Bicycle Design is back

DENNY-bike

Call me indecisive, but BicycleDesign.net is back. When I made the decision to formally end the blog in February, I was completely overwhelmed with work and other projects. As important as the site was to me, I simply felt like I no longer had the time to maintain it at the level that I thought it deserved. Over the course of 8 years, I had put a LOT of time and effort into putting out a quality blog, so it just didn’t seem right to let it fade away as my available time to contribute meaningful content continued to decline. Though my workload is just as high as it was six months ago, the time away from this site has helped me to realize how much I really do care about the topic and the wonderful community that developed here over the years. I could go on and on about the many reasons for my decision to resume this blog, but the short story is that I missed it…even more than I thought I would.

If you were a reader before, you probably have already noticed that things look a bit different here. The site has a new responsive theme, so it will be much easier to read on a smartphone or small tablet. The redesign is a work in progress (and probably will be for a while), but the goal is to make the content accessible to readers across many platforms. I am open to suggestions, so let me know what you think works, and what doesn’t, about the new layout and theme.

It is no surprise that traffic has dropped significantly as BicycleDesign.net has been dormant for half a year, but I am confident that it will soon reach, and surpass, the old levels. Word of mouth grew this blog significantly in the beginning and after the switch from Blogger to self hosted, so let’s see if we can do it a third time. Please help out by sharing this post to anyone you know who may be interested in bikes and design. If you are not already subscribed to the RSS feed, I encourage you to do so now to be alerted when new content is posted. You can also find out about new posts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Google Newsstand on your mobile device. Finally, you can now sign up for the new Bicycle Design newsletter. It will only used a few times a year for special announcements, contests, etc., so don’t worry about receiving too many emails from this site.

I can’t end this comeback post without a bit of design content, so I want to quickly mention the Denny bike (pictured above) by Teague and Sizemore Bicycle. Unless you completed unplugged and moved into a cave since I last posted, you are probably aware that Denny was the winner of the 2014 Oregon Manifest Bike Design Project. Check out Fast Co.Exist for more about Denny and the 4 other team entries. You can read more about it here, here, here, and…well, pretty much anywhere else on the internet. It just goes to show that bike design generates a lot of interest these days…and I couldn’t be happier.


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Comments

23 responses to “Bicycle Design is back”

  1. Johann Avatar

    Haha, I knew you’ll come back! A blog like this is more than putting some words below pictures, it’s… yes, a true passion. Welcome back!

    1. James Thomas Avatar

      Thanks, Johann. I should have known too. I was stressed and burned out at the time, but I guess I just needed a long(ish) break. It didn’t take too long to start missing it.

  2. John smith Avatar
    John smith

    You made my day!

  3. Mark Jenkins Avatar
    Mark Jenkins

    Thanks for the return, that’s great news.

  4. Travis Prebble Avatar

    Welcome back!!

    It’s good to see one can recover from blog slump. I’m in the same situation now you were six months ago and keep wondering if it’s time to let some things go for a while. Glad to see that some time away has restored your energy for Bicycle Design.

    Thank goodness the RSS feed URL didn’t change, otherwise I might have missed the comeback.

    1. James Thomas Avatar

      Travis, I would encourage a break to recharge, so that you can return energized and ready stick with it for the long haul. Your site is a valuable resource for recumbent riders all over the world, so it would be a shame to lose it.

  5. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Hah! It just popped up in my Feedly feeds.. Good work.

  6. Dr Ew Avatar
    Dr Ew

    Yay, that’s great news. Looking forward to seeing the new posts.

  7. James Thomas Avatar

    Thanks to all of you for the comments! it’s great to see them all… and the positive response on social media is nice too.

  8. Impossibly Stupid Avatar

    RSS FTW! Welcome back.

    I already posted about the contest and the Denny on Usenet (short version: not a fan of either).

    Regarding the new site layout: It’s not looking so great at my regular window width (~1092px). No margins on the left, yet the content is too wide, forcing me to scroll right to see the full page.

    1. James Thomas Avatar

      Interesting. 1092px is pretty narrow, but I just did a test with my screen resolution set at 1024 and it seemed to work fine. There is not much of a left margin at that width, but the main column resizes to fit everything without horizontal scrolling. I tried it with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari and it worked as expected with all. Can you tell me what browser you are using?

      Like I said in the post, the new layout is a work in progress. As usual, I’m learning as I go, but I work out the bugs eventually.

      1. Impossibly Stupid Avatar

        I’m using Safari, and I’m seeing zero margin from roughly 1084 to 1146. I don’t see why that would considered narrow, since anything larger than that just appears to be empty margins. It generally looks fine when I resize the window to smaller resolutions.

        1. James Thomas Avatar

          Narrow is a relative term, since I am used to 1600px width on my laptop, but you are right about empty margins. Thanks for the additional info. I will look into it.

  9. Tirapop Avatar
    Tirapop

    Woohoo! I’m glad I didn’t take the link off my daily.

  10. sathody Avatar
    sathody

    looking forward for new articles

  11. Shawn Raymond Avatar
    Shawn Raymond

    Great to see you are blogging again!

  12. aerohydro Avatar
    aerohydro

    Welcome back!! You’re the Oracle of Cycles!

  13. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Welcome back, it has been rather boring in the world of cycling blogs without you. I hope you find time to write just enough to keep us contented.

  14. Concinnity Avatar
    Concinnity

    Welcome back to the best bike blog!

  15. Concinnity Avatar
    Concinnity

    You do know that when you Google ‘Bicycle Design’ your site is the first thing that comes up?

  16. CS Avatar

    As in infrequent visitor, Bicycle Design is a memorable resource. Established bike brands need to get behind and support these valuable online resources founded on passion and guided by integrity and dedication to cycling. Thanks for your passion and sharing it.

  17. Bubba Nicholson Avatar
    Bubba Nicholson

    welcome back.

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