A round up of the happenings in January, with great news for womens speedsurfing including a video of Zara Davis hitting a 40 knot average. The GPS team challenge news and some of the happenings from here.

It was a great month for the sport

www.redsurfbus.com/2012/02/news-from-january-2012.html

I dont, I write all my stuff for free and dont get paid for it. If you dont like it then dont bother reading it. Hopefully I am giving something back to a sport that I love and has given me a lot of hope through hard times in terms of health.

Well I know I cant please all the people all the time. I only got the offer of sponsorship a month ago, and have only just changed the parts of my site to reflect that (literally in the past few days I have been busy with photoshop).

I am just a team rider with those in my banner which has benefits, I do not get paid anything from them and do not get kit for free. I have only just got the kit so am getting used to it and am documenting that in different articles I write, nothing in this thread is about that. I hope that it helps people with certain nuances and changes when they change their kit, and of course I would like people to try the brands I will write about.

I am happy that at the age of 37 after a heart attack 2 years ago that nearly killed me and more recently multiple pulmonary emboli im my lungs that I can classify myself as a sponsored sportsman even if it is more due to my articles and site as opposed to my skill on a board. If you look into how my site started and the amount of work I have done then you may realise it is not quite that easy to just start a site and pimp.

Also where do you see a pimp in this thread? Other than a 'please visit the link on the right of the report' I havent done a pimp in the article. I think the stuff I write has a lot more depth than simple 'look at this awesome kit' posts.

Start one yourself and then see how much time and effort it takes to get regular readers to your site. If you know how I can get cold hard cash for my articles I would be happy to hear it, I havent even succumbed yet to google adsense or any other types of online space selling advertising revenue streams and have to pay for everything I do myself.

I do join in other threads, more so on the boards forum as unfortunately on here it is very specific to your country in most cases and there isnt much I can say, but where I can help I do.

My site started last year with me attempting to sail 1000nmi to raise £1000 for the British Heart Foundation, I managed 1800 in both cases, it was after that when I decided to change over to writing articles and tried to do an impartial review process with a team of sailors from different experiences. It was a logistical nightmare and a lot harder than I thought it would be so accepted to become a team rider with Exocet after they liked the reviews, then had offers from the others.

Yes I agree that on occasions I will write specific kit articles for my sponsors but most of the stuff I write will be advice (from an intermediate perspective), technique and news articles and not sponsor pimps. Nothing to do with being a good samaritan just enjoyed writing when i blogged about the 1000nmi and it has grown from there.

You have me checking now that I am not overdoing it. I have written 5 articles on my site all about other people and their achievements on kit ranging from NP, JP, North, Fanatic, to Moo custom (great small british brand - pimp there that really does not benefit me) etc. (sorry 4, Izaak wrote the other). With 2 articles to help newcomers into the speed scene to keep it alive and help it grow. The last one I wrote about my new kit was the 6th article ago.

I really dont think I am 'overdoing' and pimping too much, but obviously you are entitled to your opinion.

pimpitbaby said...

Bloody hell Red,

Looked at boards forum your like a dingo over my chooks!
I've never seen so much pimping what the hell are you going on about i was starting to believe you then? The whole site is about you! I reckon you need to pay them for advertising my local paper wouldn't let me do that!

Jesus thats one way of trying to get a big number of hits on your site i'm gonna take lessons from this.

Do you mind if i Pm you for hints?

Funny that you are hiding who you are......I would be interested to know your real name and what interests you are representing. As my guess is your attack on redsurfbus has most likely got to do with your own self interest which makes you a hypocrite.

Pimp I don't like the flavor of your comments. Enough said.....

Crikey.

If you (pimpitbaby) could stick to your original login, that'd be appreciated by all (the pimpitbaby login has been disabled)

redsurfbus said...

Thank you for the support. Part of me knew that be accepting the offer of becoming a team rider for the brands now on my website I would be up for some flak. I do not post every article I do on my site on forums, only the ones that either offer exposure for other riders or general news, occasionally the reviews I do as well.

I am also pretty confident I know who it is and its just a little dig that I may or may not deserve, any teacher out there will understand why I know.....common spelling errors, and identical grammtical errors to emails I have. Its only a presumption though.

i wouldn't worry about it mate. I for one enjoy checking out your site and have got some good info about how i can improve my GPS results.
Keep posting and ill keep reading. Thanks for your contribution to this great sport Redbus.