The Ride Journal
The Ride Journal screengrab
Sites like The Ride Journal make me want to redesign this one. Nice work guys.
Archive for the ‘web’ Category
Cycle Passion
cyclepassion.com - I'm so not into you.
For a company producing calendars and posters of scantily-clad female cyclists, Cycle Passion’s website certainly did a good job of pouring cold water over my initial excitement. These guys need a redesign bad.
Velodramatic redesign
New Velodramatic redesign
Sweet new look for Velodramatic to start the new year. Has anyone seen another site showcasing cycling photography of this quality?
Bike shops
Coolest bike shop sign in the world? Photo: RAPHA on Flickr
I’d like to visit Mellow Johnny’s one day. I like bike shops that try to be original, and that raise the bar in terms of design and customer experience. I like walking into a bike shop and being seduced by the stock on display. I like the atmosphere in there to feel like a club of initiates who aren’t snooty towards newcomers or those less knowledgeable.
Best bike shop in London? Possibly Condor. But I haven’t been to all of them. I’m probably not going to. What I may well do, from the comfort of my armchair, is try to find the world’s best bike shop website. I’ve reviewed some before: here’s a review of Condor’s old site – to be honest they still haven’t got it right; and of course there’s this one, the less said about the better.
So what about the criteria?
- Attractive, coherent visual design
- Easy navigation, product organisation etc.
- Features – does the site aspire to be something other than an online flyer saying ‘we sell bikes’?
- Seduction quality – I want to hit the home page and feel my debit card start to slip out of my wallet
The search begins… suggestions below!
Cycle Heaven
Am I in heaven - or is this the mid-1990s?
Wow. It’s still there. Like a time capsule of Victoriana buried in the garden and dug up after generations, I recently stumbled upon www.cycle-heaven.co.uk for the first time in almost 3 years. (more…)
Project Le Tour
Telekom TT by Brent Humphreys.
Project Le Tour by Brent Humphreys is worth a look. There are some fantastic observational shots of the Tour over the last couple of years, which really capture the spirit of the event and the people who watch it. Thanks to Chris for the link.
On a web note, this is an example of a Flash website, which, rather than creating an immersive, fluid experience for the viewer (which I imagine was the aim), actually just forces the viewer to do what the site wants him to do.
- The intro is ridiculous. I was frantically clicking to try and escape it and view some actual content.
- The site forces you to view full screen. Sure, you can ESC to exit but why not just give me the option?
- Images pop into view from the right hand side. I had to figure out what was going on, it’s not immediately obvious.
- What do I do if I don’t want to view the images in the order Brent has decided? They aren’t chronological, so how do I quickly flick through, how do I see the whole lot to figure out how many there are, how do I go back and find the one I like at a later date? Er – I can’t.
If you’re going to use Flash – make it useable!
Fausto Coppi’s 1952 bike
A little bit of cycling history courtesy of Rouleur magazine.
From an article by Guy Andrews on rouleur.cc.
This is Fausto Coppi’s 1952 World Championship winning Bianchi Specialissima complete with insulated bottle covers, Campagnolo derailleurs, Ambrosio forged aluminium stem and Universal brakes. The frame was a huge advance on the bikes of the time…
(Read the full article with more images.)
Whenever I look at black and white photographs of cycling heroes, at any time from the inaugural Tour de France in 1903 to Tom Simpson’s heyday in the 60s, I am awed by their achievements. I mean, just look at their legs, their faces, their brutal bikes.
Fausto Coppi’s full-steel bike must weigh about 30 pounds, as much as a hefty budget mountain bike today. Look at the un-ergonomic bars, the single chainring, the tiny cassette. Then imagine climbing big mountains on it, trying to get comfortable on the leather saddle, wrestling with the tyre wrapped in a figure-eight around your shoulders and back.
Coppi won the Tour twice, the Giro five times, and the Paris-Roubaix in 1953. Here is one of cycling’s true legends in action:
The Cross-Canada Project
Trailer for The Cross Canada Project: Documenting a Bicycle Tour Across Canada. from mike beauchamp on Vimeo.
Another big ride project not dissimilar to this one. Mike Beauchamp rode 7000km across Canada, which is an outrageously long way. His video (which is 1 hour long by the way, the above is just a trailer) makes use of an ingenious wing mount for the camera. Perhaps I’ll be able to catch the full movie at the next Bicycle Film Festival.
Thinking about it, maybe my creaking bike vid is worthy of submission. He who dares wins.
Via the Guardian’s new bike blog.
JustJoking?
I’ve recently set up a new fundraising page with Justgiving in advance of La Marmotte. On a serious note, please do head over and drop some coins in the box. Appreciate.
JustGiving have recently relaunched their website, and if my personal experience is anything to go by, it has been a very painful week for them. Somehow (and coincidentally on the morning after I set up my new fundraising page via the old site), JG rolled out a completely new platform and user interface without, apparently, testing any of it.
Some stuff that went wrong:
- The login functions broke, so that when I tried to log in I was redirected to… the login page.
- My fundraising page went down to be replaced by an ‘oops’ error message.
- Lots of friends are still complaining they can’t access the page.
- The flash widget doesn’t work.
- The badge image link is broken (see the sidebar – I’m leaving it there as a protest).
This is what I get on pretty much every other page on the JG site.
Problems aside, I think the redesign looks great – but the implementation really has been disastrous.
