Happy Birthday Dear Bike Blog
Sun, November 12, 2006 
Dave’s Bike Blog is one year old today, how time flies when you are having fun.
I have posted 45 blogs; that’s a little under one a week for the year. I started out slow, averaging only two or three new posts a month to begin with, but in recent months that has increased to as many as six to eight a month.
One of the reasons for the slow beginning; when I started I had three blogs going, which proved to be hard to keep up. As the Bike Blog seemed to have the most support, I dropped the other two and kept this one.
I have come to realize that in order for a blog to be successful and have a following the blogger needs to post something new on a regular basis, and try to keep it interesting. That can be a challenge.
My writings are of course aimed at the bike enthusiast, but I try to write in a way that a person outside the sport would find the piece interesting, informative and entertaining. So if you ever feel that I am “dumbing down” an article remember that there are some out there who are new to this wonderful pastime of ours.
I have always believed in writing in simple, uncomplicated terms anyway; some people can get way too technical about bicycles. The bicycle is one of the simplest and yet most efficient machines ever invented; you push one pedal down, and the other comes up. How can you get over technical on such a simple machine?
Why do I blog? Several reasons. Writing is what I do now and just as building a lot of bicycle frames improved my skill as a framebuilder; a writer needs to write on a regular basis.
This blog allows me to post random thoughts and other writings without cluttering up my website; although I will admit my website gets neglected at times because of time spent writing blogs, when it too needs updating regularly.
Earlier this year I added advertisements to the blog, but removed them after only a week or two. The reason; I realized we are all bombarded with too much advertising and I did not need to be cluttering up my blog with more junk.
This blog is of course a form of self-promotion, to make others aware of my current creative endeavors. There is no point in creating anything if no one knows about it
When I came to the US in 1979 I was an unknown framebuilder. Even though I had a solid reputation in my native England; I was relatively unknown in America. The way I became known was by articles in various magazines like Bicycling and Velo-News, and after that it was steady word of mouth.
Now I am a relatively unknown writer with a novel called Prodigal Child; it too sells largely by word of mouth. This blog is a two way street; if I can manage to inform, entertain, and occasionally amuse you with my writings, hopefully you will become a regular reader and tell others of this blog and thereby perpetuate the word of mouth thing.
I appreciate and encourage your participation by way of comments and suggestions. Some of you don’t want the hassle of signing up with Blogger to post a comment, but you can always go to my profile page where you will find my email and contact me directly if you have a specific question or suggestion for a blog.
Sometimes I am swamped with emails and it takes me a while to answer them all, but I am not at the point yet where I cannot handle the personal contact. When it gets to that point it will be nice to have a wider audience for my writings, but for now I like the way it is; I feel I have a small but very elite following.
But then bike riders are, for the most part, an elite bunch anyway.
Blogging
Reader Comments (6)
I was very happy to read that you began riding again as well. As somebody who has devoted a life to cycling myself, I couldn't imagine somebody with your history with bikes not riding. Although I certainly can understand the burnout after so many years.
Let's hope that the great posts keep coming and the miles continue to roll away.
Congratulations again.
From useful tips to funny anecdotes, unpublished (until now) short stories to reminders of bicycling's heritage, your blog is animated and varied, and a reflection of the many cyclists I have met in my life.
And it's a life I live with passion.
Thanks for sharing it.
But that's a good thing in this age of lowest-common-denominator mass-media rumor milling.
It has become one of my thousand missions to send as many friends, acquaintances, and perfect strangers to your blog as possible -- noticed an upsurge in readers from bikejournal.com, for example? My doing.
You -- and your blog -- deserve it. And I'm hoping the added traffic might help encourage you to blog even more often! [busy, I know - sorry about that]
I enjoy reading your blog and glad I found it. If you don't mind, I'll drop by from time to time and read what's new.
Cheers!
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