Two years blogging – and more Help needed!

A little milestone that snuck on past last month was the fact that Cycling in Christchurch is now two years old! Yes, it all began back on 12 May 2012 when the original blog creator Jenny (aka “Unity”) published the first post. Since then we’ve had just on 300 posts, nearly 900 (legitimate) comments from our readers, as well as a series of static webpages to help you find out what you need about cycling around Christchurch.

Over 100,000 individual pages and posts have been viewed over that time; the audience has also grown so that now we’re typically averaging about 200 page-views a day (with a peak of 830 views/day back on January 20th). Some of the most popular posts/pages have included:

• Bike rentals/tours in Christchurch
• Where to Ride in Christchurch
• Bike shops in Christchurch
• Hidden Treasures: Westburn Reserve Bike Park
• Mythbusting: Cyclists don’t Pay
• Major Cycleways – We’re on our Way!
• Clever Cycling Stuff: Cycle Bypasses
• The $69 million question: Sign the Petition for cycleways
• Bike the New Motorway – Sat 17th November
• It’s Back – Open Streets Ciclovía, Sun Sept 29th
• Cycle Lane Separators – Your Feedback Wanted
• Cycling Safety and the Media

We also have about 100 followers via Twitter and over 600 likes on our Facebook page. We really appreciate all of this support; it’s nice too when I get the chance to meet some of you in person and hear how much you appreciate the site. Of course, we know this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the people who are cycling around Christchurch – or would like to cycle around Chch. So why not take a few seconds to pass on your favourite post to a few friends and family, or perhaps point them to the website or Facebook page? We’d love to let even more people in on our great little secret…

My thanks to all the regular and guest bloggers over the past couple of years; your contributions have certainly made me less guilty when I haven’t been able to post something up for a while. And this leads me to the second part of this little missive – would YOU like to be part of Cycling in Christchurch? The day-job sometimes keeps me pretty tied up, and most successful similar websites that I’ve seen work best when there is a team of people able to contribute to the collective output. I’m on the lookout for a keen souls for a few different tasks:

• Would you like to become part of the regular blogging team? If you’ve got a hankering to see your name in print, and reckon you can come up with something Chch/bike-related at least every couple of weeks or so, then let me know a bit about yourself and maybe even a sample of a possible post idea.

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  Alternatively, maybe someone with a keen photographic eye (and a better camera than mine) would like to contribute regular images of cycling around Christchurch? It would be nice for people just to be inspired by the everyday cycling that already happens around our city.

• Perhaps you’d just like to offer a guest post on something that’s piqued your interest? We’ve had some great cameo posts over the years, providing us with little glimpses of different experiences on the bike. Just cobble together a few words (and photos if you can) and pass them on. Don’t worry if you think your writing isn’t up to it; I’m happy to tidy up the spelling/grammar.

• Are Facebook or Twitter more your thing? Our regular blog posts get automatically posted on these channels, but I’d love to have someone who was able to manage our social media feeds and regularly add any other interesting snippets relevant to cycling in Chch that they come across.

• Maybe you’re a bit of a WordPress whiz and would like to help with looking after our main website? No doubt there are ways that we could improve both the form and function of the Cycling in Chch site, but my time and skills in this area are both limited.

If any of these little roles interest you, then please get in touch with me. Sorry, the remuneration is a bit on the small side, but I’m told volunteering is its own reward… For everyone else, please keep on commenting on our posts, so that we know what you like (and what you don’t). And don’t forget to tell your friends/family too!

What has been your favourite post so far from Cycling in Chch?