The idea behind these posts is to give you the truthful insight into what I’m hoping to build here with the site. In line with being truthful, here’s a tough one for me to lay out.
I’ve had to combine two months behind the scenes post because I haven’t really made much progress with building the sight over February and March and therefore I have been putting off sitting down and writing out the post that would have me admit that to anyone reading it. The struggle I’ve been having to get sat down and put the hours into the work has been weighing pretty heavy and quite frankly has been stressing me out. Don’t worry though, the towel is not being thrown in, the stress has lead me to find new ways to approaching the work and as I’ll lay out below, will hopefully let me be a little more methodical rather than just waiting for the moment to strike me to get more added to the site.
Despite a lack of new pages on the site there has been a few additions made over the last two months, I was really happy to get a positive reply from Gaston who organises the monthly Sydney Bike Rave. I mentioned in the first BTS post how I hadn’t been getting much back from people I had been cold calling on Instagram, his response to me reaching out was an awesome change on that front! We were able to post event pages for both the February and March bike raves with some interactions on Instagram posts I had created alongside them.
Sticking with the truthful theme, I do have to admit my embarrassment from when I accidentally got the date wrong on the February post and was thankfully corrected very quickly in the comments by an eagle eyed participant, the guys at the Sydney Bike Rave were very gracious with my apologies (Thanks again!). I was actually out of Sydney for both events so fingers crossed I’ll be able to attend the April edition when they release the date. Keep an eye on the site, it’ll be there, get involved!
I was also able to join the team over at Vanilla Cycles in Marrickville for their Thursday Morning Hills ride. Mark and the guys head out every week from the front of the shop to tackle the local hills and what better way than to see what it’s all about and get the route information than to go and get involved myself. The group was super friendly and the ride had different options for differing abilities, of course finished off with the coffee stop outside the Library. Being welcomed into the new ride like that reminds me how important the bunch ride is to cycling. I’ll be sure to get myself out to any of the new rides I hear about in order to share what I’m trying to achieve with the site as well gather all the important details to create the ride page.
Here’s the link to the ride page if anyone would like to go and join them: Vanilla Cycles Thursday Morning Hills
Finally, I finished up the three event pages for the Bushranger Series which is organised by Graveleur. I was fortunate enough to attend their Clarkes Gambit event last year and got the chance to ride alongside their lead organiser Mike, I did drop in the idea behind the site during the chat and so I’m really happy to be able to host event pages for all three of his upcoming Gravel rides. For anyone who loves getting off the road and exploring the back roads of NSW they are must do, the routes are designed really well with a number of different distances, all of which offer plenty of exploration and a challenge for those wanting to push themselves.
As far as new pages go for the site, that pretty much does it for the past few months, I really have been pushing the limits of my procrastination skills, hopefully for the last time though, as I mentioned earlier. I’ve got a plan!
So, rather than an unorganised method to moving towards my goals for the site, I’ve decided to narrow the scope and tick off things one at a time. I’ve decided on an order of attack. I’m still sticking to New South Wales and I’m going to start with Shops then Clubs and then that will lead to the rides. The goal for April will be to have a shop page for as close to all the bikes shops in New South Wales. Of course if any one reaches out to me with their club info or a ride they would like to promote through the site then that’ll be getting added as a priority but for a chance to rebuild some momentum, the shop pages rely the least from outside help, good old google will help me uncover all the Local Bike Shops we have here in NSW.
Now that’s not to say I won’t accept any help. If you’re reading this and my pitty party has lead you to sympathy I would love it if you could reach out and let me know of ALL the Local Bike Shops you know, I’ll get right onto making sure they have a place here at LocalCyclingClub.CC. If you’re involved in a regularly organised ride and they would be happy to promote it here, please send those details through too.
To get in touch feel free to email me at paul@localcyclingclub.cc or shoot a DM through to the instagram account.
Let’s get this ball rolling again!
Thanks for reading this, it feels really good to have finally got this all written out,
Paul
