The History of Pashnit.com
A website about the passion for riding.

 1991 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009

Welcome to the history of Pashnit.com (pronounced 'passionate').What follows is a story of sorts of how a Wisconsin farmboy could create one of the largest independent motorcycling websites in the world. This story spans over 20 years and is one of those 'who knew?' type stories of simply doing what you love, telling others about it and letting the rest fall into place.

Our story begins about 1985-1986

Another year of riding, another year of college.  I had aspirations of riding to New England since it was the only place in the United States I hadn't been too.  I dreamt of riding the 4000 miles to Nova Scotia, studied maps and distances, even put up a huge map of New England on my wall along with several others.  Meanwhile, I continued to rack up miles in increments of 10,000 on the Yamaha Venture. Changed a lot of tires.  

A bike isn't very conducive to dating so I bought a '78 Triumph Spitfire- my second and restored it with my other Spitfire (I now had two).  I spent what little money I had from my summer job on the car.  To this day, I regret not taking the Nova Scotia ride that year.  The cars come and go, but the ride stays with you forever.  But women will do that to you.

I had put 50,000 miles on the Venture in two and a half years, and it was beginning to fall apart.  The bike is quite the hot rod and second gear came and went.  So I rode the next 10K without a second gear.  My Triumph Spitfire ran okay and I drove it one semester, a mere 4 months.  It was a beautiful car but the engine smoked so I pulled that out and rebuilt it over the summer.  Spent a whole 15 days stationed in Oahu for my active duty with the Marine Corps Reserve.  It was the longest I had gone without riding in 3 years.  Found a riding partner and rode with another motorcyclist for the first time in 60,000 miles of riding.  My roommate Ryan had a late 70's Goldwing with the Vetter fairing and we went to Yosemite, the Pacific Coast. I could dig this.  I rode two up with friends and the Venture was a great traveling bike. 

I didn't know Motorcycle Shows existed till I heard of one in the Bay Area - so I headed off by myself on the dilapidated Venture.  I felt self-conscious but there were so many rat bikes in the parking lot, I blended right in.   I was now hooked on the show thing.  If only I could find someone to ride with me.  And it was time to look for a new motorcycle.  I wanted a sport-bike, but I still wanted to travel.  A Concours? A ST1100?  I didn't have a lot of money.  I finally finished writing my first complete book about my 6000 mile ride in 8 days.

My sweet, sweet baby...

That winter and spring, I rode non-stop in day trips crossing off roads with my new motor.  The Sierra Foothills, Yosemite again, Mt. Diablo, the Redwood Coast, and into northern California- a motorcyclist's paradise- bar none.  The motor ran great and I put the original '90 in the corner of the garage and left it there.  I acquired a solo Corbin and put that on the bike.  Where have you been all my life?  I was in heaven!  No bike should be without a Corbin- I was convinced. 

While the FJ was in the shop for a tune-up- I rode the Venture for the first time in months to work and totaled it.  A lady pulled out in front of me (she never even looked left) and I t-boned the drivers door doing about 25 mph and went flying over the handlebars.  For my 10-mile freeway ride to work, I was wearing full armored leathers, gloves, Sidi boots and walked away (again) without a scratch.  The Venture was trashed.  The plastic was busted up so bad, I took speaker wire (the only thing I had laying around) and actually wired all the fairings together so they wouldn't fall off.  I eventually traded it to a guy in Reno for a pickup load of Triumph Spitfire parts.  I had ridden 70,000 miles and it was the first time I hit anyone. 

I went to Sears Point Raceway for the vintage races.  Kind of boring to go alone though.  Actually I was getting tired of riding alone. Moving out of my loner phase? Riding on the delta roads south of Sacramento, I hit a pothole so big, I bent the front rim and blew the tire.  Rode 30 miles home on a flat tire and inserted the '86 16" rim. 

It was in the Spring that I began fiddling with creating websites. Somewhat unsure how to even begin, I signed up for a class at the local community college on how to write HTML. The class was super-basic and all the HTML was written by hand. Since our semester project to pass the class was a website about something we were interested in, I naturally wrote one about motorcycles.

