Wednesday, April 10, 2013

5 years of the Beat Bike Blog


There are lots of anniversaries out there of things, because once something happens, it's got an anniversary. Today, this blog celebrates its fifth anniversary. That's pretty long, but my other blog has been around for 12 1/2 years. That's so long that Blogger won't even display the original posts. You'll have to take my word that I started it in January of 2001. It's a pre 9-11 blog; that's ancient.

Things have changed a lot since the beat bike blog began 5 years ago. Back then, people used to ride around Hartford and enjoy themselves. We thought Critical Mass was cool. At that time, Hartford seemed giddy with bikeyness. Even though Hartford has some bike racks now, it doesn't seem particularly giddy. Other things that have changed are that, save me, none of the people in the masthead picture writing things here anymore. It makes me question why I haven't moved on to more interesting things, but I like clinging to my halcyon days of being 24.


It also used to seem that everyone have a bike blog 5 years ago. Now, people use Strava to talk about bikes instead. Since most bike blogs were just ride reports, maybe just replacing them with data isn't a bad thing.

I guess because of this blog I've met a bunch of new friends who are pretty cool. I also put together some Eels, which I think were good things. And, there were the four river cleanups I did in the blog's name. Those were positive. It's also given me a reason to post pictures of things from bike rides.

So, should we keep going?



Also, what's your favorite beat bike blog post?

6 comments:

Tony C said...

I enjoy Dario's guest posts, when I have enough time to read them.

Tony C said...

Why don't we get El Pres to post again. I'm sure he's got lots of good stories about carting his progeny around on a Yuba.

adventure! said...

I think the blog/you should keep going. But I can understand that you/the blog have changed and the passion may not be there anymore.

I've seen quite a surprising number of bike blogs go away over the past few months. Most of them either lost the passion or the focus of the blog shifted from what originally intended.

From someone who doesn't live in Hartford or Connecticut (but a Connecticut expat, still) it still looks like a "Blog about Bicycling in Hartford". I like checking in bike blogs about other places, and would hate to lose another one. But ultimately only you can answer whether to keep it going, Brendan. At least know you've got a reader.

Gamester said...

Yes please.

Beat bike blog is a must read and I enjoy the different perspectives

Favorite post was my five minutes of BBB fame when my whip was featured

http://beatbikeblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/corporate-commuting.html

Brendan said...

There's a Rivendell in the City Place bike rack today.

Fan-Cy!

Anonymous said...

Keep it going!