Two Years Blogging on Bikes

Screen shot of Blogspot most visited posts for this blog, for "all time"

Total pageviews are given as one number (available for various intervals) - this includes pageviews of individual posts and to the blog as a whole (wheelbike.blogspot.com). In my case, 80 percent, 90 percent, and sometimes even more of the pageviews are for individual posts.

I now have several hundred posts. Some are on fairly obscure things, but it turns out that my blog posts on these perhaps obscure topics will pop up fairly high on a Google search, such as the one on Arthur Conan Doyle's full quote on the benefits of cycling, so every couple of weeks, more regularly than I would have guessed, I can see that someone looks at that page having searched for its content with Google. My version is better (says I) than most "quote sites" because I have the full quote (typically it is reported only in part), and it is both transcribed and I have a page image of the Scientific American where it appeared in the first place.

So, for most of my pages traffic comes from Google searches (although often not just Google.com but Google-dot-some-other-country's-domain). I suppose it doesn't hurt that I use Google's Blogger and also have built up some content (with my 200 posts) and of course some of the stuff about cycling in the 1890s isn't that commonly written about.

Most the leading posts, however, have reached that status because a light went on in my head and I wrote the owner of some other, more popular blog and they published a link to one of my pages. Jan Heine's blog published a link as part of a sort of joke about fat-tired bikes to my post about a giant tricycle in 1896 and his hefty popularity (in certain circles) meant that this post had hundreds of page views in a few days and over time, went above 500 pageviews.

Similarly, I wrote to the guy behind the Washcycle blog about a lovely newspaper article about cycling in D.C. that included a great map and it has almost 300 pageviews. Several other high posts are mostly references from Washcycle.

Two posts about women cyclists of the 1890s are the top performers for posts I have done where the pageviews are driven almost entirely by Google (and other) searches and not be links from other blogs. Google searches have also driven higher-than-average pageviews for my posts on unusual old tandems and my description of my 29 year old Bridgestone. I have observed from the traffic source information that a fair percentage of page views come from Google image searches, so I generally try to include an image with my posts - or really, I guess at this point I am mostly inspired to post about topics that will have an associated image.


The traffic sources information confirms the importance of (a) other blogs, and (b) Google

A couple of these are oddballs. Someone once tweeted a link to a page with a photo of a bicycle built for four leading to several dozen page views and "pingywebedition" and a couple of other sources are simply a mystery.

My numbers are certainly not very large, but having figured out certain things about cycling, both today and yesterday, I find the evidence that these discoveries have been shared to pleasing. Also, I have built up traffic over time. The first year it was really quite negligible. After 24 months I have had 5,500+ page views total but over the past month, 800+, which seems respectable.

So, for anyone who has read this far, thank you!

New Stop Sign, GW Bike Trail

New stop sign added for traffic coming off the 14th St Bridge (from DC) - sorry, lousy phone camera photo

A new stop sign has been added where traffic coming from DC on the 14th St Bridges meets the north-south George Washington Parkway bike trail. They have also added some helpful (I suppose) directional information - "trail north" and "trail south" for example.

The stop sign is in a somewhat unorthodox location - instead of being on the near side of the intersection, to the right, it is across the intersection, in the middle. I don't see that this clarifies the situation and it may just confuse things.


My favorite - "dismount before crossing"

For bike traffic northbound, there is a "dismount before crossing" sign, apparently pertaining to the humpback bridge a 100 yards on. The Park Service seems to have lots of these "dismount" signs to put up (to no purpose). Also, the sign is on the left side rather than the more conventional right side (presuming I am understanding who it is intended for correctly).

Aside from all this signage, this intersection is a mess for the kind of mixed cycling/walking/running going on here. Neither the north-south trail nor the one coming from the 14th St Bridge are wide enough.

Voice of America Covers DC Bike to Work

A good set of photographs from this month's Bike to Work day in Washington DC is on the Russian language VOA site - scroll down and the slide show launches. Knowledge of Russian not required.

As associated article in Russian isn't much for non-Russian speakers, but Google translate will render something like (but not exactly like) English - certainly it is understandable, if quirky.

Often in machine translation, the story becomes more dramatic in the telling, such as, "Move along the wide roads designed for a more dimensional and fast cars with gasoline engines - it's not only scary but dangerous. Therefore, local authorities began to pay greater attention to road safety. Cyclists immediately responded to these steps, rushing into the streets en masse."

I will be on the lookout for these cyclists storming the streets of DC.

(Not even slightly connected with bicycles, the translation business reminds me of the infamous Time article about Madonna's interview supposedly translated from English to Hungarian and back - which turns out to be an urban legend.)