In summer, I began dating my future wife (met her through the HTML class!) and the FJ1200 was parked for the next six months.  In December I took her to the San Mateo Motorcycle Show and after some coaxing, convinced her to ride on the back of a Harley Davidson Nightrain.  Her first ever ride on a motorcycle.  She held on so tight- I had to get her to release her grip so I could breathe.  How's that for courting?  She was hooked.  I had a picture shrine going in my room complete with all the magazine articles ever written about the ZX-11D.

I rented a Harley for a day from Easyriders in SF as a birthday surprise.  It was a hit. We took our first big trip on the bike together to the coast.  She was even more hooked and talked about getting her own motorcycle.  We went to the Superbike races at Sears Point and now she was hooked on racing.  We spent our one year anniversary at the SuperBike Races in Laguna Seca in Monterey.   We went to the Squaw Classic Japanese Motorcycle Show at Lake Tahoe, the dirt track races- Sacramento Mile, the Hangtown Motorcross Classic for motorcross, and went to Old Highway 40 Motorcycle Days at Donner Ski Ranch learning what a hillclimb & Battletrax was like.  She didn't seem to mind all the motorcycles.  I think she's a keeper. 

Bought a '90 Kawasaki EX500 that fall while she took the MSF course at the local College and got her license.  On a business trip to LA on the FJ1200, rode Angels Crest Highway- Hwy 2, above greater Los Angeles.  Intense road!  Then from Ventura, Hwy 33 and back up the Big Sur Coastline.  The FJ was aging quickly, I had put 30K on it in less than 3 years, it was time for a new bike. 

Searched and waited- then found a '93 Kawasaki ZX-11D in red.  The guy just bought a Ducat 916 (14,000 cash!) and had a KLR650 in the garage.  Envy, Envy.  3 bikes? The ZX11 was very close to what I was looking for.  Sold!  

Courting...

I finished my second book- Racing Daylight- One Month & 10,000 Miles finally after working on it for two years.  At the San Mateo Motorcycle Show in December, we bought her a Heins Greike motorcycle jacket from FemmeGear. Unbeknownst to her, I walked around the entire day with an engagement ring in the pocket of my leather riding pants waiting for the right moment.  The second day of the show, in the middle of a BMW demo ride, (I on a R1200RS and she on a F650) I got down on one knee, clad in full leathers, and asked Sarah to marry me.

Went to our first indoor Arena Cross, liked that much better than the outdoor motorcross.  Two months later, someone backed into the ZX-11D in a parking lot and toppled it over.  $3200 in damage (parts, labor, etc.)!  While waiting for the parts to arrive, I continued to ride the bike. Then while traveling down the freeway, I hit a decent bump and the front fender exploded! 

Bits of it shot everywhere and what was left of it was stuck in-between the back of the tire and the front fairing.  Evidently, the car that backed into the bike broke the inside mounting bolts.  Just another day on the bike.

That year, I began traveling all over California for my job on the ZX-11D and used that opportunity to revisit many of the roads I'd ridden in the past shooting hundreds of rolls of film.  After I returned from my trip, I'd write the text about the roads and develop it into a new webpage.   My riding habits were extreme, always solo, and always trying to cover as much distance as daylight allowed.  

Off to Laguna Seca Superbike Races where Nicky Haden takes first place!  The AFM Motorcycle Races at Sears Point Raceway.  The Police Run in the end of July.  Then my favorite, Buell sponsored Old Highway 40 Motorcycle Days at Donner Ski Ranch.  More AFM Races. Then the X-Games in San Fran where Travis Pastrana does loop de loops. 

In the fall of 2000, my new bride was pregnant.

2001: Birth

It's a Girl!!

McKayla
June 23, 2001
9 lbs, 8 oz.

My, how life changes.

2002: Anonymous

In turn, the word about the Pashnit.com site began to build across the motorcycling community.  Much of the traffic to the website came from word of mouth from one motorcyclist to the next since I did nothing to promote the site.  But by now I had written over 250 web pages, and traffic climbed past over 35,000 visitors every month.  I had shot hundreds of rolls of film, ridden hundreds of California roads, and rode well past the 100,000 mile mark just in California alone.  I preferred to stay anonymous and many visitors seemed amazed once they learned this was all the work of one guy.  The site began to get attention from print media and the first to call attention to it was none other than BMW's Motorcycle Catalog distributed to all BMW motorcycle dealers across the United States. Then Motorcycle Tour & Travel (now called RoadBike) featured an article called Motorcycling and the Web listing several hundred motorcycle-related websites in the process.  Out of all the websites listed in the magazine, a special sidebar article was written about the Pashnit.com site.  

