The Blog Page

News, commentary and humor about bicycling and other topics of the day

 

Stooging, not blogging

I've been way too busy this week to do a lot of meaningful blogging, so here's a summary of the week so far:

Tour de Stooges: With the event almost a week away, most of my time not spent at the Belleville News-Democrat or in bed has been spent ironing out final details of the Tour de Stooges on Saturday, May 3, in beautiful Highland, Ill. We have well more than 200 pre-registered riders so far, and we expect a big rush before online registration closes at noon Wednesday.

Bicycle World: My old buddy Hal Leventhal at the Belleville, Ill.-based Bicycle World wanted a Web site, and now he has one: bellevillebicycleworld.com. The version I created for him is a rough draft just to get something on the Web. I'll be working on the real version of the site after Tour de Stooges dies down.

Roger's on Twitter: I decided to create a Twitter site. Why, I really don't know what I'll end up doing with that site, but I'll probably use it to promote items on this site plus briefly discuss personal things that don't really fit on this blog. So far, my only two followers are Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. I'm sure they really care what's going on in my life, but I'm following them just for the fun of it. If you have a Twitter site and want to follow me, be my guest!

Belleville News-Democrat: My employer has a knack of throwing special projects my way either in the weeks before Tour de Stooges or when I go on vacation, but both of these projects I'm working on are worth the effort I'm putting into them. I can't publicly discuss them at the moment because I don't want to tip off the competition, but they will be of interest to our readers.

Don't expect to see too much here in the coming week, but I hope you're keeping up with the news about Tour de Georgia on the news feeds in the right-hand column and seeing what other bicycle bloggers have to say.

Labels: Belleville, Tour de Stooges, Web site

Roger 1 comments links to this post 12:35 AM

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Cycling Blog Directory

Imagine my surprise last night while I was going through my e-mail and found out this humble little blog was ranked in the top 10 in the cycling category at Blogged.com!

"Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.6 score out of (10). Your blog is currently in the top ten in the Sports/Cycling category of Blogged.com," stated the note from Amy Liu of Blogged.com's marketing department. "This is quite an achievement!"

Other blogs that scored an 8.6 include Fritz's Cycle-Licious blog, Endless Cycle and AZ Freeride. Fritz's blog always has been one of my favorites, while I need to make myself familiar with the other two blogs.

Amy's note indicated the blogs were judged on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design and writing style. I guess I must be doing something right!

Labels: blogs, Web site

Roger 2 comments links to this post 3:12 AM

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Sheldon Brown: 1944-2008

One of the pioneers of the Internet cycling community, Sheldon Brown, passed away Sunday night. Fritz of the Cycle-Licious blog reported that he died of a massive heart attack.

Although I never met or communicated with Sheldon, his site was one of the first I visited as I created this Web site back in 2001. Sheldon established the Web site for him and the Harris Cyclery shop in Massachusetts on Dec. 4, 1995.

The site has a bit of a retro look by today's Internet standards, but it has a wealth of information about a wide range of topics from basics for beginners to information about fixed-gear bikes.

It is my hope that someone will keep his site alive as friends of another Internet cycling pioneer, Ken Kifer, did after he was killed by a drunk driver in September 2003.

In the meantime, you can leave a comment at his memorial site.

Labels: cycling, Web site

Roger 0 comments links to this post 1:22 AM

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Where's the news?

UPDATED: Unfortunately, the news and blog feeds that normally appear on the right side of the page hadn't been working properly the last couple of days. Fortunately, the problem is fixed!

The company that hosts my Web site changed its PHP settings, meaning the feeds weren't showing up as they should be. Feed Digest, which generates the codes for the feeds, just happened to have a PHP script that works, so the feeds are working again.

If you have any ideas for feeds you'd like me to add, let me know.

Labels: Web site

Roger 0 comments links to this post 3:05 AM

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Roger Kramer Cycling: Version 3.0

If you're a regular visitor to this blog or the rest of my Web site, you'll notice some drastic changes in the look of the site. I just completed -- other than a little tweaking here and there -- my second redesign of the site since it first went online in April 2001. The site was last redesigned in the summer of 2001.

The most obvious change is the site's name. It's no longer Roger Kramer's Favorite Cycling Tours. Instead, the site's name is simply Roger Kramer Cycling. The bulk of this site still deals with bicycle touring. But over the years, the site -- especially this blog -- has evolved to include items about bicycle advocacy and safety, and it also includes news feeds to bicycle racing articles. That evolution has prompted me to make the name change.

I've also changed the typefaces and the background color to make it easier to read. As I learn more about various Web site tricks, I will make further changes to the font I use for the headlines to make them more distinctive.

The navigation throughout the entire site has changed, and I hope it improves your ability to go through the various pages of the site.

Links for archives to this blog are now in the right column, beneath the links to other blogs. I was forced to make some changes in the archival system because of upgrades Blogger made to its system.

The site is now completely designed with Cascading Style Sheets. What that means is that it should take less time for pages to download, plus it gives me the freedom to easily tweak the look of the site.

I hope you enjoy the new look of Roger Kramer Cycling. The goal of this site is to provide accurate information about the world of cycling in an attractive, readable way, and I hope this redesign achieves that goal.

Labels: redesign, Web site

Roger 6 comments links to this post 10:49 AM