Happy First Birthday Bicycle Touring 101!

A year ago today, October 26, 2005, Bicycle Touring 101 launched. The initial and continuing purpose of the web site was to bring information about bicycle touring to interested people via the internet. At first the site contained mainly articles related to bicycle touring but as time passed polls were added along with the very popular interviews with cyclists who were actually out there touring.

In the beginning visitors to the site came from many of the inspirational sites that spawned this one including IceBike, KenKifer.com, Crazyguyonabike and the International Bicycle Touring Mailing List. As the days turned into weeks and then months people began to arrive from all over the internet and world.

In actual fact I am overwhelmed to report that over the course of its first year, 50,492 unique visitors dropped by 92,560 times viewing 920,351 web pages for a total of 1,274,081 hits and 18.42 GB of transferred information about bicycle touring.

The success of the site is very much related to the wonderful information that the 93 contributors have provided for our reading enjoyment. Our sponsors, Schwalbe North America and Circle City Cycles have also been very generous by providing site contributors with a significant discount on their products in exchange for articles, pictures and assistance offered to Bicycle Touring 101.

There are also a number of silent contributors who ask for no glory but perform the much appreciated task of bringing me news about typos, grammatical and spelling errors whereever they exist on the site.

For me, the most gratifying and yet seldom reported bonus about this site are the numerous people who have shared private emails with me talking about their first touring experience and how much they enjoyed it. Most of these notes mention how eager they are to get out for another adventure!

Bicycle Touring 101 Writing and Photo contest

In honour of a successful and exciting first year Bicycle Touring 101 is going to have a contest. There are four subsections to the contest and each subsection will have prizes available. You can choose to enter as many subsections as you like. You are requested to limit yourself to one entry per subsection. Each subsection will be independently judged.

The Writing Section

There are two questions in the writing contest section. Each question is a separate subsection and will be judged independently.

"My best day of bicycle touring was ......"

"The most embarrassing thing to happen to me during a bicycle touring adventure was...."

Each submission must be between 300 and 500 words in length.

The Photo Section

The photo section is divided into two subsections. Each one will be judged independently of the other.

Best individual photo

Pick your best bicycle touring related photo and submit it for consideration. The photo must have been taken during a bicycle tour. Each photo needs to be accompanied by a paragraph of text describing where the picture was taken and the circumstances surrounding the picture.

Best five photos

Pick five of your best bicycle touring photos and submit them as a group. All photos must have been taken during a bicycle tour. Each photo needs to be accompanied by a paragraph of text describing where the picture was taken and the circumstances surrounding the picture. For this category the prizes will be based on the overall feeling about all five pictures as a group.

Each picture must be at least 800 pixels at its smallest dimension. It is permissible to include your name in small print somewhere in the picture if you would like to do so.

Prizes

Each of the four subsections will have the following prizes available:

- One set of Schwalbe tires

- Neil Anderson's Partners in Grime

- How we traded our ordinary lives for a global bicycle touring adventure by Tim Travis

- Neil Anderson's The Lead Goat Veered Off

- Bicycle Touring 101 flags and stickers

- Schwalbe water bottles, t-shirts and stickers

Rather than assign a particular prize to a particular place it will instead be the option of winners to pick their prize from the remaining prizes for that section. So a first place winner can pick any of the prizes while a second place winner will have access to all of the prizes except the prize that's already been picked by the first place winner. There will be a first, second, third and fourth place prize for each category and then a number of honourable mentions. The honourable mentions will be welcome to a BT101 reflective sticker and/or flag. All submissions will be appreciated for the hard work and effort that went into providing them and for taking the time to share them with the rest of us.

I would like to also take this opportunity to thank Schwalbe North America and Neil Anderson for donating some of the prizes being awarded in the contest. If additional companies would like to become involved in this contest then not only will their efforts lead to more prizes but they will also receive recognition from Bicycle Touring 101 for their assistance!

The Fine Print

All entries submitted must be your own work. Copyright infringement is not something that I am interested in seeing occur during this contest. You will retain copyright to any words or photos that you submit but by submitting an entry to the contest you allow Bicycle Touring 101 to showcase your entries on the site. You will of course be given credit for your work!

Important dates!

How to make a submission:

The easiest way to make a submission is to contact me using the Contact Us form. I will reply to your initial email with the email address that you can use to make your submission. I will also send a follow-up email to you upon receipt of your entry.

The judges:

All entries will be judged by a panel of three judges including renowned author and photographer Neil Anderson, a mystery judge and me. We will not be participating in the contest beyond our judging capacity so every one who submits will be given an equal opportunity at winning a prize.

In Summary

It's been a good first year and there have been numerous great times for me personally as I've been granted the chance to meet many, many wonderful people. The site will continue to grow since there are still many interesting and informative articles to write as well as numerous interviews to report on.

In the meantime consider participating in the contest and having as much fun doing so as you can!

Thanks for a great first year!

~Jamie N

Editor, Bicycle Touring 101

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