A message from the CEO

It doesn’t matter what you ride, just that you ride

There’s a haiku poem by Kobayashi Issa that also describes ESR’s inclusive motorcycle community. It goes like this…

Under the cherry tree there are no strangers. 

The motorcycle is our cherry tree. 

We are strangers in real life, but on a motorcycle we become friends very quickly. Motorcycling has a unique way of finding the common denominator of life, joy, adventure and love that animates us and reminds us we’re actually alive. 

At ESR our vision has been to deliver the best mobile technology for motorcycle riders because we deserve to be safe and connected. Our passion to keep ourselves and other riders safe has been our goal from the beginning. But running a business means creating value and creating profit. 

While connected devices and sensor technology is the future, the market is not ready for connected motorcycle technology, yet. 

Marina Mann, CEO, EatSleepRIDE photo Gustavo Escobedo

We’re taking a major pause

We are proud of the last 14 years of innovation in building mobile technology for motorcycle riders. Entrepreneurship is hard and we did not give up easily, however, operating a technology company is expensive.

As of this Friday, September 27th, 2024, we’ve decided to stop services. The EatSleepRIDE mobile apps will be removed from sale in App Store and Google Play. We’re taking down our servers because we currently don’t have a functional business model that can support the operational costs going forward.

Our mission to improve motorcycle safety is unwavering

Motorcycle transportation is a choice many people don't get to have--because it’s dangerous. In the US, for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled per year, we tally up 1 car driver fatality compared to 25 motorcycle rider fatalities. That’s got to change, it can't be acceptable!

Can we challenge our assumptions about motorcycle safety? Don't we deserve it tools to ride better, farther and safer?

Manufacturers, insurance companies and ministries of transportation need to invest in all kinds of technology to make motorcycle transportation safer and more accessible. The solution is not to take motorcycles off the road. 

We put our imprint on the community, and here are the things I’m most proud of

Along with our 250,000 installs and 60,000 active members mostly in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, we’ve saved 650,000 motorcycle trips, we’ve tracked over 400,000,000 motorcycle kilometres and added tens of thousands of the best motorcycle roads to the platform.

ESR has led the way in community, content, ride tracking, and crash detection. I’m hugely proud of our motorcycle crash detection called CRASHLIGHT ® . People have come home to their families because of the mobile technology we built. I am personally grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.

The ESR Safety Score is our most recent layer of innovation. Built on top of our motorcycle crash detection IP, it predicts a crash before it happens and gives riders a virtual co-pilot to help us ride better. The ESR Safety Score converts to an actuarial risk score we can choose to share with insurance companies for fairer and more transparent insurance rates.

We developed a powerful gamification engine that can be described as a Pokémon Go for motorcycle riders with a mapping layer, leaderboards and geo-caching that can be run in any city, state or country around the world. 

And there’s a lot more.

While we’re going dark for a while, I’m hopeful that in collaboration with our partners we’ll reset and come back to benefit all of you!

Real people make things happen, I am extremely grateful to our supporters for their contribution

Most importantly, thank you to ESR's over 250,000 members over the years, early-adopters and new members. We could not have done it without you.

Thank you to the Canada Safety Council for bringing ESR to riding schools across Canada.

Thank you to Harley-Davidson Canada with whom we built the 100th anniversary cross-Canada road trip gamification engine for the benefit of connecting riders with dealerships nationwide.

Thank you to Techstars AI, to the Ontario Vehicle Innovation Fund (OVIN) and the Ontario Centre for Innovation (OCI) for their support in motorcycle safety technology innovation.

And thank you to the manufacturers who have sponsored games including: Ducati USA, Triumph Canada, Royal Enfield USA, Ultimate Addons, and Joe Rocket.

Thank you to Honda Innovations and at Bosch mySPIN for their R&D collaborations.

Thank you to the DMZ and to Scott Armstrong at BrainRider for the office space!

Thank you to the Ontario Media Fund, to the OMIDTC Tax Credit, to SRED and IRAP for supporting us in content, gaming and technology innovation.

Thank you to the Canadian Media Fund (CMF) for making ESR possible from the very beginning.

I am very grateful to my current team for their trust in the vision and their dedication. And thank you to the over 50 alumni who worked at ESR over the years: many of you were students and new developers who started your careers at ESR. Thank you all for your efforts–I’m so proud of what we will continue to accomplish! 

This is not the end. Stay tuned for what’s next by joining the mailing list, scroll down to the bottom of the page to add your email ... https://eatsleepride.com/ or send us a note at feedback@eatsleepride.com

In the meantime, if you'd like to buy us a coffee, we'd appreciate your support https://ko-fi.com/eatsleepride

Keep the rubber side down! 🤟

- Marina Mann

The ESR Motorcycle GPS app