2023 is right around the corner. Mrs. Bald Rider and I have a tradition of watching Napoleon Dynamite and drinking adult beverages. The story is not so long as it is boring. So I’ll move on.

The topic for today is my list of resolutions for the upcoming year. A quick google search indicates that most resolutions are abandoned before February. That isn’t a very long shelf life. My list is simple and doesn’t include one of the most common themes (dieting). Some may not consider them resolutions at all. Does that really matter? I’m counting on the webernets to hold me accountable and make me stick to the list regardless.

Ride More

As I mentioned in a recent post, 2022 started off promising but fizzled due to various obligations. I barely managed to get 2000 miles of riding in. That isn’t very good for someone who maintains a motorcycle blog. I can do better.

At the very least, I should be able to cross off one or two of the bucket list trips in the “Should be easy” category.

Write More

More seat time should result in more material for content. The more I ride, the more I can share adventures and test products for review. I have been sticking to posting once per week with an average word count per post under 1000. Longer and more frequent posts will bring more traffic to the site and continue to exercise my writing muscles. If I’m ever going to write a book, I have to be able to write more than a thousand words on a subject, something I struggled with even back in college.

Write Better

Nobody wants to (or will) read long blog posts that are long for the sake of word count. While this website was created primarily for myself as a hobby, anyone who stumbles upon it should be rewarded with engaging and/or entertaining content.

Is there a metric that is measurable for this? Maybe not. Site traffic and feedback may be measurable in the future but the site is still new and the search engine overlords haven’t deemed me worthy of showing up on searches yet.

I can see a difference and progress when looking back at the earliest posts. As long as I can keep that up, I’ll be happy.

Produce YouTube Content

I created a YouTube channel the same week I started building this site. I have ideas. Making those ideas a reality requires work.

I’ve published one video so far. It was too long but a decent first attempt. My next one will be less than 40 minutes long. The ultimate goal is to get monetized and break even with the costs associated with videography. Not much chance of getting that far next year.

Let’s just shoot for the stars and say 100 subscribers by 2024. Only 93 to go.

Only Buy One More Bike

Crazy, right?

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I have bought a vehicle every year since 2018. I still have most of them. I’m about out of space and definitely out of money. The bike I really want and still have room for is the Honda MiniMOTO Trail125. They are unobtanium new and listed for scalper prices used. I don’t want to may more than one is worth. That requires playing the waiting game. The danger with that is the urge to buy other bikes while one of these comes available. Hopefully, I can hold off and have only one more addition to the garage.

Bonus - Banjo Time

Completely unrelated to motorcycles but related to my weirdness, I bought a banjo in 2021. I went to lessons for a while but stopped going after I bought the Ural. It has mostly been hanging on the wall next to my monitor reminding me that I need to practice. If I wasn’t annoying before, next year needs to sound a lot more banjo-y.