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.
Leave a Reply