Cycling Blog
I'm thinking of starting a cycling blog and am looking for cyclists (or ex-cyclists) who might like to participate. The objective would be to create a website of particular interest to ordinary every-day cyclists and to build up an online readership large enough to eventually be able to make a bit of money from advertising. The required number of participants (partners) including me is seven. There are three so far.
The blog would be set up with each partner as a 'user' with a share in the project, both time-wise and financial. Seven blogging partners would nicely signify one for each day of the week, and one contribution per week from each partner on average. We would run the website for about a year, then review progress and decide how to proceed. So this blog is initially a one-year project, and hopefully an enjoyable and rewarding one if a good team can be put together.
You're a strong candidate to join the blogging team if you:
- regard cycling as an important part of your life, and
- frequently cycle(d) for pleasure and fitness, and
- take an interest in the issues facing cyclists, and
- enjoy expressing your opinion on cycling matters, and
- can write good English and take good photos, and
- have experience of publishing web content, and
- have enough time to help make this work, and
- live in the UK or the Republic of Ireland.
About Blogging
A blog is essentially a website that allows the 'blogger(s)' to publish a sequence of 'Posts' by logging in to a password protected series of 'admin' pages and typing text into a box. When the 'publish' button is pressed, the Post appears on the website and visitors are able to add their own comments. Digital photos can also be added by the blogger to illustrate the Post.
Alternatively, the blogger can publish an 'article' that doesn't invite comments but is a normal web page. Typically, articles would be longer and published less frequently than Posts. Ideally, this multi-user blog would have a new Post each day, so if there was a team of seven, each would add one Post per week on average.
Of course there are many interesting cycling blogs already in existence, but they are usually the work of only one person, who after a year or so gets fed up with it and publishes less and less frequently. A team of several people would harness much more experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm and result in a much more interesting website for its target audience.
The target audience in this case would be ordinary cyclists who cycle mainly for pleasure rather than mountain bike or racing enthusiasts (etc). Blog Posts or articles would address (i) cycling issues that people are likely to search on Google and (ii) cycling related topics likely to be of enough interest that they would receive hyperlinks from other cycling websites, blogs, or forums. We would be aiming to eventually achieve a daily hit rate of more than 10,000 so that we could sell advertising and feature Google Ads.
The website would not be in competition with cycling forums on the web. It would be the work of a small team of contributing bloggers who would publish using their own names and writing from their own knowledge and experience from their own perspective. It should not be an anonymous thing with nicknames, but individuals who stand behind what they contribute.
Any advertising revenue, should the cycling blog achieve its aims, would be shared on a fair and agreed basis between the team. We would need to meet face-to-face to thrash out exactly what this means. I would be a contributor but would have the additional role of designing and managing the website from a technical point of view, and providing support to others in the team on matters such as how to write page headings and other bits and pieces that help to improve the visitor experience and search engine traffic.
I've been publishing web content since 1996 and cycling regularly since the mid-1980s. I thoroughly enjoy both. The cycling blog idea is a new project that combines them and which I hope to enjoy just as much (as well as perhaps earning a bit of income), but this time with others with similar interests.
If you're interested and feel you meet the strong candidate criteria above, contact me »
A few points:
(1) This should not be an all-male blog.
(2) It is primarily for pleasure, not for money.
(3) It will have a smart, professional design.
The website (still in its infancy) is titled CycleSeven »
I'm a keen cyclist. I'm 59 and retired from my job as a hospital doctor last July. I've done 57 bicycle tours/holidays and am a very good bicycle mechanic (of necessity). I'm also a keen photographer and photograph all my bike tours. One of my hobbyhorses is that the ordinary photo becomes the great photo with the passage of time. I don't photograph bowls of flowers therefore!
What I think you will need is several different kinds of cyclists. I cycle for enjoyment and with my friends for company. My wife Mary is also a keen cycletourist and a fine athlete. My youngest daughter Lizzie, aged 29 is a top triathlete (she takes after her mother) but running is her forte.
I build my own wheels etc.
I was hit by a car 2 years ago (dangerous driving) and suffered a bad hand injury with three fractures knuckles and needed a tendon repair, so I know the bad side too, not only that but I personally knew 6 people who were killed while cycling. That makes me fairly unique I imagine!
Garry, thanks for posting, and if you're volunteering, I'd be very pleased to accept. I'm sure you're right about needing different kinds of cyclists. I've only done one proper tour myself (although more planned for next year) and I'm not much of a bicycle mechanic either, but I do cycle quite a lot – well over 6,000 miles per year I would imagine (I've stopped using a bike computer).
Over the next few days I hope to have the blog set up in working order, but it won't be the final design – that will take a few weeks. Once it is in working order it will be 'usable' as a blog, perhaps for testing. Is there a way I can contact you again other than on this page? Can I use the email address you submitted with your comment?
