Retro-grouch or just obsolete

I started writing here in 2005 that will be seven years by the end of this year. That is a long time and a lot of material; a lot of subjects covered.

The reason I started writing here was simple, I had gathered a lot of knowledge over the years spent building bicycle frames; I felt I needed to share that knowledge. There must be millions of people like me all over the world, doing something or other, and along the way learned how to do that something a certain way.

This knowledge is often not written down and when these people are gone, that knowledge will be gone also. I felt this was a damn shame, because knowledge passed on from one generation to the next is how humankind got from chasing their food with a stick, to where we are today.

However, the thing I find alarming is that our knowledge today is growing at such a rate, that old information becomes outdated at a faster rate. We are producing products that are almost obsolete by the time they are shipped from the factory to the store. Apple’s I-Pad is a good example.

The other thing concerns me is, does anyone really care about what I or anyone else did forty or fifty years ago, when most people are not interested in what was done last year, or even six months ago? I am talking here from a bicycle industry standpoint.

I know my regular readers will say they are interested, and I believe most genuinely are; otherwise they would not keep on coming back. But is the knowledge gathered here only of value from an entertainment standpoint?

Most of those who visit here and learn something about bicycles are no different from bird watchers, people who grow roses, brew beer or collect stamps. Part of the enjoyment of engaging in a hobby is becoming an expert in that particular subject.

This blog gets around 1,500 to 2,000 hits a day from all over the world; most of these hits come from search engines. Type in any question about bicycles and chances are I have written about it at sometime or other, and that article will pop up in a search.

Many hits come from forums where people are discussing some aspect or other of the bicycle, sooner or later someone will post a link to an article I have written. Then the term “Retro-grouch” will pop up, and I wonder, “Is that how people really see me?”

I left the bike business in 1993 so naturally stuff I write about pre-dates that, but does that make me a retro-grouch? To me a retro-grouch is someone stuck in the past that will not move forward. When I was in the bike business I always questioned the status quo, and often went against what everyone else was doing.

The robots that drive the search engines will only pick up my blog if I keep writing new stuff. At some point I will become too old, too tired, or simply run out of stuff to write about.

When I stop writing, within a year this blog will disappear from the search engines. Publishing in book form is no better; there are so many books published each year that most only reach a limited audience, and who remembers a book that was published last year?

I think the point I am trying to make is that when I started writing here I did so because I thought what I had to offer had some value. I still believe that is true; it is just my reasons for thinking so has changed.

What do you think? Does the speed of advancement in today’s technological environment make knowledge obsolete at a faster rate?

                        

My to do list

My former father-in-law was a coal miner all his life. I use the word former because he was the father of my ex-wife and he has been dead a number of years. His name was Bill, he was a wonderful man.

After he retired he more or less spent his whole time gardening; he grew flowers and vegetables that he would enter into competitions and win prizes. He once told me after his retirement, “I don’t know how I found time to go down’t pit.”

The “Pit” was of course the coal mine, and to explain the nuances of his North Nottingham/Yorkshire accent, the word “the” is dispensed with; the “t” gets added to the end of the word preceding “the.”

So it is “Down’t Pit,” rather than “Down the pit.” Incidentally if a word following “the” starts with a vowel, the “th” is added to that word; as in, “When I was in th’army.” Or if a girl is pregnant, she has, “A bun in th’oven.”

Today I know exactly what Bill meant; I don’t know how I ever found time to build bicycle frames. My “To do” list just gets longer and longer. I sometimes feel overwhelmed.

There is writing on this blog, which I am doing right now, but in 2 or 3 days I will be searching for something new to write about.

Having blog is like having a child, conceiving it is the easy part, but as it grows the hungry little bastard needs constant feeding. If I don’t feed it at least twice a week it will fade and die. However, on the upside, like a child it does make me proud once in a while.

My website “Prodigal Child.net” has broken links, but fixing them is not easy. The site is nine years old and was built with MicroSoft Front Page software, which is pretty much obsolete now. It is like a car that has been fixed and patched up so many times that the only real fix is a replacement.

I am doing just that, building a new website, but it is a monumental time consuming task. I work on it a little at a time when I can. My other Bike Registry site needs constant updating, and I need to add pictures of owner’s bikes, otherwise it will be nothing more than a boring list of bike serial numbers.

Another project that I keep telling people will happen soon is the reproduction of decals for my frames. I have art work completed but now have to purchase materials and equipment to make it happen. Oh, and of course not forgetting, find the time to do it.

