Blogging about Blogging, Part 2

Yesterday I posted about my warped need to feel that someone is reading my blog. I myself frequent many blogs and there are different reasons I like them. I would venture to guess that 98 percent of the blogs I read are visited more often than mine. However, there are a couple that leave my mine in the dust. On a daily basis (provided something is posted every day, of course), these are the blogs I read:

• Fat Cyclist—I don't need to explain this blog to most people who are cyclists, but since I have a few noncyclist readers, I will try to give a brief overview of what his blog is about. Fat Cyclist chronicles the life of a a forty-something guy named Elden Nelson who is a mountain biker in Utah. He has a sharp, sarcastic wit that is punctuated with facetiousness. He has been known to write sardonic letters to famous people or companies in the cycling world and post them on his site. He also has a wife (who I think is the most awesome wife in the world) with cancer and four (two boys and twin girls?) kids. He's not really fat, although I think he believes that because he weighs more than he used to. Fatty's site has a tremendous amount of advertising and he is constantly getting cool cycling-related stuff which he usually gives away. He also has a line of tremendously slick cycling apparel produced by the coolest cycling apparel company eva, Twin Six. He uses proceeds from donations and sales to fund his wife's ongoing battle with cancer and, as he says "to buy her anything she wants."
• Jill Homer—Jill is a biker who lives in Juneau, Alaska, works for a newspaper and rides around in ridiculous weather conditions. She's completed some epic races, such as the Iditarod Trail Invitational, a 350 mile trek on the Iditarod trail in February. She's tough.
• Danielle Musto—Danielle is a local (Grand Rapids, about 45 min. away) endurance racer. She has a cool story. Basically, she decided to be a bike racer one day when she was riding with her then boyfriend. She wasn't athletic at all and had no background in riding, but she went out and raced and immediately started tearing up the trail. (This is a little bit of an oversimplification, but you get the general idea.) Danielle lives with her husband Scott and her Greyhound Naomi. She just came in 2nd place at 24 Hour Nationals. She also has a younger sister, Toni, who is an awesome road rider.

These are some of my most commonly visited blogs. I have to think a little harder to tell you why I like them.

I like the way Fat Cyclist writes. I like his wit and his wisdom and the fact that he has an interesting story to tell. His writing is compelling and his is the only blog that has ever made me cry, but of course, that is also because of the hell he's going through with his wife right now. I also feel like he, just like many of the people whose blogs I read, is someone I would like if I actually knew him.

I think the biggest draws for me to Jill's site are the quality of her writing and photography. Being in Alaska, she has cool things to take pictures of every day and I love looking at her photos. She's also very introspective at times and I particulary like to read those posts. I enjoy reading about her training and wondering what challenge she can possibly take on next.

Danielle's site is just real. I have to admit, I'm a little bit of a groupie. I like reading her race reports, following her season and cheering her on. She's so good at what she does, it makes me feel like a winner to cheer her on (okay, I realize this is a really dorky statement, but it's the truth). I also like the fact that's she's local and she's a real person I actual see around sometimes. She's also just really funny and not afraid to laugh at herself.

Yet again, it's 8:00 and I'm still not finished. I promise I will finally put this topic out of its misery once and for all tomorrow when I attempt to compare my blog to these examples and try to figure out how to make mine more appealing.

By the way, there were 21 visits to my blog yesterday.

Blogging about Blogging, Part 1

I have a confession to make. I look at the stats for my blog pretty much every day. Back when I started it last November, I used to just go to my blog and stare at the "0 comments" at the bottom of each post, knowing no one was reading it. However, my husband soon introduced me to Google Analytics, where I could, free of charge, actually see how many visits were made to my blog and where they were coming from. So it's become my ritual when I'm home, to check my stats while I'm eating breakfast. I have learned a couple of interesting things by doing this:

• Just because no one is leaving comments, doesn't mean no one is visiting.
• Some days are much better than others, but in general, I get around the same number of visits each day, which is usually somewhere in the teens.
• Several people I have never met have links to my blog from theirs. They're all bike people in some way or another; most are local (at least in Michigan); and most seem like nice, interesting people. Still, it makes me curious about how they even found my blog and why they think it is worth adding to their blogroll. It also makes me wonder if I should add more people to my blogroll since I currently have a pathetic number.
• Sometimes people reach my blog from some other site or blog and I have no idea why. There doesn't seem to be any link on their blog to mine, nor have I commented on it or associated myself with it in any way. I guess I'll just be grateful and have it remain a mystery.

Late last month I had quite a spike in the number of visits one particular day, and it made me ponder what drew people to my blog on that day. A couple of days later, I also had some days that were two and four visits (many of which were probably me checking to see if I had comments), so I must have got a lot less interesting quickly. As you may have figured out already, the thought of no one reading my blog does bother me. After all, writing is what I do and I'm used to caring about whether people are reading what I'm writing, whether it's on my blog or something work-related. I have read all the advice on how to make my blog popular and have actually done some of it. I have also done some shameless self-promotion, such as sending links to my blog out to people I know via e-mail and suggesting they check it out.

