CycleFish: A biker-friendly website
From the Spring Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally in early May in Panama City Beach, FL to the 40th Annual Wing Ding at the end of August in Knoxville, TN, CycleFish has all the details you need for a great road trip to an awesome motorcycle event.
If you’re looking for a biker-friendly bar, a repair shop or a dealer you can trust, or even make friends, CycleFish can also help with that. It’s a one-stop biker and motorcycle network that’s available at the click of a button.
The site was founded in 2002, by Ron “Lucky” Schaefer, as a hobby website. “I have been riding a motorcycle my entire life, and really enjoyed attending as many motorcycle events as possible,” Schaefer said. “The problem was I could never find a complete list of motorcycle events - so I started one with CycleFish.com.”
In its infancy, CycleFish was no more than a list of events Schaefer and his wife found and listed as a resource for other riders. In 2009, the couple sold their share in the internet marketing company, and Schaefer became a home-based consultant.
“At that point, I gave CycleFish a complete makeover turning it into a social network for all bikers, riders and motorcycle enthusiasts as well as the resource it had become known as. Because of my internet marketing background, within the first six months CycleFish had become so popular that it became a legitimate business and my full time job, as well as for several other people.”
CycleFish allows users to meet other riders in their area and across the U.S. “They can share stories, humor, photos and more either publicly or with just their ‘friends’ here on CycleFish. Users can also post and promote their motorcycle events in our very popular motorcycle event calendar.”
Business users can post and promote events as well as list their businesses in the new Biker Friendly Places locator (Check out Fulmer’s new listing), and leave reviews and share photos. “In addition to our user generated content we do have editors who are constantly adding events and businesses, as well as helpful tips and news related to motorcycles,” Schaefer said.
Although you don’t have to be a member to access all the site’s great information, there are advantages to membership. A very large number of visitors use CycleFish as a resource and not a social network.
“The benefits of being a member include being able to share and socialize with other members, post events, join events, post in our forums, share reviews and photos on businesses, receive newsletters and more,” Schaefer said.
With more than 55,000 members, they are obviously doing things right. But they are not resting on their laurels, Schaefer said.
“We are constantly working on our site, improving it to make it more useful to the motorcycle community. We have several partnerships in the works as well as some great new features that will be released over the next couple of months.”
As for the name “CycleFish,” it’s the result of Schaefer’s inability to draw, and his most-often asked question.
“I wanted a name that, once heard, would be remembered and not easily confused with what I knew would eventually be a lot of motorcycle sites,” he said. “At the same time that I was thinking of a name I was also working on a logo. I was attempting to hand draw a cartoonish version of a custom bike I had in the late 70s that had fish-tail exhaust pipes and a bold front fender. A friend looked at my attempts and said, ‘that looks like a ‘fish cycle,’ and hence ‘CycleFish’ was born! Of course I had a real artist turn my ‘fish cycle’ drawing into the logo you see today.”
Fulmer can be found at fulmerpowersports.com.
March 25, 2018- -
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