 

(Above.) is a music box I made 50 years ago in 1961. It was a Christmas gift for my mother, built with spent matchsticks; I took me a year to build and I got it back after my mother died almost 30 years ago. Now I see this as a family heirloom that I will one day pass on to my daughters.

The musical movement inside is broken and I am in the process of replacing it; not easy because it will involve tearing it apart, and rebuilding part of it.

Of course all these projects are mainly just important to me; no one is forcing me to do anything. But what is the alternative; give up and do nothing?

I am reminded of a story of an old craftsman carving a large pair of oak doors. The design was extremely intricate, with scrolls, oak leaves and a coat of arms with a motto in Latin.

Someone asked him, “How do you know when it’s finished?” His reply, “It’s never finished, I just keep working on it 'til they come and take it away from me.”

I have come to realize I will always have a “To do” list, and conventional wisdom dictates that I should prioritize and finish one project before starting another. But all these projects are important, and each is dependent on the other.

Without the blog and the registry there would be less interest in the bikes I have built. Without that interest there would be no need for replacement decals. Then there is finding time to ride my own bike.

Here I do prioritize, because if I don’t maintain my own health and fitness I will not have the ability or the energy to do everything else. 

At the back of my mind is always the nagging thought that one day it will be simply taken away from me.
 

                        

The private self and the public image

Recently Lance Armstrong was featured on the cover of the July issue of “Outside” Magazine.

Apparently when Lance posed for the picture he was wearing a plain tee-shirt; as you can see in the picture above, a message has been photoshopped onto the image referring to LA’s age of 38 years.

Lance was a little ticked and shot the following comment off on Twitter:

“Nice photoshop on a plain t-shirt guys. That's some lame bullsh--.”

This is the kind of casual comment any person would make to anyone who happened to be in the room at the time. In my opinion “Lame Bullshit” is a fair assessment of what happened here.

The big difference, casual comments to those around us mostly go in one ear and out the other. They are not made as serious comment, and usually accepted as such by colleagues, friends and acquaintances. They are forgotten as quickly as they are uttered.

Make that same trivial, spur of the moment comment on a social media site like Twitter, and it is now permanent; to be re-quoted, analyzed and discussed by everyone, and his brother.  

This morning I read an article titled, “Top 10 Twitter meltdowns, tirades and tantrums.” In my book calling something “Lame Bullshit” hardly ranks as a meltdown, tirade, or a tantrum.

Yet Lance Armstrong’s comment was lumped together with nine other various celebrities who had made other “Indiscrete” Twitter comments.

It made me realize that the Internet, along with the various social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, are a boon to celebrities as a means to build, and stay in touch with a fan base.

However, it is a double edged sword in that a person is judged, not by who he truly is, but by the public image he portrays on the Internet. Say the wrong thing and you can alienate a lot of people very quickly.

Lance Armstrong can only be truly known by those close to him; his immediate family and friends, and the people he works with. Outside of that there are millions who don’t know him at all, but think they do based on what they see and read in the media.

To a far lesser extent I am in this same position with this blog. I am sure the people who read this have a totally different image of who I am as opposed to my much smaller circle of family and close friends.

I see comments like “Curmudgeon” and “Grumpy old man.” I doubt my friends see me this way; otherwise I would probably have few friends.

I get angry at times about various circumstances and situations, who doesn’t? My anger is rarely directed at individuals, and it is always short lived. In real life if I sound off about something, people around me think it is funny. Comedians like Lewis Black make a career out of it.

My goal is usually to make people think about a situation, and discuss it. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my POV. I have learned one thing here in almost five years of doing this; I can’t please everyone. If I were to try I would probably please no one; least of all myself.

In the mean time my readership keeps on growing, and as long as it does I will keep on writing. It tells me I must be doing something right.

My posts cannot all be literary gems, and some days I just don’t have anything to say. Actually people who know me in real life find I am a man of few words.

That is something you would never have got from reading my comments here

                        

Looking at Stats

It has been a year since I re-started posting articles here; as most of you know I had quit just six months earlier.

The graph above shows the activity one week before I quit at the end of August, 2008. Readership always drops off Saturday and Sunday, but Monday through Friday I had between 1,200 and 1,500 visitors per day. (Shown in Blue.)

The Green bar shows the number of page views, and the short Orange bar is the returning visitors. It is the regular visitors that come back over and again that are most important to me. As you can see this was holding steady at over 300 a day, Monday through Friday.

This next chart (Above.) from a year ago, shows what happened after six months with no new updates. Daily visitors dropped to a steady number just over 500 per weekday, and return visits had dropped to less than 50 a day.

