The History of YZF600R.com

[01YZF6]

yup we are all here becuase of this topic !

[bigbadbflo]

for old times sake:

[martyyzf]

Wow I missed this one too!
Good read, almost brings a tear to my eye to think of how close everyone here is!

I just love it because everyone is so real. You can see personality in there type. And even when people are being dicks, it's taken with a grain of salt and shrugged off.

BTW I have nicknamed Martijn "The One" from a long time ago playing some silly offroad game with him and Stan the biker online. I think it's a fitting nickname...

[Martijn]

BTW I have nicknamed Martijn "The One" from a long time ago playing some silly offroad game with him and Stan the biker online. I think it's a fitting nickname...

ah the good old days ... that brings back memories

[Scott-Thundercat]

wow, thanks for the bump! good to read all of this! some day the snow will have to give us the multipage long version (updated with how he is doing and how his wife is)

[Scot]

Well, I 've got a nice run down of the mailing list history on my computer at home, I'll have to cut n paste that into her sometime too.

It all started with two guys near and dear to me (I've never met them either ) Crazy Karl (no not Slug) and Spleenboy. They were yzf600r riders who participated on the mailing list. Spleenboy was in a bike accident many years ago and lost his spleen (hence the nickname) and started a small website www.yzf600r-usa.com and posted the url on the mailing list. This was around late 1998 or mid 1999, I forget. Spleenboy, whose name was actually Scott ended up selling his beloved Cat and moved on to something else. Just before that, he posted on the mailing list that he was thinking of giving up the site and moving on and wondered if anyone wanted to take over. I thought about it for a sleepless night (made myself sick over it) before I spoke up. Back then I knew how to navigate the web, check my email and NOTHING else. Literally NOTHING. I didn't know what HTML was or what a .jpg was or anything. Uploading,downloading, firewalls, etc.... I had no clue.

After I spoke up and said I'd take over I found out they were kind of hoping I would take the bait. At that time, the webiste was about 8 pages long and the forums were hosted on ezboard.com There were about 20 members or so and about 10-12 posts a month. The mailing list was huge then and getting about 100+ emails a day and hovering around 150 members.

I bought website building books and still remember the day Karl emailed me the passwords and logins and they mailed me the files on CD including a program I had never heard of back then (Dreamweaver) to work on the site. I sat there for hours and hours, trying this and that and seeing what worked and what didn't. It was frustrating and exciting at the same time. I learned how to register a url, how to upload and download, I figured out what the heck a .html file was! I learned if you make a homepage and call it homepage.html and upload it, it won't work unless you call it index.html!! I started over at square one literally and learned as I went. It was painful but fun, at lot of fun.

As time went on I added to the site, tried to gather more information and began to mention the site more often on the mailing list, especially the forums. The forums grew slowly and posts went up and up. The ezboard.com people offered webspace for free but they had ads. No big deal... at first. As member numbers increased and hits went up, the ads got crazy. Everytime a page opened about 6 pop ups would hit you everytime. Posts began to plumment and people where emailing me saying it was a problem and they were leaving. So I looked into paying to keep the ads away. It was cheap at first but it got crazy too and I felt uncomfortable asking members for money to keep us ad free. Slug told be about the program we use now phpBB which was free but another thing I had never tried before. What is a .tpl file? Huh? What about the 1000s of posts at ezboard? What about post counts? Can I transfer them over? Yes but it wasn't easy. But with lots of help, we got it done.

In between all of this I was hit by a large truck and left for dead on the side of a road (I've posted that story) but it was this very website that gave me something to stay involved in the sport and really kept me going. The "members" became "friends" and I got a ton of support. Where I lacked on website prowess, some members excelled, like Martijn who showed me what a template was and sent me hours upon hours of files he worked hard on to make the website look as good as it does now (but never asking for acknowledgement of it). I also used the forums to ask people what they wanted to see in a website, more links and pictures of other peoples bikes where tops. So I opened the Garage section which only had two bikes in it (Krazy Karl and Spleenboys) and started a Links section. Then a member over in the UK, Jacob, closed down his site and sent me 100s of his links to add in too. Now I think we got one of the best Links pages on the net! Martijn also worked his magic on the layout there too with the Cat and it's clickable parts.

This kinda leads us to now really. For those of you still reading, thanks. I'm at work right now and this is even a slightly jumbled up and shortened version but it gives you all an idea of where it came from.

I can only hope and pray it keeps getting bigger and members still come to stay even after they've long gotten rid of their Cats. This place has really helped me over the years and I hope it stays around for a very long time.