Hi Patrick
I read your post last night on the CTC forum and am interested. If I don't make one of the seven then no worries – i'll just enjoy the blog as a reader!
I'm 34 (a week on Weds), married with 2 young 'uns and work as an airport plant/vehicle mechanic. I'm ok with most bits of bike maintenance but have only gotten as far as truing a wheel – kudos to Garry for building some – i'll have a go if he writes a how-to
To answer your list of requirements:
* 'Enjoy cycling as one of your main hobbies, and frequently cycle(d) for pleasure and fitness' – I have cycled on & off since learning the wobble on a Raleigh Budgie nearly 30 years ago. In adult life riding tailed off since learning to drive, picking up briefly when buying a new mtb in 1995 which I still use every week. Last year I dusted off the bike early in Feb, fitted mudguards during the so-called summer & haven't put it down since.
I cycle for pleasure, and 'pleasure' is an excuse to leave the car on the drive – whether for short trips, rides with my Wife & kids in tow, grocery shopping, commuting to work (30 mile round trip), or blowing away cobwebs in spare time. There are now a selection of bikes in our garage including a tandem, road bike & even an old Raleigh 20.
The fitness bit for me is acquired through just getting out and riding, not by any strict diet or exercise routine.
* 'Take an interest in the issues facing cyclists, and enjoy expressing your opinion on cycling matters' – Joined our local council cycling forum during the summer and aside from attending their meetings, regularly email between some of the members. So far its been an eye opener to be honest and I hope that there are some local councils out there with more commitment to cyclists than ours. My ambition (probably shared with some of my colleagues there) is to get the councils forum representatives out on a tour of the boroughs roads aboard bicycles. We all live in hope (and I don't mean Hope, Derbyshire
)
Aside from that I enjoy the CTCs forum amongst others & enjoy reading cycling blogs of all kinds – if its got pedal powered wheels, it's all good.
* Otherwise yes, yes, yes and yes – Hyde. We used to get our TV signal from your hill until changing to satellite.
I'm intrigued by your concept for this blog and thing that it should do well – particularly here in the UK with cycling increasing in popularity. I only heard about a now defunct magazine titled 'The Ride Journal' the other day and think that in a blog – some posts along those lines, focussing on the ride rather than the machine/groupset/latest goretex coat would make good reading alongside other ideas.
Use the email, no probs
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Ian, thanks for your offer. On reflection, I've had to add an additional criterion: experience of publishing web content, as some familiarity with HTML is really required.
It will not be easy to make such a blog do well, and the target audience goes beyond the UK even though the authoring would be from a UK (or Irish) perspective. So there's a lot of competition, which is probably the reason why magazines are having such a hard time.
Hi Patrick,
I like the idea, and the look of your website.
I am 52 years old and the mother of 2 girls, who I occasionally persuade to cycle with me. In the past I cycled to work every day, In various parts of London and elsewhere in the country. When the children were younger I used to transport them in a child trailer, including taking them to and from school. But at the moment I dont cycle regularly.
I dont drive a car, and am very frustrated by the difficulty of getting the bikes to a place we would like to start cycling from. I am also interested in finding ways to help more people to enjoy cycling, particularly those who are not young, fit, car-drivers, because I think the rest of us have (even) more to gain from cycling, if we could overcome the difficulties.
As a software developer I am considering ways of using techology to make leisure cycling feel safer for people who may be nervous of setting off into the unkown alone or with other inexperieced cyclists. I'm taiking about the danger of getting lost or stranded, or finding that one's chosen a route is too difficult, too dangerous or too long.
I dont feel I do enough cycling to be able to commit to a blog post a week, but would you be interested in more occasional articles? I have exeperience of producing web pages, and I do take photographs (although I dont have any of recent cycling trips, unfortunately)
I live in Sheffield, by the way.
Anyway, good luck with your webpage. Do you really live on Winter Hill? I didn't think there were any houses there?
Regards,
Claire Harrison
Hi Claire.
It really doesn't matter if you aren't currently cycling regularly. I do appreciate that the opportunity to cycle comes and goes for some of us. What is more important, I think, is that the contributors understand cycling issues and have something to say that might be of interest to others. And as Garry Lee suggests above, it would be good to have contributors with interests in different topics related to cycling.
So you would be very welcome to post on the CycleSeven blog as one of the seven intended contributors. It isn't so much a matter of strictly posting one article every single week but more a matter of having something to say from time to time. Making leisure cycling feel safer seems to me to be an ideal topic, given the aims of the blog.
Can I use the email address you submitted with your comment to send you some details on how to log in?
I don't live on the top of Winter Hill, by the way, but on the lower slopes, in Horwich.
Yes, please use the email to send me details