"Complete Streets" Video

Complete Streets: It's About More Than Just Bike Lanes from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Very well done video about implementation of bike lanes as part of a "complete streets" strategy. Local political types, journalists, drivers, pedestrians, business owners, and bike riders all comment. Well worth watching.

This simple video makes it clear that the argument in favor of bike lanes needs to be about how everyone can benefit, not just the bike riders. That everything about the roads shouldn't be about people in cars.

Stated as though obvious (and OK) is that slowing down speeding motorists as part of the general strategy benefits everyone, even the motorists (who are no longer terrorizing pedestrians and cyclists). Narrower lanes? They slow the cars down. Islands? The encourage the motorists to stop and wait for pedestrians.

Nice 1912 Columbia Bicycle Catalog

A nice catalog, digitized by the Smithsonian

Here is a link to the
catalog's cover and from there you can navigate to the rest of the pages as individual page image thumbnails. Columbia bicycles, from the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut.

The catalog is quite text-heavy for the first few pages, arguing heavily for the benefits of bicycles in various ways - economical, reliable, and health benefits as well (with a quote from a physician, as was often done in the 1890s).

Bicycle Built for Four (1898)

Orient Quad bicycle built for four, from the Library of Congress photograph collections.

Just for fun. Can't figure out why I hadn't see this before ~

Apparently Orient was known particularly for making tandem and other multiple riders bikes, such as this quad. There is a picture of an Orient "built for ten" that was presumably a stunt of sorts.

My BikeDC 2011 Experience

The last time I rode in BikeDC was in September 2001 - the George Washington Parkway portion was removed that year because it was something like ten days after September 11 and they could get the police support required (or something). I'm not a person who likes crowds but I have had this interest in riding on the GW Parkway so once it was clear that the weather would be OK this year (for a change - last year was a downpour) I signed up.

The event has a more or less rolling start - I got there (having ridden in on my bike from home) about 15 minutes are the first riders hit the course from just west of the (U.S.) Capitol, riding off through closed (to cars) streets in downtown DC, crossing the Roosevelt bridge into Virginia and heading north(ish) on the George Washington Parkway and heading a few miles down the Parkway before turning around and heading back up the Parkway, then the official route crossed back into DC for the finish (but I just road home).


Sparse (relatively speaking) bike travel in downtown

Starting 20-25 minutes after the initial bunch seemed to work out well at this point - not too much (bike) traffic.


Not long before the Roosevelt Bridge, we rode through a short tunnel

After crossing the Roosevelt Bridge and approaching the GW Parkway, the bikes bunched up more.

Here you get a sense of the mix of riders - there are some spandex "we could go a lot faster types" but the crew on the tandem are just rolling along and then there are kids, too.


Nearing the GW Parkway

Beyond the Key Bridge the bike traffic became quite heavy - the bikes only had one side (two lines) of the divided highway, with bike traffic in each direction confined to one lane (with cones down the middle). Round about now I began to wish for more common sense and more common courtesy from my fellow riders. As we climbed, relatively slow moving (bicycle) traffic filled the entire single outbound lane. Some people riding uphill nonetheless impatiently tried "on the left" when what they meant was, "you're in my way; I want to go faster." Some crossed over into the oncoming lane (for bikes - usually a lane of traffic in the same direction) to pass the entire column, then pull in with the other riders (who would more or less have to let him or her in).

Some riders barreling down the GW Parkway on the return side presented a more intimidating picture - here there were some people whose cries of "on your LEFT" really sounded like "OUTTA MY WAY or I may run into you."

Now this sounds like chaos, but probably it was one in 250 or less that was acting in this way, but when you have thousands of riders on a few miles of road, 1-in-250 makes an impression.

Fortunately all the bike crashing I saw was small-time stuff and no one was significantly injured. I observed several obviously (or one assumes) really new riders fall for no particular reason and on the Parkway, fortunately while moving only a few miles per hour, a bike turned into another causing a tangle of metal and rubber.


Nearing the turn around to head back on the GW Parkway


Last but not least - the one guy I saw who wasn't wearing a helmet, wearing a WABA jersey.

Yeah, image is a bit out of of focus, so his head looks funny - but there isn't a helmet on that head is what you can see readily enough. I don't believe wearing a helmet was required, but still.

The ride continued southbound on the GW Parkway and was, I thought, supposed to continue to the Air Force Monument, but at the Arlington Bridge there was some sort of accident (involving a cyclist? not clear at the time, or now for that matter) that had many emergency vehicles and a medevac helicopter. About a quarter mile beyond that was a turn around again on the GW Parkway to circle back and return into DC. Having had enough of a BikeDC experience for one day, I moved over to the GW bike trail and rode the eight or so miles home.

I guess overall I had an enjoyable experience, but I can't say I feel much of an urge to do it again at the moment, either.