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When Did Apple’s Siri Turn into My Mother?

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Not too long ago I had to replace the clutch on my track bike, as I had a track day rapidly approaching that weekend. Driving around to get the parts I needed, I turned to Siri on my iPhone for help in finding a nearby Yamaha dealer, as I knew that the clutch plates would need to be ordered that day (with only a couple hours left in the work day) and overnighted to me, if I was to get my R1 ready in time.

A couple verbal commands later (along with a couple chuckles over how Siri pronounces “Yamaha”), and something funny happened. Siri decided to give me a little life advice on my two-wheeled inclinations, with a “now, you be careful on that thing” comment.

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Asphalt & Rubber Turns Five Years Old Today

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Another year has gone by at our tiny motorcycle blog here, as Asphalt & Rubber turns five years old today. The thing is though, the site isn’t that tiny anymore — one million visitors will come to A&R in October alone.

In the past four years, when I have written these birthday posts, I write the same thing about how I look back on the past 365 days with a bit of astonishment, and then list all the great things that we have done in that time.

At the five-year mark though, I find myself looking all the way back to the beginning of A&R, a time when this site wasn’t really anything at all. With that retrospect, I see how Asphalt & Rubber has come into what it is now — if I had to go back, and try to decipher today from the fog of time, it would all feel like an impossible reality, if I am honest.

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Asphalt & Rubber Turns Four Years Old Today

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Today is a surreal landmark, as it marks our fourth year of publishing Asphalt & Rubber. If you cannot already tell, I am having a hard time believing that four years have gone by since I started this humble motorcycle blog (in the middle of corporate finance class, no less), but A&R continues to thrive despite my best dyslexic efforts.

It astonishes me that our “little” site is visited throughout the world on a daily basis, and that each month more people read A&R than all three of the major US motorcycle print magazines…combined.

Things keep on growing here, and I am deeply grateful now to be publishing the work of David Emmett on A&R, as he continues to be one of the most insightful writers in motorcycle racing, in both the print and online mediums.

This year, I am also very honored to have had regular written and photo contributions from Scott Jones, Daniel Lo, and Jules Cisek this year — their work has helped Asphalt & Rubber earn a reputation for stunning photography, and I hear compliments about their photography virtually every time I meet a loyal A&R reader in person.

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Asphalt & Rubber Turns Three Years Old Today

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It’s the end of October, and there is a picture of me from a birthday track day, so that could mean only one thing: Asphalt & Rubber has aged another year. Now into our third year of this crazy online motorcycle blog experiment, I pleasantly get to reiterate some of the text from last year’s anniversary announcement, as A&R continues to grow beyond anything that this dyslexic kid, who routinely failed writing classes, could have imagined.

This year has been one marked with notable events, as Asphalt & Rubber has come to you live from a bevy of remote locations for our race and event coverage, such as Qatar, Australia, and the Isle of Man. Storming perhaps the last refuge for motorcycle print journalism, we’ve also become one of only two pure-online publications regularly seen in the MotoGP paddock.

But most impressively this year, Asphalt & Rubber passed the 500,000 reader mark, and fittingly this October is shaping up to be our best month ever in terms of traffic & readership…as was the month before that, and the month before that — with all of that math culminating into the fact that A&R has almost doubled in size since last year’s birthday announcement.

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Asphalt & Rubber Turns Two Years Old Today

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And now for the most important news story of the year: Asphalt & Rubber turns two-years-old today (clap you crazy bastards!). Officially now in our “terrible twos”, A&R continues to grow beyond anything I possibly could have imagined when I first started the site one cold October morning in a frost-covered Pennsylvania. Reporting everything from race results to business analysis, from industry news to humorous distractions, we’ve served over 1,800 articles to our now 300,000+ loyal monthly readers.

While I write occasionally, Asphalt & Rubber really wouldn’t be possible without the help from a metric ton of people, most notably Daniel Lloyd (systems administrator / reluctant coder), Dustin Gibbs (web developer / photographer / escape driver), Peter Lombardi (photographer / designer), Jason Yu (photographer / umbrella girl finder), Scott Jones (photographer / resident person over 50), and Tim Hoefer (hetero life-partner / tamed motorcycle rider). Also a big thanks goes out to all our friends (you know who you are) and family (thanks Mom for letting me use your basement) for supporting this sometimes profitable endeavor. But most importantly, thank you to all our readers, who make it all worthwhile.

Want to get in on the love fest? Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, or just leave a comment below.

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