Top 10 Most-Watched MO Videos!

John Burns
by John Burns

Sucked into the Viral Spiral.

Why you’d rather watch a bunch of MOrons attempt to explain a thing with their mouths when you could read our eloquent prose instead still escapes me. I’m with Flaubert: “Human language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hoped with our music to move the stars.” Well, I guess there is that whole advantage of seeing and hearing the vehicle in motion…

Although some of our earlier MO videos could use a little, ahhh, polishing, some of them are pretty damn good considering the skimpy budgets we’ve had to work with.

What’s really curious is which videos people choose to watch. It seems unlikely that regular sophisticated MO readers have much in common with the people who stumble onto our Youtube channel? If you asked me to rank MO’s Top 10, I might have picked just one of these. Luckily, Youtube is keeping track and makes it easy to see exactly where the love flows. It’s not perfectly scientific, of course, mainly because the longer a vid has been online, the more time people have had to see it, but you can definitely get an idea which way the wind blows – and the winner’s been online less than two years. Wait, why am I not in any of the Top 10?

10. Polaris Slingshot Vs. Can-Am Spyder F3-S Vs. Morgan 3 Wheeler

The subhead to this comparison test asked, “Is This A Motorcycle Shootout?” The fact that these three-wheelers are legally classified as motorcycles in nearly all states gave us our answer and excuse to spend a couple days bombing around. Filmed on location in the San Gabriel mountains and on a massive soundstage at Roderick Studios (Tom’s old one-car garage in Long Beach), this one’s pulled in 768,768 suc, er, viewers over the past 18 months or so. I am not in it.

9. 2008 Yamaha R6 Motorcycle Review – First Ride – Part 1

Actually I have to admit that, while video’s not so good for ’splainin’ things, it is pretty tough to beat when it comes to showing EiC Duke wheelying up the front straight at Laguna Seca, hearing the little 14,000-rpm R6 beast run, and bagging snippets of interview with guys like Senior Project Engineer Kouichi Amano (saves having to transcribe whatever the hell he just said later!). In spite of the video not being linked to the November, 2007 first ride article until today, this one’s bagged 832,672 Youtube views.

8. 2012 Japanese Superbike Shootout

All the players were there: CBR, GSX-R, YZF-R1 and ZX-10R. The usual wheelies and drive-bys, a lot of the usual subjective blather about vibration and traction control and grabby clutches. Most interesting, though, is how Tom Roderick and Troy Siahaan have both aged 10 years since 2012; it’s probably only a coincidence that both have married, taken on mortgages, and one has a new child. Anyway, 835,188 Youtube views since April, 2012. Also cast in speaking roles were EiC Duke and Pete Brissette. I am not in this one either. (The Kawasaki won, you can read about it here.)

7. 2013 BMW S1000RR HP4

This is my favorite kind of video: under 2 minutes! Never asking any of his troops to do a thing he wouldn’t do himself, Commander Duke dispatched himself to Circuito Jerez to ride the hottest superbike going at the time, maybe still? A couple of GoPros bring us some nice knee-dragging action, interspersed with a bunch of images straight from the press kit, and edited into a tidy package. Pretty nice, all in all. Kudos to Kev: 880,790 views. (The print version is here.)

6. 2010 Bennche Megelli 250R vs. Kawasaki Ninja 250R Motorcycle Shoot-out

Sweet graphics! Exhibit A why I distrust the modern world: Are you seriously telling me, Mr. Tube, that a comparo between a long-toothed Ninja 250 and a bike I had never heard of until today (or since) is the sixth most-watched MO video of all time? (We’ll guess a strong interest from the Asian market. —Ed.) The story is here if you want to learn more and the video wasn’t enough pain. (Bonus: Roderick’s pleated mom jeans ahahahahaa!) 892,730 viewers have succumbed since September, 2010.

5. 2008 Hayabusa vs. ZX-14R Shootout

Experimentation with some sort of new audio system has Duke adding commentary from a submarine offshore while the bikes are ridden behind a videographer bouncing along in back of a Suzuki Sidekick that’s about to roll. California high-desert scenery in August is perfect for the next Mad Max installment. Pete Brissette offers interesting roadside comments but had entered the witness protection program and won’t remove his full-face helmet. The mighty ZX-14R and Hayabusa are enough to overcome all of it: 965,593 views! (The written version is way better.)

4. Scrambler Slam: Ducati vs. Triumph

Okay this is more like it! The Ducati Scrambler may be one of the biggest hipster hits of all time, and the Bonneville’s not far behind it. Since this story was posted March 24 last year, it’s gotten 7.1k Facebook Shares, which is a bunch for MO, and the fact that videographer Andy Vu owns a drone, more than one microphone, and some sense of cinematography may have something to do with the video’s success. Starring EiC Duke (one commenter says he sounds like Carl Sagan) and Tom Roderick (see what I mean about the aging by comparing to #8), there is no John Burns in here at all, which may explain why it hasn’t yet busted through one million views.

3. 2009 Star VMax Motorcycle Review/Test

Just when I think we’re moving into the modern era, we journey back to 2009 to get our first ONE MILLION-views vid – 1,085,011 – maybe because it contains rare footage of famed moto-photographer Tom Riles, the man in the kneepads. The new VMax was a pretty big deal too, and for the era this is a pretty entertaining action-packed and professional video by Alfonse Palaima, replete with smoky burnouts, hard launches, documented excessive speed and a punkrock-looking Editor-in-Chief before the weight of the MO world had taken a bit of the starch out of his glorious blond locks. Not that he’s aged a bit! (You could read the story here.)

2. 2008 GG Quadster

Wow, here’s another vehicle I had never heard of until I started putting this list together. Filmed entirely on location in Long Beach, California, this is not a bad video from the Duke/Fonzie combo. I’m beginning to worry how out of touch I must be to never have even heard of a thing that’s MO’s next-to-top grossing blockbuster of all time – 1.26 million views. Learn about the GG Quadster here.

1. 2015 Polaris Slingshot First Look

WTF? It’s not even a motorcycle! Tommy goes on for 7 looong minutes and 45 seconds mansplainin’ how great this thing is and squealing around on its three car tires… all I can think is it’s the perfect vehicle for the Ambiguously Gay Duo. Hey, if we’re living in the time of the Youtube generation and they have spoken, then I’m happy to predate them by a few years. This video has racked up 1,816,111 views since July, 2014, MO’s biggest-grossing box-office smash by far. I have to admit TR has developed a little Tom Cruiseness over the years; is it simply his animal mojo driving the numbers?

John Burns
John Burns

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 2 comments
  • Ian Parkes Ian Parkes on May 22, 2016

    Quite agree with your first statement. Even though most of you are also pretty damn good at explaining things with your mouths - and remarkably good at not talking over each other like idiots - there's nothing to beat a story on paper (err... pixels?). Everyone loves a well-hung sentence.

  • Alexander Pityuk Alexander Pityuk on May 24, 2016

    I praised your scrambler video when it came out. And I still think that it's THE best video shot by MO. Awesome vistas, ice-clear sound, nice depth-of-field use, adequate (and not loud) music, very coherent storytelling, professionally cut. It really is almost at the Top Gear level of video quality.
    Also liked tons of JB sarcasm and envy :)

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