It is advertorial and fully sponsored by the bike brands but the alternative is nothing Canadian.
I look especially if it is showcasing a bike I am interested in. The PVR allows you to be selective.
Big Rock Moto is currently my favourite YouTube review as he does an in-depth review after riding the bike on and off road and long term review especially on bikes he has purchased.
These days, I'm watching/reading more owner reviews on Facebook and YouTube. You get to hone in on the reviews from the owners who ride like you do. I'm not going to be very interested in reading an Adventure bike review from a guy who never takes it off the pavement. Conversely, I'm not going to believe Pol Tarres when he says that a Goldwing makes for great dual sport bike, even after he demonstrates wheelying said Goldwing up a 20-ft vertical cliff face.
Owner reviews are great because if you've spent your hard-earned money for a bike, you'd tend to be more critical about what you paid for vs some presenter who gets handed a new motorcycle every 7 days, then has to find good things to say about it for fear of biting the hand that... well, hands out new bikes to you every week.
Tell me what the design flaws are on your bike? What parts wore down or broke on your bike, how many miles did it last for, how much does it cost to fix or maintain? What is the parts availability/lead time for ordering like? All the information that a guy that rides a bike for only 7 days is not going to be able to tell you.
Sure, some owners tend to be fanboys and gloss over the negatives while over-playing the positives, but just like the fanboys here on GTAM, those become very apparent, very quickly.
I like that Big Rock Moto does do reviews of the bikes he's bought personally, but what I like more are his, "Why I sold my xxx". Those are often more revealing than the initial impressions when you're in the honeymoon period with your new moto.
Whenever I hear criticisms about a motorcycle, I can decide for myself whether the criticisms are important to me or not: "Seat height is too tall!" Nope, don't care about that. "Bike is too heavy and carries all its weight up top". Yep, that I *do* care about... If all you can tell me are the good things about your bike, that's not that useful to me.
I do like watching instructional videos more than reviews though. I like Bret Tkacs and MotoTrek, good content and production values and very engaging hosts with obvious real-world experience.