It seems had I never posted again, hits probably would have held at around 500 a day from Google searches alone. I have over 300 articles here, so ask almost any bicycle related question on Google or one of the other search engines, and my blog is likely to appear. 

Finally a look at the stats for last week. (Above.) As you can see even after a year of posting on a regular basis, readership is down to about half the number I had before I quit.

It is obvious many of the previous regulars either do not know I am back, or they have decided not to return. I know since coming back a year ago I have picked up a lot of new readers, so where did all the old guard go?

One reason is more competition. When I started this blog in 2005 there were probably around 5 million blogs; now the number is at least 150 Million (133 million in 2008.)

The other reason is bloggers today are swimming in an ocean of mediocrity. On an overwhelming number of blogs, the content is not that good or they are infrequently updated; people tend to give up reading them altogether.

I feel fortunate to have the following I do have given the competition. My readership grows steadily, and as long as the trend doesn’t reverse I will keep plugging on.

In retrospect it was a huge mistake to quit blogging, however, it would have been an even bigger mistake if I had not resumed when I did.

At the time I quit I felt under immense pressure to come up with new ideas all the time. When I returned I told myself if I had nothing, I would post nothing and not worry about it. The strange thing is I have managed to post at least two new articles every week for the last year.

It is necessary I keep up with the latest trends; videos and YouTube seems to be the next direction I should explore. This will mean purchasing extra equipment and learning new skills. I feel I have set myself a high standard, if there are to be videos they will have to be of an acceptable level.

I thank all my regular followers, your comments are always welcome and add a great deal to the original article. Looking forward to the coming year, and wondering where the stats will be this time next year
 

From the Desk of Yours Truly

The picture above is a shot of my desk where this blog originates.

This year I went to the luxury of twin monitors; a set up that is really nice. It allows me to be writing on one screen, while looking up and researching stuff on the other screen.

Or for eample, I can be editing pictures in Photoshop on one monitor while I update my blog on the other. I can also click and drag stuff from one screen to the other; it is a huge time saver

On the wall behind the monitors is a framed poster of a Fuso Max bike I built in the early 1990s. It is signed by Antonio Columbo, son of the founder of the Columbus Tubing Company in Italy. He wrote: “To the most accurate frame builder.”

It is also signed by Valentino Campagnolo, son of Tulio Campagnolo, the founder of the world famous bicycle component company that bears his name.

The articles I write here, and the comments some of you post, are in many ways like an ongoing two-way conversation. I thought it might be a good idea to post a photo of my desk to give you a visual image of where I sit writing to you and reading your return comments.

It was a year ago, August 25th, 2008 to be exact that I announced I was quitting writing on this blog. As those still reading know, I changed my mind and resumed posting regular updates last February after a six month break.

I know from my website statistics I have about a third less readers than this time last year. It seems that much of my previous audience may not be aware that I am back.

I also get the feeling that many of my present readers are relatively new and have come on board since my return. The number of hits I get from the UK has acually increased since I came back, which is encouraging.

Many of my daily hits now come from Twitter and I only started posting there this year.

Quitting writing here was a huge mistake; but it is always easier to be wise with hindsight. Maybe I needed a break; I was certainly getting burned out and disillusioned. I was running out of ideas, and the subject matter I chose to write about was tending to bring negative comment.

It is entirely possible that the readers I lost, were as burned out as I was and have chosen not to return.

Only time will tell; maybe I am building a completely new following.

My audience is growing slowly again and as long as it continues to do so I will keep writing.

I believe the readership here is nowhere near its full potential.

When I resumed writing I told myself, if I had nothing to say then I wouldn’t post anything.

It has to be fun for me, otherwise why do it? The strange thing is, since making that resolution I have managed to come up with at least two articles a week, sometimes three.

My articles tend to be shorter than before I quit, which is probably a good thing. I don’t know about you, I find there is so much information on the Internet now, if I start to read something and it is longer than a 1,000 words or so, unless the story is really gripping, I’ll quit reading before I’m half way through.

I would be interested to hear from you, whether you are an original reader from over a year ago, or someone who came on board this year.

Also, please help spread the word that the blog is “Live” again? As always, thanks for reading, and for your comments. Your input is valuable to me and always much appreciated.

Footnote: The final picture above left is another corner of my office, and reflects my other creative outlet, namely song writing. My guitar hangs on the wall, at the ready incase I get song ideas. The picture, I don't have a clue who it is; it is just a real cool picture.