Top 5 Best Moments of 2020: #5 Vurb is Back

Welcome to the Top 5 Best Moments of 2020. No, this isn’t a sick joke, we actually found some good in this year.

We’re glass half full types here at Vurb, so looking back on a year that most people would find way more bad than good (and we can’t blame them) we’ll take the other approach and save all our complaints for the Vurb HR Department (which doesn’t actually exist).

So, what are the Top 5 Best Moments of 2020? We’ll release these daily up until the clock strikes midnight. And you thought Christmas was over!

#5: The Return of Vurb

Before you scoff and call us narcissists, please know that we don’t care what you say about us. So scoff away. The truth is, we are narcissists. But you have to admit, having what we’re referring to as the coolest moto site in the biz return during a year when most everything else sucked is pretty awesome.

So how’d it happen? What prompted us to bring back such greatness? Will we go out of business again? Is Slaw Dog a real person? Why the hell are we all naming ourselves after various hot dog delicacies anyways?

You can read how Vurb got started in a feature article we posted a few months ago. But how and why did it come back? In short, it was kind of on accident. Once owned by five equal partners, Vurb was frozen since 2017. Bird Dog, Slaw and Chili (we’ll get to the hotdog names later) were sitting around reminiscing on the good ole’ days earlier this year. We wanted back in the game and considered starting some lame ass Instagram account under a new name. Long story short, we didn’t like the idea so we called our old partners and asked if we could buy Vurb back, never actually thinking it would happen. They said yes and a month later we cut a check for $2 billion dollars to once again own the rights. A fraction of its total worth, but we’re good negotiators.

After some paperwork and a few calls to our lawyer we had Vurb back. Problem was we didn’t have any resources. No designer, no IT team, no sales people, etc. And considering we just dropped $2 billion, we weren’t really flush with cash. So we pulled out the black book and started dialing up the old crew. Lucky for us everyone was down. We got our old buddies Paul and Travis (more Paul than Travis) at Patra Company to help with the site, hit up our boy Mike Fisher for design and cashed in about every other favor we could think of to get something going.

We were all set to launch with an extravagant April Fool’s Day joke when COVID hit. Needless to say, we hit the reset button, waited a few months and then dropped the news in June. Crowds roared and people celebrated. Wine flowed through the streets as many deemed Vurb the saviors of 2020.

Side note: While designing the site we had to come up with email names. We were about six beers deep and thought it would be funny to have all advertisement inquiries go to [email protected]. Needless to say this sidetracked into a 45 min discussion on what all of our hotdog names should be and, for no real reason at all, we decided to go for it. It literally makes no sense and has no hidden meaning whatsoever. We’re just that stupid.

After the whole hot dog discussion, and the decision to launch during an f’ing pandemic, we scrounged up enough money to make it to Loretta’s for our comeback race, anticipating the industry support to open up like a flood gate. And while a few companies had our back, we quickly realized we don’t have the same clout as we did in 2016. Like Ryan Dungey trying to make a comeback and anticipating a factory ride, after shopping the market we realized we might have to ride for a lessor team for a while. But unlike Dungey, we ain’t scared to rip on our practice bike with bone stock suspension to show the factory guys what they missed out on.

We don’t plan on going anywhere but will let the support we receive from our ride days, merch sales and advertising support dictate how big we go. Pretty simple model, so go buy a t-shirt and a hat and show up to one of our soon to be announced tour dates and know that your money goes towards creating the content you see on this site.  

Viva la Vurb, bitches.