Hey I know that guy Karl! hehehe

That's it in a nutshell. Karl and I were tired of the old YZF600.com bulletin board. It was none moderated and open to post without user accounts. Basically, anyone could post as anyone. Snowgod, the slugster, kkarl, and I were on Mark's(?) old YZF mailing list. Met some cool guys on the list (well..not person to person..but you get the jist.
Karl and I decided that our inboxes were filling up way too fast if we didn't check our mail daily and decided to start a site (since there were almost ZERO out there) dedicated to the YZF. Karl bought one in 97 as his 3rd bike and raved about it. I had never ridden on and once I did I realized what a great bike it was. We started the site and forum (a mere shell of what it has become thanks to Ron's deligence)
I STILL have a YZF600R. It's my second one. I don't ride it all too much but love it just as much as I do the other bikes I own.
Karl and I's free time was slowly getting sucked up and the site was not getting the updates and coding it needed. We were in fear of losing our members during the sites infancy. Instead of half assing stuff here and there....we thought about giving Ron the keys. Despite his accident, he was still very much involved in all things YZF. Who better to give the site to? He was every bit as smitten with the bike as Karl and I were and we had no doubts he'd take the reins and run with it. What you see today is a product of Ron's hard work. It shows. Karl and I are still blown away.
Big ups to Ron and all of the YZF600r.com members. Karl and I may have had this baby.... but Ron raised him up to what you see today.

[Van]

Interesting reading.... nice post Scot.

[01YZF6]

Wow.........one of the legends himslef ! thanks for chiming in !

for the beloved second home !

damn I love this site !

and +1 Ron has definitely taken this site to where it is today and the future of this site is undoubtedly a bright one !

[thesnowgod]

It's always good to see Scot stop in. HE SHOULD MORE OFTEN! I definately owe him a lot.

As I've said before though, it's you all and your participation that make this site so great.




BTW: I'm working on updates but I'm having trouble getting connected to the website's server. I've sent an email to the support center.

[01YZF6]

I am voting this to be placed into the "BEST OF" category topic!


if you have not already.... READ THIS FROM PAGE 1 !

[Seb2home]

I second that

[woody]

intresting alot to readman snowy when is the audio forum going to be out?

[yzfrider69]

i am one of the many who is also very appreciative of what 'we' have here...when i found this site i too was searching for a new bike... you name it i lokked at it, sat on it spent hours in dealers... this site wasa great source of info, it reall gave me insight to the cats overall versatility, and i could see help was not too far away... glad i decided to finally post after who know how long... Ron thanks again for your efforts, you really are the daddy..


Now about the post whore comment...

[scottyottyotty]

This site is the single most helpful and informative resource on any subject that I've ever seen. Every day I try and come up w/ a question to ask that hasn't already been answered here at least 2 or 3 times. So far that's been impossible for me to do. Keep up the good work fellas.

[thesnowgod]

I am voting this to be placed into the "BEST OF" category topic!

My God, a wonderful blast from the past. All true. This site changed my life and I have Karl and Scot to thank for starting it all. I honestly don't know where I'd be right now without this place. My life would probably have gone in a totally different direction.

Best Of....... here ya go.

[luigiscar7]

I must really commend you on the site. Excellent resource for any cycle enthusiast. I've been reading the forum for days straight, spongeing as much as possible. Also, a big to all the community members: Helpful, respectful, and friendly. This is coming from a member of less than a week.

[Twisted_Cat]

I gotta hand it to ya Snow, I am very inspired by your story and like everyone's replies I've got nothing but smiles and to be honest I look forward to coming here and log on more than I do Facebook! LOL After I bought my Cat I made my account on here because minor details I just searched Google for answers and this site always came up with the most detailed posts and best knowledge of any other forum I've visited bar none, and that includes that of cars, guns, electronics etc. The energy here is superb and thats one thing that made me join the family. Tho I'm only in my 20's I have an insane amount of mechanical knowledge so after only owning the bike for a couple months, and reading up on it on here as well as tearing it apart myself it makes me feel good to help answer new or old posts when it comes to sharing our knowledge. You mentioned when the side started you had only a rough bit of 150 members, and if I had to guess now, maybe your in the upwards of 1,000 plus members. I know that years to come even after I sell my cat and upgrade to an R1 I'l still going to be coming to this site whenever possible. So I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to you and all the sites contributors, admins and moderators for making it the best motorcycle forum on the internet today!