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Been out of the office on client meetings last Friday and yesterday, hence the lack of updates. Unfortunately, didn't ride this weekend. I had a really chilled (well, lazy..) one, which is pretty rare, but as of tomorrow I'm on holiday for 12 days solid. As I'm on a bit of a fitness drive, I'll be doing loads of riding, so I wasn't too bothered about having a lazy weekend.
I did, however, ride my bike to work today, which has been pretty rare recently; I normally end up riding my scooter instead, especially when the weather's bad. But, in line with my afore-mentioned fitness drive, I thought I'd give it a go.
A side effect of the fact that I'm on holiday, is that I may not be able to make many site updates.. I don't have a PC or internet connection at home (pretty refreshing, being that my job's Network Administrator! But I'll take lots of pictures of the rides that I do do, and will update the site as soon as possible.
Finally got the Devils' Dyke to Ditchling Beacon ride gallery sorted! I think the larger versions of the images look a lot better.. it's surprising how much more detail you can see when the images are an extra 20% bigger. Enjoy! Should be riding this weekend, but think it'll be another shortish one.. saving myself for when the clocks go back before going on any larger rides.
On a different note, I think I've cleared my mental block regarding the Eastbourne ride.. there've been a lot of people visiting the page, so I'll aim to get the route finished quite quickly. Have a good weekend all!
Been really busy with work this week, with only two out of five proper lunch breaks so far, so haven't been able to finish the ride report. I've decided on a slightly changed format; I'm removing the ads from the right hand side of the pages with the large images on, so that I can make the images larger.. working on getting the gallery section finished by the end of tomorrow.
Despite a relatively heavy drinking weekend, I managed to go on a bike ride, this one from Devils Dyke to Ditchling Beacon over the Downs, and then back to mine via town. I started the ride fairly late, about 13:00, remembering this to be quite a short ride. However, I mis-judged the amount of time needed, and ended up having to ride back via town to get back by sunset.
As mentioned in an archived post somewhere, this ride involves the descent of the Devils' Dyke valley - this is absolutely brilliant fun, if a bit hairy when wet.. I saw quite a few skid marks on the way down (from tyres!). I wasn't aiming to go too fast down here this time, because the ground was still fairly slippery. Plus, I had to stop halfway down to take a picture.. the sacrifices I make for this web site!
All in all, this was a pretty good ride; it's good to see the ground is starting to firm up, with the mud more tacky now. I've forgotten to bring my camera in to work today, thinking I had a meeting outside the office, so the photos won't go up until tomorrow.
Not many updates this week; not had much chance to work on the site. I've hit a slight mental block with the Eastbourne to Brighton route guide, hence the lack of posting there; I can't remember the next bit of the ride after the bit I've got to ; )
Didn't ride last weekend, mainly due to laziness and a Saturday night drinking session, but am planning on one this weekend, as long as it's not hammering down with rain, so hopefully the next update'll be a bit more useful than this one!
Finally managed to get the Friston Forest route guide live.. it's amazing; although this route is quite compact, it actually takes more description than others that can be up to 4 or 5 times longer. I guess this is due to the many junctions with other trails that you get to, compared to what are often relatively simple routes.
Been at work most of the day completing a network upgrade, so haven't had a chance to go riding today, and I'll be out on the booze tonight, so if I do a ride tomorrow it'll only be a short one ; (
Mentioned a while ago that I'd post about some of the search terms that people were using to reach my site, so here goes!
Almost as soon as the site was indexed by Google, it was ranking in the top 10 for Kona Fire Mountain and Kona Dawg, and most of my traffic comes from these two terms and variants, such as the model year.
The site also tends to rank for any specific brand / model combinations that I mention - for instance, before I moved the specific post that mentioned it to the Archive section, I got some click-thru's for "vivitar 5105s", which is the model of digital camera I purchased recently (specifically for this site, actually!). Along with this, I have had click-thru's for "Eurohike backpack", and various "Bikehut" terms, due to the mention of my Bikehut shock pump - in fact, the site's ranking #3 on Google for "halfords bikehut" at the time of writing ; )
Then there are the terms that include the specific locations I mention on the site, namely terms mentioning "South Downs Way", "Brighton", "Sussex", "Friston Forest", and "Ditchling Beacon" (to the person who came to my site after searching for "ditchling beacon what gear" - I rode up Ditchling Beacon on the London to Brighton ride last year - use the easiest bloody gear you've got! Also, I find that staying on the saddle and concentrating on smooth, steady pedal rotations, rather than honking on the handlebars whilst standing up, is the best way to conquer an ascent such as Ditchling Beacon, as it conserves more energy).
Finally, the click-thru's I'm most proud of, were where my name, "Jim", was included in the search term - "jim riding photos" and another one like "jim mtb" - not sure if these were returning visitors who was searching specifically for the site, but I'd like to think so!
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