to grind, we are not here to convert anyone to any particular view. If you like what we say here, come back again. If you disagree, feel free to comment or even to not return if you so choose. The Kneeslider’s views and opinions are mine alone and it’s certainly possible some may see things differently but since I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but simply trying to highlight all different kinds of technical ideas and great demonstrations of skill, what’s not to like?

Why am I writing this now? What is the point of explaining what TheKneeslider.com is all about?
Over the past few months, there have been a lot of web sites jumping into the motorcycle and motor vehicle area and everyone is chasing the same latest news and developments. A rising (and I think somewhat sleazy) habit of many of these sites, (and some older ones, too) often run by a decidedly younger crowd, is to “borrow” the ideas, news or writing from other sites without giving any attribution of where their ideas came from or how they happened upon a particular story. Some use the RSS news feed from sites like this one, to create their own web pages. I’m not talking about pages where the news feed is a small side note, I mean the pages where they have almost nothing but the automatically delivered feed without any contribution of their own. Some might call that lazy, some might call it something else. If you subscribe to the feed so you know when we have something new, you’re using it as intended. However, if you’re building a page from the feed and riding on the work of others, …

Because of this instantly copied content, getting out news first is damn near impossible, so I am not going to try. Much of what I cover here will be work that I have found to be interesting and maybe you will, too. If I happen to break news first it will be because I wrote it from scratch. I receive many press releases from various companies and I’ll post those as I can with a comment or two and always a clear indication of it being a press release. I will point out other stories of interest and clearly show, as I’ve always been careful to do, where they are from.

I’ve worked very long and very hard to make The Kneeslider a site you would find interesting and worthy of a visit on a somewhat regular basis. I will continue to work long and hard to raise the bar even higher. I am, however, going to relax the pace a bit. I will post fewer times per day, though usually at least once, but I’ll try to make my posts a bit longer, maybe a bit more thoughtful or thought provoking. If it’s ten fast headlines you need, this may not be your site, but if it’s a slightly longer or off the beaten path type of reading you’re after, stick around.

By all means, comment on what you read on The Kneeslider. Also, send in a tip or two if you know of some project that needs a little exposure.

If you’ve read this entire post, you may be just the kind of person who will enjoy what’s coming up. Stay tuned, you might like it.

Think of it as an upgrade, … The Kneeslider 2.0