Revisiting the 360Bikers Concept
I’m taking a break from customization topics today. It’s actually getting very tempting to start a project, but the time isn’t there yet. I actually plan on running the miles up on my Yamaha Roadstar to around 25,000 miles and doing something with BMS. But after researching customs I think I might actually have to try the whole thing myself in a year or two.
Today I am looking for some serious feedback on the original concept for 360Bikers. I have never really got past the prototype level on this idea, but with different people I’ve made levels of progress in design. I’ve worked with some dealers on the idea and they seem receptive, but for some reason or another I’ve never had everything in place to make the final push to a completed product. Try the links and photo in this entry to see examples.
Initially I was working with a welder with some extensive experience in materials. Gary and I were working towards completion when all of a sudden he disappeared on me. The prototype was nearly done and he just quit answering my calls. He wasn’t at his shop when I’d try to stop by and I eventually gave up on the pursuit with him. I liked the design we had together, but without his expertise it wasn’t going any further. I did a session with Victory Motorcycles of Pompano in 2005 using an early version of the prototype and you can see an example using the link. He just dropped the ball and walked away. I never found out why.
After the set-back with Gary I looked around for components to move forward myself. I ended up finding a company that had a similar pursuit in mind, but from a different perspective. I started working with Shawn from SemcoMotion in Utah. His company created rotating displays based on their electric motors. Working with Shawn, we started designing from the motor out instead of the unit towards the motor. We made progress on a tilt function and I was ready to test it in a real situation.
Nature was not kind to me and in a one week period I had the death of my father and a major hurricane (Wilma) hit our area. I lost a few thousand dollars invested in doing a booth at Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach in spite of spending the night in a last ditch effort to attend the event. It turned out that I made the right choice as the eye of the hurricane went right over our house. Our area suffered a lot of damage and left us without electricity for 12 days. Even at that, I felt lucky compared to some people who to this day have not been able to complete repairs.
As luck would have it, I followed that up with another loss when planning to attend Thunder by the Bay in Sarasota, Florida. With everything in place I was fighting a medical situation that is still not successfully diagnosed, but no longer the serious threat it once was. While I often feel lucky to be alive and functioning, I lost that opportunity to test the system as well. Since then, it is I who has dropped the ball and need to get back to Shawn with new ideas to make the prototype functional and perhaps a lot lighter.
So, here’s the basic idea for our process. Our studio (portable and stationary) will shoot a series of programmed rotational photographs of your motorcycle along with some close-ups. Models sitting on your bike are optional, but you’ll see how nice they look in a minute. The photos are then processed into two primary products for our clients. The first is a high-resolution interactive business card CD that will work in any Windows-based computer. It lets you look at your motorcycle from 360-degrees and zoom in almost to the nut level for exquisite detail. You can make endless copies to share with your friends or use our services to make duplicates. The second product is a lower resolution version that is web ready and published on the 360Bikers web site. While this version doesn’t let you zoom in as much, it is optimized to be viewable quickly at today’s Internet speeds. A third optional product is print photos of your favorite shots from the photo session with your bike.
So, my question is do you think this is something that some bikers would we interested in purchasing? With my health returning and fresh ideas on making this viable I am ready to re-ignite the pursuit of this passion. I love photographing motorcycles and offering a 360-degree view of your bike is something no one else does.
I also created a process called “Homemade Pie” where you would take our package to shoot your own photographs. You would then send them to me to process into the 360-degree versions. If you are interested in testing this with your bike, let me know. I’ll shoot an instruction kit out to you via email and we can see if it has the acceptable quality for a reduced version of the 360Bikers view.
I appreciate your feedback.