CrazyGuyOnABike.com Resource collection or bicycling enthusiasts and journalists
Title
Crazyguyonabike: Bicycle tour journals, forums and resources
Description
Overview
Hi! I am Neil Gunton, the founder/programmer/webmaster/editor of crazyguyonabike.com. This is a website for hosting bicycle touring journals, forums and resources. The content is contributed by people from all over the world. You can browse the journals, or register and then create your own. Also check out the forums (message boards) and resources (a database of links, businesses and other useful info). See the site map for a more complete overview of the features. The website is free to use, and it is also free of banner ads and other intrusive advertising.
History
I started crazyguyonabike in January 2000 as a simple online journal of my own 1998 bicycle tour across America. This was the original (and only) journal on the website, and it was appropriately titled "Crazy Guy on a Bike". So the name of the website actually originated with the title of my original journal. In the process of developing that first version of the site, I also wrote a number of software tools which allowed me to edit the journal online, through a web browser. This first version of the site went live in February 2000. I added a guestbook for people to leave comments in April of the same year. Almost immediately I realized that the code I had written could be expanded relatively easily to allow other people to share their own experiences from the road. So, I expanded the scope of the site to allow other people to contribute their own journals; this took longer than I thought (as always) and it eventually went live in March of 2001. The site grew slowly and except for a plug on the Phred bicycle touring mailing list, there was no advertising. But people seemed to find it and started to post their own journals almost immediately. It grew organically, with me adding features here and there, and over the next few years crazyguyonabike became a fairly busy website, with hundreds of bicycle touring journals and articles.
I will also continue to develop new features such as classified ads, interactive maps and even a place for small merchants to sell their wares online. All the while I will strive to do this in a "non-evil" way, so as not to lose the sense of simplicity and non-commercialism that has made crazyguyonabike successful so far. There will never be banner ads, or any other kind of intrusive advertising. I will never sell user information to marketers, or do anything else that might break the trust that people have in the site. While I would like to make money, I want to do it in such a way that makes me (and everyone else) feel good about the way it is done. Check out the News page for updates, or keep an eye on the Forums for discussions on the new features.