By now, there were over 1000 known websites providing static links into the pashnit site, and hundreds of message boards providing even more traffic.  Someone sent me a note saying they had typed the words, "Motorcycle California" into Google.com, and I was the first site listed.  At some point, the traffic into the site doubled and leveled off at a steady 75,000 visitors monthly.  I continued to write and soon surpassed 350 webpages with over 2000 photographs and soon surpassed over a 1,000,000 million people a year logging on to the site.

Overnight, the cost of running the site doubled.  I learned about PayPal and was amazed when people actually began to donate money to the site allowing me to keep it as a private, non-commercial website while offering it free to the motorcycling community.  In the fall of 2003, the phone rang.

It was David Edwards, the editor of Cycle World Magazine.  "I just found your site, we need to talk," he said,  "I'd like to write my monthly column about what you're doing with your California Motorcycle Roads website."  I was flabbergasted. 

Dad, I when do I get my first motorcycle?

I was talking to thee David Edwards!  In the November '03 issue of Cycle World, the article appeared and it was intensely flattering. Traffic through the pashnit.com site spiked to 5000 visitors a day from around the world and the Pashnit.com website went global.

It was about then, I finally bought the King of Kings- the Suzuki Hayabusa. 

It was the Year of 2004...

I launched Pashnit Trip Planning, the first of its kind Custom Trip Planning Service for incoming riders headed for California, creating custom planned itineraries tailored to style of riding, group size, daily mileage, preference of roads. They averaged 30-60 pages of text, and were essentially mini-books.  I wrote them for doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, machinists, bricklayers, and even was asked by the VP & editor of Cycle World Magazine to plan the yearly ride for the staff of Cycle World Magazine. This service morphed into Pashnit Motorcycle Tours.

Pashnit Motorcycle Forum, an interactive message board, was launched and started off slowly at first.   Finally, a forum about riding- a mirror of the pashnit.com site, no fluff, no flair, just all meat and potatoes-  a message board about motorcycle travel, motorcycle photography, trip planning and a intense love of riding.  

Friction Zone Magazine called once more and asked if I'd write an article entitled, "The five best motorcycle roads in California"  which was published in the June 2004 issue. By now, the Pashnit.com site had gotten the attention of the San Francisco Chronicle, Cycle World, Rider Magazine, Motorcyclist Magazine, Motorcycle Tour & Travel, American Motorcyclist, BMW North America, Honda Riders Association of America and even the cable channel Outdoor Life Network.  I'd been interviewed on Cycle Talk Radio and requested as a speaker by motorcycling clubs.  I in turn moved past 400 webpages, 3000 photos, 15,000 hyper-links and continued right on writing- at any given time, I had 25-30 new webpages of roads started or merely half-finished. 

Behind it all, my lovely wife slowly grew larger, and in September, our son arrived, Conner McCrae.

The year started off with the phone ringing daily. Excitement was in the air. First a movie producer, then National Geographic (yes, that National Geographic), then a fella that publishes books, then a writer who's launching a new motorcycle magazine, then an executive at Google (yes, that Google), then a motorcycle retailer, and on and on.  I chatted with everyone and always felt a little surprised at each call.  Everyone seems to ask how I managed it all, that is once they learned I have two small kids, full time job, wife, household, etc... the answer was after everyone went to sleep, I was working till 1-2 am almost daily on the site. It was like working 3 jobs.

In the Spring, I was asked by David Edwards, the editor of Cycle World Magazine, if I would design a 4-Day Tour for the editors of the magazine. In April '05, the ride took place, and it was quite a pleasure to spend time with David Edwards, Mark Hoyer and Brian Catterson (now editor of Motorcyclist) on our multi-day ride. An article was soon published about the ride in the August issue - Read all about the ride!

The Pashnit Forum grew slowly as word spread. There were 5-7 new members every day and it was a cozy place really as I was finally granted a medium to interact with all the people that have used the Pashnit site throughout the years.

Pashnit Tours gained another year of experience and we added a new 4-Day Tour through Northern California to the roster. I also retired Pashnit Trip Planning and shunted that into the forum.