I'm analyzing this way too much, but I've also been thinking about my favorite blogs, all of which are more popular than mine (some of them vastly so) and why I like to read them. I am hoping this will give me some indication of whether or not my blog will ever become popular. So, I have decided to compile all the information I can think of my favorite blogs and why I think they are popular, then compare them to my blog. However, this post is already significantly longer than I intended and I have to start my workday, so this will have to be continued in tomorrow's post (which will also make thinking of something to write about tomorrow much easier).

It's in, It's out

My more astute blog readers (all two of you) will have noticed that after briefly mentioning it in a previous post, I added the 6 Hours of Pando to my race schedule. The even more astute will have noticed I subsequently took it off my race schedule. Although I really wanted to do the race, I decided it was more important to spend this weekend in Traverse City with my mom. We will get in a long ride on Saturday and I will hopefully be able to fit in a shorter mountain bike ride, too. We still have the Drummond Island race on Labor Day weekend, and I am really looking forward to that one. We have also decided to start training with the intention of eventually completing Lumberjack. Chris is shooting for next year, but I think 2010 may be more realistic for me. At any rate, at this point my plan is to do fewer CPS races next year and concentrate on 6-hour races, with maybe a 12-hour or two thrown in for good measure. I'm really enjoying my foray into endurance racing, and right now it's looking like the direction I want to go.

I Like to Bike

Talk about obvious statements. This should be a given considering the subject matter of my blog. So why is it something I seem to forget so often? As I mentioned in a previous post, I have spent the past couple of weeks wallowing in self-pity and sloth on my couch. The success of my cruiser rides Friday evening gave me a good reason to get out on the trail on my mountain bike first thing Saturday morning. As I was riding the "Enter Sandman" trail (coincidentally named for my husband, who helped build these original trails years ago), I was enjoying the warmth and the sunshine and catching a little air going over some of the small dirt mounds (have no idea what the actual name for them is). I thought to myself, this is so much more fun and better for my psyche than reclining like a slug in my living room. And this strange phenomenon in which I have temporary amnesia about how much I like to ride my bike doesn't only happen when I'm in pity party mode. It seems to happen somewhat frequently. I'll be on a roll for a while, riding all the time and then suddenly, I can't seem to get motivated to get out there. Of course, as soon as I'm riding, I remember. This is the fun stuff. So, why does it take so much effort to get me out there sometimes?

By the Way

Our favorite performer at the Great Lakes Folk Festival so far has been April Verch.

Bicycle = Transportation

Due to some stress and the fact that my job is making me miserable, I haven't felt like doing anything lately. I haven't wanted to ride, post, clean the house. Okay, the cleaning the house part is normal and has nothing to do with my stress level, but the fact that I have mostly been unable to get myself on a bike and I have had several good ideas for posts but I haven't been able to make myself actually write them has been pretty disturbing. I'm not going to go into why work is so bad right now. Everyone around me is probably sick of hearing about it and I'm sick of complaining about it. Suffice it to say eight years is more than enough time at that place and I need to get out as soon as it's feasible.

At any rate, we spent some time down at the Great Lakes Folk Festival this weekend. It's always a good time. We enjoy hanging out there, eating the food and listening to good music. It also gives Chris great fodder for photographs. It was his idea to get out our cruisers to head down there since it's not far away and there's really no place to park unless you want to take the shuttle bus. Friday night was really my first time riding my cruiser since Chris bought it for me as a wedding present.

I broke all my own rules while riding my cruiser—no helmet, flip flops, etc.—but I quickly got over my discomfort because it was so much fun. (The coaster brakes took a little longer to get used to.) It was just great to be able to get on a bike and ride a short distance without having to put on bike shorts, helmet, gloves, bike shoes. We ended up riding our cruisers down there and back home two days in a row. Our local bike club even provides a free, guarded bike parking corral, so we didn't even have to worry about locking our bikes up or carting them around with us after we got there. We got a lot of compliments on our bikes, too, since they're so cool looking.

For reasons I won't go into too much (someone else counts on me for a ride, I have to leave for meetings sometimes during the day, I have to dress up, I go home for lunch almost every day), I don't commute by bike. I only live about two miles from my work though, and every time I see a bike commuter (and they're everywhere now) I feel incredibly guilty about the fact that I'm not out there. My jaunts this weekend started me thinking, though, and I think I can at least commute on Fridays and a few other days here and there. It won't save much gas, but it'll be one less car on the road at least one day a week, and it's a start.

Make Friends With the Badger

I understand that no one, with the exception of my brother who doesn't read my blog, would understand this obscure reference to a 1980s Dead Milkmen song. However, every time I look at my new bike, that's all I can think about. We're headed up North to our cabin after a half day of work. We should have a fun weekend. We've got lots of people coming. Before leaving, I just wanted to take a minute to post a photo of my exciting new bike (frame). I'll have to attempt to take some better ones when I have more time.