Midway through the year, I began working on a project to convert the California Motorcycle Roads portion of the site into raw text, sans pics and formating, I was left with a 600 page document of text about Motorcycle Roads in California. Flabbergasted was only a mildly roundabout way of describing my realization that I'd started writing years earlier about California Roads, and simply hadn't stopped. In my hand, I held a 600 page document of my text.

Another article about what I was doing appeared in the debut issue of Road Trip Magazine and finished off the year at the IMS Motorcycle Show in San Jose- the first time I'd ever been out in the general public so to speak. It was an eye opener. During peak times, our booth was mobbed and there were layers of people 6 and 7 deep lined up just to shake my hand. "Are you the guy?", they'd ask over and over. One fella later would tell me that after waiting 15 minutes in line just to meet me, his wife wouldn't let him wait any longer. I had no idea. The show was overwhelming, exciting, and simply charged with extreme excitement. It was a eye-opener to all the time and effort I'd spent building this website and sharing this love of riding with my fellow motorcyclists.

2006: Turning a Corner

At the turn of the year in January 2006, the California Motorcycle Roads portion of Pashnit.com became available only through a $20 yearly subscription. It sent ripples through the motorcycling community. Pro. Con. Sides quickly formed. Pro: Tim, it's about time you actually made some money for all your time and effort. Good for you!! Con: How could you take this away from me? I was even told I was finished, done. No one would ever log on again. Naysayers and doomsdayers are easy to find. But times were a-changing. Costs were mounting and this was no longer just a late-night hobby. The irony of all the detractors who told me I was finished was finding a new-found motivation in their glum predictions for the Pashnit site. Not a day goes by where I don't think about the naysayers who said it couldn't be done.

Low and behold, instead of collapsing and fading into internet netherland, the Pashnit Forum exploded and growth took off. Over 10,000 people joined the Pashnit Discussion Forum in the ensuing months posting over 65,000 photos and also sharing hundreds of stories about their motorcycle trips. Not only had the forum become a reflection of the California Motorcycle Roads site, it was quickly becoming the go-to-place for information about motorcycle travel not just in California, but on a larger scale. The forum grew past California and soon had a member-base that spanned across the United States, through Canada and into Europe. There's even a significant readership in India.

Pashnit Articles also graced the pages of several magazines after being asked to write a word or two. Cycle World editor David Edwards asked if I would pen an article on my Suzuki Hayabusa for a cover story they were working on for their Sportbike Annual. I was also approached and asked if I would road test a new '06 Buell Ulysses XB12X. Would I? Four days and 1600 miles later, I brought the bike back and sent the article off to Friction Zone Magazine. Also published a 10,000 word unabridged version about the motorcycle- Read that here.

2007: Maturity

The year 2007 was a whirlwind. The site as we know it began to mature and slowly diversified into 4 distinct areas: Roads, Tours, Forum, Product. The CA Moto Roads as a $20 subscription was now in its second year, the Pashnit Tour company was more established, Pashnit Group Buys were offered almost every month and the Pashnit Discussion Forum took on a life of its own growing past 20,000 members. Spent weeks creating and adding over 1200 Google Earth 3-D maps to all the webpages of roads.

Pashnit Tours expanded from 9 to 10 Guided Motorcycle Tours this year and nearly every ride was full-up. The MotoGP Tour was the longest ride we did at 10 days and ended up at the MotoGP Races in Laguna Seca.

And a new phenomenon hit me rather unexpectedly, that of the return rate of our Pashnit Alumni. During '07, it hit around 50%. Over half the riders were now on their 2nd, 3rd, and some even 4th Pashnit Tour. Two riders went on 4 in a row. One of those things I would not have even thought of.

While I had taken a break from writing for magazines, over the summer, a FOX Television station called and asked if they could do a piece on the Motorcycle Tours we were doing. This proved to be great fun and after 5 hours of filming and interviews, Lousia's Outdoor Adventures aired the segment on the 10 o'clock news. Watch the video here...

After the touring season ended in the Fall of '07, I sat down and began building more webpages about the Pashnit Touring Company. A short bit later, realized I'd doubled the size of the PMT site. It's set up that way to provide you with an immense block of information to help plan your Pashnit Motorcycle Vacation. Gift Certificates were added, a Season Pass for '08 was offered, a Video Page, Group Photos page, a page about food, even a page about the Top 10 Reasons to go on a ride. Plus an all new tour for '08- the Backroads California Tour, a ride that focuses primarily on coastal backroads, commonly called goat trails. I then expanded the roster from 10 tours to 15 to keep up things.

Pashnit Photography began to mature. While I'd been taking pictures of roads for nearly 15 years, the lucky shots of ooh, that's a good one finally weren't so lucky anymore. I knew what I was looking for and put a lot of effort into getting 'The Shot'. After accumulating tens of thousands of photographs of Pashnit Roads, I began offering a Free Screensaver to anyone who wanted it. If I enjoyed the photography, someone else might also. The CD grew from 2000, to 3000, to 5000 Photographs, all shot on the road and on the Pashnit Tours. And those are just the good ones.

The fall brought the debut of the Pashnit Interactive Maps, a fantastic addtion to the CA Road Pages. Now you could view the entire state as a map with all the roads hyperlinked. Click on a road, it will take you to the CA Moto Road for that link.

The year finished up with sweeping design upgrades to the entire website with a brand look and feel to Pashnit.com. Finally, I'd come up with a new design based around screenshots of the latest Pashnit Roads. The reward was an all new Pashnit Homepage and Moto Roads page. As the year ended and I launched the new design at Christmas, work began on the next massive project- to build a product storestore based from the Group Buys I'd been conducting. A product store was something I'd attempted several times before. The result this time was huge success, the present day PashnitMoto.com which now offers A-Z in product for the sport-touring motorcyclist.

2008: A Decade under the Bridge.

Seven days a week, every day sometimes working late into the night, sometimes all night, constantly building, constantly dreaming about What Next. How large can it grow, and where will it be in 5 years, a decade from now even. The new PashnitMoto & PashnitBusa.com storefronts continue to expand into a range of everyday motorcycle products we all use. The Pashnit Touring Co. is headed into its 6th year already of providing guided tours around California. Seems a long time ago sitting down & fiddling with a flatbed scanner, several photographs, and starting a class at the local community college on how to create a webpage, writing the html by hand. At the time, just thought I'd write about a couple of my favorite roads on this relatively new (to me at least) communication tool, the Internet.

The writing style was primitive, the information brief, the pictures were simple. Just shots of the road, some text and a map. Over a peroid of four years, I wrote and wrote, completely anonymous, absorbed in my dreamy world of motorcycling bliss. No one ever plans a site like this. It just sort of happened.

It's easy to get philosophical about the role and place the Pashnit.com website plays in the motorcycling community. During the peak of the riding season last July, 30,000 people logged onto the Pashnit website- per day. That's nearly One Million people for that month. Who are these million people? This website isn't just about California riding anymore, it's gone global and the message here is a universal one. Tens of thousands have become touched, affected, influenced and motivated by the core value of what it is to be passionate about riding.

The goal and mission of the Pashnit Website will always be to bring riders together, all types on any two-wheeled conveyance. To get you excited and curious about the world around you- enough to get on that bike and just ride off into the horizon. Looking back, I am eternally thankful for those of you that have supported this site by telling your friends and fellow riders about it. A true grassroots phenomenon. It couldn't have become a household name without that. Just plain thanks.

My daughter by the way started 1st grade this fall. A decade indeed.

2009: Ten Year Anniversary

Has it been ten years already? A decade of your life. I had finished my first book and then had the very simple idea to write about some of my favorite roads and post them on the internet. Everyone was doing it. It was the height of the internet boom. There were no aspirations, no expectations, and certainly no grand plan. A few roads became 10. Then 30. Then a daily hobby. Then an obsession to catalog them all. Soon it was 250 roads and counting. Fast forward a decade later.... and who knew!

She's HERE! A special welcome to our third.

2010: Big Business.

Thus begins the 11th year of building Pashnit.com. The motorcycle tour company enters its 7th year of providing professional tours. PashnitMoto, the product arm of the Pashnit site has now shipped over $1,000,000 worth of product to Pashnites worldwide. The PashnitForum now has nearly 30,000 members spanning around the globe. Our Pashnit Newsletter is emailed to 27,000 motorcyclists twice every month. The Hayabusa will have 90,000 miles on it by the end of 2010.

And this year I'll be riding past 200,000 miles of travel on two wheels.

A special thanks to all the members and supporters of this site. -Tim